Newsletter of All India Secular Forum
Volume. 12 No.4 April 2017
C O N T E N T S
Editorial
1. CSSS News
-Voters Awareess Campaign for Peace, Harmony and
Their Rights
- Event for Martyrs Day of Saheed-E-Azam Bhagat
Singh
2. Article
- The fear of Hindu Rashtra: Should Muslims keep
away from electorial politics? By Ajaz Ashraf
3. Harmony
- Holi and Muslims of the Indian subcontinent
- Hindu and Muslim join forces to save a mosque – A
lesson in brotherhood from Gujarat
- Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy
4. Book Talk
- Pale Shadow of Harmony will remain
5. Interview
- Interview with Teesta Setalvad
- Interview with Anand Patwardhan
6. Resources
- Our shared cultural heritage from ANHAD – Video
Series
- Book on Kandhamal
- Book on Fascism in India by Ram Puniyani
- Video Clip – Indian History: Facts verses myths
- 5 Myths behind India’as communal violence
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Ph. 022-26149668, 022-26135098
E-mail: csss2work@gmail.com
Editor: Ram Puniyani, ram.puniyani@gmail.com, www.pluralindia.com
Advisory Board: L.S. Hardenia, Irfan Engineer, Dhirendra Panda, Mohammad Arif.
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From the Editor’s Desk
The massive victory of BJP in UP Assembly Elections and appointment of Adityanath Yogi as the Chief Minister of UP has come as a big jolt to the plural inclusive values for which India stands. BJP achieved this victory by ‘uniting Hindu votes and dividing Muslim Votes’. The communal polarization was used extensively at grass roots. The electoral engineering and election management by BJP-RSS was close to perfect. The non communal parties have failed to learn the lesson from last General elections and the Bihar Model of alliance.
Right from the word go; Yogi the new Chief Minister ordered the closure of ‘illegal’ meat shops. In the atmosphere charged up due to the ‘RSS-BJP created Hindutva hysteria’, most of the mutton-beef shops were closed down attacked and the traders had to go on the strike. The attempt was to financially break the back of Muslim community. As one knows; so many shops of vegetables, other street shops have no valid license. In the present scenario the supporters of RSS-BJP politics have felt emboldened and that’s what has led to the murder of Pehlu Khan, a milk trader who was transporting cows with all legal papers. Tragically the concerned Rajasthan minister justified the acts of cow vigilantes in checking the cattle transport, while BJP’s Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi denied that any such event has happened. The hypocrisy of BJP is obvious as in Kerala its MP is promising good Beef, in Goa the ruling BJP Government dare not talk against beef and in North Eastern states there was a beef party organized by BJP after victory in elections there. It is purely a political issue which BJP is using to create a vote bank.
We are carrying two major interviews in this issue, one by Teesta Setalvad and another by Anand Patwardhan, both a very significant in the present worsening political scenario.
Ram Puniyani
(Editor)
Link
http://www.csss-isla.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SAN-April-2017-New1.pdf
