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Whose development PM Modi is talking about?

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Modi

– by Irfan Engineer

Prime Minister Narendra Modi often tells his audience that he is working for the development of 1.25 billion Indians. The sub-text is that he would work for development of all Indians regardless of their religion, caste, ethnicity, and regardless of their accident of birth and their cultural heritage. The idea is noble and needs to be fully supported.

However, if we apply a bit of our mind to the contention, two questions would come to mind – 1) Are the resources for development unlimited for the desired development of all 1.25 billion Indians? Given the extremely limited resources, irrespective of the appealing slogans, there cannot be development that is going to benefit all. There would be contested claims on development. Those who are more organized and rich in resources to lobby with the state machinery and have easy access to bureaucracy would exclude those who can’t make their voice heard. To expect the government to be blind and neutral to interest groups, communities, castes, gender, cultural factors and to rise above their own prejudices is contrary to lived human experience. Slogan of benefits of development for all is either noble declaration of intents at best and often to fool the gullible.

2) Are we doing justice when we talk of development of all 1.25 billion Indians, given the levels of inequalities? While increasing number of Indians are joining the club of richest 100 in the world and even richest 50, the number of Indians surviving on income of less than Rs. 20/- a day is staggering 836 million! 200 million Indians sleep hungry every night! 212 million Indians are undernourished and 7000 Indians die of hunger every year, and if we add hunger related diseases to the cause of death, there are 10 million deaths every year!

Increasing number of Indians joining the richest 50 and 100 in the world makes some Indians, particularly the urban middle class, proud. They have ostrich like approach towards increasing inequalities and India being almost at the bottom of all human development indices which include illiteracy, lack of access to health facilities, infant mortality rate, etc. They wished nobody talked about the issues that could trouble their conscience. When Prime Minister Modi talks of development of all 1.25 billion Indians, he is technically talking of development of the poor also. But, given that the resources are limited, the moot questions are, what is the strategy for development of all Indians? And, what are the priorities of the Government? Where is the tax payers money going to be utilized?

One strategy could be to build infrastructure and create assets in the backward regions through the labour of the people of the region ensuring inclusion of all castes, gender and communities – both as beneficiaries of the development and inclusion in contribution of their labour. Infrastructure like irrigation facilities in the hands of the village communities, roads, electricity, health centres, educational institutions, toilets, easy access to markets, common spaces for community gathering etc. That would create opportunities for those who need them most, put income in the hands of hungry and malnourished. Income in their pockets would create demand for industrial goods and the industrialists would be indirect beneficiaries. When Prime Minister Modi talks of development of all, this is obviously not the strategy he has in his mind.

The second strategy could be to spend tax payers money and common resources of the country (including environment, land, water, forests and other natural resources) to create huge assets and public spectacles, from which only a countable few benefit. The proponents of this strategy tell us that poor – labourers, farmers, artisans and small entrepreneurs – will fritter away opportunities and would not lead to faster growth as, say, those having access to huge capital and finance would. Faster growth would create job opportunities and indirectly benefit the poor. The foreign investors do sense the opportunities to make huge profits but they do so by spending as little on labour as possible and by appropriating common resources of the country like land, labour, spectrum and natural resources. In order to maximize profits, spending on labour has to be minimized. That is achieved by automizing technologies that greatly reduces need of human resources. This growth is therefore also called as jobless growth. The second strategy to reduce spending on labour is to keep wages as low as possible, in fact reducing the labour to slave labour. Workers can organize themselves and act concertedly to protect and further their interests and demand their just share for their contribution to the surplus being created in the economy. Labour laws in a democracy should protect and facilitate the workers to organize themselves and enter into collective bargaining for their share in the surplus they are helping create.

The state in the second strategy for ‘development’ makes available land, natural resources at cheapest possible cost to the controllers of huge capital and invests tax payers money in creating few islands of ‘world class’ infrastructure for the entrepreneurs controlling capital, e.g. ports, roads, flyovers, rail links, energy supply etc. The state facilitates coercive land acquisition from the poor without letting them get organized and bargain collectively the price or even to hold on to their asset as of right. The poor are told to buy their needs like fertilizers, pesticides, food grains, from the market and subsidy is bad for the economy but when it comes to selling their assets, the investors are not told to buy from the market. The second strategy therefore benefits those who have access to huge financial capital as the state works for them by allowing them to exploit land and natural resources of the country on the one hand and help keep the wages low by reforming labour laws to make it more difficult for the trade unions to organize the workers. The poor lose their asset to the industries at less than market price on one hand and fewer jobs created with slave labour wages. Hence, increasing inequalities in the country. Prime Minister Modi is offering precisely that to the international capital in his foreign tours under the slogan “make in India”. And this is being called working for the development of all 1.25 billion Indians.

II The development in Gujarat

Let us see the development in some villages in Kachchh District of Gujarat during the years Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Our interaction with people and observations persuaded us to conclude that Dalits and Muslims were left out of even the extremely little developmental benefits reaching the rural areas. Communal issues were time and again concocted by the local elite affiliated to the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in order to divert the attention from the issues of lack of development and to make one section of the development deprived fight another.

On 24/2/14, a Hanuman Temple burnt along with the idols. There was tension and Muslims were suspected. However, the local Hindus did not give any memorandum to the Police station which they were earlier planning, as Muslims also condemned the incident strongly and promised all cooperation. We had earlier elaborately written on how cow transportation is misused to feed to the media as if the bovines were being taken to slaughter house to whip up anti-Muslim feelings.

Bani-Pachchham area is demanding Taluka status. With a population of 60,000 and 85 villages (40 in Pachchham area and the rest in Bani area), the area which is now part of Bhuj Taluka. Khavda is biggest village and central location, a border village. All security agency offices are located in Khavda, like the RAW, LIB, BSF, etc. Bhuj is more than 54 Kms away from Khavda and for villagers have to travel to far for administrative services and applications to the Govt. Even the SSC students till recently had to go to Bhuj to appear for their final Board exams and that was one of the factors deterring students from completing their schooling. This year Khavda was made centre for SSC Board exams and 164 students appeared. The villagers feel discriminated as there is a proper case made out for Bani-Pachchham area to be declared Taluka and the case is long pending whereas Gandhidham with only 10 villages has been declared a Taluka. Bani-Pachchham area is largely inhabited by Muslims – about 85%. The area is not being made a Taluka only because of Muslim majority and because of suspicion against them. During the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, the local Muslim population fully assisted the India Army in every way, including, accompanying them right upto the Pakistani bunkers. Among the Muslim communities inhabiting the Khavda-Bhirandiyara area are the Samas, Sumaras and Nodhis. The Hindu castes include the Kolis, Sodha Rajputs and Suhana dalits. The Bani area is inhabited by Hali Potras, Mutuwas, Raisi Potras, and Hingoras, all Muslims.

Primary Education in Bani Pachchham Area:

There are only 72 schools. 350 teachers posts are vacant. Most schools are single teacher schools with one teacher teaching 1st to 8th Std. classes. Every school under RTE has to have minimum 5½ teachers (half teacher because s/he is supposed to supervise over the rest and step in when other teachers are absent). In three villages – Udai, Jhamri Vat and Lakhabo, there is no school. They are Muslim only villages. There are several petitions demanding school in the villages but the Govt. is not heeding. However, the Luhanas get schools for asking. In Muslim schools, the results are very poor. There is no Govt. supervision. The schools for dalits and Muslims have been separated as those from upper castes. As a result, these schools are worst off.

Met one teacher – Muhammed Khalid in Tuga Village. This village had primary as well as High School still 10th std. This was one of the better run schools. In the primary school where Khalid taught, there were 225 students and 6 teachers for 1 to 8th class. This was possible only because 1st and 2nd class were merged and looked after by the same teacher, as also 3rd and 4th class was taught by the same teacher. They required spl. teachers to teach English, mathematics, social sciences and sciences. If the special teachers were made available to the school, they would be able to introduce teaching period-wise (at present single class teacher taught everything). Khalid agreed that the standards were poor and the schools were neglected but he attributed it to lack of awareness within the community. If the community would have been aware, they would have supervised and the school run more efficiently and effectively. He did not attribute to discrimination against Muslims. The village being remote, teachers would try and get themselves transferred to villages which were nearer their residence and easily accessible. In Tuga village, the educational standards were a little better on account of awareness. There was one graduate from the village, and one or two government employees. Seeing them, others wanted to get educated as well.

In Jam Kunariya village too, Bijal Dungaliya informed us that schools were not working properly. There was no drinking water, let alone toilets.

In Sinogra Village (Anjar Block) there were two schools. One built by Krishna Parinam temple after the old building collapsed during the earthquake in 2001 and the other Kanya Shala (for girls). Muslims constituted about 20% of the village about 100 out of 500 houses were that of Muslims. The schools were situated in the Hindu locality, but not far from Muslim neighbourhood. The upper caste children went to private schools in Anjar (about 7 Kms away) and the only children who attended the village schools were dalits and Muslims. The condition of the schools was little better off than that of Tuga Village as it was constructed by private organization out of the funds collected for rehabilitation of earthquake survivors. There was drinking water tap and toilet. There were benches for the students in one or two classrooms. Only 83 of the 220 students were Muslims. There was a high rate of drop out among Muslims. While there were 16 students in class three, there were only 5 in class 8. Some of those who were enrolled were either did not attend at all or were irregular. The teachers opined that there was lack of awareness among the Muslim parents. Girls worked on the “bandhani” work and boys did odd labour jobs. There were only few pucca houses of Muslims and over a period of time, their land ownership has gone down. Muslims in the village were involved in animal husbandry from Miyana and Jat community. Dalits were more aware of their rights and therefore their attendance in school was much better. Among those Muslim boys who attended were clever. Dropout rate in the girls was less and attendance rate too was better than boys. There were less teachers and vacant posts in both schools. There were 7 teachers in boys schools and 6 teachers in girls school. In both schools, classes would be combined to cope with the shortage of teachers.

The health services too are poor. The Muslim villagers feel that the area is neglected only because they are Muslim majority areas. Agriculture is dependent on rain and only a tiny small patch is irrigated. The local population has to migrate if rainfall is deficient, and it often is.

Irfan Engineer is the Director of the Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai, India.

Why 'Make in India' is an anachronism

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MakeInIndia

– by Prasanto K. Roy

Prime Minister Modi’s ambitious campaign to turn India into a global manufacturing hub plans aims to develop infrastructure and make it easier for companies to do business. The hope is to bump up manufacturing from 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 25 percent.

But the challenges were highlighted by a seemingly small gaffe: The program was launched with brochures distributed on a smart-looking USB flash drives that was made in China.

India imports two-thirds of its electronics, mostly from China. So does much of the world, including the US. The most American of products, from the world’s most valuable company, Apple, is famously designed in California, made in China.

Both manufacturing and services now span enormous global networks, with pockets of strong expertise (like India, in services) supplying to the world.

And so, the enormous spend and resources for “Make in India” would give better returns elsewhere. Such as in our services industry. Or in building up a ecosystem for renewable-energy services and products, so that by 2020, India can dominate that sector.

Here’re five reasons why:

Manufacturing (like services) is a globally-collaborative exercise today involving product design, software, hardware, and testing. The value lies in design, IP and software, and not in manufacturing. Apple manufactures almost all of its products outside the US, mostly in China. But its Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn makes 3 percent margin while Apple, in California, makes 30 percent margin. Value is where IP, design and software are. Not where manufacturing happens.

“Make in India” needs enormous investments in the ecosystem for a gradual build-up. “Local manufacturing” objectives are often an afterthought in India. India’s Aakash tablet — “the world’s cheapest” — was once purely an education project that got delayed and derailed by the “make in India” objective.

The education objective got diluted as focus shifted to manufacturing. But the ecosystem didn’t exist: No single contract manufacturer could supply even a fifth of the numbers required. While the private-brand equivalent Ubislate was made in China and was sold in large numbers in India, the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) Aakash got delayed, and, with the change of government, its fate is uncertain.

Tech manufacturing is no longer dependent on abundant cheap labour as much as other factors, especially capital. For years, India tried to woo Intel and others to set up chipmaking. The most persistent wooing happened when Dayanadhi Maran was IT minister. But, instead of “India” the focus became Tamil Nadu. Now, chip fabs don’t require cheap labour. They need enormous capital investment, subsidised electricity, clean water and silicon, and qualified engineers. India lost the Intel chip fab to Vietnam.

India is now offering a 25 percent subsidy on capital spend and other breaks, for chip fabs, and two fabs are in the works: One near Delhi by a consortium including IBM, and the other in Gujarat, involving STMicroelectronics.

Manufacturing for exports is high-risk, with traditional sectors also approaching a tip-over point in automation beyond which it makes more sense for the West to source locally. Textile manufacturing is returning in pockets from India to the US, because it’s cheaper to make the fabric there in automated mills, there’s better control, and even the overall cost of making full garments isn’t that much higher.

The clothing company American Giant used to buy fabric from India: Now it says it’s cheaper in the US, and the total cost of making a jacket is only about a fifth higher in the US than in India. As the NYT reported the company has switched from a supplier in Haryana to one in South Carolina, where they found the control, quality and timeline justifies the 20 percent higher spend. China has also been facing the displacement of labour in its factories.

There are way more jobs in services than in manufacturing. Wherever you build up competence, there’s a global services opportunity. Whether in software for banking, or services for the space age-launching satellites and sending orbiters to the planets. And services generate enormous number of jobs. Even with increasing automation in services, newer jobs are created.

We are, however, slow to capitalize on global trends, especially when they go against the current grain of business, or when manufacturing may appear to face off with services. India is the world’s BPO back office. But it continues to train hundreds of thousands of youngsters in BPO areas, while the trend is toward increasing automation of both voice (IVRS and voice recognition) and non-voice processes.

The opportunity of the future lies in using our knowledge to design systems and software that will disrupt our own BPO services industry. If we don’t do it, someone else will — an American or European tech company, probably using Indian developers. In this example, the Indian BPO industry will get disrupted anyway, and we won’t get the technology upside.

Our few manufacturing success stories of recent decades, such as in automobiles, show the direction: Target local market first, invest in infrastructure, build up the ecosystem. It’s a very long haul, and in a competitive global marketplace, it’s a tough road. The money is better spent elsewhere.

Prasanto K. Roy is a technology analyst.

(IANS)

Whose achievements? Whose ’Purusharth’?: Critique of the appropriation of Indian labor and science involved in the Indian Mars Mission by Narendra Modi

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Modi

– by Amit Singh, SACW

This is indeed a great achievement of the whole Indian science establishment. But Mr Modi did not miss this chance and converted the whole thing into a show of cheap nationalism. He kept invoking the ’purusharth’ (manhood), presumably, of male scientists when his 2 inches wide eyes could have easily seen a large contingent of women scientists showing some big fingers to all the patriarchs. Instead Mr Modi, like sadakchaap (road loafer) self-help gurus who find immense pleasures in throwing a barrage of acronyms upon you and keep themselves busy in crass analogies, apparently helped the mummyji (MOM) of Mars to meet her daughter! He even compared the young scientists to men of army and all scientists to mythological rishis. They are neither of the two. The knowledge structure of the mythological rishis, whose historical analogues were the priests of the Indo-Aryan and the autochthonous tribes, was developed in a manner to take pride in their tribes and to be afraid of educating the people of lower strata. The modern education should be free of all these biases and the job of the modern science should be to tell truth to the power, as Norbert Weiner started saying lately in his remarkable career. It is another matter that in reality modern education and science have not performed satisfactorily on any of these scores. Moreover, Mr Modi should have realized that the success of the mission imparts a message of inculcating more scientific notions among the general populace, and this cannot happen without an end to the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal type of communal ruffian organizations, and without an end to all their attempts to either falsify history or promote psuedosciences like astrology, vedic maths etc.

Furthermore, where he was supposed to compare the cost of the mission ($83 million) to the cost of the Antilla house (> $1 billion) of one of the richest business tycoons of India, he took rather a cheap shot at the cost of ’Gravity’ film ($113 million). Moreover all these costs reflect the working conditions and wages of the workers. So the cheap mission means heavy exploitation of the Indian workers and many young scientists who work at fractions of the wages prevailing in the western countries. When will they, especially workers, receive the true value of their works? This points towards the hidden variables of the workers exploitation mechanics of the entire Indian labor scene. All the equipments involved in the mission must have come through the work of millions of workers; when will their skills receive the due appreciation in terms of secure jobs and good wages?

And then comes the relevance of this achievement where Mr Modi again failed to draw comparisons. In Pratidwandi (The Adversary), a film by Satyajit Ray, the protagonist is asked to name the most outstanding and significant event of the last decade, to which he replies: “The war in Vietnam Sir”. Upon being asked why he thought so when his answer should have been the moon landing, he comes up with this brilliant reply: “Because the moon landing, you see! We weren’t entirely unprepared for the moon landing. We knew it had to come sometime, we knew about the great advancements in the space technology. So we knew it had to happen. I am not saying it was not a remarkable achievement but it was not unpredictable the fact that they did land on moon.” A short clip of the interview can be seen here:

This sums up the great achievement of the mission. This is undoubtedly a significant achievement in so far it is used for developing scientific attitude, tackling the human suffering, or for getting involved in anti-imperialism activities. The minute it will be used for mindless wars, faux nationalism and showing aggression to people and other nations, it will turn into a monster. In our times the analogy to the Vietnam war is the attack on Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and the daily stream of attacks on the lives of workers, women and oppressed around the world. And the fact that they are resisting all the time in their own capabilities should be of a greater significance than sending the mummyji to orbit around the Mars.

Tools for divisive politics: Love Jihad propaganda spurs hate, not dialogue

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Yogi Adityanath

After the last general elections where Narendra Modi and his party won a majority overwhelmingly, the BJP has not been doing so well in subsequent by-elections. The Lalu-Nitish experiment is one model, but whether it will be replicated in different parts of the country is a million-vote question. The BJP appears to resort to the basic tools of divisive politics. On one hand Yogi Adityanath, with his venomous ‘hate speeches’ has come up as BJP’s major player; on the other the word of mouth propaganda of ‘love jihad’ is being spread like wildfire.

This year, Adityanath began his hate attack on Muslim minorities blaming all communal riots on Muslims when he campaigned for the BJP ahead of the general elections. In subsequent speeches he went on to make similar baseless allegations such as wherever Muslims are in the majority there is more trouble, or that when they trigger the violence then they also have to face the consequences.

None of this is grounded in the analysis of the communal violence in India. Referring to ‘Love Jihad,’ Adityanath said that if ‘they’ convert one Hindu girl, we will convert 100 Muslim girls. His unrelenting ‘hate speeches’ are going on at the time when the Prime Minister himself has asked for a ten-year moratorium on violence. Mr. Modi seems to be deliberately looking the other way when all this Hate propaganda is on.

The ‘Love Jihad’ propaganda is a double-edged weapon: By stating that Muslim youth are being trained to lure Hindu girls, on one hand they demonize Muslims and on the other they tighten their control of the lives of girls and women. In this propaganda, Hindu women are projected as gullible, easy to be lured and incapable of deciding for themselves. In a way the communal agenda’s twin goals are achieved here. Communal politics wants to marginalize the religious minorities at the surface level and at the deeper societal level it aims to restrict the rights and freedom of women.

BJP affiliates are not only indulging in word-of-mouth propaganda on this issue. They have also started forming fronts to oppose ‘love jihad,’ some of them have come up in western UP, and more seem to be in the offing. VHP has come to the forefront on this issue by stating that “Patriots will support our crusade against ‘love jihad’ that is leading the country towards another partition.” One more Sangh Parivar-related organization, the Dharma Jagran Manch, has started a similar campaign which is appealing to Hindus to oppose the ‘threat’ of ‘love jihad.’

As far as Hindu girls being converted to Islam through Love Jihad is concerned, it is a hoax- there is no doubt about that. A friend wrote from UP that he was to talk in a girls college there. He met a young faculty member all charged up to save Hindu girls, claiming that over 6,000 girls have been converted in his area. When confronted to give the names of some of the alleged converts, he retracted, saying he has heard rumours of it and so it must be true.

A booklet priced Rs 15 about the Love Jihad conspiracy has been published by some Hindu zealots: ‘How to Save Our Women from the Terrorism of Love Jihad’. It contains some alleged case studies. Most of these stories feature a typical pattern: a young Hindu woman lured into a relationship or into marriage by a Muslim man who had allegedly posed as a Hindu. It is claimed that those who get married often convert to Islam and need to be ‘rescued’ and this is where the RSS affiliates want to pitch in according to their plans.

While lot of historical material has come out on the issue of Love Jihad, two items in particular need to be mentioned. Many analysts have compared the Modi politics with the politics indulged in by Hitler, who used a similar tactic to polarize German opinion against the Jews, who were called the ‘internal enemy’. The Nazi propaganda held that Jewish young men had been luring German girls and polluting the purity of Aryan blood with a view to subjugating the German nation.

Similar tactics were adopted by Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha in India in the 1920s, when organizations to save the honor of Hindu women were formed and pamphlets like ‘Hindu Auratonki Loot’ (Loot of Hindu Women) were brought out. This propaganda was a potent weapon to polarize the communities along religious lines.

Can this be combated in some way? There is news that some Muslim youth have planned peace marches in the areas to create an atmosphere of amity. I hope more such marches take place and can restore the sanity of our society and surely members from the majority religious community will join these marches spontaneously to boost the amity amongst communities.

Maun Mohan, now Maun Modi? Kejriwal’s appeal letter to Narendra Modi

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An appeal to the PM to speak up against communalism and corruption in his party.

Kejriwal-Modi

– by Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Prime Minister,

Your government has completed nearly four months in office now and its performance is being widely discussed. People have mixed feelings.

They believe that you are an excellent orator. But your own partymen and ministers are doing exactly the opposite of what you speak, and when they do that, you remain silent. This has perplexed many people.

For instance, your speech on Independence Day impressed many. You said that we should shun communalism for the next decade, since communalism does not help anyone. People were happy to hear these words. But just a few days later an MP of your own party, Yogi Adityanath, delivered hate speeches.

Your partymen tried to spread hatred in the name of ‘love jihad’. People were surprised. How was it that your own partymen were not listening to you? People expected that you would admonish Yogi Adityanath and others in your party who indulged in spreading communal hatred. But you chose to remain silent, which disappointed Indians.

You spoke against UPA’s corruption during Lok Sabha elections. It was one of your main campaign planks. You had promised a corruption-free India. Recently, you went to the extent of saying — “Na khaunga, na khaane dunga.” (neither will i take bribe, nor will i allow anyone to take bribe). People were happy to hear that.

There was a feeling that from now on, the corrupt would be punished and honest people would be rewarded. But when your health minister Harsh Vardhan removed a very honest officer, Sanjiv Chaturvedi, from the post of chief vigilance officer at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, for no reason, it was a major disappointment.

The entire country knows how Chaturvedi has been fighting against corruption. His work has been appreciated by none less than the president of India and a parliamentary standing committee. People expected your government to reward such people.

Both media and public have severely criticised Chaturvedi’s removal. Everyone expected that you would intervene and get Chaturvedi reinstated as CVO of AIIMS. But when you remained silent on this issue also, people were further disappointed.

A few days back, the Union home ministry issued a notification severely curtailing the powers of Delhi’s anti-corruption branch (ACB), stripping it of the power to probe central government employees for bribery. This has turned it into a completely ineffective body. How can you remove corruption by curtailing the powers of ACB? To remove corruption, you need to provide ACB with adequate resources, effective powers and honest manpower.

People had hoped that since you have always been speaking so strongly against corruption, you would certainly reprimand your home minister and ask him to withdraw this notification. But you remained silent on such a critical matter also.

There were strong rumours that the son of one of your ministers accepted bribes for transfers and postings. When you came to know about it, you apparently called the father and son and scolded them. People felt so good when they heard this, though your office issued a statement on August 27 calling such reports as malicious and denied any such incident. My humble request is that next time, if any minister’s son accepts a bribe, kindly hand him over to the police in addition to scolding him.

A vice-president of Delhi BJP was caught on camera offering Rs 4 crore to an Aam Aadmi Party MLA to defect. BJP’s Delhi unit has been trying its best to form a government dishonestly. People are desperately hoping that you will stop your Delhi unit from doing this. But you have again preferred to remain silent.

The Supreme Court recently observed that those leaders facing serious criminal charges should not be made ministers. But at least 13 of your ministers face such charges, including murder and bribery. People hoped that you will immediately remove them, yet again you remained silent.

You had repeatedly accused PM Manmohan Singh of inaction when our soldiers on the Pakistan border were being beheaded and when the Chinese were violating our borders. People liked your speeches which matched with their patriotic feelings whenever you raised this issue.

But Pakistan and China are violating Indian borders with greater frequency since you took over. China’s attitude is even stranger. At a time when you are according such a warm welcome to their visiting president, they entered deep into our territory. So, people are wondering whether there are any compulsions that first Manmohan Singh and now you can’t take those effective steps which you had been demanding all along?

During elections you had promised ‘achche din’. The country has been waiting since 65 years for ‘achche din’. However, it is becoming extremely difficult for the middle class and poor people, who voted for you, to make two ends meet due to sharp price rise. You have all the power now. You have full majority in Parliament. People can live without ‘achche din’ for some more time. But we sincerely urge you to do something to contain prices and provide relief to people from inflation.

Mr Prime Minister, you have been given a historic chance. There are huge expectations from you. However, bypoll results show that people are slowly losing hope. We hope you will not let this historic opportunity slip.

The writer is former Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener.

Myth of love jihad: What’s faith got to do with it?

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Love-jihad

Communal politics, communal violence all over used women’s bodies as the site of contestation and community honor. This is the worst expression of patriarchal values inherent in the communal politics. We recall that it was the presentation of a road accident between boys of two religious communities that was propagated as an issue of the honor of ‘our girl’ being violated by the ‘other’. The Panchayats were mobilized; openly flaunting the arms, and Muzaffarnagar violence was orchestrated. And that’s not the end of the abuse of ‘our women-their women’ mind set. Post Muzaffarnagar violence, UP is abuzz with various activities aimed at polarizing the communities using this issue.

A Madarassa teacher stated that she was abducted and raped, by Muslim men. She kept changing her versions and later said that she had eloped with her lover. This Raksha Bandhan day (August 2014) hordes of RSS volunteers spread in different parts of Western UP, tying Rakhi (sacred thread, traditionally tied by sister on brothers wrist) to the people and warning them of the threat of the Muslim youth wooing away their ‘girls’ for love jihad. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ has been made the central part of propaganda in Western UP currently.

While the Prime minister states from the ramparts of Red Fort that there should be a moratorium on communalism-casteism for ten years, his party colleague, Chandramohan, a BJP spokesperson from UP says that “incident like that of the madrassa teacher are a part of ‘global love jihad’, which targets vulnerable Hindu girls.” In BJP’s parent organization, RSS, after the shakhas are dispersed the volunteers go from house to house and tell the people about ‘dangers of love jihad’ and need to protect ‘our girls’!

ANHAD report on Muzzafarnagar violence, ‘Evil stalks the land’ exposes the falsehood of ‘Muslim boy talking to Hindu girls to lure them to marry and so to convert to Islam’. Incidentally this was the major concoction around which the riot was engineered. One Baba Rijakdas has come up in Saharanpur in Western UP. He is supposed to cure the love smitten girls, if the boy happens to be a Muslim!

The word “love Jihad’ which played a major role in mobilizing the Hindu community for violence, has a strange history. As such the two components of this word Love and Jihad, who so ever manufactured it, have a very different meaning. Since 9/11 2001 the word Jihad has been employed in the popular media in a very negative way and that meaning has by now become part of the ‘social common sense’.

Contrary to the meaning of the word Jihad in the Holy Quran, which means striving and struggle in the way of God, it came be projected as mindless killing of non-Muslims. The word Love Jihad must be a creation of an evil genius and it has come to be used to further demonize the Muslim community. The propaganda has been that some Muslim organizations are funding Muslim youth, to lure the non Muslim girls, to marry them and to increase the Muslim population. The rumor is being spread that youth are given money to buy motorbike, mobile etc and lure the non Muslim girls.

While doing Google search, if you type, ‘why Hindu Girls are’, the other sentence which pops up on the search engine is ‘are attracted to Muslim boys”! Recently in Maharashtra, a group “Hindu Raksha Samiti” has been claiming to save Hindu religion by breaking up the Hindu Muslim couples, if the girl happens to be a Hindu girl. Not that there are too many such couples, just a suspicion and these self appointed guardians of Hinduism pounce on the boy. A booklet in Marathi on Love Jihad shows a Muslim boy riding the Motor bike, with Hindu girl riding pillion. The word has been so popularized that even a Christian group in Kerala allied with the Sangh progeny, VHP to stop this non existing phenomenon.

In India the word began to be used in coastal Karnataka, Mangalore couple of years ago, and in parts of Kerala. It was Sri Ram Sene founded by RSS trained Swayam Sevak, Pramod Mutalik, which started attack on Hindu girl-Muslim boy couples. The marriages of such combinations started being looked at with suspicion and if parents were opposed to the marriage, Sri Ram Sene would help to take the matter to the court also.

The pretext was that the girl has been forced to marry the Muslim boy. Funnily in the case of Sijalraj and Azghar the judge of Karnatak High Court, went on to give the ruling, that the facts (Love Jihad) had “national ramifications… concern security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking of women,”! So it ordered the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police to hold a thorough investigation into to ‘love jihad’. Pending that, the girl was asked to stay with her parents. The case was that of a simple Hindu Muslim marriage and the girl stood to her version and refused to bow to the social pressures. The police investigation showed that the notion of ‘love Jihad’ is a cooked up one with no substance whatsoever.

In a similar case earlier the Kerala High court while hearing the appeal from two parents passed a similar order. Two Hindu girls had eloped and got converted to Islam and planned to get married. Kerala court also ordered the police authorities to investigate this phenomenon. The police investigation again showed that there is no such phenomenon as Love Jihad. The organizational promotion of such marriages is a hoax but has become part of social understanding.

Shri Ram Sene propaganda stated that over 4000 Hindu girls have been lured into conversions. This concoction was aggressively put across through various mechanisms. This laughable, figment of imagination spread like wild fire and frightened the parents. The trajectory of many of these girls who initially state about their love for the boy and voluntary conversion, changes many a times after they are forced to stay with their parents. Under a sort of emotional blackmail, some girls give in and later say that they were brain washed, shown a Jihadi CD and what not.

We have witnessed such acts in the form of propaganda in Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that ‘Muslim boys are luring Adivasi girls’. There Babu Bajarangi, a VHP-Bajrang Dal activist, who was also a major participant in Gujarat carnage (2002), formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is presented as defense of religion! As such inter-caste, inter-religious marriages are a normal natural part of a plural society. With rise of the communal politics, these inter-religious marriages are being opposed very dangerously.

We have also the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman married to Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business magnate of Kolkata. She was forced to turn around under emotional blackmail from parents and relatives. The details were not known, what is known is that later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to “commit suicide.” In all such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting to support the things totally against the law.

Such campaigns against inter-religion, inter-caste marriages are not only against the spirit of national integration they also aim to control the lives of girls in the patriarchal mode. Women’s bodies are made symbols of community honor. In addition the bogey against a minority is whipped up to aid the divisive politics. It is a double bonus for sectarian politics. Since in patriarchal norms women are regarded as property of man and are made to live under the control structure defined by men, such an issue rouses high emotions. The agenda of communal politics targets minorities, Muslims at one level and promotes patriarchal norms at another.

Over a period of time, from being just a mechanism to control the lives of Hindu girls, a tool to ensure that girls don’t have the right to choose their own life partners, this phrase has been used to instigate violence as witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Most of the pretexts of communal violence are cooked up, gradually manufactured. This term ‘Love Jihad’ by now is being used as a dangerous weapon. Lot of messages on WhatsApp and face book are flying and relating the phenomenon as an international conspiracy of the Muslims. On other side ‘Jodha Akabar’ is being cited as the initial incident of this phenomenon. Clearly one knows that kings used to have such marriages as a part of political alliances, cutting across other boundaries. How cleverly the popular legend of Jodha Akbar is being manipulated!

The politics in the name of religion, the politics of Sangh Parivar here in India or that of Taliban’s in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists, or even Christian fundamentalists all operate on the same wavelength as far as crushing the rights of women is concerned. In line with this starting from Sri Ram Sene, to Babu Bajrangi to those orchestrating violence in Muzaffarnagar, they all operate on the premise, that women are the property of men and their lives have to be controlled. The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled into the thinking of society. This social thinking is being stepped up by the activities of RSS and affiliates who are running door- -to-door campaign to spread the venom of communal hatred.

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