India: Sardar Patel was not in favour of the RSS penetrating the state apparatus

The Indian Express, December 07 2013

Sardar and the swayamsevaks
by Christophe Jaffrelot

Patel appreciated some RSS attributes. But he was not in favour of letting the organisation penetrate the state apparatus.

As early as the 1920s, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel showed ambivalent attitudes vis-à-vis the Muslim minority in Gujarat and India at large. On the one hand, he had been supportive of the Khilafat Movement, considering that it had "as a matter of fact, been a heartbreaking episode for the Indian Muslims, and how can Hindus stand by unaffected when they see their fellow countrymen thus in distress?" This sense of solidarity was fostered by his belief — that he emphasised in the 1940s in the name of national unity — that Muslims "originally belonged to India and were converted from Hindus". On the other hand, Patel complained to Mahatma Gandhi one day that "the manners and customs of Muslims are different. They take meat while we are vegetarians. How are we to live with them in the same place?" Gandhi replied "No sir. Hindus as a body are nowhere vegetarians except in Gujarat." Patel's attitude vis-à-vis the Muslim minority changed after Partition. In a letter he wrote to Rajendra Prasad on September 5, 1947, he explains that, as home minister, he had "already given licences to two or three Hindu dealers for the sale of arms", suggesting that he was promoting anti-Muslim militias.

Soon after Independence, in November 1947, Patel came to Junagadh — a state whose Nawab wanted to accede to Pakistan — in order to direct the occupation of the state by the Indian army. He seized this opportunity to visit the remnants of the temple of Somnath. According to his close associate, V.P. Menon, he "was visibly moved to find the temple which had once been the glory of India looking so dilapidated. It was proposed then and there to reconstruct it so as to return it to its original splendour..." He declared that "The restoration of the idols would be a point of honour and sentiment with the Hindu public". While Gandhi and Nehru disapproved of a decision that was, in their view, affecting the religious neutrality of the state, Patel received the support of the Sangh Parivar.

He was to show some sympathy to the RSS a few weeks later. In December 1947, he made a speech in Jaipur that reflected his will "to turn the enthusiasm and discipline of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh into right channels". On January 6, 1948, in a speech in Lucknow, he invited the Hindu Mahasabha to amalgamate with the Congress. He held out the same invitation to members of the RSS, criticising Nehru obliquely: "In the Congress, those who are in power feel that by virtue of authority they will be able to crush the RSS. You cannot crush an organisation by using the danda [stick]. The danda is meant for thieves and dacoits. They are patriots who love their country. Only their trend of thought is diverted. They are to be won over by Congressmen with love."

Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a former RSS member, three weeks later and the organisation was banned. As home minister, Patel was in charge of the repression that he justified in eloquent terms to S.P. Mookerjee, his colleague from the Hindu Mahasabha in the Nehru government: "The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of the government and the state. Our reports show that those activities, despite the ban, have not died down. Indeed, as time has marched on, the RSS circles are becoming defiant and are indulging in their subversive activities in an increasing measure."

Still, Patel was prepared to engage the RSS. In December 1948, he "advised members of the RSS to join the Indian National Congress if they had the good of the country uppermost in their hearts". Then he negotiated with RSS leaders the making of a constitution in order to lift the ban. In February 1949, he declared in the course of an interview: "To the RSS I have made an open offer. I told them: change your plans, give up secrecy, draft your constitution, come in the open field, respect the Constitution of India, show your loyalty to the Constitution and the flag and make us believe that we can trust your own words. To say one thing and to do another is a game which will not suit."

Still, he wanted to make the best of the RSS. One month later, revealing his ambivalence, he said in an interview: "You will recall that there was a time when people called me a supporter of the RSS. To some extent that was true because these young men were brave, resourceful and courageous, but they were a little mad. I wanted to utilise their bravery, power and courage and cure them of their madness by making them realise their true responsibilities and their duty. It is that madness that I want to eradicate."

Patel legalised the RSS after it adopted a constitution complying with his demands. He then considered that "the only way for them is to reform the Congress from within, if they think the Congress is going on the wrong path." Soon after, on October 10, 1949, while Nehru was abroad, Patel had a resolution passed by the Congress Working Committee authorising RSS members to be part of the party. Nehru later had this resolution nullified.

While Patel appreciated some of the qualities of the RSS, he was not in favour of letting the organisation penetrate the state apparatus. In January 1948 — shortly before the assassination of Gandhi — he declared, during a press conference, that he "would approve the reported action of the Bombay government banning the employment of Rashtriya Swayamsevak men in government service... because it was not proper for government servants to identify themselves with a communal organisation" [sic].

These words stand in stark contrast with one decision that the BJP government made in Gujarat under Keshubhai Patel. In January 2000, Keshubhai Patel removed the RSS from the list of organisations whose members were not allowed to join the bureaucracy. The RSS general secretary, H.V. Seshadri, immediately demanded that the Centre adopt the same policy. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee publicly defended the Gujarat government order by arguing that the RSS was "a cultural and social organisation" and replied to President K.R. Narayanan that, while he had no intention to lift the ban on Central government employees joining the RSS, there were constitutional difficulties in asking the Gujarat government to reconsider its decision.

Among the BJP's partners, the DMK was among the most embarrassed. Its chief, M. Karunanidhi, wrote to Vajpayee that if civil servants were allowed to take part in cultural or social associations affiliated to political parties, they would destroy the administrative machinery. The BJP's spokesperson, J.P. Mathur, replied that this issue would "not be allowed to create a rift in the National Democratic Alliance". On March 6, 2000, Rajendra Singh made a statement appreciating the Gujarat government's decision but emphasised that "the RSS had not sought the withdrawal of the circular prohibiting government employees from participating in its activities, because RSS work has never been dependent on any government's attitude, positive or negative, towards it". The following day, the BJP high command asked Keshubhai Patel to rescind the order, and he immediately complied.

Sardar Patel had been vindicated because of one of the NDA partners, in spite of the spontaneous attitude of the RSS and BJP leaders who claim his legacy today.

The writer is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/ CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King's India Institute, London, Princeton Global Scholar and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

How Modi Sanitises Untouchability !

by Subhash Gatade

Not very many people would have read about a study by an American scholar Stephanie Tam of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern University, about the status of sewerage system in Ahmedabad. Titled "Coprology and Caste : : The Status of Sewerage in Ahmedabad, India”, it brings home a stark point that Ahmedabad may be one of the earliest pioneers of sewerage system in the 19th century but it has not only failed to solve manual scavenging; rather manual scavenging has been given a new form. (http://counterview.org/2013/09/18/american-scholar-narrates-how-ahmedabads-sweeper-caste-was-morphed-into-sewer-caste-over-the-decades/)

In fact the absence of change in the lifeworlds of the people engaged in scavenging can be had by comparing two reports. The report brought out by Scavenger's Living Conditions Enquiry Committee (1955) reveals that Bhangis in the region had no latrines, and lived next to dumping grounds and open drains whereas a 2006 state-wide study, tells us that 45.4 per cent of Bhangis still had no toilets and no bathrooms, their unsanitary living conditions being used to justify their polluted status.

It is important to look into details of the matter as the chief minister of the state is engaged in telling people outside the state that they have 'solved' the problem successfully.

Look at the “A Road Map for Zero Waste Ahmedabad City – A Visionary Document to Guide Ahmedabad towards Becoming a Resource Efficient and Zero Waste City by 2031”, which was recently released as an official document. Analysing it Jitendra Rathod ( Senior activist with Janvikas, Ahmedabad) tells us how it provides “visionary” insights into how to make Ahmedabad a zero waste city in less than two decades but surprisingly, the document is silent on the plight of the manual scavengers: The document has been financed and commissioned jointly by the AMC and the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD). The document addresses several concerns of waste and waste management – except the safety and better health of the sweepers!

The title page of the document is sufficient to prove the casteist mindset of the AMC administration. The document claims to be “visionary”, but the sweepers will continue to collect the garbage, dust, filth of the city by unclean way.

The so-called visionary document mentions that almost 1,10,667 metric tonnes (MT) of solid waste is generated in the city on a monthly basis. Out of this, most of it, 1,08,454 MT, is collected manually by sweepers. The document itself accepts that these wastes are collected by sweepers in an unclean way to keep the city neat, clean and a better place to live in.

(http://counterview.org/2013/10/14/ahmedabad-rulers-want-to-ensure-city-becomes-zero-waste-by-2031-but-they-are-crucially-silent-on-the-plight-of-sweepers/)

II

Undoubtedly, Narendra Modi, would not have imagined that his exhortation that 'toilets first, temples later' at a Delhi conclave would not only generate a debate within the saffron fraternity but would also bring back focus on the pathetic situation of sanitation in his home state itself. And the ensuing discussion would also transcend to his controversial ideas about untouchability - the social-religious practice based on the logic of purity and pollution which has marginalised, terrorised and relegated a section of Indian society to a life marked by humiliation and indignity.

Coming to the figures about sanitation in the state. If the 2001 census had shown rural sanitation coverage meaning three basic facilities — drinking water, electricity and sanitation - merely at a low 21%, the 2012-13 India Rural Development Report tells us that it has reached merely 25 % of the state's population. The situation is not very encouraging in urban areas as well.

In fact, a recent survey by 'Manav Garima', a community-based organization, fighting for the rights of the scavenging community, Valmikis, in Ahmedabad, has found that there are 126 spots where manual scavenging is practiced under the aegis of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) itself. The survey suggests, 188 dry latrines still continue to operate in the city. (http://www.truthofgujarat.com/though-prohibited-law-manual-scavenging-manual-removal-excreta-still-prevalent-ahmedabad/)

If one goes outside Ahmedabad situation seems worse. Issues related with manual scavenging in smaller towns of Gujarat were recently highlighted in a survey carried out by Navsarjan Trust which shows that despite the law against manual scavenging, which was made more stringent by Indian Parliament recently, Gujarat’s smaller towns are some of the worst victims of the despicable age-old practice of manually removing excreta, imposed upon the valimiki community for generations. Dholka town, situated around 50 kilometres from Ahmedabad, is a classic example where despite repeated reminders by NGOs fighting against manual scavenging, the state officialdom has failed come out its slumber, the practice continues till date. The whole thing came to light when a petition was filed by Navsarjan Trust, before the National Human Rights Commission (HHRC) in January 2013.

Interestingly, there is a great hiatus between what the government admits and the actual situation on the ground. When a petition was filed by the same organisation with the National Human Rights Commission in this regard in the year 2010, the Gujarat government had no qualms in replying that there were no manual scavengers in the whole state and it is serious in effective implementation of the 1993 act (Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993,) which stipulates punishment to those employing manual scavengers or those who order construction of dry (non-flush) latrines.
Whether this silence vis-a-vis manual scavenging is because of Modi feels that it is a 'spiritual experience' need to be looked into. As is evident, his retrograde thinking which rather sanitises the humiliation of a community has not received the attention it deserved.

III

It was the year 2007 when collection of Narendra Modi's speeches to IAS officials at various points of time were compiled in a book form named 'Karmyog' and were published by the Gujarat government. Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, a top ranking PSU was roped in to fund 5,000 copies of the book. Thanks to a veteran journalist, Rajiv Shah, without whose incisive report, the world would not have known l'affaire 'Karmyog'. (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/true-lies/entry/modi-s-spiritual-potion-to-woo-karmayogis)

Pages 48-49 of the said book give an inkling of Modi's ideas. He writes :

"I do not believe that they have been doing this job just to sustain their livelihood. Had this been so, they would not have continued with this type of job generation after generation….At some point of time, somebody must have got the enlightenment that it is their (Valmikis') duty to work for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods; that they have to do this job bestowed upon them by Gods; and that this job of cleaning up should continue as an internal spiritual activity for centuries. This should have continued generation after generation. It is impossible to believe that their ancestors did not have the choice of adopting any other work or business."

Later Modi's remark got published in the Times of India in mid-November 2007, which were translated and republished in few Tamil newspapers. There was a massive reaction of Dalits in Tamil Nadu for calling their menial job "spiritual experience". Modi's effigies were burnt in different parts of the state. Sensing trouble Modi immediately withdrew 5,000 copies of the book, but still sticked to his opinion. Two years later, addressing 9,000-odd safai karmacharis, (cleanliness workers) he likened the safai karmacharis’ job of cleaning up others dirt' to that of a temple priest. He told them,
“A priest cleans a temple every day before prayers, you also clean the city like a temple. You and the temple priest work alike.”

One was reminded of these ideas of Modi, when news came in sometime back that the budget for this financial year passed by the Gujarat state assembly, had allocated a sum of Rs 22.5 lakhs for giving training in Karmkand (rituals) to Safai Kamdars themselves. The idea was to train them in scriptures so that they could perform pujas (organise worships). It is clear that the 'new scheme' as it was presented before the people was just a revised version of its earlier scheme wherein members of the scheduled communities were given training to become 'Gurubrahmins' so that they could also perform pujas. It could be asked if Modi values safai karmacharis so highly, why is it that he has begun outsourcing all the menial jobs for a very low pay, between Rs 3,000 and Rs 3,500 per month per worker. Why they are not being employed on a permanent basis? (http://kafila.org/2013/03/04/modis-social-engineering/)

With custodians of the state themselves having such regressive understanding it is not difficult to understand why untouchability is widely prevalent in Gujarat. Study by Navsarjan, a voluntary organisation, of 1,589 villages (2010) tells us that of these 98 per cent of the villages still practise untouchability. While the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, mandates a special court and a special public prosecutor to deal with atrocity cases, but the state government says that it does not have any money for this.

And the latest 'proof' which reflects the mindset of the Gujarat government and its 'able administrator' could be had from a state sponsored report 'Impact of Caste Discrimination and Distinctions on Equal Opportunities : A Study of Gujarat' (May 2013) wherein it calls caste discrimination a matter of "perceptions". (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/true-lies/entry/untouchability-and-modi-s-babus). Period.

- Subhash Gatade, H 4 Pusa Apts, Rohini, Sector 15m Delhi 110089 Mob : 09868940920 / 011-27876523

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SEE ALSO:

Yet another doctored riot - Harsh Mander

Communal organisations have perfected the art of manufacturing hatred against the ‘other’ community by cynically deploying rumour, innuendo and falsehood. The issue chosen to demonise the ‘other’ varies based on what would resonate and enrage most. In Partition, pork was thrown into mosques and beef into temples; later riots are spurred by rumours of cow slaughter, support to terror, and violence perpetrated by the ‘other’ community (the falsehood of the slaughter of Hindu students in hostels by Muslims led to the massacre of more than a thousand people in Bhagalpur).
http://www.sacw.net/article5840.html

India: six decades and more secularism has gradually been reduced to nothing more than a creed that is more professed than practiced

From: The Hindu
New Delhi, October 5, 2013

Heritage bartered

Sohail Hashmi

Can protected monuments be handed over to claimants? In Delhi, that is precisely what has been done

It is easy to inscribe secular on your constitution, it is easier to profess it and chant it ritually. But to adhere to the basics of secular conduct is no child’s play, more so in countries where the population is overwhelmingly aligned to one denominational category. Pakistan with 95-98 per cent Muslim population chose the easy way out and declared herself an Islamic republic. India, with 85 per cent of its population professing to be Hindus, chose the more difficult path and declared herself a secular democracy. Unfortunately, over the last six decades and more secularism has gradually been reduced to nothing more than a creed that is more professed than practiced.

The past is the arena of the battles being fought in the present for hegemony over the minds of the future generations. If the secularists win the battle of privileging and foregrounding the syncretic in our traditions there is hope for the idea of India as a secular and inclusive society, but if the obscurantists succeed in their efforts then we face a bleak future. A future that would mirror the goings-on in the ‘Islamic republic’ stares us in the face.

One could cite numerous examples to show how the secular is being constantly eroded in the name of secularism and harmony, but for the moment one should suffice to show how we approach our past.

The past we are talking about would perhaps fall between the late 14 to early 15 Century or a little later coinciding with the rule of the Tughlaqs, the Saiyads and the Lodis. A large baoli (step well) was constructed during this period in what is now the heart of New Delhi.

The well in this imposing structure is located to the south and steps descend from the north. The baoli measures approximately 60 metres from north to south. At the head of the steps there is a platform with a mosque on its western side, the entry to the baoli is also from an opening in the western wall, accessed through a staircase built along the western flank of the baoli. The construction is typically Sultanate period, rubble held together with a mortar of crushed bricks and slaked lime-stone with the exposed surfaces given a cladding of dressed stones. The stone used is the locally available Delhi Quartz that was mined from the Arravalis.

The Delhi Quartz could not be carved, because of the large size of its crystals and that is why all structures built during this period were given a thick layer of plaster that was later incised, while still wet, with calligraphic, floral or geometric designs known as stucco. The layers of plaster have peeled off, during the intervening centuries of neglect, revealing the bare walls that are exposed to the vagaries of the elements.

This then is the appearance of most structures built during the Sultanate period; exceptional structures like the Qutub Minar and the mausoleum of Ghyas-ud-Din Tughlaq make extensive use of sand stone and marble that must have been brought in from Rajasthan at great cost and after much effort.

For some strange reason this large baoli, marked with its typical Central Asian arches and built with rubble held together with lime stone and brick mortar -- a binding material whose extensive use is co-terminus with the Sultanate period -- has come to be associated, in popular perception, with Raja Ugrasen.

This association is despite the fact that there is no mention of a Raja Ugrasen in history text books, certainly not as a ruler or a major noble in the 15 and early 16 Century and despite the fact that monumental Indian architecture predating the arrival of the Central Asians was marked by the use of huge blocks of interlocking dressed stones with minimal use of binding material, those insisting on a Raja Ugrsen connection have persisted.

We are a democracy and we do not stop people from flying their own imaginary kites, but problems begin to crop up when popular perceptions begin to take precedence over established principles. Those who claim that this structure was built by Raja Ugrsen have been demanding that the structure be handed over to them. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has done precisely that, by signing an MOU with the claimants and entrusting them with the responsibility of looking after the monument.

The Aggarwal Samaj that claims descent from Raja Ugrasen has been handed over the monument. They have been given permission to place a guard on the premises and permitted also to keep a Porta Cabin inside the monument, a stack of chairs has been stored inside the mosque, a small room next to the mosque is now occupied by the chowkidar appointed by the Samaj. An ugly water tank has been installed near the entry to the baoli and the laundry of the chowkidar welcomes visitors to the site. All protected monuments open to public at sunrise but this baoli opens only at 9 am. Who is in-charge and who is setting the rules?

The issue was brought to the notice of the ASI and the Aggarwal Samaj was ticked off by the ASI. It wasn’t even a month ago that they had promised that these things will be discontinued, till 6 pm on Friday, Oct 3, 2013, nothing had changed

When a group of worshippers had taken over six mosques in different parts of south Delhi in March April 2009, the ASI was persuaded to move and evict the encroachers. But what do we do when the ASI begins to handover its own protected monuments?

This is a question that raises doubts even about the ‘sarvdharm sambhav’ twist that we have given to secularism. Do you apply the same principles in every case of claims and counter-claims on a heritage structure or do you succumb to those who can create a bigger nuisance and browbeat those who cannot?

India: Dept of of Personnel and Training (DoPT) removes training module with ‘religious bias’

The Hindu
NEW DELHI, September 15, 2013
DoPT removes training module with ‘religious bias’
Anita Joshua
Sitaram Yechury flagged ‘On Values in Administration’ document saying it ignored constitutional values

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has removed the training module “On Values in Administration” from the curriculum of State Administrative Training Institutes (ATIs) after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) raised objections about its religious bias.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury flagged the issue last month in a letter to the Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension V. Narayanasamy.

The Minister replied that the offending module had been removed. All other modules on the DoPT’s website are to be examined for objectionable content. Mr. Yechury had observed that the document — aimed at educating the government’s supervisory staff via distance-learning — made no effort to inculcate constitutional values such as equality, fundamental rights, and equity.

“Instead, the document talks about values derived from what the author calls ‘Indian Insights of Human Values,’ which then identifies such values virtually with Hindu religious texts and beliefs.” While the document’s provenance is unclear, it appears to have been prepared under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance regime. It was one of 26 modules prepared as part of a development programme — jointly undertaken by the DoPT and the United Nations — in the endeavour to strengthen State ATIs.

According to the project document, the exercise was set to begin in December 2000 and wrapped up in two years.

India: Editorials regarding Muzaffarnagar Riots

From: The Hindu, September 10, 2013

Editorial: Playing with fire

Uttar Pradesh has always been vulnerable to communal and caste tensions because of the sizeable presence in the State of three critical demographic segments — Muslims, Dalits and caste Hindus. It takes but a small incident to start a skirmish, which, depending on the extent of political support, either sputters to a swift end or turns into a full-blown conflagration. Prima facie, the mob frenzy in Muzaffarnagar, which has already claimed over two dozen lives and left hundreds homeless, appears to be a textbook case of engineered violence. The pattern is familiar. Ground reports suggest that the current disturbance has its roots in an August 27 Jat-Muslim clash in Kawal village over a spate of killings involving both communities. This spark developed into a fire, thanks to police inaction, political manipulation and a poisonous video calculatedly pressed into circulation by suspected Hindutva elements. Predictably enough, large-scale violence erupted. And equally predictably, the video turned out to be fake: what was circulated as the actual clip of the August 27 killings was most probably footage shot in Pakistan.

But this is exactly how vested interests, and sometimes even mainstream parties, operate. A hate-filled VCD had formed part of the BJP’s official campaign material ahead of the 2007 Assembly election. The disc, which portrayed Muslims as nation-breakers, and implored Hindus to vote the BJP or find themselves sporting beards and wearing burqas, was withdrawn following an FIR registered by the Election Commission. That election was saved by the ECI’s hawk-like watch over communal and caste miscreants, leading to the formation of the first majority government in 16 years by the Bahujan Samaj Party. It is not without significance that peace prevailed until the next election five years later. For all of Mayawati’s faults she ran an efficient administration that acted at the first sign of communal trouble. In the February 2012 Assembly election, fresh hope came in the form of Akhilesh Yadav who seemed sincere enough with his promise to practise principled politics. The promise stands betrayed as can be seen from the Samajwadi Party government’s admission to at least 27 communal incidents since March 2012. The SP is the mirror opposite of the BJP and its larger parivar. For every cynical action of one, there tends to be an equal and opposite reaction from the other, with the competition getting fiercer closer to an election, as is obviously the case now. As 2014 nears, rival political efforts to fuel and play on the insecurity and fears of Muslims and Hindus are likely to be intensified. The good sense of Uttar Pradesh’s people will be severely tested in the months ahead.

o o o

The Indian Express


Editorial: Dangerous experiments

Mon Sep 09 2013, 09:08 hrs

Rekindling of communal conflict in UP must be checked. Old anxieties cannot be allowed to return
Muzaffarnagar has become the site of communal tensions of a kind rarely seen in recent years. While there have been intermittent episodes across north India in the last few years, the fear of large-scale communal conflict has mostly ebbed in the national consciousness. Unlike the turbulent 1980s and '90s, when the Hindutva mobilisation was being shaped and sharpened, there is no framing context for its eruption now. For over a decade now, the BJP itself has seemed to leave the angry movement behind as it became a party of government, at the Centre and in several high-performing states. A common politics of aspiration has tempered the tensions over religion and identity that previously exploded in violence. With growing urgency and impatience, citizens demand better education, jobs, benefits and stakes in economic growth, and political parties that aim to form governments offer competing visions and programmes of development. The nature of communal antagonism has, by and large, shifted from destruction of life and property to more subtle expressions of discrimination and denial of opportunity.
In other words, there is no wider frame, no larger context for the new outbreaks of communal violence, as in Muzaffarnagar. In all probability, then, they point to active troublemaking in anticipation of the 2014 general election. As Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said on Saturday, there have already been many more such incidents in this year than in 2012. Uttar Pradesh remains a prominent trouble spot, but Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir also have uncomfortable communal dynamics.
For the BJP, this gathering trend should force some introspection. Its presumptive prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, is ostentatiously trying to divert attention from his polarising record, by refusing all mention of the communal violence that occurred under his watch in 2002 and attempting to steer the public gaze to his development record in Gujarat instead. At the same time, however, other Sangh Parivar organisations have been openly trying to stoke the fires in UP, without much resistance from the Samajwadi Party government. While this may or may not be a mutually convenient strategy, both the BJP and SP are evidently struggling to define their core appeal for 2014. Apparently, the BJP does not know whether to foreground Hindutva or keep it simmering under the surface, speaking in one voice in the streets of UP and another in the corridors of government. The SP has failed to present a convincing case for itself in the year it has been in power, it has no governance successes to speak of, and nothing to show for the hopes placed in its young chief minister. At a time when economic prospects are dimming, it may be easier to exploit the disaffections among people. But given how incendiary the politics of religion has proven to be, even playing with the cinders is deeply unwise.

India: Orissa high court notice on religious structures premises of government offices, government educational institutions and police stations

HC notice on religious structures
TNN Aug 29, 2013, 10.11AM IST

CUTTACK: The Orissa high court has issued notices to the chief secretary, home secretary and secretary of general administration department in connection with a PIL, seeking demolition of temples and religious structures built on the premises of government offices, government educational institutions and police stations. "The division bench of Justices I Mohanty and B N Mohapatra has directed government officials to file reply within four weeks," said petitioner's counsel Khirod Rout.

The PIL filed by a social worker Abhiram Mallick had alleged that the constitution clearly states that the state shall have no religion of its own and the state agencies and instrumentalities shall not preach any religion in their public life or propagate any religion directly or indirectly, but government officials are violating it. Temples are being built on the premises of police stations, schools, colleges and government offices. Even the highest office of the state, the secretariat, is no exception.

source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-29/bhubaneswar/41580259_1_religious-structures-hc-notice-government-offices

India's Dept of Personnel Peddles Biased Religious Text for Training of Administrators

http://tinyurl.com/mozxetd

India: Hindu religious texts and beliefs in the Distance Learning module for State Administrative Training Institutes (with support from UNDP)

From: The Hindu
NEW DELHI, September 2, 2013
CPI(M) urges govt. to withdraw training module

Anita Joshua
It promotes Hindu religious texts and beliefs, says Yechury

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has questioned “religious bias in a training module for government officials” and asked the Department of Personnel and Training to immediately withdraw it.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury wrote to Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V. Narayanasamy on Friday, protesting against what the party termed promotion of Hindu religious texts and beliefs in the Distance Learning module ‘On Values in Administration’ prepared by the department with sponsorship from a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)module.

“The module shows a shocking bias. There are disparaging remarks on Sikhism and Islam which in any case are not relevant to the subject matter — what constitutes values in administration. Neither is there any mention made of the Constitution of India, the various guarantees given under it to the Indian people and what it enjoins on the government personnel,’’ the letter said.

One unit in the module was dedicated to ‘Moral Law of Cause and Effect: The Doctrine of Karma.’ It dealt at length with ‘Nishkam Karma’ and ‘Guna Dynamics.’ At the end of the unit, a mind-stilling exercise was prescribed and packaged as self-introspection with stress on praying, as “prayer is a very powerful tool,” it said.

Further, according to Mr. Yechury, the text denigrated various political parties and identified itself with values intrinsic to erstwhile princely rulers of States. Citing Kerala, he said the text claimed that all advances in the State took place due to the enlightened rule of the former Maharaja of Travancore, and made disparaging remarks about Communists and their governments.

Communists are not alone at the receiving end.

In the same reference, the Congress is also shown in poor light despite a party-led government being in charge at the Centre.

“Fifty years of alternating governance by the Congress and Communists have contributed little to the industrial growth of Kerala, but the royal initiative to provide the best human investment — education to all — has ensured that the peripatetic Keralite would fine jobs anywhere in the world.”

The module is one of the 26 such being used by the department. It has been developed for State Administrative Training Institutes and is a part of a UNDP project on strengthening the institutes. When exactly this module was prepared is unclear and calls to the telephone numbers of the resource person mentioned on the Ministry’s website remained unanswered.

India: UP IAS officer who took on the mafia didn’t demolish any Mosque wall | Is She innocent ?

[Posted below is report from The Times of India and also a link to a report in Milli Gazette that makes a contrary claim. . . So who is lying ?]

The Times of India
Durga didn’t demolish wall, helped reclaim land: Waqf panel
Purusharth Aradhak, TNN | Aug 6, 2013
DANKAUR (Greater Noida): The Akhilesh government may be hell-bent on "punishing" Durga Shakti Nagpal for "demolishing" the wall of an under-construction mosque at Kadalpur village but that lie is being repeatedly nailed. A committee affiliated to UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, which visited the village after the incident, has stated that the IAS officer had no role in bringing down the wall and had just advised villagers to follow due procedure.

Praising Durga, the committee said that she had in fact initiated the process of reclaiming waqf board land, including a graveyard, that had been encroached upon. This made the sand mining and land mafias join hands to fix her.

The secretary of Hazrat Syed Bhureshah Committee (Regn no. 321), which comes under the umbrella body of UP Sunni Central Waqf Board, Kadir Khan Jayswal, told TOI on Monday that they had visited the village in Dankaur area and spoken to many locals and elders. "Some of the villagers are associated with the committee. We have found that Durga Nagpal had come just to review the situation," he said, asserting that she had nothing to do with the demolition. The committee has sent a report to the UP government and asked it to reinstate the officer soon.

"There was no communal tension and till this point of time there is no communal tension in the area," insisted Jayaswal. "We are confident that in future too peace will prevail in Kadalpur. However, some political parties for the sake of Muslim votes are trying to provoke the people."

He alleged that the sand and land mafias were behind Durga's suspension as she had cracked down on them. "The mafias, in association with some local leaders, have been trying to fuel anti-Durga sentiment and complaints were made to senior Samajwadi Party leaders. An SMS campaign was also launched," he said.

Another committee member, Abdul Kalaam, said, "Durga was following the order of her seniors. She had no role in demolishing the wall. Some locals demolished the wall. Durga had just requested them to follow the directions of Supreme Court. The locals were asked to follow proper procedure in constructing the mosque."

Kalaam said they knew Nagpal personally and within a short span of time she had become a role model for honest officers and a big threat to the sand and land mafias. "She is a brave woman. The male officers have failed to take on the mafias in the area and she is the only one who dared to do that," he said.

The committee said Durga had cracked down heavily on the mafia that had encroached on at least 70 bighas of waqf board land in the district which would be worth crores of rupees. Land in several other villages, with proximity to Buddha International Circuit, was also encroached upon, pointed out a villager, Majid Khan. These land sharks were on Durga's radar.

The committee said complaints made by them and the locals to the district administration and the police had no effect. "We had taken up the issue with chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, cabinet minister Azam Khan, DIG (Meerut) and SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar, in July last year but no concrete action was taken. When we mounted pressure, in the name of action only an FIR was lodged on July 17, 2012, at Dankaur police station," recalled Jayswal.

"When Durga took charge, we produced some skeletons before her. These had been unearthed by the land mafia (when they dug up the place). Durga then moved on the matter," said Jayswal. TOI has copies of the documents based on which Durga had initiated action. TOI visited the area on Monday and found that shops had indeed come up on graveyard land.

"A new committee of the waqf board was elected in 2008. It had initiated a probe to find out the status of the land in its jurisdiction. About 70 bighas out of 200 bighas had been encroached upon," said Jayswal. "The land sharks had dug up the graveyard and taken out the skeletons. Durga visited the site and cross-checked with the locals. She had issued notices to some people but they did not pay any heed," said Jayswal said. The latest notice went out on July 10, 2013 (TOI has a copy).

A villager, Ajaan Ali, pointed out that "apart from Dankaur, several bighas of waqf board land have been encroached upon in Parsaul, Rilkha and Kasna areas. There is a nexus of land mafias, police, politicians and administration behind the encroachments." He described Durga as "brave and intelligent" and recalled that she used to come without any security and didn't rely on her staff to know the truth. She had ordered construction of boundary walls around waqf land to prevent land-grabbing, he said.

TOI visited the Dankaur graveyard where the land was alleged to have been encroached upon. Adjacent to the graveyard, a market has been developed. About 50 shops have been constructed in the past five years. "Four of the shops have been allotted and the rest are being allotted. We have no idea whether the market has been developed on a graveyard site or not," said Manoj Kumar, son of a shopkeeper.

o o o

Is Durga Nagpal really innocent?
by Zafarul-Islam Khan, The Milli Gazette Online
Published Online: Aug 05, 2013
http://www.milligazette.com/news/8981-is-durga-nagpal-really-innocent-india

Uncorking the Babri genie

Dawn, 02 September 2010


by Jawed Naqvi

What if Hindus take a similar approach over the Babri dispute? We can expect endless confabulations between the government and religious groups. We can expect yet another eclipse of the liberal middle ground that is not enamoured of religious disputes. - Photo by AP.

Maulana Jalaluddin Umri was fasting when he met a clutch of journalists last week. India’s mainstream media had shown no interest in him so he decided to invite a few of those he believed could be trusted with his time-sensitive message.

As it turned out what the 75-year old head of the Jamaat-i-Islami-i-Hind had to say could redefine the fate of democracy, secularism and justice in India.

Indian Muslims, the maulana said softly, had decided to abide by the coming court verdict on the Babri Masjid dispute. Taking a pause to allow his message to sink in, he added: “We don’t know if the other side would be willing to heed the imminent ruling of the Allahabad High Court.”

After a long wait a three-member bench of Uttar Pradesh state’s high court is expected to deliver its globally-watched verdict any time in September. The Babri Masjid dispute has kept the nation of a billion plus divided along fault lines that otherwise have done little to ease the people’s daily struggle for dignity and livelihood.

A mob of zealots razed the 16th century mosque on Dec 6, 1992, claiming it stood at the site of Lord Ram’s birth. The main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has campaigned for the site to be given to Hindus, saying that the Mughal emperor Babar had ordered the destruction of a temple to Ram to build the Babri Masjid on the site. There are different myths and legends surrounding this claim.

A few months before its destruction, I visited the mosque in Ayodhya. Hindu activists who carefully stick to legalese call it vivaadit dhaancha or disputed structure and refuse to accept it as a mosque. Under its central dome a Hindu priest was marshalling devotees to small idols of Ram and his consort Sita. This practice was on since 1987 when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s administration removed the locks on the mosque, allowing Hindu worshippers to perform puja. The locks were placed by a legal order in 1949 after the idols mysteriously appeared at the site leading to a communal upsurge. A paan-chewing police constable with an archaic 303 rifle slung clumsily over his shoulder was keeping vigil on the proceedings.

He volunteered to explain the history of the disputed structure to me. I asked him when he believed Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya. He turned his mouth up to hold back the spit from the paan and offered his insights in gurgling Avadhi. “Ye jaano, koi nav lakh saal bataawat hain.” (‘They say it happened about 900,000 years ago.’) Where exactly within the mosque was the place where Lord Ram had first appeared? The knowledgeable constable pointed to the busy priest. “Wo jo pujaariji khade hain, wahi ke jaano chaar paanch phoot yahar wahar.” (‘He was born where the priest is standing — give or take four or five feet.’)

Matters of faith cannot be decided in a secular court. There is nothing to indicate other than oral tradition, legends and myths that the Hindu god of war was born at the exact place the police constable was pointing to. The high court verdict is more likely to be about the ownership of the land where the mosque stood. The Sunni Waqf Board and groups of Hindu claimants have locked horns. While Maulana Umri says his community would go along with the verdict, Hindus have yet to take a call.

A BJP pamphlet brought out soon after the mosque’s destruction offers some clues. “Can any court order the removal of Ram Lala (idols)?” it asks. “Apart from the fact that this suit (by Muslims) is frivolous, even if legally tenable, can any court in India order the idols to be removed? And even if a court did, can any government implement that order?”

The stance masks a warning and a vicarious opportunity for the Manmohan Singh government. With its economic reforms going horribly wrong for the poor, indeed for a majority of Indians, there is already an anticipation of a restive period in politics. It is for no other reason that the prime minister recently asked police chiefs to think of non-lethal ways of crowd control.

The government is expecting people to go out of control over sheer want and deprivation, not on any communal slogan. Turning the discourse into a communal one would suit both — the government and the right-wing opposition. The losers will be the poor and of course the flock of supposedly law-abiding Muslims that Maulana Umri represents.

Should the high court decide the suit in favour of the Sunni Waqf Board, as is widely expected, there is apprehension of street violence by the groups that tore down the mosque in the first place. If on the other hand, Hindu groups get the award, there could be an appeal by the Muslims in the Supreme Court.

However, while Rajiv Gandhi had pandered to Hindu sentiments by reopening the locks of the Babri Masjid for Ram’s worshippers, he had also set a questionable precedent in seeking to balance his obscurantist politics by similarly pampering Muslim groups, including those that Maulana Umri represents.

The infamous Shahbano case saw the Muslim orthodoxy prevailing on the Congress government to overturn a secular judgment of the Supreme Court. The court had ordered that a Muslim divorcee should be paid maintenance by her former husband as was the case with divorced women of other Indian communities.

The maulana had at that time rejected the Supreme Court’s decision because it interfered with his community’s personal laws. He and his fellow leaders got Rajiv Gandhi to overturn the apex court’s fair verdict.

What if Hindus take a similar approach over the Babri dispute? We can expect endless confabulations between the government and religious groups. We can expect yet another eclipse of the liberal middle ground that is not enamoured of religious disputes. However, the government is preparing to meet the contingency the only way it knows — by asking the police to try rubber pellets to ward off street protesters.

These ‘harmless’ contraptions are not working in Kashmir. Will they work in the rest of the country? The Babri genie is raring to come out of the loosely corked bottle of Indian politics. It is set to communalise Indian politics once again. It’s a win-win situation for the Congress and the BJP. Communal politics over Ayodhya and Manmohan Singh’s reforms are inseparable twins. One will not survive without the other.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

Anyone serious about stopping carnage carnivals that are a familiar feature of the Indian landscape?

India Identity Politics Factory: Dangerous Terminological confusion 'Adivasi', 'Vanvasi', 'Tribal', Authentic indigenous etc.

Kerala: Latent Communalism and the Police Narrative - Reflections on Beemapalli

Sitting Ducks - A Beemapalli reflection

by Bobby Kunhu (http://community.eldis.org/myshkin/Blog/)

It is with the utmost hesitation that I write this. Hesitation because I think I have not understood, nor have many others who have written about the May police firing in Beemapalli. Not that there is any ambiguity in anybody’s (who has visited the place) mind about the specific incidents that took place on 17th of May this year. As a part of a small fact finding team trying to tie up its report, I’d rather use this space to raise contextual questions about the police firing that have been haunting me since I heard the first reports of the firing.

At the outset, I need to assert as a human rights lawyer (and independent of the socio-economic realities of Beemapalli) that what happened on May 17th in Beemapalli is one of the worst possible crimes - where lives of 6 people were taken by forces of the state, without following the procedure established by law - in other words extra-judicial murders - and calling it by any other name is as offensive as the incident itself. In my mind, the incident involves the police allegedly firing 50 rounds of bullets at a gathering in a coastal village. The facts are that 43 people were injured and 6 died in the police firing. The fact is that all the people who died and were injured were Muslims. The fact is that there is no credible evidence shown that the crowd fired at was violent or provocative. The fact is that there is no damage reported from the police side. The fact is that the police bypassed the usual procedures that need to be adopted before a firing. Having made that assertion, let me move on to the first set of concerns that have been haunting me.

Silent Media, Silent Opposition

The first of these is the general social and political reactions to Beemapalli firing. In fact one of the factors that led me to take the initiative in organising a fact-finding was the deafening silence that followed the violence in Beemapalli. It looked like that only "Muslim" organisations were interested in taking up the issue. Even the political opposition did not seem like wanting to capitalise this serious lapse in governance. When I tried prying into the possible reason, a newspaper report lauding the media for acting sensibly by maintaining silence and thereby averting a communal issue was literally thrown at my face. (The report was titled, Signs of a Mature Media, Opposition).

But was this violence communal to start with? The victims of the violence did not seem to think so - despite all of them belonging to one single community!!

Interestingly apart from the high profile Lavalin case, the national and Kerala media was filled with stories of racist violence in Australia around this time. Then how did such gruesome violence fail to capture collective social imaginations? The only plausible answer that comes to my mind is the identity of those killed and injured in Beemapally - they were all from fish worker Muslim community - and do not have messiahs touting their cause.

There are other reasons as well for my arrival at this hypothesis. The first being that in the past couple of decades state violence in all its manifestations is being directed against traditionally and structurally marginalised groups. Formal expressions were demonstrated in Muthanga, Chengara and now Beemapalli. Insidious and subtle expressions through changes in reservation structure, discourse on terror used to de-legitimise communitarian political expressions and so on.

Dangerous Activities

Interestingly Beemapalli, being a Muslim ghetto has figured many a time in police narratives on terror. It would take another full essay to analyse this. It is in this context that couple of weeks after the firing, an intelligence report dated before the firing was leaked to the press. This report warns the state police of dangerous and illegal activity in Beemapalli and Malappuram. Much to my amusement, what the newspapers omitted was that this "dangerous" activity is the trade in pirated CD/DVDs that Bheemapally is notorious for. Interestingly, this has been subsequently used to close down this trade and increase police presence in Beemapalli. One of the speculations that was aired as a reason for the extreme violence from the police firing was to gain a foothold into this lucrative terrain.

Claims on Coastal Resources

The next reason is rooted in the socio-economic conditions prevailing in coastal areas generally and Beemapally specifically. The Indian coast has been a simmering pot of discontent for sometime now - aggravated especially after the tsunami. This discontent is rooted in multiple contestations for coastal resources and fish-worker resistance articulated through their right to the coast as a common property resource. I have been witness to a number of concerted efforts to divide the coastal community during the tsunami rehabilitation process. Some of these experiences have been documented as well. These contestations are grounded in the fact of the vulnerability of the coastal communities and Dalit and Muslim communities amongst these are even more vulnerable. Beemapally violence needs to be seen in this context as well. Portrayal of the police violence in Beemapally as communal riots instigated by a Beemapally mob by the police and a section of society including segments of the Catholic church subtly fails to acknowledge that the neighbouring hamlet Cheriyathura is inhabited by Latin Catholics. This reading is inherently dangerous as it pits two similarly placed vulnerable communities against each other.

Two Beemapallis and a Free Run

Further, Magalene, a fish worker leader confirms my suspicion that social indicators in Beemapalli are much worse compared to neighbouring fishing hamlets. She points to the fact that there are two Beemapallys in existence - one glossy Beemapally made of the DVD/CD trade and the other fish-worker hamlet which lacks even basic hygiene and sanitary requirements. She also points to the abysmal female literacy and empowerment in this hamlet in support of her claim. This also perhaps points to a hegemonic social apathy towards people that are forced to live on the fringes - a certain lack of value for their lives. This also could have contributed to the unchallenged free run that the Police is having with their version of the violence and attempts to portray their violence as a communal clash.

My next set of concerns is regarding the impunity with which the Police framed a community as communally volatile and in all probabilities is getting away with it. In his report to the government, DGP Jacob Punnose claims that the police fired 50 rounds and there are 43 injured and 6 dead - indicating that police fired to hit. This also dispels claims that several rounds were fired in the air. Of course there are other unsubstantiated claims in DGP Punnose’s report. But what gets my nerve is the shoddy framing that the police has indulged in, without having done any homework whatsoever - is this born out of a confidence that the Police force would get away with murder since the people killed are fishing Muslims? The confidence of the police seems to be bolstered by the collective silences and framing of Bheemapalli as a dangerous area mentioned above. It needs to be remembered that DGP Punnose is spearheading the demand for Police reforms and reducing political control over the police. In the process many vital questions remain unanswered, including questions that would legally place the violence as cold-blooded murder within criminal jurisprudence.

The silence on Beemapalli violence opens many cans of worms - including the deeply hegemonic nature of Kerala’s responses to its marginalised, latent communalism within the administration and media and so on and so forth. The responses to Beemapalli has left me perplexed, especially after having visited the place. But, having spend considerable time and energy on conflict situations, my sense is that Kerala might be sitting on a social time bomb, if it continues this lackadaisical attitude towards its marginalised population.

I believe Beemapalli calls for a classical "secular" response and honest peace building exercises that would instill a sense of confidence in Beemapally residents that they are not being persecuted - but that might be a difficult job and would call for extreme commitment.

(Published originally in the op-ed page of the Malayalam newspaper Thejas on the 15th July, 2009. Also to be found at http://sudeepsdiary.blogspot.com/2009/07/sitting-ducks-beemapalli-reflection.html

New Delhi's Akshardham Temple: Disney-Divinity and Moral Middle Classes

The Economic and Political Weekly, 27 June 2009

Urban Spaces, Disney-Divinity and Moral Middle Classes in Delhi

by Sanjay Srivastava

A presentation of an ethnography of the relationship between urban spaces, new cultures of consumption, the state, and the making of middle class identities in India. Firstly, the discussion explores the making of new urban spaces by focusing upon the Akshardham Temple complex on the banks of the Yamuna river in Delhi. Surrounded by a network of flyovers, highways, toll-ways, and residential developments, the complex is designed as a hi-tech religious and nationalist theme park. The Delhi government-sponsored bhagidari (sharing) scheme that brings together representatives of the Residents’ Welfare Associations, Market Traders Associations, and key government officials at periodically organised workshops forms the second site of focus.

Full Text at: http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/13679.pdf

Delink religious boards from secular state apparatus

Kashmir Times
May 27, 2009

Editorial

Perpetuating a dangerous anomaly

High time to delink religious boards from secular state apparatus and insulate them against political manipulation

As the annual Amarnath yatra gets under way the turbulent events of last summer come to haunt our minds. Not because of any perceptible fear of their repetition but because of the ever present probability of the mischief mongers feeling tempted to again fish in the state's troubled political waters. The wounds of the defeat inflicted upon these elements in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections are still fresh. In fact, some murmuring is already there. The state or its people can ill afford the unbearable cost of repetition of last year's disastrous events. It would be more advisable to err on the side of caution in this particular case than being complacent. There is no occasion to recount the sequence of events leading to the paralysis of the politico-constitutional system in the face of dangerous polarisation along communal and regional lines. The failure of the state apparatus, however, is yet to be analysed in the interest of preventing its reoccurrence. Much of what happened and why it happened, though, became clear with the statements of the real author of that tragedy. Ex-governor, Lt Gen (R) SK Sinha has left precious little to imagination as to how it all started and why. That he was acting on the definite agenda is by now an open secret. That he was the most unworthy occupant of the Raj Bhavan has been more than proved by his words and actions. That, however, is not really as important at this point in time as it is to ensure that the legacy left behind by Sinha is uprooted lock, stock and barrel.

On a deeper thought, it becomes obvious that the scope for mischief will always be there so long as the ground exists for mischief mongers like Sinha to pursue their dark agenda. The flaw lies in mixing religion with the affairs of a secular state. There is no problem and the arrangement works without any trouble so long as there are men of integrity and understanding at the helm. But last year's traumatic experience has shown how dangerous it is to take things for granted. It would be folly to ignore the possibility-indeed, probability-of its happening again now or in distant future. Apart from the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, the state has also the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board and the Muslim Wakf Board, all of them under the administrative control of the government. On the face of it, there is nothing objectionable in this kind of arrangement. But that does not take into account the ever present possibility of intending trouble seekers trying to exploit their working or manipulating their prescribed functioning. The sentiment associated with these institutions leaves very little scope for the administrative apparatus to deal with the fall out of malfunctioning within the arrangement itself.

Even otherwise the question of identity in the state is fraught with sensitive implications of far reaching consequence. These are, however, historically built into the psycho-political ethos of the state. Adding a new and combustible dimension to it is certainly not desireable at all. Yet we have these religious-related boards loaded on to the secular state apparatus. Even under best of circumstances there are serious differences of opinion not only between communities but also within them. The state is ill equipped to entangle itself in such controversies. If anything, the state should be insulated from all such entities. This principle cannot be over emphasised in the troublesome atmosphere of Jammu and Kashmir. As both, the Congress and the National Conference claim to be above sectarian politics it should be in their own interest to take initiative towards separating religion from politics by devising an autonomous arrangement without involving high constitutional functionaries and administrative personnel in its working. The fallacy of the existing arrangement was exposed by Sinha himself when he misused the secretary to governor to hurl an insult on the supposedly sovereign legislature. The then governor turned down the demand for legislative scrutiny of the religious boards headed by him although the boards were created by acts of the legislature which by itself binds them to such accountability. The failure of the Azad government to assert itself and correct the distortion only whetted Sinha's appetite with disastrous consequences. The sooner the anomaly is removed the better it would be for us all. Substituting the existing arrangement with disguised or open politically-controlled arrangement will, however, be a greater disaster, going by the past experience

What differentiates the ethics of duty from the ethics of obedience

Asian Age
May 2009

The ethics of duty and drama in times of riot

by Shiv Visvanathan

May.04 : Two events have hung on the conscience of modern India because we, as a society, have not responded to it. It is not easy to respond to violence either as a mnemonic or as a continuing process. Witness and victim almost become irritants testifying to our passivity.

In fact, when one sees the prime agents of ’84, one realises that as tigers they are toothless. The late H.K.L. Bhagat, even Sajjan Kumar, had better claims to an old-age home than prison. It raises, then, the question of whether we should pursue these people into dotage.

Even more, it confronts us with the question — should society forget and go on?

There is a therapy in forgetting, a hygiene that does not allow old wounds to fester. But there is a sense of history as convenience which a society cannot allow. Also, denial produces its own pathologies. For instance, the Israeli satora’s contempt for the Holocaust Jew was so blatant that camp documents were sold as pornographic literature. The denial of violence comes back as a new form of destiny. Sociologists also banalised the ’84 riots with writers like Emma Vidal pursuing a ruthless ethnography of how widows exploited the situation. While competent as sociology, this form of work blunted the sense of justice by treating the victims as entrepreneurs of their own misfortune. What Ms Vidal forgot is that not all memory can be commoditised. All trauma does not graduate to the circus as a "monster".

The 2002 riots were a bit different from the riots of 1984. The first major difference was that, in ’84, civil society and especially academics, university students, groups like the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) rose to the occasion to provide succour to the victim. The state, in Gujarat, treated the victims as recalcitrant citizens of a development process. The riots were seen as part of a logic of development, of an old city sulking in its ethnicity. Worse, there was a blatant sense of exterminism. The local society, in general, wanted not just to terrorise the victim but also to eliminate him. This psychology, in fact, contributed to the carnivalesque mode in the aftermath of what was genocide.

What kept memory alive, apart from the efforts of the survivor, was not the media but the defiance of dissenters. One thinks, in particular, of Teesta Setalvad and the defiant testimony of Sri Kumar before the Nanavati Commission. It was partly because of their efforts that the court established the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe into the Gujarat riots.

The entry of the SIT was an extraordinary event. It came at a moment of cynicism about law and justice. It worked quietly, almost invisibly. Yet, its very adherence to protocols, its readiness to listen, its determined patience created a sense of the law as an occasional oasis of hope. Just like with Sri Kumar in the earlier phase, for R.K. Raghavan enactment of protocols has become iconic of the processes of a decent society.

In a performative way, faith in justice is going to depend not merely on what SIT unearths but on how Mr Raghavan, in his role as SIT head, behaves. He has to perform the drama of legal interrogation and investigation and he has to do it with immaculate correctness. In an odd sense, Raghavan has to play Raghavan to be convincing. He has created an everydayness about the interrogation, playing the unflappable Jeeves to a legal system that often tends to be empty-headed. As CBI director, Mr Raghavan embodied professionalism and honesty. His was a respected career.

But when, on April 27, the SIT opened the file on 41 new cases, something new was signalled. A pandora’s box of question marks exploded to emcompass police officers, IAS officers including chief secretaries, and even a few ministers. It was an electrifying moment. A new set of expectations has been created. The demands for justice as procedure, as ritual, as performance and as meaning has reached a new high.

Mr Raghavan is not merely a person. He is now a persona. His new role demands an immaculate performance as the circle of suspicion tightens around an elite bunch of officers. Tacitly and explicitly, he has to define what duty is. Is one loyal to a chief minister or the Constitution? Is duty clerical adherence to procedures or following one’s conscience? Is silence punishable? Is a request for transfer an adequate form of dissent? Is duty doing things right or doing the right things?

This drama does not belong to Gujarat alone. It is a truth commission of a different sort, asking why officers meekly follow unjust orders. In a psychological sense, we will have to face the idea that obedience is not enough. Following the psychologist Stanley Mulgram’s questions, one then asks why people obey indiscriminately and what differentiates the ethics of duty from the ethics of obedience.

Mr Raghavan has to enact this entire pedagogy and compress it into a report. If he succeeds, he will become an icon and if he trembles, it is the bureaucracy that will turn iconoclastic, dismissing the SIT as a partisan or incompetent body. It is ethical high drama enacted within the procedural domain. If the rituals are completed with fidelity, then a new generation of bureaucracy will face new standards of truth and propriety. They will realise that truth does not die when a file is closed. Mr Raghavan has enacted the first move by summoning one of the members of SIT itself for interrogation. But the SIT drama is also a challenge to society.

One of the fragments of violence one has lived with is how ordinary people kill and live with themselves. The question is what happens to a society that allows murder as a permissible occasional ritual.

The SIT drama should now be seen as more than a cat-and-mouse game, a record of which bureaucrat got caught and which did not. One sympathises with the families of officers under scrutiny. Communities get ungenerous at these moments. But justice, or rather the search for justice, can help cleanse our society. We owe the SIT a debt of gratitude for this moment of ethics.

Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Hindutva assault on Investigating agencies looking into Malegaon blasts

Times of India
18 Nov 2008

EDITORIAL COMMENT | The Law Is Secular

The Panipat conclave organised by the sangh parivar on Sunday to protest arrests made by the anti-terror squad of Maharashtra police in Malegaon blasts has ominous implications. The conclave, which was attended by sadhus of various Hindu sects, decided to organise a mass mobilisation campaign against the government for "vilifying Hindu monks and army officers in the name of Hindu terrorism". The presence of two senior BJP leaders party president Rajnath Singh and Uttarakhand chief minister B C Khanduri at the meet confirms its overt political character.

The sadhus have viewed the arrest of a Hindu monk, who according to the police is linked to Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit, the prime accused in the Malegaon blasts, as a political conspiracy against Hindus. Rajnath Singh had expressed similar views when Pragya Thakur, an ABVP activist turned sanyasin, was arrested. This view is out and out wrong. One, the arrest of a couple of monks is by no means a conspiracy against a particular community. Two, the police made the arrest because the monks were allegedly involved in a bomb blast. No person can claim immunity from the law because she happens to wear the robes of a monk. The law of this secular country treats all its citizens equally; there are no special provisions for the supposedly holy. This applies to army officers as well. The police have the right to arrest a person if they have evidence and the arrest can be challenged only in a court of law. Public mobilisation against the arrest by working up religious sentiments is malicious and uncalled for.

The BJP, a party in the running to form the government after the next general elections, must not associate with such mobilisation. Clearly, the sadhus are communalising a case of terrorism. The country's largest opposition group should not be a party to the use of extra-constitutional means to defame terror probes. The presence of Khanduri, like Rajnath Singh, at the conclave is disturbing. It is grossly improper for an elected public official to be part of a meeting that discredited security agencies in blatantly communal terms.

Terrorism, as the BJP used to argue, has no religion. Don't cripple security agencies by now accusing them of communal intent. Similarly, the army is an apolitical institution that functions under the executive and army personnel have an exemplary record of not exceeding their brief. Allow the law to deal with the black sheep. Don't politicise the institution by claiming to speak on its behalf.

Jammu's Terror swami in former governor's pants

Kashmir Times, 15 November 2008

Sinha hosted detained 'Godman' in Raj Bhawan

Shabir Ibn Yusuf

SRINAGAR, Nov 14: According to a starling revelation, the Malegaon blast mastermind Daynand Pandey was hosted by the former controversial Jammu and Kashmir governor Lt General (Rtd) S K Sinha in Raj Bhawan and that the two had held a meeting in a famous temple in Kashmir. Pandey has been shown in photographs with National Conference president Omar Abdullah also.

The revelation surfaced after a senior police officer of Jammu and Kashmir police held an under cover investigation in connection with Pandey and his Kashmir visits. "It seems he had been special guest of Sinha," the police officer said adding he had dinner with Sinha Sahib many times in Raj Bhawan situated in Zabarwan hills.

The police officer vindicated the statement of Zeshta Devi Mandir Prabandhak committee general secretary that Pandey had come to Mandir under high security cover, "Once he has come from Martrand temple Anantnag to meet Sinha at dinner in police and para-military escort in 2007," the police said. He said, ?yet he is not able to get the actual number of times of meetings between S K Sinha and Pandey.

However, the senior superintendent of Police Anantnag Nitish Kumar expressed ignorance and said, "During my tenure Sinha has not visited the temple." He said that Pandey might have visited but police does not know about it. "He was not VIP or VVIP for we people and we do not know," SSP said.

The investigating police officer said, Pandey has also held a meeting with Sinha at Kheer Bhawani Asthpan Tulmul Ganderbal. "In my tenure of these some months Sinha Sahib did not visit the temple," said District Magistrate Ganderbal Abdul Majid Khanday. Police officer said that Pandey was usually visiting High Altitude Warfare School of army in Gulmarg and meeting the army officers. "We are trying to ascertain which army officers he used to meet," the police officer said.

Interestingly some national news channels Thursday evening displayed the photographs of Pandey with National conference president Omar Abdullah. Despite repeated calls Omar did not attend the phone.

Short interview with Roop Rekha Verma

The Times of India
22 Sep 2008

'Our composite culture is under great strain'

Roop Rekha Verma, a former vice chancellor of Lucknow University and founder of Saajhi Duniya, an organisation that works for women's rights and secularism, was part of the 'People's Tribunal' that recently heard testimonies of Muslims accused of terrorism over the last two years in Hyderabad. She talks to Jyoti Punwani:

Q: What lasting impression did the testimonies leave on you? How did you vouch for their genuineness?

A: The victims had documents which showed their genuineness. In many cases the courts had found no evidence and they were released, although only after great torture and trauma. This showed how innocent people were being tortured without even prima facie evidence.

The testimonies left us with a sense of despair and shock. It deepened the feeling of living in a very fragile democracy ruled by a highly insensitive and partisan state. The very state organs which are duty bound to facilitate the process of justice are subverting the rule of law. In almost all the cases the lawful procedures of arrest and search were blatantly violated; in many cases even the judiciary seemed to be affected by communal prejudices. No doubt, the composite culture defining our nation is under great strain.

The communal behaviour of the state and the consequent alienation of people is fraught with great danger to democracy. There is also the fear that the real culprits may be at large while innocents are being booked.

Q: Is it possible to investigate terrorist offences without violating human rights?

A: Certainly, provided the police are impartial, knowledgeable, and use honest, scientific methods of investigation. It is fascism which presents human rights violation as the only option to terrorism. Human rights must be non- negotiable in any decent society.

Q: You were part of a citizens' panel that studied the 2005 Mau riots when the Samajwadi Party was in power in Uttar Pradesh. What's the difference in the approach of the SP, BJP, Congress and BSP towards terrorism and communal violence?

A: The increasingly insensitive electoral politics has narrowed the gap between parties. They all are visionless and criminally self-centred. In fact, no political party is doing politics. They all are busy in gang rivalry or gang networking.

However, since the BJP elevates state terrorism to an ideological height in the name of 'nationalism', it is nearest to fascism. And it's far easier to impose fascism in violent situations. Politics must have a vision for the whole society; in fact a world view. The BJP can be credited with a sort of vision but it is not egalitarian, and therefore it is anti-democracy.

Q: Azamgarh is being touted by the media as the home of terrorists.

A: How true is this? How many arrested from Azamgarh have been proved guilty? What about Hashimpura, Bhagalpur, Gujarat, Kanpur or Nanded where either the state machinery massacred minorities or else Bajrang Dal and the like were found manufacturing bombs? Why does the media behave differently in such cases?