As of now, the evening of December 17, 2017, the virtual black out of the 2002 carnage in the Gujarat election campaign is causing dehydration in Modi. The ghost of Banquo has reappeared to claim him as victim. It is not 2002 when President Musharraf took the matter of mass murder to UNO because Modi had termed the September-December 2002 campaign as fight between Modi and Mian Musharraf. In the 2007 elections Modi used Sohrabuddin as the villain whose murder he not only justified but also garnered votes on account of it. His pet theory of the Islamic terrorism worked up the audience. The dejected hollow face of the PM mocks his cock a snook at leaders of the Congress and the minorities. It is shocking for we did stand in awe of our captain and trusted him to take the ship to its sure destination of development. But to recall Shakespeare: There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. The PM’s uninhibited surly and moron face while meeting Rahul Gandhi or Manmohan Singh on December 13, 2017 is a telltale of what would be his position if the fake encounter cases and the 2002 mass murder of Muslims and his role in it is revealed. There are other cases waiting for a fair trial like those of Haren Pandya, Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati, etc. But the mother of them all is his turning the fire incident on Sabarmati Express train on February 27, 2002 into a terrorist attack without giving any proof. The Collector of Godhra, Jayanti Ravi, had called it an accident and not an attack or sabotage. She maintained it till the evening when Modi arrived and called it a terrorist attack. Maulana Umerji had told PM A.B. Vajpayee that it was Modi who was responsible for turning around the incident and what followed as a consequence. A year later Modi had the Maulana arrested. Umerji was named the principal accused and yet after almost a decade he was discharged. Nothing was found against him. It was Ms Ravi who did not allow Modi’s successor, Anandaben Patel, to do what Dr Maya Kodnani had done, let the mobs kill the Muslims in the area under her collectorate. Moreover Ms Ravi also had ordered the recording of the case of Bilkis Bano. In the case of Sohrabuddin, Amit Shah avoided appearance in court and the allegation that the sitting Bombay High Court Judge had offered Rs 1000 crores to NIA court Judge Loya to give favourable judgment and the sudden death of the trial judge makes the atmosphere murkier. As long as the duo, Modi and Shah, continue to rule there is fear and apprehension. Incidentally, the Bombay High Court Justice Satyaranjan Dharmaadhikari and Justice Bharti Dangre have appealed to the citizens to help save the “largest democracy”, that is, India. Why should the HC want citizens to be “vigilant”? Is it because of the cases in which Modi and Shah are concerned? What will the Gujarat election result tomorrow bear on the judiciary?

Modi's willing suspension of disbelief As of now, the evening of December 17, 2017, the virtual black out of the 2002 carnage in the Gujarat election campaign is causing dehydration in Modi. The ghost of Banquo has reappeared to claim him as victim. It is not 2002 when President Musharraf took the matter of mass murder to UNO because Modi had termed the September-December 2002 campaign as fight between Modi and Mian Musharraf. In the 2007 elections Modi used Sohrabuddin as the villain whose murder he not only justified but also garnered votes on account of it. His pet theory of the Islamic terrorism worked up the audience. The dejected hollow face of the PM mocks his cock a snook at leaders of the Congress and the minorities. It is shocking for we did stand in awe of our captain and trusted him to take the ship to its sure destination of development. But to recall Shakespeare: There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. The PM’s uninhibited surly and moron face while meeting Rahul Gandhi or Manmohan Singh on December 13, 2017 is a telltale of what would be his position if the fake encounter cases and the 2002 mass murder of Muslims and his role in it is revealed. There are other cases waiting for a fair trial like those of Haren Pandya, Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati, etc. But the mother of them all is his turning the fire incident on Sabarmati Express train on February 27, 2002 into a terrorist attack without giving any proof. The Collector of Godhra, Jayanti Ravi, had called it an accident and not an attack or sabotage. She maintained it till the evening when Modi arrived and called it a terrorist attack. Maulana Umerji had told PM A.B. Vajpayee that it was Modi who was responsible for turning around the incident and what followed as a consequence. A year later Modi had the Maulana arrested. Umerji was named the principal accused and yet after almost a decade he was discharged. Nothing was found against him. It was Ms Ravi who did not allow Modi’s successor, Anandaben Patel, to do what Dr Maya Kodnani had done, let the mobs kill the Muslims in the area under her collectorate. Moreover Ms Ravi also had ordered the recording of the case of Bilkis Bano. In the case of Sohrabuddin, Amit Shah avoided appearance in court and the allegation that the sitting Bombay High Court Judge had offered Rs 1000 crores to NIA court Judge Loya to give favourable judgment and the sudden death of the trial judge makes the atmosphere murkier. As long as the duo, Modi and Shah, continue to rule there is fear and apprehension. Incidentally, the Bombay High Court Justice Satyaranjan Dharmaadhikari and Justice Bharti Dangre have appealed to the citizens to help save the “largest democracy”, that is, India. Why should the HC want citizens to be “vigilant”? Is it because of the cases in which Modi and Shah are concerned? What will the Gujarat election result tomorrow bear on the judiciary?

chapter 2 Intervention and culture of impunity

Chapter 2 Intervention and culture of impunity PM Vajpayee’s letter to CM Modi on June 1, 2002 was intervention. But as it turned out to be strategy to prevent the matter of Godhra going to parliament. Vajpayee had asserted at 4 pm on February 27, 2002 that there was no conspiracy behind the fire. But more facts emerged and Modi had allowed Hindus taking revenge to grow into pogroms of Muslims etc to such an extent that the international community was disturbed. The PM visited Gujarat two months later and exhorted that Modi do his dharm, or moral duty to rule. Another month passed and he noticed that Modi had simply done nothing to either protect Muslims or improve the conditions in the refugee camps. It was then he wrote to Modi in detail what he ought to do but had defiantly failed to do. It was at this time that the culture of impunity had its origin. It should be he rather than parliament as intervener. Interveners or petitioners are supposed to be people of sanity and are expected to do their yeomanry service to ameliorate a situation. What more did the tragic situation in Gujarat demand at that time when pogroms were still going on? As Teesta Setalvad remarks that interventions are not taken as seriously as the mighty state. Modi did not care either. “Interventions are subtly relegated into a hierarchy. Procedural fair play is subverted and substantive shifts take place in jurisprudence.” “…status quo tolerates intervention up to a point, but appears to fall short of delivering radical, real and substantive justice. The system engages with the survivors and defenders in the early years, but a shake up of status quo demands an exceptional judicial mind. ” Vajpayee wrote to Modi informing him that “there was gross under assesement of damages.” “It is possible that, for various reasons, the teams involved in work have assessed the damages on the lower side. In the interest of justice and fair play, it will be expedient to conduct test checks in selected areas. If the test chckes do confirm under-assessment, the state government will reassess the damages in areas with large-scale complaints. I have also been informed that in a large number of cases, the relatives of the dead are yet to be paid the ex gratia because bodies are yet to be identified and also, applications regarding missing persons are yet to be disposed of. The inordinate delay in the disbursement of ex-gratia payments is a matter of concern.” The PM considered DNA checks as hurdle in the payment “leading to further unacceptable delay.” “It is natural that the residents of the worst affected areas may be reluctant to return to their original places of residence and demand relocation in safer areas. Ideally, at atmosphere should be created whereby thse people gain enough confidence to resettle at the original place of residence.” He cautioned the CM that “particularly in the worst affected areas like Nardoa Patiya in Ahmadabad and Lunawada in Panchamahal, active goernment support during their relocation only protect themf rom unscrupulous elements.” “Needless to say that undue influence by such elements will only exacerbate the already complicated situation.”[1] There is hardly any doubt that the PM was chiding Modi for not doing his moral duty which he should have done long back. The three months delay must have multiplied the sufferings manifold. That Modi was intransigent ran deep into the lines Vajpayee wrote. Two months ago had pat replied that he was doing his rajdharm. That must have outraged the PM because it was a surly CM whose audacity to imprudently pat reply that moral duty he had already been doing and there was no need for the PM to mouth it in open! This is the stuff of impunity moulded in the smithy of Gujarat. From this there has mushroomed the rich culture of impunity all over India now that likes of Modi are in UP at the helms of affair of state. That is why New Yoak Time editorial was wraning on March 23, 2017 of what would come of Mr Modi’s perilous embrace of Hindu extremists.[2] However, there is a ray of hope that amendment of section 24(8)(2) of the Code ofCriminal Procedure in 2009 has given the victim complainants the statutory right to intervene in criminal trials to assist the prosecution. What even PM Vajpayee could not achieve is available for the citizens of this wonderful country to try. We still have the same Constitution. Let us respect and carry it out in our daily life to make the country what it stood for, a truly secular constitutional democracy. [1]Footsoldiers of the Constitution, pp. 148-149, 209. [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/mr-modis-perilous-embrace-of-hindu-extremists.html?_r=0

Doomsday Democracy, Freaking out…for a world without Islam

In a democratic country there is no place for uncommunicative and secretive top executive of the country, the Prime Minister. In matters relating to the security of the Muslims minority PM Narendra Modi is the epitome of the cagey politician, the very opposite of Canadian PM Justin Trudeav. His ministers in his own cabinet and in the states across the country are holding out threats to the life and property of the minority community on daily basis. They also vaunt their culture of impunity as if they have already achieved what is dear to them, a Hindu theocracy—a Hindu nation and state where Muslims cannot exist. “We create our own realities.”[1] Those words of President George Bush’s official just before Iraq war was ominous. Neither had President Sadam Hussein any weapon of mass destruction nor was he an ally of Osama bin Laden. Bush and Blair created their own realities to go to war. Their bouts of wildly irrational reaction and spell of such behaviour cost huge number of casualties. Neither Iraq nor India had anything to do with 9/11 attacks on New York and Pentagon. To the US led on war on terror Narndra Modi also joined by calling 9/11 as Islamic terrorism. Within a month of the attack Modi arrived in Gujarat and assumed the office of chief minister. In just over four months he won election on February 24 2002 and created history by calling the fire incident on Sabarmati Express on February 27 2002 at Godhra as terrorist attack mounted by Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence. There were trade rivalries in Gujarat between the rich Hindu traders with non Hindus. Each wanted to get the best of the buriness and industry. However “the RSS and the VHP build on all kinds of false resentments to generate an anger of the Hindu middle-class and sections of the Hindu working-class. One of the issues they played on was the obvious business savoir-faire of the Bohras and Khojas—only a fraction of the ten per cent-odd of the state’s Muslim population –because they had a visible hand in the commercial world.”[2] The fire on the train at Godhra gave them an opportunity to wreak havoc on the Muslims at large. For more than a year Modi and his BJP did not name who would be the chief ministerial candidate in UP election campaign. When the results enthused them he revealed his hand in picking up the hardliner Yogi Aditnarayan. There is a hidden agenda of the RSS which militates against democracy in which all are equal and there is no discrimination on the basis of religion, caste or province. However the recentely declassified CIA report shows that RSS was deeply racist and that was one reason why General Carriappa was targetted. Since then the RSS has grown in power and there is every reason that the premonition of 1950s is coming home to roost. “Without going into whodunit, the second paragraph by the informer moves on to report about the parochial divide among the officers and accuse the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) of fomenting unrest among officers. “Cariappa as South Indian is resented by the Sikh officers of the Indian Army. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) is capitalizing on the North-South split among army officers, persuading Sikh officers, whom informant considers treacherous and unreliable, to spread dissension. Officers from Travancore (later Kerala), Madras and Maharashtra are invariable loyal to General Cariappa”. There was another danger that the RSS saw in the field marshal at the time of the parition. If RSS could assassinate Mahatma Gandhi for returning money to Pakistan that India owed to the neighbout Carrppa was also doing the same apart from being dark skilled south Indians who are not Aryan in descent and cannot be true Indians according to the racism of RSS. “The eastern part, which became part of India, was renamed as the state of Punjab in 1950 after a lot of bloodshed. It was Cariappa’s responsibility to split the military assets between India and Pakistan as the eastern army commander before he became commander in chief, a post which was later renamed as Chief of Army Staff.” [3] RSS had infiltrated the army in those heady days and it was capable of liquidating the field marshal. In this conspiracy even higher officers were also involved. Six of them were hanged. It was strictly kept secret. However CIA which came in existence in 1947 kept the report and declassified in 2017. There is a racist angle that is subtly hidden. The RSS views itself as an organization which holds the writings of Guru Golwakar as sacred. That Golwalkar indulged in racism of the Nazis is an open secret. It comes out in prounouncemnt in indirect references. Tarun Vijay on April 7, 2017 tried to look at the attack on the Nigerians in Greater Noida when he spoke: “If we were racist, why would we have all the entire south…Tamil, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra…why do we live with them? We have black people around us.” His plural first person pronoun “we” reminds one of Golwalkar’s gospel of RSS, WE and Bunch of Thoughts. He wrote “the truth of our nationalism is an ancient fact and the Hindus being the national society of Bharat, so clearly restated by our revered founder when he decided the word “Rashtriya” for our organization. We must once again stand up to our true and full status and boldy assert that we shall elevate Hindu National life in Bharat to the peak of glory and honour which has been its birth righ since hoary time.” Even Modi is on record when he told during a foreign visit that Indians were not respected because of what they were but now there is change, meaning since the ascendence of BJP to power at centre and now in states like UP. This latter day realization is frought with the posture of majoritarianism vis-à-vis minorities. As Golwalkar also put it when he referred to the Constituent Assembly members on the issue: “They forget that here was a full-fledged ancient nation of the Hindus and the various commmunities, which were living in the country, were here either as guests, the Jews and Parsis, or as invaders, the Muslim and Christians. They never faced the question how all such heterogeneous groups could be called as children of the soil merely because by an accident, they happened to reside in a common territory under the rule of a common enemy.” As the RSS is a racist organization and is utterly intolerant but capable of sophistry in denying the undeniable. This is strkly visible in the wildly irrational belief of Tarun Vijay. People reacted very sharply. A noted Kannada writer Vivek Shanbagh remarked: "The root cause of racism is intolerance towards the other. It's shameful that we have politicians who have racist thoughts deep inside them and that's why it has come out. When you are put under pressure, the real self comes out. He was trying to hide his racist thoughts, but could not. I am shocked and shocked." Another Indian was evern more frank: "We are all 'coloured', as Americans call it. More than 90% of Indians are dark complexioned. We are obsessed with the notion of fairness, despite our gods being dark in colour, and we are racist. Such statements by Tarun dent the pan-Indian nationalism and culturalism that they have been trying to advocate. The divide between North and South is always there and that's sad," [4]Another dissenting voice and also from the south is that of former Infoscion and educationist T V Mohandas Pai who says that there is larger implication than colour of skin. It is in essence Brahmanism allied with upper caste and the rest. The kind of nationalism that Tarun Vijay embodies is clear from exclusivist vision of nationalism when he speaks tongue in cheek: “You are denying your own nation, you are denying your ancestry, you are denying your culture."In fact there was no denial on the part of the south Indians who spoke against him. They were articulating their frustration over the fact that they are Dravidean and the Aryan mindset of RSS does not want them to be in their fold. Those who are with the RSS have either religion or power or communalism as the driving force. The Nagas and others from the North East India are much fairer and still are attacked and killed and injured by the right wing Hindus because of their being Christians. Golwarlkar considered Muslims and christians as invaders and Jews and Parsis as guests. The question that arises is who was the host who welcomed them into India. This leads fruther who were the Hindu monarch who invited Mehmud Gaznavi to come and attack and plunder the wealth of Somnath temple and share the spoils with the invaders? Of all the Indians it is the followers of RSS who indulge in creating realities like the imperialist white Americans and Jews. It was Bernard Lewis who advised President George Bush to attack Iraq and Afghanistan and the most illiterate President Bush followed his advice. PM Atal Bihari had also been swayed to amass troops to wage war on Pakistan. The ebullient mood of the RSS was on display when on March 15 2000 a Muslim carrying a bundle of grass was killed on the day of Bakrid. And much earlier in 1991 Hindu women in Gujarat had pushed from the balcony of second floor a Muslim NGO worker to his death because they did not want Muslims to live in Hindu areas. Who is creating whose realities in 21st century India by asserting “We have blacks, black people around us”? Wildly irrational reaction is systematically demonstrated much like the Newtonian third law of action and reaction as Modi justfied 15 years ago. The killing of Pehlu Khan a farmer carrying his milch cow and heifer to his farm in Alwar, Rajasthan had legal documents of sale and ownership and yet he was killed and his family attacked and FIR lodged by the police that they were smuggling cows! Such reaction led to Dadri killing of Akhlaq whose son was in air force and a devoted patriotic Indian.Why are the extremists feaking themselves out for an India without Muslims? In the aftermath of the landslide victory in UP elections Indian democracy has become what the stand up comedy Aisi Taisi Democracy describes as the rodent in the mouth of the snake who cannot swallow it nor can eject it. This is the birth pang of creating new realities. A few days later Vijay tried to mollify the situation and landed in worse verbosity when he phrased it differently the same remark: “we have fought racism and we have people with different colour and culture, and still never had any racism,” The point he missed and even P Chidambrum could not react to is that the spring source of RSS is hatred for minorities and they would never be able to stomach Pakistan. The stand up comedy says that the buses that Shiv Sena activists were torching led to the extinction of the dinosaurs (buses). The buses would self bust themselves at the sight of the irate Sainiks. The RSS also lives with the illusion that Pakistan would self bust itself at the strong India that the RSS wants to turn into the vision of Bharat they have. The RSS saved its energy by shunning the freedom movement of Mahatma Gandhi for a later day fight they would wage against the Muslims. Their words prove that they are steady in their efforts and that has started bearing fruits. A whole community of butchers has been deprived of their livelihood and their righ to eat the food they and other Musllims and even Hindus like to eat. Instead of creating jobs for Indians within India we see ruination of jobs and sources of eating healthy food. So another dinosaurs is on the verge of extinction. The murder of Alwar farmer Pehlu Khan is continuing of the same juggernaut of Hindutva. The litmust test that proved Vijay cagey is that he and his RSS never fought racism. As their another gospel Anand Math of Bankam Chand Chatterjee shows they found the British benign and progressive and embraced them. They considered British rule as benevolent to India. Even the father of former PM AB Vajpayee gave untertaking that his son would behave favourably to the British and got him released from prison during his college days. But the crux of the matter is Vijay using the word ‘culture’. India is growing into a monolithic culture which is saffron and is intolerant of people of different cultures. Instead of firing Chief Minister Modi from his post Vajpayee allowed him to continue because Muslims do not live with their neighbours peacefully. That conclave of BJP at Goa in September 2002 showed their true colour. Modi showed his hand by picking up Yogi Adityanath for UP and that kind of “perilous embracing”; carrying on hard core Hindutva ideilogy in the garb of development. There is a culture of impunity of which Vijay never even hints because it involves cow vigilantism. He and others in RSS. VHP, Bajrang Dal take it as a matter of their right because to them might is right. Alwar and Dadri have gone into history. So has the conclave at Goa where PM Vajpayee wanted to replace Modi in Gujarat but the hardliners prevented him from doing his own rajdharm. He had said at 4 pm on February 27, 2002 that the fire on the train at Godhra was just accident. He even wrote a letter to Modi on June 1, 2002 which is a detailed intervention into the affairs of a state, that too Gujarat! He was aware of the roads in Gujarat were in the hands of the RSS, Bajrang Dal etc. If it was 2002, Alwar also witnessed how the road there was in the control of the cow vigilantes for more than two hours when the activists and hardliners beat up again and again farmers who were carrying cows for their farm for milking. They were milkmen. One of them was beaten to pulp and died on the road. The police stood and watched the lynching and mahem. One of the cops laughed at the event, why has this happened? It was because Vajpayee and Modi both are captive to the RSS ideology. Thus Indian democracy is doomed to die because we have the rulers and their hordes who do not cherish the values of democracy nor have the institutions established by the Constitution of the Republic of India cultivated the culture of civilized law and order and fair play. Why the clash of civilization in India which has such long history of civilization? ------ [1] Graham E Fuller. A World Without Islam. New York Back Bay Books 2010 p. 6 [2] Foot Soldiers of the Constitution. Teesta Setalvad 2017. For quotations of Golwalkar and examples of violence. See Vajpayee’s letter on pages 151-152. [3]http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/assassination-attempt-on-field-marshal-cariappa-and-hanging-of-the-conspirators-/297734 [4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/racist-thoughts-deep-inside-are-coming-out/articleshow/58075506.cms [5] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/p-chidambaram-reacts-to-tarun-vijays-remarks/article17892210.ece