Category Archives: Politics

Debates, Politics, Sex

Teachers’ Intervention in the Supreme Court on Section 377

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The Delhi High Court judgement reading down Section 377 to decriminalize consensual sex between adults was appealed against in the Supreme Court by several religious groups. However during the appeal, the Government of India withdrew its objections to the High Court judgement. In addition, there were some parties that intervened to support the judgement – parents, medical practitioners and teachers, among others. The Supreme Court judgement is awaited, but meanwhile, I am posting below the  position of the 16 teachers who intervened in this matter. This statement does not form part of court documents.

As teachers we essentially wanted to make the argument that Section 377 vitiates for everybody (and not just for gay people) the general atmosphere of free expression, learning, enquiry, and dignity that an academic environment should ensure.  That we oppose Sec 377 because its existence on the statute books legitimizes an atmosphere that runs counter to the spirit of openness and acceptance of difference that should mark modern academic spaces.  Its existence is not only an affront to those who are non-heterosexual, but it is an affront to each and every person in the academy who believes that every teacher and student has dignity that should be respected, and that learning is a continuous and life-long process, in which fixed ways of thinking are continuously challenged and reshaped by winds of change.

  Continue reading Teachers’ Intervention in the Supreme Court on Section 377 →

Government, Identities, Politics

A Brief Summary of the Interlocutors’ Report on Kashmir: Shoaib Rafiq

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This guest post by SHOAIB RAFIQ is an analysis of the Home Ministry-appointed group of interlocutors’ report on Kashmir 

We swear by the fundamentals of absurdism
of that all we have learned
our solutions will mimic the ludicrousness
that we employ in our education, research, and other related shit. Continue reading A Brief Summary of the Interlocutors’ Report on Kashmir: Shoaib Rafiq →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Politics

Updates from Koodankulam

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Via NITYANAND JAYARAMAN

Koodankulam: Curb on Free Speech

Video Interviews with  eminent legal scholar Dr. Usha Ramanathan and Adv. R. Vaigai, a senior lawyer from the Madras High Court.

Since March 19, 2012, when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that work on the controversial Koodankulam nuclear plant could be resumed, and even before that actually, the protesting villagers have been at the receiving end of a vicious state led campaign to paint their non-violent struggle as a violent one, and to crush their campaign into silence by using harsh sections of the Indian Penal Code. More than 7000 cases of “sedition” and “waging war against the Government of India” have been filed just in the Koodankulam police station just between September and December 2011. These are part of 107 cases filed against 55,795 people during the same period. That is probably more than in any other police station in India. Certain sections of the media too have played the role of a willing partner in propagating the State’s propaganda. In pursuing this counter-campaign against its own people, the State Government has placed itself above the law of the land and pursued an openly anti-democratic agenda.

See interviews in two parts at at 

1. chaikadai.wordpress.com

2. chaikadai.wordpress.com

PRESS RELEASE

Cases against K-protestors a parody of law: Fact Finding Team

18 April, 2012. CHENNAI – A fact-finding team headed by senior journalist Sam Rajappa confirmed that the Government had indeed restricted movement of essential goods and people in the days following the Chief Minister’s March 19th declaration announcing her support to the nuclear plant. The report, which was released at a press conference in Chennai, noted that the spirit of opposition to the nuclear power plant was very high, and warned that arresting the leaders could lead to a serious law and order problem in the region.

Continue reading Updates from Koodankulam →

Debates, Frontiers, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

On the India hand in Nepal

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In an interview with this writer for The Hindu newspaper last week, Maoist chairman Prachanda explained the sudden decision to send the Nepal Army to the cantonments, revealed the possible meeting points on constitutional issues, said that he would have no objection to an NC-led government promulgating the constitution, and declared his personal ambition of wanting “5-10 years” to “implement his vision”. But the bit that has drawn the most attention here in Kathmandu is his public acknowledgment of India’s role in Nepal’s political transformation—from the 12-point agreement, to the CA elections, to the declaration of republic and the progress in the peace process.

Expectedly, ultra-nationalist websites have latched onto this as proof of Prachanda’s “subservience”; right wing stalwarts have the “We told you so” smug look about how they were right all along that this was an external plot. In a different context, there has also been commentary projecting India’s current phase of engagement with the Maoist as somewhat opposed to the Nepali people’s aspirations for peace and democracy.

It would be useful to look at the several issues enmeshed here separately, based on the evidence currently available. Continue reading On the India hand in Nepal →

Capitalism, Government, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Workers Struggle in Dehradun

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The following is a statement from Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh and the Inquilabi Mazdoor Sangh received via Shankar Gopalakrishnan

Between 12 and 1 yesterday, 15 April 2012, the Uttarakhand police lathi charged more than 300 workers who have been sitting on a protest in Dehradun for the last ten days. 11 workers who have been on hunger strike (six from April 6th and five who joined them on April 9th) have been forcibly hospitalised in Doon Hospital, where they are resisting attempts to force-feed them. 326 workers have been arrested and detained in various jails in the city.

The workers have been on strike for more than three weeks now. They are employees of the Rockman and Satyam Auto plants in Haridwar, both major suppliers of Hero Motors. As in Manesar, Haryana last year, these workers are being paid extremely low wages for more than 12 hours of work a day; when they sought to form a union to demand respect for labour laws, the five leaders of the union were illegally sacked immediately and the others threatened with a similar fate. On March 19th the majority of permanent workers at Rockman came out on strike in protest at this illegal brutality, and on March 22nd they were joined by all the permanent workers at Satyam. Continue reading Workers Struggle in Dehradun →

Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

A State of ‘Encounters’: Madhumita Dutta

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This guest post has been written by MADHUMITA DUTTA, a Chennai-based activist and writer, in conversation with Savukku Shankar, a former employee of the police department and a freelance journalist

“This state has witnessed more than 90 encounters in the last 15 years.  Tamil Nadu is a state of encounters!” laments ‘Savukku’ Shankar. ‘Encounters’, a euphemism for extra-judicial killings, began in the state in the 1980s when the government started cracking down on members of Maoist organisations around Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu.

On April 9th of this year, a Division Bench constituted by the Madras High Court was to commence its final hearing on PILs filed by Advocate Puzhalenthi, asking filing of murder charges against policemen involved in the recent ‘encounter’ deaths of five alleged bank robbers in Velachery; and questioning the magisterial enquiry ordered by the government under Cr. P.C. 176 (1A). Said Shankar, “That section applies only to custodial deaths, but this is an encounter killing”. The matter finally got adjourned to 5th of June. It is not uncommon for cases like this to drag on for years in the Courts. A special bench constituted by the court to hear 26 ‘encounter’ cases that took place in Tamil Nadu between 2006 and 2010 is yet to commence its hearings. Continue reading A State of ‘Encounters’: Madhumita Dutta →

Everyday Life, Government, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

My Days in Tihar Jail

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Mrs Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, represented the Rai Bareli seat in the Lok Sabha. On 12th June 1975 she was unseated on charges of election fraud and misuse of state machinery in a landmark judgement by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court.  Fakhr-ud-Din Ali Ahmad, the then President of India, declared internal emergency on the 25th of June,  on the recommendation of a pliable cabinet presided over by Mrs G. The people of India lost all civil liberties for a period of 21 months.

Trade unions were emasculated, political opponents were arrested, newspapers censored, the only place where a semblance of freedom survived, for a short while, were the universities, most were in turmoil and were being singled out for special attention. Students unions were being banned and activists were being picked up and thrown in jail.

Continue reading My Days in Tihar Jail →

Debates, Government, Identities, Politics, Sex

Between Aid Conditionality and Identity Politics – The MSM-Transgender Divide and Normative Cartographies of Gender vs. Sexuality: Aniruddha Dutta

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This guest post by ANIRUDDHA DUTTA continues a theme raised on Kafila by Rahul Rao

Late last year, the UK and US governments made announcements supporting the global propagation of LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) rights as human rights, suggesting that the future disbursal of aid might be made conditional on how LGBT-friendly recipient countries are perceived to be. The potential imposition of ‘gay conditionality’ on aid has been rightly critiqued for imposing a US/European model of sexual progress on ‘developing’ countries, which may justify covert geopolitical agendas and fail to actually benefit marginalized groups. But whatever form such conditionalities may take in the future, a more implicit and routine form of aid conditionality has been already at work, relatively unnoticed, for several years now – the presumption of distinct and enumerable minorities corresponding to categories like homosexual or transgender as target groups for aid in socio-cultural contexts where gender/sexual variance may not be reducible to such clear-cut categories or identities. Increasingly, community-based organizations (CBOs) working to gain gender/sexual rights or freedoms need to define themselves in accordance with dominant frameworks of gender-sexual identity to get funding both from foreign donors and the Indian state, creating identity-based divisions among CBOs and presenting existential challenges to communities that do not exactly fit these categories.

Continue reading Between Aid Conditionality and Identity Politics – The MSM-Transgender Divide and Normative Cartographies of Gender vs. Sexuality: Aniruddha Dutta →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Politics, Theory

Life After Capitalism? A Document From Another Time

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The French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, who perhaps reflected most on the question of ‘ideology’, once wrote that “ideology moves, but with an immobile motion that keeps it where it is”. Althusser did not make any claim about the truth or falsity of ideology. At a certain level, ideology undoubtedly refers to something that is real or true. What interested Althusser instead, was the relationship of ‘ideology’ to what he called ‘science’ – namely, that critical activity, which continuously works to take knowledge forward. Science, according to him, always lived by focusing on that which it did not know; ideology on the other hand, was that which remained with the obviousness of the already-known. Every new question that a science poses is effectively subsumed by ideology to give us something that we already knew. That is why science, he believed, was always  pursued, beseiged and occupied by ideology and had to continuously struggle to free itself from its grasp in order to live.

The CPI(M)’s ‘Draft Resolution on Some Ideological Issues’ prepared by the party for discussion and adoption at the party’s 20th Congress that began in Kozhikode today, is truly an ideological document in Althusser’s sense. It claims to move with the times and update the party thought apparatus but in reality, moves in order to stay where it is. It works to relentlessly re-present all the difficult questions of our times as if they were already known to the founders of something called ‘Marxism-Leninism’.

Continue reading Life After Capitalism? A Document From Another Time →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Politics

CPI(M) shelves class struggle in action: Sankar Ray

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Guest post by SANKAR RAY

[As the CPIM)’s 20th Congress began in Kozhikhode today, we bring two pieces marking the occasion. AN]

Unbelievable though it may seem even to the staunchest critic of CPI(M), ‘class struggle’ is totally missing in the 20950-plus word Draft Political Resolution (DPR) of the CPI(M), circulated and debated inside the party for over two months, that will be finalized with amendments, deletions and additions, at the 20th party Congress at Kozhikode between 4 and 9 April. The finalized political resolution is to be party’s tactical line until the 21st Congress four years later. The omission of ‘class struggle’ in the DPR, a basic document for committed struggle is stupefying as communists the world over frequently quote Marx that the history of mankind is “the history of class struggles”.

It’s not new as class struggle was omitted in the Political Resolution adopted at the 19th Congress ( Coimbatore, 29 March- 3 April 2008). But unlike at Coimbatore, the latest draft document talks of ‘people’s democracy’, CPI(M)’s main ideology, enshrined in the Updated Party Programme ( adopted at a special party conference in October 2000 at Thiruvananthapuram). But the pledge for moving forward to “a new, alternative path – towards people’s democracy and socialism” is vague.

Continue reading CPI(M) shelves class struggle in action: Sankar Ray →

Countryside, Government, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

सत्ता और हिंसा : बद्री नारायण

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बद्री नारायण का यह लेख लखनऊ के एक हिंदी अख़बार को दिया गया था पर उन्होंने छापने से मना कर दिया.

शक्ति अपने संस्थागत रुप में सत्ता में तब्दील हो जाती है। सत्ता अपने मूल अर्थ में भय एवं हिंसा पर टिकी होती है। सत्ता का अभ्यांतरिकरण हो या सत्ता का प्रतिरोध, दोनों ही अर्थो में हिंसा उसके सह उत्पादक के रुप में दिखाई पड़ती है। जनतंत्र को एक ऐसी प्रक्रिया के रुप में परिकल्पित किया गया था जो सत्ता को उसके हिंसक पक्ष से मुक्त कराके सेवाभाव के एजेन्सी के रुप में सक्रिय रखे। यह माना जा रहा था कि जनतंत्र सत्ता को रेशनालाइज कर उसे सेवा-भावि प्रशासकीय स्वरुप में तब्दील कर देती है। यह काफी कुछ हुआ भी किन्तु अपने कार्य-प्रक्रिया में इस जनतांत्रिक समय में भी सत्ता हिंसा को उत्पादित करते रहने वाली शक्तिस्रोत के रुप में सामने आई है। सत्ता पहले अपने भीतर अपने ही कारणो से क्राइसिस को जन्म देती है, फिर उससे उबरने के लिए हिंसा रचती है। बंगाल, झारखण्ड, आन्ध्र के जंगलों में पहले तो बाजार शासित विकास के तहत आदिवासी जीवन के संसाधनों पर कब्जा कर उन्हे बहुराष्ट्रीय कम्पनियों को बेचना, फिर उसके विरोध में आदिवासी जनता का नक्सलवादी विचारों एवं नेतृत्व में हिंसक प्रतिरोध का बढ़ते जाना, पुनः उसे दबाने के लिए राज्य द्वारा की जाने वाली ज्यादा आक्रामक एवं खुंखार हिंसा को इसी रुप में देखा जा सकता है। Continue reading सत्ता और हिंसा : बद्री नारायण →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Identities, Metropolis, Politics, Theory

The Many Uses of a U.P Election

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I live in Noida, which is the child of an extra-legal union between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Noida is not-quite Delhi, not-quite U.P, not quite itself on most days. Living in a cusp has several advantages, however, the main one being that one can look either way, up at Delhi and right down over U.P’s scruffy head. I found myself doing both in the recently-concluded U.P election. Curiously it seemed, for Delhi people, U.P’s 2012 elections were flush with new meaning. For decades the favourite whipping boy of Delhi, U.P had overnight become its favourite gap-toothed angel. For Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, the U.P election was a historic battle between empowerment and patronage, the future and the past, performance and rhetoric, sincerity and cynicism, and (this is my favourite) ‘rootedness over disembodied charm’. Mehta believes that while voters ‘carefully assessed’ candidates through the ‘prism of local circumstances’, they were no longer prisoners of their identity. Most confounding is Mehta’s view of democracy, “In a democracy, where you are going should be more important than where you are coming from”. These U.P elections “redeemed that promise” according to Mehta, since they were “without a trace of community polarisation: no one felt on the edge or under siege, all could exercise options without being unduly burdened by the past.”

Continue reading The Many Uses of a U.P Election →

Centre watch, Government, Law, Movements, Politics

Happy Kapil Sibal’s Day

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Aseem Trivedi is a cartoonist in Kanpur. Or was. He has, for some months, been a full-time activist against internet censorship in India. As 2011 was turning into 2012, the Maharashtra police got his domain registrar to suspend his domain, http://cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, which was in support of the Anna Hazare-led Lokpal movement. His website wasn’t blocked, but the domain name suspended – the equivalent of shutting down a printing press. This was done in no time, and he wasn’t given an opportunity to defend his content. This was done thanks to the IT Rules 2011, a simple FAQ about which can be found here. Today, 1 April, Trivedi celebrated “Kapil Sibal’s Day,” calling the Communications minister the fool that he is. In the image below, taken at Delhi’s Rajghat today, Trivedi is standing on the extreme right. For more on Trivedi’s campaign, see http://www.saveyourvoice.in.

Hindi Press Release:

पुलिस प्रशासन के अवरोध के बावजूद राजघाट पर मनाया गया सिब्बल्स डे, पहुचे ब्लोगर्स और सोशल एक्टिविस्ट
1 अप्रैल के दिन पर राजघाट पर सेव योर वाइस की टीम ने आईटी मिनिस्टर कपिल सिब्बल को प्री सेंसरशिप पर दिए गए उनके बयानों के लिए  मूर्ख दिवस की शुभकामनाएं दीं. राजघाट परिसर में बड़ी संख्या में पुलिस बल, आईबी, सीआईडी और सीबीआई के लोग मौजूद थे और सेव योर वाइस के सदस्यों को बापू की समाधि पर जाने से रोका गया. केवल कुछ गिने चुने लोग ही चुपचाप राजघाट पर पहुच पाए. पुलिस ने पूर्व अनुमति होने के बावजूद सिब्बल दिवस का आयोजन नहीं होने दिया. कारण पूछने पर उच्चस्तरीय आदेशों का हवाला दिया गया और कहा गया कि उन्हें पीएमओ . और आईटी मिनिस्ट्री से आदेश दिए गए हैं. काफी गहमागहमी के बाद टीम के सदस्य राजघाट के बाहर समता स्थल पर एकत्र हुए.  Continue reading Happy Kapil Sibal’s Day →
Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Politics, Theory

Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’

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Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’

 Book Review 

Lineages of Political Society, by Partha Chatterjee, Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2011. Pages: 278, hardcover, Rs 750.

 

Lineages of Political Society

 Over a decade ago, political theorist Partha Chatterjee embarked on what was a novel journey in the history of political thought in India and perhaps, in the postcolonial, non-Western world. Bringing together the results of decades of his own intellectual engagement with Indian politics and the question of subalternity in particular, Chatterjee began articulating a concept that has now acquired wide currency: his concept of ‘political society’. ‘Political society’, in Chatterjee’s hands, was a way of recuperating a sphere of politics that had been a permanent source of anxiety for theorists of Indian (and postcolonial) modernity and democracy – the vast domain that existed outside the designated spheres of modern politics, where the untutored masses made claims on the state and formed their own associations and organizations, unmindful of the formal grammar of rights and citizenship. A crucial part of what defines activities in this domain is ‘illegality’, or, at any rate, non-legality, where the state itself places the law in suspension in order to recognize the claims of the governed. Thus for instance, squatting by the poor on government land that is strictly speaking, encroachment in legal terms and can never acquire the status of a ‘right’, is nevertheless allowed by governments to continue through the recognition of some kind of moral claim of the poor on governments and society at large.

Continue reading Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’ →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Movements, Politics

Occupy Monsanto!

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Some good news for a change…

Peru Passes Monumental Ten Year Ban on Genetically Engineered Foods

In a massive blow to multinational agribiz corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer, and Dow, Peru has officially passed a law banning genetically modified ingredients anywhere within the country for a full decade before coming up for another review. Peru’s Plenary Session of the Congress made the decision 3 years after the decree was written despite previous governmental pushes for GM legalization due largely to the pressure from farmers that together form the Parque de la Papa in Cusco, a farming community of 6,000 people that represent six communities. They worry the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will compromise the native species of Peru, such as the giant white corn, purple corn and, of course, the famous species of Peruvian potatoes. Anibal Huerta, President of Peru’s Agrarian Commission, said the ban was needed to prevent the ”danger that can arise from the use of biotechnology.”

Read the rest of this story here.

Bad ideas, Genders, Language, Law, Movements, Politics

Does democracy stop at the doorstep of the women’s hostel?

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This appeal comes to us via MAYA JOHN

Friends,

Since January of 2012, residents of Delhi University’s largest postgraduate women’s hostel, University Hostel for Women (UHW) have been waging a battle against outright suppression of their democratic rights by, both, their hostel authorities and the University’s Proctorial Committee. Since the hostel’s Chairperson is also the Proctor of the University, the Proctorial Committee has been intervening in the matter, not as a neutral party, but in complete connivance with the hostel authorities. There are two issues which are central to the ongoing struggle of the women students, namely, the imposition of a union constitution by the authorities, and the existence of archaic and conservative rules in the hostel.

Continue reading Does democracy stop at the doorstep of the women’s hostel? →

Culture, Everyday Life, Identities, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Jai Bhim, Comrade Patwardhan

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How many murdered Dalits does it take to wake up a nation? Ten? A thousand? A hundred thousand? We’re still counting, as Anand Patwardhan shows in his path-breaking film Jai Bhim Comrade (2011). Not only are we counting, but we’re counting cynically, calculating, dissembling, worried that we may accidentally dole out more than ‘they’ deserve. So we calibrate our sympathy, our policies and our justice mechanisms just so. So that the upper caste killers of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange’s family get life imprisonment for parading Priyanka Bhotmange naked before killing her, her brother and other members of the family in Khairlanji village in Maharashtra, but the court finds no evidence that this may be a crime of hatred – a ‘caste atrocity’ as it is termed in India. Patwardhan’s film documents the twisted tale of Khairlanji briefly before moving to a Maratha rally in Mumbai, where pumped-up youths, high on testosterone and the bloody miracle of their upper caste birth are dancing on the streets, brandishing cardboard swords and demanding job reservations (the film effectively demolishes the myth that caste consciousness and caste mobilisation are only practised by the so-called ‘lower castes’). Asked on camera about the Khairlanji murders, one Maratha manoos suspends his cheering to offer an explanation. That girl’s character was so loose, he says, that the entire village decided to teach her a lesson.

Continue reading Jai Bhim, Comrade Patwardhan →

Capitalism, Countryside, Government, Politics

FDI In Retail – What Does the Government’s Own Data Say? Shankar Gopalakrishnan

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Guest post by SHANKAR GOPALAKRISHNAN

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee declared that the government’s “decision” to allow FDI in multi-brand retail outlets “has been held in abeyance” until there is a “broad based consensus.”  In other words, it’s already a decision, but it’s just being held back until the government feels it can go ahead safely.  The question though is: why is the government so convinced of its decision?  How does Mr. Mukherjee so firmly declare that “organised retail helps in reducing costs of intermediation… benefiting both consumers and producers”?  Has the government done the homework to justify its actions?  This note looks at the government’s own data to find out.

As far as is known, there was only one study commissioned by the government in this regard (Business Standard 2007)  This was done by ICRIER in 2007, first published as a Working Paper in 2008 (Joseph et al 2008), and subsequently converted into a book – Retail in India: A Critical Assessment – in 2009, with one chapter added by other authors.[i]

Continue reading FDI In Retail – What Does the Government’s Own Data Say? Shankar Gopalakrishnan →

Debates, Identities, Politics

Thinking through UP election results with numbers: Rahul Verma

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Guest post by RAHUL VERMA

Here’s a closer analysis of Uttar Pradesh 2012 election results

In an article the Times of India says the Samajwadi Party’s victory in Uttar Pradesh seems to be an even more impressive sweep than the BSP’s 2007 showing, but it’s actually a less comprehensive domination. According to the same article, the SP did not do well in western UP and Bundelkhand. They do not provide any reason for this.

My analysis of the election results data shows that average number of candidates per assembly constituency and average number of candidates per one lakh electorate in west UP and Bundelkhand, was slightly lower than other regions of the state. In west UP and Bundelkhand, the average number of candidates per one lakh electorate was approximately 8.5 and average number of candidates per assembly constituency was approximately 16. Whereas in other parts of the state average number of candidates per one lakh electors was approximately 9.5 and average number of candidates per assembly constituency was 17. This means that in other regions of the state votes were more divided and thus the SP got an edge in terms of winning seats. In the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system with multi-cornered contests, even such small gaps lead to big swings in terms of seats a party can win. Continue reading Thinking through UP election results with numbers: Rahul Verma →

Identities, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

We, the People of Gujarat: Urvish Kothari

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This guest post by URVISH KOTHARI was originally written in Gujarati and has been translated by VISTASP HODIWALA

Associated Press

Some facts are so simple and self-evident that they elude you completely at the time they happen. Digesting them takes time – 2, 3,7, maybe even 10 years. By that time, the passion and the anger has abated a bit and there is a sense of composure that pervades our beings.

Like the fact about the communal violence that gripped the State of Gujarat in 2002.

Of course, a mere mention of this is enough to get the chief minister’s fanboys roll up their sleeves, even as their opponents ready themselves to launch a counter onslaught. But with the passage of ten long years, the first question should not be about whether the Chief Minister was complicit in the crime or not. No, it cannot be.

Continue reading We, the People of Gujarat: Urvish Kothari →

Centre watch, Debates, Government, Politics

A Flawed Democracy – The Case for Proportional Representation in India: Srinivasan Ramani

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Guest post by SRINIVASAN RAMANI

Times of India graphic

For all the chest thumping and tomtoming about the Samajwadi Party’s emphatic victory – winning 224 seats out of 403 in the UP Assembly elections – a true reflection of the mandate is to be seen in the individual vote shares of the four main (“effective”) parties in the elections (the Bahujan Samaj Party – Bhartiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party, and the Congress – in alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal). Data from the Election Commission of India website shows the following in terms of vote shares:

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