Let Pakistan see reason

By P L Khushu

The world scenario is presently chocked and tied with only one cry, which is substantially linked up with terrorism and its ultimate end. The outbursting of this cry came to recognition only after recent brutal acts of terrorism in New York. United States of America is horribly shaken and rightly so and is aspiring to catch the mentors of such acts dead or alive. It is certainly appreciating to see the super power of the world so much concerned about the global terrorism and certainly deserves all types of moral support by all the nations of the world. India in this context has to be amongst the front ranking nations, but while doing so, the support has to be limited to the status of moral sympathy and support only. Over indulgence like that of Pakistan can be counter productive and harmful in the long run for the Indian nation and its nationals. India has been facing the brutal acts of cross border terrorism for the last more than a decade and serious concern in this regard have been shown and aired by Indian nation right from the first day of the start of terrorism in all forums of International status. Beyond just listening to the Indian woes, nothing tangible or substantial was done by any other super power to come to the rescue of the Indian Polity, beyond extending a civilised support to the scorning part of the cross border terror and its ism. Had these super powers understood and appreciated the Indian concern well in time, today’s situation of America would have never arisen. Now that cross border terrorism has taken the shape of global terrorism and has become vivid and nacent because of the New York attack, the think tank probables of the Indian Governance has to have a cautious approach towards the same. Terror sponsored by an individual or group of individuals, as also a single country or nation should in no way be commuted as a war or hate for the populace of a particular faith or religion, particularly for the Indian nation where people of different religious faiths live, the conceptual part of terror should be got diluted and annihilated by involving all the saner sections and sects of the Indian population. India’s concern about the terrorism shall continue to be on the log books as long as the same is active, be it in J&K, North Eastern States or Punjab. The terrorism in Punjab has ultimately got buried some how in Punjab itself. This has happened with the able and determined civilised administrative and political capabilities of Indian Governance and not through a war hysteria or cry as is being witnessed now globally. India has to be a part of the International community for deciphering and uprootment process of the terrorism but the approach has to be more of human nature as against the total war cry which has entangled the whole world right now. Super powers or nations getting grouped for absolute war may do so at their own will, but it should certainly not engulf Indian society or soil. India believes in democratic means and ends and has thus to continue the same as a special & specific non-aligned nation. Aspecting the war cry of super powers through India’s corridor, will mean something bad for this nation. While all the sympathies should be with America because of New York carnage and other brutal acts on it, somebody, somewhere shall have to remind and tell such powers of their erstwhile role in regard to terrorism. Now that it has engulfed these powers also, let them face it within their own parameters of course, with a sympathetic pat from India.

War against terrorism by some super powers should be their own concern as obvious inferences by such a cry against a class or community or a sect will mean a bigger trouble. India can hardly afford to be an active partner of such a type of cry as this nation believes in tolerance, mutual respect, good governance of brotherhood as also supreme regard for human rights, which our Constitution guarantees in un-equivocal terms.

India is facing and countering cross border terrorism for our suspects in this regard are evidently identified and known. Our neighbour viz, Pakistan has exposed itself to a deep degree of bad taste and grace and to our extreme astonishment the present rulers of that country are cobwebed within their own web of self inscribed web of terror. It is a situation of choosing between the devil and a deep sea for such rulers now. India has to tackle them with wisdom as no further recognition for their such acts is needed. Entire India and its nationals know that our problem is from our neighbour. Simultaneously if some good amount of wisdom is left with the terrorists operating in J&K state, they should abandon the patronage of Pakistan now atleast as it has left the Talibani’s and Afgani’s in lurch. Similarly super powers should also understand the double speak of Pakistan. They can not be friends of any body as per their latest approach. While as Pakistan Government is now bent to support international effort to curb terrorism, what about its own acts of promoting of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. Even the present ruler of Pakistan, General Parvez Musharraf is on record to have said that if India does not leave Kashmir, the Jihadis would do an Afganistan on it and Pakistan can not stop them as they are freedom fighters. It is now looking like to put the cart before the horse. The general has deserted the same Afganistan and there was rather no other alternative beyond that. Similar wisdom shall prevail upon such rulers in regard to Kashmir also. No power in the world can sustain terrorism now. It has to go and let it go happily without further blood shed. The powers which are trying to create an impression that terrorism is an offshoot of jihad are miserably mistaken in so far as Indian polity is concerned. Recently, Iran has dubbed ideological formulations of the Taliban as a ‘vulgarisation of Islam’. Indian is proud to contain Islam in its lap for ages. Thus the war cry across the sea trying to invade Taliban or Afganistan should not be concluded as Indian inclusion also. Now that the recognition of global terrorism is almost a certified entity, the cross border terrorism of Pakistan in J&K should die naturally.

Albeit the human cry across the whole world the abettors behind terrorism have managed to inject another dose of terror and mass killings while executing such an attack recently in J&K Assembly campus. So many innocent human lives have been wiped away for no fault of theirs. Under such circumstances it has to be declared now finally that what bin Laden is to America and others, Pakistan is a bigger bin Laden to India and particularly to Kashmir. If perforce India is forced to engage itself with International Community for fighting global terrorism, and capture Bin La Din dead or alive, the fore-most pre condition in this context on India’s part should be to get Pakistan isolated as a terrorist country and ensure all types of resolute barriers of sorts to be imposed upon it by the International Community, particularly the western powers. Pakistan seems to have earned a cake by another proxy deceit by getting Talibans marginalised and disowning them for foreign consumption as also domestic consumption. Since its economy as also internal security is at its lowest ebb presently, it has scored a point by siding with USA and U.K. unceremoniously and thus sold their pound of flesh by getting economic support by way of millions of dollars from Western Countries. This speaks volumes about they credentials of the present rulers of Pakistan. Thus India has to continue to go with its declared war against terrorism alone. Dr. Farooq’s sentiments expressed by him recently and his tearful emotional sobbings, along with his other colleagues of the J&K Assembly should be considered the extreme parameters of the broken patience of the people of Jammu & Kashmir..

Indian’s apart, the people of J&K should not be made to suffer now on a different count. Kashmir is a war torn place and what New York has seen now the people of Jammu & Kashmir have been tasting it ever since a decade. Terrorism has broken its culture, economy, as also beauty. What did the mentors across the border get out of it. Probably nothing, other than devastation of Kashmir. Let them understand the language & see the writing on the wall that now it is their turn. Let them not devastate humanity.

The simmering casteist cauldron

By Sondip Bhattacharya

The ruling BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is engagad in evolving a new setup of caste permutation and combination because the forthcoming State Assembly elections are critical for the ruling coalition. The outcome will have a direct impact on the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the NDA Government at the Centre. Mr. Vajpayee has himself conveyed the message to the members of the Sangh Parivar that the future of his NDA Government is linked with the outcome of UP Assembly elections. BJP’s Chief Minister Rajnath Singh has already put forward a new scheme of "reservations within reservations" and "jobs within jobs" for the Dalits and the backward castes by slicising (from slice) the quotas around Backward Castes, the Extremely Most Backward Castes, and the Muslim Backward Castes. By opening a Pandora’s box of "socially backward versus other socially backward castes", Mr. Singh has posed a potent political challenge to the caste-based Bahujan Samaj party of Mr. Kanshi Ram, and the Samajwadi Party of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav.

It deserves to be stated that political compromises made by the Congress in UP have led to a situation where it is not at all in the reckoning and now the political triangle consists of the BJP, BSP and Samajwadi Party. This is the reason that the BJP is playing a "caste card in politics" because its two main political rivals have strong caste-based social support among the Jatavas or Chamars of the BSP, and Yadavs of the Samajwadi party. None of these three contenders for power in UP are taking the Congress even as a marginal factor in the forthcoming elections. Mr. Rajnath Singh appointed a Social Justice Committee under Mr. Hukam Singh to look into the 27 per cent quota of reservations of public positions for the backward castes of Uttar Pradesh.

This Social Justice Committee of the BJP State Government has followed the path shown by Mr. V. P. Singh, who played the caste reservation game to protect his temporary prime ministership in August, 1990. Incidentally, Mr. V. P. Singh, the "messiah" of the worst kind of casteist politics in India, proclaimed the acceptance of Mandal Commission Report on reservations in public services in the name of social justice for the backward castes. It is ironical that the worst kind of casteist politicians of UP conceal their activity of vulgar manipulative politics by taking recourse to the ideology of social justice.

The Rajnath Singh Government’s new policy of sub-quotas for reservations is based on sub-division of 27 per cent quota into five per cent for the Yadavs, nine per cent for eight most backward castes which also includes Lodhs, Kurmis and the Jats; and the remaining 14 per cent of reservations are for the 70 other backward castes. Further, 22 Muslim castes have been also given benefits of reservations in the category of Extremely Most Backward Castes. This new casteist politics of the BJP has completely rattled Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mr. Kanshi Ram and other sub-caste leaders, who feel threatened because "quotas within quota" caste policy has directly hit the caste support base of the two leaders. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav has jumped into the "new debate" by observing that "we want 11 to 15 per cent of State Government jobs to be reserved for the poor from the upper castes". Mr. Kanshi Ram, while criticising the policy of "reservation within reservation" of the Manuwadi BJP, has demanded reservation in the private sector.

Another UP leader Beni Prasad Verma wants "reservation on the basis of caste percentage of Uttar Pradesh population" and Mr. Kanshi Ram too wants caste-based census of the State’s population for determining the quota for reservations for each caste. The national leadership of the BJP, which is deeply involved in the politics of elections to the UP Assembly, desires that the Hukum Singh UP Social Justice Committee should also find ways and means for five per cent "economically backward" sections among the upper castes.

Why is the caravan of caste and sub-caste based reservations moving forward? Why has the BJP jumped into the caste-based politics of UP? What has been the impact of caste-based politics on the governance of the State? How has politics of caste impacted civil society in UP? These questions about the ongoing drama of casteisation, communalisation, criminalisation and complete marginalisation of secular, progressive forces in UP cannot be answered without contextualisation of the social order in the State.

A few important feature of political and socio-cultural profile of UP may be mentioned to properly comprehend its continuing downslide. UP was a very important headquarters of the Congress, socialists, communists, Muslim Leaguers and Hindu Maha Sabha-ites, and all these political tendencies were actively involved in political competition during the struggle for freedom. Every major ideological group was found in an active contest in UP and every major ideology had its own active followers and leaders. Every major ideology in the State thus received its intellectual sustenance from highly developed universities and colleges.

The Uttar Pradesh intelligentsia, along with the literati, supported and supplemented contending ideologies in the State. On the eve of independence, UP launched its journey with all the assets and liabilities of this historical inheritance. If on the one hand, UP could boast of its ideological and organisational capital, on the other, Partition of India left the State as a completely fractured society. UP needed a healing touch because its leadership and political formations had not only to fight against the monster of communalism, the Muslim minority too had to be assured that it was absolutely safe in India. Nehru’s Congress, Acharya Narendra Dev’s socialists and Z.A. Ahmad’s communists were very active in providing a socially progressive political umbrella to all communities against communal forces in the State.

The major generalisation from this pre-independence and post-independence social profile of UP is that it started its democratic journey with a good network of party organisation, trade unions, kisan sabhas, student unions and provincial, regional, district, city, town and village level organisational leadership. How was this great asset of politics squandered away? The Nehru Congress at the apex was socially progressive, but Congress leadership in UP was socially conservative and practitioner of caste and soft Hindutva. Congress social class and caste alliance in UP consisted of the "twice born castes" with the hegemony of Brahmins, Thakurs, Rajputs, Banias and Kayasthas in this order, and for the winning of an election, the Congress created a powerful social constituency among Muslims and Scheduled Castes.

The political superstructure of UP reveals the social essence of the Congress’s leadership. Govind Ballabh Pant, Dr Sampurnanand, Chandra Bhanu Gupta, Kamlapati Tripathi, H. N. Bahuguna, Narain Dutt Tiwari and V. P. Singh occupied the highest echelons of power in the UP Congress, and the odd man out was Chaudhary Charan Singh, who was looked down upon by the high caste leaders as a rough Jat peasant. Not only this. All the major players in UP politics combined their social conservatism with the practice of soft Hindutva and caste-based loyalties. How far the three major political parties benefit from the emerging casteist formula remains to be seen. But what is certain that the State has been torn asunder ; and one can only expect violence during the election. INAV