Of Fascists, Fundamentalists, Faggots and Koenraad Elst
Sid Harth
BJP to look into the case of tainted ministers Pioneer News
Service/New Delhi The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership has
rushed the vice-president of the party and in-charge of Gujrat affairs,
Mr Jena Krishnamurthy, to Ahmedabad to take stock of the situation,
after the framing of charges by a city Court against two ministers--one
at the Centre and other in the State. Mr Krishnamurthy said on
Thursday that party's view will be made clear after looking into the
matter in detail and also to see to it if the matter was politically
motivated. "Only after a complete assessment is made of the case, party
will take a stand on it", Mr Krisnamurthy said. He will also be meeting
the Chief Minister and other leaders there. The city Court on Tuesday
had framed the charges against the Union Minister of State for Defence
Production, Harin Pathak, and Ashok Bhatt, a Minister in Keshu Bhai
Patel's Council of Ministers, along with 10 other workers of the party
in a case of murder of a head constable during the anti-reservation
agitation in 1985. Another senior leader of the party was of the
opinion that the cases were filed by the then Congress Chief Minister
for political victimisation of his opponents, a view also taken by Mr
Bhatt. Mr Bhatt told reporters that he was not even present at the
site and was accompanying the judicial commission which was inquiring
into the riots at that time. Mr Bhatt said that he had no intention
of resigning but if there is a directive from the party, he would abide
by that. The other leader who is also chargesheeted in the case, Mr
Harin Pathak, was not available for the comment.
http://www.epw.org.in/34-13/edit3.htm
BJP: Showcasing Crime
ANY government at the centre with a sense of shame would have had some
qualms in celebrating one year of its rule at this juncture. But trust
the BJP for its unflinching brazen-facedness. The Rs 1.5 crore bash in
the Hauz Khas monument grounds in New Delhi to observe the first birth
anniversary of the BJP-led government on March 19 was held at a time
when the country was reeling under the worst crime wave that India had
ever seen before. The last year, if anything, had proved that there was
nothing that by any stretch of imagination could be called law and
order.
According to home ministry sources, the crime graph all over the
country had gone up. During the last year at least 38,000 murders were
committed, 60 per cent of which took place in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. During the same period over 15,000
rapes were reported from different parts of the country. The
metropolitan cities took the lead in murders, rapes, abductions,
extortions and other crimes. The capital, New Delhi, led with the
highest crime rate of 59,000 incidents during the last year. While his
party was preparing for the birthday bash, union home minister L K
Advani announced in the Rajya Sabha that the capital had far
outstripped other metros in the number of heinous crimes – including
rape, murder, robbery and abduction. Incidentally, for the most part of
the last year, the capital was ruled by the BJP – till its defeat a few
months ago. Even today, the capital’s police administration is under
home minister Advani. In most of the cases of murder and robbery, the
police still remain clueless and are yet to apprehend the guilty. At
least five journalists have been killed during the year and none of the
cases has been solved so far.
In Mumbai, capital of another state ruled by the BJP with its ally Shiv
Sena, the mafia has come overground and ruling the roost by indulging
in smuggling, prostitution, extortions and contract killings. More than
10,000 people are reported to be finding sustenance from the four major
mafia gangs that operate in the city.
What is significant in the latest crime reports is the increasing
participation of first timers and youth from affluent families. The
Delhi crime statistics indicate that 90 per cent of the robberies over
the last year were committed by first timers, most of whom were below
30 years of age. One-third came from middle class background, and
almost 40 per cent were school educated. Reports from other Indian
cities suggest a similar composition of the new generation of
criminals, with a significant part of them belonging to economically
powerful and socially influential urban classes. Quite a large number
of these criminals, particularly murderers, were found to be scooter-
borne or driving trendy cars, possessing cell-phones, and were either
connected with politicians, or came from upper class families. Some of
the murders were committed because of family disputes over the
possession of properties.
These facts should lead us to question the hitherto glib assumption
that the prime reasons for the increasing crimes in Indian metropolitan
cities are poverty, over-population, migration of job-seekers,
proliferation of slums, unemployment, etc. While economic needs do
often drive the poor and the jobless to crimes like theft and robbery,
a new breed of young well-to-do criminals is emerging whose activities
are no longer confined to white-collar crimes (which their fathers
indulged in to amass the fortunes on which these spoiled sons are
thriving), but are extending to heinous crimes like murder of rivals
from their own peer group, revenge killings, abduction and rape of
women whom they fancy – or, hijacking a car and killing its driver just
for a lark! It is significant that the scenes of such crimes are
usually the college campuses, bars in five-star hotels, extravagant
parties, or posh localities. Unlike the poor criminals, these pampered
children of the rich are not taking to crime for money, but for other
various reasons. Unlike the petty criminals again, they have full
confidence in their ability to get away because of their clout in the
higher echelons of the police and the administration. Demonstrative
disregard of law with them becomes an aggressive statement of their
status in society.
It is not surprising therefore that the BJP, under whose regime in the
centre such disregard of law can surge unabated, would show a similar
disregard for public sentiments by foisting a tawdry extravaganza in
front of a historical monument to celebrate its one-year rule, and
flout the objections raised by the local citizens, environmentalists
and archaeologists.
http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/byauthor/koenraadelst/
hfatbjpg.html
Koenraad Elst
"Hindu fascism" and the BJP Government
Numerous Western India-watchers, Delhi correspondents and
other "experts" have been warning for many years that a BJP government
would be a terrible thing, as this was a "fascist" party. Today, it is
possible to separate the sincere and conscientious experts from the
others, by a very simple criterion: has he or she compared the actual
performance of the BJP government with these dire predictions? Or in
practical terms: has he or she apologized to the readers or viewers for
misinforming them all this while?
For indeed, the prediction of BJP "fascism" has fallen flat on its
face, as will be clear from a brief survey of the defining elements
of "fascism" and how thay relate to Indian reality. For starters,
fascists are reputed to be violent. It was predicted that communal
violence would increase a hundredfold if the BJP were allowed to come
to power. In reality, the BJP term in power has been the most peaceful
year since decades. Even in Jammu and Kashmir, Islamic killings of
Hindus have markedly decreased. That terrorists killed twenty Hindus in
Jammu (an incident that went strictly unreported in the Western media)
on the eve of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's peace mission to
Pakistan is first of all the responsibility of the killers themselves,
even if not preventing this massacre was secondarily also a failure of
the security forces. Note that most of the victims of the remaining
communal violence were Hindus -- hardly the doing of the Hindu
nationalist government.
The Christian missionary lobby had aptly sensed the frustration of the
India-watchers at seeing the "unexpected" success of the BJP in
maintaining communal peace, hence its initiative to launch an
international slander campaign alleging BJP atrocities against the
Christians. More than ever, they could count on the foreign experts to
amplify their propaganda. The world media consumer was told about the
rape of four nuns and about the killing of a Christian girl and her
little brother "by Hindu fundamentalists"; but not about the subsequent
finding that the culprits had been Christians. Even the murder of Rev.
Staines and his two sons could not definitively be attributed to Hindu
activists, but even if could have been, this would make the death toll
of the "persecution" of Christians in India peanuts compared to the
suffering of Pakistani or Indonesian Christians, not to mention
Kashmiri Hindus.
So, undeniably, the Vajpayee government has been a very responsible one
in controlling communal passions. One of the reasons is that the BJP
knew that in case of communal rioting, it would at any rate be held
accountable. Secularist governments, by contrast, can let communal
sores fester and riots escalate, for they know that the blame will
always be put on the BJP (or how false allotment of guilt can aggravate
the crime).
But at least the BJP's "militaristic" policy of nuclear and missile
testing proved its "fascism"? This proposition could only be discussed
with those who have always called the USA, France, England, Russia and
China "fascist" states because of their tested nuclear capability. But
the BJP never started these military projects: India's first nuclear
bomb was tested in 1974 under Indira Gandhi, and the Agni missile was
also inherited from previous governments. What the BJP has done is to
be open and frank about India's status as a nuclear power -- which is
intrinsically better for world security than secretive armament
policies. The demonstration of top-notch technological know-how in the
tests was less a military than a geopolitical statement: a clear
rejection of the unipolar New World Order. Nothing fascist about that,
but a democratic expression of India's national will, for military self-
reliance is a policy supported by the vast majority of the Indian
people.
Speaking of democracy: a fascist is first and foremost an opponent of
democracy, right? Within his first year of government, Hitler had
passed the first anti-Jewish laws, eliminated some fellow-Nazi rivals
in an orgy of violence (Night of the Long Knives), dissolved all other
political parties, and abolished Parliament. Anyone upholding the
equation "BJP = Nazi" must either show the parallels in Vajpayee's
regime, or withdraw his allegations and apologize. In particular, he
will have to concede that the BJP has by no means threatened or
undermined democracy, on the contrary. The BJP has for twenty years
been the only major political party with a functioning intra-party
democracy, quite in contrast with the autocracy of the Gandhi dynasty
in the Congress Party or the mafia mores of the socialist and regional
parties. Under the Emergency (1975-77), the Hindu nationalists were in
the forefront of the struggle for democracy and against Congress
dictatorship. When the Janata coalition government in which they were
the senior partner (like Hitler and Mussolini in their first
governments) lost its majority, they abided by the rules and stepped
down to contest new elections. This time again, they upheld the
democratic traditions.
The BJP also refrained from using the loopholes in the Constitution to
undermine federalism by dismissing state governments at will, quite
unlike Congress practice. Indeed, the BJP even sacrificed its own
government to uphold federalism: it could easily have appeased Mrs.
Jayalalitha by dismissing the Tamil Nadu state government (or by
intervening in the judicial proceedings against her), yet it stuck to
its principles. All in all, the BJP government's fall was unusually
honourable: it was narrowly defeated by a coalition of Communists,
separatists (Soz), criminals (Laloo, Mulayam), dynastic plotters (Sonia
and her cronies) and corrupt politicians fleeing justice (Jayalalitha,
possibly Rajiv Bofors's widow). I used to be skeptical of the BJP's
capacity for governance and of Vajpayee personally, but I must say now
that even if the BJP with its numerous coalition partners has not
achieved anything great (unless you count Pokharan 2 as great), it has
refrained from making a number of predictable mistakes, and it has
entirely had nothing to do with the predicted crimes of a "fascist"
nature.
A final question: how come no one among India's investigative
journalists has cared to find out about Sonia Gandhi's background?
Rumour has it that her father was a militant fascist and, in 1943-45, a
volunteer in the German army on the eastern front. We should not judge
her own worth by that of her father, nor should we judge his youthful
choices too harshly: fascism was not nearly as murderous or
totalitarian as Nazism, the motivation of East Front soldiers was often
the same as that of the much-decorated Korea volunteers a few years
later (viz. to stop Communism), and it took bravery to volunteer for
front duty in a losing war. But still, if such a biographical detail
pertained to a BJP prime-ministerial candidate, would he and we not be
reminded of the fact every time his name was mentioned? More generally,
why are the Indian and Western media so full of imaginary BJP threats
to democracy when their darling secularist parties have so many anti-
democratic skeletons in their closets?
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/220200/detFRO01.htm
BJP MP defends ‘killer’ of Staines
HT Correspondent (New Delhi, February 21)
THE BJP leadership today disapproved of Rajya Sabha MP Dilip Singh Ju
Dev's open support for alleged Staines killer Dara Singh to save the
Government from a major embarrassment before Parliament's budget
session.
Hours after Mr Ju Dev announced at a Press conference that he would
arrange defence for Dara Singh because he was "innocent", BJP chief
Kushabhau Thakre directed him to withdraw his statement.
A BJP Press release said Mr Dev's statement was contrary to the known
stand of the party, which was that the assassin must be arrested and
punished through due process of law. "Therefore, Mr Thakre has directed
Mr Dev to withdraw his statement," said the release issued by BJP
office secretary R K Sinha.
Mr Dev was not available for comment after Mr Thakre's order.
Earlier in the day, Mr Dev told reporters that he would arrange
for "all possible legal assistance" to Dara Singh, the prime accused in
the killing of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two
sons in Orissa last year. He said his help for Dara Singh, who was
nabbed by the Orissa police last month, was in his individual capacity
and "the party has nothing to do with it."
Mr Dev has been spearheading a campaign against conversions in the
tribal areas. Last year, he had organised a camp under the auspices of
an RSS outfit to re-convert some tribals from Christianity.
Mr Dev said Dara Singh was innocent as the killings appeared to be the
handiwork of certain forces determined to brand the Hindus of India
as "bigoted and blood-thirsty."
Mr Dev's announcement caused tension in the party circles as well as in
the Government.
BJP officials said Mr Dev's statement was certain to cause ruckus in
Parliament. Therefore, it was decided that he should withdraw his
statement.
Soon after the Staines killings last year, the BJP and the Sangh
outfits had claimed that Dara Singh was not a member of their
organisations. They had held that they would leave no stone unturned to
ensure that the accused were nabbed and punished.
BJP officials said the party MP's support for Dara Singh would revive
the Opposition charge that the latter was indeed one of the Sangh
activists involved in terrorising the minorities in Orissa.
Mr Dev's contention was that until Dara Singh was conclusively held
guilty of killing the Staines by the court, he could not be treated by
the media and everyone else as the convict.
"The Staines killings," he said, "seem to be a wider conspiracy to
defame Hinduism, which is the most democratic and liberal religion, so
that conversions can continue unhindered."
Mr Dev, whose membership of the Upper House from Madhya Pradesh runs
till 2004, said, "There is no apparent motive that could have led Dara
Singh to involve himself in the killing of the missionary and his two
children."
He said, "This is an established fact that no crime takes place without
a motive. And since Dara Singh is not going to be a gainer in any way,
his involvement in the crime appears to be far-fetched."
He alleged that Gladys Staines, widow of Graham, was still carrying out
missionary work in Manoharpur area in Orissa with the hidden objective
of conversion. "We will not allow conversion to take place in the garb
of missionary work. Crores of rupees are being pumped into the country
for this purpose.
"No political party has the guts to speak the truth. All kinds of means
are used for conversion," said Mr Dev.
--
http://www.indiacyberportal.com/sid13.html
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.