Why Ramchandra Guha speaks too soon

http://www.milligazette.com/news/12973-partion-muslim-of-india-why-ramchandra-guha-speaks-too-soon

Ramchandra Guha makes a case for not being ‘nostalgic about undivided India’. He argues that, ‘Had there been an undivided India, the percentage of Muslims would have been closer to 33%, or one in three. The demographic balance would have been more delicate; and prone to being exploited by sectarians on either side.’

Assuming that religious wars have been avoided by the percentage of Indian Muslims being reduced to ‘13% of the population, or one in seven’, he concludes that, ‘the cold logic of history suggests that things would have been far worse for us if Partition had not occurred.’

Since his is a counter factual case, refuting his case is as futile as it is easy.

Nevertheless, it can be argued conversely that had the percentage of the largest religious minority – the subcontinent’s Muslims – remained at about one third, there would have been an element of deterrence in the demographic balance. Guha’s apprehension of a communal bloodbath would then not arise.

In any case, precedent setting Partition would not have occurred and eddies from it would not have persisted through time. The resulting peace could have been used, just as it has been in India as brought out by Guha, for democracy and development for all of South Asia.

Guha exaggerates the problem integrating the 500 princely states posed. Sardar Patel dispatched them into history within a couple of years of independence. That would have been so even in case of undivided India, with the Nizam – possibly the only one to hold out – similarly packed off. Since contiguity would have decided the case for the rest, Kashmir would not have emerged as a bone of contention since.

As a historian Guha should really have been wary of venturing into international relations. To him, India has been spared the frontline status that Pakistan has acquired. This owes to Pakistan lending its strategic location for the purposes of a superpower through the Cold War and in the war on terror. In case Pakistan was part of India, this would not have been so. An undivided India, not warring internally and with greater military, political and moral might, could have kept its periphery peaceful. 

It is not as readily apparent that South Asia is better off divided. Worse, we may yet mourn the passing of an undivided India.

Guha is right in caveating his point that ‘India is not — or at least not yet — a Hindu Pakistan.’ ‘Not yet’ alright, but unfortunately India appears well on its way to becoming one. Guha’s other writings suggests that this possibility has not escaped him. His summary dismissal of Akhand Bharat is on this score a tad too early.  

In an understatement, Guha’s writes, ‘Religious and ethnic violence have not entirely abated’. There has been no bout of religious violence this decade of the order of those that punctuated previous decades: Bhagalpur in the eighties, Babri Masjid demolition aftermath in the nineties and the Gujarat pogrom in the 2000s.

But structural violence based on religious majoritarianism has served as an equally effective substitute. Muslims are remarkable for their absence in office spaces, shared apartment blocks and the military, from the middle classes and from assemblies and the parliament.  

With the demographic balance disrupted by Partition, Hindutvavadis have had a field day on India’s vulnerable minority over the past quarter century. And in doing so have succeeded in manufacturing an electoral constituency, a ‘Hindu vote bank’. So much so that Mr. Modi in refusing to wear a cap that serves as a Muslim identity marker reveals that he does not feel the need to even genuflect towards Muslims.

With minorities better represented it would be difficult for ideological penetration of institutions and of India’s security agencies. India’s Muslims now do not have the comfort of physical security and psychological security in greater numbers of an undivided India.

From the point of view of liberal Hindus, their higher percentage could have served to preserve India from a possible, and certainly problematic, future as ‘Hindu India’. With the prime minister even overshadowing one worthy predecessor, Indira Gandhi, to the extent of provoking a grim warning from Hindutva lion heart Advani of a turn to authoritarianism, to some liberals, India is potentially on the road to ‘soft fascism’.  

Here democracy is increasingly liable to be mistaken for majoritarianism. Modi’s Chanakya, the National Security Adviser, Mr. Doval, speaking on ‘Security, Statecraft and Conflict of Values’, provides a clue.

On the surface what he gives out is unexceptionable: that the majority democratically arrived decides how to exercise power and does so in a constitutionally bound manner in accord with its perception of the national interest.

The problems are, one, in the gauging of the ‘national interest’ and, two, in the adherence to constitutional parameters. The perennial problem remains: who will guard the guardians.

On thinking on national interest, Tarun Vijay, a leading propagandist, has it that Independence was not merely from British colonialists but also from preceding, namely Muslim, rulers and a second independence is in overthrowing current day opponents of the ruling regime.

Internal authoritarianism can only prompt external expansionism. Only, India has a nuclear power with Islamism at its door step. Mr. Dowal lets on that there can be ‘no compromise’ in the use of force where ‘national interest’ is at stake. He has a millennial notion of this, encompassing both past generations and future.

Perhaps Akhand Bharat – democratically and peacefully arrived at - is the direction South Asia must now move. It can checkmate both extremisms that in mirroring each other are indeed one of a kind.

This is not a novel idea. For millennia, India’s enlightened rulers have exerted to unify the subcontinent, a geographic unit into a single strategic and civilisational space.

Regional groupings are the trend across the world; witness EU that brought together rivals UK, France and Germany. South Asia has the SAARC for starters. A negotiated beginning is the next step.

Such visualization is akin to but reverses the divisive vision in Cambridge at which the two nation theory got its impetus. Doing so would make India whole again.

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Vanzara gets it right: The meaning for J&K http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=22738

By Firdaus Ahmed

Vanzara has blown the lid on the fallacious argument usually put out to explain away encounter cases. The killers are taken to be afflicted with a Rambo mentality and seekers of medals, out of turn promotions and bounty. The problem gets reduced to the individuallevel at the expense of the systemic. This enables exaction of a price, when and if ever the push of accountability comes to the shove of action, by incarceration of the culpable individuals to the legal system, quite like Vanzara. Attention gets deflected from the culpability at higher levels and the subversion of law and institutions that makes encounters possible. The lesson for J&K is that it needs redefining normalcy away from violence indicators but in the retrieving of ground lost to departures from the straight and narrow. But, the critical Vanzara message, liable to be missed, is that it is not enough to blame the tools alone. Take the recent killings by BSF troopers at Shopian, reminiscent of those at Gool earlier this year. The killings can only partially be attributed to a trigger-happy outfit or a scared set of isolated paramilitary men holding out against a mob. An investigation will only establish individual culpability, screening out the larger picture. The people died because they were part of an agitated crowd. The crowd gathered because the presence of the picket enabled them to vent their anger at an egregious provocation of having a misconceived concert for the elite in Srinagar to advertise the return of 'normalcy'. The problem therefore was not entirely in triggers being pressed in hate or panic, but more in the non-removal of operating bases in the midst of people despite removal being the best indicator of normalcy. To this inability to recognise what needs doing in returning normalcy must be attributed the deaths of protesting civilians. The onus is not at the door of soldiers in camouflage reacting in situations they have little control over, but to those who have allowed the environment of insecurity to persist. Vanzara has got it right: those in control owe a greater responsibility and need being arraigned, at a maximum in the court of law under the doctrine of responsibility of the chain of command, and at a minimum in the court of public opinion. By no means does this exonerate the troopers who have belittled themselves, for it is in crunch situations and not on the parade ground where discipline and self control are to count. If fire discipline is absent then they are undeserving of their uniform. That said, their officers cannot be exonerated. They are largely happy with feudal services their men furnish in order that a happy relationship develops in which they in return do not hold men responsible for occupational standards. This is a particular malady in the central police forces, which to begin with are of questionable quality and secondly are officered at the upper echelons with the IPS, who have acquired the trappings of power too early in life and service. However, if the deaths are to have a meaning for India outside of Kashmir, then the Neros in Srinagar and Delhi need questioning alongside. The chief minister has mastered the fine art of passing the buck on to Delhi. It is apparent that concentrating as he is on delivery of routine governance, rocking the boat by tendering his resignation does not figure in his sight. Awaiting a worse day implies that the chief minister expects worse, a prospect none too appetising. Srinagar also has Delhi's representative, a Governor into his second tenure. Clearly, he too has exhausted his breath on Delhi. He was the right man to do spring cleaning after the previous NDA appointee leaving his ideological debris behind. Had Delhi had not lost its nerve after 26/11 on the road to patching up with Islamabad, he could have well have delivered Kashmir to normalcy as part of the internal dimension of repair. Now it is apparent that his utility is in his success in keeping the lid on the Valley, a feat he can be credited with over the past four years. As for Delhi, the Kashmiri saying 'Delhi is distant' captures it all. How so ever much it might remonstrate that Kashmir is an internal issue of India, it is unable to unravel the internal from the external. Vajpayee had created the conditions for doing so that UPA I had taken further, only to be derailed as mentioned at Mumbai 26/11: so much for the relative power of Delhi and the Jihad Inc., across. Internally, UPA II has been a lost tenure, with the output of the last committee of interlocutors being trashed. With sights set further than Srinagar on Kabul and a national elections looming, movement on Kashmir awaits the next incumbent of 7 Race Course Road. That Kashmir does not count is thus self-evident. Consequently, the message for people is that agitating for an end to insecurity is the only way they can be heard. Recognising that it has left people with no other recourse, Delhi has left armed minders in place, empowered with AFSPA and similar laws covering the paramilitary and the police. Responsibility for what then transpires on the barbed wire and concertina is clearly not only of those facing each other on the frontline, but those who have contrived thus to put them in such a position. So if there is an accounting, as Vanzara seeks to remind us if only to save his own skin, he has got it right in saying that powers higher than his level, the supervisory one, should also be in the dock, if not in cells; for inaction, if not for mala-fide action. The upshot of the analysis is that there is more to come. Delhi has indicated that Islamabad has upped the infiltration this year. This is no doubt to set the stage for next year. While earlier in the nineties the period of mass action preceded that of insurgency, which in turn was displaced by proxy war, this time round the worst case could be simultaneity of the three. The last time round the downing of the Berlin Wall set the context for Kashmir. This time there is the untidy aftermath of Arab Spring supplying the spark for the tinder. Pakistan's excuse will be that it gave peace a chance and India squandered the opportunity by its inability and unwillingness to make a distinction between the state and its bearded proxies. The time for political action having past, regrettably violence appears the lone recourse for all sides. Perversely, the bright side is that thereafter it would be very difficult to play Nero. (The author is a blogger at Think South Asia: http://www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in/) 17 Sep 13

Taking on Mr. Modi’s Chief Cheerleader: Chetan Bhagat

http://www.milligazette.com/news/4812-taking-on-gujarat-narendra-modis-chief-cheerleader-chetan-bhagat-india

The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Dec 01, 2012

http://twocircles.net/2012dec03/narendra_modi%E2%80%99s_new_cheerleader_chetan_bhagat.html
TwoCircles.net 3 December 2012

By Firdaus Ahmed 

The final round in the fight for India’s soul is underway. Mr. Modi’s forthcoming triumph in the provincial elections in the western Indian state he heads is intended to set the stage for his elevation soon thereafter as the potential prime ministerial candidate of India’s conservative party, the BJP. One leader from of the competition, Ms. Sushma Swaraj, has already thrown in the towel for party leadership and prime ministerial ambition, citing Modi’s development record. The other, Mr. Arun Jaitley, is not known to command a mass following within or without the party. Of the official leader of the party, Mr. Nitin Gadkari, political obits are already past the draft stage.

The first blow of the final round has been struck by Mr. Modi’s unofficial spokeman, Mr. Chetan Bhagat. Earlier his outpourings in favour of his preferred leader were confined to his Sunday Timescolumn. Today they have been elevated to the op-ed space of the widely read, The Times of India(1 December 2012). The thesis this time round is essentially that “if India has to move forward, the voting public must wean itself off the Gandhi family.” QED!

With the “family” out of the way, in particular the princeling, Rahul Gandhi, Bhagat knows it would be cakewalk for his fighter in the ring, Mr. Modi. This explains his thrust on getting “the family out of the way,” which explains why his piece is misleadingly titled, “Out of the family way.” That his piece does not mention Mr. Modi’s name even once is yet another dead giveaway. There seems to be much to hide, and Bhagat, in doing so, knows this best.

To have Mr. Bhagat as an unpaid PR man can prove a boon for Mr. Modi’s incipient national campaign. After all, Bhagat’s self-description as a “best-selling novelist” is not incredible. It is, therefore, important to interrogate Mr. Bhagat, lest his writings going uncontested lend ballast on Mr. Modi’s journey to 7 Race Course Road.

Bhagat’s piece is ostensibly on the shortcomings of the conservative party and how these would prove debilitating its bid for power in 2014. By default, the ruling party stands to gain although it has little that Mr. Bhagat finds on offer. This owes to the dynastic impulse of “our feudal mindset”. Weaning ourselves off the Gandhi family to him is the first step to acknowledging the Sun rising in the west, Mr. Modi.

In Mr. Bhagat’s laundry list of the BJP’s shortcomings a discerning reader will fail to find mention on the party’s chief limitation: the nature of its subterranean connection with the wider rightist fraternity, the Sangh Parivar. This amounts to a resounding silence. Such sleights of hand explain why Bhagat is chief cheerleader and, therefore, need pointing out as relentlessly as Bhagat champions his champion.

To Bhagat, “the new India the youth wants to see - merit-based, efficient, accountable and progressive” – requires the BJP to reinvent itself; be less like the Congress. However, Bhagat, and many who agree with him, do not factor in the umbilical cord between the BJP and its mother entity, the RSS. Being management savvy and technocratic, they are politically naïve.

The “new India” in the world view of conservative extremists – that Mr. Bhagat is seemingly oblivious to - is at least a century-old in conception, situated as it is in the world view of triumphant fascism of the between-wars years in Europe. Since history has taken a beating in curriculum reinvention over the recent decade, the youth need reminding of this intellectual legacy of the party Bhagat promotes.

Bhagat expertly papers over the cracks by sandwiching “efficient, accountable” between “merit based” and “progressive” in his version of the vision of India’s youth. On “efficient,” it needs mention that authoritarian methods sometimes bear such result. After all, it was said that the trains ran on time during the Emergency. The model of “development” of Gujarat can instead be attributed to an extended, if undeclared, Emergency. Look at the fate of officers such as Sanjeev Bhatt. With hatchet men such as the former state home minister continuing if not prospering in politics, the common government official can surely sense which way the wind blows. As for “accountable,” even the formidable Vajpayee - the very same blaster-in-chief himself of India’s grand entry into the nuclear club - could not exact accountability for the absence of “raj dharma” in Gujarat of 2002.

This leaves “merit based” and “progressive” as the remaining yardsticks; in themselves inoffensive standards but worth a “dekho”. “Merit based” has been mantra of anti-reservationists, the ones who agree with Bhagat. Their reading of India is blind to India’s logic of caste – its defining feature if any. By making a case to privilege “merit”, their’s is an easy-to-see-through bid to remain interminably ahead. With starting blocks way ahead, there is little chance of the gap attenuating. To them, “merit” is a formula to stay on top. “Merit” busting is therefore of significance for the readers of this journal, most being disadvantaged at, and sometimes by, birth.

Lastly, Bhagat’s use of the term “progressive” is to stand it on its head. It’s an easy bid to steal the thunder, usually a property in this instance of the left. By progressive, Mr. Bhagat presumably means the alacrity with which Gujarat can attract the Tatas when divested off their land in West Bengal. What makes Gujarat able to do this and what prevents others? Answering this would reveal how self-serving Bhagat’s definition of “progressive” actually is; yet another instance of his expertise: word play.

Mr. Bhagat’s columns will get more strident as the national elections campaign draws closer. Silence in response may be misread as silence of the lambs. To do as he advises – overthrow the dynasty – would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater. To do so would pave way for a pracharak as prime minister. Though Mr. Modi’s self-exculpatory version of the 2002 presents himself at best as “The Nero of 2002,” history knows best that this is a charitable honorific. And that is enough to expose the cheer-leader for what he is not, a political analyst.

A secure minority, for a secure nation   http://www.indiatogether.org/2012/aug/fah-mussec.htm The dark clouds gathered since the early nineties have not quite dissipated. Inevitably so, since  the actions that should have been taken were never taken up, writes Firdaus Ahmed.  20 August 2012 - In the wake of the Gujarat carnage exactly ten years ago,  my debut column in India Together (see this link) addressed the issue of  security for India's largest minority. I believe now, as I did then, that the  multiple Muslim communities across India's geography can enhance their  security, by, among other measures, relying on the state and the vast liberal  majority among the non-Muslims. We must be wary of becoming pawns in  political games at the subcontinental level, and also pawns of party politics.  The only ones who gain when we fail to strengthen our internal conversations  are mafia dons, Pakistani intelligence operatives and the propaganda apparatus  of the Sangh Parivar. In light of the events over the past month beginning with the riots in Bodo areas  of Assam and culminating in a mass exit of North Easterners from south Indian cities,  it is apt to revisit this point, and the larger issues addressed in the earlier article. FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE indiatogether.org It is here the conspiracy theory can be given the benefit of doubt. The departure of north- easterners, beginning in Bangalore, spread to Channai and Hyderabad. While the police  are investigating the origin of the rumours that instigated the flight, they would do well to include  majoritarian extremists in their ambit. Such groups have profited under the rightist government in Karnataka, evident from periodic  reports of depredations ranging from moral policing to more insidious exploits. The alacrity of  the arrival of workers of the rightist formation, RSS, on to railway station to 'commiserate'  (some of them wielding canes!) with the victims, suggests a potent line of investigation. Their  message was no doubt one of religious solidarity with Hindu Bodos, even while deprecating Muslims  for being 'just like that only'. Shifting to the wider issue of minority security, it can be predicted to figure prominently in the long  run up to elections two years hence. The first shots have been fired with the Gujarat chief  minister unambiguously using the term 'Bangladeshis' in his Independence Day onslaught on the  prime minister. The issue of infiltrators has returned. It was last in the news when BJP-ruled  Rajasthan rounded up a few in wake of the bomb blasts in Jaipur. Clearly, the land issue in  Bodoland will have an all-India resonance, yielding up as it does a stick for the otherwise  politically bereft opposition. It therefore seems prescient on part of the MIM MP from Hyderabad to have led a medical  relief mission to the camps of internally displaced people in Assam. Such expression of  solidarity is a useful broadcast that Muslim communities cannot be put upon in isolation.  It is useful deterrence of another Nellie massacre or Gujarat carnage. While it does give courage  to vulnerable communities, there is no call to restrict access to this aid to the minority alone as the  MIM at its self-congratulatory best states. For full article see www.indiatogether.org First, the interest of the global community in the South Asia region during the last decade was  an opportunity to resolve the problems between India and Pakistan, with a global 'stamp' to a  mutually agreed way forward. But this opportunity was wasted, and now that the West is preparing  to exit its war in Afghanistan, the two South Asian countries await the impending departure with  bated breath and preparations for a return to rivalry. While the implications for Kashmir are easily  comprehended, India's other Muslims too will be affected. The second direction along which the government was hesitant to proceed was in pursuing right  wing terrorists. A significant feature of the past decade was terror bombings. These were popularly  attributed, by a media that should have known better, to Muslim perpetrators. Enlarging the line up  of suspects to include hyper-nationalists would have helped greatly, but the Centre decided to let  sleeping dogs lie. This strategy will probably come home to roost in the run-up to elections. 'Sleeper cells',  particularly those with Bengali (read 'Bangladeshi') features, will once again be in the news as fifth column. The lack of any notable progress in other promising areas keeps the communal scene fertile for disruption.  The major plank of employment, recommended in the Sachar Committee report, has been stymied by the  government's under-prepared brief in the Supreme Court for inclusion of the backward groups of the minority  in the quota system. Second, the RK Raghavan-led SIT has inexplicably made any hope of justice recede.  The eventual outcome will be akin to apprehending the sailors on Haji Mastan's ship even as Haji Mastan  remains free. Lastly, recompense for minority members wrongly arrested for terror attacks has only been done in a few  cases in Hyderabad. Youth apprehended for the Malegaon attacks are still in jail despite better knowledge  of the perpetrators. This brings to fore the fourth and last point, that the wheels of justice have been slow  and unsteady in nailing Hindutva-inspired terrorists. Lt Col Purohit is mounting a counter-attack presenting  himself as a mole, while a lead conspirator turned approver, Swami Aseemanand, has reneged. The government, fearing the electoral price of the tag of minority 'appeaser', is unlikely to take any of its  own initiatives any further. This may seem politic, but a resulting loss of the minority vote may end up  helping its rival to power, bringing back the toxicity of its philosophy and endangering certainly the nation,  if not the state. So to answer the question directly, India is indeed less secure. It is the price of a wasted decade. But two  years being a long time in politics, the government can yet turn to complete its unfinished agenda.

NOT SO EASY, MR. MODI

http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/16-31-august-2012

http://twocircles.net/2012aug01/not_so_easy_mr_modi.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Twocirclesnet-IndianMuslim+%28TwoCircles.net+-+Indian+Muslim+News%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

The locus of controversy over Mr. Modi’s remarks has shifted from the contents of his interview to the internal politics of a regional party of which the interviewer was a member. In the melee, there is danger of Mr. Modi’s remarks passing uncontested into history. The risk of dwelling on them any further is in giving them more column space, thereby adding to his original intent in giving the interview of gaining greater political acceptability for himself in his run up not so much for provincial elections due soon, but for national hustings soon thereafter. However, not to engage with them would be to have readers give him the benefit of the doubt.

While it is a truism that unless held guilty in a court of law, a person is to be taken as innocent, the problem with allowing Mr. Modi that status is that the evidence that could have been used in a court of law has in the years of his being at the helm been systematically removed or reworked. As a result even the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team has been unable to gain access to prosecutable evidence. While this should really have triggered a line of investigation into the ‘cover up’, as prompted by some courageous police officers in Gujarat, the SIT has taken Mr. Modi’s administration at its word. That is to give him more than his due.

Thankfully for history, the Amicus Curiae, also appointed by the SC, has a different story to tell. His differing take lends balance to the suspension of disbelief by Mr. Raghavan of SIT fame. Therefore, there is no reason to take Mr. Modi at his word in the interview. He cannot but be expected to defend his case in the manner he has. And yet, the content of the interview is chilling. Take for instance Mr. Modi’s exhortation: ‘think about how many Muslims were protected then! If they were to be killed systematically, who would have been spared today?’ In other words, Muslims, spared of a worse fate, should really be grateful! After all, he insists he stopped the ‘rioting’, stating that, ‘I think I managed to stop the rioting.’ In the same breath, he lets on: ‘I will not admit that I couldn’t.’ In other words, he is a saviour since he tried to stop the ‘riots’ but couldn’t!

Two points bear mention. Firstly, the use of the term, ‘riots’, suggests that the two communities were slugging it out. This is hardly likely in light of his version of the first 72 hours: ‘There hasn’t been even one police gun shot, no lathi charge… But, here people were arrested in advance.’ It bears investigation as to which ‘people’ were arrested. It can be surmised that these were of the minority. In effect, the minority was disarmed. Therefore, the question of a ‘riot’, and its two-sided implication, does not arise. Also, since he says there was not ‘even one police gun shot’, the rioters who should have been stopped in their tracks were instead handled with kid gloves. Had the besieged minority been rioting instead, as national statistics consistently bear out there would have been a deadly toll.

Secondly, this means that space was created for majoritarian supremacists to take center stage. He claims in self-vindication he gave ‘shoot at sight’ order to stop the ‘riots’. The numbers are already in the public domain as to who died in such firing. These were certainly not the ones later caught boasting in a Tehelka sting operation on their bravado.

Mr. Modi brings the abject state of affairs elsewhere to claim that his record is better on two counts: one is on prosecution and sentencing in Gujarat cases as against that meted out in the 1984 carnage against Sikhs; the second is on encounters. There is a difference between what happened in Gujarat and elsewhere. In the anti Sikh carnage in Delhi, there is no allegation of state complicity. As for encounters, in none of the other states were cover up stories fomented with a dual purpose: to embellish the image of the political head as a nationalist strongman, while at the same time tarnishing that of the minority as a subverted fifth column susceptible to infiltration by terrorists. In any case, instances elsewhere cannot legitimize what happens in Gujarat.

To tide over the controversy, the interviewer in a damage limitation exercise, has claimed: ‘I asked him questions that no one has.’ This obfuscates the fact that it was a tame interview amounting to image building for Mr. Modi. Take for instance the poser: ‘But they say you were in the control room.’ It is well known that the ministerial henchmen of Mr. Modi were assigned such duty including one who has served time behind bars subsequently in the false encounters case. Therefore such questions figuring in an interview damns its motives.

Finally, is the question of the military being called out timely. This increases in significance in light of the current day Bodo-Muslim clashes in Assam in which the Assam government has been critical of the new procedures in place for getting the Army to react in internal crisis. The procedures date to the Vohra Committee report recommendations to the GOM in 2001. The cases of over resort to the military in the eighties and nineties had resulted in a hardening of the military’s position against intervening in such crisis. The military was hard pressed by its internal security commitments and over extended by simultaneous calls on it when in peace stations. The older rules that enabled the DC to call out the army in aid to civil authority had consequently been reframed. The current procedures call for such demands for military aid to be routed from the state to the home ministry and thereafter to the defence ministry. A decision is then taken. This can prove too late for victims as evident from the case in Assam lately. More importantly, delay results in deepening of divides with trans- generational effects. Clearly, there is a case to revisit the procedures, particularly since the CRPF that was expanded with the purpose of relieving the army from such duty is itself bogged down in Central India.

In the Gujarat case, the army that was then deployed at the borders in Op Parakram could not be made available in a real time frame. Clearly, the onus of stamping out fires then devolved on Mr. Modi. This gave Mr. Modi and his supporters the time they needed. Therefore even if we are to follow Mr. Modi’s advice, ‘The Supreme Court asked for an investigation to be conducted. We should trust that’; he still needs to answer for incompetence. Since his campaign rhetoric focuses on his competence, revealing Mr. Modi’s record is in order, the latest attempt at embellishment notwithstanding.

Mr. Modi has expressed a preference thus, ‘If Modi has sinned, then Modi should be hanged’. But his only reflects a medieval mindset that conjured up the ‘action-reaction’ thesis. Its implication for his fitness for his current office is for the voters of his state to decide on, but it certainly disqualifies him from aspiring to higher office. 

CHETAN BHAGAT: CAUGHT AT IT AGAIN
http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/16-31-july-2012
Milligazette, 16-31 July 12, p. 10

Chetan Bhagat’s latest column in the Sunday Times (the masthead of the Times of India on Sundays redolent of a publication in UK), The Underage Optimist, is titled ‘And the people’s choice is…’ (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/all-that-matters/And-the-peoples-choice-is--/articleshow/14539995.cms). He considers two candidates for the answer, Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Bhagat exercises his democratic right in favour of Mr. Modi. There is nothing exceptionable with either his debunking of the Congress ‘crown prince’ or his political inclination for Mr. Modi. The issue is in his arriving at Mr. Modi as the ‘people’s choice’.

He claims that 82 percent of those voting on a poser from him on his Facebook page between the two political personalities weighed in favour of Mr. Modi, helping Modi beat Rahul Gandhi by ‘an astonishing 16 times’. Those who follow Bhagat’s socio-political writings in his columns and op-eds as against his bestsellers are by now familiar with his political predilections. Yet again in a free country there is no problem with that. It can be expected that those agreeing with him would also be linked to his site on Facebook. Therefore, if the vote goes a particular way, it cannot but be otherwise. From that to stretch the argument and prejudge the national election two years away is, to quote a phrase in his article, ‘a bit much’.

The matter of using his column for propagating a candidate as he has been indulging in over the past is also one between him and his editor. However, it is important to equally consistently dissect Bhagat’s argument in favour of his choice, lest through biased propagation by his influential supporters Mr. Modi does end up acquiring the prime minister’s chair in the real forum as against Facebook.

Bhagat, as befitting an IIT-IIM graduate, sensibly builds up his case as a comment on the manner Mr. Modi is acquiring a following in cyberspace among the youth. He caveats his advocacy by requiring Mr. Modi get ‘lucky, stay humble, has some genuine remorse and make the right moves.’ Getting ‘lucky’ is meaningless. ‘Staying humble’ is a notably tall order for Mr. Modi, as his recent campaign against his bete noire in the right wing, Mr. Joshi, indicates. It is the contradiction between the latter two – ‘genuine remorse’ and ‘making the right moves’ – that needs interrogation.

‘Genuine remorse’ cannot be felt and expressed as part of making the ‘right moves’. While remorse is right, it cannot be a right ‘move’. It cannot be taken as a means to an end. It has to be an end in itself. Genuine remorse in this case would amount to abdication, not only of the gaddi but by taking political sanyas. A life spent thereafter in service of the victims is one that can efface the blot, since the state and its judicial system has not deigned to bring justice to bear. However, since neither this is not about to happen, it is best that Mr. Modi be shown the door democratically. 

Will that happen? Not if the likes of Mr. Bhagat manipulate their fan following into turning in a majoritarian verdict. Even if backed by the majority, it would hardly be ‘democratic’, since political theory well knows that majority and democracy are not synonymous. A graduate with a technical degree such as Mr. Bhagat cannot be expected to know better.

A decade of uninhibited manipulation of the evidence in the Gujarat carnage using a cowed down state machinery and docile police has led to Mr. Modi being given the benefit of the doubt by the likes of the Supreme Court appointed SIT led by RK Raghavan. However, his supporters are ever willing to keep skepticism in suspended animation blinded by majoritarian supremacism.

This does not imply, as Bhagat suggests, a willingness to forget someone else’s past in order to gain a future. It is instead to be well aware of the past and not be bothered by it. Bhagat’s suggestion that the nation should follow such a cohort is to be blind to their motives going beyond a development orientation as Mr. Bhagat selectively presents them.

Bhagat’s selective blindness tells more about him than does his column. It is for this reason his case needs interrogation. And the fact that as a ‘youth icon’ – in the wikipedia’s words – his words may be taken as gospel in youth liable to mistake the credentials – IIT-IIM – as those of Almighty himself. It is no wonder then that Bhagat in his conclusion advises the BJP to go about ‘mobilizing people to vote’.

There remains one last bone to pick. Bhagat in drawing up his negative contrast of Rahul Gandhi to his champion has Gandhi ‘hiding whenever there is a national crisis.’ Bhagat can be forgiven for not knowing where Mr. Modi was in late February 2002, since Bhagat was perhaps over in Hong Kong busy with investment banking.

But, where was Mr. Modi hiding during the national crisis in rajdharma? Keeping his political buddies in police control rooms, Mr. Modi was certainly not busying himself with preempting the carnage at the controversial meeting on the evening of 27 February 2002 in his residence office. The SIT claims he was not busy precipitating it either.

The vote on this due in 2014 will surely confine Bhagat’s ‘people’s choice’ as PM of his Facebook page.