Patna: An assistant professor of Sociology at a college in Motihari, Bihar, was beaten and doused with petrol after criticizing Atal Bihari Vajpayee in a Facebook post.
 
Sanjay Kumar, A JNU alumnus and a professor at the Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Motihari, was allegedly attacked on August 17, a day after the stateman’s death.
 
It is also being said that Kumar had posted a comment in response to a post that was critical of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “He allegedly wrote: Fascivaad ka ek naye yug ki samaapti, Atal ji anant yatra pe nikle (It is the end of a new era of Fascism; Atalji embarks on his final journey)” a report said.
 
He was taken to AIIMS, Patna and has suffered several internal injuries and has been struggling to stay conscious.
 
“Kumar has said in his complaint filed at Town police station that he was in his room at Azad Nagar in Motihari when 20-25 people led by Rahul Pandey and Aman Bihari Vajpayee attacked him and tried to lynch him. He has also alleged that during the assault, the accused asked him why he had been speaking up against the Motihari university V-C and a few others. A purported video of the incident shows a person asking Kumar if he wanted to “become Kanhaiya Kumar”. He has also alleged that the accused tried to douse him with petrol. He also said that Dainik Bhaskar staff Sanjay Kumar Singh called him “terrorist” for his social media posts,” the Indian Express reported.
 
“Sanjay alleged that the students threatened to burn him alive if he did not stop speaking against MGCU VC and three teachers. Incidentally, a group of MGCU teachers have been on a dharna on the campus since May 29 to press for their 40-point demands,” reported Times of India. Sources said Sanjay was leading the agitation and the attack was a result of campus rivalry.
 
In his complaint to the police, the professor said that he was threatened and while beating him the attackers said, “Since you speak against the VC, Gyaneshwar Gautam and Sanjay Kumar Singh (Bureau chief, Dainik Bhaskar), you should resign immediately otherwise we will burn you alive.”
 
State RJD president Ramchandra Purbey accused the state government of “protecting” the accused. The incident was a typical instance of politically motivated mob violence which has been unleashed in the state,” he said.
 

“What is this going on, Mr CM? RSS goons in direct patronage of RSS-programmed VC assaulted and almost lynched a professor. They poured petrol to burn him alive,” said Tejashwi Yadav of RJD, leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly, in a tweet. “Nitishji, why do not you open an RSS shakha in CM House and be its Sarsanghchalak?” he added. Yadav has earlier blamed the communal clashes across Bihar in March on RSS and accused Nitish Kumar of giving the organisation a free hand to expand across Bihar,” said The New Indian Express.
 
“The professor should not have made such comments. It was not right for others to physically attack him. A probe is on and action would be taken against the guilty. The Opposition leader is reading too much into this incident,” said ruling JD(U) spokesperson Sanjay Singh.
 
“Among those booked are Rahul Kumar Pandey, Sunny Vajpayee, Aman Bihari Vajpayee, Purushottam Mishra, Ravikesh Mishra, Gyaneshwar Gautam, Sanjay Kumar Singh — local bureau chief of Dainik Bhaskar — Dr Pawnesh Kumar Singh, Diwakar Singh, Dinesh Vyas, Jitendra Giri and Rakesh Pande. They have been booked under IPC sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 & 148 rioting, 149 (unlawful assembly), 365 (kidnapping with intention of confinement) 448 (tresspass), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy),” Indian Express reported.
 
“It is a matter of grave concern that one of the JNU alumnus Dr Sanjay Kumar, Asstt Professor at Mahatma Gandhi Central University at Motihari was attacked and beaten mercilessly. He is struggling for his life in a hospital. Many of us including our EC members have expressed the concern over the incident and are of the view of the serious perusal of issue. This should be pursued for a judicious outcome including representations to the ministers and authorities,” said Akhlaq Ahan, VP AAJ (JNU) in a message to fellow alums.
 

The post Bihar teacher assaulted for anti-Vajpayee Facebook post appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Was Atal Behari Vajpayee “a right man in the wrong party”, a highly sensitive and humane poet who knew the true meaning of insaniyat (humaneness) and samvedna (sensitiveness), as many would have it? Or should one recall the former prime minister’s own words: “The Sangh is my soul”? 
 
One way of answering the question is to refer back to where the BJP leader stood when the sangh parivar bared its own “soul” in 1992 – when the Babri Masjid was razed to the ground, and again in 2002 — when Vajpayee was prime minister while Gujarat’s Muslims were subjected to unprecedented mass crimes under the watch of the state’s then chief minister, Narendra Modi. (https://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/marapril/index.html).
 
In the Liberhan Commission report (https://www.thehindu.com/news/Report-of-the-Liberhan-Ayodhya-Commission-of-Inquiry-Full-Text/article16894055.ece)
on the role of various actors in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement that culminated in the demolition of the centuries-old mosque, Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan was unsparing in his damnation of Vajpayee as being among the “pseudo-moderate elements of the Sangh Parivar” who provided “an acceptable veneer to the less popular decisions and a facade for the brash members of the Sangh Parivar” and who “cannot be given the benefit of the doubt and exonerated of culpability”.
 
There’s more. Unlike other BJP stalwarts like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who watched the Babri Masjid being brought down in Ayodhya, Vajpayee was in Delhi on December 6, 1992. While he subsequently maintained that he was neither present at the demolition nor had any prior knowledge of what the sangh parivar had planned for that day, a video recorded by the intelligence agencies which surfaced in 2004 (https://scroll.in/video/882331/watch-when-atal-bihari-vajpayee-spoke-of-levelling-the-ground-in-his-speech-to-kar-sevaks-in-1992) raised serious doubts about his pretence at innocence.
 
Again, his role when Gujarat burned in 2002 raises serious questions about what happened to the poet’s insaaniyat and samvedna when it counted the most. During his visit to Gujarat in April 2002, he called upon chief minister Modi to perform his “rajdharma” and lamented over what face he as prime minister will show the world. But in Goa soon thereafter, holding Muslims themselves responsible for triggering the Gujarat carnage, he demanded to know why it was that “wherever there are Muslims, there is extremism”. (https://thewire.in/politics/let-us-not-forget-the-glimpse-we-got-of-the-real-vajpayee-when-the-mask-slipped).
 
Here below are excerpts from the Liberhan commission report:
 
“166. The pseudo-moderate elements within the Parivar
 
“166.1. The conundrum which fixed the Commission during its long hearings and extensive fact finding efforts was to reconcile the stance of the public face of the Sangh Parivar with the actions which defied law, morality and political ethics.
 
“166.2. On one hand, the leaders like AB Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi and LK Advani, who are the undeniable public face and leaders of the BJP and thus of the Parivar, constantly protested their innocence and denounced the events of December 1992. Appearing as a witness before the Commission, Advani sought to reiterate his anguish at the demolition of the disputed structure and was at pains to state that he had never made any inflammatory statement, even during his Rath Yatras.
 
“166.3. On the other hand it stands established beyond doubt that the events of the day were neither spontaneous nor unplanned nor an unforeseen overflowing of the people’s emotions, nor the result of a foreign conspiracy as some overly imaginative people have tried to suggest.
 
“166.4. In such a case, the logical questions that beg to be answered are whether the pseudo-moderates knew what was going on, whether they were in fact the prime movers of the show, whether they were in control of the Parivar and finally, could they have done anything to prevent the demolition and subsequent violence?
 
“166.5. The Commission, having had the benefit of tens of thousands of pages worth of press reports, books, official records and documentation and having analysed many hours of audio and video recordings and having observed the witnesses, is unable to hold even these pseudo-moderates innocent of any wrongdoings.
 
“166.6. It cannot be assumed even for a moment that LK Advani, AB Vajpayee or MM Joshi did not know the designs of the Sangh Parivar. Even though these leaders were deemed and used by the Parivar as the publicly acceptable faces and the articulated voices of the Parivar and thus used to reassure the cautious masses, they were party to the decisions which had been taken.
 
“166.7. These people, who may be called pseudo-moderates could not have defied the mandate of the Sangh Parivar, and more specifically the diktat of the RSS, without having bowed out of public life as leaders of the BJP. They were not in control of the RSS and had absolutely no influence over the direction that they had been told to follow. The pseudo-moderate leadership of the BJP was as much a tool in the hands of the RSS as any other organization or entity and these leaders stood to inherit the political successes engineered by the RSS.
 
“166.8. The BJP was and remains an appendage of the RSS which had the purpose only of providing an acceptable veneer to the less popular decisions and a facade for the brash members of the Sangh Parivar. The much repeated and much denied remarks attributed to Govindacharya who called Vajpayee a Mukhota or a mask may be more appropriately applied to the BJP’s top leadership at the time collectively. Without leaders like Joshi, Advani and Vajpayee, the RSS might have been able to achieve de facto clout, but would not have been able to legitimize its hold on the Indian system by translating that clout into political success.
 
“166.9. The BJP was therefore an essential ingredient in the Parivar smorgasbord and essential to capture de jure power and authority, in furtherance of its goals of establishing the Hindu Rashtra.
 
“166.10. Be that as it may, the evidence that has been led before the Commission does not show that the pseudo-moderates were in charge of the situation, much less capable of changing the course that the campaign was taking. It stands proved that the pseudo-moderates were charged with the task of projecting the RSS’s decisions in the best possible light and to translate them into terms which would be acceptable to the general masses. The role of the BJP pseudo-moderates thereafter came to an end, and beyond acting as translators, could do little more.
 
“166.11. These leaders cannot however be given the benefit of the doubt and exonerated of culpability. The defence of “superior orders” has historically never been available, and least of all to those whom the people have trusted and voted into power.
 
“166.12. These leaders have violated the trust of the people and have allowed their actions to be dictated not by the voters but by a small group of individuals who have used them to implement agendas unsanctioned by the will of the common person. There can be no greater betrayal or crime in a democracy and this Commission has no hesitation in condemning these pseudo-moderates for their sins of omission”.
In his recommendations, Justice Liberhan noted:  “The events of December 6, 1992 and the many subsequent events have already shown to the nation the danger and the disruptive potential of allowing the intermixing of religion and politics. It is imperative therefore for the people, acting through their elected representatives, to undertake an objective study of whether or not the existing constitutional, statutory and institutional safeguards have proven to be efficacious. It seems highly probable from a cursory study of recent affairs that the measures adopted so far have been overly optimistic and have not entirely succeeded in providing secular governance, unaffected and uncoloured by religious or regional affiliations”.
 
Justice Liberhan’s findings and recommendations were ignored just as the recommendations of numerous previous judicial commissions of enquiry. Meanwhile, India has “progressed” from a Vajpayee to a Modi and the sangh parivar it appears is no longer in need of a mukhota.
 

The post Atal Behari Vajpayee: A saint and a sinner appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In this video he speaks of the importance of an opposition in a democracy, on his relationship with and assessment of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Most crucially, he expands on how to insult India’s progress as a nation (at 50 !) would be to insult its people, the farmers, citizens of all hues. He also speaks of how Narasimha Rao, as prime minister appointed him to lead a delegation of parliamentarians to Pakistan.

A parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament of India) ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha (upper house). He also served as the Member of parliament for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai.

Today’s regime, crude and dismissive of a political opposition with prominent leaders including the prime minister using derogatory language and vitriol against leaders, could possibly learn a lesson or two from this video! And speech of the BJP’s first prime minister!
 
 

The post On India’s Progress at 50, Nehru & How an Opposition is Critical to Democracy: Atal Behari Vajpayee appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In August 2013, Gujarat’s self-styled godman Asaram Bapu was sent to jail on charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old school girl.

On January 30 this year, the Supreme Court rejected the kul guru’s seventh application for bail.

What’s more, the apex court ordered that a fresh FIR be registered against the 74-year-old Asaram for attaching a false medical certificate in support of his bail plea on medical grounds. In addition, he was fined Rs 1 lakh for filing a “frivolous petition”.

There used to be a time however when the high and the mighty supplicated before the man now in prison.

A good example of this is the video posted by Mohan Guruswamy where former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, former home minister and BJP president, Lal Krishna Advani, former Minister for Human Resources Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Raman Singh may be seen paying their “humble tributes” to Asaram.  

While the godman's numerous followers continue to feel aggrieved, there are several reasons why getting a bail will not be easy for Asaram.

To being with, the new enactment following the 'Nirbhaya' case has stringent provisions for sexual offences. Besides, the clout that he enjoys leaves open the possibility of his being able to manipulate the case. Even with him in jail, nine witnesses were attacked while three have died. Since then other witnesses have been provided police protection.

The post How the entire BJP top brass had bowed before Asaram ‘Bapu’, the ‘kul guru’ later jailed for sexual assault, denied bail by SC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

Post-Kargil, imported mujahideen are pedalling a Talibanised Islam in the Valley. And succeeding in good measure, thanks to the unholy nexus between the BJP-led government at the Centre and an unscrupulous National Conference in the state

There has been a significant change not only in character of the movement but in the mood of  the Kashmiri people post argil. The reason for this is the even deeper and greater sense of alienation and outright bitterness among the local people – in the Valley, in Jammu and in Ladakh. As far as militancy is concerned, there has been a sharp decline in the Kashmiri-speaking people component among the militants. 
 

The actions of the militants, too, signal this sharp shift. Earlier, the victims of militants used to be civilians — soft targets. There used to be harassment and extortion of the local population. This has stopped. Today, post-Kargil, the attacks are directly on the army and BSF headquarters. 
 

The militant activities are more dare devilish, more direct, more desperate in a way. A group has emerged that calls itself Fidayeen (Lovers of God). Unlike the activities of earlier militant groups, their targets are not civilians but the army and security forces. There is now no extortion from the local
population, distinct attempts are being made to ingratiate them and win their sympathy.
 

The Kashmiri movement has, as a result, and very unfortunately, been virtually taken over by outsiders. The Jamaat-e-Islami has never had any faith in the Kashmiri brand of a more liberal Islam. A more standardised version of Islam is being offered to the local population that is completely out of sync with the region, with Kashmiriyat, a characteristic that typified the movement before.
 

This weakness of the Kashmiri movement that is fast-losing its Kashmiri identity — and, for this a variety of factors are responsible — is more than compensated on the other side. RSS and even more extreme brands of Hindu nationalism are gaining currency among Hindus in Jammu, as elsewhere in the country. 
 

What are the factors responsible for this hardening of position on both sides? The sham of the recent elections is one of the most significant contributory factors. It is a sorry tale for any country that is proud to call itself a democracy. Elections were far from free. Official figures themselves reveal a fast-declining rate of voter participation, not only among Kashmiri Muslims, but also Pandit migrants and Jammu Hindus. What does this signify but increasing alienation?
 

In its report published on October 6, 1999, The Times of India revealed that the opinion expressed by me on the recently conducted elections in the state were shared by a team of four IAS officers sent as independent observers to the state. I quote from their report: “Elections were neither free nor fair but full of violence. The electorate was coerced by the security forces to vote. The presiding officer at several polling booths corroborated the charges of coercion made by the voters. The observers found even minors in the queue and several mobile voters”. 
 

The observers saw matadors carrying women voters. They intercepted these matadors. The four senior IAS officers made a demand to the EC to countermand the elections. These demands were not even considered by the EC, while in states like Bihar and elsewhere, more prompt action was taken. 

There has been a significant change in the character of the movement in Kashmir with the presence of a militant outfit like Fidayeen (Lovers of God). The actions of the militants are more sympathetic to the locals and are targeting the Indian security forces

The conduct of the election commissioner (GV Krishnamurthy) on a visit to the state was blatantly partisan, when he commented that the “conducting of the elections was the answer to militancy.” The EC would have performed a far more signal and patriotic service to Kashmiris, residents of Jammu and
the whole country if he had simply concentrated on ensuring that the conduct of the elections was ‘genuinely free and fair’.
 

The boycott call by militants and a heavy presence of the military has been a constant factor in the state since the 1996 elections. How come then, that given these constants in the last three elections, there has been such a sharp decline in voting percentages this time? 
 

Look at the official figures. During the 1996 parliamentary elections, in the Srinagar city segment, 35 per cent of the electorate voted; this was down to 30 per cent in 1998 and touched an all-time low of 12 per cent in 1999. The story is similar for Anantnag. In  1996, 50 per cent of the voters came out; in 1998, this was down to 28 per cent; but in 1999 the voting percentage dropped to 14 per cent. In Baramulla, while 41 per cent of the voters came out to cast their vote in 1996; the turnout was the same in 1998, but this time it plummeted to 27 per cent.     If one goes into further detail and scrutinises figures for the Srinagar segment that has recorded 12 per cent of voters, we see that the Charar-e-Sharif and Badgaon segments recorded 45.50 and 45 per cent of voting respectively while Srinagar city registered barely 3–5 per cent votes. The extent of voter disillusionment or alienation can well be gauged from these statistics. 
 

Jammu and Kashmir also recorded the highest rates of invalid votes anywhere in the country; EC statistics tell us there were 9-12 per cent invalid votes in the state. It is worth analysing the factors responsible for such a low voting percentage and high rate of invalid votes in the state. 
 

As stated before, the boycott call by militants, the heavy and obtrusive army presence, the acute disillusionment of the Kashmiri people over the Kargil episode were the main factors. 
 

But an additional factor was the acute disillusionment of the Hindu migrant voters in the Valley and Hindu Pandits in the Jammu region with the BJP. This is evident from the number of Pandits who voted for the BJP. The BJP vote in the Jammu-Poonch region fell from 7,90,000 in 1998 to 2,90,000 this time. This means that only one-third of Pandit voters who supported the BJP last time extended their support to the same party this time. In Udhampur, too, the Pandit vote for the BJP declined from 5,23,000 votes in 1998 down to 1,94,000 this year. 

If there is such a sharp decline of votes within one year, from a particular segment with a particular party, what does it show? Obviously that, completely disillusioned with the BJP, which is also the ruling party at the Centre, Pandits have turned away from it. The BJP has led them up the garden path with false promises.
 

In the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, the percentage of Muslim voters is high. Within the Jammu region, too, 30 per cent of the electorate is Muslim.
 

With an open alliance between the BJP and NC, is it really believable that seats with a high domination of Muslim voters would so willingly back the NC’s collaboration with the BJP? There is hardly a constituency anywhere in India where Muslim votes are sizeable in number and where they have wholeheartedly supported the BJP. So, it is hardly believable that they would do so in Jammu and Kashmir.

The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference
 

In short, both the Hindus and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir are completely disillusioned with the ruling parties — the National Conference and the BJP.
 

There was blatant coercion of voters at the voting stage and subsequent manipulation of the results. My opinion is corroborated by EC observer’s report. 
 

In the midst of all this, secular parties, particularly the main opposition party, the Congress, that had converted secularism into a mantra all over the country, was conspicuous in that it put up only a nominal fight in the state. Since nothing can be expected from the opportunistic politics and regime of Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference and the communal worldview of the BJP, secular forces within the country must take their share of blame for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
 

Why did they betray the interests of Kashmiri Muslims, Jammu Hindus and the migrant Pandits living in the Valley? This is not what secularism is about. They had a wonderful opportunity during the last elections to intervene. They not only squandered an opportunity for themselves but have also compromised the national interest. The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference. 

The National Conference was a regional party which should have necessarily pitted itself against the insensitive and centrist politics of the Indian state. But, today, it has willingly been reduced to a mere tool of the BJP. It has completely lost the raison d’être of its existence. The Jammu Hindus, who were against Kashmiri Muslim domination, had under certain circumstances arising out of this, supported the BJP in the past. With the BJP shamefully allying with the NC, the raison d’être of this support, too, has also been completely eroded.

Given this state of a huge political vacuum and accumulated discontent what happens? Like I said before, it was the ideal situation for a secular formation with civil liberties, human rights perspective to intervene. 
 

In its absence, the local population has been pushed to the wall and a fresh lease of life has been given to militant activities. Without local support, no sophisticated weapons, no armed training can help militants succeed in any region.
 

This choice has, in my opinion at least, been forced on both the Kashmiri people and the people of Jammu. In 1996, when Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference came before the people, despite his past record, the people were willing to give him another chance. But over the past three years, his rule has been the worst ever, extremely corrupt, allowing no avenues or channels of protest.
 

All this must be seen in the context of heightened ‘national’ and ‘patriotic’ interest on the territory of the state during the Kargil conflict. The earlier ‘conviction’ and ‘assertion’ of the Indian authorities that, after Kargil, militancy would collapse has been disproved comprehensively.
 

Indian arrogance and insensitivity was manifest throughout the Kargil conflict?  The Indian media, most of it, swooped down on Kargil. But none mentioned the people of the state, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, where the war was being fought. Little mention was made then of the displaced persons either. This failure of the Indian media to even cursorily look at the plight of the Kashmiri people, with an ongoing struggle for democratic rights for decades, in my mind, constitutes a significant omission on the part of the Indian media. 
 

Conversely, there was a studied detachment among the local people at the war being waged. Unlike earlier occasions, there was no enthusiasm for the Indian army, throughout the operation, no donations for the jawans were collected, no blood banks held here. No state government ministers, with a few exceptions, even visited the front at the time.
 

I had made a special visit to Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee on this question. This visit was an attempt to apprise the Indian political leadership with the issues crucial to the people of the Valley, the Jammu region and Ladakh. The Shia Muslims who live in Kargil have a continuing disenchantment and discontent with Pakistan across the LOC, so even tactically it would have been wise of India to address their grievances. Though I was given assurances during my meeting with the Prime Minister, nothing has resulted.
 

The Indian government and the Indian people have consistently refused to address the grievances of the state. There is the struggle for Kashmiriyat. There has also been the expression of Jammu Hindus against Kashmiri Muslim domination. There has also been a movement for autonomy within the Ladakh region in which Kargil falls. 
 

For a month or so, things were silent after Kargil. The Pakistan-sponsored militancy movement remained silent. Local disillusionment with Pakistan, US and UN was also simmering. Pakistan had to do something to keep the movement alive. But what helped Pakistan significantly was the chief minister of the state, Farooq Abdullah’s coming out in open support of the BJP. At an RSS-sponsored function, he sang praises for the organisation and went to the extent of declaring that “the RSS is the most patriotic organisation”.
 

The political vacuum, the issue of acute discontent and disenchantment, during Kargil and post-Kargil especially at election-time, was unfortunately not addressed by any Indian political party, not even the so-called ‘secular’ Congress. 
 

The biggest betrayal of the state was in fact by the ‘secular’ Congress, as we can expect nothing from the BJP outside its self-declared divisive agenda. How interested the Congress party is in reflecting the genuine aspirations of the people of the state can be seen from the fact that the party had one member in Parliament and another in the Assembly. It got rid of both leaders, including Mufti Mohammed Sayeed just before the elections simply for suggesting dialogue with the militants. 

Has the party forgotten that during the last Congress government, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s cabinet colleague, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi (then minister of state in the PM’s office), had, around 1995, offered unconditional talks with militants in Kashmir? How do political parties accept a resolution of the Kashmir issue without having such a dialogue?
 

If the government can talk to Naga leaders in Paris, and other people ‘without conditions’ why not in Kashmir? This was the issue on which Mufti Mohammed Sayeed felt let down and resigned, and the Congress put up a token fight during the recent elections in the state.
 

The failure of secular forces to give an adequate response to the ground-level reality in Jammu and Kashmir was most visible in the failure of established political parties and NGOs and civil liberties groups to campaign for Saifuddin Soz who stood as an independent. It was Soz’s single vote on which the BJP’s central government had fallen.
 

None of the national secular parties have raised a single voice against Farooq Abdullah’s support to the BJP. There has been not a word of disapproval for this open and unprincipled collaboration. The Congress goes to town criticising Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh for their individual “hobnobbing with the BJP”. But here is a leader who is openly allying with a communal force and there are no comments, no condemnations, no interventions from the top Congress leadership.
 

Former information and broadcasting minister, Pramod Mahajan was blatant about this cosy relationship before elections were held. On a visit to the state, when asked to comment on the prospects of the BJP-led NDA coming to power, he said that the “six seats from Jammu and Kashmir (all these are seats over which the National Conference had claim) are already in the NDA basket.”
 

How can we complain against the BJP and their agenda? Their agenda is clear and open, as is the Jamaat-e-Islami’s. But Farooq Abdullah’s open support to both these ideologies has been ignored and allowed to pass by secular parties. This is a great act of omission on their part.
 

There is every evidence of a serious comeback of militancy in the state. If militants can get at the very nerve centre of the Indian security system, the army, it means they are back. But what needs to be emphasised is that it is out of sheer desperation that local sentiments are being exploited like this. This is the only way they can express their resentment and that is why there is this silent but growing support for militant activities.
 

The political vacuum, if unaddressed, will be filled by extremists on both sides. The process has been assisted by lack of secular commitment on the part of Indians to the state. In Jammu, the BJP’s failure to meet the aspiration of the Hindu section of the population, will, soon give birth to outfits that are more extremist than the BJP even. 

The local Kashmiri leadership, too, is isolated and cannot be heard. Shabbir Shah is a leader who had projected a more tolerant ideology but whose voice was hardly heard in between. Soon after the recent elections, he and others were jailed by the National Conference without any charge. Why? 
 

Personally, I am not inspired by All-Party Hurriyat Conference, especially after they accepted the leadership of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is openly pro-Pakistan. Yasin Mallik, who once showed so much potential as the young and daring leader of the secular JKLF, has also fallen in with the official Hurriyat line. None of these Kashmiri leaders, by the way, condemned Pakistan’s conduct during Kargil and that I think was a major failure on all their part. 
 

India is obsessed with blocking the Kashmir issue internationally, outwitting Pakistan etc. Why are we not concerned with trying to solve problems within our control? If we regard the people of the state as our own, why do we not espouse or display any desire to hear their legitimate grievances and thereafter attempt solutions?

I now fear the political eclipse and redundancy of saner voices such as mine in such a situation. Physically, too, I am vulnerable. So far, I have been able to communicate with both sides in the dispute. But with the complete shrinking of space for sane and secular dialogue, I fear that with hardening, extremist stances on both sides, I will lose my space completely. 
 

A far stronger figure, like Gandhiji, found himself redundant in 1947 and eliminated in 1948; what chances has a far smaller man like me under the circumstances?
 

Just like the RSS and the BJP have assumed the sole monopoly on the Indian point of view, the Kashmiri protest movement has increasingly been epitomised by a Pakistani Muslim fundamentalist flavour. On both sides, extremists have taken over. The military coup has not helped matters but generated further confusion.

A very stable and dangerous triangle has emerged after the last elections. 
 

The three points in the triangle are Farooq Abdullah, the BJP (driven by the extremist RSS) and the Hurriyat (now openly supported by a pro-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami).  While the three points of this triangle appear to oppose each other, they are in fact supporting each other. Hindu communalism supports Muslim communalism and an opportunistic National Conference makes political gain for itself, crucially dependant as it is on both the extremes. No points ever threaten each other; they depend on the other for their own survival. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Cover Story 1

The post Talibanisation of Kashmir appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Dear Zaka, I hope all is  well with you. You will  doubtless be surprised  to find a Rs.10 note enclosed with this letter.  This is a loan I took  from you nearly 35 years ago. As I intend to go for haj this year (Inshaallah), I am clearing all my debts. Things were so bad for me between 1964 and 1972 that I was hardly in my senses. Then, when it got better, I partly felt embarrassed returning such a tiny sum; partly distance was the excuse. In any case, please forgive me for my negligence. And please pray to Allah that he accept my haj. Ameen.
AU Siddiqui, Mira Road, Thane, Mumbai.

(A letter that ‘Zakabhai’, the proprietor of Fourways Travels, Mumbai, received from his long lost friend several months ago). 

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal want the government of India to stop its subsidy to haj pilgrims. Last month, the BJP-led Union government decided to hike the subsidy amount by over Rs.900 per haji compared to the amount paid last year. At Rs.20,000 per pilgrim, the subsidy for 72,000 hajis cost the government a total of around Rs.148 crore.

Not surprisingly, the announcement was greeted with the following from the national convenor of the Bajrang Dal, Surendra Jain: “If this is not vote bank politics, then why are they not extending the subsidy to Mansarovar (China) and Nankana Sahib (Pakistan) pilgrims.” While castigating his own saffron sibling, Jain also “appealed” to the “Muslim community” not to avail of the “extravagant” subsidy.

In support of its oft-repeated demand, the sangh parivar has found a formidable ally — Saudi Arabia. A report published in the February 26 issue of The Indian Express quotes both the Saudi ambassador to India, A. Rahman N. Alohaly, and the Saudi foreign minister, Saud Al-Faisal, trying to impress upon the Indian delegation accompanying India’s foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, during his tour of Saudi Arabia in January, that any state subsidy for haj pilgrimage is “wrong”. “Our ulema will help you in explaining to your people that the subsidy goes against the spirit of the Shariat,’’ Al–Faisal reportedly told the Indian delegation. 
Quick on the uptake, the VHP’s senior vice–president, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, wrote to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and, quoting the Saudi viewpoint, demanded immediate withdrawal of the subsidy. “Even the ulema of Mecca have said that taking subsidy for Haj was un-Islamic and robbed (it of) the very purpose of undertaking the pilgrimage,” he cooed.

It should not be surprising if sooner or later, the sangh parivar even starts citing (and why not?) the example of Pakistan. While disposing of a petition before him in 1997, justice Tanvir Ahmed of the Lahore High Court had ruled that any expenditure defrayed by the government in subsidising hajis was contrary to the Shariat and therefore, wrong. Since then, the Pakistani government has stopped all subsidies for haj pilgrimage. Confusing as it might seem, while the Saudi orthodoxy and neighbouring Pakistan under growing Islamic fundamentalism find haj subsidy un-Islamic, secular India now under increasing saffron sway persists with the subsidy and the quantum keeps growing with every passing year.  

But what might come as an even greater surprise for Hindutva, a very large section of Indian Muslims – from the ulema to Islamic scholars to intellectuals to ordinary citizens – believe that only that haj is acceptable to Allah the entire expense of which comes out of the personal finances of the haji concerned. While speaking to Communalism Combat, a large number of Muslims, cutting across the Mr.—moulvi divide expressed themselves in favour of the haj subsidy being scrapped by the government of India. 

The letter of AU Siddiqui cited at the beginning of this report, as also the account of Mohamad Amin Khandwani, former chairman of the all-India Haj Committee and currently chairman Maharashtra State Minorities Commission (see box) are eloquent testimony to the punctiliousness of a very large number of Muslims on the question of haj.
Such qualm about whose money is spent on haj is part of a widely prevalent Muslim belief. This is evident from the fact that none less than the editor of Muslim India and former MP, Syed Shahabuddin, has consistently demanded for the last 15 years that the government of India phase out the haj subsidy. “I have told successive Prime Ministers of the country that this haj subsidy is there because of their political need; it has never been our demand. No Muslim leader has ever demanded subsidy”, Shahabuddin told CC in a telephonic interview. 
When newspapers reported the 1997 Lahore High Court judgement, castigating the Pakistani State’s subsidies for haj, Shahabuddin was quick to make xeroxes and despatch them to our own ministry of external affairs. But even swayamsevaks like Vajpayee, Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati in the BJP–led Union government have not had the courage to follow the example of ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ Pakistan.

Shahabuddin, widely perceived as a rabble–rouser, is a politician whose career depends on building for himself the image of a champion of Muslim causes and the cultivation of Muslim votes. Would he risk being such a consistent opponent of haj subsidy if he had the least doubt that this would make him unpopular with the moulvi sahebs and the Muslim masses? 

For an answer to the question, here is the gist of an exposition that Abdussattar Yusuf Shaikh, secretary, All India Muslim Personal Law Board and office bearer of a host of Muslim educational institutions gave to CC.
Ø Of the five essentials of Islam, three are obligatory on all Muslims. These are, kalma (the declaration that there is no God but one and that Mohammed is his Prophet), namaaz (prayers five times a day) and roza (fasting during the entire month of Ramzaan). The remaining two are obligatory only for Muslims with adequate financial means to fulfil them. These are zakaat (annual Islamic tax payable according to a prescribed formula depending on the financial status of a Muslim) and haj (pilgrimage to Mecca). 

Ø Haj is obligatory, only once in a lifetime and only for those Muslims who are both physically capable of undertaking the journey and have the adequate financial capacity. It is not obligatory for others. The issue of adequate financial ability has also been clearly specified. 

Ø The money needed for the performance of haj should come out of one’s own legitimate earning or possession and the amount should be sufficient to meet the entire expenses to be incurred on the performance of haj. Among other things, this includes the entire travel expenses, whatever the mode of travel. 

Ø Before embarking on haj, a Muslim pilgrim must ensure that he leaves enough money behind for the expenses of all his dependants during the entire period that he is away. Further, on his return he should be sure of adequate resources to maintain his current standard of living for at least the next six months. 

Ø If there are pending family obligations (for example, if daughters are of marriageable age), they must be fulfilled before one plans a haj pilgrimage.
Ø All pending personal loans must be settled before one takes stock of one’s financial ability to perform haj.
In view of all these stipulations, for Shaikh saheb, haj subsidy is nothing but “bheek ka paisa” (alms) which is “no good” for haj. “The position in Islam is very clear. If I do not meet the required conditions, haj is not obligatory for me. Moreover, the most important consideration before Allah is my niyat (intention). If I sincerely desire to perform haj but do not have the means to do so, Allah will still grant me all the rewards due to a haji. On the other hand, if I perform a haj merely for show, it is useless before Allah. No, there is nothing wrong if the government withdraws this bheek ka paisa for haj,” he categorically asserts.

Is haj subsidy un–Islamic, then? If an entire array of Muslim ulema, scholars, intellectuals and ordinary Muslims — stretching from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to India — are so clear that this is so, shouldn’t Indian Muslims themselves ask the government to discontinue the subsidy or at least refuse to avail of it? The problem is that there are also a fair number of important personages who support the existing government practice on grounds that range from simple opportunism, to rationalisation on grounds of communal parity, to statements of principle.
The let-it-be argument: “Chodiye bhi. After all, if some Muslims are benefiting, why rake up the issue? Who benefits if the subsidy is withdrawn?” A variant: “How can you blame the ordinary Muslim going on pilgrimage? He is keen to go to haj, the government–appointed Haj Committee says pay so much for air travel, and he pays it. How is the poor man supposed to know anything about government subsidy? So how can anyone say that his haj will not be accepted Allah?” 

The communal parity argument: “The VHP claims only Muslims benefit from subsidy. But if not subsidy on airfare, what about the crores that the government regularly incurs on logistical support to help Hindu pilgrims reach highly inaccessible places like Mansarovar (in China) or Amarnath (in Kashmir)? And what about the actual expenses incurred on the recently concluded mahakumbh at Allahabad?” (According to Shahabuddin, the UP government spent Rs.150 crore, while the Centre provided another Rs 50 crore for the mahakumbh). 
The issue is further complicated because, as in case of the uniform civil code debate, the campaign is being led not by secularists or ordinary citizens but by blatantly communal Hindutvavaadis. 

“I totally agree that subsidy – as different from discounts that are normal for flights chartered by any group — for haj is un–Islamic and I would appeal to Muslims not to avail of the government subsidy. But if someone demands that the government scrap the subsidy, I would say that any financial benefit — including the tax benefit to available only to Hindus according to the Hindu Joint Family system — given to any religious community must also be scrapped,” argues businessman, politician and community leader, Ghulam Mohammed Peshimam. 
The man-does-not-live-by-bread-alone argument: Interestingly, the strongest pro- subsidy argument was forwarded by Muslims who claimed simultaneously that such a practice was neither un-Islamic, nor contrary to the principles of a secular state. Fuzail Jaffrey, editor of the Urdu daily published from Inquilab, is one of them. 
Jaffrey told CC: “I am by no means a shariah expert. But as a laymen I do not see anything wrong with the state subsidising airfare for haj or money for maintenance of temples. I don’t see this in Hindu Muslim terms; I don’t see why Muslims should feel guilty or defensive about it. After all, doesn’t our secular state also provide financial support to many temples in the country? And what about state aid to educational institutions like madrassas, pathshalas and Vidyapeeths run by religious bodies? Should the state stop supporting all of them? If it does so, haj subsidy will also go along with everything else”. 

Senior advocate, legal advisor to the Bohra head priest Syedna Burhanuddin and member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Yusuf Muchchala, is equally unrelenting in his defence of financial support by the state for haj as much as or for mahakumbh or for the temples maintained by the Travancore Dewasvom Board in Kerala and Tamil Nadu as provided for in the Indian constitution itself (Article 290 A). According to him, a deeply religious society like India has wisely opted for the secularism model adopted by an equally religious Ireland, instead of the erstwhile Soviet (anti-religious) or American (aloof from and indifferent to religion) models of secularism. “Muslims would be deeply hurt if the subsidy is withdrawn simply because of the naked communal demand of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal,” Muchchala told CC.

If neither Jaffrey nor Muchchala lay any claim to being Islamic experts, none less than the president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Maulana Qazi Mujahidul Islam Qasmi, too, finds nothing un–Islamic in haj subsidy. In a telephonic interview to CC from his Patna residence, Maulana Qasmi lent the authority of a theological heavy weight to the ‘Islamic-cum-secular’ argument in favour of state subsidy for religious activities. 
Remember the ‘sarkari peshimams’ scheme: When contacted telephonically at his Nagpur residence for his comments, Maulana Abdul Karim Parekh, treasurer of the AIMPLB, recipient of the Padma Bhushan award on Republic Day this year and a man reputed to hold ‘moderate’, ‘earthy’, ‘practicable’ views, dodged a direct response to the subsidy controversy. Instead, he chose to recount how the ulema were not at all amused by former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s attempt to win over the entire constituency of peshimams who lead prayers in mosques across the country. The ulema believed that here was an attempt to convert lakhs of moulvis throughout India into ‘sarkari peshimams’ or servants of the powers that be. 

“I told Rao that if such state largesse was extended to Muslim clerics, surely priests from other religions would legitimately stake their claim, too? OK, girjaghars and gurdwaras are relatively better off, so maybe Christians and Sikhs will not press their demand. But I asked Rao whether he had given any thought to how easy it was to set up temples overnight and what the government would do if lakhs and lakhs of Hindu priests, too, demanded salaries from the state. Rao smiled knowingly and that was the end of the scheme in–the–making for India’s peshimams”.
Is there a moral contained in this real life story that Maulana Parekh chose to recount of his own volition? Was the good maulana subtly suggesting that there is a connection somewhere between the question of subsidies for haj and Rao’s aborted salaries for peshimams scheme? That, apart from the Islamic and secular dimensions of the subsidy issue, there is also the need to consider the political dimension of issues, specially in the context of growing competitive communalism and Hindutva’s sustained drive towards majoritarian politics in India?
What Maulana Parekh really intended is a matter of conjecture. But Maulana Qasmi was head on when asked whether continuing haj subsidy adds bite to Hindutva’s “Muslim appeasement” propaganda. And, therefore, would it not be better if as a matter of political strategy as much as a matter of secular principle, Muslims themselves demanded an end to all state support for purely religious activity. No, was Maulana Qasmi’s response. “The ‘Muslim appeasement’ bogey is raised even when Muslims raise legitimate demands. Should Muslims stop raising even their legitimate demands?” 

How, in the maulana’s view, should Muslims react if the government were to decide on scrapping the haj subsidy? “Well, why should we tie our hands right now. If such a situation arises, the time and the then prevailing circumstances will govern our response”, came the answer. 
Given such sharply divergent views within the community, should the ordinary Muslim accept or refrain from accepting the haj subsidy as suggested by Abdussattar Yusuf Shaikh Ghulam Mohammed Peshimam, Islamic scholar, Asghar Ali Engineer and numerous other Indian Muslims, not to mention the Saudi and Pakistani perspective on the issue?

It is a question that exasperates people like Peshimam and Hisamul Islam Siddiqui, editor of the Urdu/Hindi bilingual weekly, Jadeed Markaz, published from Lucknow. “Our ulema are fully aware that this issue continues to simmer and Hindu communal bodies are fully exploiting it for their purposes. Why can’t they sit together, deliberate on the issue and come to some consensus on whether Muslims should support or oppose government’s subsidy?” Others would argue that as in the case of Muslim Personal Law, the issue is far too important to be left in the hands of the ulema alone.

The secular argument: If opinion on the subject is divided among Muslims, the situation seems to be no different among secularists either. Nikhil Wagle, editor of the Marathi eveninger published from Mumbai, Apla Mahanagar, is categorical: “We must move away from the Sarva Dharam Samabhav (equal respect for all religions) concept practised so far to that of a Dharam Nirpeksh (indifference to religion) secular model. I am totally opposed to any state subsidy for any religious activity, whether it is mahakumbh or haj”.

But another crusader for human rights, Justice Hosbet Suresh, has a contrary view that may surprise many secularists. “Of course, the state must be secular, but can one ignore or deny citizens their right to religion? I would not see the issue of haj subsidy as a religious issue but as a human, social issue. Who can decide that a human being’s need for faith is less important than his need for education, health services or a clean environment? If we expect the secular state to cater to his other needs, what is wrong in a state extending financial support to his spiritual needs as well? Of course, just as the argument for free education or free health is in support of those who cannot afford it, I would say that similarly in religious matters, state assistance should be strictly need based and non–discriminatory”. 

The need–based caveat is something that people like Yusuf Muchchala and Fuzail Jaffrey readily accept. Even as the debate continues, could one not begin, right now, with a minimum common denominator — the demand that pending further clarification on the subject, state subsidy for haj and all other religious activities must strictly be need–based, not community-based? 

But conceding the argument for a need-based subsidy is to concede that there is no rational basis to justify any haj subsidy. The government currently pays Rs.20,000 towards subsidising the airfare of haj pilgrims only because the airline is paid Rs.32,000 per ticket, whereas through proper negotiations the fare can be pegged down to around Rs.24,000. This would then mean that, if at all, only Rs.12,000 need be paid towards subsidy instead of the current Rs.20,000. In either case, an intending pilgrim must still put together at least Rs.65,000–70,000 for haj. By Indian standards this is a large sum of money, clearly way beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims. By what logic can anyone argue that a person who can spare/afford Rs.60,000-70,000 is incapable of raising another Rs.12,000 and is, therefore, deserving of subsidy on a needs basis? 

More pertinently, even currently, there are well over a hundred travel agencies which offer an all inclusive haj tour package to hajis for the same Rs.65,000–70,000. Not only is there no government subsidy involved in case of the privately conducted tours, the tour operators even make a profit for themselves. (See accompanying box, ‘Sarkari haj is no cheaper’). In sort, private initiative leaves no room for any justification of subsidy on a needs basis.  

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2001 Year 8  No. 67, Cover Story 1

The post Should the Haj subsidy go? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On the very day that Laxman extended his invitation to Muslims he and Vajpayee went to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to renew their pledge that they remain committed to their RSS roots. How can we take them seriously?

Laxman has also said that the ‘controversial issues’ are not relevant today but they remain on the BJP’s agenda. And his mentor, Atal Behari Vajpayee has stated in the Lok Sabha that his party has not abandoned those issues. In that case, do they want Muslims to help them come to power on their own so that they can then implement Hindutva’s agenda?

In any case, what standing does Laxman have in the BJP? The sangh parivar, very conveniently, has 25 different organisations, so that different leaders or different organisations can say different things at the same time. How can Muslims believe one of them and not the others?

Now that elections are due in UP, every few days, they catch some Muslim and dub him an ISI agent. Assuming that some of the Muslims arrested are, in fact, involved in passing on information to the ISI, the fact remains that they are mere carriers. Who are the big culprits, those occupying important government positions and have access to sensitive information that they pass on through these carriers? Why are none of them caught? This is nothing but a ploy to terrorise and demonise ordinary Muslims.

Now the RSS has announced it will act as ‘secret police’ to identify ISI agents and report them to the police. RSS volunteers have been provided the mobile phone numbers of the state’s director general of police and the home secretary so that they can pass on information directly to top officials. In other words, the RSS will now decide who is an ISI agent and who is not. Can you imagine what this means?

Some years back they had talked of taaleem (education), tijarat (employment) and tanzeem (organisation) for Muslims. If the UP experience is anything to go by, they have done nothing at all.

Take taleem, for example. Their main contribution is this field is to have declared that Muslim madrassas where children get some education are all ISI addas. Secondly, not a single Muslim educational institution has been granted minority status in their entire tenure.

They talk of fairplay with Muslims. Let them name one district in UP today where either the district magistrate (DM) or the district superintendent police (SP) is a Muslim.

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 7

The post Not a single educational institution has got minority status during the BJP’s rule in UP’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Jan 24, 1993, The Indian Express 
‘Advani promises Muslim welfare’ 
AHMEDABAD: The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) president, Mr. LK Advani warned Muslims to be aware of both Congress and their leaders and repose faith in the BJP…When a newsman sought to know the measures the BJP was contemplating for the welfare of Muslims to win their confidence, Mr. Advani said, “The BJP will protect their lives and they will enjoy equal justice.” Asked why he chose to skip the Muslim affected areas (due to riots) or relief camps in Ahmedabad, he quipped, “It’s a good suggestion for action.”

April 15, 1994, The Economic Times 
BJP bid to shake off anti-Muslim image
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have begun to feel concerned over the anti-Muslim tag that has come to stick to it and it likely to embark on an exercise to shake it off. A serious effort in that direction was made at the recent Sariska conclave of the BJP’s top brass with the senior vice-president, Mr KR Malkani, spelling out the concern over the party having been branded as an anti-Muslim outfit. 

March 29, 1995, The Statesman
Muslims have nothing to fear under BJP rule: Keshubhai
NEW DELHI: Muslims have nothing to fear under the rule of the BJP government in Gujarat and can look forward to getting a much better deal than what they got during Congress(I) rule, the state chief minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel has said. “You will see how well we treat Muslims and other minorities under our rule”, the new chief minister said, adding that his party believed that Muslims were as patriotic as Hindus, but had been “misled and misused by the Congress(I). 

April 21, 1995, The Indian Express
BJP tries to win over Muslims with Sanskrit Koran
BOMBAY: The Koran in Sanskrit? The idea is not as bizarre as it may seem. His is the spoonful of honey for the Muslim minority in the country… The in-camera convention of top BJP executives, including chief ministers, deputy chief ministers and leaders of Opposition, which got underway on Thursday, has been called to finalise poll strategies for the Lok Sabha elections which the BJP expects might take place earlier than scheduled. High on the agenda is a follow-up of the resolutions with regard to the minorities at the Goa convention of the party early this month whereby, following BJP president LK Advani’s call to “remove misconceptions (about the BJP) in the minds of the minorities”, the party resolved to revive the earlier Congress slogan of Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai. The more well-known of the resolutions were the three Ts – taaleem (education), tanzeem (organisation) and tijarat (employment) for Muslims.

May 2, 1996, The Telegraph
Advani ‘guarantees’ justice to Muslims
MUMBAI: The BJP president, Mr. LK Advani, today extended a “guarantee to every Muslim” of “security, justice, equality and full freedom of faith and worship.” Going all out to woo the community in the last lap of the party’s campaign, he said “no BJP government will tolerate any dilution of this guarantee.”

May 19, 1996, Mid–Day
Full protection to Muslims: Vajpayee
NEW DELHI: …In a long interview to a private television channel, Vajpayee said that all Muslims should be able to live with self-respect and honour. “For this, Muslims should give all support to my government”, he said  adding that he could not understand why the community was keeping away the mainstream”. 

June 16, 1997, The Times of India
Advani uses every trick to woo Muslim voter
BHOPAL: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, LK Advani, on Friday praised Jawaharal Nehru for his secular policies and promised to create a riot-free, violence-free and discrimination-free India when the BJP comes to power at the Centre.

November 15, 1997, The Asian Age
BJP plans a grand Muslim convention
NEW DELHI: In what will be a show of Muslim support for the BJP, the party’s youth wing, headed by Ms Uma Bharati, is planning a grand convention on December 4 which will be attended by over 5,000 members of the community.
According to the party, such a large number of Muslims attending a BJP conference itself will send the signal that the community was not averse to it any longer. “In a scenario where elections are expected any moment, such a message will be crucial for us. We will use the opportunity to wash the communal taint”, BJP sources told The Asian Age. 

May 3, 1999, The Hindustan Times
BJP’s image as anti-Muslim party blunted: Vajpayee
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today said his bus initiative to Lahore had greatly blunted the “false image” of the BJP of being an anti-Muslim party. 
May 8, 1999, The Times of India
‘BJP will get Muslim votes’
NEW DELHI: The BJP finds a “radical change” in the attitude of Muslim voters and is confident of getting “a major share of their votes” in the coming Lok Sabha polls as the party has given them a feeling of national pride unlike the so-called secular parties which always portrayed them in a poor light”, minister for information and broadcasting Mukhtar bbas Naqvi said. 

September 8, 1999, The Times of India
PM appeals for Muslim votes
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Tuesday asked voters to make the Opposition “pay the price” for bringing down his government and give a clear decisive majority to the BJP-led coalition…Making a special appeal to the minorities (during his election broadcast on Doordarshan), Mr Vajpayee said national unity without a firm commitment to secularism was unthinkable. He said that contrary to the propaganda of “our adversaries”, the past 17 months have been remarkably free from communal tension. 

September 11, 2000, The Asian Age
BJP trying to woo Muslims for more votes: Sher Khan 
Former Union minister Aslam Sher Khan has blamed Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Union home minister LK Advani for not keeping their word about upliftment of minorities and said the BJP’s new incarnation is a well-calculated move to mislead minorities and dalits on the eve of Assembly elections in five states. Mr Sher Khan, who had joined the BJP in 1997 said that he quit the party within one year after realising that the BJP had no love for Muslims and dalits and wanted to use them as a ladder to achieve power.
 

…and performance

Two states, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, both under BJP rule, have truly imbibed saffron values of governance. For Muslims, Christians and Dalits inhabiting these two states in northern and western India, the past two years have meant living in vastly altered circumstances — always under threat, sometimes physically attacked. 
What has been the lived experience of India’s minorities in these two ‘laboratories of Hindu rashtra’?

• Since 1998, when VHP-Bajrang Dal squads hounded Muslims out of their villages in Randhikpur and Sanjeli, life for the Muslim in Gujarat is marked. Where he lives,  what he eats, how he celebrates his festivals – everything is under close surveillance.
• Last month, ‘retaliation’ against Gujarat’s Muslims for the killing of Amarnath yatris in Kashmir by Pakistan-inspired mercenaries, meant a loss of Rs 20 crore worth of Muslim property in Surat (powerlooms), Sabarkantha (printing presses) and elsewhere in the state. 
• In July 1999, the Kargil war had its spillover in Ahmedabad’s own ‘war zones’ as BJP’s Yuva Morcha splashed provocative graffiti in Muslim areas to taunt and provoke Indian Muslims – “Ab to nagara baj chuka hai, sarhad pe shaitan ka/ Nakshe par se nam mita do, paapi Pakistan ka/ Khun se tilak karo, goliyon se arti/Pukarti hai yeh zameen, pukarti Ma Bharti”.
• Muslims are forcibly prevented from buying property in ‘secular’ areas of Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Baroda and other Gujarat cities and forced to reside in ‘ghettoes’.
• At the Hindu-managed VR Somani and Bhakta Vallabh schools, where 95 per cent of the students are Muslims but the teachers are Hindus, the teachers have adopted a unique technique of getting at the students: they just do not teach.
• Muslim students and teachers in schools in many cities in Gujarat are forced to sit, or be invigilators, for examinations on Eid day.
• In many Gujarati-medium schools run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, at the beginning of the class, Muslim students are asked to sit separately. 
• A recent circular by the Gujarat Education department will force all students to write their names on examination sheets of school and government examinations. This will leave the religious identity of the student in no doubt, making discrimination possible and introduction of the religious element in the assessment of answers. 
• Dozens of prominent politicians belonging to the ruling BJP in Gujarat and its allied organisations, like the VHP and Bajrang Dal, have been named in police FIRs (see Communalism Combat, October 1998 and April 2000. The Gujarat DGP, CP Singh, even admitted to the culpability of these organisations but needless to say no action has been taken.
• Since 1998, more than 200 Christian institutions – both secular and religious — have been attacked and Christian religious persons killed or assaulted; a vast majority of these attacks have taken place in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
• A virtual curfew during Christmas at the Dangs in south Gujarat in 1998 was a shameful travesty of the Indian Constitution. In December 1999, too, despite protests, Christians in the area had to suffer protests and terror.
• The echelons of the higher judiciary and the police and paramilitary are being filled with devoted RSS followers committed to a sectarian and inequitous polity.
• Not a single educational institution has been granted minority status during the entire tenure of the BJP in UP, off and on since 1990.
• As of now, not a single district magistrate or a superintendent of police in UP is a Muslim.
• The UP state Minorities Commission was scrapped during Kalyan Singh’s first tenure. Under pressure of a coalition partner, the Gupta-led ministry has now revived the commission; but only in name.
• In 1998, Kalyan Singh’s tenure was marked by gross human rights violations, wherein most of the victims of brutal encounters by the state police were Dalits and Muslims;
• In 1998, the UP minister of state for home announced an insidious plan linking every state-run school to the local RSS sarsanghchalak (known as the kulp yojana, it ran into rough weather after a storm of protests but it has not been formally withdrawn); Neither Keshubhai Patel’s promise of 1995 — “You will see how well we treat Muslims and other minorities under our rule” – nor LK Advani’s 1996 ‘guarantee to every Muslim” — “security, justice, equality and full freedom of faith and worship,” — has been of much help to the hapless Muslims and Christians of Gujarat. Bangaru Laxman’s invitation to Muslims notwithstanding, apparently, Hindutva and religious minorities simply don’t mix!

The post Saffron promises and performance appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The newly–elected BJP  president,Bangaru  Laxman’s Nagpur state- ment that Muslims are  “flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood” and his invitation to them to make his party their new home has sent political analysts and commentators guessing the possible reasons behind the BJP’s “change of heart”. In order of decreasing scepticism, the explanations being offered are as follows: 

One: The BJP president’s pro-Muslim posture was nothing more than a PR stunt on behalf of his mentor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, on the eve of the latter’s foreign jaunt — UN summit and the US. The Prime Minister, understandably, did not want to face “awkward questions” from the international press. 

Two: Laxman’s call, though addressed to Muslims is, in fact, aimed at the liberal Hindus to ensure they do not get alienated from the sangh parivar, because of the unsavoury words and deeds of the ‘hard–line’ VHP and Bajrang Dal. It also will help keep the BJP’s allies in the NDA in good humour.

Three: Through Laxman, ‘moderates’ in the BJP, led by Vajpayee, are building the party’s distance from the embarrassing members of the same parivar — the parent RSS and siblings, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.
Four: Laxman is merely articulating the BJP’s political compulsion. The BJP cannot hope to rise above the plateau it has reached if Muslims, who constitute around 12 per cent of the national electorate (in major states like UP and West Bengal, it is closer to 20 per cent), remain alienated from the party. For once, Laxman and other BJP leaders are quite candid about the fact that its vote–bank politics they are talking about: “This is not an appeasement, this is an appeal; There are 12 crore Muslims who vote en bloc, so we cannot afford to ignore them”. 
Five: The BJP president’s statement reflects the broad vision of the BJP. The 1999 Lok Sabha election results have led to “an unhealthy situation of Muslims not having a stake in the power structure. Laxman’s initiative is an attempt to broaden the social base of the ruling coalition. A legitimate political exercise”. 

Political analysts and commentators may continue their debate on the real intentions behind the BJP’s latest exercise in wooing Muslims. But it is more than evident that few among India’s Muslims have taken Laxman’s invitation seriously. 

(Curiously, little attention has been paid to other statement made by Laxman, a Dalit, in Nagpur, about the city being the ideological epicentre of both Hegdewar, a high priest of Hindutva and the founder of the RSS, and Dr. BR Ambedkar, who led half a million Dalits to convert to Buddhism on October 10, 1956 at Nagpur, because in his analysis “there can be no social and political emancipation for the Dalit within the Hindu fold”. 
Laxman believes that the participation of Dalits in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and in the riots in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and elsewhere has helped forge an “all Hindu identity” and resolved the tension between Hindutva and Amedkarism forever. But the poor electoral support to the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in 1999 suggests that the vast majority of India’s dalits do not share Laxman’s love for the sangh parivar. (See box, ‘The BJP’s new social bloc’ and the comment piece by Kancha Ilaiah in this issue).

The many reasons for the lack of Muslim enthusiasm to the BJP president’s call are reflected in the responses of several prominent Muslims who spoke to Communalism Combat. (See box). The gist of these responses could be reduced to the following proposition: 

Depending on their political convenience, BJP leaders say one thing and mean another, say different things on different occasions, or speak with forked–tongues. Others from the saffron brotherhood — VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, Hindu Munnani, and a host of outfits floated by the RSS — are more honest and consistent. They say what they do and their hostility towards Muslims and other religious minorities is equally evident from their word and deed. 
Not for nothing is the BJP an integral part of the sangh parivar, ideologically and organisationally speaking. Every time there is ‘action on the field’ — demolition of Babri Masjid, targeting of the life and property of minorities in engineered communal conflicts — the cadre of the BJP and those of the others are invariably on the same side. 

From bitter lived experience, Muslims have learnt the truth contained in the saying: A man is known by the company he keeps. When matching word with deed, their experience indicates that the saffron soldiers draw their inspiration not so much from the conciliatory, poll–eve statements of leaders like Laxman but from stalwarts of Hindutva such as the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS, Guru Golwalkar.

“The non–Hindu in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu religion or may stay in the country wholly subordinate to the Hindu nation claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizens rights,” Golwalkar wrote in his We or our Nationhood Defined in 1936. 
“Muslims are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood”. In speaking thus at the BJP national council meeting in Nagpur in late August, Laxman was merely repeating what the then Jana Sangh leader, Deendayal Upadhyaya, had said in his presidential address to the Jana Sangh in Calicut, way back in 1967. 
But actual developments on the communal front in the next few years are best summed up in the findings of judicial commissions, appointed by different government’s to inquire into the causes of the communal riots that have plagued the country since the ‘60s:

• Report of the Justice Jagmohan Reddy Commission on the Ahmedabad riots, 1969: “Here was not only a failure of intelligence and culpable failure to suppress the outbreak of violence, but (also) deliberate attempts to suppress the truth from the Commission, especially the active participation in the riots of some RSS and Jana Sangh leaders.”
• Report of the Justice DP Madon Commission on the Bhiwandi, Jalgaon and Mahad riots of 1970: “The organisation responsible for bringing communal tension in Bhiwandi to a pitch is the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal. The majority of the leaders and workers of the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal belonged to the Jan Sangh (the BJP’s predecessor) or were pro–Jan Sangh and the rest, apart from a few exceptions, belonged to the Shiv Sena”. 
• Report of the Justice Joseph Vithyathil Commission on the Tellicherry riots, 1971: “In Tellicherry the Hindus and Muslims were living as brothers for centuries. The ‘Mopla riots’ did not affect the cordial relationship that existed between the two communities in Tellicherry. It was only after the RSS and the Jana Sangh set up their units and began activities in Tellicherry that there came a change in the situation. Their anti–Muslim propaganda, its reaction on the Muslims who rallied round their communal organisation, the Muslim League which championed their cause, and the communal tension that followed prepared the background for the disturbances.
• Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal Disturbances at Jamshedpur, April 1979: “The dispute on the route of the procession became sharp and agitated reactions from a group of persons calling themselves the Sanyukt Bajrang Bali Akhara Samiti who systematically distributed pamphlets to heighten communal feelings had organisational links with the RSS.” 

Closer to the present time, who can forget the bloody yatra (from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990) that none less than the then BJP president and now the Union home minister, LK Advani, chose for his party’s rise to power? 
In seeking Muslim votes to lift the BJP above the plateau where it finds itself, Laxman may now be using different words, but he is saying nothing new. Since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the countrywide riots that followed, in every election season, the BJP has come up with attempts to wash off its communal taint and woo Muslims. (See box). 

But the actual experience of the last few years is proof to the Muslims that the BJP’s promises and ‘guarantees’ of security amount to very little. 

Firstly, the fact that across the country, it is Christians who have been the more obvious targets of Hindutva in the last few years is of little consolation to Muslims. They see in these sustained assaults on yet another religious minority in India a deliberate Hindutva ploy to keep the saffron brigade fighting fit. Who is to know when these ‘kar sevaks’ will be asked to revert to the old battlefront and go for the ‘Babar ki aulad’? Or will it be ‘Jinnah ki aulad’ and ‘ISI agents’ next time? 

There have been enough indications in the last few years to make Muslims believe that their fear is not mere paranoia. Gujarat, a state where the BJP rules unchallenged and where no effective opposition is presently in sight, is proving to be an ideal ‘laboratory for Hindutva.’ For others, the state offers an insight of what India’s minorities can expect in Ram Rajya of the Hindutva variety. For Christians and for Muslims, too, Gujarat has increasingly turned into a nightmare state in the last few years. (See box).

Gujarat’s Muslims, however, are not the only ones who need to worry. For the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya, the war over Kargil last year was not a conflict between two countries, but a link in the 1,000–year–old clash between ‘barbaric’ Islam and ‘Hindu tolerance’. The Bajrang Dal chief went on to say that no peace is possible between Hindus and Muslims until the Quran is banned.

Since April this year, arms’ training is being given to activists of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP. The reason, according to the chief of UP’s VHP Purushottam: “anti–Hindu forces are very active in UP…The ISI has spread its tentacles in the state. To counter these forces, Bajrang Dal activists are being trained”. Outlook magazine reported that the Dal activists being trained at ‘Karsevakpuram’ near Ayodhya began their morning with the chant: “We will demolish all mosques.” 

No sooner had he returned from the BJP’s national council meet in Nagpur, where Laxman made all the right noises, that the BJP stalwart from UP, Kalraj Mishra, went rushing to Ayodhya. What else does this mean except that the BJP identifies with the VHP’s agenda of commencing building of the Ram mandir in Ayodhya soon and court orders be damned?

Muslims and Christians, who feel insecure in today’s India, would certainly welcome a friendly gesture from the BJP. But not if it looks like a tactic with an eye on votes. Or a strategy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

But if the hollowness of the BJP’s intention to woo Indian Muslims needs no further emphasis, Laxman’s comments on Hindu–Dalit mobilisation and unity with the caste Hindu need careful scrutiny because they do, in fact, reflect the competing pulls on the nationwide Dalit movement today. This could prove pivotal in future Dalit mobilisation.

Besides linking Hegdewar and Ambedkar, Bangarau Laxman went further on Dalit and caste Hindu alliance building. When asked by journalists to comment on the Ayodhya movement, Laxman praised the movement saying it was one in which “people from all walks of life participated and moreover a movement where all caste feelings receded.”

The fact that the sub–text of the campaign to build a temple in the name of Lord Ram at Ayodhya was the demolition of a 400–year–old mosque that was systematically portrayed as a symbol of Babar ki aulad (who are deserving of summary treatment) was left unexamined. 

The Ayodhya movement has made a hitherto unique achievement in terms of all–Hindu mobilisation. From many parts of the country, the movement managed Dalit participation in pogrom–like attacks on Indian Muslims. The very same, all–Hindu kamandal project is today being aggressively promoted not only in Gujarat — where Dalit women interviewed by Communalism Combat have testified to Dalit youth being attracted to Bajrang Dal shakhas for arms training on ‘salaries’ of Rs. 5–10,000 per month — but all over India. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 1

The post Wooing the victim appeared first on SabrangIndia.

For Indians who truly  value tolerance, every  passing day sounds a  death knell. The ground  is slipping swiftly; we are  sinking fast into the  quicksand of brazen manipulation. Such outlets for articulating grievances that still exist are severely proscribed by the rapidity of events and happenings. Institutions for the affirmation of inalienable basic rights are limited by an apathy that is compounded by a piece–meal response to events. 

Courts, the police, the legislature and the executive are all crippled. Either because of a self–inflicted tunnel vision that refuses to recognise the calculated plan or pattern behind the systematic build up of the climate of hate in which violence appears ‘legitimate’, or because of calculated indifference, driven by bias. 

We are all witness to the wilful flouting of the rule of law, daily. As it has been happening since the mid–eighties before their formal grip on political power, and more so since 1998, after the BJP’s rise to power, the fundamental freedom of faith and the identity of Indians who are not Hindu has been a constant target. 

Constant intimidation through verbal barrage and frequent acts of violence against a section of Indians — Muslims and Christians — have come to be accepted as facts of life. Vicious utterances, that go unrestrained and unchallenged by the guardians of law, have accorded them a sinister legitimacy. The statements by the leaders of the BJP/RSS/VHP/Bajrang Dal/SS, inciting hatred and violence and acts of violence themselves, are being highlighted by the mainline media every other day. 

As the cumulative outcome of the carefully cultivated climate of coercion, other basic freedoms — right to life and liberty, of personal security of and the right of association — of thousands of Indians stand severely curtailed. Churches are attacked; copies of the Bible desecrated and burnt. A Christian priest is forced to worship inside a temple; adivasis are ‘re–converted’ amidst much fanfare but told to worship in separate shrines thereafter.

Physical attacks and intimidation of minorities have re–surfaced with a vengeance. Incidents in the past three months alone — between April and June 2000 — have crossed the three dozen mark. Christian religious persons running educational institutions or health centres have been singled out for murder or other forms of mistreatment. In every instance, mob rule and intimidation has overpowered the rule of law, with the local police reduced to wilful impotency. 

Every attack has been preceded by systematic distribution of hate spewing pamphlets (see box 2). Since 1996, media reports have drawn repeated attention to such hate campaigns. But all the vitriol has suspiciously escaped police action under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Gujarat, and now Uttar Pradesh, are living examples of life for Indians under ‘Hindu rashtra’.

Senior officials in the police, like the DGP of Gujarat, CP Singh, have stated on record that “organisations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal are clearly behind the violence” (see CC, October 1998). Concrete evidence in specific cases points clearly to the moral and ideological backing that the sangh parivar renders to the assailants. But our watchdogs and institutions fail to make the connection or see the pattern.

Four months ago, the newly appointed RSS Sarsanghchalak, KS Sudarshan, declared that an ‘epic war’ was in progress in India between Hindus and ‘anti–Hindu forces’; in Mumbai, Bal Thackeray’s Saamna is once again spitting venom with a vengeance against ‘anti–national’ Muslims (See page 25). And yet, we resist drawing the links. 

What is responsible for this selective amnesia? How is it possible for us to react to rights’ violations in individual cases but turn a blind eye to the bloody and devious design that underlies them?

One fine day, a Bajrang Dal leader, Dharmendra Sharma, sah-sahayojak for the Braj region, makes front page news declaring that Christians are now “bigger enemies” than Muslims. (The Times of India, June 23, 2000). Clarification, if any were needed, that Muslims remain the Bajrang Dal’s and the VHP’s enemies! “Maar peet to kya, hum sab kuch karne ke liye taiyar hain” (“We are prepared to use violence. There is no limit”), said Sharma, leaving no room for any confusion. 

The remark prompted an expression of outrage from India’s attorney general, Soli Sorabjee. He opined that such elements should be put behind bars. The National Human Rights Commission demanded details of attacks on Christians from the central and state governments. But only weeks earlier, the remark of the all–India Bajrang Dal convenor, Dr. Surendra Jain, calling for “a second Quit India movement” to drive away Christian missionaries had passed unnoticed and unchallenged. (The Afternoon Despatch and Courier, May 27, 2000).

Life in Gujarat for a Muslim or a Christian today is a suffocating reminder that he or she no longer enjoys the precious privilege of being regarded as an equal Indian. Muslims residing in ‘cosmopolitan’ localities in Gujarat are forcibly evicted; Muslim children have to compulsory attend school and even give examinations on Id day. Discrimination and bias has insidiously crept into the marketplace of ideas, avenues of livelihood, educational institutions, the administration, the police, the judiciary. All in all, the quality that we used to proudly describe as Indian values is fast eroding. 

What more will it take to force us to recognise the extent of corrosion? Mumbai’s classrooms, at the university level, reflect this public sanction to brazen bias in their own style. A professor advising students on how to write an essay for the All India Open School examination elaborates: “Write about how the British exploited this country. And how before that the Muslim rulers, thanks to their love of the good life, robbed this great wealthy land of all its wealth. Muslims have always loved the good life and it is this greed that has looted our country that used to be a sone ki chidiya (a golden bird). 

There is a clever and calculated plan behind every campaign launched, sustained and developed by the RSS and its faithful followers. In the eighties, the campaign for a glorious temple in the name of Lord Ram at Ayodhya fired 18,000 villages to participate in the shilanyas in 1990, and over 5,00,000 kar sevaks to be witness and participants in the demolition of a mosque in Ayodhya two years later. Clever double entendre accompanied the campaign for a temple at Lord Ram’s legendary birthplace. The justification in the nation–wide effort was through the demonising of Mughal emperor Babar. Muslims in India today, ‘Babar ki aulad’, were crudely told again and again, that they had trampled on all that is decent Indian, read Hindu.

With the campaign for the construction of a Ram mandir at Ayodhya now in the process of being actively revived, the anti–Muslim underpinnings of the campaign are also re–surfacing in subtle and not–so–subtle forms. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), nudged by an encouraging human resources development ministry under none less than Murli Manohar Joshi, is busy excavating 46 Indian historical sites, including UNESCO–protected World Heritage sites like Fatehpur Sikri. Objective? To establish that Hindu or Jain temples exist below Mughal (read Muslim), monuments.

There is a brazenness that underlines the physical assaults and intimidation whereby the assailants present themselves as victims acting in self–defence. Of late, the Bajrang Dal has publicly started arms training for its cadre in order to prepare them for ‘defending’ Hindus and Hinduism from the demons being resurrected — Muslims and Christians. The daily violators of law and those who condone verbal assaults, physical intimidation and murder are the first to point to Pakistan’s ISI as the real culprit! Union home minister, Advani also concurs, seeing a foreign hand behind the attacks on Christians. The result: the nitty–gritty facts behind those responsible for the assaults and violence in each of the cases, where culprits inspired by or belonging to the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the VHP have been identified, are glossed over and the police just do not act. The guilty not only escape the arm of the law but enjoy government protection every time. 

Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee and his strongman, Union home minister LK Advani, have once more declared that there is “no communal twist to the recent incidents”. The liberal mukhota of the sangh parivar is useful for the saffron bandwagon at ticklish moments like this. 

Vajpayee’s admirers, who simply refuse to believe him capable of legitimising hatred and selective murder, saw his recent bowing before the Pope at the Vatican as a “master stroke”. That the pontiff raised the issue of increasing attacks on Christians at his meeting with the PM and yet again, three days later, is seen as simply a passing hitch in international relations. 

Graham Staines’ murderer, Dara Singh is today a man lionised by the literature emanating from the saffron camp. He proposes to fight the next election. For the moment, the Hindu Jagran Sammukhya, backed by the RSS, is busy distributing thousands of copies of a 16–page booklet Mu Dara Singh Kahuchi (I am Dara Singh speaking) in Manoharpur, Orissa. The booklet focuses on the activities of the Staines’ family and proclaiming that since “Staines was the killer of our culture, so his killing was necessary”. 

The officially–appointed Wadhwa Commission implicated Dara Singh in the triple murder case but despite the evidence of police officers and counsel before the Commission, it exonerated the like BJP, RSS, VHP and BD. An example, yet again, of a resistance to examine the ideological backup that allows a Dara Singh to flourish and grow in popularity.
Vajpayee has been of consistent use to the hate–driven parivar. Eighteen months ago, on New Year’s Day 1999, after visiting the southern district of The Dangs in Gujarat, that had suffered systematic violence against its minuscule resident Christian community (ruining traditional Christmas celebrations), Vajpayee spoke to the national media. Without a single word on the violence and intimidation suffered by Dang Christians, he called for a national debate on conversions! 

Union home minister, LK Advani, used to be the BJP’s most eloquent leader on every issue pertaining to minority–majority relations in the country in the eighties and nineties — before he took an oath swearing allegiance to the secular and democratic tenets of the Indian Constitution. Today, he has mastered the art of keeping a conspicuous silence. He does surface on appropriate occasions only to issue clean character certificates to the Bajrang Dal and the VHP every time their name gets associated with criminal incidents. 

Following the triple murder by burning of Graham Staines and his young sons, Advani was quick to absolve the VHP and Bajrang Dal of any involvement in the crime. He knew these organisations well, he said, adding that they were incapable of criminal acts! It is a well–programmed symphony in operation, being played out by the different organs of the sangh parivar every day. That the Vajpayee–Advani duo is right on top of the political pyramid, ever ready with alibis, helps a great deal. 

That the BJP and its supporters within and outside the sangh parivar rely heavily on Vajpayee’s liberal mask is more than understandable. What is not, however, is the wilful blindness of the secular components of the NDA, leaders such as the TDP’s technocrat, Chandrababu Naidu, the Trinamool Congress’ firebrand, Mamata Banerjee, and the ever–reasonable socialists, George Fernandes and Jaya Jaitly. 

Equally difficult to appreciate is the failure of individuals within other secular political formations to categorically affirm that the basic rights and freedoms of every Indian, regardless of religion, caste, creed or gender is inalienable. (Remember a state minister from the ‘secular’ Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra, personally welcoming criminals allegedly associated with the Bajrang Dal on their release from the Nasik jail. They were charged with the vandalising a girl’s hostel in April. The deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Chhagan Bhujbal, later justified the minister’s behaviour).

Most opinion polls conducted to gauge public opinion indicate that only about a quarter of the Indian population backs the BJP and not all the support is for communal reasons. The rest of India, which naturally includes minorities, Dalits and other Hindus within it, remains opposed to Hindutva’s antics.

The hitch lies, however, in the lack of translation of this opposition into organised protest and outrage. The ignominies of rights abuses and oppression of minorities, women and Dalits notwithstanding, there is an innate reluctance to accept, acknowledge and rise in unison against these horrors. One of the reasons is our refusal to abandon the prevalent myth of Indian civilisation as the most ancient, the most non-violent, and the mSost tolerant in the world.

Only the creative explosion of that myth will help rid us of our false cocoon of comfort and galvanise us into articulation of outrage that is long overdue.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2000, Year 7  No. 60, Cover Story

The post Blinding Reality appeared first on SabrangIndia.