Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, was not worried. When asked about prices in late September he told media that it is “normal for vegetable prices to rise during monsoon”. The rainy season is gone but prices are refusing to back down.

Prices of many common vegetables like onions, tomatoes, brinjal or eggplant, cabbage, cauliflower, various greens, beans, etc., have increased by anything between 50% to 100% since January this year, according to retail prices data collected by the govt.’s Labour Bureau. In some cases the price spike is incredible and cannot be explained by some snags in the supply chain. For instance, tomato prices have shot up by a jaw dropping 157%, cauliflower by 108%, onion by 94%, peas by 218% and leafy vegetables by over 60% in the past 9 months.

In general, the Labour Bureau’s index for fruits and vegetables has increased by over 37% in this period driving up food inflation. For poorer people – that means for most Indians – this is a major blow to family budgets already under pressure from steadily rising prices all round. With joblessness continuing to grow as recent data has revealed economic distress under the double strike of job insecurity and runaway food inflation is becoming unbearable.

Usually, the govt. of the day explains away price spikes in single commodities, especially vegetables, as resulting from unseasonal rains or storms, or dip in production in some regions. But an across the board price spike of the kind being witnessed in recent weeks is unprecedented and highly damaging.
Vegetable inflation has led to increasing prices of some other commodities like eggs, as consumers shift to equivalent food items. For instance, eggs are now selling at about Rs.7 each, up 40% in the past two months, making them as costly as dressed chicken itself.

One of the biggest failures of the Modi govt. has been on the price front. Since June 2014, several essential commodities have seen a steady rise: meat is up by about 20%, milk (17%), onions (47%), radish (37%), carrots (45%), greens (32%), tomatoes (88%), brinjal (43%), cauliflower (37%), peas (69%), beans (24%), according to . This is apart from periodic price spikes in specific commodities like onions, pulses or eggs, that arise from a combination of temporary supply side constraint being used and magnified by unscrupulous traders and hoarders who often function as cartels.

The Modi govt. has floundered around in dealing with this and, as the case of pulses shows, not been very successful in preventing steady or spiky rises. Despite a bumper crop of pulses in 2016-17, prices continue to be high in absolute terms, which is what matters to most Indians.

Recently, several trade unions have called for a country-wide protest day against price rise on Dec 13, 2017. This comes in the backdrop of a historic protest by workers – the 3-day Mahapadav – at Delhi to press for better wages and control of unbridled price rise, among other issues.

Courtesy: Newsclick.

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The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Indian government of silence and denial over the violence unleashed by cow vigilantes across the nation in the past couple of years.

The criticism from HRW comes two days after the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) alleged that 10 of the 29 Indian states are suffering from severe religious rights violation, and blamed Hindu nationalist groups for the situation.

“Indian authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute self-appointed ‘cow protectors’ who have committed brutal attacks against Muslims and Dalits over rumors that they sold, bought, or killed cows for beef,” HRW said.

Acknowledging the link between Hindutva groups and the BJP, the report added, “Instead of taking prompt legal action against the vigilantes, many linked to extremist Hindu groups affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the police, too often, have filed complaints against the assault victims, their relatives, and associates under laws banning cow slaughter.”

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of HRW said, “Self-appointed ‘cow protectors’ driven by irresponsible populism are killing people and terrorizing minority communities.”

This article was first published on Two Circles.

“The government should condemn this violence and take prompt action against those responsible for these attacks or face allegations of complicity,” she added.
The report explains major violent incidents which are somehow ‘related to protection’ of cows. Citing Mohd. Akhlaq’s lynching to Pehlu Khan’s lynching, HRW said, “BJP leaders have attempted to portray the majority Hindu population as victims, whipping up fear of Muslim men who they say kidnap, rape, or lure Hindu women into relationships as part of a plot to make India into a Muslim-majority country.”

HRW’s report also takes a considerable note of atrocities against the Dalit community.The report cited untouchability as one of the major reasons behind such incidents “Self-appointed cow protectors are increasingly conducting raids and attacks, claiming the police don’t take adequate action against those slaughtering cows. There have been numerous incidents in which they have allegedly assaulted, harassed, threatened, and extorted money from Muslims and Dalits. Dalits, so-called “untouchables,” are equally vulnerable as they traditionally carry out jobs to dispose of cattle carcasses and skin them for commercial purposes,” the report said.

Ganguly said, “The mild admonitions from BJP leaders when Muslims and Dalits are lynched over cows send a message that the BJP supports this violence,” the report added.
 

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Kejriwal said the decision was a reminder to other news channels that they too would face a shut down if they refused to eulogise Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
 

 

His tweet said, “Listen to me all you channels. Your channels too will be closed if you don’t continue to worship Modi ji.”

Kejriwal’s former colleague and renowned Supreme Court lawyer, Prashant Bhushan dubbed the decision a ‘serious attack’ on media and free speech.

He said, “Govt orders shutdown of NDTV for Pathankot coverage while it tomtoms surgical strikes!This is the most serious attack on media & free speech.”

In a hugely controversial decision, the Centre’s Narendra Modi government on Thursday had recommended taking news channel NDTV India off air for a day for allegedly revealing “strategically-sensitive” details during the coverage of the Pathankot terrorist attack earlier this year.

An Inter-ministerial committee of the I and B ministry made the recommendations.

The ministry, according to PTI, will now ask the channel NDTV India to be taken off air for a day on 9 November, according to sources, in what would be the first order against a broadcaster over its coverage of terrorist attacks.

Efforts to reach the channel for its comments could not fructify.

The matter pertains to the coverage of the Pathankot terror attack by the channel where the committee felt that “such crucial information” could have been readily picked by terrorist handlers and had the potential to “cause massive harm not only to the national security, but also to lives of civilians and defence personnel.”

Courtesy: Janata ka Reporter
 

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In the latest such case reported in The Indian Express, the official handle of Digital India, a flagship government initiative for a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, on Thursday tweeted a poem promoting the killing of Kashmiris by the army. The tweet, which was soon deleted, included the screenshot of a poem posted on Facebook that it labelled “Heights of #Patriotism..!!!”

When contacted, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the national daily he “immediately sought a report” when the tweet was brought to his notice. The person who tweeted the poem has been suspended, he added.

Calling the act “mischievous”, Prasad said, “The contents of the tweet don’t represent the views of the IT ministry, Digital India or the government of India. I regret the tweet.”

Managed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Digital India has more than 5.34 lakh followers on Twitter.

The poem, written to the lyrics of a popular Bollywood song, asked the army not to stop firing on people till they come to the city square and sing the national anthem. It read, “Issued in public interest; all who love their lives; should quietly come to the city square; sing the national anthem; and not throw any tantrums here.”

One of the passages in the poem said, “The bullets have just started, don’t say later you didn’t get a warning, you will have to say Vande Mantaram every morning.” Another read “Thrash them all you want, army; break their bones; If Mehbooba calls the police; Modi will handle it.”

A week ago, All India Radio’s official handle had tweeted about Rahul Gandhi, asking, “How he became daring again to defame #RSS?”

The tweet, asking him to “stick to comments”, was deleted on the direction of the director general of news at AIR, Sitanshu Kar.

In late July, the Twitter account for Startup India, another key government initiative, retweeted two tweets targeting journalists and Pakistan. The account retracted the retweets later, with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman blaming it on an external agency that was hired to tweet for the project.

The full report in The Indian Express may be read here.
 

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Stating that “This decision stands contradictory to the Constitutional rights of the marginalised communities”, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) has expressed “its shock and disappointment at this turn of events” and demanded that the prime minister take cognisance of the same”.

As reported in a business daily, NITI has written to Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment asking the two ministries to take over the monitoring and review responsibility. The statement adds that the decision of NITI to shift its burden to the two ministries without even bothering to propose the creation of a robust mechanism within the ministries for effective implementation of SCSP- TSP amounts to “abdicating its responsibility towards an important section of the Society”.

The statement draws attention to the fact that while dissolving the Planning Commission, the NDA government had established NITI Aayog through a Cabinet Resolution in January 2015 with the mandate to develop a ‘vision’ for ‘national development’ which includes the development of SCs and STs.

Should NITI Aayog and the NDA government fail in its duty to create the necessary mechanisms within the two ministries through comprehensive legislation, it would be directly responsible for “excluding the marginalised communities from development”.  

Full text of the statement:

We (the undersigned) are alarmed at the recent exchange of letters between National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. According to these letters, NITI Aayog lacks ‘mandate’ and expressed its inability to monitor and review the implementation of Tribal Sub-Plan and Schedule Caste Sub-Plan and asked the two ministries to conduct the exercise. Instead of proposing a robust mechanism for effective implementation of SCSP-TSP and transferring the responsibility to the concerned Ministries we find it negligence by NITI Aayog that they are washing away their hands and abdicating their responsibility towards an important section of the Society.

According to the contents of the letter as published in a news piece in, Economic Times on May, 1st 2016, the mandate of NITI Aayog unlike its predecessor the Planning Commission is not geared towards a five-year planning. NITI Aayog proposes to shift the mandate of allocation, implementation and monitoring of Dalit and Adivasi Budgets under Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) to the concerned Ministries of Tribal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment.

Planning Commission of India, which held the responsibility of review and monitoring Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) and Schedule Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP), was dissolved and NITI Aayog was constituted following Cabinet Resolution on January 1st 2015. The mandate of NITI Aayog as spelled out in its Constitution points at developing a ‘vision’ for ‘national development’ which includes the development of SCs and STs. In this context, the NITI Aayog took over the mandate of monitoring and review of SCSP-TSP from the erstwhile Planning Commission. After a year and half, we find it alarming for the NITI Aayog to transfer the responsibility to the concerned ministries without the government putting in necessary mechanisms within the concerned ministries.

The current move by the NITI Aayog undermines Constitutional provisions and rights of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes leading to a deep negative impact on the communities for generations to come.

At this critical juncture NITI Aayog has an important role in creating a body within MoTA and MSJE as nodal authorities with necessary powers and resources for implementation of SCSP and TSP. If this is not done not only the NITI Aayog, but the whole government will be responsible for excluding the marginalised communities from development. These ministries thus far have not been vested with adequate power and mandate to implement and review SCSP and TSP. This may be done through a comprehensive legislation for implementation of SCSP and TSP with necessary provisions as mentioned above for the concerned ministries. Such a draft already exists with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment which had also completed public as well as inter-ministerial consultations.

We therefore appeal to your esteemed self, to take cognisance of the serious matter at hand initiate immediate steps to —

1.   Legislate on Scheduled Castes Sub Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan with necessary institutional and administrative resources for its effective implementation. 

2.      Empower MoTA (Ministry of Tribal Affairs) and MSJE (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) and nodal authorities with necessary human and fiscal resources to effectively monitor and review SCSP and TSP.

Signatories:

Vimal Thorat, convener, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights

N Paul Divakar, general secretary, Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan  
                                    
Asha Kowtal, general secretary, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch

V Ramesh Nathan, general secretary, National Dalit Movement for Justice
 

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Someone’s income will surely double by 2022. But, contrary to the crazy claim, it won’t be the farmer but India’s new dollar billionaires.

So that’s it, then. From this year, there will no more be a ‘Statement of Revenue Foregone’ in the Union budget. There is indeed Rs 5,51,000 crore written off in corporate income tax, excise and customs duties. As always, mainly to the benefit of the rich. That’s even higher than last year’s Rs 5,00,823 crore in these same giveaways. But you are no longer allowed to say this is revenue foregone. Call it that and this government could actually dub you an anti-national. The word ‘foregone’, the regime’s little spin-doctors found, was damaging. It gave the game away by revealing huge corporate freebies to the public. So with this budget, ‘foregone’ is forever gone. We now have ‘The Statement of Revenue Impact of Tax Incentives under the Central Tax System’.

Gee! That sounds more sophisticated. But it’s still the same thing. The corporate karza maafi continues. The amo­unts are higher. And the total since 2005-06 is well over Rs 42 trillion. A stench by any other name smells just the same.

The revenue ‘impact’ in terms of direct corporate income tax write-offs, for instance, is Rs 68,711 crore. That’s Rs 3,644 crore more than it was last year. Not much less than the ‘massive increase’ in NREGA (Rs 3,801 crore). The latter involves the survival of millions, the former of a few corporations. This direct corporate income tax write-off is also 91 per cent higher than the Rs 35,984 crore given to ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’.

The government falsely claims that the Rs 38,500 crore given to NREGA in this budget is the highest ever. Truth: the allocation was roughly Rs 40,000 crore in 2006 when it was, in fact, a smaller programme. It kept close to that for a while, before P. Chidambaram worked hard at undermining it. The ‘increase’ shrinks pretty fast if you adjust it for inflation. Also, in a year when even the government speaks of high rural distress, an upward blip in spending is natural. Even in Maharashtra with its wretched NREGA performance, more and more people are seeking work under the programme. In any case, over Rs 6,000 crore of this ‘record’ sum will go in meeting pending liabilities.

Alongside this fiddle comes the crazy claim of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022. Does the finance minister mean real income after adjusting for price rise? And how? At the heart of their crisis is how unviable farming is being rendered—by policy. Will he honour his party’s promise and boost the MSP? Will he reduce the burden of farmers locked into a high-cost econ­omy—give them access to better credit and cheaper seed, fertiliser and other inputs? There is not a hint in the budget. The lion’s share of ‘agricultural credit’ goes to urban and metro-based businesses. And the promised irrigated land—will that be done by renovation of tank systems and the like (that can be linked to the NREGA)? Or through the river-linking delusions that pro­­mise a giant bonanza for contractors but little irrigation?

Yet, dozens of anchors and editorials blather on about this being a pro-farmer, pro-rural budget. As they have every second or third year for two decades. ‘Pro-farmer’ budget should ring a warning bell. It is usually followed by further handing over of agriculture to agri-business. And terrible times for farmers. Somebody’s incomes will indeed double by 2022. It won’t be the farmers, betrayed on the increased MSP that the BJP promised them in its 2014 poll campaign. It could be India’s 111 dollar billionaires listed in the latest Hurun report. Their wealth grew by 25 per cent in a single year, the report says. And of 99 new dollar billionaires across the world added to the list since last year, 27, or nearly a third, are Indians.

The combined wealth of these 111 rose by $62 billion in 12 months to arrive at $308 billion in Hurun’s reckoning. Now, if just that increase was taxed at 30 per cent (which would be standard practice in Europe), it would come to a bit over $18 billion. Or about Rs 1,22,774 crore. Still less than a fourth of the ‘impact’ write-offs for the better-off this year. But enough to exp­and the rural employment programme by more than threefold in a year of great distress.

Gold, diamonds and jewellery write-offs are Rs 61,126 crore. That’s 58 per cent more than the greatest allocation ‘ever’ for the NREGA. And nearly 70 per cent higher than the sum for ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’. Since 2005-06, the amount written off as duties on gold, diamonds and jewellery comes to over 4.6 trillion rupees. More than 13 times this year’s allocation for ‘agriculture and farmers’ welfare’. If this is a pro-farmer budget, you’d hate to see what they call an anti-farmer one.
 
And remember these are not billed as ‘subsidies’, though that is very much what they are. When the government attacks ‘subsidies’, those are the ones going mainly to the poor. Food, employment, health and more. Those shilling for such a heartless assault call these “wasteful subsidies”. The ‘revenue impact’ rubbish they call “incentives”. Subsidies are what you give the poor. What they’re trying is to replace universal systems with ‘targeting’, which excludes tens of millions in need. On the other hand, ‘impact’ subsidies (aka Godzilla write-offs), those keep rising each year. The total revenue ‘impact’ write-offs this year are 140 per cent higher than revenue forgone in 2005-06, the first year for which such data is available.

In the total amount foregone to the better-off under corporate income tax, excise and customs duty since 2005-06, you could run the NREGA for about 109 years on present levels. You could transform tens of millions of lives for the better. Dropping ‘foregone’ and hiding behind the fig leaf of ‘revenue impact’ adds more than insult to injury. (In the first place, it ought to have been ‘forgone’ and not ‘foregone’. But that’s another story).It introduces a Kafkaesque idiocy to the process. Decades ago, when the US military needed to make its many wars more acceptable, or at least less shocking, they came up with the words “collateral damage”. A euphemism for countless thousands of civilians they killed in their wars. The slaughter continued, but sounded so much nicer. The authors of the budget’s sleazy semantics do something similar in their wordplay. The loot of public money, where it’s going, and the intense misery of millions in need—that drowns in collateral cliches.

The writer is a Rural Reporter and founder of People's Archive of Rural India.

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When a delegation of Christian leaders met Prime Minister Atal  Behari Vajpayee in  early December,  among other things, the long–pending demand of the community for reform in Christian personal laws also entered the conversation. “I told Mr. Vajpayee, "Why don’t you make this a new millennium’s gift to India’s Christians?’ But the Prime Minister did not make any comment”, Delhi’s archbishop Alan de Lastic told Communalism Combat. 

What the archbishop was asking for and what the Prime Minister would not commit himself to is, in fact, not a question of ‘gift’ but a matter of ‘justice’ and ‘right’. Since February 1994, successive governments in New Delhi have been sitting tight on three Bills, which suggest comprehensive reforms in the family laws of India’s Christians and which enjoy the full backing of both the clergy and laity of virtually every Christian denomination in India. 

When enacted, the new laws would be applicable only to the Christian community in the country. But judged by the yardstick of gender justice, they would compare well with progressive family laws in force elsewhere in the world today. Among other things, several progressive features contained in the country’s Special marriages Act, 1954 have been incorporated in the proposed reforms.

Having waited for seven long years – first, for the avowedly secular Congress and United Front governments, and, subsequently, for the BJP–led governments to introduce fresh legislation — the All India Catholic Union (AICU), an organisation of the laity representing the largest body of Christians in the country, has now decided to launch a national campaign to jolt the Union government into action. 

As it  is well known, all religion–specific family (personal) laws in India — pertaining to marriage, divorce, maintenance, succession, adoption — are heavily biased against women. In the case of the Christian personal laws, the Indian Divorce Act 1869 (IDA 1869) and the Christian Marriage Act 1872, are in particular and urgent need of change. However terrible and traumatic the marriage may be, it is virtually impossible for a Christian woman to get a divorce under the provisions of the IDA.

These laws were enacted by the British Parliament during the British rule in India and based on the then prevailing notions of marriage and divorce in English law. Ironically, while they have since been radically overhauled in their country of origin, in India the situation has remained static for well over a century. Understandably, different segments of the Christian community have been engaged in intra–sect and intra–community dialogue, discussion and debate for changes in the personal laws applicable to their community since the mid–’80s. 

The issue of reforming existing laws was first raised by Protestant groups who have been asking successive governments for a new Christian Marriage Act. But initially there was resistance from the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the all-India religious body which represents Roman Catholics, the largest group of Christians in India. This is because for them marriage is an indissoluble sacrament; once a marriage is consummated, no power on earth could dissolve that bond. 

The Joint Women’s Programme (JWP), which began efforts to change the Christian personal laws in 1984, took the initiative in preparing a new set of draft bills for reform. By 1990, three new bills — the Christian Marriages and Matrimonial Clauses Bill (1990), the Indian Succession Amendment Bill (1990) and the Christian Adoption and Maintenance Bill (1990) were ready for consideration. Taken together, they were positive efforts towards updating family legislation and based on egalitarian gender values. 

Among other progressive changes, chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Special Marriage Act 1954, on anullity of marriage, divorce, jurisdiction and procedure were incorporated, with the additional provision that marriages annulled by the Church be declared null and void.
The new bills enjoyed the support of Protestant and orthodox churches, as also of the All India Catholic Union, Satyashodhak (a Mumbai–based active group of Catholic women) and a large section of Catholics in the country. But the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) did not give its consent because of the provision for divorce. 

At a national conference held in New Delhi, in 1990, to discuss the draft bills and at which representatives of the church and other Christian organisations of the laity were present, the CBCI told that it would not associate itself with that part of the bill which deals with divorce, but would not oppose the rest of the provisions which were in keeping with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. 

After protracted dialogue over the next three years, the CBCI finally agreed to give its consent after a compromise was worked out. It was agreed that divorce would be defined as “a termination of the civil effects of marriage” which does not compromise the teaching of the Catholic Church on the indissolubility of marriage. Finally, three draft bills — Christian Marriage Bill, 1994, Indian Succession Amendment Bill, 1994 Christian Adoption and Maintenance Bill, 1994 —  acceptable to all Christian denominations in India were submitted to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in February 1994. There was also common consent on the repeal of the existing Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, Indian Succession Act, 1925 and Indian Divorce Act, 1869. 

The consensus for change within the Christian community was arrived at after extensive dialogue, discussion and debate in which a large number of organisations, representing both the clergy and the laity of different denominations were involved. Despite this, in response to a query, the then Union law minister, H.R. Bharadwaj, coolly stated in Parliament on March 6, 1996: “As the policy of the government has been not to interfere in the personal laws of the minority community, unless the initiative came from the community concerned, the government has requested the National Commission for Minorities to assess the views of the Christian community by interacting with different sections of it, before the matter is processed further. Hence, it is too early to set any time frame for undertaking any legislation in this regard.”

The Minorities Commission responded to the government with one of its members, B.S. Ramoowalia, observing that “the Minorities Commission had already informed the government that the CPLs (Christian Personal Laws) be changed according to the request of the Christian community”. Ramoowalia also recommended that the different church denominations send letters supporting the proposed bills. 

It is now four years since that requirement has been complied with. But for some inexplicable reason, successive governments at the Centre have reluctant to act. In the process, Christian women continue to suffer. 

It is in the context of this backdrop that the working committee of AICU, which met in Kanpur on January 15, has resolved to launch a nation–wide campaign on the issue. AICU is a mass–based, democratic, grassroots federation with a presence in more than hundred of the 122 dioceses of the Catholic Church in India. It has a collective membership that runs into lakhs. Will the NDA government listen?

Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2000. Year 7  No, 56, Cover Story

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The Asian Age, October 25:

"The appointment of Dr K G Rastogi , a retired NCERT professor, by human resources ministry headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi is for the current academic year. Dr Rastogi has already sat as an observer at interviews conducted for the post of professor in the department of groups for special needs. In his autobiographical Aap Beeti, Krishna Gopal Rastogi 62, discloses how he took out his gun and shot a woman in a Muslim locality somewhere between Rourkee and Hardwar during the Hindu Muslim riots which broke out immediately after Partition of India in 1947. The autobiography has been dedicated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its foreword has been written by the RSS joint Secretary Mr K. S. Sudarshan.

In a chapter entitled Pracharak Ka Jeevan Mr Rastogi provides a detailed account of the background in which the shooting took place. During those days of struggle both Hindus and Muslims were uniting themselves and attacking each other. The Muslims were more united in comparision to the Hindus. They used to prepare for the attack and used to attack first. As a strategy for our security we decided that from where ever we got information about Muslim attacks we should attack first.

One such incident occurred in a locality called Puran Kaliyar, a place in between Hardwar and Rourkee. This was a Muslim locality. They were fully prepared to attack us They had spears swords, guns and small cannons. When we came to know this we took 250 people which included goons from Rourkee and attacked the Muslim locality and people from both sides died…

And then about the actual incident, " A strange incident happened in the locality as the attackers (read Hindus) started fighting with each other over a beautiful woman found in one house where the killing was going on. The attackers forgot their mission and started claiming the woman. I threatened them and then a solution came to my mind. I shot her dead". At no point, it appears, did the thought of turning his gun on the attackers cross Mr. Rastogi’s mind.

Elsewhere in the book he mentions how Mahatma Gandhi,while pained by the fallout of Partition, angered some people by his insistence of generosity towards Pakistan. He writes " 1947 passed off peacefully I passed B.A and in the 30 odd villages in my area the shakha was started. There were riots in the country and people were moving across the two borders . Mahtama Gandhi was pained at all this …… The generosity of the Hindu mind could not tolerate this. The partition of the country was based on the two nation theory and all sorts of inhuman treatments were meted out to the Hindus in Pakistan, but Gandhiji did not consider the ouster of Muslims from India as correct. Jinnah was even offered the Prime Ministership of undivided India by Gandhiji. Even after partition Pakistan was given crores of rupees for the canal thanks to Gandhiji, Nathuram Godse silenced him forever on January 30th, 1948."

Rastogi is Joshi’s latest appointment to the NCERT selection committe. This leaves little to the imagination of what the BJP/RSS plans are in the sphere of education, this time round when they head the NDA government in power at the centre.

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Saffronwatch

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