Opinion – Page 14

Relevance of Sir Syed’s philosophy for Indian Muslims today

October 22, 2014 by Nasheman

Nawab Mohsin ul Mulk, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (middle), Justice Syed Mahmood.

by Dr. Faiza Abbasi

It is that time of the year again. The roads and buildings of the Aligarh Muslim University are lit up once again. The proudly referred to Alig community all round the globe from Ottawa to Dubai, dines together, wherever there are a few AMU Alumni/ae. The present day forerunners of the ‘Aligarh Movement’ deliver moving speeches in tongue twisted English and chaste Urdu peppered with couplets from Iqbal as the audience wait in baited breath to tap foot and combust in roaring applause on the AMU Tarana penned by its old boy Asrarul Haque Majaz, sung by a choir of girls in white suit with red cover head dupatta and boys in black sherwani with the AMU logo embroidered on the collar. All this is done to commemorate the S. S. Day in memory of the Founder of AMU, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan born on October 17, 1817.

Sir Sayyid, pained by the decimation of his community in the aftermath of the 1857 revolt envisioned modern scientific education to be the only ray of hope for restoring the lost glory of a people until recently ruled by its Nawabs, Mansabdars, Taluqdars and Jagirdars pledging allegiance to an ailing, geriatric, Poet – Emperor in the Red Fort. Breaking away from the Fort which had conferred upon him the title of Jawaduddaula, Sayyid Ahmad Khan served the British East India Company as a Judicial Clerk and built a rapport with the Raj officials. He was born and brought up in Delhi under the strong influence of his mother’s values of piety, honesty and compassion. On his many postings under the Raj he closely observed his country and its people in many cities of India like Benaras, Ghazipur, Bulandshahar and Aligarh.

During his ensuing travel to the Great Britain in 1869-70, which lengthened over 17 months he used all opportunities to learn from the post- renaissance British Society. In his letters from England he hails Indians to learn from the cleaner of his apartment at Mecklenburg Square, Camden, London. The woman earned a pittance but made it a point to spend half a penny on a Newspaper and read it every day. However, he understood the basic differences between the west and the east and knew the areas where the twain shall never meet. He narrates an interesting incident of his sea voyage, ‘during a formal dining event on the deck the bearers misjudged me on account of my heavy weight, flowing beard and serious looks to be the head of the table and offered to serve me a drink. As I could not converse in English and my interpreter was not around I made a hand gesture refusing the prohibited alcohol. This he mistook as that not being my favourite tipple. He brought me another and I repeated the same. This happened several times before he could finally get me. Then he brought for me water – the life giving drink of Allah for all Mankind’. In spite of his resistance to some of the un-Islamic courtesies of the British nobility he became the first Indian member of the Athenaeum – the most high-class English Club which is still considered above many in UK.

Back from his trip to England he dreamt of and pursued diligently for an educational institution in the dusty plains of north-India on the lines of Oxford and Cambridge. He said ‘I dream of a College where boys will wear the customary chugha, they will never hurl abuses at each other, the Halls of residence will be attached to a mosque, and no one will be allowed to discuss the origins of the sects in Islam as to how the Shia was alienated from the Sunni’. When he embarked upon materialising his plans for the MAO College it was a hard toil he diligently pursued in collecting funds, making people contribute financially and receiving endowments of land and Wakf property for the College.

In his attempt to bring modern education to Muslims he faced maximum opposition from his own co-religionists. Some groups of clergy even passed on him the fatwa of kufr which is the ultimate disgrace for a man who held his Islamic beliefs and Muslim identity dear to his heart. Yet, the tenacious Sayyid Ahmad pleaded the British Govt. for help, urged the Muslim intelligentsia and never looked back. Once when he was on the streets asking for donation someone threw a stone at him to dissuade him. He picked it up saying it will be used in the foundation of the College. He could make this arduous journey and his dream saw the light of the day in his life time because of the support of few of his close accomplices. Amongst them are Maulvi Samiullah, Altaf Hussain Hali, Shibli Nomani and his close friend and aid Raja Jaikishan Das. The latter was one of the most trustworthy keepers of the Society that made the MAO (Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental) College in 1877. In his laps Sir Sayyid put his only grandson Syed Ross Masood during his Baptism ceremony.

Today what the Aligarians in particular and the Indian people at large have to understand is that Sir Sayyid never meant the AMU to be a University of the Muslims, by the Muslims and for the Muslims. He had the foundation stone of the College laid by Lord Lytton and the Lytton Library, in AMU is still remembered after him. He was pro-west but never anti-east. All he wanted was the goodness of the west to be embraced by the east for the emancipation of its own people who had lost in the battle of education. This however, doesn’t imply that he wanted Muslims to shun their Islamic ideals and meld into the western ethos of culture, society and civilization. His broad vision comprehended the follies of being anti-government during those days and prevented his Aligarh Movement from influences of the other nationalist movements springing up. In other words Sir Sayyid wanted for his community what a parent naturally wants for his offspring.

Today many a historians wrongly attribute the ‘Two Nation Theory’ to Sir Sayyid as its progenitor. While it is true that he loved his qaum more than Majnoo would have loved Laila and Farhad would have loved Shireen, the fact is that a reformer like Sir Sayyid should be placed above these petty divisive lines. This was a man who believed and strived for freedom of thought and expression. Who founded the ‘Scientific Society’ in Aligarh and its journal Tehzib ul Akhlaq based on the revolutionary ‘Spectator’ and ‘Tatler’ of England. Who exhorted his people to protect India like a beautiful bride whose two eyes were the Hindoos and Mussalmans. Would anyone like a one-eyed bride? He asked. Who lived and died for an educational institution that would reform a long relegated community.

Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan is to be remembered by the people of India as a person who wanted education to be away from political dogma and by the world wide Alig community as someone who never cared about religious, nationalist or cast based differences when it came to improving the quality of education. Why the first graduate produced by the MAO College was Ishwari Prasad and Theodore Beck – immortalised by the Beck Manzil in AMU is its most celebrated Principal? Sir Walter Raleigh who established the English Department was among the many European teachers invited from England to impart the best practices of teaching and learning in various disciplines. The first departments of studies at the AMU were the Departments of Arabic, Urdu, Law and Sanskrit amongst others.

The most relevant lesson from his philosophy for the students of Aligarh Muslim University and its Alumni/ae is never to indulge in anti-nationalist or militant activities and in order to ensure quality of education at the University never regress to regionalism, sexism or sectarianism. They are well advised to evolve from the once rampant fierceness and fanaticism that characterised the Islamic rule in the medieval ages and reinvent the original goodness of Islam for peace, progress and brotherhood. The Founder of the Aligarh Muslim University knew in advance the relevance of modern, scientific and English education while adhering to the primary goodness of being a Muslim with personal beliefs of purity, integrity and justice. He exhorted the students to uphold the Quran in one hand and the knowledge of natural sciences in another to be complete human beings. Our students should be equipped with just that and no cob webs of dreary divisions should be viewed on them by the country.

Dr. (Mrs.) Faiza Abbasi is Assistant Professor, UGC Academic Staff College, Aligarh Muslim University E-mail: faeza.abbasi@gmail.com

Hype over the Mars mission: India neglects real Science and Technology priorities

October 20, 2014 by Nasheman

– by Praful Bidwai

The contrast between India’s two recent science and technology (S&T) projects couldn’t have been starker. One, by delivering accurate early warnings about Cyclone Hudhud, saved thousands of human lives, and prevented destruction of property on a monstrous scale. The other put India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Mangalyaan spacecraft successfully into a distant orbit around the planet-a technological achievement, but without much scientific, leave alone social, consequence.

Yet, the Indian media exulted over the second event, a monopoly venture of the Department of Space-Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), as if it was a world-historical feat that put India in the top league of the globe’s science powers. It was like a spectacular laser show, but only visible in graphics and artists’ drawings, besides pictures of a rocket blast-off from last November. The rest was left to imagination and nationalist hype.

But the media ignored the first project although it was the result of unglamorous, low-key, painstaking cooperation between different agencies including the India Metereological Department, National Institute of Ocean Technology, National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, Disaster Management Institute, the Indian Air Force and the Navy, and two Indian Institutes of Technology, besides the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh governments.

The effort involved creation of new infrastructure with more cyclone shelters, coastal roads, bridges and embankments, better weather observation stations including buoys, advanced computers, faster communication lines, and better preparations for rescue and relief operations. It meant raising the country’s disaster preparedness budget fivefold to $1.6 billion since 2006.

All this brought about a huge improvement in cyclone warning time. This was only 24 hours in 1999, when the Orissa “super-cyclone” resulted in 3,958 deaths (officially, and 10,000 deaths by unofficial estimates). But it improved to five days, and reduced the annual death-toll from cyclones to under 100 over the past five years. In Hudhud, it enabled the evacuation of more than 2 lakh people, stockpiling of food and other aid in shelters, and a relatively well-coordinated relief effort.

Seen in perspective, the cyclone warning-and-preparedness project is a feat of greater social relevance, as well as more innovative use of technology, than MOM, which has not had any civilian spin-offs. Of course, this is not to deny that ever since ISRO launched the indigenous satellite “Aryabhata” in 1975, it has developed a range of technologies, including rocketry, engine design, electronic fabrication, remote tracking and control, and data processing.

One shouldn’t also underrate ISRO’s first-attempt success in putting MOM in a Martian orbit, built on past experience, both its own and others’. But in contrast to these technological achievements stands MOM’s very modest scientific agenda: not landing on Mars, but of observing it from a design distance of 366 km (since increased to 423 km) at the nearest point and 80,000 km from the farthest point. This cannot deliver even a fraction of the information recently generated by the US and European “Mars Global Surveyor” and “Mars Express” missions.

Mangalyaan weighs 1,350 kg, but only carries a small scientific payload weighing 13 kg, compared to the “Mars Express’s” 116 kg. This paucity of instrumentation severely limits the extent and quality of Mangalyaan’s observations. It’s cannot add significantly to what’s already known about Martian topography or atmosphere, including the presence of methane. The “Global Surveyor” took over 600 million readings of surface elevations. MOM can at best take a minuscule number of readings.

According to former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, a critic of the present project, MOM was originally meant to carry 12 instruments, weighing 24 kg. But only five of these could be tested in time for the launch. The rest couldn’t be carried, making the mission a “useless”, “showpiece event”-“spending money on nothing”.

Mangalyaan’s limitations basically arise from ISRO’s failure to complete the development of a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which can place heavy (2,000 kg-plus) satellites into high orbit. Despite working on the GSLV for 15 years, ISRO hasn’t succeeded in operationalising it. Its test-flights have repeatedly failed. The last one was aborted in August 2013.

Instead of completing the GSLV’s development, ISRO hurriedly used the much less powerful Polar SLV to launch Mangalyaan. But the PSLV is only designed to put (small) satellites into a low-earth orbit. This greatly limited the speed Mangalyaan could acquire and constricted its abilities.

The MOM mission may have served as a steroid shot for ISRO. But it will do little to advance the cause of S&T in India. For decades, India was the Third World’s unquestioned “science superpower”. In 1980, it globally held the 8th position in the number of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, while China was a distant No 15. By 2010, China moved up to No 2, but India moved down to No 9.

India not only lags behind the developed countries in the number and quality of R&D (research and development) personnel, and in scientific output and its impact (measured in the number of citations of papers by other researchers). Other emerging economies are also catching up with India. Not just China, but even Russia and South Korea, now have more people engaged in R&D than does India. Even Brazil isn’t far behind.

Although India accounts for 3.5 percent of all scientific papers published worldwide, its share in the top one percent of impact-making global journals is a low 0.54 percent. As many as 52 percent and 45 percent of Indian publications remained uncited in 2001-2005 and 20006-2010. (For details, see http://dst.gov.in/whats_new/whats_new12/report.pdf)

Put simply, India’s S&T establishment is in crisis. Its priorities are warped: two-thirds of its R&D expenditure is consumed by just three “security”-related organisations: Department of Atomic Energy, Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) and Department of Space, the first two of which have performed appallingly. The rest of the S&T establishment including the four big chains of laboratories under the Councils of Agricultural Research, Scientific and Industrial Research, Medical Research, and Department of Biotechnology, have to make do with the remaining one-third share.

Their funds were cut by 25 to 30 percent in last United Progressive Alliance budget. The Modi government has not yet restored them despite rhetoric about promoting S&T vigorously. Worse, even the allotted funds are not disbursed on time, starving projects of equipment and staff. All manner of cuts are imposed arbitrarily. Important institutions like the Department of Science and Technology and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research remain headless, further delaying decision-making and funds allocation.

India committed a great blunder early on in severing the link between research and teaching at the undergraduate/postgraduate level which exists in the university system, and instead set up specialised laboratories with no connection with teaching or infusion of student talent. Most of these laboratories are extremely bureaucratised and run as fiefdoms, with no peer review, leave alone public accountability. Promotions to high positions are often decided on the basis of years in service, or nepotism, not on quality of work, talent or performance.

I interviewed four active researchers from disciplines like biology, theoretical physics, chemistry and astronomy, who corroborate this view. They all complain that the bureaucratisation of S&T institutions has created in them “a pervasive culture of mediocrity”, in which people with outstanding talent cannot function optimally. Financial instability, and irregular releases of funds, compound the problem further, demoralising good-quality researchers.

There is very little collaborative research across Indian institutions, although many scientists do joint work with foreign, especially Western, institutions. There is a proliferation of me-too projects, many of them fragmented, sub-critically funded, and unproductive. The result is growing aridity, low performance and lack of enterprise. The whole experience of adventure or discovery is lost.

India’s ambitious S&T enterprise, inaugurated at Independence, has proved flawed in other, basic, ways too. It was to promote the “scientific temper” (in the words of the Constitution) in society and inculcate the spirit of critical enquiry, especially among the youth. It has manifestly failed to do that, as evidenced by the rampant growth of blind faith, politicised religion and superstition in society.

India has more temples than schools! Why, leave alone the lay public, even ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan worshipped a metal replica of MOM at Tirupati before the launch, and performed other rituals that would embarrass any sensible person.

India’s talented youth is no longer attracted to science, as distinct from commerce, management and professional disciplines which don’t remotely inculcate scientific values. India’s science education is in a mess, with a drain of talented teachers into other institutions and remunerative jobs.

On a larger compass, the S&T establishment has betrayed the promise of delivering useful inventions and innovations to the people, with a few notable (partial) exceptions such as agricultural research (which soon plateaued and wasn’t extended to dryland farming) and information technology. It has failed to provide reliable power and clean drinking water to the public.

Unless India’s S&T establishment redeems its promise, it will continue to go downhill, MOM notwithstanding.

Praful Bidwai is a journalist, social science researcher and activist on issues of human rights, the environment, global justice and peace. He received the Sean MacBride International Peace Prize, 2000 of International Peace Bureau, Geneva and London, one of the world’s oldest peace organisations.

Colonising India’s Muslims: Love, Jihad and Political Lust

October 18, 2014 by Nasheman

22-year-old Meerut women who alleged forced conversion and rape by Muslim men, has retracted her statements. (File Photo)

– by Farzana Versey, CounterPunch 

Chanting hymns and spraying holy Ganga water, a group of religious leaders and students from the rightwing conducted the purification ritual of a 26-year-old woman inside a police station in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh. Her crime was that she married a Muslim and was allegedly forced to convert to Islam. Her saviours felt that bringing her back home and into the fold was not enough; she needed to be cleansed of any traces of Muslimness to be acceptable again.

This took place inside a police station with the cops around. It should tell us how political perceptions are brainwashing social attitudes in India.

We may laud the “U-turn” of an alleged victim denying she was a victim, but will such extempore anger have any effect? In Meerut a 22-year-old managed to get nine people arrested on the basis of a false charge of kidnapping, gangrape, and conversion. For many, the conversion seemed to be the real crime that made the state BJP ring alarm bells about Muslim men going around with a seduction to conversion blueprint.

After two months, it turns out that she was forced to make these serious allegations. In her statement to the police she wrote: “I was staying with my parents, but I ran away from home because I feel a threat to my life from my parents and relatives. I went with the boy belonging to a different community out of my own will.” Her parents were against her affair with Kaleem. Some members of Hindutva groups got wind of it and offered to help. Help for them meant milking it for political gain. ‘Love jihad’ had found one more victim, according to them, and Hinduism was therefore under threat from Islam.

The story of an almost love lost that has grabbed public imagination pays no attention to the “eight others” who are behind bars. The cleric Mohammad Sanaullah was said to be the main accused in the gangrape and conversion. Why is his innocence not highlighted? By concentrating only on the love angle, the ‘jihad’ against Muslims is allowed to continue to regain what is thought to be a lost colonial supremacy.

Forced conversions can be tried in court, but that would need evidence, which is not available simply because this does not take place, except for stray instances. Another reason to keep the paranoia alive is to feed the fear.

He talks about converting people to Hinduism and then says, “If they take one Hindu girl away, there will be at least 100 that we will…” and he pauses, as the crowd cheers and completes his sentence to gloat, “take away”. He does not stop there and goes on to say, “If they kill one Hindu, there will be 100 that we” and pauses, as the gathered crowd shouts: “will kill”.

This is not mere rustic appeal. As a member of parliament from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath has used the floor of the house to declare that Hindus would need to organise themselves. “They (the pseudo-secular forces) split the country on communal lines in 1947 and there is a conspiracy to split the country again on Pakistan’s agenda. There is a conspiracy against the Hindu way of life and the people are uniting against this. Hindutva is a symbol of Indian nationalism. The Hindu religion does not allow the superiority of any one religion. Even Muslims who go for Haj are known as Hindus.”

Our US-return PM Narendra Modi has been silent; the BJP cadre has been silent. Adityanath continues to be MP. He even appeared on a TV show where he transformed the mock witness box into a speaker’s corner. The real story of bigotry is not what he said but how the young studio audience rooted for him. This was not an anonymous forum. They would be recognised and seemed to take pride in that, unconcerned about how their peers would view them. Prejudice has become the new identity.

Fringe outfits are on national television speaking in a quasi-government tone. Its members distribute pamphlets against Muslims and nobody is arrested for it. Even if it is a political move prior to polls it reveals how society thinks or how they expect society to start thinking.

The love jihad incident is deviously linked with madrassas, which will be the big target eventually. Sakshi Maharaj, another one of those godmen-ministers that are part of the righting government, said, “Education of terrorism is being given in madrassas. They (the madrassas)… are making them terrorists and jihadis…It is not in national interest.”

If madrassas are teaching terrorism, it makes no logical or tactical sense for them to be counteracted with ancient Hindu texts. India is a nuclear power, has a space mission, an information technology hub. None of this has been possible because of the Vedas or any religious text. Yet, the human resources development minister spoke to officials about the introduction of Hindu texts and epics in the curriculum and the contribution of ancients to topics like science and philosophy.

In isolation, the latter does not seem like an idea to dismiss. It could be a lesson in history. However, the intent is not as innocent. It would be inflicting the history of Hinduism, the contribution of Hindus in a pluralistic and secular nation. RSS ideologue Dinanath Batra, whose books Modi has called “inspirational literature” in the foreword and are filled with gems about redrawing the map of India as “Akhand Bharat” (united India of the ancients), is promoting Hindu Rashtra. His works were made compulsory reading in 42,000 schools across Gujarat in June this year.

Union water resources minister Uma Bharti’s theory about the floods in Kedarnath last year while agreeing that cloudburst was the immediate cause went back to past glory to state that “the underlying reason was human excretion” that too due to the “atheists (who) came here, mainly for business purposes”.

Even if we were to make provision for comical asides, the geek generation enthralled by such history does not realise that the parchment is frayed. The men in saffron want them to feed cows, recite mantras and stop celebrating birthdays with cake, and wear swadeshi (indigenous) clothes. The distorted history that is sought to be corrected will wipe out incidents of rightwing terror, including the two major riots of 1992 and 2002 where Muslims were targeted.

Nazim was issued summons because he was considered a threat to peace and might indulge in booth-capturing and intimidating voters. He was asked to provide a bond if he did not wish to be arrested. Nazim could not read a word of the statement. He was, in fact, oblivious to all that was happening around him. Nazim is only a year old.

Not taking any chances for the by-polls held last month, the sub-divisional magistrate in Usmanpur village of UP made no distinction between Yaseen and his son Nazim. Both were dangerous. This bizarre tale is an extreme form of the increasingly fanatical attitude towards minorities in India. They are now even putting toddlers under suspicion by branding them.

Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi said, “Money through trade of slaughtered animals goes into terrorism, therefore goes into killing us, why are we allowing this?” She added, “A slaughterer could be a Muslim but the transporter and the owners of the cows are often Hindus and non-Muslims. So it is not about religion but about trade and greed for money.” Would she have the courage to mention Hindu terrorism?

The Indian prime minister resorted to a backhanded insult to 170 million people when he said in the CNN interview: “My understanding is that they (al Qaeda) are doing injustice towards the Muslims of our country. If anyone thinks Indian Muslims will dance to their tune, they are delusional…Indian Muslims will live for India, they will die for India — they will not want anything bad for India.”

Not only was this slur swallowed, it was also applauded for inclusiveness. That the delusion of the al Qaeda prompted a note on patriotism and Indian Muslim fealty was made conditional on living and dying for the country did not seem to register or bother many. The message is clear. The loyalty of Indian Muslims needs to be flagged off by the head of government. Hindus do not need to prove they are citizens; their rights as worthy members of the Republic are assured.

Running through all this is an element of racial superiority. Subramanian Swamy of Ivy League education is an enthusiastic proponent of the Rashtra molecular heritage: “All Indians have Hindu ancestry and I will get Union Minister Najma Heptullah’s DNA tested in order to prove the theory.” Ms. Heptullah is the Minority Affairs minister and a senior leader who happens to be Muslim.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat stated, “The cultural identity of all Indians is Hindutva and the present inhabitants of the country are descendants of this great culture.” Had there been acceptance there would not be inequity and rejection. The greatness of such culture relies on artificial selection.

The development module too tries to mimic social evolution. It audaciously opposes the rare inter-community marriages by containing the coloniser within a ‘barbaric’ madrassa, and will not address the educated idea of pro-choice alliances. These are not the norm, so why would a political party with a huge mandate allow its members and its satellite groups to perpetrate such paranoia? The reason seems to be to use the women as territory analogy. A potent symbol was the jauhar, where women jumped into a well or the fire to protect themselves from Muslim armies in the 14^th century. Young Muslim men are seen as the inheritors of such armies in the contemporary context.

These images are regurgitated by sidestepping the truth and projecting lies. In a 2007 CounterPunch article I had shown how there were attempts to pass off the murder of Muslim Rizwan for marrying Hindu Priyanka as a class divide.

Bhagwat has said recently, “For the next 5 years we have to work with the aim of bringing equality among all the Hindus in the country. All Hindus should be drinking water at one place, should be praying at one place and after their death, their bodies should be burnt at the same place.”

This is a feeble attempt to accept the backward castes that have suffered due to Brahminical entitlement. That it needs to be reiterated exposes the inherent problem with social mores as reveled in by the rightwing Sangh parivar. The ‘cultural’ organisation has done little to ensure that these castes are not discriminated against. The new sound bites will not bring about change, for they are used to merely titillate. Dalits have not been named specifically, leaving the options open to abuse.

Hindutva can get away with marketing itself as an all-purpose karma and culture, the blandishment camouflaging despotism.

Farzana Versey can be reached at Cross Connections.

Denial won’t wish away “Indian” racism against North Easterners: Avinash Pandey

October 18, 2014 by Nasheman

– by Avinash Pandey

They did not speak Kannada, the language of the state they live in. They, therefore, were “legitimate” targets of violence in a city that has benefitted the most from India’s shift from Nehruvian Socialism to free market economy. The fact that they contribute to the city, and the province’s income, meant nothing. That they pay taxes that keep the country afloat had no value. They were, after all, North Easterners stranded in mainland India.

Their nationality is non-negotiable at all times, other than when they are victim to racist attacks across Indian cities, be it Delhi or Bangalore. It is non-negotiable when they may choose to assert their otherness; not when otherness is inflicted on them.

It is especially so when an outside entity claims them as its own. Let China make claims of Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part and out comes the Indian State with the mantras of sovereignty and patriotism that will never compromise on its territorial integrity. This is the time when the top functionaries of the Indian State, right up to the Prime Minister, make visits to the North East to dance with the “natives” and announce this or that package for this or that benefit of the 7 states collectively referred to as the North East.

Rest of the time they are just the ‘Mongolian fringe’ of the undeclared Aryan state, which has grudgingly accepted the erstwhile Dravidians as its own, but failed to do the same for the fringe. Failed, perhaps, is the wrong word for the State has never made a real attempt to assimilate the North East, while respecting the differences that define and shape the territory.

The failure is not always an in-your-face violence that the State, or its patriotic citizenry, inflicts on the North Easterners. There is a subtlety, at once tragic and perversely beautiful, that the Indian State deploys to achieve this failure. The State forgets, at times, to include Kiren Rijju, the Minister of State for Home and a Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh, not only in the delegation for talks but also from state banquets hosted by the President for Chinese President Xi Jinping during his India visit, an omission never explained, not even to term it as coincidental. At other times, the State chooses Meghalaya as the place of punish posting for the Governors appointed under the previous government who refuse to resign as per the wish of the incumbent government.

The British colonials had always seen and treated the “Mongolian fringe” as an outpost, as a buffer from threats from South East Asia, to safeguard their Indian colony from the same. A total of 67 years after they packed their bags, independent India continues to do the same with all the repressive instruments deployed to keep the “natives” enslaved. In fact it has gone further by converting the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Ordinance, promulgated by the British in 1942 to suppress the Quit India Movement, into the Armed Forces Special Powers (Assam and Manipur) Act, 1958, and enforcing it all over the North East.

The Indian State keeps talking about humanising the draconian act that enables the security forces to maim, rape, and kill citizens with impunity. The State keeps talking of political solutions, as opposed to military ones. The State keeps on negotiating with this or that insurgent group. Yet, the same State treats every North Easterner as a perennial suspect, the other.

And so do the “Indian” citizens. This is the only thing worse than the violent and subtle racism North Easterners face from the Indian state. To invoke Lawrence Liang and Golan Naulak’s idea of two distinct forms of racism, the footnote vis-à-vis the front-page, the North Easterners are condemned to face both. They experience the footnote racism in everyday life, subtle, but as dehumanising as the explicit and violent front-page forms of the same. They feel it when denied rented accommodation for nothing other than being what they are. They feel it when their food habits are not merely questioned but beget violent attacks. They feel it when the Delhi police issue an advisory suggesting that North Eastern girls not wear revealing dresses to escape sexual harassment and assault. They feel it when it is suggested by the same advisory that they not cook their regional cuisine, especially, Akhuni and Bamboo shoots, as it could offend the sensibilities of the local people. They feel it the most when they realise there are no such advisories issued for any other ethnic, regional, or whatsoever kind of community defined by whatsoever yardstick.

This is not to say that front-page racism is less endemic than these subtle forms of labelling North Easterners as other. Nor does this mean that these two are discernably separate from each other. How can one separate racist abuses like “chinki”, which can get the abuser a sentence of 5 years (as most of the North Easterners are from Scheduled Tribes and therefore protected by the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Preventions of Atrocities) Act), from physical attacks that killed Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, in an “allegedly” racist attack?

One may do so, of course, by the liberal use of “allegedly” alongside acts of racism. What else but racism can explain the repeated attacks on the people from the North East across India? How many more murders does one need to call racism what it is? Was not the rumour mongering coupled with physical attacks on North East students in Bangalore, which lead to their mass exodus, enough to set the bell ringing? Should not the mysterious death of Richard Loitam, a student from Manipur, after an altercation with his seniors in Bangalore have made the State take special notice?

Perhaps it cannot till it remains in a permanent denial mode, i.e. until things turn violent and come under the media gaze. And, when this happens routinely, it rushes in to offer cosmetic solutions to the racist prejudices against the North East people that are institutionalised and engrained in the system. The futility of its lip service, however, gets exposed by the fact that no one has ever been convicted for even one year for racially abusing someone as ‘chinki’, forget the five year term that such an abuse can bring. Compare this with the convictions for casteist abuses covered under the provisions of the same Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Preventions of Atrocities) Act.

I wonder how many North East citizens would, in fact, dare to go lodge such a complaint with the police; they have to live in the same neighbourhoods in mainland India to make a livelihood, where they are most often a minority. They know what their predicament would be in the police stations, which have few, if any, officers from their community, as against the offenders who would share socio-cultural bonds with many of the officers.

This lack of redress to everyday racism is what sustains the discrimination against North Easterners, citizens of India lest one forgets, and paves way for the serious periodic attacks broadcast in the media. Till the State ensures that the community feels confident enough to report everyday violations, and perpetrators get prosecuted, the vicious cycle of violence will not stop. Racism is a serious crime, not something to wish away with denial. Hope for change will begin with justice to T. Michael Lamjathang Haokip and his friends attacked in Bangalore.

Avinash Pandey, is Programme Coordinator, Right to Food Programme, Asian Human Rights Commission. He can be contacted at avinash.pandey@ahrc.asia

Modi’s victory 2014: Paradigm shift of Indian politics

October 15, 2014 by Ram Puniyani

The elections of 2014 were different in more ways than one. More than in any previous election the campaign launched by Modi was preceded by heavy propaganda at every stage of his elevation, his being nominated the chief of campaign Committee, his being named the Prime Ministerial candidate and finally the electoral campaign itself. He had prepared ground for his campaign through social media, where dedicated team of hundreds kept working for him. He had hired the US based agency APCO for building his image. (1) The first part of the campaign was ready even before the formal campaign began. In people’s eyes he was projected and became synonymous with the ‘development’. His role in Gujarat carnage 2002 was hidden under the cloak of make believe ‘clean chit’. This time around RSS decided to come forward with full-fledged support into the electoral politics to support Modi with huge number of volunteers to man the election campaign from booth level upwards, “Even now, in 2014 elections, the nationalist organization pressed all its workers and volunteers number over 10 lakh besides 40,000 and odd local units, call sakhas, besides sympathizers and likeminded people to support BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, in mission form.” (2). With this the RSS progeny, BJP for the first time came to power with simple majority. In a way this was the major landmark for RSS, which has been working in diverse ways for the agenda of Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nationalism) from 1925.

The Backdrop

Modi is a trained Pracharak (propagator) of RSS, deeply soaked in the ideology of Hindu nationalism, working for the agenda of Hindu nation. (3) In the decade of 1980 multiple factors at global and local level led to the rise of conservative middle classes, the petty industrialists, the rich farmers, the affluent professionals, who are always for the politics of status quo. During this time the global changes, the creeping globalization was on and the attacks on working class movement were stepped up. RSS-VHP during this phase started promoting the religiosity all round. Using the Shah Bano judgment as the pretext, RSS launched the tirade against secular values by putting forward the word ‘Pseudo secularism’ and phrases like appeasement of minorities.

In this backdrop Advani started his Rath Yatra for Ram Temple. (4) This was the time when the country was grapping the issues of reservations for OBCs and the rights of workers. Also the issues related to rights of women and Adovasis were coming to the fore in a significant way. In the country where the dire need of basic amenities for life and the need for protection of the human rights of weaker sections of society are paramount, the RSS combine brought forward the issues related to identity of a section of Hindus. At the same time their propaganda targeted the religious minorities, a mix of distorted version of history, and presenting the victims as culprits. The rath yatra of Advani created the atmosphere of ‘Hate towards minorities’ and this led to series of acts of violence (4).

The major outcome of this campaign for Ram Temple was that the issues related to human rights and the bread, butter, shelter and employment got relegated to the background and social-political scene started revolving around the identity issues. As a part of the communal politics unleashed by RSS combine, the anti Christian violence in Adivasis areas also got stepped up (5). It is no mere coincidence that in these areas the corporate giants want to have a free hand and have been able to encroach the lands of Adivasis.

RSS Combine: Agenda of Hindu Nationalism

RSS began in India during the freedom movement as an organization opposed to the freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi (6), opposed to the concept of Indian Nationalism and harping on the glory of ancient Hindu kings, era of pastoral Aryans and ancient Hindu scriptures. RSS began as a response to the struggle of dalits for their land rights and the rising opposition to the values of Brahminism prevalent in the society. The non Brahman movement was inspired by Jotiba Phule and Dr. Ambedkar. As the average people started coming up in the society, started participating in the freedom movement, the elite-upper castes sections felt threatened and they came together to form Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). (7) This organization began by holding shakhas, and developed a training module according to which this (India) is a Hindu nation from times immemorial. The freedom movement’s values of incorporating people of all the religions in the movement were not acceptable to them. They trained the young boys into swayamsevaks, who took oath to work for Hindu nation. They also kept totally aloof from freedom movement. RSS was founded by the Chittapvan Brahmins and is an exclusively male organization. (8)

RSS went on to form various subordinate organizations like Rashtra Sevika Samiti (for women). In this name the word swayam is missing as RSS being a male dominated patriarchal organization, it believes in the inherent subjugation of women as secondary beings. Later RSS went on to form Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad, (Student wing), and then in collaboration with Hindu Mahasabha it formed Bhartiya Jansangh, the previous avatar of the present BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (for bringing together different Hindu sects under the control of RSS) Vanvasi Kalyan Ahsram (to work amongst Adivasis to Hidutvise them), Bajrang Dal as its foot soldiers (for unleashing street violence against religious minorities) and many other organizations like Durga Vahini etc. (9)

On similar lines it began many an institutions to propagate its views (weeklies like Panchjanya and Organizer), started Sarswati Shishu Mandirs and Ekal Schools for Adivasi children. Its ideological spread was achieved through spread of Brahminical norms through various channels. Infiltration of its RSS swayamsevaks into the state apparatus, police, military, bureaucracy is also very deep.

The ideological indoctrination

Through its shakhas it started spreading the hate for minorities, opposition to the values of secularism and Indian Constitution. This relentless opposition went on through many other channels also. It also made inroads to the IT professionals by the web meetings called IT milans (Gathering) (10). The social media also was and has been used by RSS combine in a very effective way. The result has been that the social scene has come to be dominated by the conservative thinking. Meanwhile RSS also popularized the word, Hindutva. This word Hindutva stands for the politics based on Brahimincal values of caste and gender hierarchy. Mistakenly the politics of Hindutva is supposed to be ‘a way of life’ by many. (11)

Throughout the decades of 1960 and 1970 there were sporadic episodes of violence. This led to polarization of the religious communities and provided the ground for rise of electoral strength of communal party. In the decade of 1980s, with the Ram Temple campaign picking up, the intensity of violence also started going up. Major episodes of violence took place in various cities of North India. All this was dwarfed by the communal violence Post Babri demolition. (12) The violence in cities like Mumbai, Bhopal and Surat was too horrific for words. The violence unleashed in Gujarat on the pretext of Godhra train burning shamed the nation as a whole, beyond all previous acts of violence. (13, 14)

Modi: Gujarat Violence and After

The post Godhra violence was a sample of the way state can actively promote violence. So far in the communal violence in India, the police, the state had been by and large an onlooker, mostly police siding with rioters. In Gujarat the equation was worsened much further with state, led by Modi actively promoting violence. Though it is claimed that Special Investigation team has given the clean chit to Modi, the fact is that based on the same report, the Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curie Raju Ramchandran feels the report has enough evidence to prosecute Modi for his role in 2002 violence. (15) After the violence the state of Gujarat totally washed its hands off the responsibility to rehabilitate the violence victims. The process of marginalization of religious minorities went quite far. A large section has been living in ghettoes in Ahmadabad itself, while their civic and political rights have been trampled and they are living like second class citizens. There is an intense propaganda that Gujarat is most developing state, the fact is that Gujarat was already amongst the more developed states, the claims of huge investments through Vibrant Gujarat summits have little substance in them, promises have been more than the actualizations. The real indices of social development are lagging behind. The rate of employment generation is very low, amongst other things Gujarat is low on the per capita spending, the Hemoglobin level of pregnant women is on the lower side and sex ratio has also fallen during last one and a half decade. (16)

Hindutva: Electoral Strategy

RSS combine has been entering into the electoral arena by and by. While in 1984 elections when it was giving the slogan of Gandhian socialism, it had only two MPs in Lok Sabha. In 1996, it went on to more than 150 MPs and it emerged as the largest single party. That time no other electoral party was willing to ally with it. The BJP government fell. After going through couple of ‘third-front’ experiments, BJP managed to cobble up the coalition, National Democratic Alliance. For this it had to give up the core issues of Ram Temple, abolition of Article 370 in Kashmir and Uniform Civil Code. This strategy worked and BJP led NDA ruled for nearly six years. During this time it communalized the text books (17) and recruited RSS volunteers in to various government schemes and supported many NGOs with RSS agenda and RSS got a big boost in the political arena and its dominance was perceptible in different walks of life.

The Hindutva combine knows that it was so far not able to come to power on its own. Now it is hoping that it will go with subtle Hindutva agenda in the background and keeping ‘development-Gujarat model’ in the foreground.

Agenda of Hindu Rashtra – Hindutva Politics

Modi represents the aggressive form of Hindutva agenda. He openly said that they believe in Hindu nationalism. (18) This is a subtle and open hint at the communal fascism which RSS combine, of which Modi is the major leader, wants to bring in. The major support base for RSS combine, more so with Modi at the helm is the corporate sector on one hand and the middle level corporate employees, the Information Technology-MBA groups on the other. Modi has demonstrated in Gujarat that he can open all the state coffers for the industrialists, land, loans and necessary paraphernalia. This has impressed the corporate sector and they are pitching for him in a major way.(19) The corporate media has uncritically propagated his claims about development. The social welfare schemes have been kept in abeyance, due to which the poorer sections are suffering. As for as minorities are concerned the central schemes related to Sachar Committee are not being implemented, the scholarship funds for the Muslim students is being returned back year after year. Modi in this sense is ruthlessly opposed to schemes related to religious minorities. (20)

He is the choice of corporate, middle classes, the traders and the RSS support base. Each of these has their own understanding of Modi and he fits in to the bill of these all. Corporate think he will give them a free hand to plunder, the middle classes know Modi is the best guarantee against social change for betterment of the deprived sections and religious minorities. The RSS, discarded Advani on two grounds, one that he made that statement about Jinnah being secular (20) and other that he is on the wrong side of the age. RSS, the real controller of BJP and other affiliated organizations see in Modi a ruthless swayamsevak out to bring in Hindu Rashtra.

Some people, ideologues, try to argue that more violence has taken place in Congress ruled states than under the regime of BJP. This way BJP is defended for its being communal. While Congress ruled period has seen large number of cases, the role of Congress is in not controlling the violence which is instigated by some communal organizations. Most of the inquiry commission reports have made it clear that violence is initiated, planned and executed by communal organizations, while Congress leadership is either watching helplessly or subtly exacerbating it. (22) What we have to remember is that BJP as a party cannot and should not be compared with any other party, as BJP is not just and electoral party, it is basically the electoral wing of RSS, whose agenda is opposed to the agenda of secular democratic India, the dream of Indian nationalism, the dream of those who contributed to the ‘Making of the Nation-India’, the diverse streams represented by Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar!

Elections 2014

The results of Parliamentary Elections were very interesting. With 31% vote share BJP-Modi won 282 Parliament seats. Modi has been of course the flavor of the season and this time around it is being said that it was his plank of ‘development’ which attracted the voters to him, cutting across the caste and religious equations. How far is that true? Keeping aside the fact that Modi was backed to the hilt by Corporate (23), money flowed like water and all this was further aided by the steel frame of lakhs of RSS workers who managed the ground level electoral work for BJP (24). Thus Modi stood on two solid pillars, Corporate on one side and RSS on the other. He asserted that though he could not die for independence he will live for Independent India. This is again amongst the many falsehoods, which he has concocted to project his image in the public eye.

One knows that he belongs to a political ideology and political stream of RSS-Hindutva, which was never a part of freedom struggle. RSS-BJP-Hindutva nationalism is different from the nationalism of freedom movement. Gandhi, freedom movement’s nationalism is Indian Nationalism while Modi parivar’s Nationalism is Hindu nationalism, a religious nationalism similar and parallel to Muslim nationalism of Jinnah: Muslim League. From the sidelines, RSS and its clones kept criticizing the freedom movement as it was for inclusive Indian nationalism, while Modi’ ideological school, RSS is for Hindu nationalism. So there is no question of people like him or his predecessors having died for freedom of the country. (25)

There are multiple other factors which helped him to be ‘first past the post’, his aggressive style, his success in banking upon weaknesses of Congress, his ability to communicate with masses supplemented by the lackluster campaign of Congress. The Presidential style of electioneering added weight to Modi’s success. Congress, of course, has collected the baggage of corruption and weak governance. The out of proportion discrediting of Congress begun by Anna movement, backed by RSS, and then taken forward by Kejriwal contributed immensely knocking Congress out of reckoning for victory. Kejrival in particular woke up to BJP’s corruption a wee bit too late and with lots of reluctance. Anna, who at one time was being called the ‘second Gandhi’ eclipsed in to non-being after playing the crucial role for some time. (26) Kejriwal pursuing his impressive looking agenda against corruption went on to transform the social movement into a political party and in the process raising lots of questions on the nature and potentials of social movements. The anti corruption propaganda of AAP was directed mainly against Congress, unmindful of the fact that corruption is the symptom of the deeper malady of our social system, unmindful of the fact that corruption is related to power and those who want shortcut to wealth are equal partners in the game of corruption. AAP put more than 400 candidates. Many of these candidates have excellent reputation and contribution to social issues and for engaging challenges related to social transformation. AAP played a major role in discrediting Congress and it let occupy BJP the anti Corruption space also, as its criticism against BJP’s corruption came more as an afterthought.

Modi’s Victory: Development or Divisiveness

Coming to the ‘development’ agenda, it is true that after the Gujarat carnage, Modi quickly took up the task of propagating the myth of ‘development’ of Gujarat. This ‘make believe’ myth of Gujarat’s development as such was state government’s generous attitude towards the Corporate, who in turn started clamoring for ‘Modi as PM’ right from 2007. While the religious minorities started being relegated to the second class citizenship in Gujarat, the myth of Gujarat development started becoming the part of folk lore, for long unchallenged by other parties and scholars studying the development. When the data from Gujarat started being analyzed critically the hoax of development lay exposed, but by that time it was too late for the truth of development to be communicated to the people far and wide. On the surface it appears as if this was the only agenda around which Modi campaigned.

That’s far from true. Modi as such used communal and caste card time and over again. This was done with great amount of ease and shrewdness. He did criticize the export of beef labeling it Pink revolution, (27) subtly hinting the link of meat-beef to Muslim minorities. This converted an economic issue into a communal one. Modi spoke regularly against Bangla speaking Muslims by saying that the Assam Government is doing away with Rhinos for accommodating the Bangla infiltrators (28). He further added that they should be ready to pack their bags on 16th May when he will take over as the Prime Minister of the country. The communal message was loud and clear. BJP spokesmen have already stated that these Bangla speaking Hindus are refugees while the Muslims are infiltrators. His party men, Amit Shah talked of revenge of Muzzafarnagar and Giriraj Singh warned that those opposing Modi should go to Pakistan. (29)

If one examines the overall scatter of the areas where BJP has won this time, a very disturbing fact comes to one’s mind. While at surface the plank of development ruled the roost there is definitely the subtle role played by communal polarization. BJP has mostly succeeded in areas where already communal polarization has been brought in through communal violence or terrorist violence. Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, MP, Bihar, Assam all these have seen massive communal violence in the past. While the states which have not come under the sway of BJP-Modi are the one’s which have been relatively free from communal violence: Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Kerala in particular! Orissa is a bit of an exception, where despite the Kandhmal violence, Navin Patnaik’s party is managing to be in power.

The socio political interpretation of the deeper relations between acts of violence and victory of RSS-BJP-Modi needs to be grasped at depth; the polarizing role of communal-terrorist violence needs a deeper look. While on surface the development myth has won over large section of electorate, it has taken place in areas which have in past seen the bouts of violence. Most of the inquiry commission reports do attribute violence to the machinations of communal organization (30). While overtly the caste was not used, Modi did exploit the word Neech Rajniti (Low level Politics) used by Priyanka Gandhi and converted it in to Neech Jati (low caste), flaunting his caste (31). At other occasions also he projected his caste, Ghanchi to polarize along caste lines.

What signal has been given by Modi’s victory? The message of Mumbai, Gujarat Muzzafrnagar and hoards of other such acts has created a deep sense of insecurity amongst sections of our population. Despite Modi’s brave denials and the struggles of social activists, justice delivery seems to be very slow, if at all, and justice eluding the victims. The culprits are claiming they are innocents and that they have got a ‘clean chit’. While there are many firsts in Modi coming to power, one first which is not highlighted is that, this is the first time a person accused of being part of the carnage process is going to have all the levers of power under his control. So what are the future prospects for the Indian democracy, values of Indian Constitution? Can Modi give up his core agenda of Hindu Nationalism, which has been the underlying ideology of his politics, or will he deliver a Hindu nation to his mentors?

Modi’s Persona: Autocratic-Fascist

With Modi coming to power in the 2014 elections Modi is being compared to the likes of Nixon, Margret Thatcher, Reagan (32) on one side and Hitler on the other. His being compared to Hitler has met with severe criticism by many other commentators who are saying that Modi is no Hitler and India of 2014 is very different from Germany of 1930s. (33) They argue that after the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Germany was going through a rough patch which was worsened by the great depression of late 1920s and this created a situation of the rise of Hitler and his genocidal politics. The second factor which they assert is about the weakness of German Democracy where the Nazi’s just with 30% of the votes could come to power.

It’s true that no two political situations are exactly alike. What is also true is that despite the superficial differences there are deeply embedded trends which have similarity in more ways than one. While India has not seen the type of post First World War ignominy which Germans suffered, it is also true that during last few years, beginning with Anna Hazare movement and later through Arvind Kejrivals’ AAP party a serious sense of mistrust in the ruling party and the political system was carefully orchestrated. The moving force of Anna movement was Modi’s parent organization RSS. Through a vicious propaganda and spectacle of mass programs Anna movement practically constructed a total mistrust in the present system of parliament and the ruling Party. Kejrival, by taking along sections of social movements and civic society groups took this discrediting of the ruling party to further limits.

As far as the democracy in India is concerned it is a contradictory process, in the process of evolution. Some steps forward: some steps back! On one hand we see that the democratic awareness is spreading far and wide, the keenness to participate in the electoral process is increasing by the day, which is a very positive trend. At the same time there is the Westminster model of electoral politics, which totally undermines the representative character of Indian democracy. In Germany Nazis could come to power with 30% of votes. Here in 2014 India, BJP with 31% of votes has emerged as the party with the simple majority! The other process undermining the character of Indian democracy is the prevalence of caste and gender hierarchy. This graded hierarchy prevalent in the society due to which women and dalits both are subject to the injustices, which are there but not perceived and projected so easily in the society. Yet another factor undermining Indian democracy is the communalization of state apparatus due to which religious minorities are not only subjected to regular repeated violence but are also deprived of justice. Many a youth have been recklessly arrested in the wake of bomb blasts, their social lives and careers ruined before the court exonerated them on the ground as the evidence against was totally fabricated one. Meanwhile the demonization of this minority goes up and they are relegated to the status of ‘second class citizenship. (34)

While Hitler may have been an overt hater of Jews, Parliamentary democracy, Modi is deeply rooted in the ideology of ‘Hindu nationalism’, which regards Hindus alone to be the ones’ deserving to be the citizens of this country. The people of ‘foreign religions’ Muslims and Christians are regarded as the threat to Hindu nation. Golwalkar, the RSS ideologue outlined this in his book Bunch of Thoughts. Modi’s ideological foundations are in this ideology which again goes on to model itself on the lines of Hitler. Appreciating Hitler’s genocide against Jews. Modi’s ideological mentor, Golwalkar writes, writes, “…To keep up the purity of nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of Semitic races-The Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how neigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by. (35)

Modi has shown this in practice in Gujarat, where nearly two thousand people were done to death by brutal methods and then large section of the Muslim community has been reduced to live the life of humiliation and deprivation, concentrated in the ghettoes.

When a German delegation visited Gujarat (April 2010), one of the members of the delegation pointed out that he was shocked by parallels between Germany under Hitler and Gujarat under Modi. Incidentally in Gujarat school books Hitler has been glorified as a great nationalist. (36). The similarities with Hitler don’t end here. Like Hitler, Modi enjoys the solid support from the corporate World. Like Hitler Modi has deep hatred for religious minorities and he believes in Hindu nationalism, as per his own admission. His attitude to religious minorities and his own persona was best described the psychoanalyst Ashish Nandy, who interviewed him much before he presided over the Gujarat when the carnage was on, he wrote “…I had the privilege of interviewing…it left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualizing the ideology.”
(37)

While Germany of 1930 and India of 2014 are different there are many similarities also. The context of Hitler and Modi is different but the underlying politics (sectarian nationalism) is similar, demonization of the ‘other’ is similar, charisma created around them is similar. The fate of the ‘largest democracy’ is in doldrums, the only thing which can help it is the rule of law, morality laced justice, revival of movements for democratic and human rights, to work for the platform of social movements which is inclusive and stands for the values of Liberty, Equality and fraternity in a substantive way.

Modi in Seat of Power

With coming to occupy the Prime Ministers chair, just a few weeks ago, there are already symptoms of his deeper agenda unfolding. The Hindu right wing elements have become assertive and indulged in acts of violence. The state machinery is more blatant in their biases. The six College students and Principal of a Kerala College have been booked for putting Modi’s picture along with the likes of Hitler and Osama, the face book posting of anti Modi nature by a person from Goa and the acts of violence which followed the Modi’s electoral victory are signs of times to come. Following the posting of morphed pictures of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray on the net, a communal violence broke out in Pune, (May 2014) leading to the death of a techie, who was sporting beard and wearing Pathani suit. (38) The progeny of Sangh parivar has started raising the Hindutva agenda, abolition of article 370, Uniform civil code and construction of Ram temple. The gagging of civic society groups has begun right away beginning with targeting the ones’ who have been struggling against the violation of environmental norms and rights of Adivasis. (39)

Modi Sarkar

Modi has already started centralizing most of the power; the Secretaries are to report to him directly and Cabinet system of Ministers is being undermined. Even earlier many a books have been banned but now RSS affiliate Shiksha bachao Abhiyan has stepped up its activities and out of fear many publishers are reviewing the already published books, Megha Kumar’s book “Communalism and Gender Violence: Ahmadabad Since 1969”. The major NGOs who have been opposing the policies of MNCs leading to uprooting of natives and those leading to environmental damage are being targeted. The same NGO’s who were earlier accused of working on behest of foreign corporations are being accused of blocking the foreign investment by these Corporations. The pro Hindutva officials are being given the core positions in the bureaucracy.
Pattern of Power

The previous time, 1999, BJP came to power at the head of a NDA it did not have the simple majority so it suspended its “Hindutva’ agenda. Hindutva agenda stands for abolition of article 370, Uniform Civil Codes and building of Ram Temple on the site where Babri Masjid stood. Now with the majority in parliament, the march towards this Hindutva agenda has been unleashed. Modi has already instilled the authoritarian streak in the new Government. Secretaries of different departments have been asked to directly report to him, and he has not permitted the meeting of the Cabinet in his absence, which was the norm with previous Governments. Though there is a Cabinet, the major power is being centralized around the prime minister.

Acche Din

The major plank of winning the elections was the slogan of Acche din (Good Times). The people at large, who are victims of the rising prices and inflation, were sold the dream of better days in the offing with victory of Modi. The relentless rise of prices despite Modi coming to power has created a sense of disillusion amongst the people, as high hopes were created through propaganda. Some say it is a bit too early to comment on this, as it is a honeymoon period, while others point to the pattern of policies, which do not give a hopeful picture for times to come. FDA in retail has been raised from 26% to 49% in a single swoop. While in opposition; BJP was opposing it. This is an opportunist turn around. The fear of privatization of public sector is very much there in the air. The amendments to Land Acquisition bill are going to affect the interests of the farmers in a very adverse way. What is being proposed is to dilute the consent of majority of the farmers for acquiring land.

Changed Dispensation: Sectarian mindset

Many times we express more by keeping silence than by speaking, so to say. The Pune techie Mohsin Sheikh’s murder allegedly by the Hindu Jagran Sena was part of the well designed communalization process. The violence in Saharanpur, Rampur and other parts of UP and some parts of MP are part of the process to communalize the assembly areas, which are going to face the polls soon. The silence of Prime Minister on these issues is more than eloquent. Rather it gives signal of sorts, which are not very healthy. There are scattered incidents which give us the glimpse of the Modi Sarkar. The shrewdest part of the new Government is that it has solid backing of vast Sangh Parivar to speak in different languages; these different tongues make the whole picture of their agenda. In case of the tennis star Sania Mirza being appointed as the brand ambassador of the newly formed Telangana state, the BJP leaders on TV openly opposed this saying that she is the daughter-in-law of Pakistan, while the top level functionary of the Government said that she is pride of the nation.

Education

All said and done the major problem of the present rule is going to be the changes in education, which will alter the thinking pattern of the coming generations. The goal is to instill a pattern in consonance with the Brahmanical norms, to promote orthodox medieval mind set and to undermine the scientific temper. One recalls that in the previous BJP led NDA regime apart from other things, its major impact was the changes in the history and social science books, where the divisive history taught in the RSS shakhas, the communal history, the history where the kings are looked at through the prism of religion, was introduced. One knows that the communal historiography introduced by British was their main tool in implementing the ‘divide and rule’ policy which formed the ideology of the communal streams of Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS. This type of history; by focusing on the glories of ‘our’ kings also promotes the feudal values of caste and gender hierarchy. Mercifully the BJP led NDA lost in 2004 and the rational, national historiography was brought back.

Now already there are signs that RSS volunteers are out to change the total education system and the content of history, social science and other books. Even before this Government came to power, with the rise of Modi on political firmament, with the perception that he is likely to come to power, the Right wing organizations intensified their offensive against genuine scholarship. Dinanath Batra, by now is a well known name, he has been heading the RSS outfits, Shiksha Bachao Abhiyan Samiti and RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (SSUN) from many decades. He succeeded in pressuring Penguin, the World’s largest publisher, to pulp Wendy Doniger’s scholarly book ‘The Hindus: An Alternate History’. This book brings out through the interpretation of mythology the need to understand the caste and gender aspects in a sensitive manner. The history she has focused on goes against the hierarchical mind set of RSS combine and so pressure was put to pulp it. Now Mr. Batra emerges as a writer himself and a set of nine books written by him have been translated in to Gujarati and introduced in 42000 schools in Gujarat. This may be a trial run before doing similar things at larger scale. Former BJP president and present union minister M Venkaiah Naidu explicitly stated as early as last year (June 23, 2013) that “it (the BJP) will change textbook syllabi, if it returns to power”. Batra is also quoted as saying that a nationalistic education system has to be developed to address the requirements and through this we have to develop a young generation that is committed to Hindutva and nationalism”.

The sampling of Batra’s books gives a good idea of what is in store for us. A quote from one of the set of books, ‘Tejonmaya Bharat’, (Radiant Bharat) tells us “America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell research, but the truth is that India’s Dr Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar has already got a patent for regenerating body parts…You would be surprised to know that this research is not new and that Dr Matapurkar was inspired by the Mahabharata. Kunti had a bright son like the Sun itself. When Gandhari, who had not been able to conceive for two years, learnt of this, she underwent an abortion. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it. On reading this, he (Matapurkar) realized that stem cell was not his invention. This was found in India thousands of years ago. (Page 92-93)

Indian rishis using their yog vidya would attain divya drishti (divine vision). There is no doubt that the invention of television goes back to this… In Mahabharata, Sanjaya sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his divya shakti would give a live telecast of the battle of Mahabharata… to the blind Dhritarashtra. (Page 64) What we know today as the motorcar existed during the Vedic period. It was called anashva rath. Usually a rath (chariot) is pulled by horses but an anashva rath means the one that runs without horses or yantra-rath, what is today a motorcar. The Rig Veda refers to this. (Page 60)

RSS has already set up a consultative body called Bharatiya Shiksha Niti Ayog (BSNA) to put pressure on Modi’s government to “correct or Indianize” the national education system. In the new syllabus “The passages in the textbooks which pointed out to any unsavory aspect of the Hindu faith like the oppressive caste system in ancient Hindu society, untouchability of the low-caste people and consumption of beef during Vedic ages were scrapped, and anyone who resisted or opposed the changes was dubbed as ’anti-national’.(40)

Caste and Gender

While these changes in the text books give us a full idea of the agenda of this Government, which will have to follow the guidelines set by its parent organization, its already manifest in the appointment of Prof Y.Sudarshan Rao as the chief of ICHR. This national body guides the research into the Indian history. Prof Rao is not much known in the circles of Academic history, as he has hardly written any academic, peer reviewed papers or books. He has been engaged with writing few blogs on his understanding of history, which is more of a fiction suiting the agenda of Hindu Rashtra, reinstating the caste system in particular. In one of his blogs he emphasis that caste system served the society very well and there are no complaints against it. As per him “Most of the questionable social customs in the Indian society as pointed out by the English educated Indian intellectuals and the Western scholars could be traced to this period of Muslim rule in north India spanning over seven centuries.” He argues that “The (caste) system was working well in ancient times and we do not find any complaint from any quarters against it.” This is a distortion. The customs related to caste oppression were integral to the so called Hindu scriptures Vedas (Rig Veda, Purush Sukta) Upanishad, (41) the scriptures which were written in the Pre Historic BC period. Even in Manu smiriti the caste division is well articulated. Manu Smriti was written around 1-2 and Century AD. Contrary to this Prof Rao states that distortion in caste system came with the coming of Muslim Kings. He had so far been working on proving the historicity of our mythological Mahabharat as a part of History. Interestingly RSS combine presents only one version of Ramayan but there are nearly 400 versions of Ramayan. The scholarly essay by A.K.Ramanujam on the diversity of Ramayan telling again was withdrawn from Delhi University curriculum, and the publisher forced to withdraw the book.

With the coming of this Government the peripheral elements have started talking about making these scriptures as a part of our curriculum. Justice Dave talks of bringing in Gita and others are talking of Ramayana. Both these holy tomes have heavy projections of caste. In Gita, Lord talks of taking birth whenever Dharma is in danger. And this Dharma is Varnashram Dharma (Varna system). In Ramayan Lord Ram kills Shambuk, as Shambuk a Shudra is doing penance and this is something not permitted by Caste system.

Fringe Elements or Division of Labor

VHP supremo and RSS member Ashok Singhal has also called Modi “an ideal swayamsevak” and emphatically declared that Muslims must respect the sentiments of the Hindu culture, threatening that “they cannot survive for long by opposing Hindus”. He has also asked Muslims to give up their claims on Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi. The idea is to reduce Muslims to second class citizens with no privileges and rights. Another firebrand VHP leader Pravin Togadia, known for his ‘hate speeches’, has endorsed these views by issuing a warning to the Muslims, saying they may have forgotten the 2002 Gujarat riots but would remember the Muzaffarnagar riots of last year. (42)
Goa’s deputy chief minister Francis D’Souza apologized for his comment that India was already a Hindu nation. This was a tactical retreat. He was the one who said that all Indians are Hindus. Christians are Christian Hindus for example. Deepak Dhavalikar another BJP member stated that under Modi India will become a Hindu Rashtra. This is what the deeper part of RSS-BJP-Modi agenda, to see that the religious minorities adopt the Brahminical Hindu norms. That’s why they want that to use terms like Christian Hindus or Ahmadiya Hindus. Gradually, the assertion will be that since you are a Hindu you must practice Hindu norms.

On the long term agenda of RSS-BJP-Modi one needs to see the statement of RSS worker Joshi, “During a question-and-answer session, a volunteer asked Yadavrao Joshi, then the head of Sangh workers across all of south India, “We say RSS is a Hindu organisation. We say we are a Hindu nation, India belongs to Hindus. We also say in the same breath that Muslims and Christians are welcome to follow their faith and that they are welcome to remain as they are so long as they love this country. Why do we have to give this concession? Why don’t we be very clear that they have no place if we are a Hindu country?” Joshi replied “As of now, RSS and Hindu society are not strong enough to say clearly to Muslims and Christians that if you want to live in India, convert to Hinduism. Either convert or perish. But when the Hindu society and RSS will become strong enough we will tell them that if you want to live in India and if you love this country, you accept that some generations earlier you were Hindus and come back to the Hindu fold.” (43)
So where are we heading to becomes clear in the last few weeks of Modi Sarkar. The government will be trying to stick to the language which will be subtle while undertaking steps in Hinduization. Its associates, VHP-RSS will tell us bluntly about their agenda. Needless to repeat that this agenda, being unfolded is that of Hindu nation, where religious minorities will be relegated to secondary position and the Chaturvarnya system will be slipped in a subtle manner.

New Dispensation and Social Movements

The election results have brought Narendra Modi to power. Those struggling for the rights of weaker sections of society have begun to relook at the strategies to uphold the democratic rights and liberal space. The threat of an autocrat slowly implementing the agenda of Hindu nation is looming in the air. Even the one month period of Modi sarkar has given many signs of the way of things to come. The threat to democratic freedom, the civil society resistance has been visible through various actions. To defend these democratic freedom-rights many civil society groups have begun to come together to defend the plural, liberal values. There is an introspection to draw up a strategy for the dream and vision of a society where freedom of speech, faith and our diversity is upheld. The realization is that this can be done only through the solidarity of social action groups who have uncompromisingly been struggling to uphold these values.

In the wake of 1992-93 Mumbai violence the need to struggle against communal forces came up in a larger way, this was reinforced by the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and later in the wake of Kandhamal violence of 2008. The social action groups have been the major fulcrum around which the defense of human rights of weaker sections of society could sustain itself. The autocratic regime of Modi which has fascist potential is a grave threat to such struggles. The need for building broad alliances and platforms for solidarity amongst social action groups is picking up and needs to be intensified. On one hand there is a need to step up the defense of the rights of struggling sections of society on the other there should be an urgent effort to extend the solidarity to groups-movements who are taking the path of struggle for preserving the democratic-liberal space. The site of contestation will be ranging from opposing repressive laws in Parliament, to the law courts to defend the victims of discriminatory policies of the state and to the street demonstrations to articulate citizens’ rights as citizens and to oppose the repressive acts of state.

By now it is clear that while we can work in our own area of struggle, freedom of expression, women’s rights, environmental protection, sexual orientation, defense of minority rights and number of other rights for our basic survival, it should also be clear that there is an urgent need to stand in solidarity with each of these groups. The need for these solidarity platforms has to be realized and the work in that direction has to begin in each city, state and go on till the national level. The left of the center political parties who take people’s issues seriously also need to come forward and extend full hearted support to social movements, led by the non party left. This is what will go a long way to defend our democratic rights and norms.

References:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/shelley-kasli/mechanics-of-narendra-modis-pr-agency-apco-worldwide-orchestrating-our-future/500231493335095
2. http://sirulu.com/rss-carry-modi-raj-gaddi/
3. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/this-way-to-delhi/
4. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/this-way-to-delhi/
5. http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani020108.htm
6.http://www.academia.edu/676532/The_Freedom_Movement_and_the_RSS_A_Story_of_Betrayal
7. Basu, Datta, Sarkar, Sarkar and Sen, “Khaki Shorts Saffron Flags, Orient Longman, Hyderabad 1993,
8. Ibid
9. Ram Puniyani, Fascism of Sangh Parivar, Mythri, Trivandrum , 1993, p 26
10. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/babri-masjid-bloody-aftermath-across-india/1/162906.html
11. http://www.sacw.net/aii/ch5.html
12. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/babri-masjid-bloody-aftermath-across-india/1/162906.html
13. http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Communal_politics.html?id=gvRtAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y chapter 2
14. https://aamjanata.com/9-mythbusters-on-2002-post-godhra-riots-shehzad_ind/
15. http://www.sabhlokcity.com/2014/04/the-myth-of-the-modi-clean-chit-the-supreme-court-has-never-given-adjudicated/
16. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Gujarat-Myth-and-reality/articleshow/14032015.cms
17. http://www.educationobserver.com/saffronisation-of-Indian-Education.html
18. http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/I-am-a-patriot-and-a-Hindu-nationalist-says-Modi/2013/07/12/article1680508.ece
19. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/HmcZzc60Il1sKfRCPCOQyK/India-business-favours-Narendra-Modi-to-be-PM-poll.html
20. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/modi-deprives-muslim-students-of-scholarship/98808-37.html
21. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050605/asp/nation/story_4828954.asp
22. http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani120410.htm
23. http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-why-big-business-strongly-favours-narendra-modi-1823847
24. http://www.firstpost.com/election-diary/how-the-rss-is-heavily-invested-in-elections-2014-and-modi-1448357.html
25.http://www.academia.edu/676532/The_Freedom_Movement_and_the_RSS_A_Story_of_Betrayal
26. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/bjp-using-baba-ramdev-anna-to-discredit-congress/article2887228.ece
27. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/modi-fears-a-pink-revolution/article5864109.ece
28. http://english.thereport24.com/?page=details&article=65.4787
29. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Those-opposed-to-Narendra-Modi-should-go-to-Pakistan-BJP-leader-Giriraj-Singh-says/articleshow/33971544.cms?
30. Teesta Setalvad, Combat Communalism, March1998http://www.sabrang.com/cc/comold/march98/document1.htm
31. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-05-08/news/49717012_1_narendra-modi-priyanka-gandhi-caste-card
32. http://www.firstpost.com/politics/reagan-nixon-thatcher-which-world-leader-is-narendra-modi-1504367.html
33. http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/comparing-hitler-s-germany-with-india-2014-is-odious/article1-1221946.aspx
34. http://kafila.org/2011/03/21/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-muslim-in-india-today-mahtab-alam/
35. We or Our nationhood Defined P. 27, 1938
36. http://deshgujarat.com/2010/04/10/german-mps-mind-your-own-business/
37. http://such.forumotion.com/t17216-ashis-nandy-narendra-modi-is-a-classical-clinical-case-of-a-fascist
38. http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Pune-Techie-Murder-Maharashtra-Govt-Mulling-Ban-on-HRS/844555
39. http://www.countercurrents.org/cc250614.htm
40 (http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/475865-india-set-to-saffronize-school-curriculum.html)
41 http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani300714.htm
42 (Modi and Hindutva footprints – Editorial, Kashmir Times Kashmir Times – Monday, July 28, 2014)
43 http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/rss-30

Free not to stand up for the anthem

October 14, 2014 by Nasheman

Bollywood actress Preity Zinta tweeted a few days ago that she “threw” a boy out of a cinema hall for failing to stand up for the national anthem before watching a movie. Her jingoistic act comes a month after another youth was arrested in Kerala for similar action. Produced below is Sunanda Ranjan’s opinion on the issue.

– by Sunanda Ranjan, Daily Mail

It’s not an idea borne out of cynicism, nor is it meant to question one’s love of the nation. But truth be told, it’s a bit extreme (jingoistic?) to throw a person out of a cinema hall because they didn’t stand up for the national anthem.

Firstly, what’s even the point of playing the national anthem before a movie? I mean, okay, we need to be patriotic and all, but at the cinema?

It makes me wonder, ever heard of someone being kicked out during a movie for wolfwhistling too lecherously during wet-sari scenes and the like? I didn’t think so either.

Miss Zinta, good on you that you are a proud patriot, but this pride doesn’t accord you the right to judge others’ patriotism and punish them for not meeting your standards.

Why should it matter to you and the others who kicked out the poor fellow, that he didn’t stand to attention when the anthem started playing? Stand up, but let those who don’t be.

They didn’t kill someone. Nobody said these gestures are the sole yardstick of nation-love, anyway. It was also a bit extreme, I think, to book a man for sedition because he hooted as the anthem played.

This is not to excuse his behaviour – silence is one thing, but there can’t be any excuse for insulting a national symbol, that too one associated with a democratic country no less – but sedition is taking it a bit too far.

The man in question could have been arrested, booked for disruption or the old favourite ‘hurting sentiments’, but what he did was not exactly ‘seditious’.

About the first incident, people express their patriotism in different ways. For some, it is as simple as not littering their city and being an upright citizen in other respects as well. But such is our world that their patriotism will be considered inferior to that of people who break into chants of ‘Jai Bharat’ at the drop of a hat.

Who will judge which one of these groups is more patriotic? In fact, why should anyone judge at all, much less punish someone based on their biased judgement?

That said, you cannot hold it against someone if they don’t feel patriotic at all. Isn’t this freedom the best thing about this country?

The UN is a colossal fraud just ideas—or disaster—will triumph

October 13, 2014 by Nasheman

– by Fidel Castro

Absolutely no one has the right to destroy cities; murder children; pulverize homes; sow terror, hunger and death anywhere.

If today it is possible to prolong life, health and the productive time of persons, if it is perfectly possible to plan the development of the population in accordance with growing productivity, culture and development of human values, what are they waiting for to do so?

Global society has known no peace in recent years, particularly since the European Economic Community, under the absolute, inflexible direction of the United States, decided that the time had come to settle accounts with what remained of two great nations which, inspired by the ideas of Marx, had achieved the great feat of ending the imperialist colonial order imposed on the world by Europe and the United States.

In former Russia, a revolution erupted which moved the world.

It was expected that the first great socialist revolution would take place in the most industrialized countries of Europe, such as England, France, Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This revolution, however, took place in Russia, whose territory extended into Asia, from northern Europe to southern Alaska – which had been Czarist territory, sold for a few dollars to the country which would later be the most interested in attacking and destroying the revolution and the country where it occurred.

The greatest accomplishment of the new state was the creation of a union capable of bringing together its resources and sharing its technology with a large number of weak, less developed nations, unwilling victims of colonial exploitation. Would a true society of nations be convenient or not, in the current world, one in which respect is shown for rights, beliefs, culture, technologies and resources in accessible places around the world, which so many human beings would like to visit and know? And wouldn’t the world be much more just today—when in fractions of a second anyone can communicate with the other side of the planet—if people saw in others a friend or brother, and not an enemy disposed to kill, with weapons which human knowledge has been capable of creating?

Believing that human beings could be capable of having such objectives, I think that absolutely no one has the right to destroy cities; murder children; pulverize homes; sow terror, hunger and death anywhere. In what corner of the world can such acts be justified? If it is remembered that, when the last global conflict’s killing ended, the world placed its hopes in the creation of the United Nations, it is because a large part of humanity imagined it with such a perspective, although its objectives were not fully defined. A colossal fraud is what is seen today, as problems emerge which suggest the possible eruption of a war, with the use of weapons, which could mean the end of human existence.

There are unscrupulous actors, apparently more than a few, which consider meritorious their willingness to die, but above all to kill in defense of their indecent privileges.

Many are surprised to hear the statements made by some European NATO spokespeople, expressed in the style and look of the Nazi SS. On occasion, they even wear dark suits, in the middle of summer.

We have a powerful enough adversary, our closest neighbor: the United States. We warned them that we would withstand the blockade, although this would imply a very high cost for our country. There is no greater price than capitulating to an enemy, which for no reason, or right, attacks you. This was the sentiment of a small, isolated people. The rest of the hemisphere’s governments, with a few exceptions, went along with the powerful, influential empire. This was not a personal attitude on our part, but rather the sentiment of a small nation which had been not only the political, but also the economic property of the U.S. since the beginning of the century. Spain had ceded us to this country, after we had suffered almost five centuries of colonialism, and innumerable deaths and material losses in our struggle for independence.

The empire reserved the right to intervene militarily in Cuba, on the basis of a constitutional amendment imposed on an impotent Congress, incapable of resisting. Besides being owners of almost all of Cuba, vast land holdings, the largest sugar mills, mines, and banks – with even the prerogative of printing our currency – they did not allow us to produce enough grain to feed the population.

When the USSR collapsed, and the socialist camp disappeared as well, we continued resisting. Together, the revolutionary state and people continued our independent march.

I do not wish, nevertheless, to dramatize our modest history. I prefer rather to emphasize that the empire’s policy is so dramatically ludicrous that its relegation to the dustbin of history will not long be delayed. Adolph Hitler’s empire, inspired by greed, went down in history with no more glory than that of the encouragement given to aggressive bourgeois governments of NATO, which became the laughing stock of Europe and the world, with their euro, which along with the dollar, will soon become wet paper, and they will be required to depend on the yen, and rubles as well, given the emerging Chinese economy, closely linked to Russia’s enormous economic and technical potential.

Cynicism is something which has become symbolic of imperial policy.

As is known, John McCain was the Republican candidate in the 2008 elections. This individual came into the public light as a pilot who was shot down while his plane bombed the populous city of Hanoi. A Vietnamese missile hit the aircraft in action, and the plane and pilot fell into a lake located close to capital, on the city’s outskirts.

Upon seeing the airplane crash and a wounded pilot attempting to save himself, a retired Vietnamese soldier who was making his living in the area came to his aid. As the old soldier offered his help, a group of Hanoi residents who had suffered the aerial attacks, came running to settle accounts with the murderer. The soldier himself persuaded his neighbors not to do so, since the man was taken prisoner and his life must be respected. Yankee authorities themselves communicated with the government, begging that no action be taken against the pilot.

In addition to the Vietnamese government’s policy of respecting prisoners, the pilot was the son a U.S. Navy Admiral who had played an outstanding role in WWII, and was still holding an important position.

The Vietnamese had captured a big fish in that bombing, and, of course, thinking about the eventual peace talks which would put an end to the unjust war unleashed on them, they developed a friendship with McCain, who was very happy to take advantage of the opportunity provided by that adventure. No Vietnamese, of course, recounted any of this to me, nor would I have ever asked anyone to do so. I have read about it, and it coincides completely with a few details I learned later. I also read one day that Mr. McCain had written that when he was a prisoner in Vietnam, while he was tortured, he heard voices in Spanish advising the torturers as to what they should do and how. They were Cuban voices, according to McCain. Cuba never had advisors in Vietnam. The military there knew very well how to conduct their war.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible. With these launchers, they fired from such a close point that it was impossible to neutralize them, without affecting the invaders as well. Other pertinent measures, all difficult and complex, were utilized to impose a shameful surrender on the surrounded European forces.

The fox McCain took as much advantage as possible of the yankee and European invaders’ military defeats. Nixon could not persuade his National Security Council advisor Henry Kissinger to accept the idea suggested by the President himself, who in a relaxed moment said: Why don’t we drop one of those little bombs, Henry? The true little bomb dropped when the President’s men attempted to spy on their adversaries in the opposing party. This surely couldn’t be tolerated!

Despite this, Mr. McCain’s most cynical behavior has been in the Near East. Senator McCain is Israel’s most unconditional ally in Mossad’s machinations, something that even his worst adversaries would have been able to imagine. McCain participated alongside this secret service in the creation of the Islamic State which has appropriated a considerable part of Iraq, as well as a third of Syria, according to its affirmations. This state already has a multi-million dollar income, and threatens Saudi Arabia and other nations in this complex region which supplies the greatest part of the world’s oil.

Would it not be preferable to struggle to produce food and industrial products; build hospitals and schools for billions of human beings who desperately need them; promote art and culture; struggle against epidemics which lead to the death of half of the sick, health workers and technicians, as can be seen; or finally eliminate illnesses like cancer, Ebola, malaria, dengue, chikungunya, diabetes and others which affect the vital systems of human beings?

Signature of Fidel Raul Castro

Silencing Caste, Sanitising Oppression – Understanding ’Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’

October 10, 2014 by Nasheman

– by Subhash Gatade

What is important to note that the Conference of the Untouchables which met in Mahad resolved that no untouchable shall skin the dead animals of the Hindus, shall carry it or eat the carrion. The object of these resolutions was twofold. The one object was to foster among the Untouchables self respect and self esteem. This was a minor object. The major object was to strike a blow at the Hindu Social Order.

The Hindu Social Order is based upon a division of labour which reserves for the Hindus clean and respectable jobs and assigns to the untouchables dirty and mean jobs and thereby clothes the Hindus with dignity and heaps ignominy upon the untouchables.

(The Revolt of the Untouchables, Excerpted from Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability : Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, Vol 5 (Mumbai : Govt of Maharashtra, 1989, 256-58)

The inauguration of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, (Clean India Campaign) with much fanfare, with ministers, bureaucrats and others holding Jhadoos evoked an interesting reaction from a ragpicker Sanjay who lives in Mehrauli with his parents. “These are the same people from whose houses we pick up garbage every day. This is part of our life. We don’t really understand why they are making it such a big deal,” (PM’s Swachch Bharat Abhiyan has no place for Delhi’s 3 lakh rag pickers,Mallica Joshi , Hindustan Times New Delhi, October 03, 2014))

Sanjay happens to be one among a population of around 3,00,000 rag pickers (according to rough estimates) in Delhi, who are largely invisible and as expected live on the margins of society. It is a different matter that they play a major role in garbage management – right from collecting waste to segregating it for recycling. NGOs working with them feel that the city can easily come to a halt without them because they are the one ’who perform the basic task of taking garbage from people’s houses to dumps in most parts of the city.’ At the time of Commonwealth Games held in Delhi few years back, the then state government had even provided few hundred ragpickers with dress and safety equipment etc ’acknowledging’ the services they rendered to keep the city clean.

Time seems to have changed now. As the above mentioned report further adds :

’The government seems to be in complete denial of their presence even as they reap the benefits of their hard work.’ (-do-)

The complete marginalisation of the ragpickers from the much tommed tommed Swachh Bharat Abhiyan does not appear surprising. It is rather symptomatic of the many other ’silences’, ’erasures’ which accompanied its launching. While analysts have rightly pointed out the manner in which legacy of the Mahatma is being ’reduced’ to cleanliness obliterating his lifelong struggle against colonialism and communalisms of every kind and for an inclusive polity not much attention has been paid to the fact that the thrust of the campaign is to project a very samras (harmonious) picture of our society where cleanliness or the lack of it is connected with our ’duty’ (Kartavya) towards ’Bharat Mata’.

Perhaps one can have a look at the oath administered by the PM to everyone who joined this campaign.

“Ab hamara kartavya hain ki gandagi ko dhoor karke Bharat Mata ki sewa karein.” (Now, it is our duty to serve Mother India by removing the dirt.)

Did anyone hear any word about the pernicious ’caste system’ during all the media frenzy which witnessed its launching ? Definitely not. In fact caste and related discriminations have become so common and ingrained in our psyche that the media did not find anything newsworthy in it. Perhaps when every other officer was getting ready to have his/her own moment with a broom in hand the mediawallahs decided not to talk about this unique system of hierarchy – legitimised by the wider society and sanctified by religion -which has condemned a section of its own people to the ’profession’ of cleaning, sweeping and scavenging. What to tell the outside world that half of India still defecates in the open and there are lakhs of people who are still engaged in this ’profession’ of shit collection. In fact, we have designated communities who have been ’forced’ in this dehumanising work since centuries together

On closer look we can find that they go by many names in various parts of the country. As Gita Ramaswamy discusses in her book ’India Stinking’ (Navayana, 2007) : They are Bhangi, Valmiki, methar, chuhra in Delhi, Dhanuk in UP, han, hadi in Bengal; mehtar, bhangi in Assam; methar in Hyderabad; Paki in coastal Andhra ; thotti in Tamil Nadu; mira, lalbegi, chuhra, balashahi in Punjab. Names may be different but they share the same fate : they belong to the bottom of the Hindu social hierarchy and are untouchables. And under the caste hierarchy, castes that consider themselves superior does enjoy a wider range of choice of occupations but the erstwhile untouchables, today’s dalits have the least desirable occupations – removal of human excreta, cleaning, sweeping, leatherwork, skinning of dead animals, removal of human and cattle corpses, rearing of pigs etc.

We know that despite sixty plus years of independence, while moneybags here can easily compete with moneybags in the advanced world, while rulers of India yearn to make 21 st century as India’s century, there has not been any qualitative change in the lifeworlds of the majority of the dalits who are still lying at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Yes, a small section among them has definitely taken advantage of the affirmative action programme and is on the path of upward mobility, but for the majority amongst them, their is no qualitative change in their situation marked by deprivation and discrimination.

2. Interestingly in his hurry to ’do a Gandhi’ Mr Modi launched the campaign from the same Valmiki Basti where Gandhi had stayed for a while, without bothering that such a move would further stigmatise the community. And this at a time when there is a great churning going on within the community especially its youth to leave this ’profession’ and take up other dignified work. Not very many people outside the community are even aware that there is growing talk of ’Jhadu Chodo, Kalam Uthao ( Leave the Broom, Hold the Pen) reverberating within them. Organisations like Safai Karmachari Andolan and others have even undertaken the task of demolition of dry latrines at various places and there have been occasions when people have spontaneously come forward to collectively burn the broom and basket which is used in scavenging.

While media did not bother to question the venue chosen by PM to start his campaign, many close watchers of the situation did not feel surprised as they knew how Mr Modi, looks at this occupation, which finds mention in his book ’Karmyog’ where he calls it as some kind of “spiritual experience”.

Not very people know that 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. (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/true-lies/entry/modi-s-spiritual-potion-to-woo-karmayogis). Sample one of his speech, where talking about the Safai Kamdars Modi exhorts:

“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.” (Page 48-49, Karmyog)

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.”

It would have been enlightening for Mr Modi if he could have browsed through Dr Ambedkar’s writings just to know how he had reacted when Mahatma Gandhi had similarly praised ’scavenging as the noblest service to society’ and said ’How sacred is this work of cleanliness !’(Navajivan, 8 th January 1925)

To preach that poverty is good for the Shudra and for none else, to preach that scavenging is good for the untouchables and for none else and to make them accept these onerous impositions as voluntary purposes of life, by appeal to their failings is an outrage and a cruel joke on the helpless classes which none but Mr Gandhi can perpetuate with equanimity and impunity. In this connection one is reminded of the words of Voltaire ..:”Oh! mockery to say to people that the sufferings of some brings joy to others and works good to the whole. What solace is it to a dying man to know that from his decaying body a thousand worms will come into life.”

(What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables, Dr Ambedkar : Writings and Speeches, Vol 9, (Mumbai : Govt of Maharashtra, 1990) P. 290-93

3. The ’silencing’ or ’sanitising’ of the discourse of caste in the packaging and presentation of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or the dominant discourse around it reminds one of the persistence of untouchability in Gujarat and the manner in which it was made to ’disppear’ sometime back . (As an aside it may be mentioned here that Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat from the year 2001 to 2014.)

Appears unbelievable?

Perhaps you can have a look at a Gujarat government sponsored report titled “Impact of Caste Discrimination and Distinctions on Equal Opportunities: A Study of Gujarat”, authored by Centre for Environment Planning and Technology University (CEPT) University scholars led by Prof R Parthasarathy, which calls caste discrimination a matter of “perceptions”.

In his blog ’True Lies’ senior journalist Rajiv Shah (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/true-lies/entry/untouchability-and-modi-s-babus) has provided detailed critique of this study.

To put in a nutshell this CEPT report was a governmental response to an exhaustive study titled ’Understanding Untouchability’ done by Ahmedabad based NGO ’Navsarjan Trust’ with the help of Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. (2009) which demonstrated with concrete data the wide prevalence of untouchability both in public and private spheres in interaction between scheduled castes (SCs) and non-scheduled castes (non-SCs), as well as within SCs: among the several jatis in rural Gujarat.

It is important to note that the results of the Navsarjan study were widely covered by the media .

Looking at the fact that the ongoing debate had the potential of putting a spanner in the well cultivated image of a Samras (harmonious) Gujarat under Modi, a panicky government asked CEPT to review and verify Navsarjan’s findings. In fact, the government seemed so keen to give a clean chit to itself that it adopted a two pronged approach to tackle the uncomfortable situation in which it found itself. Apart from commissioning the above mentioned study it constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the then minister for social justice, Fakirbhai Vaghela and secretaries of different concerned departments to refute the findings of the report. The government instructed its officers to get affidavits from scheduled caste village residents regarding non-existence of untouchability.

Commenting on the report Rajiv Shah says that

“[t]he nearly 300-page report, ..far from being a review of “Understanding Untouchability”, is more of an effort to justify the evil practice.”

As opposed to the survey of 1,589 villages done by Navsarjan, the CEPT team was made to survey just five villages, dig out a plethora of caste-wise data on agriculture, irrigation, employment and distribution of government schemes but were instructed not to collect any data on “”caste discrimination” – a term used by them in lieu of untouchability.

The reluctance of the scholars to even mention the U(ntouchability) word can be gauged from the observations made by leading sociologist Ghanshyam Shah as well, who has also written a critique of the CEPT report ’Understanding or ignoring untouchability? How Gujarat government-sponsored study examines discrimination in a ‘very casual way’’ (in www.counterview.org, Nov 13, 2013) :

..[i]n the scholars’ view (and that of the government) there is nothing wrong if the Dalits are forced to carry own vessels or are made to be served at fag end of the festivity. In fact, if the scholars are to be believed, Dalit elders advise the “younger ones” not to participate in village festivals like Navratri or Garba, celebrated in other localities, “for fear of possible quarrel with non-Dalits.” The youth agree in order to maintain social peace and order. To quote from the report, “Those Dalit youth who go there, do so as spectators and not participate in Garba…”

He also adds :

“CEPT has completely ignored to study the practice of untouchability. Perhaps for them like the Government of Gujarat it is a non-issue. And, they have carried out mainly a socio-economic survey in five villages. The authors do not feel the need to argue why they have confined their study to socio-economic survey. Why have they not correlated socio-economic data with the presence or absence of untouchability?”

While the CEPT experts could not discover untouchability in the five villages covered, the Navsarjan team which toured these villages in June 2013 found how the dalits live under subjugation and a state of helplessness as they know that the government would not protect them if they assert for their rights. Ghanshyam Shah adds:

In fact, an important omission from the CEPT report was that of Valmikis themselves, who are considered lowest in the social ladder under a Varnacracy. As opposed to these worst victims of untouchability, the report focuses on the Vankars, a “socially acceptable” Dalit community, a weaving class.

The omission of Valmikis in a report commissioned by the government cannot be considered inadvertent. Their still remaining confined largely to the work of sweeping and cleaning ; collecting and handling dust, garbage and filth of the cities, towns and villages to make them livable for other dwellers and in the process facing daily humiliations and even deaths by ’accidents’ or getting afflicted with occupational diseases is a reality which cannot be ignored anymore. Perhaps the scholars might have felt that their sheer presence in a governmental report was anachronous to the media propelled image of ’a best-governed state, occupying number one position in the country on ‘development’’.

4. Commenting on the ’Clean India Campaign’ Rohit Prajapati, an environmental activist from Gujarat, has raised an altogether different point in his writeup ’Mr. Modi Preaches a Clean India, But His Record on Waste management and Pollution in Gujarat is Dirty’ (http://sacw.net/article9679.html). He has discussed a similar campaign launched by him in 2007 calling it ’Nirmal Gujarat -2007’ and looked at the track record of his government in controlling pollution. According to him Modi similarly made ’..tall claims during that campaign. But reality is best seen in Ahmedabad at illegal solid waste dumping site, the ‘Gyaspur-Pirana Dumping Site’ – a Waste Mountain near Sabarmati River adjacent to the main road.’

The writeup discusses basic facts as they were revealed in the ‘Report of the Task Force on Waste to Energy’ dated 12 May 2014 by the Planning Commission of India which states

“As per CPCB report 2012 – 13 municipal areas in the country generate 1,33,760 metric tonnes per day of MSW, of which only 91,152 TPD waste is collected and 25,884 TPD treated.”..“Further, if the current 62 million tonnes annual generation of MSW continues to be dumped without treatment; it will need 3,40,000 cubic meter of landfill space everyday (1240 hectare per year). Considering the projected waste generation of 165 million tonnes by 2031, the requirement of land for setting up landfill for 20 years (considering 10 meter high waste pile) could be as high as 66 thousand hectares of precious land, which our country cannot afford to waste.”

It would be opportune here to quote a large extract from the said writeup here :

Mr. Modi, things are not as simple as you say. This waste generation figure covers only 31.15% population of India. Considering the waste generation figures of all of India, these figures will be even more daunting. The Planning Commission (which Mr. Modi wishes to abolish) of India’s report further states “A study, of the status of implementation of the MSW Rules 2000 by the mandated deadline by the States, was carried out in class 1 cities of the country. It revealed that in 128 cities except for street sweeping and transportation, compliance was less than 50% and in respect of disposal compliance was a dismal 1.4 %.”What about the government’s major role in policy making for the reduction of waste and implementation of ‘The Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules 2000’? Your track record in the implementation of these rules in the Gujarat is worst.

The consistent follow up by the pollution-affected people, people’s organisations and NGOs regarding the increasing pollution levels in the industrial areas of India forced the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Board in 1989 to initiate the process of indexing the critically polluted areas. At that time 24 industrial areas, including Vapi, Ankleshwar, Ludhiana, were declared ‘critically polluted’. In 2009 the CPCB and IIT-Delhi, in consistence with the demands of the people’s organisation’s working on environmental issues decided to use a new method of ‘indexing the pollution levels’ of these areas, which is now known as the ‘Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index’ (CEPI). The CEPI includes air, water, land pollution and health risks to the people living in the area. However, our demand has been to include the health of the workers, productivity of land and quality of food / agriculture produce in the index since the presence of high levels of chemicals and heavy metals in food produce has severe health implications. This is affecting not only people living around the industrial area but anyone consuming it – hence not restricting the impact to the particular industrial area.

In December 2009 the CEPI of 88 polluted industrial clusters was measured; it was then that the CPCB and the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) of Government of India were forced to declare 43 of those as ‘critically polluted clusters’ and another 32 industrial areas as ‘severely polluted clusters’.[6] Following this study the MoEF on 13 January 2010 was forced to issue a moratorium (prohibition on opening new industries and/or increasing the production capacity of the existing industries) on the 43 critically polluted areas. Similar reports were prepared by CPCB in 2011 and 2013 but these reports are completely ignored by past government and also by Modi Government.

In the concluding part of the article the writer discusses how after assuming reins of power, Mr Modi instead of undertaking the task of improving environment of these 88 industrial clusters, the government led by him started ’lifting of the moratorium of industrial cluster like Ghaziabad (UP), Indore (M.P.), Jharsuguda (Orissa), Ludhiana (Punjab), Panipat (Haryana), Patancheru – Bollaram (A.P.), Singrauli (UP & MP) and Vapi (Gujarat) as a first order of business on 10 June 2014. He underlines Vapi’s track records which demand more ‘stringent action’ against the polluting industries of Vapi & concerned officers of Gujarat Pollution Control Board and definitely not lifting of moratorium from Vapi. According to him ’the murky politics and economics of ‘GDP growth’ continue to prevail over the cause of ‘life and livelihood’ of ordinary people and ‘environment & conservation.’

His write-up concludes with few more figures and a BIG question:

In 2009, the Ankleswar’s industrial area, with 88.50 CEPI, topped the list of ‘critically polluted areas’ of India.

In 2011 and 2013, Vapi industrial area, with CEPI of 85.31, topped this list.

Thus Gujarat is able to top in 2009 in ‘critically polluted areas’ in India and continues to maintain its position in 2011 & 2013.

The Government of Gujarat deliberately ignored to comment or engages ever on these issues.

Mr. Modi what about the clean up of these industrial clusters of India? Do you have any plan to clean up this CRITICALLY and SEVERELY POLLUTED INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS OF INDIA?

5. To conclude, one can talk of similar silences, erasures if we probe further deep.

But that is not the aim of the article. The nationwide campaign which has been taken up is going to involve tremendous human as well as financial resources. We are being told that government employees are being exhorted to devote at least 100 hours every year – or two hours a week – to do this work and send proof to their seniors. It is going to cost 620 billion rupees ($10bn; £6.1bn) – the government has earmarked 146 m rupees and expects to get the remaining amount from the corporate sector, international development organisations and elsewhere. It is also being said that main goal of the programme, is to end open defecation in the country – as nearly half of India’s 1.2 billion people have no access to toilets.

All sounds good and especially very soothing to the ears of NRIs who seem to be worried over the image India carries in the comity of nations.

But all these efforts do not seem to go anywhere because as we already said there is a conscious attempt not to address the key issues.

It appears that Mr Modi seems to be in a big hurry to leave an impact on history.

He might be successful like his predecessors. If today we remember or associate Garibi Hatao with Ms Indira Gandhi or ’Age of Computers’ with Rajeev Gandhi, similarly future generations would remember or associate the ’Clean India Campaign’ with Modi while still debating the ’dirtiest country in the world’ tag associated with the country.

Subhash Gatade is the author of Pahad Se Uncha Aadmi (2010), Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India,(2011) and The Saffron Condition: The Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neoliberal India (2011). He is also the Convener of New Socialist Initiative.

Is the face of Hinduism changing?

October 7, 2014 by Ram Puniyani

With the growing fanaticism in Hinduism, is the core idea of tolerance in Hinduism fading off ?

Fali S. Nariman recently made a very significant observation on the current political situation in India.

The distinguished Constitutional jurist noted: “Hinduism has traditionally been the most tolerant of all Indian faiths. But, recurrent instances of religious tension, fanned by fanaticism and hate speech, have shown that the Hindu tradition of tolerance is showing signs of strain … my apprehension is that Hinduism is somehow changing its benign face…”

There is no doubt that Mr. Nariman’s observation came in reaction to recent outpourings from some organizations or establishments that subscribe to the ideology of RSS. He is concerned about the aggressive Hindutva ideology of those who seek to turn India into a Hindu nation or asserting that it is indeed a Hindu nation.

Hinduism is a religion, while Hindutva is a political ideology.

Recently, we have witnessed innumerable outbursts of hate speeches from some self-styled champions of Hindutva on issues ranging from the propaganda of what they call ‘love jihad’ to the ideological assertions that in India ‘we are all Hindus’.

They have also unleashed an attack on the liberal Hinduism. They are telling those Hindus, who accept Shirdi Sai Baba- a Sufi born in Muslim family, as their God, that they are doing it wrong.

In a broad pattern of their attack they target the religious minorities in one way or the other. The basic question we need to address is whether the voices coming from the RSS combine represent actual Hinduism or they are related to the new practice of politics in the name of Hinduism? The question becomes more pertinent when we see group like Al Qaeda or ISIS acting against humanity, in the name of Islam.

During the freedom movement, we saw men such as Gandhi and Maulana Azad, who, despite being deeply steeped in their religions, came forward and led a political movement, which was secular to the core. During the time we also saw people like Jinnah and Savarkar, who were not religious in the real sense, but they led the politics in the name of Islam and Hinduism, respectively.

RSS combine identifies Hinduism mainly with the narrow stream of Hinduism, or rather, Brahmanism. Hinduism is not based on a single book, prophet or a clergy. Polytheism being at its root, the religion has many theologies, practices and a plethora of holy scriptures.

Gandhi followed a liberal tradition of Hinduism and while laying the foundation of Indian nationalism during the freedom movement, he did not let religion intrude the politics. In contrast, the Hindu nationalism, which is being propounded by those claiming to be representing Hindus- Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and their offshoots – is narrow and intolerant.

Since large sections of Hindus were following Gandhi, the illiberal Hindu Mahasabha-RSS brand of Hinduism, remained on the margins during those days. But, during the last three decades, starting with the Ram Temple agitation, the Hindu nationalist-driven political campaign has thrown up the intolerant propaganda about the ‘others’ in a blatant way. With the current dispensation where BJP is leading the coalition, the leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist party and its affiliate organizations are being patronized by the state, which has helped them intensify the hate propaganda against the country’s religious minorities.

Their pronouncements are aimed to intimidate those who do not agree to their version of state and politics. The politics of RSS is not just intimidating the ‘others’ but also to threaten the liberal Hindus.

As religion is being pushed deeper into politics the intolerance level in the society is going up. The challenge of our times is to distinguish between the politics in the name of religion and religion per se.

Mr. Nariman’s statement reflects how the veteran jurist is disappointed with the democratic liberal ethos being challenged by the rising assertion of the Hindutva politics led by the RSS combine.

On a personal note I have long been receiving good number of hate mails routinely, as these articles are critical of politics in the name of Hinduism, or politics in the name of any religion for that matter. I know that another article on RSS and Hindu nationalism is going to uptick the quota of the hate mails for me.

Doordarshan's explanation for broadcasting RSS Speech is just plain stupid: Brinda Karat

October 4, 2014 by Nasheman

– by Brinda Karat

It is a reflection of dark times that the day after the country celebrated the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, an organisation which had been implicated in his assassination gets to have the speech of its leader broadcast, and that too, live, courtesy of the national broadcaster Doordarshan. This is a complete misuse of official machinery to promote the ideology and leadership of an organization which has no constitutional status. It also signals an ominous development that under the Modi Government, the RSS will have access to the institutions of the State.

The explanation given by Doordarshan that the speech was broadcast because it was newsworthy is just plain stupid. The speech of the RSS Chief is an annual event on Vijaya Dashami, which is also observed as the foundation day of the organisation. It may have warranted a para or two in the newspapers or even a mention in a news bulletin, but a live broadcast? Get serious. It hasn’t happened in the decades since DD was formed. What is so special and newsworthy to warrant a live broadcast in 2014 ? The only difference is we have a pracharak as our Prime Minister.

Who took the decision? It is an open secret that Prasar Bharti, which is supposed to be an autonomous body, had no idea of this plan. The supine bureaucrats in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued the orders, and the Directors of DD jumped to attention, rather like the swayam sevaks they were mandated to cover live.

The Director Generals of the News Divisions of All India Radio and DD are appointed directly by the Ministry without any consultation with Prasar Bharti. What worth is such autonomy, when the heads of news channels owe their posts to the Government? Can any of them dare to refuse an order?

There was a time under the Congress regime, when Doordarshan, when it had a monopoly of the airwaves, was referred to as His/Her Master’s Voice. The complaint was that it was the Government and ruling party leaders which got all the coverage. But in this case, under the Modi dispensation, DD has gone a step further, and given live coverage not to the Government at the expense of the opposition, as it was earlier, but to an extra-constitutional authority.

The RSS is a self-proclaimed sectarian organization which does not claim to represent all Indians but just one section – those who are Hindus. It is an organization which has been banned twice, which has been indicted by several commissions of inquiry as being responsible for the many cases of communal violence in independent India. More recently, its leaders and its cohorts have been instigating a highly coloured communalized campaign against so-called love jihad, spreading hatred against Muslims.

If the speech of such a leader is broadcast live, it is an assault on the constitutional values of secularism. What is his locus standi? It also leaves the door wide open for leaders of other equally sectarian organisations functioning in the name of Islam or any religious sect or “godmen” and “godwomen” to demand equal time on national TV for the rantings of their leaders.

When political parties recognized by the Election Commission of India speak on behalf of their parties during election broadcasts on Doordarshan, they have to submit written texts of their speeches which are then vetted by DD officials. Sentences and paragraphs are removed if they are not in consonance with the code of conduct set by the Election Commission. These, remember, are recognized political parties – yet even their leaders have to subject themselves to a code and are not allowed to make extempore speeches live. Did Mohan Bhagwat submit his speech to Doordarshan? Obviously not. He did not need to because it would seem that in Modi’s India, the RSS is above the law and has special privileges.

Broadcasting the speech live meant that words and ideas which should have no place in a secular society were beamed across the nation. It was shameful that Doordarshan should provide its platform for such a distorted perception of history and culture. The speech was replete with references to Hindutva and Hinduness as being the core of India. Bhagwat once again asserted ” all-encompassing truth is what we call Hinduism. It is our national identity.” Further, “unbroken current of national unity is known as Hindutva.”

No religion can be equated with national identity in a secular country. India is not a Hindu nation. The founder of the Indian Constitution rejected Hinduism and wrote an impassioned document as to why he had converted and become a Buddhist. Is it then not abhorrent that Ambedkar should be referred to in the same sentence as Golwalkar, the RSS leader who epitomized Hindutva sectarianism, and that they should be equated as great leaders by Bhagwat?

In his speech, he referred to the RSS sevaks as a workforce “energized with the pride of their Hindu national identity.” Is this the kind of sectarian stuff that the national broadcaster wants to promote? If you can propagate men being energized with Hindu national identity, then why not Muslim national identity or Sikh national identity or Christian national identity? What happens to Indian national identity?

The Information and Broadcasting Minister has much to answer for.

(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)

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