http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ws171009RamPuniyani2.asp

Posted on Oct 09, 2009

WEB SPECIAL   Is it a Crime to be born a Muslim in India? By Ram Puniyani The rising tide of communal violence from the decade of 1980 has consolidated the communal politics, politics in the name of religion. The party riding on the chariot of religious nationalism became the second largest party and tasted power at center for six long years and is now entrenched in few states and is knocking at the door of power in few other states. The hope that its recent defeat in Lok Sabha elections will reduce the impact of communal politics in society or will ensure that all communities can breathe the air of civil rights and equal citizenship rights with ease, seems to be like distant drums! The impact of the rise of this politics and accompanying effect on minorities has resulted in worsening their lot. This downward slide in the condition of minorities very obvious, is going from bad to worse, to worst. It has resulted in the conditions for minorities where they have to live in fear, alienation and the impact of constant profiling in different walks of life. This communal politics has been talking of Hindu nation, has been spreading hate against minorities, against Muslims in particular. The Muslim community has been the major target of attack and has been bearing a huge brunt of the divisive politics being spearheaded by RSS, its progeny and by those infected by the RSS ideology. They are not only there in the state machinery and media but also in other crucial spots of Indian social, economic and political life. The worsening plight of Muslim community got reconfirmed in the recently held national meet on ‘What it means to be a Muslim in India Today’, organized by Anhad in Delhi (Oct 3-5).   The meeting was addressed by the victims and social activists working in the area of human rights particularly of minorities. The pain and anguish of the Muslim community was heart rending, coming through different narrations of illegal arrests, tortures, detentions and adverse judgments. The latest trick is to implicate the Muslim youth in multiple cases in different states. This will ensure their being behind the bars for good. The communal violence which has broken the back of the community is being supplemented by the intense and blind police action against innocent Muslim youth, in the name of terror attacks. While the communal violence is now being orchestrated at low intensity and is scattered far and wide, in the post 9/11 period another front for torturing the community has been opened. Here the modus oprendi is simple enough, there is ‘Intelligence’ tip and that makes our efficient police machinery to arrest the Muslim youth, being Muslim is the major ‘tip’ for arresting and torturing innocent youth by the guardians of law. Many a youth in the middle of their education for professional lives face immense obstacles, their illegal arrests are never compensated for and nor are they supported to complete their education despite being proved innocents. There had been many such arrests followed by all sort of illegal steps by the police. Using cars without number plates, taking victims blindfolded to farm houses for third degree tortures are new addition to the ‘efficient methods’ of the police machinery. There are enough grounds of doubts in Batla House encounter, but it will not be taken up for honest investigation. The argument to avoid honest investigation is that it will demoralize the police force. Can we have such a police force whose morale depends hiding truth? Following Mecca Masjid blast, there was a shooting by the police which killed more people than the number killed by blast. The pretext was that the crowd was menacing, which it was not. Truth of Ishrat Jahan case is out in the open but the perpetrators will remain in the seats of power unscathed, barring an odd official living in jail. While such enthusiasm in arresting Muslim youth is there for all to see, those arrested by Hemant Karkare’s ATS in Malegaon blast case, are currently being treated with kid gloves. The apprehension is that these guilty gang against whom evidence was collected by late Hemant Karkare may not get the punishment it deserves. The families battered by such brutal police actions and the families shattered by communal violence are on the streets unattended, marginalized and neglected by society and state. Those Muslims having successful business have been targeted to ensure breaking their economic backbone. This not only in Gujarat but also in other BJP ruled states. This economically marginalized community is practically boycotted by financial institutions, telephone companies and other. There are many cases where the community is being denied space for graveyards, which are either being taken away or not allowed to expand where there is need for more space. The plight of Shabana Azmi or Imraan Hashmi not getting the house in desired locality is not isolated; this phenomenon is becoming more widespread. The walls of separation along religious community lines are becoming stronger. The Sachar Commission and the Prime Minister’s 15 point program remain a showpiece for purposes best known to the state! The myths and stereotypes in the media and social space are very much there. The large section of school text books do reinforce the stereotypes and myths about the community. So where does all this lead us? In a democracy, in a secular state the minorities are provided a safety and dignity irrespective of their being a minority. The present condition of Muslims in India is nothing but abysmal from the point of view of security, economic condition and social life. A large section has started feeling the deprivations in a very painful manner. One recalls under the domination of Brahmanical values, ideology, the caste of Shudras was systematically denied the life of dignity and made to live in subjugation and ghettoization. The efforts of ‘Brahmanical ideology based politics’, the one of RSS and its progeny, is achieving the same pattern with some difference. Now Muslims are being reduced to second class citizens. This is precisely what RSS wants this is what is coming to be practiced at all the levels in the country. RSS progeny being in power or out of it does not matter as far as the life of Muslim community is concerned. The RSS workers and ideology have infiltrated the ‘social common sense’ through media and education. It has infiltrated the state machinery. The limit of this can be seen that RSS controlled Bhonsla Military School in Nasik is supplying large number of recruits for Indian army one of them being Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an accomplice of Pragya Singh Thakur, alleged culprits of Malegaon blast. If RSS, a fascist organization wrapping its politics in the cloak of Hindu religion, swaymsevaks can infiltrate army, which institution in the society is safe from slow communal fascist infiltration? Which institution can be trusted for upholding Indian Constitution? It is with this gloomy scenario around that many a victims deposing in the meeting said with pain and anguish, “Is it a crime to be born a Muslim in India?”

Posted on Oct 09, 2009

On Cluttered Ballots of India, Families Proliferate - By Jim Yardley - The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/world/asia/12india.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

On Cluttered Ballots of India, Families Proliferate

Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Rajendra Shekhawat campaigning in Amravati, where his parents once held elected office. His opponents belittle any suggestion that his family did not orchestrate his candidacy and call him a carpetbagger. More Photos >

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By JIM YARDLEY

Published: October 11, 2009

AMRAVATI, India — Rajendra Shekhawat, nicely polished in a pressed white shirt and neatly parted hair, his face sunburned from campaigning in the south Indian sun, says he is running for office as a common man. His pink cheeks suggest otherwise, though, since common men in India usually toil outdoors without requiring sunscreen.

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Nepotism in Indian Politics

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Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Supporters of Dr. Sunil Deshmukh, a radiologist and two-term Congress incumbent who was pushed aside by Congress Party leaders so that Mr. Shekhawat could run. Dr. Deshmukh is running as an Independent. More Photos »

Another clue is the elephant in every room in which he campaigns in this city in the state of Maharashtra: Mom. She is Pratibha Patil, the president of India.
“I’m not using my parents’ name at all,” Mr. Shekhawat, 42, stated in an upstairs office in his parents’ home, which he is indisputably using as a campaign headquarters. “I’m running on my own. But for sure, being in a political family for so many years does help me, and gives me easy accessibility for doing the work of the people.”
Democracy is built on the oft-tarnished ideal that any man or woman can get elected, but in India, home to the world’s biggest democracy, it helps to be part of a political family. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, scions of the governing Congress Party, is India’s version of the Kennedys. But other political dynasties, large and small, have proliferated so rapidly that many analysts believe nepotism is corroding the political system.
India’s chaotic politics can sometimes seem democratic to a fault: the election cycle rarely pauses and the country has roughly 1,050 registered national and regional political parties. But most of the major parties, including the majority Congress Party, are internally undemocratic; there are no primaries and party leaders discourage public dissent. Party bosses select candidates and have shown an increasing tendency to select their own relatives.
Here in Amravati, the decision by Congress Party leaders to run Mr. Shekhawat for Tuesday’s elections in Maharashtra State has provoked an angry backlash. He is running for a state assembly seat in the same district where his parents once held elected office. But to put him there, Congress leaders pushed aside Mr. Sunil Deshmukh, a former radiologist and two-term Congress incumbent with broad local support. Leaders offered Mr. Deshmukh the chance to run elsewhere, but he rebelled and is seeking his own seat as an independent.
“This is a fight against injustice,” declared Mr. Deshmukh, warming to his role as political insurgent. “If he is defeated, that will send a very strong message to all parties, no? If the person is only the son or daughter or a nephew of an important person, you can’t just thrust him on the people.”
Across India, political families are entrenched at every level of government and politics. At least nine of the 32 members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet either descended from political families or have children seeking or holding office. Parliament is littered with political families; a recent study found that 31 of the 58 women elected had a husband, brother, father or father-in-law in politics.
The trend is even more glaring at the state level. In Maharashtra, analysts estimate that 30 or more party candidates running this month are from political families. The state’s chief minister, the top executive post, is the son of a former chief minister. This is also the case in two other states while the Congress Party is strongly considering replacing the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh with his son.
“It has gotten into the DNA of the Indian political system,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, a founding member of the Association for Democratic Reform in New Delhi. “To control the workings of the party, the leader depends on trusted people. And one of the traditions of Indian culture is that you trust family members more than outsiders.”
Indian politics have a high turnover rate and voting blocs can be defined by region, religion, caste or community. Yet analysts say Indian voters favor a familiar family pedigree, partly because of a cultural reverence for the family and because of habits in some regions that trace back centuries. Several of the royal families who ruled over feudal states have today evolved into political families.
Modern India’s political marketplace is so crowded with parties and candidates that the “brand” of a familiar family name can bring an advantage, several analysts say. And the closed nature of political parties often perpetuates the dynastic problem; in several cases, rebels who broke from one party have formed their own and installed relatives around them.
Few political families are eager to step away from the power and lucre of office. In the state of Haryana, which has several local political dynasties, a recent study concluded that incumbents running for re-election had increased their personal wealth, on average, by 388 percent during their five years in office.
“Every political family these days is keen to keep someone in the field,” said Suhas Palshikar, who teaches politics at Pune University in Maharashtra. “Lots of resources are involved. Lots of networks are involved. And to put it crudely, a lot of money is involved.”
Mrs. Patil, 74, the Indian president, has less than three years remaining in her term. The position of president is largely ceremonial, with real power invested in the prime minister and his cabinet, though the presidency does command deference. Mrs. Patil’s press officer said the president had not been involved in her son’s candidacy but that the son, like anyone, has a constitutional right to seek office.
Her son’s opponents belittle any suggestion that his family did not orchestrate his candidacy and call him a carpetbagger who has spent much of his life away from Amravati, returning only in the past year after his political ambitions had been kindled.
“His only asset is his mom,” said Dr. Pradeep Shingore, 56, a cardiologist who is the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the seat. “Politics is being used as ancestral property.”
On a cloudless morning in one of the city’s slums, the incumbent, Mr. Deshmukh, led supporters on a padyatra, or foot march, a ritual in Indian politicking. Sprinkled in the crowd were the mayor and 20 other local officials from the Congress Party who are defiantly supporting him.
“People are very angry,” said Ashok Dongre, the mayor. “These families are not good for democracy because the common person, the party worker in the field, should be encouraged to go for higher positions. If you do not do that, how will the party succeed?”
Many observers consider Mr. Deshmukh the favorite in the race, though he faces practical obstacles. Every candidate on the ballot is accompanied by a party symbol, which provides a guide for illiterate rural voters. The Congress symbol, an open hand, is iconic in India. But as an independent, Mr. Deshmukh had no symbol; after considering choices offered by the election bureau, he decided upon an image of a television.
“He has come to seek your blessing!” a campaign worker shouted in the slum as others waved banners with the television image. “His symbol is television! Tee-vee! Tee-vee! Tee-vee!”
For his part, Mr. Shekhawat, the president’s son, brushes aside criticism of his candidacy. He is making his first run for office after working for an educational institute controlled by his family and has spent more than a decade working inside the Congress Party. He says Mr. Deshmukh has failed to promote development projects adequately and accuses him of the political sin of disloyalty.
“This kind of defiance shows indiscipline,” Mr. Shekhawat said. “Nobody is above the party. Nobody.”
Nepotism presents an especially complicated question for the Congress Party and the Gandhi dynasty. Rahul Gandhi, the presumptive heir to the party, has been visiting poor villages while promoting the idea of making the party more open and internally democratic. As part of his tour, Mr. Gandhi appeared Friday in Amravati for a rally with local Congress candidates.
On the stage with him was the president’s son.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

Kerala studies Islamic finance options - Arab News

The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily 12/10/2009 Islamic Banking Special Supplement:  Kerala studies Islamic finance options  Ashraf Padanna | Arab News  A two-day international conference held here early this month has laid out a road map for exploring possibilities of Islamic banking and finance in the southern Indian state of Kerala where Muslims constitute 26.8 percent of its 30 million-plus population. "Islamic finance has immense potential in India as the country has the world's third highest population of Muslims. Islamic finance is based on Islamic principles and at the same time, applicable to the whole society," said E Ahamed, India's junior minister for railways who inaugurated the conference attended by a large number of experts in the field, bureaucrats, professionals and academicians. Presenting the blueprint for Islamic finance institutions in Kerala on a public-private partnership model, T Balakrishnan, the state's principal secretary for industries, said Kerala would be the first Indian state to introduce Islamic finance. The Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) under his department has floated a new Islamic finance company that will open its first branch in the port city of Kochi soon and hopes to rope in global institutions pioneering in the field as partners. He said there was a growing demand for project and infrastructure financing complying Shariah principles, especially from the Keralites working in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries whose remittances are considered the lifeline of the consumerist state's economy. "The need for setting up Islamic financial institutions assumes significance in the light of huge foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow from the GCC countries into India. The KSIDC has already held a series of discussions with consultants, Shariah experts and government bodies in this regard," he said. Ernst & Young, one of the world's largest professional services firms, conducted a feasibility study involving its team from Dubai for the KSIDC. The report covered all aspects of the Shariah-compliant financial products and their scope for Kerala, its regulatory aspects, legal entity options and business models. "The Islamic financial products analyzed by E&Y include Al-Bai Bithaman Ajil, murabahah, musharakah, ijarah, istisna, sukuk and takaful," he said. The new firm was registered as a deposit accepting nonbanking financial institution under India's Companies' Act as the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) is yet to give clearance for Islamic banks. The company has an authorized equity capital of Rs.10 billion and an initial paid-up capital of Rs.100 million contributed by the KSIDC. Besides the KSIDC and other state-owned entities, the company will have resident and nonresident Indians and individual firms as its shareholders. The KSIDC has also constituted a core group interested in the venture. The activities include investments, leasing, retail and corporate financing, private equity and venture capital funds and property management solutions. The recommendation was for providing 10 percent seed capital for the VC fund as a trust registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India and act as an adviser. He informed the gathering that the KSIDC has also started recruiting key persons and is in the process of constituting a Shariah advisory board. Headquartered in Kochi, it plans to open branches at 30 centers including Kasaragode, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad, Thrissur, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram in a phased manner. It will gradually have branches all over the country. "We also need to develop Shariah-compliant financial products suitable for Indian market conditions," he said. "The (federal) regulatory constraints also should be removed and suitable changes made in the tax structure in which some progress is visible". Stressing the need for a wider propaganda for the interest-free financing, he said an overall level playing field should be developed for Islamic financing vis-à-vis conventional financing. "Our aim is to grow into a full-fledged global Islamic bank," he explained. Prominent NRI businessmen like Mohammed Ali of Oman's $1 billion Galfar Engineering and Contracting Group and Yusuffali MA of the Middle East's retail major Emke group and Azad Moopen of the Moopen's group are members of the project's core committee. Kerala banks are sitting on huge annual remittances of Rs.370 billion from the state's two-million strong workers abroad, 90 percent of them in the Gulf countries and a good chunk of them are practicing Muslims who do not like to claim interest on their deposits. These banks have a huge corpus of an estimated Rs.50 billion with them as unclaimed interests. According to a recent study by the Center for Development Studies (CDS), Muslims constitute 50 percent of all emigrants from Kerala and they contribute half of the remittances. One in every two Muslim households (52.5 percent) has an emigrant. The Islamic banking system is expected to strengthen their financial inclusion helping in their socio-economic and educational uplift. H. Abdur Raqeeb, the general- secretary of the New Delhi-based Indian Center for Islamic Finance who addressed the conference, said the interest-free banking would revolutionize India's economic scenario by unleashing massive financial resources lying dormant because of the non-availability of a suitable environment. "If Islamic banks can operate in London, Singapore and Tokyo smoothly, why can't it be in Mumbai and Kochi?" he asked. "It's a fact that hundreds of billions of rupees is lying in suspended accounts in banks across India, unclaimed for reasons of faith. The face of the minority community would change forever if the government did something to unlock this money. It will open the floodgates of investments from abroad as well". According to him, oil money is looking for safe investment destinations post 9/11 and India could tap this opportunity as it boasts of a stable economy largely unaffected by global financial mess, provided there is a favorable change in the regulatory environment. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a reputed economist who is said to be keen on the prospects of Islamic financial options for the country, has constituted a committee of secretaries, headed by the Cabinet secretary, to look into the suggestions on licensing Islamic banks. The committee is yet to submit its report. Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem presided over the inaugural session of the conference organized by the postgraduate department of the Rouzathul Uloom Arabic College with the support of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Jeddah, the KSIDC and the University Grants Commission (UGC). Some 200 delegates both from India and abroad participated in the conference. Hussein Madavoor, the college's principal welcomed the delegates and made introductory remarks. Speakers included Prof. KA Jaleel, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Calicut, Ahmed Salem Waheshi, Arab League Ambassador to India, Abdurahman Al-Tamami from the education department of the Kingdom, Esam M. Ishaq (Bahrain), Mohammed Obaidullah, Senior Economist, IDB-Jeddah, Muhammad Jabir Al-Yamani, of the King Saud University, Riyadh, Abdurrahman Ahmed Bajendoh of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, and Sheikh Khalaf bin Sulaiman Annamari, Adviser, Rabithathul Alamul Islami.

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