However an important factor which obstructs such involvement is that while the possibility of change is most identified with electoral politics, this has become so corrupt and manipulative in many places that the most sincere voices for genuine change are often lost in this. Even when some very sincere persons manage to cross the first few barriers because of their hard work and determination and that of their colleagues, they find their further path blocked by systemic obstructions. The entire process often turns out to be so discouraging that it puts off many people from trying again, although their sincerity is very much needed to bring real change.

However there can be a different approach which is likely to maintain morale at high levels and bring better results in due course. This is to keep a political movement constantly at a high level of activity and engagement with people, regardless of election cycles, on the basis of commitment to the truth, with truth being understood as the most sincere, uncompromising, evidence-based understanding of the existing (and recent) situation and the changes most needed in this situation. Further, such a political movement seeks change not only in the wider system but also among people, particularly in its own members, so that more and more people are also encouraged and enabled to become better human beings. Thus while electoral breakthroughs may be delayed due to systemic factors, even in its early stage this movement starts contributing to creating a better world and its own members also start experiencing a reduction of their distress and a strengthening of their commitment and capability.

To try to explain more clearly, the mobilisation I am suggesting here consists of several important aspects. Firstly, the movement creates a statement on the basis of extensive consultation regarding the state of the world (and any particular country), important aspects and causes of distress and high risks and the way forward for reducing these. Although this remains open, on the basis of past experience it may be stated very broadly that what is likely to emerge from extensive consultation is a path based on the precepts of justice and equality, peace and non-violence, protection of environment and biodiversity, transparency and democracy, decentralisation and cooperation, and these precepts will have to be applied in various situations to find satisfactory and meaningful solutions.

Secondly, these precepts and the skills of applying them in various situations to find solutions to various problems must be spread widely among people on a constant basis. Education must be understood more and more in this context.

Thirdly, and this is a very important but neglected aspect, this movement also creates encouraging and enabling environment for its members and supporters to make such changes in their life as will contribute to reducing their distress while increasing their capacity to contribute more to wider social change. To give an example, a person may be suffering distress in his life due to avoidable violence in his thinking and actions, various kinds of addictions and substance abuse, loneliness, breakdown of important social relationships etc. This social movement creates enabling and encouraging conditions for people to apply its precepts to their own life to get rid of many problems and causes of distress, while at the same time creating possibilities of very constructive engagements of its members at local levels and community gatherings, enlivened hopefully with music and dance.

Fourthly, when various election opportunities for public office emerge, whether at local at higher levels, then the political front of this movement participates in these, or independent candidates supported by the movement participate, in an energetic but calm way, not showing any signs of desperation. Regardless of electoral success or not, without being affected too much by it, the movement  continues on its journey of truth as perceived and understood by it, a journey which is constantly improving social life and also contributing to a better life of its members and supporters.

Fifthly, I think of all this more in terms of worldwide change with the movements in various countries and places being supportive towards such change.

Sixth, these movements should concentrate more in terms of providing and advancing alternative paths instead of expanding most of their energy on the criticism of others. The overall approach should, as far as possible, be polite and not too aggressive, avoiding use of very strong language in the context of being critical towards others. In other words, the movement should always tell the truth as understood by it but as far as possible in relatively polite ways. Instead of insisting too much on inflicting very harsh punishments on those guilty of big misdeeds, the movement should place more emphasis on remedial actions and if those guilty of misdeeds are willing to accept their guilt and try to make up for this in various ways, then as far as possible this should be accepted.

Seventh, instead of merely speaking about alternatives, this movement should try, to the extent possible, to create examples of sustainable community life, natural farming, renewable energy, crafts and cottage industry, self-reliant rural life, eco-friendly urban life, equality based community life, cooperation among people in various ways for taking forward big tasks. All such efforts will help to increase hope and lead to further creative initiatives.

In keeping with the precepts it advances, this movement should be peaceful, non-violent, transparent and democratic. All its members need not agree with all decisions of the movement, or its political front. Members can continue to state publicly their differences on certain issues, while maintaining their unity with the movement at a wider level.

Ninth, despite remaining non-violent and polite, when the members of this movement face repression and violence, there should be arrangements for providing prompt help to them by the movement. There can also be wider arrangements for helping members in distress and systems of mutual support. When external efforts are made to harm the movement by planting hostile agents, there should be democratic methods in place for identifying and checking such harm at an early stage.

While more attention can certainly be given to issues closer to home, the movement should have universal concerns to create a safer, happier world and reduce distress and high risks at world level.

The movement should be able to attract and maintain support of people at various levels of involvement. Some may be able to give only less time, while some may be in a position to give most of their time. Some may lead from the front in peaceful agitations that can face repression, while some may contribute only in some low-risk constructive activities. The movement should be able to accept and appreciate whatever big or small support it gets from various supporters and members in terms of their ability to contribute. It should include a wide range of activities, all aimed at creating a better and safer world, so that various members and supporters can choose from several available avenues to make their contribution.

(The author writer is honorary convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now; his recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071, India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, A Day in 2071, Earth without Borders and Man over Machine—A Path to Peace)

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Corruption as an issue in Indian Election Campaigns: the 2024 story

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History of the Hindu Code Bill

Talks about a Hindu Code Bill had emerged since the 1920s itself. The AIWC (All India Women’s Conference) demanded a revision of the Hindu Code to overcome deficits in women’s rights. This was the crucial difference between the reforms of the 19th century which were piloted from above and these, which were reforms actively sought by the women themselves. The AIWC declared a Women’s Legal Disabilities Day in 1934 at the instance of Renuka Ray. The Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act was then tabled by its author G.V. Deshmukh in the Central Legislature.

The same year, the Shariat Application Bill tabled by H.M. Abdullah was passed which gave the daughter a share in property. However, in both the Hindu and Muslim case agricultural land was exempted from the application of the respective bills. This was because agricultural property fell under the ‘jurisdiction of provincial legislation’ while these two Acts of 1937 were Central legislations. (Chitra Sinha, Debating Patriarchy:The Hindu Code Bill Controversy in India 1941–1956, 2012). Why was this the case? Probably, the vote-influencing elite class couldn’t be touched or angered!

However, the demand for codification of Hindu personal law driven by Hindu women did gain legitimacy with the 1937 “Deshmukh Act.” A Hindu Law Committee was appointed on January 25, 1941 headed by B.N. Rao (who went on to become the constitutional advisor of the Constitution’s drafting committee). Other members were- Shri Dwarakanath Mitter, ex-Judge of the Calcutta High Court, Shri R. Gharpure, Principal, Law College, Poona and Rajratna Vasudev Vinayak Joshi, a lawyer from Baroda. The committee appreciated the role of Women’s Associations across the country. The committee suggested two measures in its final report submitted in June 1941. These were largely related to an enlargement of the terms of reference and the need for provincial legislative changes to apply to the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act in agricultural landed property.

With these suggestions in mind two draft bills on the law of marriage and inheritance were prepared and presented before a joint committee of both the houses. The two bills together came to be known as the draft Hindu Code Bill and were presented before the Legislature to be debated in 1943-44. The Committee was invoked again and began working from 1945 onwards. Dwarkanath Mitter presented a dissenting opinion stating that of the total number of people interviewed for the bill, only 33.4% supported the codification drive [the percentage being even smaller in the “Hindu Heartland” (coined by Gyanesh Kudasia)]. The figures are from the Report of the Hindu Law Committee, 1947.

Maharashtra offered the greatest support in favour of the Code Bill. Dharma Nirnay Mandal (formed at Lonavala in 1936) which was at the forefront went to many places in Maharashtra raising awareness on the codification issue. It brought out several publications including Why Hindu Code, co-authored by T.K. Tope and H.S. Ursekar. The Hindu Code Bill was thereafter referred to the Select Committee in April 1948. The ball was now in Ambedkar’s court.

Views of Ambedkar and Nehru on the Bill

Ambedkar believed the Code Bill to be a vehicle towards reforming Hindu society. He therefore considered the Hindu Code Bill as historic as the Constitution making process. He spoke of the aims and objectives of the bill in the simplest of terms to make it accessible to all. He stated that – “in order to reduce the confusions surrounding Hindu laws and also to make these more equitable and relevant to contemporary Indian society, the Bill seeks to codify the law relating to certain aspects covering marriage, property, succession etc.”

With these essential points in mind, let us now move to see the people who opposed the Bill who have been grouped into categories by Reba Som in her article ‘Jawaharlal Nehru And The Hindu Code: A Victory Of Symbol Over Substance?’(Modern Asian Studies, February 1994).  We shall simultaneously accentuate the contradictions and paradoxes of these people on the issue which exposes their hesitance for reforms and their unwavering commitment to not want women being treated at par with men. These were-

One. Those stalwarts within the Congress who had been arrayed against the likes of Nehru from 1930s onwards. These were represented by Rajendra Prasad who had been unhappy over the issue since the start. Prasad believed that the progressive idea of introducing basic changes in personal law was only the view of a microscopic minority and its imposition on the Hindu community as a whole would have disastrous consequences. When frustrated by Prasad and others in the assembly over the issue of the bill, Nehru told them that the passing of the bill had become a matter of prestige for him. Prasad had drafted a letter in response to this on which he consulted (luckily for him), Vallabhbhai Patel before sending it. Patel counselled him on the benefits of remaining quiet as this would brighten his chances of being elected the first President of India. Prasad thus, kept quiet and got elected the first President. However, once he assumed this constitutional role, his obduracy over the bill continued, sometimes citing procedural lapses on Nehru’s part (for which there was no provision but only convention) and sometimes by terming the efforts at getting the bill passed as anti-democratic. He in fact, even threatened to withhold Presidential assent to the Bill even if it was passed from both the houses. Surprisingly, Prasad was the President when, later, in five parts the Hindu Code Bill was largely passed by Indian Parliament.

Along with the likes of Prasad were Hindu fundamentalists within the Congress like the Deputy Speaker, Ananthasayanam Aiyyangar who was convinced of the soundness of polygamy. This group never made an earnest effort to carry through the reformist agenda Congress propagated. Some among those who were not so opposed to the contents of the Bill were at sixes and sevens because of the fact that the Bill was piloted by Ambedkar, an untouchable. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, a liberal member of the Congress too criticised Ambedkar for his “professional, pedagogic and pontifical attitudes” which will “only alienate attitudes that have almost been reconciled,” records Reba Som.

Two. The Hindu Mahasabha with people like N.C. Chatterjee and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee who opposed the Bill based on the fact that it threatened the very foundation of Hindu religion. The Mahasabha tried to argue that the “Hindu” Code Bill was a communal legislation (only for the Hindus) and instead that a Uniform Civil Code should be introduced in its place. Thus, it becomes clear that it was not out of a progressive reformist zeal that the Mahasabha wanted a Uniform Civil Code but only so that the state power interferes in Muslim affairs as well. Mukherjee argued that the Hindu Code be made optional, an argument similar to what Jinnah made during the passage of the Shariat Application Bill 1937. Mukherjee had been in Nehru’s cabinet and wholeheartedly supported the Code which he was now opposing and therefore, Ambedkar dismissed his remarks as non-worthy of consideration.

Within this category let us add a subcategory of Hindu reactionaries outside the Parliament represented by the RSS. In March 1949 the All-India Anti-Hindu-Code Bill Committee with Swami Karpatriji Maharaj at its head was formed which opposed the Constituent Assembly’s interference in personal laws of Hindus based on Dharma Shastras. (Ramchandra Guha, India after Gandhi, 2008) Alongside this Committee was also a battery of lawyers from various Bar Councils across the country who absolutely condemned the Code Bill. The Committee held several hundred meetings throughout the country opposing the Bill. The All India Hindu Code Bill Virodha Samiti even published a book, Hindu Code Bill: Praman Ki Kasauti Par in Hindi by Swami Karpatriji Maharaj, condemning the government propaganda about the Bill and presenting the Bill in complete opposition to the ideology of Sanatan Dharma. (Chitra Sinha, 2012) This Committee even marched on to the Parliament raising derogatory slogans like “Down with the Code Bill” and “May Nehru Perish.”

Three. The Sikh group represented by men like Sardar Mann and Sardar Hukum Singh inside the Parliament and Master Tara Singh outside it, who resented being clubbed with the Hindus in the broad framework of reform. Tara Singh denounced the introduction of the Hindu Code Bill in the Parliament. This can be found dated 13th December in G. Parthasarathi edited Letters to Chief Ministers Vol.2 1950-1952. Interestingly, after Ambedkar had resigned and not much alteration had been made to the Bill, Sardar Hukum Singh stated that the Bill could now be passed as the objectionable parts had been removed.

Four. Muslims represented by Naziruddin Ahmad from Bengal who argued that the Hindu Code Bill was a bid to end the Mitakshara joint family. This would lead to division of families and property issues. The most baffling part is that despite hailing from Bengal which was the epicentre of Dayabhaga School, Naziruddin Ahmad chose to speak about Mitakshara. Even more fascinating is the fact that provincialism, evoked by Jinnah during the debate on Shariat Application Bill 1937, was ensured among Bengali legislators by the very same Naziruddin Ahmad. Of the scant information on him over the Internet, his appointment as the chief whip by A.K. Fazlul Haq, then Bengal chief minister is surely significant. The same provincialism is found wanting in Naziruddin Ahmad while speaking on the Hindu Code Bill. When he remarked that Hindu families would suffer the same fate as Muslims, he was given a shut up call by Renuka Ray who asked why he was not ready to let the Hindus enjoy the same advantages that the Muslim society enjoys.

Six. Women Parliamentarians, largely the ones who were consistent in their approach and most fully committed to get the Code Bill passed. Even their criticism, expressed through Sucheta Kriplani and Hansa Mehta, was sound and logical based on the fact that the reforms did not go as far as they should have and that they were half-hearted.

Ambedkar’s resignation and his assessment of Nehru

Correspondence between Ambedkar and Nehru on the topic brings out the differences in views as well as approach to the Hindu Code Bill. On August 10, 1951, Ambedkar wrote to Nehru-

“My health is causing a great deal of anxiety to me and to my doctors. They have been pressing that I must allow them a longer period of about a month for continuous treatment and that such treatment cannot now be postponed without giving rise to further complications. I am most anxious that the Hindu Code Bill should be disposed of before I put myself in the hands of my doctors. I would, therefore, like to give the Hindu Code Bill a higher priority by taking it up for debate and consideration on August 16 and finish the matter of by September 1, if the opponents do not practice obstructive tactics. You know I attach the greatest importance to this measure and would be prepared to undergo any strain on my health to get the Bill through.” (Selected Writings of Ambedkar)

Nehru however, knew that the conservatives were too many and quite vehement in their opposition to the Hindu Code Bill. There was now no Patel to ensure the whip in support of the measure. However, Ambedkar did not pay attention to this view and he felt extremely frustrated that Nehru wasn’t able to get the Bill passed.  The fact remains that with the active support of the then President, many members including the chief whip were all firm in their disapproval of the Hindu Code Bill. Nehru could not hurry it through since elections were also round the corner. As Ambedkar sarcastically put it, ‘I have never seen a case of chief whip so disloyal to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister so loyal to a disloyal whip.’(Reba Som, 1994) Ambedkar was, however, convinced of Nehru’s sincerity, it was only his lack of determination that he criticised.

There were a few more issues (not connected to Nehru directly) over which he resigned. Nehru’s sincerity is reflected in a letter he wrote to the Chief Ministers on October 4, 1951. He stated- “it was obviously a controversial measure and it was not our desire to suppress debate or even to treat this as a strictly party measure necessitating a Whip.” He cites this as the reason for failure to get even parts of the Bill through. He goes on to say, “I have no doubt that a considerable majority in Parliament desired the passage of this bill with minor alterations. But that majority was helpless before a determined minority and we had to confess defeat.  For the moment at least I do not think, however, that all this time on the Hindu code bill has been wasted. It has kept this important subject before the public and made people think about it. It had made it one of the major issues in India and I have little doubt that it will have to be taken up and passed sometime or the other. For my part I am convinced that progress in India must be on all fronts- political, economic and social. Unless this happens we shall get held up.” 

Nehru’s reaction to Ambedkar’s resignation

Frustrated and flabbergasted over the stoicism of conservative elements within the Congress, Dr. Ambedkar rendered his resignation on September 25, 1951. On his resignation, Nehru spoke in the Parliament with a sense of loss. “It is a matter of regret for me, if for no other reason, for the fact that an old colleague should part company in the way he has done today.”

Moreover, Nehru wrote to Ambedkar on September 27, 1951 with mixed feelings of appreciation for Ambedkar’s efforts and determination on his part to get the Bill through sooner or later. He wrote,- “I can quite understand your great disappointment at the fact that the Hindu Code Bill could not be passed in this session and that even the marriage and divorce part of it had ultimately to be postponed. I know very well how hard you have laboured at it and how keenly you have felt about it.” Nehru goes on to state that “I tried my utmost, but the fates and the rules of Parliament were against us.” He promised to keep fighting stoutly, “personally, I shall not give up this fight because I think it is intimately connected with any progress on any front that we desire to make.” 

Conclusion

Eventually, when the Hindu Code Bill was passed in various parts in 1956, Nehru offered his tribute to Ambedkar. He stated that Ambedkar would be remembered above all ‘as a symbol of the revolt against all the oppressive features of Hindu society’. But he “will be remembered also for the great interest he took and the trouble he took over the question of Hindu law reform. I am happy that he saw that reform in a very large measure carried out, perhaps not in the form of that monumental tome that he had himself drafted, but in separate bits.” (Ramchandra Guha, 2008)

The glowing tribute by Nehru to Ambedkar and Ambedkar’s admission of Nehru’s sincerity of efforts says it all. It was not these two but rather “the orthodox of all religions united” (from the title of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Essay) who were pitted against them on the issue of Hindu Code Bill. What’s more concerning is the remark heard from certain quarters of the Parliament after the passage of the Hindu Code Bill. During 1955 and 1956, when the Hindu Code Bill was enacted in fragments, Ambedkar’s absence was cited as a reason for the smooth passage of the Bill. (Chitra Sinha, 2012) Throughout the trajectory of the Hindu Code Bill, Nehru and Ambedkar remained consistent in pushing for reforms. Therefore, this struggle for the Hindu Code Bill and those who opposed it and actually disrespected Ambedkar should be clearly identified. Lest History Forget!

(The author is a PhD Candidate at the department of history, AMU)

[1] Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh formed in 1925

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The ‘Temples of Modern India’ phrase was the underlying theme for conceptualising the public sectors, educational institutions also promoting the scientific temper, health facilities, and academies for promotion of culture and what have you. 

The nearly four-five decades’ journey with this undercurrent of ‘Modern Temples’ was to be turned upside down from the decades of 1980s when on one side the response to Shah Bano fiasco of dealing with minorities opened the floodgates of divisive politics. (The Indian National Congress under Nehru’s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi led India with an unprecedented majority then)

The communal forces unleashed a massive propaganda war against the religious minorities. At the same time the affirmative action for downtrodden, the Mandal Commission implementation gave the fillip to temple politics which was already in the strategy books of Hindu nationalists.

In contrast to Nehru’s ‘temples of Modern India’, the search for ‘temples underneath the mosque’ brought to the fore the Babri Mosque dispute. The RSS progeny BJP took birth (1980) wearing the garb of ‘Gandhian Socialism’ with moderate posing Atal Bihari Vajpayee was at the helm. He was steeped in the RSS ideology. He wrote Hindu Tan Man-Hindu jeevan (Hindu soul and body-Hindu life), and masked his Hindu nationalist politics with élan. He yielded his place to Lal Krishna Advani, who came up with the slogan of “Mandir Vahin Banayengain’ (We will build the temple where Babri mosque is located).

The RSS’ Combine was thus able to create a perception that Lord Ram was born precisely at the spot where the mosque is located. Ram Rath Yatra, got more muscles after the Mandal Commission implementation. This Yatra left a series of trails of violence. In the wake of L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra, nearly 1,800 people died in different parts of India around 1990. This Yatra was aborted when Lalu Yadav arrested Advani.

The mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992, by the Kar Sevaks, some selected ones of which had well-rehearsed the demolition. Advani, Joshi and Uma Bharati were sitting on the stage from where the slogan, Ek Dhakka Aur do, Babri Masjid Tod do (Give one more push, break the Babri Mosque) and “ye to kevel Jhanki hai Kashi Mathura baki hai” (this is just the beginning, Kashi Mathra will follow). 

After the demolition violence did follow in Mumbai, Bhopal, Surat and many other places. To cut the long story short, the legal system bent over backwards to give the verdict of the case based on ‘faith’, while naming those who led the demolition, but not giving them any punishment for the crimes committed by the. The judiciary in all its wisdom or lack of it; gave the whole Babri Mosque land to the “Hindu Side”.

Gloating on this ‘success’ by RSS combine; large funds were collected from home and abroad and a huge temple is ready to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister himself with all Hindu rituals. This will be a ceremony undertaken by the head of a ‘formally secular’ state. Babri Masjid was a regular election plank till it was demolished and after that building of ‘grand Ram Temple’ was the part of BJP’s election manifestos and electoral promises. The communal violence shot up on a regular basis along with the ghettoisation of Muslim community, the polarisation and the rise of the electoral might of BJP.

The present plight is well summed up by A M Singh, “Since coming to power, much of the BJP’s political discourse has exacerbated communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims. Their actions have followed suit, with the abrogation of Article 370 in the Indian Constitution and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019… By redefining and remanufacturing Indian citizenship on the principles of Hindutva, the BJP government has broken the fate and legacy of India’s secularism enshrined in its constitution.” Now a ghettoised Muslim community has been pushed to the margins as second class citizens.

In 2024, as the temple is set to be inaugurated all round efforts are on to mobilise a large section of Hindus around this. In America and other countries, a large number of NRI’s are preparing for the occasion by organising different programs. Here at home all the progeny of RSS has been activated to mobilise the Hindus for the occasion, either by visiting the new temple or to visit the local temples and perform rituals.

There are minor controversies about who has been invited and who is left out. Lal Krishna Advani, the Chief architect of demolition movement and his close aide Murali Manohar Joshi were initially advised by the temple trust, not to visit the inauguration due to their old age and biting cold in Ajodhya. On second thoughts (and after some public outcry), the VHP, the overarching organization has invited them.

Just as the Babri demolition helped this sectarian politics to come to power, the inauguration of the temple seems to be yet another mechanism to consolidate the polarisation and to reap electoral dividends. Large number of special trains and buses are being planned for the occasion. Temple politics has reached its acme.

It is time to recall Nehru’s concept of “temples of Modern India’ with promotion of scientific temper! Currently religiosity and faith blind faith are being heightened. 

As India emerged out of colonial darkness it also ensured a direction where the ‘last person in the line’ was to be the primary focus. 

With the politics revolving around Ram Temple, to be followed by temples in Kashi and Mathura, the deprivations of ‘last person’ and Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ promises have been dumped along with holding him responsible for all the ills of the country!

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The post Babri demolition to Ram Temple: A trajectory of Indian politics appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Written by KS Komireddi, Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India is a blistering critique of India from Indira Gandhi to the present. Through the book, Komireddi lays bare the cowardly concessions to the Hindu right, convenient distortions of India’s past and demeaning bribes to minorities that led to Modi’s decisive electoral victory.

An excerpt from Malevolent Republic

The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Coda” of the book.
 

Coda

Reclamation
When, finally, we reached the place
We hardly knew why we were there.
The trip had darkened every face,
Our deeds were neither great nor rare…
—Nissim Ezekiel

India under Modi has undergone the most total transformation since 1991. Hindu chauvinism, ennobled as a healthy form of self-assertion, has become so untameably wild that it cannot be challenged on terms other than its own. Hindu rage that once manifested itself in localised violence has metastasised into a pan-national cancer. Anti-minority vitriol that once lurked on the peripheries of high politics has deluged the mainstream. Democratic institutions have been repurposed to abet Hindu nationalism. The military has been politicised, the judiciary plunged into the most existential threat to its independence since 1975. Kashmir has never more resembled a colonial possession. And an incipient yearning for disaffiliation has crystallised in peninsular India.

The hoax of a technocratic moderniser crafted by an ensemble of intellectuals and industrialists collapsed early on under the burden of Modi’s incompetence, vainglory and innate viciousness. Five years later, we have more than a glimpse of the New India he has spawned. It is a reflection of its progenitor: culturally arid, intellectually vacant, emotionally bruised, vain, bitter, boastful, permanently aggrieved andimplacably malevolent: a make-believe land full of fudge and fakery, where savagery against religious minorities is among the therapeutic options available to a self-pitying majority frustrated by Modi’s failure to upgrade its standard of living.

And it is only in its early stage. All those who believe they will remain untouched by its wrath are delusional. If Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament with a line to the deputy prime minister’s office, could be dragged out of his home and gashed and burned alive, what makes anyone think he or she will remain unharmed? If Aamir Khan, one of India’s biggest film stars, can be unpersoned; if Gauri Lankesh, one of its boldest journalists, can be shot dead; if Ramachandra Guha, one of its greatest historians, can be stopped from lecturing; if Naseeruddin Shah, among its finest actors, can be branded a traitor; if Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, can be labelled an agent of Pakistan by his successor; if B.H. Loya, a perfectly healthy judge, can abruptly drop dead; if a young woman can be stalked by the police machinery of the state because Modi has displayed an interest in her—what makes the rest of us think we will remain untouched and unharmed? Unless the republic is reclaimed, the time will come when all of us will be one incorrect meal, one interfaith romance, one unfortunate misstep away from being extinguished. The mobs that slaughtered ‘bad’ Muslims will eventually come for Hindus who are not ‘good’.

India’s tragedy is that just when it is faced with an existential crisis, there exists no pan-Indian alternative to the BJP. What remains of the opposition is bleached of conviction. The values of Hindu nationalism have become the default setting of Indian politics. The centre has oscillated very far to the right. Five years ago, Modi went to great lengths to manufacture the impression that he had shed his ideological baggage; over the next five years, Rahul Gandhi expended tremendous energies to give himself a religious makeover. The Congress presidenthas toured temples, brandished his Brahmin caste and posted photos of himself on religious pilgrimages. In 2018, when the management of an ancient Hindu temple in southern India defied the Supreme Court’s order to open its gates to female worshippers, the party of Nehru again fell behind the faction of clerical reaction. Later that year, Congress stitched together a governing coalition in Madhya Pradesh, pushing the BJP from power in a state it had ruled for fifteen years. The change of guard was greeted as a new beginning, hailed as a blow to the Hindu-nationalist project. One of the first acts of the Congress-led government was to allocate Rs 450 crore for cow shelters.Its next act was to invoke the National Security Act against three Muslim men accused of slaughtering cows in the state.

Fifty years before Modi became prime minister, the Congress leader Lal Bahadur Shastri, the republic’s second prime minister, was invited by a journalist to talk about his faith. Shastri’s answer was curt: ‘one should not discuss one’s religion in public.’3 Today’s Congress has no such compunctions. Acquisition of power is the principal objective of a party that now seems to exist solely to provide subsistence to those who feed off it. And so it has taken to mimicking the BJP and annexing its most explosive causes. In the Hindu heartlands of the north, its leaders accuse Modi of not evincing sufficient ‘passion for Lord Rama’4 and promise voters that a ‘Rama temple will come up in Ayodhya only when the Congress comes to power’5. If a temple rises on the site of the Babri mosque, it will be as a tombstone for the secular state. When the party that claims to be the ‘secular’ alternative champions the temple, is it triangulation or treachery?

India will leap to a point from which return will become extremely difficult if Modi remains in power at the head of a government with an absolute majority in parliament. Indira Gandhi suspended the Constitution to brutalise Indians. Modi will seek to write his ideology into the Constitution to bisect them. If he succeeds, Hindu nationalism will become the official animating ideology of the republic. There will be separate classes of citizens in law. Bigotry will not then be a deviation from the ideals of the republic: it will be an affirmation of them. India will become Pakistan by another name.

If Modi loses?

The defeat will spur a great deal of commentary on the redemptive qualities of Indian democracy. But a post-Modi government, whether it is a coalition led by Congress or a Congress-free bricolage of regional forces, will be in danger of suffering the same fate as the post-Emergency government in 1976: an unwieldy alliance lofted into power on account of what it was not—it was not Indira, and it was not Congress— before collapsing in short order because it could not agree upon what it was. The Hindu-nationalist project will neither dissipate nor die if Modi is defeated. It will go into remission. Its leaders, cadres, believers will regroup and recrudesce. They are incompetent in government: they are peerless in opposition. Modi’s pre-prime ministerial career is a lesson in how India’s shameless elites can be co-opted to pimp for their cause: a commitment to the market is all they ask in return for their services. And on any given day, there are tens of thousands of activists of the RSS, spread out across India, preaching the gospel of Hindu nationalism and fomenting a revolution from the bottom-up. They believe in their cause. Their adversaries long ago abandoned theirs.

That is why we are here.

We inhabit the most degraded moment in the history of the republic, the culmination of decades of betrayals, the eruption of a long-suppressed rage. But the good thing about bad times is that they are great clarifiers. We can see where we stand. The past five years have shattered so many illusions, dispelled so much fog. We can begin to accept how we arrived here: a journey lined with corruption, cowardly concessions to religious nationalists, demeaning bribes to the minorities, self-wounding distortions of the past and wholesale abandonment of the many for the few.

Modi has drawn out the very worst in many Indians. But his reign has also smashed the complacency that governed our attitudes and activated citizenly antibodies across the country. It has belatedly awakened us to what we may be poised forever to lose. It has revealed to us that the republic bequeathed by the founders was not a sham. It was an instantiation of ideals worth fighting for: rising from the inferno of Partition, it defiantly rejected the baleful idea that national unity could not be forged in the crucible of human multiplicity, that permanent political division was the only resolution to the predicament of religious variety. Modi, an affront to that idea, is also the result of the disfigurement of that idea. Those who preceded him fostered the conditions for his breakthrough; and he has dragged India, already heavy with the vices of yesteryear, to depths from which recovery may take generations. Can we give up on India? Seven decades after the holocaust of Partition in the name of religious nationalism, can we throw away the improbable unity for which so many good people sacrificed their everything?

A year before Modi was born, at a time when Muslims were still fleeing or being driven out of India for Pakistan, the poet Abdul Hayee, who wrote under the name Sahir Ludhianvi, made the contrariwise journey, leaving Pakistan for India. It was an audacious act of reclamation.

One of my most cherished possessions for many years was an old cyclostyled copy of Sahir’s poems, beautifully annotated by hand. I don’t know from whom I inherited it, but there was in it this verse, written after Pakistan had waged yet another war in the name of religion to validate the divisive logic of its birth, which its previous owner had underlined:

Woh waqt gaya, woh daur gaya jab do qaumon ka nara tha,
Woh log gaye is dharti se jinka maqsad batwara tha.
Ab ek hain sab Hindustani,
Ab ek hain sab Hindustani.
That time is past, that epoch is bygone,
When there was the clamour of two nations;
From this land are gone the people whose dream was
segregation;

Now all Indians are one, now all Indians are one.

Sahir spoke for a generation of people who did more than believe in India. They placed their lives on the line for it. They willed India into existence merely by being present in it. Whenever I went to Bombay, I stopped by Sahir’s final resting place to say a prayer. But there is no trace of Sahir today in his beloved city: some years ago, his grave was razed, its remains disinterred and destroyed, and a thick new layer of earth poured over it to create a fresh grave. If we do not reclaim it, there will be no trace of his India in the not too distant future.

KS (Kapil Satish) Komireddi was born in India, and educated there and in England. His commentary, criticism, and journalism – from South Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East – have appeared, among other publications, in The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Spectator, TIME, Foreign Policy, and The Jewish Chronicle. This is his first book.
This is an excerpt from Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India, written by KS Komireddi and published by Context. Republished here with permission from the publisher.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Supporters listening to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in March, 2018. Hindustan Times/Press Association. All rights reserved.

“Jaati na poocho sadhu ki, pooch leejiye gyan”, sang India’s saint-poet Kabir. (Do not judge a saint by his caste, imbibe his knowledge). However, the most-asked question in an Indian election is about the candidate’s caste. Political analysts ask it, poll strategists ask it, and the voters ask it. The caste-related issues frivolous to outsiders are debated seriously in TV shows and newspaper articles during an election season. Such weird identity-politics is not played out in any other democracy!

Of course, politicians did not create the powerful Hindu caste system. They merely exploit this fault-line, exacerbating the caste animosities to build vote banks. There are four main castes – Brahman (priests and intellectuals), Kshatriya (warriors and kings), Vaishya (traders) and Shudras (servants including the untouchables). They form a hierarchical order that covers hundreds of sub-castes within a caste. Every caste is credited with certain attributes such as valour or craftiness. The tradition of caste-based military regiments established by the British continue.

The tradition of caste-based military regiments established by the British continue.

The caste matters a great deal in Hindu rituals and ceremonies. Caste conflict is a regular feature of life in villages and cities. Many inter-caste marriages are destroyed by social sanctions. Some of these and at times even love affairs end in the crematorium.

A god intervenes

Hindu humans are governed by caste hierarchy, but a god was brought under its purview during the recent election campaign. Yogi Adityanath, BJP’s  monk-chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, hit the headlines by telling an election rally that Lord Hanuman, known in the West as Monkey God, was a Dalit (belonging to the most depressed caste). The statement made to garner the Dalit votes caused a huge blowback! In a country where Dalits were denied entry into temples, the Yogi called a god Dalit!

The statement highlighted the astounding complexity of Indian politics and of Hindu religion. Political parties face a difficult choice. They woo the oppressed and depressed castes in order to collect more votes. In doing so, they antagonise some upper castes. Religiosity and tradition expect them to respect the caste boundaries! Many upper-caste voters in the recent elections turned away from the BJP because of its support to positive discrimination in favour of the depressed castes.

By calling Lord Hanuman a Dalit, the Yogi offended the Brahmans, the priestly class. Some protesting Brahmans threatened to sue the chief minister. Interestingly, the Yogi is a Rajput (of warrior caste). BJP’s mentor organisation RSS has mostly been headed by a Brahman and  it is often asked whether a Dalit could ever head the RSS.

With the Yogi calling Lord Hanuman a Dalit, the Dalit leaders demanded that all Hanuman temples should have Dalit priests, and these should be handed over to them! The Dalits took their protests to some Hanuman temples and in one they forced the Brahman priest to leave the building.

A woman Dalit MP resigned from the ruling BJP complaining that Hanuman was humiliated and treated as a slave by the high-caste Hindus. She said Hanuman helped Lord Ram win the war against the demon king Ravan and yet this Dalit was turned into a monkey with a black face!

One leader in the Yogi’s own party said Hanuman was not a Dalit but an Arya since the caste system had not started in his age! This will be contested by those who worship Ram as a Kshatriya (the warrior caste). A pro-BJP royal Rajput family claims to have descended from Lord Ram.
 

Conflicting claims

Contradicting the Yogi, the state BJP minister for religious affairs declared that Hanuman was a Jat (of an intermediate caste). He gave a simple reason. Only the people of this caste jump in to help anyone in trouble and since Hanuman fought Ram’s battle, he was a Jat! A socialist leader of the same state said Hanuman was a Gond tribal. A Jain monk claimed that Hanuman was a Jain. Jainism identifies him as one of the 169 great persons, he said.

A Hindu monk-businessman who supports the ruling BJP invoked the sacred texts to say that the caste is determined not by birth but by the nature of duties performed by a Hindu. Since Hanuman burnt down Sri Lanka and made Ram victorious in his war against Ravan, he was a Kshatriya! While some Hindus do worship Ravan, fortunately none declared that a Kshatriya sinned by killing Ravan, the Brahman scholar.

As if citing the Hindu caste system was not funny enough, a Muslim politician declared that Hanuman was a Muslim because his name rhymed with common Muslim names such as Rehman and Usman! A wag said Hanuman was a Chinese because his name rhymes with Jackie Chan! All such statements were given due publicity in the media and led to serious high-decibel TV discussions! A wag said Hanuman was a Chinese because his name rhymes with Jackie Chan!

Considering half a dozen conflicting claims made about Lord Hanuman’s caste, only a law court can allocate the correct caste to this god and free him from an imposed identity crisis. Secular Hindus grumble that having dividing humans for political gains, the BJP is dividing gods on the basis of caste! Newspaper editors wrote that the poll campaign ought to have focused on the vital livelihood issues instead of on gods and castes.
 

Caste solidarity and self-immolation

Caste animosities transform the political scene. It happened following Prime Minister V. P. Singh’s decision in 1990 to grant job reservation to the “other backward castes”. The measure, based on the Mandal Commission Report, was designed to reduce inequalities. But by exacerbating caste divisions, it hindered the BJP’s project to unify Hindus on one political platform. The decision did have the political objectives of countering the BJP’s Ram temple agitation and winning the votes of the “other backward classes”.

Anti-Mandal agitation against job reservations for other backward classes.It sparked a violent agitation by the upper caste students. Self-immolation by some students gave a tragic twist to the protest. The agitation lit caste fires in young minds and sparked a political storm. The BJP, whose core constituency includes a large section of the upper castes, resumed its agitation for building the Ram temple and went on to withdraw its support to the V. P. Singh Government that lost its majority in Parliament and resigned.

Many upper-caste voters do not like positive discrimination in favour of the backward castes and resent the BJP’s stand on job reservations for them. The BJP does not dare to weaken that policy and displease the lower castes but its attempt to enlarge its footprint alienates the upper castes as seen in the recent state elections.

Different political parties are supported by a coalition of specific caste groups. Such coalitions usually stick with their preferred party for a few years. Some join a group for a couple of years then switch their support to another party. In some democracies, such coalitions are based on shared ideology, in India these are formed on the basis of caste solidarity.
 

Building your caste profile

All parties draw up poll strategy on the basis of the constituency’s caste profile. Messages in the election speeches are tailored to suit the dominant caste, ideological coherence is sacrificed. If a candidate belongs to caste A, his rival belonging to caste B fields dummy candidates of caste A to divide the opponent’s votes.

Incendiary rumours enhance inter-caste and intra-caste animosities. False statements fuel sub-caste jealousy. Political rivalry is promoted among the caste groups. The dominant caste in the village tries to impose its political preference on the depressed section by issuing threats. If the election results show that the dominant caste leader’s fiat was ignored, the defiant voters are subjected to violence. Extensive opinion polls, by indicating the voting preference of a particular caste group, make it easy to take revenge.

Newspapers give the caste-wise break-up of the candidates fielded and the candidates who win the elections. Caste matters in the selection of the candidates and shapes the content of the poll campaign speeches. When the government is formed, the media highlights the caste composition of the cabinet. It wasn’t so in the newly independent India when democracy was less mature.

Earlier, some secular political leaders tried to reduce the role of caste in politics. Congress leader Indira Gandhi once ran a successful poll campaign with the slogan: Na jaat pe, na paat pe, muhar lagegi haath pe (We shall ignore the candidate’s caste and sub-caste and vote for the Congress symbol of hand.)

Today no party ignores the caste factor that influences the voting behaviour and creates vote banks. Every party devises it poll strategy by considering castes and sub-castes. Paradoxically, even the BJP, while committed to uniting Hindus, plays caste-based politics in a big way. BJP minister has no hesitation in saying that since Congress President Rahul Gandhi belongs to an upper caste, his party cannot bear to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is not from an upper caste. BJP’s spokesman Sambit Patra publicly asked Rahul Gandhi to declare his Gotra (his specific clan within the caste). This question usually comes up when a matrimonial alliance is discussed!
 

The BJP and caste

The RSS which is BJP’s ideological mentor has mostly been headed by a Brahman and it gives no place to the minorities. A large section of its followers happens to belong to the Baniya caste engaged in business. The ruling BJP, known earlier as a Brahman-Baniya party, has been reaching out to other castes. And yet the organisation is still dominated by the upper castes, as indicated by a detailed analysis of its hierarchy by ThePrint.

Prejudices die hard. So, the BJP leaders in the southern state of Kerala invoked the low caste of its leftist chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to attack him. He is being asked to leave his political office and go back to his caste profession as toddy tapper. The chief minister is trying to implement the Supreme Court’s judgment lifting a temple’s ban on the entry of young women. The BJP has launched a violent agitation in defence of faith and tradition. It believes that by consolidating the upper-caste votes, it would be able to make political gains. The Prime Minister made vague comments about belief and said nothing to discourage his party men from defying the Supreme Court judgment.

While some BJP leaders do not refrain from making casteist comments, the party has co-opted even Dr B. R. Ambedkar, a Dalit icon. In protest against the oppressive and discriminatory caste system, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism taking thousands of his followers with him. He had warned the nation against Hindu hegemony and burnt a copy of Manusmriti, a Hindu law book containing casteist verses.

Dr. B R Ambedkar, the Dalit icon.The support of the lower castes in elections is invaluable. It is more so for the BJP since it ignores Muslims and marginalises them to please its die-hard Hindu supporters. Since it has to woo the lower castes, in this limited context,
political compulsions have made the BJP less exclusive. It publicises the caste of its candidate if he or she is from a depressed caste. It does so in the case of Prime Minister Modi who is not from an upper caste. If a party opposing it has a large following in a particular caste, the BJP fields a candidate belonging to the same caste in order to draw away voters of that caste. It does not matter any more which caste dominates the party. All parties play this game, but the case of the BJP is worth noting since its declared objective is to unite Hindus. No one talks of the abolition of the caste system.

Caste rivalries and religious polarisation during election campaigns disturb social harmony and often cause violence. Elections come and go but tensions continue. Political leaders generate emotional frenzy through divisive rhetoric, mythological tales and false warnings of the danger posed by the religious “Other” or other caste community. Sectarian statements and violence during the election campaign have become the new normal. In this atmosphere, no one talks of the abolition of the caste system.

L K Sharma has followed no profession other than journalism for more than four decades, covering criminals and prime ministers. Was the European Correspondent of The Times of India based in London for a decade. Reported for five years from Washington as the Foreign Editor of the Deccan Herald. Edited three volumes on innovations in India. He has completed a work of creative nonfiction on V. S. Naipaul  His two e-books The Twain and A Parliamentary Affair form part of The Englandia Quartet.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net

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Image: https://gulfnews.com

 “First, Indian secularism cannot be anti-religious or irreligious, for the bulk of our people are deeply religious. Unlike in Christendom, where the word originated, secularism in India is not about pitting the state against the religious authority but about keeping matters of faith in the personal realm and matters of the state in the public realm. Second, in a nation of many faiths, where people take their faith seriously, secularism must be based on the principle of equal respect for all religions (and for those who choose not to follow any religion). As Nehru once said, ‘[Secularism] means freedom of religion and conscience, including freedom of those who may have no religion. It means free play of all religions, subject only to their not interfering with each other or with basic conceptions of our state.” (Aiyar 2004: Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist).

He further says,
“However, in regard to affairs of state, secularism translates not into equal involvement of the state in matters pertaining to each religion but rather the separation of the state from all religions. In secular India, the state must have no religion. For the state, whatever religion an Indian professes or propagates must remain a private and personal matter of the citizen. The state should concern itself not with religion but with protection for all, equal opportunity for all, equitable benefits for all. No religious community should be singled out for favours; no religious community should be subjected to any disability or disadvantage.” (Aiyar, Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist, Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2004)

Secularism is defined differently in different countries. Secularism is often used to describe the separation of public life and government matters from religions or simply the separation of religion and politics. Most of the so-called developed countries do not recognise religions, thus granting no special value to any particular religion. The beauty of India’s secularism lies in its taking a completely different course from them. India’s secularism means equal treatment of all religions by the state. With the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. Though neither the constitution of India nor its laws define the relationship between religion and state, India recognizes each and every religion and seeks to give them equal respect. The citizens of India are allowed to enjoy their respective religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism etc. with full freedom.

Since Indian secularism gives every citizen right to fulfil his or her respective religious obligations, it will be futile to view this secularism as anti-religious or anti-Islamic.

In context of Muslims’ faith, Indian secularism does not prevent Muslims from fulfilling their basic religious obligations as mentioned in the Qur’anic verse which reads,
“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me” (51:56).

 Indian secularism gives Muslims full freedom to worship Allah Almighty. Yes they can fulfil all their religious obligations, acquiring Taqwa and achieving spiritual development. There is no one to stop Indian Muslims from performing acts of worship—five-time prayers, fasting, Hajj, Zakat, spiritual meditations, doing Zikr [remembrance] of Allah and attaining spiritual perfection.

A number of Islamic scholars and clerics regard secularism as compatible with Islam. For example, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, a professor of law at Emory University the author of ‘Islam and the secular state: negotiating the Future of Sharia’ says, “enforcing [Sharia] through coercive power of the state negates its religious nature, because Muslims would be observing the law of the state and not freely performing their religious obligation as Muslims” [Islam and the Secular State…Cambridge Harvard University press 2008]

The phrase “Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava” or “equal respect for all religions” is popularly thought to be a Hindu concept embraced by Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Gandhi. However some Hindu scholars do not accept it as a part of Hindu tradition. They attribute this phrase to Gandhi who used it first in September 1930 in his talks to his followers to quell divisions between Hindus and Muslims. However, majority of Hindus believe this phrase as one of the key tenets of secularism in India, wherein the state gives equal respect to all religions.  

In his speech during the Iranshah Udvada Utsav, 2017 (a cultural festival of Parsi community), The Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu said, “In fact, I have been saying that secularism was in the DNA of every Indian much before it was enshrined in the Constitution. ‘Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava’ epitomizes India’s secular ethos. India is a land of diverse cultures and religions,” He further said, “The secular foundations of the country must be strengthened further and any attempt to create differences in the name of religion by vested interests and religious extremists must be nipped in the bud,”.

Indeed secularism is indispensible in a multi-cultural and multi-religious country like India. Secularism is the beauty of India, mainly because it gives equal respect to all religions and that it is not anti-religious. It is therefore obligatory for the followers of all religions to develop this Indian secularism, for which they shall have to strengthen their peaceful coexistence. Apart from that, we Indians should impart such values to our students, children and people so that can avoid being brainwashed by any anti-Indian secular Muslim or non-Muslim groups.    

Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi Dehlvi is a Classical scholar of Islamic Sciences (Theology, Fiqh, Tafsir and Hadith), English-Arabic-Urdu Writer and Translator. So far he has written more than a hundred articles, especially on subjects like de-radicalization, counter-terrorism, Peaceful coexistence, Islamic Mysticism (Tasawwuf).

Courtesy: New Age Islam

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The study, covering eight states by Azim Premji University (APU) and Lokniti (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies [CSDS]), defines effective trust as the difference between percentage of respondents who opted for a “great deal of trust” at one end of the scale and “no trust at all” at the other.
 
The study, accessed by IndiaSpend, was conducted in 22 assembly constituencies with 16,680 respondents. Nearly 77% respondents showed the most trust in the military, followed by 54.8% in the SC and 48% in the HCs.

 
 
On average, elected offices and institutions such as the president, prime minister, chief minister, parliament, vidhan sabha (state legislature) and panchayat/municipal corporation (MC) enjoyed an “effective trust” of 40%.
 
But there are wide variations within these categories across the eight states.
 
All states do not concur
Maharashtra showed high levels of trust, over 60%, in elected institutions–parliament, vidhan sabha, panchayat/MC–while Andhra Pradesh (AP) showed least level of trust, with parliament and vidhan sabha garnering -4% and -2% of “effective trust”, as per the report.
 
“We also find that both rural and urban local level elected officials play increasingly important roles in providing services to their constituency and this likely influences citizens’ public opinion relating to elected officials,” Siddharth Swaminathan, co-author of the study and a faculty at APU, told IndiaSpend.
 
Maharashtra showed nearly 53 percentage points more trust in elected offices and institutions than AP. Jharkhand (52.5%) and Chhattisgarh (49.5%) followed Maharashtra in the rankings.
 

 
People have sub-zero levels of trust in political parties
Political parties garnered low trust, at -1.75%. With the exception of Maharashtra polling the highest trust at 31%, the other seven states either polled single digit or negative percentage trust. Political parties polled the lowest in the list of 16.
 
About 73% Indians have shown confidence in their government in 2016 as against 30% Americans, according to Government At A Glance 2017, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, IndiaSpend reported on July 14, 2017. The confidence level in government has actually declined from 82% in 2007.
 
The average “effective trust” in parliament was 36.6% in the eight states surveyed. A similar study by CSDS conducted in 2013 indicated that 56% people trust the parliament in varying degrees; this was 43% in 2005, FirstPost reported on October 6, 2015.
 
Courts trusted, but less so now than before
The study found significant trust in the judiciary. It observed a steady decline in average trust levels in the SC to HCs to district courts across all states, except AP where 28% stated trust in the district courts. The SC and HCs enjoyed 21% and 20% trust, respectively, in AP.
 
In the other seven states, the SC and HCs enjoyed an average “effective trust” of 60% and 52%, respectively.
 
Of the top five institutions that enjoy high levels of trust, four operate at a distance from citizens, the study said.
 
“An obvious reason for differences in trust between institutions closer to citizens compared to distant ones is that citizens have routine interactions with institutions that are closer [district courts, the police, government officials],” said Swaminathan.
 
Additionally, there could also be spillover effects–citizens who trust one set of institutions are more likely to trust another set related to it. This may have very little to do with specific policy output, said Swaminathan.
 
The office of the district collector, one who is more likely to be approached or connected with the issues of everyday citizenship, is the only outlier. She/he garnered 47% “effective trust”, coming fourth in the list after HCs.
 
Maharashtra polled the highest at 69%, 45 percentage points more than AP.
 
Govt officials and police rank only above political parties
Police and government officials rank only above political parties in the list.
 
Government officials (collector and tehsildar have been listed separately) scored 4.8% trust while the police manage only 0.9 percentage points more. This can be attributed to the politicisation of these spheres, the lack of transparency in their functioning, and corruption in the last decades, according to the report.
 
As many as 1,629 cases of corruption were reported in India–in which 9,960 people were involved or 11 every day–under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, over two-and-half years ending June 30, 2017, IndiaSpend  reported on October 30, 2017. India was ranked 79 of 176 countries, scoring 40 on the “Corruption Perception Index 2016” released in January 2017, by Transparency International, a global advocacy on corruption.
 
Media can also influence public opinion about institutions, said Swaminathan. Certain institutions such as the election commission are more likely to be favourably covered than say, the police, he pointed out.
 
The number of senior government officials involved in public corruption cases investigated by state agencies has increased 95% over the past five years, said this 2015 IndiaSpend report.
 
(Paliath is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)
 

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Hitler hated the Jews and committed unspeakable atrocities against them including genocide He butchered 6 million Jews including those from outside Germany .This inhuman act is known as the holocaust and denying this dark fact is a punishable offence now Hitler called it the ‘Final solution of the Jewish question .’Hitler committed suicide after his defeat in the Second World War (1945).His associates were put to death or imprisoned for life for their crimes.

The communal problem in India is the gift of the British, who encouraged the communal animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims to divide and rule .There used to be  Hindu -Muslim riots in the country from time to time  .The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) was formed in 1925 to oppose “the yavan-snakes (i.e. the Muslims), who, reared on the milk of non-cooperation were provoking riots in the nation with their poisonous hissing.
 
“Hedgewar, the first Sar Sangh Sanchalak, also declared that they (the brigands of the RSS) were not to join the National Movement for Independence.  That explains why the British rulers gave them full freedom to expand and flourish though they were openly organised on military lines with uniform and parades. This also explains why M.S.Golwarkar , their iconic second Sar Sangh Sanchalak, declared Freedom Fighters as “Traitors”.

 Golwarkar was deeply impressed and inspired by Hitler and his “final solution to the Jewish question” though he was not fully aware of the extent of the  horrors that he had committed. Hitler wanted a Germany only for Germans of ‘pure race’ and he annihilated the Jews out of his hatred for inferior races (the Jews being one of them). Golwalkar wanted India as a Hindu Nation for the Hindus only on the same pattern. In 1938, when he wrote his book containing these ideas (We or Our Nationhood Defined), he could envisage driving Muslims and Christians out of India. So, he advocated a Hindu Nation in which the minorities must “cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation  claiming nothing, deserving no privileges , far less any preferential treatment .not even citizen’s rights.’

The RSS still considers (in their heart of hearts) minorities to be foreigners, who have no claim on India, which, to them, is a Hindu Rashtra. It has not yet reconciled to the Indian Constitution, which treats all Indian citizens as equal regardless of their religion or other differences.

It is to achieve this goal in one form or another that the sangh has been keeping the communal pot boiling. It is now in power, but can it really attain its goal of converting of converting India into a Hindu Rashtra in the 21^st century? More importantly, should it cling to its dream of a Hindu Rashtra or think of India’s larger interest it claims to protect or love more than others?

The white rulers of South Africa were second only to Hitler in subjecting people on racial grounds to inhuman treatment .The handful of Afrikaners treated the rightful black citizens  of the country like animals under their law on racial segregation. Nelson Mandela himself spent 27 years in jail doing hard labour .When the white rulers found the pressure of the international community difficult to answer, they agreed to a settlement. Nelson Mandela did not think of retaliation or settling accounts with the tyrannical white rulers but thought of the interest of his motherland, which, to him, was supreme .South Africa, has now a democratic constitution without any discrimination against the Afrikaner. Though the forefathers of the Afrikaners had come from Europe and belong to a different race, they were not asked to go back. They are now full-fledges citizens of South Africa on an equal fitting with the blacks.
 
Our minorities are own flesh and blood, they are natives of India with the same claims and rights on her as anyone of us. Mandela has shown the way: how a person loving his motherland overcomes even bitterness and anger to serve her interest. Indians have not suffered at the hands of the minorities and have no accounts to settle with them. The RSS had no grievance against the British who exploited India and economically committed atrocities against them. They have no grievance against them even today. Is it logical then to nurture such an irrational hatred against the Muslims for a set of atrocities, imagined or even real, committed by some Muslim rulers, centuries ago?
 
Nelson Mandela has shown the way. It is he not Adolf Hitler who should be India’s role model.

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In all the chest beating and muscle flexing over Pakistan and its transgressions at the Line of Control, one object has made its way back into Indian politics: the bangle. On Tuesday, veteran Congress leader Kapil Sibal invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi “to remove your bangles and show what you can do”. He also referred to a speech made by Smriti Irani, now textile minister, at a rally in Indore in 2013, after another incident where an Indian soldier at the Line of Control had been killed and mutilated. Irani had offered to send Manmohan Singh, who was prime minister then, a gift bangles for failing to take appropriate action. The tables had turned now, was Sibal’s triumphant point.

The gift of bangles suggests the old Hindi phrase “chudiyan pehen lo”, which means that those not cut out for a job should stay at home. Like women do, naturally. Bangles have long been a favoured ornament in Indian politics. In 2014, after Aam Aadmi Party leader Somnath Bharti conducted an impromptu raid on Ugandan women living in Delhi’s Khirki Extension, BJP legislator RP Singh saw fit to hurl bangles and lipstick at him. The BJP had then defended the act by saying it was not meant to be “derogatory”. It wouldn’t be, of course, in a political culture where leadership is measured by the size of one’s chest (56 inches is ideal) and voters are told to choose the “vikas purush” over the “videshi bahu”, the Man of Progress over the Foreign Daughter-in-Law.

Femininity, the wearing of bangles, the exercise of restraint and moderation, is associated with weakness or incompetence. The BJP has frequently, but not exclusively, been guilty of peddling a gendered politics that boils down to this: masculinity good, femininity bad, unless sterilised into certain acceptable forms. And when it comes to Pakistan, all the toxic masculinity stored up in our politics roars to life. Even female politicians have learnt to speak its language. Around the time Irani was offering bangles to Manmohan Singh, Sushma Swaraj, who was then the leader of the Opposition, was demanding 10 Pakistani heads for the head of one Indian soldier. Peace at the LoC looked like a remote prospect then, as it does now.

This article was first published on Scroll.in.

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प्रधानमंत्री मोदी से सर्जिकल स्ट्राइक के सबूत दिखा कर पाक को बेनकाब करने की अपील के बाद से केजरीवाल बीजेपी के निशाने पर चल रहे हैं।

बुधवार को भारतीय डाक विभाग के ऑफिशल ट्विटर अकाउंट से केजरीवाल को टैग कर एक ट्वीट किया गया जिसमें उन्हे निशाने पर लिया गया। जिसके बाद ये ट्वीट फौरन डिलीट कर दिया गया लेकिन तब तक वो ट्वीट लोगों तक पहुंच चुका था।

इस ट्वीट में लिखा था, ‘ केजरीवाल जी आपने अपनी ओछी राजनीति और राजनीतिक महत्वकाक्षाओं के चलते हमें इस बार बेहद निराश किया है। इस काम के लिए आप पाकिस्तानी मीडिया की हेडलाईन जरूर बन जाएंगे।’

(जनता का रिपोर्टर द्वारा इस खबर के प्रकाशित किये जाने के बाद दूरसंचार मंत्रालय को सफाई देने पर मजबूर होना पड़ा। मंत्रालय ने भारतीय डाक विभाग के अधिकृत ट्विटर अकाउंट से अपनी सफाई में कहा कि केजरीवाल के खिलाफ मैसेज हैकरों की साज़िश थी।

अपने ट्वीट में भातीय डाक विभाग ने दूरसंचार मंत्राय के दोनों मंत्रियों रवि शंकर प्रसाद और मनोज सिन्हा को भी टैग किया।)

Account hacked & some negative message @ArvindKejriwal has been posted. We sincerely apologies for inconvenience @manojsinhabjp @rsprasad
— India Post (@IndiaPostOffice) October 5, 2016

मोदी सरकार में हिंदुत्व विचाराधारा वाले समर्थकों द्वारा आफिशल गर्वमेंट सोशल मीडिया का इस तरह इस्तेमाल करना नया नहीं है। इस्से पहले प्रधानमंत्री मोदी के रेल मंत्रालय ने केजरीवाल के खिलाफ ट्वीट किया था जब फ्लैक्सी मूल्य बढ़ने पर केजरीवाल ने रेल मंत्री सुरेश प्रभु की आलोचना की थी।

दक्षिण पंथी ट्विटर ट्रोल को बढ़ावा देने के लिए प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी की लंबे समय से आलोचना होती रही है।

गर्वमेंट सोशल मीडिया का मोदी भक्तों द्वारा चलाने का ये इस तरह का चलन राजनीतिक लाभ निकालने और नफरत भड़काने के लिए बहुत खतरनाक है।

भारतीय डाक विभाग के ऑफिशल ट्विटर अकाउंट से केजरीवाल के खिलाफ किए गए इस ट्वीट ने सोशल मीडिया यूर्जस का ध्यान आकर्षित किया है।

गर्वमेंट सोशल मीडिया को आरएसएस समर्थकों द्वारा चलाए जाने पर सोशल साइट्स पर कड़ी निंदा हुई हैं।

Courtesy: Janta ka Reporter

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