Archives for September 2018

Bengaluru The counting of votes for 105 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across Karnataka began at 8 a.m. on Monday.

The results of the civic polls, which took place on August 31, are expected later in the day or early Tuesday, a poll official said.

Polling took place across the 2,633 wards of the state, spread over 29 city municipalities, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats and in 135 wards of the three city corporations.

A record average of 67.5 per cent voter turnout was registered across the state for the civic polls.

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used for polling in all the wards.

A total of 36 lakh voters were registered in the ULB wards and 13.33 lakh in the three towns of Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru.

In all, 8,340 candidates, including 2,306 from the Congress, 2,203 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 1,397 from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) are in the fray for the ULBs, while 814 contested from the city corporations, including 135 from Congress, 130 from BJP and 129 from JD-S.

In the event of a party not getting majority on its own in the election, the Congress and JD-S have decided to forge a post-poll alliance to keep BJP out of power, similar to the May 12 state assembly elections which threw up a hung verdict.

In the 2013 ULB elections held in 4,976 seats, the Congress had won 1,960 seats, while BJP and JD-S had won 905 seats each, while Independents bagged the remaining 1,206 seats.

[IANS]

Mumbai The Shiv Sena on Monday targeted the Maharashtra Police for the arrests of five left activists last week claiming they were reportedly “hatching a conspiracy to overthrow the central and state governments” besides allegedly “plotting a Rajiv Gandhi-style assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, among others.

“The police contentions behind the arrests are ridiculous… The erstwhile government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was voted out and removed by the people — not by the Maoists.

“As of now… at least, it is still possible to change the government through the democratic processes,” the Sena said.

“The (Pune) police must not shoot off their mouths like this and the government must bar them from such statements… It’s sheer stupidity,” the Sena said in sharp edits in the party mouthpieces, “Saamana” and “Dopahar Ka Saamana”.

While the practice of “using the police” for different aims is nothing new for the politicians and government, in the present instance, “the faster the truth emerges, the better,” (remove the ‘mukhota’) for the police, demanded the Sena.

The second argument of the Pune police was that Modi was allegedly being targeted in a “Rajiv Gandhi-style assassination”, at which the Sena clawed at the Pune police.

“The former PMs, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were fearless and courageous leaders… It was their boldness which claimed their lives… But Modi will never indulge in such adventures.

“He is already provided the best security in the world and not even a bird can overfly him,” the Sena pointed out.

Dismissing the police contentions, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ally in Maharashtra and the Centre, the Sena said that “if these handful of Maoists had so much political strength”, they would never have lost their (Communist) governments in West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, etc.

Urging the government to rein in the police, it said the action last week was one of the biggest attack on Maoism by the Pune police culminating in the arrests of five “urban-naxals” in simultaneous nationwide raids.

The Maoist movement is spread across Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli and Chandrapur areas.

In many of these areas they run parallel governments, killing many security personnel and even top politicians like Congress leader V.C. Shukla and others.

The edit said the Pune police arrested P. Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Fereira and Vernon Gonsalves — intellectuals in different fields of life, rights activists, considered extremely influential persons moving about in high society circles.

“There are some doubts that something is wrong somewhere with these arrests… The facts must come out before the BJP becomes the butt of new jokes,” the Sena concluded.

[IANS]

If Rahul Gandhi participates in the meeting called by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to discuss the country’s future, he can take the opportunity to seek clarifications on the organisation’s worldview. The replies by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, to the Congress president’s questions cannot but have an impact on the outfit’s future in case a clear picture emerges about its attitude towards the various communities.

For instance, did K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the RSS in 1925, call the Muslims “yavan-snakes”? If so, is this still the view of the organisation or has there been a change? A related question can be on Hedgewar’s successor, M.S. Golwalkar’s categorisation of the Muslims as “Internal Enemies No.1”.

It is possible to link these uncharitable assessments of India’s largest minority community to V.D. Savarkar’s thesis that the only true sons of the soil are the Hindus since India is both their “pitribhu” (fatherland) and “punyabhu” (holy land).

In contrast, such organic and emotive connections cannot be ascribed to the minorities whose pitribhu may be India, but their punyabhu is in Makkah or Rome. It is presumably because of this reason that Golwalkar described Christians as “Internal Enemies No.2”.

At one stroke, the two Maharashtrian Brahmins had relegated the Muslims and Christians to the status of being “aliens” because of their religious affiliations to foreign lands. It goes without saying that this perception persists among the rank and file of the saffron brotherhood to whom the patriotism of these two communities are forever in doubt.

Hence, the observation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, Vinay Katiyar, that Muslims have no place in India because their natural “homes” are Pakistan and Bangladesh, while another BJP MP, Roopa Ganguly, has said that West Bengal’s partition in 1947 meant that only Hindus would live in the state and that the Muslims should go to East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. If both these statements deny legitimacy to the Muslim citizens of India, the reason can be traced to Savarkar’s views.

It is obvious that the RSS cannot claim to be abiding by the Indian Constitution if it subscribes to such opinions. Yet, disowning the two Hindutva luminaries will cut the ground from under its feet because these beliefs constitute the core of its philosophy.

At a time, however, when the RSS is reaching out to eminent people outside its fold, it cannot be long before some among the invited guests question the basis of the organisation’s belief system. Otherwise, it will seem that they have all been taken for a ride.

Up until now, the RSS has been cautious in its outreach. The most prominent among those (apart from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who was the BJP’s choice for the President) who have been called to deliver a lecture to the RSS cadres is former President Pranab Mukherjee. Ratan Tata was next, but he chose not to speak.

Reports that the RSS is now thinking of inviting Rahul Gandhi and the communist leader, Sitaram Yechury, suggest that it is gaining in confidence about the exposure to diverse and contrary views. It is also considering holding “vaicharik kumbh” sessions with intellectuals in various cities with non-RSS individuals.

Perhaps the interaction with Pranab Mukherjee has told the RSS that it can successfully conduct its programme of interactions. There is little doubt that the former President hedged his bets while speaking in Nagpur lest his hosts be offended.

For instance, while ranging over Indian history, he made no mention of the Indus Valley Civilisation, presumably because it would have raised questions about whether it was Aryan, as the Hindutva group claims, or pre-Aryan which is the generally accepted view.

Similarly, he skipped over the entire Muslim period after referring to the Muslims as “invaders”, which would have gladdened saffron hearts, and made no mention of Akbar, whose title of “the Great” given by “secular” historians is contested by the present dispensation.

It will not serve any purpose, either for the RSS or its opponents, if everyone plays safe to keep the hosts in good humour. Instead, a reference will be perfectly in order by a guest to Hedgewar, who warned “others” not to “infringe on the rights of Hindus” since they must remember that “they are living in Hindusthan of Hindus”, and to Golwalkar and Savarkar.

The latest initiatives of the RSS are obviously intended to secure acceptance among a wider section of hoi polloi by demonstrating that it is not quite the ogre that its critics allege. But as in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s case, the flaunting of a gentler, kinder face may be construed as a mask unless the RSS formally dissociates itself from the anti-minority observations of its guiding lights like Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Savarkar.

There have been several occasions in history where a party has initiated major changes in its outlook. One of these was the British Labour Party’s decision to drop Clause IV of its constitution calling for the “common ownership” of the means of production. The communists, too, have done away with the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Will the RSS follow suit by amending its basic ideology ?

[IANS]

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better for Asians in Hollywood after the fluke, tempestuous (and not-entirely-deserved, I might add) success of the seasons’s big blockbuster, “Crazy Rich Asians” — a film that features only actors of Asian origin — yet another Asian filmmaker has taken the global boxoffice by storm.

And this time, we Indians have a lot to be proud of. While “Crazy Rich Asians” doesn’t even have a token Indian representation in its cast or crew (though I did catch a Sardarji valet in a hotel driveway shot), the new thriller, released just a week after “Crazy…”, is directed by the Indo-American filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty, whose roots are in Hyderabad. Chaganty worked for a couple of years at Google before gravitating to full-time filmmaking.

His stunning directorial debut, “Searching”, is set in the cyber universe where a distraught father attempts to locate his missing daughter.

Interestingly, Chaganty, who grew up on a staple diet of Bollywood and Hollywood films, pitched “Searching” to the studios as an eight-minute short film. The producers suggested Chaganty turn it into a full-length feature film. The director initially declined the offer, arguing that he didn’t want to stretch a good idea beyond a point.

However, Chaganty did finally make “Searching” as a feature film. Released on August 24, the film, made on a shoestring budget with Korean star John Cho in the lead, has already established Chaganty as a filmmaker to reckon with. The ultimate compliment for this small-budgeted blockbuster came from the “Crazy Rich Asians” crew when they booked an entire theatre to watch the film.

The young filmmaker names Manoj Night Shyamalan as his main influence. No doubt Chaganty’s thriller-noire approach to cinema makes him the new “Night” among Indo-American filmmakers. I fervently hope Chaganty’s career doesn’t follow Shyamalan’s trajectory.

There was a time after “The Sixth Sense” when Shayamalan, who likes to be called “Night”, was seen as the brightest filmmaker from India in Hollywood. And then it all fell apart, film by film.

“Unbreakable”, which followed “The Sixth Sense”, was received fairly. But soon after, Shayamalan rapidly declined into the night with “Signs” (2002), “The Village” (2004), “The Lady In Water” (2006), “The Happening” (2008) and, worst of all, the 3D abomination “The Air Bender”, which, apart from other atrocities, also revealed Dev “Slumdog” Patel to be an extremely inept actor. To be honest, one thought “The Air Bender” to be a kind of closure on Shyamalam’s career as a spook merchant. We thought it couldn’t get any worse.

But it did.

In how many more ways could Shyamalan tell the same “Sixth Sense” story over and over again? The eerie has become progressively dreary in his oeuvre.

I remember just before the release of “The Happening” (not happening at all), I asked Shyamalan why his career lost momentum after “Sixth Sense”.

Protesting loudly, the filmmaker said: “I hear this a lot in India. It feels like everyone is five years behind. You can’t judge my career by the box office alone.”

Agreed, but I do hope Aneesh Chaganty remembers that being the new Shyamalan doesn’t mean that you turn blind to reality. Night can never be described as day.

[IANS]