Nepal ties under strain

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Ten mnths ago, visiting Nepal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed more than 10 bilateral agreements, demonstrating his government’s readiness to go the extra mile for this small neighbour. Alluding to the efforts to frame a new Constitution, he warned that if the statute failed to reflect the aspirations of all communities, including Madhesis, Pahadis and Maoists, Nepal could face difficulties.

Nepal is facing those difficulties now.

On September 20, President Ram Baran Yadav promulgated the new Constitution, rejecting India’s plea to postpone it to provide time to make it acceptable to the largest number of people.

Madheshis, Tharus and Janjatis living in the Teria region, who have close ties with the people of the bordering Indian state of Bihar, were up in arms even before the Constitution was promulgated. They say it denies them a legitimate share in the political system. About 50 persons have died in the violence and repression in the region so far.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, who visited Nepal as Modi’s special envoy, conveyed India’s concern to leaders of all parties. He argued that the Constitution was not acceptable to nearly 40 per cent of the population and it should not be introduced while there was widespread unrest.

Nepal took up the task of making a republican constitution following abolition of the monarchy in 2008. As the fractious constituent assembly could not complete the task in the allotted time it was dissolved and a new one elected. Acute differences among the parties hampered its working too.

Early this month, the mainstream parties agreed on a Constitution which proclaims Nepal a secular democracy.

Many Nepalese leaders told Jaishankar they were aware that the document was imperfect but they wanted to move forward, and were ready to make suitable amendments later on.

Officially, India’s objections to the new Constitution are based on the discontent among the Madhesis and others who have familial links with India. The Modi administration’s hostile position may also be related to unhappiness over Nepal becoming a secular republic.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fountainhead of the Hindutva ideology of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has long been of the view that India is a Hindu nation. Its top leaders have publicly demanded scrapping of the reference to secularism in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Nepal is the only other Hindu-majority country in the world, and the RSS views its endorsement of the secular ideal as an act of betrayal.

Nepal, with a population of 27 million, is a land-locked country. It has borders with India on three sides and with China on the fourth. It gets most of its requirements of essential supplies from or through India. It relies exclusively on the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation for petroleum products.

The violent agitation in areas close to the Indian borders has brought vehicular traffic between the two countries to a halt. Hundreds of trucks carrying supplies to Nepal are reportedly stranded at Indian border checkposts.

Nepalese media allege that India has imposed an unofficial blockade to force the country to accept its demand. The Indian government refutes the suggestion and claims the goods movement has stopped because of the violence on the Nepalese side.

It is in India’s interest to delink the issue of goods movement from the political problem. Some elements in the Madhesi community may want to hold up movement of goods as a strategy to put pressure on Nepal’s mainstream parties to pay attention to their grievance. India should not play into their hands.

There are reports that the Nepalese authorities are turning to China to tide over the difficulties arising from the tense situation in the areas close to the Indian border.

“Nepal has never bowed down to anyone and will not bow down even now,” Deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam told an Indian newspaper. “We will establish contact with China through land and with other countries through air to get essential supplies.”

Nepal has urged China to restore immediately the road links which were snapped by a devastating earthquake earlier this year.

Meanwhile a chink has appeared in the solid phalanx the mainstream parties presented so far with former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is supportive of Madhesi sentiments, quitting the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and resigning from Parliament, amid speculation of an Indian hand in the development.

As the Indian government has pointed out, the problem Nepal faces is a political one. Essentially, it is an internal problem of Nepal, and its political system must be able to resolve the outstanding issues without meddling by powerful neighbours. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 29, 2015.

A legend that will live for ever

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government declassifying files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the charismatic freedom-fighter who reportedly died in an air crash at Taihoku in Taiwan at the end of World War II, the Centre has come under pressure to reveal the information in its possession about him.

Successive Central governments, including the present one, have refused to publish documents relating to Bose on the ground that it may adversely affect relations with foreign countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has offered to meet members of Bose’s family and persons engaged in research on his life next month. His office has asked them to intimate in advance what kind of information they are seeking.

Bose’s family and ardent followers have all along refused to believe that he died in the accident. They are of the view that the accident report was concocted to facilitate his escape. If caught, he was sure to be arraigned before the war crimes tribunal along with the Japanese leaders.

Subhas Chandra Bose lived a life full of stuff that legends are made of. After qualifying to become a member of the coveted Indian Civil Service he refused to serve the colonial regime and joined the freedom movement. Elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1938, he won a second term against Gandhi’s wishes.

While under house arrest in Kolkata, he slipped out in disguise and travelled to Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, hoping to challenge the British militarily with foreign help. Rejected by the Soviet Union, he went to Germany. From there he reached Japan after a perilous submarine journey.

He took charge of the Indian National Army, which comprised officers and men of the British Indian Army whom the Japanese had taken prisoner, and expanded it by recruiting Indian expatriates, who hailed him as Netaji (leader).

Heeding his Dilli Chalo (Onward to Delhi) call, the INA marched to the border state of Manipur and laid siege to its capital, Imphal. A turn in the tide of war forced the Japanese and the INA to retreat.

Though the military campaign ended disastrously, Netaji had an opportunity to set foot on free Indian soil. As head of the Azad Hind (Free India) government, he had flown to the Bay of Bengal islands of Andaman and Nicobar, which the British abandoned during the war, and renamed them Shaheed and Swaraj.

After the war, the British arraigned three Indian army officers who had switched loyalty to the INA before a military court. The Congress engaged a team of lawyers to defend them. Massive protests against the trial raged across the country.

The military court found all three officers guilty and sentenced them to death. However, the British Commander-in-Chief commuted the sentence to cashiering.

The spontaneous manifestation of public support to the INA officers and the small mutinies that broke out in the three wings of the military convinced the British that they could not hold on to the Indian colony much longer. They made a policy shift: from ‘divide and rule’ to ‘divide and quit’.

A British military officer, John Figgess, who investigated the Taihoku crash in 1946, concluded that Bose was in the plane and had died of burns in a hospital after it crashed. The body was cremated and the ashes taken to Tokyo, he said.

As reports that Netaji had been seen at various places surfaced from time to time, the Indian government ordered inquiries in 1956, 1970 and 1999 to unravel the mystery.

Shah Nawaz Khan, one of the three INA officers who had faced court martial, headed the first inquiry. He and another member of the inquiry committee upheld the air crash story, but Netaji’s brother, Suresh Chandra Bose, who was the third member, dissented.

G.D. Khosla, a former high court chief justice, who conducted the second inquiry, too, endorsed the air crash story. He said the motives of those who propagated alternative theories were not altruistic.

The third inquiry was by MK Mukherjee, a retired Supreme Court judge. He said the evidence of those who supported the air crash theory was not reliable. The ashes kept in Tokyo were a Japanese soldier’s, not Bose’s, he added.

The Bengal government papers have not settled the controversy. In all probability, doubts will persist even after all pertinent facts are in the public domain.

Legends like Subhas Chandra Bose are rare in the history of any nation. Such legends live for ever. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 22, 2015.

Modi in campaign mode

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With Bihar, the second most populous state, going to the polls to elect a new Assembly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in campaign mode again.

Under the rules laid down for ensuring that the elections are free and fair, once the poll dates are finalised the Central and State governments cannot take any policy decisions which may influence the voters’ choice. Modi, therefore, flew to the state before the Election Commission announced the poll schedule and offered the state a bonanza of Rs 1,250 billion in the form of a special development package.

The state government had been asking for a special package, but when it came Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said Modi had merely repackaged development projects which had been announced earlier. Some of them were already under implementation for as long as six years while some others, like a new airport for the state capital, Patna, were yet to take off, he added.

He also pointed out that the package meant nothing as it lacks budgetary support.

The Bihar elections are important for Modi personally since Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), which was a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, had broken away from it in protest against the party’s decision to name him its prime ministerial candidate.

Modi devoted special attention to the state in his tempestuous Lok Sabha campaign and the NDA earned a rich reward. The BJP got 22 out of the state’s 40 seats and its allies, Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, picked up six seats and three seats respectively. The JD(U) got only two seats.

Following the debacle, Nitish Kumar resigned and installed Jiten Ram Manjhi as the chief minister. After a while he ousted Manjhi and became the chief minister again. Manjhi then floated his own party, Hindustani Awam Morcha, which the NDA happily accommodated as an ally.

The JD(U) has forged a Grand Alliance with former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress. The attempt to bring former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party into the alliance failed as he was not satisfied with the seats offered to the party.

According to early opinion polls, the NDA has a slight edge over the rival alliance at the moment. The final lineup of candidates was not known and the campaign was yet to pick up when the survey was conducted. The fight is still open. Nitish Kumar wants to come back to power.

In all the Hindi heartland states, the BJP had done exceedingly well in the Lok Sabha elections. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan its main opponent was the Congress. The BJP was in power in both the states. That explains the BJP’s good performance there.

In Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, the Congress is not a major factor now. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party had overtaken both the Congress and the BJP in the state and reached a stage where they could come to power on their own. Yet, in the Lok Sabha poll, the BJP and its local ally took 73 of the state’s 80 seats, wiping out the BSP totally, and limiting the SP to five seats and the Congress to two seats respectively.

Voters often back different parties in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. The Bihar elections will show if endorsement of Modi at the national level will translate into support for the BJP at the state level. It will also provide answer to the question whether Delhi state’s big rebuff to Modi and the BJP after their triumph in the parliamentary elections was just an aberration or an indication that the Modi magic was over.

The BJP will face a similar test when UP goes to the polls next year. Among the other states where Assembly elections are due next year are Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal, where historical factors have kept the Hindutva forces at bay. A good showing in Bihar and UP can boost the BJP’s chances in these states, especially among voters who tend to incline towards the winning side.

Judging by Modi’s performance so far, his strength lies in campaign skills, not in governance. In Parliament, the opposition has held up his plans to speed up work on development projects. He is yet to demonstrate the political sagacity to tackle the problem. His administration is pursuing, with single-minded devotion, vindictive measures against individuals and voluntary organisations seeking to uphold democratic values, viewing them as his real enemies.

Modi’s mentors are pleased

BRP Bhaskar

Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and most of his Cabinet colleagues appeared before the leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party, last week and reported on the work they have done since his National Democratic Alliance government took office.

The occasion was a three-day meeting of the RSS-BJP Coordination Committee.

The RSS team, comprising more than 90 leaders, was headed by its supremo, Mohan Bhagwat. They evaluated the performance of the ministers, who are members of the organisation, and provided inputs for future course of action.

Modi came on the last day and gave an overview of the government’s activities. Mohan Bhagwat said later the government’s performance was “very satisfactory”.

The RSS, founded in 1925, says its mission is to carry India to the pinnacle of glory by “organising the entire society and ensuring the protection of Hindu Dharma”. Its membership is limited to Hindu males. Its definition of Hindu includes all “who live in Bharat (which the Constitution recognises as another name of India) and who subscribe to the world view of Bharat,” whatever faith they profess. However, the Muslim and Christian minorities are “others” in its scheme of things.

The BJP and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, were formed with the blessings of the RSS. The first BJP Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, could operate without being troubled by the RSS bosses as he had to hold together a coalition of more than 20 parties. His government worked on the basis of the NDA”s common minimum programme, keeping the Hindutva agenda in abeyance.

Unlike Vajpayee, Modi owes his prime ministership entirely to the RSS. If it had not intervened on his behalf, he could not have become the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate overcoming the resistance of party veterans Lal Kishen Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.

The RSS, which has a network of 50,000 units across the country, pressed into service more than 100,000 volunteers to work for the BJP’s candidates during the Lok Sabha elections. It can, therefore, claim credit for the party’s electoral triumph.

Led by the Congress, the opposition came out against the BJP ministers’ meeting with the RSS leaders. They claimed that the RSS was an extra-constitutional authority holding the remote control and that the ministers had violated the oath of office by discussing government programmes with it.

Senior RSS leader Dattatreya Hosabele retorted that the Congress which ran the government by remote control had no right to question them. He said the RSS leaders had only exchanged ideas with their associates who had become ministers.

The Opposition criticism of the exercise as violation of the ministerial oath misses the real point, which is the impact of the RSS’s direct entry into governmental decision-making. Earlier the government had appointed persons handpicked by the RSS as heads of various academic and cultural bodies, opening the way for promotion of Hindutva ideology through them.

The BJP is a political party with an electoral mandate, albeit a weak one, based on a minority of votes. It is therefore entitled to run the administration in accordance with the Constitution. The RSS is a shadowy organisation which has repeatedly challenged, in word as well as deed, the ideals of democracy and secularism and the principles of equality and equal opportunity, which are the cornerstones of the constitutional edifice.

What’s more, the RSS has been implicated, directly or indirectly, in communal riots from the Partition days to the present. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Union Home Minister, had banned it after Gandhi’s assassination. He lifted the ban and allowed it to function as a cultural organisation after it disavowed political intentions and complied with his directive to adopt a written constitution.

It was banned for a while also after its activists demolished the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.

The RSS website is silent on the constitution it adopted at Patel’s instance. “Our one supreme goal,” it proclaims, “is to bring to life the all-round glory and greatness of our Hindu Rashtra (nation).”

The Hindu Rashtra concept is at variance with India’s Constitutional objective of a democratic, socialist, secular republic.

Modi has been able to please his RSS mentors. But the task of pleasing the people whom he promised good days remains. -Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 8, 2015

The Hardik Patel phenomenon

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

An estimated half a million members of Gujarat’s powerful Patel community turned up at a rally in the city of Ahmedabad last week to cheer a young leader who has been in public life for just a few months. Sections of the media hailed him as the new Sardar, an allusion to Vallabhbhai Patel, the tallest Gujarati freedom-fighter after Gandhi and the most powerful minister after Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in free India’s first government.

Vallabhbhai Patel was not an instant hero. A barrister at law, he organised successful non-violent agitations by peasants of Gujarat before Gandhi conferred on him the title of Sardar.

Thanks to the social media and the vast resources he commands as the champion of the interests of a community whose members have made good in business at home and abroad, Hardik Patel, 22, who comes from a family of Bharatiya Janata Party loyalists, got to the top in a jiffy.

His sole demand is reservation for the Patels in educational institutions and government jobs. Under the Constitution, the government can make special provisions for “socially and educationally backward classes”. It is not easy to squeeze into that term the Patels who reportedly own 70 per cent of the state’s small and medium enterprises.

Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, herself a member of the community, said the demand could not be conceded as the Supreme Court had set a 50 per cent cap on reservations. As much as 49.5 per cent has been dished out to various communities already.

The Patel community was solidly behind the BJP when its student wing launched a violent agitation against the Central government’s 1990 decision to accept the Mandal Commission recommendation and extend reservation, which until then was limited to the Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and the Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis), to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as well.

The Mandal Commission was appointed by the Janata Party government, of which the BJP’s earlier avatar, Jana Sangh, was a part. It estimated that the OBCs constitute 52 per cent of the population.

The Patel agitation turned violent following a wholly unwarranted police intervention, which resulted in nine deaths. The state imposed curfew on some towns and deployed paramilitary forces to restore order.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a televised appeal for calm. He said violence could not solve any problem and offered to find a solution through talks.

Political pundits are now trying to find answers to questions thrown up by the Hardik Patel phenomenon. How could he suddenly emerge from nowhere and hold the state to ransom? Has he been set up by unseen forces with an agenda of their own? Does he really want reservation for his community or is he queering the pitch for abolition of reservation?

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue MG Vaidya and Vishwa Hindu Parishad President Pravin Togadia took the opportunity provided by the Patel revolt to call for an end to reservation.

Some powerful communities in other states were able to pressure governments into granting them reservation but the courts have blocked it.

The previous Central government classified the Jats, who are a big force in the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, as an OBC. The Supreme Court scrapped the order.

The Maharashtra government sanctioned 16 per cent reservation to the Maratha community, which owns much of the land in the state and has provided 12 of the last 17 chief ministers. The High Court has stayed the order, pending detailed examination.

The Gujjars of Rajasthan, who have one per cent OBC reservation, are on an agitation seeking five per cent reservation as a Scheduled Tribe.

One explanation for the demand for reservation from castes with political clout is that they find that children belonging to castes which enjoy the benefit of reservation are gaining a lead over their own children in the job market by acquiring professional education.

Hardik Patel went to Delhi on Sunday to meet Jat and Gujjar leaders. His reference to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu as “our people” indicates that a broad national coalition of middle castes may be on his mind.

There are several regional and small national parties which draw support from such social groups. By and large, they are secular in outlook. They are unlikely to come under the spell of a wayward child of Hindutva like Hardik Patel. -- Gulf Today, September 1, 2015.

Back to square one

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There is no need to shed tears over the aborted meeting of National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan. It could only have produced more rancour.

Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif was present, along with other South Asian leaders, at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in in 2014. The goodwill his presence generated evaporated when, barely three months later, the government cancelled a scheduled meeting of Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, to show its disapproval of Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s consultations with leaders of the Kashmir’s separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference.

The meeting of officials was part of composite India-Pakistan talks, which have a long history. In 1997, a Foreign Secretary-level meeting outlined eight outstanding issues of concern to the two countries and proposed mechanisms to address them in an integrated manner. Over the years the process yielded some small gains but lack of determined political intervention inhibited progress on major issues.

The 2008 Mumbai terror attack derailed the process. It was put back on track in 2011 with a meeting of Home Secretaries at which terrorism was on the agenda. A few rounds of talks followed but there was little to show.

The cancellation of the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting attracted some criticism at home since India had previously overlooked the Pakistani envoy’s contacts with Kashmiri separatists. But Modi was determined to send across a message that they were not acceptable to him.

Last month, Modi and Nawaz Sharif shook hands at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at Ufa, Russia, and discussed modalities of resuming bilateral talks. A joint statement issued later said they agreed India and Pakistan had a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development and that “they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues”. It spelt out five specific steps, including NSA level talks, and contacts between army officials to improve the situation along the Line of Control which had witnessed continuous exchange of fire.

While the statement conveyed the impression that the composite talks were on again, India’s focus was on the first of the five proposed steps, namely a meeting of NSAs Sartaj Aziz and Ajit Doval in New Delhi to discuss terrorism-related issues.

Back home, Sharif came under attack for the Ufa statement as Pakistanis saw as one-sided inasmuch as it did not mention Kashmir, which, to them, is the central issue. They refused to buy official explanations that Kashmir had come up in the Modi-Sharif meeting and that the term “outstanding issues” covered Kashmir.

The Modi government has been projecting a hawkish image for some time to impress the Hindutva constituency. After Myanmar-based Naga rebels killed 18 security personnel in an ambush in Manipur, the Indian army conducted a retaliatory raid across the border. Official spokesmen said it was a warning to all terrorists operating from foreign soil.

As the scheduled meeting of NSAs approached, Pakistan was ready with a bait set. When India sent a draft agenda with terrorism as the only item, it sent an alternative one listing topics it wanted to be discussed, including Kashmir. Basit invited Hurriyat leaders to meet Sartaj Aziz over dinner.

To prevent the Hurriyat leaders from leaving Srinagar for Delhi, the Centre ordered that they be put under house arrest. As Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, whose People’s Democratic Party rules the state in coalition with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, remonstrated, the Centre decided instead to arrest the Hurriyat leaders on arrival at Delhi airport.

With the fate of the NSA meet sealed, the two sides played out a long charade in front of television cameras with the singular aim of backing off without having to take the blame. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj demanded that Pakistan convey by midnight its acceptance of India’s advice not to meet Hurriyat leaders and limit the talks to terrorism. That gave Pakistan the opportunity to pull out saying there could be no talks on the basis of conditions.

Material which has come to light in the past week shows that the two governments spent the last month preparing dossiers the NSAs were to exchange. The meeting having fallen through, they publicised the charges against each other through the media.

After a 15-month-long journey through a convoluted path, Narendra Modi is back at the starting point, so far as relations with Pakistan are concerned. If Sharif has to take into account the Inter Service Intelligence, he has to contend with the Hindutva establishment which is watching his steps. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 25, 2015

Tales from journalistic folklore

B. Someswar Rao is a journalist with 57 years of experience who closely follows new developments. He hit upon the idea of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding a book on the changing culture of Indian journalism and invited thousands of journalists and mass communication students online to provide inputs, opinion and advice. Few responded. The lack of response did not discourage him. He consoled himself that no one would trust or help a stranger anyway and that they were justified since there were too many fake journalists around. Abandoning the idea of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, he went ahead and produced the book on his own, and gave it an intriguing title. Actually the title was settled long before the book was thought of. He says, way back in the 1950s, on the basis of an early experience in a newspaper office, he had declared, “If ever I write a book on journalism, it will be called A Town Called Penury”.

The book can be described adequately in just one word: gallimaufry. In case you are coming across the word for the first time, its dictionary meaning is "a confused jumble or medley of things". The Oxford Dictionaries website traces its origin to a mid-16^th century French word meaning “unappetizing dish”.  My generation learnt the archaic word from C.R. Mandy, a talented Irishman who was the Editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India and ran a widely read column in it under that name.

Is journalism just the “political rag-chewing, hack-writing, mass media banalities and high-pressure sales talk” that editor Sham Lal despised? Or is it the mission it claims to be? Or a bit of both? With these tantalizing questions, Someswar Rao entices the reader. He then goes on to present a miscellany comprising his own recollections and stories he heard from others at one time or another. No claim is made that the book is the result of research. If anyone wants proof or evidence, he confesses, he has none to offer. He readily grants the disbeliever the freedom to treat the book as a work of fiction!

Essentially the book is a collection of anecdotes from journalistic folklore. It also provides a fragmented history of Indian journalism, taking in such modern phenomena as paid news and absentee reporting. 

Publishers:
Acme Books, 
Post Box No. 9433,
Bengaluru 560094, India 
www.acme-ind.com
Price Rs.250.

Two-faced banking reform

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A seven-point programme to revamp the banking sector, unveiled by the Government last week, has enthused domestic and foreign interests seeking accelerated economic reform but it overlooks the chronic problem of corporate default afflicting the public sector institutions.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley outlined the programme shortly after the end of the monsoon session of Parliament. The government’s plan to push through some important reform-related legislation had fallen through due to continuous disruption of the two houses by the opposition.

Global rating agencies Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings had recently pointed out that banking reform was necessary to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s growth targets. Large corporates were holding back new investments pending action by the government, they said.

India’s major banks are government owned. They were brought under the state in stages. The British-owned Imperial Bank, which handled government accounts during the colonial period, was nationalised in the eighth year of Independence. Banks floated by the former princely states were later made its subsidiaries.

With the takeover of 14 private banks in 1969 and six in 1980, as much as 80 per cent of the industry came directly under the central government.

At the government’s instance the public sector banks expanded rapidly into the countryside. They also tuned their lending policies to meet the needs of priority sectors identified by the government. There was political interference in their working even as they played their part in promoting government programmes aimed at inclusive growth.

When the country took the first steps towards economic reform in 1991, it recognised the need for a competitive banking system. The main issues were the small capital base and low profitability of the banks.

The government infused additional capital of about Rs 200 billion and allowed the banks to raise more from the market subject to the condition that the government’s holding should not go below 51 per cent.

New laws were enacted to improve the health of the finance sector and banks were asked to adopt global standards. At that time more than 23 per cent of all bank advances were classified as non-performing assets (NPAs). As a result of the measures that followed NPAs came down to 16 per cent by 1998.

In the wake of the East Asian financial crisis, the government initiated more measures to strengthen the banks. It also brought in a new law to regulate credit information companies.

By 2008, NPAs were down to 2.4 per cent. However, they soon started rising again and stood at 4.5 per cent last year. Also, as much as 12.9 per cent of public sector banks’ advances was classified as “stressed advances,” a term which includes NPAs and restructured standard advances. The corresponding figure for private banks was only 4.4 per cent.

The public sector banks certainly need to bring down NPAs. This is a task which can be accomplished without deviating from the policy of increased financial inclusion.

There is enough material in the public dominion to establish that the rise in NPAs is not a result of policies meant to help the disadvantaged sections of the society.

Public sector banks have been coming under stress from two sources. One is the ever expanding demands of infrastructure development, particularly in sectors like power, steel and transport. The other is wilful default by unscrupulous businessmen.

While announcing the reform programme, Jaitley noted that there was improvement in the highways, steel, power distribution and sugar sectors. He studiously avoided the issue of corporate default.

Last year the All India Bank Employees Association made public a list of 406 defaulting borrowers of 24 public sector banks. It said the top 30 bad loan accounts stood at Rs 703 billion..

Heading the defaulters’ list was an airline company floated by a liquor baron which owed the banks Rs 26.73 billion. Two jewellery firms in the list had a combined loan liability of Rs 31.57 billion.

The AIBEA said the public sector banks had written off Rs 2,040 billion in 13 years, restructured loans to the tune of Rs 3,250 billion, and run up fresh bad loans of Rs 4,950 billion. Demanding that the government release the names of the major defaulters and lay down stringent loan recovery norms, its general secretary, CH Venkatachalam said, “If there is a political nexus, let it come out. The people should not be punished for corporate default.”

The government has decided to bring in personnel from the private sector to head some public sector banks. The theory promoted by some circles that the private sector banks are good commercial models stands on questionable grounds. One or two of the successful private banks are known to have been involved in illegal transfer of funds to foreign locations. - Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 18, 2015.

Flip-flops also have their uses

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Acting stealthily and in haste and covering up quietly at leisure has become a disconcertingly familiar feature of the Narendra Modi administration. The latest example is the failed crackdown on internet pornography.

Towards the end of July, the Department of Telecommunications handed over to internet service providers a 17-page letter which contained a list of 857 allegedly pornographic websites and “advised” them to “control free and open access” to them in the interests of morality and decency.

The ISPs, knowing they are vulnerable, treated the advice as a command and started blocking the sites even as they pleaded they had limitations since the sites were hosted by servers based outside the country.

Neither the government nor the ISPs announced the imposition of censorship. But it did not remain a secret. Indians are reportedly the fourth largest consumers of internet porn, after the USA, the UK and Canada, and those who found they could no longer access these sites immediately raised a hue and cry in the social networks. Some Bollywood celebrities and well-known Indian writers in English backed them.

There was more humour than anger in their criticism. Alluding to other restrictions imposed by Bharatiya Janata Party governments, like the Maharashtra ban on beef, some critics circulated tongue-in-cheek suggestions with the hashtag #NextBanIdea.

Many pointed out that Kamasutra, the ancient treatise on sex, and the erotic temple sculptures of Khajuraho were Hindu India’s contributions. There was also a more pointed attempt to embarrass the BJP by reminding the party that some of its legislators were caught on television camera while they watched pornography inside a State Assembly.

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, noted that the directive to block 857 sites was the largest single order of its kind, and said, “We need to do away with unaccountable, non-transparent censorship.”

Recognising the futility of the exercise, the government soon started backtracking. First, it tried to explain away the action as a temporary measure, taken in the light of a Supreme Court directive. Later, Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced a partial withdrawal of the ban. “Sites that do not promote child porn will be unbanned,” he said.

The unbanning exercise was as opaque as the ban. It is now presumably the responsibility of the Indian ISPs to identify child porn sites and bar access to them. In this context, Pranesh Prakash raised a tricky question: wouldn’t ISP personnel viewing child porn before blocking it be culpable under Section 67B of the Information Technology Act?

It appears the list of porn sites which the Department of Telecommunications provided to the ISPs was prepared not by the government but by an Indore lawyer, Kamlesh Vaswani. He had submitted it to the Supreme Court along with a petition seeking an order banning them.

While considering the matter, the court said it was for the government to take a call, and wondered why it was not blocking even child porn sites. This did not amount to a directive to the government.

If the observation about the government’s role gave the impression that the court was inclined to accept the petitioner’s demand, there were also remarks which conveyed quite the opposite.

Declining the petitioner’s plea for an interim order, Chief Justice HL Dattu, who is presiding over the bench, said, “Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. Somebody can come to the court and say, ‘Look, I am an adult and how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room. It is a violation of Article 21 (right to liberty) of the Constitution.’ Yes, the issue is serious and some steps need to be taken.”

The court then asked the Home Ministry to file within four weeks an affidavit outlining the government’s stand. In the circumstances, the prudent course was for the government to present its views before the court and await its verdict.

As it happened, the government’s flip-flop gave an immediate push to internet pornography. A website reported that Google Trends recorded a jump in search for porn sites by Indians. Keyword search using the name of an Indo-Canadian porn star registered an increase of 2050 per cent.

It is difficult to believe that the government could not imagine that its blanket porn ban order will not pass muster. It may have gone ahead with the limited purpose of diverting people’s attention from developments that reflect poorly on its performance. After all, flip-flops also have their uses.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 11, 2015

Vengeance in garb of justice

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The hanging of Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon last week has brought to the fore the issue of administration of justice, with particular reference to use of the death penalty.

“Ultimately, justice has been delivered to all the victims of the 1993 Mumbai blasts,” said Bharatiya Janata Party Secretary Shrikant Sharma. Congress party spokesman PC Chacko echoed his sentiments but added “full justice” would come only when Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, the prime accused, were punished.

“Justice according to law has been done,” said former Supreme Court judge BN Srikrishna, revealing an understanding of the concept of justice which was missing in the politicians’ comments. The cases relating to the blasts and those relating to the communal riots that occurred earlier were “dealt with disparately, depending on the communal inclinations of the state apparatus,” he added.

Justice Srikrishna who held a judicial inquiry into the riots had found a causative link between the two events. The Memon family had suffered extensive damage in the riots.

The justice-has-been-done refrain of the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress seeks to camouflage the cycle of violence and vengeance of the past quarter century in which the former was an active participant, along with its Hindutva ally Shiv Sena, and the latter was an ex post facto accessory.

The chain of events started with the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh cadres on December 6, 1992 in the presence of BJP chief LK Advani.

Justice Srikrishna said a spontaneous peaceful protest by incensed and leaderless Muslims in Mumbai quickly degenerated into riots. He attributed part of the blame to the provocative slogans raised at celebratory rallies organised by Shiv Sena and BJP. Later, Hindu mobs, influenced by the communal propaganda of Shiv Sena leaders, including its supremo Bal Thackeray, resorted to large-scale violence. 

Sudhakarrao Naik of the Congress was the Chief Minister when the riots broke out. The blasts occurred after Sharad Pawar took over from him.

When the SS-BJP combine came to power, the government disbanded the Srikrishna Commission. BJP Prime Minister AB Vajpayee asked the SS Chief Minister to reinstate it.

The riots and police firings to quell them left 900 dead. Of them, 575 were Muslims and 275 Hindus. While in power neither the SS-BJP combine nor the Congress pursued the riot cases vigorously.

In the only riot case that resulted in conviction, three SS men, including Madhukar Sarpotdar, MP, were given one year’s rigorous imprisonment. Sarpotdar was immediately granted bail and died two years later without going to prison.

The 13 explosions left 257 dead and more than 700 injured. Damage to property was estimated at Rs 300 million. The prosecution said the blasts were plotted by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and carried out by his associates including Tiger Memon.

The entire Memon family slipped out of Mumbai to Karachi, where Dawood is believed to be living under ISI protection. Tiger’s brother Yakub returned later, professing innocence, and provided the authorities with information on the roles of Dawood, Tiger and the ISI.

Members of all communities suffered in both the riots and the blasts. The media identified blast victims of one community who kept asking for justice. No riot victims of any community were paraded. Thus, in public discourse, justice became synonymous with vengeance.

In 2006, the trial court awarded the death penalty to 12 persons, including Yakub. As the case moved to higher courts, the others got relief and Yakub became the only one to be hanged.

Yakub’s final hours were marked by high drama with three Supreme Court judges sitting twice, the last time around 4am, three hours before the time set by the trial court for his hanging, to dispose of petitions filed by him or by others, including some eminent citizens, on his behalf. They really did not have to go without sleep. They could have followed the standards practice of staying the execution until the petitions were disposed of.

Unable to view the last acts of the drama as triumph of the rule of law, Anup Surendranath, Deputy Registrar (Research) at the Supreme Court quit the job to focus on the Death Penalty Research Project at the National Law University, of which he is the Director.

Why did the apex court judges feel so bound by the time-frame set by the lower court that they sacrificed sleep to honour it? There is no ready answer to the question. -- Gulf Today, August 4, 2015.

Problems of half-baked history

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

UN bureaucrat-turned Congress politician Shashi Tharoor, who often finds himself on the wrong side of controversies, became an instant hero as video recordings of his speech at an Oxford Union debate pitching for reparation payments by Britain for its colonial depredations went viral.

Tharoor, who was born after India gained freedom, kept his audience spellbound with a narrative covering everything from the 18th century loot by English adventurers to the 20th century Bengal famine. Young Indians who secretly nurse a complex imposed by centuries of subjugation went gaga on the social media over the punches the swashbuckling hero delivered.

Heading the cheerleaders was Narendra Modi, who, incidentally, is the first Prime Minister born after Independence. His compliment was prompted partly by a desire to needle the Congress leadership which has been critical of Tharoor for praising some Modi initiatives.

When the British left, there were many in India, even among the freedom-fighters, who counted the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the army as blessings of colonial rule. Nearly seven decades later, colonial traditions still dog these institutions in varying degrees although they are now manned entirely by persons born in free India.

Actually, these institutions were created not by the British Indian government but by the English East India Company, which, like the Aryans, gained control of the subcontinent without an overt invasion.

The Company raised three armies, comprising Indians commanded by white officers, at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay and brought the whole subcontinent under its control with their help. It used Indian soldiers to subjugate other lands too. Scholars have identified the army’s might, Britain’s will to rule and Indians’ willingness to acquiesce as the three factors which sustained the Raj.

The Congress launched the Quit India movement with a ‘do or die’ call by Mahatma Gandhi when World War II was raging. Released secret files of the period show that even at that time the British were supremely confident of the loyalty of the Indian army and bureaucracy. The army’s strength increased twelvefold from 150,000 to 1.8 million during the war.

The Company put justice beyond the reach of ordinary folks by introducing a costly and time-consuming judicial process. It relied upon Vedic scholars for guidance on Hindu religious practice. As a result, the archaic and unjust code of Manu gained new relevance.

Tharoor’s arguments were based on facts Indian scholars had brought out when the British were still here. In a 1901 book “Poverty and un-British Rule in India”, Dadabhai Naoroji, a founding member of the Indian National Congress, had pointed out that Britain was draining India’s wealth. India had a positive trade balance but Britain was appropriating the surplus, he wrote.

Indian Civil Service officer Romesh Chunder Dutt showed how the East India Company and the British Parliament ruined the lives of artisans and peasants who had made India a great manufacturing and agricultural country of the 18th century.

Ironically, the first to expose the exploitative nature of British colonialism was not an Indian but the Irish-born British parliamentarian Edmund Burke. As early as 1786 he said the East India Company’s regime was one of “speculation, rapine, fraud, injustice and disgrace”. He termed its rule illegitimate and corrupt. Two years later he led the impeachment of Governor-General Warren Hastings, which, unfortunately, was unsuccessful.

The story of India’s colonisation will not be complete without mention of the role of the Maharajas, landlords and caste supremacists who collaborated with the British and gained in the process.

The British had found the Indian subcontinent divided socially and politically. They brought it under a single administration only to split it into two and quit. If they are to pay reparations, Pakistan and Bangladesh will have legitimate claims along with residuary India.

Not long ago Hindu zealots pulled down a 400-year-old mosque in the name of settling an old score. How far back do we go to undo historical wrongs? Are the indigenous people of India whom later migrants enslaved or drove to the hills not entitled to reparations from them?

A good deal of India’s early history was lost or suppressed by later rulers. Part of it was reconstructed during the British period. The glorious Indus Valley civilisation and the golden rule of Asoka belong to this part.

More of India’s history remains to be recovered. Instead of approaching the task objectively, the government is now engaged in a surreptitious attempt to forge a false history based on mythical knowledge of head transplants and mass production of test tube babies.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 28, 2015.

Left looking for way forward

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

After Communists seized power in Russia, Lenin, leader of the revolution, said, “The way to London and Paris is through Peking and Calcutta.”

The Chinese revolution a few decades later partially fulfilled the prophecy. India’s Communists, on whom fell the task of fulfilling the next part of the prophecy, now lie splintered into groups. While two groups are active in electoral politics, some others are engaged in armed struggles.

The Communist Party of India entered the electoral arena without giving up the objective of armed revolution. The parliamentary system enabled it to score successes in excess of what its strength warranted.

In 1952, with only 3.29 per cent of the votes polled, the CPI won 16 seats in the Lok Sabha and became the largest national opposition group. The Socialist Party, with a 10.59 per cent poll share, got only 12 seats as its votes were scattered widely, while the CPI’s were concentrated in a few states and big cities.

In 1957, the CPI seized power in Kerala state, securing a majority in the State Assembly with a minority of votes. A violent agitation launched by the opposition along with groups incensed by its land and education reform measures was used by the Centre as a pretext to dismiss its government.

In the wake of the Sino-Soviet rift, the CPI split into two. The intense rivalry between the two factions, which differed in their assessment of national and international situations, led the breakaway CPI (Marxist) into inveterate opposition to the Congress party and the remnant CPI supported even the Emergency regime of Indira Gandhi.

As the Soviet Union collapsed and China built up a formidable economy using capitalist methods, Communist parties around the world made ideological readjustments but the CPI-M and the CPI opted to brazen it out. The Left’s unassailable position in West Bengal and Tripura, where it had an unbroken run in power, and in Kerala, where it could come to power in alternate elections, helped to create an impression that all was well.

When the Congress party’s decline created political uncertainty at the national level CPI-M General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet played a catalytic role in the formation of short-lived coalition governments at the Centre. In 2004, he brokered the formation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. The Left supported it from outside to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.

Surjeet’s successor, Prakash Karat, broke the alliance with the Congress in protest against the Indo-US civil nuclear pact. The UPA survived and went on to secure another five-year term. Karat’s subsequent efforts to promote new non-Congress, non-BJP coalitions came to naught.

The Left has been on the decline since then. The ruthless manner in which CPI-M cadres and policemen sought to implement an ill-conceived plan to seize farmers’ land and turn it over to industrialists created a backlash which resulted in loss of power in West Bengal in 2011. This was followed by massive desertions, which damaged the prospects of recovery.

In Kerala, too, there have been desertions but the state party has been making up the loss with new members. The dismal failure of the party’s campaigns against the highly discredited Congress-led state government is indicative of its inherent weakness.

With communalism on the rise and neoliberal policies hitting the poor hard, India now needs a strong Left more than ever. As the largest Left party, it is the CPI-M which has to provide the leadership in this regard but it needs to reinvent itself to undertake the task.

This year the party got a new General Secretary in Sitaram Yechury. Its West Bengal and Kerala units got new Secretaries too. All three were part of the leadership which brought the party to the present sorry state. They are yet to demonstrate the ability to steer the party along a new course.

Yechury has a handicap. He has to work with a Politburo packed with members who did not want him as General Secretary.

The West Bengal unit has decided to readmit former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, 86, and the Kerala unit has decided to take back feisty former minister KR Gowri Amma, 94, both of whom were expelled years ago. Their reinstatement is nothing more than a fine gesture. Young blood and new ideas are needed to save the party. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 21, 2015.

Academicians, activists, artists from across India support Teesta Setalvad

The following is a statement issued by prominent artists, intellectuals, academicians and activists from across India in support of Teesta Setalvad who is being hounded by the Modi administration:

We the undersigned express our profound dismay and disquiet at the continued official harassment by the central government of leading human rights defenders Teesta Setalvad and Jawed Anand. Since the installation of the BJP led government in Delhi in May 2014, the country has witnessed open strenuous official efforts to foist a large variety of charges of financial irregularity on them, to harass them, to tarnish their reputations, and to secure their arrests. Fortunately the interventions of the higher judiciary have protected them so far. However the latest raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation into their home and offices in Mumbai on 14 July 2015 are signs of continuing open misuse of official bodies to harass these human rights defenders.

It is well-known that Teesta Setalvad and Jawed Anand have fought an unrelenting battle not only to bring to book criminals who committed gruesome hate crimes against Muslims in the carnage of 2002, but also to expose the role of the Gujarat government in enabling, abetting and even organising these crimes. They have been fearless in charging the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently the country’s Prime Minister, with direct criminal culpability for these crimes. For this they have assisted the widow of a former MP who was slaughtered in the carnage Zakia Jafri to fight a brave court battle in which the first accused is the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi. They are also appealing against court orders to free on bail prominent political leaders of the BJP convicted of the worst massacre in Naroda Patiya, Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi.

What we are witnessing is crude and defiant misuse of official bodies to beat down these human rights defenders so as to silence their voices, break their morale and divert them from their unrelenting battles in defence of justice which charge the country’s current leadership with complicity in hate crimes. The veracity of their charges will be decided in the country’s courts. But their right to fight for justice on behalf of the survivors of one of the most shameful communal carnages in the history of free India is protected by India’s democracy. The open official bullying of courageous human rights defenders even as persons charged with a range of serious crimes walk free are brazen official attempts to diminish Indian democracy. These must be powerfully resisted by all democratic voices in the country.

Released by

Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD
July 15, 2015 5pm

Endorsed by:
A R F Viegas, Engineer, Ngo
Abhay Shirekar, St. Michael's Church, Vasai, Maharashtra
Ajaya Kumar Singh, Social Activist, Odisha Forum for Social Action,
Ajay Skaria, historian, University of Minnesota
Ajith Pillai, journalist
Ali Javed (Gen. Secretary, All India Progressive Writers Association, Delhi)
Amalendu Upadhyaya, Editor- hastakshep.com
Amar Kanwar, Filmmaker, New Delhi
Amit Bhaduri, Prof Emeritus, JNU, New Delhi
Amit Sengupta, Journalist and academic
Amita Buch, academician, Gujarat
Anand Swaroop Verma, Delhi
Angela L Viegas, Professional,Mumbai,
Anil Chamadia
Anil Nauriya, advocate, Delhi
Anoushka L Viegas, Graduate,Mumbai,
Anu Chenoy, Professor, JNU
Anubha Rastogi, lawyer, Mumbai
Apoorvanand, academician, Delhi
Arshia Ahmed Ayub, Counselling psychologist
Aruna Roy, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)
Arundhati Dhuru NAPM
Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Ashok Bikram Jairu, Executive Director, NNSWA Central Office, Kanchanpur
Atul Sood, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Ayaz Siddiqui Communication engineer
Battini Rao, People's Alliance for Democracy and Seculariam (PADS)
Bhavna Ramrakhiani, ACF, Gujarat
Biju Mohan, Executive Director, MBL Media School, Kozhikode
Brinelle D'Souza, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Deonar, Mumbai
BRP Bhaskar, journalist, Kerala
CV Vergis
C Drego, Private Employment, Mumbai, Maharashtra
D. W. Karuna, Historian, Chennai
Darryl D'Monte, Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI)
Dhirendra Panda, Convener, Civil Society Forum on Human Rights (CSFHR)
Dinesh Abrol, Delhi
Dilip Simeon
Dinesh Mohan, Professor IIT Delhi (Retired)
Dr. Abey George, State Coordinator, NCPRI Kerala
Dr. Anant Phadke, Pune
Dr Indra Munshi, Former Head and Professor, Dept of Sociology, University of Mumbai,
Dr. Mohan Rao , Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU
Dr. Munish Alagh. Profession: Economist, Ahmedabad
Dunu Roy, Engineer, Hazards Centre, Delhi
Faiz Siddiqui Bank executive
Farah Naqvi, Writer and Activist, Delhi
Fr Maverick Fernandes, President, Council for Social Justice and Peace, Goa
Fr Savio Fernandes, Executive Secretary, Council for Social Justice and Peace, Goa.
Fr. Cedric Prakash sj, Director, PRASHANT, Gujarat
Fr. Freddy Braganca, General Secretary, Centre for Responsible Tourism, Goa
G.M. Sheikh, Artist, Gujarat
Gabriele Dietrich, NAPM I endorse this statement
Gautam Thaker, General Secretory PUCL Gujarat
Geeta Kapur, Independent Art Writer, Delhi
Geeta Seshu, Journalist, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Ghanshyam Shah, academician, Gujarat
Ghiasuddin Akbar, Member ; Apna Watan & Help Hyderabad.
Githa Hariharan, Writer
Hanif Lakdawala, Social Activist, Gujarat
Harsh Kapoor,
Harsh Mander, Aman Biradari
Henri Tiphagne, National Working Secretary , Human Rights Defenders Alert India
I A Siddiqui Retd engineer
Indira Chandrasekhar, Tulika Books, Delhi
Indira Jaising, Founder, Lawyer’s Collective, Delhi
Indu Prakash Singh, Social Activist, Forum Against Corruption & Threats (FACT)
Irfan Engineer, All India Secular Forum
Ishwarbhai Prajapati, Jan Sangharsh Manch,Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Jai Sen, CACIM
Jaya Mehta (Sandarbh Collective, Indore)
Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Jharna Pathak, Profession: Researcher, Ahmedabad Women's Action Group.
John Dayal
John Paul Lobo, De Nobili College, Nagar Road, Ramvadi, Pune
Joy Sengupta, actor, Mumbai
Jyoti Punwani freelance journalist Mumbai
Kalyani Menon-Sen , Feminist Learning Partnerships, Gurgaon
Kamal Chenoy, Prof. JNU
Kamal Faruqi, FCA, Former Chairman Delhi Minorities Commission
Khalid Azam (United States)
Kiran Shaheen, Writer and Anti Poverty Activist
Kumar Ambuj (Member of Presidium, M. P. Progressive Writers Association)
Kumar Prashant, journalist, sarvodaya activist
L Viegas, professional,Mumbai,
Lalita Ramdas - Hyderabad
Lena Ganesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Lynette Gomes, Computer professional,Mumbai,
M Cherian Kunjumon, Bombay Catholic Sabha, Mumbai.
M. V. Ramana, Princeton University, USA
Mallika Sarabhai, ARTIST, Gujarat
Manan Trivedi, social activist, Gujarat
Manisha Sethi, Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association.
Manoranjan Siba Sankar Mohanty
Mazher Hussain, Social Activist, Hyderabad
Meenakshi Ganguly, Mumbai
Meera Samson, Collaborative Research and Dissemination, New Delhi
Meher Engineer, Independent Scientist, Kolkata, WEst Bengal
Mohammed Ashfaq
Mohd Aamir, social activist, Delhi
Mrs Praxedes Gomes, Sr Citizen & home maker, Mumbai.
Mujahid Nafees, Education activist, Gujarat
Myron J. Pereira , former director of Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai)
N.D.Jayaprakash, Social Activist, Delhi
Nandini Rao, women's rights activist
Nandini Sundar, Professor, Delhi University
Naresh Fernandes, Journalist.
Neeraj Jain, Lokayat, Pune and Socialist Party (India)
Naseeruddin Shah theatre and film actor and director
Nasreen Fazalbhoy, Mumbai Maharashtra.
Navaid Hamid, MOEMIN, Delhi
Neha Shah, College teacher, Ahmedabad
Nikhil Dey, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)
Nilima Shaikh, artist, Vadodara, Gujarat
Nityanand Jayaraman, writer/social activist, Chennai
Noorjahan Diwan, social activist, Gujarat
Noorjehan Safia Niaz, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
Ovais Sultan Khan, People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism
P. K. Datta - Teacher- Delhi University - Delhi
Pallab Sengupta, General Secretary, All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Journalist, Delhi
Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus, JNU.
Prabir Purkayashta
Priya Pillai, Environmental Activist , Greenpeace India.
Prof Aditya Mukherjee, Historian, JNU
Prof. Anjali Monteiro, TISS, Mumbai
Prof. K.P. Jayasankar, TISS, Mumbai
Prof Mridula Mukherjee, Historian, JNU
Prof Rooprekha Verma, Saajhi Duniya's , Former VC, Lucknow University
Prof. Shohini Ghosh, Academic, Delhi.
Pushpa Iyer, Associate Profesor, California.
Pyoli, Samajwadi Janparishad
Radha Khan, Chairperson & Trustee DAJI , New Delhi
Rahul Pandey, entrepreneur and academic,Bangalore, Karnataka
Rammanohar Reddy, Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai
Ramu Ramdas - Alibag
Ranjan Solomon, Badayl/Alternatives, GOA
Robin Viegas, Hon Secretary, Bombay Catholic Sabha, Kalina Unit,
Romila Thapar, Academician
Roselle Solomon, Counselor, Regina Mundi High School, Goa
S. Hasan Kamal, South Asians for Unity, Atlanta, GA, USA
Sadanand Menon – journalist, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Saheli Women's Resource Centre
Sandeep Pandey Socialist Party
Sarika Shrivastava (NFIW, Madhya Pradesh)
Satish Deshpande, academician, Delhi
Satya Sivaraman, Journalist
Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, Anhad
Shahiuz Zaman Niaz AhmedShekhar Mallik
PWA, Ghatshila, Jharkhand
Shalini Gera,JagLAG, Chattisgarh
Shankar Singh, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)
Shariq Siddiqui Photography professional
Shashank Kela, Writer, Chennai
Shivani Taneja, Educationist, Bhopal, M.P.
Siddharth Varadarajan, journalist, Delhi
Sofiya Khan, social activist, Gujarat
Sohail Hashmi, filmmaker, One Billion Rising /Dwarka, New DelhiPravin Joseph Philip
Healthy Neighborhood Communications, Kerala
Soumya Dutta, Convenor -Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha, India
Subhash Anand
Subhash Gatade, New Socialist Initiative
Sukla Sen, social activist, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai
Sumit Sarkar, Retired professor of History, University of Delhi
Suvrat Raju, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research), Bangalore
Syeda Hameed, former member, Planning Commission
T I Siddiqui Retd bank executive
Tauseef H. Mukadam, Profession: Airline Pilot, Karnataka
Tanika Sarkar, Retired professor of History, JNU.
Tushar A. Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, Maharashtra.
Uma V Chandru, Activist, Bangalore
Varghese Manimala
Vineet Tiwari (Gen. Secretary, Madhya Pradesh PWA)
Vipin K. Tripathi, Sadbhav Mission
Viranjeet Sandhu, student
Virendra Jain (Janwadi Lekhak Sangh, Bhopal)
Vivan Sundaram, artist, Aam Aadmi Party - DelhiJai Sen, CACIM
Walter Fernanes, former director, North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati
Waqar Kazi, social activist, Gujarat
Wilfred Dcosta, Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), New Delhi
WSS (Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression)
Yousuf Saeed, Independent filmmaker, writer, New Delhi
Yusuf B.Shaikh, Advocate
Zaffarullah Khan, Advocate, Chennai
Zakia Soman Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
Zoya Hasan, academician, JNU

Shameful political vendetta, says Teesta Setalvad

Teesta Setalvad writes:

 

As I write this, the search is still not concluded. It is shocking that while over a dozen members of the

CBI are still in our premises conducting the search, Delhi spokesperson is misleading the public and our vast supporters by a series of misinformations and officials tweets.

In our view, and we repeat no laws have been broken by us. This is a continuation of the persecution and witchhunt first launched by  he Gujarat police in 2014 then under the dispensation that now rules in Delhi. The CBI has taken the same documents that we had voluntarily on inspectyion given the MHA (FCRA dept). Over 25,000 pages of documentary evidence has been given to the Gujarat Police. When they could not succeed with the bizaree and desperate attampts to gain custody (Fenruary 2015), it was the Guj Giovernment Home Department that wrote to the MHA and the current round of the persecutions began.

Its is shameful political vendetta. The Zakia Jafri case begins its final hearings on July 27 2015. The Naroda PAtoiya appeals (Kodnani and Bajrangi) are being ehard in the Guj high Court tomorrow. This is nothing but a bid to subvert the cause of public justice and ensure that no justice happens in these cases.

We  had written to th CBI offering full cooperation. The so called offences relate to documentary evidemnce. This search is nothing but an attempt to intimidate and humiliate. India should be ashamed that when scams like Vyapam are happening, over 50 persons dying, witnesses in Asaram Bapu case are dying; CBI is not appealing in critical cases related to crimes by poiliticians; the agency is being unleashed on human rights defenders standing up for the rights of Survivors of Mass Violence. It is worse than the Brityish Raj. Pathetic

I repeat Sabrang Communications has broken no law(s). One: Section 3 of FCRA, 2010 bars certain 'persons' (political parties and its office bearers, government servants and those associated with registered newspapers and those involved in the production and broadcast of news) from receiving foreign donations. However, the very next section, Section 4 which is sutitled 'Persons to whom section 3 shall not apply' states: "Nothing contained in section 3 shall apply to the acceptance, by any person specified 3 in that section, of any foreign contribution where such contribution is accepted by him, subject to the provisions of section 10- (a) by way of salary, wages or other remuneration due to him or to any group of persons working under him, from any foreign source or by way of payment in the ordinary course of business transacted in India by such foreign source;"

Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt. Ltd Co. which published the monthly 'Communalism Combat' signed a Consultancy Agreement with Ford Foundation in 2004 and 2006 "to address the issues of caste and communalism" through a clearly defined set of activities which had nothing whatsoever to do with Communalism Combat or remuneration to Javed Anand or Teesta Setalvad towards discharging editorial/managerial functions. The Consultancy was signed by Sabrang Communications only after advice from eminent legal counsel that such an agreement was covered under the exclusion stipulated under Section 4 of the Act and therefore the consultancy fees (not grant or donation) received would not be in violation of FCRA 2010. Ford Foundation in fact deducted TDS with every installment of consultancy fees it paid to Sabrang Communications. The activities undertaken and the expenses incurred were in accordance with the agreement. Activities and Financial Reports were submitted annual to the satisfaction of Ford Foundation.

Two, Sabrang has kept records and provided copies of the same to the FCRA during the inspection visit of FCRA team in Mumbai on June 9 and 10, 2015, Additional documents as required were also posted to FCRA department.

Three: Deliberately or otherwise, the FCRA team is confusing the well- known lobbying that is part of the political process in the USA with advocacy initiatives whereby NGOs, civil society activists engage with the government of the day to draw their attention towards the legitimate issues of women, children, dalits, religious or linguistic or sexual minorities, differently-abled persons etc. It is ridiculous to equate such advocacy initiatives with lobbying.    Sabrang Communications therefore denies all the allegations. 

 Four:  While believing in the rule of law and due process, we believe that the State has innumerable devices at its disposal to simply throttle dissent, intimidate and through these crass techniques try to ensure coercive compliance.