How a Government and Bureaucracy Betrayed Its People
No section of Assam's population has been left unaffected by the overpowering, state-created tragedy of the NRC, writes Teesta Setalvad in The Telegraph. She points out that NRC was intended to be ‘free and fair’ and ensure to take in as many citizens under its umbrella. However, perversions and manipulations have dogged the entire process, so as to not just harass the common man but to perform to a ‘target’ set by political bosses.
“Bengali-speaking Hindus, Muslims, the Gorkhas, Hindi-speaking people of north and west India have all been caught up in this, equally. There is no way to describe what this unfolding trauma has meant, for women and men to attend hearings scheduled in places far away from home, spending significant amounts of money filling in applications. Worse, they are summoned to appear not once, but repeatedly, along with ‘legacy persons’. This means that, in some cases, many people have even had to attend hearings as many as seven to 14 times along with their entire troupe of family tree members. This means a batch of 40-80 persons from an extended family having to travel up to hundreds of kilometres from their place of residence.”
Across the Aisle: Coercive Federalism
P Chidambaram writes in his column in The Indian Express about how the BJP government does not respect states’ rights and tries to find ways to bypass the Rajya Sabha and even the President to make amendments. The BJP government’s commitment to federalism can be gauged by the manner in which a number of Bills were passed on the same day without considering the Opposition and during a day of low attendance.
“The primary duty of the members of the Rajya Sabha is to protect and advance the interest of the states. As on August 2, the Lok Sabha has passed 28 Bills in this session and the Rajya Sabha has passed 26 Bills. Not one of them — repeat, not a single Bill — went through a process of consultation with the opposition parties. Not one Bill was referred to the Standing Committee or a Select Committee for detailed scrutiny. State governments were not consulted on any Bill, including Bills that were on subjects included in the Concurrent List (List III) of the Constitution and that affected the rights of sates. Not one amendment proposed by the Opposition was accepted by the government.”
Threat to Speech: Law 'Designed to Suppress the Liberty of the Citizen' Used Against Gandhi and Indians Now
As one of the many film-makers and scholars who sent a letter to the prime minister, alerting him to the high number of hate crimes in the name of caste and religion, Ramachandra Guha writes a column in The Telegraph. He talks of how their modest initiative was called a ‘conspiracy’ to ‘defame the nation’. This is no different from the time Mohandas K Gandhi was imprisoned by the British for penning well-merited criticisms of the government policies. This shows how politicians, even today, across party lines, are using colonial-era laws to suppress freedom of expression.
“Right-wing regimes and right-wing ideologues have, of course, been very quick to misuse these colonial-era laws to suppress free expression. For all their exaltation of the nation and their loudly professed nationalism, they are happy to use imperialist means to serve their purposes. However, other parties and leaders have competitively kept pace with them in this regard. Mamata Banerjee, in West Bengal, has been as eager as any Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister to use repressive laws to suppress democratic dissent. And the United Progressive Alliance government, with Manmohan Singh as prime minister and P. Chidambaram as home minister, shamelessly invoked the sedition clause to put peaceful protesters in prison, most notoriously in the case of the peaceful protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu.”
Fifth Column: Modi’s Aura Shrinks
Tavleen Singh has advice for the prime minister to stop sheltering rapists and criminals, else it will become difficult to lecture India about values and morality. In a column in The Indian Express, she asks Modi to stop the campaign of tax terrorism, put an end to the notion that Modi favours a privileged few and expel corrupt members like Kuldeep Singh Sengar who have been accused of rape, so that his second term doesn’t become a debacle.
“On the political front, the BJP’s image of being a ‘party with a difference’ has been badly damaged. This is because of the way Kuldeep Singh Sengar was handled. He should have been expelled a year ago when the child who accuses him of rape tried to kill herself in front of the Chief Minister’s residence in Lucknow. He should have been expelled before he managed, despite being in jail, to intimidate and probably kill the victim’s family and possible witnesses. This is normal in rural and small-town India where violent thugs control law enforcement. What should not be normal is for said violent thugs to be honourable members of the BJP. The Prime Minister will find it hard to continue lecturing India about values and morality in his Mann ki Baat if he is seen to be sheltering rapists and other criminals in his fold.”
US-Pakistan: From Being Rebuked to Being Welcomed
Yashwant Raj traces US - Pakistan ties which went from the US accusing Pakistan of “deceit and lies” thus suspending aid, to Trump offering to mediate the Kashmir dispute. In a column in Hindustan Times, he wonders how India is going to tackle the situation once Trump gets Khan on board to advance the Afghanistan peace process and end America’s longest war.
“The state department, for instance, led an unprecedented move to threaten to move the plea to designate Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammad to the full United Nations Security Council to force China to drop its opposition. But Trump went quiet, with his eyes fixed on a different prize: Afghanistan, and his election promise to end the war. Khan, meanwhile, had delivered. Pakistan released Mullah Baradar, a senior Taliban figure, from jail who would go on to lead the Taliban at the Doha talks brokered by US special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad. As these effort gathered steam, and prospects for peace brightened, so did the Trump administration’s estimation of Pakistan as a factor. Khan had delivered Baradar and, in US expectations, he could now be used to overcome the last and most significant hurdle: Get the Taliban to agree to talk to the Afghan government, which the group considers illegitimate.”
Two Questions to CBI in the Unnao Case
Jiba J Kattakayam has two questions for the CBI handling the Unnao rape case - ‘When is the trial beginning?’ and ‘Who put the rape survivor’s life in danger?’ In a column in The Times of India, the author writes how the CBI has become the sole hope for victims who fear that the state police, influenced by politicians, will not deliver justice. However, the CBI is failing the people.
“In fact, CBI squarely failed in gauging the threats she faced. Instead, media reports would indicate a lackadaisical attitude on CBI’s part. In April the survivor’s mother filed a petition seeking transfer of the cases to Delhi. So much for CBI’s active prosecution of the case. Notices were apparently issued by SC but there was no response. Even CBI had not responded to the notice. On July 12, the victim again wrote to the Chief Justice fearing a threat to her life. So much for the CBI taking over the case! She fought a lonely battle for justice and for right to live despite CBI purportedly on her side. That the family kept getting threats speaks volumes of CBI’s abilities.”
Inside Track: Indira’s Example
Coomi Kapoor, in a column in The Indian Express, recalls Indira Gandhi’s tenure during which she had enforced bank nationalisation and abolished privy purses to demonstrate to the poor that the government would not spare the rich. She also talks of how BJP has clearly charted out plans with strong men in the party deployed to ensure the decision after voting for every Bill in the House, will be favourable for the BJP.
“The absence of so many opposition MPs during the passing of the triple talaq Bill in the Rajya Sabha was because of a secret understanding between the BJP and party bosses of allies AIADMK and JD(U) that their MPs would walk out of the House. While the BJD came out in support, parties such as the BSP, TDP and TRS did a no-show. Some degree of arm-twisting was evident in the exercise with most politicians apprehensive of Central government agencies. But the absence of six of the 12 Samajwadi Party MPs and both the PDP MPs was not because of a call from their leaders but because the BJP reached out to individual MPs directly.”
Out of My Mind: Why the Fear of Debate
If there are recurrent incidents of violence, it is necessary to examine their roots rather than just blame the party you do not like or even dismiss such complaints because you like the party in power, reasons Meghnad Desai in a column in The Indian Express. He explains how we need to examine how the idea of Hindu nationalism has been founded on a history based solely on the Hindi belt that encompasses a thousand years of Muslim domination.
“A moment’s thought would reveal that all these complaints of Hindu-Muslim confrontations are local to the Hindi belt — the BIMARU states. The peculiarity of the Hindi belt is a serious issue to investigate. It is frequently taken, not least by itself, as India itself. It was for decades the source of power of the Congress. It is the one area of India which has not had an anti-Brahmin movement or any social reform agitation as South India, Punjab, Gujarat or Maharashtra have had. It was left backward socially in terms of literacy, women’s status, low status of OBCs during the Congress’s 50-year rule. The Hindi belt has also the largest concentration of Muslims in India. The idea of secularism is said to be based on the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. Yet, the lack of social reform in the Muslim society is also to be laid at the door of the Congress. Just compare Muslims in South India with Muslims of the Hindi belt in terms of modernity.”
Going Bananas in Banana Republic
Twinkle Khanna pens a hilarious satire in The Times Of India about Rahul Bose’s expensive bananas, JW Marriot’s surprise tax liability, cows being the latest guest of honour everywhere and Zomato’s response when a customer had an issue with a non-Hindu delivery man.
“Fed up of dealing with soya candles that are flaking and equally flaky girls in the office, I hide in my cabin and surf the internet instead. I soon discover a video which shows that along with booing students, colleges like IIT Bombay also deal with mooing cows. At this point, one would not be surprised if the divine animal had been invited as a guest lecturer on dung productivity. After all, the benefits, if you go by what some RSS leaders claim, range from using cow-dung to making bomb-proof bunkers, applying it on cell phones as protection against radiation and as an elixir for skin treatments, coughs and, of course, cancer. Holy cow!”
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