The Times of India
October 1, 2009
Editorial
Dangerous Liaisons
The saffron combine has dusted up an old agenda ahead of the Maharashtra polls. It wants to end migration to Mumbai and other urban centres in the state. This follows the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's (MNS) threat to put in place a permit system to regulate migration to India's financial capital. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a member of the ruling coalition, joined this populist bandwagon when it pushed reservation of 80 per cent jobs for locals. Now the BJP-Shiv Sena have upped the ante by including a similar demand in their manifesto. Thanks to the obsession with carving out vote banks, Raj Thackeray's extremist demands have now become mainstream.
The problem, however, is that it is flagrantly unconstitutional. Our Constitution guarantees the right of all Indian citizens to travel, work and reside anywhere in the country. Political parties that want to contest elections are legally bound to respect the Constitution. Exceptions can't be made for the BJP, Sena, MNS or NCP. The concern of these parties for the welfare of Maharashtrians is no doubt justified, but the prescription to improve their lot is misplaced. The suggested 'permit system' would tear apart the social and economic fabric of Mumbai and Maharashtra. Mega cities and economies across time and place have been built with the sweat of migrants. Mumbai is no exception. Its history and identity can't be altered by fiat from political parties.
The Congress-NCP government, having been in office for two successive terms, ought to take a large part of the blame for the state's worries. But the saffron combine, instead of raising issues of governance and there are so many of them wants to campaign with banal slogans. The alliance hopes to check the influence of MNS, an offshoot of the Sena, with a matching rhetoric. It may suit Sena's immediate interests to force a political discourse that pits Maharashtrian against non-Maharashtrian. But the BJP, which has a pan-Indian presence and wants to expand that, will pay a price for backing the Sena's narrow political vision.
The Congress and the NCP may have criticised the saffron combine's position on migration, but they too are guilty of facilitating a political climate that encourages chauvinist identity politics. The Congress-NCP government has all along winked at MNS's hate campaigns since its growth is expected to weaken the Sena. Such agendas, even if raised only as election rhetoric, can build momentum for disastrous policy changes. If Maharashtra enforces a permit system there will be retaliatory sanctions from other states, which poses problems for the country at large. Political parties must not allow temporary (and doubtful) electoral gains to override the interests of the country and its people.
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September 30, 2009
Political Communalisation of Religions and the Crisis of Secularism
in: The Economic and Political Weekly,September 26 - October 02, 2009
by D L Sheth
The Indian state has managed the asymmetrical relationships in a hierarchical, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society by redefining, institutionally and legally, the relationship among communities, and between them and the state in the terms of secularism. This recognised the basic rights of individuals as citizens and their collectively held cultural rights as members of communities. However, this framework has now been replaced by a new form of pluralist discourse that totalises interests and community identities, and this has resulted in a battle between majoritarian and minoritarian communalism. The Congress-led coalition’s victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll has given it a second chance after 2004 to restore the secularisation process by shifting the focus of the development discourse from communality to the backwardness of groups, which has remained submerged within every community of faith.
Full Text at: http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/13967.pdf
by D L Sheth
The Indian state has managed the asymmetrical relationships in a hierarchical, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society by redefining, institutionally and legally, the relationship among communities, and between them and the state in the terms of secularism. This recognised the basic rights of individuals as citizens and their collectively held cultural rights as members of communities. However, this framework has now been replaced by a new form of pluralist discourse that totalises interests and community identities, and this has resulted in a battle between majoritarian and minoritarian communalism. The Congress-led coalition’s victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll has given it a second chance after 2004 to restore the secularisation process by shifting the focus of the development discourse from communality to the backwardness of groups, which has remained submerged within every community of faith.
Full Text at: http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/13967.pdf
September 29, 2009
An Interview with D.R. Goyal
Frontline, Vol:26 Iss:19, Sep. 12-25, 2009
Converting Hindus to Hindutva
by AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA
Interview with D.R. Goyal, writer and historian.
D.R. Goyal joined the RSS as a schoolboy but realised within a few years that its professions were not all true.
D.R. GOYAL is known to have written the most authentic account of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in 1978. He was an RSS member from 1942 to 1947. His analysis of the hate-mongering culture of the RSS since Independence has earned him great respect in academic circles. As a school student, he joined the RSS, which projected itself as one of the organisations fighting for India’s independence, but it did not take him long to realise that the organisation’s professions were not necessarily true. Since then, he has been a chronicler of various developments in this “cultural” organisation. In 1962, when he was a Delhi University lecturer, he set up a unit of the Communist Party of India at the university. He later joined Subhadra Joshi (then Member of Parliament from Jabalpur, who also holds the distinction of having defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee) to form the Sampradayikta Virodhi Manch. The organisation is at present named the Qaumi Ekta Trust. He has also written a biography of Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani of Dar-ul-Uloom and is now working on a book on Indian madrassas. In an interview to Frontline, the author of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh elaborates on how the present crisis within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is historically linked to the RSS.
How do you understand the present crisis in the BJP? What is the role of the RSS in influencing the BJP’s recent decisions such as the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, the sidelining of Yashwant Sinha, or the issuing of a show-cause notice to Arun Shourie?
First of all, I would say that the present situation in the BJP is like the Mahabharat. Kauravas and Pandavas fighting each other. Instead of Krishna coming and trying to solve [the conflict], the RSS jumps in. Though it has always been influencing it, for the first time the RSS chief has come and issued a public statement before the Chintan Baithak of the BJP. He made a statement on TV that older people should retire and the leadership should be given over to people in their 50s and 60s. This kind of thing has never happened earlier.
Another feature of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to Delhi was that he did not even show the courtesy of visiting the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a major leader of the political formation founded by the RSS in 1951. Vajpayee was at that time attached to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and until the other day he led the party and the BJP government for six years. So, an ordinary human courtesy required that the head of an institution that founded the BJP should visit him. Not necessarily for any consultation, but even Vajpayee’s advice, if he could speak, would have been useful because he knew people more. Advani, in fact, came into the political scene much later, only in the 1960s. Before that he was only an RSS pracharak. Now it seems that Mohan Bhagwat has displayed a preference for Advani over Vajpayee, which means that he has rejected all those people who were with Vajpayee.
In other words, for Bhagwat, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and all these people are personae non gratae. He didn’t talk to any of them whereas he talked to everyone who was either with Rajnath Singh or with Advani. For him, the BJP means only those who are with Rajnath or Advani. The result of this was that in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP, no one could discuss the reasons for its defeat, which was the purpose of the meeting. If it had happened, discussions on ideology would have come in. The RSS did not want that. All these days, there have been discussions only about the real role of Hindutva. Although Advani tried to undermine it, he is known to be a person who is attached to Hindutva.
In 2002, Vajpayee was in favour of dismissing [Narendra] Modi, but Advani defended him. So in the RSS’ view, Advani is the real RSS man, a defender of the RSS’ ideology, not Vajpayee. Therefore anybody who is attached to Vajpayee has to be discarded.
Now what is the way ahead? Bhagwat says that he can only advise them [BJP leaders] but cannot suggest. In other words, he doesn’t want to take names although he has talked to all these people collectively as well as separately. Talking to [Arun] Jaitley, [Sushma] Swaraj, [Venkaiah] Naidu, Ananth Kumar means he was talking to people who were against Rajnath. Therefore, he talked separately to Rajnath.
Another thing to be noticed is that Bhagwat went to Murli Manohar Joshi’s house for lunch and didn’t go to anybody’s house until then. Murli Manohar Joshi had not come to meet him. He, therefore, went to his house. In other words, the RSS has a soft corner for Joshi also. That is why there is talk that there might be a place for Joshi either as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha or as president of the BJP. What happened at the meeting, one doesn’t know; because the RSS makes statements that are partial. It has never abdicated its role as the real mentor of the BJP, or even the Jana Sangh. When the Jana Sangh was founded, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was told by [M.S.] Golwalkar to set up an organisation and the RSS would give it its cadre but only on condition that its ideology would be promoted. So this was a political party of the RSS meant to promote Hindutva, which also means Hindu nationalism. Therefore, if the BJP does anything against the minorities, the RSS has no objection to it – be it the 2002 Gujarat carnage or Kandhamal and Karnataka in 2008. The RSS speaks only when there is a crisis inside the BJP’s organisation.
Why do you think not talking about ideology in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP would be beneficial for the RSS?
If they didn’t come out with any kind of discussions in the Chintan Baithak, it is because they didn’t want to disclose that there were people who were reporting to the RSS. What does Bal Apte’s report mean? That ideology was one of the reasons for the defeat. The RSS was never bothered about the future or fate of the political party. Ideology is prime. Therefore, Rajnath in his own defence repeatedly says that there can be no dilution of the ideology.
In other words, whatever Golwalkar has said about nationalism, whether it was his book We, Our Nationhood Defined or later on in Bunch of Thoughts, still holds. In We, Our Nationhood Defined he said that the minorities would have no rights except as second-class citizens unless they accepted the culture of the Hindus. In other words, unless they converted, they had no rights as citizens. And in the other book, Bunch of Thoughts, he says that there are three enemies of nationalism: Muslims, Christians and communists. If they have to adhere to that ideology, they can’t have any alliance with any of these three. The sin of Vajpayee was that when confronted with a question on the dilution of Hindutva in the U.S., he said that unless the party had two-thirds majority, ideology couldn’t be implemented. So he becomes an unwanted person. Advani will never say that. Atal Bihari also defends the Gujarat carnage, Karnataka and Kandhamal implicitly because he doesn’t speak a word against these incidents.
Do you suggest that the present crisis is a fight between the Advani and Vajpayee camps and is doctored by the RSS?
You see, the RSS doesn’t need Vajpayee. He was tolerated, not accepted.
The RSS wants a young leadership in the BJP. In a way, all the present outcastes such as Jaswant Singh, Shourie and Yashwant Sinha are more than 70 years old. Young leaders like Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are close to the RSS and also fall in the age bracket that Bhagwat suggested. Does it suggest some kind of remote controlling of the BJP by the RSS through a superficial talk of young leadership in order to sideline the people who were not close to it?
The idea of the youngsters is intended to promote the people who are from the RSS stream. The present crop of older leaders like Jaswant have not been trained in the RSS. The RSS knows that these people will not work for ideology. They will work for power. Until the BJP came to power, there was no problem between the RSS and the BJP. It was only in the 1990s, when there was a possibility of the BJP coming to power. At that time, there was a BJP conference in Bombay [now Mumbai]. There was also a parallel conference of the BJP that was addressed by the then RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan. He said that the BJP needed to be careful about the “corruption” that had entered in its ranks. A biography of Advani called Advent of Advani was issued. Even in this biography, it was suggested by the RSS that the BJP had got addicted to five-star cultures, which showed in the places where they conducted their meetings. Even the Shimla meeting was conducted in a luxurious hotel rather than a place suggested by the State government.
What has been the role of the RSS after Independence in determining the organisational decisions of the BJP and the Jana Sangh?
The RSS doesn’t only influence their decisions. The relationship between these political formations and the RSS ensures that the parties do not function independently. Political formations are meant to advance the ideology. In fact, earlier the RSS was not in favour of entering politics by itself. It thought unless it created an atmosphere in which its ideology was acceptable, it would not enter politics. “Our culture will be our politics,” it said. Therefore, it is very difficult for the RSS to enter politics directly or give up the influence it exerts in these political formations that it has created. That is the dilemma for the RSS.
Jaswant Singh was expelled on the grounds of writing something that violated the ideology of the RSS and the BJP. Even Arun Shourie came forward to confront the leadership of the party, but he was not expelled, perhaps because he is seen as a staunch Hindutva ideologue. Does this mean the RSS needs more people like Shourie who could engage intellectually with the civil society in favour of its ideology despite certain criticisms against it?
Once Arun Shourie was invited to preside over the Vijayadashami function, their annual function, in the Nagpur headquarters of the RSS. A person who has been invited to such a function is normally considered a promoter of the ideology, though he may not be close to the Sangh. Moreover, his objection to the functioning of the BJP is that the ideology has not been promoted in the way it should have been. Therefore, the RSS should take over, he means, but the RSS cannot do that. At the same time, Mohan Bhagwat had to say that he is a respected journalist and an intellectual.
So you think this is the reason the RSS has not been criticising Narendra Modi despite his efforts to distance himself from the RSS over the last few years?
Modi is doing what the RSS wants. The only problem between Modi and the RSS in Gujarat is that Modi has not been able to win over the castes that are against him.
Do you mean to say that the RSS is a very strong organisation? The only thing that matters to it is its ideology. Is it itself free from power politics?
The RSS is not free from power politics. Sometimes problems do arise, but it solves those by dissolving them. There has been a lot of discussion on whether pracharaks should marry or not and on matters such as these. But there has been no difference on ideology. For instance, the difference between Mohan Bhagwat and K.S. Sudarshan was on whether the organisation should tolerate a person like Advani or not. When Bhagwat left Delhi, Sudarshan met him in order to explain that he was not against him. In other words, the difference between the chief and ex-chief was about the treatment that should be given to Advani because there were complaints of “ideological corruption” against Advani also.
How different is Mohan Bhagwat from his predecessor Sudarshan? What difference does it make to the BJP? Since the influence of the RSS is so strong and Bhagwat for the first time came out speaking before the Chintan Baithak, could a step such as the expulsion of the president over any indiscipline be repeated in future? Jana Sangh presidents Mauli Charan Sharma and Balraj Madhok were expelled from the party on the RSS’ order. Advani was just asked to resign from the presidentship, though.
It doesn’t make any difference to the BJP. Bhagwat’s only problem is that he wants a younger generation to come up in the BJP. Sudarshan had also wanted this. He had said this to both Advani and Vajpayee. But Bhagwat went a step ahead to prescribe the age limit of the leadership (between 50 and 60). So Murli Manohar Joshi is also out in that way. He has not named any of them. But apart from the prominent four or five, it could also be Bal Apte and Ram Lal. These are people who are delegated in the BJP by the RSS to look after its political formation.
Jana Sangh president Balraj Madhok was expelled because he had written a letter that the organising committee should not be chosen by the RSS but be elected by the respective units of the Jana Sangh. They would be paid by the Jana Sangh, not the RSS. What Madhok meant was that the Jana Sangh should be detached from the RSS. Advani is not able to project such an approach though he says that the RSS should not interfere in the BJP’s day-to-day decisions. What does it mean? Does it mean the RSS should not appoint the organising secretary? His only objection is that the RSS should not speak up when the BJP makes a statement that the RSS is critical of. After the Jinnah controversy, Advani was just asked to resign and was not expelled because unlike Madhok he was ready to accept the terms and conditions of the RSS. Madhok was not prepared to accept the RSS’ diktat. Madhok made a very strong statement against the RSS after his expulsion in Ahmedabad.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
M.S. Golwalkar, who believed that the minorities should have no rights except as second-class citizens.
In 1985, when the BJP took stock of the reasons for its abject defeat and Vajpayee was asked whether it marked a return to the Jana Sangh type of politics, he countered, “When did we get away from the Jana Sangh?” The Jana Sangh was openly a political unit of the RSS, which the BJP claims it is not. Even the RSS claims that. On November 6, 1977, however, he said exactly the opposite. “When we joined the Janata Party we had given up our old beliefs and faiths and there was no question of going back.” It was almost the same case with Advani regarding the question of Hindutva before the election. Is this some sort of ideological confusion or temporary dishonesty for political gains? What is that which prevents the BJP from charting its own path and emerge as a right-wing organisation with its own brand of Hindutva for political gains?
Neither of the two parties, the BJP or the Jana Sangh, has grown in politics. They have grown in the RSS. The RSS has put them in politics. Therefore, they have to surrender. There was a journalist who brought out a magazine called Mother India from Bombay. It was about the film industry, but there were editorials, which talked about politics. He once made a comment that Vajpayee says something but when it comes to the crunch, he goes and kneels before the RSS chief. There is no difference between the BJP and the RSS. I always say that the BJP grew by accident. The BJP grew because of the ideological mistakes committed by the Congress. First, Indira Gandhi destroyed all the second-rung leaders.
When Rajiv Gandhi came, he was an inexperienced politician. He took decisions that were not in conformity with his party. For example, he permitted the foundation stone of Ram Mandir to be laid in Ayodhya. He also changed the law in the Shah Bano case. He was almost doing what the BJP wanted to do. Before that in 1983, Mrs. Gandhi made speeches in Jammu and later in Delhi, which, according to [K.R.] Malkani, were in accordance with the ideology of the RSS. When you begin to walk in those lines, then naturally the other party becomes acceptable. So the Muslims, Dalits, OBCs [Other Backward Classes], all of them got alienated from the Congress. It was these mistakes of the Congress which led to the rise of Jana Sangh and then the BJP. If there was no Emergency, in 1977 how could a conglomerate of various parties come to power?
When the BJP makes statements accepting different cultures in India, they have never defined culture. In fact they have never differed from Golwalkar who said that religion is the basis of culture, in his book We, Our Nationhood Defined. If religion is the basis of culture, then those who do not believe in the Hindu religion are not a part of this culture. It is not even temporary dishonesty. It is just meant for public consumption, not for practice. People went gaga over Vajpayee’s tolerance, but was he able to dismiss Modi? Did he differ from Modi when Advani approved the killing of Graham Staines? The RSS was happy with a leader who tolerated the ideology.
You have shown in your book how the RSS believes in lie-mongering and has a convenient memory. Despite their claims of being the most nationalist force, Savarkar appealed for clemency from the British. In your book, you reproduced the apologetic letter by Balasaheb Deoras to Indira Gandhi during the time of Emergency so that they were not arrested. Almost in the same vein, Advani lied when he claimed ignorance about Jaswant Singh accompanying terrorists in the Kandahar hijack episode. Jaswant Singh called his bluff. What does this history suggest?
You see, they had basically no objection to the Emergency. In fact, Balasaheb Deoras, the RSS chief, told Indira Gandhi that if she was prepared to join them, they would help her to fight the communists. They were prepared to support the Congress. Even now, if the BJP adopts all the economic and foreign policies of the Congress, the RSS will have no objections. If one enemy can be fought with the help of the Congress, the RSS doesn’t mind it. Why do they go to Jinnah again and again? Now Jaswant Singh has gone overboard and therefore got expelled. Advani said Jinnah is a great man. One should understand that if you are a follower of Savarkar, you are bound to be a follower of Jinnah too. Savarkar in 1937, before the Pakistan resolution in 1940, had made a statement that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and cannot live together. The hue and cry is just because Jaswant Singh is not acceptable to the RSS and not about Jinnah.
Some in the RSS are repackaging ‘Hindutva’. Something like “anyone who is born in India is a Hindu”. Bhagwat even said that they are open to all. This goes against the Golwalkar (in his book Bunch of Thoughts, Chapter 10) and Savarkar. Both of them denounced territorial nationalism and strictly defined who is a Hindu. Only a person who embraces Hindu culture could be a Hindu. So do you see a shift in the ideology of the RSS or does that amount to the same thing? They have been using religiosity and nationality almost in the same vein, in terms of an all-encompassing Hindu nation.
S. SUBRAMANIUM
L.K. ADVANI at an RSS convention in Agra in May 2002.
No, this is a hypocritical deceit. The RSS does not come out in the open with anything. For example, the RSS would not support what Varun Gandhi said, but they would have no objection if you, like Modi, create a situation in which the minorities are killed. That is the difference. They realise that Hindus at large would not accept their original ideology. Therefore, they want to mould Hindus into their ideology. In fact, the idea is not to convert Muslims or Christians. The idea is to convert Hindus to Hindutva ideology. For them, the weakness lies with the Hindus.
Since you have spoken so much about Vajpayee, do you mean to say that Vajpayee was not a strong Hindutva ideologue himself?
For this, you have to go back to the genesis of the political formation. When, after 1948, the RSS was banned, there was a lot of discussion. In the old files of the Organiser between 1946 and 47, there are a whole lot of letters where people say that unless you advance into politics, you will not be able to defend yourself. Because when there was a ban on the RSS, there was nobody to defend it. If you want some defence, you have to take the plunge into politics. I remember one of those letters, which read, “Whatever cuts in politics, cuts in life.” This means whoever is effective in politics, he is also able to defend its ideological practice in life. Therefore, a political formation was created to defend what the RSS does, in its own name or in any other name. Whatever the Bajrang Dal or the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad] does, it is defended by the BJP.
You have always been an acute observer of the RSS both from inside and outside. Over all these years, what change have you seen in the working of the RSS?
M. KARUNAKARAN
AN RSS DRILL in progress at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai on August 16. Goyal says the RSS no longer draws as many young boys as it used to.
One big change that I see is that the RSS now does not attract school students or even young college students. Youngsters in shakhas are slowly becoming invisible. Life has changed. A child would watch TV in the evening rather than go to a shakha. In the morning, they go to school. Therefore the ABVP is the recruiting ground for political work and violence. After all, where has Arun Jaitley come from?
Finally, where do you see the BJP going from here?
It is very difficult to find a suitable person to preside over the party. I don’t see any future for the party for the next 10 years, at least until 2014. In fact, I am sorry to say that the communists have blundered badly, otherwise, here was a chance [for them] to become the main opposition party.
Politics today is more fluid than it ever was. After Independence, the freedom fighters were dictating terms as long as they were alive. But today, ideology is there but idealism is no more there.
Converting Hindus to Hindutva
by AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA
Interview with D.R. Goyal, writer and historian.
D.R. Goyal joined the RSS as a schoolboy but realised within a few years that its professions were not all true.
D.R. GOYAL is known to have written the most authentic account of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in 1978. He was an RSS member from 1942 to 1947. His analysis of the hate-mongering culture of the RSS since Independence has earned him great respect in academic circles. As a school student, he joined the RSS, which projected itself as one of the organisations fighting for India’s independence, but it did not take him long to realise that the organisation’s professions were not necessarily true. Since then, he has been a chronicler of various developments in this “cultural” organisation. In 1962, when he was a Delhi University lecturer, he set up a unit of the Communist Party of India at the university. He later joined Subhadra Joshi (then Member of Parliament from Jabalpur, who also holds the distinction of having defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee) to form the Sampradayikta Virodhi Manch. The organisation is at present named the Qaumi Ekta Trust. He has also written a biography of Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani of Dar-ul-Uloom and is now working on a book on Indian madrassas. In an interview to Frontline, the author of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh elaborates on how the present crisis within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is historically linked to the RSS.
How do you understand the present crisis in the BJP? What is the role of the RSS in influencing the BJP’s recent decisions such as the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, the sidelining of Yashwant Sinha, or the issuing of a show-cause notice to Arun Shourie?
First of all, I would say that the present situation in the BJP is like the Mahabharat. Kauravas and Pandavas fighting each other. Instead of Krishna coming and trying to solve [the conflict], the RSS jumps in. Though it has always been influencing it, for the first time the RSS chief has come and issued a public statement before the Chintan Baithak of the BJP. He made a statement on TV that older people should retire and the leadership should be given over to people in their 50s and 60s. This kind of thing has never happened earlier.
Another feature of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to Delhi was that he did not even show the courtesy of visiting the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a major leader of the political formation founded by the RSS in 1951. Vajpayee was at that time attached to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and until the other day he led the party and the BJP government for six years. So, an ordinary human courtesy required that the head of an institution that founded the BJP should visit him. Not necessarily for any consultation, but even Vajpayee’s advice, if he could speak, would have been useful because he knew people more. Advani, in fact, came into the political scene much later, only in the 1960s. Before that he was only an RSS pracharak. Now it seems that Mohan Bhagwat has displayed a preference for Advani over Vajpayee, which means that he has rejected all those people who were with Vajpayee.
In other words, for Bhagwat, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and all these people are personae non gratae. He didn’t talk to any of them whereas he talked to everyone who was either with Rajnath Singh or with Advani. For him, the BJP means only those who are with Rajnath or Advani. The result of this was that in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP, no one could discuss the reasons for its defeat, which was the purpose of the meeting. If it had happened, discussions on ideology would have come in. The RSS did not want that. All these days, there have been discussions only about the real role of Hindutva. Although Advani tried to undermine it, he is known to be a person who is attached to Hindutva.
In 2002, Vajpayee was in favour of dismissing [Narendra] Modi, but Advani defended him. So in the RSS’ view, Advani is the real RSS man, a defender of the RSS’ ideology, not Vajpayee. Therefore anybody who is attached to Vajpayee has to be discarded.
Now what is the way ahead? Bhagwat says that he can only advise them [BJP leaders] but cannot suggest. In other words, he doesn’t want to take names although he has talked to all these people collectively as well as separately. Talking to [Arun] Jaitley, [Sushma] Swaraj, [Venkaiah] Naidu, Ananth Kumar means he was talking to people who were against Rajnath. Therefore, he talked separately to Rajnath.
Another thing to be noticed is that Bhagwat went to Murli Manohar Joshi’s house for lunch and didn’t go to anybody’s house until then. Murli Manohar Joshi had not come to meet him. He, therefore, went to his house. In other words, the RSS has a soft corner for Joshi also. That is why there is talk that there might be a place for Joshi either as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha or as president of the BJP. What happened at the meeting, one doesn’t know; because the RSS makes statements that are partial. It has never abdicated its role as the real mentor of the BJP, or even the Jana Sangh. When the Jana Sangh was founded, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was told by [M.S.] Golwalkar to set up an organisation and the RSS would give it its cadre but only on condition that its ideology would be promoted. So this was a political party of the RSS meant to promote Hindutva, which also means Hindu nationalism. Therefore, if the BJP does anything against the minorities, the RSS has no objection to it – be it the 2002 Gujarat carnage or Kandhamal and Karnataka in 2008. The RSS speaks only when there is a crisis inside the BJP’s organisation.
Why do you think not talking about ideology in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP would be beneficial for the RSS?
If they didn’t come out with any kind of discussions in the Chintan Baithak, it is because they didn’t want to disclose that there were people who were reporting to the RSS. What does Bal Apte’s report mean? That ideology was one of the reasons for the defeat. The RSS was never bothered about the future or fate of the political party. Ideology is prime. Therefore, Rajnath in his own defence repeatedly says that there can be no dilution of the ideology.
In other words, whatever Golwalkar has said about nationalism, whether it was his book We, Our Nationhood Defined or later on in Bunch of Thoughts, still holds. In We, Our Nationhood Defined he said that the minorities would have no rights except as second-class citizens unless they accepted the culture of the Hindus. In other words, unless they converted, they had no rights as citizens. And in the other book, Bunch of Thoughts, he says that there are three enemies of nationalism: Muslims, Christians and communists. If they have to adhere to that ideology, they can’t have any alliance with any of these three. The sin of Vajpayee was that when confronted with a question on the dilution of Hindutva in the U.S., he said that unless the party had two-thirds majority, ideology couldn’t be implemented. So he becomes an unwanted person. Advani will never say that. Atal Bihari also defends the Gujarat carnage, Karnataka and Kandhamal implicitly because he doesn’t speak a word against these incidents.
Do you suggest that the present crisis is a fight between the Advani and Vajpayee camps and is doctored by the RSS?
You see, the RSS doesn’t need Vajpayee. He was tolerated, not accepted.
The RSS wants a young leadership in the BJP. In a way, all the present outcastes such as Jaswant Singh, Shourie and Yashwant Sinha are more than 70 years old. Young leaders like Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are close to the RSS and also fall in the age bracket that Bhagwat suggested. Does it suggest some kind of remote controlling of the BJP by the RSS through a superficial talk of young leadership in order to sideline the people who were not close to it?
The idea of the youngsters is intended to promote the people who are from the RSS stream. The present crop of older leaders like Jaswant have not been trained in the RSS. The RSS knows that these people will not work for ideology. They will work for power. Until the BJP came to power, there was no problem between the RSS and the BJP. It was only in the 1990s, when there was a possibility of the BJP coming to power. At that time, there was a BJP conference in Bombay [now Mumbai]. There was also a parallel conference of the BJP that was addressed by the then RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan. He said that the BJP needed to be careful about the “corruption” that had entered in its ranks. A biography of Advani called Advent of Advani was issued. Even in this biography, it was suggested by the RSS that the BJP had got addicted to five-star cultures, which showed in the places where they conducted their meetings. Even the Shimla meeting was conducted in a luxurious hotel rather than a place suggested by the State government.
What has been the role of the RSS after Independence in determining the organisational decisions of the BJP and the Jana Sangh?
The RSS doesn’t only influence their decisions. The relationship between these political formations and the RSS ensures that the parties do not function independently. Political formations are meant to advance the ideology. In fact, earlier the RSS was not in favour of entering politics by itself. It thought unless it created an atmosphere in which its ideology was acceptable, it would not enter politics. “Our culture will be our politics,” it said. Therefore, it is very difficult for the RSS to enter politics directly or give up the influence it exerts in these political formations that it has created. That is the dilemma for the RSS.
Jaswant Singh was expelled on the grounds of writing something that violated the ideology of the RSS and the BJP. Even Arun Shourie came forward to confront the leadership of the party, but he was not expelled, perhaps because he is seen as a staunch Hindutva ideologue. Does this mean the RSS needs more people like Shourie who could engage intellectually with the civil society in favour of its ideology despite certain criticisms against it?
Once Arun Shourie was invited to preside over the Vijayadashami function, their annual function, in the Nagpur headquarters of the RSS. A person who has been invited to such a function is normally considered a promoter of the ideology, though he may not be close to the Sangh. Moreover, his objection to the functioning of the BJP is that the ideology has not been promoted in the way it should have been. Therefore, the RSS should take over, he means, but the RSS cannot do that. At the same time, Mohan Bhagwat had to say that he is a respected journalist and an intellectual.
So you think this is the reason the RSS has not been criticising Narendra Modi despite his efforts to distance himself from the RSS over the last few years?
Modi is doing what the RSS wants. The only problem between Modi and the RSS in Gujarat is that Modi has not been able to win over the castes that are against him.
Do you mean to say that the RSS is a very strong organisation? The only thing that matters to it is its ideology. Is it itself free from power politics?
The RSS is not free from power politics. Sometimes problems do arise, but it solves those by dissolving them. There has been a lot of discussion on whether pracharaks should marry or not and on matters such as these. But there has been no difference on ideology. For instance, the difference between Mohan Bhagwat and K.S. Sudarshan was on whether the organisation should tolerate a person like Advani or not. When Bhagwat left Delhi, Sudarshan met him in order to explain that he was not against him. In other words, the difference between the chief and ex-chief was about the treatment that should be given to Advani because there were complaints of “ideological corruption” against Advani also.
How different is Mohan Bhagwat from his predecessor Sudarshan? What difference does it make to the BJP? Since the influence of the RSS is so strong and Bhagwat for the first time came out speaking before the Chintan Baithak, could a step such as the expulsion of the president over any indiscipline be repeated in future? Jana Sangh presidents Mauli Charan Sharma and Balraj Madhok were expelled from the party on the RSS’ order. Advani was just asked to resign from the presidentship, though.
It doesn’t make any difference to the BJP. Bhagwat’s only problem is that he wants a younger generation to come up in the BJP. Sudarshan had also wanted this. He had said this to both Advani and Vajpayee. But Bhagwat went a step ahead to prescribe the age limit of the leadership (between 50 and 60). So Murli Manohar Joshi is also out in that way. He has not named any of them. But apart from the prominent four or five, it could also be Bal Apte and Ram Lal. These are people who are delegated in the BJP by the RSS to look after its political formation.
Jana Sangh president Balraj Madhok was expelled because he had written a letter that the organising committee should not be chosen by the RSS but be elected by the respective units of the Jana Sangh. They would be paid by the Jana Sangh, not the RSS. What Madhok meant was that the Jana Sangh should be detached from the RSS. Advani is not able to project such an approach though he says that the RSS should not interfere in the BJP’s day-to-day decisions. What does it mean? Does it mean the RSS should not appoint the organising secretary? His only objection is that the RSS should not speak up when the BJP makes a statement that the RSS is critical of. After the Jinnah controversy, Advani was just asked to resign and was not expelled because unlike Madhok he was ready to accept the terms and conditions of the RSS. Madhok was not prepared to accept the RSS’ diktat. Madhok made a very strong statement against the RSS after his expulsion in Ahmedabad.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
M.S. Golwalkar, who believed that the minorities should have no rights except as second-class citizens.
In 1985, when the BJP took stock of the reasons for its abject defeat and Vajpayee was asked whether it marked a return to the Jana Sangh type of politics, he countered, “When did we get away from the Jana Sangh?” The Jana Sangh was openly a political unit of the RSS, which the BJP claims it is not. Even the RSS claims that. On November 6, 1977, however, he said exactly the opposite. “When we joined the Janata Party we had given up our old beliefs and faiths and there was no question of going back.” It was almost the same case with Advani regarding the question of Hindutva before the election. Is this some sort of ideological confusion or temporary dishonesty for political gains? What is that which prevents the BJP from charting its own path and emerge as a right-wing organisation with its own brand of Hindutva for political gains?
Neither of the two parties, the BJP or the Jana Sangh, has grown in politics. They have grown in the RSS. The RSS has put them in politics. Therefore, they have to surrender. There was a journalist who brought out a magazine called Mother India from Bombay. It was about the film industry, but there were editorials, which talked about politics. He once made a comment that Vajpayee says something but when it comes to the crunch, he goes and kneels before the RSS chief. There is no difference between the BJP and the RSS. I always say that the BJP grew by accident. The BJP grew because of the ideological mistakes committed by the Congress. First, Indira Gandhi destroyed all the second-rung leaders.
When Rajiv Gandhi came, he was an inexperienced politician. He took decisions that were not in conformity with his party. For example, he permitted the foundation stone of Ram Mandir to be laid in Ayodhya. He also changed the law in the Shah Bano case. He was almost doing what the BJP wanted to do. Before that in 1983, Mrs. Gandhi made speeches in Jammu and later in Delhi, which, according to [K.R.] Malkani, were in accordance with the ideology of the RSS. When you begin to walk in those lines, then naturally the other party becomes acceptable. So the Muslims, Dalits, OBCs [Other Backward Classes], all of them got alienated from the Congress. It was these mistakes of the Congress which led to the rise of Jana Sangh and then the BJP. If there was no Emergency, in 1977 how could a conglomerate of various parties come to power?
When the BJP makes statements accepting different cultures in India, they have never defined culture. In fact they have never differed from Golwalkar who said that religion is the basis of culture, in his book We, Our Nationhood Defined. If religion is the basis of culture, then those who do not believe in the Hindu religion are not a part of this culture. It is not even temporary dishonesty. It is just meant for public consumption, not for practice. People went gaga over Vajpayee’s tolerance, but was he able to dismiss Modi? Did he differ from Modi when Advani approved the killing of Graham Staines? The RSS was happy with a leader who tolerated the ideology.
You have shown in your book how the RSS believes in lie-mongering and has a convenient memory. Despite their claims of being the most nationalist force, Savarkar appealed for clemency from the British. In your book, you reproduced the apologetic letter by Balasaheb Deoras to Indira Gandhi during the time of Emergency so that they were not arrested. Almost in the same vein, Advani lied when he claimed ignorance about Jaswant Singh accompanying terrorists in the Kandahar hijack episode. Jaswant Singh called his bluff. What does this history suggest?
You see, they had basically no objection to the Emergency. In fact, Balasaheb Deoras, the RSS chief, told Indira Gandhi that if she was prepared to join them, they would help her to fight the communists. They were prepared to support the Congress. Even now, if the BJP adopts all the economic and foreign policies of the Congress, the RSS will have no objections. If one enemy can be fought with the help of the Congress, the RSS doesn’t mind it. Why do they go to Jinnah again and again? Now Jaswant Singh has gone overboard and therefore got expelled. Advani said Jinnah is a great man. One should understand that if you are a follower of Savarkar, you are bound to be a follower of Jinnah too. Savarkar in 1937, before the Pakistan resolution in 1940, had made a statement that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and cannot live together. The hue and cry is just because Jaswant Singh is not acceptable to the RSS and not about Jinnah.
Some in the RSS are repackaging ‘Hindutva’. Something like “anyone who is born in India is a Hindu”. Bhagwat even said that they are open to all. This goes against the Golwalkar (in his book Bunch of Thoughts, Chapter 10) and Savarkar. Both of them denounced territorial nationalism and strictly defined who is a Hindu. Only a person who embraces Hindu culture could be a Hindu. So do you see a shift in the ideology of the RSS or does that amount to the same thing? They have been using religiosity and nationality almost in the same vein, in terms of an all-encompassing Hindu nation.
S. SUBRAMANIUM
L.K. ADVANI at an RSS convention in Agra in May 2002.
No, this is a hypocritical deceit. The RSS does not come out in the open with anything. For example, the RSS would not support what Varun Gandhi said, but they would have no objection if you, like Modi, create a situation in which the minorities are killed. That is the difference. They realise that Hindus at large would not accept their original ideology. Therefore, they want to mould Hindus into their ideology. In fact, the idea is not to convert Muslims or Christians. The idea is to convert Hindus to Hindutva ideology. For them, the weakness lies with the Hindus.
Since you have spoken so much about Vajpayee, do you mean to say that Vajpayee was not a strong Hindutva ideologue himself?
For this, you have to go back to the genesis of the political formation. When, after 1948, the RSS was banned, there was a lot of discussion. In the old files of the Organiser between 1946 and 47, there are a whole lot of letters where people say that unless you advance into politics, you will not be able to defend yourself. Because when there was a ban on the RSS, there was nobody to defend it. If you want some defence, you have to take the plunge into politics. I remember one of those letters, which read, “Whatever cuts in politics, cuts in life.” This means whoever is effective in politics, he is also able to defend its ideological practice in life. Therefore, a political formation was created to defend what the RSS does, in its own name or in any other name. Whatever the Bajrang Dal or the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad] does, it is defended by the BJP.
You have always been an acute observer of the RSS both from inside and outside. Over all these years, what change have you seen in the working of the RSS?
M. KARUNAKARAN
AN RSS DRILL in progress at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai on August 16. Goyal says the RSS no longer draws as many young boys as it used to.
One big change that I see is that the RSS now does not attract school students or even young college students. Youngsters in shakhas are slowly becoming invisible. Life has changed. A child would watch TV in the evening rather than go to a shakha. In the morning, they go to school. Therefore the ABVP is the recruiting ground for political work and violence. After all, where has Arun Jaitley come from?
Finally, where do you see the BJP going from here?
It is very difficult to find a suitable person to preside over the party. I don’t see any future for the party for the next 10 years, at least until 2014. In fact, I am sorry to say that the communists have blundered badly, otherwise, here was a chance [for them] to become the main opposition party.
Politics today is more fluid than it ever was. After Independence, the freedom fighters were dictating terms as long as they were alive. But today, ideology is there but idealism is no more there.
No new construction of places of worship at public places, says Supreme Court of India
From the Times of India, 29 September 2009
No fresh construction of places of worship at public places, rules SC
PTI 29 September 2009, 03:11pm IST
|
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that there shall be no fresh construction of places of worship at public places throughout the
country.
The restriction would apply to temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras and places of worship of all other communities, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Mukundakam Sharma said in an interim order.
The Bench said its order would be enforced till the issue relating to construction of places of worship at public places is finally resolved by the apex court.
The apex court also said that the fate of existing places of worship shall be dealt by the respective state governments on a "case to case" basis.
The Bench passed the direction after Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium informed the apex court that the Centre and the states had reached a consensus that there shall be no fresh construction of places of worship at public places.
The apex Court had on July 31 directed the government to ensure no place of worship is allowed to come up by encroaching public place.
The direction to the Centre came during the hearing of a petition challenging the Gujarat High Court order of May, 2006, by which the municipal corporations in the state were directed to demolish all illegal structures including places of worship on public roads.
No fresh construction of places of worship at public places, rules SC
PTI 29 September 2009, 03:11pm IST
|
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that there shall be no fresh construction of places of worship at public places throughout the
country.
The restriction would apply to temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras and places of worship of all other communities, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Mukundakam Sharma said in an interim order.
The Bench said its order would be enforced till the issue relating to construction of places of worship at public places is finally resolved by the apex court.
The apex court also said that the fate of existing places of worship shall be dealt by the respective state governments on a "case to case" basis.
The Bench passed the direction after Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium informed the apex court that the Centre and the states had reached a consensus that there shall be no fresh construction of places of worship at public places.
The apex Court had on July 31 directed the government to ensure no place of worship is allowed to come up by encroaching public place.
The direction to the Centre came during the hearing of a petition challenging the Gujarat High Court order of May, 2006, by which the municipal corporations in the state were directed to demolish all illegal structures including places of worship on public roads.
Communalising History: Shivaji Afzal Khan
Communalizing History: Shivaji and Afzal Khan
Ram Puniyani
The assembly elections have been declared in Maharashtra, and with this the atmosphere is heating up politically. In this state there have been substantial number of farmer’s suicides, all over there are serious issues related to rising prices, unemployment and other problems of daily life. But it seems that some political parties in Maharashtra are not much concerned about these core issues of society and seem to be more interested in the identity issues emerging from the past. Recently (September 3rd, 2009) tension developed in Miraj, Sangli and neighboring areas during Ganesh festival. This is the major festival of the state. During the festival trouble began with the erection of an arch on the route of Ganesh Visarjan, this arch depicted the slaying of Afzal Khan by Shivaji. Anticipating trouble due to the communal polarization around Shivaji and Afzal Khan, to maintain peace, the police removed the arch. Protesting against this removal of the arch
some Ganesh Mandals decided not to immerse the Ganpati idols till the arch was restored. This is what led to the violence in due course, in which one person died and five got injured.
BJP leadership condemned the Governments’ step of removing the arch. Shiv Sena leader asserted that they will put posters of Shivaji slaying Afzal Khan all over the state and stated that had Shivaji been not there all of us would have been reading Namaz! The state administration did control the situation but since by now lot of emotive appeal has been generated around Shivaji it was an easy job. Few years ago during the previous Parliamentary elections, the same parties had tried to organize the procession to demolish the tomb of Afzal Khan. Fortunately at that time it was brought to people’s notice that this tomb was built by Shivaji himself and the matters came to a rest, but not before it created lot of bad blood. The matters related to Shivaji are very sensitive in Maharashtra, the state administration has even planned to construct the statue of Shivaji in the Arabain sea, costing thousands of crores, from public exchequer, at the cost other
public necessities.
As a matter of fact, Shivaji is popular amongst people, not because he was anti Muslim or worshipper of Cows and Brahmins, but because he reduced the taxation on the poor peasants. Shivaji adopted humane policy in all the aspects of his administration, which did not base itself on the religion. In the recruitment of his soldiers and officers for army and navy, religion was no criterion and more than one third of his army consisted of Muslims. The supreme command of his navy was with Siddi Sambal, and Muslim Siddis were in navy in large numbers. Interestingly his major battles were fought against the Rajput army lead by Raja Jaisingh, who was in the administration of Aurangzeb. When Shivaji was detained at Agra forte, of the two men on whom he relied for his eventual escape, one was a Muslim called Madari Mehtar. His confidential secretary was Maulana Haider Ali and the chief of his cannon division was Ibrahim Gardi. Rustom-e-Jamaan was his bodyguard.
His respect for other religions was very clear and he respected the holy seers like 'Hazarat Baba Yaqut bahut Thorwale', whom he gave the life pension and also he helped Father Ambrose, whose church was under attack in Gujarat. At his capital Raigad, he erected a special mosque for Muslim devotees in front of his palace in the same way that he built the Jagadishwar temple for his own daily worship.
During his military campaigns Shivaji had issued strict instructions to his men and officers that Muslim women and children should not be subjected to maltreatment. Mosques and Dargah's were given due protection. He also ordered that whenever a copy of Koran came into the hands of his men, they should show proper respect to the book and hand it over to a Muslim. The story of his bowing to the daughter-in-law of Bassein's Nawab is well known to all. When she was brought as a part of the loot and offered to him, he respectfully begged her pardon and asked his soldiers to reach her back from the place from where she was forcibly brought in. Shivaji was in no way actuated by any hatred towards people of other religions.
As a matter of fact he had great respect for holy people of all religions. All this goes on to show the values of communal harmony which Shivaji pursued, and that his primary goal was to establish his own kingdom with maximum possible geographical area. To project him as anti-Muslim and anti-Islam is travesty of truth. Neither was Afzal Khan an anti Hindu king. When Shivaji killed Afzal Khan, Afzal Khan’s secretary Krishnaji Bhasker Kulkarni attacked Shivaji with a sword.
Today communal forces are out to ‘use’ Shivaji issue, to communalize the same for their political goals. In Maharashtra, Shivaji Afzal Khan have been projected as Hindu and Muslim kings. From amongst all the possible pictures of Shivaji, why is the one related to Afzal Khan is chosen? One can also show the pictures of his Pratapgadh fort with Afzal Khans tomb in that, one can show Shivaji paying respect to the Mazar of Madari Mehtar, a Muslim prince, who helped him to escape from Agra? The very selection of this picture is to divide the communities along religious lines. Communal interpretation of History, Communal historiography has been the major tool in the arsenal of communal forces. Minorities should not react to such things and try to call for peace with all the communities all the time. Now we are witnessing this pattern of history being used to communalize the society, to create sectarian divides in society. What is needed is to overcome these communal angles, to undermine identity issues, to build the Indian nation. We need to look at historical icons, as kings ruling for power, rather then the representatives of a particular religion.
--
Ram Puniyani
The assembly elections have been declared in Maharashtra, and with this the atmosphere is heating up politically. In this state there have been substantial number of farmer’s suicides, all over there are serious issues related to rising prices, unemployment and other problems of daily life. But it seems that some political parties in Maharashtra are not much concerned about these core issues of society and seem to be more interested in the identity issues emerging from the past. Recently (September 3rd, 2009) tension developed in Miraj, Sangli and neighboring areas during Ganesh festival. This is the major festival of the state. During the festival trouble began with the erection of an arch on the route of Ganesh Visarjan, this arch depicted the slaying of Afzal Khan by Shivaji. Anticipating trouble due to the communal polarization around Shivaji and Afzal Khan, to maintain peace, the police removed the arch. Protesting against this removal of the arch
some Ganesh Mandals decided not to immerse the Ganpati idols till the arch was restored. This is what led to the violence in due course, in which one person died and five got injured.
BJP leadership condemned the Governments’ step of removing the arch. Shiv Sena leader asserted that they will put posters of Shivaji slaying Afzal Khan all over the state and stated that had Shivaji been not there all of us would have been reading Namaz! The state administration did control the situation but since by now lot of emotive appeal has been generated around Shivaji it was an easy job. Few years ago during the previous Parliamentary elections, the same parties had tried to organize the procession to demolish the tomb of Afzal Khan. Fortunately at that time it was brought to people’s notice that this tomb was built by Shivaji himself and the matters came to a rest, but not before it created lot of bad blood. The matters related to Shivaji are very sensitive in Maharashtra, the state administration has even planned to construct the statue of Shivaji in the Arabain sea, costing thousands of crores, from public exchequer, at the cost other
public necessities.
As a matter of fact, Shivaji is popular amongst people, not because he was anti Muslim or worshipper of Cows and Brahmins, but because he reduced the taxation on the poor peasants. Shivaji adopted humane policy in all the aspects of his administration, which did not base itself on the religion. In the recruitment of his soldiers and officers for army and navy, religion was no criterion and more than one third of his army consisted of Muslims. The supreme command of his navy was with Siddi Sambal, and Muslim Siddis were in navy in large numbers. Interestingly his major battles were fought against the Rajput army lead by Raja Jaisingh, who was in the administration of Aurangzeb. When Shivaji was detained at Agra forte, of the two men on whom he relied for his eventual escape, one was a Muslim called Madari Mehtar. His confidential secretary was Maulana Haider Ali and the chief of his cannon division was Ibrahim Gardi. Rustom-e-Jamaan was his bodyguard.
His respect for other religions was very clear and he respected the holy seers like 'Hazarat Baba Yaqut bahut Thorwale', whom he gave the life pension and also he helped Father Ambrose, whose church was under attack in Gujarat. At his capital Raigad, he erected a special mosque for Muslim devotees in front of his palace in the same way that he built the Jagadishwar temple for his own daily worship.
During his military campaigns Shivaji had issued strict instructions to his men and officers that Muslim women and children should not be subjected to maltreatment. Mosques and Dargah's were given due protection. He also ordered that whenever a copy of Koran came into the hands of his men, they should show proper respect to the book and hand it over to a Muslim. The story of his bowing to the daughter-in-law of Bassein's Nawab is well known to all. When she was brought as a part of the loot and offered to him, he respectfully begged her pardon and asked his soldiers to reach her back from the place from where she was forcibly brought in. Shivaji was in no way actuated by any hatred towards people of other religions.
As a matter of fact he had great respect for holy people of all religions. All this goes on to show the values of communal harmony which Shivaji pursued, and that his primary goal was to establish his own kingdom with maximum possible geographical area. To project him as anti-Muslim and anti-Islam is travesty of truth. Neither was Afzal Khan an anti Hindu king. When Shivaji killed Afzal Khan, Afzal Khan’s secretary Krishnaji Bhasker Kulkarni attacked Shivaji with a sword.
Today communal forces are out to ‘use’ Shivaji issue, to communalize the same for their political goals. In Maharashtra, Shivaji Afzal Khan have been projected as Hindu and Muslim kings. From amongst all the possible pictures of Shivaji, why is the one related to Afzal Khan is chosen? One can also show the pictures of his Pratapgadh fort with Afzal Khans tomb in that, one can show Shivaji paying respect to the Mazar of Madari Mehtar, a Muslim prince, who helped him to escape from Agra? The very selection of this picture is to divide the communities along religious lines. Communal interpretation of History, Communal historiography has been the major tool in the arsenal of communal forces. Minorities should not react to such things and try to call for peace with all the communities all the time. Now we are witnessing this pattern of history being used to communalize the society, to create sectarian divides in society. What is needed is to overcome these communal angles, to undermine identity issues, to build the Indian nation. We need to look at historical icons, as kings ruling for power, rather then the representatives of a particular religion.
--
Compromise and surrender of principle: A response to an article by Ram Guha
by Marieme Helie Lucas
sacw.net
28 September 2009
A response to the article by Ramachandra Guha, ’The Beauty of Compromise: an excess of secularism may be as problematic as bigotry’ (in The Telegraph, 26 September 2009)
The information about French secularism, past and present, that one can draw from English speaking media leads to much misunderstanding and biased opinions. On the one hand one cannot blame writers who have no direct access to primary sources and have to rely on secondary ones. On the other hand, the propagation of biased information and thus of erroneous conclusions in the English language serve the interests of Muslim fundamentalists in France, and for that reason alone, it needs to be addressed.
The article by Ramachandra Guha shows bias at several levels: it overlooks the different definitions of secularism, it presents erroneous interpretations as facts, it under-evaluates the rise of Muslim fundamentalism as a political -not a religious- phenomenon and it accepts a cultural definition of women’s rights.
All of these tend to give credibility to the assertions of Muslim fundamentalists that combat French secularism.
Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1150.html
sacw.net
28 September 2009
A response to the article by Ramachandra Guha, ’The Beauty of Compromise: an excess of secularism may be as problematic as bigotry’ (in The Telegraph, 26 September 2009)
The information about French secularism, past and present, that one can draw from English speaking media leads to much misunderstanding and biased opinions. On the one hand one cannot blame writers who have no direct access to primary sources and have to rely on secondary ones. On the other hand, the propagation of biased information and thus of erroneous conclusions in the English language serve the interests of Muslim fundamentalists in France, and for that reason alone, it needs to be addressed.
The article by Ramachandra Guha shows bias at several levels: it overlooks the different definitions of secularism, it presents erroneous interpretations as facts, it under-evaluates the rise of Muslim fundamentalism as a political -not a religious- phenomenon and it accepts a cultural definition of women’s rights.
All of these tend to give credibility to the assertions of Muslim fundamentalists that combat French secularism.
Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1150.html
Press Release of Petition to Oman Government to Rescind Invitation to CM Modi
Press Release – September 28, 2009
Universal Respect for Human Rights without Borders
Petitions the Government of Oman
His Majesty the Sultan of Oman and Omani Citizens,
India and Oman have centuries-old cherished relationship of friendship and trade. It has been strengthened under His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, based on common ethos of progressive values and human rights. Thousands of Indians of all religions live and work in Oman with honor and respect, contributing to the benefit of both the countries.
Unfortunately that common ethos and values of the Indian constitution and Oman’s culture have been flagrantly violated by Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In February 2002, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided over and orchestrated widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless Muslims were massacred and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless. The execution of what has been called the Gujarat Genocide has been widely reported and documented by the media (http://www.tehelka.com/home/20071103/ ; http://bit.ly/qR7fO ; http://bit.ly/qOdTB)
Tens of thousands of displaced Muslims are still unable to return to their homes fearing further attacks. The process of justice has been subverted to deny justice to the victims. There have been many incidences of harassment of Christians and burning of Churches.
Mr. Modi and 61 others that include cabinet colleagues, policemen and civil servants currently are under criminal investigation by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) specially constituted by the Supreme Court of India for their role into allegations of mass murder and criminal conspiracy.
Earlier this year, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) Magazine, of the Financial Times Group, declared Narendra Modi “Asian Personality of the Year 2009”. But after reviewing charges against Mr. Modi, the magazine withdrew the award (http://bit.ly/2yt3Cr)
It has been reported in the press (http://bit.ly/MzAwP) that Mr. Modi has managed to obtain an invitation to Oman to finance the development of a port in Gujarat. The US and many European countries have already denied entry visa to Mr. Modi in punishment for his role in the Gujarat carnage. Mr. Modi is trying to rehabilitate himself in the international-arena by his visit to Oman. In the process the reputation of Oman would be besmirched.
People from all over the world have joined thousands of citizens of India, and brave people of Gujarat, to petition the Government of Oman, through its ambassador to India, to deny Mr. Modi the coveted visa to Oman, based on his record of murder and mayhem.
(http://www.petitiononline.com/modi2009/petition.html)
We request the genteel, peace and justice loving people of Oman, and the enlightened government of Sultan Qaboos to rescind visa to Mr. Modi and make investments and collaborations with the Gujarat government contingent on justice to the innocent victims of the Gujarat Massacre. This will reaffirm the morality-based friendship of Oman and India, without the stain of appearing to condone Mr. Modi’s crimes against humanity.
Universal Respect For Human Rights Without Borders universalrespectforhumanrights@gmail.com
Najid Hussain: najidhussain@yahoo.com
Mirza A. Beg: mirza.a.beg@gmail.com
Zafar Iqbal: raabta1@hotmail.com
Tariq Farooqi: tfarooqi2000@yahoo.com
Fazal R. Khan: fazalr_khan@hotmail.com
Endorsing Organizations:
Ahsan Jafri Foundation Dr. Najid Hussain
Aligarh Alumni Association Metropolitan Washington (AAA) Dr. Rafat Husain
Aman Biraderi Mr. Harsh Mandar
Association for India’s Development (AID) Dr. Mohan Bhagat
Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace Fr. Cedrick Prakash
CERAS Dr. Daya Varma
Coalition Against Genocide Mr. Khalid Azam
India Unity Dr. Satinath Chowdhary
NRIs for Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI)
Pluralism, Interfaith, Peace Mr. Mike Ghouse
Sabrang Ms. Teesta Setalvad
Sadbhav Mission Dr. Vipin Tripathi
South Asia Citizens Web (SACW) Mr. Harsh Kapoor
The Organization of Universal Communal Harmony (TOUCH) Ms. Sushila Gidwani
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment Mr. Shrikumar Poddar
Universal Respect for Human Rights without Borders
Petitions the Government of Oman
His Majesty the Sultan of Oman and Omani Citizens,
India and Oman have centuries-old cherished relationship of friendship and trade. It has been strengthened under His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, based on common ethos of progressive values and human rights. Thousands of Indians of all religions live and work in Oman with honor and respect, contributing to the benefit of both the countries.
Unfortunately that common ethos and values of the Indian constitution and Oman’s culture have been flagrantly violated by Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In February 2002, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided over and orchestrated widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless Muslims were massacred and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless. The execution of what has been called the Gujarat Genocide has been widely reported and documented by the media (http://www.tehelka.com/home/20071103/ ; http://bit.ly/qR7fO ; http://bit.ly/qOdTB)
Tens of thousands of displaced Muslims are still unable to return to their homes fearing further attacks. The process of justice has been subverted to deny justice to the victims. There have been many incidences of harassment of Christians and burning of Churches.
Mr. Modi and 61 others that include cabinet colleagues, policemen and civil servants currently are under criminal investigation by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) specially constituted by the Supreme Court of India for their role into allegations of mass murder and criminal conspiracy.
Earlier this year, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) Magazine, of the Financial Times Group, declared Narendra Modi “Asian Personality of the Year 2009”. But after reviewing charges against Mr. Modi, the magazine withdrew the award (http://bit.ly/2yt3Cr)
It has been reported in the press (http://bit.ly/MzAwP) that Mr. Modi has managed to obtain an invitation to Oman to finance the development of a port in Gujarat. The US and many European countries have already denied entry visa to Mr. Modi in punishment for his role in the Gujarat carnage. Mr. Modi is trying to rehabilitate himself in the international-arena by his visit to Oman. In the process the reputation of Oman would be besmirched.
People from all over the world have joined thousands of citizens of India, and brave people of Gujarat, to petition the Government of Oman, through its ambassador to India, to deny Mr. Modi the coveted visa to Oman, based on his record of murder and mayhem.
(http://www.petitiononline.com/modi2009/petition.html)
We request the genteel, peace and justice loving people of Oman, and the enlightened government of Sultan Qaboos to rescind visa to Mr. Modi and make investments and collaborations with the Gujarat government contingent on justice to the innocent victims of the Gujarat Massacre. This will reaffirm the morality-based friendship of Oman and India, without the stain of appearing to condone Mr. Modi’s crimes against humanity.
Universal Respect For Human Rights Without Borders universalrespectforhumanrights@gmail.com
Najid Hussain: najidhussain@yahoo.com
Mirza A. Beg: mirza.a.beg@gmail.com
Zafar Iqbal: raabta1@hotmail.com
Tariq Farooqi: tfarooqi2000@yahoo.com
Fazal R. Khan: fazalr_khan@hotmail.com
Endorsing Organizations:
Ahsan Jafri Foundation Dr. Najid Hussain
Aligarh Alumni Association Metropolitan Washington (AAA) Dr. Rafat Husain
Aman Biraderi Mr. Harsh Mandar
Association for India’s Development (AID) Dr. Mohan Bhagat
Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace Fr. Cedrick Prakash
CERAS Dr. Daya Varma
Coalition Against Genocide Mr. Khalid Azam
India Unity Dr. Satinath Chowdhary
NRIs for Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI)
Pluralism, Interfaith, Peace Mr. Mike Ghouse
Sabrang Ms. Teesta Setalvad
Sadbhav Mission Dr. Vipin Tripathi
South Asia Citizens Web (SACW) Mr. Harsh Kapoor
The Organization of Universal Communal Harmony (TOUCH) Ms. Sushila Gidwani
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment Mr. Shrikumar Poddar
September 24, 2009
Encounter killings are cold-blooded murders committed by men in uniform
Reproduced From: Daily News and Analysis, September 13, 2009
In cold blood and sponsored by the state
by Anil Dharker
Encounter killings are cold-blooded murders committed by men in uniform. The people shot dead are not killed in the heat of a battle or during action requiring self-defence; they are killed in a planned, pre-meditated manner in much the same way that the mafia does its 'eliminations'...We have refused to face this ugly truth for far too long. It's about time it was faced fairly and squarely.
The Gujarat police 'Encounter' with Ishrat Johan, her husband Javed Shaikh and two other men (Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Jauhar) raised uncomfortable questions five years ago when the killings occurred. This had partly to do with the Gujarat police's role in the state sponsored Gujarat pogrom of 2002, which clearly established that most of the force, including its senior officers, were communal in the extreme.
It also had to do with the suspicious nature of this particular case, where the four victims were dubbed LeT operators with no proof being given to establish that as fact. The Encounter too looked completely stage-managed and badly stage-managed at that.
Now a Gujarat magistrate's probe has clearly established that the victims "were not linked to LeT as claimed by the police." Magistrate S P Tamang's report also said that the police had shot the victims in cold blood using their service revolver. It said that the encounter was 'planned and executed mercilessly' by shooting the victims from close range. It further stated that the weapon was 'planted' in the hand of a victim to buttress the encounter story.
We know, of course, that encounter killings are not a speciality of Gujarat. The method was used extensively in Punjab when the Khalistani movement had unleashed unspeakable violence against the civilian population.It was also used in Maharashtra, particularly, in Mumbai, to eliminate the underworld.
However reprehensible and illegal these killings were,they differed from the Gujarat encounters in two significant ways. The first was that they were not officially sanctioned; the governments may have turned a convenient blind eye to them, but they did not back them the way the Gujarat government has done.
A minister (Jaynarayan Vyas) has spokenagainst the magistrate's findings and has announced the government's intentions to appeal against the report in the high court. There have been many earlier cases of the same kind too, and only in one case (the fake encounter in which Soharabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi were killed), has the Gujarat government actually distanced itself from the policemen.
That's not all: there have been well-documented instances of upright police officialslike ADGB RB Sreekumar andIG Geeta Johri who opposed this policy, being transferred to 'punishment' postings.
The second difference between thePunjab/Maharashtra encounters and the Gujarat ones was that the former were for a 'higher cause' (the elimination of the Khalistani militants and the mafia respectively), while the Gujarat encounters were staged by officers likeAhmedabad police commissioner K R Kaushik, DIGG D Vanzara, ICP Crime, PP Pande, ACPGL Singhal and ACP NK Amin, purely for personal gain.
There can of course, be no 'higher cause' which can justify extra-judicial killings. Once policemen find that they can get away with cold-blooded murder, they use it with impunity to get rid of people they deem suspicious.
It is now well-known that rogue cops in Punjab and Maharashtra used threats of encounter killings toblackmail innocent people and amass wealth for themselves. That's why it's time for Chidambaram to step in and announce that under no circumstances will fake encounters be condoned.
And the policemen found guilty of taking part in them will be tried for murder. That's the only way to stop the killing of those who are innocent and just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
In cold blood and sponsored by the state
by Anil Dharker
Encounter killings are cold-blooded murders committed by men in uniform. The people shot dead are not killed in the heat of a battle or during action requiring self-defence; they are killed in a planned, pre-meditated manner in much the same way that the mafia does its 'eliminations'...We have refused to face this ugly truth for far too long. It's about time it was faced fairly and squarely.
The Gujarat police 'Encounter' with Ishrat Johan, her husband Javed Shaikh and two other men (Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Jauhar) raised uncomfortable questions five years ago when the killings occurred. This had partly to do with the Gujarat police's role in the state sponsored Gujarat pogrom of 2002, which clearly established that most of the force, including its senior officers, were communal in the extreme.
It also had to do with the suspicious nature of this particular case, where the four victims were dubbed LeT operators with no proof being given to establish that as fact. The Encounter too looked completely stage-managed and badly stage-managed at that.
Now a Gujarat magistrate's probe has clearly established that the victims "were not linked to LeT as claimed by the police." Magistrate S P Tamang's report also said that the police had shot the victims in cold blood using their service revolver. It said that the encounter was 'planned and executed mercilessly' by shooting the victims from close range. It further stated that the weapon was 'planted' in the hand of a victim to buttress the encounter story.
We know, of course, that encounter killings are not a speciality of Gujarat. The method was used extensively in Punjab when the Khalistani movement had unleashed unspeakable violence against the civilian population.It was also used in Maharashtra, particularly, in Mumbai, to eliminate the underworld.
However reprehensible and illegal these killings were,they differed from the Gujarat encounters in two significant ways. The first was that they were not officially sanctioned; the governments may have turned a convenient blind eye to them, but they did not back them the way the Gujarat government has done.
A minister (Jaynarayan Vyas) has spokenagainst the magistrate's findings and has announced the government's intentions to appeal against the report in the high court. There have been many earlier cases of the same kind too, and only in one case (the fake encounter in which Soharabuddin and his wife Kauser Bi were killed), has the Gujarat government actually distanced itself from the policemen.
That's not all: there have been well-documented instances of upright police officialslike ADGB RB Sreekumar andIG Geeta Johri who opposed this policy, being transferred to 'punishment' postings.
The second difference between thePunjab/Maharashtra encounters and the Gujarat ones was that the former were for a 'higher cause' (the elimination of the Khalistani militants and the mafia respectively), while the Gujarat encounters were staged by officers likeAhmedabad police commissioner K R Kaushik, DIGG D Vanzara, ICP Crime, PP Pande, ACPGL Singhal and ACP NK Amin, purely for personal gain.
There can of course, be no 'higher cause' which can justify extra-judicial killings. Once policemen find that they can get away with cold-blooded murder, they use it with impunity to get rid of people they deem suspicious.
It is now well-known that rogue cops in Punjab and Maharashtra used threats of encounter killings toblackmail innocent people and amass wealth for themselves. That's why it's time for Chidambaram to step in and announce that under no circumstances will fake encounters be condoned.
And the policemen found guilty of taking part in them will be tried for murder. That's the only way to stop the killing of those who are innocent and just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
September 23, 2009
Is the future of the BJP at risk?
Frontline
Sep. 26-Oct. 09, 2009
COMMUNAL RECIPE
K.N. PANIKKAR
The rumblings within the BJP could end in its reincarnation as an uncompromising Hindu fundamentalist party.
PTI
March 2002: Mahant Ramchandra Das Paramhans conducting a puja at a workshop to prepare stone pillars for the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. The Ram temple movement has lost the steam it had in the 1990s.
THE recent electoral defeat is not the reason for the present turmoil in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The defeat is only a symptom. The reason lies deeper in the very nature of the party, its ideology and programme. Success and defeat are endemic to all political parties. When a party is politically mature it does not panic in the face of defeat, nor does it go overboard to celebrate success. But then, political maturity is not a virtue the BJP enjoys in abundance. This is surprising; for the party has waited for about 50 years to come to power. Nevertheless, power proved to be a disaster, as it foregrounded the schisms within and, more grievously, exposed the party’s utter inability to provide efficient and effective administration.
The BJP came to power in 1998 riding on popular, emotive slogans and programmes inspired by Hindu religious sentiments. The political appeal of these slogans could not be sustained for long. The alternatives, such as “shining India”, which the BJP election managers invented, failed to arouse popular enthusiasm. Obviously, those who lived on less than Rs.20 a day could not be made to believe in the myth that India was shining. Facts are more powerful than fiction. The elections of 2004 proved that Goebbels is not necessarily right; slogans, however loudly and repeatedly raised, cannot always convince the people.
If economic and administrative reasons made the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government unacceptable to a large section of the population, the BJP’s obscurantist and communal policies alienated even its own staunch supporters. Except during the Emergency, no other government in India aroused so much opposition of the people. It was mainly because what the government advocated and implemented went against common sense. Whether the Congress believed it or not, the BJP was pushed out in the 2004 elections mainly, though not exclusively, because of its anti-secular and communal image. The Congress was not voted in; the BJP was voted out. The Congress was an unintended beneficiary as people had no other choice but to repose faith in the grand old party. In the elections in 2009, the BJP could not become a serious player because of its communal image, although several other factors were also responsible for its marginalisation.
Rise of the BJP
The success of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1992 convinced the Sangh Parivar that it was on the right path to power. Ayodhya, projected as a cultural and religious symbol of Hindus, was perceived as a gold mine with inexhaustible possibilities, the least of which was the expansion of the BJP’s mass base, until then drawn mainly from the cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). A large number of social and cultural organisations were set up to pursue this agenda. Their main effort was to forge an identity between religion and culture at the grassroots level for the consolidation of Hindu religious believers, who would subsequently become supporters of the communal cause. The communal euphoria of the 1990s was, in fact, a result of this transformation, which the cultural intervention of the Sangh Parivar organisations effected through sustained activities.
This strategy was eminently successful: around a variety of religious issues Hindus were brought to the fold of the Parivar, which in turn provided mass support for the party. Consequently, the BJP emerged as a mass party, capable of bidding for power.
At the same time, a shift to the right was generally taking place among the intelligentsia. The left radicals, Sudheendra Kulkarni and Chandan Mitra, and liberals, Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, among others, flocked to the BJP, convinced that it was the party of the future. At any rate, the BJP being a party short of talent, their future in it was assured. They were all absorbed in important administrative or organisational positions. How this inflow of “outsiders”, who had nothing to do with the party’s RSS base, would affect the BJP’s ideological coherence and internal solidarity was not a concern then, when power was not yet at a striking distance. Their entry, it was believed, would help the party’s general acceptance. But very soon their rise in the party created internal tensions, partly because most of them were earlier severe critics of Hindutva.
BISWARANJAN ROUT
A little girl rummaging through her burnt home in Orissa’s Minia village, about 320 km from Bhubaneswar, in August 2008, when Christians were attacked.
Despite their visible presence and influence in the party, they were looked upon by the RSS with reservation. To the RSS, they were at best a necessary evil to be tolerated for the sake of gaining political acceptance from the middle classes and forging alliances with secular parties. Although they were an important ingredient in the coalition manoeuvre of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, they could not win the RSS’ confidence, however much some of them, such as Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, tried. As a consequence, over the years, the former left and liberal intellectuals became critical of the party’s subjection to the RSS, not only in ideological terms but more so in practical politics. This was possibly a result of the conviction that the BJP as a party wedded to Hindutva had reached its limits and had to break out of it in order to come back to power.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, believed to be a close aide and adviser of Lal Krishna Advani and who was reported to have scripted the Jinnah speech, had advocated an independent path for the party. There is a general impression that what impelled Advani to extol Jinnah’s contribution and Jaswant Singh to write the book on Jinnah was the urge to free the party from the clutches of the RSS. That Advani was almost shown the door and Jaswant Singh was thrown out without even routine procedures being followed indicate the control the RSS continues to wield on the party. In the BJP, there is no chance for survival for anyone who does not accept the RSS’ supremacy. Conscious of this reality, Vajpayee suppressed his initial anger over the Gujarat massacre, and Advani quickly backtracked from his admiration for Jinnah’s secular credentials.
Reasons for the turmoil
The present turmoil in the party is occasioned by another reminder from the RSS that the BJP is not an independent political formation but one of its front organisations, charged with the responsibility to implement the Hindutva agenda. In the past, whenever the party faced a crisis, the RSS intervened to maintain discipline and assert its ideology. There was never any doubt about what that ideology was constitutive of. Its main contours were laid down by M.S. Golwalkar; it unambiguously advocated a Hindu Rashtra and its practical politics was inspired by a hatred of the minorities.
The BJP’s mission, therefore, cannot be separated from these basic principles. When Advani or Jaswant Singh were accused of deviating from the principles of the party, it was not so much the praise of Jinnah or the critique of Vallabhbhai Patel that mattered, but the possibility that their stance might affect adversely the commitment of the cadres to a Hindu Rashtra. The RSS rightly fears that the liberal dominance in the BJP is likely to dilute the Hindu nationalist fervour. Therefore, during the past 10 years it has consciously tried to promote Hindutva hardliners and marginalise the liberals.
Tension between the “liberal” and core Hindutva factions has simmered for quite some time. Positioning himself within the liberal fold, Vajpayee tried to create a space in which liberal opinion could at least co-exist with Hindutva. When Narendra Modi let loose terror in Gujarat, his early response was very critical and he urged the party to make amends by removing Modi from power. The RSS immediately intervened and forced Vajpayee to retract. For the RSS, Vajpayee was a convenient mascot, as described by K.N. Govindacharya, a former ideologue of the party, in order to project a liberal image as a strategy to remain in power. After him, there was none in the liberal camp with a popular following to fulfil that role. That was the only reason why the RSS tolerated his occasional musings, expressing the pangs of his troubled conscience.
The liberal and the Hindutva factions have drawn opposite conclusions from the electoral defeats in 2004 and 2009. The RSS believes that the days of liberalism are over and the only way for political revitalisation is a return to Hindutva and cultural nationalism. That requires both a reaffirmation of ideology and a reconstitution of leadership. As a result, Hindutva and cultural nationalism have been restated as core ideologies, and efforts are on to enthrone a new leadership, dispensing with the old guard, however useful they were in the past. On the other hand, the assessment of the liberal fraction is that identity politics has reached its limit and it is not possible to make any further headway on that path. After all, 20 years of religion-centred mobilisation has not succeeded in persuading the majority of Indians to subscribe to communal politics. Nor is it possible to invoke another Ram Janmabhoomi, as evidenced by the failed agitation over Rama Sethu and Bababudangiri. Also, the violence against minorities in Gujarat and Orissa drew revulsion rather than admiration all over the country. Therefore, it is imperative to chart out a new political programme that addresses secular issues and at the same time does not give up the religious cause. Ram Janmabhoomi can still be a part of the agenda, but without highlighting the livelihood issues of the people the party may not attract popular support.
PTI
A ravaged home in Gujarat’s Sasan Nav village in March 2002 when anti-Muslim riots swept the State.
These differing perspectives remained muted for quite some time. The electoral failure brought them to the fore and, more importantly, gave the liberal faction an opportunity to articulate its apprehensions, even if indirectly. The issue of accountability for the failure in elections, which Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie raised, was perhaps not directed against any individual but targeted the collective responsibility of the party controlled by the RSS affiliates. The liberal faction, however, had no cadre support; in fact they were disliked by the party’s hardcore workers for their supposedly Western habits. Interpreting the open criticism of the party as a serious act of indiscipline, the RSS used it as an opportunity to cleanse the party of ideological aberrations. Jaswant Singh’s expulsion is likely to be a forerunner of a fundamentalist reassertion. The days of the Shouries and the Sinhas are over. They will be relegated to the margins once the party passes fully into the hands of the Hindu fundamentalists controlled by the RSS. The present turmoil in the party is a result of the rumblings of this transition. The purification being attempted will lead to a reincarnation of the BJP as an uncompromising Hindu fundamentalist and right-wing party, carving out a specific space in Indian politics. Such a transformation will enable the BJP to clearly demarcate itself ideologically from the Congress, since the distinction between the two has steadily eroded in the past few years.
BJP’s only option
The BJP shares considerable common space with the Congress in the areas of economic and foreign policies. The structural adjustment initiated by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government was carried forward vigorously by the BJP when it came to power in 1998. The policy of the Congress-led governments that succeeded the BJP has been a more uncritical acceptance and implementation of neoliberal policies, diluted, though, with some pro-poor steps such as the rural employment scheme. Both the BJP and the Congress favoured disinvestment of public sector undertakings and privatisation of almost all sectors, including health and education. The BJP, therefore, cannot fashion its politics on the basis of a critique of the economic policies of the Congress government.
This is, to a large extent, true of foreign policy also. In discarding the much admired non-alignment policy, which Jawaharlal Nehru shaped during the initial days of the Republic, both the Congress and the BJP were vying with each other. During the post-Indira Gandhi period, the Congress policy came to be revised in favour of the American bloc, supporting, in the process, the imperialist interventions in Asia. The only difference between the Congress and the BJP was with respect to Israel and Palestine. In the past five years even that difference has ceased to exist. Accepting American hegemony as much as the Congress did, the BJP has no credible alternative to offer. In fact, there is hardly any difference between the two in foreign policy.
In the election campaign, the BJP was hard put to project an image that was sufficiently distinct from that of its main rival. It could not accuse the Congress of supporting imperialism, nor could it oppose neoliberal policies, as in both respects the BJP’s hands were equally soiled. Therefore, the space available to the BJP for mobilisation was practically limited to its political philosophy based on the conception of cultural nationalism. The Congress from the time of the anti-colonial struggle had championed an inclusive nationalism, whereas the BJP has been an advocate of religious nationalism and of the two-nation theory. Along with the latter, the BJP also invoked other religion-oriented issues such as Ram Janmabhoomi, Article 370 and a common civil code. The BJP found to its dismay that these issues did not anymore excite its support base, such as the members of the middle class, and even its captive supporters of Hindu fundamentalists. This failure is the reason for the troubled times of the BJP. The takeover of the BJP by the RSS, which appears to be imminent, is intended to tide over this crisis.
The control of the RSS is sure to strengthen the party’s ideological foundation and reorient its political practice to become more pronounced in the realm of religious fundamentalism. Over the years, the Sangh Parivar built up a formidable social support through the innumerable social and cultural organisations under its umbrella. In the past 10 years, however, they became relatively inactive and grew lukewarm in their active support to the BJP. What the RSS is likely to attempt is to regroup these organisations in order to revive the BJP’s strength. In the process, what the RSS is likely to ensure is the unambiguously Hindu communal and fascist character of the party and its affiliates. Implicit in this strategy is the possible danger of greater social strife and violence. Will the troubled times of the BJP lead to trouble for the nation?
Sep. 26-Oct. 09, 2009
COMMUNAL RECIPE
K.N. PANIKKAR
The rumblings within the BJP could end in its reincarnation as an uncompromising Hindu fundamentalist party.
PTI
March 2002: Mahant Ramchandra Das Paramhans conducting a puja at a workshop to prepare stone pillars for the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. The Ram temple movement has lost the steam it had in the 1990s.
THE recent electoral defeat is not the reason for the present turmoil in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The defeat is only a symptom. The reason lies deeper in the very nature of the party, its ideology and programme. Success and defeat are endemic to all political parties. When a party is politically mature it does not panic in the face of defeat, nor does it go overboard to celebrate success. But then, political maturity is not a virtue the BJP enjoys in abundance. This is surprising; for the party has waited for about 50 years to come to power. Nevertheless, power proved to be a disaster, as it foregrounded the schisms within and, more grievously, exposed the party’s utter inability to provide efficient and effective administration.
The BJP came to power in 1998 riding on popular, emotive slogans and programmes inspired by Hindu religious sentiments. The political appeal of these slogans could not be sustained for long. The alternatives, such as “shining India”, which the BJP election managers invented, failed to arouse popular enthusiasm. Obviously, those who lived on less than Rs.20 a day could not be made to believe in the myth that India was shining. Facts are more powerful than fiction. The elections of 2004 proved that Goebbels is not necessarily right; slogans, however loudly and repeatedly raised, cannot always convince the people.
If economic and administrative reasons made the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government unacceptable to a large section of the population, the BJP’s obscurantist and communal policies alienated even its own staunch supporters. Except during the Emergency, no other government in India aroused so much opposition of the people. It was mainly because what the government advocated and implemented went against common sense. Whether the Congress believed it or not, the BJP was pushed out in the 2004 elections mainly, though not exclusively, because of its anti-secular and communal image. The Congress was not voted in; the BJP was voted out. The Congress was an unintended beneficiary as people had no other choice but to repose faith in the grand old party. In the elections in 2009, the BJP could not become a serious player because of its communal image, although several other factors were also responsible for its marginalisation.
Rise of the BJP
The success of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1992 convinced the Sangh Parivar that it was on the right path to power. Ayodhya, projected as a cultural and religious symbol of Hindus, was perceived as a gold mine with inexhaustible possibilities, the least of which was the expansion of the BJP’s mass base, until then drawn mainly from the cadres of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). A large number of social and cultural organisations were set up to pursue this agenda. Their main effort was to forge an identity between religion and culture at the grassroots level for the consolidation of Hindu religious believers, who would subsequently become supporters of the communal cause. The communal euphoria of the 1990s was, in fact, a result of this transformation, which the cultural intervention of the Sangh Parivar organisations effected through sustained activities.
This strategy was eminently successful: around a variety of religious issues Hindus were brought to the fold of the Parivar, which in turn provided mass support for the party. Consequently, the BJP emerged as a mass party, capable of bidding for power.
At the same time, a shift to the right was generally taking place among the intelligentsia. The left radicals, Sudheendra Kulkarni and Chandan Mitra, and liberals, Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, among others, flocked to the BJP, convinced that it was the party of the future. At any rate, the BJP being a party short of talent, their future in it was assured. They were all absorbed in important administrative or organisational positions. How this inflow of “outsiders”, who had nothing to do with the party’s RSS base, would affect the BJP’s ideological coherence and internal solidarity was not a concern then, when power was not yet at a striking distance. Their entry, it was believed, would help the party’s general acceptance. But very soon their rise in the party created internal tensions, partly because most of them were earlier severe critics of Hindutva.
BISWARANJAN ROUT
A little girl rummaging through her burnt home in Orissa’s Minia village, about 320 km from Bhubaneswar, in August 2008, when Christians were attacked.
Despite their visible presence and influence in the party, they were looked upon by the RSS with reservation. To the RSS, they were at best a necessary evil to be tolerated for the sake of gaining political acceptance from the middle classes and forging alliances with secular parties. Although they were an important ingredient in the coalition manoeuvre of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, they could not win the RSS’ confidence, however much some of them, such as Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, tried. As a consequence, over the years, the former left and liberal intellectuals became critical of the party’s subjection to the RSS, not only in ideological terms but more so in practical politics. This was possibly a result of the conviction that the BJP as a party wedded to Hindutva had reached its limits and had to break out of it in order to come back to power.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, believed to be a close aide and adviser of Lal Krishna Advani and who was reported to have scripted the Jinnah speech, had advocated an independent path for the party. There is a general impression that what impelled Advani to extol Jinnah’s contribution and Jaswant Singh to write the book on Jinnah was the urge to free the party from the clutches of the RSS. That Advani was almost shown the door and Jaswant Singh was thrown out without even routine procedures being followed indicate the control the RSS continues to wield on the party. In the BJP, there is no chance for survival for anyone who does not accept the RSS’ supremacy. Conscious of this reality, Vajpayee suppressed his initial anger over the Gujarat massacre, and Advani quickly backtracked from his admiration for Jinnah’s secular credentials.
Reasons for the turmoil
The present turmoil in the party is occasioned by another reminder from the RSS that the BJP is not an independent political formation but one of its front organisations, charged with the responsibility to implement the Hindutva agenda. In the past, whenever the party faced a crisis, the RSS intervened to maintain discipline and assert its ideology. There was never any doubt about what that ideology was constitutive of. Its main contours were laid down by M.S. Golwalkar; it unambiguously advocated a Hindu Rashtra and its practical politics was inspired by a hatred of the minorities.
The BJP’s mission, therefore, cannot be separated from these basic principles. When Advani or Jaswant Singh were accused of deviating from the principles of the party, it was not so much the praise of Jinnah or the critique of Vallabhbhai Patel that mattered, but the possibility that their stance might affect adversely the commitment of the cadres to a Hindu Rashtra. The RSS rightly fears that the liberal dominance in the BJP is likely to dilute the Hindu nationalist fervour. Therefore, during the past 10 years it has consciously tried to promote Hindutva hardliners and marginalise the liberals.
Tension between the “liberal” and core Hindutva factions has simmered for quite some time. Positioning himself within the liberal fold, Vajpayee tried to create a space in which liberal opinion could at least co-exist with Hindutva. When Narendra Modi let loose terror in Gujarat, his early response was very critical and he urged the party to make amends by removing Modi from power. The RSS immediately intervened and forced Vajpayee to retract. For the RSS, Vajpayee was a convenient mascot, as described by K.N. Govindacharya, a former ideologue of the party, in order to project a liberal image as a strategy to remain in power. After him, there was none in the liberal camp with a popular following to fulfil that role. That was the only reason why the RSS tolerated his occasional musings, expressing the pangs of his troubled conscience.
The liberal and the Hindutva factions have drawn opposite conclusions from the electoral defeats in 2004 and 2009. The RSS believes that the days of liberalism are over and the only way for political revitalisation is a return to Hindutva and cultural nationalism. That requires both a reaffirmation of ideology and a reconstitution of leadership. As a result, Hindutva and cultural nationalism have been restated as core ideologies, and efforts are on to enthrone a new leadership, dispensing with the old guard, however useful they were in the past. On the other hand, the assessment of the liberal fraction is that identity politics has reached its limit and it is not possible to make any further headway on that path. After all, 20 years of religion-centred mobilisation has not succeeded in persuading the majority of Indians to subscribe to communal politics. Nor is it possible to invoke another Ram Janmabhoomi, as evidenced by the failed agitation over Rama Sethu and Bababudangiri. Also, the violence against minorities in Gujarat and Orissa drew revulsion rather than admiration all over the country. Therefore, it is imperative to chart out a new political programme that addresses secular issues and at the same time does not give up the religious cause. Ram Janmabhoomi can still be a part of the agenda, but without highlighting the livelihood issues of the people the party may not attract popular support.
PTI
A ravaged home in Gujarat’s Sasan Nav village in March 2002 when anti-Muslim riots swept the State.
These differing perspectives remained muted for quite some time. The electoral failure brought them to the fore and, more importantly, gave the liberal faction an opportunity to articulate its apprehensions, even if indirectly. The issue of accountability for the failure in elections, which Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie raised, was perhaps not directed against any individual but targeted the collective responsibility of the party controlled by the RSS affiliates. The liberal faction, however, had no cadre support; in fact they were disliked by the party’s hardcore workers for their supposedly Western habits. Interpreting the open criticism of the party as a serious act of indiscipline, the RSS used it as an opportunity to cleanse the party of ideological aberrations. Jaswant Singh’s expulsion is likely to be a forerunner of a fundamentalist reassertion. The days of the Shouries and the Sinhas are over. They will be relegated to the margins once the party passes fully into the hands of the Hindu fundamentalists controlled by the RSS. The present turmoil in the party is a result of the rumblings of this transition. The purification being attempted will lead to a reincarnation of the BJP as an uncompromising Hindu fundamentalist and right-wing party, carving out a specific space in Indian politics. Such a transformation will enable the BJP to clearly demarcate itself ideologically from the Congress, since the distinction between the two has steadily eroded in the past few years.
BJP’s only option
The BJP shares considerable common space with the Congress in the areas of economic and foreign policies. The structural adjustment initiated by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government was carried forward vigorously by the BJP when it came to power in 1998. The policy of the Congress-led governments that succeeded the BJP has been a more uncritical acceptance and implementation of neoliberal policies, diluted, though, with some pro-poor steps such as the rural employment scheme. Both the BJP and the Congress favoured disinvestment of public sector undertakings and privatisation of almost all sectors, including health and education. The BJP, therefore, cannot fashion its politics on the basis of a critique of the economic policies of the Congress government.
This is, to a large extent, true of foreign policy also. In discarding the much admired non-alignment policy, which Jawaharlal Nehru shaped during the initial days of the Republic, both the Congress and the BJP were vying with each other. During the post-Indira Gandhi period, the Congress policy came to be revised in favour of the American bloc, supporting, in the process, the imperialist interventions in Asia. The only difference between the Congress and the BJP was with respect to Israel and Palestine. In the past five years even that difference has ceased to exist. Accepting American hegemony as much as the Congress did, the BJP has no credible alternative to offer. In fact, there is hardly any difference between the two in foreign policy.
In the election campaign, the BJP was hard put to project an image that was sufficiently distinct from that of its main rival. It could not accuse the Congress of supporting imperialism, nor could it oppose neoliberal policies, as in both respects the BJP’s hands were equally soiled. Therefore, the space available to the BJP for mobilisation was practically limited to its political philosophy based on the conception of cultural nationalism. The Congress from the time of the anti-colonial struggle had championed an inclusive nationalism, whereas the BJP has been an advocate of religious nationalism and of the two-nation theory. Along with the latter, the BJP also invoked other religion-oriented issues such as Ram Janmabhoomi, Article 370 and a common civil code. The BJP found to its dismay that these issues did not anymore excite its support base, such as the members of the middle class, and even its captive supporters of Hindu fundamentalists. This failure is the reason for the troubled times of the BJP. The takeover of the BJP by the RSS, which appears to be imminent, is intended to tide over this crisis.
The control of the RSS is sure to strengthen the party’s ideological foundation and reorient its political practice to become more pronounced in the realm of religious fundamentalism. Over the years, the Sangh Parivar built up a formidable social support through the innumerable social and cultural organisations under its umbrella. In the past 10 years, however, they became relatively inactive and grew lukewarm in their active support to the BJP. What the RSS is likely to attempt is to regroup these organisations in order to revive the BJP’s strength. In the process, what the RSS is likely to ensure is the unambiguously Hindu communal and fascist character of the party and its affiliates. Implicit in this strategy is the possible danger of greater social strife and violence. Will the troubled times of the BJP lead to trouble for the nation?
September 20, 2009
Ishrat Jahan Murder
Ishrat Jahan: Murder in Cold Blood
Ram Puniyani
In the aftermath of Gujarat carnage the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee subtly reprimanded Modi Governemtn that Raj Dharma should have been followed. The implication was that state should have actively intervened to protect the innocents who were killed during the violence. What will one say if the same state selectively picks up innocent citizens, kills them and presents false stories to save its skin? While taking the oath, while joining the state one is supposed to treat all citizens as equal irrespective of their religion caste and gender. What do we say about the state, which goes on to kill its innocent citizens who happen to belong to minority community?
As the Citizen’s Tribunal pointed out in the aftermath of Godhra train burning Gujarat State machinery was told to sit back when the rioters were unleashed to kill and maim, to loot and to rape during the carnage. Now we know that in the same state, police officers have become emboldened enough to pick up minority elements, kill them in cold blood and proclaim that it is an encounter! The repeated cry of terrorists planning to kill Modi has been a favorite ploy of the police officers for killing innocents to please the CM, to seek promotions. It also helps to create a larger than life picture of Modi.
When Ishrat Jahan was killed in the June 2005, along with three others, the police officers boasted of their success that they have ably averted the attack on Modi by killing four terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Forensic and post mortem reports confirm that they were killed in cold blood on 14th June, shot at close range in a police custody and then, taken in a car, then put in a row on the road on the outskirts of Ahmadabad. To show that it was encounter, arms-ammunition was kept on their body. At this point of time National Human Rights Commission asked for magisterial inquiry. Later state Government also confirmed of magisterial inquiry going on. At the same time the police investigation was also started.
Justice Tamang has come out with his report that it was not an encounter and that the four killed in cold blood by police were not having any terrorist links. In response the Gujarat government is leaving no stone unturned to say that Justice Tamang had no business to release his report, the Gujarat high court has brought a stay on the report. But already the contents of the report are known through the media reports and Gujarat Government is finding no place to hide its face, also Supreme Court has seen nothing wrong in what Justice Tamang did. The total lack of remorse on the part of Gujarat Government is not surprising at all!
The officer, D. G.Vanjara, who killed these four, was also the one who had brutally killed Soharabbudin and his wife Kauserbi, and is now behind the bars. There is a section of Gujarat people, who are very appreciative of what Vnajara has done, and the situation which Modi Government has brought in. Now the Gujarat Government asks that when the police inquiry was going on, what is the legality of magisterial inquiry? On the contrary as per the law after the death of a person in police custody, or due to police action of this type, inquest, magisterial inquiry and police inquiry all these have to be done.
It is not that it is the first time that encounter, fake encounter killings, are taking place. The difference here is the total identification and defense of such acts by the political leadership of state. The difference is that a section of people are being made to believe such dastardly acts are needed to make the society safe. The effort of Gujarat Government is just to show a brave face in the light of exposure of its brutality in killing the innocents. Incidentally Ishrat was wearing her college, Khalsa College Mumbai, Identity Card around her neck when she was killed in cold blood. Legal nuances and nitty gritty apart where are we heading in twenty in Twenty-first Century?
Just slightly an year ago in the face of police arrest of many Muslim youth in the aftermath of bomb blasts citizens tribunals were held in Hyderabad and then in Jaipur. Legal luminaries and social activists formed the jury of these tribunals. Both tribunals pointed out that the attitude of police is very biased and many a Muslim youth are being arrested without any proof whatsoever. Will such actions by state, will such a defense of killing of innocents, not intensify the sense of injustice amongst a section of Indian citizens?
Where are we heading to? On one hand there are inquiry commission reports showing as to how communal organizations orchestrate crimes and the section of police and part of state administration colludes. On the other plane there is the phenomenon of terrorism, which has many factors contributing to it but it is only Muslims who are blamed for that. We are also witnessing a serious and by now inbuilt discrimination leading to exclusion of minorities from the social facilities. In such an atmosphere what will happen to the psyche of the youth and others from minority community? The social disparities we are creating due to such policies are there for all of us to see. The tragedy is that a section of people have started asserting the correctness of these happenings. The situation which is being created due to all this is further used to blame minorities for it. The Modi-Vanjara duo, which is becoming a law unto them, is the symptom of deeper malaise of
Gujarat.
--
Ram Puniyani
In the aftermath of Gujarat carnage the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee subtly reprimanded Modi Governemtn that Raj Dharma should have been followed. The implication was that state should have actively intervened to protect the innocents who were killed during the violence. What will one say if the same state selectively picks up innocent citizens, kills them and presents false stories to save its skin? While taking the oath, while joining the state one is supposed to treat all citizens as equal irrespective of their religion caste and gender. What do we say about the state, which goes on to kill its innocent citizens who happen to belong to minority community?
As the Citizen’s Tribunal pointed out in the aftermath of Godhra train burning Gujarat State machinery was told to sit back when the rioters were unleashed to kill and maim, to loot and to rape during the carnage. Now we know that in the same state, police officers have become emboldened enough to pick up minority elements, kill them in cold blood and proclaim that it is an encounter! The repeated cry of terrorists planning to kill Modi has been a favorite ploy of the police officers for killing innocents to please the CM, to seek promotions. It also helps to create a larger than life picture of Modi.
When Ishrat Jahan was killed in the June 2005, along with three others, the police officers boasted of their success that they have ably averted the attack on Modi by killing four terrorists of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Forensic and post mortem reports confirm that they were killed in cold blood on 14th June, shot at close range in a police custody and then, taken in a car, then put in a row on the road on the outskirts of Ahmadabad. To show that it was encounter, arms-ammunition was kept on their body. At this point of time National Human Rights Commission asked for magisterial inquiry. Later state Government also confirmed of magisterial inquiry going on. At the same time the police investigation was also started.
Justice Tamang has come out with his report that it was not an encounter and that the four killed in cold blood by police were not having any terrorist links. In response the Gujarat government is leaving no stone unturned to say that Justice Tamang had no business to release his report, the Gujarat high court has brought a stay on the report. But already the contents of the report are known through the media reports and Gujarat Government is finding no place to hide its face, also Supreme Court has seen nothing wrong in what Justice Tamang did. The total lack of remorse on the part of Gujarat Government is not surprising at all!
The officer, D. G.Vanjara, who killed these four, was also the one who had brutally killed Soharabbudin and his wife Kauserbi, and is now behind the bars. There is a section of Gujarat people, who are very appreciative of what Vnajara has done, and the situation which Modi Government has brought in. Now the Gujarat Government asks that when the police inquiry was going on, what is the legality of magisterial inquiry? On the contrary as per the law after the death of a person in police custody, or due to police action of this type, inquest, magisterial inquiry and police inquiry all these have to be done.
It is not that it is the first time that encounter, fake encounter killings, are taking place. The difference here is the total identification and defense of such acts by the political leadership of state. The difference is that a section of people are being made to believe such dastardly acts are needed to make the society safe. The effort of Gujarat Government is just to show a brave face in the light of exposure of its brutality in killing the innocents. Incidentally Ishrat was wearing her college, Khalsa College Mumbai, Identity Card around her neck when she was killed in cold blood. Legal nuances and nitty gritty apart where are we heading in twenty in Twenty-first Century?
Just slightly an year ago in the face of police arrest of many Muslim youth in the aftermath of bomb blasts citizens tribunals were held in Hyderabad and then in Jaipur. Legal luminaries and social activists formed the jury of these tribunals. Both tribunals pointed out that the attitude of police is very biased and many a Muslim youth are being arrested without any proof whatsoever. Will such actions by state, will such a defense of killing of innocents, not intensify the sense of injustice amongst a section of Indian citizens?
Where are we heading to? On one hand there are inquiry commission reports showing as to how communal organizations orchestrate crimes and the section of police and part of state administration colludes. On the other plane there is the phenomenon of terrorism, which has many factors contributing to it but it is only Muslims who are blamed for that. We are also witnessing a serious and by now inbuilt discrimination leading to exclusion of minorities from the social facilities. In such an atmosphere what will happen to the psyche of the youth and others from minority community? The social disparities we are creating due to such policies are there for all of us to see. The tragedy is that a section of people have started asserting the correctness of these happenings. The situation which is being created due to all this is further used to blame minorities for it. The Modi-Vanjara duo, which is becoming a law unto them, is the symptom of deeper malaise of
Gujarat.
--
September 19, 2009
MF Hussain at 94 still in Exile: Artists in India Need Protection (CNN-IBN TV report)
Video 1
URLs to other parts of the above programme are:
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6
__________
URLs to other parts of the above programme are:
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6
__________
Artist MF Husain, who has been living in self exile for the past 13 years due to threats from Hindu fundamentalists for his works, turned 94 on Thursday. But the doyen of modern Indian art still cannot come back to his homeland because of the threat to his life.
The Government has so far done nothing to bring back the artist.
CNN-IBN show Face the Nation debated: MF Husain turns 94 – should the Government bring Husain home?
On the panel of experts to debate the issue were MF Husain's counsel Akhil Sibal, MP and Congress Spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan, artist Anjolie Ela Menon, and BJP member Sheshadri Chari.
Is the future for artists and the democratic expression of freedom bleak in India?
Noted artist Anjolie Ela Menon began the debate by saying, "I don’t think so because we have protested every time there is this self-appointed moral police. I remember when the incident took place I was in a television interview which had a large audience and I asked some 200 people that which of them had seen his painting. And not one hand went up. So what were they offended by? The propaganda by the VHP and Bajrang Dal?"
Not agreeing with Menon, BJP member Sheshadri Chari said, "It is not the question of propaganda. We all wish him well and many more years of painting. He is out of India on a self-imposed exile. There is nothing that the Government of India or BJP or RSS can do."
However, VHP and Bajrang Dal have reportedly said that Husain "has vilified our objects of worship"
To which Chari said, "Forget what the VHP and Bajrang Dal have said. What is the general perception? The perception is that he has painted certain Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the nude. So now it is for MF Husain to come and explain it. When he was asked why did he paint Hitler in the nude he had said those whom he hates and those whom he wants to humiliate he paints them in the nude. This is what he had said in an interview which was even publicised."
When an artist paints a God or Goddess in the nude does it convey disrespect or humiliation?
"Of course not. If you look back in the history of Indian art it was Ravi Varma who started dressing Gods in clothes of his own times. But there were times which preceded the advent of cloth," Menon explained.
So then why doesn’t the Government give police protection to Husain? When he wanted to come for the India Art Summit, the Government reportedly did not do anything.
"I don’t speak for the Government. I am not aware what the Maharashtra government has done. But as far as my party is concerned we are of the view that if Mr Husain would like to come back to the country of his birth then he should certainly do so. And if there is any threat to his life then the Government will provide him with protection," Congress Spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said.
But the Government didn’t do that. During the recently-held India Art Summit the organisers went from pillar to post within the Home Ministry trying for police protection so that they could get Husain for the summit. But it is believed that protection was never given.
"As far as I am aware any citizen who is entitled for protection can ask for it," Natarajan said.
Regarding the Home Ministry taking up the issue, Natarajan said, "I don’t think it is the highest on our list of priorities at the moment given the acts of terror against the country. We have considerable respect for Mr Husain’s artistic oeuvre, as you put it. He has put contemporary Indian art on the world map. But it is simply not the job of the Government in my view."
Politicians vs the society
The Delhi High Court has dismissed the obscenity case. The court also said that nudity is part of contemporary art and plays a significant role in India’s cultural heritage.
In the light of this judgment why doesn’t Husain come back and face the charges?
To which Husain's counsel Akhil Sibal said, "I want to clarify that he is facing the charges. He represented in court, he filed a petition saying these cases are frivolous and legally unstable and he succeeded. So he is not running away. There is no legal impediment preventing him from returning. The more important question is not whether the Government should bring him back but whether the society should bring him back. There is a fringe element which has a very shrill voice but they are not representative of the majority."
"What Ms Natarajan said is absolutely shocking. This gives out a very strong message," Sibal added.
Strongly disagreeing with Sibal’s charges, Natarajan said, "No, my words have been taken out of context. I said terrorism is high on the Government’s priority and not an art summit. I did not say that the Government will not provide protection."
"I am sorry to say but even the clarification is shocking," said Sibal.
"You have to be careful about the messaging that you are sending out. What you said cannot be the view of the Government surely and if it is then that’s absolutely shocking," he added.
Freedom of expression
There has been a tradition of nudity and cultural expression in our heritage. Then how can the Hindu groups call Husain’s paintings an insult to Indian heritage?
"I wouldn’t say it is just a Hindu group. I would go back to an interview of Husain which was conducted by a very senior journalist. He was asked why did he paint Hindu Gods in the nude. Husain had replied saying ‘nudity is a metaphor for purity and strength.’ Then the next question that was asked was that would he paint all women characters like Mother Teresa and Fatima also in the nude? Husain had then said that he doesn’t want to answer that question," Chari said.
Unperturbed by the argument, Menon said, "Husain is today 94 and we really don’t care whether he is on this soil or not. We all go to meet him and I have had a nice ride in his red Ferrari. The world has shrunk so it doesn’t really matter whether he is here or there. If you think he is unhappy then you all are sadly mistaken. Husain is a true karmayogi. His life and his religion is his work. I think everyone is just whipping up an old dead controversy. As long as he is able to work it doesn’t matter where he is."
"The entire thing against Husain was politically motivated because some of his paintings were very old. They were taken out and made into a pamphlet by DP Sinha and party. It was done just to whip up sentiments amongst people who had never even seen his paintings," Menon added.
However, the panelists agreed that the issue here is that it is the artists’ freedom that needs to be protected.
Taking about the root of the controversy Chari said, "His painting of Bharat Mata was put up for sale and was going to be inaugurated by then Governor of Maharashtra SM Krishna. But he had then refused to go when he heard that it was a nude painting of Bharat Mata. So it was not about Bajrang Dal or VHP."
Sibal concluded the debate by saying, "This is completely misconceived argument for the simple reason that Hindu art has a tradition of eroticism mixed with religion and that is exactly what the High Court has also said."
An illustration of RSS Chief Bahgwat in Mail Today 31 Aug 2009
Mohan Rao Bhagwat the the Chief of the RSS in an Illustration by R Prasad in Mail Today (New Delhi) 31 August 2009. This illustation appeared on an Article on the RSS by Prabhu Chawla.
Hindu right planning another wrath yatra in the guise of the Rama's 'baraat'
Mail Today
17 September 2009
17 September 2009
VHP plans a rath yatra in garb of Rama’s wedding procession | ||
By Piyush Srivastava in Lucknow | ||
IT SEEMS the Vishwa Hindu Parishad ( VHP) does not believe in practicing what it preaches. Barely a week after its leader Ashok Singhal said L. K. Advani took out a rath yatra in 1990 to use the Ayodhya Ram temple issue for his personal political end, the VHP has planned a rath yatra in the guise of the baraat ( marriage procession) of Lord Rama in November. Clearly frustrated over the failure of the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) in meeting the aspirations of its supporters, the VHP will travel along with the rath of Lord Rama from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh to Janakpur in Nepal. Sharad Sharma, spokesperson of the VHP, said over 250 saints will participate in the marriage party. “ Our leader Ashok Singhal will also participate in the rath yatra . Those who are old and have difficulty in walking will follow the yatra in cars. Our purpose is to communicate with people,” Sharma said. The saints in Ayodhya used to take Rama’s baraat from Ayodhya to Doodhmati village in Janakpur district of Nepal on foot every year in November. There they participated in the marriage ceremony of Rama and Sita. This tradition was discontinued after 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished by Hindutva zealots and communal violence broke out across the country. The saints had tried to restart it in 2004, but it turned out to be a low- key affair. The saints also travelled on cars, unlike earlier when they took out the procession on foot. But facing the fear of extinction in Uttar Pradesh after people rejected Right- wing organisations, the VHP resolved to restart the tradition and travel on foot to bring back supporters. VHP leaders and supporters will accompany a rath carrying the idols of Lord Rama and his brothers Bharat and Laxman. The procession will start on November 14 and reach Doodhmati village on November 21. It is believed that the marriage party of Lord Rama had gone from Ayodhya to Doodhmati in Nepal’s Janakpur in the mythical Satyug era. The rath will pass through Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh and Buxar in Bihar and enter Nepal via Raxaul, Sharma said. |
September 17, 2009
Bababudangiri, Karnataka’s communal smoke pit, is simmering again
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 38, Dated September 26, 2009
CURRENT AFFAIRS
karnataka
The Quest For A New Ayodhya
Bababudangiri, Karnataka’s communal smoke pit, is simmering again as restoration work at the site smacks of a right-wing agenda. SANJANA reports
ON SEPTEMBER 8, 2009, a group of a hundred gathered atop Bababudangiri hill, 30 km from Chikmaglur town in Karnataka. They installed a deity on a makeshift structure and performed a puja. Vows were taken towards making the place a religious centre for Hindus. The repair and restoration work of Sri Guru Datta Baba Budan Dargah at Bababudangiri had been formally inaugurated. Top state BJP leaders such as Minister for Energy KS Eshwarappa, state unit president DV Sadananda Gowda and Chikmaglur MLA CT Ravi led the proceedings.
In a country marked by ritual ceremonies, an official programme like this would ordinarily have received no attention. But this was greeted by loud condemnation from Opposition political parties and secular organisations. The puja had violated a Supreme Court stay order in an ongoing lawsuit. And the vow to establish a Hindu religious shrine at the site negated the rich syncretic tradition of the place.
HOW THE HILL BEGAN TO BURN
1974
The shrine dear to Hindus
and Muslims is transferred to the Wakf Board. In 1977, a district court rules that it is a syncretic shrine
1991
Karnataka High Court
and Supreme Court uphold the syncretic nature of the shrine. It has a Muslim priest as well as Hindu practices
1998
Bajrang Dal and VHP
declare they will “liberate” the shrine from Muslims on December 3. Rath yatras are organised across the state
1999
A Dattatreya Swami idol
is installed. This violates a court order that only rituals practised prior to 1975 can be performed at the shrine
2002
BJP MP Ananth Kumar
says ‘Bababudangiri would be made the Ayodhya of the South’. 10,000 people gather to protest this
2004
Government bans the
Sangh Parivar’s ‘shobha yatra’. In 2005, it bans both the Datta Jayanthi puja and the 3-day sufi Urs
2008
Karnataka High Court
says practices at the shrine should be reevaluated. In December, the Supreme Court orders status quo
The Baba Budan Dargah, as it is popularly known, has been the site of a protracted battle in Karnataka for the last 10 years. Right-wing organisations like the Bajrang Dal, VHP and BJP have declared their intentions to “liberate” the Dargah and build a temple to the Hindu saint Dattatreya instead at the spot. At a public gathering in Chikmaglur in 2002, BJP MP Ananth Kumar famously declared that the party was committed to ensuring that “Bababudangiri would be the Ayodhya of the South.”
image
Slow fuse The Bababudangiri dargah
Photo: S RADHAKRISHNA
image
image
VHP and Bajrang Dal supporters at the Dattamala Abhiyana
Photo: KPN
image
BJP state president DV Sadananda Gowda at the installation of Sri Dattatreya Swami idol at the dargah
Historically, the Dargah has been revered by both sufi followers as well as Hindus. Legend has it that Baba Budan, a disciple of the famous sufi saint Dada Hayat Mirkalandar, chose the hill as a site for his monastery and lived there for years. Hindus regard the place as a resting spot of Dattatreya Swami. The caves, three hundred steps down, hold both the tombs of Baba Budan’s disciples and the footwear of Dattatreya Swami.
In June 2008, a portion of the cave collapsed and the district administration sealed the shrine. The repair work therefore is long overdue. Despite this, vociferous objections are being raised.
Last December, hearing a case pertaining to the religious practices to be followed at the shrine, the Supreme Court had issued orders to maintain status quo at the shrine as on February 1989. Says 76-year-old Fairoz Khan, a staunch follower of Baba Budan, “The cave badly needs repair. But the government has started the project without sharing details with anyone. Has it forgotten the shrine is disputed? Forget seeking our consent, why wasn’t the Supreme Court apprised of the matter?”
Ashok KL, secretary of the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum and one of the petitioners in the case, also maintains the ongoing work is a violation of the court order. “We believe this is a step towards changing the nature of religious practices followed at the shrine,” he says.
Documents obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) endorse what Ashok is saying. A project report submitted by the Torsteel Research Foundation contains a blueprint of the reconstructed shrine as envisaged by the consultants. In one instance, it recommends the construction of 52 pillars and a massive cover over the area where the tombs are located. For the sufi followers who throng the shrine, this is sacrosanct. Any change without consent is bound to attract objections. Says Khan, “If I go by the history of the government’s actions and their complete disregard for sufi practices, then I am bound to view this with suspicion. Why not take us into confidence?”
The caves hold the tombs of Baba Budan’s disciples and the footwear of Dattatreya
In a damning endorsement of this apprehension, BJP state president DV Sadananda Gowda told TEHELKA that the idol of Dattatreya Swami placed at the shrine during the inaugural puja would be part of the shrine after the restoration as well. Ask him if this counts as a violation of the Supreme Court stay order, since no idol was present at the shrine in 1989, and he says adamantly, “We will fight this within the courts and outside it.” Gowda, who participated in the inaugural puja, believes the September 8 ceremony was in accordance with Hindu religious customs and cannot be a violation of any legal authority.
The RTI documents, however, reflect other problems. The restoration project valued at Rs 2.09 crore has been awarded to a company that seems to have little expertise in repair and restoration of ancient structures. Waiving the tendering process mandated under the Karnataka Transparency Act, the contract was awarded to Binyas Contech Pvt Ltd, a Bellary-based company.
To prove that Binyas could meet the financial requirements, a letter signed by the Chikmaglur deputy commissioner lists the total value of projects handled by the company in the last six years. The figures reflect a sharp increase in the value of government projects bagged by the company, coinciding with the BJP government’s rise to power. P Shashidhar, general manager at Binyas, says, “What does our revenue have to do with the government?” – a statement belied by the fact that all the Binyas projects listed have been contracted out by the government.
Right-wing groups intend to ‘liberate’ the dargah and build a temple instead
Binyas was upheld as a company with expertise in demolition and repair of old structures — a fact that the Binyas general manager himself does not assert. “We can’t say we are the only company with such expertise in Karnataka. There are other companies too,” he told TEHELKA. Asked to list out restoration of ancient structures the company has completed in the past, he mentions repair of a collapsed bridge in Hampi. The bridge was 10 years old and Hampi is a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site.
But the most disturbing fact is the manner in which the inaugural programme was done. As Ashok says, “The complicity of the government in furthering the agenda of the Bajrang Dal and VHP is worrying. When the Supreme Court’s orders were laid to waste, ministers, elected representatives, district officials and the superintendent of police were present. Where does that leave us?”
WRITER’S EMAIL
sanjana@tehelka.com
CURRENT AFFAIRS
karnataka
The Quest For A New Ayodhya
Bababudangiri, Karnataka’s communal smoke pit, is simmering again as restoration work at the site smacks of a right-wing agenda. SANJANA reports
ON SEPTEMBER 8, 2009, a group of a hundred gathered atop Bababudangiri hill, 30 km from Chikmaglur town in Karnataka. They installed a deity on a makeshift structure and performed a puja. Vows were taken towards making the place a religious centre for Hindus. The repair and restoration work of Sri Guru Datta Baba Budan Dargah at Bababudangiri had been formally inaugurated. Top state BJP leaders such as Minister for Energy KS Eshwarappa, state unit president DV Sadananda Gowda and Chikmaglur MLA CT Ravi led the proceedings.
In a country marked by ritual ceremonies, an official programme like this would ordinarily have received no attention. But this was greeted by loud condemnation from Opposition political parties and secular organisations. The puja had violated a Supreme Court stay order in an ongoing lawsuit. And the vow to establish a Hindu religious shrine at the site negated the rich syncretic tradition of the place.
HOW THE HILL BEGAN TO BURN
1974
The shrine dear to Hindus
and Muslims is transferred to the Wakf Board. In 1977, a district court rules that it is a syncretic shrine
1991
Karnataka High Court
and Supreme Court uphold the syncretic nature of the shrine. It has a Muslim priest as well as Hindu practices
1998
Bajrang Dal and VHP
declare they will “liberate” the shrine from Muslims on December 3. Rath yatras are organised across the state
1999
A Dattatreya Swami idol
is installed. This violates a court order that only rituals practised prior to 1975 can be performed at the shrine
2002
BJP MP Ananth Kumar
says ‘Bababudangiri would be made the Ayodhya of the South’. 10,000 people gather to protest this
2004
Government bans the
Sangh Parivar’s ‘shobha yatra’. In 2005, it bans both the Datta Jayanthi puja and the 3-day sufi Urs
2008
Karnataka High Court
says practices at the shrine should be reevaluated. In December, the Supreme Court orders status quo
The Baba Budan Dargah, as it is popularly known, has been the site of a protracted battle in Karnataka for the last 10 years. Right-wing organisations like the Bajrang Dal, VHP and BJP have declared their intentions to “liberate” the Dargah and build a temple to the Hindu saint Dattatreya instead at the spot. At a public gathering in Chikmaglur in 2002, BJP MP Ananth Kumar famously declared that the party was committed to ensuring that “Bababudangiri would be the Ayodhya of the South.”
image
Slow fuse The Bababudangiri dargah
Photo: S RADHAKRISHNA
image
image
VHP and Bajrang Dal supporters at the Dattamala Abhiyana
Photo: KPN
image
BJP state president DV Sadananda Gowda at the installation of Sri Dattatreya Swami idol at the dargah
Historically, the Dargah has been revered by both sufi followers as well as Hindus. Legend has it that Baba Budan, a disciple of the famous sufi saint Dada Hayat Mirkalandar, chose the hill as a site for his monastery and lived there for years. Hindus regard the place as a resting spot of Dattatreya Swami. The caves, three hundred steps down, hold both the tombs of Baba Budan’s disciples and the footwear of Dattatreya Swami.
In June 2008, a portion of the cave collapsed and the district administration sealed the shrine. The repair work therefore is long overdue. Despite this, vociferous objections are being raised.
Last December, hearing a case pertaining to the religious practices to be followed at the shrine, the Supreme Court had issued orders to maintain status quo at the shrine as on February 1989. Says 76-year-old Fairoz Khan, a staunch follower of Baba Budan, “The cave badly needs repair. But the government has started the project without sharing details with anyone. Has it forgotten the shrine is disputed? Forget seeking our consent, why wasn’t the Supreme Court apprised of the matter?”
Ashok KL, secretary of the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum and one of the petitioners in the case, also maintains the ongoing work is a violation of the court order. “We believe this is a step towards changing the nature of religious practices followed at the shrine,” he says.
Documents obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) endorse what Ashok is saying. A project report submitted by the Torsteel Research Foundation contains a blueprint of the reconstructed shrine as envisaged by the consultants. In one instance, it recommends the construction of 52 pillars and a massive cover over the area where the tombs are located. For the sufi followers who throng the shrine, this is sacrosanct. Any change without consent is bound to attract objections. Says Khan, “If I go by the history of the government’s actions and their complete disregard for sufi practices, then I am bound to view this with suspicion. Why not take us into confidence?”
The caves hold the tombs of Baba Budan’s disciples and the footwear of Dattatreya
In a damning endorsement of this apprehension, BJP state president DV Sadananda Gowda told TEHELKA that the idol of Dattatreya Swami placed at the shrine during the inaugural puja would be part of the shrine after the restoration as well. Ask him if this counts as a violation of the Supreme Court stay order, since no idol was present at the shrine in 1989, and he says adamantly, “We will fight this within the courts and outside it.” Gowda, who participated in the inaugural puja, believes the September 8 ceremony was in accordance with Hindu religious customs and cannot be a violation of any legal authority.
The RTI documents, however, reflect other problems. The restoration project valued at Rs 2.09 crore has been awarded to a company that seems to have little expertise in repair and restoration of ancient structures. Waiving the tendering process mandated under the Karnataka Transparency Act, the contract was awarded to Binyas Contech Pvt Ltd, a Bellary-based company.
To prove that Binyas could meet the financial requirements, a letter signed by the Chikmaglur deputy commissioner lists the total value of projects handled by the company in the last six years. The figures reflect a sharp increase in the value of government projects bagged by the company, coinciding with the BJP government’s rise to power. P Shashidhar, general manager at Binyas, says, “What does our revenue have to do with the government?” – a statement belied by the fact that all the Binyas projects listed have been contracted out by the government.
Right-wing groups intend to ‘liberate’ the dargah and build a temple instead
Binyas was upheld as a company with expertise in demolition and repair of old structures — a fact that the Binyas general manager himself does not assert. “We can’t say we are the only company with such expertise in Karnataka. There are other companies too,” he told TEHELKA. Asked to list out restoration of ancient structures the company has completed in the past, he mentions repair of a collapsed bridge in Hampi. The bridge was 10 years old and Hampi is a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site.
But the most disturbing fact is the manner in which the inaugural programme was done. As Ashok says, “The complicity of the government in furthering the agenda of the Bajrang Dal and VHP is worrying. When the Supreme Court’s orders were laid to waste, ministers, elected representatives, district officials and the superintendent of police were present. Where does that leave us?”
WRITER’S EMAIL
sanjana@tehelka.com
The Men who took on Modi
NDTV.COM > Blogs > A Fine Balance by Supriya Sharma
(Source URL: http://tt.ly/2t)
Monday September 14, 2009 , Ahmedabad, India
A petition that successfully takes on the government anywhere in India is usually an opportunity for either of two standard journalistic devices to come into play - an interview of the 'heroic' petitioner, or better still, his or her 'profile'.
I found neither in the newspapers here in Gujarat.
The ban on Jaswant Singh's book had come and gone. But the men who had petitioned the High Court against it were neither to be seen nor heard - except in a mandatory newspaper quote.
Curiosity finally led me to the home of one of them - writer Manishi Jani.
Reclining on the trademark Gujarati jhula, with a mug of tea, newspapers, and a relaxed air, Jani went on to demolish any fears and suspicion on the 'silence' of the media, by offering an explanation for why the local newspapers might not have featured him: possibly since he is already well known enough in the state !
That could well be true. A prominent writer, Jani is the president of Gujarati Lekhak Mandal, a trade union of sorts that protects writers and their interests, usually against film and TV producers stealing their stories.
But this was a case not of private theft, but of the state taking away freedom - so what made him intervene?
"Fanaa and Parzania were banned informally. But the ban on Jaswant Singh's book was by official order. We felt we needed to challenge it in court."
The 'we' included co-petitioner Prakash Shah, a former newspaper editor and political scientist, and their young lawyers. "I must clarify that the initiative for the petition came from the lawyers. One of them is my nephew. Prakash and I signed up as petitioners since we have public stature and recognition. It would be far more difficult for the government to harass us. After all, Prakash has shared space in jail with Narendra Modi during the emergency protests."
But with such formidable credentials, why did the group, or others like them, not express their views in the newspapers? Personal stories of the petitioners might be superfluous, but surely their opinion and arguments should be available in public space.
"We drafted a statement of protest on the day the ban was imposed. Seven organizations signed it. We sent it to all the newspapers. Almost no one published it."
Jani was matter of fact as he stated this. He even laughed briefly.
Then he went on to confirm, with specific instances, what is otherwise easy to suspect - that the ban on a book in Gujarat is just a flamboyant and 'official' version of the mundane, routine, 'unofficial' silencing of dissent in the state; its natural target being the media.
Jani should know. Several journalists in the state are his students from the years he taught development communication.
Development communication, as it turns out, is just one of the many landmarks, in Jani's trajectory, that fits into that uniquely Indian 'liberal socialist' mould: firebrand student activist in the seventies, Dalit poet in the eighties, worked in community television and development communication, till finally, two years ago, he became part of an attempt to revive the progressive writers movement in Gujarat.
One of the reasons Jani felt strongly about state diktats against writers was his own experience in 1981, when along with six others, he faced criminal action by the state congress government for writing and publishing a special edition of Dalit poetry. "All we had done was publish a special issue of our magazine 'Aakrosh', on the case of a Dalit youth being murdered on charges of stealing a watch."
Those were the years when, like neighbouring Maharashtra, Gujarat too was witnessing radical Dalit resistance that Hindutva politics subsequently not just managed to blunt, but also hijack.
"During the riots in Gujarat, Dalit youth often led the killings of Muslims. In fact, if you look at the geography of a city like Ahmedabad, Dalits and Muslims live next to each other, away from the Hindu middle class areas. And so when riots broke out, all the violence unfolded at a safe distance from the areas of the upper caste Hindus. In fact, even in my locality, there isn't a single Muslim family."
So how does it feel to live in 'an intolerant society'?
"Every stereotype has some truth. We all know what has happened here. The intolerance in Gujarat is for all to see. Modi might exemplify the worst of it, but it is not limited to just one political party. " Jani paused. "But while this may be the big picture, there is a lot more happening at the ground level - struggle over land, rights, other issues - these stories go unnoticed."
Also gone unnoticed so far is the story of Jani, Shah and the lawyers.
It is easy to understand why the local media has avoided it.
But it is difficult to figure out why it hasn't been picked up by the national media.
Perhaps because it does not fit into the prevailing meta narrative of a 'fascist' state, where the champions of justice come from outside, from Delhi and Bombay, since - as scholarly opinion has rued - the Gujarati 'liberal' voice is dead.
It is not.
What's more, it is gentle, and as you see in the picture, comes from a smiling man who is Gujarati enough to conduct even the most radical business perched on a traditional Gujarati jhula.
(Source URL: http://tt.ly/2t)
Monday September 14, 2009 , Ahmedabad, India
A petition that successfully takes on the government anywhere in India is usually an opportunity for either of two standard journalistic devices to come into play - an interview of the 'heroic' petitioner, or better still, his or her 'profile'.
I found neither in the newspapers here in Gujarat.
The ban on Jaswant Singh's book had come and gone. But the men who had petitioned the High Court against it were neither to be seen nor heard - except in a mandatory newspaper quote.
Curiosity finally led me to the home of one of them - writer Manishi Jani.
Reclining on the trademark Gujarati jhula, with a mug of tea, newspapers, and a relaxed air, Jani went on to demolish any fears and suspicion on the 'silence' of the media, by offering an explanation for why the local newspapers might not have featured him: possibly since he is already well known enough in the state !
That could well be true. A prominent writer, Jani is the president of Gujarati Lekhak Mandal, a trade union of sorts that protects writers and their interests, usually against film and TV producers stealing their stories.
But this was a case not of private theft, but of the state taking away freedom - so what made him intervene?
"Fanaa and Parzania were banned informally. But the ban on Jaswant Singh's book was by official order. We felt we needed to challenge it in court."
The 'we' included co-petitioner Prakash Shah, a former newspaper editor and political scientist, and their young lawyers. "I must clarify that the initiative for the petition came from the lawyers. One of them is my nephew. Prakash and I signed up as petitioners since we have public stature and recognition. It would be far more difficult for the government to harass us. After all, Prakash has shared space in jail with Narendra Modi during the emergency protests."
But with such formidable credentials, why did the group, or others like them, not express their views in the newspapers? Personal stories of the petitioners might be superfluous, but surely their opinion and arguments should be available in public space.
"We drafted a statement of protest on the day the ban was imposed. Seven organizations signed it. We sent it to all the newspapers. Almost no one published it."
Jani was matter of fact as he stated this. He even laughed briefly.
Then he went on to confirm, with specific instances, what is otherwise easy to suspect - that the ban on a book in Gujarat is just a flamboyant and 'official' version of the mundane, routine, 'unofficial' silencing of dissent in the state; its natural target being the media.
Jani should know. Several journalists in the state are his students from the years he taught development communication.
Development communication, as it turns out, is just one of the many landmarks, in Jani's trajectory, that fits into that uniquely Indian 'liberal socialist' mould: firebrand student activist in the seventies, Dalit poet in the eighties, worked in community television and development communication, till finally, two years ago, he became part of an attempt to revive the progressive writers movement in Gujarat.
One of the reasons Jani felt strongly about state diktats against writers was his own experience in 1981, when along with six others, he faced criminal action by the state congress government for writing and publishing a special edition of Dalit poetry. "All we had done was publish a special issue of our magazine 'Aakrosh', on the case of a Dalit youth being murdered on charges of stealing a watch."
Those were the years when, like neighbouring Maharashtra, Gujarat too was witnessing radical Dalit resistance that Hindutva politics subsequently not just managed to blunt, but also hijack.
"During the riots in Gujarat, Dalit youth often led the killings of Muslims. In fact, if you look at the geography of a city like Ahmedabad, Dalits and Muslims live next to each other, away from the Hindu middle class areas. And so when riots broke out, all the violence unfolded at a safe distance from the areas of the upper caste Hindus. In fact, even in my locality, there isn't a single Muslim family."
So how does it feel to live in 'an intolerant society'?
"Every stereotype has some truth. We all know what has happened here. The intolerance in Gujarat is for all to see. Modi might exemplify the worst of it, but it is not limited to just one political party. " Jani paused. "But while this may be the big picture, there is a lot more happening at the ground level - struggle over land, rights, other issues - these stories go unnoticed."
Also gone unnoticed so far is the story of Jani, Shah and the lawyers.
It is easy to understand why the local media has avoided it.
But it is difficult to figure out why it hasn't been picked up by the national media.
Perhaps because it does not fit into the prevailing meta narrative of a 'fascist' state, where the champions of justice come from outside, from Delhi and Bombay, since - as scholarly opinion has rued - the Gujarati 'liberal' voice is dead.
It is not.
What's more, it is gentle, and as you see in the picture, comes from a smiling man who is Gujarati enough to conduct even the most radical business perched on a traditional Gujarati jhula.
RSS tells the BJP that its “core ideology” was “non-negotiable"
The Telegraph, 17 september 2009
Sangh offers BJP Hindutva legroom
by Radhika Ramaseshan
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Mathura on Wednesday. (PTI)
New Delhi, Sept. 16: The RSS has told the BJP that while its “core ideology” was “non-negotiable” and had to be “preached and practised” by all its affiliates, the party was free to adapt and articulate it as it wanted.
But under no circumstances could it think of expunging the ‘H’ (Hindutva) word from its dictionary.
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, not a Sangh admirer, was picked as a leader who straddled the space between “ideology and governance” without confrontation as were the other BJP chief ministers.
It is learnt that this message underlined the Sangh’s preference for a regional leader to head the BJP when it was time for the present president, Rajnath Singh, to bow out rather than anoint one of the familiar names in Delhi.
The RSS recognises the difference between the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The Sangh feels that while the VHP has the space to take “positions that seemed extreme”, the BJP was free to redefine, broadbase and repackage “Hindutva” to suit existing political circumstances.
Such a policy will help the BJP distance itself from the “hawkish” meaning usually read into the party’s propagation of Ayodhya, a common civil code and the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir as its central issues.
At the two-day thinkers’ meeting of the Sangh parivar last week in Mumbai, the RSS brass, playing on the global concern over climate change, picked environment as an example to “tell the world” to look “seriously” at Hinduism and Jainism for answers instead of being tied down to the Judeo-Christian concept of a “world created solely for man’s benefit and rule”.
“Hinduism and Jainism, on the other hand, contain concepts that can lead to the enhancement of core human-earth relations because they suggest that the earth can be seen as a manifestation of the goddess who must be treated with respect,” a source who attended the meeting said.
It is understood that some of the BJP’s representatives at this “exclusive” meeting of 30 said environment would not fetch the party votes as a reaffirmation of its stand on “pure nationalism”.
The deliberations did not discuss the problems that have beset the BJP in Delhi. But it is believed that the talks on the sidelines over tea-breaks and meals confirmed that:
The RSS was unlikely to brook another debate on ideology versus governance, not as long as the BJP remained in the Opposition. It felt that the first priority was to regroup and re-motivate cadres. Ideology was the “only cement”.
The Sangh wondered if the polemics at the top in Delhi on the “merits” of Jinnah versus the “de-merits” of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jinnah’s “secular” garb were “really substantive” or meant for certain individuals to grandstand before a “liberal” audience and show up the Sangh as “archaic”.
The next party president and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha — assuming L.K. Advani gave up the post — would not necessarily be the putative PM candidate in 2014.
The thinking was that question could be settled in 2012 when Gujarat goes to polls. If Modi delivered a third victory, it might not throw him off the RSS’s radar as it was assumed after his unspectacular showing in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Maharashtra elections would be a test for the BJP. Unlike in the last elections, when the Sangh didn’t exert itself, this time around it is likely to canvass support for the BJP-Shiv Sena in its own way.
While it wished to ensure a “graceful” departure for Advani and even a post-retirement mentoring role, the RSS is apparently not going to be fazed by a bitter parting shot of the kind the leader gave when he stepped down as the BJP president in September 2005.
Sangh offers BJP Hindutva legroom
by Radhika Ramaseshan
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Mathura on Wednesday. (PTI)
New Delhi, Sept. 16: The RSS has told the BJP that while its “core ideology” was “non-negotiable” and had to be “preached and practised” by all its affiliates, the party was free to adapt and articulate it as it wanted.
But under no circumstances could it think of expunging the ‘H’ (Hindutva) word from its dictionary.
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, not a Sangh admirer, was picked as a leader who straddled the space between “ideology and governance” without confrontation as were the other BJP chief ministers.
It is learnt that this message underlined the Sangh’s preference for a regional leader to head the BJP when it was time for the present president, Rajnath Singh, to bow out rather than anoint one of the familiar names in Delhi.
The RSS recognises the difference between the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The Sangh feels that while the VHP has the space to take “positions that seemed extreme”, the BJP was free to redefine, broadbase and repackage “Hindutva” to suit existing political circumstances.
Such a policy will help the BJP distance itself from the “hawkish” meaning usually read into the party’s propagation of Ayodhya, a common civil code and the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir as its central issues.
At the two-day thinkers’ meeting of the Sangh parivar last week in Mumbai, the RSS brass, playing on the global concern over climate change, picked environment as an example to “tell the world” to look “seriously” at Hinduism and Jainism for answers instead of being tied down to the Judeo-Christian concept of a “world created solely for man’s benefit and rule”.
“Hinduism and Jainism, on the other hand, contain concepts that can lead to the enhancement of core human-earth relations because they suggest that the earth can be seen as a manifestation of the goddess who must be treated with respect,” a source who attended the meeting said.
It is understood that some of the BJP’s representatives at this “exclusive” meeting of 30 said environment would not fetch the party votes as a reaffirmation of its stand on “pure nationalism”.
The deliberations did not discuss the problems that have beset the BJP in Delhi. But it is believed that the talks on the sidelines over tea-breaks and meals confirmed that:
The RSS was unlikely to brook another debate on ideology versus governance, not as long as the BJP remained in the Opposition. It felt that the first priority was to regroup and re-motivate cadres. Ideology was the “only cement”.
The Sangh wondered if the polemics at the top in Delhi on the “merits” of Jinnah versus the “de-merits” of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jinnah’s “secular” garb were “really substantive” or meant for certain individuals to grandstand before a “liberal” audience and show up the Sangh as “archaic”.
The next party president and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha — assuming L.K. Advani gave up the post — would not necessarily be the putative PM candidate in 2014.
The thinking was that question could be settled in 2012 when Gujarat goes to polls. If Modi delivered a third victory, it might not throw him off the RSS’s radar as it was assumed after his unspectacular showing in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Maharashtra elections would be a test for the BJP. Unlike in the last elections, when the Sangh didn’t exert itself, this time around it is likely to canvass support for the BJP-Shiv Sena in its own way.
While it wished to ensure a “graceful” departure for Advani and even a post-retirement mentoring role, the RSS is apparently not going to be fazed by a bitter parting shot of the kind the leader gave when he stepped down as the BJP president in September 2005.
The memory of Gujarat can't be erased
Unanswered questions about the Gujarat riots mean Narendra Modi has to be regarded with suspicion
by Savitri Hensman
(guardian.co.uk, 16 September 2009)
Earlier this year, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) Magazine, a financial publication which is part of the Financial Times group, declared Narendra Modi Asian Personality of the Year. Gujarat, of which he is chief minister, had attracted considerable foreign investment in the past year.
It had also been the focus of scrutiny because of the state government's role in brutal attacks on Muslims. Official investigators have been delving into the murky goings-on in Gujarat under the leadership of the extreme-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a political party linked with Hindu supremacists who have a long history of organised violence. At times, Hindu moderates and other Indians have struggled to counter the influence of these hardliners. But now they are in political disarray, and the activities of state officials and Narendra Modi in particular are under intense public scrutiny.
In India in 2002, in an atmosphere of tension stirred up by the far-right movement which had torn down a mosque at Ayodhya and were seeking to build a temple in its place, a train caught fire at Godhra in Gujarat and 59 Hindu passengers were killed. It later emerged that the fire was accidental, originating inside one of the carriages, but at the time it was widely believed that Muslim attackers had set the train ablaze. State officials in Gujarat seized on this opportunity to organise anti-Muslim violence on a major scale. Many Indians of all faiths and none were outraged, though some were in denial about the scale and brutality of the attacks. There was condemnation from around the world, though at the time the BJP was in a strong position nationally and Narendra Modi managed to stay in power in Gujarat.
RB Sreekumar, a senior police officer in Gujarat, was one of those who publicly testified to the state government's role in blocking the police from carrying out their duties in 2002. A Hindu himself, he later described the demolition of the mosque and the Gujarat violence as "sacrilegious crimes, which would make any self respecting and committed Hindu to bury his head in shame … Both these Satanic acts were the handiwork of miscreants, owing allegiance to BJP".
It is perhaps not surprising that, in late August 2009, when readers of fDi Magazine in India discovered that Narendra Modi was the winner of the award for Asian Personality of the Year, some were scandalised into action. They alerted friends and acquaintances, and letters began to pour into the offices of the fDi editor and Financial Times group. "It was shocking to hear that a publication associated with the Financial Times Group has chosen to confer an award on Narendra Modi, when it is widely known that he was complicit in and personally responsible for the communal carnage that occurred in Gujarat in 2002, when some two thousand people were butchered," read one letter. There was an online petition against the honouring of Modi in this way, and Indians overseas joined in making their objections known.
The magazine backtracked, announcing that "Following a review prompted by the ongoing investigation into the 2002 Gujarat riots, fDi has decided to present its award to Gujarat state, rather than Mr Narendra Modi, the state's chief minister… Mr Modi was chief minister of Gujarat at the time of the riots. Mr Modi's alleged role in connection to the riots is under investigation but he denies any responsibility."
Extremists are often skilled at manipulating religious and nationalist sentiments, and exploiting people's fears and frustrations, to gain power for themselves. They may portray themselves as respectable and business-friendly, though in time the destructive consequences of their ambitions become apparent. In India, increasing numbers of people have seen through the facade of those Gujarat leaders who have been involved in human rights violations, though there is no room for complacency. Abuses continue to occur. It is time for the international community to strengthen its support for those in India who have been campaigning against bigotry and injustice.
by Savitri Hensman
(guardian.co.uk, 16 September 2009)
Earlier this year, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) Magazine, a financial publication which is part of the Financial Times group, declared Narendra Modi Asian Personality of the Year. Gujarat, of which he is chief minister, had attracted considerable foreign investment in the past year.
It had also been the focus of scrutiny because of the state government's role in brutal attacks on Muslims. Official investigators have been delving into the murky goings-on in Gujarat under the leadership of the extreme-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a political party linked with Hindu supremacists who have a long history of organised violence. At times, Hindu moderates and other Indians have struggled to counter the influence of these hardliners. But now they are in political disarray, and the activities of state officials and Narendra Modi in particular are under intense public scrutiny.
In India in 2002, in an atmosphere of tension stirred up by the far-right movement which had torn down a mosque at Ayodhya and were seeking to build a temple in its place, a train caught fire at Godhra in Gujarat and 59 Hindu passengers were killed. It later emerged that the fire was accidental, originating inside one of the carriages, but at the time it was widely believed that Muslim attackers had set the train ablaze. State officials in Gujarat seized on this opportunity to organise anti-Muslim violence on a major scale. Many Indians of all faiths and none were outraged, though some were in denial about the scale and brutality of the attacks. There was condemnation from around the world, though at the time the BJP was in a strong position nationally and Narendra Modi managed to stay in power in Gujarat.
RB Sreekumar, a senior police officer in Gujarat, was one of those who publicly testified to the state government's role in blocking the police from carrying out their duties in 2002. A Hindu himself, he later described the demolition of the mosque and the Gujarat violence as "sacrilegious crimes, which would make any self respecting and committed Hindu to bury his head in shame … Both these Satanic acts were the handiwork of miscreants, owing allegiance to BJP".
It is perhaps not surprising that, in late August 2009, when readers of fDi Magazine in India discovered that Narendra Modi was the winner of the award for Asian Personality of the Year, some were scandalised into action. They alerted friends and acquaintances, and letters began to pour into the offices of the fDi editor and Financial Times group. "It was shocking to hear that a publication associated with the Financial Times Group has chosen to confer an award on Narendra Modi, when it is widely known that he was complicit in and personally responsible for the communal carnage that occurred in Gujarat in 2002, when some two thousand people were butchered," read one letter. There was an online petition against the honouring of Modi in this way, and Indians overseas joined in making their objections known.
The magazine backtracked, announcing that "Following a review prompted by the ongoing investigation into the 2002 Gujarat riots, fDi has decided to present its award to Gujarat state, rather than Mr Narendra Modi, the state's chief minister… Mr Modi was chief minister of Gujarat at the time of the riots. Mr Modi's alleged role in connection to the riots is under investigation but he denies any responsibility."
Extremists are often skilled at manipulating religious and nationalist sentiments, and exploiting people's fears and frustrations, to gain power for themselves. They may portray themselves as respectable and business-friendly, though in time the destructive consequences of their ambitions become apparent. In India, increasing numbers of people have seen through the facade of those Gujarat leaders who have been involved in human rights violations, though there is no room for complacency. Abuses continue to occur. It is time for the international community to strengthen its support for those in India who have been campaigning against bigotry and injustice.
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