The party tested the swell factor of its polarisation agenda in Delhi and may still replicate it in Bengal, Bihar
Undoubtedly, the Delhi verdict has been a blowback to the hate rhetoric of the BJP, which had pitched it to a national referendum on its identity politics. Affirmatively, it has swerved the axis back on governance as the spine of a people’s mandate. But for the BJP, the religious polarisation and the vituperative campaign have worked the way it has wanted. Particularly in a literate, aware and urbane Delhi, the distillate of India as it were. First, uncomfortable as Delhiites might be, using the Shaheen Bagh protests over citizenship laws as a metaphor, it forced a binary conversation and picked up fence-sitters, those who gave it a vote surge and eight seats from a pre-poll estimate of two or a near wipeout. Delhi has, therefore, proved to the BJP that in the absence of a local governance or performance record and even without local faces, its agenda has a speed-breaker narrative that did make the AAP sweat in the last days of campaigning. And if this polarisation, with its most repugnant avatar, has even given it an apology of a gain in Delhi, the BJP will use it in varying degrees, depending on its spin cycles in States. Second, each Opposition party, which is now tactically avoiding a confrontation with the BJP and refusing to bite the bait that only makes the latter look like the victim, is being compelled to take a stand on the emotive issue of religion. Hence the rabid vigour of senior BJP leaders in pushing it. AAP has successfully turned religion into a jan dharma of serving the people with its actions. But in public chants and rants, it countered Jai Shri Ram with Jai Bajrangbali, using the image of Ram’s servitor Hanuman. This is what the Congress did with the temple run of the Gandhi scions and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee did with her Jai Maa Kali slogans during the Lok Sabha. India had so far reconciled itself to a secular public life where ritualism was lived as a daily habit rather than an exhibitionist practice. The BJP has managed to overturn this paradigm, equating the dressing down of religion to disowning it as a shame, opening up the Hindu pantheon to appropriation by various parties. Insidiously, the BJP has buttonholed majoritarian liberalism and forced it to display some sort of identity on its sleeves. The political parties have no choice now but to play by the rules of this game. Religion, tragically, is now the domain of tactical warfare. Why would the BJP give it up? Third, by establishing religion as a key marker of political play, it has exiled secularism and Constitutional values to the domain and responsibility of civil society. This separation is significant. For we may rave and rant about the BJP’s socio-cultural pollutants, stage protests and sit-ins but there’s no political space for civil movements. These work up a bigger pressure no doubt and may effect a change in the long-term but in five-year timelines of electoral politics, that discourse will be cautiously side-stepped by each political party in campaign duels with the BJP. In that sense, the latter has coopted all parties into developing campaign strategies on its terms, herding them into Centre-Right positions.
How then will the BJP relook its strategies or the Opposition reorient itself in such a scenario, in Bihar and Bengal, particularly the latter as it is still the most feisty vanguard against its divisive politics and a liberal bastion? Bihar has a 17 per cent Muslim population but the BJP ally and Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar is compromised by circumstance, unable to snap his symbiotic link so close to the State polls. He is supporting CAA and knows the Muslim vote consolidates around Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Even then he has 45 per cent of the State’s vote pie comprising extremely backward castes (EBCs), the Mahadalits and women. Besides, he has a legacy of governance that is difficult to overlook for the BJP, which doesn’t have a saleable face. Post the Delhi verdict, the BJP could attempt to find a Shaheen Bagh-like metaphor in protests at Gaya but wouldn’t want to overplay it given Nitish’s deep discomfort over profiling-based policies. It is in Bengal though that the BJP may play hard, considering Mamata has stuck her neck out stridently against the otherisation of the minorities. Besides, Bengal has a sizeable 27 per cent Muslim votepie against which the BJP will look to consolidate every Hindu vote. The anxieties of Partition are latent in Bengal and the BJP will be looking at playing up the subterranean memory by hook or by crook. Besides, as a border State that has suffered infiltration and where refugees have been regularised as votebanks, the fear of the Muslims has worked. In the developing two-party matrix at the State level, the minuscule CPI(M) and Congress vote has already migrated to the BJP, shoring up its percentage as a key Opposition player. Mamata, like Kejriwal, has learnt her lessons in realpolitik but the question is how fiery a tigress she chooses to become. The BJP for sure is luring her.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
If AAP uses its power and manages to make neo-socialist logic visceral and granular to concerns of everyday life, it could transfer the ownership of nationalism to the citizens instead of politicians
Has the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), with its comprehensive home run at the Delhi Assembly elections, managed to carve an alternative space that may just be a dot at the moment but can be the cure to the fractured disease that the Opposition has become in our country? An antidote rather than being an antithesis? An equaliser in a society that’s predicated on inequity as social, economic and political capital? Owning responsibility than harvesting blame games? Perhaps that’s the reason why the party, while assuming charge for the third time, gave a clarion call for “positive nationalism” and has decided to participate in local self-governance polls across the country in a bit by bit lab experiment of welfarism. It may not be a pyramid yet but AAP is giving a new ring to the bijli, sadak, paani plank of the past and making delivery-oriented governance its new credo, much in line with countries like Denmark and South Korea, where the redress of people’s liveability indices, a happiness project if one could call it that, has changed traditional politics. And in resource-depleted times, where sustainability will be the only measure of a nation’s progress, this approach is set to redefine and reshape protectionism and nationalism as we know it.
Unmistakably, AAP has mastered realpolitik in its third avatar, neutralising the BJP’s campaign missiles with smart electoral strategy. But if it uses its power and manages to make this neo-socialist logic visceral and granular to the concerns of everyday life, then it could transfer the ownership of nationalism to people instead of politicians. This is not going to be an easy battle in deeply divided times where nationalism has been predicated on identity politics, the imaginary fear of the others and the hurt of denial we didn’t know existed. Polarisation and majoritarianism, of the kind that the BJP has encoded through its most repugnant avatars, need counter-strategies to begin with. And when the manifestation of vitriol is through the emotive force of religion, then secularism seems like an angularity than an asset. And in the India of our times, secularism is the new tormentor, the free radical that has emaciated religiosity, a non-belief that has denied us the right to wear it comfortably on our sleeves. Therefore, each Opposition party, which is now tactically avoiding a confrontation with the BJP and refusing to bite the bait that makes the latter look like the victim, is coopting religion, too. AAP has successfully turned religion into a jan dharma of serving the people and communities with its actions, be it on public health, water, education or empowering fee exemptions. However, in the public war of chants and rants, it countered Jai Shri Ram with Jai Bajrangbali, using the image of Ram’s servitor Hanuman. AAP is also using Hanuman as a metaphor for being a devotee of the people, serving with commitment and democratising religion as inclusive and common, pitting the BJP’s negative projection against a positive one. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee is doing the same with her Jai Maa Kali slogans in Bengal, invoking a deity which is revered by everybody in that State irrespective of their faith. The Congress, too, is now employing soft Hindutva of its kind. India had so far reconciled itself to a secular public life where ritualism was lived as a daily habit rather than an exhibitionist practice. The BJP has managed to overturn this paradigm, making public symbolism of religion a matter of pride and disowning it as a matter of national shame. Insidiously, it has throttled majoritarian liberalism and compelled political parties to play by the rules of this game. Religion, tragically, is now the domain of tactical warfare and a test of loyalty to the nation, thanks to the BJP. By establishing religion as a tool of political play, it has skillfully exiled secularism and Constitutional values to the domain and responsibility of civil society. This dissociation is significant. Simply because, despite protests, sit-ins and disruptors, there’s no political space for civil movements. As the BJP herds parties into Centre-Right positions, civil movements have become the cultivable space for transformational strategies. The AAP, which was born of such a movement, is then perhaps best placed to re-induct it in a manner that matters most, daily governance. And marry it to the larger reclamation of dharma, that of changing people’s lives. For people give parties the electoral strength to change politics. This could yet reset our fulcrum.
Undoubtedly, the Delhi verdict stands out because it has attempted creating a classless society — elevating standards and quality of Government schools so that their students are mainstreamed better, appointing proficient teachers with the right pay, setting up neighbourhood clinics that have become the first responders in a health crisis, allowing women free mobility without worrying about burdening the family budget, ensuring community-specific projects and doorstep delivery of services, reducing power bills that shows the Government’s intent to plough back its surpluses and enhancing digital access. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal himself astutely asked people to vote for his performance, no matter what religion or political ideology they harboured. This empowerment explains why BJP and Congress supporters, too, voted for AAP, why nationalism as an abstract idea will have to be translated into pride in the city you live in, the street where your home is.
According to a report by McKinsey, such a technique has been used successfully as a governance tool. “In the UK, for instance, the Local Government Association undertook a project to measure how satisfied residents were with their local council’s performance. Their analysis showed that perceived value for the money — essentially, whether residents feel they’re getting a good return on their tax dollars — was by far the most powerful influencer of public satisfaction; it was far more important than the tax levels themselves. Further, perceived value for the money was determined largely by how well residents were informed about local services. Several councils used these insights to make specific improvements; one group launched a ‘cleaner, greener, safer’ public-relations campaign that helped move the council from the bottom 40 per cent of performance satisfaction ratings to the top 10 per cent in less than five years,” the report says.
Aware of its limited territoriality and resources, the Kejriwal Government has worked on smart metrics, gathering public feedback to identify what matters most to citizens and circling out those that have the highest levels of dissatisfaction. Then it graded categories that began with basic infrastructure. Having taken care of those somewhat, it has already prioritised pollution as its next assignment, something for which it has already been criticised but hasn’t forgotten to take up.
Denmark, which is among the top liveability and sustainability indices of the world, is demonstrable proof of the success of a delivery-oriented governance model. The Social Democrats and the Farmers’ Party stood out for their social reform programmes when Adolf Hitler was on the ascendant in Germany. They embodied the power of a representative Parliament against his personality cult that was changing the political template of the times. With time they made the citizen feel valued for all the taxes s/he paid by evolving a governance model responsive to their needs and justifiable to their concerns. This automatically built accountability in systemic processes. And they included women in their growth story from the very beginning. The result? The nation has the highest employment ratio, the highest number of citizens on public allowances, the highest taxes (acceptable because it finances public expenditure), and the highest percentage of the economy ploughed into the public accounts. And it figures among the top 10 in income and education.
Many critics argue that such an approach builds a sense of entitlement, kills enterprise and works only on broad majorities, one that may actually coerce political parties into the game of populism. They may even atrophy on subsequent changes. But in a dynamic such as India’s, welfarism is empowering and encouraging and is needed to level out the basic indices. The application of ingenuity and its incentivisation can happen only when we have crossed this enabling threshold. Change doesn’t happen overnight. And you need role models. But at least a start has been made.
(Writer: Rinku Ghosh; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
AICTE report on 50 per cent vacancies in engineering colleges shows why we need job-ready courses
Who would have imagined that engineering, the most sought after discipline in India, would lose traction? Or so it seems going by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) report, which says that almost 50 per cent of the available seats in engineering colleges across States are going abegging. This at a time when there has been a spike in overall enrolment in higher education. The crisis is so acute that AICTE has decided not to accept applications for new colleges for two years for the time being. It is not that students aren’t making past the entrance tests, usually considered to be on the tougher side of the scale. The vacancies point to a deeper malaise, that of an inequity in standards of excellence. There is a yawning gap prevailing between the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and general engineering colleges in terms of the quality of instruction imparted and the employability the differing courses guarantee. Even among IITs, there is a difference between the cream centres of excellence and the branch units. As a majority of the other degree courses are not job-linked or designed according to marketability in today’s changed circumstances, and are mostly in the nature of elevating the student on the academic stakes, they have simply lost economic value. And most students, who look at jobs as a return on the investment in education — considering course fees of engineering degrees are expensive — signing up is not worth it. Besides, the massive job cuts of IT professionals and recent trends of even IITians diversifying into financial markets and consulting have been a dampener for aspirants. There can be no denying, therefore, that the BTech/BE degrees have lost sheen over the years. Just a decade ago, when the IT industry was booming and when Indian engineers figured among the most powerful CEOs in the world, the number of aspirants wanting to take the engineering course outpaced the number of seats available in colleges. The education sector was forced to add tens and thousands of seats to professional colleges, which also led to the mushrooming of anonymous colleges in practically every street corner, offering devalued degrees. We may be producing more engineers than the US and China put together but without industry applicability of courses, our engineers lack competencies and do not count among best-in-class software workers from across the world. Except for the IITs and a few NITs, most private engineering colleges have failed to make their students job-ready for lack of an updated curriculum or ignoring the poor student-faculty ratio. Some of these institutions even struggle to place their students. This is the reason why freshly-minted engineers from premier engineering colleges like IITs are still in demand even as others have to wait for years together to get a job.
According to the AICTE data, in 2019, merely six lakh graduates found jobs during campus placements. Between 2015 and 2019, a total of 518 engineering colleges shut down. While the AICTE revises its model curriculum every five years, most colleges prepare their own syllabus while others continue with decades-old programmes. The existing capacity of traditional subjects such as mechanical, chemical, electrical and civil must be expanded and made competitive. With the challenge of automation such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain technology, data science, Internet of Things and cybersecurity among others looming large, we need to redraw the template. And now.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
An institution can play a leadership role only if it comprehends the dynamic nature of its mission and goals in professional terms and understands the importance of looking within
One of the most prestigious national institutions of India, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), is in ferment. Not for the first time. There is a general refrain among academics that it is the most pampered universities in the country. With over 70 per cent entrants getting scholarships, its professors are free to enroll any number of scholars who continue their research work, avail hostel facilities without any time limit or restriction — all for their political pursuits.
While the amount of scholarships must be enhanced regularly, hostel rent must not be touched. Currently, even when over 80 per cent of the students have already deposited the revised fee and registered for the new semester, courts are being approached to deliver justice with one demand: No rise in fee. In fact, in JNU’s terminology, it is business as usual.
However, the level of investment that the nation has made in this one university makes it obligatory on its part to prove its worth on account of the confidence put in it by the people. They know where JNU stands. But the latter is not interested in incisively securitising its role and contribution.
Central Universities and other national-level institutions of higher learning and research must regularly pose a very serious query to themselves — both individually and collectively: Are we really equipped enough to take a fresh look? An institution can play a leadership role only if it collectively comprehends the dynamic nature of its mission, objectives and goals in professional terms and consistently strives to understand the importance of “looking within.” National-level institutions must remain ever-alert on “growing up” professionally. Reputations are made only through persistence of single-minded commitment to the cause over a long period of time. When academics within an institution get divided on ideological constraints, there is a drastic reduction in the time available for high quality collaborative research and genuine innovations. In the post-Independence period, India has witnessed a sharp decline in some of its prestigious learning centres of earlier years. It would have been in the fitness of things if JNU had studied such cases and came forward with a model of re-engineering and quality enhancement strategies.
The growth of unbiased and pure professional tradition of knowledge quest suffers in conditions of severe apathy towards the indigenous tradition of knowledge-creation and dissemination, the essence of which may still be relevant.
It is now globally acknowledged that education in every country must be rooted in its culture and must be committed to the progress of the country. The pre-Independence model of Gandhi and Zakir Husain was based upon this premise. It is now being realised that had India given the importance education deserved, things would have been far more encouraging on the employment front. There would also have been no exodus from rural areas.
Education has suffered because of a lack of courage to link it to the national tradition of growth of knowledge and scholarship. Instead, we have been overdependent on inherited legacy. It should never be tough for a professional, unbiased educationist to conclude that education in every country must be a product of indigenous thought process and appropriate new scientific knowledge.
Consequently, the first requirement at the policy-planning level is full familiarity with the indigenous traditions of knowledge quest, its creation, generation, transfer and utilisation. This is necessary but should not be a closed exercise. It would be equally necessary to acquire a deep comprehension of new knowledge that could be available from all possible sources and places.
Mahatma Gandhi had something to say about it and it appeared in the Young India of June 1, 1921: “I do not want my house to be walled in all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.”
One of the outstanding features of the freedom struggle was its persistent focus on indigenous universal education in a free India. Our founding fathers knew that the transplanted system forced by the alien rulers on the country would not work in free India. It was meant for a few to attain a specific objective and would crash even otherwise if extended on a universal scale. Sadly enough, India continued with it. Can one say that we preferred continuity and status quo instead of creating “our schools, our campuses, our programmes, our curricula, our libraries and laboratories?”
Though Mahatma Gandhi had warned about all this in Hind Swaraj, he wrote in 1909: India remained too enamoured of all that is Western; we are too overwhelmed; just too eager to borrow everything from “there and them?”
With its overwhelming emphasis on liberal education, JNU could have researched what was the best model for school education that India must implement. It is certainly not too much to expect that it could have presented to the nation how social cohesion and religious amity could be cemented in the country and why it is a core element of economic growth, progress and development.
It is really depressing that there are two distinct ideological groups of students and teachers who have just fully ignored the dialogical tradition that was the hallmark of knowledge growth in the past and has become more relevant and necessary in present times.
Swami Vivekananda could put it in futuristic perspective as early as in 1896 in one of his lectures delivered in London: “What we want is progress, development and realisation. No theories ever made men higher. No amount of books can help us to become purer. The only power is in realisation, and that lies in ourselves and comes from thinking. Let men think. A clod of earth never thinks but it remains only a lump of earth. The glory of man is that he is a thinking being. It is the nature of man to think and therein he differs from animals.”
Let JNU lead other universities to a major rethink that would let them focus purely on knowledge quest for fulfilling the aspirations of the youth and the nation.
For those who are interested in finding solutions, one would like to submit the following from a letter Albert Einstein wrote to Mahatma Gandhi and which was quoted by APJ Abdul Kalam in one his books: “You have shown through your works, that it is possible to succeed without violence even with those who have not discarded the method of violence.”
Are our universities and students of today not expected to strengthen this philosophy?
It is indeed depressing that today we have a culture where even premium universities, with all of their much-publicised achievements, never seriously try to listen to those who do not think alike. It is sad that a culture of intolerance pervades many famed institutions of higher learning. However, they must not forget that they have an obligation to the nation to encourage, nourish and nurture the great dialogical tradition of India. They must become a place of intellectual interactions and welcome every idea with open arms. India needs leadership institutions that would promote social cohesion and religious amity.
(Writer: JS Rajput; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Dr Khan was voicing the feelings of many Indian Muslims who have the impression that the Government is anti-minority. No doubt his speech was strongly emotional but surely in a democracy people should be allowed to vent some steam
Dr Kafeel Khan is a medical practitioner who did his MBBS and MD from the renowned Manipal Medical College, Karnataka, and thereafter served as a lecturer in BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur.
When several children died in 2017 in the Gorakhpur hospital attached to the medical college for lack of piped oxygen, he was arrested and charged with medical negligence. However, the enquiry revealed that there was a shortage of oxygen cylinders in the hospital and, in fact, Dr Khan spent money from his own pocket to obtain oxygen cylinders for the patients and worked overtime during the crisis. It was also found that he had written letters to several authorities informing them of the shortage but to no avail. The Indian Medical Association, several doctors of AIIMS, Delhi and over 200 health professionals and allied activists wrote to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Yogi Adityanath, in Dr Khan’s support. He was released on bail in April 2019 after spending nine months in jail.
Ultimately, in September 2019 Dr Khan was acquitted by the court which found no evidence against him. Thereafter on December 12, 2019 he gave a speech at an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rally in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged on December 13 regarding this, for allegedly creating religious disharmony under Sections 153A and 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Dr Khan was arrested on January 29 at Mumbai airport by the UP Police, which then took him to the State. He was granted bail by the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Aligarh on February 10 but was not released from Mathura jail. Ultimately, a preventive detention order was passed against him three days later under the National Security Act (NSA). Anyone who has carefully heard Dr Khan’s speech will bear witness to the fact that nowhere did he speak against any religious community. All that he said was, “We (i.e. Indian Muslims) are 25 crore people and we cannot be removed or scared and you cannot take anything away from us. (Tumhaari auqaat nahi ki tum humse kuch chheen sakte, hamein daraa sakte, hamein hataa sakte. Hum 25 crore hain).”
Dr Khan was voicing the feelings of many Indian Muslims who have the impression that this Government is anti-Muslim. No doubt his speech was strongly emotional but surely in a democracy people should be allowed to vent some steam. I do not see how this speech could attract Section 153A IPC, which makes promoting disharmony on the ground of religion and so on, or Section 295A, IPC which makes outraging religious feelings a criminal offence.
Even assuming those provisions were attracted, does it justify passing a preventive detention order under the NSA? It may be mentioned that in preventive detention no trial is held nor a lawyer permitted. Hence it is undemocratic. In Rekha vs State of Tamil Nadu (2011) a three judge Bench of the Supreme Court observed, “Preventive detention is by its nature repugnant to democratic ideals and an anathema to the rule of law. No such law exists in the US or England, except in war time. Since, however, Article 22(3)(b) of the Indian Constitution permits preventive detention, we cannot hold it illegal. But we must confine the power within very narrow limits, otherwise we will be taking away the right to liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution, which was won after long, arduous, historical struggles. It follows, therefore, that if the ordinary law of the land (the IPC and other penal statutes) can deal with the situation, recourse to a preventive detention law will be illegal. Whenever an order under a preventive detention law is challenged, one of the questions which the court must ask is, was the ordinary law of the land sufficient to deal with the situation? If the answer is in the affirmative, the detention order will be illegal.”
It was also held in Rekha’s case, “No doubt it has been held in the Constitution Bench decision in Haradhan Saha’s case that even if a person is liable to be tried in a criminal court for commission of a criminal offence, or is actually being so tried, that does not debar the authorities from passing a detention order under a preventive detention law.
This observation, to be understood correctly, must, however, be construed in the background of the Constitutional scheme in Articles 21 and 22. Article 22(3)(b) is only an exception to Article 21 and is not itself a fundamental right. It is Article 21 which is central to the whole chapter on fundamental rights in our Constitution.
The right to liberty means that before convicting a person, a trial must be held in which he must be given an opportunity of placing his defence. It follows that if a person is liable to be tried, or is actually being tried, for a criminal offence, but the criminal law (IPC) will not be able to deal with the situation, then and only then, can the preventive detention law be taken recourse to.”
As regards Dr Khan’s speech, it does not attract 153A or 295A, IPC and even if it does, surely those provisions are sufficient to deal with the situation. The preventive detention order under the NSA is, therefore, clearly illegal and should be struck down by the court.
Dr Khan and his family have been victimised by the Government. His brother was shot at in 2018 but survived. He and his family have been bankrupted. Dr Khan has said people have stopped doing business with his family for fear of antagonising the Chief Minister.
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahaan hain ab? (Where are the proud citizens of Hind now?)
(Writer: Markandey Katju; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Jammu has always guarded India with its blood. To imply that it can only be recognised at the cost of Kashmir is to further diminish the Dogra identity and nobility of yesteryears
Post-independence, public imagination, political passions and administrative prioritisation in the “Crown of India” were fronted by the Kashmir Valley, followed by the uber-strategic Ladakh (literally, the “land of the passes”) and thereafter by the Duggar Jammu region. This hierarchy of importance was recalibrated in the revised status of the Union Territory (UT) to retain “normalcy” in the Valley (the foremost concern), address the Kashmiri Pandit issue (a matter of urgency) and relegate the Jammu region (the last priority). This hierarchy sustains still. This continued diminishment of the erstwhile land of the Dogra Kingdom in the pre-independence era, which held sway in swathes of Jammu & Kashmir, including Ladakh and expansive reaches of Western Tibet, Hunza, Gilgit-Baltistan and Nagar, is an ironic turn of fate. The largest princely State in the British Raj to accede to the dominion of India is a forgotten and twisted footnote in history. As a corollary price paid for delayed accession, it was deliberately suppressed by new political forces and impulses, which were wholeheartedly endorsed by “New Delhi”, to decrement the Jammu region.
If Pakistan was externally vilified for its role in the first Kashmir War of 1947-48, internally, Maharaj Hari Singh was conveniently painted as the dilly-dallying monarch under whose rule a situation was allowed to develop. Allowing such a narrative facilitated independent India’s first public rejection of the abhorred two-nation theory when political forces from Kashmir were allowed to systematically dismantle the primacy of “Jammu” and thereby ride the moral high horse of a democratic and non-discriminating “India.” Unnecessary allusion of “plebiscite” was a further display of ostensible statesmanship that sought to demonstrate fair-play for Kashmir but at the cost of “Jammu” sensitivities as contextualised to the fate of former Dogra royals. The Maharaja was forced into abdication and died a broken man. Jammu had no voice in Delhi to argue for its rightful share in India’s immediate aspirations. The iron-fencing of Article 370 predicated Jammu’s fate within the overall pie of Jammu & Kashmir, whereas within the State itself, Kashmir emerged as the epicenter of all subsequent focus.
Two distinct dynamics dominated the State’s affairs. First, the political machinations surrounding Sheikh Abdullah’s ambitions and his oft-competing relations with “Delhi”, which led to a cat-and-mouse game of outwitting each other. Here, “Jammu” played an insignificant role of a supporting cast. Second, from the national perception of the Indian citizenry, the recurring wars (1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999) and the armed insurgency (early 1990s onwards) kept the lens firmly on Kashmir and at best on safeguarding Ladakh, which holds out proudly in the face of Pakistani-Chinese dimensions. Even though there’s a perennial strategic vulnerability in the “chicken’s neck” of the Sambha-Pathankot corridor of Jammu region, which hosted one of the fiercest tank battles in combat history, it remains solely a matter of military records. This is rarely appreciated in the same breath as the other “chicken’s neck” in the Siliguri corridor. Recognising this threat perception, the Jammu region is littered with garrison towns in virtual rows to safeguard the “integrity” and “sovereignty” of India. It has done so since time immemorial. It remains the first in line of defence against foreign invasions and marauders.
This institutionalised task of burying Jammu’s sense of purpose, relevance and sensitivities simmers in the region, though this remains consistently unaddressed. The socio-cultural debasement soon assumed political-religious undertones that got coined as the “Jammu-Srinagar divide.” While such simplistic “divides” served an invaluable purpose for peddling partisan politics, they do incalculable harm in further distorting the secular, multi-cultural and glorious traditions of the Dogra Kingdom.
The Jammu region itself is not a homogeneous composition. Reducing it to a “Hindu” identity militates against the profound reality of the Dogra rulers, whose progressive moorings, culturalised secularism, equality and various other societal freedoms got enshrined in the Constitution.
The 10 districts of Jammu region host a religio-ethnic-cultural diversity that epitomises the majesty and travesty of “India” in equal measure — the region hosts the Dogra Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (distinct from Muslims in the Valley) with their own distinctions as also the nomadic Gujjar-Bakarwal tribes that were in the news for the horrific rape case of a little girl in Kathua. The reductive oversimplification of the “Jammu-Srinagar divide” afforded a factually wrong communal attribution on perceptions even though the Gujjar and the Bakarwals are ethnically distinct from the Kashmiri Muslims. Sadly, Jammu’s unheard frustrations morphed into assuming an unwarranted and communally binary reaction.
The societal, multi-cultural and martial traditions of the Jammu region and history are unmatched and unrecognised outside the realm of the Indian armed forces and the people of Jammu themselves. Tellingly, Dogra soldiers are known as “gentleman soldiers” owing to their finest soldiering instincts, ethos and bearing that behoves civilisational sophistication. Not only does the region populate regiments like the Dogras, Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry, Punjab and many others — unbeknownst to a larger India — it also has the highest number of gallantry awardees in service of the nation. This would undoubtedly accrue to the composite Dogra identities. Jammu’s dignified silence and sacrifice — in allowing the more pressing fires in Kashmir to take the centrestage and the abandonment by unscrupulous politicians of all parties — has left it to be conveniently ignored and taken for granted.
The wholly political exercise of abrogating Article 370 and the looming delimitation exercise in the UT was received with latent and instinctive excitement in Jammu but that mirage has given way to despondency again. If anything, it has only strengthened the historically-irrelevant “Jammu-Srinagar divide” and carved out space for political harvest, nothing more.
Jammu needs historical acknowledgement and correction besides development. All of this needs national intent and not necessarily more legislative members (though that helps, too) as that is again a political minefield. Jammu has always guarded India with its blood and to imply that it can only be recognised at the cost of Kashmir is further diminishing of the Dogra identity and nobility of yesteryears and shortchanging it politically, yet again.
(Writer: Bhopinder Singh; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The infighting has spilled out in the public space, plunging the party to new lows
The Congress wouldn’t have been the way it is without its egoistic sabre-rattling and dirty infighting. But the knives-out civil war and the unabashed blood-letting in the party, post its unprecedented debacle in the Delhi Assembly elections, have got to be a new low, even by its own standards. Senior leader Jairam Ramesh summed it up the best when he candidly admitted that Congress leaders had forgotten they were out of power for six years but were still behaving as arrogantly as Ministers. Another articulate leader and now tainted ex-Finance Minister P Chidambaram publicly passed off the challenge to counter the BJP to State parties. He was promptly pulled up for relinquishing the party’s own responsibility in defeat by the daughter of the dyed-in-the-wool Congressman Pranab Mukherjee, Sharmistha Mukherjee. The worst was the public denunciation of Sheila Dikshit, who transformed Delhi during a 15-year reign as Chief Minister and gave a creditable legacy to the party, and attributing the present factionalism to her. Such name-calling is not just churlish, it is morally wrong. Not even the smallest outfit would make its internal battles public for the sake of propriety. But then all of the Congress’ Central leaders seem to have had a mental derangement in the face of their self-created adversities. And suffering waves of frustration since 2014, have lost the script. They are also delusional, thinking their words still matter at a time that they have become a fringe third or fourth player in certain States. Make no mistake, the Congress revival in States has been possible because of the strength of the local leadership, like in Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and some default settings. But durbar leaders are too blinded by powerlessness to recognise their assets. Even the leadership of the Gandhis can’t save the party because a new India is averse to the politics of entitlement. The Congress may espouse the power of democracy but is yet to apply it to itself.
The Delhi rout was but expected with even the common man on the street wondering if it should bow out of the race respectfully than play vote-cutter. The only assets the party has are its pan-India footprint and historical recall. It can still reinvent itself, begin with organisational elections and choose the strongest as its president. It needs to overturn the dynastic hold with a battery of young leaders who can be tasked to lead each State as equals. It needs to follow result-oriented formula. Or else it will not find anybody to write its epitaph.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The electronic media is a major influencing factor in any election campaign. But it appears to function beyond MCC. Rules need to be strengthened
As the din and dust of the bitterly fought elections in Delhi settle down, it is time to take a closer look at one of the vitals of the campaign. Conduct of free and fair elections with “transparency” and a “level-playing” field for all are integral to any democracy. This has also been highlighted in our Constitution and has been recognised as a part of its basic structure. In any election campaign, the media plays an important role in dissemination of information and, thus, enables the people to make a well-informed choice. In this context, at present, the electronic media, both television and social, on account of its phenomenal reach has virtually occupied the centre-stage and has become a major influencing factor in any election campaign.
At present, in addition to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, there are certain provisions in the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, and the Indian Penal Code that lay down the general parameters within which the system must operate. Besides these, the Election Commission of India (ECI) prescribes a Model Code of Conduct (MCC), which is applicable to all stakeholders, political parties, candidates as well as officials and the Government machinery on their role in the conduct of elections. MCC is the essential rulebook that has to be adhered to in letter and spirit. Any violation can draw the ire of not only the ECI but also invite judicial intervention. While MCC had evolved over the years, its real impact was felt for the first time during the tenure of former Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan. But it appears that the electronic media, in general terms, still remains beyond the MCC.
When the concept of MCC was evolving in the 1960s, it was only the print media and the radio that dominated the scene. As such, reportage was left to the Press Council of India (PCI), which issued detailed guidelines in 1996 on election-related reporting. During the last few decades, advancements in information technology have virtually revolutionised the channels for dissemination of information and the way they reach out to the people. In this context, apart from the television channels, guidelines with respect to the use of social media during election campaigns are also issued by the ECI. Separately, on the lines of the PCI, the National Association of Broadcasters, which is a voluntary organisation, too, issued guidelines for private television channels in 2011 for election-related broadcasts. During a campaign, monitoring is expected to be undertaken by the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA).
Some of the important guidelines are as follows: (i) News broadcasters must not broadcast any form of “hate speech” or other obnoxious content that may lead to incitement of violence or promote public unrest or disorder as election campaigning based on communal or caste factors is prohibited under election rules. (ii) News broadcasters should strictly avoid reports that tend to promote feelings of enmity or hatred among the people on grounds of religion, race, caste, community, region or language.” (iii) The ECI is required to monitor the broadcasts from the time elections are announced until the conclusion. Violations are to be reported to the NBSA for action under their regulations. Thus, the NBSA does not take cognisance of the violation, if any, unless reported by the ECI.
In the recently-concluded election campaign in Delhi, two cases pertaining to the Members of Parliament (MPs) stand out. In both cases, the ECI proceeded to act under the MCC, though in a limited manner. While no FIR was registered (not even by the police), it deprived the MPs of their status as star campaigners. At the same time, they were also debarred from campaigning for varying durations.
It may appear to be a case of shooting the messenger but in this case, the messenger did not happen to be an innocent carrier. Offensive words were spoken at a gathering but competition-driven channels ensured that the content reached not only every nook and corner of the country but also became subject of comment internationally. Almost all television channels continued to saturate the audience with the offensive part of the content for more than 24 hours but neither the ECI nor the NBSA reacted to the violation.
An equally serious problem that remains unresolved so far exists during multi-phase polling. In such cases, it often happens that the 48-hour embargo may have commenced in one constituency while full-scale campaign continues in other areas scheduled to go to polls later. With news channels enjoying unlimited reach, the 48-hour embargo appears to be observed more in breach. In this context, in 2019, the ECI in its manual of MCC had stated that “in an era of wide reach of electronic media in the country, it is impossible to block any matter being covered on electronic media in a specific area, State or constituency.”
Elaborating further, it was held by the NBSA that “the media would be entitled to broadcast electioneering with regard to a contesting candidate of a particular party in one State, irrespective of the fact that transmission would be seen in other States.” It was further held that “so long as the broadcast of the election-related programme in State ‘Y’ is not used for promoting or attacking any specific candidate in State ‘X’, there can be no objection. Covering a general event relating to a political party, which is relevant and of common interest across the country or a State; which does not extol the public to support any candidate or does not criticise any candidate in the constituency going to polls, is not a violation of any guidelines.”
In other words, both the ECI and the NBSA appear to have given up on the main point, which in many cases would mean an erosion of fair play and level-playing field. This existing practice needs a focussed attention by a group of experts so as to ensure that no unfair advantage is taken by any candidate.
According to the rules, the NBSA does not act till informed by the ECI, which may not inform at all. What can be the way out ? At present, the fundamental principles and rules of self-regulation of NBSA are quite open-ended. These need to be amended so as to strengthen the institution by giving it a statutory backing. In case of prima facie violations, NBSA should be able to act independently. The chairman of the NBSA is a respected former Judge of the Supreme Court with several senior retired IAS officers and diplomats as members besides other experts. Their hands need to be strengthened so as to bring in sobriety as well as rationality in the content, raising the credibility of the institution.
(Writer: Kk Paul; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The success of the AAP lays the ground for a new political discourse that can probably recast Indian politics within an eclectic frame but it needs to tread its course cautiously
Literally, the word “pleb” means an ordinary person, a commoner or someone from the lower rung of society. The word has often been widely used to indicate just that whenever there has been any sort of a mass upheaval. The thumping and resounding victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the just-concluded elections in Delhi echoes this word, though with a correction. Here, the term “pleb” has come to reflect new politics, raising reassurances as well as concerns. AAP’s victory brings forth a combination of “caste” and “class” elements, a mix of governance and belongingness that prevents its categorisation simply as another form of middle class politics, an urbane political phenomenon.
There were two theories around which the electoral narrative in Delhi was constructed. First was the question of governance and second of identity. Both were invoked variedly and were widely discussed by opposite sides. The first narrative was debated the most. It related to the model of governance around which AAP mobilised the voter’s sentiment. It sought to attract the attention of the voters by focussing on various popular welfare schemes such as mohalla clinics, clean water, free bus rides, safety of women and legalising colonies among other issues. Rather than engaging in an exclusively bi-partisan hate exchange, it concentrated and crafted a campaign that was aimed at projecting its governance model. In the course of such a campaign, AAP succeeded in dismissing predictions made by various political pundits.
Commentators argued that the electoral promises made by the AAP were utopian in nature. To cite an example, sociologist Anand Kumar (2013) pointed out that regional parties had predicted that AAP would have no electoral future as it was ignorant about the complexities of Indian society and politics. Other observers called AAP leaders a bunch of inexperienced power-hungry people, who gave up the Jan Lokpal movement to gain power. However, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal effectively responded to them by saying, “Our politics is not for power, we want power to change the politics.” Thus, the State was seen as an instrument to effect qualitative changes to ensure safety for the weaker sections, access to necessary services, particularly health and education. Successive election results have cemented these claims.
However, the success of the AAP and the failure of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) provide a cue to the second narrative that has been more subtle than the loud narrative of governance.
Beneath the visible electoral stunt between the AAP and the BJP and the decimation of the Congress as a non-player, the elections were also about a competition between governance and identity, the latter being vigorously articulated as a ferment of nationalism. For the BJP, it was a prestigious election as it believed it could dismantle the AAP and repeat the Modi wave. By trooping in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party president JP Nadda, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Prakash Javadekar and Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath and Nitish Kumar as the election campaigners for the 2020 Delhi Assembly election, it believed that it could split the AAP’s vote bank.
BJP’s Delhi MP Parvesh Verma even called Chief Minister Kejriwal a “terrorist.” Shah branded him a liar and alleged that the Kejriwal Government in Delhi failed to fulfil the promises of installing 15 lakh CCTV cameras, procuring 5,000 DTC buses, opening 1,000 schools, regularising temporary workers and providing free wi-fi. He went to the extent of comparing him with Adolf Hitler. Despite the high decibel campaign, the BJP neither had a manifesto nor could it succeed in projecting a dominant face against Kejriwal. This was something that it attempted at during the national elections by making Prime Minister Modi its prime ministerial candidate and turning the elections into more or less a presidential form of battle.
However, the BJP’s nationalistic agenda of merging “culture” and “religion” with “nationalism” and seeking electoral success based on vote divisions was effectively countered by the AAP, which focussed exclusively on development issues like water, power, school, mohalla clinics, sewer and free ride scheme for women. Further, AAP also successfully ensured that it does not fall prey to the anti-Hindu/pro-minority image that was successfully used by the BJP in other State elections.
This, in a sense could be read in Kejriwal’s chanting of Hanuman Chalisa or his temple visits. However, more than appeasement, it points to the indispensability of a politics of belongingness, prevalence of a politics of national identity, one that can articulate either violently or in a subtle manner but cannot simply be erased.
This understanding needs to consider a common sense that flows underneath the vox populi of Delhi. Even though it resembles political conservatism, it is couched within a wide variety of day-to-day vocabulary of politics that simultaneously harbours fear for the other and at the same time rejects any kind of politics that rests solely on violent and communal nationalist rant. The success of AAP leaves residue for a new political imaginary that could probably recast Indian politics within an eclectic frame, fusing the narrative of governance and nationalism. It may redefine conservatism via technologies of governance, representing more sections through negotiation between imagined majorities and those making the idea of nation itself more inclusive.
However, it is difficult to talk about the future. Though AAP has made an impressive entry into electoral politics, it is not certain whether this sort of inroads can be repeated in other States with the same agenda and programmes. Besides, it will be difficult for it to move on with these ambiguous and simplistic perspectives, particularly on core structural questions of caste and land among others.
As was argued by SP Shukla, AAP refuses to see the current situation as part of a historical process that started long ago. Its concern is short-term. Its focus is myopic. And it stops short of any radical analysis or measure. But responses amid the Delhi elections are noteworthy. They need to be thought of as signposts of the changing nature of the political discourse in the Indian context.
(Writer: Anish VR/ Mohit kumar; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The verdict brings a whiff of reassurance in times of toxic politics and knocks out the BJP’s oversized ambitions
Without taking away any credit from the quiet resilience and perseverance of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the real winner of the Delhi Assembly elections has been the Indian citizen. In a poll that was meant to be local but turned into a national referendum, they chose what they wanted to as Indians, scything through the hate politics and toxic rhetoric of the times, reclaiming the sensibility of what public life and politics should be, owning nationalism on their fingertips and showing the possibilities of plurality. And as Chief Minister-elect Arvind Kejriwal paid obeisance at the Hanuman mandir yet again, something that was mocked by the BJP earlier on in the campaign, he proved that Hinduism was not the sole custodianship of the saffron guild. And as the popular tagline of a steel major goes, Delhiites also chose development for themselves, the only capital that works to win hearts. Had this not been so, then there would be no faith left in the politics of performance and the needle would have swung back to the politics of opportunism. Finally, it was the culmination of the civil society movement that birthed Kejriwal in the first place. This was much-needed at a time when Delhi was besieged with the worst images of divisive politics that played out as brutal crackdowns on protesters against the citizenship law, on students who dared to dissent and on women who decided to lead a rights movement. And what a knockout punch Delhiites have delivered with their monolithic support to the AAP which hit the ball out of the park with 62 seats, losing only five seats from 2015. The AAP’s welfarist schemes on power, education, healthcare and housing, some of which have picked up global awards, have undoubtedly congealed people’s faith. Its reliance on the youth brigade, considered well-meaning and uncorrupted, have lent credence to the belief that they would be empowered to drive governance in a manner that no political party can. Still the naked display of majoritarianism and the BJP’s organised choreography of imagined threats to our identity did leave it worried, particularly in the last days of campaigning. Then there was the BJP’s juggernaut with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah at the helm, unleashing a high decibel campaign. But Kejriwal sagaciously side-stepped every polarising trap set by the BJP. He didn’t attack Modi, knowing he still has a godman-like hold of the mass consciousness. He softly peddled his Hindu identity, inclusive as opposed to the BJP’s exclusive version. He shunned optics with the Muslim community while convincing them privately that it was a politically motivated design and that he would still be theirs. His cadres helped students hit by police brutalities. He didn’t oppose nationalist moves like abrogation of Article 370 or take a stand on the massive protests against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), saying they were the purview of the Centre. And he pointedly stuck to concerns within the territoriality of the city-State, leaving out bigger issues like law and order since they didn’t come under his jurisdiction. This honesty and humility worked as a strategy. AAP 2.0 also relied on some staples of traditional politics, taking in turncoats, conducting live sabhas for a direct interface and a la Modi, asking dramatically, “Kejriwal vs who?” The impatient disruptor is now a mature politician and has become one with the winning ways of the Delhi durbar.
The BJP, which had made Delhi a high stakes battle, was grotesquely trapped in its own mesh. It’s a huge loss of face for a party which thought that the city’s 81.86 per cent Hindus, most of them refugees, would get carried away by its justification of citizenship and otherisation politics. And a wave in its favour would cascade to States awaiting elections next year. Thankfully, Delhi has thinking Hindus. Of course, the BJP continues to be a national party in the absence of a federal front, though it is quickly losing its States to strong regional satraps and is now confined to only an odd 30 per cent of the map. This will mean a new paradigm of Centre-State relations where stronger States will form a phalanx and could bring in resolutions against Central policies or create hurdles in their implementation. And though AAP has revived its aspirational designs, with calls of “associate with AAP for nation building,” fact is the umbrella effort hasn’t worked for any regional party so far. Neither have federal leaders been able to project a mutually agreed upon national face. They have to agree on a first among equals at some point. Which brings us to the Congress, pathetically down to four per cent of the votepie from nine in 2015. While it may claim it wilfully underplayed itself to defeat the BJP, fact is its vote shifted to the BJP as the AAP held on to its figure from last time. The time for its rebuild is over, it has now been relegated to becoming a C-team player, a realisation yet to dawn on its arrogant leaders. One doesn’t know if the Delhi vote of 2020 can be called historic or not but it certainly lauds the city’s exceptionalism in exceptionally turbulent times. Where karmayog rules dharmayog and Hanuman devotees are true Ram bhakts.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Were the girl students at DU college attacked simply for organising a fest celebrating diversity?
As our students continue the renewal process in society by asking questions of the establishment, they are being projected as the new threats to democracy. It isn’t surprising then that in the past three months, there has been a systematic assault on public universities and students ever since the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). As if the January 5 incident — where masked men entered the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus and beat up teachers and students — was not enough, some goons allegedly molested girl students at Gargi college. Unidentified men gatecrashed the premises during their annual fest, which was themed on diversity, abusing, groping, molesting and harassing them. As if they were being punished and psyched out for encouraging liberal conversations with an assault where it hurt most, their dignity. Contributing to the horror was the mismanagement by the Delhi University (DU) Vice-Chancellor, the college administration and the police. What was most shocking was that the principal, herself a woman, underplayed the incident and asked the girls to leave if they felt “unsafe.” Such bigoted view of the principal is certainly neither enlightening, nor reassuring to students, who are being told to not practise what they learn, namely free speech, in campuses across the country. How many heads of institutions will abdicate their responsibility now?
The less said about the passive behaviour of the Delhi policemen, who were to ensure the safe conduct of the fest, the better. Looks like mute spectatorship is their practised drill now as they failed to seal the college premises and allowed hooligans to jump the gate even as the girls screamed for help. They did not even file a complaint until four days later. Although a probe into this matter has been ordered, what needs urgent redressal is how the goons sneaked into the campus without I-cards. The bigger question is: How do we ensure safety for women students who are being intimidated for being free-thinkers? No politics of divergence can justify the horror the girls underwent. When a woman’s honour becomes a political tool of negotiation, then we as a society are definitely not respecting her. This is just another example of demonisation of women, who are leading protest marches, acquiring leadership positions and forcing a new political agenda. The violence at Gargi is just another attempt to stifle an alternative opinion.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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