The Asian Age
December 31, 2007
Congress’ soft-Hindutva is destroying pluralism
Kuldip Nayar
Cassius told Brutus that the fault was not in their stars but in themselves. After losing Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in a row the Congress Party should realise that the fault lies with them, their strategy, not in their campaign. In both the states, it is the Congress that has lost. The party should analyse why. I concede that there was the incumbency factor in Himachal Pradesh. But the same factor did not help the Congress in Gujarat. The party has become too uncertain.
I do not know why the Congress changed its strategy not to take on the communalists in Gujarat. Party president Sonia Gandhi rightly characterised chief minister Narendra Modi and his supporters as maut ke saudagar (merchants of death). How else can they be described when they have fattened themselves on the sufferings of and denials to Muslims? After having effected an ethnic cleansing in Gujarat, Modi and the BJP continue to ostracise the Muslim community. It is boycotted economically and socially, and is treated in a manner that it seems as if the nine per cent Muslim population in the state does not exist. It is the best specimen of the BJP’s best governance.
Up to a point, Sonia Gandhi stuck to her remark of maut ke saudagar and told the Election Commission of India that calling a spade a spade did not violate any code of election. But then she herself watered down her stand. Whoever advised her, did great harm to the party and its cause.
Even if Sonia Gandhi had not made the remark, Modi would have turned the polls into a Hindu-Muslim conflict. Communalism is the only field in which he and his kind excel. The person-to-person propaganda against Muslims had already begun in Gujarat. Sonia Gandhi’s observation gave Modi a chance to bring it out in the open a day or two earlier than the timing he had in view. The Congress needs no introspection. It needs courage to challenge the Hindutva forces within and outside the party. It is shirking a confrontation with the communal forces, without realising that at stake is our pluralistic society, the bedrock of our democratic polity.
In fact, Modi and the BJP’s ideology of Hindutva are dividing the country into two communities, Hindus and Muslims, or maybe three, because the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a front organisation of the RSS, like the BJP, is also targeting the Christians. It is a shame what the VHP did in Orissa with the connivance of the state government, an ally of the BJP.
Communalism is bad enough, but worse is the BJP’s attack on the ethos of our freedom struggle. India’s independence was won on the resolve to keep it pluralistic and democratic. Muslim leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (the Frontier Gandhi) and Sheikh Abdullah (the Kashmir Gandhi) made as much sacrifice as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel did. Pluralism is our proud heritage. The Congress is diluting this heritage. For improving chances in elections it has even embraced erstwhile BJP members. This has harmed the Congress most.
A Pakistani friend has written to me, "The Gujarat election debacle should open our eyes. I mean the eyes of those who ask for vote on the basis of abstract values and value system." I beg to differ with him. Election is the means, not an end in itself. Even if you may win elections without adhering to values, you are creating a society where there would be no elections one day. The value system is what distinguishes a democracy from other systems. There can be no letting down of the fight against communalism, because if it succeeds, fascism is bound to emerge.
Gujarat is not a state anymore. It has become an ideology. It is a "Hindutva laboratory" as chief minister Narendra Modi had put it when the state went to polls. He reduced the whole campaign to a single point: if you are a Hindu, you vote for me. In fact, it is a slur on Gujaratis, because he sells them Hindutva in the name of Gujarat pride.
The development part is all right. The Gujaratis inside or outside the state are pouring so much money and skill into the state that a new Gujarat was emerging despite the government. The credit is due to him that he did not come in their way, something which is happening in many states. Yet, his whipping boy is a Muslim. During the election campaign, he went on emphasising on the fake encounter death of Sohrabbudin Sheikh, although the case is pending before the Supreme Court of India. At different gatherings he brought the crowd to such a pitch of frenzy that they said in response, "Kill him, kill him." These are fascist tactics.
I sympathise with the Gujaratis, for Modi has fouled the atmosphere in the state so much that any liberal thinking or dissent is difficult. He has made them believe that India is part of Gujarat. I heard the slogan, "Gujarat is India." This is reminiscent of the Emergency days when India was Indira. Modi has done great harm to Gujaratis by mixing their achievements with Hindutva. Their economic progress has been dwarfed by Modi’s large-size anti-Muslim bias. I feel that Gujaratis need to be retrieved. Modi has given them a bad name in the country and abroad, as if they are a community of fanatics, totally opposed to pluralistic thinking.
L.K. Advani, the prime minister-in-waiting, has said that Gujarat will be a turning point in national politics. He is mistaken. The turning point is going to be the re-thinking on the part of BJP’s allies. Except the Shiv Sena from Maharashtra, there does not seem to be any party agreeing to BJP’s Hindutva. They have, by and large, secular credentials. They cannot go to the voter with Modi who is the BJP’s mascot.
The Congress is still learning its lesson from Gujarat. Sonia Gandhi is a crowd-puller, but not a vote-catcher. No use re-emphasising that Rahul Gandhi is not making any impact. Younger leaders in the Congress and persons like Lalu Prasad Yadav who are on the side of the Congress might have done better if they had campaigned.
Yet the biggest drawback with the Congress is that — this is not in Gujarat alone — it does not come across as an unequivocal exponent of pluralism, as it should. The party gives the impression of being Hindutva’s soft version. Expected to carry the ethos of the freedom struggle, the Congress should not compromise with the ideals. The BJP is understandably against secularism, but a diluted, half-hearted Congress can only do harm. It is sad that the party is not conscious of this.
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December 31, 2007
December 30, 2007
Editorial in the Hindu on Dec 2007 communal mischief in Orissa
The Hindu
Dec 31, 2007
Editorial
Tackling communal mischief in Orissa
By setting off a spiral of provocation and retaliation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is threatening to push Orissa through another spell of communal violence. Over the past week, at least 30 churches, prayer houses, and Christian schools and convents have been attacked or burnt down by VHP activists. Although the State government imposed curfews in the affected Kandhamal district, Hindutva activists put up road blockades in several areas. A police station was attacked when the police tried to prevent an attack on the Christian community in Brahmanigaon. Three persons were killed in the resultant police firing. Evidently the administration did not anticipate that the violence, which began on December 23 after an anti-conversion rally led by the VHP was attacked, allegedly by Christian activists, would escalate so quickly. In some rural areas, the law enforcing authorities failed to act until it was too late. Only when the situation spun out of control did the State requisition the help of Central paramilitary forces. Naturally, questions have been asked about the political will of the coalition government of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party to tackle the recurrent communal mischief.
For the past several years, the VHP and its sister organisations have targeted Orissa’s Christian minority community, which constitutes a mere 2.44 per cent of the State’s population (which is 94.35 per cent Hindu), especially during the Christmas season. As in January 1999, when Bajrang Dal activists burnt to death the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two pre-teen sons in Manoharpur, the conversion bogey is being raised to target Christians in Orissa. Scheduled Tribes constitute more than one-fifth of the State’s population; 88.2 per cent of the ST population is Hindu and 7.4 per cent Christian, according to the Census of 2001. There is absolutely no evidence to back up the VHP’s claim that missionaries have ‘forcibly’ converted a large number of tribal folk. What the communal outfits are targeting is “the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice, and propagate religion” guaranteed as a fundamental right in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution. The administration of Navin Patnaik has been hamstrung by the BJD’s need to protect its political alliance with the BJP. The Chief Minister, who otherwise has a reputation for sober governance, needs to rise above such considerations and uphold the rule of law, especially in Kandhamal district.
Dec 31, 2007
Editorial
Tackling communal mischief in Orissa
By setting off a spiral of provocation and retaliation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is threatening to push Orissa through another spell of communal violence. Over the past week, at least 30 churches, prayer houses, and Christian schools and convents have been attacked or burnt down by VHP activists. Although the State government imposed curfews in the affected Kandhamal district, Hindutva activists put up road blockades in several areas. A police station was attacked when the police tried to prevent an attack on the Christian community in Brahmanigaon. Three persons were killed in the resultant police firing. Evidently the administration did not anticipate that the violence, which began on December 23 after an anti-conversion rally led by the VHP was attacked, allegedly by Christian activists, would escalate so quickly. In some rural areas, the law enforcing authorities failed to act until it was too late. Only when the situation spun out of control did the State requisition the help of Central paramilitary forces. Naturally, questions have been asked about the political will of the coalition government of the Biju Janata Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party to tackle the recurrent communal mischief.
For the past several years, the VHP and its sister organisations have targeted Orissa’s Christian minority community, which constitutes a mere 2.44 per cent of the State’s population (which is 94.35 per cent Hindu), especially during the Christmas season. As in January 1999, when Bajrang Dal activists burnt to death the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two pre-teen sons in Manoharpur, the conversion bogey is being raised to target Christians in Orissa. Scheduled Tribes constitute more than one-fifth of the State’s population; 88.2 per cent of the ST population is Hindu and 7.4 per cent Christian, according to the Census of 2001. There is absolutely no evidence to back up the VHP’s claim that missionaries have ‘forcibly’ converted a large number of tribal folk. What the communal outfits are targeting is “the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice, and propagate religion” guaranteed as a fundamental right in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution. The administration of Navin Patnaik has been hamstrung by the BJD’s need to protect its political alliance with the BJP. The Chief Minister, who otherwise has a reputation for sober governance, needs to rise above such considerations and uphold the rule of law, especially in Kandhamal district.
On Riots in Kandhamal of Orissa: Reports
30 Dec 2007
Dear fried,
Find the unfrtunate riots going on in sourthern part of Orissa against the dalit christians in the chstimas time. The Hindutva forces are behind the holoiganism in Kandhmal and other parts of Orissa. The govt. apathy seems encouraging them to go ahed with the riot.
Nikunj Bhutia
Kandhmal is on Fire
On 27th three persons were killed, hundreds persons got injured, hundreds of houses were burnt, 11 churches were razed – the Chief Minister and officers are claiming 'situation is under control'. This reflects the level of seriousness of the Govt. machinery. The whole administration and Ministers were busy for their BJD party's 10 years' celebration and Mass Meeting at Bhubaneswar on 26 th December. While the Christian followers were complaining the local police at Daringibadi about possible attacks from VHP and RSS, the Police was found indifferent. What the administration and the intelligence have been doing all these days? The police forces and CRP are camping in towns only – not in remote villages, where churches, houses were attacked. The communal riot-engineers strategised the riot on the basis of the duly collected database on the other communities – their priests, followers, worship centres etc. If the real rioters and masterminds are moving scot-free under the protection of ruling party leaders, nominal arrest of some people will not stop the riot.
BJP – the ruling partner who condemned the so called attack on Swami Laxmanananda immediately after the incident, without uttering a word for the thousands of victim Christians, is diluting the issue by 'demanding for amendment of conversion law'.
Please find some news items –
Three killed; churches and more prayer houses attacked in Orissa
Special Correspondent , the Hindu
BHUBANESWAR: At least three persons were killed in police firing as several churches and a large number of houses were burnt in different parts of the communal violence-hit Kandhamal district of Orissa on Thursday.
The situation across the district continued to remain volatile for the fourth consecutive day even as additional forces were called in from other places to bring the situation under control.
Three persons were killed as police opened fire at an angry armed mob that attacked the Brahmanigaon police station, Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Southern Range) Satyabrata Sahu told The Hindu over the phone from the district headquarters town of Phulbani in Kandhamal.
Mr. Sahu said the situation in the district was tense, but under control. Policemen, who had been maintaining maximum restraint so far, opened fire in self-defence, he added.
The mob, comprising Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists attacked the police station between 1 and 2 pm when the police tried to prevent them from attacking members of the local Christian community, official sources said.
Superintendent of Police of Gajapati district Amikendranath Sinha who was camping at the police station was injured in the mob attack.
According to sources, a prayer house was damaged at Sankarkhol village, while a mob burnt down a panchayat office at Sugudabadi village of the district.
An official said it was difficult to say how many places of worship were damaged during the day as thousands of prayer houses dotted the district, mostly in remote areas.
Interestingly, the Brahmanigaon violence and arson took place soon after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik visited Phulbani town to review the situation.
On his return to Bhubaneswar around 2 p.m., Mr. Patnaik claimed that the situation in Kandhamal had "normalised" to a great extent.
Confirming that many churches and prayer houses had been damaged, Mr. Patnaik said more than two dozen people had been arrested in the district.
"Action is being taken against the guilty," he said, while reiterating his appeal to the people of Kandhamal to maintain peace and harmony. "Peace committees have been formed and meeting are being held."
As regards the local tribals' opposition to alleged granting of Scheduled Tribe status to Dalits, Mr. Patnaik said the government would look into their grievances.
In Bhubaneswar , Rajya Sabha MP from Kandhamal R. K. Nayak blamed the administration for its `failure' to bring the situation under control.
"The administration has collapsed. There is no law and order in the entire district," Mr. Nayak said.
Orissa Congress chief Jayadev Jena also criticised the government saying that it had failed to control the situation.
BJP demands amendment in anti-conversion laws
Bhubaneswar (PTI): Opposition political parties on Thursday accused the Orissa government of 'shielding' saffron outfits while dealing with violence in Kandhamal district, while the BJP blamed it on 'forced conversion activities' and demanded amendment to conversion laws.
The state's main opposition party Congress along with the CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) and NCP, in separate statements, alleged that the Naveen Patnaik government was adopting a 'soft' attitude towards the saffron brigade.
"Since BJP is the coalition partner of the government, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has directed the police to maintain a soft stand against the violence mongers," Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Jaydev Jena alleged.
Describing Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati as a 'political agent' of the BJP, Jena said the communal violence was 'engineered'.
He said the government was hiding facts relating to killing of innocent people.
State BJP president Suresh Pujari, on the other hand, claimed that conversion on threats and coercion was responsible for the communal violence in the tribal dominated district of Kandhamal.
Pujari told PTI that he would call upon both the state and the Centre to immediately bring amendments to the existing anti-conversion laws to avoid communal violence in future.
"The persons engaged in conversions made on the basis of threat and coercion should be severely punished," Pujari said, adding that Kandhamal was a communally volatile district.
Hindus, Christians Clash in India
Thursday December 27, 2007 6:16 PM
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ (GUARDIAN UNLIMITED)
Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI (AP) - Hindu extremists torched nearly a dozen churches and the home of a Christian leader Thursday, defying a curfew imposed to quell three days of religious violence in eastern India . Christians retaliated by setting fire to several homes belonging to Hindus.
Local police have been unsuccessful in halting the attacks and the federal government announced it was sending in a paramilitary force.
About 19 churches, most of them small mud and thatch buildings, have been razed since violence broke out on Christmas Eve when long-standing tensions between the Hindu majority and the small Christian community erupted over conversions to Christianity.
Hindu groups have long charged Christian missionaries with trying to lure the poor and those who occupy the lowest rungs of Hinduism's complex caste-system away with promises of money and jobs.
On Thursday, a mob of Hindus burned down the house of Radhakant Nayak, a member of India 's upper house of parliament and a Christian leader in the area, Nayak told the CNN-IBN news channel.
Also, 11 churches were ransacked and burned in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, the Press Trust of India quoted unnamed police officials as saying.
Superintendent of Police Narsingh Bhol said several prayer houses were ransacked and some were set on fire, but he did not have the exact number.
Meanwhile, in the village of Brahmangaon , a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes in an apparent retaliation for the attack on churches. Angry Hindus then burned down the village police station, complaining of a lack of protection, a local police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Bahugrahi Mahapatra, a senior government official in the area confirmed there had been ``disturbances'' in the village, but could not provide details.
One person has been killed and at least 25 people, belonging to both Hindu and Christian communities, have been arrested for suspected involvement in the violence, Bhol told The Associated Press by phone.
But the arrests and curfew have not stopped the attacks and the federal government said it was sending in a 300-strong paramilitary force.
``We have to get the violence under control,'' the junior federal home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, told reporters.
India is overwhelmingly Hindu but officially secular. Religious minorities, such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country's 1.1. billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent, often coexist peacefully.
But throughout India 's history, the issue of conversions has provoked violence by hard-line Hindus.
Orissa has one of the worst histories of anti-Christian violence. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999.
Orissa is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion. The law was intended to counter missionary work.
There were conflicting reports of what started the violence in the rural district of Kandhamal, about 840 miles southeast of New Delhi. Each side blamed the other.
The Hindu hard-liners said Christians had attempted to attack one of their leaders, who heads an anti-conversion movement.
But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began when Hindu extremists objected to a show marking Christmas Eve, believing it was designed to encourage conversions.
Houses set on fire in Orissa
Agencies
Kandhmal, Dec 27: Two companies of the Central Reserve Police force have been sent to Orissa to control the situation that seems to be spinning out of control.
Earlier in the day a mob allegedly set fire to several homes belonging to Hindus in Brahmanigaon area of the Kandhmal district in Orissa, even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik made an unscheduled visit to the communally sensitive district.
Meanwhile, angry Hindus have reportedly gheraoed the police station.
Curfew in four towns of the district, which was lifted this morning, has been re-imposed with the police anticipating more trouble.
The Chief Minister and DGP Gopal Nanda are at district headquarters of Phulbani to negotiate with the tribals and leaders of Hindu and Christian communities.
Contrary to the reports coming in, the state CM has reportedly claimed that the situation has normalised to a great extent.
According to the district administration, situation in some parts had improved, but tension continued in other areas such as Baliguda and Daringibadi. Many Christian families have fled their homes in Barkhama.
The Centre has asked the state government for a detailed report.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal has said that he is concerned about the situation in the state.
''If situation is not under control today, we'll send a team. We will get the latest report by today evening. We have to get the violence under control and strict action has to be taken.
''We are taking this very seriously and hope the Centre would take it seriously as well,'' said Sriprakash Jaiswal.
In a related development, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) today sought a report from the state government on the violence in four towns of Kandhamal district.
An NCM delegation will be visiting the trouble-hit towns of the state shortly to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation, a Commission spokesperson said here.
Eleven more churches torched
Eleven churches and prayer houses were ransacked and torched by suspected saffron activists in several areas of Kandhamal district in the early hours on Thursday.
Seven churches and prayer houses were attacked and set afire in Gandapadar, Badahapanga, Bhandarapada, Pisupadar, Masapadar, Minia and Adigara under Phulbani Sadar police station area, police said.
Rev Basant Diggal alleged that he was assaulted and his motorcycle damaged by a group of miscreants in Minia area where vandals went on rampage causing damage to another church.
Similar incidents of ransacking and burning of three more churches and prayer houses took place in Bakingia, Tiangia and Kotaguda, while miscreants triggered a minor blast at another place of worship, police said.
Last evening, two more churches were burnt by VHP activists. Forty-one houses belonging to Christians in Barhamanigaon were also set on fire despite a strong police presence in the area.
UNITED CONSPIRACY BY VHP/DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION & BUSINESS COMMUNITY
20th December 2007- Christians of catholic group in Bramhanigaon of Kandkamal District started decoration work to observe Christmas due on 25th Dec. 2007. They covered the road with decoration from Church road to Bramhanigaon Hata (market).
Local VHP workers oppose the decoration and threatened to create hurdle if Christmas is observed in such manner.
21st Dec. 2007- Anticipating violence fax massages send to the SP/Collector by the sarapanchas of Bramhanigaon,Jhinjhiriguda,Katingia,Gadapur,Hatimunda and Saramuli as well as the leaders of the Christian community for necessary protection.
22nd and 23rd Dec. 2007- VHP workers openly threaded to teach a lesion to the Christians. They were shouting "We will teach a lesion to Christians." ordered to close the daily market and the weekly market so that the Christians can't buy any thing on the Christmas Eve.
Christian community informed the dist. Collector to intervene for protection.
24th Dec. 2007 VHP workers tried to close down the weekly market as per their plan. Christian youths oppose their move. Hot arguments started from both sides and stone throwing followed to each other.
Already prepared, the VHP workers fired at the Christian youths from local made guns. Avinash Nayak (15) Silu Senapati (14) wounded by the bullets they receive.
Dinabandhu Pradhani of VHP was wounded by stone thrown by Christian youths.The Christian youths fled after VHP workers fire at them. Then the VHP workers started destroying and smasing up of shops woned by dalits Christians. The shops of Rabindra Sing ( Medicine store), Saberian Dandasena (Tea shop), Harsha Bastarya Computoe Shop) Ghasiram Mantry and Kishore Sing (Grocery Shop) have been destroyed led by VHP leaders Bikram Rout,Chitrasen Patra,Manoj Sahoo,Jabaharlal Senapati, Dhanu Pradhani, Dinabandhu Pradhani and Japani Dahoo.
The journalists of Phulabani informed the district collector after they were informed by Narendra Mohanty of Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha regarding the incidence.
At 2 PM the Sub-Collector and SDPO Balliguda came with polce.
At 5 PM Sp and Collector reached Bramhanigaon
The affected dalit Christians met them at Bramhanigaon police station but both of them expressed their helplessness.
In the same evening at about 10 PM small Tiffin stall and a country liquor shed belong to Hindu community was burnt by VHP workers and accused the Christian youths for this.
25th Dec. 2007-
In the morning by 7 Am police detained VHP worhers Bikram Rout, Prakas Senapati,Santosh Senapati Tarini Senapati,Japani Sahoo,Bipin Sahoo in Bramhanigaon PS.
By 9 AM around 1000 VHP supporters gathered at Bramhanigaon PS demanded the resease of the VHP workers or they will finish all the Christians today.
There were no police patrolling in the streets, no police in Christian villages for protection. Only a few no of APR constables holding lathies were sitting in the PS.
The IIC/ OIC of Bramhanigaon told the mob "Do what ever you want"
By 11 AM the churh of Ulipadar was burnt by the VHP workers.
By 12.30 PM the Dalit Christians started to fled to save their lives.
VHP workers burnt the house of Kishore Baliarsing,Ransent Baliarsing,Subhas Baliarsing and damaged lots of houses of dalits.
At 1 PM VHP workers attacked the Bramhanigaon Church damaging it and fired in side the campus.
By 5 PM- Tribals and dalits flagmached in Bramhanigaon against the vandalism of VHP workers.
The police and the administration allowed the mob to act freely for two days when things become worse curfew have been imposed.
Attacki on Christian villages and smashing and torching of churches in Kandhamal is still continuing.
Dear fried,
Find the unfrtunate riots going on in sourthern part of Orissa against the dalit christians in the chstimas time. The Hindutva forces are behind the holoiganism in Kandhmal and other parts of Orissa. The govt. apathy seems encouraging them to go ahed with the riot.
Nikunj Bhutia
Kandhmal is on Fire
On 27th three persons were killed, hundreds persons got injured, hundreds of houses were burnt, 11 churches were razed – the Chief Minister and officers are claiming 'situation is under control'. This reflects the level of seriousness of the Govt. machinery. The whole administration and Ministers were busy for their BJD party's 10 years' celebration and Mass Meeting at Bhubaneswar on 26 th December. While the Christian followers were complaining the local police at Daringibadi about possible attacks from VHP and RSS, the Police was found indifferent. What the administration and the intelligence have been doing all these days? The police forces and CRP are camping in towns only – not in remote villages, where churches, houses were attacked. The communal riot-engineers strategised the riot on the basis of the duly collected database on the other communities – their priests, followers, worship centres etc. If the real rioters and masterminds are moving scot-free under the protection of ruling party leaders, nominal arrest of some people will not stop the riot.
BJP – the ruling partner who condemned the so called attack on Swami Laxmanananda immediately after the incident, without uttering a word for the thousands of victim Christians, is diluting the issue by 'demanding for amendment of conversion law'.
Please find some news items –
Three killed; churches and more prayer houses attacked in Orissa
Special Correspondent , the Hindu
BHUBANESWAR: At least three persons were killed in police firing as several churches and a large number of houses were burnt in different parts of the communal violence-hit Kandhamal district of Orissa on Thursday.
The situation across the district continued to remain volatile for the fourth consecutive day even as additional forces were called in from other places to bring the situation under control.
Three persons were killed as police opened fire at an angry armed mob that attacked the Brahmanigaon police station, Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Southern Range) Satyabrata Sahu told The Hindu over the phone from the district headquarters town of Phulbani in Kandhamal.
Mr. Sahu said the situation in the district was tense, but under control. Policemen, who had been maintaining maximum restraint so far, opened fire in self-defence, he added.
The mob, comprising Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists attacked the police station between 1 and 2 pm when the police tried to prevent them from attacking members of the local Christian community, official sources said.
Superintendent of Police of Gajapati district Amikendranath Sinha who was camping at the police station was injured in the mob attack.
According to sources, a prayer house was damaged at Sankarkhol village, while a mob burnt down a panchayat office at Sugudabadi village of the district.
An official said it was difficult to say how many places of worship were damaged during the day as thousands of prayer houses dotted the district, mostly in remote areas.
Interestingly, the Brahmanigaon violence and arson took place soon after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik visited Phulbani town to review the situation.
On his return to Bhubaneswar around 2 p.m., Mr. Patnaik claimed that the situation in Kandhamal had "normalised" to a great extent.
Confirming that many churches and prayer houses had been damaged, Mr. Patnaik said more than two dozen people had been arrested in the district.
"Action is being taken against the guilty," he said, while reiterating his appeal to the people of Kandhamal to maintain peace and harmony. "Peace committees have been formed and meeting are being held."
As regards the local tribals' opposition to alleged granting of Scheduled Tribe status to Dalits, Mr. Patnaik said the government would look into their grievances.
In Bhubaneswar , Rajya Sabha MP from Kandhamal R. K. Nayak blamed the administration for its `failure' to bring the situation under control.
"The administration has collapsed. There is no law and order in the entire district," Mr. Nayak said.
Orissa Congress chief Jayadev Jena also criticised the government saying that it had failed to control the situation.
BJP demands amendment in anti-conversion laws
Bhubaneswar (PTI): Opposition political parties on Thursday accused the Orissa government of 'shielding' saffron outfits while dealing with violence in Kandhamal district, while the BJP blamed it on 'forced conversion activities' and demanded amendment to conversion laws.
The state's main opposition party Congress along with the CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) and NCP, in separate statements, alleged that the Naveen Patnaik government was adopting a 'soft' attitude towards the saffron brigade.
"Since BJP is the coalition partner of the government, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has directed the police to maintain a soft stand against the violence mongers," Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Jaydev Jena alleged.
Describing Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati as a 'political agent' of the BJP, Jena said the communal violence was 'engineered'.
He said the government was hiding facts relating to killing of innocent people.
State BJP president Suresh Pujari, on the other hand, claimed that conversion on threats and coercion was responsible for the communal violence in the tribal dominated district of Kandhamal.
Pujari told PTI that he would call upon both the state and the Centre to immediately bring amendments to the existing anti-conversion laws to avoid communal violence in future.
"The persons engaged in conversions made on the basis of threat and coercion should be severely punished," Pujari said, adding that Kandhamal was a communally volatile district.
Hindus, Christians Clash in India
Thursday December 27, 2007 6:16 PM
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ (GUARDIAN UNLIMITED)
Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI (AP) - Hindu extremists torched nearly a dozen churches and the home of a Christian leader Thursday, defying a curfew imposed to quell three days of religious violence in eastern India . Christians retaliated by setting fire to several homes belonging to Hindus.
Local police have been unsuccessful in halting the attacks and the federal government announced it was sending in a paramilitary force.
About 19 churches, most of them small mud and thatch buildings, have been razed since violence broke out on Christmas Eve when long-standing tensions between the Hindu majority and the small Christian community erupted over conversions to Christianity.
Hindu groups have long charged Christian missionaries with trying to lure the poor and those who occupy the lowest rungs of Hinduism's complex caste-system away with promises of money and jobs.
On Thursday, a mob of Hindus burned down the house of Radhakant Nayak, a member of India 's upper house of parliament and a Christian leader in the area, Nayak told the CNN-IBN news channel.
Also, 11 churches were ransacked and burned in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, the Press Trust of India quoted unnamed police officials as saying.
Superintendent of Police Narsingh Bhol said several prayer houses were ransacked and some were set on fire, but he did not have the exact number.
Meanwhile, in the village of Brahmangaon , a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes in an apparent retaliation for the attack on churches. Angry Hindus then burned down the village police station, complaining of a lack of protection, a local police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Bahugrahi Mahapatra, a senior government official in the area confirmed there had been ``disturbances'' in the village, but could not provide details.
One person has been killed and at least 25 people, belonging to both Hindu and Christian communities, have been arrested for suspected involvement in the violence, Bhol told The Associated Press by phone.
But the arrests and curfew have not stopped the attacks and the federal government said it was sending in a 300-strong paramilitary force.
``We have to get the violence under control,'' the junior federal home minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, told reporters.
India is overwhelmingly Hindu but officially secular. Religious minorities, such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country's 1.1. billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent, often coexist peacefully.
But throughout India 's history, the issue of conversions has provoked violence by hard-line Hindus.
Orissa has one of the worst histories of anti-Christian violence. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999.
Orissa is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion. The law was intended to counter missionary work.
There were conflicting reports of what started the violence in the rural district of Kandhamal, about 840 miles southeast of New Delhi. Each side blamed the other.
The Hindu hard-liners said Christians had attempted to attack one of their leaders, who heads an anti-conversion movement.
But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began when Hindu extremists objected to a show marking Christmas Eve, believing it was designed to encourage conversions.
Houses set on fire in Orissa
Agencies
Kandhmal, Dec 27: Two companies of the Central Reserve Police force have been sent to Orissa to control the situation that seems to be spinning out of control.
Earlier in the day a mob allegedly set fire to several homes belonging to Hindus in Brahmanigaon area of the Kandhmal district in Orissa, even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik made an unscheduled visit to the communally sensitive district.
Meanwhile, angry Hindus have reportedly gheraoed the police station.
Curfew in four towns of the district, which was lifted this morning, has been re-imposed with the police anticipating more trouble.
The Chief Minister and DGP Gopal Nanda are at district headquarters of Phulbani to negotiate with the tribals and leaders of Hindu and Christian communities.
Contrary to the reports coming in, the state CM has reportedly claimed that the situation has normalised to a great extent.
According to the district administration, situation in some parts had improved, but tension continued in other areas such as Baliguda and Daringibadi. Many Christian families have fled their homes in Barkhama.
The Centre has asked the state government for a detailed report.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal has said that he is concerned about the situation in the state.
''If situation is not under control today, we'll send a team. We will get the latest report by today evening. We have to get the violence under control and strict action has to be taken.
''We are taking this very seriously and hope the Centre would take it seriously as well,'' said Sriprakash Jaiswal.
In a related development, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) today sought a report from the state government on the violence in four towns of Kandhamal district.
An NCM delegation will be visiting the trouble-hit towns of the state shortly to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation, a Commission spokesperson said here.
Eleven more churches torched
Eleven churches and prayer houses were ransacked and torched by suspected saffron activists in several areas of Kandhamal district in the early hours on Thursday.
Seven churches and prayer houses were attacked and set afire in Gandapadar, Badahapanga, Bhandarapada, Pisupadar, Masapadar, Minia and Adigara under Phulbani Sadar police station area, police said.
Rev Basant Diggal alleged that he was assaulted and his motorcycle damaged by a group of miscreants in Minia area where vandals went on rampage causing damage to another church.
Similar incidents of ransacking and burning of three more churches and prayer houses took place in Bakingia, Tiangia and Kotaguda, while miscreants triggered a minor blast at another place of worship, police said.
Last evening, two more churches were burnt by VHP activists. Forty-one houses belonging to Christians in Barhamanigaon were also set on fire despite a strong police presence in the area.
UNITED CONSPIRACY BY VHP/DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION & BUSINESS COMMUNITY
20th December 2007- Christians of catholic group in Bramhanigaon of Kandkamal District started decoration work to observe Christmas due on 25th Dec. 2007. They covered the road with decoration from Church road to Bramhanigaon Hata (market).
Local VHP workers oppose the decoration and threatened to create hurdle if Christmas is observed in such manner.
21st Dec. 2007- Anticipating violence fax massages send to the SP/Collector by the sarapanchas of Bramhanigaon,Jhinjhiriguda,Katingia,Gadapur,Hatimunda and Saramuli as well as the leaders of the Christian community for necessary protection.
22nd and 23rd Dec. 2007- VHP workers openly threaded to teach a lesion to the Christians. They were shouting "We will teach a lesion to Christians." ordered to close the daily market and the weekly market so that the Christians can't buy any thing on the Christmas Eve.
Christian community informed the dist. Collector to intervene for protection.
24th Dec. 2007 VHP workers tried to close down the weekly market as per their plan. Christian youths oppose their move. Hot arguments started from both sides and stone throwing followed to each other.
Already prepared, the VHP workers fired at the Christian youths from local made guns. Avinash Nayak (15) Silu Senapati (14) wounded by the bullets they receive.
Dinabandhu Pradhani of VHP was wounded by stone thrown by Christian youths.The Christian youths fled after VHP workers fire at them. Then the VHP workers started destroying and smasing up of shops woned by dalits Christians. The shops of Rabindra Sing ( Medicine store), Saberian Dandasena (Tea shop), Harsha Bastarya Computoe Shop) Ghasiram Mantry and Kishore Sing (Grocery Shop) have been destroyed led by VHP leaders Bikram Rout,Chitrasen Patra,Manoj Sahoo,Jabaharlal Senapati, Dhanu Pradhani, Dinabandhu Pradhani and Japani Dahoo.
The journalists of Phulabani informed the district collector after they were informed by Narendra Mohanty of Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha regarding the incidence.
At 2 PM the Sub-Collector and SDPO Balliguda came with polce.
At 5 PM Sp and Collector reached Bramhanigaon
The affected dalit Christians met them at Bramhanigaon police station but both of them expressed their helplessness.
In the same evening at about 10 PM small Tiffin stall and a country liquor shed belong to Hindu community was burnt by VHP workers and accused the Christian youths for this.
25th Dec. 2007-
In the morning by 7 Am police detained VHP worhers Bikram Rout, Prakas Senapati,Santosh Senapati Tarini Senapati,Japani Sahoo,Bipin Sahoo in Bramhanigaon PS.
By 9 AM around 1000 VHP supporters gathered at Bramhanigaon PS demanded the resease of the VHP workers or they will finish all the Christians today.
There were no police patrolling in the streets, no police in Christian villages for protection. Only a few no of APR constables holding lathies were sitting in the PS.
The IIC/ OIC of Bramhanigaon told the mob "Do what ever you want"
By 11 AM the churh of Ulipadar was burnt by the VHP workers.
By 12.30 PM the Dalit Christians started to fled to save their lives.
VHP workers burnt the house of Kishore Baliarsing,Ransent Baliarsing,Subhas Baliarsing and damaged lots of houses of dalits.
At 1 PM VHP workers attacked the Bramhanigaon Church damaging it and fired in side the campus.
By 5 PM- Tribals and dalits flagmached in Bramhanigaon against the vandalism of VHP workers.
The police and the administration allowed the mob to act freely for two days when things become worse curfew have been imposed.
Attacki on Christian villages and smashing and torching of churches in Kandhamal is still continuing.
Gujarat wins the battle in hate
Gulf News
December 29, 2007
Gujarat wins the battle in hate
by Kuldip Nayar, Special to Gulf News
Modi's win shows democracy without pluralism has little meaning because the participation of the people, without regard for religion and caste, is essential
Once again it is proved, if any proof was needed, that democracy has struck deep roots in India. The election in Gujarat was free and fair. As happens in a democratic state, the Central Election Commission was supreme and it rightly kept a tight rein on political parties.
For example, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress were admonished for the intemperate language some of their leaders used during the campaign.
Yet India failed because Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi defeated its ethos: pluralism. Democracy and secularism are the two sides of the same coin.
Democracy without pluralism has little meaning because the participation of people, without regard for religion and caste, is essential. By creating hatred against a particular community, Modi created an atmosphere of bias and fear.
Elections were free but people had been brainwashed. The result was that the BJP, led by Modi, secured 117 seats in the 182-member house, five less than the 2002 election held after the Gujarat carnage.
Poor second
Like the last time, he successfully played the anti-Muslim card and equated terrorism with Muslims. A poor second was the Congress with 62 seats. However, it increased its tally by 11 seats by winning in the riot-affected areas, central Gujarat.
The Congress never presented a clear cut alternative to Hindutva because it was too much on the defensive and too ready to compromise.
On the other hand, the BJP or Modi did not hide their philosophy of saffronising India. What the party and Modi did was an antithesis of the freedom struggle which was waged, not only to oust the British but also to establish a democratic, secular polity. These principles were ensconced in the constitution.
Hindutva was never envisaged and Mahatma Gandhi declared after partition in the midst of communal riots that Hindus and Muslims were his two eyes.
If the nation wanted to have a Hindu rashtra (nation), nobody could have stopped it from doing so because the 80 per cent of population in the divided India was Hindu. Still the proposition was not even discussed because the ethos of freedom struggle was secularism.
The tragedy about Gujarat is that it wants to pursue a parochial agenda which is not acceptable to the rest of India. Diversity is the country's strength and it can even break up if it is weakened.
The reason why a big country such as the Soviet Union disintegrated was the suppression of diverse communities in the name of communism. Modi is busy destroying India's integration and the BJP is trying to implement Hindutva, whatever it costs in terms of unity. Still, the BJP is impaled on the horns of a dilemma.
It cannot win India unless it sheds anti-Muslim bias. At the same time, it does not want to give up the Hindutva plank because its parochial line has given it dividends in some parts.
The Muslims command 15 to 18 per cent of the electorate and it is crucial in about 150 Lok Sabha seats. Modi's advantage begins and ends in Gujarat, because the Muslim vote in the state is only eight per cent. That is the reason why allies of the BJP appealed to it not to send Modi when they were fighting their election for the assembly.
Lesson
The Congress is still learning its lesson from Gujarat. Party president Sonia Gandhi is a crowd puller but not the vote catcher. No use re-emphasising that Rahul Gandhi is not making any impact.
Younger leaders in the Congress and persons like Lalu Prasad Yadav who is on the side of the Congress might have done better if they had campaigned.
Yet the biggest drawback with the Congress is that - this is not in Gujarat alone - it does not come out as an unequivocal exponent of pluralism as it should.
The party gives the impression of being Hindutva's soft version. Considered to be carrying the ethos of freedom struggle, the Congress cannot afford to compromise on the ideals.
The BJP is understandably against secularism but a diluted, half-hearted Congress can do only harm. It is sad that the party is not conscious of that.
Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.
December 29, 2007
Gujarat wins the battle in hate
by Kuldip Nayar, Special to Gulf News
Modi's win shows democracy without pluralism has little meaning because the participation of the people, without regard for religion and caste, is essential
Once again it is proved, if any proof was needed, that democracy has struck deep roots in India. The election in Gujarat was free and fair. As happens in a democratic state, the Central Election Commission was supreme and it rightly kept a tight rein on political parties.
For example, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress were admonished for the intemperate language some of their leaders used during the campaign.
Yet India failed because Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi defeated its ethos: pluralism. Democracy and secularism are the two sides of the same coin.
Democracy without pluralism has little meaning because the participation of people, without regard for religion and caste, is essential. By creating hatred against a particular community, Modi created an atmosphere of bias and fear.
Elections were free but people had been brainwashed. The result was that the BJP, led by Modi, secured 117 seats in the 182-member house, five less than the 2002 election held after the Gujarat carnage.
Poor second
Like the last time, he successfully played the anti-Muslim card and equated terrorism with Muslims. A poor second was the Congress with 62 seats. However, it increased its tally by 11 seats by winning in the riot-affected areas, central Gujarat.
The Congress never presented a clear cut alternative to Hindutva because it was too much on the defensive and too ready to compromise.
On the other hand, the BJP or Modi did not hide their philosophy of saffronising India. What the party and Modi did was an antithesis of the freedom struggle which was waged, not only to oust the British but also to establish a democratic, secular polity. These principles were ensconced in the constitution.
Hindutva was never envisaged and Mahatma Gandhi declared after partition in the midst of communal riots that Hindus and Muslims were his two eyes.
If the nation wanted to have a Hindu rashtra (nation), nobody could have stopped it from doing so because the 80 per cent of population in the divided India was Hindu. Still the proposition was not even discussed because the ethos of freedom struggle was secularism.
The tragedy about Gujarat is that it wants to pursue a parochial agenda which is not acceptable to the rest of India. Diversity is the country's strength and it can even break up if it is weakened.
The reason why a big country such as the Soviet Union disintegrated was the suppression of diverse communities in the name of communism. Modi is busy destroying India's integration and the BJP is trying to implement Hindutva, whatever it costs in terms of unity. Still, the BJP is impaled on the horns of a dilemma.
It cannot win India unless it sheds anti-Muslim bias. At the same time, it does not want to give up the Hindutva plank because its parochial line has given it dividends in some parts.
The Muslims command 15 to 18 per cent of the electorate and it is crucial in about 150 Lok Sabha seats. Modi's advantage begins and ends in Gujarat, because the Muslim vote in the state is only eight per cent. That is the reason why allies of the BJP appealed to it not to send Modi when they were fighting their election for the assembly.
Lesson
The Congress is still learning its lesson from Gujarat. Party president Sonia Gandhi is a crowd puller but not the vote catcher. No use re-emphasising that Rahul Gandhi is not making any impact.
Younger leaders in the Congress and persons like Lalu Prasad Yadav who is on the side of the Congress might have done better if they had campaigned.
Yet the biggest drawback with the Congress is that - this is not in Gujarat alone - it does not come out as an unequivocal exponent of pluralism as it should.
The party gives the impression of being Hindutva's soft version. Considered to be carrying the ethos of freedom struggle, the Congress cannot afford to compromise on the ideals.
The BJP is understandably against secularism but a diluted, half-hearted Congress can do only harm. It is sad that the party is not conscious of that.
Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.
Praful Bidwai: Modi's victory in Gujarat is a triumph of religious bigotry, communalism
The News International
29 December 2007
Democracy's dark side
by Praful Bidwai
Narendra Modi has surpassed even optimistic forecasts made for the Bharatiya Janata Party's performance in Gujarat to win 117 of the assembly's 182 seats. Although the tally is 10 seats lower than the BJP's 2002 score, the victory is convincing. The BJP's vote is estimated to have marginally increased. It swept three of Gujarat's four regions. It's only in central Gujarat, which witnessed the worst violence during 2002 -- and where the BJP had won 38 of 43 seats -- that it suffered major losses (20 seats). The BJP's victory is more impressive because it defies "normal" electoral arithmetic, based on caste, class, ethnic group and region.
The BJP's return to power under Modi's authoritarian leadership is a triumph of the forces of intolerance, religious bigotry, communalism, dangerous hypernationalism and ruthless social regimentation based upon hatred of the underprivileged and celebration of the despotism of the powerful. It represents a setback for democracy, public decency and constitutional values. But it cannot invest the BJP's politics with legitimacy. Modi has proved a successful, diabolically crafty demagogue, who can descend to any level of spreading hatred to win votes. His victory is clearly his own. Indeed, he defied the Sangh Parivar. Neither the RSS nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad campaigned for him. He ignored dissidence within the BJP.
Modi set the ideological and political agenda for the election, and ran a warlike hate-filled campaign, eclipsing all other BJP leaders, including LK Advani, who couldn't attract even a fraction of the audiences he did. The extensive use of the Modi mask by his followers only visually underscored the election's nature as a referendum on Modi. He won it unambiguously. One of the greatest myths about the election is that it was fought on the "development" agenda. In fact, Modi played the communal card from the beginning, when he agitated the Ram Setu issue, and highlighted "terrorism"-- shorthand for Muslims. The communal tone became shrill when Modi shamelessly justified the cold-blooded killing of Sohrabuddin Shaikh. Hindutva shadowed the campaign all the way through. Modi's very persona exudes vicious communalism.
The Congress didn't mount a half-way credible challenge to Modi. It did its utmost to duck issues pertaining to the violence of 2002, whose victims continue to be excluded, discriminated against and re-victimised. It carefully avoided any reference to the pogrom, to the state's culpability in planning and executing it, and to the BJP's failure to deliver justice to the victims.
Right since it came into power nationally, the Congress hasn't lifted its little finger to secure justice for the victims. In Gujarat too, it refused to take a clear stand against Modi's brazenly communal political mobilisation strategy. It adopted a "soft Hindutva" posture, and competed with Modi on his own terrain. Each time Modi cited Godhra, the Congress would talk about the Akshardham temple attack.
Even worse, the Congress recruited anti-Modi BJP rebels, many of whom deeply implicated in the 2002 carnage, such as former junior home minister Goverdhan Zadaphia. It gave tickets to many, thus damaging its own credibility and undermining the possibility of projecting itself as secular. It's only in the very last leg of the campaign that the Congress took a spirited anti-communal stand. Sonia Gandhi deplored "merchants of death" (maut ke saudagar) and Digvijay Singh assailed "Hindutva extremism". But this came far too late and was unrelated to the party's basic strategy and the way it ran most of its campaign.
There's some speculation on whether the saudagar remark cost the Congress loss of support. This exaggerates Modi's ability to exploit all adversity in his favour. The loss was at best marginal. In any case, the remark was apt. But Modi mounted a disgracefully dishonest defence of his violation of the electoral code of conduct and refused to tone down his murderous rhetoric even after the election commission mildly reprimanded him -- and in an unconvincing show of even-handedness, also snubbed Gandhi.
The Congress also completely failed to take on Modi on human development, poverty, minimum needs, income and regional disparities, and other livelihood questions. Gujarat has undoubtedly recorded high GDP growth. But this hasn't helped it abolish poverty or mass deprivation. As many as 74 per cent of its women and 46 per cent of its children are anaemic.
Gujarat's society remains hideously iniquitous, with wages among India's lowest. Agriculture is thriving but child labour is rampant in the fields. Hazardous industries flourish as nowhere else. Coercion drives industrial growth through crony-capitalist schemes like Special Economic Zones and private ports, which involve forced land acquisition. However, the Congress had absolutely no alternative to offer to such maldevelopment or to Modi's celebration of greed and elitism. It wasted a precious opportunity to build on the gains it made in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, when it won in 91 assembly segments against the BJP's 89. The only silver lining for the Congress is that it recovered its traditional base amongst the Adivasis, and won a majority of the seats reserved for them. It did better where it distanced itself from BJP rebels, as in central Gujarat.
Its too-clever-by-half strategy of trying to win Leuva Patel support through the pro-Keshubhai rebels came a cropper in Saurashtra-Kutch, where the BJP improved its tally from 39 to 43 seats (of 58). Only one of the "rebels" won. So did only one of the 10 Kolis the Congress fielded.
Ultimately, Modi won because of his demagogic appeal based on militant Hindutva, Gujarati hubris, and a despotic personality that respects no democratic values, but is admired for its strong will, determination and decisiveness. Modi "gets things done" by any means as long as they feed his perverse values. If Bt-cotton is to be promoted to please agribusiness, it'll be rammed down the throats of peasants -- no matter that 500 farmers have committed suicide. If fertile land is to be procured for a toxic chemicals plant, it will be acquired no matter how reluctant the owner to sell it. If labour unions resist non-enforcement of the minimum wage, they must be smashed.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes is similar to the spell that Hitler and Mussolini cast because of their "efficiency": the "trains run on time". This speaks to a cult of personality, and of a quasi-fascist personality at that. Why else would thousands upon thousands of Modi supporters choose to suppress their own identities by wearing masks moulded after his face?
The bulk of the Hindu middle class doesn't feel even an iota of remorse for what happened in 2002. This speaks of a deep social pathology in a state that has graduated from a Hindutva laboratory into a large-scale Hindutva factory under the longest spell of BJP rule anywhere. Communalism serves many functions in Gujarat: disenfranchising Muslims, consolidating upper-caste domination, and enforcing oppressive social regimentation against the labouring poor. Gujarat is one state where the upper-caste elite has successfully -- and violently -- suppressed any Dalit or OBC self-assertion since the 1980s. Modi will now seek a larger, national-level role for himself. The Sangh Parivar will find it hard to contain him. That task has fallen to all those who believe in secularism, freedom and inclusive growth.
29 December 2007
Democracy's dark side
by Praful Bidwai
Narendra Modi has surpassed even optimistic forecasts made for the Bharatiya Janata Party's performance in Gujarat to win 117 of the assembly's 182 seats. Although the tally is 10 seats lower than the BJP's 2002 score, the victory is convincing. The BJP's vote is estimated to have marginally increased. It swept three of Gujarat's four regions. It's only in central Gujarat, which witnessed the worst violence during 2002 -- and where the BJP had won 38 of 43 seats -- that it suffered major losses (20 seats). The BJP's victory is more impressive because it defies "normal" electoral arithmetic, based on caste, class, ethnic group and region.
The BJP's return to power under Modi's authoritarian leadership is a triumph of the forces of intolerance, religious bigotry, communalism, dangerous hypernationalism and ruthless social regimentation based upon hatred of the underprivileged and celebration of the despotism of the powerful. It represents a setback for democracy, public decency and constitutional values. But it cannot invest the BJP's politics with legitimacy. Modi has proved a successful, diabolically crafty demagogue, who can descend to any level of spreading hatred to win votes. His victory is clearly his own. Indeed, he defied the Sangh Parivar. Neither the RSS nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad campaigned for him. He ignored dissidence within the BJP.
Modi set the ideological and political agenda for the election, and ran a warlike hate-filled campaign, eclipsing all other BJP leaders, including LK Advani, who couldn't attract even a fraction of the audiences he did. The extensive use of the Modi mask by his followers only visually underscored the election's nature as a referendum on Modi. He won it unambiguously. One of the greatest myths about the election is that it was fought on the "development" agenda. In fact, Modi played the communal card from the beginning, when he agitated the Ram Setu issue, and highlighted "terrorism"-- shorthand for Muslims. The communal tone became shrill when Modi shamelessly justified the cold-blooded killing of Sohrabuddin Shaikh. Hindutva shadowed the campaign all the way through. Modi's very persona exudes vicious communalism.
The Congress didn't mount a half-way credible challenge to Modi. It did its utmost to duck issues pertaining to the violence of 2002, whose victims continue to be excluded, discriminated against and re-victimised. It carefully avoided any reference to the pogrom, to the state's culpability in planning and executing it, and to the BJP's failure to deliver justice to the victims.
Right since it came into power nationally, the Congress hasn't lifted its little finger to secure justice for the victims. In Gujarat too, it refused to take a clear stand against Modi's brazenly communal political mobilisation strategy. It adopted a "soft Hindutva" posture, and competed with Modi on his own terrain. Each time Modi cited Godhra, the Congress would talk about the Akshardham temple attack.
Even worse, the Congress recruited anti-Modi BJP rebels, many of whom deeply implicated in the 2002 carnage, such as former junior home minister Goverdhan Zadaphia. It gave tickets to many, thus damaging its own credibility and undermining the possibility of projecting itself as secular. It's only in the very last leg of the campaign that the Congress took a spirited anti-communal stand. Sonia Gandhi deplored "merchants of death" (maut ke saudagar) and Digvijay Singh assailed "Hindutva extremism". But this came far too late and was unrelated to the party's basic strategy and the way it ran most of its campaign.
There's some speculation on whether the saudagar remark cost the Congress loss of support. This exaggerates Modi's ability to exploit all adversity in his favour. The loss was at best marginal. In any case, the remark was apt. But Modi mounted a disgracefully dishonest defence of his violation of the electoral code of conduct and refused to tone down his murderous rhetoric even after the election commission mildly reprimanded him -- and in an unconvincing show of even-handedness, also snubbed Gandhi.
The Congress also completely failed to take on Modi on human development, poverty, minimum needs, income and regional disparities, and other livelihood questions. Gujarat has undoubtedly recorded high GDP growth. But this hasn't helped it abolish poverty or mass deprivation. As many as 74 per cent of its women and 46 per cent of its children are anaemic.
Gujarat's society remains hideously iniquitous, with wages among India's lowest. Agriculture is thriving but child labour is rampant in the fields. Hazardous industries flourish as nowhere else. Coercion drives industrial growth through crony-capitalist schemes like Special Economic Zones and private ports, which involve forced land acquisition. However, the Congress had absolutely no alternative to offer to such maldevelopment or to Modi's celebration of greed and elitism. It wasted a precious opportunity to build on the gains it made in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, when it won in 91 assembly segments against the BJP's 89. The only silver lining for the Congress is that it recovered its traditional base amongst the Adivasis, and won a majority of the seats reserved for them. It did better where it distanced itself from BJP rebels, as in central Gujarat.
Its too-clever-by-half strategy of trying to win Leuva Patel support through the pro-Keshubhai rebels came a cropper in Saurashtra-Kutch, where the BJP improved its tally from 39 to 43 seats (of 58). Only one of the "rebels" won. So did only one of the 10 Kolis the Congress fielded.
Ultimately, Modi won because of his demagogic appeal based on militant Hindutva, Gujarati hubris, and a despotic personality that respects no democratic values, but is admired for its strong will, determination and decisiveness. Modi "gets things done" by any means as long as they feed his perverse values. If Bt-cotton is to be promoted to please agribusiness, it'll be rammed down the throats of peasants -- no matter that 500 farmers have committed suicide. If fertile land is to be procured for a toxic chemicals plant, it will be acquired no matter how reluctant the owner to sell it. If labour unions resist non-enforcement of the minimum wage, they must be smashed.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes is similar to the spell that Hitler and Mussolini cast because of their "efficiency": the "trains run on time". This speaks to a cult of personality, and of a quasi-fascist personality at that. Why else would thousands upon thousands of Modi supporters choose to suppress their own identities by wearing masks moulded after his face?
The bulk of the Hindu middle class doesn't feel even an iota of remorse for what happened in 2002. This speaks of a deep social pathology in a state that has graduated from a Hindutva laboratory into a large-scale Hindutva factory under the longest spell of BJP rule anywhere. Communalism serves many functions in Gujarat: disenfranchising Muslims, consolidating upper-caste domination, and enforcing oppressive social regimentation against the labouring poor. Gujarat is one state where the upper-caste elite has successfully -- and violently -- suppressed any Dalit or OBC self-assertion since the 1980s. Modi will now seek a larger, national-level role for himself. The Sangh Parivar will find it hard to contain him. That task has fallen to all those who believe in secularism, freedom and inclusive growth.
Asghar Ali Engineer on Gujarat Elections 2007 and After
GUJARAT ELECTIONS AND AFTERMATH
Asghar Ali Engineer (Secular Perspective January 1-15, 2008)
Gujarat has made history. Gujarat is in news ever since genocide of 2002. For every small or big development it remains in news. Gujarat carnage was unparalleled in the history of India and it will continue to be discussed for a long time to come. Like partition of our country it cannot be easily forgotten. Any election in Gujarat will draw into discussion Gujarat carnage. Modi, I maintain, could not have won 2002 election without organizing that carnage nor the 2007 election could he have won without it.
In my opinion it is wrong to maintain that he won election due to economic development he helped achieve in Gujarat. Gujarat is as much polarized today as it was in 2002. Even if Modi had not mentioned anything related to Hindutva, he would have won. Question is only of margin. Now the congress leaders also have admitted it publicly that we had not kept Sonia Gandhi in any illusion about victory in Gujarat. We had told her we cannot win. Only thing is we did not expect him to win with such majority.
He won with such majority for number of reasons one of which was Mayawati‚s candidates. In many constituencies Dalits voted for Mayawati candidates and in those constituencies congress candidates lost by margin of not more than 5000 votes. Congress would have undoubtedly won in these constituencies had Mayawati not set up her own candidates taking away Dalit votes.
I would also like to throw light on the question as to why Modi continues to appeal Gujarati voters so much that he can win hands down even five years after genocide of 2002? The answer lies in paradigm shift in political ideologies throughout the world. Unfortunately no analyst so far has seen Gujarat election in this perspective.
Up to eighties socialism and socialist ideologies had great appeal for the people. When Indira Gandhi, in late sixties of last century, gave slogan of quit poverty (Gharibi hatao) it had electrifying effect on Indian masses; and she instantly emerged as great leader in her own right and all Congress stalwarts like Kamraj, Morarji Desai and Atulya Ghosh and others fell by the roadside. She was voted to power with overwhelming majority.
Similarly in Pakistan when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto gave slogan of Roti, Kapda Makan (bread, cloth and house). He acquired charisma of his own and Ayub fell by the roadside. To this slogan he added, after Bangla Desh war thousand-year war with India and he emerged as an unquestioned leader of Pakistan. However, the basic mantra was roti, kapda, makan. Even in Arab countries slogan of socialism brought Jamal Abdan Nasir and Mohammad Ghaddafi to the fore.
But now there is complete paradigm shift in politics. Socialism no longer has any charisma. It has been replaced by religious ideologies or religious fundamentalism throughout the world. Until late eighties Hindutva had no appeal to Indian masses or Islamic ideology to Pakistani people. Today it is politicized religious discourse which has strong appeal.
Also, slogans of basic needs have been replaced by Ĺ’development‚ discourse and development never means fulfilling basic needs like roti, kapda makan but development of the rich, increase in the wealth of the haves as today in liberalized economies in the globalised world. For Gujaratis trade and economic prosperity has been their lifeline. Even among Muslims of Gujarat Bohras, Khojas and Memons are rich traders and they will be as much attracted by the development discourse as upper caste Hindu Gujaratis. It is for this reason that Narendra Modi tried to win over Bohras and Khojas by his development discourse. He even had special section for Muslims (Bohras, Khojas etc.) in the economic exhibition arranged by him to showcase his development.
And today in the Hindutva laboratory that Gujarat is combination of economic development and Hindutva ideology is a sure guarantee for political win. And who knows this better than Modi? Modi thus combined development discourse with Hindutva mantra and won elections hands down.
The BJP maintains that Modi was using only development discourse for his campaigning and it was Sonia Gandhi by her remark of Ĺ’maut ka saudagar‚ that compelled Modi to use Hindutva card and then whole nature of campaign changed. This can hardly convince any reasonable mind. In fact it was planned that Hindutva discourse will be the last minute mantra. Development discourse was thought to be effective but perhaps there was lurking doubt and to dispel that doubt Hindutva discourse had to be use very tactically, throwing entire blame on the opposition after all.
What Mrs. Sonia Gandhi said was in no way contrary to facts. There was enough proof to maintain that Modi had used death and destruction to win 2002 election (which in all probability, he would have lost). In that election there was no reference to any development. 2002 campaign was heavily loaded with Hindutva discourse and he had earned enough bad publicity throughout the world. He could not afford to deploy pure Hindutva discourse in this election.
The Election Commission was also watching and he could not afford to be on the wrong side of law. He, therefore cleverly crafted his winning strategy ˆ to use development and Hindutva at the last stage and hang the blame on Soniaben‚s Ĺ’maut ka saudagar‚peg. If he was so sure of Ĺ’development factor why did he not use it in 2002 election? On the contrary he is enjoying its after effects even in this election.
There is now another question: will the Gujarat model be as effective in other states? I have my doubts. Even after 2002 win the BJP was saying we will repeat Gujarat model in other states but it lost in several states. The fact is that BJP is in power in M.P. and Rajasthan by itself like in Gujarat and yet these two states have yet to go Gujarat way i.e. they have still not become Ĺ’Hindutva laboratory‚ like Gujarat.
It is an important question: why M.P. and Rajasthan, like Gujarat, could become Hindutva laboratory. Obviously conditions in these two states and caste and community equations are very different. Neither M.P. nor Rajasthan can ever become Hindutva laboratories like Gujarat. Nor development a la Gujarat can be effected in these two states. Obviously Gujarat model cannot be repeated even in these two BJP held states, much less in other states of India.
India is a highly diverse country ˆ bewilderingly diverse, and what is possible in one state cannot happen in other states. Even CPM cannot repeat its model in states other than West Bengal and Kerala otherwise it would have captured other states long ago. Gujarat is more suited for Hindutva as West Bengal and Kerala are more suited for left ideology. In Gujarat similarly is more suited for rightwing Hindutva ideology for number of reasons.
Traders are generally very conservative and are known to be supporters of conservative religion and traditions. For the same reason Gujarat, unlike Maharashtra and other states, never saw any reform movement. The reform movement which brought into existence Swaminarayan sect, itself was very conservative religious reform movement. Today Swaminarayan movement is most popular and hegemonic in Gujarat. Swaminarayan temples are being built wherever these Patel Gujaratis live spending crores of rupees. Huge complexes have come into existence.
Thus Gujarat never experienced modern reform movement like Bengal or Kerala or Maharashtra or Karnataka. And hence the vice-like hold of conservative religion on Gujarat. Narendra Modi has shrewdly exploited this for his political rise. Also by organizing 2002 carnage of Muslims he built his charismatic image and now he is shrewdly combining it with his development discourse.
M.P. and Rajasthan also will face election soon. These states are very different both in economic and political sense. M.P. has already seen change of three chief ministers and the present one carries the stigma of being corrupt as he is facing serious corruption charges. He cannot claim charismatic position as Modi enjoys in Gujarat. Same is the story of Rajasthan. Both in M.P. and Rajasthan still feudal culture is quite strong and modern capitalistic development does not have attraction as Gujarat has.
In Rajasthan VHP tried its best to convert into Gujarat and often held out this threat but it never succeeded. Mrs. Vasundhara Raje Scindia could hardly employ Hindutva discourse as she comes from a ruling family of Gwalior and has very different experience. Modi, on the other hand, belongs to low Hindu caste of Gujarat and in order to rise to higher status, can employ reactionary religious ideology without any qualms and seek his own revenge for being humiliated all through history.
In U.P. there is no question of BJP using Gujarat model. It has, in Mayawati, met more than its match and she is going strong and has Dalit-Muslim and a section of upper caste votes also. Also, leaders like Rajnathsingh or Kalyan Singh hardly can claim charisma as Modi enjoys. And in present day U.P. it is not possible for BJP to organize Gujarat like genocide to gain any charisma.
Thus it will be seen that Gujarat is what it is on account of its own specificities and BJP's dream of repeating Gujarat can hardly be fulfilled in other states.
-------------------------------------------
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
Asghar Ali Engineer (Secular Perspective January 1-15, 2008)
Gujarat has made history. Gujarat is in news ever since genocide of 2002. For every small or big development it remains in news. Gujarat carnage was unparalleled in the history of India and it will continue to be discussed for a long time to come. Like partition of our country it cannot be easily forgotten. Any election in Gujarat will draw into discussion Gujarat carnage. Modi, I maintain, could not have won 2002 election without organizing that carnage nor the 2007 election could he have won without it.
In my opinion it is wrong to maintain that he won election due to economic development he helped achieve in Gujarat. Gujarat is as much polarized today as it was in 2002. Even if Modi had not mentioned anything related to Hindutva, he would have won. Question is only of margin. Now the congress leaders also have admitted it publicly that we had not kept Sonia Gandhi in any illusion about victory in Gujarat. We had told her we cannot win. Only thing is we did not expect him to win with such majority.
He won with such majority for number of reasons one of which was Mayawati‚s candidates. In many constituencies Dalits voted for Mayawati candidates and in those constituencies congress candidates lost by margin of not more than 5000 votes. Congress would have undoubtedly won in these constituencies had Mayawati not set up her own candidates taking away Dalit votes.
I would also like to throw light on the question as to why Modi continues to appeal Gujarati voters so much that he can win hands down even five years after genocide of 2002? The answer lies in paradigm shift in political ideologies throughout the world. Unfortunately no analyst so far has seen Gujarat election in this perspective.
Up to eighties socialism and socialist ideologies had great appeal for the people. When Indira Gandhi, in late sixties of last century, gave slogan of quit poverty (Gharibi hatao) it had electrifying effect on Indian masses; and she instantly emerged as great leader in her own right and all Congress stalwarts like Kamraj, Morarji Desai and Atulya Ghosh and others fell by the roadside. She was voted to power with overwhelming majority.
Similarly in Pakistan when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto gave slogan of Roti, Kapda Makan (bread, cloth and house). He acquired charisma of his own and Ayub fell by the roadside. To this slogan he added, after Bangla Desh war thousand-year war with India and he emerged as an unquestioned leader of Pakistan. However, the basic mantra was roti, kapda, makan. Even in Arab countries slogan of socialism brought Jamal Abdan Nasir and Mohammad Ghaddafi to the fore.
But now there is complete paradigm shift in politics. Socialism no longer has any charisma. It has been replaced by religious ideologies or religious fundamentalism throughout the world. Until late eighties Hindutva had no appeal to Indian masses or Islamic ideology to Pakistani people. Today it is politicized religious discourse which has strong appeal.
Also, slogans of basic needs have been replaced by Ĺ’development‚ discourse and development never means fulfilling basic needs like roti, kapda makan but development of the rich, increase in the wealth of the haves as today in liberalized economies in the globalised world. For Gujaratis trade and economic prosperity has been their lifeline. Even among Muslims of Gujarat Bohras, Khojas and Memons are rich traders and they will be as much attracted by the development discourse as upper caste Hindu Gujaratis. It is for this reason that Narendra Modi tried to win over Bohras and Khojas by his development discourse. He even had special section for Muslims (Bohras, Khojas etc.) in the economic exhibition arranged by him to showcase his development.
And today in the Hindutva laboratory that Gujarat is combination of economic development and Hindutva ideology is a sure guarantee for political win. And who knows this better than Modi? Modi thus combined development discourse with Hindutva mantra and won elections hands down.
The BJP maintains that Modi was using only development discourse for his campaigning and it was Sonia Gandhi by her remark of Ĺ’maut ka saudagar‚ that compelled Modi to use Hindutva card and then whole nature of campaign changed. This can hardly convince any reasonable mind. In fact it was planned that Hindutva discourse will be the last minute mantra. Development discourse was thought to be effective but perhaps there was lurking doubt and to dispel that doubt Hindutva discourse had to be use very tactically, throwing entire blame on the opposition after all.
What Mrs. Sonia Gandhi said was in no way contrary to facts. There was enough proof to maintain that Modi had used death and destruction to win 2002 election (which in all probability, he would have lost). In that election there was no reference to any development. 2002 campaign was heavily loaded with Hindutva discourse and he had earned enough bad publicity throughout the world. He could not afford to deploy pure Hindutva discourse in this election.
The Election Commission was also watching and he could not afford to be on the wrong side of law. He, therefore cleverly crafted his winning strategy ˆ to use development and Hindutva at the last stage and hang the blame on Soniaben‚s Ĺ’maut ka saudagar‚peg. If he was so sure of Ĺ’development factor why did he not use it in 2002 election? On the contrary he is enjoying its after effects even in this election.
There is now another question: will the Gujarat model be as effective in other states? I have my doubts. Even after 2002 win the BJP was saying we will repeat Gujarat model in other states but it lost in several states. The fact is that BJP is in power in M.P. and Rajasthan by itself like in Gujarat and yet these two states have yet to go Gujarat way i.e. they have still not become Ĺ’Hindutva laboratory‚ like Gujarat.
It is an important question: why M.P. and Rajasthan, like Gujarat, could become Hindutva laboratory. Obviously conditions in these two states and caste and community equations are very different. Neither M.P. nor Rajasthan can ever become Hindutva laboratories like Gujarat. Nor development a la Gujarat can be effected in these two states. Obviously Gujarat model cannot be repeated even in these two BJP held states, much less in other states of India.
India is a highly diverse country ˆ bewilderingly diverse, and what is possible in one state cannot happen in other states. Even CPM cannot repeat its model in states other than West Bengal and Kerala otherwise it would have captured other states long ago. Gujarat is more suited for Hindutva as West Bengal and Kerala are more suited for left ideology. In Gujarat similarly is more suited for rightwing Hindutva ideology for number of reasons.
Traders are generally very conservative and are known to be supporters of conservative religion and traditions. For the same reason Gujarat, unlike Maharashtra and other states, never saw any reform movement. The reform movement which brought into existence Swaminarayan sect, itself was very conservative religious reform movement. Today Swaminarayan movement is most popular and hegemonic in Gujarat. Swaminarayan temples are being built wherever these Patel Gujaratis live spending crores of rupees. Huge complexes have come into existence.
Thus Gujarat never experienced modern reform movement like Bengal or Kerala or Maharashtra or Karnataka. And hence the vice-like hold of conservative religion on Gujarat. Narendra Modi has shrewdly exploited this for his political rise. Also by organizing 2002 carnage of Muslims he built his charismatic image and now he is shrewdly combining it with his development discourse.
M.P. and Rajasthan also will face election soon. These states are very different both in economic and political sense. M.P. has already seen change of three chief ministers and the present one carries the stigma of being corrupt as he is facing serious corruption charges. He cannot claim charismatic position as Modi enjoys in Gujarat. Same is the story of Rajasthan. Both in M.P. and Rajasthan still feudal culture is quite strong and modern capitalistic development does not have attraction as Gujarat has.
In Rajasthan VHP tried its best to convert into Gujarat and often held out this threat but it never succeeded. Mrs. Vasundhara Raje Scindia could hardly employ Hindutva discourse as she comes from a ruling family of Gwalior and has very different experience. Modi, on the other hand, belongs to low Hindu caste of Gujarat and in order to rise to higher status, can employ reactionary religious ideology without any qualms and seek his own revenge for being humiliated all through history.
In U.P. there is no question of BJP using Gujarat model. It has, in Mayawati, met more than its match and she is going strong and has Dalit-Muslim and a section of upper caste votes also. Also, leaders like Rajnathsingh or Kalyan Singh hardly can claim charisma as Modi enjoys. And in present day U.P. it is not possible for BJP to organize Gujarat like genocide to gain any charisma.
Thus it will be seen that Gujarat is what it is on account of its own specificities and BJP's dream of repeating Gujarat can hardly be fulfilled in other states.
-------------------------------------------
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
December 29, 2007
Human Rights Watch Dec 2007 - Stop Hindu-Christian Violence in Orissa
Human Rights Watch
December 28, 2007 Press Release
India: Stop Hindu-Christian Violence in Orissa
(New York, December 29, 2007) – The Indian government should act immediately to end communal violence in Orissa state, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called for an independent inquiry to identify those instigating the Orissa violence and the prosecution of those responsible.
Violence first broke out on December 24 during an altercation between Hindus and Christians over Christmas celebrations in Orissa’s Kandhamal district. A group of Christians then attacked the vehicle of a local leader of a right-wing Hindu organization. In retaliation, Hindu mobs burned down at least 19 churches, and attacked church officials. Christians then began to attack Hindu properties. A number of villagers have fled their homes to escape the violence. The state government failed to act quickly, leaving vulnerable groups at risk, which enabled the violence to escalate over the last four days. The exact death toll in these clashes is still unknown, though the media have reported the deaths of at least eight people.
For several years, extremist Hindu groups in Orissa have been conducting an anti-Christian campaign that has grown violent at times, while government officials have looked the other way.
“The Orissa government should have addressed this problem before it became violent,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are still failing to react quickly enough, and now ordinary people are being attacked.” Right-wing Hindu organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have been promoting anti-Christian propaganda in Orissa because they want the state’s Christians, most of them members of tribal groups, to convert to Hinduism. These groups accuse Christian missionaries of forcing tribal people and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity. In January 1999, Hindu militants in Orissa trapped Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in their car and burned them alive.
Human Rights Watch condemned the mob violence and urged both Hindu and Christian leaders to work toward peaceful reconciliation. Human Rights Watch also called on the Indian government to meet its constitutional and international obligations to ensure that all people may equally enjoy the right to freely profess, practice, propagate and adopt a religion. In particular, Indian officials should take steps to prevent further violence and end impunity for campaigns of violence and prosecute those responsible for the attacks.
“The Orissa government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the recent violence, but that is not enough,” said Ganguly. “Unless there is a vigorous attempt by the national government to investigate such activities promoting religious hate, India’s secular identity will be seriously jeopardized.”
December 28, 2007 Press Release
India: Stop Hindu-Christian Violence in Orissa
(New York, December 29, 2007) – The Indian government should act immediately to end communal violence in Orissa state, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called for an independent inquiry to identify those instigating the Orissa violence and the prosecution of those responsible.
Violence first broke out on December 24 during an altercation between Hindus and Christians over Christmas celebrations in Orissa’s Kandhamal district. A group of Christians then attacked the vehicle of a local leader of a right-wing Hindu organization. In retaliation, Hindu mobs burned down at least 19 churches, and attacked church officials. Christians then began to attack Hindu properties. A number of villagers have fled their homes to escape the violence. The state government failed to act quickly, leaving vulnerable groups at risk, which enabled the violence to escalate over the last four days. The exact death toll in these clashes is still unknown, though the media have reported the deaths of at least eight people.
For several years, extremist Hindu groups in Orissa have been conducting an anti-Christian campaign that has grown violent at times, while government officials have looked the other way.
“The Orissa government should have addressed this problem before it became violent,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are still failing to react quickly enough, and now ordinary people are being attacked.” Right-wing Hindu organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have been promoting anti-Christian propaganda in Orissa because they want the state’s Christians, most of them members of tribal groups, to convert to Hinduism. These groups accuse Christian missionaries of forcing tribal people and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity. In January 1999, Hindu militants in Orissa trapped Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in their car and burned them alive.
Human Rights Watch condemned the mob violence and urged both Hindu and Christian leaders to work toward peaceful reconciliation. Human Rights Watch also called on the Indian government to meet its constitutional and international obligations to ensure that all people may equally enjoy the right to freely profess, practice, propagate and adopt a religion. In particular, Indian officials should take steps to prevent further violence and end impunity for campaigns of violence and prosecute those responsible for the attacks.
“The Orissa government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the recent violence, but that is not enough,” said Ganguly. “Unless there is a vigorous attempt by the national government to investigate such activities promoting religious hate, India’s secular identity will be seriously jeopardized.”
Electoral Parties and Secular Values
(Hindustan Times
24th December 2007)
Electoral Parties and Secular Values
by Ram Puniyani
The adjective 'Merchants of Death', was a bold and characterization of Modi/BJP politics in Gujarat. It incited various reactions, the major one stating that Congress is no clean body as its hands are also full of blood of Sikhs in the 1984 and most of the riots took place during Congress regime.
Are BJP and Congress comparable? A situation, where these parties are being put in the same category has been created due to the weak policies of Congress and projection of the image of BJP as the democratic alternative. Are these parties in the same league or is there a shade of difference which is worth recognizing?
Congress began as a secular party with the inclusion of people of all religions, and their continued association with this party during freedom movement. At the same time many a communalists formed the part of its leadership, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Dr. Moonje. Even the founder of RSS, K.B. Hedgewar was associated with it till 1934. At medium and grass root level many a Hindu communalists in particular were and are part of this party. It is this which made Nehru to warn that Congress should be cautious of those members who sound secular but are really communal. At the level of policies Congress took quite a principled secular path till the demise of Pundit Nehru, after which the slip showed regularly. The problem became apparent with Indira Gandhi's election speeches during Jammu bi-election, Rajiv Gandhi's 'when a big tree falls'; Shah Bano, shilaynyas, and Narsimha Raos' afternoon siesta when the Babri was being razed to the ground. Many a riots took place during its regime when the ruling Government either acted as the silent witness or colluded with the rioters.
While apportioning the blame of communal violence it has to be kept in mind that the riots take place due to three major factors, one the instigator and conductor, which according the inquiry commissions, (Jagmohan Reddy, Justice Madon, Vithayathil, Shrikrishna and Venugopal)mostly has been some organization which is a offshoot/associate of RSS. The second factor is the political leadership. Most of the times Congress, when in power, has been lacking the political will to control it effectively. The third factor is the police and bureaucracy, which has been regularly communalized and has been providing the umbrella to the rioters or been the active participant in the execution of the pogroms. It is not enough just to say that so and so part is responsible just because it has been in power. As far as political agenda is concerned, communalism is not the program of Congress. Its basic program remains Secularism, but its execution of those values has been lacking in will power.
BJP is the political child of RSS, which has the agenda of Hindu nation. Irrespective of its temporary mask of Gandhian Socialism, it does lapse in to the 'Hate minorities' mind set at the drop of the hat. It has the patriarch RSS and associates; VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang Dal etc, who have been communizing the mind set, which is the base of communal violence. This RSS combine has been actively initiating situations which bring in violence. It has led many a carnages and has been polarizing the communities along religious lines. The scholars of communal violence have made the pertinent observation that in the aftermath of most of the communal violence RSS combine becomes stronger in the areas where the violence has taken place. For RSS combine communalism, in overt and covert language, is its political vehicle.
One can classify the political formations/ individuals in to four broad categories on the scale of secularism. The first, and rare, category belongs to the party/individuals who proactively strive for comprehensive social justice. A synthesis of values of Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Ambedkar can best describe this group, which today is being overshadowed by the other political forces.
Second, the formations like Left are genuinely secular but they have ignored the proactive measures to pursue this and so the prevalence of communal social thinking in states ruled by left. Third are secular but compromising, the major one in this category being Congress. These are mired by too many power seekers to be able to stand firmly to oppose the communal elements and land up being the accomplice, in part or in full, of the violation of secular values. The anti Sikh violence was a sort of one go phenomenon, which had more to do with the ethno-regional factors. The last category is that of BJP, aggressive, intimidating opponent of democracy and secularism, whatever its expression. Communal to the core, looking for pretexts to carry on with sectarian politics. Its biggest 'achievement' not that it is the core vehicle of communalism but that some of the political workers compare it with other democratic electoral formations. It is using the electoral space to do away with democratic values, the way Hitler did. It is the Indian face of fascism.
The subtleties of these differences point out that while we do not have the real good choice in the for electoral arena, we will have to keep putting the civic pressure for bringing in better political policies through the grass root campaigns. All the same, to compare BJP with other electoral formations will be undermining the threat of the agenda of RSS, which seeks to abolish democratic space and build a society in the image of 'glorious Hindu past', a neo brahminical construct for upholding the hegemony of elite males.
One can very well say that while communalism, the threat to democracy is becoming stronger by the day, there is a vast difference between Congress and BJP. The Congress communalism is pragmatic while BJP communalism is programmatic. While no party can be excused for its crimes, no democratic formation should be compared to BJP, as it the vehicle of RSS political agenda, the agenda of abolishing the values of Indian constitution and imposing a fascist state. BJP is in a different class by itself due to its goal, which has nothing to do with democracy i.e. concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Unfortunately, today in electoral arena we do not have a choice between Good better and the best. We are riddled with bad, worse, worst and BJP!
(Writer is recipient of Indira Gandhi National Integration Award, 2006)
24th December 2007)
Electoral Parties and Secular Values
by Ram Puniyani
The adjective 'Merchants of Death', was a bold and characterization of Modi/BJP politics in Gujarat. It incited various reactions, the major one stating that Congress is no clean body as its hands are also full of blood of Sikhs in the 1984 and most of the riots took place during Congress regime.
Are BJP and Congress comparable? A situation, where these parties are being put in the same category has been created due to the weak policies of Congress and projection of the image of BJP as the democratic alternative. Are these parties in the same league or is there a shade of difference which is worth recognizing?
Congress began as a secular party with the inclusion of people of all religions, and their continued association with this party during freedom movement. At the same time many a communalists formed the part of its leadership, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Dr. Moonje. Even the founder of RSS, K.B. Hedgewar was associated with it till 1934. At medium and grass root level many a Hindu communalists in particular were and are part of this party. It is this which made Nehru to warn that Congress should be cautious of those members who sound secular but are really communal. At the level of policies Congress took quite a principled secular path till the demise of Pundit Nehru, after which the slip showed regularly. The problem became apparent with Indira Gandhi's election speeches during Jammu bi-election, Rajiv Gandhi's 'when a big tree falls'; Shah Bano, shilaynyas, and Narsimha Raos' afternoon siesta when the Babri was being razed to the ground. Many a riots took place during its regime when the ruling Government either acted as the silent witness or colluded with the rioters.
While apportioning the blame of communal violence it has to be kept in mind that the riots take place due to three major factors, one the instigator and conductor, which according the inquiry commissions, (Jagmohan Reddy, Justice Madon, Vithayathil, Shrikrishna and Venugopal)mostly has been some organization which is a offshoot/associate of RSS. The second factor is the political leadership. Most of the times Congress, when in power, has been lacking the political will to control it effectively. The third factor is the police and bureaucracy, which has been regularly communalized and has been providing the umbrella to the rioters or been the active participant in the execution of the pogroms. It is not enough just to say that so and so part is responsible just because it has been in power. As far as political agenda is concerned, communalism is not the program of Congress. Its basic program remains Secularism, but its execution of those values has been lacking in will power.
BJP is the political child of RSS, which has the agenda of Hindu nation. Irrespective of its temporary mask of Gandhian Socialism, it does lapse in to the 'Hate minorities' mind set at the drop of the hat. It has the patriarch RSS and associates; VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang Dal etc, who have been communizing the mind set, which is the base of communal violence. This RSS combine has been actively initiating situations which bring in violence. It has led many a carnages and has been polarizing the communities along religious lines. The scholars of communal violence have made the pertinent observation that in the aftermath of most of the communal violence RSS combine becomes stronger in the areas where the violence has taken place. For RSS combine communalism, in overt and covert language, is its political vehicle.
One can classify the political formations/ individuals in to four broad categories on the scale of secularism. The first, and rare, category belongs to the party/individuals who proactively strive for comprehensive social justice. A synthesis of values of Bhagat Singh, Gandhi and Ambedkar can best describe this group, which today is being overshadowed by the other political forces.
Second, the formations like Left are genuinely secular but they have ignored the proactive measures to pursue this and so the prevalence of communal social thinking in states ruled by left. Third are secular but compromising, the major one in this category being Congress. These are mired by too many power seekers to be able to stand firmly to oppose the communal elements and land up being the accomplice, in part or in full, of the violation of secular values. The anti Sikh violence was a sort of one go phenomenon, which had more to do with the ethno-regional factors. The last category is that of BJP, aggressive, intimidating opponent of democracy and secularism, whatever its expression. Communal to the core, looking for pretexts to carry on with sectarian politics. Its biggest 'achievement' not that it is the core vehicle of communalism but that some of the political workers compare it with other democratic electoral formations. It is using the electoral space to do away with democratic values, the way Hitler did. It is the Indian face of fascism.
The subtleties of these differences point out that while we do not have the real good choice in the for electoral arena, we will have to keep putting the civic pressure for bringing in better political policies through the grass root campaigns. All the same, to compare BJP with other electoral formations will be undermining the threat of the agenda of RSS, which seeks to abolish democratic space and build a society in the image of 'glorious Hindu past', a neo brahminical construct for upholding the hegemony of elite males.
One can very well say that while communalism, the threat to democracy is becoming stronger by the day, there is a vast difference between Congress and BJP. The Congress communalism is pragmatic while BJP communalism is programmatic. While no party can be excused for its crimes, no democratic formation should be compared to BJP, as it the vehicle of RSS political agenda, the agenda of abolishing the values of Indian constitution and imposing a fascist state. BJP is in a different class by itself due to its goal, which has nothing to do with democracy i.e. concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Unfortunately, today in electoral arena we do not have a choice between Good better and the best. We are riddled with bad, worse, worst and BJP!
(Writer is recipient of Indira Gandhi National Integration Award, 2006)
SAHMAT enters 20th year on January 1, 2008
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg,New Delhi-110001
Telephone-2 3711276/ 23351424
e-mail-sahmat@ vsnl.com
28.12.2007
Press Note
Safdar Hashmi, actor, poet, political and street theatre activist was fatally attacked on January 1, 1989 while performing a play 20 kms away from Delhi. The spontaneous protest generated by this gruesome act led to the formation of the platform - Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, (SAHMAT). Actors, academics, writers, painters, poets, photographers, architects, theatre, media and cinema persons and cultural activists came together with the conviction that all creative and intellectual endeavour in India upholds the values of secularism and pluralism. The imperative of defending freedom of expression was deeply felt.
SAHMAT commencing 20th year of its activities has undertaken performances, exhibition, publication of books and posters, campaigns, protests, seminars and all manners of creative programmes.
Sufi Bhakti tradition of music and poetry, the values that propelled the national movement and social reform movements have provided the basic resource material for our activities.
April 12, Safdar Hashmi's birthday is observed as National Street Theatre Day every year.
Since 1989, artists and cultural activists gather at a central place in the capital city on January 1 to pay homage to Safdar‚s memory.
This year the memorial will be held at the Vithal Bhai Patel House Lawns from 1 p.m. onwards. Apart from music, theatre, poetry recitation and modern dance this year's memorial is going to foreground the moment of the modern in the Indian cultural tradition. The theatre, poetry and music of IPTA, photography of Sunil Janah and paintings and woodcuts of Chittoprasad contribute greatly to define that moment. M.F.Husain, one of the most eminent painters of independent India, currently being hounded by the fundamentalists, has been in the forefront of fostering modern iconography. This year's memorial will have three presentations-Sunil Janah ( by Ram Rahman), Chittoprasad ( Sanjay Mullick) and M.F.Husain ( K. Bikram Singh). Sumangla Damodaran with Deepak Castelino will render some of the famous IPTA songs in different languages. Tanveer Ahmad Khan and Imran Ahmad Khan of Delhi Gharana will sing Amir Khusro's Kalam.
Vidya Shah has composed a number of songs in a new cross-cultural idiom. A CD of these songs will be released. Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, the Dhrupad maestro will also be performing accompanied on pakhawaj by Pt. Mohan Shyam Sharma.
The programme will conclude with traditional Sufi compositions by Baba Gulam Mohammad, a direct descendent of Bhai Mardana.
This year the programme will commence at 1 p.m. sharp.
Traditional food of Delhi will be available on the venue.
Ram Rahman
Madangopal Singh
M.K.Raina
Sohail Hashmi
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg,New Delhi-110001
Telephone-2 3711276/ 23351424
e-mail-sahmat@ vsnl.com
28.12.2007
Press Note
Safdar Hashmi, actor, poet, political and street theatre activist was fatally attacked on January 1, 1989 while performing a play 20 kms away from Delhi. The spontaneous protest generated by this gruesome act led to the formation of the platform - Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, (SAHMAT). Actors, academics, writers, painters, poets, photographers, architects, theatre, media and cinema persons and cultural activists came together with the conviction that all creative and intellectual endeavour in India upholds the values of secularism and pluralism. The imperative of defending freedom of expression was deeply felt.
SAHMAT commencing 20th year of its activities has undertaken performances, exhibition, publication of books and posters, campaigns, protests, seminars and all manners of creative programmes.
Sufi Bhakti tradition of music and poetry, the values that propelled the national movement and social reform movements have provided the basic resource material for our activities.
April 12, Safdar Hashmi's birthday is observed as National Street Theatre Day every year.
Since 1989, artists and cultural activists gather at a central place in the capital city on January 1 to pay homage to Safdar‚s memory.
This year the memorial will be held at the Vithal Bhai Patel House Lawns from 1 p.m. onwards. Apart from music, theatre, poetry recitation and modern dance this year's memorial is going to foreground the moment of the modern in the Indian cultural tradition. The theatre, poetry and music of IPTA, photography of Sunil Janah and paintings and woodcuts of Chittoprasad contribute greatly to define that moment. M.F.Husain, one of the most eminent painters of independent India, currently being hounded by the fundamentalists, has been in the forefront of fostering modern iconography. This year's memorial will have three presentations-Sunil Janah ( by Ram Rahman), Chittoprasad ( Sanjay Mullick) and M.F.Husain ( K. Bikram Singh). Sumangla Damodaran with Deepak Castelino will render some of the famous IPTA songs in different languages. Tanveer Ahmad Khan and Imran Ahmad Khan of Delhi Gharana will sing Amir Khusro's Kalam.
Vidya Shah has composed a number of songs in a new cross-cultural idiom. A CD of these songs will be released. Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, the Dhrupad maestro will also be performing accompanied on pakhawaj by Pt. Mohan Shyam Sharma.
The programme will conclude with traditional Sufi compositions by Baba Gulam Mohammad, a direct descendent of Bhai Mardana.
This year the programme will commence at 1 p.m. sharp.
Traditional food of Delhi will be available on the venue.
Ram Rahman
Madangopal Singh
M.K.Raina
Sohail Hashmi
December 27, 2007
Communal Mayhem in Orissa: News and Editorials
ORISSA'S COMMUNAL FLARE UP
by Sampad Mahapatra
NDTV, December 27, 2007 (Kandhmal)
o o o
Indian Express
December 27, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Editorial
REMEMBER STAINES
ATTACKS ON CHURCHES, PRIESTS FRAME A CULTURE OF IMPUNITY IN WHICH HATE CRIMES ARE ALLOWED TO OCCUR
The Indian Express
: On Tuesday, this paper reported the case of Brother Ramesh, a Catholic priest from Tamil Nadu working in Gujarat. Brother Ramesh was attacked a few days earlier in Kwant, a tribal town in Vadodara, by “activists” who alleged that he was involved in “conversions”; four fingers of his right hand have had to be amputated since. Strangely, though, the police has registered an FIR against the victim, while the assailants are still absconding. Brother Ramesh’s predicament appears to point to the vicious circle of impunity within which attacks on minority communities, including Christians, continue to take place in parts of our country. The attack on churches and large-scale violence between Hindu and Christian groups that has followed in the wake of a reported attack on a VHP leader who leads the anti-conversion movement in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, must be seen in the same grim context.
Both Gujarat and Orissa have a recent history of violence against Christian missionaries by groups that subscribe to an ideology of militant Hindutva. On the night of January 22, 1999, in Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his minor sons were burnt alive by a mob as they slept in their station wagon. That case had rightly sparked country-wide outrage. At roughly the same time, a 10-day spate of violence against Christians in the Dangs district of Gujarat had also stirred the nation’s conscience. Both events have been seared into collective memory and this, in itself, should have ensured that such hate crimes did not recur.
Yet the latest episodes of violence in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat and Naveen Patnaik’s Orissa frame a continuing failure of both civil society and the state. In a diverse and plural polity like India, both must be vigilant against forces of intolerance. The onus is especially on the government. The message must be sent out that violence will not be tolerated and that all its perpetrators will be brought to book. Only when justice is done and is seen to be done will goons and criminals acting in the name of their faith be dissuaded.
editor@expressindia.com
o o o
The Tribune
27 December 2007
Editorial
ATTACK ON CHURCHES
Attempt to terrorise a whole community
WHILE the people the world over were celebrating Christmas on December 25, the Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district were at the receiving end with alleged activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad destroying church after church. In the mindless violence unleashed on the community, one person was killed and several were injured. The attack was ostensibly to retaliate against the alleged manhandling of a VHP leader. That the VHP chose to convert some Christians to Hinduism on that day bears out that the whole purpose was to foment trouble. Orissa is one state where the so-called Freedom of Religion law is in force which makes it obligatory for the organisers of such conversion ceremonies to follow certain procedures. That the VHP has been paying scant regard for such a law on the specious plea that what it organises is not conversion but “home-coming”.
Despite all the potential for mischief, the district authorities failed to take any preemptive action. What’s more, they could not even protect the house of a minister from the communally surcharged lot. It is not the first time that Orissa has witnessed religious tension. The burning of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons was preceded by several incidents of attack on the minorities in the name of protest against cow slaughter and religious conversion. It is the kid-glove treatment those behind such violent campaigns received that emboldened them to burn the missionary who was tending to the leprosy patients in one of the most backward areas of Orissa. There are feudal and pseudo-political forces that do not want the poor to get educated and know their legal and democratic rights for fear it would upset the caste-based social system.
The Orissa government is duty-bound to take stringent action against all those who desecrated the churches. It should also go after those who “attacked” the VHP leader and bring them to book. No excuse is good enough to terrorise a whole community. In fact, any leniency shown will be construed as a failure of the state to protect not just the life and property of the people but also their right to preach and practise their religious beliefs. What the Orissa government does in Kandhamal district will show how committed it is to uphold the rule of law and the religious rights of the people.
by Sampad Mahapatra
NDTV, December 27, 2007 (Kandhmal)
o o o
Indian Express
December 27, 2007 at 0000 hrs
Editorial
REMEMBER STAINES
ATTACKS ON CHURCHES, PRIESTS FRAME A CULTURE OF IMPUNITY IN WHICH HATE CRIMES ARE ALLOWED TO OCCUR
The Indian Express
: On Tuesday, this paper reported the case of Brother Ramesh, a Catholic priest from Tamil Nadu working in Gujarat. Brother Ramesh was attacked a few days earlier in Kwant, a tribal town in Vadodara, by “activists” who alleged that he was involved in “conversions”; four fingers of his right hand have had to be amputated since. Strangely, though, the police has registered an FIR against the victim, while the assailants are still absconding. Brother Ramesh’s predicament appears to point to the vicious circle of impunity within which attacks on minority communities, including Christians, continue to take place in parts of our country. The attack on churches and large-scale violence between Hindu and Christian groups that has followed in the wake of a reported attack on a VHP leader who leads the anti-conversion movement in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, must be seen in the same grim context.
Both Gujarat and Orissa have a recent history of violence against Christian missionaries by groups that subscribe to an ideology of militant Hindutva. On the night of January 22, 1999, in Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his minor sons were burnt alive by a mob as they slept in their station wagon. That case had rightly sparked country-wide outrage. At roughly the same time, a 10-day spate of violence against Christians in the Dangs district of Gujarat had also stirred the nation’s conscience. Both events have been seared into collective memory and this, in itself, should have ensured that such hate crimes did not recur.
Yet the latest episodes of violence in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat and Naveen Patnaik’s Orissa frame a continuing failure of both civil society and the state. In a diverse and plural polity like India, both must be vigilant against forces of intolerance. The onus is especially on the government. The message must be sent out that violence will not be tolerated and that all its perpetrators will be brought to book. Only when justice is done and is seen to be done will goons and criminals acting in the name of their faith be dissuaded.
editor@expressindia.com
o o o
The Tribune
27 December 2007
Editorial
ATTACK ON CHURCHES
Attempt to terrorise a whole community
WHILE the people the world over were celebrating Christmas on December 25, the Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district were at the receiving end with alleged activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad destroying church after church. In the mindless violence unleashed on the community, one person was killed and several were injured. The attack was ostensibly to retaliate against the alleged manhandling of a VHP leader. That the VHP chose to convert some Christians to Hinduism on that day bears out that the whole purpose was to foment trouble. Orissa is one state where the so-called Freedom of Religion law is in force which makes it obligatory for the organisers of such conversion ceremonies to follow certain procedures. That the VHP has been paying scant regard for such a law on the specious plea that what it organises is not conversion but “home-coming”.
Despite all the potential for mischief, the district authorities failed to take any preemptive action. What’s more, they could not even protect the house of a minister from the communally surcharged lot. It is not the first time that Orissa has witnessed religious tension. The burning of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons was preceded by several incidents of attack on the minorities in the name of protest against cow slaughter and religious conversion. It is the kid-glove treatment those behind such violent campaigns received that emboldened them to burn the missionary who was tending to the leprosy patients in one of the most backward areas of Orissa. There are feudal and pseudo-political forces that do not want the poor to get educated and know their legal and democratic rights for fear it would upset the caste-based social system.
The Orissa government is duty-bound to take stringent action against all those who desecrated the churches. It should also go after those who “attacked” the VHP leader and bring them to book. No excuse is good enough to terrorise a whole community. In fact, any leniency shown will be construed as a failure of the state to protect not just the life and property of the people but also their right to preach and practise their religious beliefs. What the Orissa government does in Kandhamal district will show how committed it is to uphold the rule of law and the religious rights of the people.
Shiv Sena Attacks MF Husain exhibit in Delhi
SENA ACTIVISTS ATTACK HUSAIN EXHIBITION; VANDALISE PAINTINGS
New Delhi (PTI): Shiv Sena activists on Thursday attacked an exhibition of paintings by acclaimed painter M F Husain in the capital, damaging two of his works on display.
The activists managed to enter the 'Art Gallery' at the famous India International Centre here, despite a heavy police presence at the venue and prior information of Shiv Sainiks planning to attack the exhibition.
Two Sainiks entered the hall in the guise of visitors to watch the 'India in the Era of Mughals' exhibition at around 4 p.m. They shouted slogans against the artist and damaged the frames of two paintings.
One of the damaged paintings depicted Emperor Akbar and was priced at Rs 1.5 lakhs. The second painting suffered minor damage as police overpowered them when they tried to damage it.
The activists shouted slogans like 'Balasaheb (Bal Thackeray) Zindabad', 'Shiv Sena Zindabad' and 'M F Husain Murdabad' besides distributing pamphlets, which threatened to disrupt any exhibition of Husain in the country. They were later taken to the police station.
However, IIC officials said they will not close the exhibition. "If police wants us to close down the exhibition, we will do. But they have to give it in writing," they said.
The attack on the 12-day exhibition comes a day before its closure on Friday.
The exhibition ran into rough weather last week with the organisers deciding to suspend the display for a day last Saturday after curator Dolly Narang and the IIC receiving threat calls from Bajrang Dal.
Narang as well as the Centre received threat calls, SMSes and letters on December 20 and on wednesday from Delhi, Mumbai and Pune asking that the exhibition be closed.
Four men claiming to be Bajrang Dal activists barged into the room of IIC Secretary Venugopal and allegedly threatened him with dire consequences if they continued with the exhibition.
However, they defied the threat calls and decided to go ahead with the exhibition later.
The exhibition, the first major exhibition of Husain's works in Delhi after a gap of about 20 years, have 20 graphical prints of the paintings which are permanently put up at Fida Museum in London. These works are a tribute to the history of Indian cinema.
The 92-year-old artist, described by Forbes Magazine as the 'Pablo Picasso of India', is currently in self-exile in Dubai after a series of protests against him for his depiction of Hindu Goddesses.
New Delhi (PTI): Shiv Sena activists on Thursday attacked an exhibition of paintings by acclaimed painter M F Husain in the capital, damaging two of his works on display.
The activists managed to enter the 'Art Gallery' at the famous India International Centre here, despite a heavy police presence at the venue and prior information of Shiv Sainiks planning to attack the exhibition.
Two Sainiks entered the hall in the guise of visitors to watch the 'India in the Era of Mughals' exhibition at around 4 p.m. They shouted slogans against the artist and damaged the frames of two paintings.
One of the damaged paintings depicted Emperor Akbar and was priced at Rs 1.5 lakhs. The second painting suffered minor damage as police overpowered them when they tried to damage it.
The activists shouted slogans like 'Balasaheb (Bal Thackeray) Zindabad', 'Shiv Sena Zindabad' and 'M F Husain Murdabad' besides distributing pamphlets, which threatened to disrupt any exhibition of Husain in the country. They were later taken to the police station.
However, IIC officials said they will not close the exhibition. "If police wants us to close down the exhibition, we will do. But they have to give it in writing," they said.
The attack on the 12-day exhibition comes a day before its closure on Friday.
The exhibition ran into rough weather last week with the organisers deciding to suspend the display for a day last Saturday after curator Dolly Narang and the IIC receiving threat calls from Bajrang Dal.
Narang as well as the Centre received threat calls, SMSes and letters on December 20 and on wednesday from Delhi, Mumbai and Pune asking that the exhibition be closed.
Four men claiming to be Bajrang Dal activists barged into the room of IIC Secretary Venugopal and allegedly threatened him with dire consequences if they continued with the exhibition.
However, they defied the threat calls and decided to go ahead with the exhibition later.
The exhibition, the first major exhibition of Husain's works in Delhi after a gap of about 20 years, have 20 graphical prints of the paintings which are permanently put up at Fida Museum in London. These works are a tribute to the history of Indian cinema.
The 92-year-old artist, described by Forbes Magazine as the 'Pablo Picasso of India', is currently in self-exile in Dubai after a series of protests against him for his depiction of Hindu Goddesses.
Church leaders urge Prime Minister to ensure safety of Christians in Orissa
PRESS STATEMENT:
Church leaders urge Prime Minister to ensure safety of Christians in Orissa
Over 30 churches, Institutions destroyed in Christmas violence, many injured as Hindutva extremists go on the rampage, fire on people in
tribal belt
[The following is the text of the memorandum submitted by Dr John Dayal, Member: National Integration Council, Government of India, on behalf of the All India Catholic Union (Founded 1919), the All India Christian Council (Founded 1999), and the President: United Christian Action, Delhi (Founded 1992). Dr Dayal was member of the Church delegation, together with Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Dr Richard Howell, and Dr Dominick Emmanuel, which was meeting Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the Orissa issue.]
Christmas 2007, 25-26 December 26, 2007
Dr Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
New Delhi
Re: Appeal for immediate action to prevent massacre of Christians in
the Tribal Phulbani region of Orissa, and desecration of Churches in the state. There must be no repeat of Gujarat’s Dangs area violence on Christmas 1998.
Dear Prime Minister
I bring to you and your government Greetings of Christmas from the All India Catholic Union, representing the 1.6 crore [16 million] Catholic laity in the country, and the All India Christian Council, whose membership includes 3,000 Independent churches, Human rights organisations and Insitutions.
It is, however, with a heavy heart that I also bring to you our collective apprehensions and fear that the current atrocities against Christians in the tribal area of Phoolbani in the State of Orissa is fast exploding into the type of violence we saw in the Dangs district of Gujarat during Christmas 1998. The official apathy, the police indifference and the freedom allowed to marauding bands of Hindutva fanatics and armed thugs in Gujarat has been repeated in Orissa in what is a planned conspiracy against the Church and our faith.
Spokesman of communal groups are coming on television and in the Print media to announce they will not tolerate the presence of Christians in the trial areas of Orissa. The threat of continuing and escalating violence, the targeting of Church leaders and the concerted attack on institution prove that the conspiracy has been planned over a period of time, with meticulous mobilisation. This would not have been possible without the complicity of the official machinery, and the backing of powerful political groups.
Unless immediate and urgent action is taken, we fear that the situation in Orissa will deteriorate and will lead to much suffering for our people, as also for the common men, women and children of the tribal areas, the poorest of the poor.
The main aggression is from the Kui Janakalyan Samiti. This organization had declared bandh on 25th and 26th December 2007 in order to press for their demands. But Christians feel that it was only ploy used against Christians in order to:
a) Disturb their Christmas celebration, the important feast of Christians; it is even a National holiday.
b) Instead of conducting bandh they have unleashed a reign of terror, destroying institutions, intimidating Christians and forcing them to go out of their homes.
c) Their entire attention is on driving away Christians from the region.
We narrate for you, in brief, the course of events and the volume of violence:
INSTITUTIONS ATTACKED SO FAR
PARISH CHURCH VILLAGE CHURCHES
Balliguda
Bodagan-Balliguda
Balliguda town
Kamapada – Balliuda
Pobingia
Mandipanka- Godapur
Baminigam
Jhinjirguda- Bamunigam
Ulipadaro – Bamunigam
Goborkutty-Kattingia
Kulpakia- Nuagam
3 more village church
CONVENTS PRESBYTERY
Balliguda Balliguda
Pobingia Pobingia
Phulbani Bamunigam
Bamunigam
HOSTELS
Pobingia 2
Balliguda 2
Bamunigam 2
Minor Seminary (Balliguda)
Vocational Training Centre (Balliguda)
In addition, offices such as those of World Vision have also been destroyed.
The course of violence so far is:
24/12/07: Trouble began at Bamunigaon village when a Christmas pandal was attacked with guns, injuring three persons. On 25th December, church building at Bamunigaon has been attacked and damaged.
The Catholic Church at Baliguda a sub-divisional headquarters town, was suddenly attacked by mob and vandalised, ransacked and damaged very badly. The Computer Institute was attacked and completely destroyed. Ambulance Van set on fire.
25/12/07: CNI Church attacked and damaged at Baliguda...
World Vision ADP Office at Daringbadi was attacked and vandalised. Two Jeep and motor bikes set on fire.
Police Station at Tikabali a Block headquarters was surrounded by the mob and two police jeeps set on fire.
Two churches in Chakapadu area were attacked while church service was going on and people chased out and beaten up. Meals prepared for Christmas feast was trampled.
No church service was allowed to conduct in Phulbani the District headquarters of Kondhmal district, despite the presence of District Collector and Superintendent of Police. The district administration said they could go ahead to conduct church service at their own risk.
Chandballi Baptist Church in Balasore district was attacked while Christmas Service was going on and people were chased out and beaten up.
Towards evening heavy fighting between Christians and Hindu fundamentalist group erupted in Barakhama area, near Baliguda town.
Our efforts to get the government of Orissa to expeditiously contain the violence, arrest the culprits and restore the confidence of the poor tribal and Dalit Christian community in the have met with a phlegmatic bureaucratic response.
While the Christian leadership has been appealing for peace and harmony, aggressive religious fundamentalist elements or local ashrams and political organisations have a run of field, and are openly threatening the Church.
We appeal to the Central government to impress on the Government of Orissa t ensures that there is ample police protection given to the Christian community, its personnel, and insitutions in the state.
God Bless you
And God Bless India
Dr. John Dayal
Church leaders urge Prime Minister to ensure safety of Christians in Orissa
Over 30 churches, Institutions destroyed in Christmas violence, many injured as Hindutva extremists go on the rampage, fire on people in
tribal belt
[The following is the text of the memorandum submitted by Dr John Dayal, Member: National Integration Council, Government of India, on behalf of the All India Catholic Union (Founded 1919), the All India Christian Council (Founded 1999), and the President: United Christian Action, Delhi (Founded 1992). Dr Dayal was member of the Church delegation, together with Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Dr Richard Howell, and Dr Dominick Emmanuel, which was meeting Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the Orissa issue.]
Christmas 2007, 25-26 December 26, 2007
Dr Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
New Delhi
Re: Appeal for immediate action to prevent massacre of Christians in
the Tribal Phulbani region of Orissa, and desecration of Churches in the state. There must be no repeat of Gujarat’s Dangs area violence on Christmas 1998.
Dear Prime Minister
I bring to you and your government Greetings of Christmas from the All India Catholic Union, representing the 1.6 crore [16 million] Catholic laity in the country, and the All India Christian Council, whose membership includes 3,000 Independent churches, Human rights organisations and Insitutions.
It is, however, with a heavy heart that I also bring to you our collective apprehensions and fear that the current atrocities against Christians in the tribal area of Phoolbani in the State of Orissa is fast exploding into the type of violence we saw in the Dangs district of Gujarat during Christmas 1998. The official apathy, the police indifference and the freedom allowed to marauding bands of Hindutva fanatics and armed thugs in Gujarat has been repeated in Orissa in what is a planned conspiracy against the Church and our faith.
Spokesman of communal groups are coming on television and in the Print media to announce they will not tolerate the presence of Christians in the trial areas of Orissa. The threat of continuing and escalating violence, the targeting of Church leaders and the concerted attack on institution prove that the conspiracy has been planned over a period of time, with meticulous mobilisation. This would not have been possible without the complicity of the official machinery, and the backing of powerful political groups.
Unless immediate and urgent action is taken, we fear that the situation in Orissa will deteriorate and will lead to much suffering for our people, as also for the common men, women and children of the tribal areas, the poorest of the poor.
The main aggression is from the Kui Janakalyan Samiti. This organization had declared bandh on 25th and 26th December 2007 in order to press for their demands. But Christians feel that it was only ploy used against Christians in order to:
a) Disturb their Christmas celebration, the important feast of Christians; it is even a National holiday.
b) Instead of conducting bandh they have unleashed a reign of terror, destroying institutions, intimidating Christians and forcing them to go out of their homes.
c) Their entire attention is on driving away Christians from the region.
We narrate for you, in brief, the course of events and the volume of violence:
INSTITUTIONS ATTACKED SO FAR
PARISH CHURCH VILLAGE CHURCHES
Balliguda
Bodagan-Balliguda
Balliguda town
Kamapada – Balliuda
Pobingia
Mandipanka- Godapur
Baminigam
Jhinjirguda- Bamunigam
Ulipadaro – Bamunigam
Goborkutty-Kattingia
Kulpakia- Nuagam
3 more village church
CONVENTS PRESBYTERY
Balliguda Balliguda
Pobingia Pobingia
Phulbani Bamunigam
Bamunigam
HOSTELS
Pobingia 2
Balliguda 2
Bamunigam 2
Minor Seminary (Balliguda)
Vocational Training Centre (Balliguda)
In addition, offices such as those of World Vision have also been destroyed.
The course of violence so far is:
24/12/07: Trouble began at Bamunigaon village when a Christmas pandal was attacked with guns, injuring three persons. On 25th December, church building at Bamunigaon has been attacked and damaged.
The Catholic Church at Baliguda a sub-divisional headquarters town, was suddenly attacked by mob and vandalised, ransacked and damaged very badly. The Computer Institute was attacked and completely destroyed. Ambulance Van set on fire.
25/12/07: CNI Church attacked and damaged at Baliguda...
World Vision ADP Office at Daringbadi was attacked and vandalised. Two Jeep and motor bikes set on fire.
Police Station at Tikabali a Block headquarters was surrounded by the mob and two police jeeps set on fire.
Two churches in Chakapadu area were attacked while church service was going on and people chased out and beaten up. Meals prepared for Christmas feast was trampled.
No church service was allowed to conduct in Phulbani the District headquarters of Kondhmal district, despite the presence of District Collector and Superintendent of Police. The district administration said they could go ahead to conduct church service at their own risk.
Chandballi Baptist Church in Balasore district was attacked while Christmas Service was going on and people were chased out and beaten up.
Towards evening heavy fighting between Christians and Hindu fundamentalist group erupted in Barakhama area, near Baliguda town.
Our efforts to get the government of Orissa to expeditiously contain the violence, arrest the culprits and restore the confidence of the poor tribal and Dalit Christian community in the have met with a phlegmatic bureaucratic response.
While the Christian leadership has been appealing for peace and harmony, aggressive religious fundamentalist elements or local ashrams and political organisations have a run of field, and are openly threatening the Church.
We appeal to the Central government to impress on the Government of Orissa t ensures that there is ample police protection given to the Christian community, its personnel, and insitutions in the state.
God Bless you
And God Bless India
Dr. John Dayal
December 24, 2007
Taslima Nasrin: A Personal Account
THE VANISHING
by Taslima Nasreen
(Publication Source: www.drishtipat.org/blog/2007/12/22/vanishing /)
Where am I? I am certain no one will believe me if I say I have no answer to this apparently straightforward question. They may believe what they wish, but the truth is I just do not know. I don't even know how I am. Sometimes I even appear to forget my own existence. I am like the living dead: benumbed; robbed of the pleasure of existence and experience; unable to move beyond the claustrophobic confines of my room. Day and night, night and day. Death becomes an intimate. We embrace. Yes, this is how I have been surviving.
This did not begin the other day when I was bundled out of Kolkata. This has been going on for a while. It is like a slow and lingering death, like sipping delicately from a cupful of slow-acting poison that is gradually killing all my faculties. This is a conspiracy to murder my essence, my being, once so courageous, so brave, so dynamic, so playful. I realize what is going on around me but am utterly helpless, despite my best efforts, to wage a battle on my own behalf. I am merely a disembodied voice. Those who once stood by me have disappeared into the darkness.
I ask myself: what heinous crime have I committed? Why am I here, in this singularly unenviable position? What sort of life is this where I can neither cross my own threshold nor know the joys of human company. What crime have I committed that I have to spend my life hidden away, relegated to the shadows? For what crimes am I being punished by this society, this land, this world? I wrote of my beliefs and my convictions. I used words, not violence, to express my ideas. I did not take recourse to pelting stones or bloodshed to make my point. Yet, I am considered a criminal. I am being persecuted because it was felt that the right of others to express their opinions was more legitimate than mine. To disobey the powers that be is to court public crucifixion. Yes, I am a victim of this new crucifixion: is the nation not a witness to my suffering? Does the nation not witness my immense suffering, the death of my hopes, aspirations, and desires?
Does the nation not realize how immense the suffering must be for an individual to renounce her most deeply held beliefs? How humiliated, frightened, and insecure I must have been to allow my words to be censored. Only the expurgation of what they considered offensive satisfied them. If I had not agreed to their grotesque bowdlerization, I would have been hounded and pursued till I dropped dead. Their politics, their faith, their barbarism, and their diabolical purposes are all intent on sucking the lifeblood out of me. They will continue till they have bled me dry, expurgated these words, and removed these truths which are so difficult for them to stomach. Words are harmless, truth defenceless and devoid of arms. Truth has always been vanquished by the force of might. How can I - a powerless and unprotected individual - battle brute force? Come what may, though, I cannot take recourse to untruth.
What have I to offer but love and compassion? I have never wished ill of anybody. Call me romantic but I dream of a world of harmonious coexistence free from the shackles of hatred and strife. In the way that they used hatred to rip out my words, I would like to use compassion and love to rip the hatred out of them. Certainly, I am enough of a realist to acknowledge that strife, hatred, cruelty, and barbarism are integral elements of the human condition. This will not change; such is the way of the world. I am an utterly insignificant creature: how can I change all this? Even if I were to be eradicated or exterminated it would not matter one whit to the world at large. I know all this. Yet, I had imagined Bengal would be different. I had thought the madness of her people was temporary. I had thought that the Bengal I loved so passionately would never forsake me.
She did.
Exiled from Bangladesh, I wandered around the world for many years like a lost orphan. The moment I was given shelter in West Bengal it felt as though all those years of numbing tiredness just melted away. I was able to resume a normal life in a beloved and familiar land. So long as I survive, I will carry within me the vistas of Bengal, her sunshine, her wet earth, her very essence. The same Bengal whose sanctuary I once walked a million blood-soaked miles to reach has now turned its back upon me. I find it hard to believe that I am no longer wanted in Bengal. I am a Bengali within and without; I live, breathe, and dream in Bengali but, bizarrely, Bengal offers me no refuge
I am a guest in this land, I must be careful of what I say. I must do nothing which violates the code of hospitality. I did not come here to hurt anyone's sentiments or feelings. Arguably, I came here to be hurt. Wounded and hurt in my own country, I suffered slights and injuries in many lands before I reached India, where I knew I would be hurt yet again.
This is, after all, a democratic and secular land where the politics of the vote bank implies that being secular is equated with being pro-Muslim fundamentalists. I do not wish to believe all this. I do not wish to hear all this. Yet, all around me I read, hear, and see evidence of this. I sometimes wish I could be like those mythical monkeys, oblivious of all that is going on around me. Death who visits me in many forms now feels like a friend. I feel like talking to him, unburdening myself to him. You must realize I have no one to speak to, no one to unburden myself to.
I have lost my beloved Bengal. The Bengal I cherished, whose land, smells and sounds, hose very air was a part of me, is gone. I had to leave Bengal. No child torn from its other's breast could have suffered as much as I did during that painful parting. Once gain, I have lost the mother from whose womb I was born. The pain is no less than the ay I lost my biological mother. My mother had always wanted me to return home. That was something I could not do. After settling down in Kolkata, I was able to tell my mother, ho by then was a memory within me, that I had indeed returned home. How did it matter which side of an artificial divide I was on? I do not have the courage to tell my mother that my life now is that of a nomad. How can I tell her that those who had given me shelter saw it fit to expel me so unceremoniously? My sensitive mother would be shattered if I were to tell her all this. I choose not to tell her, not even when I am lonely and alone. Instead, I have now taken to convincing myself that I must have transgressed somewhere, committed some grievous error. Why else would I be in such an unenviable situation? Is daring to utter the truth a terrible sin in this era of falsehood and deceit? Don't others tell the truth? Surely they do not have to undergo such tribulations? Why do I have to undergo such suffering? Is it because I am a woman? What can be easier than assailing a woman?
I know I have not been condemned by the masses. If their opinion had been sought, I am certain the majority would have wanted me to stay on in Bengal. But when has a democracy reflected the voice of the masses? A democracy is run by those who hold the reins of power who do exactly what they think fit. An insignificant individual, I must now live life on my own terms and write about what I believe in and hold dear. It is not my desire to harm, malign, or deceive. I do not lie. I try not to be offensive. I am but a simple writer who neither knows nor understands the dynamics of politics. The way in which I was turned into a political pawn, however, and treated at the hands of base politicians, beggars belief. For what end you may well ask. A few measly votes. It is I who have suffered; I am the only victim of this great tragedy. The force of fundamentalism, which I have opposed and fought for very many years, has only been strengthened by my tragic defeat.
This is my beloved India, where I have been living and writing on secular humanism, human rights, and emancipation of women. This is also the land where I have had to suffer and pay the price for my most deeply held and fundamental convictions, where not a single political party of any persuasion has spoken out in my favour, where no non-governmental organization, women's rights' or human rights' group, has stood by me or condemned the vicious attacks launched upon me. This India is not known to me . Yes, it s true that individuals in a scattered, unorganized manner are fighting for my cause and journalists, writers, and intellectuals have spoken out in my favour. I do not know whether hey are familiar with my work or not, indeed if they have even read a single word I have penned. Yet, I am grateful for their opinions and support.
Wherever individuals gather in groups, they seem to lose their power to speak out. Frankly, this facet of the new India terrifies me. Then again, is this a new India, or even a facet of a new India; or is it the true face of the nation? I do not know. Since my earliest childhood I have regarded India as a great land and a fearless nation. The land of my dreams: enlightened, strong, progressive, and tolerant. I wish to live to be proud of that India. I will die a happy person the day I know India has forsaken darkness for light, bigotry for tolerance. I await that day. I do not know whether I will survive, but India and what she stands for has to survive, must be allowed to survive.
18 December Delhi
by Taslima Nasreen
(Publication Source: www.drishtipat.org/blog/2007/12/22/vanishing /)
Where am I? I am certain no one will believe me if I say I have no answer to this apparently straightforward question. They may believe what they wish, but the truth is I just do not know. I don't even know how I am. Sometimes I even appear to forget my own existence. I am like the living dead: benumbed; robbed of the pleasure of existence and experience; unable to move beyond the claustrophobic confines of my room. Day and night, night and day. Death becomes an intimate. We embrace. Yes, this is how I have been surviving.
This did not begin the other day when I was bundled out of Kolkata. This has been going on for a while. It is like a slow and lingering death, like sipping delicately from a cupful of slow-acting poison that is gradually killing all my faculties. This is a conspiracy to murder my essence, my being, once so courageous, so brave, so dynamic, so playful. I realize what is going on around me but am utterly helpless, despite my best efforts, to wage a battle on my own behalf. I am merely a disembodied voice. Those who once stood by me have disappeared into the darkness.
I ask myself: what heinous crime have I committed? Why am I here, in this singularly unenviable position? What sort of life is this where I can neither cross my own threshold nor know the joys of human company. What crime have I committed that I have to spend my life hidden away, relegated to the shadows? For what crimes am I being punished by this society, this land, this world? I wrote of my beliefs and my convictions. I used words, not violence, to express my ideas. I did not take recourse to pelting stones or bloodshed to make my point. Yet, I am considered a criminal. I am being persecuted because it was felt that the right of others to express their opinions was more legitimate than mine. To disobey the powers that be is to court public crucifixion. Yes, I am a victim of this new crucifixion: is the nation not a witness to my suffering? Does the nation not witness my immense suffering, the death of my hopes, aspirations, and desires?
Does the nation not realize how immense the suffering must be for an individual to renounce her most deeply held beliefs? How humiliated, frightened, and insecure I must have been to allow my words to be censored. Only the expurgation of what they considered offensive satisfied them. If I had not agreed to their grotesque bowdlerization, I would have been hounded and pursued till I dropped dead. Their politics, their faith, their barbarism, and their diabolical purposes are all intent on sucking the lifeblood out of me. They will continue till they have bled me dry, expurgated these words, and removed these truths which are so difficult for them to stomach. Words are harmless, truth defenceless and devoid of arms. Truth has always been vanquished by the force of might. How can I - a powerless and unprotected individual - battle brute force? Come what may, though, I cannot take recourse to untruth.
What have I to offer but love and compassion? I have never wished ill of anybody. Call me romantic but I dream of a world of harmonious coexistence free from the shackles of hatred and strife. In the way that they used hatred to rip out my words, I would like to use compassion and love to rip the hatred out of them. Certainly, I am enough of a realist to acknowledge that strife, hatred, cruelty, and barbarism are integral elements of the human condition. This will not change; such is the way of the world. I am an utterly insignificant creature: how can I change all this? Even if I were to be eradicated or exterminated it would not matter one whit to the world at large. I know all this. Yet, I had imagined Bengal would be different. I had thought the madness of her people was temporary. I had thought that the Bengal I loved so passionately would never forsake me.
She did.
Exiled from Bangladesh, I wandered around the world for many years like a lost orphan. The moment I was given shelter in West Bengal it felt as though all those years of numbing tiredness just melted away. I was able to resume a normal life in a beloved and familiar land. So long as I survive, I will carry within me the vistas of Bengal, her sunshine, her wet earth, her very essence. The same Bengal whose sanctuary I once walked a million blood-soaked miles to reach has now turned its back upon me. I find it hard to believe that I am no longer wanted in Bengal. I am a Bengali within and without; I live, breathe, and dream in Bengali but, bizarrely, Bengal offers me no refuge
I am a guest in this land, I must be careful of what I say. I must do nothing which violates the code of hospitality. I did not come here to hurt anyone's sentiments or feelings. Arguably, I came here to be hurt. Wounded and hurt in my own country, I suffered slights and injuries in many lands before I reached India, where I knew I would be hurt yet again.
This is, after all, a democratic and secular land where the politics of the vote bank implies that being secular is equated with being pro-Muslim fundamentalists. I do not wish to believe all this. I do not wish to hear all this. Yet, all around me I read, hear, and see evidence of this. I sometimes wish I could be like those mythical monkeys, oblivious of all that is going on around me. Death who visits me in many forms now feels like a friend. I feel like talking to him, unburdening myself to him. You must realize I have no one to speak to, no one to unburden myself to.
I have lost my beloved Bengal. The Bengal I cherished, whose land, smells and sounds, hose very air was a part of me, is gone. I had to leave Bengal. No child torn from its other's breast could have suffered as much as I did during that painful parting. Once gain, I have lost the mother from whose womb I was born. The pain is no less than the ay I lost my biological mother. My mother had always wanted me to return home. That was something I could not do. After settling down in Kolkata, I was able to tell my mother, ho by then was a memory within me, that I had indeed returned home. How did it matter which side of an artificial divide I was on? I do not have the courage to tell my mother that my life now is that of a nomad. How can I tell her that those who had given me shelter saw it fit to expel me so unceremoniously? My sensitive mother would be shattered if I were to tell her all this. I choose not to tell her, not even when I am lonely and alone. Instead, I have now taken to convincing myself that I must have transgressed somewhere, committed some grievous error. Why else would I be in such an unenviable situation? Is daring to utter the truth a terrible sin in this era of falsehood and deceit? Don't others tell the truth? Surely they do not have to undergo such tribulations? Why do I have to undergo such suffering? Is it because I am a woman? What can be easier than assailing a woman?
I know I have not been condemned by the masses. If their opinion had been sought, I am certain the majority would have wanted me to stay on in Bengal. But when has a democracy reflected the voice of the masses? A democracy is run by those who hold the reins of power who do exactly what they think fit. An insignificant individual, I must now live life on my own terms and write about what I believe in and hold dear. It is not my desire to harm, malign, or deceive. I do not lie. I try not to be offensive. I am but a simple writer who neither knows nor understands the dynamics of politics. The way in which I was turned into a political pawn, however, and treated at the hands of base politicians, beggars belief. For what end you may well ask. A few measly votes. It is I who have suffered; I am the only victim of this great tragedy. The force of fundamentalism, which I have opposed and fought for very many years, has only been strengthened by my tragic defeat.
This is my beloved India, where I have been living and writing on secular humanism, human rights, and emancipation of women. This is also the land where I have had to suffer and pay the price for my most deeply held and fundamental convictions, where not a single political party of any persuasion has spoken out in my favour, where no non-governmental organization, women's rights' or human rights' group, has stood by me or condemned the vicious attacks launched upon me. This India is not known to me . Yes, it s true that individuals in a scattered, unorganized manner are fighting for my cause and journalists, writers, and intellectuals have spoken out in my favour. I do not know whether hey are familiar with my work or not, indeed if they have even read a single word I have penned. Yet, I am grateful for their opinions and support.
Wherever individuals gather in groups, they seem to lose their power to speak out. Frankly, this facet of the new India terrifies me. Then again, is this a new India, or even a facet of a new India; or is it the true face of the nation? I do not know. Since my earliest childhood I have regarded India as a great land and a fearless nation. The land of my dreams: enlightened, strong, progressive, and tolerant. I wish to live to be proud of that India. I will die a happy person the day I know India has forsaken darkness for light, bigotry for tolerance. I await that day. I do not know whether I will survive, but India and what she stands for has to survive, must be allowed to survive.
18 December Delhi
December 23, 2007
Modi's Victory: Portents for Indian Democracy
by Ram Puniyani
Surpassing many predictions, Modi did very well in the recently held assembly elections, (Dec. 2007) bringing his victory tally to the one close to post carnage elections of 2002. While 2002 elections were preceded by an unprecedented polarization of the society, in the current one it appeared as if there are many a factors which will go against Modi, the internal dissidents, the incumbency factor, the efforts of secular groups and slightly better efforts by Congress. This gave the impression that the results will be touch and go, but they turned out to be similar to the previous one giving him a massive mandate.
This makes many a things clear for us. One, the polarization has seeped in very deep in the Gujarat society. The observation is that after every communal-violence, the major player of the violence, in this case, RSS affiliate, BJP, becomes stronger. In this electiona also, as was the case in the last elections, BJPs performance has been best where the carnage was maximum. In other parts of the country the polarization is reaching towards the critical line from where the rupture in fabric of society becomes irreversible. It seems that it has already become so in Gujarat. Gujarat which began as a Hindu Rashtra laboratory seems to be turning in to a factory of Hindu rashtra. One of the major success of RSS combine has been that it has been able to propagate successfully that Hindu Rashra is for the benefit of all the Hindus, there is a struggle between Hindu and Muslim interests, RSS is on the side of Hindus, while others are against the interests of Hindus. The real fact is that in the name of Hinduism, RSS is merely playing with the identity of Hindus and enhancing an agenda which is against the social transformation of caste and gender, which is against the interests of majority of Hindus.
Further it has succeeded in instilling the fear of Muslims in the majority community. The formula used is that all terrorists are Muslims, baying for the blood of Hindus and RSS combine is their only savior. The propaganda is that while so many terror attacks are taking place all over the country, the Hindus in Gujarat are safe due to Modi/BJP/RSS. The fact is in during NDA regime and also during the rule of Modi major terror attacks have taken place including the attack on parliament and Akshardham. This, so called attitude towards terrorists is projected by RSS combine as Nationalism. Nationalism as such should mean sticking to the values of freedom movement and Indian constitution. The second illusion created is that of progress of Gujarat. As such Gujarat was already amongst the leading developing states. Now it is being presented that all this is due to Modi. Goebells is being beaten hollow in the techniques of innovating the propaganda techniques.
Sometimes what matters is not the truth but as to what is propagated and made a part of social psyche. One cannot but draw many analogies from Hitler who went on to create a fascist state, and in due course do away with the democracy. This also led to the disintegration of Germany and its terrible defeat the World War II, rupturing the German national fabric. There also, one saw the charisma of one person overshadowing the party. There also the polarization was brought in and sustained by targeting one after the other community or social group. In Gujarat one sees the targeting of Muslims followed by the Christians. What will follow next will unfold shortly? The only difference between the German and Gujarat analogy is that in Germany the nation came under the impact of the fascist boots at a rapid pace in most of the parts of the state, while here the trishuls are marching at different pace in different states. In Gujarat the RSS agenda seems to have come close to the peak, while in other states, the march is on and is in different stages of intimidation of democracy.
The journey of Hindutva fascism in Gujarat began with the anti dalit riots of 1980-81, followed by anti OBC riots of 1986. Both these crystallized the support base of Hindutva, the upper caste, affluent sections. The NRI Gujaratis, the money order senders, played no mean role in consolidating the native fascism. The alienated NRI Gujaratis fed the local divisive politics with dollars and pounds, aggravating the divisive politics. Conscious social engineering was deployed to co-opt Adivasis and dalits into the Hindutva fold from late 1980s. For co-opting Adiviais, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram campaigned against the miniscule Christian missionaries and attacked the tiny Christian community. For co-opting other deprived sections, including dalits, intense religiosity was promoted, Pandurnag Shstri, Asaram Bapu and Morari Bapu etc. ploughed the ground for BJP to reap the harvest. Section of urban people saw the benefits of the type of intimidation brought in by RSS affiliate politics. While Muslims and Christians were directly hit the major goal was to subdue the dalts and Adivasis, to ensure that they remain where they are, that the status quo is maintained.
With Ram temple movement, the polarization along religious lines went on deepening. The state sponsored genocide on the pretext of Godhra sealed the issue. The laboratory took clear shape, all necessary instruments in place. The experiment began. Carnage was conducted with RSS affiliates playing the coordinating role. No rehabilitation for the carnage victims, no justice for those who suffered violence and then their gradual marginalization from social sphere. The relegating of Muslims minority as second class citizens has become an established fact and a section of Muslims even started the campaign to reconcile to their changed status. A large section of Muslims saw that the only alternative for them is to be on the bent knees, to join in the victory celebration of the murderer-in-chief of the genocide, which led to their miseries. Yes life has to go on irrespective! Some sheep are beginning to cultivate the illusion that wolf is their savior.
The indirect fall out of this was the eventual ghettoization of the community in Gujarat and its fall out all over the country was in the form of widening gulf between religious communities. It set rolling the similar phenomenon all over the country. While electorally BJP sounds weak at all India level, the seeds of communal politics and polarization have been sown all over.
While comparing the BJP/RSS politics with fascism in the decades of 1990 one was hard pressed to explain the absence of a charismatic leader at the national level at that time. Classically fascist movement has to have a charismatic leader at the helm. While Advani was spearheading Hindutva agenda and Vajpayee was wearing the liberal mask very cleverly, none of them had the requisite charisma to send the crowd into frenzy to call for the extra judicial killing of a criminal. Modi has filled the gap and that too very effectively. Not only he is getting away with justifying the fake encounter, he is able to project it as a sign of bravery and courage. With observations of Gujarat poll, with the type of charisma, which Modi has cultivated, the analogy with Modi-Hitler, Hindutva-Fascism is more or less complete.
History does not repeat it self in the same manner. In Germany Fascism rode all over Germany with uniform speed, with speed which was blinding, and went on to target Jews to begin with. RSS, the patriarch of all Hindu right wing organizations, began in 1925; it is from 1980s that is has been able to actualize its political agenda in a serious way.
While Modi's victory will pave the way for total abolition of liberal space in Gujarat, the party, BJP, has already been overshadowed by one supreme leader. Those dissatisfied with him are shown the door. The plight of minorities and weaker section is going to be worse. A section of affluent middle class will shine while the majority deprived sections' voices will be put under the carpet in the name of Gauravi Gujarat, under the slogan of development. And of course development will never reach them.
At national level, the rising communal forces will derive encouragement from this and in other states like Karnataka; BJP will try with stronger assertion. The BJP ruled states will strongly implement the Hindutva agenda i.e. emotive, anti minority and anti poor policies in a more systematic way.
Modi's victory is a warning signal of transition of sub critical fascism, transcending the critical line to strangulate democratic values in an ideological form all over the country. The disarray in the BJP will give way to strong optimism, to strive for power at center. All this may take place sooner than later if the secular movements do not wake up and broaden their reach. Even today those standing for secular values are much more in number and strength than those who have came under the spell of divisive forces, communal forces. The point is can they come together to ensure that the country does go in the direction being asserted by Modi/BJP/RSS type politics? Need that the vision of founding fathers of India is brought back to the social and political arena, that pluralism, justice and harmony is made the central focus of our movement.
Surpassing many predictions, Modi did very well in the recently held assembly elections, (Dec. 2007) bringing his victory tally to the one close to post carnage elections of 2002. While 2002 elections were preceded by an unprecedented polarization of the society, in the current one it appeared as if there are many a factors which will go against Modi, the internal dissidents, the incumbency factor, the efforts of secular groups and slightly better efforts by Congress. This gave the impression that the results will be touch and go, but they turned out to be similar to the previous one giving him a massive mandate.
This makes many a things clear for us. One, the polarization has seeped in very deep in the Gujarat society. The observation is that after every communal-violence, the major player of the violence, in this case, RSS affiliate, BJP, becomes stronger. In this electiona also, as was the case in the last elections, BJPs performance has been best where the carnage was maximum. In other parts of the country the polarization is reaching towards the critical line from where the rupture in fabric of society becomes irreversible. It seems that it has already become so in Gujarat. Gujarat which began as a Hindu Rashtra laboratory seems to be turning in to a factory of Hindu rashtra. One of the major success of RSS combine has been that it has been able to propagate successfully that Hindu Rashra is for the benefit of all the Hindus, there is a struggle between Hindu and Muslim interests, RSS is on the side of Hindus, while others are against the interests of Hindus. The real fact is that in the name of Hinduism, RSS is merely playing with the identity of Hindus and enhancing an agenda which is against the social transformation of caste and gender, which is against the interests of majority of Hindus.
Further it has succeeded in instilling the fear of Muslims in the majority community. The formula used is that all terrorists are Muslims, baying for the blood of Hindus and RSS combine is their only savior. The propaganda is that while so many terror attacks are taking place all over the country, the Hindus in Gujarat are safe due to Modi/BJP/RSS. The fact is in during NDA regime and also during the rule of Modi major terror attacks have taken place including the attack on parliament and Akshardham. This, so called attitude towards terrorists is projected by RSS combine as Nationalism. Nationalism as such should mean sticking to the values of freedom movement and Indian constitution. The second illusion created is that of progress of Gujarat. As such Gujarat was already amongst the leading developing states. Now it is being presented that all this is due to Modi. Goebells is being beaten hollow in the techniques of innovating the propaganda techniques.
Sometimes what matters is not the truth but as to what is propagated and made a part of social psyche. One cannot but draw many analogies from Hitler who went on to create a fascist state, and in due course do away with the democracy. This also led to the disintegration of Germany and its terrible defeat the World War II, rupturing the German national fabric. There also, one saw the charisma of one person overshadowing the party. There also the polarization was brought in and sustained by targeting one after the other community or social group. In Gujarat one sees the targeting of Muslims followed by the Christians. What will follow next will unfold shortly? The only difference between the German and Gujarat analogy is that in Germany the nation came under the impact of the fascist boots at a rapid pace in most of the parts of the state, while here the trishuls are marching at different pace in different states. In Gujarat the RSS agenda seems to have come close to the peak, while in other states, the march is on and is in different stages of intimidation of democracy.
The journey of Hindutva fascism in Gujarat began with the anti dalit riots of 1980-81, followed by anti OBC riots of 1986. Both these crystallized the support base of Hindutva, the upper caste, affluent sections. The NRI Gujaratis, the money order senders, played no mean role in consolidating the native fascism. The alienated NRI Gujaratis fed the local divisive politics with dollars and pounds, aggravating the divisive politics. Conscious social engineering was deployed to co-opt Adivasis and dalits into the Hindutva fold from late 1980s. For co-opting Adiviais, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram campaigned against the miniscule Christian missionaries and attacked the tiny Christian community. For co-opting other deprived sections, including dalits, intense religiosity was promoted, Pandurnag Shstri, Asaram Bapu and Morari Bapu etc. ploughed the ground for BJP to reap the harvest. Section of urban people saw the benefits of the type of intimidation brought in by RSS affiliate politics. While Muslims and Christians were directly hit the major goal was to subdue the dalts and Adivasis, to ensure that they remain where they are, that the status quo is maintained.
With Ram temple movement, the polarization along religious lines went on deepening. The state sponsored genocide on the pretext of Godhra sealed the issue. The laboratory took clear shape, all necessary instruments in place. The experiment began. Carnage was conducted with RSS affiliates playing the coordinating role. No rehabilitation for the carnage victims, no justice for those who suffered violence and then their gradual marginalization from social sphere. The relegating of Muslims minority as second class citizens has become an established fact and a section of Muslims even started the campaign to reconcile to their changed status. A large section of Muslims saw that the only alternative for them is to be on the bent knees, to join in the victory celebration of the murderer-in-chief of the genocide, which led to their miseries. Yes life has to go on irrespective! Some sheep are beginning to cultivate the illusion that wolf is their savior.
The indirect fall out of this was the eventual ghettoization of the community in Gujarat and its fall out all over the country was in the form of widening gulf between religious communities. It set rolling the similar phenomenon all over the country. While electorally BJP sounds weak at all India level, the seeds of communal politics and polarization have been sown all over.
While comparing the BJP/RSS politics with fascism in the decades of 1990 one was hard pressed to explain the absence of a charismatic leader at the national level at that time. Classically fascist movement has to have a charismatic leader at the helm. While Advani was spearheading Hindutva agenda and Vajpayee was wearing the liberal mask very cleverly, none of them had the requisite charisma to send the crowd into frenzy to call for the extra judicial killing of a criminal. Modi has filled the gap and that too very effectively. Not only he is getting away with justifying the fake encounter, he is able to project it as a sign of bravery and courage. With observations of Gujarat poll, with the type of charisma, which Modi has cultivated, the analogy with Modi-Hitler, Hindutva-Fascism is more or less complete.
History does not repeat it self in the same manner. In Germany Fascism rode all over Germany with uniform speed, with speed which was blinding, and went on to target Jews to begin with. RSS, the patriarch of all Hindu right wing organizations, began in 1925; it is from 1980s that is has been able to actualize its political agenda in a serious way.
While Modi's victory will pave the way for total abolition of liberal space in Gujarat, the party, BJP, has already been overshadowed by one supreme leader. Those dissatisfied with him are shown the door. The plight of minorities and weaker section is going to be worse. A section of affluent middle class will shine while the majority deprived sections' voices will be put under the carpet in the name of Gauravi Gujarat, under the slogan of development. And of course development will never reach them.
At national level, the rising communal forces will derive encouragement from this and in other states like Karnataka; BJP will try with stronger assertion. The BJP ruled states will strongly implement the Hindutva agenda i.e. emotive, anti minority and anti poor policies in a more systematic way.
Modi's victory is a warning signal of transition of sub critical fascism, transcending the critical line to strangulate democratic values in an ideological form all over the country. The disarray in the BJP will give way to strong optimism, to strive for power at center. All this may take place sooner than later if the secular movements do not wake up and broaden their reach. Even today those standing for secular values are much more in number and strength than those who have came under the spell of divisive forces, communal forces. The point is can they come together to ensure that the country does go in the direction being asserted by Modi/BJP/RSS type politics? Need that the vision of founding fathers of India is brought back to the social and political arena, that pluralism, justice and harmony is made the central focus of our movement.
How To Elect A Fascism
Tehelka Magazine, Dec 29, 2007
Narendra Modi has married progress to Hindutva with a diabolical brilliance the Congress has offered few answers to. SANKARSHAN THAKUR reports
MR MEHTA told me a simple and quite stunning thing: To understand Gujarat, understand Gujaratis first, there is nothing that matters more to them than dhando and dharma, business and religion. Would it be in that order, Mr Mehta? Quite, he said, what dharma are you going to do on an empty stomach? But please understand this carefully because a lot of you don’t, Gujarat is what Gujaratis make it, not what people like you want it to be, don’t fit our image to the requirements of your frame.
It had begun with a casual remark on the flight from Delhi to Vadodara, but slowly turned into a long and blunt discourse on understanding Gujaratis. “So you are one of those people,” he had said, with no wish to veil his sardonic tone, “You will go to Gujarat and tell the world what a terrible place it is, what a terrible people Gujaratis are.”
But terrible things have happened in Gujarat.
And a great many good things too, why does everyone ignore that? We are the country’s most prosperous part, everybody is happy. Not everybody, there are lots of people who are terribly unhappy, they have suffered, they are denied justice, they live oppressed.
Oh, only a small part, and that happens everywhere, injustice is everywhere. And why do you only always talk about them? Muslims are only a small part of Gujarat. But they are part of Gujarat and they live like second-class citizens.
Then they are free to leave, this is a free country, go away. There are many others in Gujarat, why do you not talk about them? Most people are prosperous and happy, nobody talks of them, they are Gujaratis too, why is nothing said about how they are, what they think, how they want to run their lives, what they think is right? You cannot tell us what is right and wrong, we must judge what is right for us.
Killing thousands of people and denying them justice cannot be right.
Of course not, I am not supporting what happened in 2002. And I probably know more about what happened then than TEHELKA has reported and the likes of Teesta Setalvad scream about. But these things happen, they happen everywhere, not just in Gujarat, people react, political parties react and often the reaction is violent. It happened in your Delhi in 1984, nobody goes on and on about it. Why do people go on and on about 2002, as if that is the only thing that happened in Gujarat? Many other things have happened, nobody talks about them. Do you know we have not had a single riot since 2002? And do you know why? Because it was made clear to Muslims we will not put up with nonsense any more, they were taught a lesson and they remain reined in. Peace has been achieved.
And at what cost?
That is not important, what is important is that there have been no riots, what is important is that Gujaratis are prospering and are happy. Gujarat is not Muslims alone, Gujarat is many, many more people. Why does nobody talk about them? We are not man-eaters, but we are entitled to our likes and dislikes. It is important to learn what we think, what is right for us.
And what is right for you?
But don’t you know already?
You will know soon, and you will stay say it is wrong, that electing Narendra Modi is wrong. Can’t you see the fallacy of it all, telling the people they are wrong, telling Gujaratis they are wrong, they voted wrong, is that not anti-democratic?
Hitler was elected too, and we all know what he did. So are you telling me you agree with what the Jewish nation is doing in the Middle-East? I might agree with it, but do you?
That’s an entirely different context, history has moved.
This is a different context too, but people like you will not understand because you don’t want to, you will impose the will of a small minority on the majority. But why? Is that not wrong too? Don’t try to preach to Gujaratis what to do, which way to go, they know well enough, and they will let you know soon.
YOU DON’T ask in the cities and towns. It’s a waste of time, unless, of course, Modi worship is music to your ears. The most diehard Congressman, the most optimistic liberal will tell you that — pointless asking about in the cities and towns, barring a few pockets of Leuva Patel rebellion in Saurashtra, they are all quite Modified.
Urban Gujarat is a partitioned demography presided over by the smug Modi smile, architect extraordinaire of fractures. Everywhere you go, you see the neon-lit eruption of seething frontiers mined with malevolence: distilled prejudice and hatred, often bilious flashes of anger, always displays of distrust and suspicion, of vile and vicious myth — the first thing a Muslim child is taught is how to slaughter a cow, Hindus are bent and devious, that is why they produce the best spinners. Bigotry begets bigotry, there’s little to choose between one kind or the other. But divides have their uses, especially at election time. Modi has reason to wear that smug smile, on his face and on the millions of China-made masks his propaganda machine has blitzed the state with. He has the greater bigotry behind him in urban Gujarat, there’s no arguing with that.
In most other states, that could be cause for comfort to the adversary — how far can a party with an urban base go, after all? But in Gujarat, that Indian truism stands upended. Close to 60 per cent of Gujarat is urban or semi-urban today. Thirty cities with populations in excess of one lakh, thirty other towns that have more than 50,000 people. A city hasn’t ended when a town begins and where the town tapers off and you are announced into a village, you must often gape — metalled streets, concrete housing, water, electricity, satellite TV, drainage and, fairly routinely, an NRI-fed stretch of ultra well-being: ATMs, air-conditioning, food courts that offer a vegetarian carnival. “The last few years have been great,” says Sudarshan Vyas, “Strong leadership and good governance have given people like me a stake in coming back and investing. This is what we have always needed.” Vyas has come back from the United States to his oncehumble village near Anand in central Gujarat to vote Modi. “This place is a sea-change from what it used to be, I can be in Ahmedabad in less than an hour, the roads are so good, and there is constant electricity so I can provide my old parents all the worldly comforts they can have. What more do you want?” Pointless querying Vyas about Gujarat’s Muslims; he’d tell you much the same things as Mr Mehta: Modi has made Gujarat safe and profitable for us, who cares what happens to the rest?
“Urbanisation is happening at a brisk rate in Gujarat,” says social scientist Achyut Yagnik, “and Modi has cleverly married the logic of Hindutva to the interests of that notion of prosperity to the exclusion of all else, that is the bedrock of Modi’s support base.” In that sense, Modi’s appeal isn’t very dissimilar to the alchemy of nationalism and progress Nazism once sold. Many have come to believe that Modi’s hard and heavy-handed Hindutva is the only insurance against disruptions that would imperil dhando. It’s a belief that holds good for the big industrialist and the small cornershop owner alike. “I’ll get to work only 20 days out of 30 if Modi is gone,” says our taxi driver, “There will be clashes and curfews every other day, we will sit idle and lose money. Under Modi nobody feels encouraged to disrupt life, that is what is good about him, strong man, no nonsense permitted.”
It is a myth, of course, that Modi is the fount of all of Gujarat’s visible prosperity, but it is a myth he has been able to sell well, it is a myth popularly believed, it is a myth that has become babble on the tongues of the thousands you meet wearing Modi masks. You don’t need Modi to announce any more that his five years in power have been better than the 45 years of the Congress, every other person you come across will tell you that until you begin to go numb with the truth of the myth. “Look at the Sensex,” argues a hosiery merchant at his till in Dahod’s chaotic hub, “Would the Sensex go so high without Narendrabhai? Think about it.” Popular election- time rhetoric has little time for analysis or history. With those that have convinced themselves of the Modi magic, it is pointless arguing that Gujarat has always been a relatively prosperous state, that Modi inherited a sound economic base, that Gujarat is also reaping the rewards of the buoyancy in the national economy.
And those that could have credibly challenged the myth did not. The Congress joined the argument too late and when it did, it did so with unstrategised dissonance. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Gujarat singing a song of liberalisation and of his party’s “big role” in the well-being of Gujaratis. His partymen are still extolling Nehruvian socialism. In the tribal heartland of Dahod, where the Congress is meant to be doing extremely well, party leaders are chanting the Indira mantra. “Modi is the party of the rich, the Congress is the party of the poor,” says Jaisingh Dangi, Congressman and tribal sarpanch of Mota Hathidra. “The poor, they are all with us, you will see, Indiraben had given us the right slogans.” But who remembers Indiraben anymore, you wonder. “The old kakas all remember Indiraben,” Dangi announces enthusiastically. But this campaign is not about the kakas. Garibi Hatao seems no longer a resonant cry in these parts, it’s swung on Amiri Badhao; the local grocer is playing the satta-bazaar on his mobile.
The Congress campaign lumbers from blunder to blunder, utterly uninspired by selfbelief. Its tagline for the poll is a skittish response to Modi’s “Jeetega Gujarat”. It reads“Chak de Gujarat”. Most of its talking points are reactive rather than proactive and they achieve more for Modi than for the Congress.
The latest is a poll ad with a picture of Masood Azhar emblazoned on top, the Congress’ way of trying to embarrass Modi on the handling of the Kandahar hijack. But that’s grist to Modi’s mill; he’s able to turn it around to telling effect. “There was a time when Mahatma Gandhi’s photographs used to appear on Congress posters, now they have Masood Azhar.” The crowd is in splits. This is Borsad in central Gujarat, traditionally Congress territory, home to Madhavsinh Solanki, former chief minister, and Bharat Solanki, current state Congress boss. But fifteen minutes of Modi demagoguery and you would not believe Borsad had never returned anyone but a Congress candidate since Independence. The man is almost Lalooesque on stage, casting a spell on the crowd with a rich weave of colloquialism, hyperbole and sarcasm until he has begun to command it like a puppeteer.
“They are calling Gujaratis murderers, tell me are you murderers?”
NO!“They are calling me a murderer, tell me am I a murderer?”
NO!!“You elected me last time, tell me did you elect a murderer?”
NO!!!“Have you ever heard a corruption charge against me?”
NO!!!!“They say I have 250 pairs of clothes, tell me should I be walking naked?”
NO!!!!! And rapturous laughter.
Modi flags are fluttering. Men wearing Modi masks and Modi shirts are doing mock victory laps in the crowds, waving, cockading, Modi-style. This is the Laloo Yadav of 2000, playing on hurt provincial pride, turning the “jungle raj” slogan against him upside down. So is Modi exhorting Gujaratis to send a response to all those who’ve been criticising Gujarat. “They say horrible things have happened in Gujarat, have horrible things happened?” NO!!!!!!!
You’d worry to your bones if you were a Congressman at a Modi show. You’d worry even if you were BJP, for this campaign has been the foundation ceremony of a separate entity: the Modi cult. His masks, his posters, his slogans, Modi, Modi, Modi all the way. The Sangh and the BJP are not used to such individualism, they work with cadres and command flows top down. Modi hasn’t seemed to care. “He has bypassed the party and the Parivar and gone straight to the people,” says a senior Ahmedabad journalist. “So much so that Advani has seemed to want him more than the other way round. And if he wins this one, the BJP will have a serious problem on its hands.”
You can sense what he is riding on all across Gujarat — the oppressive power of the excess of numbers. The subtext of these elections is not the idea of equality, it is the affirmation of the hegemony of the many over the few. Modi has refused even to acknowledge the minority, leave alone woo it. “Nobody talks about the Muslims,” says Prakash Karan, a retired engineer. “Nobody discusses what happened or is happening, nobody is interested, as if it was a closed chapter, it is suffocating. I have known people who fear to utter a word against Modi in public, there’s a frightening conspiracy of silence. If you are for Modi, you shout it out from the rooftops, if you are against, you merely listen.”
NOT FOR nothing does JS Bandukwala, probably the most celebrated and articulate survivors of Gujarat’s poisoned flames, go around preaching forgive and forget. Not for nothing is Usmancha, vendor of luscious kebabs in Ahmedabad’s Bhatiargali, arguing it is better Modi comes back to power.“Aur lafda nai hone ka, aur pitai nai khane ka, dhanda karna hai ne, chup se baitho, paisa kamao, zindagi chalao (don’t want more trouble, don’t want to be hit again, stay silent, earn your buck and get on with life).” Usmancha’s friend, wizened, white-bearded, is nodding assent. “Kya fayda? Modi aane se hi aman hai, sabko pata hai kaun kitne paani mein hai, hum to akliyat hain na (what’s the use? It’s better if Modi comes back, everybody here knows who stands where, and after all we are in a minority).”
Tridip Suhrud, one of the few liberal and forthright voices you come across in Gujarat, would still pin hope on those who do not speak, or speak out. “There is a section that does not like Modi, wants him out, but they are silent, it is time they spoke.” Suhrud himself has been speaking out at every forum he can find but he can sense the absence of resonance. Last week, members in the audience of a live TV show protested his presence on the panel and shouted him down. Retired police officer RB Sreekumar, who has been exposing the Modi administration’s partisan excesses in 2002, had to be escorted out of another show under guard. “In many senses, Gujarat has become a terrible place,” Suhrud says. “Even in Ahmedabad there are very few people you can talk to, and few whom you can reason with.” So, much as Suhrud and his like may hope, they themselves are proclaiming minority status in Modi’s Gujarat. And waiting, in desperate hope, for silence to speak.
Narendra Modi has married progress to Hindutva with a diabolical brilliance the Congress has offered few answers to. SANKARSHAN THAKUR reports
MR MEHTA told me a simple and quite stunning thing: To understand Gujarat, understand Gujaratis first, there is nothing that matters more to them than dhando and dharma, business and religion. Would it be in that order, Mr Mehta? Quite, he said, what dharma are you going to do on an empty stomach? But please understand this carefully because a lot of you don’t, Gujarat is what Gujaratis make it, not what people like you want it to be, don’t fit our image to the requirements of your frame.
It had begun with a casual remark on the flight from Delhi to Vadodara, but slowly turned into a long and blunt discourse on understanding Gujaratis. “So you are one of those people,” he had said, with no wish to veil his sardonic tone, “You will go to Gujarat and tell the world what a terrible place it is, what a terrible people Gujaratis are.”
But terrible things have happened in Gujarat.
And a great many good things too, why does everyone ignore that? We are the country’s most prosperous part, everybody is happy. Not everybody, there are lots of people who are terribly unhappy, they have suffered, they are denied justice, they live oppressed.
Oh, only a small part, and that happens everywhere, injustice is everywhere. And why do you only always talk about them? Muslims are only a small part of Gujarat. But they are part of Gujarat and they live like second-class citizens.
Then they are free to leave, this is a free country, go away. There are many others in Gujarat, why do you not talk about them? Most people are prosperous and happy, nobody talks of them, they are Gujaratis too, why is nothing said about how they are, what they think, how they want to run their lives, what they think is right? You cannot tell us what is right and wrong, we must judge what is right for us.
Killing thousands of people and denying them justice cannot be right.
Of course not, I am not supporting what happened in 2002. And I probably know more about what happened then than TEHELKA has reported and the likes of Teesta Setalvad scream about. But these things happen, they happen everywhere, not just in Gujarat, people react, political parties react and often the reaction is violent. It happened in your Delhi in 1984, nobody goes on and on about it. Why do people go on and on about 2002, as if that is the only thing that happened in Gujarat? Many other things have happened, nobody talks about them. Do you know we have not had a single riot since 2002? And do you know why? Because it was made clear to Muslims we will not put up with nonsense any more, they were taught a lesson and they remain reined in. Peace has been achieved.
And at what cost?
That is not important, what is important is that there have been no riots, what is important is that Gujaratis are prospering and are happy. Gujarat is not Muslims alone, Gujarat is many, many more people. Why does nobody talk about them? We are not man-eaters, but we are entitled to our likes and dislikes. It is important to learn what we think, what is right for us.
And what is right for you?
But don’t you know already?
You will know soon, and you will stay say it is wrong, that electing Narendra Modi is wrong. Can’t you see the fallacy of it all, telling the people they are wrong, telling Gujaratis they are wrong, they voted wrong, is that not anti-democratic?
Hitler was elected too, and we all know what he did. So are you telling me you agree with what the Jewish nation is doing in the Middle-East? I might agree with it, but do you?
That’s an entirely different context, history has moved.
This is a different context too, but people like you will not understand because you don’t want to, you will impose the will of a small minority on the majority. But why? Is that not wrong too? Don’t try to preach to Gujaratis what to do, which way to go, they know well enough, and they will let you know soon.
YOU DON’T ask in the cities and towns. It’s a waste of time, unless, of course, Modi worship is music to your ears. The most diehard Congressman, the most optimistic liberal will tell you that — pointless asking about in the cities and towns, barring a few pockets of Leuva Patel rebellion in Saurashtra, they are all quite Modified.
Urban Gujarat is a partitioned demography presided over by the smug Modi smile, architect extraordinaire of fractures. Everywhere you go, you see the neon-lit eruption of seething frontiers mined with malevolence: distilled prejudice and hatred, often bilious flashes of anger, always displays of distrust and suspicion, of vile and vicious myth — the first thing a Muslim child is taught is how to slaughter a cow, Hindus are bent and devious, that is why they produce the best spinners. Bigotry begets bigotry, there’s little to choose between one kind or the other. But divides have their uses, especially at election time. Modi has reason to wear that smug smile, on his face and on the millions of China-made masks his propaganda machine has blitzed the state with. He has the greater bigotry behind him in urban Gujarat, there’s no arguing with that.
In most other states, that could be cause for comfort to the adversary — how far can a party with an urban base go, after all? But in Gujarat, that Indian truism stands upended. Close to 60 per cent of Gujarat is urban or semi-urban today. Thirty cities with populations in excess of one lakh, thirty other towns that have more than 50,000 people. A city hasn’t ended when a town begins and where the town tapers off and you are announced into a village, you must often gape — metalled streets, concrete housing, water, electricity, satellite TV, drainage and, fairly routinely, an NRI-fed stretch of ultra well-being: ATMs, air-conditioning, food courts that offer a vegetarian carnival. “The last few years have been great,” says Sudarshan Vyas, “Strong leadership and good governance have given people like me a stake in coming back and investing. This is what we have always needed.” Vyas has come back from the United States to his oncehumble village near Anand in central Gujarat to vote Modi. “This place is a sea-change from what it used to be, I can be in Ahmedabad in less than an hour, the roads are so good, and there is constant electricity so I can provide my old parents all the worldly comforts they can have. What more do you want?” Pointless querying Vyas about Gujarat’s Muslims; he’d tell you much the same things as Mr Mehta: Modi has made Gujarat safe and profitable for us, who cares what happens to the rest?
“Urbanisation is happening at a brisk rate in Gujarat,” says social scientist Achyut Yagnik, “and Modi has cleverly married the logic of Hindutva to the interests of that notion of prosperity to the exclusion of all else, that is the bedrock of Modi’s support base.” In that sense, Modi’s appeal isn’t very dissimilar to the alchemy of nationalism and progress Nazism once sold. Many have come to believe that Modi’s hard and heavy-handed Hindutva is the only insurance against disruptions that would imperil dhando. It’s a belief that holds good for the big industrialist and the small cornershop owner alike. “I’ll get to work only 20 days out of 30 if Modi is gone,” says our taxi driver, “There will be clashes and curfews every other day, we will sit idle and lose money. Under Modi nobody feels encouraged to disrupt life, that is what is good about him, strong man, no nonsense permitted.”
It is a myth, of course, that Modi is the fount of all of Gujarat’s visible prosperity, but it is a myth he has been able to sell well, it is a myth popularly believed, it is a myth that has become babble on the tongues of the thousands you meet wearing Modi masks. You don’t need Modi to announce any more that his five years in power have been better than the 45 years of the Congress, every other person you come across will tell you that until you begin to go numb with the truth of the myth. “Look at the Sensex,” argues a hosiery merchant at his till in Dahod’s chaotic hub, “Would the Sensex go so high without Narendrabhai? Think about it.” Popular election- time rhetoric has little time for analysis or history. With those that have convinced themselves of the Modi magic, it is pointless arguing that Gujarat has always been a relatively prosperous state, that Modi inherited a sound economic base, that Gujarat is also reaping the rewards of the buoyancy in the national economy.
And those that could have credibly challenged the myth did not. The Congress joined the argument too late and when it did, it did so with unstrategised dissonance. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives in Gujarat singing a song of liberalisation and of his party’s “big role” in the well-being of Gujaratis. His partymen are still extolling Nehruvian socialism. In the tribal heartland of Dahod, where the Congress is meant to be doing extremely well, party leaders are chanting the Indira mantra. “Modi is the party of the rich, the Congress is the party of the poor,” says Jaisingh Dangi, Congressman and tribal sarpanch of Mota Hathidra. “The poor, they are all with us, you will see, Indiraben had given us the right slogans.” But who remembers Indiraben anymore, you wonder. “The old kakas all remember Indiraben,” Dangi announces enthusiastically. But this campaign is not about the kakas. Garibi Hatao seems no longer a resonant cry in these parts, it’s swung on Amiri Badhao; the local grocer is playing the satta-bazaar on his mobile.
The Congress campaign lumbers from blunder to blunder, utterly uninspired by selfbelief. Its tagline for the poll is a skittish response to Modi’s “Jeetega Gujarat”. It reads“Chak de Gujarat”. Most of its talking points are reactive rather than proactive and they achieve more for Modi than for the Congress.
The latest is a poll ad with a picture of Masood Azhar emblazoned on top, the Congress’ way of trying to embarrass Modi on the handling of the Kandahar hijack. But that’s grist to Modi’s mill; he’s able to turn it around to telling effect. “There was a time when Mahatma Gandhi’s photographs used to appear on Congress posters, now they have Masood Azhar.” The crowd is in splits. This is Borsad in central Gujarat, traditionally Congress territory, home to Madhavsinh Solanki, former chief minister, and Bharat Solanki, current state Congress boss. But fifteen minutes of Modi demagoguery and you would not believe Borsad had never returned anyone but a Congress candidate since Independence. The man is almost Lalooesque on stage, casting a spell on the crowd with a rich weave of colloquialism, hyperbole and sarcasm until he has begun to command it like a puppeteer.
“They are calling Gujaratis murderers, tell me are you murderers?”
NO!“They are calling me a murderer, tell me am I a murderer?”
NO!!“You elected me last time, tell me did you elect a murderer?”
NO!!!“Have you ever heard a corruption charge against me?”
NO!!!!“They say I have 250 pairs of clothes, tell me should I be walking naked?”
NO!!!!! And rapturous laughter.
Modi flags are fluttering. Men wearing Modi masks and Modi shirts are doing mock victory laps in the crowds, waving, cockading, Modi-style. This is the Laloo Yadav of 2000, playing on hurt provincial pride, turning the “jungle raj” slogan against him upside down. So is Modi exhorting Gujaratis to send a response to all those who’ve been criticising Gujarat. “They say horrible things have happened in Gujarat, have horrible things happened?” NO!!!!!!!
You’d worry to your bones if you were a Congressman at a Modi show. You’d worry even if you were BJP, for this campaign has been the foundation ceremony of a separate entity: the Modi cult. His masks, his posters, his slogans, Modi, Modi, Modi all the way. The Sangh and the BJP are not used to such individualism, they work with cadres and command flows top down. Modi hasn’t seemed to care. “He has bypassed the party and the Parivar and gone straight to the people,” says a senior Ahmedabad journalist. “So much so that Advani has seemed to want him more than the other way round. And if he wins this one, the BJP will have a serious problem on its hands.”
You can sense what he is riding on all across Gujarat — the oppressive power of the excess of numbers. The subtext of these elections is not the idea of equality, it is the affirmation of the hegemony of the many over the few. Modi has refused even to acknowledge the minority, leave alone woo it. “Nobody talks about the Muslims,” says Prakash Karan, a retired engineer. “Nobody discusses what happened or is happening, nobody is interested, as if it was a closed chapter, it is suffocating. I have known people who fear to utter a word against Modi in public, there’s a frightening conspiracy of silence. If you are for Modi, you shout it out from the rooftops, if you are against, you merely listen.”
NOT FOR nothing does JS Bandukwala, probably the most celebrated and articulate survivors of Gujarat’s poisoned flames, go around preaching forgive and forget. Not for nothing is Usmancha, vendor of luscious kebabs in Ahmedabad’s Bhatiargali, arguing it is better Modi comes back to power.“Aur lafda nai hone ka, aur pitai nai khane ka, dhanda karna hai ne, chup se baitho, paisa kamao, zindagi chalao (don’t want more trouble, don’t want to be hit again, stay silent, earn your buck and get on with life).” Usmancha’s friend, wizened, white-bearded, is nodding assent. “Kya fayda? Modi aane se hi aman hai, sabko pata hai kaun kitne paani mein hai, hum to akliyat hain na (what’s the use? It’s better if Modi comes back, everybody here knows who stands where, and after all we are in a minority).”
Tridip Suhrud, one of the few liberal and forthright voices you come across in Gujarat, would still pin hope on those who do not speak, or speak out. “There is a section that does not like Modi, wants him out, but they are silent, it is time they spoke.” Suhrud himself has been speaking out at every forum he can find but he can sense the absence of resonance. Last week, members in the audience of a live TV show protested his presence on the panel and shouted him down. Retired police officer RB Sreekumar, who has been exposing the Modi administration’s partisan excesses in 2002, had to be escorted out of another show under guard. “In many senses, Gujarat has become a terrible place,” Suhrud says. “Even in Ahmedabad there are very few people you can talk to, and few whom you can reason with.” So, much as Suhrud and his like may hope, they themselves are proclaiming minority status in Modi’s Gujarat. And waiting, in desperate hope, for silence to speak.
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