Contours of Modified India

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

As the Narendra Modi government completed 100 days in office, there was good news from the economic front, with officials reporting an impressive growth rate of 5.7 per cent during the quarter from April to June against 4.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

The government of the day is entitled to claim credit for the favourable turn in the tide. However, since the quarter was already on its last leg when Modi took over, it has to share the credit with the previous regime. The coming quarters may well see even faster growth and also reveal the cost the poor have to pay for the promised economic miracle. The new government has already diluted several laws enacted to safeguard the interests of the poor and protect the environment to accelerate economic growth.

Both Manmohan Singh and Modi are enthusiastic supporters of globalisation with visions of India as an economic power. The differences in their approach are related not to policy but to the pace of its implementation. The change of government will, therefore, make little difference to the shape of things on the economic front.

Modi has replaced a number of state governors and bureaucrats appointed by the previous regime. The exercise has been undertaken not to tone up the system but to bring in a new set of cronies. A former Telecommunication Regulatory Authority Chairman was appointed the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary after amending the law to overcome the ban on his re-employment. A former Chief Justice of India has been picked for appointment as governor. These moves may offer new temptations to persons holding high offices.

These are but minor aberrations in comparison with the developments on the social front. Ziya us Salam, a senior journalist of the highly regarded daily, The Hindu, summed up the dilemma that the Modi establishment’s majoritarian politics poses to minorities when he wrote, “It is not easy being a Muslim in India, it never has been, especially being a secular one.”

As is clear from his words, the problem is not new, but a continuing one. Its origin can be traced to the communal mobilisation that has been challenging the country’s secular traditions for more than a century.

Scholars have pointed out that the census operations, which began in the 19th century, have played a part in the growth of communalism. The census in Britain did not go into the religious affiliation of the people. But the British colonial administration tried to identify the people’s religious background and classified them into five broad divisions and a dozen subdivisions.

In 1909, one UN Mukherji, in a pamphlet, titled “Hindus: A Dying Race”, citing census figures, claimed that the Hindu population was declining. That paved the way for Hindu communal mobilisation, first under the auspices of the Arya Samaj and later under various other organisations espousing the Hindutva ideology enunciated by VD Savarkar. In its wake came Muslim communal mobilisation, which eventually resulted in the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim homeland.

In the first general election of 1951-52, held while the communal tempers raised by the Partition riots still ruled high, the Indian National Congress, which upheld the ideal of secularism, was challenged by three Hindu parties, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Jana Sangh, predecessor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and Ram Rajya Parishad, an outfit led by ascetics. Together they could get only 10 seats in the 489-member Lok Sabha against the Congress party’s 364.

In the Assembly elections in Punjab, the Congress put up Ghaffar Khan, whose was the only Muslim family in the Ambala constituency after migration by members of the minority community to Pakistan. He won the seat and was re-elected twice before death caught up with him.

Today the BJP has a majority in the Lok Sabha, which was won on a minority of votes. The Congress has been reduced to a party which is too small to earn recognition as the official opposition in the house.

Many factors contributed to the rout of the Congress. One of them is corruption. Another is its declining appeal as a secular force. While under Jawaharlal Nehru the Congress took communalism head on, later on it moved towards a soft Hindutva line.

Developments on the social front will determine the final shape of Modi’s India. Recently he called for a moratorium on communal violence. It remains to be seen if the Hindutva outfits which have sprung up in different parts of the country will heed the call. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 2, 2014

Law’s agonising delays

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Nearly 23 years after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the fate of seven persons convicted in connection with the crime still remains uncertain, although, mercifully, they have been spared the gallows.

The prolonged delay in the conclusion of the legal process in this case contrasts sharply with the speedy end of those relating to the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The Mahatma was shot dead in New Delhi on January 30, 1948, less than six months after the country gained freedom. Investigators concluded that, apart from Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who had pulled the trigger, 11 others, including Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, freedom fighter and Hindutva ideologue, were involved in the conspiracy that led to the murder. One accused turned approver and was pardoned.

In the judgment pronounced on February 10, 1949, the trial court gave Godse and another accused, Narayan Apte, the death sentence and jail terms to some others. Savarkar was given the benefit of doubt and acquitted.

The East Punjab High Court, which heard the appeals, too acted with due dispatch. It acquitted one accused and confirmed the sentences on the others. Godse and Apte were executed on November 15, 1949.

Prime minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, members of her security staff, on October 31, 1984. Other members of the security staff fired at them, killing Beant Singh on the spot and injuring Satwant Singh. The prosecution alleged that a third person, Kehar Singh, was also involved in the conspiracy to kill Mrs Gandhi.

The trial court held both Kehar Singh and Satwant Singh guilty and sentenced them to death. The Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court upheld the sentences, and both were hanged on January 6, 1989.

Rajiv Gandhi was killed in an explosion at Sriperumpudur, near Chennai, on May 21, 1991 while on an election tour. The explosion was set off by Dhanu, a woman suicide bomber sent by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was involved in a civil war to carve out an independent Tamil state from the island nation of Sri Lanka. Dhanu too was killed in the explosion. LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabakaran and his top aides, who figured among the 41 accused mentioned in the charge-sheet prepared by the special investigation team (SIT), were never caught. They took their own lives or were killed in the civil war.

A total of 26 persons faced trial. All of them, except perhaps Nalini, who was said to be a member of the squad the LTTE had sent to India, and her husband, Murugan alias Sriharan, played only a peripheral role in the crime. Since the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act was invoked, investigators could keep the accused in custody continuously for a long period, as against 15 days permitted under the normal law, and their confessions to the police could be admitted as evidence.

The trial court found all the 26 accused guilty and awarded the death penalty. Being a TADA case, only the Supreme Court was competent to entertain appeals. On May 11, 1999, a bench, presided over by Justice KT Thomas, confirmed the death sentence on four of the accused and reduced the sentence on the others to various terms of imprisonment.

Nalini had given birth to a girl while in custody. The government, accepting the Gandhi family’s plea, commuted her sentence to life term.

The fate of the other condemned prisoners remained uncertain for more than a decade as three successive presidents, KR Narayanan, APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil, took no action on their mercy petitions. President Pranab Mukherji rejected their petitions but the Supreme Court quickly stepped in and commuted the death sentence.

The apex court, which had ruled a few days earlier that inordinate, unexplained and agonising delays in deciding on mercy petitions would be ground for commutation, pointed out that in this case the petitions had remained unattended for more than 11 years.

Following the Supreme Court judgment, the Tamil Nadu government decided to release Nalini and the three others, who have been in prison for more than two decades, in keeping with the long standing practice of releasing lifers after 14 years. The decision led to a storm of protests from Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, son of the slain leader.

At the instance of the Centre, the Supreme Court intervened again, and directed Tamil Nadu not to release the convicts until it examined the matter.

The history of this case underscores the need for both the judicial and executive branches to streamline their procedures so as to ensure speedy conclusion of the process of law. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 25, 2014