IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – May 18th, 2009

by on August 11, 2009

IN THIS ISSUE

NEWS HEADLINES

OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

NEWS HEADLINES

MODI MAGIC FAILED TO WIN VOTES OUTSIDE GUJARAT (MAY 17, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

Narendra Modi, the BJP’s star campaigner, may have failed to click outside Gujarat. And this, observers say, could be a setback to any aspirations of him being projected as a national leader. Modi had campaigned extensively in 78 constituencies in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa and two Union Territories, where he was the poll incharge. But a comparison of the BJP’s tally with what it got in 2004 shows that the party, in fact, won one seat less than what it got in the previous elections. The party did gain one seat more in Gujarat than the previous 14, but could win only nine seats in Maharashtra, four less than the 2004 tally when he was not among the poll managers for the state. The BJP won one seat each in Goa, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

On condition of anonymity, a senior BJP leader said, "Now that our party has suffered such a setback in the polls, the Chief Minister may have very little role to play at the national level. He will now concentrate more on Gujarat." The result was the same in other states as well where Modi campaigned. A political observer said the results may dampen Modi’s hopes of playing a key role in national politics in the days to come. "The CM had crisscrossed as many as 22 states to address election meetings during the campaign. Yet, the BJP suffered poll reverses in almost all the states where Modi campaigned – be it Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Orissa or Assam," he said.

In UP, out of the 25 constituencies in which he campaigned, candidates supported by him won in only three. The seats won include Agra and Meerut where Modi supported party colleagues Ram Shankar Katheria and Rajendra Agarwal, respectively. In Amroha, Modi campaigned for ally RLD candidate Devendra Nagpal. Not surprisingly, the mood was gloomy at Modi’s official bungalow, just like it was on May 13, 2004 when the BJP’s tally came down from 21 to 14 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat. No mediaperson was allowed in by the security personnel and Modi himself remained incommunicado.

"We have been instructed by the personal staff of the CM’s bungalow that no one should be allowed to meet him," a guard at the main gate of the ministerial enclave said. A top Modi aide attached to his bungalow staff told The Indian Express: "He preferred to remain huddled in his bungalow alone with only the TV and cell phone for company. He would break his silence only to make calls to senior BJP leaders, including L K Advani, in Delhi to keep himself abreast of further political developments."

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/461002/

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PROJECTION OF MODI CAUSED IMMENSE HARM TO NDA: SHARAD YADAV (MAY 17, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

After the stunning defeat of NDA in Lok Sabha polls, knives were out with its convener Sharad Yadav holding that Varun Gandhi’s "hate statement" and projecting of Narendra Modi as future Prime Ministerial candidate had caused immense harm. "It may be right or wrong or he (Varun’s) might have denied but his statement has caused immense damage. His statement was unconstitutional. It was against the country’s unity and must have affected the polls," Yadav told reporters.

Asked whether references that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi could be a future Prime Ministerial candidate had affected the prospects of NDA, Yadav, who is also JD(U) president, said the eruption of the issue in deed had confused the people. "It was a factor. When the issue had come up, it created confusion among the people’s mind. Since the NDA had already declared a Prime Ministerial candidate (L K Advani) unanimously, the issue should have been dismissed immediately," he said.

Yadav said such an issue (Prime Ministerial candidate) had come up in JD(U) too during the electioneering, but the party summarily rejected. Asked whether Gujarat riots too had affected the NDA’s prospects, Yadav said such issues do have impact on polls. "As far as Godhra is concerned, we have contested four elections after that. Whatever had happened in Godhra and after Godhra were inhuman. So, such incidents do have affect."

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/461148/

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EX-VILLAGE SARPANCH HELD IN POST-GODHRA RIOT CASE (MAY 10, 2009, TIMES OF INDIA)

Law finally caught up with a former sarpanch and BJP worker Gajabhai Baria who was arrested by Panchmahal police for his alleged involvement in post-Godhra riots of 2002. Baria was arrested from his house in Shaniyara village in Ghoghamba taluka in the wee hours of Saturday, following a tip-off. He was handed over to Devgadh Baria police later.

Interestingly, Rajgadh MLA Fatehsinh Chauhan, too, is wanted in the same case and is still on the run. Eleven people are wanted in the case of rioting and arson that occurred in Ghoghamba taluka post-Godhra carnage.

According to the police, Baria was involved in rioting and loot and had managed to flee during a similar raid sometime back. Baria, who is also involved in liquor trade, was wanted in a motorbike theft case also. What has surprised many is that Chauhan was seen regularly during the election campaigning in Panchmahal a couple of weeks ago. But, he wasn’t arrested then by the cops.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4507017.cms

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ITS BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, SAY RIOT VICTIMS ON HC ORDER (MAY 15, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

Petitioners and victims of the 2002 statewide riots welcomed the interim order of the Gujarat High Court directing payment of compensation to the victims within eight months from the date of order. "Better late than never," was what Gagan Sethi of the Centre for Social Justice, said after Thursday’s order on his joint petition with Yusuf Sheikh of the Anatanrik Visthapit Hak Rakshak Samiti (AVHRS). They had sought compensation for the properties damaged during the riots.

Sethi, who is also a member of the monitoring committee on compensation to the victims set up by the National Human Rights Commission, said the good part was that he was able to bring to fore the human rights issues involved in the whole episode. "To get compensation for the hapless victims is my biggest achievement," he said.

Sheikh said the victims could now hope to get the full compensation in one go, thus helping them to make better use of the money. He said that if they got the compensation in instalments as was being done earlier by the Central and state governments, it would have been meaningless because the small sum could not be used for buying properties.

Razzaq Khatri, a riot victim whose house was destroyed completely at Noorani Mohalla in Vadodara and now lives in an one-room apartment in KGN Nagar, said he could now hope to buy a small house of his own. "I am happy that the court ordered early payment of compensation," said Muzaffar Makrani, another riot displaced, living at Rajgarh in Panchmahals district.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/459749/

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NITISH INVITES IRE FOR SHARING DAIS WITH MODI (MAY 12, 2009, THE TRIBUNE)

The show of strength by NDA chief ministers and BJP-ruled states in Ludhiana on Sunday must have brought jubilation in the NDA camp and the BJP also has reasons to go gaga over its Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar clasping each other’s hands on the dais as a mark of solidarity. But back home in Bihar, Nitish is virtually in the eye of a storm for sharing the dais with the Gujarat Chief Minister. Almost all local newspapers have carried the photograph of smiling Nitish and Modi with their arm raised together in the Ludhiana rally very prominently on the front page. The Urdu press has also given a lot of prominence to this news and photograph with strong reactions from various political parties and leaders.

The most sought after leader by every alliance other than the NDA till a day before the Ludhiana rally, Nitish is now drawing flak from different political parties, including the Congress, for this action. Bihar Congress chief Anil Kumar Sharma charged him with taking the minority community for a ride for electoral gains. Sharma said he could not believe his eyes when he saw Nitish and Modi sharing the dais and enjoying each others company on the TV screen. The man, who did not allow his Gujarat counterpart to enter Bihar even to campaign for the BJP candidates in the elections and strongly opposed his candidature as the future Prime Minister of NDA, lost no time after the polls to embrace him, Sharma quipped.

RJD chief Lalu Yadav went out of the way to express his anger over the coming together of his archrival Nitish and Modi. Calling the Gujarat CM "a murderer", Lalu also took a pot shot at AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi for giving the certificate of ‘secular’ to Nitish. LJP chief RamVilas Paswan was also very much critical of Bihar CM over this issue and said this has exposed the real face of Nitish Kumar. On his part, Nitish Kumar defended his participation in the Ludhiana rally saying that it was organised by the NDA and the chief ministers of all NDA-ruled states had gone to attend it. He also tried to underplay his ‘over friendly gestures’ towards Modi by saying that it was Modi who caught his hand and raised it. "I could not have forced him not to do it’, Nitish clarified.

Notwithstanding all his clarifications, his presence besides the Gujarat CM on the dais is going to give a serious jolt to all his efforts to woo the minority community for last three years. Despite having the BJP as his ally in the government, Nitish had assiduously cultivated the faith and support of Muslim community to establish his secular credentials by taking many such measures for their welfare, they may have never dreamt of from the NDA government in Bihar.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090512/main6.htm

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BJP LEGISLATORS CLOSE AIDE ARRESTED (MAY 11, 2009, EXPRESS INDIA)

Gajabhai alias Swami Baria, Saniyada village sarpanch and a close aide of Rajgadh BJP legislator Fatehsinh Chauhan, was arrested from Ghoghamba village on Saturday night in connection with the 2002 riot cases. According to the Devgadh Baria police, Baria was arrested from near Chauhan’s residence in Gundi village when the Panchmahals Special Operations Group officials were on a lookout for the MLA.

"The operation was jointly carried out by SOG officials and the Devgadh Baria police. We raided Chauhan’s residence, but he managed to escape. When we were following him, we found Baria having dinner at a farmhouse that belonged to Chauhan and arrested him," said Circle Police Inspector J P Sukhadia. The police will produce him before a local court on Monday for his judicial remand. Baria, according to the police, was named along with Chauhan for killing several Muslims at Lunawada, Devgadh Baria, Shehra and other areas during the statewide riots.

"Baria had allegedly led mobs of 200 in a jeep, damaging a mosque and setting ablaze nearly 35 houses in Lunawada and other towns in Panchmahals and Dahod districts," added Sukhadia. The police said that Chauhan’s house had been raided six times. He is also accused of making derogatory remarks on Congress president Sonia Gandhi during a Lok Sabha election meeting at Lunawada.

http://www.expressindia.com/story_print.php?storyId=457336

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BJP GOVT DELETED NAMES OF MINORITIES FROM ELECTORAL LIST (MAY 11, 2009, DECCAN HERALD)

The voting turnout in the State was reduced since the BJP government had deleted the names of minority voters from the electoral roll by misusing the administrative machinery," alleged Mysore Lok Sabha constituency Congresss candidate H Vishwanath.

Speaking to mediapersons after participating in a mass marriage programme organised by the Kodagu District Al-Ameen Committee here on Sunday, Vishwanath said that the State BJP government, which is influenced by the Narendra Modi’s Gujarath model election, has misused the administrative machinery and deleted the names of Muslim, Christian and many secular voters. "By denying the constitutional right of citizens, BJP has mocked at the democratic set up," he criticised.

He charged that BJP had blocked many voters from exercising the franchise by applying indelible ink on their fingers after distributing money on the eve of election. "The future of nation itself will be in danger, if people’s right to vote was denied," he opined.

Vishwanath said that BJP is the direct opponent of Congress in the constituency. "Only people speak about triangular contest. However, people of Mysore and Kodagu districts will support me only," he expressed his confidence. Further he said that people had voted keeping in mind the future of nation. Minority’s votes will favour Congress, he added. JDS candidate B A Jeevijaya was also present at the mass marriage programme.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/1822/bjp-govt-deleted-names-minorities.html

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COURT FAVOURS INDEPENDENT PROBE INTO BATLA HOUSE SHOOTOUT (MAY 14, 2009, HINDUSTAN TIMES)

In a significant move Thursday, the Delhi High Court favoured an independent inquiry by a rights body into the controversial Batla House shootout here in September last year. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has been insisting on an independent probe into the shootout in which two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists and a police officer were killed Sep 19, 2008.

"Time is passing and it (independent investigation in the case) would make no sense. You (NHRC) have every right to do it. I don’t see any obstacle in it," Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah told the commission. The bench headed by Shah and Justice Neeraj Kishan Kaul asked the NHRC counsel to take instruction from the commission chairman on the issue and inform it May 20 when the court hears the matter further.

The court’s suggestion came after the Delhi government has been expressing reluctance to hold a magisterial inquiry into the matter, which NHRC has contended to be mandatory before initiating its own inquiry. Rights activists have raised questions about the authenticity of the gunfight, which erupted a week after serial blasts rocked the capital and left 26 people dead last year. An NGO, Act Now For Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), has been demanding a judicial probe into the shootout.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=de5e8ac5-6d27-4385-bdab-fd27e97eadff

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FATEHPURA RIOTS: TWO MORE NABBED; VIDEO FOOTAGE HELPED IDENTIFY RIOTERS, CLAIM COPS (MAY 10, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

Seven months after the Fatehpura riots during Ganesh Visarjan last year, the police arrested two more accused in the case on May 6. But the police as well as the associates of the two are battling it out among themselves over video footage, which, the latter claim, shows that they were not involved in the events at Fatehpura Crossroads and Champaner Gate. The two have even threatened to file a complaint against the Vadodara police for arresting them. At least 35 people are behind bars, while several others are wanted in the case. The two recent arrests were made by the Detection of Crime Branch. The two arrested men have been identified as Shailesh Jingar and Ankit Kadam.

According to the DCB officials, the two men were arrested for looting and arson in Fatehpura Crossroads, where the police had resorted to firing in which one person was killed. Inspector J R Ramgadhiya of the DCB said that Shailesh and Ankit were arrested on May 6 from Pitambar pol. "They were involved in inciting the mob to riot and took part in the looting and arson near Champaner Gate," Ramgadhiya said, adding that they are looking for one Mohsin Shaikh, who has been evading arrest for the last eight months. Meanwhile, family members of Ankit and Shailesh said that they were picked up in the middle of the night.

"If they are really the accused, they should have taken action seven months ago. They suddenly came here in the middle of the night and arrested them. On the evening of the riots during the Ganesh Visarjan, the procession from Pitambar pol crossed the Champaner Gate before 6 pm and we have video evidence to prove that none of our boys was involved in the riots," said a member of Pitambar pol Ganesh Puja Samiti, Bhaga Maharaj. "Since most of our members stay in Yakutpura along with the Muslim brethren, we have Muslim people helping us even during the procession. Siddiq bhai built our temple. Moreover, rioters who were involved were all from Kalupura," added Maharaj.

As per the DCB, Ankit and Shailesh were picked up from Koyali Pol and Pitambar pol, which, according to the residents, were never part of the riots. However, DCB officials said that it was a painstaking task to find out the rioters. "We took the help of videography done by the private news channels and photographers to ascertain the identity of the rioters, which was a painstaking task for all of us and took several months," added a senior DCB official.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/456958/

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WOMAN GETS LIFE TERM FOR MURDERING DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (MAY 14, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

A woman was sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday for murdering her daughter-in-law in 2000. The court relied largely on the dying declaration of the victim while delivering the verdict. Additional Sessions Judge A Tamboli convicted Kantaben Mehta (47) who had poured kerosene over her daughter-in-law Veena Mehta (24) at their residence in Kalachowkie and burnt her to death on May 19, 2000. Veena’s husband Bharat, his brother Kishore, and his father Dalpat were also named as accused in the case but were acquitted as evidence showed that they had tried to save Veena’s life and rushed her to a hospital.

According to the prosecution, Veena married Bharat on February 15, 1997, and since then had been harassed mentally and physically for dowry. Her dying declaration said it was Kantaben who had set her on fire while the other accused tried to save her. The police registered a case under Section 302 and 498-A against the accused and filed a chargesheet. The accused were on bail after spending a few days in prison.

During the trial, the prosecution examined over 10 witnesses to prove the charges against the accused. However, the allegation of dowry harassment under section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) could not be proven as there was no conclusive evidence to show that there had been demand for dowry. Thus the court sentenced Mehta to life imprisonment and acquitted her family members.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/458893/

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OPINIONS AND EDITORIALS

THE TRIUMPH AND THE GLORY – BY PRATAP BHANU MEHTA (MAY 17, 2009, INDIAN EXPRESS)

There are moments in the life of nations that are harbingers of deep changes. The Congress has achieved what even so many of its friends thought was unthinkable: not just a return to power, but a return with such aplomb. No amount of psephological quibbling can take away from this achievement. They put a lie to the proposition that this was not a national election, but a sum of state elections. The swing towards them across large parts of the country is too significant to be dismissed as a conjuncture of lots of local factors. But this is also a moment where the nation is also entitled to some degree of self-congratulation. Small exceptions apart, this election represents a big defeat for the politics of opportunism, obfuscation and obscurantism. Those political forces that thought that mere political bargaining with others was a substitute for an electoral strategy have lost. Instead a message has been sent out, loud and clear, that playing spoiler, switching sides in order to pre-empt the people’s mandate, changing positions at the last minute are simply not on. Elections are fundamentally about comparative credibility, and those who were foolish enough to assume that mere words could hoodwink electorates have been cut to size. A large number of parties have been punished for this reason and rightly so.

This election is also an indicator that the era of votebank politics as we have known it is over. Parties that placed undue confidence in the fact that they had secure vote-bases amongst particular political groups have been given a severe blow. For instance, Mayawati made the same mistake Lalu made in Bihar. She took the Dalit vote so much for granted that she felt even less compelled to deliver. She has not yet recognised that a functioning state, freed from the local political economy of extortion and violence, will be to her benefit in the long run. Lalu’s constituents gave him 15 years; Mayawati’s will give her even less. The Congress did extraordinarily well to step into the breach. The Muslim vote will show a similar trend; here is a group that also feels it now has choices, and this is a healthy sign for Indian politics. It is too soon to say that caste and identity have become irrelevant for politics. They may seem so because the policy agendas that came out of that politics are now deeply entrenched; yet its logic is also involuting, creating new coalitions as in Bihar. It is inevitable that there will be a search for new paradigms. But the post-Mandal age of identity votebanks is over. The standard thesis that Indian politics is centrist and moderate in its orientation also holds. The BJP’s core dilemma is that the politics of polarisation can give it local victories, a Gujarat here, a Pilibhit there. But it cannot sustain a broad national presence. Its leadership has consistently failed to recognise this point. Indeed, aversion to a politics of polarisation may also explain the backlash against Mayawati.

Hazari Prasad Dwivedi once wrote a remarkable sentence in the context of Indian culture that sums up our politics as well: bharat ka loknayak wahi ho sakta hai jo samanvaya kar sake. This was the core premise on which the Congress was built; it was punished when it departed from it. It may now be able to reoccupy that space. The election has also complicated the dialectic of fragmentation. While smaller parties have played the spoiler in a few states, they have ended up reinforcing the space of national parties, as in the case of Maharashtra. The election also demonstrates the Indian electorate’s aversion to hubris. One of the most dramatic results is from West Bengal, where the Left has suffered a serious setback. Much ink will be spilt over the analysing of whether it was its opposition to Manmohan Singh or Nandigram that did it in. But the Left, particularly in Bengal, had acquired a sense of hubris that was overdue for a rebuff. This is also an era where two things are evident in voters’ responses to governance and development issues: on the one hand, their expectations are rising; they want a politics of hope, not resentment. On the other hand, they are exercising nuanced judgments, not instinctive anti-incumbency.

But in the end nothing can take away from the fact that the Congress’s strategy was hugely successful. Even his critics have to acknowledge that Dr Manmohan Singh’s government seemed to be a safer pair of hands than any of the competitors. He can claim credit for the fact that this election was not taking place against the backdrop of deep discontentment; if anything, most people have more cash in their pockets. Agrarian growth has been impressive, procurement prices high, subsidies galore, government employees with cash in their pockets; and despite the recent slowdown, the continuous record of growth was a strong hand with which to go to the elections. Rahul Gandhi should rightly get the credit for laying the political foundations of this victory. But in end that could not have been possible, without the fact that the government, for all its imperfections seemed more credible than all the rivals.

Rahul Gandhi’s three gambits seem to have paid off handsomely. The first was the decision of the Congress to go it alone; if nothing else, this decision was a reiteration of its character as a special national party. And the timing for this was just right in UP. Second, and more subtly, in states like Punjab, Uttarakhand and even, to some extent, in Gujarat, the strategy of energising the Youth Congress and bringing an element of organisational vitality seems to have paid off. And finally, his own subtle strategy of positioning himself as an "outsider" to the system, a source of real, even if somewhat indeterminate newness seems a master stroke. There is no question that at the moment people see Congress as a party of the future, and he was able to embody that idea in all its concreteness. If outcomes were a consequence of predetermined logic, no politics would be necessary. Rahul Gandhi has demonstrated the dividends that risk-taking can have in politics: it can change the rules of the game. This is his moment. He has changed the rules of politics. The country will now look to him to change its horizons for the future.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/460979/

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NO HATE POLITICS (THIS IS INDIA) – BY VINOD MEHTA (MAY 25, 2009, OUTLOOK)

The ‘pseudo-secularists’ have won. And won stunningly. The small print in the triumph ("victory" is too soft a description) is breathtaking. Savour. For the first time, a Congress prime minister, who is not a member of the Gandhi family, will enjoy two successive terms; and for the first time since 1977, a Congress government will be returned to power. In a TV studio on Saturday, a glum cheerleader for the BJP accused me of being a cheerleader for the Congress. Happily, this is not a time to settle scores or wisecracks! Verdict 2009 is an unambiguous, comprehensive and titanic rejection by the country of extremist politics

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