A raging fire broke out about 15 hours ago in Lucknow's Kanshiram Echo Park situated in front of the Ramabai Ambedkar Jail road Masjid
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Lucknow: A fire in Eco Garden situated in front of the mosque of Ramabai Ambedkar Jail Road
कांशीराम ईको पार्क में लगी आग
The Indian Writers' Forum participated in the Dharwad Literature Festival held on 6-7 May, 2017. The IWF Team spoke to Dr. Muzaffar Assadi, Professor of Political Science at the University of Mysore about the slow rise of communalism in Karnataka and the gradual co-option of local icons into the Hindutva fold. The aim, Professor Assadi explains, is to convert the masses into Hindus, mainly from the marginalised communities, into cultural and finally into political Hindus.
Cultural Syncretism and Tolerance
When compared to other parts of India, whether it’s Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, or Haryana and other places, Karnataka has been relatively free from communal tension and communal ideology. Karnataka remained unaffected by the Partition. It never had any memories of the Partition. In fact, memories of Partition came to Karnataka through texts or in the form of textual memories.
The first instance of communal tension can be traced back to 1920. It started on a small pretext that is the Ganesha Festival. In fact, one may recall that there is a long absence of communal tension in the history of Karnataka. The reasons were: Karnataka had a tolerant society and it celebrated cultural syncretism. Some examples of its cultural and religious syncretism are represented by the ritual practice of Naga Pantha and the influence of Sufism. As a result, this syncretic culture gave rise to a “fuzzy” community where identities were blurred.
The State was not only tolerant, it was also receptive. One remembers the Bahmani Kingdom/ Bahmani Sultanate around the Bijapur area which not only upheld Islamic tradition, they also extended their support to literature, the arts, and languages from the other princely states.
In the 1920s, a non-Brahmin movement set the stage for an affirmative action to secure reservation for marginalized groups in the princely state. Not only was there a strong alliance between communities and the State but also among the different communities. There was no division based on communal identities. Watch the interview here and read the transcript below.
Communal Ideology enters Karnataka in 1980
But in the late 1980s, the scene changed. Karnataka was on the verge of major communal shake up. Since then, certain pockets have been treated as experimental labs of the Hindutva. The coastal belt of Karnataka is the best example. What led to this transformation were the land reforms of 1970s.
These land reforms were progressive in nature and they provided social security to backward classes in the coastal region. They created a category of cultivators who were not landlords. Prior to this, their economy was in doldrums. They were given small patches of land. But after the land reforms, they were able to secure their own social identity. But in the 1980s this changed. There was widespread social and economic crisis. The BJP took advantage of this crisis and tried to appropriate the disillusioned lot which in turn created many fringe groups. Therefore, communal violence in the coastal belt was mainly engineered by the Hindutva groups.
The fringe groups comprised people from the Other Backward Classes. If one observes the structure of communal tension in Karnataka, three things become evident. Communal tension is primarily engineered by Hindutva groups in the coastal belt, the bashing category consists of people from the OBCs; and finally, the ideological apparatus for this was provided by the upper castes. However, this does not mean there was no backlash.
Competitive Communalism
This further gave rise to competitive communalism in the region. Islamic Fundamentalist groups such as the Popular Front of India and the Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI) are results of the aforesaid competitive communalism.
Any kind of dialogue between Muslims and Hindus has nearly stopped in the coastal region. Competitive communalism has also penetrated the public sphere. One sees saffron flags everywhere—in bus stands, tied to poles, rickshaws, etc. Communal tension has seeped into everyday life—one rarely sees people from these two communities get together in the coastal belt.
Communal ideology is increasingly appropriating Karnataka’s syncretic culture. Liberal spaces are shrinking in Karnataka. They are also trying to influence civil society groups and trying to mobilise and organise them.
Converting Hindus into Cultural-Political Hindus
Most importantly, political defeat is not the primary concern of communal politics in Karnataka. What is more important is the task of converting a Hindu into a cultural Hindu, especially people from the Other Backward Classes. In order to do this, they have started appropriating local symbols like Narayan Guru, Ambedkar, Rani Abbakka (the freedom fighter from a place called Ullal) and Kittur Rani Chennamma (by naming a university after her).
In fact, Hindutva forces are also slowly appropriating the corporate sector. In the malls, they supply the security guards.
Multifaceted Fronts to Counter Communal Ideology
Who is countering this rapidly growing communal politics in Karnataka?
There are five or six groups. However, they are not strong enough to confront or counter communal politics in Karnataka. Since communal politics has penetrated everyday life practices: culture, lifestyle, texts, etc, one has to build a strong counter-culture. Strong multifaceted civil society and institutional collectives should be formed to counter communal ideology with ideas of secularism, liberalism, and freedom. Only heterogeneous, multifaceted fronts can help rebuild a tolerant and communally free Karnataka.
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
Jeremy Corbyn
This June 8, British voters will decide whether or not to continue with the conservative status quo, or take a chance on a new kind of left-wing politics that would represent a firm break with the orthodoxies of the ruling Conservative Party and the Labour Party’s establishment wing.
Yet Corbyn has also taken a step further than others in his party have dared, pledging to do what to many progressives remains a shibboleth: oppose war and imperialism and limit the violent blowback they have caused back home.
The liberal political establishment in the U.S. and across Western Europe has uncritically supported wars from Iraq, to Libya, to the push for regime change in Syria, often in the name of humanitarianism and “civilian protection.”
While many progressives have portrayed the so-called War on Terror as an unfortunate but necessary evil, Corbyn has made a crucial break with the norms of the political establishment, condemning the imperial wars the West has waged and emphasizing that this military intervention has only fueled the violent extremism the British government claims to be combating.
A new series of polls shows Corbyn has slashed Prime Minister Theresa May's enormous lead to just 3 points, and has surged ahead of her in London.
Manchester Attack and Government Complicity
On May 22, a man detonated a suicide bomb at a concert in Manchester, England, killing two dozen civilians and wounding more than 100, many of them children. The Salafi-jihadist group ISIS took credit for the attack.
Salman Abedi, the attacker, was a British citizen — not a refugee — from a family that was part of the Western government-backed right-wing Libyan opposition to longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
As Max Blumenthal detailed in an article on AlterNet, the British intelligence services played a direct role in supporting Islamist militancy in Libya, working closely with the Al Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in a cynical bid to topple Qaddafi. When NATO escalated 2011 protests in Libya into an explicit regime change operation , the U.S. and U.K. governments encouraged foreign fighters to travel to the North African nation to help fight. Among those who took the MI6 ratline from Manchester to Libya was Ramadan Abedi, the father of the bomber.
During her tenure as Home Secretary, Theresa May was in charge of overseeing the operations of MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence agency. It was during this time that Libya was flooded with fighters from the U.K., with passports being handed even to British-Libyan citizens under government control orders for their alleged ties to extremist groups.
According to Akram Ramadan , a mechanic from Manchester who fought with the LIFG, roughly three-quarters of all foreign fighters in Libya arrived from his hometown in Britain.
With Ramadan Abedi on the Libyan front lines, his children eventually followed in his footsteps. His youngest son, Hamza, arrived in the country and joined up with an ISIS affiliate, while Salman took a trip to Libya just days before the bombing. Abedi had also reportedly visited Syria, apparently to make common cause with the jihadist groups battling the Syrian government with arms and support from the West and its Gulf allies.
In the past, right-wing politicians have successfully exploited terror attacks like the kind carried out in Manchester, stoking fear and anti-Muslim bigotry to shift public opinion. Jeremy Corbyn, a left-wing anti-war stalwart, upended the dynamic by introducing a counter-narrative that challenged violent extremism at its roots.
While many liberals spoke of the bombing as a mere tragedy, whitewashing its politicized nature, Corbyn pointed his finger at interventionism and empire.
Groundbreaking Speech
In a groundbreaking speech on May 26, Jeremy Corbyn pledged to “change what we do abroad.” He linked Western wars of aggression to the plague of violent jihadist attacks targeting soft targets in the West.
“Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home,” Corbyn noted.
Many experts have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries & terrorism here at home pic.twitter.com/6nlWf67WsI
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 26, 2017
The leftist Labour leader forcefully condemned the “horrific terror and the brutal slaughter of innocent people.” But unlike his political peers, Corbyn did not depoliticize the bombing. He explained that in order to prevent future attacks, Britain’s foreign policy must change. Foreign wars may not be the only thing fueling this violence, he noted, but they are a key factor.
“We must be brave enough to admit the War on Terror is simply not working,” Corbyn emphasized. “We need a smarter way to reduce the threat from countries that nurture terrorists and generate terrorism.”
“That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children,” he added. “Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions.”
Ultimately, in order to defeat terrorism, Corbyn stressed, we must understand what fuels it: “Protecting this country requires us to be both strong against terrorism and strong against the causes of terrorism.”
The Media’s War on Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn’s comments provoked a predictable festival of mock outrage from his Tory opponents, who borrowed a line from their Republican counterparts across the pond and accused him of denigrating the "troops.” The attacks were accompanied by a wave of tabloid headlines alleging that Corbyn had fostered deep friendships with terrorist groups from Hamas to the IRA.
The Conservative Party issued a ham-handed attack, claiming the Labour leader’s speech “has shown today why he is not up to the job of keeping our country safe.” The statement continued , “Jeremy Corbyn has a long record of siding with our enemies.” Britain’s Conservative security minister smeared Corbyn, claiming his speech “justified” terrorism.
Centrist Blairites also chimed in. The liberal interventionist and pro-Israel activist Nick Cohen lashed out at Corbyn, writing a hackneyed op-ed that utterly ignored the Western wars he has wholeheartedly supported that have destabilized the Middle East and fueled Salafi-jihadism. Cohen instead framed violent extremism as a matter of “values,” subtly reinforcing the line of far-right Islamophobes like UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
The corporate media did its part, tarring and feathering the leftist Labour leader. A columnist at the right-wing Telegraph published a hatchet job not so subtly titled “Jeremy Corbyn has long hated Britain.”
Analysis from Loughborough University’s Center for Research in Communication and Culture showed the almost comically ridiculous bias Labour faces in the British media.
Few media outlets, even ostensibly left-leaning newspapers like the Guardian, acknowledged that, in reality, the policies pursued by the U.K.’s right-wing government, with the support of Theresa May, have led to the spread of the type of violent extremism that fueled the Manchester attack.
Virtually no one cited the British government reports that corroborate Corbyn’s argument.
The Government’s Own Findings Back Corbyn Up
Behind the bluster, multiple reports released by the British government backed up Corbyn’s remarks.
In 2016, the British House of Commons’ bipartisan Foreign Affairs Committee published a detailed report on the 2011 war in Libya exposing that the NATO military intervention had been sold on lies .
Among the deceptions deployed to justify NATO regime change was the myth that the Libyan opposition was politically “moderate.” The Foreign Affairs Committee report on the other hand noted that the British government “failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element.”
The House of Commons report added, “It is now clear that militant Islamist militias played a critical role in the rebellion from February 2011 onwards.”
Moreover, the U.K. government’s enormous, decade-long Iraq Inquiry, popularly known as the Chilcot Report , revealed in 2016 that before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, British intelligence officials had repeatedly warned that the joint American-British war would fuel and empower Salafi-jihadist groups like al-Qaeda.
Despite these reports, centrist former Labour prime minister Tony Blair teamed up with the U.S. in an invasion that the United Nations explicitly said violated international law . Blair admitted in 2015 that the Iraq War, in which he played President George W. Bush’s junior partner, gave rise to ISIS .
Closing the Gap
With mere days before the election, Jeremy Corbyn has managed to close the once large chasm between his party and the Tories. And he has done this despite enormous odds and tremendous opposition from his party’s ossified establishment.
When the snap election was scheduled by Prime Minister May in April, it seemed a Tory victory was all but certain. In the months since, support for Labour has slowly increased. On May 31, leading pollster YouGov put Labour just 3 percent behind the Conservatives, which could lose its parliamentary majority. Corbyn and May are neck and neck.
Corbyn has managed to do this in spite of a level of media bias that is almost unprecedented in British politics. Even the Guardian has treated Corbyn as a pariah .
Yet the British public has rejected the elite media’s torrent of attacks, sending a surge of support for Labour. While the political establishment and the corporate media have been unable to explain why the scourge of violent extremism continues, Corbyn has provided the public the answers it has been desperately seeking. His deft response to the Manchester attack appears to be paying dues.
For years, Corbyn has been an outspoken, principled critic of Western wars. He has long been a leader in the Stop the War Coalition. (In a symbolic anecdote, Chelsea Clinton interrupted a Stop the War Coalition event in 2001 that featured Corbyn as a speaker.)
Jeremy Corbyn is trying to mainstream a left-wing alternative to the discredited centrist and the far-right fringe. Rather than running from his political identity, he has put it front and center, reminding British voters after Manchester, “I have spent my political life working for peace and human rights and to bring an end to conflict and devastating wars.”
Corbyn may not beat the odds and unseat May, but his unexpected surge in the polls has served as a stunning rebuke to the militaristic political elite, and gives a glimmer of hope to those who still imagine an end to the forever war.
Ben Norton is a reporter for AlterNet's Grayzone Project. You can follow him on Twitter at @BenjaminNorton .
Max Blumenthal is a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah . His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at@MaxBlumenthal .
Interview with Vijoo Krishnan
Interviewed by Pranjal , Produced by Newsclick Production
The BJP had come to power three years ago promising “Achhe Din” for the farmers and agricultural workers. It had promised an end to farmers’ suicides, ensure remunerative prices for crops, more investment in agriculture, expanded employment opportunities and higher wages under MGNREGA, irrigation facilities to all farms, effective insurance, pensions, scientific land acquisition legislation to protect interests of the peasantry and much more. In this interview Vijoo argues that rather than promised “Achhe Din”, the reality is a deepening of the agrarian crisis.
The incident left me shocked but I wasn’t surprised.
Image: Indian Express
A year earlier, New Delhi had witnessed large scale massacre against Sikhs following the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards at her official residence. She had ordered a military attack on the Golden Temple Complex, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in Amritsar in June 1984 to flush out religious extremists who had stockpiled weapons inside to carry on their armed struggle against the government. The militants were seeking special rights for the Sikhs and Punjab, while the government accused them of conspiring to create a separate state of Khalistan with the help of Pakistan. Indeed, the army operation was followed by series of violent incidents against Hindus in Punjab. The military attack that could have been avoided had left many pilgrims dead and the buildings inside the shrine destroyed igniting angry reaction from the Sikhs across the world.
Since I lived in Amritsar with my parents back then I too witnessed the damage the military operation had brought to the Akal Takht – the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs inside the temple complex. The shattered building had shaken me completely and others in my family.
Months later when Indira Gandhi was assassinated thousands of innocent Sikhs were murdered in New Delhi and other parts of India by the goons led by the members of the her so called secularist Congress party.
The ugly events of 1984 further galvanized the Sikh militant movement and more violence and bomb blasts followed. In June 1985, Air India Flight 182 was bombed mid air above the Irish sea killing all 329 people aboard. The incident was blamed on the Sikh militants based in Canada. The Sikhs who make merely two percent of India’s population came under microscope.
The bus incident wasn’t the only shocker. While we were in Delhi, staying at a small apartment of our aunt, we got a knock on our door by a police contingent one evening. A police team had come to question all of us, to know where we are from and what the purpose of our visit was. To prove our credentials, we had to produce the marriage invitation card from my cousin’s family. The officer who led the police party said that they had received complaints from neighbours who were alarmed at suspected people in the locality. There were some heated arguments between my relatives and the police officials but they finally left satisfied. Until now we had been hearing stories about police harassment of Sikhs outside Punjab, this was the first time we had faced it directly.
Sikh militancy continued and ended by the mid 1990s, but looking back during those days I can confidently say that Punjab had become the laboratory of Hindutva much before Gujarat.
Hindutva laboratory
Hindutva is a political term often used by the supporters of Hindu theocracy, particularly the now ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), who want to turn India into a Hindu state.
The Congress and other secularist activists often accuse BJP of turning Gujarat into a Hindutva laboratory in the year 2002 and before. After all, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is dedicated to the ideology of Hindutva was the Chief Minister of the state when anti Muslim pogrom was organized that year. The massacre followed the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims leaving more than 50 people dead. The BJP government had blamed the Muslim fanatics for the train incident. Much before the massacre, the BJP supporters had tried to terrorize Christians in Gujarat and succeeded in polarizing the society on religious lines in the state to sustain power. The activists who have been following these developments saw the footprints of Hindutva politics behind all these episodes and had warned that once BJP captures power in New Delhi they are going to implement the Hindutva model across the country.
It is not surprising to see that ever since Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014, violence against religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians has grown. This can be explained by the narrative of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) of which the BJP is a part. The RSS considers both Islam and Christianity as alien religions while the Sikhs as part of the Hindu fold for which a section of the Sikh community is also apprehensive of the assimilationist agenda of the BJP.
Not only the Hindutva vigilantes have sharpened their attacks on Muslims and Christians, the police and security forces under Modi have also become more aggressive in dealing with Islamic extremists which has made the lives of ordinary Muslims even more difficult. Much like Sikhs in 1980s-1990s, all Muslims have become potential terrorists in the eyes of the mainstream in India.
Congress verses BJP
While there is no doubt that the BJP is more dangerous, compared to the Congress, because of its well calculated social engineering program to transform India into an exclusionist Hindu nation, the Congress has lost moral right to criticize the BJP on the issue of communal politics for what it did in 1984 and later.
The Congress’ experiment with the fanatical politics was purely for “pragmatic reasons”, whereas for BJP it is more for “programmatic reasons”. That said, the Congress must take blame for turning Punjab into Hindutva laboratory much before the BJP tried to turn Gujarat into a laboratory of hate politics or even before the concept of Hindutva laboratory entered the consciousness of the secularists. Several instances are sufficient to prove this point.
Even before the events of 1984, the Sikhs were frequently demonized by the Congress, the Hindu chauvinists and a section of the media.
Any genuine demand including reorganizing Punjab on linguistic basis for the growth of Punjabi language was seen as unpatriotic. The RSS leaders tried to dub such movement that was not even aimed at separating the Sikhs from India as the one supported by Pakistan. While the Congress remained adamant not to accept it, the Hindi press mocked the demand.
Before the Punjab was reorganized in 1966 – Hindu fanatics ensured that the Punjabi speaking Hindu families declare Hindi and not Punjabi as their mother tongue to defeat the demand for a Punjabi speaking state.
The Sikhs were frequently portrayed as part of the Hindu fold that only strengthened the fears of assimilation within the Sikh community. Besides, the RSS propagandists openly distorted the Sikh history and tried to appropriate it to prove that the Sikhism was created to protect Hinduism from Islam.
Once Punjab was reorganized the river water share was distributed in complete violation of the riparian laws. A BJP leader Laxmi Kanta Chawla had sarcastically commented in an interview with me that there was noting wrong in sharing the river waters of Punjab with the neighbouring states as the Punjab water was not going to Pakistan. Chawla frequently honoured the police officials who were responsible for human rights abuse and the killings of the suspected Sikh militants in staged shootouts.
The Hindu extremists frequently raised provocative slogans that dubbed the Sikhs as anti nationals and Pakistani agents. In any event of violence against innocent Hindus in Punjab by unknown assailants, the innocent Sikhs were targeted outside Punjab by the mobs with the connivance of the police.
When the Golden Temple Complex was stormed, the Hindu chauvinists distributed sweets. The RSS openly justified the army attack and the anti Sikh pogrom following the murder of Indira Gandhi.
Not surprisingly, all this paid dividends to the Congress when it won the general election under Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi with a brute majority. The complicity of the Congress and the RSS in pushing towards a majoritarian democracy was clearly visible. The process laid a ground for the BJP to repeat the experiment in Gujarat in 2002 and enabled Modi to get elected with a strong majority in the election that followed the bloodshed.
Modi’s ascendance to the power is an outcome of the Hindutva laboratory which started being set up in Punjab by the Congress-RSS alliance and has partly contributed to the near decimation of the Congress and other secular parties.
Relevance of 1984
As the Sikhs are getting ready to commemorate the anniversary of the infamous military attack on their Vatican in the first week of June, there is a need to acknowledge how history is being repeated 33 years later when other minority groups have come under attack in India which is otherwise known as world’s largest democracy. Among the most vulnerable are Muslims who have become target of attack internationally due to growing Islamophobia which has made Modi’s task easier.
In Kashmir, a Muslim dominated state where people are fighting for the right to self determination – the paramilitary forces continue to kill people at will. Staged shootouts, forced disappearances and custodial rapes have been common occurrence in the state. Under Modi – the intensity of such attacks has increased.
Tribals who only form eight percent of the total population are also constantly facing barbarity at the hands of the police and the security forces in the name of war against Maoist insurgency.
The mainstream that is consumed by what is being fed to them by the media and the Modi administration is hardly questioning this. But then it never raised questions when Sikhs and Punjab have been facing similar challenges. The discourse of nationalism which had blinded the dominant Hindu society back then remains as powerful and fortified even today.
This is not to justify violence done by the minority extremists. However, the question is how differently they were treated then and are being treated now whereas the Hindutva extremism has continued to enjoy the patronage of the state for all these years. When the state had to deal with handful of extremists holed up inside the Golden Temple Complex, the army was sent to attack a place of worship, but there was no one to save the Sikhs from the mobs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s murder. While the killers of Indira Gandhi were punished promptly, those involved in the violence against Sikhs were elected and awarded with ministerial posts. The alleged killers of the Hindus in Punjab were killed in staged shootouts and the police officials who did all that got out of turn promotions and monetary awards. Obviously, the urban middle class that was too scared of terrorism accepted this as normal. The trend has not changed and today the Muslim men are being hounded in a similar fashion. For the record, the Muslim men who were held in connection with the torching of the train in 2002 were charged for terrorism, whereas the anti terror laws weren’t applied on those who killed innocent Muslims afterwards. Then scores of Muslim men were killed in staged police shootouts after being branded as terrorists in Gujarat. If nothing else, they are shamelessly dubbed as Pakistani agents to shut any criticism of state repression.
The history of 1984 therefore has lessons for those who want to understand how a brutal majoritarian democracy works and help people in power to retain their control by keeping minorities under boot. Nothing is more illustrative to examine the mindset behind today’s Modi government in India and the one that worked behind the Congress three decades earlier.
Gurpreet Singh is an independent journalist based in Canada. He works for Spice Radio in Vancouver and a publisher of monthly magazine Radical Desi that covers alternative politics
Breaking Down the Barriers of Caste
Breaking down social barriers towards creating a more equal world Breaking down social barriers towards creating a more equal world An important area of social intervention that has a far-reaching effect on fostering caste unity and greater social accord, is the concept of community inter-dining of all social classes, eclipsing all man-made barriers and divides, that have worked to the detriment of the socially poor all through the ages. Mid-day meal scheme for the school children was initiated by the Government of India to reduce the school drop-outs, increase retention, provide nutritional supplement to the children in a country with a very high incidence of severe malnutrition and serious child undernourishment. But, one important consideration for an intervention of this kind was also to foster social unity and bring children of all the social classes together in partaking meal, and in the process, help in dismantling the external and visible features of caste inequities, a practice that has been so well entrenched and resilient as to survive for thousands of years, despite the efforts of great religious and social reformers to lessen the caste rigours. Buddhism and Jaimism were the first to challenge the established hierarchical orthodoxy, strongly disapproving of the socially discriminatory practices that relegated certain social classes to the margins. There were instances of some of the most enlightened souls setting personal examples of defying the rigid norms of social behaviour towards greater equality. It was Sujata, belonging to one of the socially marginalised communities, who served a bowl of milk porridge to Gautama Buddha after he had given up the path of asceticism following years of extreme austerity. This event had a major effect on his subsequently attaining enlightenment. During the modern era, the freedom movement was not just seeking political emancipation; it was social too, and saw several movements being launched to oppose and look down upon myriad superstitions, outmoded practices, dogmatic beliefs, and regressive social practices, responsible for the misery for so many, for so long. Kerala was a pioneer in ushering in the concept of community inter-dining, where it was rightly believed that if all were to eat together, the social rigours would be lessened, and it would help in fostering greater social amity, leading to overall and holistic progress, socially, economically and culturally. In celebrating the 100th year of ceremonial inter-dining of all social groups, including those who were socially marginalised, Kerala has shown that it led a virtual social revolution of breaking down the caste barriers and giving the much-needed self-respect and dignity to the hitherto excluded. Social discrimination and exclusions have historically divided the Indian society into a maze of myriad castes and sub-castes, hierarchically placed and rigidly stratified, never presenting a picture of social cohesion and unity. In ushering in this very significant and far-reaching measure of social intervention, a result of enlightened and progressive social policies by the successive governments, Kerala is reaping the benefits today of the most admirable human and social development indicators that it can boast, including high education and health outcomes. Not even Bengal, which was the beneficiary of enlightened liberal thoughts all through the nineteenth century, and where there was a succession of social reformers from Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, could be so pro-active in this very momentous area of social intervention. Till the mid-thirties and forties, separate dining for different castes continued. Even in Tagore’s Shantiniketan, this social evil was not nipped in the bud till the twenties of the last century. For far too long, we have lived with social prejudices and exclusions, and hierarchical privileges. But, times are changing. In the last five decades or so, this country, even where the social indices are quite low and hierarchies are well entrenched, has taken definitive strides towards breaking down all human-made barriers, despite occasional lapses, and towards modernity. We often hear of heart-breaking stories of social exclusion and people being denied their dignity and self-respect, but they are few and far between. The discriminatory practices, and dehumanising too, that were quite in the open in the past, are no longer so. Social reforms are always slow in coming, India being no exception, but the fact that the Constitution and the laws themselves act as a deterrent, would go a long way in ushering in a more equal world, humane, fair and just, as ordained in the Preamble to the Constitution.
An important area of social intervention that has a far-reaching effect on fostering caste unity and greater social accord, is the concept of community inter-dining of all social classes, eclipsing all man-made barriers and divides, that have worked to the detriment of the socially poor all through the ages. Mid-day meal scheme for the school children was initiated by the Government of India to reduce the school drop-outs, increase retention, provide nutritional supplement to the children in a country with a very high incidence of severe malnutrition and serious child undernourishment. But, one important consideration for an intervention of this kind was also to foster social unity and bring children of all the social classes together in partaking meal, and in the process, help in dismantling the external and visible features of caste inequities, a practice that has been so well entrenched and resilient as to survive for thousands of years, despite the efforts of great religious and social reformers to lessen the caste rigours. Buddhism and Jaimism were the first to challenge the established hierarchical orthodoxy, strongly disapproving of the socially discriminatory practices that relegated certain social classes to the margins. There were instances of some of the most enlightened souls setting personal examples of defying the rigid norms of social behaviour towards greater equality. It was Sujata, belonging to one of the socially marginalised communities, who served a bowl of milk porridge to Gautama Buddha after he had given up the path of asceticism following years of extreme austerity. This event had a major effect on his subsequently attaining enlightenment.
During the modern era, the freedom movement was not just seeking political emancipation; it was social too, and saw several movements being launched to oppose and look down upon myriad superstitions, outmoded practices, dogmatic beliefs, and regressive social practices, responsible for the misery for so many, for so long.
Kerala was a pioneer in ushering in the concept of community inter-dining, where it was rightly believed that if all were to eat together, the social rigours would be lessened, and it would help in fostering greater social amity, leading to overall and holistic progress, socially, economically and culturally. In celebrating the 100th year of ceremonial inter-dining of all social groups, including those who were socially marginalised, Kerala has shown that it led a virtual social revolution of breaking down the caste barriers and giving the much-needed self-respect and dignity to the hitherto excluded.
Social discrimination and exclusions have historically divided the Indian society into a maze of myriad castes and sub-castes, hierarchically placed and rigidly stratified, never presenting a picture of social cohesion and unity. In ushering in this very significant and far-reaching measure of social intervention, a result of enlightened and progressive social policies by the successive governments, Kerala is reaping the benefits today of the most admirable human and social development indicators that it can boast, including high education and health outcomes. Not even Bengal, which was the beneficiary of enlightened liberal thoughts all through the nineteenth century, and where there was a succession of social reformers from Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, could be so pro-active in this very momentous area of social intervention. Till the mid-thirties and forties, separate dining for different castes continued. Even in Tagore’s Shantiniketan, this social evil was not nipped in the bud till the twenties of the last century.
For far too long, we have lived with social prejudices and exclusions, and hierarchical privileges. But, times are changing. In the last five decades or so, this country, even where the social indices are quite low and hierarchies are well entrenched, has taken definitive strides towards breaking down all human-made barriers, despite occasional lapses, and towards modernity. We often hear of heart-breaking stories of social exclusion and people being denied their dignity and self-respect, but they are few and far between. The discriminatory practices, and dehumanising too, that were quite in the open in the past, are no longer so. Social reforms are always slow in coming, India being no exception, but the fact that the Constitution and the laws themselves act as a deterrent, would go a long way in ushering in a more equal world, humane, fair and just, as ordained in the Preamble to the Constitution.
AAP, which has accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to rig results in its favour, has announced that it will hold a parallel hackathon of its own tomorrow.
Highlights of Uttarakhand Court Order
♦Hackathon with vote machines could be unconstitutional: court
♦Political parties claim machines can be rigged
♦Election Commission dares them to prove it tomorrow
The Election Commission has organized more than 10 vote machines that were recently used in elections including in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for tomorrow's hackathon, where political parties will try to prove in Delhi that the machines can be rigged. However, the Uttarakhand High Court has said the event is unconstitutional; the Election Commission has said it will not cancel its plans. The court will deliver its verdict later this evening.
The same court that had earlier asked for voting machines used in the Uttarakhand election to be sequestered after Congress candidates complained that the result was gamed against them. Today's warning to the Election Commission against its plans for tomorrow is based on a case filed by a Congressman, Dr Ramesh Pandey, who says the Commission does not have the authority to conduct the event.
So far, these are the arrangements made for the hackathon. A total of 14 Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs will be made available to representatives of Sharad Pawar's party and the Left who hope to prove that the Election Commission is wrong and that the equipment used by it can be gamed, as alleged by a series of political outfits including the Congress and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party or AAP after Prime Minister Narendra Modi front-lined his party's gigantic wins in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
AAP, which has accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to rig results in its favour, has announced that it will hold a parallel hackathon of its own tomorrow. The machine it will make available to techies and others is the one that was used by the party in the Delhi Assembly last month in a televised demonstration of its manipulation. The Election Commission said the machine used was a far cry from the real thing and rejected the result.
Hackers will get only five hours – from 10 am to 2 pm – and access to four machines each during the EC's Hackhaton tomorrow. The other EVMs will be kept as back up.
The Election Commission has said its challenge has two parts – the hackers will have to prove that the EVMs used in the five states that just voted including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab were manipulated to favour a particular candidate or political party by altering the results stored in them.
Part Two of the challenge calls for participants to prove that the machines used in the assembly polls were manipulated before or on the day of voting.
The participant will be considered "failed" if the EVM stops functioning as a result of its inbuilt defense mechanism against tampering.
The participants – three members per party – can "physically examine" EVMs and check circuits, chips and motherboard, but cannot replace any part. Arvind Kejriwal's party had asked for these restrictions to be removed, claiming it "would not be possible to tamper with the machines without giving people a free hand to do so.
Iconic Actor, Naseeruddin Shah's article penned for Indian National Dail;y, Hindustan Times is a scorching reflection of the low leve;s that Indian public discourse has been reduced to
The entire article may be read here
“Evidently, as a Muslim, it should not be my concern to urge India and Pakistan not to hurt each other and if I did I was pro-Pak.”
"Never before in our country have rational statements of concern and pleas for peace, not only from Muslims, been interpreted as cowardly or seditious. It is almost as if the day was being awaited when this could be done. A Facebook post quoting Einstein’s warning about nuclear warfare received a few likes but the fair share of abuse and vilification of Islam it also got stumped me. I was even warned “not to poke your nose in matters that don’t concern you”! That the survival of the human race does not concern me was indeed news. Evidently, as a Muslim, it should not be my concern to urge India and Pakistan not to hurt each other and if I did I was pro-Pak, “because we are going to bomb the shit out of them” proclaimed one desi troll whose ideal obviously is the Donald.
"Like all children growing up in India post-partition, I heard horror stories of “them” just as “they” certainly heard identical ones about “us”. The supposed savagery of the Sikhs was much mentioned, but I don’t think I ever connected those deeds with the Sikh and Hindu friends I had, and I know the feeling was reciprocal. These acts of depravity were committed by unnamed villians not real people, we all thought; incidentally the longest lasting, dearest friends I have had in my life have been mostly Sikhs, and considering the extreme bloodletting between Sikhs and Muslims at partition, doesn’t it say something about subsequent political machinations that those two communities have never been at each other’s throats again? The puerile religious taunts schoolchildren unthinkingly tossed around then were never venomous enough to even warrant fisticuffs but these nebulous aversions seem to have crystallised over time and found their targets – each other.
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