The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

Politics of hate and divide
Hindutva undermines social stability required for growth
by B.G. Verghese

THE Muzaffarnagar riots are another terrible blot on India's democracy and integrity. To kill innocent people in cold blood for some petty political gain is barbaric. The Samajwadi Party bears prime responsibility for inactivity in the face of gathering storm warnings. It took stern action to prevent the 84-kos parikrama yatra around Ayodhya, slyly suspended a young, innocent SDM for allegedly vitiating communal harmony by itself playing the communal card, and then allowed Muzaffarnagar and the adjacent countryside to burn for days.

The caste politics of the BJP and Ajit Singh's RLD also played out in a bid to break the winning but weakening Muslim-Jat combination in western U.P in the hope of electoral gain. It allowed a Muslim panchayat and then a far more provocative mahapanchayat organised by the Bharatiya Kisan Union at which incendiary speeches were made by BJP, Congress and other party leaders. Hindus were instigated to violent retaliation for an incident that was videographed in Sialkot, Pakistan, two years ago but now morphed to transplant a scene of “Muslim terror” in Muzaffarnagar. The fake video went viral on Facebook and was reproduced in some Hindi dailies even as the State tried to block its circulation. There is dangerous mischief afoot and the origin and trajectory of the fake video need to be traced.

The VHP has a take on this too. The joint general secretary of its Meerut branch, Chandra Mohan Sharma, told The Hindu that on August 27 a Muslim boy teased a Hindu girl, triggering tension. A fake video of this "incident" was screened at the mahapanchayat at which the need for Hindus to protect their young women was stressed, fuelling passions. The VHP’s regional secretary at Meerut, Sudarshan, accused the SP government of being partial to Muslims. The U.P Bajrang Dal chief, Balraj Singh, spoke of a “wider conspiracy”. He accused the Muslims of circulating the fake August 27 video to terrorise Hindus and cause them to leave their homes “in panic and fear” like the Kashmiri Pandits. “Like in Kashmir, Muslims want to take over the State. They want to take over Hindu property and Hindu women through ‘love jehad’ …..in order to expand the Muslim population, using Hindu girls as machines”. To this bit of vicious nonsense Sudarshan added that the mahapanchayat was followed by “a Godhra" and "what happened after that was a reaction on the lines of post-Godhra in Gujarat. The Hindus did not sit back….Victory will be ours. The Sangh’s work is to unite the Hindus, to protect our temples, women, cows, Ganga, our religion”. (The Hindu, September 11, 2013, Delhi edition).

This extensive quote is the Sangh Parivar's credo which was repeated in slightly different terms at the RSS-BJP meeting in Delhi on September 11, also attended by Praveen Togadia, the VHP chief, to discuss their "core agenda" of Hindutva. According to ManmohanVaidya of the RRS, Nitin Gadkari “spoke of the Ramjanambhoomi movement and temple construction, Article 370, cow protection, saving the Ganga and a common civil code”.

Enter Narenrda Modi, crowned the BJP's prime ministerial face on September 13, and exemplar of the Gujarat 2002 "action-reaction" theory in which the "action" is contrived - in executing which pogrom he was ably backstopped by Advani as the Union Home Minister. Advani once again expressed his protest at this premature elevation of the man before the autumn elections in four states by boycotting the BJP parliamentary board meeting. But he was ignominiously ignored, though damned with faint praise.

The BJP taunt asking the Congress to name Modi's opponent at the 2014 hustings is a bit of tomfoolery that only a trivialising media and empty minds find crucially important. If this is the BJP's “programme”, then heaven help it. The Congress has a PM whose parliamentary term extends to 2019 or thereabouts. There is no compulsion in the party to make a new announcement here and now.

The BJP has entered a new phase with the RSS actively in command and Hindutva as its masthead. This ploy has backfired in the past as it divides the nation even though it might consolidate a section of the Hindus. Others, including many in the corporate world, realise this but believe Modi's “development card” will triumph. Their calculus is problematic as development and investment must be postulated on long-term social stability which is what Hindutva undermines, apart from being regressive in itself.

If the BJP believes in a uniform civil code, which is so vital for gender equity and equal opportunity, what prevents it from introducing it in any state it rules? The UCC is perfectly constitutional, leaves personal laws untouched, and is on the Concurrent List. Failure to do so is a monumental piece of humbug as it will be stoutly, even violently opposed by the sants and swamis, mullahs, and right-wing orthodoxy who want to perpetuate male domination and the supremacy of a conservative clergy that lives in the medieval age. The charlatan godman, Asaram Bapu's arrest for the alleged rape has been attacked by the VHP as “a conspiracy to erode faith or shraddha of Hindu followers”. The BJP “demands” a UCC only as a stick with which to beat the Muslims who have not had the wit or gumption to call its bluff.

Sadly, the Congress has consistently led the charge against the UCC to win cheap communal votes in the name of a bogus “secularism” at the cost of the nobler constitutional value of Fraternity. The shame of it! The BJP is not the only party hugging communalism. The Calcutta High Court has just struck down the Trinamool Congresses’s payment of a monthly honorarium of Rs 2,500 to 25,000 imams of mosques and Rs 1,000 per month to 13,000 muezzins through the Wakf Board at a cost of Rs 162 crore in the past year. This is Mamata Bannerjee's communal largesse even as she extends her hand to the Union for financial packages for Bengal.

Meanwhile, an anti-manual scavenging Bill has been passed by Parliament, and not for the first time. The noisome practice continues for lack of funding, regulation and public interest. Very recently, upper caste students in Kendrapara in Odisha prevented Dalit students from offering prayers to Ganesha and beat them up. This continuing anti-Dalit mentality is still widely prevalent. What pattern of “development” will address this problem?

Finally, in J&K, the separatist protest against the Zubin Mehta concert fooled nobody by its synthetic anger based on a total non sequitur. The alleged LeT attack on the CRPF barracks at Shopian in Kashmir on the day of the concert was the standard default option of the jihadis. Some innocents may also have sadly died in the crossfire, leading to protests, bandhs and hartals in which the Hurriyat has gleefully joined. Will an independent inquiry be now permitted? The last Shopian “killing” is still hanging fire after the AIIMS viscera report rubbished the complainants’ case. The J&K High Court has been sitting on the matter for the past two years. Fear and blackmail by a small handful of small men has all too often held the State to ransom. They thrive on violence and hate peace. Poor fools!n

www.bgverghese.com

MIDDLE

My benefactor
by S.K.Sood

Some people are so heavenly good that to call them just great is stating less than the truth. I came across one such man in 1964. I had passed matric getting 81% marks from S.D.School, Bhiwani. The man who gave away the prizes was above 70. His face was resplendent with serenity. He whispered in my ears, “Wait for me to be free. I want to talk to you.”

When he became free he asked, “What further course of educational career have your parents decided for you?” With tearful eyes, I said, “Sir, they are no more there to help me.” He put his hand on my shoulders and said, “Don't worry. No tears!”

He called the Principal, Dayanand College, Hisar. Introducing himself to the Principal, he said,

“One boy will meet you in your office, Saturday morning. Give him admission in the college and hostel as a medical student. Treat him as a free scholar. Give him room no 1. He must get free books, clothes, food, in short everything. Besides, he must be given money to buy tickets for two movies every month, young man as he is.”

He gave me a note and said, “I am in a hurry. I have to catch the train for Bombay and will be back in three months. Good luck. Join the college. Make your career. I want only one thing from you. Good marks.”

In adolescent age, everybody normally sows his wild oats. I became careless, fell into a bad company. Consequently, I passed with a pure 3rd class.

I was weeping in my hostel room over what I had done and what was expected of me. Suddenly the door opened and the angel entered the room. Seeing the tears in my eyes he said “Don’t worry. Be careful this year. I will speak to the Principal and you will enjoy the same privileges this year also.”

But bad company and dirty habits are a bane of student life. These do not leave the student till his career has relentlessly been sucked out. I passed the crucial medical entrance class with horribly poor marks and was out of the medical line.

I could not face my benefactor. I left Hisar, came to Gurgaon and took up a menial job at a shop.

Searching me here there and everywhere he one day located me in the shop and said, “No, no! Youngman, you stood first in the district remember only that. I have not forgotten.” He gave me courage, and hope. When I refused to seek any help from him he asked me to continue working there but get admission in B.A.in the evening college, Gurgaon. “Don’t quit studying”.

Crossing many hurdles, I did PhD and became the Principal of a college. A decade later in that capacity, I went to address the students of a big school. There, I was given six books as a gift. The photo on one of the books at once caught my attention. How could I forget the man who did everything for me? Below was written: Muni Muni Munishanandji Maharaj — The revered ex-Principal of DAV, Jalandhar & Hisar (the late Shri Gian Chand Mahajan).

OPED-DOCUMENT

Rules are to be observed, not discarded
For more than six decades, we have practised the parliamentary democracy gifted to us by the founding fathers of the Republic. How successful have we been in implementing it in letter and spirit? Is any aspect of it in need of correctives?
M. Hamid Ansari

IT has been famously said in relation to the mother of parliaments that it is a dignified assembly that conducts its proceedings with decorum and restraint, enjoys an unmatched prestige, and is a living institution that teaches by example. Our own parliamentary system of government is based on the British model; it has shaped our procedures and practices. A good example is the stipulation in Article 105 (3) that pending a law passed by Parliament to define the powers, privileges and immunities of each House, the actual practice in the matter of the British House of Commons at the time of the commencement of the Constitution would hold good.

A file photo of an MLA causing disruption in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Increasingly, the hallmark of an effective legislator is seen to be an ability to shout and disrupt proceedings, preferably from the well of the House. Photo: PTI

The parliamentary system, as we know, is a system of democratic governance in which the executive branch derives its democratic legitimacy from, and is held accountable to, the legislature; the executive and the legislative branches are thus interconnected and undertake governance in tandem by discharging their respective responsibilities in an interlocking system premised on the Constitution and the Rule of Law. It follows that each must work and deliver in appropriate measure. A failure to retain the requisite balance can result either in arbitrary governance by the executive or interference in its domain by the legislature. A third dimension of this failure is reflected in what has come to be known as ‘judicial activism’.

A political miracle

Much has been said, and written, about our democracy. It has taken deep roots, has succeeded against considerable odds, and has been described as a political miracle. This success is a tribute to the wisdom and maturity of our people. That same maturity allows us to assess its performance in terms of the generally accepted bench marks relating to its elective, deliberative, and governance aspects.

The experience of 15 general elections has shed light on some systemic and procedural deficiencies in our system. The latter are the subject of a task force set up by the Ministry of Law. Less attention has been paid to the former. This relates to the First-Past-the-Post system adopted in the Constitution in which a successful candidate is required to obtain not a majority but a plurality of votes cast.

With a multiplicity of candidates in the fray, and in the absence of obligatory voting, this often results in successful candidates being electorally endorsed by no more than a quarter or a third of the electorate. The factual data makes this evident. In the first General Election in 1952, the percentage of successful candidates who secured less than 50 per cent of the votes cast was 67.28. This figure went down to 58.09 per cent in 1957. In the 13th, 14th, and 15th General Election in 1999, 2004, and 2009, respectively, it was 60.03, 75.87 and 82.68, respectively. The situation is reportedly no better in many Assembly elections. When this percentage is considered alongside the average voter turnout, it will suggest that the elected representative may not be, often is not, a true representative of his/her electoral constituency. Furthermore, the electoral arithmetic of this system encourages candidates to focus on securing votes of a segment of the electorate, and thereby accentuate or reinforce social divisions based on narrower considerations.

Functional modalities

My concern today is with the institution of legislatures, not so much with the powers and functions bestowed on them by the Constitution as with the modalities of their actual functioning.

Competent observers have noted that in recent times, the idealised view of legislatures as deliberative bodies is contradicted by the induction of unparliamentary practices whereby they tend to become sites for adversarial combat in which the hallmark of an effective legislator is often seen to be ‘an ability to shout and disrupt proceedings, preferably from the well of the House’. In this context, a number of questions come to mind:

* Do the legislatures at the central and state levels function enough?

* Do they spend sufficient time on deliberation, legislation and accountability of executive?

* Is their functioning in keeping with the established norms and in line with public expectations?

* Do they, by their functioning, set a model or a pattern of behaviour for the public, especially the youth, to emulate?

* Are correctives possible, or has the system irretrievably lost its way?

A look at the statistical data answers the first two questions. During 1952-1961, the annual average of sittings of the Lok Sabha was 124.2 and of the Rajya Sabha 90.5. In the next decade, it was 116.3 and 98.5 respectively. These figures declined to 81 and 71.3 respectively during 1992-2001 and to 70.3 and 69.6 in 2002-2011.

The trend is evident and the conclusion is inescapable that while adhering to the letter of Articles 85 of the Constitution (and Article 171 for state legislatures) stipulating the requirement to meet at less than six month’s interval, the time made available notionally for Parliament or Assembly sessions has contracted.

Actual time allocation

Record of many decades also shows that the notional time allocation is different from the time actually utilised for the conduct of business. The reason for this is that uniquely Indian contribution to parliamentary practice known as disruption.

Conferences of presiding officers in May and September 1992 addressed the problem as did the Golden Jubilee Session of the Lok Sabha in 1997. Solemn commitments were made unanimously on each occasion; passage of time was to show that neither the solemnity nor the unanimity had the slightest impact on actual behaviour in legislative chambers.

Yet another effort, on a wider scale, was made in November 2001. It sought to diagnose the ailment in all its manifestations and identified what it called ‘major contributory factors behind this trend of disorderly conduct by members in legislature’:

* Non-availability of adequate time and consequent frustration of members over perceived inadequacy of opportunities to raise matters to their grievances on the floor of the House;

* Disinclination, at times, on the part of the leadership of legislature parties to adhere to parliamentary norms and to discipline their members;

* Absence of prompt and proper action against erring members under the Rules of Procedure; and

* Lack of sufficient training and orientation, especially of new members, in parliamentary procedures and etiquette.

The conference resolved, apart from pious rededication to principles, that ‘immediate steps be taken to ensure a minimum of 110 days of sittings of Parliament and 90 and 50 days of sittings of the Legislatures of big and small states respectively, if necessary, through appropriate constitutional amendments’. It also recommended ‘automatic suspension’ for specified periods of members guilty of grave misconduct. None of this was acted upon except for the incorporation in 2001 of automatic suspension in the Lok Sabha (but not Rajya Sabha) rules. It has been used for the first time only in recent weeks.

In the meantime, and notwithstanding solemn commitments, time continues to be lost in disruptions and at the expense of listed business both of accountability and of legislation. These disruptions take place with the knowledge, and at the instance, of political parties and their leaderships and are undertaken to (a) attract public attention (b) force the executive to undertake the course of action proposed by them (c) demonstrate their ability to logjam the functioning of the legislature.

Ours is an open society in which the Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression. This includes the right to argue, to debate, and to agitate. The unstated major premise is that the exercise of this right cannot be arbitrary, cannot be at the expense of the same right by fellow citizens. It is for this reason that all legislatures make rules of procedure for their functioning.

Violation of norms

The unfortunate reality today is that these rules of procedure are being violated brazenly and with impunity. Forgotten is the simple truth, applicable to all citizens, including legislators, that rules are to be observed, not discarded or subverted. A corrective, in the shape of disciplinary action by the presiding officers, is hampered if not made dysfunctional by the refusal of the legislative body or a good segment of it to support the Chair and ensure civility and compliance by the defaulting member. The alternative, of physical eviction, is possible with individuals, less so with groups; it does not enhance the dignity of the legislative body and is undesirable to contemplate.

Corrective measures

There is an imperative need for correctives in other areas of work too. These are:

* The decision of November 2001 of increasing the number of working days to 110, 90 and 50 for Parliament, larger and smaller states, respectively, in highly desirable since it will make available sufficient time for scrutiny of legislative proposals, discussion on issues of public concern raised by Members, and overall accountability of the executive.

* Rules for the observance of parliamentary etiquette and norms of civility need to be made stricter and enforced more stringently. An effort needs to be made to appreciate that excitability, decibel intensity and verbosity does not add to the strength of the argument or the dignity of the legislature.

* The compelling urge to articulate views on matters of recent happening by seeking the suspension of the Question Hour can be channelled into procedures either by shifting the Question Hour or by dispensing with it altogether since only a few, not exceeding five or six are actually taken up and written answers are in any case given even if the Question Hour does not function.

* More time should be allocated for discussion of matters of public interest. This will only be possible when more time is made available by increasing the number of working days.

* The committee system can be strengthened by having a higher attendance requirement and by the induction of experts in an advisory capacity. The present practice of exempting ministers from appearance before the committees should be reviewed. As in other parliamentary democracies, the examination of witnesses (but not the finalisation of reports) should be open to the public. This will make the public better aware of this important aspect of the work of legislatures.

* While legislators do make required disclosures of their assets and liabilities, this should be supplemented by more stringent ‘conflict of interest’ procedures as are practiced in other parliamentary democracies.

These, and other procedural correctives, are within the realm of the possible, capable of being agreed upon and implemented provided there is a commitment in word and deed on the part of all concerned to reiterate their faith in the proper functioning of the legislature as an essential ingredient of parliamentary democracy.

One last word before I conclude. As a mature democracy and in a world increasingly characterised by globalisation of standards, we should take note of global assessments of our performance. A survey done last year gave us a rating of 9.58 on electoral process and pluralism, 9.41 for civil liberties, 7.50 for functioning government, 6.11 for political participation and 5.0 for political culture. The survey gave Indian democracy an overall score of 7.52 and a global ranking of 38.

Clearly, the scope for improvement beckons us even as we celebrate our successes.

Jai Hind.

Excerpted from the address of the Vice-President of India delivered on September 11, 2013, at the special sitting of the Kerala Legislative Assembly in Thiruvananthapuram to commemorate its125th anniversary