The popular vlogger hails from Udaipur and works in the Khupilong area of Tripura. NewsClick reported that one of the BJP leaders also went to a local police station and filed a complaint against Nandi. Following this, the police even called the vlogger for interrogation.

This incident has led to many citizens of Tripura questioning the move of the government. Nandi had reportedly made a video on Eid and also produced a song. The video asked people not to get divided along communal lines and to celebrate the festival of Eid in harmony.

NewsClick reported that once the video appeared on social media, he was summoned by BJP leaders. A woman BJP leader then grabbed him by the collar and thrashed him. She reportedly asked Nandi why he demeaned his Hindu origins by acting like a Muslim youth in the Eid video. The video of his assault, too, is also viral now. In the video, Nandi could be seen begging for mercy while he is surrounded by other people.

EastMojo, quoting, Nandi, wrote: “The elected Deputy Chief of East Gokul Nagar Panchayat called me to visit his place for some work. We know each other so I went there to discover that around 30 to 40 youths were waiting for me.”

“The Panchayat leader slapped me, thrashed me in front of everyone there. I kept asking what my fault was and explained that the video was produced by another channel and the casting was done by him only but no one was there to hear anything,” he added.

Nandi also said that he was not the producer of the Eid video. He merely acted in it – as did other people – and was paid for the job. He said he did not know why a case had been lodged against him. Quoting police sources, EastMojo wrote that a case against the vlogger was lodged at the behest of the rabid and supremacist, Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

Two others who acted in the Eid video – Uma Debnath and Sneha Bhowmik – have also issued statements saying they did not think that acting in that video was problematic as it was part of their job. They, as other netizens, have also extended support to Nandi.

Related:

Pakistani Hindu girl apologises for cricketer’s “Jai Shree Ram” post on Eid

Maharashtra: Hate Campaigns led by Raja Singh & Kalicharan continue to go unchecked

Hate Watch: BJP MLA demands demolition of Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar, willing to donate one year’s salary to have temples built on those spots

The post Vlogger Assaulted by BJP Leaders for Video on Eid: Tripura appeared first on SabrangIndia.

While western Uttar Pradesh’s farmers resisted voting for the ruling regime of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Adivasi (indigenous tribal) regions of the state voted overwhelmingly for the party. Of the 46 seats in the 10 districts – Basti, Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Deoria, Gonda, Laliitpur, Maharajganj, Mirzapur, Siddharthnagar and Sonbhadra – the BJP bagged as many as 32 seats. However, an interesting trend seen in these regions is that the BJP lost seats in areas that reported lower voter turnout.

Generally, a voter turnout of 65 percent or more indicates a strong anti-incumbency factor, suggesting that the ruling party is likely to lose its seat in areas with a higher voter turnout percentage. However, this trend appeared to have been reversed in tribal areas where districts with lower voter turnout reported less votes for the BJP.

For example, both the seats of Lalitpur district went to the BJP party. This area is nearer to Madhya Pradesh and reported an overall voter turnout of 71.27 percentage. Yet, it voted for the BJP with a margin of at least 10 thousand votes.

Meanwhile, Basti district that reported 56.93 percent voter turnout gave only 1 out of 5 seats to BJP. Three seats of Basti Sadar, Kaptanganj and Rudhauli went to the Samajwadi Party (SP) with a victory margin between 1,779 votes to more than 24,000 votes. One seat of Mahadewa went to the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) with a victory margin of 5,495 votes. Similarly, Siddharth Nagar that had a 51.56 percent overall voter turnout gave only two of its seats to BJP. One constituency of Shohratgarh that had a 52.60 percent voter turnout voted for regional party Apna Dal (Soneylal) or AD(S) with an overwhelming margin of more than 24,000 votes. Whereas Domariyaganj and Itwa seats went to SP.

It may be noted that these two constituencies had the lowest voter turnout. Yet where Domariyaganj had a higher voter turnout (50.15 percent) than Itwa (49.37 percent), the former had a lesser margin (771 votes) than the latter (1,662 votes). The area therefore reflected the reverse trend.

However, Deoria, Gonda and Sonbhadra that reported voter turnouts within a range of 56 percent to 59 percent overwhelmingly voted for the BJP. Yet barring Obra, individual constituencies in Sonbhadra reported voter turnouts around 60 percent and above. Further, Deoria and Gonda districts are surrounded by more city areas that have favoured the BJP and other allied parties.

Again in Mirzapur, constituencies with poorer voter performance (barring Mirzapur city) like Chhanbey and Majhawan with lesser voter turnout voted for non-BJP parties. The Chhanbey seat went to the AD(S) whereas the Majhawan seat was won by another regional party Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) party with a victory margin of more than 33 thousand votes.

The same pattern persists in Maharajganj (62.34 percent voter turnout) where Pharenda constituency with a 60.07 percent voter turnout elected the Congress party and Nautanwa with a 61.25 percent voter turnout voted for NISHAD. However, the Congress won by a narrow margin of 1,246 votes whereas NISHAD won by more than 15 thousand votes.

Chandauli’s Sakaldiha was another outlier that despite a relatively decent voter turnout (63.15 percent) compared to the rest of the region voted for SP with a margin of over 16 thousand votes.

Finally, Chitrakoot district with 62.88 percent voter turnout gave both its seats to non-BJP parties. The namesake constituency went to the SP with a margin of over 20 thousand votes whereas the AD(S) won the Manikpur constituency with a narrow margin of 1,048 votes.

With over 255 seats won across the state, the BJP will continue to govern UP for the next five years.

Related:

UP Assembly Elections: Serial hate offender Raghvendra Pratap Singh gets the boot in Domariyaganj!
UP Assembly Elections: Farmers dealt a mighty blow to the BJP in some constituencies
Why is Mayawati blaming Muslims and media for BSP’s electoral debacle in UP?
Hate Offender Keshav Prasad Maurya emerges as one of the biggest losers in UP Assembly elections

The post UP’s tribal belts show unusual voter activity appeared first on SabrangIndia.

After two people, including a 12-year-old child, were brutally shot dead by Assam Police in Gorukhuti village of the Dholpur (Dhalpur) region of Assam’s Darrang district last week, efforts are being made by a desperate regime to deflect attention from the entire sordid state of affairs that began with the heartless eviction of as many as 800 families from their homes amidst a raging Covid-19 pandemic and heavy monsoon in a flood prone riverine region. An attempt is now being made to add a distinct communal hue to the entire exercise, perhaps also because it is election season in Assam, with five by-elections scheduled for Oct 30. This means it is also a ripe opportunity for polarisation and division, and seeking votes on the basis of hyped-up hate, instead of concrete issues. 

The top brass of the Assam Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is busy spreading the rumour that Parbati Das, the widow of Karna Das, the priest of the Shiva temple in Dhalpur, and their son, were “taken away” by Muslims. They have alleged that the widow was forced to marry a Muslim man and forcibly converted to Islam along with her son. 

But when we spoke to Parbati Das, she shot down the communal rumours and told us her story.

“I was married to the priest of this Dhalpur temple when I was around 12 or 13 years old. We both used to offer prayers there,” she says. Her family and two other Hindu families used to live in peace with their predominantly Muslim neighbours. Later the other two Hindu families moved away. Meanwhile, many Assamese Hindus who lived across the river came and offered prayers at this temple. Parbati and Karna had two sons, the elder of whom now works as a daily wage labourer in Guwahati. 

“My husband died about 20 years ago, but I continued to offer prayers,” says Parbati. But after her husband’s death, a young Parbati fell upon difficult times. “I ended up working as a help in the homes of Assamese families, and even carrying bricks at construction sites, to make ends meet,” she says. Sometimes, she also worked as a help in the homes of Muslim families. This appeared to have rubbed some communal-minded people the wrong way, and they resorted to harassing the poor widow. “Even the new priest who came after my husband died, harassed me because I used to work in the homes of Miya Muslims to feed my children… it was torture,” she says.

“Around that time, the condition of the house I used to live in, deteriorated so much that it became unlivable. I asked the Temple Committee for help, but they claimed that I had no land. But I knew we had land. So they directed me to the Circle office,” says Parbati, who ran pillar to post collecting evidence of land ownership. “I managed to get copies of revenue receipts,” but the harassment continued. She ended up living in a makeshift tent. “I built it using banana leaves and a saree,” she says, recalling her trauma. “When nobody helped me and I could not live there anymore, I decided to get married to a local man, so that my children and I would have shelter during the rainy season,” she says. Parbati married a Bengali-speaking Muslim man, their shared language playing a part in her choice. 

As far as religious conversion goes, Parbati clarifies, “As one person cannot have two religions, I accepted my husband’s religion voluntarily.” She reiterates, “Nobody forced me to change my religion.” What is also noteworthy is that her name still appears as Parbati Das in her documents. Her voter ID and other documents may be viewed here:

Her sons from her first marriage have both retained their Hindu names and religion. Her son from her second marriage practices his Muslim father’s faith.

But the truth has not stopped the Assam BJP from spreading misinformation, that has the potential to spark a communal conflagration. At the forefront of this communal rumour campaign are none other than Dilip Saikia, the BJP Member of Parliament (MP) from Mangaldoi, which is the district headquarters of Darrang, the site of the violence, and Padma Hazarika, the BJP MLA from Sootea. 

Recently, Atanu Bhuyan, Editor of DY 365, a popular local news channel, tweeted that Saikia had told his channel that a Shiva temple priest’s wife had been forced to convert to Islam in Dhalpur.

The indigenous population in Dholpur has come under threat from encroachers to such extent that some Muslim people took away Dholpur Shiva temple priest’s wife abd child and forcibly converted them @DilipSaikia4Bjp

— atanu bhuyan (@atanubhuyan) September 24, 2021

The issue was also amplified by @VoiceOfAxom, an influential Twitter handle with over 36,000 followers. It claimed that the Dhalpur Shiva temple is 5,000 years old and that its patrons included both Ahom and Nepali kings. But when it comes to the temple’s modern-day management, it says that Hindu dairy farmers of Gorukhuti village contributed to its upkeep. But, in a rather viciously communal twist, it goes on to peddle the same narrative of forced conversion of the temple priest’s wife.

After the demise of the Pujari Kartik Das in 2011, his wife was forced to marry a Muslim man. She and the three children of the late Pujari Kartik Das were converted to Muslim. Such is the threat to indigenous people in Dholpur. 10/n

— Voice of Assam (@VoiceOfAxom) September 25, 2021

But that’s not all. In an interview with Anupam Chakraborty, editor of NKTV in Assam, another BJP heavyweight Padma Hazarika also promoted the same narrative saying, “Parbati Das, the wife of the temple priest and her son Ganesh Das, were taken away by a ‘particular’ community. Now, that Parbati and her son are in a Muslim house nearby the temple.” He also alleged that the two had been forcibly converted.  

But, two things are clear from Parbati’s interview to us:

–          Nobody “took Parvati and her son away” from the priest

–          There was no “forced conversion”

CJP’s sister publication SabrangIndia has been covering evictions in the region, and we have been following how the eviction drives are disproportionately targetting members of the Muslim community.

Here are a few examples of recent evictions:

May 17, 2021 – 25 families evicted from Dighali chapori, Laletup, Bharaki Chapori, Bhoirobi and Baitamari in Sonitpur District. These are flood-prone riverine areas.

June 6, 2021 – 74 families evicted from Kaki in Hojai District. Roughly 80 percent of the population here is Muslim.

June 7, 2021 – 49 families evicted from Dhalpur, Phuhurtuli in Darrang District. All, except one family, are Muslim.

August 7, 2021 – 61 families evicted from Alamganj in Dhubri District. 90 percent of the population here is Muslim. 

September 20, 2021 – Around 200 families evicted from Fuhuratoli, Dhalpur in Darrang District.

After the evictions carried out on June 7, the one in which Parbati Das was evicted from her home, our team spoke to residents. According to them, after the Assam movement, Muslims as well as three Bengali Hindu families lived together in harmony in the region. One of those three families was the family of Karna Das who founded a small Shiva temple on a hill located there. He married a woman named Parbati and gradually other people also started offering prayers at the temple including Assamese Hindu families that live across the river. But later two other Hindu families moved to Kalang in Morigaon District. However, the temple priest Karna Das and his wife Parbati Das remained in Dhalpur.

Now, the Shiva temple that is at the heart of this controversy, has two priests, one of whom joined just five months ago. But despite being formerly married to a priest of the same temple, it was Parbati who was thrown out of her house with her new family during the eviction. “This is the second time I was thrown out of my house. I am homeless now and don’t know what to do,” she said.

Therefore, the BJP’s purpose behind spreading this false story appears to be to create a communal divide in a state that has so far been proud of its plural, secular, multi-ethnic culture. Given how by polls are due in Assam in Gossaigaon, Tamulpur, Mariani, Thowra and Bhabanipur on Oct 30, could this all be a political ploy to reap a rich electoral crop by polarising the electorate?

Related:

Heartless government poised to evict thousands amidst Covid-19, monsoon in Assam
Assam Police Firing: 12-year-old shot dead while returning home from Aadhaar centre!
Crowd control by Police: How much force is too much force?
Assam Police Firing: Who are “encroachers” and who are “indigenous”?
Assam Police Firing: People across India demand justice for evicted families
Assam Police Firing: Support for victims grows
Assam Police Firing: Death toll rises, victim blaming rampant
Police firing in Assam: Illegal and unforgivable
BREAKING: 2 killed, 10 injured in police firing in Assam

The post EXCLUSIVE! Assam priest’s widow shoots down claims of “forced conversion” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Kalyan Singh, the 89-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who hailed from Aligarh, has left behind a legacy that will be adequately used by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming elections. The first big indicator came soon after Singh’s demise last week, when the UP Deputy CM KP Maurya announced that major roads in Ayodhya, Lucknow, Prayagraj, Etah, Bulandshahr and Aligarh will be named after him. Singh was hailed as a “Ram Bhakt” who “gave up power for Ram Mandir but did not fire on the kar sevaks” 

राम भक्त स्वर्गीय #kalyansinghji बाबू जी के नाम लोक निर्माण विभाग अयोध्या अलीगढ़,एटा,बुलंदशहर प्रयागराज में एक एक मार्ग के नाम होगा
बाबु जी ने राम मंदिर के लिए सत्ता छोड़ दी परंतु कारसेवकों पर गोली नहीं चलाई !!
अधिकारियों को जल्द प्रस्ताव प्रस्तुत करने के निर्देश !!

— Keshav Prasad Maurya (@kpmaurya1) August 23, 2021

It was expected of the BJP, especially the Uttar Pradesh unit to hail their leader, who was UP’s chief minister when the Babri Mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992. Singh, along with BJP veterans LK Advani and M M Joshi, Singh was among the 32 people acquitted in the demolition case in September 2020.

Controversy over condolences

Now a fresh controversy has erupted, involving vastly different people. Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav who chose to stay away from attending the public condolence to Kalyan Singh when his body was kept at his Mall Avenue residence in Lucknow on August 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President JP Nadda were in attendance leading the party in paying final respects to their departed leader. According to news reports no one from the SP turned up at Singh’s residence, including former CMs Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh yadav.

BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh raised the issue accursing Akhilesh Yadav of deliberately staying away, asking, “Was it the love of Muslim votes that stopped him from paying his last respects to the tallest leader of the backward community?” The Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya added that Akhilesh “had lost the moral right to speak for the backward community by not paying last respects to Kalyan Singh,” stated news reports. However, the SP said that Yadav had condoled Singh’s death and had issued a statement. But that is how politics plays out, in life and death.

However, a bigger controversy has errupted on the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus where posters, reportedly ‘signed’ by “Students of Aligarh Muslim University” have come up and condemned Tariq Mansoor the Aligarh Muslim University Vice-Chancellor for condoling former chief minister Kalyan Singh. According to news report, the posters, reported NDTV, and other news media, were displayed on the AMU campus state, “Praying for a criminal is an unforgiving crime” and accuse the VC that his words of condolence on Singh’s demise “are not only a matter of shame but also hurt the religious sentiments of our community.”

The poster reportedly alleged, “Kalyan Singh is not only the main culprit in the demolition of Babri Masjid but also an offender for not obeying the Supreme Court’s order” adding, 

“The VC’s condolence has brought disgrace to the entire AMU fraternity, its traditions and the Aligarh Movement that believe in justice and fairness. We strongly condemn our VC for his shameful act.”

Talibani thinking, says UP minister

Soon, the Uttar Pradesh government reportedly warned of strict action against people they accused of having “Talibani thinking” and according to news reports a probe has been initiated. The BJP’s minister Mohsin Raza, UP’s minister of state for minority welfare, Muslim Waqf and Haj, condemned the posters on the AMU campus saying the V-C was acting according to “our culture” adding that putting up such posters was an attempt to spoil the atmosphere, “If some persons of Talibani ”soch” are there, we will also treat them accordingly,” he stold the media. According to reports, the matter will be probed and strict action will be taken so that it will set an example for others, said the minister adding, “This is a university of Hindustan. The Taliban is not here. This is an attempt to vitiate the atmosphere.” 

What is Kalyan Singh’s legacy?

A must read to understand what Kalyan Singh’s legacy was and how it evolved over time is this analysis titled: Newsrooms, Living Rooms and Class Rooms: Evolution of the Ayodhya Narrative by Teesta Setalvad. It shows how, over time, “a corrosive refashioning of India took place in our personal and social spaces.”

These excerpts from Communalism Combat and SabrangIndia archives which report the observations of the Justice Liberhan Commission, that probed the sequence of events that led to the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. It observed that the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, “Kalyan Singh, his ministers and his handpicked bureaucrats created man-made and cataclysmic circumstances which could result in no consequences other than the demolition of the disputed structure and broadened the cleavage between the two religious communities, resulting in massacres all over the country. They denuded the state of every legal, moral and statutory restraint and wilfully enabled and facilitated the wanton destruction and the ensuing anarchy.” 

Nearly two decades later, on September 30, 2020, a special CBI court in Lucknow acquitted all the accused in the criminal conspiracy case surrounding the demolition of the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Special CBI judge SK Yadav delivered the judgment that ran into over 2,000 pages and held that there was no criminal conspiracy behind the demolition. The court further held that the demolition wasn’t planned and that the accused persons were trying to stop the mob, and not inciting violence. The court further said that it could not probe the authenticity of the audio and video evidence provided by the CBI. It said that those who climbed the dome were anti-social elements. The 32 accused included political heavyweights such as Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Sakshi Maharaj, Kalyan Singh, Vinay Katiyar among others. Three key accused; VHP’s Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore and Vishnu Hari Dalmia had died before the verdict.

Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions

In 1999 SabrangIndia had analysed, “Hindutva’s large–scale takeover of educational institutions”. The report titled Right in action showed how this was then a “little–known but major achievement of the Kalyan Singh government in U.P.” In September 1998, the Kalyan Singh government introduced a unique policy initiative in the area of state education called the “kulp yojana”. This was a compulsory initiative to link every single state– run school in the state to the RSS shakha. The brainchild of the  UP state education minister, Narendra Kumar Singh Gaur, this scheme was made compulsory for all primary schools in the state. It was, according to the government circular, aimed at the “moral and physical development of the child.” Through it, schools have been directed, especially in rural areas, to involve the RSS  pracharak in ‘naitik shiksha’ (moral education), SabrangIndia had then reported. “The aim of the scheme is to orient all state–run schools in UP along the lines of the RSS–run Saraswati Shishu and Bal Vidya mandirs. While announcing the scheme in Uttar Pradesh, the minister said that kulp was being introduced to “enhance the qualitative standard of education” in schools and to ensure that “teachers are an intermediary between school, family and society”. 

Related:

Poll violence, attacks on Dalits, Muslims: What is happening in UP?
Serial hate crimes against Muslims spiral, first MP, now Rajasthan
Controversial comments on Taliban draw ire

The post Uttar Pradesh: Will Kalyan Singh’s controversial legacy help BJP retain power? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Modi supporters celebrate as votes are counted on May 23. STR/EPA

In early 2019, such a result had looked uncertain in the wake of state election defeats in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan – part of the Hindi heartland that had helped Modi to victory in 2014. Opponents of the BJP dared to think that the Congress Party – the former “Grand Old Party of India” which had been reduced to only 44 seats in 2014 – was sufficiently revitalised to mount a credible challenge in 2019.

As the early months of 2019 dawned, scandals about the allocation of a defence contract as well as rising unemployment figures – and the suppression of these figures – made a bad start to the campaign. The Mood of the Nation survey conducted in December 2018 and January 2019 concluded that the National Democratic Alliance, the coalition the BJP heads, would not win a majority in the general elections.

Security

We will have to wait for results from post-election surveys to get detailed analysis of the segments of society that voted for the BJP, but several points are clear about Modi’s victory.

Modi benefited tremendously from the fallout from a suicide attack in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 40 Indian soldiers in February 2019. Although responsibility for the attack was claimed by a Pakistani terrorist group, it was carried out by a local Kashmiri. One reading of this could have been that Modi’s policies in the Kashmir valley, such as the increase in the use of pellet guns, blinding hundreds and killing at least 14, had led to the attack. But Modi swiftly turned it to his advantage.

Not only did he pursue an aggressive course of action with airstrikes against militants on Pakistani territory, he also successfully sold it as a huge success, despite some evidence that the fighters had missed their target. The national security narrative took centre stage in the 2019 election, something that the opposition parties were unable to counter.

Rahul Gandhi and his sister and party member Priyanka on the campaign trail. Prabhat Kumar Verma/EPA

Opposition failings

The second factor was the Congress campaign. The party’s leader, Rahul Gandhi, has come a long way since his debut in a national election in 2014. But the Congress campaign failed on two fronts. The first was the messaging: it was a mistake to try and attack Modi on allegations of corruption rather than focusing on the economic failures of his first term. Focusing on corruption only served to remind the electorate of the Congress party’s involvement in previous (very large) corruption scandals.

Yet, even had Congress focused solely on the economy, this may not have led to a very different result. The BJP swept the board in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state elections, held only a few months after Modi’s disastrous demonetisation policy which saw the withdrawal of 86% of India’s currency. The second failure was the high-handedness with which Congress approached the formation of its own political alliances. The BJP was extremely accommodating of its alliance partners in states such as Bihar and Maharashtra, but Congress did not manage to agree a deal with its potential partners in Delhi and in Uttar Pradesh.

NaMo appeal

The third factor was the presidential nature of the campaign. Modi successfully portrayed the campaign as Modi v Rahul. Such a framing benefited Modi – a fantastic campaigner. He built on the national security narrative by framing himself as a Chowkidar, or watchman, who would protect India. This built on his reputation as someone who would make India great – something that played extremely well in the campaign.

Narenda Modi called himself Chokidar during the campaign, meaning watchman. Harish Tyagi/EPA

Modi’s profile in India is huge – he takes personal credit for all initiatives, and his picture appears multiple times in the same editions of the daily newspapers when government initiatives are flagged.

But curiously, for such an effective campaigner, he held his first press conference as prime minister in the final weeks of the 2019 campaign. And even then it was dominated by Shah – and Modi didn’t answer a single question.

The BJP has had extraordinary control of the political narrative during this election, aided by its extremely large war chest which has helped it penetrate even deeper into traditional and social media. While only a quarter of Indians use WhatsApp – still 300m people – the creation of promotional material specifically targeted at different segments of society has played a huge role in advancing a particular political narrative.

In addition, the Election Commission has been criticised for clearing BJP leaders of many alleged election code violations, and only belatedly banning the showing of a biopic about Modi on the eve of the elections. It also allowed the BJP’s TV channel, NaMo TV, to run without challenge throughout the campaign. It has now gone off air.

Concerns for minorities

The final point to make relates to the opinions of voters. The BJP ran a very polarising campaign. In 2014, 51% of those who responded to India’s National Election Studies said they believed that democracy meant that the will of the majority community should prevail – a steep rise from 2009. This demonstrates a move towards the right and an acceptance of Hindu majoritarianism in Indian politics – a position that questions whether religious minorities, particularly Muslims, should have special rights within India. This trend of Hindu majoritarianism is higher among the young – a growing demographic within India – who have grown up in an era in which the BJP has been a national player.
This does not bode well for religious minorities in the world’s largest democracy, 20% of whom are non-Hindu. Although Modi tweeted after the results that “together we will build a strong and inclusive India”, the attacks on Muslims, both political and actual during his first term cast doubt over the second part of this promise.

Courtesy: The Conversation

The post India election: how Narendra Modi won with an even bigger majority appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving to the Red Fort, New Delhi, India. EPA/Harish Tyagi

Not long after, that vision of the India’s first prime minister, as well as the values that guided the freedom struggle, was written in the constitution that Indians gave themselves. That constitution, its principles and the robust institutional architecture it put in place, helped India weather multiple challenges over the years.

Now the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears is determined to erase Nehru’s legacy. To get the better of its political rivals and consolidate itself, the BJP has manipulated national institutions to short-circuit competition, undermine and even exclude its challengers.

In 2014, the BJP promised a radical rupture from the incumbent Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance-II (UPA-II) and rode to power on the sentiment that “good days are just ahead”. From 2009 to 2014, the UPA-II government was marked by not just by economic downturn and sluggish policymaking but also cronyism and corruption.

Today, under the premiership of Narendra Modi, the optimism of 2014 is fast evaporating as an “its my way or the highway” mode of governance shows a culture of one-party dominance violating both standard operating procedures and “dharma” – right conduct in the exercise of duty in Hindu philosophy – to get the better of its political rivals.
 

Dharma lost

It was presumed by some that the BJP’s experience in the states and as the main opposition party for more than a decade would have given it a more magnanimous perspective. With its massive mandate and its quest for recognition, it was imagined the party would show greater generosity to its opponents as well as respect for the moral values embedded in the constitution.

Dharma is the right conduct in the exercise of duty: ‘Dharma Wheel’ at the Sun temple, Konark, Orissa, February 2014. Ramnath Bhatt/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

One of the major election campaign planks of the BJP in 2014 was cooperative federalism. The issue of centre-state relations has been a core factor in the politics of the states beyond Hindi speaking areas of north and central India. The states anticipated a better deal since, as chief minister from 2002 to 2014 in western India’s Gujarat, Modi was highly critical of the functioning of the central government and even blogged of the “systematic disruption of our country’s federal structure both in letter and spirit.”
In power, however, his party, like the Congress in the past, has proved to be a “reluctant federalist.” When in the opposition, the BJP was critical of Congress and its use of governors as instruments of the ruling party. However, within a month in office, the NDA-II government threw federal niceties out of the window and replaced the UPA-II appointed-governors with its own.
 

Controlling states

Over the last three years, the central government has unhesitatingly used Article 356, an emergency provision in the constitution that puts a state directly under the centre, via the office of the governor and the centre’s administrative and financial muscle, to further the party’s partisan ends.

States such as Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Delhi, and Puducherry, proved to be sitting ducks for central meddling. These intrusions are gross violations of the federal spirit and are not good exemplars of cooperative federalism.

Modi masks sold during the 2014 BJP campaign. Subhankar Kenny Sahu/Flickr, CC BY-SA

In Arunachal Pradesh, for instance, the governor convened a meeting of the state legislative assembly without consulting the government, in which only BJP and rebel Congress legislators participated. In Uttarakhand, the central government imposed Art. 356 just a day before the chief minister was to assert his majority in the assembly. In both cases, the BJP had encouraged defectors to topple the ruling Congress governments.

The Inter-state Council (ISC), a constitutional forum for inter-governmental engagement met more frequently when state-based parties called the shots rather than when the Congress or the BJP dominated. Though Modi has hailed the ISC as the “most significant platform for strengthening centre-state relations”, his government chose not to use it as a platform to involve the states in national-level decision making.
 

Parliament undermined

The BJP’s attempts to manoeuvre to a position of strength and checkmate the opposition has also undermined parliament. For instance, the NDA-II introduced a potentially institution-weakening step by passing a controversial bill in a way that allowed it to bypass the opposition – this was contrary to the spirit of the constitution and serves merely to further corrode government-opposition relations.

Finally, over the last three years, the government has been intolerant of criticism and has often “shot the messenger” while ignoring the message. Unfavourable judgements of public policy and functionaries as well as positions that oppose those of ruling cadre are often interpreted as a threat to the nation.

On different occasions, party spokespersons, as well as government ministers, have sought to restrain the right to free speech in the name of preserving national security.

For instance, when student groups on certain university campuses took a position on armed struggles that was contrary to the government stand, they were dubbed as anti-national.

JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar upon release from jail, February 2016.

The government, directly and indirectly, has been extremely critical of media organisations and individuals who have not toed the government line.

Bypassing the opposition, curbing the freedom of expression, violating the rights of states can at best win pyrrhic victories. There are certain obligations for rulers in office and to not follow those canons is a corruption of the terms of office. Constitutions are negotiated constraints designed to serve particular purposes and produce specific results. It is normal that not everybody is happy with the existing arrangements. Dharma ,however, demands that you work within the institutional logic. To ignore the complexity and subtlety and invent practices that undermine the institutional order violates the spirit of the constitution: the bedrock of this democracy celebrating seven decades of independence.

Kailash Kunhi Krishnan, Associate professor, University of Hyderabad
 

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

The post India at 70: after the celebrations, single-party dominance menaces democracy appeared first on SabrangIndia.