N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:41 am

The flopping of the high-decibel Modi-Shah show and the strategy of communal polarisation, and the triumph of an unprecedentedly broad-based alliance which went on the offensive on a platform of social justice, secularism and inclusiveness and, when it came to invective and polemic, gave as good as it got, sends a powerful message through the polity. It is a message of hope, optimism, of the vindication at the grassroots of constitutional and civilisational values....

While we await the findings of serious, scholarly analysis—by the Yogendra Yadavs and others in research institutions like the CSDS—of what precisely happened in Bihar to produce an outcome so congenial to democratic and secular Indians, it does seem that the people of Bihar rejected the BJP for the right reasons: its communal and divisive politics, its political agenda of hate towards minorities, especially Muslims, and the instability, uncertainty and tensions this generated for them in their daily lives.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/light-from-the-east/295848

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:48 am

The 2014 BJP election manifesto, like some earlier manifestoes, may have been deliberately fuzzy, underplaying the specifics of the core agenda of the RSS-led Sangh parivar—building a Ram temple on the grave of the demolished Babri mosque at ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’, repealing Article 370, banning ‘cow slaughter’, rewriting history, introducing a uniform civil code, targeting minority rights, and so forth. But the core Hindutva agenda is the real political agenda of the BJP-majority government, its raison d’etre, the real show. Just as Modi has doggedly refused to be remorseful about 2002, his response to acts of violence, assassinations, vicious intolerance, and the hate speech unleashed from within the parivar, including by some ministers and BJP MPs, is silence or pious generalities.

by Guest Fri Nov 13, 2015 10:50 am

A statement issued by 53 academic historians in October 2015 described the situation well: “Differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence. Arguments are met not with counter arguments but with bullets. When a poor man is suspected to have kept a food item that certain sections do not approve of, his fate is nothing short of death by lynching. At the launch of a book whose author happens to be from a country disapproved of by certain groups, the organiser is disfigured with ink thrown on his face. And when it is hoped that the head of government will make a statement about improving the prevailing conditions, he chooses to speak only about general poverty; and it takes the head of the state to make the reassuring statement.... When writer after writer is returning their award of recognition in protest, no comment is made about the conditions that caused it; instead, ministers call it a paper revolution and advise them to stop writing. This is as good as saying that intellectuals will be silenced if they protest.”

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N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values

N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values

Re: N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values

Re: N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values

Re: N Ram: The message from Bihar is one of optimism, hope, and the vindication of constitutional and civilizational values