Today on the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Newsclick remembers him. We are republishing an interview with Prof. Chaman Lal (retired) from JNU about Bhagat Singh’s legacy.
On the unsubstantiated allegation of consuming and storing beef, in 2015 a mob had thrashed Mohammed Akhlaq inside his home Bisahda village, Dadri, Uttar Pradesh. The incendiary mob had even threatened the women members of the family with sexual violence.
Now comes the report from another village in the same state of a Muslim youth being thrashed to death for allegedly attempting to steal a cow.
The incident took place in Dagrauli village located in the Hasanpur area in Amroha district.
The villagers claim four thieves had entered the village late at night to steal a cow. According to the police, villager Brahmpal and his wife were awakened by the sound of a vehicle. Stepping out of their home they reportedly saw four youth attempting to drive away with their cow.
The couple shouted for help and caught hold of one of the youth. The villagers say that finding themselves surrounded by the villagers they resorted to firing, injuring six persons. But the villagers grabbed hold of one of the youth while three others fled from the scene under cover of fire.
The nabbed youth was beaten to death. By the time the police reached the scene, the youth had breather his last. A case has been registered. The name of the deceased youth is said to be Nasir who was a native of Rampur.
Soon after being sworn-in as chief minister, Yogi Adityanath had issued directions to the police to stop the smuggling of cows. Illegal slaughter houses have also been ordered to be sealed and the police have started action accordingly.
Following the swearing-in last Sunday, a slaughter house was shutdown in Allahabad on Monday. On Tuesday one slaughter house in Varanasi and 15 in Ghaziabad were similarly sealed. Shutting down illegal slaughter houses was part of the BJP’s manifesto issued during the recently concluded Assembly polls in UP.
Updated
Ever since Yogi Adityanath, a known face of militant Hindutva, has become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the right-wing brigade has erupted in excitement. While social media has been replete with incredibly menacing threats for known BJP critics, the BJP supporters have also now begun flaunting their ‘power’ against members of minority community.
In one such incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district, a man was seen threatening a group of Muslim women using Yogi Adityanath’s name even as his wife thrashed them even as police personnel watched as silent spectators.
Meerut has always been notorious for communal tension in the past.
Will such incidents be now be a new normal under Yogi Aditynath? That remains a million dollar question, at least for now!
Watch the video below!
(Our earlier version had wrongly said that the lady who thrashed Muslim women was the wife of the person who threatened them using the chief minister’s name.) – Janta Ka Reporter
Courtesy: Janata Ka Reporter
Interview with Prof. Prabhat Patnaik
Interviewed by Pranjal , Produced by Newsclick Production
Newsclick talks to Professor Prabhat Patnaik on the impact of BJP's victory on the Indian Economy. He says that the victory is being wrongly interpreted as a victory of demonetisation. The disastrous effects of demonetisation are not yet over. They are going to continue. If the government assumes it to be a success, they might bring more such bravado measures, which would put the economy to serious grief. The neoliberal policies would continue and they would give more space for multinationals to come and invest in India. There would be a further communal assault on Indian Polity. GST is projected as something which will add to India’s growth rate. While it implies curtailment of States powers.
The controversial BJP leader, Subramanian Swamy has threatened Muslims leaders to give up their claims on the disputed Babri-Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi plot in Ayodhya or else none can stop the Union government from pass a law on the building of Ram Mandir at the spot the moment the BJP-led NDA government gains a majority in the Rajya Sabha next year.
Image: PTI
In a tweet message Swamy said,
This was followed up with a second tweet:
Responding to the tweet messages the Congress party has demanded that he be prosecuted for contempt of court.
Last year the BJP leader had intervened in the case over the disputed plot pending before the Supreme Court since 2011 asking for an early disposal of the case. While hearing him on Tuesday, the Supreme Court had suggested that it would be better if the parties in the dispute were to arrive at an out-of-court settlement in this “sensitive” and “sentimental matter”.
The apex court’s bench headed by chief justice JS Khehar even offered the services of a court-appointed principal mediator if the contending parties so desired. Swamy is to report back to the court after exploring the matter with the disputants by March 31.
Even as he expressed his willingness for talks as suggested by the apex court, Swamy has made it clear that there was no question of any compromise on the Ram Mandir being built at the spot.
Within days of UP’s newly-elected chief minister Yogi Adityanath declaring a crackdown on slaughterhouses, three butcher shops were gutted in Hathras town even as the police have swung into action across the state. Arson by cow vigilantes has not been ruled out in the burning down of the Hathras shops.
A front-page news published in the Urdu daily Inquilab has reported that police have shutdown slaughterhouses and illegal butcher shops across numerous cities in UP, including Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Gonda, Kannauj, Hardoi, Kanpur, Varanasi, Jaunpur and Azamgarh. Being targeted are not only slaughter houses and butcher shops selling buffalo meat but even those selling mutton and chicken, according to reports.
Meanwhile a news portal reports that illegal slaughter houses and meat shops were sealed by the police in Lucknow, the state capital.
Here below is an English translation of the Inquilab report:
No sooner has Yogi Adityanath taken charge of UP after a thumping BJP victory in the Assembly polls, that he has targeted the food habits of the state’s minorities. In his very first directive as chief minister, he has ordered a clampdown on illegal slaughter houses across the state. And the police have been swift in enforcing the directive. Reports from different cities indicate that the police crackdown on slaughter houses and butcher shops has created an atmosphere of fear and terror among those engaged in the business, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
In Ghazipur, one slaughter house and several shops have reportedly been sealed by the administration. The crackdown has continued for the second successive day in Gorakhpur with one slaughter house and many shops being shut down. Locals have complained that even shops selling mutton, chicken and fish are not being spared.
Slaughter of cows and its progeny have been banned in UP but those engaged in the buffalo meat business too are being targeted. The new CM reportedly wants to ban the slaughter of buffaloes as well.
The administration claims that its actions are only against illegal slaughter houses and butcher shops where the licenses have expired.
In Gonda, 12 shops have been shut down in the meat market. Similar action has been taken against one shop in Kannauj, four in Hardoi, three in Kanpur, three shops and one slaughter house in Maunath Bhanjan.
In Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the crackdown has continued for the third successive day. In Jaunpur, 12 shops have been sealed and orders have been issued for the shutdown of slaughter houses in the city’s vicinity. In Azamgarh, too, several shops have been ordered shut.
Following the shutdown of all slaughter houses in Gorakhpur, the Qureshi community demonstrated before the district collector’s office on Wednesday. They threatened to take to the streets unless a solution was found to restore their means of livelihood.
The strict action launched by the administration has generated uncertainty and fear among butchers who trade only in mutton. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the situation, poultry traders have increased the price of chicken.
There is no disputing that the Narendra Modi-led BJP’s decisive, even spectacular victory in the politically significant state of Uttar Pradesh signals not just that much of his personal popularity remains but also that his party, grounded as always with the huge organisational muscle of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has mastered the fix that the Indian first past the post electoral system requires to win. The writer has written about the brazen use of money and muscle by the BJP, as also the carefully spun anti-minority rhetoric of Modi and his men, as the seven phase polls in UP wound down to the last day on March 8. The utter disregard for the Muslim minority vote or their concerns has laced the BJP’s policy framework and campaign especially since Modi captured the national leadership in the run up for the last general election in May 2014. (he was elected prime ministerial candidate in 2013)
Despite the high drama of this particular win, and the high decibel superlatives on Indian television channels so cheekily described by one of India’s sane television watchers, the veteran Shailaja Bajpai when she wrote of a “Dear Modi from Trump” column on March 16, dry numbers tell a more nuanced tale. Bajpai describes the terms used by India’s television anchors, “ ‘Look how they described your brilliant victory in the polls: “Modi Tsunami Sweeps”, “Tsunamo”, “Modi juggernaut”, “Modiwave”, “NaMoStar”, “NaMoStan”, “NaMoIsDominant”,
“NaMoForNewIndia”, “Modi, Modi, Modi’” and goes on in Trump mode to bemoan the American New York Times (NYT) and BBC as ‘losers’ in comparison!! What makes Indian television so grovel, fear, sycophancy or worse, a brazen corporate connect, is a question, too that needs asking!
Let’s come back to the results and the much needed, rational analysis, however. While there is no denying at all that the ‘Modi phenomenon’ needs serious, focused and more rigorous political tackling, there is no gainsaying the fact either that the BJP’s saffron chariot may have been convincingly halted in Uttar Pradesh just as dramatically as it was in Bihar just a year and a quarter back in November 2015, had the ‘secular’ opponents to what we in India dub as a proto-fascist force like the RSS, tied up in a grand alliance.
What then prevented from the political opponents of saffron-hued majoritarianism from coming together ‘to defeat the common enemy?’
Narendra Modi's party finally ended up with an impressive 312 seats in a House of 403, polling 39.7 per cent of the state's votes, while the Samajwadi-Congress alliance won just 54 seats. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party finished third with 19 seats. The BJP's two allies, the Apna Dal and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, together won 13 seats, with the Apna Dal's 9 seats outdoing the Congress's 7.
But what about the vote share? While there is no disputing that the defeat of all ‘secular’ forces in the politically significant state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) has been ignominious and the victory of the BJP under Modi decisive, yet again, the disparity between vote share and seats won, by themselves tell a story. Have a look at what is already up on the Election Commission of India Website.
A whopper of 312 seats won by the saffron BJP was a result achieved with a decisive 39.7 voter share, not an insignificant feat. What is not so explicable however, until one dissects both India’s first past the post system, voter distribution and share over vast regions and constituencies is the fact that second in vote share is the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that even in the state assembly seats of 2017 got the second highest vote share at 22.9 per cent. The Samajwadi Party (SP) at a close number 3 with 21.8 per cent of the vote share won 47 seats and the Congreess with barely 6.2 per cent of the vote share got 7 seats!!
Number crunching takes us further: the BJP's votes in 183 of the seats it has won are less than the combined votes of the Samajwadi-Congress alliance and Mayawati's party, whom outgoing chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had tried courting on the eve of the results. Only The Telegraph, published from Kolkatta dealt with this at some length. Had the leaders of the three parties that opposed the RSS-BJP ensured that it was not a triangular contest (Akhilesh Yadav of the SP, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress and Mayawati of the BSP) and struck a successfully functioning pre-poll alliance, the BJP would have, arguably, won just 129 seats. The BJP's allies too would have lost seven of the seats they won, and the coalition would have logged in a tally of 263, a clear majority (this is after the adding the seats won anyway by the alliance and the BSP). Not as dramatic as what the BJP clocked in, but a clear majority nevertheless. And UP would have been saved the current brand of rabid majoritarianism, made worse by the choice of Adityanath by the Modi-Shah combine as chief minister.
In November 2015, another politically significant state of Bihar had ensured just such a loss for the BJP (under Modi)—the second state defeating the ‘charismatic prime minister’ after Delhi state in January 2015. In that election too the BJP had received more votes than any other party – 24.4 per cent of those polled in the state overall. But the "grand alliance" of the JDU (16.85 per cent of the vote), RJD (18.35 per cent) and the Congress (6.66 per cent) swept the election with a combined vote share of 41.86 per cent, winning 178 seats in a House of 243. The BJP won just 53 seats. The dye has however now been metamorphically cast and the run up to 2019 already gives a handicap to Modi and the BJP.
Here’s a quick look at only some of these 183 seats where the tally of the SP-INC and BSP’s votes is higher than that of the winning candidates, from the BJP. [The Sabrangindia Team has done a seat wise tally of these seats that will be uploaded here by the end of this week]. In the rural seat of Ajgara, that falls within the parliamentary seat of the prime minister (Varanasi), the number 2 candidate, Lalji Sonkar (SP) polled a not insignificant 62,429 votes and the number 3 from the BSP polled 52,480. Together this amounts to 1,14909 votes a decisively higher number than that polled by the winner from the BJP’s alliance partner, the Sukhdev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Kailash Nath Sonkar who got 83,778 votes. Similarly in another constituency located within the Varanasi segment, Pindra also a rural segment, the combined votes of the number two candidate from the BSP and the number 3 from the Congress were 10,1954 votes, higher than what the winner from the BJP got which was 90,614 votes.
Two of the eight assembly segments could have thus been wrested from the BJP in the Varanasi segment and in another three, Varanasi North, Shivpur and Sevapuri a more decisive fight ensured if such a grand alliance had been in place. Similarly look at the Aurai seat where the BJP candidate won with 83,325 votes. The SP candidate at number 2 with 63,546 votes and the BSP at number 3 with 49,059 votes together got 11,2605 votes.
Or check out the Aonia seat where the SP and BSP at number 2 and 3 respectively polled 11,3811 votes and the BJP won with just 63,165 significantly lower than the combined tally. In Allahabad North constituency, again, the BJP won with 85, 518 votes when the number two, sassy student leader Richa Singh from the SP obtained 60,182 votes and the number 3 from the BSP polled in 40,499 (totalling 100,681 votes.
The list is long and a similar trend can be seen in 183 of UP’s state assembly seats. Aliganj, Aligarh and Alapur tell a similar story. In Aliganj the combined votes of the secular opposition is 121119 votes and the BJP candidate won with 88,695 votes. In Aligarh where the BJP won with 11,3752 votes the number 2 and 3, SP and BSP respectively polled 98,312 and 25,704 votes totalling12,4016 votes. Similarly in Alapur where the BJP won getting 72,366 votes, the combined opposition vote is far higher at 11,8444.
So what was it about narrow, competitive politics that did not ensure a sagacious and rational alliance that could have stopped the majoritarian and supremacist BJP in its track? Will India be able to recover from this historical miscalculation and political short-sightedness? Amethi in Uttar Pradesh is a particularly crucial constituency for the Congress given the fact that the Gandhi scion, Rahul Gandhi wins his parliamentary seat from here. Even here, in this crucial assembly segment, the ‘secular opposition’ was not able to bury their personality driven differences and what followed was not a three but a four cornered contest!
Here is what the poll results show: The SP candidate polled 59,161 (quite close to the winner from the BJP who acquired 64,226 votes) while the BSP at number 3 polled 30,175 votes; worse the Congress also polled a separate candidate (belying the alliance logic) and got 20,241 votes. Add up the three opposition parties and you have a figure of 10,9577 votes decisively higher than what the BJP candidate won. But win they did.
The Muslim Vote
This writer has written consistently on how the BJP has over the past two elections successfully marginalised the Muslim vote in UP. Muslim votes make up about 19% of the electorate. The BJP's resounding victory , even in Muslim concentration areas, has led to speculation that, either the Muslim vote got divided between SP and BSP letting BJP win easily, or that Muslims voted for BJP. Both appear to be erroneous theories.
The SP (29%) and BSP (18%) together got 47% vote in the 59 constituencies in UP where more than a quarter of the voters are Muslim. This is virtually unchanged since 2012 elections, although it went down to 43% in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. So, the Muslim support for the two parties is intact. The difference this time was that the BJP mopped up most of the other votes –getting 39% of total votes. This was less than their 43% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections but still so far ahead of the rivals that they won 39 seats while SP won 17 and BSP ended up with none. SP's 29% vote share in these seats shows that its Muslim sup port base was largely intact.The Dalit Vote There was a much hyped battle between the BJP and BSP to win the Dalit votes, especially non-Jatav dalits. Dalits make up about 21% of the population in UP. Since the BSP lost badly in the elections ending up with just 19 seats, there was a view that the Dalits voted en masse for the BJP.
Actually , the BSP has got 24% votes, down from its 27% in 2012 but up from 23% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Among the 85 reserved seats in the state, the BJP outflanked all other parties by getting 40% of the votes with the BSP a distant second at 24%. Again, the BJP's appeal was across all castes and may have included some Dalit communities too, but BSP's vote share indicates that it is just about retaining its Dalit base while the BJP surged ahead.
Much is now being written and said about the need to match Modi’s social media engineering, the BJP’s troll expertise, the Modi magic with the electorate. None of these are insignificant observations. Senior analyst and former Indian bureaucrat, SP Shukla has called for the need for a more transformative agenda that appeals to the small peasantry and youth, but also which rises above the simple arithmetic of identity based politics. The language of that mobilisation will be crucial in coming months and a real challenge to the Indian political class. Are they up to the task?
Says Shukla, “The explosive potential of the peasantry in crisis cannot be overstated. Nor that of the burgeoning legions of youth seeking jobs with dignity. Today they could be won over by the slogans of cultural nationalism and the tactics of social engineering. But it would not be long before the hollowness of the strategy is exposed spreading massive discontent and unforeseen, anarchic upheavals.
No nation-state can survive long, let alone prosper, with a huge population of 18 crores of its people sulking as second- class citizens and feeling insecure. No amount of ‘nationalist’ sloganeering can eradicate that fact. No amount of force can alter that fact. The only viable politics for India is that based on the inclusive and modern values of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity and Justice. We need to reinvigorate these fundamentals enshrined in our constitution and reconstruct the narrative of nation-building.
Video Courtesy: IAMC TV
Setalvad's brief testimony was before a full session of the UN Human Rights Council on March 15, 2017, with all the UN member countries in attendance, convened to review the report of the UN Rapporteur on Minority Rights. She noted that since the UN Special Rapporteur's 2013 General Assembly report, the following developments had taken place in India:
1.Speeches by political leaders and members of Parliament had exacerbated the violence in Muzaffarnagar that claimed over 60 lives and left thousands homeless;
2. The targeting of religious minorities accused of "improper" conversions from Hinduism;
3. In the wake of state laws banning the sale of beef, mob attacks on people alleged to have beef in their possession have becoming a recurring event;
4. The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial or arbitrary executions noted that encounter killings "have become virtually a part of unofficial State policy" in India;
5. The above acts are often committed with impunity stemming in part from close alignment between the government and non-state actors;
6. Law enforcement agencies fabricate terrorism cases where Muslims are often targets.
Her testimony was part of a larger effort by several partner organizations that includes a joint submission to the UN Human Rights Council for India's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) scheduled for May 4,2017.
To view the testimony on the UN's webtv may be viewed here.
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