Government Of India Treating Human Rights Organisations Like Criminal Enterprises

By Amnesty International India
Bengaluru/Delhi: 26 October 2018 11:07 am

Amnesty India’s bank accounts have been frozen by the Enforcement Directorate, effectively stopping our work. Amnesty India is thus the latest target of the government’s assault on civil society in the country. The accounts of Greenpeace India were frozen earlier this month.

“Government authorities are increasingly treating human rights organisations like criminal enterprises”, said Aakar Patel. “As an organisation committed to the rule of law, our operations in India have always conformed with our national regulations. The principles of transparency and accountability are at the heart of our work.”

Around 1:30 pm on 25 October, a group of officers from the Enforcement Directorate entered our premises and locked the gates behind them. They ordered the Amnesty India staff to remain in office, shut their laptops, and not use their mobile phones.

The focus of the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning was the relationship between two entities: Amnesty International India Pvt Ltd and Amnesty International India Foundation.

Most of the documents asked for during the search were available in the public domain or were already filed with the relevant authorities. Details of our current structure, which was the focus of much of the questioning, have been available on our website since 2014.

However, ahead of the raids, the Indian authorities leaked a cache of their internal documents marked “secret” that appear to cast Amnesty India’s operations as a dark web of intrigue.

“Our work in India, as elsewhere, is to uphold and fight for universal human rights. These are the same values that are enshrined in the Indian Constitution and flow from a long and rich Indian tradition of pluralism, tolerance and dissent,” said Aakar Patel.

“We could not agree more with the Prime Minister when he says that periods of repression, like during the Emergency, have left a stain on India’s history. Sadly, those dark days are now casting a shadow over India again. Instead of protecting human rights, as it vowed to do, the government is now targeting the people who fight for them”, said Aakar Patel.

Over 40 lakh Indians have supported Amnesty India’s work over the last six years and around one lakh Indians have made a financial contribution.

The post Amnesty International, India issues press note on govt.’s heckling with the Rights organisation appeared first on Awaam India.

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Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) died on May 27, 1964. A major event such as this inevitably gives rise to “where were you?” questions. Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? Where were you when Indira Gandhi was killed? Where were you when the World Trade Center was brought down? The shock of the event magnifies the immediate around you and imprints it in your mind.

I still can vividly recall the day Nehru died and the moment I learnt about it. He had a stroke that morning at 6.25 am. He lost consciousness almost immediately. He died without regaining consciousness, and according to a member of his household, his death was due to “an internal hemorrhage, a paralytic stroke, and a heart attack.”

He had returned the previous day from Mussourie, “hale and hearty” but Nehru was clearly ailing. Parliament, then in session, and the nation were told about his death at 2.05 pm.

I still remember that moment vividly. Like I still do the moments when I read in the Deccan Chronicle about Kennedy being killed in Dallas, and when I learnt about Indira Gandhi being shot dead from Jaipal Reddy.

I was in Poona studying German at the Goethe Institute, and after class was cycling into town to meet a friend. As I passed a government building I saw a flag flying at half-mast. I asked and when told a great fear descended over me.

Like many other young Indians, I too was unwilling to contemplate India without Nehru, despite having read many speculations about who next? The most widely read book on the subject was by the American journalist Welles Hangen “After Nehru Who?”

Hangen speculated on a list of personalities and wrote:

Many people in India who concede that Nehru can now be replaced have told me that only he could have held the country together in the early days after the partition of British India.

Clearly to many, Nehru had outlived his purpose, particularly after the disastrous India-China War of 1962. Not knowing what was in store next sent me scurrying down back to my hostel, where a radio set was reporting the mourning as only AIR and Melville de Mello could.

We began discussing the succession, even though Gulzarilal Nanda was appointed the interim PM, few took him seriously as a successor. By late in the night, our fears took over. One refrain was that the military would take over. Another was that either the Communists or the CIA would set off a coup. None of this happened. Nehru had built a modern and democratic India to last.

India was fortunate to have his leadership in the formative years of the Republic. We took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. Recall Robert Frost who wrote:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We could have done better but we could have done worse like many other countries in our situation did. The India conceptualized by Nehru and the founding fathers still endures.

Nehru was a man with a towering intellect and a long vision. No one who has read Discovery of India will think otherwise. He tried to forge a new all-inclusive nationality for us.

I have often tried to explain this notion in simple terms. This is to make the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai or the Taj Mahal in Agra or the Golden Temple in Amritsar equally our heritage. Every invasion or migratory wave, every musical instrument and kind of music, and every literary form and style that flourished in India was equally ours. The raga and ghazal were ours just as Bhimsen Joshi and Bismillah Khan were our very own.

Nehru made mistakes. When big people make mistakes they are often monumental. He misunderstood the nature of the dispute with China. He tied the economy in the ropes of central planning which only helped spawn very many millionaire tycoons.

But he had a bigger vision. He contemplated the new India to be guided by reason and infused with the scientific temper. Instead we are now increasingly a people driven by dogma and blind faith. Religion and blind faith are our biggest fault lines and the cause of much social friction and breakdown of orderly public behavior and order.

In recent years, the assault on Nehru’s memory has become vicious. It is led by small men, men who don’t know history and who confuse Taxila with Patna, Indus with Ganges, and Alexander with Selucus; who don’t know science and think the Ganesh was real and not a symbol and who can’t tell between a transplant and plastic surgery; and who cannot distinguish between history and mythology, science and superstition, and fact and fiction. They are now trying to define our identity in narrow and divisive terms, and hence excluding the majority.

Our unique diversity and common perception about ourselves bound by a modern and egalitarian Constitution is now being challenged. India has weathered worse. We are, after all, the people of India, that is Bharat. And we still live in the house that Nehru built.

The post We Still Live in the House that Nehru Built appeared first on Awaam India.

Chief Justice Khehar and Justice Abdul Nazeer, both, have written for themselves. Justice Rohinton Nariman has written judgment for himself and Justice U U Lalit, while Justice Kurian Joseph has written judgment for himself, wherein he has agreed with the judgment of CJI in part, and also that of judgment by Justice Rohinton.

Chief Justice, Khehar (minority judgment) has held that Triple Talaq is an integral part of the religion. The same is part of faith, having been followed for more than 1400 years, and as such, has to be accepted as being constituent of ‘personal law’ thereby enjoying constitutional protection. He has also rejected the argument of petitioners that Triple Talaq is covered by the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, ceased to be ‘personal law’, and got transformed into ‘statutory law’. Hence, the same does not come within the meaning of “law” under Article 13 of the Constitution so that this practice can be tested on the touchstone of Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Constitution.

He has further held that Triple Talaq does not violate any riders such as public order, morality and health in the Article 25. On this plinth, in the operative part of his judgment, he has invoked Article 142 to direct the Union of India to consider appropriate legislation, particularly with reference to talaq-e-bid’at and issues an injection on the practice of Triple Talaq for six months.

It is interesting to note that minority judgment by CJI and Justice Abdul Nazeer is self contradictory. They averred Triple Talaq is fundamental to Islam yet stayed the same for six months in order to give time to the government to consider legislation in the matter. The vital question of law here is whether exercise of Fundamental Rights can be put on hold even in exercise of power under Article 142? Justice Kurian Joseph in his separate judgment has seriously doubted the same. Judgment by CJI, therefore, is sans merit or authority in its favour.

In his brief judgement, Justice Kurian reiterates the findings in Shamim Ara case wherein ‘instantaneous triple talaq’ was held invalid under Islamic law. He disagrees with CJI that Triple Talaq is an integral part of religious practice.

He, however, has agreed with the CJI that the 1937 Act is not a legislation regulating talaq which is in disagreement with the view taken by Justice Rohinton. Justice Kurian ends stating what is held to be bad in the Holy Quran cannot be good in Shariat and, in that sense, what is bad in theology is bad in law as well.

Coming to the judgment rendered by Justice Rohinton (for himself & Justice U U Lalit), he is of the view that plain reading of Section 2 is that, after 1937, the shariat was accorded statutory sanction in India. He, therefore, holds that all forms of talaq recognized and enforced by Muslim personal law are recognized and enforced by the 1937 Act. This would necessarily include Triple Talaq when it comes to the Muslim personal law applicable to Sunnis in India.

After having reached to this conclusion, he has examined this practice on the touchstone of Part III since the same would be hit by Article 13(1) if found to be inconsistent with the provisions of Part III of the Constitution, to the extent of such inconsistency. He reaches to a conclusion that fundamental right has been violated by the 1937 Act insofar as it seeks to enforce Triple Talaq as a rule of law in the Courts in India. This being the case, it is clear that this form of Talaq is manifestly arbitrary in the sense that the marital tie can be broken capriciously and whimsically by a Muslim man without any attempt at reconciliation so as to save it. This form of talaq, must, therefore, be held to be violative of the fundamental right contained under Article 14 of the Constitution.

The court has once again missed a golden opportunity to examine whether personal laws can be tested for violation of fundamental rights. There was no reason for the court to not do this. The Court has, therefore, failed to discharge obligations cast upon it under the Constitution. There is nothing efficacious in the judgment which can be celebrated, except that the majority has somehow set-aside Triple Talaq.

The judgment is far away from the Constitutional values, and gender equality. It further makes it vivid that religious belief and practices can override constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights. The judgment, therefore, is not at all a progressive one, as being projected by media and some writers. It has left a sense of disappointment.

It may be noted that issues like Halala and Polygamy are still to be heard by the Court. One may expect the debate to reopen again on the issue of Personal Laws when these practices would be examined by the Court along-with a case of women’s entry in Sabrimala Temple.

Views expressed by the author are personal.

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In India, people have the right to life, but fake encounters and mob lynching happen. In spite of the right to free speech, publications feel compelled to withdraw articles critical of government or corporates. There is a right to equality but discrimination is still rampant.

When the mention of fundamental rights in the Constitution is not able to ensure their full implementation on ground, one wonders what will happen if privacy is not recognised as a fundamental right. In such a situation, citizens may not have protection against surveillance and even profiling by the state, the state could target those who speak against it, even voting preferences may be influenced, telephone tapping could be routinely resorted to and our mails intercepted. This is indeed a terrifying prospect.

The right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. But then the right to “due process” too was not there and, in fact, was dropped by the framers of the Constitution. Yet, the apex court read it into the “right to personal liberty”. The court, in fact, silently brought about what may be called a “rights revolution” by judicially creating several fundamental rights.

When the democratic state turned totalitarian under Indira Gandhi and started abusing its powers to amend the Constitution, the Supreme Court as protector of civil liberties stood firm and applied the brakes first, in 1967, by denying Parliament power to amend the Constitution and then, in 1973, through the “basic structure” doctrine which too is not there in the text of the Constitution.

If the text of the Constitution alone is going to determine the nature of the right to privacy, then the collegium system, the right against arbitrariness and the freedom of press too could go soon. Voluntary surrender of personal information to private entities cannot be equated with mandatory data collection by the state. The right to privacy judgment will be a litmus test for the apex court.

Will the court follow the rich traditions of 1967 and 1973 and rise to the challenges of the information age? One hopes there would not be another ADM Jabalpur (1976) kind of decision where the majority accepted the government’s argument that when the right to life and personal liberty is suspended, citizens have no remedy against illegal detention.

It is erroneous to believe that eight- and six-judge benches have authoritatively held that there is no right to privacy. In the Satish Chandra case (1954), the fundamental question was whether the state’s power of search and seizure violated the right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3). In a positivist mould, the court refused to read right to privacy under this provision.

Then came the Kharak Singh (1963) case where a dacoity accused was released and put under surveillance. Police constables would knock at his door, wake him up during night and disturb his sleep. The majority conceded that “everyman’s home is his castle” and struck down domiciliary visit regulations. But without any elaborate discussions, the court yet again said that there was no fundamental right to privacy in India.

But there was the powerful dissenting judgment of Justice Subba Roa, with whom Justice J.C. Shah concurred. They argued that even though the right to privacy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it is a necessary ingredient of the right to personal liberty. In the Gobind case (1975) the minority opinion of Kharak Singh case became the majority opinion. The court has recognised right to privacy as an integral part of right to personal liberty. Today, liberty is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

Despite the recognition of privacy as a fundamental right, the government will continue to have powers to impose “reasonable restrictions”. It is no body’s case that the right to privacy is an absolute right. Moreover, global experience shows that the denial of privacy neither promotes national security nor curbs terrorism, it merely takes away citizen’s freedom to be left alone and curtails his/her choice in personal decisions.

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Before entering government Nehru had written several editorials and special articles, mostly in his own hand for the National Herald. These are now with the National Archives. Photostat copies are with the National Herald.

Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Rajaji and Pantji had their own favourites among pressmen; but Nehru never considered it advisable to cultivate individual pressmen.

Nehru considered the Hindu as the best- produced paper in India and its reporters the best in the country; but the Hindu was a little too conservative for him in regard to economic policy. And yet he wanted the Hindu to be put up to him every evening.

From the middle of the fifties, Nehru considered S. Mulgaokar  as the most effective journalistic writer in the country. On several occasions Mulgaokar had criticized Nehru’s policies. And yet, when he wanted a high-grade journalist to tone up our foreign and domestic publicity, immediately after the Chinese invasion, it was to Mulgaokar that Nehru turned. Mulgaokar stipulated certain understandable conditions so that his work in government, for a temporary period, would be purposeful and effective. The PM could not fulfil those conditions in the set-up which existed at that time. So the proposal fell through.

In 1952 Nehru wanted a prominent person with a journalistic background as Minister for Information and Broadcasting. .He invited B. Shiva Rao to join his Council of Ministers as a minister of state with independent charge of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Shiva Rao tried through N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar to get Cabinet rank. Nehru was annoyed, gave up the idea, and appointed B. V. Keskar instead.

The one journalist who got on Nehru’s nerves was Durga Das. He, after a long career in journalism, ended up as special representative and later editor of the Hindustan Times. Nehru had heard that while he was with the Associated Press of India (an adjunct of Reuter), Durga Das was connected with the intelligence set-up of the Home Department. Durga Das, who was a favourite with Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad and Pantji, tried to get elected to the Constituent Assembly from UP. Pantji recommended him; but Nehru scored his name out. Durga Das then took up a very hostile attitude towards Nehru. He began to write nasty things about Nehru and his daughter under the pseudonym INSAF (Justice). It was the type of writing intended to hurt. One day Nehru sent for Durga Das and talked to him severely. Later, Nehru informed me that he had told Durga Das, “You are the meanest man I have met and the lowest form of human existence.” Normally Nehru wouldn’t use such strong language. Durga Das was subdued for a while like a dog with its tail in a bamboo tube. But when the initial impact wore off, Durga Das relapsed into his mean self. One day Nehru spotted a very nasty piece and told me, “You might ask Ghanshyamdas Birla if this sort of write-up represented his own views.” I put the question to G.D. Birla, using the PM’s own words. G.D. Birla told me that he very seldom interfered with the editorial freedom of Hindustan Times and added, “I have been noticing Durga Das’ weekly column INSAF which borders on yellow journalism. I did speak to him a few times. I am going to speak to him again today as a last warning. In fact I made up my mind some time ago to get rid of Durga Das. That is why I have brought in Mulgaokar.”

The next day Durga Das went to his patron saint, Maulana Azad. The Maulana spoke to G.D. Birla who told him that I had complained to him and that he might have a word with me. The Maulana knew that I was a difficult customer. So he complained to the PM. But the PM kept quiet. Soon Durga Das was replaced by Mulgaokar. INSAF died a natural death; but out of its ashes arose INFA, a weekly newsletter.

During Nehru’s time “keyhole journalism” was not very much in evidence, though it seems to be developing fast at present. The classic example is a man who has recently published a book on the emergency. A friend sent me a copy of the book. In that he has referred to me as Nehru’s stenographer. I wrote and asked him where he got that fantastic information. He did not reply. I made the mistake of expecting a modicum of decency in a keyhole journalist. I took the trouble of reading through the book. It is a melancholy piece of work into which so many lies, half-truths innuendoes and absurd inventions, all coated with malice, have been compressed into a few pages constituting the worst type of journalistic vulgarization I have ever seen. It was obviously written to take advantage of a ‘hate wave” in northern India. After finishing the book late at night, it fell from my hands to the floor as I lay in bed. The next morning my sweepress took the book from the floor and asked me, “Sahib, can I have it for my choola?” I felt like telling  her, “Yes, and also here is thirty rupees, buy another for your choola” in the style of Samuel Johnson who, when approached by a person for a donation of one crown for the burial of a priest, said, “Here are two crowns; bury two.”

In the early years of independence Ramakrishna Dalmia made an attempt to measure his pitiful strength against government through the medium of the Times of India and the Illustrated Weekly of India which he owned. He singled out Nehru for attacks in the most obscurantist manner bringing holy cows and sacred monkeys also into the picture. Nehru was naturally annoyed; but he did not want to take any vindictive action. He asked me to stop subscribing to the Times of India and the Illustrated Weekly as he did not wish to render financial support to the gutter press. I, however, asked the Press Information Bureau to forward to me such items from the Times of India and the Illustrated Weekly as were libellous. Nothing came from the PIB. Dalmia’s foolish adventure petered out. However, the Times of India and the Illustrated Weekly never again entered the PM’s house.

Around the same time as Dalmia’s adventure, Blitz published prominently on the front page a libellous item against Indira, alleging that she took from an unnamed businessman several costly sarees. Nehru consulted Kailas Nath Katju. As advised by him a notice was sent to the editor of Blitz calling upon him to publish prominently on the front page an apology or face legal action. The editor considered discretion the better part of valour and complied. Blitz never repeated the performance. ‘

While Aneurin Bevan was in India for the first time, he was staying in Rajkumari Amrit Kaur’s house. There he came across a piece of writing by Frank Moraes attacking Nehru for creating the Atomic Energy Department, which he described as a “white-elephant.” Bevan remarked, “This man is said to be one of your top journalists.” I replied, “Of late he has developed bats in his belfry. Goa is a bee in his bonnet; and the Atomic Energy Commission is his latest allergy; he cannot see beyond his nose.” Bevan recalled that he had had the most determined opposition from the press in pushing through the National Health Service. He added, “A statesman who has rapport with the people need not be unduly perturbed by the fulminations in the press. The Almighty did not deposit all the wisdom in the press. The greatest thing Nehru is doing in India is his massive support for science and technology. This will bring you rich dividends in the future in terms of economic development and social change.”

Nehru was not unaware of the exaggerated claim of the press to represent public opinion. When Harry Truman stood for election in 1948 for the American presidency, practically the entire press was against him. They claimed to represent public opinion and went all out in support of the Republican candidate Dewey. Truman confounded everyone and won the election to become “the great little President of the United States.”

The London Times editorial of 3 October 1938 on the Munich Agreement was a constant reminder to Nehru of the “foresight” and “wisdom” of the press! The editorial read:

The volume of applause for Mr. Chamberlain, which continues to grow through out the globe, registers a popular judgment that neither politicians nor historians are likely to reverse. One fundamental truth that Mr. Chamberlain’s daring diplomacy brought into the light was this— that even in a totalitarian State the people will have their influence in the last resort upon the Party. The man who has arrested universal destruction by appealing to that truth need not fear that in his own country the cavillings of Party will outweigh the people’s gratitude. But, even if there is the inevitable reaction, there must be no retrograde step. Relief from intolerable strain cannot be followed by mere relapse into inertia. The lessons of the crisis are plain and urgent. The policy of international appeasement must be pressed forward. There must be appeasement not only of the strong but of the week— of the State that has allowed itself to be weakened for the common good. Czechoslovakia has deserved well of humanity, and it should be a first international responsibility not only to guarantee the contracted frontier, but also to assist in solving the new problems that the settlement has imposed upon her. As between the greater Powers the field for necessary appeasement is wide.

The editor of the London Times then was Geoffrey Dawson who belonged to the disreputable Cliveden Set, the members of which met at Cliveden, which was Lord Astor’s estate. The Cliveden Set was passionately in favour of an understanding with the dictators Hitler and Mussolini. The frequent Cliveden social functions were greatly enlivened by the two beautiful young daughters of Lord Curzon — Lady Ravensdale and the Lady Alexandra Metcalfe. The Cliveden Set was bitterly opposed to Winston Churchill.

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Note: This is unabridged version of the Rediff Column of the author published on May 26, 2017. 

From the perspective of a deeply concerned citizen, it seems, the Indian democracy is passing through its worst phase. This became much more evident with what happened on 18 May 2017 in rural Jharkhand, few kilometres away from the steel city of Jamshedpur. As per the news-reports, in two different villages, just on absolutely baseless rumours, not only four Muslims, but also two Dalits, were barbarically lynched allegedly by a tribal mob. There are few other instances of such killings in other villages of the locality. Yet, the degree of the outrage in terms of articulation from the civil society is woefully inadequate. People seem to have either gone mute, or got used to such ghastly killings, which is increasingly becoming order of the day, across the country. Is it indeed a ‘New Normal’?

Institutional paralysis has touched such a nadir that the judiciary does take up PIL cases suo moto on the issues of bad roads, bad municipal system, and environmental issues, but series of ‘spectacular’ lynching skips the judicial attention, nor does the civil society has taken such issues to the law court.

Neither the oppositional politics nor the intelligentsia (including most of the media, substantial section of which has already been kowtowing before the establishment) talk any more of breakdown of constitutional machinery in the BJP governed Jharkhand. Nobody talked of imposing President’s Rule. No political party came out on the streets with its support base. No opinion writer of liberal secular persuasion asked the non-BJP political formations to take its support-base out on the streets to protest (against the brutality) through mass demonstration. Not only the power-seeking politicians, but also the liberal secular intelligentsia, are desperately waiting to stitch together a broad alliance which could dislodge the BJP from power in 2019. Within the confines of luxurious hotels, the talks of coalitions and alliances are taking place, only for the elections to be held after two years from now. At the moment, none are prepared to come out of the comfort zones and take to the streets. Little do they realise that mere unity from top can no longer befool the masses, just in the name of secularism and social justice. In fact, such moves of “opportunistic unity at top” would create a counter-mobilization with greater vengeance in favour of the BJP.

Mayawati did not come out on the streets even though thousands of Dalits are coming out against the atrocity against them in Saharanpur. Nor did the recently ‘dislodged’ chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav join this protest demonstration from Saharanpur to Delhi, even while stating his willingness to align with Mayawati. The leaders will bargain coalitions for power but they won’t make their core/captive support base to join together in the demonstrations on the streets. In November 2015, after the Mahagathbandhan won and formed its government in Bihar, the darling of secularists, Lalu Yadav boasted of camping in Banaras to launch a mass mobilization against the un-kept promises of Narendra Modi. But he is busy in affirming the power-base of his two sons inside the coalition in Patna. At least in order to pre-empt any attempt at dislodging his son, with utmost alacrity, he has scheduled a rally on 27 May at Patna. His captive support-base refuses to ask him some pertinent questions. Why? It will strengthen Hindutva, they say. In self-deception, they have been saying so, for the last many years. They are ignoring the fact that by not asking such questions, they have actually created a vacuum, which has come to be filled in eventually by the Hindutva.

With all their palpable single caste and single dynasty perpetuation in power, the likes of Lalu, Mulayam, Mayawati stand extremely discredited today. Yet, they doggedly refuse to learn any lesson. No traditional “secular” political formation is prepared to accommodate the rising aspirations of the lower OBCs and lower Dalits. These left-out groups have been lured by the saffron forces. Today, these traditional “secular” forces are neither willing to, nor capable of, re-scripting the grammar of the politics. Today, even the intelligentsia has become palpably partisan. They can shout at the loudest of their voices against the omissions and commissions of the saffron establishments but they would choose to become little less shrill and less strident when they are needed to speak against the non- saffron forces. While the Sangh Parivar is covertly and overtly extending its support to the lynch mobs, the liberals did not, and do not, speak as strongly, say for instance, against the Akhilesh regime whose police in Dadri, Muzaffarnagar, and elsewhere in Uttar Pradesh, did not for the constitution.

For the common citizens, even more worrisome, in fact alarming, is the reality that even the liberal-secular intelligentsia is not speaking against this kind of politics which is scheming to re-grab power through opportunistically self-serving coalitions/permutations negotiated in luxurious hotels. These discredited politicians refuse to come out on the streets, with their respective support-base, which would go on to mount an effective pressure on, and corrective to, the ruling establishment drunk in the power, arrogance, wilful inaction, and pathological hatred too, notwithstanding the hollow rhetoric of ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’. If frequent lynching and similar atrocities across the country cannot make the opposition come out on the streets, then what else can really move them? Unemployment has gone its highest ever, Railway services are at the worst, yet the charges are rising, bank transactions have been made much exacting, rural distress has accentuated further, agricultural growth rate is at its lowest ever (1.7%) .

To mobilise people against all these, new language, new slogan, new tactics, new face of leaders, in politics, remains hopelessly elusive. People are not prepared to trust the existing opposition who have been cheating them since long. In the name of secularism and social justice they have perpetuated their dynasty.

It is this paralysis, of the oppositional politics, and of the intelligentsia, which needs to be diagnosed. Never before did the Indian oppositional politics and the intelligentsia witness such a pathetic crisis of credibility.

Both, society as well as polity, in India seems to have got reduced to a bizarre binary, as if no third space really exists any more. On the social sites, it seems, India has got only two colours: saffron, and non-saffron. Polychromatic India appears to becoming elusive, and as if those not subscribing to saffron political ideology, are nothing but an unpatriotic bunch. One rarely finds someone who can simultaneously talk against the scams on all sides of politics, say for instance, Fodder, Vyapam, and various such scams. One set would say, speaking against fodder will strengthen Hindutva, another side argues, speaking against lynching and Vyapam will bring back the regressive dynasties. Forget about the ruling elites on both sides of the political divide, even the common citizens on social sites become partisan, and fall prey to the carefully constructed bipolarity of politics. They will feign shameless ignorance about the crime and corruption on one side, while speaking out loudly against the same on another side of the political divide. They will invoke ‘jungle raj’ of one regime but will look away from similar or even more palpable failure of the constitutional machineries under another regime.

If the supporters of the Lalu-Rabri regime were not as much shaken by the massacres against the Dalits, and the daily killings in vehicle-snatching and kidnapping for ransom, the saffron supporters are hardly outraged against the lynch mobs. Both enjoy(ed) impunity in the respective regimes. Yesterday, Lalu-Rabri was dismissing the charges of kidnappings, killings, vehicle-snatching, lawlessness and corruption, as Brahmanical and saffron conspiracy, today the saffron forces dismiss all such charges by saying that this could all be a conspiracy of the ‘sickularists’, of those who ‘appeased’ the minorities. Yesterday, Lalu sold out his subalterneity as a bhains-wala (buffalo-rearer), today Narendra Modi is able to sell out his subalterneity as a chai-wala (tea-seller).

While drawing this parallel, one runs the risk of being condemned for having ignored the degrees of the ferocity of the human-sufferings. The fact is, one isn’t ignoring the degrees. Comparisons do carry oddities. But this is how rationalizations have been working on the two sides of the political divide. Killers of various varieties, (be the cow vigilantes and lynch mobs of today, or those in the so called ‘Muslim friendly’ regimes of Lalu, Akhilesh and their predecessors) always enjoyed impunity. Yet, they managed to keep getting votes of the victims en masse, en bloc.

Similarly, in the late 1990s, the BJP shouted against Lalu’s man, Taslimuddin, having been made Union Minister of Home despite his criminal antecedents. In 2017, the BJP has brought a chief minister who has similar or even more heinous charges of violence. Equally sad is the fact that the SP and BSP regimes of the past have remained as soft on the case, as the BJP would now remain, understandably.

I often repeat, one of the biggest failures of the Indian democracy has been in the domain of the criminal justice system, where killings done in the name of identity based hatred (against Muslims, Dalits, Tribes, etc.), are most of the times not taken to their logical conclusion. Quite often, even the well meaning people will insist on forgetting and moving on. This is how the killers enjoy impunity and get emboldened further. This is why such killings perpetuate. These acts of “forgiveness” embolden the thuggish hate-merchants and killers. Thus, the accountability of the party in power goes out of question. Identity-based blame games circulate.

In such a bleak scenario, why cannot the intelligentsia (academics and media) help out the republic?

Because, even those universities, hitherto known for their anti-establishment politics and academics, have now been made to face such crisis of credibility in palpably unprecedented manner! In the 1960s and 1970s, when the hegemony of the ruling Congress had to be challenged, sections of motivated students and teachers took to revolutionary path and joined the poor landless labourers of Bihar, West Bengal, and other parts of India. They lived with them, they suffered for them, served jails too. As late as in the 1990s, a student leader of JNU, Chandrashekhar, rather than preferring a cool career of academics in elite universities, chose to fight out the gangster-landlord nexus in Saran, patronised by the state. In this act of revolution, he made the supreme sacrifice of his life. Ironically, the state was then controlled by someone professing his commitment for social justice and secularism.

All these sacrifices and contributions of those selected premier elite educational institutions seem to have gone in vain. Today, some motivated political forces have succeeded in unleashing propaganda, accusing those very institutions and emancipatory ideologies to be unpatriotic, seditious, and whatnot. Today, even most illiterate segments of the remotest hinterlands have been fed with only one thing about those institutions: that they are dens of treason and of sexual chaos. We should not and cannot dismiss it merely by saying that since it is an ‘era of mass stupidity’, hence rumours are replacing truth so successfully. There is certainly more to it that despite so many anti-people economic measures inflicted upon the masses, they are not able to mobilise the people against the pro-corporate and anti-poor incumbent regime. These suffering masses just don’t trust them anymore.

When the things have come to such a pass, one certainly needs to introspect as to why and how did it really happen? How did the oppositional politics and the intelligentsia, both lose their credibility so pathetically? Because, there has certainly developed an unmistakably huge disjunction between the society and the intelligentsia! The tribe of pen-pushers and knowledge-producers have come to be seen as unworthy suckers of public money. Lots of incompetent, dishonest, greedy fellows have occupied the academic spaces. Decadence and decomposition is quite visible. Even the best of our universities are suffering from the worst kind of irregularities. These recruits are now seen as a bunch of self-seekers with un-ending appetite for money and luxury, rather than as selfless servers of the society. This is just one of the many diseases our academies are afflicted with. That this painful scenario is being cynically exploited to the hilt by the saffron establishment at the moment, is another serious question, awaiting informed answer. Though, they rarely subject themselves to self-scrutiny!

The post People’s Democracy and their trust in Opposition | Mohammad Sajjad appeared first on Awaam India.