Ascent of Asia: 2009

Sadhvi Pragya: Truth will prevail
December 07, 2008

While we are gratified that our small initiative has borne fruit, it is painful for a woman writer to confess that the National Commission for Women was less than helpful in the matter of Sadhvi Pragya’s illegal detention, ill-treatment, and absence of women constables during an interrogation period that spanned 23-24 days!

The Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) must be ruing the day it agreed to persecute Sadhvi Pragya, Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit and others on grounds of “Hindu terror.” That the case was patently cooked up became visible from the moment the initial shock and surprise wore off, and with every passing day, as repeated police remands, narco-analysis, brain-mapping and lie detector tests failed to yield any half-credible evidence, the ATS found itself painted into a corner.

Its covert political puppeteers withdrew further into the shadows, and as ATS invoked the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the accused on 20 November 2008, things began to go rapidly downhill.

On Friday, 21 November 2008, a group of Delhi intellectuals led by the redoubtable KPS Gill, the nation’s most gallant and successful police officer, presented a memorandum against the ill-treatment meted out to Sadhvi Pragya on the basis of her sworn affidavit in court. Member, Mr. Justice G.P. Mathur, who met the delegation assured appropriate and speedy action in accordance with Commission procedures.

On Tuesday, 25 November 2008, the National Human Rights Commission issued notice to the Maharashtra Government regarding allegations of custodial torture of Sadhvi Pragya.

A day prior to this, the MCOCA special court dealt it a near lethal blow by denying ATS any further remand of Sadhvi Pragya, Lt. Col. Shrikant Prasad Purohit and Ajay Rahirkar. Instead, Special Judge Y.D. Shinde remanded all three, along with four others (Shivnarayan Gopalsingh Kalsangra, Maj (retd) Ramesh Updhayaya, Jagdish Chintaman Mhatre and Shyam Bhawarlal Sahu) to judicial custody till 3 December 2008.

In her sworn affidavit presented in the Nashik court on 17 November 2008, Sadhvi Pragya had alleged that 1] she was illegally detained for 10 days and shifted from one place to another; 2] she was physically assaulted and mentally tortured in custody; 3] she was robbed of her dignity by the ATS which questioned her chastity’ 4] no female police constables were present during her interrogation and transfer from one place to another and 5] she was denied the right to contact her family and her lawyer.

So immense was her trauma that she even contemplated committing suicide. She was subjected to narco-analysis and brain-mapping tests without her consent; these methods of interrogation are used to make accused persons incriminate themselves, and they were continued even though they repeatedly failed to achieve this objective.

The affidavit was so damning that the NHRC - that should have taken suo motu notice of the case the same day - could not sit silent once matters were presented before it in black and white. The absence of female constables from Sadhvi Pragya’s detention ordeal remains un-denied to this day, though we have been subjected to new dramas in the form of death threats to the Mumbai ATS. Give me a break!

In the MCOCA special court, Sadhvi Pragya made even more shameful revelations: “My interrogators (ATS officials) threatened to strip me and hang me upside down if I did not confess to my involvement in the Malegaon blasts… They also made me to listen to an obscene audio tape (involving another accused Ramesh Upadhyay)… I was so disturbed that I was in no mood to eat food for a couple of days.”

To the ATS’ further chagrin, Lt. Col. Purohit said investigating officials had threatened to plant RDX at his home so it would be easy for them to finish him in an encounter. “In their bid to extract confession from me, the ATS officials hung upside down from a rod with my hands tied to two poles. After they did all this to me, I lost sensation in my wrists and fingers,” he said.

Ramesh Updhayaya alleged that he was directly threatened by State Director General of Police A.N. Roy on 26 October 2008. He said he was tortured by Additional Commissioner of Police (ATS) Parambir Singh and Sukhwinder Singh: “Parambir and Sukhwinder physically abused me and then threatened to parade my wife and daughter naked in the police station and get them raped by all the officers here.”

These allegations are too shameful to be commented upon. Mercifully, the NHRC has taken cognizance of matters and asked the Maharashtra Chief Secretary Johny Joseph and Director General of Police A.N. Roy to submit a factual report on the situation within two weeks.

While we are gratified that our small initiative has borne fruit, it is painful for a woman writer to confess that the National Commission for Women was less than helpful in the matter of Sadhvi Pragya’s illegal detention, ill-treatment, and absence of women constables during an interrogation period that spanned 23-24 days!

I am ashamed to admit that some concerned citizens rang up Chairperson Girija Vyas for an appointment, only to learn that she was on leave the entire week, and was probably helping the election campaign of a political party (though naturally the office would not put this on record). We then sent email petitions, and petitions by courier, to Members and Chairperson.

Then, on 21 November 2008, riding piggy back with the visit to the NHRC, we took a signed petition to the National Commission for Women, personally interacted with a Member who was present, and got our petition received in the complaint cell. Since it is inconceivable that the Commission would not have informed Ms. Vyas about the petitions and our visit, it was truly shocking to find her stating on television on Monday evening (while surfing channels) that she had received no complaints regarding Sadhvi Pragya!

Within the country, the impression is fast gaining ground that the entire sequence of arrests and alleged Hindu terror theory was a gigantic conspiracy to weaken the institutions of the state which were joining hands and combating terror fairly competently. The votebank aspect of such a conspiracy is too obvious to need stating. What remains to be done is a thorough probe into the entire investigation to unveil the conspirators and their devious game-plan.

Indian minorities: Exterminatory zeal
November 02, 2008

For Hindus, and indeed, for all nationalist Indians, the Batla House encounter is non-debatable. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the encounter that ended in this tragedy. Those who do so have an axe to grind.

Muslim leaders would do well not to push the Hindu community beyond endurance. Hindus are willing to view jehad as an issue that can be settled by sound police work focussed against terrorist cells, and not view the Muslim community as a whole as villains on a murderous spree. But if persons like the Shahi Imam and Shabana Azmi, and Hindu-in-name-only activists (too numerous to mention) try to malign the police without credible evidence, then Hindus will be forced to come to their own conclusions about the Muslim community as a whole.
India’s two mighty, internationally-backed minorities are displaying renewed zeal to respectively dominate the physical polity and the cultural-civilisational landscape.

The saving grace in the current situation is that the respective crusades against Hindu civilisation are separate and distinct—Muslims quietly withdrew support from Christians after the West stepped up its campaign to demonise Islam, while humiliating Muslims in occupied Muslim lands.

As India has a long and unhappy memory of suffering at the hands of Muslim conquerors and rulers, the Western campaign fooled many Hindus into believing the West would support India in the modern jehad inspired by Wahabi Islam. Few understand that the Saudi version of Islam was and remains a tool of Western imperialism, and that there is a qualitative difference between the early medieval Islam which launched an autonomous drive for conquest, and the post-colonial jehad that has repeatedly wounded India, but brought no commensurate gains for Islam, either in India or anywhere else in the world.

Ideologically-savvy Muslims, however, are feeling the pressure of this pincer. They have not retreated from the path of jehad largely because the pressure to retreat is politically inadequate, but they have ended their jugalbandi with the Christian community.

Hindu society, however, is fast losing patience with jehad. The repeated targetting and killing of innocent civilians in city after city, the claims of victimhood in a nation where the majority community alone has no right to publicly affirm and demand respect for its religious identity, the refusal to engage with the modern world while demanding the benefits of backwardness, and above all, the belief that jehad is immune to legal justice, have enraged Hindus.

Inspector MC Sharma’s death has proved to be the proverbial last straw. For Hindus, and indeed, for all nationalist Indians, the Batla House encounter is non-debatable. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of the encounter that ended in this tragedy. Those who do so have an axe to grind. A few points may be noted.

One, jehad is the only concept invoked to explain and justify the premeditated murder of hundreds of innocent civilians (besides army, para-military, and police personnel) from the time of the Great Calcutta Killing of 1946. The term jehad is Koranic, and though Muslim scholars and apologists argue that the term has two meanings, the fact is that it is invoked by Muslim organisations to wage war on Hindu India over grievances ranging from a separate nation (Pakistan was granted in 1947); Palestine (where India had no role—yet no violence ever took place in any Western country till a few isolated incidents in recent times); and Kashmir (which legally acceded to India in October 1947 under the same process that created Pakistan).

Two, the other jehad is internal to the individual who chooses to practice it. It cannot be given a public face, which Muslim leaders fallaciously seek to do, to mislead the common man. Unfortunately for them, Hindu-Indian suffering in jehad attacks has been too immense and intense to swallow this lemon.

Third, only rare intellectuals can perceive that from the time of the Shimla Delegation that led to the creation of the Muslim League, separate electorates, and finally Partition, important Muslim leaders have served as agents of Western colonialism, and that this pattern played out in much of the Muslim world from the First World War itself. In the minds of ordinary Hindus, the pre-British Raj and Raj-inspired jehad are fused inseparably as unending Islamic violence against Hindus and India.

Ironically for Indian Muslims, this phenomenon has been entrenched by the refusal of Muslim and Leftist scholars to permit an honest review of Indian history—warts and all. This prevented the academic delineation of distinct phases of Indian history when different powers held sway at different times; inhibited a proper understanding of the mischief played by the British Raj and missionaries in undermining Hindu civilisation and fostering animosity leading to Partition; and left Muslims bearing the brunt of collective Hindu resentment over decades of Muslim appeasement in the post-Independence period.

In these circumstances, Muslim leaders would do well not to push the Hindu community beyond endurance. Hindus are willing to view jehad as an issue that can be settled by sound police work focussed against terrorist cells, and not view the Muslim community as a whole as villains on a murderous spree. But if persons like the Shahi Imam and Shabana Azmi, and Hindu-in-name-only activists (too numerous to mention) try to malign the police without credible evidence, then Hindus will be forced to come to their own conclusions about the Muslim community as a whole.

Muslim leaders must answer why, if Muslims stand by the Deoband resolution against terrorism, do leaders rush to the service of those accused of terror? And if terrorists really have no religion, why is the defence of alleged terrorists made only on religious grounds?

Meanwhile, the civilisational assault by India ’s supposedly miniscule Christian minority has been even more unrelenting, as evidenced by the widening arc of Hindu reaction following the gruesome murder of Swami Laxmanananda and four sannyasi disciples in Kandhamal district, Orissa, on Janmashtami day.

To borrow Marxist terminology, there can be no doubt that the Christian leadership perceives itself as a vanguard for the en masse conversion of Hindu India, and feels emboldened by the political ascent of the Italian-born Congress president. Smt Sonia Gandhi has done much for her co-religionists under the UPA regime, putting the Christian cross on coins and sending an official delegation when the Vatican elevated a little known Kerala nun to sainthood.

Sainthood is, of course, purely political, intended to spur more conversions, so that either a portion like the north-east can be partitioned a la East Timor (2002), or the Christian population upgraded into a decisive vote bank like the Muslim vote bank, so that it can have a decisive say in the polity. It is necessitated because charities run by the Albanian nun, Mother Teresa, who was given the Nobel Peace Prize to promote the Christian agenda, have come under a cloud in the West itself.

It is pertinent that the widespread Hindu angst against evangelists owes much to a popular perception that the Christian population is much larger than admitted to census authorities, perhaps as high as seven per cent. Should evangelists succeed in raising numbers by another five-seven per cent, the combined minority vote bank would render Hindu vote ineffective and completely alter the political demography of the Indian Parliament and assemblies in several states. This is not a small threat, and the spreading confrontation with locally ignited Hindu populations suggests that the danger is real.

Indeed, this may well be the reason why Smt Sonia Gandhi remained silent in the face of the on-going anti-Christian agitation rocking India—she cannot afford to answer questions about her religious affiliations. But as someone who spares no opportunity to malign organisations defending Hindu culture and civilisation, Smt Gandhi must be asked to publicly explain her position on conversions, especially as prominent Christians are spreading the canard that the Constitution grants the right to convert. It does not.

There are distortions in Hindu society. Fight within
Counter Point
August 17, 2008

In an age with a plethora of god-men, gurus, preachers, some so popular as to have ashrams in many states and even in many countries, it is an astonishing truth that society is rudderless, adrift on an ocean of hedonism, without spiritual and moral guidance.

The fault lies with Star Gurus who seek self-aggrandisement by building huge cult followings and five-star ashrams where rich Indian and foreign devotees can practice yoga and meditation in comfort, in salubrious, resort-like environs. Justifying the Marxist slander of religion as the opium of the people, they peddle lullabies to frustrated millions seeking release from life’s myriad problems. Such vicarious redemption is totally un-Hindu, and extremely harmful, as it turns a blind eye to festering evils and allows them to multiply under cover of a guru’s benign gaze.

As the majority community, the ill-health of the Hindu community impacts the nation as a whole. Other religious communities may have problems, but their impact is in proportion to their relative numbers. Hindus therefore dominate the national discourse when it comes to social problems, most notably the growing menace of dowry, female foeticide, sexual harassment, and new forms of exploitation in the natal and marital homes. Then there are new forms of caste animosities and perverted forms of addressing religious issues.

In sharp contrast to the vigorous debates by social and religious reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, independent India and particularly the twenty-first century is conspicuous for an absence of social, religious, and political leadership. In an era in which mass communications have made it so easy to reach out to the people, there are no great men to analyze and articulate the ills of the day, much less offer solutions.

Today, the most obvious place to begin a critique of our religious leadership is Amarnath. It is well-known that the Muslim-majority Government of J&K had decided to allot a small piece of land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board for building facilities for pilgrims. This was deliberately exploited by a section of the ruling coalition to whip up sentiments in view of the forthcoming elections, and violence broke out. As Hindus refused to take it lying down, casualties are increasing even as the Jammu-Pathankot highway is blockaded to make the protests punitive for Srinagar ’s fruit-sellers.

While all the Muslim political leaders of Kashmir have come out and opposed land transfer for Amarnath pilgrims, the few sane voices of Muslim religious leaders have been drowned in the din. But the deafening silence of Hindu religious leaders on the matter is inexplicable. Amazing as it sounds, some modern godmen have flown to Seattle, USA, to endorse the controversial Indo-US nuclear deal, and though they peddle ‘Hindu wares like yoga and meditation,’ their followers abroad claim status as non-Hindu spiritual groups (whatever that means).

The events in Kashmir must legitimately be viewed as a new form of jihad against Hindu pilgrims, but no high-flying international swami has dared call upon the Hurriyat leadership to stem the violence! Worse, some of them have actually asked the aggrieved Hindus to practice non-violence - after sustained police violence that is taking Hindu lives daily. Police in fact even stole the body of a man who consumed poison out of excessive grief over the land issue, and tried to burn it hastily with tyres and kerosene, until people’s action retrieved the body. Clearly Hindu society has to provide its own leadership in such critical times.

Just 80 years ago, social reformer Swami Shraddhanand made such an impact upon north Indian society that even Muslims were attracted to his meetings, and some converted back to the dharma (this was the reason why he was murdered). Today, very well-known gurus are refusing to help the families of devotees asking them to speak up against inter-religious marriages, and to counsel their young children from taking the risk of breaking community ties for marriages that may not work. It is well-known that many high profile inter-religious marriages have ended in divorce, leaving young mothers in a peculiar quandary regarding the upbringing of their offspring.

Closer home, there are too many distortions within the Hindu family that are going unaddressed by social and religious leaders. Most pressing are the rising incidents of dowry - which even the highly publicized incidents of returning barats and refusing to marry greedy grooms - have not been able to quell. Even the full salaries of working women - grabbed instantly the minute they are received - do not satisfy the greed of those addicted to getting everything free. Closely related to this is the rising incidence of female foeticide, as families who regard young wives as a resource to extract funds from the natal families of the girls, do not want daughters who might need similar dowries!

Despite the clampdown by the legal system—thanks to the fact that women’s groups woke up to the menace very early—female foeticide has warped the male-female population ratio in several states, which is unlikely to be rectified easily. Many communities now pay a bride price to buy brides from girl-surplus states, yet female foeticide increases among groups that do not bother to think that by the time their sons marry, there may be no girls with dowries but girls for whom a price has to be paid! Hindu religious leaders—barring Jathedar Vedanti who declared it immoral and illegal for Sikhs—have maintained inexplicable silence on these rising atrocities within the family and society.

Such myriad problems naturally cause a spiralling divorce rate. Here again, there are complex issues, which are not addressed by social activists, the legal system, or religious leaders. Currently, Government ministers and judges are urging aggrieved women not to ‘misuse’ the law to settle scores with estranged husbands and in-laws.

Yet the root cause of such alleged ‘misuse’ remains un-addressed, which is that aggrieved women are pushed by their lawyers to use the existing provisions of the law to get justice, because the law does not address the actual problems. If there was a sensible mechanism to assessing the genuine grievances of women leaving the marital home, if there was a time-bound facility for divorce for unhappy women and reasonable legal charges, if the system showed an ability to dispense justice rather than settle ‘cases,’ there would be no reason to settle scores through whatever legal provisions are available. Women seeking exit from unworkable marriages need a break, not a sermon.

From the time Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and similar stalwarts spoke out for widow remarriage, women’s education, economic empowerment and later marriages, to the current religious leadership—it is a story of social stagnation. Old evils are being reinvented in more virulent forms because there is no desire to invest time and energy in identifying the fixing the problems. Thus, the cults of various gurus rise and their personal affluence soars heavenwards in direct proportion as society languishes in escapism and despair.

The flip side of this story is that an increasing number of people, thousands upon thousands, are fast making their way back to the traditional temples and pilgrimages that have ever been the sources of Hindu dharma. As the hoary founts of dharma are rejuvenated by the bhakti of believers, the glitter of 5-star ashrams will dim, and traditional bhajan-mandalis, kathas, and lilas will return to the centrestage. As small groups congregate in small temples and compounds, the real problems of the people will be heard and solutions found. Hindu dharma was created by sadhus and sants who walked on foot, not by those who travelled in aeroplanes. It was created by those who talked to the people, not by those who talked to media. Like Prahlad who had to find his own way in a universe dominated by his father Hiranyakasipu and aunt Holika, Hindus will have to find their own way out of the morass.

Husain has hurt Hindu sentiments
May 25, 2008

It needs to be emphasised that Hindus who believe in sarvadharmasamabhav cannot demand that Mr. Husain defame the sacred personalities of his own or another monotheistic faith if he claims artistic liberty and pretends he had no intention to defame the Hindu dharma.

THE sharp disappointment in the Hindu community over the Delhi High Court’s decision to quash three cases against painter Maqbool Fida Husain provides an ideal opportunity to all communities to debate the issue of mutual religious respect and the Vedic concept of sarvadharmasamabhav.

To my mind, there are two separate and overlapping issues involved, which must not be mixed up in a manner that promotes communal disharmony, when this is entirely avoidable. The first and most obvious is inter-religious disrespect, and the second related issue is intra-religious discourtesy to fellow believers.

Mr. M.F. Husain’s behaviour falls obviously in the first category, of inter-religious indecency, and the gravity of his offence must be understood in its proper perspective without being unduly prurient. First, however, it must be pointed out to unhappy members of the Hindu community that Mr. Husain has been released in cases pertaining to a painting of ‘Bharat Mata’ alone, and that too, on technical grounds. Mr. Husain had painted a nude woman over the backdrop of the Indian subcontinent, and it was the art gallery that titled the painting as ‘Bharat Mata’. Hence Mr. Husain’s claim that it was an abstract nude was technically sound.

Some Hindus feel the Hon’ble judge was unduly kind to the nonagenarian painter, buying into his lawyers’ argument that the painter was forced to live in self-imposed exile, and “deserved to be at home and painting.” But Mr. Husain left the country of his own accord to evade the judicial system, and has since profited from the controversy to sell his paintings at startling prices. He was free to return at any time and face the charges against himself manfully, but he chose to cock a snook at Hindu sentiments and enjoy himself abroad.

The critical charge against Mr. Husain is that as a member of a non-Hindu faith (specifically, as a Muslim), he should not have dabbled with the powerful religious symbols, specially the female divinities, of another faith, with so much contempt and disrespect. As an artist, he did and does have the freedom to choose his themes from anywhere in the world. But he has chosen broadly to draw upon themes from Hindu dharma, and in the perception of the Hindu community, he has displayed uncalled for indecency in some of the portrayals.

Some paintings have been particularly offensive. The most controversial was that of a naked Sitaji clinging to the tail of Hanuman. Even in terms of mythology, this is taking liberties with the text of the Ramayana, as it is well-known that Sita refused Hanuman’s offer to rescue her, saying she could not be touched by another male. Then, the Goddesses Durga and Parvati are depicted nude in postures that are too obscene to be confused as art, except perhaps in a pornographic magazine. Even Saraswati has not been spared, and thus we can legitimately come to the conclusion that Mr. Husain has intentionally subjected all the major Hindu female divinities to a form of cultural iconoclasm that is vulgar beyond belief.

This view is not confined to Hindus alone, and no orthodox or secular Muslim has to date come to the defence of Mr. Husain in this matter. He has been openly condemned in television debates and the print media by his own co-religionists. Indeed, his only supporters and admirers are deracinated Hindus who have made a career out of baiting the Hindu community. Not one of these supporters would have defended him if he had subjected the sacred personalities of another faith, including his own, to such contempt. In sharp contrast, the late Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza wrote the screenplay of the tele-series Mahabharata with utmost respect and intellectual depth.

Hence, it needs to be emphasised that Hindus who believe in sarvadharma-samabhav cannot demand that Mr. Husain defame the sacred personalities of his own or another monotheistic faith if he claims artistic liberty and pretends he had no intention to defame the Hindu dharma. This is no way to ‘balance the books;’ it does not restore Hindu honour to dishonour another religion. For us, the best way forward is to ensure that the other cases are taken up seriously, with the judges concerned receiving clear copies of the impugned paintings with a graphic explanation of what is objectionable. It would then be incumbent upon the judge(s) to explain why the said divinity is not defamed, but actually honoured by Mr. Husain’s brush-work. The distinction between liberty and license must be strictly upheld.

It may be added that the controversy over the Danish cartoons against Prophet Mohammad two years ago was a deliberate attempt to outrage Muslim sentiments in Europe in order to facilitate a backlash against Muslim immigration to the continent. Muslims saw through the ruse and remained largely peaceful, though they were naturally enraged. No sensible Hindu writer in India supported the cartoonists then, and the contention that the provocation was intentional is upheld by the fact that recently the cartoons were reprinted on some puerile pretext. Deracinated Hindus who are now citizens of United Kingdom and United States were delighted with the controversy, and one is at a loss to understand why, as they have no conflict with Islam or Muslims in their new countries. It is surely a case of being more loyal than the king!

This brings us to the issue of intra-religious misdemeanours. Author Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses comes readily to mind. The deliberate insult to the Prophet’s wives earned Mr. Rushdie a fatwa and undying fame and wealth. But it needs to be added that he received an astronomical advance to write the book just ahead to the West’s pre-planned assault on the Muslim world. Seen in this perspective it became, not an intra-Islamic conflict, but part of a larger intra-religious dispute between the Christian West and the world of the Prophet, with the London-based author striking a deal with well-paying infidels.

Spotlight on Gandhi siblings
Opinion
May 18, 2008

If Smt. Vadra’s visit was not recorded, it could only have been at the behest of the Centre or State Government, and the authorities concerned should speak up, rather than leave the officer to take the rap. This raises questions about the motives of the meeting.

Former Congress MP Akhilesh Das and the Superintendent of Vellore Jail have, in their own ways, drawn national attention to the ‘non-accountability’ of the party’s so-called first family. As the Gandhi siblings’ style of functioning has a direct bearing on the polity, it is time to subject them to greater scrutiny.

Whatever the personal provocations of Shri Akhilesh Das who was dropped from the Union Council of Ministers last month, he dramatically resigned from the Rajya Sabha and the primary membership of the Congress, lambasting a “coterie” around Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi. Shri Das had seven-months left in his Rajya Sabha tenure, so his decision to resign prematurely was doubtless propelled by weighty considerations; doubtless his political future would figure among these.

Shri Das has cited loss of “faith and confidence” in the Congress, and this should be viewed as a direct attack upon party president Sonia Gandhi. He evaded direct confrontation by blaming the rise of a “coterie” around Rahul Gandhi, which was becoming an “unconstitutional power centre.” This is reminiscent of the “caucus” through which the late Sanjay Gandhi once dominated the Congress and the Central Government, and is a direct indictment of the ruling family.

Shri Das has alleged that his removal from the ministry was due to this coterie, and that several senior leaders and even Cabinet ministers were suffering at the hands of this clique. He has been too timid to say if he tried to take his grievances to Smt Sonia Gandhi directly; presumably he did, but failed. The letter of resignation addressed to her mentions the appointment of Rahul aide Kanishka Singh’s father S.K. Singh as Governor of Rajasthan despite being close to Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and former External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh; and the appointment of Rita Bahuguna Joshi as UP Congress chief though she had lost her deposit in the last Assembly election.

Voicing concerns previously associated with the rise of the late Sanjay Gandhi, Shri Das told the media that Shri Rahul Gandhi was “in-charge of the country... He is only general secretary of Youth Congress and NSUI but he is controlling the entire Congress party and he is controlling the entire nation. If he is not happy with you and his coterie is not happy with you, you cannot be in the party…”

These are warning signals that Congress can ignore at its own peril, especially as they come after the virtual projection of Shri Rahul Gandhi as the party’s PM-in-waiting. Given the known history of the Gandhi family, it is entirely believable that decision-making is coterie-based and non-transparent; this will upset both those who have genuine grassroots support as well as those who suddenly lose patronage, like Shri Das. The extent of his grassroots support will now be known if he gets the Bahujan Samaj Party nomination for Lucknow during the next general elections. For that appears to be where he is heading, having indicated a tilt towards the BSP by alleging that the Centre failed to provide Uttar Pradesh with additional funds despite several requests from the state government.

Meanwhile, despite a friendly media agreeing to clamp down on the controversy over Smt Priyanka Vadra’s meeting with Nalini Murugan, convicted in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, there is need for deeper investigation into the facts of the visit. Following an RTI filed by lawyer D. Raj Kumar, two things happened. First, Smt. Vadra admitted that the March 19, 2008 meeting took place, through a statement read out by a Congress spokesman, and the Vellore Jail Superintendent denied such a meeting had taken place!

This has various possible implications, and the nation has a right to know what did transpire. As previously argued, the meeting could not have taken place without the explicit consent and logistical backing of the Central and State Governments. Smt Vadra and Nalini’s lawyer S. Doraisamy have admitted that the meeting did take place.

This leaves us with the questions of the venue where it occurred, and the motive. The Superintendent of Special Prison for Women, B. Rajasoundari, has filed a written reply that nobody met Nalini Murugan on March 14 and March 19. The veracity of this claim can easily be checked with other prison inmates, guards, and the interrogation of Smt Vadra, her state-provided security, and Nalini. If the meeting took place in the jail, the Superintendent must be asked to explain why it was not recorded, and why Smt. Vadra was not made to sign the visitor’s register. Prison security is never lax unless it is “arranged” to be so. If smt Vadra’s visit was not recorded, it could only have been at the behest of the Centre or State Government, and the authorities concerned should speak up, rather than leave the officer to take the rap. This raises questions about the motives of the meeting.

The second possibility is that the meeting took place somewhere else, possibly the famous ‘golden temple’ Smt. Vadra admitted visiting that day. If so, we need to know if Nalini’s exit from the Vellore Jail was recorded by the authorities; who authorised her departure; who handled her security outside the jail in view of a known threat to her life; and what were the motives behind such grand liberties with the legal system. Since the government does not exist to indulge in the childish pranks of Smt Vadra, there has to be a political answer to these questions. The search for personal closure is a nice story, but there is no reason why it could not wait a few years till Nalini became a free person. She could then have been invited to 10 Janpath and given employment under NREGA!

Obviously, the political powers that permitted the meeting were not prepared for Nalini’s lawyer using RTI to put the meeting on record, and thus bring unwelcome scrutiny on the Gandhi family. Conveniently, Nalini’s petition seeking release from jail is now in court; before the courts decide the matter, the full truth behind the Priyanka-Nalini meeting must be made public.

A personal visit with political intent
May 04, 2008

Bureau has received warnings of the possible threat to Nalini’s life inside the Vellore Central Prison, where other convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case are also lodged.

It is increasingly evident that Ms. Priyanka Vadra’s unrecorded visit to the Vellore Jail to meet convict Nalini Sriharan had more to do with the politics of the Gandhi family than with forgiveness and the quest for personal closure. The most disturbing aspect of the meeting is that, though both parties have admitted that it took place, it is unrecorded in the register of the Vellore Jail.

This is literally a can of worms; and it has come to light only on account of the RTI application filed by lawyer D Raj Kumar. This calls for an enquiry as it raises the possibility of Nalini having been illegally secreted out of the jail and taken to meet Ms. Vadra somewhere else. As the golden temple was one place visited by Ms. Vadra during her brief stay in Vellore, it is the natural place to begin such investigations.

A second fact that has come to light, which perhaps explains the mysterious air dash from Delhi, is the fact that Nalini’s husband, Murugan, who received the death penalty in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, is reportedly bringing out his autobiography. While it would be premature to speculate about its contents, the possibility that it may contain something that a political family may want excised cannot be ruled out.

Intimately related to this possibility are press reports suggesting that Nalini has crossed the life sentence of 14 years, and has been in jail for 17 years. There is speculation that Priyanka’s meeting was a prelude to moving a petition for her release, failing which she would have to wait another three years in order to be released under the statutory provision of maximum detention for 20 years. It was under this provision that Gopal Godse was released from prison after the Gandhi murder.

This opens another line of thought. As Nalini can easily wait for another three years to be released, we may legitimately ask if the conversation veered around Murugan, who is sentenced to death but has spent 17 years in prison, waiting for the lengthy judicial process to exhaust itself. This is well past the normal life sentence, and just three years short of the statutory 20 years jail for life imprisonment.

The question arises: has Murugan’s case reached nearer to the execution of the death sentence, and is there a covert move to make a case for commuting this to life imprisonment, with release just three years away? Is that why the friendly media has been asked to wax eloquent on the forgiving nature of the Gandhi women (first Sonia, now Priyanka), when the fact remains that they have no locus standi to meddle in these matters in the first place? Was the Murugan family being prodded to move a mercy petition before the President, which could then be tackled through the Congress-dominated UPA government, which has to advise the President how to deal with it? If yes, what is the quid pro quo?

Murugan, who met his wife Nalini on March 22, 2008, just three days after her meeting with Priyanka, has since avoided two scheduled meetings with here, triggering speculation that he was unhappy with the discussions between the two women. Thereafter, Nalini also refused to meet the members of Murugan’s family who came to visit her, pleading a stomach pain. It is pertinent that the alleged Nalini-Murugan differences have surfaced at a time when the Intelligence Bureau has received warnings of the possible threat to Nalini’s life inside the Vellore Central Prison, where other convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case are also lodged. This suggests that it may not be easy for the Rajiv case conspirators to break ranks by cutting private deals.

What is more, with the initial shock regarding the Priyanka-Nalini meeting wearing off, reactions have begun coming in from the families of the fellow-victims of the bomb blast at Sriperumbudur. As many as 15 others died with former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, including 9 police personnel and a child, Kokilavani, who minutes before the blast was busy rehearsing a poem in praise of him. The little girl and her mother died when human bomb ‘Dhanu’ blew herself up.

The families of these and other victims have begun to speak up, presenting a more real, but unflattering, picture of the Gandhi family. Javid Iqbal was only 17 when he and his mother, Nazeem Banu, found the body of his father, Mohamed Iqbal, shattered below the waist on the night of 21 May 1991. Mr. Iqbal, Superintendent of Police, Chengai West, was blown up when he and other policeman tried stopping Dhanu from entering the security cordon around Rajiv Gandhi. They are bitter at the thought of pardoning anyone connected with the bombing. The family of freedom fighter ‘League’ Munnusamy, the only Congressman to die in the bombing, feels that the Priyanka-Nalini meeting has only reopened old wounds. Most of the families of victims did not get any compensation, help with jobs, education of children, or medical assistance. Many persons were grievously injured in the blast, and have to continue to pay for the medical problems.

These families, which did not receive even a letter from the Congress or the Gandhi family acknowledging their loss and offering condolences, are unimpressed by their publicity-oriented magnanimity towards Nalini. They point out that the memorial at Sriperumbudur does not even mention the other persons who died along with Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. This is a national shame, and should even now be rectified with a plaque bearing the names of all who died that day. It bears mentioning that the Gandhi family makes annual visits to Sriperumbudur, yet in all these 17 years it has not thought fit to remember and visit the families shattered by the blast.

Politics in Priyanka’s private prison visit
April 27, 2008

Press reports suggest that there are moves to help Nalini get an early release from jail, where she has spent nearly 17 years. If she is released before the statutory 20 years (which provision led to the release of Gandhi assassin Gopal Godse), she may make her way to London, where her 14-year-old daughter resides with Murugan’s brother.

Priyanka owes an explanation why she is dissatisfied with the SIT investigation and the prosecution. What facts did she think she could personally unravel, Perry Mason style, by visiting Nalini in jail? She cannot be so naïve as to expect Nalini to tell her more than what SIT has uncovered, so there is something unknown here.

There is something deeply suspicious about Ms. Priyanka Vadra’s secret visit to Vellore on 19 March 2008 to meet Nalini Sriharan, a member of the LTTE squad that assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May 1991.

Earlier, it was revealed that Ms. Vadra had slipped away from her security guards and flown from Delhi to Vellore for a 15-minute secret visit to the ‘golden temple’ at Sripuram. This in itself was suspicious, as Ms. Vadra is believed to be a non-Hindu and has no reason to visit any temple, let alone surreptitiously. Rediff now says that the Vadras wish to have their children baptized and SPG has checked out the venue of a Delhi church in this regard.

Moreover, according to regular visitors when the golden temple was being built, this project by a little-known swami was mainly financed by Canadian donors. The temple does not appear to have been constructed according to the Agamas, usually the most notable feature of South Indian temples. Normally temples have a golden kalash, but such huge amounts of gold that require round-the-clock surveillance are quite unheard of. Indian authorities may therefore do well to keep an eye on this temple.

Now, a lawyer, Mr. D Raj Kumar, filed an application under the RTI Act which brought out the bizarre fact that Ms. Vadra went to Vellore Jail and met Nalini, a member of her fathers’ killer squad. This would only have been possible by moving the might of two governments - the UPA at the Centre and the DMK at State level - to ensure the secrecy and the possibility of the visit. Mr. Kumar has rightly asked under which legal provision Priyanka was allowed to meet Nalini, who accompanied her, how long the meeting lasted, and what they talked about.

Once the news had to be acknowledged, Ms. Priyanka Vadra admitted through a spokesperson that she visited Vellore on a personal visit in order to “make peace with violence in my life.” Emissaries have revealed a sanitized version of the conversation with Nalini, wherein Priyanka is said to have asked her why she participated in the murder and the “true conspirator” behind it.

It needs to be emphasized outright that there is need for close scrutiny of Ms. Vadra’s purported statements and behaviour. There is nothing personal here. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was not assassinated on account of personal enmity (that would be murder). He was assassinated after a well-planned conspiracy because of his decision to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka to exterminate the LTTE. Excellent work by the Special Investigating Team led by Mr. D. Kartikeyan exposed the LTTE role in the bomb blast, the identities of Dhanu and others, and even closed in on suspects still in hiding and forced Sivarasan to commit suicide to avoid capture. The case was also prosecuted ably in court and death penalty awarded to Murugan and others, including Nalini.

Priyanka owes an explanation why she is dissatisfied with the SIT investigation and the prosecution. What facts did she think she could personally unravel, Perry Mason style, by visiting Nalini in jail? She cannot be so naïve as to expect Nalini to tell her more than what SIT has uncovered, so there is something unknown here.

More disturbing is the fact that Nalini, who had an affair with co-conspirator Murugan (also known as Sriharan), was allowed to marry him while in jail and cohabit (surely a rare luxury) to the extent of becoming pregnant. This saved her life, because given Indian cultural sensitivity towards mothers the system naturally commuted the death sentence of a young mother. Ms. Sonia Gandhi got undeserved publicity as an angel of mercy for asking for commutation, because in Indian law she has no locus standi to seek pardon or to pardon a convict—that is an Islamic luxury in Islamic nations. What we really need to know is: Who were Nalini’s secret patrons who ensured her marriage and her pregnancy in jail, when men and women are supposed to be in separate sections?

Priyanka cannot now evade a personal explanation on the politics pursued by her father, which was the reason for his assassination. Does she think he was right to send the IPKF to Sri Lanka, or does she think the LTTE was right to demand a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka? If she is making peace with the past, this issue has to be resolved in her mind and made known to the country as she has used political and official connections to make contact with Nalini.

Nalini’s lawyers, S Duraisamy and Elangovan, who were briefed extensively by her, have told the media that the meeting lasted for nearly an hour. That is a very long time, so more than small talk would have been exchanged. The lawyers have said there were lengthy preparations for the meeting long before it happened; Indian intelligence was in the picture.

Press reports suggest that there are moves to help Nalini get an early release from jail, where she has spent nearly 17 years. If she is released before the statutory 20 years (which provision led to the release of Gandhi assassin Gopal Godse), she may make her way to London, where her 14-year-old daughter resides with Murugan’s brother. One does not know when Murugan’s brother made his way to London, and the daughter afterwards (earlier she lived in Jaffna), but it does seem that international borders are remarkably porous in providing mobility to anti-India forces.

Something was clearly transacted during the Priyanka-Nalini meeting. Priyanka must answer why (as reported by the lawyers) she asked Nalini if LTTE was the mastermind behind the blast, or some other agency. Didn’t she believe the investigating agencies and the LTTE’s own admission, made indirectly in a regret statement some years ago? Or is she party to a larger conspiracy to pin the blame on someone else? The nation has the right to know - Priyanka must not be allowed to take refuge in silence.

The fate of US in Iraq depends on Democrats
April 13, 2008

The Iraq war has so far taken a toll of 4,000 American lives, with another 30,000 wounded. Trillions of dollars and worldwide American credibility have been lost. The war has inflamed anti-American sentiment in the Gulf and South Asia, divided Iraq and enhanced Teheran’s regional influence—the very opposite of the White House’s foreign policy objectives !

Former US national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, once a powerful proponent of American supremacy in the Gulf, now leads the pack wanting Washington out of Baghdad fast. A key advisor of Democrat presidential aspirant Barrack Obama, Brzezinski recently argued in The Washington Post that it is time to end the “Foolish War.”

Regardless of what Washington actually does after November 2008, both Democratic presidential candidates are currently garnering support on an agenda that calls for ending the messy and un-winnable war, if elected. Republican candidate John McCain is determined to continue the war. It is difficult to say how sincere the Democrats actually are as in July 2007 the anti-war campaigner Cindy Sheehan (who lost her son in the war) withdrew her dharna outside the Bush ranch in Texas after being abused and let down by the Democrats and others who initially supported her protests.

Still, Brzezinski openly avers now that the war had low merit and is bad cost accounting. He favours a comprehensive political and diplomatic effort to ward off possible regional instability in the wake of American withdrawal, a fear scenario painted by the Bush Administration and the Republican aspirant. Such arguments were used in the past to justify America continuing the Vietnam War; it ended in American retreat and defeat.

The Iraq war has so far taken a toll of 4,000 American lives, with another 30,000 wounded. Trillions of dollars and worldwide American credibility have been lost. The war has inflamed anti-American sentiment in the Gulf and South Asia, divided Iraq and enhanced Teheran’s regional influence - the very opposite of the White House’s foreign policy objectives! While American Presidents and other world leaders have to sneak into Baghdad in secrecy and stay in the safety of the Green Zone, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a public visit to public acclaim. Even the puppet regime in Baghdad wants to do business with Iran!

Washington will have to come to terms with the reality that regions like Kurdistan, the Shiite south, and some tribal belts in the Sunni portion, have already become self-governing enclaves. American influence is negligible here.

What is more, there is no meaningful al-Qaeda presence in the anti-American insurgency - America is hated as an invading power, and this fuels the jihad against it. This is an important admission given the fact that al-Qaeda’s links with the deposed Saddam Hussain regime was proffered as one of the main arguments to justify the war. Brzezinski berates the Bush Administration for the so-called “unipolar moment” following the collapse of the Soviet Union. These visions of grandeur conjured up a policy of unilateral use of force, military threats, and occupation masquerading as democratisation; these in turn fueled anti-colonial resentments, besides breeding religious fanaticism. Gulf stability has actually been endangered by this policy.

Engaging Teheran on regional security and its nuclear programme is a prerequisite to lasting peace in the region. This cannot be done without making concessions to Tehran. At the very least, military threats to Teheran must be discontinued as they are both counter-productive and give Iranian nationalism a tinge of religious fanaticism.

Brzezinski does not directly allude in his article to the Human Rights violations and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other prisons that horrified the world and American public opinion. However, last year, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Iraq war was a “historic, strategic, and moral calamity.”

It is pertinent that as early as February 2007, the former national security adviser warned that continued US involvement in the war would inevitably result in a “head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.” US military action against Iran could push America into conflict - alone - with Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This is an interesting analysis - that anti-American strife could hit the region simultaneously - and one that has evaded most commentators, who tend to see the situation in terms of America picking up one cherry at a time and gobbling it up.

Personally I believe that US withdrawal will not be easy, no matter which party wins the election, as the forces and characters behind the war will not let this happen. In such a scenario, an American defeat and messy retreat, as in Vietnam, seems more likely to fructify in the coming months, as the armed forces and citizenry see no justification for the war and its continuance. This affects morale and fighting spirit. Recently, in Britain, America’s only staunch ally in the war, the army chief spoke loudly against poor compensation and care extended to soldiers, an indication that Washington may increasingly have to fight the war alone.

Viable Iraqi leaders are those who live and exercise power outside the sanitized Green Zone, a four-square mile fortress in Baghdad, protected by a 15-foot thick wall and heavily protected. Washington is unlikely to find the honesty and humility to deal with such Iraqi leaders; they will have to storm their way in on the strength of a people’s movement, as Ayatollah Khomeini once did in Iran. Should that happen, Iran and Syria will have the last laugh.

Sub-prime scam behind Spitzer fall
April 06, 2008

Spitzer was doomed with a signed article in the Washington Post on February 14, 2008, titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.” He blamed the government for the sub-prime crisis: “In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative.”

One reason could be to destabilise China, because a stable world and peaceful Asia will make China a formidable power. But if the world economy collapses and there is unrest in Asia, Beijing will be cornered. This will also threaten the stability of South East Asia and India. The Islamic world is already in turmoil; matters could get worse with rising regional distress.
New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after a government leak about his involvement in a sex scandal, was reportedly stung by a White House-Wall Street nexus to silence his relentless criticism of their handling of the current financial crisis. Observers predict at least 2.5 million American families may lose their homes this year due to predatory lending practices protected by the White House.

Mr. William Engdahl, author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, argues in Asian Times Online that Spitzer had an impressive record as State Attorney General for pursuing financial crimes like the Enron fraud and corruption by Wall Street investment banks during the 2002 dotcom bubble. He made powerful enemies, such as Hank Greenburg, former head of AIG insurance group, and Wall Street. As New York Governor, Spitzer was attacking Bush administration complicity in fixing covert bailouts for Wall Street friends from taxpayer funds, at the expense of ordinary homeowners, when the ‘scandal’ broke and drove him out of office.

Spitzer’s crime was his harsh condemnation of the White House for the current financial disaster. In February 2008, he testified before the US House of Representatives Financial Services subcommittee on problems in New York-based specialised insurance companies, called “monoline” insurers. He told CNBC he blamed the crisis and its broader economic fallout on the Bush administration.

He said years ago the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) went to court and blocked New York State efforts to investigate the mortgage activities of national banks. The OCC did not stop questionable loan marketing practices or uphold higher underwriting standards. The crisis could have been avoided if OCC had done its job, but the “Bush administration let the housing bubble inflate and now that it’s deflating we’re dealing with the consequences. The real failure, the genesis, the germ that has spread, was the sub-prime scandal,” he said. Fraudulent marketing and very low ‘teaser’ mortgage rates that ballooned higher should have been stopped. When mortgages are marketed, it is mandatory to ensure the borrower can afford to repay the debt; these ground rules were ignored.

Spitzer was doomed with a signed article in the Washington Post on February 14, 2008, titled “Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers.” He blamed the government for the sub-prime crisis: “In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks.” Indian readers may note that national banks in America, including the Federal Reserve, are private banks, not government-owned.

The former New York Governor alleged the Bush administration failed to protect consumers, but “embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.” He accused President Bush of being the “predator lenders’ partner in crime” and a fugitive from justice. He decided to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the most powerful financial powers on earth, thus scripting his own exit.

Diplomat Bhaskar Menon feels there was a political method in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. He argues that since Alan Greenspan began lowering interest rates to get the US economy out of the post 9/11 recession, the descent into economic madness can only be explained as politically motivated. The sub-prime mortgage mess has two elements: first, people with little capacity to repay were given mortgages; second, the mortgages were packaged into investment grade securities.

For unknown reasons, the most sophisticated bankers in the US and Europe, insurance companies and hedge funds plunged deep into the sub-prime mess, and are now saddled with bad debt. New York Times reports an arcane form of risk insurance in the bond market has led to an inverted pyramid of obligations amounting to $16 trillion. Other unconfirmed reports say the funds available to the FDIC, which guarantees individual bank deposits, are a quarter of what is needed in the event of a general financial collapse. The ratio of American personal debt to GDP is the highest ever at $3 trillion; if mortgage debt is included, personal debt is over $13 trillion, almost equal to the $14 trillion GDP. America can take the entire international financial system to ruin.

Menon says the political nature of events can be understood by looking at Asia. The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent mess in that country was not, he claims, the result of ignorance or miscalculation, but a deliberate attempt to dismantle Iraq. Add to this the propaganda over Iran’s nuclear programme, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the fragility of Nepal following brutal civil strife, insurgencies in India’s resource-rich and strategically important places, and the current turmoil in Tibet, and you have a macro-picture of Asia being destabilised. It needs hardly to be added that all fingers point to Washington as the source of instability.

One reason could be to destabilise China, because a stable world and peaceful Asia will made China a formidable power. But if the world economy collapses and there is unrest in Asia, Beijing will be cornered. This will also threaten the stability of South East Asia and India. The Islamic world is already in turmoil; matters could get worse with rising regional distress. No doubt America and Europe would also suffer, but their elites have the ability to shift the cost of distress on the general masses while cushioning themselves perfectly. America’s rich have grown richer with every world or regional war! What is more, the Euro-Americans would have staved off an economic and political challenge from Asia. This is now the challenge before Asia’s ruling elites - do they still believe their future lies with the West rather than with their own nations and peoples?

A decade, at the helm
March 30, 2008

Rahul Gandhi deliberately gave his security personnel and the Orissa government the slip in order to meet certain Christian NGOs secretly in Orissa. This is an abominable situation and the nation will ignore the religious affiliation of the Gandhi family only at its peril.

In the midst of forced celebrations over Sonia Gandhi’s decade as Congress president and ‘certificates’ that her foreign origins no longer matter, some facts are too stark to be ignored.

The first is that Ms. Gandhi’s foreign origins are more relevant than ever as they are directly influencing the country’s foreign policy. Secondly, given the growing obduracy of missionaries in matters of conversion and the new political drive for SC-ST benefits for Christian converts, the matter of Ms. Gandhi’s religious affiliation acquires a new dimension. This is reinforced by the calculated disappearance of her son, Rahul Gandhi, while on an official tour of Orissa, so as to interact with faith-based NGOs. Finally, Ms. Gandhi has passed her political peak and is leading the Congress to irretrievable decline; the failure of the Amethi MP to make the grade and the determined thrust of BSP leader Ms. Mayawati only underline this trend.

While the domestic impact of Ms. Gandhi’s influence in foreign policy has yet to be assessed, the distortions she has wrought on India’s foreign policy bear documenting. Most shocking is India’s decision to vote against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency two years ago. An Indian government run by an Indian would have abstained, rather than annoy a friendly neighbour.

Ms. Gandhi has put her entire weight behind the Indo-US nuclear deal, which all nationalist security experts, scientists and bureaucrats know will be the death-knell of India’s independent nuclear programme. There is no doubt that Washington will force New Delhi to buy most reactors from its obsolete industries in order to revive its dying economy; of course the deal impacted upon our relations with Teheran. Any other regime would have buckled under public pressure; only Ms. Gandhi’s dominance over the UPA and Congress keeps the deal alive.

Even worse is India’s handling of the Nepal crisis, where rent-a-crowd Comrades and foreign-funded NGOs were allowed to run amok, bring the illegitimate Maoists into the interim Parliament and dethrone the king. India abandoned the king because western missionaries have a major evangelical programme in the Himalayan kingdom. In recent times, King Gyanendra has told visiting Indian dignitaries that when the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Kathmandu with his wife when King Birendra was on the throne, Ms. Sonia Gandhi pounced on him and demanded the release of 90 foreign missionaries who had been arrested for conversion activities in the country.

Ms. Gandhi’s commitment to the evangelical agenda can be seen in the UPA decision to award Ms. Gladys Staines with the Padma Shri last year, when it is well known that her husband and two sons were murdered because of tribal resentment over their conversion activities in Orissa. More pertinently, Mr. Rahul Gandhi deliberately gave his security personnel and the Orissa government the slip in order to meet certain Christian NGOs secretly in Orissa. This is an abominable situation and the nation will ignore the religious affiliation of the Gandhi family only at its peril. Its bears stating that the principal lesson of Indian history is that the people suffer when the religion of the ruler is different from the faith of the populace.

Finally, the rise and decline of Ms. Gandhi deserves critical scrutiny. Contrary to persistent Congress projection, she did not spurn political office by refusing the job of Prime Minister after the death of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The truth is that the Congress was in minority and no political party would have supported her candidature at that time. It was Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao who had the ability to steer a minority government and Ms. Gandhi and her loyalists only made his life difficult when he tried to act independently. Still Mr. Rao kept up enough pressure on her to force Mr. Quattrochi to flee the country. Ms. Gandhi used the UPA to get her countryman released in Argentina and walk off with the Bofors kickbacks money!

Worse, she disgraced Mr. Narasimha Rao after the Congress defeat in 1996, and physically removed his successor Sitaram Kesri in 1998 in order to assume the party presidentship. Some writers have credited Ms. Gandhi for daring to take the party into a coalition government, but that has more to do with the exigencies of the situation and the fact that BJP had previously headed a coalition with success. Here again, despite her best efforts, Ms. Gandhi could not persuade President Abdul Kalam to swear her in as Prime Minister and had to hand over the job to Dr Manmohan Singh. Her bards can say what they like, everyone knows that the lady was all set to be Prime Minister just one day before meeting the President, and her tune changed only after her fateful encounter with him.

Ms. Gandhi has in recent times led the party to a string of defeats, including the unexpected one in Nagaland. She is now clearly on the backfoot, and even sycophants like HRD Minister Arjun Singh openly assert in party forums that Congress is in a mess in the critical state of Uttar Pradesh, despite the best efforts of Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Those who understand the language of politics know that the old warhorse is saying that the Amethi MP has failed to attract voters wherever he has gone, despite the party machinery putting everything into his road shows.

Meanwhile, India has failed to take a pro-active position on Tibet, no doubt because the American-UN hand is visible in the monk-led revolt, and Ms. Gandhi does not wish to upset the White House. All in all, there can be little doubt that behind the fake smiles and colourful bouquets, Congress realizes the Sonia Gandhi’s ten years as Congress president are a curse in disguise. The party would do well to wind up the self-created dynasty and go back to creating leaders of the stature of Vallabhbhai Patel and Netaji Subhash Bose.

Twin Tower façade
March 23, 2008

It is imperative that the world be told exactly what those orders were as the Twin Towers tragedy became the excuse for several disastrous foreign policy initiatives by President Bush. Most notable are the bombing of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Iraq. Too many Americans feel that the 9/11 Commission covered up evidence. Last year, the Italian Prime Minister expressed a similar view, and the chorus of responsible voices is getting louder.

The controversy over who actually blew up the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001 took a fresh turn with French actress Marion Cotillard, winner of this year’s Oscar, telling French television that America blew up the World Trade Center.

The actress, who is now unlikely to find work in Hollywood which has been notoriously intimate with the Central Intelligence Agency since at least the Second World War, said in an interview: “I think we’re lied to about a number of things. We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there (in New York), in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed.”

The interview, to French TV program, Paris Premiere - Paris Derniere, was broadcast last year but revived by American media after she arrived in the country to collect her Oscar. Marion even gave her theory for the attacks, namely, that America chose to blow up the towers to save time and money, as they had become obsolete and too expensive to renovate: “It was a money sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them.” American media predict she will never get a movie role with a major Hollywood studio after this statement.

Meanwhile, the controversy refuses to die. Writer David Ray Griffin, who has devoted himself to unravelling the mystery of the attacks, has demanded that the Bush Administration explain the palpable contradictions in the story, a view supported by Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, former associate editor, Wall Street Journal, and assistant secretary of the US Treasury during the Reagan administration, among others.

In his latest book, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress & the Press, Mr. Griffin poses a set of 25 relevant questions that deserve honest answers. No matter who is actually responsible for Nine Eleven, many respectable Americans feel there is a case for a thorough, independent, and unbiased investigation. Griffin’s book, which specifically targets the members of the US Congress and media, uncovers 25 major contradictions in the Bush administration’s accounts of the disaster. His scrupulous research shatters the illusion that The 9/11 Commission Report is an accurate account of what happened that day, according to former CIA official Bill Christison.

In Part I, ‘Questions about Bush Administration and Pentagon Leaders,’ Mr. Griffin asks:- how long did George Bush remain in the classroom; when did Dick Cheney enter the underground bunker; was Cheney observed confirming a stand-down order; did Cheney observe the land-all-planes order; when did Cheney issue shoot-down authorization; where was General Richard Myers; where was Donald Rumsfeld; and did Ted Olson receive calls from Barbara Olson?

Part II, ‘Questions about the US Military’ asks:- when was the military alerted about flight 11; when was the military alerted about flight 175; when was the military alerted about flight 77; when was the military alerted about flight 93; could the military have shot down flight 93; and had 9/11-type attacks been envisioned? Part III on “Questions about Osama bin Laden and the Hijackers” queries:- were Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers devout Muslims; where did authorities find Atta’s treasure trove of information; were hijackers reported on cell phone calls; and is there hard evidence of bin Ladin’s responsibility?

Part IV, “Questions about the Pentagon” asks:- could Hani Hanjour have flown American 77 into the Pentagon; what caused the hole in the C ring; and did a military plane fly over Washington during the Pentagon attack? Finally, Part V, “Questions about the World Trade Center” questions:- how did Rudy Giuliani know the towers were going to collapse; were there explosions in the Twin Towers; were there explosions in WTC 7; and did the WTC rubble contain evidence that steel had melted?

These are pertinent questions steadily avoided by the Bush Administration since September 11, 2001. But the voices demanding answers are getting louder and increasing in number. Mrs. Lorie Van Auken, widow of Kenneth Van Auken who died in WTC 1, and member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission, says the rubble of that fateful day left a host of burning questions which were not answered by the 9/11 Commission, notwithstanding its huge mandate. The challenge is to find the answers to the questions so carefully framed by Mr. David Ray Griffin.

Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, mocked the 9/11 Commission for believing that Vice President Dick Cheney did not enter the White House bunker until “shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58,” twenty minutes after the strike on the Pentagon, when several eyewitnesses, including transportation secretary Norman Mineta testified that he joined Cheney in the bunker at about 9:20 and heard Cheney reaffirm an apparent stand-down order just before the Pentagon was struck. McGovern says there is need for a truly independent investigation to put both Dick Cheney and Norman Mineta under oath, along with an as yet unidentified ‘young man’ who, according to Mineta, kept coming into the bunker. On one occasion he told Cheney ‘the plane is ten miles out,” asked if ‘the orders still stand’, which is roughly 12 minutes before 125 people in the Pentagon were killed.

It is imperative that the world be told exactly what those orders were as the Twin Towers tragedy became the excuse for several disastrous foreign policy initiatives by President Bush. Most notable are the bombing of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Iraq. Too many Americans feel that the 9/11 Commission covered up evidence. Last year, the Italian Prime Minister expressed a similar view, and the chorus of responsible voices is getting louder.

Soros and the Democratic Party
March 16, 2008

In Serbia, until the 1999 NATO bombings to subdue Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the Soros Fund operated a Civil Centre in Pristina, Kosovo, to fight for the national independence of the Albanian Muslim majority. In Belgrade, it operated ‘Radio B-92,’ which played a major role in the anti-Milosevic student riots in 1996-7.

The recent spate of articles in American media savaging Senator Barack Obama, all by White Americans (naturally), and keeping Hillary Clinton’s candidature alive in the face of obvious public yearning for change, suggests heavy duty behind-the-scenes manoeuvres by corporate America.

In an era when Uncle Sam believes it is on the verge of achieving world dominion for its corporate shareholders, the unseen men who control Washington will not let a Black immigrant with questionable commitment to white corporate culture come too close to the White House. Not that Obama was ever going to make it to the White House; yet now it seems even the Democratic Party nomination may be too much for some to stomach.

Multi-billionaire and political philanthropist, George Soros, an avid supporter of the Democratic Party, would be among those uncomfortable with this idea. It is well known that Soros played a key role in the Asian Crisis of the 1990s, and the ‘coloured’ revolutions in former Soviet Republics. Now that India and China have opened their economies to globalisation, they could face similar risks. The Executive Intelligence Review feels Soros is the public face of Rothschild bankers. Soon after the Asia Crisis, Soros himself claimed: “If there was ever a man who would fit the stereotype of the Judeo-plutocratic Bolshevik Zionist world conspirator, it is me,” (Sydney Morning Herald interview, November 15, 1997).

As one of the most audacious mega-speculators in the world, Soros positioned himself to serve Anglo-American banking interests and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), striking at the economies and political sovereignty of East European nations. Australian writer Peter Myers notes Soros played a major role in restructuring the Polish economy along with former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker (later North American chairman of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission); Citibank vice-chairman H. Anno Ruding (ex-IMF); and Harvard Professor Jeffrey Sachs. A key role in spreading the ‘free market’ economics that has destroyed nations is played by the Soros’ Open Society Fund, its network of institutions and foundations, not to mention human rights NGOs.

In Serbia, until the 1999 NATO bombings to subdue Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the Soros Fund operated a Civil Centre in Pristina, Kosovo, to fight for the national independence of the Albanian Muslim majority. In Belgrade, it operated ‘Radio B-92,’ which played a major role in the anti-Milosevic student riots in 1996-97.

It goes without saying that such initiatives can succeed only if significant actors are removed from public life. A common trick is to malign them as ‘communists, fascists, reactionaries’; sometimes they are kidnapped and taken to The Hague for trial as international criminals (for crimes that cannot be proven). Still others vanish at the hands of ‘invisible death squads’; after the removal of Milosevic, a number of prominent persons were murdered in Serbia. The Soros Fund Management operates hedge funds with $US 18 billion in assets; these make large highly leveraged bets on movements in stocks, currencies bonds and commodities, thus playing havoc in foreign markets.

The Soros network of foundations and institutes stretch across Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Yugoslavia. They provide scholarships to Burmese dissidents and funds for radio broadcasts into Burma in support of Aung San Suu Kyi (naturally).

Western observers say that contrary to the conventional wisdom that socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe due to systemic weaknesses and the inability of the political elite to garner popular support, the role played by Soros was critical. From 1979, he gave $3 million per annum to Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union (the latter recently claimed that the election of new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was not free and fair). In 1984, he opened the Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars to the opposition. By eroding established political structures, he helped pave the way for Eastern Europe’s colonisation by global capital.

Yugoslavia was targetted because the Slavs repeatedly elected the Socialist Party of Slobodan Milosevic. Then in 1991, Soros launched the Open Society Institute and pumped over $100 million to the anti-Milosevic opposition, publishing houses and ‘independent’ media like Radio B-92. When Milosevic was finally removed to The Hague tribunal, the charges of war crimes and genocide framed against him were collected (read made up) by the Soros-funded Human Rights Watch!

It is pertinent that for the West, an ‘open’ society is not one that respects human rights and freedoms, but one open to western capitalist exploitation. George Soros has the knack of making a fortune in every country he works to open. In Kosovo, he spent $50 million to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, which has enormous reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals said to be worth around $5 billion. This was the modus operandi all over Eastern Europe—ruin a country and its economy and then move in to buy valuable state assets at throwaway prices.

Kosovo: Latest Euro-American colony
News Analysis
March 09, 2008

The poverty was confined to Kosovars. Its rich industrial resources were forcibly privatised and sold to giant Western multinationals. Halliburton, favourite corporate of the Bush Administration, took over the strategic oil and transportation lines of the entire region along with the security of Camp Bondsteel, the largest American military base in Europe.

The faux independence of resource-rich Muslim Kosovo symbolises the resurgence of old nineteenth century Western imperialism. The strategy is reminiscent of the ‘coloured’ revolutions in former Soviet Republics, and some actors are the same. There are salutary lessons for all non-Western nations from this latest assault on international law.

Kosovo has become a Euro-American protectorate (read colony). As Australia exploits the oilfields of East Timor, carved out of Indonesia in 1999, so the wealth of Kosovo shall be enjoyed by Euro-American multinationals. The trouble began in the early 1990s when the fall of the Soviet Union triggered a Euro-American drive to dismember Yugoslavia. In 1991, while the bombing of Iraq grabbed world attention, America sponsored separatist movements in the Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia; imposed crippling economic sanctions on Yugoslavia, and pushed NATO forces into the region.

US also started arming the right-wing UCK movement in Kosovo, though the latter was not a Yugoslav republic, but part of the Serbian Republic and civilisational fountainhead of Serbia. It has a large Albanian Muslim population, a relic of Ottoman rule. Washington’s ‘free press’ played ball with the Clinton Administration, carrying grisly tales of Serbian genocide against Albanians in Kosovo. American officials claimed 100,000 to 500,000 Albanians were butchered by Serbia. There were reports of mass graves, reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

As angry Serbia resisted Western pressures, American aggression began. After 78 days of intensive bombings, including the use of thousands of radioactive depleted-uranium bombs, and immeasurable damage to civilian and industrial targets, a besieged Yugoslavia crumbled. On June 3, 1999, NATO occupied Kosovo. President Slobodan Milosevic was captured and tried for crimes against humanity at The Hague, where he died in March 2006, supposedly of a heart attack.

Serbians question the verdict, with some justice. As the forensic teams of 17 NATO countries set up by the Hague Tribunal on War Crimes arrived, American lies were soon exposed. The officials could unearth only 2,108 bodies in Kosovo—these belonged to all nationalities, and most were victims of NATO bombing; some fell to the war between UCK and Serbian authorities. Much like Saddam Hussein’s phantom weapons of mass destruction, the teams could not find even one mass grave, much less evidence of “genocide.” The report of the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, was played down by a complicit American media.

I may mention as an aside that it was precisely the absence of dead bodies, especially butchered bodies, that discredited the colonial doctrine of the Aryan Invasion of India and massacre of ethnic ‘dasyus’, who were metamorphosed into south Indian Dravidians.

Anyway, Kosovo’s Western invaders were unabashed and placed her under a UN Mission in 1999, under Security Council Resolution 1244. In reality, power vested with the Mission of the European Union (EU). NATO was security guarantor, and under its watch, there was a hideous ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Romas (gypsies); over 250,000 Serbs, Romas and other groups fled. Even Albanian Muslims had to flee, as nine years of NATO rule led to 60 per cent unemployment and degraded the region into a cesspool of the international drug and prostitution trade.

The poverty was confined to Kosovars. Its rich industrial resources were forcibly privatised and sold to giant Western multinationals. Halliburton, favourite corporate of the Bush Administration, took over the strategic oil and transportation lines of the entire region along with the security of Camp Bondsteel, the largest American military base in Europe.

So how did this twenty-first century colonial enterprise succeed? The UN helped. In June 2005, the then Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari as special envoy to negotiate Kosovo’s final status. Like many Euro-American politicians, he too had multiple identities and loyalties.

Ahtisaari was simultaneously the Chairman Emeritus of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a private body promoted by multi-billionaire George Soros, who via Karl Popper’s Open Society Institute played a stellar role in the coloured revolutions in the former Soviet Baltic Republics. The ICG peddles NATO intervention and open markets for the US and EU; in other words, it steals the sovereign wealth of weak nations for Western corporates. The ICG connection with American politics is evident from the presence on its Board of two key officials complicit in bombing Kosovo—Gen. Wesley Clark and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Coming from this background, Ahtisaari gave a predictably slanted Comprehensive Proposal for Kosovo Status Settlement to the new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in March 2007. It proposed an International Civilian Representative (read viceroy) to be appointed by the US-EU to oversee Kosovo, with the power to overrule any actions or annul any laws by local authorities. The ICR would control Customs, Taxation, Treasury and Banking. Then, the EU would set up a European Security and Defence Policy Mission (ESDP) and NATO an International Military Presence. These will control foreign policy, security, police, judiciary, all courts and prisons. If this is independence, what is slavery?

Russia has rightly pointed out that UN Security Council Resolution 1244 kept Kosovo firmly in Serbia. Kosovo’s guided independence reinforces the humiliation of the Islamic world by Western Christian nations and takes Europe back (this time aided by US muscle) to treacherous terrain in the Balkans. The stage is being set for a fresh international denouement.

Can Nawaz-Zardari tie-up bring peace in Pakistan?
News Analysis
March 2, 2008

Shri Nawaz Sharif is important in the new dispensation, and his ties with Saudi Arabia are more cordial than with America. Notwithstanding the Saudi-US friendship, the interests of the two countries are by no means co-terminus, and Saudi Arabia remains the principal financier of the Wahabi terrorism troubling the world.

The democratic desire of a divided country has yielded its fairest election ever, on lines not entirely unexpected: the assassinated Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has emerged as the single largest party, followed by Shri Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). In a resounding snub to President Pervez Musharraf, the ‘King’s party’ has bitten the dust; even his friendly mullahs have failed to shine in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Yet, far from offering immediate solutions to simmering issues, the election process may have thrown up fresh problems for the territory carved into an independent nation to serve Western strategic interests. As the West re-strategises to benefit from the new situation, the internal dynamics of a fractured democratic mandate and a discredited military-mullah axis may still cause Pakistan to implode. New Delhi would be advised to watch developments in the neighbouring country carefully.

As of now, public opinion and electoral logic dictate that the PPP and PML-N join hands to form the government. The selection of a Prime Minister (most likely Makhdoom Amin Fahim, PPP vice-chairman), will probably be the least difficult issue. For the present, real power in the PPP will vest with co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, but it is only a matter of time before hardliners like Aitzaz Ahsan (of Punjab) make their presence felt. Ahsan was in the forefront of the agitation to restore sacked Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry; and it was he who persuaded Benazir to return to Pakistan after she went back to Dubai following the bombing of her homecoming rally.

Ahsan may prove a natural ally to Nawaz Sharif, who is keen on reinstatement of sacked Supreme Court judges and the exit of President Pervez Musharraf. The former Prime Minister reiterated these demands as voting trends became clear, while Asif Zardari evaded them. But there can be little doubt that the Pakistani public wants reinstatement of the 60 ousted members of the superior judiciary, an early decision on the legality of Musharraf’s re-election as President in October 2007, and restoration of the 1973 Constitution.

The first test of the new coalition will be the validation of Gen. Musharraf’s election as civilian President. It will be easier to release Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and his brother judges from detention, and revoke the suspension of democracy. But Asif Zardari, like his late wife Benazir, has hinted at willingness to cohabit with Gen. Musharraf. While this may be welcomed in Washington, it will create conflict within the PPP and with Nawaz Sharif.

As of now, Zardari has postponed the inevitable by saying that issues concerning the judges would be taken to Parliament. But unless a compromise is worked out on these contentious issues between the major parties quickly, the new coalition regime may meet with failure sooner than expected.

However, the most problematic issues requiring immediate attention relate to the US war on terror, and the separate but related problem of armed jihadi terrorists that call the shots in regions bordering Afghanistan and Iran. As anti-America sentiments rise in the Muslim world, it is going to be difficult for a new democratic regime to support the American quest for intensified action against Al Qaeda in Baluchistan and the NWFP. Still less will it be possible to give Washington the right to act freely in these regions. It is pertinent that these regions were difficult to control even when the Musharraf-backed jihadi parties were in charge of Baluchistan and the NWFP; the situation now will be even more volatile as one does not know the true sentiments of the local populace since the Jamaat-i-Islami did not participate in the recent elections. It is certain, however, that anti-American feelings will run even higher. It is equally certain that America will make demands on the new regime, thus adding to domestic instability.

Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has indicated a desire to keep the military out of the political arena to refurbish its reputation as the one institution that keeps Pakistan together. But this only means that he will probably allow the PPP-PML-N coalition to ask Gen. Musharraf to step down as civilian President, or allow the Supreme Court to rule his election invalid. It does not rule out a behind-the-scenes role for the Army in Pakistan’s own compulsions to control armed militias. There is also no indication of how Gen. Kayani would leverage his supposedly good relations with America with the new regime.

Shri Nawaz Sharif is important in the new dispensation, and his ties with Saudi Arabia are more cordial than with America. Notwithstanding the Saudi-US friendship, the interests of the two countries are by no means co-terminus, and Saudi Arabia remains the principal financier of the Wahabi terrorism troubling the world. Add to this cocktail the growing Baluch desire for independence, and you have a recipe for implosion.

India may at best win a small reprieve out of Pakistan’s current problems. Keeping Pakistan united will be a more immediate concern that wrestling Jammu & Kashmir from one of the best armies in the world. Given Islamabad’s seething instability, New Delhi would do well to avoid dialogue on sticky issues that have eluded solution for six decades. A more far-sighted approach would be to work for re-integration of India’s breakaway provinces as the old imperialist contrivance comes unstuck. Kosovo’s so-called independence is a signal that the map of the world, so painstakingly redrawn to its convenience by a once-ascendant Europe, is returning to its original, fractious, ethnic divisions. History may be telling India to return to her original size.

Internet and the Iran oil bourse
February 24, 2008

The Iranian Oil Bourse will hasten the speed with which major oil countries dump the dollar for the euro; thus hastening the collapse of the US economy. It is pertinent that public opinion in America and other western nations is still ignorant that Saddam Hussain’s decision to switch from dollars to euros for the purchase of Iraqi oil was the principal factor behind the invasion of Iraq.

Political observers feel the Iran government’s plan to inaugurate its Oil Bourse this month had a connection with the sudden inexplicable cutting of several undersea internet cables. All internet access in Iran was cut and total internet blackout was experienced for a few days. Indian BPOs and focus of media attention for the slowdowns that nearly crippled the industry for almost a week, were probably unintentional targets of what appears to be a far deeper conspiracy.

Possibly nine cable cuts have been detected since January 23. The first report said two cables were cut off the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, disrupting three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East. These cuts were initially attributed to hits by ships anchors. But later, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said video footage of coastal waters in the region of the two cables showed there was no ship traffic for 12 hours preceding and 12 hours following the time of the cable cuts.

In view of subsequent developments, sabotage seems more likely. A few days later, another undersea cable was found cut in the Persian Gulf, 55 kilometers off Dubai. There followed reports of another damaged undersea cable between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Soon another report mentioned a cut undersea cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka. As media interest caught on, the Khaleej Times reported on February 4, 2008 that as many as five undersea cables were damaged, including a cable in the Persian Gulf near Bandar Abbas, Iran; and SeaMeWe4 undersea cable near Penang, Malaysia.

There is no logical explanation for the sudden damage to nearly nine undersea cables in the course of a week. The known list so far includes one near Marseille, France; two near Alexandria, Egypt; one near Dubai, Persian Gulf; one off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Persian Gulf; one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf; one in the Suez, Egypt and one near Penang, Malaysia. The Bharti Airtel-VSNL-seven global telecom firms’ new submarine cable from India to France via the Middle East was cut in more than one place. In fact, the most affected region is the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

It is striking that almost all these cuts have taken place near Muslim countries, which are naturally affected. Thus suggests the handiwork of parties capable of undersea cable sabotage, having a pronounced anti-Muslim bias, and a record of brutal aggression in the region. Most observers concur that two nations fit the bill.

Israel is in conflict with Lebanon and Syria, and the Palestinian territories. America has invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, with no signs of retreat. More importantly, Israel and America have heightened their rhetoric against Iran. Linked to this is America’s demand to increase its military presence in Pakistan’s tribal areas which border Iran.

This brings us back to the Oil Bourse that Iran planned to open in February 2008, for trade in ‘non-dollar currencies’. Obviously, this has enormous geo-political and economic implications for America, as hitherto the dollar had been dominant international reserve currency for oil transactions. The American economic meltdown on account of sheer fiscal indiscipline spanning decades has, however, caused corporates, bankers, and governments to look for alternative currencies. In the age of sovereign wealth funds, no nation wants to buy the sharply falling dollar. A functional Iranian Oil Bourse, selling oil tankers in non-dollar currencies, is a terrible snub to America.

As discussed previously in these columns, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, propose to adopt a monetary union and single currency by 2010 (like the euro). Last May, Kuwait ended the dominance of the dollar and adopted a basket of currencies, triggering rumours that the UAE and Qatar would follow suit. In December 2007, the GCC, barring Kuwait, agreed to continue to peg their currencies to the American dollar, but experts expect this to change as the dollar continues to slide. Certainly, by 2010, they will go for the new GCC currency.

It is equally certain that if Iran manages to open its own Oil Bourse, the GCC will trade there on account of geographic proximity. This will make Iran the main hub for oil deals in the Middle East. The three damaged undersea cables in the Persian Gulf are an ex-pression of anger and frustration at the inevitability of this development. For Iran, there is an additional message that its nuclear programme is riling the falling superpower.

The Iranian Oil Bourse will hasten the speed with which major oil countries dump the dollar for the euro; thus hastening the collapse of the US economy. It is pertinent that public opinion in America and other western nations is still ignorant that Saddam Hussain’s decision to switch from dollars to euros for the purchase of Iraqi oil was the principal factor behind the invasion of Iraq. This could have encouraged other OPEC nations, besides Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela, to follow, and thus endangered US economy.

Despite the invasion of Iraq and the possible threat to Iran, the US monopoly over the oil trade is now in peril. Hitherto, oil has been valued in dollars and mainly traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange or London’s International Petroleum Exchange, both of which are owned by American corporates. This monopoly compelled national banks the world over to buy dollars, and this compulsion allowed the US to build a debt of over eight trillion dollars. Once the euro emerges as the principal oil currency, the dollar will plummet in value, sinking the American and British economies. Political observers fear a knee-jerk reaction from Washington.

Andhra High Court rebukes temple land grab
News Analysis
February 17, 2008

In a satisfying rebuff to the aggressively evangelical Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti won a major victory in the High Court last Tuesday with Chief Justice Mr. Anil Ramesh Dave refusing to vacate a stay on state takeover of temple lands for housing the homeless. Mr. Dave instead asserted that the government cannot take temple lands for its schemes and should find land from what is available with it.

In March-April 2006, the Congress regime under chief minister Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy, an avid supporter of the evangelical Seventh Day Adventists, had decided to legally and brazenly strip Hindu temples of their already depleted landed assets. District Collectors were ordered to use temple lands for the chief minister’s pet project - Indiramma Pathakam - land for the landless poor.

In a swift move in May 2006 itself, Swami Kamal Kumar managed to obtain a stay order from the AP High Court. Prior to moving the court, he visited nearly 90 villages whose temple lands were slated for appropriation and redistribution and persuaded the villagers not to touch the temple lands, and not build houses upon them if allotted by the government. This public pledge helped Sw. Kamal Kumar obtain the stay to save the endowed properties of Hindu temples.

Sw. Kamal Kumar also informed the Court about the status of temple lands taken in East and West Godavari Districts, especially the compensation paid or promised, as per official records obtained under the RTI Act. This created a major embarrassment for the Congress regime as the High Court queried the status of compensation for lands already taken over and the reasons why many temples had closed down for want of regular income. The government failed to file its reply to this query even two years later.

Hindu activists had insisted wisely that they would not accept any monetary compensation for the lands, but only alternate fertile government lands for the temples whose lands were seized. The government responded by filing 50 individual writ petitions (one for each project) in the High Court pleading for vacation of stay. But this time, instead of land for the homeless, it invented a new excuse of irrigation projects like Polavaram and Pulichintala.

But the mills of god grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Chief Justice Dave refused to let the government take temple lands for the Indiramma Pathakam project. Regarding the regime’s fresh excuse of taking temple lands for irrigation projects, he said these would be examined separately and till then the government should not make any move.

This victory follows a 3200-km Maha Padyatra, from Basara’s Saraswati Mandir to Tirumala Balaji, in 130 days, covering over 2500 village temples and interacting with thousands of Hindu devotees. This brainchild of Swami Kamal Kumar, Gen Secretary of Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti, was a virtual war cry against the state’s Endowment Department. Its key theme was “Mana MandirAlani ManamE KApadukontAm” (“let us protect our own Mandirs”).

Hindu activists are so enthused by the response that they are urging sadhus and saints to revive the glorious tradition of padyatra and save society from the scourge of evangelism and the predations of the secular state. Some saints are making preparations to lead padyatras from their respective mathams to Tirupathi, which itself was under tremendous missionary pressure barely three years ago. At that time, intense and organised Hindu anger forced the government to intervene and declare all seven hills as the body of Lord Venkateswara and ban all missionary activity in the area. Though the proposed padyatras are just 50 kms, they will embrace a large number of villages and involve the local Hindu community along the route.

The Basara Saraswathi Mandir to Tirumala Balaji Padyatra was supported by Sri Subramania Yadav, State Vice President of Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti and Sri Shailendra Mishra, who are struggling to abolish the Hindu Endowment Act and the Endowment Department.

The Bhakti Sangamam concluded on 25 January 2008, with people from various districts joining and swelling the numbers to over 8000 at Tirupathi. As the Tirupathi Devasthanam is currently under the Endowments Department, officials in charge disappeared from public view, leaving juniors to resist the arrival of so many bhaktas who needed to be cared for. The organisers of the Padyatra threatened to set up makeshift arrangements on the lawns if provisions were not made. Eventually the authorities agreed to provide a guest house at official rates.

However, the authorities relented later and graciously cared for the devotees for the duration of the Sangamam at Tirumala. More gracefully, they arranged easy darshan of Bhagawan for all 8000 pilgrims, who included tribal Lambadas, Banjaras and others. They were treated as VIPs by the TTD.

The Kanchi Acharyas sent their blessings to the Sangaman and to the Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti; they asked the gathering to follow Sanatana Dharma. Seers like Pujyasri Aprameyanandagiri Swamiji, Vyasashram, Yerpedu; Sri Arjun Dasji Maharaj, Mahant of Hathiram ji Matham, Tirumala; Sri Vrathadara Srinivasa Ramanuja Jeeyar Swamiji of Jaggannath Matham, Hyderabad; Sri Paripoornananda Saraswati Swamiji of Sri Peetham, Kakinada, addressed the gathering.

Swami Kamal Kumar summed up the sentiments of the gathering with the demand that the Andhra Government promise not to takeover new temples under the Endowment Act. He said it must immediately end public auction or sale of temple lands. The fixed deposits of temples have vanished due to withdrawals made by the Department, and the Swami demanded the government restore the funds to the temples. Finally, he said the sale proceeds from sale of temple lands have not been credited to Mandir Accounts; the compensation must be at prevailing market value and not on notional values.

A Maoist dictatorship in Nepal
February 10, 2008

The Maoists have raked the integration issue at a time when preparations for the Constituent Assembly elections are underway in order to have an excuse to boycott the poll process once their cadres are paid under an understanding reached with the ruling alliance on December 23, 2007.

In India, the year 2008 opened with an attack upon a CRPF camp at Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, in the sleepy hours of the morning. Initial investigations revealed the attack was probably an inside job, and the finger of suspicion pointed to ‘surrendered’ Kashmiri jehadis who were absorbed in the police force under an erroneous amnesty scheme. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now assured an eternal bonanza to terrorist families by promising a lifelong pension for every jehadi slain by security personnel in the attempt to save India for citizens like us.

A similar disaster awaits Nepal with the increased pressure on the Koirala regime to induct the goon squads of Maoist leader Prachanda into the Nepal Army. Nepal’s forced transition from a monarchy to a republic, under US machinations disguised as advice from the Carter Centre, has already ruptured Nepali society and polity.

It may be recalled that in November 2007, former American President Jimmy Carter visited Nepal to mediate between the Interim Government and the Maoists who had quit office to blackmail the regime. Shri Carter, a well known evangelist, grabbed the opportunity to promote the Maoist agenda, urging that the Interim Parliament be allowed to declare Nepal a Republic in advance of elections to the Constituent Assembly. He insisted on reform of the Nepal Army before Maoist goons returned civilians’ lands seized during the insurgency, and demanded integration and rehabilitation of Maoist fighters in the regular army.

Prachanda is now insisting this unreasonable demand be met. The Army is naturally appalled; Chief of Army Staff R. Katawal demurred that the Nepal Army should be kept above ‘isms’ and that politically motivated and indoctrinated cadres should find no place in it. The United Nations Mission to Nepal (UNMIN) estimates there are almost 20,000 ‘recognised combatants’ in the Maoist army. Many so-called soldiers have been loaned to the Young Communist League, which has seized valuable private lands and is a law unto itself.

As far as the Nepali interim Constitution is concerned, it only says ‘integration’ will take place as per recommendations of a special cabinet committee after Constituent Assembly elections. Nowhere does the Interim Constitution promise to absorb Maoist cadres into the Nepal Army. Prime Minister G.P. Koirala, who holds the Defence portfolio, has maintained a public silence on the issue, but is reported to have privately endorsed the views of the Nepal Army with officers and of the Maoists with the comrades! Two senior Ministers, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Khadga Oli, have warned Prachanda and Koirala not to politicise the army by inducting Maoist cadres. Shri Govindaraj Joshi, central committee member of the Nepali Congress, also opposes ruining the Army.

Analysts feel the Maoists have raked the integration issue at a time when preparations for the Constituent Assembly elections are underway in order to have an excuse to boycott the poll process once their cadres are paid under an understanding reached with the ruling alliance on December 23, 2007. Under this deal, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) will receive nearly Rs two billion from the state exchequer by mid-February, to ensure the Maoists do not backtrack from the poll process due in April.

In an astonishing move, on January 18, Prachanda called a press conference and claimed that Nepal could witness some political assassinations, which the army may use as an excuse to come to the “rescue of democracy”. Observers feel such provocations are unwise as Nepal already suffers a government unable to bring stability to the country and unable to secure legitimacy through elections. The truth may be that the ‘boys’ are unwilling to test their popularity at the hustings.

Prachanda of course, tries to pretend he has the mandate of heaven. In a move that has completely foxed observers, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has announced it will celebrate the birthday of North Korean despot, Kim Jong-II, on February 16. The reclusive North Korean leader is accused of having ordered the 1983 bombing in Rangoon, which killed 17 visiting South Korean officials, and the 1987 blast on Korean Air Flight 858 that killed all 115 people aboard.

As the effete GP Koirala regime stands by helplessly, the Maoist-held Information and Communication Ministry has announced that Nepal will observe the 66th birthday of the North Korean President on February 16; the birth anniversary of his father Kim Il-Sung on April 15, and the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea on September 9. Information and Communication Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara is heading the committee supervising the celebrations. He told the media that Nepal was celebrating the three occasions as a symbol of anti-imperialism.

February is also the birth anniversary month of Nepal’s founder King Prithvi Narayan Shah. Shamefully, under Maoist pressure, the regime will cease to honour the great monarch. In Nepali history, Prithvi Narayan Shah is reputed as the unifier of the country that till then was split between feuding principalities. This legacy endures among the common people who have increasingly become critical of the Maoists and their slights against the monarchy, which many hold to be the symbol of Nepali unity. Shri GP Koirala’s daughter, Sujata Koirala, a Minister without portfolio, has in fact defended the monarchy as a symbol of the Himalayan state’s very identity. But given her father’s years of weak-kneed pusillanimity, this may be too little, too soon.

Buta Singh has a point on religious reservation
February 03, 2008

The de-legitimisation of the word ‘dalit’ (which means “broken, crushed”) is a blow to the West-funded evangelical industry which has long promoted the term to forge separatism amongst the Scheduled Castes. The 250 million Scheduled Castes are a principal target of the conversion industry that has abused the caste system for discrimination against the SCs and promised them equality and economic enhancement.

In an era of craven hankering after communal and caste vote banks, Mr. Buta Singh, chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), has sounded a note of common sense by asking state governments not to use the word ‘dalit’ in official documents as it is “unconstitutional”. Noting that ‘dalit’ is sometimes used as a substitute for Scheduled Caste in official documents, the NCSC made a legal study and concluded that ‘dalit’ is neither constitutional nor has it been mentioned in current laws.

The term ‘Scheduled Caste’, on the other hand, is both appropriate and notified as per Article 341 of the Constitution. Accepting the merit of this position, the Chhattisgarh government has directed district collectors and departments not to use the term ‘dalit’ in official documents. It is to be hoped that other state governments will follow suit.

The de-legitimisation of the word ‘dalit’ (which means “broken, crushed”) is a blow to the West-funded evangelical industry which has long promoted the term to forge separatism amongst the Scheduled Castes. The 250 million Scheduled Castes are a principal target of the conversion industry that has abused the caste system for discrimination against the SCs and promised them equality and economic enhancement.

The promises, however, were never kept, and in recent times, the Church started clamouring for reservation benefits for so-called dalit Christians and dalit Muslims. The ingenuous argument forwarded was that in India it is impossible to escape the tentacles of the caste system, hence its so-called evils have crept into the egalitarian faiths of Islam and Christianity, and hence the SC converts to these faiths should enjoy the benefits extended to Hindu SCs in order to overcome their continuing backwardness.

The argument is dizzyingly circular. There must be a gross misuse of funds by the multi-billion dollar conversion industry if it cannot improve the economic situation of the so-called depressed castes. Worse, there must be a deep rot in the church if it cannot grant social equality and dignity to those whom it has pulled out of their traditional civilizational matrix, socially isolated by conversion, and then abandoned to wallow in fresh discrimination!

There is no excuse for SC discrimination in the church, and it is high time the Government of India invoked existing laws against church clergy and laity for persisting abuse. An immediate crackdown should be made against exclusively dalit churches, followed by an action against churches with segregated pews for sitting, separate water for communion, and separate burial spaces.

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes wisely asserted in December 2007 that dalit converts to Christianity and Islam do not suffer the same maladies as Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh dalits. In other words, Christianity and Islam must prove that they practice untouchability; that untouchability is valid in the theology of their respective faiths; before claiming the constitutional benefits reserved for former untouchables of Hindu society! And once they admit and prove that they uphold and practice untouchability, the law must crack down upon them.

Those who have been lured to abandon the Hindu fold cannot avail of constitutional guarantees intended to uplift depressed sections of Hindu society. It is pertinent to remember that the British Raj introduced the Ramsay MacDonald Award with separate electorates for SCs in order to fragment Hindu society; this ploy became infructuous once independent India adopted universal adult suffrage with reserved seats for SCs and STs.

Since then, the church has been actively agitating for converts to get access to the political and economic advantages now cornered by Hindu depressed classes. A common ruse is to maintain two identities—avail of Scheduled Caste benefits by not disclosing one’s Christian faith. As this falsehood is now widely known, it should be mandatory for all district collectors to check if Scheduled Castes availing of constitutional benefits in their areas attend church services and have their children baptized. Legal action should be initiated against all those doing so, and the benefits diverted to bona fide claimants.

We need to recognise before it is too late that just as the Muslim League was used to partition the country in 1947, the conversion of SCs also has a political agenda. Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, who appeared before the National Human Rights Commission following the recent violence in Kandhamal, Orissa, warned that conversion is rampant in tribal areas and there is large-scale forgery of tribal certificates. He said converted Christians in his area forged Kui tribal certificates to get jobs, and the racket would be easily unearthed in any honest inquiry. He demanded a mechanism to regulate the flow of foreign funds to NGOs, and it is high time a law was put in place to ban the use of international funds to promote conversions.

Manmohan obsessed with insidious identity politics
January 21, 2008

Muslim political assertion will impact upon all political parties prone to relying upon the community for a consolidated vote share. The CPM is already feeling the heat on this score in West Bengal; observers say events in Nandigram contained an unstated component of Muslim assertion for power within the hitherto bhadralok-dominated party. In this connection, it may be pertinent to recall that following Partition, the Muslim community voted en masse for the Congress Party.

Fortunately, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes nipped one UPA mischief in the bud by refusing to endorse the May 15, 2007 recommendations of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities that Scheduled Caste status be extended to ‘Dalit Christians’ and ‘Dalit Muslims’. NCSC chairman Buta Singh resisted the move by Justice Ranganath Mishra to amend the Constitution (SCs) Order, 1950, which restricted SC status to groups among Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.
The proposal by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to allocate 15 per cent funds of development and welfare schemes exclusively for minorities has triggered nationwide resentment. In the interests of its own political survival, the Congress Party would do well to rethink its tendency to nurture communal vote banks as these are beginning to face the law of diminishing returns.

Most politicians have short memories. Hence it will be in order to briefly recall the 2004 Assembly election in Assam, where a new Muslim political party, the Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF), startled the nation with its performance. Muslims comprise 30 per cent of Assam’s 26 million population and play a decisive role in nearly 40 constituencies that have hitherto been traditionally won by Congress.

Floated by wealthy businessman Badruddin Ajmal, AUDF contested on a platform of safeguarding Muslim interests ‘without closing the doors to other communities’. It had an electoral understanding with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and gave tickets to Hindus. It contested 66 of the 126 Assembly seats and won an impressive 10—a greater achievement than the four seats that heralded the arrival of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh in the early 1980s.

The Assam election is worth recalling because though Congress managed to form the government, Muslim religious leaders campaigning for AUDF revealed it was the first step in a long-term vision of establishing a pan-India Muslim political party. One has only to recall that the last Muslim pan-India formation was the Muslim League to envisage the possible consequences for the Republic. The comparison with the BSP is also apt, because like Ms. Mayawati, Muslim parties will also eat into the Congress vote share and further fragment the polity.

In fact, Muslim political assertion will impact upon all political parties prone to relying upon the community for a consolidated vote share. The CPM is already feeling the heat on this score in West Bengal; observers say events in Nandigram contained an unstated component of Muslim assertion for power within the hitherto bhadralok-dominated party. In this connection, it may be pertinent to recall that following Partition, the Muslim community voted en masse for the Congress party. After consolidating their separate identity, they united against the Congress in 1967 and brought the CPM to power. Nandigram is the beginning of the challenge to CPM hegemony in West Bengal. As the Hindu community looks for a new saviour, the BJP would do well do rebuild an independent identity in the State, and not latch on to the tails of the highly unreliable Mamata Banerjee.

Muslim leaders, both religious and political, are canny enough to recognise that the Muslim community will remain educationally and socially backward so long as it persists with the traditional system of education in the madrasa. It is true that this does not necessarily translate into economic backwardness, because Muslims largely hail from artisan and other professional groups that manage to make a comfortable living without formal education, as is true of similar Hindu caste groups. But it cannot be denied that this education tends to reinforce separateness and over-emphasise their religious identity.

The UPA has erred grievously in creating a separate Ministry for Minority Affairs. Since as many as 28 per cent of Indians live below the poverty line, there was no legitimate basis for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to state that Muslims have the first claim on resources, and to follow this up with the Eleventh Plan draft document setting aside 15 per cent of all developmental and welfare funds for minorities. It may be added that as in the debate over creamy layer in caste quotas, so also, the minority quota will not differentiate between needy and rich Muslims, and may thus end up cornered by families with political clout or physical muscle. This is already happening as banks have received instructions to grant loans first to Muslim applicants; banks will naturally ensure that the recipient of loans have some financial standing as that the loans can be repaid.

Hindus as a community will have to pay the price of this mindless pandering to the Muslim community. Sadly, among political parties, only the BJP has dared oppose these moves, with president Rajnath Singh warning that this will intensify communal competitiveness and strife. There is a legitimate fear that the UPA’s special 15-point programme for minorities in the Eleventh Plan draft paper may trigger competitive communal demands for budgetary allocations in all states. It can also lead to caste-based demands for resource allocation, thus destroying the traditional holistic approach to national development.

The BJP states roundly opposed ‘communal budgeting’ at the National Development Council meeting in December 2007. Fearing social strife, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi suggested that funds for various schemes and programmes be allocated solely on the basis of socio-economic criteria and execution entrusted to the States. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh insisted that rather than caste or religion, economic criteria alone determine allocation of funds for welfare schemes. As economic deprivation is a quantifiable and objective criteria, not prone to political manipulation, it would be worthwhile if political parties could sit across the table and opt for economic criteria over caste and community wherever there is a legitimate case for special reservations or allocations.

Fortunately, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes nipped one UPA mischief in the bud by refusing to endorse the May 15, 2007 recommendations of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities that Scheduled Caste status be extended to ‘Dalit Christians’ and ‘Dalit Muslims’. NCSC chairman Buta Singh resisted the move by Justice Ranganath Mishra to amend the Constitution (SCs) Order, 1950, which restricted SC status to groups among Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.

Shri Buta Singh candidly asserted that the basic parameter for recognition as Scheduled Caste was “untouchability”, which does not exist in the theology of Christianity and Islam. Thus, the UPA will not be able to poach upon the constitutional benefits for Hindu SCs and extend them to Christian and Muslim converts. It is well known that the recent violence in Kandhamal, Orissa, was caused by a perverse attempt by converted groups to grab Scheduled Tribe quotas by forcing the administration to give them ST certificates to which they are not legally entitled.

Islamic Bomb has a US proton
News Analysis
January 20, 2008

In one taped conversation, Edmonds heard this official arrange to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe, which was to be dropped off at an agreed location by a Turkish diplomat. The Turks, she revealed, served often as a conduit for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence as they did not attract so much suspicion. This suggests a greater coordination than previously suspected in the Islamic world, for the purpose of acquiring the nuclear bomb.

The long suspected truth about Pakistan’s supposedly clandestine nuclear programme is finally out – it was fathered by the United States! The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Turkish translator, Sibel Edmonds, has let the cat out of the bag. What is more, there may be more covert nuclear powers in the Gulf than beleaguered Teheran, because it seems to have been US policy to use a circuitous route to facilitate Islamabad’s nuclear armament, and as with all illicit deals, one can’t manage the leaks.

Strategic experts feel Saudi Arabia may be far more advanced than Libya ever was in nuke technology. Similarly there are reasons to believe that Turkey, the nation through which much of the nuclear traffic was routed, may have its own secret nuclear programme. Dr. A.Q. Khan, the designated “father” of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, visited Turkey in 1995.

According to a report in The Sunday Times (6 January 2008), Sibel Edmonds, 37, a Turkish language translator with the FBI, government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Edmonds, whose job was to translate intercepts of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets, learnt that a famous State Department official was receiving payments from Turkish agents in Washington for information for black market buyers, including Pakistan. The official, believed to have been posted to Ankara as well, denied the allegations to the media.

Edmonds, however, insists the official gave highly classified information from the State Department and the Pentagon to foreign operatives, in return for money and political objectives, which have not been explained. She approached the media last month after reports surfaced about an Al-Qaeda terrorist’s confession about his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers in Turkey.

Experts are sceptical that the US could be infiltrated by Muslim states to the extent of having its nuclear secrets stolen on a regular basis. Hence it seems likely that Washington had a strategic objective in helping countries like Pakistan acquire bomb technology. Edmonds translated tapes going back to 1997, regarding an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. By the time she quit in 2002, she unearthed evidence of money laundering, drug imports, and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

She said the Turks and Israelis had “moles” in military and academic institutions handling nuclear technology, and every month there were several transactions of nuclear material with Pakistanis among the eventual buyers. This network obtained information from every nuclear agency in America, and was helped by a high-ranking State Department official who provided some moles, mostly PhD students, with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities like Los Alamos in New Mexico, which handles the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

In one taped conversation, Edmonds heard this official arrange to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe, which was to be dropped off at an agreed location by a Turkish diplomat. The Turks, she revealed, served often as a conduit for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence as they did not attract so much suspicion. This suggests a greater coordination than previously suspected in the Islamic world, for the purpose of acquiring the nuclear bomb. Interesting, the American Turkish Council in Washington was used for these illicit transactions.

ISI chief, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, led the Pakistani operation. Gen. Ahmad and his colleagues in Washington kept in constant touch with attachés in the Turkish embassy. The ISI was close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11, and Gen. Ahmad is believed to have sanctioned a $100,000 wire payment to hijacker Mohammed Atta immediately before the attack. The principal recipient of the nuclear espionage was Dr. A.Q. Khan, close to both Gen. Ahmad and the ISI.

It is conventional wisdom that Dr. Khan made a fortune selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea, which he acquired via a network of companies in America and Britain. But if it now transpires that Ankara was the main transit point and a very senior US official the chief salesman, matters acquire a different light. If the US government sanctioned the nuclear leaks in the first place, the Pakistan government may have approved the further sales to Islamic countries. The US became nervous only when intelligence agencies learnt that Dr. Khan personally met Osama Bin Laden. Yet the US-Pak collaboration went deep – the FBI engaged the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Gen. Ahmad.

Packages of nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives under cover of their diplomatic immunity, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington. After 9/11, several foreign operatives were questioned by the FBI for possible knowledge about the attacks. But the high-ranking State Department official proved useful and helped in the release and extradition of the suspects. It is unlikely this could be accomplished by a single individual, no matter how highly placed, and may be part of covert diplomacy by the US, which often has contradictory irons in the fire.

Several senior officials in the Pentagon helped Israeli and Turkish agents. A Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, was jailed in 2006 for passing defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat. FBI found that Turkish diplomats sold copies of nuclear information to the highest bidder. Obviously their market was not confined to Pakistan; nor would the Turkish Government have remained out of the loop.

Interestingly, in 2000, the FBI followed an agent who met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information stolen from an air force base in Alabama. His price was $250,000. Edmonds would have learnt more, but the FBI dismissed her in March 2002 after she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals. Later, the Office of the Inspector General reviewed her case and concluded that she was sacked for making valid complaints.

It is amusing to note that when The Sunday Times tried to verify Edmonds’ testimony, a CIA source admitted that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from America and “shared” it Pakistan and Israel. The CIA claimed ignorance of whether or not Turkey had any nuclear ambitions of its own!

Offensive proselytisation is the problem
January 13, 2008

Orissa alone received Rs. 128.95 crores of foreign funds for the activities of 1005 mainly missionary organisations there in the year 2005, according to Home Ministry figures. Mr. Graham Staines and his wife Gladys were among these missionaries whose dubious activities in the state were funded by foreign governments to serve a larger agenda.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh owes the nation an apology for pandering to foreign Christian minorities to the extent of debasing India’s sovereignty and national pride. In an act of shameful supplication before Mrs. Gladys Staines, widow of Australian missionary Graham Staines, who mercifully terminated her unwelcome presence in this country some years ago, Dr Singh said: “Please be assured that we will not tolerate any efforts aimed at disturbing the communal harmony or secular fabric of our country.”

No doubt encouraged by the continued domination of the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi over the UPA government, Ms. Staines had written to the Prime Minister about the recent violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district. In response, Dr Singh promised the Centre would take all measures necessary to “safeguard the fundamental rights and liberties of all sections of our society and protect their religious freedom as enshrined in the constitution.”

It is simply atrocious that the Prime Minister should elevate the widow of an alien missionary to the position of an extra-constitutional supremo, and discuss domestic affairs with her, and even make assurances on the internal affairs of the country. It may be pertinent to recall that Graham Staines was burnt alive while sleeping in his jeep in Keonjhar district on January 23, 1999, by Vanvasis agitated over his conversion activities in the region. While the death of his two minor sons made the episode very tragic, the motivated outrage over the incident has silenced criticism of his methods and motivations for living in India. His widows’ unwelcome missive has in that respect opened old wounds.

Instead of promising Ms. Staines that the Centre would urgently restore normalcy in the region (i.e., make it conducive for evangelism again), the Prime Minister should have ordered a Niyogi Commission type of investigation into Vanvasi animosity against evangelists who insult their gods and traditions, and seek to annihilate their cultures. The Centre should also expose the new and aggressive political interventions being made by the church to steal the benefits of Hindu SCs and STs for converts, and thus further exploit the misled converts.

Only the naïve will believe that the dramatic 8-km trek undertaken by Kerala Chief Minister VS Achyutanandan to the Sabarimalai shrine was driven by concern for the comfort of pilgrims. It is more likely a political response to the church’s recent political hostility to his party, and a signal to the Hindu community that he will rely upon it for survival. This phenomenon, which I would call the Hinduisation of Indian secularism, has begun to creep into the polity and is a positive development. The days when political parties could gainfully brow-beat the Hindus are truly behind us.

To return to Orissa, it bears emphasising that the violence in Kandhamal district which took several lives, was triggered off by a planned Christian attack upon 83-year-old Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, who was on his way to perform a yajna at Brahmanigaon, a Christian dominated village, 150 km from district headquarters of Phulbani. Later, a 500-strong mob burnt Hindu houses and opened fire at the police station.

According to the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai, Kandhamal and Bauddh districts were carved out of Phulbani in the last decade. There were 75,800 Christians (8.8 per cent of the population) in the composite Phulbani district in 1991, which rose to 118,200 (11.6 per cent) in 2001. Kandhamal was carved in a manner that it encompassed almost all Christians of the old composite district. Thus, while Kandhamal has 118,000 Christians (18.2 per cent of its population), Bauddh district has only 239-odd Christians.

According to the 2001 Census, Scheduled Tribes comprise 52 per cent of the population of Kandhamal and Scheduled Castes about 19 per cent. More than 60 per cent of the Christians hail from the Pana community, which is SC, and speak the Kui language of the local Kui Vanvasis. As ‘Dalit Christians’ are not entitled to SC reservations, the church organisations are demanding ST status for the Pana Christians. This is because the Indian Constitution failed to properly define Scheduled Tribes and the critical issue whether converts to Christianity could be classified as STs. Large-scale conversions in the north-east decided the issue by default in favour of converts.

Understandably, the Vanvasi population of Kandhamal resents the demand by Pana Christians for ST status. Shri Padmanabh Behera, who resigned from the Naveen Patnaik government over this issue, is a Pana. The state government’s commissioner-cum-secretary of the ST and SC Development Department, Shri Taradatt, said that it is not possible to include all Kui language speakers as Scheduled Tribes.

Orissa alone received Rs. 128.95 crores of foreign funds for the activities of 1005 mainly missionary organisations there in the year 2005, according to Home Ministry figures. Mr. Graham Staines and his wife Gladys were among these missionaries whose dubious activities in the state were funded by foreign governments to serve a larger agenda.

India needs a blanket ban on conversions to Abrahamic faiths, especially as these are invariably funded by foreign governments. This is borne out by the fact that historically, when Arab traders settled on the coast of Gujarat they did not indulge in proselytisation; nor did Syrian Christians in the South. It is when their co-religionists arrived as conquerors and gave the call to the embedded locals that communal disharmony became a Hindu experience.

Even more urgently, India needs to correct the error of granting reservations to converts in any category reserved for Hindus to overcome historical social stigmas or backwardness. This applies to ST quotas for Christians and OBC quotas for Muslims. The well-funded minority evangelists must either fulfil the promises of social and economic elevation made at the time of making converts or let the converted return to their natal faiths. As neither Islam nor Christianity recognises Vanvasi identities of converts in their respective theologies, they must abjure reservations on grounds of erased identities.

EC soft on Sonia
January 06, 2008

The Election Commission should have reprimanded Smt Gandhi for her remark, which was intended to polarise voting on communal lines by reviving memories of the 2002 riots. It did not do so for reasons best known to itself. But the Commission has not acquitted itself well by appearing visibly soft on Smt Gandhi, and future solicitude towards select politicians will diminish its stature. As of now, the Commission’s action is like the media-run discourse on the Gujarat riots - just as there is no mention of the Godhra provocation that triggered the riots.

If one were asked to identify the two biggest losers of the Gujarat Assembly elections, the answer would be the Election Commission and the ‘dynasty’ that leads the Congress party.

Had the Election Commission waited one more day before rapping the chief minister on the knuckles for supposedly justifying the encounter death of underworld associate Sohrabuddin Sheikh, it could have been even-handed in its treatment of Shri Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.

Since the degradation of political discourse in Gujarat began with Smt Sonia Gandhi’s now infamous “darr aur maut ke saudagar” remark, made worse by the party dithering over whether or not it applied to Shri Narendra Modi personally, and aggravated by Shri Digvijay Singh’s assault upon “Hindu terrorists”, the Election Commission should treaded carefully. On the contrary, it rushed to react to doctored reports regarding Shri Modi’s poll rhetoric, which was a political response to Smt Gandhi’s provocative taunts, and issued notices to Smt Gandhi and Shri Singh only after being pressurised to do so by the BJP.

When Shri Modi proved the inaccuracies in the complaint against him (he had not justified the encounter killing after all), the Election Commission had no choice but to exonerate him. It did so rather ungraciously, equating him with Shri Singh and giving both a reprimand, while letting Smt Gandhi off the hook with a mere statement of displeasure, just a day before the counting.

In fairness, the Election Commission should have reprimanded Smt Gandhi for her remark, which was intended to polarise voting on communal lines by reviving memories of the 2002 riots. It did not do so for reasons best known to itself. But the Commission has not acquitted itself well by appearing visibly soft on Smt Gandhi, and future solicitude towards select politicians will diminish its stature. As of now, the Commission’s action is like the media-run discourse on the Gujarat riots—just as there is no mention of the Godhra provocation that triggered the riots, there is no notice of the ‘maut ka saudagar’ that drew the Sohrabuddin response.

The Congress rout in Gujarat, close on the heels of the debacle in Uttar Pradesh, has fully exposed the true political stature of its dynasty. Though the Congress campaign was entirely centred upon Smt Sonia Gandhi and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi, they could not bring even one-third of the assembly seats into the kitty, and gracelessly deserted the arena instead of staying on to congratulate the winner. Since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quick to congratulate Shri Narendra Modi, the silence of the mother-son duo was all the more deafening.

Smt Gandhi’s habit of leaving others to own up and clean up the mess created by her is coming with an increasing cost to the party. The sad fact is that neither she nor her family connect emotionally with the Indian people, understand their aspirations, or empathise with their sorrows. The mere ability to hire a speechwriter does not make a leader. Some Nehru-Gandhi enthusiasts wrote prior to the election that Shri Modi would emerge as the main contender to Smt Gandhi in the 2009 general elections.

To my mind, this was a grossly over-optimistic assessment. In Gujarat 2007, both Smt Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi measured their status against Shri Modi, and were found visibly deficient. This was true even of Uttar Pradesh in May 2007, but it was overlooked by an indulgent media because the bold and brash Mayawati was seen as a political upstart, notwithstanding the fact that she had been state chief minister twice before. Her ability to craft an independent majority has forced a dramatic revision of her national status; the same is now true of Shri Modi.

Even before electioneering started, Shri Modi had established that Tehelka-type of stings would not work; indeed, the local Congress did not take it up at all because it was an obviously contrived affair. In fact, when Shri Modi remained unfazed by the defection of then home minister Gordhan Zapadia and his insinuations against the chief minister on prime time television, Smt Gandhi’s advisers should have realised that the ‘sting’ would not get them anywhere. Only one new channel agreed to air the sting, and all print media reports were subdued - a sure indicator that the media viewed the legal viability of the sting operation as suspect. Despite such warning signals, someone scripted the ‘maut ka saudagar’ line—it went hopelessly off tangent because the Congress had not till then referred to the 2002 riots at all for fear of offending Gujarat’s Hindu-conscious electorate. And Shri Modi was quick to seize the opening and cash in—an expected victory became a veritable landslide.

It remains to be seen, in the circumstances, how long the Congress party veterans will be content to play second fiddle to a dynasty that cannot bring in the votes, but has cut down all state level leaders to size. The high-level meeting convened to analyse the Gujarat result saw senior leaders take full responsibility for the debacle, but this may not continue in future. A sure test will be the Congress party’s own diffidence towards the Indo-US nuclear deal, a pet child of the Congress president.

Already murmurs have begun about Congress seeming to appear as the party of just one community (read Muslims), and this is causing jitters to grassroot leaders. Shri Modi tacitly reaped the fruits of this projection once the ‘saudagar’ folly was committed, and the show was over for Congress. The “over-dependence” on BJP rebels showed a bankrupt organisation without issues or leaders, and completed the picture of a party led by rootless paratroopers. The resounding verdict of Gujarat 2007 is that Smt Sonia Gandhi has peaked while Shri Rahul Gandhi has faded without blossoming.

Menon’s mission in Teheran
News Analysis
December 30, 2007

The sinking dollar is an undeniable fact, as is the rising euro; and this has triggered off an international trend of diversification of currency transactions. Already the currency units of different nations are joining the pool of major reserve currencies.

New Delhi has done well to send foreign secretary S.S. Menon to Teheran to mend fences following sharp deterioration of ties as a result of India’s vote against with the Islamic Republic at the International Atomic Energy Agency. With growing turmoil in the American economy following mounting foreign debts to the tune of $ five trillion and the inability to afford a new war in West Asia, the White House has produced a new intelligence report ‘revealing’ that Iran closed its nuclear weapons programme as far back as 2003!

The implications are ominous. One, it is inconceivable this report would not have been furnished to the White House in 2003 itself by the combined intelligence services. Hence, President George Bush’s war-mongering over the past few years that Iran was engaged in uranium enrichment for weapons grade uranium, was pure lies with a view to unilateral military action as in Iraq. Two, the strategy of a new war is now felt to be unviable in view of the increasing reluctance of American citizens to sacrifice their kith and kin in mercenary wars to batten the profits of the oil corporates. This is a serious indictment of American diplomacy and the credibility of its polity, which is unable to distinguish between national interests and corporate interests.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed great shrewdness and courage in withstanding American pressure and refusing to trade oil in the dollar. Oil minister G. Nozari justified the move as oil-exporting countries the world over are losing money as the dollar is falling in value. Others say the dollar as international trade standard has hitherto enabled the US to exert pressure on individual nations, and hence this is a necessary political corrective.

Indeed, this is why Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are advocating a more reliable currency for trade in crude oil. So far, the pro-American OPEC nations have not openly supported this move, and Saudi Arabia last month blocked the Iran and Venezuela proposal to discuss refusal to sell crude for US dollars. Yet it is learnt that six Persian Gulf countries plan to reconsider the proposal of using other currencies in crude trade deals.

On its part, the Russian giant Gazprom plans potential sales of crude and natural gas for Russian roubles instead of dollars or euros. Russian oil companies claim they loose in long-term contracts as the dollar loses 15 per cent to 20 per cent value at its current rate of depreciation. From January 2007, the dollar lost nearly 10 per cent of its value, while the euro gained 12.5 per cent over the dollar.

The sinking dollar is an undeniable fact, as is the rising euro; and this has triggered off an international trend of diversification of currency transactions. Already the currency units of different nations are joining the pool of major reserve currencies: Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, and even pound sterling are becoming alternate currencies. The Council for Cooperation of the Persian Gulf countries that includes major Gulf oil exporters plan to create a “Gulf dinar”, a single regional currency, over the next three years, with as high a value as that of the dollar and the euro.

Gulf financiers report that at least three Arab oil producing nations are about to refuse to tie their currencies with the weakening dollar. The United Arab Emirates may be one of them. These nations are likely to change the currency exchange rates even if the Council for the Cooperation of the Persian Gulf Arab countries fails to decide in favour of this issue. The Council members include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the Sultanate Oman.

China has taken a lead in dumping the dollar from its coffers. At present, the dollar share of Chinese hard currency reserves is $800 bln, mainly in the form of government obligations of the US Department of Treasury. By the end of 2007, China will own $ one trln worth of US debt obligations. China intends to increase its reserves of currency and securities of the European Union and neighbour states by reducing dollar component of hard currency reserves by at least 15 per cent. The dollar is expected to continue to fall in 2008 on account of growing US-China trade deficit, which is growing by $ five bln per week. The Chinese yuan has now become 9 per cent stronger in relation to the dollar.

A further change is expected in the oil market with seller countries attempting to reverse the situation in which fuel prices are fixed by a pool of buyer-countries. The evident weakening of the dollar and the growing hydrocarbon prices is expected to toughen attitudes of oil-producing countries on the lines of the “gas OPEC” set up for natural gas in Doha in March 2007.

India needs to watch emerging international economic trends with care. The emerging international economic order is likely to favour Sovereign Resources of nations, rather than subordinate national economies to private corporate interests. As of now, however, the entire weight of the Indian political, economic and intellectual elite which has based its progeny in either the United States or Britain, and believes the future lies in the flight of capital to western shores, is in danger of being dragged down into a Euro-American meltdown. Before economic shocks or correctives come into play, our neo-liberal policies may have caused untold damage in terms of surrender of sovereignty, as almost all our mainstream political parties desire proximity with setting suns.

Enforce corporate responsibility
News Analysis
December 23, 2007

The grisly nature of the accident that claimed four lives in the Hyundai factory in Chennai makes it imperative that the UPA government steps in to ensure corporate responsibility of foreign multinationals and their Indian subsidiaries, and not allow the tragedy be buried merely on account of the hasty announcement of compensation by the guilty firms. This is vital at a time when Persons of Indian Origin are being subjected to racial humiliation or religious discrimination in many parts of the world, and Indian manufacturers are being subjected to harassment on specious grounds like use of child labour.

The methane gas tragedy in Chennai brings to mind specters of the MIC gas tragedy in Bhopal two decades ago. It is truly shameful that the thousands affected in the latter are suffering for want of medical relief and compensation, while the Union Carbide’s new owners, Dow Jones, try to evade corporate responsibility. Even worse is the fact that corporate barons like Shri Ratan Tata wish to help them get this immunity.

What is pertinent here is that in the name of attracting foreign investment, India cannot let its citizens become fodder for foreign companies. Nor can friendly labour laws be a cover for denial of labour rights, dignity or safety. The Hyundai-Thermax tragedy is instructive for sheer callousness in corporate functioning, followed by swift announcement of interim relief of Rs. two lakhs to the family of each victim, in order to stave off legal consequences.

It appears that Thermax was responsible for commissioning a sewage treatment plant at Hyundai Motor India at Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. The treatment facility was to store wastes of paints and other chemical materials. It was being tested by site engineer Maran of Villivakkam, Chennai, who entered the pit without even a mandatory face mask, much less a safety suit to check a defective pump. Maran seems to have fainted after inhaling poisonous gases from the sewage, and when he failed to come out, four other men entered the pit one after the other to help and were in turn overcome by the noxious fumes. In this manner, electrical engineer Mohan, chemical engineer Sirish (both from Pune) and contract labourer Muthu of Villupuram district lost their lives.

This is atrocious. Thermax did not have a Safety Officer on the spot to supervise the proceedings and ensure mandatory safety standards be followed while undertaking a hazardous task. When a qualified engineer entered the pit and did not come out, how could the company have let other men enter the pit?

As many as four men died when ordinary workers waiting outside the pit, anxious that no one was responding to their repeated calls, took a decision to send another contract labourer, Santosh of Pune, to enter the pit with a rope tied on his hip. This was a simple but wise precaution as Santosh managed to raise an alarm before he too fainted after climbing a few steps into the pit. He was pulled out and rushed to hospital, where he is recovering. The other four men were found dead.

This shows the level of noxious fumes in the pit, and the callous attitude of the company towards safety standards and human life. Given that the pit had such harmful chemical emissions like methane, it is shocking that there was no provision for a sensor and an alarm bell to indicate the rise in dangerous levels of these chemicals. Even after the first engineer failed to come out of the pit, no safety masks were available for the men who followed him to their deaths, and the company failed to call emergency services like the police and fire brigade, which might have saved the remaining lives. This is criminal negligence and culpability of a very high order.

A case has been registered at the Sriperumbudur police station and an official investigation ordered, which has prompted the two firms involved to level charges at each other. It is too soon to say who is responsible; though I believe both must be called to account.

Shri S. Ganapathy, vice president (Administration and Human Resources) of South Korean giant Hyundai Motors India Ltd, told mediapersons that three of the four deceased were Thermax engineers, while one was an employee of a civil contractor. Shri Ganapathy said the accident happened when one of the pumps leading to the sewage tanks began malfunctioning and the Thermax engineer was inspecting it when the methane leak happened; he inhaled the gas and those who went to his aid also became victims. Hyundai insisted it could not be blamed just because it owned the premises, as the job was outsourced to Thermax.

On its part, the Pune-based Thermax is equally keen to shelve responsibility and has demanded a high-level probe into the deaths of its three engineers and a worker hired by Hyundai on December 7, 2007. Thermax executive vice-president (Human Relations) Sudhir Sohney urged the State Directorate of Safety, Health and Environment to probe the entire gamut of the accident. Shri Sohney claimed that the civil construction of the sewage treatment and water-recycling plant was Hyundai’s responsibility. Thermax’s job was confined to the mechanical part and the commissioning of the plant.

It is not yet clear if the gas poisoning occurred due to a structural defect or fault in the machinery. Preliminary reports suggest the poison gas was a mix of hydrogen sulphide and methane which, along with carbon dioxide, are typical emissions at any waste recycling plant. The preliminary post-mortem report confirms death by gas poisoning.

After India’s loot-and-scoot experience with Union Carbide, it is crucial that foreign firms and their Indian subsidiaries be held to account for bad management, bad design, and poor corporate responsibility. The design and operations of Thermax water and wastewater solution must be sharply scrutinised to avert future catastrophes. Nor can Hyundai avoid its share of responsibility for a disaster on its premises.

It bears stating that the Managing Director of Thermax, Ms. Anu Aga, took the lead in getting the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) to express contrived anguish over the Gujarat riots of 2002, to the embarrassment of the Vajpayee government. She must have thought that letting her country down before the international community showed her foreign partners that Corporate India has a soul. Now her crass negligence of safety standards and her sheer indifference towards all forms of life must be given no quarter. Far from having advanced technology to monitor gas emission levels and sound a warning bell, the two companies glibly stated that standard procedure to test levels of emission is to let down a live chicken or rat! Surely India does not need this kind of foreign investment and development.

Terrorists without counsel
Civilisational ethos vs. rule of law
News Analysis
December 16, 2007

MOTHER India’s civilisational ethos, as opposed to vacuous rules and codes of governance imposed by the departing British Raj, has reasserted itself quietly but decisively to the point that the legal fraternity, once prone to defend indefensible crimes and criminals for love of lucre and free publicity, has begun to take a stand on issues of public morality and national security.

The now widely-known refusal of Uttar Pradesh lawyers to defend accused in jihadi attacks in the State, which have taken the lives of several innocent persons, is a necessary corrective to the old policy whereby the conscience of senior advocates permitted defending ugly corporates responsible for horrors like the Bhopal Gas tragedy while the victims continue to languish in neglect after two long decades. In some recent high profile cases, such as the attack on the Indian Parliament, some very distinguished lawyers went to the extent of lobbying about the innocence of the accused and even tried to claim miscarriage of justice.

Now, in the cities and small towns of Uttar Pradesh, lawyers are beginning to weigh the sufferings and grief of innocent victims against a mechanical approach of ‘innocent till proven guilty,’ or the even more cynical attitude that high priced famous lawyers could get you off the hook, no matter what your crime was. Public anguish and anger at the manner in which some high profile accused have played with the system in recent times, would no doubt have impacted upon the legal fraternity as well.

Nevertheless, the recent initiative by the Uttar Pradesh legal fraternity has come as a shock to the pro-minority Left intellectuals and NGOs who have hitherto dominated public discourse in this country. Sadly for them, the atrocities against humble farmers in Nandigram and the ill-disguised exile of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen from West Bengal, have deprived them of their cachet and political network, and rendered their anger at this development simply irrelevant. With the intellectual hollowness of the Left fully exposed, there are no takers for their moral outrage.

The bomb blasts in Uttar Pradesh, which specifically targetted the legal community for refusing to defend jihadi accused, and intelligence warnings that this focus on the legal community may be extended to States like Delhi, has publicly settled the fact that it is the communalism of one group which is marring the peace. There is till today no such thing as what Jawaharlal Nehru called “majority communalism”, but a much-welcome growing consciousness that an aggressive minority cannot be pandered to endlessly. UP lawyers have realised that there are moments in history when one has to decide which side one is on—a spurious commitment to legal formality, or to a larger humanity, in other words, they have to declare also which side they cannot support.

In the view of State intelligence agencies and the Chief Minister’s office, the November 23, 2007 serial blasts in Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi were an act of retribution because lawyers had steadfastly refused over the past three years to defend persons accused of terrorist acts in these three cities. This quiet and courageous assertion of civilisational ground rules for conducting legal practice would have gone unnoticed, were it not for the November serial blasts which brought them to national notice. Uttar Pradesh lawyers deserve a standing ovation from the countrymen for this unique stand that the accused must also be worthy of receiving a defence.

On the flip side, however, it must be said that the assault upon five men arrested in Faizabad for alleged terror crimes in UP, who included three persons accused of plotting to kidnap or harm Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi, was uncalled for, and a contempt of court. Besides taking the law in their own hands, the advocates gave the unnecessary impression of owing blind allegiance to a political party, which detracts from the impartiality and detachment expected from the profession. In order to establish the highest standards of justice, the courts must crack down upon law officers functioning as kangaroo courts and dispensing ready justice.

There is a view that lawyers have a professional responsibility to ensure that all accused get a proper legal defence and no innocent is punished. To my mind, however, the issue is far more serious than professional misconduct or abdication of legal responsibility. The UP legal fraternity has, as a body, served notice upon jihadis and other terrorists, who kill and main innocents at will, that they cannot take a legal defence for granted if they are caught, and that civil society can mount its own offensive against them. They have shown the way to zero tolerance for terrorism and intimidation as a way of life, a staunch refusal to bend before insolent might. They have demonstrated to the people of India that they are not aloof from the sufferings of the common man who is the usual target of the terrorists, and cannot be swayed by monetary considerations. This is a high form of dharma. The recent initiative by the Uttar Pradesh legal fraternity has come as a shock to the pro-minority Left intellectuals and NGOs who have hitherto dominated public discourse in this country. Sadly for them, the atrocities against humble farmers in Nandigram and the ill-disguised exile of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen from West Bengal, have deprived them of their cachet and political network, and rendered their anger at this development simply irrelevant.

US evangelists in Nepal
December 09, 2007

During Vijayadashami (Dashain) celebrations in Kathmandu earlier in October, hundreds of students and families stood hungry in serpentine queues at Narayanhity royal palace for public darshan and traditional blessings from King Gyanendra and Queen Komal. The spontaneous show of public reverence for the endangered monarch came as a shock to Nepal’s ruling parties and Maoists.

Former American President Jimmy Carter, a committed evangelist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002, recently returned to Nepal to mediate between the Interim Government led by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and the recalcitrant Maoists, who quit office two months ago to further their agenda through political blackmail. Shri Carter was ostensibly seeking a way out of the Himalayan kingdom’s political impasse, but at the end of a four-day trip presented proposals weighted against the regime and in favour of Comrade Prachanda.

Shri Carter’s visit comes in the wake of the UN Security Council’s decision to extend the tenure of the UN Political Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) by another six months, though the mission has been a singular failure so far. Early in November, the Indian Government was compelled to protest over four UN officials holding clandestine meetings with armed Maoist cliques on Indian soil after procuring visas on false pretexts.

It is learnt that in the month of September, officials from at least two UN agencies, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, visited Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district and held secret talks with the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha led by Terai leader Jay Krishna Goit, and the faction led by Jwala Singh.

When India learn of the meetings and objected, UNMIN tried to play them down. UNMIN chief Ian Martin, who is UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s special representative in Nepal, claimed the UN humanitarian officials’ visit was only to ensure that emergency food relief and other aid could be delivered in the wake of flooding. He said the talks were confined to humanitarian and not political issues. Yet it can hardly be denied that the intentional misrepresentation in the visa forms casts doubts about the integrity of the UN mission. Many in Nepal feel UNMIN has singularly failed to deliver on its mandate to manage the government, army and Maoist guerrillas, and observe elections. UNMIN wants to further enlarge its jurisdiction, but Nepalese sentiment is against it.

The UN fiasco was followed by news of the kidnapping-cum-murder of journalist Birendra Saha of Avenues Television Network by the Maoists. His death was confirmed a month after his murder by the Maoist leadership, which claimed it was done by their local unit without central endorsement. The remorseless killing of a journalist during the so-called peace process raises questions about Maoist credibility and sincerity.

It is in the backdrop of these events that Shri Carter arrived in Kathmandu and met Nepalese MPs and suggested that while the ultimate fate of the 238-year-old monarchy should be left to the deferred Constituent Assembly elections, the Interim Parliament should be allowed to declare Nepal a Republic. In other words, the former US President lent the unofficial weight of Washington to the Maoist demand to impose a Republic in advance of elections to the Constituent Assembly.

This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that when asked what would happen if elections showed that the majority of Nepalis favoured continuation of the monarchy, he said the ultimate right to draft the constitution deciding if Nepal would be a kingdom or a republic should vest with the Constituent Assembly! Of course, he could not explain his hurry to help the Maoists declare a Republic, and why they could not be advised to win the elections and then execute their agenda. It may, however, be pertinent that Shri Carter is a committed evangelist and about 30 per cent of the top Maoist leadership is known to be Christian. Indeed, the Vatican was quick to appoint a Bishop in Nepal following the growing turmoil in the once Hindu kingdom.

Perhaps realisation of evangelical pressure among poor and marginalised groups is changing the mood of the people in the country at large. During Vijayadashami (Dashain) celebrations in Kathmandu earlier in October, hundreds of students and families stood hungry in serpentine queues at Narayanhity royal palace for public darshan and traditional blessings from King Gyanendra and Queen Komal. The spontaneous show of public reverence for the endangered monarch came as a shock to Nepal’s ruling parties and Maoists.

The crowd included former ministers, members of the aristocracy, affluent businessmen, foreigners, tourists, orphans and sadhus. And though Prime Minister G.P. Koirala is now official head of state, he failed to attract the same response. The previous week, the King and Queen visited various temples of Kathmandu as virtual commoners, but were treated as royalty by deferential priests and loyal crowds. There is widespread belief that the absence of the King from temple festivities would be a bad omen.

The Carter Centre was invited by the Nepal government to observe that its election process was free and fair, and it is not known why Nepal needs such certification. The former US President is clearly playing politics in that country—and far from helping bring out the repeatedly deferred elections—is misusing his stature to press a certain agenda. Shri Carter’s insistence that all political parties overwhelmingly support a Republic is mischievous and negates his role as a neutral election observer.

Shri Carter has admitted that instead of returning lands seized during the conflict, the Maoists were seizing new lands. Yet he insisted on reform of the Nepal Army before the lands were returned, and pressed for integration and rehabilitation of Maoist fighters in the regular army. In other words, he sought to level the playing field for his co-religionists.

Ram Sethu:
Faith afloat on the ocean
November 11, 2007

Early European travellers have recorded that a few hundred years ago, at low tide, the Ram Sethu still served as a land bridge to Sri Lanka.
For those of us who heard the Ramayana as children and witnessed the annual lilas by amateur or professional actors, the Ram Sethu lacked its current dimensions in the popular imagination.

When Ramanand Sagar made his epochal Ramayana serial in technicolour, he did justice to the episode of the planning and execution of the stone link to Sri Lanka, particularly the rounded rocks that floated with ‘Sri Ram’ inscribed upon them. The astonished disbelief of Ravana to learn that a bridge was forming over the ocean to carry Sugriva’s army across was impressive.

Amazingly, for all the attention the television serial Ramayana generated, most of us even then did not know what every fisherman and pilgrim to Rameswaram must have known all this time, viz., that there are to this day heavy rocks that float in the ocean in that area! Toss an ordinary pebble in a pond, it does not float for even a second; yet rocks as heavy as a tonne are floating merrily in the stormy waters at Rameswaram.

This reality has now been captured on celluloid by media crews visiting the region in the wake of the controversy rising out of a plan to dredge a shipping canal by destroying a part of the legendary bridge. In an attempt to preserve its ‘secular’ image, the television crew investigating the traces of the historical Ram, joked that the rocks were floating without the legendary ‘Sri Ram’ written upon them. But there is no doubting the impact the floating rocks are having upon believers after some pieces (that came ashore after the tsunami) were taken to different parts of the country and shown to believers.

VHP leader Ashok Singhal showed me a piece he was taking probably to the Patna Mahavir temple; it weighed at least 15 kg and was difficult to lift. Yet it floated effortlessly in a large tub in the temple, to the awe and delight of devotees.

A group of investigators, including a secular historian who said scholars accepted the Ramayana as literature but did not accord it historical sanctity, also visited sites associated with the story across the Sethu, in Sri Lanka. It bears mentioning here that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist-majority country and neither the political nor religious elites there have any interest in perpetuating the historicity or cultural legacy of Sri Ram. The country has, however, left the sites and stories associated with the god untouched, and these are now being rediscovered by interested Indians after so many centuries.

The investigators revisited the geographical features of Lanka’s ‘Sita Eliya’ as mentioned in the epic. The local residents maintain that this was the original Ashok Vatika, where Sita lived in captivity. It is a ruin now, but there is now a temple to mark the Ashok Vatika, which has many ancient statues.

A team member reported that they found a fresh water stream descending from the mountains to the left of the temple and falling in a pond at the base of the temple. Nearby is a flat rock with the imprint of a huge foot, which is said to be the foot of Hanuman, who is believed to have visited Sita in the form of a giant. The soil left of the stream is visibly different from neighbouring soil, being black as opposed to the light brown soil on the right side of the stream. This coincides with Valmiki’s assertion that Hanuman burnt Ravana’s Lanka to ashes, and incredible as it seems, there is so far no other explanation for this phenomenon.

Equally inexplicable is a mountain on the beach near Ruma Sulla, 150 km north of Colombo, standing upright amidst the ocean and sandy beaches, and looking as thought an unknown hand had manually picked it up from somewhere else and placed it here. The mountains are home to a rich variety of herbs and medicinal plants and the soil here is completely distinct from the other soils found all over the island nation. Yet these details fit in remarkably well with the statements in Valmiki’s Ramayana, and are certainly compelling enough to make an honest modern scholar pause and wonder about the deep truths hidden in the epic.

There must be some rational explanation for specific temples associated with the route Sri Ram took from Ayodhya to the forests of Madhya Pradesh and on to the south and up to Sri Lanka. Certain sites are still associated with the rishi ashrams that the exiles met on the way as also the kings and kingdoms encountered en route. Even today in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu, there is in Devipathanam a Navgraha Mandir to mark the spot where Ram worshipped the nine celestial planets before building the Ram Sethu. Ram is supposed to have built the original temple himself.

For Hindus in India, Sri Lanka, and indeed, all over the world, the Ram Sethu is an object of veneration and the attitude of dismissing it as superstition is most unfortunate. The Union Government’s Committee of Eminent Persons on Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project is truly astonishing for its absence of a mariner and naval or coastguard to examine the security aspect of the project. Concerned citizens rightly lack confidence in such a committee, as most members are selected for political or personal affiliations and even experts in geology and oceanography are missing from the panel.

This is a mockery of the Supreme Court order that experts examine the feasibility of the canal, and the cultural heritage of Ram Sethu. Moreover, saturation TV has amply demonstrated that the Ram Sethu is a geological structure inside the ocean, which links India with Sri Lanka. The bridge is made of calcareous sandstones and corals, which are less dense than normal hard rock. Early European travellers have recorded that a few hundred years ago, at low tide, the Ram Sethu still served as a land bridge to Sri Lanka. Temple epigraphs and travelogues recorded in the Madras Presidency Gazetteer of 1893 state that this was possible up to 1799, after which the choppy waters and changing tide patterns may have rendered this difficult.

It is pertinent that a shipping channel should be ecologically and economically viable, but the SSCP is both uneconomical and environmentally unsound. As time passes, even the shipping industry is having second thoughts about its economic benefits. The large shipping lines operating ocean services believe that the proposed draught of 10 metres is inadequate for the movement of vessels of 50,000 DWT, and the international trend is to build vessels of 60,000 DWT, which will make the canal redundant and wasteful.

Many shipping analysts have questioned the traffic projections on the canal. The Sethusamudram Corporation Ltd view that 3,055 ships would use the canal annually which is excessive, and coastal ship operators are explicit that such traffic is unlikely over the next decade. The canal may benefit coastal shipping in terms of fuel and time costs, but this will be offset by 12 per cent service tax and the constant risk to the canal from heavy sedimentation by the choppy seas, which may make it unfeasible over time.

One of the sticky points is the status of fishermen in the region, who are stiffly opposing the project. So far, the government has refused to clarify if fishing will be permitted to continue in the area or not, because if fishing continues, then there can simply be no shipping. Another important point is that for security reasons ships must keep a distance of 200 miles from the Sri Lankan coast, and the channel does not address this concern. Finally, the lack of finances as revealed by Axis Bank (the project banker), seems to de facto rule out completion of the project, which makes continuing expenditure on dredging or maintaining offices and staff a criminal waste of taxpayers' money.

No convergence of interest between India and US on nuke deal
News Analysis
November 04, 2007

Sensing Dr. Manmohan Singh’s weakness, President Bush is determined to bring India into the non-proliferation regime, directly or indirectly. Having worked on the deal since Dr. Singh’s Washington visit in July 2005, Mr. Bush and the US nuclear industry are unwilling to let go of the opportunity to “help” India construct new power plants and sell latest nuclear fuel and technology.

Washington has recovered sufficiently from the initial shock of being told that the Indo-US nuclear deal is virtually off, and with it the prospects of multi-billion dollar sales of nuclear reactors and heavy water fuel, to exert strong pressure on the Indian government. In an article titled “America’s Strategic Opportunity with India: The New US-India Partnership” in Foreign Affairs (November-December 2007), Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, insists that India complete formalities with the IAEA and NSG by November-end so the Congress can approve the deal by Christmas.

The BJP, which once considered a no-confidence motion on the nuclear deal, and the Left parties, which hold the UPA government in the palm of their hands, and Third Front parties of the UNPA, not to mention UPA allies who do not favour the deal, must now keep a close watch on developments in New Delhi to thwart a quick covert operation at the behest of Uncle Sam. As the majority of parties in Parliament clearly oppose the deal, preliminary consultations on a coordinated no-confidence motion are in order because despite Dr. Manmohan Singh and Ms. Sonia Gandhi hinting the deal was off at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, the subsequent flip-flop by central ministers suggests the government may still try to push it through.

The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs is candid that Washington wants New Delhi to play a key role in furthering its global interests amidst growing anti-Americanism worldwide. The principal carrot offered is, of course, the war on terror, but covers combating international drug and criminal cartels, trafficking in women and children, and climate change.

President Bush decided to place a strategic bet on India on coming to power, and specifically tackled the non-proliferation issue by calling for cooperation in four strategic areas, viz., civil nuclear energy, civilian space programme, high-tech commerce, and missile defence. Mr. Burns claims that when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited India in March 2005, she offered to ‘de-hyphenate’ the American policy of balancing ‘India-Pakistan’ by pursuing an independent relationship with both India and Pakistan, and breaking the non-proliferation orthodoxy by establishing full civil nuclear cooperation with an energy-starved India.

What Mr. Burns does not say, of course, is that America only re-worked the language of its diplomacy in the region, and actually intensified its relationship with Islamabad by making Pakistan a major non-NATO ally. That this has not furthered the war on terror in Afghanistan or even Pakistan is, however, another matter. Pakistan still remains Washington’s most trusted ally, to the extent that it allowed Gen. Musharraf to deport former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when he returned home to fight the elections, and brokered a deal for the return of the stridently anti-India Ms. Benazir Bhutto. The attempt on Ms. Bhutto’s life so early in her return journey, however, shows that like most of America’s ‘deals,’ this one too is half-stitched.

Sensing Dr. Manmohan Singh’s weakness, however, President Bush is determined to bring India into the non-proliferation regime, directly or indirectly. Having worked on the deal since Dr. Singh’s Washington visit in July 2005, Mr. Bush and the US nuclear industry are unwilling to let go of the opportunity to “help” India construct new power plants and sell latest nuclear fuel and technology. Indeed, the December 2006 Hyde Act was passed by the US Congress to facilitate American investment in India’s civil nuclear power industry. The US Atomic Energy Act required a legal basis for bilateral nuclear collaboration, and hence the ‘123 agreement’ was made in July 2007.

These agreements were made to benefit the United States. Mr. Burns is categorical that under the deal, India would submit its entire civil nuclear programme to international inspection by permanently placing 14 of 22 nuclear power plants and all future civil reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. In one generation, 90 per cent of India’s reactors would be covered by agreement and India “brought into the international nuclear non-proliferation mainstream.” There is no room for ambiguity in this assertion, hence the danger of this ill-conceived Indo-US civil nuclear deal being operationalised is alive.

It bears stating that the decision to grant India the right to reprocess spent fuel was no big deal, and Japan and the European Atomic Energy Community already enjoy such a facility. Besides, as Mr. Burns points out, this right is operational only after India builds a state-of-the-art reprocessing facility fully monitored by the IAEA and US agrees to the specific arrangements and procedures for it. The UPA has not informed the Indian public about this condition. Moreover, in the event of India conducting a nuclear test, Washington retains the right under US law to seek return of all nuclear fuel and technology from US firms. Clearly this is a one-way deal, serving only American corporate interests.

Another objectionable objective is to corner India-friendly nations like Iran. It is evident that what America really seeks is to out-source some of its pressing needs to India, particularly in the fields of military and intelligence, agriculture and education, energy and environment, and freedom and democracy (read: attacking target nations like Myanmar and Nepal, but not Pakistan). Washington particularly wants the Indian Navy to protect the sea-lanes between the Middle East, Africa and East Asia. It is also keen to sell equipment to the Indian Army.

As in the past, there is really no convergence of interests between India and the US, and any kind of partnership can only be on an issue-to-issue basis. As in the post-World War II era, American imperialism, its undying thirst for economic and strategic advantage at any cost, constitutes the gravest threat to global security and peace.

India being wired into US
News Analysis
October 28, 2007

UGC claims there was no official invitation to the US embassy officials, but sources privately admitted the diplomats came to get a sense of the opinions of 200 Vice Chancellors attending the meeting about allowing foreign universities to operate in India. Last month, the US Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) took ten Vice Chancellors of leading Indian universities on a US tour to discuss issues such as “degree equivalence, accreditation, student aid, admission policy, counselling services, curriculum and institutional infrastructure”.

Western commercial banks serve western corporate interests, not Asian, much less Indian. And as many of these banks operate in India, Mr. Ahluwalia’s interactions with them can have implications in the realm of policy formulation and execution.

The UPA is slowly wiring India into the US administration, making it a virtual province, without any public debate over the direction in which the country is being led. As if the 27 per cent OBC quota controversy in higher education was not enough, now American embassy officials have been surreptitiously inveigled into a two-day conference of the University Grants Commission on Challenges Before Higher Education.

The UGC is an autonomous institution under the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development; its chairman Sukhdeo Thorat appointed by the present dispensation. Hence, it seems inconceivable that the diplomats would have been accommodated at the conference without the knowledge of Minister Arjun Singh or the Secretary, Higher Education. Either way, however, this is a scandalous development.

Understandably, many vice-chancellors objected to the presence of officials of a foreign government at a forum debating the problems of higher education in India. Significant decisions were taken at this conference, namely, not to hike fees and to permit the setting up of foreign universities under strict regulation. As higher education, especially professional education, is a huge business in America, as also in India, the presence of US diplomats at a closed conclave bodes ill for India’s independent decision making process.

UGC claims there was no official invitation to the US embassy officials, but sources privately admitted the diplomats came to get a sense of the opinions of 200 Vice Chancellors attending the meeting about allowing foreign universities to operate in India. Last month, the US Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) took ten Vice Chancellors of leading Indian universities on a US tour to discuss issues such as “degree equivalence, accreditation, student aid, admission policy, counselling services, curriculum and institutional infrastructure”.

These Vice Chancellors are now under pressure to espouse American interests in India—one foreign trip is all its takes! At the meeting, however, most Vice Chancellors wanted foreign universities put under a strict regulatory framework with proper safeguards so that Indian universities do not suffer. Some Vice Chancellors advocated Indian and foreign universities do business on a reciprocal basis, as India does not need foreign universities. Instead, India could focus on attracting foreign students and charging them higher fee to cross-subsidise the poor and needy.

The intrusive attempt by the American Embassy to infiltrate into the higher education sector has to be seen in the light of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s dangerous decision to get American universities to vet and approve bureaucrats for promotion to Secretary level. Initiated earlier this year as part of the Prime Minister’s administrative reform proposals, top civil servants were required to secure the American stamp of approval for top-notch postings.

Coupled with the move to somehow open India for foreign universities, this is a shameful handover of the entire Indian administration to the American State Department and Private Corporate. It is well known that America is run by corporates and their interests, and this is why government, private sector, NGOs, academic institutions and think tanks are all closely enmeshed with each other, exchanging manpower and resources in order to best promote the interests of their major shareholders. The current war in Iraq is the best example of how the American government can be used to promote the interests of a private sector, in this case, the oil industry.

The ‘grooming’ and manipulation of Indian civil servants through government-sponsored subordination to America will impact seriously on Indian independence, national integrity and national security. Some years ago, a RAW officer in cahoots with the CIA was tipped off and helped to make a timely exit from India; he is known to have settled in the United States which is not cooperating with Indian agencies to extradite him. More recently, a senior intelligence officer had to be recalled from Sri Lanka because of unacceptable contacts with foreign personnel.

It is astonishing that despite such incidents, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions feel that the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Duke University, and Syracuse University should monitor Indian bureaucracy. A four-week training programme on Governance Challenges for India, attended by 95 IAS officers of 28 years standing at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, was designed along with the John F. Kennedy School of Government. KSG has to certify these officers before they can move to the rank of additional secretary or secretary.

This drastic change in service conditions of the IAS has happened without informing Parliament or the Indian people. The UPA has outsourced responsibility for writing Annual Confidential Reports of Indian bureaucrats to the United States! Similar deals have been sewn up with Syracuse University, New York, and IIM, Bangalore for training officers with 15 years of service (April 2007). Duke University is to conduct a programme for officers with nine years of service.

The government has also not asked Deputy Chairman Planning Commission to quit two posts he holds in US-based organisations. Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is a member of the World Bank’s Commission on Growth and Development and the US Institute of International Finance. The World Bank is controlled by American multinationals. The Institute of International Finance has leading Western commercial banks as members: Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, ABN Amro Bank, HSBC Holdings, Citibank and Deutsche Bank. These bodies serve western corporate interests, not Asian, much less Indian. And as many of these banks operate in India, Mr. Ahluwalia’s interactions with them can have implications in the realm of policy formulation and execution.

Simultaneously, both Indian and American Governments are covertly pursuing the Indo-US nuclear deal, which can have crippling consequences for India’s economy. Similar attempts are being made to penetrate the defence establishments through strategic think tanks and other seemingly innocuous interfaces. This is why many retired generals, bankrolled by foreign defence companies, advocate closer strategic ties with the United States.

Nuke deal as Sonia’s personal commitment to the US
News Analysis
October 21, 2007

Since the White House has made its own timeline regarding the handling of the Nuclear Suppliers Group widely known, there can be little doubt that Ms. Gandhi is personally racing to honour what appears to be a personal commitment to the American President. That she lacks the official status to do so is being ignored even by the Left, which claims hostility to the deal, and this duplicity calls for an explanation from them.

The timeline for Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s sudden energetic interventions in public life is now clear: She has to redeem secret pledges made abroad to make India a client state of the western world. After supporting the Indo-US nuclear deal to the Congress Parliamentary Party some time ago, and writing an article in the party organ, Sandesh, Ms. Gandhi dramatically surfaced in New York with son, Rahul Gandhi, conveniently elevated as party general secretary, ostensibly to address a special UN session on non-violence.

The true reason, as evident from her speech to an Indian-American gathering (i.e. American citizens of Indian origin), was to assure the US administration that she would deliver the ‘slave charter’ in her capacity as UPA chairperson. As stated in a previous column, the Congress president had no qualms about discussing a sensitive national issue on foreign soil, to a wholly foreign audience. Both she and her heir and would-be ‘PM-in-waiting’ would also have been wined and dined by the shadowy gentlemen who actually run the western world, far from media glare.

That, this is not far-fetched speculation, is supported by the fact that on her return, Ms. Gandhi tackled the nuclear deal with astonishing alacrity and venom, telling a rural audience in Jhajjar, Haryana, that those opposing the nuclear deal (principally the Left parties, but also the BJP and others) are ‘enemies of progress and development.’ Shocked party managers had to rush in for damage control (as in the case of Rahul Gandhi’s famous Tehelka non-interview) and claim she had been misunderstood. They could not allege media misquotes because the rally was widely televised!

Political observers are unanimous that though the Left-Congress panel has deferred the inevitable, the arrival of International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohammad Elbaradei in India signals a determination to continue with the deal. Thus, the government will go ahead with finalising the text of the agreement with IAEA and try to take things to a stage that subsequent regimes may find difficult to retreat from, even in the event of an electoral debacle for Congress. Since the White House has made its own timeline regarding the handling of the Nuclear Suppliers Group widely known, there can be little doubt that Ms. Gandhi is personally racing to honour what appears to be a personal commitment to the American President. That she lacks the official status to do so is being ignored even by the Left, which claims hostility to the deal, and this duplicity calls for an explanation from them.

Clearly Ms. Gandhi and her close confidants feel Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party stalwarts would rather sacrifice the deal than the government; hence her decision to risk public exposure on a matter impinging India’s nuclear security and independent foreign policy. Since even the most loyal sycophants agree that Mr. Rahul Gandhi has failed to inspire the party rank and file, Ms. Gandhi obviously does not expect to improve the party tally at the hustings. So her compulsions and accountability obviously lie elsewhere, and she owes the nation an explanation in this regard.

Enough has been written by eminent experts to show that the nuclear deal is of little consequence in meeting India ’s growing energy needs. Worse, it derails Dr. Homi Bhabha’s three-stage plan resting on natural uranium reactors, plutonium breeders, and thorium reactors that will take care of both energy security and political independence. The Indo-US deal undermines India’s weapons R&D capabilities by diverting funds from technology development to purchasing costly and obsolete enriched uranium fuelled-reactors from abroad. And as Mr. Sitaram Yechury has pointed out, since the fuel supply for these reactors is purely conditional, India could well be left high and dry with reactors and no fuel!

Powerful Indian corporates are supporting the deal only because they expect to benefit from contracts for downstream industries and services, though they have not been honest enough to make their interests public. But despite the virtually one-sided lobbying done by Congress, friendly media and friendly security experts (who reportedly double up as ‘consultants’ of the western arms industry), the Indian public distrusts the deal and the motives behind it.

Hence, after initially hectoring India with ambassador Mulford’s gratuitous advice that ‘time is of the essence,’ the United States has made a measured retreat, saying India is free to decide the timing of the remaining steps in the civil nuclear deal. But the fact remains that there is an invisible end-October deadline for getting clearances from the IAEA and the 45-member NSG so that the deal can be finalised before America goes into election mode early 2008.

CPI leader A.B. Bardhan has made a public commitment to withdraw support from the UPA once the government formally proceeds with negotiations with the IAEA. It would be in the fitness of things if the Left parties also refuse to meet the delegation of the United States India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), a body of Americans of Indian Origin, who are coming to India in late October to lobby for the deal with leaders across the political spectrum. It would be appropriate for these activists to declare their interests in the deal, specifically their allegiance, if any, to MNCs that stand to benefit from it.

This would also be an appropriate occasion for Indian political parties and the Indian people to ponder the propriety of naturalised citizens exercising power at the top echelons of government, either directly or indirectly, and of self-ejected economic evacuees from India masquerading as friends of India while working towards a new imperialism over their former homeland.

At the UN; a speech that made no impact
For the first time, Sonia speaks of UPA-Left spat
Domestic politics played out in foreign land!
October 14, 2007

Since the Congress president has no status or authority to make such a momentous declaration about a foreign treaty being bitterly opposed by all major political parties in India, that too on foreign soil, there has understandably been an adverse reaction at home. The Communist parties have rightly accused Ms. Gandhi of belittling the Left before an international audience, a situation she could have avoided unless it was intentional

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s virtual declaration that New Delhi would go ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal despite objections from Left parties, voiced while on American soil, proves that she illegitimately continues to call the shots in the government despite her forced resignation from the cabinet-rank post of chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) in July 2006.

The foreign-born Ms. Gandhi showed scant respect for either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or for national security and sovereignty while pushing her agenda for subordinating India to a US-dominated world order. Enough has been revealed about the nuclear deal in the public domain for India to be wary of becoming a pawn in Washington’s battles with China and Iran.

Yet Ms. Gandhi, probably acting under some unknown pressure, enthusiastically took potshots at the Left parties and told a New York audience of Indian-Americans that: “Sometimes a great deal is made in public domain of the opinions expressed by our friends who support our coalition but this should not alarm you. We believe that it is important to listen to all points of view because we believe that this only strengthens the democratic process and the process to arrive at a consensus.”

Since the Congress president has no status or authority to make such a momentous declaration about a foreign treaty being bitterly opposed by all major political parties in India, that too on foreign soil, there has understandably been an adverse reaction at home. The Communist parties have rightly accused Ms. Gandhi of belittling the Left before an international audience, a situation she could have avoided unless it was intentional, because last month she had already articulated her stand on the nuclear deal in the Congress mouthpiece Sandesh, where she claimed the Left was consulted at every stage while the deal was being negotiated. The Communists promptly denied this, saying they learnt the details only after it was finalised.

CPM politburo member M.K. Pandhe said the New York speech demonstrated the ruling coalition’s intention of going ahead with the deal. The CPM Central Committee again asked the government not to engage with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on India-specific safeguards. CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta insisted the Left concerns over the deal were in the national interest. The RSP was agitated enough to demand instant withdrawal of support to the government.

Political analysts interpret Ms. Gandhi’s speech as evidence of disrespect for the third UPA-Left meeting over the nuclear deal on October 5, and her determination to operationalise the nuclear deal without regard for the punishing price this will impose on the Indian economy and indigenous nuclear programme. The most deceptive argument is it will augment our energy resources. The truth is that India’s current power generation is 127 gigawatts (GW), which needs to rise to 337 GW by 2016-17 to sustain the current GDP growth rate. If the deal is signed, nuclear energy, which was only 3.9 GW in 2006, can rise to a maximum of only 20 GW by 2016.

This not only leaves a huge power deficit, but comes at a cost of thousands of crores of rupees of investment in America’s obsolete uranium-based reactors. Worse, while the deal would adversely hit our indigenous thorium-based nuclear programme, it does not guarantee complete access to civilian nuclear technology; the 123 agreement forbids transfer of dual-use technologies; and assurances of uninterrupted fuel supplies end if it is terminated.

Further, former Atomic Energy Research Board chief A. Gopalakrishnan has warned that Section 106 of the Hyde Act enjoins US to end nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test; Section 104(a)(3)(B) denies the US President power to waive Section 129 of the US Atomic Energy Act which envisages similar termination. On testing a devise, therefore, India will have to return all materials including reprocessed material covered by the agreement. Dr Gopalakrishnan warns that both the 123 agreement and the Hyde Act deny India assured nuclear fuel if Washington terminates or suspends the deal. Australia’s linking uranium sales to India’s legal commitment to abandon nuclear testing reinforces this view.

Should a nationalist government need further tests, all reactors, materials, fuel stockpiles, reprocessed fuel, spares and technology will have to be returned to America (which is unlikely to offer a refund!). In monetary terms, a direct investment of Rs. 250,000 crore in imported power reactors and Rs 800,000 crore in downstream industries relying on this power will be compromised. No government could withstand such an economic shock.

America could blackmail us in other areas impinging on our sovereignty and national dignity; this is why Iran’s nuclear programme has been smuggled into the deal. Former BARC director A.N. Prasad believes the 123 agreement was a bogey to ‘fix’ the language of the deal. The controversial issue of testing was not directly mentioned, and the Indian government concealed the fact that such areas of silence are governed by the Hyde and US Atomic Energy Acts.

The Hyde Act compels the American President to ensure that India has provided America and the IAEA with a credible plan to separate civil and military nuclear facilities, and that India and IAEA have completed all legal steps necessary prior to signature of an agreement needing application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity. The US President has to give Congress India’s adherence to a strict non-proliferation regime; copies of the separation plan and agreements with IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group; and specific measures taken by India to actively participate in US and international efforts to dissuade, isolate and if necessary sanction and contain Iran.

If Ms. Sonia Gandhi had to speak about the Indo-US nuclear deal on American soil, she should have stood up for the Indian nationalist concerns over the ‘slave charter.’ That she has done the precise opposite proves her lack of commitment to India and her determination to bat for the US side.

Congress dynasty matrix
October 07, 2007

By now even the most steadfast sycophants of the Congress party’s premier dynasty can deny that Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s elevation as general secretary and CWC member has failed to enthuse either the rank and file or the people at large. Even friendly political analysts are unsure if the so-called ‘new generation’ leaders, mostly the offspring of Ministers or MPs close to the Gandhi family, can find favour with a new generation of Indian voters. Other political parties, convinced that the rising Congress leadership is no threat, are at the same time uncertain if complacency with the old is the best option with a looming midterm election.

To my mind, much of the confusion is due to the steady secularisation of our political discourse and thought process, which has made us forget that India thinks in terms of eras (yugas), rather than mere generations (peedhis). As yugas span multiple generations, only those politicians or parties can enjoy long-term success that address issues and aspirations that span multiple generations—that is, they have appeal for all genders and generations in every Indian home. Mrs Indira Gandhi’s garibi hatao and the BJP’s Ramjanmabhoomi movements had such cross-gender and cross-generation appeal; Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s spin doctors emphasised youth in terms of age rather than aspirations and values to gloss over the fact that inheritance was his sole USP. This is even truer of his son Rahul: his disconnect with ideology and people is too glaring to be overlooked.

Mr. Gandhi has been in politics long enough to learn the ropes and for people to judge if he has the potential to make it to the top league. His first interview as he tried to chalk out his political career early in 2004 had to be hastily denied by the Congress party. The newsmagazine that produced the scoop, famed for its uncompromising crusading zeal, saw wisdom in a tactical retreat. So though the interview-that-wasn’t was not a figment of the journalists’ imagination, it was a ‘misunderstanding.’ Shorn of journalese, this means the interview fully reflected the immaturity of Sonia’s boy, but the journal in question should have known better than to publish it.

Rahul’s next real stint in public eye came with the much touted captaincy of the Congress campaign in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in May 2007. Some loyal retainers ensured he did not officially take responsibility for improving the electoral output of the moribund party. And so when the party raked in an abysmal 22 seats after road-shows and other media tamashas, the young man conveniently left the state president to take the rap and went underground! He surfaced after a few days, blaming the party machinery for failing to live up to his efforts; a view echoed by his mother later in her address to the Congress Parliamentary Party. This is clearly not the stuff that leaders are made off. Fate seems to agree. That is why, just when the looming mid-term elections made the Congress president launch the party’s “future” as general secretary, the event was eclipsed by India’s Twenty20 World Cup victory.

More ominous is the manner in which Ms. Sonia Gandhi has converted the party into a ‘club’ of scions of political cronies of the late Rajiv Gandhi. This may increase Rahul Gandhi’s personal comfort levels he functioned through a small coterie in the UP elections which ended in a rout. So it is questionable if the new fangled Publicity Committee and “group to look into future challenges” can deliver the goods at grassroots level.

Rahul Gandhi is a part of the committee on future challenges; its purpose is to build political strategies on key issues such as the controversy over OBC quota in education and the Ram Sethu. This 13-member body includes stalwarts like Veerappa Moily, Digvijay Singh and Dr Parmeshwar, Union Ministers Vayalar Ravi, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh (convener), and young MPs like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sandeep Dikshit and Sachin Pilot and leaders like Mukul Wasnik and Salman Khurshid.

There is a disconnect between Rahul Gandhi’s sharp elevation as full-fledged CWC member and the accommodation of other youngsters as AICC secretaries: Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajay Maken, Priya Dutt, Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot, Jitin Prasad, Sandeep Dikshit and Harender Mirdha. Even the reconstituted Publicity and Publication Committee headed by Digvijay Singh includes Rahul Gandhi.

Ms. Sonia Gandhi should have pondered the merits of promoting Rahul Gandhi so steeply above other contemporaries. When Mr Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984, he accommodated close chums Arun Nehru and Arun Singh as Ministers of State in the ministries of Home and Defence respectively. Political observers had misgivings over how this disparity - denial of even Cabinet rank to close confidants - would play out. As is well known, both men parted ways with Mr Rajiv Gandhi, and his own fortunes saw a remarkable fall with their exit.

At a dinner hosted by Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari, Ms. Gandhi dubbed the changes “long overdue,” which implies they were well thought out. Yet the reshuffle of the AICC, supposedly drawing talent from the government and parliamentary party to balance groups and regions, raises eyebrows over her perceptions and vision.

There are 11 general secretaries. These include Minister of State Prithviraj Chavan (J&K, Karnataka); Minister of State Ajay Maken (Jharkhand, Orissa); Lok Sabha MP Kishore Chandra Deo ( Bihar ). Ms. Mohsina Kidwai represents Muslims and is in-charge of Kerala and the Mahila Congress; upper castes are represented by Mr. Motilal Vora and Mr. Janardan Dwivedi; Dalits by Mr. Mukul Wasnik and Mr. K.C. Deo; OBCs by Mr. B.K. Hari Prasad and minorities by Ms. Margaret Alva (The Hindustan Times, September 25, 2007).

This is astonishing. Congress is now providing representation to Muslims as “Muslims” and to Christians as “minorities.” This surely reflects a larger design to push communal quotas for Christians and Muslims separately, first at state level through its own government (Andhra Pradesh) or through friendly regimes (Tamil Nadu), and then at the Centre (through the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Mishra Commission).

A separate representative for Christians (minorities) suggests a dangerous adherence to the church’s evangelical agenda, which is being aggressively promoted by the Vatican and various Protestant denominations headquartered in America and Europe. It is surely an interesting coincidence that most P-5 countries seeking to cap India ’s nuclear programme are also major sponsors of evangelism in India. Sonia Gandhi’s divisive agenda has never been more obvious: it is time to tell her that she has outlived her welcome in India.

Ganesha has a universal appeal
September 30, 2007

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s recent trysts with civilisational history have been widely received with disbelief and embarrassment. Those familiar with the divisive hand of the British raj behind the Justice Party and the so-called Dravidian movement, can excuse some of the hyperbole. But if Sri Rama is genuinely a figment of the imagination, as suggested by the now withdrawn ASI affidavit, what was secular godman EVR Naicker ranting about all those years ago?

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s recent trysts with civilisational history have been widely received with disbelief and embarrassment. Those familiar with the divisive hand of the British raj behind the Justice Party and the so-called Dravidian movement, can excuse some of the hyperbole. But if Sri Rama is genuinely a figment of the imagination, as suggested by the now withdrawn ASI affidavit, what was secular godman EVR Naicker ranting about all those years ago?

Now, on the eve of nation-wide festivities for Ganesha Chaturthi, we are told the deity is an Aryan imposition. Since the country’s most beloved deity is as much Vighnakarta as he is Vighnaharta, it is necessary to reassure Mr. Karunanidhi of Ganesha’s non-Aryan ethnicity, so that he can pay obeisance and not damage his party’s prospects in the inevitable Lok Sabha elections.

Scholars generally agree that Ganesha is of humble non-Vedic origins. He entered popular mythology only around the third or fourth century AD, but quickly acquired national eminence. Like Varaha, Narasimha, and Hanuman, Ganesha is therianthropic (part animal, part man), which suggests a tribal or folk origin; he entered the Hindu pantheon when these groups were co-opted as part of India’s ceaseless integration process. D.P. Chattopadhyaya and H. Mitra opine that Ganesha got his animal head from an ancient tradition that revered the elephant. Recent findings of coins of Indo-Greek kings in the early pre-Christian era reveal the existence of an elephant panth in the north-west.

A Mohenjodaro seal shows a horned deity (prototype of Shiva) in yogic pose, with an elephant and a tiger on his right and a rhinoceros and a bull on his left. The bull evolved into the vehicle of Shiva and the tiger that of his consort, Parvati. The elephant evolved into the therianthropic Ganapati, an independent god regarded as a son of Shiva. The animals on the Harappan seals were possibly deities of groups named after them. The Matangas (elephants) found in the pre-Christian era are synonymous with ‘Kiratas’ and ‘Chandalas’. They were native tribes who evolved into a caste in the Vedic period, and may have worshipped the elephant. As they were looked down upon, this could explain why the elephant deity is not mentioned in pre-Christian sacred literature. The latter-day Matsya Purana mentions a goddess, Matangi, tutelary deity and consort of the elephant deity of the Matanga tribe.

Panini mentions a tribe called Hastinayanas (hasti=elephant), the martial Astakinoi whom Alexander encountered in the region of Bactria, Kapisha (modern Begram, 80 kms north of Kabul ) and Gandhara with its two capitals at Taxila and Puskalavati. The elephant was linked with the tutelary goddess of the city of Kapisha. Coins attributed to Eucratides bear an image of a female deity, Kavishiye nagaradevata (deity of the city of the Kapishi), along with the symbol of a mountain and the head of an elephant. Indo-Greek coins found at Taxila also depict the elephant. Philostratus reports that a sacred elephant lived in the Sun Temple of Taxila in the first century AD.

The elephant figures on a number of tribal coins in early India . The Arjunayanas (approx. 100 BC) of the Delhi-Jaipur-Agra region had a coin showing an elephant with uplifted trunk before a tree. The Kadas in the Punjab region, late third century or early second century BC, had coins depicting the elephant and bull, as did the Yaudheyas. The Audumbaras (Kangra, approx. 100 BC), linked the elephant with the sacred tree or with the snake.

The earliest literary reference to Ganesha is found in Hala’s Saptasati, in Prakrit. It contains an obscure reference to the god’s mysterious power over the sea. Tiruvalanjuli near Kumbhakonam in Tanjore district has a tenth century temple with an image of Sveta Vinayaka, believed to have been worshipped by the gods so they could successfully churn the ocean.

Scholars concur that Ganesha is a composite deity, who over time achieved divinity by acquiring four hands and an exclusive vahan, the mouse. He is a fusion of Gajanana (elephant-faced), Lambodara (pot-bellied), Ekadanta (one-tusked), Ganadhipa (Lord of ganas), Vinayaka (great leader), Vighneshvara (Lord of obstacles), Vighnakarta (creator of obstacles) and Vighnaharta (remover of obstacles). He won priority of worship (agrapuja) as Vinayaka shanti (pacification of Vinayaka) became the key to success in any activity.

Ganesha was most likely originally a gramadevata Vinayaka who was a Vighnakarta. There were four Vinayakas gramadevatas causing suffering and disease, at least from the time of the Manavagrihyasutra (7th-4th century BC). These coalesced into a single Vinayaka by the time of the Yajnavalkyasmirti (1st-3rd century AD). Vinayaka now became son of Ambika, who merged with Shiva’s spouse, Parvati. By the post-Gupta period, Vinayaka became the son of Shiva and Parvati and leader of Shiva’s hosts, the rudraganas. He became Ganesha, lord of ganas, a god of high status. From two-armed Vinayaka, the god acquired four (or more) arms. His familiar attributes include laddus/modaka (sweets), ankusa (goad), pasa (noose) and a tusk.

Modern scholars are emphatic that Ganesha is not the Ganapati of the Vedas. In fact, this Ganapati has been identified with different deities at different times:- Agni, Vishnu, the Maruts, Varuna, Indra, Soma, Rudra. The identification of Ganesha with Ganapati of the Rig Veda (II.23.I) came only in the fifth-sixth century AD through the efforts of the now extinct group, the Ganapatyas. At this time he was also elevated as elder (jyestha) brother of Skanda, who was historically older, because the mantra designated Ganapati as jyestharajam!

That Ganesha is not a Vedic deity can be seen from the fact that Ganesha, Vinayaka and Ganapati are missing in the Vedic rituals of Vaisvadeva (Visvedevah), sacrifices to devayajna (sacrifice to gods), bhutayajna (sacrifice to spirits) involving bali-harana (offering but not in fire) and pitryajna (sacrifice to manes). Vedic shanti rites to appease the malevolent aspects of a deity and make it benevolent are addressed to several Vedic gods, but not to Ganesha, Vinayaka or Ganapati.

The Mahabharata (critical ed.) does not mention either Ganesha or Vinayaka; the term ganeshvara is an epithet of Vishnu (Mbh. 13.135.79); this suggests the epic was composed prior to the ‘invention’ of Ganesha. The legend of Ganesha serving as scribe of Vyasa to record the epic is not mentioned in the grantha manuscripts or in Ksemendra’s Bharatamanjari; only in the tenth century Rajasekhara asserts in Balabharata I.120 that Vinayaka was appointed lekhaka (scribe) for the Bharata Samhita or Mahabharata.

That Ganesha was not a classical god is evident from the fact that he did not have a vehicle of his own. The mouse became vahana of only five incarnations (Ekadanta, Mahodara, Gajanana, Lambodara and Dhumravarna). The vahan of Vakratunda is simha (lion), Vikata is mayura (peacock) and Vighnaraja has the sesha (divine serpent). In Jaina iconography Ganesha is a Yaksha of Tirthankara Parshvanatha and his vehicle is the tortoise. Jaina temples depict the god with other vahanas such as the elephant, ram or peacock. In Thailand, he can be seen standing on a tortoise.

The choice of mouse as the god’s vahana identifies Ganesha as a low-level folk deity. The Ganesha Purana reveals a rat frequently caused extensive damage in Rishi Parasara’s ashram, devouring grain and damaging clothes, books, and garden. Finally, Parasara’s son Gajamukha caught the rat with his noose (pasa) and made it his mount, symbolically subjugating it. The rat symbolises destruction, evil, obstacles to success; its status as vahan of Ganesha underlines the god’s humble origins as a gramadevata, subjugator of the enemy of village folk.

Ganesha’s rising stature was ensconced forever once the god caught the imagination of Maharashtrian bhakti saints, especially Jnanesvara, in the thirteenth century. Sarasvati Gangadhara (fifteenth century) in Gurucharitra said Ganapati prevented Ravana from possessing the Shivalinga, which would have made him invincible.

West promoting Sonia intriguing but understandable
News Analysis
September 23, 2007

Congress party president Sonia Gandhi has been in the news recently for three rather surprising reasons. First, for no explicable reason, Ms. Gandhi has been invited to address the United Nations General Assembly next month, though she is neither a head of government or a head of state; but is only the chief of a political party that leads India’s ruling coalition regime.

In terms of protocol, there can be little doubt that Ms. Gandhi lacks the status to address the UN, and the invitation to her is only a recognition of her Italian origins and underlines the Western-Christian bias of the nations that dominate this international body.

Propriety demands that she drop the idea of going to New York, even at this late stage, if only because the government she manipulates is on a particularly sticky wicket and unable to deliver on foreign expectations roused.

Secondly, Ms. Gandhi has, to everyone’s surprise, figured on the Forbes list of the sixth most influential woman in the world. Now, everyone knows that the Forbes list deals exclusively with persons who matter in terms of international business and trade, and this can certainly explain the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi. But Ms. Gandhi does not wield political or economic power directly, so questions must be asked about her presence on a list devoted to those who promote Western corporate interests.

One does not need to look too far: her countryman and close personal friend, Mr. Ottavio Quattrocchi facilitated the Bofors arms deal and Ms. Gandhi allegedly used her personal dominance over the current UPA regime to provide him access to the frozen loot in London banks and a walkover in an Argentina court. The question naturally arises: was Ms. Gandhi’s presence in the Forbes list timed to coincide with India’s accepting the Indo-US nuclear deal in toto, to the full satisfaction of the United States?

This brings us to the third reason for her being in the news: in a letter to Congress workers, published in the August 2007 issue of the official party magazine, Sandesh, Ms. Gandhi termed the nuclear deal “historic.” Sadly, the publication hit the stands right at the time when the Left parties started putting the brakes on this ‘historic’ achievement of the party’s Northern Italian leadership.

Still, her remarks are noteworthy, if only for the level of obfuscation and dishonesty that characterizes the nuclear deal: “This month India and the United States have signed the historic 123 agreement that lifts the decades old embargo against nuclear trade with India. This will allow India to expand its energy sector to meet the growing demands of our economic growth and put an end to the power shortages that we are all familiar with. It will help us expand power generation for our agricultural sector and our growing industrial sector. Throughout the negotiations with the USA, Parliament, our UPA allies, the Left parties and the Opposition parties have been kept informed. We have negotiated with America keeping our national interest in the forefront and India’s nuclear defence programme has been in no way undermined. This agreement is recognition of the achievements of India’s scientists who have worked diligently to keep our indigenous nuclear programme alive. We congratulate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team of able negotiators who have hammered a treaty that satisfies all the conditions laid out before Parliament, and brought home an agreement that is in the long-term interests of India.”

Eminent writers in this newspaper have over the past few weeks torn these lies to shreds. Here I would only like to add that a number of nationalist scientists and security experts feel that a major unstated reason behind the enthusiasm of some persons and groups for the nuclear deal is the sheer windfall to be gathered in terms of ‘kickbacks.’ The sheer cost of the multi-crore nuclear reactors, not to mention fuel, has no relationship with the actual amount of electricity generated, and it is well known that this deal will in no way solve our energy needs in the coming century; hence the only benefit can be a ‘hidden’ one. This is a facet that needs a public articulation in coming days.

It is high time that Indian political parties and commentators began to put the Gandhi family under the same scrutiny reserved for other eminences. For instance, at precisely the moment when megastar Amitabh Bachchan and his family members have been hounded by the Congress-friendly government of Uttar Pradesh and Congress government of Maharashtra for purchasing farmland and claiming agricultural status, why has the never-once-employed Ms. Priyanka Vadera been given special permission by the Congress government of Himachal Pradesh to purchase over four-bighas of agricultural land in prestigious downtown Shimla. What is that status of Ms. Vadera and her husband Robert, that entitles them to VIP security and the right to buy land in an area reserved for the retreat of the Prime Minister and the President?

Even more astonishingly, the local unit of the Congress party appears to have been roped in to find the plot and enable the Vaderas to buy it. Local Congress leader K.S. Khacchi told journalists: “It was the best available land that we have got for the daughter of our leader Sonia Gandhi. The best possible efforts would be made to ensure that the structure that comes up is unique and scenic in more ways than one.” Is this a political party or a pocket borough? Mr. Khacchi revealed that the land cost only Rs. 46 lakh as government rates were applied; the market value is much higher on account of its proximity to Kalyani Helipad, Kufri village, which is famous for its snowfall, Punjab Raj Bhawan, the Himalayan School and the famous Oberoi Hotel. The state government relaxed Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act 1972 to enable Priyanka to buy the land as land cannot be sold to non-agriculturists (Himachalis or outsiders).

Cinestar Amitabh Bachchan, however, won no such reprieve for the 24 acres of prime land he bought near the beautiful hill resort of Lonavala in Maharashtra. Since the state’s Tenancy & Agricultural Land Act of 1963 enables only farmers to buy and own agricultural land, Mr. Bachchan tried to protect his farmer status by buying farmland in Barabanki, UP. The subsequent controversy having taken a toll of his mental health, he has tried to dispose of the land by donating it to the village panchayats in both states, but this too is being disputed by authorities!

Yet another VIP who is being hounded mindlessly is film star Sanjay Dutt, who was provided a government vehicle during a recent trip to Vaishno Devi. Given Dutt’s star status and the fact that his personal security was the responsibility of the Jammu & Kashmir government, the controversy is uncalled for, and need not be linked to his sentence in an arms case. It is a fact that he was travelling in a terrorism-infested area, hence there is no need to politicize the matter. Sanjay Dutt, like Amitabh Bachchan, is a celebrity in his own right; his privileges are not inherited.

Nepal’s mobocracy with Maoists running amuck
September 16, 2007

Prachanda himself has admitted that the current climate is unfavourable to the Maoists. In fact, he had to publicly retract his call for postponing elections because the public reaction was severe.

One is at a loss to understand how Prachanda dreams of living in the Naryanhiti Palace as President of the Republic of Nepal, when he and his cadres are fearful of a free election. Yet Mr. Koirala has humiliated the King to please a goon, by unilaterally nationalising eight royal palaces; four others also face the axe.

If there was ever any doubt that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is the weakest leader Nepal has had in several decades, it should be settled with his constantly succumbing to Maoist pressure and humiliating the 239-year-old monarchy which is the symbol of the civilizational unity and political continuity of the Himalayan kingdom. The sudden decision to nationalise eight royal palaces and the uncultured announcement that the famed Narayanhiti Palace will become the official residence of an upstart Republican politician are pointers to Mr. Koirala’s unbecoming pusillanimity in the face of Prachanda’s growing intransigence.

Had Mr. Koirala felt more accountable to the Nepalese people, or perhaps was less amenable to the pressure of the UN Political Mission in Nepal and the foreign-funded NGOs, he would have realised that Comrade Prachanda is daily growing more and more anxious to avoid the forthcoming elections to the Constituent Assembly, now slated for November 2007. To all reasonably intelligent persons, this would indicate awareness of loss of popularity at the grassroots level. But even if Mr. Koirala recognises this reality, he seems unable to stand up against Prachanda’s illegitimate pressures.

It is significant that Prachanda has already suggested that the polls be postponed to mid-April 2008, and observers feel this is a prelude to indefinite postponement and a virtual coup by armed Maoist goons. Prachanda himself has admitted that the current climate is unfavourable to the Maoists. In fact, he had to publicly retract his call for postponing elections because the public reaction was severe. Yet the Maoists are clearly uneasy at the prospects of facing elections in November, and top leader K.B. Mahara stated that the elections would be held as per scheduled, while Comrade Bhattarai opined, on the same public platform, that the time was “not opportune” for polls! Political observers feel violence during the elections is inevitable amidst reports of Maoist rearming and continued extortions.

Prachanda and Bhattarai are aware that the unpopularity of their cadres in the populous Terai and hill regions, including refusal to return seized properties, has created a groundswell of resentment. Indeed, the Maoist menace has led to the formation of small self-defence units in many places, which further indicates a violent election. It is not yet known if the three bomb blasts in Kathmandu on September 2, 2007 were the work of Maoist cadres or some other group. Meanwhile, Prachanda is pressing for 22 demands, the major ones being proclamation of a Republic, a round table meet, and proportional representation.

Terai, meanwhile, continues to be extremely disturbed. The Madhesi Mukti Tigers, a splinter group from Goit, called a five-day bandh from August 22, which was extremely successful. At the same time, the Tharus (who are being instigated to regard themselves as non-Madhesis, though many regard themselves as Madhesis) organised an independent protest in Dang district.

The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum of Upendra Yadav recently held its central committee meeting (August 22-23, 2007); Mr. Yadav is prepared to participate in the elections if the demand for proportional representation is accepted, though some of his colleagues like Mr. Kishor Biswas and Mr. Upendra Jha are against accommodation till all their demands are met. They have called a fresh stir from August 31, but the mood in Terai generally is one of exhaustion, according to observers. The observers feel that Prime Minister Koirala should accede immediately the MJF demand to declare all killed in police firing the martyrs, and give the promised compensation to the bereaved families without further delay.

It is pertinent that an MJF boycott will completely ruin the credibility of the constituent assembly elections, as 40 percent of the population would stay aloof from the process. Mr. Yadav’s other major demand is federalism along with autonomous provinces, but this can probably await the new constitution. But martyr status should present no difficulty and Prime Minister Koirala should either fulfill this promise or come clean about who is pressurising him to ditch the Madhesis. The delimitation of constituencies should also be fair and just.

But this may be too much to expect from a regime that could not stand up to the pressure of thugs who are nervous of facing an election. One is at a loss to understand how Prachanda dreams of living in the Naryanhiti Palace as President of the Republic of Nepal, when he and his cadres are fearful of a free election. Yet Mr. Koirala has humiliated the King to please a goon, by unilaterally nationalising eight royal palaces; four others also face the axe. It is true that most of these royal residences were being managed by the government, but the royalty were in residence at the Narayanhiti Palace when the announcement was made, which could have awaited the election results, which might have made the takeover unnecessary.

Mr. Koirala, however, seems unable to break out of Prachanda’s vice-like grip. He has instructed his Nepali Congress to promulgate a Republic as one of its election promises, instead of promising to curb Maoist extortions and restore law and order in the country! Clearly a case of blind leading the blind into a blind alley!

Evangelists as taliban hostages
September 09, 2007

By the time this article appears in print, it is likely that the remaining 19 South Korean Christian aid workers, held hostage by Taliban militia for over six weeks, would have been released. This has implications that New Delhi would do well to take note of.

To begin with, the South Koreans are the second known group of foreign Christian missionaries who have entered Afghanistan in the guise of aid workers, but in reality to preach the Bible and convert local residents. The first group comprised German missionaries working for an NGO ostensibly specialising in providing shelters to persons in disturbed zones. They were kidnapped by Taliban guerrillas on the charge of indulging in conversion activities, which was strenuously denied by the German government and the concerned NGO so long as the workers were in captivity. But after America bombed Afghanistan after the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the group was rescued sometime in 2002, the hostages admitted at they were in Kabul to preach the Gospel.

The South Korean evangelists, however, were more honest about their intentions, and when the ineffective Afghan President Hamid Karzai proved incapable of helping them release their personnel, openly appealed to the United States - the fountainhead and main sponsor of international evangelism. The response was heart-warming: the Karzai government was asked to provide safe passage to Taliban negotiators with the South Korean regime, and soon thereafter Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi announced that the missionaries, mostly young women in their 20s and 30s, would soon be released through the good offices of tribal elders. Two hostages were released earlier and two males were executed in July this year.

Some inferences are obvious. One, the US-dominated West remains fully committed to the conversion of the entire world to Christianity, and no efforts are spared in the pursuit of this quest. The Hindu-Indian complacency that Christians do not dare to practice conversions in Muslim-dominated areas (of India) or in Islamic countries, rests on willful ignorance. In the violence-prone Kashmir Valley where Hindu spiritual leaders dare not enter, Christian evangelists have admittedly altered the demographic profile by five per cent (unofficial reports put the figure at 10 per cent).

In neighbouring Pakistan, the burqa-clad Chinese women who were allowed to leave Lal Masjid before the army action, may well have been evangelists. Even Afghan refugees in Pakistan have been vulnerable to missionaries. Last year, one Rashid who was converted to Christianity while working for a western NGO in Pakistan, fell foul of his own family members on return to Kabul. President Karzai was subjected to intense international pressure to allow him to leave the country, and Italy provided the convert with refuge.

The fact that the West dares evangelize in Islamic countries, where conversion is apostasy and punishable by death, exposes its fanaticism and utter intolerance of other faiths anywhere in the world. This proves that Western protestations about secularism are only a mask to prevent other faith communities from operating in the public arena in their own countries, even as the West funnels funds and personnel to undermine native traditions and subordinate different parts of the world to its strategic and economic needs.

Second and more disturbing is the fact that America clearly continues to have active links with the Taliban commanders with whom it ostensibly snapped ties in the wake of the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. This is evident in the manner in which the Taliban agreed not to press its previous demand for exchange of prisoners in return for the South Koreans, and its decision to accept Seoul’s promise to withdraw troops (a token 200 soldiers) posted in Afghanistan by the end of 2007 and ensure that missionaries did not return to Afghanistan. Interestingly, Taliban agreed to let the International Committee of the Red Cross mediate the deal with the diplomats from Seoul.

What is pertinent to India is the larger geo-political factors operating in the north west. America wants President Karzai to talk to the Taliban and arrive at a political understanding with them, which he is naturally resisting. India and Iran have a traditional rapport with the traditional tribal rulers of Afghanistan, who are under pressure from the America-favoured Taliban. Washington knows it cannot bank on President Karzai in the longterm as his hold on even Kabul is tenuous, and does not want to let the traditional tribal leaders take over the country; hence the continued relations with Taliban.

The Taliban, as is well known, is the Al Qaeda which Pakistan uses against India with chilling effect. Thus, a Taliban-Pakistan-US nexus is being strengthened under our noses, while US pretends to be unhappy with Gen. Musharraf’s failure to deliver in the war on terror. New Delhi has already erred in setting up a Joint Terror Mechanism with Pakistan under pressure from the White House.

Thorium is the key to energy security
News Analysis
September 02, 2007

The intemperate outburst against nationalist opinion in this country by Mr. Ronen Sen, handpicked by Ms. Gandhi to be our envoy to America, amply proves that the deal was an eye-wash, a fraud on the Indian people.

The BJP, which once ran a national awareness campaign about the dangers posed to national security and sovereignty by the Italian-born Congress president, would do well to link its opposition to the faulty Indo-US nuclear deal to Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s loyalties to the western world. Unless the BJP quickly seizes the initiative and pins responsibility for what is widely viewed as a “slave charter” upon the Congress, it is in danger of losing the moral high ground.

Prudence demands that Mr. Rajnath Singh positions the party in a way that it can make new strategic alliances in such an eventuality. He should also filter the media hype and seek to reflect the nationalist suspicion against too much affinity with the United States. The intemperate outburst against nationalist opinion in this country by Mr. Ronen Sen, handpicked by Ms. Gandhi to be our envoy to America, amply proves that the deal was an eye-wash, a fraud on the Indian people. One does not have to be a nuclear scientist to understand that Mr. Sen’s virtual ultimatum to his own country’s political leadership that the deal could not be re-negotiated without impacting upon India’s credibility and relations with Washington, betrays the anger of a man caught out while doing a tricky manoeuvre.

Former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, who lost his job for opposing American colonialism and continuing atrocities in Iraq (as well as to divert attention from Congress complicity in the oil-for-food scam), believes that the UPA government has to address domestic concerns against the Hyde Act. Citing historical precedents, Mr. Singh points out that several important legislations in the world have been scrapped or reworked in order to be acceptable to the people. Nor has it been necessary for Presidents or Prime Ministers to resign on this score.

Thus, American President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) signed the Treaty of Versailles after World War I in 1919, only to have the Senate scrap it. Mr Wilson continued to be President. In our own times, President Bill Clinton ardently advocated the CTBT, but was rejected in his own Senate; he too carried on in office. Then, the European Union conducted a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty; it was rejected in France and Denmark on nationalist grounds, and faced rough weather elsewhere as well for being the handiwork of bureaucrats who would be unaccountable to public opinion. As a result, the entire treaty was re-negotiated and an amicable solution found. The plea that this will adversely affect our international image is a bogey by those who have knowingly compromised national interests and resent being found out.

Ambassador Sen obliquely threatens financial consequences for India when he claims that the prospects of an India-US strategic partnership triggered off an immense interest in India by leading CEOs of American companies, and US Senators, Congressmen, CEOs, presidents of universities, all began to visit India in droves. Some airlines decided to have direct flights to India. It is simply atrocious that an envoy should speak like this in the twenty-first century! What is more, the current experience of China, which invited billions of dollars of FDI and tied up its economy with western multinationals at the expense of the cheap labour of its own people, only to witness the West ruining its toy and garment industry at the drop of a hat, should serve as a warning of excessive subordination to the western economy.

It is pertinent that India is dominant in the Indian Ocean and America wants it to provide western oil transport security here in the face of rising Islamic hostility to the West. The moot point, however, is whether this role of western sepoy enhances or diminishes India’s status in the world arena.

Even the economic benefits seem one-way. Washington will rescue its stagnant nuclear industry with heavy Indian investment over three decades. America’s General Electric (GE) and Japan’s Hitachi will enter India in joint ventures to build nuclear power reactors. What is more, Washington is expected to exert pressure on New Delhi to further lift restrictions on FDI flow to India and bring down import tariffs. It will also expect to make huge weapons sales.

India, however, does not need this dated nuclear technology. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam and other scientists favour thorium-based nuclear reactors to meet our long-term energy needs. India’s known thorium deposits are to the tune of 3,60,000 tonnes, and can generate 400,000 MW electricity per year for the next four centuries (this is four times our current output). Our huge thorium deposits permit the design and operation of U-233 fuelled breeder reactors.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, has spent fifty years researching thorium-based reactors, and India alone has this technology because it alone has adequate thorium reserves. Already a 300 MW thorium based reactor has been designed and is undergoing regulatory clearances. If launched in the Eleventh Plan period, it will be ready in seven years. Thorium produces up to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors, sharply reducing radiation hazards, which make it the fuel of the future. The question therefore arises: why is India abandoning an indigenous and futuristic nuclear programme for dubious, outdated and costly technology from the West? Who are the Indians who are expected to gain from this process?

Finally, Manavalankurichi in Tamil Nadu, Aluva and Chavara in Kerala and Chatrapur in Orissa have the world’s largest reserves of thorium (monazite and ilmenite minerals which also yield another high-value metal, titanium). The BJP should demand that these be designated as “strategic mineral reserves” and subjected to rigorous safeguards by the Government of India as a security imperative. The Mines Act 2000 should be amended to exclude these strategic minerals from private mining operations in view of their importance for the country’s strategic nuclear programme.

Phoney women empowerment
The UPA has an anti-Hindu charter
August 19, 2007

The present UPA regime has been shamefully unhelpful towards Nepal in its current crisis, virtually throwing the country at the mercy of the Christian Maoist leadership of Prachanda-Bhattarai-Gajurel, and the US-dominated UN Political Mission.

An agenda paper for the National Integration Council on August 31, 2005, highlighted the activities of Christian evangelists in Kota, Rajasthan and attempts to convert Hindus by Muslims in Dakshin Kannada, Karnataka, as instances of such discord.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has a long record of disdain for the country and its laws, from the time she entered the country as daughter-in-law of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Shah Commission put some of her cavalier actions on record. Her record became progressively worse as she ascended the political pole, first as wife of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and now as Congress president and UPA chairperson. Apart from the public humiliation of the entire nation in the Quattrocchi scandal (enabling him to siphon off millions of Bofors kickback money in London and ensuring him access to classified government information so he could escape deportation to India from Argentina), India’s nuclear security has been compromised in the one-sided agreement with America.
It is difficult, in the course of a single article, to make a comprehensive charge-sheet against the ruling dispensation. However, the elevation of Smt Pratibha Patil as the country’s first woman President must rank among the most blatant assaults upon India ’s civilisational ethos. It would be demeaning the office of President to reiterate the unseemly charges levelled against Smt Patil in the run-up to her election; what concerns us here is her record as an instrument of the UPA’s anti-Hindu agenda.

Just recently, Smt Patil reiterated that she will not be a rubber stamp President, which is fine, since the President is supposed to be a moral and guiding spirit to the elected government of the day. The Constitution makers never envisaged a rubber stamp. Nor did they envisage a Political President, which is what Smt Patil has said she will be, in sharp contrast to the People’s President who has just demitted office.

This is an especially odd statement as it comes from a person who has been in public life for decades and should know that the Presidency is a constitutional post that should be kept free of controversy. This creates suspicions that Smt Patil will treat the Presidency as an extension of her political career in the Congress party; it is also a tacit admission that she treated her last tenure in the Rajasthan Raj Bhavan in much the same way.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has a long record of disdain for the country and its laws, from the time she entered the country as daughter-in-law of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Shah Commission put some of her cavalier actions on record. Her record became progressively worse as she ascended the political pole, first as wife of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and now as Congress president and UPA chairperson. Apart from the public humiliation of the entire nation in the Quattrocchi scandal (enabling him to siphon off millions of Bofors kickback money in London and ensuring him access to classified government information so he could escape deportation to India from Argentina), India’s nuclear security has been compromised in the one-sided agreement with America, at the insistence of Smt Gandhi. She is on record saying the deal means a lot to her; only she has not told us why.

One critical issue to which Smt Gandhi is seriously committed is conversion to Christianity. Though this is a well guarded secret in India, the late King Birendra of Nepal was known to have complained privately that during an official visit to his country as wife of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Smt Sonia Gandhi berated him for the arrest of missionaries engaged in conversions and demanded their release. It is no secret that under her domination, the present UPA regime has been shamefully unhelpful towards Nepal in its current crisis, virtually throwing the country at the mercy of the Christian Maoist leadership of Prachanda-Bhattarai-Gajurel, and the US-dominated UN Political Mission.

Once this side of her agenda for India is known, the selection of Smt Pratibha Patil for President after she twice refused to sign the Rajasthan anti-conversion bill makes perfect sense. The move won public accolades from Pope Benedict XVI, and it cannot be ruled out that he put in a word with the Italian-born Roman Catholic president of the Congress party.

There can be no doubt that Smt Gandhi manipulated Smt Patil to show disrespect for India’s foundational ethos and native culture. After being chosen as the UPA’s presidential nominee, Smt Patil referred the Rajasthan anti-conversion legislation to the President for an opinion. Both she and her Congress mentors knew that President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam would not have the time to seek legal opinion and take a decision on the legislation, and hence, this reference would come up before Smt Patil herself once she assumed office. And now, in the wake of her elevation as President, two more Congress party Governors, Shri Nawal Kishore Sharma of Gujarat and Shri Balram Jakhar of Madhya Pradesh, have returned anti-conversion legislations to their respective state governments. There is clearly a pattern here to undermine and change the very nature of this Hindu-majority nation. As Rajasthan Governor, Smt Patil was aware of the reprehensive activities of the Immanuel Mission in Kota. Shri Sharma would be aware of what is happening in Dangs, Gujarat, and Shri Jakhar would know that Madhya Pradesh is among the first states in India to pass anti-conversion laws to save tribals from the depredations of evangelists. Yet, all have put Smt Gandhi’s non-Indian, non-Hindu agenda above the nation. Other UPA constituents are equally oblivious of the danger to the country, being too busy nurturing minority constituencies for political returns.

It is pertinent that what the Gujarat Governor has returned are some important amendments to the Freedom of Religion Act 2003. This received the assent of the then Governor, Sundar Singh Bhandari. In 2006, the Gujarat Government amended the law to include Jains and Buddhists with the Hindu fold. The Governor’s claim that the amendments do not conform to the Constitution is astounding. He has upheld the missionary position that Article 25, which guarantees all citizens the right to profess, practice and propagate a religion and freedom of conscience, means the right to convert another to one’s faith. This goes against the spirit of the Constitution, and will no doubt give a boost to muscular evangelisation.

The Governor has conveniently ignored the fact that the Gujarat Government delineated Jains and Buddhists as part of the Hindu community, Shias and Sunnis in the Islamic brotherhood, and Protestants and Catholics as the Christian community only to facilitate the inter-marriages that often take place amongst these groups, and at least for Muslims and Christians sometimes involve formal conversion to the other sect. By keeping the local administration out of such intra-community conversions, the government was merely trying to save ordinary citizens from undue intervention by the state.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi has done well to declare that with the Governor rejecting the amendments, he will now notify the old 2003 law. This is imperative given that Pope Benedict XVI’s controversial 2006 speech at the University of Regensburg reveals his disdain for image-worshipping communities (dubbed idolaters); he considers them worthy only of evangelism.

It is significant that even the Union Home Ministry concedes that conversions by missionaries are a major cause of social unrest and communal disharmony in India. An agenda paper for the National Integration Council on 31 August 2005 highlighted the activities of Christian evangelists in Kota , Rajasthan and attempts to convert Hindus by Muslims in Dakshin Kannada, Karnataka, as instances of such discord.

Sadly, the new President, Smt Pratibha Patil, will now use the Presidential reference she forwarded to herself to undermine the nation’s foundational ethos at a time when it is the only bulwark against the forces of mindless terrorism on one side, and reckless modernisation on the other. The issue of Smt Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins has never been more pertinent.

UN role in Nepal dubious
August 12, 2007

Throughout 1945 and 1946, Britain, the Netherlands and Australia, as occupational forces in Indonesia, sought to reverse Indonesian independence and revert it to Netherlands’ colonial control.

It is strange that all Indian discourse on Nepal avoids scrutiny of the role the West is playing through the auspices of the United Nations Political Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), established vide Security Council resolution 1740 (2007). Recent visitors to the country speak of the Terai disturbances, the growing extortion and lawlessness of Maoist cadres, the rising hills-plains divide, and the danger that elections scheduled for November 22 may be cancelled on some pretext.

Some have taken note of the mushrooming growth of dance bars as the only means of income in a stagnant economy. Yet they seem unaware of the growing hatred of UN Mission staff as local citizens witness their flamboyant life styles, suffer their arrogance, and see no beneficial result of their presence in the country. The UNMIN was set up for one year at the request of the Nepalese Government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to help implement the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, monitor the ceasefire, and assist in the election of a new Constituent Assembly.

What most Indian analysts fail to realise, however, is that UNMIN is not an ordinary peace-keeping force, but a Political Mission. Only an absolute abdication of responsibility could have let the Sonia Gandhi-dominated UPA regime acquiesce in the arrival of the Mission to determine events in a country that lies in India’s natural sphere of influence.

It is well known that India’s sad experience with UN officials in Kashmir compelled her to seek friendly ties with the Soviet Union so as to procure the Soviet veto against Western unilateralism in the Security Council. A more telling example of what the UN can do to non-Western nations can be seen in the case of Indonesia, one of its worst victims. The UN was set up in 1945 ostensibly to save the globe from future world wars; uphold fundamental human rights and the equal rights of nations regardless of size, among others. Yet its founding members, Britain, Australia and the Netherlands, were the principal wreckers of Indonesian independence.

Throughout 1945 and 1946, Britain, the Netherlands and Australia, as occupational forces in Indonesia, sought to reverse Indonesian independence and revert it to Netherlands’ colonial control. The UN ignored this brazen violation of its Charter. In 1947, after two years of atrocities by the occupation forces against the Indonesian people, the Security Council merely called for a cease-fire on August 1, 1947. In an unpublished paper, public opinions activist Ms. Radha Rajan points out, the UN failed to declare the continuing presence of the Dutch in Indonesia or of the British in the Malay province (British Malaya) as illegal and violative of the Charter. The call for cease-fire suggested that Indonesia was a party to the hostilities, rather than an victim of continued western and colonial aggression. UN did not direct the Netherlands to withdraw from Indonesia, or UK to quit British Malaya. Instead, UN set up a “Good Offices Commission” in October 1947 to work out a ‘settlement’ in Indonesia. This naturally made the Netherlands a legitimate party in the negotiations, thereby legitimising colonialism and the refusal of European powers to withdraw unconditionally from their colonies.

In the context of Nepal, it bears mentioning that India can ignore the political activities of the UN Political Mission only at its own peril. The grim reality of Nepal today is that violence and lawlessness are increasing daily and Maoist cadres are flush with funds. Some of the funds can be explained in terms of government grants under the ceasefire, and extravagant extractions from businessmen and traders. It is my understanding, however, that these sources are being used as a ‘cover’ to shield the fact that the Maoists are being funded by external forces with a view to secure an anti-India and anti-China foothold in the region. Nothing else can explain the truth that under UNMIN auspices, Nepal is daily moving further away from the possibility of elections for a new Constituent Assembly. Instead, Maoists are trying to force the unelected coalition government to declare a Republic and dethrone the monarchy.

Reports from hitherto reliable sources suggest certain Madhesi leaders of the Terai are being wooed and offered representation in the current makeshift Parliament. Should they agree, this would be unilaterally converted into a Constituent Assembly (again unelected), and this will proceed to declare a Republic, despite the growing public sentiment that the King represents the nation’s continuity with its Hindu civilisation and culture.

Observers to the mountain country also say that the Maoists appear to have access to weaponry which has not been accounted for (there are districts that neither the government nor the UNMIN can enter). It is feared that if the scheduled elections are actually held, they may be violent and of doubtful fairness. UNMIN appears blissfully unaware of this reality, which is very suspicious.

New Delhi would do well to take a fresh shock of events in the Himalayan kingdom, rather than accept the prevailing rhetoric as truth. For instance, it is said that a ‘people’s movement’ brought about the brief period of ‘democratic’ rule in Nepal in April 1990. Yet with hindsight, this seems to have been an orchestrated preamble to a more violent movement by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which launched an insurgency in 1996 because the various political parties simply failed to unite and give the country stable governance. The Maoists launched a decade of armed conflict during which thousands of persons ‘disappeared’ and many more were displaced. King Gyanendra’s intervention in October 2002 must be placed in this context. Various prime ministers appointed by him up to February 2005 could not control the violence, failing which he assumed executive powers on February 1, 2005. It is now well-known that the April 2006 agitation that led to restoration of Parliament was based on rented crowds. As such funding is normally associated with the West, India would do well to wake up to developments in its neighbourhood.

Diaspora Hindus lament loss of human rights
News Analysis
July 22, 2007

HAF wants India to provide visas and adequate financial support to settle the refugees. It demands the restoration of Hindu temples and institutions in Afghanistan.
By Sandhya Jain

Nearly twenty million Hindus live outside India, and find themselves subject to discrimination, terror, murder and other forms of violence, including forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, destruction of temples, socio-political ostracization and disenfranchisement. Politicians and governments of many countries engage in hate speech and myriad forms of discrimination against ethnic minorities.

Hindus in other parts of the globe consistently face discrimination and human rights violations in countries where they are either residents or citizens. In its report of 2006, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has documented the problems of Hindu minorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago.

The report also documents the problems that Hindus face in India’s Jammu & Kashmir, but there is inexplicable silence about the real and perceived discrimination faced by Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) in America and other Western countries. At precisely the moment the HAF report was being released to the media, Sikh construction workers in America had joined a legal battle with Western employers to protest against unpaid wages of several years, discriminatory hire and fire policies, unsafe working conditions in the form of absence of safety equipment, and a host of other issues. In Britain, Indian (mainly Hindu) doctors invited by the government to settle there are unwelcome on account of the unconquerable racism of British society, and may now find themselves thrown out on the pretext of the Bangalore links of Indian Muslim doctors.

Nearly twenty million Hindus live outside India, and find themselves subject to discrimination, terror, murder and other forms of violence, including forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, destruction of temples, socio-political ostracization and disenfranchisement. Politicians and governments of many countries engage in hate speech and myriad forms of discrimination against ethnic minorities.

In Afghanistan, the ancient Hindu community dates back to the earliest recorded history, the Vedic Age, approximately between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE. Yet Hindu temples destroyed by the Taliban have not been rebuilt, many temples are still occupied by Muslim groups, and no Hindu places of worship exist today. Afghan Hindus who were forced into exile during Taliban rule are not being provided with any basic facilities for resettlement if they return. The governments of Britain and Germany are pressurising Hindu Afghans to return, when the resurgence of Taliban outside of Kabul has rendered remaining Hindu families extremely vulnerable. Hindu families cannot even send their children to public schools for fear of persecution and ridicule.

Positioning the United States as world leader for inexplicable reasons, the HAF has asked it, jointly with the international community, to exert pressure on Germany and Britain to stop involuntary deportation of Hindu refugees from their territory to Afghanistan. HAF wants India to provide visas and adequate financial support to settle the refugees. It demands the restoration of Hindu temples and institutions in Afghanistan, but does not say who these will serve if Afghanistan’s minority population is planning to leave anyway. Finally, it argues that Pakistan must be discouraged from supporting resurgent Taliban as this will further destabilize Afghanistan to the detriment of Hindus and other minorities.

Hindus comprised 30 percent of Bangladesh’s population in 1947, but today constitute less than 10 percent. By 1991, as many as 20 million Hindus were reported as “missing” from the country. Bangladeshi Hindus even today continue to be victims of ethnic cleaning at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, and incidents of rape, murder, kidnappings, physical violence, and iconoclasm are daily occurrences. Human rights activists and honest journalists are terrorised and often driven out of the country. In just nine months of 2006, for which data is available, there have been 461 incidents of murder, rape, kidnappings, temple destruction, and land grabing, targeting Hindus.

A formidable 44 per cent of the 2.7 million Hindu households have been adversely affected by the Enemy Property Act 1965 and its post-independence version, the Vested Property Act 1974. Individuals with links to the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)-Islamist party alliance in power between 2001 and 2006 became beneficiaries of over 45 per cent of lands confiscated from Hindus under the outrageous Vested Property Act. HAF urges the interim Bangladesh regime to ensure an end to attacks upon Hindus and exemplary action against their assailants. Anti-minority laws such as the Vested Property Act must be repealed and land restored to the rightful owners. Western donor countries should ensure that such measures are undertaken! This constant reliance upon the West discredits the report, as it is prone to misuse by countries seeking to advance their strategic and corporate interests.

Bhutan has been criticised for evicting one lakh Hindu and Buddhist citizens in the early 1990s; most are living in Nepal, though there are some in India also. The Fiji Islands are a Christian majority state with a 34 per cent Hindu population, and Hindus are constantly subject to hate speech and assaults on their temples. The Methodist Church of Fiji wants to create a Christian State. In Kazakhstan, Hindus are a small minority amidst Sunni Muslim and Russian Orthodox Church followers. Here, Hindus with allegiance to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) are being intimidated by Kazakh authorities.

Malaysia has also come under the HAF radar as a country where minorities have to struggle to retain their religious identities. Hindu temples have been destroyed, and mosques are given precedence in the allocation of public funds and lands. Pakistan, of course, has taken its Hindu population from 25 percent in 1947 to an abysmal 1.6 percent today, and openly discriminates against non-Muslims through blasphemy laws. These have actually been invoked against the country’s Christian population, rather than against Hindus. Hence this mention in the HAF reports leads to the suspicion that it may be catering to other-than-Hindu agendas.

Saudi Arabia, where Hindus go only to work rather than to settle as citizens, is targetted for a system of identity cards that identifies holders as ‘Muslim’ or ‘non-Muslim.’ It does not permit the practice of other faiths upon its soil, which is well known and accepted by Hindus visiting the kingdom.

Here again, HAF is lending itself as a tool of US foreign policy, which undermines the purpose and efficacy of the report, especially when America is constantly invoked to ensure freedom in countries that are likely to be targets of its oil-hungry corporates. HAF appears to be entirely unaware of the atrocities being perpetrated in Iraq and other countries where US has a military presence (e.g. Philippines), and the evangelical-imperial project - Joshua project - that is menacing Hindu dharma in India.

Club of St. Stephens: Advancing inequity
Opinion
July 15, 2007

Vituperative outbursts by the alumni of Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College notwithstanding, the management is bent upon using its vast resources and facilities to the advantage of the Christian community though it is entirely funded from the tax payers money. The church doesn’t foot the bill for the running of the institution.

While it is true that the Indian Constitution nowhere defines what a minority is, the fact remains that Articles 29 and 30 provide special provisions for religious and linguistic minorities, and it is under these provisions that many religious groups are operating educational and other institutions.

In an era in which there are growing doubts about the efficacy of reservations in general, and the socially divisive impact of quotas for increasingly smaller castes and sub-castes, there is a need to re-examine every aspect of the reservation debate with an open mind. While there may be merit in doing away with government-ordained quotas that are driven by political considerations, it may not be necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater by doing away with reservations altogether. My point is that quotas can be made optional and voluntary.

To begin with, it needs to be recognised that the Constituent Assembly debates came loaded with a lot of colonial cultural and political baggage. As a result, the authors of the Constitution believed that the only way to ‘uplift’ the lot of the disadvantaged groups that the British Raj had listed as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, was by giving them reservations in politics and employment. This was later extended to higher education though commensurate measures were not adopted to ensure cent per cent primary and secondary school education for either SCs, STs or other sections of the society. The subsequent extension of quotas to other Backward Castes and the current attempt to introduce quotas for religious minorities has since inflamed public opinion.

One of the fallacies of the reservation debate is that religious minorities are either necessarily backward and that they need some form of constitutional protection. The crux of the problem here is that while some Muslim religious leaders are opposed to the division of the community on the basis of their former Hindu castes for quota benefits, though almost 80 per cent of them are covered under the caste-quota, the Church is anxious to procure quotas and other benefits for what it calls Dalit Christians.

It is this attempt to give admission benefits to Dalit Christians and other (upper castes) Christians that has made St. Stephen’s the recipient of the rage of former alumni who find themselves losing the British Raj-Upper Caste Brand Equity hitherto bestowed by the college! Not one of the commentators has railed against the Church of North India which owns St. Stephens for bestowing a social stigma and a historical disability upon the flock it was mandated to protect and uplift when it converted SCs or STs to Christianity. The church has been practicing and perpetuating inegality and alumni are worried about its impact upon their snob value!

Rather than waste time on legalese, we may take it that the term minority in all practical respects refers to religions originating outside the territory of India, which have come to this land either as refugees (Parsis, Bahai’s, Jews, Tibetans) or as invaders/rulers, who then made local converts. Whether these groups require or desire special privileges or protection is a different matter.

However, since the Constitution has provided facilities for setting up minority institutions (i.e., set up and managed by religious minorities), there is no reason why these should be denied the right to function as wholly minority-serving bodies. There is actually no justification for religious organisations using minority provisions to set up schools, colleges, professional colleges, and then using them as money-making organisations. While hospitals set up by religious foundations may not wish to turn away patients from any religion, I strongly feel that schools and colleges set up under minority provisions of the law should cater to the community in whose name they have been set up. If Dalit Christians have low literacy and employment, the converting organisation should be called to account.

Christian religious and so-called secular organisations are richly funded from western countries (for non-altruistic purposes), yet most money is spent in making fresh converts rather than raising the level of those already in the fold, a point made by the Poor Christian Liberation Movement. That is why the Dalit and Tribal Christians have come to be a kind of voiceless majority whose chief characteristic is an imposed deprivation by the Church hierarchy.

I am aware that concerned Hindus will promptly warn that these new religion-specific quotas will be used to win converts by allurement. This is certainly not a possibility to be ignored.

Secondly and more importantly, wherever an organisation by a religious minority comes up, government must provide the majority community a parallel facility so that conversions by allurement cannot take place. Thus a Christian dental college or a Muslim engineering college must be accompanied by the licensing of a Hindu/general dental or engineering college(s) in the same region. Nowhere should minority organisations be allowed to have a monopoly over any educational sphere to the disadvantage of the Hindu community. With private sector anxious to enter the educational sphere, this could adequately accommodate the legitimate aspirations of all communities and groups, without creating unnecessary competition and bitterness. Our national goal is education for all, and not this much percentage for that sub-group. With good intent, there is room for all.

The race for Raisina Hills
Again a dubious Congress first
News Analysis
July 08, 2007

The Election Commission or the apex court needs to step in without delay and stop a family with the most dubious credentials from occupying Rashtrapati Bhavan and claiming the immunity from criminal proceedings that this post would automatically confer upon them. India has already lost self-respect at home and esteem in the international community on account of the imposition of Ms. Pratibha Patil as UPA Presidential candidate.

According to the political grapevine, Ms. Sonia Gandhi has selected such a compromised candidate because she is anxious to be sworn in as Prime Minister before 15 August, when she hopes to address the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

The Supreme Court should take suo moto notice of this outrage and appoint an amicus curae to examine the Criminal Procedure Code to see what sections apply to Ms. Patil and her family members in the case of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank whose license was cancelled by the Reserve Bank of India; the Sant Muktabai Cooperative Sugar Factory which indulged in fraudulent practices and closed down; the murder of Jalgaon District Congress Committee president and its alleged cover-up; and the case of abetment to suicide of a Jalgaon teacher.

Thus, we have the loot of the public exchequer and the savings of the poor on one side, and a murder and a suicide on the other. It is unbelievable that a family involved in such sordid dealings is being catapulted to Raisina Hills. However, brakes can be put even at this late stage because the agency accusing Ms. Patil of financial misconduct is none other than the Reserve Bank of India.

Skeletons have been pouring out of the Patil family cupboard ever since she leaped into the national limelight after being selected as India’s probable first woman President. First she upset the entire Muslim community by saying that the purdah system came on account of Mughal atrocities. If she believed this, why didn’t she support the endeavour to write a factually correct history of India, replacing decades of secular lies and distortions? This would have separated history from contemporary politics, but all she did was to stir the communal pot to no advantage of any community.

Then came reports that the Patil family had defaulted on a bank loan worth Rs 17.5 crore invested in Sant Mukthai Cooperative Sugar Factory. As founder-president, Ms. Patil has been declared a defaulter. Though she quit the cooperative in 1996, she handed over charge to her brother G.N. Patil. The money borrowed from the Mumbai District Cooperative Bank was Rs 17.5 crore.

This was followed by the widow of the Jalgaon District Congress Committee claiming that her husband Mr. V.G. Patil had been murdered in 2005, that the alleged assassin had confessed being hired by Ms. Patil’s brother G.N. Patil, but was mysteriously killed thereafter and that Ms. Patil was involved in the cover up. The lady came to Delhi to apprise the President and Congress President of the situation, and thus, Ms. Gandhi was fully aware of the charges when she decided to project Ms. Patil as presidential candidate.

Then came the revelation that in 2003, the Reserve Bank of India had revoked the licence of the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Co-operative Bank set up by her in Jalgaon in the wake of allegations of serious financial irregularities. The RBI indicted the bank’s faulty loan policy and illegal loan interest waivers given to Patil’s relatives. Though the bank was set up to help poor women, the main beneficiaries included relatives of Ms. Patil.

Acting probably on complaints made by the Bank’s union leaders, the RBI found that nearly a dozen of Ms. Patil’s relatives were granted loans totalling Rs 2.2 crore, including penalties, which were waived as Non Performing Accounts. Even male members of the family availed of benefits intended for poor women of Jalgaon. Penal interest to the tune of Rs. 41 lakh was waived, and the relatives were allowed to close their accounts in the bank prior to its liquidation.

The RBI strongly indicted Ms. Pratibha Patil as a “politically influential personality. She has made all her relatives as Directors of the bank and the bank is being run as good as a family business. Because of the influence of respondent no 8 (Prathiba Patil) the bank has given various loans to the relatives and to a sugar factory of which she is a Director. Her relatives have not paid back the loans. Most of the loans were given without security. Most of the loans are closed.”

The shamelessness is compounded by the fact that Ms. Patil’s elder brother, Mr. Dilip Singh Patil, admitted taking loans from a bank meant for women, but countered that: “The bank had 8,000 to 10,000 members, all of them women, who also took loans. In such a case, how is it possible to say that the bank went into losses just because Pratibhatai’s family members took loans?” Perhaps he was not aware that the politically unconnected did not get the huge loans given to the Patil family, that too without security; nor did they get the facility of loan waivers and a quiet exit from the bank. There is a strong case for criminal proceedings and attachment of property of all the defaulters of the Patil family.

As Mr. Vijay Kumar Kakade, former president of Pratibha Sahakari Bank Karmachari Sangh, told the media, the cancellation of the bank’s licence and launch of the liquidation process has cost many people their jobs: “Pratibha Patil was responsible for this. There is no personal enmity with Patil madam, but we want to tell our countrymen that such a person is going to occupy the highest office.”

It is shameful that the UPA’s Presidential candidate is currently one of the 34 respondents in an ongoing case in the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court on the subject of mismanagement of the bank and misappropriation of funds by its Managing Directors. Since the law will move at its own pace, it follows that the case will proceed even after Ms. Patil enters the hallowed precincts of Rashtrapati Bhavan, and we will then face the unseemly spectacle of having a President against whom there is a criminal case! Any post-election exoneration will be meaningless, perceived as manipulated, and perverse, because the office of President would already have been demeaned beyond redemption.

Jimmy Carter as evangelist
News Analysis
July 01, 2007

THE sudden decision of the interim parliament of Nepal to arrogate to itself the power to abolish the monarchy precisely when former US President Jimmy Carter arrived on a four-day visit should ring alarm bells in this country. Prior to Mr. George Bush Jr, the American President most committed to an evangelical agenda for the world was Mr. Jimmy Carter, and his visit comes in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to appoint a bishop in the Himalayan kingdom.

As Nepal is already slated to hold elections to a new Constituent Assembly to decide the survival of the monarchy and other matters, this Maoist-inspired move to pre-empt the democratic will of the Nepalese people stinks of an attempted coup. It is well known that all the top Maoist leaders of Nepal are Christian converts.

The fact that the Maoists cannot wait for the people’s verdict is proof of their poor electoral prospects, and the plea that the monarch may interfere with the poll process is a weak excuse. It shows nervousness that the nation of 28 million cannot be trusted to fully oust the weakened King Gyanendra, who was forced to restore Parliament in April 2006 and has already been stripped of much of his power.

What needs explanation, however, is why Prime Minister G.P. Koirala, who has secured maximum powers under the interim constitution, succumbs to Prachanda and his illegitimate demands. This suggests an external influence, and since India under UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has abdicated its role in the country, this is probably the handiwork of the United States and the UN operating to American diktat or machinations.

Mr. Jimmy Carter reportedly visited Nepal to encourage its leaders to “continue on the path of peace” as they prepare for elections, according to the Carter Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which sounds suspiciously like the Karl Popper-George Soros Open Society branches that triggered revolutions in the Central Asian states until Russia and the ruling elites woke up to the threat.

Mr. Carter’s visit to the Electoral Commission of Nepal is significant, given its sensitive task of delimiting constituencies afresh to reflect the ethnic population in the Terai and other regions, which are opposed to the Maoists. The former US President’s praise of Mr. Koirala as a man who “has been a hero for me with his reputation and his integrity,” and a “focal point around which the peace and future democracy of this country has been built,” rings hollow as the real purpose of his visit was to meet with Maoist leaders, possibly on behalf of the US government.

India should not be fooled by the fact that the US government still lists the Maoists as terrorists; Washington is quite happy to play ball surreptitiously with such groups in pursuit of its geo-political ends. The formal abolition of the Nepal monarch will help America delink the nation’s Hindu civilization and ethos from its political culture, and evangelize more aggressively in the region. The American desire for Nepal as a client state, which can be used to keep a check on China, also needs recognition in New Delhi.

Prachanda is more than willing to play ball. “I told Carter we would like to establish amicable diplomatic relations with the US,” he gushed after an hour-long meeting with the former President. It is significant that Mr. Carter is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, though no one quite knows what his contribution to world peace is or was—he was one of the most colourless American Presidents but it is a fact that the Nobel Peace Prize is given only to those who serve the Western Christian agenda of world dominion.

Mr. Carter made some polite noises against Prachanda’s Young Communist League, which has returned (if it ever left) to the path of violence and extortions against businessmen, and open conflict with Madhesis in the Terai. The Madhesis are giving it back with all they have, and a few Maoist cadre have been killed in recent days. This has agitated the Maoists and ideologue Chandra Prakash Gajurel has threatened a new agitation to counter the resistance to Maoist domination in the plains.

Predictably, Mr. Carter called upon the current US administration to hold talks with the Maoists after Prachanda and his deputy Baburam Bhattarai sought his help in removing the organisation from the US terrorist list. Mr. Carter claimed that “it is obvious that the people of Nepal have accepted the Maoists as playing a role in the shaping of the future of this country,” but did not give the grounds upon which he made this assessment. This is dangerous as his Atlanta-based Carter Center is helping the Nepalese government with Constituent Assembly elections to be held later this year. If New Delhi wakes up to find the Maoists in power and an American military base on its eastern border—there are already bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia—it will only have itself to blame.

Why Prime Minister G.P. Koirala, who has secured maximum powers under the interim constitution, succumbs to Prachanda and his illegitimate demands? This suggests an external influence, and since India under UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has abdicated its role in the country, this is probably the handiwork of the United States and the UN operating to American diktat or machinations.

Investigate Western, Christian charities
June 24, 2007

Teresa betrayed those who generously supported her work because they did not realize how her twisted premises chocked all efforts to alleviate misery. Most donations simply remained in her bank accounts. The world now needs to know through a multi-nation enquiry.

In virtually simultaneous exposes, CNN-IBN has revealed that Western-funded NGOs in Bodhgaya are abusing small children for labour, conversion and molestation, while a Catholic Sister who worked for Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity has confessed quitting in “disgust over the misuse of millions in charitable donations that never got to their destination - the poor and afflicted.”

The Poor Christian Liberation Movement (PCLM) has for years been demanding a hundred year moratorium on conversions and a detailed scrutiny of the manner in which the Church utilises funds received from abroad, as this has failed to improve the lot of converts in any tangible manner. The very fact that Christian organisations and politicians are trying to get SC/ST benefits extended to converts proves that the various church denominations have no intention of uplifting the poor converts in a meaningful way once they have been converted.

It follows that funds received by Christian organisations or Church-friendly NGOs is used purely for allurement purposes, or to set up ‘charitable’ institutions availing government subsidies while maintaining money like corporates, such as hospitals or professional colleges. These now require a comprehensive national review.

CNN-IBN found that Samanvaya Ashram, an NGO funded by Mr. Sandeep Pandey’s ASHA, which receives foreign funds, sheltering children from the Dalit-Bhuiyan community, was subjecting children as young as five years old to illegal labour at the Ashram. Those children had to wash clothes, cook in the Ashram kitchen, fetch water, and plough the fields. The channel found that foreigners run shelters that are actually dens for paedophiles and child-molesters. Gaya police say they can’t act without formal complaints, but admit many NGOs have a conversion agenda; many foreign countries send huge sums for this purpose.

Meanwhile, years after Germany’s Stern magazine exposed Mother Teresa’s money-making and non-performing charities. Susan Shields, who worked nine years as a Catholic Sister with the Missionaries of Charity, has gone public with how she quit in 1989. Shields gave her story to the Arctic Beacon, it was printed in the Free Inquiry Magazine, and exposes how Mother Teresa ignored the poor while stashing millions of dollars in donations in Vatican bank accounts.

Shields worked with Missionaries of Charity in the Bronx, Rome, and San Francisco, till May 1989. She took years to unravel the life she lived there, and finally came to the conclusion that Mother Teresa’s religious congregation rested upon three dangerous teachings, which really amounted to mind control. These are - as long as a nun obeys (Teresa) she is doing God’s will; the sisters have leverage over God by choosing to suffer; and any attachment to human beings, even the poor, interferes with love of God and must be avoided at all costs.

Surprisingly, Shields says these were old Church beliefs, and Teresa only enforced them vigorously. But once indoctrinated thus, a sister would allow her health to be destroyed, neglect those she vowed to serve, and switch off her feelings and independent thought. She would be indifferent to suffering, carry tales about fellow sisters, tell lies, and ignore public laws and regulations. As a result, many of the sisters who trusted Mother Teresa “have become broken people.. their self-confidence has been destroyed.” Many lack education and do not know how to quit. Says Shields, “I was one of the lucky ones who mustered enough courage to walk away.”

Even more than those who joined, Teresa betrayed those who generously supported her work because they did not realise how her twisted premises chocked all efforts to alleviate misery. Most donations simply remained in her bank accounts. The world now needs to know through a multi-nation enquiry if Vatican funds are used for conversion in third world countries, or for political purposes like regime change in target countries, as for instance, Poland under Pope John Paul II.

Shields’ testimony is important because she was deputed to record donations and write receipts in the form of thank-you letters. Money would often come in sacks; receipts for cheques of $50,000 and more were received regularly. The money came for “the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh , or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts.”

The donations, she continues, rolled in but had no effect on the lives of the poor. A degrading spirit of poverty was maintained in the organisation. In Haiti , the sisters re-used needles until they became blunt. Seeing the pain they caused, some volunteers offered to procure more needles, but the sisters refused. The issue here may be more serious that the pain caused to the recipients of charity - an honest investigation is required into the endemic spread of certain diseases in poor parts of the globe, diseases through which White Western pharmaceutical companies are earning literally billions and trillions of dollars annually. And they are using WTO to prevent the manufacture and sale of cheap bulk drugs!

Even food was not purchased for the poor if local merchants did not give it free, when the organisation sat on hefty resources. Everyone was used as a resource - airlines were requested to fly sisters and air cargo free; hospitals and doctors asked to absorb costs of treatment for the sisters; workmen asked not to take payment; etc. Shields found it nauseating that she wrote thousands of letters to donors assuring them that their entire gift would be used for the benefit of the poorest of the poor. When it became too much, she had to quit.

Encounters: Terrorists are no tourists
June 10, 2007

Organised crime is no picnic, and officers fighting these forces deserve some leeway. I suggest that in the case of inadvertent killing of persons proven innocent, state compensation equivalent to that for an army jawan be paid to the families, and the officers reprimanded but not persecuted.

The Supreme Court’s intervention in some controversial deaths of alleged criminals or terrorists in Gujarat suggests a need to widen the debate on so-called fake encounters. The court directive to investigating officer Geetha Johri to disregard her superiors and report her findings to it directly (a gross violation of administrative rules), has prompted the officer to challenge her superiors and project herself through the media as a lone ranger battling trigger-happy colleagues to protect ‘human rights’.

Just as the Best Bakery case once served to arraign the entire Gujarat judiciary, so now the deaths of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife, Kausar Bi, have become the occasion to malign the State police force. Most commentators have addressed the issue from a pre-determined political-ideological position. While this is acceptable in a democracy, it does not meaningfully contribute to the complex challenges facing society from armed goons.

The core issue is who wields legitimate power/force in the nation? The answer is the State, specifically the armed forces, police, and para-military forces. Their actions must be guided by the good of society and nation, hence law and legitimate authority. Two other issues arise from this proposition. One, what do law enforcing agencies do when constrained by other State agencies in the performance of their duties? Two, does society (i.e., citizens in certain circumstances) have the ‘right’ to take recourse to direct action?

Some examples are in order. Some years ago, a serial rapist was beaten to death by aggrieved women in the premises of a Nagpur court. The women said they were ‘fed up’ of the courts releasing the accused on bail even as he continued his reign of terror on the locality. Police made some arrests on the basis of media footage, but society at large felt that justice had been done.

Recently, Ghaziabad lawyers attacked Nithari-accused Mohinder Singh Pandhar in the court premises; he was saved by police intervention. The lawyers were not related to the victims; they were simply horrified at the manner in which bones of young children were found in gunny bags in an open drain. It could be said that they identified with society and the victims’ families, and wished to ensure ‘justice’ rather than a trial that might lead to exoneration.

Since then, almost weekly the news channels highlight instances of rapists and/or molesters being beaten by irate members of the public. Indeed, there is a deep-seated Indian tradition that the people are a reservoir of dharma and justice, and are morally-bound to act when called upon to do so. They are enjoined to act either when the State/authority fails to act morally or when there is no other authority to assume the burden of dharma, or when moral outrage breaks the bounds of normal restraint.

The law enforcing agencies, however, are the first line of defense against those who transgress the law and hurt civil society. What are officers to do when political chicanery inhibits resolute handling of terrorists and criminals, often leaving no option but to eliminate the former through extra-judicial process? It is pertinent that society appreciates police encounters which eliminate dangerous criminals, such as the notorious bandit Veerappan in Tamil Nadu, who for decades was protected by a formidable politician-criminal nexus.

The primary duty of the police is to protect citizens; if their freedom to act is constrained by compromised politicians or an obliging judiciary, they must find other means of enforcing the law. Just as diplomacy is war by other means, so-called fake encounters are law by other means; we need to consider a policy of amnesty to police personnel who kill proven criminals.

In the Sohrabuddin case, police officers across three states cooperated to end his crime career. Even if we do not defend the officers arrested for his death and that of his wife, we need to establish if he was a criminal or an innocent. Sources say he hailed from a village near Ujjain, MP, and served Ahmedabad don Abdul Latif as a driver.

Initial media reports suggest Sheikh was a small-time extortionist who harassed marble traders in Rajasthan, prompting them to pay Gujarat police a ‘supari’ for his removal; but his underworld links were real. After December 6, 1992, Dawood Ibrahim sent arms and ammunition to various supporters, including Abdul Latif. But the police were soon on his scent, so he asked his driver to dispose off the arms. Sheikh threw the arms in a well in his village near Ujjain, but was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Sessions court. The Gujarat Government appealed for a higher sentence, and the matter is pending in court. Sheikh, meanwhile, served his term and resumed his criminal career in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.

When he died, his funeral was attended by persons with criminal records and gunshots were reportedly fired in the air. The Andhra Pradesh angle derives from the fact that police there suspected him to be a conduit between Pakistan’s ISI and the Naxalites; hence Hyderabad police coordinated with their Gujarat counterparts. Another famous Gujarat encounter story pertains to Mumbai girl Ishrat Jahan. She became the poster-girl of human rights activists until, embarrassingly, she was ‘owned’ by a notorious terrorist group!

The grim reality of the modern state is that encounters are often the only effective way to end the reign of incorrigible criminals. West Bengal used strong-arm techniques to break the back of Naxalites in the 1960s. Later, it valiantly supported its police officers, which Punjab failed too in the 1980s.

I am uncomfortable with a discourse that equates criminals and innocent victims. India has witnessed too much terror to be swayed by motivated rhetoric from the human rights industry. It is easy to talk of due process of law, but Satyendra Dubey’s murderers are still at large. It took a sustained public campaign to give justice to the families of Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo, both victims of goons acting alone.

Organised crime is no picnic, and officers fighting these forces deserve some leeway. I suggest that in the case of inadvertent killing of persons proven innocent, state compensation equivalent to that for an army jawan be paid to the families, and the officers reprimanded but not persecuted. In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court held that when law enforcement agencies are accused of killing militants or dreaded criminals in the course of duty, the police version is to be trusted over allegations by the latters’ kin.

Masooda Parveen, widow of alleged Kashmiri militant Ghulam Mohiuddin Regoo, approached the court for monetary compensation for her husband’s death, but the court refused to accept that the Army killed him in a fake encounter. Instead, Justices BP Singh and HS Bedi upheld the Army version that the Pak-trained militant and divisional commander of Al Barq terrorist group, died in a booby trap in February 1998 while assisting soldiers to locate terrorist hideouts and recovering an arms cache. In a related case, the Delhi High Court too ruled that families of victims of custodial deaths and fake encounters can at best be compensated as it is difficult to establish police complicity. This may be a viable solution from the standpoint of both law and justice.

Cannibalizing Hindu society
Column
June 03, 2007

Evangelicals have jealously sought access to the caste-based reservation benefits of Hindu depressed classes. They saw their chance when the Mandal Commission listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs. Political parties were too short-sighted to challenge this dangerous opening, and Christians began to lobby for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians.’

Regular readers may recall, last month I warned that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi would use the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) to extend Scheduled Caste reservation benefits to Christian and Muslim converts as soon as the Uttar Pradesh elections were over. Ms. Gandhi has been itching to snatch the rights of depressed Hindu castes and hand them over to Muslims and Christians; the NCRLM was set up with a predetermined mandate, and it has delivered as per its brief.

As expected, the NCRLM report is not unanimous, but Ms. Gandhi has never been deterred by such niceties in her mission to destroy Hindu society by promoting conversions. Justice Ranganath Mishra has dealt a body blow to Hindu society by recommending both a quota-within-quota for OBC minorities as well as reservations for former SC converts.

The Commission seeks 15 percent representation (proportionate to the minority population) for minorities in educational institutions and all cadres and grades of Government employment. Arguing that minorities, specially Muslims, are under-represented in Government, the Commission says they should be regarded as ‘backward’ according to Article 16(4), but without the qualifying distinction of “socially and educationally backward.” This is a deliberate mischief—and constitutionally untenable—because it is well known that Christians and Muslims are not socially backward. Low caste conversion to monotheistic faiths rests on the promise of social upliftment, besides other benefits.

The Commission is keen to promote SC conversions by stealing their quotas. It gives the game away when it suggests that out of 15 per cent reservations—10 per cent for Muslims and 5 per cent for other minorities (read Christians)—unused Muslim seats can be given to other minorities, but “in no case shall any seat within the recommended 15 per cent go to the majority community.”

The Commission has also endorsed Mr. Arjun Singh’s desire for an 8.4 per cent sub-quota for minorities from the 27 per cent OBC quota, with Muslims getting 6 per cent and other minorities 2.4 per cent. The recent murders of converted Muslims in the Kashmir Valley show that evangelicals are equally busy in Muslim-majority regions, so it is a safe bet that these reservations, if implemented, will be wholly cornered by Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s co-religionists within a decade.

The Commission has brazenly tampered with the basic framework of the Constitution, urging that Para 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 (which confined the SC net to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists) be wholly deleted and SC status delinked from religion. It seeks to facilitate conversions by providing SC benefits to converts.

Openly facilitating all the hare-brained and divisive schemes of the UPA government, the Commission recommends earmarking 15 per cent of Central developmental funds for minorities on the lines of Prime Minister’s 15-point programme (10 per cent for Muslims and 5 per cent for other minorities). The Commission’s member secretary Asha Das presented a note of dissent to these bizarre recommendations.

It is time to call a spade a spade. In no circumstances can Hindu society permit Muslims and Christians to steal the institution of caste. Historically and civilizationally, Hindu society has been organised on the basis of jati and gotra (which the Portuguese called caste). The varna system integrated the diverse jatis in the matrix of an evolving dharma. It was only natural, therefore, that the 1950 government order on Scheduled Castes extended only to Hindus (though this was later amended in 1956 and 1990 to accommodate Sikhs and Buddhists as part of a common Indic spectrum).

Evangelicals have jealously sought access to the caste-based reservation benefits of Hindu depressed classes. They saw their chance when the Mandal Commission listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs. Political parties were too short-sighted to challenge this dangerous opening, and Christians began to lobby for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians.’

Now the curse is upon us, and we cannot afford to remain silent. Why should those who have renounced their Hindu identity get the benefits of a Hindu caste identity? It may also be pertinent in this context to debate if individuals who have renounced their Hindu identity may legitimately retain their caste names, often misleading society? In the recent episode in Kerala’s Guruvayur temple, Congress minister Vyalar Ravi has pointedly refused to tell the temple authorities if his son and grandchildren are baptized Christians or not; yet he is raising hell over the purification of the temple. Hindus must no longer suffer such affronts in silence.

Christianity and Islam are totalitarian ideologies; they completely annihilate the old religious and cultural beliefs of converts. Both ruthlessly wiped out the traditional religions and cultures in their present homelands. Papal pride in Christianity’s triumph in Europe, Africa and Latin America cannot disguise the truth that the faith is a cruel imposition through brutal genocides. Islam was equally ruthless in lands where it became dominant. Both creeds regularly attack “heretics” and resist liberalization of dogma.

Caste is non-existent in Christian and Islamic theology; we cannot allow appropriation of caste to undermine Hindu society. This is a political ruse to augment the conversion agenda of the Western Christian world which is aggressively promoting evangelization under US leadership. What is more, since Christianity lures converts with the promise that it does not discriminate between believers, a claim echoed by Islam, both religions owe an explanation and an apology for discriminating against low caste converts. Legal action should be initiated against the Church for the creation of separate pews and even cremation grounds for Dalit Christians -this is willfully practicing untouchability, which is banned by the Constitution.

The church also owes an explanation for the persisting social and educational backwardness of converts. According to the Poor Christian Liberation Movement (PCLM) president R.L. Francis, church denominations run over 40,000 health, educational and other organizations. Dalit Christian children are mostly invisible in such schools, and the entire wealth is controlled by upper caste Christians. The Church resists Dalit Christian reservations in missionary schools and organizations. PCLM estimates that church or Christian-controlled NGOs receive foreign funds of around Rs 3000 crores per annum. Christian bodies earn huge incomes from elite schools, colleges, hospitals, and commercial complexes in all major cities. The Dalit laity has little say in the utilization of these funds; there is in fact a vested interest in keeping Dalit Christians depressed to maintain the status quo in the Church.

Hence, if Christians or Muslims practice caste discrimination, they should be punished under the law of the land. Low caste converts unhappy with their status in their new faiths should return to their mother faith without hesitation. It is pertinent to recall that Mahatma Gandhi had said that even shuddhi is not required for such misled and disillusioned souls.

Iconoclasm is not art
May 27, 2007

The concerted nature of the attack in fact proves how orchestrated it is. Father Jolly Nadukudiyil, who runs a school in Vadodara, threw the first salvo, asking why “Hindu radicals” (whatever that means) do not oppose nudity and sexually explicit scenes in some ancient paintings. The usual anti-Hindu suspects, from the publicly-funded Sahmat to Arundhati Roy, Anjolie Ela Menon, Nandita Das, Sitaram Yechury, and others quickly jumped into the fray.

No matter how much some sections of the media ‘balance’ the Maharaja Sayajirao University art scandal as a multi-religious assault, the fact remains that the controversy has emerged in the public domain as a purely ‘Hindu’ affair. This is because Christian activists who are prone to seek media publicity for every alleged incident involving Hindu opposition to conversions have been embarrassed by the suo moto objections of local pastors and have asked them to shut up.

The All India Christian Council has doggedly refused to join the controversy on grounds that it is a local issue. All prominent Christian leaders are conspicuous by their silence. This raises critical questions regarding the religious affiliation of impugned student Chandramohan, and of the institutions that are funding his studies in the country’s most prestigious art college.

An attack on the religious icons of a community can be either intra-religious or inter-religious. Artist M.F. Husain’s obscene portraitures of Sitaji, Bharat Mata, and other Hindu deities falls in the latter category; author Salman Rushdie’s profanity about the Prophet’s wives (Satanic Verses) falls in the former. Both are objectionable and have been rightly condemned by orthodox Muslims and liberal Hindus. It is only when it comes to cultural assaults upon Hindu dharma that the Lib-Left Hindu activists have a problem.

In the present controversy, Andhra native Chandramohan painted a huge cross with a nude Christ apparently urinating into a commode. Since Christ on the cross has traditionally been depicted in a loincloth, the painting caused consternation when seen by members of the public who had come to make purchases to patronise and encourage the budding artists. Shocked Christians like Catholic lawyer Mariam S. Dhabi and Methodist pastor Rev. Emmanuel Kant joined the Hindu community in protesting the paintings on May 9, 2007, but found little support from the politically-savvy community leaders at the national level.

Thus, the BJP’s Niraj Jain was left to bear the brunt of nation-wide liberal anger alone when he objected to a painting that showed the goddess Durga delivering a child. Vadodara police had no choice but to arrest Chandramohan for misusing religious symbols and causing religious offence once her and Prof. S.K. Pannikar, Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, refused to remove the paintings from the public domain.

Prof. Pannikar added fuel to the fire by arranging an impromptu exhibition of nude paintings, to make the point that Indian (especially Hindu) art had always been sexually explicit. This, in turn, raises serious questions about the political and ideological affiliations to Prof. Pannikar (since suspended by the Vice Chancellor), as every iconoclast in the country is busy trying to equate the unity symbolised by the Mithun concept in Indian philosophy and art with playboy-type vulgarity.

The concerted nature of the attack in fact proves how orchestrated it is. Father Jolly Nadukudiyil, who runs a school in Vadodara, threw the first salvo, asking why “Hindu radicals” (whatever that means) do not oppose nudity and sexually explicit scenes in some ancient paintings. The usual anti-Hindu suspects, from the publicly-funded Sahmat, to Arundhati Roy, Anjolie Ela Menon, Nandita Das, Sitaram Yechury, and others quickly jumped into the fray. Others like Romila Thapar and Deepak Nayyar have asked President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to intervene in the matter. And not to be undone, HRD minister Arjun Singh has asked the University Grants Commission to see if it can fish in troubled waters.

While Thapar, Nayyar, Shabnam Hashmi and Singh can plead artistic ignorance if cornered, there is no excuse for the self-proclaimed artists who are defending Chandramohan and Pannikar. Indeed, the authorities at Maharaja Sayajirao University need to explain to the nation the nature of the course content taught at the university and the calibre of the faculty.

This is pertinent because art is first and foremost about understanding the meaning of the symbols of religion and culture. This involves deep immersion in the culture and philosophy of the tradition one is studying. An art college would teach students about such symbols and their meaning and usage in all world cultures, and would also teach them not to mix or impose symbols from one culture upon another. Respect for each cultural tradition and art form would be inbuilt into the programme, and would be expected to be inbuilt in students professing a desire to become artists.

What we have witnessed at Vadodara, however, raises serious questions about modern India’s human and academic resources. Far from showing any sensitivity and shame for the controversy, the art students, no doubt instigated by a section of the Faculty, staged a dharna like trade union activists and ranted about ‘freedom’. I am at a loss to understand how such culturally impoverished and morally bankrupt young men and women could be enrolled in an art programme in the first place.

Much noise has been made in the media about Chandramohan’s origins as the son of a poor carpenter family from Andhra Pradesh, a state whose Seventh Day Adventist Chief Minister actively encourages missionaries. Chandramohan’s religious affiliations have been carefully concealed by the media. Yet, whatever these may be, a person from such a humble background would normally be expected to have a far more reverential attitude towards the religious symbols and icons of the various communities. Some have suggested that he hails from a Naxal-prone region of the state, and this may suggest a certain ideological orientation.

The Vadodara incident must receive zero tolerance from Hindu society because it marks a dangerous trend – of bringing into India the attempt by certain western Christian corporations to denigrate Hindu dharna by depicting Hindu gods on toilet seats, shoes, paper napkins, etc. The concerted silence of all Christian denominations in India on the offensive portrayal of Christ (which they will privately ensure will not happen again) gives the game away.

Is there imperial design behind conversion overdrive?
Column
May 20, 2007

There is empirical evidence that the evangelical movement operates through multinational corporations (MNCs). A special section has been devoted to the Seventh Day Adventist church (to which Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy is affiliated), which targets Dalits for conversion. It is closely associated with Maranatha Volunteers International, engaged in church planting.

A journalist researching how permissions were obtained for such a vast numbers of churches found that a rough estimate at $ 5,000/church x 1,000 churches gave a turnover of $5million. One churches in 1,000 days, and $5m turnover! There is no land cost because most churches are built illegally on Poromboke or Mandir lands.

In recent weeks, allegations of assault by Christian evangelists in BJP-ruled states have once again turned the spotlight on conversions. Now, meticulous research by Ms. Anuja Prashar, director, Transnational Identity Investments (TII), documents the political, economic and secular backing by Western-Christian governments for this imperialist project and its special focus upon India.

Ms. Prashar’s report, titled “Conversion and Anti-Conversion in India Today,” owes its genesis to British MPs Andy Reed and Gary Streeter protesting to India’s Deputy High Commissioner in London that certain laws in the country restricted religious freedom. They presented a letter signed by a cross-party group of 16 MPs; Reed is a member of the board of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. This exposes the hollowness of the secular principles of the British Government, as evangelical paradigms are so openly supported across political parties.

This agitated Hindus organisations in Britain and America, and independent academics, social analysts, and observers joined hands to prepare a report which convincingly establishes that Western Christian charity and faith organisations have a clear agenda to convert the socially disadvantaged, and a global imperialistic mission. There is empirical evidence that the evangelical movement operates through multinational corporations (MNCs). A special section has been devoted to the Seventh Day Adventist church (to which Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy is affiliated), which targets Dalits for conversion. It is closely associated with Maranatha Volunteers International, engaged in church planting and 25-villages and 50-villages conversion programmes.

Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale of Gujarat studied some multinational Christian organisations, such as the Evangelical Church of India which belongs to OMS International. Its motto is the imperialistic slogan “Reaching Nations for Christ.” The website openly proclaims the targets as Latin America, Europe and Euro-Asia, Africa and Asia , where the organisation is actively involved in training and preparing native evangelicals, and church planting. In 2005 alone is succeeded in getting 103,464 people make a decision for Christ and 10,592 undergo lay leadership training. The donor nations include the United States (HQ), Australia , Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

The Evangelical Church of India (ECI), established in 1954, targets the slums, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, in cities and villages. “We must go to where the fish are found …where the fish bite the bait on the hook,” it boasts inelegantly. Its logo depicts a cross struck deep in a lotus, seat of Hindu divinity. Dr. Chauthaiwale also studied the US-based Mission of Joy (MOJ), whose mission is “to bring the gospel to a million unreached believers and provide temporary and permanent assistance to orphans.” MOJ has three orphanages in Tenail, Nasaraopet and Vijiwada.

But the most organised movement is the US-based AD 2000 and Beyond Movement and its ‘Joshua Project 2000’ which lists 216 people groups throughout the world as Priority-I. These include nine Indian tribes (Bhilala, Binjhwari, Chero, Kawar/Kamari, Lhoba, Majhwar, Panika, Shin or Sina, and Sikkimese Bhotia). The Joshua Project has identified the North India Hindi belt as “the core of the core of the core” because of its population density (40% of the Indian population); its political importance; its is very deprived (the “Bimaru” states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh lie in this region); it is the religious hub of India; and it has the smallest Christian presence in India. Detailed plans have been drawn up to target India’s 75,000 Pin Codes.

An umbrella called North India Harvest Network (NIHN) has been organised on the principles of “Plug, Prem and be NICE” to avoid duplication of effort. Plug stands for People in every Language in every Urban centre in every Geographic division. Prem means Prayer, Research, Equipping & training and Mobilisation. NiCE involves Networking, Initiative, Catalyst and Encouraging the missionaries. Virtually a war strategy.

Britain ’s South Asian Development Partnership (SADP), led by Mr. Ram Gidoomal, a Sikh convert to Christianity, is supposed to “facilitate and catalyze entrepreneurial initiatives in the UK and South Asia .” Its website explains how the principle of NICE can be applied to SADP working. If there is a link between SADP and Indian evangelical movements, how do these programmes fit into the developmental programmes of Asian and UK professionals? Ms. Prashar further points out that Mr. Gidoomal has co-authored a book with Robin Thompson, an Evangelical Minister with South Asian Concern (SAC), a Selsdon Baptist Church keen to convert South Asia.

The Seventh Day Adventists owes its Indian success to Canadian evangelist Ron Watts, President for the South Asian Division, who entered India on a Business Visa. He operated out of Hosur. When Watts arrived in 1997, the Adventist Church had 2.25 lakh members after 103 years of operations. In five years, to took it to 7 lakhs. Dorothy Watts’ recorded their methodology, namely, the 25-Village and the 10-Village Program.

This involved five sets of laymen, going two by two, under guidance from a regular pastor, and exploring the villages in a district, to identify 25 villages in close proximity, with people of the same family groups and castes, so they could continue to have social relations and marriage alliances after conversion! Once the villages were selected, the teams would approach the leaders of each village and invite them to send two leaders to a 10-day seminar at a nearby resort, at the organisation’s expense. They were then brainwashed in the idea of better living, which was offered to their villages, along with the tenets of Christianity. Then they were denied baptism till they convinced the village to convert.

In 1998, there were 17 Ten Village Programmes and 9,337 were baptized. In 1999, forty programs were held and nearly 40,000 people baptized. The 25-village plan made proselytization a flourishing business, which got a further boost with the arrival of the Maranatha Volunteers International. Under Andhra Chief Minister Samuel Reddy, the Adventists shifted to a 50-village plan. They began baptizing at the rate of 10,000 persons per month.

The US-based Maranatha Volunteers International focused on providing buildings for the Seventh-day Adventist Church . The Fjarli family, who own a construction company, Southern Oregon Builders, went on their first Maranatha project in 2001. They raised funds to build 1000 churches at a rate of 1 per day. A journalist researching how permissions were obtained for such a vast numbers of churches found that a rough estimate at $ 5,000/church x 1,000 churches gave a turnover of $5million. One churches in 1,000 days, and $5m turnover! There is no land cost because most churches are built illegally on Poromboke or Mandir lands.

When deportation proceedings were launched against Ron Watts, Dr. K.J. Moses testified that Watts had committed fraud, spending Rs. 1.30 crores as bribes to stay in India . Advocate V.S. Raju said Watts was in the business of conversion to Christianity, offering petty cash concessions and allurements of employment to educated persons in Christian schools and hospitals; sending youth for education to the Spicer Memorial College, Pune, and arranging marriages between young men and women belonging to SDA. Watts, however, remained in India after a much-publicised meeting with Ms. Sonia Gandhi!

Besides America , the European Union is funding a seven year Sustainable Tribal Empowerment Project (STEP), targeting 200,000 tribal households in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Vishakhapatanam and East Godavari.

Nepal Maoists take to violence again
Column
May 13, 2007

After joining the government through pressure tactics, Prachanda has begun to advocate the Presidential form of Government, with a view to monopolizing political power in his own hands. The threat is credible, particularly since the arms surrender by the Maoists is extremely suspect.

The recent attack upon a police station in Banke district by armed Maoists should convince Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala that it was a mistake to accommodate Prachanda’s men in the interim regime, without ensuring a complete surrender of arms. If the aged Nepali Congress leader now wishes to salvage his reputation in the Himalayan kingdom, he would do well to ensure no further surrender on the issue of proclaiming Nepal to be a Republic prior to the elections to the Constituent Assembly which is to take a final decision in the matter.

Prachanda probably lacks confidence in his ability to perform even marginally well in free and fair elections; hence his insistence upon a Republic—which the interim regime is not legally or morally empowered to proclaim—and pressure to go in for a Presidential as opposed to a parliamentary form of government. In a recent visit to New Delhi, the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) chairman Upendra Yadav warned the Indian government of a hostile takeover by the CPN (Maoist). However, given UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s indifference to India’s legitimate interests in the region, it is not known how the Centre responded to his visit.

The Madhesi Forum is seeking an equitable share of political power in the proposed newestablishment, along with protective guarantees against an illegitimate takeover of the government by Prachanda and his armed goons. Indeed, Mr. Yadav came to Delhi precisely to seek India’s support for the twin objectives of statehood for Madhesis and a parliamentary form of democracy. Like many in Nepal, the Madhesis too are not in favour of an arbitrary end to the monarchy. Ordinary citizens of that country feel that the monarchy has kept the country together, especially as political parties as repeatedly failed to win parliamentary majorities or to cobble stable coalitions.

After joining the government through pressure tactics, Prachanda has begun to advocate the Presidential form of government, with a view to monopolising political power in his own hands. The threat is credible, particularly since the arms surrender by the Maoists is extremely suspect. According to the Maoists’ own claims, their cadre strength is 37,000, but they have so far deposited only 3500 arms. Assuming that there is only one firearm per Maoist foot-soldier, this is less than 10% of the armoury available with the rebels.

It is significant that even before the Maoists formally ended the peace with the attack upon the Suiya police post in Banke district, and the capture of five policemen (later released through prompt police action), realisation had been growing in informed circles that Prachanda could not be trusted. As I perceive it, the Nepal Army is now the country’s only hope against total chaos and civil war. Little wonder that this institution is also under attack for its “commitment” to democracy.

This has angered Chief of Army Staff Rukmangat Katwal, who has been grilled following unsubstantiated reports that he had a 90-minute secret meeting with King Gyanendra recently. Army headquarters has denied such a meeting, but the army’s veneration of the king is well known, and was the subject of criticism when it gave the deposed monarch a 21-point gun salute. The army is also expected to resist integrating the Maoist guerrillas into the force. This is an issue that is also agitating civil society, and the parents of several army personnel, including those of servicemen who died fighting the Maoists, have complained to the PM that their wards are being treated like “traitors” posthumously. All these factors are going to adversely affect the Maoists in a free election.

The Madhesis, who comprise 48 per cent of the population, do not trust the Maoists at all, and are demanding that the judicial probe into the Terai unrest which killed several persons be headed by a retired judge from the Madhesi community, which has been accepted by the interim government. The Madhesis are now pressing for a Madhesi chairperson to head the Election Constituency Delimitation Commission (ECDC), which will delimit new parliamentary constituencies prior to the elections that are now expected to be held around September.

Maoist chairman Prachanda, meanwhile, is trying to build support for a republic with immediate effect. He has secured the support of UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, who favours complete abolition of the monarchy, but other members of the Eight-Party Alliance, particularly the Nepali Congress, do not favour such hasty action without a people’s mandate.

That the CPN-Maoist has scant respect for rule of law, however, is evident. Even before the unprovoked attack upon the police station, cadres of the Young Communist League (YCL) were intimidating people and extorting money, leading to the exodus of Indian business from the country. They have also refused to return property seized by the cadres in the past to the rightful owners. This has caused acute embarrassment to other parties in the interim government, and many leaders have urged prompt implementation of all agreements and understandings reached among the eight political parties at the central level.

Facing pressure on this issue from his own party MPs, Prime Minister Koirala promised to take up the issue to return of seized properties with the Maoists, but the deteriorating situation in the kingdom, and the growing suspicions among the Eight-Party Alliance, not to mention the clearly divergent goals, make a solution highly unlikely. Little wonder the Nepali Congress MPs sharply criticised the PM for bringing the Maoists into the interim regime without ensuring the return of seized properties. These include the properties of even central leaders of the Nepali Congress.

The Maoists have retaliated via their new friends, the CPN (UML), whose standing committee member Jhalanath Khanal has called for a new interim Prime Minister as Mr. Koirala is in poor health, and this keeps the nation in “the bondage of indecision in the name of a particular person.” The last nail in the coffin of this demand came with the Maoists running amok and seizing the royal properties in Kathmandu. It looks like a long night for the Himalayan kingdom.

Maoists' free run in democracy garb
April 29, 2007

Evidence of the growing differences between the Maoists and the original Seven Party Alliance government comes from the decision of Maoist ministers to walk out of the April 18, 2007 Cabinet meeting after Prime Minister Koirala objected to Forest Minister Matrika Yadav questioning the army about its activities in Shivapuri National Park.

Nepal’s ill-conceived and violent democratic “coup” against King Gyanendra appears grimly poised between the devil and the deep sea, with increased political and social instability unavoidable. Already, elections to the proposed new Constituent Assembly have been postponed, and now, Terai parliamentarians are headed for a confrontation with the Maoists on the issue of a fresh census for delineation of constituencies in the Himalayan country. Maoist rebels, it may be recalled, were permitted by Prime Minister G.P. Koirala to enter the interim government without surrendering arms.

The Madhesis (Terai residents) had previously been willing to accept an addition of 28 seats in the Terai districts to accommodate the larger Nepali population based there. But once the decision to postpone elections was announced, 26 Madhesi MPs jointly demanded scrapping of the Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission (ECDC) proposals to increase 28 seats in Terai districts. Led by Shri Bharat Bimal Yadav, vice-president of the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP-Anandidevi), the Madhesi leaders want the government to hold a fresh census, following which alone the new constituencies should be delineated afresh.

By present indications, the Madhesi people are gearing up for fresh and prolonged unrest if their demands are not met, warning that the country could be headed for “disintegration” if the ECDC recommendations are implemented in the face of popular opposition. The ECDC headed by former Supreme Court judge Arjun Prasad Singh had proposed the addition of 35 seats in Parliament, 28 in the Terai districts and seven in hilly districts.

It is significant that the demand by the Terai MPs cuts across political affiliations and suggests the deepening of a political fault line with the Maoists led by Prachanda. The MPs include Shri Kailash Nath Kasaudhan and Shri Ajay Kumar Chaurasiya (Nepali Congress), Smt Chitra Lekha Yadav and Mr. Hari Narayan Chaudhary (Nepali Congress-Democratic); Shri Mahendra Prasad Yadav and

Shri Bansidhar Mishra (UML); Shri Hridayash Tripathy and Shri Bharat Bimal Yadav (NSP-Anandidevi); and Shri Ajaya Pratap Shah (Rashtriya Prajatantra Party).

The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), which spearheaded the Terai agitation, claims that the movement was not for a mere re-constitution of Terai or hill constituencies, but for “fully proportional representation-based elections.” Vice president Shri Kishore Kumar Biswas explained that the Terai people did not ask for an Electoral Constituency Delineation Commission (ECDC), and in fact wants it disbanded, as it will only provoke the people. The MJF also wants guarantees of ethnic self-determination rights with the formation of Madhesi autonomous region, and a declaration that Nepal is heading towards a federal democratic republican set-up. The MJF points out that the Maoists continue to be armed, and this was behind the incident of March 21, when 28 Maoist activists were killed by Terai agitators.

Evidence of the growing differences between the Maoists and the original Seven Party Alliance government comes from the decision of Maoist ministers to walk out of the April 18, 2007, Cabinet meeting after Prime Minister Koirala objected to Forest Minister Matrika Yadav questioning the army about its activities in Shivapuri National Park without informing him. Koirala chastised Shri Yadav for his “intemperate” language against the Nepal Army, and added that as Defence Minister, he (Koirala) should have been consulted before any minister spoke to the army. The minister reportedly alleged that the Nepal Army was involved in felling trees and killing wild animals, and when reprimanded, retorted that it was not the Prime Minister but his own party that had made him a minister. The Maoists walked out soon after, when other ministers objected to their demand that they be allowed to make all political appointments under their ministries independently.

The Maoists are also now keen on the resignation of Home Minister Shri K.P. Sitaula, whom they had initially supported when troops fired on Madhesi agitators some months ago. However, since the police raid on the office of the Youth Communist League, they are up in arms against Shri Sitaula.

Prime Minister Koirala has also to deal with the growing evidence that far from disarming their cadres, the Maoists may be trying to increase their revolutionary strength in the run up to the polls later this year. Shri G.P. Koirala’s own daughter and political heir, Sujata Koirala, has already publicly chastised Prachanda for carrying arms.

Meanwhile, Indian entrepreneurs continue to flee Nepal in the wake of extortions and kidnappings master-minded by the Maoist guerillas who continue to have a free run of the country. Prime Minister Koirala has virtually admitted that the eight-point and 12-point agreements between the SPA and Maoists remain paper declarations, and that the Maoist cadres are continuing the practice of extortion and use of force even after joining the interim government. Urging the Maoists to “stop extortion,” Shri Koirala said all parties in the government should abide by the rule of law. In rural Nepal where Maoists practice the gravest extortions, however, the warnings and pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Other leaders have specifically targeted Prachanda’s young wing, the Young Communist League, whose offices were raided recently in search of arms. Calling upon the Maoists to dissolve this body, political leaders have expressed apprehensions that the young wing will be used to “influence” the elections to the Constituent Assembly, whenever they are held. But with Maoists having already joined the interim government without surrendering arms, the accusations are futile. Almost every week, police are called upon to take action against Maoist cadres holding illegal arms and getting involved in shooting incidents. The latest instance involves shooting at Birendra Mandal, an activist of the Nepali Congress (Democratic), at Rajgunj Sinwari, by Maoists Amresh Mehta and Shambhu Sharma. They were caught by local persons and handed over to the authorities—a grim portent of things to come.

Murthy’s embarrassment !
April 22, 2007

In diplomacy, it is standard practice for visiting dignitaries to be welcomed by playing the national anthems of both the host and guest countries, and national flags are also publicly displayed and honoured at such occasions. So when Mr. Narayana Murthy and Infosys learnt that protocol required playing the national anthem at the start and conclusion of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s visit to their campus, no one imagined they would not do so.

By intentionally mishandling the playing of the national anthem during the President’s visit to Infosys’ Mysore campus, chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy has inadvertently brought to the forefront a growing conspiracy to demean and banish symbols of national pride and culture from public life. Any Indian who feels ashamed of singing the national anthem in the presence of foreigners, no matter how eminent he/she may be in his/her chosen profession, is ill-qualified for public office, and it is to be hoped that the ill-conceived proposal to moot the Left-leaning Mr. Murthy for the President’s post will now die a natural death.

Anyone who displays such a callous disregard for the national anthem will hardly have respect for the Constitution, national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and can therefore not be allowed to occupy the highest office in the land. India’s national anthem is intimately linked with her geography, and I am curious whether Mr. Murthy’s casual dismissal of it is in any way linked with current internationally-sponsored attempts to redefine our national borders. The suspicion cannot be dismissed out of hand because there is a noticeable trend among our super-elite to subordinate national concerns to presumed economic betterment by kow-towing to the West. It will take a while for this bubble to burst.

While the political conspiracy to banish all symbols of Hindu culture from the public arena goes back to the era of Nehruvian Stalinism, the new assault of the nation’s foundational ethos has taken the form of juxtaposing economic development vis-à-vis the concern for cultural autonomy and self-respect; and now, the staggering assertion that foreigners would not like Indians to show respect to their own flag and national anthem in their presence!

This is an unheard of explanation! In diplomacy, it is an standard practice for visiting dignitaries to be welcomed by playing the national anthems of both the host and guest countries, and national flags are also publicly displayed and honoured at such occasions. So when Mr. Narayana Murthy and Infosys learnt that protocol required playing the national anthem at the start and conclusion of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s visit to their campus, no one imagined they would not do so. A funny band was engaged to play the anthem tune and while the nationalist President sang enthusiastically, everyone else followed the chief mentor and barely moved their lips.

Mr. Murthy later claimed the company had arranged for five persons to sing the anthem, but cancelled the show because it would embarrass a handful of foreign trainees present on the campus! This is the level of his personal respect for India. Will he change the map of India because his trainees do not like its present shape? It must be said in defence of the maligned foreign guests that there is no evidence that they did have objections to the singing of the national anthem! In fact, it is normal for visitors who do not know the anthem or prayers of a foreign country to maintain respectful silence.

Amazingly, when cornered over the issue, Mr. Murthy had the audacity to try to wriggle out by saying: “I apologise to those who may have been hurt by my comments on the instrumental version of the anthem played during President Kalam’s visit.” May have been? Excuse me, does he mean that he cannot fathom the extent of hurt caused to the President and the nation? Does he mean he personally has no regrets for his conduct?

This incident comes close on the heels of an attempt by another leading Indian industrialist to bail out the American Dow Chemical Company from its duty to clean up disaster-hit Bhopal after the gas tragedy two decades ago. As is well known, the deadlock over compensation for the victims of the Union Carbide gas leak is yet to reach a fair conclusion.

Now, in an act of contempt for the suffering victims, Dow Chemical Company’s chairman Andrew N Liveris has written to Indian envoy Ronen Sen stating that Indian government representatives at the US-India CEO Forum in New York in 2006 had absolved Dow of responsibility for the Bhopal disaster. Mr. Liveris therefore wanted the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers to withdraw the order asking Dow to pay Rs. 100 crore for cleaning up the disaster-hit area.

A copy of this letter has been forwarded to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia by industrialist Ratan Tata with a plea to accept Dow’s position to help ‘break the deadlock’. In other words, Mr. Tata wants the Government of India to simply let Dow go scot-free.

This information has come to light following an RTI query by Ms. Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. Ms. Dhingra rightly fears that Mr. Liveris’ view that “resolution of the Bhopal legacy issue must be seen as a tangible, deliverable outcome for the CEO Forum” confirms fears that the Indian government is being pressurised to indemnify Dow against liabilities arising out of Bhopal.

This pressure is being exerted by Indian captains of industry seeking to magnify personal profits through corporate deals that compromise the lives and health of the Indian poor, and help them stash fortunes abroad. It is pertinent that Mr. Tata had previously proposed that the government allow corporate India to bear the cost of remediation; no doubt, he would also expect a tax write-off for this task. Mr. Tata is co-chair of the US-India CEO Forum, a body of Indian and US industrialists created to foster bilateral business relations, and his suggestion to treat the sufferings of Indian citizens lightly should be dismissed as reflecting a clear conflict of interests.

It is high time the Manmohan Singh regime reversed the disturbing new trend of permitting corporate India to dictate national and foreign policy at the expense of national interest and sovereignty.

Nepal: Cultural whirlwind
April 15, 2007

The Western-Christian agenda in Kathmandu is meanwhile becoming increasingly apparent. Buoyed by the success in making Nepal a secular state, thereby improving the climate for conversions under the Christian leadership of the Maoists, the Vatican has moved swiftly to appoint a Bishop for the country. Last month, Pope Benedict XVI not only elevated Nepal from a Prefecture to a Vicariate, he appointed Father Anthony Francis Sharma, 69, as the former Hindu kingdom’s first bishop.

Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala will go down in modern history as the leader who brought ruination upon his nation. Mr. Koirala has negated a political career spanning

60-year to work out a Neville Chamberlain style of ‘peace’ with the Maoists, bringing them into the government without even the formality of a UN-certified arms surrender.

The Maoists have entered the interim Parliament, and now the government, and it is clear that Mr. Koirala and his colleagues in the Seven-Party Alliance were unequal to the invisible pressures exerted by the forces that paid for the rent-a-crowd mobs that brought down King Gyanendra.

It is now virtually certain that the forthcoming elections to the constituent assembly are unlikely to be free or fair or non-violent. The plains people, Madhesis, are increasingly involved in physical fights with the Maoists, who are still armed and resorting to violence and intimidation. An increasing number of Indian businessmen in Nepal are reporting sorry experiences with the Maoists and returning home in disgust.

This trend is likely to accelerate in coming weeks and months, especially as the Royal Nepal Army has been confined to the barracks under a scandalous (and now violated) agreement whereby the royal government arms were kept under sole UN custody and the token arms surrendered by Maoists kept under joint custody. This gives Maoists the opportunity to retrieve their arms at any point, though it is well known that all arms have not been surrendered. Even UN does not claim a complete surrender.

The western-Christian agenda in Kathmandu is meanwhile becoming increasingly apparent. Buoyed by the success in making Nepal a secular state, thereby improving the climate for conversions under the Christian leadership of the Maoists, the Vatican has moved swiftly to appoint a Bishop for the country. Last month, Pope Benedict XVI not only elevated Nepal from a Prefecture to a Vicariate, he appointed Father Anthony Francis Sharma, 69, as the former Hindu kingdom’s first bishop.

Sharma’s widowed mother converted to Christianity while living in Assam, and got the four year old boy baptized. He will be ordained as Bishop in Kathmandu on May 5 by the Pope’s representative, Papal Nuncio Pedro Lopez Quintana. Nepal is now likely to face intensified evangelical pressures, driven explicitly by the West. Father Sharma has already declared his mission to concentrate upon the conversion of the country’s ethnic communities, a development that is likely to increase internal stress in the Himalayan state as the traditional culture of the people is displaced by west-funded religion and an open assault upon the old way of life.

It is interesting to recall that King Prithvi Narayan Shah had expelled Christian missionaries from his kingdom on the ground that they were spying for the British government. Modern day evangelists too, are likely to play a similarly disruptive role in the country, and the impact of evangelisation upon India ’s security environment will also have to be assessed, especially if the Maoists provide their western-backers with military bases to spy on China and Tibet, not to mention India.

Little wonder that the Maoist entry into government has met with silence from India, where there is growing realisation that Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s domination over the UPA has sacrificed crucial national interests. Yet, it has been welcomed enthusiastically by the international community. Maoist pressure has assured the retention of the highly unpopular Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula.

The Maoists have managed to make spokesman and chief of the parliamentary party Krishna Bahadur Mahara the Information and Communications Minister. The wife of Prachand’s deputy Baburam Bhattarai, Ms. Hisila Yami, has been given the Physical Planning and Infrastructure portfolio. Mr. Khadga Bahadur Bishwakorma has been given charge of women, children and social development; Mr. Dev Gurung has been given Local Development, while Mr. Matrika Prasad Yadav from the Terai has got the Forest and Soil Conservation portfolio.

Maoist ascendancy has already begun to impact upon the cultural environment in Nepal. Fringe groups like homosexuals and lesbians are being encouraged by unknown forces to come out of their privacy and take centre-stage of the country’s socio-cultural landscape. In an open assault of the kingdom’s natural conservatism, the first same-sex marriage has already been held along with a beauty pageant of trans-genders. The country is slated to hold its first ever gay film festival next month, and this will be crowned by a beauty pageant of homosexuals dressed as women.

There can be no doubt that this is part of a larger conspiracy to culturally disarm and demoralise the Nepali people. If the sexual activity of marginal social groups is all that a society has to offer or demand in the name of secularism, the Nepali people would do well to ponder if the loss of the kingdom’s Hindu status is worth it.

If Nepal is to be saved from becoming a cultural wasteland like Thailand (best known for casinos and child prostitution), the Nepali people and non-Maoist political parties would do well to ensure that elections to the constituent assembly are preceded by a fair delimitation of seats, with the Terai getting its legitimate share in proportion to its population. They should also scrutinise the activities of the evangelicals closely, particularly the drastic and often deleterious cultural changes introduced in the lives of communities where missionaries are active. Above all, they should ensure that Maoist terrorising tactics during and prior to the elections are met with fierce resistance. The bells are tolling, not just for the Nepalese monarchy, but also for the Hindu culture and civilisation of the nation.

So the caste is a convert’s nightmare still!
Let the prodigals return home
April 08, 2007

Over the decades, evangelicals have sought to gain access to the caste-based reservation benefits of Hindu depressed classes. Though they failed to get religion-based reservations in the Constituent Assembly, the first Mandal Commission listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs, and this set off the Christian quest for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians.’ Dalit Muslims have now joined this bandwagon.

It is now certain that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is going to use the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) to procure Scheduled Caste status for Christian and Muslim converts once elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly are over. The Congress president has been itching to snatch caste-based quotas from the Hindu community and hand them over to Muslims and Christians for the past two years, and according to available indications, Justice Ranganath Misra is likely to play ball and recommend the delinking of religion from caste while deciding Scheduled Caste status.

Official leaks suggest that the Commission has already prepared its report. This would have been submitted to the government on March 26, but the announcement of UP election schedule made this inadvisable. Accordingly, the Commission was ‘advised’ to seek an extension till May 15. The sources have revealed that the report is not unanimous on extending SC benefits to non-Indic converts, but this may not deter a regime hell-bent upon damaging Hindu society by promoting conversions.

Historically and civilizationally, caste, the Portuguese term for jati or gotra, has been the organising principle of Hindu society from ancient times, and is integral to Hindu society and in fact, synonymous with it. The varna system provided a framework which integrated the diverse jatis and resolved mutual conflicts on the matrix of an evolving dharma. Both caste and dharma emphasised heredity because ancestry (gotra) was imperative as the spirits of the ancestors had to be invoked in all social sacraments (samskara) to establish the individual’s worthiness to receive the sacrament.

Caste/jati is rooted in the tribal concept of gotra, and gotra is the organising principle of both tribal and caste Hindu social identity. That is why the 1950 government order fixing the Scheduled Caste category was extended only to Hindus; later amendments in 1956 and 1990 extended the facility to Sikhs and Buddhists as part of a common Indic tradition.

Over the decades, evangelicals have sought to gain access to the caste-based reservation benefits of Hindu depressed classes. Though they failed to get religion-based reservations in the Constituent Assembly, the first Mandal Commission listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs, and this set off the Christian quest for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians.’ Dalit Muslims have now joined this bandwagon. What is more, there is now mounting evidence that SC/ST reservations in educational institutions are being stealthily cornered by non-Hindus.

This raises some fundamental questions. First, should those who have renounced their Hindu identity get the benefits of a caste identity, which is the sine qua non of being Hindu? Second, should individuals who have renounced their Hindu identity be allowed to retain their caste names and thus mislead society?

Political parties with the brand equity of being Hindu-minded parties need to deliberate and articulate their views on the issue of caste within missionary religions. A constitutional challenge to the OBC Muslim quota would be a step in the right direction of creating both Hindu consciousness and a Hindu centric vote bank. Certainly, the sterile approach of fighting for a piece of the minority vote bank should be avoided at all costs.

It bears stressing that Christianity and Islam profess complete worldviews and seek to completely annihilate the old religious and cultural beliefs of converts. Both ruthlessly wiped out the traditional religion and culture in the lands where they spread. The Pope’s pride in Europe’s “Christian roots” cannot disguise the truth that the faith is a cruel imposition of just 2000 years, and spread through brutal genocides in North and South America, Australia, and Africa. Islam similarly triumphed by wiping out native communities (including Christian) in lands where it became dominant. Both religions have regularly launched movements against “heretics” and resisted the liberalisation of dogma. Islam has the tabligh movement to cleanse Muslim adherents of old practices of their former faith traditions, Christian clergy are engaged in battle with modern “secularism.”

Caste has no place in the theology of Christianity or Islam. Hence in India, these faiths cannot be allowed to make a political expedient of caste and use it to undermine Hindu society from within. This is a political ruse to not merely permit so-called Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims to garner reservation benefits, but actively augment the conversion agenda of both groups.

Both Islam and Christianity are transnational religions with enormous numerical, economic and political clout. The Vatican in Rome caters to the interests of Catholics, while the World Council of Churches in Geneva looks after Protestants. The 2.1 billion-strong Christian community constitutes one-third of the world population, and its clout extends beyond national boundaries, as does that of Islam. Adherents of these transnational faiths should not be permitted to cannibalize the legitimate dues of Hindu depressed classes.

Moreover, as Christianity sought converts on the plea that it did not discriminate between believers, a claim later echoed by Islam, both owe an explanation for the persisting discrimination against low-caste believers in their ranks. The Church in India must be asked to explain the creation of separate pews and even cremation grounds for Dalit Christians, and their poor social and economic conditions.

Indeed, the National Human Rights Commission should take suo moto notice of this state of affairs, as this is nothing but a gross and institutionalised violation of human rights and human dignity. The Supreme Court would also do well to consider if such religion-based reservations amount to altering the basic character of the Constitution. It may also like to investigate why most conversion activities in India are focused on strategic areas (like the north-east) and upon clusters which create pockets of minority concentration and inexorably force others out.

Such concentration makes sedition and partition possible. 1947 happened because of the Cold War strategic needs of the West. More recently, East Timor happened after conversions by Western missionaries delinked Indonesia’s oil-rich portion. This has impoverished the native people of “independent” East Timor, while their oil wealth is being exploited by White fellow Christians of Australia! It would be interesting to examine if conversion to Christianity has benefitted any non-White people anywhere in the world.

The bottom-line is that if Christians and Muslims practice caste discrimination, the conversion process among them should be legally declared incomplete. They should be designated as non-Christians and non-Muslims and asked to complete the transformation to the new faith, or return to the Hindu fold. There can be no half-way house in this matter.

I suspect that the UPA’s real objective is backdoor political reservations for Dalit Christians by providing an opportunity to ‘steal’ the existing quota for Hindu Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Hindu society should rise to the occasion before it is too late.

Rahul and a self goal
April 01, 2007

As a launch-pad remark for the party’s campaign for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, it must have struck deep gloom in the rank and file and skewed Congress’ already slender chances with the electorate. Though Mr. Gandhi’s remarks are consistent with the policy of UPA chairperson, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, of appeasing and promoting Muslims at the expense of the Hindu poor and backward classes, the policies have already led to a backlash.

Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi has emerged as the Congress party’s greatest rootless wonder, surpassing Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s attitude of ‘if there is no bread, let them eat dog food,’ with the foolish remark that his father would have stood in front of the Babri Masjid to prevent the demolition of December 6, 1992.

As a launch-pad remark for the party’s campaign for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, it must have struck deep gloom in the rank and file and skewed Congress’ already slender chances with the electorate. Though Mr. Gandhi’s remarks are consistent with the policy of UPA chairperson, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, of appeasing and promoting Muslims at the expense of the Hindu poor and backward classes, the policies have already led to a backlash for the party in Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttarakhand, and further reversals are expected in Delhi. Indeed, this is reportedly the reason why Congress president Sonia Gandhi has refused to canvass for the party in the capital, though she did rush to Mumbai because she expected a victory that would add a feather to her cap.

Rahul Gandhi’s statement shows that either the party has learned nothing from these reverses, or that it has no other constituency to woo. Either way, he has exposed the utter bankruptcy of the grand old party of India. The timing could also not be more unfortunate. Could we, for instance, ask Mr. Gandhi to explain how exactly his father, late Rajiv Gandhi, would have saved the structure by standing before it?

Let us assume that the former Prime Minister managed to personally reach the structure with his personal security guards on December 6, 1992 (for there is no way he would have become Prime Minister in 1991; even the postponed elections did not get the Congress a majority after his assassination). Once the mob broke the cordon and the domes were scaled, does Rahul mean to suggest that the security guards would have started firing upon the unarmed people, like the party’s Communist comrades just did recently at Nandigram? Is that what has inspired this statement? Having spoken, he owes the nation a fuller explanation for his words.

Rahul Gandhi is the perfect example of how city-bred hereditary politicians, especially ones who pride themselves as being ‘above’ the hoi-polloi, can fail to connect with the minds and hearts of the people. He exposes the ancient truth that youth without proper education and training can more often than not produce a greater disaster for a nation or society than the old. Rahul has erred in relying upon the old bankrupt formula of wooing Muslims even at the expense of alienating Hindus. Scratching thinly-healed communal suspicions in order to pressurise the Muslim community that the Congress is its only hope, is not the road to power.

Besides his graceless attack upon former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Rahul has exposed his father’s communal doublespeak on the issue of the Ram Janmabhoomi. For as is well known, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s government that opened the gates of the Babri Masjid to Hindu devotees, and organised the shilannyas at the site, and even launched the 1991 election campaign from Ayodhya.

And in what is surely a politically suicidal remark, young Rahul has called the 1996 Congress alliance with the BSP a ‘complete sellout,’ as Congress had to settle for 125 seats, while BSP contested 300 seats. While it may be true that the Congress is still paying the price for this historic blunder, the fact is that the party is far from being in a position to reverse the equation. Indeed, that is why Congress is keen to tie up with the same Ms. Mayawati for a face saving alliance in UP.

Clearly, the Gandhi scion is out of his depth when it comes to analysing the party’s fortunes in the state, nor is he aware of the language to be used when speaking about leaders of other parties. His remark that the dependence of the BSP and Samajwadi Party “on single personalities was responsible for the deplorable condition of Uttar Pradesh…The state cannot be held hostage to personality oriented politics and the one leader theory has already done a lot of damage to the state” is callow and incorrect.

Ironically, it is the Congress party that depends on one individual (Sonia Gandhi), and is suffering erosion of its old social constituency because of her lack of empathy for the country and its citizens.

The fact is that the politics of fanning communal insecurity has reached its apogee and will no longer bring dividends. This is why wiser leaders like Ms. Mayawati and Yadav are reaching out to broader constituencies and pretending they never had any animosity towards other social groups they now wish to embrace in the race for chief ministership. The Congress today is the only political party that does not wish to recognise the rising Hindu consciousness in India, and is unwilling to woo Hindus as Hindus, a la Ms. Mayawati and Yadav. Rahul Gandhi should tell us if the religious affiliations of his family have anything to do with this.

The battle is for the Hindu heart
March 25, 2007

The success of the Hindu party will prove that the Hindu vote bank was simply waiting to happen. The sants who recently gathered at Allahabad have already proclaimed the Hindu determination to transcend internal differences.
Strange as it may at first seem, social constituencies rather than the management strategies of political parties or even religious organisations determine vote banks. This is not to negate the importance of either of the latter, but only to state that inadequate convergence of the social constituency with the efforts of a political party often yields only partial results, or gives some groups a feeling of neglect that causes them to search for other options in the political arena. This seems, to my mind, to be the deeper Indian reality, since Shri Jawaharlal Nehru dominated the polity and the Congress basked under the phenomenon of ‘one party dominance.’

In these years, when political analysts proclaimed the Congress as an ‘umbrella’ organisation that catered to all sections and groups as the party of the freedom movement-turned party of governance, the fact remains that the party never received 50 per cent of votes polled. This was despite the fact that in those years the Election Commission did not monitor elections as stringently as today; political parties making free use of cash and liquor incentives to draw in voters was well-known, as was the practice of bringing voters to distant polling booths in trucks and tempos. Mass voting was ensured through friendly sarpanches and caste (jati) leaders, and inconvenient groups eliminated by the placing of ballot boxes in inconvenient places to which access could be denied by muscle men. The steady ouster of the Congress party from its exalted perch slowly changed all that, as did the arrival of Chief Election Commissioners who took pride in their no-nonsense approach towards political parties. Indian elections are today regarded as among the most free in the world. Absolute control over government machinery was, however, not the sole cause of Congress success in cobbling easy majorities in the early years after Independence. Congress owed its success to Nehru’s articulation of a non-Hindu ideology wherein a natural Hindu-centric polity was thwarted from emerging in the aftermath of a bloody partition on communal lines.

So vociferous was Shri Nehru in his denunciation of what he called Hindu communalism that he put all other parties on the defensive and forced them to compete on the basis of his declared ideological position. This naturally tilted the playing field in his favour. Shri Nehru fashioned an electoral coalition centred upon the substantial Muslim population remaining in India, which he then only needed to supplement by weaning away Hindu groups in search of political patronage, such as his own Brahmin community, the former land-owning communities in the rural countryside, and poverty-crazed depressed groups like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This took him easily to the victory post in successive elections, with the first-past-the-past system eliminating the need for a majority of votes cast. Sadly for the Hindu majority community, Shri Nehru’s opponents failed to articulate a coherent counter-strategy to his cynical use of the Muslim community to give Congress a solid and captive vote base that needed little augmentation at election time. Despite some promise by parties like the Ram Rajya Parishad, the Swatantra Party, the Lok Dal and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, lack of ideological offensive proved the bane of all anti-Congress activity in the early decades. The greatest flaw was the Hindu defensiveness on the issue of caste identity, as opposed to determination to overcome the perceived weaknesses of the caste system in its treatment of some sections. This gave the Hindu-Indian polity its abiding schizophrenia, and made all political parties equally culpable in the minority (read Muslim) appeasement of which they held Congress guilty.

We, thus, have the bizarre phenomenon of all political parties competing madly for a share of the Muslim vote, even parties which know that Muslims will not vote for them. While all political parties also canvassed votes on the basis of caste, they failed to legitimize this quest for the Hindu vote. This maintained the Nehruvian strategy of de-legitimizing the Hindu majority and of fragmenting the Hindu vote-bank, with rival political parties busy in scooping up whatever percentage of vote fell into their respective folds.

Thus, instead of competing for the majority of Indian or Hindu votes, political parties fell into the trap of trying to wean away the majority to Congress voters (read Muslims), a folly of Himalayan proportions. Even now, when ordinary Indians feel threatened by Islam’s violent manifestation, few political parties have the gumption to change track and canvass an exclusively Hindu vote, with minorities welcome to join the mainstream if they so desire. Only Ms. Mayawati, the gutsy Bahujan Samaj Party leader, has dared to break the mould. With characteristic boldness, she changed her anti-upper caste stance on realising that the Scheduled Caste votes alone could not bring her to power. As upper caste dominated parties gaped, Ms. Mayawati claimed the BSP’s elephant symbol was Lord Ganesh (which can hardly be disproved), and organised caste sammelans across Uttar Pradesh to bring upper castes to her fold, under the banner of ‘sarv samaj.’ She made an uncharitable remark about Muslim refusal to join the national mainstream, followed by a polite political retraction which fooled no one. Her no-holds-barred appeal to the Hindu community gave the major political parties in UP the jitters. In the wake of the Hindu consolidation following the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the BJP leadership frittered everything away in search of a short cut to a complete majority by soliciting the minority vote. This caused loss of tempo Hindu consolidation, which self-appointed ideologues blamed upon a Hindu inability to consolidate on the lines of Semitic faiths.

The UPA regime’s scandalous attempts to give Muslim community reservations in government employment and educational opportunities, not to mention the first claim on resources, have forced a rethink in many quarters. BJP president Rajnath Singh has spoken firmly against the politics of appeasement, and has led the party to impressive victories in crucial elections such as the Mumbai municipal elections, assembly elections in Punjab and Uttarakhand, and soon perhaps Delhi. But UP will be the test of his ability to inspire the Hindu voter that he means business and will not betray him/her to divisive forces.

As of now, the BJP is widely perceived as having made a mistake by assuming an unnecessarily hostile attitude towards the Mulayam Singh Yadav government. The UP Chief Minister represents the agricultural community once led by Choudhary Charan Singh, an Hindu constituency sidelined by Congress. Mr. Nehru cut a deal with the former zamindars to ensure mass voting in favour of the party in return for protecting their financial interests, and it was the concerted resentment of the middle farmer that finally scripted the Congress rout in north India in 1967. Anti-Congress parties since then have often joined hands, but the mesmeric pull of the Muslim vote-bank made even Choudhary Charan Singh break away from the erstwhile Jana Sangh. Ms. Mamata Banerjee also fell prey to this destructive psychology in the Bengal assembly elections. Mulayam Singh Yadav recently visited Allahabad during the Ardh Kumbh, paying respects to Mahant Gyandas, chairman of the Akhara Parishad and praying at the Hanuman Temple of Mahant Narendra Giri. His picture, wearing a dhoti with a bare torso, must have made a profound impact. It scuttled Congress plans to get Ms. Sonia Gandhi to bathe in the Ganga during Kumbh.

The Samajwadi Party has also openly displayed a Hindu face with General Secretary Amar Singh repeatedly appearing at prominent temples with the Bachchan family. While the Bachchan visits can be deemed personal, Singh’s presence is certainly a political statement. The social constituency of the Samajwadi Party and the BJP converge; a post-election alliance is natural if they can jointly form the government. BSP seems to have an understanding with the Congress, but BJP should not alienate it. The success of the Hindu party will prove that the Hindu vote bank was simply waiting to happen. The saints who recently gathered at Allahabad have already proclaimed the Hindu determination to transcend internal differences.

Silence of the Signora
March 18, 2007

Imagine Mr. Quattrocchi in Tihar Jail telling journalists that he expected his old friends and countrymen to visit him in jail! I imagine therefore that the return of Mr. Quattrocchi will remain in the realm of wishful thinking.

True to type, Congress president Ms. Sonia Gandhi avoided responsibility for the party’s inadequate performance in the Assembly elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand, and even Manipur, where it is leading a motley coalition. That the party performed so poorly even after the UPA government manfully concealed information about the arrest of Bofors kickbacks accused Ottavio Quattrocchi in Argentina on February 6 only highlights the awareness of the impact this could have on an already declining party, and Ms. Gandhi’s absolute reluctance to take the rap for her own sins of omission and commission.

That is why, when she addressed the Congress Parliamentary Party nearly ten days after the news of the arrest broke out, Ms. Sonia Gandhi carefully avoided mentioning Mr. Quattrocchi and the parliamentary hiatus caused by news of his arrest and release on bail, and India’s slow-moving efforts to have him extradited. To mention a fellow countryman would mean having to explain a long personal association which brought rich dividends to him and his employers over many decades, and opening herself to questions about similar unknown associations.

It would also necessitate answering uncomfortable queries, such as whether or not Ms. Gandhi and/or any member of her family met Mr. Quattrochi’s son during the course of the Italian Prime Minister’s unduly long visit to this country, which otherwise yielded nothing of diplomatic significance. It would necessitate answering Dr. Subramaniam Swamy’s specific allegation that the Italian Prime Minister had been requested to intercede and ensure that Mr. Quattrocchi was not extradited to this country.

Imagine Mr. Quattrocchi in Tihar Jail telling journalists that he expected his old friends and countrymen to visit him in jail! I imagine therefore that the return of Mr. Quattrocchi will remain in the realm of wishful thinking. This may explain the sudden defiance of Mr. Quattrocchi and his lawyer’s statement that they will sue the CBI and Interpol for breach of his so-called human rights under international law (whatever that means).

Be that as it may be, it was unfair of Sonia Gandhi to blame the Congress’ poor performance on the party alone, when the organisation has repeatedly been made to bear the brunt of individuals who put personal ambition above party interest. She has also indirectly blamed the UPA government by mentioning “objective factors” like the price rise, when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is her protégé.

Ms. Gandhi has refused to look at the larger consequences of the government’s economic policies upon the common man, mouthing the old rhetoric about putting the economy on a “higher growth path” and improving the investment climate. The fact of the matter is that nothing has been done to ensure that the benefits of growth percolate to the lower levels of society, and only high finance has been catered to at both the national and international levels. The Haryana Government’s Special Economic Zone deal with Reliance Industries was personally approved by Ms. Gandhi, and the MP Kuldip Singh Bishnoi who protested against this crony capitalism given a show cause notice. This put all Congress and even CPM governments on a SEZ spree, until public protests brought a sudden end to the honeymoon. Typically, Ms. Gandhi then had amnesia and went for a volte face against the SEZ policy of the UPA.

Sonia Gandhi is however, extremely apprehensive of the forthcoming UP Assembly polls, where her own and son Rahul Gandhi’s personal and political charisma will be put to the acid test. Though congress spin doctors have already started distancing the Amethi MP from the expected debacle, the fact is that months of spade work with the media have already projected him as the new political whiz kid on the block. His computer is said to have the political biographies of all state stalwarts, and he has already put off many leaders by telling them to contest the State elections and face certain defeat. This cannot endear Rahul Gandhi to the state congress, and the internal script for a rout may already have been written as punishment for such arrogance.

This in turn will further tilt the Electoral College for the Presidential elections against the Congress. Even a resurgent Congress today could never hope to get even one-fourth of the 403 seats in UP. As of now, however, the party’s own speculation is whether or not it can touch even the double-digit figure, and as Ms. Gandhi gave the credit for the sweeping victory in the Rai Bareilly re-election to son Rahul, the party will naturally expect the duo to deliver on a much larger canvas. Control over just one or two pocket boroughs do not translate into national leadership, much less to claims of Prime Ministership, and UP is likely to draw this lesson home to both mother and son when the first phase of elections begins on April 7. It looks like autumn has set in for the Congress matriarch.

On “Q” mum and machinations
March 11, 2007

Sonia Gandhi’s sullen silence has directly implicated her and her family in the Rs. 64 crore Bofors kickbacks scandal, which brought down her husband’s government in the late 1980s. Several issues appear to have coalesced to bring about this state of affairs, not least of which is the Roman lady’s inability to understand the language and culture of Indian politics.

Her overweening ambition, married to an unbridled ambition and little real ability, have pushed the Congress party’s supremo into a corner from which she is going to find it difficult to extricate herself. Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi is also implicated in the scandal, by default, because he too has disappeared from public view at a time that the Congress party and UPA regime is battling a crisis that is not its doing.

The sequence of events, as now know, is itself revealing and in fact, incriminating. Mr. Ottavio Quattrocchi, who became famous in India for his proximity to Mrs. Sonia Gandhi (who was the daughter-in-law of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi), which won his company, Snam Progetti several lucrative contracts in India, was arrested in Argentina on February 6, 2007, on the basis of a red corner notice from Interpol. The Indian embassy would have been informed the same day, and would have relayed the information to South Block immediately.

Yet the news was not only suppressed, but Ms. Sonia Gandhi used the time thus gained to try to impose President’s rule on the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, though it was well known that her case was fragile and President Kalam was unwilling to risk a fiasco after the apex court’s strictures on Bihar. Despite this, matters seemed to be moving in the direction of President’s Rule when the Election Commission pre-empted matters by prematurely announcing the schedule for the UP elections. Hitherto informed sources suggest that the Commission acted at the nudging of the Prime Minister’s Office, in order to avoid an avoidable embarrassment to the Government, should the President return the recommendation.

Soon thereafter, on the very day that Mr. Quattrocchi succeeded in getting bail in Argentina, the news was leaked in India that he had been detained. And the next day, it was made known—though unidentified sources—that his son, Missimio, was in New Delhi for three days while the father was being held in Latin America. It does not take a genius to realise that Junior Quattrocchi was in Delhi to meet the Congress party president and her family (after all Quattrocchi has said on several occasions that the families and the children were great friends), and it seems reasonable to assume that he did conduct some kind of ‘business’ with them, either directly, or indirectly.

Be that as it may be, the Government obliged the family by revealing from the Supreme Court that Mr. Quattrocchi has been arrested on the basis of a red corner alert given to Interpol, and Sonia Gandhi’s Roman countryman was out on bail by the time his son left India. Unfortunately for the Gandhi’s, however, their arrogance and distaste for rule of law seem to have upset some law abiding citizens in some quarters, and so, before Mr. Quattrocchi could benefit from the plot of ‘non-action’ in India, the cat was let out of the bag!

Now, regardless of whether or not he is brought to justice in India, he has brought the Bofors smoking gun directly into the drawing room of 10, Janpath; something that could not be fully achieved in the lifetime of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi! It speaks volumes of Sonia Gandhi’s political ineptitude that this has happened.

Naturally, the Manmohan Singh government is on the back foot, forced to defend the UPA chairperson from any role in the matter, when even the most illiterate peasant in India knows that Quattrocchi is Sonia’s gift to India, as BJP leader Arun Jaitley remarked. The government’s silence has brought back to the limelight its previous action in freeing Rs 21 crore of the Bofors loot, stashed away in a London back, last year; which sum was immediately removed by Quattrocchi and taken elsewhere.

If there was no connection between Quattrocchi and the London loot, there would be no reason for India to hide the fact that he was arrested on February 6, and no need for his son to make an urgent visit to New Delhi. If the connection between Sonia Gandhi and the Quattrocchi’s had truly been severed, there would be no cause for the Junior’s visit to India.

This brings us to the issue of Ms. Sonia Gandhi and her family’s direct complicity in the Bofors scandal. She must now tell us if she and any or both of her children are beneficiaries of the Bofors kickbacks, and if that is the reason she is obliged to help Ottavio Quattrocchi in his legal troubles. After all, the Roman was on the staff of an Italian public sector company when the scandal took place, so Bofors was not in the line of his official duty, and it therefore seems reasonable to assume that he was fronting for someone interested in the deal, and getting a cut for his service.

A common Italian nationality and a known friendship links Quattrocchi with Sonia Gandhi, and so it is high time the lady came clean and stopped forcing an increasingly unwilling congress party to shield her misdeeds forever. The Supreme Court has done well to issue notices to the government, given the level of subversion of national interest taking place and the sheer disregard for rule of law. But it might be in the fitness of things to now call Ms. Gandhi to explain her role in subverting justice and encouraging corruption in high places.

‘Nominated’ seeks the ‘recommended’
March 04, 2007

Encouraged by the conspiracy of silence, the government has moved with speed to sign a deal between Syracuse University, New York, and IIM, Bangalore to train officers with 15 years of service in April 2007. Duke University will conduct a programme for officers with nine years of service.

Under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, the army got its first Bengali Chief of Army Staff. While Gen. Shankar Roy Choudhary doubtlessly deserved the honour, the political joke then doing the rounds of the capital was that as a Bengali General was at the helm of the armed action that saw Hyderabad’s merger with the Indian Union in 1948, Hyderabad (read Prime Minister Rao) was now showing its gratitude. As intra-Indian backslapping, the story left a warm after glow.

But the metaphor can be extended to the international plane only at severe cost to our national integrity, and hence it is necessary to break the conspiracy of silence regarding the UPA government’s dangerous proposal to have America vet and approve bureaucrats for promotion to Secretary level. An important CPM leader has recently revealed that Dr. Manmohan Singh won his astonishing elevation to the Finance Minister’s post at the instance of the United States. It is well known that he was nominated as Prime Minister after Rashtrapati Bhavan placed unexpected hurdles in the path of Ms. Sonia Gandhi when she went to present her claim, but here too it may be safe to assume that his American friends put in a few good words for the non-charismatic gentleman.

Perhaps this is the reason why the Prime Minister’s much-vaunted desire for administrative reforms has taken the stupefying route of proposing an American stamp of approval for top notch Indian bureaucrats. Possibly Dr. Singh feels he can only trust officers similarly ‘recommended’ by Uncle Sam.

This has dangerous portents for Indian democracy, and cannot be allowed to go by default unless India is willing to join the ranks of the Banana Republics much-loved by the United States. It is well to recall that when Sardar Patel changed the Indian Civil Service to the Indian Administrative Service and set up the Academy at Mussoorie, the idea was not a mere change of nomenclature, but an intentional re-orientation of the service from the colonial state to a people’s democracy. It was this same national orientation that led India to set up its own National Defence Academy for training officers of the armed services, in lieu of the once famous Sandhurst. While the armed services have done us proud in all situations, sadly, the experience with the bureaucracy has been far from satisfactory.

I believe the true reason for this state of affairs was that the Indian rulers who replaced the British Raj continued to think and behave in the old colonial paternalist way towards the masses, and that the situation was only aggravated by the centralised State-controlled economy and its evil licence-permit raj. The civil service saw its opportunity in this mindset, and non-performance married corruption early on. Everyone had a stake in this system, the political masters and their servile servants, though each blamed the other in shameless public posturing.

The silence of retired civil servants in the matter of the Government of India officially proposing to designate three American universities to train officers at different stages of their careers and empanel only those who get a ‘satisfactory’ report, is truly astonishing. It is an open invitation for the surrender of the Indian administration to the American State Department and the CIA, as America is really an oligarchy in which government, top private sector, top NGOs, academic institutions and think-tanks network closely with each other, exchanging manpower and resources in pursuit of the unwavering goal of world dominion.

Subordination to this system can only be at the cost of Indian independence, national integrity and national security. The recent scandal in which a RAW officer was allowed to settle and hide in the United States only hints at the extent to which the country has been infiltrated by hostile forces. And now, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (which I think was handled by the Prime Minister himself), has got an expert panel headed by Prof. Y.K. Alagh, to suggest that the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Duke University, and Syracuse University simply takeover the Indian bureaucracy! It’s a crying shame.

It is now learnt that a four-week training programme on Governance Challenges for India, attended by 95 IAS officers with 28 years of service at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, was designed jointly with the John F. Kennedy School of Government. These officers will now require a certificate from KSG before they can move to the next rank of additional secretary or secretary. Has Parliament been informed that such a dramatic change in the service conditions of the Indian Civil Service has taken place? Does the President of India know, and have the major political parties been told that the Congress-dominated UPA has out-sourced the responsibility for writing the Annual Confidential Reports of Indian bureaucrats to faceless persons in the United States?

None of our jholawalas, JNU activists and rent-a-cause street-shouters have whimpered as this clear violation of national sovereignty, though the issue is big enough to bring the government down. Encouraged by the conspiracy of silence, the government has moved with speed to sign a deal between Syracuse University, New York, and IIM, Bangalore to train officers with 15 years of service in April 2007. Duke University will conduct a programme for officers with nine years of service.

Some time ago, it was revealed that the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission held two posts in US-based organisations: one with the World Bank’s Commission on Growth and Development, and the second with the US Institute of International Finance. The tentacles of the American administration are thus tightly wrapped around the country’s current political dispensation, and national honour and national identity mean little to those whose thinking and ambitions are coloured by the sight of greenbacks (dollars). Given the gravity of the situation, it would be well for Parliament to deliberate if such trans-national loyalties are legitimate. The Election Commission would also do well, as part of its electoral reforms process, to ask all candidates to declare if any of their immediate kin have green cards or passports of other nations, and the possible impact this could have upon them in office.

Global is not National
COLUMN
February 18, 2007

The Deccan Chronicle newspaper sought information under the Right to Information Act about the number of official foreign trips made by Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia since he became Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. It also asked for information about his personal trips, the places visited and the number of days per trip.

A south Indian newspaper, no doubt tipped off by an interested party, has nevertheless performed a sterling public service by bringing to light the manner in which the ruling UPA dispensation is subordinating national planning and financial policy to western, particularly American, corporate interests.

Allied with this exposure is the concern that many thinking citizens have had about the mindlessness with which India is following the western practice of permitting ‘fixer’ professionals to mix government and private office in a most transparent manner. This is part of a larger trend whereby fixed tenure careers in both government and private sector are being discouraged in favour of contract postings that make individuals and whole social groups excessively dependent on so-called market forces, or in other words, make them vulnerable to invisible but powerful pressures.

Sometime ago, the Deccan Chronicle newspaper sought information under the Right to Information Act about the number of official foreign trips made by Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia since he became Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. It also asked for information about his personal trips, the places visited and the number of days per trip. Finally, the newspaper demanded to know which international organisations Mr. Ahluwalia is associated with as member of a committee, board or member of an advisory committee; who funds his foreign trips, and the expenses incurred on each trip (Deccan Chronicle, February 4, 2007).

These seemingly innocuous questions elicited an amazing response, and it is my personal belief that the direction of enquiry suggests that some sections of India Inc. are having serious doubts about the manner in which India has moved from ‘liberalisation’ to ‘globalisation,’ without thought to its consequences for the Indian people as a whole, and even for Indian business interests specifically.

It now transpires that the Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission, the chief planner of the Indian economy, holds two posts in US-based organisations. One is with the World Bank’s Commission on Growth and Development; the second is under the US Institute of International Finance, which oversees capital flows and fair debt restructuring in emerging markets.

Understandably, the news came as a shock to parliamentarians and analysts, who feel that this amounts to a clear conflict of interest. That this is so is readily corroborated by the fact that most of Mr. Ahluwalia’s travels abroad over the past two years have been to America, with eight visits paid for by the Indian government. One trip lasted two weeks, from May 23, 2005 to June 7, 2005, and cost the government Rs. 8,47,895. Other foreign trips have been to Italy, Davos, Melbourne, Singapore and London. Many visits are clubbed with visits to the United States, and the total cost of Mr. Ahluwalia’s foreign travel has exceeded Rs. 53 lakhs.

The government has not clarified if Mr. Ahluwalia attended meetings of the international bodies when he was in the US. But if he did, the dates of these meetings were clubbed together with the official visits paid by the public exchequer. This is because the RTI Commission was explicit that the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman had not made any personal visit abroad in the past two years.

Reinforcing a disturbing trend under which top Indian bureaucrats seek jobs in the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, and work to the disadvantage of the Third World, Mr. Ahluwalia figures in the US Institute of International Finance’s group of trustees responsible for overseeing the principles for stable capital flows and fair debt restructuring in emerging markets. In this capacity, he will obviously be serving the corporate and financial ideology of these bodies, and not the interests of the Indian government.

It is no secret that America has enormous clout with the World Bank, which is in fact controlled by American multinationals. Hence, there is an obvious dis-consonance between Mr. Ahluwalia serving with both the World Bank and the Institute of International Finance, which has all the largest western commercial banks as its members. These include Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, ABN Amro Bank, HSBC Holdings, Citibank and Deutsche Bank.

Many of these banks have operations in India. Mr. Ahluwalia’s close and hitherto unknown interactions with them will obviously also play out in policy formulation and implementation in India, to the detriment of the ordinary citizen and the purely national business-corporate sector.

Singur and Nandigram signal a new Champaran-style mobilisation of public opinion in India, in the interests of the common man. The fact that everyone does not understand the intricacies of high finance does not mean that the citizen does not know where his/her interests are being hurt. Concerned citizens are waking up to the fact that in the name of foreign direct investment and technology, a plethora of institutional investors and non-transparent holding companies are buying up core sectors of the economy in several countries, including India.

The Indian media has been, and still is largely, complicit in this exercise in the vain hope that it will enhance its wealth and power to the point of complete non-accountability within India. But it is only a matter of time before the pigeons come home to roost. Available indications suggest that the heat from the fully owned and controlled advertisement industry is already being felt. The BJP—which has struck a promising new economic path by supporting the people of Singur—would do well to intervene and ensure that senior government jobs are not opened up to techno-entrepreneurs sponsored by the United States.

Real Nepal asserts itself
February 11, 2007

The result is that in hilly areas a constituency may have just 5,000 voters, while in the Terai region, a constituency could have over five lakh voters. This has naturally led to gross under-representation of the populous Terai in the public arena.

In January this year, Maoists joined the interim parliament. Though their promise to surrender arms is supposedly being monitored by the United Nations, media and other reports suggest that in the countryside, the armed goons are continuing to badger and intimidate other political parties.

In one of the most promising developments in Nepal in recent months, the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum, which represents the thirteen million people of the Terai region, has succeeded in getting Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to agree to future federal government and fresh delimitation of constituencies on the basis of population and geography. The Forum, which sacrificed eight lives in the course of a tumultuous two week protest for adequate representation in the forthcoming June elections for a new constituent assembly, had been agitating against the gross under-representation of the nation’s food basket in the country’s elected bodies.

Its struggle has forced the beleaguered Shri Koirala to announce that the eight parties in the interim government (seven party alliance plus Maoists) have agreed to restructure the state within a federal framework, and that the existing 205 constituencies will be freshly delimited on the basis of population and geography.

This will be no mean triumph for the Madhesis, who comprise as much as 35 per cent of the population of the Himalayan kingdom, but lack commensurate presence in Parliament as also the political structure of all parties. On the one hand, Nepal’s politics have been traditionally dominated by Brahmins and Kshatriyas (Bahuns and Chhetris), and on the other, the delimitation of constituencies has largely ignored the population layout. The result is that in hilly areas a constituency may have just 5,000 voters, while in the Terai region, a constituency could have over five lakh voters. This has naturally led to gross under-representation of the populous Terai in the public arena.

The announcement is a blow to the Maoists who despise the Maithili, Bhojpuri and Awadhi-speaking Madhesis on account of their affinity with Indian (read Hindu) culture, and a victory for the royalists who took the campaign for retention of the monarchy into the Terai region. But it is not yet a complete victory for the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum, as Shri Koirala has not so far invited the Madheshi leadership for negotiations on the issue. Instead, he has only made an appeal to resolve problems through peaceful negotiations and has directed Home Minister K.P. Sitaula to talk to the agitators. The latter detest Shri Sitaula and want him to resign. The Home Minister, however, enjoys the support of the Maoists, who do not want the interim government to recognise the pro-monarchy Forum.

The Forum is also angry that so far the regime has not expressed any regret for the loss of eight lives in the agitation by the Terai people for recognition of their political rights. The Madhesis intensified their agitation after the peace deal brought the Maoists right into parliament with as many as 83 seats, without prior surrender of weaponry, and without any assessment or testing of their ground strength.

But it was the 48-hour wild cat strike last December, when Maoists resorted to violence and highway blockades to protest against the SPA government’s appointment of envoys to fourteen countries, including India, that alerted other groups and communities in the country to their menacing potential. At that time, the cadres walked out of the camps with impunity, displaying their arms in public in a show of strength that rattled the regime and put the appointments on hold.

Seeing the writing on the wall and rightly assessing the weakness of the Koirala regime, the Limbuwan Liberation Front, a formation of the Limbu community in the Himalayan kingdom’s eastern and northern regions, has joined the clamour for autonomy raised by the Madhesis. The Front’s three day general strike (February 1-3) may trigger off similar claims by other groups feeling sidelined by the easy walkover afforded to the Maoists by the weak Koirala regime, and thus bring altogether unexpected results in the June polls.

Much will depend upon how developments unfold in the coming weeks, as the Maoists join the interim government this month, as part of the so-called peace process. In January this year, Maoists joined the interim parliament. Though their promise to surrender arms is supposedly being monitored by the United Nations, media and other reports suggest that in the countryside, the armed goons are continuing to badger and intimidate other political parties. Some foreign observers have also observed that the Maoists are purchasing cheap local weapons from the Indian border and submitting these for lock-up, while retaining the sophisticated weaponry, ostensibly for election time.

The growing power of the Maoists has caused alarm to other groups and communities residing in Nepal, especially after the peace deal gave them a significant parliamentary presence and access to huge resources. Last December, the interim government released Rs. 110 million for the management of the cantonments were the rebels are residing, with the UN ostensibly monitoring the arms and the armed cadres.

King Gyanendra has not been slow to fish in troubled waters, especially in view of India’s virtual betrayal of such a close ally and neighbour. The pro-monarchy Lok Janshakti Party of former prime minister Surya Bahadur Thapa; both factions of the Rashtriya Prajatantrik Party led respectively by Pashupati Shamshere Jang Bahadur Rana on one hand and Kamal Thapa and Rabindranath Sharma on the other; as also the Sadbhavna Party, are active in the Terai. For the Madhesis, the election of the new constituent assembly and the writing of a new constitution is a heaven-sent opportunity to assert their claims for political justice. Given Maoist hostility to their legitimate aspirations and the weakness of the Seven Party Alliance, a tacit alliance with the monarchy may yet be their best bet to gain fair political representation and retain cultural identity in Nepal’s emerging political system.

Nepal heading for greater civil unrest
February 04, 2007

Leading ideologue Baburam Bhattarai, while keeping out of the assembly like Prachand, has managed to push his Christian wife, Hisila Yami, into the interim legislature. India’s secular media has made much of the fact that traditional parties have fielded family members of political families to the House, such as Sujata Koirala, daughter of Prime Minister G.P. Koirala and Prakash Man Singh, son of Ganesh Man Singh, among others, but there is silence over the origins of the Maoist nominees.

The once-Hindu kingdom of Nepal is in deep crisis. While it is still unclear what the Western powers led by the United States want to achieve from the present unrest, the contours of an increased Hindu powerlessness in the region are already apparent. The Maoists have been gifted 83 seats in a 330-member interim legislature, which translates to one-fourth of the house, without ensuring a complete and credible arms lock-up. Nor is there any guarantee that the extortions and crimes in the countryside will actually come to an end.

Worse, the United Nations, which is supposed to monitor the arms lock-up and create an environment conducive to free and fair polls, has shown greater keenness to keep the Royal Nepal Army under lock and key! The UN Security Council recently decided to send a mission to Nepal with 186 military personnel to help monitor the rebel disarmament and ensure the army stays in barracks prior to the June elections which will elect a constituent assembly to write a new constitution and decide the future of the monarchy.

This does not augur well for the stability of the Himalayan kingdom, especially as the motley Seven Party Alliance is shaky and confused and commands little moral authority, even as several sections of the country are recovering from their stupor and expressing unease at the manner in which King Gyanendra has been humiliated and sidelined. The placing of the legitimate Army and the Prachand’s armed goons on an equal footing is a blunder that India will pay for dearly in times to come.

Unhappiness is growing over the growing realisation that the loss of the kingdom’s Hindu identity will correspondingly involve a loss of culture and national identity of the Nepali people, as also their independence in the international arena. There is a growing awareness of the fact that the top Maoist leadership is Christian, and hence backed by the West in abolishing the Hindu monarchy. It is significant that leading ideologue Baburam Bhattarai, while keeping out of the assembly like Prachand, has managed to push his Christian wife, Hisila Yami, into the interim legislature.

India’s secular media has made much of the fact that traditional parties have fielded family members of political families to the House, such as Sujata Koirala, daughter of Prime Minister G.P. Koirala and Prakash Man Singh, son of Ganesh Man Singh, among others, but there is silence over the origins of the Maoist nominees. Hence, it is not known who apart from Ms. Yami is related to the top leadership. What is certain, however, is that under pressure from Congress president Sonia Gandhi, India has virtually abdicated its presence and natural security interests in Nepal. This will help the West to manoeuvre weak, secular or Christian nominess to power and use Nepal as a base against China and Russia, not to mention India.

The only saving grace in the current situation is that King Gyanendra and his supporters have decided to fight back. In Kapilavastu, the royalist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party called for closure of the Krishna Nagar market on the occasion of Basant Panchami. The party was split by the monarch after a section distanced itself from his bloodless coup, while another faction supported the local elections he organised in February 2006. Now the royalist faction is openly canvassing support for the beleaguered king and retention of the monarchy.

The royalists have taken their campaign into the Terai, where the local population, known as Madhesis, has hitherto been looked down upon on account of their affinity with Indian culture. Their success has come as a shock to the SPA regime, which has been compelled to impose day curfew in Lahan and Terai in the southeast, following violent anti-government protests by the ethnic Madhesis, which took the lives of four persons and left dozens wounded in clashes with police.

The Madhesis aver that they have been sidelined by the peace deal that has brought the Maoist goons into the political mainstream. Their unexpected assertion has forced the interim government to hold emergency discussion and call for talks with all political groups involved in the conflict, including the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum that organised the protests.

The Forum contends that though the Terai is Nepal’s bread-basket, the peace deal has little for the nearly 13 million people of the Terai. The Forum is demanding a federal structure and regional autonomy for Terai, with abolition of racial, lingual, cultural and economic discriminations against the Terai. These are legitimate grievances and if the Palace is able to appeal to the people of the region as a source of justice against virtual usurpers, Nepal may yet escape the worst of the unrest chalked out for it by external forces.

Indeed, increased violence by those excluded from the sweetheart deal in the present interim government will compel the people of Nepal to look closely at their unelected and foisted representatives, and question the direction in which they are taking the country. It is not in Nepal’s best interests to be either anti-China or anti-India, which the West seeks it to be under its stooges. At the same time, a truly federal structure presided over by the King may bring genuine representative democracy to Nepal.

Cover-up for failed social uplift
January 28, 2007

The Justice Sachar Committee and the lesser noticed Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission (National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities) have both been established by the present UPA regime to honour the old colonial design to vivisect India. Nominated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a convenient tool in the hands of western nations determined to continue the White Man’s supremacy in a supposedly post-colonial world, and their agenda is being ably guided by the Italian-born Roman Catholic president of the Congress party, Ms. Sonia Gandhi.

The divisive aspect of her agenda is immediately visible. There is the shoddy Indo-US nuclear deal to which the scientific community remains firmly opposed; the fake dialogue with Pakistan which puts the status of Jammu & Kashmir into question; the move to vacate the Siachin glacier to facilitate a Pakistani walkover into this strategic zone; the encouragement to Muslim clergy in Assam to demand political reservations for the community; the failure to react to the genocide of Hindus in Assam and the privileging of illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants; and, above all, the surreptitious move to bring Christian converts into the ambit of political reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (via Ranganath Mishra Commission) and thus create a formidable and fractious Christian lobby in the Indian Parliament and State Legislatures.

Shri Ram Vilas Paswan’s recent Dalit-Minority International Conference fits in neatly with this agenda, and that is why it was inaugurated by Dr. Manmohan Singh. It is said that Shri Paswan intends to hold the conference overseas every two years, with international sponsors; hence it is not difficult to imagine the forces that are instigating and promoting Dalit and Muslim alienation from the larger Hindu society. It is inconceivable that such a sentiment could even be voiced in the lifetime of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; Ms. Sonia Gandhi, however, is made of different stuff.

In pursuit of his political obligations, Dr. Manmohan Singh made the startling observation at the Dalit-Minority International Conference (December 27, 2006) that “some minorities in India have done better than others… Jains and the Sikhs have fared relatively well from the process of social and economic development. However, other minorities, especially the Muslim community in certain parts of our country, have not had an equal share of the fruits of development.” The statement is erroneous and repulsive on several counts.

To begin with, under the Indian Constitution, the Sikh, Jaina and Bauddha (Buddhists) communities fall within the ambit of the larger Hindu community, as they are all of Indic origin. Thus, these smaller, distinct but not opposing groups, are part of the majority community and are not minorities. This position has also been upheld by the Supreme Court in several judgements, and this is also the reason why the Hindu Code Bill applies equally to Sikhs, Jainas and Bauddhas. For the Prime Minister, therefore, to position Indic communities as “minorities” is not only an open violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, but enunciates minorityism as state policy. It is a mockery of national unity.

This also conflicts with the Supreme Court’s warning not to encourage the proliferation of minorities on the basis of religion; else this would encourage “fissiparous tendencies” and fracture the secular fabric of the nation. The Prime Minister, no doubt, prodded by Congress supremo. Sonia Gandhi, is doing precisely the opposite—pandering to minorityism and creating community consciousness based upon religious identity alone, when the Constitution enjoins the State to have no religion at all.

Further, at this conference, the Prime Minister claimed that the Sachar Committee Report had established the plight of Muslims in terms of their social, economic and educational status. Dr. Singh declared his commitment to eradicate these inequities. Thus, in one quantum jump, the Prime Minister converted the entire Muslim citizenry into a single religious-cum-political grouping, with common secular problems and aspirations. It is a recipe for disaster, as it assumes that all Muslims reject the constitutional ideals of equality, justice and freedom of conscience, and crave for special treatment, when experience shows that special privileges only reinforce alienation and inequality.

It can also, in states like Assam, where the ISI has proved remarkably adept in turning the anti-Bangladeshi migrants ULFA into an anti-Hindu workers outfit, lead to a demand for restoration of communal electorates or reserved seats for Muslims. It may be pertinent to recall in this connection that in the run-up to the last Assembly elections in Assam, Ms. Sonia Gandhi at a public rally virtually instigated the Muslim clerics present on the dais to demand some kind of communal representation.

To my mind, the most noteworthy aspect of the Sachar Committee was that it failed to pin Muslim economic or educational backwardness upon either the Indian State or the Hindu community. India’s Muslims receive thousands of crores annually as aid from rich Muslim countries. In addition, the community has approximately five lakh Wakf properties worth an estimated Rs. 1.2 lakh crore, and thus capable of yielding handsome dividends to the community. It is a mystery why these resources are not used to found quality schools, colleges and hospitals that could serve both the Muslim community as well as the larger local communities in the regions where these would be located. Such initiatives would win enormous respect for the community from local communities as well as the nation as a whole. It is truly inexplicable why the visible presence of huge financial resources with the Muslim community should go hand-in-hand with poverty, backwardness, and a general sense of helplessness among ordinary Muslims. Community leaders, it would appear, have much to answer for.

Even more unacceptable is the argument that lower caste converts, the so-called ajlaf and arzal groups, are worthy of inclusion in SC/ST quotas because they are discriminated by the upper caste Ashrafs. These are the descendants of Islamic invaders of the medieval period, and their discrimination against indigenous converts is a form of racism that needs to be quelled through strong legal action, as mandated by the Constitution and the penal code, and not institutionalised by the State!

Surprisingly, neither the Prime Minister nor Ms. Sonia Gandhi has shown sensitivity on the one issue where Muslims have a genuine grievance, viz., missionary predations in the Kashmir Valley. Last December, the murder of a Christian convert in a Srinagar village brought to light the interesting phenomenon of missionary activism in the troubled State, particularly following the forced exodus of the Hindu minority there in 1990 and thereafter. Thus, while the 0.2 million-strong Hindu population has been reduced to just 6,000, the Christian population has been a startling growth, from just 650 in the 1981 census to around 13,000 at present, all of which is on account of conversion of Muslims. For a country and the regime that supposedly privileges Muslims above all groups, this silence is revealing—it exposes Ms. Gandhi’s abiding commitment to the West’s agenda for India, especially the conversion of its entire citizenry to Christianity. Muslims, it would appear, are to be appeased only to the extent that they hurt Hindu interests or sentiments; otherwise they may be safely ignored.

Farmer, tycoon face-off under CPM rule
January 21, 2007

Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has done well to announce that the notification for land acquisition in Nandigram would be withdrawn, after violence unleashed by party cadres amidst tragic police apathy, led to the death of six villagers.

The face-off between West Bengal farmers and government, first in Singur and later in Nandigram, is being erroneously depicted as a clash between ‘progressive’ industry and ‘stagnant’ agriculture, when the truth is simply that there is no justification for turning over fertile, multiple-crop supporting land for factories that could easily be constructed over degraded wastelands.

What is ignored in the pretended concern for investment and progress in the State is that by seizing agricultural land which is already well-connected to the markets and highways by roads, and handing over the same to rich industrialists, the State Government is giving them huge hidden subsidies by saving them the cost of building infrastructure in remote areas to connect with the main commercial centres or transit points.

Industry is thus saved a cost that is already built into its project report, and this windfall is at the cost of the humble farmer who ensures the food security of the entire country with his unceasing toil. The argument that a better compensation packet will provide the farmer a better livelihood in insensitive and fallacious; and the argument that the country will not progress until landed farmers are forced by state policy to become urban proletariat stinks of forced labour. If India is a democracy, farmers must decide whether or not they wish to farm in peace or rot in urban slums.

The fast disappearance of fertile land, especially along national highways, and the corresponding rise of factories and urban areas is a visible and disturbing trend nation-wide, and one that needs urgent redressal before the country faces an acute agricultural crisis. The rural poor do not need a compensation packet that is quickly dissipated, they need assured irrigation. It is a fallacy that industrialisation can provide employment to all those living in rural areas (about 65 per cent of the population); only agriculture can do that.

In these circumstances, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has done well to announce that the notification for land acquisition in Nandigram would be withdrawn, after violence unleashed by party cadres amidst tragic police apathy, led to the death of six villagers.

Amazingly, it now transpires that the Haldia Development Authority, which issued the land acquisition notices for 25,000 acres of land, did not have the authority to do so! Yet the administration tried to brazen it out, and despite early arson and violence, failed to ensure adequate security, which resulted in the death of six persons as a charged-up peasantry refused to yield ground to party goons. In the subsequent fall-out, the Chief Minister had little choice but to climb down and allow matters to cool down; this is wise, but he also owes it to the people of his state to acknowledge the guilt of his party cadres and make suitable amends.

Just as the Singur Special Economic Zone land was earmarked for a car project by the Tata’s, so the Nandigram SEZ was intended for the Indonesia-based Salim group’s chemical hub. Both lands involved the ouster of thousands of farm families that either own the land legally, or have been farming at the site for generations, though lacking in legal title. These latter were simply ignored in the compensation packages, and would be simply ruined by the projects.

The Chief Minister will now have to appreciate that those who rule in the name of the hammer and sickle cannot use the hammer to crush the sickle! Chastened by the unexpected turn of events, Shri Bhattacharya has promised that the state government will henceforth resort to mapping and land-alignment and prepare a rehabilitation package in consultation with political parties, farmers and the landless people. This is a wise precaution, even if it comes rather late in the day.

The most pertinent aspect of the Singur-Nandigram face-offs, however, which remains unanswered by the political establishment to this day, is, why is the State Government serving as estate agent to rich industrial houses? And even if they do their own estate-hunting, why does it allow fertile agricultural land be converted into sterile industrial land? Inviting investment only involves a transparent policy of notifying land available for industrial purposes, and a corruption-free environment for industry to prosper. There is absolutely no cause for government to serve as the handmaiden of the corporate sector, as the Congress party has discovered after first chastising the MP who protested the scandalously sweet deal that the Reliance SEZ procured in Haryana.

After initially mistaking the protest as dissidence inspired by former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal, the party realised that farmers across north India were agitated by the deal and made verbal u-turn. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was slow to react to Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee’s fast-unto-death in Singur, and it took the personal concern of President APJ Kalam to force him to step into the picture. Now the looming elections in Uttar Pradesh have forced Congress president Sonia Gandhi to make pro-farmer noises. None of this is good enough. BJP president Rajnath Singh was the first major national leader to support Ms. Banerjee in Singur; he should follow this up by taking up the larger issue of agricultural depression all over the country. A beginning can be made by asking the simple question—why are all farmer suicides coming from regions which have got the so-called benefits of the Green Revolution, and what exactly is it that insulates the traditional farmer of UP and Bihar from this trend. The answers will be interesting.

Evangelists in public parks
January 14, 2007

Instructing the Pandava prince about the duties and responsibilities of a ruler, the dying Bhishma avers: “Is the king responsible for the times, or are the times responsible for the king? You, Yudhisthira, should entertain no doubts about this: the king indeed is the cause of the times, it is he who gives rise to good or bad times” (Mahabharata, santiparvan, 69.79).

The injunction rose to mind recently when, strolling in the Lodi Gardens, one encountered a couple of families from north-east India, distributing evangelical literature to all evening walkers. The pamphlets, in good, sanskritised Hindi, published by The Bible Society of India, were being distributed by young five-year old boys and girls under the watchful eyes of their seniors, who were moving through the park with a guitar, pretending to be regular families at a picnic.

Quite apart from the sheer duplicity of this exercise—the use of virtual infants to evade public anger at the infringement of privacy for evangelisation—what struck me most was the audacity with which missionaries are operating in the heart of the Capital, among educated families known to frequent these lawns. Their growing temerity cannot but be connected to the presence in Delhi of a government whose de facto leader is a Roman Catholic from Italy, whose regime is privileging minority groups at the cost of national unity, and thus spurring on divisive social tendencies in the country at large.

There can be little doubt that Ms. Sonia Gandhi is the cause of administrative tolerance of the increased missionary activity in the country as a whole, whether it is New Delhi or the north-east, or the five southern states. That she has little respect for Hindu traditions and sentiments can be easily witnessed in her visit to the Tirupathi Tirumalai Devasthanam in 1999, when she arrogantly refused to sign the mandatory register for non-Hindus, even after her cronies had assured the temple trustees that this would be done. Last year, she again visited Tirupathi and failed to sign the register, and thus once again besmirched the maryada (honour) of the temple.

These actions betray Ms. Gandhi’s non-Indian origins completely—not only has she refused to make the dharma of the people her rajdharma as a political leader, she has refused even to abide by the norms and traditions of the country’s native faith, which in this case require that non-Hindus visiting the shrine sign a register expressing faith in the deity. Muslim politicians like Dr. Farooq Abdullah and C.K. Jaffar Sharief have routinely signed the register. It is only Sonia Gandhi who uses political power to circumvent basic decencies.

This is doubly unfortunate as Ms. Gandhi’s Congress party is currently vitiating the politico-communal climate by emphasising religious identity as the only legitimate personal and group identity, and making it the basis of all secular politics in the country, a la the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Mishra Commission. It needs emphasising in this regard that a government that privileges religious identity while tolerating increased evangelical activity in the country is actually making a statement against the religion being targeted in this manner. We are, thus, in a perilously semi-theocratic state-like condition.

The invocation of freedom of religion is utterly false. Missionaries are not denied the freedom to teach their religion to their own people. What they are doing amount to displaying hatred and intolerance of other world religions, which they seek to annihilate by imposing their own faith upon groups and communities everywhere. Some years ago, an AIADMK leader in Pondicherry protested in the State Assembly against a conversion drive in his constituency, Uppalam (New Indian Express, April 18, 2003). A. Anbalagan pointed out that married women were being prevented from wearing tilak, mangala sutra or flowers in their hair, the traditional attributes of married women in Tamil culture, all in the name of conversion; this was also impacting badly upon the social fabric.

Missionaries have upped the ante in Muslim-majority areas as well, thus belying the belief that they left Muslims alone because of fear of the fundamentalists among them. I have in previous writings noted the presence of evangelicals in disturbed societies like Pakistan and Afghanistan, which have regimes friendly to the West. Now it has emerged that they are equally active in the Kashmir Valley, from where Hindus have been driven out over the past two decades, while Christians have gained a foothold, taking their population from 650 in 1981 to 13000 at present, an increase of 5 per cent.

What is significant in the conversion drive in the violent Valley is the formidable presence of Western missions—the US, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland—which reinforces my contention that conversion is an imperial game with an imperial objective. As a result, churches are slowly mushrooming in cities like Srinagar, which has a Holy Family Catholic Church, an All Saints Church, and many underground houses of worship where worshippers gather on Sundays. Already there is a Kashmiri Bible. That conversions affect the social fabric is evident from the recent murder of a Kashmiri convert-cum-social activist. If the Indian government is even formally committed to maintaining social harmony in the country, it would do well to close closely at the issue of conversions and its impact upon inter-community relations.

Gun-totters are not freedom fighters
December 31, 2006

Maoists have spread their tentacles in 16 districts of the State. Village girls are frequently lured into the isolated jungle camps on promises of arms training and a better life.

The popular tide against the Khalistani movement in Punjab turned when the Pak-trained terrorists were found to be indulging in rape and extortion on an unprecedented scale, and media reportage of their crimes matched the scale of their offensives.

In the midst of stray but disturbing reports that insurgent groups in many parts of the country routinely attract female recruits for purposes of sexual exploitation and virtual bonded labour, it is high time the ruling UPA collated all police information from the States regarding such offences. The information needs to be presented to Parliament and given nation-wide publicity to end these heinous practices by criminal groups that mostly serve a foreign agenda and thrive on foreign funding, while masquerading as ‘freedom fighters’ for the oppressed rural poor.

Recent reports from Orissa’s remote jungle camps suggest that gun-totting Maoists are seriously abusing female cadres. Female combatants captured by police in recent months have revealed that far from being utilised in guerrilla operations, they are kept as virtual bonded labour and forced to cook and run household chores of the camp. The darker side of this shoddy treatment is outright sexual abuse; they are even forced to dance to entertain the male guerrillas. Even women guerrillas who have received arms training are being forced to serve as camp cooks and exploited sexually. In one district, the Maoists actually run a natyamandali (entertainment group) comprising women and children!

The problem has acquired a serious dimension as Maoists have spread their tentacles in 16 districts of the State. Village girls are frequently lured into the isolated jungle camps on promises of arms training and a better life, but this more often than not just boils down to providing personal pleasure to gun-totting males, police sources reveal. Last month, a young woman named Sulochana, aged 23, became pregnant and died at the Sambalpur District Hospital.

Police said that as the news of this sexual exploitation of women is spreading by word of mouth, village girls are no longer interested in joining the Maoists, but those in the Maoist camps are under strict vigil and their escape is difficult. Sadly, no human rights group or state women’s commission has addressed the issue of women misled to support a cause and subjected to sexual exploitation; a silence that could have a costly price.

In August last year, Tripura separatists were discovered to be not only sexually exploiting female cadres, but actually forcing the female tribal recruits to act in pornographic films at gunpoint. The films were marketed throughout South Asia and the huge profits used to purchase arms for the insurgency. The films were even dubbed in several foreign languages to improve their marketability, and the racket came to light when tribal girls managed to escape the camps and surrendered to the police, alleging sexual exploitation by male leaders. The girls were lured into the camps on the promise of guerilla training to create an independent tribal homeland, but were made to serve as mere cooks and run domestic chores in the camps.

Video production house owners in Tripura told the police that they received high rates to process the footage shot in the jungles into a sleek production. They said the insurgents were behind the films, and the raw stock clearly showed boys with automatic rifles and revolvers pulling the girls before the camera; these scenes are edited out and the pure pornography marketed. Worse however, was the revelation that the Tripura insurgents were also trafficking tribal girls for money in the South Asian markets, via Bangladesh. Sadly, most of these stories are blacked out by the national media. Yet the trend continues unchecked, and unless the personal culture of armed illegal groups in the country becomes a matter of national scrutiny, innocent girls will continue to be victimized by armed bandicoots.

Manipur’s Churachandpur district is another hotbed to sexual and physical violence. In January 2006, at least 25 women of the Hmar tribe were raped and molested by cadres of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) in Parbung village in the Tipaimukh sub-division. Some of the girls were minors. Ten days later, on the night of January 16, 2006, over two dozen armed terrorists assaulted the villagers of Lungthulien and raped and molested 15 women and girls between the ages of 12 to 27 years. Despite the barbarity of the attacks, the authorities learnt of them only two months later, in March 2006, on account of the fear the terrorists had instilled in their victims.

It follows that there are several such unreported atrocities in all Indian states where gun totting criminals professing a form of Communist ideology freely indulge in rape and extortion. It is worth recalling that the popular tide against the Khalistani movement in Punjab turned when the Pak-trained terrorists were found to be indulging in rape and extortion on an unprecedented scale, and media reportage of their crimes matched the scale of their offensives.

For covert political reasons, this is not happening in the case of the Maoists and Christian insurgent groups in the north-east, and this is an aspect that deserves the close scrutiny of nationalist political parties. It is high time the Centre shed its apathy and ended its unconscionable silence in the matter. The sexual abuse of vulnerable tribal girls by armed goons is part of a larger pattern of violence and intimidation of large swathes of India’s rural belt, and the Centre cannot view them as isolated incidents. Each group has close links with external agencies inimical to India; a coordinated strike could be catastrophic.

UPA’s ungallant fall and desperate Afzal defence
December 24, 2006

To its everlasting shame, the UPA has preferred to allow family members of the police martyrs who lost their lives defending a terrorist attack upon Parliament in 2001 to return their gallantry awards, rather than meet the aggrieved families and assure them that no injustice would be done to dishonour their valorous dead.

That this is dictated by the UPA’s desperation to woo the Muslim vote in the context of the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections is clear from the Prime Minister’s staggering statement that Muslims had the first claim on national resources, following the pre-programmed Sachar Committee report. Ostensibly highlighting the deplorable plight of Muslims in the post-Independence period, the Sachar report fails to explain the Muslim preference for madrasa education to formal secular schooling, nor does it factor in the economic conditions of Muslim artisans and craftsmen who surely must be making a decent living even if they do not go in for formal schooling.

Even more critically, the report does not touch the question why the condition of lowly Muslim converts did not improve under successive Muslim rulers of the past, whose actions and policies resulted in the conversions in the first place. The question is pertinent because missionaries today are citing the poor condition and backwardness of Dalit Christians in order to make a case for reservation benefits, and the clergy of both communities need to be brought to account on this score.

Still, even by the standards of Indian ingratitude, it is shameful that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be silent in the face of the terrible anguish of the families of the slain policemen, while Home Minister Shivraj Patil feels no remorse in stating blandly that it could take years to process the clemency plea of accused Mohammad Afzal Guru, the brain behind the attack, whose death sentence was recently upheld by the Supreme Court.

Ironically, after Afzal’s mercy campaign was launched by professional India and Hindu baiters like Arundhati Roy, a famous news channel carried an interview by his own brother clearly stating that Afzal had links with the Pakistan-controlled Jaish-e-Mohammad. There could not be a more blistering indictment of the man, and yet his Indian admirers have gone ahead and produced a detective account of the mystery behind the whole Parliament attack, the purpose of which is to suggest that it was the handiwork of the Atal Behari Vajpayee regime! If you find this difficult to believe, just remember that Ms. Roy once wrote a famous ‘eye witness’ account of the rape-cum-murder of the daughters of a former Congress MP in the Gujarat riots. When the man’s son came from America to perform the last rites, he said he had no unmarried sisters in the state and could not explain the rape-cum-murder story! So much for credibility.

And now this excreable group of human rights activists has joined hands to humiliate the families of national martyrs that they have returned gallantry awards to Rashtrapati Bhavan on the fifth anniversary of the attack. This is a terrible indictment of the ruling coalition, particularly the Congress party, as it means that they have lost all hope for justice and respect from the system. The statement that a political party was egging on the families of the martyrs was simply in poor taste and reflected the supreme indifference of the government to the lives of valiant policemen and the suffering of widows and children.

The Afzal hanging has been shamelessly politicised by various politicians. First Kashmiri Muslim politicians like Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Ms. Mehbooba Mufti, her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and Ghulam Nabi Azad all took the stand that it was a case of Kashmir vs. the rest of India. They virtually espoused violence by warning of the ‘consequences’ of hanging Afzal, with the result that a petrified government sought solace in postponing the hanging. And now, UP and other elections will probably ensure that the petition hangs fire till another government is voted to office.

Ms. Sonia Gandhi has maintained her typical duplicitous silence on the issue, though the Afzal drama has stretched over two months. Initially, the perception of public revulsion made Congress ask senior leader Digvijay Singh to oppose the mercy petition, but thereafter the party took a different stand on the Muslim question in general, and seems to have decided that clemency for Afzal is a small price to pay for the Muslim vote.

Congress is playing with fire. Having lost connection with the people, it does not realize that the public at large has deep respect for soldiers and policemen who lay down their lives in the defence of the nation. People also respect institutions like Parliament, but they do not respect criminals in Parliament and appreciate the judiciary when persons like Shibu Soren are sentenced for murder. Any attempt to infringe judicial power in this context is viewed with distaste. Thus, even at this stage, congress would do well to quickly process the mercy petition and expedite the hanging of Afzal so that the martyrs are not disrespected in death and their families spared further agony.

It is worth recalling the words of former Chief Justice of India Mr. R.C. Lahoti, in the context of terrorist attacks: “Which penalty is required other than death for this dastardly act? ….. We forget the family of those killed, injured and totally uprooted…” As he rightly stressed, the first duty of Government is to enforce the law as “nothing can destroy a Government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws or worse, its own disregard of the charter of its existence.” The UPA would do well to read the writing on the wall.

Quota double whammy on Hinduism
CASTE AND CONVERSION
December 17, 2006

If the so-called caste bias does not go away with conversion to another faith, there is something wanting in the conversion process and the new faith.

Two interesting developments took place last month, giving a fresh twist to the raging controversy over conversions and the extension of caste-based reservations to converts. First, the Chennai High Court ruled against providing Christian Dalits the benefits of constitutional reservations in jobs, but provided them for those who returned to the Hindu fold, in consonance with the spirit of the Indian Constitution. Second, the shooting of a Christian convert from Islam in a remote Srinagar village exposed the myth that missionaries avoid poor Muslims out of fear of Islamic fundamentalism.

It speaks volumes about the money and muscle power enjoyed by Christian evangelists, not to mention the support of foreign governments that they can dare to practice conversions in Kashmir, the heartland and launching pad of jehadi terrorism in India. It bears noting that the State’s miniscule Hindu population has all but fled the valley, and the stray Hindus who remain are under intense pressure. Yet missionaries are unfazed, and the murder of Bashir Ahmed Tantray in Pattan village last month suggests that their successes have begun to rile the jehadis and other fundamentalists.

Although Tantray’s family has denied allegations that he was involved in converting poor Muslims by offering money and other inducements, conservative estimates suggest that around 2000 families have converted to Christianity in recent times. This certainly suggests the presence of powerful inducements, particularly in terms of children’s education and employment opportunities.

Given that the offer of ‘incentives’ remains the eternal missionary way of creating new believers, it is heartening that the Chennai High Court took a stand in the matter of Christianity weaning away the faithful of one tradition on the pretext of justice, equality and so on, and then failing to deliver on these exalted promises. The case in question concerns a Dalit born to Hindu parents converted to Christianity and re-converted to Hinduism. As a Hindu Dalit, he was entitled to quota benefits provided to Scheduled Castes in the matter of government employment. A division bench comprising Justices Dharma Rao and S.K. Krishnan allowed R Shankar to challenge the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission’s rejection of his application to the post of civil judge under the Scheduled Caste quota.

Arguing that though born to Dalit Christian parents, Shankar said he returned to the Hindu fold in 1983 and received a Scheduled Caste certificate. Despite passing the examination and interview for the post of civil judge, his appointment was held up for verification of community (caste) status. When eventually denied appointment on grounds of being born in a Christian family, he challenged the decision successfully, with the learned judges finding his re-conversion to Hinduism acceptable.

This is a shot in the arm for all Dalit Hindus who have been weaned away from their natal faith and traditions and are discovering that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. The Bishops’ Conference of India and the All India Catholic Union, emboldened by the dominance of Ms. Sonia Gandhi in the present UPA dispensation, have promptly declared their determination to secure reservation benefits for Dalit Christians. They are likely to achieve their desires, since this is the very reason why the UPA set up the Ranganath Mishra Commission National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM); the Sachar Committee has already recommended quotas for Muslims.

The missionary argument that in India caste transcends religion is too clever by half. They must confine conversions to Hindus who are willing to renounce caste in all its dimensions, failing which they must renounce the practice of conversions and learn to respect both Hindu Dharma and the caste system, which is integral to Hindu tradition. If the so-called caste bias does not go away with conversion to another faith, there is something wanting in the conversion process and the new faith.

The system of jati and varna (caste) is unique to Hindu society, and is a complex socio-historical process by which the myriad native groups of India were fused into a single civilization, which retained a rich cultural pluralism and never degenerated into uniformity. The elasticity of the caste system provided for inclusion, rather than exclusion (the premise upon which the monotheistic traditions rest), and thus accommodated all persons and groups seeking entry into the Hindu fold.

It was caste - the affiliation to a jati - which prevented the wholesale conversion of Hindus under Islamic tyranny and state power. The British Raj was the first to recognise this fact; the current evangelical determination to appropriate caste to foster conversions derives from the same imperialistic imperative of capitalism-colonialism-conversion. There can be little doubt that the Ranganath Mishra Commission has been pre-programmed to extend constitutional benefits to Dalit Christians, including political reservations, by giving them the right to contest SC/ST Parliamentary and Assembly reserved seats. This will no doubt make life easier for persons like former Congress chief minister Ajit Jogi, who is unable to tell us if he is a Christian, a scheduled caste or a scheduled tribe!

The new BJP president, Mr. Rajnath Singh, must unequivocally oppose the extension of caste benefits to missionary religions. Christianity aims at the total annihilation of the native religion and culture of its converts, and the imposition of a totally new way of life and thinking upon them. It is, in every sense of the term, a totalitarian tradition, and pastors have an enviable hold upon the faithful. Hence missionaries cannot claim that they are unable to combat caste consciousness among converts. The truth is that the upper caste church hierarchy wishes to perpetuate its own domination of the faithful, rather than combat caste-based prejudice in the manner that Hindu society itself has been doing for several hundred years.

The Chennai High Court has done well to refuse to let missionaries enter the caste door. Christians accepting and practicing caste discrimination should be prosecuted under the relevant provisions in the law, not pampered by being allowed to continue mistreating historically disadvantaged groups.

Saraswati: Pumpkin under a grain of rice
December 10, 2006

A famous Tamil saying avers: you cannot hide a pumpkin under a grain of rice. It was precisely such a preposterous attempt—the denial of the very existence of the mighty river Saraswati by motivated Western and Indian Marxist scholars—that was powerfully overturned at the recent Saraswati Colloquium at Kurukshetra, Haryana (November 17 to 20, 2006).

Organised under the aegis of the Akhil Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Yojana and the Saraswati Nadi Shodh Prakalp, the colloquium distinguished itself with a fascinating exhibition highlighting the material, scientific and administrative evidence of the existence of the river that nourished and inspired the country’s ancient Vedic civilization. A nation-wide dissemination of the exhibition would soon put the political-academic detractors of the river to flight and diminish those who continue to deny the Vedic roots of the Harappan (Indus-Saraswati) civilization.

The exhibition featured Survey of India maps published in 1969 and 1970, which trace the route of the vanished Saraswati and its adjacent waters in the Haryana districts of Kurukshetra, Jind, Ambala, Karnal, Rohtak and Sonipat. There are detailed satellite images of its palaeo-channels and present-day drainages in Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, undertaken by ISRO’s Regional Remote Sensing Service Centre at Jodhpur.

But the most clinching evidence of official administrative acknowledgement of the Vedic river and its northern Indian trajectory comes in the form of the small revenue maps traditionally maintained by village patwaris. These are historical government records, and the organisers of the exhibition have imaginatively culled out and joined the revenue maps of the villages of Yamuna Nagar and Kurukshetra districts, which clearly depict the course of the now invisible Saraswati.

At least 38 villages are covered by the maps, including Khera Kalan; Khera Khurd; Sabalpur; Muftabad (renamed Saraswati Nagar); Mali Mazra; Uncha Chandna; Gundana; Shahaberpura; Gajlana; Ram Nagar; Gog Mazra; Gura Singhal; Sultanpur; Kali Rona (Baban Khelna); Kandhauli; Bhaini; Gohan; Ishargarh; Bohti; Mukarpur; Pipli (Khetra Ratgal); Amargarh Majhada, Kurukshetra Jail ke peeche, Ratgal Shetra; North of Kurukshetra, front of Sector 13; Dera Khurd; Thanesar; Sheikh Chilli Maqbara Shetra; Gaon Bahri Kurukshetra, NE Shetra; Jogna Khera; Narkatari; Gulabgarh; SYL - Bhakra-Pehowa Road; Jyotisar (birthplace of Bhagvad Gita); Gaon Garhi Rojhan; Gaon Chailo; Murtzapur Bibipur lake; Sehda Unthsal Derhaja Bangdi; and Bodla Gaon.

This is incontrovertible evidence that the Saraswati’s course has been known to cartographers from the time the river flowed powerfully from the mountains to the ocean, to the time it disappeared following tectonic movements in the earth’s crust. Since the river did not dry up overnight, but continued to flow in lesser water systems, its course was remembered by succeeding generations. Interestingly, the Rig Vedic river is still known as Saraswati in its upper reaches in Haryana; it then joins the Ghaggar and later dries up near Sirsa. It is known as Ghaggar in Rajasthan, Hakra in Cholistan (Pakistan) and Nara in Sindh. Its final destination was the Rann of Kutch, east of the present-day Indus.

The Rig Veda envisages the Saraswati as having descended from the heavens. It is interesting that this river, which is the fountainhead of Indian culture, originates in the Tibetan Himalayas, as does the Brahmaputra, also associated with the creator-god Brahma. These two rivers thus embrace and irrigate the eastern and western extremities of India. Given the legendary fertility of the Saraswati, the states of Haryana, Gujarat, and Rajasthan have taken the initiative to link rivers to provide drinking water and irrigation facilities to farmers and with this raised the possibility of reviving the great river Saraswati.

The route of the vanished river was first established by the late Dr. Haribhau Wakankar, through satellite imagery and archaeological sites along its route. The Saraswati project was scrutinised by eminent archaeologists and geologists, and an earnest search for the lost river was launched in 1982, when Dr. Wakankar created a team of 49 scholars. Many events synergized thereafter. In 1995, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) found water in the Rajasthan desert at depths of merely 50 to 60 metres, making agriculture possible even in extreme summer. The Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur, mapped the defunct course of a river through satellite and aerial photographs and field studies.

Satellite imagery suggests the river originated in Kailash Mansarovar and emerged on the plains from the Siwalik Hills at the foothills of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, flowed through the Ghaggar valley in Haryana and the Rajasthan desert, on to Hakra in the Cholistan desert (Sindh, Pakistan), before reaching the Rann of Kutch through the Nara Valley and falling off into the Arabian Sea. This river is obviously the Saraswati, as it is the only river in Indian literature and tradition that vanished. Scientific studies suggest it dried up around 2000 BC, which makes it a contemporary of the Indus Valley civilization and gives the Rig Veda a greater antiquity than previously suspected, as the Saraswati was a powerful river when the seers composed the Vedic shlokas.

Interestingly, after Pokharan 1998, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) tested the underground water for tritium (radio-active fallout), and found potable waters in the desert. These, derived from Himalayan glaciers, were 8000 to 14000 years old, and were being slowly recharged through aquifers from somewhere in the north despite the semi-arid region having scanty rainfall. BARC thus confirmed ISRO findings about the river.

In 2003-04, archaeologists from Shimla Circle established Adi Badri as the site where the river entered the plains, descending from the Rupin-Supin glaciers north of Paonta Saheb, where a Yamuna tear caused by plate tectonics caused a lateral shift of the Shiwalik ranges. This caused the eastward migration of the Yamuna, a tributary of Saraswati, taking the Saraswati waters to join the Ganga at Prayag and create the Triveni Sangam. This tectonic diversion of the Yamuna waters is recorded in our cultural memory through the story of Balaram, brother of Krishna, dragging the river Yamuna towards Mathura.

Reputed scholars now hold that the Saraswati-Indus and Vedic civilization are one and the same. They say it is impossible that the so-called Aryans left a massive literary corpus (Vedas) but not a shred of material culture as evidence of their presence in the region. At the same time, a rich material culture has been found in the same place at the same time, with evidence of writing found on seals. There is no evidence of invasion, or even substantial inward migration, but a population shift following the loss of a major water source. Dr. R.S. Bisht, former director, ASI, who excavated Dholavira (Gujarat) and supervised the search for the Saraswati in 2001, stressed: “The overwhelming archeological evidence of ancient settlements along the course of what was once the Saraswati River proves that our earliest civilizations were not confined to the Indus river alone. Those who wrote the Vedas on the banks of the Saraswati were the same as the Indus Valley people.”

Children on traditional work
Renuka has a point
December 03, 2006

Without productive employment, leaving alone at home can have serious security issues for girl children, and result in vagrancy in boys. It is a vicious circle, and cannot be solved through half-baked measures not thought through with compassion and realism.

In a regime not known for original thinking, Minister of State for Women & Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury, deserves to be congratulated for breaking free of the Euro-American-dictated paradigms and making a case for child labour in poor families in relatively traditional economies.

Having mindlessly mooted a bill banning child labour for under-fourteen year olds across the board, to pander to so-called child rights promoted by Western economies ever hungry for more and more market monopoly, realisation is dawning that the move spells doom for thousands of families across the city and the nation. While a ban on child labour in hazardous industries is one thing, a blanket ban adversely affects families where the child is a major bread winner.

It is very well for NGOs whose contribution to public life is confined to street marches massively funded by unknown sources to lament the loss of childhood of child labourers and to clamour to send these children to school. The fact of the matter is that in the first place the government has failed miserably to even situate schools accessible to large sections of the poor and underprivileged, or to equip them with staff and facilities where they do exist.

In many schools, the teachers are not trained to properly motivate and handle first generation learners, with the result that a large drop-out percentage is simply inevitable for some decades to come. Poor parents of girl and boy children who simply find it impossible to cope after Class five are now at their wits end, wondering what to do with their under-14 year old wards. Even giving a car-cleaning job to such a boy can land one in jail, so urban families are wary of even letting young children accompany domestic help to work. Without productive employment, leaving such children alone at home can have serious security issues for girl children, and result in vagrancy in boys. It is a vicious circle, and cannot be solved through half-baked measures not thought through with compassion and realism.

Another aspect of child labour is that the children of traditional craftsmen, such as carpet-makers, metal-workers, potters, artisans, etc., pick up their skills in a family environment. The international laws banning purchase of the products of child labour are part and parcel of the ugly tactics of Western countries, which seek to monopolise world markets and profits in every sphere. It is hardly a coincidence that these former colonial countries are always looking for ways and means to tilt the world market against former colonies, and to create conditions in which only their factory-generated produce can be sold in world markets. It was precisely this quest for monopoly markets that resulted in colonialism in the first place, and the same countries are now pursuing their old objectives by other means, ably assisted by local stooges in the human rights industry.

Ms. Chowdhury has done well to re-open the debate and point out that India has signed this protocol without thinking through issues properly. Her initiative for a “learning while earning” policy deserves support from all right-thinking persons, and it is to be hoped that her party’s Italian Vicerene does not come in the way of a national rethink on what is right and good for the Indian people. It goes without saying that this would apply to a number of third world countries as well.

Ms. Chowdhury has rightly pointed out that our traditional arts and crafts have for centuries been taught parent to child at the workplace, which could be at home or outside. It is state-sponsored tyranny to fine a parent Rs. 20,000 if a child is found weaving a shawl or a carpet. And if such a child cannot cope with school and find employment as a peon or waiter, he is instantly alienated from the old way of life because he has not been equipped with his traditional family skill to earn a livelihood. Children rendered misfits by ill-conceived policies then become fodder for unscrupulous elements who exploit them mercilessly. Child labour can be a productive solution for drop-outs.

International laws cater to western economic needs and naturally trample upon the local and regional concerns of non-western nations. ILO’s sweeping ban on the purchase of products made by children reeks of an anti-third world bias. The minister has rightly advocated laws that give children a safe and protected working environment, while enabling them to earn their own livelihood by picking up skills from master craftsmen.

This is not a argue that children should have a childhood or go to school, but in a social reality in which schools do not exist, and the fact that India’s traditional industries generate a good amount of employment and revenue, the ban could render the world’s largest and youngest productive force useless. With primary education in rural areas a myth, we are hurtling our youth towards lifelong vagrancy.

The hollowness of the anti-child labour drive was recently exposed when a six-year-old Bihari girl, Chunchun, UNICEF’s brand ambassador in the campaign against child labour, was found cleaning utensils and serving food in her father’s roadside dhaba on Beerchand Patel Road. The father came to know the organisation was using his daughter’s photograph for its campaign only when the media landed up at his door. UNICEF admitted it had done nothing to rehabilitate the girl and in fact has no funds for this purpose, as it only spreads ‘awareness.’ There should be an international audit on the kind of money nations pump into such talking shops, and the returns of their advocacy campaigns. Chunchun’s father, who has eight children and struggles to feed them daily, rightly feels the state which is using his daughter’s picture should do something for the family. His demand for a house under the Indira Awas Yojna is entirely in order.

Meanwhile, India should dialogue with other developing countries on combating the deleterious consequences of such international laws.

Mattoo case: Justice delayed, denied and awarded
November 12, 2006

If the accused had surrendered after his crime, his lawyers’ could argue that he did not deserve the death penalty, and I would agree. But here is a man whose family has used every trick in the book to evade arrest, to purchase witnesses, tamper with evidence, and cock a snook at the law for a decade.

The Delhi High Court’s award of death penalty to the killer of Priyadarshini Mattoo has given a sense of relief to citizens and justice to the aggrieved family, but the verdict in this high profile case that involved a grave miscarriage of justice for ten long years is still incomplete.

The Hon’ble judges were aware that the father of accused Santosh Singh was a senior police officer who misused his position to save his son from the law once the heinous crime was committed. Worse, despite several police complaints lodged by the victim, Priyadarshini, Shri J.P. Singh failed to ensure that his lawless son abide by the written undertakings made to the police about good behaviour. In a sense, he and the police officers who failed to protect the honour of the young girl who was being stalked were complicit in her continued harassment for two years, ending in the horrendous eventual rape and murder.

Public opinion, which compelled the judges to reopen the case and give the death penalty to Santosh demands exemplary punishment for those who thwarted the ends of justice. This was an appropriate case in which to set the principle that officers of the law, who do not uphold its majesty, will be felled by the law. Indeed, the Court would do well to punish such abettors of crime, and the Police Department certainly should step in to act against its guilty officers.

The Mattoo and other high profile cases involving miscarriage of justice also make it imperative that the courts seriously review the artificial benchmark of “rarest of rare” crimes. This was part of the judgment of the Sessions Judge in the Indira Gandhi murder case, and it is possible that the judge made this statement because he felt a personal need to justify the award of death sentence to the killers in that politically tense period in national life. While the murder of a sitting Prime Minister is an unparalleled offence against the State, for which the death penalty is only appropriate, by justifying this with the clause of “rarest of rare” crimes, the judge unwittingly established an unnecessary precedent.

We now face the peculiar situation in which the award of punishment for a crime is not fitted to the enormity of the crime itself, but to a perception called “rarest of rare” crimes. This is fraught with danger, for it could lead to a situation in which perception rather than crime determines punishment; it could lead to denial of justice by establishing hidden barriers to the award of death penalty.

The fact is that the propensity of high profile offenders to thumb their noses at the law is increasing all over the country, creating horrible insecurity among the citizenry. The argument that a crime is not in the category of “rarest of rare” could lead to grave injustice, rather than justice.

Consider the Jessica Lal case dispassionately. Certainly the accused Manu Sharma did not go to the Tamarind Court with the intention of committing a murder. But he was a high flying and rich son of an influential politician, was carrying a loaded gun when there was no known threat to his life, and he had no compunction in firing at an unarmed girl because he thought she had insulted him. It is murder.

If the accused had surrendered after his crime, his lawyers’ could argue that he did not deserve the death penalty, and I would agree. But here is a man whose family has used every trick in the book to evade arrest, to purchase witnesses, tamper with evidence, and cock a snook at the law for a decade. Further, he got involved in another high profile case, of Nitish Katara. As such, there is no evidence that Manu Sharma is repentant and intends to mend his ways. Given the sufferings of the Lal family and public disillusionment with the way the case was handled, Manu deserves a strong punishment and so do all his accessories, including his father.

This applies equally to the Nitish Katara case, where his widowed mother Neelam is fighting a lonely battle, with mercifully increased public support. I personally believe that Bharti Yadav should be jailed on arrival in India for contempt of court and contempt of the laws of this country, and the case brought to a swift conclusion. In all cases where high profile connections are used to thwart the course of justice, exemplary punishment must be meted out by the courts to restore public confidence. The first prerequisite in this regard is to abolish the artifice called “rarest of rare” crimes – it does not exist in the IPC or CrPC, and confuses rather than clarifies issues.

Coming back to Santosh Singh, the Hon’ble Court should have taken note of the shocking manner in which his lawyer colleagues manhandled media persons covering the trial, holding them responsible for his misfortunes. It was intimidation at its worst, and called for action against the errant lawyers, who misbehaved in the court premises. The silence of the courts here is a matter for concern.

It bears emphasis that punishment must fit the immensity of the crime, rather than be weighed against artificial parameters, like perceptions of rarity or the efficacy of deterrence. Deterrence is a secondary aspect of justice – letting the guilty get away with crime acts as a stimulant to further crime, while punishment does not necessarily stop further crimes. Hence the failure to deter other persons from committing crimes can be no argument to award lesser punishment to those guilty of heinous offences, or to let them go scot-free. For justice to prevail, every crime must receive its appropriate denouement.

Imrana revives debate on Uniform Civil Code
November 05, 2006

Muzaffarnagar District and Sessions Judge R.D. Nimesh has unwittingly brought the issue of Uniform Civil Code to the national forefront once again by sentencing 60-year-old Ali Mohammed to ten years imprisonment for raping his daughter-in-law on October 6, 2005. Twenty-eight year old Imrana, wife of a rickshaw puller in Charthawal village, Uttar Pradesh, became a national celebrity when the local Ansari caste panchayat ruled that her marriage to her husband was dissolved as a result of the rape and she would henceforth have to treat the father of her five children as her son.

At that time, Nur Ilahi stood by his wife, and both continued to live together, albeit in Imrana’s village, with her natal family. But with sections of the clergy now reiterating that Imrana cannot live with her husband, the poor valiant fighter faces an uncertain future.

Yet Imrana’s plight highlights a significant and changed reality of her community, viz., poor women at the receiving end of unjust decisions by maulvis are eager for action to save their dignity. In just the space of one short year, unnoticed by Hindu-baiting activists, sensitive Muslims are veering round to the view that it is the moral responsibility of the Indian State to provide them with a level legal terrain. Muslims now want a Uniform Civil Code as they have given up hope of internal reform by the orthodox community.

This is not a wrong assessment. Despite some politically correct noises, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board remains stuck in its old groove, failing, even a year after the Imrana case hit the headlines, to codify Muslim law to make it more egalitarian and just for all. This is imperative because so far, what is happening in Indian Islam is that the Hanbali school of Shariat followed by Deoband Darul-Uloom and the Sunni Muslims is being privileged as the only valid interpretation of Islam.

This is the most orthodox and obscurantist version of Islam. But it is equally true that there are other more liberal Islamic schools such as Shafi, Malik and Hanafi. Codification could thus result in an internal reform that would bring relief to the faithful. The move towards a Uniform Civil Code would then be easier for the community.

The obduracy of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) makes it imperative that the government should stop privileging these self-styled custodians of the Muslim community. It is well-known that the Board came up to resist the alimony granted to a divorcee, Shah Bano, by the Supreme Court in the 1980’s. With hindsight, it is obvious that prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s buckling under pressure to deny alimony to divorced Muslim women legitimised the illicit power of the Islamic clergy. Since then, local maulvis have subjected Muslim women in remote villages and small towns to terrible injustice and hardship in the name of personal laws.

In the Imrana case, Deoband’s fatwa dissolving the marriage (since denied) led even Salman Rushdie to protest that a democratic country should have a single, unified legal system (New York Times, July 10, 2005). Rushdie said: “Any country that claims to be a modern, secular democracy must secularise and unify its legal system, and take power over women’s lives away, once and for all, from medievalist institutions like Darul-Uloom.”

The forced divorce of unfortunate Muslim women has other unsavoury dimensions that need urgent redressal. Soon after the Imrana case hit the headlines, one Sharif of Hilwari village in Baghpat, UP, pronounced the triple talaq in a fit of anger. After calming down, he repented and proposed re-marriage to his previous wife Khursheeda. Since the local maulvis insisted on halala (re-marriage and divorce) before the re-marriage, the families on both sides wanted this to be done in a manner that respected the couple’s dignity and self-respect. The Sharif family wished to get Khursheeda married to Sharif’s 13-year-old brother who would divorce her the next day, leaving her free to re-marry Sharif. But, till last heard of, the local maulvis were opposing this ruse. They wanted Khursheeda to maintain the prescribed period of purity as per the Shariat (iddat) and marry a man who can consummate the marriage before giving a divorce (Hindustan Times, August 10, 2005).

Similar cases have been reported in other parts of the country. Anybody with a modern sensitivity can see that all Muslims, whether upper class or poor and illiterate, do not wish to submit to such an unsavoury situation. No woman trapped in such a situation wants to be forced to have sexual relations with a man with whom she does not intend to have an abiding relationship. This is objectification of womanhood, and must be resisted by all right thinking persons.

Yet the AIMPLB has neither banned the triple talaq in one sitting, nor moved to abolish halala. Since all Muslim men and women caught in such a situation are unhappy with these provisions in their personal law, it is imperative that the State now step in to ensure the equal citizenship, human rights, and dignity of Muslim women. Muslim women must be liberated from the threat of triple talaq and have the unfettered right to remarry their previous spouses, if they so desire.

Another issue that needs to be faced is the flourishing Hyderabad bride bazaar. Old and lusty Arab men continue to descend on the city, marrying underage girls for a few weeks, and simply disappear after pronouncing the triple talaq. The marriage brokers, maulvis, and girls’ parents make money, and the poor victim subjected to what is clearly a form of prostitution. A country pretending to superpower status cannot allow its women citizens to be so victimised, and there must be strong laws against such bridegrooms, marriage brokers, and maulvis.

Imrana is a test case of India’s ability to stand up for its terrorised and exploited women, its ability to raise second-class citizens to equality by abolishing a regressive personal law and instituting a Common Civil Code.

UPA bats for dead Trishul
BARAK BACKFIRES
Congress has no qualms about misusing CBI
October 29, 2006

The Barak deal has acquired a potentially explosive edge with Naval chief Admiral Arun Prakash firmly supporting it, calling the anti-missile defence system comparable with the best in the world. Admiral Prakash asserted that the system was selected after extensive trials.

Worse, from the government’s point of view, is the face that Admiral Prakash has revealed that some controversy in the Navy about induction of the Barak system does not concern the original Barak, but is rather about the Barak-II (designated NG or next generation) that is to be co-developed by DRDO and the Israeli firm IAI. The first deal pertains to the tenure of the NDA regime, the second to that of the ruling UPA alliance.

Barely twenty-four hours after Defence Ministry sources said the defunct Trishul surface-to-air missile project would be wound up in December this year, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee was forced to state that the project was being extended by a year. This is despite the fact that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’s 15-year-old attempt has cost the exchequer nearly Rs 300 crore, and failed despite over 80 tests.

Yet Mukherjee claims that work on the Trishul Anti-Missile Defence system, which is part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), is likely to be completed by December 2007.

There is little doubt that the extension is political, and derives from the determination of a section of the Congress leadership to implicate former Defence Minister George Fernandes in a dubious kickbacks case involving purchase of the Israeli Barak missiles during the Kargil war. Recently, the CBI claimed that the Barak missile deal was signed in 2000 despite DRDO objections; the agency implied that the indigenous Trishul was virtually ready for adaptation by the Navy, which, of course, is at variance with the truth.

In reality, DRDO could not operationalize Trishul on account of snags in the missile guidance and control systems and problems in perfecting the three-beam missile guidance system. It has also extended the alibi about non-availability of critical component devices and sub-systems due to embargoes after Pokharan, and loss of scientists who migrated abroad. This being the reality, the DRDO should not have objected to the Ministry’s field trials of foreign missiles, which led to Barak being selected. The correctness of the decision is proven by the fact that the Ministry is now buying Barak-II missiles, as Shri Fernandes has pointed out.

The Barak deal has acquired a potentially explosive edge with Naval chief Admiral Arun Prakash firmly supporting it, calling the anti-missile defence system comparable with the best in the world. Admiral Prakash asserted that the system was selected after extensive trials. Going public on the occasion of the recent Naval Commanders’ conference, the Naval chief reflected the anger of the ranks against the slander against former Navy chief Sushil Kumar for alleged corruption in the Rs. 1150-crore deal. Others implicated by the CBI include Ms. Jaya Jaitly.

Navy sources have also let it be known that the Joint Chiefs of Staff will protest to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the maligning of former Navy chief Sushil Kumar and demoralizing the forces, merely to settle political scores with rivals. Admiral Prakash said that at a time when the Navy was trying to equip itself for future conflict, the attempt to jeopardize the equipment programme through motivated slander was a cause for concern.

This emphatic statement from a serving officer comes as a serious embarrassment to the ruling UPA, particularly Congress president Sonia Gandhi, whom Shri George Fernandes has openly named as the main inspiration behind the CBI case. That the case now stands without legs is obvious. Worse, from the government’s point of view, is the face that Admiral Prakash has revealed that some controversy in the Navy about induction of the Barak system does not concern the original Barak, but is rather about the Barak-II (designated NG or next generation) that is to be co-developed by DRDO and the Israeli firm IAI. The first deal pertains to the tenure of the NDA regime, the second to that of the ruling UPA alliance.

While this is not to say that there are genuine problems with Barak-II, it bears mentioning that the very fact that the defence ministry decided to deal with the same firm for its next generation missile system, is proof that the experience with the firm’s first product (Barak-I) was satisfactory. This knocks the bottom out of the allegations of irregularities in the selection procedure.

Meanwhile, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has been saddled with the unenviable task of defending some highly awkward positions. The first is the status—or non-status—of the Trishul missile. Though aware that the missile will never be delivered, Shri Mukherjee has diplomatically asserted that Indian scientists have managed to achieve some milestones over the past 15 years, such as perfection over guidance and control of missile against sea skimming targets, interception of air target by warhead system, integration of surveillance radar, tracking radar, missile guidance system and launcher in one vehicle system.

But with the Naval chief defending both the performance of the Barak missile and the selection procedure, Shri Mukherjee has a tough job defending the CBI fishing expedition for criminality in the transaction. That he is uncomfortable with this assignment can be seen from the fact that he has refused to blacklist the Israel Aircraft Industries, which has manufactured the Barak.

There is a view that both Shri George Fernandes and Admiral Sushil Kumar are being hounded because they are nationalist Christians, i.e., Christians who are happy to live with and serve a Hindu-majority country. At a time when persons with a hidden agenda are instigating groups like Jains and depressed castes to break away from the Hindu community, members of minority communities who are genuine nationalists are a serious inconvenience. The CBI case is an attempt to chastise or crush them. As the case cannot stand judicial scrutiny, the UPA would do well to read the writing on the wall and drop it. It does not have even the semblance of credibility.

The appalling bias on evangelism and terrorism
October 22, 2006

This is comparative religion at its worst, and there was an expected chorus of protest from the Muslim world. What is pertinent, however, is that there were no incidents of violence in America or Europe, which were the reverend’s audience. Yet in India, in the remote Sholapur district of Maharashtra, nearly a dozen persons died in orchestrated violence.

Why were Hindus killed in India for comments made in America and why was a nun killed in Somalia to protest remarks made by the Pope in Germany? Mercifully there was no violence at the Papal remarks in India, but the media failed to note that the Muslim clergy was excessively keen to bury the hatchet with Christianity so that they could continue their combined assault on Hindus.

International Religious Freedom Report 2006, released by its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour, is an important weapon in this endeavour. The report, largely ignored by the anti-Hindu media, is a naked assault upon the moves by certain (non-Congress) State Governments to limit evangelical abuse by placing curbs upon their unrestricted conversion activities.

And if the Indian media is truly concerned with India’s image as a secular country, instead of maligning the Gujarat government all over the world, they should introspect.
For all the international hue and cry by Muslim organisations and leaders against the intemperate attack on Islam by Pope Benedict XVI, the fact remains that the Christian pontiff neither apologised properly nor did Muslim clerics carry their anger to a truly violent conclusion anywhere in Europe. Rather, they showed unexpected maturity by accepting the Vatican’s invitation for a dialogue and agreeing to let the matter come to an end.

As expected, the Indian media failed to draw the right inferences from the actual sequence of events, and to report them accordingly to an Indian audience. Readers would recall that four years ago, the American evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell wrote that unlike Christianity and Jewism Islam is violent. “In my opinion … Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think that Muhammad set an opposite example.” This is comparative religion at its worst, and there was an expected chorus of protest from the Muslim world. What is pertinent, however, is that there were no incidents of violence in America or Europe, which were the reverend’s audience. Yet in India, in the remote Sholapur district of Maharashtra, nearly a dozen persons died in orchestrated violence. Even more interestingly, the then MP of the constituency soon became the State’s first Dalit chief minister! Neither then, nor at present, has the Indian media dared question why Islam in reality kowtows to the West. Why were Hindus killed in India for comments made in America and why was a nun killed in Somalia to protest remarks made by the Pope in Germany? Mercifully there was no violence at the Papal remarks in India, but the media failed to note that the Muslim clergy was excessively keen to bury the hatchet with Christianity so that they could continue their combined assault on Hindus within India. And this is precisely what happened. The Pope made no apology, only regretted the hurt caused to those who objected to his remarks, and served tea to Muslim clerics; and in India, the Ulema rushed to accept the unserved apology!

The true meaning of the Pope’s speech at the University of Regensburg is that he has launched a virtual new crusade against all non-Christian faiths, all over the world. Islam has been condemned for its violent nature, and the pontiff’s intent is to so provoke Europe’s Muslims that they become excessively radical, so that the respective governments can crack down upon them and drive them out of ‘Christian’ lands. At the same time, by directly attacking ‘idolatrous’ faiths, the Pope, the one billion strong Hindu community, and reiterated the objective of the Church to annihilate Hindu dharma through conversions.

The media agrees with the Pope that it is entirely reasonable to believe that God conveyed his name and message through a “burning bush,” thus separating himself from all other divinities (which surely suggests they must be real?). This, according to the Bishop of Rome, created “a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark ex-pression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115).” Surely somebody should question the good man how he has come to the conclusion that the Christian God is the creation of God and the non-Christian divinities are a human creation? Can a religious leader who roundly condemns “idolatrous cults” really believe in inter-faith dialogue and show respect for image-worshipping Hindus? It is obvious that Benedict XVI is continuing John Paul II’s policy of targeting India for the church, but the Hindu-hating media has entirely ignored this aspect of his controversial speech. Interestingly, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, vindicated this assessment of Islam and the Papal intent when he said: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation, whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” He was speaking on “The Cross and the Crescent: The clash of faiths in an age of secularism,” barely a week after the Pope’s controversial remarks. Carey’s remarks prove that Christian leaders in the West, regardless of religious denomination, are politically conscious of the growing Muslim presence in their lands and the increasing Muslim anger at the humiliation of Muslim rulers and states at the hands of the West. Far from seeking reconciliation with Islam, Christianity is determined to complete its stranglehold upon the Islamic world. At the same time, the West is so confident of its military and economic power and its control over large sections of the intellectuals and media that it intends to simultaneously extend its political dominance to Hindu India through large-scale conversions.

The Indian media is encouraged to react against Islamic terrorists, which is certainly a serious problem, but it is seriously discouraged from going beyond Islamic violence and looking at the Western manipulation of Islamic rulers and humiliation of the entire Muslim people. The Indian media is also encouraged not to look at the negative aspects of conversion in terms of loss of culture, identity and eventually even territory—as evidenced in the Partition of India in 1947 and the carving out of East Timor from Muslim-majority Indonesia in 1999. The Western crusade for the conversion of India is being spearheaded by the United States, and its International Religious Freedom Report 2006, released by its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour, is an important weapon in this endeavour. The report, largely ignored by the anti-Hindu media, is a naked assault upon the moves by certain (non-Congress) State Governments to limit evangelical abuse by placing curbs upon their unrestricted conversion activities. Though the United States annually brings out such reports for every country, it is surprising that no one in the Indian media has ever asked how conversion to Christianity is linked to the activities of America’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour. And if conversion is not a foreign policy tool whereby America interferes in the internal affairs of non-Christian nations, why is America at all interested in the activities of Christian evangelists? Why is the United States commenting with pleasure on the fact that the Rajasthan Governor has so far withheld assent to the State’s Anti-Conversion Bill?

What is more, in the wake of the California textbook controversy, where Hindus received unfair and inaccurate depiction in books sanctioned by the State, and failed to ensure their rectification through court process, the media has failed to ask the American administration why it is interfering in the matter of Indian school textbooks! It is truly extraordinary that a report by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour should comment upon the UPA regime’s decision in 2005 to withdraw textbooks “espousing a Hindu nationalist agenda,” that is, they were written during the NDA regime. The most significant aspect of the report was the US admission that it regularly discusses religious freedom issues with the Indian Government as part an overall policy to promote human rights (whatever that means). The US Embassy and consulates hold talks with political leaders, state and local officials, and key leaders of all significant religious communities, regarding “reports of ongoing harassment of minority groups, converts, and missionaries.” Specific issues discussed include the reversal of anti-conversion legislation and caste-based discrimination.

I think this is truly scandalous, and just as the Parliament and various political parties are exercised over the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal, so too should American interest in evangelism in India be debated in the public arena. And if the Indian media is truly concerned with India’s image as a secular country, instead of maligning the Gujarat government all over the world, they should introspect and demand that the Indian government de-recognise the Christian theocratic state, Vatican City, with immediate effect.

Animal rights and Vedic rites
Non-believers cannot decide Vedic dharma
October 15, 2006

There is little doubt that protestors include non-Hindu religious groups. I do not know exactly what the court did rule, but it is pertinent that the court certainly did not impose a ban on the killing of animals for food, or animal slaughter by other religious groups for religious purposes.

A well orchestrated campaign against Hindu dharma has been launched in the name of animal rights and temple reform. If Hindu leaders are not vigilant about the sensitivities of the devout, non-believers will literally hold the community to ransom. I first noticed this danger in June 2002 when King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah of Nepal visited the country, after the tragic massacre of the royal family the previous year, and sought divine blessings for his Maoist-ravaged country, which has since gone under. As he visited various temples and the gurus of the Nepalese royal family, he was hounded by NGO upstarts in the performance of his religious rituals. People for Animals harassed the king at both Kamakhya and Kalighat temples, and the raison d’etre for their opposition was that they could not tolerate his adherence to traditional Hindu rites in both places.

And now, as Kolkata was steeped in the annual Durga and Kali pujas, reports suggest that an organisation known as the Humanists Association Committee of Midnapore district, has demanded a ban on animal sacrifice during the pujas (which mercifully passed off without any untoward incident), citing a Calcutta High Court ban on sacrificing animals in the Kalighat temple. The Association has asked several important temples in the district to stop the sacrifice of hundreds of goats during the pujas, citing a September 15, ruling by a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Shri Bikash Sridhar Sirpurkar, prohibiting animal sacrifice in the open in Kalighat temple. The Association has threatened contempt of court cases against the temple authorities and demanded that the district administration ensure that the ruling is observed.

As animal sacrifice is a centuries-old practice in these temples, and is performed by firm believers, it is obvious that the protestors represent those wishing to bait Hindu dharma. There is little doubt that these groups include non-Hindu religious groups as well. I do not know exactly what the court did rule, but it is pertinent that the court certainly did not impose a ban on the killing of animals for food, or animal slaughter by other religious groups for religious purposes—Id in the case of Muslims and Christmas in the case of Christians. It is argued that the judgment said that the sight of slaughter is bad for tourists. If this is true, it is a peculiar argument. The persons normally expected to be present in a Hindu temple must surely be Hindu devotees and pilgrims. If tourists do indeed visit this famous temple to see its auspicious deity, temple ritual and practice cannot be altered to suit the tourist palate, especially as it seems obvious that they have a different religion. Can one man’s religious prejudice determine the beliefs of another? Has anybody cared to ask the believing devotee at Kalighat or Kamakhya if he wants an end to the practice of animal sacrifice there? Are those adjudicating on such matters aware that thousands of devotees visit these temples and offer vegetarian offerings—sweets and coconuts, and that the temple authorities make no discrimination against any devotee?

It needs to be reiterated that sacrifice is an intrinsic part of Vedic dharma. It is performed for individual and societal welfare; even nation building. As such, it is the ruler’s sacred duty to preserve the ancient ways of worshiping God and protecting the people. This is probably what the maverick West Bengal minister Tapas Chakraborti meant when he said he was first a Hindu, then a Brahmin and then a Marxist (though he later retracted under party pressure). In the Vedic world-view, sacrifice is intimately linked with the quest to understand the nature and origins of the creation. Unlike other cultures, the Rig Veda does not posit a single creation story; it mirrors the multiplicity of Hindu thought and refers to several myths. The hymns to Indra show creation as the consequence of a cosmic battle; another hymn suggests it resulted from the separation of heaven and earth. The Vedic rishis struggled with such complex notions as the origin(s) of the existence of existence itself, as also of the creator. There was also a notion of sacrifice as the origin of the earth and its people. The Purusa Sukta says the gods created the world by dismembering the cosmic giant, Purusa, in a Vedic sacrifice—a familiar myth all over the ancient world.

Then there is the story of Aditi, and another fable about the creation of the universe out of water and the rescue of the sun from the primordial ocean. Actually, creation remains mysterious and the origins of sacrifice obscure; but it is obvious that the concept of sacrifice is central to creation. Those who understand the meaning of sacrifice are aware of the link between the internal landscape and the external ritual; they do not share this sacred knowledge with those who have not attained that level of consciousness. They do not explain its deeper significance to those out to profane it. Hindu dharma upholds ahimsa as a superior moral norm, but this does negate the necessity of the use of force in the service of dharma. This idea is intimately linked with the ritual of sacrifice. The so-called animal rights activists out to assault age-old Hindu customs must tell us if they distinguish between occasional animal sacrifice on festive occasions and the routine slaughter of animals for culinary purposes. On what basis do they exempt regular non-vegetarians from the purview of their activities? What do they intend to do about, say, licensed slaughter-houses in Kolkata and elsewhere? And will the activism against animal sacrifice in temples extend to the sacrifices of other religious groups, or is this honour reserved for Hindu dharma alone? Finally, how come no animal rights activist (secular, that is) ever joins the movement for a ban on cow slaughter? Is it because the cow is India’s most revered symbol of dharma?

A temple is not a secular space
October 08, 2006

The “reform industry” is still at work questioning the tradition of barring women between 10 and 50 years from Sabarimala. It needs to be stated in this context that there are several Ayappa temples in India, including one in Delhi, where women devotees are welcomed.

Although the Kerala Police have not spelled out the larger conspiracy to defame the Sabarimala shrine, there can be little doubt that actress Jaimala acted at the behest of her Christian co-religionists to secure non-Hindu intervention in the affairs of one of the holiest Hindu pilgrimages. The so-called incident became a useful tool for the anti-Hindu industry to fight for the right of non-believing Hindu women to enter the temple in the name of equality and women’s rights, when all devout women have hitherto accepted the ban on entry for women between the ages of 10 and 50.

Since the “astamangala devaprasanam” that led to the actress’ so-called confession is linked to the defamation scandal concerning Chief Thantri Kantaru Mohanaru, who denied the veracity of the “devaprasanam” and refused to participate in the prescribed “purification” rituals, the police would do well to ensure early rehabilitation of the affected priest. The incrimination of the priest in a sexual scandal, again involving the Christian woman of allegedly loose morals, is not an individual matter, but as in the concocted case against the Kanchi Acharyas, involves the prestige of the entire Hindu society.

The Kerala crime branch has now found that the claim by the Sabarimala Thantri that astrologer Unnikrishna Panicker, who conducted the “devaprasanam,” has old links with actress Jaimala and had conducted pujas in her Bangalore residence in 2000. The actress shot into the national limelight when, after Panicker’s claim in June that the sanctity of the Sabarimala temple had been breached and therefore the deity was angry, she “confessed” that she had made the pilgrimage 19 years ago at the age of 27, entered the temple undetected after the long trek and the ritual bath in the river, and even touched the feet of the deity.

This created a nationwide furore. On the one hand, the astrologer insisted that all Kerala temples should undergo purification rituals, which many agreed to, just to be on the safe side. But the Sabarimala Thantri declared the incident a fraud, and when he refused to have purification in his temple, he was conveniently embroiled in a sex scandal and ousted from his job. This created further outrage among the people, and the police soon began retracing their steps on that story as well.

But even as the “human rights industry” got into the act, declaring that all Hindu women were suffering untold discrimination by not being permitted to enter this one temple in their child-bearing years, another Christian actress, Meera Jasmine, decided to disrespect Hindu sentiments by entering Raja Rajeshwara temple where non-Hindus are prohibited and women may enter only after evening pujas. She was spotted by the temple staff and claimed to have taken permission from the TTK Devaswom, which administers the temple, but authorities denied this, pointing out that only Hindus are allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Raja Rajeshwar temple. As a result, the temple has to undertake an expensive and time-consuming purification process.

The fact that the actress later shelled out Rs 10,000 for the purification rituals does not detract from the fact that she willfully defied Hindu temple rules. It needs to be emphasised that unlike Islam and Christianity, where the mosque and church are mere congregation halls for collective prayers by the community, the Hindu temple is actually the house of god, where the deity is believed to be physically present (virajman) to listen to the entreaties of devotees. The Hindu temple therefore has a sanctity that does not apply to the mosque and church, which are in a fundamental sense, very secular places. The Hindu temple, therefore, cannot be considered a tourist spot for the idle and curious, and non-Hindus must accept their limits if certain temples do not welcome visitors who are not devotees. There can be no equal right of access to temples for outsiders.

The “reform industry”, meanwhile, is still at work questioning the tradition of barring women between 10 and 50 years from Sabarimala. It needs to be stated in this context that there are several Ayappa temples in India, including one in Delhi, where women devotees are welcomed with open arms. The partial ban on women is explicitly limited to this temple, for reasons lost in history, but genuine devotees do not feel the need to make it a prestige issue.

What is known, however, is that the baby God Ayappa is an ascetic and celibate, born of a union between Shiva and Vishnu in a female avatar (Mohini). Raised by a local ruler, he became the Lord of the jungle with magical powers over all living creatures, especially tigers that roamed the forests. A tradition somehow developed that the deity would be worshipped by male devotees and pre-puberty and post-menopausal women. Male devotees making the journey have to purify themselves by observing celibacy and sleeping on the floor for 41 days prior to the pilgrimage. A strict religious diet is prescribed for this period; and the eventual journey is no picnic.

Interestingly, Kerala also has temples exclusively for women, but the ‘rights’ of male devotees are not a paying industry! It needs to be emphasised that it is the right of temple authorities to decide who may enter the temple, and who may not, and the government would do well to be more vigilant of Hindu rights in this manner. Some months ago, a television channel reported that when an American visitor was denied entry into the Jagannath temple of Puri, he set up his own replica of the temple in Orissa, and said it was open to all! This is simply scandalous. A temple is more than an architectural construction or tourist resort. It is sacred, and cannot be secularized.

Gujarat Anti-Conversion Bill
A distinction of the Indian and foreign
October 1, 2006

The state government has rightly defined the faith lines as the Hindu, Christian and Islamic streams. So, if a Hindu is to be converted to Christianity, the district magistrate must ensure that there is no foul play.

Gujarat has made a major stride in the proper definition of the nation’s Indic traditions by delineating the Jain and Bauddha streams as part of the larger Hindu community for purposes of evaluating religious conversions. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2006 is significant precisely for the logical coherence it bestows upon faith communities, placing Jains and Bauddhas in the Hindu mainstream, Shias and Sunnis in the Islamic brotherhood, and Protestants and Catholics with the Christian community. This is unexceptionable because it takes into consideration the logical fact that inter-marriages frequently take place amongst these groups, which at least for Muslims and Christians sometimes involve a formal conversion to the opposite sect. The involvement of the government or local administration in such a personal matter, where no inter-communal harmony is at stake, could amount to needless bureaucratisa-tion or even harassment.

Formal conversions are mostly not required amongst the Jain, Bauddha and Hindu laity as multiple religious affiliation is the Indic norm. It would mainly apply in the event of formal initiation into monkhood, i.e., a Hindu becoming a Jain muni or bhikshu would need formal initiation into that tradition, and so on. Since all these dharmic traditions have grown on the soil of India and intermingle in their history, philosophy, and theology, perpetuating the colonial view that they are separate (even opposing) traditions is not only arid, but dangerously divisive. Within the Jain tradition, many of the most eminent acharyas have come from the Brahmin community, and state intervention for every initiation would be regarded as unduly intrusive, and in any case, cannot be regarded as a conversion similar to the acceptance of a monotheistic faith. The state government has therefore rightly defined the faith lines as the Hindu, Christian and Islamic streams. So, if a Hindu is to be converted to Christianity, the district magistrate must ensure that there is no foul play.

This is all the more imperative as Pope Benedict XVI’s recent and controversial speech at the University of Regensburg shows he has no respect for image-worshipping communities (labelled as idolators), and regards them as fit targets for evangelism. The bill has understandably enraged the evangelical industry which has been targeting Gujarat in the big way for the past two decades. The great Narendra Modi-baiter, Father Cedric Prakash, called it “extremely draconian and unconstitutional.” The opposition Congress party claimed that the bill could be legally challenged as Bauddha dharma was given the status of a separate religion by the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 and Jains by a division bench of the Supreme Court in 2004. This argument overlooks the fact that the matter is still with the court, and that the then Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti had called for reducing, rather than increasing, the number of minorities in the country.

But the (unrecognised) industry for the fragmentation of India, which has ‘chapters’ in all communities, has galvanized its members to protest the designation of Jain and Bauddha communities as Hindu denominations. Mr Hamid Ansari, Chairman, National Commission for Minorities, has supported the separatist trend, saying: “Legislators cannot, and should not, decide the religious identity of a community this way. This decision has to be taken by the community itself in a democratic manner.” Udit Raj, Chairman of the All-India Confederation of SCs/STs Organisations, which has close links with evangelical groups in India and America, lambasted the move on behalf of the “Buddhist community (sic).” Mr Chakresh Jain, President, Delhi Jain Samaj, alleged that Jains would hold nation-wide protests, saying: “The move is absolutely against the wishes of the Jain community. We are not Hindus at all.”

This is clearly a politically motivated statement, and is known to have the backing of powerful financial interests that see economic gain from minority status, i.e., in running educational institutions without quota and other restrictions. These business groups have also sought to recruit respected saints for the “minority tag.” It needs to be emphasised, however, that there can be no honest account of the history of Jain dharma without reflecting its common origins in Hindu dharma, its religious and cultural symbols, categories of thought and social organisation, political history, etc. In other words, it is not possible to discuss the Jains without reference to the Hindus. The minority tag is the greed of a few business families seeking undue advantage for themselves; the experience of the community is that in states where Jains received minority status, the lower rungs of society were weaned away by missionaries (eg. Madhya Pradesh), and the community received no advantage. While Chief Minister Narendra Modi felt discretion the better part of valour while leaving Sikh dharma out of the purview of Hindu dharma, separatism bodes ill for that community as well.

Sikh leaders keen on preserving their ‘separate’ status would do well to undertake a district-wise survey of Punjab and enumerate the number of churches (especially since Capt. Amarinder Singh became the Chief Minister) vis-à-vis the stated Christian population per district. It will give them an idea of what lies ahead for them if they persist with the ‘we-are-not-Hindus’ refrain. Safety lies in non-fragmentation. It may be pertinent to note that even the Union Home Ministry has conceded that the conversions of Indic communities by missionaries of all denominations is a major cause of social unrest and communal disharmony in the country. In an agenda paper prepared for the National Integration Council on August 31, 2005, the Ministry highlighted the activities of Christian evangelists in Kota, Rajasthan and attempts to convert Hindus by Muslims in Dakshin Kannada, Karnataka, as instances of such discord.

Loreto: Evangelicals must apologize
September 24, 2006

It is even more duplicitous that a Catholic school resorted to such a cheap subterfuge to force minor children into baptism against the knowledge and wishes of their parents. When challenged in a recent television interview that such a practice was against Catholic theology, sister Monica admitted that the church was against sorcery and that Jesus could not enter the body of any mortal, as claimed by Mandal. It needs to be emphasised that all talk about freedom of religion in this context is erroneous; the constitutional guarantee of freedom is so that a community can preach and teach the tenets of its faith to its own people. It does not include the imposition of a faith upon another community.

Christian organisations protesting the breakage of some flower pots by BJP activists at Lucknow’s Loreto Convent owe the Hindu community an apology for the shoddy conspiracy to virtually terrorise 300 school girls into a forced baptism ceremony. The Sonia Gandhi-led Congress party, which has demanded a CBI probe into the incident, has exposed its evangelical bias and is complicit in the targeting of minor children by missionary schools.

There are many serious issues at stake in Lucknow. To begin with, it is well known that foreign-funded Christian organisations have been told to concentrate upon Uttar Pradesh for the next round of soul-harvesting. The Loreto incident was planned as a ‘trailer’ to see if they could get away with aggressively propagating Christianity in a secular country, on the premises of a school, which is supposed to teach only the CBSE curriculum. As soon as they ran into trouble, the secular (sic) Congress rushed to their rescue, and inadvertently exposed the evangelical leanings of its Italian-born Roman Catholic supremo.

The invitation by an orthodox Catholic school to a man who is obviously some kind of Christian tantric also exposes the fact that all Christian denominations and unorthodox sects are united in the conversion agenda, and do not hesitate to resort to all kinds of tricks to force baptism upon unwilling people. According to the theology of the Roman Catholic church, the faithful must believe completely in the virgin birth of Christ and his death on the cross to redeem the sufferings of mankind for all eternity. There is thus no self-realisation in the church, only blind faith and submission to papal (and priestly) authority. Protestants and others who do not subscribe to papal infallibility are considered heretics.

However, in order to “attract” Hindu students towards the church, the Loreto school, at the instance of one Father Sebastian, invited a Christian rickshaw-puller from Kolkata, Nobo Kumar Mandal, for a two-hour show before more than three hundred students. Clearly, this was no normal 10-minute assembly, as the principal, Sister Monica, later tried to claim.

Mandal’s claim to fame is that he goes into a trance, and Jesus Christ “appears” in his body, leading to the miraculous healing of many diseases, including cancer. Some years ago, a tribal convert in West Bengal had claimed to be cured of cancer by the locket of Mother Teresa, until doctors in a government hospital debunked the claims and pointed out that she had undergone treatment with them for several years!

Loreto’s occult show, with Mandal writhing in agony before rising and claiming that Jesus had entered his body and he was ready to bless them (that is, baptize them), caused consternation among the audience, and caused many students to faint with fear. The students were of tender age, just 13-17 years old, and some even needed medical aid. Even teachers were frightened and upset by the incident, which was a scandal by all accounts.

It is even more duplicitous that a Catholic school resorted to such a cheap subterfuge to force minor children into baptism against the knowledge and wishes of their parents. When challenged in a recent television interview that such a practice was against Catholic theology, sister Monica admitted that the church was against sorcery and that Jesus could not enter the body of any mortal, as claimed by Mandal. It needs to be emphasised that all talk about freedom of religion in this context is erroneous; the constitutional guarantee of freedom is so that a community can preach and teach the tenets of its faith to its own people. It does not include the imposition of a faith upon another community.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of India has tried to deflect criticism of the attempt at forced conversion of Hindu children by claiming that the séance was a non-issue. Public attention is now being focused upon the protest by the BJP, the party with the brand equity of being a pro-Hindu party, and hence opposed to conversion agendas. Sadly, Chief Minister of UP Mulayam Singh Yadav has not revealed his mind about the episode, though he has ordered an enquiry into the scandal. Yet it is not clear if he intends to side with the beleaguered Hindu community or appease the minorities in view of next year’s elections to the state assembly.

It bears noting, however, that Hindus are not the only community being targeted by the evangelical industry, which has become increasingly aggressive after the rise of Ms. Sonia Gandhi as UPA chairperson. Only a few days ago, authorities in Jammu & Kashmir had to order a five-day closure of a missionary school in Pulwama district and investigate allegations that it was pressurising people to convert to Christianity. District Magistrate Mehraj Ahmad Kakroo told the media that the closure was ordered after tensions rose amidst allegations that the school was indulging in conversion activities in the guise of education.

Timely action by the district authorities prevented a physical reaction by irate residents upon the school. Later, the school management assured the district magistrate that it would terminate the services of some teachers for “moral impropriety.” It is worth considering that if missionaries can be so daring in a Muslim-majority state where the ISI and its trained terrorists have a major presence, what is there to inhibit them in states that kow-tow to minorities for electoral considerations? A uniform anti-conversion act has never been more imperative.

Pyrrhic victory for US Hindus
September 17, 2006

Hindus received unfair and unequal treatment in the matter of how sixth grade students in the public education system would be taught about the Hindu religion. Why should Hindu children be taught that “Hindus worship talking monkeys and throw widows into fires?” Why should the primordial stories in Hindu scriptures be branded as ‘myths’ when the scriptures of monotheistic traditions are said to come from Only One (mutually exclusive) God(s)?

It is a sad and undeniable truth that the California Hindu community has failed to win a substantive victory in the US courts in the matter of the shoddy depiction of Hindu faith and culture in school textbooks. The substance of the so-called success boils down to the judge accepting that rape was committed, but refusing to redress the victim’s grievance. Injustice has thus been perpetuated against the Hindu community and it is a measure of the moral weakness of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) that its leaders are claiming legal triumph over the California School Board of Education (SBE).

HAF won its legal point that SBE revised the sixth grade textbooks in violation of approved procedures, but its principal demand that the SBE be directed to drop the currently approved textbooks and revisit the entire textbook adoption process was denied. Judge Patrick Marlette of the California Superior Court accepted that SBE revisions on the presentation of Hindu dharma did not conform to the California Administrative Procedures Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.

This is because the school board allowed diligently approved changes with California Hindu parents to be hijacked by a group of known Hindu-baiters, including proponents of the discredited Aryan Invasion Theory. Embarrassingly for the SBE, even Profs Michael Witzel and Romila Thapar admitted the textbooks contained passages that are “very culturally biased and insensitive.” They said the authors of the impugned textbooks lacked the knowledge and qualifications for the task and suggested dumping the textbooks and authors and hiring international (sic) scholars from The Academic Indology Advisory Council set up by them!

Judge Marlette therefore had no difficulty in upholding the HAF claim that the textbook adoption process was flawed and illegal and that California SBE had conducted the textbook approval process under invalid “underground regulations.” It is therefore quite untenable that the Judge denied HAF the desired relief in the form of rejecting the textbooks adopted under this illegal process (when even Witzel felt they should go), saying this would disrupt every California public school student using any and every textbook adopted under SBE’s unlawful policies. The judge said SBE be permitted a reasonable opportunity to correct the deficiencies in its regulatory framework governing the textbook approval process while maintaining the current system in the interim.

De facto, this means California SBE can improve its procedures while continuing to maintain incorrect and offensive material in the textbooks. The devastating impact of this judgment will now be felt in educational contests in each and every American county and state, if not combated vigorously at this stage itself. HAF counsel Suhag Shukla’s contention that merely the adoption process for the textbooks must be repeated misses the point entirely. What is at stake is the content of the books; the flawed and biased adoption process only underlines this mischief.

When the process of textbook revision began last year, the Curriculum Commission accepted the changes mooted by representatives of Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, but posted changes desired by Hindus for re-review by Hindu-baiting academics! The Jews, for instance, sought removal of references portraying Christianity as an “improvement” upon Judaism. Many changes desired by Hindus simply rectified obvious errors, such as the claim that “Hindi is written with the Arabic alphabet, which uses 18 letters that stand for sounds,” when Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and has 52 characters.

Hindus received unfair and unequal treatment in the matter of how sixth grade students in the public education system would be taught about the Hindu religion. Why should Hindu children be taught that “Hindus worship talking monkeys and throw widows into fires?” Why should the primordial stories in Hindu scriptures be branded as ‘myths’ when the scriptures of monotheistic traditions are said to come from Only One (mutually exclusive) God(s)? Why should later-day social evils like untouchability and rigid caste divisions be linked falsely with India’s ancient civilisation, when they are products of the medieval encounter with Islam?

The judge’s refusal to order revisions in the textbooks has had the effect of officially promoting a negative projection of the Hindu faith as compared to other religions. This deprives Hindu students of an educational experience at par with that of their peers, and thus violates their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.

The judgement also tacitly ignores the violation of the constitutional requirement of State neutrality towards religion in general, especially towards different religions. The California Department of Education indirectly endorsed the monotheistic faiths by accepting the changes they wanted, while denigrating Hindu dharma by portraying it incorrectly. It remains to be ensured, therefore, that the textbooks eventually incorporate a fair representation of Hindu faith and culture, rather than fashion cosmetic legal standards for judging textbooks. California needs to respect and enforce the guideline which states that a child should feel proud of his/her heritage. This is an issue of Hindu Civil Rights.

The ball now lies in the court of the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), which is pursuing the matter of substance in the Federal Court. Meanwhile, HAF should continue to fight for supplementary educational materials (correctives) being issued by the SBE to rectify the distortions and biases in specific chapters of the textbooks.

The need to strip converts of quota regime
September 03, 2006

The Kendriya Sarna Samiti (KSS) asserts that tribal converts no longer belong to the Scheduled Tribe as they have renounced their traditional identity as a sine qua non of the conversion process.

Strongly affirming the role of religion in defining individual and group identity, Jharkhand’s beleaguered Sarna tribe is demanding immediate withdrawal of reservation benefits in government jobs and educational institutions from members who have converted to Christianity. The Kendriya Sarna Samiti (KSS), which has taken the lead in this matter, asserts that tribal converts no longer belong to the Scheduled Tribe as they have renounced their traditional identity as a sine qua non of the conversion process.

It is noteworthy that in a recent judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that converted tribals may continue to enjoy reservation facilities provided they continue to practise the natal culture (in this case the Sarna tradition). However, the ground reality is that converted tribals invariably adhere to Christian traditions and display an aversion to the old tribal symbols of faith and culture. This, aver KSS president Ajay Tirkey and tribal leader Arjun Oraon, is because Christian missionaries convert tribals through allurements and compel them to exclusively follow the Christian culture, tradition, and mode of prayer. The availability of Scheduled Tribe quota benefits to tribal Christians thus seriously puts tribal existence in danger, because missionary education gives tribal converts an edge in the competition for jobs or seats. This makes a mockery of the spirit of reservation and denies the truly deprived of avenues to enhance their lot in life.

It is pertinent that the Supreme Court has ruled that the offspring of a tribal girl marrying an upper caste Hindu is not eligible for facilities provided by the government to tribals, and this principle should logically extend to converted tribals. Since the argument frequently advanced in favour of conversion is that the converted are seeking to better their social status, this may be presumed to have been effected with the act of conversion. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that conversions have anything to do with religion and conscience. They are a systematic and cynical ploy to win over territory through numbers for the converting agency; there is no such thing as a free lunch.

A peek at the Home Ministry’s list of foreign contributions for 2003-04 shows that 17,145 associations received Rs 5105.46 crore in a singe year. The highest sum was received in Delhi (Rs. 857.12 crore), followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 800.22 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 684.20 crore), Karnataka (Rs 528.56 crore) and Maharashtra (Rs 480.61 crore). These are interestingly states with a significant tribal population that is high on the missionary hit list. Among donor countries, foremost is expectedly the USA (Rs 1,584.26 crore), followed by Germany (Rs 757.13 crore), UK (Rs 676.14 crore), Italy (Rs 350.01 crore) and the Netherlands (Rs 304.04 crore). The leading donor organisations include the Foundation Vincent E Ferrer, Spain; World Vision International, USA; Christian Children Fund, USA; Plan International, USA; and Missio, Germany.

It is surely pertinent from the tribal point of view that besides foreign institutional donors, well-placed Christians serve as the cutting edge of the missionary agenda in India. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Samuel Reddy, for instance, has attained the dubious distinction of being the first Chief Minister to sanction grant-in-aid to repair abandoned churches, besides allocating funds for new churches. A handsome sum of Rs. 80,000 has been sanctioned to each church for repair and renovation purposes, and Rs. 1.50 lakh for the construction of each new church. This is surely an allurement, inducement and bribe for conversion, yet the Government of India has failed to take note of it. Nor has the otherwise energetic National Human Rights Commission taken suo moto notice of the active misuse of public funds for the promotion of a religious agenda and the infringement of the religious freedom of target groups.

It is hardly accidental that Harvard Professor Amartya Sen, awarded the Nobel Prize at a time when the West stepped up its offensive against Hindu India, has suddenly attacked British Prime Minister Tony Blair for fostering a society in which ethnic minorities are defined almost exclusively by their religion, and for endorsing the establishment of faith schools. Sen has argued that all faith schools in the UK, barring those run by Christians, should be scrapped so as to promote a “unifying British identity”. Even while making some pertinent points vis-à-vis British society, Sen does not extend his prescriptions to India, which is still suffering the brunt of its colonial misfortune. Thus, he says that different faith schools in the UK (read madrasas since Hindus go to normal schools) undermine national unity because very young children are inculcated with a notion of being a ‘community’ defined essentially by religion, and this effaces other commonalities like language, literature, culture. Sen upholds the importance of having a British identity in Britain. But it would be too much to expect him to call for an end to madrasa education in India, and an Indian identity for all citizens, symbolised by Vande Mataram, and it is this duplicity that feeds my suspicion that an aggressive Christian agenda is being peddled by multiple agencies aligned to the West. Sen is being facetious when he argues that the religious identity is not the over-arching identity. The truth is that for the group there simply can be no other overriding identity; it is only the individual who can stress or de-emphasise his/her multiple identities such as profession, social class, gender, politics, language, literature, taste in music, and so on. There can be no tip-toeing around this issue.

Bismillah Khan personified cultural oneness
September 03, 2006

The nation is not merely humiliated by the refusal of Muslims to sing the national song, it may be in danger of another attempt at territorial secession.

There is a delicious irony in the Congress-led UPA government declaring national mourning for Varanasi icon Bismillah Khan on the very day that Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh issued a directive making the recitation of Vande Mataram optional in educational institutions on September 7, the centenary of its adoption.

Consider how the venerable Ustad took the ritual gangasnaan daily with his mentor, Ali Baksh ‘Vilayati’ Khan, and played the shehnai at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple every morning. Consider that the Ustad shunned the creation of Pakistan and the two-nation theory amidst unprecedented communal upheavals in northern India and performed at the ramparts of Red Fort on the very first Independence Day celebrations.

Ustad Bismillah Khan was one of those rare talents who personified and lived the cultural and civilizational unity and glory of India. It was not just that he took the simple shehnai to a pinnacle on the crowded pantheon of Hindustani classical music, but that his music transcended the limitations of faith. He loved the soil of Varanasi; his favourite raga was Shivranjani; he most cherished the holy waters of the Ganga. Music and the Vishwanath Mandir offered “divine unity,” he considered himself a devout Muslim though a staunch devotee of Ma Saraswati.

The Divine Mother Kali has been less fortunate in receiving cross-religious affiliations. Ever since Bankim Chandra penned the song that became the rallying cry of all revolutionary freedom fighters, Muslim clergy, possibly inspired by British officials, have expressed reservations about respecting the motherland as a divine entity. Organised opposition from the ulema denied Vande Mataram the status of national anthem, and even the uneasy compromise regarding the ‘national song’ has not been free of glitches. Though the Muslim community has contributed some of independent India’s most gallant officers and soldiers, and Muslim politicians have no reservations about expressing loyalty to the Constitution and national flag, and community as a whole has not been able to transcend ulema diktat.

The result is that generations of Muslim children are being raised to disrespect Vande Mataram. For, this is what the Congress exemption to the Muslim community from reciting the song in educational institutions on the centenary of its adoption, amounts to. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi’s protestation that the party is proud of the national song rings hollow, because it has endorsed the scandalous circular issued by the HRD Ministry in this regard.

That is why Firangi Mahal cleric, Maulana Khalid Rasheed, was not challenged when he declared Vande Mataram was un-Islamic and asked the community to shun it. Nor was the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari. With Congress party eager to woo Muslims for next year’s Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, a principled stand on a song that galvanized a generation of freedom fighters to make untold sacrifices was too much to expect.

The BJP has done well to query Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the status of the national song with the UPA government. The party has rightly pointed out that all opposition to the recital of the national song is rooted in the two-nation theory that continues to be overtly and covertly promoted by Muslim fundamentalists. Vande Mataram is about Indian nationalism; rejection of the song has obvious connotations.

Coming as it does so close on the heels of the Mumbai serial bomb blasts which took over 200 lives and wounded over 700 persons, and the discovery of a large network of terrorist sleeper cells in all major cities, the obdurate stance of the Muslim community does not bode well for the country. It shows that a new wave of pan-Islamic fervour is sweeping the orthodox sections of the community, which have the power to turn the masses away from nationalism. Thus, the nation is not merely humiliated by the refusal of Muslims to sing the national song, it may be in danger of another attempt at territorial secession. In this connection, the frustrated anger of BJP leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Vijay Kumar Malhotra, that those opposed to reciting Vande Mataram should migrate to the country of their choice, should be read as a warning bell for the Republic.

It is too much to expect the likes of Begum Teesta Setalvad to come forward and meet Muslim fundamentalists head-on on this issue. No worthwhile Muslim activist will lend his voice to the national song, certainly not any of the big-wigs who strode the national stage bad-mouthing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, for the post-Godhra riots, and stayed safely indoors when Mumbai bled. The Muslim ulemma are clearly giving a political signal in favour of the Muslim terrorism networks ripping civil society apart, and no amount of gloss by the secular media will succeed in erasing the negative image that Muslims have acquired in the popular mind for such acts of omission and commission.

That is why, though his last journey was probably the best attended in Varanasi’s recent history, with shopkeepers and traders voluntarily downing shutters as a mark of respect, it was a lonely Bismillah Khan who travelled from Harha Sarai to the Fatman shamshaan bhumi. Even as the nation mourned the passing of one of her greatest sons, his own community rejected the love, unity and inclusive embrace of his shehnai. The spiritual legacy of the maestro was thus buried with his bones.

The Hindu Nation and its enemies
August 27, 2006

The BJP’s rise in national politics, to the point where it led a national coalition in 1998, was both the triumph of Hindu nationalism for the first time since 1947 and a powerful affirmation of the RSS’ goal of empowering the Hindu community. Naturally, this was bad news for our native secularists and for the United States, which perceives Hindu nationalism as a threat to its vision of a US-dominated post-Cold-War world order.

There is a veritable industry of activists and NGOs that serves this US agenda, forging an alliance with India’s religious minorities to ensure Hindu powerlessness in the polity. In a powerful expose of some of these Hindu-baiters, Radha Rajan argues that Hindu political disempowerment is both the cause and the result of the growing power of ‘minorities’ to influence Indian polity (NGOs, Activists & Foreign Funds. Anti-Nation Industry, Ed. Radha Rajan and Krishen Kak, Vigil Public Opinion Forum, 2006).

Rajan argues that the RSS rose from a need to articulate and protect Hindu interests once it became clear that the independence movement was diverging from the Hindu character of the nation. The Indian National Congress early on revealed a bias towards ‘secularizing’ the freedom movement, and this trend could not be reversed even by Mahatma Gandhi. This was largely because the British quickly began to deal with Jawaharlal Nehru separately from Gandhiji, and with Jinnah independently of Gandhiji and the Congress. It is, with hindsight, no coincidence that the anti-Hindu Communist and Dravidian movements struck roots in India around this very time.

The anti-Hindu NGOs operate in the fields of education, healthcare, human rights, all of which are essentially a façade for the transfer of huge sums of money from abroad, either as support funds for their ‘charity’ work or as peace and human rights awards. Rajan contends that the funds find their way into political channels for political objectives. NGO activism is perfectly tailored for the politics of containment, she argues, as their shrill cries and demonstrations can paralyse a government or at least inhibit it from acting as it ought to in the national interest. The Narmada dam, as is well known, has been held up for over a decade because of the activities of Medha Patkar in Madhya Pradesh, and it is only recently, after the Supreme Court took interest in the matter, that an enquiry has been ordered into the foreign sources of her funds.

That the anti-Hindu NGOs have a political agenda can be readily seen in the diligence with which they parrot the US-Western position on myriad issues pertaining to India. Thus, the agenda of the National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements (NAPM), an umbrella organisation of communist NGOs, includes resolving the Kashmir dispute; internationalising the Dalit issue with the slogan ‘Dalit rights as human rights’ in order to sever Dalits from the Hindu community; propagating the slogan ‘Women’s rights as human rights’ to delink Hindu women from their families and religion; and education with emphasis on church-run rural and mofussil schools, writing of history and teaching social sciences from a so-called subaltern, minority and gender perspective.

There is, says Rajan, a correlation between the removal of the offending Babri structure in December 1992, the coming to power of the BJP-led NDA, the emergence of India as a nuclear weapons state, and the liberal sprouting of anti-Hindu NGOs and freelance political activists. What unites them is a congenital hatred of the RSS, the BJP, Hindu nationalism and Hindu empowerment.

The anti-Hindu features of the polity, therefore, take the shape of looting Hindu temples and distributing their finances to non-Hindu religions (thereby facilitating conversions to anti-Hindu faiths); failure to check or even audit the huge foreign funds received by churches and mosques for conversion activities; discriminating against Hindus by permitting only non-Hindus to run educational institutions; delegitimising and destroying Sanskrit and Indological studies; assiduously promoting a negative Marxist interpretation of Hindu dharma; insulting Hindu tradition by calling it primitive and superstitious whereas it is highly rational and scientific; negating Hindu history and whitewashing the horrendous Islamic iconoclasm and genocide and Christian assault upon it; ignoring all human rights violations against Hindus; and promoting ‘secularism’ as a means of oppressing Hindus.

Worse, these NGO-activists often double up as intellectuals with the sole objective of delinking certain groups like Dalits from the Hindu community, in order to fragment the Hindu fraternity. The purpose of insisting that Dalits and tribals are not Hindus is to legitimise and even actively encourage religious conversion, mostly to Christianity, since their funding comes mostly from the Christian West, particularly America. The rich diversity of the Hindu civilisation is ignored in favour of an artificial concept called ‘pluralism’, the objective of which is to undermine the Hindu nation and facilitate the rise of sub-national and pan-national religious identities, which will eventually challenge the unity and integrity of the country.

It goes without saying that our NGO-activists could hardly permit the Hindu people to rebuild the Ram temple at Ayodhya, abolish Article 370, ban cow slaughter nationwide and enact a uniform civil code. Sita is also a metaphor for the earth; the anti-Hindus have laid a prolonged siege; Hindus have their task cut out for them.

Stop Looking For Western Sanction To Fight Terror
August 20, 2006

Mumbai has shattered the government’s false complacency that Indian Muslims are not part of Al Qaeda’s global terrorist empire. Yet it seems unlikely that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will be permitted to take concrete action to safeguard the security of ordinary Indians; Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi made an inane call for calm and restraint and retreated into the safety of her luxurious bungalow.

Pakistan constitutes an international political dateline; Dr. Manmohan Singh and strategic experts need to recognise this fact. Pakistan is a Janus-faced creation of the western world, carved out of India, to facilitate the West to monitor and control (or contain) the Gulf and parts of Africa on one hand, and India, China, South East Asia and Russia on the other.
If I were Prime Minister of Hindu-majority India, I would discard without delay the debilitating missionary propaganda about turning the other cheek (interestingly never followed in western Christian nations), and respond to the grave national challenges with manly valour and statesmanship. In the penumbra of the approaching Krishna Janmasthami, this would be the most appropriate message to our pusillanimous national leadership.

Security experts have observed a sharp rise in anti-India jehadi terrorism since the London blasts, when the West probably decided not to allow further attacks on its own soil. Perhaps that is why the Canada police successfully uncovered a plot to bomb that country’s Parliament. And it is undeniable that the decline in terrorist attacks in the West is real, as is the grim escalation of jehadi violence in India.

Mumbai’s July 11 serial bomb blasts were one of modern India’s worst terrorist incidents. They followed a pattern of frightening attacks like Parliament, Raghunath temple, J&K Assembly, Akshardham, Ayodhya, Sarojini Nagar, Varanasi, Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science, RSS HQ at Nagpur, et al. Mumbai’s blasts were expertly coordinated with serial grenade blasts in Srinagar, which killed seven Hindu pilgrims and injured 37, and are therefore believed to carry the signature of Al Qaeda or its surrogates, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT) and/or Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Behind all this, of course, is the ubiquitous ISI.

Mumbai has shattered the government’s false complacency that Indian Muslims are not part of Al Qaeda’s global terrorist empire. Yet it seems unlikely that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will be permitted to take concrete action to safeguard the security of ordinary Indians; Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi made an inane call for calm and restraint and retreated into the safety of her luxurious bungalow.

What advice does one give a Prime Minister who cannot even act as Prime Minister? Dr. Manmohan Singh thought he was acting tough by blaming Pakistan for the bloodletting; but he lapsed into silence when President Musharraf rebuffed him. The postponement of foreign secretary level talks had little impact upon Pakistan because the Prime Minister made a spectacle of himself at the G-8 in Moscow, virtually begging the international community to take pity on India. They responded by condemning acts of terror, and America told him to shut up about naming pet poodle Pakistan as a terrorist state. He returned with his tail between his legs.

Pakistan constitutes an international political dateline; Dr. Manmohan Singh and strategic experts need to recognise this fact. Pakistan is a Janus-faced creation of the western world, carved out of India, to facilitate the West to monitor and control (or contain) the Gulf and parts of Africa on one hand, and India, China, South East Asia and Russia on the other. Pakistan was created by West (British) sponsored terrorism in 1947, and anyone having any doubts on this score should read the able documentation of the 1946 Great Calcutta Killing by retired police officer R.K. Ohri in Long March of Islam (Manas, 2004). It is no surprise that Indian intelligence believes that key fund-raisers for the outfit behind the Mumbai blasts function from Britain, operating behind the mask of false charities to transfer as much as eight million pounds annually to terrorist groups in Kashmir, such as LeT.

In the circumstances, it was only natural that the Prime Minister got the cold shoulder in Moscow. The western world acts as a concerted bloc in the pursuit of its strategic and economic interests, and these gel poorly with Indian national interests. Both the Indian Prime Minister and the political class as a whole, as also the Indian people, need to face up to the unpleasant truth that Pakistan is a western creation; it is kept financially afloat by western munificence; it is regularly armed by the west; and above all, it is the only Islamic country in the world that was allowed to successfully pursue and complete a nuclear weapons programme. Recall that Libya with all its oil wealth had to give up its nuclear ambitions and succumb completely to American oil companies, and witness Iran’s current troubles, and you will see what I mean.

The naked truth is that Pakistan was created to contain India – it was and is a weapon of Indian destruction. Since it is wielded by the West, it is for the Indian people to shed their blinkers and assess if the West can be considered friendly to India and at what price we should be cultivating its friendship. The late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi understood this aspect clearly, and sought a healthy distance from the West.

It is hardly accidental that the US ambassador to India, David Mulford, brazenly posited a link between the Mumbai attacks and Kashmir. Is this friendship? Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri was quick to link terrorism to the settlement of “real issues.” Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment, he said: “I think in principle we all understand that Kashmir is a key issue.” The Washington Post blamed India for the terrorism as it had failed to resolve bilateral issues like Kashmir and pressed India to show “leadership,” by which it obviously implied giving up Kashmir or continuing to tolerate terrorism.

If Dr. Manmohan Singh wants the respect of ordinary citizens who are daily being targeted by West-armed criminals, he needs to find the guts to tell America and Britain where to get off. He needs to stop the bleeding of India. A realistic military option is to crack down on ISI bases in Bangladesh and the eastern border, either on the lines of the joint cooperation that Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee secured from Burma, or a solo Indian operation. Indeed, such an action should have been initiated in Nepal while the king was still in-charge.

In my view, the time for action on the western front will come later. A better strategy is to pull out the ISI-Pakistani sleepers and moles, along all borders and in the inner cities of India. Another concrete step is to crack down on overseas funding to terror groups and a complete ban on madrassas along the borders. Finally, the Prime Minister should stop looking over his shoulder for western sanction and approval for doing what is his duty as the leader of the Indian people. India needs to face up to the hard reality that an enemy’s friend is no friend.

Discrimination in-built in White domain
August 13, 2006

America’s Black citizens are denied the “birth right” to vote; denied equality with the White settlers, who had shipped them to America. Their vote is a favour from the White people, and can theoretically be denied in the future. Even if this does not seem a plausible course of action, it certainly institutionalises the deep racism of White America, which insidiously perpetuates inequality and discrimination at every step.

Indians have taken so many of their modern political ideas and values from the Western Christian tradition that they naively assume that the West lives up to all its stated political idealism and professed civilisational values. That this is far from the living reality was brought home to many people late last month, when US President George Bush signed a bill granting Black Americans the right to vote for the next 25 years.

Whereas independent India opted for universal adult suffrage (then 21 years, now 18) without discrimination of gender, caste or religion, from the very first general election of 1952. This lack of bias in citizenship did not prevail in many supposedly more advanced Western democracies. Swiss women got the voting right only in 1974.

In the United States, supposedly the leader of the free world, the descendants of the former slave population first received voting rights only in 1965, under the Voting Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson. However, this so-called historic legislation did not amend the American Constitution to give all Black adults voting rights in perpetuity from 1965 onwards, thereby necessitating an enabling legislation from subsequent Presidents to extend this privilege. America’s Black citizens are denied the “birth right” to vote; denied equality with the White settlers, who had shipped them to America. Their vote is a favour from the White people, and can theoretically be denied in the future. Even if this does not seem a plausible course of action, it certainly institutionalises the deep racism of White America, which insidiously perpetuates inequality and discrimination at every step.

All men are obviously not equal in America. What is even stranger that as the President signed the bill in the presence of Members of Congress and so-called civil rights leaders, not one of the high-profile guests thought it incongruous that the legal right to vote for American Blacks is still not being built into the Constitution. News reports suggest that the Republicans pushed the legislation early (the present right to vote expires only next year) because of the forthcoming elections in November; yet even they were content with a mere tokenism.

Imagine if a similar situation had prevailed in India, vis-à-vis the former untouchables of Hindu society? Can you imagine how America’s phoney human rights industry and Dalit Christian lobbies would have hounded India in the international media? Of course, not one of the richly-funded anti-Hindu NGOs of America, such as Angana Chatterji, Martin Macwan and the like, will raise so much as a whisper in protest at the entrenched discrimination of (White) American law. It would be too much to expect Harvard Master Amartya Sen to show compassion for the wretched of the so-called free world. Best to leave Uncle Tom in his log cabin, and suck up to Uncle Sam.

I am, however, at a loss to understand the attitude of prominent leaders of the Black community. Do civil rights veterans like the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson believe that Blacks are inferior and should enjoy the vote, not as a right, but as a concession from White America? Do they believe that their common Christian god created men to indulge in and institutionalise inequality, or even worse, inhumanity? Is this what the late Martin Luther King Jr. and Rose Parks struggled to achieve—a concession?

Of course, this explains why America can never envisage a Black President, or even Vice President or Chief Justice. If it takes more than two hundred years for a Jew to stand as running mate for a presidential candidate, it is safe to assume that the leadership of the free world will continue to vest with the descendants of the White settlers till kingdom comes. And for all the talk about racial equality and “melting pot” culture, America’s privileged families do not go in for religious or ethnically-mixed marriages; they prefer pure White Anglo Saxon Protestant (sometimes Catholic) bloodlines. Mixed marriages are for lesser folk and the “melting pot” is for other cultures and groups to melt into, so as not to disturb the tenor of the American way. Bobby Jindal could get elected to the Senate as a Christian convert; as a Hindu he would stand no chance at all.

If this is the situation with Blacks, who have no other country or identity, the Liberia experiment having failed and slavery having denied them memory of race, tribe and country, there is no legitimate reason to believe that America’s other non-White immigrants have better civil rights. I would truly be interested to know if Hispanics and other South American immigrants, Arab/Muslim, Indian, Chinese or Japanese immigrants enjoy constitutional rights which cannot be done away by Presidential fiat, and specifically, if their right to vote is by the political grace of White America or at par with it.

American Indians, who campaigned for the denial of visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi; America-sponsored NGOs, which propagate the dismal plight of India’s Hindu Dalits but tolerate the demeaned status of Christian Dalits within the Indian church, should be called upon to throw some light on these matters.

Disband Sachar Committee
It’s only dividing the people
August 06, 2006

The alleged LeT agents are Indian Muslims, who have procured army and police employment in a regular way, and were recruited by LeT either after being thus employed, or even before, which is doubly disturbing.

It would be in the fitness of things for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to disband the Sachar Committee on Minorities without further delay. This is an urgent imperative because Justice Sachar, whatever his mandate may be, has been raising hackles with his reckless attempts to divide every security agency and national institution on communal lines, with his determination to have a communal headcount everywhere. The goal, of course, is to claim low minority representation—even bias at entry point—and recommend proportional communal representation in all government services, most notably the police and armed forces.

That this is a recipe for disaster should be self-evident. Now, however, warning bells are ringing in the form of recent arrests made by Srinagar police of three soldiers and two policemen with likely links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The arrests of the policemen and J&K Light Infantry soldiers have come within days of a grim warning by National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan that terrorists may have infiltrated the armed forces. Shri Narayanan suggested that attempts were being made to infiltrate the Air Force, and we have yet to ascertain that this is not so.

The use of the term ‘infiltration’ however suggests that the country’s top intelligence officers are still fearful in getting their act together. Infiltration is by outside elements, such as ISI agents pushed across the porous borders of Pakistan, Bangladesh or Nepal. What has happened in Jammu & Kashmir is of a different genre altogether. The alleged LeT agents are Indian Muslims who have procured army and police employment in a regular way, and were recruited by LeT either after being thus employed, or even before, which is doubly disturbing.

The soldiers arrested by Military Intelligence, Lance Naik Mohammad Shakeel, Sepoy Abdul Haq, and a third hitherto unnamed suspect, all hail from the Gursai village of Mendhar district in Poonch, and are believed to have links with the LeT field commander responsible for attacks in the border districts of Poonch and Rajouri. The arrests took place after Abu Osama, LeT commander of Jammu region, contacted them to deliver money to some cadre. They were also told to arrange for SIM cards, batteries and pencil cells, and deliver letters to other LeT field commanders and operatives.

The men have pleaded that they were forced to work for LeT after the organisation threatened to wipe out their families otherwise. But this is not an argument that will wash with any military or civilian court.

The two policemen, Sikander and Kabir, were arrested after a LeT module in the same district was busted, and police claimed they had been working for LeT for at least three years.

The arrests once again bring to the limelight the religious identity of the culprits (Islamic) and the religious dimension of the challenge India is facing both internally and externally. We would do well not to evade facing this reality, especially in the wake of Mumbai’s grim tragedy. Already top intelligence sources have advised the government to investigate the possibility of deeper terrorist infiltration in the Army and go in for a thorough screening of the armed forces, and also of police and para-military forces. The sooner this is done, the better.

It is pertinent that the sheer scale of the Mumbai serial bomb blasts has compelled Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil to admit what national security experts had always warned about—that terrorists have taken advantage of India’s foolish open border policy. In recent years, a plethora of bus and train services have been launched in the areas that seceded from India in 1947, as part of an ill-conceived exercise named Confidence Building Measures (of whom?), to infiltrate terrorists into India from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Finally, it is admitted that 11 men who went missing during the Mohali cricket match in 2005 may have been terrorists, and may have had a link with the Mumbai blasts.

The Home Minister has been forced to admit in Parliament that terror tentacles encompass both border towns and the hinterland. The connecting thread in all this network of international and national terrorism is of course the pan-national religion called Islam. The inspiration comes from Al Qaeda, the money and weaponry from ISI and its Western sponsors who want to bleed India for their own ends, and the local Muslims provide manpower and logistical support, while our own pusillanimous Hindu politicians across party lines extend politico-strategic support by reigning in the local police at critical moments to cater to votebanks. It is a never-ending saga of a national sell-out.

The Mumbai bombings have brought the pigeons home to roost. Al Qaeda alone could not have carried out such a complex operation which set off seven time bombs in just eleven minutes, killing 208 and wounding around 800 persons. Security experts are unanimous that the bombings were a local job. Mumbai has thus ended India’s self-created illusion that India’s Islamic threat originates solely in Islamabad; rather, it has a powerful home-grown component. Indeed, Al Qaeda’s claim that it has successfully formed a local chapter in Kashmir needs to be taken seriously.

If the UPA is serious about its affidavit to the Supreme Court, that there will be no reservations in India on religious-communal lines, it must disband the Sachar Committee without further ado and discourage collection of employment statistics in any sector on communal lines. To wait for Sachar to present a politically explosive and communally divisive report would be to play with fire.

Sonia’s ‘Iraq war’ on Hindus
July 30, 2006

In the western world, politics is more about serving covert, mainly illicit economic interests, than about meeting the genuine aspirations of the people. The most glaring example of this, of course, is the September Eleven incident in New York, which enabled President George Bush to bomb Afghanistan into the Stone Age, set up a puppet regime in Kabul, and go on to depose the Iraqi President Saddam Hussain and grab Iraq’s oil-field contracts and reconstruction dollars.

Occasionally the White House remembers that Osama bin Laden is supposed to be America’s Enemy Number One, and promises to go after him. But these pledges are perfunctory, and it is little wonder that tremendous popular resentment is building up in the US against the war in Baghdad. More importantly, a growing body of important Americans are finding fairly conclusive evidence of administrative collusion and cover-up in the events of that fateful September in 2001.

In the case of the Mumbai blasts which took over 200 lives and injured over 700 persons, one does not suspect that either the UPA regime or the state government were complicit in the tragedy. But their response—in the form of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s surreptitious and silent midnight visit with home minister Shivraj Patil, the wimpish statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi and at the G-8 in Moscow—raise grim questions about the sincerity of the dominant Congress party in tackling the growing menace of Islamic terrorism.

Indeed, given the anxiety with which the Congress is wooing the Muslim voters, with prominent cabinet ministers shamelessly blaming the Hindu community for the attack on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur last month, the principal concern of the government appears to be only to defuse and pre-empt a possible Hindu reaction, rather than nab the culprits and make their sponsors pay a political price for their misdemeanors. The Muslim community is complaining that it is being identified unfairly with terrorism, yet the very fact that the Jammu & Kashmir Government dares ask Hindu pilgrims not to raise slogans like “Bharat Mata ki jai” for fear of creating communal tension gives the game away.

Yet even by the standards of UPA pusillanimity, the decision to ban certain Hindu websites and blogsites—as the first concrete governmental action in the face of such a murderous attack on civil society—would be laughable were it not so outrageous. Like a good western woman, Sonia Gandhi has no stomach to fight Islamic terrorism. So she has side-stepped that issue completely and like President Bush, concentrated upon her real target—the Hindu community!

Hence, the website of Hindu Human Rights, the group of young activists who helped shut down the offensive exhibition of M.F. Husain in London, has been ordered to be blocked by the UPA regime! Hussain is, of course, one of Ms. Gandhi’s favoured artists, as anyone who has been to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation would know. So, though the site does not sport any religious views at all, let alone ‘extreme religious views’, it has been declared unacceptable.

In all, the government has blocked about 18 websites to supposedly check the spread of terror and hate messages on the Internet in the wake of Mumbai’s serial blasts. It is being claimed that the websites could be used by terror groups to communicate and spread provocative messages. The government did not announce the ban officially, and it was the ISP providers who confirmed receiving the site-blocking order. The premier blog site, Blogspot.com (http://blogspot.com/)) has been blockaded and this sent the entire blogging community into acute disarray, as technical reasons have forced a blanket ban on all blogs, since specific pages on the blogspot.com cannot be blocked; only the site can be jammed.

Since the move is reminiscent of the Emergency—the anniversary of which passed barely three weeks ago—anxious bloggers have urgently sought (and found) solutions to the crackdown on freedom of speech. One is to visit www.guardster.com and use the free proxy at the bottom of the page; this will ensure that the Blog sites work without a hitch. Additional proxy sites can be found on this site and there is also www.econsultant.com/proxylist/index.html. One enterprising citizen has suggested using the anti-censoring site of our friendly neighbour, Pakistan. It seems that all blogspot blogs can be accessed at http://pkblogs.com a site created by Pakistani bloggers to bypass blockades by the Islamabad regime. Now that is a confidence building measure!

It goes without saying that the extremely predatory Christian websites such as the Joshua Project, nor the well known Islamic terrorist sites where messages are posted after successful strikes, nor even the known Marxist-Maoist sites have not been censored, even after the horrendous massacre of 87 tribals who were living in a camp to facilitate the Chattisgarh government’s crackdown on the Maoist insurgents.

According to the grapevine, it is no accident that Hindu groups are being targetted in the so-called war on terror. After Godhra, it was said that the Hindu pilgrims from Ayodhya somehow committed mass suicide for no apparent reason. Though security forces shot down three assailants speeding towards the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, two cabinet ministers had no compunctions saying that Hindus had stage-managed the attack. The targetting of Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir is being disguised as an exodus of ‘tourists,’ and now, the devastation of nearly one thousand families (almost wholly Hindu) in Mumbai in just eleven minutes leads to the silencing of Hindu human rights bodies.

Sonia Gandhi is moving with perfect determination in the direction she wants to go. The Hindu community must decide if it wants to follow her or tell her where to get off.

Minorities cannot ask for caste quotas
July 23, 2006

Caste is the building block of Hindu society, the system by which the myriad groups of the Indian landmass were historically integrated into a cultural and social unity, which nevertheless respected the diversity of their beliefs and practices.

Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi’s determination to snatch caste-based quotas from Hindus and extend them to Muslims and Christians, using the Ranganath Mishra National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) and HRD Minister Arjun Singh, deserves a constitutional challenge.

Caste is the building block of Hindu society, the system by which the myriad groups of the Indian landmass were historically integrated into a cultural and social unity, which nevertheless respected the diversity of their beliefs and practices. Hindu unity, throughout Hindu civilization, has never degenerated into uniformity, precisely because of the elasticity and expansiveness of the caste system. Jatis climbed up and down the varna ladder with equanimity, and the system was never the watertight, divisive and exclusive monstrosity projected by the British colonial rulers.

It was the British who realised —India’s Muslim rulers never figured it out—that it was the strength of the caste system that prevented alien rulers with their massive armies and state power from converting the population wholesale to their faiths, as happened in other lands over-run by Christianity and Islam. Hence the concerted intellectual attacks upon caste, in both the colonial and post-colonial phases.

In the post-Independence period, however, the evangelical faiths have sought to increase their power by somehow gaining access to the caste-based reservation benefits extended to Hindu depressed classes from the colonial era onwards. Their attempts to procure religion-based reservations in the Constituent Assembly mercifully failed, but they tasted blood under the first Mandal Commission which listed some ‘Muslim castes’ among the OBCs. This has inspired Christians to press for SC/ST benefits for ‘Dalit Christians.’

The issue has acquired a new urgency with HRD Minister Arjun Singh hinting at the possibility of giving Muslims OBCs an 8.5 per cent quota in elite educational institutions, by clever use (read misuse) of the constitutional norms of backwardness. In this way, the Ministry would not attract Supreme Court attention, since technically the reservations will not be given on religious basis. Shri Singh revealed this proposed ruse at the end of a two-day meeting of the national monitoring committee of minority education.

It is well known that Muslim leaders and academicians are demanding a caste quota for Muslims within the 27 per cent OBC quota in institutes of higher learning. An 8 or 8.5 per cent quota for Muslims would leave the Hindu OBCs with just 19 per cent seats. While there is currently a welcome review among the OBCs themselves about the desirability of reservations in academia, and Hindu society as a whole perceives the current move as a ruse to divide the society in conflicting caste camps, there can be no doubt that any attempt to extend quota benefits to evangelical communities will be viewed with suspicion, as these have a track record of seceding from the mother country, taking away precious land and other resources in the process, and inflicting a fatal blow upon the body politic.

Given the Ranganath Mishra Commission’s desire to extend all constitutional benefits to Dalit Christians (which means political reservations by access to SC/ST Parliamentary and Assembly reserved seats), there is need to carefully scrutinize the proposed Bill for 27 per cent OBC quota in the institutes of higher learning, whenever it is introduced in Parliament.

Meanwhile, Hindu-minded parties like the BJP need to unequivocally state their views on the issue of caste within missionary religions. Since Christianity and Islam profess complete worldviews which seek to completely eradicate the previous religious and cultural beliefs and practices of converts and superimpose a new way of life upon them, they cannot be permitted to infiltrate and cannibalise Hindu society by walking through the caste door.

Caste does not exist in the theology of Christianity or Islam. Nor does it exist in practice in the lands where these faiths exist in their full power and glory. Nor do these religions permit ‘national’ variants which divert from the purity of the faith as preached in the Vatican, Protestant England, or Mecca and Medina. Hence in India, they cannot be allowed to make a political expedient of caste and use it to undermine Hindu society from within.

The bottom-line is simple. If either Christians or Muslims accept and practice caste discrimination amongst themselves, the conversion process among such groups or individuals should be legally declared to be inadequate and incomplete. In other words, they may be declared as non-Christians and non-Muslims and asked to either complete the process of their transformation to the new faith, or return to the Hindu fold. There can be no half-way house in this matter.

It is pertinent to note, meanwhile, that Shri Arjun Singh is also inaugurating certain dangerous trends in the educational sphere, with the proposal to reinforce Muslim separation by setting up elite Urdu-medium schools on the pattern of Navodaya and Central schools, in areas with a 10-12 per cent Muslim population. This would cover as many as 125 districts in the country. Its divisive implications should be obvious. Unless the UPA regime falls soon, the Eleventh Plan will see its implementation.

All that is left to complete the disempowerment of India’s assertive and upwardly mobile educated middle class is for the Centre to extend caste reservations to the private sector. The four decades of stagnation wrought by Nehruvian Socialism will be surpassed by one term under an Italian Evangelical. The BJP would do well to revise its acceptance of private sector reservations and wake up to the grim threat from the religious misuse of caste.

Who speaks for India’s Hindus?
July 09, 2006

The First Hindu Mandir Executives Conference (HMEC), representing 57 temples from over 20 states of America, Canada and the Caribbean Islands, in Atlanta last week is a welcome development. It is heartening.

Titled as the United Hindu Dharma Samsthan (UHDS), a group of lay persons living mostly in America are urging all the major Hindu acharyas to join them and execute their plan for the reinvigoration of Hindu society. With little regard for religious sanctity or hierarchy, they have simply lumped a number of well-known Acharyas and traditional mathams together.

Two recent initiatives by Hindus living abroad raise fundamental questions about who has the right (adhikaar) to speak for the Hindu community in India and in the various countries where Hindus have settled, often for generations. The question is pertinent because in the Vedic tradition, the celestial island on which the territory of Bharat lies is the sole dharmic punyabhoomi and karmabhoomi. The oblations to the ancestors (shraad) can only be performed here, and here alone can the debts (rnas) to gods, teachers, family and society (humanity) be discharged.

As the Vedic homeland, Indian Hindus obviously enjoy the principal right to reinterpret or regenerate dharma according to the needs of the times (yuga). However, in keeping with the spirit of the times, the various Hindu communities abroad have the right (which implies also the duty, because adhikaar encompasses both) to articulate their special problems in their non-Hindu environments and to find solutions to the same. They do not, however, have the right to superimpose their views upon India’s Hindus, who are still living in the dharmic punyabhoomi and are grappling with the civilizational challenges to the survival of Hindu dharma in their own hinterland. In this context, the First Hindu Mandir Executives Conference (HMEC), representing 57 temples from over 20 states of America, Canada and the Caribbean Islands, in Atlanta last week is a welcome development. It is heartening that beside temple executives, the delegate-devotees included physicians, scientists, businesspersons, homemakers and engineers, with an abiding commitment to the community’s spiritual and social ethos. The Hindu Mandirs of the Americas reiterated their unity concurrent with allegiances to myriad panthas (path), sampradaya (tradition), or country of origin.

The group emphasised service to humanity (sewa), symbolised in an annual Hindu Seva Divas, whereby the Mandirs will organise community service activities in their respective local areas. The Hindu Mandirs in Americas has also shown concern about the educational needs of Hindu children, expressing anxiety over the deficiencies and gross distortions in American school textbooks on the Hindu dharma, its culture and traditions, causing humiliation to the youth. All school districts will now be approached in an organised manner to rectify this intellectual discrimination against the Hindu community, and this aspect of the deliberations were probably the most positive aspect of the meeting. Held under the auspices of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, the temple authorities decried the rising vandalism (hate crimes), destruction and desecration of Hindu Mandirs throughout the world.

The HMEC meeting however, is in sharp contrast to a current attempt by some foreigners (including non-Hindus) and their Hindu friends to appropriate the agency of the entire Hindu society in India and subordinate Hindu dharma-gurus to their agenda on the pretext of facing the contemporary dangers to Hindu dharma. Titled as the United Hindu Dharma Samsthan (UHDS), a group of lay persons living mostly in America are urging all the major Hindu acharyas to join them and execute their plan for the reinvigoration of Hindu society.

With little regard for religious sanctity or hierarchy, they have simply lumped a number of well-known acharyas and traditional mathams together, and dictated an agenda which involves the swamis’ meeting two-three times every year, instead of once in two-three years! The audacity of this diktat has not occurred to any of the sponsors even after gentle remonstrance from some well-meaning souls.

Instead, they have rushed in where angels fear to tread, lamenting that it will “take a long time to unite Hindus.” If that is true, who has authorised them to outsource our burden to the White Man? Appropriating this authority, the United Hindu Dharma Samsthan is seeking 100,000 signatures on a petition to “force many reluctant swamis to join UHDS.” And reflecting the mentality of monotheistic faiths, the UHDS proposes to have a “Pramukh Swamy” who will represent all Hindu swamis for a revolving term of one or two years. As though the idea of a Revolving Hindu Pope was not enough, our American friends also propose a corporate-style “chief executive officer for the Pramukh Swamy of UHDS.” A well-known politician has been offered the post; on what basis, it is difficult to say.

The sponsors of this new spiritual-corporate entity have tended to brush aside information that India already has a Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha (HDAS), which is the apex body of Hindu Dharma and is being supported by the heads of various Sampradayas, and is steadily extending its reach over all of spiritual India. Their determination to create an A.O. Hume type of Hindu Vatican of America must logically, therefore, have a political agenda and also probably some kind of Western backing.

The whole tenor of the petition is offensive. It states: “We dream of a day when the Hindu gurus and swamis unite under one umbrella to protect Dharma. Time has come, now or perhaps never. Each group and guru will retain their leadership and autonomy of the pantha-s or matam-s but will meet periodically, at least three times a year to review the situation and issue dharma proclamations and edicts, much like Ashoka’s s’aasanas. Such proclamations will be firm guidelines for dharmic action for hundreds of millions of Hindus all over the world, coming as they do from the voice of the great gurus speaking with a unity of purpose—Dharma rakshana.”

In short, a Secular Oligarchy will dictate an agenda to the great gurus of the Hindu tradition, and impose it upon the millions of world-wide Hindus who revere the sants. The real danger of the move lies in the persistent attempt to mould Hindu dharma into a monotheistic mould, which will facilitate a later-day cannibalisation by the Western Christian tradition, because if you end Hindu diversity, India will be up for grabs. It needs to be rebuffed in no uncertain terms.

Financing conversion through public exchequer!
July 02, 2006

Benefits to the evangelical industry will be algebraic. Developmental funds under ‘leaky’ government schemes will go straight to Christian NGOs, and Hindu society will pay for its own decimation. An East Timor-like situation could easily develop in any part of the country where Western Christian nations have a geo-strategic or purely economic interest.

The sudden move by the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) to seek public opinion regarding extension of constitutional benefits to SC/ST converts is consistent with the UPA agenda of fragmenting the nation by privileging non-Hindu groups in society. Given the brazen manner in which UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has promoted her co-religionists in the Congress party and Congress-ruled state governments, her decision to push the envelope in other sectors comes as no surprise.

The strategy of procuring an NCRLM recommendation to extend benefits to converts is a fraud on the Constitution and a ruse to finance conversions to Christianity through the public exchequer. This deserves strong opposition from all major Hindu bodies, as the government’s intentions are dishonourable. The so-called quest for public opinion has not been advertised in the print or electronic media; few newspapers briefly carried the Commission’s press release on the issue. It seems likely that the UPA has already decided to give Dalit Christians the benefits of reservations in government employment and educational institutions, and more importantly, access to SC/ST reserved seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies.

I believe the real objective of the NCRLM exercise is backdoor political reservations for Dalit Christians by providing a loophole whereby they can cannibalise the existing quota for Hindu Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. That is why the Commission speaks of extending ‘constitutional benefits’, rather than specifying the extension of reservation benefits in employment and educational institutions.

Benefits to the evangelical industry will be algebraic. Developmental funds under ‘leaky’ government schemes will go straight to Christian NGOs, and Hindu society will pay for its own decimation. An East Timor-like situation could easily develop in any part of the country where Western Christian nations have a geo-strategic or purely economic interest. This is because Christianity is not a monotheistic faith, but a monopolising ideology.

The Western sponsors of this diabolical plot must not be allowed to succeed in this divisive game. Christian missionaries cannot spread disaffection in society and win converts on the pretext of promoting equality and the brotherhood of man, and then deny this equality to caste converts who have been cut off from their family, culture and social group. More importantly, they cannot hold Hindu society responsible for their evil practices, which are an affront to human dignity. It is noteworthy that the term ‘Dalit’ is a political invention promoted by Christian evangelical groups funded by America.

Church indifference to the well-being of caste Christians has now become an issue within the Christian community. The Poor Christian Liberation Movement (PCLM) has for some years sought a 100-year moratorium on conversion activities, so that the church can use its vast resources to improve the lot of existing converts. According to president R.L. Francis, the various church denominations run over 40,000 health, educational and other organisations. The church is one of the largest landholders in the country, second only to the Government of India. This astonishing claim deserves judicial examination as it seems improbable that such a huge acquisition could have been accomplished by above-board methods.

Dalit Christians never learn the amount of funds received for their development, nor how the amount is utilised. Yet the church is never short of money for conversions. PCLM estimates that the church or Christian-controlled NGOs receive foreign funds of around Rs 3000 crore per annum. Christian bodies also earn huge incomes from their elite schools and colleges, hospitals, and commercial complexes in all major cities. The Dalit laity has little say in the utilisation of these funds; there is in fact a vested interest in keeping Dalit Christians depressed to maintain the status quo in the Church.

An instance of missionary money-making can be seen in Delhi’s St Columbas School, which has recently been de-recognised by the Delhi Education Directorate for diverting Rs. 1.83 crore of profit from student fees over three years. The money was sent to the Congregation of Christian Brothers of India, the school’s parent society. The latter had demanded 12 per cent of the annual fee collections, officials say. Clearly, the school was billing parents far in excess of its legitimate needs, and there is no information with the government how this surplus was spent. It is pertinent that in 1999 High Court had put a hold on schools diverting fee money to another body, whether the parent society or another school; hence any excuse that the money was for a new school is legally untenable.

There is no justification for the UPA exempting minority institutions from caring for their less fortunate members. If Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia can willingly provide reservation of seats for their less fortunate brethren, there is no reason why the church, with its vast experience in running schools, colleges, technical, vocational and professional institutions, should not provide seats for Dalit Christians. The nation should also be told how far its second largest landholder has progressed in the matter of ensuring Dalit Christians' participation in the Church structure, and the socio-economic status of Dalit Christians in the various dioceses, most specifically, whether their situation has improved, remained static, or deteriorated after conversion.
July 02, 2006

Financing conversion through public exchequer!
By Sandhya Jain

Benefits to the evangelical industry will be algebraic. Developmental funds under ‘leaky’ government schemes will go straight to Christian NGOs, and Hindu society will pay for its own decimation. An East Timor-like situation could easily develop in any part of the country where Western Christian nations have a geo-strategic or purely economic interest.

The sudden move by the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) to seek public opinion regarding extension of constitutional benefits to SC/ST converts is consistent with the UPA agenda of fragmenting the nation by privileging non-Hindu groups in society. Given the brazen manner in which UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has promoted her co-religionists in the Congress party and Congress-ruled state governments, her decision to push the envelope in other sectors comes as no surprise.

The strategy of procuring an NCRLM recommendation to extend benefits to converts is a fraud on the Constitution and a ruse to finance conversions to Christianity through the public exchequer. This deserves strong opposition from all major Hindu bodies, as the government’s intentions are dishonourable. The so-called quest for public opinion has not been advertised in the print or electronic media; few newspapers briefly carried the Commission’s press release on the issue. It seems likely that the UPA has already decided to give Dalit Christians the benefits of reservations in government employment and educational institutions, and more importantly, access to SC/ST reserved seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies.

I believe the real objective of the NCRLM exercise is backdoor political reservations for Dalit Christians by providing a loophole whereby they can cannibalise the existing quota for Hindu Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. That is why the Commission speaks of extending ‘constitutional benefits’, rather than specifying the extension of reservation benefits in employment and educational institutions.

Benefits to the evangelical industry will be algebraic. Developmental funds under ‘leaky’ government schemes will go straight to Christian NGOs, and Hindu society will pay for its own decimation. An East Timor-like situation could easily develop in any part of the country where Western Christian nations have a geo-strategic or purely economic interest. This is because Christianity is not a monotheistic faith, but a monopolising ideology.

The Western sponsors of this diabolical plot must not be allowed to succeed in this divisive game. Christian missionaries cannot spread disaffection in society and win converts on the pretext of promoting equality and the brotherhood of man, and then deny this equality to caste converts who have been cut off from their family, culture and social group. More importantly, they cannot hold Hindu society responsible for their evil practices, which are an affront to human dignity. It is noteworthy that the term ‘Dalit’ is a political invention promoted by Christian evangelical groups funded by America.

Church indifference to the well-being of caste Christians has now become an issue within the Christian community. The Poor Christian Liberation Movement (PCLM) has for some years sought a 100-year moratorium on conversion activities, so that the church can use its vast resources to improve the lot of existing converts. According to president R.L. Francis, the various church denominations run over 40,000 health, educational and other organisations. The church is one of the largest landholders in the country, second only to the Government of India. This astonishing claim deserves judicial examination as it seems improbable that such a huge acquisition could have been accomplished by above-board methods.

Dalit Christians never learn the amount of funds received for their development, nor how the amount is utilised. Yet the church is never short of money for conversions. PCLM estimates that the church or Christian-controlled NGOs receive foreign funds of around Rs 3000 crore per annum. Christian bodies also earn huge incomes from their elite schools and colleges, hospitals, and commercial complexes in all major cities. The Dalit laity has little say in the utilisation of these funds; there is in fact a vested interest in keeping Dalit Christians depressed to maintain the status quo in the Church.

An instance of missionary money-making can be seen in Delhi’s St Columbas School, which has recently been de-recognised by the Delhi Education Directorate for diverting Rs. 1.83 crore of profit from student fees over three years. The money was sent to the Congregation of Christian Brothers of India, the school’s parent society. The latter had demanded 12 per cent of the annual fee collections, officials say. Clearly, the school was billing parents far in excess of its legitimate needs, and there is no information with the government how this surplus was spent. It is pertinent that in 1999 High Court had put a hold on schools diverting fee money to another body, whether the parent society or another school; hence any excuse that the money was for a new school is legally untenable.

There is no justification for the UPA exempting minority institutions from caring for their less fortunate members. If Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia can willingly provide reservation of seats for their less fortunate brethren, there is no reason why the church, with its vast experience in running schools, colleges, technical, vocational and professional institutions, should not provide seats for Dalit Christians. The nation should also be told how far its second largest landholder has progressed in the matter of ensuring Dalit Christians' participation in the Church structure, and the socio-economic status of Dalit Christians in the various dioceses, most specifically, whether their situation has improved, remained static, or deteriorated after conversion.

Disturbing signs of Muslim separatism
June 25, 2006

If the UPA’s foreign-born leadership did not have a seriously divisive agenda for India, for which the Muslim community is being used as an instrument, there would be no need to set up two committees to specifically survey the status of Muslims in the country.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s remark that the “under-representation” of Muslims in public employment and public life is “unacceptable” is a classic example of the irresponsible brinksmanship that characterises her public life. Inaugurating the India Islamic Cultural Centre in Delhi recently, Smt Gandhi tacitly held Hindu society responsible for the Muslim community’s failure to take advantage of the religious, cultural and educational rights and opportunities afforded to them by the Constitution. The poor development of a majority of Muslims, she said, is a matter of equity and social justice.

The UPA chairperson expressed concern over Muslim under-representation in society. Given the Congress propensity to secretly plan and then ram reservations down the throat of a resentful nation, one fears this could lead to another round of divisive reservations in Parliamentary and Assembly seats, this time on religious grounds. The suspicion is justified by the manner in which Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Samuel Reddy tried to impose five per cent reservation in Government employment for Muslims, though this was mercifully struck down by the courts.

The spectre of political reservations for Muslims is now seriously facing the country, and other political parties would do well to wake up to this threat before it becomes fait accompli. The results can only be on the lines of what communal electorates under the British achieved earlier, viz, the vivisection of the land. If the UPA’s foreign-born leadership did not have a seriously divisive agenda for India, for which the Muslim community is being used as an instrument, there would be no need to set up two committees to specifically survey the status of Muslims in the country. The Sachar Committee set up by the Prime Minister to study social, economic and educational status of Muslims has generated grave misgivings for trying to bully the armed forces prepare a communal census of the troops. Now, the Planning Commission is preparing special inputs for the minorities in the Eleventh Plan. These half-baked religion-specific schemes bode ill for India.

Politically, it is understandable that the Congress President should lure the Muslim community with baits of reservations in elected bodies. The ability of Muslim candidates to get elected from general constituencies has declined steadily since the early decades of Independence, as a popular reaction to the operation of secularism as an anti-Hindu force in the political arena. Due to en bloc voting, Muslims have been able to ensure the victory of ‘secular’ parties in the first-past-the-post system of elections, and defeat parties inimical to their political agenda.

However, the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi’s elevation in the polity has inspired Muslims to shed their inhibitions and pursue their political agenda openly. Muslims are no longer content to operate through secular political outfits, and this will impact upon the political vote base of all parties that have hitherto relied upon a core Muslim vote for their electoral strength. The Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid has launched a second Muslim political party in the populous Uttar Pradesh, to demand a separate package for Muslims and their inclusion in the OBC quota. Syed Ahmed Bukhari’s rejection of the Muslim front launched by Lucknow’s Shia Muslims a month ago is no doubt consistent with rising Shia-Sunni tensions in the international Ummah.

Bukhari has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding a separate package for Muslims; he also wants reservation benefits. Political observers believe that the recent Sunni Muslim assertiveness is inspired by the success of Maulana Badruddin Ajmal’s new party in Assam, but it is possible that Ajmal’s boldness was inspired by international forces determined to overwhelm India through demographic aggression. Short-sighted political parties are meanwhile continuing to play the minority card when it has outlived the period in which it could be safely utilised. The recent Kerala elections saw the CPM-led Left Democratic Front espousing the cause of Abdul Nasser Madani, the principal accused in the Coimbatore blasts that killed over 50 persons. Congress brought out its poll posters in Arabic.

It is too early to predict what will happen in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections next year. But the presence of two Muslim denominational parties will certainly impact upon the fortunes of all other parties. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has sustained himself in power on the basis of the Muslim-Yadav combination, will be the first to be in trouble. This fragmentation of the polity on religious lines is a corollary of Sonia Gandhi’s ascension in the Congress, and her assiduous promotion of Christians within the party. As the country’s largest, and hitherto most pampered, religious minority, Muslims feel the need for a greater assertiveness for commensurate benefits. This can only have a negative impact on the nation’s territorial integrity.

For the first time after Partition, in important Hindu-dominant states (first Assam, now UP), the Muslim community has decided to shun non-Muslim communities and parties and chart its own course. This suggests that the emerging political persona of the Muslim community will absorb both the “moderate Muslim” as well as the hardline clerics who control the populace. It is not yet clear how this will play out in a state where there are many major players, viz., BSP, BJP, Congress and of course, the SP. But in Assam, the fledging party of Ajmal caused Congress to loose as much as 11 percent of its vote. The Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) secured 8.07 per cent of the vote and won 10 seats. It came second in 13 and third in 14 Assembly seats. A communal realignment of the nation is clearly underway.

Puppet regimes and colonial agendas
June 18, 2006

RECENT developments in neighbouring Nepal, where a caretaker regime has literally usurped unacceptable powers to humiliate the King and change the character of the nation, have shown Indian foreign policy in a poor light. But this is by no means the only occasion on which the UPA Government has handled Indian foreign policy from a non-nationalistic perspective. While the usage of the Volcker Report to turf out Natwar Singh in order to save chairperson Sonia Gandhi can be put down to domestic compulsions, the sustained indifference towards the suffering of the Iraqi people is truly shameful. Worse, Dr. Manmohan Singh has failed to undertake a course correction even after Iran successfully forced President George Bush to modify his policy of browbeating it on the issue of uranium enrichment.

Nations with aspirations to the international high table, symbolised by permanent membership of the Security Council, do not behave like the puppets of other nations. Sadly, India has been doing this for some time now, and in an increasingly obvious manner. Yet superpowers do not need friends, they need satellites. By refusing to look at the sufferings of the Iraqi people (as evidenced by the growing incidents of resistance to the occupation, and also the growing disclosures of abuse of prisoners), and by refusing to change its attitude towards Iran’s so-called nuclear ambitions, the UPA is assisting the Bush agenda of subordinating the Gulf economy and oil reserves to American multinational corporations.

What is happening in Iraq is colonialism by remote control (ie, a puppet regime), with the tacit complicity of the United Nations. A look at the Baghdad story may be instructive for those of us who fear that a similar fate is intended for India, as mindless globalisation is promoted through a hedonistic corporate-political class with little accountability towards its natal country.

In a meticulous expose of corporate America’s intentions in the Gulf, Antonia Juhasz (The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time, 2006) argues that the principal Iraqi collaborator is vice president Adel Abdel Mahdi, who has been a member of every US-appointed post-invasion regime. Mahdi is the most vocal supporter of the Bush agenda to open Iraq, especially its oil sector, to US corporate loot. Already, 150 American corporations have received $50 billion worth of contracts, and despite completely failing in the reconstruction of that occupied nation, nevertheless received the money!

Occupation incharge Paul Bremer said the reconstruction failed because of poor planning, but the truth is that it was tailored to serve the interests of US multinationals, and the plan was ready two months before the invasion! It was written by Virginia-based Bearing Point Inc., which received a princely $250 million contract to rewrite Iraq’s economy. Paul Bremer created this new economy, which involved radical corporate globalisation through free investment rules for multinational corporations. This allowed corporations to enter Iraq without contributing in any way to its economy. There was a vicious tilt—Iraq could not give preference to Iraqi companies or workers in the reconstruction, and so American companies got preference, and made things worse by hiring non-Iraqi workers.

The Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco, to cite one example, secured $2.8 billion to rebuild water, electricity and sewage systems, the lifeline of the nation. After the first Gulf War, the Iraqis rebuilt these systems in three months’ time; but now, after three years, services are below pre-war levels. Bearing Point, which wrote the blueprint for Iraq’s destruction, is in reality the well known KPMG Consulting, which changed its name after a major scandal. It even got its contract renewed, and its sole focus now is the privatisation of Iraq’s state-owned enterprises. No doubt, it will achieve this before the contract is up for renewal in 2007.

It is pertinent to know that everything America has done in Iraq is blatantly illegal under international law. The Geneva Conventions emphasise that occupying powers must provide basic security and services. They are not empowered to change the laws or political structure of the occupied nation. The Bush regime has done precisely the opposite—changed all foundational economic and political laws and failed to provide security and basic needs of the Iraqi people.

Antonia Juhasz believes this is because the Bush administration is a creature of the oil and gas industry. The President, Vice President and Secretary of State are all former energy company officials. The oil industry funded the Bush-Cheney campaign handsomely, and was rewarded with huge tax subsidies, deregulation, and even a war waged by the American nation for their benefit.

The significance of the Iraq invasion lies in the fact that while Iraq officially has the second largest oil reserves in the world, some geologists believe it may actually be at par with Saudi Arabia. American oil companies and leaders like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Donald Rumsfield, have for two decades demanded increased US access to Iraq’s oil, saying it should not be left in the hands of Saddam Hussein (who has since been deposed).

Under the occupation, Bush did not merely change the regime. He changed the political and economic structure in Iraq. In the process, Halliburton, Chevron, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Exxon, and Marathon have made a killing. Chevron played a major role in demanding increased US economic access to Iraq. It is now poised to rape the country once the new oil law is implemented. This oil law was created just before the occupation, in the U.S. State Department’s Iraqi Oil and Energy Working Group!

After the invasion, a member of this working group was made Oil Minister of Iraq. He cancelled all pre-existing oil contracts negotiated by Saddam Hussein, because none of these was with US oil companies. At the very beginning of the Bush administration, Dick Cheney officially met oil majors Bechtel, Chevron, Halliburton, Exxon, and they decided to take steps to increase their access to Gulf oil. So Ibrahim Bahr Al-Aloum became Iraq’s Oil Minister.

It stands to reason that the Iraqi people cannot trust or respect the occupation-imposed regime. The resistance will continue until the occupation forces are withdrawn. The botched up Iraqi operation has, however, forced a US climbdown on Iran, as US generals have indicated that the armed forces are not game for further sacrifices for the enrichment of oil majors. Only South Block has not yet changed course.

A loss of face for UPA
June 11, 2006

The President’s decision to return the Bill under Article 111 means that Parliament will have to pass the legislation again before it can be sent back to him for approval. Simultaneously, the UPA will have to convince the nation that there is merit in passing the Bill. The Law Ministry will have to prepare “comprehensive and generic” criteria that is “fair and reasonable”

President Kalam’s shocking decision to return the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill 2006 for reconsideration under Article 111 is a major reprieve for the beleaguered Prime Minister. Though superficially an embarrassment for the UPA regime, the President’s refusal to endorse the wholesale exemption of certain posts from the purview of ‘office-of-profit’ with retrospective effect, has aborted any plan by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to resume the office of National Advisory Council (NAC) chairperson, with cabinet rank.

This means that Smt Sonia Gandhi was wise to resign as NAC chairperson once the post became legally untenable, and seek re-election from Rai Bareilly, thus protecting her membership of the House. The Presidential snub, however, will effectively checkmate plans by her acolytes to humiliate and unseat Dr. Manmohan Singh in favour of the Italian-born naturalised citizen. For, it is certain that as was the case two years ago, Dr. Kalam would again refuse to swear her in, thus making her political status fairly invidious.

At least in the present Parliament, therefore, it may be safe to assume that we shall be spared the spectre of Sonia as PM. Equally happily, the grandiose plans for launching Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi in a larger-than-life role as ‘future PM’ has received a setback.

As she ponders these setbacks to her dynastic ambitions, Smt Gandhi may well rue her ill-conceived decision to support Arjun Singh’s brinkmanship on the issue of 27 per cent quota for OBCs in higher education, and to thwart the efforts of Dr. Manmohan Singh and senior Congress leaders to diffuse the issue. As matters have unfolded, far from bringing any electoral advantage to the Congress party, the issue has recoiled, with the Supreme Court stepping into the fray. Now, the Government will be in a soup over the rationale for the quota quantum, since the National Sample Survey 2003 Round suggests that non-Muslim OBCs are around 32 per cent of the population, while Muslim OBCs are another 4 per cent (total 36 per cent). This tally’s with the 1998 National Family Health Statistics (NFHS) survey which place OBCs (non-Muslim) at 30 per cent of the population.

The intervention by the Supreme Court makes implementation of the OBC quota in 2007 unlikely, and this in turn, may have a doubly negative impact on Congress fortunes in the UP elections next year. Not only will OBCs be unimpressed, upper castes and down-troddens will be alienated, while Muslims are chalking out a new path for themselves. Once again the family arrogance will prove costly. Smt Sonia Gandhi having given sole credit to her son Rahul for her staggering margin of victory, local party leaders will be within their rights to expect Rahul Gandhi to work the same magic in the entire state. After all, a ‘national leader’ can’t have a base confined to two constituencies!

Meanwhile, the President’s decision to return the Bill under Article 111 means that Parliament will have to pass the legislation again before it can be sent back to him for approval. Simultaneously, the UPA will have to convince the nation that there is merit in passing the Bill. The Law Ministry will have to prepare “comprehensive and generic” criteria that is “fair and reasonable” and applicable in a “clear and transparent” manner across all States and Union Territories. There can be no question of applying the law retrospective effect from 1959!

Obviously, the Election Commission will now have to take up all pending petitions regarding Office of Profit. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee would do well to read the writing on the wall and resign, rather than face the ignominy of certain disqualification. The BJP has done well to demand immediate action in this matter, as the Election Commission cannot legitimately protect the seats of Members imperilled by the Presidential action. It is yet to be seen how this move by Dr. Kalam affects the strength of the UPA regime in the Lok Sabha. Certainly, Congress bete noire Amar Singh will have no difficulty returning to the Rajya Sabha along with Smt Jaya Bachchan, whose disqualification set the cat among the pigeons.

The latest twist in the Office of Profit controversy has injected a heavy dose of instability in the UPA regime. The CPM, which is badly affected, is pushing the Government towards an unproductive confrontation with the President, which will impact adversely upon public opinion in the country. Congress MPs who could safely have resigned and sought re-election along with Smt Gandhi were denied the chance to do so on account of her overweening arrogance and insistence upon hogging the limelight. Their tenure in the House is now as good as over, as the Election Commission cannot legitimately wait for the monsoon session of Parliament to save their seats.

The OoP embarrassment has also made it difficult for Smt Gandhi to return to the various NGOs and government bodies she headed, the complete list of which has been concealed from the nation. Nor do we know the remunerations she received, and patronage she exercised through these organisations. When Parliament reconvenes to discuss the OoP issue, it would be in the fitness of things if the Congress president could be persuaded to show transparency and let us know in advance which offices she intends to return to once they are exempted from the office of profit purview.

Quota raj unlimited
June 04, 2006

Caste electorates, on the lines of the British Raj’s notorious communal electorates, may well be the next atrocity that the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA inflicts upon the nation in its search for a foolproof and captive votebank, as Congress braces itself for an inevitable mid-term poll. The writing on the wall is clear: the alacrity with which the UPA ditched the high level panel that was to cap the caste quota genie unleashed by Arjun Singh and announced implementation of 27 per cent OBC quota in institutions of excellence, proves that the HRD Minister had the prior approval of the UPA chairperson for his caste offensive.

Many believe this was part of a larger game-plan to dethrone Dr. Manmohan Singh and install Ms. Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. This may yet happen, given Ms. Gandhi’s failure to take a stand on the issue and to address the concerns of those joining the nationwide protest against it.

Instead, the pro-reservation Left and southern parties were instigated to support the measure, which was announced unilaterally to an unsuspecting nation, just as the Mandal Commission recommendations were. The Government did not pause even as two reputed social scientists, Prof. Andre Beteille and Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, resigned from the prestigious National Knowledge Commission over the issue. This makes the position of chairman Sam Pitroda invidious, as he also opposed the extension of reservations, and as things stand, Mr. Pitroda and other members may also have to put in their papers as the Commission has lost both its luster and raison d’etre after the resignations and subsequent reservations.

At this stage, we must ensure that no student is denied higher education on account of strained family circumstances; then we will be a society of excellence, neither needing nor caring for reservations. Yet, though the Government annually collects as much as Rs. 6000/- crores as education cess, the commensurate number of high schools have not been set up in the country.

Caste-based quotas in education or employment have failed to demonstrate their efficacy in uplifting dispossessed sections of society on a sustainable basis. They have created instead a new class dubbed as the ‘creamy layer.” In recent years there has been much talk of excluding these sections (such as the children of politicians or bureaucrats or well off middle class SC, ST and OBC parents) from quota benefits, but the truth is that no mechanism has been devised to this end.

Quotas in institutions of excellence will not only compromise the quality of teaching as faculty struggle to cope with not-so-bright students who have entered via caste quotas, and are unable to cope with the work load. This will in turn affect the autonomy and innovativeness of these institutions. Worse, they will pit all castes and sub-castes against each other in a vicious competition for presumed advantage, at the cost of social harmony and long term national interest. Nor has adequate attention been paid to ensuring schools at secondary and senior secondary level for each and every village and hamlet in the country; for only then can a credible student base be created for meaningful higher education. At this stage, we must ensure that no student is denied higher education on account of strained family circumstances; then we will be a society of excellence, neither needing nor caring for reservations. Yet, though the Government annually collects as much as Rs. 6000/- crores as education cess, the commensurate number of high schools have not been set up in the country. Experts estimate that India needs a minimum of four lakh additional schools in order to educate every child; yet once these are in place, the goal of a fully educated nation would be achieved in just one decade. The sad truth, however, is that education like everything else, has been made into a political football. As Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta who resigned from the Knowledge Commission hinted, the OBCs cannot be considered as a deprived lot in the manner of the SC and ST communities. Indeed, by clubbing them in one category, the UPA is ensuring that Indian society remains trapped in a caste paradigm. Worse, by pretending that OBCs and SC/STs suffer from the same forms of backwardness, when the reality is that they are often at loggerheads with each other in rural India, the UPA is injecting a lethal new cocktail into the social fabric. New forms of inequity and arbitrariness are certain to arise from this witches’ brew. The crux of the matter is that while the new 27 per cent reservation has forced the nation to focus exclusively upon the already inadequate opportunities for higher education, and the likely disadvantage to meritorious students from unreserved categories, the deeper malaise is ignored. Which is that if there are not enough schools in villages, where will the caste quota students came from? Obviously, here too, only the creamy layer will walk in, because the poor and deserving will be debarred by illiteracy, and the meritorious will loose out for having the wrong caste label.

Sociologist Andre Beteille, chairman, ICSSR, has warned that if we fail to create centres of academic excellence in science and other fields, buttressed by a system of scholarships for the meritorious and needy, India will loose its hard-earned edge in knowledge industries. Caste quotas reinforce identity politics at its basest level, to the detriment of the larger society. Prof. Beteille critiqued the cynical misrepresentation of recent constitutional provisions seeking to empower the backward classes by pointing out that “enabling provisions” were wrongly being projected as “mandatory.”

Da Vinci: Cross with the Code?
May 28, 2006

It must have come as a surprise to Information & Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Das-munshi that India’s supposedly small Roman Catholic community can field two hundred organisations to protest the screening of the Hollywood blockbuster, Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown’s bestselling novel by the same name. Certainly it would have mattered to him that not only are these the UPA chairperson’s co-religionists, but belong to the same majority Christian sect, headquartered in Vatican City.

Little wonder then, that while the Christian world will view the film with no cuts or disclaimers, India’s I&B Minister feels the Catholic Churches’ Association of India (CCAI), rather than the Censor Board, should have the final say in the matter. After all, this is a secular country, and secularism, as I have argued elsewhere, is the twin god of Christianity, the face it turns towards the world when it wants to conceal the designs of the cross.

In fairness, however, the Vatican and the Indian evangelical industry are right to be wary of the film. The Da Vinci Code is no ordinary fiction. It represents the latest in a long history of dissent in the Catholic church regarding the true nature of the mission of the Christian church that suddenly emerged in Rome in the early centuries AD. Was Christianity ever intended to be anything more than a political movement, or did it have religio-political goals, and why did Jesus and his Apostles break with Jewish community and opt for aggressive evangelism among non-Jews? These are not questions that will go away until the Vatican opens its archives and furnishes some credible answers.

This central mission of an unknown group striving for control of the whole world and its economic resources and thought processes, is what the Da Vinci Code exposes in the form of a novel. It is bound to make the thinking public ponder about the supposedly spiritual content of this faith, which is unable to win adherents without resort to special tactics, and does not even have a credible theology around its key figures.

Indeed, the core issue is how and when the early Christian Church conceived its plan for world dominion, and the driving force behind this ambition. Anyone who is concerned with fundamentalist Islam’s jehadi face and its plans for world conquest, must be interested in the early Christian Church, as this is where a blueprint for such dominion was first conceived and implemented. It would be a mistake to believe that the quest has been consigned to the dustbin of history—all rich Western nations have a huge budget for evangelical activities oversees, and conversion is a major foreign policy agenda. Indeed, the Christian nations do not spare even fellow monotheistic traditions like Islam, and Christian missionaries are very active in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, not to mention other parts of the globe.

This central mission of an unknown group striving for control of the whole world and its economic resources and thought processes, is what the Da Vinci Code exposes in the form of a novel. It is bound to make the thinking public ponder about the supposedly spiritual content of this faith, which is unable to win adherents without resort to special tactics, and does not even have a credible theology around its key figures. Forget that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child or children, or even the stories that he was not the first born child of his own mother, Mary. These are side issues for Indians.

What is important, however, is why there is so much suspense about key components of the Christian story, when it is a religion that supposedly began with one man and his band of followers. It would be safe to say that Jesus was born in a Jewish family and initially aspired for leadership of his own community. On being shunned, he turned towards the Gentiles, the non-Jews of Jerusalem, who were in search of a religion.

But what was the religion he preached? Was the heavenly father he spoke of the same as the Jewish Yahweh, or someone else? Who or what is the Holy Ghost, the third element of the Christian Trinity? To the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no credible information about the role and purpose of this divinity in the spiritual evolution of Christians. Ultimately, we are asked to believe what the Vatican says, and it says very little beyond the fact that belief in Jesus is imperative for human salvation. Yet Christians are prone to deride Muslims for similar adherence to the Prophethood of Mohammad.

This makes the criticism of the film by some Indian Muslim organisations highly suspect, and the UPA government would do well to take adequate precautions that vested elements do not create trouble on the pretext of protests against the film. The protests are an act of muscle-flexing by the Christian church that is determined to plant the cross in India. And typically, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, a Roman by birth and a Catholic by faith, has refused to reveal her mind over the agitations, though anyone who has observed the disproportionate rise of Christians to top jobs in the Congress party and its state governments will know how avidly she promotes her community’s interests.

Sonia: Countdown to early poll?
May 21, 2006

Sonia Gandhi has fallen prey to her own psychology. She is addicted to what the Supreme Court called the “receivables” of office, while dismissing Jaya Bachchan’s petition against dismissal from the Rajya Sabha. Equally, she is addicted to maintaining secrecy over the nature and quantum of “receivables”.

The countdown for an early demise of the UPA regime has begun. As of now, there is great secrecy over whether the National Advisory Council (NAC) will eventually be exempted from the purview of the ‘office of profit,’ whether Smt. Sonia Gandhi will return as chairperson if her cabinet rank is affected and the status of the body reduced. At the same time, the banishment of the Congress party from the Rai Bareilly bye-election, on account of the arrogance of the Gandhi family, will impact upon party functioning in future elections.

Smt. Gandhi may believe that her four lakh vote victory is a fitting rebuff to the party stalwarts whose oversight compelled her to resign on the office of profit issue. But in the long-term, it would be a serious mistake to project the ‘family’ as solely capable of attracting voters and solely responsible for delivering votes. Should the party now tacitly behave as if victory in the family pocket-borough must be translated into victory in the Assembly elections next year, Smt. Gandhi may find herself in difficulty. Indeed, there can be little doubt that mature Congressmen will harbour private reservations about the family’s style of functioning. This is bound to increase pressure on Shri Rahul Gandhi to take responsibility for reviving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, but anyone can see that the task is quite beyond him. He has little understanding of either the state or the nation, and party managers have to contradict him everytime he makes a spontaneous statement to the press.

Meanwhile, confusion over the NAC persists because Sonia Gandhi has fallen prey to her own psychology. She is addicted to what the Supreme Court called the “receivables” of office, while dismissing Jaya Bachchan’s petition against dismissal from the Rajya Sabha. Equally, she is addicted to maintaining secrecy over the nature and quantum of “receivables,” and may therefore hesitate to receive UPA munificence in full public view. It was only when the NDA came to power that we learnt that typists supposedly employed at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) were stationed at her residence. Senior IAS officers were deputed to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation from the time of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao; senior IAS officers had to be reverted to their parent ministries when she resigned as NAC chairperson.

What is more, once the office of profit controversy broke out and Smt. Gandhi had to re-contest her Lok Sabha seat, her office let it be known that she had resigned from all public bodies of which she was a member; they would not give the full details of these organisations. It would be in the fitness of things if, as part of the debate over the office of profit, the nation could be told the number of organisations Smt. Gandhi was a member of till recently; what kind of “receivables” were attached to them; and what compelled her to give them up. We should also be told which offices she intends to return to, once they are exempted from the office of profit purview.

Refusal to return to the NAC would mean that Smt. Gandhi is still seething with rage at being made to resign to avoid certain disqualification from the Lok Sabha. This means she will loose the Cabinet rank that she enjoyed as NAC chairperson, something that is bound to irk such a status-conscious person. This will no doubt prompt her to seek new ways of overtly demonstrating power over the government, such as in the unseemly controversy over the Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN. This is bound to inject a dose of unnecessary instability in the Manmohan Singh regime, which cannot tailor India’s international obligations to the whims of Smt. Gandhi’s coterie.

Post-election, however, the real challenge facing the UPA Government will be Shri Arjun Singh’s brinkmanship over the reservations for OBCs in higher education. It is already evident that the move has found little favour with the people at large, or even with the Congress party as a whole. The fact that President Kalam made the unprecedented move to call the HRD Minister to explain his position on the issue is powerful indication that Rashtrapati Bhavan does not approve of such brinkmanship.

Yet the issue may not be easy to handle. On the one hand, Dr. Manmohan Singh has created tremendous unease in corporate India by suggesting the possibility of reservations (affirmative action) in the private sector. Caste-based employment could bring the private sector to a grinding halt, and the corporate sector has made it clear that it would not buckle to Government pressure in this regard without a fight. It would be safe to say, therefore, that leading industrialists would be seriously rethinking their commitment to the longevity of this regime.

So far Smt. Sonia Gandhi has maintained her typical silence over the controversy—an attitude that is bringing diminishing returns. Unknown Congress stalwarts have virtually hushed up Shri Rahul Gandhi for saying that both sides had a point on the reservation issue. The Social Justice Ministry has aggravated matters by asking Government-funded NGOs to implement caste-based reservations, an issue that will not gel with this sector as most NGOs are de facto private businesses run by politicians and bureaucrats. By the time Smt. Gandhi untangles this mess, the bells may have tolled for the UPA coalition.

Column As A Tribute
Mahajan: Man And Myth
May 14, 2006

While we do not know the real motives or conspirators behind the attack on Mr. Mahajan, it seems unlikely to be as simple as suggested. BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra has hinted as much by comparing his departure with that of Shyama Prasad Mukerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who too, were struck down in the prime of their political lives. For now, the identity of the assailant has thrown the spotlight upon the former Minister’s tender years, and these give us a rare insight into the real man behind the public persona.

Even in his last cogent moments, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan proved he was made of a different mettle. Far from losing his nerve at the unexpected dastardly attack upon him, Pramod Mahajan kept his wits about him, directing his wife to call close relations and take him to the nearby Hinduja Hospital. Reports say he also wanted her not to involve the police and implicate his younger brother; it is possible he did not understand the seriousness of his injuries and expected to recover and hush up matters within the family.

In a sense, it was a perfect postscript to a life lived king-size—managing difficult, even painful, matters with leonine fortitude and rising above the mundane world and its puny people. So when he took his final call at the promising age of 57, Pramod Mahajan finally achieved the status of hriday samrat, which had eluded him in an otherwise successful public career.

We do not know the real motives or conspirators behind the attack on Pramod Mahajan. BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra has hinted as much by comparing his departure with that of Syama Prasad Mukerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who too, were struck down in the prime of their political lives.

Pramod Mahajan, the eldest of five siblings, had to cut short his career as a sub-editor when his father died and return home to Beed help his mother raise the family. He assumed the responsibility manfully, becoming a school teacher to provide for the family and joining the RSS out of an ideological affinity. The most striking aspect of this story is Mahajan’s utter lack of a sense of victimhood. Far from perceiving his family as a burden that crushed his youth, he retained the energy and individuality to pursue his own dreams without compromising his duties. Over the years, two sisters and two brothers were married and settled, and Mahajan found his own life partner in a youth festival.

The ability to shoulder responsibilities propelled Mahajan into public life. But he was no ordinary manager of men and money, no mere fund-raiser or smooth talker. He has been unfairly projected as the BJP’s laptop-mobile politician, a kind of political nouveau riche who knew how to traverse the treacherous terrain of the corporate world, when he was equally at home in the narrow gullies were votes are raked in. Above all, he belonged to that rare breed of politicians who did not shirk responsibility when things went wrong; the second in command who did not jump ship even if the captain did. This came out most starkly when he was blamed for the excessive slickness of the ‘India Shining’ campaign, which was indirectly blamed for the BJP’s defeat in 2004. Mahajan took the call, even though the topmost BJP leadership avoided a genuine introspection of the causes for the defeat, which surely lay in the multiple sins of omission and commission of the NDA regime.

Mahajan’s apparent brashness, his devil-may-care bravado when things went wrong, often concealed his deep ideological commitment to his parent organisation, the RSS, and also his personal discipline and loyalty to the BJP. While the BJP teetered between ad hocism and incoherence in the aftermath of its defeat, he observed party discipline and accepted all public chastisement, taking the flak for the Maharashtra defeat and playing second fiddle in the Bihar elections. At the same time, he did not hesitate to organise the party’s national council or silver jubilee celebrations, where he received the cryptic sobriquet of ‘Laxman.’ I remember being asked what I thought of it as other colleagues scrambled to share the title; some dubbed themselves as ‘Hanuman.’ My response was spontaneous: none of these epic characters made it to the throne. Sadly, this was to be true of Pramod Mahajan, though like others, I had also envisaged him as a future leader.

During the unsavoury Jinnah controversy, Mahajan rallied quietly behind the RSS on the issue of ideological deviance. His statement that he was a long distance runner and was not among those squabbling for the top job helped the RSS clinch matters in favour of Shri Rajnath Singh. It was also his finest hour—the surrender of position for an immeasurable elevation in stature.

More significantly, it signalled the return to roots and values by second rung leaders, the very persons whose outwardly affluent lifestyles were used by an influential section to proclaim the irrelevance of ideology. In this context, it may be pertinent to mention that if Pramod Mahajan was really killed because his brother wanted far more advantages from his position than were reasonable to expect, it follows that Mahajan had not indulged in excessive nepotism after initially helping his brothers to stand on their own feet. It is a sobering thought.

Pramod Mahajan’s myriad qualities were often submerged in the politicking by his fellow politicos. Yet even they could not deny him due credit—it was he who conceived the winning alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, breaking the Congress stranglehold over that crucial state. Indeed, he had the uncanny knack of forging winning political alliances, and helped sew up many of the deals that led to the formation of the NDA. In the days to come, the BJP will realise the true nature of its loss.

Nation Pays Homage

I will always remember my personal and close association with Pramod Mahajan. I feel a personal sense of loss.
—A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

He was a gem of a person who always strove to help others.
—B.S. Shekhawat

I am deeply grieved to learn of the sad and untimely demise of Pramod Mahajan in Mumbai.
—Manmohan Singh

He was the future of the party. His life was snatched away without fulfilment.
—M.M. Joshi

Words are not enough at this time of unbearable pain. I offer my condolences to his family.
—Sonia Gandhi

He was a dynamic leader and a great asset to the country.
—Somnath Chatterjee

Mahajan was a promising, dynamic and charismatic leader. The vacuum created by him is difficult to fill.
—Venkaiah Naidu

He was a genius as he was managing a major political party. He was a great personality and an asset.
—Ram Vilas Paswan

I have lost a dear friend. We knew each other for over a quarter of a century.
—Ghulam Nabi Azad

I convey my heartfelt sympathy to his wife, son and daughter and other family members.
—Prakash Karat

Mahajan was a young and energetic leader. I am shocked.
—M. Karunanidhi

Chanakya of Indian politics
—Ram Naik

US-funded NGOs spreading disaffection
May 07, 2006

The American Academy for Religion (AAR) has sought data on the number of major Hindu temples in India that are patronized by caste Hindus and have ex-untouchable priests. This is doubly mischievous because if AAR means OBCs when it talks of ‘caste Hindus’ as opposed to upper caste Hindus.

Under the guise of human rights and freedom of religion, America has for some time been promoting certain activists from weaker sections, who regularly report to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, about India’s internal affairs. Now, American academics are synergizing their work with the political concerns of their government, seeking to aggravate and exploit differences in Hindu society.

The American Academy for Religion (AAR) has sought data of a number of major Hindu temples in India that are patronized by caste Hindus and have ex-untouchable priests. This is doubly mischievous because if AAR means OBCs when it talks of ‘caste Hindus’ as opposed to upper caste Hindus, then it would know very well that it is the OBCs who oppose the entry of SCs/STs in temples. This kind of study by an outside agency is dangerously divisive, and a combative Hindu intellectual has countered that Indian intellectuals should in turn ask how many American churches attended by White people have Black priests.

In any case, since the Hindu tradition is not centralized in the manner that denominational churches are, it is unlikely that any such statistics would be available in Hindu society, and the concerned academics would certainly know this. They would also be aware that there are several gurus and paramparas in India today that are training SCs/STs as priests, should they desire to be priests. What is interesting to note, however, is that SC/ST desire to have temples with Brahmin priests, because they feel confident that they know the proper way to conduct pujas!

Another question is how many formerly lower caste Hindu leaders have a significant following among the other castes. Politically, Smt Mayawati is way ahead of all leaders in Uttar Pradesh, and in Bihar, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan has a certain following. In the spiritual tradition, one of the most important leaders is Ma Amritanandamayi, a woman from the fisherman caste, whose most loyal devotees belong to the upper castes. Thus, the tradition of overlooking the caste of a realized saint is very much alive in India. But I can’t think of a single significant Black politician in the United States who would be cultivated by White people; not even the late Martin Luther King, or a Hispanic or Native American spiritual leader with a White Anglo Saxon following.

Becoming more overtly political, the American scholars want to know how many SCs/STs figure on the VHP’s governing board. Here I think the more pertinent question would be how many such persons figure in the Congress Working Committee, especially as that party flourished for decades on SCs/STs support, and is today headed by a White European Catholic, whose Government is committed to such token affirmative action. Even more pertinently, since the Church has long evangelized most of the African continent, how many Black cardinals are there in the Vatican, and how many bishops in the Baptist, Adventist, Methodist and other churches?

The American scholars wonder why former weaker sections form separate sects of their own rather than with other castes; and whether they prefer to call themselves Dalits or Harijans in order to gain the respect of caste Hindus. It is obvious that the questions are more political than academic, and such studies are intended to promote the agendas of successive American administrations in interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

Hindu society does not have sects; by definition, sects are splinter groups within monotheistic religions. I do not know if American Blacks are a separate sect or not, but it is a fact that covert discrimination even today compels them to have separate churches, and this apparently applies to other ethnic minorities in that country. Moreover, those minorities do not get respect by calling themselves Christian, but they get a political value by calling themselves Black, Hispanic, Korean, Chinese and seeking safety in numbers. Hindu society is a concentric circle of jatis, which are cohesive social groups claiming descent from a common ancestor, or some other common affinity. Thus, SCs/STs that adopted the Sikh faith constituted themselves into the Ramgarhia community, to distinguish themselves from their former Hindu brethren. Proliferation and distinction go hand in hand in India, and do not lead to disintegration or division.

In this context, it is worth mentioning that just as the dominant White Christians have failed to assimilate other groups on an equal basis in their own societies, despite converting them to their faith, so also in India the church has failed to uplift the weaker sections despite luring them away from Hindu society on the pretext of granting them social equality and economic mobility. The church has inflicted grievous injuries upon its constituents from weaker sections, forcing them to build separate churches or to sit in segregated areas of the church, take their dead to separate cemeteries, take holy water and communion separately.

Christian activists of weaker sections estimate that church institutions and Christian NGOs together receive approximately Rs. 2,500 crore of foreign aid annually, but there is no intra-community transparency regarding the utilization of these funds. Christian bodies earn huge incomes from elite schools, colleges and hospitals managed by them, as also from massive commercial properties they own in major cities. Yet weaker sections which comprise the bulk of the community get no share of its enormous wealth.

It is a travesty of justice that the church is now shifting the burden of its responsibility to the Indian Government and demanding reservation benefits for the weaker section Christians. The latter were misled away from the Hindu fold and then betrayed by denying them a just share in the church’s colossal resources.

According to Census 2001, there are 24.20 million Christians in India, more than half of whom belong to the weaker section of South India. Yet power in the Indian church is jealously guarded by priests belonging to upper castes. The 200-member Catholic Bishops Conference of India will never disclose the number of bishops or cardinals from weaker sections, possibly because there are none. The UPA government has done the rich Christian educational institutions a favour by exempting minority institutions from the burden of reservation quotas that have been (and are being) extended elsewhere, so they are literally without accountability to their poorer brethren.

Quota scares corporates
Column
April 30, 2006

Prime Minister’s push for reservations in the private sector, which has seen algebraic growth in the past 15 years of liberalisation, is a sad case of meeting this century’s challenge with last century’s vaccine.

Wipro chairman Azim Premji has firmly articulated corporate India’s dislike of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s politely veiled threat to introduce caste-based reservations in the private sector. Though other voices have been more moderate, there can be no mistaking the dismay caused by the UPA government’s insistence on imposing a non-professional, non-meritorious weightage on jobs in the private sector.

This is an unworthy exercise for several reasons. To begin with, reservations as a means of balancing real or perceived inequalities are a tool of the post-colonial mid-twentieth century, a historical legacy of the British attempt to divide Hindu society by providing separate electorates for the Scheduled Castes. If the colonial state had not made that move, independent India might have attempted to redress the issue of the backwardness of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in some other manner. Nevertheless, these reservations were accepted by the nation because there was a general agreement that these sections of society required special affirmative action to remove their acute educational and economic backwardness.

It bears stating, however, that the routine extension of these reservations every ten years caused them to lose their moral justification. By refusing to modify the terms of reservation for the less disadvantaged among the SC/ST categories, by refusing to permit exclusion of creamy layers, political parties made the reservations near perpetual. Worse, by pandering to the emotive appeal of reservations to a specific section of the electorate, they sent a message that reservations would be given only to politically mobilised sections of society, regardless of the actual level of disempowerment suffered by those sections.

The message was not lost on other groups, and that is why the economically and politically powerful OBCs were able to institute the Mandal Commission. Though the implementation of its report was stalled for a decade, Mandal made its presence felt in the Indian polity in a most dramatic and traumatic way. All political parties fell in line on account of the powerful mobilisation of the intermediate castes, but Mandal also de- legitimised reservations as a means to achieve greater upward mobility, because this was perceived as having being attained through muscle power, not moral imperative.

The lack of political mobilisation of women on gender basis was the reason for the failure of the women’s reservation bill. Hence, before reservations are extended into the private sector, or expanded in educational institutions or government jobs, it may be worthwhile to increase the quotient of gender justice in all existing reservation categories, especially educational. Mahatma Gandhi had said that if you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family. This is as true today as it was then, and as Dalit women are the most disempowered of all social categories, it may be a good idea if 50 per cent of the SC/ST quota in educational institutions is reserved for women/girls. This will give these families a vested interest in the education of the girl child, and go a long way in meeting the national goal of education for all. India is already nearly two decades behind achieving this target, which is nowhere in sight.

The Prime Minister’s push for reservations in the private sector, which has seen algebraic growth in the past 15 years of liberalisation, is a sad case of meeting this century’s challenge with last century’s vaccine. Coming close on the heels of HRD Minister Arjun Singh’s attempt to extend a 27 per cent OBC quota in the IITs and IIMs, which have made India the flavour of Silicon Valley and other corporate hubs all over the world, it sends the message that political India has run out of ideas for empowering and uplifting its people.

Worse, the moves ignore the vibrant reality of India, where caste has long ceased to be the basis for choosing an occupation. Since caste has no relationship between one’s choice of profession, caste-based reservations in professional institutions or jobs is a true oxymoron. It is neither necessary nor legitimate, and it only creates new social divisions where none need exist. Since the professions are open to all castes, competition must be on the basis of merit. Caste-based reservations have a logic where certain occupations are reserved for certain castes, a situation that does not prevail in modern India even though there are castes that follow their traditional occupations.

What India really needs is to disband social welfare schemes that merely empower a network of well-connected persons, and provide cent per cent investment in school infrastructure. This means every village must have access to a school, where teachers must teach, and there must be zero absenteeism. There must be extra coaching for dropouts of class ten and twelve, so that the students can achieve minimal educational qualifications before branching out into vocations. Special coaching facilities and financial assistance should be provided to village children aspiring to enter technical and professional institutions. Politicians would do well to realise that just as flyovers in Delhi did not solve the problem of traffic jams, but merely shifted the point of congestion, so reservations merely transfer the problem of poor and insincere planning to another point in the system. What the people want is genuine empowerment.

OBC gambit may backfire
April 23, 2006

Within the ruling Congress there is a growing realisation that there is no political capital from Arjun Singh’s move. It has been pointed out that the party may not be able to wean over the OBCs from well-crafted and established leaders like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and Railway Minister Lalu Yadav. On the other hand, by exempting minority institutions from the purview of the quotas, it may fuel anxieties in the rest of society regarding conversion pressures on children sent to such institutions for higher studies.

The Election Commission having forced the Centre to postpone Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh’s controversial attempt to impose a reservation quota hike from 22.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent in 20 central universities and institutions such as the IITs, IIMs, and medical colleges, political parties would do well to set aside votebank calculations and weigh the relative advantages and real disadvantages of the move.

Though there has been no violent reaction to the proposal, it has created deep disquiet in all sections of society. Foremost of course, are middle class children who compete purely on the basis of hard work and dedication, and their parents who often fund costly coaching classes to give their children the cutting edge in these merit-based competitive exams.

Yet this time, there are voices of disquiet from OBC students who are projected as the beneficiaries of this move. Hence, it would be interesting to pay heed to their objections. The most obvious cause of unhappiness is the stigma attached to being a reservation quota admission case, because this automatically implies that standards have been relaxed to let the entrant in. But this is the least of their problems. It has been the sorry experience of quota students for several years that they are unable to match the exacting academic standards of institutions like IIT or IIM. These standards have nothing to do with caste and relate to the students’ intrinsic academic merit and aptitude; hence these should not be linked with caste.

Quotas put both students and institutions in a bind. The student is often too embarrassed to tell his ambitious parents that he can’t make the grade and should go elsewhere. He tries to plod on and the institution tries to pull him along by promoting him somehow or other. But in the end, despite a couple of years of effort on both sides, the student does not make the grade and is failed at the end.

He then has no degree in hand and no idea how or where to start again when already in his mid-twenties, when other peers are getting into jobs. This is a human tragedy, and we should not wait to let it assume the dimensions of farmers’ suicides before we take note of it. The fact of the matter is that students and parents both have a fair idea of the child’s potential. If the bait of quotas and relaxed standards were not waved before them, they would fix their ambitions and aspirations more practically, in consonance with their abilities. This would save heartburn and heartbreak across the board. Politicians with their one-dimensional focus upon votebanks cannot be expected to appreciate such simple yet fundamental issues pertaining to the lives of ordinary people. Interestingly, within the ruling Congress there is a growing realisation that there is no political capital from Arjun Singh’s move. It has been pointed out that the party may not be able to wean over the OBCs from well-crafted and established leaders like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and Railway Minister Lalu Yadav. On the other hand, by exempting minority institutions from the purview of the quotas, it may fuel anxieties in the rest of society regarding conversion pressures on children sent to such institutions for higher studies. The move has also enraged Dalit leaders, who see it as an attempt to enhance the power of groups that disadvantage the Dalits in the countryside. Both Ms. Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok January Shakti Party have expressed doubts about the 27 percent reservations, as it may cause the Harijan-OBC rivalry of the countryside to spill over into the towns and cities, with unforeseen consequences. At a time when the country needs more schools with teachers and infrastructure to ensure cent per cent literacy, Mr. Arjun Singh has handed us a most Corporate India has of course reacted to the move with ill-concealed horror. Barely had it managed to fob off the threat of caste-based reservations in the private sector, than a new threat has come in the nature of quota students in institutions like IIT and IIM which give India is cutting edge superiority in the Silicon Valley and other corporate hubs all over the world. A 27 percent quota will mean that the institutions will inevitably have to lower their standards, and this will necessarily impact upon the quality of students available for campus recruitment by India Inc. It’s a vicious circle. It goes without saying that the IITs and IIMs and medical colleges (India is just now emerging as a major destination of medical tourism on account of the high quality doctors we possess in every major city) are the most depressed at the prospect of receiving non-competitive students. One major reason - which deserves the attention of MPs who may well vote on legislation in the next session of Parliament - is the experience of reservations for SC/ST students. Since many SC/ST students fail to make the grade for admissions, the IITs put those close to the entrance level in a one-year preparatory course. This itself marks them out as not having the requisite standards to be in a cutting edge institution. Anyhow, those who pass the course, are then formally admitted to the various IITs. Not many of these students make the grade in the finals, and now the IITs are at a loss to understand if they are to undertake such “coaching classes” for another 27 percent students. Where would the faculty come from to bear such a load? Further, if the Government agrees to increase the seats so that meritorious candidates do not suffer, where will the faculty come from so quickly? Many leading institutions already suffer a severe shortfall of teachers and infrastructure (classrooms, hostels), and may find it difficult to cope. Mr. Arjun Singh’s ill-thought out scheme could thus adversely impact upon higher education all over the country in a manner detrimental to all.

Sonia shrill, Partymen sulk
April 09, 2006

Even before the Election Commission could take cognizance of the vacancy in the Rai Bareilly parliamentary constituency, Smt Sonia Gandhi was on the campaign trail, shrilly shrieking victimhood to the gullible masses of the family’s old pocket borough. Her return to the Lok Sabha is not in doubt.

What is uncertain is whether the UPA’s proposed legislation to remove certain anomalies in the constitutional injunction against MPs holding an ‘office of profit’ can legitimately include the National Advisory Council (NAC), of which Smt Gandhi is chairperson with cabinet rank. Legitimising office in public bodies such as that held by the expelled Smt Jaya Bachchan, which could otherwise unseat Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and myriad MPs and MLAs in state legislatures, may be done as expeditiously as possible. And till such time, the Election Commission would do well not to encourage the politics of vendetta and hold its hand on pending complaints to avoid unsettling sitting governments and costly re-elections.

The office of chairperson of the NAC, however, is of an entirely different genre. The NAC was constituted to give rank and status to Smt Gandhi once it became clear that she could not be sworn-in as Prime Minister. It was also regarded as necessary because the UPA coalition needed some kind of forum to monitor the Common Minimum Programme (CMP), especially since the Marxist parties were supporting the government from outside. In fact, until the Congress vindictively declared that it would gun for Dr. Amar Singh after getting Smt Jaya Bachchan expelled, few ordinary citizens knew that the NAC was a government body.

Yet the very nature of its primary responsibility, viz., to monitor the CMP, makes it amply clear that it is essentially an apex body of the UPA partners and supporting parties. In other words, it performs the same functions that the coordination committee performed when the NDA was in power, though that was ably supplemented by Atalji’s dinner diplomacy. Thus, at the mere cost of a dinner at Panchvati, Shri Vajpayee handled the pulls and pressures of multi-party governance.

Perhaps this was possible because he did not have to give cabinet status to the RSS Sarsanghachalak. Dr. Manmohan Singh is not so lucky, and hence, the PMO foots a massive bill for the NAC, which was constituted through an order issued by the Cabinet Secretariat on May 31, 2004. And to ensure that Smt Gandhi was not hemmed in by the coalition partners’ gripes, she was allowed to bring in her cronies (the ones who pick up half-baked ideas abroad) for consultation.

NAC in effect became some kind of mini-Planning Commission, mini-Cabinet or mini-PMO. It had a secretariat and office space and an all-paid expense account. The Prime Minister would do well to tell us what it cost the public exchequer, and also explain the necessity for it, since it is the mandate of the UPA government to implement its own Common Minimum Programme. There is simply no justification for the PMO to fund a body that has no constitutional basis and that too, a body that would not exist at all if the Congress had come to power in its own right. NAC is clearly a party platform, and the exchequer cannot be made to foot its bill. Hence the Election Commission would do well to take cognizance of the Telugu Desam complaint and disqualify Smt Gandhi in the same manner as Smt Bachchan, i.e., by expunging her presence in the house and seeking refund of salary and perks.

The BJP has raised the issue of the NAC very tentatively, and while it is true that the party is preoccupied with elections and yatras, it should examine the legality and propriety of the NAC before concurring with the proposed legislation to remove snags in the law on office of profit. Whatever Congressmen may argue, the fact that the NAC was constituted by a notification of the Cabinet Secretariat makes it a government department or body. It makes recommendations that are not binding on the government, which is what the Planning Commission and other Commissions do. Yet a mere ‘monitoring’ of the CMP hardly requires staff paid by the government, especially as the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation already functions as a kind of think-tank for the government.

Until these and related issues are sorted out, the myriad parties in Parliament and the state legislatures, who need to save their own people from disqualification, should separate the two issues. MPs and MLAs heading government corporations should not be protected with retrospective effect, as the issue has larger constitutional ramifications. Parliament could however, consider if they could be given a one-time special pardon since all are agreed that this is a grey area of the law.

The NAC however is neither fish nor fowl. No single-party government would need such a body. Its utility is exclusive to coalition governments, and hence the multiple parties participating in or supporting the regime should foot its bill. Meanwhile, if Smt Gandhi is desperate to advise the government and enjoy cabinet rank, she can be made chairperson of the Planning Commission.

Revenge that boomeranged
April 02, 2006

The humiliation of Mrs. Jaya Bachchan boomeranged when non-Congress parties decided to hit back. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee became vulnerable as the Trinamool Congress complained about his chairmanship of the Sriniketan-Shantiniketan Development Corporation in West Bengal. Several MPs are equally vulnerable on this count, which jurists concede is a grey area of the Constitution. But Sonia Gandhi has wielded real power of patronage as chairperson of the National Advisory Council, with Cabinet rank.

Now, for the fourth time, Sonia Gandhi has run away from a thorny situation of her own making. Even friendly me-dia analysts find it difficult to support the surreptitious manner in which both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die on March 22, when an all-party meeting had decided on the recess and resumption of the budget session. This, combined with a news leak about a proposed ordinance to protect the UPA chairperson from certain disqualification from the Lok Sabha, had former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee rushing with a protest delegation to President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

This put the spotlight uncomfortably upon Ms. Gandhi, because many of her actions as UPA and National Advisory Council chairperson are questionable. Ms. Gandhi has a propensity to settle scores with those who have incurred her personal wrath, even if they are not direct political foes, and this has landed her in her present predicament. The genesis of the present crisis lies in her soured relations with the family of megastar Amitabh Bachchan, which came into the open when the latter´s wife, Jaya, made an oblique reference to the fact that no one defended her husband when incorrect insinuations were made about his involvement in the Bofors payoff scandal, the shadow of which falls squarely on Ms. Gandhi and her close friends. Mrs. Jaya Bachchan later entered the Rajya Sabha as a member of the Samajwadi Party, with which Ms. Gandhi has a running dispute. Thereafter, a few things happened in quick succession. Mrs. Bachchan´s membership of the Rajya Sabha was terminated on the ground that she held an “office of profit” as chairperson of the UP Film Development Council; a gleeful Congress said it would gun for SP ideological supremo, Amar Singh. Superstar Amitabh Bachchan, who was invited to inaugurate the international film festival in Congress-ruled Goa last year, was dis-invited from the function. He was also served a gigantic income tax notice while battling for his life in a Mumbai hospital. But the humiliation of Mrs. Jaya Bachchan boomeranged when non-Congress parties decided to hit back. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee became vulnerable as the Trinamool Congress complained about his chairmanship of the Sriniketan-Shantiniketan Development Corporation in West Bengal. Several MPs are equally vulnerable on this count, which jurists concede is a grey area of the Constitution. But Sonia Gandhi has wielded real power of patronage as chairperson of the National Advisory Council, with Cabinet rank, and owes the nation an explanation. Her hand was seen in the scandalous drama which saw the Italian Ottavio Quattrocchi making off with the Bofors kickback payments. When the matter became public, she left it to the hapless Prime Minister and others to protect her from the flak. Since the UPA came to power, Ms. Gandhi has announced government largesse to victims of tragedies and natural disasters, such as the victims of a fire in a Tamil Nadu school and the tsunami victims in Tamil Nadu and Port Blair. In fact, she has a penchant for upstaging the Prime Minister and other competent authorities by reaching tragedy spots first and announcing government relief. More recently, after the public outcry against verdict in the Jessica Lall case, she directed Home Minister Shivraj Patil to amend the Criminal Procedure Code suitably to protect witnesses in criminal cases. Since the budget for her ‘recommendatory’ office of NAC chairperson comes out of government funds, there is little doubt that Ms. Gandhi draws benefits from the public exchequer for all her activities, and thus holds an ‘office of profit’, that too, one which appears to have little constitutional justification. Thus, when the chips were down, she was actually the most vulnerable of those being targeted for disqualification by respective political rivals. Her resignation should not prevent the Election Commission from deciding the issue of the legality of her presence in the Lok Sabha on merits, as in the case of Mrs. Jaya Bachchan. This means the EC must adjudicate if Ms. Gandhi’s interventions in the House, like those of Mrs. Bachchan, must be expunged, and her salary and emoluments returned to Parliament. And before Ms. Gandhi returns to the NAC, presuming it is exempted from the definition of ‘office of profit,’ there must be a public debate on the relevance of that office, its powers and privileges, and budgetary support.

Contrary to the assertions of her spin doctors, this is actually the fourth time Ms. Sonia Gandhi has run away from an uncomfortable situation in her life in India. The first was in 1977 when her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi lost to the Janata conglomerate. Panicked at a possible post-Mussolini scenario in this land, Sonia Gandhi dragged her pilot husband and two children to the Italian Embassy for refuge; newspaper pictures of her sour countenance remain etched in my memory. Sonia returned home very reluctantly after the entire Gandhi family persuaded her to see reason. No doubt her countrymen (she was still an Italian national) also advised her that Indians were not vindictive and her personal safety was not in danger. The second time the lady fled a difficult situation was in 1999 when, after ruthlessly ousting the then Congress president Sitaram Kesri, she found Sharad Pawar and P.A. Sangma questioning her authority, particularly her desire to project herself as candidate for the Prime Minister’s Office. Rather than answer the questions raised, the lady quit in a sulk and her lieutenants then hustled up support for her, roughing up possible dissidents in the Working Committee, and organising a bogus AICC meeting to endorse her coup. The third time-which her media bards seek to project as the first time-was in May 2004 when President APJ Abdul Kalam gently advised her not to press her claim to be sworn in, owing to certain ambiguities in the Citizenship Act. At that time, she had procurred letters of support from slavish UPA allies and supporting parties, and announced to a televised press conference that normally the leader of the majority alliance was sworn-in as Prime Minister. But this land is Bharat Mata, and somewhere an ageless Vikramaditya decided whom it would just not tolerate to sit upon its throne. Doubtless to her own surprise, Sonia Gandhi had to make a virtue of necessity. A televised renunciation drama was enacted, and Dr. Manmohan Singh was soon in the saddle.

A new trend in Islamic discourse!
March 19, 2006

When the cartoon controversy broke out, for the first time in public memory, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board conceded that a fellow Muslim was offending Hindu sentiments by painting goddesses, particularly Ma Saraswati, and Bharat Mata, in the nude.

Something is churning deep in the heart of Indian Islam, which calls for careful watching and deep analysis, as there are no obvious answers. Yet even a surface view shows that orthodox Muslims, especially religious leaders and scholars, wish to change the old grumpy don´t-enter-my-ghetto approach towards the Hindu majority. At the same time, the contours of a schism between secular Muslims and rooted-in-Islam Muslims are becoming apparent, and this calls for investigation.

One does not know when this shift took place, but the controversy over the Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet has made it evident. As some politicians have raised the cartoon controversy in connection with Tuesday´s (March 7) blasts in Varanasi, it may be pertinent to begin here.

The linking of the cartoons with the bombs that took several lives in the holiest Hindu city suggests that the blasts are an Indian Muslim response to what happened in a European country. This is possible as some years ago, a famous American evangelist said something on a popular talk show in his own country and riots broke out in Sholapur, Maharashtra. The local MP went on to become the chief minister.

This time, however, there are reasons to believe that Indian Muslims are not interested in such contrived reactions to promote the political careers of non-Muslims. Nor are they interested in a sterile anti-Hindu approach towards securing their interests and ambitions in this country. That is why, when the cartoon controversy broke out, for the first time in public memory, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board conceded that a fellow Muslim was offending Hindu sentiments by painting goddesses, particularly the Saraswati, and Bharat Mata, in the nude.

Kamal Faruqi said he found the paintings shocking and unacceptable. There were no puerile excuses, such as Husain is not a practicing Muslim; his birth in a Muslim family establishes his Muslim identity. Later, the same view was espoused by the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, the man who once justified Taliban iconoclasm against the Bamiyan Buddhas. Yet, after condemning the nude Saraswati at a protest rally one Friday, the Imam further condemned the placement of Rama and Sita on tissue paper by a western firm.

This unique sensitivity towards revered Hindu icons suggests that the religious leadership and orthodox elements in the Muslim community want to prevent a communal divide and confrontation in India. This is partly because the Muslim leadership feels that violence is counter-productive, but more pertinently because the leadership of the international Ummah feels that Muslims must have political agency in their homelands. This means western domination of Islamic countries in the Gulf must be reversed, and further, that Muslims must have a stake in power in the western countries where they have sizeable populations, but no voice.

Since domination of hinterland nations like India makes no sense if one does not own one´s own heartland, Islam must logically seek to defuse its violent face in India and seek amity with its Hindu neighbours. The mindless offer of a Rs 51 crore bounty for the head of unknown Danish cartoonists by a foolish minister in UP does not detract from this argument. But the provocation in the Congress-ruled Hyderabad and the Varanasi blasts which have taken innocent lives is truly disturbing.

If, as the Mulayam Singh Government believes, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is behind the mayhem, and a terrorist killed in Lucknow is a Pakistani, then it follows that orthodox Indian Muslim leaders are distancing themselves from Pakistan, jehadi terrorism, and anti-Hindu misdemeanours. These leaders were quick to condemn the violence. It is, therefore, likely that they will privately command the faithful that jehad in India is a tool of western imperialism and jehadis are mercenaries of an anti-Islam conspiracy. This is, of course, not an act of altruism towards the Hindu community, but because peace in India is imperative for the inevitable conflict in Europe.

Sadly, it appears that forces are working to push Hindus and Muslims into a conflict neither side desires, and political leaders across the spectrum would do well to conduct themselves with caution and decorum. Congress has said it will act maturely, but the opposition BJP has unfortunately created the opposite impression. While the initial spontaneous reaction of party president Rajnath Singh was nuanced and careful, the subsequent hijacking of the issue by leaders who announced bandhs and yatras has created a wrong impression. Actually, bandhs are last century´s weapons and have outlived their utility.

Cannibalism behind avian flu
Controversy
March 12, 2006

Though India was fortunate to escape the catastrophic consequences of mad cow disease two years ago, it is undeniably in the grip of an avian flu epidemic in Maharashtra and possibly Gujarat. We shall be lucky if the crisis does not spread to other parts of the country. As the meat industry sends meat to different parts of the country, besides exporting it, the economic dimensions of the crisis are obvious. Within the country, most states have banned the entry of poultry and poultry products from these two states. Several lakh birds have been culled and buried by meat inspectors and the menace is far from over, with dead birds reported from several countries and a worldwide alert sounded.

But the deeper dimension of the crisis is civilisational, and it would be a mistake to ignore this aspect and treat the subject as a mere health issue best left to meat inspectors. The crisis is the product of a soulless profit-driven ideology called globalisation, which is unashamedly marketing inedible products to dumb animals and innocent human beings alike, with little transparency, much less accountability.

Unacceptable atrocities are being committed upon helpless living animals in the name of efficiency and productivity, the international standards of which are set by the Western world. A powerful propaganda machinery ensures the muzzling of other voices and cultural practices, and the entire international community finds itself hostage to horrendous diseases and consequences. Through all this misery, an agitated poultry farmer pointed out, Western multinationals make money—by selling medicines, vaccines and processed meat.

The Vedic rishis told us that “you are what you eat.” Hence, the food we eat, and the manner in which it is prepared, has always been a matter of concern to civilised families.

India must take a critical look at where the meat industry is erring, and take corrective measures in conformity with her culture and traditional sensitivities. The Vedic rishis told us that “you are what you eat.” Hence, the food we eat, and the manner in which it is prepared, has always been a matter of concern to civilised families.

Unfortunately, pressures of globalisation have let us open ourselves to western influences in the false belief that they can teach us superior skills. The truth is that for several decades, all worldwide epidemics caused by meat and meat products are due to the West´s shameless disrespect for the integrity of non-human creatures, and deceit towards the human consumers of the products of the multi-billion dollar meat industry. This is a vicious industry with no sense of moral propriety, no notion of where to draw the line.

More than a decade ago, author Nick Fiddes noted that barely 10 per cent of British slaughterhouses met European hygienic standards, and that inspectors routinely complained of inadequate sterilisation and ruptured intestines that smeared the meat with faeces. The infections spread by such meat included salmonella, compylobacter, tapeworm, listeria, toxoplasmosis, and chlamydiosis (Meat, A Natural Symbol, Routledge, London, 1991).

Since dead birds have been found in Europe, and American journalists have written about the mad cow problem there two years ago, it is safe to assume that these problems are generic to contemporary Western animal husbandry. Indeed, the finger of suspicion in the Indian avian flu epidemic points to imported bird feed, which seems logical, as we shall see.

In his detailed study of the scandalous practices in UK, Fiddes notes that in 1988 there was a controversy over the levels of salmonella contamination in eggs and chickens. The media discovered that the epidemic was because the meat industry was feeding the carcasses of dead chickens to living chickens as a protein supplement, thus aggravating the infection. In other words, the progressive and secular producers of meat for human consumption had no compunctions in making unwitting carnivores out of herbivorous birds! What mattered was money—bird feed costs, and dead birds are free!

The fact that this could mutate the poor helpless birds into something grotesque for nature or mankind did not cross the minds of the meat industry. All that mattered was that the birds fattened faster; never mind if those eating them got cancer! Despite the public uproar, the situation did not change; the West has since surreptitiously proliferated these disgusting practices all over the world. I am quite sure that the processed “bird meal” imported by India—from whichever country—is responsible for the crisis in Maharashtra.

In 1985, a British television programme showed that sausages and other industrially processed meat contained parts of animals which are normally considered inedible (not eaten by humans and not sold by local butchers who deal in fresh meat). It is pertinent that the Indian meat industry feels that Government´s over-reaction to avian flu and excessive culling of birds was part of a multinational conspiracy to sell processed meat in India by giving the local industry a bad name.

What is pertinent here is that Western Governments have known for more than two decades that their meat industry indulges in unwholesome and unethical practices and makes cannibals out of birds and animals destined for the slaughterhouse, and deceitfully feeds human beings with animal parts that are normally not consumed at all. Thus, while these societies duplicitously screech about transparency, consumer rights, and of course, rant about human rights and child labour in underdeveloped nations, they will go any length to conceal the truth of their own business practices and continue to market the meat of herbivores-turned-carnivores.

Given the sheer spread of these practices, we should be prepared to cope with the sudden rise of a mutant strain that could wreck unexpected havoc on any society in the near future, because the Western meat industry remains to this day protected from public scrutiny by benign governments.

Cartoons as cynical mischief
March 05, 2006

In an article in The Washington Post, Mr Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, has made the breathtaking claim that after the publication of the Prophet Mohammad cartoons in his newspaper on September 30, 2005, there has been a “constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people’s beliefs.” Claiming that several Danish Muslims have participated in a public dialogue through town hall meetings and debates on radio and TV, Mr Rose said the radical imams who “misinformed” their counterparts in the Middle East have been marginalised because moderate Muslims have spoken out against them.

Frankly, this would be credible if The Washington Post had invited such moderate Danish Muslims to write in its pages, especially as the cartoons continue to inflame passions across the Islamic world. Mr Rose admits the newspaper has received threats and the cartoonists are in hiding, but still congratulates himself for testing the “limits of self-censorship” by inviting the cartoonists “to challenge a Muslim taboo” against portraiture of the Prophet.

Mr Rose says he decided to commission the cartoons because of several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by a feeling of intimidation in dealing with Islam. Obviously a dangerous form of visual abuse is being propagated to get a reaction from the Muslim community, and then lambaste it for narrow-minded bigotry.

The actual controversy is said to have begun with a Danish children’s writer (unnamed), who could not find anyone to illustrate a book about the life of Mohammad. It seems the writer had poor imagination; the book could have been illustrated with pictures of well-known mosques, Koranic verses, historical paintings and so on. There was no need to insist on portraying the Prophet, especially in the contemporary volatile atmosphere in the Muslim world. Indeed, this is the reason why the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by avant-garde artist John Latham showing the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. Prior to this, a museum in Sweden removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.

Mr Rose, however, states that having observed these instances fear of Islam, Jyllands-Posten decided to ask Danish cartoonists “to draw Mohammad as you see him.” He defends the cartoons saying Denmark has a tradition of satire which covers the royal family and other public figures, and that Islam was treated at par with Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. In this way, he alleges, he showed Danish Muslims that “we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.”

Few impartial observers can agree that the cartoons do not demonise or stereotype Muslims. Worse, they are not honest enough to link Western arms, training and funding, and the nomadic jehadi groups that are terrorising the civilised world. The complete black-out of the fact that Europe has given asylum to some of the most notorious Islamic terrorists, and that the pigeons have come home to roost, makes the claims of challenging self-censorship ring hollow. European nations that have been cold to India’s pleas against sheltering wanted terrorists should tell us why they expect the world to weep when they weep, but ask us to weep alone.

The Jyllands-Posten insults our intelligence when it tells us the cartoons were not intended to disrespect Islam, for there can have been no other motive once the decision to publish what was drawn by the cartoonists was taken. To claim that forcing a Christian to respect the Islamic taboo on portraiture is incompatible with secular democracy is tantamount to saying that aggressive religions have the right to use vituperative language against other faiths, which must put up with this to prove that they are tolerant. This is a peculiar argument.

Mr Rose points to Western resentment that Christians cannot wear the cross or carry the Bible in Saudi Arabia, while Muslims in secular Denmark have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, television and radio stations. But that does not give Denmark or other European countries the right to publish offensive material about other religions. It is true that Osama bin Laden is offensive, but he is a creature of the West, and Western journalists would do well to introspect on policies that create such monsters. I agree that the Iranian President raises hackles when he says Israel should be removed from the Gulf region, but it is also true that the Holocaust was the handiwork of European Christians, and not of Islamic radicals. Yet Western Christians salvaged their conscience by carving out a Jewish state from Muslim territory, which is unprecedented in the annals of history, and we must find the courage to say this also.

Mr Rose defends the cartoons as legitimate dissent, on the lines of the resistance of Soviet activists and writers like Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Natan Sharansky. The comparison is invalid since the cartoonists were not Muslims operating out of a Muslim country. A genuine Muslim dissenter would be someone like Tasleema Nasreen, who wrote her book, Lajja, on atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh while living in that country, and was then forced into exile. Someone like Salman Rushdie, living in the safety of the West and receiving a huge advance for his diatribe against Islam cannot be called a dissident. If Europe wants to confront its Muslim citizens and make them conform to its socio-cultural and political ethos, and not crave for the Sharia as the UK Muslims do, it will have to be far more honest in its dealings with them. The cartoon controversy suggests that it wants to hide behind subterfuge.

A neo-colonial conspiracy
February 26, 2006

As the LTTE completes a quarter century of armed conflict with the Sri Lankan state, Tamil intellectuals in the island nation are agonising over its pronounced western bias and poor returns to the Hindu community. As Indians largely perceive the LTTE as a Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu organisation, even though former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Christian suicide bomber, it will be instructive to see the reality from Colombo.

It is true that Sri Lanka’s Tamil community got a raw deal from its Buddhist elite after Independence, and this led to the rise of several armed Tamil groups. But through a policy of smartly executed assassinations of key leaders in just a few years, the LTTE ensured that it alone remained on the scene by 1987, when it confronted India under a disastrous engagement that New Delhi undertook at the instance of the United States.

The Indian Army was bogged down in one of the most treacherous engagements of its distinguished career, while the LTTE survived through backroom diplomacy with the Premadasa regime. It later confronted both the Premadasa and Chandrika governments, and won victories at Mullaitivu, Killinochi and Elephant Pass, which augmented its reputation as a fighting force. Today, the LTTE controls almost half the North-East. Yet, its success appears to have cost the Tamil Hindu community, which is beginning to concede that its religious traditions, demography, education and even livelihood, have been seriously undermined by the LTTE.

Hindus comprise almost 85 per cent of Lanka’s Tamil population, and their traditions and culture are being eroded by the LTTE and its profoundly pro-western bias. Few Lankan Hindus are even now willing to speak of the LTTE’s Christian character, though this is now increasingly visible, with the ironical result that Hindus in government-controlled territory are for the first time better off than those living under LTTE domination. Tamil writers note that Hindu temples are being reconstructed and having a vibrant service, with all festivals celebrated with great fervour in areas like Jaffna, Vavuniya and Batticaloa. But this is not true of the LTTE-controlled districts.

On the contrary, the LTTE is taking Hindu dharma out of the public arena. The important Tamil festival of Navaratri is accorded great respect in the government-held territory. Last year, the Buddhist Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Lokubandara, led the celebrations, which were attended by Sinhalese, Tamils and even Muslim MPs of various political parties. The JVP participated with enthusiasm, but the pro-LTTE TNA kept away from this major Hindu event in the nation’s Parliament. LTTE’s undeniable European tilt is becoming a matter of comment in Tamil circles. It is pointed out that the LTTE refused to negotiate with the Lankan government in Japan or Thailand; Prabhakaran boycotted the Tokyo conference. He is also anti-India. Instead, he preferred to talk only in Norway or Switzerland, countries with little understanding of Lanka. Political analysts say the LTTE ideology sidelines the indigenous religious traditions of the Lankan people as a whole. The organisation is anti-Buddhist, anti-Muslim, anti-Indian and anti-Asian, and has no Hindu sympathies either. It crushed the Batticaloa-based cadre that resulted in Karuna’s revolt in 2004. The LTTE has in fact been described as “a neo-colonial fifth column” in the Midweek Review Island Newspaper, because it seeks to denude Tamil nationalism of its Hindu roots and is too close to Christian missionaries. This is also why the Tamil movement has become internationally isolated. Tamils have suffered in other ways as well. They once led the country in education, but now LTTE’s politicisation of universities has led to the prolonged closure of the Jaffna and Eastern Universities. At the same time, the Muslim-dominated South-Eastern University is developing fast and producing good students and high quality research. Worse, when paramilitary groups allegedly killed the pro-LTTE principal of Kopay Hindu College, the organisation hit back by murdering the distinguished principal of Jaffna Central College, who opposed child conscription. He was killed when going to join Navaratri festivities organised by students. LTTE supremo Prabhakaran designated the pro-LTTE principal as Mamanithar, but the majority of Jaffna’s inhabitants preferred to mourn for the principal of Jaffna Central College. Tamil Hindus have been the worst sufferer of the LTTE’s human rights record. According to government sources, the LTTE murdered 562 people since the ceasefire of 2002, which include 388 Tamil and Muslim civilians. There were 117 attempted murders and 620 reports of kidnapping. It murdered several Hindu priests in recent years, thus violating the spirit of the ceasefire. Finally, the LTTE prevented 500,000 Tamils from exercising their democratic franchise in 2005; it forcibly evicted 350,000 Tamils from their homes in the Jaffna peninsula in 1995; and it systematically murdered independent-minded Tamil Hindu intellectuals. Democracy cannot thrive under the shadow of the sword. This bodes ill for the forthcoming elections in the North-East.

Husain slur on Bharat Mata
February 19, 2006

In its second secular overture to Hindu opinion after the CPM MP, Brinda Karat publicly targeted Ayurveda and yoga guru, Swami Ramdev, the Maharashtra coalition has booked the controversial artist, M.F. Husain, for hurting the sentiments of the people. The NCP action comes in the wake of pressure from activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who managed to get Maharashtra Governor S.M. Krishna to back out of a function on February 2, 2006, where he was slated to be chief guest, in which Husain was to be honoured for his oeuvre. Though the organisers hastily dis-invited the artist in a bid to salvage the function, the Governor refused to change his mind, resulting in its cancellation.

Now, in the wake of pressure from the Hindus over Husain’s continued offensive against Hindu goddesses, an art gallery in Mumbai has withdrawn a picture depicting a nude Bharat Mata. The picture was put up for auction for victims of the Kashmir earthquake. The auction organiser and the Hindu-baiter Nafisa Ali said the controversy was because the Shiv Sena had no other issues, the gallery owner said that devoted Hindus had expressed anguish over the picture. Husain later apologised and claimed that he had withdrawn the picture himself.

NCP has realised that it may be politically remunerative to honour the Hindu sentiments on issues that can excite and mobilise people. Maharashtra deputy chief minister and home minister R.R. Patil ordered that a case should be registered against the painter. The BJP state unit president, Nitin Gadkari has supported the demand for Husain’s arrest.

There are a number of lessons to be learnt from these two episodes. The first is that if the Hindus take the trouble to raise their voices against all deliberate insults to the community, they will be heard. What is more, the political class will act with greater alacrity against issues of cultural assault against the Hindus. This was noticed in the case of the widespread and spontaneous public anger when the popular Swami Ramdev was targetted by the CPM; the Party was forced to beat a retreat as politicians across party lines did not dare incur the wrath of the majority of their constituents by siding with the communists.

Muslims must condemn Husain

The second is the sheer hypocrisy of so-called secular Muslim intellectuals, who routinely gang up against the Hindu community on a number of issues, but do not dare or care to speak up against Husain’s deliberate act of religious disrespect to the Hindus. Yet in a refreshing contrast, believing Muslims like actor Farooq Sheikh and AIMPLB member Kamal Faruqi condemned the nude Saraswati saying that Saraswati was never depicted nude and that the picture shocked even Muslims, so it certainly offended Hindu sentiments. Sheikh said artists have no license to trample over people’s sentiments in the name of creativity. They were reacting to worldwide Muslim anger over the blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammad, published in several European newspapers, at a programme on NDTV. It is to be hoped that their attitude will have a salutary effect upon Husain’s proclivity to repeatedly show Hindu goddesses in demeaning postures.

Indeed, orthodox and sensitive Muslims should come forward and negotiate the thin line between tolerance and dissent on the issue of portraiture by fellow Muslims. Islam, like Judaism, forbids portraiture, and Muslims do not make portraits of the Prophet or Allah at all. This is theoretically true of Christianity as well, and Christians do not draw portraits of God, the Father, or the Holy Spirit. However, in order to extend its appeal among the people, Christianity compromised early in its innings, and idols of Christ and his mother, Mary, are an established part of Christian reliquary. The Jews tolerated some amount of Christian depiction of their Prophets.

Some Indian writers have claimed that in previous centuries when Islam had powerful empires, Turk rulers patronized art forms regarding the Prophet that would be considered blasphemous today. I have no personal knowledge on this score, but it is true that the Mughal Emperors encouraged portraits of themselves and their royal consorts. In the contemporary world, Muslim despots like Saddam Hussain have revelled in erecting huge statues of themselves, while Muslims keep photographs of popular leaders like Yasser Arafat, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and so on. To that extent, Islam has compromised on the issue of drawing the human likeness.

In this context, Muslims must decide what is tolerable and what is unacceptable, to themselves and to others. They have called upon Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to condemn the caricatures of Prophet Mohammad in some European countries, and to recall the envoy to Denmark. Now they must make up for a two-decade long silence on the offensive portraitures by co-religionist M.F. Husain. Former MP, Prafull Goradia has meticulously documented (Anti Hindus, Contemporary Targett, 2003) how Husain always paints figures from monotheistic traditions with respect (e.g. Mother Teresa) and almost always singles out the Hindus for demeaning portraitures of Durga, Saraswati and Sita. Secular Muslim intellectuals are far too bigoted to care for the Hindu sensitivities, but sensible and pious Muslims are beginning to understand and empathize with the Hindu sense of outrage. They must make themselves heard. There is no such thing as the freedom to offend.
BJP demands Husain’s arrest
M.F. Husain’s depiction of Hindu deities in the nude is an “insult to the nation”, the BJP said and demanded the painter be immediately arrested and prosecuted for creating “disaffection” among the communities.

“Being a good Muslim, Husain should know the worldwide reaction over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper. He too should refrain from repeatedly hurting the sentiments of the Hindus,” said the BJP General Secretary, Vinay Katiyar.

Accusing Husain of insulting the Hindus and the nation by portraying deities and Bharat Mata in the nude, Katiyar demanded the painter be immediately arrested and prosecuted.

“He has created disaffection among religious communities and therefore should be put behind the bars and prosecuted.

Otherwise, we will be forced to protest in our own way,” he added.

Husain, however, apologised for his controversial depiction of Bharat Mata after protests by the Hindu organisations.

Though the painting was sold it was withdrawn from an auction that was going to be held in Delhi.

Clamour for Rahul exposes the waning Sonia spell
February 05, 2006

Rahul Gandhi’s de facto anointment at the Hyderabad plenary session of the Congress, under the watchful eyes of his mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, sent political and media acolytes into the throes of a self-induced hysteria and hyperbole. Even though the truth is that the scandal involving the surreptitious de-freezing of Ottavio Quattrocchi’s London bank accounts, which contained Rs. 21 crore of Bofors payoff money, forced Sonia Gandhi to postpone bringing Rahul Gandhi into the Congress Working Committee, senior party leaders and media mandarins behaved as if his “reluctance” to assume a formal position in the party was the last word in self-abnegation.

One has only to recall his informal interview with Tehelka last year, where he bragged that he could have become prime minister at the age of 25, to realise that his humility is borne out of necessity. The parallel that comes to mind is of Sonia Gandhi who falsely claimed the support of 272 MPs to President K.R. Narayanan finally staking her claim before President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, only to be told she could not be sworn in, and cloaking her humiliation in dramatic renunciation.

Rahul’s supposedly off-beat speech reflects the yawning chasm between Congress’ top leadership and the people of India, which is the reason for the party’s dwindling fortunes in state after state. The demeaning drama that preceded Rahul’s speech failed to disguise the reality that the Congress’ future leader is a youth without vision, without passion for India, and without any knowledge about Indian society and its grand civilisational ethos. He is in politics because his family background ensures him a seat in Parliament.

To his credit, Rahul is canny enough to realise that he cannot shoulder the burden of the party’s expectations alone, since he does not empathise with the Indian people, and hence he cannot emerge as a significant vote-catcher, on the lines of Indira Gandhi. This is equally true of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and that is why Congress performs poorly in states where it lacks credible local leaders. That is why Rahul has called for rebuilding the party leadership in states where Congress is weak, which encompasses most of north India.

Rahul Gandhi is wise not to blame communal and religion-based parties for the decline of the Congress, as this will only alienate the sections of society that vote for these parties and whom Congress is trying to woo. Besides, as Congress in the guise of the UPA is only pursuing communal and religion-based politics, which is excessively biased towards the minorities, the party should introspect why it still fails to impress voters. Thus, while Rahul may be right that Congress has the largest number of young leaders, the sad fact is that most of these so-called leaders are merely, like him, the scions of political families, who have “inherited” the family seat. They are Babalog, not innovative and energetic youth who will take the country forward in any area.

Indeed, their disconnect with the people of India was powerfully underlined by Rahul when he made his appeal to the youth leaders: “Let us move into a battlefield, the heart of India. Let us go to the villages, and the towns and the cities. Let us go to universities and schools. Let us move away from the corridors of power. Let us cement the links with our people. Let us listen to wisdom of our great people. Let us understand their concerns and their aspirations. Let us become leaders by listening and by learning and by working rather than through post and positions.” Biased media bards have gone into raptures over this speech, yet this is precisely, to my mind, the segment that best betrays the complete alienation of Congress’ city-bred MPs with India that breathes outside the large megapolises. Rahul has let the cat out of the bag— Congress has no grassroots youth leaders at all!

As for the Congress ideology, I wish we could know what it is, other than minority appeasement and fostering of divisive tendencies in the larger Hindu community. The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wrote a piffling verse in memory of Bahadur Shah Zafar when he visited Rangoon, but his horrible gaffe came when he allowed a scriptwriter from Mumbai to make him mouth the infamous nani yaad dila denge for Pakistani President Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.

Rahul’s scriptwriter has asked him to tell his slavish audience that his religion was the Indian flag. This is simply dishonest. Given the Congress penchant, especially under the UPA regime, to exploit religion for electoral purposes; given the Roman Catholic background of his mother Sonia and the fact that his sister has married into a Christian family; and his own foreigner girlfriend having a Catholic background, Rahul should not have dissimulated about his religion after himself raising the issue.

But having raised the issue, he owes the nation the truth. He has to tell us whether or not he roots himself in the ancient dharma of India, respects its civilisational ethos and feels duty bound to uphold and protect it, or whether he feels that missionaries have the right to freely enter the country, demean its native traditions, and undertake conversions by any means. Since many western countries consider conversions an instrument of foreign policy and have huge budgets reserved for evangelical activities, which impinge upon India’s national sovereignty in sensitive regions like the north-east. The Congress party’s heir apparent should have used to first opportunity to clarify his position on conversion to foreign faiths, funded and monitored by foreign governments.

Uniform personal law to define nationhood
January 29, 2006

In the current atmosphere of unsolicited appeasement of the Muslim community by the ruling UPA, it seems futile to advocate a uniform civil code. Yet the time is propitious as a small village in Greater NOIDA has stood up for a motherless child. Its decision contrasts with the attitude of the ulema who in September 2004 made a sick young woman leave the husband she loved, and meets contemporary society’s notions of justice and fair play.

To recapitulate, in 1999, young Gudiya was married to Army jawan Arif, and ten days later he left for the Kargil war; she never saw him again. When the army declared him presumed dead, Gudiya was married five years later to her cousin, Taufeeq. She was eight months pregnant with his child when Arif suddenly returned from a Pakistani jail. Amidst reports of financial demands by Gudiya’s father, Arif refused to divorce her (their marriage was legally valid) and demanded she return to him. He also expressed reluctance to take responsibility for her child, an attitude that caused widespread social revulsion.

Gudiya expressed herself in favour of remaining with the second family, where she was happy. But the Muslim religious leadership decided to make her a showcase for the supremacy of the Shariat, and in a very one-sided and male-dominated televised panchayat on a well-known channel, the visibly unhappy young woman, who was then running a high fever and suffering high blood pressure, was forced to return to Arif. All secular, reformist and visible faces of the Muslim community left the poor girl to her fate.

Fourteen months later, Gudiya died a prolonged and painful death of multiple organ failure on 2 January 2006, as a result of septecaemia and other complications following a stillborn delivery last year. Despite muted media coverage, news of her death shocked many, and there was outrage when Arif went around giving press statements that he would adopt her child from Taufeeq. Many felt Gudiya would not have died if she could have lived with Taufeeq, as there would have been no immediate second pregnancy. There was also a feeling that if Arif invoked the Shariat to take back his unwilling wife, he could not infringe the rights of the biological father.

This is therefore the best time for the government to push ahead on the issue of a uniform civil code, to cater to the legitimate needs of citizens caught in a cusp between their traditional roots and a changing world.

These sentiments seemed to have weighed with Gudiya’s Kalaunda village, which has stepped forward to ensure the best interests of her infant son, Mateen. Keeping in mind the fact that both Arif and Taufeeq are young men who may marry again and have families, the panchayat has given Gudiya’s father, Imamuddin, custody of the child till he is eighteen years old. Taufeeq, the biological father, has been given guardianship rights, with the proviso that he deposit Rs. 30,000 and transfer half his property in the name of the child. The decision has been recorded on stamp paper and signed by Arif, Taufeeq, Imamuddin, and panchayat leaders Akhtar and Rajiv Sharma.

It is difficult to imagine a more just settlement, and the fact that it has arisen out of the collective wisdom of a village community shows how traditional India works when left unmolested by sensation-seeking activists and self-appointed leaders. It shows how castes and communities in India quietly cooperate to give life meaning and harmony.

The issue of Mateen’s custody shows that Muslim communities at village level are not so hidebound about adherence to a literalist interpretation of their personal laws, as is often claimed. Nor are they incapable of innovation, if spared the intrusive presence of regressive maulvis, who make their living out of terrorizing the community to fall in line with their diktat on any issue.

I believe the Gudiya tragedy has privately spurred the Muslim community to undertake a more flexible approach to its personal laws and their interpretation in a modern world. This is therefore the best time for the government to push ahead on the issue of a uniform civil code, to cater to the legitimate needs of citizens caught in a cusp between their traditional roots and a changing world. A uniform civil code would have helped Gudiya to live with the man she loved.

A uniform civil code did not require community-based approval, any more than the other provisions of the Constitution. The sole purpose of a Muslim personal law was to achieve a political goal.

Close on the heels of the Gudiya case, 25-year-old Imrana was allegedly raped by her father-in-law. When the crime became known, the caste panchayat declared her marriage dissolved and asked her to marry the alleged rapist; she was directed to treat the father of her five children as a ‘son.’ The Deoband Darul Uloom upheld the Ansari caste decision, but later denied issuing a fatwa after the matter became political with the Bharatiya Janata Party and CPI (M) condemning the judgment. This indicates that even Deoband concedes that evolving sensibilities have to be accommodated.

The Imrana case led to numerous cases of incestuous rape being reported in many parts of the country, alongside regressive judgments by local maulvis. It created awareness that Muslim women need more agency in their lives. There is a feeling that the then dominant national leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, denied Muslims equal citizenship in free India by cynically refusing to weld a tortured society into a harmonious whole, and perpetuated communal separatism to serve his votebank politics.

The Constituent Assembly shelved the uniform civil code through a subterfuge called Article 44 of the Directive Principles. A uniform civil code did not require community-based approval, any more than the other provisions of the constitution. The sole purpose of a Muslim personal law was to achieve a political goal. The nation was told that a separate civil law for Muslims did not discriminate against Hindus.

But the issue was that the personal law gave the ulema disproportionate power over the community and oppressed ordinary Muslims. The Muslim sense of being backward and disadvantaged in independent India has its genesis in this abandonment by the secular state, even though Muslims are not aware of this deeper reality. If the community realizes that its best interests are served in a uniform civil code, then a nation-wide exercise could be undertaken to revise and improve the UCC by extending positive aspects from the Islamic tradition to other groups. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee pointed out during a parliamentary debate in 1998 that the Islamic practice of taking a woman’s consent at the time of marriage greatly appealed to him; others have appreciated the woman’s right to seek annulment of an unhappy marriage.

UPA has a divisive agenda
To dole out plan funds on religious demography
January 22, 2006

Regardless of whether or not there is a consensus within the ruling UPA about reservations for Muslims on the basis of religion, Union Minister for Human Resources Development will certainly push through an ordinance on the issue, because few in the present regime will have the foresight or courage to resist its dangerous implications. Assuming therefore, that the ordinance is a virtual fait accompli, it may be fruitful to debate the possible grounds upon which reservations should be granted.

The issue has become more pressing since the government recently pushed through a bill in the winter session of Parliament, extending SC, ST and OBC reservations to all educational institutions, including private schools, but excluding the minority institutions. Given the fact that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi belongs to a religion in which both education and conversion are highly profitable industries, this raises questions why minority institutions were singled out for the exemption.

As if this were not bad enough, the government showed poor grace when a division bench of the Allahabad High Court upheld the judgment that the Aligarh Muslim University is not a minority institution as it was created by an Act of Parliament, and hence it could not reserve 50 per cent of its seats for Muslim students. The Congress is similarly determined to subvert the Andhra High Court decision striking down five per cent reservations for Muslims in state employment.

Now, a special ordinance, followed by a special legislation, is being mooted to give reservation benefits to Muslims in educational institutions. We do not yet know what shape this will take, but as it is on the anvil, it may be appropriate to initiate a larger debate on the objectives and ethics of reservations, especially as the reservation cake is getting progressively larger with every passing year.

It is certain that the UPA is determined to press ahead with reservations on the basis of religion to secure an assured vote-bank. Since Congress had mooted reservations in both education and jobs, it is only a matter of time before it extends them to Parliament and the State Legislatures. Anyone with half a sense of history can see that we could be fast moving down the road to another major secession, as in 1947, especially in the wake of systematically altered religious demography in sensitive border regions contiguous to the breakaway portions in the east and the west.

If the Congress is determined to grant reservations to minorities on grounds of religion, a beginning must be made by undoing all reservations granted to Muslims so far on the basis of caste. They cannot have it both ways.

It needs to be emphasised that since reservations are being offered only on the basis of religion, it is obvious that the objective is to ensure the Muslims do not integrate into the national mainstream, but retain a sharp sense of difference with all other groups, especially the Hindu majority. Further, since the Muslim community is overwhelmingly based on conversions under the rule of various Islamic rulers over several centuries, and later allurements of petro-dollars, responsibility for the poor educational achievements of Muslims in independent India, and hence their low representation in public services, cannot be laid at the door of India’s majority population. Rather, Muslim converts should be made to face the fact that conversion gave them few benefits even under Muslim rule, and denied them community with the larger nation after independence.

This argument applies equally to Christian converts, who are trying to organise themselves to secure reservations at the cost of poor Hindus, rather than challenge the rich church institutions for justice and compensation.

My point is that if political power and wealth by Muslim and Christian rulers respectively could not help the Muslim and Christian populations of this country to develop into an economic or educational elite (as happened with the Parsis, and other Hindu groups, by dint of their own merit), there is no legitimate reason to believe that mere institutional reservations will now produce these results. Instead, standards will be lowered and the cutting edge of excellence created for this country by the sheer hard work of middle-class India all over the globe, will be lost. In its place we will have a Muslim community with a heightened sense of communal consciousness, which will harbour resentment against the larger society for its own inability to promote excellence.

It bears stating that world-class Muslim intellectuals, such as the late Prof. Mahbub-ul-Haq, the famous Pakistani economist, and India’s IT millionaire Azim Premji, could not have risen out of a reservation regime. Reservations are therefore a retrograde measure; all that Muslims (as indeed all citizens without discrimination) really need are schools that truly function, within a decent walking distance. Literacy creates its own empowerment; there are enough professional and vocational educational institutions and commensurate employment opportunities in the country today, and the job sector is only getting wider.

At the same time, if the Congress is determined to grant reservations to minorities on grounds of religion, a beginning must be made by undoing all reservations granted to Muslims so far on the basis of caste. They cannot have it both ways. Moreover, the denial of reservation benefits to Hindus on religious grounds must be perceived as a matter of political discrimination on grounds of religion, and challenged constitutionally. If Congress is going to unilaterally override the constitutional consensus against reservations on religious lines, Hindus must make sure that they are not left behind in the race. We must not accept Congress decisions breaking up the Hindu community into castes from which Congress hopes to derive political advantage. We must claim 85 per cent reservations in education and employment; this can be divided to cater to both merit and poverty.

Hindus must not be left behind in the current religious competition. Rather than sit and hope that this menace will go away on its own, we must take the bull by the horns and ensure that the nation’s principle religion gets its legitimate dues. Simultaneously we must demand—by recourse to the courts if necessary—a public audit of all minority institutions that have received funds from abroad, to gauge the extent to which they have indulged in conversion activities in this country, and expose the manner in which the converts have been left to fend for themselves after conversion. No reservations must be permitted without this auditing of the conversion industry, the minority education industry, and the historical relationship between conversion and secession. If Congress is hell-bent upon reservation politics, Hindus must show that two can play the game.

Ulema changes tune on beef-eating
Column
January 15, 2006

In a surprise development for the Hindu community, the famous Deoband Darul Uloom has asked Muslims nationwide to avoid slaughtering cows on the occasion of the forthcoming Id-ul-Zuha on January 11, out of respect for Hindu sentiments. The measure is fraught with significant possibilities for inter-community relations, but even more importantly, contains the seeds for progress and change for the Muslim community itself.

The Islamic seminary has been at the centre of unseemly controversy for the past two years. In September 2004, a cross-section of the Islamic clergy virtually ganged up to browbeat a young Muslim girl, who had remarried in the belief that her husband was dead and was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, to return to her first husband who unexpectedly returned from a Pakistani jail. Owing to the media interest in the story, it was widely known that Gudiya wanted to stay with second husband Taufeeq, who was also the father of her child. The ulema should have facilitated a discreet divorce with Arif, but contrary to all norms of human decency, they chose a highly public route to bulldoze the young, sick and vulnerable girl to leave the father of her child. The result is that barely 18 months later, young Gudiya is dead after a prolonged illness that must have some relationship with her psychological condition; her infant is motherless.

Deoband came briefly into the limelight once again in 2005, when Imrana, wife of a rickshaw-puller in UP, was allegedly raped by her father-in-law. When the local Ansari community learnt of the rape, the panchayat declared that Imrana stood automatically divorced from her husband and father of her five children; they directed her to marry her father-in-law and treat her husband as her son. The decision caused widespread outrage in the country, but Deoband gave a fatwa upholding the Ansari panchayat decision, until a national uproar forced it to backtrack by claiming that no fatwa had been issued in the matter.

Now, like a breath of fresh air, Deoband has brought out a book on the concept of qurbani (sacrifice) associated with ‘Bakr Id,’ and specifically suggested that the Muslim community avoid slaughtering cows during the festival as a mark of “respect for the feelings of Hindus.” This not only marks a welcome departure from its hitherto orthodox and regressive decision-making process, but indicates the seminary’s ability to be flexible and innovative in matters of faith, should it only wish to be so. Political parties that kow-tow to Muslim orthodoxy in the false belief that the community cannot be reformed without seriously compromising its religious identity, would do well to ponder the deeper significance of this little-noticed but profound gesture from Deoband.

The fatwa argues that the Hindu demand for stopping the killing of cows is just their insistence. It informs Muslims that where cow slaughter is banned by law (in Hindu-ruled areas), the responsibility for social disturbances would fall upon Muslims, and hence they should refrain from this activity (which indicates that it is optional and not mandatory). However, wherever there is no prohibition, Hindus will be held responsible for the social unrest.

Hindu leaders should in fact demand that henceforth this be an article of faith for the Muslim community, and not be treated as an issue of blackmail, as in the past. It is well known that during the Khilafat agitation, some Muslim leaders offered not to slaughter cows as a gesture of goodwill to the Hindus, and it is equally well known that Muslim leaders have felt free to exhort the community to slaughter cows whenever they wished to agitate the majority community.

In The World of Fatwas, Mr. Arun Shourie cites the Fatwa-i-Rizvia, which claims, “We have set the sacrifice of the cow and the camel among the marks of the Din of Allah.” The fatwa quotes several ulema to the effect that slaughtering cows is essential and a long-standing practice of Islam, and if Hindus object to the killing of cows on “communal grounds,” then it is not right for Muslims to refrain from killing cows. This fatwa in fact decrees that on every occasion Muslims should keep up what has been prevalent in Islam for so long. If they stop it, they shall be sinners.

The Fatawa-i-Rizvia points that if someone restrains Muslims from sacrificing a cow, it becomes obligatory to sacrifice it, because Muslims cannot give up their religious work under duress. It argues that those who advocate the contrary to please the polytheists (that is, Hindus) are out to undermine Islam; they are great sinners and enemies of Islam, who, according to the Koran, shall be consigned to Hell forever.

The fatwa argues that the Hindu demand for stopping the killing of cows is just their insistence. It informs Muslims that where cow slaughter is banned by law (in Hindu-ruled areas), the responsibility for social disturbances would fall upon Muslims, and hence they should refrain from this activity (which indicates that it is optional and not mandatory). However, wherever there is no prohibition, Hindus will be held responsible for the social unrest. Indeed, it goes so far as to argue that in Hindustan, cow slaughter is an act that greatly glorifies Islam: “By our fatwas we have proven that here the sacrifice of cows is proper and to abandon it out of regard for Hindus is improper.”

Now, this act of consideration for Hindus, this attempt to promote communal amity, once denounced as “qatai haram” (completely prohibited) is being propagated suo moto by Deoband. Whatever the political calculations behind the measure, it is nonetheless welcome as a step forward in the move towards a national ban on cow slaughter. Religious leaders from both communities should step forward and seal this as an immutable pact which cannot be undone whenever Muslims feel less pressured by the international vigilance against their community.

Skull skulduggery
January 08, 2006

The Union Home Secretary’s directive to the Gujarat government to furnish details about the discovery of a so-called mass grave of post-Godhra victims at Lunavada in the Panchmahals, district is an unwarranted intrusion in the powers of the state government and a tacit encouragement to the scandalously adventurist postures of certain NGO activists. Press reports suggest that the activists and the Centre are keen to link the skeletons to the Bilkis Bano rape case, so that the CBI can step in, even though a CBI team that visited the spot clarified that the site of the mass grave is a good 100 km away from the place where Bano was raped.

It is shocking that visibly biased activists like Ms. Teesta Setalvad of Citizens for Justice and Peace is moving around the state with the relatives of the 2002 riot victims, digging up various sites in search of the bodies of supposedly missing victims, with little regard for the sheer illegality of this action. This “private” initiative, which unearthed skeletons on the banks of the Panam river, led the exultant activists to go to town with their “discovery” and to file a writ petition in the Gujarat High Court.

In this connection, the Panchmahals district collector D.H. Brahmbhatt has done well to clarify that far from being a secret, the 20 bodies dug up by the relatives of riot victims were known to the administration and had been officially exhumed in October 2002. Eight bodies had been identified and handed over to relatives, and the unclaimed ones buried again (The Indian Express, December 29, 2005). Hence, there were no pending claims for bodies of riot victims with the police or administration.

A police officer has revealed that the bodies exhumed by riot victims and Setalvad’s NGO, with legal authority, were all buried with due legal procedure. The bodies had apparently been found in several villages, and as the minority community had abandoned these places, the police conducted post-mortems and gave the bodies to the Lunavada Nagarpalika, which buried them in accordance with Islamic rites. The fact that panchnamas of the burials were duly recorded shows that there was nothing clandestine about the burials, and the Gujarat High Court needs to question Ms. Setalvad about her unauthorised handling of dead bodies of riot victims.

This kind of unwarranted private activism with material evidence in legal cases, cocking a snook at the due process of law and law-enforcing agencies, could, if unchecked, lead to a situation in which motivated groups create and plant evidence with impunity. If justice is to be done in this country, it must also be seen to be done. As of now, what seems to be happening is a masterminding and brow-beating of the judicial process to secure a particular kind of verdict.

One has only to recollect how the Zahira Sheikh case was transferred to Mumbai on the basis of unsigned affidavits and a high-decibel media campaign, to realise the dangers of uncontrolled and agenda-driven activism. Already a man booked for bootlegging in 2004 has claimed that as a relative of a riot victim, he is being threatened by the police. While this may or may not be true, it is obvious that multiple agendas have come into play and need to be untangled.

NGOs: Who pays the piper?
January 08, 2006

The alacrity with which Russia has cracked down on non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funds has valuable lessons for India, where ideologically-driven NGOs use not only foreign but also Indian public funds to pursue a divisive non-national agenda. Many of these groups owe their high public profile less to grassroots activity in India than to their hectic lobbying on Capitol Hill. Given the fact that the funding of religious and supposedly secular NGOs is a major foreign policy instrument of Western nations, especially America, and more often than not these bodies work to embarrass the Indian State in international fora, New Delhi might do well to emulate the Russian example.

On December 23, 2005, the Russian Duma established the Federal Registration Service to oversee the registration, financing, and activities of Russian and foreign public organisations and foundations. The Kremlin was forced to ban any Russian organisation indulging in political activities for receiving foreign funds after Western-funded NGOs stage-managed the “rose revolution” in Georgia; the “orange revolution” in Ukraine, and the “tulip revolution” in Kyrgyzstan, all of which were aimed at diminishing Moscow’s influence in the erstwhile Soviet republics. The new law empowers the Kremlin to shut down NGOs indulging in activity that threatens the nation’s “sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, national unity and originality, cultural heritage and national interests”.

These wide-ranging powers have been necessitated by the fact that as many as 450,000 NGOs operate in Russia, a sizeable number of which receive foreign grants and donations. Recently, the American Congress allocated a princely sum of

US $ 85 million for just the year 2006, to support democracy in Russia (whatever that means, given that Mr. Putin is an elected leader). Anyone can see that what is intended is a major subversion of the Russian state. President Putin has rightly taken a dim view of American interference in the internal affairs of his country, and the thinly-veiled attempt to destabilise his regime.

Given the growing propensity to bank upon NGOs for all developmental activity, there is need for a national audit on their functioning and accountability. In the light of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s famous 15 paise anecdote, we need to know how much money reaches the poor via the NGO network, as opposed to governmental institutions-the results might just surprise us.

It bears pointing out that wherever America, as leader of the Western world, has promoted democracy (so-called), the regimes thus spawned have proved unequal, if not outright subservient, to it. Somehow they can never mount a challenge to US hegemony, be it economic giants like Germany and Japan, or clients like the Philippines, Afghanistan or Egypt-all of which have elected governments. At the same time, given the high comfort levels Washington enjoys with dictatorial or non-democratic regimes like those of Pakistan, Iran under the Shah, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, it bears emphasising that its concern for freedom and democracy in Russia is a sham.

Moscow has thus done well to point out that while the new law fills a necessary legal lacuna which allowed foreign organisations to operate in Russia without regulation, it is still much less restrictive than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda. FARA provides jail terms of up to 10 years for anyone acting as a foreign agent without intimating the Attorney General; while the Russian legislation has no such criminal penalties, and basically aims only at creating a national database of foreign agents on its soil. This is unexceptionable.

What is truly laudable, however, is President Putin’s tit-for-tat policy under which he has allocated $7.4 million to promote democracy in the ex-Soviet republics, to counter Washington’s influence. Kremlin is also planning to set up a Washington-based think tank to counter the distorted perceptions of Russia in America. India has much to learn in this department; as of today there is not a single think-tank in India that does not receive foreign funding, and this certainly impacts upon the nature of their investigations and reports. I do not know of a single independent study on the role played by foreign monies in evangelisation and subversive activities in the north-east, for instance. The role played by foreign money in providing logistical support to jehadi terrorists in India is similarly unexplored.

In contrast to Putin’s belligerent confrontation of foreign-funded NGOs, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who controls the UPA government via the National Advisory Council (NAC) of which she is chairperson, has virtually placed all her eggs in the NGO basket. Since most of the successful NGOs in India are run by Leftists or missionaries, and both groups are adept at attracting funds from the public exchequer and foreign embassies, this raises serious questions about the private agenda Ms. Gandhi may be pursuing through the richly funded NGO network in the country.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme, which even Finance Ministry bureaucrats perceive as a gravy train for the cadres of the Leftist parties, was literally rammed down the nation’s throat because of the Congress president’s commitment to this half-baked scheme. Given the bitter experience with the food-for-work and other rural schemes, there was little justice in deliberately extending the scope of official “leaks” in welfare schemes; yet this was done to keep the communist parties and the NGO-politician-bureaucrat nexus happy. Given the growing propensity to bank upon NGOs for all developmental activity, there is need for a national audit on their functioning and accountability. In the light of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi’s famous 15 paise anecdote, we need to know how much money reaches the poor via the NGO network, as opposed to governmental institutions-the results might just surprise us.

Schemes like the NREG will only create pockets of affluence based on ill-gained wealth that will aggravate tensions in the rural countryside, where debt-ridden farmers are committing suicide. It is inconceivable that Ms. Gandhi does not realise the pitfalls of this route to rural regeneration. Hence, the reasons for her adamant commitment to NGOs instead of institutional mechanisms of delivery must be found elsewhere.

An obvious answer is the increasingly belligerent evangelical offensive in large parts of the country, particularly the four southern states, the tribal belt of middle India, and the entire northeast. It is well known that the Church is behind the secessionist movements in the north-east, and its unhindered activities have long-term implications for India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The fact that Ms. Gandhi is non-Indian by birth while Mr. Putin is an ethnic Russian probably explains the difference in their approach towards countering the menace posed by foreign funding of non-accountable NGOs.

Arjun's communal taint on education
UPA clogs all national initiatives
An obnoxious Bill that subverts every canon of secularism and equality
January 01, 2006

A new communal fault line has been added to the body politic, vide the 104th Constitution Amendment Bill which provides reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in unaided private educational institutions, including schools, but excludes minority institutions from its ambit.

The legislation is fraught with dangers for the homogeneity and integrity of Indian society as a whole, and should never have been passed in such haste. It bears noting that the Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition demanding inclusion of Dalit Christians among Scheduled Castes for reservation benefits. Dalit Muslims have also been making allegations of discrimination against their upper caste brethren (mostly invaders who intermarried with upper caste Hindus).

Given the undeniable fact that most Christians and Muslims are converts from the SC and ST communities, the exclusion of minority institutions from the Bill is bad in law and bad in intent.

Now, the UPA has successfully piloted the most communally divisive legislation the country has seen so far. It identifies institutions of the Hindu majority for divisive intrusion and privileges by the money-spinning minority institutions.

World-wide, both Christianity and Islam have discriminated against low caste converts, reneging blithely on promises of social equality and economic upliftment. It is this, rather than active or passive discrimination by the secular Indian State, that has resulted in the poor educational status of their adherents. Various Christian denominations mint money by providing school, college and professional education to rich and middle class Hindu children; vigorously evangelize amongst the poor, but deny them true empowerment that comes from education. There can be simply no excuse for low literacy and poor educational opportunities for children of Christian converts, as the Church as a whole is a major stakeholder in the education industry.

Given the undeniable fact that most Christians and Muslims are converts from the SC and ST communities, the exclusion of minority institutions from the Bill is bad in law and bad in intent.

Islam has fewer elite educational institutions, but it is noteworthy that the Aligarh Muslim University has reserved the majority of its seats for Muslims on the basis of all-India merit competition. A minority institution that does not dedicate itself to uplifting its own community does not deserve the status of a minority institution, and must be recognised instead as a minority-managed institution of profit.

There is no denying the political disquiet caused by the Bill, which resulted in massive abstentions from Parliament, despite most parties issuing whips to ensure the mandatory two-third majority (only 381 out of 522 Members were present). It is being realised across party lines that non-inclusion of minority institutions could prove counter-productive; Left parties have suggested that admissions and fees be monitored in these institutions. HRD Minister Arjun Singh however played to his minority constituency to the hilt, and promised further legislation to bring OBCs under the reservation umbrella.

The UPA has successfully piloted the most communally divisive legislation the country has seen so far. It identifies institutions of the Hindu majority for divisive intrusion.

Shri Singh had no credible explanation for sneaking in the clause barring minority institutions from the purview of the Bill; however, the religious denomination of the UPA Chairperson is no secret. He spoke about the need to “protect minority rights under all circumstances”. But given the undeniable fact that most Christians and Muslims are converts from the SC and ST communities, the exclusion of minority institutions from the Bill is bad in law and bad in intent. It also gives the Church a virtual license to convert and abandon the converted, while running after fresh recruits. At the same time, the Hindu community is left with the responsibility of educating and caring for a group alienated from its civilizational moorings and nurturing feelings of separation from the majority community. This is truly Machiavellian.

The new legislation makes a mockery of the spirit of Article 15 of the Constitution by discriminating against the Hindu community on grounds of caste, in a manner that could place undue financial burden upon ordinary Hindu households. For instance, schools that have to admit students on the basis of caste rather than merit may also have to provide freeships to keep such students in school, if their families are unable to pay the fees. This will compel them to pass on the burden to ordinary middle class parents, who may already be finding it a struggle to see two children through school. This could have serious ramifications across the country, and is a perfect instance of sterile activism in the service of vote-banks.

Schools to be hit, (few examples) DAV schools, DPS, Vidya Bharati, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Mata Amritanandamayi institutions, Ramakrishna Mission institutions, All Sikh and Hindu institutions, Scindia School, Mayo School, Indian School, Doon School, Rashtriya Indian Military College, Vivekananda Mission schools, Modern School, institutions run by Birla Trust, Maharani Gayatri Devi School etc.

A far more worthy exercise would be for the State to direct education to specific segments of the population by investing in adequate educational facilities at school level. Just as freer and fairer elections were ensured by the Election Commission by placing ballot boxes closer to the villages and slums that were otherwise excluded from voting, so bringing schools closer to the underprivileged, irrespective of caste or creed, would ensure universal literacy in a non-divisive manner.

Realisation of the larger implications of this legislation—intended to overturn a Supreme Court ruling on August 12, 2005, that unaided minority and non-minority institutions can admit students of their choice in medicine, engineering and other professional courses without government interference—has led 20 MPs, including two Ministers, to ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring minority institutions under its ambit as several premier minority institutions were either religious or linguistic minorities.

They demanded that the matter be referred to the Standing Committee of Parliament on HRD. This is a wise suggestion and Dr. Manmohan Singh would do well to re-examine the issue dispassionately.

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Non-minority institutions may be forced to close down.
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Minority schools and colleges can now mint money and use it for conversion.
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Poor Arjun has no political base. This horrendous communal Bill for whose sake?

A clause clandestinely inserted

Arjun Singh brought in the clause to exclude the minority institutions from the purview of the Bill clandestinely. The draft circulated by the minister at the all-party meeting, after the Supreme Court struck down the reservation quota in privately run institutions, did not contain this clause. Members who spoke at the meeting supported the draft and the intent of the Bill as no party was against SC/ST reservation per se. The last speaker, MIM leader Salauddin Owaisi reportedly made a violent intervention stating that if the minority institutions were not excluded, the minorities will protest in the streets and challenge it in the court. There will be blood- shed, he reportedly threatened. And Arjun Singh in the final draft inserted the obnoxious clause as dictated by Owaisi.

Even some ministers and dozens of MPs from the Congress have written to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to exclude minority institutions from the ambit of the Bill on the grounds that several premier minority institutions were either religious or linguistic minorities.

Minister of State for Home, Manik Rao Gavit and MoS for Health and Family Welfare, Panabaki Lakshmi, and Chairmn of the Forum of SC/ST Parliamentarians, R. Gavai were part of the delegation that met the Prime Minister and presented a memorandum.

“Although only 20 MPs signed the memorandum, the entire SC/ST forum was of the opinion that minority institutions should be brought under the ambit of the Bill,” said Shri Gavit.

They said these weaker sections would be “deprived of the opportunity of deriving due benefits” from the proposed legislation, because SCs/STs will not enjoy quota in several prestigious minority institutions. Most premier educational institutions belong to either religious or linguistic minorities, which were not covered by the amendment, they felt.

“Implications of the proposed enactment will keep these premier institutions out of the access of the deprived communities who will be forced to crowd the institutions run by non-minority entities,” they said.

Other signatories included Robert Kharshiing. Birabhadra Singh, R.N. Kovind, Vasant Chavan and Nandi Yellaiah.

They appealed to the Prime Minister to reconsider the clause excluding the minority educational institutions from its ambit or refer it to the Standing Committee of Parliament on HRD for threadbare discussion.

The CPM too has opposed the Bill. Clarifying that he was opposed to the Bill on a “constitutional point,” Varkala Radhakrishnan (CPI-M) said the amendment, by excluding minority institutions, would result in removal of reservation now available there. States should have the power to identify the minorities as their composition varied from State to State.

Radhakrishnan found support in C.K. Chandrappan of the CPI. The Bill seeks to amend the Constitution by inserting a new clause (5) in Article 15 for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes or SCs/STs. But, minority-run institutions have been exempted as they are covered by Article 30 (1), which gives them the right to establish and administer educational institutions.

Diaspora depressed over deception
December 25, 2005

The Indian diaspora in America is upset over the manner in which the California education department has permitted known anti-Hindu baiters like Harvard professor Michael Witzel and other usual suspects to intrude in the textbook selection and reform process, in violation of established norms. The result is that while the Curriculum Commission has accepted changes mooted by representatives of the Christian, the Jewish and the Muslim groups, changes desired by Hindu groups are being posted for re-review by Hindu-baiting academics!

According to available information, the California Curriculum Committee was approached in September by concerned Americans on the issue of social studies textbooks being considered for Class VI to VIII. Practitioners of different religious traditions complained that several passages in the textbooks needed editing, as they comprised either negative or incorrect descriptions about the religious beliefs and practices of the Jews, the Muslims, and the Hindus. Some of the content was racist, and had the potential to create xenophobic or sensational images in the minds of adolescent students and negatively impact the self-identity of the Jewish-American, the Hindu-American, and the Muslim-American children.

Thereafter, the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) submitted several corrections and suggestions to ensure that sections on Judaism reflected Jewish understanding of the faith and did not fan anti-Semitism. The Council on Islamic Education (CIE) proposed alternative language for certain sections on Islam, and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF) and the Vedic Foundation (VF) gave inputs on Hindu dharma. The Curriculum Commission and Content Review Panel (CRP) informed the California State Board of Education (SBE), and on November 8, 2005, the ad hoc committee approved 499 out of 684 proposed changes.

Many changes approved were simply the rectification of obvious errors, such as the claim that “Hindi is written with the Arabic alphabet, which uses 18 letters that stand for sounds,” when everyone knows that Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and has 52 characters. The Jewish and the Hindu groups shared a common agony that American textbooks did not capitalize “God” when referring to the supreme deity(s) of their respective faith traditions. Both groups objected to their scriptures being demoted as “stories,” which suggested “that the events described are fictitious.” Fighting for more respectful terminology when describing Hindu dharma, the Hindu Education Foundation said that a textbook reference to “gods and goddesses from popular Hindu stories,” should be changed to “various forms of God from Hindu scriptures.”

Hindu scholars involved in this exercise were upset that several passages in the textbooks were trivialized and ridiculed Hindu beliefs. One passage read: “The monkey king Hanuman loved Rama so much that it is said that he is present every time the Ramayana is told. So look around—see any monkeys?” Hindus sought subtle but pertinent corrections, such as replacing subject headings like “Hindu Beliefs About Multiple Gods” with the more accurate phrasing: “Hindu Beliefs About Various Forms of God.”

On the contentious issue of the Aryan Invasion Theory, which Witzel avidly promotes despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Hindus only asked for a mild corrective in the form of mentioning contemporary scholarship which points out that the evidence refutes this. It is readily apparent that all changes desired were legitimate. The education policy demands that the teaching of the religion and culture of minority groups be in tune with the self-concepts of the respective faiths and instill pride in every child regarding his or her heritage. Thus, the divisive and derogatory colonial terminology—Brahmanism—has never been used by Hindus to describe their faith, and cannot justly be imposed upon them.

While the exercise to correct such obvious distortions was going on, Prof. Michael Witzel of Harvard’s Sanskrit Department wrote to the California State Board of Education on November 8, objecting to the accommodation of Hindus sensitivities. Prof. Witzel and his colleague Steve Farmer collected signatures from over four dozen scholars around the world, including worthies like Prof. Romila Thapar and Prof. Stanley Wolpert, without bothering to examine the desired changes! As Witzel exclusively targetted Hindu-Americans, he may have had a political agenda.

On December 4, 2005, the California School Board accepted many changes desired by the Hindu community in Grade VI textbooks on topics dealing with India and Hindu dharma. The corrections were vetted by an ad hoc committee including renowned Indologist Dr. Shiva G. Bajpai, who was hired by the Commission. But the Witzel intervention led the Commission to appoint Witzel, Wolpert and others as experts for a post-review process (Content Review Panel).

This led the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) to protest against the unequal treatment accorded to the Hindus vis-à-vis other faith communities by the California State Board of Education, by permitting an eleventh hour, post-process move by Witzel to undermine and circumvent the recommendations of the ad hoc committee and the review process established by the Commission itself for resolution of errors in textbooks. This indicates a bias and a singling out of the Hindu community in a manner that does not inspire confidence.

Concerned Indians may be interested to know that during the deliberations on the textbooks, Commissioner Munger, who identified himself as an Episcopalian, was the only Board member who advocated accepting the views of the Witzel panel. Commissioner Metzenburg said, the Hindus should be able to recognize their own religion when they read these textbooks. Metzenberg objected to the “insensitive” approach of the Witzel panel which, asked to rectify the statement that the Ramayana was written later than the Mahabharata, commented: “Who in Sixth Grade cares which epic was ‘written’ first?” Metzenberg retorted that it mattered to Hindus.

It is relevant that Jews wanted the removal of references that portrayed Christianity as an “improvement” upon Judaism, or a “replacement” for Judaism. Hindus found that Buddhism and Jainism were presented as “improvements” over their dharma, and this violated Education Code Section 60044(a) and Subsection (b), which desired all students to “become aware and accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have.”

The California Department of Education is meeting the publishers on December 14 to communicate the approved changes. Hindu Americans have pointed out that while the changes approved for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were reviewed by experts within those faith traditions, the Department has engaged academics who are neither experts in Indian history or Hindu dharma, nor practicing Hindus, to pronounce upon this ancient tradition.

No Dreary Desert Sands
Development
December 11 - 18, 2005

Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje could well be the BJP’s metaphor for dramatic change without upheaval. The former Union Minister of State for Foreign Affairs made her political debut with some not-so-obvious handicaps. Born princess to one of the largest princely states, her transition to non-royalty was forced by transition to a new Republic and reinforced by the graceful and powerful personality of her mother, late Vijayaraje Scindia, a royal with a most unusual commitment to the cultural integrity of India. Her stature and aura would have been intimidating for her young children.

In politics, Vasundhara was for many years known simply as her mother’s daughter, and within the BJP, lacked the oratorical skills of Sushma Swaraj or the fiery appeal of Uma Bharati. Yet, as she prepares to celebrate two years as Rajasthan Chief Minister, it is obvious that both blood and upbringing have triumphed. Today, Vasundhara Raje Raje is not merely Rajasthan’s first woman chief minister and one of the few credible women leaders of the BJP. She is the leader who has striven assiduously to change Rajasthan’s static image as a land of maharajas, forts, and beautiful but poor people. The state pulsates with hope and dynamism, building a new Rajasthan upon the sturdy foundations of the old.

Raje’s vision for her state is not merely utopian, but rests on recognition of the grim reality; that is why her achievements are real. For decades, Rajasthan has suffered from lack of power and irrigation, both of which impacted horribly upon the farming community, affecting the livelihood of a vast section of the populace as well as the state’s GDP. However, the BJP Government took the bit between its teeth; in Bikaner alone it spent Rs 12 crore to repair small canals. The water supply situation worsened with Punjab’s decision to deprive the state of its share of Sutlej waters, but the Chief Minister is now banking upon ambitious water management schemes which will create one million tubewells in aquifers along the dried up Sarasvati river bed. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are linking the Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal rivers to bring water to farmers in Bhind and Morena in MP and Kota, Baran and Bundi in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is making strenuous efforts to take the knowledge corridor from Gurgaon to Jaipur. NIIT is setting up a university, and a special education initiative has been launched with IT giants including Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Wipro. This public-private partnership is the fruition of Raje’s efforts at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in the year.

Vasundhara moved with astonishing speed to reduce the debt burden by increasing revenue and rationalizing the tax structure without hiking taxes. Her performance proved a national milestone and she has been invited to several national fora to showcase her achievements in controlling the deficit. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh acknowledged Rajasthan’s finance policy with an incentive of Rs 60,000 crore. Yet the fiscal deficit has not been controlled at the expense of developmental works, and efforts are being made to improve roads, electricity and water supplies, as these are the critical inputs for development.

As Rajasthan has suffered from low literacy, special efforts have been made to bring school drop-outs back to school, for which the mid-day meal programme was a major effort. The scheme is costly (Rs. 300 crores); yet Raje is so committed to it that she is trying to raise more funds to further improve the quality of the food served! Industrialists and temple trusts are being roped in to manage the situation. A successful model already established is the Akshaya Patra scheme set up with Infosys’ Murthy Foundation in Baran district, under which the government pays Re 1.50 and grain worth Rs 2.10 per student, for a nutritious meal that costs Rs. 5 per student; Akshaya Patra makes up the difference.

Raje is not merely Rajasthan’s first woman chief minister and one of the few credible women leaders of the BJP. She is the leader who has striven assiduously to change Rajasthan’s static image as a land of maharajas, forts, and beautiful but poor people. The state pulsates with hope and dynamism, building a new Rajasthan upon the sturdy foundations of the old.

As a result of the state Government’s efforts, 13 lakh girl children have been enrolled in school, which is no mean an achievement. Special steps are being taken to keep tribal girls in school. Thus, tribal girls who do not dropout in Class IX are being provided with a bicycle each and girls who secure over 75 per cent marks in Class XII will be given a scooter each. These benefits will positively impact upon the families of the girl child at village level.

Women are being empowered by providing stamp duty concessions (5 per cent in place of the normal 11 per cent) if families register property in the name of women. Businesses started in the name of women are entitled to a one percent concession in interest rates. This gives great stability to women as families benefit by having property and business in the name of the wife.

Major strides are being made in the hitherto neglected area of health, and the state is creating a data bank of the health profile of all children. Cards have been issued to each child to maintain details of check-ups (being done through the school system) and the data is being computerised.

Raje’s vision for her state is not merely utopian, but rests on recognition of the grim reality; that is why her achievements are real.

Rajasthan is making strenuous efforts to take the knowledge corridor from Gurgaon to Jaipur. NIIT is setting up a university, and a special education initiative has been launched with IT giants including Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Wipro. This public-private partnership is the fruition of Ms. Raje’s efforts at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in the year. The purpose is to ensure cent per cent enrollment and retention of students in the state’s 74,000 schools (currently the drop-out rate is 45 per cent) by 2010. Besides formal education, Ms. Raje hopes that the involvement of these firms in teacher training and running the mid-day meal programme will also produce computer-literate students at the end of the day.

Rajasthan is thus in many ways a welfare state in the best sense of the term. Education and health are critical to progress, and hence the chief minister has given them special attention. Development can make good politics, and Ms. Raje and her Gujarat counterpart have proved that progress and development do not contradict commitment to cultural nationalism. These intelligent and modern-minded BJP Chief Ministers have realized that bad governance can give ideology a bad name; they have shown what the people can do with political will and encouragement.

What makes the Rajasthan achievement truly incredible, as compared to Gujarat, is that it has been done on the foundation of a bankrupt treasury and disinterested bureaucracy. Yet this is par for the course for the woman who gave the BJP its impressive 120-seat victory in the desert state, hitching the camel to the computer to shake a somnolent society out of an apathy induced by decades of non-development. Vasundhara Raje’s true achievement is not that she energized the people to vote unambiguously for her party two years ago, but that she remains committed to the vision she then sold—of desert state basking in the glow of a modern industrial economy; tradition wedded to modernity; health and literacy married to culture and civilization.

There have been political rivals, old party stalwarts who felt eclipsed by the rising star. To her credit, however, Ms. Raje has tried to accommodate rather than isolate alienated or unhappy colleagues, and this is something other prima donnas in the party would do well to emulate. The message has not been lost on the people; hence BJP has done well under her leadership in both the parliamentary and local elections. Raje thus remains the most powerful leader in the state, across the political spectrum, and deservedly so. Yet the major challenge as she moves into the third year of her tenure is to provide power (electricity) to the people. Only then will Rajasthan be a truly modern and progressive state.

Reservation to Dalit converts
Discriminated Dalits should sue church
Controversy
December 11 - 18, 2005

Conversions undermine the national interest in the most unimaginable ways, and since the British consciously mooted conversions to Christianity to perpetuate their rule by alienating converts from native society and civilization, discerning Indians would do well to follow the current Supreme Court hearing on a petition demanding reservation benefits to Dalit Christians.

The Constitution provided reservations to former untouchables to enable them to overcome historic social disadvantages which kept them economically and educationally backward. The reservations were exclusive to adherents of native Indian dharmas because India’s ruling classes had for several centuries successively come from the ranks of invading Islamic and Christian forces, and their coercive tactics had caused conversions from native religious traditions. Native converts did not perceive themselves as neglected or discriminated against in the pre-Independence period, while many native communities suffered degradation as a result of the foreign invasions, and this led to their untouchable status.

It is equally pertinent that Christianity sought converts on the plea that it did not discriminate between believers, and hence low caste believers would loose the social stigma of their original caste (a claim later picked up by Islam). This was never true historically and the dominant White Western Christianity, particularly protestant Christianity, practiced the most degrading forms of discrimination on grounds of race, the pinnacle of which was reached in the slave trade, which rested on the premise that other races were sub-human.

In a powerful attack upon Christian racism, Mark L. Perry (The Last War: Racism, Spirituality, and the Future of Civilization, George Ronald, Oxford) highlights the fact that protestant racism created the phenomenon of the segregation of churches, so that slaves could not become free by converting to Christianity. We need not go into the atrocities perpetuated upon African slaves, but we can easily discern why the Church in India created separate pews and even cremation grounds for Dalit Christians in India, and why their social and economic conditions did not improve after they abandoned their native faith and culture for an alien religion.

The Church openly maintains separate pews and wine and wafers for Dalit converts, and even separate graveyards, a class action suit on grounds of caste discrimination—and worse, perpetuation of caste inequalities by its religious leadership—should be moved without delay.

Any decision of the Supreme Court extending reservation benefits to Dalit Christians without considering the historical background of Christianity could deal a death blow to the Indian nation as it would actively encourage conversions sponsored by western Governments seeking cultural and political domination in India. The Supreme Court would do well to consider that most conversion activities in India are focused on strategic areas (like the north-east) and also upon clusters, with the result that pockets of minority concentration are created, which inexorably force others out.

It is precisely this concentration that makes sedition and partition possible. India has already experienced such a Partition in 1947. That was engendered by the British to nurture the Cold War strategic needs of the West. But the more recent but less studied example of East Timor (which deserves a more detailed examination) shows that conversions were used by Western missionaries to delink Indonesia’s oil-rich portion. The result is that the native people of what the so-called “independent” East Timor have gained nothing, and their oil wealth is being exploited by the White fellow Christians of Australia! India’s Dalit Christians would do well do undertake a world wide study to see if Christianity has benefitted any non-White nation.
A dalit convention on conversion

At the same time, they might consider it worth their while to sue their respective churches and parishes, and particularly foreign missionaries like Benny Hinn and Ron Watts, for acts of omission and commission. These should include breach of promise for failing to deliver on the promise of social equality and economic upliftment. Specific grievances should be listed, such as poor educational status. As the Church literally mints money by running schools, colleges and professional institutions throughout the country, it could be compelled to provide free education to children of all Christian families upto graduate level.

Dalits who were lured to the Christian fold to better their social, economic and educational status should rethink their move and return to their traditional cultural moorings.

I would like to unequivocally state that as far as the Hindu majority is concerned, Dalit upliftment is a social commitment and a national goal. But when ex-Hindus argue that upper caste converts to Christianity continue to dominate the Christian clergy and laity, they must understand that the Hindu community cannot be held responsible for perpetuation of upper or lower caste identity in another religious group. Hence, Dalit who were lured to the Christian fold to better their social, economic and educational status should rethink their move and return to their traditional cultural moorings.

Given the fact that the present Government is virtually run by UPA chairperson Smt Sonia Gandhi, I feel uneasy that the Supreme Court has admitted a petition on inclusion of Dalit Christians within the category of Scheduled Caste, especially as this had been rejected by the NDA government in 2002. In fact, at that time the Apex Court had ruled that the list of entries in the SC and ST categories under the Presidential Order of 1950 lay within the purview of legislative action and was final and that the courts could not “add or subtract” from the same. Now, however, the UPA Government has appointed the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission as well as the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities to give recommendations on the issue of Dalit Christian reservations. One can only hope that a nationalist perspective will be placed before the Court when it next hears the matter in February 2006.

Mandirs for devotees or tourists?
December 04, 2005

The Hindu mandir has once again become the focus of secular controversy. Reformists have taken umbrage at the refusal of Orissa priests to let a White American Hindu woman and a Thai princess enter the Jagannath and Lingaraj temples. There is also outrage that the famous Guruvayoor temple in Kerala announced it was repeating five days of puja after a deranged Christian was found disturbing devotees on the premises.

This anger is misplaced, and derives not from a sense of dharma violated, but from embarrassment at what others will think and say about believing Hindus. This is nothing but a hangover of the inferiority complex instilled in Hindus during the colonial period when Christian missionaries unleashed a barrage of propaganda against the tradition, in their quest for converts.

To understand the issue in its proper perspective, we must understand the difference between the Hindu mandir and monotheistic houses of worship. The mandir is literally god’s palace; it is built according to shastric specifications, and once the images are consecrated it means the gods have accepted the invitation to reside in the respective temples. This is what gave temples their power and sanctity in all ancient traditions.

In monotheistic traditions, the synagogue, church and mosque are houses of congregation where the respective gods are remembered in community worship. But monotheistic gods do not descend from their heavenly abodes to dwell with the believers, even during the hour of worship. This is an important distinction, because the congregation itself has no special sanctity, and can meet anywhere. Hindu tradition, on the other hand, shares divinity with the believers, because man is made of the same atman as Parambrahman. Hindus can invite god to be present at a ceremony (wedding, satsang) or sacrifice, and both the devotee and the devoted have sanctity.

Mandirs thus belong to god and the devotee. In India, priests of all except some especially sacrosanct temples have allowed free access to temples to visitors who may not be Hindus, but this is not a right that can be demanded by anyone. Yet media publicity has put Hindus so much on the defensive that they have been quick to blame ‘Brahmin’ hegemony for the behavior of the priests of Lord Jagannath and Lord Lingaraj. This is ironical, because both these gods are popular Hindu deities worshipped by all castes. Jagannath was the god of the Sabara (Savara, Saora) tribe, and even today, only Daityas (descendants of the original tribal worshippers) can dress and move the god and renovate his wooden image. At Lingaraj, only the tribal Badu priests can bathe and adorn Lingaraj!

At Jagannath, medieval iconoclasm destroyed the images of the gods and the temple ceased worship for 144 years before Raja Man Singh assisted in reviving worship. Even thereafter, there were several threats to the temple. Since the story of the molestation of the gods and the devotees is well known on an all-India plane, it was only natural that some of the most prestigious temples protected their sanctity by denying entry to non-believers.

Temple entry cannot be a secular right of non-believers. It is a privilege of the believer, and that is why truly reform-minded Hindus in previous centuries fought for the right of underprivileged believers, like Harijans (Dalits), to enter temples. This is an issue to which Hindu society urgently needs to rededicate itself.

The custodians of each holy site must have the right to decide who shall be permitted entry. At Pushkar, priests hitherto permitted foreigners in the sacred precincts and then discovered them acting contrary to the sanctity of the place. They have now prepared a code of conduct for outsiders. It is humbling to recall that the great Vaishnava acharya, Haridas Thakur, being born in a Muslim family, never tried to enter the Jagannath mandir at Puri, even though many persons wanted him to have darshan. I believe this is because he felt he should be born as a Hindu in order to enter the temple. Even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, personally a very devout Hindu, was denied entry to the Puri temple because she married a Parsi and thereby shared that identity. She accepted the decision with grace and withdrew.

The American-born Pamela Yadav may do well to emulate this example; she should visit the innumerable temples where entry is free, and not enervate devout Hindus by calling our priests ‘racists.’ Tomorrow, another American will protest that not getting meat and eggs in holy cities is a violation of human rights, and Amnesty will breathe down our necks. It is time we drew the line somewhere. It may be mentioned that the priests of the Jagannath temple have traditionally recognised Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas from undivided India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, as officially entitled to enter the temple. There may be a case to extend this privilege to practicing Buddhists of Asian countries which have a civilisational affinity with India, but this is a decision the priests must take with due consideration, and cannot be forced upon them by external agencies.

In Guruvayur in Kerala, priests of the famous Shri Krishna temple discovered a deranged non-Hindu had been present in the temple for five days, which affected the sanctity of 15 pujas conducted in that period. Temple administrators pointed out that though there were boards requesting non-Hindus to keep out, the rules were difficult to enforce if people did not respect the sentiments of others. They said that whenever non-Hindus were detected, they sprayed punyaham (holy water) inside the temple. Such a “purification ceremony” was held after the son of Congress leader Vayalar Ravi and his Christian wife entered the temple during his wedding some years ago. That time also, far from supporting the besieged Hindu community in protecting the sanctity of its holy spaces, secularists tried to brand the priests as intolerant communalists.

Temple entry cannot be a secular right of non-believers. It is a privilege of the believer, and that is why truly reform-minded Hindus in previous centuries fought for the right of underprivileged believers.

The politics of demography
More the number, stronger in politics
November 27, 2005

For some time now, India’s famously tolerant and inclusivist tradition has been fraying at the edges due to constant pressure, indeed harassment, at the hands of evangelical and exclusivist traditions that claim to be peaceful and secular. The issue has become serious enough to merit examination by academics, especially as the systematic unconcern of successive governments has permitted exponential changes in religious demography in strategically sensitive regions.

Among the few who have dared to study India’s changing religious profile, rank A. P. Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and J.K. Bajaj of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai. The trio has now updated their seminal “Religious Demography of India” to cover data from the controversial Census 2001 that vindicated the projections made in the first edition of their path-breaking study.

Census 2001, the findings of which were released in September 2004, stimulated steep interest in religion-wise data, and simultaneously provided a detailed database of disaggregated data up to district level. The data revealed a sharp upward rise in population of Muslims and Christians, and the controversy it generated unseated the then Registrar General of India. Yet the data was largely consistent with demographic trends revealed by previous censuses from 1881 to 1991.

At the same time, as Dr. Bajaj and his colleagues analysed, Census 2001 showed an unmistakable intensification of certain demographic trends. Thus, the combined data for undivided India (i.e. contemporary India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) showed the disturbing possibility that by the second half of the 21st century Muslims and Christians could jointly constitute the majority in the Indian region. Within India itself, the decline in the proportion of adherents of Indic religions corresponds to the rise in Muslim and Christian numbers, and has registered a marked increase since 1981.

Thus, the difference between the decadal growth of Indian religionists and Muslims rose from about 10 per cent in the decades after Independence to about 45 per cent after 1981. Similarly, Christians, whose decadal growth declined from the very high level of around 33 per cent in 1961-1971 to about 17 per cent during the previous two decades, showed a sudden spurt in their growth to 23 per cent during the last decade of 1991-2001. These are not normal growth patterns, and owe much to the intervention and monitoring of foreign agencies that have a political and strategic interest in India.

Much of the difference in growth of Muslims and Christians vis-à-vis Indian Religionists is attributable to established belts and pockets of high Muslim or Christian presence. Thus the eastern border belt from eastern Uttar Pradesh to the borders of Nepal and Bangladesh and the districts of lower Assam and Cachar saw rapid Muslim growth from 1981, especially in the eastern part from Purnia in Bihar upto Nagaon in Assam. Today, Muslims comprise over 45 percent of the population here, and the significant Christian presence in lower Assam and parts of Santhal Pargana has already put Indian Religionists at a distinct disadvantage in this region. Muslims constitute the majority in nine districts here and a near majority in another two.

In the strategically sensitive North-East, the population is already over 45 per cent Christian. Barring Assam, Christians increased by six percentage points in the north-eastern states in just the last decade; registering the steepest increase in Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. Native Indian religions are in a minority in a region that is strategically the most sensitive piece of real estate in India. What is worse, there is great pressure on Indian Religionists to convert or leave the region, and the analysis of the Census data clearly reveals both large-scale conversions and large-scale out-migration.

Census 2001 also reveals alarming (though not surprising) changes in the religious demography of the Kashmir Valley. From the last Census in J&K in 1981, even the absolute number of Indian Religionists in the Valley has fallen, though the Valley’s total population has grown by nearly 75 per cent. Detailed census data shows few Hindu families remain and that the Valley has been effectively cleansed of a meaningful Hindu presence.

In many other regions of the country also, the religious profile of the population has undergone sharp and sudden change. Karnataka’s coastal districts, for instance, have in the last two decades shown a creeping growth of Muslims and to a lesser extent of Christians, and this is being manipulated from Kerala’s northern districts. In this manner, this coastal belt appears to be joining an older pocket of Muslim concentration, namely, the territory of the former Hyderabad Nizamate that includes the northern districts of Karnataka.

From 1991, there have been sweeping changes even in states like Haryana, Maharashtra and Orissa, where Indian Religionists were hitherto dominant. Haryana has witnessed a steep rise in Muslim presence in several districts and even has a separate Muslim majority district. In Maharashtra, Muslim population is growing in districts where they were hitherto insignificant. Orissa is witnessing a distinct belt of rising Christian presence, from Sundargarh in the north to Gajapati and Ganjam in the South. In Tamil Nadu, where Christians have been powerful in the southern and western districts for several decades, they are suddenly registering a rise in some northern districts such as Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur.

The Centre for Policy Studies has done a sterling service by providing scholars and analysts with a comprehensive picture of India’s changing religious demography. Given the fact that the strategic interests of the former imperialist nations have led them to carve out three countries on the basis of religion in the post-World War II period alone, namely Israel, Pakistan, and East Timor, we would be guilty of ignoring the loudly delivered lessons of history if we did not draw correct inferences and take remedial action while it is still possible.

Religion is behaviour
Thinkpad
November 13, 2005

Former President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan said “religion is behaviour and not mere belief.” By this yardstick, those committing violence in the name of Islam are not, as the US State Department and our own leaders claim, “misguided” believers. Terrorists planning and committing atrocities in the name of Islam, particularly when backed by another country, are using violence for politico-religious ends. They are true jihadis and it would be irresponsible to pretend they are romantic misguided youth who can be brought into the national mainstream by redressing imaginary grievances.

Till date, the so-called “un-Islamic” terrorist activity sponsored by Pakistan, which successive Indian governments fear to call a terrorist State, has seen more than 50,000 people killed since 1994. For more than half-a-century, despite a consistent display of Islamic intolerance towards secular democratic India, successive US regimes have mollycoddled Pakistan in pursuit of their own agendas. This by itself should caution South Block about the price India may have to pay for American friendship if this is not accompanied by cold-blooded calculations in the national interest, on each and every issue of Indo-US collaboration.

Our true friends are those who pursue their national interests in harmony with our needs. After the return of terror to the Capital last Saturday, which saw 65 dead and around 210 wounded in three synchronised bomb blasts, the Voice of Russia radio said India-Pakistan ties could not be normalised without an end to cross-border terrorism (November 2, 2005). Advising Islamabad to cooperate in combatting the scourge of terrorism, the Kremlin emphasised that Pakistan had a responsibility to ensure that all terrorism directed against India from its soil ended as soon as possible.

The Voice of Russia radio said India-Pakistan ties could not be normalised without an end to cross-border terrorism (November 2, 2005). Advising Islamabad to cooperate in combatting the scourge of terrorism, the Kremlin emphasised that Pakistan had a responsibility to ensure that all terrorism directed against India from its soil ended.

The very same day, the White House ritually condemned the “heinous terrorist attacks,” but kept up American pressure to keep the so-called peace process going. “We encourage dialogue between India and Pakistan,” a spokesman said, adding “everybody has a responsibility to do their part to crack down on terrorism. And we can all do more in that regard.” It would be interesting to know what Washington thinks its own responsibility is in this regard. It occupies a sovereign country in pursuit of imaginary weapons of mass destruction, but disputes New Delhi’s legitimate right (and responsibility) to act against terror by hitting out at terrorist camps across the border.

For beleaguered Indians, there is little hope on the anvil. Though the pre-Diwali targetting of festival shoppers was aimed at the Hindu community, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi inanely asserted that terrorism is a “global phenomenon,” whatever that means. And ignoring the premeditated violence in Mau on Bharat Milap, and the heightened infiltration after the earthquake in Occupied Kashmir, which saw terrorists slitting the throats of six Hindus within 24 hours of the natural disaster, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s response to the Delhi atrocities was to abolish the LoC by opening five new crossing points in Jammu & Kashmir. Even Moscow, struggling to cope with Islamic fundamentalism in its own territory, warned New Delhi to ensure outfits based in Pakistan do not use the new opportunities for fresh attacks against India.

When public outrage against the extent of the tragedy became known, with whole families wiped out or minor children orphaned, and nearly two dozen persons charred beyond recognition (DNA testing has been ordered to identify the remains), Dr. Manmohan Singh mildly told President Musharraf that there were indications that the culprits had foreign links. This is a mere formality, and underscores the fact that the UPA regime is both powerless and politically unwilling to confront the terror stage-managed from across the border. Indeed, the ruling Congress party owes the nation an explanation as to why the Government opened five new points on the border to provide aid to the victims of the October 8, earthquake in PoK even after it was known that the open border was being used to kill and maim innocent Hindus, both in Kashmir and other parts of India (New Delhi).

Police and intelligence agencies quickly established that the little-known Islamic Inquilab Mahaz (Front for Islamic Uprising) which claimed responsibility for the Delhi blasts was a front for the Pak-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links with Al Qaeda, which is recognised as a terrorist organisation by India and the United States. It is not without relevance that the attacks took place on a day when a New Delhi court was scheduled to sentence six convicted Pakistani members of LeT and their Indian associates for involvement in a terrorist attack at Red Fort.

Officials believe the bombings were intended to repudiate Indian claims that the PoK earthquake had destroyed several training camps. Both the timing and nature of the blasts (such as the preference for RDX) suggest the Lashkar hand, according to Vikram Sood, former head of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The Bharatiya Janata Party has called for a review of the “soft border” policy. Indeed, the Government should call an all-party meeting to formulate a national consensus for zero-tolerance of terrorist atrocities towards the Indian people. It bears noting, as strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney has pointed out, that no American civilian has been killed by terrorists on US soil after 9/11, because it went after terrorists then holed up in Afghanistan. India, by contrast, has suffered its worst terrorist attacks in the same period, most notably the assaults on Parliament, the Kashmir legislature, the Red Fort, three major Hindu temples and several military camps.

To this I may add that while American citizens like Daniel Pearl had their throats slit while in terrorist custody, in India innocent civilians have had their throats slit by terrorists who simply walked across the border, committed their evil deeds, and walked back with impunity. India needs to understand that terrorism is not a law-and-order problem requiring more policemen or better intelligence methods to pre-empt or catch culprits. Trans-border terrorism is a low cost activity that can be perpetrated infinitely unless the victim-country imposes costs by going after the terrorist networks on their home ground.

Mau: Riot of Muslim intolerance
October 30, 2005

The unexpected outbreak of organised communal rioting in the Mau district of Uttar Pradesh, leaving 12 dead and several dozens injured in over four days of uncontrolled violence, despite the organisers of the Bharat Milap procession cancelling the October 13 show in the interest of social harmony, indicates a cultural intolerance that does not bode well for India. Political parties would do well to consider if this is part of a concerted strategy to enhance the growth of minority conclaves in India by driving out native populations through the systematic use of terror, a weapon used in Assam, Kashmir and other States.

Political parties wooing Muslim vote-banks through the promise of 5 per cent reservation benefits may also consider how far they can rise by encouraging the growth of such communal poison in the country. For sooner, rather than later, voters of their own core caste-based constituencies will be victimised and deprived of their lands and livelihoods, and there is no way that minority vote-banks can compensate for the loss of Hindu votes, though the presence of minority bloc voting certainly facilitates victory. But as Congress is learning in Assam, Muslims are quick to desert the political ladders they climb once they perceive they have the numbers and power to do without them. Assam’s 2006 elections will expose the direction of religion-driven politics, the outcome of which can only be lethal.

So slow was the UP government to respond to the riots that dozens of residents fled to adjoining districts of Ghazipur, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh in apprehension of fresh violence. Hundreds are seeking security in numbers by clustering together in makeshift shelters in fields and near railway lines, preferring the open spaces to their homes in the old congested bylanes of the town.

The Muslims of Mau wanted, through a display of extreme bigotry, to force Hindus to not celebrate auspicious dharmic functions and surrender their community identity for the sake of a false communal harmony.

It is said that violence began when Muslims observing roza protested at loudspeakers playing Hindu devotional songs on the occasion of Bharat Milap. This cultural intolerance that is regularly displayed on the occasion of Hindu festivals, even as Muslims spill over on to public roads and footpaths for the Friday namaaz, needs to be confronted. It bears noting that currently in Bangladesh, the rapidly depleting and terrorised Hindu community agreed to make itself publicly invisible on festive occasions, in order to placate the aggressive Muslim majority. Clearly the Muslims of Mau wanted, through a display of extreme bigotry, to force Hindus to not celebrate auspicious dharmic functions and surrender their community identity for the sake of a false communal harmony. This is what Mahatma Gandhi called the peace of the grave.

It is high time we called a spade a spade and examined the link between burgeoning ISI activity in UP and other States and the growth of fundamentalist intolerance. The courts must also consider, when riot-related cases come before them, why a local Muslim MLA was allowed to prevent police action against rioters for four whole days, before media coverage compelled action.

Shops and establishments were looted with impunity, and a Dalit colony attacked in the early hours of the morning and jhuggies set on fire, which clearly indicates premeditated action on the part of the assailant group. A temple was set on fire in the Kamaria locality, and we need to have a public debate on whether modern India is willing to countenance once again the medieval-style iconoclasm and vandalism of its holy places.

Residents fled to adjoining districts of Ghazipur, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh in apprehension of fresh violence.

Local independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari, who was finally booked for inciting the riots, shamelessly blamed the Hindu Mahasabha for tension in the city, even though police officials told the media that it was he who prevented them from taking firm action to bring the riots under control in a timely manner. Ansari, who has 36 criminal cases and a TADA conviction against him, moved about the city in an open Gypsy van, accompanied by armed henchmen, despite curfew and shoot-at-sight orders. Naturally, the mobs owing allegiance to him had a field day.

Much damage was done by the time Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav finally moved to suspend the Divisional Commissioner, Deputy Inspector General of Police, District Magistrate and Senior Superintendent of Police for failure to quell the rioting within 48 hours. But the fact that Mukhtar Ansari is known to have close links with Mr. Yadav, and that this acted as a dampener on the police officials and district magistrate in the initial days of the violence, has done irrevocable damage to the Chief Minister’s prestige.

US dalit hearing simply scandalous
Controversy
October 30, 2005

Successive Indian governments have failed to protest America’s propensity to misuse human rights issues for politically motivated calumny against nations it seeks to undermine to serve its foreign policy objectives. Shamefully, large sections of the Indian elite also betray unseemly desperation to report against the nation to US human rights committees, usually as quid pro quo for funds for their agenda-driven NGOs.

Yet, even by the standards of its normally invasive diplomacy, the US Congress’ decision to appoint a sub-committee on “India’s Unfinished Agenda: Equality and Justice for 200 Million Victims of the Caste System,” is simply scandalous. Not only does it construe a gross interference in our internal affairs, it is also an attempt to influence the Indian Supreme Court hearing on reservation rights for dalit converts to religions like Christianity, which admit that they discriminate against dalit adherents!

In these circumstances, the silence of the Indian government, remote-controlled by the Roman Catholic Italy-born Sonia Gandhi, is disturbing. So is the silence of major political parties, especially those that claim a special affinity for dalits. In fact, the Indian political spectrum as a whole would do well to evolve a consensus on the issue of external interest in India, if the country is serious about being considered as a candidate for the Security Council. In this regard, it would be instructive to see how the Chinese government gives America tit-for-tat in the matter of its highly slanted human rights reports.

Actually, America has much to hide regarding its human rights record, particularly vis-à-vis the Native American population (what is left after the genocide by White settlers) and the former slaves imported from Africa. The shocking delay in providing relief to Katrina hurricane victims hardly needs recalling.

The silence of the Indian government, remote-controlled by the Roman Catholic Italy-born Sonia Gandhi, is disturbing. So is the silence of major political parties, especially those that claim a special affinity for dalits.

China, however, does not stomach America’s supercilious ways. When the US Congressional Executive Commission on China recently released its annual report, Beijing condemned it as “wanton interference” in its internal affairs and presented its own report on the human rights situation in USA. The document is voluminous (the Chinese are thorough), but even a few cursory examples suffice to show how self-respecting nations protect their honour. The “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004,” released by China’s State Council on March 3, 2005, shows the dark side of the Statue of Liberty.

China points out that American society is notorious for rampant violent crimes, and that there is little security of life and liberty in that country. It cites a report of the US Department of Justice (November 29, 2004) that in 2003, citizens aged 12 years and above experienced about 24 million victimisa-tions. Giving statistics of several cities, China said America has the largest number of gun owners and gun violence increasingly takes a toll of innocent lives. About 31,000 Americans are killed and 75,000 wounded by firearms each year, which means more than 80 people are shot dead each day. Police violence is an equally serious problem.

China has made a fascinating observation! In the past decade America spent US $ 7 billion annually to build new jails and prisons. California got one college and 21 new prisons after 1984! This is because jails are a lucrative business, with a combined staff of more than 530,000, they are the second largest employer in America after General Motors. There are over 100 private prisons in 27 states and 18 private prison companies. As a result, the value of goods and services created by inmates surged from $ 400 million in 1980 to $ 1.1 billion in 1994.

As for jail conditions, in many states inmates are routinely stripped in front of others before being moved to a new prison. Male inmates are often made to wear women’s pink underwear as a form of humiliation. New inmates are frequently beaten and sometimes made to crawl. The conditions of women prisoners are naturally worse. Sexual harassment is common. The New York Times reported last October that at least 13 per cent of inmates are sexually assaulted in prison (October 12, 2004).

The Chinese government has made a detailed analysis of the political manipulation by the rich in the electoral process, the astronomical costs of elections, and the resultant favours to corporations as a result of election funding. Most poignant among the flaws in the US election system is the newly adopted Help America Vote Act of 2004, which requires voters to produce a series of documents such as a stable residence and thus effectively disenfranchises thousands of homeless people. America refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and is home to poverty, hunger and homelessness, in spite of being the world’s richest country. From 1970 to 2000 (adjusted for inflation), average incomes of the bottom 90 per cent stagnated but those of the top 10 per cent experienced an increase of nearly 90 per cent (The Baltimore Sun, July 6, 2004).

Racial discrimination is of course very deeply ingrained and Black murder victims are five-times White victims; Blacks affected by AIDS are 10 times Whites (National Urban League, March 24, 2004). The number of Black people living in poverty is three-times that of the Whites. Apartheid is still rampant in schools (Schools and Lives Are Still Separate, The Washington Post, May 17, 2004).

The situation of American women and children is hardly reassuring. FBI Crime Statistics show that in 2003, there were 93,233 rape cases; virtually 63.2 in every 100,000 women are victims of assault. The number of abused women treated at First Aid Centers exceeds one million every year. More than 1,500 women in the US are killed every year by their husbands, lovers or roommates; nearly 78 per cent American women are physically victimised at least once in their lifetime. Sex crimes are on the rise in military as well. Women soldiers have been raped or sexually harassed in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and other military bases.

As for children, every year nearly 400,000 children in the US are forced to engage in prostitution or other sexual dealings on the streets (The USA Today, February 27, 2004). Then, there are scandals about clergymen molesting children. Actually, the list is endless.

Jehadis on devil’s work as jawans risk life saving quake victims
India Inc. and RSS chip in relief
October 23, 2005

The brutal and cold-blooded murder of ten Hindus in Rajouri district on the midnight of October 9, 2005, is a grim reminder of the ongoing genocide of the native minority in Jammu & Kashmir. And the disgraceful near-total blackout of this news by the media is proof, if any were needed, that Kashmiri Hindus will remain orphaned in their struggle for survival in their own homeland if they do not change their approach towards their oppressors.

This is the second such atrocity this year, and the previous incident in which five Hindu men and one woman had their throats slit in a grim parody of the ritual of halal, whereby sanctified meat is obtained for food, was also blacked out by a media conspiracy of silence. What is particularly shocking about the current incident is that it has been executed in the immediate wake of Kashmir’s killer earthquake, at a time when people were literally struggling to crawl out of danger themselves and pull their near and dear ones out of the rubble and debris that brought whole hillsides down in one frightening apocalyptic moment.

Security agencies believe the atrocities were committed by foreign jehadis who walked in from Pakistan, belying Islamabad’s pious claims of having dismantled the camps. The fact, as is apparent, is that the terror factories are alive and kicking, and their ambition of ethnic cleansing the Indian side of the border unchanged. Pakistan’s sharp reaction to Indian offers of joint relief operations are desperate measures to prevent exposure of the locations of its terror factories, and many Indian citizens think poorly of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s generous aid to a country that does not put the war-of-a-thousand-cuts on hold even in the midst of such a grim natural calamity.

Those who descended upon Budhal tehsil, Rajouri, on midnight Saturday and brutally slaughtered ten members of two Hindu families had certainly never tasted the milk of human kindness (Pioneer, October 11, 2005). Unfazed by the proclamation of Hizbul Mujahideen supremo and United Jihad Council chairman Syed Salahuddin of a temporary suspension of militant operations in the quake-ravaged areas (Budhal was Rajouri’s worst hit area with more than 100 houses collapsing), the heavily armed militants probably availed of the quake-induced confusion to reach Rajnagar in Budhal tehsil unmolested around 11 p.m.

The male members of Munshi Ram’s family were separated and their throats slit one by one. Munshi Ram’s two sons were thus murdered before his eyes, before he himself was killed; his brother and his nephew also met a similar gory end. According to reports, survivors told the police that after these gruesome killings, one criminal had the gall to telephone the local police station in Kotranka and say they were leaving “gift packets” for them.

This same group then went to Gabbar village in the same tehsil and killed four male members of the family of Kartar Singh; one of his sons was critically injured and it remains to be seen if he will survive this ordeal. Two other villagers died in what appears to have been a killing spree allegedly organised by Abu Usman, a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen Peer Panjal Regiment (HMPPR). Police suspect that the killings may have been planned on suspicion that the nine men were informers. This belief has been strengthened by the recovery of a bullet-ridden decomposed body in Mardwaha-Daccan area of Doda district.

This makes a total of 12 dead bodies in 24 hours! It is obvious that the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus is not going to stop as neither media nor politicians are willing to draw attention to the “communal” nature of the assaults. Any fair-minded person can see that the genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh and Pak-coveted Kashmir is part of a systematic design to “purge” these regions of their respective Hindu minorities. Sadly, both national and international human rights watchdogs are complicit in these murders.

Like the Jews of Nazi Germany, Kashmiri Hindus will have to help themselves first before the nation and the world at large acknowledge their plight. Pandits who fled for their lives nearly 17 years ago have not got peace or honour in India; asking remaining Hindus to quit the Valley and hand the jihadis a great victory is adding insult to injury. Hence the issue of leaving or staying should be left to those who have to make this painful decision. But Hindus who have left the Valley owe it to themselves and their future generations (if any) to introspect why things have come to this pass.

At the very least, they must immediately halt the slavish cultural surrender to Islamic fundamentalism that they have practised for generations, with little benefit to themselves. It is high time Kashmiri Hindus woke up to their Hindu identities (which terrorists have never forgotten), became community-minded, and re-Hinduized themselves.
RSS plunges into relief work in J&K
FOC

Condemning the recent terrorist attack in Rajauri in which 10 Hindus were brutally killed by suspected terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen Pir Panjal group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) said despite so many confidence-building measures taken by the Government to appease Pakistan, there is no decline in terror activities in Kashmir. The RSS urged the Government not to take any step in a hurry while dealing with Pakistan. Talking to mediapersons in New Delhi, RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said the issue will be discussed at the three-day RSS Akhil Bharatiya Karyakarini meeting beginning from October 21 at Chitrakoot.

Shri Ram Madhav expressed deep anguish and sorrow over the huge loss of life and property in the recent earthquake in J&K and Pakistan. “Nature’s fury has left thousands dead, lakhs homeless and millions grieving. We convey our deepest condolences to the victims of the killer quake on both sides of the LoC,” he said.

He further said the Jammu unit of RSS immediately plunged into action and sent two teams, one each to Uri and Poonch tehsils, to take stock of the situation. Swayamsevaks in Poonch had immediately started relief activities with the available resources and the help of the Army. He said they rescued several people who were stuck in the collapsed houses and secured their belongings from those houses. Arrangements were made by Swayamsevaks in Poonch area for food, shelter and warm clothes for the victims.

“In Srinagar, a team of 4-5 Sangh activists is engaged in helping victims at the children’s hospital. They are providing emotional as well as material help to the patients and their families. Milk, fruits, necessary clothing, etc, are being provided. The immediate challenge is to provide temporary shelters and protection from cold due to the on-set of winter. We have sent 1000 blankets to the Poonch area on October 13 and another 1000 blankets were dispatched on October 14 to Uri area,” Shri Madhav said. He also said the report of the Sangh teams, which had gone to assess the extent of damage, would be placed before the national executive at Chitrakoot and detailed rehabilitation plans would be prepared for all the three affected tehsils, i.e. Poonch, Uri and Tangdhar. Since many refugees in Jammu have their relatives in Muzaffarabad and other areas in PoK and they are expressing their desire to go and help the affected brethren there, Shri Madhav said the RSS would certainly consider extending support to any such initiative.

Judicial slap on UPA
Aligarh University quota unconstitutional —High Court
October 16, 2005

The Allahabad High Court’s decision to declare the Aligarh Muslim University (Amendment) Act 1981 unconstitutional on grounds that AMU is not a minority institution is likely to heighten the competitive political communalism currently gripping many political parties.

Congress Party stalwarts have already indicated uneasiness with the verdict, and it is well known that the party is fighting with its back to the wall in Bihar, where Union Coal Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has decided to stay aloof from its alliance with Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on the pretext that he wanted a Muslim as next chief minister.

For Congress, the AMU verdict could not have come at a worse time. The party is already on the back-foot with the Supreme Court for having questioned its decision to quash the controversial Assam IMDT Act, which was the greatest impediment in the task of identifying and deporting aliens from Bangladesh. Congress initially displayed a sullen determination to reinvent the Act in some form or other, until wisdom prevailed and it beat a reluctant retreat. However, with Muslim groups in Assam forming their own political party for elections in 2006, and Congress’ excessive reliance upon the Muslim vote to gain office, it remains to be seen how it copes with the grim situation in that State.

The AMU judgment also casts a shadow over the Congress party’s recent propensity to woo Muslims by reserving five per cent government jobs in Andhra Pradesh. In this context, the Allahabad High Court verdict on AMU may be seen as part of a larger judicial impatience with divisive and separatist politics. The Supreme Court’s recent observations on the Jain community’s quest for minority status and its directive to the National Minorities Commission to reduce rather than increase the number of minorities, may reflect deeper judicial concerns about national unity.

Justice Tandon’s verdict has effectively demolished the arguments made by Muslim intellectuals earlier this year to the effect that the 50 per cent communal reservations in AMU were consistent with the 2002 Supreme Court judgment in the TMA Pai Foundation versus State of Karnataka case. Actually, if AMU had truly been established by the Muslim community, a 50 per cent reservation for the community would be perfectly justified.

Meanwhile, Justice Arun Tandon has created quite a stir by declaring the reservation of seats for Muslims in AMU’s post-graduate medical courses illegal and quashing the notification issued by Union Human Resource Development Ministry on February 25, 2005 in this regard. Justice Tandon also ruled that the AMU Academic Council’s approval of reservation of 50 per cent seats in post-graduate medical courses was illegal.

The judgment has created an awkward situation for varsity authorities as the learned judge has declared that admissions made on the basis of the HRD notification were also illegal. The Aligarh Muslim University (Amendment) Act 1981 was an attempt by Parliament to overrule the Supreme Court judgment in the Ajeez Basha case of 1968, when the Apex Court asserted that AMU was not an institution established by the minority community, but had instead been created by Central legislation in 1920. Justice Tandon has pointed out in his verdict of October 4, 2005, that Parliament cannot overrule a Supreme Court judgment but can remove defects in law pointed out by the court in its judgments. Yet, by amending the Act of 1981, the Union Government sought to overrule the Apex Court, and this was unconstitutional.

The judge has directed AMU to complete fresh admissions to the PG medical courses within one month, and this is certain to push the authorities into a collision course with the judiciary. The Allahabad High Court verdict was the result of a writ petition filed by Mr. Malay Shukla & others, who challenged the AMU Amendment Act of 1981 and the February 5, 2005, notification, which allowed a quota for Muslims in the super- specialty medical courses. The petitioners also challenged the decision of AMU’s Academic Council to reserve 50 per cent seats in post-graduate medical courses for Muslims.

Justice Tandon’s verdict has effectively demolished the arguments made by Muslim intellectuals earlier this year to the effect that the 50 per cent communal reservations in AMU were consistent with the 2002 Supreme Court judgment in the TMA Pai Foundation versus State of Karnataka case. Actually, if AMU had truly been established by the Muslim community, a 50 per cent reservation for the community would be perfectly justified. For, if the government offers land and other concessions to minority-managed trusts to tackle the educational backwardness of a community, it would be wrong if they ignored the community and ran remunerative courses for the general public.

But the larger question that now arises following the Allahabad verdict, and the vote-driven communal politics being pursued by some parties, is whether an India committed to education for all should permit educational institutions to be set up on minority basis. Let us recall that when the AMU controversy broke out earlier this year, one favourite argument of the pro-reservationists was that over the years, the “all India” character of the student body had disappeared, and the university had become a virtual pocket borough of students of two neighbouring States. This was because the existing 50 per cent reservations for internal candidates from the university’s own SSC and HSC streams were not yielding good students. Thus, the university was being de facto controlled by a handful of families which manipulated the admission process to ensure their supremacy.

If this was the real problem, the situation could have been rectified by improving admission procedures by reducing or eliminating the internal reservations, which were not explicitly communal (though they may have de facto benefitted Muslims). But those favouring 50 per cent reservations by law argued that even without reservations, Muslims comprised around 65 per cent of the student body in most courses; hence reservations did not substantively change the character of the alumni. In that case, where was the need to divide alumni into Muslim and non-Muslim?

The question is pertinent because at a rally in May this year, the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind asked UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for proportional reservations for Muslims in Parliament and the State Legislatures. Ms. Gandhi did not rebuff this dangerous and divisive move, which raises fears of another Partition, and instead assured Maulana Asad Madani that her party always strove to fulfill Muslim expectations and would continue consultations with him. With her party now tacitly encouraging AMU authorities to challenge the Allahabad High Court verdict, we need to know how far does she intend to go on the road to disintegration?

Deception as diplomacy
October 09, 2005

It is to Tehran’s credit that it has recovered its composure over India’s shocking vote at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting at Vienna, and announced that it will go ahead with the US $21 billion LNG deal with New Delhi. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who played his cards so close to his chest that Iranian President Ahmadinejad had no inkling of the forthcoming volte face, must now ensure that New Delhi does not endorse America’s bullying tactics in November, and further alienate a valuable ally.

Anybody can pick up the world atlas and see that American national interests and global supercop ambitions are at variance with India’s legitimate concerns. Washington has had no diplomatic ties with Tehran since the fall of the puppet Mohammad Reza Pehlavi in 1979, but New Delhi, under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, forged a relationship that survived the fall of the Shah and shored up its security concerns vis-à-vis Pakistan. It is no secret that Tehran’s good relations with Kabul checkmate Islamabad’s search for “strategic depth,” which can only be a relief to New Delhi, especially after our experience with the Taliban regime in the Kandahar plane hijack disaster.

By all accounts, the decision to vote against Iran appears to have been taken only in concert with the White House, and this puts an unhappy interpretation upon President Bush’s certificate that

It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister is perceived as undermining India’s security and economic interests by dovetailing foreign policy to suit Washington. By all accounts the decision to vote against Iran appears to have been taken only in concert with the White House, and this puts an unhappy interpretation upon President Bush’s certificate that Dr Manmohan Singh is a “good man” with whom America can “do business”. Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran’s admission that the decision on the vote was taken late at night has reinforced the decision that India is not pursuing an independent foreign policy, and has became what BJP leader Yashwant Sinha calls a “client state” of the United States.

Given the startling nature of the foreign policy deviation, the Prime Minister should have taken the Union Cabinet, principal UPA allies, as well as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Leader of the Opposition into confidence before making his move. It is worth mentioning that Mrs Indira Gandhi took Mr Vajpayee into confidence when making critical moves, such as the decisions to invade East Pakistan and to go nuclear. But so unilateral was Mr Singh’s move that even Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, who only last month visited Iran and said the nuclear issue should not be referred to the Security Council, was caught unaware.

Dr Manmohan Singh owes an explanation why New Delhi did not abstain from voting on the European Union resolution referring Iran to the Security Council for alleged nuclear non-proliferation violations, as Russia and China did. Congressman Tom Lantos, the highest ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, has since made it clear that he expects New Delhi to “support Washington’s efforts to ostracise Iran,” or the “goodwill will dissipate,” and this does not bode well for the pursuit of an independent foreign policy based on national self-interest. One can only wonder what more Mr Bush will extract from New Delhi in return for the so-called peaceful nuclear cooperation and defence pact.

If India does not reverse the vote in November, Iranian disappointment could turn into anger. Even if this does not endanger the LNG deal, Tehran could move closer to China, which has cultivated both Iran and Pakistan with subtlety, and such an axis in our neighbourhood could prove politically costly. With Iraq under alien occupation, India has few friends in the Gulf region.

If India is seriously interested in emerging as a world economic power, it can hardly afford to alienate Iran which has rich oil reserves. Our growing energy needs make us a good market for Iran’s 812 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves; but Tehran could well take its business elsewhere or refuse us favourable terms if we hurt its larger interests. It should be borne in mind that despite an explicit assurance from the UN that America would not be allowed to “steal” Iraqi oil after occupying the country, it is a fact that American oil companies have cut deals in that country. India, however, is still waiting for its share of the “reconstruction” pie!

Dr Manmohan Singh is a “good man” with whom America can “do business”.

In the circumstances, New Delhi would do well to patch up with Iran and give up the idea of a gas pipeline through Pakistan. This is not a good idea because Pakistan can trip up our supplies whenever it wants to blackmail us on Kashmir. Worse, since the US State Department has close links with fundamentalist regimes and terrorist groups, such blackmail could be proposed and supported by Washington!

New Delhi and Tehran have joint interests in protecting Central Asian oil reserves from outside powers. Iran is an important transit point for Central Asia, and will not like Western powers interfering in the region. Even less would it like Western presence in an Iraq in which the Shia majority is coming into its own. New Delhi could do good business with a Shia Iran and Shia Iraq. It would also do well to reach out to the oil-rich Kurds, since separation of the country seems inevitable in the long run.

For America, it should be enough that India is not likely to help Iran acquire a nuclear reactor. As for Iran’s threat that it will resume uranium enrichment and block UN inspection of its nuclear facilities unless the threat of UN sanctions is withdrawn, that is an internal matter of that country. India, however, could be an unintended beneficiary of a nuclear Iran, which would balance a nuclear Pakistan! With so much to gain from Iranian friendship, one cannot but wonder why Dr Manmohan Singh believes that a bird in hand is less than the bird in the Bush (pun intended).

Vasundhara Raje: Striving to green the desert
Opinion
September 25, 2005

Vijay Stambh,
Chittorgarh
Aquiet revolution brewing in arid Rajasthan may well be the blooming of the desert through sustainable techniques of water management along the rediscovered Sarasvati river bed. Rajasthan Chief Minister, Smt. Vasundhara Raje, who led the BJP to a spectacular 120-seat victory two years ago, and then went on to astound her critics by reducing the fiscal deficit, is leading from the front to bring water to this parched State, particularly after the Centre failed to come to her rescue after Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh arbitrarily cut off supplies from the Sutlej.

According to reports, Smt. Raje is examining a proposal to install one million tubewells in the aquifers (ground water bodies) of the central Rajasthan Sarasvati river basin, following reports from the Central Ground Water Authority that potable, glacial waters are available just 30 to 60 metres below the surface. This study, under the then Chairman Dr. D.K. Chaddha, was conducted under a Sarasvati Project of the Union Ministry of Water Resources during the NDA regime. Like the national highways project, revival of the

Saraswati was one of the great dream projects conceived by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

It is equally astonishing that no one thought of making a film city in Rajasthan, though its shifting sand dunes have hosted such famous films as Reshma aur Shera and Paheli.

Dr. J.R. Sharma, Director, ISRO Regional Remote Sensing Services Centre, Jodhpur, and his team drew up plans to cope with water logging and crop production in semi-arid zones. The reborn Sarasvati is currently flowing upto Gedra Road in Barmer district, 800 kms from Harike Reservoir. The local people at Mohangarh, 55 kms west of Jaisalmer, call it Sarasvati Mahanadi Roop Nahar.

Rajasthan’s water crisis is literally ruining its poor farmers. Earlier in June this year, a severe water crisis in Tonk resulted in police firing in which five farmers were killed. Congress party President Sonia Gandhi rushed to commiserate with the bereaved families, but failed to explain why UPA was going slow on the proposed National Water Grid, despite assurances given to the Supreme Court to interlink rivers within the next 16 years. Even now, the communist trade unions are agitating for the farmers, but there is no dharna in Punjab to make the Chief Minister release Rajasthan’s share of Sutlej waters.

A View of the desert

The National Water Grid is a developmental imperative for states like Rajasthan, and under the NDA regime, the National Water Development Agency drew up plans to move Sharada waters into the Rajasthan Canal as part of the plan for Himalayan and Peninsular River Links. This has the potential to take Sarasvati waters up to Sabarmati in Gujarat, quenching the thirst of over 20 crore people in northwestern India, especially in the drought-prone areas of Rajasthan, the Rann of Kutch, and Saurashtra.

Determined to green the desert, Rajasthan joined hands with Madhya Pradesh last month to launch the ambitious Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal linking project, which had been hanging fire for six years. Nearly 12 maf (million acre feet) of water is available in the Chambal basin, but currently only 3.6 maf given to the Kota barrage is being utilised. Once completed, the link will benefit farmers in Bhind and Morena in MP and Kota, Baran and Bundi in Rajasthan. The two states are also augmenting irrigation and power facilities with four hydel projects on the Chambal, including Rahughat (Rajasthan), Gujipura, Jaipura and Varsla (MP).

Development is thus the keynote of the State under its current dispensation. But this does not mean that its traditional cash cow, tourism, is being neglected. Far from it. Smt. Raje gave a “royal” dimension to tourism in this royalty-laden State last year with the novel idea of using old royalty to perk up this evergreen industry. The erstwhile Jaipur Maharaja was roped in to “host” the Tourism Department sponsored Dussehra festival, to the delight of foreign tourists.

Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat addressing
a literacy campain in Rajasthan (File Photo)

This has been followed up with a call for promotion of “royal” tourism at a Confederation of Indian Industry conclave. Pointing out that Britain reaped enormous benefits from tourism of royal palaces, the Chief Minister has suggested projecting India’s royal palaces and monuments as major tourist destinations, an idea her government has already taken forward. Undaunted by the carping of critics, a new liquor policy has doubled excise revenues from Rs 800 crore to Rs 1600 crore annually, and is being used to fund a hot mid-day meal project to achieve literacy targets. Given the wealth of monuments in the State, the “Adopt a Monument” policy is also expected to pick up.

Development is the keynote of the State under its current dispensation. But this does not mean that its traditional cash cow, tourism, is being neglected. Far from it, Smt. Raje gave a “royal” dimension to tourism in this royalty-laden State last year with the novel idea of using old royalty to perk up this evergreen industry.

Deeg Fort

Ultimately, whether domestic or foreign, successful heritage tourism requires a massive upgrade in civic amenities, international standards of travel and communication, and above all, good law and order and security. The response from both the police and the law courts have done much to restore confidence that State authorities mean business in this regard.

It is truly surprising that despite being a prime tourist destination all these decades, Rajasthan lacks world class airports, a lacuna now being filled with international airports planned for Jaipur and Udaipur.

Bill Clinton with his daughter
in a Jaipur Royal Palace, Rajasthan
At the same time, its rich museums are being modernised and historic sites like the Amer Fort restored. Non-heritage tourists are being kept in the loop with a world-class golf course, and who knows, one may get to see Tiger Woods there some day. It is equally astonishing that no one thought of making a film city in Rajasthan, though its shifting sand dunes have hosted such famous films as Reshma aur Shera and Paheli; another shortcoming that is now being redressed. As Rajasthan is rich in local fairs and festivals, both film-makers and locals will reap the benefits of the new development.

Conversions: my cut please
September 18, 2005

Dr. Manmohan Singh's Government has done well to recognise aggressive evangelical activities by missionaries as the primary cause behind communal unrest in the country, particularly in sensitive states like Gujarat and Rajasthan. Despite opposition from prominent Christian activists, the UPA Government pressed ahead with the agenda paper for the recent meeting of the National Integration Council on August 31, 2005.

Attributing communal tensions to "conversions" of Hindus, a document prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs cited instances such as the February 2005 assembly of the Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti at Kota, Rajasthan, and the violence in Mangalore and Dakhina Kannada (Karnataka) in June 2005 over alleged attempts by a Muslim employer to forcibly convert Hindu girls. The terrorist attack on the Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya was also mentioned as an issue with the potential to destabilise communal harmony. The Ministry recorded 485 communal incidents in the country till July 2005, in which 69 persons were killed and 1317 injured. It pointed out that states like Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have had to enact laws to control conversions by coercive means.

The question that legitimately arises is whether these laws are adequate to protect the weaker sections of the population that are commonly the targets of missionaries. Experience suggests not. For instance, in remote Arunachal Pradesh in 2001, a Catholic priest from Nagaland promised 25 tribal families that he would provide their children a "good" education at a cost of Rs. 10,000/- per child for tuition, boarding and lodging at the St. Emmanuel Mission Convent in Rajasthan. The families paid up, but later when some went to visit their children, they found to their horror that the children were not enrolled in any school, but had been placed in an orphanage! The priest running the orphanage claimed he had paid Rs. 5,000/- per child to a fellow priest and demanded restitution of this sum before releasing the children to their families (Vishwanath, "Church as an Edifice of Fraud," Breezy Meadows 2, No. 9, July 2001:3).

Threats of violence are fairly common in the remote north-east. A Protestant missionary had opened a primary school in Arunachal's tribal village of New Tupi, bordering Nagaland. After failing to make progress in his evangelical mission, the pastor resorted to his "trump card," warning villagers to "get converted within one-and-a-half months" or "everybody will be in trouble." The not-so-subtle hints accompanying this message were that the National Socialist Council of Nagaland's gun-totting insurgents would otherwise visit the village.

The myth that missionary schools offer a good education lured many parents in the Rajkot town of Gujarat where, in a highly controversial case in 1998, the I.P. Mission Girls' School distributed copies of the New Testament to Hindu schoolgirls and pressurised them to sign declarations adopting the Christian faith. The declaration, printed on the last page of each volume, said each signatory was a "sinner" and that she accepted Jesus as her "personal savior." The parents were understandably outraged because the conversion of minors is illegal, and also because their wards reported that the school staff was intimidating them to sign the declaration. However, a huge public uproar compelled the school to take back the New Testaments and issue a public apology in the press that "such literature" would not be distributed again.

The families paid up, but later when some went to visit their children, they found to their horror that the children were not enrolled in any school, but had been placed in an orphanage! The priest running the orphanage claimed he had paid Rs. 5,000 per child to a fellow priest and demanded restitution of this sum before releasing the children to their families.

The National Human Rights Commission conducted a special investigation in the tribal district of Dangs (Gujarat) in 1999, following reports of tensions between converts and their Hindu neighbors. Secularists were shamed into silence by the testimony of the highly respected Gandhian social worker, Shri Ghelubhai Nayak, who has devoted 50 years of his life to tribal welfare in the district. Shri Nayak informed the NHRC that Christian missionaries were behind the tensions in Dangs. He said in the previous three years alone, there were at least 15 instances of Christian converts "under the influence of their preachers" desecrating the moortis of Hanumanji, whom the tribals have venerated for generations. Shri Nayak said that in one case the converts urinated on an image of Hanuman, while in another they smashed the image to pieces and threw it in the river. Converts also upset their Hindu neighbors by publicly denouncing Hindu saints and Gods as shaitans.

Given this approach - and most state governments are reluctant to take the missionaries head on - where does the hope come from? Ironically, it comes from the underbelly of the Church - the corruption and lack of compassion that many of us have been brainwashed into believing does not contaminate that august body!

S.R. Welch's marvellous expose, Their Other `Dirty' Linen: Evangelism's Quest to Conquer the World (The Secular Web - infidels.org), shows that according to the World Evangelization Research Center (WERC), there are over 4000 mission agencies worldwide, manned by nearly 434,000 foreign missionaries, and commanding a colossal annual global income of US $ 18 billion! The average cost invoked on each person baptised is reported at a staggering $359,000 (Rs 1,50,7800/- person) and anybody can see that nothing near this reaches the intended beneficiaries of the gospel. Little wonder, then, that the returns in terms of harvested souls are poor, and that most evangelisation plans fall desperately behind target. Church embezzlement, WERC concludes, equals the annual global income of the missionary enterprise. What a denouement!

At ground level, life remains unchanged and dismal for the majority of converts, who belong to the lower strata of society. Notwithstanding aggressive claims that Christianity brings social justice and equality to India's erstwhile untouchable groups, the fact remains that dalits who convert soon discover that change of faith does not alter their `untouchable' status. So it is unsurprising that while over 75% Catholics are dalits, the latter constitute less than 5% of Indian priests.

Dalit Christian activists, who are currently being encouraged by the Church to canvass for privileges reserved for depressed sections of Hindu society (a tacit admission that there will be neither justice nor economic advancement through Christianity) are today the best advertisement against conversions. Hindu society, which felt the late Pope John Paul II had abused Indian hospitality by calling for the conversion of Asia during his 1998 visit to the country, can rest assured. In the absence of an absolutist power with which to bludgeon the populace, as was the case in Europe and the Americas, Christianity is unlikely to be a sunrise industry in India.

The politics of caste in conversion
September 11, 2005

The recent Supreme Court judgment discouraging additions to the list of religious minorities and the Central Government’s failure to arrive at a consensus over the Women’s Reservation Bill provide an occasion to debate the meaning of caste and religion, and their usage as instruments of reservation benefits.

From the time of the British Raj, caste has been used to berate Hindu society and has acquired negative connotations in public discourse. Though political parties canvass mass support through caste affiliations, political discourse labels it illegitimate. Even constitutional affirmative action for underprivileged castes is used to put upper caste Hindu society in the dock, though efforts are on to extend the use of caste for political ends. At present, organised religious minorities have launched a virtual crusade for the benefits of caste-based reservations. We need to examine the merits of this quest in terms of the genesis of caste and its applicability to those who have seceded from the Hindu fold.

Caste, the Portuguese name for the Hindu jati and gotra, is simply the organising principle of ancient Indian society. It was the means by which diverse groups in society were integrated and mutual conflicts resolved, on the matrix of an evolving dharma. Both caste and dharma emphasised heredity because ancestry (gotra) was imperative as the spirits of the ancestors had to be invoked in all social sacraments (samskara) to establish the individual’s worthiness to receive the sacrament.

Christianity and Islam systematically wiped out the traditional religion and culture in the lands where they spread.

Though apparently restrictive, all groups accepted the heredity principle and “created” ancestries and fabled origins as they progressed in life. The Mundas of Chotanagpur, who were originally organised into exogamous sects called Kilis, changed their Kilis into Gotras. Thus Sandi Kili became Sandil Gotra and Nom Tuti Kili evolved into Bhoj-Raj-Gotra. The Koch tribes of Assam metamorphosed into Bhanga-Kshatriya or Rajbansi, and claimed affinity with Rajputs.

Caste or jati is rooted in the tribal concept of gotra. Sociologists have traced the origins of the Barabhum royal family in eastern India to the Bhumij of the ancient Gulgu clan. The early forts of the Barabhum rajas were at Pabanpur (near Bhula, burial ground of the clan) and Bhuni, where the royal (tribal) Goddess Koteshwari had her sacred grove. But when the Bhumij chiefs claimed Rajput status, they shed their tribal affiliations by renouncing the clan ossuary at Bhula. A similar process was discerned among the tribal Bhumij of Baghmundi and the Manbhum Bhumij. The Bhumij are organised in patrilineal exogamous clans (gotras) affiliated to ancestral villages where the clan ossuaries are located. Gotra is thus the organising principle of tribal societies and the key constituent of Hindu social identity.

Given this reality, the question arises whether individuals and groups who have renounced their Hindu identity should get the benefits of a caste identity. Today, amidst mounting evidence that SC/ST reservations in educational institutions are being surreptitiously cornered by non-Hindus, some are asking why individuals who reject their Hindu identity should retain their caste names and thus mislead society.

It is well known that both Christianity and Islam systematically wiped out the traditional religion and culture in the lands where they spread. Christianity humbled Europe through untold brutality, and the Pope’s talk of Europe’s “Christian roots” cannot disguise the truth that the religion is a cruel imposition of only 2000 years. As for the genocides against the native peoples of North and South America, Australia, and the enslavement of Africa, the less said the better. Islam, similarly, triumphed by wiping out traditional communities (including Christian) where it became dominant.

My point is that both these religions have shown zero tolerance for even vestiges of the old religions in regions where they came to have sway. Both have periodically launched movements against “heretics” and resisted the liberalisation of dogma. While Islam today has the tabligh movement to cleanse Muslim adherents of old practices of their former faith traditions, Christian clergy are engaged in battle with the modern god called “secularism”.

Tolerance of, or co-existence with, old faith identities is therefore ruled out in both religions. In India, they do not even respect the right of the Hindu community to remain the majority community, and persist with aggressive attempts at conversions, vitiating the atmosphere all over the country. It therefore makes little sense to permit so-called Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims to garner reservation benefits intended to overcome social disabilities of Hindu society. If erstwhile Dalits find that Christianity and Islam mistreat them, they must approach appropriate judicial forums for redressal of their grievances or come back to the Hindu fold.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has rendered a sterling service by discouraging the trend towards listing distinct religious groups as “minority communities”. Indeed, as Swami Dayanand Saraswati pointed out in his reaction to the judgment, there are sound reasons why we should reject the classification of minorities on religious grounds. What is happening is that in India transnational religions with enormous numerical, economic and political clouts are claiming privileges as minorities.

India’s religious minorities have access to the enormous resource base of their global co-religionists, yet seek benefits that should go to more needy and deprived sections. The Vatican in Rome caters to the interests of Catholics, while the World Council of Churches in Geneva looks after Protestants. The 2.1 billion-strong Christian community constitutes one-third of the world population, and its clout and reach extends beyond national boundaries, as does that of Islam. Adherents of these transnational faiths, therefore, cannot legitimately be designated as minorities.

The Supreme Court rightly feels that classification of groups as minorities is “a serious jolt to the secular structure of constitutional democracy”. Not only would it generate “feelings of multi-nationalism in various sections of the people,” but it would hinder national integration. The judgment should serve as a stepping stone in the direction of abolishing the category of minority in the Constitution. The educational and cultural rights of all groups can be protected by equal laws for all educational and cultural institutions—it is time to level the playing field.

Church overtakes communist China
Column
September 04, 2005

Evangelical Christianity, funded and backed by the United States, is threatening to escalate into China’s new Opium War. Unless timely measures are taken, the land of Confucius, degraded by Chairman Mao into a spiritual, cultural and economic wasteland, may well emerge as a major outpost of a new imperialist thrust spearheaded by America. This would be a blow to the hitherto proud Han people, and a loss to India which has always regarded ancient Chinese civilization as a sister civilization.

American newspapers are gleefully documenting this phenomenon. Christianity has penetrated so deeply into towns and villages that converts surpass the membership of the Communist Party of China (The Washington Times, 3 August 2005). Official statistics of those registered at the State-sanctioned Protestant and Catholic churches reveal a staggering 35 million followers, which puts Christianity in third place after Buddhism and Taoism, overtaking Islam which comes fourth.

What should ring warning bells in Beijing, however, is the fact that Chinese Christianity’s American sponsors brag about “secret converts,” that is, converts who do not confess their new religious adherence to State census officials or State-recognized churches. This group of converts, which is linked up through a rapidly proliferating network of underground or “house” churches (homes where the faithful congregate), is said to number 100 million, far above the 70 million strong Communist Party. Since China officially permits religious freedom provided the faithful go to State-recognised institutions, the presence of a virtual “army” of underground believers does not bode well for its long-term security and sovereignty.

The pragmatists who led China away from Marxian sterility towards economic enterprise and free markets failed to recognize that Western capitalism (and its allied colonialism, later neo-colonialism) has always gone hand in hand with Christian evangelism, as conversion alone makes native people quietist enough to permit exploitation. The story of FDI in China is no success of the Communist Party in attracting foreign investment in the country, as made out in media hype. It is nothing but the story of a concerted Western attempt to swamp one of the world’s oldest civilizations by alluring a corrupt and effete leadership. If the Chinese still retain a fragment of their legendary national pride, they would do well to investigate the functioning of the multinational corporations functioning on their soil.

Since China officially permits religious freedom provided the faithful go to state-recognised institutions, the presence of a virtual “army” of underground believers does not bode well for its long-term security and sovereignty.

Even by the standards of a “craze,” Christianity has spread too far and too fast to be acceptable. Remote villages in backward provinces and urban areas like Beijing are literally bristling with local evangelists, and some hidden hand must be guiding their activities. The evangelicals, feeding on everyday unhappiness such as sickness and disease, must also be getting “compensated” (paid) for their exertions. If the payment is made through Western sources in some guise or other (China does not permit foreign missionaries), the Chinese Government should investigate the larger political motivation behind the conversions.

This is pertinent because it has come to light that some of the prominent figures of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, mostly living in exile, are converts. Zhang Boli and Xiong Yan, who figure on a list of 21 most-wanted student leaders, published soon after the massacre, have actually been ordained as priests. Han Dongfang, who went to America in 1993 on being released from prison after he contracted tuberculosis, also converted.

As in rural India, a key factor in the success of Christianity in China is its near monopoly of health services. A woman convert informed worshippers at the official Protestant church in Beijing that her “brother’s daughter had a virus, which doctors had never seen before. She was on a ventilator and everyone had lost hope. But I prayed for her, and she recovered. Now her family follows Christ, too.” This is obviously gibberish, and if the membership in her village in the poverty-stricken Anhui province has grown from five or six worshippers to 100 in just five years, there is obviously an entrenched system of inducements operating all over China.

The Communist Party is alive to the threat. Last September, President Hu Jintao reportedly told a select gathering of the party elite that Christianity represented a major threat to party rule (Wall Street Journal, 2 June 2005). But the regime is clearly out of its depth. Instead of encouraging a return to Confucius, Lao-Tse, and Buddhism, the Government is banking upon a sterile atheism to satisfy the spiritual quest of a thirsting nation. It is doomed to failure.

Equally suicidal is the move to build more state churches in order to monitor worshippers. Far from curtailing the appeal of foreign missionaries and creating “nationalist” Chinese Christians, this is de facto legitimising the proliferation of secret underground churches where, people are being made to believe, the “real” gospel is taught. In this manner, the seeds of subversion are being laid and strengthened.

If this sounds like a conspiracy theory, consider the fact that some churches are actually holding Arabic classes (its true!) to prepare missionaries to proselytize in the Gulf. This clearly indicates a Western mind at work, pulling invisible strings from the safety of a corporate office in Beijing, and preparing ethnic Chinese as cannon fodder in Islamic countries. If China, which has excellent official ties with Islamic countries, can be thus used to subvert those countries, what kind of subversion can be done in China itself?

A newly converted upper class professional revealed that the church is targetting the well educated rather than the poor and unsuccessful because, like the early Christians, the attempt is to “dominate the Roman Empire.” Noodle entrepreneur Su bribed Government officials to keep her seminary (where Arabic was taught) afloat. She distributed liquor, cigarettes and red envelopes of cash, sometimes hundreds of dollars, before holidays. A religious affairs officer, Xu, acknowledged receiving gifts; he helped her reopen a vocational school shut down by the authorities. As in India, official corruption may prove to be the undoing of the People’s Republic.

UN must define terrorism
Column
August 28, 2005

With Islamic fundamentalists determinedly leaving their signature tune upon hitherto unvisited world capitals, and religio-ethnic violence taking a grim upturn in Jammu & Kashmir with the recent beheading of a woman and slitting of throats of five men, India needs to take a pro-active interest in getting the United Nations General Assembly to define “terrorism” at its forthcoming annual meeting in September.

As of now, there are indications that UN officials are keen to take up the issue of defining terrorism. As a nation that has been consistently targetted by terrorism for several decades, and particularly after Western nations refused to name India as a victim-country in the wake of the London blasts, India must ensure that the September summit yields an international consensus on the definition of terrorism and terrorists. This must be followed up by a comprehensive treaty against terrorism.

The time has never been more opportune. The growing nervousness in Western capitals over the planting of Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist ‘sleeper’ cells in their respective societies; even worse, the possibility that home-grown ideologically motivated West-hating potential suicide bombers may be ticking away silently, has effectively neutralised the specious plea that one nation’s terrorists are another country’s freedom fighters. Hence, this is the time to press for international recognition that targeting and killing civilians cannot be justified or legitimised in any circumstances.

New Delhi must also firmly reiterate India’s position on Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, and Western capitals that support General Musharraf’s stand that the murderers of innocents in the Valley are ‘freedom fighters’ may be informed that India can retaliate by supporting claims for division of territory by their respective Islamic citizens. This threat already looms over several European nations, and is hence a rather potent weapon.

Far from using the London blasts to corner the Blair Government and canvass minority votes for his party for future elections, Mr. Major spoke up uncompromisingly against the politics of terror. Even more impressively, he dared defend the tragic shooting by the London police, which resulted in the death of an innocent Brazilian national, saying: “I rather prefer the expression shoot-to-protect rather than shoot-to-kill. I think that is a more accurate description of what happened.”

New Delhi should also avail of the opportunity to highlight the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus by fundamentalist elements in the present regime in Dhaka, and to demand that those responsible for this continuing outrage be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international body must be urged to stop these atrocities forthwith, failing which India would be within her rights to take appropriate measures to protect these unfortunate victims.

In this context, it is worth noting that in the wake of the London blasts, Conservative leader and former Prime Minister John Major committed his party to unwavering support for strong governmental measures against those who live in the country and yet “spit hate” against the Anglo-Saxon way of life. Sir John was forthright enough to state that freedom of speech could not be used as a cover to incite people to violence and that the protection of the public was the first duty of the Government.

Calling for deportation of all terrorists, Sir John told the BBC Radio 4 that from the time he demitted office in 1997, he was aware of an increasing number of Islamist terror groups in the country and hence it would be wrong to say the Iraq war was responsible for the new wave of Islamist attacks. In fact, he said, terrorism had been growing for the past 30 years and did not threaten only the West.

This is strong stuff. It is also a lesson to all political parties in India about how mature and responsible leaders conduct themselves in the face of terrorist attacks upon their nations and peoples. Far from using the London blasts to corner the Blair Government and canvass minority votes for his party for future elections, Mr. Major spoke up uncompromisingly against the politics of terror. Even more impressively, he dared defend the tragic shooting by the London police, which resulted in the death of an innocent Brazilian national, saying: “I rather prefer the ex-pression shoot-to-protect rather than shoot-to-kill. I think that is a more accurate description of what happened.”

Sir John’s remark about the local roots of an internationally connected terrorism effectively sums up the nature of the threat facing the world. While it is true that key terrorists in the London blasts had a Pakistani connection, the fact of the matter is also that there has been a home-grown radicalism of Britain’s Islamic community, especially after the 2001 Twin Towers tragedy. This is a reality the hitherto indulgent Blair Government will have to admit, a fact Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was quick to point out.

So while it is true that the London bombers visited Pakistan prior to the attacks, it is unlikely that they went there for ideological training. As Pakistani scholar Ahmad Rashid recently told Spiegel Online, it is far more likely that they came to make contacts with militant groups and for training. This is likely because several Pakistani madrasas have been taken over by terrorist groups which are using them as recruiting platforms. And the reason why General. Musharraf cannot genuinely shut them down is because they are run by groups whose support he needs for some aspects of his foreign policy, most notably regarding Jammu & Kashmir and Afghanistan.

It is therefore unlikely that Pakistan, which is emerging as the global fulcrum of international Islamic terrorism, would be able to close down the military training camps conducted by terrorist-run madrasas or the ISI. Hence the world is likely to witness more and more instances of terrorism with the ISI connection. India constitutes the hinterland of ISI-Islamic terrorism, but now the latter has extended its footprint into the front garden of Western nations. There has never been a better moment for an organised campaign to combat terrorism.

Shariat’s vicious stranglehold
Column
August 21, 2005

Even as the public uproar following the Deoband Dar-ul Uloom’s fatwa annulling the marriage of 28-year-old Imrana after her alleged rape by her father-in-law refuses to die down, at least two other cases have come to light in which the victims of a similar tragedy had their marriages terminated by the local maulvis. This means that unbeknownst to most of us, Muslim women in remote villages and small towns are routinely being subjected to terrible injustice in the name of personal laws. Hence, the issue of uniform civil code must be seen in the perspective of intra-community gender justice alone.

The fortuitous exposure of young Imrana’s plight by the media has brought these injustices into the limelight. Indeed, public outrage and an unexpectedly sharp reaction from the CPM and the BJP over the Deoband Dar-ul Uloom’s fatwa declaring Imrana as henceforth haraam (forbidden) to her husband compelled the seminary to deny issuing any edict in the case. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), after robustly upholding the Ansari panchayat’s decision annulling the marriage, also retreated when faced with a rising chorus for a uniform civil code.

Yet it is uncertain if this will mitigate the victim’s plight, because the self-styled spokespersons of the Muslim community have closed ranks to defend an unreformed Shariat and oppose debate on a uniform civil code. Attempts are being made to malign Imrana by alleging that a property dispute made her level such an obnoxious charge against her father-in-law. Two of her sisters-in-law have filed defamation cases against her and matters are likely to get further complicated.

Several Muslim intellectuals and legal experts are trying to hush up the matter by claiming that the Deoband fatwa is not tenable in Islam. But the unpleasant truth is that the fatwa is consistent with the Hanbali school of Shariat followed by Deoband and the Sunni Muslims.

Several Muslim intellectuals and legal experts are trying to hush up the matter by claiming that the Deoband fatwa is not tenable in Islam. But the unpleasant truth is that the fatwa is consistent with the Hanbali school of Shariat followed by Deoband and the Sunni Muslims. So if the intellectuals now feel that Sunni Muslims in India can disregard the Hanbali School, at least in some aspects, in favour of more liberal Islamic schools such as Shafi, Malik and Hanafi, they must concede that this also involves formal reform of Islamic law. Since the intellectuals are resisting this, it would appear that their current posturing is intended solely to deflect the demand for a uniform civil code.

The AIMPLB, which has no legal sanctity, but acquired prominence after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi agreed to overturn the 1985 Supreme Court judgment giving maintenance to an old Muslim divorcee, Shah Bano, had promised to codify Muslim personal law to facilitate interpretation in precisely such situations. Of course, it did nothing, because the idea was to ward

off public pressure on the issue of justice for Muslim divorcees. Now, caught in a fresh bind over the Imrana issue, Muslim leaders and intellectuals are again resorting to subterfuges to deflect criticism about the obscurantist nature of the Shariat. Hence it is imperative that the Indian State reform Muslim personal laws the way several Islamic countries have.

A brief recapitulation of the facts will suffice to show the urgency of the matter. Imrana, wife of a rickshaw-puller in Chatarwal town of Uttar Pradesh, was allegedly raped by her father-in-law on June 3, 2005. Once the scandal broke out, the Ansari panchayat decreed automatic divorce and asked Imrana to treat her husband as a son. The couple rejected the verdict until the mighty Deoband concurred with the panchayat, causing them to cave in.

This is because Begum Naseem Iqtedar, sole woman member of the AIMPLB which endorsed Deoband’s since denied fatwa, had concurred with the ruling saying: “As far as the Holy Quran is concerned, Imrana’s marriage to her husband Noor Ilahi stands dissolved because she has been raped by her husband’s blood relative....”

State agencies failed to provide succour. Dr. Girja Vyas, chairperson, National Commission for Women, soft-peddled the issue, as did the Congress and Samajwadi parties. If women activists, the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, the CPM and the BJP had not raised such a hue and cry, the Deoband ulema would have officially separated the family by now. However, it is not certain if they can still survive as a unit.

This is because Begum Naseem Iqtedar, sole woman member of the AIMPLB which endorsed Deoband’s since denied fatwa, had concurred with the ruling, saying: “As far as the Holy Quran is concerned, Imrana’s marriage to her husband Noor Ilahi stands dissolved because she has been raped by her husband’s blood relative....” Indifferent to the young woman’s plight, Iqtedar insisted: “As believers of Islam, we have to follow what has been prescribed by the religion.” This suggests that once public attention wavers, the community leaders may yet ensure that their wishes prevail over natural justice and public morality.

The attitude of Deoband and AIMPLB raises basic questions about the legality and propriety of a sovereign and secular State giving religious clergy authoritarian powers over a community, without scope for appeal or redressal in the event of an unacceptable verdict. Distrusting such unchecked powers, the CPM and the BJP are rightly demanding that the law of the land supersede personal laws to protect women’s rights.

Police in Gurgaon act as MNC baton
August 07, 2005

The principle lesson of the Gurgaon tragedy is that our trade union sector is in a hopeless time warp, and needs to urgently upgrade its skills in order to deliver true justice for the workers it claims to represent. India is now too far on the road to globalisation as opposed to liberalisation (which sought congenial conditions for Indian players) to turn back; unions must leapfrog ahead to protect the legitimate interests of workers.

If we look around for inspiration, in America Ralph Nader created a powerful movement arguing for the need of a consumer voice against an important multinational. I would argue that in India, given the manner in which reckless privatisation has left citizens without forums of grievance articulation (eg. electricity) there is a need for more innovative and effective methods of achieving rightful dues.

This is even more imperative for trade unions, which have been floundering about with last century’s techniques, even as Indian and foreign industry make a mockery of workers’ rights and dignity of labour. Over the past decade, since the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao unrolled the wagon of liberalisation, obsolete labour laws and procedures have been replaced with de facto no laws and a virtual law of the jungle.

No industry or business can survive without profits, but the quest for profits has been allowed to proceed to such obscene lengths that in numberless factories around Delhi alone, workers are dismissed without qualms when their salary reaches a certain level and cheaper labour is hired. Men thus dismissed are normally married men with school-going children; we cannot permit whole families to be thrown to the wolves in this manner.

Need to modernise union activity.

It is easy to talk of a free market, but the living experience of labour is that they are thus beaten down year by year, with the result that men being jostled from one industry to another find themselves earning less and less as the years go by. The glitter of unconscionable salaries earned by the very few at the very top tends to make maltreated workers invisible, but no society can survive with such an approach to social justice. Contract labour is another devise of instilling employee stress, and I cannot believe it contributes to productivity. There must also be a link between work stress and the health problems currently surfacing in society.

Looking at the Gurgaon tragedy, we find that on July 25, 2005, the district police indulged in disproportionate violence against striking workers of the multinational Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd, who were protesting the dismissal of 50 workers in the company’s Manesar factory. Some reports suggest the workers were sacked after they joined the CPI-backed All India Trade Union Congress in defiance of company orders to boycott the union.

This is sheer tyranny. The Government must explain if inviting multinationals to India means bringing the East India Company back through the backdoor. Haryana officers in the Mini Secretariat must explain why there was no official intervention when over 1000 workers were gheraoed by the police when they reached there for talks. They must explain what measures they took with Honda Motors to reinstate the dismissed workers. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would also do well to tell the international business community that India does not need foreign investments at the cost of national dignity.

Looking at the Gurgaon tragedy, we find that on July 25, 2005, the district police indulged in disproportionate violence against striking workers of the multinational Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd, who were protesting the dismissal of 50 workers in the company’s Manesar factory.

Television viewers were shocked at the unprecedented scenes of brutality flashing across their screens, leaving nearly 700 unarmed workers with grievous head injuries. It is true that there was mob violence against some policemen, including a DSP, and two vehicles were burnt. But it is also undeniable that the police action was premeditated. If the intention was merely to break up the gathering, the administration would have made provisions for water hoses or tear gas; instead there was only brute force.

Unions must realize that in the current environment, workers will be displaced and businesses will close down. A fair policy would be to ensure that dismissed workers receive compensation to the tune of six to nine months of full wages (perks and allowances included) in order to get time to relocate themselves; but grounds of dismissal must be fair and reasonable. Industries wishing to close down should be allowed to do so in a reasonable time span, rather than languish and work up debts.

Europe is already realizing that hire and fire policies created insecurity leading to a general inability among youth to plan families; this has resulted in the crisis of negative population growth. India’s political leadership must respect the human need to have and maintain families and to work with dignity, which involves a measure of job security. India in its quest for global status should not make the mistakes of the old European capitalism. Maybe there was some merit in the old Hindu social system (varna) which denied pre-eminent status to the rich, but respected business and commerce for the wealth and stability it created in society, and facilitated its legitimate operation.

TDP, BJP protest, Congress tests positive
Evangelists want a church in Tirumala
July 31, 2005

Evangelists are targetting the sacred most site of Tirumala and in a direct affront to the Hindu community, which has for centuries regarded all seven hills as holy. They have started gathering on the slopes in groups for public prayers. Even though an officer of the State-controlled Tirumala Tirupati Devasathanam (TTD) which manages the world famous Venkateshwara temple has denied that a missionary society has submitted a proposal to build a church on the hills, there is widespread disbelief on account of the known biases of Chief Minister, Y. Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy.

The denials by TTD special officer A.V. Dharma Reddy follow reports in leading Telugu newspapers such as Eenadu and television channels like ETV, Teja TV, Gemini TV and Sun TV. Former Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu, who was reportedly tipped off by informed sources in the Secretariat, has strongly condemned the move, as has the state BJP.

What lends credence to Hindu fears is the despicable statement by the Government official that the TTD temple owns only 10.33 sq. miles of land on the hills, and this land is administered by the mandir trust. This is a transparent ploy to deny the sacred character of all seven hills in their entirety, and restrict the sacred site of the Hindu community to the formal boundary of the extant of temple of Lord Venkateshwara.

Should it happen, it will be a desecration at par with that of the Mylapore Shiva temple in Chennai. Hitherto, there has never been any question of a structure other than the shrine of Lord Venkateshwara on these hills, and it bears remembering that it is the hills that are holy and not merely the mandir which adorns them.

Clearly we are witnessing the development of a major assault upon one of the most venerated sites of the Hindu community. Should it happen, it will be a desecration at par with that of the Mylapore Shiva temple in Chennai. Hitherto, there has never been any question of a structure other than the shrine of Lord Venkateshwara on these hills, and it bears remembering that it is the hills that are holy and not merely the mandir which adorns them. For instance, a temple along a busy thoroughfare would be holy, but the adjacent land would not be deemed sacred.

Thus, the attempt to limit the sacredness of Tirumala to the boundary of the temple, i.e. 10.33 sq. miles, is suspicious and suggests that the State Government may be preparing the ground for handing over land to a church body on one of the slopes. This is consistent with the systematic defilement of Hindu institutions since the UPA became ascendant in national life, as witnessed in the harassment of the Kanchi Shankaracharya and Bal Shankaracharya, and attempts to take over prominent Hindu temples.

What lends urgency to Hindu fears is the fact that six large churches have already sprung up on the road to Tirumala (Bye-pass road and new Bye-pass road) that leads to Alipiri, the foot of the hills. It is therefore imperative that the State Government recognize the entire seven hills as the sacred abode of Shri Venkateshwara, and ensure that no structure of any other religion is allowed to come up there.

Hindu activists in the region point out that when Sonia Gandhi violated the rules and entered the sanctum sanctorum of Tirumala Tirupati Devasathanam some years ago, without signing the mandatory declaration for practitioners of other religions; she was facilitated in this outrage by the then TTD executive officer Ajay Kallam. The activists point out that according to the local bush telegraph, Ajay Kallam and some of his family members converted to Christianity some time ago, and this fact may have some bearing on some of their public actions. For instance, Mr. Kallam sought to auction hundred acres of land belonging to the Hathi Ramji Matham (Tirumala) a year ago, and it was only with difficulty that the auction was eventually cancelled.

The point being made is that it is a terrible sacrilege that State control of Hindu holy sites enables non-Hindus to seize control of major temples and run them according to an undisclosed agenda. Non-believers have infiltrated critical areas of these institutions. It is already a matter of considerable concern that the enormous revenues of Hindu temples in south India are being misused to fund the Haj subsidy and renovate churches, while temples and priests remain starved of basic funds. Now more than ever before there is need to expedite the return of the temples to the community.

According to field activists, an official scrutiny of lands and properties acquired by evangelical organizations may shed interesting light upon a phenomenon best dubbed as ‘colonization through land ownership.’ The value of the properties and the costs of the gigantic bureaucracies associated with them would be an eye-opener. It is instructive, for instance, to drive through the Coromandel Coast from Vishakapatnam to Toottukkudi, and observe the plethora of churches proliferating along the route; most are new constructions. A journey to Guntur and Eluru may be similarly instructive.

The Andhra Pradesh Government is a wholly unsuitable custodian of Tirupathi and must be made to surrender control of this holy shrine. Some time ago it condoned the demolition of the 550-year old Thousand Pillar Temple for no good reason. A Government that lacks the sense of the sacrality of the seven hills which have been regarded as a tirthasthanam and devasthanam from time immemorial cannot be allowed to preside over its destiny.

Ayodhya impacts Iran gas deal
Column
July 24, 2005

The 5 July 2005 assault on the Ram Janmabhoomi has cast a grim shadow over the Amarnath yatra in Kashmir, with Pakistan determined to escalate pressure on a perceived-to-be-weak Indian leadership. Consistent with the jehadi nature of the enterprise, Hindu gods and innocent civilians are the chosen targets of this macho activity, which can also have a grim economic impact, which the UPA regime is refusing to take cognizance of.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was recently forced to admit that Islamabad has kept its terror infrastructure intact. If this disclosure is not accompanied by caution in the peace process, especially while pursuing sensitive issues like the gas pipeline deal with Iran, India may have to pay an unacceptable price for accommodating Western diplomacy. As a natural corollary, the Indian Army will be subjected to unconscionable stress as it intensifies border vigilance and checks infiltration while combating militant operations. The Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force and police are already stretched out; yet there is no let up in the daily incidents in the border State.

As for Ayodhya, some kind of cover-up operation seems to be underway, with Home Minister Shivraj Patil saying the government had “some information” about the terrorists but that it would be “too premature” to disclose it at present. Shri Patil’s claims do not inspire confidence on account of perceived attempts to obfuscate the identity of the men. Inspired leaks suggest that the terrorists were probably Arabic-speaking Africans who entered India via Nepal. It is said that driver Raj Kumar, who brought the five men from Akbarpur to Ayodhya, has revealed that the militants conversed with each other in Arabic, and did not speak in Kashmiri.

It appears that one terrorist wore a T-shirt with the word ‘Khushaab’ printed on it. Investigators say they are trying to find out where such shirts are made and sold. Well, Khushaab is reportedly the site of Pakistan’s secret nuclear facility, set up by China. Also the home of Pakistan’s “khaddar” industry, it lies a few miles from Sargodha on the banks of the Jhelum.

One is unimpressed by the claim that an ordinary driver in a hick town like Ayodhya, which does not normally receive Muslim tourists, would know the difference between Arabic and Kashmiri. Muslims of Faizabad district would speak Hindi or Urdu. Yet it is being argued that after listening to some Kashmiri and Arabic speech, Raj Kumar emphatically stated that the terrorists spoke Arabic among themselves. We are not told if the dead militants were ethnic White Arabs or black Africans or appeared to look like ordinary Indians/Pakistanis of the subcontinent. No official pictures of the buried terrorists have been released so far, which is highly suspicious.

The insistence that the militants did not speak Kashmiri is a transparent ploy to exonerate Pakistan from having any role in the mischief. This is allegedly bolstered by the Nepal-made caps worn by the slain men. Yet the Indian government is reluctant to say if the terrorists were Al Qaeda operatives from an Arab country, as this would put an entirely new dimension to the terrorist threat faced by India. Clearly, the attempt is to let the issue fizzle out. There is no progress in identifying the terrorists as no clear evidence has been recovered from them. A pocket-sized holy Quran recovered from them was published in Delhi.

One is unimpressed by the claim that an ordinary driver in a hick town like Ayodhya, which does not normally receive Muslim tourists, would know the difference between Arabic and Kashmiri. Muslims of Faizabad district would speak Hindi or Urdu.

Observers monitoring the Ayodhya investigations feel that some liberties are being taken with the truth. It appears that one terrorist wore a T-shirt with the word ‘Khushaab’ printed on it. Investigators say they are trying to find out where such shirts are made and sold. Well, Khushaab is reportedly the site of Pakistan’s secret nuclear facility, set up by China. Also the home of Pakistan’s “khaddar” industry, it lies a few miles from Sargodha on the banks of the Jhelum. The 50 MWT heavy water and natural uranium research reactor here is key to Pakistan’s program for production of plutonium and tritium for advanced compact warheads. While it may be premature to draw a conclusion, it is an interesting coincidence that a man arrested some time ago for a suicide attempt on the then PM-designate Shaukat Aziz, hailed from Khushaab. Mohammad Imran belonged to the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad, which is linked to Al Qaeda. Security agencies are also hesitant to identify the source of the two AK rifles recovered from the terrorists, which bore the initials ‘TAK’. Sources suggest that this could be deciphered as “Tarkka-Ampujan Kivaari,” a Finnish rifle gunsmith.

That Pakistan is emerging once again as the nerve centre of international terror can be seen from Islamabad’s own intelligence reports which warn that militants are planning strikes against American, British and Iranian (Shia) diplomats, and some religious places (possibly Shia mosques, given the escalating sectarian conflict in that country). The growing violence against the Shia community in Pakistan, which rose perceptibly after the Baathist Sunnis lost power in Iraq and its Shia clergy became politically assertive and close to Iran, is a powerful reason why India should go slow on sewing up a tripartite gas pipeline deal with the predominantly Shia Iran and the largely Sunni Pakistan. Sectarian animosities between the two countries will impart a constant volatility to the project.

Churches in Rawalpindi and Islamabad have also been identified as a source of terrorist anger by Pakistani authorities. Viewed as helipads of western imperialism in the Islamic Republic, the jehadis hope that targetting churches, this will force the government to stop cooperating with America’s so-called war on terror. Banned terror outfits that continue to operate in Islamabad include the Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Alami, Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami, Harkatul Ansar, Jaish Mohammad (Khuddamul Islam), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Millat-e-Islamia.

Jehadi attack in Ayodhya
Janmabhoomi temple on centrestage
July 17, 2005

Given the political diffidence of the establishment towards the Ram Mandir, it would be premature to conclude that the terrorist attack has revived the Ayodhya issue. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil made uninspiring statements about the assault upon Hindu Dharma’s pre-eminent holy site, while Congress president Sonia Gandhi issued a formal statement through a party functionary. The Sangh Parivar formally called for mature and peaceful nationwide protests.

Whoever equipped six terrorists with AK 47 and AK 56 rifles, hand grenades, and even prepared the ubiquitous human bomb for the 5 July 2005 assault upon the Janmabhoomi, did so with a purpose. I believe the objective was to seize a psychologically vantage site with easily available hostages and make demands upon the Indian State. That the attempt failed due to the quick responses and valour of CRPF personnel was an unexpected setback, as many things favoured the terrorists’ success.

First, of course, was the advantage of surprise, which always vests with the aggressor, no matter how high the state of alert. Second, the fact that the Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh and the UPA at the Centre are both inimical to the BJP and the demand for the Ram Temple, could have misled the terrorists to believe that Ayodhya was vulnerable for a hostile takeover.

A successful seizure of the Ram Janmabhoomi could have killed many birds with one stone. Removal or destruction of the idols in the sanctum sanctorum—which was not disturbed even during the High Court-sponsored excavations in 2003—would have denuded the site of its current sanctity and levelled the playing field for rival communal claims. This aspect of Jehadi iconoclasm, which caused the loss of the Janmabhoomi 400 years ago, must not be lost sight of. Those fighting the title suit in the Allahabad High Court would do well to ask the Hon’ble Court to order status quo on the site. Thus, if the mandir is attacked again, its status as a temple would have to be restored.

That the attempt failed due to the quick responses and valour of CRPF personnel was an unexpected setback, as many things favoured the terrorists’ success.

The capture of Ayodhya by a handful of possibly Pak-sponsored terrorists would have seen the international community breathing down heavily upon India for the state of its relations with neighbouring Pakistan and its treatment of minorities. One has only to recall how the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid justified Taliban destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas as revenge for Babri, to appreciate the heavy price we would have to pay for the Janmabhoomi. At the very least, Western diplomats and Indian secularists would demand concessions to Pakistan in Jammu & Kashmir.

Some observers feel Congress’ appeasement of Muslims with reservations in jobs, educational institutions and local bodies in Andhra Pradesh, has led to a belief that more concessions could be extracted by force. With the death of all terrorists, however, we shall never know for sure the calculations behind the attack.

On the flip side, the unsolicited return of Ayodhya to national consciousness may be the best time to revisit it for a final resolution. ASI excavations in 2003 established that Ayodhya had an uninterrupted human (read Hindu) presence from the first millennium b.c. Although the Allahabad High Court prohibited publication of the complete findings, the summary released to the press is adequa-tely illuminating.

The first inhabitants of the site used Northern Block Polished Ware (NBPW), and the remains of their material culture included terracotta figurines of female deities with archaic features, beads of terracotta and glass, wheels and fragments of votive tanks, etc. A round signet with legend in Ashokan Brahmi was found at this level, probably circa 1000 b.c. to 300 b.c. The next layers show the Sunga period (second-first century b.c.) with the typical terracotta Mother Goddess, human and animal figurines, beads, hairpin, and pottery including black slipped, red and grey wares. This is followed by the Kushan period (first to third century a.d.) and the Guptas (fourth to sixth century a.d.).

UPA failure in focus

The post-Gupta-Rajput period (seventh to tenth century a.d.) reveals structural activity with burnt bricks, most important of which is a circular brick shrine, which is internally squarish and has an entrance from the east. Though damaged, the northern wall shows the pranala (water-chute), a distinct feature of contemporary temples of the Ganga-Yamuna plain. ASI also found a huge structure dating to the eleventh–twelfth century a.d., nearly 50 metres in north-south orientation, but having a short life-span as only four of the 50 pillar bases exposed during excavations belonged to this level.

The conclusive finding, however, was of a massive structure with at least three structural phases. Architectural members of the previous structure with stencil cut foliage pattern and other decorative motifs were reused in this building which had a huge pillared hall (or two halls), and show evidence of a public building with a minimum dimension of 50 x 30 metres. This lasted a long time during period VII (Medieval-Sultanate level, twelfth to sixteenth century a.d.). The disputed Babri structure was erected directly over this twelfth-century temple complex in the early sixteenth century.

Summing up the totality of archaeological evidence of a massive structure just below the disputed structure and the continuity in structural phases from the tenth century onwards up to the construction of the Babri structure, along with the findings of stone and decorated bricks, mutilated sculpture of a divine couple, carved architectural members including foliage patterns, amalaka, kapolapali doorjamb with semi-circular pilaster, broken octagonal shaft of black schist pillar, lotus motif, circular shrine having pranala (water-chute) in the north, 50 pillar bases, etc., ASI concluded that the remains found are indicative of the distinctive features associated with temples of north India.

This is fairly definitive. Given the fact that neither the courts nor the negotiation process has yielded fruits so far, it is high time that we faced the fact that Ayodhya is not—as falsely claimed in the courts—a mere property dispute (title suit). Indeed, the Jehadi attack proves it is universally perceived as the heart of Hindu Dharma’s highest reverence.

A new beginning should be made by approaching the High Court to permit publication and dissemination of the complete ASI findings for public information and debate. At the same time, political parties must rise above partisan considerations and seriously consider a national legislation to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

BJP, CPM call for Common Civil Code
Obscurantism threat to modern nation state
Imrana now, Shah Bano then
July 10, 2005

Startling as the Imrana rape case and its aftermath have been, some issues have crystallised with the controversial Islamic verdict that has stunned the entire country. We would do well to examine the tragedy and its denouement dispassionately to arrive at a reasoned understanding of how the continued operation of unreformed personal laws amount to injustice against the very community that regards protection of personal laws a religious right.

A brief recapitulation of the facts suggests that 25-year old Imrana, wife of a rickshaw-puller in Uttar Pradesh, was allegedly raped by her father-in-law on June 3, 2005. The said rape was witnessed by two women of the family, who rushed to the spot on hearing the victim cry for help.

Once the scandal became public, the community Panchayat declared that the rape had resulted in automatic divorce between the couple. Imrana was told to treat her husband as a son and to marry another man of her choice, if she wished. Initially, both Imrana and her husband, Noor Ilahi, decried and rejected the verdict.

Faced with growing public outrage, the Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom jumped into the fray. On the positive side, the Deoband investigations established that even by the standards of the weighted-against-women Islamic law, Imrana was raped by her father-in-law, Ali Mohammad. She was proclaimed a victim; there were no attempts to question her personal integrity.

In one stroke, the victim of an atrocity was expelled from her home and denied the emotional anchorage that her husband wished to give her. A family with five children was broken up.

The Deoband fatwa, however, raises questions about the legality, morality, and propriety of a sovereign and secular State ceding religious clergy the power to adjudicate on matters deeply affecting the lives of individual members of a community, without scope for appeal or redressal in the event of a faulty verdict. The Dar-ul-Uloom upheld the community Panchayat’s view that Imrana is automatically divorced, and directed her husband to maintain their five children.

In one stroke, the victim of an atrocity was expelled from her home and denied the emotional anchorage that her husband wished to give her. A family with five children was broken up. It was repeated ad nauseum that Imrana is free to marry another man of her choice, but how does a burqa-clad mother of five find a man of her choice? What happens to her five children if her husband remarries, as is likely, and is forced by poverty to renege on maintenance commitments to Imrana?

The Ulema had some harsh words for the rapist, but they were just that – words. There are no social consequences for him, and if he manages to get around the legal system, he will be a free man. But Deoband destroyed Imrana and Noor Ilahi; the couple was willing to challenge the community Panchayat’s decision on automatic divorce, but cowered before Dar-ul-Uloom.

Some months ago, a Muslim Jawan declared dead by the Army returned unexpectedly from Pakistan to find that his wife, Gudiya, had been married off to another man and was heavily pregnant. Rather than facilitating a discreet divorce so that the young girl could live with her second family, where she was deeply happy and loved, the Ulema muscled in and made Gudiya’s return to her legal husband a prestige issue for the Shariat. Although Gudiya, her second husband and family and even the entire village where she lived wanted the Jawan to go away, the poor girl was browbeaten in a televised and lopsided Panchayat, and forced to return to the first husband.

The Indian State must take cognizance of the Shariat’s capacity to unleash sheer social and religious terror against innocent Muslims. Unfettered powers of the Ulema have made ordinary Muslims second-class citizens.

The human dimension of Imrana’s tragedy has moved the newly created All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, but one doubts how it can help the beleaguered couple. Shariat expert, Tahir Mahmood opined that the Arabic provision of automatic divorce in the event of rape by a husband’s close kinsman made sense in a society where divorced women could remarry almost instantly. It should not be imposed upon a couple that wishes to continue with the marriage.

There is another aspect to the tragedy. Women activists know that in the Muslim society, mehr (payment) is often deferred while there is a growing menace of dowry. Girls are ill-treated to make them forego mehr and sometimes families pay handsomely to get unhappy girls a divorce. The Imrana judgment may unleash a trend whereby families wishing to end a marriage for whatever reason simply rape a woman and make her haraam (prohibited) for her husband.

The Indian State must take cognizance of the Shariat’s capacity to unleash sheer social and religious terror against innocent Muslims. Unfettered powers of the Ulema have made ordinary Muslims second-class citizens. The bells have been tolling for some time, but we did not then know how to decipher the signals. Nearly two decades ago, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi succumbed to Ulema pressure on the issue of just alimony for Muslim divorcees, with the Hindu community expressing anger at the politics of appeasement. It was pacified by opening the locks of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya.

This is the ultimate irony of the minority-appeasing quality of Indian secularism—even those opposed to it can fall into its trap. We demand a Mansarovar subsidy when we only want to end the Haj subsidy. Hindus opposed to Nehruvian secularism have always posited Indic civilisation’s inclusivist tradition as the correct way to affect a minority-majority synergy. Now, when the road from Shah Bano to Gudiya to Imrana is literally paved with tears, it is imperative that we make the State act to contain an Ulema that has tasted the blood of beleaguered Muslim women. A Common Civil Code is a national imperative.

One man two votes if you are a minority
Column
July 03, 2005

In India’s troubled history, religious quotas have been a sensitive issue. Religious reservations in the political sphere resulted in Partition as Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League would not reconcile to living under a system of one-man one-vote, which would deprive the Muslims of the communal weightage they enjoyed under the Raj.

In the circumstances, it was extremely shortsighted of the Congress leadership to perpetuate the sense of religious identity as a sole identity marker among communities that received special patronage from previous political dispensations. Whereas persecuted people, such as Syrian Christians, Jews, Parsis, Bahais, Tibetan Buddhists, who settled in India, faced no problems in preserving their distinct cultures while living in peace with their neighbours, the false notion that Muslims and Christians needed or deserved special constitutional concessions to protect their identities fostered an unhealthy sense of separatism amongst them.

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y. Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy’s decision to press ahead with 5 per cent reservations for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions, despite a previous rebuff by the High Court, is a regressive measure by any yardstick. Blanket quotas are a poor instrument to deal with the alleged backwardness of any group, and religious quotas can only aggravate tensions between the various communities.

Y. Samuel Rajshekhar Reddy’s decision to press ahead with 5 per cent reservations for Muslims in government jobs and educational institutions, despite a previous rebuff by the High Court, is a regressive measure by any yardstick.

It is unbelievable that YSR pushed ahead with this explosive measure without an explicit nod from the Congress high command. The Chief Minister has not shown the desire to fulfill any other electoral pledge, most notably a separate Telengana state, which contributed immensely to the party’s victory. Yet, after the High Court placed technical hurdles in the way of the communal quota, YSR reconstituted the State Backward Classes Commission and asked it to remove the technical glitches in his path.

Within three days of being armed with the desired recommendations, he pronounced a 5 per cent quota, taking the total percentage of reservation in Andhra Pradesh to 51 per cent. As a sop, it was said that the so-called ‘creamy layer’ of the community, that is, children of parents with an annual income of Rs 2.5 lakh and above and children of Class I and II officers of the Central Government and judges of the Supreme Court, High Court and UPSC members, would be outside the purview of the said quotas.

This actually raises more questions than it answers. As Muslims constitute around 8.5 per cent of the state’s population, it is inexplicable that they should receive a whopping 5 per cent quota. If reservations are to be given on the basis of social or economic backwardness, these should be the only criterion for reservations, as every religious group has backward citizens and no religious group is backward in totality. In fact, the exclusion of the ‘creamy layer’ from reservation benefits makes sense only if the yardstick is economic or social backwardness rather than religious identity per se.

In this context, it needs to be reiterated that when reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were first mooted in the Constituent Assembly, it was for the specific reason that a mixture of historical-social factors had contributed to the present social, economic and educational backwardness of these groups. Hence, they were also given the benefit of political reservations. So while these groups were part of the Hindu society, the Hindus as a whole were not declared backward, as has now happened in the case of Andhra Pradesh Muslims. Yet, the State also admits that many Muslims do not deserve reservations.

If reservations are to be given on the basis of social or economic backwardness, these should be the only criterion for reservations, as every religious group has backward citizens and no religious group is backward in totality.

Some people have questioned the very claim of Muslim ‘backwardness’ in education as Muslim minority trusts run as many as 27 engineering colleges and two medical colleges in the state, and these in turn reserve 50 per cent of their seats for Muslim students. Since these trusts would also have received several economic concessions from the state government, it appears that educational reservations for Muslims in their own minority trusts and also in general institutions is a double benefit; it will deprive meritorious students of other groups.

As parties gear up to contest the issue of communal reservations in Court, some people claim that the Christian community allegedly corners a large percentage of benefits intended for STs/SCs by producing fake SC or ST certificates for admission to IIT and other professional courses, as well as for government employment. As neither Christianity nor Islam definitionally provides for caste identities, and in fact makes converts on the plea that conversion would attenuate caste disabilities, such a situation is untenable. Yet it is utterly believable as former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and his son, Amit, are embroiled in a controversy over the genuineness of their ST certificates in the light of their Christian identity. The matter is serious and calls for remedial action on a nationwide basis.

Clearly YSR has acted at the behest of his party supremo to set the ball rolling on the issue of political reservations for Muslims. Close on the heels of educational and job reservations, he announced reservations for Muslims in local bodies. If these are extended to the state assembly, it will be obvious that when the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind sought reservations in Parliament and state legislatures at a public rally in Delhi recently, it was not merely whistling in the dark. It may in fact have had a secret dialogue with Congress president, Sonia Gandhi and other leaders before voicing such an outrageous demand.

Before things reach such a sorry pass, there may still be time to return to the fact that reservations have always been intended to be a transitional measure. Today, with upper caste Brahmins seeking refuge with Dalit ki beti Mayawati, the very raison d’etre of caste-based reservations falls by the wayside. Religion-based reservations are totally illegitimate.

Secularism is no virtue
Politics Plus
June 26, 2005

Secularism today ranks foremost among India’s burden of bad ideas, a term coined by Prof. Shiva Bajpai to debunk the ill-founded Aryan Invasion Theory, which held academics in thrall for a century before being flung into the dustbin of history. The term ‘secular’ entered India’s political vocabulary as a device to disarm the Hindu majority and inhibit expression of resentment against minority-appeasing policies of successive governments.

Given the shoddy motives of its promoters, it is surprising that the term secular has come to acquire such a powerful hold over the elite. Secularism is not a lofty ideal, like liberty or equality. It owes its birth to Christianity’s inability to maintain peace between warring Christian sects, especially as the State itself sponsored pogroms against different denominations. Wearied of prolonged intra-religious warfare, France invented the concept of ‘secularism’ to ensure State neutrality in matters of faith, and separation of Church and State. Secularism was thus born as an extra-religious answer to the intolerance of both the Church and the State.

Hindu civilisation has never, even when under murderous assault, indulged in pogroms on grounds of faith. Hence, unlike Western concepts of democracy and equality, which find resonance in Indian hearts, secularism cuts no ice with the masses. India has traditionally vested spiritual authority in the guru and political power in the king, giving the latter the duty to protect Dharma.

Secularism is not a lofty ideal, like liberty or equality. It owes its birth to Christianity’s inability to maintain peace between warring Christian sects, especially as the State itself sponsored pogroms against different denominations. Wearied of prolonged intra-religious warfare, France invented secularism.

Dharma is not religion in the sense that monotheistic creeds are. Dharma is a generic term for all native spiritual experiences and includes the specific Dharmas of specific groups (desachara, lokachara), which the king is duty-bound to uphold and protect. Since Dharma was never identified with a specific doctrine, the State was never doctrinaire. However, the State was always dharmic (non-secular, non-communal), because Dharma is all-encompassing and embraces all without discrimination. The duty of the State (king) in Hindu thought is best exemplified by the concept of rajdharma, which is a sacred duty for which the ruler can sacrifice anything. Stories of the travails of Raja Harishchandra and the sufferings of Shri Rama reflect how seriously the monarch is expected to take his responsibilities and fulfill commitments.

Dharma is thus not co-terminus with religion; the closest Indian word for religion is pantha. Secularism in India, as noted jurist Dr L.M. Singhvi insisted on when translating the modified Preamble of the Constitution into Hindi, is pantha-nirpeksha (non-discrimination towards individual faiths). So, while ‘secular’ is the opposite of ‘religion’ and ‘communal’, Dharma is neither secular in the sense of being anti-religious nor communal in the sense of favouring a particular sect.

This brings us to the peculiar practice of secularism in modern India. While the proper definition of secularism should be pantha-nirpeksha, as noted previously, the media and politicians speak of dharma nirpeksha or neutrality in the matter of religion. This is antithetical to Hindu civilisational experience which demands that the State respect and uphold Dharma; but this is only part of the problem.

The real difficulty is that even dharma nirpeksha is not implemented honestly. Dharma nirpeksha means the State should be aloof from all religions or treat all equally. The Indian government however, has not been religiously neutral since Independence itself. Despite the terrible sufferings of Hindus before and during Partition, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru created the false bogey of ‘majority communalism’ to create and consolidate a Muslim vote-bank for Congress. The first blow was struck with the refusal to implement a Uniform Civil Code, even though this was both desirable and possible at the time of framing the Constitution.

Despite grandiose commitments to equality before law, non-discrimination on grounds of religion, and equal opportunities in public employment and public office, the Indian Constitution was manipulated to give weightage to minorities. Cumulative Hindu disquiet over the politics of appeasement gave Shri L.K. Advani the ovation he received from Somnath to Ayodhya yatra, when he promised “Justice for all, appeasement of none.”

Sadly, little has been done in the nearly fifteen years since the problem was raised in the public arena. Article 28(1) says no religious instruction should be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of the State funds, but this was undone by Article 28(3) which permits a State-recognised or State-aided school to give religious instruction or offer religious worship to those desiring it. Thus, religious schools (madrasas) receive generous State funds and the religious training imparted therein is considered at par with normal secular education.

Recently, the Aligarh Muslim University was permitted 50 per cent reservation for Muslim students. Interestingly, the controversy revealed that the previous NDA regime had permitted 50 per cent communal reservations to Jamia Hamdard University in the capital!

The Indian State, therefore, does not practice religious neutrality and uses secularism as a tool to discriminate against Hindus. It was a silent spectator to the brutal expulsion of Hindus from Kashmir and Buddhists from Nagaland and parts of Arunachal Pradesh. It remains mute while Andhra Pradesh moots 5 per cent reservation for Muslims in the state's employment and educational institutions. It has failed to end terrorist infiltration in Kashmir, and despite warnings from the Assam Governor, appears determined to inhibit action against illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. Meanwhile, a new danger beckons in the form of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind’s demand for communal reservations in Parliament and state legislatures.

Failed political grammar
Opinion
June 19, 2005

Implicit in media coverage of Shri L.K. Advani’s resignation as party president is a critique of the RSS as intolerant of positive talk about Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the reality of Pakistan. Since the BJP leader had gone to Pakistan to further peace talks initiated by the NDA government, it may be pertinent to examine if there is merit in reservations expressed by sections of the Sangh Parivar.

To begin with, can the diplomatic dialogue between India and Pakistan be dubbed a ‘peace process’ merely by opening the border at multiple points in disregard of our security interests? Particularly questionable is the claim of a change of atmosphere (fiza) across the border, from which India will receive commensurate security benefits.

Shri Advani’s native Karachi was engulfed in Shia-Sunni violence at the time of his visit, causing cancellation of his proposed visit to Hyderabad in Sindh. The renewed violence against the Shia community comes barely weeks after Gen. Musharraf procured a ‘unanimous’ fatwa from the Ulema declaring religious violence within the country as un-Islamic. Given the high level of intolerance amongst Islamic sects, genuine tolerance by Pakistan of a predominantly ‘Hindu’ India seems difficult to conceive. Anyone doubting this has only to look at the continued ethnic cleansing of Hindus by erstwhile East Pakistan, in active collusion with Pakistan’s ISI.

A striking aspect of the BJP president’s visit was his inability for a significant dialogue with major Opposition leaders. Former Prime Ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, live abroad, and a strictly pre-planned itinerary would have deprived him of valuable inputs from ordinary Sindhis who could speak to him in his mother tongue. He thus got no first-hand feedback from troubled provinces like Baluchistan, much less from aggrieved minority groups.

The issue of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, too, can hardly be settled in the simplistic terms attributed to the deceased head of the Ramakrishna Mission, whose organisation was closed down despite Qaid-e-Azam’s ‘secular’ speech. Although Westernized in many respects, Jinnah was sufficiently Islamic to resist the notion of a popular democracy in which Muslims would submit to Hindu leaders. His personal culpability for the horrors of 16 August 1946, which forced Partition, cannot be undone by a solitary speech in the Pakistani Constituent Assembly. The speech may have been an attempt to woo the international community on behalf of his fledgling and bankrupt nation; it could equally have been a belated recognition that those populating the nation he created were not the same as those who fought for it. The fate of the Mohajir (refugee) community is too well known to need recapitulation.

Given the high level of intolerance amongst Islamic sects, genuine tolerance by Pakistan of a predominantly ‘Hindu’ India seems difficult to conceive. Anyone doubting this has only to look at the continued ethnic cleansing of Hindus by erstwhile East Pakistan, in active collusion with Pakistan’s ISI.

An equally enduring legacy of Jinnah is the problem of Jammu & Kashmir. We normally blame Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru for being bamboozled by Lord Mountbatten and taking the issue to the UN when the Indian Army was on the verge of reclaiming all territory. This is true. But the architect of this crisis was Jinnah who, disregarding his quest for a secular country as enunciated to the Constituent Assembly, was determined to wrestle this Muslim-majority region from ‘Hindu’ India.

This is the genesis of the Kashmir problem, and the Pakistani perspective on the state remains unchanged to this day. For Pakistan, a solution acceptable to the people of J&K means that the Muslim majority must be allowed to bring the region into Pakistan. The Indian position, as articulated by Parliament and recently by Shri K.S. Sudarshanji in his famous ‘Walk the Talk’ interview, is that J&K is an irrevocable part of India and only the return of Pak-occupied Kashmir remains on the agenda.

It bears mentioning that the Hurriyat delegation arrived in Pakistan while the BJP leader was there, and Gen. Musharraf scored a propaganda point by saying that their arrival without Indian passports proved that Kashmir was disputed territory. Unfortunately, the former Deputy Prime Minister did not demur. It is now imperative that the BJP clarify if the party stands by Shri Sudarshanji’s views or accepts Shri Advani’s statement that a solution must be acceptable to all communities—Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and migrant Kashmiri Pandits. This is urgent as there is some confusion whether talk about the unalterable reality of history and two separate sovereign nations implies that India is ready to give up PoK.

Actually, the trip was ill-fated because neither the BJP nor the RSS leadership was taken into confidence regarding the proposed visit to Jinnah’s mausoleum. The inauguration of the restoration of the historic Katasraj temple turned out to be a trap by the savvy Pakistanis to moot the idea that Gen. Musharraf be invited to inaugurate a mosque in India. They meant, of course, the Babri non-mosque, an issue on which the BJP leader was already disarmed, having called its removal the saddest day of his life.

Pakistan thus got away with the claim to be the leader of the Muslims of the sub-continent, while Hindus were rendered leaderless. In the past, the Congress party strenuously resisted this contention, but there has been a subtle change after the ascent of Smt. Sonia Gandhi, as witnessed in her failure to resist a Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind demand for communal reservations in Parliament.

EU squirms under French ‘non’, Dutch ‘nee’
June 12, 2005

After France, the Netherlands, and certainly Great Britain. Europe now seems set to vote with her feet against the European Union, sacrificing continental fraternity for a more familial national unity. Liberty, the clarion cry of the French Revolution, returned to the centrestage to rescue her children from a stifling economic inequality that would have been their lot had they cast their bread upon European waters. Anxious and aware, France preferred the death of the European Union to the loss of national liberty and economic sovereignty.

The French vote is significant because it signals an end to the jargon of post-nationalism, borderless nationalism, internationalism, etc., that became fashionable after the end of the Second World War, when nationalism in Europe lost legitimacy owing to two fratricidal World Wars in the space of barely three decades. It was a classic case of missing the wood for the trees, because the continent’s bloody contests were spurred by colonialism—the race for colonies in Africa, Asia, and America—rather than nationalism.

Nationalism is simply the loyalty of citizens towards the nation, historically the creation of a more or less homogenous group of people living in a particular territory over a period of time. The idea of the State, whether modern or pre-modern, was rooted in the collective welfare of its people, and though there have always been privileged classes in all societies, the State as an entity functioned for the common good. It commanded fierce loyalty precisely because all members believed they had a stake in it.

Post-nationalism denigrated honest patriotism and privileged ‘rational’ economic aspirations at the cost of the individual, the family, and the society. It appeared successful because it was driven vigorously by powerful economic and political interests in the First World; because its early successes produced the seemingly eternal welfare State and the unemployment dole; and above all, because its victims were external to its national boundaries and hence, invisible.

A reassertion of sovereignty and nationalism that may weaken EU.

Those of us who were students in the 1960s and 1970s may recall how the Third World countries routinely described the economic policies peddled by the World Bank as neo-imperialism because they promoted national indebtedness and perpetuated the old cycle of former colonies selling raw materials and buying industrial products and obsolete technologies. A few countries managed to modernise on their own terms and break this vicious cycle.

Today, the profit-mad culture of the First World – far from raising the prosperity of its own people as in the colonial and early post-colonial era—has started devouring its own children, taking away jobs and bread from the mouths of thousands upon thousands of families in the hunt for cheap labour abroad. It is capitalism run riot, and it was waiting for correctives to be applied. As ever, France has led the way: for, the business of business is to generate wealth and employment and avoid loss; it is NOT to make profits without proportion and at the cost of everything else.

It is a very Hindu lesson: artha, kama, dharma, moksha. The pursuit of wealth is a duty because it enables the righteous enjoyment of material, cultural and spiritual well-being. This means that it is the means to an end, and not an end in itself. As the creator of wealth in society, business must have a congenial environment to operate and grow. Europe and America have erred in legitimising a promiscuous relationship between capital and politics, allowing public policy to be dominated by notions of profits and stock market ratings, at an untold cost of human mental and emotional stability.

Today, the profit-mad culture of the First World—far from raising the prosperity of its own people as in the colonial and early post-colonial era—has started devouring its own children, taking away jobs and bread.

The late Pope John Paul II warned of a moral crisis caused by a unfeeling capitalism, and now this crisis has turned political as Europeans seek accountability for the political theory of ‘economics before people’. Because economics, like politics, is supposed to be for the people and not at the cost of the people.

What is the message from France and the Netherlands? In purely ‘rational’ economic terms, the message is simple enough: it is that there is no value addition in joining a union that enhances unemployment among native populations by exploiting ‘cheaper’ East European and possibly, later, also Turkish labour. That is why, a continent under pressure of rising inflation, growing unemployment, sharp cuts in the old age pension and benefits of the welfare State, and overall sluggish economic growth and budget cuts, is bristling with resentment against the political regimes perceived as responsible for this state of affairs.

Anxiety breeds insecurity, and in Europe this has taken the form of a cultural phobia against being swamped by Muslim hordes from Turkey. These have been vastly reinforced by growing Islamic fundamentalism in several countries, especially in the Netherlands after the gruesome murder of Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh.

As of now, the European Union appears to be an idea whose time never came. From an apparently rational ‘free trade zone’ for capital, goods and people of Europe, it became the political tool of big business and bureaucracy. Recollecting their pent-up grievances like Charles Dickens’ legendary Madame Defarge, Frenchmen guillotined the Constitution! Reading the writing on the wall, Britain has wisely decided to give the EU a quiet burial. There is little point in laying manure for a garden that has withered even before it could bloom.

Musharraf double-speak
Jehad outside Pakistan Islamic?
June 05, 2005

Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s much-touted initiative to showcase Islam’s ‘peaceful’ face to the world has come a cropper even before it could get off the ground. The Pakistani dictator had entrusted Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain, Minister of State for Religious Affairs, with the task of securing a unanimous fatwa (edict) from the clergy of the various Islamic sects in the country to the effect that suicide bombings in the name of Jehad were haraam (forbidden) (The News, May 18, 2005).

The move aimed at convincing the General’s American backers that Pakistan would no longer serve as the international helipad of Islamic fundamentalism. But it backfired immediately, partly on account of the incomplete nature of the original fatwa, and partly on account of an immediate challenge launched by religious leaders who refused to endorse the government-sponsored fatwa. As a result, the current Islamic Jehad in Iraq, directed against American troops and the nationals of countries that have committed troops in that country, has been further strengthened.

To his credit, Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain strove hard for six months to fulfill his assignment, and eventually secured a decree from 58 Islamic scholars that, he claimed, “proved that Islam is a religion of peace and non-violence which is not against any sect, creed or ideology.” According to the fatwa, Islam strictly prohibits suicide attacks on Muslims and those committing such acts at places of worship and public congregations cease to be Muslims. If this means that henceforth there will be no violence against Shias praying in mosques, the fatwa is a step forward for that besieged community. But even prima facie, the fatwa excludes the country’s Ahmediya (a declared non-Muslim sect by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto) and non-Muslim groups from its purview.

What is more, it is riddled with qualifications, which render it useless to those hoping to change Pakistan’s embodiment as the paradise of Islamic fundamentalism. To begin with, the fatwa makes it clear that it applies exclusively to Pakistan and does not include those running ‘freedom movements’ in Palestine, Iraq and Kashmir. Thus, while it prescribes the death penalty for killing innocents or fellow-Muslims without Islamic and legal reasons, it leaves scope for sanctioning the kind of killings that are so abhorrent to the civilised world. In this way, it remains anti-Israel on account of Palestine, anti-India on account of Kashmir, and anti-America on account of Iraq. This defeats the very political objective behind securing the fatwa.

According to the fatwa, Islam strictly prohibits suicide attacks on Muslims and those committing such acts at places of worship and public congregations cease to be Muslims.

Actually, it was obvious from the start that the Pakistani government exerted considerable pressure to procure the fatwa, and that the Ulema who did sign the document were not at ease doing so. At a hurriedly convened and highly select press conference, the religious scholars admitted that they issued the fatwa because the growing instances of suicide attacks at places of worship in Pakistan were giving Islam a bad name as people said that religious bodies brainwashed the bombers into becoming martyrs in return for an assured place in paradise. Since the Islamic clergy was being blamed for sectarian killings in the country, they wished to rectify this situation.

However, the absence of several top Ulema denied credibility to the endeavour. Many scholars refused to sign saying the timing was faulty and might be construed as support to the United States’ illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. They pointed out that the officially-sponsored fatwa failed to even mention the crimes committed by American troops against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As if this was not bad enough, 40 religious groups in Pakistan immediately countered the fatwa by declaring that suicide attacks by Muslim ‘freedom fighters’ were justified in Kashmir (India), Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan (ANI, May 19, 2005). They even said that suicide attacks were legitimate in countries where Jehad is already being fought, but they were forbidden in countries where Jehad has not been launched, even if these are non-Islamic countries. These scholars insisted that as there was no domestic reason for such a fatwa on suicide attacks, its purpose was solely to help Washington tide over the controversy over the sacrilege of the Holy Quran.

* Pakistani government exerted considerable pressure to procure the fatwa, and that the Ulemas who did sign the document were not at ease doing so.

To add to the General’s discomfort, a Pakistani in Guantanamo Bay, believed to be a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, has told a US tribunal that Islamabad officially sponsors terrorism. Exposing America’s ‘frontline ally’ in the war against terrorism, the prisoner said Pakistan backed the violence in Kashmir and added “if you consider this organisation a terrorist organisation, then you should consider Pakistan a terrorist country,” according to testimony procured by the Associated Press news agency under a freedom of information lawsuit.

The prisoner’s confession incriminating Islamabad is significant as the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba ranks among the Pakistani organisations that the US State Department has branded as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs). Its sponsors can be taken to task under UN Security Council Resolution No.1373 against terrorism. Indian intelligence has always held that LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) were essentially Pakistani outfits; the prisoner’s admission is proof that this is indeed the case. Regardless of what Washington does in the wake of this testimony, New Delhi should take off its red-tinted glasses and reconsider the mindless policy of open borders and premature settlement of the international border.

Conversion: Christianity’s convoluted case
May 22, 05

Christian missionaries have added a new dimension to the national debate over conversions with their objections to an unexpected Judaic threat to their flock in the north-eastern states of Mizoram and Manipur. With the century-old Church under threat of a mass exodus, Christian theologians are working overtime to counter the growing affinity between some Mizo and Kuki tribes with Judaism (Deccan Herald, April 22, 2005).

Most Mizos were converted to Christianity in the decades preceding Independence. Sometime in the 1970s, however, some members of the tribes noticed that their indigenous customs and rituals closely matched those of the Jews. Both Mizos and Kukis, for instance, practice the eighth-day circumcision, levirate marriages, altar sacrifices and Sabbath, all of which are very Jewish traditions. Their suspicion that they might be of Jewish origin was substantiated by Israel’s Rabbi Eliahu Avichail, who runs the Jerusalem-based Amishav, an organisation devoted to tracing and helping descendants of Israel’s Ten Lost Tribes to return to the ‘Holy Land’, a right guaranteed to every Jew under the Israeli Constitution.

Amishav claims Mizos and Kukis descend from the tribe of Manasseh, which was exiled from Israel’s northern kingdom after the Assyrian invasion in 721 b.c., along with nine other tribes. The claims have led to Mizos and Kukis designating themselves as ‘Bnei Menashe’ or sons of Manasseh, the younger son of Joseph and father of one of the ten lost tribes of Biblical Israel. Seven thousand have re-converted to their ‘original’ Judaic faith and Amishav even helped 800 to migrate to Israel. The migration was halted in 2003 when Israel’s Interior Ministry expressed doubts about their Jewish origins, but the Chief Rabbinate (apex religious body) authenticated the claims of the Bnei Menashe on March 30, 2005.

Christian leaders are perturbed over the exodus from Christianity to Judaism, claiming this will “destroy the social fabric of both the tribes.” Though missionaries have consistently showed contempt for similar concerns of Hindu organisations, Dr P.C. Biaksiama of the Christian Research Centre in Aizawl, Rev. Chuauthuama of the Aizawl Theological College and Rev. Colney of the Mizoram Presbyterian Church Synod now demand a social movement against conversions.

Last month, 300 pastors discussed the threat and lambasted conversion to Judaism as the work of Satan. But the Bnei Menashe registered a growth of over 50 per cent in the past few years in Mizoram alone.

Dr Biaksiama has gone so far as to say that not only the Church, but the Central and state governments should recognise the arrival of the Rabbis as a “religious and cultural invasion”. In a language akin to that of so-called Hindu fundamentalists, the Christian theologian argues that it is only the promise of “better living standards” in Israel that is luring many tribals to join the Bnei Menashe. Perhaps this is a tacit admission that these tribes have failed to substantially improve their lot after abandoning their traditional gods and customs and adopting the religion of the erstwhile colonial masters.

Dr Biaksiama warns that “mass conversion by foreign priests will pose a threat not only to the region’s social stability, but also to national security.” People will cease to be loyal to the nation as they will become eligible for a foreign citizenship. Last month, 300 pastors discussed the threat and lambasted conversion to Judaism as the work of Satan. But the Bnei Menashe registered a growth of over 50 per cent in the past few years in Mizoram alone, which has a population of barely nine lakhs (Hindustan Times, May 7, 2005).

When not at the receiving end, however, Christian missionaries sing a different tune. In Sri Lanka, US-backed evangelicals have succeeded in getting the United Nations to intervene in the matter of the island’s proposed anti-conversion Bill, mooted by the Buddhist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) party and the Minister of Buddhist Affairs. The Bill is a sequel to the offence caused by foreign missionaries to the native communities in the wake of the tsunami.

Evangelists, however, managed to get UN special envoy, Asma Jehangir of Pakistan, who represents the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), to visit Sri Lanka and assess the status of freedom of religion there. Although the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) defines ‘Freedom of Religion’ as the ‘freedom to pray and practice’, missionaries always stretch this to mean ‘freedom to convert’. They are now working overtime to dub the anti-conversion legislation as a violation of human rights. It remains to be seen how the Sri Lanka government tackles this menace.

It is high time the Church acknowledged that its conversion activities are perceived as an act of cultural aggression and cause deep resentment among target communities. Only last week, residents of Mangal-warapete village near Mysore, Karnataka, were rattled at Church authorities preaching hatred against Hindus as worshippers of Satan. Provoked by the pastor of the Harvest India Church, established by American missionaries, the entire village revolted and ransacked the Church.

Christian missionaries are insensitive to the hurt caused by their ‘hate’ speech and to the misgivings caused by their close links with foreign missionary bodies. In Nepal, where it is a crime to convert minors, a Christian couple was arrested on April 27, 2005 for precisely this offence. Babu and Sabitri Varghese were running a school and orphanage in Birganj city with support from an American missionary charity, Equip Nepal.

J&K Resettlement Act
Mufti wants Pakistani settlement in India
May 08, 05

The honour of the Himalayas is at stake. Just four years after Pakistan’s ignominious defeat at Kargil, its military oligarchy appears set to achieve its goals by other means. The UPA’s ‘open border’ policy is creating an untenable situation in the country and in the absence of a sharply articulated opposition to Islama-bad’s ‘walk-in’ infiltration policy, there is a real danger that our national security and territorial integrity may be seriously compromised.

The first wake-up call came during the course of the recent cricket tour by the Pakistani team in March, when it was discovered that the 11 so-called ‘fans’ did not return home from Mohali, causing suspicion that they may be Pakistani intelligence agents or terrorist operatives taking advantage of India’s liberal visa policy.

The second and more serious alert has now come with a Pakistani woman, Farida Ghani, arriving on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad peace bus and filing claims for restoration of ancestral property that her father abandoned when opting for Pakistan. The claim is not as innocuous as it may appear on the surface. When millions of Hindus were forced to flee both East and West Pakistan (indeed, the violence against Hindus was the reason why Congress leaders conceded the Partition), it was the Government of India that was responsible for their rehabilitation. I am not aware of any compensation package from Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s government, though we are all aware that Mahatma Gandhi fasted unto death to ensure that Pakistan received Rs. 55 crores from the Indian treasury and thereby facilitated its first war upon India.

Yet Chief Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed, who has done nothing for the Pandits who were cleansed out of the valley, lost no time in promising that his government would evict occupants of evacuee properties when the former owners returned. This is patently absurd both by the statute of limitations as well as the law of adverse possession. Indeed, it points to a more sinister conspiracy.

A brief digression is in order to understand Mufti’s promise. Two decades ago, J & K passed the Resettlement Act 1982 which permitted those who migrated to Pakistan between 1947 and 1954 to return and claim rights as Indian citizens. The Act proposed setting up a competent authority to scrutinize applications of those seeking resettlement in J & K. Governor B.K. Nehru returned the Bill to the Assembly and in September 1982 President Giani Zail Singh sought an opinion from the Supreme Court regarding its constitutional validity. The Supreme Court returned the Presidential reference in 2000 without giving an opinion, but has currently issued a stay on the Act.

The Act violates the provisions of the Indian constitution and those of the Indian Citizenship Act. If implemented, it could cause more than two lakh Pakistani claimants, many of whom are active members of the Taliban, to descend upon the country. But what is at stake is not just some landed property of one person or one lakh persons, but the possibility that grounds are being laid for turning Kashmir into India’s East Timor. There is a real fear that Mufti may seek National Conference assistance in passing the Resettlement Act 1982 once again during the next session of the State Assembly. He would thus actively tilt the demography of the area in favour of Pakistan. After that, a little violence is all that would be needed to bring in the UN and a referendum!

Mercifully, the Joint Action Committee Evacuees Property, an umbrella group of twelve refugee committees, has jumped into the fray. The organization has rightly accused the PDP-Congress regime of duplicity in offering citizenship rights and properties to bona fide Pakistani citizens while refugee families in Jammu are denied rights over ancestral properties and citizenship for more than 50 years and live as outsiders in their own land.

Most alarming, however, is the report from a Srinagar daily, which claims that India and Pakistan have secretly agreed to redefine the borders without conceding any major part of J & K territory to each other. This solution has reportedly been discussed with the Mirwaiz Omar Farooq-led All Parties Hurriyat Conference, which accepted it, but the Geelani group rejected it.

The purported plan – which facilitates an easy annexation of J & K by Pakistan – envisages granting greater autonomy to both parts of J&K. India would grant Kashmir its pre-1953 status which gives the State full autonomy in all respects barring foreign affairs, communications and defence. The Governor and Chief Minister would be known as the President and Prime Minister respectively. Pakistan would similarly extend greater autonomy to so-called Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Ultimately, it is said, the secret deal envisages converting the Line of Control into an international border, with some minor modifications.

All this underlines, more than ever before, the need for a serious rethink on the continuance of Article 370 by all nationalist parties. Since the Indian Parliament had twice passed a Resolution staking claim to all of Jammu & Kashmir that acceded to India in 1948, there is no reason to believe that political parties will not take the threat seriously if properly acquainted with the facts. A beginning must be made in this direction without further delay.

Musharraf: War by diplomacy
What is the gain for India in the bargain?
May 01, 05

It seems inconceivable that the Pakistani pilot made a genuine mistake when he flew his President to New Delhi in an aircraft bearing the Indian flag upside down. A flag cannot be hung upside down unless it is stitched that way, so it seems reasonable to assume that the said banner passed through a certain chain of commands before it reached the General’s craft.

While New Delhi may have been wise not to publicly over-react to what the Pakistani side called a ‘mistake’, it would do well to take the General’s new-found mildness with a healthy dose of scepticism. In other words, if we let down our defences, we will let down our side.

Already, there are ominous signs that our weak-minded political and intellectual elite is keen to surrender territory to both China and Pakistan in return for an imaginary peace, and without serving any tangible national interest. During the recent visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to New Delhi, media reports suggested a tacit agreement had been reached to make concessions on the boundary dispute, behind the backs of the Indian people. So, while China will merely agree that Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh are truly legitimate parts of the Indian nation, New Delhi will legalise the Chinese annexation of Aksai Chin and portions of PoK. This is a shameful asymmetry and it is unfortunate that the BJP should seek credit that the NDA government initiated such abominable terms of dialogue.

Kashmiri politicians who did nothing for the community later vilified Governor Jagmohan (who at least ensured that they left the Valley alive) for “orchestrating” this exodus. Worse, after sympathising with the Kashmiri Pandits for years when in opposition, the PDP displayed a callous indifference.

The situation regarding Jammu & Kashmir is far more worrying because many Indian commentators favour an agreement on the Line of Control and only President Musharraf’s refusal to ink such a deal has saved us from facing this ignominy in our lifetime. India’s Parliament, as RSS Sarsanghachalak K.S. Sudarshan pointed out in his much-hyped interview to NDTV, has twice passed the unanimous resolution affirming sovereignty over all of Kashmir, including PoK, and those resolutions still stand. Hence, unrepresentative individuals holding the reins of power in different political parties cannot legitimately join hands to fritter away our sovereign territory.

The Sarsanghachalak has rightly warned that any such surrender will only whet Pakistan’s appetite. Since Pakistan views Jammu & Kashmir as a religious rather than a territorial issue, and sees itself as a ‘sword of Islam’, we would face an immediate threat in Assam, where well-planned demographic aggression has made the state a virtual tinder-box. Other Indian border districts in West Bengal and other states are similarly endangered, and only a very irresponsible ruling class would close its eyes to this reality.

Since the fall of the erstwhile Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Pakistan has turned its fine-tuned Jehadi industry towards Kashmir. Terrorist groups active in Kashmir have links with the pan-Islamic terror network, and the group that hijacked the Indian Airlines flight in December 1999 was closely aligned with Al-Qaeda in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, in 2002.

India’s Parliament, as RSS Sarsanghachalak Sudarshanji pointed out in his much-hyped interview to NDTV, has twice passed an unanimous resolution affirming sovereignty over all of Kashmir, including PoK, and those resolutions still stand.

In Kashmir, Pakistan has promoted an extreme orthodox Islamic radicalism among the Muslim population, creating such terror in the miniscule Kashmiri Hindu community that nearly three lakh families abandoned their homes and hearths overnight and became the world’s first-ever community to be refugees in their own country. Kashmiri politicians who did nothing for the community later vilified Governor Jagmohan (who at least ensured that they left the Valley alive) for ‘orchestrating’ this exodus. Worse, after sympathising with the Kashmiri Pandits for years when in Opposition, the PDP (People's Democratic Party) displayed a callous indifference to their plight when in power. This lack of empathy persists.

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Hence Pakistan has no locus standi; only its religious affinity with the majority population allows it to dare speak of a solution acceptable to itself. Sadly, successive Indian governments have tolerated this position, ceding valuable psychological space to Islamabad. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has added to our discomfort by saying that territorial issues can be looked at dispassionately.

Little wonder that General Musharraf has ignored the official insistence that borders cannot be redrawn and left emboldened that a weak leadership would allow time and space to radicalise the population to the point that “ascertaining the will of the Kashmiris” will mean secession to Pakistan. Both the United States and the United Nations can be expected to play along with this devilish design.

Inter-faith dialogue a beaten track
Social Issues
April 24, 05

At a time when it is fashionable to repose confidence in inter-faith dialogue, it is not easy to prick the feel-good factor this evokes and question the utility of such an enterprise. Peaceful coexistence between different faiths, howsoever large or small the number of their adherents may be, can never be a national or world reality until hitherto unaccommodating creeds incorporate mutual respect for other traditions as part of their cultural norms.

In the absence of such a fundamental reform, inter-faith dialogue becomes a fruitless exercise for non-monotheistic traditions. It raises false hopes of equal respect and equal treatment, but actually facilitates expansionist creeds in their attempts to tilt the scales against non-converting faiths.

To this day, for instance, Saudi Arabia treats any religious practice other than Islam as ‘illegal’, even in the private domain. Last month, Saudi religious police discovered an improvised Hindu temple in a room in old Riyadh, while raiding some flats suspected of manufacturing alcohol and distributing pornographic videos. Three Indian men were offering puja in that private apartment. Yet the police destroyed the temple (may we call this iconoclasm?) and deported the devotees. Since Islam is a trans-national faith and Saudi Arabia its fountainhead, what can inter-faith dialogue yield anywhere in the world if it does not begin on a basic premise of tolerance?

Matters hardly improve when we turn towards Christianity, the faith that took the lead in initiating the ‘dialogue’. Far from proposing a ‘ceasefire’ in the matter of poaching upon other faiths, Cardinal T.P. Toppo, President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), has given a clarion call to Indian churches to make evangelisation the cornerstone of their activities. Welcoming the speed of conversions in southern India, he laments that north India is lagging behind.

The Christian impetus for conversion is also an international phenomenon. Last month, the Australian government decided to reopen the cases of 30 immigration detainees (all Muslims) who had converted to Christianity since their arrival (Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2005). These rejected asylum-seekers may now be allowed to stay, thanks to hectic lobbying for Christian converts by the Family First party, which controls a key vote in the Australian Senate.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone admits that the only reason for reconsidering the 30 cases is their new religion. It is argued that the men – who have apostatized from Islam – may be persecuted if returned to their home countries, especially Iran, which is a theocratic State. That may be so, yet I view conversion to another faith while in detention – to win the right to stay – as tantamount to force or unnatural pressure. And if conversion is the only reason why Australia will permit Muslims from other nations to settle on its soil, one may legitimately ask if it is a Christian theocracy? Isn’t it religious discrimination to deny domiciliary rights to Muslims, but bestow them upon those who convert?

Matters hardly improve when we turn towards Christianity, the faith that took the lead in initiating the ‘dialogue’.

Yet both Islam and Christianity press their respective agendas, even on each others’ territory. Saudi Arabia deals with religious diversity on its soil in the manner described above, and audaciously pushes Wahhabi Islam abroad via local Muslim communities. Recently, Freedom House’s Centre for Religious Freedom, New York, published a report on a survey of over a dozen major mosques and Islamic centres in America. The study also scrutinised 200 of their books and publications, 90 per cent of which were in Arabic. All this literature was in some way linked with the Saudi regime, as several mosques received funds or were staffed by the Saudi government (The Friday Times, Lahore, March 25 - 31, 2005).

Most of the literature, collected from 2003 up to November 2004, preached hatred for other religions and cultures. One typical tract called America the ‘abode of the infidel’, the Christian and the Jew. It warned: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law. There is consensus in this matter that whoever helps unbelievers against Muslims, regardless of what type of support he lends to them, he is an unbeliever himself.”

The report has triggered a debate within Pakistan about how Islam is perceived by other cultures, especially since some of the material is from a book titled: Greetings from the Cultural Department of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington. Pakistani journalists question why Saudi authorities promote the view that the world is divided into the faithful and the infidel, and instigate Muslims in so-called infidel societies to behave as if they are on a mission behind enemy lines (a sort of fifth column in their native countries).

Freedom House found the literature distributed by the Saudis to be ‘replete with condemnations of Christians and their beliefs’. One publication said that churches and synagogues were not houses of God and whoever lets these places remain open is an infidel. Another added: “It is basic Islam to believe that everyone who does not embrace Islam is an unbeliever, and must be called an unbeliever, and that they are enemies of Allah, his Prophet and believers.”

The Saudi embassy had also issued fatwas to guide Muslims; one said a Muslim cannot become the citizen of a country governed by infidels. Freedom House concluded: “We have confirmed that as of December 2004, the retrograde, unreformed editions of Saudi textbooks and state-sponsored, hate-filled fatwa collection remain widespread and plentiful in many important American mosques.”

However, despite such loud warning bells, the regime that rushed to deny Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa to attend an NRI function, has tread cautiously in the matter of preaching the virtues of religious freedom and tolerance to Saudi Arabia. Obviously, the wheels of international morality can be greased (pun intended).

US duplicity in denying visa to Modi
April 03, 05

America’s decision to deny Gujarat chief minister Naren-dra Modi a diplomatic visa and revoke his tourist/business visa on the pretext of the demands of its International Religious Freedom Act, 1998, raises critical questions about what constitutes religious freedom. The statement that the Act authorizes the President to deny entry to foreign government officials responsible for “particularly severe violations of religious freedom,” is an unwarranted indictment of Mr. Modi and calls for scrutiny by analysts.

The concept of religious freedom espoused by America is a Euro-centric definition imposed upon the world after the Second World War, in the form of Article 18 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Promoted as a universal doctrine, though not founded upon genuine international consensus, this concept has been used by Western nations to advance their own religion and culture and impinge upon the religious freedom of other nations and faith groups.

Arguing this before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in March 2000, Prof. Arvind Sharma, Birks Professsor of Comparative Religion, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, pointed out that Article 18 is tilted in favour of proselytizing religions. While it recognizes an individual’s right to change his/her religion, it fails to give equal respect to the individual’s right to retain his/her faith. In short, it upholds the right to proselytize, but disregards the individual’s right to resist being made an object of proselytization. The latter view was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court (1 September 2003), which ruled that there was “no fundamental right to convert” anyone from one religion to another and that the government could impose restrictions on conversions.

What is religious freedom?

The invocation of freedom of religion to insult Modi is directly linked to President George Bush’s massive conversion agenda in India, and is his way of expressing anger at the resistance offered by the RSS, to which Modi owes allegiance. Discerning Indians may be aware of a Tehelka expose (7 February 2004), which revealed that the American government funds major US Christian groups to pursue religious conversions in India. Though the funds are officially given for social work only, they are used for the dual purpose of conversion. Not surprisingly, Tehelka linked these conversion activities to forces inimical to India’s integrity.

In my view, government-funded conversion activities violate Western principles of separation of Church and State. They also contravene the doctrine of secularism, as they favour certain Christian denominations over others, in the matter of disbursal of funds under President Bush’s faith-based initiative. A petition in this regard in the Federal Supreme Court by American Indians aggrieved at the presidential action could yield interesting results.

Meanwhile, it would be instructive to examine the ideological colour of those who worked to deny Shri Modi the visa, and the merits (if any) of the charges levelled against him. A group calling itself the Coalition Against Genocide and claiming to represent 35 NRI bodies was at the forefront of the campaign. A perusal of the signatories shows the usual Left and minority intellectuals of Indian descent. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) openly welcomed the US government’s decision, and gave the game away.

While Indian American Senator Bobby Jindal kept a low profile, Ms. Preeta Bansal, chairperson of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), said she advised the State Department to prevent the Gujarat Chief Minister’s visit. Disrespecting the sentiments of the American Indian community that invited Shri Modi, USCIRF glibly claimed that India’s National Human Rights Commission had found evidence of the Gujarat government’s complicity in the riots of 2002.

Government-funded conversion activities violate Western principles of separation of Church and State. They also contravene the doctrine of secularism, as they favour certain Christian denominations over others, in the matter of disbursal of funds under President Bush’s faith-based initiative.

The US State Department also tried to make NHRC a scapegoat when political opinion in this country uniformly condemned the insult to the constitutionally elected leader. Its Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli claimed that it was the “Indian Government who determined that state institutions failed to act in a way that would prevent violence and would prevent religious persecution.” The NGO lobby was more outspoken. The Indian Supreme Court, it said, had passed strictures against the Gujarat government in the Best Bakery case; ordered re-opening of 2,000-odd riot cases that had been closed after inquiry; and shifted two cases outside Gujarat.

Now this is too clever by half. Both the State Department and its friendly NGOs would know that the NHRC chief, Shri A.S. Anand, was taken for a ride by a well-orchestrated media-NGO campaign of vilification against the Gujarat Chief Minister. As a result, Shri Anand accepted printed pamphlets in lieu of a signed affidavit and approached the Supreme Court to transfer the riot cases outside Gujarat.

The apex court responded to this plea without examining the requisite documents. Thus, when star witness Zahira Sheikh told the trial court that she had never signed any affidavit seeking transfer of the Best Bakery trial outside Gujarat, the NGOs were exposed as having a hidden agenda! The Supreme Court and NHRC were deeply embarrassed, a fact adequately covered in the Indian media. For the American Embassy in Delhi to pretend to be unaware of these developments is untenable. Since judges are bound by a code of conduct, the NHRC has clarified that it made no indictment of any government functionary in the riots, let alone the Chief Minister. Hence Washington’s claim that NHRC recommendations influenced its decision is baseless.

It seems undeniable that the American definition of freedom of religion is slanted in favour of monotheistic traditions. That is why, as Shri Modi pointed out, there was no tinge of remorse when thousands of Kashmiri Pandits were victimized by Pak-sponsored terrorists, or when Bangladesh systematically reduced its Hindu minority from 30 percent of the population to a bare ten percent. For Indians engaged in the struggle to preserve their ancestral faith and culture, there is more to the snub to Shri Modi than meets the eye.

Church-wary Red
Debate
February 27, 05

During his tenure, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had tentatively suggested that the Indian society should debate the merits of religious conversion, as it provoked conflicts and stress among communities. Unfortunately, professional secularists raised such a furore over the remark that meaningful discussion was ruled out. Yet Shri Vajpayee was only reflecting a deep-felt concern of the Hindu community that there was need to suitably amend the fundamental right to propagate one’s religion, as minority groups insist upon interpreting it as a right to carry out conversions.

Now, West Bengal Marxists are beginning to feel that there may be some merit in the Hindu view that the concept of nationhood lies at the core of conversion, and that fiddling with faith can impact adversely upon the sense of nationalism as well. CPM cadres working in the Bengal countryside have found an unacceptable link between proselytisers and Western churches, between ‘spiritual altruism’ and a disturbance in the state’s ‘socially tranquil chemistry’ (Pioneer, February 10, 2005).

Anxious not to sound like a Red version of the VHP, Marxist leaders claim that certain Western capitalist interests “are trying to employ their Kerala experiment in rural Bengal”, with a view to uproot their government. But the truth is that the Left is disturbed that under the cover of educational activities, the Church is indulging in politics. Left Front chairman, Biman Bose has already directed CPM cadres to monitor Church activities in tribal and rural areas, and the matter was discussed in the draft political resolution of the party’s recent 21st State Conference at Kamarhati, North 24 Parganas.

Though Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has avoided public comment, party sources say the Chief Minister’s prescient observations about certain religious institutions have finally found political expression. Four years ago, when Buddhadeb spoke out against questionable activities in the madarsas, he was sharply rebuked by Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Since then, much water has flowed down the Hooghly and the CPM is now scrutinising the activities of churches in the districts of Nadia, Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri.

Will the Marxists ultimately come to accept that in every country there is a connection between national interest and the faith and perceptions of the majority community?

Officially, the party still claims that “conversion is not our concern.” But senior leaders are shocked at “the amount of money being poured in the poor tribal belt to whip up anti-government centrifugal emotions in the name of education.” What is more, in the northern part of the state, some Church groups are said to be flirting with anti-national groups, like the Kamptapuris and the Maoists.

It would be interesting to see if the Marxists ultimately come to accept that in every country there is a connection between national interest and the faith and perceptions of the majority community. To ordinary Hindus, India is not just a modern nation, but the world’s oldest living civilisation, with a distinct identity, culture, and worldview that should not be subordinated to theories imported from Europe, that have no relation to India’s own historical experience. Hindus have found that conversion to Semitic faiths undermines and destroys the nation's civilisational ethos, as it involves disbelief in and disrespect for the original culture and way of life. The social fabric is inevitably ruptured, causing a sense of loss and grief among those whose kinsmen accept alien traditions.

It was precisely in this context that Mahatma Gandhi said: “If I had the power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes... In Hindu households, the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family, coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink” (Harijan, May 11, 1935).

When told that conversion no longer involved change in the outward forms of culture, Gandhiji countered: “Vilification of the Hindu religion, though subdued, is there… The other day a missionary descended on a famine-stricken area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there.”

Gandhiji was emphatic that those who had converted to Islam or Christianity under pressure could return to the Hindu fold if they wished: “If a person through fear, compulsion, starvation or for material gain or consideration goes over to another faith, it is a misnomer to call it conversion.... I would therefore, unhesitatingly re-admit to the Hindu fold all such repentants without much ado, certainly without any shuddhi... I regard no man as polluted because he has forsaken the branch on which he was sitting and gone over to another… If he comes to the original branch, he deserves to be welcomed and not told that he had committed a sin by reason of his having forsaken the family to which he belonged. Insofar as he may be deemed to have erred, he has sufficiently purged himself of it when he repents of the error and retraces his step” (Harijan, September 25, 1937).

Indian Marxists may now be the latest converts to this viewpoint. With CPM cadres actively monitoring the local churches in their areas, it may be only a matter of time before divergent voices converge on the issue of a national ban on proselytisation to non-native faiths.

Swamy vs. Sonia
Affidavit alchemy
January 16, 05

New Delhi is agog with the probable political fallout of a possible decision by the Election Commission, nullifying Sonia Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareilly in 2004. In a move reminiscent of the Allahabad High Court’s decision to set aside the election of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, former Union Minister Subramaniam Swamy has challenged the legality of the Congress Party president’s election and may well succeed in having it declared null and void.

Temperatures have risen with a decision likely soon, as Swamy claims he has an open-and-shut case and will move the courts if he fails to secure a favourable verdict. The unseating of Sonia Gandhi from the Lok Sabha will trigger a turmoil and can reopen the question of whether she qualifies for Indian citizen in the first place. After all, it is as a citizen of India that she contested elections.

Given the gravity of the matter, it may be worth examining some of the issues involved. To begin with, there are disparities between what Sonia Gandhi says about herself and known facts. For instance, the birth certificate sent by the Italian embassy to the Indian Home Ministry in 1983 (when she applied for Indian citizenship) gave her name as Antonia and not Sonia. Her place of birth was listed as Luciana, and not Orbassano, which is listed in the Lok Sabha’s Who’s Who. Sonia Gandhi’s year of birth is given as 1944. Some reports also state that her father, Signor Stefano Maino, was a prisoner-of-war in Russia allegedly from 1942 till Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1945.

The controversy now is about her academic qualifications. It is alleged that while filling her Lok Sabha candidacy form in 2004, she claimed on a sworn affidavit before a magistrate that she had a certificate in English from the University of Cambridge. But the university denied it and Dr Swamy has presented this to the EC. A false declaration is a criminal offence under the IPC. Yet this was not the first controversy on this matter. She made this claim in the 1999-2004 Lok Sabha Who’s Who as well, and claimed it was a “typing mistake” when the Speaker asked her to answer a complaint in this regard.

There is thus a mystery about what Sonia Gandhi did in London between 1963 and 1968.

This brings us to the question of Gandhi’s citizenship under the registration clause of the Citizenship Act of 1955. Such citizenship is in principle revocable by law. And this makes her credentials to be Prime Minister tenuous and fragile. Indeed, this was precisely as recounted in some quarters then that President Abdul Kalam rejected her claim, though denied later. Media reports, then said the Congress president wrote to the President staking claim to form the Government and received an appointment for 5 pm on May 17, when she expected to receive a formal invitation. A list of 340 MPs proposing her name accompanied her letter.

But a few hours before this, Dr. Subramaniam Swamy called on the President and acquainted him with the reciprocity proviso in the Citizenship Act, which debars Sonia Gandhi from becoming Prime Minister unless a naturalized India-born citizen of Italy is qualified to hold similar office in that country. Dr. Kalam then reportedly sent her a letter at 3.30 pm asking her to cancel the 5 pm appointment and come on 18 May to discuss government formation. Though the letter was kept secret, its contents can be inferred from the fact that Sonia Gandhi suddenly renounced her desire to become PM and appointed Dr. Manmohan Singh to the post.

There are other reasons why many Indians have reservations about Sonia Gandhi’s high eminence in the political arena. The most obvious is that though she married Rajiv Gandhi in 1968 and qualified for Indian citizenship in 1973, she only sought and accepted Indian citizenship on April 30, 1983, when it was clear that her husband was heir-designate of his mother. Indira Gandhi was assassinated in October 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister immediately thereafter.

Yet doubts persist about the legality of the Indian citizenship. Sonia claims she gave her Italian passport to the Indian government while taking Indian citizenship, but refuses to say if she surrendered her Italian passport to the Italian government. Under Roman law, both she and her descendants can eternally claim Italian citizenship, hence the question arises whether she has legally renounced her Italian citizenship for herself and her children?

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