Tag Archives: Hindutva

Everyday Life, Identities, Right watch

Bhagat Singh and the Hindu Rashtra: Mahtab Alam

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Guest post by MAHTAB ALAM

“The communists’ ideologues conveniently ignore the truth that the roots of Bhagat Singh’s ideology lie in the very concept of Hindu Rashtra,” claims an article by Dipin Damodharan, published on this day last year. Damodharan, as introduced at the end of the article, is a student pursuing Masters in Communication and Journalism (MCJ) at the Calicut University of Kerala. He argues: “To my knowledge, he sacrificed his precious life for a noble cause, for the liberation of Bharat from the invaders, for nationalism. Undoubtedly Bhagat’s legacy belongs to every Bharati. But for the communists (experts in transforming sheep to dog), he died for communism and not for nationalism. They are incessantly advocating Bhagat as their poster boy, for several years they have been using Goebalsian tricks to claim Bhagat’s legacy.” The author further argues, “They are injecting fake stories about Bhagat into the blood of youth who are ignorant about Bharat’s history. Discarding the historical facts, the communists become angry with the Sangh inspired organizations for propagating Bhagat’s ideals”. Continue reading Bhagat Singh and the Hindu Rashtra: Mahtab Alam →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Government

The myth of India’s Hajj subsidy: Muhammad Farooq

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Guest post by MUHAMMAD FAROOQ

Recently the Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutional validity of extending subsidy on air fare to the Hajj Pilgrims. This year Rs.280 Crores were reportedly spent by the Government of India to subsidise the air fare of one lakh pilgrims. This amounts to a subsidy of Rs.28000/- per pilgrim. The subsidy provided to the pilgrims has understandably generated a lot of debate within political and social circles in India. While the right wing political parties, when not in power, consider it as an unnecessary appeasement of Indian Muslims, the governments formed by any party have always seen it as a necessary expenditure to help Muslims perform their religious obligation of Hajj.

Since I have also performed my Hajj this year, I decided to do some quick calculations to check the veracity of the tall claims made by the GoI and the Hajj Committee regarding the subsidy amount (see box). The results were quite shocking. I checked with one of the service providers —‘makemytrip.com’— and it showed up the Saudi Airline’s fare of a little over Rs.26000/- for a return Delhi-Jeddah ticket with a gap of around forty days. It was amazing to find that the total airfare of Rs.26,000 for a hajj pilgrimage is even lower than the subsidy amount  of Rs.28,000 thousand which is allegedly paid by GoI to airlines to subsidise the “high cost” of the air tickets. Continue reading The myth of India’s Hajj subsidy: Muhammad Farooq →

Bad ideas, Law, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Blasphemy, Sedition, Democracy

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Have you ever wondered?

Why does our media get so worked up when someone in Pakistan is accused of or convicted for blasphemy but is not overly perturbed when someone is charged with or convicted for Sedition in India?

Is this differentiated response occasioned by the belief that a modern state should overlook things like blasphemy but give no quarter to sedition?

Do anti-Blasphemy laws encroach upon Individual freedom while anti-sedition laws protect national interests? Is convicting someone for blasphemy essentially undemocratic but doing the same for sedition not so?

Let’s for the time being leave these major issues aside and engage ourselves with more mundane issues. Continue reading Blasphemy, Sedition, Democracy →

Centre watch, Law, Media politics, Right watch

Swami Aseemanand’s Confessions: It’s time for an apology?: JTSA

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This note comes from the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION

Swami Aseemanand

Swami Aseemanand’s confession before the metropolitan magistrate of Tees Hazari Court has finally put the seal of legal validity over what had been circulating for months now, since the surfacing of the audio tapes seized from Dayanand Pande’s laptop. That Hindutva groups had been plotting and executing a series of bomb blasts across the country—including Malegaon (2006 and 08), Samjhauta Express (2007), Ajmer Sharif (2007) and Mecca Masjid (2007).

For the past several years however, dozens of Muslim youth have been picked up, detained, tortured, chargesheeted for these blasts—with clearly no evidence, except for custodial confessions (which unlike Swami’s confessions have no legal value). Report after report has proved that the Maharashtra and Andhra police willfully refused to pursue the Hindutva angle preferring to engage in communal witch-hunt—or as in the case of Nanded blast—where the evidence was so glaring as to be unimpeachable—weakening the prosecution of these elements.

Continue reading Swami Aseemanand’s Confessions: It’s time for an apology?: JTSA →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

My Name is Pandey

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Swami Aseemanand

With so much talk of Hindutva terrorism (see Kafila archive), I as a Hindu want to clarify that:

  • Not all Hindus are terrorists.
  • Not all terrorists are Hindus.
  • Not all Hindus are Hindutvawaadis.
  • All Hindutvawaadis are Hindus.
  • Not all Hindutvawaadis are terrorists
  • All Hindus who are terrorists are Hindutvawaadis. Continue reading My Name is Pandey →
Bad ideas, Centre watch, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The Definition Shortchanges India

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Guest post by DILIP D’SOUZA

Responding to Rahul Gandhi’s recent Wikileaked comment, Sadanand Dhume asks “What Terrorizes India?” (Wall Street Journal, December 20). It’s a good question that deserves an answer. Did Dhume answer it?

As is well known now, Gandhi said this to US Ambassador Tim Roemer last year: “The bigger threat [to India] may be the growth of radicalized Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community.” Dhume’s essay is a severe criticism of Gandhi’s comment, and in the end of the man himself. The criticism, I’m not particularly interested in: people have their varying opinions about Gandhi and that’s fine with me. But I wonder if Dhume has thought through the implication of his own title. Indeed, what does terrorize India, and Indians? Continue reading The Definition Shortchanges India →

Debates, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Villain in Life, Hero in Death: Hindutva’s New found Love for Hemant Karkare

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…sources who were close to Karkare have said there was indeed a threat perception at that time and the former ATS chief was disturbed over allegations against his family after the Malegaon probe was made public.

However, they said “Karkare was not scared” and that “he was very practical and took adequate measures to ensure his family was safe”. According to sources, Karkare had raised the wall around his house just a week before his death and also brought home a dog. “The wall was raised around the garage-end of the house, as it faced the road outside,” sources said.

An officer, who did not wish to be identified, said, “Soon after the probe, there were news reports alleging various things about his family which disturbed him. He was not scared for his life nor was he the kind to be afraid of consequences of an honest probe. …It was the allegations against his family that disturbed him and he took practical measures to ensure their safety.”

(Indian Express, Posted: Tue Dec 14 2010, 03:31 hrs Mumbai) Continue reading Villain in Life, Hero in Death: Hindutva’s New found Love for Hemant Karkare →

Everyday Life, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

City in Terror: Dilip D’Souza

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Guest post by DILIP D’SOUZA

Starting today eighteen years ago, for much of December and January (and then March 12), Indian killed Indian on the streets of my city. Terror at its most elemental: I felt it then. I saw it then. Others told me about it then.

Some memories of those weeks, in no particular order but they all still make my hair stand on end.

Bad ideas, Identities, Images, Politics, Right watch

Will the Insecure Male at the News Desk Please Stand Up?

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K.K. Shahina, of the Tehelka, some feel, may be a terrorist. No prizes for guessing who. After all, Shahina has been working, despite pressures of all sorts, to unravel the impossible web of lies that the police, the media, and political parties have been weaving around the figure of Abdul Nasar Madani, who was arrested again as an accused in the 2008 Bangalore blast case and denied bail. Madani, as is well-known, had already suffered enormous injustice at the hands of the Indian state but to the chagrin of the Hindutva ‘nationalists’, he re-entered the political arena. Whether one agrees with him on Islam or other matters, or about his choice of alliances, is a different matter. Choosing to demand space in the political public, he exercised his right as a citizen, and thereby indicated a preliminary implicit willingness to place his views before a critical public. Continue reading Will the Insecure Male at the News Desk Please Stand Up? →

Everyday Life, Identities, Movements, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

This Chhath Puja, Ram ke naam: Mahtab Alam

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Guest post by MAHTAB ALAM

Last week, after a gap of almost 12 years, when I was asked by my family members to accompany them to see Chhatth Puja, an ancient Hindu festival dedicated to Surya, the Sun God, I could not resist myself and readily agreed to join them. As a school going boy, I had always enjoyed watching the festival and devotees performing the rituals observed for the Puja in my hometown Supaul, a district of Bihar, which borders the Tarai region of Nepal. In the last 12 years, I couldn’t get a chance to do so due to the mobile nature of work I am involved in. The Puja, most elaborately observed in Bihar, Jharkhand and the Terai regions of Nepal in modern times, and those areas where migrants from these regions have a presence. Chhath, usually observed six days after Diwali, was observed on 12 November this year. Continue reading This Chhath Puja, Ram ke naam: Mahtab Alam →

Culture, Politics, Right watch

‘Shastra Pujas’ – What’s Religious About Worshipping Weapons ?

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Schools are meant for play and studies where kids slowly blossom into adolescents. Schools are meant for books, laboratories and other cultural activities which cater to the all round development of its students. Schools are meant for opening up of minds, inculcating inquisitiveness and curiosity, explain the wonder that is the world and lead the students towards further enquiries and promoting inclusiveness cutting across different ascriptive categories with which all of us are born with.

Of course, in emergency situations, schools even metamorphose into shelter homes for the victims of a natural calamity or a social catastrophe.

But certainly, no sane person can imagine that school premises can ever be used for worshipping deadly weapons – loaded pistols and illegal rifles. But it appears that on this count RSS – the all hindu male organisation – thinks differently. It is not for nothing that schools which run under the aegis of its affiliated organisation are freely handed over for such programmes under the specious reason that it is a religious programme. Any close watcher of the ground level situation can vouch that worshipping of weapons on Dusshera has nothing to with religion rather it is part of social tradition. Despite this reality organising of ‘shastra pujas’ has of late become a national phenomenon and hindutva organisations are known to play an important role in it. It serves a double purpose for them : consolidate their constituency by using religion as the legitimising force, terrorising the ‘others’ simply by taking out ‘religious processions’ brandishing weapons.

Continue reading ‘Shastra Pujas’ – What’s Religious About Worshipping Weapons ? →

Debates, Government, Law, Violence/Conflict

Social Profiling – Indian Style

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“The Muslim is not wanted in the armed forces because he is always suspect – whether we want to admit it or not, most Indians consider Muslims a fifth column for Pakistan” [Vengeance! India after the assassination of Indira Gandhi (New Delhi, Norton, 1985), pp. 1995-96]
-George Fernandes

Amnesty International  defines racial profiling as the targeting of individuals and groups by law enforcement officials, even partially, on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion, except when there is trustworthy information, relevant to the locality and timeframe, that links persons belonging to one of the aforementioned groups to an identified criminal incident or scheme.

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Is racial/social profiling practised in India? Continue reading Social Profiling – Indian Style →

Excavation, Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Where Is Hemant Karkare’s Bullet Proof Jacket?

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Hemant Karkare’s family – his wife Kavita, his son and daughters and other near and dear ones – have slowly albeit silently come to terms with the fact that he is no more. Yes, there are occasions when his son takes out the laptop and scans the family album icon to see his father in various moods. There are a few photographs he really loves to watch again and again, where his dad looks a different person and not the usual policewallah.There are times when his mother also joins him and every photograph reminds her of the beautiful days they spent together.
It is known that born and brought up in Madhya Pradesh, Karkare did his engineering (mechanical) in Nagpur and worked at the National Productivity Council and Hindustan Lever before making it to the IPS in 1982. An avid reader of books Hemant during his stint in the Chandrapur forests near Nagpur in 1991 took an interest in driftwood, discovered artistic shapes in them and converted them into wooden sculptures, making about 150 of them over a two-year period.
Continue reading Where Is Hemant Karkare’s Bullet Proof Jacket? →

Government, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Did Goa Government ‘Partially Finance’SS Terrorists?

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Sanatan Sanstha’s link to Margao blast conspiracy just got thicker with all five accused arrested in the case having allegiance to the Hindu right wing organisation operating from Goa police said.

The latest arrest of 20-year old Dhananjay Ashtekar, an engineering student from Khed in Ratnagiri is also associated with Sanatan Sanstha’s activities. Ashtekar was arrested on Wednesday evening by state police’s Special Investigation Team, which is mandated to probe the blast. “He is related to Sanstha and has made it clear during his interrogation,” Superintendent of Police and spokesperson for Goa police department Atmaram Deshpande told PTI on Thursday.

Ashtekar was studying in an engineering college at Ichalkaranji, a town in  western Maharashtra. Deshpande said that the youth was being interrogated over blast case and only when there was sufficient material on record to prove his involvement, he was placed under arrest. Ashtekar is the fifth Sanatan Sanstha activist found to be linked with the blast conspiracy which went awry on the eve of Diwali.

Earlier two accused, Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik, who died in the Margao blast and two arrested persons, Vinayak Patil and Vinay Talekar, have confessed their links to Sanstha, which operates through its Ashram at Ramnathi. Deshpande had earlier said that the Sanstha is under scanner as its activists are part of the blast conspiracy. The police have, however, refused to move for a ban against Sanstha as there are no enough evidence to rope in it for the conspiracy. The Margao blast took place on October 16 killing two persons.
© Copy 2009 PTI. http://www.rediff.com, November 12, 2009 15:49 IST)

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How to keep Procrastinating When It Comes To Hindutva Terror ?
With every passing day it is becoming apparent that Indian state has different yardsticks to treat terrorism of the  Hindutva kind and that of the ‘Jihadi’ kind. It is not for nothing that more than four weeks after the bomb blasts in Goa – which saw deaths of two activists of Sanatan Sanstha, a emergent fanatic group cloaked in spiritual clothing – there has not been any significant move on part of the Goan government.
Continue reading Did Goa Government ‘Partially Finance’SS Terrorists? →

Everyday Life, Law, Right watch

Narendra Modi – Murdabad! Murdabad, murdabad!

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Can you even imagine Indian politics, or even India, without Murdabad? Who in this country has not seen a protest with people shouting “murdabad” after the name of a politician? Murdabad literally means death be upon you. In Gujarat, though, wishing death upon Narendra Modi can land you in jail. After the chief minister contracted swine flu, one Umesh Anupchandra Jain in Surat sent his friend Nirav Jagdishchandra Rana an SMS that read: “Jay Shree Ram. Narendra Modi ne swine flu positive. Bhagwan ene jaldi uthavi le aevi prarthna. Jaisi karni vaisi bharni.” That translates as: ‘Jai Shri Ram. Narendra Modi is swine flu positive. Let’s pray that god takes him away soon. As you sow, so you reap.’

So what if the recipient, Nirav, further circulated this to another 500 people? And so what if some of those were Modi fans, who were infuriated enough to go to the police station with it? What in those words gives the police the right to arrest Umesh and Nirav under charges of promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy and abetting a crime, besides the IT Act. The irony of the Narendra Modi government accusing somebody of promoting enmity amongst groups. You may say it’s in bad taste, you may invoke Gandhi and say and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But jail for an innocuous SMS makes Gujarat a police state. Continue reading Narendra Modi – Murdabad! Murdabad, murdabad! →

Frontiers, Right watch

Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror

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Churches in Nepal, the erstwhile Hindu Rashtra on the face of the earth have maintained a unique tradition. They hold services on Saturdays because it is a public holiday when schools and offices are closed.

When Deepa Patrick, 22 and Celeste Joseph 15, both from Patna went to visit some of their relatives in Lalitpur, situated south of Kathmandu, they found this fact of Lalitpur’s christian communities social life very interesting. In one of her last emails to her parents back home Deepa even specifically mentioned this aspect of Lalitpur, which has a very small community of Christians living there for many decades. Continue reading Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror →

Debates, Identities, Politics, Right watch

To RSS with Love: The Real Story of 2009 Elections

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If news reports are to be believed, the RSS has come out with the most classic analysis of the 2009 election verdict: Advani did not enthuse the Hindus. [Read carefully: He could but he did not. A small boy, kal ka chhokra, Varun Gandhi had to lead the way!] Only a shade better than the West Bengal CPM claiming that they lost because Karat and the central leadership withdrew support to the UPA…as if they themselves – or Nandigram had nothing to do with it! Or the Kerala CPM claiming that it was due to chief minister Achuthanandan that they lost – Achuthanandan the agent of the bourgeoisie who ‘roared with laughter’ when the party was losing the elections! Or Sitaram Yechury claiming that UPA won because they claimed the credit for NREGA and Forest Rights Act which ‘we had forced them to enact’ – but ‘we’ lost! Amazing stuff, these elections and even more amazing, the post-election antics. But today’s topic is not the CPM. For, the real story is the RSS and BJP love story that is once again on the rocks.

RSS spokesperson MG Vaidya was forthright: “The BJP must reflect Hindu nationalism or else it is free to remain as any other party not associated with the Sangh… What’s wrong if people have gathered the impression that the BJP uses the Ram temple issue only for political gains?… The mainstream in this country is Hindu and the RSS is engaged in unifying Hindus. The BJP or any other owing allegiance to the Sangh must reflect this philosophy in its deeds.”

Continue reading To RSS with Love: The Real Story of 2009 Elections →

Media politics, Right watch

About Warped Minds

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Update: See this FAQ by Sundeep Dougal.

Guest post by DILIP D’SOUZA

All over again, timed with the run up to voting, there’s plenty of uproar over Gujarat. A Times of India journalist called Dhananjay Mahapatra wrote a report (NGOs, Teesta spiced up Gujarat riot incidents: SIT, April 14) which casts doubt on a number of aspects of the violence in Gujarat in 2002.

In his report, Mahapatra mentions the Special Investigation Team that has been looking into the violence. On April 13, writes Mahapatra, “the SIT led by former CBI Director RK Raghavan told the Supreme Court on Monday that [Teesta Setalvad] exaggerated macabre tales of wanton killings.” (Note the impression he gives that Raghavan himself was in Court on Monday to say this). Mahapatra’s report also tells us several things that Gujarat counsel Mukul Rohatgi said in Court. Continue reading About Warped Minds →

Debates, Right watch

BJP without RSS?

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Right since the controversy over L K Advani’s remarks on Jinnah, there is a section of the ‘liberal’ Indian media which has argued that all the BJP needs to do is divorce/separate/delink itself from the RSS. It would then turn into a ‘normal’ right wing party. I remember this was a line taken up strongly by the Indian Express. The subtext of their editorial position was that there is a strong left tilt in Indian polity; Nehruvian socialist rhetoric remains ingrained; and a ‘non-communal’ BJP can provide the right balance. (Where they see the left tilt when few of us can or how much further right they still want to push India is an altogether different debate). In a chat with CNN IBN website readers, Ramchandra Guha takes up a similar position arguing what India needs is BJP without RSS. (and ‘a Congress without the dynasty and a modern and unified left’).

I do not understand Indian politics too well, nor have covered the BJP. There are others who have written about the relationship between the two in great depth. But from the little I have seen of them while reporting in a few Indian states, here is a simple thought – the BJP will not be BJP if it is detached from the RSS. To assume that BJP can remain a party without the RSS structure to back it or BJP can separate itself from the larger ‘parivaar’ seems to be based on a limited understanding of both the BJP and RSS. Continue reading BJP without RSS? →

Media politics, Politics

Exclusive TV tamasha at Ashoka Road

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I was in Delhi for a few days last week to cover, among other issues, the pre-election mood for a few Nepali publications.

Now, it is not as if I am totally unfamiliar with the Indian media scene. We watch Indian news channels here in Kathmandu and know the nature of the beast. I have friends in the Indian TV business who had come to cover Nepal elections last year but ended up reporting on adventure sports despite the huge Maoist win. “Boss, no one is interested in Nepali politics. Rafting will sell,” they had said. And we saw India TV go hysterical when the Maoist government appointed Nepali priests in the Pashupati Temple to replaces the ones from Karnataka – the media induced pressure forced ‘secularists’ like Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh, on a visit to Kathmandu, to force the government to retract and got venom spewing Ram Yatris like L K Advani to make calls to Prachanda to convey his ‘disappointment’. Continue reading Exclusive TV tamasha at Ashoka Road →

Identities, Right watch

Dalits in ‘Hindu Rashtra’

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The Gujarat Earthquake in the year 2001 and the consequent relief and rehabilitation programme was an eyeopener to the outside world regarding the deep seated caste bias in the Gujarati community apart from the much talked about bias against the minorities. There were reports that at places the relief and rehabilitation work bypassed the dalits and the Muslims.

Interestingly Babasaheb Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar had asked his followers to stop Hindu Raj becoming a reality at all costs. Continue reading Dalits in ‘Hindu Rashtra’ →