How the Ban on the RSS Was Lifted – By Rakesh Ankit (Apr 21, 2012, Economic& Political Weekly)

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was banned, for the first time, from February 1948 to July 1949 in the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination. Its communal and secretive character, military training, and involvement in riots, especially the post-Partition riots in Punjab, were the reasons why Nehru’s government found it necessary to ban the RSS. The first attempt to engage with the government and get it to lift the ban was made over August-November 1948 by the head of the RSS (sarsanghchalak), M S Golwalkar. This story has been well-narrated. Even otherwise, the legal case against Nathuram Godse and others, their prosecution and the subsequent suppression of the RSS has been well-represented in the literature on the aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination. However, not as well known are the attempts made behind the scenes from December 1948 onwards to reach Sardar Patel on behalf of the RSS for reconciliation. D P Mishra, Patel’s protege and home minister of the Central Province (CP) was the key interlocutor in the subsequent Golwalkar-Patel exchanges, along with other mediators like S L Karandikar (MLA, Bombay), D R Limaye (an office-bearer of the RSS from 1928-42), G V Ketkar (editor, Kesari), T R Venkatarama Sastri (lawyer, Madras) and H V R Iengar, ICS (home secretary, Government of India). This essay narrates this exchange focusing on the personalities of Golwalkar, Mishra and Patel and the period December 1948 to June 1949 when a second, and eventually successful set of attempts were made to declare the RSS legal again.

On 10 December 1948, a month after Golwalkar was arrested and put in Nagpur jail, D P Mishra held a press conference in Nagpur. A day earlier, on 9 December 1948, the RSS had launched a satyagraha. Terming the “misdirected” Sangh as a “source of great danger to public peace, tranquillity and progress”, Mishra addressed its leadership in interesting terms, alternatively friendly and threatening, capturing the ambiguity which both he and his mentor Patel harboured towards the outfit: … A fortnight later, the fi rst attempt at mediation between Golwalkar and the government was made by S L Karandikar who was a member of the Bombay legislative assembly. Karandikar, a self-styled well-wisher, wrote to Golwalkar on 24 December and handed it to Mishra while requesting permission from the home minister to meet Golwalkar. Conveying “the feelings of several well-wishers” in Nagpur and Poona as well as his own, Karandikar called the Sangh’s satyagraha “desirable neither for the Sangh nor the government”, requested Golwalkar to call it off and wished for his consequent release. Subsequent to that, he reminded Golwalkar of “the need to consider the future of Sangh”, “to avoid stagnation by being under a ban indefinitely”, and “to take any decision as to the desirability or otherwise of the reorientation of the Sangh ideology, programme and constitution”. Karandikar ended his letter by hoping for leniency to be shown to the Sangh by that “lover of democratic methods”, Patel. Two days later, Mishra forwarded this letter to Patel adding categorically that “we should ruthlessly crush the movement and not give any opportunity to these people to tell the world that they have negotiated an agreement with the government. The interview should, in my opinion, be refused”.5 Having been unable to make up his mind regarding the delivery of Karandikar’s letter to Golwalkar, Mishra sought Patel’s advice.

Patel replied promptly and agreeably while reminding Mishra to be careful in not giving the RSS any opportunity to make propaganda: ‘We cannot negotiate with those who have created so much trouble when we were otherwise engaged and there can obviously be no question of settlement so long as the present agitation continues. Before anything of this kind is even considered, there must be an unconditional withdrawal of the satyagraha demonstrations.’ Ultimately, neither did Karandikar’s letter reach Golwalkar nor was he allowed to see the RSS sarsanghchalak. Less than a week later, in the new year of 1949, on 3 January, D R Limaye (an office-bearer of the RSS from 1928 to 1942) approached Patel directly. Reminding Patel of a letter that he had written in Marathi on 18 December 1948 and citing his offered his services as an intermediary and requested an opportunity to see Golwalkar. Explaining his approach, Limaye wrote that “in the present peculiarities through which our country is passing, I am strongly of the opinion that there should not be any satyagraha on the part of any of our countrymen for any reason whatsoever”. Believing it his duty to support the government even if one felt that it was not being just to Golwalkar and the RSS, Limaye felt that the calling off of the satyagraha was necessary in order to create the proper atmosphere of dispassionate discussion and consideration of the case. In view of his past relations with the RSS, he felt confident of persuading Golwalkar to issue a statement calling off the satyagraha unconditionally and called on the government to be sympathetic. Before Patel could reply to Limaye, he was visited in Delhi by G V Ketkar, grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and then editor of the paper founded by his venerable grandfather, the Kesari. Ketkar too wanted to interview Golwalkar. Patel informed Ketkar of Limaye’s proposal and told him to meet R S Shukla, prime minister of the CP and Berar. Writing to Shukla, Patel suggested that if Ketkar is agreeable you can allow him to see Golwalkar subject to the same conditions as in the case of Limaye, viz, that he would press for unconditional withdrawal and that no publicity or propaganda will be made of the attempt. Simultaneously, Patel sent Shukla a copy of Limaye’s letter and intimated his assent to Limaye. The decks were now clear for Golwalkar to receive his first set of mediators.

Ketkar and Limaye met Golwalkar at Seoni (Golwalkar had been shifted two days earlier to the remote Seoni jail in Chindwara district of the then Central Province and now Madhya Pradesh from Nagpur) on 12 January 1949. Golwalkar did not agree to voluntarily withdraw the satyagraha unconditionally. On Ketkar’s persuasion, he agreed to advise the organisers of the Sangh to decide about calling off its activities. He also agreed to suggest to the Sangh’s followers that they abide by their decision “provided that Ketkar sends him a letter through Sardar Patel to this effect” (emphasis added), with the obvious object of indirectly making the government a party to the move. Adamant to begin with, particularly with Limaye, Golwalkar became more conciliatory towards the end of his conversation with Ketkar and did not appear “prepared to take the lead himself in calling off the satyagraha unless he was moved in the matter from outside particularly through Sardar Patel”, perhaps “to maintain his personal prestige (and) avoid public criticism”. Next day, Ketkar requested Patel to forward the accompanying letter to Golwalkar, “as a sequel to the understanding reached between us”, after receiving which “he has agreed to issue advice to his followers to discontinue the defiance of the ban”: Ketkar to Golwalkar (forwarded through the deputy prime minister of India), 13 January 1949: Dear Shri Guruji, I hereby confirm in writing the assurance given to you orally in our interview on the 12th instant that if you advise your followers to discontinue defiance of the ban I will use my good offices to the utmost and induce other important people also to do the same to enable you to open negotiations with government to get the ban lifted on the basis of formulating and publishing a constitution of the Sangh which will remove the doubts of the government with regard to the activities of the Sangh.

Before replying to Ketkar, Patel forwarded this letter to Mishra and sought his views. Mishra’s advice was unambiguous: ‘this insistence on the letter being sent through you appears to be due partly to pique and a desire to save his face and partly to make government a part though indirectly, to the withdrawal of the movement. Personally, I would not advice that you should agree to this condition … I think we should not ‘compromise’ and no one close to you should mix himself up in this business.’ Patel agreed and declined to be the channel of communication between Ketkar and Golwalkar “as that would give the impression, which probably Shri Golwalkar wants, that we are a party to what is going on between you (Ketkar) and Shri Golwalkar”. Reminding Ketkar that “the matter rests mostly with the Provincial Governments” Patel claimed to be quite convinced that “they will not accept anything short of unconditional abandonment of the satyagraha”. He, however, did allow Ketkar to meet again with Golwalkar. On 19 January 1949, Ketkar met Golwalkar for the second and final time. … On 11 July 1949, a communique was issued lifting the ban on the RSS. It mentioned the exchanges with Golwalkar, the draft constitution, the government’s suggestions and Golwalkar’s clarifications and recorded that Golwalkar had accepted the suggestions made by the government. It was concluded that the RSS should be given an opportunity to function as a democratic, cultural organisation eschewing violence and abjuring secrecy and, above all, being loyal to the Indian Constitution.

http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17367.pdf

SEE ALSO:

• Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making – By Mohd. Ismail Khan (Apr 18, 2012, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012apr18/telangana_new_hindutva_laboratory_making.html
• BJP in Karnataka: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – By Shivasundar (Apr 28, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17385.pdf

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Inquiry Commission – a farce? – By Girish Patel (Apr 4, 2012, DNA India)

We have almost a genetic tendency to abuse, distort, corrupt or pervert any public institution created for public good or in public interest. This is what has actually happened to enquiry commissions constituted under the Commission of Enquiry Act 1955. An institution meant for getting information about what, why and how of major events of public importance like serious disturbances, major scandals, natural calamities among others, has been converted into a government’s agency to fool people, to protract the discovery of truth and to serve the government’s narrow, political interests. Take a look at the Nanavati Commission appointed in 2002 by the Modi government to enquire into the Godhra train burning and post-Godhra communal carnage. To pre-empt the UPA government from appointing another commission to enquire into the role of the chief minister and his government, the Gujarat government expanded the Terms of Reference of the commission so as to cover enquiring into specifically the role and conduct of chief minister Modi, ministers and high officials during the pre-Godhra and post-Godhra riots.

Ten years have already passed, more than six crores of rupees have been spent and yet the truth, otherwise known to everyone in Gujarat, about the culpability and complicity of Modi government has not seen the light of the day. On the contrary, at a politically convenient time, before 2007 Assembly elections, the commission submitted the first report about Godhra train burning and unjustifiably gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi. What was to be really enquired was Modi’s role in post-Godhra massacre of Muslims, not Godhra train burning case. This is what the amended Terms of Reference specifically ask the Commission to do, and yet the commission even after many applications and important developments, exposing Modi’s role and conduct during the riots, refuses even to examine Modi on the special ground of commission’s discretion. This is really not a matter of discretion under Section 8 (b) of the Act, but a matter of statutory duty flowing from the very Terms of Reference. So far, the commission has worked in such a way as to lose its credibility and legitimacy. Its final report will be totally useless for the people except it will serve the interest of Modi government in the coming Assembly elections 2012. What a mockery of truth, justice and public morality.

Time has therefore come, for a fresh look, at the Act of 1955. Either scrap the Act or amend or enact a new law to make the enquiry commission powerful, independent, effective, transparent and accountable. One, the need for public enquiry into major socio-economic or political events in a modern complex society cannot to over-emphasised. Such events are multi-dimensional generally, beyond the purview of criminal law or civil law. Only a public enquiry can find out the truth about such events which will have great public significance. Two, the enquiry Commission has its rationale in people’s right to know and to be informed about such major events, under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution. It is not a question of government’s privilege or discretion, but of citizen’s fundamental right to know. Three, such an independent enquiry Commission should be recognised as people’s agency of good and transparent governance, not government’s instrumentality for its narrow political purposes.

Four, it is absolutely important that appointment, composition and Terms of Reference of the commission should not be left to the discretion of the government as at present, or should be entrusted to a widely representative, independent body of eminent persons. Five, the judges need not always be appointed as members of commission for two main reasons – one, the judges by training experience and institutional constraint not always fit to perform this task involving complex socio-economic and political elements; and two, the judges should not be dragged into such public issues which would ultimately compromise the judge’s authority, independence and legitimacy. Six, the Commission should be sufficiently empowered so as to enable it to enquire in depth and exhaustively.Seven, the commission should be completely independent of political, commercial or professional connections. Eight, the commission should report the independent body which alone will decide actions to be taken thereon.

Nine, the report should be published and its recommendations must be accepted and implemented. Lastly, the commission should have complete legal status and its report may or may not be used in civil or criminal proceedings, it should not be bereft of any legal significance. The commission falls clearly within the constitutional and administrative law and must be subject to judicial review with of course its appropriate judicial standards. Such commissions are today much more needed when heads of state and public authorities are more and more engaging in crimes against humanity, violations of the constitution and operation of the people and they may not be brought within the purview or ordinary criminal law but should not escape from the domain of human rights. Only such public enquiries with legal powers can do the work.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1671450

SEE ALSO:

• Set an example – Editorial (Apr 11, 2012, Times of India)
  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/12614131.cms
• Make a small gesture now – Editorial (Apr 10, 2012, Hindustan Times)
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/838605.aspx

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A Cowed-Down Nation – By Meena Kandasamy (Apr 30, 2012, Outlook)

It looks like Foucault’s “real political task” is what the organisers of the recent beef-eating festival at Osmania University set out to do: they fought the “food fascism” that kept beef out of the menu, reminded the secular state that a university hostel mess was not Sankara math, and criticised the imposition of caste-Hindu dietary diktats on Dalits from within the confines of a seemingly neutral educational institution. When they rapped “Beef is the secret of my energy” with all the soul of an outlaw anthem, it sounded like the secret heartbeat of an anti-caste cultural revolution. But the stone-pelting, vehicle-torching ABVP hooliganism and the OU vice-chancellor S. Satyanarayana’s statement that beef would not be served in hostels unmasked a pattern of political violence. Tucking into beef biriyani behind the smokescreen of the teargas firing at OU, one could imagine the rage of a caste-Hindu mob that lynched five Dalits in Jhajjar, Haryana, in 2002 for skinning a dead cow.

A week earlier, Hindu extremists had triggered communal disturbances in Hyderabad’s Old City area by hurling beef in the Hanuman temple at Kurmaguda. Both these incidents highlight the ideological framework of Hindutva mobilisation using a certain female quadruped political player who is capable of igniting riots, whose dead flesh could cause a city to disintegrate into communal violence. Instead of acknowledging the beef-fest as an act of Dalit assertion, right-wing commentators said it was a ploy to dent the Telangana struggle. They propped up pork to silence other minorities and cast this as a Hindu-Muslim stand-off when it was actually about untouchability. Dr Ambedkar had theorised that broken men (and women) rebelling against caste became untouchables because they were Buddhists and beef-eaters. Beef, being a Dalit food, was kept away from caste-Hindus and stigmatised. To enforce the strict regimentation of caste codes, beef-eating was prohibited for Hindus. And not just in the Manusmriti.

Because India is a Hindu state at heart despite all apparitions to the contrary, Article 48 of the Constitution requires the State to take steps to prohibit the slaughter of cows. Anti-cow slaughter laws in most states promise prison terms. In implementing Hindutva, nobody outdoes Narendra Modi. He sparked off the state-aided slaughter of Muslims a decade ago, but now tries to balance his karma by conducting dental and cataract surgeries for cows. Note: Hinduism only asks of a ruler to protect cows from slaughter. While Muslim victims of the Gujarat riots still languish in relief camps, Modi gloats that no cow has to travel more than three kilometres to reach a health camp. In this animal farm, Her Holiness Mother Cow is a first-class citizen with health insurance and a pension plan. Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians, being beef-eating minorities, cannot press for similar privileges.

She hasn’t always been treated with motherly respect, though: D.N. Jha’s book The Myth of the Holy Cow documented the problematic (and under-appreciated) history of Brahmin/Hindu beef-eating in ancient India, before the taboos evolved, while Manish Jha’s film Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women depicted the sexual abuse of a cow by sex-starved men. Perhaps that’s why when the BJP was in power, the National Cow Commission (2002) suggested forming a Central Cattle Protection Rapid Task Police Force and wanted amendments to pota to enable detention of those smuggling cows.

There is no point getting offended if someone enjoys beef in all its juicy glory. Since nobody is being force-fed, tolerance means digesting the idea that just as cows are meant to be milked, cows are also meant to be meat. There cannot be a shred of doubt that in a racist nation which advertises vaginal skin-lightening creams, the large, naive eyes and flawless complexion make the cow an attractive mother. Men take pride in being mummy’s boys, but it is high time Hindutva organisations and secular, state-run universities stop being swayed by bovine sex appeal, step out of their Oedipus complex and remind themselves that cows, at least the fertile ones, are only mothers of calves. Why kill for a cow, when you aren’t born of one?

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280608

SEE ALSO:

• Beef Festival at Osmania – Editorial (Apr 28, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17376.pdf

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Custom-built communal riots – By Ram Puniyani (Apr 17, 2012, Tehelka)

In Saidabad and Madannapeth areas of Hyderabad (first week of April 2012) violence was unleashed against the local Muslims. Women were allegedly raped, houses torched and scores were left injured. What triggered the riots was an inflammatory speech by Vishwa Hindu Parishad functionary Praveen Togadia. News that fundamentalists (read Muslims) had thrown beef and green colour at a Hanuman temple in the locality triggered the communal strife. Just a rumour was good enough to instigate violence. But when police succeeded in arresting the culprits, it was discovered that those behind the ‘so-called riots’ were goons from different Hindu communal outfits. On New Year’s Eve, this year, in Sindagi town of Bijapur, the Pakistani flag was hoisted on a government building. The ‘news’ spread rapidly, leading to violence. The incident took an ugly turn and in no time government buildings, six state transport buses and many other vehicles were in flames. But as it turned out, those behind the incident were activists of the Sri Ram Sene which is headed by Pramod Muthalik, an ex-RSS pracharak. They were the ones who did the mischief and went about spreading the inflammatory news. There are many more dimensions of both these acts of violence, brought about by using religious identity, symbols and emotive appeals. Communal violence is a cancer which has spread in the body politic of our society.

The very foundation of communal violence is the ‘social common sense’ the ‘hate-other’ ideology built around the myths and biases prevalent against the minorities. As such, communal violence is the superficially visible part of the communal politics, a politics deriving its legitimacy from the identity of religion. To begin with, the hatred for ‘other’ community started getting consolidated around the communal projection of history, supplemented by the present social life of a community exaggerated and put forward in a derogatory way. In pre-partition India, violence erupted from both communities while the British chose to be neutral umpires. With partition, Muslim communalism got deflated; violence changed form and started assuming different trends leading to rise of orthodoxy amongst Muslims. The minority communalism promoted more conservative values amongst minorities but at the same time it stoked communalism on a larger scale. A quiet period followed the ghastly partition riots but violence started surfacing post-1961 in what is called the Jabalpur riots. In the wake of these riots, the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, constituted the National Integration Council, which has since been playing some insignificant role in promoting national integration.

Communal violence, where two communities are pitted against each other, has changed its character and now communal groups on a provoking and attacking spree have a clear goal of intimidating and subjugating the religious minorities. At the same time, the pretext is manufactured that Muslims are violent or Christians have attacked. They ignite the violence and then get the ‘deserved’ punishment. This again is a totally make-believe construct. The two incidents which have taken place amply show the anatomy of a manufactured riot. The majority of communal streams have gained strength by polarising the communities along religious lines. Founded on the deeper biases against minorities, rumours aid as trigger for violence, or rumours precipitate the ‘hate other’ sentiment. Violence anywhere is by and large planned but intelligently made to look like a spontaneous act, that too sparked by the minorities.

The Hyderabad and Sindagi incidents are no exception. Earlier also in the Kandhamal, violence was triggered on the pretext of the death of Swami Laxmananand, who was allegedly killed by Maoists. His dead body was taken in a procession through Christian minority areas, and rivers of blood followed. Gujarat violence, it is said, was stage-managed after the Sabarmati Express was torched at the Godhra station by merchants of death. Similarly, in Mumbai after the demolition of Babri Mosque, some Muslim youth threw stones at a police station. In turn, Shiv Sena activists threw gulal (orange colour of celebration used mostly by Hindus) on a mosque. It was enough to instigate violence, following which and Bal Thackeray called for ‘teaching them (the minority commuity) a lesson’. So far many inquiry commissions and citizens’ tribunals have pointed out the role of the majoritarain communal organisation. Starting from the report of Bhivandi riots (Madon Commission) to Mumbai violence (Sri Krishna Commission), their conclusions to a large extent are similar. Riots instigated in a pre-determined manner pan out in a fashion as if first blood was drawn by those from the minority community.

Dr VN Rai, a police officer, did his doctoral work on the theme of riots in 1968-80 (Combating Communal Conflicts), A longish quote from this book will enlighten us on the issue, “Very often the way in which the first stone is thrown or the first hand is raised in aggression, suggests an outside agency at work, an agency that wants to create a situation in which members of the minority community commit an act which ignites severe retribution for themselves. In order to guard them against external criticism and to preserve their self-righteousness, violence is projected to be started by Muslims. It is as if a weaker person is pushed into the corner by a stronger, forcing him to raise his hand so that he may be suitably punished for his ‘attack’. Before the punishment is meted out a suitable hue and cry can be made about the fact that because the person cornered is naturally wicked and violent, he is bound to attack first,” (pp 56-57). However, there are some changes in how riots are instigated these days. Now communal elements are gaining strength and resorting to very coercive and divisive means to trigger a riot. What has also changed is those affected by riots. In the 1980s, about 65 percent of the victims were Muslims, but by 1991 it the number swelled to 80 percent (Union home ministry data) and by 2001 this showed further increase. This data tells a story in itself, – communal violence has polarised communities along religious lines. A host of measures are required to curb communal strife and organisations deliberately inciting violence should be dealt with a very firm hand. A multi-layered approach should be adopted to bring peace and harmony in the society.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Fw180412Custom.asp

SEE ALSO:

• Ghalib the terrorist – By Kashif-ul-Huda (Apr 12, 2012, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012apr12/ghalib_terrorist.html

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Demonising migrants is silly – By Binoo K John (Apr 17, 2012, Tehelka)

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s declaration that he needs no visa to come to Mumbai and Raj Thackeray’s challenge thrown at him to try and hold a Bihar Day in Mumbai, are all the fallout from the sub-nationality politics that is the mainstay of both factions of the Shiv Sena. The very fact that a chief minister has to make a visa statement about a visit to Mumbai is in itself a matter of concern. This so-called ethnic rivalry is a manufactured one. Raj Thackeray is trying to use the anti-Bihar card to gain a political constituency as different from the original Shiv Sena. “We never go anywhere to celebrate our 50th year. Why do they need to come here?” was MNS leader Raj Thackeray’s question. Thackeray is only re-inventing the sub-nationalist plank of his uncle Balashaheb Thackeray. The question is: how much will it help him? Also, should Nitish Kumar be worried about Biharis working in Mumbai when other states are trying to get more labour from Bihar to work in their fields? The anti-Bihari sub-nationality plank is utterly flawed and will in the long run boomerang on Raj and his party. The world is no longer what it was when ‘anti-Madrasi’ anger was whipped up by the Shiv Sena. That too was manufactured and even today south Indian establishments and people from the south do well in Mumbai. There is no enmity, only cooperation.

The unifying factor is prosperity, Maharashtra being a top state in term of foreign investment, not to mention the fact that the richest people live there and it is the finance capital of the country. For the common man and for everyone in Mumbai, what matters is money and its growth: typical of what happens in a place where the stock market dominates people’s lives. It is here that Raj Thackeray is trying to create a divide, just like his uncle also did — with limited success. Before this, the states’ reorganisation , the problem was with Gujaratis, who then formed 18 percent of the population. Though there were huge agitations for Samyukta Maharashtra led by communists and also Bal Thackeray’s father Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, the reorganisation finally worked out. It is after this that Bal Thackeray took upon the ‘Marathi manoos’ as the defining politics of his party, something which his nephew has been trying to appropriate. In sub-nationalistic politics, to create hate objects is of primary importance. In the post-independence days of struggle for a Samayukta Maharashtra, the hate object was the Gujarati. SA Dange, who led the agitation for Samyuktha Maharashtra, gave the agitation a class spin, saying Marathis were reduced to working for the rich Gujarati. It is predominantly still the case, but the Gujarati is no longer a hate object in Mumbai.

Bal Thackeray left the Gujaratis alone and made the South Indian the new hate object, caricaturing them. There were attacks on South Indians, but things did not change drastically. South Indians survived, and so did Mumbai. So he found the new hate object — the Muslims — during the eighties and nineties. When, tor reasons other than the Shiv Sena’s campaign, there were anti-Muslim riots in Mumbai, the Shiv Sena too played its part. It is then that the Shiv Sena split, and Raj, in the last five years, has been focussing on creating a new hate object in the Bihari, in order to carve out a distinct political space. On the street this can also include the poor UP-ite, so basically the entire country ( the rest of India, so to say) has been off and on held up as hate objects to be thrown out of Mumbai. How much of this whipped up anti-Bihari sentiment will catch on? Will this also peter out like the earlier hate campaigns? The ethnic or sub-nationalistic strife that the Shiv Sena has sought to create has no basis in reality. The situation of the Bihari going to Mumbai or other states for jobs can be compared to Indians of all ethnicity going to the Gulf countries or the West for lower-level jobs, and this includes Marathis as well. This in fact helps brings down wages in that country and mostly spurs growth, as has happened in Mumbai. In Dubai, for instance, 80 percent of the population are migrants (with similar pattern in other Gulf states) and the government there has no issues. The Dubai government has made no mention of sending back Marathi labour, for instance.

Raj Thackeray’s war cry, apart from being anti-national, is self-defeating. The jobs which the Bihari occupies in Mumbai to a large extent are not the jobs the unemployed Marathi is looking for. He is aspirational and mostly educated. Given a chance, he would prefer not to drive a taxi. To capitalise on the frustration of the unemployed is a Shiv Sena ploy but that may not work any more because opportunities are growing. All the more in Mumbai. Raj must also realise that other states are looking for cheap labour, including Punjab, where there are not enough hands for agriculture labour. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has asked for the national rural employment scheme to be suspended for the duration of the harvest season so that Bihari labour will migrate. If Bihari, Oriya and UP migrant labourers stay put in their home states (as is happening now thanks to the rural employment scheme), there will be a crisis in the agricultural sector. So the Bihari migrant worker is being welcomed elsewhere. They are loved for their hard work, uncomplaining nature, and for accepting wages much below the prescribed minimum wages. Only Raj Thackeray hates them. In any case, societies which welcome people of all ethnicities (look at the West) always thrive. Mumbai too is an example. So Nitish Kumar holds all the cards. He has an absolute constitutional right to hold the Bihar Day celebration in Mumbai, Bihari migrant labour is what will spur growth in Mumbai and many other states in the near future as it has in the past. Who else will work in the huge constructions planned for Mumbai? Hopefully, Mumbai will see through this narrow divisive politics of Raj Thackeray, like it did in all earlier occasions when hate politics and militant populism was sought to be forced upon the city. The cosmopolitanism of Mumbai should always win.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Fw170412Demonising.asp

SEE ALSO:

• A mover and shaker – Editorial (Apr 16, 2012, Hindustan Times)
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/841577.aspx

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And now, rape as political witch-hunt. The stories of 7 women – By Ratnadip Choudhury (Apr 28, 2012, Tehelka)

On 20 March, two tribal girls in their early 20s were allegedly tortured and gang-raped by a group of tribal men in Takka Tulsi, a remote hamlet in southern Tripura. The incident hardly found a mention in the national media. Even in the Northeast, the media failed to read between the lines of what this incident tells about the tiny state that boasts of a high literacy rate, rural development and political consciousness. But the pain and trauma of the victims can be felt and heard in almost every tribal belt in Tripura, the last bastion of the Left Front in India. Indeed, women have been at the receiving end of the Left Front’s 19-year rule in the state. They have been tortured, gangraped and even murdered at will. Kangaroo courts have been used to brand tribal women as witches, and their moral character questioned, all for ulterior political designs.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Tripura had India’s worst crime rate against women: 46.5 per lakh population in 2010. Between April 2010 and March 2011, the Tripura Commission for Women (TCW) received 913 cases of crime against women, out of which 62 were against tribals. So, why this spurt in rapes against tribal women in Tripura? Historically, the Left Front had reigned supreme in the tribal areas but its support base has started eroding. Every day, tribals are deserting the CPM and joining regional parties because they believe that CPM leaders share benefits of government schemes only with their relatives and cadres. Rattled by the desertion and its debacle in West Bengal, the CPM cadres are trying every trick in the trade to retain power in next year’s Assembly polls. But for now, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and the TCW have some explaining to do about these shocking crime figures.

“The high rate of crime against women in Tripura is a concern,” says CPM state secretary Bijan Dhar, adding, “I agree that since we have been in power for 19 years, a section of our people got inclined towards power and at times ideology takes a back seat.” The magnitude of the political pressure is so intense that the watchdog TCW is almost parroting the state government’s tune. “Politics on a sensitive issue like rape is not desirable. We are alarmed by the increase in rape cases and we have been taking action but it is not like that the government is not sensitive,” says TCW chairperson Dr Tapati Chakraborty. But the Congress is in no mood to desist from politicking on the issue. “It is the tribal vote bank that has kept the Left in power for so long; they have done nothing for them,” says Leader of the Opposition and Congress MLA Ratan Lal Nath. “The CPM cadres have done heinous crimes against women and got away with it, but we will fight against this menace.”

TEHELKA travelled to some of the remotest villages to understand why the tribal women are at peril. The driver who took us around, gave us a primer. “Tripura has adequate power and good roads, even in remote areas. It has been the best state in the implementation of MGNREGA,” he says. “But the truth is that one can enjoy the fruits of development only if he/she supports the ruling party. Political rivals are boycotted economically and socially, mentally harassed and assaulted by CPM cadres.” There are numerous cases of violence against tribals that paint a shoddy picture of the state of affairs in Tripura, where the Left Front won 19 of the 20 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the 60-member Assembly in 2008. However, it’s not just the tribals who are bearing the brunt. The TCW records between April 2010 and March 2011 show that 28.37 percent of the crimes were against SCs, 13.14 percent against Muslims and 20.37 percent against OBCs. These numbers are enough for the Left Front to realise that its final bastion is in big trouble.

http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne280412AND.asp

SEE ALSO:

• No country for baby girls – Editorial (Apr 19, 2012, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article3328935.ece

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