It is the hate-filled messaging of the UP government, ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in its second term in office, strengthened by the hate speeches of the central government and party leadership in Delhi that has escalated the situation to the lawless state that it is today.

Subhashini Ali, former CPM member of parliament (MP) speaking to Aditi Sharma of Newsclick spoke at length of the recent disturbing developments in the state and the questionable manner in which any due process of law had been ignored to demolish homes in Kanpur, Sahranpur and Prayagraj (Allahabad). She sharply criticised the actions of the Sahranpur police in mercilessly beating Muslim youth within the police station last week end. This video, first published by NDTV is now, four days later, being “investigated” by the UP police. After this video became publis last weekend, BJP MLA from Sahranpur, shalabh Mani Tripathi, publicly stated that this was a “return gift” for the protests that took place last Friday. Sharply criticizing this hate filled comment, Subhshini Ali says that this kind of revenge-filled governanance gives out a very controversial message.

“If people do not have faith in the state, in the government, in the police, then the only shred of hope lies with the court.”

“At the start of its first term in 2017 this UP government conducted ‘encounter Raj’ –extra judicial killings—where apart from senior policemen, 37 per cen Muslims, Dalits and OBCs were targets,” she said. This kind of rule boded ill for the most marginalized sections of society.

The entire interview may be watched here:

“BJP का बुल्डोजर कानून तोड़ रहा है” – सुभाषिनी अली

Related:

Breaking: Three UN Special Rapporteurs condemn India home demolitions, allege Collective punishment of Muslims
Weaponised Journalism: How many news publications really understand the gravity of illegal demolitions?
SC to hear urgent petitions against UP demolitions today
Bulldozer Injustice: Homes of June 10 rioters to be demolished?
Anti-CAA Muslim activist Afreen Fatima’s family members illegally detained!
Spontaneous pan-India protests against Nupur Sharma
Friday protests: More people booked for unlawful assembly

The post BJP’s Bulldozer is Breaking the Law: Subhashini Ali former MP, Kanpur appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On 15 February 2003, Corbyn gave a speech  in Hyde Park at the podium of the Stop the War Coalition, with which he had been associated since its formation in 2001. Nearly two million people – Corbyn's natural constituency – marched that day in London against the impending war. Here, as a Member of Parliament from Islington North, Corbyn called for a vote on the war in the House of Commons so that he could vote against it. George W. Bush and Tony Blair wished to start a war, Corbyn warned, that would 'set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression and the misery of future generations'. It was a powerful speech – prophetic only because these obvious warnings keep being deliberately undermined by the capitalist media.

Little wonder that Corbyn was invited to share the main stage at the Mumbai World Social Forum the next year. At the plenary, Corbyn was joined by Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative and by Arundhati Roy. Roy, in her speech, was sharp in her criticism of the US war on Iraq. Here is a powerful extract,

If all of us are indeed against Imperialism and against the project of neo-liberalism, then let's turn our gaze on Iraq. Iraq is the inevitable culmination of both. Plenty of anti-war activists have retreated in confusion since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Isn't the world better off without Saddam Hussein? they ask timidly.

Let's look this thing in the eye once and for all. To applaud the U.S. army's capture of Saddam Hussein and therefore, in retrospect, justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq is like deifying Jack the Ripper for disembowelling the Boston Strangler. And that — after a quarter century partnership in which the Ripping and Strangling was a joint enterprise. It's an in-house quarrel. They're business partners who fell out over a dirty deal. Jack's the CEO.

So if we are against Imperialism, shall we agree that we are against the U.S. occupation and that we believe that the U.S. must withdraw from Iraq and pay reparations to the Iraqi people for the damage that the war has inflicted?

Nothing in this would be alien to Corbyn, who had as fierce words of opposition to the war-mongering of the British government and the US government.

The panel that Corbyn shared with Arundhati Roy and Mustafa Barghouti was chaired by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal (1914-2012; for more on her, see the obituary  by Lisa Armstrong and myself). Two years before the World Social Forum, Captain Sahgal had been nominated by the Left parties as their candidate in the presidential election. She visited every part of India, vigorously campaigning against the dangerously unstable warmongering system that threatened the planet. In particular, she said that the nomination by the BJP of a nuclear scientist at a time when Indian and Pakistani armies prowled the border between the countries with great menace sent the wrong message to the world. Captain Sahgal had been a key figure in the Azad Hind Fauj and was the Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad Hind Government. Captain Sahgal, who joined the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in 1971, was a hero of India's freedom movement.

I asked Sahgal's daughter – the CPI-M Politburo member Subhashini Ali – about the interaction between Corbyn and her mother at the World Social Forum. Subhashini had been on the stage that day as the translator for Corbyn.

Lakhshmi Sehgal was introduced to Corbyn as a freedom fighter.  And with a twinkle in her eyes at him, she said what a good time she had had fighting the British. And he seemed to like that'.

Corbyn was very 'low key and not a great orator', remembered Ali. But, she remembers, 'what he said was good'. He was clear-cut in his opposition to the West's war on Iraq and on the chaos this would create in West Asia and North Africa.

A superb orator herself and a Member of Parliament from Kanpur after the 1989 election, Subhashini added some masala to Corbyn's prose. It was an accurate translation, but – as she put it – dhuandhar, a wonderful Hindi word that implies the thunder of a waterfall. 'Every time there was applause', Subhashini remembers, 'he looked at me quizzically. I met him in a lift later and he laughed and said that I should translate for him regularly'.

Prabir Purkayastha, who helped organise the World Social Forum, remembers that Corbyn congratulated Subhashini for her translation – saying he had never had a crowd of a hundred thousand applaud his speeches with such enthusiasm. All that changed when he ran to be the leader of the Labour Party.
 

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The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee has expressed his anguish over the attacks on Dalits Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh and has promised to do whatever was in his power to ensure justice to them.

The President’s remark came after a patient hearing he gave to a group of affected Dalits led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Brinda Karat and Subhashini Ali yesterday, said a press statement issued by the party. A memorandum was also handed over to the President.

The memorandum gives details of how in an obvious bid to assert their caste superiority, ran amok on May 5. They burnt 58 homes along with various agricultural implements, 25-26 motorcycles, small vans, groceries and various possessions including childrens’ books and ration cards. Four shops were also burnt while two fire engines and a PAC truck with jawans were prevented from entering the village. Fourteen persons, including five women and one boy (14) have received injuries some very grievous. They are all in the district hospital.

The memorandum points out that the family of a young man from the Thakur community who died due to asphyxiation during the incident received Rs 15 lakh in compensation, but the Dalits have received no compensation or even an assurance of getting any from the district administration. 

“The attack on them [Dalits] by the more powerful social group in the area has also not been addressed properly. Many false cases have been foisted on the Dalits.”

The memorandum draws the President’s attention to the fact that “The formation of the BJP Government in UP has encouraged vigilante groups of its supporters, including the rapidly expanding Hindu Yuva Vahini which is Shri Yogi Adityanath’s own organization, to attack different sections of people in the state with impunity”. 

“BJP leaders, including elected representatives, have also participated in these attacks.  One such attack was witnessed in Saharanpur on the 20^th April when a mob led by the BJP MP attacked the residence of the SSP himself and this officer was subsequently transferred”.

The memorandum seeks the intervention of the President “since many members of the dalit community, for whose welfare and security your government bears a special responsibility, have been injured and have suffered tremendous economic losses apart from humiliation and insult.”

Full text of the Memorandum:
 

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Seeing the attack on slaughterhouses as only an attack on Muslims us seeing only a tiny part of the larger picture says Subhashini Ali, Polit Bureau Member CPI(M). In this interview she details how the unlawful and hasty crackdown on slaughterhouses by the recently elected Yogi Adityanath government has affected the economic security of lakhs of Dalits and farmers in UP. 

The fact that the slaughterhouses suddenly shut down belong to the municipal councils and town areas itself reveals how the economy has been hit. For the past ten days to a fortnight, cattle markets have taken a beating in the state.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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In the first political intervention after the gross lynching, to death, of a dairy farmer in Rajasthan , Pehlu Khan, last week,  leaders of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) yesterday visited Jaisinghpur of Nuh District of Haryana to console the bereaved family members of Pehlu Khan, the dairy farmer who was allegedly killed by organisations reported to be a part of the sangh parivar. AIKS leaders including Hannan Mollah, former Member of Parliament (MP) and Polit Bureau Member, Subhashini Ali, General Secretary, P Krishnaprasad, Finance Secretary, Master Sher Singh, President of Haryana Kisan Sabha and Manoj Kumar visited the family of the victims.   Satvir Singh, state president of CITU, Major S L Prajapathy, Gurgaon District secretary of CPIM were also part of the delegation. 

The delegation met Pehlu Khan’s mother Ankuri Begam, wife Jebuna Begam, and two children Irshad and Arif who were also injured in the same incident. Pehlu Khan had six children including four daughters. The delegation also visited Ajmat who is bed ridden at home since he was forcefully discharged from the Alwar Hospital. 

Hundreds villagers gathered to receive the Kisan Sabha leaders.  Ajmal Khan, former MLA,  Kalekhan, former sarpanch, Sarfudheen and Khaleel Ahamad Akthar Hassan of Sahdani Sabha Mewat, Raj Singh and Adv. Arshad khan among others attended the meeting.  The meeting decided to call a panchayath of the people of neighborhood villagers in the next week to mobilise and protest the incidents that signal India's sliding into rank vigilantism.The family of Pehlu Khan has around 1.5 acres of land and is dependant on wheat cultivation and dairying as a means of livelihood. On that fateful day, Pehlu Khan, his two children, his nephew and two other villagers went to Jaipur to purchase milching animals since they hope they could get animals cheap in the Cattle fair of Jaipur Hatwada. 

The Mewat region, dominated by a Muslim population has a rich tradition of Hindu Muslim amity and brotherhood, termed “Gothpal”. The Muslim families are traditionally peasants and cattle breeders. This has been eroded over the decades by the politics of division and othering. The brutal killing of Pehlu Khan by RSS organisations has created fear psychosis and nervousness among the peace loving people. 

The FIR on the lynching clearly states that the mob which attacked the farmers belonged to the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal(BD) and also points to the role of the parent organisation, the RSS. After Pehlu Khan died succumbing to his injuries, district-level leaders of the VHP had even threatened the senior police officers of dire consequences if they arrest any of their activists. The Police, then registered a false FIR against Pehlu Khan and other innocent farmers despite the fact that they have records of the cattle purchase issued by the Jaipur Municipal Corporation.  The Home Minister of Rajasthan has been, shockingly, accusing farmers of 'smuggling' cows by violating the law and even the Union Minister Mukhthar Abbas Naqvi has misguided the Rajya Sabha by denying that any such incident of murder even occurred in Rajasthan.  All this exposes the role of RSS and BJP leaders who appear set to defend the lynch mob in general and those responsible for this gross murder, in particular.

The situation is serious, dragging the country towards anarchy and lawlessness which needs to be fought tooth and nail to protect the democratic rights of the people and to preserve the secular fabric of the society.  The AIKS leadership has demanded a high level enquiry to unearth the conspiracy behind the Alwar Killing. The AIKS leaders also assured the village people and the family members all help to ensure strong action and stringent punishment to the entire culprits as per law including legal aid.

Home Page Photo Courtesy: Indian Express

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During a recent session of Parliament, held to commemorate the Constitution and pay homage to Dr. Ambedkar; and again, during the Parliamentary debate on ‘Growing Intolerance’, Babasaheb’s name was mentioned repeatedly.  It was recognized by all that he had made the greatest contribution to enshrine the principles of Democracy, Equality and Fraternity in the Constitution and fulsome praise and accolades were bestowed upon him, speciallyby members of the NDA II (read BJP) Government.  No one, however, except for Sitaram Yechury (CPIM, General Secretary) referred to his conversion to Buddhism or the reasons for this.

Despite the enormous and significant role he played in drafting the Constitution, Babasaheb had to, eventually abandon the religion of his forefathers.  Throughout his life he made untiring and valiant efforts to bring about a change in the attitude and thinking of high caste Hindus through argument, writings, historical research and continuous appeals to reason, humanity and compassion. The drafting of the Constitution and Hindu Code Bill were, of course, the most important of these efforts. 

Unfortunately, the bill did not bring about any real change of heart, mind and outlook.  Every one of his efforts had aroused the most vicious opposition and calumny.  Every promise that the Constitution made to bring about equality between all citizens was opposed tooth and nail during the Constituent Assembly debates by conservative elements determined to thwart all efforts to legislate equality into the existing unequal social hierarchies that they were determined to preserve.

The Hindu Code Bill was met by such howls of protest both inside the Constituent Assembly and outside on the streets that it had to be abandoned. Babasaheb resigned as Law Minister saying in protest that, “The Hindu Code was the greatest social reform measure ever undertaken by the legislature in this country. No law passed by the Indian Legislature in the past or likely to be passed in the future can be compared to it in point of its significance.

To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu Society untouched and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap.  This is the significance I attached to the Hindu Code.” (quoted from Dr. Ambedkar’s speech when he resigned from the first Indian cabinet of ministers).

The failure of his repeated and untiring efforts to bring about a change in the hearts and minds of his opponents was not unforeseen as far as Dr. Ambedkar was concerned.  As early as 1935, he had announced to his followers that although he had been born a Hindu he would not die as one because he was determined to abandon a belief system that refused to accept the principle of equality.  Finally, on the October 2, 1956, he embraced Buddhism along with many hundreds of thousands.  Tragically, within two months, on December 6, l956, he was no more.

On the same day, 36 years later, the Babri Masjid was destroyed by members of the Sangh Parivar.  This event is also commemorated, across the country, by some as “Shaurya (Valour) Diwas” and by others as a day of mourning.

There are also those, however, who feel that the choice of the date for the destruction of the mosque was no co-incidence.  They believe that it was Dr. Ambedkar’s Constitution that was the real target of the attack by the Sangh.  This is based not only on the choice of date but on the fact that the Sangh Parivar members who destroyed the mosque owed allegiance to the same RSS that had been in the forefront of the opposition to both the Constitution and the Hindu Code Bill.

The most uncompromising opposition both to the Constitution and the Hindu Code Bill came from Shri Golwalkar, head of the RSS.  Along with his supporters, he held fast to the view even after the Constitution was passed, that it was the Laws of Manu, the Manusmriti, alone that could be accepted as Law by Hindus.

As far as the Hindu Code Bill is concerned, Golwalkar castigated it by saying that it would reduce Hindu men to puny weaklings.  His views have never been repudiated by the Sangh Parivar. Today, Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s speech in Parliament is significant because while he heaped praise on the Constitution and Dr. Ambedkar, he also sharply criticized the later inclusion of the work ‘secular’ to describe the Republic that brought the Constitution into existence.

The reasons he gave for this criticism should be examined seriously by all Indian citizens.  He said “‘Secularism’ is the most misused word in the country… India’s religion itself is dharma nirpeksh. ..”Does the Constitution permit India to have a religion?  If India has a religion then can it continue to abide by its Constitution? Is it a co-incidence that the Home Minister who has now made known his commitment to a Religious State or a Hindu Rashtra was present at the site of the demolition of the mosque (Babri Masjid) on December 6, 1992?

Even at the time of its passage, Dr. Ambedkar feared for the future of the Constitution because he did not believe that the soil of India which had given birth to the worst forms of inequality would readily accept the seeds of democracy and fraternity.  Those who had opposed him then have given notice, time and again, that they continue to challenge the writ of this foundational doctrine.
 

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