Minority Report!

Democracy is a game where majority always wins. It is when the majority always remains the majority that this game becomes a death trap for the minorities. In India, majority and minority are based on religion and birth and as such they remain permanently in their respective circles which means a person born to a minority section would always lose. To counter this has been the reservations and various other measures that have been instituted in the Constitution.

While all this may remain good on paper, the reality outside is changing. For the first time after Independence a party that has been explicitly pro-majority has come to power. Moreover Union Ministers like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti is openly addressing minority communities as ‘Haraamzadon’ or ‘illegitimate offspring’, religious processions are being blocked, Churches are being burnt, youths are being murdered in the name of religion and all that our respected Prime Minister could do was deliver a speech on condemning communal violence on the occasion of Independence Day.

The identity of India lies in its harmony among diversity. It is the essence that has kept the spirit of the nation going. But when a Government which shares ideologies with extremist Hindutva groups, and when its Ministers are openly condescending upon minorities, this identity of India is going get tainted. Will Modi let that happen or not? Only time will tell. 

It's Getting Serious in Bengal...

          With Congress in its most wretched condition and BJP trying to make a grand entrance into Bengal, Mamata has to take the lead against the NDA before it is too late.

The Saradha Scam and TMC’s alleged relation with Bangladeshi migrants and ‘terrorists’ have put a hole in the clean image of the TMC while BJP’s image is clearly building up under the charm and charisma of Modi and the political crookedness of Amit Shah. If this is allowed to continue, TMC has no existence and hence must fight or perish.

While Mamata is doing what she has always done, that is to blame the Central government for the lack of support they provide, BJP is pestering her with a number of scams, lack of development and minority appeasement. Mamata has, at most times, able to get away with her trick but this time it seems to be not working in her favour.

An entry of BJP into West Bengal would be a tragedy for all other parties not only because such an entry would have a huge impact on both National and regional politics but also because, apart from the Left, there is no national level party to compete them there. It is like giving BJP their own personal voting machine which could in every way decide the outcome of national politics.

It is high time for Mamata as well as Congress and Left to charge against BJP, for it is the only way to assure their survival.    

Oh the hypocrisy!

BJP- a party that has taken its birth from an almost extremist Hindu nationalist organisation like RSS and that has been professing more or less Fascist concepts of Rama Janmabhoomi and Hindutva- is now trying to field Muslims in the next polls. What could be a better example of double-standards in politics?

BJP leader Mangal Pandey has ennobled the decision to field Muslim candidates by stating that Bihar's development would not be complete if the Muslims remained untouched. So, does that mean BJP has suddenly become a saintly ‘secular’ party? No, it means they have properly analysed the consequences of not fielding Muslim candidates in at least those constituencies that have high Muslim population (ranging from 18% to 48% in some districts).  

 An ideology, a principle should be the backbone of any political party. If a party abandons its ideologies to get into power, then the whole process of democratic selection of a political party is rendered meaningless. BJP has been doing only this for the past few years. It has renamed and implemented most of the UPA policies which they had themselves criticised while in Opposition. Some examples of this being the implementation of Land Swapping programme with Bangladesh, the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyaan being renamed and implemented as Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan etc.

This fielding of Muslim candidates and painting a secular image for themselves, is BJP’s next iteration of their mockery of Indian public.

It's The Same Old Story!

With the assembly elections upcoming, the restlessness in the political circles of Jammu and Kashmir flares on.

Omar Abdullah of the National Conference has called the Sajjad Lone of People’s Conference an ‘RSS stooge’ and that BJP would revoke article 370 along with Muslim Personal Law to damage the state’s demography and character.

What Omar has said, or done, is nothing new. It’s all part of that old ‘Blame Game’ in which Indian politicians where always the masters. When something like a General Election comes up, politicians without any party wise distinctions comes out of their comfy little burrows to blame someone or the other and then go back as soon as the elections get over.

Rarely does a politician speak of any practical actions that might be taken after the election. Everything that matters to the people, who listens to these politicians are the sentimental value attached to it. Indian politics in that sense is worse than the ‘Saans Bahu’ TV serials.

Here the heated debate is between two political leaders, who have had special status studying abroad and almost never seeing their ‘State’ and its people for almost half of their lifetime, about the distant possibility of revoking the special status given to the state.

When will there be an actual debate about the actual issues? Politicians need to at least attempt to come up with solutions to the actual and immediate issues that pertain to the people rather than blaming each other or promising, in ornamental languages, some abstractions that is ultimately only a figure of speech. 

Can this be called Fascism?

          The Indian Council for Historical Research recently made it into the news when the new chief, Y Sudershan Rao who was appointed by BJP Government openly expressed his belief in Vedic literature and caste system.

The ICHR is a fund distributing agency under the HRD Ministry which has a 27 member council whose three year term is coming to an end shortly. The RSS and its affiliates have already sent their list of favoured candidates to the Central government. “It is time they(the council) are replaced with people who help in writing history with Indian perspective, giving more space to Indian icons,” says the RSS who has recommended candidates who believes that Ramayana and Mahabharata were real.

It is true that an Indian perspective of looking at History is lacking, but what we need is not a religious perspective but a secular, objective perspective of looking at the various Historical and the possible Pre-historical events of India. If we find historical facts supporting Hindu mythologies and beliefs, it would be happily accepted but what RSS is trying to do is ‘Hindu’fying the Indian History. This is not acceptable and should not be allowed.

History and politics go interrelated, but to rewrite History using the ephemeral political power has always been associated with tyranny and hence must not be allowed to take roots in a democracy. 

A Tamil Uproar!

The only other Minister, other than Modi, to repeatedly come into news in the BJP government is Mrs Smriti Irani, owing to her ministry’s notorious and cruel plan to make Sanskrit compulsory in all the Kendriya Vidyalayas. But when it’s about nationalising Sanskrit, wasn’t this, a Tamil rebellion, expected?

Agreed, that Sanskrit is one of the most beautiful and richest languages of the world but to impose it on unsuspecting students, in the middle of an academic year, without any warning is not only inhumane but it also devalues the ‘language of the Gods’ as it is merely used as a tool in a farce attempt to perpetuate some petty ideologues of a neo-fascist organisation.  

On top of this, the fight between Tamil and Sankrit has been long, rather I should say the fight between Tamil speakers and Sanskrit adorers, who doesn’t know much of either language, has been long. Any attempt at ‘nationalising’ Sanskrit or any of its offspring languages is looked upon contemptuously by the Tamil speakers. This warning by Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President EVKS Elangovan to the Central government might just be a beginning.

 Anyways, the decision to make Sanskrit compulsory is looked upon contemptuously by everyone and not only the Tamil people. When there are better, but slow and gradual, options to introduce Sanskrit as a practical language, such a radical introduction of Sanskrit was totally uncalled for.

If this ain't stupidity, then what is?

          The Rajya Sabha had to be adjourned thrice in the day when Congress MPs created a ruckus over the removal of Rajiv Gandhi’s name from the Domestic terminal of Hyderabad airport and renaming it after Telugu Desam Party’s late founder NT Rama Rao.

The Congress alleged that the Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju was playing cheap politics by removing Gandhi’s name. The NDA was quick to react by saying that only the domestic terminal has been renamed, the international terminal is still named after Rajiv Gandhi.

This is what is happening in the Upper House of Indian Parliament. Changing the names of airport terminals, fighting days and days over it and then letting everything go into the oblivion. What difference would it make to anybody who boards the plane, if the name of the terminal is named after NTR or Rajiv Gandhi? How does changing the names of terminal, in any way help bettering common man’s life?

Nope. No politician, no political party would ever have an answer to these, because if they had, then how will they be able to fool people? People should start thinking, questioning these acts of politicians. They are wasting entire days and weeks on matters that has least significance while huge issues are piled up begging to be solved with intricate discussions and planning.

I hope someday people ask the right questions and the politicians start finding the right answers.