Countering divisive politics

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Delhi Chief Minister, Arwind Kejriwal, took the Hindutva establishment head on last weekend when he arranged a concert by well-known exponent of Carnatic music TM Krishna at the national capital after a Central government outfit,  yielding to social media pressure, cancelled an event in which he was to participate.

Krishna has raised his voice against caste prejudices in the world of art and culture and endeavoured to broaden the base of classical music by introducing non-Hindu themes.  He received the prestigious Magsayay Award in 2016 for his “forceful commitment as artist and advocate of art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions”.

The Hindutva school was enraged by Krishna’s criticism of its intolerant ways.  When the Airports Authority of India announced a programme, which included a concert by him, trolls dubbed him an anti-national and mounted a campaign against him. The AAI then dropped the programme.

Kejriwal, whose Aam Admi Party seized power in the National Capital Territory of Delhi after pulverising both the BJP and the Congress party in the 2016 elections, immediately offered him an alternative venue.

Krishna made the event a celebration of India’s diversity. From his vast repertoire, he chose for the occasion a Malayalam song on Jesus, a Tamil song on Allah, some Kannada verses of reformer Basava and Hindi bhajans, besides popular classical items.

It was a more powerful statement against hate politics than what one hears at party rallies.

Even as Kejriwal set the stage for a cultural drive against hate politics, the BJP was building up a campaign, in the southern State of Kerala, against a recent Supreme Court ruling that the ancient Sabarimala temple’s practice of barring women of menstruating age violates the Constitutional principle of gender equality.

Both the BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had welcomed the court ruling but quickly changed their stance, sensing an opportunity to strengthen their foothold in Kerala.  

The BJP has not been able to win a single parliamentary seat from Kerala so far. It hopes to make a breakthrough by alleging interference in Hindu religious practices.

The State’s government, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has said it has a Constitutional obligation to enforce the court verdict. However, as of now, it remains unimplemented as the police is either unable or unwilling to provide safe passage to women devotees along the hill path lined by Hindutva protesters. 

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has been striving to counter the Hindutva challenge with calls to recapture the mood of the Kerala renaissance which had helped create a secular atmosphere and enabled the State to achieve social progress, which, the United Nations noted five decades back, was comparable to that of the industrialised West.

Both Kejrival and Vijayan are seeking, in disparate ways, to counter the Hindutva agenda of polarising the country to make electoral gains. 

Since the BJP came to power at the Centre four and a half years ago, there has been a two-pronged drive to promote the Hindutva ideology.

At the highest level, there has been a campaign, led by Narendra Modi himself, to denigrate the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who had held Hindutva forces at bay during the Partition riots and laid the foundations of a secular state. Modi views the Nehru legacy as a stumbling block in the way of realising the BJP’s goal of a Hindu nation in which non-Hindus will be relegated to second position.

In several States, Hindutva vigilante groups have indulged in violence against Muslims and Dalits in the name of cow protection. Police were slow to respond, and when they did they generally sought to pin the blame on the victims and save the culprits.

The demand for a Ram temple at Ayodhya, which has been on the BJP’s election manifesto since 1989, and the destruction of the Babri Masjid by RSS volunteers in 2002 to clear the ground for its construction were milestones in Hindutva’s march to power. Modi’s slogan of development did not lead to a change in the political agenda.

Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, has in a recent report noted that BJP leaders have been making inflammatory remarks against minorities and contributing to vigilantism targeted against Muslims and Dalits.  

With parliamentary elections only six months away and the economic outlook not as rosy as the government makes out, the BJP is becoming increasingly reliant on divisive politics. --Gulf Today, November 20, 2018.

Criminal defamation — No respite

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

India’s Supreme Court, which has occasionally used its wide powers to improve upon outdated laws, last week let go an opportunity to revise the colonial defamation law in tune with democratic ideals.

Defamation is actionable under both civil and criminal law. The Indian Penal Code, which makes it a criminal offence, was drafted by legendary British historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay and came into force in 1860. Its relevant provisions are based on the law then prevailing in Britain, which aimed at protecting the reputations of the supporters of the Establishment.

The IPC underwent changes 40 times during 87 years of British rule and 36 times more in the 68 years since then. Its basic approach towards defamation, however, remains unchanged.

It prescribes a jail term of up to two years for criminal defamation.

Historically, law has recognised two kinds of defamation: slander, or defamation committed by the spoken word, and libel, or defamation committed by the written word. In the feudal era, slander of the nobility was an offence akin to treason in Europe and could invite the death penalty. After India gained freedom, political leaders virtually converted themselves into a new feudal ruling class and they have been unwilling to do away with the defamation provision of the colonial period.

Human rights organisations have been asking governments to abolish criminal defamation as it intimidates citizens and dissuades them from exposing wrongdoing by people in high places. UN bodies have endorsed the demand.

In the United States, a defamation case will stand only if the complainant is able to establish that the impugned statement is false and was made negligently or with malice and its publication has caused him material harm. If the complainant is a public figure, the standard of malice must be met strictly. Expression of an opinion is not considered defamation.

To circumvent the tough conditions set by the US law, influential Americans, especially corporates, started seeking legal remedy in Britain, leading to what was called ‘libel tourism’. The UK responded by revamping its defamation law. The new law, which came into force two years ago, requires complainants to show actual or probable serious harm.

Britain has now taken seditious, blasphemous and defamatory libel out of criminal law. In India all these forms of libel remain intact and are slapped on those who meet with the disapproval of powerful political or religious interests.

Gandhi and BG Tilak were among the nationalist leaders whom the British charged with sedition. Few cases of sedition have succeeded since Independence but governments take delight in flinging the charge to harass opponents. Some student leaders of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi are currently facing sedition charges.

The state, bound by the constitutional principle of secularism, has desisted from resort to the blasphemy provision of the law but religious elements have been invoking it to intimidate critics. The celebrated artist MF Hussain fled to Dubai and spent his last years there as Hindutva elements who felt offended by his depiction of some Hindu goddesses filed a few thousand cases all across the country even after the highest courts ruled that the paintings were artistic representations and should be judged as such.

Sanal Edamaruku, President of the Indian Rationalist Association, has been living in exile in Finland since 2012 as the Catholic Archdiocese of Mumbai, angered by his busting of a claimed miracle in a church, filed a blasphemy case against him.

The Supreme Court examined the issue of criminal defamation on the basis of petitions filed, among others, by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Admi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy, all of whom are facing criminal defamation charges.

The Central government argued that criminal defamation must stay as cases took years to conclude and citizens would not be able to pay damages for civil defamation. Surely these problems can be overcome by speeding up trials and awarding affordable damages.

Yet the court endorsed the government’s arguments. It held the law did not have a chilling effect on free speech.

The court betrayed a confused approach in observing that freedom of speech and expression was the first condition of liberty and then declaring that free speech was not an absolute value under the Constitution. It glossed over the fact that the law, as it now stands, provides a shield to public servants facing serious allegations.

The judgment, given by a bench of two judges, is a big disappointment as it has failed to take defamation out of the feudal context. Considering the serious import of the issue, a Constitution Bench should examine it at the earliest opportunity. ---Gulf Today, Sharjah, May 17, 2016

Regrouping to face Modi

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Early intimations of a grand alliance at the national level to check the advancing Hindutva forces, which pose a threat to secularism and democracy, were visible when leaders of political parties of varying hues gathered in Bihar’s capital, Patna, last week for the swearing-in of Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister.

Nitish Kumar had taken oath as the Chief Minister four times previously – twice as leader of the Samata Party and twice as leader of the Janata Dal (United). But this was the first time that leaders of many national and regional parties and chief ministers of many states were at hand to greet him.

In the recent Assembly elections, Nitish Kumar had led a grand alliance, comprising his JD(U) and his long-time rival Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal as equal partners and the Congress party as an add-on, to a sensational victory, dashing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to bring the state under the Bharatiya Janata Party.

That gave Nitish Kumar a national stature high enough to make him a possible future Prime Minister. Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, who was in Patna, said, “Nitishji should now get ready to move to Delhi as the next Prime Minister.”

The Congress was represented at the swearing-in ceremony by President Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. The party also ensured the presence of all its Chief Ministers to underscore the importance it attaches to the coalition experiment in Bihar.

Other Chief Ministers present included Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party had inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP in this year’s Assembly elections, and West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress brought to an end more than three decades of Left rule in her state.

Other present included former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular), former Union Minister Sharad Pawar (National Congress Party), former Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.

To avoid the impression that the swearing-in had been turned into an anti-BJP jamboree, Nitish Kumar extended an invitation to Narendra Modi too. Since he was leaving on a scheduled foreign tour, Modi deputed two of his Cabinet colleagues to attend the ceremony.

The way Modi stormed into Delhi last year, pulverising the Congress party and the corruption-hit United Progressive Alliance government it headed, the popular impression was that he and the BJP were well set for a long innings. That impression was strengthened when, in state after state, Modi personally led the BJP’s campaign and led it to victory.

Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav having blown up the myth of Modi’s invincibility, the opposition, as a whole, has regained self-confidence and is getting ready to offer a stiff challenge to the BJP at both national and state levels.

But there are many hurdles to cross before a grand alliance at the national level can emerge. The two tallest leaders of Uttar Pradesh, the country’s largest state, Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party is in power in the state, and former Chief Minister Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, were conspicuously absent at the Patna event.

Assembly elections in West Bengal and Assam in the east and Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the south are due next year. The BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are already busy evolving suitable strategies to enlarge the party’s presence in these states where Hindutva elements are weak.

In Assam, the BJP did well in the Lok Sabha election, campaigning on the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh. It can be expected to milk the issue again in the Assembly elections.

In West Bengal and Kerala, the BJP is pinning its hopes on sections disillusioned with the Left parties. There are indications that some of their “upper caste” supporters may be willing to switch allegiance to the BJP. The political traditions of the two states rule out the possibility of a secular front to stop the BJP’s advance.

In the recent local body elections in Kerala, the BJP made big advances, especially in the urban areas, raising hopes in its ranks that it may be able to establish its presence in the Assembly in the next elections. RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat was in the state recently to energise cadres.

Politics in Tamil Nadu revolves round two Dravidian parties. The BJP may not find it easy to work out a respectable deal with either of them but smaller regional parties will be happy to do business with it.

To get a fair idea of the line-up ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections we have to await the outcome of the UP Assembly elections of 2017 which will witness a confrontation between the BJP and the non-BJP parties. - Gulf Today, November 24, 2015