Ayodhya verdict - Reminiscences

Nearly 3 decades ago, on December 6, 1992, a long-running dispute between Hindus and Muslims over a religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya took a dramatic turn (Babri Masjid demolished) and changed the course of Indian politics forever. Religious riots erupted, and 900 people, both Muslims and Hindus, were killed in Mumbai. And on March 12, 1993, 13 blasts ripped through the Mumbai city in retaliation for the mosque’s demolition, killing 317. Now, a verdict from the Supreme Court (on Nov 9, 2019) has legally closed the most divisive religious conflict and paved the way for the construction of a Hindu temple at the site. The court has insisted that a mosque also be built, but on an alternative plot of land.  This SC decision will allow the BJP and Modi government to bolster its political fortunes further by construction of a grand Ram temple just ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh due in March 2022.

• Real closure of the conflict will depend on how, going forward, India treats its more than 175 million Muslim citizens. Anything other than equitable justice will only leave deep scars and gaping wounds.
• Since there has been no violence and protests, we should not mistake this for indifference. But this doesn't entail Muslims accepting the construction of a Ram temple at the site. The court has said that the demolition of the mosque was “a serious violation of the rule of law” and that “it is necessary to provide restitution to the Muslim community for the unlawful destruction of their place of worship.”  Justice in the Babri masjid demolition case is critical to Indian democracy’s promise of fair play and equality.
• In the 2019 election, BJP fielded only seven Muslim candidates. In the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, where the temple will be built and has 19.3% Muslims (about 4.40 crores), the BJP did not field any Muslim candidates. India owes it to Muslim citizens to address this sense of political marginalization.
• It was the Muslims who suffered the razing of their place of worship; they were also the victims of the violence which followed. The community sought redressal and placed its faith in the institutions for justice. The Supreme Court ruling is riddled with contradictions but its biggest problem is the loss of faith it has triggered among Muslims about the possibility of justice. What can be worse for a democracy when its largest minority group does not hope for justice but fearfully settles for a verdict that they know is no less than injustice to them? -- Arfa Khanum Sherwani writes in thewire.in
• Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have to deal with this minority [India’s Muslims] in a civilized manner. If we fail to do so, we shall have a festering sore. -- Jawaharlal Nehru

If Babri Masjid was still standing, would SC have had it demolished? 

-- Justice A.K. Ganguly (Retd Judge of Supreme Court)

The PM Modi's appeal for harmony, on the eve of the Ayodhya verdict, and warning against seeing the outcome as a victory or defeat for either side casts doubts about his prior knowledge and influencing the judgement. Muslims may grudgingly and helplessly accept this verdict with a pinch of salt but in the reverse scenario, Hindu groups (RSS, VHP etc) would definitely have pressurized central government to promulgate ordinance allotting Babri Masjid plot for Ram Janmabhoomi temple construction.

China putting minority Uighur Muslims in concentration camps

China is accused of locking up hundreds of thousands of Muslims without trial in its western region of Xinjiang. The government denies the claims, saying people willingly attend special “vocational schools” which combat “terrorism and religious extremism”. A BBC investigation has found important evidence of the reality. The first reports that China was operating a system of internment camps for Muslims in Xinjiang began to emerge last year (2017). The facilities are exclusively for Xinjiang's Muslim minorities, many of whom do not speak Chinese as their mother tongue.

What's happened to the vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang? 

The United States accused China on May 3, 2019 of putting more than a million minority Muslims in concentration camps. Former detainees have described of being tortured during interrogation at the camps, living in crowded cells and being subjected to a brutal daily regimen of party indoctrination that drove some people to suicide. The Chinese Communist Party is using the security forces for mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps. The estimated number of detained Muslims could be “closer to 3 million citizens.” An assistant secretary of defense, defended the use of a term normally associated with Nazi Germany as appropriate, under the circumstances.

There are more than 10 million Uighurs in Xinjiang. Resentment among Uighurs over the perceived uneven distribution of the proceeds of that growth has simmered. In the past decade hundreds of lives have been lost to a mixture of riots, inter-community violence, premeditated attacks and the police response.

Over the past four years, Xinjiang has been the target of some of the most restrictive and comprehensive security measures ever deployed by a state against its own people. These include the large-scale use of technology - facial recognition cameras, monitoring devices that read the content of mobile phones and the mass collection of bio-metric data. Harsh new legal penalties have been introduced to curtail Islamic identity and practice - banning, among other things, long beards and headscarves, the religious instruction of children, and even Islamic-sounding names. Uighurs are now subject to ethnic profiling at thousands of pedestrian and vehicle checkpoints while Han Chinese residents are often waved through. They face severe travel restrictions with an edict forcing residents to surrender all passports to the police for “safe keeping”. Uighur government officials are prohibited from practicing Islam, from attending mosques or from fasting during Ramadan. Cross-referencing information with other media sources, at least several hundred thousand and possibly over a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities could have been interned for re-education. The documents never refer to the facilities as internment camps, but as education centers, or more accurately, “re-education centers”. Academics and journalists have documented grid-style police checkpoints across Xinjiang and mass DNA collection, and human rights advocates have decried martial law-type conditions there.

The Chinese government wants to delete Uighur identity from the world.

Modi - India's divider in chief - TIME

Of the great democracies to fall to populism, India was the first. Advent of Modi is at once an inevitability and a calamity for India. The country offers a unique glimpse into both the validity and the fantasy of populism.

• This secularism was more than merely a separation between religion and state; in India, it means the equal treatment of all religions by the state, although to many of its critics some being more equal than others. 
• Indian Muslims were allowed to keep Shari’a-based family law, while Hindus were subject to the law of the land.
• Narendra Modi, the son of a tea seller, and his election was nothing short of a class revolt at the ballot box. It was no longer about left, or right, but something more fundamental.
• The nation’s most basic norms, such as the character of the Indian state, its founding fathers, the place of minorities and its institutions, from universities to corporate houses to the media, were shown to be severely distrusted. 
• The cherished achievements of independent India–secularism, liberalism, a free press–came to be seen in the eyes of many as part of a grand conspiracy in which a deracinated Hindu elite, in cahoots with minorities from the monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity and Islam, maintained its dominion over India’s Hindu majority.
• Modi attacked once unassailable founding fathers, such as Nehru, then sacred state ideologies, such as Nehruvian secularism and socialism; he spoke of a “Congress-free” India; he demonstrated no desire to foster brotherly feeling between Hindus and Muslims. Most of all, his ascension showed that beneath the surface of what the elite had believed was a liberal syncretic culture, India was indeed a cauldron of religious nationalism, anti-Muslim sentiment and deep-seated caste bigotry. 
• The country had a long history of politically instigated sectarian riots, most notably the killing of at least 2,733 Sikhs in the streets of Delhi after the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The Congress leadership, though hardly blameless, was able to separate itself from the actions of the mob. Modi, by his deafening silences after more recent atrocities, such as the killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, proved himself a friend of the mob. 
• Modi, without offering an alternative moral compass, rubbished the standards India had, and made all moral judgment seem subject to conditions of class and culture warfare. 
• When, in 2019, Modi tweets, “You know what is my crime for them? That a person born to a poor family is challenging their Sultunate [sic],” he is trying to resurrect the spirit of 2014, which was the spirit of revolution. 
• In 2014, Modi converted cultural anger into economic promise. He spoke of jobs and development. Taking a swipe at the socialist state, he famously said, “Government has no business being in business.”
• Not only has Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialize, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India. One of his young party men put it baldly, “If you are with Modi, you are with India. If you are not with Modi, then you are strengthening anti-India forces.” 
• India’s Muslims, 14% of the population, have been subjected to episode after violent episode, in which Hindu mobs, often with the state’s tacit support, have carried out a series of public lynchings in the name of the holy cow. Hardly a month goes by without the nation watching yet another enraged Hindu mob falls upon a defenseless Muslim. The most enduring image of Modi’s tenure is the sight of Mohammad Naeem in a blood-soaked undershirt in 2017, begging the mob for his life before he is beaten to death. The response of leadership in every instance is the same: virtual silence. Basic norms and civility have been so completely vitiated that Modi can no longer control the direction of the violence. Once hatred has been sanctioned, it is not always easy to isolate its target, and what the BJP has discovered to its dismay is that the same people who are willing to attack Muslims are only too willing to attack lower-caste Hindus as well. 
• Under Modi minorities of every stripe–from liberals and lower castes to Muslims and Christians–have come under assault. Far from his promise of development for all, he has achieved a state in which Indians are increasingly obsessed with their differences. If in 2014 he was able to exploit difference in order to create a climate of hope, in 2019 he is asking people to stave off their desperation by living for their differences alone.

The incumbent Modi may win again–the opposition, led by Rahul Gandhi, an unteachable mediocrity and a descendant of Nehru, is in disarray–but Modi will never again represent the myriad dreams and aspirations of 2014. Then he was a messiah, ushering in a future too bright to behold, one part Hindu renaissance, one part South Korea’s economic program. Now he is merely a politician who has failed to deliver, seeking re-election. Whatever else might be said about the election, hope is off the menu. Modi is merely a politician who has failed to deliver, seeking re-election and what he might do to punish the world for his own failures, if he gets a second term? 

Read the source article

Cow vigilantism makes India vulnerable to violence

A 45-year-old man was beaten to death and another was injured allegedly over rumors of cow slaughter in Hapur district of western UP on June 18, 2018 evening. The family of the dead man, Qasim, a 45-year-old cattle trader, says that he had set out when he heard about the possibility of cattle being on sale, and the next thing they heard was that a mob had set itself upon him, killing him. Sameyddin’s relatives say he had been out getting grass for his cattle when he spied the mob attack on Qasim — he tried to run to safety, but was beaten up nonetheless. 

• The objective of 'cow vigilantism' seems more to target Muslim traders and citizens than rescuing cows. 
• Gandhi wrote: “As I respect the cow, so do I respect my fellow-men be a Mahomedan or a Hindu. Am I, then, to fight with or kill a Mahomedan in order to save a cow? In doing so, I would become an enemy of the Mahomedan as well as of the cow. Therefore, the only method I know of protecting the cow is that I should approach my Mahomedan brother and urge him for the sake of the country to join me in protecting her.”
• Gandhi urged for persuasive approach, the Hindu right believes in creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
• The Hindu right has campaigned for cow protection as a Hindu-Muslim issue, as if Muslims took to beef eating only to humiliate Hindus. 
• Muslims eating beef is not with any intention of humiliating of Hindus.
• Dalits too eat beef and this is a Dalit issue as well. Only Hindu upper castes are worried about cow slaughter. 
• Despite vigilante violence, Muslims have conducted themselves with remarkable dignity, showing their unwavering trust in India’s constitutional polity. Dalits, on the other hand, came together in massive protest after the Una flogging, forcing the PM Modi to make a statement on August 6, 2016. 
• When Mohammad Ali Jinnah campaigned for Pakistan, Muslim settlement in “geographically contiguous areas” was a favourable factor for Muslim separatists to argue for their cause. 
• B.R. Ambedkar could not make a similar case for a Dalit homeland because he did not have the argument of “geographically contiguous areas”. Hence, he upheld the message, “educate, organise and agitate”. The Dalit uprising post-Una is a glorious tribute to that message of Ambedkar.
• The Muslim food habits, particularly beef eating, could be a major impediment to harmonious life in a free India was foreseen by Muslim separatists. Jinnah made a categorical argument that a separate homeland was necessary on account of Muslim food habits, among others. 
• Not convinced by the assurance that Indian Muslims, as a religious minority, would get all the freedom that they could possibly enjoy in future Pakistan, Jinnah gave a new twist to his campaign by saying, “Musalmans are a nation according to any definition of a nation, and they must have their homelands, their territory, and their state”, and opposed the tag of Muslims as religious minorities. 

It would undermine Indian democracy if the cow vigilante violence against Muslims serves to project those fears of Jinnah and other Muslim separatists as legitimate. The continuation of vigilante violence would only make India even more vulnerable to violence.

Read the source article

Whether the lynchings are due to fear of kidnappings or deliberate acts by cow protection vigilantes, the authorities should not treat the crime of murder and the allegations that enrage a mob with the same equivalence. Murder is murder, but the killing of another human being by a murderous crowd out to enforce mob justice or avert an imagined crime takes an extraordinary toll of the civilities of wider society. The police must make it clear, by word and action, that murder and mob violence will be strictly dealt with. The apathy of UP Police by apologizing first and then arresting just two people, so far indicates their unwillingness to do what is right.

Emotional Speech by Asaduddin Owaisi on Hapur Mob Lynching

Delhi archbishop warns of threat to India's secular fabric

 

The archbishop of Delhi has called for a prayer campaign until the next general election in an unprecedented political intervention, citing a threat to the country’s secular fabric, triggering angry reactions from the ruling Hindu nationalist party. "We are witnessing a turbulent political atmosphere which poses a threat to the democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution and the secular fabric of our nation," Archbishop Anil Couto wrote in a letter issued this month to all parish priests and religious institutions in the archdiocese of Delhi.

• Christians constitute less than 3 percent of Hindu-majority India’s 1.3 billion people. India is officially secular, but four-fifths of its population profess the Hindu faith.
• The BJP said the letter was akin to calling people to vote along communal lines, and that it was unfortunate. The next election has to be held by next May.
• The Archbishop’s secretary, Father Robinson Rodrigues sad that such prayer campaigns took place before every general election, but the exercise was being politicised this time.
• The spokesman for the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, Father Savarimuthu Sankar, said the archbishop only called for a prayer campaign not an election campaign. He said the letter, the first of its kind from Archbishop Anil Couto since he was installed in 2013, was prompted by continued violence against Christians over the past four years and following attempts to bring back to Hinduism people who converted to Christianity. We try to influence at least those people who are educated, who are balanced. So far we have been saying these are fringe elements who are behind the attacks. But there is a danger that fringe elements may become the mainstream. To some extent they are succeeding also.
• Responding to questions about the letter, Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh told reporters that minorities are safe in India and that no one is allowed to discriminate on the basis of caste and religion. Between 2014 and 2015, Couto and other Christians in the national capital region of Delhi told Rajnath Singh how violence had picked up after Modi came to power, detailing at least five cases of attacks on churches in New Delhi following which extra police had been deployed to protect 240 churches in the capital.
• The prayer for our nation says, “Let the dreams of our founding fathers and the values of our Constitution – equality, liberty and fraternity – be always held in highest esteem. Let the people of all castes and creeds, all denominations and persuasions live in harmony and peace steering far away from hatred and violence." The prayer also focuses on the poor and the marginalised, saying, “Let the poor of our country be provided with the means of livelihood. Let the dalits, tribals and the marginalised be brought into the mainstream of nation building. Let justice and integrity prevail in every sphere of our life.”
• The prayer further says, "Protect our legislature as a place of discerning minds. Raise our judiciary as the hallmark of integrity, prudence and justice. Keep our print, visual and social media as the channels of truth for edifying discourses. Protect our institutions from the infiltration of the evil forces.” 

While the letter and prayer has no inflammable content, the underpinning is very clear that minorities have apprehensions about their safety, rights and privileges compromised. They are all living with their mouth shut for the last 4 years, with fear gripping them choking. Now that Modi & BJP got weakened, vulnerable and uncertain of wining no more elections owing to his worst performance in all fronts, it is natural that all suppressed sections of people will speak out their mind ventilating their grudge reflecting their anger. With minorities at 20%, dalits at 18% thoroughly alienated, there is no way BJP can win 2019 general elections unless oppositions parties fail to put up common candidates. But with Karnataka episode, Modi has himself united all the opposition parties, underwriting his own defeat. 

What we have become?

• Amongst us (Hindus) today who does not have at least one relative or acquaintance who hates Muslims?
• In the independent India where the exploitative British regime was over, it was a country peopled with liberal myths and socialist dreams. It was agreed that the state and the judiciary would follow the western institutions on which they were modeled.
• On January 19, 2018, in Rasana village near Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, an 8-year-old girl, Asifa Bano, disappeared for a week before her dead body was discovered by the villagers a kilometer away from the village. The post-mortem revealed that the girl had been drugged with a sedative before she was raped and murdered. Forensic evidence suggested that she had been held for several days by rapists. Strands of hair recovered from the temple matched those taken from the girl. The forensic examination stated that Bano had been raped multiple times by different men, and that she had been strangled to death, as well as hit in the head with a heavy stone.
• One of the protests, in support of the accused, was attended by two ministers from the BJP. The rape and murder, as well as the support the accused received, sparked widespread national outrage. In the face of widespread public criticism of his silence in the rapes in which either policemen or politicians from the ruling BJP are implicated – PM Narendra Modi on April 13, 2018 condemned the incidents and said justice would be done. He said the incidents had shamed the country and that the guilty would not be spared. Curiously, he refrained from referring to Kathua or Unnao by name, adding that such incidents are an attack on human values regardless of the state or area they have occurred.
• Kashmir's lawmakers marched to save the policemen from being charged with rape and destruction of evidence. Women too marched to defend the rapists: because they are Hindu and the child who was gang-raped and killed was the daughter of a Muslim goatherd. It is impossible, when this level of mental sickness and brutality coalesce, to do anything more than fall into the silence of absolute despair. Until then an overwhelming rage sweeps away the despair.
• There is no horror in these things as they happen to someone else. If you are affluent enough to fly, if you are not a minority, you are forever in a bulletproof, air-conditioned cocoon. But what is it like not to have the cocoon?
• Muslims are silent somewhere. They are feeling cornered, besieged by the sense of hunting dogs coming after them. This is not the country we grew up in together, the necessity of secularism drummed into us. It was still a country in which parents were more likely to teach you about morality and manners, not sheer human survival.
• What can you do as an ordinary citizen trying to survive in a country run by criminals? What can you do when you see your protectors turn into killers? Everyone is not a soldier or a lawyer or an activist. Everyone's usefulness lay in doing their own work.
• 49 former civil servants wrote to the Prime Minister: In Kathua in Jammu, it is the culture of majoritarian belligerence and aggression promoted by the Sangh Parivar, which emboldened rabid communal elements to pursue their perverse agenda. They knew that their behaviour would be endorsed by the politically powerful and those who have made their careers by polarizing Hindus and Muslims across a sectarian divide. Even more reprehensible than such abuse of power, is the response of the state government in hounding the victim of rape and her family instead of the alleged perpetrator that shows how perverted governance practices have become. Prime Minister, these two incidents are not just ordinary crimes where, with the passage of time, the wounds inflicted on our social fabric, on our body politic and the moral fibre of our society will heal and it will soon be business as usual. This is a moment of existential crisis, a turning point -- the way the government responds now will determine whether we as a nation and as a republic have the capacity to overcome the crisis of constitutional values, of governance and the ethical order within which we function.
• Paakhi Jain (15), a student of Delhi's School wrote: During the Navaratras, you worship us, girls. At other times, you rape us. We don't want such worship. Improvising on civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr's speech, she added ... I have a dream that no girl, no woman will be tortured or molested or raped in the future. I have a dream that humanity will be the supreme religion of this nation one day.
• Vrinda Grover, lawyer and human rights and women's rights activist, said: Don't expect much from the politicians. The rape cases today can't just be called sexual crimes. These are hate crimes -- disgusting, despicable crimes of pure hatred. And this hatred that has been planted in us, which is used to incite us every day -- it is done by the ones we handed over the reins of the country to, the ones responsible for the smooth running of the State. These politicians in power want us to hate each other, turn us against each other. The women and children face no danger from the border; they are in danger from within the country. We demand you revisit the Budget. We don't care how many fighter jets you buy, our daughters' safety does not depend on it. If we keep silent when a few powerful men rape us, then these men will keep raping us more. They should know, we can get angry too. We can take to the streets too. We must change this rape culture.
• Deepika Singh Rajawat, lawyer for the eight-year-old girl from Kathua, said: I am the mother of a five-year-old girl. Today when my daughter gets into her school van, I have my heart in my mouth because I want to see my daughter return home to me afterwards. This is the state of affairs in our country, and the man responsible is a custodian of our society. Mr. Prime Minister ... Your MLAs provoke the masses, and say 'destroy compassion, destroy peace'. These politicians tell the accused 'we are with you, the ones arrested will be freed, and we will ensure that no one else is arrested'. Wow, what leadership! What a country! Today, our civil society faces a grave threat from within. We say we are proud citizens of our country, we chant 'Jai Hindustan, jai humanity', Mr. Prime Minister says he will save our daughters. It is your people who are responsible for Kathua and Unnao. Why is our society silent? Why is there only a Deepika who is ready to get her head cut off?

Read the source article

PM Modi condemning the incident after weeks of stoic silence only after public outrage and President Kovind after few more days speaks very poorly about their real intentions. Their delayed condemnation is as good as approving rape of Muslims by Hindu fundamentalists. Modi facing NRI protests in London etc in his recent foreign trip is testimony of his falling graphs. These RSS elements in the seats of power have no respect for individual rights especially of Muslims & Christians. These minority fears were rightly expressed by Hamid Ansari few days before he laid down the office of VP and PM Modi and VP elect Venkaiah Naidu violently reacting and pouncing on him in Rajya Sabha. Where are we heading as a nation?

VIP hate speeches rise 500%, under Modi

 

The use of hateful and divisive language by high-ranking politicians has increased almost 500% in the past four years, an NDTV data collection exercise has found.

• A day, or a week doesn't go without some senior politician - a member of Parliament, minister, MLA or even Chief Minister making a hateful comment, be it in the language of bigotry or calling for violence. The rise in use of social media by politicians has only amplified this disturbing trend.
• NDTV collated the data from public record, internet, as well as using their reporters, scanning nearly 1,300 articles and going through 1,000 most-recent tweets of top politicians and public figures. NDTV says that this is not a perfect record, and doesn't claim to be comprehensive. 
• From May 2014 to the present, there have been 124 instances of VIP hate speech by 45 politicians, compared to 21 instances under UPA 2, an increase of 490%. 90% of hateful comments made during the NDA's current terms are by BJP politicians. 
• During UPA-2, 21 political leaders made hateful comments, of which 3 instances (14 %) were from the Congress, which anchored the coalition. Politicians from the BJP took the lead, recording 7 instances of hate speech.
• Of the 45 leaders responsible for hate speech since the Modi government came to power, in only find six cases (only 5% of all instances) of evidence of a politician being reprimanded or cautioned, or issuing a public apology. 95% of the time, the 'VIP hater' faced no consequence.
• In at least two cases, hate speech appears to have paid off. 

1. Yogi Adityanath, the current CM of UP, was a MP from UP when, in Nov 2015, he said "There is no difference between the language of Shah Rukh Khan and that of Hafiz Saeed". In Sep 2014, he ascribed the rise in riots in Western UP to the population growth of a minority community. "In places where there are 10 to 20% minorities, stray communal incidents take place," he said. "Where there are 20 to 35% of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35%, there is no place for non-Muslims." In all, there are 6 instances of hate speech by the UP CM. All were made before he was promoted to his current office.
2. Anant Kumar Hegde was a BJP MP from Karnataka when, in Mar 2016, he said, "As long as we have Islam in the world, there will be no end to terrorism. If we are unable to end Islam, we won't be able to end terrorism." In Sep 2017, he was promoted as Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Since 2014, Mr Hegde has made seven such hate speeches. Three months after being made union minister, in Dec 2017, Mr Hegde declared that the party would remove the term "secular" from the Constitution, saying "These people who call themselves secularists are like people without parentage or who don't know their bloodline."

• Mr Hegde is one of three serial 'VIP haters' in poll-bound Karnataka. Shobha Karandlaje, a  MP from Karnataka and the general secretary of the Karnataka BJP, has posted at least nine hateful tweets since June last year. Pratap Simha, another MP from Karnataka, has also posted four hateful tweets since September last year. 
• In further proof that hate has no consequence on the careers of political leaders, at least 21 political leaders (or 48%) had recorded more than one instance of hate speech. They were not reprimanded for their hateful comments, nor did they issue apologies. Prominent amongst them is T Raja Singh, a BJP MLA from Telangana, who has repeatedly made public speeches inciting violence. In Nov 2017, he threatened to burn down theatres screening "Padmavat." Since Dec 2015, Mr Singh has made at least ten hateful comments.
• BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has written hateful tweets against Muslims, posting at least 17 of these since Sep 2017.
• The reluctance of BJP to crack down on its hate speech 'offenders' is due to the fact that the its top leadership does not seem averse to playing the communal card, albeit using veiled language. Prominent amongst such instances are speeches by BJP party president Amit Shah, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

"If there is a cemetery in the village, there should be a crematorium as well; If there is electricity on Ramzan, it should be there on Diwali as well; there shouldn't be any discrimination," Mr Modi had said in Feb 2017, during an election rally in Fatehpur, UP, in the run-up to the assembly elections that his party swept. 

• During the same campaign, Amit Shah sparked controversy with this comment: "If by any mistake, BJP loses, the victory and defeat may be in Bihar but fire crackers will go off in Pakistan."
• Read the source article for complete list of hate speeches by BJP and UPA leaders.

Read the source article

Hate speeches are the hall mark of BJP's propaganda, especially during elections and during parliamentary debates. Modi goes way beyond others with deep desire to eliminate all national parties and establish monopoly of Hindutva forces paving the way for Hindu Rashtra. He fails to understand federal cooperation with states, diversity of the nation and the need to have balanced approach for unity & integrity of the nation. His facial expressions and body language evidently expresses his thoughts, intentions and actions. With his intolerance, arrogance coupled with lack of skills required for administering a large nation, and India was so much divided today like never before. For the first time since liberalisation in 1992, Indian economic outlook was so much distressed. Modi must be credited with shooting at the Tyres of the racing car (Indian Economy) without having an iota of what he was doing with his hare brained demonetisation and senselessly designed & hurried roll out of mangled GST.

The strange death of Punjab

• Punjab is a flat, deforested and overpopulated patch of agricultural land. 
• This fertile land of five rivers has been a gateway for various armies invading the subcontinent. Punjab is one of the smallest state of India but is the biggest contributor to food grain. It contributes more than 20% of the food grain produced in India.
• As per 2011 Census, Punjab has a population of around 2.77 crores. Sikhism is the most practiced faith in Punjab, and 57.69% of the population belongs to the Sikh faith [59.9% in 2001 census]. Around 38.49% of the population practices Hinduism. Other faiths include Islam 1.93%, Buddhism, Christianity 1.26% and Jainism.
• In the state of Punjab there were approximately 120,000 active bore wells in 1970 but by 2010 that number had increased to nearly 1,300,000. Overuse of fertilisers and pesticides has resulted in lesser proliferation of rainwater and pesticides and the ground water had also turned polluted. Water of all five rivers in the state had been polluted due to discharge from dirty sewers and industry water. The state is facing acute water shortage as the groundwater is depleting at a higher rate than its replenishment. 
• The region erupted in the summer of 1947 seeing one of the greatest migrations in human history. Lahore, once the capital of Ranjit Singh’s empire and the birth place of Guru Nanak, happened to fall on the Pakistan side of Punjab, and a once cosmopolitan city was subsequently largely ethnically cleansed of its Sikh population. 
• Tensions on the Indian side of Punjab were reignited during the insurgency of the 1980s when Khalistani separatists fought for an independent homeland.
• The Punjabis of India were rewarded for their endurance, and for some time they enjoyed the luxuries which came with residing in the richest state in the country. 
• Over the last decade, the State appears to have taken a turn for the worst. The final nail in the coffin for the Sikhs is not coming from a foreign invading forces, nor is it coming from the Indian government. Rather, the Punjabi people are themselves to blame. This is not a genocidal tragedy inflicted by bullets, but rather an epidemic of drugs, widespread alcohol addiction, female infanticide, low birth rates, farmer suicides, caste discrimination, mass outward emigration and religious conversion.
• It is astonishing as to how a prosperous and seemingly innocent society has cascaded into becoming the narcotics haven of India.
• Amongst the youth of Punjab, 52% were found to be addicted to drugs, which is 18 times higher than the national Indian average of 3%. 
• The statistics regarding alcohol consumption are just as worrying. Nearly 33 crore bottles are consumed in Punjab annually.
• Sikhs are also known to have the most uneven sex ratio in the whole of India, with 900 females for every 1000 males. This should be their biggest disgrace and embarrassment.
• The fertility rates of Punjabi-Sikhs are so low that it begs the question as to whether they would continue to exist in India in the not-too-distant future. 
• Outward migration and lower fertility rates are not the only factors that explain the Sikh demographic decline. A climate of religious confusion and a lack of Sikh leadership have created a vacuum for missionaries and other religious sects to exploit.
• Unfortunately, the discussion regarding Punjab amongst western Sikhs only seems to concern the events of 1984 – the invasion of the Darbar Sahib complex, the pogroms of Delhi and the military curfews which turned the district into a garrison state. They have every right to stand in remembrance of this terrible episode in history. Nonetheless, the dialogue must move beyond this, and their attention should be focused on the Punjab of 2017 i.e. The Punjab of today.　
• It is important that they accept responsibilities for their own failures. For too long have they pointed fingers towards the central government. They seem to believe that everything is a part of a grand conspiracy by the ‘Hindu elite’ to intentionally destroy and undermine Sikhs. 
• Central government is certainly not doing enough to monitor the porous borders of Punjab to prevent the flow of opium. Recreational drugs are more accessible in the Punjab than any other State, and Punjab police often turn a blind eye to this. But ultimately, Punjabis bear the responsibility of consuming them. Though more law and order is needed, this is a grassroots movement, which should instead be focused on education and raising awareness.　
• If Punjabis have survived the authoritarian regimes of the past, then they have every reason to make their mark and flourish in a multicultural democracy, albeit an imperfect one.

Read the source article

Deendayal Upadhyaya: Who features in every Modi speech?

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916-68),
RSS Pracharak & Bharatiya Jana Sangh Ex-President

• Until 2014, he was unheard in public life nor found any space in Indian history but yet finds reference in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's every speech. He is Late Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.
• He qualified the civil services examination, where he got his nickname as Panditji for appearing in the examination hall wearing tradition dhoti-kurta and cap. Deendayal Upadhyay did not join the government service. He rather became, in 1942, a life-time volunteer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which he had joined five years ago.
• He never participated in freedom movement in line with RSS ideology and cooperated with British for its continuation of colonial rule in India.
• In 1951, Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Deendayal was as appointed as General Secretary of its Uttar Pradesh branch. After Mookerjee's death in 1953, Deendayal Upadhyay was instrumental in shaping the ideology and socio-political principles of the BJS for next 15 years.
• He contested for Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, but failed to attract significant political traction and did not get elected.
• He kept company with Nanaji Deshmukh and Sundar Singh Bhandari, RSS pracharaks who went on to play a critical role in anti-Congress politics in the 1960s and 70s. 
• Deendayal Upadhyay is best remembered for his principle of "integral humanism", which has been defined as "a classless, casteless and conflict-free social order". It talks about the integration of indigenous "Indian culture" with the social, political and economic fabric of the nation. However, his critics point to his lectures saying he was "biased" against Muslims. Some also criticised him for not seeing evil in caste system.
• He died on Feb 11, 1968 at Mughalsarai in UP, while travelling in a train under mysterious circumstances. Balraj Madhok, another of Jan Sangh’s founding members, has said categorically on many occasions that Upadhyaya’s death was a murder, not an accident. The then President Zakir Hussain and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were among the dignitaries who paid tributes to Deendayal Upadhyay. 
• On June 11, 2014, in his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha Modi said “We are people who have grown up with the ideals of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya...who taught us the principle of Antyodaya. This government's priority is the benefit of the most underprivileged, going by the ideals of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Lohia and Gandhi.”
• On Sep 11, 2017, Prime minister Narendra Modi praised his work and honoured his statue along with Swamy Vivekananda but this was criticized by many as Modi was misusing his power to impose the RSS ideology on youths and trying to saffronise young minds.
• Last year, PM Narendra Modi had started the nationwide celebration programme to mark the birth centenary of Deendayal Upadhyay.  A budget of Rs 100 crore was allocated for the functions. Such brazen abuse of the government’s machinery and funds to commemorate the birth of a politician who belonged to the present ruling party is patently unconstitutional. 
• The BJP has called its national executive meet in New Delhi on the centenary birth anniversary of Deendayal Upadhyay in the national capital on Sep 25, 2017. More than 2,200 including chief ministers are expected to attend the executive meet. Tributes will be paid to him while the party members will discuss and devise strategy to counter the negative narrative about GST and demonetisation. Deendayal Upadhyay will be portrayed as the inspiration for economic and pro-poor policies of the Narendra Modi government. But, many still don't know who Deendayal Upadhyay was.
• The BJP is now on a mission to propagate his ideas to counter the challenge from the Congress, which was the most dominant political force.

Deendayal Upadhyay's biographers maintain a studied silence on his role and activities till 1947 and suddenly jump to 1947 to tell us that he was made Sahpracharak of UP in 1947 etc. During the tumultuous period in India's history, between 1942-45, one does not find any self-criticism on his part rather a subtle justification for non-participation in the anti-colonial struggle. Worst is that RSS cooperated with British for continuation of their colonial rule by giving written assurances to British. Modi's RSS career and politics started after the death of Deendayal Upadhyay in 1968. He was neither a disciple nor a follower of Deendayal Upadhyay. What can be seen as common is that their anti-Muslim and Hindutva tendencies which are questionable in secular democracy. Profound humanitarian vision of Gandhi is being replaced with the parochial notions of people like Upadhyaya. The young people who have not read the history of the country are easily persuaded by Modi's rhetoric. The greatest tragedy of India today is the lack of good leader. Consequently we will have Upadhyayas being thrust upon us.

Rohingyas deportation: How?

• Rohingyas are disowned by Myanmar. They were not even listed in the 135 ethnic groups.
• In his recent visit on Sept 5, 2017, Modi expressed concern over “extremist violence” in Rakhine, but didn’t mention the alleged persecution of the minority Rohingya Muslim community, which the United Nations says could turn into a humanitarian catastrophe.
• Modi and Suu Kyi's joint statement talks about range of issues and back patting each other but conspicously silent of Rohingyas persecution and fleeing away from Myanmar.
• Aung San Suu Kyi's strategic silence on Rohingyas persecution matters indicate that she has no control over Military and majority Buddhist population is anti-Rohingyas. 
• There is very little chance of Myanmar accepting Rohingyas back into Myanmar and in the absence of any citizenship of Rohingyas, deporting them back to Myanmar wouldn't be easy and is impossible in near future.
• While Rohingyas revolt groups in Myanmar do have links with Al-Qaeda and ISIS etc, there is no evidence of any link between Rohingya Muslim refugees in India numbering about 40,000. No case was registered on Rohingyas living in India so far.
• In the past India had opened its doors to Tibetan refugees, Hindus migrating from Muslim-dominated Pakistan, and Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka during armed conflict between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil separatists. But all those are Hindus but Rohingyas are Muslims.
• This deportation statement of Rajnath Singh only indicates their (BJP) antipathy towards Muslims.

Humanitarian action should be about saving lives and alleviating suffering 

and must be placed above politics and political interests.

If only UNO steps in to solve the Myanmar crisis, Rohingyas  will be able to return to their homes in Myanmar. But no one in the world seems to be interested in Rohingyas. Bangladesh and India are worried about managing over half million refugees in Bangladesh and about 40,000 in India. For Rohingya refugees they may have to live with the problem indefinitely. Modi by declaring Rohingyas as 'terrorists', just because they are Muslims and without any evidence as a sufficient reason for deciding to deport them, has not only abdicated from his moral duty of providing shelter to refugees and taking care of them but also supported inhuman acts of state sponsored genocide in Myanmar has instantly shot in his foot degrading India as a nation. Unfit to be leader of this great country.

Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

• Rejected by the country they were born in and shunned by the neighbouring states, the Rohingya are among the the most vulnerable amongst forcibly displaced groups. The Rohingya are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar in droves.
• Rohingya are an ethnic group, largely comprising Muslims estimated at more than one million, who predominantly live in the Western Myanmar province of Rakhine. They speak a dialect of Bengali, as opposed to the commonly spoken Burmese language.
• Though they have been living in the Myanmar for generations, Myanmar considers them as persons who migrated to their land during the Colonial rule. So, it has not granted Rohingyas full citizenship. According the 1982 Burmese citizenship law, a Rohingya (or any ethnic minority) is eligible for citizenship only if he/she provides proof that his/her ancestors have lived in the country prior to 1823.
• Myanmar's government denies them citizenship and sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh - a common attitude among many Burmese.
• Discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in Myanmar. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
• In July 1978, after intensive negotiations mediated by UN, Ne Win's government agreed to take back 200,000 refugees who settled in Arakan. In the same year as well as in 1992, a joint statement by governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh "acknowledged that the Rohingya were lawful Burmese residents". 
• The Rohingya trace their origins in the region to the fifteenth century, when thousands of Muslims came to the former Arakan Kingdom. Many others arrived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Rakhine was governed by colonial rule as part of British India. Since independence in 1948, successive governments in Myanmar, have refuted the Rohingya’s historical claims and denied the group recognition as an ethnic group. The Rohingya are largely considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
• The Myanmar government has effectively institutionalized discrimination against the ethnic group through restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. 
• Widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of employment opportunities in Rakhine have exacerbated the cleavage between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya. 
• Violence broke out in 2012, when Rohingya men were accused of raping and killing a Buddhist woman. Buddhist nationalists responded by burning Rohingya homes, killing more than 280 people and displacing tens of thousands. Human Rights Watch characterized the anti-Rohingya violence as “crimes against humanity.” 
• Most displaced Rohingya have been forced to take shelter in squalid refugee camps. Others have turned to smugglers, paying for transport out of Myanmar. “The fact that thousands of Rohingya prefer a dangerous boat journey they may not survive to staying in Myanmar speaks volumes about the conditions they face there,” said Amnesty International in 2015.
• More than 370,000 Rohingya have left Myanmar, approximately a third of the estimated Rohingya population in the country. They migrated to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
• In 2016, Myanmar’s first democratically elected government came to power, but it has been reluctant to advocate for Rohingya and other Muslims for fear of alienating Buddhist nationalists and threatening the still fragile leadership.
• Since a dramatic Rohingya exodus from Myanmar in 2015, the political party of Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has taken power in a historic election, the first to be openly contested in 25 years. But little has changed for the Rohingya and Ms Suu Kyi's failure to condemn the current violence is an outrage and her failure to defend the Rohingya is extremely disappointing. The point is that Aung San Suu Kyi is covering up this crime perpetrated by the military.
• Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, has denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place and dismissed international criticism of her handling of the crisis, accusing critics of fueling resentment between Buddhists and Muslims in the country. In September 2017, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said her government had “already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible.” Suu Kyi has little control over military and public opinion, with large number of Buddhist population is against Rohingyas.
• Suu Kyi has been criticised internationally for her attitude towards the Rohingya, and there have been calls for withdrawing the Nobel Peace Prize. But it was also at Suu Kyi’s instance that the Annan Commission was appointed, and she has welcomed the report. The powerful military has, however, has rejected the report.
• The United Nations reported in September 2017 that more than 120,000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh due to a recent rise in violence against them. The situation is expected to exacerbate the current refugee crisis as more than 400,000 Rohingya without citizenship are trapped in overcrowded camps and in conflict regions in Western Myanmar.
• Many Rohingyas have fled to southeastern Bangladesh, where there are over 900,000 refugees, as well as to India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar live in camps for internally displaced persons, and the authorities do not allow them to leave.
• About five lakh Rohingyas have already taken shelter in Bangladesh over the last two decades and is clearly unwilling to take in more. The country has opened its border for Rohingyas upon UNHCR’s request and continues to shelter Rohingya in over-crowded refugee camps at Cox Bazar.
• Approximately 40,000 Rohingyas living in India. They reached India from Bangladesh through the land route over the years. Rohingyas in India were “illegal immigrants” and they will be deported soon, a decision that has surprised many given the record of India accepting refugees.
• India’s national security fears are based on intelligence reports linking some Rohingya's front organisations with Pakistan and ISIS. But no individual Rohingya in India has yet been linked to any terror organisation. They live in dismal conditions in cities across India. Statements by MoS Home and some senior BJP members that the 40,000 Rohingya in India are a generalised threat, have fed off existing Hindu-Muslim communal faultlines.
• No one believes the Rohingya crisis will be resolved soon, leave alone Myanmar accepting the Rohingya as citizens. India’s plan to “deport” the 40,000 Rohingya refugees is impossible. There is nowhere to deport them. They belong to no country, and no country wants them.
• A UN spokeswoman in 2009 described the Rohingya as "probably the most friendless people in the world".
• In the past India had opened its doors to Tibetan refugees, Hindus migrating from Muslim-dominated Pakistan, and Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka during armed conflict between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil separatists. But all those are Hindus but Rohingyas are Muslims and Modi & BJP doesn't have any heart for Muslims but Rohingyas speak in a language that has predominant Bengali dialect.
• Modi had visited Myanmar and he only referred to “extremist violence” in Rakhine in his public remarks and the India-Myanmar joint statement only mentioned the terrorist attack by Rohingya militants against security personnel on Aug 25, 2017. 
• Faced with an upset Dhaka, India modified its position on Sep 9, 2017, when it issued a new press release acknowledging that the there was an “outflow of refugees” from Rakhine. Since then, New Delhi stepped up providing relief assistance to Bangladesh. The first plane carrying relief aid reached Chittagong on 14/9/17, and the second consignment reached on 15/9/17.

Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has been described by UN's top human rights official as "ethnic cleansing". Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar (akin to PM), claiming of being follower of Gandhism, maintaining stoic silence for the atrocities of Military on Rohingyas is totally unacceptable. Her noble prize must be withdrawn. Modi heading Hindutva government is unlikely to accommodate Rohingya Muslims in India as refugees. But deporting them back to Myanmar is neither easy nor feasible. And none in the world are much concerned about them except the neighboring Bangladesh & India. They hardly have any choice. What they will do, time will only unfold. Hard action on Myanmar is unlikely. See the Indira Gandhi's response in 1971 for resolving East Pakistan issue when her diplomatic efforts for over an year did achieve nothing. The least we should do is to keep sending relief material to Bangladesh to take care of lakhs of Rohingyas in their refugee camps, while pursuing diplomatic international pressure.

In the meeting of Indira Gandhi with Henry Kissinger at New Delhi in July 1971, Mrs Gandhi was persistent in asking Kissinger to plead with Nixon that he should try to restrain Pakistan from what was being done in East Pakistan because the conditions there were  becoming intolerable and it was almost becoming impossible for India to remain silent. Kissinger would not give any assurance that Nixon would do something about it. Rattled Mrs Gandhi said if that was the position she may have to do something herself which she was reluctant to do. At this, Kissinger asked her rather as to what she intended to do. She stood up and pointing towards the General Manekshaw (in full military uniform) told Kissinger that “if the US Government and US  President cannot control the situation then I am going to ask him to do the same”. And she did it later in Dec 1971 that led to liberation of Bangladesh.

Jammu & Kashmir: Instrument of Accession & Article 370

Jammu and Kashmir had a 77% Muslim population in 1947 and many people in Pakistan expected that Kashmir would join Pakistan. But J&K National Conference was secular and was allied with the Congress since the 1930s. So India too had expectations that Kashmir would join India. The Maharaja Hari Singh was faced with indecision. On Oct 22, 1947, rebellious citizens from the western districts of the State and Pushtoon tribesmen from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan invaded the State, backed by Pakistan. The Maharaja initially fought back but appealed for assistance to the India, who agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on Oct 26, 1947 in return for military aid and assistance, which was accepted by the Governor General the next day with a gratuitous condition that after peace returned to the state, the people’s wish would be ascertained on the issue of accession. This was just a wish in view of the belated accession, not a precondition for accession.

• Maharaja Hari Singh sought urgent military aid on Oct 24, 1947, the cabinet had refused to send troops unless the Maharaja acceded. This was the idea of Governor-General Mountbatten, who chaired the Defence Committee of the Cabinet.
• At the Cabinet meeting on Oct 26, 1947, Nehru insisted that the accession must have the people’s backing. So, Sheikh Adbullah sent in a quickly scribbled note on behalf of the National Conference. He was sitting in the next room, having brought his family down to Delhi.
  Sheikh Abdullah was an Indian politician who played a central role in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir. The self-styled "Sher-e-Kashmir" (Lion of Kashmir), Abdullah was the founding leader of the National Conference. He agitated against the rule of the Maharaja Hari Singh and urged self-rule for Kashmir.
• On the morning of Oct 27, 1947, Dakotas flew the Sikh regiment to Srinagar. The place was in limbo, the Maharaja having left Srinagar for Jammu in a long convoy at 2 am on the night of Oct 25,1947, a few hours after signing the Instrument of Accession (IoA).
• The Instruments of Accession were cyclostyled documents — the one signed by Raja Hari Singh was no different from the one signed by other princes. So the document executed by Raja Hari Singh was just another Instrument of Accession with no special concessions or reservations.
• The dramatic events of that day have left a legacy of divergent narratives. Each seems unreasonable to the other. That of course is a recipe for deadlock and increased resentment. A common impression among many Kashmiris is that the army’s arrival on this day that year was a temporary measure, meant only to save Kashmiris from the tribesmen.
• The real differences are that this one was conditional (only for defence, external relations and communication), and this Maharaja did not follow up with an instrument of merger. That means that the state of Jammu and Kashmir continues to have a legal standing. 
  On the eve of India and Pakistan becoming separate dominions, rajas and maharajas of British India were given three options: become part of India, become a part of Pakistan or remain independent states. Within the specified period — between August 15 and October 6, 1947 — 560-plus erstwhile rulers signed documents with the title “Instrument of Accession”, and thereby agreed to become part of the dominion of India. This was to be followed by instruments of merger, thereby becoming part of India and ending the original identity of the princely state — many princes executed both the documents one after the other, while some had hesitation to sign the merger treaty.
• The merger of J&K with India should have taken place before October end. But Nehru's complaint to the UNO and its intervention, prevented it. The merger had to be postponed until the dispute was settled — and that dispute is still pending.
• At the insistence of Nehru, Article 370, according special status to J&K, was added at the fag end of the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly. While B.R. Ambedkar opposed the idea and refused to take part in drafting Article 370, the other members of the Constituent Assembly condescended to this “gift from Nehru to his friend Sheikh Abdullah” in the firm belief that this was a temporary measure.
• Regarding Article 370, most Kashmiris insist that 370 is a permanent part of India’s constitution, the hinge upon which the state’s relationship with the Union is based.
• The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir establishes the framework of government at state level in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The present constitution was adopted on Nov 17, 1956, and came into effect on Jan 26, 1957. 
• The state’s constitution clearly states that it is an integral part of India. Union Home Minister GB Pant used that term for the first time in Parliament in 1958, soon after the state’s constitution took effect on 26 January that year. Once the state’s constitution was in place, it dictated how much control the Union would have.
• Sheikh Abdullah was the Prime Minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir after its accession to India in 1947 and was later jailed and exiled. He was dismissed from the position of Prime Ministership on Aug 8, 1953 and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad was appointed as the new Prime Minister. The expressions ‘Sadar-i-Riyasat’ and ‘Prime Minister’ were replaced with the terms ‘Governor’ and ‘Chief Minister’ in 1965. Sheikh Abdullah again became the Chief Minister of the state following the 1974 Indira-Sheikh accord.
• RSS activists tend to confuse it with Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji’s ek nishan, ek vidhan, ek pradhan campaign of 1952-53. Mookerji’s campaign was specifically against the New Delhi agreement of 1952, negotiated by committees headed by Maulana Azad on behalf of the Union and Sheikh Abdullah on behalf of the state. And that agreement was in the same bracket as Article 370. It was meant to determine this particularly prickly Centre-state relationship until the state’s constitution was ready.
  Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji was Nehru's cabinet minister which finalized Article 370.
• As long as the fundamental difference in perspective exits, one can go round and round in circles arguing about each of the above points whether one wants to interpret all that happened as meant to pave the way for Kashmir’s inclusion in India, or as meant to open doors that might lead to its independence is a matter of time.

J&K part of India ... Dr. Karan Singh

The state had acceded to India and not merged with it and that it why it has its 
own separate constitution and special status ... Dr. Karan Singh S/o Maharaja Hari Singh

Long after Modi government is a distant memory, either J&K won’t be part of India 

or Article 370 will still exist ... Omar Abdullah, ex CM, J&K 

(Even though it is height of ignorance & audacity, undercurrents are real)

Today Kashmir valley has over 96% Muslims. Post 1947 events have diluted the natural order of Kashmir becoming part of Pakistan mainly due to its incursions. Even Muslim people of Kashmir valley face dilemma - while they feel alienated and want to secede from India, they are not sure to get better treatment in Pakistan and being a land locked hill state with population of less than 10 million can't survive as an independent nation. In the meantime, Kashimris are suffering with militancy and terrorism and is deprived of development which the whole world is enjoying. What India should do is to try to win the co-operation of the Kashmiri people and politicians and MPs from the rest of India to suitably amend and attenuate Article 370 instead of repealing it. Hopefully, Kashmiri people would forgot Article 370 with political engagement and development, in due course of time.

Nandyal bypoll result - Jagan lives in denial

• The Nandyal by-election was projected to be seen as a referendum on the three years of the AP's TDP chief minister Chandrababu Naidu's rule.
• 25 years ago, the TDP under NT Rama Rao conceded a walkover in Nandyal for the Lok Sabha bypoll, enabling Telugu bidda PV Narsimha Rao win the seat after becoming prime minister. 
• In 2014, YSRCP's Bhuma Nagi Reddy won defeating TDP's Silpa Mohan Reddy by a slender majority of 2% votes. 
• In an extremely unethical political situation, Late Bhuma Nagi Reddy's nephew is pitted as TDP's candidate against YSRCP's Silpa Mohan Reddy after a spate of defections and, AP Speaker doing nothing about the defections, and due to death of TDP's Bhuma Nagi Reddy.
• The established norm is that when an MP or MLA dies mid-term, the party holding the seat is allowed a no-contest, with the other party not putting up a candidate. Nandyal is a peculiar situation, where both the YSRCP and the candidate's family (of TDP) asked each other to back off, making a contest inevitable.
• Naidu has taken the by-election very seriously. He has involved all party seniors, and has campaigned extensively himself, making it a prestigious battle. The TDP chief has personally reached out to different community leaders, distributing sops to the electorate to ensure victory for the ruling party.
• Naidu even issued a subtle threat to those who wouldn't vote for the TDP, saying he will have nothing to do with those villages. He said, "You take pension doled out by my government, walk on the roads laid by my administration, take ration and use the glow of the streetlights erected by us. Why wouldn't you vote for us?"
• Naidu keeping BJP state leaders out of election campaign and avoiding Muslims wrath, who are 20% of voters, was a good strategy that paid off.
• Nandyal is the first political test for Nara Lokesh, Naidu's son, party general secretary and the state IT minister. It is one thing to lure Opposition MLAs to the ruling camp by using political clout, and quite another to win an election. The victory proved Lokesh's credentials as a politician. 
• For the YSRCP, Nandyal was the best chance to show anti-incumbency. Its loss is likely to result in more migrations from YSRCP to TDP in the next two years. 
• While TDP is largely seen as a Kamma dominated party, YSRCP has a larger Reddy community presence. In the Reddy vs Reddy fierce battle, YSRCP's defeat confirmed weakened Reddy community support to YSRCP that Jagan enjoyed in the past. 
• Nandyal has voters of 20% Muslims & 10% Vysyas and large Dalits as well. TDP victory is seen as its patronization by Muslims, Vysyas & Dalits apart from Reddys as well.
• The Nandyal defeat is severe setback for Prashant Kishore, YSRCP strategist for 2019. Kishor was introduced to the party three months ago, with Jagan saying that Kishor will help them in 'Mission 2019'. It is rumored that Kishor charged Jagan hefty fees of Rs.50 crores.
• Nothing will change for the people of Nandyal. Politics in India, especially that in the Rayalaseema region of AP, is practised that members of one or two families are allowed hegemony over a constituency for decades. Nandyal is no exception as the leaders move from one party to another and their support base moves with them, like a herd.
• Both TDP & YSRCP are believed to have spent about Rs.500 crores and vote-for-cash is rumored between Rs.2,000 & Rs.5,000. 

If we don't learn on our own, adversity will teach us lessons 

Since 2004 Nandyal was bastion of Reddys from Congress & later YSR Congress. With this bypoll TDP regained its lost hold after two decades. Extending - it indicates erosion of Jagan's grip in Rayalaseema due to his arrogance and vulgar abuses. Roja filled up where ever there were gaps in abuses. Even after, Jagan lives in denial and will only ruin himself and YSRCP. Now Jagan will have uphill task to hold his folks together with 2019 indications clearly favoring TDP & Chandrababu Naidu. The highlight of this TDP's win is that it fought out alone without involving BJP leaders in campaigning and soliciting support of Pawan Kalyan, whose support probably might have helped TDP winning over YSRCP in 2014 general election with slender majorities in many constituencies.

India's Freedom & Liberalisation

• India was at a crossroads 70 years ago when it made choices that were enshrined in the constitution, so that its workers and peasants were freed from class and caste oppression.
• Nehru said at the midnight when India woke up to freedom. “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.”
• The zamindars and landlords finding that open defense of landlord's interest was no longer feasible, switched over to communalism for their class defense.
• Pakistan's falsity of religion-based nationalism and a state was founded on theocracy. It was one area where the Hindu right-wing emulates its sworn enemy and India was sought to be converted into a theocratic state called Hindu Rashtra. 
• M.S. Golwalkar, RSS supreme leader for more than 30 years minced no words: “The non-Hindu peoples in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture…. In one word, they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less no preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.”
• It is no accident that the Hindutva forces had nothing to do with anti-colonial struggle and independence. Infact, the RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar had so little sympathy for the anti-colonial struggle that he thought that the British would have to be invited back shortly after Independence in order to govern India. Today they laud Ambedkar today for sheer opportunistic reasons.
• The first major victim of this narrow cultural nationalism of the Indian right-wing was the Father of the Nation. After being driven to the margins of Indian politics in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, the right wing RSS and its latest political incarnation, the BJP, is at the helm of India, now.
• The slide started post-Nehru and was complete in 1991, when the Congress went back on its promises and ushered in the neoliberal order. The Congress ceased the cause of workers and peasants ostensibly called national interest, but in reality for the material prosperity of the merchants and manufacturers. Now with the BJP unburdened by the legacy of any egalitarian struggle, the free people of India are under the onslaught of neoliberalism and rabid communalism.
• Ambedkar argued that the political equality, guaranteed by the constitution, would get jeopardised if there was no corresponding movement towards social and economic equality. The first setback to independent India's was its inability to carry out any significant land redistribution. The top 15 per cent of landowners continued to hold the same percentage of land area as before. Dalits, the landless class, who had been denied the right to own land under the old system continued to remain landless and therefore both socially and economically disempowered. By the end of the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru was worried about growing wealth and income inequality in the country, he has to set up the Mahalanobis Committee to inquire into it.
• The per capita annual foodgrain availability, which had been around 200 kgs at the beginning of the 20th century in “British India” declined to 148.5 kgs during the 1939-44 and even lower to 136.8 kgs in 1945-46, was pushed up close to 180 kgs by the end of the 1980's. It has since declined, over the neoliberal period, reaching 163 kg for the years 2012-14.
• The spontaneity of capitalism was breaking the bounds set by state control. And soon it was to jettison the institute a regime of neoliberalism, under which the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy got closely integrated with globalised finance capital.
• The economic travails of the dirigiste regime arising from the sluggish growth of the home market owing to growing economic inequality, its loss of social support among the people for the same reason, and the big bourgeoisie’s wish to break out of it has contributed towards effecting a transition from dirigisme to neoliberalism.
• Neoliberalism greatly accentuated the increase in economic inequality, though it accelerated the growth rate in the tertiary sector. The acceleration in growth rate was resolved through larger exports of services, larger elite consumption of luxury goods, and the effects of asset price bubbles. The top 1 per cent of households in India currently owns 60 per cent of the country’s total wealth puts India with the fastest increases in asset inequality.
• The process of primitive accumulation of taking over of peasant's land 'for a song' for corporate projects and squeezing the peasants through higher input prices, by withdrawing subsidies and the drying up of institutional credit, but without commensurably higher output prices. These output prices, especially of commercial crops are allowed to fluctuate widely with world market prices. Even phenomena like Demonetisation and the GST are also mechanisms for imposing primitive accumulation upon the petty production sector. 
• A tragic consequence of this primitive accumulation at the expense of peasant agriculture has been the suicides of over three lakh peasants over the last two decades. And large numbers of peasants have left agriculture and migrated to cities in search of jobs, which are not being created to an adequate extent despite the apparently high GDP growth. The net result has been a proliferation of casual employment, intermittent employment, part-time employment and disguised unemployment. The growth in the casualisation of employment and privatisation of public sector units have weakened trade unions. While capital is international, workers are still organised along national lines, making national unions ineffective.
• The middle-class segment that has done well out of globalisation, owing to the outsourcing of services from the metropolis, and owing to the rise in the share of surplus which supports a range of activities from finance to advertising, has expectedly belonged to the upper castes which have been privileged enough to acquire the skills to make use of the opportunities that have been opening up. Since these beneficiaries attribute their own success not to their privilege but to their talent, the inevitable conclusion is drawn that those who are excluded from such jobs are untalented. An impression spreads that children from the oppressed castes do not make it because they lack talent, which boosts casteist prejudice.
• Development in India started on a wrong foot by eschewing land redistribution and the pursuit of capitalist development contributed to growing socio-economic inequality, that got a free run under neoliberalism. The adherents of Hindutva in power this social counter-revolution is being carried forward with a vengeance. India is not a fascist state, but the growing socio-economic inequality is destroying the constitutional provision of political equality.
• Fascism arises when the system besieged by crisis is challenged by a threat from the revolutionary forces whom fascism is used for eliminating. Fascism grows when the system is at a dead end and when the working-class movement is not in a position to mount a challenge. That is when large sections of the people flock to fascist movements, not because it provides a credible way out, but because it projects a messiah, it resorts to flamboyant but meaningless rhetoric, it appeals to unreason, and it holds not the system but the “other” (the Jews or the Muslims or whatever) as responsible for the travails of the people.
• It may seem intriguing that neoliberalism has reached a dead end, Modi promises even greater neoliberal reforms while a Trump rails against neoliberalism. But this contrast between two current manifestations of fascism arises because neither has a coherent programme anyway for overcoming the crisis and the frustration gripping the people. Both are essentially purveyors of unreason for whom the economic agenda as a thought-out rational programme is incidental.
• The corporate-financial oligarchy adopts the fascist movement, finances the fascist movement, and promotes the fascist movement, which exists independently of it. Fascism provides “stability” and also an ideal ideological prop for neoliberal capitalism. Fascists in government represent, in the Indian context, an alliance between corporate capital and Hindutva. The fact that capital is globalised while the state remains a nation state entails that even a fascist nation state must abide by the wishes of globalised capital (to prevent capital flight) and this fact restricts its ability to overcome the crisis.
• At peril are the gains and achievements made by the movements for national independence, socialism and social justice. India is once again is at crossroads where the choices it made 70 years ago are being undermined.

The left and democratic forces can have an alternative agenda that promotes equality, that strengthens democracy, and is willing to withdraw from the neoliberal regime. They should for instance have an agenda of introducing a set of universal, justiciable economic rights, to supplement the political rights that the constitution guarantees. These can include the right to food, the right to employment, the right to publicly-funded free and universal quality health care, the right to publicly funded free and universal quality education up to a certain level, and a right to adequate old-age pension and disability benefits. The implementation of these rights together would cost less than 10 per cent of the GDP annually, which the country can easily afford. 

There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the 

crossroads of history and must choose which way to go ... Lal Bahadur Shastri

Globalization benefits just minuscule percent of population to prosper, who are rich, educated and with access to power & resources. Trickle-down theory that says benefits for the wealthy trickle down to everyone else is unacceptable nonsense. In a large populous country like India, where most people are illiterate & poor, governments ignoring their welfare and chasing money making machines is nothing but abuse of principles of democracy and Constitution of India. Globalization is a concept propounded by developed & educated western countries to expand their reach for marketing their products and services rather than extending helping hand for upliftment of suffering masses in the world. India blindly embracing it for monetary gains, is not only height of insanity but also detrimental to its large segments of population. Development is not facilitating educated and/or rich people to prosper but enhancement of living standards of all classes of people simultaneously.