Gujarat’s decade of authoritarian rule – By Girish Patel (Feb 29, 2012, DNA India)
BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s projection of Narendra Modi as one of the party’s prime ministerial candidates for 2014 should be taken up as a challenge by all those who value democracy, secularism and human rights. In the 2002-12 decade, the Gujarat chief minister has presided over the worst carnage of Muslims and embarked upon a path of soulless capitalist growth. The 10 years of his rule are both a continuity and distinctive. When he became chief minister, Gujarat was already saffronised by Hindutva forces and had a fast growing economy. Modi further brutalised the process of communalisation and aggravated the nature of capitalist growth in the state. He has taken advantage of both and established himself as “dharma-rakshak” and “vikas-purush”.
Just look at the distinctive features of Modi’s style of governance. Militant Hindutva is the basic principle of that style as is evident from the manner in which he exploited the Godhra train tragedy and allowed, or failed to contain, the mass killings of Muslims. He abused POTA and raised the bogey of ‘ISI conspiracy’ to allow the murder of alleged terrorists in fake encounters. This was successful in terrorizing Muslims and keeping Hindus in a state of perpetual fear. The majoritarian communalism – euphemistically called ‘cultural-nationalism’ by the BJP – has been a permanent fixture on Modi’s agenda. He does not admit his government’s failure and would not show regret even for what was done to the Muslims in 2002. He simply does not talk about the 2002 riots as if the horrible events never happened.
The Indian constitution, for Modi, is only a form, not substance. For him, it is only an institutional arrangement for electing rulers, and not a socio-economic charter guaranteeing life, liberty, equality, fraternity and human dignity. Hence, Modi’s only focus is on how to win elections and establish his supremacy. ‘Moditva’ considers democracy as equivalent to majority rule and nothing more. The democratic values of openness, dialogue, tolerance, dissent, mutual respect and respect for human rights have no place or value for Modi. For him, winning elections is the only source of constitutional legitimacy. For every irregularity, impropriety, illegality, criminality and unconstitutionality, Modi’s answer is: “People have elected me.” He thus uses the democratic machinery to justify and legitimise violations of the constitution, collapse of the criminal justice system and denial of justice to the victims of the 2002 riots.
In a manner reminiscent of Louise XIV of France who said, ‘I am the State,’ the Gujarat CM has concentrated all power in his own hands. His ministers are dummies, the state assembly is dysfunctional and all BJP MLAs are his captive audience. The police and the bureaucracy have become ‘His Majesty’s’ most faithful servants. The total identification of six crore Gujaratis with his individual personality is yet another feature of Modi’s style of governance. “Gujarat is Modi and Modi is Gujarat” is the implicit slogan for whoever attacks or criticises the chief minister. The CM continues to spend crores to project himself through all kinds of propaganda and publicity. Modi claims to champion the cause of Gujarat’s ‘asmita’, thus arousing in the people feelings of provincialism. He seems incapable of seeing the Gujarat society as consisting of different social sections, each with real problems of its own.
By talking of the state as a homogeneous whole, he wants to bypass the problems of injustice, inequality, deprivation, discrimination, backwardness and marginalization that widespread in society. By espousing formal equality, Modi ignores substantial inequality. His model of economic growth has ensured that a few industrialists of his preference are the main beneficiaries of his policies. They are given lands, natural resources, state incentives and concessions at the cost of agriculture and social services. Now, with Gadkari’s announcement that Modi was a potential prime ministerial candidate, Moditva is already on the nation’s horizon. Shall we allow it to take over the entire country?
http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1656526
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A Beast Asleep? – By Saba Naqvi, Smruti Koppikar (Mar 5, 2012, Outlook)
India is a nation that was born in the bloodshed and displacement of the Partition riots. In its DNA, it inherited the schizoid gene of being a large Hindu nation with one of the world’s largest Muslim populations. It was a historical faultline that was exploited for politics time and again. Ahimsa was the Gandhian ideal we paid lip service to but the reality far too often was mass violence. In urban ghettos, in the old cities across the land, small riots were part of the cycle of life. A religious procession would be taken out, a skirmish would take place, curfew would be clamped, a minor riot would have just taken place or been barely averted. But the Gujarat riots of 2002 marked the apogee of communal hatred. Ten years after the Sabarmati Express coach was set afire in Godhra on February 27, and after the bloodbath that followed, we must pause and ask: can it happen again? Many would argue that it cannot because, in the long term, Narendra Modi has had to pay a price for presiding over a bloodbath after the advent of 24-hour television. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, however, he gained enormously. Modi ran a communally charged election campaign six months after the violence, when he would famously use “Mian Musharraf” as a rhetorical term for the entire Muslim community. Modi had been sent to Gujarat in October 2001, at a time when the BJP under Keshubhai Patel was doing badly and had lost a byelection. He began his first term as CM on Oct 7, 2001; five months later, the carnage happened; later in the year, in December 2002, he won the state election with a huge margin and began his second term. He has now been the longest-serving chief minister of Gujarat and will contest later this year for a fourth term.
He most famously used communal polarisation as a political technique and it worked within the boundaries of Gujarat. Sociologist Ashis Nandy says that the problem also arose because for “months afterwards, Modi celebrated the riots. He appeared to be showing off”. Even the Shiv Sena, which had a decade before Gujarat orchestrated vicious riots in Mumbai, looked like relative amateurs at the riot technique compared to the systematic method that was applied and revelled in inside Gujarat. Nandy points out that the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 actually claimed the largest toll. But it’s a blot the Congress always tries to live down and not celebrate. “The whole psychology was different as Sikhs were a prosperous community that people admired and envied,” says Nandy. The Hindu-Muslim equation is another story. As for Modi, he has become the development man, the business-friendly leader, but his image makeover as an acceptable national figure has not worked. Even BJP president Nitin Gadkari says, “What happened in Gujarat was an unfortunate incident. I don’t think it can or should happen again.” Modi is stuck with the taint because Gujarat was the first mega riot in the age of 24-hour TV. There were victims in Mumbai, Surat, Bhagalpur, Jamshedpur, Hyderabad, Moradabad, Bhiwandi, earlier riots in Ahmedabad, a city that actually recorded one of the first big post-Partition riots in 1969. But they were just numbers, death tolls, the faceless victims of communal carnage.
But in Gujarat 2002, the stories were documented in heart-wrenching detail and etched in our collective memories. How Bilqis Bano’s daughter was snatched from her hands, flung against a rock, killed, and the pregnant woman raped repeatedly; how Zahira Sheikh survived the grisly burning of the Best Bakery in which her family was roasted alive; how limbs of children were hacked and little boys flung to their death in Naroda Patiya; how Ehsaan Jafri begged for the life of those who had sought his protection in Gulberg Society; how his widow Zakia Jafri still fights for justice and says her husband called the CM’s residence for help. The photograph of Qutubuddin Ansari begging for his life epitomises the plight of an entire community in Gujarat; thankfully, Ansari survived. The 2002 Gujarat riots also marked the coming of age of anti-communal activism. Several citizens, activists and lawyers who live within Gujarat have consistently fought against a state administration determined to block any probe. On the national stage, individuals like Teesta Setalvad have never relented, losing one legal battle to come back with another. Although Modi has been able to stay one step ahead of the legal snare, he is certainly bogged down by it. Outside Gujarat, he may have appeal for the BJP cadre, but regional parties want to keep a distance from him. If the big players of any regional front in the future are to be Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar, the CMs of Bengal, Orissa and Bihar would not like to share a platform with Modi even if realpolitik were to force any sort of arrangement with the BJP. Indeed, one can argue that the political price of riots is now too high. Modi is quite stuck.
The perpetrators of riots are long-term players in the political landscape. The Thackerays have again bounced back in the local polls in Maharashtra. But the city of Mumbai has changed under their watch. The ferocity and cruelty of the violence that ripped right through Bombay (which became Mumbai later) in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, in two phases in December 1992 and January 1993, came to symbolise the worst face of a seemingly inclusive city. Till then the city would be described as a cosmopolitan megacity where caste, class and religion were not the dominant markers of public life. Bombay was the city of dreams, its streets offered anonymity, its pavements could turn into homes, its constant whirring machine of enterprise and entrepreneurship played the great equaliser. Surely, such a place could not be derailed by communal violence? This belief turned into a shattered myth in those two spans of ’92-93 when nearly 850 people were killed, 575 of them Muslims; over 2,000 injured and nearly 1,00,000 displaced. After that, Bombay became Mumbai and no one really calls it a cosmopolitan place any longer. Resilient, yes, but not cosmopolitan. Bombay had its Hindu- and Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods but they were not community-insulated as has happened in the post-riots era. The ghettoising effect of 1993, which continues even today, has made the divisions sharper. In fact, it’s easier now to target this or that community and in many areas the “other” is not welcome at all, says Farooq Mapkar, who was witness to five namazis being shot in Hari Masjid by policemen, was wrongly accused of rioting and acquitted after 16 long years. A bank employee now, he says, “There is now a Muslim Mumbai and a Hindu Mumbai.” …
What this story illustrates is that an attempt to trigger a riot is a political tactic. Paul R. Brass, author and political scientist from the University of Washington, who’s studied India’s communal tension and violence, calls it the institutionalised riot system or IRS. This IRS, he says, was created largely in northern and western India and it can be activated by politicians during political mobilisation or elections, and “the production of a riot involves calculated and deliberate actions by key individuals, like recruitment of participants, provocative activities and conveying of messages, spreading of rumours”. There are frequent rehearsals until the time is ripe and the context is felicitous and there are no serious obstructions in carrying out the performance. Does such an IRS still prevail in Mumbai, or Bhiwandi, Malegaon, Aurangabad, Nashik, Moradabad, Ahmedabad? Recently, activists of the Hindu right were arrested in Karnataka trying to raise a Pakistan flag in a Muslim area. They presumably hoped they would trigger a riot and blame it on Muslims. One must conclude that small riots can and in all likelihood may continue to happen (there was recently a Gujjar-Muslim clash in Mewat not far from Delhi), but it would take a certain conjunction of politics, intent and regime to trigger anything on the scale of the Gujarat riots. Meanwhile, the political saga of Modi continues, with his national ambitions all too obvious. As things stand now, he can be a national player only if the BJP gets a majority on its own. As that currently seems unlikely, Modi can perhaps examine his predicament from a philosophical, moral or literary viewpoint. He could ruminate over that quote of Lady Macbeth’s who kept washing her hands. “Out, damn’d spot! out, I say”!
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280032
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- Will Modi be the prisoner of hindutva forever? – By Akshaya Mishra (Feb 27, 2012, First Post)
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/modi-will-he-stay-the-prisoner-of-hindutva-forever-226741.html
- ‘Modi is a robot of the RSS, programmed to hate Muslims’ – RB Sreekumar with G Vishnu (Mar 10, 2012, Tehelka)
http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312RB_SREEKUMAR.asp
- The battle against forgetting – Farah Naqvi (Feb 28, 2012, The Hindu)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2939309.ece
- ‘Our sustained resistance has delegitimised Modi all over India, even in Gujarat’ – Teesta Setalvad with Tehelka (Mar 10, 2012, Tehelka)
http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312TEESTA.asp
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Cause to Celebrate – Peace and prosperity after bloodshed in Gujarat – By Swapan Dasgupta (Mar 2, 2012, The Telegraph)
It may sound callous, but there was something patently disgusting about the way the media and activists colluded to turn a grim 10th anniversary of the 2002 Gujarat riots into a celebration of victimhood. From star anchors rushing to Ahmedabad to hug victims to the overuse of the photograph of the unfortunate Qutubuddin Ansari pleading for his life, every tear-jerking potential was cynically exploited. What should have been a solemn occasion of remembrance, perhaps leading to a pledge to make sectarian violence a thing of the past, was, instead, turned into an all-too-familiar Indian tamasha, culminating in riotous television discussions. The reason for this ugly turn of events should be obvious. Ten years after the arson attack on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra became the trigger for murderous violence throughout Gujarat, the issue of ‘justice’ has been transformed into a political blame game. The activists who have doggedly kept the issue alive, despite the apparent lack of responsiveness in Gujarat, have shifted their priorities markedly. The issue is no longer one of securing the punishment of the rioters and those responsible for inhuman conduct, but the political targeting of one man: the chief minister, Narendra Modi. The unspoken assumption is that justice will be served if Modi can be prosecuted for personally facilitating the carnage. As an additional bonus, the framing of charges against Modi is calculated to ensure his exclusion from the political arena and consequently bring to an abrupt end any possibility of him being in the reckoning for the prime minister’s post. In short, if you can’t beat him, disqualify him.
Had Modi shown himself to be electorally vulnerable, the need to fight him judicially would have evaporated. A Modi defeat in either 2002 or 2007 would have prompted the self-satisfied conclusion that “Gujarat has redeemed itself” – in the same way as, it is proclaimed, Uttar Pradesh redeemed itself by rejecting the Bharatiya Janata Party after the demolition of the Babri shrine in 1992. However, the prospects of the clutch of activists moving on to the next available cause have dimmed following the realization that not only has Modi strengthened himself politically but that the Congress in Gujarat lacks the necessary qualities to mount an effective challenge. Consequently, the only way they see to fight Modi is to remove him from politics altogether. There is another factor at work. Over the past 10 years, Modi has transformed Gujarat spectacularly. After winning the 2002 assembly elections in a communally surcharged environment, he has deftly shifted the political focus of Gujarat from sectarian identity issues to rapid economic development. Gujarat was always an economically vibrant state and entrepreneurship is deeply ingrained in the DNA of the average Gujarati. Modi has played the role of a great facilitator by creating an environment that is conducive to the double digit growth of the state’s gross domestic product. He has toned up the administration, improved the finances of the state exchequer, brought down corruption markedly and made every rupee expended on government-run schemes a factor in economic value addition. Modi has been the model rightwing administrator pursuing the mantra of minimal but effective governance. His election victory in 2007 wasn’t a consequence of Hindu-Muslim polarization; it was based on his ability to deliver good governance.
Secondly, Modi successfully shifted tack from Hindu pride to Gujarati pride. This meant that hoary grievances centred on sectarian hurt were subsumed by a common desire to take advantage of the dividends flowing from a prolonged period of high economic growth. The popular mentality of Gujarat has undergone a discernible shift in the past decade. In the 30 years since the Ahmedabad riots of 1969, which left nearly 650 people dead in just five days of mayhem, Gujarat had become a riot-prone state. With its sharp communal polarization, Ahmedabad epitomized that trend. After the 1969 flare-up, there were riots in 1971, 1972 and 1973. Then, after a period of lull, rioting resumed in January 1982, March 1984, March to July 1985, January 1986, March 1986, July 1986, January 1987, February 1987, November 1987, April 1990, October 1990, November 1990, December 1990, January 1991, March 1991, April 1991, January 1992, July 1992, December 1992 and January 1993. This chronology, assembled by the political scientist based in the United States of America, Ashutosh Varshney, in his Ethnic Conflict and Civil Life (2002) tells a story of unending curfews, social insecurity and escalating hatred affecting the two communities. It was a story replicated throughout Gujarat, including the otherwise integrated city of Surat that witnessed fierce riots in 1993.
Since March 2002, Gujarat has been riot-free. Curfews have become a thing of a distant past. What has occasioned this exemplary transformation? The facile explanation, often proffered unthinkingly by secularists anxious to find fault with Modi, is that Muslims have been too cowed down by the sheer intensity of the post-Godhra majoritarian backlash. Such an explanation presumes that riots are invariably begun by a section of the Muslim community – a problematic proposition and not always empirically sustainable. More compelling is the explanation that factors in the larger administrative and economic changes in Gujarat over the past decade. First, both the civil administration and the political leadership have internalized the lessons from their inability to control mob violence in 2002. The police have been given a free hand to operate without the interference of small-time politicians attached to the ruling party. There has been a crackdown against the illicit liquor trade and the underworld that gained its muscle power from its proceeds. At the helm, there is an unspoken understanding that another riot, with its attendant TV coverage, would extract an unacceptably high political cost. That is why there is special attention paid to curbing Hindu extremism – a phenomenon that will affect Modi most adversely.
The biggest change has, however, been at the societal level. Gujarat today is a society that is obsessively preoccupied with making money and taking advantage of the economic opportunities that have presented themselves. With the end of boredom, a happy present and an appealing future, the belief that riots are bad for dhanda has seeped into society. This is not to suggest that the bitterness of the past has been replaced by idyllic bonhomie between communities. Far from it. Sectarian conflict persists in cities such as Ahmedabad, and less so in Surat. But there is a distinction that Varshney makes between sectarian conflict and sectarian violence. One need not necessarily lead to the other if contained within the parameters of economics and politics. The Muslims of Gujarat don’t possess the political clout they enjoyed earlier under Congress rule. But this has been compensated for by growing levels of prosperity. Those who argue that the economic development of Gujarat has bypassed Muslims should look at the economic empowerment of communities such as the Bohras, Khojas and Memons. To many, Gujarat’s obsession with economic betterment may seem an expression of denial for the larger societal involvement in the 2002 riots. This may be partially true, since Gujarati Hindus view the post-Godhra troubles as something they don’t want to be reminded of incessantly – a point which the state Congress has grudgingly acknowledged. But it doesn’t distract from Modi’s undeniable success in changing the agenda dramatically in 10 years to the point where hardened Hindutvawadis now regard him as an enemy of the cause. The riots of 2002 were horrible. But the important thing to note is that 10 years after the butchery, Gujarat is basking in peace and unprecedented prosperity. Now, that is something to celebrate.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120302/jsp/opinion/story_15194354.jsp
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Close encounters of the troubling kind – Editorial (Feb 25, 2012, The Hindu)
“Fake encounters,” said Justices Markandey Katju and C.K. Prasad in a ringing Supreme Court judgment last August, “are nothing but cold-blooded, brutal murders by persons who are supposed to uphold the law”. They went on to prescribe the death penalty for those involved – a punishment which policemen ought to keep in mind whenever their superiors seek to involve them in an act of extra-judicial killing. Such instances, as the cases piling up in the Supreme Court demonstrate, are far from infrequent.
As a way of dealing with the perceived pressure of public opinion following terror strikes or violent crimes, police forces across India sometimes resort to the custodial murder of prime suspects, often with a nudge and a wink from the top. Thanks to the judiciary’s intervention, policemen who take the law into their own hands can no longer be assured of impunity. This is not to say genuine encounters never happen. They do, and the police, like ordinary citizens, enjoy the right of self-defence. What must be demonstrated each time deadly force is used, however, is the necessity of the police response in the face of violence by their victims.
The police in Chennai deserve praise for quickly identifying the suspects thought to be behind two recent bank robberies in the city. But the manner in which the five men died in an encounter in the early hours of Thursday raises a host of questions about the nature of the operation. Little about the official account, from the time of the operation to the details of the killing, neatly adds up. While the Police Commissioner claimed the force got a tip-off around midnight and that his men knocked at the door of the suspects at about 1 a.m., area residents said they were asked to remain indoors by the police as early as 10 p.m. on Wednesday.
Other contradictions include the absence of aural and visual effects normally associated with several minutes of “indiscriminate” firing: neighbours heard only a few individual shots and just two bullet holes were visible to reporters who got a peek at the crime scene. None of this necessarily means the encounter was fake. Only an independent judicial probe can help establish what really happened. Such a probe must be conducted in a speedy, transparent and professional manner so that public apprehensions can be allayed. If the official story checks out, the city will heave a sigh of relief. But if there is any evidence that the five suspects were in custody at the time they were killed, all those involved must be charged with murder. If the law does not deter criminal acts by those in authority, we are in deep trouble as a society.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2929337.ece
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Idol Worship Sparks Buddhist Fury – By Imran Khan (Mar 10, 2012, Tehelka)
A historical Buddhist site near Gulbarga, 584 km from Bengaluru, where the first inscribed image of Ashoka was discovered, has become the latest communal flashpoint in Karnataka. For the past two weeks, Dalit organisations and a Buddhist monk have been protesting against what they claim is an attempt by Hindus to appropriate the monument by placing a Durga idol. Four Dalits and a Buddhist monk have been arrested for removing the idol. However, the protesters claim that they had removed the idol only to take it to the deputy commissioner’s office when they were arrested. In 1986, a Buddhist stupa dating back to 1st century BC was discovered in Sannati, around 70 km from Gulbarga. It is believed that Ashoka sent his son Mahindra and daughter Sanghamitra as emissaries to spread Buddhism in this region, which is now considered the most backward district in Karnataka. Subsequent excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have established Sannati as an important historical site.
“On 5 February, a group of Dalits led by a Buddhist monk tried to forcibly take away the Durga idol,” says R Vishal, deputy commissioner of Gulbarga city. “The area is a protected monument and ASI is conducting excavations there. When ASI men tried to stop them, they pushed them and ran away. Before the situation could get out of control and communal tension could be created, we caught them. A case has been lodged.” Buddhist monk Bodhidhamma Banteji, who is in judicial custody, says, “A sinister plan has been carried out all over India. Look at the cases of Khaneri, Elephanta and Mahalakshmi in Mumbai and Karla and Mansari in Nasik and Nagpur. Efforts have been made to ascribe a Hindu connection to Buddhist places of worship.” “I have been coming to this place for the past 10 years as part of my dissertation on Sannati. I never found this idol or any Hindu relic at this place. Suddenly we saw rituals taking place and this idol sprouting up,” says Banteji.
Banteji and four Dalit leaders have been booked under various IPC sections for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, unlawful assembly intended to outrage religious feelings. Surprisingly none of the accused have been booked for trespassing, theft or damaging a historical site. When contacted, DK Ravi, assistant commissioner of Sedam taluk (where the complaint has been lodged) and administrator of Sannati Budhha Stupa Development Authority, refused to comment. The accused allege that the complaint was filed based on Ravi’s insistence.
“When I saw this idol, I immediately informed the local authorities and the district administration. Even after my constant reminders, they didn’t take any action. I couldn’t have just sat back and watched the cultural heritage of Buddhism being destroyed,” says Banteji. “Look at the absurdity of this case. The complaint has been lodged by a Muslim (ASI worker Azeem) against Buddhists and Dalits for hurting his religious sentiments. Whereas the deity in question is a Hindu idol,” says the defendants’ lawyer Mazhar Hussain. He claims Banteji has been targeted specifically as he’s been instrumental in converting over 15,000 Dalits to Buddhism since 1995.
ASI Deputy Superintendent Dr JK Patnaik rubbishes the claims. He cites a study conducted by ASI in 1989 to prove that the practice of Durga worship was prevalent at the time when the government acquired the place in 2002, and subsequently declared a protected site in 2003. “The idol dates back to the 9th century AD – Rashtrakutas period – and had not been installed there,” he says. He admits that ASI is allowing rituals to take place as discontinuing the practice would incur “the wrath of locals”. Local Hindu groups led by BJP MLA Valmiki Nayak have been demanding puja to be allowed at the site. “Twenty years ago, the site belonged to a villager who used to worship Durga. Hence we demanded that puja should be allowed. Those who say that the place only belongs to Buddhists and that this place is only Buddha Vihar are troublemakers,” he says.
http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne100312Idol.asp
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Thy Foreign, Lying Hand, Great Anarch – By Pranay Sharma, Debarshi Dasgupta, Pushpa Iyengar, Lola Nayar (Mar 12, 2012, Outlook)
“The world has changed, and the country must also change,” Manmohan Singh famously said on becoming finance minister two decades ago, in June 1991. The man who welcomed foreign investment into India has now, as its prime minister, invoked that old chestnut of a “foreign hand” working via civil society organisations (NGOs) to dismiss opposition to the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. This has attracted (for the large part) criticism, concern, even wry chuckles at the irony of it all. For starters, a man who has always had to battle a pro-US image is pushing for a nuclear plant being built by Russia and, in the process, accusing US-funded NGOs (though not naming any) of blocking it. If that wasn’t enough, Outlook learns there is also a Russian ecological group, EcoDefence, somewhere at work here. Civil society is clearly upset. Many say Manmohan’s statement reflects a disturbing trend of government tackling genuine dissent by means more foul than fair. They stress the government reacted the same way to the Anna Hazare campaign, imputing motives to the NGOs that led it rather than meeting them on the turf of ideas. So the recent CBI and police action against four NGOs for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (and reported plans for action against several more) has hardly been a PR coup for the Centre. But it’s evidently a carefully thought-out strategy. In an interview to American journal Science last week, Manmohan blamed US- and Scandinavian-funded NGOs for not being “fully appreciative of the developmental challenges that our country faces”. Was the PM trying to give out a signal to a wider audience that would be heard well beyond the country? What is the significance of invoking the “foreign hand” bogey-well-worn through use by successive generations of Indian PMs-at this juncture? Clearly, the pressure, both personal and external, to deliver on the nuclear deal (the only big feather in Manmohan’s cap) is showing. The failure to push through the deal on the ground-there have been protests at proposed reactor sites-undermines his, and indeed India’s, position.
“It is unfortunate that the prime minister of the largest democracy should have to lament about foreign-funded NGOs influencing the course of events,” says Nikhil Dey, a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC). Most large NGOs-a “powerful lobby”, all things considered-agree with this view. Complicating matters is an edgy game of politics being played out in Tamil Nadu, where protests against the Koodankulam plant have been raging for months. The leading agitator S.P. Udayakumar, coordinator, PMANE, told Outlook that the Centre had unleashed a “psychological war” against activists behind the stir. And soon after meeting CM Jayalalitha on February 29, he said she was “positive” and “cordial and patient” and “we have full faith in her”. But Jayalalitha is not letting on which way she’ll swing. For one, she has to tackle Tamil Nadu’s acute power crisis. And there’s also a bypoll to the Shankarankoil assembly constituency in Tirunelveli district (where Koodankulam is located) coming up on March 18. For now, she’s playing the pro- and anti-plant lobbies against each other. Recently, there were howls of protests when she appointed former Atomic Energy Commission chairman M.R. Srinivasan (seen as “pro-nuclear”) to head a committee constituted to probe the safety of the plant.
“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” says the prime minister’s former advisor and journalist, Sanjaya Baru. He feels it is necessary for governments to engage with civil society. But that should not call for glossing over “irregularities” – if any – committed by NGOs. In this instance, Baru claims information about “irregularities” was with the Union home ministry (MHA) for at least six months. “It would have been better if the MHA took a proactive role in sharing it with the media, rather than let the PM talk about them,” he added. In normal circumstances, bold action against NGOs for misusing foreign funds would have been decent PR-generating positive, nationalist vibes-but it has had the opposite effect. Faulty media management? No. Experts say Manmohan’s tack ran contrary to a changed pecking order in India-instituted largely by the PM himself. Many top bureaucrats (and some politicians) are foreign-trained. Policymakers, scholars and researchers interact with global agencies. This has led to piquant situations. Take The Asia Foundation. It was banished from India by Indira Gandhi, on charges of being a CIA front. Now it sends Indian diplomats to the US for crash courses on foreign policy. This “foreign hand” also extends to NGOs, who are funded by a host of multilateral agencies and think-tanks abroad. The Ford Foundation alone farms out about `70 crore a year to top Indian civil society and advocacy groups.
Ultimately, the PM’s gambit failed because a bogey of Cold War vintage didn’t sit well with a man who actually pulled India out of that mindset. Journalist and environment activist Praful Bidwai describes it as a “prelude to a campaign of crackdown”. He says, “Manmohan Singh is trying to tell the world that India will push the work at Koodankulam no matter what the opposition to it.” Bidwai, who has been a strong anti-nuclear campaigner, recalls how he was vilified by the establishment for his views when India went nuclear in May 1998. But sceptics also raise questions about the NGOs and the way they function. Devesh Kapur, who heads CASI in University of Pennsylvania, blames NGOs for lack of transparency, something they keep demanding from the government. However, it has to be accepted that for NGOs foreign funding is a fact of life. Pushpa Sundar, author of an in-depth book on NGOs, says most often they have to look abroad for funds. “With government providing very little funds and very few people donating, civil society has little option but to seek foreign donors, who provide funds with their own agenda, not necessarily evil,” says Sundar. The PM evidently also doesn’t have a problem with all foreign funds, especially from groups like USAID, PATH, GAVI and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Many, in fact, argue he has actually modified development programmes to bring them on board. For example, the government, on prodding from GAVI, has begun introducing into the national immunisation programme a pentavalent vaccine that includes a shot for a disease caused by Haemophilus influenzae type B (HiB) bacteria. The prevalence of this disease, many public health experts have argued, is too low (around 0.07 per cent) to merit universal dosage of a vaccine against it. But the government has dismissed concerns, including those that raise a doubt on the vaccine’s efficacy. “Often aid for public health programmes come with strings that require us to buy a specific vaccine of a specified firm or with advance purchase commitments,” says Y. Madhavi, a principal scientist and vaccine policy researcher at New Delhi’s National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies. “In fact, many believe the push here is part of a strategy to bring down prices of the HiB vaccine in the US,” she adds.
Neither does the government resist foreign funds being used for pro-nuclear and pro-GM causes. Recent instances include the World Nuclear Association’s nuclear energy promotion symposium in New Delhi last month, attended by top government scientists, and USAID’s deep involvement with the government through its Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project to promote genetically modified crop technology. Many anti-GM campaigners have argued against the inclusion of Monsanto and Wal-Mart on the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, which is ultimately aimed at reworking the country’s whole agricultural policy. The opposition to yet another high-stakes nuclear power project, the 9,900 MW Jaitapur project in Maharashtra, too has suddenly been swept into the debate under the same terms-framed in the “foreign-motivated” category. The state Congress pounced on the cue offered by the PM and sought “answers” from around a dozen protesting NGOs, as well as its rival Shiv Sena, which is also opposing the project, about their sponsors. Congress sources admit they have no evidence, not even a tipoff, that there’s funding by foreign (or objectionable) agencies. “It was a good issue to put the Sena on the defensive, after their recent win in local elections. It’s a political game,” says a Congress general secretary in Mumbai. Indeed, at its core, the whole thing might turn out to be just that.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280120
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