Tag Archives: Narendra Modi

Language, Law, Violence/Conflict

Magistrate Ganatra’s Dictionary and the Crime Scene of Language

7 Comments

Written in the wake of the dismissal of Zakia Jafri’s Petition by an Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court

On 13th June, 1971, a courageous Pakistani journalist called Anthony Mascaranhas published an article in the Sunday Times, London, which was headlined ‘Genocide‘. The story of how this article got to be written and published is noteworthy in itself – and is an object lesson in how an ethical journalist takes and follows through a difficult decision. Forty two years later, Is it too late to wonder if a Gujarati magistrate could have taken an ethical leaf out of a Pakistani-Goan journalist’s lexicon?

Continue reading Magistrate Ganatra’s Dictionary and the Crime Scene of Language →

Culture, Debates, Government, Right watch

Statue of Unity – How the Varna Media is Loving It !

2 Comments

..The man who belonged to the whole country has now been abducted by Narendra Modi, a pracharak of RSS, the communal organization who the Sardar fought against throughout his life. ..The only purpose of the construction of the Sardar Patel statue which was declared by Narendra Modi after he was anointed as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate is to collect votes for the 2014 elections in the name of this leader of India’s freedom struggle. It is therefore a downright irony that the RSS pracharak is trying to build the facade of unity by erecting the statue of one of the staunchest opponents of RSS. (Facade of Unity – RSS Abducts Sardar Patel, Pratik Sinha October 31, 2013 |

I

History bears witness the fact that the attitude to appear ‘big’ or ‘tall’ so that even posterity remembers you is very evident in every megalomaniac. It is a different matter that due to a poor sense of history, such megalomaniacs cannot even comprehend that thanks to the way they subdued a population, or cleanse it of ‘others’, actually overwhelms the giant monuments they build or the memorials they erect to commemorate their bloody victories. The Halakus, the Chengiz Khans, the Menanders or the Mussolinis of the world are remembered today not as noble representatives of humanity but as its other. Continue reading Statue of Unity – How the Varna Media is Loving It ! →

Bad ideas, Culture, Politics, Right watch

Delhi Magistrate orders FIR against woman for anti-Modi posts: Kavita Krishnan

17 Comments

Guest post by KAVITA KRISHNAN: 

The footsteps of fascism can be heard – this time in the hallowed hallways of the national capital’s courts. A woman who filed an FIR against a man physically threatening her for her anti-Modi Facebook posts, found to her dismay that the Metropolitan Magistrate in the Tis Hazari courts let off the man accused of threatening her safety, while ordering an FIR against her instead! The media’s coverage of this outrageous incident has been, till now, biased and factually misleading.

Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, a journalist and a Ph.D. Fellow in JNU, received several threats by emails from one Pankaj Kumar Dwivedi, which warned her of ‘consequences’ and even demanded she meet the man so that he could ‘cleanse’ her of her ‘filth.’ Continue reading Delhi Magistrate orders FIR against woman for anti-Modi posts: Kavita Krishnan →

Bad ideas

Rose Petals for Terrorists, Saropas for Hatemongers

1 Comment

Image

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP will honour its legislators accused of inciting communal violence in Muzaffarnagar at a rally to be addressed by Narendra Modi in Agra on Thursday.

The BJP’s legislators in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, were jailed in September after the stringent National Security Act was imposed on them for their alleged role in the Muzaffarnagar riots…Mr Som, accused of uploading a video on his Facebook wall which reportedly sparked communal tension in the area, was arrested in Meerut on September 21. He is also facing allegations of having made inflammatory speeches.Mr Rana was arrested from Lucknow on September 20 for his alleged role in stoking the violence which left over 60 people dead and rendered more than 40,000 homeless.

 

(http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/bjp-to-honour-legislators-accused-of-inciting-muzaffarnagar-violence-at-narendra-modi-rally-447651)

 I

It was a gathering not much reported outside the Hindutva laboratory. After their humiliating defeat at the hustings at the centre (Year 2004) it was the first meeting of its kind which witnessed coming together of many stalwarts of the Sangh Parivar to felicitate one among them. One could see all the big names of the Parivar hierarchy— the ex deputy PM L.K.Advani, Narendra Modi and the likes of Togadias and Singhals, and a galaxy of saffron robed sadhus. The programme held in Ahmedabad to felicitate Prof Keka Shastry, VHP leader and a well-known writers’ entering the centenary year seemed an ideal occasion for them to air their views in Gujarat.

Continue reading Rose Petals for Terrorists, Saropas for Hatemongers →

Bad ideas

An Idiot for PM ? : (Non)Sense of History in NaMo

3 Comments

‘Though this be madness yet there is method in it’ 

– ‘Hamlett’, Shakespeare

 

The 2014 elections aren’t merely about changing the government. The rhetoric ahead of the polls makes one believe that it’s an attempt at once to change historical narratives handed down to successive generation of Indians. And the man in the forefront of it all is the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

 –  11/11/2013 Blogs-Hindustan Times

I.

Wordsmiths of the world need to put in their heads or pull in their socks (you may say) to coin a new word which can rather resonate with what goes on in this part of South Asia in the name of political speeches. Should one call it ‘polifiction’ or ‘politainment’ or some similar word.

Perhaps a word exists and this poor pen pusher is ignorant about it.

Anyway, the matter has become bit urgent with the feverish preparations which are going on here for the battle royale which would take place in the year 2014 and the not so silent emergence of NaMo on the national scene and the daily dose of half truths, fiction and complete distortion which goes under the name of oratory. Continue reading An Idiot for PM ? : (Non)Sense of History in NaMo →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Excavation, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

1984 and the Spectre of Narendra Modi: Ravinder Kaur

26 Comments

Guest Post by Ravinder Kaur 

As India begins the countdown to the 2014 general elections, a new discourse has started taking shape around its minority populations. It is called the ‘what about 1984’ argument. The supporters of Narendra Modi in a bid to deflect attention from his role in 2002 pogrom usually throw 1984 at his critics. The critics have lately begun responding by placing 1984 pogrom in  a less grave category in comparison to 2002. The difference we are told is the political ideology – Congress is inherently secular and 1984 an aberration whereas BJP is communal and 2002 symptomatic. This unfortunate comparison means that the ‘what about 1984’ argument has unintentionally turned 1984 pogrom into an exclusive Congress problem even when it sets out to call out Modi’s anti-minority stance. The role of Hindutava ideology has been airbrushed out of the history that led to 1984 pogrom as a consequence.

Continue reading 1984 and the Spectre of Narendra Modi: Ravinder Kaur →

Bad ideas, Politics, Right watch

India First and the BJP anti-conversion platform: Goldie Osuri

11 Comments

Guest Post by GOLDIE OSURI

We seem to live in an age where paradoxes become parodic simplifications in the seemingly global race to support all manner of fascist majoritarian nationalisms. I recently saw a youtube video, where P.P. Hegde of the NaMo Brigade linked the meaning of Namo Namaha—the letting go of ego in meditation—to the image of a giant saffron-vested image of Narendra Modi.

Namo Namaha. Literally, not-me, not my ego-self. Linked to a giant PR machine promoting an individual, the face of Hindutva fascism, nothing but ego. The lack of an ironic sensibility in such campaigns is perhaps sadly characteristic of our time.

Similarly anti-conversion campaigns targeting Christians seem paradoxical and parodic in their demand for Acts of Religious Freedom which literally entail religious unfreedom. Recently, the BJP leader of Andhra Pradesh, Venkaiah Naidu stated that the ‘BJP will bring an anti-conversion law to ban religious conversions in the country if it is voted to power in 2014 General Elections’. 

Continue reading India First and the BJP anti-conversion platform: Goldie Osuri →

Bad ideas

How Modi Views Untouchability: Dissecting the ‘Toilets First, Temples Later’ Debate

9 Comments

Narendra Modi, would not have imagined that his exhortation that ‘toilets first, temples later’ at a Delhi conclave would not only generate a debate within the saffron fraternity but would also bring back focus on the pathetic situation of sanitation in his home state itself. And the ensuing discussion would also transcend to his controversial ideas about untouchability – the social-religious practice based on the logic of purity and pollution which has marginalised, terrorised and relegated a section of Indian society to a life marked by humiliation and indignity. Continue reading How Modi Views Untouchability: Dissecting the ‘Toilets First, Temples Later’ Debate →

Bad ideas, Countryside, Debates, Language, Metropolis, Right watch

Can Narendra Modi Apologize to Four Hundred and Five Million Rural Women in India?

148 Comments

1744_Rural_Women_Keral 1742_Rural_Women_Gujar B_Id_424710_Narendra_Modi_

Rural Indian Women (Courtesy India Post) and An Urban Indian Man (Narendra Modi)

I watched the television broadcast of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s speech at the Japanese Park in Rohini in Delhi on Sunday morning with breathless anticipation and some trepidation. With the restless anxiety that he would spin at least half a new idea, that could induce some naive fence-sitters in Delhi, my city, to sign up behind his juggernaut along with the rest of his zombie horde.

Would his spin doctors have worked hard and tirelessly overnight to give their client a new teflon coating? Would his savvy advisers have given him a sharp new statistic to play with, an incontrovertible fact, a compelling argument that would persuade my fellow citizens? Continue reading Can Narendra Modi Apologize to Four Hundred and Five Million Rural Women in India? →

Bad ideas

NaMo NaMo or Namaste Sada Vatsale ..

10 Comments

Image Courtesy : http://www.truthofgujarat.com

 

It is now time for NaMo NaMo in BJP.

To quote a newspaper, Hindutva poster boy Narendra Modi has been declared candidate for Prime Minister’s post by the highest body of the Party.

As planned earlier there were celebrations at different party offices of the BJP spread over the country. It is a different matter that the party could not hide the fact that it was not a unanimous decision rather a majority decision. The ‘tallest leader’ or ‘mentor’ of the party L K Advani made his displeasure clear in a letter the very same day. And not only Advani till a day ago three members of the highest body – whose strength is 12 only – were vehemently opposing the proposal that the candidature be announced immediately and wanted it to be deferred till the assembly elections to five states were over. Two amongst them – Ms Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi – could be persuaded to join the anointment at the last moment only.

The comical part of the whole anointment has been the gentleman who had only a week ago declared that he would like to serve the state – where he was elected CM for the third time – till 2017, had no qualms in dropping all pretensions and rush to Delhi for the coronation. Continue reading NaMo NaMo or Namaste Sada Vatsale .. →

Bad ideas

Modi’s ‘Vanzara’ Moment : Encounter killings as State Policy?

3 Comments

Resignation letters of suspended officers – who are in jail under serious charges-  are never a cause of concern for the powers that be. But with Dahyaji Gobarji Vanzara, suspended DIG of Gujarat police and head of its Anti Terrorist Squad, who once happened to be very close to the powers that be and has the potential of further embarrassing them, situation is entirely different. It is not for nothing that the government led by Narendra Modi has decided to reject the said resignation by not forwarding it to the Central government.

Imagine a murder accused sitting in jail who wants to leave the government service and the state government – which has received enough opprobrium because of these murders – wants to keep the accused in service. The only logical explanation seems to be that the accused officer must be privy to secrets which the government does not want to divulge in public. It is a known fact that till his arrest, Vanzara had been privy to the entire goings on in Gujarat since 2002, which included 2002 riot investigations which were handled by the crime branch, the Pandya murder case and the Akshardham attack, apart from the fake encounters. Continue reading Modi’s ‘Vanzara’ Moment : Encounter killings as State Policy? →

Identities, Politics, Right watch

Modi Goes To London

5 Comments

Image

Good news is followed by a flood of bad news.

Narendra Modi, the ‘architect’ of today’s Gujarat, must be realising the truth of this dictum despite the fact that the corporate media – to quote an analyst – ‘loves’ him.

Whether it is the growing resistance of the peasantry inside the state to his vision of development, compelling him to withdraw a major chunk of villages from the much discussed Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region (SIR), or the crude manner in which his government’s anti Dalit stance is coming to the fore, the signals are definitely ominous. Continue reading Modi Goes To London →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Government, Politics, Right watch

Why Do ‘They’ Love Narendra Modi ?: Shankar Gopalakrishnan

23 Comments

Guest Post by Shankar Gopalakrishnan

On August 14th, Narendra Modi declared that his Independence Day speech would attract as much attention as that of the Prime Minister. He appears to have been right. The fact that this is hardly unexpected should not obscure the deeper puzzle that it hides. It is a rare occurrence for a state level leader to suddenly get so much prominence in the media, and that too for such a long period. Why, then, have powerful forces in our society – including most of the media – chosen to endorse Modi? Why the sudden promotion of this particular leader at this particular time? What is it that he and his regime are offering?

Continue reading Why Do ‘They’ Love Narendra Modi ?: Shankar Gopalakrishnan →

Bad ideas

Modi’s ‘Singur’ : The Other Independence Day

6 Comments

 

 

Image

 

It was also an Independence Day celebration albeit of a different kind.

Far away from the 24 7 media and far away from the usual rhetoric one witnesses on any such date it was effectively people’s celebration which was resisted by the state at every level. Held at a non descript village called Dalod around 150 kilometers from Ahmedabad the state capital, it was attended by around 15,000 men and women, old and young, according to conservative estimates, .

There was unprecedented police patrolling and barricades on all roads leading to village Dalod and people coming to the flag hoisting were being stopped. One can easily guess that if the state would not have gone out of the way to thwart the programme, and had not cancelled the initial permission to hold it in Hansalpur, – where the Maruti Suzuki plant is supposed to come up – more than 50,000 people could have easily reached there. The celebration was attended by delegations from other groups waging a struggle against land acquisition in their areas, such as from Mahua (against the Nirma cement plant led by politician-activist Kanubhai Kalsaria), from Mithi Virdi in Bhavnagar (against the nuclear power project), the Junagadh by-pass road etc. who came there to show their solidarity. Continue reading Modi’s ‘Singur’ : The Other Independence Day →

Bad ideas, Identities, Images, Law, Media politics

Minority Report – Deaths followed by Executions : Ramray Bhat

1 Comment

This is a guest post by RAMRAY BHAT

The collective conscience of our prominent democracies works in very strange ways. India is yet to come to terms with the killing of a nineteen-year-old Mumbaiite student Ishrat Jahan in an encounter by officers of the Gujarat Police in collaboration with the Intelligence Bureau. Along with three other individuals, Javed Sheikh (for whom Ishrat worked as a secretary), Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, Ishrat was first announced to have died in police firing and the alleged plan hatched by these four individuals to assassinate prominent politicians of India, thereby thwarted. Inquiries at the level of the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate court as well as by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as directed by the Gujarat High Court confirmed what had been suspected all along, that Ishrat had been murdered in cold blood while she was in police custody. Continue reading Minority Report – Deaths followed by Executions : Ramray Bhat →

Bad ideas, Debates, Images, Language, Media politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The BJP’s very own Stalin

9 Comments

Yashwant  Sinha is a worried man these days. He is apprehensive of his leader Narendra Modi being taken for a ride by the Congress party. He says that the Congress party is laying a trap for him, a trap of the binary of Communalism and Secularism and  fears that his upward looking Narendra Modi might fall in it. So, well  wisher that he is of Narendra Bhai, he wants to alert him: do not get  entangled in the conspiracy of the wily Congress. He appeals to Narendra Modi to stick to people’s issues and not let the political discourse  shift to the terrain of the Secularism  versus Communalism debate. Continue reading The BJP’s very own Stalin →

Bad ideas

The BJP’s 2014 bid: A state-wise look and three key states where Modi may be risking party fortunes : Manish Dubey

22 Comments

This is a guest post by MANISH DUBEY: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lacks effective presence in several States, including large ones such as Andhra Pradesh (AP), Kerala, Tamil Nadu (TN) and West Bengal (WB) and others in the North-east (NE) barring Assam to an extent, and is unlikely to mount a credible challenge in the 168 Lok Sabha (LS) seats these account for.  Its 2014 tally from these States will remain in the lower single digits, as it was in 2004 and 2009. Odisha and Punjab, with 34 LS seats between them, are unlikely to add substantially to the party’s tally either. In Odisha, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Indian National Congress (INC) are better entrenched. In Punjab, seat sharing arrangements with the locally dominant partner, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)- Badal, will limit potential (individual) pickings for the party. Pickings are also likely to be limited from Jharkhand (14 LS seats) where besides the INC, a number of regional parties, each with strong local bases and candidates, would be in the fray. Till recently, even Karnataka (28 LS seats) would not have provided much hope but things may look up a trifle with Yeddyurappa reportedly negotiating a return or at least some kind of electoral understanding.

The small States and UTs, i.e., those with 10 LS seats or lesser, account for 40 LS seats and the BJP has a mixed LS election record on these, a record much dependent its performance in Delhi’s 7 LS seats.  Of the 284 LS seats (over half the 543 LS seats) accounted for by all the above mentioned States and UTs, a realistic tally for the BJP would be about 40, similar to that of the LS elections of 2004 (40 LS seats, including 18 from Karnataka) and 2009 (again 40 LS seats, including 19 from Karnataka) with potential gains in some places offset by a reduced tally in Karnataka (Yeddyurappa’s return or even an electoral understanding with him will reverse the misfortune of the recent Assembly elections only partly for the BJP). No Narendra Modi Magic is likely to boost the BJP’s tally here given mainly the state of the party itself.  Continue reading The BJP’s 2014 bid: A state-wise look and three key states where Modi may be risking party fortunes : Manish Dubey →

Bad ideas, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

आत्मा से मुठभेड़ की चुनौती: अपूर्वानंद

9 Comments

इशरत जहाँ एक उन्नीस साल की लड़की थी जब वह मारी गई.शायद उसके बारे में इसके अलावा इस निश्चितता के साथ हम कुछ और कभी नहीं जान पाएंगे. इसकी वजह सिर्फ यह है कि जिन्हें इस देश में सच का पता लगाने का काम दिया गया है वे एक लंबे अरसे से झूठ को सच की तरह पेश करने का आसान रास्ता चुनने के आदी हो गए हैं. उनके इस मिथ्याचार पर कभी सवाल न खड़ा किया जा सके इसका सबसे अच्छा तरीका है राष्ट्र रक्षक की अपनी छवि का दुरुपयोग निस्संकोच करना. जो राष्ट्र की रक्षा करता है उसे उसकी रक्षा के लिए किसी को मात्र संदेह के आधार पर मार डालने का हक है, यह हमारे देश का सहज बोध है. सिर्फ अशिक्षितों का नहीं, उसने कहीं ज़्यादा राजनीति शास्त्र की किताबों से नागरिक अधिकारों का ज्ञान प्राप्त किए हुए स्नातकों का. उन सबका जिन्हें देश की जनता के पैसे से संविधान की हिफ़ाजत के लिए अलग-अलग काम सौंपे जाते हैं. और भी साफ़ कर लें, इन स्नातकों में भी उनका जो प्रशासनिक और पुलिस अधिकारी हैं, जासूसी के अलग-अलग महकमों से जुड़े ऑफिसर हैं, जिनकी असली पहचान कभी उजागर नहीं हो पाती. अगर दूसरे मुल्क में वे पकड़े जाएं तो वही देश उनसे हाथ धो लेता है जिसकी सुरक्षा में वे अपनी असली पहचान छिपाए फिरते हैं.

क्या कोई यह कहने की हिमाकत कर सकता है कि राष्ट्र-राज्य के खिलाफ साजिशें नहीं होतीं, कि राष्ट्र-विरोधी शक्तियों का अस्तित्व ही नहीं! यह बिलकुल अलग बात है कि राष्ट्र विरोधी का बिल्ला किन पर आसानी चस्पां किया जा सकता है और किन पर वह बिलकुल चिपकता ही नहीं. मसलन, इस्लामी राष्ट्र का तस्सवुर धर्मनिरपेक्ष भारतीय राष्ट्र के बिलकुल खिलाफ है, क्या इसके लिए किसी अतिरिक्त व्याख्या की आवश्यकता है? लेकिन यह समझना और समझाना टेढ़ी खीर है कि हिन्दू राष्ट्र की कल्पना भी उतनी ही राष्ट्रविरोधी है! आज से बीस साल पहले और आज भी   खालिस्तान का ख़याल इस्लामी राष्ट्र जितना ही राष्ट्र विरोधी माना जाता था. Continue reading आत्मा से मुठभेड़ की चुनौती: अपूर्वानंद →

Bad ideas, Excavation, Mirror Worlds, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Ishrat Jahan, Narendra Modi and the IB: How Not to be Non-Non Terrorist

60 Comments

The CBI charge-sheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case and its aftermath has led the BJP and supporters of Narendra Modi (within and without the Intelligence Bureau) to discover the joys of time travel. Apparently, David Coleman Headley’s testimony in 2010 (which says that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT operative) has given the Gujarat police officials a means to tell us why they killed Ishrat Jahan in 2004. Or, following on from Shivam Vij’s recent tweets, we could say: “The IB says that Headley says that Ishrat Jahan was a non-non terrorist…”

We will discuss more about this heady Headley testimony and ‘non-non terrorism’ later, but for now, let us admit that the secret of how a statement in the future can influence the unfolding an event six years in the past is known only to those who are partisan to Mr. Modi and his party. It is not for nothing that they call him a Yug Purush (‘The Man of Time’)- all times, past, present and future, can do his bidding, or so thinks the BJP. Continue reading Ishrat Jahan, Narendra Modi and the IB: How Not to be Non-Non Terrorist →

Bad ideas

Can The Real Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Ever Stand Up?

5 Comments

Image

It has been more than two years that A G Noorani’s important book ‘Article 370 : A Constitutional History of J and K’ (OUP, 2011, Pages 480) has hit the stands and has been able to clear many a confusions about the tumultuous era in post independence times pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir.

Basing himself on authentic documents, letters, memorandums, white papers, proclamations and amendments  the author, a constitutional expert himself, has not only provided new insights about the period but has also tried to bring forth an important summary of the developments then and the role played by different stakeholders. While we have been witness to a process of erosion of the article 370 today, the book underscores the politics behind its erosion, which was negotiated between Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah and had a stamp of approval from Sardar Patel and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.

For the  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which daily invokes name of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, founder of Bharatiya Jan Sangh – percursor to its present incarnation namely BJP – to oppose Article 370 which guarantees special status to Jammu and Kashmir – this exposure that the said Article had full approval from Mukherjee as well as then Home Minister Sardar Patel is nothing but blasphemous. Continue reading Can The Real Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Ever Stand Up? →