Indian, not TMC, Railways

What should be a surprise isn’t that the first real hike in railway fares in the last 10 years has been opposed by the party to which railway minister Dinesh Trivedi belongs, but that it took so long for someone to instal the first steps to save a great Indian institution from certain penury. Mr Trivedi, in his bold Railway Budget speech on Wednesday, proposed an across-the-board hike in passenger fares in order to raise a much-needed extra Rs 4,000 crore this year. For far too long, the Indian Railways has subsisted on a self-destructive diet of runaway expenditures tied to plummeting income.

The usual practice of robbing Paul (the Indian exchequer) to pay Peter (the Indian Railways) had to halted, especially since a desperate modernisation programme including the installation of safety measures is non-negotiable while at the same time to be accounted for. Which is why, for too long, short-term gains were trumpeted as feathers in the railway minister’s (read: his or her party’s) cap at the cost of the railways. Rising above myopic party political considerations, Mr Trivedi has underlined the fact that his responsibility as Union minister is first to the Indian Railways and then to his party. With Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee openly opposing the railway fare hike, what we see is a regional leader vehemently opposing this basic prioritisation of nation over party.

The open opposition of the TMC to the budget proposals set by one of its own MPs has let the cat out of the bag. If Ms Bane-rjee’s autocratic ways of dealing with Centre-state relations see-med parochial when it came to her opposition to UPA policies such as FDI in retail and the setting up of the National Counter-Terr-orism Centre, her public proclamation that her party ‘won’t allow the fare hike’ confirms our worst fears of her style of politics. As a former railway minister herself, she should have known better than to showcase her displeasure about “not knowing about the fare hike”. The railway minister’s boss in Delhi is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and not chief minister Mamata Banerjee. To get her approval for a Railway Budget is as preposterous as a West Bengal budget being approved by a central minister.

The TMC is well within its right to oppose Mr Trivedi’s laudable budget proposals — even as it makes it look ludicrous politically even by Trinamool’s ‘opposing for the sake of opposing’ standards. But what its opposition — and especially the reason for it — has exposed is Ms Banerjee’s churlishness that she dresses up as populism and ‘pro-people’ politics. This should be a clear signal to the Congress-led UPA that one of its allies sees the nation and the state the latter rules locked in a zero sum game.
However imp-ortant an ally the TMC may be in terms of numbers for the upkeep of the central government, we — and one hopes the UPA — realise the dangers of having such self-serving allies. As for Mr Trivedi, we applaud not only his courage for presenting a budget that hasn’t gone down well with his knee-jerk-reacting party but also for presenting a budget that provides a roadmap ahead for the nation’s people — that of his home state, West Bengal, included.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/825492.aspx

The Buzz

Birthday bumps Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, the one with the gift of the gab and a dimpled smile, turned 65 on February 28. As all eyes are set on the outcome of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Singh, who is in charge of the politically important state for the Congress, celebrated his birthday while on the campaign trail. But he did not forget to thank all those who wished him. “Thanks to all those who abuse me. Keeps me in the news and in their minds,” he sweetly tweeted.

Too close for comfort
Actor Nagma may have encountered such situations onscreen many a times. But the behaviour of Congress candidate from Barhapur, Hussain Ahmed Ansari, during a public meeting in his constituency raised her hackles. She nearly walked out of the rally in a huff when Ansari tried to get close to her and read out a couplet that she found, well, offensive. Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi thankfully intervened and placated Nagma who then appealed to the gathering to vote for the Congress — if not for Ansari.
Look who’s being a BSY body
A battle of nerves between former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and his arch rival, BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar, is on the cards over the nomination to the Rajya Sabha from the state. Kumar is pushing for the renomination of Hema Malini, whose one-year term is expiring on April 2, along with four other members. BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, too, is keen that the ‘Dream Girl’ gets a full term. But BSY, upset that he has not been re-instated as CM, wants his loyalist Dhananjay Kumar to get the nomination. The big question is whether BSY will let BJP MLAs abide by the high command’s choice.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/821342.aspx

I'm still able to hope

Ten years have passed since a blistering storm of hate in Gujarat extinguished more than 2,000 lives, and destroyed countless more. It was a moment which altered the course of innumerable lives, including even my own.
I look back on those years with sorrow, with anger, but still also with hope. Ten years ago as a serving officer, I wrote of my anguish at the sheer cruelty of the slaughter in Gujarat, the complicity of my then colleagues in the civil and police administration in the massacre, the refusal of the state to even establish relief camps, and the blinding social and political climate of hate.

Today much of that grief persists, because of the many great failures of these 10 years after the massacre: the profound social failures of reconciliation and forgiveness; the legal failures of justice; and the political failures of democratic accountability. Those responsible for mass crimes and continuing persecution of minorities stand unpunished and defiant. I mourn also that leaders of industry, political parties, even social movements, celebrate the administration in Gujarat. They claim that the ‘bigger picture’ is of economic growth, administrative efficiency and alleged financial probity, rendering insignificant the ‘smaller picture’ of mere massacre and profiling.
I have not met a single survivor who has been able to regain the levels of living which they enjoyed before the carnage. Memories of how life was before the storm haunt them each day; of all that they lost that can never be reclaimed. Around half the 200,000 people who fled murderous mobs and burning homes 10 years ago can never return to the lands of their birth. Entire villages have been ‘cleansed’ of their erstwhile Muslim residents.
Around 30,000 persons subsist in small bare tenements in relief colonies built by mainly Muslim organisations as temporary settlements of refuge, but now their permanent homes. Others who could afford it have moved into the safety of numbers in crowded Muslim ghettoes. They were forced to sell their lands and properties at distress rates to their Hindu neighbours. The state remains openly hostile to these Muslim settlements, and discriminates in basic public services like drinking water, roads, electrification and sewerage.
For those who could return to their homes, life after the storm is one of segregation, isolation and penury. They live as second-class citizens, shunned by their neighbours. They are no longer welcome at weddings and funerals. People employ them only when there is no one else available. And yet, such is the resilience of the human spirit, that although they suffer hate, injustice, betrayal and loss, they still soldier on. The ache is always there, but survivors immerse themselves in the simple struggles of everyday living.
Their wounds could heal with demonstrations of remorse and justice. But the original slaughter is matched by the determination — sustained for 10 years — of both the state and their neighbours to block the efforts of the victimised people to rebuild their old lives; to refuse to express regret; and to strenuously subvert justice. Chief minister Narendra Modi refuses — even risking his political future — to apologise even once for the carnage. The only men in khaki who are punished by the state government are those who bravely strive for justice.
A widow has petitioned the highest court of the land to prosecute the CM for complicity in slaying her husband. A police officer testifies that the CM instructed his officers that the mass violence should be permitted to continue. Just the fact that the massacre and arson persisted for many days, even weeks, is in itself complete evidence, proving beyond doubt the complicity of the state at the highest levels. I have observed and handled many communal riots in my years as a civil servant, and I am certain that no riot can continue even beyond a few hours unless the political and administrative leadership wants that it should continue. And there are few crimes as great as to betray one’s duty to protect people from violence targeted at them only because of their identity.
Many of us have stood these many years in solidarity with the survivors who choose to fight for justice in the country’s courts. Even so, most criminal cases eventually collapse, and the men charged with rape, arson and mass murder walk free. Impunity remains the norm in communal violence. Police investigations are artfully slipshod, public prosecutors behave more like defence attorneys, witnesses and complainants are openly intimidated and coerced sometimes even in the corridors of the courts, and judges often do not hide their sympathies for the accused.
On the other hand, for nine of the 10 years since the train burned in Godhra, the men charged with setting the compartment ablaze languished in jail, until they were finally acquitted because there was no evidence against them, even by the much looser standards of anti-terror laws. Freed after incarceration for nine years for no crime, their families, their lives, their spirit are permanently destroyed. Perhaps they were more fortunate than those who were killed in fake police encounters, including a 19-year-old girl.
Yet I am still able to hope more than I did those 10 years ago. Few expected them to do so, but the people of this country have shown the wisdom and humanity to reject the politics of hate nationally, although they did not in Gujarat. Even during the carnage, many more people saved lives than those who took them. Gujarat abounds with heroes. Police officers, journalists, writers, artistes, judges at every level, and peace and justice workers, have fought hatred and injustice incessantly these 10 years. And most of them do not belong to the community which was targeted. Each stood tall, often at great personal cost, bravely defending our Constitution and our collective humanity.
It is because of them that I still hope. Harsh Mander is director, Centre for Equity Studies. The views expressed by the author are personal.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/818019.aspx

The mood’s different

Any discussion on the Godhra murders and the subsequent religious riots that engulfed Gujarat beginning this day 10 years ago inevitably ends up becoming an argument over Narendra Modi. However, to be fair to Gujarat’s cataclysmic summer of 2002, and to the 1,044 people (790 Muslims and 254
Hindus) killed that year, it is necessary to look at the wider legacy of those events. This is not to defend or attack Modi; that is a separate issue and the subject of a separate, though not entirely unrelated, debate. The point is that it is important to see the broader implications of the Gujarat riots without necessarily reducing them to a slanging match over one individual.

Gujarat was not the first major religious riot in post-Partition India and not the worst either in terms of human loss. Why then does it stand out and why are its memories so marked? Why is the perception that Gujarat 2002 was singularly abominable — which in comparison to previous and similar events it was not — so difficult to erase? Indeed which are the forces that have made Gujarat bigger than previous such infractions — and, paradoxically, do they carry the potential to ensure that Gujarat 2002 is also India’s last major riot?

Three features of Gujarat 2002 are worth noting. First, the degree of popular participation was remarkably high. Religious riots, as any police officer from Malegaon to Maliana will tell you, usually involve a minuscule percentage of the population. In the three days after February 27, Gujarat police officers told this writer in 2002 that — and they were citing FIRs and plain surmise — two million people came out on the streets.

Gujarat had a population of 50 million in 2002: 88% Hindu, 9% Muslim. Of this 32 million were voters and aged above 18. As such 4% of the populace and over 6% of all adults were riot participants. In purely numerical, value-neutral terms, this would constitute a mass movement. The degree of social approbation for the events that followed the Godhra train massacre was significant. It can’t be explained as merely the act of a small core of masterminds.

Second, Gujarat 2002 was an anachronism, a 20th century riot in 21st century India. In its narrative and its mobilisation techniques it was no different from the riots of, say, Calcutta (1964), Ahmedabad itself (1969), Bhagalpur (1989) and Bombay (1993). In its background — the sedulous radicalisation of sections of Muslims, the conversion of underworld figures who happened to be Muslim into Islamist warriors, the transformation of Hindutva from a political idea into an ugly and unwholesome street phenomenon that habitually challenged the law — Gujarat 2002 encapsulated so much of the wrenching emotionalism of the mid-1980s and early-90s.

Yet it was also a phenomenon past its time. Gujarat represented an autarkic economy riot in the era of globalisation. In the past 10 years, Modi and his government have made adroit use of the opportunities of globalisation, and turned Gujarat into an extraordinary economic powerhouse. Ironically, they have also been impeded by another manifestation of global networking, one that uses the same tools and communication technologies as its business counterpart — the globalisation of causes and concerns, of protest and activism and ultimately of soft power.

Middle class attitudes are increasingly influenced by these aspects of globalisation. This has had one major consequence: a declining tolerance for violence in the very urban centres that saw the worst religious riots 25 years ago. If there are still fears about jihadist terrorism and national security, these flow more from their ability to interrupt India’s economic treadmill. The propellant is no longer raw emotion, or prejudice for the sake of prejudice. There is a growing sense that direct action cannot be a substitute for strict law enforcement.

As an economy attains critical mass, it transcends adventurism, real or even rhetorical. This is often the basis of political conservatism. After 2002, middle India crossed that inflection point.

Combined with this creeping economic hard-headedness is the presence of an over-intrusive media, Indian and global. This has meant that aberrations are suicidal. For instance, the political cost of a riot has gone up prohibitively; especially following 9/11, any juxtaposition of the phenomena ‘religion’ and ‘violence’ is unlikely to be viewed benignly. The media shows — maybe overstates — horrific pictures, builds revulsion and invites international pressure. Gujarat 2002 is a case in point. It is a ‘victim’ of globalisation, almost as much as Gujarat 2012 — the economic success story — is a ‘creature’ of globalisation.

Third, at the end of 2002, Gujarat saw an assembly election that was compelling but also disturbing. It reflected a polarised society and the BJP exploited this mood. It was reminiscent of the Congress election advertisements of 1984, which too sought to demonise the ‘other’ and scare voters into backing the party.

While this is undeniable, it is equally true that — despite what Modi’s opponents may contend — that degree of polarisation is no longer present in Gujarat. The state has moved on, and to say this in no way mitigates the need to deliver justice to those who died in 2002 or to punish their killers. It also leaves us with the hope that Gujarat — and India — are done with blockbuster religious riots for good.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/Edits/The-mood-s-different/Article1-817544.aspx

Try a little kindness

Has Gujarat really moved on ten years after the terrible violence of 2002? The answer depends on who the question is asked to. Chief minister Narendra Modi, for example, claims to have moved on to the point where he refuses to take questions on the past. In February 2002, Modi was a relatively low profile RSS pracharak-turned-chief minister with no administrative experience. The riots transformed him into a tough-talking ‘saviour’ of the Hindus; he even undertook a Gujarat ‘gaurav’ yatra, though one is uncertain what was the ‘pride’ involved in failing to prevent the deaths of more than 1,000 Gujaratis, apart from exploiting religious sentiment to garner votes. Today, Modi has undertaken a ‘sadbhavana’ yatra, has marginalised the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is seen as a potential BJP prime ministerial candidate in 2014 and is a chief minister with a formidable reputation for good governance.

Travel through the riot-hit areas of Gujarat and on the surface it appears that 2002 is a distant memory. In Halol town of  Panchmahals district, which saw mass killings with dozens of  homes burnt, a gleaming General Motors factory now stands, part of a special economic zone and another potent symbol of  Modi’s ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. In Godhra, where the S-6 compartment was burnt, Hindu and Muslim traders are striking partnerships that reflect the quintessential Gujarati ethos: “Gujarat’s business is business,” they tell me. In Vadodara, a cricket camp is being held not too far from the Best Bakery massacre site: young Muslim boys here dream of  becoming the next Irfan Pathan.
In Ahmedabad, there is an unmistakable sense of optimism in the air. Recent surveys have placed Ahmedabad as India’s most liveable city. The Ahmedabad Bus Rapid Transport System is a role model for urban transport while the airport has a spanking new look. The city looks cleaner than ever before, the slum encroachments along the Sabarmati river bank have been cleared with China-like precision, the malls are crowded and the hotels are full. Amitabh Bachchan’s high profile Gujarat tourism promotion drive has seen a 40% rise in tourism, and  corporates are scrambling to climb onto the Gujarat growth engine. At a business outsourcing centre, the young professionals insist there will never be a repeat of 2002. Ask them who their role model is, and you know just why Modi is favoured to win another term in office later this year.
And yet, step away from the bright lights, the question ‘Has Gujarat really moved on?’ acquires another dimension. In Godhra’s Signal Falia basti where most of the accused in the train burning incident lived, the young tell me they are jobless because no one will give employment to Muslim youth with Signal Falia as the address. The fact that a majority of those who were arrested have since been acquitted has only added to their sense of grievance at being labelled ‘terrorists’. Families of kar sevaks who were charred to death are equally emphatic: no mercy must be shown.
In the crowded bylanes of Shahpur in Ahmedabad’s walled city, where Hindus and Muslims have lived cheek by jowl for years, physical proximity can’t hide the mental scarring. Even today, the slightest provocation can spark off a mini-riot here. Those who can afford it have moved out. Ahmedabad perhaps has fewer mixed neighbourhoods than any other city of its size; Muslims are not welcome in Hindu areas and vice-versa. Inter-religious marriages are virtually unheard of.
In Naroda Patiya, an Ahmedabad suburb, where 95 people were killed, the riot-affected families are still fighting for justice. No one has been convicted yet, and many of those allegedly responsible for the killings still roam around freely in the area. Justice seems elusive, with a distinct lack of faith in a law enforcement machinery that is seen to be biased against minorities. “We will still fight,” a pint-sized lady who lost eight family members and is now a prime witness in the Naroda case, tells me. I wonder how ordinary people can show such extraordinary courage in times of adversity.
It is this indefatigable human spirit that stands out everywhere. In Citizen Nagar, a resettlement colony for riot victims on the outskirts of  Ahmedabad, the residents live near the city’s biggest garbage dump. Gujarat isn’t ‘vibrant’ here: the tin shed rooms, and the dirt and squalor would make a Mumbai slum seem palatial. The area appears to have literally fallen off  the map, there are no schools, medical facilities or basic sanitation available here. As one spirited lady puts it, “We may be living in Citizen Nagar, but we are after all, second-class citizens!”
It is this sense of a growing chasm between two Gujarats that is worrying: one Gujarat which is aspirational and upwardly mobile, the other that is angry and alienated. The Modi government’s recipe to bridge the gap has been to relentlessly focus on the ‘development’ mantra: double digit growth is seen to be the only balm to heal the wounds of  the past.
But high growth without the human touch can never really achieve true reconciliation between communities. At Sabarmati Ashram, home to the greatest Gujarati ever, I meet with Dara and Rupa Mody, a Parsi couple who lost their teenage son in the Gulberg society massacre. Their son’s body has never been found and they still grieve for him. In the last decade, not once has the chief  minister or anyone from the government even visited them to share their tears. It’s the same story for almost all riot victims. It is this absence of  remorse or any sense of  compassion that reduces Modi’s attempts at image makeovers into little more than made for television photo-ops.
‘Sadbhavana’, as Gandhi saw it, is ultimately about kindness and compassion that rises above religious divides. It’s a spirit that Gujarat needs to rediscover to bring a genuine closure to the horror of 2002.
Rajdeep Sardesai is editor-in-chief, IBN 18 Network
rajdeep.sardesai@network18online.com
The views expressed by the author are personal

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/816078.aspx

Aiming for the head

The hearing of the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan on February 13 left most people frustrated. The friends of democracy grew anxious to see that the highest court was in no mood to spare the government. The enemies, on the other hand, were equally unhappy because the SC did not seem to expedite the process of chopping off the government's head. In fact, Imran Khan had immediately called a press conference decrying the government as having lost the moral authority to rule.

But both sides understand that the highest prize is not the prime minister but the president. The contempt proceedings against Yousaf Raza Gilani is due to his refusal to write a letter to the Swiss courts asking them to re-initiate an inquiry into president Asif Zardari's ill-gotten wealth that he seems to have stashed away in the banks in Switzerland. The case to retrieve the money lying in Switzerland was withdrawn by the previous government of Pervez Musharraf as part of the National Reconciliation Ordinance signed between the former military dictator and Benazir Bhutto.

Public opinion is clearly divided between those who feel Zardari and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) are being victimised and others that are of the view that nailing the president will usher in an era of better governance. However, the fact of the matter is that the SC's activism is not likely to morph the system of governance and bring in a corruption- free society due to its inquisition against an individual. The highest court seems to have a tilt towards one party at the cost of the other. Recently, the court ordered the government body investigating corruption to return Rs 115 million of the Sharif brothers. Therefore, the legal battle appears to many as an extension of the political battle between Zardari's PPP that his deceased wife Benazir Bhutto used to head and the country's all powerful security establishment that many believe is taking cover behind judicial activism. The perception is that the court is being used to thrash the political government as it has fallen from grace in the eyes of the military.

The contempt proceedings were preceded by another case popularly referred to as the memogate scandal in which an American national of Pakistani origin had accused the president and the country's envoy to the US Hussain Haqqani of provoking Washington into taking action against the Pakistan military. The case is under trial before the Supreme Court but seems to have lost its lustre due to the American national Mansoor Ijaz's subsequent refusal to appear before the court. Recently, the court allowed Ijaz to record his statement via videolink which is the first time that such a thing will happen. The highest judicial leniency in certain cases tends to stick out especially when it does not show a similar resolve to nail the accused in other cases. The legal cases against some of the militant outfits are a case in point.

The PPP government also seems to have opted for a political methodology to fight the legal battle. For instance, instead of selecting a capable legal mind to fight the contempt case, the party chose a less capable lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, who is better known for his political showmanship particularly during the lawyers' movement of 2007/2008. Ahsan's selection, many political observers believe, was to appease the judges, especially the chief justice with whom Ahsan has a good relationship. However, the chief justice, while pampering his friend in the court, was in no mood to ignore the fact that Ahsan was unable to present a convincing legal argument.

At this juncture, there appears to be little possibility of a rapprochement between the Supreme Court and the government. In other words, Gilani's departure is inevitable as he has refused to write a letter to the Swiss court on the grounds that the president has immunity. Some sources are also of the view that the axe will fall on Gilani also because the army chief and his chief spook are utterly unhappy with the prime minister who had spoken against them in Parliament. Although Gilani later retracted his statement, the fact is that his comment regarding the army being ‘a State within a State' will always remain part of parliamentary record. This is no mean feat. But the larger issue is of pushing out Zardari who in the past four years has given a tough fight to the country's political army. Gilani's removal will open up the floodgates for more protest by Zardari's opponents to impeach him.

His removal, as some will argue, may not just be to eradicate corruption in the country but to ensure that Asif Zardari is not there to influence the choice of the next army chief even remotely when Gen Ashfaq Kayani retires in 2013. The country's powerful military establishment is not willing to take any risk by keeping a man who seems to have shaken the GHQ's relationship with the US. Getting rid of him and his cabal may be critical at a time when the endgame is being decided in Afghanistan.

The Supreme Court will decide Gilani's fate in the end of February which soothsayers say will seal the fate of his cabinet and democracy in general.

Ayesha Siddiqa is an Islamabad-based writer and is the author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy. The views expressed by the author are personal.
Right Vision Media Syndicate, Pakistan

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/814870.aspx

Saffron's deeper now

This fortnight marks the 10th anniversary of the horrendous Godhra train fire and the communal carnage that followed in Gujarat, which consumed thousands of innocent lives. Among all factors that reflect on the vulnerability of the secular, democratic foundations of modern India, this decade highlights the serious limitations of our system of delivery of justice. This is one of the main yardsticks that measures the character of a modern republic. On this count, India finds itself wanting. This is, unfortunately, not confined only to the victims of the communal genocide in Gujarat, but continues to plague the victims of other carnages as well. The old adage 'justice delayed is justice denied' cannot find a more tragic manifestation than what is happening to the hapless victims of the Gujarat genocide.
The delivery of justice continues to elude us despite the latest order of the apex court (January 25, 2012) entrusting the inquiry of all extrajudicial (encounter) killings by the Gujarat police between October 2002 and December 2006 to a retired Supreme Court judge. In response to the charges of subversion of the criminal justice system, the higher judiciary had earlier ordered the transfer of riot cases  outside the state, reopening of more than 2,000 closed cases by the Gujarat police, the appointment of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate nine major incidents of mass killings and directing the CBI to investigate some specific complaints and fake encounters.  Much speculation has been generated by the CBI's sealed report submitted to the judiciary. On the one hand, there are serious allegations of complicity and, on the other, chief minister Narendra Modi has claimed that this 'exonerates' his administration's role in subverting the delivery of justice. The report is yet to be made public officially. Notwithstanding all this, the fact remains that the delivery of justice continues to elude us.
While the RSS and its political arm, the BJP, continue to pride themselves in these events as representing the success of the 'Hindutva laboratory' in Gujarat, the tentacles they use to spread the communal virus continue to extend further. Following its successful experiment in controlling the reins of governance at the Centre for six years by keeping its core communal agenda - the construction of a temple at Ayodhya, abolition of Article 370 and  imposition of a uniform civil code - on the backburner to elicit the  support of its NDA allies, it refrains from using these issues for communal polarisation. However, this polarisation is being pursued vigorously on other grounds.
It has revived its old issue of 'cow protection' in an aggressive manner. Since its inception in 1925, the RSS had founded a wide network of 'Gau Raksha Samitis' (cow protection societies). In 2010, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) conducted a  yatra on this issue in different parts of the country. The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has enacted a new law, the 'Prohibition of Slaughter of Cow Progeny Amendment Bill'. With this, it has become the first state in the country to make consumption of beef illegal, going beyond the laws  enacted by other BJP state governments. This law puts an accused on a par with someone charged under anti-terrorist laws where the onus of proving innocence lies with the alleged violator, reversing the fundamental tenet of our criminal law that states that an accused is 'innocent until proven guilty'.
The Gujarat government, in its latest move of polarisation,  has enacted a law for preventing distress sale of property in areas dominated by another community. This is designed to consolidate the further ghettoisation and, thus, communal polarisation in the state. The state government has also refused to implement the central scheme of scholarships for Muslim minorities on the grounds that it did not want to allow special privileges  to religious minorities. This scheme was introduced in 2008 following the national outrage over the findings of the Sachar Committee report on the status of Muslims in India.  In Gujarat, only 26% Muslims reach matriculation compared to 41% overall. Urban poverty among Muslims is 800% higher than among high caste Hindus and 50% more than the OBCs.
Simultaneously, in all BJP-ruled states, the massive parallel education machinery of the RSS continues to grow steadily. The Vidya Bharati, established in 1977, today runs nearly 30,000 educational institutions with 32.5 lakh students and 1.6 lakh  teachers. Its declared objective is to "develop a national system of education which would help to build a generation of young men and women that is committed to Hindutva and infused with patriotic fervour". As early as 1996, the NCERT, on the basis of a survey of the Vidya  Bharati textbooks, concluded that they were "designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating knowledge of culture  in the younger generation".
A more disturbing aspect of this process of communal polarisation comes with the latest arrest of an RSS activist by the National Investigation Agency for his involvement in the terrorist attack on the Samjhauta Express to Lahore, which claimed the lives of  68 passengers in February 2007. This re-establishes the RSS links to the growing web of Hindutva terror in the country. Earlier, investigations had established such links with terrorist attacks in Malegaon (September 2008), Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad (May 2007) and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah (October 2007). It needs to be reiterated that terrorism of all varieties feed and strengthen each other. This is anti-national and the country must display zero tolerance.
All such insidious efforts by the RSS and its affiliates to sharpen communal polarisation  must be defeated to strengthen the secular democratic foundations of modern India.
(Sitaram Yechury is CPI(M) Politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP. The views expressed by the author are personal)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/814429.aspx

Standing up to the boss

Call me naïve, but on some basic level, you have to give it to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his ability to put even the most powerful countries in a tight spot. On Wednesday, while making an overjoyed statement on his country’s “very big new achievement” of successfully building faster uranium enrichment centrifuges and the loading of domestically made fuel rods, Ahmadinejad once again rattled America’s cage by saying, “The era of bullying nations has passed. The arrogant powers cannot monopolise nuclear technology.” Huzzah!

It’s not the first time we have heard the man voice his stand on the West’s stand on his country’s nuclear programme. Each time Iran blurts the N word, America gets its knickers in a twist while Israel simply wets its pants. This is despite Ahmadinejad’s constant reiteration that Tehran’s nuclear programme is intended for peaceful civilian purposes — not that anyone has to believe him, but because till now, that’s what it is.

The president in a journalist’s jacket and loaded with immense chutzpah (a Hebrew word meaning ‘shameless audacity’) has even proposed to modify Iran’s reactors in such a way that they would shut down as soon as enrichment levels go beyond the permissible limit. But let’s not get swayed by his ‘Oh, why can’t you trust me?’ line. Those in the know of such matters realise that allowing Iran under Ahmadinejad, who loves to play the bad guy, to attain self-sufficiency in things nuclear could one day prove deadlier than giving a flame-thrower to a child.

But that’s beside the point. What really lies at the core of this disputation is this: in a world where almost every head of State crawls when Washington asks him to bend, Ahmadinejad derives pleasure in asking America to take a hike. That, in pure pop cultural terms, is the sign of the underdog whom we all love to love.

If we overlook Wednesday’s developments in Iran for a moment and consider the big picture, we’ll find that deep inside, every world leader knows that the odds of Iran nuking Israel are significantly smaller than America or Israel rushing in where non-fools fear to tread. In other words, another resource-rich nation in the West Asian neighbourhood at a time when power stems from a barrel of oil with a price tag above $100. But will anyone ever dare to say it out loud? I bet Ahmadinejad will. In his characteristic unsubtle manner.

Let's figure it out

How do you increase your wealth by 126th times whatever you had in the first place? Please let us know. Apparently, many of our MLAs have increased their assets by as much as the number mentioned above. In fact, there are as many as 18 crorepatis in the fray in this election. An assembly electionat that. One candidate is worth upward of Rs 48 crore. This is a fine thing to hang on to. We would like to know how these individuals have been able to top up their earnings so much. Please don't think we are grumbling about all this. We are not. But all we are asking, if it does not bother our netas, is how we too can top up our earnings? Now we now know that our leaders go into field and do work like disbursing food and other items to the poor. But to think that there are crores in this is really food for thought. We are anxious to learn about how our netas are able to do so much for the needy and still manage to put a few pennies aside for themselves. We await anxiously to learn a few lessons from them.

But wait a minute. The JD(U) says it will not give a penny to anyone, rather it will focus on fundamental problems. Sharad Yadav, no less, the leader of the party, says that "people of the state are living miserable lives. Our party will focus on power generation and improvement of law and order. All mafia elements will be put behind bars."

These numbers mean nothing to us. We are used to much smaller sums. We can only hope that these huge sums that are being batted about will actually mean something in election terms. But for the moment, let us enjoy the figures. What could you do with a crore? Buy a yacht? A Learjet? Ah, well, you have a look at what you would like to buy. And maybe we could vote these people out in the meanwhile.

The fear factor

Phobias are not my thing — I am not afraid of heights, depths, open spaces, enclosed spaces, crowds and neither do I get the creeps when I see spiders, snakes, lizards or any other creature unless they have sharp teeth, are hungry and poised to strike with no bars between them and myself.

I do believe phobias exist, just as the colour-blind have to concede that the world is not grey or black and white. Recent decades have bred new phobias. ‘Homophobia’ is not a fear of gay people and it isn’t a sickness one can’t help. It’s hatred born of ignorance, prejudice and not minding one’s own business. I am quite willing to believe, as I have heard said, that some homophobes may be closet gays and have deep-seated psychological defects or problems which emerge in this irrational antagonism.

The same is perhaps true of Islamophobia. This is a recent coinage and seems to mean regarding Islam and Muslims in the same way that anti-Semites regarded Jews and Judaism. Giving it the designation of a ‘phobia’ elevates it to a psychological syndrome, a sort of affliction, whereas anti-Semitism is a labelled and vile prejudice. This is a function of the different times in which the phrases were coined. Anti-Semitism is as old as Christianity, whereas ‘Islamophobia’ is a recent coinage which sees the perpetrator as some sort of sick victim.

Islam has, through the ages, been variously denounced as a heresy, as fanaticism, as a religion of cruelty and other not very pleasant things. The people who called it a heresy were not labelled Islamophobic. They were usually called theologians.

It was when Muslims began to live as minorities in western countries in recent times that their religion was vilified or held responsible for some practice disapproved by the majority that the misleading term became current.

More often than not, these phobic terms are wrongly used. I don’t believe that condemning suicide bombing as terror and murder inspired in very many instances by some possibly distorted Islamic belief in martyrdom is Islamophobic. It’s telling it like it is.

To contend that the wearing of burqas or hijab is an abomination and is symptomatic of the Islamic oppression of women is a contentious opinion which can be argued against and perhaps refuted, but it doesn’t fall into the sin of Islamophobia. It is telling it as it arguably may be.

There are borderline cases. Is the more thorough security- searching of men with beards and obvious Islamo-religious costumes at airports a bit of paranoid Islamophobia? I think it is — because people who wanted to steer planes into tall buildings after hijacking them wouldn’t dress that way. Or are they relying on a double-bluff to get them through? I have been asked if as an Asian I am aware of other Asians being randomly attacked after September 11 or after the train bombings in Madrid and London. I have heard stories of Sikhs being assaulted in the US but don’t know of any British Islamophobes who have fallen into that error.

Nevertheless there is a strong current of Islamophobia in Britain. It stuck its head above the parapets last night on a widely followed popular, if intellectual, BBC programme and, I have to add, was immediately shot down.

It was about a court judgement instigated by Clive Bone, a councillor (a member of a town or district’s municipal ‘local’ government) in Bideford, Devon, supported by the British National Secular Society. Bone took a test case to court contending that as an atheist he objected to Christian prayers being the first item on the agenda of every council meeting he attended.

His lawyers contended that though Britain was a Christian country without a written constitution as such and the Queen was supposed to rule by the grace of God, including prayers on the agenda of council meetings was an intrusion of religion into a purely political democratic procedure. Bone won his case. In a historic judgement the court ruled that a compulsory opening prayer should not form part of the agenda of council meetings. Just as the British parliament did before convening for each session, council members could say a prayer and ask for God’s guidance, but this should not form part of the agenda of meetings. Attendance wouldn’t be compulsory.

The judgement seems perfectly reasonable. Of course the prayers that are said before council meetings in Britain are Christian prayers. No council with a large number of Muslim councillors — as is the case in at least one borough, that of tower hamlets, where there is a large Bangladeshi population — has asked for a Muslim prayer to begin proceedings. The court’s judgement has been challenged by churchmen and politicians alike. The minister for local government, Eric Pickles told the nation that the Bill which enables the reversal of this court judgement has already been passed and that soon councils, through a majority vote, can reinstate Christian prayers to open meetings regardless of whether they offended non-Christians.

Churchmen told the nation that this was the negation of traditions that were centuries old and an unwelcome thin end of a secular wedge that threatened the moral fabric of the nation.

One of the commentators on the BBC, however, attributed the judgement, the result of a case brought by an avowed white, native atheist, to the ‘pressure of the Muslim minority’.

The truth of the matter was immediately pointed out, but the idea that any erosion of Christina faith or authority is achieved through the creeping or rampant influence of Islam persists. That feeling of a slow corrosion is, I believe, persistent and widespread and can indeed be labelled an irrational phobia.

Farrukh Dhondy is an author, screenplay writer and columnist based in London
The views expressed by the author are personal