Sabrang Print Media Monitor February 20, 2004

NATIONAL ISSUES THE MUSLIM FACTOR 'Why is Mulayam doing it now?'

1.Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Friday half-day for schools:

Mulayam draws up a Friday timetable Several Muslim community leaders have strongly criticised this move calling it tokenism for political purposes. When contacted, Muslim Personal Law Board member Kamal Farooqi said: ‘‘This posturing isn’t going to help us...we need more schools, not an order that will be used by communal forces to attack us.’’ Said ex-MP Syed Shahabuddin: ‘‘Nobody asked for it. You can always offer namaz during lunch break. His (Mulayam’s) motive is political.’’ The state government order, issued on Monday, gave no reason but directed all government schools and colleges affiliated to the Uttar Pradesh board to conduct teaching work only till 12 noon every Friday. The BJP alleged that it is a ‘‘politically motivated’’ move to woo Muslim voters ahead of the polls.Uttar Pradesh BJP leader Vinay Katiyar charged the Mulayam Singh government with ‘‘communalising education’’ and demanded similar relaxation on Tuesdays to ‘‘help Hindus offer prayers in temples.’’ A section of Muslim clerics have backed the government decision.[ Source: The Indian Express]

Mulayam’s Sop While some organisations and individuals welcomed the move, others reacted cautiously. rediff.com presents some of the reactions:

Abdul Hameed Nomani, spokesman of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind: It is a good move as Muslim students will now be able to offer afternoon prayers. But we have to see the timing of the decision. We should avoid doing anything that disturbs peaceful environment in the country. It may help communal forces to spread canards about Muslims. We are going through a crucial phase, as elections will be held in another two months or so. (Jamiat has several educational institutions and Islamic seminaries (madrasas) in Uttar Pradesh) Rahat Abrar, spokesman of Aligarh Muslim University: The order is not going to make any difference here as the university has been practicing half day off on Fridays ever since its existence.

(The university caters mainly to Muslim students) Syed Shahabuddin, member of the All Muslim Personal Law Board: It is nothing but to help the BJP in the elections. It is the outcome of BJP's tacit support in the formation of the Yadav government in UP. Historian Mohammad Sajjad of AMU: Yadav has an understanding with the BJP to corner their common enemy -- Congress party. The move is targeted at consolidating the Hindu votes for the BJP and Muslim votes for the Samajwadi Party. But the electorate has become very mature. And Yadav's leaning towards the BJP has become evident. So it may not help Yadav to woo Muslim voters. Hamid Ansari, former AMU vice-chancellor and retired diplomat: I wish political parties have real agenda to empower and educate the backward Muslim community. Unfortunately this is not happening. Farooq Sheikh, actor and television anchor: I am shooting right now and rediff.com is the first to let me know about this news. At present, I can only tell you that I don't understand the logic of giving half day for schools on Friday. If the government is planning Friday half day then there must be some logic behind. I will have to know more about this issue before commenting. Javed Anand, co-editor of Communalism Combat: I am opposed to this decision. I don't know what is the logic behind it. I think this is being done keeping the parliamentary election in mind. Javed Akhtar, film writer and president of Muslim for Secular Democracy: We don't appreciate this gesture. Instead of this the government should think of building more schools and colleges for Muslims and other weaker section of the society. This fruitless gesture won't help Muslims in any way. It will only benefit the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal who will propagate the appeasement attitude of the UP government for Muslims. When France is banning the headscarves and Jewish caps in their country we are trying to appease some community by giving Friday half day in schools or playing Saraswati Vandana in schools. We should try to uphold our secular values of our country rather than getting involved in such acts.[ Source: Rediff on Net]

TIPS: It is a dangerous political gambit that can only help the sangh parivar. All Muslims will get out of this is one more charge of ‘minority appeasement’. Not surprisingly, even people like Kamal Farooqui of the All India Muslim Personal Board, Syed Shahabuddin and Maulana Kalbe Jawwad (an important Shia leader from UP) have criticised the move. To establish its own credential as a party that believes in justice to ALL and meaningless appeasement of NONE, it is critical that the Congress as party and Muslim leaders within it (particularly leaders from or in-charge of UP) not only criticise it in strong terms but even threaten an agitation against the move. ‘Secular parties’ failure to speak out will doubtless club the party with Mulayam Singh’s appeasement and work to the BJP’s benefit. This is particularly important since the BJP which is now trying to woo Muslims will most likely use this instance to say: ‘We believe in solving the real problems of Muslims and not token measures.’

BJP asks Muslims to give it a chance Interestingly, the BJP's bid to woo the Muslims has been supplemented by the RSS leadership's dialogue with several Muslim religious leaders, which is supposed to kick-start negotiations to resolve the Ayodhya imbroglio. Soon after the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP came out with the "Chennai Declaration" asking its cadres to try and win over Muslims. In 2000, then BJP chief Bangaru Laxman gave his "Nagpur Message", recalling Deendayal Upadhyay's famous quote that "every section of Indian society is the flesh of our flesh and the blood of our blood". The 2002 Gujarat riots and subsequent assembly polls took a heavy toll on whatever little credibility the BJP had managed to build among the community. The BJP's case before the Muslims now is that they should give it a chance. The party is showcasing— as proof of its intentions — the Rs 250-crore haj subsidy, which is an all-time high.[ Source: The Hindustan Times]

Arif Khan all set to join BJP The former Minister spent considerable time and energy in Gujarat in the aftermath of the communal conflagration and plans to concentrate on the State to help bring the Muslims and Hindus together. "I more interested in establishing a relationship with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh so that together we can work to heal the wounds and rebuild the trust between the communities," Mr. Khan quit the Government in 1986, following differences over the Shah Bano case, and launched a campaign against the fundamentalist elements within the minority community. He, however, sought to build bridges with the Muslim community by targeting the BJP, especially when he was an MP in 1998. Today, he believes that the Sangh Parivar alone can hold the nation together. "The secular parties just cannot do the job; they have lost all credibility,'' he says. [Source: The Hindu]

Flash in the pan? (Opinion: Praful Bidwai) Indeed, distressing new facts suggest that the institutions and agencies responsible for investigating and punishing Gujarat’s crimes themselves colluded in their commission — and cover-up. If further proof was at all needed of this, the Gujarat High Court has furnished it in the Best Bakery case by dismissing the plea for retrial. Its verdict not only ignores the intimidation of key witnesses, it even conjures up “a definite design and conspiracy” by human rights lawyers to “malign” Gujarat and “create a rift between two communities...” There can be no stronger argument for trying all the major cases of communal violence outside Gujarat than this judgment and the CBI’s findings. Regrettably, the Supreme Court is still reluctant to follow its own logic in the Jayalalitha case, and order this. Meanwhile, we citizens are being asked to erase our memory of what happened after the gory Godhra killings. Beginning February 28, over 2,000 people were speared, torched and hacked to death in systematically planned, coordinated and executed violence. Erasure was the central message from ’s latest appearance in Gujarat, when he praised Modi and appealed to Gujaratis to “forget the past”. The captains of our industry too abjectly genuflected before Modi after some initial — very welcome — criticism. The middle-class is being told that the Gujarat pogrom, although horrendous, was a mere ‘aberration’; it wasn’t essential to the BJP’s ideology and politics, nor connected to Hindutva. They must ‘forget’ Gujarat and vote for the BJP in ‘Shining India’. The ‘BJP minus Gujarat’ idea is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. The essential character of Gujarat’s violence cannot be understood except by reference to Hindutva’s overall project. This wasn’t just another communal riot abetted by the police, nor a series of discreet hate-crimes. The violence was calculated to subjugate and humiliate a whole community. [Source: The Hndustan Times] ‘Anti-Laloo Muslim front born in ’. (‘For us, no political party is untouchable to us anymore’). [Source: The Asian Age]

TIPS BJP is holding a meeting of minorities on February 25, where everyone from Vajpayee, to Advani to Naidu will be present. This has to be challenged.

No feel good, says Advani LK Advani admits that the feeling good factor does not extend to the country’s farmers Advani tempers ‘feel-good’ hype Advani was addressing a group of Haryana farmers who thanked him for the government's decision to waive capital gain and tax deduction at source (TDS) for the agriculturists on their acquired land. Advani said a group of farmers had called on him some days ago for such a relief. He said he had talked to agriculture minister Rajnath Singh, which led to the Cabinet's decision. [Source: The Hndustan Times]

TIPS: As a large majority of India’s population is still rural, Advani’s admission amounts to accepting that the vast majority of Indians are not feeling good. Add to this rural population, the urban poor – unemployment, retrenchment, housing etc – and the country’s minorities who feel increasingly insecure, and it is easy to see why the overwhelming majority of Indians are not feeling good. It would have been good if Advani had realised this earlier. Then he might perhaps have been able to persuade his colleagues in the government not to fritter away hundreds of crores of public money on an illusory ‘India Shining’ extravaganza. How many schools, hospitals or other schemes for the poor could have been implemented with the same money.

India has not addressed `serious problems': U.S. panel Even if nearly half the members sitting on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom had dissented with the idea of putting India on the list of Countries of Particular Concern or CPCs as it is known, there is "no disagreement" in the Commission "that there are serious problems that have not been addressed," says the Commission Chair, Michael Young. "... The important thing to keep in mind is to not get lost in the statutory technicalities ... there is ... legitimate disagreement among the Commissioners with respect to whether India has risen to the level in terms of the problems that had not been addressed effectively to the statutory standard. The statutory standard is a serious and a high one: It's systematic, egregious, ongoing abuse," Mr. Young replied. "Nevertheless, there is no disagreement on the Commission ... that there are serious problems that haven't been addressed. There have been fatal attacks against the Muslims and Christians, and they continue ... Several government officials from the ruling party, the BJP, have rather publicly allied themselves with Hindu extremists and the RSS whose members systematically employ hate speech of the most violent kind and have sought legislation to prohibit the religious conversion of the Dalits as well as others from Hinduism," Mr. Young said. [Source: The Hindu]

Shourie’s Corruption ? Shourie denies notional loss on Mumbai Centaur Hotel sale The Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, today denied that there had been any "notional loss" to the exchequer on the sale of the Mumbai Centaur Hotel to the Batra Hospitality company, though the property was resold after six months. Reacting to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the revenue loss as a result of the deal and the issue having been raised by the (Marxist), he said there was no way to prevent such re- sales unless a lock-in period is prescribed in the sale deed. Mr. Shourie denied allegations by the Opposition parties that the hotel had been sold to a bidder close to the sangh parivar. There were originally four bidders. Of them only one was left in the second round. Those in the first round included the Indian Hotels Company of the Taj group, the ITC and Morepen Hotels. As for the owner of the Batra Hospitality, A.L. Batra, he said: "No one from the RSS has spoken to me (about this issue)." [Source: The Hindu] ADVANI STATE PRIVILEGES State plane for DPM: turbulence may force govt to ground idea A day ahead of the all-party meeting with the Election Commission, pressure is building on the Government not to push ahead with its request to the EC that Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani be allowed state aircraft for electioneering. Though a section within the Government feel that the DPM does not need the EC’s permission to use state aircraft, sources said the BJP has already hired an eight-seater special aircraft for Advani’s travel during the campiagn for the Lok Sabha elections. The other reason behind a possible rethink is that EC rules do not allow the media to travel in the special aircraft during the election season. [Source: The Indian Express]

BJP Hype

BJP’s weapons of mass persuasion (Opinion: S.S.Gill) The BJP has, no doubt, performed well in certain areas. But this euphoria has little relation to ground reality. It owes much of its efficacy to the marketing of BJP’s brand equity by ingenious media management, by fielding telegenic faces and glib talkers having a penchant for one-liners. Even the results of the recent assembly elections have been projected as a turning point. These elections are supposed to have secularised the Indian polity. The loss of three states by the Congress to the BJP is attributed to bad governance. It is ironical how a party committed to Hindutva and sectarian politics is hawking a secular agenda of development and growth. In fact, developmental issues were always an important factor in electoral battles. This is the main reason for the anti-incumbency factor. The level of deprivation in India is so high that even reasonably competent chief ministers cannot even partially satisfy the people’s expectations. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the Congress had already ruled for two full terms and it was most unlikely for it to return to power. In Rajasthan, its chief minister’s performance was commendable. But the handicap of incumbency was compounded by caste politics, Hindutva spillover from Gujarat and weak organisational backup. With regard to the triumph of secular issues and marginalisation of identity politics, these elections deserve only one-and-a-half cheers. Is it possible that perceptions and prejudices formed over millennia are shaken off in one go? Is it logical to ascribe Laloo Yadav’s grip over Bihar or Modi’s victory in Gujarat to good governance? India’s mosaic is too complex to be configured by single issues. It differs from state to state and election to election. Political analysts have pointed out that whereas India never shone so brightly for the twenty per cent comprising the middle classes, the shine has not touched the remaining eighty per cent. Andhra Pradesh is the showpiece of the NDA. Crushed under debt, thousands of its farmers have committed suicide. Starvation deaths are routinely reported from several states. Mountains of food grain rot in godowns. Per capita consumption of cereals and pulses has gone down in the last decade. India’s population is increasing at the rate of two per cent and its employment growing at less than one per cent per year. The BJP has shown keen awareness of the fact that Indian politics has become professionalised. It has created an efficient media outfit, its party organisation runs like a well-oiled machine. RSS cadres work tirelessly to mobilise electoral support for the party. The sangh runs 40,000 single-teacher schools in Madhya Pradesh alone. That is how it wiped out the Congress from the tribal belt. It was the same in Chhattisgarh. The BJP wins hands down in media management and organisational efficiency.[ Source: The Indian Express]

Now, booklet shining to tom-tom Govt achievements Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad released three booklets on the achievements of the BJP-led NDA government. The print run for this is between 50,000 and 70,000. Along with one normal size booklet on NDA achievements under the leadership of Vajpayee, second booklet on Central assistance to states, and a third, smaller handbook spelling out the government’s shining achievements, pocket-size in about 100 pages with graphics and text was made public on Wednesday. The booklets come at a time when the government has come under fire for spending taxpayer’s money on its propaganda for Rs 63.5 crores, just before the elections. And this is just the tip. Already the government has spent Rs 150 crores on television and print to spread its message. [Source: The Indian Express]

It's a good slogan, says Bavarian Minister "India Shining" is a very good slogan, the visiting Bavarian Minister President and leader of Germany's Christian Social Union, Edmund Stoiber, said at a press conference today. Asked whether his comments amounted to endorsing the Vajpayee Government's "India Shining" advertisement campaign, which comes just before the Lok Sabha elections, Dr. Stoiber said: "It's a slogan everyone can identify with." [Source: The Hindu]

ELECTION SCHEDULE Four-phase polls likely in April-May Source: The Indian Express Union Home Secretary Anil Baijal held detailed discussions with the chief election commissioner and the two election commissioners today on the requirements for security forces and the time span of the coming Lok Sabha elections. Authorities have hinted at four-phase polls spread over three weeks after the third week of April. The tentative dates for the polls, sources said, were April 19 and 26 and May 3 and 10. The final schedule is likely to be announced by February-end.

EC seeks security plan from Home Ministry The Election Commission today held a crucial meeting with the Union Home Secretary, Anil Baijal, and discussed with him the Government's poll- preparedness. This is the first meeting of the Full Commission with Mr. Baijal. The Chief Election Commissioner, T.S. Krishnamurthy, and the Election Commissioners, B.B. Tandon and N. Gopalaswamy, were present during the 30- minute meeting. [Source: The Hindu]

ARIF SKIPS DATE, HEMA PACKS BJP POLL PUNCH Source: The Indian Express ‘‘I have already made my mind clear. You are talking of the BJP but I am going a step further. I want to work for the Sangh Parivar,’’ he said. ‘‘The Congress has only exploited people. I am turning to the people who alone have the capacity to bridge the Hindu-Muslim gap.’’ He said the Gujarat riots had to be seen in perspective. ‘‘I backed the Congress over Gujarat. They called me to Gujarat but did not bother to call their own Muslim leaders. It is all very easy to keep harping on Gujarat but very difficult to live through it. Those who talk of Gujarat fail to realise that the houses of Hindus and Muslims are contiguous, with common walls. You have to get the two communities together.’’

REGIONS NORTH EAST HRD Ministry seeks cut in North-East budget Disclosing this here today, the Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, today told The Hindu that the HRD Ministry had written to the Finance Ministry with a copy to the Planning Commission to exclude it from the mandatory provision of ten per cent of its budget to the Non Lapsable Pool of Central Resoures (NLCPR). Describing the HRD Ministry move as "very unfortunate," Mr. Gogoi said that his Government would lodge a strong protest with the Centre and oppose it. He said he was intimated about the HRD Ministry move by the State Chief Secretary, J.P. Rajkhowa. The "New Initiatives for North Eastern Region" announced in 1996 had stipulated that at least ten per cent of the budget(s) of the Central Ministries/Department would be earmarked for the development of the northeastern States. [Source: The Hindu]

ANDHRA PRADESH Rs 225-cr grant for AP to tackle Naxal menace As part of its action plan to fight the growing Naxalite activities in Andhra Pradesh, the Centre has sanctioned a grant of Rs 225 crore to the state government and stepped up co-ordinated efforts to tackle the menace. With 15 out of the total 23 districts in the state being identified as Naxalite-affected, the Centre has sanctioned Rs 15 crore to each district [Source: The Indian Express]

GUJARAT 41 held in Godhra Source: The Hindu

JHARKAND Munda’s mass marriages for mass appeal In a state where nearly 30 per cent of the 2.68 crore people live below the poverty line (BPL), marriages for the poor mean a simple ceremony devoid of any pomp and show. But now, a mass marriage comes packed with Rs 10,000 or Rs 5,000 in cash, a sari, dhoti, bedsheet, quilt, anklet and a silver ring worth Rs 5,000 — thanks to the Mukhya Mantri Kanyadaan Yojna. Munda had announced the scheme on Republic Day this year, with an annual outlay of Rs 10 crore. ‘‘We are only trying to help the BPL families by providing them the means to get married. This is only one way to make them know the government has not forgotten them,’’ said BJP spokesperson U.S. Kedia. [Source: The Indian Express

BSP to go it alone in LS polls The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own in Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir (J and K). Announcing this at a press conference at the State BSP headquarters here today, the National BSP general secretary, who is in charge of the party affairs in the North, Narender Kashyap, said the BSP would contest all the 34 Lok Sabha seats in these States.[ Source: The Hindu]

KERALA BJP promises RS seat to Thirunavukkarasar The Bharatiya president, Venkaiah Naidu, today promised to give a seat to the Minister of State for Communications, Thirunavukkarasar, at the earliest opportunity.[ Source: The Hindu]

When India Inc cheers women at work, at top From barons and businessmen to highrollers and investment managers, they all moved to the sidelines to cheer as the first FE (Financial Express)-Electrolux Awards for Women in Business were presented at The Oberoi, Mumbai this evening.As the winners stepped forward, Union Finance minister Jaswant Singh added to the celebratory atmosphere by announcing that India’s third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) had grown 8.9 per cent. [Source: The Indian Express]

BIHAR Another good-news story from Bihar has a tragic, brutal end Masahara Yadav, mukhiya of Sahuri village, who taught himself how to read and write when he was 42 years old and then went on to lead a fight against local land sharks, was shot dead. But that’s just half of the horrific story. With the police and local administration watching yesterday, 15,000 residents of Sahuri, in Begusarai district, lynched four of the six suspects in Yadav’s murder—even ‘‘snatching’’ two of them from a police station where they had been kept in custody. [Source: The Indian Express]

Battle to beard Laloo begins The fight in the state is between the clean-shaven Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and the ‘beard (and moustache) brigade’ comprising Mr Nitish Kumar, Mr Sharad Yadav, Mr Sushil Kumar Modi, Mr Nand Kishore Yadav and Mr Tarakant Jha. The RJD chief, party sources said, is enjoying ‘sound sleep’ with no fear of losing ground since he is already ‘grounded’! “He who is down needs fear no fall,” explained the state party president, Mr Abdul Bari Siddiqui, adding that his party wanted to better its performance in the Lok Sabha polls. In the last polls, the RJD won seven seats in undivided Bihar. But three MPs — Mr Nagmani (Chatra), Mr Anwarul Haque (Shivhar) and Mr Sukhdeo Paswan (Araria) — switched over to the BJP, reducing the RJD’s tally to four in the Lok Sabha. [Source: The Statesman]

MAHARASHTRA Sena to turn sober, hi-tech Bal Thackeray's oratory skills and his vocabulary — largely unprintable — has been the substance of Sena campaigns so far. However, now his son and Shiv Sena working president Uddhav Thackeray has undertaken the task of unleashing a hi-tech campaign against the Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra. The Sena has formed an election campaign and media management cell, to be handled by senior leaders like Subhash Desai, Vilas Avchat, Ram Bhankal and others. For the first time, the campaign will be managed from Shivalaya — the party's office at Nariman Point — and not from Thackeray's residence Matoshree. Senior leaders realise that the party needs a battery of "sweetly reasonable speakers, "so we will have professionals teaching our leaders the skills of public speaking," Desai said. Source: The Hndustan Times (Mumbai)

CHRISTIAN CONVERSION Faith accomplice (Opinion: Arvind Kala) Why is India so suspicious of Christian proselytisation? The chief reason is the Catholic Church’s spectacular success in the North-east. Its evangelical zeal and charitable work there proved so effective that Mizoram is 83 per cent Christian, Nagaland 80 per cent, Meghalaya 52 per cent and Manipur 28 per cent. And most of these Christian conversions have occurred after 1947 when a newly-independent India attracted tens of thousands of Christian foreign missionaries. India’s two other regions with Christian populations are south India plus Goa, and Chotanagpur’s tribal belt, comprising 28 districts of , Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. These three regions account for 90 per cent of India’s 23 million Christians. India is cited by the Catholic Church as a region where it has met with ‘failure’. Only 2.3 per cent of India is Christian despite 200 years of British rule. Yet, missionary work in India is so well-organised that the BBC reported in December 2002 that the Evangelical Church of India intended to set up a church in every Indian village. Facts like this worry the VHP. History shows that the poor in India are receptive to the pull of Christianity. Forty per cent of India’s Christians come from scheduled castes, 30 per cent from scheduled tribes, 20 per cent from backward castes and only 10 per cent from the upper castes. [Source: The Hndustan Times]