A community’s religious quest

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Karnataka Chief Minister H Siddaramaiah, seeking a successive second term for his Congress party in the elections due in a couple of months, has thrown a spanner in the works of its main challenger, the Bharatiya Janata Party, by recommending to the Centre to grant the Lingayat community recognition as a separate religious group with minority status.

The Lingayats, with an estimated population of 61 million, can influence the outcome of the election in about 100 of the state’s 224 assembly constituencies. 

If the Congress loses in Karnataka, Punjab will be the only large state under it. As for BJP, it is the only southern state where it has a chance of coming to power. It has named BS Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate, overlooking the corruption charges he had attracted when he headed the government last time, because he is a Lingayat.  

The Centre has not taken a decision on the Karnataka government’s recommendation, but sources reportedly said after an informal Cabinet meeting that it would not be accepted as it would deprive Dalit members of the community of the benefit of reservation in government jobs and educational institutions that they now enjoy.

The BJP-led Central government is likely to reject the Karnataka recommendation on the ground that Dalits among the Lingayats will lose the benefit of reservation if it is accepted. 

The reasoning is specious. Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are treated as breakaway groups of Hinduism and Dalits who profess these religions get the benefit of reservation. The same consideration can be shown to Dalits among the Lingayats.

The issue of Lingayat religion is not a long simmering one. The Lingayats are followers of 12th century reformer Basaveswara, a Brahmin who repudiated the Vedas and worked for social equality.  Originally they were known as Veerashaivas (meaning Heroic Shaivites). In the 18th century the term Lingayat came into vogue from their practice of wearing the linga, symbolising Shiva. Over the years the two terms came to represent two different groups among Basava’s followers with noticeable differences. 

While both groups are devotees of Shiva their concepts of Shiva differ. Like most Hindus, Veerashaivites envision Shiva as a god in human form with a snake wrapped round the neck. To Lingayats, Shiva is a formless entity that resides in every life form. 

Veerashaivites have temples and priestly orders. Lingayats do not believe in temple worship. 

One reason for the lack of cohesion in the community was the loss of most of its sacred texts, known as vachanas. In the last century, a Basaveswara follower named Phakirappaa Gurubasappa Halakatti collected and published 22,000 vachanas found on palm leaf manuscripts. 

Scholars like MM Kalburgi who studied them pointed out that Basava’s teachings differed vastly from the principles of Hinduism. Gauri Lankesh, an activist- journalist, propagated this idea through her writings. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh were killed, apparently by a group annoyed by their work on the subject.  

The question whether Lingayats are Hindus or members of a separate religious community has been under discussion for over a century. In 1904, the All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha, established by one of the mutts, declared that Lingayats and Veerashaivas are one, and that they are Hindus. But Lingayats maintained they are not Hindus. In 1940 the Mahasabha changed its stand and sought recognition as a separate religion called Veerashaiva. 

 In the Constituent Assembly, Lingayat members including S Nijalingappa, who later became Chief Minister of Karnataka, pleaded unsuccessfully for the recognition of Lingayats as a separate religion. The demand was raised before the last Congress-led government at the Centre in 2013.

To enable the Lingayats and Veerashaivites to stay together in the proposed Lingayat religion, the Karnataka government has suggested that the latter be recognised as a group within it.

 TheVeerashaiva Mahasabha, of which a Congress MLA, Shamanur Shivashakarappa, is now the President, has come up with a confused response. It has asked the state government to withdraw its recommendation to the Centre as it divides the community. It has also said it would press the Centre to provide religious minority status to Veerashaiva-Lingayats. 

Minority status will enable the community to establish its own educational institutions.  

Siddharamaiah has succeeded in dividing the Linguayat-Veerashaiva community. That probably serves his immediate political purpose. 

But this is not an issue to be decided by the Centre and the State. They must leave it to the members of the community to decide their religious affiliation. Their own roles must be limited to assessing the ground situation in a non-partisan manner and taking such steps as are necessary to ensure that the will of the community prevails. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 27, 2018.

The States Of True Power

A non-BJP, non-Congress front can script a new scenario

B.R.P. BHASKAR

Leaders of regional parties which appear to be in a position to stop the Hindutva rath in its tracks have started talking about coming together. But it is doubtful if they have a proper understanding of the current political scenario. Some of them are raising the old slogan of a “non-Congress, non-BJP government”. That suggests they are living in an era that has passed.

The idea of a non-Congress, non-BJP government arose when the Congress was declining and the Bharatiya Janata Party was growing, and small national and regional parties did not like the emergence of the BJP, which has a communal agenda, as the national alternative. In Harkishen Singh Surjeet, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which, as a Left party, had a progressive image, there was a leader who could bring the small parties together on a common platform. In Vishwanath Pratap Singh, there was an experienced leader with the stature to head a government at the Centre. That combination made the first non-Congress, non-BJP government possible.

At that time, the Congress and the BJP together held enough seats in the Lok Sabha to make it impossible to form a government without the support of one of them. V.P. Singh’s United Front government remained in power with the BJP’s support. When that party withdrew support, it collapsed.  Chandra Shekhar, who succeeded V.P. Singh, was sustained in office by the Congress.

In the 1996 elections, the BJP (161 seats) edged past the Congress (140 seats) for the first time, and the President invited its leader, A.B. Vajpayee, to form the government. As secular parties were unwilling to join hands with the BJP, he could not get the required number. Once again Surjeet started the search for a non-Congress, non-BJP Prime Minister.

The V.P. Singh, H.S. Surjeet combination made possible the first government of small parties across India.

A consensus soon emerged in favour of West Bengal’s CPI (M) chief minister Jyoti Basu. The Politburo’s decision to not participate in a government in which the party did not have a dominant position left the third front parties with no option but to look for someone else. The choice then fell first on H.D. Deve Gowda and then on I.K. Gujral. Both were leaders with no ­national appeal. Their short spells in office were uneventful.

When fresh elections were held in 1998, the BJP emerged stronger with 181 seats against the Congress party’s 141. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep it out of power. Recognising this, some regional parties decided to play ball with it at the pre-poll stage itself. Among them was the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). After the elections, more parties joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and Vajpayee was back as the prime minister.

When AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha found that Vajpayee was not ready to drop the corruption cases pending against her and to dismiss the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, she withdrew support and brought the government down.

In the elections that followed, the BJP under Vajpayee ­retained its primacy with 182 seats, but the Congress’s strength declined further to 114. In the circumstances, the BJP could attract more small parties. With as many as 22 parties in the NDA, Vajpayee completed the full term of five years.

In 2004, the BJP campaigned with the slogan “India Shining”, and thought it could get another full term, but the voters decided otherwise. Its Lok Sabha strength fell to 138 and the Congress’s rose to 145. The thin lead in the House imp­roved the Congress’s ability to attract small parties, and the United Progressive Alliance it led came to power.

Narendra Modi brought the UPA’s 10-year rule to an end in 2014 with a virulent campaign. The BJP enjoyed a majority in the Lok Sabha with 282 seats on its own, but it kept the NDA alive. Modi’s early performance suggested that he was in for a long innings. But lately, there have been signs of a change in the popular mood and the 2019 election is certainly not going to be a one-horse race.

If the BJP’s number comes down and the Congress’s goes up, there may be a return to the earlier situation of small parties having to choose between the two. But must they wait until the elections are over to decide who should form the government?

The difference between the governments led by the BJP and the Congress is a matter more of style than of substance. The roots of such differences can be traced to the two parties’ positions on issues such as secularism and democracy. These form the core of our constitutional system and the regional parties will incur heavy losses if they are undermined.

Unlike Vajpayee, Modi has scant regard for these constitutional ideals. He has no qualms about grabbing power in a state using the governor appointed by him even when the voters rej­ect his party. In some states, he is known to have used the services of serving or retired intelligence officers to work out deals with political parties.

Originally, the Constituent Assembly’s mandate was to create a framework for a federal state. But Partition and other developments superseded it and eventually the Constitution provided not for a federation but for a union of states. It established a Central government more powerful than that of British India. In the 68 years since the Constitution came into force, the Centre’s authority has increased. Rajiv Gandhi amended the Constitution to divest some powers of states to the local bodies. Ideally, this should have been followed by divesting some of the Centre’s powers to the States. This did not happen.

A party which seeks to impose oppressive uniformity based on a warped concept of religious nationalism poses a real threat to India’s diversity. The last four years saw violent elements—let loose by those holding the strings of the party in power—lynching a number of people, most of them belonging to the minorities or marginalised sections. The police remained silent spectators and often colluded with the criminal elements to pin the blame on the victims. Modi, who tweets sympathies to suffering people in distant lands, had no word of solace for those who were attacked under his watch.

What we need now is not a party or set of parties working together to be an alternative to the BJP and the Congress as ruling parties, but a party or set of parties working together to provide alternative policies to those pursued by them. We need a development policy which can lift the bulk of our people out of poverty, not one that can turn fraudsters into billionaires.

Currently, politics in India is played under rules set by the BJP, or rather the prime mover behind it, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It generally operates at two levels. At the higher level, Modi—whom the RSS pitchforked into the prime minister’s chair—polarises the country on religious lines and propagates that after ‘seven decades of inaction’ by Nehru and his successors he has started moving the governmental machinery for the first time. At the lower level, shadowy groups carry forward the polarisation project, not on the scale in which it was implemented in Gujarat when Modi was CM, but in an equally deadly, if controlled, manner.

The Congress is offering some resistance to the BJP, but there's nothing to indicate it's working to change the rules of the game set by the Hindutva camp. It appears to have concluded that mild Hindutva is presently its best strategic option.

It is for the small national parties and regional parties to take up the challenge. They are generally conscious of their local strength, and sometimes there is an understandable tendency to exaggerate it. But they are oblivious of the strength they can command at the national level if they can forge a ‘federal front’ (FF) , coordinate their efforts and formulate alternative policies, keeping in mind not just the needs of their states (or the social groups that constitute their support base) but of the people of the country as a whole. To begin with, they must stop playing second fiddle to the pan-Indian parties and become pro-active instead of being merely reactive.

States with dominant regional parties ­command no less than 170 seats in the LS, no small number.

Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu recently withdrew his Telugu Desam Party’s ministers from the NDA government to protest Modi’s failure to grant special status to the state. It is not in doubt that the separation of Telangana has hurt the residuary state financially. Must suitable remedial measures to tide over a problem of this kind be dependent upon one individual or party wielding power at the Centre?

In making out a case for going back to the concept of a non-Congress, non-BJP government, Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samiti chairman K. Chandrasekhar Rao said, “Farmers, Dalits, most backward classes are neglected. For how long do they need to face problems? This has to change and this is not possible from these two parties (the BJP and the Congress). Hence a non-Congress, non-BJP front should be formed in the country.” Though he started with a correct premise, he reached a conclusion which is not quite correct.

The non-Congress, non-BJP governments too were unable to tackle these problems. What is needed is to provide the states with sufficient power to formulate policies beneficial to farmers, Dalits and backward classes and to free them from having to depend upon the Centre. This will need a reordering of the constitutional system to make it more federal, not to say trulyfederal. The national parties have created an atmosphere in which small parties feel too intimidated even to talk of a measure of regional autonomy. They will make no move to invest the states with more powers unless compelled by circumstances. A federal front can compel them to do so.

States with dominant regional parties command no less than 170 seats in the Lok Sabha. It is no small number. The small national or reg­ional parties which ruled the Hindi states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, alone or in coa­lition, in the not too distant past cannot be written off as spent forces. Under right con­ditions, they can stage a comeback, as is clear from the results of the recent by-elections in these two states. If they care to properly reassess their position, as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party did before the by-elections, they can legitimately be part of the federal front. Add the 120 seats of these two states too, and the number of Lok Sabha seats the FF can bid for goes up to 290.  Hence, it is in a position to decide who should rule and how.

A grave disadvantage of the leaders of these parties is that they can provide one another little electoral help because of the reg­ional or sectarian limits of their appeal. This disadvantage can be overcome to a considerable extent if the FF becomes a reality before the Lok Sabha elections and is seen as a credible contender for power or at least one that will play a decisive role in the formation of the next government.

The federal front can script a new political scenario. But the parties and the leaders concerned have to go a long way to emerge as a united force with a people-oriented programme that is different from that of the large national parties, which are too indebted to the rich and the powerful. The billion-rupee question is: can they rise to the occasion? (Outlook, March 28, 2018)

Realignment bids ahead of poll

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As the parliamentary elections, due next year, draw near, several parties are rethinking their position in the light of their assessment of the current political climate.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led it to a clear victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party has seized power in several states and established itself firmly as the largest national party, a position previously held by the Congress.

While in the general elections Modi’s campaigns worked wonders in many states, the BJP has not done well in by-elections. In 2014, it won 282 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. By-election losses have reduced its strength to 274, just two more than is necessary to maintain its majority status.

The Congress, the main opposition party, raised its strength from 44 to 48 during this period.

The BJP suffered its worst by-election reverses in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party grabbed the seats which Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated following assumption of office in the state. Both of them had won by big margins in 2014.

This time UP’s other major party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, stayed out of the contest and supported the SP candidates. Since the SP draws support mainly from the backward Yadav community and the BSP from the Dalits, the BJP faced the combined onslaught of the lower strata in the byelections. 

The National Democratic Alliance, the coalition led by the BJP, too has suffered erosion of strength. With 14 partners holding 40 seats, the NDA had 322 members when Modi took office. The Telugu Desam party (TDP), the second largest partner with 16 members, quit the alliance last week, accusing Modi of not living up to the promise to give Andhra Pradesh a special status.

TDP boss and AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had earlier pulled out his party’s two members from the Modi government. He followed it up by serving notice of a no-confidence motion against the government in the Lok Sabha. 

The government has the numbers to sail through comfortably but the censure bid will provide an opportunity for a line-up of opposition forces.

The BJP has an uneasy relationship with the Shiv Sena, its largest partner with 19 seats in the Lok Sabha. It is also part of the coalition government in Maharastra. It misses no opportunity to taunt big brother BJP. 

Issues on which the Shiv Sena has taken pot shots at Modi include the Punjab National Bank scam and deterioration of law and order situation. It is not likely to break with the BJP immediately.

Dalit leader and Consimer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s weekend advice to the BJP to become all-inclusive like the Congress is seen by some as a prelude to pullout from the NDA. His Lok Janshakti Party has six members in the Lok Sabha.

Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, hosted a dinner for opposition party leaders a few days ago. As many as 20 leaders attended the event, which the Congress said was meant to promote friendship but was also an occasion to explore possibilities of forging broad unity before the parliamentary elections.

The outcome of the dinner diplomacy will essentially depend upon the parties’ appreciation of ground realities. BSP leader Mayawati’s decision to stay out of the UP byelections and support candidates of traditional rival Samajwadi Party, testifies to a growing realisation among non-BJP parties that they need to pull together. 

The Congress party’s improved performance in the Assembly elections in Gujarat and in the recent by-elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has raised its standing among the opposition to some extent. All three are states where the BJP and the Congress are sole contenders for power.

Assembly elections are due later this year in MP and Rajasthan as also Karnataka and Chhattisgarh where, too, the main contest is between the BJP and the Congress. The outcome of these elections may influence the course of negotiations for new alliances.

Chandrababu Naidu and two other regional party leaders who are heading state governments, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Telangana’s K Chandrasekhara Rao, have favoured the idea of a third front. Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam leader MK Stalin introduced a new element by talking of a southern front against the BJP. 

All this makes for a fluid situation. It may be months before a clear picture of the line-up for the Lok Sabha elections emerges. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 20,2018

All That’s Left Behind

There’s no sign of a Left phoenix rising from the ashes

B.R.P. BHASKAR

Within seven years of the rout in West Bengal after a continuous reign of 34 years, the CPI(M) has suffered a similar fate in Tripura, which it had held for an unbroken 25 years. The country’s largest Left party is now left with a stake in power only in Kerala, where a front headed by it has been taking turns with a Congress-led combine to form the government since 1980. The CPI(M)’s fall considerably shrinks the space of the Left in the Indian polity. In terms of known popular base, the CPI is not even one-fourth its size. In the last Lok Sabha election, the CPI(M) fielded 93 candidates—nine won, 50 forfeited their deposits, and the party garnered a 3.28 per cent voteshare. The CPI put up 67 candidates—one won, 57 lost their deposits, and the party got a paltry voteshare of 0.79 per cent.

The Left’s decline comes as the BJP-led right-wing forces are rising across the country, while the Congress and other centrist parties are losing ground. This raises questions about the future of plurality in the Indian polity, and also about how Left is what is left of the Indian Left. The Left’s founding fathers were mainly from the class of landlords and social elites, which naturally led to some contradictions. It is said the membership card then party secretary P. Krishna Pillai iss­ued to E.M.S. Namboodiripad, a future ideologue, general secretary and Kerala CM, mentioned that he belonged to the bourgeoisie. When Bihar’s then Congress government moved the Zamindari Abolition Bill, for limited land reforms, Communist legislators, mostly big landlords, opposed it saying it did not go far enough. And the Bengal leadership came from the hallowed Bhadralok ranks.

In 1952, as the largest Opposition party in the first Lok Sabha, the undivided CPI seemed to be the potential alternative to the Congress, which rode to power at the Centre and in the states on the wave of triumphant nat­ionalism. Its seizure of power through the ballot box in Kerala in 1957 reimbursed that impression. The party ret­ained its primacy on the Opposition benches of Parliament in 1962 too, but lost it after the split in 1964—a result of the schism in the international Communist movement, as well as differences on the attitude towards the Congress government. The impact was felt immediately. While the Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor, inc­reased its voteshare from 6.44 per cent in 1962 to 9.31 per cent in 1967, the Communist votes, which stood at 9.94 per cent in 1962 registered a marginal drop: CPI 5.11 per cent, CPI(M) 4.28 per cent (Total 9.39 per cent).

Later, the CPI(M) emerged as the main Left party, outstripping the parent organisation in the Left strongholds of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. As fronts under its leadership gained power in Bengal in 1977 and Tripura in 1993, retaining it in election after election, while alternating in power with the Congress-led outfit in Kerala, it commanded attention nationally as a player in the power game, although its popular base shrank geographically. In the 1950s, it had been able to grab a few seats from the big industrial cities. When the influence of trade unions dec­lined, its urban pockets vanished.

The Left’s decline, while the Right is rising and centrist parties are losing ground, raises ­questions about the future of ­plurality in India.

When the Emergency generated a backlash and an alternative to the Congress became an urgent necessity in 1977, it was an amalgam of non-Congress, non-Communist parties, which Jayaprakash Narayan helped create, that occupied the spot. That entity did not last long. In 1989, with the elections throwing up a hung Lok Sabha, the question of an alternative came to the fore again. A centrist combination led by V.P. Singh seemed the best bet, and the BJP and the CPI(M), forgetting their differences over secularism, jointly sustained his government by supporting it from outside. BJP president L.K. Advani and CPI(M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet met informally with V.P. Singh every week to ensure coordination. Advani’s Rath Yatra on the Ayodhya issue and V.P. Singh’s decision to implement the Mandal report, which had been gathering dust in the PMO for more than a decade, brought the Left-Right tango behind the scenes to an end.

The issue of an alternative government came up again in 1996, when Atal Behari Vajapayee had to bow out barely a fortnight after being sworn in as PM as he could not muster majority support in the Lok Sabha. The quest now was for a non-Congress, non-BJP government. Since the BJP had 161 seats and the Congress 140, the support of one of them was necessary for the government to survive. Surjeet was the prime mover behind the consensus-making effort. What equipped him for the task was not his party’s strength—it had 32 Lok Sabha members, 23 of them from West Bengal—but the Left’s image as a progressive force. He found that the leader most acceptable to the motley gathering of parties was his own colleague, Jyoti Basu, who had been the Bengal CM for nearly two decades.

Basu’s Left Front government had put through land reforms, which successive Congress governments had failed to do, and devoted special attention to rural development. The militant trade union activity, which had helped the CPI(M) establish itself as a revolutionary party in the eyes of the working class, had caused long-established industries to flee the state. He offered incentives to attract domestic industrialists, but that did not meet much success. His clean image was what appealed most to the small national and regional parties looking for a PM under whom they can unite.

The consensus in Basu’s favour posed a dilemma for the CPI(M). The party invariably had a dominant position in the coalitions it formed in the states, but its strength in Parliament did not permit such a luxury at the Centre. The politburo decided that the party should not participate in a government in which it did not have a lead role. The opportunity of a CPI(M) prime minister was lost. Years later, Basu described the party’s decision as a Himalayan blunder. It is, of course, possible to find material in Marxist literature to justify that decision. But, then, how much in accordance with the principles of Marxism has Communist practice been in India (or, for that matter, anywhere else)? The overnight reassessment of the “imperial war” between Britain and Ger­many as “people’s war” after the Soviet Union’s entry and the participation of the CPI in rec­ruitment to the army and other war efforts had certainly not been based on Marx’s teachings.

The Marxist belief that Communists can come to power only through a violent revolution had been disproved when the Centre allowed the CPI to form the Kerala government in 1957. That government’s dismissal two years later could have been interpreted as belated proof, but neither did the CPI take that position, nor the CPI(M), when it came into being. Had they taken such a position, they would have been obliged to abandon the parliamentary path and return to the disastrous Calcutta thesis.

In Bengal and Tripura, the CPI(M) entered into alliances only with other Left parties. But in Kerala, as early as 1967, Namboodiripad, arguably the smartest Indian exponent of Marxism in his time, opened the way for tie-ups with even those who, enraged by the land and educational reform measures, had engineered the mass agitation leading to his first government’s dismissal. The new party line set the stage for dilution of land reform and abandonment of educational reform. A watered-down land reform law, acceptable to all, was eventually enacted by another coalition government. No government dared to implement the educational reform measure, even though the Supreme Court ruled it was constitutionally valid. The new line also led to the party aligning itself with powerful regressive elem­ents for short-term electoral gains and working against the interests of the state’s small, dispossessed adivasi population. Half a century later, the state party still pursues that line.

The Bengal debacle was a direct consequence of the attempt by Jyoti Basu’s successor, Buddhadeb Bhatta­charya, to push neoliberalism down the throats of the people. The violence at Nandigram and Singur alienated not only the masses, but also the intelligentsia. There were no comparable incidents in Tripura, but the electoral verdict points to the possibility that there was discontent, which the party failed to notice.

In Kerala, which has seen a steady erosion in the CPI(M)’s traditional support base among adivasis, Dalits and backward classes, the party has been adopting tactics designed to cover the losses by attracting other sections. Success in this effort will, in all probability, entail further loss of the party’s Left character.

In a book published posthumously in 2015, journalist Praful Bidwai took a critical view of the history of the Indian Left to find out why left-wing politics has not flourished to the extent that might be expected in a society “with a million injustices and growing inequalities, rec­ently worsened by Hindutva and neoliberal capitalism”. Noting that Left politics has shrunk in range and variety, he argued that the Left was facing its phoenix moment and the ability of its national leadership to overcome the grave crisis it confronted was on test. Sadly, there is no sign of a young phoenix rising from the ashes. (Outlook, March 19, 2016)

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Green signal for passive euthanasia

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Taking a circuitous route, the Supreme Court has come to the conclusion that the citizen’s fundamental right to live in dignity includes the right to die in dignity. Accordingly it has prepared the ground for permitting passive euthanasia under strict contril.

The issue of euthanasia was brought before the court by Pinki Virani, a journalist and human rights activist, nine years ago, citing the case of Aruna Shanbaug who had been lying in a Mumbai hospital for 36 years in what was described as ‘persistent vegetative state’.

Shanbaug was a 24-year-old nurse at that hospital when a sweeper sexually assaulted and strangulated her, leaving her in a near comatose state. While the assailant was a free man after serving a jail term of seven years, the hapless victim, abandoned by her family, was doomed to spend the rest of her life in a hospital bed. Virani book, “Aruna’s Story: the True Account of a Rape and its Aftermath”, published in 2000, was about her tragic life.

A redeeming aspect of Aruna’s story was the care which successive generations of nurses of the hospital bestowed on her, considering her as one of them, until she died of pneumonia in 2015, aged 66.

Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra, in their 2011 judgment, rejected Virani’s euthanasia plea as a team of doctors reported that Shanbaug was not fully brain-dead and the hospital authorities affirmed their readiness to look after her till her last breath.

The two judges held that passive euthanasia is legal and laid down the procedure to be followed by the hospital and the Bombay High Court in case Aruna Shanbaug’s condition necessitated resort to it. 

They also recommended that Parliament enact legislation for the purpose.

The Centre devoted some attention to the matter but there has been no legislation so far. 

Last week a five-member Constitution Bench of the court, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, while disposing of a public interest litigation on, went one step further and outlined a detailed scheme for administration of euthanasia which will remain in force until Parliament enacts a law for the purpose.

In this PIL, filed in 2005 — four years before Pinki Virani’s petition — Common Cause, a civil society organisation, had urged that “right to die with dignity” be declared a fundamental right and terminally ill persons be allowed to execute a living will for passive euthanasia.

The government’s stand on the issue was equivocal. It said it agreed in principle to passive euthanasia but was against a living will as it was liable to be misused.

The five judges wrote four concurrent judgments which recognises a person’s right to write a living will or advance directives, while mentally competent to do so, specifically instructing next of kin or medical personnel to allow passive euthanasia if he or she is in a vegetative state or terminally ill with no chance of recovery or revival.

The individual’s right to die with dignity takes precedence over the interest of the state in preserving the sanctity of life, the court said.

The scheme drawn up by the court permits a person to nominate a kin to provide consent for passive euthanasia and to revoke the living will before it is put into effect.

It contains several built-in safeguards. The living will must be signed and witnessed by at least two persons. A Judicial Magistrate (First Class) must sign it after satisfying himself that all requirements had been fulfilled. Doctors are required to verify the authenticity of the living will before acting upon it.

The hospital where the person is admitted is required to constitute a medical board to decide the issue of passive euthanasia. If it decides to act upon the living will, the District Collector must be informed and he must constitute another medical board. If this board too recommends passive euthanasia, the matter should be referred to the Judicial Magistrate who must visit the patient and give his approval.

Will the scheme work well? Considering the heavy preoccupations of the Collector and the Judicial Magistrate and the history of administrative and judicial delays, there can be doubts on this score. 

Voluntary extinction of life through indefinite fast has been a part of the Jain tradition and Tarun Sagar, a leading monk of the community, hailed the Supreme Court verdict.

Differing notes came from two minority community leaders. All India Sunni Jamiat-ul-ulema Generaal Secretary AP Aboobaker Musaliyar said only God who gave life had the right to take it back. Kerala Catholic Bishops Cinference President Archbishop Susaipakiam said killing an old or sick person due to sympathy was not acceptable. 

What BJP’s NE win means

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Making a dramatic sweep, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party seized power in Tripura, one of the three small states in the predominantly tribal northeastern region which went to the polls last month. In the other two, Nagaland and Meghalaya, it is poised to share power under the leadership of regional parties.

It was a big leap forward for the party. In the outgoing Tripura and Meghalaya assemblies it was unrepresented. In Nagaland, it had a lone legislator. Its 2013 vote share was only 1.54 per cent in Tripura, 1.75 per cent in Nagaland and 1.27 per cent in Meghalaya. It soared to about 43 per cent in Tripura, 14.4 per cent in Nagaland and 9.6 per cent in Meghalaya.

The differing social and religious composition of the northeastern states marks them out from the rest of the country. Tripura has a Hindu majority but tribal communities constitute 30 per cent of its population. Thanks to early missionary activity among the tribes, 87.93 per cent of Nagaland’s population and 74.59 per cent of Meghalaya’s are Christian.

Mindful of the local sentiments, BJP campaigners affirmed the people’s right to eat beef. They also offered the minority community subsidy to undertake pilgrimage to Herusalem.

In a campaign speech Modi recalled his government had rescued Christian nurses from India who were trapped in a Middle East conflict zone. 

The BJP’s victory in Tripura, where it had an alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), put to an end a quarter century of uninterrupted Left rule. The only state where the Left now has a stake in power is Kerala in the south. A front headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and another headed by the Congress have been alternating in power in the state since 1980. 

The Naga People’s Front, which had been in power in Nagaland continuously since 2003, barring a short spell of President’s rule, was an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance. Sensing that the NPF was losing ground, the BJP dumped it on the eve of the election and aligned itself with the National Democratic Progressive Party, a newly formed regional outfit.

The NPF lost its majority, but with 27 seats in the new house it is still the largest party. The NDPP bagged 17 seats and the BJP 11, leaving the combine also short of the half-way mark. The outgoiung NPF Chief Minister TR Zeliang is making a bid to stay on but the BJP is sticking with the NDPP and it has sraked a claim to form the government. 

In Meghalaya, which has been under Congress rule since 2008, the BJP was not able to make much headway. It won only two seats there.

Although the Congress lost ground, with 21 seats in the 60-member house, it remains the largest single party. The National People’s Party is close behind with 19 sears. Smaller parties and Independents hold the remaining 17 sears.

The situation in the state is similar to that in Goa and Manipur after last year’s assembly elections. The Congress was the largest party but it was beaten in the race for power by the BJP which quickly mobilised enough outside support and chalked up a majority. 

Regional parties aspiring for power in sensitive border states find it prudent to go with the party ruling at the Centre. The BJP, therefore, experienced little difficulty in bringing Nagaland and Meghalaya under its belt. 

Since it is not very familiar with the political landscape of the northeastern region, the BJP took the gyudance of serving and retired Intelligence officers to deal with the regional party leaders.

In view of the special characteristics of the northeastern states, it will be risky to make any prophecy about how the outcome of these elections will impact the assembly elections in the southern state of Karnataka and the Hindi states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which go to the polls later this year, or the Lok Sabha elections due next year.

The BJP made a heavy investment in these small states for two reasons. It deemed it necessary to win or at least make inroads into the northeastern region, which had been inaccessible to it so far, to reinforce its credentials as a national party. The sparsely populated region has 25 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Any gains the party can make here will go some way to offset the losses it expects in the heartland states. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 6, 2018