Sometimes even the most mundane events spark off a chain of thoughts which end up in a sense of deep enlightenment. How Archimedes discovered a basic law of physics, while having bath, how Newton discovered gravity, while wasting his time away under an apple tree, I too hit upon the most profound knowledge while mindlessly scrolling on my social media wall.
It began when I saw this tweet from the news site TheQuint: “Should we allow kids to unleash terror on the streets in the name of Holi”?
At first, the tweet appeared illogical. But as I kept thinking about it, it made me realise that we are raising an army of children trained to be terrorists.
The first element of any terror attack is finding innocent victims. It can be anyone, a man, a woman, a child, of any religion, caste, or creed. The only condition being that they must be “infidels”. It’s the same with Holi. Children target only innocent victims. They never go after the ones who are already bathed in colour (the faithful). They enjoy targeting those unsuspecting infidels who are not part of their cult, who are not initiated into their faith. Isn’t this Hindu terror?
The second element of any terror attack is surprise. Ever heard of Al Qaeda announcing in advance that they will be targeting a particular embassy in Kabul? The attack is always carried out in stealth mode, and only after the world has seen the impact, is credit taken. Similarly, children lurk around corners, behind cars, under stairs, waiting for their prey to arrive. Once the attack has materialised, they come out of the shadows to proudly take responsibility.
Thirdly, terrorists use advanced sophisticated weapons which usually explode upon impact releasing harmful chemicals into the surrounding area. Yup, this is what children refer to as water balloons. A recent study has revealed that a child throwing water-balloons on Holi has 95.42% chance of ending up as a Jihadi in war-torn terrains:
Such radicalization of children at an early age results in increased flow of terrorosterone hormone in the human body/ Another recent study has revealed that terrorosterone was found nearly in all terrorists and in some students of JNU too.
And what is the main weapon used in Holi? Harmful chemicals like dihydrogen monoxidemixed with dyes (sounds like dies). The world has condemned the use of chemical weapons even in wars, and India is promoting use of such inhuman chemicals? For shame!
Finally, what is Holi about? The festival of Holi is based on an ancient barbaric ritual of burning Holika, the “devil”. Alternate reading of history though tells us that Holika was actually a dutiful sister to a noble immortal king. Her only “fault” was that she decided to help her brother King Hiranyakashipu (Grace be upon him), in defeating his unworthy, unfaithful son Prahlad, who had begun worshipping false misogynistic Gods. For this, Holika was brutally burnt on a bonfire, while the hideous beasts who did this ghastly act revelled in mirth. Of course, the story has been massively altered now, to portray Holika as a demon.
Holi is thus based on lies and deceit, and even so, it advocates burning people you do not like in bonfires. THIS is exactly what terrorists do, they burn people up in fires because they do not like them!
The similarities just don’t end. Without doubt, Holi is the next best thing there can be to actual hard-core terrorism. In some cases it can be worse. At least in a terrorist attack, the pain is short-lived. One moment of a flash, a bit of bang, some smoke, and you are out of your misery. Ask a woman the lifelong pain, ignominy and shame, of wearing a light coloured dress, stained with Holi chemicals, which does not get cleaned even after using the best detergent! The Horror! Spare a though for the child of such a woman, scarred for life, as his friends constantly manipulate his brain to humiliate him for his mother’s stained dress. What do you think such children end up as? Terrorists again!
Prime Minister Modi must enact a tough legal provision -Deholitisation, where in Holi is banned for eternity. In fact, this move will go hand in hand with his vision of “Swacch Bharat”. He must only show the gumption to take such unpopular yet morally correct decisions. Lets save our children while we can!
An Army Jawan named Roy Mathew, who was working as a sahayak (helper), was found dead on Thursday in the Devlali Cantonment in Maharashtra. He was found hanging from the sealing of an abandoned barrack and doctors speculate that he might have died at three days prior to Thursday.
The Jawan had allegedly featured as an unnamed sahayak in a report filed by website The Quint on 24th February, which talked about the menial jobs the sahayaks have carry out. The website carried out a “sting operation” in the same cantonment, which showed sahayaks carrying out jobs they should ideally not be doing.
Roy Mathew
Roy Mathew had gone missing a day after The Quint article was published. In a phone call to his wife, he reportedly claimed that he faced some serious problems with regards to his job and that his seniors had come to know that he was talking about the same to the media.
The Quint article, through the sting operation, “exposed” how the sahayaks were made to do tasks like walking their assigned Officer’s pets, dropping the Officer’s kids to school, driving his wife to the market, and even washing their clothes. As per that article, the sahayak’s duties should only include:
Maintaining officers’ weapons and uniforms.
Assisting in digging trenches and shelters during war, training, or exercises.
Ease officers’ burdens during planning and execution of operations
The issue of regular soldiers being asked to do such jobs have often been criticized. In 2010 a parliamentary committee on defense had asked the army to take a cue from the Navy and the Air Force and abolish the system. Last year in May, there were reports that suggested that the practice, which finds its roots in colonial British Army, could be stopped.
As recent as in January this year, a soldier named Lance Naik Yagya Pratap Singh had uploaded a video on YouTube, which talked about these issues with the sahayak system. Therefore, it’s not too clear what extra information The Quint was trying to pass through a “sting operation”.
The entire affair became even more mysterious as The Quint proceeded to remove both the article and the video of the sting operation after the news of Mathew’s death came in.
Was this an admission that the website had erred and perhaps ended up revealing the identity of Roy Mathew, thus putting him under stress and pressure? Adding another angle to it is a report that claims that Mathew had given an interview, on conditions of anonymity, to Marathi TV channel that aired on 27th February, which is three days after The Quint report. Mathew is quoted as telling his wife that he had committed a big mistake, apparently referring to his media interactions.
So in all probability, this tragic death is result of media not being careful about protecting his identity. While The Quint used a sting operation that was perhaps not needed, the unnamed Marathi TV channel appeared to have gone back on their words to keep his identity secret. The deletion of the article and video by The Quint surely hints at some sort of admission of guilt. However, a probe is required to ascertain what caused Mathew to get so scared for his life and job.
A probe is also need to find out if Mathew’s death was a suicide under stress or was there some kind of foul play? One also hopes that the issue of soldiers being asked to do menial jobs as sahayaks is finally settled by the Army after this has taken a life of a Jawan.
Rohingya Muslims portrayed as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world by many activists, have suffered a brutal fate at the hands of the Myanmar military and local Buddhist groups. India has been deeply involved when it comes to rehabilitating and sheltering the battered ethnic group. Currently there are about 36,000 Rohingyas in India out of which only 9000 are officially registered. They remain concentrated in states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.
India’s first major taste of the Rohingya crisis came, rather absurdly, on 12th August 2012 at Azad Maidan in Mumbai. A large crowd of Muslims assembled at the venue to protest against the Assam Riots and the Rakhine Riots in Myanmar, which were a confrontation between the Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. The crowds soon turned violent which led to them vandalizing public property, molesting women cops, desecrating the Amar Jyoti Javan Memorial. The riots led to the death of two people.
Around the same time many Rohignyas had made their way, all the way from Myanmar through Bangladesh, to illegally enter India. With their conditions pitiable and them enduring the long and treacherous journey, they seemed to have found a safe haven in Hyderabad where various Islamic organisations extended their help, as social media messages had already flared up passions (leading to Azad Maidan riots).
Their status of being persecuted minorities in process of rehabilitation slowly started to change after reports started emerging in 2013 about some of the Rohingyas getting radicalized by the Lashkar-e-Toeba (LeT) to avenge the sectarian violence in Myanmar. The retribution though, for some strange reason, was also aimed at India, which ironically gave them the shelter. Perhaps presence of Buddhists in India was one of the reasons.
All this emerged after it was speculated that the Bodh Gaya Blasts on 7th July 2013 were possibly a retribution against the Buddhists for what was going on in Myanmar. This was almost confirmed after interrogations revealed that the blasts at the Buddhist shrine were aimed as a revenge for the Rohingyas.
These findings alerted security agencies and in December 2014, Rohingyas were put under surveillance by the Hyderabad police, which was a result of the arrest of Khalid Mohammed, a Rohingya Muslim from Hyderabad, by the NIA in connection with the Burdwan blast in Oct 2014.
Recently the people of Jammu have been actively protesting against the settlement of Rohingyas in the state. Reports indicate that there has been a sharp rise in the number of refugees from 5,107 in 2010 to about 13,400 in June, 2016. The security forces there too have started perceiving the Rohingyas there as a security threat after one of the two foreign militants killed in a shootout in south Kashmir turned out to be a native of Myanmar.
This has also led to feeling of anger and anguish among many Indians that while the Rohingyas were being settled in Jammu & Ladakh, efforts to rehabilitate the Kashmiri Pandits were being opposed. This has also ensured that politics has started over the issue with J&K National Panthers party putting up hoardings asking Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims to leave.
This association of Rohingyas with India has evolved from being a shelter for persecuted minorities to being a genuine security threat. India’s official position over sheltering the Rohingyas has been that of a silent pragmatism so as to not irk the Myanmar leadership which already has a growing Chinese influence.
However the issue might need quick addressing as the rise in this new ethnic group, especially along India’s eastern border poses a severe security threat and challenges of illegal immigration. Having said that, the solution also isn’t as simple as rounding up and deporting all the Rohingyas, as many of whom have a legitimate refugee status or a valid visa.
Last month, India cautioned Myanmar about the long known exploitation of Rohingyas at the hands of Pakistan based terrorists. This might also prompt the Indian government too to rethink its stance of turning a blind eye to the illegal immigration, like it did for the Rohingyas chiefly in 2012 as there was domestic political pressure to allow them and international concern over human rights.
This settlement of the refugees may be the largest since India gave refuge to the Dalai Llama and 80,000 Tibetians who fled atrocities of the Chinese in 1959, however, the consequences are turning out to be very different in both the cases.
The benefit of the doubt is a value judgement that translates to an act of placing trust in someone’s words, even when there are competing reasons to not do so. The benefit is given after weighing the options and duly considering what is at stake. In a court of law, the benefit of the doubt is an extremely important principle because to convict someone without adequate evidence is against the very foundations of justice. But in everyday life, hard evidence is not so easy to come by and healthy scepticism helps us survive and live in peace.
Likewise, in political matters, before giving someone the benefit of the doubt, it is imperative to place the individual in the right frame of reference, failing which our judgement is likely to be swayed by rhetoric and propaganda. In this article, I will try to put together the relevant historical context against which the recent events in Delhi University may be studied and interpreted and in doing so, I will spend lesser time on the current trivialities and more on the preceding historical trajectory.
Father, son and the holy cause
Umar Khalid was in the news last week, just as he was precisely a year ago, when he went absconding after allegedly raising seditious anti-India slogans inside the JNU campus. Umar later surrendered to the police and was soon let out on bail but in the interim, his intriguing familial background came to light. His father was once a member of SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India), the Jihadi outfit banned in 2001.
To be fair, Umar’s father had quit SIMI in 1985, well before his son was born. Whatever may be the reasons for his departure from SIMI, their involvement in terrorist activities doesn’t seem to be one, which is clear from his claims that the organisation has been unfairly demonized by the intelligence agencies. However, it has been established that the outfit had longstanding connections with global Islamist organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and is also believed to be the progenitor of Indian Mujahideen, a Jihadi group responsible for numerous terror attacks on the Indian soil.
Interestingly, SIMI took birth in Aligarh. Its founder and almost all of its leadership in the years that followed came from the student community of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). In late 2014, the female students of AMU demanded access to the use of the university’s male-only library. The demand was turned down by the vice-chancellor on the pretext of low capacity. However, the statement of the VC was more telling of the underlying ethos that led to such unheard of gender bias on any campus in India. He said that if girls were allowed in the library there would be “four times more boys”. As a result, the library continued to be open to men and inaccessible to women, a practice as old as the library itself.
The fountainhead of Muslim separatism
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (born October 1817) is an extremely important figure in the pre-independence politics of India. Khan was a progressive, westernized and secularized Muslim but these personality traits are not why he is remembered even today. For, he had two separate enormous contributions to make in the field of education and in the realm of ideas. He was the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University and the architect of the two-nation theory, which later led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.
In the latter half of the 19th century, Khan launched a reformist movement among the Indian Muslims. This came to known as the Aligarh Movement, the purpose of which was to get the Muslims acquainted with western ideas so as to enable them to participate in the politics of the empire. The main thrust of Khan’s reform was deeply pragmatic, in that he wanted the Muslim society to get up to speed with the sea change that had come about in India with the arrival of the British and to get ahead of the Hindus, who were somehow perceived as getting increasingly influential in the British administrative machinery, courtesy modern education.
Khan also lobbied hard for the use of Urdu as the official language of the government of UP, even though Hindi was the language of the masses. It must be noted that after the reign of Aurangzeb, the Muslim dynasts had given up control of the major portion of the Indian Territory, first to indigenous rulers like Marathas, Jats and Sikhs and then to the British empire. So, these were all measures for Muslims to regain the administrative control of India, which they believed they were losing to the Hindus, who they had once proudly ruled.
The Middle Ground
As we have seen, the AMU was established to function as the wellspring of intellectual resurgence of Muslims in India. On the political front, the most prominent group was the Muslim League, whose ideology was based on the two nation theory propounded by the founder of AMU. However, the Muslim League was secular in its philosophical vision and had no ambitions of subjecting the populace to Sharia law.
This was a half-hearted move according to Abul Ala Maududi, who went on to found the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose stated aim was the creation of an Islamic State and which advocated the abolition of interest-charged on loans, sexual separation and veiling of women, had penalties such as flogging and amputation for alcohol consumption, theft, fornication, and other crimes. After the partition of India in 1947, the Jamaat split into independent factions representing the newly formed nations. In India, it came to be known as Jamaat-e-Islami-i-Hind (JIH). In this new avatar, it is said to have undergone an ideological transformation from Islamization of India to fighting for the cause of secularism. Interestingly, the Bangladeshi faction of the Jamaat, also the largest political party of the country, was declared unfit to contest elections and in 2013, their registration was cancelled by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh because the party’s charter “puts God above democratic process”.
Coming Full Circle
But why are we discussing all the above? SIMI was formed in 1977 as a student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami-i-Hind. While SIMI was banned due to its terror activities, JIH has remained untouched, maybe because of its alignment with secular values and its consistent condemnation of terrorist attacks in its official statements. On 18 April 2011, JIH launched a new political party in India with the stated mission of striving for value-based politics. The current president of the Welfare Party of India is a soft-spoken man called Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas. He has a son by the name of Umar Khalid, who was in the news last week, just as he was precisely a year ago.
Although we are told that Umar is an avowed communist and a self-proclaimed atheist, he has apparently not drifted too far from the ideals of his father’s hazy past. Umar Khalid was in the news because he was one of the main organisers of an event in the JNU campus commemorating Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist who was convicted for his role in the jihadi attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. After getting arrested, Umar and his supporters made rhetorical appeals to Freedom of Expression, the most fundamental of values in a democratic society, missing the irony that they were using their democratic right to free speech for glorifying the violent attack on the central icon of Indian democracy, the parliament house.
Given the above historical and biographical context and what is at stake for the common citizens of India, it would be no surprise if some of us refuse to give Umar the benefit of the doubt. Exposing the impressionable young minds of Delhi University to Jihadi brainwashing may be far too risky a proposition for the internal security of the country. Sure, Umar’s mere antecedents may not suffice to prove his complicity in abetting terror in a court of law but public opinion cannot wait endlessly for hard evidence to arrive, which may come in the form of a death knell. As Umar’s favourite professors are wont to say, the truth is eluding all of us and in a way, we are all wrong. The choice before us is to err on the side of danger or caution. Which side would you choose?
The elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest local government body in Asia promised to be a political thriller and it lived up to that promise. Erstwhile saffron allies were fighting to gain primacy in the municipality which they have together ruled unbroken for last 20 years. The main opposition Congress was relegated to an also ran due to the infighting in the Mumbai Congress ranks. The Congress seemed out of contention even before the first vote was polled. The saying ‘Dono ka jhadga, teesre ko laabh’ does not work in the fight between BJP and Sena, especially if the third-party is the Congress.
Congress and SP also faced the challenge of MIM which had got good support in the Muslim dominated areas in the assembly polls of 2014. Raj Thackeray’s railway engine had started off late in the campaigning and did not seem like it was going to reach its desired station. Thus the stage was set for a saffron face-off where the issues were anything but saffron.
The election was fought mainly on development and promises of yet more development. Sena was stretched thin trying to project the sparse work done in last 20 years, while Fadnavis was banking on the CCTV project, Wi Fi project and the three metro routes under construction. The metro routes were the most visible civic work in progress and Fadnavis was using it as his trump card.
Campaigning was ugly on occasions with both Uddhav and Fadnavis taking jibes at each other. This has been the pattern of BJP and Shiv Sena to change the narrative to a fight between the two. The other parties were left trying to register their presence in the voter’s mind.
Before the elections, my prediction was that Shiv Sena would be the single largest party with 75-90 seats followed by BJP with 70-80 seats. I expected the rest of the parties like Cong, NCP, MNS and SP would struggle to put up a decent score. I expected MIM to put up a great show and garner about 10-15 seats.
Voting percentage this time was approximately 55% and was in-line with the Lok Sabha 2014 and Vidhan Sabha 2014 elections. Though this was a huge 13% jump as compared to the turnout of the BMC 2012 polls (42%). There was huge speculation as to which party would benefit due to the increase in the voting percentage. Would it help the challenger BJP or the incumbent Sena? Sena had not faced any meaningful challenge in the BMC polls in the last 10 years, given the low credibility of the Congress party.
On 23rd Feb 2017, Shiv Sena began with a bang during the counting of votes and looked like taking a runaway lead till 1 pm. However, they hit their ceiling thereafter and their seats slowly came down to 84. BJP which was running 35 seats behind Sena tally till 1 pm, rallied in the late afternoon and finished on 82 seats (including the tied seat won through a lottery). Part of this is because the trends from the Mumbai city (South and Central Mumbai) wards were reported early. The trends from the suburban wards came in bit late leading to the BJP surge. Also Sena lost a lot of seats to BJP in the last few rounds.
Of the top 10 winning margins, 9 went to the BJP and one to the Sena. The biggest win was with a margin of 19,556 votes by Pravin Shah in Ward 15 (in Borivali). He polled 22,860 votes out of the 31,177 votes polled.
Sena and BJP both have their areas of influence. BJP performed exceptionally well in the Dahisar to Bandra belt winning about 49 seats in these Western suburbs. The credit for this performance goes to State minister Vinod Tawde who was in charge of this area, MPs Gopal Shetty and Poonam Mahajan, city president Ashish Shelar, MLAs Yogesh Sagar, Vidya Thakur, Atul Bhatkhalkar and Amit Satam etc. BJP won majority of the wards in Borivali (always a BJP stronghold), Kandivali, Charkop, Goregaon (wrested in 2014 from the Sena), Andheri West, Versova, Vile Parle etc. With a little bit of luck and effort they could have easily won 60 seats in this belt.
Performance in areas like Magathane and Dahisar was poorer than expected. MLA Manishatai Chaudhari and MLC Pravin Darekar have a lot to answer for this failure. For example in Ward 1 (in Dahisar), BJP ignored the demand of ticket from old hand Ram Yadav. He rebelled and put up his wife Rekha Yadav as an independent. Sena secured 4913 votes and won the ward. The rebel Rekha Yadav was the runner up with 3089 votes. Congress was third with 2719 votes and the official BJP candidate came in fourth with 2584 votes. Important point is the votes of BJP’s official candidate and rebel were 5673 which is more than the winning Sena candidate. The result justifies Ram Yadav’s demand for the ticket and thus the loss can be put to wrong candidate selection in this ward.
On the positive side, BJP managed some gains in Jogeshwari, Bhandup and Girgaon which are Sena bastions. Sena as expected performed extremely well in its strongholds of Dadar-Prabhadevi, Mahim, Naigaon, Worli, Lalbaug – Parel etc. in the Central and South Mumbai area. In Dadar-Mahim, they swept away the MNS. In South Mumbai, BJP did well in Mumbadevi and Colaba.
In the Eastern suburbs, the honors were evenly distributed with BJP taking Mulund (6/6 wards) and wins in Ghatkopar and Chembur. Sena won in Bhandup, Vikhroli and Shivaji Nagar. Noticable was BJP win in the two wards in Bhandup along the Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) marg. SP won majority of the wards in Mankhurd – Deonar.
Main observations about these results are as follows,
Though Sena has retained its Marathi vote bank, BJP is making inroads in many Marathi areas all across Mumbai.
Mumbai voters are broadly split across class lines. The middle class and upper middle class Marathi voters living in buildings and high rises vote for BJP. The lower middle class Marathi voters living in chawls and poor Marathis living in slums prefer Sena. Again these is a broad classification and varies across Mumbai. For example, the Marathi voters in Mahim – Dadar are among the most educated, upwardly mobile and their votes were mostly to the Sena and then the MNS. BJP is currently not an option for them. But many poor slum dwelling Marathis in the Western suburbs vote for the BJP.
Gujarati voters turned out in huge numbers in Borivali, Kandivali, Malad, Mulund and Ghatkopar and overwhelmingly supported BJP. Their votes gave a huge push to the BJP to increase their tally. There is a huge increase in the number of Gujarati speaking corporators especially of the BJP across the city.
Hindi speaking voters shifted even more towards the BJP but supported Cong on few seats. This powered the BJP towards a historic tally. Many ex Cong corporators and leaders joined BJP and won in these polls. Prominent among them were Sagar Singh Thakur (son of ex Cong MLA Ramesh Singh Thakur who joined BJP) and ex Cong corporator Vidyarthi Singh. 13 out of the 18 turncoats who joined BJP won.
Three out of the four citizen candidates put by BJP won. These include Renu Hansraj (Ward 69), Makarand Narvekar (ward 227) and Harshita Narvekar (Ward 226). I expect this to be a big trend going forward and more parties will incorporate citizen corporators backed by Advanced Locality Management (ALM) committees.
Congress won just 31 seats, down 21 from 2012. Many of their corporators were from the minority section, and they got mostly Muslim and Christian vote. They lost the Hindi speaking votes mainly to BJP.
MNS crashed to a low of 7 corporators from a tally of 29 in 2012. This was expected by most of the observers and media. However, MNS proved a point by ensuring defeat of Sena candidates in about 35 wards due to division of votes and denied the Sena a chance to get a simple majority. This is a significant fact as MNS had approached Shiv Sena for a pre poll alliance and were ready to fight as less as 30/227 seats in Mumbai. Uddhav spurned the offer as he did not want to revive Raj’s flagging career
MIM made its debut in the city winning just two seats, which must have been a big disappointment to the Owaisis. The Muslim voters in Mumbai city did not trust them enough this time.
Going forward the following could be the implications of these elections: (refer to map here)
BJP has a lot of scope to improve its already big tally in the Western suburbs while capturing new ground in the Eastern suburbs and Mumbai city area. They now have to capture a substantial part of the lower class and poor Marathi vote bank.
BJP won 49 in the Western suburbs, 19 in the Eastern suburbs and 14 in South and Central Mumbai. They have ample scope to increase their influence using the metro train route followed by Fadnavis. Construction work on two new metro routes (Andheri to Mankhurd via BKC and Wadala – Thane) would start in a year. Would that help the BJP win in those areas touched by the metro?
The Sena’s seats can be seen in a bunch in the South and Central Mumbai area and the west side. Now onwards the demography becomes difficult for the Sena. BJP will keep on chipping into the Marathi vote and increasingly non Marathi voters will keep on increasing in Mumbai. Their only way of redemption is to work towards holistic development of the city and its infrastructure. They will find tough competition here with the Fadnavis style of aggressive corporate style development model. Can Uddhav and his army live up to it needs to be seen. Also Sena has to look beyond the Marathi voters and try to win over the Gujarati, Hindi speaking, South Indian voters as well. Sena has already surprised many by having two Muslim winners. This was unimaginable about 5 years ago.
Cong and NCP seem inclined to indirectly help Sena get its mayor in Mumbai with the help of small parties and independents. But they have to be wary of an aggressive BJP sitting on the opposition benches. Expect lot of old scams to be unearthed in the near future and MP Kirit Somaiyya to be vocal.
The stability of the Fadnavis government and the possibility of mid-term polls also depends on the March 11 result of UP assembly. If BJP wins UP decisively, Sena might stay in the government for a while. BJP’s strong performance in the 8 municipalities, Zilla Parishad and Panchayat samitis have put the opposition in shock. Many opposition and even Sena MLAs have won on slender margins in 2014 and may not want to face mid-term polls, given BJP’s increasing strength across the state. There is also a possibility that if the Sena withdraws support, BJP might themselves want to go for mid-term polls in Maharashtra.
Fadnavis is a big time winner of this semi-final in Maharashtra before the 2019 state polls. Not only has he lead the BJP to win 8/10 municipalities but given the Sena a tough fight in Mumbai. This coupled with the success in the ZP and panchayat samiti polls ensures that the political weight of Devendra Fadnavis in BJP and political circles is bound to increase. Can the Sena and opposition give a fight to stop Fadnavis is an important question on which depends the future polls in Mumbai.
An interesting, and for most of us, encouraging, phenomenon is visible in India today. It is the brick by brick dismantling of the neo-caste system in our society. Of course, the caste system per se was abolished by our constitution shortly after independence, yet the same independence slowly engendered this other, equally insidious neo-caste system in the country.
It had only two gradations in its scheme of things – ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘Us’ being the ‘upper caste’, the progenitors and propagators of the system, and ‘them’ being the rest of us. From politics to Bollywood to newsrooms, seminar rooms to the social circuit, members of the neo-elite had ready access.
It worked very well to propagate careers of member’s progeny with their own domains – politician’s kin getting tickets and star-brats getting roles. But it was equally effective in providing cross-entries – so a Chief Minister’s son with questionable talent could walk into movies and, despite giving flop after flop, continue to get roles. And a has been star could similarly be rehabilitated through a party ticket, or a Rajya Sabha membership.
The hand-full of people from the ‘them’ caste who managed to reach any level of accomplishment had two choices – either to try hard to be accepted into the ‘us’ clique, or remain second class citizens despite their achievements.
Since all the channels of dissemination information were tightly controlled by the upper caste, it was difficult for others to even get their voices heard. And since the only voices that the public at large heard were of the upper caste, other voices didn’t even matter. Rebellion against the upper caste was therefore virtually unheard of, probably because even if it did take place, no one heard of it.
Till, suddenly, a new breed of achievers burst onto the scene, breaking the caste barrier to make it big through their hard work and talent. This breed is unique in its refusal to toe the line of the established prima donnas. And with social media giving them an option for being heard by the people directly, they are suddenly posing a grave threat to the cosy clique.
So the feisty Kangna Ranaut’s plain speaking interview with biggie Karan Jauhar, where she minced no words in pointing out the ridicule and snobbery she had to face as a newcomer, including from Karan Jauhar himself, left the normally verbose Jauhar speechless. Such rebellion would probably have been unheard of a few years back.
Then, recently when a few celebrities – representatives of the ‘lower’ caste being first generation outsiders – dared to take a stand contrary to one popular with the elite, they were sought to be dismissed as if their opinions didn’t matter.
Javed Akhtar, a blue blooded insider tweeted haughtily, dismissing the gold medallist Babita Phogat’s opinion as she was ‘hardly literate’, she gave back as good as she got. She also minced no words in letting novelist and AAP supporter Krishna Pratap Singh and another self styled journalist Rana Ayyub, what she thought of them making fun of her home state. In both cases, of course, there was no response from the taunters.
Seemingly minor, these instances point to the larger change that is taking place in our country. Where the ‘elite’ are no longer assured of controlling the narrative.
However hard they may try to pretend otherwise, today their views and opinions are not the last word in public discourse. Notwithstanding their assumed monopoly on discerning the right from the wrong, they can no longer insulate themselves via pretence superiority. Specially on social media, where everyone has a voice, and the number of retweets and ‘likes’ are a clear barometer of public opinion, as are the replies to their tweets.
Clearly, the neo-caste barrier has been broken. It may take a while yet to dismantle this nepotistic system of patronage, but a good beginning is being made.
The secular-liberal brigade comprising of various political organisations and media-academia lobbies is proficient at running ideological campaigns. The latest episode of Gurmehar Kaur’s stardom just reinforces this. Although various ideological campaigns from their stables appear disparate, there is a broad pattern which showcases the relentless focus of their ideological war as well as methodical messaging.
Let us dissect the broad contours of secular-liberal ideological campaigns by going through their anatomical parts which make the whole, one by one.
Dadri Lynching
Faultline: Religion
Spin and distraction: Disgusting as the Dadri Lynching was, it was a case of suspected theft and killing of a calf, and subsequent murder – a law and order issue that should have been laid at the door of the Samajwadi Party run government in Uttar Pradesh. But the media-academia’s love for exploiting social faultlines for furthering their own interests took it directly to Modi’s doorstep.
They claimed that there was a complete breakdown of the syncretic culture and secular social fabric of the nation, and laid the blame for it directly at the election of Narendra Modi, which they said emboldened extremist elements. As if Uttar Pradesh had never seen criminal or communal incidents before May 2014.
Then they also brought their spinning abilities to somehow indict social media users – their pet topic of ‘trolls’ – as an indication of the degeneration of discourse. Wherever something starts, it has to eventually end at Modi and his social media supporters, especially the latter since the media-academia complex now feels stifled by the lack of monopoly on public discourse.
In this case, the ‘trolls’ had committed the grave crime of asking data to back their claim of increased communal incidents. ‘Trolls’ wanted objective data and reporting, secular-liberal brigade wanted emotional story telling about maahaul (state of affairs).
‘Church Attacks’
Faultline: Religion
Spin and distraction: The ‘Church Attacks’ narrative was one of unabashed falsehoods. Events such as drunken vandalism, nuisance, burglary, theft and even an electrical short circuits, which at best were localized petty crimes, had national significance foisted upon them and presented as if some genocide was taking place in India.
Modi’s election as Prime Minister was supposed to have caused these genocide, which were burglaries and short circuits in what we now know as the post-truth world. They even tried to blame reconversion of Christians into Hinduism – Ghar Wapsi – and its subsequent social ramifications as a cause for this.
This took an especially sinister turn when the media pitch was deliberately raised so as to affect Modi’s international standing when the visit of the then U.S. President Barack Obama was right around the corner. It only got worse when a seemingly innocuous, motherhood-apple pie statement of Barack Obama on how India would progress if it does not splinter on religious lines was spun as a direct indictment of the Narendra Modi government.
Rising Intolerance
Faultline: Ideological
Spin and distraction: The murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi witnessed the semantic brilliance of the secular-liberal camp. These were often referred to as ‘assassinations’ and not murders. An assassination often has a socio-political angle to it while a murder may not.
Even before the police of the respective states where these events occurred had any clue, the media-academia complex along with their political fronts had already declared these ‘assassinations’ as connected despite Dabholkar’s murder having happened in 2013 and the other murders in 2015. ‘Right-wing extremist groups’ were behind them, they declared.
The ‘Rising Intolerance’ campaign took off in full gusto where awards were returned by numerous eminences connected to the secular-liberal complex. Any person of any public standing including international delegates were goaded towards ‘Rising Intolerance’ campaign. Needless to say, many celebrities and were happy to oblige, wittingly or unwittingly.
Rohith Vemula
Faultline: Caste
Spin and distraction: Rohith Vemula’s suicide is a poignant episode. A heady mix of student politics and campus one-upmanship that led to his disillusionment from life itself must have been a case to debate the place of politics on a campus, the pressures it bore on young and sensitive minds, and the lack of support systems. His suicide note was an indictment of leftist politics and in general of campus politics, but his death was reduced to his caste.
Instead, with even his Dalit status not yet sure, the media-academia complex spun it into it a case of anti-Dalit bias by the HRD Ministry and Modi’s government as a whole. It was quite appalling to see the Communists own the discourse on his death while he had been a fervent critic of their casteism that refused to let Dalits rise in their organisations.
Rohith lamented in his suicide note that people had been reduced to their immediate identity, and cruelly enough that is exactly what the media did to him even after his death. Paradoxical to Vemula’s own supposed spirit of questioning everything, any valid questions on the situation surrounding Vemula’s death or the facts of his life and times including his political affiliations were all dubbed anti-Dalit.
JNU Fracas 2016 and the recent Gurmehar Kaur episode
Faultline: Ideological
Spin and distraction: When the JNU’s pro-Afzal Guru protests of early 2016 generated much outrage, the first fig leaf used was that dissent should not be stifled. There’s a fairly clear line between dissent and sedition which outright illegal. They made it an issue of freedom of speech. Ironically enough these media-academia themselves have a blood-stained record on free speech where they’ve often initiated or cheered restrictions and legal action against those whose opinions they do not like. As for academic freedom in India’s elite institutions, the lesser said the better.
In the Gurmehar Kaur episode, first the media-academia lobby provided a completely one-sided view of the matter. Shamefully enough one newspaper even showed the picture of an SFI member hitting someone else as an ABVP member assaulting someone. Then they mainstreamed Gurmehar Kaur’s rather naïve opinions on war and ABVP with almost nobody questioning the strength of her opinion but providing her an astro-turfed ground to play.
Further the focus shifted to alleged rape threats that the girl received. Even genuine criticism or mocking of Gurmehar’s naivete was painted as endorsement of rape threats and they tried to browbeat even celebrities.
The Grand Narrative
The intention in most of these instances was to precipitate social unrest in the nation, which could also then be pinned on Modi’s government. Often these campaigns were orchestrated when elections were looming large so that the atmosphere could be vitiated.
For instance, there was widespread consensus that Modi received a good amount of electoral backing from Dalits in his 2014 election. This unsettled the secular-liberal complex. Some journalist even tweeted enthusiastically that the Vemula issue ended the electoral support Modi received from Dalits:
A senior journalist virtually celebrating the death of Rohith Vemula, because it could hurt Narendra Modi electorally.
The ‘Church Attacks’ campaign was clearly designed to scare Indian Christians and dent Modi’s image internationally since he had just begun his tenure as PM and many international trips were in the offing. Some sections of the media went to the shameless level of even asking international delegates embarrassing questions around the matter.
These campaigns also seemed like signals from the secular-liberal stables in India to their international pressure groups that freedom of speech was under renewed threat under Modi’s government and dissenters were being ‘assassinated’ or muzzled.
There are also consistent attempts to bring down morale of the Armed Forces which they earlier tried to whip up with OROP by infiltrating political activists into the OROP movement.
Another target is Modi’s social media supporters. They’re being consistently targeted and branded as ‘trolls’ and pressure is being brought on Modi to disown them so that he loses their support.
Who are the beneficiaries?
In all these cases, it is amply clear the secular-liberal media-academia lobby was providing intellectual and ideological firepower to the assorted opposition parties that couldn’t tackle Narendra Modi electorally in 2014 elections.
AAP, Congress and other parties inevitably jumped onto the bandwagon instantaneously. Akhilesh Yadav showered largesse on the Akhlaq family in the name of compensation and milked the issue politically, apart from Modi’s political opponents like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal lining up at the Akhlaq family’s doorstep. Same happened in Rohith Vemula case.
The Church Attacks campaign was clearly milked by the AAP during Delhi Assembly polls, so much so that Christian leaders were openly declaring support for AAP. Even in Gurmehar’s case, it is clear that she was an AAP supporter since long. She had also been highlighted by NDTV in a show in May-2016. Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and assorted opposition politicians have once again jumped on her bandwagon.
These were clearly orchestrated such that the discourse can be moved away from developmental issues to divisive ones because the Opposition thinks it cannot match Modi on developmental issues, anti-corruption plank or economic progress. The Modi Wave was largely built on a developmental and aspirational pitch and the only way to break it is to keep making Modi spend political capital on social flame-baits rather than issues of economic progress.
After media reports suggested that there was political pressure to go slow on Brajesh Kumar Pandey – Bihar Congress leader and brother of NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar – now the public prosecutor handling the case has claimed that the minor Dalit girl, who had accused Brajesh Kumar of molesting her, was being harassed by the police through frequent questioning.
Special public prosecutor in the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court, Suresh Chandra Prasad made this startling allegation after a CID officer claimed that the victim girl was not being consistent in her statements.
“The police, instead of harassing her by questioning time and again, should go behind Pandey and other accused against whom there are enough evidence showing their involvement in the case,” the public prosecutor is quoted as saying by the Times of India.
It should be noted that the victim was a minor when she was molested and sexually exploited in January last year. Even though the victim is daughter of a former state minister, she had claimed that she had to face difficulties in getting the FIR filed against the accused as they were well-connected.
“My FIR was not lodged for three-four days despite approaching the police. It was later registered at the SC/ST police station (on December 22 last year),” the victim had earlier revealed.
Now it appears that the same police, which was reluctant to register an FIR, is now questioning the victim repeatedly and claiming that her various statements are not consistent. Activists and experts have often claimed that repeated and suggestive questions are used as a ploy to elicit inconsistent responses.
The public prosecutor also feels that instead of investing further time in repeated questioning of the victim, police should focus on evidences and try to nail the accused – Brajesh Kumar and Nikhil Priyadarshi, a well-connected businessman – both are accused of running a sex racket that has ruined lives of many women, including minor girls.
Brajesh Kumar has been maintaining that he was innocent and his only crime was knowing Nikhil Priyadarshi, while the victim girl claims that Brajesh was actively involved in the crime and in running the sex-racket. She claims that she was molested by Ravish Kumar’s brother after she was given sedatives in a drink at Nikhil’s place.
After Brajesh Kumar accused the victim of implicating him at the behest of BJP, the victim had released photographs that show her with Nikhil and Brajesh, disputing Brajesh’s claim that he didn’t know her. Some reports claim that mobile phone location data confirm that all three – the victim, Brajesh Kumar, and Nikhil Priyadarshi – were at the same place many times.
However, instead of acting further on such evidences and information to nail the culprits, the police is repeatedly questioning the victim, the public prosecutor claims. This has led people to wonder if the political pressure to spare Ravish Kumar’s brother has started to show impact.
As per latest reports, the bail application of Nikhil Priyadarshi has been rejected but he remains absconding. Reports say that he has been changing phone numbers and locations and was thought to be in Shimla last, where a political leader is reported to have met him. The aforementioned report doesn’t identify the leader.
The Gurmehar Kaur episode started with her opposing ABVP which she alleged to have indulged in violence at the Delhi University. This soon morphed into a debate over nationalism with the fact of her being a Martyr’s daughter and a supposed pacifist being used by the Left to validate her arguments and attack the Right.
Now this whole movement is threatening to take a dangerous turn by snowballing into a communal and even separatist matter. Twitter users were shocked to see such kind of statements being issued in support of Gurmehar:
As a Sikh I support Gurmehar Kaur. Hindu’s have always opposed Sikh’s and committed their genocide.
— Simranjit Singh Mann (@SimranjitSADA) March 1, 2017
This handle, purportedly of pro-Khalistan leader Simranjit Singh Mann, has been tweeting pro-Khalistan and pro-Afzal statements (incidentally the same group that gets support from leftist unions) even before this controversy broke out:
Leftist & AAP succeeded In what they were trying to do . Maligne nation’s sovereignty and given voice to separatists like khalid and https://t.co/E6Epj2rmmq
Apart from such individuals at the fringes, Gurmehar Kaur is also receiving support from various mainstream Sikh groups around the country. Various Punjab leaders, especially from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Sikh organisations like Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Managing Committee (DSGMC), Dal Khalsa, Istri Jagriti Manch Punjab and Sikh Sewak Society International have spoken out in support of Gurmehar.
Even the head of Akal Takht Gyani Gurbachan Singh has thrown his weight behind her by claiming that the entire Sikh community stands behind her. Referring to her as a Sikh girl, he asked the AAP government of Delhi to take strict measures against the people allegedly threatening her, failing which he warned that the Sikh community won’t be mute spectators. Not just in Punjab and Delhi, but various Sikh organisations in cities like Lucknow and elsewhere are rallying behind Gurmehar.
Though such organisations have the democratic and constitutional right to support her, the issue has now unwittingly taken a communal colour. Furthermore, by reducing it to Gurmehar’s religious identity, which was never in question by those who disagreed with her, her supporter are promoting a sectarian view of looking at things.
What started with a joke by Sehwag, has now unfurled into a full-blown war on social media. Sehwag was hounded in the initial rounds, and along with him, Randeep Hooda too faced attacks because he supported Sehwag. That was round one of the war. Round two saw even more celebrities facing the onslaught of sexist and elitist attacks.
In one of the attacks, since Haryana and girls of Haryana (who have brought laurels to this country) were dragged, the proud daughters of Haryana, Geeta and Babita Phogat spoke out. The same Phogats, whom entire India celebrated though the movie Dangal just a few weeks back.
To my horror, they too were ridiculed. And that too by the same group who were till now asking Sehwag & Hooda to pick on “someone of their own size”. Rajya Sabha MP & lyricist Javed Akhtar called them uneducated, unworthy people:
If a hardly literate player or a wrestler troll a pacifist daughter of a martyr its understandable but whats wrong with some educated folks
This guy, who has in his Twitter header image a photo with RK Pachauri, a person accused of sexually harassing women, had the galling hypocrisy to call Geeta Phogat as belonging to gutter and accusing her of sending abuses while she was battling abuse from likes of him:
Among other notable attacks was this, by a senior journalist, who referred to female athletes as “Ms Phokat” (Miss Free). Imagine the outrage if such a comment was made on the character of a left leaning celebrity by a right-winger:
These are just a few among thousands of other abusive messages they are receiving. And all this while, the same group that furiously defended Gurmehar Kaur and hounded anyone who commented on her or jokes about her, maintained strategic silence, emboldening further attacks on the sisters by random trolls.
Suddenly the “She is just 20 years old, don’t attack her” argument became invalid as the 20-odd year old Phogats are on the other side. These girls deserve abuse, contempt, ridicule because they say “Bharat mata ki Jai” and not “Bharat tere tukde honge”. All they did was to speak up against branding entire Haryana as anti-woman and talked about defending India’s interests. No country for Nationalists?
Why are they not being given the same treatment and headlines as Gurmehar? Phogat sisters have earned their respect, their place in society by sheer hard-work and if we fail them we are failing our generation of independent women. They are guilty of a lack of compassion as those they’re accusing till yesterday. Hounding people with contrary views when it is convenient doesn’t help.
This is where we lose out the battle of feminism in true essence. The secular-liberals are choosing to maintain stoic silence when middle-aged “educated” men with no achievements, question women who have achieved a lot, far beyond their age & what was provided to them. And this silence is only to protect their own 20-year-old face, who made headlines.
There in inherent elitism and class war in what is going on. Rooted desi girls who are not fluent in English versus the typical city girls who are preferred by the English language media protectors. Do we hate the fact that these “desi girls” are actual robust modern women who don’t bog down, who speak from their heart, sometimes enunciating even those views, which are now not palatable to the Lutyens sophisticated media?
Are we saying that while one 20-year-old has all the rights to Freedom of Expression, the Phogat sisters have none? The hypocrisy of our liberals is mind numbing. Their silence on incessant trolling, including by some “verified” handles, shows complete bias. Their famed feminism while defending one Gurmehar, and the lack of it when ignoring the other Phogat sisters stands exposed.
Wake up Delhi media, they are not “allegedly” trolled or insulted. The proof is right there for you to see just that you have chosen not to. If the girls are not playing victim, it doesn’t mean that they are not victim.
And it is much more than it looks. It is not just about Gurmehar vs Phogat sisters or ABVP vs AISA or any individual or group or democracy. It is much more than that. Try to see the message we are conveying to coming generations. Who do we want to be their idols? Is this how we are going to raise strong independent women? By insulting them for taking a stand?
