Wednesday, January 08, 2020

India: Democracy Itself Is At Stake

Narendra Modi is going to pay a big price for having misread his electoral mandate, which has been substantial. The mandate was for double-digit growth rates, it was for a five trillion dollar economy. It might even have been to stand up to Pakistan. But instead what the people have gotten is a tanking economy and an erosion of democracy. Democracy is not majority rule. Democracy is not elections. Democracy is respect for human rights and the rule of law.

When Kashmir was turned into an open-air prison, a lot of Indians celebrated, many stayed num. It might be okay to turn Kashmir into just another state in India, but then why would that not have applied to the states in the northeast? One might ask. But it has been utterly wrong to turn an entire state into an open-air prison. The fears of the protestors are not ill-founded. Police brutality unleashed upon primarily Muslim neighborhoods and institutions show where this thing is headed. The Indian Prime Minister, the Indian Home Minister, and the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, at this rate all of them will be shown the door.

What is happening is happening in broad daylight, with full media coverage, with instantaneous global communication. There is nowhere to hide. This is fascism, plain and simple. India is seeing the largest protests in decades. This is Modi's undeclared emergency. The PMO has gone to hell. Extreme concentration of power is giving undesirable results.

This is an excellent opportunity for all non-BJP parties to come together. What they need is a proper organizational structure. They should form a federation of sorts. A vague alliance will not do. The structure should be strong enough that it has to give one post one candidate at all levels and across India. The BJP dominoes have been falling for a year now. That trend will continue.

When atrocities are committed in China, they try to hide it all. In India, you have nowhere to hide. If the bet is that the people at large will support the atrocities, that bet is misguided and wrong at the same time.

This is a tragedy because Modi had an excellent chance to take India to double-digit growth rates. A lot of people have had to give Modi the benefit of doubt over the years. There have been serious accusations against him before. But when he presented himself as a man committed to economic development, many believed him and gave him a chance. He does have a remarkable story. India is not known as a country where a chaiwallah (tea seller) can become Prime Minister. But chaiwallah or no chaiwallah, the fundamentals of democracy are not up for grabs. Modi and his party could get 60% of the votes, and they still would not have the option to do away with democracy. They are not even at 40%.

They should coin a new formation, an ABC, Anti BJP Coalition. The steering committee ought to have a proper structure. By joining the coalition, a party is agreeing to one office one candidate at all levels. In the steering committee, each party should have the same number of votes as it has MPs, and decisions should be taken by preferably consensus, if not then with a large majority of 65%, and in rare cases with majority vote. These two fundamentals would be enough to deliver the goodies. The people are already up in arms. They are ready to vote to teach the BJP a lesson.

हिन्दु धर्म के किस ग्रन्थ के किस लाइन के आधार पर आप देश पर फासिज्म लादने की सोंच रहे हो? ये तो आप दुर्योधन के रास्ते पर चल पड़े। अन्याय और अत्याचार तो दुर्योधनका रास्ता है। क्या हिन्दु धर्म में दुर्योधन की पुजा होती है?






'We are not safe': India's Muslims tell of wave of police brutality How hundreds of innocent Muslim residents of the city of Muzaffarnagar came to be rounded up on 20 December, before being tortured in police detention, is part of what Indian activist and academic Yogendra Yadav described as an unprecedented and ruthless “reign of terror” imposed upon the country’s most populous state over the past two weeks. .......

Since last month, India has been engulfed in the biggest nationwide protests in over four decades.

People of all religions, classes, castes and ages took to the streets in opposition to a new citizenship amendment act (CAA) passed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his Hindu nationalist BJP government, which many say discriminates against Muslims and undermines India’s secular foundations. The government has dealt with the dissent with increasing repression, with authorities banning gatherings of more than four people and demonstrators met with batons and tear gas. .......... Nowhere has the crackdown been so brutal and so openly communal against the Muslim community than in Uttar Pradesh. According to accounts given to the Guardian by dozens of victims, witnesses and activists, police in the state stand accused of a string of allegations: firing indiscriminately into crowds; beating Muslim bystanders in the streets; raiding and looting Muslim homes while shouting Islamophobic slurs and Hindu nationalist slogans; detaining and torturing Muslim children. The allegations further include forcing signed confessions and filing bogus criminal charges against thousands of Muslims who had never been to a protest. ....... Hundreds of Muslims and activists remain behind bars across Uttar Pradesh and thousands have been placed on police lists. And the orders, it appears, come from the very top......... BJP state chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, a militant Hindu nationalist notorious for his open hatred and persecution of Muslims, pledged to take revenge on protesters in the wake of the unrest. The police took him at his word. “It was kristallnacht for Muslims,” said activist Kavita Krishnan, describing the events that unfolded across the state on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 December.......Nearby, maulana Asad Raza Hussaini, a respected Muslim cleric, and his students at Sadaat Madrasa, an Islamic seminary, were resting after afternoon prayers when about 50 police officers, bearing batons and iron rods, broke down the doors and burst in. They were allegedly looking for people who had taken part in the protest but upon entering the madrasa began violently smashing everything in their pathway. ....... “The maulana told the policemen gently that none from the seminary took part in any protest rally and pleaded for them not to vandalise the Qur’an centre in the madrasa,” said a neighbour who witnessed the police attack but did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal. “It was then that the policemen and Rapid Action Force personnel [a branch of the police that deals with crowd control] pounced on him.” ....... The police then rounded up Hussaini and 35 of his students, 15 of whom were under 18 and mostly orphans, and took them to a nearby police barracks. Here the cleric was, witnesses allege, stripped of his clothes, beaten and a rod shoved up his anus, causing rectal bleeding, while the students were allegedly tortured with bamboo rods and made to shout Hindu nationalist slogans Jai Shri Ram” [Hail Lord Ram] and “Har Har Mahadev” [Save us Lord Shiva]......... “The maulana had been beaten up very badly and was left without a single cloth on his body and when he was released we found him in very bad shape,” said Salman Saeed, a local Congress leader who came to pick up Hussaini and several students from Civil Lines Barracks. “He was badly wounded and bloodied, with many bruises across his body. He could not stand up on his legs and was bare-bodied. We were shocked to see the maulana in that condition. He is bed-ridden now.”........ While Hussaini and all his underage students were released at 2am that night, 12 adults students and the madrasa cook remain behind bars and have been charged with taking part in violence, despite never partaking in a protest. ...... “The police said to me, ‘if you tell us the names of 100 Muslims involved in the riots we will stop beating you’,” recounted Sadiq, as he lay bed-bound and weak from his injuries in his one-room family shack. “I kept telling them I had nothing to do with the riots, that I did not know anything but they kept beating me. The policemen told me to shout ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and I told them I would not so they put an iron rod into the flames of the car that was on fire and then held it against my hands to burn me.” ......... “Then some of the police officers tried to pick me up and put me in the flames of the car on fire,” Sadiq said, “but two of them said ‘no, let’s just take him to the police station’.” ........ Sadiq was kept in police detention for the next four days. Stripped to his underwear, he said he was tortured. For two days he was given no food or water and no medical treatment for his badly bleeding wounds. When he was finally released his condition was so bad his mother, Rehana Begum, fainted when she came to collect him........ According to multiple accounts, in the late-night raids on Muslim homes carried out in Muzaffarnagar and across the state over those two days, women, children and the elderly were not spared the brunt of the police brutality. ........ One such victim was 73-year-old Hamid Hasan, who was viciously beaten when police stormed into his house late on 20 December, using metal batons to attack him, his 65-year-old wife and his 22-year-old granddaughter, Ruqaiya Parveen, who was hit so hard across the head she collapsed from the wound and had to have 16 stitches. ......... Hasan wiped away tears as he showed the wrecked remnants of the wedding gifts purchased for his granddaughter’s forthcoming marriage, including a destroyed television, ripped sofa, overturned fridge and smashed air-conditioning unit he had saved up his whole life to buy. “My family did not take part in any protests, why would they do this to us,” wailed Hasan, who could barely walk from his injuries. “Muslims in this country are being made to live in fear, even in our homes we are not safe from violence now.” ....... Hasan’s 14-year-old grandson Mohammad Ahmad was also dragged from his bed by the officers, beaten in the street and then detained and allegedly tortured by police in the police barracks, along with Hasan’s son Mohammad Sajid, 40. Ahmad recounted how he witnessed officers force his uncle Sajid to sign a confession that a gun and bullets had been found in the police raid on their home. “He did not want to sign it but he had to because we were terrified,” whispered Ahmad softly, his legs still wrapped in bandages from the beatings. ........

Official figures put the protest death toll in the state at 17. All were Muslim and the youngest was eight.

...... Not only did the police force the family to bury Noor 60km (40 miles) away from Muzaffarnagar, but they accompanied the body to the ground, prevented proper funeral rites being carried out and then confiscated the burial certificate from the family. “It is clear they want to destroy all evidence about his death,” said his brother-in-law Mohammad Salim. .........

“Every rioter is thinking they made a big mistake by challenging Yogi ji’s government after seeing strict actions taken by it against rioters,” said the chief minister’s office in a recent series of twitter posts. “Every rioter is shocked. Every demonstrator is stunned. Everyone has been silenced.”



India: largest protests in decades signal Modi may have gone too far Demonstrations against citizenship act continue despite ban, uniting people of all ages, castes and religions ...... “They are denying us our basic right to protest, so how can we still call India a democracy?” said Khan. “Modi has underestimated the Indian people if he thinks he can tear apart our constitution and try to divide us all down religious lines with this citizenship act. We stand here today united as Indians, Muslim brothers with Hindu brothers, and we will stay out here on these streets until the citizenship act is revoked and Modi is on his knees.” ........ in Bangalore police did not have enough buses to transport all those they had arrested. Police jails began to overflow. ....... “It’s the sign of a paranoid, insecure regime who can not deal with dissent in any way,” Guha said after he was released from detention. “We’ve had difficult times in our republic but this is one of the worst I’ve seen in my 60-year lifetime.” ....... “This is how Modi ran Gujurat, with a completely iron fist,” said Guha. “They manipulated universities, they intimidated the media, threatened the judiciary – and they think they can extend that to all of India. This regime hates Muslims and now, more clearly than ever, it is exposed for what it is: authoritarian and sectarian and spectacularly bigoted.” ......... after Modi’s re-election in May, when he won a huge parliamentary majority, the agenda picked up the pace. ......

The brazenness of the citizenship law has galvanised the masses in opposition in a way that public lynchings of Muslims, low-level sectarian violence and the Kashmir decision all failed to do.

...... “This citizenship legislation is at the core of their Hindu nationalist project, where the relegation of Muslims to second-class citizens is fundamental,” said Niraja Gopal Jayal, a professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. ....... “In Modi’s first term you saw it gradually through the fostering of an ecosystem that was hostile to Muslims, where for example those who carried out

vigilante lynchings of Muslims

could act with complete impunity.......... there is this sense that they are on a roll and can accomplish whatever they want. ...... “So this legislation, where Muslims will be lucky if they are counted second-class citizens and not just thrown in a detention centre, is an inevitable culmination of that project. But judging by the protests, it is also possible that this time they have gone too far and never anticipated this kind of response.” ........ the demonstrations were part of “a battle for democracy, a battle for civil liberties, a battle for secularism and the plural character of Indian society.” ........

For one of the first times since Modi came to power, his slick social media and spin operation has failed to shift the narrative in his favour.

The diverse makeup of participants in the protests means Modi’s attempts to dismiss them as self-loathing liberals and hopeless cosmopolitans have been met with derision. ......... “What we are living in now is already a kind of undeclared emergency, where in effect in many parts of India democracy has effectively been suspended by Modi’s government,” Komireddi said...... “In 2014 India was the first democratic country to succumb to this wave of populism,” he said, “and now India will be the first country that will show the way to reclaim democracy from the clutches of these thugs.”









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