Muslim voters do not behave any differently from the rest of India - By Sohail Hashmi - DNA English Daily

Muslim Vote Bank, compared to other Vote Banks, is more impactful and decisive when it is negative. It thrashed very decisively the 30 year long Communist regime in West Bengal, when the insensitive Communist Brahmins cracked down on Muslims in Sangrur. The Muslim Vote Bank is now certainly relevant as it is bound to act against Modi's candidacy for Prime Ministership through coming Lok Sabha election. Modi's 2002 Gujarat record is enough to activite Muslim Vote Bank all across the nation and especially in the 4 states - UP, Bihar, West Bangal and Kerala where Muslim Vote Bank is most effective.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

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http://www.samsung.com/in/consumer/mobile-phone/mobile-phone/smartphone/GT-I8552RWAINU?subsubtype=android-mobiles

Muslim voters do not behave any differently from the rest of India

The only exception, of course, is their opposition to any form of communalism.
 

Saturday, Nov 9, 2013, 7:07 IST | Agency: DNA

Sohail Hashmi

If, and this is a big If, a Muslim Vote Bank (MVB) existed, it would reveal itself in even a cursory study of the constituencies where Muslims are in a position to determine the outcome of the elections. If it did exist it would be very easy to show how 10-12 per cent of the total electorate was behaving in a manner that was different from the general electoral trends. In fact, the existence of a disconnect between the electoral performance of the so-called non-Muslim seats and the so-called Muslim seats would be the clearest proof of the existence of such a vote bank.

Let us take the first three general elections to the Lok Sabha. The Congress party got more than 73 per cent of the seats in all of them. Almost everybody was voting for the Congress and one assumes, so were the Muslims. Bengal and Kerala with about 25 per cent Muslim population and Bihar and UP, with 16 per cent and 18 per cent Muslim population respectively, elected a large number of Congress candidates to Parliament. If a MVB existed at this time it would be hidden behind the general trend that was operating during this period.

Therefore, the only time one could actually begin to see the impact of the MVB on the fortunes of the Congress would be when there is a general loss of faith in the Congress, as reflected in the results of the fourth general elections held in 1967. It is in times such as these that the MVB, if it ever existed, would buck the trend, as it were and come to the aid of the old party. 

Let us take a closer look at the goings on in Bengal Kerala, UP and Bihar in 1967 and see if we can discover the MVB in operation. In 1967 the Congress was, in fact, ejected from seven state assemblies and it is here that it also suffered its biggest Parliamentary losses as well. The four states of West Bengal, Kerala, UP and Bihar were among the states that rejected the Congress. Madras, Odisha and Punjab were the other three.

Throughout the life of this argument it has been said that the Muslims are the pocket borough of the Congress. If there was a MVB working for the Congress, it should have stood up to be counted in 1967 but it did not. In fact Kerala with 25 per cent Muslim votes elected the first non-Congress government in 1957.  Muslims in Kerala are, by and large, concentrated in the North and it has generally voted against the Congress since 1957.

In Bengal, the areas of Muslim concentration are Malda, Murshidabad, Burdwan, Nadia, 24 Parganas and Kolkata. With the exception of Malda, the rest have, post-1967, traditionally voted against the Congress and mostly for the Communists and now when the Communists have lost out in Bengal they have generally lost in these areas as well. The interesting thing is that these ‘Muslim’ seats have not come back to the Congress; they have gone to Trinamool Congress as they have in other parts of Bengal.

Bihar too, with Muslims concentrated in the districts of Katihar, Purnea, Araria and Kishanganj, demonstrates the same trend. The first break comes in 1967 and then it has been the same roller-coaster ride that the entire country has been through. 

Several districts of west UP, where Muslim electors would hold the key if they voted en bloc, demonstrate the same trend. Incidentally, Chaudhary  Charan Singh owed his rise to power on the basis of his political base in the same region of west UP.

Now let us see what is happening in the Parliamentary seats where Muslims either do not have a decisive electoral strength or they are in such small numbers that they would not be able to influence the results even if they voted en bloc. Those who swear by the MVB will be more than a little disturbed with the trends. Almost three-fourths of the so-called non-Muslim seats went to the Congress till the third general elections and then turned away from the Congress in 1967.

The point that is sought to be made is the following: Generally speaking, the rule that holds is that Muslims do not betray any tendency to vote differently from the national or major regional trends, and this can be seen and demonstrated again and again through the results of all the general elections.

In 1971 with the rise of Indira Gandhi and the Garibi Hatao campaign, everyone went back to the Congress and so did the Muslims. In 1977 everyone deserted the Congress and so did the Muslims. In the 1980 elections there was a trek back to the Congress and the routine was repeated in 1984 and it has been the same through all the remaining elections. In fact, if Muslims are a vote bank, all of India is a vote bank, because, by and large, the entire lot moves together, non-Muslims and Muslims together.

This rule, too, has an exception: the Muslims try not to vote for communalists. They did not vote for the minoritarian communalism of the Muslim League in the provincial assembly elections in 1936 and they are not about to help their majoritarian kinsmen now. The overwhelming majority of Muslims who chose to stay in India had chosen a secular State over a theocracy; they are not going to help another theocracy come to power. And that, perhaps, is the worry of the votaries of the theory of the MVB.

The author blogs at Kafila.org and conducts heritage walks in

What India got or lost by invading Kashmir and holding on to it - By Ghulam Muhammed

Friday, November 08, 2013

What India got or lost by invading Kashmir and holding on to it

Now that there is open discussion about how the crucial decision to send troops into Kashmir (Patel alternative, instead of treating the hold-out state with international code of behavior and bringing in democratic play into any voluntary association with India, a trial balance could be charted as to what India gained or lose, by opting for Patel Option. That small contingent that landed on Srinagar that historical night, was not the end of story, but beginning of a saga, that entailed wars, terror attacks, insurgency and torture regime of insurgents, beside cold-blooded murders, heavy defense outlays, and constant vigil against the neighbor’s ongoing agenda of the thousand cuts. The list is incomplete. The Nehru option though aborted and derided as impractical and infantile, do have its supporters. Just as Modi recalls and asserts that Patel as Prime Minister would have been better than Nehru, a similar comparison could be made to find how Nehru option on no-war could have benefitted the normalization of relations between the new neighbors. Could wars have been avoided? Would the arms race be minimized? Whether both the neighbors may not have been compelled to develop nuclear options? 

Would the minimization of defense outlays, helped both neighbors divert the resources for the welfare of their people, uplifting them out of poverty and destitution?

The analysis will chalk the derivatives from the future course of events that may have to be chosen in view of clear cut alternatives between Nehru and Patel options.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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Nehru had called Patel ‘a total communalist’: Advani - The Times of India, Mumbai, INDIA

The narrative as described in quotation by LK Advani, itself clearly establishes that it could be conspiracy against Pandit Nehru's position on Hyderabad as not to use Indian Army and better to approach the UN. The role of Rajaji, VP Menon and Sardar Patel, together with a British Ambassador's letter protesting about an alleged rape of 70 year old nuns in Hyderabad, strategically introduced in the discussion at the Rashtrapati Bhavan meeting to shake Nehru into giving up his resistance to Patel's proposal to send Army to invade Nizam's Hyderabad State. Nehru was rightly agitated at the international repercussion of an army invasion by the new independent India, so early in its inception period. It is mystery how the massacre of that scale by Army and by common people against Muslims in the so-called 'Police Action' so completely covered up from the world media and world opinion, nay even world history. Granted that the Nehru route would have entailed the same miasma that was faced in Kashmir. However, sooner or later, a nation that was supposedly liberated by Gandhian non-violent means, as per world perception, and later to become known as leader of non-enlightenment movement for peace around the world, will have to answer to History for the bloodshed of hundreds of thousands of civilians, without any sense of remorse, accountability, much less even any public discussion of the blood shed in that supposedly 'Police' Action in erstwhile Hyderabad State.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nehru-had-called-Patel-a-total-communalist-Advani/articleshow/25287513.cms

Nehru had called Patel ‘a total communalist’: Advani

TNN | Nov 6, 2013, 05.42 AM IST

NEW DELHI: BJP on Tuesday raked up another controversy over Sardar Patel with senior party leader LK Advani quoting from a book to allege that then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called his home minister a "total communalist" when the latter suggested that the Army be sent in to take over a defiant Hyderabad after independence.

In his latest blog posting, Advani referred to extracts from a book, 'The Story of an Era Told Without Ill Will' by MKK Nair, an IAS officer of 1947 batch who was believed to be close to Sardar Patel.

The book refers to "sharp exchanges" between Nehru and Patel in a Cabinet meeting before "police action" against Hyderabad. Written in Malayalam, the book is being translated into English.

"At a Cabinet meeting, Patel had described these things and demanded that the Army be sent to end the terror regime in Hyderabad. Nehru, who usually spoke calmly, peacefully and with international etiquette, spoke losing his composure, 'You are a total communalist. I will never accept your recommendation ..." Patel remained unperturbed but left the room with his papers," Advani quoted from Nair's book.

BJP has been trying to appropriate Sardar Patel as a leader close to the Hindutva ideology. On Patel's 138th anniversary on October 31, Advani had heaped praise on India's first home minister at the inauguration of a project to build a 182-metre tall statue — the tallest in the world — of the leader.

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who is behind this endeavour, said India needs Patel's secularism which united people and not the "vote bank secularism being practiced today".

Both Advani and Modi have sought to fashion themselves as inheritors of Patel's legacy. BJP has also alleged that Patel's contribution was never acknowledged by the Congress and that it only eulogized the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Advani, in his blog, said then governor general C Rajagopalachari prevailed over Nehru to send the Army to Hyderabad. As the situation continued to worsen, Rajaji called Nehru and Patel to Rashtrapati Bhavan to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, the Army was kept battle-ready.

During his meeting with Nehru and Patel, Rajaji used a letter from the British high commissioner protesting against the rape of 70-year-old nuns of a convent two days earlier by Razakars of Hyderabad. V P Menon, a bureaucrat and close aide of Patel, had given this letter to Rajaji before the meeting.

"Rajaji in his typical style described the situation in Hyderabad. He felt that, to safeguard India's reputation, a decision should not be delayed any longer. Nehru was concerned about international repercussions. Rajaji then played his trump card -- the letter from the British high commissioner.

"Nehru read it. His face turned red ... Anger choked his words. He shot out of his chair, slammed his fist on the table and cried out, 'Let's not waste a moment. We'll teach them a lesson.' Rajaji immediately told Menon to inform the commander in chief to proceed according to the plan," Advani said, quoting from the book

 

Confront these painful truths about communalism By Rajdeep Sardesai - Hindustan Times

http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/rajdeepsardesai/confront-these-painful-truths-about-communalism/article1-1145992.aspx

Confront these painful truths about communalism

By Rajdeep Sardesai

First Published: 00:47 IST(1/11/2013)
Last Updated: 18:04 IST(1/11/2013)

249  comments    Why does an underworld don who offered the Indian cricket team Toyota cars if they beat Pakistan in Sharjah in 1986 become a resident of Karachi and India's most wanted in 1993? Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar's revelation (made on camera at a function despite a subsequent denial) only confirms what many players of the 1980s have confessed in private: Dawood Ibrahim was at one time in his life an ardent Indian cricket team supporter. This columnist had been targeted for saying as much in an article I wrote soon after the Mumbai blasts of 1993 in The Times of India. The blasts were widely seen as a 'Muslim conspiracy' with Dawood as the mastermind. The political narrative at the time had an ominous ring of stereotyping an entire community which one found abhorrent and one said as much in a column. At the time, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray had publicly announced that a true test of an Indian Muslim's 'patriotism' was if he waved the tricolour at an India-Pakistan match. I pointed out that by this spurious definition even Dawood should be seen as a patriot since he had been seen supporting the Indian team in Sharjah. The comment on Dawood was designed to point out the inherent dangers of handing out 'certificates' of patriotism to minority group members in a politically surcharged atmosphere. Instead, it stirred such a controversy that Thackeray attacked me in a public meeting, death threats were issued and I was offered police protection. A BJP MP even raised the issue in Parliament and distributed copies of the article which he dubbed as 'anti-national'. Even today, the Hindutva army on the social media tries to occasionally revive the issue by suggesting that I had validated Dawood as a 'nationalist' when that was far from the case. Few were willing to recognise the real nub of  the argument: one was only asking a central question as to what had changed between October-November 1992 when Dawood was seen cheering the Indian cricket team and March 1993 when he chose to blast the city of his childhood. Till today, no one (except Anurag Kashyap in his brave film Black Friday based on a book by journalist Husain Zaidi) has sought to address this inconvenient truth: why did a gangster involved in gold smuggling and contract killings with several Hindu members in his D company transform himself into an ISI-backed terrorist heading a 'Muslims-only' gang? The answer probably lies in the traumatic events of December and January 1992-93 when, in the aftermath of the Babri masjid demolition, Mumbai's cosmopolitan veneer was ripped apart by terrible communal riots. If the city's elite and middle class got divided on religious lines, then so did its underworld. Only the latter had AK-47s and RDX to add a horrific twist to the polarisation. There are, of course, many other inconvenient truths which we do not wish to confront, especially in the context of communal riots. Is it not true for example that the barbaric pogrom of 1984 which saw 3,000 Sikhs being massacred became a trigger for the Khalistani terrorism that followed? Is it also not true that the Gujarat riots of 2002 became a magnet for terror groups like the Indian Mujahideen to be formed? Violence begets more violence is the oldest truism and one which has seen a cycle of rage and vendetta in the name of religion destroy neighbourhoods.  Perhaps this is what Rahul Gandhi was alluding to when in a speech in Indore he spoke of how intelligence officials had told him that 10 to 15 Muslim youth were being sought to be recruited by the ISI in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar riots. Purely as an academic argument, Rahul may have had some basis for drawing a connection between riots and terrorism. But Rahul is neither a journalist nor an analyst seeking to understand the origins of violence. He is a politician and the Congress' heir apparent, and as a public figure he is expected to weigh his words much more carefully. To suggest, without providing concrete evidence, that Muzaffarnagar's Muslim youth were now being won over by the 'enemy' is to treat the victim as 'suspect'. Worse, it could only confirm the worst suspicions and prejudices of those who seek to repeatedly question the integrity of the Indian Muslim. The reality of Muzaffarnagar is far away from the political battleground. Even today, several weeks after the riots, hundreds of families are living in wretched conditions in relief camps, too scared to return to their homes. Their plight, in a sense, is no different to any victim of communal violence: then whether you travel to the outskirts of Ahmedabad to Citizen Nagar to meet 2002 riot victims living next to a garbage dump, or to the overflowing drains of Tilak Vihar where the widows of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots live, or the makeshift homes for Kashmiri Pandit families in Jammu, the one common factor that binds these groups is the fact that their condition represents the utter failure of the Indian State to uphold the rule of  law. This is not about being Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus: it is about a society that doesn't protect and provide justice to its own. Has Narendra Modi ever even visited Citizen Nagar, or does it simply fall off the map of Vibrant Gujarat? Has Rahul Gandhi fought for justice for the widows of Tilak Vihar? Will Omar Abdullah provide the healing touch to Kashmiri Pandits? And will Akhilesh's government provide a sense of security to Muzaffarnagar's homeless? Perhaps these questions will never be raised because no political party can emerge with clean hands on the issue of rehabilitating victims of mass violence. Instead, we will engage in a zero-sum high decibel game of 1984 versus 2002. So much easier than facing inconvenient truths. Rajdeep Sardesai is editor-in-chief, IBN 18 network The views expressed by the author are personal

Akhilesh has a job on hand - By Dr. Mookhi Amir Ali

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:18 AM, Dr Mookhi Amir Ali <drmookhi@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

Akhilesh has a job on hand

It is alarming to learn that the recent riots in Muzaffarnagar may change the demography and the land holding pattern of the region unless Akhilesh government acts with some alacrity. Thousands of Muslims have left their land with ready to harvest  crop of sugarcane standing in their fields. It is reported that the Muslims’ former neighbor Jats have given a call that the one who harvests the crop will own the land.

 

Naturally it will be Jats who will harvest the crop in the absence of Muslim owners of the land who have fled to the relief camps. Also new locks are seen on some Muslims’ houses, placed by Jats thereby appropriating the land and homes of the displaced people. Hopefully these are isolated cases but the authorities should be alert to the possible jungle raj in the offing. Akhilesh Yadav should take up the challenge head on. He must act with promptitude to see that the rule of law is not usurped. There is a danger, otherwise, of the temporarily displaced population becoming permanently displaced. Also restoring the legendary communal harmony between Jats and Muslims will have to be given great effort. The central government should extend both moral and material support to the state government towards these ends. Yes, criticizing Akhilesh for not being able to prevent the violence is justified but the need of the hour is to heal the wounds and the restoration of status quo ante.  Muzaffarnagar should not be allowed to become Gujarat post 2002.

Dr Mookhi Amir Ali <drmookhi@hotmail.com>

U.S. military doctors abetted prisoner abuse, study says - MSN News

http://news.msn.com/us/us-military-doctors-abetted-prisoner-abuse-study-says

U.S. military doctors abetted prisoner abuse, study says

Reuters: Deborah Gembara

Detainees pray at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in this photo from 2009. A study that looked at the facility and other prisons concluded that U.S. military doctors aided in the abuse of detainees during interrogations.

8 hr ago By Jane Sutton of Reuters 

Mental health professionals advised interrogators on how to exploit detainees' fears and anxieties and when to increase the harshness of interrogations, a study says.

MIAMI — U.S. military doctors violated medical ethics by collaborating in the abuse of prisoners during interrogations after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, an independent study concluded on Monday.

"These practices included designing, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees," concluded the study by the Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers.

US doctors engaged in torture, per study

5 hr ago 0:29 Views: 4k
The panel is made up of 19 military, health, legal and human rights experts who studied public records concerning the role of health professionals in detainee operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, at secret CIA prisons and at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba during the last dozen years.


Related: US condoned torture after 9/11, must close Guantanamo, report says

They said that in the rush to obtain information that could prevent future attacks, the Defense Department and the CIA improperly demanded that medical personnel violate their ethical obligation to "do no harm."
A Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, said detainees receive humane medical care and that the allegations in the report were not new.

"They have been subject to numerous investigations over the years, and those investigations – which had access to more information than the authors of this report – have never substantiated these claims," Breasseale said.

The report, titled "Abandoned Ethics," said mental health professionals advised interrogators on how to exploit detainees' fears and anxieties and when to increase the harshness of interrogations.

They used medical records and psychological profiles to help interrogators create feelings of dependency and dread, and to strip away detainees' will to resist, the report said.

It quoted former CIA prisoners as saying medical doctors monitored them during so-called enhanced interrogations – checking oxygen levels while one was waterboarded and measuring the swollen limbs of another who was shackled in a standing position for long periods. Sometimes the doctors intervened, the report said.

"The role of physicians at CIA sites, then, was not to prevent pain, suffering, or harm to the detainee, but only to avoid severe harm," it said.


 The task force called for a full investigation.



Related: $5 million paid to Abu Ghraib abuse victims


"We have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again," said task force member Gerald Thomson, a doctor and professor of medicine emeritus at Columbia University.

After the hijacked plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, the Bush administration authorized interrogation techniques that have been characterized as torture.

The CIA no longer holds prisoners and President Barack Obama has prohibited the use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the report notes.

But it said ethical violations were still occurring, such as the force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners at Guantanamo.

The report's authors included Albert Shimkus, a retired Navy captain who was the commanding officer and chief surgeon in charge of detainee health care at the Guantanamo base in 2002 and 2003. He now teaches at the U.S. Naval War College.

—

Sardar Patel’s secularism and Modi - By Ghulam Muhammed

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Sardar Patel’s secularism and Modi

Sardar Patel had a dual personality as far as his critiques can make out. His strong action against Junagadh and Hyderabad states, carried out in the name of the unity and integrity of the new Nation, is more endeared by the likes of Modi and RSS, for its anti-Muslim bias. BJP possibly would have greatly admired his role as Home Minister, when he is supposed to have issued an internal order for all security agencies to wean out Muslims from their midst. The third element that could have to be to the entire satisfaction of the RSS/BJP parivar, is the kind of Congress secularism that accommodated extreme Hindutvadis like Gobind Ballah Pant and Purushottam Das Tandon. Besides, even though Sardar Patel banned RSS after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and jailed Golwalkar, that treatment was only temporary and both RSS and Golwalkar were let off with a mere slap on the wrist. Patel admired may qualities of RSS, among them its internal discipline and dedication to its objectives. There are reasons to believe that throughout Congress rule, all communal riots were organized by Congress with the active collaboration with RSS cadre. Now that activity should include the period that Sardar Patel remained Home Minister. A popular boast is that BJP/RSS’s first Prime Minister of India, was not Atal Behari Vajpayee, but Congress’s PV Narasimha Rao.

Congress is coy in projecting this side of Sardar Patel and just as it proclaims itself as secular, it treats all its leaders too as secular and is ready to defend them, however much that defense in porous. That sometimes appears downright ridiculous, if not fraudulent.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

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http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/we-need-sardar-patel-s-secularism-not-votebank-secularism-narendra-modi-439799

We need Sardar Patel's secularism, not votebank secularism: Narendra Modi

All India | Edited by Surabhi Malik | Updated: October 31, 2013

Ahmedabad:  Narendra Modi's riposte to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in their fierce Sardar Patel duel came from the site where he is building the world's tallest statue in honour of India's "iron man" today. (Modi's dream project: 10 things to know about world's tallest statue)

Addressing a farmers rally before inaugurating the statue on Sardar Vallabhai Patel's 138th birth anniversary, the Gujarat Chief Minister said, "By aligning Sardar Patel with one party you are demeaning him," referring to Dr Singh's assertion at a public function on Tuesday that Sardar was a Congressman. (PM, Narendra Modi join tug-of-war over Sardar Patel's legacy)

"I am proud and happy that I belong to a political party to which Sardar Patel was attached," Dr Singh had said, as his Congress and Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party do battle over Sardar Patel's legacy.

The PM had also said, "Sardar Patel was totally secular, and believed in the unity of India," seen as a swipe at Mr Modi, who is accused by the Congress of being a "divisive leader."

Mr Modi, who is the BJP's candidate for PM and hopes to replace Dr Singh in Delhi next year, said today that he concurred with the Prime Minister that Sardar Patel was "a true secular."

But, he added, "We need Sardar Sahab's secularism, not vote-bank secularism." The Gujarat Chief Minister pointed out that the "secular Patel who united India...had no hesitation rebuilding the Somnath Temple."

The Sardar statue will be built on an island called Sadhu Bet on the river Narmada in Gujarat, the home state of both Sardar Patel and Mr Modi. Twice the size of the Statue of Liberty in the US, it is seen as a not-so-subtle bid by Mr Modi and his BJP to appropriate the legacy of Sardar Patel, who was associated with the ruling Congress.

Mr Modi has used his ambitious project to undermine his chief rivals, the Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty that heads the Congress. Sardar Patel was first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's deputy and his Home Minister, but often at odds with him.(Modi's Patel statue project: Legacy, politics and controversy)

When he shared the stage with the PM on Tuesday, Mr Modi had said, "Every Indian regrets Sardar Patel did not become the first Prime Minister. Had he been the first Prime Minister, the country's fate and face would have been completely different."

This morning the Congress' Digvijaya Singh tweeted, "Sardar-Humility personified ! Modi-Conceit and Arrogance personified Sardar -United India Modi-Divides NDA BJP and Hindus and Minorities."

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http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/Hisg8JQdIPflijvUnBdlYP/The-curious-battle-for-Vallabhbhai-Patel.html

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The curious battle for Vallabhbhai Patel

There is little resemblance between that Patel and the 182 metre one being constructed on an island in Gujarat currently

Sometime on the eve of Independence, the Congress high command was holding one of its innumerable sessions. Mohandas Gandhi was presiding. Among other things, on agenda was the issue of deciding the next leader of the party. In a casual fashion, Gandhi informed Jawaharlal Nehru that a majority of the Pradesh Congress Committees were in favour of Vallabhbhai Patel. There was a moment of silence in which Nehru did not say anything. Then, Gandhi passed a piece of paper to Patel who, without batting an eyelid, signed it. With that act, he signed away his chance of becoming Prime Minister of India, acquiescing to Nehru’s enthronement. No questions asked.

There is little resemblance between that Patel and the 182 metre one being constructed on an island in Gujarat currently. One was a historical figure; the other is a mythical being, raised for purely political purposes. Usually, appropriation of historical figures is the tactic of weak political leaders who are unsure of their standing. Contemporary India is replete with this sort of “gold dusting”. From that perspective, what is being seen in Gujarat is doubly surprising. The entire exercise is being done by a leader who by most measures should not be insecure: Narendra Modi. Perhaps there is another explanation at hand?

Turn the clock back to the period 1948-1950. By that time Gandhi, the one person who united the temperamentally very different Nehru and Patel, had passed away. With that began the steady disempowering of the Patel faction in the Congress. By 1950, the Sardar had gone and so had most of his like-minded colleagues. By 1962, the last formidable “Patelite”, Purushottam Das Tandon, too, had gone. By that time, the ascendancy of Nehru and his vision—including the disastrous infatuation with economic planning—was complete. Patel has, since then, been relegated to the pages of history.

Patel is not the only leader who has been relegated thus. Since 1970 nationalist icons such as Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad and Maulana Azad have been aggressively relegated by the Congress party’s leadership. And here one is not even talking of leaders like Madan Mohan Malviya who barely exist in memory. The Congress has no reason to complain about how Patel is being appropriated by Modi.

So why is he being remembered now and why by Modi, of all the people? It is true that not many citizens will be aware of the details of Patel’s career. But they do remember him for one thing: his tremendous resolve in unifying India into a nation from a mere collection of geographically adjacent states. And that memory has contemporary resonance.

In the last 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s run, the last word than can be associated with it is resolve. A significant number of Indians—especially those living in urban areas, who are educated and who are at the receiving end of India’s economic woes—seek a government that takes decisive measures in solving the country’s problems. Modi, the shrewd tactician that he is, knows this very well.

In a democracy, such appropriation approaches the limits of what is politically healthy. And coming at the hands of a leader like Narendra Modi, who has carefully cultivated the image of being decisive, it is doubly unjustified. It also leaves open a nagging question that if this image building exercise lacks substance. He has, in the recent past, built his credentials on development and growth; his reliance on symbols is thus questionable. But these simple explanations do not explain much except saying “not good”. The Congress party has done much to create the vacuum—historical and contemporary—that has enabled this turn of events. The agreement on part of a significant section of citizens shows that India and Indians long for something they have not seen for a decade, a decisive government. It is interesting that a historical figure should bear the burden of these expectations.

 
Is Narendra Modi only making use of a vacuum created by the Congress party? Tell us at views@livemint.com