By Dr.Mookhi Amir Ali,
Since the days of Nehru Muslims are prone to vote en bloc. In the process they have converted themselves into a vote bank. Muslim leaders for their own vested interests have been manipulating the community into voting as they, the leaders, desired. A community of such a large size has exposed itself to exploitation. It is encouraged to give prime preference to the issues related only to them.
Even on the eve of this election a leading Muslim organization has recently issued a statement asking Muslims to vote on a single Muslim specific issue to the exclusion of all issues of national importance. Its war-cry is “shun candidates of parties which reject reservation for Muslims on the lines of Mishra Commission”. The advice of this premiere Muslim organization that Muslims be blind to any other issues is, by no means, a good advice. It asks Muslims to think and act as Muslims thereby separating Muslims out of the mainstream. Such thinking is the recipe for the alienation of the community. The idea of a religious community being asked and being expected to vote as one group is neither an idea of democracy nor that of secularism.
Perpetual gravitation of Muslims towards Congress, particularly because of the party appealing to them as Muslims, has been the cause of a subtle social polarization between Hindus and Muslims. This is to the detriment of Muslims as we have seen in Gujarat and perhaps we will see elsewhere. In Assam there is a Muslim dominated town/area called Doboka where Assam United Democratic Front and Congress are busy harvesting Muslim votes in the name of religion a phenomenon greatly and rightly resented by none other than Muslim clerics of the region.
The self seeking politicians have made Muslim vote such a monolith there as elsewhere that BJP does not even campaign vigorously in Doboka. The only way for the BJP to win the elections –and they win must- is to win without Muslim votes. This can be achieved only by polarizing the society on religious basis.
In Gujarat the BJP has written off Muslim votes. In stead the party under Narendra Modi has concentrated and succeeded in stopping the drain of Hindu votes to Congress. Congress too has realized that their so close a proximity to a religious group has cost them dear. It is losing out heavily on their Hindu vote-share. Now these two parties are fighting over the 90% non-Muslim votes. To both of them 10% Muslim votes have become unnecessary and irrelevant. The virus can spread all over India as it is happening in Doboka, Assam. Whom do Muslims blame for this?
A situation has arisen today where a Gujarati Muslim does not know what to do with his vote. There seem to be no takers for it. There is a lesson for Muslim leaders in this tragic situation. Why ask Muslims at all on whom to vote? Withdraw their call to Muslims to vote single-mindedly for Congress. Emancipate the Muslim vote. Set it free. Ask Muslims to vote as they like. Encourage them to think as Indians. Let them not think only of the issues pertaining to the community. Do not treat Muslims like a flock of unthinking sheep. Let them vote freely. A Muslim’s vote will not remain unwanted if he votes intelligently, judiciously and most importantly diversely.
Incidentally, according to a poll conducted [not in Gujarat] by a Muslim website 23% of the Muslims in a sample wanted to vote for the NDA against 39% for UPA,
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Master, Queen and Slave
By Mubasshir Mushtaq,
Is the Congress only party which works on the basis of master-servant relationship? Sonia Maino Gandhi has challenged that assumption by breaking the sound of silence. All these years, her long and stoic silence was being considered as a sign of acquiescence. Sonia has proved that she is indeed the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi, who dealt her opponents with an iron fist.
So, is Lal Krishna Advani, a slave of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as Sonia Gandhi has termed at a poll rally in Margao? Anybody who is aware of India’s political history will bear witness that L.K. Advani has indeed been a ‘slave’ of the RSS. There is nothing new in this utterance but yet it will find a unique place in the political history. Sonia’s lips have given it Congress affiliation. The vacuum left behind by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has finally found an echo in the voice of his grand daughter-in-law!
If Congress is a budiya (old lady) then RSS is by no means a gudiya (doll). Congress was born in 1885, an old political party indeed. RSS breathed life in 1925. If one applies Narendra Modi logic, RSS too will fall under the category of budiya! What more, this ‘budiya’ has given birth to ‘gudiyas’ legitimate as well as illegitimate. BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal can claim to be legitimate while Abhinav Bharat, Ram Sene will be ‘branded’ as illegitimate although both have been begotten by RSS, the gudiya-in-chief of Sangh Parivar!
RSS was founded in September 1925 at Nagpur on Dussehra day by Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a medical doctor. Hedgewar was a disciple of Balkrishna Moonje who had sent him to Calcutta in 1910 to pursue medical studies. His unofficial mission was to learn terrorist techniques from the Bengal secret societies. He joined Congress after returning to Nagpur, following in his mentor’s footsteps. Both the master and servant were “disenchanted” with the Congress soon.
In their book The Brotherhood in Saffron, Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar D. Damle record how Hedgewar began to lay intellectual foundations of RSS at a time of escalating Hind-Muslim animosity in Nagpur. They write, “Hedgewar began to develop the intellectual foundations of the RSS. A major influence on his thinking was a handwritten manuscript Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva, which advanced the thesis that the Hindus were a nation. The central propositions of Savarkar’s manuscript are that Hindus are the indigenous people of the continent and that they form a single national group.”
RSS was succeeded by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar after the death of Hedgewar on June 21, 1940. RSS did grow under his leadership but yet remained on the margins of Indian politics. It was known as a militant Hindu group notorious for its role in communal riots.
An understanding was reached between Golwalkar and the Hindu Mahasabha leader S.P. Mookerjee which led to the formation of the political arm of RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh on October 21, 1951. Jana Sangh merged into Janata Party in 1977. After the fall of the government in 1979, Jana Sangh broke away with Janata Party and renamed it as The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 5, 1980.
After the shameful defeat of BJP in 1984 general election, BJP was given a new lease of life by Rajiv Gandhi government when it opened the locks at the gates of Babri Masjid in February 1986. BJP adopted a resolution on Ayodhya on June 11, 1989 at Palampur which demanded that “the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this country – the Hindus be respected and the site in dispute must be handed over to the Hindus and a mosque built at some other place.” The resolution did not specify what will happen to the Babri Masjid; it was demonstrated only on December 6, 1992.
Construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya is one of the first demands of a ‘cultural’ and ‘fascist’ RSS ‘budiya’. BJP is the 29-year old ‘gudiya’ of the same ‘budiya’!
RSS, as it claims, is apolitical cultural organisation but it has floated its political arm in the form of BJP! The BJP policy has always been dominated and influenced by RSS agenda. Immediately after Palampur resolution, L.K. Advani said, “I am sure it will translate into votes.” After the November 1989 election, he expressed satisfaction that the issue had contributed to the success of BJP. In 1991 election, Advani was confident that Ram Temple movement will influence voters. On June 18, 1991 he proudly said, “Had I not played the Ram factor effectively, I would have definitely lost from the New Delhi constituency.” And immediately after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and subsequent riots that followed, he wrote that if the Muslims were to identify themselves with the concept of Hindutva there would not be any reasons for riots to take place. In July 1992, he argued in Lok Sabha speaker’s chamber: “You must recognise the fact that from two seats in Parliament in 1985 we have come to 117 seats in 1991. This has happened primarily because we took up this issue (Ayodhya).”
From 1999 to 2004, BJP had convened many meetings just to convince the RSS top brass their helplessness over Ram temple because numbers in parliament didn’t add up to pass legislation for the same. Anderson and Damle put it thus, “It is questionable if the BJP could survive politically without the RSS cadre, and the cadre will not stay unless the leadership of the party stays firmly in the hands of the ‘brotherhood’.”
The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari has documented, on the basis of archival evidence, the RSS’s links with and admiration for Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Doesn’t this brief Advani pattern resemble that of a slave of the master? The sole job of a slave is to serve the interests of his master no matter how despicable and abominable the assigned job is. All through his life Advani has tried his best to please the RSS top brass.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who once proudly said – the Sangh is my soul – had worked hard to woo Sanghis. On his visit to Nagpur on August 27, 2000, he had literally surrendered the post of prime minister to a swayamsevak. He had said, “The post of (prime minister) may go tomorrow, but I will always remain a humble swayamsevak.”
Sonia Gandhi, the queen of Congress, has highlighted the BJP-RSS relationship though there are RSS-sympathisers within the Congress as revealed by RSS general secretary Ram Madhav recently.
Slavery was officially abolished in Britain in 1833 but it is still prevalent in Indian politics.
Is the Congress only party which works on the basis of master-servant relationship? Sonia Maino Gandhi has challenged that assumption by breaking the sound of silence. All these years, her long and stoic silence was being considered as a sign of acquiescence. Sonia has proved that she is indeed the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi, who dealt her opponents with an iron fist.
So, is Lal Krishna Advani, a slave of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as Sonia Gandhi has termed at a poll rally in Margao? Anybody who is aware of India’s political history will bear witness that L.K. Advani has indeed been a ‘slave’ of the RSS. There is nothing new in this utterance but yet it will find a unique place in the political history. Sonia’s lips have given it Congress affiliation. The vacuum left behind by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has finally found an echo in the voice of his grand daughter-in-law!
If Congress is a budiya (old lady) then RSS is by no means a gudiya (doll). Congress was born in 1885, an old political party indeed. RSS breathed life in 1925. If one applies Narendra Modi logic, RSS too will fall under the category of budiya! What more, this ‘budiya’ has given birth to ‘gudiyas’ legitimate as well as illegitimate. BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal can claim to be legitimate while Abhinav Bharat, Ram Sene will be ‘branded’ as illegitimate although both have been begotten by RSS, the gudiya-in-chief of Sangh Parivar!
RSS was founded in September 1925 at Nagpur on Dussehra day by Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a medical doctor. Hedgewar was a disciple of Balkrishna Moonje who had sent him to Calcutta in 1910 to pursue medical studies. His unofficial mission was to learn terrorist techniques from the Bengal secret societies. He joined Congress after returning to Nagpur, following in his mentor’s footsteps. Both the master and servant were “disenchanted” with the Congress soon.
In their book The Brotherhood in Saffron, Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar D. Damle record how Hedgewar began to lay intellectual foundations of RSS at a time of escalating Hind-Muslim animosity in Nagpur. They write, “Hedgewar began to develop the intellectual foundations of the RSS. A major influence on his thinking was a handwritten manuscript Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva, which advanced the thesis that the Hindus were a nation. The central propositions of Savarkar’s manuscript are that Hindus are the indigenous people of the continent and that they form a single national group.”
RSS was succeeded by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar after the death of Hedgewar on June 21, 1940. RSS did grow under his leadership but yet remained on the margins of Indian politics. It was known as a militant Hindu group notorious for its role in communal riots.
An understanding was reached between Golwalkar and the Hindu Mahasabha leader S.P. Mookerjee which led to the formation of the political arm of RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh on October 21, 1951. Jana Sangh merged into Janata Party in 1977. After the fall of the government in 1979, Jana Sangh broke away with Janata Party and renamed it as The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 5, 1980.
After the shameful defeat of BJP in 1984 general election, BJP was given a new lease of life by Rajiv Gandhi government when it opened the locks at the gates of Babri Masjid in February 1986. BJP adopted a resolution on Ayodhya on June 11, 1989 at Palampur which demanded that “the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this country – the Hindus be respected and the site in dispute must be handed over to the Hindus and a mosque built at some other place.” The resolution did not specify what will happen to the Babri Masjid; it was demonstrated only on December 6, 1992.
Construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya is one of the first demands of a ‘cultural’ and ‘fascist’ RSS ‘budiya’. BJP is the 29-year old ‘gudiya’ of the same ‘budiya’!
RSS, as it claims, is apolitical cultural organisation but it has floated its political arm in the form of BJP! The BJP policy has always been dominated and influenced by RSS agenda. Immediately after Palampur resolution, L.K. Advani said, “I am sure it will translate into votes.” After the November 1989 election, he expressed satisfaction that the issue had contributed to the success of BJP. In 1991 election, Advani was confident that Ram Temple movement will influence voters. On June 18, 1991 he proudly said, “Had I not played the Ram factor effectively, I would have definitely lost from the New Delhi constituency.” And immediately after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and subsequent riots that followed, he wrote that if the Muslims were to identify themselves with the concept of Hindutva there would not be any reasons for riots to take place. In July 1992, he argued in Lok Sabha speaker’s chamber: “You must recognise the fact that from two seats in Parliament in 1985 we have come to 117 seats in 1991. This has happened primarily because we took up this issue (Ayodhya).”
From 1999 to 2004, BJP had convened many meetings just to convince the RSS top brass their helplessness over Ram temple because numbers in parliament didn’t add up to pass legislation for the same. Anderson and Damle put it thus, “It is questionable if the BJP could survive politically without the RSS cadre, and the cadre will not stay unless the leadership of the party stays firmly in the hands of the ‘brotherhood’.”
The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari has documented, on the basis of archival evidence, the RSS’s links with and admiration for Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Doesn’t this brief Advani pattern resemble that of a slave of the master? The sole job of a slave is to serve the interests of his master no matter how despicable and abominable the assigned job is. All through his life Advani has tried his best to please the RSS top brass.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who once proudly said – the Sangh is my soul – had worked hard to woo Sanghis. On his visit to Nagpur on August 27, 2000, he had literally surrendered the post of prime minister to a swayamsevak. He had said, “The post of (prime minister) may go tomorrow, but I will always remain a humble swayamsevak.”
Sonia Gandhi, the queen of Congress, has highlighted the BJP-RSS relationship though there are RSS-sympathisers within the Congress as revealed by RSS general secretary Ram Madhav recently.
Slavery was officially abolished in Britain in 1833 but it is still prevalent in Indian politics.
Moonshine and blankets to win polls in Assam
By Syed Zarir Hussain, IANS,
Jorhat (Assam): Shakuntala Murmu was seething with anger to find her husband returning home inebriated late in the night. She was all the more furious as she knew he would be coming home drunk for at least a week as, come election time, Assam tea garden workers are much wanted and politicians go out of their way to entertain them.
The second and final phase of parliamentary elections in Assam is scheduled for April 23, while the first phase was over April 16.
In constituencies surrounded by lush green tea gardens, politicians need not do any hard talking to convince the male voters - all they need to do is to get a few casks of paint-peeling moonshine brewed from fermented rice to keep the men happy in the run-up to the polls.
"Whenever there is an election most of the men here are spoiled by politicians who offer them free haas-pani (fermented rice beer)," Shakuntala told IANS at a tea plantation in Jorhat in eastern Assam.
A severe hangover prevents her husband Santanu from going to work in the morning. Both of them are both daily wage plantation workers and earn about Rs.100 per day.
Shakuntala, a mother of two, sets out early in the morning with a bamboo basket and for the rest of the day her nimble fingers crop through the bright flush on the tops of the bushes, milking the buds from the plants.
"I hate elections as the politicians never keep their promises. They give some free alcohol to the men and maybe a few blankets and forget us once the results are announced," she said, flicking her wrists to wipe the sweat running off her forehead before dropping the leaves into the bamboo basket on her back.
"If I don't work my children would starve."
There are an estimated one million workers in Assam's 800-odd tea gardens. They are a deciding factor in at least three parliamentary constituencies in Assam. Most of them have traditionally been Congress supporters.
"Exploitation is what our people have been facing ever since the British started growing tea and now even the politicians treat the tea community as a potential vote bank during elections," said Kamakhya Tassa, a tea community leader.
Tassa is contesting the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.
"We have been campaigning hard in the area, asking our people not to allow politicians to vitiate the atmosphere by distributing liquor during elections," Tassa said.
There are at least a dozen candidates belonging to the tea community, three of them have been put up by various national and regional political parties, while others are independents.
The condition of a majority of the tea garden workers and their children is far from satisfactory with illiteracy, alcoholism, and poor healthcare facilities still remaining a cause for concern.
Jorhat (Assam): Shakuntala Murmu was seething with anger to find her husband returning home inebriated late in the night. She was all the more furious as she knew he would be coming home drunk for at least a week as, come election time, Assam tea garden workers are much wanted and politicians go out of their way to entertain them.
The second and final phase of parliamentary elections in Assam is scheduled for April 23, while the first phase was over April 16.
In constituencies surrounded by lush green tea gardens, politicians need not do any hard talking to convince the male voters - all they need to do is to get a few casks of paint-peeling moonshine brewed from fermented rice to keep the men happy in the run-up to the polls.
"Whenever there is an election most of the men here are spoiled by politicians who offer them free haas-pani (fermented rice beer)," Shakuntala told IANS at a tea plantation in Jorhat in eastern Assam.
A severe hangover prevents her husband Santanu from going to work in the morning. Both of them are both daily wage plantation workers and earn about Rs.100 per day.
Shakuntala, a mother of two, sets out early in the morning with a bamboo basket and for the rest of the day her nimble fingers crop through the bright flush on the tops of the bushes, milking the buds from the plants.
"I hate elections as the politicians never keep their promises. They give some free alcohol to the men and maybe a few blankets and forget us once the results are announced," she said, flicking her wrists to wipe the sweat running off her forehead before dropping the leaves into the bamboo basket on her back.
"If I don't work my children would starve."
There are an estimated one million workers in Assam's 800-odd tea gardens. They are a deciding factor in at least three parliamentary constituencies in Assam. Most of them have traditionally been Congress supporters.
"Exploitation is what our people have been facing ever since the British started growing tea and now even the politicians treat the tea community as a potential vote bank during elections," said Kamakhya Tassa, a tea community leader.
Tassa is contesting the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.
"We have been campaigning hard in the area, asking our people not to allow politicians to vitiate the atmosphere by distributing liquor during elections," Tassa said.
There are at least a dozen candidates belonging to the tea community, three of them have been put up by various national and regional political parties, while others are independents.
The condition of a majority of the tea garden workers and their children is far from satisfactory with illiteracy, alcoholism, and poor healthcare facilities still remaining a cause for concern.
Where Imams decide parties and devotees vote
By IANS,
Milan Char (Assam): The call of the muezzin echoed quite a distance as most men, old and young, left their chores and rushed to the nearest mud-and-straw mosque for the afternoon prayers.
After prayers, the motley group of devotees, numbering about two dozen, assembled outside the mosque at this small village located on a sandbar in northern Assam, dominated by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Soon they were all engrossed in a serious debate with the focus being the April 23 parliamentary elections.
A frail looking man with a wrinkled face curiously asked if the Imam of the village, about 100 km from Guwahati, had issued any fatwa for the elections.
"We are yet to decide whom to vote," replied Hafiz Badar Qasimi, the village priest.
Their views differed - some said they should not vote for the ruling Congress party and instead try the Muslim-based party called the Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF).
The villagers dispersed without any unanimity with the priest announcing that they would meet once again after the night prayers to make a final decision.
"We generally vote en bloc - more than 90 percent of the votes would go to one candidate," said Karim Ali, a village schoolteacher.
The same is the case among a vast majority of Bengali-speaking Muslims in other villages - they all vote for one party and the decision is taken well in advance with the priest or a village elder having the final word.
"The most important consideration is whether the party that we vote for would win the elections and whether we would be safe under that government," said Raunak Ali, a village elder.
Muslims in Assam account for about 30 percent of the state's 26 million people and have for decades been at the centrestage of electoral politics with the community holding the key in at least four of the 14 parliamentary constituencies.
Come elections and minority Muslims in Assam become the heartthrob of all political parties and this time too the scene is no different.
The Bengali-speaking Muslims, most of whom migrated from Bangladesh, were traditional Congress supporters although their loyalty to the party has wavered in recent months.
Milan Char (Assam): The call of the muezzin echoed quite a distance as most men, old and young, left their chores and rushed to the nearest mud-and-straw mosque for the afternoon prayers.
After prayers, the motley group of devotees, numbering about two dozen, assembled outside the mosque at this small village located on a sandbar in northern Assam, dominated by Bengali-speaking Muslims.
Soon they were all engrossed in a serious debate with the focus being the April 23 parliamentary elections.
A frail looking man with a wrinkled face curiously asked if the Imam of the village, about 100 km from Guwahati, had issued any fatwa for the elections.
"We are yet to decide whom to vote," replied Hafiz Badar Qasimi, the village priest.
Their views differed - some said they should not vote for the ruling Congress party and instead try the Muslim-based party called the Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF).
The villagers dispersed without any unanimity with the priest announcing that they would meet once again after the night prayers to make a final decision.
"We generally vote en bloc - more than 90 percent of the votes would go to one candidate," said Karim Ali, a village schoolteacher.
The same is the case among a vast majority of Bengali-speaking Muslims in other villages - they all vote for one party and the decision is taken well in advance with the priest or a village elder having the final word.
"The most important consideration is whether the party that we vote for would win the elections and whether we would be safe under that government," said Raunak Ali, a village elder.
Muslims in Assam account for about 30 percent of the state's 26 million people and have for decades been at the centrestage of electoral politics with the community holding the key in at least four of the 14 parliamentary constituencies.
Come elections and minority Muslims in Assam become the heartthrob of all political parties and this time too the scene is no different.
The Bengali-speaking Muslims, most of whom migrated from Bangladesh, were traditional Congress supporters although their loyalty to the party has wavered in recent months.
Minor girl from Manipur killed in Delhi
NEW DELHI, April 18 – In a gruesome incident, a six-year old girl from Manipur was raped and murdered at Mahipalpur, New Delhi on Friday. The girl had reportedly gone to dry clothes on the roof of their rented house around 1 pm. However, when she did not return, the mother went up to the roof in search of her and did not find her. After about 45 minutes her body was found in a water tank on the roof of another building.
The body was rushed to Spinal Injury Centre, Vasant Kunj and the girls was later confirmed raped and murdered. Her mother is a nurse and her father a businessman.
A fact, finding team led by advocate Lansinglui Rongmei, president of North East Support Centre and Helpline rushed to the spot where the incident happened and confirmed the rape and murder of the victim.
NE Helpline called up Vasant Kunj Police Station and reported the matter. Vasant Kunj Police Station confirmed that a man living in the same building where the girl’s body was found has been arrested while another suspect is absconding.
Meanwhile, N E Support Centre and Helpline urged the Delhi Government and NCR to take up appropriate measures to stop the discrimination meted out to the people of North-east. The NGO alleged that people from the region living in Delhi and NCR are facing severe racial discrimination.
In Gurgaon, two girls were beaten by their landlord in December and another raped. In March, a boy was beaten by cable operators, while in a separate incident two girls were assaulted by a rickshaw driver. Most of these cases are pending at police stations.
The body was rushed to Spinal Injury Centre, Vasant Kunj and the girls was later confirmed raped and murdered. Her mother is a nurse and her father a businessman.
A fact, finding team led by advocate Lansinglui Rongmei, president of North East Support Centre and Helpline rushed to the spot where the incident happened and confirmed the rape and murder of the victim.
NE Helpline called up Vasant Kunj Police Station and reported the matter. Vasant Kunj Police Station confirmed that a man living in the same building where the girl’s body was found has been arrested while another suspect is absconding.
Meanwhile, N E Support Centre and Helpline urged the Delhi Government and NCR to take up appropriate measures to stop the discrimination meted out to the people of North-east. The NGO alleged that people from the region living in Delhi and NCR are facing severe racial discrimination.
In Gurgaon, two girls were beaten by their landlord in December and another raped. In March, a boy was beaten by cable operators, while in a separate incident two girls were assaulted by a rickshaw driver. Most of these cases are pending at police stations.
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