Post all details of Gandhi’s assassination on wesbite of National Archives: CIC order

February 23, 2017

CIC order will effectively reduce the number of the RTI applications on Gandhi assassination related issues.

Image credit: Rarereports.com

The Central Information Commission on Thursday directed that the statement of Nathuram Godse, along with other relevant records related to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, be “proactively disclosed” on the website of the National Archives.

“The Right to Information is intrinsic in this fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression as held by Supreme Court in several judgments, and thus the reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) do apply to the right to information also. The restrictions under Section 8 of RTI Act, are more or less coached in the same theme and language of Article 19(2). Thus the Bombay High Court cleared the disclosure/circulation after considering several grounds of restrictions, which are akin to Section 8(1) (a). Moreover, the appellant is seeking only the statement of Nathuram Godse as given to the trial court in Mahatma Gandhi Assassination case, which cannot be denied. One may disagree with Nathuram Godse and his co-accused, but we cannot refuse disclosure or circulation of his opinion,” Prof. M. Sridhar Acharyulu observed.

The Commission was hearing an appeal filed by Mr. Ashutosh Bansal, who had sought a copy of the chargesheet issued against Nathuram Godse, his statement before the Court, and the details of the persons and the organisation responsible for Gandhi’s assassination. The question now posed before the CIC was whether disclosure of Godse’s statement be denied, on the ground that it could cause Hindu-Muslim enmity.

The Commission however ruled that Section 8(1) (a) did not apply to the case at hand, and observed, “The Commission also directs the NAI to place the index of records available now with them about assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on their official website along with the procedure to gain access, and recommends development of an archive to include present digitized records and collect as many as possible from various sources to be part of their disclosures under Section 4(1) (b). This will effectively reduce the number of the RTI applications on Gandhi assassination related issues.”

Read the order here.

Courtesy: LiveLaw.

CPI(M), SFI demand immediate action against Delhi police, ABVP activists for attacks

February 23, 2017

'Won't tolerate this, ' warns Delhi's top cop; 'Few policemen’s unprofessional actions noticed… Strict action will be taken': Joint CP, Delhi

Update:
A chair was flung at a teacher and classes were suspended at Delhi University's Ramjas College on Thursday amid tension a day after clashes between student activists over an invite to JNU's Umar Khalid to address a seminar at the college. A rioting case has been filed by the police against students involved in the clashes, NDTV has reported.

Yesterday, about 20 students and at least one teacher were injured in clashes with activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a group linked to the BJP. The Delhi Police have been asked to investigate whether its personnel were guilty of using excess force.

"This is the national capital, we won't tolerate this," said police chief Amulya Patnaik on the college violence.

Delhi Police has also set up an inquiry into the conduct of its personnel.

Accusing the Delhi police for being in cahoots with the BJP-affiliated ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), in the attacks on students and teachers, the CPI (M) and its student wing SFI have strongly condemned the incident and demanded immediate penal action against the complicit police and the ABVP activists.

Meanwhile, the online portal Quint has reported Joint CP, Delhi, Dependra Pathak as commenting: “In north campus, few policemen’s unprofessional actions noticed. An enquiry has been launched. Strict actions will be taken. The situation being monitored. In future protest, we request students to remain peaceful”.

Also read: What happened in DU today is not 'ho-hum', 'another clash between Right and Left'.

Journalists covering Wednesday's clashes outside Ramjas College were slapped, punched and kicked by about a dozen policemen, all without nameplates, the Times of India reported.

TOI correspondent Sompreet Bhattacharya and photographer Anindya Chattopadhyay, Times Now reporter Priyank and cameraman Mazhar Khan and several other journalists were beaten up by these policemen who also snatched their phones and cameras and deleted photos and videos. A TOI intern shooting a video was also thrashed.

Quint reported that three of its reporters were assaulted both by the police and ABVP activists.

The CPI(M)/SFI statement on Facebook on Wednesday said SFI members participating in the protest were brutally beaten.

The statement adds: “Delhi State Committee of SFI condemns the hooliganism unleashed by the ABVP lumpens on a peaceful protest march organised in Delhi University. The protesters comprising of both students and teachers were raising their voice against the violence unleashed by ABVP activists in a conference which happened in Ramjas College yesterday and were marching towards Maurice Nagar police station. Stones and glass bottles were thrown at students and teachers, media persons were kicked and punched in this violent rampage of ABVP goons. Predictably, the police stood as mere spectators. However, this could not deter the spirit of the march which reached their destination; Maurice Nagar police station”.

“We want to remind ABVP and their masters in the government that we will never bow down to the RSS-police nexus. We are confident that our strength rooted in political conviction and courage will ensure your political defeat,” the statement added.

Kerala was a beacon of hope for India on gender issues, but things are changing for the worse

February 23, 2017

The alleged abduction and assault of a well-known actress in the southern Indian state of Kerala has caused outrage among activists who say the case highlights the dangers faced by all women in India and a lack of justice for victims of sexual violence.

An activist takes part in a protest in December 2015 to mark the third anniversary of the Delhi bus gang rape. EPA/RAJAT GUPTA

There has been much anger from the film industry and feminist groups regarding the safety of young girls in Kerala society. Sadly, this case is not an isolated incident. The rising number of attacks against women and girls in India’s most literate state is indeed shocking.

According to the data on the Kerala Police website, the number of rape cases has risen from 500 in 2007 to 1,644 in 2016. The acclaimed model of Kerala’s gender and social development is clearly at a crossroads.

Actor Mohanlal Viswanathan Nair, popularly known as Mohanlal, posted a statement about the attack on his Facebook page. Facebook

In recent times, the women of Kerala were portrayed as progressive “female capital” thanks to higher literacy levels than women from the rest of the country. The kinship system of “Marumakkathayam” is unique to Kerala. This simply means the practice of matriliny, whereby inheritance of family property is traced through daughters, rather than sons. Thus the eldest son is responsible for his sisters’s children and particularly their daughters. This familial descent and the inheritance of property is widely practised among many communities, such as some nair caste groups.

The inheritance of property rights by daughters has also allowed women to enjoy more status within households. Some of the practices of this traditional kinship system included polyandry (many husbands for women) and the joint family system. Furthermore, other left-leaning social movements and progressive measures in education and health policies have enabled women to enjoy a greater level of equality.

Progressive claims

The Kerala model of social development, even with lower economic growth, was lauded in both academic debates and by development agencies until the mid-1990s. But this general narrative is criticised due to widening social inequalities and marginalisation of its minorities.

The claims of a progressive state with “empowered women” sits uncomfortably alongside rising levels of misogyny. In addition to direct forms of violence against women, women in public spheres are targeted both through direct and online abuse. Some examples include the sexist and denigatory statements of the film director Major Ravi against a renowned TV journalist based on her reporting of the controversial presentation of the Goddess Durga; online abuse targeted at the TV presenter Ranjani Haridas who is seen as a
“liberated” and “modern” Malayalee woman; and ongoing opposition for women’s entry into the Sabarimala Temple.

The tone of such misogyny points to the notions of non-conformity of “progressive” Malayalee women to Bharatheeya (Indian) ideals of domesticity, modesty and conservative religious values. Thus women are still seen as an important “capital-bearing” object, both in how they are perceived as a “subordinate” confined to domestic and caring roles behind closed doors, and how they are represented as a “sexual” form through cultural practices or popular culture, such as films.

The concept of gender as capital is a useful tool for understanding contemporary gender relations in Kerala. Despite women’s higher education, the female capital is seen to be confined to the private home life. This is because women’s “gender capital” is identified with traits of femininity, such as domestication, passivity and subordination to male superiority (including sexuality).

Members of the All India Democratic Women’s Association protest against an alleged gang rape of a nursing student in Kerala, May 2016. EPA/RAJAT GUPTA

Meanwhile, notions of femininity and feminine traits are being simultaneously devalued or disadvantaged in the public sphere. The higher echelons of political and economic power in Kerala are still dominated by men. In many ways, the Kerala model has not come to include or value its feminine capital by expanding the role of women as equals in society. Rather it has led to a loss or erosion of gender capital – as the escalating violence against women and girls shows.

Rising forms of patriarchial tendencies, such as the withdrawal of women from the labour market and dowry practices – where the bride’s parents pay a bride price to the groom – limit women’s meaningful participation in society.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2016 which captures various gender disparities has placed India in 108th position. The undervaluing of women’s work was cited as the main reason for closing gaps in education and occupational segregation. For example, care work and nursing is largely a female occupation and is often undervalued and seen as a “natural” female attribute. While women have used their feminine capital by entering into economic employment in Kerala, this is mostly in the care and service sectors. Such realms of work show how women’s work choices operate within boundaries of gender and social norms.

Kerala continues to pose a troubling conundrum. The current debates on equality and development should move beyond the rhetoric of gender equality, and begin examining lived experiences of women and men in different contexts. For Kerala, it is time to reflect on the processes of social reproduction within the society through addressing its gender bias.

Shoba Arun, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Amit Shah does not need to look to UP for goondagardi – ABVP offers it in Delhi too

February 23, 2017

A year after the authorities in Delhi stood by as right-wing mobs attacked students, teachers and journalists in a city court with impunity, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is back at it. On Tuesday, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed students group locked a seminar hall in Delhi University’s Ramjas College and began pelting stones at it. The ABVP’s violence was in response to Ramjas inviting Umar Khalid, a Jawaharlal Nehru University student who was accused of sedition in 2016, to speak at a literary festival on campus. As a consequence, the college withdrew the invitation to Khalid. A day later, when students and teachers decided to protest the ABVP’s violence, the marches devolved into clashes .

Image: PTI

On Wednesday, the police, who were well aware of the tensions on Tuesday, unsuccessfully attempted to segregate the ABVP members from those belonging to the left-backed All India Students Association, as well as teachers who were also protesting. The police later filed a First Information Report against unnamed persons, after complaints that several students, teachers and even some of their own personnel had been injured. According to the Times of India, journalists were even “slapped, punched and kicked” by police personnel.

The incident suggests that Delhi, and the Delhi Police in particular, have not learnt enough from recent incidents. Last year, right-wing mobs complaining about Khalid and fellow students sloganeering in JNU, were allowed to attack their critics without fear of legal action. Right-wing mobs even managed to cloister a judge and the accused in the sedition case into a room inside Delhi’s Patiala House court complex while they beat up journalists and students outside. The home ministry, which oversees Delhi Police and is responsible for law and order in the capital, seemed more interested in finding fictitious Pakistani connections to the sloganeering students than cracking down on the violent mobs.

Of course, ABVP had the right to protest Khalid’s invitation. But its willingness to resort to violence suggests it has no interest in ensuring a free space for discourse that a college ought to provide. More dangerous is the police’s inability to maintain law and order.

On Wednesday, on the campaign trail in Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah complained about goondagardi or mob rule in the state, and referred to his political opponents as Kasab – Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, an acronym that is reference to the name of the terrorist who was caught in the Mumbai attacks. Yet, his own government is unable to prevent violence from an outfit affiliated to his party. If the violence that occurs in Uttar Pradesh is goondagardi, how is the capital under Delhi Police and the ABVP any different?

This article was first published on Scroll.in

Row with LG: SC to look into AAP govt’s plea for setting up of constitution bench

February 23, 2017

The Supreme Court today said it would look into the plea for early setting up of a constitution bench to hear AAP government’s appeals against the high court verdict holding LG as the administrative head of Delhi.
The matter was mentioned by the Delhi government before a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar who said, “we will see whether it will come up before or after the summer vacations.”

Senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, representing Delhi government, told the bench that this matter has been referred to a five-judge constitution bench and the court, while referring the matter, had “acknowledged that it is an urgent matter”.

He told the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, that the court had given them the liberty to mention the matter before the Chief Justice for early setting up of the constitution bench.

ABVP Riots in Delhi University with Police Protection

February 23, 2017

For the second successive day, goons affiliated to the RSS-BJP backed right wing student mafia gang called ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) pelted stones and violently attacked peaceful assemblies of students and teachers in Delhi University. Journalists who were present were also beaten up. Phones and cameras and filming equipment were destroyed.

Courtesy: The Quint. Click here:

An attempt was made to strangle a professor with his own scarf. He, and some other students who were injured had to be hospitalized. Luckily, they are shaken, but out of immediate danger. The incidents have been characterized as ‘clashes’ between right wing and left wing student groups by some sections of the media. Nothing can be further from the truth. These were not ‘clashes’. They were straight-forward one sided attacks by a mob intent on violence. A riot is not a clash.

Delhi Police, which was present in strength on both occasions did not fire pellet guns at the stone pelters and rioters. After all, this is Delhi, not Kashmir, and the Standard Operating Procedure of the Delhi police is to not disturb ‘patriotic’ stone pelters. Rather, patriotic stone pelting, violence and vandalism are protected and encouraged activities, when done in the defense of the nation by the enthusiastic ‘children’ and wards of the present regime. The ABVP knows this well, because one of their persistent slogans heard yesterday, was, reportedly, ‘Yeh Andar Ki Baat Hai, Police Hamare Saath Hai’ (‘we know it from the inside, the police is on our side’).

You can fault the ABVP on many things. You can accuse them of being a fascist militia intent on destroying higher education in India, which they are. You can call them thugs out to crack skulls on campuses, which they are. You can accuse them of derailing education by preventing debate and discussion in universities, and you would not be wrong in doing so. You can point, correctly, to their colorful habit of using maadarchod (‘motherfucker’) as invective against students who are not with them, even as they cry themselves hoarse shouting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ as ways of expressing their feelings towards ‘Mother India’. You can call them stooges of corrupt university administrations, which they are. You can call them informers and scabs, which they are. And the list of the things that you can call them, with accuracy, can grow longer still.

But you can’t fault them on the extent of honesty and sincerity with which they admit that the Delhi Police and the ABVP are in bed with each other. The ABVP is law and order disguised as thuggery, and the police is present to enforce, not suppress law and order in university spaces. When student activists are violently attacked by right wing goons and ABVP cadre outside the RSS headquarters, the Delhi police shields the attackers. When ABVP level false charges against students in JNU, the Delhi police obliges them by arresting the accused students for sedition.

When a student like Najeeb Ahmed disappears from JNU following intimidation and violence by ABVP members, the Delhi police ensures that the names of the assaulting students are not registered in the FIR. It also ensures that they are not investigated for Najeeb’s disappearance. And yesterday, when students who were attacked with stones, molested and manhandled violently by the ABVP, the Delhi police not only refuses to file an FIR, rather, resorts to a lathi charge at Maurice Nagar police station against the students who had gathered there to demand the filing of the FIR. All of this happened while the ABVP jeered in the background.

Reports from tonight indicate that while the Delhi police has declared section 144 in Delhi University (making gatherings and protests on campus illegal) ABVP goons are moving in motorcycle borne squads, armed with sticks and razors, through hostels and the neighborhoods close to the university, looking for the students whom they believe took an active part in the protests. A Facebook message doing the rounds is asking students who may be attacked to leave north campus and its neighborhood and move in with friends in other parts of the city until things calm down. The Delhi police, as is usual, has not given any assurance of safety or security to any students who fear being attacked. It is not preventing these ABVP ‘search’ squads from undertaking their patriotic duties of intimidation, harassment and the spreading of fear and hatred.

Attacks and a climate of intimidation in universities and institutions of higher education are growing by the day. They are undertaken by the ABVP and Hindutva hooligans in Delhi and Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh with the blessings of the BJP Modi regime at the centre, by the ABVP and the student outfits of the Shiv Sena and the MNS in Maharashtra, by the Trinamool Chchatra Parishad in West Bengal, by student groups allied with Islamist organisations (and even with some mainstream, so called ‘secular parties’) in places like Aligarh Muslim University and by the CPI-M backed SFI in Kerala. Often these attacks have the tacit backing and approval of university administrators and local authorities.

There is, as I have said before, a state of war against the young, and universities are their battleground. The current regime has been successful to a certain extent in dividing students by creating an atmosphere where the constant playing up of the ‘identity’ of different communities within university spaces seems like a relevant and necessary option. In the long run, this has to be seen for what it is, as a campaign of attrition and distraction that saps the energy of student activism from within.

The time may have come for everyone concerned to think beyond the standard response of holding protest gatherings that themselves become targets, or organizing ‘lecture series’ that provide us with some satisfaction, but do little to tackle the facts on the ground. So far, left student groups have been forced to adopt defensive postures to contain the ratcheting up of pressure, violence and intimidation tactics from the right. This is required, as no one could predict the extent to which the right-wing thugs and their protectors in universities could descend to unleash their poison. But its been little more than a year since Rohith Vemula died, since the events of 9th February happened in JNU and its been several months since Najeeb disappeared. In the interim, the UGC has cut seats, and the ABVP has cut its teeth on a fresh wave of violence.

However given the scale of what we are encountering, as it becomes clear we are in this battle for the long-haul, is it time to consider what other response and politics may be forged at this juncture? Is there a way for us to take back the initiative? Even as I salute the extraordinary courage that students and young faculty have displayed in protecting their spaces, protecting each other and ensuring that the right is unable to perpetuate silence, I also worry about the toll in fatigue that another round of hunger-strikes will take, or the prospect of being entangled by the red-tape that is attendant to the endless ‘petitioning’ mode. We have to find ways of responding that are mindful of ketone levels and the burn-out that accompanies waiting for court appearances.

I fear otherwise the right-wing will exhaust our energies given the vast resources at their command if we are continually in fire-fighting mode. Clearly, there are several traps ahead. The government and its stooges are waiting for students to make a false move, to answer provocation with badly thought out, violent provocation. Students and their friends all across India have to think, swiftly, to ensure a co-ordinated, well thought out, militant but non-violent responses to the danger that their spaces, their lives and their freedom is in today.

We hope that Kafila, and other online platforms, social media and offline public spaces can become practical forums where a new, imaginative, radical wave can be shaped with a view to taking back universities and all spaces where the young gather to learn and to live. We welcome reports, ideas, accounts, conversations and strategies that can make that happen. In the coming days, especially, if the election results are not favorable to the BJP, we can only expect that the ABVP will unleash more terror out of their own levels of frustration and rage. Let us never forget that the ABVP and the other thugs are resorting to intimidation because they know they and the regime that is backing them is rapidly losing all legitimacy and support. They are afraid, and that is why they need the ‘cover’ of the police and university authorities. Its time to give it right back to them. We need the support, not just of students and teachers, but also of parents, and people in society generally, so that universities are not held hostage. We need mothers and fathers to stand with students and their teachers, as comrades, everywhere.

Let us make them (the right wing thugs and authoritarian tendencies of all kinds) wish that they had never started this fight.

Courtesy: Kafila Online.

Violent protests at Delhi’s Ramjas College, several including journalists injured

February 22, 2017

Delhi’s Ramjas College was witness to ugly scenes on Wednesday as protesters clashed with cops over the cancellation of invite to JNU student Umar Khalid to speak at an event.

According to several media reports, several journalists too were beaten by the protesters.

This came after Ramjas college on Tuesday cancelled an invitation to Khalid and former JNU students’ union’s vice president, Shehla Rashid, to address a seminar following violent protests from ABVP and members of the varsity’s student union.

While Khalid was among the students charged with sedition in connection with an event at JNU last year where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised, Shehla Rashid, a former JNU students union member, was instrumental in the movement against the students’ arrest. The two students were scheduled to take part in a session during a two-day seminar on “Culture of Protest” organised by Wordcraft, Ramjas college’s Literary Society.

Khalid was supposed to speak on ‘The War in Adivasi areas’ which happens to be his PhD subject as well, while Shehla’s session was scheduled tomorrow. Members of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) and RSS’ students wing ABVP gathered outside the college and shouted slogans demanding that the invite to the “anti-nationals” be cancelled. Organisers of the seminar claimed that the ABVP members “pelted stones, locked the seminar room and cut the electricity supply”, a charge denied by the ABVP.

Heavy police deployment outside #Ramjas college. @htdelhi
— Heena Kausar (@heenakausar19) February 22, 2017

“While the seminar will continue we decided to cancel participation of these two students. It is not that we do not advocate freedom of speech but it had to be done keeping peace and harmony of campus in mind,” Ramjas principal Rajendar Prasad said. Vinita Chandra, professor at the college’s English department and one of the organisers, said, “They locked the seminar room, cut the electricity supply and pelted stones at the window as well. I wonder why police was not involved in handling the situation”.

The principal did not comment on the allegations of lockdown and stone pelting. Police officials claimed that they were present on campus and there was no violence. DUSU President Amit Tanwar claimed that they raised slogans objecting to the two students’ presence on campus but the protest was not violent. “We were against invitation to anti-nationals for addressing a seminar and we shouted slogans demanding that the event be cancelled. However, there was no violence and it was a peaceful protest,” he said.

Umar Khalid alleged in a Facebook post, “I hear a mob of more than 100 ABVP pseudo-nationalists have gathered at the gates of Ramjas College with hockey sticks and stones threatening of large scale violence if an anti-national like me is allowed. “What is ABVP scared of? A discussion on war against adivasis?”

“Police tells the organisers that it will not protect me or them from any attack by ABVP and the organisers will be held responsible for any violence by ABVP. Such is the state of democracy in our country where attackers are given complete protection and those facing attacks are held responsible for the attacks on them,” he alleged.

(With PTI inputs)

The BJP’s communal strategy failed in Bihar. So why are Modi and Shah repeating it in Uttar Pradesh?

February 22, 2017

It is not desperation that has driven the prime minister towards communalism. It is ideology.

Pathologically communal or back to basics? More apt descriptors of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments at Sunday’s election rally in Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, cannot be found. But let’s be clear: The statements he made are the default setting of the party he leads with his friend Amit Shah.

At the rally, Modi pleaded in the name of non-discrimination that a cremation ground should also be constructed in a village that has a burial ground, and that electricity should be distributed equally between Hindu and Muslim communities, especially during their festivals.

Modi said:

“Gaon me kabristan banta hai to shamshaan bhi bananaa chahiye. Ramzan me bijli aati hai to Diwali me bhi aani chahiye…Agar Holi mein bijli milti hai, to Eid par bhi bijli milni chahiye.
“[If a graveyard is made in a village, it should also have a cremation ground. If a village gets electricity during Ramzan, it should also get the same during Diwali…If there is electricity during Holi, there should be electricity during Eid too.]”

He added:

“There shouldn’t be any discrimination. It is the duty of a government to be unbiased. Injustice shouldn’t be done to anybody…it should never be on the basis of religion or caste or class.”

Graveyards have been a sensitive issue in the villages of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for a long time now. In the year preceding the 2015 Assembly election in Bihar, more than a dozen incidents of encroachment and small-scale violence related to graveyards were reported from that state.

The BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have always tried to keep this issue alive. Muslims have legitimately demanded boundary walls around their burial grounds as sometimes idols are put there in a bit to encroach, or attempts are made to carve out a thoroughfare through these grounds on the pretext of creating shortcuts. The boundary walls offend some Hindus as the land is officially made out of bounds for them. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has played on this feeling of deprivation successfully.

Therefore, the constituency of the BJP is clear about which community is being discriminated against. The myth that Hindus are made to suffer, and Muslims benefit at their cost, has been nurtured in our minds since our childhood. If I recall my childhood days in Bihar correctly, there was a perception at that time that Hindus did not get an adequate supply of water on Holi, the spring festival of colours, and they had to suffer electricity cuts even on Diwali, the festival of lights, whereas Muslims received an uninterrupted supply of water and electricity on Eid and Bakr-Eid. This perception was totally unfounded, but Hindus believed it then, and still do.

Hindu vs Muslim

While making his comments on Sunday, the prime minister perhaps took his cue from Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal, who, two days before the first phase of voting in Uttar Pradesh, alleged that electricity wires bypassed Hindu homes.
Reporting on Goyal’s February 9 press conference, the National Herald quoted the minister as saying:

“BJP MP Sarvesh Kumar had lodged a complaint with Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) about discrimination in distribution of power connections on the basis of religion in Moradabad. After inquiry these charges were found to be correct.”

The National Herald later talked to AN Mishra, a top official in the Uttar Pradesh electricity department. Mishra dismissed Goyal’s allegations, saying:

“There is no hop, skip and jump when electricity flows through conductors. There is no mechanism by which you can give electricity to Muslims and deny the same to Hindus.”

The issue of compensation

In the same press conference, Goyal also referred, rather crassly, to the issue of compensation. He alleged:

“The BJP has always been saying that SP [Samajwadi Party] thrives on appeasement of Muslims. It gave different compensation to Hindus and Muslims – the Muslims got more money while Hindus did not even get half of it. This is on record and anyone can verify it.”

Compensation after a mishap or tragedy is another sensitive issue with Hindus. In violence-hit areas in Bihar and western Uttar Pradesh, Hindus often complain that Muslims have been treated royally by the respective state governments while they have been left high and dry. Those who enquire further are also told that if a Muslim police officer dies, his relatives get jobs, and crores as compensation, whereas the families of slain Hindu officers are left to languish without any monetary compensation.

It is not surprising therefore that Modi is consistent. It works through a ritual of repetition, and Modi does not seem to lose heart from the fact that his narrative has not clicked with voters on certain occasions.

Let us compare the prime minister’s Fatehpur speech with his speeches from the Bihar elections to see that they have been consistent. In Fatehpur, apart from demanding a cremation ground for each graveyard, Modi hinted that Muslims are the main beneficiaries of state schemes. He said:

“Ask a Dalit in Uttar Pradesh and he will tell you that he is not getting his rights because these are given only to the OBCs [Other Backward Classes]. Ask an OBC and he will say that Yadavs are enjoying all the benefits. A Yadav says the family members of the Samajwadi leaders are hogging the advantages [government-sponsored benefits], and the rest goes to the Muslims.”

In Bihar, Modi used similar language to accuse the Nitish Kumar government of favouring Muslims, of taking away from Hindus to give to Muslims. It was not borne out by facts, but Modi repeated it unabashedly. He reiterated it even when there was an uproar, and figures disproving his claims were brought to his attention.

At a rally in Buxar, Bihar, on October 26, 2015, Modi alleged:

“These leaders [Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad] are making a devious plan. They are conspiring to take away five per cent reservation of Dalits, Mahadalits, backwards and extremely backwards and give it to a particular community…I come from an extremely backward class and understand the pain of having been born to a poor woman. I will not allow this to happen. I pledge to protect the rights of Dalits, mahadalits and backwards.”

Calling this a sinful plan – “paap ki yojana” – Modi said: “Nobody will be allowed to take away your reservation and give it to any other community in pursuit of their vote bank politics.”

In his Fatehpur speech, Modi also referred to a case in which Arun Verma, the Samajwadi Party MLA from Sultanpur, had been booked for the murder of a woman who had accused him of rape.

Modi said:

“Kya maa-betiyon ki ijjat lootne ke liye SP ki sarkar banai thi…maa-betiyon ki hatya karne ke liye SP ki sarkar banai thi?
“[Was the SP government elected to rape and kill our mothers and daughters.]”

If you put Modi’s comments together with Amit Shah’s pledge in Kaptanganj on Monday to shut down all slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh if the BJP was voted to power and convert “a river of blood of cows, oxen and buffaloes in Uttar Pradesh” into a river “in which ghee and milk flow”, and to form anti-Romeo squads to punish “a particular kind of motorcycle riders” (read Muslims) who harass women, the Modi-Shah strategy becomes very stark.

Inherent ideology

The communal strategy deployed by Modi and his party failed miserably in Bihar in 2015. Then why are Modi-Shah still speaking this tired language?

Those who think in narrow instrumentalist ways believe that only success drives one’s instinct. But there is also something called ideology, which one inculcates, which one is trained in, which one believes in, which is one’s world view and which makes each person who they are.

Social psychologist Ashis Nandy understood the psychological make up of Narendra Modi long ago, when nobody would have dared to suggest that Modi would one day rule India. After interviewing Modi, who was a worker with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at that time, Nandy told his colleague, Achyut Yagnik, that he had just met a textbook fascist.

After Modi took over as prime minister of India in 2014, and everybody was dying to believe that he had changed, that he had been swept into power on an inclusive plank of development, Nandy was interviewed. The interviewer asked Nandy if he would like to comment on his earlier understanding and description of Modi. Nandy said, his voice unwavering, that he stood by his professional conclusion.

Thus, it is not desperation that has driven the prime minister towards communalism.

However, at elite gatherings, one argument put forward to defend Modi’s communal statements goes thus: “What can the poor man do if the idiots do not understand his appeal for development, he has to speak in language they understand.” The people who say this would like us to believe that Modi, and the BJP, is all for development but they need power for this noble mission. Since power comes only through elections, and since the so-called casteist and secular parties have practised only the language of caste and religion for decades, BJP and its leaders have no option but to resort to this communalist communication strategy.

The argument goes on to say: “Everything is fine and no one is discriminated against once the BJP comes to power. Look at Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan – absolute peace and high speed development! Are Muslims not getting a part of this?”

It is this logic that keeps the backers of Modi and the BJP from even raising their eyebrows at the communal statements made by Modi and his party men, often at election rallies. Additionally, the prime minister gets no notices from the Election Commission.

Meanwhile, the anti-minority communal statements are repeated in a loop. These statements accumulate in our minds, their roots going deeper and deeper into our social psyche.

Apoorvanand is a professor of Hindi at the University of Delhi.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

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