Communal riots are taking place in a systematic manner

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=4&edcode=820040&eddate=2013-9-12 

The recent spate of riots in Uttar Pradesh and polarization occurring on religious grounds communal harmony has gathered great attention in wake of the next national polls in 2014. While the INC, BJP, BSP and the Samajwadi Party led state government blame each other for the bloody conflict and the loss of lives, the larger point which is being missed is that communal riots have been occurring in certain parts of India in a systemic manner since its independence. It has flourished as an institution and gets activated as noted by the eminent scholar Paul Brass, ‘during periods of political mobilization or during the time of elections’. Hence these riots are far from being spontaneous and are produced in a theatrical style in terms of involvement of volunteers and adoption of certain strategies.

Ever since the ascendency of Ajit Singh, his party the Lok Dal has had a tumultuous journey with frequent shuffling of political partners and seeking alliances that would keep it buoyant in the murky politics of caste/clan and religion. While the Lok Dal’s political formulation has largely shrunk in the present scenario, it is yet to be seen if it is able to maintain its foothold, this time when the Jats and Muslims have emerged as the main participants in the ongoing conflict.

Containing the communal conflagration depends on the political will of other state governments lest their respective regions don’t get inflamed, but the larger question remains that the complicity of the state or political parties in communal conflicts strips them of their neutrality and legitimacy, resulting in various groups settling their disputes by an extra constitutional means. Hence the development of a sustained culture of negotiation, tolerance and accommodation is the need of the hour to address communalization and militarization of the society.

R Radhakrishnan, Political Analyst

Modi, empire and the bandwagon of human rights

My response to an article published in OpenDemocracy, 10 September 2013.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/openindia/modi-empire-and-bandwagon-of-human-rights

If an arrest warrant against Modi is suggested on the grounds of ‘universal jurisdiction’, will the author extend the same argument for a similar intervention on the part of the Indian judiciary, say, on war crimes committed by the western powers across the globe?

Human rights remains a buzz concept in an age of globalization whose 'modern' nations have begun to realize its significance. This has led to a call for some modicum of standardization and homogenization in the movement of humans and capital, with the advent of neoliberal reforms across the globe. At the same time, nations continue to display an ambivalence founded in their 'national interest' when it comes to seeking international intervention on the grounds of mass killings, and especially ethnocentric conflicts.

Recently an argument has been advanced by N Jayaram, urging that all is not lost when it comes to confronting Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. In his article, the author invokes a rather elitist and Eurocentric bias when it comes to the recognition of ‘universal’ human rights in an ever-globalizing world. What he fails to take into account is the fact that since the end of World War Two, we have been living in a new post-colonial world order which has nevertheless witnessed multiple conflicts between nation states which have been imperial, colonial and racist in nature.

In India it is the political class which is held culpable for bad governance and the mishandling of issues including law and order, security and the communal conundrum. According to this account, any rational and liberal Indian should simply continue to knock on the doors of the Indian judiciary to seek redress for the resulting crises. But for anyone who pays closer attention, it may be noted that riots happen at regular intervals and that the pattern of such events gives the impression that the whole process is managed as an industry by various sectarian leaders in collusion with the political class. If an intervention in the form of an arrest warrant against Modi is being suggested on the grounds of ‘universal jurisdiction’, will the author, N Jayaram, extend the same argument for a similar intervention on the part of the Indian judiciary, say to address some of the issues like the organized race riots in Britain, the attacks on Maghreb Muslims in France, attacks on the Turkish minority in Germany, or war crimes committed by the western powers across the globe.

India’s communal riots by any yardstick are an abomination against humanity. But if we are to adopt this argument on the grounds of ‘universal jurisdiction’ in order to place Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, on trial for his alleged role in the communal riots of 2002, this will open a Pandora box which can only do much to increase the chagrin of the white world and their black foot soldiers in countries like India. This was recently indicated by another brazen attempt by some nondescript Indian parliamentarian who tried to implore the US regime not to revoke its visa ban on the Gujarat Chief Minister, on the same grounds. The resulting media controversy resulted in many MPs denying ever having signed such a petition, or having been willing to subjugate themselves to US sovereignty on such a matter.

What prevents the same champions of human rights from knocking on the doors of the Indian Judiciary for the trial of leaderslike George Bush Senior and Junior, or the late Robert McNamara for their alleged culpability in acts against humanity, which is said to have resulted in the deaths of millions of hapless people in Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions? The rulers of United Kingdom are yet to be tried for colonialism, war crimes (now in Iraq) and the displacement of millions of hapless inhabitants in their former colonies.

Radhabinod Pal, one of the Indian judges who gave a dissenting note in the Tokyo Trial, in 1945 stated that it was “victors' justice” that reeked of vengeance. Incidentally the very same proponents of ‘universal jurisdiction’ and their camp followers continue to display benign ignorance over the deliberate exclusion of western colonialism and the use of the atom bomb by the United States from the list of crimes against humanity.

This logic is fraught with legitimate fears of the revival of colonial and racist rants regarding the ‘white man’s burden’. One must take into account the fact that with Modi you are not dealing with a Charles Taylor of Liberia, the late Slobodan Milosovic or Radovan Karadzic of Serbia or the PolPot of Cambodia in a situation in which the host nation and its judiciary finds it difficult to confront their villains. You are dealing with an India which has proved capable of democratically dethroning its political leaders when they have tried to cross the threshold of democracy, and displayed their fascist tendencies in the garb of a national emergency. This is the same judiciary which was perfectly capable of invalidating the election of the late Indira Gandhi. Unlike the western model, the Nehruvian state has ensured that nation building and democratic politics have primacy in India over national development and industrialization.

The view that many Indians believe Mr Modi to be guilty of having fanned the flames of communal killing and that therefore, “for human rights groups, the prospect of Modi’s London visit is not a crisis but an opportunity”, unfortunately reflects a very selective understanding of the communal crisis in India. The media coverage of the communal riots, (not pogroms, as these riots are sometimes misrepresented) for over a decade, has been spun by an anglicized Indian upper caste who control this media, which clearly reflects Eurocentric notions and bias. It is a selective reading targeting a particular political discourse in the name of ‘defending secularism’. For example it completely ignores the larger issue of the exclusion, annihilation and recovery of faith in a just order raised by the great poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko in his 'Monologue of Tomorrow's Men’.

In India, the self-proclaimed proponents of secularism have done considerable damage to the cause of secularism in their blatant use of selective targeting, that seeks to exclude politicians who have commanded great respect across the country and have held important positions in the government.  Invoking this argument one could describe Modi as ‘the Rajiv Gandhi of the 2002 riots’, given that under the stewardship of the late Indira Gandhi, many massacres took place, including the Nelli Massacrein Assam.

This is not to justify the crimes of 2002 riots or hold out an alibi for those who are guilty of having orchestrated it. The point I am making is that in the age of the sovereign equality of states, why is the Indian judiciary being held incapable of adjudicating on critical issues concerning human rights? This is the same Indian judiciary which handed over to justice the fugitive Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, the culprit in the Hannah Foster rape and murder case, who was evading British law enforcement and was apprehended in India. Kohli tried to invoke ‘racism in the British judiciary’ as a means of avoiding trial in Britain, promptly dismissed by an Indian judiciary that had taken note of the gravity of the crime and dispassionately assessed the issue. But the Indian state and Indians had to deal with the ignominy of the very selective reading of the British state and judiciary, when it wanted to extradite the fugitive music composer Nadeem Saifi, accused of conspiring to kill late music industry baron, Gulshan Kumar. The House of Lords upheld the London High Court's decision against extradition in the 1997 murder case, and turned down the Indian government's plea for a review of the decision.

Peter Bleach, a Briton, and one of the accused in the Purulia arms drop case of 1995 was given a presidential pardon in 2004 following requests by the UK government. In other words the western world’s attitude towards the largest democracy is patronising and smacks of hypocrisy. The Indian state was rebuffed on 30 June 2011, when its efforts to get Kim Davy, the Danish citizen who was the prime accused in the same case, extradited from Denmark, failed, after a Denmark court rejected it on the grounds of poor jail conditions and human rights in India. This development came even after the Indian government had, in principle, agreed on giving "sovereign assurance" to the Danish authorities on their conditions, which also included the waiving of the death penalty if Davy was convicted by a court for his involvement in the arms drop case.

The India that Tagore knew so well when he interrogated the liberal, democratic and secular nation-building exercise that many of India’s great leaders have wanted to usher in, is confronted by a range of challenges that are structural, periodic and at times sporadic.  However there have also always been many progressive and democratic movements which have paved way for a more inclusive, tolerant and constitutional democratic order in India in spite of its ‘million mutinies’ in a ‘wounded civilization.’

The issue of Modi’s guilt or innocence can be deliberated and adjudicated upon by the Indian judiciary, instead of relying on a trial by media. After all, it is the media blitzkrieg fanned by the anti-Modi political groups which has also catapulted Modi onto where we now find him, the world stage.

The Telangana movement refutes the linguistic mantra for Statehood

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=6&edcode=820040&eddate=2013-8-01 

The signals for the creation of Telangana, as the 29^th state of the Indian Union, is as a result of decades of relentless struggle of its inhabitants, who had craved for recognition as a distinct geographical and cultural entity. This also indicates that mere linguistic affinity cannot be the basis for carving out new states nor can it be held sacrosanct for maintaining the status quo of the existing states.

The votaries for a separate Telangana state have various reasons for having sought this political divorce from Andhra Pradesh. While Telangana is the largest of the three regions of the existing state of Andhra Pradesh state, the region was confronted with social backwardness and a less-developed economy than Andhra, but had a larger revenue base. Moreover in terms of the geopolitical fault line, the irrigation projects on the two major rivers left them in lurch, though they control the headwaters of the rivers, as a higher volume of water was diverted for use in Andhra.  While among the other major sources of concerns that had evolved over a period of time were signs of internal colonialism and regional deprivation, which was as a result of other regions having disproportionate representation in governmental and educational jobs.

In Telangana’s context what was missed by the viceroys of the Indian National Congress party is that the traditional patron-client system cannot help any political party anymore in sustaining its constituencies – the Congress had no choice but to swim with the tide of an idea and an arduous movement that had arrived. The hunger strike in 2009 called by Telangana Rashtriya Samiti, and the movement effectively managed by Prof M. Kodandaram, acted as a catalyst and had ensured that the movement is not enamored by the deviations of the spoil system practiced by the rulers in Delhi.

Once the movement arrives at its logical conclusion, what would be interesting is to note is how the Indian state under the present government, seek to address similar movements for statehood for Vidharbha, Gorkhaland, Bodoland and the call to carve out few more states from Uttar Pradesh.

(The above mentioned opinion is the original and unabridged text. There has been some inadvertent spelling errors in the print version after it was pruned by the editing desk of the DNA)

Of Bigots and Self styled Secular Morons - an assessment of an online group

The issue of secularism in India is fraught with great challenges, a roller-coaster ride which is similar to the experience which one could have at an amusement park. I had to leave a group called ‘Secular India’ after I discovered that the people over there were not only intolerant but bereft of any reason, while approaching and deliberating on sensitive issues like communalism.

One of the most striking features of that group is that they sound very preachy and self righteous and give an impression that important institutions of democracy like judiciary have no role in addressing these issues. This is also substantiated by their own blissful ignorance in selectively highlighting certain strands of communalism, ghetto mentality, which is in no way serving the cause of their alleged secular proclivities. Ironically they would selectively pick issues and views to suit their mindset and feel vindicated.

All I can say is that they are highly ignorant about the very basics concerning issues that are significant to democracy and civil society in India. At the very outset they sounded very moronic and gave an impression of having a fixed mindset and sounded very adamant about their belief and understanding about issues like secularism, whereas it was their distorted understanding and also pathological biases which is a matter of concern - to add to it while they implicitly accepted their ignorance about social science, they also vehemently oppose any different view, akin to self righteous fascist and rabid communal demagogues. For ex - most of their understanding manifested in the belief that - Hindu bashing or 'brahmanical mindset' bashing is secularism and defending Muslims as a community or its individuals, not realizing that Secularism in Indian context refers to equal respect to all religions or equidistance of the state from all religions.

Incidentally they took kindly to the first article of mine written around eight years ago (The Pied-Piper Syndrome,http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/the-pied-piper-syndrome-1331.html) but started finding fault with the second one (Communalizing a Killing,http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/communalizing-a-killing-1439.html) and then went on to question my judgment and integrity. I had clarified later that the source I had quoted was removed from the web and had also mentioned that Ishrat is not guilty until proved so in the court of law. One of the members, perhaps a foreigner was presumptuous and stated that many elements in the Indian security agencies are communal and added that why people should call for having faith in the Indian judiciary when Muslims are victims. Since the matter is subjudice; similar logic can be used by all others to proclaim their innocence. I deleted my views which I had posted there, before leaving the group, since I thought that it was a futile exercise to argue with folks with a fixed mind.
When I cornered the admin guy (after clarifying that I will go by the judiciary) that his understanding of English is not an issue, rather his attempts to build a discourse/logic based on religious identity of the accused is a matter of concern, to which he responded by stating that he has made his point, and to forget it. It is interesting to note that there are many online fringe groups - who try to camouflage their own biases, in name of fighting for the cause of democracy, nationalism etc. Such groups exist among various religious denomination and castes, so they are not unique either, in this context.

Finally their language or choice of words (most of them seemed to be IT technocrats and their claim about ‘knowing/ understanding English’) clearly displayed a condescending/ contemptuous/ disrespectful attitude towards people having divergent opinions in general and also towards folks belonging to social science fraternity in particular. It also reflected abysmal standard/views, wherein they would also get personal and resort to making personal remarks casting aspersions on the credentials of the respondents.

It is certainly not our responsibility to find out as to why do they behave in such a manner, whether it's due to them been brainwashed or have low level of intellect in comprehending socio-political issues, or per Se have an inferior level of communication skills that is very uncouth in its manifestation.

While I do not regret the experience I had with this group, what irritated me was that they were simply peddling old jargon's and rhetoric’s, used by some political groups and media. In fact I would conclude that they are doing a great disservice to the cause of democracy and secularism. It just reminded me of what an Indian public intellectual had said that in India the greatest threat to secularism, comes from the so called secularists.

Will Pawar's strategic reshuffle prove to be a masterstroke in 2014 polls?

It is a move for galvanising the NCP 
DNA 12 June 2013, 0:51 IST, Pune, online edition

http://www.dnaindia.com/pune/1846824/message-board-will-pawar-s-strategic-reshuffle-prove-to-be-a-masterstroke-in-2014-polls
 
The NCP ministers’ reshuffle was expected with the party president and founder Sharad Pawar facing multiple challenges. The primary concern for the NCP is to work towards strategising and galvanising the party for the national polls in 2014. The move to seek reshuffling of NCP ministers following the party supremo’s diktat calling for all the NCP ministers to resign assumes significance for various reasons. This development sends a clear-cut signal and reaffirmation that it is Sharad Pawar, who continues to hold the party’s reigns. The dropping of some of the ministers due to various issues, which include scams and public display of fortunes, while the state was reeling under drought doesn’t come as a surprise, as it is seen as a course correction. However, what has to be seen is whether this development merely indicates an attempt to refurbish the party image or a strategy to make in-road and reap electoral dividends in regions where the NCP needs to improve its grades or repeat its success. The retention of some of the scam-tainted ministers also highlights the logics and dilemmas related to support base and influence, which the party has carefully nurtured over the years. This development also may give some indications about the role and relevance of the second line of leadership which has been raring to seek prime space in the party hierarchy.

Message of the Karnataka state assembly polls

The discourse on  the charisma of Narendra Modi or the Gandhi family are irrelevant, based on the state polls. DNA, Page - 6, 9th May 2013, Pune Edition
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=6&edcode=820040&eddate=2013-5-09    

The message conveyed by Karnataka electorate to UPA government is crystal clear – govern or perish. The Congress’ victory also vindicates the disillusionment of the electorate with two successive regimes under the JD (S) and the BJP respectively. The split engineered by BS Yeddyurappa may not have translated into gains for his newly floated Karnataka Janata Party, but has emerged as a decisive factor in the poll outcome. This election also highlights that electoral outcomes cannot be solely derived on the basis of caste conglomeration (Lingayats and Vokkalinga) or by displaying symbolic gestures of patronising of leaders representing certain communities. 

The victory in Karnataka comes as a respite for the Union government under the stewardship of the Congress party, when it is mired with innumerable controversies ranging from series of scams, abysmal record of maintaining law and order and its lackadaisical approach towards the national security as the recent border standoff with China. A range of issues like corruption scandals, incidents of communal polarisation in certain pockets of the state, intense factionalism and the ineptitude of the BJP leadership to provide even a semblance of governance and stability proved to be its Achilles heel. 

While the BJP pundits may dismiss the verdict as an aberration in its electoral score card, what must be noted is that the verdict also indicates an abrupt halt, if not an end to the BJP’s long-cherished dreams of making inroads into the south. The usual clamour and rhetoric associated with the discourse on evaluating the charisma of Narendra Modi or the Gandhi family are irrelevant to the debate on 2014 national elections, as the earlier results in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Goa indicate different trends in the political spectrum. 

Comments - Ostentatious and vulgar display of wealth by Politicians

Jadhav is not the only one to hold such a lavish event

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?pgNo=4&edcode=820040&eddate=2013-02-21

Clarifications:

As my opinion was sought over the phone, it is evident that some of my statements were left out, due to paucity of space. Hence there are some clarifications lest my statements are misinterpreted or misunderstood.

Firstly  I didn't blame the NCP, but the political class of India for being insensitive and not taking a call on the issue of ostentatious and vulgar display of wealth. I had in fact mentioned that other political leaders must note that Mr Sharad Pawar, the NCP chief had deplored the act of ostentatious display by his party men.

Secondly I had stated the irony of "telling the people to eat cake if they don't have the means to get bread" (French revolution).

Finally, while marriages and resignations can't address drought situations by any logic, but such grand wedding must be curtailed for it displays gross indifference towards the plight of the common masses.