The current Muslim political discussion in India seems to revolve around the question of political under-representation of Muslims. The Indian Constitution says the Indian Muslim community as an identifiable religious minority and envisages its appropriate representation in legislature bodies so as to assure the implementation of the minority rights. The success of Indian democracy depends on proper representation of minorities in decision-making processes. There are 172.24 million Muslims out of 1.21 billion population of India which is approximately 14.23% of the total population (Registrar General & Census Commissioner 2011).

There should be a minimum of 14% Muslim members in a decision-making body for a proper representation of Muslims. Institutions can care about minorities as long as their members are represented in them. Muslim participation in the political process, with parliament as its barometer, has been declining with every election – both in terms of their overall and proportional representation. Between 1980 and 2014, the representation of Muslim MPs in the lower house of India’s Parliament has declined by nearly two-third, even as the share of Muslims in the population rose during the same period.

In 1980, the Muslim members in Lok Sabha were 49 (approx 10% of total) which declined to 30 (approx 6% of total) in 2009. In the 16th Lok Sabha, Muslim MPs occupy only 20 seats out of 545 seats (approx 3.5% of total). For the first time, in Uttar Pradesh where Muslim population is over 18% of the total population, not a single Muslim MP got elected until the recent by-election in Kairana (Lok Sabha Constituency). From 2014 to 2018, in Uttar Pradesh there was not a single Muslim member in the Lok Sabha to represent 38.48 million of Muslims. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Muslim MPs were elected only from seven states – West Bengal (8 members), Bihar (4 members), Jammu & Kashmir and Kerala (3 each), Assam (2 members) and Tamil Nadu and Telangana (one each), besides one from the Union territory (UT) of Lakshadweep. There is no representation of Muslims from the remaining 22 states and 6 Union territories. These 28 unrepresented states and UTs account for 54% of Muslim population in India and have 364 Lok Sabha seats.

Structure Of Political Disempowerment

India is the largest democracy in the world, yet there is very little representation of all communities, given their population. At present, the Bhartiya Janta party (BJP) which is in power seems to follow the soft Hindutva philosophy. The BJP did not field any Muslim candidates in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Chattisgarh and the North East. In 2009 Lok Sabha election, the BJP fielded only 4 Muslim candidates, (0.48% of the total) and only one got elected. In 2014, the BJP fielded only 7 Muslim candidates out of 428 (less than 2%) and none were elected. For the first time in Indian history, the winning party in the general elections had no Muslims in its parliamentary group in the Lok Sabha. In the recent Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan assembly election, the BJP nominated one Muslim candidate each, out of total 230 seats in MP and 200 seats in Rajasthan. Only four Muslim candidates were fielded by BJP in five states assembly election.

In 2009, Congress fielded 29 Muslim candidates (7% of total) of whom 10 got elected. In 2014, Congress fielded 31 Muslim candidates of whom 7 got elected. Most Muslim MPs come from regional parties of different states. There were a total of 320 Muslim candidates from different parties out of 3245 total candidates in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. There were less than 10% Muslim candidates for 14.63% Muslims. If political parties didn’t give them a chance to get elected then one wonders how they can be part of the decision making body. The national as well as regional parties should give them an opportunity to be elected as a member of Parliament so they can contribute towards their community.

• The current Council of Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister, has only 1 Muslim minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi ( Ministry of Minority Affairs ) out of 74 ministers ( total numbers of ministers).

• Currently there is no Muslim Chief Minister of any state.

• Currently there is only one Muslim Governor Dr. Najma A Heptulla ( Manipur Governor ) out of 29 Governors.

• Currently there is only one Muslim Administrator Farooq Khan ( Lakshadweep UT ) out of 7 Lt. Governors and Administrators of Union territories.

The Indian Constitution is committed to the equality of citizens and the responsibility of the State to preserve, protect and assure the rights of minorities in matters of language, religion and culture.

In June, 2006, The Prime Minister Office (PMO) issued the notification for constitution of the High Level Committee for preparation of report on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim community of India. On November 30, 2006, the report of the Sachar Committee was tabled in the Parliament. The committee was headed by Justice of the Delhi High Court, Rajinder Sachar. The Report highlighted a range of disabilities faced by the community and made a few of recommendations to address the situation. It placed Indian Muslims below Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in backwardness. “Political participation and representation in governance structures are essential to achieve fairness. Many alleged that participation is denied to Muslims through a variety of mechanisms. While it was pointed out that many names of Muslims were missing in the voter lists of a number of states, the committee’s attention was also drawn to the issue of Muslim concentration constituencies of Assemblies and Parliament declared as reserved for Schedule Caste persons while constituencies with very low Muslim population but high SC concentration remain unreserved. Hence, it was argued that Muslims are being systematically denied political participation”. (Sachar committee report 2006)

The lack of political representation of the largest Muslim community of 14% of the total population, reduces their say in the legislative process of the country resulting in government policies that are non representative of the minority issues. In 1952, Muslim representation in the Parliament was 4.3% and the highest numbers it has seen was in the Parliament during 1984-89 period when it stood at 8.4%. In 2014, Muslim representation, despite being the largest minority, was least in number. It had only 23 seats which means only approximately 4% representation for a community that constitutes 14% of the population.

In a secular country like India, every community should be given a fair chance to represent themselves in the decision making process, so they can also make some efforts for their community and raise their voices about the problems faced by their communities. Institutions can care about minorities as long as their members are represented in them. In recent years, the number of Muslim representatives have reduced. In India, the central government has only 1 Muslim cabinet minister in its council of ministers, despite the country having a total population of 172.24 million Muslims. In a state like Uttar Pradesh which has a Muslim population of 38.4 million there is only 1 Member of Lok Sabha (in by-poll elections) which is not appropriate at all. It is does not stand in good stead for a democracy like India. There is much lack of representation of the Muslim community in decision making processes.

There is a lot of  stereotyping of Muslim leaders. The general idea comes from movies and baseless rumours. There are way too many movies portraying Muslims as terrorists or simply as wicked characters. People tend to get influenced easily and as a result, politicians mastermind plans to try and divide them on the basis of religion, to bag maximum numbers of votes. They spread hatred and create an image of the Muslim leaders in a way that people shy away from showing solidarity with them. This results in a dearth of Muslim leaders. And in this way one community is under-represented because of negligible number of representation from that community. India has never had a Muslim Prime Minister, although there are many Muslims leaders who have made India proud such as Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr. Zakir Hussain and Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

The post Where Is The Muslim Representation In Secular India? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Dear Madam Sitharaman,

As the second woman Defence Minister of our country, you came to have a ‘Shakti Samvad’ with women students of Bhopal. We are very happy that you took time this election season to visit the city in which incidentally, someone accused of terrorism and currently under-trial, Sadhvi Pragya has been nominated as your party’s candidate. It definitely helps to balance the image and message from your party.

However, we are conflicted by the two poles of shakti or women empowerment that you and she represent, when indeed this promise of empowerment is based on masking the real discrimination on ground! Let us not celebrate yet, with a handful of women rising to leadership or celebrity status. We do not want this half-baked empowerment, we seek liberation for all instead! This ‘Shakti Samvad’ then seems to be shadowed by a shakti which thrives on a culture of impunity and a virulent display of power impaired by its own infallibility.

As women students part of Pinjra Tod, Bhopal, we ask you: what does it take to indeed change the status quo of the powers that be? Every time women students in any institution raise these basic demands they are met with silencing, shaming and even disciplinary action and in the extreme case of BHU, a lathi-charge. Bhopal has seen many a student protest against curfew from RIE to NLIU. We RIE students have been protesting for the past one year and have only managed to get the hostel curfew to shift by two hours.

In September last year, we had a huge protest by women hostelers as we defied the current curfew of 6:45 p.m. and sat outside the hostel gate. The campus has two gates, the hostel gate and the main gate; women students were not allowed to be outside the hostel gate inside the campus post 6 p.m.! If we wished to sit in the library beyond the curfew time then we had to be seated there till 8 p.m., no less and no more. Before our protest, at 8 p.m. guards would come to ‘collect’ women students and escort us back to the hostel. We were told there are ‘black mambas’ in the playground, that come out post 6:00 p.m. only to bite women students and the curfew protects us from them.

One can only wonder why the black mambas of Bhopal emerge after 6:00 p.m. to bite only women students! We, residents of hostel of Regional Institute of Education are bound by layers of caging – the grill, the hostel gates and the university gate. We have fought these timings over and over again to move the needle of the clock from 5:45 p.m. to now, 8 p.m. (hostel curfew), and 9 p.m. (grill time, which means we cannot access the hostel premise after 9 p.m.).

We have said this before and we say it yet again, the humiliating practice of imposing curfews on women students debars us from accessing basic university and social resources, violates our fundamental rights as citizens and infantilises us. As future educators and teachers, we know that restriction on our mobility is in direct conflict with our autonomy and is direct encouragement of those who commit public acts of sexual violence by making it appear as if women do not belong to the public space and must be punished when they venture into it. We wish to no longer participate in a culture that reproduces such regulation of bodies in order to preserve caste-class purity, marked by this kind of oppression.

The RIE administration has constantly been whipping up the security rhetoric to cage women, to curtail their mobility and access. However, they care so little about safety, especially when it doesn’t give them control over us, which is evident in the fact that they didn’t even bother to have an elected Internal Complaints Committee for redressing sexual harassment.

While tapping into the ‘commonsensical’ understanding of existence of ‘rules and restrictions’ as a ‘necessary discipline,’ the university reproduces patriarchal social relations by legitimising the measures that symbolise familial protectionism. The university is directly responsible for creating a culture of sexism and is complicit in encouraging everyday verbal harassment from professors, male students and administration who tell us, “Aap aukat se zyada maang rahe ho, aukat main rahoge khush rahoge.”

Further, we know how insincere the university administration’s efforts have been – from Delhi to Bhopal – they have always resorted to intimidation tactics – tarnishing women students’ image before their parents, threatening them with the possibility of rustication and disciplinary action. On April 10, after a series of protests, we had protested in NCERT office in Delhi, demanding action on the gross violations of women students rights and repression of the administration in RIE colleges – the NCERT which has many a members of the Defence Ministry has not even bothered to respond to our letter and has shut its doors on us.

How different is that from our everyday ritual of acquiring permission to leave our hostel, which entails four steps of pleading and begging the administration to grant us leave? This consolidates so much power in the hands of the authorities against the students. A direct outcome of that was seen in a recent case, where the Chief Warden arbitrarily ordered a woman with depression to leave the hostel in March this year. When her father appealed to their humanity and requested them to abstain from making such demands on his daughter, the administration responded by saying that their humanity lies in the fact that they didn’t immediately throw the woman out of the hostel.

The high handedness of the administration was rationalised by seeing ostracization as act of ‘kindness’ as opposed to outright coercion – the use of force to throw her out of the hostel without any fault of hers! As we protested to demand the suspension of the Chief Warden among other things, Seema Soni, Deputy Commissioner of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs paid us a visit and told them how ‘bizarre’ their demands were since, even she didn’t step out of her house post 9 p.m.

We hope that you would hold a similar conversation with your cabinet to discuss how not to securitise the bodies of women. Its clear that the problem runs deeper – when in the education sector women participation is nearly equal to that of men – they continue to make us and our families feel personally obligated and eternally grateful to the institution for giving us a place in their ‘prestigious, exclusive, exclusionary’ dens. Higher education is not a fiefdom of few – you should know that since you’re a very vocal critic of ‘dynastic politics!’

As an alumnus of JNU, where there is no curfew on women students and where there is maximum participation of students from various backgrounds, we hope that you will understand the importance of our struggle rises above the politics of labeling and castigating voices of resistance as ‘anti-nationals,’ as you did with students of JNU.

It is this style that our administration in RIEs too has happily reproduced – it overreaches its role of giving us ‘suraksha’ by weaponising the horrible reality of violence against women in society as an excuse to locking us up behind the four walls of our hostel rooms everyday – it securitises our bodies to control us and further characterise us ‘immoral’ for questioning the hollow rhetoric of security.

In the spirit of recent struggles in universities across the country such as BHU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Army Institute of Law, Hindu College, Patiala University, JNU, etc. against curfew, gender discriminatory fee hikes, sexual harassment and so on, it’s important for us to raise our voices collectively to end the caging of women. We continue to persist with our demand to have 24×7 access to our campus even as the administration calls it ‘illogical’ and mocks us.

Structures of patriarchy operating in institutions of higher education have kept us in cages for far too long. These age old foundations of patriarchy are being rattled every day with women collectivising and raising their voices. It is only a matter of time before they come crumbling down.

We request you to ask the NCERT and MHRD administration and officials to not be a barrier to our freedom. And to you, we say again, women students on the country will reject any attempts at the securitisation and surveillance of our bodies, lives and dreams!

Sincerely,
Pinjra Tod, Bhopal

Note: This article was first published on Pinjra Tod’s Facebook page. The views expressed here are that of a collective.

Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: IndiaTV/YouTube; Pinjra Tod/Facebook; Pradeep Gaur for Mint via Getty Images.

The post ‘Shakti Samvad’ For Bhopal’s Women: Are Ms Sitharaman And Sadhvi Pragya On The Same Page? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The Supreme Court of India was summoned to one of the biggest tests it will ever face as an institution. On 20^th April, a former SC employee sent an affidavit to all the judges of the Supreme Court alleging Sexual Harassment by CJI Rajan Gogoi. Since then, nothing has been normal for Supreme Court. On 23^rd April, CJI himself constituted a panel comprising Justices S A Bobde, N V Ramana and Indira Banerjee to probe into the allegations made against him. Later on, Justice Ramane was replaced by Justice Indu Malhotra, after the allegations made by the complainant woman on the closeness of Justice Ramane with the CJI.

On 4^th May, after appearing before the committee for the 3^rd time, the woman walked out of the committee claiming the atmosphere of the committee was intimidating, frightening and lacks proper procedure. Further, the committee decided to proceed ex-partee and gave clean chit to CJI Ranjan Gogoi.

Since then, the Court is facing a huge uproar from various sections of the society. Various groups of women organisations, lawyers, scholars and civil society members have criticised the judgement on various grounds. On 7^th May, several women right activist, including some of the Supreme Court women lawyers, staged protest outside the Supreme Court demanding CJI Rajan Gogoi’s resignation. Activist Annie Raja said, “Women have waged a struggle for very long and will continue to do so for their rights. The SC committee has violated all existing norms. We want a transparent enquiry. We want to protect the justice system. If the SC itself is violating norms, then there will be no value in the system left.” Later on, around 55 women were detained by the police.

This criticism and backlash was not started after the judgment, instead it was there throughout the proceedings. Many questions were raised, right from the legality of the committee to the way it decided to proceed. Here are some of the major questions of law which remained unanswered throughout the process:

Members Of The Committee

Firstly, the women herself raised the question through a letter sent by her to Justice Bobde regarding the inclusion of Justice Ramane into the committee. Further, she raised the question regarding the members of the committee. The formation of the committee does not follow the Vishakha Guidelines, which is now incorporated in The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013(POSH Act). The principles laid down in the act clearly stipulate that the committee should comprise external neutral member with experience in the field of sexual harassment cases. Also, the Chairman of the committee should be a woman. Clearly, both of these basic principles have not been followed in the present case. The women organisation in an open letter to the Supreme Court suggested that the present case ought to be inquired into by retired justices as well as external members of civil society. In the event of non-application of these principles, various young lawyers have registered their protest by sending copies of POSH Act to Supreme Court judges.

Complainant Denied Legal Representation

Secondly, the complainant woman was denied the right to legal representation. She even raised the issue before the committee to allow a lawyer or support with her. She also pointed out before the committee that she had lost hearing in one ear completely due to stress and was undergoing daily treatment for the same. Since the question of legal representation is always to be decided in the context of the specific factual situation in each case.

Here are some of the reasons why it should have been allowed in this particular case:

Since the allegations were against the Chief Justice of India and the court itself has connected the issue with the independence of judiciary. It was the need of the hour to set a precedent (an example) which is backed possibly backed by utmost legal principles and authorities of the Country. Further, in a case of C.L. Subramanian vs Collector of Customs, where a civil servant at an inquiry was pitted against a trained prosecutor, the court took the fact into consideration that the case against him was being handled by a trained prosecutor. It was a good ground for allowing the appellant to engage a legal practitioner to defend him. Similarly, in the given case the complainant woman was defending herself against a person holding the highest seat of the apex court of the country. “While I am of course capable of presenting my facts and evidence but I do not have any training or practical experience of the and procedure,” she said. Therefore, she should have allowed a lawyer to accompany her.

Procedure Followed By The Committee

Thirdly, the question with regards to the working of the committee has been raised by the protestors. As the complainant made it clear that she did inquire about the procedure to be followed by the committee. However, this question was also left unanswered by the committee.

No-one Should Be A Judge In His Own Case

Lastly, one of the principles of natural justice that “no-one should be a judge in his own case” has been violated here. Since the committee was incorporate by none other than Chief Justice himself to inquire upon the allegations made against him is not an ideal application of the principle. Therefore, the question of bias is raised here. The Court in Manak lal v. Dr. Prem Chand held, “the test is not whether in fact, a bias has affected the judgement, the test always is and must be whether a litigant could reasonably apprehend that a bias attributable to a member of the tribunal might have operated against him in the final decision of the tribunal.” Thus, it was suggested by women rights organisation that the committee probing the charges should comprise of retired judges rather than sitting Judges.

Further, the report of the committee will not be made public as per the 2003 judgment in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India, the report of a committee constituted as part of the in-house procedure is not liable to be made public, the notice issued Supreme Court states.

As the famous saying goes “justice should not only be done but must be seen to have been done”. Clearly, handling of this case has left grave loose ends as to the proper application of highest judicial principles.

The post CJI Sexual Harassment Case: Questions Left Unanswered appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

“I think you never outgrow your love of these stories of giants, ogre and witches, superheroes’ comics give you that for older people.” – Stan Lee

The word ‘hero’ conjures up an image in Stan Lee’s mind of a knight in shining armour on a white steed looking for good deeds to do, for figurative dragons to slay. When he was a young man, he loved the movies, and Errol Flynn was his knight in shining armour, his hero, because of the roles he played.

Every writer Stan had ever read, from Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, Franklin W. Dixon who wrote the Hardy Boys, to Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare inspired his own writing.

He said his love of the language in Shakespeare’s work influenced a lot of the dialogue and phraseology in the books he wrote, such as Thor, God of Thunder and Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. He loved making up his own expressions like, “By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, so let it be.”

He had lots of advice for children who want to write. “Read! Read as much as you can! Read everything you can! Don’t limit your reading to comic books or mystery stories or science fiction stories or romance stories or any particular genre.” He believes the more children read, the more the phraseology stays with them, the more the rhythm of the words sinks in, and the more their imaginations are stimulated. And he advises them to not only read but to write and to care about what they write, to say to themselves.

”We had the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Father Time, Hurricane. The most important thing in those days was the cover. All these books were on the newsstand, and you had to hope your cover would compel somebody to buy the book. And everything depended on the name. A character like Hurricane was a guy who ran very fast. Later on, when I was looking for new superheroes, it occurred to me that somebody crawling on walls would be interesting. I thought, Mosquito Man? It didn’t sound very glamorous. Fly Man? I went down the list and came to Spider-Man. That was it.”

To the man that gave us the best defenders and made us believe in superheroes; the man whose cameos in movies resulted in loud cheers in the theatres, Thank You.

Thank you for making me believe in being a good person, and that with great power comes great responsibility. Thank you for making the Marvel Cinematic Universe a different world. Thank you for giving us the best.

We hope to see you in future films as the theatre rejoices.

Once a legend,

Always a legend.

The post A Tribute To Stan Lee: The Legend Who Made Me A Better Person appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

गाड़ी पटना से निकलती है और बिहटा होते हुए पहुंचती है एक संकरे से पुल पर। यह पुल है बिहार का फेमस कोइलवर पुल।

आरा ज़िले में एक कहावत चलती है, ‘बाह-बाह रे अंग्रेज़ बहादुर, कोइलवर पुल बनवाया है, नीचे गाड़ी चलती है, ऊपर रेल चलता है।’

156 साल पुराना यह पुल भारत का सबसे पुराना रेलवे पुल है। लोग इसे आम बोलचाल में कोइलवर ब्रिज ही बोलते हैं पर इसका असली नाम है अब्दुल बारी पुल। यह पुल आरा को पटना से जोड़ता है। अब इस कहानी में एक और पुल है, ‘आर के सिंह’, जो आरा को दिल्ली से जोड़ते हैं।

आर के सिंह

आर के सिंह माने राजकुमार सिंह। आर के सिंह 1975 बिहार प्रदेश कैडर के आईएएस रहे हैं। इनकी छवि एक कड़क प्रशासक की रही है। यह पटना के डीएम भी रहे हैं। लालू यादव ने मुख्यमंत्री रहते हुए, इन्हें लाल कृष्ण आडवाणी को गिरफ्तार करने भेजा था। इन्होंने तब रथ यात्रा रोककर आडवाणी को गिरफ्तार भी किया था। यूपीए 1 और 2 में सरकार के पसंदीदा अफसरों में रहे हैं। गृह मंत्री चिदंबरम के तो एकदम खास अफसर माने जाते थे।

गृह सचिव के पद से रिटायर होकर, 2014 में भाजपा उम्मीदवार के तौर पर आरा लोकसभा सीट से लड़े और जीते। अभी भी केंद्र में ऊर्जा विभाग के राज्य मंत्री (स्वतंत्र प्रभार) हैं।

आर के सिंह का कास्ट फैक्टर

आरा राजपूत बहुल ज़िला है। आर के सिंह भी राजपूत जाति से आते हैं तो यहां से इनके जीतने का पूरा माहौल बना हुआ है। हालांकि, ज़िले के कुछ भाजपा कार्यकर्ता खुद सिंह से नाराज़ बताए जा रहे हैं पर जनता सांसद के रूप में सिंह के कार्यों से संतुष्ट दिख रही है। केंद्रीय विश्वविद्यालय में कानून की पढ़ाई कर रहे अंजनी कुमार भी आरा ज़िले से हैं और उनकी राय में सांसद के तौर पर जितना काम आर के सिंह ने किया है, उतना किसी और सांसद ने नहीं किया।

अभी हाल ही में सिंह चुनाव प्रचार के दौरान आरा ज़िले के गंगहर गाँव पहुंचे थे। गंगहर मेरा ननिहाल है तो मैंने जब अपने रिश्तेदारों से इस बारे में बात की तो पता चला कि राजपूत जाति का एकमुश्त वोट आर के सिंह को जाने वाला है हालांकि अन्य जातियां और मुसलमान सिंह के विकल्प पर भी विचार कर रहे हैं।

राजकुमार का विकल्प राजू?

हिंदी की मशहूर लेखिका महाश्वेता देवी की एक किताब है, मास्टर साहेब। मास्टर साहेब एक उपन्यास है, जिसमें कहानी है जगदीश मास्टर नाम के एक स्कूल मास्टर की, जो वामपंथी विचारधारा का होता है और सामंतवाद के खिलाफ आवाज़ उठाता है। यह एक सच्ची कहानी है जो कि आरा ज़िले के ही एक मास्टर की कहानी पर रची गई है।

इसी जगदीश मास्टर के एक परम सहयोगी थे, आर टी सिंह। आर टी सिंह फौज से रिटायर्ड थे और वामपंथी विचारधारा में यकीन करते थे।इन्हीं आर टी सिंह का नौजवान पुत्र है राजू यादव।

आरा से सिंह के खिलाफ खड़े हैं राजू यादव

राजू यादव सीपीआई (एमएल) से आरा लोकसभा सीट पर उम्मीदवार हैं। राजू यादव वामपंथ की लम्बी परम्परा से निकले हुए नेता हैं। कानून से स्नातक राजू को महागठबंधन ने समर्थन दिया है।

तेजस्वी का वामपंथ के लिए दोहरा रुख

बिहार में वामदल दो सीटों पर चुनाव लड़ रहा है। एक है बेगूसराय और एक है आरा सीट। बेगूसराय से उम्मीदवार कन्हैया कुमार को तमाम कयासों के बाद भी तेजस्वी ने समर्थन नहीं दिया तो वहीं दूसरी ओर राजू यादव को आरा सीट से तेजस्वी ने पूर्ण समर्थन दिया है। इस समर्थन का पहला कारण जो निकला जा रहा है, वो है जातिगत।

राजू यादव अहीर जाति से आते हैं। तेजस्वी भी इसी जाति से आते हैं। कन्हैया चूंकि भूमिहार हैं, तो एक कारण यह भी निकाला जा रहा है कि इसलिए भी तेजस्वी ने समर्थन नहीं दिया। एक बात तो साफ है, बेगूसराय में कन्हैया को समर्थन ना देकर और आरा में राजू यादव को समर्थन देकर तेजस्वी ने बेहद बड़ा जातिगत कार्ड खेला है।

दूसरा कारण यह है कि तेजस्वी की बड़ी बहन मीसा भारती पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा क्षेत्र से चुनाव लड़ रही हैं। यहां भी राजू यादव के समर्थक ढेरों हैं। अब अगर आरा में राजद का वोट राजू को ट्रांसफर होगा तो तेजस्वी इस आशा में हैं कि शायद पाटलिपुत्र में सीपीआई (एमएल) का वोट मीसा को भी ट्रांसफर हो।

जब मैंने राजू यादव के बारे में आरा के ही एक दुकानदार से बात की तो उन्होंने बताया कि राजू यादव हाई-फाई नहीं है, ज़मीन का लीडर है लेकिन आर के सिंह के सामने राजू यादव कितना टिक पाएंगे, यह कह पाना मुश्किल है।

बहरहाल, इन्हीं सियासी दांव-पेंच के बीच 19 मई को आरा में वोटिंग है। कौन हारेगा, कौन जीतेगा इन सब पर तो बातें होती रहेंगी लेकिन आप अपने-अपने घरों से निकले और मतदान ज़रूर करें। एक बात और कभी आरा जाइए तो सक्कडी में तिलंगा जी का पेड़ा ज़रूर खाइए, लाजवाब है।

The post बेगूसराय के बाद अब आरा में है भगवा और लाल झंडे का मुकाबला appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

A few weeks after “Aligarh” was released in 2016, rave reviews of the movie were doing rounds in my social circle. “Must watch”, “masterpiece”, “a Manoj Bajpai special” etc. filled my news feed. It was based on the travails of the late Prof. Ramchandra Siras, who used to teach Marathi at the Aligarh Muslim University, and who had successfully challenged in the Allahabad High Court the University’s decision to summarily and illegally suspend him and evict him from his quarters for the offence of being a closeted homosexual — a fact that was itself discovered through a malicious sting operation that “caught” him having sex with a man. Prof. Siras died under mysterious circumstances in April 2010, just months from his retirement, and just the day before the University order revoking his suspension reached his residence-in-exile. It was a story that demanded to be told, and the reviews of “Aligarh” I came across seemed to command me to watch it. And so I did.

Representation In Movies And Mass Media

I have always had very high regard for Manoj Bajpai as an actor. But “Aligarh” was supposed to have been about more than Bajpai’s acting skills. It was supposed to have been about Prof. Siras (in a way it was, of course), a misfit academic at one of the oldest and most respected educational institutions in India; about expressing not just Siras’ intense longing for love and to be loved through his poetry, his addiction to alcohol and Lata Mangeshkar’s melody in loneliness, but also his sexuality, which is really the main crux of the plot.

Yet, the one scene in the movie where Siras is shown making love to his partner, the actors seem (at least to me) extremely inhibited. It’s what one would expect from a couple of heterosexual actors who could not be expected to be comfortable during the scene. There was no – to use cinematic language – “chemistry” between the two. That one scene could have made all the difference by deftly portraying the humanness behind not just homosexuality, but in a country like India, sexuality itself. It could have been a moment of cultural reckoning, a conversation starter (in a way it was, but not enough, according to me). Instead “Aligarh” seems to have chosen the safe path in not wanting to make its predominantly cisgendered, heterosexual audience uncomfortable by not sexualizing Prof. Siras, or doing so minimally.

As if doing so would have failed to make the case for Prof. Siras, who was wronged, humiliated, dehumanized grievously for being who he was; as if it were not “respectable” for an elderly man to express his sexuality, much less norm-violating sexuality (not surprising in a country where women who choose sexual freedom are believed to be have “loose morals”, and on the other hand, marital rape of supposedly sanskari bahus is seen as “legal” because of “sanctity of marriage” blah blah…and “the Indian culture”). The movie failed to challenge the social dominance of cisgendered heterosexual patriarchy.

Lack of representation in movies is not limited to sexual minorities alone, it applies to other kinds of minorities too. For example, we apparently still need the likes of Priyanka Chopra to bring home legendary boxer Mary Kom‘s struggles to us. One of the many things that people from the Northeast have to fight in “mainland” India is racism, and for women, misogyny is also thrown into the mix. The struggles of Mary Kom are not represented anywhere in the movie, nor could they have been. In another example, take the struggles of Dalit women like the late Phoolan Devi, which were grossly misrepresented in the movie Bandit Queen, and which was given a right dressing down by the matchless Arundhati Roy.

The complexities of the politics involved in these struggles can be explored best by those who have any experience of them. To let Bollywood’s upper caste North Indian Hindu privilege (or maybe “Aryan privilege” is a better term?) co-opt those unique struggles for commercial benefit is less about sensitizing, and more about seeking out “exotic” subjects to appease the “market”, the Indian middle class overrepresented by upper caste Hindus; it’s to tell them, despite deep discontent of the underrepresented groups raging somewhere out there, that “sab theek hai“.

Representation In Politics, Lawmaking And Legislature

Perhaps I am expecting too much! After all, in India, violent mobs appear to be ubiquitous. Lest this be mistaken for a somewhat belated, frustrated tirade against an “A” movie for not having enough of homoerotic titillation in it, allow me to point to another scene in “Aligarh” where Prof. Siras thanks his lawyer Anand Grover for “fighting it out for us”, only to be politely informed that Grover is not “gay”. Siras expected his lawyer to be gay, to actually “represent” not just him and those like him, as well as their lived experiences. This is the central point here, a lack of representation.

Where are the LGBTQ lawyers in our country? Where are they in our judicial system and as our lawmaking representatives? Where are they in our defence forces? Where are they in our sports teams? Where are they in our movies playing characters like Prof. Ramchandra Siras? Even after the limited repeal of Section 377 last year, why are gay people still afraid to come out? It’s all about visibility. The more gay people we see among us, know to be part of our families, our friend circles, our neighbourhoods, our constituencies, our workplaces, our movies as actors, directors, producers, our plays, our novels, our retail stores and malls, our Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and Assemblies and Councils and Panchayats, the more people will come to realise that gay people are human beings with human needs, desires, fears and aspirations.

That’s the only way they will find greater acceptance in society. Laws can only be the beginning of our quest for justice, not the end (after all, Section 377 had already been read down by the Delhi High Court in 2009 by the time Prof. Siras was suspended from AMU in early 2010). Justice comes through change in social attitudes. Change in attitudes can come only when changes are made visible. And this visibility is what LGBTQ people lack right now. Most of them have been left with very little choice but to retreat underground because of who they are, and to have an integral part of their humanity de facto criminalized.

The problem of inadequate representation is not just about mass media. It’s not just about the movies. It is an issue of immense political significance. Let’s take women’s issues as another example. The travesty of justice we are witnessing in India’s highest court of justice highlights not only the hypocrisy and whimsicality of the highest judiciary, or the vulnerability of India’s democracy, but also the fact that the number of female judges in positions of power in this country, is almost laughable. The three-judge “inquiry” committee that “heard” the woman who accused CJI Gogoi of sexual harassment and intimidation, had its male head appointed by the accused himself, and had just one female judge on it. The result: death of the twins, i.e. Justice and Fairness. The aggrieved woman might yet see justice done to her, but this case amply demonstrates how male privilege operates by keeping women away from positions of power, and asserts it through bullying and intimidation.

In patriarchal India, women are grossly underrepresented among lawmakers as well, with only 8-9% of all lawmakers being women, leading to calls for legislation to ensure 33% seats for women in Parliament that have so far gone unheeded. Even 33% is minuscule when compared to the proportion of women in India’s population; women will still stay starkly underrepresented in Parliament in case such legislation is realised. Women never form more than 10% of the candidates pitched for seats in Assemblies or the Parliament. Further, a disturbingly large number of male candidates standing for various major political parties are accused of crimes against women, further showing that women’s basic concerns has only been paid lip service by major political parties. It’s decidedly worse for women if they happen to be Dalit or belong to a religious minority. Women hardly form the grassroots of any of these parties. The result is continued disenfranchisement of women, especially of the majority who are poor and vulnerable.

Yesterday, a rally was held at a ground in support of the CPI(M) candidate in my Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to polls in the seventh and final phase of the LS elections. I felt a little queasy to learn that the former Supreme Court judge Asok Ganguly was also present there, though he was not one of the speakers. Ganguly was once accused of having sexually harassed an intern when he was chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission. He then resigned, having duly played his “victim” card and received unequivocal support from senior male politicians like the late Somnath Chatterjee (“left”) and Subramanian Swamy (right). He was subsequently “cleared” with zero consideration given to the victim. It was quite surreal to hear the (mostly male) speakers raise the issue of women’s rights and their violations “under the current governments”.

I wonder if any of them asked Justice Ganguly what he had to say about the CJI scandal (or even his own). I also wonder what it says about the candidate’s commitment to protection of women’s rights. That aside, claims were being made that the candidate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, a senior lawyer at the Calcutta High Court, would “fight for the poor and the vulnerable”. One look at his election affidavit reveals that he is a high net worth individual – a “crorepati“. Is it possible that his commitment to social and livelihood security for those engaged in informal labour is as good as his proclaimed commitment to women’s rights? Regardless of what he claims about his “lifelong fight” for the poor, there’s no way to know. What is known is that he doesn’t represent either group.

There are a plethora of rich people and alleged criminals wielding enormous influence who are seeking office. There is every evidence that wealth inequality is growing by the minute in India, yet we have a bunch of crorepatis at the helm of our lawmaking. It’s glaringly and sickeningly obvious that these people don’t represent the interests of the majority of Indians. Very few of them are accessible to constituents once they are voted to power, if any. It’s why we see budgetary allocations to education dipping every year, yet the law to implement the shady electoral bonds scheme gets passed through the emergency Money Bill route. It is difficult to convince oneself that our “representatives” can be held accountable for anything. Those among us who are most eager for political representation – with all the complexities in their politics – have been marginalized and disenfranchised. They have been made almost invisible.

Common women, men and transgender people who sincerely want to bring about positive changes in society through legislation, don’t have access to the kind of funds and campaigning strategies that candidates from major parties do. On the one hand, appeals to emotion, caste, religious or “nationalist” sentiments tend to trump policy-based and rights-based appeals, if and when made. Lack of proper representation, even with all the “good intentions” of the representative, risks converting a fight for survival into an ideological fight. This is exactly why Dalit women need to represent Dalit women, agricultural labourers need to represent agricultural labourers, and homosexuals need to represent homosexuals. Their lives cannot be seen as props for the ideologies and whimsies of the privileged, whose own lives are unlikely to be going along the same the line.

If people cannot take it upon themselves to change their collective condition through lawmaking (or even filmmaking), fail to bring their unique experiences to the table in a democracy, what good is that democracy? Is it any surprise that more than 70 years after independence, our illusion of democracy is still sustained through yearly circuses of what are for all intents and purposes anti-democratic elections? When we watch Aligarh, do we see Prof. Siras, or do we find Manoj Bajpai playing a gay man?

The post India’s Minorities: Underrepresented In Politics, Misrepresented In Media appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

The post Open Letter To Mr. Gambhir From An Ex-Admirer: Here’s Why You’re Incapable Of Being A Leader appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

“You speak a lot!”

“Why are you so loud?”

“You are so dominating!”

“Try to act like a girl.”

“Don’t swear, it looks vulgar.”

Have you ever heard one of these statements being spoken to you, or someone else, in your supposedly enriching college years? If you are a woman, then probably yes. Such casual remarks trying to appropriate women and construct them into the conventional norms of feminine identity are fairly common in our day to day lives.

In more simpler terms: sexist remarks telling women how they should behave are still fairly prominent, only they are better disguised, but still just as obvious and damaging.

Our male classmates often roll their eyes when a woman speaks or answers. We often catch them sharing a high five over some crude, but silent, double meaning joke made at a woman’s expense, or sharing sexist memes among themselves which shows pretty girls with smaller brains. They try to ignore, or make faces, whenever issues of gender discrimination are raised in the classrooms. In fact, a lot of women students who are active and outspoken in class are often made to feel like unwanted insufferable know-it-alls.

Even the logic of abuse follows the same orthodox double standards. In addition to the fact that the medium of abuse are often women and majority of the swear words are misogynistic in nature, men who swear are often seen as cool, fun and friendly. They have the licence to use abusive language as casually as punctuation. However, on the other hand, when a woman swears, it is reflected poorly on her image. She is called unsophisticated, vulgar, manner less, shameless, and other synonyms.

And it’s funny, because men want to be friends with women who tolerate their swearing, their jokes, and all their innuendos, and if she does not do that then she is either “too sensitive,” “no fun at all,” or “fussy,” or “she has no sense of humour.”

“Every single gender discussion forum includes at least two people out of four who wonder why ‘you can’t take it as a joke.’” says Malvika Ravi in an article about everyday sexism while discussing the Ted Talk by Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project.

If one tries to correct or point out such behaviour then they are called the ‘feminist types,’ and not in a good way. In fact, the contempt with which ‘feminist types’ are seen in colleges almost makes women want to cringe or shy away from any kind of discussion. The disdain with which the term is used sometimes, is as if they are referring to some militant organisation and not an inclusive idea which believes in equality.

A lot of women even try to overlook such behaviour to try and fit in with their peers, even if they feel uncomfortable about it, because openly defying it is as good as putting a full stop to their social lives.

Interestingly, “when asked in a class about the number of people who considered themselves feminists (a class of 3 men and 16 women); only 2 women raised their hands,” says Malvika Ravi.

And this underhanded sexist appropriation is not limited to one gender. Men who are sensitive, emotional, or have any traits that are characterised as feminine in general, are labelled as either girly or gay, and none of the terms are used in a respectable fashion, which is another kind of sexism altogether. Men who do not adhere to such toxic language are seen as “stuck up,” “goody-two-shoes,” “geeks,” “boring,” and whatnot.

What’s sad is that all this toxicity is not occurring in some remote shady area which people often call unsafe, and all these men are not criminal minds. They are normal everyday people, who go to esteemed universities, who sit with us, talk to us, are in the same class and may be even in the same peer group with us. And it’s worse because these ‘normal’ men are casually and flippantly sexist and they do not feel that anything is wrong with that kind of behaviour. It’s just so ‘normal’ and everyday for them and for us, and it’s this normality of it that is more sickening, because it trivialises the seriousness of the problem.

To present an analogy, they are racist and do not see anything wrong with that.

The fact that men can make sexist jokes and remarks and not get frowned upon is just unacceptable. Because the first step to eradicating a discriminatory practise is to make people realise that the practise is wrong. But, that is not the case here because they do not feel that what they are saying should not be said in polite company or at all. And mostly, even if men are considerate about their language, a lot of times it’s not because they know it’s wrong, its because they think that they would “set the girl off.”

All that is happening now is, instead of accepting the error of their ways, people have turned it into a private joke which is still very much in continuous circulation.

In a survey conducted by IIT Bombay (where 75% of the respondents were heterosexual males, 20% were heterosexual females, and 5% from LGBTQ community) 76% females and 63% males agree that casual sexism exists. Not to mention that resolving this deep rooted issue is more problematic than the others, as it is more ingrained and inconspicuous.

And let’s not just blame all the men here, because women’s own misogyny is just as much to blame. Phrases like “ew, she is so girly!” or “how can someone not like pink?” or “she is so fake, just look at the amount of makeup she puts on!” or “she is just popular because she dresses like a slut!” or the most damning of all, “act like a girl, there are guys around.”

One should realise that the world has truly gone down the drain when girls see “you are not like other girls” as a compliment.

Or maybe it did not go down the drain. It may have been there all along; it just refuses to pull out of the gutter!

Vicious, is it not? Where the voices raised against oppression are met with oppression of another kind. Patriarchy has a multi-layered counter offensive system indeed. But then again, its been building since antiquity.

Finally, I do not know how to fight this, or how to put a stop to everyday sexism or what is the right approach to this situation, but I do agree with Malvika Ravi when she says “when the very basic ideal of feminism means equality; it would mean that in that class if you did not raise your hand, then you believe that gender equality should not exist.”

So try and be a feminist if you want to, even if the world says you can’t.

Featured image for representative purpose only.

The post The Biggest Obstacle I Face In Being A Feminist? The Fact That Sexism Is Normal appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Child marriage and adolescent pregnancy is a global concern across regions as it violates human rights. The recent Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC) 2013-2014 shows that 30.3% of women aged 20-24 are married before the legal age of 18 in India. In the lowest income group, 44.1% are married as children. Child and adolescents hold the future of the world in their hands, but only if they have access to the opportunities and skills they need.

Girls who are married early are most likely to drop out of school and discontinue formal education. They are also likely to be pushed into early childbearing, which increases the risk of maternal mortality, morbidity and infant death, and malnutrition for the mother and child. The state of Odisha ranks 13th among states with 21.3% child marriages – highest reported in the district of Malkangiri 39.3% and Koraput places itself in the red zone with a total of 34.7% child marriage. In terms of the locality, child marriages are more rapidly taking place in rural areas than in urban areas with figures showing 0.7% in the urban area and 34% in the rural area.

The district of Koraput has a unique demographic profile consisting of 14.2% Schedule Castes (Dom, Generic Caste Dhoba, etc.) and 50.6% are Schedule tribes (Gadaba, Omanatya, Paroja, Saura, Bhumia, Paroja, Saura, Hhumia, Bhottadas, Durua, etc.). Both SCs and STs have their own age-old custom of child marriage which is showing in the data that rural Koraput has more child marriage than in urban area.

The literacy rate of Koraput is 49.21%. The male literacy rate is 50.21 and the female the literacy rate is 32.43% in the district indicating that most of the girls are out of school. Along with various socio-cultural, economic and development related reasons, lack of education is one of the important causes for the high prevalence of child marriage in the district.

To prevent child marriage, the government of India passed the Child Marriage Act in 2006. According to the Act, child marriage is a formal or informal union before the age of 18 for girls and 21 for the boys. In 2009 the state of Odisha passed the rule and in 2010 it implemented the rule at the block level. The district collector is the responsible authority and the Social Welfare Officer (SWO) will be the main responsible person in the district level and the ICDS will be the implementing authority and the CDPO will assign as Child Marriage Prohibition Officer.

As per the rule, CDPO cum CMPO is responsible for documenting all the data related to the child marriage incidence in the district and send to the DSWO in quarterly basic. The DSWOs/ Programme officers are responsible to cross verify and compile all the data and send to the Department of Women and Child Welfare Department of Odisha for further action and record. As per the rule, once the CDPO cum CMPO get any information about the child marriage he/she will fill up the form II which is the Child Marriage Information Report and investigate the case. After investigation and the procedure used to prevent child marriage, the child marriage CDPO cum CMPO will fill the Form III, which is a report of Child Marriage Prohibition Officer and submit it in front of the Magistrate. Then he/she has to submit the quarterly report, which is Form I and send it to DSWO.

But unfortunately, the procedure is not followed by the CDPO cum CMPO because of lack of awareness on the importance of the issue in hand. As per the rule, police should file a case against child marriage and take appropriate action with the help of  CMPO. But in many instances, the police is not registering any case and simply going with the team to maintain the law and order which is again the violation of the law.

In the light of the above systemic issues and developments at the ground level, following strategies/action plans may be adapted to bring in suitable reforms and better streamline the government’s effort to prevent child marriage at the district level:

First, strengthening the information channel that can provide an information edge to the district administration to prevent child marriage. As evidenced in the recent child marriage cases in Laxmipur Block and other blocks of Koraput, tips of information about the child marriage taking place in rural remote areas are not reaching to the appropriate authority at district/block level. The information gap that exists helps the community get away with completion of child marriage often in a closed circuit of their own community bounded by strict adherence to community social laws and traditions. The villagers often do not open their mouth about child marriage due to their fear of being sanctioned or outcasted from the community.

In Laxmipur case, the tip of information we received about the child marriage was from a person who wanted to take revenge for his dispute with the father of the child bride on a property related case. Clearly, this is not a permanent or reliable source of authentic information one that the administration seeks to address the issue. There is a need to build a strong and reliable channel of information involving government or para-government staffs including Anganwadi workers, school teachers, PRI officials, and grassroots workers at the ground level who can help the administration with tips of information of child marriage taking place in their locality.

This brings to the second strategy of departmental and programmatic convergence and cooperation. Child marriage is a multidimensional deprivation arising out of various forms of un-freedom. Lack of access to basic education and skills, basic and reproductive healthcare and sanitation and the larger social and gender discrimination meted out to the girls even at an early age makes them vulnerable to various forms of discrimination, exploitation, and mistreatment. Hence, given the multidimensional effect and implications of child marriage, the need is to suitably and strategically converge the program of actions among key departments including NGO sector efforts that comprehensively address the issue of child marriage and further actions usually followed after stopping it. For instance, strategic convergence for comprehensive and joint action against child marriage may be possible among social welfare department, school education department, department of women and child welfare and several other line departments dealing with the issue of child rights and development.

Last but not least is the need to energize and sensitize on the serious implications of child marriage among key government stakeholders and line departments including the police. This can be done through sensitizing through training and capacity building programs under the supervision of district collector/CDMO and cooperation and participation from NGOs. There is also the need to strengthen the monitoring of child marriage system supported by up-to-date data and an Electronic Monitoring Information System to prevent child marriage (EMIS).

The post The Ugly Reality Of Child Marriage In Odisha’s Koraput District appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

A general state of apathy towards morality seems to have clouded the Indian political atmosphere and each day of electioneering has been unveiling new found lows touched by the political hulks of India.

We are on the brink of the greatest examination of Indian democracy since two historically significant instances put our population to test: the first one occurred in the immediate aftermath of Independence when a consortium of indistinctly uneducated people was guided to vote for a class of leaders who they were promised would lift them out of the dungeons of poverty and spells of illiteracy. The second, when democratic institutions crumbled and were concentrated in the hands of a dictatorial figure with an image and style that was in itself, larger than life. Both instances saw democracy triumph.

This time, it is a combination of both the tests. While our population is definitely not illiterate in the literal sense, it definitely is intellectually uneducated or to say in the least, misled. Gripped by the vicious serpent of fake news and propaganda, it defies all rational and neutral perspectives towards the current state of affairs.

An autocratic if not anarchical current regime has not only displayed the worst sort of indifference towards the misdeeds committed under its umbrella but even worse, it has attempted to veil it with fierce publicity of renamed policies, unreleased statistics, the spread of communal hatred and lacklustre hypothesis of development. This lethal combination of a foolhardy set of electors and manipulative suitors attempting to enter a five-yearly nuptial contract has diseased our sovereign, socialist and secular democracy. It gives an imprint of the plagued rats and the pied piper, just that our piper is the plague and our rats need a cure.

The averagely-educated, middle-aged people of the middle class have for decades been victims of a spurious mentality-manufacturing by a class of inept politicians who reduced the debate of Indian election to be limited to the antagonization of Hindus against Muslims, caste and class consciousness, region and religion-based discrimination and flaccid unfulfilled promises. They have been brought up not with the ideals of Gandhi and Bhagat Singh but anti-peace, anti-harmony and anti-intellect ideas of touted patriotism and rigorous devotion towards religion.

For how long will we seek answers to “Who is to blame?”. We are the anti-nationals, army-doubters, compulsive-contrarians, disbelievers and leftists.

But what desh-bhakti is that which retards a progressing economy’s aspiration to lurk between ‘chowkidari’ (watchman) and ‘pakoda’ selling? The legacy of an industrial India?

What religion is it that allows human-slaughter in the name of cow protection?

Where is the intellect of this country that hails itself as the successor of the world’s oldest civilization when it attempts to shut all speaking mouths?

While a Manoj Tiwari who dances to the tunes of a retrograde song reducing the existence of a woman to her waist deserves to be an MP, why is a Sapna Chaudhary who chooses to dance for a living maligned with retrograde remarks when she decides to be in politics? Where are the female-integrity and gender-equality our freedom-fighters thought we would imbibe?

While we may not be able to mobilize public opinion, let us at least try having an opinion and putting it forward. Let us attempt to expose not just the hate-spewing right-wingers but also the left-leaning pseudo-liberals. Even Plato settled for the second best state leaving his cloud of the ideal. Let us try to safeguard morality, if not democracy. Let us at least make an attempt to know he who does not deserve power if we do not know about the one who deserves it.

The post Do Indians Even Deserve A Democracy? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Father sent me to the post office to purchase some postal stationery – postcards, inland-letters, and postal envelop – as, in those days, snail mail was the only medium we could communicate through, with our relatives and friends in other places. As usual, there was a long queue at the counter. I noticed that people who were leaving the counter were coming back not only with the stationary they required but also a stamp of red color. I stopped a gentleman and asked him why everyone was purchasing the red colored stamp. He looked on me – a child in the seventh standard – with a rather proud smile and asked me to read, showing me the stamp. It read Shranarthi Sahaita in Hindi and Refugee Relief in English; the value was 5 P.

I do preserve one of those historical stamps in my personal collection, a look on which still pumps some extra dose of adrenaline into my bloodstream with a feeling of national pride, which for me still means helping poor and wronged people, irrespective of their religious affiliations, ethnicity or gender against their oppressors.

The Beginning Of Bangladesh

Refugees were pouring into the country; Bengalis by ethnicity, Muslims by religion, from what was then called East Pakistan, in thousands, the same people who, it is said once had opted for partition of Bengal in the British period and then the partition of India on religious lines, going along Mr. Jinna’s creation called Pakistan, in quest of a promised “Muslim Homeland”. This homeland was centred in Panjabi, Sindhi dominated West Pakistan, which was 2,208 km away even for a bird to fly through the shortest route, having no point of territorial contiguity; and had a distinctly different culture, language and script.

Now, when the majority of Pakistan returned a Bengali Mujibur Rahman to head the national government, the people in the West not only denied him the democratic right but the Pakistani army launched a massive genocide in the East starting with its infamous “Operation Searchlight” of March 25, 1971. Many hundred thousand or many million, ordinary people, men, women, and children were killed, and many hundred thousand women were raped, by their co-religionists.

India kept its borders open for the refugees who could flee the pogrom, but the financial burden soon started to become too cumbersome. Pakistan, under its military dictator Yahya Khan, was making two kills with one stone, suppressing the Bengali morale and shaking the Indian economy with the flood of refugees.

Earlier, Pakistan in its complete audacity had, under its earlier military dictator Ayub Khan, launched a massive full-scale offensive against India which had resulted into the biggest tank battle since the second World War, and had miserably failed.

Now, for India, no option was left but to strike.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Wanted Immediate Action

On April 25, 1971, Indira Gandhi summoned a cabinet meeting in which Chief of the Indian Army Staff, Field Marshal Manekshaw was also called. According to what Manekshaw shared with Pupul Jayakar, who authored the book “Indira Gandhi: A Biography,” a few decades after the Bangladesh war; Indira Gandhi asked him whether he was aware of Pakistan army’s killings and the resulting influx of refugees into India, and on his affirmation she said:

“You must stop them. If necessary, move into East Pakistan but stop them.”

“You know that means war!” Manekshaw exclaimed.

“I don’t mind if it’s war,” Indira said.

Manekshaw said, “If India wages a war now, I guarantee you 100% defeat.”

He explained the danger that due to the outbreak of monsoon, troop movements would be confined to roads, the rest of the land would be marshy, and the rivers would become like oceans. He pointed about other reasons to postpone, like drawing of troops from positions where they were posted to counter the Naxalites, their retraining for the new task, and the onset of harvesting season in Punjab.

“The Air Force will not be able to operate. I will be tied down,” he added.

He, recalled a red-faced Prime Minister postponing the meeting till 4 PM and asking him to stay back with her. When alone he asked her if she wanted his resignation? Adding, but he had to tell her the truth.

“All right, Sam; go ahead – I trust you,” said Indira with an approving smile.

Rigorous preparations were undertaken since then. No space was given to hasty decisions. The result was a historic victory for India, unparalleled by any other military intervention in the post-world-war era till then.

On December 16, 1971, Lt. General AAK Niazi, of Pakistan surrendered to Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora of India with his 90,000 men strong army, and Bangladesh was liberated. The war itself remained only a 14-day affair. This victory was achieved even though America had sent its flotilla to the region, which was seen as a possible nuclear threat to India in support of its old-time ally, Pakistan. The threat was however neutralized as the then USSR sent its nuclear-armed submarine on the trail of the flotilla and thus it did not take an active role in the conflict (till that time neither India nor Pakistan was a nuclear power).

India Gets Nuclear

A little after 8:05 am on May 18, 1974, Raja Ramanna the brilliant scientist, made his way through the deserts of Rajasthan to a village from where he on an unsecured phone line called Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was anxiously waiting for the call and gave her a succinct message “The Buddha,” he reportedly told her, “has finally smiled.”

Ramanna had to come to the village from Pokhran, where an exclusive phone line set for the purpose, unfortunately, did not work. This message was the coded news of India’s first successful nuclear blast. The test was the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation that was not a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. India had become an atomic power. Now, Pakistan dare not wage another regular war against India and resorted to proxy war instead, under another of its military dictators, Ziaul Haque, first through insurgents in Kashmir, later also through militants brainwashed for terrorist acts in the name of Khalistan movement in Punjab, and finally finding recruits among disgruntled youths throughout India, hurt and alienated, as many of them have claimed, because of the mosque demolition at Ayodhya at the hands of Karsevaks, motivated and mobilized mainly by the BJP.

Religious bigotry and xenophobia came handy for proponents of “free market,” in order to mask the real socioeconomic issues, and tilting the economy away from its socialist orientation at both sides of the LOC, which fructified in the so-called economic reforms.

Pulwama, Balakot And A Cloudy Weather Again

Fast forward 2019.

Terror struck in Pulwama of Kashmir again, when the Indian democracy was gearing up to perform its most sacred duty of choosing the central government for the coming five years, as the previously elected government was about to complete its term. Forty people, soldiers, were martyred in the attack. JeM, a terrorist outfit operating from Pakistan claimed responsibility. The entire nation across party affiliations, social strata, and religious denominations burned with rage asking the government to teach the perpetrators a lesson.

The Indian Air Force in a bold action struck at a facility of the JeM terror training at Balakot in Pakistan, with a calculated, limited, and precise force; killing only the inmates of that facility, not harming any Pakistani civilian or even a military person. The entire action was jubilantly backed by the nation when the news broke in the morning. Pakistanis tried to retaliate in a goofed-up action and were chased right back into their homeland.

Only a few days later, the Hon’ble PM of India Mr. Modi came out in public, that on the night of the strike when review meetings were going on, the Air Force experts said that the weather had become cloudy and suggested that the operation be called off for some later date, but the Hon’ble PM told them that the cloudy weather, in fact, gave an advantage to our jets of remaining concealed behind the clouds from the enemy radars, and thus, the strike be carried out on that night itself, and so was it done.

Leaving the uproar at the social media about the ability of radars to see through clouds that followed aside, I found that perhaps the cloudy weather does not affect radar, but it does affect weapons. Perhaps it was the weather which prevented the Air Force from taking footage of the hit target on that night. The PM though might be justified in his hurry on account of concerns of secrecy compromise in case of a delay.

This news, however, compels one to wonder about the way the two prime ministers of India took expert military advice; one in 1971 and the other in 2019, respectively.

One also wonders what was the hurry to disclose the details, claiming a personal boldness and sagacity within a few days?

Was, the Hon’ble PM trying to benefit in the elections from the excitement of public sentiments, much like the Pakistani rulers do?

Interestingly, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan thinks there may be a better chance of peace talks with India if Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins the general election.

The post Is The Weather Cloudier For Modi Than What It Was For Indira Gandhi In 1971? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

“Why don’t you use a mosquito repellent or a net?”

“Hold”, putting the call on hold, I slapped the already red arm again, only this time squashing a mosquito in between.

“It’s okay. They are feeding on infected blood; their loss.” That was the first and last time she laughed at that statement, yet I never stopped repeating the same joke again and again. A deliberate attempt to tell her that it didn’t matter. Or did it?

“ELISA and TST”, the receptionist shouted, calling for the lab assistant. But it was the “be careful and wear gloves”, which she whispered, standing at a distance of almost five meters that caught my attention. “Was that statement required?”, “or am I overthinking, or maybe it is just the start of what lies ahead.” Ignoring the voices inside and outside my head, I gave the required blood samples, accelerated my motorbike at the highest possible RPM and rode off. Not out of fear or shame, but because I was already running 10 minutes late for office.

30^th Sep 2016, after dropping my parents at a guestroom, I collected my test reports. Sitting in a corner, with my heart beating at the highest possible rate and hands trembling, I took out the reports and obviously, checked the less scary report first. I placed the other report at a legible distance and deliberately started reading from the top-left corner. I read the report again and again and again, meanwhile gathering myself. Finally, I walked up to the receptionist and asked her to take another sample for a ‘Western Blot’ test and paid the dues.

Clueless, I took the safest possible route and drove till my vision was blurred by the tears. I switched on the parking lights, and in a highly melodramatic fashion, positioned myself beside my bike and started crying, on the roadside. After crying for about 18-20 minutes, I strangely started laughing. That was one of the best laughs ever. 40-45 mins on that roadside, and I was back to work, still in shock. I worked like a machine for the next few days, pretending to be all charged up and excited about the upcoming event and my parents being with me, till the confirmatory report confirmed that my life is officially screwed. My brain automatically started working on Plan B, C all the way through to Z.

Two and half years now, and I am still alive, healthy and asymptomatic. I have everything I ever wanted with a little bit of something I definitely never wanted. The last 2.5 years have been a shocking as well as rather a surprising experience. I have found selfless love, made some new plans and worked on contingencies, improved my health, although messing it up afterwards. Life has been normal, with of course a few fights here and there which, to be honest, was no different earlier. Yes, I am a little damaged mentally and physically. I am well paid with a respectable job, yet my savings are frozen in the ice age. I have a beautiful family and a set of amazing friends, but somehow I have managed to push most people away from me. I have zero social media presence and love being that way for all the positive reasons. And as a definite cherry on top, I have no love life. In short, I come in a totally messed up package.

For people who are confused, please keep reading.

I still make mistakes, take calculated risks, win, lose, cry and feel. Everyday is a new day with at least one fight to earn the day, and then there are days that I fail. But whatever happens today, or has happened in my life until now, is in no way related to or because of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and most of the depression is self-inflicted. Those 40-45 minutes were the only time I cried and laughed out of pity due to the virus. It is true that life almost took a 180 degree turn and did change a lot after that, but it is also true that had I not been diagnosed with this virus, there would inevitably have been an imbalance somewhere else in life. Life was never, and will never be easy. Stop expecting life to be fair, for it hardly ever is, and start taking responsibility for your choices. I had to inform no less than 15-18 women I was involved with in the last 3-4 years about my condition, and fortunately they all tested negative. But I never got to know how I contracted the virus. Now how fair is that? Honestly, knowing where it came from never really mattered.

Every individual is different, that includes people with HIV. All of us react/would react differently to a harsh and disappointing news such as HIV and have different coping mechanisms. I was fortunate enough to be well aware about the virus, which played a part in coping with this unseen microbe. Not surprisingly, I have come across many highly educated, yet completely unaware people. I happen to have met someone (read: a person diagnosed with HIV) who became weak and gave up everything, including his own life. The internet is full of success stories, which are truly inspirational. But then there are so many of us that do not meet the same fate. Reading about them makes me wish I was there with them, guiding them, because I could. There is more than enough knowledge available on HIV, unless one chooses to be ignorant.

I would like to conclude by putting across a few points from my experience; I believe it would be of help to someone who may not be as aware or privileged as I have been.

1. Irrespective of the HIV status, if you are reading this, congratulations! You have internet access. Read about HIV. Become aware, it’s important.
2. Get yourself tested every 6 months for STDs. The HIV test is cheaper than your monthly mobile recharge and at many government establishments, it is free of cost.
3. Tested positive for ELISA? Wait, there is a confirmatory test too. There are major chances of a false positive result of ELISA.
4. DO NOT be alone. During the whole procedure make sure you have a support system, someone you trust, who cares about you, a source of strength. Talk to him/her. If you are a loner, too bad! Stay calm and be strong. Learn about HIV from all possible sources both before and after the test.
5. DON’T jump into conclusions. You have no choice but to be strong. Find your strength.
6. HIV+? I know how you feel. It is not easy, and will not be easy in the future as well, but learn to take it one day at a time. Winston Churchill said “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
7. Keep your close ones close. They will help.
8. Seek help and counselling from professionals. There is no shame in doing so.
9. I realised the day I was diagnosed that people are more scared for their loved ones, family than they are of the virus. If I had a choice, I would have never let my father and brother know. As much as it is their right to know, so is my right to keep them away from any pain. YOU decide whom to tell, how to tell and when to tell unless you are sexually involved with someone.
10. Be around positive people, try and keep yourself busy. Do not let any negativity near you.
11. IMPORTANT: Inform each possible individual you have ever been sexually active with. It will not be easy, yet it is your MORAL RESPONSIBILITY to tell them.
12. Never miss even a single dose of the prescribed medicine. Antiretroviral Therapy medicine is a life long treatment. DO NOT STOP your medication.
13. Diet plays a vital role. Ask your doctor about a diet plan. Any doctor with basic knowledge can suggest a core diet.
14. Physical exercise is a must. Your body has needs, physical exercise being one.
15. HIV/AIDS has been an unnecessary taboo in the society. HIV is hush-hush. But what really is the society? Do you owe any explanations to anybody?
16. HIV under treatment, is just like any other virus in the body. For example, the virus which causes viral fever.
17. Get yourself medically reviewed by a specialist every 6 months. That keeps a check on your health and if the medicine is working fine.
18. Self-medication is a BIG NO.
19. HAVE SAFE, PROTECTED, CONSENSUAL SEX, OF COURSE AFTER YOU HAVE TOLD YOUR PARTNER ABOUT YOUR HIV STATUS.
20. HIV is a highly complex virus, which has no cure till date. But with medical advancement, it is now treatable with a good life expectancy. You may even outlive most of the healthy people around. A person with HIV is as normal as any other without it. We do not stigmatise people suffering from constipation or diarrhoea, why should we do it for people with HIV? HIV is just a virus in living beings with equal right to breathe; it’s not a banned community.

I wanted to express my point of view, and do not intend to hurt or challenge anyone. I may have missed out a lot or used some language which might be seen as unconventional. If anyone feels bad about the nature of language used, I am sorry, you have a severe problem of selective reading. You can get in touch with me through my e-mail ID sifar.thebeginning@gmail.com. I’d love to answer your questions, and also celebrate the right to remain silent. You may call me by whatever name you feel like.

The post Living Positively With HIV: My Journey So Far appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

You know a Pizza has formulaic ingredients, no nutritional value, and yet, it offers instant gratification — an escape from the regular fare.

I haven’t watched Student of the Year, and so I cannot judge how Student of the Year 2 compares to it.

The movie reminds you of Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, Main Hoon Na, The Karate Kid, Mean Girls, Glee and endless other films or shows in the same genre.

The Plot

Really, why should you care when the makers don’t give a damn for the plot? It’s all about the money anyway. Don’t trust me! Watch the movie, and you’ll find glaring bloopers like this –

“Talent ko Angrezi mein kya bolte hain?”, asks Manasi Joshi Roy who plays Rohan aka Tiger Shroff’s mother.

“Hunar,” replies the earnest son.

You wonder what the cast and crew of this movie were smoking that not one of them could pick up this obvious mistake.

So, let’s skip the sketchy plot and move on to the next.

The Analysis

SOTY 2 is a no-brainer which treats its audience as juveniles. The narrative is more telling than showing. Everything is laid out on the table for you so that you don’t need to apply your brains to think and waste your time on any cerebral activity whatsoever.

After all, you have more important things to focus on like Tiger Shroff’s rippling abs, and the never-ending legs of Tara Sutaria and Ananya Pandey.

The movie relies solely on pumping up the hormones of its target audience. Because, why bother about padhai, likhai and all those mundane academic activities?

The Problem

The biggest problem of the movie is not the outlandish fantasy, poor script/writing or lack of originality but the outdated sexism. Escapist cinema is understandable and in some way, even justified. There is no excuse, however, for blatantly ignoring 50% of the student population. Especially when you have the movie titled ‘Student of the Year’. Hello Mr.Karan Johar! It’s 2019! I know you stopped making sense a long time ago given the declining quality of your movies and TV shows. But, this is a serious issue.

The labour force participation rate for women in India is among the lowest in the world. Out of 131 countries, only ten countries were below India. The labour force participation rate for women in 2017 was 28.5% while it was 82% for men. The numbers are only dropping ever since.

As a country, when we are at a stage where we are working hard on extending the brilliant performances of the female student population to the workplace and creating an equitable environment to break the glass ceiling, we have Student of the Year 2 which goes back into the dark ages.

My daughter asked me in the middle of the movie, “So, the Student of the Year Award is for athletics only?” As mentioned earlier in the article, there is no mention of academics in the world of Student of the Year 2. In the name of escapist cinema, let’s give a pass to the makers here. But, try stomaching this –

The Student of the Year award is given only to male students who excel at sports. Female students are just there as eye-candies and for exploring a bright future in dance.

The makers’ idea of progressiveness is having a lesbian sports coach in Gul Panag. But then again, it’s like rubbing salt on the wounds. You have a female sports coach and no female athletes? And to think that in real life, it is the female sportswomen who brought international laurels to the country in recent years – Mary Kom, P V Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar, Sania, Mirza, Saina Nehwal, Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepika Kumari, Karnam Malleswari, Krishna Poonia, and more.

Gul Panag’s lesbian character is mere tokenism and does nothing for the upliftment of the female student population. Worse still, she gets reduced to a joke that lasts for less than 2 mins. Even Maggi enjoys better respect and status! And here at home, I am motivating my daughter to aim for the General Proficiency, Best Student of the Year award, and more at school. And then, there’s Karan Johar and his sexist Student of the Year Award. Hmmmppphhh!

The Silver Lining

The saving grace is that while the educational system is patriarchal and misogynistic, Rohan, the male protagonist played by Tiger Shroff is not sexist and incredibly supportive of his girlfriend’s career ambitions. Rohan could be the modern-day desi poster-child for Bryan Adam’s ’90’s hit “Everything I do, I do it for you.”

Also, Tiger is more in his bare minimum than both the heroines combined. Oh, I forgot, there’s Alia Bhatt too who makes a special appearance in the ‘Hook-Up’ song at the end. So, there’s objectification with consent galore irrespective of the gender.

The Cast

Tiger Shroff is just as pleasing onscreen as he is offscreen. He fits the Bollywood masala hero to the T. The man can act, dance, kick, fly, and look dishy.

Ananya Pandey has unconventional looks for a Bollywood heroine which could prove to be her USP. Even though the Student of the Year 2 is focused on Tiger Shroff and Aditya Seal, it is Ananya Pandey who steals the show. She has the best debut with the interesting character of Shreya that has shades from the anti-heroine to the heroine. Ananya Pandey kills it with her appearance.

Tara Sutaria is a beauty pageant winner material – a living doll. But she is one of the weakest aspects of the film. Considering that she had prior acting experience with Disney earlier, you would expect more from her. But she disappoints even though she plays Mridula aka Mia, an equally grey character like Shreya, played by Ananya Pandey. Tara has the goods required for the glamour world. Maybe she’ll pick up in the upcoming movies as she learns the ropes of the game. Everyone has a different growth trajectory.

Aditya Seal is convincing as the anti-hero. Harsh Beniwal and Abhishek Bajaj stand out in the supporting cast while the rest including Gul Panag, Samir Soni as Principal, and Manasi Joshi Roy, are wasted and reduced to embarrassing caricatures. Farah Khan, Vishal-Shekhar, and Will Smith make a special appearance.

Final Thoughts

The Media and Entertainment industry plays a significant role in shaping the fabric of society. Apart from the material aspirations of minting money at the box-office, there needs to be an onus on the filmmakers to play fair while offering a sweet escape to its target audience.

Student of the Year 2 lacks soul and depth. Considering that the target audience is between 13-25 years at the max, SOTY 2 delivers the job. Some hits and some misses. On the whole, a one-time watch.

A Pizza isn’t necessary, but it’s not a crime if it exists on the menu. Enjoy without guilt or shame! In moderation of course.

The post Movie Review: Watching Student Of The Year 2 Is Like Eating A Pizza appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

There’s never been an election like the present one in India anywhere in the world before. Words are failing to describe how current lowly political narratives and rhetoric have dragged the country into the abyss of venom and vulgarity.

The premise was set 6 years back with the ascension of Modi and his portrayal as the supreme leader of the country. From Modi’s chaiwala days to the Gujarat model of development to NaMo to a 56-inch chest, it did not require an Einstein to realize that it was all mere propaganda designed to inflate Modi’s ego and image. To top this off, he had an election manifesto that looked like India would become like the legendary city of Atlantis in 5 years. The fact that the country believed in this fantasy saga that beats the best of Hollywood movies proves how gullible and vulnerable we are to being manipulated.

The BJP had played the political game extremely well. They peaked the anti-incumbency factor against UPA II to the roof by orchestrating the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement. The only other option was BJP and there Modi stood tall as NaMo. People fell headlong into the trap enmasse. When I tried bringing this up, I was ridiculed by people and friends on social media.

6 years on, with all poll promises fallen by the wayside, Modi and Amit Shah have switched back to their tried and tested strategy in Gujarat and UP during assembly elections in 2017. Polarisation and creating permanently deep divide in the society. I believe divide and rule was far better under colonial rule. It is ironic that Modi was nicknamed NaMo to equate him with Lord Shiva. Just as Shiva is considered the destroyer of the Universe, Modi has brought about the destruction of the country’s economy through demonetization. But, whereas Shiva destroys a toxic Universe in order to help Brahma create a new one with a clean slate, Modi is aspiring to create a more vile and dangerous India with Hindutva fascism at its core.

The polarisation of the country on the lines of religion and caste is a camouflage to how the entire democratic system of the country is being compromised. The bureaucracy, judiciary, EC, media – every institution that is meant to uphold the values of the country’s Constitution and democracy have been reduced to be at the beck and call of Modi and Shah. The fault lines of polarisation has even seeped into the armed forces which can be observed from the way ex-military personnel are actively participating in election debates on TV.

But, what astounds me is the way the entire country has been divided on the pro-Modi and anti-Modi lines. The ones who support Modi are bhakts and chowkidars and the opposing ones are anti-nationals, naxals, libtards and the list goes on. There is no escaping this divide and there is no neutral ground. You are either with Modi or against Modi which has been equated to being against the country itself. I am anti-Modi by force not by choice.

Criticizing his governance and policies has made me anti-Modi though I just support good governance and work for the people without being partial to any other party. Enough and more has been said on social media to write two dictionaries of derogatory words and expressions. The narrative of abuse has exploded like a nuclear bomb on the country during this election and hangs over the country like a poisonous mushroom cloud. Relationships have soured, friends have become strangers to each other and pro and anti-Modi people who are absolute strangers have got clustered into groups on WhatsApp and Facebook. Expletives and choicest abuses even at parents and siblings are in free flow.

What is ludicrous is, people on completely opposite sides of the country who would have never even met in their lifetimes are verbally attacking one another. I am wondering how would it be if two people who are fighting tooth and nail on social media now were to come together because of an alliance between their families a couple of years later and they were to recognize each other. How ironic and sad would that be? The true power of social media has been unleashed but in the most unfortunate way with consequences of utmost disgrace.

What we do not realize is that since there are no neutral people, there won’t be fence sitters during the elections. Since the anti-Modi votes are segregated among the Congress and several regional parties, accumulated pro-Modi votes could ensure his victory or that is what the BJP is hoping for. It is astounding and mind boggling how logic has deserted all of us. Every time Modi is criticized or questioned, the pro-Modi team or as they are popularly known, right-wing (RW) trolls go on the offensive and start equating with and abusing all opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal. How is blaming them helping defend Modi? Beats all my common sense.

Rather, hitting on Rahul Gandhi every time Modi is criticized will have the effect of listeners gradually wondering if there is some good about Rahul which is why he is getting attacked each time, which in turn will only reflect poorly on Modi. Moreover, attacking Rahul Gandhi implies Modi is indefensible. Modi’s team had coined the slogan “Congress mukt Bharat” in 2014 as the symbol to root out corruption from the country. The slogan has been nothing but one of Modi’s numerous jumlas. Not only has Modi not been able to ‘free’ India from Congress, due to a complete breakdown in governance, he has forced the country to go back to the Congress.

So what lies ahead? As already indicated by some BJP leaders, another 5 years of Modi and there could be no more elections in the future. The Constitution could be amended suitably or it could even be replaced by a new one that suits Modi’s dictatorship and the Hindutva agenda of the RSS.

People’s mandate is most likely to be fractured with regional parties having a huge say in the next government. With the dominant anti-Modi wave in prevalence, anything less than a simple majority for BJP like in 2014 would most probably see Modi and Amit Shah being eased out by existing or new allies in favour of a new, more acceptable and non-authoritarian face. On the flip side, a coalition government with Congress at its centre would throw up many interesting situations and challenges. To become the PM of the country and sit in the PM’s chair is every political leader’s fantasy. But, regional parties are more likely to target key portfolios such as home and finance.

The key to a coalition government would lie in how the dynamics of SP-BSP alliance is going to unravel. Both are key players in Uttar Pradesh, so what would happen when assembly elections takes places in 3 years? Pitting themselves against each other in the state while showing solidarity towards each other at the centre would make no sense to the respective cadres of both parties. This is the biggest fault line I see with a coalition government and the BJP would have understood this dynamics as well.

Elections will come and go, political leaders will die and new ones will take their place. Why are we ruining the relationships in our lives? I have pro-Modi friends and cousins. When our turf war intensified, better sense prevailed. We stopped talking politics and sending political messages and images to each other over text. Even when we do, we make sure not to get into arguments. Modi and Amit Shah are reveling in the fire of intolerance, hatred, bigotry and division that they ignited by reaching the roots of the society. Their objective is to further the Hindutva agenda by polarising Hindu votes under the guise of ‘Hinduism being under threat from other religions.’

Mamata Banerjee fighting fire with fire in West Bengal has only dented the credibility of electoral politics further. For whatever reasons it may be, we should always remember that nothing lives and remains dominant forever.

My humble request to all fellow Indians is to see through the political games and vote for candidates who can provide good governance through creating a robust economy, agriculture, employment, lower inflation, education, etc., rather than vouch for political leaders based on vote bank politics. I fervently hope that there is never an election like this anywhere in the world again.

Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Narendra Modi/Facebook.

The post For How Long Are We Going To Pretend BJP’s Electoral Politics Is Not Divisive? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Child abuse is the one of the biggest problem that plagues our society and yet, we have done very little to protect our children. At times, this abuse is laughed off and dismissed as part of culture, tradition, and in the name of protecting the “honor” of the family. When physical or emotional abuse takes place, parents often advise children to keep quiet leaving the child hurt, damaged and traumatized. The little child who had gathered the courage to tell his elders about the incident is quietened – while the perpetrators of the crime continue their daily lives living in the same home, in the community and on the internet.

This culture of silence and impunity that is offered to predators in all guises works to protect them as they prey on more little kids. Our communities are structured in such a way that it turns a blind eye to the abuses of the powerful, instead blaming the victims for tempting the abuser to violate them.

If we look at the world today, four out of five children face violent physical discipline at home. Seven out of ten children are victims of emotional violence from parents. In our country, the picture is no less gloomy – two out of every three children face physical or emotional abuse. About 88.6% of children are physically abused by parents. Here is a look at some child abuse statistics:

• 27% of all child abuse survivors have post traumatic stress disorder
• 10% have panic disorder
• 8% have attempted suicide
• 6% suffer from depression
• 6% have alcohol and drug dependence/abuse

The Draft Child Protection Bill:

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently released the Draft Child Protection Policy. It is an extremely important step considering that even in a social audit conducted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development from 2015 to March 2017, about 1,575 children were found to have been abused and were living in shelter homes. Furthermore, the Supreme Court of India in its recent judgments, said that the existing mechanism was “not adequate” to curb incidents of sexual abuse of children and girls at shelter homes and asked the Ministry of Women and Child Development to explain it while formulating the child protection policy.

This Bill will be the first policy dedicated to the protection of children, which until now was only a part of the broader National Child Policy, 2013. It aims at providing a safe and conducive environment for all children through the prevention and response to child abuse, exploitation and neglect. The Bill aims to provide a framework for all institutions, and organizations including corporate and media houses, government or private sector to understand their responsibilities in relation to safeguarding and protecting children, and promoting the welfare of children individually and collectively, and having zero tolerance for child abuse and exploitation.

It also emphasises accountability that institutions should designate a staff member to ensure that procedures are in place to ensure the protection of children as well as to report any abuse. The Bill introduces a complaint procedure whereby any individual who suspects physical, sexual or emotional abuse must report it to the helpline number 1098, police or a child welfare committee.

A Child Friendly Module

Institutions and organisations working directly with children must develop age appropriate modules and materials for orientating children on child abuse, online safety and services available for them.

Most importantly, it emphasises a humane approach, according to which organisations who undertake research and collect data on children, directly from children or indirectly from parents/community must ensure that children are not harmed or traumatised in any way during the process. All research staff must be trained on ethical practices and child friendly procedures.

The Bill intends to act as deterrence to child labour and hopes that corporate houses and industries must establish and strengthen monitoring mechanisms to ensure that industries and their subsidiaries are not resorting to child labour in any form.

Once it becomes a law, the creation of child friendly zones in all places for public dealing and safe spaces for mothers to keep their infants will hopefully help in curbing child abuse.

Current Legal Provisions For Safeguarding Children In India:

Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, provides for strengthened provisions for both children in need of care and protection, and children in conflict with the law.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POSCO), protects the children against offences like sexual abuse, pornography and provides a child friendly system for trial against the perpetrators.

Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act 1994, prohibits prenatal diagnostic techniques for the determination of the sex of the foetus.

The Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act 2005, provides for the constitution of National & State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights and Children’s Courts to provide speedy trial for offences against children.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, prohibits detention of children till they complete elementary education.

Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, prohibits solemnisation of child marriage.

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016: widens the scope against child labour and provides for stricter punishments for violations.

National Policy of Children 2013, has four priority areas – survival, health and nutrition; education and development; child protection and child participation

National Action Plan for Children (NPAC) 2016, links the 2013 policy to actionable strategies under its priority areas.

India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child.

Till now 0.5% of the total budget of almost 648 crores is allocated for child protection and welfare. A social worker attached to a protection unit is paid 8000-15000.

In spite of these provisions, India, like the rest of the world continues to battle the problem of child abuse. The worst part is of course the fact that even now a significant number of child abuse cases is not reported because of taboos around child sex abuse and mistrust of authorities. At times, even doctors have failed to diagnose signs of abuse, and injuries are often thought to be accidental. When reported, the weakness of our criminal justice system has ensured that the perpetrators of the crime are not punished and go scot-free. If we want to encourage more people to report it then there is need to create a well-oiled system so that victims are not forced to re-visit their trauma. It is time we look at this Bill with optimism and support the policy makers in coming up with a sound justice system for the survivors of child abuse.

The post Is India Doing Enough To Curb The Menace Of Child Abuse? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

Origin stories of most religions border on the fantastical. Moses ascended to a mountaintop to talk to God. Jesus was born to a virgin mother. Buddha meditated under the Bodhi tree until he received alignment. And a French race car driver was abducted by aliens who told him that aliens were humanity’s one true God.

If you haven’t heard that last story, chances are you haven’t been introduced to Raelism yet. Part comic book, part sci-fi and part new age religio-mysticism, Raelism was founded by Claude Vorilhon (now known as Raël), a French sports car driver and journalist in 1973, after a purported encounter with extraterrestrials.

Since its inception, it has spread rapidly across Europe, Africa, USA and Asia, with millions of followers. Pop superstar Michael Jackson was an honorary Raelian guide. And Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy enterprise, was an honorary priest.

In India, a small community of 78 registered Raelians exists, among whom a select group of 20 are actively trying to spread ‘the message’.

As far as world religions goes, Raelism is perhaps the most progressive and liberal one out there. Raelists aren’t bound by strict scriptures and worldwide, they renounce marriage, alcohol, nicotine, toxic substances, rituals and actively protest against the Catholic church. They routinely advocate for sex-positive feminism, genetically modified food, free sex, nudity and sensual pyjama parties.

They’re staunchly anti-war and are deeply interested in scientific research. Genetic cloning, in fact, plays a huge role in their belief system and the group even ran into a major controversy when one of the companies that have ties with it claimed to have created the first human clone baby.

In India, however, their practices are limited to cellular transmissions, scientific discussions and telepathic communication with the Elohim.

And Then The Aliens Said: Let There Be Light!

According to Raelists, all life on earth was scientifically created by an advanced race of extraterrestrials called

Elohim. The origin story of the religion begins at a volcano in France where it is believed Volhohim first communicated with a four foot alien from Elohim named Yahweh, who got off a flying saucer and communicated to him the secrets of creating mankind and everything on earth.  Vorilhon claimed to have had six meetings with space travellers, after which he promptly formed the religion.

“Unlike other religions, we don’t believe in a human God or prophet, like Jesus or Muhammad. We are more like a higher intelligence’s science project,” says Tapan Naubagh, who works in a gaming company in Mumbai, and who adopted Raelism in 2013.

As believers of life in outer space, Raelists hope that human scientists will follow the path of the Elohim by achieving space travel through the cosmos and creating life on other planets. They also want to build an ET embassy to welcome the Elohim to earth.

Raelism: The India Story

The UFO religion probably found its first proponents in India through Japanese teachers who travelled to India to
spread the message in the early 2000s.

“I was always fascinated by sci-fi, UFOs, anything that had an ET element to it. At that time, I was even writing about aliens. So when I saw this woman talking about Raelism, I was instantly drawn. I read the book that she had and was blown away. It had a host of stuff in it: God, Religion, UFOs, Sex, Love, Spirituality, Science, Poverty, Hunger. Post that, I attended a seminar, and soon converted,” says Naubagh.

If it was love for sci-fi that made Naubagh adopt Raelism, for Sai Subramanium, it was the strength Raelism provided to help him quit smoking. “I was very skinny then, constantly drinking and smoking. It was taking a toll on my health. But deep meditative practices and telepathic connection helped me not only quit smoking but also find focus in my life,” he says, who works as a professional DJ.

Although they call themselves a religion, Raelism has no ‘religious customs’ except a mere suggestion for members to meditate for a minute daily. Raelians are encouraged to ask questions about God and faith and are strongly against those forcing their beliefs on anyone.

The only ritual they follow is perhaps a ‘cellular transmission’ for anyone who wishes to convert to Raelism through which “the cellular plan or the member’s DNA frequencies are transferred to the motherboard”.

“This is done through a guide who dips his hand in the water and places it on the forehead of the convert to download his genetic information to aliens. The ceremony can only occur between 3 and 4 p.m since it’s believed that at the particular time, the connection with the motherboard is the fastest,” says Kumar, who co-heads the Raelian chapter in India.

In addition, Raelians support a sense of complete individualism – an aspect that makes it appealing for many.

“I always had questions, but I never found any answers in my supposed religion Hinduism. Here though, we are encouraged to ask questions, even though we may not have the answers. My wife, my parents don’t get it. They think I have gone crazy, joined a cult. But I don’t care,” says Kumar, who became a Raelist after communicating with Raelist guides for more than a year, to clear his apprehensions.

True Lies Vs False Truth: What Do You Believe?

Even though the cult revolves around a fairly peaceful understanding of science, technology, and love, the movement has received plenty of bad press from, not only for its sensational beliefs but also some of its practices.

To many, the whole idea of criticizing established religion in favour of reason, and then blindly believing in a fake messiah who spouts another creation myth, seems wildly contradicting.

“Sure, you can be happy and support science, technology and love without the guilt of God and religion, but you can also do so without the fiction of Rael’s alternative creation myth, and without adopting an untrue belief system. The Raelian of the story of creation cannot be reconciled with what we know of evolutionary biology and our planet’s geological development,” writes Brian Dunning, in a scathing criticism of the group.

Ardent Raelists, however, say that it’s unfair to compare them to other religions. “Most religions are based on faith – ‘you believe us because we are telling you and don’t question us’. We’re not here to force anyone. We just want to pass on the information we have and then let people decide for themselves,” says Kumar.

Many also believe their theory of creation to be the most ‘realistic’. “It’s not a mere fantasy to believe in an extraterrestrial civilization anymore. Scientists now agree to a high probability of the existence of intelligent life outside our solar system. Humans are creating their own artificial intelligence. Knowing this, why can’t we accept that we could be the brainchild of a higher, more intelligent species? Is it really that far fetched?” Naubagh asks.

It’s a reasonable question. How you answer depends on what you choose to believe.

The post Meet the ‘Raelians’- The Religious Cult That Believes We All Emerged From The Aliens appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

It’s sad how Narendra Modi has set the bar so low when it comes to answerability and doing press conferences that we are now literally worshiping anything that hits slightly above the belt. And Rahul Gandhi is grimly turning out to be an example of that. There’s no argument to the fact that Rahul is candid, kind, hearty and approachable, and has garnered a lot of attention and praise over the past few days with the slew of interviews he has been doing on the sidelines of his campaign trail. But on an honest note, I’m yet to be impressed by any one single journalist who has put forth commendable and much-sought-after questions or one interview where Rahul perhaps has catered to some larger pressing concerns to my satisfaction.

And if you feel anything close to what I do, I suggest you watch Arfa Khanum Sherwani’s (of The Wire) interview with Rahul which was a paltry 13 minuter but perhaps the best of them all so far. Her firm line of questioning is what mandates a real interview that we’ve been missing all along. Questions about why he thought it was important to stay away from the administration for the last ten years; why Congress, the principle opposition failed to question the intelligence failure in Pulwama were spot on.

Her questions pertaining to the pogroms on Indian soil and how the ensnared political class escapes every single time and whether the Congress party, if it comes to power is willing to draft a law against mass violence were laudable, considering ‘The horror of 1984’ which remains a perpetual issue for the Congress and the past five years of mob violence witnessed in India under the leadership of a man at the helm of the 2002 Gujrat pogrom.

Nevertheless, Rahul Gandhi’s answers have left me high and dry, viciously seeking more. They were evasive and circumventing, to say the least. I also wonder why he wound up so quickly with Arfa, though there has always been that time constraint in these interviews before his chopper took off to be fair to him. But that’s the whole point. We can love him all we want but cannot be falling over ourselves to be overly fair towards him. People going gaga over pyara RaGa need a greater level of introspection. The moot point here, in fact, is how we as a nation have stopped asking those bigger questions and seeking satisfactory responses from our leaders. This “Kuch nahi ke badle kuch toh mil raha hai” (Something is better than nothing) attitude has to go and it is indeed a disservice to the country and one’s own intellect. This should seize from being the new normal.

Rahul’s campaigns have taken him through close to a hundred rallies so far and they have all borne the same old repetitive humdrum of his “eternal constants” that he somehow glued himself to: Nyay, the plot-changing story of him consulting his think tank to come up with Nyay, how Nyay would help jump-start the economy, Rafale, Anil Ambani, Keeping farmers out of jail in case of a loan default, Kisan Budget, GST, employment aka promise to fill up the 22 lakh Sarkari vacancies, women’s reservation in the parliament and Central sector jobs.

At one point I was even fascinated by his ability to repeat the same docket three to four times a day on close to a hundred rallies, undeterred, unperturbed and completely focused on the issues he wanted this election to be about: beating Modi’s game of febrile Nationalism and Balakot, almost like Arjuna aiming for the bird’s eye, a comparison he himself has occasionally metaphorized. These are no doubt the core issues and uncontestedly so in that sense. But Rahul had literally not said a word different in these hundred rallies across the country so far or tried to capture the attention of the larger audience by being more engaging and spontaneous and in fact a little more deeper.

His sister Priyanka Gandhi, on the other hand, has been able to achieve that, by not limiting herself to the stated topics her brother had strictly adhered to. Her verbatim had taken the higher ground of citizens’ rights and the missing power of critical thinking. When she speaks about democracy, people’s rights, accountability of the larger powers, answerability of the leaders to their constituents, encouraging people to put them politicians on the spot and raise questions that matter, the menace of stray cattle in Uttar Pradesh to the local farmers, teachers, Asha workers in despair, and more importantly certain fundamental promises of the Congress’ manifesto-like free education in all Government Schools till 12th grade and free public healthcare, she most certainly strikes a deeper chord.

To me she even has a better way of describing the Nyay Scheme where she introduces the scheme as a facilitator of basic financial support to the people in distress so that their principal needs are met and they have a better chance of trying to improve their life circumstances, while her brother, on the other hand, has constantly described such a majorly socialist and ambitious scheme as something being done to balance Anil Ambani’s unjust bank account. This no doubt begets some cheer-leading from the crowds and the party workers but reduces the significance of such a massive and historic idea that you beautifully call Nyay.

Rahul’s rhetoric, therefore, leaves you asking for more. And if one has been observing his interviews keenly it strikes you that he hasn’t said anything that he did not during these campaign speeches. In essence, he has literally repeated what he has been saying all along in the format of a questionnaire and it’s unfortunate that interviewers allow him to do that but not squeeze him for more.

My basic disappointment with Rahul has been of how he has completely sidelined the issue of mob lynchings which was the greatest of the terrors manifested under the BJP regime grossly ruining the peace, sense of security which is the primary want of every citizen and the social fabric of this country in the past five years. Minorities: Muslims, Dalits were lynched to death, journalist, activists and rationalists were murdered in broad daylight, students, teachers and authors were incarcerated and stifled with sedition charges.

And I wonder why Rahul, in spite of the Congress manifesto promising to draft an anti-lynching law has not thought of it as an important point to elaborate upon. Why did he not want to tell the people of India that under him such violence and brazen annihilation of human rights would not be tolerated? Is it not the real kind of grit, demeanor and strength we solicit from a man contending to be the future Prime Minister? This was exactly what Narendra Modi and his bigoted stature of leadership stood opposed to. Why then would Rahul not see how important it was for him to come clean on these issues?

These concerns, in fact, were almost willfully sidestepped by him like someone literally told him that they won’t win him any votes or that they are forbidden to be addressed for some God forsaken reason. How is law and order which is the basic pillar of any democracy not an important issue to be talked about? And if Rahul truly believes that his vote bank could be at stake if he picked up on these issues, he did rather lose such an election.

While Rahul himself chose to obliterate these topics from his bulleted campaign agenda it was certainly the job of the press to have done that. It’s almost unbelievable how in the past ten days every interviewer including the bona fide of them all, Ravish Kumar of NDTV, who got a full 28 minuter, perhaps the lengthiest of slots bagged so far, failed to raise these question as well. Be it about the mob lynchings, about the compromised situation of law and order in the country, about healthcare and education, about the tormenting situation of the minorities who constantly find themselves under some form of attack, about the highly petitioned police reforms, about Najeeb’s grieving mother and those unanswered questions about her missing child, about the trampling of University spaces by the Sangh or about the zero game plan of the Congress to revive the succumbing environmental health of the nation.

To question and then to counter question until we knew where Rahul stood on these issues was extremely important and could indeed have presented us certain defining moments of his level of conviction. But sadly, every journalist so far has posed the same set of questions which did not deviate a mote from Rahul’s campaign jargon.

It’s utterly disappointing how it’s not just the journos anymore but we as a collective nation have set the bar so low that Rahul could now very well be eulogized for just doing interviews helter-skelter. It’s time journalists pulled their socks up and improved their catechize to let the country have an opportunity to hear what they haven’t heard before and what they are yearning to here. And Rahul no doubt carries a benign heart, speaks with a clean tongue and has lots of love to give. But it’s time he revealed those deeper layers of his mind. A mind that in all probability is going to occupy the top chair sooner or later.

The post Why Rahul Gandhi, Despite His Candidness, Fails To Impress Me In His Interviews appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

बिहार की राजधानी पटना में लोकसभा चुनाव को लेकर मतदाताओं और नेताओं में खासा उत्साह है। पटना में दो लोकसभा सीटों (पाटलिपुत्र और पटना साहिब) पर 19 मई को वोट डाले जाएंगे। आज बात इन दोनों सीटों की।

पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा सीट

पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा सीट 2009 के लोकसभा चुनाव में नई परिसीमन में बनी सीट है। यह एक ऐसी नई सीट है, जिसमें साढ़े सोलह लाख मतदाता हैं, यानी जनसंख्या के लिहाज़ से यह एक बड़ी सीट है। यहां लगभग पांच लाख यादव, साढ़े चार लाख भूमिहार, तीन लाख राजपूत, तीन लाख कुर्मी और डेढ़ लाख ब्राह्मण वोटर हैं।

2009 में यहां से जदयू के रंजन यादव राजद सुप्रीमो लालू प्रसाद यादव को हराकर सांसद चुने गए थे। 2014 में यहां से भाजपा के राम कृपाल यादव राजद की मीसा भारती को हराकर सांसद चुने गए थे। इस बार भी यही दोनों उम्मीदवार इस सीट पर आमने-सामने हैं।

राम कृपाल यादव

किसी ज़माने में जब राजद सुप्रीमो लालू यादव का दबदबा पूरे बिहार में हुआ करता था तो दो लोग उनके बड़े करीबी हुआ करते थे। इतने करीबी कि उन्हें लालू का राम और श्याम कहा जाता था। एक थे राम कृपाल यादव और दूसरे थे श्याम रजक।

2014 में राम कृपाल यादव इस सीट से राजद के टिकट पर चुनाव लड़ना चाहते थे। लालू इसी सीट से अपनी बड़ी बेटी मीसा भारती को चुनाव लड़ाना चाहते थे। इसी बात को लेकर विवाद बढ़ा, लालू नहीं माने। राम कृपाल लालू से अलग होकर भाजपा में चले गए।

शयम रजक पहले ही जदयू में शामिल हो चुके थे। देश में मोदी लहर थी। परिणाम कुछ यूं आया कि राम कृपाल यादव ने मीसा भारती को चालीस हज़ार से ज़्यादा मतों से हराया। बाद में राम कृपाल यादव केंद्र की मोदी सरकार में ग्रामीण विकास राज्य मंत्री भी बने।

मीसा भारती

लालू परिवार में बहरहाल आए दिन दोनों बेटों में खटपट की खबरें आती रहती हैं। परिवार की राजनैतिक विरासत पर दोनों बेटे अपना-अपना अधिकार जताते रहे हैं। ऐसे में इस लड़ाई का एक तीसरा कोण भी है- मीसा भारती।

राजद सुप्रीमो लालू यादव की बड़ी बेटी मीसा फिलहाल राज्यसभा सांसद हैं। ज़्यादातर पारिवारिक कार्यक्रमों और लालू जब तक जेल नहीं गए थे, तब तक उनके स्वास्थ्य की भी पूरी ज़िम्मेदारी इन्हीं के पास थी।

परिवार का सबसे मज़बूत और तठस्थ दीवार के रूप में देखी जाती हैं। लालू अपने दोनों बेटों से पहले इन्हें राजनीति में लेकर आए थे पर चाचा राम कृपाल ने इनके राजनैतिक करियर की शुरुआत फीकी कर दी थी। इस साल मीसा भारती फिर से पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा सीट से चुनाव मैदान में हैं।

टिकट को लेकर हुआ था विवाद

कहा जाता है कि मीसा भारती को पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा क्षेत्र से टिकट देने को लेकर इनके दोनों भाइयों तेज प्रताप और तेजस्वी में मनमुटाव की स्थिति थी। तेज प्रताप चाहते थे कि मीसा को ही टिकट दिया जाए, वहीं राजद कार्यकर्ता इस सीट से मनेर विधायक भाई वीरेंद्र के लिए टिकट चाहते थे। अंत में लालू के दबाव पर मीसा को एक बार फिर पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा क्षेत्र से राजद उम्मीदवार बनाया गया।

जनता की राय

पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा में कुल 6 विधानसभा सीटें हैं। इनमें दानापुर और फुलवारी शहरी क्षेत्र की सीटें हैं, बाकि चार सीटें- मनेर, मसौढ़ी, पालीगंज और विक्रम ग्रामीण सीटें हैं। इन 6 सीटों में सिर्फ दानापुर और फुलवारी की सीटें भाजपा और जदयू के पास हैं, बाकि सीटें राजद और महागठबंधन के पास हैं। इसका मतलब साफ है कि एनडीए का रुझान सिर्फ शहरी सीटों पर है, ग्रामीण सीटों पर महागठबंधन का ही दबदबा है।

राम कृपाल यादव के बारे में पाटलिपुत्र की जनता की राय है कि सांसद बनने से ज़्यादा काम वह सांसद ना रहते हुए करते थे, जब लालू के साथ घूमते थे। मैंने दानापुर के कुछ व्यवसाइयों से भी बात की तो वो अपने सांसद के बारे में कुछ ज़्यादा उत्साहित नहीं नज़र आए। मैं खुद भी इसी लोकसभा क्षेत्र का निवासी हूं पर मुझे अपने क्षेत्र में सांसद निधि से किया गया कोई उल्लेखनीय कार्य नहीं नज़र आया। पाटलिपुत्र लोकसभा क्षेत्र में ऊपर-ऊपर तो विकास नज़र आएगा पर जब आप इस क्षेत्र की गलियों में घूमेंगे तो पाएंगे कि कोई खास काम नहीं हुआ है।

बहरहाल, दोनों प्रत्याशी जी-जान से चुनाव अभियान में जुटे हैं। पिछली बार तो राम कृपाल यादव के साथ जनता की सहानुभूति थी क्योंकि लालू यादव ने अपनी बड़ी बेटी मीसा के लिए उन्हें टिकट नहीं दिया था पर इस बार हालात कुछ और हैं। एक केंद्रीय मंत्री का क्षेत्र होने के कारण लोगों की उम्मीदें बढ़ ही जाती हैं। दोनों ही प्रत्याशी यादव जाति से आते हैं, ऐसे में यह देखना अहम होगा कि इस बार पाटलिपुत्र की जनता किसे चुनती है।

अब बात करते हैं पटना साहिब लोकसभा सीट की

पटना साहिब लोकसभा क्षेत्र की लड़ाई इस बार कांटे की होगी। लगभग बीस लाख मतदाताओं वाले इस क्षेत्र से 2014 में भाजपा के शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा सांसद चुने गए थे। इस बार बिहारी बाबू शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा भाजपा छोड़कर कॉंग्रेस में शामिल हो गए हैं।

इस सीट पर इसबार इनका मुकाबला भाजपा के रविशंकर प्रसाद से होगा। अभी हाल ही में पटना में राहुल गांधी ने शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा के समर्थन में रोड शो भी किया था। शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा पिछले दो बार से 2009 और 2014 से लगातार पटना साहिब लोकसभा क्षेत्र से जीतते आ रहे हैं।

शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा

फिल्मों से राजनीति में आए शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा शुरू से ही भाजपा में शामिल रहे थे मगर पिछले कुछ वर्षों में यह भाजपा के अंदर मोदी विरोध की एक नई पहचान बनकर उभरे हैं।

शत्रुघ्न ने 2018 में यशवंत सिन्हा के साथ तेजस्वी यादव द्वारा आयोजित एक कार्यक्रम में भी शिरकत की थी, उसके बाद से ही भाजपा से उनका टिकट कटा हुआ माना जाने लगा था। सिन्हा मोदी पर जमकर वार करते देखे जाते रहे हैं। चुनाव के ठीक पहले सिन्हा भाजपा छोड़कर कॉंग्रेस में शामिल हो गए थे।

रविशंकर प्रसाद

रविशंकर प्रसाद केंद्रीय कानून मंत्री हैं। काफी मशहूर वकील रहे हैं। लालू यादव के चारा घोटाला और अयोध्या के राम मंदिर विवाद में भी पहले यही वकील थे। रविशंकर प्रसाद का राजनैतिक करियर 1970 के दशक में पटना यूनिवर्सिटी के अखिल भारतीय विद्यार्थी परिषद के कार्यकर्ता के रूप में शुरू हुआ।

पिता ठाकुर प्रसाद जनसंघ के संस्थापक सदस्यों में से एक थे। 2000 रविशंकर प्रसाद पूर्ण रूप से राजनीति में आ गए। हमेशा से राज्यसभा में ही आते-जाते रहे हैं तो चुनावी राजनीति में अनुभव ना के बराबर है। जब भाजपा ने शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा का टिकट काटकर इन्हें पटना साहिब भेजा तो भाजपा कार्यकर्ता काफी गुस्से में दिखे और एयरपोर्ट पर हंगामा भी किया।

जनता की राय

बीस लाख मतदाताओं वाले इस क्षेत्र में किसी एक जाति की बहुलता तो नहीं है पर कायस्थ वोटर औरों के मुकाबले ज़्यादा हैं। इस लोकसभा क्षेत्र में कुल 6 विधानसभा क्षेत्र आते हैं। इसमें से पांच सीटें एनडीए के पास हैं और एक सीट पर राजद का कब्ज़ा है।

जब मैंने कंकड़बाग इलाके के शिवाजी पार्क के पास कुछ लोगों से बात की तो पता चला, बिहारी बाबू के नाम से मशहूर शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा पटना में कम और मुंबई में ज़्यादा देखे जाते हैं। क्षेत्र में इनका दौरा ना के बराबर हुआ है। गांधी मैदान वाले इलाके में चले जाइए तो लगता ही नहीं है कि आप शहर के सबसे बड़े मैदान के पास हैं।

पटना बिहार की राजधानी तो है पर इस शहर में राजधानी जैसी कोई बात नहीं है। बेतरतीबी से बिखरी हुई दुकानें और कचरे का ढेर अब इस शहर की पहचान बन चुका है। आज भी इस शहर में बरसात में जलजमाव की स्थिति बन जाती है। सांसद तो चुनकर दिल्ली-मुंबई चले जाते हैं और अपने पीछे छोड़ जाते हैं बस धुआं और टूटे पड़े स्ट्रीट लाईट।

पटना मांगे स्थनीय सांसद

बहरहाल, पटना की मांग बस इतनी है कि इस बार कोई ऐसा सांसद मिले जो यहां पर ज़्यादा रहे और काम करे। बिहारी बाबू की ‘खामोश’ वाली छवि और उनकी इमोशनल अपील इस बार जनता को कितना लुभा पाती है, यह देखना अहम होगा।

साथ ही यह जानना भी ज़रूरी होगा कि भाजपा को शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा के नाम पर वोट पड़ते थे या शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा को भाजपा के नाम पर। फिलहाल परिणाम जो भी हो, आप अपने घरों से निकले और वोट डालकर लोकतंत्र के इस महापर्व में अपनी भागीदारी सुनिश्चित कराएं।

The post पटना की दोनों सीटों पर कल जनता किसके नाम लिखेगी जीत? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

With almost 900 million Indians having the opportunity to vote in around 10,35,918 polling stations set up across the length and breadth of the country, the 2019 General Elections is yet another marvel of an exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI). While 2014 was an overwhelmingly one-sided contest with the then incumbent embattled with a huge fatigue factor in addition to the aspirational campaign by the current PM Narendra Modi, the political scenario five years later is much more complex and thus, difficult to predict. At such a juncture, a piece by Dr Mukulika Banerjee, an anthropologist and Director of LSE South Asia Centre caught my attention.

Basically, the author opines that 2019 drastically stands apart from the rest of the elections as far as the parameter of fair play is concerned. Before judging it one way or the other, I shall try to address some of her arguments like loss of credibility of ECI, breach of vote secrecy, the Prime Minister’s failure to answer questions, etc.

Firstly, though the repeated clean chits to PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah on complaints of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations amidst dissent by one Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa have given rise to the feeling that the ECI is partisan, it will be myopic to paint the entire election with the same brush. The same ECI did not hesitate to ban both the commercial film as well as the web series on Modi. In fact, it was quite stinging in its criticism describing the film as a ‘hagiography.’ Furthermore, action has been taken against a sitting Cabinet minister in the Central government as well as Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of the largest state in the country.

Here, it is necessary to clarify the author’s contention of a ‘retired’ soldier being debarred from contesting elections in Varanasi. To begin with, he was dismissed from his service and the Supreme Court too did not find merit in his plea that the ECI was incorrect. His paperwork proved to be the real problem. Thus, there should be a conscious attempt not to conflate issues.

Notwithstanding the fact that dissent pans out in a rather ugly fashion, we should not lose sight of how the ECI has functioned in the past. Whether it is the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N. Gopalaswami officially writing to the President of India calling for the sacking of Navin Chawla, one of the Election Commissioners for his alleged pro-Congress bias ahead of the 2009 elections or the induction of MS Gill, a former CEC into the cabinet, the ECI has evolved through a turbulent phase.

Essentially, the debate around the role of the ECI stems from a misunderstanding of what constitutes the MCC. Unlike what most people assume, MCC is not akin to running a police state – arresting people and cancelling candidature of a candidate on whims and fancies. It is a set of guidelines morally binding on political parties but not enforceable in a court of law. As the guidelines are quite comprehensive in nature, the interpretation might vary in every case. For instance, Rahul Gandhi’s “chowkidar chor hai” jibe will run afoul of the MCC guidelines strictly going by the rulebook. Does it imply that he should be debarred from the polls? Hence, there must be a healthy balance between politicians getting away with crass language and their right to effective political communication.

Similarly, Dr Banerjee’s point about Totalizer machines is well taken. Indeed, voting patterns need to be masked in order to prevent political parties favouring or discriminating against specific group of people. However, it is a process that has commenced just about a decade ago and hence, it is unrealistic to expect political parties, including the incumbent to immediately embrace such reforms.

The Totalizer machine was not used in 2009 and 2014 either. Just as the opposition to Electronic Voting Machines considerably reduced over a huge time span, the aforesaid machine too will hopefully gain acceptance very soon. Thereafter, the author’s case about Modi distancing himself from taking tough questions of the media and not giving uncensored interviews is an interesting one. Although this is a highly desirable component of any democracy, the Indian experience throws up mixed results. Not just Modi, but a series of politicians including Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa, and Naveen Patnaik  have not interacted freely with the media when in power. In fact, did Sonia Gandhi, the Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance government, touted as the real power behind the throne ever address a press conference from 2004 to 2014? So, the fact remains that Modi is neither the first nor will he be the last politician in power to keep the mainstream media at arm’s length!

Another set of issues pegged by the author are the lopsided campaign finance and the extensive use of WhatsApp. One, there is considerable merit to the argument that in the wake of introduction of electoral bonds, the ruling party stands to gain the most. Rightfully so, the scheme is under scrutiny by the Supreme Court. But, even if it is declared unconstitutional, the opacity in funding of political parties and their refusal to come under the Right to Information Act pre-date this and have remained unresolved over the years.

In India, the nature of governance implies that business tends to be on the right side of the ruling party especially if it has a simple majority in the legislature. Thus, it is not highly unusual for BJP to get more funds than the opposition parties. As far as targeted campaigning using social media is concerned, it is a contentious, yet legitimate tool used by political parties across the world to reach out to every possible voter.

As a student of modern political campaigning, I have heard considerable first-hand accounts of targeted campaigns used during the Brexit referendum and the 2017 General Elections in the UK. The ethical dimensions of this exercise are subject to a larger debate, but India can’t be singled out for adopting a global trend.

Fundamentally, the nature of elections in any country should be assessed taking on board the sheer complexities and unique circumstances involved. Therefore, unlike the author, I believe that barring for a few anomalies, the 2019 polls have been free and fair to a great extent. Of course, the ECI must aspire to achieve the maximum level of fairness, but to suggest that 2019 is radically different from some of the recent elections is a misnomer.

Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.

The post Opinion: The 2019 General Elections Were As Free And Fair As Any Other India Has Seen appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.

To discuss the entire gamut of reasons as to why Modi failed as a Prime Minister or as the quintessential strong leader like his followers tout him, would be to address a Goliath of a charter, ascribing to a range of issues that will probably bear a cavernous deeper than Aatish Taseer’s “India’s Divider-In-Chief“.

All of that now seems pointless as the exit polls of India’s 2019 general elections are out and the cards are open, all in line with the Modi juggernaut. And if you are flabbergasted by the numbers and beginning to question the veracity of these exercises, it’s time we looked at the substantial demographic we were sure was not voting-in Modi this time.

Let’s just take a bulleted view of who these people are:

The Farmers

Thousands and thousands of farmers marched to Delhi to exhibit their plight borne out of the terrible agrarian distress that wreaked havoc on their lives and protested for days, demanding to see the Prime Minister. But the world bore witness as the Prime Minister of India couldn’t concede a moment to meet them and listen to their woes. Scores of farmers committed suicide over the past five years of the Modi Government and the data was conveniently suppressed and not divulged since 2016. An RTI revealed, in the last 5 years, 14,034, 8 per day committed suicide in the state of Maharastra alone. The agitating farmers battling severe drought conditions in Marathwada were shot at by the state.

The Students

The kind of hostility displayed by the ruling dispensation towards the student community has been unprecedented. Lakhs of students protested over the course of these five years, primarily from the Northern part of India, due to various reasons like scholarship cutting, seat cutting, fund cutting, the crackdown on the students of the various public universities across the country by the RSS affiliated Vice Chancellors who have been systematically and purposefully appointed to these posts, the SSC exam paper leak, slashing of government vacancies and unemployment.

The Teachers

Scores of teachers protested due to the implementation of the roster system, underpayment and due payment of salaries, and autonomy issues.

The Women

Women across India rebelled due to the falling security levels and rising crime rate against them under the Modi government. Women and children across Delhi survive rape every day and clearance to install CCTVs was literally held up by team Modi, that the sitting Chief Minister of Delhi had to stage an in-house protest in the Lieutenant Governer’s office, to get the file cleared.

Women students across multiple campuses organized rallies, fought and bore lathis while they protested against unfair campus rules and sexual harassment cases while their Sangh affiliated VCs victim shamed them and stood in cahoots with their perpetrators. One cannot easily forget the incident when Modi unabashedly escaped meeting girls of his own constituency braving a crackdown in BHU by taking a different route, en route a meeting. There was nil use of Beti Bachao-Beti Padaho scheme in the states and 56% of its funds went into advertisements.

Lakhs of women across the country have been conned under the Ujjwala Scheme where they could never afford the subsequent overpriced cylinder refills and went back to cooking on the Chulah. Much to BJP’s embarrassment the poster lady of the scheme was herself found using her traditional means with an empty cylinder lying across her kitchen.

Scores of Asha, Anganwadi workers have not received their already paltry salaries in Uttar Pradesh. Scores of women lost their secret personal savings due to Demonatisation.

The Small And Medium Enterprises

Demonetisation and a badly implemented GST destroyed small and medium businesses beyond repair. Fifty Lakh men lost their jobs due to demonetization. SMEs suffered in despair. Not to forget the people who died even during the course of this exercise. The economy is in shambles and unemployment is at an all-time high.

The Deal Breaker State

Uttar Pradesh, known as the deal breaker state of the Lok Sabha elections is under extreme stress due to the issue of the stray cattle and the disgruntled farmer who is at his lowest and feeling severely helpless, the directionless-unemployed youth one would find at every nook and corner of the Pradesh, and dire lack of the promised basic facilities under the Modi-Yogi Government. Electrification of the villages in several parts of the state was found to be a sham and still lay unlit.

How can one ever forget the death of those 60 children in the district hospital of Gorakhpur due to lack of oxygen cylinders while Yogi toured Kerala saying the state should learn from UP’s health care system? Almost every voter that the media spoke to expressed his anguish with Modi in UP and was highly favoring the SP/BSP this time.

The Minorities

The increased levels of atrocities towards and the drumming down of the minorities: Muslims and Dalits in the cow belt, totally cornered them to the rare end of the ‘Pro-Modi’ spectrum. They lived under a veil of fear, the past five years, feeling out of place.

Hence the conclusion, the farmers are unhappy. the SMEs are unhappy, youth is unhappy, students are unhappy, women are unhappy, minorities are unhappy. Not to forget a substantial portion of young ex Modi voters who turned anti-Modi after the curbing of freedom of expression and the incessant trolling, abuse and the hateful environment they had to experience as the regime progressed.

And the exit polls did nothing but tell us that all these people voted unanimously for the BJP?

The Number Crunching

Because the last time, they did vote for the BJP, and that’s exactly how they got to a thumping 282. And if this time, say even 50% or less than 50% of these segments of the population cease to vote for the BJP, there is “NO WAY” these exit polls are correct. They come across as nothing but a massive error, an unbelievably massive error, lest these people purely did not vote and then the bigger mystery has to be the average poll percentage which across the seven phases stands at around 60%, which is now evident has ferried the BJP back to its power corridors. Who then is this 60%?

From the affected demographics stated above, the analogy is pretty clear. A person who had voted for the BJP in 2014 ‘may or may not‘ vote for the BJP again. But owing to the massive policy failures and the tainted governance it is highly unlikely that a traditional non-BJP voter or a person who has not voted for the BJP the last time is going to turn around and vote for the BJP this time. Which is a clear indication of the fact that, if anything, the BJP’s share is only going to go down this time and there’s zero probability of it remaining the same, let alone shoot up.

And the last time, even as they swept the polls, they only managed to get about 31% of the total votes polled across the country which got them to a 282 and 69% of the votes still went to other parties across India. And this time considering the fact that the BJP has literally been wiped out from the southern states, how on earth have these exit polls come up with such top-grossing figures crossing 300?

The BJP had the maximum amount of resources in its hands and an unfathomably prodigious amount of money to have conducted the most intelligent and foolproof of surveys possible, to gauge the mood of the voter. Was Amit Shah then so naive, that his team bent over backwards to stitch up those alliances across the states giving their partners a more than generous amount of seats, had the ‘Modi wave’ been so apparent? It was a discernible understanding even they had, that to form a government barring a coalition was a tuff call this time.

Why Do Exit Polls Fail?

An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks for whom the voter plans to vote, an exit poll asks for whom the voter actually voted.

The 2019 exit poll, therefore, reminds us of some of the theories that moot the failure of these exercises more often than not. One is the theory of ‘The Silent Voter‘, where the voter fears revealing her choice or would tell the pollsters that she is undecided or likely to vote for the candidate she has in reality rejected. Bradley effect or the Wilder effect is a similar theory concerning observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some United States government elections.

The other theory is the ‘Theory of Pluralistic Ignorance‘, a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it. In case of exit polls, it amounts to lying in the public as opposed to a response which is recorded in private. Such false observations add to the already enough doubt there is on the techniques and sample sizes of many polling organizations.

The biggest miss for exit polls was the 2004 Lok Sabha elections where almost every pollster had predicted a landslide victory for the ruling BJP-led NDA alliance, however, the result toppled with the NDA being reduced to 189 seats, against predictions ranging between 230 and 275 seats. Instead, the Congress-led coalition won 222 seats and formed the government.

Then followed the 2009 general elections, which proved to be another failure, where the polls had suggested an equal contest between the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the NDA. Instead, the UPA ended up winning 262 seats and the NDA 159.

Another most recent example in case is Australia, where last weekend, 56 different exit polls proved wrong when Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition secured the majority overturning the poll predictions of a Labor Party win.

While these anomalies could damage the accuracy of the exit polls, all that a confused citizen can possibly do is to wait for the 23rd to find out what lies in India’s destiny and who gets to steer the wheels for another five years. However, if the results do not vary by a margin, the menace of fertile populism would have emerged larger than one had ever predicted.

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