It is well known that Mahatma Gandhi began his meetings with an all faith prayer, reciting portions from various religious texts. Gandhi was a firm believer in the idea of communal harmony. From his childhood, as he nursed his father, he got an opportunity to listen to his father’s friends, belonging to different religions including Islam and Zoroastrian, talk about their faiths. Interestingly, he was prejudiced against Christianity, as he had heard some preachers criticise the Hindu Gods, and believed that drinking and eating beef were an integral part of this religion. It was much later, in England, when a Christian, who was a teetotaller and a vegetarian, encouraged him to read the Bible, that Gandhi gave a serious thought to this religion. Once he started reading the Bible, especially the New Testament, he was enthralled, and particularly liked the idea that ‘if somebody slaps you on the right cheek, offer your left cheek.’ 

Even before reading the Bible, he had got this idea from the perusal of different religious texts, that evil should be countered, not with evil, but with good. He was exposed to different religions, but he doubts whether he was a believer in his childhood. In spite of this, he was of the firm view that all religions deserved equal respect. Hence, seeds of communal harmony were sown in him at a young age. In fact, he became more atheistic after reading Manu Smriti, as it supported non-vegetarianism. The essential learning he imbibed from these religious texts was that this world survives on principles and principles are subsumed in truth. Thus, from his childhood, truth was a highly held value, which became the basis for living his life and for various actions that ensued.

Gandhi is wrongly accused of having supported the Partition of the country whereas, in reality, it was people like the famous poet Iqbal and fundamentalist Hindus like Savarkar who made public pronouncements supporting the idea of the Two Nation theory. Hence, it is ironical that he is questioned by the fundamentalist Hindus for not having undertaken a fast to prevent the Partition of the country. The fact is that the decision about Partition was taken by Mountbatten, Nehru, Patel and Jinnah, marginalising Gandhi, and he was only informed of the decision as a fait accompli. Had Gandhi supported the idea of partition, why would he choose to remain absent from the ceremonies of transfer of power from the British Crown to India and Pakistan? When India was becoming independent, Gandhi was fasting in Noakhali to stop communal riots.

In fact, Gandhi realised that he had been marginalised, and he had publicly expressed his frustration about people not heeding to his advice of practicing tolerance, non-violence and communal harmony. The only role he could play was to bring moral pressure on people to desist from communal thought and violent action. He undertook a fast in Delhi in January 1948, upon returning from Bengal. This fast was in support of the minorities – Muslims in India and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. Hindu fundamentalists were furious and tried to defame him by spreading a rumour that he was fasting to force Indian government to give Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan – a sum which was actually due to Pakistan, as part of an agreement with Mountbatten on the division of assets of the Government of undivided India. His fast received a positive response from Muslims in India and Pakistan. He was hailed in Pakistan as the one man in both the countries who was willing to sacrifice his life for Hindu-Muslim unity.

Some people say that Gandhi could not speak as harshly to Muslims as he could to Hindus, and hence practised Muslim appeasement. This is also not true. During his fasts, he convinced nationalist Muslims visiting him to condemn the treatment of minorities in Pakistan as un-Islamic and unethical. He beseeched Pakistan to put an end to all violence against minorities there, if it wanted the State in India to protect the rights of minorities here. When some Muslims brought rusted arms as a proof to him that they had given up violence, probably out of concern for him so that he could give up his fast, he chastised them and asked them to cleanse their hearts instead.

Gandhi’s towering personality could contain communal violence to some extent. His assassination had a more dramatic impact and brought all such violence to an end. The ban on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh by Sardar Patel also helped. But, four decades later, communal politics bared its fangs again when Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya. What followed was a downward slide of the nation into communal frenzy. For the first time, a right wing party, practising outright communal politics, is in power, with full majority at the centre and in most states of the country. Incidents of mob lynching on suspicion of Muslims having partaken beef, their marginalisation in social, economic and political life and treating them as second rate citizens are the new normal. Majoritarian thinking, which is contrary to the idea of democracy, is dominating and the minds of people have been communalised, as never before in the history of the country. Communal politics has brought out the worst in us.

It appears that the seed of communalism was buried is us. Probably, the seeds of good and bad, both, are buried in us. The atmosphere in which we grow up determines which thinking flowers. Communal politics in the post-Babri Masjid demolition era fanned communal thinking, and it started dominating. By this time, the generation influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas, and who had seen Gandhi in flesh and blood, was on its way out. Hence, the thought and practice of communal harmony waned.

I was once invited by a respected gentleman, belonging to Jamat-e-Islami, for a meeting on communal harmony. I told him that if he was inviting me as a representative of the Hindu religion, then he should rethink about it as I was an atheist. He opined that I need not come for the meeting. I argued with him that only an atheist can truly practice the concept of communal harmony because he is equidistant from all religions. Anybody practising a faith would always be more attached to his own religion. Hence, it appears that we have not even given a serious thought to what communal harmony is all about, and have paid only lip service to the idea.

No wonder we have landed is such a messy situation today.

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The post Gandhi’s contribution to Communal Harmony appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

Even after the aspirations of people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) of maintaining a certain degree of autonomy with a separate Constitution and a flag have been quashed by the Narendra Modi government by its decision on August 5, 2019, Muivah continues to keep alive his vision for a shared sovereignty and enduring relationship of peaceful co-existence with India, inked in the framework agreement signed on August 3, 2015 in the presence of Narendra Modi.

He has good reasons to be hopeful. Unlike J&K no instrument of accession was signed by then popular Naga rebel leader Angami Zapu Phizo with the Government of India. Nagaland was first made part of Assam by British and then by independent India by brute force. Nagas resisted both times and there was much violence from all sides. But Nagas never surrendered and believe that the ongoing dialogue will result in a political solution.

Muivah asserts that Nagaland has never been under any foreign rule either by consent or by conquest. Nagas had told the British that they should not be left to the mercy of independent India, a sentiment that Dr BR Ambedkar had interestingly expressed related to the Dalits, at the time of India’s independence.

Jawaharlal Nehru sent Army into Nagaland, against the wishes of Mahatma Gandhi, which faced resistance by Nagas armed initially with only bows, arrows, spears and some rifles left behind by the receding Japanese forces during World War II. According to Muivah, Nehru never respected the Nagas as human beings.

It was much later when PV Narsimha Rao met with Isak and Muivah in Paris, he agreed that dialogue would be held without any pre-condition, at the highest level of PM and outside India. He also acknowledged the unique history of Nagas. Subsequently, Indian PM Deve Gowda met Isak and Muivah in Bangkok. He wanted Nagas to accept the Indian Constitution, which was not agreeable to them and Muivah suggested that the two parties should go their own separate ways.

Two years later the Government of India admitted that Nagas were never formally under Indian rule and a unique solution to their problem was required. It was only after this that the concept of shared sovereignty was floated. After talks with PM Atal Behari Vajpayee in Amsterdam the NSCN (IM) leadership decided to move back to India and continue the process of dialogue with the Manmohan Singh government.

The Narendra Modi government declared with much fanfare that an agreement had been reached with NSCN (IM) leadership only to encounter the roadblock of demand for a separate Constitution and flag for Nagaland. 
 

Having taken away the Constitution of J&K, which incidentally mentioned that J&K was integral part of India, and its flag as part of the narrative of One Nation, One Constitution, the Bhartiya Janata Party-led government is in a bind with respect to the Naga demand. But Muivah is resolute about the demand for a separate constitution and flag which he describes as core issues.

The response of interlocutor in dialogue process, now Governor of Nagaland, RN Ravi, has been to bring on board another stakeholder since 2017, Naga National Political Groups, a conglomerate of seven organisations. This is an attempt to counterbalance NSCN (IM), which incidentally was the only Naga group with which he signed the framework agreement in 2015.

He should learn from the history that when the government reached an agreement with the Naga People’s Convention leaving out the Naga National Council of Phizo, it didn’t resolve the issue then. If NSCN (IM) is cold shouldered, the chances are that it’ll slip back into insurgency with a good possibility that NSCN (Khaplang), presently dormant in Myanmar, may also get reactivated.

From the J&K experience, even though the government is still not willing to admit its mistake, it should know that imposing any decision against the wishes of people will not help solve any problem. Contrary to government’s claim of total integration of J&K with India, the alienation is now complete.

The J&K kind of solution is untenable. Violence by the state, imposition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and counter-violence by the insurgent groups is an unequal terrain, which has been a site for major and incessant human rights violations, as Northeast has a direct experience of it. This is a cost we can ill-afford.

Instead of making a separate constitution and a flag a prestige or ideological issue, it’ll be better if the government concentrated on thrashing out the intricacies of competencies which NSCN (IM) has worked out in detail.

NSCN (IM) envisions a governance structure in the form of a pan-Naga apex tribal body Hoho for a period of six years with representatives from each village and Regional Territorial Councils for Naga areas in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, having realised that it may not be possible to integrate Naga inhabited areas in these three states with present Nagaland into a greater Nagalim.
 

The J&K kind of solution is untenable. If NSCN (IM) is cold shouldered, the chances are that Nagaland will slip back into insurgency

 

Already, the Coordination Committee on Manipur Integrity has given a call to people of Manipur to resist a final Naga Accord if it challenges the territorial integrity, economy, cultural practices and administrative setup of Manipur.

The government should not rush into a solution by declaring deadlines to ensnare itself like in J&K but should patiently involve all stakeholders from within and outside the state of Nagaland without marginalizing NSCN (IM) and evolve towards a solution with peaceful dialogue process to the satisfaction of all.
NSCN (IM) must acknowledge that even though it may have been the only force to reckon with in the beginning, there are now others whose sensitivities will have to be kept in mind. For example, Kukis, another tribe, enagaged in fierce tussle with Nagas in Manipur hills are unlikely to accept Naga dominance over their areas. Lammingthang Kipgen, President of an organisation of Thodous, a Kuki community, has expressed his apprehension to the interlocutor for Indo-Kuki talks.

While it is likely that groups within and outside Nagaland are being projected at this time by the government to blunt the edge of NSCN (IM) demands, it is also a fact that societies like Manipur are an ethnically plural society which have withstood the test of time for many millennia.

They are unlikely to acquiesce to any arrangement to part with their resources and polity at the exclusion of other stakeholders in their society. The government and NSCN (IM) must be completely transparent in their approach and must take into confidence all genuine political formations, civil society and ethnic groups co-habiting the geographical area in which a collective polity has evolved over time.

There was a time when Naga leaders were impatient and were willing to go back to Europe leaving the dialogue process open ended and now the Government seems to be in some kind of urgency. The Narendra Modi government would do well to resist the temptation of self-congratulatory preposterous grandeur in deciding the fate of Nagaland without culmination of proper consultations. 
 

In the name of an accord if the fragile ethnic balance of the region, which has a history of violence, is not handled sensitively it can potentially lead to an ethnic implosion. 

—
*Sandeep Pandey and Meera Sanghamitra are social-political activists (contact: ashaashram@yahoo.com, meeraengages@gmail.com), **Babloo Loitongbam is human rights activist from Manipur (contact: bloitongbam@gmail.com). Sandeep Pandey and Meera Sanghamitra are grateful for a meeting between the collective leadership of NSCN (IM) with a delegation of 13 members of Indian civil society on September 27, 2019 at Camp Hebron in Nagaland

Courtesy: https://www.counterview.net/

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Image: PTI
 
I went to participate in a candlelight event paying homage to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s statue on February 16, two days after the dastardly terrorist act in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, in which about 44 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed.
 
The event was organised by about 200 Dalit students on Hazratganj main crossing in Lucknow. The condolence meeting by Dalits students was sombre and no slogans were raised. At the neighbouring Mahatma Gandhi statue, a smaller number of nationalist groups of different shades were crying hoarse and shouting anti-Pakistan slogans, a sight that may have made Gandhi cringe.
 
The crucial question that arises is that why do such terrorist attacks continue to take place, if the Indian government, as claimed by the Prime Minister, has already given a fitting reply to Pakistan after the Uri terrorist attack in the form of a surgical strike? There is a clamour among the Hindutva hardliners for a stronger surgical strike. If the 2016 surgical strike has not deterred Pakistan based terror groups or the Pakistani Army, what is the guarantee that a fresh one will? And how many surgical strikes are issued before it triggers a full-fledged war? And who knows when the war will degenerate into a nuclear one? In fact, the Government of India’s hard-line position against Pakistan and refusal for dialogue has made the situation worse.
 
While in Afghanistan the United States prepares to pull out its troops, India has been left in the cold. Donald Trump, who till now had adopted a reprimanding attitude towards Pakistan for giving shelter to terrorist organisations, has now realised their importance in brokering a peace deal with the Taliban. Now he ridicules Narendra Modi as someone who tells him that India has built a library, undermining the Parliament building made by previous Indian governments in Kabul. Meanwhile, Narendra Modi, who did not spare any international forums to demand isolation of Pakistan for its role in promoting terror, failed to convince even one important nation. China blocked the Indian attempt at United Nations to declare Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, the man behind the 2001 Parliament attack and also behind the recent Pulwama incident, to be named a global terrorist. Russia, which was considered close to India, is now building a military partnership with Pakistan.
 
The Indian government, like in past terrorist attacks, continues to blame Pakistan for the Pulwama terrorist attack. Can the Pakistani government be held responsible for JeM’s act? India thinks so, but the rest of the world doesn’t agree with this point of view. Will Pakistani government risk supporting such an attack on India when it is just about to host US-Taliban talks in Islamabad and is happy to be back in the good books of US? It desperately needs the US financial help to sustain its security apparatus.
 
India must realise that the victim card it plays is not isolating Pakistan but is increasingly making India helpless. In no position to launch a full-fledged war because of the impending danger of the use of nuclear weapons, it is in India’s interest to buy peace with Pakistan and restore normalcy in Kashmir.
 
Facing marginalisation in Afghanistan peace talks, Indian government through its Army chief Bipin Rawat has signalled that it is willing to talk to the Taliban. This same government refuses to engage with the elected government of Pakistan, has failed to work out a coalition in J&K with People’s Democratic Party and does not acknowledge the presence of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, which possibly has more hold on people than any political party there.
 
In fact, it questioned Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi for having had telephonic talks with Hurriyat leaders recently. It doesn’t believe in dialogue and doesn’t want anybody else to dialogue with anybody else. This holier than thou attitude has played havoc with people of J&K.
 
If the Indian government has no qualm about talking to the Taliban then it should reconsider its position on avoiding dialogue with Pakistan and Kashmiri political actors. Imran Khan has pre-empted India by taking the Kartarpur Corridor initiative forcing it to cooperate as the Indian government cannot afford to hurt religious sentiments of the Sikh community. It should initiate a full-fledged dialogue process at the highest level. It cannot hope to have a better combination than Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the helm of affairs in Pakistan. It is a pity that there are attempts to cow down Navjot Singh Sidhu for advocating dialogue with Pakistan, who seems to be the only Indian politician who is trying to inject some sanity in the otherwise virulent atmosphere created in the country in the name of nationalist politics.
 
To restore peace in J&K, the Indian government must engage Hurriyat leaders, pave the way for State elections, possibly along with General elections, and help in the formation of the next elected government. But most importantly, the army and para-military forces have to be pulled out from inside Kashmir. The Indian government has to trust the J&K government to run its own affairs with the help of local police to control law and order situations like in other states. Army’s role should be limited to protecting borders only. Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) must be given a silent burial, vocal demand for which was made by Omar Abdullah when he was serving as Chief Minister.
 
In essence, until the Indian government stops treating Kashmir like its colony, peace is unlikely to return to the valley. No government can use pellet guns on its own people.
 
We have moved away from the Gandhian values, especially in the current regime headed by Narendra Modi who doesn’t visualise Gandhi’s role beyond the sanitation campaign. And we have to rely on our Constitution to bring back normalcy to Kashmir. Narendra Modi has to expand his 56 inches chest to allow a larger heart to extend a hand of friendship and peace to people of Kashmir, its political actors, even those of separatist hues, and Pakistan. It must reach a written or an unwritten arrangement, just like the one with China, to not let soldiers from either side use any firepower.
 
Both governments will have to jointly deal with terrorists because terror organisations based in Pakistan are hurting the Pakistani population probably more than the Indian population, something which very few people in India realise.
 

The post Opinion: Chest thumping and war mongering must give way to trust, peace and friendship appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: https://www.outlookindia.com/

Anupam Kher’s film, ‘Accidental Prime Minister’ has targeted Dr. Manmohan Singh who served for two terms and may accept the job again if his party regains power. But his tormentor Narendra Modi seems to be out of breath even before his first term is over. Disillusionment with him is so widespread and deep, that people of India may not bear him for another term. As the general elections approach, the difference between the two needs to be examined again.
 
Manmohan Singh’s government gave this country the Right to Information, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), National Food Security, Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights), Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, Criminal Law (Amendment) also known as Nirbhaya, Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education, Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending), Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Acts and more. The earlier mentioned policies benefited the masses to some extent while the latter ones are yet to yield any results.
 
However, the Narendra Modi government has hardly done anything that benefits common people. His Jan Dhan Yojna and Ujjwala schemes have come to a cropper. While during Manmohan Singh’s government you could hear people talking spiritedly about RTI, MGNREGA, Forest Rights Act, etc., in Narendra Modi’s government one doesn’t hear anybody talking about Jan Dhan or Ujjwala with the same enthusiasm, except in government-sponsored advertisements. Demonetisation was really ‘remonetisation’ as the government brought back bigger denomination notes. The move attained different meanings, right from being an action against black money to encouraging digital transactions. Besides that, the implementation of Goods and Services Tax shocked the economy, from which it is still recovering. A common perception now is that Narendra Modi-Arun Jaitley have little understanding of the economy and the government has been manipulating data to show better results. The duo was unable to retain competent experts like Raghuram Rajan and Urjit Patel within the government.
 
Narendra Modi government’s biggest failure has been on the law and order front. Hardline elements of the Hindutva brigade appear to have had a free run in perpetrating criminal actions which have terrorised the society at large. While Member of Parliament of Bhartiya Janata Party Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma attacked the residence of Senior Superintendent of Police of Saharanpur in April 2017, various fringe elements attacked Muslim citizens on the suspicion of having consumed beef or simply when they were carrying cattle. Some of these perpetrators were garlanded by central minister Jayant Sinha in Jharkhand. The Yogi Adityanath government has indulged in the encounter killing of more than fifty people and when the police are not killing citizens, the mob is killing policemen in Uttar Pradesh. Legislators threaten people who feel insecure under the present dispensation with bombing, something for which a person associated with left-wing ideology could be labelled as urban-naxal and put behind bars.
 
Narendra Modi has probably travelled abroad more frequently and widely than any other PM. However, his foreign sojourns did not do any good to India’s relationship with most countries, especially, its neighbours. Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan extended a surprising hand and rare goodwill gesture by opening the Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims from India to Darbar Sahib Gurudwara in Pakistan without passport-visa requirements. Narendra Modi appears to be caught in anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan politics that his party is traditionally used to. He is not able to grow out of his 56-inch chest size syndrome, declared publicly during last elections, to respond to the friendly overtures from a neighbour. On the other hand, it is unclear what the most bravado action of surgical strike achieved for India as cross border terrorist incidents continue unabated. Relationship with Pakistan during Manmohan Singh’s regime had improved relatively. In spite of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, that government did not take an intransigent position of not engaging with Pakistan.
 
Narendra Modi is constrained to use icons of freedom movement led by Indian National Congress like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose to counter the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of Congress as he knows that ideologues of his parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh like Hedgewar, Savarkar and Golwalkar will not go down well with masses as they were not faithful to the freedom movement of this country. Having formed the government with just 31% of the votes, incidentally the lowest vote share of any party to have won a majority of Lok Sabha seats, Narendra Modi has also deserted some RSS agendas like anti-reservation in any attempt to gain wider acceptability.
 
As the next Lok Sabha election is approaching, the Ram temple issue has started dominating the political narrative as if this is an important demand of all Hindus. Without having solved any of the major problems facing the country like farmer suicides, child malnourishment, unemployment or sub-standard education and health care system, the Narendra Modi government is clearly fanning the temple issue.
 
People in Kashmir and Assam are more disenchanted with the government after BJP came to power. BJP projects itself to be a champion of women’s rights when arguing for banning the practice of triple talaq among Muslims but is against the right of Hindu women of menstruating age to enter Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Narendra Modi’s estranged wife Jasodaben has been denied a passport lest she causes embarrassment for him abroad.
 
As if India didn’t have enough problems to cope with, the BJP government has added a totally unexpected problem to this list because of its love for cows. Stray cattle, which were once domestic but now have no buyers, are roaming aimlessly destroying standing crops in fields. This one issue alone may be enough to decisively turn the tide against BJP in the next elections.
 
All the above-mentioned things point to the fact that Narendra Modi has mismanaged governance more compared to the Manmohan Singh government. Narendra Modi consolidated his position after the 2002 Gujarat communal violence by polarising Hindu votes, first in Gujarat and then in the whole country. He used false promises to lure some other sections of society. Ambani and Adani provided him with the definite financial advantage over other parties and leaders within BJP. He sailed through in the 2014 elections based on these factors, but now it appears that he is an accident for the people of the country. Never before have the people ridiculed any PM like this nor has any PM lowered the dignity of office with actions such as putting on an expensive coat with his name inscribed in it.
 

The post Opinion: Isn’t Narendra Modi the accidental Prime Minister? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Swami Sanand is not merely a religious person. He was known as Professor G.D. Agarwal before he became a saint. He has served at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and as Member-Secretary, Central Pollution Control Board and is responsible for putting into place a number of pollution related norms.

Ganga couldn’t be cleaned after Rs. 500 crores were spent as part of Ganga Action Plan. The present government has proposed a budget of Rs. 20,000 for the Namami Gange project, of which Rs. 7,000 have already been spent. Swami Sanand says that Ganga would not be cleaned because the present government is following a similar programme as the past governments.

The capacity of Common Effluent Treatment Plants and Sewage Treatment Plants to clean industrial waste and sewage produced by cities, respectively, is simply not enough to handle all the wastes generated and whatever capacity has been built is not always functional. For example, against the 400 Million Litres per Day of sewage generated in Varanasi city, the built capacity of STPs is only one-fourth. Bhagwanpur plant, near Banares Hindu University, has a capacity of 8 MLD, Deenapur plant has a capacity of 80 MLD and Konia plant has a capacity of 150-200 MLD but works at only 30-40% of its capacity. Among these the Bhagwanpur plant works best but its capacity is minuscule compared to total sewage generated. Two more STPs are now under construction. When the plants are out of order or there is no electricity, the waste flows directly into the river untreated.

Assi river, which looks more like a drainage, and parts of it have been completely covered to actually make it a drainage, discharges 80 MLD of untreated sewage and Varuna river with 80-90 MLD of sewage discharges 75-80% of it untreated into Ganga. Parts of Assi and Varuna, two rivers from whom the city derives its name, are also used by Nagar Nigam as landfills. Seepage from these garbage heaps also pollutes the rivers.

Kanpur city produces 600 MLD of sewage and industrial waste whereas the built capacity to treat waste is hardly 200-250 MLD.

Corruption also has a role to play in this pollution. Employees of Municipal Corporation or State Pollution Control Boards, responsible for looking after the CETPs, allow the industrial waste to directly flow into the river bypassing the treatment plants by accepting bribes. When the manufacturing units increase their production capacity they don’t inform the PCBs officially. The extra waste generated is also allowed to join the river in exchange for bribes.

For example, none of the CETPs built in Ahmedabad are functional, reason for the extremely polluted water of Sabarmati river downstream of city. The water itself comes from Narmada canal as upstream from the city the river has dried up.

Only the contractors benefit from construction of STPs and CETPs. Government’s motivation to clean Ganga seems lacking and therefore Swami Sanand has sat on a fast unto death to demand a law for conservation of the river.

It is shocking that the government is not taking Swami Sanand’s fast seriously and neither is the media giving coverage to the fast, most likely at the behest of government. This is in spite of the fact that Narendra Modi declared when he went to contest the election from Varanasi that he had got a call from mother Ganga. After he took over as Prime Minister the name of Water Resources ministry was changed to include ‘Ganga Rejuvenation’ in it, as if there were no other rivers in the country.

Is it the famed Indian culture which Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh boasts off that just as Naremdra Modi-Amit Shah duo has marginalised senior leaders of Bhartiya Janata Parrty, they are now undervaluing Swami Sanand’s fast and will not have any qualms if he dies? Does the government, so worried about saving cows’ lives, not give priority to saving a Sadhu’s life?

Acquaintances of Swami Sanand are appalled at the way he has been left to die. If there is any sensitivity left in the government it should immediately enter into dialogue with Swami Sanand to end his fast and agree to make a law for conservation of not just Ganga but all water bodies of the entire country.

Sandeep Pandey is a social activist   e-mail: ashaashram@yahoo.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

The post Why is the Central Government Silent on Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand’s Fast? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The March was taken out to demand from the Governments of India and Pakistan to reach an agreement to stop killing each other’s soldiers on border. Recently on 21 June, 2018, the occasion of international yoga day, Indian and Chinese soldiers have practiced yoga together at Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh. Why can’t similar atmosphere of bonhomie be created on the India Pakistan border? The two countries need to grant easy permission for visas to each other’s citizens to allow them to travel across the border. If possible, they should waive the visa requirement for old, children, journalists, academics, social activists, religious leaders and labourers. One route on Gujarat border with Sind should be opened to facilitate travel and trade between two countries either at Khavda or Nada Bet. The bus service between Suigam and Nagarparkar which was there till 1972 could be restored. Opening of Khavda route will be a great help for those fisherfolk whose family members get caught by the coastal guards of the other country and then have to spend years in jail without any information reaching back home. Sometimes family members may not even know that their kin have landed in jail on the other side of border. Recently, a Gujarat fisherman Deva Ram Baraiya died in a Karachi jail and his family has yet to receive any official communication from any of the two governments or his body after three months have elapsed. Another two fishermen, also from Gujarat, Dana Arjun Chauhan and Rama Mansi Gohil, suffering from various ailments, were released at the Wagha border. One can imagine the travails of their arduous journey back home covering thousands of kilometers on both sides of border. The two countries must make public such list of each other’s prisoners and ensure their early release preferably through a shorter route. For people who may find it difficult to get a passport made or obtain a visa if the daily evening military ceremony at Wagha-Attari border is replaced by a Peace Park and people from across the border are allowed to meet freely for a couple of hours every day merely by depositing one of their identity cards and under a suitable security apparatus, the event would serve a great purpose. Such peace parks could be created on all openings along the border. Finally, drawing inspiration from North Korea it is important that China, India and Pakistan should give up their nuclear weapons to make Asia a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone and safe for all people of region and the world.
About 500 signatures were collected during the march on the abovementioned issues addressed to Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.

The peace march received a major boost when PM Narendra Modi’s wife Jashodaben decided to join the march on 23 June for about half an hour in the morning to express her solidarity. She whole heartedly supported the idea of peace and friendship with Pakistan and thought that the killing of soldiers was avoidable. Jashodaben’s endorsement also had a soothing effect on the people subscribing to jingoistic variety of nationalism who were raising questions about the goals of the march. Jashodaben and her borther Ashok Modi also signed the statement of the march.
A demand was raised during the march at Balisana, where about hundred families have relatives in Karachi, to open a Pakistani Consulate at Ahmedabad so that they would be saved the trouble of long distance travel and going to Delhi to obtain their visas.

Baldev Nath Bapu, head priest of temple in Devdarbar, belonging to Lohana (Thakkar) community hosted the peace march during day time on 26 June, 2018, described his experience of travel to Pakistan in October 2017 for about a month. He is building a hospital in Salemkot from the donations he received from his followers in Pakistan. He refuted the allegations that Hindus are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan and temples are destroyed there. He said on record that not once during his month long stay there he received any complaints like these. He said that in Pakistan people are talking about the possibility of Suigam-Nagarparkar route to be opened by 2020 or 2022.

Earlier in Totana the march paid its respect to Sadaram Bapu, aged over hundred years, who has played an important part in preserving communal harmony in the area. It appears that spiritual gurus have a role in maintaining peace and harmony along the Gujarat-Sind border.
At a closing event of the march in Ahmedabad peace activists from Pakistan Karamat Ali and Saeeda Diep joined over internet and interacted with the marchers and their supporters. Entrepreneur Piyush Desai of Wagh Bakri tea company was so overwhelmed with the idea of march that he has decided to hold weekly meetings at Gandhi Ashram to promote the philosophy of peace and communal harmony.

A letter has been written to Narendra Modi on behalf of the India Pakistan Friendship and Peace March to start a bus service between Ahmedabad and Karachi similar to the one started by former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee between Delhi and Lahore.

India and Pakistan have been overtaken by Bangladesh in social indices like literacy, malnourishment, sanitation, fertility rate, health status of children and women, women empowerment primarily because the former two countries have invested heavily in defence, including the development of dangerous nuclear weapons, whereas Bangladesh has judiciously concentrated on improving the general condition of its women and children. The security for common people comes from fulfillment of their basis needs. Nuclear weapons at best protect the vested interested of the ruling elite. How is our nuclear weapon providing security to a child dying of hunger or a farmer committing suicide? If we don’t take care of the basic needs of people of what use are the pompous weapons for common people?

India and Pakistan must bury their differences and resolve all their outstanding disputes amicably through dialogue and give peace a chance.

Sandeep Pandey Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, e-mail: ashaashram@yahoo.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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Representation Image     India Today

When Narendra Modi, as prime minister of India, initiated his ‘Clean India’ (Swacch Bharat) campaign nobody would have conceived that it opened up murderous possibilities. The symbol being used for this campaign are Mahatma Gandhi's spectacles, a man who stood for non-violence, resolutely.
 
For that matter, a number of things were not imagined would actually take place after Narendra Modi's ascension to power – new reasons and tools to harass some people, some of which could become fatal.
 
For example, people would be beaten up, or could be even killed on the suspicion of having consumed beef. Then, if a Muslim boy and Hindu girl chose to marry, then in the name of ‘Love Jihad’, he (for sure) or sometimes, the couple may have to scurry for cover. The police have been especially empowered — if police suspected a man accompanying a woman of harassing her then Anti-Romeo squads were ready and waiting to jump upon him. Kashmiri students studying in other states of India could and have been beaten up at the slightest provocation, after being labelled anti-national, etc.
 
More serious intractable problems like famers' suicides, malnourishment of children, human trafficking of girls and women from Nepal and Bangladesh through India, people including children begging on major street crossings of national and state capitals, daily corruption at government offices, schools and hospitals have not been raised by the ever vigilante mobs allied to the current ruling dispensation.  To whip up a frenzied sense of ‘ultra-nationalism’, hunger, poverty and unemployment do not have potential; ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘anti-Muslim’ rhetoric is a far more potent weapon.
 
The manner in which Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) activist Zafar Khan was lynched to death in Pratapgarh, Rajasthan is not just shocking, the muted reaction against such increasing barbarism forces us to ask, what kind of society do we want to create?
 
On the morning of June 17, 2017 employees of Nagar Parishad of Pratapgarh were taking photographs of women belonging to the Mehtab Khan slum defecating in the open with the objective of ‘shaming them’. This deplorable act was part of government policy. Zafar Khan who was also a resident of this slum decided to protest. The accompanying Commissioner Ashok Jain instigated his Dalit sanitation employees to beat Zafar to death. A resurgent India under the new ruling dispensation has found a new reason to lynch people.
           
Do the women who defecate out in  the open enjoy doing so? When they don't have toilets at home where are they supposed to go to relieve themselves? If people don't have toilets who is supposed to build toilets for them? If anybody was to be punished for open defecation of women in Mehtab Shah slum it should have been the government officials whose responsibility it was to create these toilets in the first place. If the land on which the slum was built was government land and possibly personal toilets could not have been built on it then the government should have got a Sulabh toilet built there.
 
Let’s compare India's situation with her neighbours in South Asia: it becomes clear that successive governments in India have not given priority to construction to toilets. The figures are stark: In India, a mere 34% of the population has access to improved sanitation in 2010 compared to 92% in Sri Lanka, 64% in China, 56% in Bangladesh, 48% in Pakistan and 44% in Bhutan. Even Pakistan is better than India in this regard.
 
In India the caste system further prevents Dalits from using available toilets. For example, a number of Dalit domestic workers who do different chores like cleaning, cooking or baby sitting in mostly upper caste middle class or upper middle class households do not have permission to use the toilets inside these homes. They have to find some bush, tree or wall outside to relieve themselves.
 
It is the government officials who are responsible for the death of Zafar Khan. The Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindhia, who termed it as an unfortunate incident, should have resigned taking moral responsibility.
 
The Commissioner of the Nagar Parishad of Pratapgadh, Ashok Jain follows a religion, which lays special emphasis on non-violence. Jains are known to take care so that no micro-organism gets killed because of them. The Jain monks tie a piece of cloth around their mouth and nose for this reason. Jains don't eat onion and garlic to keep their passions under check. Yet Ashok Jain didn't seem to have any qualms to instigate ‘his men’ to get Zafar Khan murdered.
 
Narendra Modi'a cleanliness drive has, by now, completed three years. Citizens have been charged with a new cess to fund this campaign. Large amountsof public money was spent. The ground reality, however, doesn't seem to have changed. The cows are eating as much plastic on the roads as they were doing before and the amount of untreated sewage that flows into river Ganga in Varanasi remains the same as before. The Clean India campaign is a complete and abject failure. People (celebrities) got themselves photographed with brooms. But these photographs were not taken with members of the the Valmiki community, actually responsible for the demeaning job of daily cleaning our sewers after entering them. The credit for whatever cleanliness we see around us goes to the Valmiki community.
 
In all likelihood, more money was spent in publicising rather than actual cleaning in the Clean India campaign.
 
The policy of Narendra Modi has created a new category of discrimination in India. It mostly overlaps the rich-poor or caste-outcaste divide – the toileted and the toilet-less. By eliminating the toilet-less people India can claim to have increased the percentage of population with access to sanitation. It is a lie that statistics even, can tell.
 
 

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Just like the arms race between Indian and Pakistan accelerated after the nuclear tests, even though the social indices of the two neighbours are the worst compared to other neighbours in South Asia, consuming invaluable resources which should have been spent on making basic necessities of life available to its citizens, competition in acquiring material for mutual destruction would receive a similar fillip after the Indian surgical strike. It would be underestimating Pakistan if we think that it would be discouraged from carrying out its regular incursions in future because of our surgical strike. The problem with the arms race is nobody knows when it’ll end. With technological advancement more sophisticated and dangerous weapons become available. If one country acquires a certain weapon then it becomes mandatory for the other to acquire something which is of equal destructive potential.
 
We are told that weapons are acquired for one’s security. But they actually increase the feeling of insecurity. First we worry only about our security, then we have to worry about the security of our weapons too. For example, countries possessing nuclear weapons have to worry about their security too. It is a matter of grave concern for US that the Pakistani nuclear weapons should not fall in the hands of Islamist extremists.
 
Currently India has created a situation which will trigger another round of arms acquisition between the neighbours. Countries which will benefit are US, Israel, Russia, Britain, France, China, etc., from whom India and Pakistan will buy their arms. The money which should have been spent on education, health care, food security, housing, sanitation, to ensure that no child is malnourished and no women is anemic, will now be spent on purchasing weapons. Hence, even building an atmosphere of war is a crime against the poor people of both countries.
 
Rajnath Singh, India’s Home Minister has declared that the 3,323 km long India-Pakistan border will be sealed. Boundaries are made by humans and they have a history of being ever-changing. People and material will keep moving across India-Pakistan border because people on both sides have relatives and their religious places on the other side. People want to travel across the border. The two countries have cultural affinity. Nowhere else in the world, the language spoken in large part of north India, known as Hindi in India and Urdu in Pakistan, is understood so well as in Pakistan. At a time when European countries have made borders irrelevant we are talking about sealing our borders. West and East Germany demolished the wall between them. We want to build one between India and Pakistan. If there are governments in the two countries in future who decide to make peace then the money spent on sealing the borders will go waste. Hence, the effort should be to open the borders, not seal them. An impregnable border is a sign of animosity, an open border is sign of friendship. Enmity is short term, non-permanent, friendship is long term, stable. Hence the decision of Indian government to seal borders lacks wisdom and is anti-people. It is a waste of public resources. Is there a guarantee that sealed borders will prevent terrorists from invading?

Aerial attacks and through sea, like the one in Mumbai, can still take place. Worse, they can infiltrate borders both physically and mentally. How will the sealed border prevent somebody inside India from being radicalized? We should look for solutions so that terrorists stop coming and people stop becoming radicals. It requires deeper introspection than a symbolic gesture of sealing border.
 
People die in wars. It is not always the terrorists or combatants who die. As we saw in over three months of protests in Kashmir, the bullets of security forces killed children, women and old too. Even the family of soldier doesn’t want him to die. They want to see him return alive. His job is to protect the border. He sacrifices his life in very special circumstances. It is the governments which create situations in which the soldier may have to sacrifice his life or he may remain safe. If the governments are not able to solve their problem with neighbouring countries then soldiers may have to sacrifice their lives. If the governments show a real intent of solving the problem then our soldiers may not be required to risk their lives. War is a sign of failure of the government to solve the problem with neighbours and peace is a sign of success. A government which is concerned about its citizens will never want to go to war. On the contrary, a government insensitive towards its citizens will put their lives in danger.
 
To create war hysteria in the country is not patriotism but anti-national, as it will lead the country to disaster. It is not a sign of a responsible government, a government which thrives on the politics of jingoism. The government and the Bhartiya Janata Party may temporarily gain from the war or building an atmosphere of war, but the citizens stand to lose in the long term.
 
(The author, a former Magsaysay awardee is also Vice President, Socialist Party (India))

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The defeat of India by West Indies in the T-20 World Cup triggered a controversy at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar between Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri students. Some Kashmiri students have been accused of raising anti-India slogans and burst firecrackers upon India's defeat. The Kashmiri students, in turn, allege that the violence was started by non-Kashmiri students the next day when a group waving tricolour and chanting 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' attacked a group of Kashmiri students returning from Friday prayers. Police used lathi charge to control students in which some non-Kashmiri students were hurt and subsequently the Central Reserve Police Force, actually a paramilitary force, has replaced the Jammu & Kashmir police on campus. NIT has been shut down and students asked to vacate the hostels.
 
Since the RSS-backed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to power in New Delhi, the academic atmosphere of one more campus has been disturbed. It really is a pity that people associate their nationalistic ideals with cricket teams and are ready to clash over victory or loss in their matches.
 
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) itself claims to be a private body inspite of its rather pompous name. How can a team constituted by it be at all considered a national team?
 
The Supreme Court has recently reprimanded the BCCI for its arbitrary functioning and refusing to implement the Lodha committee recommendations. That refusal by the BCCI to have a representative of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on its governing council reveals an obdurate and obstinate unaccountability, where the body simply does not want to be held accountable to the people at large, who are contributors to its funds. There are states like Gujarat and Goa which have received preferential treatment by the BCCI in the form of disproportionate funds when, on the other hand, states like Bihar don't receive any funds at all.
 
Is it any surprise, then, that Bihar doesn't have a single player in the BCCI constituted Indian team? How could or can, then, BCCI claim to represent the country? Imagine if more such private bodies came into existence and each fielded their separate teams. Which team would then be considered to represent India?
 
Students from both sides whether they raised pro or anti-India slogans have demonstrated an immaturity in asserting their nationalistic preference(s) based on the outcome of a game of cricket. It is also astonishing that pro or anti-Pakistan slogans were raised at the NIT, Srinagar when Pakistan was not even one of the sides playing during the match in question!
 
This sloganeering shows how people can easily get carried away when jingoistic slogans are raised. There are much more serious anti-national activities going on within the country, for example, corruption, about which we need to be worried. Similarly, there is lot of good work going on within the country, about which we can feel proud.
 
It is a real pity, then, that – rather than concerning ourselves with real issues on ground – we let our emotions get fired up entirely based on the results of game of cricket and get carried away in sloganeering to the point where the situation can turn violent.
 
The intention of this government seems to be precisely this: divert people's attention from real issues, like price rise and an absence of any quality governance, to emotional issues like nationalism.
 
The Indian Premier League (IPL) has, to some extent, done the job of dissociating feelings of nationalism from being associated with cricket teams by making players from different nationalities play as part of a single team. The IPL has also highlighted that these are professional players who can be bought and sold, which implies that they play for money.
 
Within the IPL, players can switch teams, depending on who pays them more. Similarly, even when they play in ‘national’ teams the prime motivating factor for the players is money. It is unthinkable that any player would play for his national team merely out of a feeling of patriotism without any payment in exchange. In fact, if players had any nationalistic feelings they would not indulge in match fixing, sometimes deliberately causing their teams to lose a match.
 
With the game of cricket and its management becoming so highly commercialised does it make any sense to associate nationalistic feelings with these teams? In fact, it is these very commercial interests that exploit our nationalistic feelings. If we agree that sports must be played with a sportsman or sportswoman-like spirit then we should appreciate that, whoever plays the better game, wins, irrespective of their nationality.
 
When Arundhati Roy was once asked to convey her best wishes to the Indian team before an international event she said her favourite team was the one from Sri Lanka. Why should every Indian be expected to endorse the Indian team in a sporting event and worse why should this determine out commitment to nationalism?
 
Just recently, the Mumbai High Court has also reprimanded several Cricket associations for using huge volumes of water to maintain their pitches while the state of Maharashtra is suffering from an acute drought. People and cattle are dying because of water shortage. In the context of recent debate on nationalism it may be interesting to ask what is more nationalistic – to play cricket or to save people and cattle?
 
The senior BJP leader and BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur has said that Maharashtra will lose Rs. 100 crores if IPL were to be moved out of Maharashtra. He suggested that this money could be used for tackling the drought situation and for relief for affected people. It has also been emphasised by the Cricket associations and the government that potable water is not used for maintenance of pitches, which is estimated to require 60 lakh litres of water this season.
 
What people like Thakur don't realise is money cannot be a substitute for water or food. If you have money but there is no potable water left, how would you quench your thirst? The situation is gradually becoming more and more serious and we cannot adopt a complacent attitude. We need to save even non-potable water which can be used for other, far more necessary activities like irrigation, sanitation (toilets), washing of clothes, etc.
 
(Sandeep Pandey, a Magsaysay awardee for emergent leadership has trained in Mechanical Engineering but has been working on social justice issues; he is co-founder of Aasha)

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This question assumes acute relevance after recent events at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). A meeting called to mark the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru by another group has led to the JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar being arrested on charges of sedition.
 
Afzal Guru was hanged for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack case. While pronouncing sentence, the Supreme Court of India admitted that there was no evidence to show that Afzal Guru was a member of any banned organisation nor had any of the 80 prosecution witnesses said that Afzal was associated with any terrorist organisation.
 
The judgement states, 'The incident which resulted in heavy casualties, has shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will be satisfied (only) if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender.'   We have to ask ourselves whether this kind of ‘satisfaction of the collective conscience’ can be a reason enough for ending somebody's life, in a civilised society?
 
Are there not to be even questions raised over this judgement? It would be a disservice to Indian democracy if we all assume the collective guilt of an unquestioning silence.
 
Afzal Guru did not receive a fair trial. He was not allowed to have a lawyer of his choice. Neither did the court hear his version. He was made to accept his crime under duress and threat by the police. Simply put, he was made a scapegoat.
 
The truth is, if he had not been hanged, a ‘feeling’ would have prevailed that India was or is not able to take strong action against the perpetrators of the attack on Parliament (2001). Somebody needed to be hanged and it was the misfortune of Afzal Guru that he was the most vulnerable among the four who were made the accused in the Parliament attack case.
 
The then Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah had sharply criticised the execution of Afzal Guru, saying clearly that it would reinforce the sense of alienation and injustice among Kashmiri youth. He asserted that the decision to hang Afzal Guru was more political than legal. It is this doubt over Afzal's hanging that persists even three years after his hanging. That is the reason why for some persons, he is even called a martyr.

There are people associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who would like to eulogise Nathuram Godse. Some even want to build a temple in his name. For those who would like to worship Nathuram as a hero, there can be no objections to others who consider Afzal Guru a martyr.
 
The NDA II regime has already termed the event(s) on JNU campus (having such a meeting to discuss the execution) as anti-national as there were some objectionable slogans raised.  It is time we asked some hard questions.  What will be considered to be more anti-national — ideologically motivated and uncritical defence of the hanging of a person whose crime was not conclusively proved or merely raising pro-Kashmiri and pro-Azadi slogans? It is this simmering sense of injustice done in the case of Afzal Guru (his hanging) that is reverberating in the form of slogans which (this time) happened to be raised at the JNU meeting.
 
It remains important to question the hanging of Afzal Guru so that no more such incidents occur in future.  
 
The right to free speech is under threat within Indian democracy today. The threat is posed from communal fascist forces. There are people associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who would like to eulogise Nathuram Godse. Some even want to build a temple in his name. For those who would like to worship Nathuram as a hero, there can be no objections to others who consider Afzal Guru a martyr.
 
The authorities are also suggesting that the permission for the event was withdrawn just before it was to take place. This is a time-tested tactic. A similar thing happened when a reputed journalist was recently invited to speak at Allahabad University on invitation of the Allahabad University Students' Union President Richa Singh on January 20, 2016. The Vice Chancellor there also withdrew the permission at the last moment.
 
I would like to ask a question to the current ruling dispensation and their aggressive champions. Those who have made it their business to assume sole defence of ‘nationalism’, the torch bearers of desh bhakti.  Did they take any permission to demolish the Babri Masjid in 1992, an incident that remains a blot on our constitutional, secular ethos and which has, forever and seriously, compromised India's internal security?
 
Or, (did they seek permission) before they killed Mahatma Gandhi? Or, when they allegedly carried out bomb blasts twice in Malegaon (2006, 2008), in Hyderabad (Mecca Masjid Blasts, May 18, 2007), then in Ajmer (October 10, 2007) and in the Samjhauta Express (February 18, 2007)?
 
Or, did the NDA I government led by Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the centre take even their own Defence Minister (George Fernandes) into confidence, not to mention Parliament, before testing nuclear weapons in 1998, an act which adversely affected and worsened South Asia's security environment?
 
For those associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) who believe, that by being in the seat of government, they have un-checked, arbitrary powers which includes dictating what others should or should not do; preventing ‘others’, even violently, from carrying out their activities, the next elections will surely bring a rude shock. The people in this country have never tolerated tyrannical ways. Hitler may be a hero for the RSS but he is not for the masses in India.
 
The treatment meted out to journalists and JNU students and professors at the Patiala House court yesterday, on February 15, 2016, by lawyers associated with the RSS, is shameful. If the violence resorted to by terrorists and naxalites is condemnable how can the police and the ‘nation’ stand spectator to hooliganism indulged in by the Sangh parivar members? No other mainstream political organisation(s) exhibit the kind of lawlessness that organisations associated with this supremacist right wing ideology do.
 
They and their ideological associates have allegedly committed serious crimes; like murders of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi and have facilitated an atmosphere within which Rohith Vemula was forced to commit suicide, in addition to innumerable incidents when they are guilty of threatening and intimidating actions against people who simply do not agree with their ideology. This nonsense should not be tolerated in a democracy even if a price has to be paid for it. The RSS is hurtling this country towards a state of emergency which can only lead to civil war and anarchy.
 
The people who brought BJP to power with a thumping majority in 2014 must rethink their support and mandate. Is this party that is even fit to rule for five years?  Stalwart socialist leader Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia once famously said that “Live communities don't wait for five years” (the term of Parliament).  Today, these sharp and sagacious words must show us the way.
 
(Sandeep Pandey, a Magsaysay awardee for emergent leadership has trained in Mechanical Engineering but has been working on social justice issues; he is co-founder of Aasha)

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