Get India going, don’t worry about Hindi

We really don’t need tax-funded babus to promote Hindi or protect India’s official language from Macaulay Putras. What we need is to focus on getting India going. Hindi has no role to play in that.

Language has always been a contentious issue in India which is probably the only country without a common link language that is indigenous or integral to its civilisational history. We could argue that the English language today is as much an Indian language as it is the lingua franca of Britain, and that it is the language that has contributed the most to a globalised world. But that would not detract from the fact that it was the language of our colonial masters and is part of the legacy the British left behind when they departed in 1947.

Hindi, on the other hand, was the language of anti-colonialism; along with khadi, it came to symbolise the struggle for swarajya by adopting, and extolling the virtues of, all that was swadeshi. This is largely because the leadership of the Congress, such as it was and crafted in large measure by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, came from what is known as India’s ‘Hindi belt’.

It is another matter that most of the Congress’s leaders were equally, if not more, comfortable with English, the language in which Jawaharlal Nehru embarked upon his ‘Discovery of India’ and Gandhi pamphleteered both in his early and later days. That section of the Congress which had not been seduced by the charms of European liberalism or Fabian socialism saw Hindi as one of the three mainstays of Indian nationalism – Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan was more than a slogan; it was a lofty idea.

However, this attempt to conflate the identity of a culturally homogenous Bharat with a single language, Hindi, was not embraced by a multi-cultural India. Resistance was both overt and covert. The Congress Government led by C Rajagopalachari, which tried to enforce Hindi as a compulsory language in schools in the Madras Presidency, met with stiff resistance to he propogation of  ‘national language’. The Justice Party, which was to later evolve into the Dravidar Kazhagam, led by EV Ramasamy, was relentless in its protest that ended only after Lord Erskine, the Governor of Madras Presidency, withdrew the order in February 1940.

Twenty-five years later anti-Hindi protests resurfaced in Madras State when the DMK refused to be mollified by Nehru’s Official Languages Act that was meant to ensure the continuation of both Hindi and English as India’s official languages after the constitutionally mandated period of 15 years. It required Mrs Indira Gandhi’s amendments to the Act to end the anti-Hindi riots, but by then language had become the instrument of regional politics. The DMK won the 1967 election, the Congress has never been able to resuscitate itself in what is now Tamil Nadu.

Tamil obduracy is well documented and remains the yardstick to measure popular sentiments against Hindi as India’s official language. But the opposition exists across the country beyond the ‘Hindi belt’. In the North-East, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, indeed across vast stretches of the country, Hindi is resented if not despised. Truth be told, many would see the promotion, leave alone imposition, of Hindi as an attempt to obliterate local culture and language. India nationalism, whether we like it or not, is the sum total of sub-nationalism; it’s best kept that way. It is debatable whether it was wise to opt for linguistic States, but having made that the foundation of the Union of India, tampering with it would be unwise.

These thought are occasioned by last week’s brouhaha over a circular issued by the Raj Bhasha Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, asking Government officials to use Hindi, or Hindi and English, while communicating on social media platforms. As expected, the DMK was the first to object, followed by others who clearly rushed in to protest without even reading the circular. The media had a field day, spinning a story out of nothing. Worse, crucial details were suppressed to fuel the fire.

Even the most casual reading of the circular would have revealed to the outraged politicians and their followers, as also obnoxious Hindi bullies, that such instructions are routinely issued by the Raj Bhasha Department babus who, frankly, are more concerned about protecting their jobs and privileges than in promoting Hindi. It would have also revealed that the circular is based on a decision taken on March 10, 2014, when the Congress and not the BJP was in power. The circular is dated May 27, a day after Mr Narendra Modi took oath of office as Prime Minister and two days before Mr Rajnath Singh took charge as Home Minister. Most important, the circular is meant for officials in Category A States which, in any case, use Hindi as their official language.

Yet the circular was projected, wilfully so, by the media as an instruction issued by the Modi Sarkar. The Government was criticised and lampooned (depending on the news channel or newspaper) for getting obsessed with Hindi instead of focussing on bread and butter issues. Strangely, there was no immediate clarification by either the Government or the BJP. It required a clarification from the PMO to put an end to the manufactured controversy more than 72 hours after it surfaced as ‘Breaking News’.

Needless distraction from core issues of governance, and there’s enough on this front to keep the Government busy, is best avoided by reading out the riot act to the various departments that make up the mammoth Government of India: Nothing should be done to take away attention from immediate tasks and long-term goals. The Modi Sarkar came to power promising ‘India First’. For a junior babu to try and supplant that promise with ‘Hindi First’ is downright objectionable and outright dangerous. Others will take this as a cue to peddle their own agenda to protect their livelihood.

In any event, the Modi Sarkar is supposed to break the status quo and chart a new course. That should include abandoning misplaced notions of language chauvinism. Hindi is hale and hearty, spreading rapidly and subverting foreign languages like English, thanks to Bollywood and a thriving desi culture. We really don’t need tax-funded babus to promote Hindi or protect India’s official language from Macaulay Putras. What we need is to focus on getting India going. Hindi has no role to play in that.

Planning Commission releases study praising Gujarat’s success in manufacturing, focus on MSMEs

A new study, conducted for the Planning Commission, explains in detail how Gujarat has facilitated the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises, and emerged as among the top States in manufacturing. 

A new report, released by the Planning Commission, praises Gujarat for its innovative initiatives to promote the job-generating, growth-driving manufacturing sector. The report explains in detail how Gujarat has facilitated the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises, and emerged as among the top States in manufacturing. This finding negates the politically-motivated baseless allegation that only big industry is promoted in Gujarat.

The study, ‘Survey on Business Regulatory Environment for Manufacturing – State Level Assessment’, has been conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited (DTTIPL). Commissioned by the Planning Commission, the release of the report coincides with Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma’s desperate attempt to downplay the DIPP-funded study on improving India’s business regulatory environment that hailed Gujarat’s land acquisition policy as the best in the country.

The ‘Gujarat Model’ just cannot be wished away, no matter how hard the detractors of the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who as Chief Minister of Gujarat has taken the State to new heights of economic success, try to disprove facts. Anand Sharma will now have to contend with the report commissioned by the Planning Commission which supplements the findings of the DIPP-funded study.

The DTTIPL study has highlighted Gujarat’s iNDEXTb initiative which serves the dual purpose of facilitating enterprise and monitoring the implementation of investment proposals. The study says, “iNDEXTb is a nodal agency under the Industries Commissionerate, Government of Gujarat for providing hand-holding support to entrepreneurs. The Investor Facilitation Portal developed by iNDEXTb facilitates monitoring of investment proposals by generating MIS reports, which can be used by officials to identify applications on which action has not been taken within the stipulated time frame.”

The study points out how iNDEXTb assists entrepreneurs by helping them finalise their choice of location for setting up a manufacturing unit. This is done by providing critical information on access to three key basic inputs – land, power and water. The Investor Facilitation Portal’s assistance is available for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well as large enterprises across all sectors. The facilitation is for both setting up new industries as well as for expanding existing manufacturing units.

“Some of the States have developed GIS-based software which shows mapping of land plots in industrial estates,” the study says, adding, “The real time vacancy details can be checked by applicants and the applicants can select plots based on analysis of such location.” Citing the example of Gujarat, the study says, “iNDEXTb has a GIS-based software which shows the geographic mapping of industrial areas in Gujarat, including highways, GPCB zones, CRZs, port connectivity, soil quality, power and utilities grid connectivity, etc.”

Knocking the bottom out of mendacious allegation leveled by the detractors of Narendra Modi that the State Government promotes only a few big companies, the report says: “For reaching out to micro enterprises, iNDEXTb has set up kiosks at 26 district industries centres. These kiosks are equipped with infrastructure facilities such as internet connectivity, printer and scanner.”

The study refrains from assigning ranks to States. What it has done is to cluster States on the basis of six parameters. These are: finance and tax related compliances; labour law related compliances; infrastructure and utility related approvals; land and building related approvals; environmental clearances; and, other business regulatory compliances.

States have been clustered in three categories – ‘Top’ 33.33 percentile of States; ‘Middle’ 33.33 percentile of States; and, ‘Bottom’ 33.33 percentile of States.

The findings of the study show that Gujarat figures among the ‘Top’ category comprising nine States that have been assessed on all six parameters. Gujarat figures among the top States on four select parameters – finance and tax related compliances; infrastructure and utility related approvals; land and building related approvals; and, other business regulatory compliances. On environmental clearance, Gujarat has been put in the ‘Middle’ category of States. Only on labour law related compliances, Gujarat is placed in the ‘Bottom’ category of States.

Explaining the last categorisation, an analyst said “this classification can be turned around to trash the allegation that the Modi Government does not protect the interests of workers. The fact is that the Government protects the overall interests, which can at times be conflicting, of all stakeholders by holding growth and development for all as the supreme objective.”

The study comes with the rider that it solely focuses on assessing the existing business regulatory framework in individual States. “Other key factors that impact the performance of manufacturing units, like quality of infrastructure, availability of natural resources, market linkages, labour and skill availability, access to finance, etc, have not been covered in the current study,” it says, adding, “Consequently, the relative standing of individual States may differ from their relative contribution to India’s manufacturing GDP.”

Elaborating on this point, the study explains, “For example, a particular State may have been identified as being relatively mature in its business regulatory environment but may not have an equivalent standing in terms of contribution to India’s manufacturing GDP owing to limited natural resources within its geographic boundaries.”

Commenting on Gujarat’s success in manufacturing sector, it notes that the State ranked second in the country in terms of share of manufacturing GDP, contributing around 13.7 per cent of manufacturing GDP in 2011-12. The State’s manufacturing sector contributed 28.2 per cent to Gujarat’s GSDP in 2011-12, with a CAGR of 9.5 per cent between 2007-08 and 2011-12. The sector employed around 3.4 million people in 2009-10 representing 13.7 per cent of Gujarat’s working population.

Referring to interaction with industries, the study says: “It is understood that Gujarat is a power surplus State with respondents expressing satisfaction on quality and availability of power. It was also indicated that quality and availability of water has improved over the years.  Road network and rail connectivity have also shown improvement.”

Priyanka Vadra should Google for ‘tandoor case’, ‘Bhanwari Devi’, ‘Kalpana Giri’…

May more women find themselves as privileged as Priyanka Vadra. May their husbands get to bypass airport security on account of their wives’ exalted status. And may they also get to buy farmland cheap and convert it to expensive industrial land. In brief, may more mothers-in-law be as ‘empowered’ as Sonia Gandhi, ‘safe’ in the knowledge that the long arm of the law is not long enough to touch them.

Faced with its worst-ever defeat as this summer’s general election winds down, the Congress has decided to blindly hit out at Narendra Modi, the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate riding an unprecedented popularity wave, hoping to score a sixer. It has had no luck till now.

On Wednesday, Priyanka Vadra, who describes herself as “daughter (of Sonia Gandhi), sister (of Rahul Gandhi), wife (of Robert Vadra) and mother (we shall keep children’s names out)” lashed out at Modi, saying, “If you’re talking about women’s empowerment, don’t snoop on their conversations.”

On Tuesday Mrs Vadra had feigned anger that her husband, the one and only Robert Vadra who is possibly the biggest landlord today after the Indian Railways, and has mastered the magic of turning a lakh of rupees into real estate worth thousands of crores of rupees in less than five years, was attacked by Modi in his election rallies. “My family … my husband are being attacked,” she had raged.

Mrs Vadra’s unstated assertion was clear to all: The Nehru household, the Dynasty, the Congress’s First Family, is beyond public scrutiny and criticism; hence, the Dynasty’s son-in-law too should be treated with absolute reverence by us natives and his black deeds should never be questioned.

As Narendra Modi told ABP News on Tuesday evening, he has “no majburi” to be deferential towards the Congress’s First Family. He is not alone. Many of us natives have no obligation to be nice to the members of the Nehru household and their damaad.

Mrs Vadra had also bemoaned the ‘harsh’ language being used by those opposed to the Congress. Frankly, she has not exactly been oozing sugar and honey in her carefully crafted interactions with voters and awestruck mediapersons, the kind whom Modi disparagingly refers to as ‘news traders’.

And now this sly attack on Modi – Mrs Vadra was obviously referring to what Modi’s detractors call ‘Snoopgate’. Till date the Congress and its cronies in the commentariat have not been able to make the ‘Snoopgate’ allegation stick on Modi.

On the contrary, the disgraced cop with a dubious reputation on whose baseless claim the Congress levelled its allegation has been found to be a pervert who constantly sought to sexually harass and abuse women, abusing his power. It’s not surprising that he should have found willing patrons in the Congress.

Mrs Vadra’s concern for women’s ‘empowerment’ and ‘safety’ – she said she was speaking as a “daughter, sister, wife and mother” – is laudable. May more women find themselves as privileged as her. May their husbands get to bypass airport security on account of their wives’ exalted status. And may they also get to buy farmland cheap and convert it to expensive industrial land. In brief, may more mothers-in-law be as ‘empowered’ as Sonia Gandhi, ‘safe’ in the knowledge that the long arm of the law is not long enough to touch them.

Meanwhile, Mrs Vadra would do well to recollect the Congress’s rather long dirty laundry list of scandals involving the abuse of women. Here are some of the stains – a few among the many – that sully the Congress which claims to be a champion of women’s ‘empowerment’ and ‘safety’:

» Sushil Sharma, a Youth Congress leader and Congress MLA, killed his wife, Naina, then proceeded to chop her body into pieces before shoving them into the tandoor at Bagiya, a restaurant in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi, a short walking distance from 10 Janpath. Mrs Vadra could Google for ‘Tandoor case’ on her smart phone.

» Mahipal Maderna, a powerful Minister in the now ousted Congress Government of Rajasthan, is accused of sexually exploiting and then murdering Bhanwari Devi, an indigent woman. Then Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot tried to scuttle the investigation. Mrs Vadra could Google for ‘Bhanwari Devi case’ on her smart phone.

» Ram Kumar Chaudhary, a Congress MLA of Himachal Pradesh, was arrested for his alleged role in the murder of a young woman, Jyoti, with whom he is said to have had an ‘illicit affair’. He then dumped her as their ‘castes did not match’. Mrs Vadra could Google for ‘Jyoti murder case’ on her smart phone.

» Mahendra Vikramsinh Chavan, president of the Latur Assembly constituency Youth Congress, and Sameer Killarikar, also a Youth Congress leader, have been arrested for the murder of Kalpana Giri, a Youth Congress leader. They dumped her body in a lake after killing her. Mrs Vadra could Google for ‘Kalpana Giri murder’ on her smart phone.

We could also request Mrs Vadra to check out the colourful activities of senior Congress leader ND Tiwari – they were not exactly ‘empowering’ for the women ensnared by him, nor do they quite bear out the Congress’s concern for the ‘safety’ women.

A last point: it’s not exactly edifying for Mrs Vadra to speak so loftily of a party one of whose high-profile MPs was caught on tape, not many moons ago, in a sex-for-favour scandal. Lurid descriptions of what featured on the tape were the talk of Lutyens’s Delhi for days. Just in case Mrs Vadra missed them, Google Baba would oblige her with a huge amount of puke-inducing details about this scandal. She could then meet the woman, also a daughter, sister, wife and mother, exploited by her party MP in so hideous a manner, and ask her whether she feels ‘empowered’.

PS: The MP concerned has not been named as he was sharp enough to secure a court injunction preventing the publication of his identity and his activities behind the closed doors of his office.

Modinomics, the route to economic revival and growth

You need neither a degree from Harvard University nor ‘animal spirit’ to get the Indian economy going. What you need is common sense and commitment — Narendra Modi has both...

Modi is a maximalist who wants the most for India

Frankly you don’t need either a degree from Harvard or ‘animal spirit’ to revive the Indian economy. If knowledge imbibed at Harvard and unleashed animal spirit could have propped up the economy then it would not have been in such a sorry mess today nor would we have had to witness our Prime Minister and Finance Minister blaming the world for India’s plight. This reality, however, has not prevented our Harvard educated Finance Minister from rudely poking fun at the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Among the many insults hurled by P Chidambaram is his boorish comment that Narendra Modi’s knowledge of economic affairs could be written on the back of a postage stamp. True to his style, Narendra Modi has given it back in full measure and more: While addressing economists, business executives and diplomats at the India Economic Convention 2014 organised by India Foundation in New Delhi last week, he said his knowledge was far less than what could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

The irony was not lost on those who tuned in to listen to Narendra  Modi talk about his economic agenda. That a Finance Minister who has spectacularly failed to halt, leave alone reverse, India’s rapid economic decline would have the temerity to scoff at a Chief Minister who has stayed the course of economic growth and development and heads a State whose contribution to the national economy has helped in no small measure to keep the latter afloat tells its own story of unbridled arrogance. But while being supercilious may titillate the establishment media, it does not detract from the fact that he will be leaving the robust economy which the Congress inherited in 2004 in a shambles.

Nor can P Chidambaram’s smart retort hide the fact that Manmohan Singh, touted as an ‘economist’ Prime Minister and wrongly credited for the 1991-1996 reforms that were part forced on us as part of a bailout package by the IMF and part driven by PV Narasimha Rao’s agenda to discard the baggage of Nehruvian socialism, has singularly contributed to killing the India Story. A feckless Prime Minister who chose to be in office as a stooge of the Nehru Dynasty and presided over a recklessly corrupt regime while feigning ignorance of the unrestrained loot right under his nose could not have been expected to fuel the economy with either policy or imagination. That many expected otherwise shows the Great Indian Rope Trick is not entirely a myth.

Speaking at three separate events in New Delhi this week, Narendra Modi demonstrated that the solution to the myriad woes that afflict the Indian economy can be found in good old-fashioned common sense and that thing called political determination. Both are understandably alien to those who survive on scraps from the high table of the Nehru Dynasty: Their Pavlovian response would be to peddle the voodoo economics of Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council as the prescription to cure India’s creeping economic paralysis. There was a time when Manmohan Singh would, in unguarded moments of candour, call for out-of-the-box thinking — that was long before he decided to unleash his “animal spirit” only to discover even if the spirit was willing the flesh was too weak to respond to the looming crisis.

To think out of the box, to think radically, to think big and to think beyond today and tomorrow requires both common sense and commitment — call it political determination if you will. Narendra Modi is right when he says governance is not about rocket science, it is about clarity of purpose and integrity of action. Once these are in place, the rest follows by way of forward looking policy and implementable programmes that address short-term, medium-term and long-term concerns. It is not enough to talk about reviving investor confidence so that the tap of investment is turned on. To create that confidence, good governance is a sine qua non as is faith in the political leadership not to be persuaded by bogus schemes of which we have seen one too many during the wasted decade of UPA rule.

When Narendra Modi talks of investing in infrastructure, reviving the manufacturing sector, nursing the agricultural sector, boosting the service sector and infusing all of them with state-of-the-art technology, he is not really saying anything radically new. To meet the demand for 10 million jobs a year, all this needs to be done. But what makes him stand out and his voice heard in the cacophony of prescriptions is the sincerity with which he says this and the experience he draws upon. He does not pander to populism that the Congress believes fetches votes but also fetches ruination. He does not promise hollow rights but emphasises on dignity of labour and empowerment. He does not talk of giveaways but asset creation and tapping the entrepreneurial spirit and aspiration of Young India.

Many would argue that it’s not pragmatic to talk about the need for Indian companies to become globally competitive and bravely confront challenges in the run-up to elections. Even in the US, Presidential election candidates, irrespective of their political beliefs, turn to peddling protectionism and raising the bogey of foreign competition. That’s considered conventional wisdom. It requires courage to turn conventional wisdom on its head and Narendra Modi has dared to do precisely that. He has talked about the need for Indian companies, big and small, to become competitive and slug it out in the global market with competitors. He has talked about the need for changing attitudes, the need to look beyond the obvious, to embrace challenge as an opportunity, to invest in technology. He frames diplomacy of the future in terms of economic engagement and trade.

That a man whose knowledge can fit the back of a postage stamp eloquently talks about next generation technology, who calls for investment in biotechnology and environment technology, bears testimony to the stupidity of those who make bold to mock at him. Narendra Modi does not look at the small picture, the minor details, the nuts and bolts; that’s the job of those who are tasked with the responsibility of implementing policy. He thinks out of the box and he thinks big. That’s the way it should be. A Prime Minister should really be looking at the big picture, setting targets and goals which are seemingly impossible to meet. For evidence, go back to his speech at the BJP National Council on January 19 in which he talked of 100 new cities to cope with irreversible urbanisation, super-fast trains with dedicated corridors, new expressways and highways, and high technology-driven high yield farming, among a host of other big ticket ideas.

It would be easy to scoff at him and ask, but where will the money come from? The answer to that question is simple: Once investor confidence is restored and the economy’s slide is reversed, the India Story will once again capture the global imagination. Let us not forget that despite the post-Pokhran II sanctions the BJP-led NDA was successful in mobilising resources for path-breaking big ticket projects. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not allow minor details to come in the way of realising big picture ideas. A lot happened. A lot more shall happen when Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes charge.

Here, There, Nowhere...

A response to Salil Tripathi - I

1984 and 2002 are not comparable.


Rarely, if ever, have I commented on an article penned by a fellow writer. That’s not because I do not react to what they have to say or I hold views with which I disagree as not worthy of comment. It’s largely because writers must be allowed to have their say (and space) and partly on account of the fact that I try not to bruise feelings. I am known for not bothering with vacuous niceties; it makes sense not to compound that shortcoming by penning my opinion on the views of other writers.

Yet, I feel compelled to react, in writing, to Mr Salil Tripathi’s column, ‘Here, There, Everywhere’, which appears in Mint, a Delhi-based newspaper, that has been published under the headline “Incredible impunity” on February 29, 2012. The strap line reads: “Of all the potential and credible contenders to be the next Prime Minister, the one least deserving is Narendra Modi.” It’s a free world and this country is still a democracy where freedom of thought, expression and speech, though circumscribed by restrictive laws, is not entirely absent from the public domain.

Hence, Mr Tripathi has the right to not only believe that it is his burden to decide for more than a billion resident Indians who is the most and least deserving contender to be the next Prime Minister but also express that belief in suitable words, which he has done in his column. My response to his views is not an attempt to shout him down or point out why he is wrong in saying what he says, but to posit a set of counter-views. I have no intention to play evangelist to a heathen or convert a non-believer; such lofty tasks are best left to those who mistake their writing desk for a pulpit and their chair as a pedestal.

Mr Tripathi is outraged that those who cannot stop raging over the retaliatory violence which followed the arson attack on coach S-6 of Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002, at Godhra, in which 58 Hindu men, women and children were killed, should be reminded of the anti-Sikh pogrom (it was definitely not a ‘riot’) of 1984 by those who are not impressed by the ceaseless cant of the self-righteous and sanctimonious army of the good and the virtuous. He sees this as a “despicable” attempt to equate the two unfortunate events (my words, not his) of our recent history. I would agree with him.

The hideous blood-letting by Congress goons that we witnessed in Delhi and several cities even before Mrs Indira Gandhi’s mortal remains were consigned to the flames cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be equated with the ghastly violence that gripped parts of Gujarat after the torching of coach S-6 of Sabarmati Express by a Muslim mob. There are three reasons why any attempt at comparing the two tragic events would be immoral and wrong.

First, the scale of violence is incomparable, as is the loss of lives and property. With the help of documentary evidence and those who fought (and are still fighting, although with receding hope) for justice for the victims of the anti-Sikh pogrom, I had computed the death toll to be not less than 4,733. Most of the deaths occurred in Delhi. In the post-Godhra riots, 1,044 people (not “thousands” as Mr Tripathi says) were killed: 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus. Lest I be accused of being callous, let me hasten to add that I believe every life matters and even one death is one too many.

Second, the Government of India, which was then (and still remains) responsible for maintaining law and order in Delhi, refused to lift a finger in admonition, leave alone crack down on mobs of Congress hoodlums led by Congress cronies of the party’s first family, for 72 hours. The Congress, and the Government which was then headed by Rajiv Gandhi (whom Mr Tripathi is keen to exonerate) wanted to “teach the Sikhs a lesson” -- the crime of a few individuals was converted into a collective crime deserving of collective retribution. As Rajiv Gandhi was to later declare, without the slightest trace of contrition or remorse, “When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes.”

In contrast, Mr Narendra Modi decided to call in the Army when it became clear that the State police were incapable of controlling the rioting mobs. Nearly all the 254 Hindus who died in the violence were killed in police or Army firing. Not a single tormentor of Sikhs suffered so much as a lathi-blow in 1984. But let that pass. Could Mr Narendra Modi have done better? Could he have stamped out the riots before they exacted a terrible toll? Could he have ensured absolute peace and calm despite the provocation of the arson attack at Godhra?

These are questions that can be debated till the cows come home (the reference to cows, Mr Tripathi, is idiomatic and not an attempt to push what you would derisively call the ‘Hindutva agenda’) without reaching a conclusion that is acceptable to all. I’d say he tried his best; others like Mr Tripathi would say he didn’t. I would stand by my truth just as others would stand by their perceived truth. A cock fight of truths does not excite me.

We could, however, look at how ‘successful’ other Chief Ministers have been in controlling riots. For instance, we could look at riots in Uttar Pradesh, in Bihar, in Andhra Pradesh, in Maharashtra, in West Bengal, in Assam, in Tamil Nadu, in Kerala, in Karnataka, in Rajasthan, in Madhya Pradesh, in Odisha -- virtually every State of the Union. Each one of these riots is well documented. Each one of them resulted in a terrible loss of lives and property -- well, not really because often the victims were too poor to own any property.

I don’t know if Mr Tripathi has ever found himself trapped in a riot; I have seen the Jamshedpur riot of 1979 from close quarters. When blood-lust grips people, when insanity takes over, even shoot-at-sight orders don’t have the desired result. In Jamshedpur I saw tribal Christians looting the homes of Hindus and Muslims while they battled in the streets: What does that tell us of a riot?

In Maliana, the PAC was accused of playing a partisan role. Shall we then hold Vir Bahadur Singh, the then Congress Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, personally responsible for that massacre? Nellie wouldn’t have happened had Mrs Indira Gandhi not insisted on holding a disputed election in Assam. Should we then blame her for the massacre of 2,191 people, a vast number of them suckling infants? We could go further back in history and blame Jawaharlal Nehru for the Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946, for it could be argued, and convincingly so, that had it not been for his cussedness Mohammed Ali Jinnah wouldn't have called for Direct Action.

Third, no two incidents of communal violence are comparable. The causative factors differ as do local political, social and cultural dynamics. How can we then compare 1984 to 2002? More so when 1984 was a state-sponsored pogrom endorsed by the then Prime Minister of India, an endorsement that reverberated in his infamous declaration that the earth is bound to shake when a giant tree falls?

It would, then, be asked, why is 1984 mentioned at all in the context of 2002? Here’s the reason why: Intolerant ‘secularists’, sanctimonious leftists and self-righteous liberals who are unsparing in their criticism of Mr Narendra Modi take extraordinary care in steering clear of even remotely accusing the Congress, let alone Rajiv Gandhi, of complicity in the mind-numbing brutalities of 1984.

I hold Mr Tripathi in high esteem. Had I not done so I’d have been appalled by his exertions to exonerate Rajiv Gandhi who knew what was happening in Delhi and made it a point to turn a deaf ear to pitiful cries for help and groveling appeals by noted Sikh personalities.

Did he do so because he was in mourning?

Rajiv Gandhi’s grief and anguish did not quite stand in the way of his decision to take oath as Prime Minister the same day his mother was assassinated. That swearing in ceremony could have waited till the last rites were performed. But he chose not to wait lest the crown be snatched from him. Mr Pranab Mukherjee still pays the price for an indiscrete comment made earlier that day. So let’s not say with disarming certitude that “presumably Rajiv Gandhi had other things on his mind (like grief) than planning a pogrom”.

(To be continued.)

Pity the nation that can't defend liberty

Congress's no-limit, interest-free, Minority Card

(It's the world's best credit card, issued by Vote Bank of India!)

Nothing could be more telling about the tarnished and tattered state of our secular republic than the Darul Uloom Deoband vice-chancellor, Maulana Abul Qasim, describing Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot petitioning the Union government to stop Salman Rushdie from visiting India as "a victory for democracy".

According to Maulana Qasim, "democracy is alive in India" because Gehlot has painted a grim picture of how mobs will run riot and law and order shall collapse if Rushdie were to attend the Jaipur Literary Festival; hence, he should be barred from entering the country of his origin.

Deoband’s chief maulana wants Rushdie’s entry ‘prohibited forever’ as demanded ‘by so many people.’ That’s balderdash. The ‘so many people’ he refers to are mullahs and those who are prone to running riot over bogus grievances and spurious issues. The vast majority of Indians, irrespective of faith, is not in the least bothered and would, if asked, wholeheartedly support the idea of Rushdie visiting this country whenever he wishes.

Not so the Congress. It can’t resist the temptation of seizing an opportunity to indulge in crass Muslim vote-bank politics when it senses one. In fact, there’s reason to believe that the Congress has a hand in manufacturing this mullah-led demand and the threat of violence to keep Rushdie away from India. It’s of a piece with the party’s electoral strategy in Uttar Pradesh premised on the cynical belief that pandering to the belligerence of mullahs and their ilk will fetch the party a rich harvest of Muslim votes.

First we had senior Congress leader and law minister Salman Khurshid brazenly promising that his party will increase the minority quota, which is euphemism for Muslim reservation, from 4.5% to 9%. That pledge fetched the Election Commission’s ire but the message has not been lost. Then we had Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh seeking to reopen the bogus debate over the Batla House encounter of 2008, blaming the prime minister and the home minister for not ordering a judicial inquiry as demanded by the malcontent of Azamgarh who are either SIMI or IM supporters if not closet activists.

Simultaneously, the mullahs of Deoband suddenly remembered Salman Rushdie — all these years they were not offended by his many visits to India, including his attending the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2007, but have discovered merit in blocking it now as Uttar Pradesh prepares to go to polls. Not surprisingly, the refrain was taken up by fanatics in Rajasthan where the Congress is in power. We haven’t heard a whimper from anywhere else in the country.

For the Congress, the minority card is the most powerful credit card in the world. It has no upper limit; it does not bounce; and it comes interest-free. Little wonder that the party has been using this card for the past six decades, encashing votes by pretending to be the sole protector of Muslim sentiments and sensitivities.

Sadly, there’s little realisation that, in the process, India’s Muslims have been further ghettoised, left to wallow in imagined slight and all-consuming denial. It should be of no comfort to the community that threats of violence generate fear, not respect; nor should it mistake the Congress’s cynical politics of appeasement as the route to social development and economic progress of Muslims.

The reality, tragically, is to the contrary. And so we have mullahs threatening violence and the Congress capitulating to their demands in pursuit of its policy of limitless appeasement. Rajiv Gandhi’s government banned The Satanic Verses even before Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa. The Shah Bano judgment was subverted by abusing the Congress’s parliamentary majority. In more recent times, Denmark’s prime minister was asked to call off his scheduled visit to India lest it upset Muslim sensitivities allegedly inflamed over cartoons nobody had seen in this country. And Shimon Peres was ‘discouraged’ from attending the annual HT Summit lest the presence of Israel’s President on India’s soil upset Muslims.

Salman Rushdie may yet visit India and make an appearance at the Jaipur Literary Festival. But that’s really inconsequential. What is of consequence is the amazing audacity of mullahs who now want to have a say on who gets to visit India and who doesn’t, who should live here and who shouldn’t, and the astounding willingness of the Congress to comply to their outrageously vile demands. That way lies the path to disaster.

This is no longer about Salman Rushdie or his Satanic Verses. It’s about what remains of our secular republic.

[Column in DNA, January 20, 2012.]

Biblioclasm now equated with iconoclasm

When books are burned in the end people will be burned too -- Heinrich Heine.



Nazis burning books at Bebelplatz, Berlin, April 1933

Every visit to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem has been a revelation for me. The sprawling Holocaust memorial, perched between two hills, brings alive like no book or film can the soul-searing horrors of what the Nazis did to the Jews. But it’s impossible to absorb it all in one go; the vile deeds were far too many. On each visit I have discovered something that I missed the last time I walked through, with leaden feet, the zig-zag maze of the Holocaust relived.

And so it is that on my last visit to Yad Vashem I stumbled upon, quite literally, a pile of books on the stone flagged floor of the memorial. The display marks an important milestone in the transmogrification of the Nazis into beasts: The burning of books that were considered 'Un-German' and the cleansing of libraries with fire.

That was in April 1933 and Hitler was yet to start implementing his 'final solution'. But that act was a precursor to what was to follow. Heinrich Heine, the celebrated German critic and poet, had written in early-19th century that "When books are burned in the end people will be burned too." His words proved to be eerily prophetic some 100 years later.

Last October, on a wind-swept grey afternoon, I stood at Bebelplatz in Berlin, in front of St Hedwig's Cathedral, trying to recreate in my mind the April evening in 1933 when students, enamoured of Hitler's demagoguery, had gathered there and made a bonfire of books after ransacking one of the largest libraries. The building still stands, magnificent yet melancholic, at the edge of the square. The spot where the bonfire blazed now has a plaque recording the shameful event.

Joseph Goebbels, spitting fire and brimstone, had egged on the vandals: "No to decadence and moral corruption! Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaser, Erich Kastner... The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path..."

As we all know, that path led to history's most hideous mass murder. Even suckling infants were not spared. Heinrich Heine foresaw the crematoriums at Dachau and other concentration camps. We also know that that the path ultimately led to the destruction of the Nazis and all that was glorified by Goebbels. Not very far from Bebelplatz lies the bunker in which Hitler committed suicide.

To be fair, the Nazis weren't the first to seek to reduce to ashes, albeit in vain, ideas and opinions that militated against their ideology. Human history is replete with tales of books being burned by rulers, conquerors, dictators and men of faith in robes.

The Qing dynasty would routinely burn books; modern day rulers of China continue with the practice. The Bishop of Alexandria ordered monks to burn everything that remotely questioned doctrinaire faith; a mammoth library stands there now. Bakhtiyar Khalji sacked Nalanda and set fire to its library which is believed to have burned for three months; the ancient university will soon rise from the ruins that remain.

In more recent times, on January 14, 1989, copies of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, were consigned to the flames at a protest in Bradford. That act of biblioclasm drew attention to a book that few had read till then, triggering a fatwa (issued by none less than Ayatollah Khomeini) demanding the author's head for which a reward of $1 million was offered. India notoriously became the first country to ban the book.

The abiding shame of that act still hangs heavy on us, partially redeemed by the NDA Government's decision to issue Rushdie a PIO card which allows him to visit the country of his origin without any let or hindrance. But shame is alien to those who live in the joyless world of fatwas and decrees; it means nothing to those who wear intolerance on their sleeves.

Hence the demand by Deobandi muftis that Rushdie shouldn't be allowed to enter India. Strangely, the demand continues to find a resonance among those who pose as 'liberals' and preach tolerance. In the land of Charvak, biblioclasm is now equated with iconoclasm.

Which takes me back to where I began: Yad Vashem. As name after name is read out of 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust in the unlit Hall of Remembrance where a single flickering flame is reflected 1.5 million times, I once again ask myself: How could they do this?

Stepping out and walking down the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations, shaded by cypress trees, each honouring a non-Jew who, like Oscar Schindler, defied the Nazis, my spirits lift. All is not lost in this wondrous world of ours.

Books burned by Nazis, a display at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

(MidDay, January 14, 2011.)

When a big tree fell...

Recalling the terrifying pogrom of November 1984 that left thousands of Sikh men, women and children dead -- killed by Congress thugs

At 9.30 am on October 31, 1984, Mrs Indira Gandhi, iron-willed and iron-fisted Prime Minister of India, famously described by her aunt Vijayalakshmi Pandit as “the only man in her Cabinet”, was assassinated at her 1, Safdarjung Road residence. The assassins, both Sikhs, were Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, two of the guards who were meant to protect her. Satwant Singh was arrested; Beant Singh was shot dead by the other guards.

Satwant Singh later told investigators that he and Beant Singh had assassinated Mrs Gandhi to avenge the desecration of Harmandir Saheb and destruction of the Akal Takht in ‘Operation Bluestar’, the Army action of June 5-7, 1984. Mrs Gandhi had ordered the military operation to flush out Khalistani terrorists, including Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who had made the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar into their headquarters.

‘Operation Bluestar’ was a military success but a political disaster. The objective of ‘flushing out’ the Khalistanis was achieved, but at a huge price. According to the White Paper published by the Government of India, 493 people, including terrorists (200 in the Akal Takht alone), were killed. The official toll was far less than what foreign agencies and newspapers reported: 1,000. BBC journalist Mark Tully, in his book ‘Amritsar – Mrs Gandhi’s Last Battle’, placed the death toll at 2,093. Eyewitnesses said at least 8,000 were killed. The ‘White Paper’ said 83 soldiers had died in the three-day-long action. This figure, too, remains disputed.

The backlash was enormous, and beyond what had been anticipated, alienating the Sikh masses at home and abroad (Khalistanis in Canada plotted and executed the bombing of Emperor Kanishka, Air India’s Montreal-London-Delhi Flight 182, killing all 329 people aboard the aircraft on June 23, 1985) and fuelling the Khalistani movement which was finally crushed in the early-1990s, thanks to the then Punjab Police chief KPS Gill. But the restoration of peace in Punjab is another story. On January 6, 1989, Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, who had been held guilty of conspiracy in the crime but pleaded his innocence till the end, were executed at Tihar Jail.
That, in brief, is the story of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination. But there’s a longer story to be told – that of what followed the deed.

Twenty-seven years is a long time. Public memory is notoriously short and it is unlikely those who have come of age in these 27 years would know of the terrible pogrom that left 4,733 Sikhs dead, most of them slaughtered in Delhi, retribution massacres carried out by Congress thugs led by Congress leaders, among them Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.

It would, therefore, be in order to recall the chain of events lest we be persuaded to believe that nothing of consequence happened by a Prime Minister who spends sleepless nights worrying about a terror suspect held in distant Australia but blithely disowns responsibility for the shocking attempt to whitewash the crimes of his party and its 'leaders' committed against thousands at home.

So, here is the story of how thousands of Sikh men, women and children were slaughtered; in Delhi alone, 2,733 Sikhs were burned alive, butchered or beaten to death. Women were raped while their terrified families pleaded for mercy, little or none of which was shown by the Congress goons. In one of the numerous such incidents, a woman was gang-raped in front of her 17-year-old son; before leaving, the marauders torched the boy.

For three days and four nights the killing and pillaging continued without the police, the civil administration and the Union Government, which was then in direct charge of Delhi, lifting a finger in admonishment. The Congress was in power and could have prevented the violence, but the then Prime Minister, his Home Minister, indeed the entire Council of Ministers, twiddled their thumbs.

Even as stray dogs gorged on charred corpses and wailing women, clutching children too frightened to cry, fled mobs armed with iron rods, staves and gallons of kerosene, AIR and Doordarshan kept on broadcasting blood-curdling slogans like 'Khoon ka badla khoon se lenge' (We shall avenge blood with blood) raised by Congress workers grieving over their dear departed leader.

Mrs Gandhi was assassinated at 9.30 am, but her death was 'officially' confirmed at 6 pm, after due diligence had been exercised to ensure Rajiv Gandhi's succession. By then, reports of stray incidents of violence against Sikhs, including the stoning of President Zail Singh's car, had started trickling in at various police stations.

By the morning of November 1, hordes of men were on the rampage in south, east and west Delhi. They were armed with iron rods and carried old tyres and jerry cans filled with kerosene and petrol. Owners of petrol pumps and kerosene stores, beneficiaries of Congress largesse, provided petrol and kerosene free of cost. Some of the men went around on scooters and motorcycles, marking Sikh houses and business establishments with chalk for easy identification. They had been provided with electoral rolls to make their task easier.

By late afternoon that day, hundreds of taxis, trucks and shops owned by Sikhs had been set ablaze. By early evening, the murder, loot and rape began in right earnest. The worst butchery took place in Block 32 of Trilokpuri, a resettlement colony in east Delhi. The police either participated in the violence or merely watched from the sidelines.

Curfew was declared in south and central Delhi at 4 pm, and in east and west Delhi at 6 pm on November 1. But there was no attempt to enforce it. PV Narasimha Rao, the then Home Minister, remained unmoved by cries for help. In his affidavit to the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry, Lt-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, decorated hero of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, said, "The Home Minister was grossly negligent in his approach, which clearly reflected his connivance with perpetrators of the heinous crimes being committed against the Sikhs."

The first deployment of the Army took place around 6 pm on November 1 in south and central Delhi, which were comparatively unaffected, but in the absence of navigators, which should have been provided by the police and the civil authorities, the jawans found themselves lost in unfamiliar roads and avenues.

The Army was deployed in east and west Delhi in the afternoon of November 2, more than 24 hours after the killings began. But, here, too, the jawans were at a loss because there were no navigators to show them the way through byzantine lanes.
In any event, there was little the Army could have done: Magistrates were 'not available' to give permission to fire on the mobs. This mandatory requirement was kept pending till Mrs Gandhi's funeral was over. By then, 1,026 Sikhs had been killed in east Delhi. Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar were among Congress 'leaders' who, witnesses said, incited and led mobs. Both deny the allegation, but the evidence is overwhelming.

A report on the pogrom, jointly prepared by the PUCL and PUDR and published under the title, Who Are the Guilty? names both of them along with others. The report quotes well-known journalist Sudip Mazumdar:

"The Police Commissioner, SC Tandon was briefing the Press (about 10 Indian reporters and five foreign journalists) in his office on November 6, at 5 pm. A reporter asked him to comment on the large number of complaints about local Congress MPs and lightweights trying to pressure the police to get their men released. The Police Commissioner totally denied the allegation… Just as he finished uttering these words, Jagdish Tytler, Congress MP from Sadar constituency, barged into the Police Commissioner's office along with three other followers and on the top of his voice demanded, 'What is this Mr Tandon? You still have not done what I asked you to do?' The reporters were amused, the Police Commissioner embarrassed. Tytler kept on shouting and a reporter asked the Police Commissioner to ask that 'shouting man' to wait outside since a Press conference was on. Tytler shouted at the reporter, 'This is more important.' The reporter told the Police Commissioner that if Tytler wanted to sit in the office he would be welcome, but a lot of questions regarding his involvement would also be asked and he was welcome to hear them. Tytler was fuming…"

The slaughter was not limited to Delhi, though. Sikhs were killed in Gurgaon, Kanpur, Bokaro, Indore and many other towns and cities in States ruled by the Congress. In a replay of the mayhem in Delhi, 26 Sikh soldiers were pulled out of trains and killed.

After quenching their thirst for blood, the mobs retreated to savour their 'revenge'. The flames died and the winter air blew away the stench of death. Rajiv Gandhi's Government issued a statement placing the death toll at 425!

Rajiv Gandhi had no qualms about justifying the carnage. "Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji," Rajiv Gandhi said on November 19, 1984, even as thousands of families grieved for their loved ones killed by Congress hoodlums, "We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed India had been shaken. But when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little."

Some riots? Only natural? Shake a little?

Demands for a judicial inquiry were stonewalled by Rajiv Gandhi. Human rights organisations petitioned the courts; the Government said courts were not empowered to order inquiries. Meanwhile, Rajiv Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and went for an early election, which the Congress swept by using the 'sympathy card' and launching a vitriolic hate campaign.

Once in office, Rajiv Gandhi was desperate for a breakthrough in Punjab. He mollycoddled Akali leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal into agreeing to sign a peace accord with him. Sant Longowal listed a set of pre-conditions; one of them was the setting up of a judicial commission to inquire into the pogrom.

Thus was born the Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry, which took on the job of crafting a report that would suggest extra-terrestrials were to be blamed for whatever had happened. Worse, submissions and affidavits were passed on to those accused of leading the mobs; some of these documents were later recovered from the house of Sajjan Kumar. Gag orders were issued, preventing the Press from reporting in-camera proceedings of the Commission.

For full six months, Rajiv Gandhi refused to make public the Ranganath Misra Commission's report. When it was tabled in Parliament, the report was found to be an amazing travesty of the truth; neither were the guilty men of 1984 named, nor was responsibility fixed.

Subsequently, nine commissions and committees were set up to get to the truth, but they were either disbanded midway or not allowed access to documents and evidence. India had to wait for the report of the Nanavati Commission for an approximate version of the real story.

Justice Nanavati's report said, "The Commission considers it safe to record its finding that there is credible evidence against Jagdish Tytler to the effect that very probably he had a hand in organising attacks on Sikhs." This is not an indictment, Mr Manmohan Singh and his Government decided, so why bother about it? Four years later they remain unrepentant, their attitude remains unchanged.

Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three men, women and children killed in Delhi, another 2,000 killed elsewhere, scores of women raped, property worth crores of rupees looted or sacked. Families devastated forever, survivors scarred for the rest of their lives.

But the Congress doesn't care!

(This is a revised version of my article which originally appeared in The Pioneer in 2009.)

Also read my article for Rediff, Light a candle for 4,733 Sikhs slaughtered by Congress hoods, for more details of the pogrom.

False gods of secularism

Just so that amnesia can't be pretended!

"It is the Congress that has engineered most of the riots... Rajiv Gandhi failed to protect Harijans and Muslims… Geographical boundaries of the country were jeopardised by the Congress and Rajiv Gandhi...”

On reading such harsh accusation, such pitiless pillorying of the Congress and its supreme leader, the last direct descendent of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to sit on the masnad of Delhi, the image that comes to mind is that of an irascible foot soldier of the BJP or a malevolent journalist doing what foot soldiers and malevolent journalists do best: Shoot from the hip.

Think again, but it is unlikely that you will be able to guess the identity of the person who tore into the Congress so mercilessly while participating in a debate on the ‘Situation in the Country’ in the Lok Sabha on December 29, 1989. The immediate backdrop to this debate was the series of communal riots in Congress-ruled Bihar -- Hazaribagh, Darbhanga, and the horrendous bloodletting in Bhagalpur during the twilight days of Rajiv Gandhi's Government in the autumn of that year.

The official death count in Bhagalpur was 1,891, with thousands scarred for the rest of their lives. In Logain village, an entire Muslim mohalla was wiped out: The bodies of 120 Muslim men, women and children were dumped in a shallow pond; when the stench became unbearable, the rotting corpses were fished out, buried in a field and planted over with cauliflower saplings. It was a ‘good’ harvest that year.

In Chanderi, another Muslim mohalla, 61 people were massacred. Mallika, a 14-year-old girl, tried to flee the mob that had killed her parents and relatives. She stumbled and fell; the mob chopped off her legs and left her to bleed to death in a hyacinth covered pond. An Army officer found her the next day, drawn by her pitiful sobs, and Mallika survived to live a traumatic life.

But we digress. From December 18 to 29, the newly-elected Lok Sabha, with Prime Minister VP Singh and the Janata Dal occupying the Treasury benches and Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress sitting on the Opposition benches, witnessed a spirited debate over the customary address by the President. Either by design or by default, the President had failed to mention the riots in Bhagalpur.

Congress MPs seized on this omission to berate the Government, alleging that the riots were not mentioned to spare embarrassment to its ally, the BJP, which was accused of fomenting the violence in Bhagalpur and elsewhere. As the debate became increasingly accusatory and the tone and tenor of the attack on the BJP sharpened, the Janata Dal MP from Chapra waded in to battle the Congress.

Responding to the allegation that BJP and VHP activists had ‘provoked’ the violence, he said, “I would like to tell you that there are two groups of Muslims in Bhagalpur, ie, Ansaris and Sallans, who had started riots in the city. A bomb was thrown on the SP (of) Bhagalpur and 11 police personnel were injured. They had thrown that bomb on the occasion of Ram Shila Pujan but these people have not been yet rounded up.”

That MP was Lalu Prasad Yadav, who years later went on to become Minister for Railways in the UPA1 Government and an ardent supporter of 'Madam Soniaji.' He would be the first to jump to her defence in the Lok Sabha and still fondly hopes that she will one day reopen the door that Rahul Gandhi has firmly shut on his face.

But we digress again. On December 29, 1989, Lalu Prasad Yadav was relentless in his assault on the Congress, more so on Rajiv Gandhi, and took vicarious pleasure by slyly mentioning Sonia Gandhi by name now and then, in total disregard of House rules which prohibit the naming of any person who is not present. “It is the Congress party which (has) engineered most of the riots, particularly in Bihar,” he thundered to the thumping of tables. “We shall expose their role in inciting communal riots,” he promised on behalf of the Government.

Listing the failures of the previous regime, he said, “Rajiv Gandhi failed to fulfil the promises which he made in regard to the development, unity and security of the country and protection of the Harijans and Muslims. This resulted in creating a gloomy situation in the country...” And, hence, the people voted (in 1989) for change.

“Change had become necessary because the responsibility of protecting the geographical boundaries of the country (sic)... was jeopardised by the Congress and Rajiv Gandhi,” Lalu Prasad Yadav explained, adding with a rhetorical flourish, “If we fail to safeguard the unity, integrity and the principle of secularism of our country, we cannot save the country from disintegration...”

And then came the full assault.

“Satyendra Narain Sinha became Chief Minister of Bihar, he failed to quell the riots in Hazaribagh... the procession of Ram Navami had passed off peacefully in front of the Jama Masjid of Hazaribagh. No Muslim had opposed the procession,” Lalu Prasad Yadav said, recalling the sequence of event, “Ram shila procession and Ram Navami procession passed off from there, but neither there was any riot nor anybody raised provocative slogans on that day. But later on an incident took place in Hazaribagh which triggered off disturbances in the entire State.”
So who or what was to blame? Read on.

“Rajiv Gandhi, accompanied by his wife Sonia Gandhi, went to participate in the Vaishali festival. They had put on bulletproof vests... Rajiv Gandhi told Sonia Gandhi that he himself would drive the jeep to see the celebrations,” Lalu Prasad Yadav explained with dramatic flourish, before coming to the consequences of that drive from Patna to Vaishali by the former Prime Minister and his wife.

“An announcement was made in regard to their security... Full security force was required all along the 60 km route from Patna to the place of celebrations. Wireless message was sent to the DM of Hazaribagh, wireless message was sent to the Collector also to send all the forces to Vaishali as Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi were coming to attend the celebrations,” he recounted, “Forces were picked up from Hazaribagh and sent to Vaishali. After three days riots took place between Hindus and Muslims. But no security forces were there to control the situation.”

And what about Darbhanga?

“They (the Congress) have spared no effort to put Bhagalpur, BJP, RSS and Janata Dal to disrepute,” Lalu Prasad Yadav said, charging the Congress, whose MPs were by then on their feet, with criminal subterfuge, “One thousand workers belonging to the Congress were called to Bahera (an Assembly constituency in Darbhanga) by Maithili Brahmins (a snide reference to Jagannath Mishra and what was then the Congress's core constituency in Bihar) and were asked to wear caps bearing slogans ‘Garv say kaho hum Hindu hain’ and ‘Radhe Shyam Baba ki Jai’.”

After a pause, he added with a condescending flourish, “You try to understand the actual position in Bhagalpur... Shiv Chander Jha, who was the Speaker, was deadly against Bhagwat Jha Azad (another Congress leader). It was due to them and a few of their men that these riots... (interruptions)... they were behind these riots.”

Researching communal violence in India can be a dreary and depressing experience. But it also has its illuminating moments. Reading the records of the debate in the Lok Sabha on December 29, 1989, was one such moment when the true face of ‘secular’ politics in India leapt out with venomous fangs exposed.

But all this, and much more, will not dissuade those who worship false gods of secularism.

(A related essay, Communal truth, secular lies, deals with Congress and its role in the Nellie massacre, the Meerut riots and the Maliana killings.)

[This is adapted from my article originally published by Rediff in 2005.]

India awaits NaMo

The juggernaut moves on

The venerable Economist has finally taken note of what is common knowledge in India: Gujarat is racing ahead of the rest of the country. The credit for Gujarat's booming prosperity which has benefited all communities (Muslims included, lest the point be missed or lost in the cacophony of Left-liberal rant)should go to Gujarati entrepreneurship and Chief Minister Narendra Modi's visionary leadership.

Here are two telling excerpts from the report, headlined "India's Guangdong",published in the latest issue of the Economist:

These days Gujarat accounts for 5% of India’s population but 16% of its industrial output and 22% of its exports. Its growth has outpaced India’s (see chart) and it wins accolades from business people. A recent comparison of Indian states by McKinsey, a consultancy, waxed lyrical about Gujarat. It might yet play the role of industrial locomotive for the country, as Guangdong province did for China in the 1990s. There is lots of excited talk about exporters switching from China to India...

Gujarat could be a vision of India’s future, in which manufacturing flourishes, soaking up rural labour. Its economy is expected to grow by double digits, even as India’s rate slows to 7-8% this year...

The Congress, of course, would brush aside the Economist's assessment, insisting 'poverty in an entitlement-driven India is better than prosperity in a entrepreneurship-driven Gujarat'. Recall how the party and its pseudo-secular drum-beaters, among them the Left-liberal intelligentsia and the intellectually bankrupt Delhi Commentariat, once argued that 'corruption is better than BJP' while propping up the Jungle Raj of Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar.

I can almost hear Teesta Setalvad and Arundhati Roy ranting -- the first in television studio debates which increasingly look like WWF matches, the second through 10,000-word essays in Outlook and Frontline -- that it's all a Right-wing conspiracy. What would the poor (and I don't mean so literally) sods do if India were to say goodbye to all that is wretched with our economy, and hence our society and polity?

[Narendra Modi at India Today Conclave 2011. Watch 2:44 onwards.]

It's a pity that the Delhi4 are yet to recognise what the world has begun to hail as India's biggest (and only) success story since 2004: NaMo's leadership and its consequent bounty of riches for Gujarat. And reconcile themselves with the reality. But then again, D4's reading habits are restricted to Times of India, possibly Hindustan Times, and Dainik Jagran. These publications provide stimulating fodder for their addled minds.

Meanwhile, our 'economist' Prime Minister should check out the latest issue of the Economist for a reality check on which way is India headed under the NAC's tutelage and which way is Gujarat headed under NaMo's leadership.

[Also see 'Gujarat shows astounding growth in female literacy': NaMo leads from the front to educate the girl child. By Ashiya Parveen.]

Singh is King! Really?

Cash helped him win trust vote!
(A spoof poster that did the rounds after Congress won July 22, 2008 vote.)
The standard operating procedure which Indian politicians follow is tailored for our polity with its ugly underbelly. For instance, a politician’s ‘aide’ could be anyone who facilitates his or her activities in public view or behind the shuttered doors of the bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi. Pimping for politicians is one of the most lucrative jobs in the nation’s capital and comes without an appointment letter or a paper trail: If things ever go wrong for our cynical politicians, there’s always plausible deniability. That option has been exercised by Captain Satish Sharma who has stoutly denied that he ever had an ‘aide’ called Nachiketa Kapur, leave alone using his services to bribe MPs in the last Lok Sabha to enable the UPA to win the crucial trust vote on July 22, 2008 after the Left withdrew its support over the India-US civil nuclear deal.

But neither Capt Sharma nor his party can deny that there was a person called Nachiketa Kapur or that he had access to the inner courtyard of the PWD-built haveli that has come to substitute Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court in amoral, if not grossly immoral, Delhi where issues of ethics are of least concern for those who claim to rule India. That Mr Kapur, whoever he may be, wielded considerable power (without accountability) and was politically well-connected is borne out by the fact that the American Embassy in New Delhi was sufficiently impressed to send him on a junket under the State Department’s ‘I-Vote 2008’ programme as an observer for the US presidential election.

It, therefore, stands to reason that the contents of the ‘Secret’ US Embassy cable of July 17, 2008, filed by its then Charge d’Affaires Steven White, are not without substance. The cable mentions, among other things, how the Congress mobilised funds to buy votes to win the confidence motion and the manner in which the funds were distributed and to whom. The ‘price’ for a ‘Yes’ vote was Rs 10 crore; the political counsellor of the Embassy was shown chests containing between Rs 50 crore and Rs 60 crore to be used for purchasing votes. The cable also mentions Capt Sharma providing details of how he was trying to target MPs within the BJP and its allies, for instance, the Akali Dal. He owed this much to the party which had bailed him out in 15 cases of corruption filed by the CBI.

Senior leaders of the BJP will confirm that during the week before the vote they were desperately scrambling to keep their flock together. The lure of lucre is not easy to overcome. In any event, few MPs wanted an early election -- if that could be avoided and easy money pocketed, where was the harm? Some back-benchers in the BJP had begun to question the wisdom of opposing the nuclear deal as a cover for their imminent act of disloyalty. The Akali Dal, not too sure of preventing its MPs from straying, wondered whether opposing the deal was the right move as there was a large Sikh community in the US and they wouldn’t take kindly to America-bashing. It may sound laughable in retrospect, but that’s exactly what was conveyed to the BJP. The BJP’s apprehensions came true when cash was actually handed over to some of its MPs by an ‘aide’ of Mr Amar Singh, who had also offered his services and resources to prop up the UPA regime.

Political parties are known to try till the last minute to avoid a mid-term exit from power. The NDA Government would not have fallen by a single vote in 1999 if its political managers had been alert to the Congress’s strategy of getting Mr Giridhar Gomango to participate in the voting despite his having taken charge as Chief Minister of Odisha. He still remained a member of the Lok Sabha and exercised his privilege, although it was both immoral and unethical to do so. Nor should we forget that JMM MPs were bribed to ensure the survival of the Government headed by PV Narasimha Rao. Such subversion of the ethical foundations of democracy comes naturally to the Congress.

That said, two points should bother us more than anything else. First, the Americans had a remarkably accurate sense of the voting pattern five days before the vote. According to their estimate, there would be 273 votes in favour and 251 ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgainst the trust motion, with 19 abstentions. After the vote, the tally stood at 275 votes in favour and 256 against the motion, with 10 abstentions. Who briefed the US Embassy? Second, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was all smiles when he was greeted with cheers of “Singh is King” after he won the vote. The king today looks no different from the emperor without clothes.

(This appeared as my column in DNA.)

Dirty tricks by Congress

Spiteful act, deplorable deed
The Congress is just not reconciled to the idea of Gujarat, more specifically Narendra Modi, showing the way to rapid development and inclusive growth through good governance. Hence, every effort is made by the Congress, through the UPA Government, to harass Modi and stall Gujarat's progress. Having failed to deliver anything that even remotely resembles the Gujarat model in the States where the Congress is in power, the party leadership has responded with limitless hate and spite. The CBI has played hand maiden to the Congress in its deplorable endeavour.

The latest object of Congress envy is Vibrant Gujarat, the hugely successful investors conference hosted by the Gujarat Government and a brainchild of Narendra http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifModi, which has played a significant role in fuelling Gujarat's success story. At this year's Vibrant Gujarat, MoUs for projects worth Rs 1237570.48 crore were signed. This despite the Congress instructing the Union Ministry of Finance to warn public sector banks against participating in the investor summit in any manner. Complaisant babus in the Ministry eagerly conveyed the message to bank chairmen; that didn't quite do the trick. Nor did the campaign by 'friendly' media to run down the initiative help the Congress.

So now the Congress, once again through the Union Ministry of Finance, has instructed the Income Tax Department to make life difficult for the Modi Government by scaring away investors who signed MoUs. The Income Tax Department hahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifutifully
obliged its political masters of the day by issuing a notice on February 17 to Gujarat’s Industries Commissioner, demanding details of Memoranda of Understanding signed during Vibrant Gujarat earlier this year. Never before has something so extraordinary happened.

As I have said in the editorial I wrote for The Pioneer, a State Government is at liberty to raise funds and invite investments to further development and propel growth. That the Government of Gujarat has raced past others is a tribute to the quality of governance under Narendra Modi’s tutelage which no Congress leader can ever achieve — either in New Delhi or in State capitals. To try and scuttle the efforts of the Government of Gujarat and arm-twist potential investors into staying away from the State is tantamount to disallowing States to function freely.It's a crudehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif assault on federalism.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

As my friend and commentator on the INI blog,Nitin Pai, tweeted on Thursday: "So now the UPA govt is using the Income Tax department to bully/threaten investors in Gujarat. Anti-national fascism on display."

If the intention behind the notice had not been mala fide, the Income Tax Department, or for that matter the Union Finance Ministry, need not have served a notice. All that they needed to do was get the details from the Vibrant Gujarat website. For all those who are interested, you can access full details of the MoUs here.