The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

PERSPECTIVE

A Tribune Special
Transformation of polity
The youths want to shape their own destiny, says Vijay Sanghvi

The intellectuals and academicians are concerned about the instability of politics of alliances that has come to stay for the past two decades. They lament the mushrooming of small and regional parties and condemn them as caste-based outfits that have polluted Indian politics and weakened the party system to their dismay.

The nation has come to such a pass that they do not visualise the return of a single-party majority rule or even any reduction in the number of parties in the near future. However, they are not willing to accept that such a growth was largely written in the conceptual transformation of the Indian National Congress that Jawaharlal Nehru affected soon after he took over as Prime Minister and the only leader of Independent India in 1947.

Mahatma Gandhi had always told to look at villages of India because they were the real strength of India despite their unfortunate conditions. “India lives in villages”, according to him. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi had aroused the masses to provide the vast base to the Congress party that was in 1918 merely a debating society of the middle class and thus provided strength to the freedom struggle of India.

After independence, Nehru took the superstructure of the Congress away from its base and handed it over to the educated urban middle class, mostly professionals. Perhaps, he genuinely believed that educated class would accelerate the economic growth that would stimulate the social change to improve living conditions of poor in a short time. The conceptual change compelled him to make the party leadership structure laden with educated urban elite. Few rich of farm lobby could find a place in it but others had no space provided.

In a country where nearly three-fourth of the population lived on agriculture and allied activities, Nehru rejected the people’s plan for planned economic development and went in for expanding industrial base. Though not intended, it resulted in benefiting only urban centres and business class. Even industrial workers found a space in it though only on margins. But they had assured and protected steady incomes.

In his dream to build a scientific temper for India, he encouraged building of higher technical education institutes. However, little attention was paid to improving primary and secondary education. Nehru adopted not only the British model of education system but also the academic calendar they had devised instead changing it to suit the climatic, environmental, social and vocational needs of independent India. The only correction introduced was to replace the British legends with Indian ones in textbooks for schools.

The Congressmen were never tired of talking of the poor but they or their representatives never found any place in the decision-making process. Even in the panchayat concept, they were kept at margins in reality. Crumbs of reservations were thrown at the Dalits without sharing the real power with them.

The Bharatiya Jan Sangh was founded on the Sangh philosophy that not only refused to include the Muslims in Bharatiya Samaj but also did not provide space even to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) that enjoyed numerical superiority. They existed in the same conflicting structures of both the Hindus and the Muslims. The Jan Sangh could not expand its vote base for three decades only because of its caste character due to accommodation only to the upper castes.

The socialist movement was operated only by the upper caste but left-oriented leaders. They had no space to offer to the deprived classes as they themselves were living in a small space. The Communists never concentrated on social status and political rights of producers outside the industrial units where a large proportion of population eked out its life.

In 1958, the Swatantra Party emerged to fight the idea of collectivisation of land through co-operatisation on the Soviet pattern that Nehru had talked about at the Awadi session in 1956. It was a birth of rich men’s party as kulaks, former princes and business tycoons took it over in the Fourth General Election but it could not expand except in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Orissa where business tycoons and former princes were revered.

Its concept precluded a space to other intermediate castes who toiled as marginal farmers or landless labour to provide food to the nation but lived under the spell of fatalism that deprived them of any capacity to not only to revolt but even protest against their plight of centuries. Lack of attention to development of agriculture had not transformed their conditions for better in independent India and had kept the country to live on a begging bowl for its food needs until 1966.

India Gandhi introduced the Green revolution concept for agriculture in 1966 that begun to improve not only the food production but also economic conditions of those lived on margins as intermediate castes. Expansion of media and education brought about a conscious change in their aspirations. Hungry bellies cannot think of social reforms and political revolutions. Only after they are able to fill bellies full their thoughts turn to other aspects of life. This has been stated from Adam Smith, noted economist to Marvin Harris, eminent anthropologist.

Based on organised strength derived from the dislike for Brahmin domination, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) became first to replace the Congress forever in the power corridors of Tamil Nadu. The Marathas replaced the Brahmins in the Congress in Maharashtra in 1972 and thus captured power. They were smart enough to utilise the Congress party machinery to ascend to power.

Even a total novice to politics and film hero like Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao could become a symbol of aspirations for backward classes in Andhra and could shake the Congress out of its solid foundations.

N.T. Rama Rao’s son-in-law Nara Chandrababu Naidu diverted his attention to information technology and urban development in his second term which translated to the OBCs as priority to the higher classes that he was thrown out.

The combine of the OBCs, the Dalits and the Muslims known as KHAM gave the Congress unprecedented majority in the Assembly elections in 1980 and 1985. However, the three communities strayed away when the Gujarat chief minister, Madhavsinh Solanki, concentrated his attention away from them.

The Congress has been denied majority since then, especially after Narendra Modi caught the OBCs and the Dalits in his development net. Narendra Modi had to struggle on his own in the 2008 Assembly elections as the Sangh Parivar did not come to his aid. This is because, as an OBC, Modi posed a greater threat to internal structure of the Sangh Parivar.

Neither Kalyan Singh nor Uma Bharti — the only two other OBC leaders to occupy the chair of the chief ministers in the Sangh — could not survive for long as they had no political understanding that Modi has displayed.

The states in the Hindi belt had to wait for almost two decades to find their place. As they could not find accommodation in either of two national parties, they had to fall behind those who came up from their castes and espoused their aspirations for power share.

Yadav awakened earlier than other OBCs in both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But their emergence was preceded by attempts by other leaders to grab a larger share for OBCs in the power structure.

Kashiram had carried on his social movement for organising the Dalits on one platform so that they could assert their strength. He struggled for 20 years before converting his social movement into a political outfit by launching the Bahujan Samaj Party. His success was in ascent of Mayawati as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh by winning a clear majority in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2007. She could be condemned as uncouth and corrupt person, but she is a symbol of the Dalit aspirations in a fact that cannot be wished away.

Kashiram has transformed the Dalits by giving them courage to snatch back their self-esteem and stand up to all other castes. Earlier they were not only pushed to the lowest rung of society but their self-esteem was snatched away from them from their birth by prohibiting them from thinking for the self. Education added to regaining of the self-esteem that in turn kindled hunger for political power share to improve heir own strength and status by writing their own destiny.

It is easy to condemn the new breed of politicians as caste leaders indulging in undesirable politics. But they would have remained only small-time players had the Congress and the BJP accommodated their followers with a proportionate share in leadership structure. Instead, attempts have been made to win them over through corrupt practices of throwing crumbs of reservations at them for government jobs and in admissions to higher technical education institutes.

These measures were a part of the scheme to win over the OBCs away from regional parties without realising that their aspirations were no more for crumbs but their ambitions were for their due share in political power. Thus, the failure of major parties was mainly responsible for mushrooming of regional and ethnic sponsored parties and also introduction of politics of alliances which would always remain instable due to its nature and its conception.

For the newly awakened youths, the secularism of the Congress or the cultural nationalism of the BJP has little meaning. They want to shape their own destiny.

Secularism immediately gets translated in their mind as a rule by the urban elite and cultural nationalism conveys a message of return of domination by the higher castes. In both situations, they have no share in power or even a place in the main structure.

For 60 years, the Indian polity was being driven by the attitudes and approach of ruling class in direction of emergence the other classes as a political entity as they realised the strength of their numerical superiority though rather late. Narendra Modi is perhaps aware in deep recess of his mind that the Sangh philosophy would never propose his name as it would be making their philosophy stand on its head.

Intellectuals would always oppose Narendra Modi as his image of Gujarat 2002 remains stuck in their minds. Only the ‘others’ would impose him. His priority to welfare of ‘others’ in his state indicates that he was struggling to move away from his past to write a new future for himself. That depends on how fast the OBCs organise themselves into a single political entity. Only then the politics of alliances would become stable.

The idea of a single entity had germinated when the upper castes put pressure on the removal of Madhavsinh Solanki as the chief minister of Gujarat for his proposal to extend reservations to OBCs of the state in 1985. The idea remained stillborn due to diffidence of Solanki to take courage in his hands.

However, the idea turned into growth of saplings that one saw in regional parties in virtually every state as they were based mainly on aspirations of the deprived class. When it could become a single tree only time can say.

OPED

End of peace journey?
by Kuldip Nayar

IT has been a long haul. The people-to-people contact which we fostered like a gardener tending a sapling. My tryst with friendly relations between India and Pakistan goes back to September 13, 1947. That was the day when I crossed the border at Wagha after journeying from Sialkot, my hometown. I had seen murder and worse. Like millions of refugees, I too had been broken on the rack of history.

My resolve was to make the border soft so that the people I had left behind—they were similar—could come to India and we to Pakistan without the hassle of passport or visa. But I found to my horror that anyone talking about good relations was dubbed a Pakistani agent in India and an Indian agent in Pakistan. Still my job was easier than those in Pakistan because the democratic polity on this side had given us an open society and an environment where we could criticize India whenever it was harsh on Pakistan.

In comparison, India was a better place for meeting the likeminded from Pakistan. Slowly and gradually, personal relations began to fructify into relations between the two countries. Governments remained distant and they had their “track” for getting together the pro-establishment men to say their respective government’s piece. It too helped because there was a meeting of those who knew the official line and to what extent the participants could go.

What really gave me strength was the visit to Lahore some 16 years ago. I had just checked into a city hotel when Khurshid Kasuri, who later became Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, rang me up to convey that Benazir Bhutto wanted me to meet her. I requested him to pick me up. He came within a few minutes and I accompanied him to his house in the cantonment where Benazir was presiding over a meeting of 23 parties wanting restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

Benazir made me sit next to her and said softly: We, the political parties, would never be able to normalise relations between Pakistan and India. You (the people) would be able to do so one day provided you did not give up your efforts.

Nawaz Sharif, who was then the Prime Minister, endorsed her thinking when I interviewed him. He said he would help me in the endeavour. He did so in his own way. That was the year when I collected a few persons from Delhi and a few from Amritsar, in all 15, to light candles at the Wagah gate on the midnight of August 14-15, the time when India and Pakistan became independent.

As the ceremony was held every year on the same night, the crowd grew bigger and bigger. In 2007, there were roughly 3 lakh people on this side of the border, raising the slogan: Long Live India-Pakistan Dosti (friendship).

We did not provide any transport, any meals and not even cold water. People sat in the open and enjoyed the Punjabi music. Top artistes would come to sing because it was considered prestigious to appear from that stage. We invited National Assembly members from Pakistan to participate in the function. Once Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was one of the guests. He talked about peace then. But today he says that Pakistan is fully prepared for war.

To our regret, none would show up on the other side when we lighted candles at the Wagah gate. Some time the Jammat-e-Islami kept the peace activists in Pakistan away from reaching the border and some time the authorities did so. The media on this side made much of the Pakistanis’ absence at the other side. It came to be dubbed a one-sided effort. This year some 50 people, men and women, from Pakistan came right up to the gate. We opened the gate but they could not. We exchanged candles and talked to each other. This was clear evidence that democracy had returned to Pakistan.

But it is a pity that the Mumbai attack has also come in the same year. The entire atmosphere has changed overnight. Hardliners have overtaken us. And when New Delhi declared to curtail the number of visas to be issued from the Indian High Commission at Islamabad, people-to-people contact had a question mark against it.

I have to admit that the terrorist attack on Mumbai demolished my work of 16 years in no time. When there is no option except peace between the two countries, why the hype and jingoism which the media, particularly the television channels, have built up? Why do democratic forces come to talk in the same vein as the dictators do? Why does the fledging democracy in Pakistan begin to behaving like General Pervez Musharraf did during his rule—all denials? Ashma Jehangir can be commended for having said at Delhi that the terrorists were the Pakistanis and that the Asif Ali Zardari government should begin taking action against them instead of denying that they were not Pakistanis.

But how does one explain the statement by General Asfaq Parvez Kiyani, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff, that Pakistan would retaliate within minutes of India’s attack on Pakistan? There is no political party or lobby talking about war. Why is he queering the pitch?

The bigger question which remains unanswered is why do peace activists become silent when they see the warlike atmosphere taking shape. This is the time when they should have been most active. In fact, some of them have turned into hawks. Is there no commitment to peace whatever the environment?

Where have the voices for peace gone? We have failed so many times earlier and have still got engaged in people-to-people contact quickly. Why do I feel despondent this time? Have I got disillusioned or simply tired? Or is it what Faiz Ahmad Faiz described as:
Lambi hai gham ki shaam,
Magar shaam hi to hai
(The night of sorrow is long,
But it is only a night).

Profile
Antulay — the master of controversies
by Harihar Swarup

AR Antulay is no stranger to controversies. His career graph shows that he cannot remain on a post for long and will create problems for himself. He has broken records of the leaders thrown in the wilderness for long years and yet bounced back to power. He kicked up yet another controversy by demanding an inquiry into the killing of Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad Chief Hemant Karkare, alleging conspiracy by the Hindutva radicals connected with the Malegoan blast case.

Fortunately, the controversy was resolved amicably after Antulay accepted Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s statement that there was no truth whatsoever in the suspicion that there was a conspiracy to eliminate Karkare.

He was removed from the office of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The circumstances were ignominious then and charges serious against him — indulgence in corrupt practice. No one at that time thought Antulay will surface again on the political scene and become a Union Minister. The case against him related to collection of funds for a trust set up by him for the welfare of artists including journalists and named the Indira Gandhi Pratibha Pratisthan. The amount was collected through cheques and many of the donors were builders who gave the donation in lieu of cement permit, a scarce commodity then.

Antulay, now in seventies, made his debut on the national scene as far back as 1976 when at the AICC session at Kamagatamaru Nagar, near Chandigarh, Indira Gandhi made him the party’s general secretary. Antulay soon made his way into the inner circle of Indira Gandhi’s advisors and came close to Sanjay Gandhi. When she returned to power in 1980, Sanjay chose him to head the Congress government in Maharashtra. It was a big jump forward for Antulay and, perhaps, the finest hour. He took oath as the Chief Minister on June 9, 1980, but within two years he started trouble for himself.

It is said that Antulay tries to move as fast as he can politically. This often creates problems for him. Had he not formed the Indira Gandhi Pratibha Prathistan, he could have ruled Maharashtra for a full five-year term. He did initiate a number of schemes for the welfare of the poor.

Antulay’s efforts to get back Shivaji’s “Bhavani Talwar” from a London museum made headlines. He also vowed to bring back the Kohinoor diamond. His outburst about the sword apparently stemmed out of his desire to establish and enhance his rapport with Maratha leaders. The two treasures never made it back to India.

He initiated the move for a change from the parliamentary system to presidential form with usual vigour. He held the view that parliamentary democracy as envisaged in affluent countries like the UK was not suitable for a country like India.

As the Chief Minister and, later, as the Union Health Minister, in the P.V. Narasimha government, Antulay was known to making surprise visits during odd hours to check whether those on duty were doing their job. Antulay is known to be an able administrator. He is credited with taking up developmental works in the Konkan region through the Konkan Development Corpo-ration, besides initiating a pension scheme for destitutes.

He is known to have sought attention through his controversial utterances in the past and continues to do so. Many view his latest outbursts, which left the UPA government embarrassed, as an attempt to consolidate his position among the minorities.

On Record
Conversion a personal affair, says Jafar
by Syed Ali Ahmed

Conversion has become a major issue in the country, particularly in Haryana, after Bhajan Lal’s son and former Deputy Chief Minister Chander Mohan aka Chand Mohammad embraced Islam to remarry former Assistant Advocate-General Anuradha Bali aka Fiza. Both have lost their positions. To get Muslim religious scholars’ reaction to the ongoing debate over conversion, The Sunday Tribune contacted Mohammad Jafar, vice-president, Jamat-e-Islami Hind and executive member of the Muslim Personal Law Board.

Excerpts:

Q: In what perspective do you see the recent happening in Haryana?

A: Conversion is a personal issue. A person has the right to choose his own religion. Nobody can object to it. It is not wise to comment on Mr Chander Mohan’s idea to change his religion. According to Islamic education, we have to accept him as a Muslim if he claims to be a Muslim. There are many examples in Islamic history when Prophet Mohammad accepted non-Muslims as Muslims when they had declared faith in Islam. There is no need of any evidence. One can see through the pages of Islamic history how personnel of non-Islamic forces had declared themselves as Muslims right on the battlefield. They had announced this at a time when they were weak and it was virtually certain that they would be killed by Islamic forces. The Prophet had accepted them.

Q: How can anyone be convinced when someone suddenly claims to be a Muslim?

A: Faith is between God and the person concerned. There is no need for anyone to convince anybody that he or she is a Muslim.

Q: Don’t you think that people embrace Islam as that entitles them to four marriages though there are certain conditions for performing more than one marriage?

A: It is difficult to find out how one can claim to be a Muslim only for the sake of remarrying. In the case of Mr Chander Mohan, the story is different. He claimed that he first converted to Islam and then married. It means that he did not embrace Islam for marriage.

According to Islam, if a person embraces Islam, his connection with his family members breaks until they convert to Islam. If he had a wife before conversion and she also converts, it was his duty to accept her after performing nikaah, an Islamic ritual.

Q: Many non-Muslims convert to marry Muslim girls. Is there no way out in Islam to stop this kind of wrongdoing?

A: The girl and her parents should be convinced about the character and credibility of the person who claims to be a Muslim. This is an issue of character. A man of strong character will never do this. All newly converted Muslims are not like that.

Q: Is there no punishment in Islamic countries for such men?

A: Of course, it is there. But that does not apply in India.

Q: Don’t you think Islam is earning a bad name because of the involvement of Muslims in terrorism?

A: Terrorism has no place in Islam. Islam imparts education of love, peace and brotherhood. Killing is prohibited in Islam. Whosoever indulges in terrorism is doing an illegal act. Islam prohibits act of rebels against the government. Problems can be worked out in accordance with the law prescribed by the government. Breaking and taking law into one’s own hand is un-Islamic.

Q: Would you like to comment on terrorism in Kashmir, Mumbai and elsewhere?

A: Be it Kashmir or any other place, there is no change in the definition of Islamic principles. Terrorism has nothing to do with the religion. Killing of innocent people is un-Islamic. As for the audacious terrorist attacks in Mumbai, it needs to be thoroughly examined how the terrorists entered Mumbai through the sea .

Action should be taken against those responsible for the security lapse. If foreigners commit such a bloodbath in our country, it’s a sign of our weakness.

Q: Terrorism has not only affected India but several Muslim countries as well. European countries are also its victims. Involvement of Muslims is suspected in almost all acts of terrorism.

A: This question should be put to Muslim leaders in those countries. As far as I know, terrorist activities in European and Muslim countries have increased after the World Trade Center attack in New York on 9/11. No enquiry report on the attack has been made public so far. We must know who had committed the heinous act.