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Posted by qinsarfaraz in Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, MAKAAR HINDUS on July 15th, 2013
Here was an Indian star that I thought no end of, one who symbolised the warm, calming hug her people badly needed after their bruising tryst with foreign rule and an even more lacerating struggle to win freedom.
That was Lata Mangeshkar. She could switch from a gentle morning pick-me-up in a Marathi ‘Bhoopali’ to a more nuanced love expressed in Persianised Urdu, linking two diverse strands of free India’s cultural mix. She could dredge out Ghalib’s soul with a purist’s diction and sway with Shakeel’s rustic verse in an eastern UP dialect for Dhanno in Ganga Jamuna with the gentlest inflection of her vocal cords.
Perhaps she was a born polyglot, I would think with admiration. How else could she deliver Iqbal’s Kabhi ae haqeeqat emuntazar with the swirl of a dervish?
‘When I bowed my forehead in supplication/the earth itself pleaded with me: /Your heart is riveted to an icon of stone/Why do you waste your time in namaaz?’
I have leaned on Iqbal’s complex lines, which Lata sang with uncluttered ease only to illustrate the romance she engendered in the halcyon days that came with independence.
Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi: what a team they made for a newly freed people. Their duets, so popular in Pakistan, in a sense defied the idea of Pakistan itself with their true notes. In some ways the duo single-handedly undid the communal damage that came with the partition, not just in India but in Pakistan too, where she remained a household favourite at the head of other great singers.
Then something snapped last week. In her moment of personal trauma, Lata Mangeshkar bared her heart. She revealed she felt orphaned by Bal Thackeray’s passing away, but she didn’t stop there.
She went on to describe the Shiv Sena chief as a “Hindu hriday samraat”, a ruler of Hindu hearts. We knew that it was how many of his admirers, his less intellectually gifted followers, shall we say, saw him.
People who knew her claimed that Lata Mangeshkar donated a sum of her earnings to the Shiv Sena. But all this was seen as a tithe decent folks often pay after 1992-1993 to keep nuisance at bay. But now she revealed she may have been a devout bhakta of Thackeray, the self-proclaimed fascist whose adulation of Hitler only matched his love for Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin.
Let’s leave alone his hatred of Muslims and of Pakistan. I thought a majority of people Thackeray hated were Hindus. They were Hindu Gujaratis, Hindu Biharis or their cousins from Uttar Pradesh, Hindu Tamils and others from South India, communists, Brahmins.
They were all Hindu, if they must be given that identity at all, but they were all targeted albeit selectively in different stages of the rise of the Shiv Sena. In one stroke Lata Mangeshkar had disowned millions of her ardent fans.
I am not even broaching Thackeray’s documented role in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Did the singing diva of India, decorated with the country’s highest civilian honour, agree with the Ayodhya sacrilege? And did she get to read the Justice Shri Krishna Commission report on the anti-Muslim pogroms in Mumbai that followed the outrage in Ram’s birthplace? The killings, according to the report, were carried out by Thackeray’s foot soldiers, that she admires, in 1992-93. Is that what made her proud of the ruler of Hindu hearts?
Lata Mangeshkar has said she learnt some of the tricks of playback singing from listening to Noorjehan. They had a lot in common, including an army of followers that remained loyal to each, often to the exclusion of the other. They also sang for their armies, the real fighting ones.
And yet, as far as I can tell, Noorjehan would never have wooed religious fundamentalists, much less those who earn their keep from fomenting ill-will towards India. She wouldn’t have been a darling of Faiz if she had.
Thackeray of course had bigger fish to fry than playing The Godfather to his favourite admirer. He was a creature of India’s emerging consensus and that is the scarier part. It was his ability to cut across the political redlines, which anointed him as a more successful fascist than his other rightwing rivals have been shown to be.
Consider the grovelling and fawning news channels. And look at the grief writ on movie star Amitabh Bachchan’s face at Sunday’s funeral, or take corporate czar Anil Ambani who looked one of the most bereaved in the mêlée of Mumbai’s elite.
Both of them support the rightwing claimant to India’s top job, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and both have political associations that shore up the supposedly secular government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The fact is that Thackeray fulfilled corporate India’s need to suspend democracy if the going got tough and this would be done by a national consensus. He represented a militant, aggressive pro-market quest of the Indian state, one that can only be placated by bludgeoning its own people.
Every party needs to outdo the other in the bloody act. Lata Mangeshkar would appear to be a misfit in the gory denouement of India that Thackeray’s Shiv Sena revelled in. Else she could allow herself to beguile her fans with the siren call of fascism.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
[email protected]
Posted by Rana Tanveer in Cult of Hinduism, FILTHY PRACTICES OF INDIA & HINDUS, Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, India Hall of Shame, MAKAAR HINDUS, NAXALITE FREEDOM FIGHTERS, NAXALITE FREEDOM MOVEMENT on June 3rd, 2013
Insurgencies do not emerge in a vacuum. Their underlying root causes are invariably to be found in political, socio-economic or religious domains, their nature and scope depending upon the nature of the grievances, motivations and demands of the people.
India has had its share of insurgencies. In all, an estimated 30 armed insurgency movements are sweeping across the country, reflecting an acute sense of alienation on the part of the people involved. Broadly, these can be divided into movements for political rights – e.g. Assam, Kashmir and Khalistan (Punjab), movements for social and economic justice – e.g. Maoist (Naxalite) and north-eastern states, and religious grounds – e.g. Laddakh. These causes overlap at times.
Wikipedia lists 16 belligerent groups and 68 major organization as terrorist groups in India, which include: nine in the northeast (Seven Sisters), four in centre & the east (including Maoist/Naxalites), seventeen in the west (Sikh separatist groups), and thirty eight in the northwest (Kashmir).
Political Causes
By the very nature of its population mix, one that began evolving thousands of years ago with waves of migrants pouring in from adjoining lands at different periods in history, South Asia has never been a homogenous society. The multiplicity of races, ethnicities, tribes, religions, and languages led to the creation of hundreds of sovereign entities all over the subcontinent ruled by tribal and religious leaders and conquerors of all sorts. Like Europe over the centuries, the map of South Asia also kept changing owing to internecine warfare.
One must remember that India in its entire history, until colonized by the British and united at gun point, was never a single nation, nor a united country. The numerous entities were in many cases territorially and population-wise much larger than several European countries, were independently ruled and qualified for nationhood by any modern standards.
During and after the colonial rule, such territorial entities were lumped together to form new administrative and political units – or states, without, in many cases, taking into account the preferences and aspirations of the people. For the people of these territories, which ranged from small fiefdoms to large princely states, and who had for centuries enjoyed independent existence, this administrative and political amalgam amounted to loss of identity and freedom and being ruled by aliens. The new dispensation – democracy, in many cases brought no political or economic advantage.
To complicate matters, hundreds of religious and ethnic groups, some of which are fiercely sectarian and independent in nature, found themselves passionately defending their religions, ethnicities, languages and cultures, at times clashing fiercely with rival groups, challenging even the writ of the state in the process. As the time passes, it is becoming clear that keeping a conglomerate of nationalities and sub-nationalities together as one nation would be an impossibility, given the absence of a common thread that could weave them together.
Thus the artificial nature of the modern state created by the British colonialists and adopted by post colonial India also triggers violent reactions in different hotspots.
Caste Based Social Discrimination
India’s caste system, which tears apart its social fabric and divides people into potential warring groups, is unique to that country, and has no place in the modern world. This sinister game has historically been played by the Brahmans in collaboration with the ruling class to their mutual benefit. The issue assumes more horrific dimensions when those who practice it among the Hindus insist that it is a divinely sanctioned concept and cannot be abrogated by humans. Even the anti-caste activist – Dr. Ambedkar, acknowledges that ‘to destroy caste, all the Hindu shastras would have to be done away with’.
The system confers on the ‘higher’ castes the absolute right to plunder the wealth of those belonging to the ‘lower’ caste or Dalits (or the ‘untouchables’). For over four thousand years, the system has been driven by the intense hatred and by the yearning of the ‘higher’ castes to accept nothing less than abject subservience from the ‘lower’ castes. Ironically, its defenders have argued that it has kept a sense of order and peace among the people and has prevented society from disintegrating into chaos.
Although dalits make up for the most part of Indian population, they have remained deprived of the benefits of the current economic boom. This is because of the barricades that bar them from having access to education, job opportunities and even state provided healthcare and food. They are forced into menial jobs, denied entry to temples, cremation grounds and river bathing points and cannot even share a barber with the upper caste Hindu. Punishments are severe when these boundaries are transgressed. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, 45 special types of ‘untouchability’ practices are common.
Despite the fact that the Indian Constitution has abolished it, this caste based discrimination continues because it has infiltrated into the Indian polity, serves the vested interests of a powerful minority and gives it a hold over a helpless majority in the name of religion and ancient social customs. It has even been glorified by M.K. Gandhi who is reported to have said that ‘caste is an integral part of Hinduism and cannot be eradicated if Hinduism is to be preserved’.
The mentality of hate this creates in the lower castes in an age when the concepts of socialism, awareness about human rights and equality and dignity of man are spreading fast, this ‘helpless majority’ has begun to resort to violence to overthrow this yoke. The Maoist/ Naxalite uprising in eastern India is just one case in point.
Economic Disparity
Of India’s population of 1.1 billion, about 800 million – more than 60% – are poor, many living on the margins of life, lacking some or all of the basic necessities. Despite its emergence as Asia’s third biggest economy, India has the highest illiteracy rate in the world – 70%, and the people lack adequate shelter, sanitation, clean water, nutrition, healthcare and job opportunities. The groups that are mostly left behind are minorities. There is a growing concern that unless this situation is addressed, the country will be torn apart by the despair and rage of the poor sooner or later.
Hindutva – The Hindu Political Philosophy Steeped in Prejudice
The so called nationalist philosophy – Hindutva, is actually a euphemistic effort to conceal communal beliefs and practices. Many Indian Marxist sociologues describe the Hindutva movement as fascist in classical sense, in its ideology and class support, methods and programs, specially targeting the concept of homogenized majority and cultural hegemony. Others raise issues with regards to sometimes-vacillating attitudes of its adherents towards non-Hindus and secularism.
Defining Hindutva, “The struggle for India’s Soul” (World Policy Journal, fall 2002) states that India is “not only the [Hindu] fatherland but also …. their punyabhumi, their holy land”. To Hindu extremists all others on this land are viewed as “aliens” who do not belong there.
Hindutva is identified as the guiding ideology of the Sangh Parivar, a family of Hindu nationalist organizations of which Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad are part. Not part of Sangh Parivar, but closely associated with it, is Shiv Sena, a highly controversial political party of Maharashtra. The record of all these right wing radical parties in pursuing discriminatory policies towards minorities, particularly the Muslims, and engaging in their frequent massacres is no secret. This record alone is enough to show the true colors of Hindutvavadis (followers of Hindutva) and what Hindutva stands for.
Explaining the mindset of Shiv Sena, sociologist Dipankar Gupta says: “A good Hindu for the Shiv Sena is not necessarily a person well versed in Hindu scriptures, but one who is ready and willing to go out and attack Muslims … To be a good Hindu is to hate Muslims and nothing else.” This is borne out by the 2002 indiscriminate killings of Muslims in Gujarat for which Shiv Sena was held responsible.
The adherents of Hindutva demonise those who do not subscribe to that philosophy or are opposed to its pre-eminence and dub them anti-state or terrorists just as the Hindu scriptures in earlier times branded such people as rakshasas. As always, these groups have been ‘red in tooth and claw’ in violently resolving all their social, religious and political differences and killing, raping, burning and lynching those who show the audacity to stand up to them for their rights.
In 1947, these groups preferred violent upheaval and vivisection of India to sharing power with the Muslims and killed more people in communal violence, including Sikhs, Muslims, Christians and dalits than ever before in recent history. Citing ‘ekta and akhandata’ (unity and integrity) of India, they have refused to allow self rule to Sikhs (86%) in the Punjab, to Muslims (80%) in Kashmir, to Buddhists (90%) in Laddakh, to Christians in the North East of India and to the tribal population of central India.
It is this intolerance and bigotry that has generated alienation and hate among minorities, dalits and people of other faiths – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists. It lays the ground for angry and rebellious reaction among those who are targeted.
Insurgent Movements
Naxalites or Maoists: The Maoist Movement of Nepal, supported ironically by the Indian Government, came home to roost. Inspired by the Nepalese Maoist forest dwellers who took over and ruled their forests, the lowest of Indian forest dwellers of Naxalbari (West Bengal) – the ‘adivasis’, launched their own Maoist movement and took control of their forests too.
According to one of the legends that support India’s diabolical caste system, the adivasis were punished by the gods for killing a Brahmin (member of the highest caste – the 5% which more or less rules and controls India). As a punishment, the adivasis were expelled to live like animals in the forest and, like them, survive by preying on the weaker, owning nothing.
When huge mineral deposits were discovered in some of the forested areas, the authorities decided to relocate the adivasis in 1967. They refused. Having no other title, they did not want to give up what they held and this set in motion a cycle of resistance and reprisals, including rapes and murders by the powerful vested interests.
It is now recognised that exploitation of billions of dollars worth of mineral wealth of the central and eastern Indian tribal area by the capitalists without giving a share to the poorest of the poor forest dwellers whose home it has been for ages, lay at the root of the Maoist insurgency, modelled after the teachings of the great Chinese revolutionary leader.
These Maoists now inhabit an area known as the ‘Red Corridor’ that stretches from West Bengal to Karnataka state in the southwest. They are active across 220 districts in 20 states – about 40% of India’s geographical area. They also threaten to extend operations in major urban centers, including New Delhi. Indian intelligence reports say that insurgents include 20,000 armed men and 50,000 regular or fulltime organizers and mobilizers, with the numbers growing. In 2007 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the growing influence of Maoist insurgency as “the most serious internal threat to India’s national security.”
The Seven Sisters: The seven states of northeastern India called the Seven Sisters are significantly different, ethnically and linguistically, from the rest of the country. These states are rocked by a large number of armed and violent rebellions, some seeking separate states, some fighting for autonomy and others demanding complete independence, keeping the entire region is a state of turmoil. These states include Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
These states accuse New Delhi of apathy towards their issues. Illiteracy, poverty and lack of economic opportunities have fueled the natives’ demand for autonomy and independence. There also exist territorial disputes among states and tensions between natives and immigrants from other states which the governments have not attended to, accentuating the problems.
The Assam state has been the hotbed of active militancy for many years, ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) has been in the forefront of a liberation struggle since 1979, along with two dozen other militant groups, on the grounds of neglect and economic disparity. Over 10,000 people have lost their lives and thousand have been displaced during the last 25 years. The army has been unable to subdue the insurgents.
The divide between the tribals and non tribal settlers is the cause of the trouble in Meghalaya. Absence of effective governance gives rise to identity issues, mismanagement and growing corruption. Like other states in the region there is a demand for independence along tribal lines. The Achik National Volunteer Council has pursued since 1995 the formation of an Achik Land in the Caro Hills, whereas the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council seeks to free the state from Garo domination.
The Arunachal Dragon Force, also known as the East India Liberation Front, is a violent secessionist movement in the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The ADF seeks to create an independent state resembling the pre-British Teola Country that would include area currently in Arunachal Pradesh as well as neighboring Assam.
Mizoram’s tensions have arisen largely due to the Assamese domination and the neglect of the Mizo people by India. In 1986, the main secessionist movement led by the Mizo National Front ended after a peace accord, bringing peace to the region. However, secessionist demands by some groups continue to insist on an independent Hmar State.
Nagaland was created in 1963 as the 16th state of Indian Union after carving it out of Assam. It happens to be the oldest of insurgencies of India (since 1947) and is believed to have inspired almost all others ethnic groups in the region, demanding full independence. The state is marked by multiplicity of tribes, ethnicities, cultures and religion. It is home to around 400 tribes or sub tribes and has witnessed conflicts, including infighting amongst various villages, tribes and other warring factions, most of them seeking a separate homeland comprising Christian dominated areas of Nagaland and certain areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The area is rich in oil reserves worth billions and government efforts to strike deals with the rebel groups have yielded no results. Thousands have died since the insurgency began.
The struggle for the independence of Manipur has been actively pursued by several insurgent groups since 1964, some of them with socialist leanings, arising out of neglect by the state and central governments of the issues and concerns of the people. For lack of education and economic opportunities, many people have been forced to join these separatists groups. The disturbed conditions have only added to the sufferings of the general population. The controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (or AFSPA) has been extensively criticized, as it gives wide and unrestricted powers to the army, which invariably leads to serious violations of human rights.
It was the ethnic tensions between the Bengali immigrants after the 1971 war and the native tribal population in Tripura and the building of a fence by the government along the Bangladesh border that led to a rebellion in the 1970s. Very active insurgency now goes on amid very harsh living conditions for thousands of homeless refugees. The National Liberation Front of Tripura and the All Tripura Tiger Force demand expulsion of Bengali speaking immigrants.
Tamil Nadu: In the wake of their defeat by the Sri Lankan military in the Jaffna peninsula, the Tamil LTTE freedom fighters took refuge in the adjoining Tamil Nadu state of India, where on account of common ethnicity, religion, language and culture they mixed easily and enjoyed mass support for their cause. Overtime LTTE regrouped and recruited volunteers from amongst the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and the local population and began to amass weapons and explosives.
There is a strong anti-India and pro-secessionist sentiment in Tamil Nadu. Most people want independence from India despite sharing a common religion – Hinduism, with the rest of Hindu dominated India. Their argument: religion is not a binding force that can override other considerations, such as language, culture, ethnicity, people’s aspirations and an identity that entitles them to an independent existence. They argue that if Nepal can have an independent existence as a Hindu state right next to India why can’t Tamil Nadu? And they argue that one religion does not necessarily translate into one nationality. If that were so, there would not have been so many Christian and Muslim states enjoying independent status. Tamils are inspired by the Maoist/Naxalite movement but their secessionist organizations have been shut down after being labeled as terrorists.
Khalistan Movement of the Sikhs: The Sikh community has long nurtured a grudge against the Hindu dominated governments in New Delhi for having gone back on their word given at the time of partition in 1947, promising autonomy to their state of Punjab, renaming it Khalistan, which the Sikhs considered to be very important from their religious and political standpoint. Real as well as perceived discrimination and a feeling of betrayal by the central government of Indira Gandhi brought matters to the head and fearing a rebellion from the Sikh militant groups, she ordered a military crackdown on their most revered shrine – the Golden Temple, in 1981, where armed Sikhs put up stiff resistance. An estimated 3000 people, including a large number of pilgrims, died. This ended in a military victory but a political disaster for Indira Gandhi. Soon afterwards in 1984, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards and this in turn led to a general massacre of the Sikhs across India. Although the situation has returned to normal, the Sikh community has not forgiven the Hindus for this sacrilege and tensions continue. The demand for Khalistan is still alive and about 17 movements for a separate Sikh state remain active.
Another factor that has added to the existing tensions between the central government and the Sikhs is the diversion to the neighbouring states of their most important natural resource – river water, which belonged only to Punjab under the prevalent national and international law. This deprived Punjab of billions of rupees annually. With 80% of the state population – the poor farming community, adversely affected, there has been a great deal of unrest. The military was used to suppress this unrest but there are fears that the issue could become the moot point of another Maoist uprising, this time in Punjab.
Kashmir: The Kashmir issue is as old as the history of India and Pakistan’s independence. It arose out of India’s forcible occupation of this predominantly Muslim state against the wishes of its people and in violation of the principle of partition of British India. A fierce struggle for independence continues unabated in the valley in which hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives at the hands of the central and state government’s security forces and have been displaced. There has been international condemnation of human rights violations. India has defied the resolutions of the UN Security Council that have called for demilitarization of the valley and holding of plebiscite to determine the will of the people.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars and efforts at reaching a solution through negotiations have not been fruitful.
Consequences for South Asia
The Indian internal scene presents a very disturbing scenario, one that has prompted Suhas Chakma, Director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights in New Delhi, to say that ‘India is at war with itself’. Alan Hart, the British journalist, while speaking about insurgencies in India at LISA seminar in July this year, agreed with this characterization. There is a consensus that this situation seriously threatens India’s stability and consequently its democracy.
In a changing world, as the poor of India become more and more aware of the affluence of the relative few who reap the benefits from the country’s development boom, the rich-poor division assumes greater significance and cannot not be ignored. “The insurgency in all of its manifestations and the counter-insurgency operations of the security forces in all of their manifestations are only the casing of the ticking time-bomb under India’s democracy. The explosive substance inside the casing is, in a word, POVERTY” said Alan Hart, and said it rightly.
It is also important to understand that newly undertaken unification of India has not yet taken firm roots and it would be a bad idea for it to try and trigger fragmentation among its neighbours. There is imminent danger of the Domino effect taking the whole of South Asia down.
Read his bio and more analyses and essays by
Axis of Logic Columnist, Shahid R. Siddiqi
Posted by admin in HIndu Terrorism, India, INDIA'S HINDUISM, MAKAAR HINDUS on April 12th, 2013
Posted by admin in Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, Hindus Ignore Rape, OUTRAGE AGAINST MUSLIM GENOCIDE on April 7th, 2013
At one end of Delhi, in the verdant campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, scholars gathered to update one another on the current trends in Historical Materialism. At the other end of Delhi, in Ashok Hotel, on April 4 Nehru’s grandson, Rahul Gandhi, delivered the keynote address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the conference of Historical Accumulation. Gandhi said little except that he is pledged to the poor – it is what is expected of the Gandhi family, whose rhetorical liberalism is so scripted that its absence is noted rather than its presence. There was little about the fact that one in four Indians goes to bed every night hungry with no expectation that they will eat the next day. With a population of over a billion, that’s a very large number of people (almost the entire population of the United States).
The Indian general election is slated for next year. Gandhi’s speech to the business bloc had an eye to the ballot box, which means of course with a hand out to Big Business, which finances the entire process. “His ideas are brilliant,” said the CII’s head Adi Godrej, whose name is shared with one of India’s most powerful business houses, the Godrej Group, and who is personally worth $9 billion. “We should work in unison for greater progress,” Godrej said, indicating that the Captains of Industry have been happy with Gandhi’s party and are not keen to rock the boat.
Rahul Bajaj, head of the Bajaj Group and personally worth $3.4 billion, is the grandson of the legendary follower of M. K. Gandhi, Jamnalal Bajaj. Rahul Bajaj is very close to Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party so his enthusiasm for the uncrowned king is to be expected. Nevertheless the mushiness came alongside a pointed barb at India’s main opposition party, the BJP and its putative leader, Narendra Modi. “I support the one who will be a good democratic leader rather than someone who is very dictatorial.”
The Dictator
Bajaj, who has many business ventures in Gujarat, points his finger at the current Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. Modi has been at the helm in that state since 2001. The following year, in 2002, Modi presided over the mass killing of Muslims by his party’s mass outfits, many of whom had honed their teeth in the anti-Christian violence in the Dangs region of Gujarat since 1998. A thirty-year old agricultural laborer, Jamuna Bhen, told Human Rights Watch about the incidents in her town on December 25, 1998. “The Hindus removed the ornamentation from our church. They threatened us by saying that they will set the church house on fire. Then they started taking down roof tiles. There were one hundred to 200 people who came from other villages. They said, ‘We will burn everything.’ We begged them not to. We said, ‘Don’t do this,’ and said we will become Hindus.”
An eerie similarity comes from the stories of 2002. Abdul Aziz, age 25, from Chartoda Kabristan, told Human Rights watch that on the afternoon of February 28, 2002, his brother was coming home from work. The police claimed a curfew was on in the town. “A crowd gathered to attack. The police was leading the crowd. They were 
looting and people followed, looting and burning behind them. The crowd was shouting, ‘Go to Pakistan. If you want to stay here become Hindu.’ The police very clearly aimed at my brother and fired at him.” He died not long afterwards.
The judicial process for both the anti-Christian violence in Dangs and the anti-Muslim violence across Gujarat has run aground. Investigations seem conclusive, but the courts seem unable to proceed to sentences. The most serious charge, that Modi stoked and abetted the violence, has not proceeded far enough. Modi’s hands are stained with the events, with the Special Investigation Team offering evidence of Modi’s complicity. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court decided not to act, offering “no criminal case against Narendra Modi.”
The US Visa
Pressure from concerned Indian Americans and from Christian groups on the US State Department in 2005 laid the basis for the US government to deny Modi’s application to come and address a trade body in Florida. The previous year, in 2004, Modi’s political party, the BJP, had lost the general elections and gone into the political wilderness. The Congress-led UPA coalition was in power, and seemed eager for a close entente with the US government (this would mature into the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement of 2005, close commercial ties fostered by the new Congress government and George W. Bush’s visit to India in 2006). Bush’s evangelicalism had given support to a 1998 Congressional body, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, whose members included those genuinely concerned about religious bigotry overseas and those (like Richard Land) who are religious bigots against non-evangelical Christians. A conjuncture of disparate interests coalesed to work against Modi’s visa (disclosure: I was involved in this as well as part of the Coalition Against Genocide. I wrote about this in Counterpunch on March 9, 2005, “Get Modi: A State Terrorist Visits American Hoteliers”). Modi’s visa was denied. He has since then not traveled to the US.
The conjuncture has shifted. The Congress-led UPA coalition has been weakened by a series of corruption allegations, and by a realization amongst sections of the Indian electorate that their economic woes are less karmic and more capitalistic. The BJP chomps at the bit to return to power. Their standbearer in all likelihood will be Modi. That is why the US State Department’s Victoria Nuland, on April 4, said that Modi is “welcome to apply” for a visa. A Republican Congressional delegation was recently in Gujarat. Nuland described their purpose as a way to “help support a strengthening of business to business ties, of people to people ties across India, in Gujarat.” It is business, the process of accumulation, that defines US priorities – given a change in the wind, the US is willing to hastily reconsider its policy to Modi.
It is well worth going back to a meeting that Modi had with US Consul General in Mumbai, Michael Owen, on November 16, 2006 (in the Wikileaks cache). Modi grumbled that the entire fracas over the visa denial was the work of “fringe NGOs” and those with “an axe to grind.” He wanted to talk about his accomplishments in office, mainly increased funds for infrastructure and easier licensing for investment. Owen said that he agreed with these “positive accomplishments,” but said that these do not diminish “the importance of holding people accountable” for the violence of 2002. “A visibly annoyed Modi launched a spirited defense consisting of accusations of USG meddling, attacks on US human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and allegations that Muslims were better off in Gujarat than anywhere else in India.” Modi said that there was no chance of an apology.
Why was Modi interested in the US government’s estimation? Obviously he was eager for business relations with US capital, but there was more to it than that. Owen asked BJP parliamentarian Vallabh Kathiria if Modi was interested in a national role, namely to be Prime Minister. “Kathiria responded with a broad smile and vigorous head waggle,” wrote Owen. From 2006, at least, Modi has lobbied the US behind the scenes for a clean chit – eager to remove this issue from the table as he tried to morph from being seen as the Milosevic of Gujarat to the Lee Kwan Yew of Gujarat.
It tells you something about the state of Indian politics that the man who sounded sane to US Consul General Owen was the descendent of a royal family, the Wankaner’s of Gujarat, Digvijay Sinh. He told Owen that Modi could not be the Prime Minister because he “lacks the polish and refinement.” What others might call Modi’s dictatorial tendencies is sniffed downward by sections of the elite as simply the brash ways of the villageois. It is a common view amongst the businessmen at the CII. Both the Congress and the BJP are willing to line the pockets of the private firms. But Gandhi is more refined than Modi, which is what gives him the edge in the sweepstakes of class bias. He is part of what Sinh, in another context, called the “cream of society.”
But there is no need to pity Modi. His dictatorialness is rooted in his ideology and not in his personality or his class background. He is an adherent of Old Fascism dressed up in the cloak of Business. On the last day of the Gujarat Assembly a few days ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General submitted its report which showed that the Modi government had been involved in corrupt deals that lost the exchequer above Rs. 13.11 billion – close to $300 million. Old fashion crony capitalism that is favored by the CII members when they don’t have the microphones on. The US government’s vacillation is motivated entirely by the saliva generated by these numbers. All talk of morals and justice, of religious freedom and good governance go out the window when a sack of dollars sits by the front door.
Vijay Prashad’s new book, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, is out this month from Verso Books.
Posted by admin in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, Hindu India, HIndu Terrorism, India, India Hall of Shame, India's Missile Technology Proliferation, India's Nuclear Proliferation on April 2nd, 2013
By MANOJ JOSHI
Daily Mail Online, UK
PUBLISHED: 17:24 EST, 3 September 2012 | UPDATED: 17:28 EST, 3 September 2012
The most authoritative non-governmental assessment of world nuclear forces has revealed that India’s nuclear capabilities are seriously lagging behind those of its putative adversaries, Pakistan and China.
The evaluation by Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists called ‘Indian nuclear forces, 2012’, reveals that for New Delhi, the principal means of weapons delivery remains fixed-wing aircraft like the Mirage-2000 and the Jaguar.
Unlike Pakistan and China which have substantial deployed missile arsenals, India’s missile force is lagging, despite the test-launch of the Agni V in 2012.
Only the Agni I in the Agni series of missiles has entered service
As the Bulletin notes, ‘the Agni I and Agni II, despite being declared operational, both have reliability issues that have delayed their full operational service’.
The other missiles in the Agni series – the Agni III, IV and V – all remain under development.
Indeed, the report notes that ‘the bulk of the Indian ballistic missile force is comprised of three versions of Prithvi missiles, but only one of these versions, the army’s Prithvi I, has a nuclear role’.
Considering that the lumbering Prithvi I requires hours to get ready for launch and has a range of just 150 km, it indicates that the Indian nuclear weapons capability is short-legged indeed.
Nevertheless, the Bulletin notes, the development of the Agni V has introduced ‘a new dynamic into the already complex triangular security relationship between India, Pakistan and China’. Lt Gen (retd) V.R. Raghavan, advisor with the Delhi Policy Group, does not agree with the Bulletin analysis fully.
Admiral Arun Prakash, Retired navy chief (left) and Lt Gen (retd) V.R. Raghavan, Delhi Policy Group
According to him, ‘The Agni I is operational and tested, and Agni II and III are almost there and all three can be used if necessary.’ According to him, the lack of authoritative information on India’s capability ‘is part of our posture of ambiguity’ on matters nuclear. But Admiral Arun Prakash, former navy chief and chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, has another view.
‘We have to rely on the word of our DRDO/DAE scientists as far as performance, reliability, accuracy and yield of missiles and nuclear warheads are concerned. Unfortunately, hyperbolic claims coupled with dissonance within the ranks of our scientists have eroded their credibility,’ he said.
As of now, according to the Bulletin, ‘we estimate that India has produced 80-100 nuclear warheads’. In the case of Pakistan, whose evaluation was done in 2011, the Bulletin analysis has said that ‘it has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile’, estimating that Pakistan ‘has 90-110 nuclear weapons’.
The Pakistani arsenal, too, consists of mainly aircraft-dropped bombs, but with its Chinese-supplied missiles, it has a deployed arsenal of missiles like the Ghaznavi, Shaheen I and Ghauri and is developing longer-range missiles. Significantly, Pakistan’s India specific arsenal comprises of the Nasr short-range (70 km) ballistic missile, which can use nuclear weapons to take out troop formations and Pakistan is in the advanced stage of developing two cruise missiles – the Babur and the Raad.
If this is dismaying for New Delhi, the comparison with China is positively alarming. Beijing has an arsenal of 240 or so warheads and it is adding to this number, though not at the pace Pakistan is.
Its nuclear weapons are primarily delivered through a mature missile arsenal with ranges from 2,000-11,000 km. A large number of Chinese missiles, including their cruise missiles, are primarily for use in nonnuclear conventional battle role. Raghavan acknowledges that ‘China is a different kettle of fish’, but he says even so, with the Agni V test, ‘India’s progress has been commendable’.
But the really big difference between India and China arises from the fact that India’s thermonuclear weapon capability is suspect.
A Mail Today report (August 27, 2009) had cited K. Santhanam, the DRDO scientist who ran the country’s nuclear programme at the time of the Pokhran tests, to say that the single thermonuclear test carried out at the time was a ‘fizzle’. Responsibility for this state of affairs rests with the government.
According to Admiral Prakash, ‘India’s National Command Authority (NCA) not only meets infrequently, but is loath to take decisions when it does. This has an adverse impact on decision-making, financial approvals and production-rate of missiles/warheads’.
He says that the management of our deterrent ‘by a sub-optimal troika consisting of scientists (in the driving seat), bureaucrats and soldiers’ is also a debilitating factor.
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