IMSD supports Muslim Education Society’s circular on face unveiling, opposes its no-no to “modern dress”

May 6, 2019

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) applauds Kerala’s Muslim Educational Society (MES) for prohibiting girls from wearing “any dress which covers the face” in any of its 150 educational institutions across the state. However, it opposes the MES’ plan of imposing a particular mode of dress as the only acceptable way for Indian women.

A circular issued by the MES state president Fazal Gafoor states: “The MES will not encourage any type of veils on its campus. Managers of each MES institution will have to ensure that girl students do not come to the campus with their faces covered. They are hereby asked to include this as a rule on the campus from academic year 2019-20”.

The institutions that MES controls include 10 professional colleges, 18 arts and science colleges, 12 higher secondary and 36 CBSE affiliated schools. It is noteworthy that the MES circular dated April 19 was issued before the decision of the Sri Lankan government banning face covering in all public places following the recent dastardly bomb blasts by Islamist extremists.

The circular further states: “MES, which aims at the social and cultural progress of the Muslim community, insists that students, even while maintaining high standards in curricular and extra-curricular activities, do follow a certain decorum in dress code too… Under these circumstances, dresses that are unacceptable to mainstream society – whether they are modern or religious – cannot be promoted”, the circular says.

IMSD shares the views of the MES to the extent that empowerment of Muslim women is the objective. Women covered from head to toe are ill-suited to aspire for civil services, various professions politics, sports, entrepreneurship. However, IMSD totally distances itself from the MES’ no-no to women, even at the higher education levels) attending college in “modern dress” (jeans, T-shirts etc).

Such prohibition imposes its own notions of “Indian-ness” and violates women’s right to choose. We do not accept the idea that India only has one particular national dress for women or men. This goes against the very Idea of India. In fact, IMSD is not even opposed to either the hijab or burkha – just the face veil.

We support the ban on the face veil, as it’s essentially a patriarchal imposition and an affront to women. We also support the same in the context of security, as face recognition is a must especially in the times that we live in.

IMSD categorically rejects the orthodoxy’s claim that Islam enjoins Muslim women to make themselves “invisible” in the public domain. The Quran merely asks women, and men, to dress modestly. IMSD believes that Muslims who insist otherwise are a major obstacle in the progress of Muslims as a community.

Javed Anand Feroze Mithiborwala
Convener, IMSD Co-Convener, IMSD

UP’s VIP Constituencies go to Polls on May 6

May 6, 2019

As Uttar Pradesh enters the fifth phase of polling during the general elections, several high profile constituencies are going to polls. These include traditional congress bastions like Amethi and Rae Bareli, as well as other important constituencies like Lucknow and Faizabad.

Amethi:
Amethi has so far been considered the safest seat for the Congress. It has been represented by Sanjay Gandhi (1980), Rajiv Gandhi (1981-1991), Sonia Gandhi (1999-2004) and since then by Rahul Gandhi. This time incumbent Rahul Gandhi faces his former adversary actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani again. Last time Gandhi had defeated Irani by a margin of over 1 lakh votes, but his vote share had dropped from over 70 percent in 2009 to just over 46 percent in 2014.

Amethi is a prestige seat and the Nehru-Gandhi family cannot afford to lose it. Interestingly, the SP-BSP Mahagathbandhan has not fielded any candidate from this constituency. While 7.31 per cent of the population identifies as Muslim, 18.9 per cent belong to scheduled castes according to 2011 census data.

Rae Bareli:
Another Congress bastion, this is Sonia Gandhi’s constituency. She has held it since 2004. Before her two other members of her family namely, Firoz Gandhi and Indira Gandhi have won from this constituency. Though Sonia Gandhi secured well over 5 lakh votes in the previous election from across religious and caste lines, it is noteworthy that the Congress has been losing assembly polls here since 2007.

While 12.3 per cent of the population identifies as Muslim, over 30 per cent belong to Scheduled Castes. The constituency has over 2 lakh voters from the Vaish community that had overwhelmingly voted for BJP’s previous candidate Ajay Agarwal in 2014. Agarwal had managed to secure the maximum number of votes ever by an opponent of Sonia Gandhi, totalling over 1.73 lakhs, from this constituency. But the BJP dropped him in favour of Dinesh Pratap Singh. Meanwhile, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohiya) has fielded Ram Singh Yadav.

Lucknow:
The constituency is associated with deceased BJP heavyweight Atal Bihari Vajpayee who won the seat five times consecutively since 1991. Even after Vajpayee stepped out of active politics, the seat has remained with the BJP with Lalji Tandon winning in 2009 and Rajnath Singh getting elected in 2014.
This time though, it will be an interesting triangular contest with Singh going up against the INC’s Pramod Krishnam and Samajwadi Party’s Poonam Sinha. Lucknow is also interesting as it is a very demographically diverse constituency. According to census data, over 21 per cent of people are Muslim and over 20 per cent belong to Scheduled Castes.

Faizabad:
This is another important parliamentary constituency as it is home to Ayodhya, the temple town where the Babri Mosque was razed to the ground in 1992. Key election issues here include unemployment, absence of proper healthcare facilities as well as the shut-down of small businesses due to economic slowdown. The constituency has changed hands and everyone from the BJP, INC, SP, BSP and even the Communist Party of India have come to power here.

The incumbent is BJP’s Lallu Singh who is facing Anand Sen Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and also curiously Mahesh Tiwari of the Shiv Sena, the sons-of-the-soil party from Maharashtra that now has national expansion ambitions. The INC has fielded veteran Dr Nirmal Khatri who had won the seat in 2009. And though no VIP really represents the constituency, the age old demand for construction of a Ram Temple makes the deity the VIP here.

According to Census data, while just over 9 per cent of the people belong to Scheduled Castes, over 28 per cent identify as Muslim, making this a very diverse constituency.

Khunti, Hazaribagh go to the polls in phase 5 of the Lok Sabha elections

May 6, 2019

Four Jharkhand constituencies are going to polls on Monday, May 6, in what will be the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections, and the second leg for Jharkhand. The state first held Lok Sabha polls on Monday, April 29.

The constituencies going to vote on Monday are Hazaribagh, Khunti, Kodarma, and Ranchi. A survey conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), which polled around 7,000 respondents across all of Jharkhand’s 14 constituencies, found that improved employment opportunities, improved hospitals and primary health centres, and better law and order/policing were the top three priorities for voters in the state. The government’s performance regarding these three priorities was rated as below average.

Notably, the survey found that the highest proportion of respondents said that a candidate’s party was the most significant when voting: 30% said the party was very important, and 48% said it was important.

In Jharkhand, the Congress is in an alliance with the Jharkhand Vikas Manch (JVM) and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is contesting 13 of the 14 parliamentary seats, with the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) contesting one.

Hazaribagh is the constituency of former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who won from there in 1998, 1999, and in the 2009. The sitting MP from Hazaribagh is Jayant Sinha of the BJP, Yashwant Sinha’s son, and also the Union Minister of state for Civil Aviation. Per analysis by ADR, Sinha is the wealthiest candidate in phase five the Lok Sabha elections, having declared total assets worth Rs. 77.07 crore. Hazaribagh is seeing a triangular contest, with Sinha up against Gopal Sahu from the Congress, and Bhubneshwar Prasad Mehta of the CPI, who has previously served as MP from Hazaribagh, which is a BJP stronghold.

Notably, Jayant Sinha sparked an outcry in July 2018 when he garlanded eight people who had been convicted by a lower court of lynching Alimuddin Ansari in June 2017 in Ramgarh, Jharkhand. In fact, The Quint found that Sinha and the BJP also supplied financial and legal help to the accused, citing an interview Sinha did with BBC Hindi in which he mentioned how the BJP helped them secure bail.

In March 2019, the Ranchi district administration filed a case against Sinha for violating the Election Model Code of Conduct after he allegedly publicised the BJP government’s achievements at a degree ceremony at IIM-Ranchi.

The Hazaribagh constituency encompasses the entire Ramgarh district and areas of the Hazaribagh district. Per the 2011 census, the Hazaribagh district is home to nearly 17.34 lakh people, 58.41% of whom are literate, FirstPost reported. Ramgarh is home to 9.49 lakh people. Two lakh people in the district belong to Scheduled Castes.

Notably, days before the election, ANI highlighted the extreme pollution that villagers living outside Hazaribagh in Jharkhand face, stating, “The situation is alarming due to a huge amount of dust and toxic gases emitting from the mines,” and noting that according to local residents, the pollution is causing deaths.

The Kodarma constituency covers the Kodarma district and areas in the Giridih and Hazaribagh districts. Around 15% of the people living in Kodarma belong to Scheduled Tribes, while over 80% of the population in the Hazaribagh district follow Hinduism, per FirstPost. According to the 2011 census, 13.31% of the population in Giridih belongs to Scheduled Castes, and 9.74% belongs to Scheduled Tribes.

Kodarma’s current MP is Ravindra Kumar Rai of the BJP. The party has fielded Annapurna Devi, who only joined the BJP in late March, just a day after the Congress-led grand alliance finalised its seat-sharing plan in Jharkhand, India Today reported; she was previously president of the Jharkhand Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Annapurna Devi is contesting against Babulal Marandi of JVM-Prajatantrik, which is part of the grand alliance in Jharkhand. He has previously won three times from Koderma, per the Times of India. Marandi served as Jharkhand’s first Chief Minister, but, per the Times of India, he has “been fighting to stay relevant” after losing heavily from Dumka in 2014, and after six JVM legislators defected to the BJP following Jharkhand’s 2014 assembly elections.

Interestingly, India Today noted that in January 2019, Marandi and Annapurna Devi in fact appeared together at JVM meeting, with the latter “lambasting the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Jharkhand and at the Centre.”

Rajkumar Yadav of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI-ML) is also contesting out of Kodarma, making this a three-way race. Yadav is an MLA from Dhanwar, “and his votes increase substantially with every election that he faces,” NewsClick noted, opining that “His candidature on the Koderma Lok Sabha seat is so strong that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had to deny a ticket to its sitting MP, Ravindra Rai, who had also served as BJP state president in 2014 and helped the party win 12 out of 14 seats in Jharkhand.” UNI reported that RJD leader Subhash Yadav announced that the party would back Rajkumar Yadav in Koderma.

In the Ranchi constituency, per the Hindustan Times, the Congress is banking on Subodh Kant Sahay, who won the seat in 2004 and 2009, before being defeated by Ram Tahal Choudhary of the BJP in 2014. The BJP has fielded Sanjay Seth this time around, and Sanjay Pandey of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) will also be contesting, as will Choudhary, as an independent candidate.

The Wire noted that Choudhary is a leader of the Kurmi caste, which falls under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, stating, “His community will play a decisive role in the election.” Citing a report, it said that the Ranchi constituency has six lakh Kurmi voters, almost 35% of the total population. The Wire also highlighted that Kurmis have sought to be classified as Scheduled Tribe, and that a part of the community has pledged to vote against the BJP, given that this demand has not been met. Seth of the BJP appeals to urban voters, but with most assembly segments in Ranchi in rural areas, “it is likely that Choudhary will mainly eat into Seth’s vote, helping Sahay,” The Wire opined.

The Ranchi constituency includes areas of the Ranchi and Seraikela Kharsawan districts, with the latter coming under the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme, per FirstPost. According to the 2011 census, more than 60% of the population of Seraikela Kharsawan is engaged in the primary sector, i.e. agriculture, FirstPost noted. The Ranchi district has a significant Muslim population, comprising nearly 29% of the total population, of which 51.3% are Hindus.

A report from The Wire paints a damning picture of life for the poorest in the Ranchi city, who live in Pahadi Tola, at the centre of Jharkhand’s capital. “Without decent living conditions, the families stay amidst dumps of city-waste and sewage residuals, in shanty houses that blow away in rain,” it described. Access to food is hampered by “a creaky social security system, and lack of measures to safeguard entitlements,” The Wire reported, outlining how those reliant on government food aid are ignored or overlooked, and highlighting that Jharkhand has seen 18 starvation deaths between September 2017 and early January 2019. Moreover, the Pahadi Tola slum also lacks key health and nutritional amenities, particularly those that serve mothers and infants, The Wire noted.

The Khunti constituency is reserved for candidates from Scheduled Tribes, and encompasses the Khunti and Simdega districts, as well as parts of the Ranchi and Seraikela Kharsawan districts. The Khunti district is known for being the birthplace of freedom fighter Birsa Munda, who was borth in the erstwhile Bengal Presidency in 1875. The constituency’s population has a majority of Christians and Scheduled Tribes–64%, per the Hindustan Times.

Khunti has been a BJP stronghold since 1989, per the Hindustan Times, and Karia Munda of the BJP has won eight times from the seat. However, this time around, the BJP has fielded three-time former Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda, who has also served in the Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, the Congress has fielded Kalicharan Munda, who belongs to the same Munda tribe as Arjun Munda. The former’s younger brother, Neelkant Singh Munda, is a minister in the current BJP government.

Only 6.68% of the population in the Khunti constituency is urban, with 93.32% of the population living in rural areas, per India Today. Citing political experts, the Hindustan Times noted several economic and social factors that could hamper the BJP’s ability to win in Khunti this year, citing experts who highlighted extreme underdevelopment, and also noted the Christian population’s displeasure over an anti-conversion law.

Most significantly, Khunti is the epicentre of the recent Pathalgadi movement, which was born out of a two-year agitation by Adivasis who were protesting the government’s proposal to establish land acquisition laws and state domicile eligibility that Adivasi activists considered as infringing on their land rights, The Wire reported. The movement garnered a wave of support from Adivasi villagers all over Jharkhand, and particularly in the Khunti district, who declared the gram sabha as the sovereign authority. They employed the ritual of Pathalgadi, which involves installing a memorial stone on a grave, to lay multiple stones quoting constitutional provisions “to declare their gram sabhas as sovereign,” The Wire said. The movement faced severe repression from the state and police machinery, with as many as 150 named and several thousand unnamed FIRs. Many still face charges of sedition; in July 2018, the state police charged 20 senior activists with sedition for social media posts criticising the government, and allegedly being prominently involved in the Pathalgadi movement, The Wire noted. In early April, DownToEarth reported that 30 villages in the Khunti district announced that they would not vote in the Lok Sabha elections, with a local activist saying that the were afraid the government would harm them if they stepped out.

In fact, as recently as Wednesday, May 1, the National Herald reported that police picked up five young men from the Dadagama village and Chandidi in Khunti, and were locked up in jail on the night of April 27. The eldest man, Basingh Hasa, told the National Herald that three of them were detained because the police said they had information that three men were asking people not to vote, and the other two were picked up in connection with a murder case. Basingh opined that the group was being intimidated because they were “known to support Guruji,” or JMM chief Shibu Soren. Rughu Munda, who was detained in relation to a murder, said, “All of this is because of the pathalgadi movement. The neighbouring Ghagra village was involved in Pathalgadi, but we didn’t put a plaque because several of them were picked up. We were afraid. We thought we would do it two weeks after they had, but the fear of the police and the state made us think otherwise”.

Muslim Educationist gets Death Threats for Banning Face Veils on Campuses in Kerala

May 4, 2019

A Kerala based educationist who barred female students of his group’s institutions from wearing face veils is now facing death threats for his progressive decision. Dr PA Fazal Gafoor, president of the Muslim Education Society (MES) has now approached the police and filed a complaint against an unknown caller who allegedly demanded the withdrawal of a circular that informed female students not to attend class wearing face covering attire.

Image Courtesy: The Hindu

The caller reportedly used threatening and demeaning words and warned Gafoor dire consequences if he did not withdraw the circular that was issued on Friday.

Explaining the rationale behind the circular, Dr Gafoor had told Indian Express, “Women covering their faces is not Islamic. It is a new culture brought from abroad and has little to do with religion. The practice of covering the face is a cultural invasion. Now, it has become widespread in Kerala.”

The move had attracted criticism from the Samastha Kerala Jamiyathul Ulema, a religious organisation of Sunni Muslim scholars and clerics.
Meanwhile, Dr Gafoor clarified that the decision had originally been made and communicated via a circular dated April 17 and had nothing to do with a similar ban on face veils in Sri Lanka in wake of the recent anti-Christian terror attack there.

Fighting for the Soul of Islam in Sri Lanka

May 4, 2019

Today, Sufism Has Gone Underground, Radical Wahhabis And Salafis Have Taken Over Many Of Sri Lanka’s Mosques: Fighting for the Soul of Islam in Sri Lanka

A man praying at a mosque in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Friday.CreditCreditIshara S. Kodikara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mine is a typical Muslim family: we mix with everyone in this multiethnic, multilingual country. And I wear both Western and Sri Lankan clothes, as do my mother, sister and extended family. None of us choose to wear the hijab; we believe that our faith is in our hearts rather than in our clothing.

Over the past 30-odd years, an insidious change occurred in our community. It’s hard to pinpoint when. It might have been when Sri Lanka began sending droves of housemaids to the Middle East in the early 1980s, among them many Muslim women. Many of these women had adopted the Abayah and hijab in their countries of employment and, on their return, continued wearing them in Sri Lanka. Initially, they were the most vociferous that Sri Lankan Muslims were practicing a diluted version of Islam, that their prayers were not said in the correct Arabic accent, that they should stop praising the Prophet Muhammad and saints, and that they were not dressed properly according to Islamic guidelines — especially the women.

This strict interpretation of Islam began to take hold. I noticed it the first time a Muslim man refused to shake my hand, and when Muslims began to sprinkle their conversations with religious Arabic phrases. Young Muslim men I knew from the city began going to rural areas to preach on how to practice their faith better. Muslim weddings began to be held in male-only mosques, without the presence of the bride, instead of at home or in hotels. The most visible change was that Muslim women stopped wearing their traditional sari or Shalwar Kameez in favour of the hijab, Abayah or Niqab. Muslim men soon followed suit. Robes replaced sarongs or trousers, and more of them sported beards.

Today, Sufism has gone underground, while radical Wahhabis and Salafis have taken over many of Sri Lanka’s mosques.

Read full report: nytimes.com/2019/05/02/opinion/sri-lanka-bombing.html

Are clownish outsiders the future of democracy?

May 4, 2019

Comedic buffoonery no longer marks the dividing line between satire and news. It is now the starting point for participatory democracy.

A television comedian was elected President of Ukraine last Monday, provoking headlines such as: “Buffoons Are Taking Over the Court” and “Why a Bit of Humorlessness Might Go a Long Way.” Volodymyr Zelensky – who once played a sitcom character shockingly elected President after his angry video rant goes viral – beat the incumbent Petro Poroshenko in a landslide, reaping over 73% of the vote. Are clownish outsider candidates like Zelensky the future of global democratic politics?

Pranksters run for government

Pranksters have been gaining a foothold in national elections since the news satirist Stephen Colbert ran a fake Presidential campaign in 2008, following the publication of his best-selling book I Am America (And So Can You). Like Pat Paulsen, whose joke bid for the White House in the tumultuous year of 1968 started as a gag skit on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (CBS, 1967-1969), Colbert’s campaign was pure parody.

Sponsored by Doritos snack chips, it quickly ran afoul of FEC rules, just two years ahead of the 2010 Citizens United Decision that unleashed vast corporate wealth on political elections. Colbert used dark satire, not grey money, to gain national attention. He ran in South Carolina with the outrageous slogan, “First to secede, first to succeed,” taking aim at the dog whistle race-baiting that’s clinched the southern electorate since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential Campaign. But Colbert’s nonsense rhetoric clearly marked his own candidacy as a farce, not the real thing.

Since 2008, however, clownish outsider candidates have deployed Colbertian tactics with remarkably successful results. In Italy, the activist-comedian Beppe Grillo launched his anti-elitist Five Star Movement (M5S) in 2009, which quickly gained regional influence and now holds a significant national minority that governs in coalition with the fascist Lega Nord (Northern League).

M5S rode to power on the coattails of a public prank in 2007, when Grillo organized mass rallies to celebrate V-Day (Vaffanculo or “Fuck You” Day). Invoking the Allies who landed in Normandy in June 1944, V-Day urged Italian citizens to “invade” the bad legislative body, further protesting endemic corruption in Silvio Berlusconi’s government.

M5S derived its populist credibility (or its grillismo) from a mixture of diffuse outrage and obscene antics. As the movement gained electoral traction and political legitimacy, its pretenses of direct democracy and digital participation (spurred by Grillo’s rabble-rousing blog) have yielded contradictory and often bizarre policy positions. Buffoonish utopianism – sullied by political reality – has shaped a party that is now both egalitarian and nativist, progressive and ultra-nationalist, anti-insider and increasingly tribal.

Its platform panders to rising hostilities against immigrants and refugees, the European Union, and even medical vaccines – as clownish imagination buckles under the pressures of racial hostility and conspiratorial belief.

TV clowns go to Washington

Like Grillo, Zelensky jumpstarted his political career by speaking truth to power with an expletive-laden rant. In the pilot episode of Servant of the People (1+1, 2015-2019), he tirades against Ukrainian government corruption in a viral video that unexpectedly catapults his character to electoral victory. The episodic foibles that ensue evoke classic presidential film satires such as Duck Soup (1933), Being There (1979), and Wag the Dog (1997), in which idiocy alone guarantees authenticity.

Zelensky’s seamless trajectory from television clown to successful politician further mirrors the ascent of Donald Trump – who crossed over from reality game show host to unprecedented leader of a representative democracy. Trump’s revolving door Cabinet Administration – which grows and shrinks by the whim of a Tweet – has been a major point of continuity between his Presidency and its basis in The Apprentice (NBC, 2004-2017), the tagline for which was “You’re Fired!”

Both Trump and Zelensky further rely on absurdity to fill the gap between their fictional characters and their electoral ambitions. Trump’s outlandish buffoonery garnered him abundant media coverage, while Zelensky’s unorthodox background boosted his candidacy from inside joke to international news headline.

What was the tipping point between gag campaigns like Colbert’s 2008 run and this new frontier of democratic politics, whereby one’s grotesque inexperience actively fosters their populist viability and broad-based support? With the infusion of corporate money into national elections, immense influence of dubious digital news sources, and increasing class inequality around the globe, voters apparently trust comedian underdogs over incumbent insider politicians.

With the infusion of corporate money into national elections… and increasing class inequality around the globe, voters apparently trust comedian underdogs over incumbent insider politicians.

Insult comedy rallies the base

Elected leaders have always used humor as a political weapon, but only to a degree. This is why Plato wanted to ban excessive laughter from his idealized city-state in The Republic. Now that the center will no longer hold, political humor has grown ever more extreme.
Trump notoriously mocked a reporter with a disability, derisively refers to Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” laughed off global warming during the 2019 Midwest polar vortex, and even ridiculed Christine Blasey Ford for stating that she had “only one beer” on the night of her alleged assault by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Offensive shock tactics such as these rally the true believers, displacing light-hearted burlesque with bald-faced invective. If absurd unorthodoxy helped to establish these unlikely candidates as electable, now their obscene defilement of decorum further burnishes their anti-elitist chops.

Far-right authoritarian leaders know that insult comedy is crucial for firing up the base in moments of crisis. Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Rodrigo Duterte (the Philippines), Recep Erdoğan (Turkey), Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), Viktor Orbán (Hungary), Vladimir Putin (Russia), and Matteo Salvini (Italy) pitch their bellicose rhetoric to a social media-based attention economy with pithy taunts, schoolyard jeers, and ludicrous exaggerations.

An age of permanent carnival

We’re living in an age of “permanent carnival,” argue Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai, referring to the popular medieval folk festival that the people celebrated every year between Christmas and Lent. Carnival was a temporary social revolution in which holy scripture was profaned, the king was decrowned, and anything serious became fair game for grotesque ridicule and outrageous satire.

Political theorists have emphasized that carnival actually contributed to the health of the state. It ignited joyful anti-sovereign rebellion, in which all repressed urges and scandalous ideas had momentary free rein. Since the Middle Ages, carnival has gone underground in literature, film, television, and other mass media. But as the boundaries between carnival and sovereignty erode, serious politics have become extravagantly absurd. Comedic buffoonery no longer marks the dividing line between satire and news (between jokes and elections). It is now the starting point for participatory democracy.

But what will happen if the clowns continue to wear the crown 365 days a year? Can democracy survive the sustained unleashing of its primal ungoverned impulses? I don’t believe anyone knows the answer to those questions. But it’s clear that this carnivalesque zeitgeist will not be losing steam any time soon.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

EC Issues Notice to Yogi Adityanath over ‘Babur ki Aulad’ Remark

May 3, 2019

The Election Commission (EC) issued a show cause notice to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, on Wednesday, over his ‘Babur ki Aulad’ remark against Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate from Sambhal, Shafiq-ur-Rehman Burq. EC has directed Yogi to file his reply within 24 hours.

In its order, EC stated, “The commission, after considering the available material and extant instructions on the matter, has decided to provide you an opportunity to explain your stand regarding the said statement.”

Reacting to the notice, Yogi said, “Bhajan karne jaate hai kya manch pe? Ukhad dene ke liye aur apne virodhi ko gherne ke liye manch pe jaate hai.” (Do we go to the stage to sing devotional songs? We go there to defeat the opposition party and hit out at them). Adding further, he said, “Our work is to highlight the opposition’s weakness in front of the people. We do not mind it even when Congress or SP abuse us during their election campaigning. If we revert, why are we called wrong?”

Addressing a rally on April 19, the day the 72-hour ban came to an end, in Sambhal district, Yogi had said, “What can be said about SP… It fielded a candidate in Sambhal who claims himself to be the descendant of Babar, hesitates in garlanding the statue of Baba Saheb and does not recite Vande Matram.” He further added, “Samajwadi Party mein aise aise pratyashi bana diye jate hain… ek baar sansad mein baitha tha… sanjog se sambhal se prayashi wohi SP ke vartaman pratyashi hain… Maine unse pucha, tumhare purvaj kahan se hain, yeh sajjan bol pare hum Babar ki aulad hain…” (I had once asked a member in the Parliament, who is also the present SP candidate from here (Sambhal), about his ancestors and he replied ‘I am Babar’s descendent).

Continuing with his communal jibe, Yogi said, “Ek taraf Bharat ki astha ko samman dene wale Modi ji hain… Lekin dusari taraf apne ko Babur ki aulad kehne wala vyakti gathbandan ka pratyashi banke ata hai. Aap kya desh drohi ke hanthon mein desh ki bagdor saupna chahte hain…. atankwadion ke hath mein desh ki bagdor saupenge… apne ko Babur ki aulad kehne wale ko… Bajrang Bali ke virodhiyon ke hath mein desh ki bagdoor saupenge?” (On one hand, there is Modi ji, who has brought respect to the country. Would you like to hand over the reins of the country to the traitors or terrorists or those who call themselves Babur’s successors and oppose Bajrang Bali?)

Infamous for his communal and hateful statements, Yogi has been in a controversy right from the time the 2019 elections were announced. During the earlier campaigns, he had made inciteful comments like “if the Congress, SP and BSP have faith in Ali, then we have faith in Bajrang Bali” and called the Indian Union Muslim League a ‘Green Virus’. For these statements he was handed a 72 hour ban by the EC.

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BJP MLA equates Muslims with cows that don’t produce milk

May 3, 2019

Dibrugarh MLA Prasanta Phukan said that the state’s BJP-led government had earmarked Rs.100 crore in the budget for minority development but it received no “output” or support for the BJP from the Muslim community.

Guwahati: Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Prasanta Phukan, who represents the Dibrugarh Assembly constituency stirred controversy in Assam when he said that Muslims were likes cows that don’t give milk.

This statement comes weeks after Union Minister Maneka Gandhi said she might not be inclined to work for Muslims who do not vote for her

“It is common knowledge that 90% of Muslims did not vote for us in the Lok Sabha election. There is no point in providing fodder to a cow that does not produce milk,” he said earlier this week.

His remark did not go down well with leaders of the minority community.

“Anwar Hussain Laskar, All India United Democratic Front MLA from Hailakandi, said only a deranged person could make such a statement. Nekibur Zaman, an advocate of the Gauhati High Court, said the BJP should suspend Mr. Phukan for the “shameless and condemnable” observation about Muslims. “His party should censure him for the cow analogy that is unbecoming of an elected representative,” he said, The Hindu reported.

Phukan did not budge and said that his statement was misinterpreted. “I used a popular Assamese proverb on cows to drive home a point. I did not say anything wrong,” he said.

He added that the state’s BJP-led government had earmarked Rs.100 crore in the budget for minority development but it received no “output” or support for the BJP from the Muslim community.

Senior advocate Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury of Gauhati High Court wondered as to why action against Phukan was not taken yet by the Assembly speaker or the governor. He insisted that the police register a case suo motu against the MLA.

“A case under non-bailable Sections of IPC should be registered against him as he committed a grave crime,” Choudhury said, adding, “If action against him is not taken then amity and brotherhood between Hindus and Muslims in Assam will cease to exist”.

Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia on Thursday wrote to the Speaker of Assam Assembly Hitendra Nath Goswami demanding appropriate action against the MLA Prasanta Phukan for his alleged derogatory comment on the Muslim community in the State. He urged the Speaker to examine remarks of Phukan and take appropriate action.

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