VOLUME 33

TE R RO R I S M

NUMBER 07

APRIL 02-15, 2016

ISSN 0970-1710

WWW.FRONTLINE.IN

W I LD LI FE

C O V ER S T O RY

Freedom in peril

Brussels shock
Blowback in Europe

23
27

The passage of the Aadhaar Bill in complete disregard of even basic parliamentary procedures and in subversion of an
ongoing judicial process puts at risk a
number of constitutional rights and liberties of citizens. 4

SOC IAL I S S UE S

The mahseers lost ground

in the Cauvery basin
67
D E BA TE
Nationalism, then and now 97
ESSAY
Sedition law: Colonial relic 102
The Vaidya sedition trial 110

Tamil Nadu: Dalit victim of

honour killing
Caste constituencies
Datacard:
Victims of violence
Deceptive calm in U.P.
Legal quest

29
30
32
36
38

R E SE R V A T I O N
Setback in Supreme Court 41
M OVE M E N T S
JNU: Bail and after

AS S E M BLY E LE CTI ON S
Assam: Battle for Dispur 117
West Bengal:
Mamata vs the rest
121
Interview:
124
Surjya Kanta Mishra
Interview: Adhir Ranjan
Chowdhury
126
TMC: Stung by an expose 128
Interview: Sovandeb
Chattopadhyay
130
Kerala: Testing times
132
Tamil Nadu: A new front 136

43

WOR L D A F F A I R S

RELA T ED S T O RI ES

Interview: Usha Ramanathan 9

Surveillance project 13
Dubious tactics 16
Money Bill 17
Interview: Sitaram Yechury 18
Interview: S. Jairam Ramesh 20

C OLUM N
C.P. Chandrasekhar: Banks
and the new Asian tigers 48
Sashi Kumar: Aravindan,
anew and again
112
Jayati Ghosh:
Indias forgotten people 115
THI S FOR TN I G HT

45

BOOKS

83

LE TTE R S
Brazil: Dilma Rousseff
faces impeachment threat 51
Syria: Putins peace
progress
58
U.S.: Interview with Jill Stein,
Green Party candidate
61
Sudan: Remembering
Hassan al-Turabi
65

138

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APRIL 15, 2016 .

FRONTLINE

COVER STORY

FREEDOM IN
The governments passage of the Aadhaar Bill in complete disregard of
even basic parliamentary procedures and in subversion of an ongoing
judicial process puts at risk a number of constitutional rights and
liberties of citizens. B Y R . R A M A K U M A R
parliamentary procedures were disregarded completely.
The passage of the Bill also constituted the subversion of
an ongoing judicial process. Secondly, the Bill has a
number of provisions that put to risk, and offer no
protection to, a number of constitutional rights and
liberties of citizens. Thirdly, the nancial savings that the
government has claimed from the usage of Aadhaar,
based on which the idea has been sold, are based on
wrong data.

CONGRESSMEN ARE DANCING AS IF [AADHAAR]

was a herb for all cures. With the Supreme Court pulling
up the Centre, people are now seeking answers from the
Prime Minister who should disclose how much money
had been spent... and who had beneted from it. Thus
spoke the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on
the Aadhaar project in 2013. However, as Prime
Minister, it is as if Modi has suddenly realised the value of
the herb. His National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government has passed the Aadhaar Bill in Parliament.
Three points are worth noting. First, the passage of
the Bill was nothing but a travesty of democracy. Such
has been Modis commitment to Aadhaar that even basic
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

THE DUBIOUS MONEY BILL ROUTE

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other

Subsidies, Benets and Services) Bill, 2016, was
4

facilitate multifarious intrusions into the lives of citizens

by public and private agencies. These include the right to
privacy.
Aadhaar envisages a centralised database of Indian
residents. At present, information on each resident is, at
best, available only in separate silos and it is extremely
difficult to link a persons information in one silo to that
in another. However, the arrival of Aadhaarwhere a
unique number is linked to personal information in each
silomarks a qualitative shift. With Aadhaar, personal
information in silos can be converged. An invasive
government or a prot-minded private entity or a hostile
group can obtain and use such converged personal
information. In other words, it becomes possible to
create proles of individuals and track them for life. This
constitutes an assault on a very basic freedomprivacy.
Aadhaar has the potential to create conditions
conducive to such violations of privacy. When the use of
Aadhaar becomes widespread, it would not just be in the
governments Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR)
that personal information would be stored. Instead,
personal information would lie scattered in bits and
pieces across locations and agencies accessed by citizens.
Bits and pieces of personal information may, seen in
isolation, appear harmless. However, each bit leaves a
trail. Over a period of time, these bitsthanks to
Aadhaarcould be compiled and analysed in ways that
render privacy rights meaningless.
How, then, can the Aadhaar Bill be a money Bill?
While the Bill does, in part, deal with appropriation of
money from the Consolidated Fund of India, its primary
outcome is the potential violation of constitutional
rights. Such a Bill requires deeper discussions in both
Houses and the Standing/Select Committees. The money
Bill route effectively subverted such a possibility.

enrolment centre
in Bangalore, a
2013 photograph.
Biometric
authentication of
individuals has
been shown to
have high error
rates.

V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

AT AN AADHAAR

PERIL

PRE-EMPTING THE SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court had, in August 2015, delivered a

landmark order. First, it referred the question of whether
privacy is a fundamental right to a larger constitutional
bench. Secondly, it ruled that Aadhaar is not mandatory.
The Aadhaar Bill interferes with both these directions.
First, in 2015, the government had told the Supreme
Court that privacy was not a fundamental right and
hence Aadhaar did not violate any fundamental right.
The court noted that if privacy was not considered a
fundamental right, Article 21 of the Constitution would
stand denuded of vigour and vitality. Yet, as many
judgments that affirmed privacy as a fundamental right
were delivered by smaller benches, the court thought it t
for institutional integrity and judicial discipline that a
larger constitutional bench resolved the matter. Ideally,
the government should have waited for the judgment of
the constitutional bench. In this context, the
governments haste in pushing the Bill becomes deeply
suspect.
Secondly, from 2012 onwards, Aadhaar was a major
source of harassment for citizens, particularly the poor.
For providing many services, the government was

introduced in the Lok Sabha as a money Bill. The

characteristic feature of a money Bill is that it is not
introduced in both the Houses. It is introduced only in
the Lok Sabha; from the Lok Sabha, the Bill is just
transmitted to the Rajya Sabha. The Upper House
cannot make amendments to the Bill; it can only
recommend amendments to the Lok Sabha, which can
reject the amendments. Further, if the Bill is not returned
to the Lok Sabha within 14 days from the date of receipt,
it may be deemed as passed by both the Houses.
Evidently, the NDA government did not want to carry
the Aadhaar Bill to the Rajya Sabha, where it does not
have a majority. On the contrary, the government has a
clear majority in the Lok Sabha. It was in this context that
the money Bill route was manufactured.
The Aadhaar Bill is not a money Bill by any stretch of
imagination. According to the Parliament website, only
Bills which exclusively contain provisions for imposition
and abolition of taxes, for appropriation of moneys out of
the Consolidated Fund, etc., are certied as money Bills.
However, the Aadhaar Bill does much more; its clauses
5

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

VIJAY KUMAR JOSHI /PTI

insisting on an Aadhaar number. In gross violation of

earlier Supreme Court orders, Aadhaar was made
compulsory for releasing scholarships for Dalit/Adivasi
students, disbursing salaries and pensions, marking
attendance for teachers, registering marriages, buying or
selling property, issuing driving licences, obtaining gas
connections, purchasing goods from ration shops and
making transactions in Provident Fund savings. Fearing
denial of services, many citizens were forced to enrol for
Aadhaar.
In its order, the court put an end to such harassment.
It said that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory until
the ruling of the constitutional bench. However, the
current Bill has made Aadhaar mandatory even before
the constitutional bench even considered the question.
Indeed, the government was arrogantly trying to derail
the judicial process.
DANGEROUS CLAUSES

P R I M E M I N I S TE R Narendra Modi and Finance

Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys argument that Chapter

VI of the Bill addresses privacy concerns is fallacious.
Chapter VI has clauses that protect the biometric and
personal data stored with the CIDR. However, as
mentioned, Aadhaar-induced exposure of personal
information is not limited to the CIDR; rather, it is a
systemic concern. When public and private agencies
collect and transmit personal information, including
biometrics, it would always be possible for them to also
retain a copy. Experience shows that such personal data
quickly turn into a commodity freely available for
purchase.
The Aadhaar Bill has no concern for such systemic
issues except as passing references. Only broad-ranging
privacy and data protection laws can address these
systemic concerns. A weak chapter in one Bill is hardly a
solution.
Many claims by the proponents of Aadhaar revolve
around the uniqueness and security of biometric
authentication. To begin with, biometric authentication
of individuals has been shown to have high error rates
(see Tale of Errors, Frontline, June 30, 2012). Further,
biometrics is also poorly secured as an authentication
token. Normally, when a password or PIN number is
stolen or lost, the user can change the password; only the
user remembers his/her password. In contrast, biometric
passwords like ngerprints cannot be changed; we also
leave them back wherever we go and on whatever we
touch. Once stolen or lost, the security of a users account
is permanently compromised. Hackers have ably
demonstrated this possibility with Apples Touch ID
sensors.
In 2013, when Apples iPhone 5S was released with
ngerprint-based Touch ID security, it was claimed as
totally secure. In just 24 hours, hackers such as Mark
Rogers and Jan Krissler were able to break into and
unlock the phones biometric security. For this, they used
a decade-old technique of creating articial ngerprints
with wood glue and sprayable graphene. When Apple
released its iPhone 6 in 2014 with promises of better

Minister Arun Jaitley. The positioning of the Aadhaar

Bill as welfare-oriented is a ploy to mask the real
intentions behind it.

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

biometric security, it again took Rogers and Krissler just

two days to unlock it again.
In 2014, at the Chaos Communication Congressan
annual conclave of German hackersKrissler
demonstrated how he reverse-engineered the ngerprint
of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen. He
required just a few high-resolution photographs of von
der Leyens ngers from close quarters. In 2015, Krissler
also demonstrated how he could extract the iris data of
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Here, he
required just a high-resolution photograph of Angela
Merkels eyes from a press conference. According to
Krissler, everything is spoofable.
In other words, when Aadhaar-based biometric
authentication becomes pervasive, identity thefts also are
likely to rise. These glaring threats do not appear to have
been adequately appreciated before pushing the Aadhaar
project.
EXAGGERATED CLAIMS OF SAVINGS

An important claim by the proponents of Aadhaar has

been that duplication of beneciaries in government
schemes can be eliminated using Aadhaar, which would
save tens of thousands of crores to the public exchequer.
Within the social sector, the claims regarding liqueed
petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies have occupied a
prominent place. In Parliament, Jaitley claimed that
targeted subsidy through Aadhaar cards of LPG
consumers had resulted in savings of over Rs.15,000
crore. Such claims were used by the government to
persuade the Supreme Court on the need to allow
mandatory use of Aadhaar. However, Jaitleys claim has
been shown to be totally wrong by some brilliant work at
the International Institute of Sustainable Development
(IISD).
Let us discuss Jaitleys claim and the IISDs rebuttal
6

beneciaries are denied benets because of the poor

quality of their ngerprints. For the elderly beneciaries
of old-age pensions, ngerprint authentication has been
a nightmare; their ngerprint authentications have had
the highest error rates.
Regardless of such a poor record of Aadhaar in
government schemes, Modi has pinned much of his
hopes around the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile)
initiative. The JAM initiative is an extension of the earlier
governments Direct Benet Transfer (DBT) scheme. It
seeks to monetise all the transfers made from the state to
citizens, and load that money onto the Aadhaar-linked
Jan Dhan accounts of beneciaries. However, opening
Jan Dhan accounts is not sufficient for JAM. Account
holders also need to withdraw the cash. As the spread of
brick-and-mortar branches of banks is poor, banks have
been relying on the Banking Correspondent (B.C.; also
Bank Mitra; or private agents of banks who facilitate
banking operations in unbanked areas) model to
facilitate cash withdrawals. The revenue model here is
based on a commission that B.Cs receive upon every
transaction.
However, the B.C. model has been a failure. First, in
many States, B.Cs were mainly village headmen,
moneylenders and fertilizer dealers. This mirrored and
reaffirmed power relations and hegemonies in villages.
Secondly, corruption has been an important feature of
the B.C. model. Finally, the B.C. model has been
expensive. Banks and the government are not ready to
pay higher commission rates to the B.Cs; as a result, B.C.
salaries are low and rural youths are not interested in
becoming B.Cs. According to a recent countrywide study
of B.Cs by MicroSave, the average monthly salary of a
B.C. was just Rs.4,692.
The poor nancial viability of the B.C. model has
forced the government to try alternatives. Leaving
commission rates constant, can transaction volumes be
increased so that B.C. earnings would rise? For this
purpose, the government has been trying to pack the old
DBT scheme with as many transfers as possible. As
disbursements of pensions and MGNREGS payments
are seen as insufficient to substantially raise transaction
volumes, the target is the PDS. The subsidy implied in the
in-kind grain transfer in PDS is sought to be converted
into an equivalent cash transfer. Needless to say, such a
step would effectively dismantle the PDS in India. Other
new plans have included the conversion of free schooling
into education vouchers and free health care into health
vouchers. And that would indeed be a neoliberals dream
come true.
So, why has Modi jumped onto the Aadhaar
bandwagon after claiming that it was no herb for all
cures? Why has his government suddenly lost respect for
the Supreme Courts pulling up? The answer appears to
be simple. After coming to power, Modi has realised the
utility of Aadhaar as an instrument to further entrench a
neoliberal social policy.

Many other claims in favour of Aadhaar are also

based on such erroneous methods. For instance, in the
public distribution system (PDS), a claim has been that
seeding Aadhaar into ration cards can effectively
eliminate bogus ration cards. However, what has gone
unnoticed is that even without Aadhaar, State
governments have been effectively eliminating bogus
ration cards using an end-to-end computerisation plan.
By December 2010, about 2.09 crore bogus ration cards
were eliminated across 26 States (see PDS in peril,
Frontline, November 19, 2011). By June 2014, about 4.94
crore bogus ration cards had been eliminated across 30
States/Union Territories. Yet, it is claimed that Aadhaarbased deduplication offers the only effective way to
eliminate bogus ration cards.
AADHAAR IN SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES

Jaitleys positioning of the Bill as pro-poor and welfareoriented is nothing but a clever ploy to mask the real
intentions behind it. The real intention behind the
Aadhaar project is not to improve welfare or reduce
poverty but to effect a neoliberal transformation of the
states role in the social sector (see Identity Concerns,
Frontline, November 19, 2011). Such an objective has two
elements. The rst is a shift from universalism to
targeting. Aadhaar is not intended to expand or
universalise social services. Its aim is to keep benets
restricted to targeted sections, ensure targeting with
technological precision, and limit the governments scal
commitments. The second is a shift from direct provision
to indirect provision of social services. Here, existing
institutions of direct intervention are dismantled and
replaced by new institutions of indirect provision
intermediated by the market. The proposed objective of
converting all in-kind provisions to in-cash transfers is a
prime example. Citizens are provided with cash and are
told to purchase the once state-provided services from
the market. Here, Aadhaar is not a tool of
empowerment; it is actually an alibi for the state to leave
the citizen unmarked in the market for social services.
Given this larger design, Aadhaar has been forcibly
incorporated into the implementation of social sector
schemes, such as old-age pension disbursements, wage
payments of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and PDS
grain sales. From the pilot projects on these schemes,
journalists and researchers have documented large error
rates in the centralised biometric authentication of
beneciaries and the presence of disruptive factors like
lack of electricity and poor Internet connectivity.
According to a study by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) on Aadhaar linkage in MGNREGS
in Jharkhand, only 4 per cent of the surveyed
beneciaries
reported
successful
ngerprint
authentication at the rst attempt. About 54 per cent
reported two to three attempts, 23 per cent reported four
to ve attempts and 18 per cent reported more than ve
attempts before authentication was completed. There
have been, also, a large number of reports where
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

R. Ramakumar is Professor at the Tata Institute of

Social Sciences, Mumbai.
8

COVER STORY

Threat to citizen rights

Interview with Usha Ramanathan, legal researcher. B Y V. S R I D HA R
THE GRAND INDIAN PROJECT FOR A UNIFIED or benets or services. What the Bill does is to make the
identity regime has, since its inception, been grounded in UIDAI [Unique Identication Authority of India] a stattwo key propositions. The rst is the notion that the utory entity, legalise the collection and databasing of
targeted delivery of state-sponsored benets and services demographic and biometric information of residents,
will plug the leakages, which will ensure that only expand the use of the UID number beyond the state to
genuine beneciaries will access state-distributed and any body corporate or person, provide protection to
subsidy-laden benets. Thus, Aadhaar was visualised as officials of the UIDAI from prosecution and create some
the tool that would make sure that the benet distribu- offences. The hallmark of a money Bill, which is to make
money available to the executive to
tion system would operate efficiently.
carry out its work, is nowhere present
The other critical aspect of Aadhaar
in the legislation.
has been its techno-utopian foundaIn resolving a dispute about
tionthat this is a magic wand to
whether a Bill is a money Bill or not,
abolish poverty.
the Speakers task is to decide whether
The independent legal researcher
the Bill conforms to what Article 110
Dr Usha Ramanathan has written,
of the Constitution says. A money Billcampaigned and spoken extensively
that article is categoricalhas to be
on various issues lying at the interseconly about the matters listed there,
tion of legal jurisprudence, civil rights
and this Bill is not about any of those
and poverty. She was a member of the
matters at all. Maybe, the Speaker of
Expert Group on Privacy at the Planthe Lok Sabha had been advised that
ning Commission and a member of a
the Juvenile Justice Act had been
committee (2013-14) set up by the Depassed in 1986 as a money Bill and so
partment of Biotechnology to review
constituted a precedent. This, howevthe draft Human DNA Proling Bill,
er, was proven wrong, but only after
2012. She has been a consistent critic
U S H A RA M A NA THAN : The
Jairam Ramesh found out otherwise
of the philosophical, social, legal and
Aadhaar has institutionalised the
and corrected Arun Jaitley in the Raeconomic foundations of the Aadhaar
idea of the undeserving poor.
jya Sabha. Now, it is either for the
project.
Here, in this telephonic interview with Frontline, President to hold back on signing it into law and ask the
Usha Ramanathan argues that the Aadhaar (Targeted government to remedy the mistake maybe apologise to
Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benets and Parliament and restart the process of making the law. Or
Services) Bill, 2016, abridges the rights of citizens and it may have to go to court and be judicially reviewed. That
threatens to impose severe hardships on the poor, who the money Bill route was taken to stie debate is one of
are supposed to be the prime beneciaries of the legisla- the tragic ironies of this project.
tion. Excerpts:
The Aadhaar legislation has been passed by Parliament
even as a bench of the Supreme Court is considering a
What is your opinion as a legal researcher on the move
challenge on the grounds that it violates the right to
to present the Bill as a money Billboth legally and as
privacy. Does the law now tilt the eld against this
a political manoeuvre?
Nobody seriously believed that the 2016 Bill was a challenge?
It is signicant that just when the UID case was being
money Bill. The words Consolidated Fund of India
were slipped into a few provisions to justify introducing it heard in the Supreme Court, the Attorney General aras a money Bill. But, while the Bill in Clause 7 says that gued that privacy was not a fundamental right. He sucthe government may make enrolment on the Aadhaar ceeded in putting under a cloud a right that has been part
database a condition for getting subsidies, benets and of our constitutional jurisprudence for over 40 years.
services, this Bill does not itself provide for any subsidies And yet, at the same time that this argument was being
9

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Why do I say this? Just go back to the time the UIDAI

decided to adopt biometrics as the measure of uniqueness. That was in September 2009. What was known
about it then? Very little. In January-February 2010, a
notice inviting a biometrics consultant was candid:
[The] National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST, in the United States] has spent considerable efforts over the past 10-15 years in benchmarking
the state-of-the-art extractor and matching technology
for ngerprint, face, and iris biometrics on the Western
population. While NIST documents the fact that the
accuracy of biometric matching is extremely dependent
on demographics and environmental conditions, there is
a lack of a sound study that documents the accuracy
achievable on Indian demographics [that is, larger percentage of rural population] and in Indian environmental conditions [extremely hot and humid climate and
facilities without air-conditioning]. In fact we could not
nd any credible study assessing the achievable accuracy
in any of the developing countriesThe quality assessment of ngerprint data is not sufficient to fully understand the achievable de-duplication accuracy.
In December 2009, the Biometrics Standards Committee set up to report on the possibilities of achieving
uniqueness during enrolment said that of the 25,000
people whom it had checked to see if the technology
could deliver, 2 to 5 per cent had no biometrics that
worked. So it suggested that maybe one more biometric
could be added and maybe that could be the iris but that it
should be tested before being adopted. And crucially, iris
was included as an added biometric before tests or studies were undertaken. In the next few years, the proof of
concepts on enrolment [2010-11], ngerprint authentication [March 2012] and iris authentication [September 2012] showed a system still at the stage of study and
experimentation. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, which reported on the 2010 Bill, rejected
it partly because of the use of untested technology. In
2011, the Mission Director of the UIDAI said:
Capturing ngerprints, especially of manual labourers, is a challenge. The quality of ngerprints is bad
because of the rough exterior of ngers caused by hard
work, and this poses a challenge for later authentication.
This bothered the Standing Committee, too, because
it was plain that the difficulties in authentication would
result in large-scale exclusion and denial since a large
proportion of those needing state assistance are precisely
those doing manual labour.
In 2013, the CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation]
got an order from a magistrate to get the biometric
database of all persons enrolled in Goa. This was in
connection with the case of the rape of a child in school.
The CBI said it had found a random palm print that it
wanted veried. In a litigation that was appealed all the
way to the Supreme Court, the UIDAI argued against the
order asking it for access to its database in order to assist
criminal investigations. It cited two considerations: one,
privacy and two, that the way they collected and stored
meant that data could not be used for forensic purposes.

made in the Supreme Court, the government was arguing

in another courtroom that privacy being a fundamental
right, Section 499 of the IPC [Indian Penal Code], which
makes defamation a crime, should not be struck down.
There the government was presenting itself as a protector
of citizens fundamental right to privacy!
The UIDAI has been protesting that there are no
privacy problems because all that the authority will do is
respond to an authentication request with a yes or a
no. This is not true, and the Bill reects a part of the
problem. The UIDAI collects and organises a database of
demographic and biometric information, and it reserves
the right to collect other data. So, the collected data have
already expanded to include mobile numbers, e-mail
addresses, bank accounts and other details of citizens.
When the UIDAI receives the authentication requests, it
has information about where the request is coming frombanks, employers, hospitals, airline companies, the
Railways, shops, or even the Election Commission.
The 2016 Bill legalises data sharing agreements.
The bureaucrats can then decide when and under what
circumstances the information ought to be shared in the
national interest. A court can direct the sharing of
information, including authentication records. The government can take over from the authority if persistently
defaulted in complying with any direction given by the
Central government. The now-infamous Clause 57 permits any body corporate or person to use the Aadhaar
number in pursuance of any law or any contract to this
effect. Wherever the Bill provides for information to be
taken from the UIDAI, the UIDAI has to be heard by the
court or the government or an official. But the person
whose data are being handed over is not only not heard,
he/she is not even to be informed, either immediately or
after a length of time.
There is no opt-out provision and no question of ever
getting off the database. You cede control to the UIDAI
once you enrol. The law endorses the one-sided control of
citizen information.
But Aadhaars proponents claim core biometrics
would not be disclosed under any
circumstancenational security included?
The biometric history of the UID project tells its own
story. There is a reason why the UIDAI is keen not to have
the biometric database scrutinised, or even seen, by anyone but itself. This is not for the protection of the interests of those on the database. The willingness to share
demographic and authentication data, get into datasharing agreements and allow any person to access the
UID database tells us that.
The admitted truth is that biometrics is still being
researched. No one is yet sure of the value of the biometrics of such a vast and diverse population. The provision that core biometricswhich is everything other
than the photographwill not be given to anyone for any
reason never mind if it is a matter of national security
or forensic needis to shield the faults and fallacies,
uncertainties and sure misses from scrutiny.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

10

we know. It is indeed micro; but there is nothing automatic about it; in fact, it is through an agent who dispenses the monies. The risk of moneys being siphoned
off, especially because of low literacy levels, particularly
nancial literacy, and the desperate vulnerability of the
poor is being deliberately underplayed.
By making Aadhaar paperlessit is a number attached to a biometricthe project places barriers to
identifying oneself when collecting rations, pensions, job
cards, and so on. This may well suit the system, but it
leaves people at the mercy of a technology that is still
being tested, a technology with limitations for the working class that are already being demonstrated across the
country. And, alongside with experimenting with this
system of identication, it is setting at nought other ways
people have had of identifying themselves to the system,
such as with ration cards, or kisan cards, or voter IDs.The
project was promoted with the claim that it would give a
portable identity to migrant workers. We have not seen
too many signs of portability yet, more than seven years
after the project began. The large number of workers in
the construction industry, for instanceand it is their
biometrics that is expected to make their ID portable.
As for being presence-less, it appears Nilekani would
have the government disappear behind a computer monitor. It is this absence that is already the problem. The
supervision and reporting on a project such as this is
largely missing. There is no one to take the problems to if
and when they crop up. Technology is a useful tool.
However, when it is interposed between the people and
an administration, it is not necessarily empowering. But,
techno-utopia has no patience for nuance or substance.

Initially, in May 2014, the Supreme Court directed that

the biometric data of a person should not be shared
without the consent of its owner. However, on August 11,
2015, the court modied this order by making an exception when directed by a court for the purpose of a criminal investigation.
On August 13, 2015, the UIDAI website was refreshed. The website now hosts a section on UBCC and
Research. [UBCC stands for the UIDAI Biometrics Centre of Competence.] The text reads: Biometrics features
are selected to be primary mechanisms for ensuring
uniqueness ... No country has undertaken to build a
national registry at the scale and accuracy as UIDAI
initiative. Nature and diversity of Indias working population adds another challenge to achieving uniqueness
through biometric features. Like other technology elds
such as telecommunication, we do not have experience
like developed countries to leverage for designing UIDAIs
biometrics systemsTherefore, it is necessary to create a
UIDAI Biometrics Centre of Competence that focuses on
the unique challenges of UIDAI. The mission of the
UBCC is to design biometrics system that enables India
to achieve uniqueness in the national registry. The endeavour of designing such a system is an ongoing quest to
innovate biometrics technology appropriate for the Indian conditions.
ARE LEAKAGES REALLY PLUGGED?

At a popular leveland this appears to be its ideological

underpinningthe notion that it is the most effective
way to check leakages of benets to citizens appears
to have caught on, especially among those who are
swayed by what can be termed techno-utopianism.
A study commissioned by the Andhra Pradesh Civil
Supplies Department in 2015 to nd out why almost
one-fourth of those entitled to rations had not collected
rations found ngerprint authentication failure in 290 of
790 cardholders, and Aadhaar mismatch in 93 instances. In the hundred days that the Jawaabdehi Yatra toured
Rajasthan from December 1, 2015, the number of people
reporting that they did not receive their rations or pensions because of failed ngerprint authentication or Aadhaar mismatch [where the information on the Aadhaar
database and that on the public distribution system database, for instance, do not tally] was disturbingly high.
There were others who had had to visit the shop four or
ve times before they got their rations because of ngerprint authentication problems.

ISSUES RAISED IN COURT

What issues are raised in the cases in the Supreme

Court?
The cases raise many issues of constitutional importance. One of these is the fact that a project of this nature
and scale had been launched and had proceeded without
a law prescribing its mandate and limits. Now there is a
law, but it doesnt address many of the concerns; in some
aspects, it exacerbates the problems; these still have to be
considered and adjudged by the court. There are two
main streams in this project. One is biometrics. From
early on, it was recognised that biometrics was untested
technology, even by the UIDAIs own admission, and that
its imposition through the project was an experiment on
the entire population. Two, with the numberising of the
population and the insertion of the number in every
database, citizens are exposed to tracking. Once it is in a
range of databases, it makes it possible to do data mining,
convergence of data, proling, tracking and networking
and trading in personal data. Use of this number, and of
the UIDAIs services, by the government and by private
persons and agencies is a part of how this ubiquity will
be achieved. That people are being asked to part with
their number and personally identiable information
wherever anyone may demand it is among the insecuri-

Advocates of Aadhaar, including Nandan Nilekani, say

the system being cashless, paperless and presence-less
makes it ideal for plugging leaks.
If direct benet transfer is introduced in place of the
PDS, the last mile is still dependent on a banking correspondent or other such agent who will use an authentication system to decide whether or not or how much to
hand over to the individual. The term micro-ATM is
highly misleading because it is not anything like an ATM
11

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

halted it in its tracks. This, therefore, is not a legally

constituted database.
Second, when the UIDAI decided that it wanted to do
its own enrolmentand not only help in the standardising of the governmental databases, as was its original
mandateit was said that all other existing government
databases were full of errors but this would be the one
that would be perfect. The manner of enrolment through
thousands of enrollers (27,000 enrolment stations at one
count), the hurry, the process which has no patience with
verifying documents, the lack of monitoring of enrollers
and registrars: all this explains why errors abound. In
January 2012, P. Chidambaram, as Home Minister, refused to give credence to the UID database because the
process was porous and the data unreliable. By endJanuary, there was a rapprochement between the Home
Ministry and the UIDAI and they decided to share the
country 50:50. That tells us something about how the
project has proceeded, and the worth of its database.
Three, if the creation and maintenance of this database raises national security risks, it makes sense to
dismantle it. Four, take a look at who is a resident in the
2016 Bill: it is a person who has resided in India for 182
days in the 12 months preceding the application. There
was no such criterion, and no such check, in enrolments
so far. The UIDAI Mission Director is reported to have
said that consent, which has to be obtained from a person
when being enrolled, will only apply to those who enrol
after the law comes into force; the law, according to him,
raties everything that the UIDAI has done so far. So will
it also ratify a database that is not veried if the person is
a resident?

ties generated by the project. These issues remain to be

resolved by the court.
The use of companies such as L-1 Identity Solutions,
Accenture and Morpho is already under challenge in the
Supreme Court, especially for their proximity to foreign
intelligence agencies including the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the French government. One strange response to
an RTI [Right to Information] request about how rms
of such provenance could have been engaged for this
project said that the authority had no means of knowing
which country these companies were from; they had
registered offices in India, and that is all that was on their
applications! These are matters of national security before the court.
Exclusion, especially of the working class and the
poor, is getting more established with experience. The
court is also yet to decide on the contempt petitions led
in the pending cases which address the issue of coercion
and exclusion that the project has brought with it.
The biometric, demographic and authentication data
with the UIDAI is one level of privacy invasion. Seeding
this number in multiple databases and the proling and
tracking that facilitates it is another. It is not only poverty
and political dissent that this will target. One way to
understand the implications of the ubiquity of this number is through the National Intelligence Grid [NATGRID]. Its mandate has been to give information in real
time from 21 databasesand this can be expanded to
include 11 security and intelligence agencies. This is not
under any law, and it has been declared to be a security
organisation and therefore outside the remit of the RTI
Act. We often hear people say, if you have done nothing
wrong, why should you care if everything about us is
known? Well, it is not what we think is of interest to us
that counts in such situations; it is how we are construed
by those who have an interest in us. And this is not what
we put out about ourselves; it is about how databases
reect us. These too are before the court.
There is a fundamental principle being argued in
court: that the Constitution is not about the power of the
state but about the limits of the power of the state over the
people. The idea of transparency, too, is being contested.
While the RTI Act aspires to make the state transparent
to its people, the UID project works at making the individual not just visible, but to be proled and tracked by
the state and by private companies and persons. The
matter was referred to a Constitution Bench on the question of privacy; the court is still to hear and decide this
question.

What other aspects of the law are of concern?

The breadth of the denitions of subsidies, services
and benets covers almost the entire universe of our
livesand both private persons and companies and government can demand the number as a condition. The law
allows the UIDAI to do what it will through regulations
it includes adding more biometrics, more elds of
personal data, and extends way beyond. The individual
has no means of asking, nding answers to or contesting
what the UADAI does. When an offence, including data
theft and identity fraud, is committed, the individual can
do nothing. It is only the UIDAI that can take a complaint to a court. There is a clause that lets the UIDAI
make regulations to omit or deactivate the number.
This is what is called civil death.
This project began without a feasibility study. It left
open questions of constitutionality and civil liberties and
was based on untested technology. It was aggressively
promoted, using the power and resources at the command of the state. That is why it has met with opposition
from many quarters. One of the tragedies of this project
pertains to how it has successfully made a villain of the
recipient of state support. It has institutionalised the
notion of the undeserving poor, which threatens to
promote, instead of curtail, the extent of deprivation in
the country.

COURT ORDERS FLOUTED

The database has reached a hundred crore. What now?

First, this database was built up by outing the orders
of the court. The court said time and again the UID
number should not be made mandatory, and that was
consistently ignored. Even the Election Commission got
into the game in March 2015 until a contempt petition
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12

COVER STORY

Surveillance project
The Aadhaar projects technological design and architecture is an
unmitigated disaster and no amount of legal xes in the Act will make it
any better. B Y S UN I L A BR A HA M
ZERO. THE PROBABILITY OF SOME EVIL
actor breaking into the central store of authentication
factors (such as keys and passwords) for the Internet.
Why? That is because no such store exists. And, what is
the probability of someone evil breaking into the Central
Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of theUnique Identication Authority of India (UIDAI)? Greater than zero.
How do we know this? One, the central store exists and
two, the Aadhaar Bill lists breaking into this central store
as an offence. Needless to say, it would be redundant to
have a law that criminalises a technological impossibility.
What is the consequence of someone breaking into the
central store? Remember, biometrics is just a fancy word
for non-consensual and covert identication technology.
High-resolution cameras can capture ngerprints and
iris information from a distance.
In other words, on March 16, when Parliament
passed the Bill, it was as if Indian lawmakers wrote an
open letter to criminals and foreign states saying, We are
going to collect data to non-consensually identify all
Indians and we are going to store it in a central repository. Come and get it! Once again, how do I know that
the CIDR will be compromised at some date in the
future? How can I make that policy prediction with no
evidence to back it up? To quote Sherlock Holmes, Once
you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. If a back door to
the CIDR exists for the government, then the very same
back door can be used by an enemy within or from
outside. In other words, the principle of decentralisation
in cybersecurity does not require repeated experimental
conrmation across markets and technologies.
Zero. The chances that you can x with the law what
you have broken with poor technological choices and
architecture. And, to a large extent vice versa. Aadhaar is
a surveillance project masquerading as a development
intervention because it uses biometrics. There is a big
difference between the government identifying you and
you identifying yourself to the government. Before UID,
it was much more difficult for the government to identify
you without your knowledge and conscious cooperation.

Tomorrow, using high-resolution cameras and the power

of big data, the government will be able to remotely
identify those participating in a public protest. There will
be no more anonymity in the crowd. I am not saying that
law-enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies
should not use these powerful technologies to ensure
national security, uphold the rule of law and protect
individual rights. I am only saying that this type of surveillance technology is inappropriate for everyday interactions between the citizen and the state.
Some software engineers believe that there are technical xes for these concerns; they point to the consent
layer in the India stack developed through a publicprivate partnership with the UIDAI. But this is exactly
what Evgeny Morozov has dubbed technological solutionismfundamental aws like this cannot be xed by
legal or technical band-aid. If you were to ask the UIDAI
how do you ensure that the data do not get stolen between the enrolment machine and the CIDR, the response would be, we use state-of-the-art cryptography. If
cryptography is good enough for the UIDAI why is it not
good enough for citizens? That is because if citizens use
cryptography [on smart cards] to identify themselves to
the state, the state will need their conscious cooperation
each time. That provides the feature that is required for
better governance without the surveillance bonus. If you
really must use biometrics, it could be stored on the smart
card after being digitally signed by the enrolment officer.
If there is ever a doubt whether the person has stolen the
smart card, a special machine can be used to read the
biometrics off the card and check that against the person.
This way the power of biometrics would be leveraged
without any of the accompanying harms.
Zero. This time, for the utility of biometrics as a
password or authentication factor. There are two principal reasons for which the Act should have prohibited the
use of biometrics for authentication. First, biometric
authentication factors are irrevocable unlike passwords,
PINs, digital signatures, etc. Once a biometric authentication factor has been compromised, there is no way to
change it. The security of a system secured by biometrics
13

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

is permanently compromised. Second, our biometrics is

so easy to steal; we leave our ngerprints everywhere.
Also, if I upload my biometric data onto the Internet,
I can then plausibly deny all transactions against my
name in the CIDR. In order to prevent me from doing
that, the government will have to invest in CCTV cameras
[with large storage] as they do for passport-control borders and as banks do at ATMs. If you anyway have to
invest in CCTV cameras, then you might as well stick with
digital signatures on smart cards as the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government proposed the
SCOSTA (Smart Card Operating System Standard for
Transport Application) standard for the MNIC (Multipurpose National ID Card). Leveraging smart card standards like EMV will ensure harnessing greater network
effects thanks to the global nancial infrastructure of
banks. These network effects will drive down the cost of
equipment and afford Indians greater global mobility.
And most importantly when a digital signature is compromised the user can be issued a new smart card. As
Rufo Guerreschi, executive director of Open Media Cluster, puts it, World leaders and IT experts should realise
that citizen freedoms and states ability to pursue suspects are not an either or but a both or neither.
Near zero. We now move biometrics as the identication factor. The rate of potential duplicates or False
Positive Identication Rate which according to the UIDAI is only 0.057 per cent. Which according to them will
result in only 570 resident enrolments will be falsely
identied as duplicate for every one million enrolments.
However, according to an article published in Economic
& Political Weekly by my colleague at the Centre for
Internet and Society, Hans Verghese Mathews, this will
result in one out of every 146 people being rejected during
enrolment when total enrolment reaches one billion people. In its rebuttal, the UIDAI disputes the conclusion
but offers no alternative extrapolation or mathematical
assumptions. Without getting too deep into the mathematics it offers an account of a manual adjudication
process to rectify the biometric identication errors.
This manual adjudication determines whether you
exist and has none of the elements of natural justice such
as notice to the affected party and opportunity to be
heard. Elimination of ghosts is impossible if only machines and unaccountable humans perform this adjudication. This is because there is zero skin in the game.
There are free tools available on the Internet such as
SFinGe (Synthetic Fingerprint Generator) which allow
you to create fake biometrics. The USB cables on the
UIDAI-approved enrolment setup can be intercepted
using generic hardware that can be bought online. With a
little bit of clever programming, countless number of
ghosts can be created which will easily clear the manual
adjudication process that the UIDAI claims will ensure
that no one is denied an Aadhaar number because of a
biometric false positive.
Near zero. This time for surveillance, which I believe
should be used like salt in cooking. Essential in small
quantities but counterproductive even if slightly in exFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

cess. There is a popular misconception that privacy researchers such as myself are opposed to surveillance. In
reality, I am all for surveillance. I am totally convinced
that surveillance is good anti-corruption technology.
But I also want good returns on investment for my
surveillance tax rupee. According to Julian Assange,
transparency requirements should be directly proportionate to power; in other words, the powerful should be
subject to more surveillance. And conversely, I add, privacy protections must be inversely proportionate to poweror again, in other words, the poor should be spared
from intrusions that do not serve the public interest. The
UIDAI makes the exact opposite design assumption; it
assumes that the poor are responsible for corruption and
that technology will eliminate small-ticket or retail corruption. But we all know that politicians and bureaucrats
are responsible for most of large-ticket corruption.
Why does not the UIDAI rst assign UID numbers to
all politicians and bureaucrats? Then using digital signatures why do not we ensure that we have a public nonrepudiable audit trail wherein everyone can track the
ow of benets, subsidies and services from New Delhi to
the panchayat office or local corporation office? That will
eliminate big-ticket or wholesale corruption. In other
words, since most of Aadhaars surveillance is targeted at
the bottom of the pyramid, there will be limited bang for
the buck. Surveillance is the need of the hour; we need
more CCTVs with microphones turned on in government
offices than biometric devices in slums.
INSTANTIATION TECHNOLOGY

One. And zero. In the contemporary binary and digital

age, we have lost faith in the old gods. Science and its
instantiation technology have become the new gods. The
cult of technology is intolerant to blasphemy. For example, Shekhar Gupta recently tweeted saying that part of
the opposition to Aadhaar was because left-libs detest
science/tech. Technology as ideology is based on some
fundamental articles of faith: one, new technology is
better than old technology; two, expensive technology is
better than cheap technology; three, complex technology
is better than simple technology; and four, all technology
is empowering or at the very least neutral. Unfortunately,
14

K. ANANTHAN

important for us as a nation to give up our unquestioning

faith in technology and start to debate the exact technological congurations of surveillance technology for different contexts and purposes.
One. This time representing a monopoly. Prior to the
UID project, nobody got paid when citizens identied
themselves to the state. While the Act says that the
UIDAI will get paid, it does not specify how much.
Sooner or later, this cost of identication will be passed
on to the citizens and residents. There will be a consumer-service provider relationship established between the
citizen and the state when it comes to identication. The
UIDAI will become the monopoly provider of identication and authentication services in India which is trusted
by the government. That sounds like a centrally planned
communist state to me. Should not the right-wing oppose the Act because it prevents the free market from
working? Should not the free market pick the best technology and business model for identication and authentication? Will not that drive the cost of identication and
authentication down and ensure higher quality of service
for citizens and residents?

A G U MMY F I N G E R to fool a biometric scanner can

be produced using glue and a candle.

there is no basis in science for any of these articles of faith.
Let me use a simple story to illustrate this. I was
fortunate to serve as a member of a committee that the
Department of Biotechnology established to nalise the
Human DNA Proling Bill, 2015, which was to be introduced in Parliament in the last monsoon session.
Aside: the language of the Act also has room for the
database to expand into a national DNA database circumventing 10 years of debate around the controversial
DNA Proling Bill, 2015. The rst version of this Bill that
I read in January 2013 said that DNA proling was a
powerful technology that makes it possible to determine
whether the source of origin of one body substance is
identical to that of another without any doubt. In
other words, to quote K.P.C. Gandhi, a scientist from
Truth Labs, I can vouch for the scientic infallibility of
using DNA proling for carrying out justice.
Unfortunately, though, the infallible science is conducted by fallible humans. During one of the meetings, a
scientist described the process of generating a biometric
prole. The rst step after the laboratory technician generated the prole was to compare the generated prole
with her or his own prole because during the process of
loading the machine with the DNA sample, some of the
laboratory technicians DNA could have contaminated
the sample. This error would not be a possibility in much
older, cheaper and rudimentary biometric technology for
example, photography. A photographer developing a
photograph in a darkroom does not have to ensure that
his or her own image has not accidentally ended up on the
negative. But the UIDAI is lled with die-hard technoutopians; if you tell them that ngerprints will not work
for those who are engaged in manual labour, they will say
then we will use iris-based biometrics. But again, complex technologies are more fragile and often come with
increased risks. They may provide greater performance
and features, but sometimes they are easier to circumvent. A gummy nger to fool a biometric scanner can be
produced using glue and a candle, but to fake a passport
takes a lot of sophisticated technology. Therefore, it is

COMPETING PROVIDERS

Competing providers can also publish transparency reports regarding their compliance with data requests from
law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, and if this is
important to consumers they will be punished by the
market. The government can use mechanisms such as
permanent and temporary bans and price regulation as
disincentives for the creation of ghosts. There will be a
clear nancial incentive to keep the database clean. Just
like the government established a regulatory framework
for digital certicates in the Information Technology Act
allowing for e-commerce and e-governance. Ideally, the
Aadhaar Bill should have done something similar and
established an ecosystem for multiple actors to provide
services in this two-sided market. For it is impossible for
a small government to have the expertise and experience to run one of the worlds largest database of biometric and transaction records securely for perpetuity.
To conclude, I support the use of biometrics. I support government use of identication and authentication
technology. I support the use of ID numbers in government databases. I support targeted surveillance to reduce
corruption and protect national security. But I believe all
these must be put in place with care and thought so that
we do not end up sacricing our constitutional rights or
compromising the security of our nation state. Unfortunately, the Aadhaar projects technological design and
architecture is an unmitigated disaster and no amount of
legal xes in the Act will make it any better. Our children
will pay a heavy price for our folly in the years to come. To
quote the security guru Bruce Schneier, Data is a toxic
asset. We need to start thinking about it as such, and treat
it as we would any other source of toxicity. To do anything
else is to risk our security and privacy.

Sunil Abraham is Executive Director, Centre for Internet

and Society, Bangalore.
15

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

COVER STORY

Dubious tactics
The modus operandi used to introduce the Aadhaar Bill, 2016,
has serious implications for the future of Indian democracy.
B Y V EN K I T ES H RA M A K RI SHN A N A N D T. K. R A J ALA KS HM I

elected by the State legislatures. Secondly, it signied the

extension of a duplicitous political tactic employed by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) government in the past one and a half
years to undermine the functioning of various constitutional and autonomous institutions. Thirdly, the provisions of the Bill contained clauses that have the potential
to curtail and even restrict the rights of privacy of every
citizen, which in turn is bound to impact the rights to
liberty and freedom of expression of the people as a
whole. In short, the passage of the Bill, including the
manoeuvres adopted for it, has set a bad precedent with
dangerous portents for Indian democracy.
A close inspection of the implications of the Aadhaar
Bill, 2016, will have to begin from the very rst attempt to

V. SUDERSHAN

THE PASSAGE OF THE AADHAAR (TARGETED

Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benets and
Services) Bill, 2016, in the Budget session of Parliament
and the strange trajectory it charted through the Lok
Sabha and the Rajya Sabha mark a new low in the
parliamentary history of India. The unprecedented debasement of legislative practice has grave implications
for the country as a whole and its polity in particular.
Primarily, the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, and the way it was
manoeuvred through the two Houses make a mockery of
well-laid-out and time-tested legislative procedures. The
legislative manoeuvres, which took the form of depicting
a normal Bill as a money Bill undermined the prestige
and role of the Rajya Sabha, which is the embodiment of
the States in the Central legislature since its members are

NOVEMB E R 30, 2012 : The BJP delegation comprising L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi,
Balbir Punj and R. Ramakrishna, after submitting a memorandum to the Election Commission on the alleged violation of the
model code of conduct by the Congress by announcing Aadhaar-based direct cash transfers.
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introduce Aadhaar, or the unique identication (UID)

number, covering all residents of India on the basis of
biometric and demographic parameters and data. The
legislative exercise for this was originally initiated in
December 2010 by the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance (UPA) government, when it moved the National
Identication Authority of India Bill, 2010, in Parliament. The UPA government had highlighted this as a
signicant step to build up a central identities data repository, which would be used to provide authentication
services of every resident of the country. The UPA government had also argued that the basic objective of the
initiative was to facilitate better management of the
transfer of government funds to its beneciaries, especially in areas such as subsidies, pensions and scholarships. It also argued that such transfer of government
funds had been traditionally plagued by pilferage, diversion and duplication and that the UID would once
and for all settle these problems.
However, these claims were contested at various levels such as potential efficacy of the project on the grounds
of infringement of privacy that the collection and storage
of individual demographic and biometric data entailed.
These objections were voiced by the opposition, of which
the BJP was an important constituent, and social activists. The 2010 Bill also faced stiff resistance from the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance led by
former BJP Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The deliberations at the committee questioned the very basis of
the UID project. The merits of the project and the functioning of the special body formed to take it forward (the
UIDAI, or Unique Identication Authority of India)
were challenged by the then Planning Commission. Social activists took their opposition to Aadhaar 2010 to the
judiciary. Their initiatives resulted in a Supreme Court
order in 2013 making it clear that Aadhaar could not be
made mandatory to receive the benets it was expected to
facilitate. Issues relating to privacy also came up before
the judiciary and in 2015, the Supreme Court referred
these to a larger bench. In the process, Aadhaar 2010
made no progress at the level of legislation in Parliament.
It is in the background of this parliamentary stasis
that the Aadhaar Bill made its new avatar in March
2016. The BJP and its allies, which had opposed various
key aspects of the UID in different fora, including the
Parliamentary Standing Committee when they were in
the opposition, came to power with a thumping majority
in 2014. The BJP-NDA governments track record in its
rst 20 months had nothing to write home about. The
wide gap between the tall promises on overall development and the abject failure on the ground had resulted
in repeated and massive electoral losses in Bihar and
Delhi. It was in this context that the leader of the ruling
coalition as also other constituent parties acquired a new
drive and urgency to transfer government subsidies and
other funds directly to the beneciaries.
Issues relating to national security, including direct
action using the security agencies against students and
others on charges of sedition on the one side and a debate

Money Bill
All money Bills are nancial Bills but are all
nancial Bills money Bills? In its denition of a
money Bill, Article 110 of Constitution of India
clearly makes a distinction: (1) a Bill shall be
deemed to be a money Bill if it contains only
provisions dealing with all or any of the following matters, namely:
(a) the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax;
(b) the regulation of the borrowing of money or the giving of any guarantee by the Government of India, or the amendment of the law
with respect to any nancial obligations undertaken or to be undertaken by the Government
of India;
(c) the custody of the Consolidated Fund or
the Contingency Fund of India, the payment of
moneys into or the withdrawal of moneys from
any such Fund;
(d) the appropriation of moneys out of the
Consolidated Fund of India;
(e) the declaring of any expenditure to be
expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund
of India or the increasing of the amount of any
such expenditure;
(f) the receipt of money on account of the
Consolidated Fund of India or the public account of India or the custody or issue of such
money or the audit of the accounts of the Union
or of a State; or
(g) any matter incidental to any of the matters specied in sub-clauses (a) to (f).
(2) A Bill shall not be deemed to be a money
Bill by reason only that it provides for the imposition of nes or other pecuniary penalties, or
for the demand or payment of fees for licences
or fees for services rendered, or by reason that it
provides for the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax by any
local authority or body for local purposes.
(3) If any question arises whether a Bill is a
money Bill or not, the decision of the Speaker of
the House of the People [Lok Sabha] thereon
shall be nal.
(4) There shall be endorsed on every Money
Bill when it is transmitted to the Council of
States [Rajya Sabha] under Article 109, and
when it is presented to the President for assent
under Article 111, the certicate of the Speaker
of the House of the People signed by him that it
is a money Bill.
Article 109 clearly states that a money Bill
cannot be introduced in the Rajya Sabha.

17

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

A grave encroachment on individual privacy

knows that what it is doing is not acceptable
as far as the content of the Bill is concerned.
This is as far as the form is concerned.
Various aspects of the Bill are objectionable. One, a ve-judge Supreme Court
bench is examining whether the fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in the
Constitution includes personal liberty. The
Aadhaar Bill, as it stands today, violates the
personal liberty of an individual because all
the information about an individual conS I T A RA M YE CHUR Y: tained in the Aadhaar card can be made
The claim of targeted
available to any agency. The Bill, as it stands
delivery is entirely
now, says the information can be made
suspect.
available upon request. This is a nebulous
denition. What is this request and from
What is your fundamental opposition to the Aadhaar
whom and for what purpose?
Bill? In Parliament, you demanded clarity on whether it
Accessing this [personal] information is prohibited
was a money Bill or not.
worldwide. Apart from violating the personal liberty of
On the Bill being transmitted and certied as a the individual it can also lead to proling. Modern
money Bill, we raised serious objections and continue to civilisation has seen how under Hitlerite fascism homes
do so. I think there will be a judicial review. Article 110 of Jews were marked. This was at a time when tech(1) denes a money Bill [see box]. A money Bill can only nology wasnt as advanced as it is today. Such proling
be within the ambit of Article 110 (1). Article 110 (2) will become easier with technology. Targeting individudenes what cannot be a money Bill. Article 110 (3) says als in the pursuit of converting a secular democratic
that in case of a dispute, the decision of the Lok Sabha republic into the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sanghs
Speaker will be nal. Our point is that the Speaker [RSS] version of a Hindu Rashtra will be easy when
cannot go beyond the jurisdiction of 110 (1) and 110 (2) such proling can identify individuals on the basis of
and our opinion is that the Speaker went beyond her their religious faith or political beliefs or on the basis of
jurisdiction in this case. Because 110 (3) exists and any other criteria.
In response to our question in the Rajya Sabha, the
because the National Democratic Alliance [NDA] lacks
a majority in the Rajya Sabha, the Narendra Modi Finance Minister, who moved the Bill, said that for
government took such a step to circumvent the Rajya considerations of national security, this personal inSabha, which is an affront to parliamentary democracy. formation of Aadhaar could be shared with national
The Speaker has to certify that this is a money Bill. We security organisations. This is a dangerous perception,
raised it in the Rajya Sabha. The Rajya Sabha Chairman particularly when the Modi government brands at the
announced that the House had procured the certicate drop of a hat people who oppose it as anti-national. We
declaring it as a money Bill but the Speaker has to give have seen this happen in the case of students of Jawareasons why she decided that it was a money Bill. The harlal Nehru University, the University of Hyderabad,
reasons have not yet been given. The government clearly Jadavpur University, Allahabad University and now
R.V. MOORTHY

THE Left parties opposed the manner in

which the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, was introduced as a money Bill in the Lok Sabha and
then transmitted to the Rajya Sabha for its
consideration. Sitaram Yechury, general
secretary of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), said the Lok Sabha Speaker ignored the provisos of the denition of
money Bill in Article 110 of the Constitution. He said the main intent of the Bill had
more to do with individual proling, using
the national security clause, and less to do
with reaching subsidies to beneciaries.
Excerpts from an interview he gave
Frontline:

big role in the creation and presentation of the Aadhaar

Bill, 2016, in Parliament. But in bringing it to Parliament, the leadership of the BJP, particularly the triumvirate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley and party president Amit Shah,
devised a special ploy taking into consideration the roadblocks faced by the Aadhaar Bill, 2010, as also the experience of their own government in the rst 20 months. The
Modi government has failed to get two of its pet pieces of
legislationthe Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and
the Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Billpassed
despite repeated attempts. This was essentially because

on nationalism versus sedition on the other, were being

pursued by the BJP government along with its ideological conglomerate, the larger Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh (RSS)-led Sangh Parivar, following the conspicuous failures of the government to full its promises.
Opinion did the rounds in a number of security agencies
that this diversionary ploy in the name of sedition would
have intended efficacy only with sharper teeth. And this
sharper teeth could be built up only if there was greater
access to private information regarding individuals, both
targeted by this drive and otherwise.
By any yardstick, these political considerations had a
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

18

Fergusson College in Pune. We have seen how the idea

of national security was used during the Emergency.
Many of us who today hold important positions in
Parliament were jailed under the infamous Maintenance of Internal Security Act, or MISA, during the
Emergency. The denition of national security or internal security then was on the basis of such large-scale
arrests of all opposition leaders. I pointed this out to the
Finance Minister who was himself a victim of the Emergency. We cannot permit this government, with its
Hindu Rashtra agenda, to misuse the term national
security given the fascistic denition of nationalism that
it is trying to impose on the country, to nd a legal
backing as the Aadhaar legislation provides.
The third objection is the provision to add on various technological advances that will permit individual
proling as part of information gathered by the Aadhaar
agency. The government argues that as technology is
developing, ngerprints are being replaced by the impression of the heel of the foot. Now we have the technology for better individual identication through the
iris of the eye. As technology develops, DNA proling
and other biological traits can be collated under this
provision. This has the potential of gross misuse as
individuals with recorded biological inrmities can be
subjected to many sorts of attacks. It must be recalled
that Hitler experimented with Jews in the concentration camps to conrm his theory of Aryan superiority.
Such dangerous possibilities are being opened up.
This Bill constitutes a grave encroachment on individual privacy.
Would the substitution of the term national security
with public safety or public emergency, as suggested in
the amendments moved by the Congress in the Rajya
Sabha, remove the apprehensions that have arisen
over the clause on national security?
These are highly subjective interpretations. Take
the campaign on nationalism and the insistence on
shouting one slogan. Various slogans are an embodiment of patriotism. Netaji gave the slogan of Jai Hind,
Bhagat Singh gave Inquilab Zindabad, which became a
rallying cry against the British during the freedom

struggle. Hindustan Zindabad is the slogan raised in all

cricket matches today. Just because someone does not
shout Bharat Mata ki Jai, does it make him/her an
anti-national?
The Bill is ostensibly meant for the effective delivery of
subsidies to the targeted population.
The claim of targeted delivery under Aadhaar is
entirely suspect. Below poverty line [BPL] cards already exist. The BPL card system is fraught with corrupt
practices. The objective of the Bill is to exclude. The
Supreme Court ruled that the Aadhaar card is not the
only basis. The argument is tenuous. The CPI(M) has
always believed that targeted delivery of subsidies is
faulty; subsidies for the poor have to be universal. Many
States are already following it. There is free rice supply
in many States. Using the Aadhaar information, the
Centre could decide that only a certain quantum of
foodgrains stock will reach the people, thereby undermining the welfare programmes of those States. Ever
since the NDA came to power, there has been a drastic
reduction in food, fertilizer and kerosene subsidies.
When global oil prices are falling in a big way and prices
are rising back home, this makes a mockery of subsidies.
What then is the real intent of the Bill|? Why was the
opposition unable to rally support on the issue?
The real intent of the Bill is individual proling. It is
to break the opposition ranks; the government adopted
many unscrupulous methodssilencing many opposition parties through various deals, which over time will
surely be exposed. This is match-xing. This was apparent when the Trinamool Congress, which had initially opposed the Bill, walked out of the Rajya Sabha
when voting on the amendments began.
The Aadhaar Bill was referred to a parliamentary
standing committee when the United Progressive Alliance was in power. A unanimous opinion was presented
to Parliament. The NDA government has ignored that
committees report. The reason the Bill was taken up as
a money Bill was also to circumvent the examination of
the Bill by a select committee.
T.K. Rajalakshmi

its lacks a majority in the Rajya Sabha.

The new ploy manifested itself as the conversion of
what should have been a normal Bill into a money Bill.
There were several concrete indications, as early as August 2015, to show that the BJP leadership, particularly
Jaitley, was planning to resort to this course to get over
the NDAs lack of majority in the Upper House. Speaking
at a couple of functions organised by business and industry bodies in August 2015, Jaitley had said that the
government is looking at the option of obtaining legislative approval for some of the key reform Bills by framing
them as money Bills. He had made a reference to the

stalemate in Parliament during that period and asserted

that if the stalemate continues, then a lot of legislation
would have to be framed as money Bills. He also went on
to argue that the time had come to discuss the question as
to what extent can the indirectly elected House hold
reform proposals passed by the directly elected house,
which represents the will of the people. The intent to
marginalise the Rajya Sabha was evident from that period itself and clearly the passage of Aadhaar 2016 as a
money Bill marked the beginning of this well-thoughtout ploy.
In any parliamentary system, a money Bill is one that
19

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Planned emasculation of the Rajya Sabha

THE Aadhaar Bill was rst introduced in December
2010 by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government but could not be legislated. The
National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which was in the
opposition then, was sceptical about the Bill. However,
on March 12, the ruling NDA got the modied Aadhaar
Bill, 2016, passed in Parliament through a voice vote
and a brief debate. The Congress, unlike the Left parties, was not opposed to the Bill altogether but thought
it was awed on some counts. The Rajya Sabha pressed
for amendments, which were of a recommendatory
nature, as the Bill has been transmitted to the Upper
House as a money Bill. Congress Member of Parliament
and former Union Minister S. Jairam Ramesh, who
moved ve amendments to the Bill in the Rajya Sabha,
explained to Frontline what in his view was wrong with
the way the NDA government dealt with the Aadhaar
Bill. Excerpts.
Is there something fundamentally wrong in the way
the Aadhaar Bill was transmitted from the Lok Sabha
to the Rajya Sabha as a fait accompli?
Of course, there is. If the 2016 Bill is different from
the one introduced in 2010, as claimed by the Finance
Minister, why did he not refer it to the Parliamentary
Standing Committee, which is the normal practice
whenever Bills are introduced, although not since Narendra Modi assumed power.
Was the Aadhaar Bill a money Bill?
It was decidedly not a money Bill. I got a written
opinion from experts such as K. Parasaran [Rajya Sabha member and former Attorney General of India]. The
word only in Article 110 [of the Indian Constitution]
is key. By the Finance Ministers denition, almost
every Bill can become a money Bill. It was a ploy to
bypass the Rajya Sabha sending the Bill to a Select
Committee.

the African Development Bank Bill, as money Bills to

justify the passage of the Aadhaar Bill, a point that you
mentioned in the Rajya Sabha? Did this reect a
cavalier attitude on the part of the government,
especially in a matter as signicant as Aadhaar, or was
the government just in a hurry?
I was shocked when the Finance Minister claimed
that the Juvenile Justice Bill, 1986, and the African
Development Bank Bill, 1983, were pushed through as
money Bills. I did extensive research for three days and
nally provided authoritative evidence in my speech in
the Rajya Sabha on March 16 to nail the lie. It was
unacceptable, the Finance Minister spreading and repeat this canardbut then he would put [Joseph]
Goebbels to shame.
What do you think was the real motive behind pushing
for the legislation of the Bill in such a manner
considering that the BJP was opposed to Aadhaar
when it was in the opposition?
The Congress was not opposed to the idea of the use
of Aadhaar as a way of establishing ones identity when
subsidies and entitlement payments are involved. I said
it should be voluntary and Aadhaar cannot become an
instrument of coercion or exclusion. There is no motive
reallythis is the real Prime Minister and Finance
Minister at full display.

Was there any confusion about what should be

construed as a money Bill, considering that the
Finance Minister erroneously described two Bills that
were passed by the UPA, the Juvenile Justice Bill and

You moved amendments on behalf of your party and

other members. What was it that necessitated the
moving of such amendments considering that your
party was the progenitor of the scheme?
I moved ve amendments, which were passed by
majority vote although the Bharatiya Janata Party
[BJP] tried to force the opposition parties to walk out
or abstain from voting. The spirit of these amendments
was to maintain the non-coercive and voluntary nature
of Aadhaar, prevent its misuse by the state in the name
of national security, ensure that the Unique Identication Authority functions at all times and for all purposes under the control of, and is answerable to,
Parliament, and make the law compatible with the

entails withdrawing, paying and appropriating nances

from the consolidated funds of a country. In India, the
dening provision for the money Bill is Article 110 of the
Constitution. Article 110 states that if a Bill contains
anything beyond nancial dealings relating to the consolidated funds of India, then it has to be a normal Bill.
The very concept of the UID as enunciated in the Aadhaar Bills of 2010 and 2016 does have matters beyond
nancial dealings from the consolidated funds of India.

However, Article 110 also contains a clause g, which

states that any matter incidental to nancial dealings
from the consolidated funds of India could also be
brought under the purview of a money Bill. The Modi
government took recourse to this in branding Aadhaar
2016 as a money Bill. The argument, specically, was that
Aadhaar was essentially devised to transfer funds to
beneciaries and hence the machinery employed for that
would also come under the purview of a money Bill.

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20

KAMAL NARANG

privacy principles underlined in the

Justice A.P. Shah Committee [2012] report. I was never a great fan of the 2010
law and this was well known even when
I was a Minister, but Nandan Nilekani
[who was chairman of the Unique Identication Authority of India] was able to
get what he wanted. I used to tell him
frequently that he was being too disdainful of those raising questions from
their experience in the eld, but you
know how techies are.

replacement for national security were in

the Finance Ministers views too vague
and elastic. Do you believe so?
Normally, I would not have objected to
national security. But having seen how
fast and loose this government is playing
with the very idea of national security, I
was worried. An environmental activist
agitating against the opening of a coal
mine in a forest area can very easily be said
to be against national security if this
Prime Minister and his Finance Minister
have their way. The trust decit as far as
this government is concerned is very high
and the way it deals with dissent and disagreement made me feel that national
security is far too broad a category to go
unchallenged.

The Finance Minister dismissed the

J A I RA M RA ME S H: This
argument that a Supreme Court bench
is now Gujarat model in
was looking into the issues of privacy,
Parliament.
holding the view that Parliament can
legislate on matters pending before
courts. Should the government have taken this into
account?
What do you think are the overall implications of the
The government should have been more sensitive to passage of the Bill in this form?
this aspect but I would not have objected had the Bill
This is a planned emasculation of the Rajya Sabha
been sent to the Standing Committee on Finance. Just of which the Ministers of Finance, Defence, Human
because that committee is headed by a senior Congress Resource Development, Railways, Urban Development
MP [M. Veerappa Moily], the government is hell-bent and Parliamentary Affairs, Power and Coal, Rural Deon subverting it. Earlier, the Insolvency Bill was also not velopment, Petroleum, Health, Environment and Forreferred to the Select Committee.
ests, among others are members. Thanks to the
Emergency, the Prime Minister and the Finance MinisThe Finance Minister argued that the latest Bill
ter aunt their so-called democratic credentials. In recontained strict provisions with regard to the right to
ality, their DNA [biological make-up] is one of
privacy, which were not present in the UPA Bill. And
authoritarianism. This may be how the Goods and Serthat the information could be shared only under
vices Tax Bill that will come after the Constitution
certain circumstances, say, national security, and only
Amendment Bill can also be classied as a money Bill.
by a competent authority. The fact that national
We know how Modi ran the legislature in Gujarat. This
security is the only ground on which the competent
is now Gujarat model in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya
authority can share information is common to both the
Sabha.
2010 and 2016 Bills.
I conceded that in some areas the 2016 Bill was a A Congress spokesperson was heard saying that all
step forward compared with the 2010 Bill but there are options were available, including that of approaching
some other areas where it was more problematic. I the court. Does that option still remain or will the
think the issue is not 2016 vs 2010 but whether the Bill Congress raise this issue politically?
we have in front of us has areas of grave concern or not.
Yes, all options are on the table. Incidentally, Rajeev
It undoubtedly has.
Chandrashekhar, an independent MP who sits in the
treasury benches, has officially submitted a number of
The terms used in the amendments moved by you
amendments similar to mine. But he was persuaded by
such as public safety and public emergency as a
the Finance Minister not to move them.

Article 110 also states that in case of a dispute on the

character of a Bill, whether it is a normal Bill or a money
Bill, the decision of the Lok Sabha Speaker will be nal.
With the representation of the Aadhaar 2016 Bill as a
money Bill, the government did away with a clutch of
irritating legislative requirements in a single stroke. A
normal Bill needs to be referred to the Standing Committee of Parliament, the committee will have a series of
deliberations and will prepare a report, this too would be

discussed in Parliament, and nally the Bill will have to

be passed by both Houses of Parliament. But brand the
Bill as a money Bill, the reference to the Standing Committee as well as the wider discussion that it will entail,
can be bypassed. More importantly, the Rajya Sabha
cannot reject a money Bill. It can only suggest amendments, which may or may not be accepted by the Lok
Sabha. The arguments put forth by Jaitley while describing the Aadhaar 2016 Bill as a money Bill were based on
21

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Article 110 and they went as follows: If the principle

purposes that money spent out of the Consolidated Fund
of India has to be spent in a particular manner and a
machinery is created for spending that money, then Article 110 (C) read with article 110 (G) i.e spending money
out of the Consolidated Fund of India and any other
matter incidental thereto, the machinery created in a
manner which is incidental thereto, that is why it is a
money Bill.
He also emphasised that once the Lok Sabha Speaker
was satised and said, I certify, it is a money Bill, this
money Bill is then transmitted to this House, it would be
a money Bill and no authority in the country would
question this provision.
Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) and Rajya Sabha member, who
was among the rst to question the money Bill character of the legislation, told Frontline that what was a
money Bill was dened in Article 110(1), in subsections
a to g. Article 110 (2) lists out what cannot be a money
Bill and then there is Article 110(3), which says that in
case of a dispute, the Speakers decision will be nal.
But this right vested in the Speaker is not an absolute
right. It is a discretion circumscribed by the Constitution.
This power vested in the Speaker cannot override the
denition of a money Bill provided in Article 110(1) and
(2).
The Speaker, he said, had exercised this authority at
the behest of the ruling party ignoring the provisos on the
denition of a money Bill in the Constitution. Taking the
argument further, former Union Minister and Congress
leader S. Jairam Ramesh said it was relevant to note that
Article 110 (1) categorically stated that a Bill would be
deemed to be a money Bill if it contained only provisions
dealing with all or any of the matters enumerated in (a) to
(g). The present Bill was, in effect, an ordinary law creating a substantive legislative platform for the Aadhaar
scheme and introduced for the rst time offences and
penalties by way of imprisonment of up to three years as
well as a ne.
Therefore, in its pith and substance, this is not a
money Bill, he told Frontline. He also pointed out that in
general all Bills would require money, which may have to
come from the Consolidated Fund of India. For the said
purpose, a separate appropriation may be necessary as
the money from the Consolidated Fund of India can be
spent on appropriation. In the present case, the same can
be achieved by budgetary provisions and appropriation.
To circumvent the same would defeat the basic feature of
the democratic process as envisaged by the Constitution.
The scheme of Article 79 and 81 is to ensure the functioning of the two Houses, namely the Council of States to
particularly safeguard the interests of various States and
the House of People. Both Houses represent the people.

amendments, the Lok Sabha passed the Bill in its original

form. With this, the UID project, which was rst moved
by the UPA, acquired statutory status, and the larger
questions raised in the judiciary about the UID and its
implementation, including the concerns about privacy
and freedom, have been pushed back. Jaitley did address
the issue in passing during his interventions in Parliament and he did not hide the intent of the government.
The government pre-supposes privacy as a fundamental right, even though no such right exists in law.
Privacy is not an absolute right. The Supreme Court is
considering the privacy issue. It is subject to a restriction;
it can be restricted by a procedure established by law, he
said while claiming that the Aadhaar Bill, 2016, had
tightened privacy provisions compared to the legislation
introduced by the previous government.
Speaking on this aspect, Yechury pointed out that the
CPI(M) and other Left parties were opposed to the very
idea of Aadhaar as a means to target subsidies and the
mapping of citizens by the use of biometrics. Information involving biometrics and scope for DNA proling
may be made available to different agencies in the name
of national security. The term national security is a
nebulous denition. Modern history experienced the lethal consequences of denitions of national security,
which in extreme cases saw state-sponsored victimisation of groups of bona de citizens under the bogey of
national security. An extreme example is the purge of
Jews under Hitlerite fascism.
Closer home, many of the current leaders in Parliament today were victims of the notorious Maintenance of
Internal Security Act (MISA), which was wilfully misused during the Emergency. There werent any redress
avenues as well under the present legislation and in fact
there was a provision that new types of personal information may be collected from time to time under the
rules yet to be dened. How are cases of sedition registered against students of universities? How is someone
labelled anti-national? What will be added later and who
will it be shared with? These are matters that are serious
encroachments to privacy. Such sweeping powers vested
in the government are detrimental to the fundamental
foundations of democracy laid down by the Constitution, Yechury said.
Evidently, as Jaitley suggested while commenting on
privacy, these concerns do not gure in the political
project of the BJP and its associates in the Sangh Parivar.
This political priority adds to the sense of foreboding
generated by the precedent set by the Aadhaar Bill, 2016,
in terms of both its passage and the modus operandi
employed for it. Jaitleys statements show that the money
Bill route is bound to be a regular feature with this
government. The positioning is clear. The people may
defeat the BJP and the NDA in election after election in
the State Assemblies and the BJPNDAs numbers may
not rise signicantly in the Rajya Sabha but it will still
continue to legislate and administer as it wants. Indian
democracy is well on its way to an unprecedentedly
devious and ominous road ahead.

FIVE AMENDMENTS

These argumentations did come up in the Rajya Sabha,

and the Upper House made ve amendments to the
Aadhaar Bill passed by the Lok Sabha. Overriding the
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

22

TERRORISM

Fatal failure
The terror attack on Brussels shows a massive failure of intelligence to
check jehadi elements that were ourishing in its own backyard.

REUTERS

BY P A R V A T H I M E N O N I N B R U S S E L S

P E OPL E F L E E I N G the Zaventem airport on March 22 after the blasts.

AT a press conference soon after

two blasts ripped through the Zaventem airport and the busy Maelbeek
underground metro station in Brussels on the morning of March 22, a
shaken Belgian Prime Minister
Charles Michel is reported to have
said: What we had feared has
happened.
He was obviously referring to the

fact that Brussels, which had become

Europes capital of jehadist activity
from where terrorist plots had been
planned and executed in the past several years, had become the target of
the very same forces that grew in its
lap. There was an unmistakable note
of resignation in the Prime Ministers words.
If seen as a share of its population
23

of 10 million, more Belgians have

joined extremist militant groups in
Syria and Iraq than citizens of other
European Union states . The story of
how the terrorist project in Belgium
gathered strength and momentum
under the very noses of the countrys
law enforcement and intelligence
services is now emerging. It is a story
of the Belgian states missed opporFRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

AURORE BELOT/AFP

P E OPL E G A T H E R on the Place de la Bourse square in Brussels on March 25 to pay homage to the victims

tunities to apprehend known suspects, and the failure of the countries

that are today part of the E.U. to pool
in and act on intelligence inputs in a
coordinated manner. While extremists used the open borders of Europe to travel back and forth freely,
intelligence ows stopped at the borders. Therefore, what was feared
might
happen,
did
happen,
eventually.
The attacks on Brussels took 31
lives and left several dozens injured.
It could have been worse, as evidence
has emerged of a much bigger and
more complex plot in the making,
that an Islamic State (I.S.)-linked
terrorist cell had to abort and advance when Salah Abdeslam was arrested by the Belgian police just days
before the attacks. Abdeslam, who
was involved in the November 2015
Paris attacks, and whose brother
Ibrahim blew himself up outside the
Comptoir Voltaire caf in Paris, was
hiding in plain sight in Molenbeek
for the past four months.
Investigations have uncovered a
plot and a cast of characters closely
linked to the Paris attacks and a
string of situations where the Belgian security agency failed to pick up
and act on intelligence cues.
Abdeslams ngerprints were
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

REUTERS

of the terror attacks. (Below) Prime Minister Charles Michel at the Maelbeek metro station on March 23.

found in a safe house, which the police raided after the blasts. Detonators were also found there. Najim
Laachraoui, who, along with Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, blew himself up at
the Zaventem airport, had travelled
by car with Abdeslam to Paris before
the attacks there. Their car was
checked at the Hungarian-Austrian
border but allowed to pass. Laachraouis DNA samples were found
in another apartment at Schaerbeek
in Brussels, which had been used by
the terrorists as a hideout. Most signicantly, they were also found on
devices found at the sites of the Paris
attacks.
The terrorist who blew himself
24

up at the Maelbeek station was Khalid el-Bakraoui, brother of Ibrahim

el-Bakraoui. The mysterious man
with a hat, whose image appears in a
surveillance camera pushing a trolley
along with two co-conspirators, ed
the scene when his detonator failed
to work. He is still on the run.
Since then, seven suspects have
been arrested in raids on various
parts of the city.
The most signicant of these occurred at a tram stop in the Schaerbeek neighbourhood three days after
the airport and tube station bombings, where a man was shot in the leg
and taken away by the police. French
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the police foiled a planned
terrorist attack and arrested a highlevel person involved in advanced
stages of a plot to attack the country.
WARNING IGNORED

Overwhelmed by and under-prepared for the attacks and its aftermath,

embarrassed
Belgian
Ministers appeared in Parliament to
explain the slips made by the police.
Interior Minister Jan Jambon, Justice Minister Koen Geens and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders had
to appear before a special parliamentary committee. Our services oper-

THE NEW YORK TIMES

HANDO UT/ AF P

ate under enormous pressures If,

at times, we fail in this, then I ask you
humbly to excuse us, Geens is reported to have said.
In fact, soon after the blasts,
Jambon and Geens had offered to
resign following statements from the
Turkish authorities that Ibrahim elBakraoui was arrested and later expelled from Turkey with a warning,
which they claim Belgium had ignored, that he was a terrorist foreign
ghter.
Security and intelligence expert
Annie Machon attributes this massive failure of intelligence to the nature of mass data surveillance. The
former employee of MI5 and a whistle-blower, she said dragnet surveillance drags up so much data that the
focus gets lost. The more and more
intelligence agencies spread electronic surveillance, the less and less
effective they are, because they ignore some of the more traditional
aspects of intelligence work, where
you identify persons of interest and
then investigate them and their networks, she said.
Annie Machon said the tendency
of national intelligence agencies to
be secretive and mistrustful of others had weakened methods of intelligence gathering and hampered
sharing of intelligence. She pointed
to the United States National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of
German Chancellor Angela Merkels
telephone calls, which came to public
knowledge thanks to whistle-blower
Edward Snowden.
The insularity that runs deep in
intelligence agencies of the E.U.
states and its costly consequences
were highlighted at an urgent meeting of E.U. Ministers for Justice and
Home Affairs in Brussels on March
23. Brieng the press after the meeting, Dimitrus Avramopolous, member of the European Council in
charge of Migration, Home Affairs
and Citizenship, did some self-critical plain-speaking.
He said: The blasts came as a
shock but not [as] a surprise. Every
time there is a terrorist attack, we
repeat words and commitments. But
the people are tired and scared, and
something needs to change. He crit-

K H A LI D A N D I BR A HI M el-Bakraoui, the two Belgian brothers identied as

the suicide bombers who struck Brussels on March 22. (Right) Salah
Abdeslam, the last surviving direct participant in the Paris attacks.
icised the lack of unity among the
E.U. states in tackling terrorism.
There is a lack of political will, lack
of coordination, and unfortunately a
lack of trust among member-states,
he said. Announcing a joint liaison
team of international experts in
counter-terrorism from the E.U., he
said: We need to talk to each other,
our systems need to talk to each other. Data cannot go into black boxes.
It needs to be interconnected and
become interoperable.
MOLENBEEK, HOTBED
OF TERRORISM

Molenbeek, one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels capital region,

shot to international fame in the last
couple of years as the jehadi capital
of the world and the hotbed of terrorism. Many of the Paris attackers
came from Molenbeek. Ayoub elKhazzani (who attempted to open
re on an Amsterdam-Paris train)
lived here. It is believed that extremists connected with the Charlie
Hebdo attacks in Paris also came
from this locality.

25

Molenbeek, which has a population of roughly 95,000, has seen

waves of immigrant settlers. The
working class locality, with streets
anked by shabby tall buildings, the
ground oors of which house clothes
shops, tea shops and restaurants, is
home to a large Moroccan and Pakistani immigrant presence. With a reported unemployment rate of 30 per
cent, it is a fertile ground for Sala
and extremist groups, which have
been successful in drawing a number
of young men to their ranks. The law
enforcers say that a majority of the
ghters who have gone to Syria from
Belgium are from Molenbeek.
The residents of Molenbeek are
wary of journalists who have ooded
the area since the bombings. It is
difficult to get the average person on
the street to speak to a stranger with
a notebook and pen, much less to a
television crew.
Rumours about Molenbeek being an unsafe place, thick with jehadists who block entry by the police,
like most rumours, turn out to be
wrong. It is a bustling lower-to-middle income area, which has seen
waves of migration not only from
north African countries such as Morocco and Algeria, but also from Europe. Its early post-War identity was,
in fact, carved by Italians, who arrived in droves to work in the notoriously unsafe coal mines in the
region around Brussels. That Molenbeek is largely populated by immigrants is obvious from the clothes
worn by its residents. Although
many languages are spoken here,
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

ALESSIA CAPASSO

PARVATHI MENON

Y OU S R A E L B O N A Z Z A T I , a student,
had a lucky escape in the airport blast.

K A RI M B A Z A H at his restaurant in
Molenbeek on March 25.

French is the language of public

transaction.
As for the growing hold of organisations such as the I.S. over Molenbeeks youth, the residents are rm
that the recruiters are not Muslims
and use Islam to serve their purpose.
A young man becomes a jehadist not
because of the pull of religion but as a
response to other pressures that have
been slowly stacking up and overwhelm him at a critical moment in
his life.
Karim Bazah, the owner of a successful organic Italian restaurant in
Molenbeek, is baffled by the phenomenon of jehadi control, which
seems like a giant pied piper drawing
scores of impressionable young men
lining up in abject subordination.
This is something none of us can
understand, he said. At a certain
age when they are growing up, young
people want to feel useful, they need
to be praised and given recognition.
Acknowledging that the state of
alienation that afflicts many youngsters from immigrant backgroundsdiscrimination after all lies at the
root of the deprivation that large segments of the immigration population in Belgium facecould be at the
root of it all.
Bazah said that parental and
community guidance were important as well. It was at a point of extreme vulnerability, when boys
transition to manhood, that jehadists step in, giving them the affirmation, peer support and praise they
thirst for.
There is nothing religious about

the I.S. recruitment, Bazah said.

They are recruiting soldiers. Many
of the recruits have links to crime
rings and drugs and have led lives
that are clearly un-Islamic, and
their conversions do not make them
truly religious, he insisted. The radicalisation does not come from the
mosque, but rather from outsiders
who enter the area with the purpose
of specically targeting youngsters.
In a perceptive study of the jehadi phenomenon, academic Rik Coolsaet writes: Struggling with identity
and self-image might have been demanding for youngsters since time
immemorial, but society today is demanding, complex, and increasingly
unequal. He describes jehadists of
the Iraqi and Syrian war as the
fourth wave of foreign ghters, different in many fundamental ways
from earlier jehadist ghters.
The children [and grandchildren] of Moroccan migrants of the
1960s and 1970s are more likely to
face downward mobility than their
Belgian-Turkish peers. Research has
made it clear that feelings of exclusion are more prevalent among Belgian-Moroccan youngsters [the
same is the case in the Netherlands].
The disappointment of not being
recognised and accepted as equal citizens is thus felt powerfully among
Belgian-Moroccan youngsters, more
so than among their peers with Turkish roots, he writes, echoing the view
of Bazah.
Some 470 foreign ghters from
Belgium are believed to have left for
Syria. According to Coolsaet, the typ-

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

26

ical new recruit of today is youngwith an average age of 23and the

decision to leave is sudden. Their
knowledge of Islam is shallow and
supercial. Once in Syria and Iraq,
they are very self-centred and cultivate the image they want to display.
Their yearning to place themselves at
the centre of events (with numerous
seles and social media posts on trivia like kohl make-up for boys and
other teenage themes) and their desire for attention reect a degree of
narcissism that was largely absent
among their older predecessors. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the presumed
ring-leader of the 2015 terrorist plots
and attacks in France and Belgium,
dubbed himself as a terrorist tourist in a movie on his mobile phone,
illustrated with a series of seles.
Being a radical is fun, according to
a Belgian wannabe foreign ghter,
who had been in Syria for a couple of
weeks.
In this respect, too, they do not
display the characteristics of religious fundamentalists but that of the
contemporary sele generation of
which they are a part. The scale of
the departures distinguishes the current foreign ghter phenomenon
from its predecessors, straining the
capabilities of the police and intelligence, Coolsaet writes.
While the Brussels attacks may
have created an anti-Muslim feeling
amongst some sections, the thousands who gather everyday at the
memorial for the victims at the historic Place de la Bourse appear determined not to allow the multi-strand
quality of Belgium nationalism fall
victim to the poison of racism and
hatred.
For Yousra Elbonazzati, a young
and articulate student who had a
lucky escape in the airport blast, the
choices are clear. I could have been a
victim of the attacks. The Daesh are
not Muslims. I love Belgium, and I
am a Muslim. I think we should be
together for the sake of humanity not
religion, she said, after lighting
some candles and placing some owers on the carpet of a oral commemoration for those unsuspecting
victims of an act of unreason and
brutality.

TERRORISM

Blowback in Europe
THE coordinated terror attacks
in Brussels are yet another sign that
jehadists holding European citizenship can strike almost at will on the
continent. The headquarters of the
European Union (E.U.) and the
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) are located in Brussels. In
the attacks on the Zaventem international airport terminal and the Maelbeek metro station located in the city
centre on March 22, more than 31
people were killed and 300 wounded. The dead and the wounded hail
from more than 40 countries.
Among those missing after the attack is an Indian citizen, Raghavendran Ganeshan, an employee of
Infosys based in the Belgian capital.
Two Indian employees of Jet Airways were injured in the blast at the
airport.
Since the beginning of the socalled war on terror started by the
West 15 years ago, terror attacks in
Europe and around the world have
escalated dramatically. In Europe,
almost all the high-prole attacks in
the last four years were carried out by
European nationals returning from
the battleeld in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the ghters, including those involved in the Paris
and Brussels attacks, had criminal
records and should have been under
routine police surveillance. Instead,
they were allowed to make multiple
trips to rebel-held areas in Syria and
Iraq.
In the case of Brussels, it has
come to light that Turkish and Israeli
intelligence agencies had given the

Belgian authorities precise advance

information about the individuals
who were involved in the attacks and
the probable targets. The Belgian
security services, as well as other
Western intelligence agencies
knew with a high degree of certainty
that attacks were planned in the very
near future for the airport and apparently for the subway as well, the
Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported
after the attacks happened.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said Ibrahim el-Bakraoui,
who blew himself up at the airport,
was deported twice from Turkey to
the Netherlands after he was caught
trying to sneak into Syria. His brother, Khalid, was responsible for the
attack on the Maelbeek metro station. In fact, there was an international arrest warrant against Khalid
as he was alleged to be intimately
involved in the terror attacks in Paris
in November last year. Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens admitted
to security lapses and offered their
resignations. Prime Minister Charles
Michel rejected the offer.
Erdogan also said the Turkish
authorities had tipped off the Belgians on another individual involved
in the Brussels attacks. He said one
of the perpetrators of the attack was
detained in June 2015 and deported
to Belgium. We informed the embassy in Brussels of the deportation
process of the attacker, Erdogan
said. However, the Belgians released the attacker despite his deportation. Turkish officials have now
27

AP

Since the beginning of the so-called war on terror started by the West
15 years ago, terror attacks in Europe, and around the world, have
escalated dramatically. B Y J OHN C HE R I A N

I N THI S FR AM E G R AB taken from

VTM, something appears to drop from
inside the trouser leg of Salah
Abdeslam as he is arrested and
bundled into a police vehicle in the
Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels
on March 18.

gone a step further and accused European agencies of trying to export

their Islamist extremist problem to
Syria. Turkish officials told The
Guardian that European citizens
who were on the Interpol wanted
list used to land in Turkey with suitcases full of weapons.
It is only recently that the Turkish government clamped down on
ghters from Western countries going to Syria and Iraq. Russian President Vladimir Putin had accused
Ankara of being accomplices of terrorists after a Russian plane was
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

shot down last year by the Turkish air

force.
In the recent attacks on the European continent and other parts of
the world, siblings seem to be acting
in tandem. In the Boston marathon
bombing two years ago, the Tsarnaev
brothers inuenced by the Daesh (as
the Islamic State is also called) ideology carried out the attacks.
Belgium has been the source of
the most number of ghters for jehadist groups such as the Daesh and the
Jubhat al Nusra. Western intelligence agencies had initially connived
at the recruitment of ghters for the
forces they were supporting in Syria.
Belgium and France with a large pool
of unemployed young Muslim men
were ideal recruiting grounds. Citizens of these countries did not even
need a passport to y into Turkey,
the national ID card sufficed.
The movement into Syria was facilitated by intelligence operatives of
various Western countries, Turkey
and the Gulf monarchies. There are
an estimated 10,000 ghters from
France and Belgium in the Syrian
battleeld. There are reports that
many of those involved in the Paris
and Brussels attacks had, in fact,
gone to Syria even before the Daesh
announced the creation of an Islamic Caliphate.
One of the Brussels bombers, Najum Laachraoui, had gone to Syria in
2013, before the Daesh had captured
Raqqa. It is only after the Daesh
gained territory and started masquerading as a state that the West started militarily targeting the group,
albeit selectively.
More than a thousand ghters,
among them the bombers in Paris
and Brussels, have come back to carry on the ght against their own governments.
Groups like the Daesh and the al
Nusra are extremely angry with
Western governments for not ordering direct military action against the
government in Damascus in the initial years of the war and, instead,
turning their weapons against them.
As the Paris and Brussels attacks
show, the Daesh now has a large
clandestine support base.
The draconian emergency laws
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

that have been imposed in France

and Belgium since the Paris attacks
have not been able to deter the jehadi
groups intent on causing mayhem.
French and Belgian investigators
have concluded that the Paris attacks
were planned in Brussels.
Three or four persons involved in
the Brussels attacks also apparently
played a role in the Paris attacks.
The Brussels attacks were no
doubt precipitated by the capture of
Salah Abdeslam by the Belgian counter-terrorism force in the third week
of March. He was wanted for his pivotal role in the attacks in Paris.
JEHADI NETWORK

The sophisticated underground jehadi network in western Europe,

coupled with the sheer incompetence of the counter-terrorism outts in France and Belgium, allowed
Abdeslam to lie low and probably
plan more terror attacks.
Abdeslam rst came on the police radar when the Turkish authorities arrested him in January 2015
when he was attempting to cross into
Syria. The Turkish authorities notied their counterparts in Belgium.
Like Abdeslam, many of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks
were
second-generation
Belgian citizens. Nadim Laachraoui
is said to be the man who assembled
suicide vests for the Paris attacks.
In France and Belgium, poor immigrants and their descendants,
mainly from former Francophone
colonies such as Morocco, Algeria
and Tunisia, have become marginalised citizens. Many of the youth,
like Abdeslam, started their careers
as petty criminals who became radicalised either in prison or through
the social media.
Despite his past record, Abdeslam was allowed to travel freely all
over Europe, where he met with other jehadis, some of whom had come
along with the wave of refugees that
ooded Greece and Central Europe
last year. Abdeslams capture and interrogation could have set alarm
bells ringing among his close circle of
conspirators.
Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, in a confessional note found near one of the
28

bombed sites in Brussels, said he

was acting in a hurry as he did not
know what to do pursued as he was
by a host of security agencies after
the capture of Abdeslam.
European states are using their
botched response to the terrorist
threat as an excuse to further tighten
their draconian surveillance laws.
France has been under emergency
rule since the Paris attacks.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after the Brussels carnage that privacy and data
protection rights should be put on
the back burner.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo
Renzi called for the setting up of a
unitary European security structure
that would coordinate with the police and security agencies of all the
E.U. countries.
Victims of terror attacks around
the world, meanwhile, have not got
the kind of sympathy and understanding those in Brussels and Paris
have elicited from the Western
media and governments. In March
itself, from Nigeria to Iraq, hundreds
of innocents fell victim to terror attacks.
In Yemen, hospitals and markets
had been bombed by the Saudi Arabian air force. In the latest attacks in
the third week of March, more than
120 people, many of them children,
were killed when a Saudi plane
bombed a market in the north of the
country. The planes and weapons for
the Saudis are supplied by the U.S.
The Boko Haram in Nigeria is
continuing with its killing spree. In
the second week of March, a suicide
bomber struck at a mosque in Maiduguri in the northeast of the country killing 22 people. In Nigeria,
women are being increasingly used
as suicide bombers. Turkey was hit
by two suicide bombings in March.
And in Iraq, hundreds were killed in
terror attacks in March alone. In the
latest attack on March 25, a suicide
bomber detonated a bomb at a
crowded football match. Thirty-one
people were killed and more than 80
wounded. But for Western governments and the media, Asian and
African lives apparently do not matter all that much.

SOCIAL ISSUES

In the name
of honour
The brutal killing of a Dalit youth, who had
married a caste Hindu girl, in Udumalpet
highlights the issue of increasing honour
killings in Tamil Nadu. B Y I L A N G O V A N R A J A S E K A R A N
not stop at this. It directed all the
trial courts and High Courts to treat
such killings as the rarest of rare
cases and award the death sentence
to its perpetrators. The court felt this
would act as a deterrent for such
outrageous, uncivilised behaviour.
Those who are planning to perpetuate honour killings should know that
the gallows await them, it said.
This hard-hitting judgment does
not seem to have had any effect on

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

THERE is nothing honourable

in honour killings, and they are nothing but barbaric and brutal murders
by bigoted persons with feudal
minds. It is time to stamp out these
barbaric, feudal practices, which are
a slur on our nation. The Supreme
Courts two-member bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra pronounced this verdict on
the subhuman practice of honour
killings in May 2011. The court did

TH E S C E N E of the crime in Udumalpet where V. Shankar, the Dalit youth, and

his wife, Kausalya (left), were attacked on March 13.
29

those perpetrating caste crimes, be it

in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, where khap
panchayats continue to act as extrajudicial and extra-constitutional authorities. What is even more
appalling is the prevalence of the sinister practice in Tamil Nadu, a State
known for its social progressiveness
rooted in the ideology that "Periyar"
E.V. Ramasamy espoused about a
century ago.
Families aggrieved by inter-caste
marriages, especially those involving
Dalits, seem to have taken over the
task of dispensing justice in the
most brutal manner possible for the
sake of caste or family honour. This
is not conned to one region of the
State.
The most recent incident of honour killing happened on March 13 at
Udumalpet, a textile town in Tiruppur district in the western region of
the State. V. Shankar, a Dalit youth
belonging to the Pallar caste, was attacked with machetes in broad daylight at a crowded junction near the
town bus stand. The sin of the 21year-old youth, a rst-generation
mechanical engineering graduate
from Komaralingam village near
Udumalpet, was that he fell in love
and married Kausalya, a 19-year-old
college girl belonging to the Maniyakkarar caste, which is identied as
a subsect of the Most Backward
Classes (MBC) Agamudaiyar community.
On July 11, 2015, they got married at a temple in Palani, a town in
the neighbouring Dindigul district
from where the girl hails. Immediately after the marriage, they drove
to the police station at Madathukulam, some 20 kilometres from Palani, and sought protection in writing.
Subsequently, Kausalya moved into
her husbands one-room tiled house
at Komaralingam and continued to
live there despite constant threats
and intimidation from her family.
She discontinued her studies so that
Shankar could complete his engineering degree. He was studying in a
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Caste constituencies
WHEN the Dalit youth V. Shankar
was brutally murdered right in front
of his hapless wife in Udumalpet
town in Tiruppur district, the civil
society was outraged. The ruthlessness of the killers benumbed those
who viewed the footage of the CCTV
that had captured the crime.
What shocked people equally
was the muted and half-hearted response of the political parties in the
State, including the ruling All India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), to
the heinous crime. Barring the Dalit
outts, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party
of India, the Marumalarchi Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and
the Congress, all political parties
chose to tread cautiously since Assembly elections are going to be
held in the State on May 16. Their
statements on the murder were
guarded and circumspect.
While the AIADMK is yet to
condemn the crime, the DMK chose
to reduce it to a mere law and order
issue. It was reluctant to call it a
casteist murder. In fact, the partys
treasurer M.K. Stalin merely issued
a statement a day after the incident
took place saying all murders
should be condemned. Two days
later, his father, DMK patriarch M.
Karunanidhi, condemned the incident in his question-and-answer
mode of press release. In their carefully worded statements, the political leaderships avoided using the
term inter-caste but condemned
the murder. Dalit and Left parties
had no hesitation in registering
their strong protest against the casteist murder. While State Congress
president E.V.K.S. Elangovan condemned the killing in no uncertain
terms, a few Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) leaders downplayed the incident by saying that girls should
show respect to their families. The
BJPs discomfort arises from the
fact that such murders go against its
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

larger goal of Hindu unity. As the

AIADMK has kept mum, a few
small Dalit outts that have aligned
themselves with the ruling party
have also chosen to remain silent.
The State government even registered cases against a Tuticorinbased lawyer and a functionary of
the Peoples Rights Protection Centre for urging the government to
withdraw the reservation benets
granted to people belonging to the
Most Backward Classes (MBCs)
and the Backward Classes (B.Cs)
who resort to honour killings, under
Section 153A of Indian Penal Code
and Section 3 of Tamil Nadu Open
Place Disgurement Act.
When reporters tried to seek the
views of Pattali Makkal Katchi
(PMK) leader Dr S. Ramadoss, he
brushed aside the issue by saying
that he had expressed his opinions
on many important State and national issues, which needed to be
highlighted by the media. Faced
with strong a criticism for his rude
reaction, he issued a statement subsequently condemning the Udumalpet murder.
Dr K. Krishnasamy, president of
the Pallar-dominated Puthiya Thamizhagam (P.K.) party, criticised
Ramadoss for trying to consolidate
all intermediate caste groups under
one banner, the All Castes People
Federation, with the sole objective
of creating a caste-Hindu vote bank
for the PMK, which he said was the
main reason for such gruesome incidents. The Dalit leader said: He
must be held responsible for such
caste-based atrocities that take
place even in the western region [of
the State].
The leaders who condemned the
incident demanded a special law to
prevent such inhuman crimes being
committed in the name of caste and
family honour. Krishnasamy visited
Komaralingam village to share the
grief of Shankars family. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)
sent its senior leader, Vanni Arasu,
30

to hand over a cheque of Rs.1 lakh to

the victims family. The VCK and
the All India Insurance Employees
Association have expressed their
willingness to meet the educational
expenses of Kausalya, who discontinued her studies when she got
married to Shankar.
Social scientists and academics
cite the emergence of identity politics as the primary reason for such
mute political responses to horric
crimes. Caste identity and castebased voting, coupled with caste purity, they said, had become an important facet of Tamil Nadu
politics. Love across caste lines has
been a taboo, Dalit ideologue and
the VCKs senior leader D. Ravikumar said.
The Dravidian movement, for
all its claim of being the fountainhead of socially progressive ideals,
contributed to the consolidation of
a strong Other Backward Classes
(OBC) group with a patriarchal and
feudalistic mindset. This group
made a smooth transition to electoral politics. The main beneciaries
of this consolidation are intermediate caste groups such as Mukkulathors in the south and central
districts, Vanniyars in the northern
districts and Vellala Gounders in
the western districts. Politics and
political power in Tamil Nadu revolve around these three powerful
blocks today. The landed class,
which enjoys social, economic and
cultural dominance, has also acquired considerable political power.
Social and political activist A.
Marx is, however, of the view that
the OBC consolidation cannot be
attributed to the failure of the Dravidian movement. First, a clear demarcation is essential between
todays Dravidian political parties
and the Dravidian movement of the
past. The failure of Marxian politics
and the emergence of identity politics in the 1980s have helped castebased politics to ourish in Tamil
Nadu. Both the AIADMK and the
DMK had to reorient their electoral
politics with the OBCs. They cannot
afford to oppose them, he said.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Marx pointed out that

while the Dravidian parties
were reluctant to antagonise
caste-Hindu forces, the Congress boldly opposed them.
The Congress has a Gandhian
tradition, which is essential for
an egalitarian society. The failure of Dravidian political parties to take forward the socially
progressive ideas of Gandhi
and Periyar led to the OBC
domination, he said.
Today we have a castebased democracy in which
caste has become indispensable for political parties, the
Tamil scholar V. Arasu said. A
restless caste-Hindu psyche, he
said, was facing uneasy but
condent subaltern groups.
Education, political and economic empowerment and the
committed work of the functionally literate among Dalits,
Arasu said, had heightened the
awareness of the oppressed
about their rights. Hence, the
OBC consolidation against Dalits, which manifests itself in
the political sphere, he said.
The political parties in Tamil Nadu do not treat Dalits as
vote banks. They think their
votes can be purchased with
freebies. At the same time, the
parties have to pamper the casteist ego of intermediate
groups. The three major OBC
groups enjoy political power
and the resultant economic advantages. The parties top leaders also belong to these caste
groups. So, it is a vicious circle,
which cannot be broken, Ravikumar said.
The cocktail of love, caste
and politics will remain a lethal
brew as long as caste-based
politics is practised.
To borrow B.R. Ambedkars words, it is a conspiracy
of silence that the major political parties maintain even when
dastardly acts are committed
on the polity.
Ilangovan Rajasekaran

K A U S A LY A at the Coimbatore

Government Medical College Hospital.

private engineering college in Pollachi town, some 28 km away. He
had completed a polytechnic course
before he joined the engineering
course in 2013.
Shankar had got a job through
campus recruitment and the couple
had planned to move to Chennai in
April. His father Veluchamy, a labourer and head-load worker, said:
I never thought they [the girls family] would go to this extreme. When
Shankar got a job in Chennai, we
thought they would be safe there and
everything would become normal.
My son wanted Kausalya to continue
her studies in Chennai.
With dreams of starting a happy
life in Chennai, the couple was in
Udumalpet on March 13 to do some
shopping when ve people, one of
whom was later identied as the
girls relative, chased and hacked
Shankar and assaulted Kausalya
when she tried to save her husband.
After committing the crime, they left
on motorbikes without facing any resistance from anyone in the busy area.
The entire incident was recorded
on a CCTV camera xed in a shop
nearby and went viral on social
media, shocking the entire civil society. Shankar died while being taken to the Coimbatore Government
Medical College Hospital. Kausalya,
who suffered a head injury that required 18 stitches, is undergoing
31

treatment. Her father, Chinnasamy,

a nancier and a real estate broker,
surrendered before a magistrates
court. The police have arrested ve
persons.
Veluchamy told Frontline that
inter-caste marriages were not unusual in his village, which has 1,500
Pallar families. His son became an
unfortunate victim of caste pride.
My son was hounded and killed in
cold blood. How was this possible in
the presence of hundreds of people in
a busy area? Not a single policeman
was seen there, a distraught Veluchamy said.
Inter-caste marriages among
Pallars, Arunthathiyars and Vanniyars, and even inter-religious marriages between Pallars and Muslims,
have taken place in Komaralingam.
And families of people marrying
across castes are living happily in the
village. Nearly 40 families have witnessed one or two inter-caste marriages among them. But this is the
rst time that a girl from the Kallar
caste married a Dalit, a Dalit activist
in Udumalpet said.
Shankars brother Vigneshwaran, a B.Sc Computer Science student in Udumalpet, said his father
had taken loans amounting to Rs.4
lakh for Shankars studies, of which
only Rs.1 lakh was from a bank and
the rest was from private moneylenders. When he graduated as a
mechanical engineer, the entire village celebrated it because he was the
rst person from the village to complete a professional course, he said.
Now the entire family has to bear
the debt burden. It is too big a sum.
We pinned our hopes on Shankar.
Now I have no other alternative but
to earn a living, Vigneshwaran said.
When asked whether the family
would accept Kausalya when she
comes out of the hospital after treatment, he said the entire family was
waiting for her return. (Kausalya has
expressed her willingness to live with
Shankars family.) We went to the
Coimbatore hospital twice, but we
were not allowed to meet her, said
Veluchamy.
There have been at least two similar cases of caste killings in the State
in recent years. V. Gokul Raj, an enFRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

gineering student from Omalur near

Salem who reportedly fell in love
with a girl from the Vellala Gounder
community, an intermediate caste
group, was found dead with his head
severed on a railway track near
Erode on June 24, 2015. Yuvaraj,
who was the leader of the Tamil Nadu Kongu Ilaignar Peravais youth
wing at Sankagiri, and who openly
propagated his caste purity, was arrested in connection with Gokul
Rajs murder. In a subsequent development, Deputy Superintendent of
Police R. Vishnupriya, a Dalit officer
who was investigating the case, was
found hanging in her office-cum-residence at Tiruchengode under mysterious circumstances. Both these
cases are being investigated by the
State Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Departments police wing
(Frontline, October 16, 2015).
The issues surrounding intercaste marriages, especially those between Dalits and caste Hindus, came
to the fore in 2012 when Elango
Elavarasan, a Dalit youth of Natham
colony in Dharmapuri district, married a Vanniyar girl, N. Divya. Elavarasan was found dead on a railway
track near Dharmapuri town on July
4, 2013 (Frontline, July 26, 2013).
The police investigation maintained
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

G. KARTHIKEYAN

TH E K I L L E R S eeing on a motorcycle. The image was captured on a CCTV camera.

K A U S A LY A S FATHE R

Chinnasamy. He surrendered in
the magistrates court at
Nilakottai in Dindigul district.
that the youth had committed suicide as Divya had disowned him under pressure from her caste group
and family. Dalit outts continue to
maintain that Elavarasan was murdered. In fact, soon after the news of
Elavarasan and Divyas marriage
spread, the girls father committed
suicide in shame. This prompted
34

Vanniyar mobs to resort to widespread arson and looting in Natham

Colony, a Dalit settlement, on the
night of November 7, 2012. Dalit
households lost property worth
crores of rupees. Vanniyars, belonging to the Most Backward Classes,
are a powerful caste group in northern Tamil Nadu.
In order to understand the opposition to inter-caste marriages in Tamil Nadu, one must get a feel of the
feudal mindset of the landholding
Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
The mindset has been structured
and constructed on the traditional
caste hierarchy. With this comes a
rigid sense of morality and caste purity, both ingrained in the Vedic-age
system of varnashrama dharma.
But the tragedy is that the burden of
caste purity has been forced on women. They have become reluctant victims of this malice within the
patriarchal system of OBC groups,
the Tamil scholar V. Arasu said.
Madurai-based Dalit activist A.
Kadir of Evidence, a social organisation, told Frontline that the killing of
young couples in the name of caste
purity and family pride had increased in Tamil Nadu since the
Dharmapuri incident.
As many as 81 suspected

R. VIMAL KUMAR

murders and suspicious deaths of

young girls and boys who married
outside their caste have been reported since 2013. Although India has
strong social laws, there is no political will to enforce them. Hence, a
separate law is needed to stop this
barbaric act, Kadir said.
He said: Of the 81 deaths, nearly
80 per cent of caste-Hindu girls who
married Dalits were murdered by
their family members. In an incident
that dees the basic tenets of humanism, a caste-Hindu youth, Palaniappan, and Amirthavalli, a Dalit
woman he had married, were murdered, along with their 40-day-old
child, by his brothers in Keelmaruthur village in Tiruvarur district in
2014. We have been reporting these
incidents to the State and Central
governments and regularly urging
the State to enact a special law
against this gruesome practice, said
Kadir.
The social activist A. Marx endorsed Kadirs reasoning that only a
special law like the Scheduled Caste/
Scheduled Tribe Prevention of
Atrocities Act could render some justice to the victims of honour killings.
He said the practice had been prevalent for a long time in Tamil Nadu.
Active Dalit groups and the

C . C H A N D RA P R A BHA (right), State officer-in-charge for the National

Commission for Scheduled Castes, with C. Veluchamy, Shankars father,
at Komaralingam village.

media are quick to expose them today. That is why we have a perceived
notion that the killings have witnessed a spurt in recent times, he
said. Kadir said many of these deaths
were booked under Section 174 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure as suspicious deaths.
Hence, we demand that suspicious deaths, especially of women in
the age group of 18 to 30, in intercaste marriages should be investigated thoroughly. For that we need a
special social law on the lines of the
Prevention of Atrocities Act, he said.
A draft law prepared by the National
Law Commission, titled Prohibition
of Unlawful Assembly (Interference
with Freedom of Matrimonial Alliance) 2011, was pending before the
government, Kadir said.
He also said that his eld study
had revealed some strange phenomena.
The majority of Dalit girls who
had married caste Hindu youths
were either driven out of their husbands houses or abandoned.
The girls who were killed by
caste Hindus for family and caste
35

honour those days were converted to

family deities and are being worshipped today, he said.
Barring a few stray incidents
such as the one in Tiruvarur district
and another in Cuddalore district,
that too involving caste Hindus, no
Dalit family has resorted to the killing of their girls for marrying outside
their caste, he said.
In some cases, caste Hindu parents committed suicide after their
girls elopement unable to stomach
the sneers from relatives and other
caste members. That is what happened in Divyas fathers case, too,
he said.
Dr K. Krishnaswamy, founder
president of the Puthiya Thamizhagam, a Dalit political party in the
State, told Frontline that there was
no honour involved in these killings.
The girls father in the Udumalpet incident, I am told, is facing some
40 criminal cases for various illegal
activities. What honour does he
have? It was the girl who fell in love
rst and insisted that the boy marry
her. How can they punish the boy?
he asked.

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

SOCIAL ISSUES

Deceptive calm?
There seem to be fewer honour killings than before in western Uttar
Pradesh. But it is not clear whether this is a result of positive action by
the government or suppression of news of such violence.
BY V E N K I T E S H R A M A K R I S H N A N RECENTLY IN WESTERN UTTAR PRADESH

IN March 2016, Kinanagar village of Meerut district was like a mirror image of what Nehra village was
in 2009. The question that was
raised to Frontline at Nehra seven
years ago got repeated with almost
the same phrases at Kinanagar in
2016. They met their fate, why do
you want to unnecessarily rake it up
now? In both the villages, located in
non-contiguous districts of western
Uttar Pradesh, they were victims of
honour killings. The killing in Nehra
took place in 2007 and that in Kinanagar in 2009. Caste and community
pride were at play behind both the
gruesome incidents.
When the Kinanagar killing took
place, Frontline visited Nehra, too.
During that visit, a group of village
residents posed the question about
unnecessarily raking up a matter
chosen to be forgotten by the village.
The Kinanagar killing was fresh in
the memories of the people of the
region at that time, and there was
some involved discussion about it
then. But seven years later, the refrain at Kinanagar is also one that
urges you to forget and move on. At
Nehra, the couple who got killed belonged to the Hindu community,
while at Kinanagar a Muslim girl and
a Dalit man were killed. The elders at
Nehra had opposed the love affair
and clandestine marriage of 21-yearold Mahesh Singh and 19-year-old
Gudiya because they belonged to the
same gotra (clan). At Kinanagar, it
was the opposite. Here, the family of
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

a Muslim girl, Afsana, did not apparently approve of lher attachment to

Manoj.
Commenting on the responses
from the villages, the social activist
Rehana Adeeb, founder of Astitva, a
non-governmental
organisation
(NGO) that primarily focusses on
countering social and political aggression based on gender, caste and
community discrimination, told
Frontline that one would receive
similar responses across western Uttar Pradesh.
Honour killing is widely accepted as a routine phenomenon in this
region. So, the nonchalance that you
witnessed is not isolated. It is endemic. So much so that a large number of these killings are passed off as
accidents and natural deaths. Pet excuses used in these trumped-up stories are about people falling down
from terraces and suffering grievous
injuries, kerosene and gas stoves
bursting and, of course, depression
leading to suicide, Rehana Adeeb
told Frontline.
Lakhanpal, a Dalit resident of Kinanagar, told Frontline that he had
heard about similar incidents taking
place in the nearby districts of Ghaziabad and Saharanpur last year.
State Home Department officials
based in different districts in western
T H E P O LI C E I NS P E C TI N G the
place where a young girl was burnt in
Khair village near Aligarh in Uttar
Pradesh, in June 2014.
36

Uttar Pradesh talked to Frontline

about a number of recorded and
widely noticed cases in the recent
past. In July 2015, Sonu, a minor girl,
and her lover, Tarun (24), were murdered, allegedly by her 19-year-old
brother, at Risalu village of Bulandshahar. In the same month, a father
shot dead his 23-year-old daughter
in Saharanpur. In Bamani Chowki
village of Shahjahanpur district,

had been initiated by the Supreme

Court in November 2014 to curb the
powers of caste and community bodies that arrogate to themselves the
power of handing out judgment and
punishment. The officer said: This
move was supported by the Union
Law Ministry and by 18 States, including Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and
Haryana, through an affidavit. I
think that this commitment to the
apex court has been followed up at
the official level, at least in some districts of western Uttar Pradesh, and
that has had an impact. However, a
large number of officers from varied
departments such as Home, Human
Resource Development and Social
Welfare, disputed the claim. They
said that the real reasons for the apparently dwindling cases of honour
killings needed to be ascertained.
Social activists like Rehana
Adeeb did not accept that joint action by the judiciary and the government had produced any positive
results. She pointed out that a study
conducted by the Lucknow-based
Association for Advocacy and Legal
Initiatives (AALI) with the partici-

MANOJ ALIGADI

which is part of the Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, two brothers

beheaded their sister to punish her
for an affair she had with a relative.
They walked around the village with
the severed head, claiming that they
had avenged the dishonour that the
girl had brought on the family. In
August 2015, a Dalit woman alleged
in an application to the Supreme
Court that a khap panchayat in
Baghpat had issued a diktat to have
her paraded naked and raped as punishment for her brothers love affair
with a girl belonging to the Jat community. The Dalit girls brother and
the Jat girl had lived together for a
brief period but were forcibly separated by the khap panchayat.
According to State Home Department officials, no case of honour
killings has been reported from western Uttar Pradesh since August
2015. Officials and activists differed
on the reason for this. Some officers
felt that governmental resolve and
action taken on honour killings were
responsible for this. One senior officer, who did not wish to be named,
was of the view that a concrete move

37

pation of many organisations like

Astitva had led to the compilation of
honour killing cases in Uttar Pradesh. This tabulation, she said, was
conducted for the whole year of 2013
and up to March 2014. It is not clear
whether any such compilation was
attempted in 2015. In both 2013 and
2014, Uttar Pradesh topped in the
number of honour killings in India.
There were 85 reported cases of honour killing in 2013, against 24 in all
other States put together. Up to
March 2014, the number of reported
cases in the State was 27, against ve
in the rest of India. More than half of
the cases in the State were from western Uttar Pradesh.
Rehana Adeeb said that there
were no tangible indications from
the larger social and political climate
and everyday life of western Uttar
Pradesh that things had changed.
She said that she and other social
activists saw several new factors
camouaging the true ground situation. She said: Central to these factors is the rampant communalisation
of politics that has happened over the
last two years starting from the 2014
Lok Sabha election campaign. Allegations and propaganda about love
jehad were key components of this
communalisation plank. In several
instances, honour related-violence
got subsumed by the aggression that
accompanied the love jehad campaign. More importantly, the widespread
polarisation
led
to
ghettoisation of communities, particularly the minority communities,
at the social level. Honour-related
aggression is common to both Hindu
and Muslim communities. With
ghettoisation leading to concentrated population of one community in
select areas, news about internal violence in general and that directly
linked to gender and caste discrimination in particular gets suppressed.
Several social and political observers, such as Dr Himanshu Singh
based in Meerut, are of the view that
a more detailed inquiry into the
emergence of these new factors
should be carried out to ascertain
novel forms and nuances of social
and gender-based oppression.

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

SOCIAL ISSUES

Legal quest
A petition pending in the Supreme Court since 2010 seeking
appropriate directions to prevent atrocities in the name of honour and
tradition offers hope for social reform. B Y V . V E N K A T E S A N
SHAKTI VAHINI, a non-governmental organisation with wellestablished credentials in the eld of
womens rights and child rights, led
a writ petition in the Supreme Court
in 2010 highlighting the phenomenon of honour killings and other
violations of human rights and dignity by extraconstitutional bodies
known as khap panchayats, or caste
councils. The petition highlighted
the inaction of the state in this regard
and its failure to protect the fundamental rights of citizens, particularly
the right to life enshrined in Article
21 of the Constitution.
In a report submitted to the National Commission for Women and
also referred to in its writ petition,
Shakti Vahini stated that while panchayats had been agitating on the
gotra issue, their ire was directed
primarily against inter-caste marriage. Marriages between couples
belonging to the same gotra (family
name) have led to violent reactions
from members of the family or the
community. Khap panchayats carry
out moral vigilantism and enforce
their diktats by assuming for themselves the role of social or community
guardians.
The petition, which is still pending before the Supreme Court, has
sought directions to the Central and
State governments to take preventive
steps to combat honour crimes, to
submit national and State plans of
action to combat such crimes, to constitute a special cell in each district
police headquarters that couples can
approach for their safety, and to pubFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

licise such cells so that all citizens are

aware of them. The petition also
sought directions to State governments to launch active prosecution
in each case of honour killing and
to investigate the role of law enforcement agencies. The Centre; the Ministries of Home Affairs and Women
and Child Development; the States
of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh,
Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh;
and the government of the National
Capital Territory of Delhi were made
respondents in the case.
During the hearing, the previous
United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government at the Centre told the
Supreme Court that it was actively
considering a proposal to amend the
Indian Penal Code (IPC) or to enact a
separate law specically focussing on
the crime of honour killing. In September 2009, the government made
a reference to the Law Commission
to examine the issue.
LAW COMMISSION REPORT

In August 2012, the Law Commission released Report No.242 titled

Prevention of Interference with the
Freedom of Matrimonial Alliances
(in the name of Honour and Tradition). It suggested a legal framework to curb the social evil of the
caste councils/panchayats interfering with and endangering the life
and liberty of young persons marrying partners belonging to the same
gotra or to a different caste/religion.
The Commission felt that such honour crimes could be effectively
38

checked by prohibiting the assembly

or gathering of members of panchayats for the purpose of condemning a marriage and taking further
action to harm or harass the couple.
It found that one of the causes of
honour crimes was the change in the
cultural and economic status of
women and their taking a stand
against the male-dominated culture.
The Commission also found that it
was a worldwide phenomenon. It
found that the domineering position
and strength caste combinations and
assemblies wielded silenced or stied investigating and prosecuting
agencies. The report stated that a
number of honour crimes went unreported for fear of reprisals or cascading effects. It observed that khap
panchayats taking the law into their
own hands and pronouncing that sagotra and inter-caste marriages were
invalid and handing over punishment to couples and pressuring
family members to execute their verdict amounted to a agrant violation
of the rule of law and was an invasion
of the personal liberty of the people
affected. The Commission pointed
out that the Hindu Marriage Disabilities Removal Act, 1946, expressly declared the validity of marriages
between Hindus belonging to the
same gotra or pravara or different
subdivisions of the same caste and
that the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955,
did not prohibit sagotra or intercaste marriages.
In Arumugam Servai vs State of
Tamil Nadu (2011), the Supreme
Court strongly deprecated the prac-

PTI

tice of khap/katta panchayats taking

the law into their own hands and
resorting to offensive activities that
endangered the lives of people marrying according to their choice.
In Lata Singh vs State of Uttar
Pradesh (2006), the Supreme Court
observed: We sometimes hear of
honour killings of such persons who
undergo inter-caste or inter-religious marriage of their own free will.
There is nothing honourable in such
killings, and in fact that they are
nothing but barbaric and shameful
acts of murder committed by brutal,
feudal-minded persons who deserve
harsh punishment. The court, in
this case, directed the administration and police authorities throughout the country to ensure that such
couples were not harassed by anyone
or subjected to threats or acts of violence. It also directed the police to
institute
criminal
proceedings
against anyone who resorted to such
actions either by himself or by instigating others, and to take further
stern action against such persons as
provided by the law.
The report said that couples marrying against the wishes of members
of khap panchayats ought not to be
driven to a state of insecurity and
misery. The Commission, therefore,
proposed a Bill to provide for a
threshold bar against congregation
or assembly for the purpose of disapproving of an intended marriage
or the conduct of a young couple and

A W ED D I N G B EI N G CON D UC TE D amid tight security in Bisnoli village in

Greater Noida on May 15, 2010, after a khap panchayat opposed it.

for this objectionable conduct of the

panchayatdars to be brought within
the purview of penal law. According
to the draft Bill, those gathering for
the purpose of condemning a marriage with a view to taking necessary
consequential action are to be treated as members of an unlawful assembly for which a mandatory
minimum punishment has been prescribed. The Bill treats the acts of
endangerment of liberty, including
social boycott, harassment, etc., of
the couple or their family members
as offences punishable with a mandatory minimum sentence. The acts
of criminal intimidation by members
of the unlawful assembly or others
acting at their instance or otherwise
are also made punishable with a
mandatory minimum sentence. The
proposed Bill has a specic provision
to empower the District Magistrate
to take preventive measures and to
extend necessary protection to a couple or their family members whenever and wherever they faced threats
from such caste panchayats.
Shakti Vahini, in its rejoinder afdavit in the case, submitted that
khap panchayats were powerful vote
banks and, therefore, the State police
machinery and different State government agencies remained mute
spectators to the extreme violence,
the violation of fundamental rights
39

and the loss of liberty and freedom

experienced by innocent individuals/couples because of these community groups. Therefore, Shakti
Vahini emphasised that there was a
need to undertake steps for compulsory registration of marriages, as the
Supreme Court mandated in its
judgment in Smt. Seema vs Ashwani
Kumar in 2006. The failure of the
Centre and the States to enact legislation for the purpose means that
runaway couples are exposed to vulnerable situations because they do
not have a marriage certicate from a
government agency. The couple is
forcibly separated and, in connivance with the police, false cases are
registered against the young man
under Section 363/376 (dealing with
the offences of kidnapping and rape
respectively) of the IPC. Police
torture and community torture then
start, often leading to the young
women being killed or forced to commit suicide. Shakti Vahini told the
court that a quick procedure to register the marriage between two consenting adults would provide it with
legal sanctity.
Sudha Sundararaman, general
secretary of the All India Democratic
Womens Association, who intervened in this case, urged the court to
direct the police to follow a standard
operating procedure in such cases.
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

This, she said, was necessary to ensure protection to couples on the run
from their families. She also suggested that State governments be asked
to set up safe homes where these couples could take shelter for a temporary period.
The UPA government had taken
the stand before the court that the
subject matter of the Law Commissions draft Bill fell under the Con-

current List of the Constitution and,

therefore, consultation with the governments of States and Union Territories was necessary before a policy
decision could be taken. The Centre
also claimed in January 2014 before
the court that 15 States/Union Territory administrations, namely, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,

Highlights from the case

THE hearing of the writ petition
that Shakti Vahini led in the
Supreme Court has brought to
light some aspects that had so far
remained hidden from the public. Mohammed Saleem Nagauri
led an application in the court
in support of the writ petition in
which he pointed out that Muslims too suffered from honour
crimes. Nagauris family in the
village of Basni, Nagaur, Rajasthan, and in Mumbai, where they
worked for a livelihood, suffered
because of alleged mental torture
meted out by the illegal khap
panchayat known as Nagauri
Qaumi Jamat.
Nagauri had arranged his
daughters marriage within the
community but later changed his
mind when he heard reports of
the immoral character of the
young man. When he found another young man for her, from
outside the community in Mumbai, he sought permission from
the Jammat, but it directed him
to break the engagement and get
his daughter married within the
community. Just before marriage, Nagauri was banned for
two years from the community
and was warned that the wedding would be disrupted. On December 30, 2012, the day of the
reception, Nagauri alleged that
some members of the Jammat
came and stood outside the marriage hall and took pictures and
noted down the names of those
who attended the wedding.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

Submissions on behalf of
khap panchayats were also made
during the case. One was that
medical science and genetics had
evidence to suggest that inbreeding (marriage within the same
gotra) resulted in and accentuated genetically transmitted diseases, while cross-breeding
diminished these diseases effectively. Another was that a specic
survey in Finland, Norway, Sweden and England had proved that
marriage among sapindas, descendants of common parents/
ancestors, had been dangerous to
some communities.
Modern genetic scientists
were cited to make the point that
mixing of human genes could
produce the most developed and
strongest people without any diseases. On seeing the harm samegotra marriages caused, many
Western countries had banned
marriages among near and dear
ones, it was submitted. An
amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, to debar marriages in the same gotra, mothers
gotra and within same and adjoining villages was proposed.
The Narendra Modi government has so far sought three adjournments in the matter, the
last one on February 22 this year.
The case is listed for hearing before the Supreme Court on July
11, when it is hoped that the court
will begin hearing it on merits
and issue suitable directions.
V. Venkatesan
40

Odisha, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu
and Lakshadweep had sent positive
responses to the draft Bill.
The number of States supporting
Parliaments legislative measure to
tackle honour crimes has been increasing since then. Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh,
Kerala, West Bengal, and Puducherry also extended their support to the
draft Bill. Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have reportedly witnessed gruesome instances of
honour killings in the recent past.
For them to sign up to the campaign
against honour killings is considered
signicant because of the political
class diffidence thus far in taking on
powerful khaps. The three States
were earlier opposed to Central legislation against honour killings. Observers recalled that the Group of
Ministers on honour killings the
UPA had set up was only able to meet
a couple of times because of the lack
of unanimity on the issue.
In November 2012, the amici curiae in the case, Raju Ramachandran
and Gaurav Agrawal, suggested a series of preventive steps that should
be taken once the officer in charge of
a police station or the superintendent of police had information about
any proposed gathering of a khap
panchayat. The officer concerned
must register a rst information report against the members of the khap
panchayat if they persisted with their
plans, and where it appeared that
such an assembly would result in the
commission of a cognisable offence,
the police invoke the power of arrest,
the amici curiae suggested. Besides,
they also suggested steps to ensure
the safety of the couple facing threat:
charge-sheeting the members of the
khap panchayat for conspiracy or
abetment and action against the officials if they failed to take preventive,
remedial or punitive action against
those who gathered or intended to
gather under the aegis of a khap
panchayat.
The amici curiae suggested that
the court direct the Centre to take a
view on the desirability of implementation of the Law Commissions report within a specied time frame.

RESERVATION

Legal onslaught
TWO recent cases before the Supreme Court have led to considerable
doubt about the future of reservation
for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes.
In Suresh Chand Gautam vs
State of Uttar Pradesh, decided by
the Supreme Court on March 11, the
bench comprising Justices Dipak
Misra and Prafulla C. Pant rejected
the prayer of the petitioners to issue a
direction to the Uttar Pradesh government to collect necessary qualitative data of Scheduled Caste (S.C.)
and Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) members
in the services of the State for granting reservation in promotion.
While rejecting this prayer, the
bench held that the State was not
bound to make reservation in promotion and that the States discretion to make reservation can only be
exercised on certain conditions being
satised. Further, the bench held
that a mandamus to the State to carry out a survey to collect data for the
purpose exercising discretion to
make reservation in promotions for
S.C. and S.T. members cannot, therefore, be given.
The need to collect data regarding reservation in promotions became imperative following the
Supreme Courts judgment in M.
Nagaraj vs Union of India in 2006.
In this case, the Supreme Courts
ve-judge Constitution Bench upheld the validity of Articles 16 (4A)
and 16 (4B), inserted through the
77th Amendment Act, 1995, and further amended by the 85th Amendment Act, 2001, and the 81st

PTI

The future of protective discrimination in favour of Scheduled Castes

and Scheduled Tribes is under doubt, with the Supreme Court
encouraging legal challenges to it. B Y V . V E N K A T E S A N

C O N GRES S W OR KE R S demonstrating against RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's

statement calling for an end to reservation, in Raipur in November 2015.

Amendment Act, 2000, respectively.

Article 16 (4A) enables reservation in promotions, with consequential seniority, to any class or classes of
posts in favour of the S.Cs, and S.Ts,
which are not adequately represented in the services. Article 16 (4B)
deals with the lling up of reserved
vacancies, which remain unlled in
previous years, over and above the 50
per cent ceiling on reserved posts in a
year. The ceiling of 50 per cent on
reservation was xed by the Supreme
Court in another case earlier, and
affirmed by the court in M. Nagaraj.
While upholding these two provisions, the bench had held that the
State would have to show in each
case the existence of compelling rea41

sons, namely, backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall

administrative efficiency before
making provision for reservation.
The bench, in M. Nagaraj, further held that Article 16 (4A) is an
enabling provision and therefore the
State was not bound to make reservation for S.Cs/S.Ts in promotions.
However, if the State wishes to exercise its discretion and make such
provision, it has to collect quantiable data showing the backwardness of the class and the inadequacy
of representation of that class in public employment in addition to compliance with Article 335, the Nagaraj
bench had held.
Article 335 says the claims of S.C.
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

and S.T. members will be taken into

consideration, consistently with the
maintenance of efficiency of administration, in the making of appointments to services and posts in
connection with the affairs of the
Union or of a State.
It is in the context of the Supreme
Courts observations in M. Nagaraj
that the petitioners Suresh Chand
Gautam sought the courts intervention to direct the State to collect such
data to justify reservation in promotions.
The petitioners argued before the
Supreme Court that the State, as a
model employer, must be construed
as having failed in its duty if it did not
collect appropriate data to justify
reservation in promotions. They argued that the concept of power coupled with duty would then come
into play, and, therefore, the court
would be justied in issuing directions to the State to collect the necessary data.
Failure to collect data, it was argued, would mean failure to perform
a constitutional duty, and the nonperformance of such duty would affect and eventually jeopardise the
fundamental affirmative facets of the
Constitution.
The bench in Suresh Chand Gautam, however, reasoned that Articles
16 (4A) and 16 (4B) being enabling
provisions, there was no power coupled with duty. Therefore, the bench
held that a direction to collect data
would mean entering the domain of
legislation or delegated legislation
for reservation.
P.S. Krishnan, a former civil servant and an authority on affirmative
action for deprived sections, described the judgment in Suresh
Chand Gautam as erroneous. According to him, the government has a
duty to bring about equality and advancement of S.Cs and S.Ts, and the
Constitution gives all the powers to
the State to take any measures for the
purpose. Clearly, a duty is cast on the
State, and amendment of the Constitution is the only way to address the
anomalies that the judgments in M.
Nagaraj and Suresh Chand Gautam
have led to, he said. The Supreme
Court failed to interpret Articles 16
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

(4A) and 16 (4B) holistically, he

explained.
One of the petitioners in Suresh
Chand Gautam told the court that
nine years had elapsed since Nagarajs case and no clear effort had
been forthcoming from the State to
collect data to justify reservation in
promotions. This exercise had to be
completed so that the state of employment in State services was not
left in limbo, it was argued before the
court.
The Supreme Court was told in a
subsequent case that thousands of
S.C./S.T. employees had been reverted to their former posts after their
promotions were reversed in accordance with the Supreme Courts judgment, making the collection of data
mandatory to justify reservation.
Because of the judgment in Suresh Chand Gautam, the States and the
Centre are likely to be further indifferent to their constitutional obligation to collect data to justify
reservation.
RESERVATION IN LEGISLATIVE
BODIES

The Supreme Courts ve-judge Constitution Bench has begun hearing a

bunch of petitions pending since
2000 challenging the constitutional
validity of extending reservation of
seats in the Lok Sabha and the State
Assemblies for S.Cs and S.Ts once
every 10 years.
Article 334 of the Constitution,
as it originally stood, provided that
the reservation of seats for the S.Cs
and S.Ts in the Lok Sabha and the
Legislative Assemblies of the States
would cease to have effect on the expiry of 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution. However,
since 1960, this period has been extended every 10 years. The present
extension in Article 334, which stood
amended last in 2009, thus lasts upto 2020.
The hearing of the petitions under the title Ashok Kumar Jain and
others vs Union of India and others is
likely to be an acid test for the judiciarys as well as the governments
commitment to the philosophy of
protective discrimination in favour
of disadvantaged groups. At stake
42

are 120 seats in the Lok Sabha and

1,080 seats in the Legislative Assemblies of the States, which are reserved
for S.Cs and S.Ts.
In its counter-affidavit led in
the case, the Central government has
submitted that Article 15 (4) of the
Constitution permits the State to
make special provisions for advancement of any socially and educationally backward class of citizens or for
S.Cs and S.Ts.
The government also relied on
Article 46 of the Constitution, a directive principle of state policy, to
submit that it is the obligation of the
state to promote with special care the
educational and economic interests
of the weaker sections of the people
and, in particular, of S.Cs and S.Ts.
Therefore, the government argued
that the once-in-10-years extension
given to the reservation of seats in
the Lok Sabha and State Legislative
Assemblies was a compensatory
measure to maintain their political
equality in society.
The government also cited the
Supreme Courts judgment in the
case of K.C. Vasant Kumar vs State of
Karnataka (1985) in which the court
had observed that in respect of S.Cs
and S.Ts, thousands of years of discrimination cannot be wiped out in
one generation.
The petitioners have argued that
the repeated extensions to reservation of seats under Article 334 have
been made in a mechanical manner,
on the grounds that the conditions
for its continuance still exist or that
very little progress has been achieved
by S.Cs and S.Ts. The absence of any
official study to ascertain whether
the reservation of seats has beneted
the S.Cs and S.Ts, or whether there
could be any alternative approach to
achieve the same purpose, has been
cited by the petitioners as proof of
non-application of mind while extending reservation once every 10
years.
The hearing of this case and its
outcome will have a profound impact
on the nature of public discourse on
the scope and ambit of protective discrimination in favour of historically
disadvantaged groups like S.Cs and
S.Ts.

MOVEMENTS

Rising spirits
The JNUSU believes that the bail granted to Umar Khalid and Anirban
Bhattacharya vindicates its stand that the Delhi Police had no evidence
to implicate them in a sedition case. B Y A J O Y A S H I R W A D M A H A P R A S H A S T A
In this context, Kanhaiya Kumars conditional bail in the rst
week of March came as a vindication
of the students movement.
On March 18, the bail granted by
the Patiala House sessions court of
Delhi to Umar Khalid, who was proled continuously as an Islamist, and
Anirban Bhattacharya boosted the
JNU Students Union morale further.

The union now plans to intensify its

campaign against what it calls a divisive agenda of the government.
The JNUSU believes that the bail
granted to Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who were the organisers of the controversial cultural
event on February 9 highlighting
military excesses in Kashmir, is a vindication of its standpoint that the

VIJAY VERMA/PTI

ABOUT two months back, the

frequent slogans for justice and freedom seemed to be missing from the
leftist students movement in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Soon
after Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid
and Anirban Bhattacharya were arrested on charges of sedition and
criminal conspiracy, a cloud of anxiety prevailed over the campus. Even
as the Sangh Parivars shrill campaign to portray JNU as the hub of
anti-national activities grew, support for the university among liberaldemocratic forces soared.
The nationalist versus anti-national debate that ensued, with JNU
at its centre, has at one level intensied the anti-establishment students
movement and, at another level,
helped the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) deect public attention from
burning issues such as price rise, the
agrarian crisis and rising unemployment to a Hindu majoritarian cultural nationalism.
The students were enthused by
the wide support that they drew for
their agitation against what most of
these groups saw as authoritarian
and illegitimate action by the Union
government. As a result, chants of
azadi became the order of the day
again.
JNU became the site of daily
open classrooms, where renowned
intellectuals, activists, poets, and political leaders spoke on different academic interpretations of nationalism
in a show of support to JNU, which
strengthened the movement further.

J N U S U P RES I D E N T Kanhaiya Kumar with Umar Khalid and Anirban

Bhattacharya, celebrating Umar and Anirbans release on bail, on the JNU
campus on March 18.
43

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Delhi Police had no evidence to implicate them in a sedition case.

THE BAIL ORDER

Granting a six-month interim bail to

them on a surety amount of
Rs.25,000 each, the judge, Reetesh
Singh, noted that there was no previous criminal record against them
and that nothing has been brought
on record which could indicate that
they are likely to abscond from jurisdiction of the court. He said: Although the allegations levelled
against Umar Khalid and Anirban
Bhattacharya are per se serious in
nature, but as claimed by police
themselves, the video footage of the
incident has been sent to the forensic
science laboratory. Its analysis and
nal report will certainly take some
time.
Many students believe that the
inability of the Delhi Police to provide enough evidence in support of
their charge proves that students
were falsely implicated in the case. A
Delhi police officer whom Frontline
talked to said that the charges of sedition were made on the basis of prima facie investigation. It may take a
few months to concretise all the evidence, he said. Clearly, what the police said in court is starkly different
from what former Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi said umpteen
times to the media. Bassi went on
record many times to say that there
was substantial evidence against the
JNU students. However, the police
could not provide any evidence except the eyewitness accounts of Sourabh Kumar Sharma, Akhilesh
Pathak, and Sandeep Kumar, all Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad
(ABVP) activists and political opponents of the arrested students. Remarkably, the Delhi Police brought
sedition charges against six students
on the basis of just a video, whose
authenticity it could not vouch for in
court. The public prosecutor argued
that the allegations against Umar
Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya
were not the same as those against
Kanhaiya Kumar. But the judge
noted : It does not appear that the
role attributed to Kanhaiya Kumar
in the statements of these witnesses
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

is any different to the allegations

made against the present accused/
applicants. The bail order also
states: No submission has been
made to the effect that both the applicants Umar Khalid and Anirban
Bhattacharya have been involved
previously in any criminal case. No
record has been placed by the state
regarding any such past conduct of
both these persons.
INQUIRY REPORT

Meanwhile, the high-level inquiry

committee instituted by the university administration submitted its report to the Proctor of the university.
The committee, which many teachers feel acted undemocratically,
found mostly procedural lapses such
as students not following rules while
applying for permission for the
event, and so on. However, the committee believes that these lapses were
deliberate and meant to mislead the
administration. JNU students have
vehemently denied the allegation.
The report states: It is most unfortunate that the organisers allowed
the event to be taken over by a group
of outsiders who created a charged
atmosphere by raising provocative
slogans. This act by the outsider
group has brought disrepute to the
entire JNU community.
The committee, in effect, accepts
that the controversial slogans were
raised by outsiders and not the students themselves, a proposition that
contradicts the ABVPs claims. A
JNU student told Frontline: The report relies completely on the versions
of a few ABVP activists and security
staff. That is why we feel that the
report is a one-sided effort to implicate the students. Why were other
students who were present at the
venue not asked about what had happened? Why were accused students
not given a chance to defend themselves? As of now, notices have been
issued to around 21 students for having violated university rules. The
university is yet to take action on the
basis of the students replies.
The report has opened up another can of worms. Students who felt
that the attack on JNU was preplanned by the ABVP and the BJP
44

were shocked by the committees observation that police were present on

the campus before the controversial
event started on February 9. The report notes: As per deposition of Mr
S.S. Palni, JNU Security Inspector,
police in civilian dress was present at
Sabarmati grounds (the venue) during the event. Police along with the
ACP [Assistant Commissioner of Police] and the SHO [Station House
Officer] were present at North Gate.
When the procession moved from
Sabarmati ground to Ganga Dhaba
(towards the north gate), police was
called in by the security and joined
and accompanied the procession
from Godavari (hostel) onwards.
A student said: The police presence on the campus means two
things. One, the police had planned
the attack even before the slogans
were shouted. Two, the university
administration, acting at the behest
of the ABVP, decided to call the police after the ABVP leader Saurabh
Sharma complained about the event.
What are we supposed to believe?
The
university
administration
should come out clean on why it allowed police inside the campus for a
cultural evening.
The JNUSU believes that the report also points to the collusion of
select television journalists and the
ABVP, an allegation that the JNUSU
has been making since the controversy erupted. The report states: As
per the deposition of Mr Saurabh
Kumar Sharma, Joint Secretary,
JNUSU stated [sic] that he got to
know about the event at 12 p.m. on 9
February and took a photograph of
the posters and printed it out and
submitted in writing to Vice-Chancellor, Proctor Office, CSO, (Chief
Security Officer) Registrar and DOS
(Dean of Students) stating that some
students are planning to host an anti-national event in the evening at
Sabarmati Dhaba. He immediately
also informed the police and the
media about the event. As per the
North Gate entry record ANI and
Zee News TV crew came to the campus at 4:45 p.m. and 5:20 p.m. respectively (Annexure V). ANI left
campus at 5:48 p.m. and Zee left at
7:20 p.m.

tamil nadu

Sentence commuted
in bus burning case

ON March 11, the Supreme

Court commuted the death
sentence awarded in 2010 to
three persons in the February
2000 Dharmapuri bus burning
case in Tamil Nadu to life
imprisonment, concurring with the
defence counsels argument that
the mental capacity of the convicts
was impaired during the mob fury.
Three girl students of the Tamil
Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU),
Coimbatore, were burnt alive when a
mob set re to the bus in which they
were travelling at Ilakkiyampatti
near Dharmapuri town. The students
were on an educational tour when
the university bus found itself in the
midst of a crowd agitating against
the one-year prison term awarded
by a special court to All India Anna
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(AIADMK) leader Jayalalithaa in the
Pleasant Stay Hotel (Kodaikanal)
case. While 44 girl students and two
teachers managed to scramble out
of the burning bus, Kokilavani,
Hemalatha and Gayathri were
trapped inside and burned to death.
The three-member Supreme
Court bench comprising Justices
Ranjan Gogoi, Arun Mishra and
Prafulla C. Pant commuted the
death sentences of Nedu alias
Nedunchezhian, Madhu alias
Ravindran and C. Muniappan, said to
be AIADMK party members, after
hearing their review petition which
sought reconsideration of the
courts August 30, 2010, judgment,
which upheld the capital punishment
awarded by the Sessions Court in
Salem on February 15, 2007, and
which was conrmed by the Madras
High Court on December 6, 2007.
The Supreme Court earlier
stayed the death sentences and
referred the review petition of the
accused to a limited and open court

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

hearing before a three-member

bench in case of death penalty
reviews.
The bench, while concurring
with the defence counsels
contention that sought to invoke the
doctrine of diminished
responsibility, accepted the
argument that the three convicts
were victims of mob psychology
and had no personal animosity
towards the deceased girls. One of
the defence counsel, senior lawyer
L. Nageshwar Rao, even drew a
parallel between the bus burning
incident and the riots that took place
across the country in the aftermath
of Prime Minister Indira Gandhis
assassination in 1984. He claimed
that the accused, who were a part of
a mob, cannot be held fully
criminally liable for the crime as
their mental capacity was impaired
at the time. Mobs possess a
demented sight of what is around
them, he said. He argued that in
south India people worshipped their
leaders and were prepared to even
kill themselves if anything untoward
happened to them. He said the
convicts did not mean to kill anyone
but were actually looking to destroy
government property. The State
government, the prosecuting
agency, represented by the advocate
Yogesh Kanna, chose to leave it to
the bench to decide the case on
merit.
Disposing of the review petitions
on March 11, the court ruled that the
incident happened in a ash during
mob frenzy and it was not
premeditated. It observed that the
convicts did not even know the
victims and so their crime did not
deserve the death penalty.
A senior advocate in Chennai
said the State government could
now exercise its power of remission
46

in the case. A political row erupted

over the issue of the State
governments power of remission
for the seven convicts in the Rajiv
Gandhi assassination (1991) case.
The convicts sought release from
prison on the grounds that they had
already served the sentence for
more than 25 years, but the Centre
objected to their release.
R. Srinivasan, who was the
Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in
the bus burning case in Tamil Nadu
and who assisted the prosecution in
the appeal in the Supreme Court,
told Frontline that the Rajiv Gandhi
case was different since the
investigation in that case was
undertaken by the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI). He pointed out
that a Constitution Bench of the
Supreme Court had ruled that the
Centre, and not the State
government, will have the primacy
in deciding whether persons
convicted in cases investigated by
the CBI or any other Central agency
should be released on remission,
and that life imprisonment is for
life.
But in this case [bus burning],
the State of Tamil Nadu has the
power of remission. The three
[accused] can be released if the
State wants to release them since it
was a State investigation, the
senior lawyer from Salem pointed
out.
Poomozhi, a Salem-based rights
activist with the Tamil Nadu
Peoples Rights Movement, pointed
out that though there were no two
views on the need to abolish capital
punishment, the apex courts
concurrence with the defence
counsels claims that the crime was
not premeditated was
unacceptable.
While upholding the death
sentences in 2010, the Supreme
Court bench comprising Justices
G.S. Singhvi and B.S. Chauhan
expressed shock over the brutality

Banks and the

new Asian tigers
In both China and India, bad debt accumulated in their domestic
banking systems by rms, households and some public entities during
the boom years seems to be proving too heavy a burden to bear when
the good times are disappearing.

N the immediate aftermath of the

2008 nancial crisis and the
Great Recession that followed,
two countries that were seen as crucial to propping up global economic
growth and even ensuring a recovery
were China and India. Prior to the
crisis, these two countries had registered some of the highest growth
rates in the world economy. Though
they were both affected by the 2008
crisis, countercyclical measures that
their governments adopted were seen
as having returned them to growth.
This strengthened the argument that
these giants serve as the locomotives
for the world economy.
Much has changed since then.
Growth has slowed considerably in
China, fuelling fears of the recession
elsewhere in the world worsening. In
India, too, though GDP gures suggest that it is the fastest growing
country, direct information from the
industrial and agricultural sectors in-

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

dicates that growth in material production has slackened considerably.

What is most noteworthy, however,
is that in both countries there are
signs of a substantial accumulation
of bad debt in the domestic banking
systems. Debt accumulated by rms,
households and some public entities
during the boom years seems to be
proving too heavy a burden to bear
when
the
good
times
are
disappearing.
In China, non-performing loans
(consisting of doubtful, substandard
and loss loans) of the commercial
banking system, which stood at
RMB1.3 trillion (close to $200 billion) in 2007, fell sharply to
RMB428 billion by 2011 as a result of
provisioning and recapitalisation.
But since then the gure has risen
once again to return to the RMB1.3
trillion gure by the end of 2015,
with the loss-loan gure alone placed
at $154 billion. At the recently held
48

annual parliament session in Beijing, senior officials, including premier Li Keqiang, referred to a
debt-for-equity swap scheme as a
way of cleaning up bank balance
sheets. However, since many of the
companies that have accrued this
debt are seen as zombies, this is
seen as a temporary response aimed
at taking potential non-performing
assets (NPAs) off the books of banks.
In India, too, public sector banks,
which dominate the industry, are sitting on more than Rs.7 trillion of
stressed assets, dened as the total of
non-performing loans (NPLs) and
restructured assets. Gross NPAs of
public sector banks have increased
from 2 per cent of advances at the
end of March 2009 to 7.3 per cent at
the end of 2015. Between 2004 and
2015 banks had to write off Rs.2.11
lakh crore, of which as much as
Rs.1.14 lakh crore was done between
2013 and 2015. Providing for loan

losses has affected the protability of

banks. The 24 public sector banks
reported an aggregate loss of
Rs.10,911 crore in the last quarter of
2015 compared with a prot of
Rs.6,970.8 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.
As a result, pressure on the government to recapitalise these banks
has been rising over time. Over the
four
years
ending
2014-15,
Rs.65,600 crore of budgetary resources have been provided for the
purpose. In August 2015, the government declared that it would provide
a total of Rs.70,000 crore to public
sector banks Rs.25,000 crore each
in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and
Rs.10,000 crore each in 2017-18 and
2018-19.
DEBT SPIRAL IN CHINA

tribute to the stimulus effort, these

governments adopted innovative
schemes. One was the creation of nancial vehicleslocal investment
corporationssupercially separated from the provincial government,
which were made to borrow from the
banks (or to which banks were persuaded to lend) to nance large projects.
A host of factors made it difficult
for the institutions under the aegis of
which these projects were being implemented to meet their loan commitments. Slowing growth and
inadequate demand challenged the
viability of some. The cash ows associated with others such as tollbased roads, bridges and subways
proved to be much lower than originally estimated. And some were social sector projects with an implicit
guarantee of a provincial investment
holding corporation, but no explicit
commitment to pay.
In the event, though the stimulus
shored up Chinas remarkable
growth rate even in the midst of the
crisis, the way it was nanced is now
proving to be a problem. According
to an audit conducted in the middle

QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG

Underlying this emergence of a serious bad debt problem in India and

China was a debt spiral. In recent
years, both countries recorded a signicant increase in credit provided
by the nancial sector. In China, domestic credit provided by the nancial sector rose from close to 120 per
cent in 2008 to around 160 per cent

or more by 2015. In India, the ratio of

commercial bank credit outstanding
to GDP, which had remained at
around 22 per cent for a decade from
1989-90, began to rise after 19992000, doubled (to 44.4 per cent) by
2005-06 and then rose further to almost 60 per cent by 2014-15.
Thus, the two countries that have
seen the highest rates of growth in
recent years are, at the end of the
boom, saddled with large volumes of
debt, a chunk of which is under- or
non-performing. This suggests that
credit mediated by the nancial system was being used in both countries
to drive demand and growth. The
difference, if any, relates to the sectoral distribution of this credit.
In Chinas case, the fact that
credit has substantially nanced its
high, aggregate investment levels
seems to be more important. This
was particularly true after the global
nancial crisis of 2008, when creditnanced investment was seen as the
means to stimulate the economy. A
dominant share of the expenditure
that constituted the total stimulus
was to be undertaken by local governments. When called upon to con-

R E SID E N T I A L buildings in various stages of construction at a site in Beijing. Large-scale lending to the real estate market

and housing nance operators created property bubbles in major Chinese cities and these have begun to go bust.
49

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

of 2011, stimulus spending had resulted in a rise in local governmentassociated debt to around 27 per cent
of Chinese GDP. In comparison, central debt was estimated at around 20
per cent of the GDP. Now, provincial
governments are nding it difficult
to meet their debt service
commitments.
The second source of concern regarding Chinas banks comes from
rising private and property-related
debt. Large-scale lending to the real
estate market and housing nance
operators created property bubbles
in major Chinese cities and these
have begun to go bust.

The experience in India is more complex. The credit boom in India seems
to have been triggered by the infusion of large volumes of liquidity into
the system because of a surge in private capital inows from abroad, especially after 2003. The liquidity
overhang in an increasingly deregulated banking system has spurred
lending and investment.
In earlier years, a signicant
share of bank advances went to nance borrowing by the government,
which was running up large scal
decits. But dependence on foreign
nancial inows also meant that the
government had to be sensitive to the
fact that these foreign investors were
critical of scal decits. Rising scal
decits were seen as a potential cause
for a loss of investor condence that
would result in an outow of the previously invested and accumulated
stock of legacy capital. Hence, governments at the Centre and in the
States were convinced into adopting
scal responsibility legislation that
set stringent ceilings on government
borrowing.
If banks need to lend, but cannot
lend to the government, they have to
turn to the private sector. One area to
which such lending went was the
market for retail loans, or personal
credit of various kinds: for housing,
for purchasing automobiles and consumer durables, for borrowing for
consumption in the form of deferred
credit card payments and so on. The
share of personal loans increased
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

INDIAN EXPERIENCE

P O W ER transmission lines near

Doddaballapur near Bengaluru.
Returns on investment in
infrastructure sectors such as
power generation and distribution
and ports and roads have been low
or negative, resulting in default on
loans provided to these ventures by
commercial banks.

from slightly more than 9 per cent of

total outstanding commercial bank
credit in 1996 to almost a quarter of
the total by the end of the 2000s.
This did imply that banks were overexposed to the retail credit market.
Since that was possible only by relaxing loan conditions and expanding
the universe of borrowers, fears that
India may be faced with its own version of a sub-prime crisis were expressed in many quarters.
But since the pressure to lend
continued, as capital inows remained high after a short dip at the
time of the 2008 crisis, banks needed
to continue to lend. This saw them
move to an extremely unusual area:
infrastructure. The share of infrastructural lending in the total advanc50

es of scheduled commercial banks to

the industrial sector rose sharply,
from less than 4 per cent at the end of
March 2000 to 16.4 per cent at the
end of March 2004 and as much as
33.5 per cent at the end of March
2011. In normal circumstances, commercial banks are not expected to
lend much to infrastructure, given
the long gestation lags and high illiquidity associated with these projects. Banks after all mobilise capital
from savers who are promised easy
access to their savings. Not surprisingly, private banks have been unwilling to commit much to this risky
business. So it is the public banking
system (along with a few private
banks) that has moved into this area,
possibly with government encouragement and the belief that it had
implicit sovereign backing for such
lending.
However, as the exposure of the
banks to these sectors has increased,
the folly of dragging the private sector into infrastructure with concessions and cheap credit is becoming
clear. The shakeout in civil aviation is
the most discussed because of the
Kingsher experience. But returns
have been low or negative in other
infrastructure sectors such as power
generation, power distribution and
ports and roads. The result is the
default on loans provided to these
ventures by commercial banks, especially those in the public sector.
In sum, it appears that in recent
times the growth pole in the world
economy centred on China and India
has been characterised by debt-driven growth, which amounts to riding
on a bubble. That explains why both
countries are faced with the visible
damage to their bank balance sheets,
requiring large-scale recapitalisation. But that also means that the
demand for credit would be lower
because of the burden of past debt,
and, more importantly, that banks
and other nancial institutions
would be reluctant to lend to overstretched borrowers. The mechanism that served to stimulate growth
is damaged. These countries cannot
meet expectations that they can serve
as locomotives for the recession-hit
world economy.

WORLD AFFAIRS

IGO ESTRELA/GETTY IMAGES

Creeping coup

FOR ME R PR E S I D E N T Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with President Dilma Rousseff as he is sworn in as the new chief of staff
at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on March 17.

Brazilian politics enters uncharted territory as a

congressional committee is expected to decide
whether to impeach the President or not for
misappropriation of funds from the public sector
oil company Petrobras. Those constitutionally
positioned to succeed Dilma Rousseff are also
under investigation. BY JOHN CHERIAN
51

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, BRAZIL

has been lurching from crisis to crisis with the elected
government now under the threat of being overthrown by
a cabal of right-wing politicians, businessmen and judges
acting in an extra-constitutional way. The current political crisis has its roots in the economic downturn the
country has been facing since the re-election of President
Dilma Rousseff for a second ve-year term in office. Her
victory coincided with the collapse of the commodity
boom. Brazil, ruled for more than a decade and a half by
the left-wing Workers Party (P.T.), rst under Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva and then under Dilma Rousseff, was
deemed an economic success story. But after Dilma
Rousseff took charge for a second time, things started
going awry. There were allegations that the President
had not come clean about the dismal state of the economy
when she ran for re-election. Her opponents claim that
she deliberately fudged the gures to give the electorate a
rosy picture of the economy. But so far there has not been
any formal complaint of corruption against the President. Yet, the Brazilian right-wing is baying for her
impeachment.
The present economic crisis is one of the worst Brazil
has faced since the great depression of the 1930s. Over
one million jobs were lost in 2015. A high ination rate
has adversely impacted the living wages of the working
class. To further queer the pitch for the beleaguered
President and the P.T., the scandal surrounding the misappropriation of funds from the giant public sector oil
company, Petrobras, is threatening to enmesh key ruling
party gures along with those belonging to the opposition. Big oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron
were unhappy with Lula for making Petrobras the chief
operating company for Brazils offshore oilelds, among
the biggest in the world. He also opened up Brazils oil
operations to the Chinese oil company Sinopec. WikiLeaks documents have revealed that the United States
National Security Agency (NSA) was regularly snooping
on Dilma Rousseff and top Petrobras officials.
An investigation into the Petrobras scandal, codenamed Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), started in
March 2014. It is alleged that more than $2.7 billion was
siphoned off from the company by corrupt officials, middlemen and politicians. It is also being alleged that some
of the money was used to nance the P.T.s election
campaign in 2014. It is not only the P.T. that has been
accused of dipping into Petrobras funds, leaders from
across the political spectrum have been named in the
corruption scandal. The charges against Lula and Dilma
Rousseff are mainly based on a plea bargain made by
Delcidio do Amaral, a former P.T. leader, in the Senate.
He was arrested and sent to prison on charges of attempting a cover-up in the Petrobras investigations.
In a bid to get his prison term reduced, he entered
into a plea bargain and named Lula and Dilma Rousseff
as being among the beneciaries of illegal funding. I am
a prophet of chaos, do Amaral told the media after the
high court accepted his plea bargain. He alleged that Lula
received two properties from companies involved in the
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

Petrobras scandal. Dilma Rousseff was accused of resorting to illegal funding of her election campaign. Do Amaral also accused Vice-President Michel Temer, who
belongs to the Brazilian Democratic Party, and Eduardo
da Cunha, President of the Chamber of Deputies, of
receiving illegal funds from Petrobras. The other accused
are Renan Calheiros, the current President of the Senate
belonging to the Development Movement Party, and
Aecio Neves, a Senator and the president of the opposition Brazil Social Democratic Party.
Although several conservative politicians have also
been named in what is described as Brazils worst corruption scandal, the right-wing opposition is in a hurry
to impeach the President and politically bury the charismatic Lula. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former President who belongs to the centre-right and who is a vocal
critic of Lula, is also under investigation for corruption.
But he is being treated with kid gloves by the oligarchcontrolled Brazilian media, which have no love lost for
the P.T. and Lula. The game plan obviously is to bring
down Dilma Rousseff and ensure that Lula is not allowed
to return to Brazilian politics. Lula has been readying to
make a run for the presidency in 2018 after Dilma Rousseffs term gets over.
In an unprecedented step, Sergio Moro, the magistrate who is investigating Operation Car Wash, issued a
warrant of arrest against Lula. The police briey arrested
Lula, taking him away from his house to the police station
in the early hours of the morning and interrogated him
for around four hours. Moro has close connections with
52

ANDRE PENNER/AP

Brazilians are worried about such a prospect, however

distant it may be. The last thing the people want is further
political turmoil and economic uncertainties.
It will be difficult to nd a replacement for Dilma
Rousseff in the rst place as most opposition leaders have
been tarred by the corruption brush. The President has
decided that she will not go down without a ght. Temer,
who is constitutionally positioned to succeed her, also
faces the charge of illegal campaign nancing. The next
in line, Eduardo da Cunha is also an accused in the
ongoing Lava Jato investigations. The fourth in the line
of succession is the President of the Senate; he is also
under investigation. With the impeachment process having started in the Lower House, Brazilian politics will be
entering uncharted territory. A newly formed Congressional Impeachment Committee is expected to decide
within a month whether to impeach the President or not.
The latest round of street protests was triggered by
the induction of Lula into Dilma Rousseffs Cabinet as
the chief of staff. Lula will be the de facto Prime Minister
and will help Dilma Rousseff govern Latin Americas
largest country. Dilma Rousseff said Lulas entry would
strengthen her government. Lulas policies as President
helped mitigate the sufferings of 30 million poor people.
I am going back to help President Dilma to do what must
be donere-establish peace and hope. There is no room
for hate in this country, Lula said after taking his oath of
office.
Besides the economic and political crisis, Brazil is
also facing a health crisis in the form of the Zika epidemic, which is causing panic in the north-eastern part of the
country. The country will also be hosting the Summer
Olympics in a few months. With Lula by her side, Dilma
Rousseff will be more condent as she battles to overcome the challenges. As a Cabinet Minister, Lula will
have immunity from prosecution. In Brazil, Ministers
and other high officials can only be tried by the countrys
highest court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal. A Supreme
Court judge was quick to strike down Lulas appointment
despite the court being in recess. Lulas lawyers have
appealed to the head of the Supreme Court to overturn
the order.
A judge investigating the case against Lula released a
recording of a phone conversation between Dilma Rousseff and Lula. The two were heard vaguely talking about
appointment papers being readied for Lulas induction
into the Cabinet. The very fact that the Presidents phone
is tapped is indicative of the deep machinations that are
at play in Brazil today. Many of Brazils key institutions
seem to have turned their back on the presidency. Some
political groupings, marching under the anti-corruption
banner, are openly calling for the restoration of military
rule. As a young guerilla ghting for the overthrow of
military rule, Dilma Rousseff was tortured after her arrest in the 1960s. She has warned that aggressive tactics
were being used in the corruption investigations. It is
important that we dont go back to history, she said,
alluding to the military dictatorship that ruled the country for two decades until the mid-1980s.

A R AL L Y in support of Dilma Rousseff and Lula in

Sao Paulo on March 18.

-the right-wing media conglomerate O Globo, which
dominates the Brazilian media. Even conservative politicians were appalled by the early morning raid on a
former Presidents residence. In an article written in
2004, Moro had extolled the authoritarian subversion of
juridical order. Lula, after all, was questioned about the
allegations against him by investigators in his home on a
previous occasion. One-third of the 539 members of the
Brazilian Congress are under investigation for alleged
acts of corruption. In its more than a decade and a half in
power, the P.T. could never get an outright majority in
the legislature. A lot of wheeling and dealing was needed
to have important pieces of legislation passed and political deals made.
In recent months Brazil has been witnessing a wave
of protests, most of them anti-government. In the third
week of March, the P.T. cadre, seemingly galvanised by
the arbitrary arrest and questioning of Lula, put up a
deant show in major cities. In Sao Paulo, the countrys
largest city, more than a 100,000 people gathered to
show their loyalty to P.T. and the beleaguered government. The P.T.s popularity has denitely waned in the
wake of the scandals and the economic downturn that
has affected the poor. Recent opinion polls have shown
that the majority of Brazilians want the impeachment
of the President. The opposition has already started to lay
the groundwork for an impeachment process. But many
53

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

WORLD AFFAIRS
SYRIA

Putins progress
Russia announces a partial troop pullout from Syria after successfully
beating back terrorist groups and creating favourable conditions for the

MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AP

peace process to begin. B Y J O H N C H ERI A N

RUSSI AN P R ES I D EN T Vladimir Putin listens to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Kremlin on March 14.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTINS

announcement on March 14 that the bulk of the Russian
forces deployed in Syria would be withdrawn caught the
United States and its allies on the wrong foot. Their
prediction that Russia would be mired in a long-drawnout war was proved wrong. At the beginning of the
military campaign in Syria last year, Putin had made it
clear that Russias mission in Syria was a time-bound one
with clear-cut military goals. It is clear that ever since the
Russian Air Force was deployed in Syria in October 2015,
the Daesh (the Arabic term for the Islamic State, or IS)
and other terrorist groups such as the Jabhat al-Nusra
have been in retreat. The Syrian Army and its allies are
advancing on all fronts.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

Making the announcement of a partial withdrawal of

Russian troops at a meeting in the Kremlin with Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister
Sergei Shoigu, Putin said the military goals that he had
set were generally fullled.
With participation by the Russian troops and Russian military groupings, the Syrian troops and Syrian
patriotic forces, we were able to radically change the
situation in ghting international terrorism and take the
initiative in nearly all areas to create the conditions for
the start of a peace process, he said. Putin hoped that the
decision would lift the level of trust between all the
participants in the Syrian peace process and promote the
resolution of the Syrian issue via peaceful means. He
58

emphasised that Moscow was able to create the conditions for a peace process. The timing of the Russian
troop withdrawal was meant to coincide with the beginning of a new round of peace talks in Geneva. The talks,
however, are yet to begin in a meaningful manner.
Moscow also ensured that the cessation of hostilities that it had brokered in the last week of February
had been a success. After ve years of unremitting violence, most parts of Syria are witnessing a peaceful interlude, with food and essential supplies reaching many
beleaguered areas that had long been under siege. The
substantial Russian military pullout may help prolong
the ceasere and nally get the peace process kick-started. Russia wants elections to be held in areas controlled
by the government and rebel groups it considers moderate. The government in Damascus has been amenable to
this plan but refuses to accede to the demand of the West
that Bashar al-Assad should not be a candidate in the
elections. The opposition gures, known to be close to
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are still sticking to the stance
that Assad should go, while the Syrian government is
refusing to have face-to-face talks with representatives
of terrorist groups in Geneva.
Putin kept Assad in the loop about Russias decision
to withdraw its troops and assured him that Russia
would retain its naval base in Tartus and the Air Force
base in Hmeymim. Russias S-400 missile systems will
remain in place to safeguard Syria against aerial threats
from Turkey. The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, harbours hopes of establishing a no-y zone along
the countrys long border with Syria. We stick to the
fundamental international laws and believe that nobody
has the right to violate Syrias sovereign air space he said.
Presenting gallantry awards to Russian soldiers who
distinguished themselves in Syria, Putin praised Assads
sincere striving for peace and his readiness for compromise and dialogue. Assad, on his part, said that the
scaling back of the Russian forces was possible because
of the successes achieved by the two armies in combating
terrorism and restoring peace to key areas. Putin said
Russian forces would be redeployed in Syria at short
notice, within a few hours, if needed. Besides, Russian
military assets in the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean
Sea, located not too far from Syria, remain operational.
Putin stressed that the Syrian Army, with Russias assistance, could not only hold territory but can advance in
many sectors, defeating terrorist groups.
Shoigu told Putin that terrorists have been cleared
out of Latakia, communications have been restored with
Aleppo, and we have cleared most of the provinces of
Homs and Hama. Russias Ambassador to the United
Nations, Vitaly Churkin, told the media that his country
would continue to maintain a military presence in Syria
to ensure that the cessation of hostilities deal was implemented. Meanwhile, he said, Russias diplomatic energies would be focussed on achieving a political solution
to the conict in Syria.
The Syrian Army is being assisted by the Hizbollah,
the Lebanese militia that has successfully confronted the

AP

powerful Israeli military machine. Iranian and Afghan

volunteers, trained by Irans al Quds force, are also playing a big role in beating back the terrorist grouping,
which is supported by some of Syrias neighbours. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who is
now foreign policy adviser to Irans Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei, told the media that Russias withdrawal will
not change the overall cooperation between Iran, Russia,
Syria and allied forces such as the Hizbollah. The Iranian media have reported that following the Russian
troop withdrawal, attempts to send ghters to replenish
the ranks of the Daesh and the al-Nusra Front ghters
through Syrias border with Turkey have been detected.
According to reports, Russian and Syrian planes successfully targeted a convoy carrying the ghters as soon as it
crossed into Syrian territory.

S YR I AN P R E S I D E N T Bashar al-Assad with

government soldiers at Maaloula near Damascus.

A le photograph.
There seems to be some kind of understanding between Moscow and Washington on the issue of de-escalating the situation in the region. President Barack
Obamas critical statements on the role played by the
U.S. allies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey) in the region are an indication that that Washington has distanced itself somewhat from the governments there.
These governments were opposed to a ceasere and continue to insist on regime change in Damascus. But once
Moscow and Washington started acting in tandem, they
had no option but to fall in line and now generally
support the cessation of hostilities agreement.
Moscow may have got an assurance from Washing59

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

AP

R U SS I A N PI L O T S returning from Syria, at an airbase in Primorsko-Akhtarsk, southern Russia, on March 16.

around 50 special operations troops and refurbished the

Rmeilan airbase in north-eastern Syria to arm and train
Syrian Kurds. Rmeilan is situated near some of Syrias
major oilelds. The base is also near a key oil supply line
to Raqqa, the capital of the so-called I.S. The U.S. and
Russia are keen on cutting the supply lines of the I.S. as
preparations are under way for a nal assault on the city.
The government in Ankara considers the PKK and its
allies in Syria terrorist groupings. The Turkish government has stated that under no circumstances will it
tolerate an independent Kurdish state or enclave along
its border. The autonomous Kurdish government in
northern Iraq is a virtual ally of Ankara. The Syrian
government has also said that it is against Syrian Kurds
forming an autonomous enclave. Right now, the Syrian
Army is cooperating with Syrian Kurds to ght their
common enemies, such as the Daesh and al-Nusra. Damascus has always looked askance at attempts by ethnic
and sectarian groups to dismember the country.
Even as a glimmer of light appears at the end of the
long tunnel, more challenges lie ahead for the people of
Syria who have been unjustly subjected to a merciless war
by imperialist powers and their allies in West Asia. The
Daesh smashed the articial boundaries drawn by colonial powers, but the war in Syria, which is entering its
sixth year, can end with the map of West Asia looking
somewhat different.
Meanwhile, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, half a million Syrians have been
killed in the conict, 6.5 million have become internal
refugees, and more than three million are living in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

ton that it will ensure that the ow of weapons and money

to rebel ghters from the Gulf monarchies through Turkey will be stopped. In 2013, the U.S. supplied 15,000
TOW (track-wire guided) anti-tank missiles to Saudi
Arabia. Many of these lethal missiles landed up in the
hands of al-Nusra and the Daesh. Moscow and Washington have been coordinating their strategy in dealing with
the Daesh and supporting Syrian Kurds in their ght
against terrorists, including those belonging to the alNusra Front, which has the support of Turkey and Saudi
Arabia.
Syrian Kurds, under the leadership of the Syrian
Kurdish Democratic Party (SYPD), have used the relative
lull in ghting to announce that they plan to carve out an
autonomous region over much of northern Syria. Kurds
constitute only around two million of Syrias population
of 22.1 million. Moscow has batted for the inclusion of
Kurds in the negotiating process in Geneva. But unlike
the U.S., Russia has always stood for a united Syria.
Russia may be tacitly encouraging the Kurds to rattle the
Turkish government with whom it is at daggers drawn
after the downing of a Russian plane. Turkey is engaged
in an increasingly brutal war with the Kurdish Workers
Party (PKK) in its territory. The SYPD is closely aligned
with the PKK. American and Israeli policymakers have
always dreamed of breaking up West Asia into small
statelets.
A Kurdish state in the heart of the Arab world is a goal
that the West wants to achieve. Former Obama administration officials talked about carving Syria into several
rump states as their dream of regime change in Damascus started fading. The U.S. Army has deployed
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

60

WORLD AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES

The power to
create a new
world is in
our hands
GAGE SKIDMORE

Interview with Jill Stein, Green Party

candidate for the U.S. presidency.
BY VI J A Y PR A S H A D

DR JILL STEIN IS RUNNING FOR THE UNITED

States presidency on the Green Party ticket. This will not
be her rst attempt. In 2012, Jill Steins Green Party
ticketwith Cheri Honkala, the advocate for the homelesswon half a million votes. But running on a third
party ticket in the U.S. is not easy. The two major parties,
Democratic and Republican, keep a rm hold on the
political process. It is hard to get on the ballot in all 50
States of the U.S., and it is impossible to join the candidates of the two major parties at their presidential debates. In fact, when Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala tried to
enter the debate venue in New York during the 2012
election, they were both arrested. But arrests are not
unusual for Jill Stein. During the 2012 election, she was
arrested at a Philadelphia sit-in against home foreclosures and she was arrested while offering support to
environmental activists in Texas who had camped out
against the Keystone XL pipeline. Activism is the measure of Jill Steins politics.
The 2016 election for the U.S. presidency will likely
be between the Republican front runner Donald Trump
and the Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. Both are steeped in the culture of Wall Street, and
neither would be prepared to draw down the massive
U.S. military presence across the planet. Jill Steins message is utterly at odds with those of these two candidates
and their parties. But her views are rarely heard in the
U.S. largely because of the media blackout of the American Left, in particular, and all third parties, in general.

Here, Jill Stein speaks to Frontline about this election

and her hopes for the American Left.
Bernie Sanders political revolution has certainly
brought questions of radicalism to the table, including,
of course, of democratic socialism. You have said: You
cant really have a revolutionary campaign inside a
counter-revolutionary party. Could you elaborate on
this?
The Democratic Party and its major office holders,
with few exceptions, are funded by predatory corporate
interests: too-big-to-fail banks, fossil fuel giants, war
proteers, for-prot prisons, Big Pharma and the like.
With corporate funding providing its lifeblood, counterrevolution is hardwired into the party.
Over the past many decades, the Democratic Party
has repeatedly offered up progressive presidential candidates but consistently sabotaged those campaigns to prevent them from winning the nomination. After the
anti-war advocate George McGovern won the 1972 nomination, the party created a system to block insurgent
candidates. Superdelegates or conservative insiders provide a margin of safety for status quo candidates. Holding
multiple simultaneous primaries on Super Tuesdays requires large sums of money. These two means safeguard
against future grass-roots rebellions.
Where necessary, the party has used smear campaigns and back-stabbing to take down its reformers. The
anti-war candidate Howard Dean was disabled by the

Letter from America

61

ELECTION WATCH
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

ers campaign. It has been essential for jump-starting the

revolution. But inside the box of the Democratic Party,
the revolution cannot grow. That is why our Green alternative is imperative; it provides a revolutionary campaign in a revolutionary party in which the movement
can continue to build. As the Democratic power structure
moves to shut down the Sanders campaign, we provide it
a lifeline to continue the ght to November and beyond.
Sanders supporters have come too far to throw in the
towel now. Even if a revolutionary candidate were to win
the 2016 election, this struggle would only have begun.
We need a revolutionary vehicle that will not allow this
hard work to be disappeared into the neoliberal/neocon
Clinton campaign and the counter-revolutionary Democratic Party. This is the time to grow our new-found
power like our lives depend on it because they do.

Dean Scream ads portraying him as a madman, while

Jesse Jackson was marginalised by a smear campaign
painting him as anti-Semitic. Dennis Kucinich was denied admission to the debates and then redistricted out of
his congressional seat. While the party marginalises its
rebels, it benets from the illusion of progressive gureheads, even as it becomes more corporatist, militarist
and imperialist by the year. So these presidential campaigns that lift up the best of the party actually enable it to
fake-Left but keep marching to the Right.
Prior attempts to reform the Democratic Party have
been futile. Riding the groundswell of the civil rights
movement, the labour and civil rights leaders Walter
Reuther of the United Automobile Workers and Bayard
Rustin of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led the campaign to create a social democratic party
out of the Democrats. The effort succeeded in pushing
the Dixiecrats out but oundered with [President] Lyndon Johnsons Vietnam War, which forced reformers to
defend the partys irrepressible militarism. Instead of
moving the Democratic Party to the Left, the reformers
were moved to the Right.
The partys dependence on the economic elite not
only shuts down radical messengers but also keeps transformative solutions that represent real threats to its corporate funders off the table. The Sanders campaign has
the liberty to support free public higher education but
stops short of calling for the cancellation of student debt.
Sanders rightly calls for breaking up the big banks but is
silent on executive action that could actually accomplish
this in short order by instituting minimum capital requirements. Sanders has spoken out against disastrous
U.S. foreign policies of the past but has not taken a clear
campaign stance against the current catastrophic $6trillion, 15-year war on terror thats produced ever greater extremes of organised terrorism. Nor has he called for
cutting the toxic, bloated military thats made us less
secure, not more secure, while devouring over 50 per cent
of the U.S. discretionary budget, bankrupting us nancially, morally and spiritually. And while Sanders calls for
a ban on new fossil fuels on public lands and offshore,
what our survival actually requires is an emergency programme to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by
2030well beyond Sanders goal of 80 per cent by
2050in addition to an immediate ban on all new fossil
fuel development.
Despite these limits, Sanders is far ahead of nearly all
Democratic politicians, who overwhelmingly practise the
economic neoliberalism and foreign policy neoconservatism that the Clintons exemplify. Thus, a President Sanders would face not only a Congress full of Republican
intransigence but also Democratic resistance.
While the Sanders campaign shows that majorities
supporting progressive economic reforms will come out
and vote for a candidate who articulates them, the danger
is that this progressive movement will get co-opted inside
the Democratic Party, which is ghting with the corporate-nanced power structure and losing its identity as a
distinct alternative. This is the core paradox of the SandFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

In this era of economic instability, social toxicity, wars of

aggression and the perils of climate change, the Left
has re-emerged in parts of Europe as an antidote to the
Extreme Right. In fact, what we see is the demise of
what Tariq Ali calls the Extreme Centrethe Third
Wayand polarity at the Right and the Left, somewhere
between the fascists and Syriza-Podemos-Corbyn. Such
a shift has not occurred yet in the U.S. Sanders
movement seems to have not so much broken with the
Extreme Centre as delivered the base of the Left to what
you call a counter-revolutionary party. Would you
agree with that assessment?
The bipartisan American Centre is indeed a wasteland. Concentrated wealth degrades and disrupts virtually every vestige of democracy on the political landscape:
from the stranglehold of big money over campaign nance, to industrial-scale lobbying and the corporategovernment revolving door, to the assault on the right to
vote, corporatised media, restricted ballot access, and
deceptive debates. Bipartisan politicians of the Extreme
Centre have not only lost the ability to govern. In large
numbers theyve lost the ability to think and, by most
appearances, to feel. In exchange for their corporate
sponsorship, they have sold their hearts and souls. Faithful to their corporate sponsors, the bipartisan extreme
establishment has produced austerity at all levels of society. So its no surprise that half of the electorate has
divorced the Democratic and Republican Parties. This
new breakaway political force, surging through the
Trump and Sanders campaigns, is bursting at the seams
of the establishment parties, which are holding on for
dear life. Theres no doubt the Democratic Party is counting on the Sanders base for the [Hillary] Clinton campaign. Currently, a third of Sanders supporters say they
will not vote for [Hillary] Clinton if she is the nominee.
Our campaign is working hard to get the word out so
all Sanders supporters know they have a plan B, and that
they neednt be intimidated into voting against what they
fear, instead of voting for their deeply held beliefs. Because the politics of fear has delivered everything we were
afraid of. And the lesser evil in fact paves the way for the
greater evil because people quickly tire of voting for the
62

war on drugs and U.S. military and CIA [Central Intelligence Agency]-supported coups and regime change.
U.S. immigration policy effectively criminalises millions
of refugees eeing the poverty and violence resulting
from misguided U.S. policies.
Our goal is not simply to plug people into a presidential campaign but to build the Green Party as the
vehicle for political empowerment for the long haul. We
are working to organise campus chapters, engage frontline struggles on the ground, spread the word through
social media, and push the progressive media in particular to end the blackout on our campaign. We are also
working through the courts where the Green Party is part
of two lawsuits to force the Commission on Presidential
Debates to include the Green and Libertarian candidates
who are on the ballot for the majority of voters, and that
voters therefore have a right to hear about.

... we need to put people,

planet and peace over
prot....
lesser evil as shown in the 2014 midterms when the
Democratic base stayed home, producing widespread
Republican victories. So when Sanders steps up to the
podium to pledge allegiance to Hillary Clinton, as he has
promised to do, his supporters will have the courage of
their convictions to reject the lesser evil and keep ghting
for the greater good with our campaign.
It is now clear that the Democratic Party will nominate
Hillary Clinton. Sanders will be under pressure to bring
his supporters behind her. This will be abhorrent to
sections of Sanders supporters, who would not like to
get behind a Wall Street candidate. It is unlikely that
Sanders will ruffle the feathers with a third party run.
What kind of initiative will the Green Party take to
organise the Sanders base so that it is not disillusioned
and gives up on politics entirely?
Many Sanders supporters have long straddled both
campaigns. As the Democratic Party moves to sideline
his campaign, Sanders supporters themselves are getting
the word out that the revolution continues here, inside
our campaign. Our outreach is not targeted at Sanders
supporters per se. But several of our key constituencies
are no doubt well represented in the Sanders campaign.
A major priority is young (and not so young) people in
debt43 million, in fact, which happens to be a winning
plurality in a three-way presidential race. Fortunately,
millennials are perfectly positioned to self-organise
around debt through social media as they have often
done successfully on other issues, like saving the Internet, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, and ghting
the 2013 Monsanto protection Bill.
Student debt is an especially galvanising issue. Not
only because its victims have the numbers to take over the
election but also because the President has the power to
enact a quantitative-easing bailout (like what was used
for Wall Street) through the Federal Reserve without
requiring an Act of Congress. The message that millennials can effectively cancel their debt by coming out in
sufficient numbers and voting Green is spreading like
wildre. The explosive growth of our social media in
recent weeks suggests the word is indeed getting out.
Likewise, we are getting the word out to Latinos and
other groups concerned about immigrant rights. They
have seen that Republicans are the party of hate and
fearmongering. And Democrats are the party of deportation, detention and night raids. We are the only campaign opposing border militarisation, pointing out that
the most important solution to the immigration crisis is
to stop causing itthrough predatory trade deals, the

The two-party system suffocates politics in the U.S. The

Republicans have become a proper Extreme Right party,
while the Democrats capture a large space that runs
from Centre Right to Centre Left. Whatever remains of
the Left is fragmented and has become irrelevant to
U.S. politics. Is this a fair characterisation? Michael
Denning, a scholar of the U.S., said that this Left
sectarianism mirrors the culture of schismatic religions
in the U.S. I also think it has a great deal to do with the
lack of mass fronts, where people with hard lines can
work with the people on concrete issues.
Considering the long-standing war on independent
politics in the U.S., its no surprise that the American Left
has been in dire straits. Independent, non-corporate parties have been fear-campaigned and smear-campaigned
as spoilers; restrictive ballot access laws have kept opposition parties off the ballot since the anti-war socialists
were suppressed following the First World War. Media
blackouts keep the public in the dark. Steep fundraising
disadvantages deprive opposition parties of resources.
And the rst past the post voting system denies them
the representation they would have in Europe with similar levels of support. So the playing eld is steeply tilted in
the U.S. against opposition politics.
But recently there have been some very encouraging
developments. Greens and socialists have been collaborating in electoral campaigns, such as the joint GreenInternational Socialist Organisation ticket of Howie
Hawkins and Brian Jones for Governor and Lieutenant
Governor of New York. Weve also worked together on
front-line campaigns, including living wage campaigns,
pipeline protests, and struggles against police brutality,
environmental racism, coal trains and fracking towers.
For my presidential campaign, the campaign trail
lives in front-line communities: in campus ghts against
student debt, at mobilisations against high-stakes testing
and school privatisation, rallies for the $15 minimum
wage, protests against police violence, immigrant detention centres, fracking wells and pipelines and the poisoning of water supplies, the theft of indigenous lands. We
are working on the ground to lift up the voices of commu63

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

in the Middle East [West Asia]. And tens of thousands of

U.S. soldiers have been killed or maimed. And what do
we have to show for it? Failed states, worse terrorist
threats, and mass refugee migrations that are tearing the
European Union and the Middle East apart.
More of the same failed war on terror is not the
answer. Its time to stop the ISIS in its tracks and end the
wars for oil with a peace offensive. This includes a weapons embargo to the Middle East, where we are currently
the major supplier, having sold nearly $100 billion in
weapons to the Saudis over the past decade. The Saudis
in turn have been distributing weapons to terrorist
groups, including groups closely allied with Al Qaeda.
The U.S. and its allies have been aiding and abetting the
terrorists with one hand while theyve been ghting them
with the other. Consequently, we have the power to
initiate a major arms embargo, which we must also work
to engage the Russians in, as well as all of our allies.
The peace offensive also includes freezing of the bank
accounts of countries that are funding international jehadism, including the Saudis, who funded the 9/11 attacks,
according to Senator Bob Graham, head of the 9/11
Commission. The 28 redacted pages of the 9/11 report
must be released, so the public can understand who the
real terrorist threats are. The Saudis were also identied
as the leading funder of terrorism worldwide in a State
Department cable signed by Hillary Clinton in 2009,
released by WikiLeaks. The peace offensive must also be
accompanied by expanded peace negotiations including
civil society, human rights and pro-democracy groups.
As part of this new principled foreign policy, we
would also end the supply of arms and funding to governments that are massively violating human rights and
international law. This includes ending support for and
collaboration with the Saudi monarchy, which is committing war crimes in Yemen and horric human rights
violations of its own citizens, including mass beheadings
and executions. We would also end the $8 million a day of
military support for the Israeli government, which is
committing war crimes and massive human rights violations, including periodic massacres, occupation, home
demolitions, collective punishment and apartheid. We
must also put pressure on [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan to
end Turkeys attacks on the Kurds when they have offered peace with a confederal relationship.
For a tiny fraction of our dangerously bloated military
budget, we could become a superpower of peace and
human rights, eliminating hunger and building hospitals, schools and homes instead of destroying them. Importantly, we can lead the way on demilitarising national
budgets around the world and redirecting those resources into greening all of our economies, thus eliminating the current major driver of conict world over: the
competition for fossil fuels and routes to transport them.
A just foreign policy is essential if we are to create an
America and a world that works for all of us, a world that
puts people, planet and peace over prot. The power to
create that new world is not just in our hopes, not just in
our dreams. Here and now. Its in our hands.

nity struggle, while building political solidarity with social movements for the long haul.
As the one party of the Left with national scope,
Greens regularly make our ballot line available to Left
candidates outside the Green Party who are running for
office. And a number of socialist groups are helping our
current ballot access drive to ensure our campaign is on
the ballot, providing a choice for as many voters as possible. In 2012, we were on the ballot for about 83 per cent
of voters. With the help of other Left parties, we hope to
provide even more voters with real choice this year. By
working with community mobilisations on the ground
and with other Left parties, we are laying the groundwork
for a unied social movement with a political voice. This
is essential for the transformational change we need to
put people, planet and peace over prot, so we can survive into the next century.
You have called for a Green New Deal. Could you
elaborate.
The Green New Deal is the centrepiece of our campaign agenda. It is an emergency programme to x the
two major converging crises of the modern era: the unjust, failing economy and the collapsing climate. Its like
the New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression
but with a green focus in order to x the climate as well as
the economy. It creates 20 million living-wage jobs as
part of a wartime-level mobilisation to green our energy,
food and transportation systems, and restore critical infrastructure, including ecosystems. It does so in the needed time frame: by achieving 100 per cent renewable
energy by 2030 and by implementing an immediate
moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure and
exploration. The result will be to revive our economy,
turn the tide on climate change, and make wars for oil
obsolete, which will enable us to cut the military budget
to pay for the project. In addition, the Green New Deal
pays for itself simply in health savings from preventing
fossil fuel-related diseases: asthma, heart attacks,
strokes, cancer and emphysema. So this is a win-win-win
solution that propels us toward a just and sustainable
future.
Finally, the range of candidates running for President
continues to believe in the idea of American primacy in
world affairs. Perhaps Sanders has indicated otherwise,
although his foreign policy statements have been few
and far between. What would U.S. foreign policy look
like from a Green perspective? How would President Jill
Stein tackle the formidable crisis of the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?
A [Jill] Stein administration would go back to the
drawing board on foreign policy. We need a foreign
policy based on international law, human rights and
diplomacy, not on global military and economic domination, which has been catastrophic. This policy has cost
us $6 trillion ($75,000 per American household) over
the past 15 years. Over a million people have been killed
in Iraq alone, which is not winning us hearts and minds
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64

WORLD AFFAIRS
SUDAN

Life of battles
Hassan al-Turabi (1932-2016) was an inuential politician in Sudans
history despite the ups and downs of his political fortunes. B Y

J OHN CHE R I AN

his 16-year tenure, Nimeiri transitioned from a proSoviet Arab nationalist to an ardent Islamist. After Turabi was released from jail in 1979, his inuence over
Nimeiri played a big role in his espousal of Islamist
policies. Turabi became the virtual power behind the
throne, a role he would go on to reprise after the military
coup in 1989. Under Nimeiri, Turabi held the post of
Attorney General. Sudan was put under Sharia law in
1983. Total prohibition was declared, and copious
amounts of alcohol, worth more than $5 million, were
symbolically emptied into the Nile, which ows through
Khartoum, the capital. It was the imposition of sharia law
all over Sudan that rekindled civil war in the country and
ultimately led to its disastrous partitioning. Turabi no
doubt was responsible for the historical course the country took after that, though he later distanced himself from
the hard-line positions he had taken in those volatile
years. Nimeiri once again incarcerated Turabi shortly

EBRAHIM HAMID/AFP

THE DEATH OF HASSAN AL-TURABI, NOTED

Islamic scholar and politician, on March 6 in Khartoum
marks the end of a tumultuous chapter in the history of
Sudan. Turabi, who died of a heart attack at the age of 84,
was a feisty opponent of the military-led government in
Sudan led by Gen. Omar al-Bashir even though he played
a key role in the developments that brought Bashir to
power after a military coup in 1989. There was a bitter
falling-out between the two in the late 1990s. Turabi
faced several spells of incarceration but he continued
with his spirited opposition to the policies of the Sudanese government on key issues, including the contentious
one of Darfur. He was also among the rst prominent
politicians in Sudan to acknowledge South Sudans right
to secede.
Under the military dictatorship of Gen. Jaafar Nimeiri, Turabi spent seven years in jail only to emerge later as
a key adviser to the strongman in the early 1980s. During

H ASS A N A L - T UR A B I (left) with President Omar al-Bashir in the presidential guest house in Khartoum on March 14, 2014.
65

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

the allegations regarding his close links with bin Laden

and his role in providing refuge to the founder of the Al
Qaeda franchise. Turabi said that he had only met bin
Laden twice during the latters sojourn in the country.
Bin Ladens company had undertaken the contract to
build an important road connecting Khartoum to the city
of Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Both of them were present
at the formal opening of the road. The other meeting was
at his residence. He said that the reclusive Al Qaeda
leader had made an unannounced call. Anyway, the Saudi dissident was under close watch by Sudanese intelligence agencies and was expelled under American
pressure in 1996. It was only after he once again relocated
to Afghanistan that he sprang to worldwide prominence
and notoriety.
During the years when he wielded inuence in the
corridors of power, Turabis focus was on building an
alliance encompassing Islamists, Arab nationalists and
anti-imperialist left-wing groups in the region. He was
non-sectarian in his religious outlook, and the Sudanese
government under his inuence befriended both Hizbollah and Hamas and maintained good relations with
Iran and Iraq. The political party he led at the time was
called the National Islamic Front and it held sway over
inuential sections of the Sudanese armed forces. As a
young student activist, he had made his reputation as a
pugnacious foe of left-wing groups. The Sudanese Communist Party in the 1960s was the strongest in the region.
A coup backed by the communists in 1971 was brutally
crushed by Gen. Nimeiri, the military ruler at the time.
The party never recovered from the massacres that
followed. However, Muhammad Ibrahim Nugud, the
charismatic long-serving leader of the Communist Party
who passed away four years ago, had forged a working
relationship with Turabi when both were in the political
wilderness. The communists were part of the political
alliance that Turabis Popular Congress Party (PCP)
forged in the last decade. They fought together in the
elections that were held in 2010. During Turabis tenure
as Speaker and his inuential role as Bashirs erstwhile
political mentor, the communists had become a fading
force. The ght was with more mainstream establishment parties such as the Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party, which had alternated in power during
the countrys brief stints of civilian rule.
It was only after he was imprisoned and sidelined by
Bashir that Turabi tried to forge a broader political front.
He tried to position the PCP as a champion of the marginalised.
In 2014, after a decade and a half of sparring with
Bashir, Turabi agreed to participate in a national reconciliation dialogue with the government. But the dialogue
so far has been inconclusive. Turabi was the only wellknown opposition leader who supported the call for President Bashir to face trial in the International Criminal
Court for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur. The
African Union has strongly opposed the demand of the
West to bring a sitting African head of state to trial on

charges of war crimes.

before his own ouster in 1985. Turabis last stint in jail

was after sporadic Arab Spring protests broke out in
Khartoum in early 2011. Turabis inuence at one particular juncture transcended Sudan and the Arab world. In
the early 1990s, a prominent American publication
stated that he perhaps was the most inuential gure in
political Islam after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Turabi was the author of highly regarded books on Islamic
theology and jurisprudence. In a series of booksRenewal of Islamic Thought, Renewal of Islamic Legal Theory,
Women between Religious Teachings and Social Customshe was sharply critical of traditional Muslim scholarship. The Sheikh, as he was called by his followers, had
distinguished himself academically as a young man, having pursued higher studies in London and Paris. He was
proud of the fact that he had earned his doctorate from
the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris while most
of the elite from anglophone African countries preferred
to get their degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. His
doctoral thesis at Sorbonne was on constitutional law.
During this correspondents numerous visits to Khartoum, it was a privilege to interact with the late Sudanese
intellectual. He always had a warm welcoming smile on
his face. It was in 1995, when Turabi was the Speaker of
the Sudanese parliament, that this correspondent got the
rst opportunity to interview him. During the interview,
he spoke on a wide variety of subjects, including sharia
law. While defending the introduction of the law in
Sudan, Turabi explained that it was only implemented in
the predominantly Muslim north of the country and that
its brutal aspects such as beheadings and stonings were
rarely, if ever, carried out.
He went to great lengths to explain that Sharia law, if
properly and justly implemented, was compassionate.
Muslim women need not cover their heads, and they
should be allowed to lead mixed prayers, he said. He
insisted that there was no attempt to Arabise the animist
and Christian south of the country and that sharia law
was not being implemented there. Religion is based on
sincere conviction and voluntary compliance. Islamic
thought, like all thought, only ourishes in a social environment of freedom and public consultation, Turabi
wrote in 1983.
Interestingly, in 1995, Turabis brother-in-law, Sadiq
al-Mahdi, the leader of the Umma Party, who was ousted
as Prime Minister in the 1989 military coup, was under
house arrest. But he was allowed to meet with this journalist from India. Mahdi remained critical of his brotherin-laws politics, but they found themselves in the same
boat eventually in the united struggle to restore genuine
multiparty democracy to Sudan.
OSAMA BIN LADEN

Also, around that time, a young Saudi businessman,

Osama bin Laden, came to Sudan and set up a construction rm. By then he had fallen out with the Saudi royalty
and turned against his erstwhile American patrons with a
vengeance. In a subsequent meeting with Turabi more
than a decade later, this correspondent asked him about
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66

WILDLIFE

The mahseers
LOST GROUND
SANDEEP CHAKRAVARTI

A BL UE - F I N N E D mahseer weighing 40 pounds (18.14 kilograms) caught in the Cauvery by Owen-Bosen

on January 5, 2010.

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The orange-nned mahseer is on the

verge of extinction in its original
habitat, the Cauvery river, following
unregulated shing and the
introduction of the blue-nned
mahseer. There is an urgent need
to restore its status.

JOHN BAILEY

BY A.J.T. JOHNSINGH

AN ORA N G E - F I N N E D mahseer weighing 90 pounds (43 kg) caught in the

Cauvery by Alberto Parish on January 13, 2008.

THE large orange-nned mahseer (Tor species, not classied) is

an iconic sport sh endemic to the
Cauvery river basin, which includes the Cauvery (from Kodagu
in Karnataka to Hogenakkal, when
the river plunges into Tamil Nadu),
the Kabini, the Moyar and the Bhavani. Also known as the humpbacked mahseer, as adults develop
a dorsal hump, this freshwater sh
has broken thousands of shing
lines, hundreds of rods and reels,
and dragged numerous anglers into the water. The Cauvery now has
an abundant population of the
blue-nned mahseer (Tor khudree), a non-native, articially bred
sh which was introduced without
foresight.
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An orange-nned mahseer
weighing 120 pounds (54.43 kilograms), caught by J. Wet. Van Ingen in the Kabini on March 22,
1946, was the largest ever catch in
these waters until a few years ago.
On March 13, 2011, the British angler Ken Loughran broke that record by catching a 130-pound (55
kg) mahseer in the Cauvery in Kodagu district.
Only the sh caught on rod and
line is taken for the record and not
the ones caught in shing nets or
by other means such as dynamiting, poisoning or using hand lines
with bait.
The Kabini in Karnataka lost
all its mahseer population following the construction of the Kabini
68

A N OR AN G E - FI N N E D - M A HS E E R ,

which was caught and released

during a survey conducted by WASI,
with permission from the Tamil Nadu
Forest Department, in the Moyar on
March 13. (Inset) The blue tail of a
blue-nned mahseer.

A.J.T. JOHNSINGH

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

TH E B H A V A N I R I V E R and the Pillur dam may still support a population of the orange-nned mahseer.
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70

A.J.T.JOHNSINGH

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

THE M OYAR has a population

of the orange-nned mahseer.
The blue-nned mahseer has
not been introduced in this river.

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

angler and non-angler were

Rs.4,900 and Rs.3,500 respectively.
In 2009-10, angling and the nature
tourism programme generated a little over Rs.400 lakh, which enabled
the management to employ about 60
individuals from the local community as assistants and sh guards. This
helped reduce incidents of poaching.
Sandeep Chakravarti, once an
avid angler and a member of WASI,
has the history of the angling programme on the Cauvery at his ngertips. According to him, this
conservation measure, which gave
protection to the sh and employment to the local people, enabled anglers to continue to catch sh
weighing between 80 (36.28 kg) and
100 pounds (45.35 kg). It is obvious
that if this angling programme had
not been undertaken, poachers
would have wiped out what was possibly the only population of large
mahseer in the world. In the Bheemeshwari camp, a trophy of a 107pound (48.53 kg) mahseer, which
was caught in 1927, is kept on display. This unique mahseer habitat
will be destroyed forever if the controversial reservoir across the Cauvery at Mekedatu comes up.
In the late 1970s, encouraged by
mahseer enthusiasts of Karnataka,
the Cauvery was populated, without
foresight, with the blue-nned mahseer obtained from Tata Powers
hatchery at Lonavala, Maharashtra.
The Lonavala hatchery is doing yeoman service in mahseer conservation
and it has distributed thousands of
shlings all over India and even
abroad for restocking rivers and reservoirs. So, one must not blame mahseer enthusiasts as nobody knew that
the blue-nned mahseer would replace the native species.
In 2014, when the sh biologists
Adrian Pinder of the Mahseer Trust,
United Kingdom, Rajeev Raghavan
of St. Alberts College, Kochi, and J.
Robert Britton of Bournemouth
University, United Kingdom, analysed angler catch data from the
Cauvery between 1998 and 2012, on
TH E C A UV E R Y during the monsoon
months. The orange-nned mahseer
here can weigh up to 68 kg.
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A.J.T.JOHNSINGH

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A.J.T.JOHNSINGH

the basis of 23,620 hours of shing

effort, they found that the weight of
the sh caught ranged from 0.45 kg
to 46.8 kg and the blue-nned phenotype contributed to 95 per cent of
the catch and the orange-nned
formed the rest. In 1998, the ratio of
orange-nned to blue-nned was
1:4, but by 2012 this dropped to
1:218. Recruitment in the orangenned was negligible and with an
aging population, it became obvious
that the orange-nned was close to
becoming extinct. The blue-nned
phenotype continues to recruit
strongly, which is a clear indication
that the mahseer population in the
Cauvery has undergone a considerable shift in the past 30 years.
The Rod in India, a book by Henry Sullivan Thomas written in the
late 1800s, speaks about the orangenned mahseer in the Cauvery.
Steve Lockett, a U.K.-based angler and natural history photojournalist, rightly points out that if the
orange-nned mahseer were to gain
an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listing, it
would be listed as critically endangered, necessitating the highest level
of protection, as it is endemic to the
Cauvery basin. Surprisingly, the orange-nned mahseer does not have a
clear taxonomic identity (scientic
name). So, unless the species gets a
scientic name and identity, its conservation status in the IUCN listing
cannot be established, and it will be
difficult to get international support
and funding to develop conservation
planning for the species.
The Cauvery waters are now
adulterated with the blue-nned
mahseer, and the status of the orange-nned sh in the Kabini (below
the dam), as a result of unregulated
shing, is dismal. Even stretches upstream may be facing the problem of
the introduced species outnumbering the native sh. The late Colonel
John
Wakeeld,
affectionately
known as Papa John, who was living
in and managing the Kabini River
Lodge, one of the facilities of Jungle
HOG E N A KKAL FALLS . It forms the

eastern end of the orange-nned

mahseers habitat in the lower Cauvery.
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S HI VA S A M UD R AM FALLS .

A.J.T.JOHNSINGH

It marks the beginning of the

orange-nned mahseers
habitat in the lower Cauvery.

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A.J.T.JOHNSINGH

Lodges and Resorts Ltd, released

some 3,000 fry of blue-nned mahseer in the reservoir in front of the
lodge some 20 years ago. He used to
lament in the subsequent years that
there was no sign of the sh he had
released in the reservoir. One possibility is that the introduced sh may
have gone upstream into the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary from where
the Kabini rises. This warrants a survey of the upper reaches of the Kabini. Papa John died on April 26, 2010,
at the age of 96. He was fond of angling for murrel (Channa marulius)
in the Cauvery.
It appears that the Moyar and the
Bhavani may not be facing the problem of blue-nned mahseer. The late
Major Richard Radcliffe, a keen angler and hunter, who was living in
the Nilgiris and was closely associated with the Nilgiri Game Association (now the Nilgiri Wildlife and
Environment Association), used to
sh in the Moyar. I have heard him
speak about the orange-nned mahseer weighing about 10 kg. Radcliffe
was interred in the compound of the
Mukurthy Fishing Hut built by the
Nilgiri Game Association near the
Mukurthy National Park in the high
hills of the Nilgiris.
The article by the late Lt Col R.W.
Burton in Journal of the Bombay
Natural History Society in 1940 has
several exciting episodes of shing in
the Bhavani. There is a mention of a
30-pound (13.6 kg) sh with broad
bullock-like back and bright red
ns. He praises malaria as the most
efficient and ever watchful of all
game wardens, which preserved the
wild beasts and sh from the destructive hands of humans.
On July 15, 2013, Pradeep Damodaran wrote in his blog about a
sexagenarian,
Gordon
Andrew
Thompson from Karamadai, Mettupalyam, near Coimbatore, catching a
four-foot-long, 28-kg mahseer with a
distinct red caudal n from the Bhavani. This implies that the Bhavani
may still hold some orange-nned

81

THE N A N D HOUR valley in

Uttarakhand. It is home to the golden
mahseer, the goral, the serow, the
sambar, the elephant and the tiger.
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MISTY DILLON

TH E G O L D E N M A H S E ER, caught and released in the Ramganga river in Uttarakhand.

mahseer. Of all the rivers, the Moyar

gets the best protection as it is bordered by the Mudumalai, Bandipur
and Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserves, ensuring a secure future for
the mahseer.
Steve Lockett rightly says that
once a brood stock of orange-nned
mahseer is traced and correctly identied to the species level, it will be
possible for eggs and milt to be
stripped and a captive breeding programme started to save this mighty
sh.
The governments of Karnataka,
Tamil Nadu and Kerala should collaborate to restore the iconic mahseer in the Cauvery basin. The
possibility of controlling the population of the blue-nned mahseer
should also be explored so as to make
the habitat secure for the orangenned mahseer. One way of reducing
the population of the blue-nned
mahseer would be by promoting angling on the lines carried out before
2010. The revenue generated
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

through the angling programme can

be used for the conservation of the
orange-nned mahseer.
THE GOLDEN MAHSEER

My experience with the mahseer has

been largely along the streams and
rivers in the foothills of the Himalayas where I have tried to catch the
golden mahseer, one of the most
beautiful wildlife species in India.
The Ganga, the Kolu, the Ramganga,
the Nandhour, the Ladhya, the Yamuna and the Sharada are some of
the habitats of this splendid species. I
am lucky enough to have explored all
these rivers. In the Kolu and the
Nandhour, it is difficult to avoid
stepping on the numerous tracks of
tigers and elephants as one moves
from pool to pool. In the Kolu river
valley, on seeing an angler, the goral,
which is often hunted by the leopard,
will let out its sneezing alarm call
from the steep ridge top. In the
Nandhour valley, the serow may
watch an angler from its steep rocky
82

nallah overgrown with bushes; the

red-headed trogon will y across the
nallah, Indian pied and great hornbills will y overhead; and whitecapped redstarts and stork-billed
and crested kingshers will shy away
from the angler. In the Nandhour,
one day in October 1938, Jim Corbett
and William Ibbotson, who were on
their way to Chuka to kill the Thak
man-eater, are said to have caught
125 mahseer.
The best epitaph for the mahseer
comes from Corbett. The mahseer
was the sh of his dreams, and he
rightly opined that angling for the
mahseer in the Himalayan foothills
was a sport t for the kings. Using the
decades-long expertise available
with the Tata hatchery, effort should
be made to recover the mahseer population and revive angling by involving more youth in one of the nest
forms of sport.

A.J.T. Johnsingh is with the Nature

Conservation Foundation, Mysuru, and
WWF-India.

BOOKS in review

Of distorted priorities
and need for justice
This book is a compelling read for those seeking a deep understanding
of the dominant issues in India today. B Y K . P . F A B I A N

MARTYA SEN has

dedicated The Country of First Boys to schoolteachers
and
health
workers. The choice is signicant as he has consistently argued that India
has not taken good care of
education and health, the
two sectors essential for
the holistic development of
any nation. Alas, his sensible argument has been,
so far, like so much water
on a ducks back as far as
government policy and action are concerned.
The 13 essays, all but
two of which were published in Sens daughter Antara Dev Sens The Little
Magazine, cover a wide
range of themes from Indias calendars to justice
and development. What is
striking is that these essays, written over a period
of 15 years, make for excellent reading. Each essay
deals with its chosen theme
in a fairly comprehensive
manner and helps the
reader nd answers to
questions under discussion
today.
Let us start with the essay on Indian calendars
written in 2000. There can
be a difference of opinion
as to when the second millennium in the Gregorian

The Country of
First Boys
And Other Essays
By Amartya Sen
Oxford University
Press, 2015
Pages: 276
Price: Rs.550

calendar ended. Was it December 31, 1999, or December

31,
2000?
Although Sen does not
clearly pronounce himself,
he implies that he supports
the December 31, 2000,
school. Emperor Akbars
new religion Din Ilahi is
well known but his new
synthetic calendar Tarikh
Illahi for the country as a
whole is less well known.
India has an astonishing
variety of calendrical systems, with their respective
histories stretching over
several thousand years. For
example, the Gregorian
2000 corresponds to year
6001 in the Kaliyuga calendar, year 2544 in the
Buddha Nirvana calenda-

r,year 2057 in the Vikram

Samvat calendar, year 1922
in the Saka calendar, year
1921 of the Vedanga Jyotish calendar, year 1407 in
the Bengali San calendar,
and year 1176 in the Kollam
calendar.
This list is not complete. Obviously, the Kaliyuga calendar is the oldest,
and some Indians could legitimately celebrate a double millennium, arguing,
not without a touch of
chauvinistic pride, that
while the upstart Europeans were celebrating the
end of their second millennium, they, the Indians,
were celebrating the end of
their sixth millennium.
Sen makes two inter83

esting points about the Kaliyuga. First, its zero point

was in 3102 B.C., that is
5,101 years, not 6,001
years, ago. Second, the
claim that the zero point
was xed by some actual
astronomical observation
is untenable. Sen cites arguments to support the
view that Aryabhata established the Kaliyuga in 499
A.D.
The ancient Indian calendrical heritage is not exclusively Hindu but shared
by the Buddhist and Jain
traditions. Sen concludes
that the belief that pre-Islamic India was a Hindu
country is historically
awed. This is the point he
wanted to make by bringing in calendars. The reader is intrigued, impressed
and convinced by the argument starting from the beginning of the Kaliyuga to
the refutation of Hindutvas exaggerated claims
about the past.
The essay The Smallness Thrust Upon Us is
based on an address at College de France in Paris in
May 2001. Talking about
diversity of identities, Sen
points out that the same
person can be of Malaysian
origin, with Indian ancestry, a French citizen, a
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Christian, a socialist, a
woman, a poet, a vegetarian, a diabetic, an anthropologist,
a
university
professor, an opponent of
abortion, a birdwatcher,
an astrologist, and also
deeply committed to the
view that creatures from
outer space regularly visit
the earth in colourful vehicles singing cheerful songs.
Each identity can be important depending on the
circumstances, and none
of the identities can be the
privileged one for all time.
Reasoning can help us
determine the relative importance of the different
identities according to circumstances. Can community and culture prevent a
person from thinking differently? Sen does not
think so. Cultural separatists are right to point out
that one cannot reason
from nowhere. Sen contends that choice does not
require jumping out of nowhere into somewhere but
does involve considering
the possibility of moving
from somewhere to somewhere else.
He makes an interesting distinction between international justice and
global justice. If India does
not get a fair deal in the
agreement on climate
change, that is a matter of
international
injustice.
But, imagine a French
feminist who wants to
work in Sudan promoting
the feminist cause. Her approach cuts across national boundaries, and for her,
the search for equity is
more important than her
citizenship. Here, we have
an instance of a search for
global justice.
Sen makes a few points
about identities. First, we
belong to different groups
and have to resist smallFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

ness being thrust on us by

privileging one group over
the others. Secondly, communitarian identities may
or may not be important
for us, and it is for us to
decide what importance to
attach to them. Third, the
world is not just a collection of nations but also of
persons. Fourth, international justice cannot exhaust the claims of global
justice. This essay should
be read by those in power
who have got unnecessarily worked up over some alleged, not yet proved,
sloganeering at Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU).
In contrast, some slogans to which some people
might object, not necessarily with good reason, were
indeed raised at Jadavpur
University where Sen once
taught. Perhaps, there
would have been no sloganeering in Jadavpur if the
JNU Vice-Chancellor and
the Delhi Police had understood Sens theory of
identities.

can increase consumption.

Sen points out that we
have to get rid of the astonishing smugness about
Indias food record and the
widespread ignorance that
supports it. It is true that
there have been no big
famines, but severe hunger
has persisted in particular
regions. In fact, India is
worse off than sub-Saharan Africa from the point
of view of general undernourishment. The case for
relating policy to a close
scrutiny of its actual effects
is certainly very strong, but
the need to protestto
rage, to holleris not any
weaker.
In the essay Speaking
of Freedom, Sen tells us
that when he was in school
three members of his family were in prison. They
had not been convicted of
anything but were being
held just as a precaution
under what the Raj called
preventive
detention.
The reader might wonder
why independent India retains the insidious legacy
of the Raj. Although free
speech and democratic
values have a long history
in England, the universality of these values is still
quite new. The French and
American
Revolutions
made people realise the
need for democracy as a
general system, but the impact was conned to the
two sides of the north Atlantic. Throughout the
19th century, there was
much debate as to whether
a particular country was t
for democracy. The change
came in the 20th century
with the realisation that
the question itself was
wrong. The reader will
note that in India there are
some people who do not
believe that democracy is
good for India and want to

HUNGER

The essay called Hunger:

Old Torments and New
Blunders is painfully pertinent, especially in the
context of the current talk
about India being the
bright spot in an otherwise
gloomy world economy.
Sen lists the progress India
has made in combating
hunger since 1947. First,
since 1947, India has not
experienced any famine,
the last one being in 1943.
Second, the stagnation
characterising pre-Independence India has been
replaced by a massive expansion in production possibilities
through
innovative departures. As
M.S. Swaminathan put it,
our agricultural production can increase if only we
84

impose on the country

their partisan or sectarian
value system of domination. The 19th century
question gets raised from
time to time in the 21st
century.
A FREE PRESS

How does the value of democracy and of free speech

relate to the challenges of
development? First, development cannot be equated
to gross domestic product
growth.
Second,
free
speech is an important
part of human freedom.
The most obvious manifestation of free speech is
freedom of the press. Sen
values press freedom for
four distinct reasons: Intrinsic value of speech and
communication, inescapably linked to press freedom;
informational
functions of a free press in
disseminating knowledge
and facilitating critical
scrutiny; protective roles
of press freedom in giving
voice to the neglected and
the disadvantaged, and
thus helping the cause of
greater human security;
and constructive contributions of free public discussion in generating ideas, in
the formation of values,
and in the emergence of
shared public standards
that are central to social
justice.
Sen maintains that the
Chinese famine of 1958-61
might have been prevented if there had been an independent media to let the
government know of the
impact of the disastrous,
famine-creating policies of
the ill-advised Great Leap
Forward. The author does
not deal with the attempts
on the part of government
to seduce the press by
means of advertisements
and the eagerness of a good

part of the press to be so

seduced. But his conclusion is noteworthy and has
a resonance for our times:
Indeed, the freedom of
the press denes both a
right and a duty, and we
have good reason to stand
up for both.
SCHOOL EDUCATION

In his essay on the importance of school education,

Sen argues the case for attaching an overriding importance
to
school
education and laments the
neglect thereof in independent India. The child
in India runs the risk of
being underfed, undernourished,
unschooled
and overlooked. The proportion of undernourished
children in Africa is 20 to
40 per cent, whereas in India it is 40 to 60 per cent.
Yet, India has in stock
foodgrains much in excess
of the mandated requirement of 18 million tonnes.
For example, the stock in
some years has been in the
range of 50 to 70 million
tonnes. With such stock
levels, every family below
the poverty line could have
been given one tonne of
grains. Who cares?
The food procurement
system with high prices
paid to farmers and high
retail prices pushing down
demand is absurd. A thorough overhaul of the system is required urgently.
Once again the reader is
tempted to ask, who cares?
India has many more
children out of school than
any other country. The retort that India is a large
country does not hold as
China is larger and has a
much smaller number of
children out of school.
Bangladesh, until recently
lagging behind, has overtaken India in percentage

the concentration of public

policy is so strongly on
looking after those blessed
with opportunity and
success.
It has been argued that
if the economy is moving
forward at a good pace,
why should anyone bother
about those who lag behind? Sen answers that it is
primarily a question of justice. Another argument
that economists might appreciate better can be advanced. India lags behind
China in making a range of
simple products precisely
because Chinese labour is
literate and that of India is
not. India lags behind not
only China but also South
Korea, Taiwan, Thailand
and
other
dynamic
economies.
Even the poorest and
most deprived families in
India understand the value
of education, as brought
out in studies conducted
by the Pratichi Trust,
which was funded by the
money Sen got along with
his Nobel Prize. The idea
that we should leave it to
market forces to provide
education is awed. He
quotes Adam Smith, who
was clear in his mind that
the state had to provide for
the education of the public.

terms. We need more

schools and should run
better the ones in place.
Some people talk about
the reluctance of parents
to send daughters to
school. A team called
PROBE, involving Jean
Dreze, Anita Rampal and
other dedicated investigators, published a report in
1999 demolishing the
myth of parental reluctance. It is indeed a pity
that the government at the
Centre or in the States has
taken refuge behind the
mythical parental reluctance when asked about
their
lamentable
performance.
Sen tells the reader
that the school midday
meal is not an Indian invention. Europe has been
doing it for centuries. In
the context of pleas by
State governments of lack
of funds, the author makes
out a solid case for midday
meals. He raises the question: What is the point of
going to school? He gives
six good reasons ranging
from the disadvantages of
illiteracy and innumeracy
to womens empowerment
to support the conclusion
that
schooling
is
important.
The essay The Country of First Boys was published in 2005. Sen
narrates the story of a
Union Minister of Education who later became
Prime Minister. He could
remember his high marks
in school and college and
he proudly told Sen of his
high scores. If the rst boy
syndrome takes over an
educational system, that
country will be in for serious trouble. Unfortunately, this has happened in
India. The priorities can
get oddly distorted when
the focus is so narrow, and

CASE OF JAPAN

The author quotes the case

of Japan, which in 1872 established the Fundamental Code of Education to
ensure that there would be
no community with an illiterate family, nor a family
with an illiterate person.
Thus began Japans remarkable history of rapid
economic development.
It is not possible to do
full justice to this books
range and intensity in a review. But, Sens treatment
of the famous debate be85

tween Krishna and Arjuna

needs to be mentioned.
The author concludes that
Arjunas human-life-centred perspective cannot be
easily dismissed. That the
post-combat and post-carnage land bears witness to
funeral pyres burning in
massive unison and women weeping about the
death of their loved ones
does lend weight to Arjunas argument. But, our
author hastily adds: This
does not indicate that I do
not see the arguments on
the other side. The reader
might wonder whether we
have here an Indian argumentative and indecisive
in equal measure.
This reviewer unhesitatingly recommends that
this book be read by the
lawyers who attacked JNU
Students Union president
Kanhaiya Kumar, the Delhi Police, and those who
gave the police directions
in the context of the ongoing, eminently avoidable,
turmoil surrounding the
university. Reading the
bail order the Delhi High
Court gave in the sedition
case against Kanhaiya Kumar, where the judge
speaks of cancer and the
need for surgery, one denitely felt that Sens book
should be read widely.
For democracy to succeed in India, it needs an
electorate, bureaucracy,
legislature, political class
and judiciary, all with a
clear understanding of its
values as enshrined in the
Constitution. Democracy
requires debate, and debate is not possible if dissent is suppressed. Hence,
democracy without dissent
is no democracy, as Sen
would have put it.

K.P. Fabian is author of

Diplomacy: Indian
Style,published in 2012.
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

BOOKS in review

Marketing
dharma
The book skilfully chronicles the role played by Gita
Press in popularising the idea of a Hindu India by
propagating the virtues of sanatana dharma.
BY T . K . R A J A L A K S H M I

HE role of literature
and the power of the
printed word was understood by the satraps of Nazi
Germany better than anyone else.
The National Socialist
GermanWorkersParty
knew well that it did not
take much for a bigoted
idea to take root, create a
permanent scare of the
other and strike fear
among people, commanding their complete obeisance in the process. As
Joseph Goebbels thundered no to decadence
and moral corruption,
thousands
of
books
penned by intellectuals,
many of them Jewish, pacist, socialist and communist sympathisers, were
consigned to the ames.
Among them were the
works of Brecht, Engels,
Einstein, Bloch, Walter
Benjamin, Heine and
Freud.
An insurrection in the
realm of ideas was taking
place around the same
time in pre-Independence
India. Though it did not involve book burning, it was
more or less predicated on
creating a grand idea of a
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

Gita Press and the

Making of Hindu
India
By Akshaya Mukul
HarperCollins
Publishers India
Pages: 540
Price: Rs.799

nation, the Hindu nation,

through the printed word
and constructing around it
myriad ideas of nationality, patriotism, and mores
governing life and relations between people. Central to that project was
propagation of the virtues
of the sanatana dharma
(the idea of the eternal
form of Hindu religion that
has existed and survived
over centuries).
The context was ripe:
Indian
nationalism,
though in its nascent
stages, was slowly gaining
ground and all that was

needed was a grand idea.

The story of Gita Press, a
publishing house set up in
1922 in Gorakhpur in Uttar
Pradesh, and its role in promoting the idea of a Hindu
India is ably told by Akshaya Mukul, a journalist
with almost two decades of
writing experience, especially in the area of
education.
The book delves into
the origins of the Gita
Press. It all began with discussions and a translation
of the Bhagavad Gita by an
itinerant Marwari businessman, as described by
86

the author, whose commitment

was
essentially
spurred by a debate
among the reformists and
the conservatives in the
larger Hindu world.
The book chronicles
the peculiar friendship
that this businessman
forged with a person of the
same ideological orientation, who was committed
to philanthropy and the revival of traditional Hindu
values.
Their association led to
a Hindi journal titled Kalyan, which espoused very
much the Hindu way of life
rather than take up political issues that have come to
resemble the ideas dear to
the Sangh Parivar as a
whole today.
While the inuence of
the material published by
Gita Press might not have
matched the scale it was
expected to achieve, what
is signicant is the persistence of those ideas, thanks
to the evolution of an organised political structure
that gave them the muchneeded legitimacy in parliamentary democracy and
politics.
The context was perfect. Disillusionment with
the Congress, the shackles
of the British Raj, the
games of linguistic one-upmanship (Hindi versus Urdu and Persian) and
competing communalisms
gave way to this heady
brew of Hindu nationalist
thought.
The birth of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS) in 1925, with which
Gita Press would later
forge a close alliance, completed the overall scenario
in which Kalyan got a rm
footing and became a suc-

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

cess story unlike any other

journal of the 1920s.
The success was not
just in monetary terms,
which was not much in the
rst place; it had more to
do with leaders of the freedom movement associating themselves with the
journal in some form or
the other by writing in it or
by engaging with the proprietors on the ideas it espoused. The journal and its
ideas gradually acquired
respectability and legitimacy, which perhaps in todays context might appear
a little incongruous but not
implausible. Competitive
communalism is still a reality and so is the campaign on cow protection,
which has re-emerged
with renewed vigour just
as religious and caste identities have sharpened, undeterred by the explosion
of technology, advances in
science or the advent of the
digital age. The book has
six chapters, with disparate themes imaginatively
brought together by the
author in a narrative that is
engrossing.
The world of the Marwari businessman, torn
between the need to do
business and the urge to
nd a meaningful place in
the freedom struggle, and
the use of philanthropy for
a distinct politico-religious
purpose are the running
themes in the book.
Therefore, the interactions and the ideological
congruity between the two
protagonists of this storyone a businessman
and the other a businessman-cum-disenchanted
ideologue with a brief interlude of revolutionary
activity (the Rodda Arms
Conspiracy)provide the
background for much of
the book. The book tells us

A S T A M P honouring
Hanuman Prasad Poddar
was released on
September 19, 1992.

how Jaydayal Goyandka

and Hanuman Poddar
shaped a thought process
that continues to this day
in varying and problematic
dimensions. It puts together various pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle spanning the
world of the colonised, the
literary, the religious and
the political. Apart from
primary research and archival material, the author
relies on unpublished
theses and dissertations on
the subject.
Mukul writes: What
contributed to Kalyan/Gita Press distinguishing
presence and immediate
success was the fact that its
promoters and editor did
not remain impervious to
the larger political changes
taking place in the colonial
period. The propagation of
sanatan [a] dharma with
all its emphasis on texts,
rituals, social practice and
institutions was mixed
with
the
ideals
of
nationalism.
Gita Press was, as described by the scholar Paul
Arney and quoted in the
book, the leading purveyor of print Hinduism in the
twentieth century. Kalyan became the rst journal
to
be
devoted
exclusively to the Hindu
87

religion, and the communalisation of Indian politics

in
the
1920s
contributed to the identity
crisis in a big way, according to the author. It may or
may not have been the appropriate response to the
crisis at that period of history, but what is amply
clear is that the growth of
the Right has always coincided with periods characterised by either economic
or political crisis.
It is the contemporariness of the very issues that
prevailed almost a century
ago that strikes the reader
in the context of deep economic disparity and discontent, not spawned by
colonial rule but a different kind of a political and
economic dispensation.
Mukul writes: But the
aspect of Gita Press and
Kalyan that has the greatest signicance in present
times is the platform it has
provided for communal
organisations like the RSS,
[the] Vishwa Hindu Parishad and many others.
Further, Arney points out,
Gita Press was able to take
advantage of a homogenous, popular, bhakti-oriented
Brahminical
Hinduism that spiritual
aspirants of many theological and sectarian persuasions could relate to.
Gita Press, according
to Mukul, and Kalyan
would grow and prosper as
the only indigenous publishing enterprise of colonial India that continues to
this day. Other Hindi journals of the period, he says,
whether religious, literary
or political, survive only in
the archives.
Kalyan has a circulation of over 200,000 copies while the English
journal, Kalyana Kalpataru, has a circulation of

over 100,000. And the Gita Press key mission of

publishing cheap and wellproduced editions of the
Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is a stupendous
success unheard of in the
world of publishing, according to him.
Therefore, the Gita
Press assiduous defence of
the caste system, the cow
protection campaign, its
staunch and bitter opposition to the Hindu Code Bill
and successive reforms in
Hindu inheritance, succession and property laws
was but a reaffirmation of
the idea of what its ideal
Hindu way of life was. Its
understanding of what
women ought to be coincided very much with what
the
Manusmriti
laid
down.
In July 1947, Kalyan
appealed to its readers to
send telegrams to Rajendra Prasad, President of
the Constituent Assembly,
demanding that the rst
law in the Indian Union
should be that under no
circumstance would a single cow be slaughtered.
Readers were reminded
that cow protection alone
could save life and religion,
as the cow was the life of
the Indian nation.
The chapter The Moral Universe of Gita Press
outlines a list of prescriptions and proscriptions.
For instance, in the same
year that Kalyan was born,
a 46-page monograph titled Stri Dharma Prashnotri was brought out by Gita
Press; it was a catalogue of
sorts on womens duties
and dharma.
Priced at Rs.5, and
written in the form of a
conversation between two
women, it is still in print
with over a million copies
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

already sold. Poddar,

through the writings in
Kalyan, made it clear that
a womans non-compliance with the set rules
could affect broader Hindu society.
One of the arguments
for placing great premium
on the concepts of chastity
and purity, argues Mukul,
could have stemmed from
the trend of the migration
of Marwari men leaving
the women behind. The
dislocation shook the Marwari world.
The pressure and compulsion on women to remain pure for the men
who had gone away could
have been one of the reasons for the creation and
imposition of a set of rules
for women. But these rules
existed and were legitimised in Hindu texts, including
the
Manusmriti.
Poddar and Goyandka
were the conscience keepers of the community, having themselves migrated
despite being married with
families in Rajasthan.
Poddar was opposed to
Western education and
was rmly opposed to inter-caste or inter-religious
marriages. In 1938 appeared Nari Dharma,
which the author says was
more opinionated, judgemental and unambiguously biased and even crude
on occasion.
The moral universe
had women at its core,
with the men and children
inhabiting the concentric
sphere, writes Mukul.
The idea that bound all
of this together was that
colonial education had led
Hindu men astray. Attempts to popularise the
ancient system of education through monographs
for children failed. It is intriguing that such at-

K ES H A V B A LI RA M
H ED GEW A R, the

founder of the RSS.

M . S . GO LW A LK A R,

RSS ideologue and

leader. The founders of
Gita Press had close ties
with the RSS.
tempts continue now,
albeit with state support.
The glorication of the
past occurred then, as is
happening now as well,
and the villains of the piece
remain Western ideas of
education
and
renaissance.
To a large extent the
world views of both Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar
were anathema to Gita
Press, although Gandhi
and other leaders had engaged intellectually and
otherwise with the pub88

lishers as exemplied in
the writings in Kalyan.
But Gandhis efforts to
change Poddars views on
untouchability
failed,
writes Mukul. There were
other points of disagreement too, but nonetheless
there seemed to be some
affection between the man
who was effectively running Gita Press and Gandhi. Poddar, who had
distanced himself from the
Congress from 1921 onwards, openly associated
himself with the Hindu
Mahasabha.
Poddars association
with the RSS was so strong
that after Gandhis assassination, his journal, which
had an opinion on almost
everything signicant in
that period, avoided writing about it.
Poddar was defending
the RSS, which had been
banned in 1948. The defence began taking a very
cogent shape as the years
passed by.
A few decades later, in
the aftermath of the two
successive wars with China
and Pakistan, Poddar advocated reintegration of
Pakistan with India and
took the position which
both Gita Press and the
Hindu Mahasabha had
taken before Independencethat the task of securing the nation be left to
Hindus. The trend of
pushing a certain world
view continues, with appeals in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to vote for
leaders who were immersed in the service of religion. The heft of Poddar
and his networking skills
among the business, political and intellectual class
might have gone, Mukul
writes, and the opinions in
Kalyan now resemble occasional outbursts.

What has not changed

in this journal that sells
200,000 copies is its
avowed commitment to
sanatana dharma and its
resolve to achieve that
goal.
That the publishing
house involved itself in
projects of Hindu awakening
post-Independence, including the Babri
Masjid demolition, show
that its leanings have remained the same.
No other publishing
house marketed religion
so successfully, Mukul
writes. Perhaps, looking at
it from a historical point of
view, it is not far from
truth.
What is intriguing is
that the absence of any literature on the scale, price
and reach in north India to
counter the ideas propagated by Gita Press and
Kalyan.
The marketing of religion continues in myriad
forms, with multimedia
and technology contributing to its proliferation. The
list of religious seers and
gurus professing to cure
man of all his miseries is
unending.
E.H. Carr dened history as a continuous process of interaction between
the historian and his facts,
an unending dialogue between the present and the
past.
The current debate
over national and anti-national, circumscribed by a
very narrow view of what
nationalism is, is perhaps a
continuum from the past.
The dialogue process
seems to be continuing
with the historian documenting and interpreting
the stridency of the dialogues involved, with the
past very much rooted in
the present.

BOOKS/INTERVIEW

Writers and thinkers

should speak up
Interview with Rahman Abbas, Urdu writer.

BY Z I Y A U S S A L A M

HE Urdu language, rather unfairly, is being associated with a

particular community. Against this
background, Urdu writers are aggrieved at the decision of the National Council for Promotion of Urdu
Language (NCPUL) to issue an advisory to authors to refrain from criticising the government or any of its
policies in national interest if they
want their books to be approved for
bulk purchase under the NCPULs
monetary assistance scheme.
Not that they are taking it lying
down. Leading the charge is the
Mumbai-based author Rahman Abbas. His was among the more active
voices heard during the toleranceintolerance debate trigged by the decision of many authors to return
their Sahitya Akademi awards last
year. Barely a few weeks after the
launch of his new book Rohzin (The
Melancholy of Soul) as part of the
Jashn-e-Rekhta Urdu literary festival in New Delhi, he took up the cudgels again on behalf of the authors
who feel angry and helpless at the
NCPUL decision. Excerpts from an
interview he gave Frontline:
The NCPUL has reportedly written
to authors asking them to refrain
from being critical of government
policies in their works. How do you
think writers can counter this?
The NCPUL has stated in its
form that books submitted should
not be against the policies of the government or against the interest of the
nation. Nor shall it have any sign

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

RA H M A N A BBA S : I love my nation, but cannot be forced to blindly follow the

policies of a political party.

which could create enmity among
different communities. If ever that is
noted, the NCPUL will have the right
to get back the nancial help rendered to the author. Here, the phrase
book should not be against the policies of the government is dangerous
and must be dened. The NCPUL
should also list the policies of the
government on which writers should
never comment in their books or
novels. Tell us about the social milieu
and situation on which stories
should not be written. Tell us the
names of the characters if we use in
our books that might create enmity
between communities. In a nutshell,
these guidelines are undemocratic
and an effort to curb creative writing
and imagination. The question is, do
people and writers of this county
89

have the freedom to criticise a political party or not? Is forcing writers

and thinkers to follow blindly the
agenda and policies of the ruling party violation of human rights or not?
If thinkers and writers are not free to
write and take part in the democratic
process, how will our democracy
move forward?
I love my nation, but cannot be
forced to blindly follow the policies of
a political party. I request each and
all to raise this concern in the media
and through political platforms to
ensure the freedom to criticise the
policies of the government.
Away from the world of censored
thoughts of the NCPUL, there seems
to be a revival of Urdu in non-Urdu
speaking circles, thanks to literary
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

festivals like Jashn-e-Rekhta. How

do you, as an Urdu novelist, look at
the phenomenon?
The interest non-Urdu speaking
people are showing in Urdu poetry,
language and ction is amazing. I
have witnessed this phenomenon at
festivals like Jashn-e-Rekhta. I have
met many youths who have learnt
the Urdu script and are now writing
both poetry and prose in Urdu. In
fact, this is because of the glamour of
the Urdu language and its cultural
heritage, and Rekhta as a neo-centre
of cultural activities is promoting
this with passion and vigour. The miserable condition of the Urdu education system was affecting the
aesthetics of the language and it was
incapable to promote talents needed
for literature.
The situation of Urdu schools
was alarming, and unfortunately in
most places the language had fallen
into the hands of religious people
who were more enthusiastic towards
religious values contrary to the traditions of the Urdu language and culture.
It has become fashionable to use
Urdu in social circles, even grace
mushairas. Yet the language
remains delinked from the
economy. How does one correct this
anomaly?
This disgrace was caused by the
political misdemeanour and the
dirty communal mindset that had
held the Urdu language, rather than
political personalities, responsible
for the partition of India. Thus, Urdu
was delinked from economic activities. This was a collective crime
against a purely Indian language,
and this can only be rectied if the
political class rises above communal
politics and wishes to do justice to
Urdu.
Last year you were among the rst
to return the Sahitya Akademi
Award you got for your work Khuda
Ke Saye Mein There have been
allegations since then that the
award wapsi was politically
motivated. And the authors and
artistes who were so vocal during
that phase were silent since the
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

Bihar elections. How do you look at

that criticism?
The allegation that the returning
of the award was politically motivated was a fabricated lie spread by
the spokespersons of a political party
which believes in manufactured hatred in our society. Creative talents,
writers and thinkers recognised the
fascist ideology which was behind
the political party. We know that at
such times it is the duty of writers to
speak the truth. The award-returning action was an effort to speak up
against the tyrannical political forces
and the fascist ideology. After that
award returning by writers, people
from different walks of life came forward and started speaking against
communal politics.
More on the intolerance debate, in
the given atmosphere, are you not a
little scared about the consequences
of what you write?
The love for the country and its
people is stronger than the fear of
intolerant forces. The intolerant
forces are against all of us who love
our country and want to stop the
fascist ideology, but history shows us
that it is the duty of writers and
thinkers to speak up against fascism.
So, the struggle against the ideology
of hate must continue without paying attention to consequences. Alice
Walker once said that activism is my
rent for living on this planet. I think
Indian writers are ready to pay the
rent.
You are not unaccustomed to
controversy. More than a decade
ago you were charged under Section
292 of the Indian Penal Code for
your work Nakhlistan ki Talash.
Has there been always an uneasy
relationship between the selfappointed guardians of public
morality and a writer zealously
guarding his creative space?
Exactly. There are forces against
creative expression and there are
writers who believe in the freedom of
expression and struggle for it. This
struggle is very old. However, we also
know that in many countries writers
have got complete creative freedom.
The ght for the freedom of expres90

sion will yield result one day, and

that day Article 292 will be removed
from the IPC or amended. That day
writers will breathe in peace as there
will be no fear of self-appointed
guardians of morality.
Given a layered social crisis that we
are experiencing today, do you think
the time is ripe for a new
Progressive Writers Movement? Is
there a need to raise ones voice
against competitive communalism,
rampant casteism and the incessant
ow of wealth to a handful of
capitalists?
The entire JNU episode is a
message, and it would be in the interest of the nation that our political
class read it out, sooner than later.
This country is not capable of tolerating rampant casteism, communalism and hate politics or politics in the
name of religion. The writers of this
country, I mean most of them, are
progressive and against the politics
of hate. The role they have got to
play, I think, they are playing. However, it would be better if the voices
against casteism, communalism and
fascism unite and become rather
strong.
Could you elaborate on the
relevance of Urdu in an increasingly
globalised world?
Urdu is a language of love, peace
and harmony. The globalised world
is looking for peace and coexistence,
which is the ultimate goal of humanity too, and hence I think Urdu can
play a larger role in bringing people
and communities together and defeat the forces of hate.
What can we expect from your pen
next? And when will a translation of
your work be available alongside
the original?
My fourth novel, Rohzin, was
published during the Rekhta festival
in Delhi. I am sure within the next
four months the Hindi and English
translations of this novel will be
available. Moreover, my second novel, EK Mamnua Muhabbat Ki Kahani (Story of a Forbidden Love), has
been translated into Hindi and will
be published in May this year.

INTERVIEW

Marx in new light

Interview with Marcello Musto, professor of Sociological Theory at
York University. B Y S . V . R A J A D U R A I

V. GANESAN

MARCELLO
MUSTO,
39,
teaches Sociological Theory at York
University (Toronto). His books and
articles have been published worldwide in 20 languages. Among his edited and co-authored volumes,
reprinted in several editions, are
Karl Marxs Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later (2008 - Chinese
translation, CRUP, 2012); Marx for
Today (Chinese translation, CRUP,
forthcoming 2016); and The International after 150 Years: Labour
Versus Capital, Then and Now
(2015), all published by Routledge.
He has also edited the rst anthology
on the International Working Mens
Association ever realised in the English language, Workers Unite! The
International 150 Years Later
(Bloomsbury 2014). Among his
forthcoming books are the monographs Another Marx: An Essay in
Intellectual Biography (Bloomsbury
2017); The Formation of Marxs
Capital (Pluto, 2017); and the edited volume, The Marx Revival: Major Concepts and New Critiques
(Cambridge University Press, 2017).
As part of his broad academic
tour in India, he visited Chennai recently to deliver two talks and answered some questions from S.V.
Rajadurai, well-known Tamil writer
and social activist.

A rm believer in a materialist conception of history, he [Marx] was removed from his historical
context more than any other author.
91

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

The natural executor of the realisation of this opera omnia could not
have been anyone other than the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, holder of the Nachla and
whose members had the greatest linguistic and theoretical competencies. Nevertheless, political conicts
within social democracy not only impeded the publication of the imposing mass of unpublished works by
Marx but caused the dispersal of his
manuscripts, compromising any
suggestion of a systematic edition.
Unbelievably, the German party did
not curate any, treating their literary
legacy with the maximum negligence
imaginable. None of its theoreticians
drew up a list of the intellectual estate of the two founders. Nor did they
dedicate themselves to collecting the
correspondence, extensive but extremely dispersed, despite the fact
that it was clearly a very useful source
of clarication, if not a continuation,
of their writings.
The rst publication of the complete works, Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA), occurred only in
the 1920s, at the initiative of David
Borisovi Ryazanov, director of the
Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow.
This undertaking also ran aground,
however, owing to the turbulent
events of the international workers
movement, which often established
obstacles rather than favoured the
publication of their works. The Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union,
which also affected the scholars
working on the project, and the rise
of Nazism in Germany, led to the
early interruption of the publication.
The early works were only published in MEGA as late as 1927 for
Critique of Hegels Philosophy of
Right, and 1932 for Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
and The German Ideology. As had
already occurred with the second
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

You are known for your work on

Marxs reception in the world. Lets
start this interview with a topic not
very known to Indian readers of
Marx and Marxism. Could you tell us
the most important steps in the
history of the publication of Marx
and Engels complete editions?

K A RL M A RX, A N D FR I E D R I CH E N G E LS . Briefwechsel contains the

letters exchanged by Marx and Engels throughout their lives, as well as those
between them and the numerous correspondents with whom they were in
contact. More than 4,000 written by Marx and Engels (2,500 of which are
between themselves) have been found, as well as 10,000 addressed to them
by third parties. Furthermore, there is rm evidence of the existence of
another 6,000 letters, though these have not been preserved.
and third books of Capital, they were
published in editions in which they
appeared as completed works, a
choice that would later demonstrate
itself to be the source of numerous
interpretative misunderstandings.
Later still, some of the important
preparatory works for Capital, in
1933 the draft chapter 6 of Capital
on the Results of the Direct Production Process, and between 1939 and
1941 Foundations of the Critique of
Political Economy, better known as
the Grundrisse, were published in a
print run that secured only a very
limited circulation.
The rst Russian edition of the
collected works was also completed
in the Soviet Union between 1928
and 1947: the Soinenija (Complete
Works). In spite of the name, it only
included a partial number of writings, but with 28 volumes (in 33
books) it constituted the most complete collection in quantitative terms
of the two authors at the time. The
second Soinenija, then, appeared
between 1955 and 1966 in 39 volumes (42 books). From 1956 to 1968
in the German Democratic Republic,
at the initiative of the central committee of the SED, 41 volumes in 43
92

books of Marx Engels Werke (MEW)

were published. Such an edition,
however, far from complete, was
weighed down by introductions and
notes which, following the model of
the Soviet edition, guided the reader
according to the ideology of
Marxism-Leninism.
The project of a second MEGA,
planned as the faithful reproduction
with an extensive critical apparatus
of all the writings of the two thinkers,
was reborn during the 1960s. Nevertheless, these publications, begun in
1975, were also interrupted, this time
following the events of 1989. In the
1990s, with the goal of continuing
this edition, the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis of
Amsterdam and the Karl Marx Haus
in Trier formed the Internationale
Marx-Engels-Stiftung (IMES). After
a difficult phase of reorganisation, in
the course of which new editorial
principles were approved, the publication of the so-called MEGA2 commenced in 1998.
You have beneted immensely from
MEGA2 and have made signicant
contributions for understanding Karl
Marx and his thought in a new light.

The reorganisation of the ongoing edition of Marxs writings and

the transfer of the MEGA headquarters to the Berlin-Brandenburgische
Akademie
der
Wissenschaften is one of the most
signicant examples of the renewed
interest for Marxs work in the academia today.
This project, in which scholars of
various disciplinary competences
from numerous countries participate, is articulated in four sections: the
rst includes all the works, articles,
and drafts excluding Capital; the
second includes Capital and its preliminary studies starting from 1857;
the third is dedicated to the correspondence; while the fourth includes
excerpts, annotations, and marginalia. Of the 114 planned volumes,
more than 60 have already been published (more than 20 since recommencement in 1998), each of which
consists of two books: the text plus
the critical apparatus, which contains the indices and many additional notes.
The editorial acquisitions of
MEGA have produced important
results in all the four sections. In the
rst, Werke, Artikel und Entwrfe,
research was recommenced with the
publication of many new volumes, in
particular on Marxs journalistic
work. The research for the second
section of MEGA, Das Kapital
und Vorarbeiten, has concentrated
in recent years on the second and
third book of Capital.
The third section of MEGA,
Briefwechsel, contains the letters exchanged by Marx and Engels
throughout their lives, as well as
those between them and the numerous correspondents with whom they
were in contact. The total number of
the letters in this correspondence is
enormous. More than 4,000 written
by Marx and Engels (2,500 of which
are between themselves) have been
found, as well as 10,000 addressed to
them by third parties, the large majority of which were unpublished before MEGA2. Furthermore, there is
rm evidence of the existence of another 6,000 letters, though these

have not been preserved. Several new

volumes have been edited which now
allow us to re-read important phases
of Marxs intellectual biography
through the letters of those with
whom he was in contact.
The novelties of the historical
critical edition are also noticeable in
the fourth section, Exzerpte, Notizen,
Marginalien. This contains Marxs
numerous summaries and study
notes, which constitute a signicant
testimony to his mammoth work.
From his university years, he adopted the life-long habit of compiling
notebooks of extracts from the books
he read, often breaking them up with
the reections which they prompted
him to make. The Nachla of Marx
contains approximately 200 notebooks of summaries. These are essential for the knowledge and
comprehension of the genesis of his
theory and of the parts of it that he
didnt have the chance to develop as
he wished. The conserved extracts,
which cover the long arch of time
from 1838 until 1882, are written in
eight languagesGerman, Ancient
Greek, Latin, French, English, Italian, Spanish and Russianand treat
the widest range of disciplines. They

V. GANESAN

Can you tell us about this project?

They are my
slaves and have
to obey my will,
Marx said of his
books.
93

were taken from texts of philosophy,

art, religion, politics, law, literature,
history, political economy, international relations, technology, mathematics,
physiology,
geology,
mineralogy, agronomy, ethnology,
chemistry, and physics, as well as
newspaper and journal articles, parliamentary reports, statistics, reports,
and
publications
of
government officesas amongst
these are the famous Blue Books, in
particular Reports of the inspectors of
factories, which contained investigations of great importance for his
studies. This immense mine of
knowledge, in large part still unpublished, was the building site of Marxs
critical theory. The fourth section of
MEGA2, planned for 32 volumes,
will provide access to it for the rst
time.
BOOKS, INSTRUMENTS OF
WORK

This is very interesting. Can you give

us the example of one special
volume you really nd useful for the
new research on Marx?
Well, I think Id mention the volume IV/32. If Marxs manuscripts,
before being published, knew numerous ups and downs, the books
owned by Marx and Engels suffered
an even worse fate. After Engels
death, the two libraries that contained their books with interesting
marginalia and underlinings were
ignored and in part dispersed and
only subsequently reconstructed and
catalogued with difficulty. The volume Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels,
Die Bibliotheken von Karl Marx und
Friedrich Engels (IV/32) is in fact
the fruit of 75 years of research. It
consists of an index of 1,450 books in
2,100 volumesor two-thirds of
those owned by Marx and Engels
which includes notes of all the pages of each volume on which there are
annotations. It is a publication in advance which will be integrated when
MEGA2 is completed by the index of
books not available today (the total
number of those that have been recovered is 2,100 books in 3,200 volumes),
with
indications
of
marginalia, present in 40,000 pages
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

of 830 texts, and the publication of

comments on readings taken in the
margins of the volumes. As many
who were in close contact with Marx
have noted, he did not consider
books as objects of luxury, but instruments of work. He treated them
badly, folding the corners of pages,
and underlining in them. They are
my slaves and have to obey my will,
he said of his books. On the other
hand, he indulged in them with extreme devotion, to the point of dening himself as a machine
condemned to devour books in order
to expel them, in a different form, on
the dunghill of history. To be able to
know some of his readingsand one
should nevertheless remember that
his library gives only a partial crosssection of the tireless work that he
conducted for decades in the British
Museum in Londonas well as his
comments in relation to these, constitute a precious resource for the
reconstruction of his research. It also
helps to refute the false hagiographical Marxist-Leninist interpretation
that has often represented his
thought as the fruit of a sudden lightning strike and not, as it was in reality, as an elaboration full of
theoretical elements derived from
predecessors and contemporaries.
What in your opinion is the
contribution of Engels for shaping
and developing Marxism?
After Marxs death in 1883, Friedrich Engels was the rst to dedicate
himself to the very difficult task
due to the dispersion of the material, obscurity of language and the illegibility of the handwritingof
editing his friends legacy. His work
concentrated on reconstruction and
selection from the original materials,
on the publication of unedited or incomplete texts and, at the same time,
on the republication and translation
of writings already known.
Even if there were exceptions,
such as the case of Theses on Feuerbach, edited in 1888 as an appendix
to his Ludwig Feuerbach and End of
classical German philosophy, and
Critique of the Gotha Programme,
which came out in 1891, Engels focussed almost exclusively on the ediFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

torial work for the completion of

Capital, of which only the rst volume was published before Marxs
death. This undertaking, lasting
more than a decade, was pursued
with the explicit intention of realising a connected and as far as possible complete work (Preface to
Capital, vol. II).
Previously, however, Engels had
already directly contributed to a
process of theoretical systematisation with his own writings. Appearing in 1879, Anti-Dhring, dened
by Engels as the more or less connected exposition of the dialectical
method and of the communist world
outlook championed by Marx and
myself, became a crucial point of
reference in the formation of Marxism as a system and its differentiation from the eclectic socialism
widespread at the time. Evolution of
Socialism from Utopia to Science had
even more importance: it was a reelaboration, for the purposes of popularisation, of three chapters of the
previous work, published for the rst
time in 1880, and enjoyed a success
comparable to that of Manifesto of
the Communist Party.
Even if there was a clear difference between this type of popularisation, undertaken in open polemic
with the simplistic short-cuts of the
encyclopaedic syntheses, and that
adopted by the next generation of the
German Social Democracy (SPD),
Engels recourse to the natural sciences sometimes opened the way to
the evolutionistic conception of social Darwinism which, soon after, in
particular with Kautsky, would also
be affirmed in the workers
movement.
Having in mind the forthcoming
150th anniversary of Marxs
Capital, what is the contribution of
Engels for the publication of Marxs
masterpiece?
Many of the latest philological
insights of the new historical-critical
edition highlight a peculiar feature of
Marxs work: incompleteness. Marx
left many more manuscripts than
printed writings. This was also the
case of Capital, whose entire publication, including all the preparatory
94

works from 1857 onwards, has been

brought to its accomplishment in the
second section of MEGA2 only in
2013.
After Marxs death, Engels was
the rst to tackle the challenging enterprisegiven the dispersion of the
materials, the oddity of Marxs language and the illegibility of his handwritingof
publishing
the
fragmentary Nachla of his friend.
This series of difficulties is especially
apparent in the third book of Capital, the only one to which Marx was
unable, even roughly, to provide a
denitive form. The intense editing
activity on which Engels focussed his
efforts in the period between 1885
and 1894 resulted in a transition
from a very rough text, mainly comprising thoughts recorded in statu
nascendi and preliminary notes, to
an organic text.
If we, for example, consider Capital vol. III, Engels had to make determinative editorial decisions. The
most recent philological acquisitions
estimate that Engels editorial interventions in this text amount to circa
5,000, a quantity much greater than
that which had been assumed up until now. The modications consist in
additions and cancellations of passages in the text, modications of its
structure, insertion of titles of paragraphs, substitutions of concepts, reelaborations of some formulations of
Marx, or translations of words
adopted from other languages. The
text given to the printers only
emerged at the end of this work.
Marxs manuscripts of Capital
recently published by MEGA2 depict,
with unequivocal exactitude, the
course traversed by them up to their
published version and, throwing into
sharp relief the number of interventions in the textfar greater than
had till now been hypothesised; they
allow us to understand the strengths
and weaknesses of Engels in his role
as editor.
MISINTERPRETING MARX

But you have also blamed some

Marxists for misinterpreting Marx.
Is that correct?
Marxs

thought,

indisputably

V. GANESAN

critical and open, fell foul of the cultural climate in Europe at the end of
the 19th century. As never before, it
was a culture pervaded by the popularity of systematic conceptionsabove all by Darwinism. In order to
respond to it, the newly born Marxism, which had precociously become
an orthodoxy in the pages of the review Die Neue Zeit under Kautskys
editorship, rapidly conformed to this
model.
A schematic doctrine took shape,
an elementary evolutionistic interpretation soaked in economic determinism: the Marxism of the period
of
the
Second
International
(18891914). Guided by a rm
though naive conviction of the automatic forward progress of history,
and therefore of the inevitable replacement of capitalism by socialism, it demonstrated itself to be
incapable of comprehending actual
developments, and, breaking the
necessary link with revolutionary
praxis, it produced a sort of fatalistic
quietism that promoted stability for
the existing order.
The theory of crisis [Zusammenbruchstheorie] or the thesis of the
impending end of bourgeois-capitalist society, which found its most favourable expression in the economic
crisis of the great depression unfolding during the 20 years after 1873,
was proclaimed as the fundamental
essence of scientic socialism.
Marxs affirmations, aiming at the
delineation of the dynamic principles of capitalism and, more generally, at describing the tendencies of
development within them, were
transformed into universally valid
historical laws from which it was
possible to deduce the course of
events, even particular details.
The idea of a contradictory ago-

Marxs thought, indisputably critical

and open, fell foul of the cultural
climate in Europe at the end of the 19th
century.

nised capitalism, autonomously destined to break down, was also

present in the theoretical framework
of the rst entirely Marxist platform of a political party, The Erfurt
Programme of 1891 and in Kautskys
commentary, which announced how
inexorable economic development
leads to the bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production with the
necessity of a law of nature. The creation of a new form of society in place
of the current one is no longer something merely desirable but has become inevitable. It was the clearest
and most signicant representation
of the intrinsic limits of the conception of the time, as well as of its vast
distance from the man who had been
its inspiration.
Even Eduard Bernstein, who
conceived of socialism as possibility
and not as inevitability and hence
signalled a discontinuity with the interpretations that were dominant in
that period, read Marx in an equally
articial way, which didnt differ at
all from other readings of the time,
and contributed to the diffusion of an
image of him, by means of the wide
resonance of the Bernstein-Debatte,
that was equally false and
instrumental.
In your writings, you have extended
your critique also to Soviet Union
and Russian Marxism. Is that true?
Russian Marxism, which in the
course of the 20th century played a
fundamental role in the popularisation of Marxs thought, followed this
trajectory of systematisation and
vulgarisation with even greater rigidity.
Indeed, for its most important
pioneer, Georgii Plekhanov, Marxism is a complete conception of the
world, imbued with a simplistic mo95

nism on the base of which the superstructural transformations of society

proceed simultaneously with economic modications. Despite the
harsh ideological conicts of these
years, many of the theoretical elements characteristic of the Second
International were carried over into
those that would mark the cultural
matrix of the Third International.
This continuity was clearly manifest
in Theory of Historical Materialism
published in 1921 by Nikolai Bukharin, according to which in nature and
society there is a denite regularity, a
xed natural law. The determination
of this natural law is the rst task of
science. The outcome of this social
determinism, completely concentrated on the development of the
productive forces, generated a doctrine according to which the multiplicity of causes that make their
action felt in society does not contradict in the least the existence of a
single law of social evolution.
With the construal of MarxismLeninism, the process of corruption
of Marxs thought was given its most
denitive manifestation. Deprived of
its function as a guide to action, theory became its a posteriori justication. The point of no return was
reached with Diamat (Dialekticeskij materializm), the world outlook
of the Marxist-Leninist party. J.V.
Stalins booklet of 1938, On Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, which had a wide
distribution, xed the essential elements of this doctrine: the phenomena of collective life are regulated by
necessary laws of social development, perfectly recognisable, and
the history of society appears as a
necessary development of society,
and the study of the history of society
becomes a science. That means that
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

What are your conclusions, then?

In conclusion, the relation
tween the promulgation and
non-schematisation of thought,
tween its popularisation and
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

bethe
bethe

EUGENE HOSHIKO/AP

the science of the history of society,

despite all the complexity of the phenomena of social life, can become a
science just as exact as, for example,
biology, capable of utilising the laws
of development of society in order to
make use of them in practice and
that, consequently, the task of the
party of the proletariat is to base its
activity on these laws. It is evident
how the misunderstanding of the
concepts of the scientic and science reached its apex. The scienticity of Marxs method, based on
scrupulous and coherent theoretical
criteria, was replaced by methodologies of the natural sciences in which
contradiction was not involved. Finally, the superstition of the objectivity of historical laws, according to
which these operate like laws of nature independently of mens will, was
affirmed.
Next to this ideological catechism, the most rigid and stringent
dogmatism was able to nd ample
space. Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy
imposed an inexible monism that
also produced perverse effects on the
writings of Marx. Unquestionably,
with the Russian revolution Marxism enjoyed a signicant moment of
expansion and circulation in geographical zones and social classes
from which it had, until then, been
excluded.
Nevertheless, the circulation of
`
the texts involved far more manuals
of the party, handbooks and Marxist
anthologies on various arguments,
than texts by Marx himself. Furthermore, while the censorship of some
texts increased, others were dismembered and manipulated: for example,
by practices of extrapolation into
purposeful pointed assemblages of
citations. The recourse to these was a
result of preordained ends, and they
were treated in the same way that the
bandit Procrustes reserved for his
victims: if they were too long, they
were amputated, if too short,
lengthened.

Russian
Marxism played a
fundamental role
in the
popularisation of
Marxs thought.
need not to impoverish it theoretically, is without doubt very difficult to
realise, even more so the critical and
deliberately non-systematic thought
of Marx. At any rate, nothing worse
could have happened to him.
Distorted by different perspectives into being a function of contingent political necessities, he was
assimilated to these and reviled in
their name. From being critical, his
theory was utilised as Bible-like verses and out of these exegeses was born
the most unthinkable paradox. Far
from heeding his warning against
writing receipts [] for the cookshops of the future, he was transformed, instead, into the father of a
new social system.
A very rigorous critic and never
complacent with his conclusions, he
became instead the source of the
most obstinate doctrinarianism. A
rm believer in a materialist conception of history, he was removed from
his historical context more than any
other author. From being certain
that the emancipation of the work96

ing class has to be the work of the

workers themselves, he was entrapped, on the contrary, in an ideology that saw the primacy of political
avant-gardes and the party prevail in
their role as proponents of class-consciousness and leaders of the revolution. An advocate of the idea that the
fundamental condition for the maturation of human capacities was the
reduction of the working day, he was
assimilated to the productivist creed
of Stakhanovism. Convinced of the
need for the abolition of the state, he
found himself identied with it as its
bulwark. Interested like few other
thinkers in the free development of
the individuality of men, arguing
against bourgeois right which hides
social disparity behind mere legal
equality, that right, instead of being
equal, would have to be unequal, he
was accommodated into a conception that neutralised the richness of
the collective dimension of social life
into
the
indistinctness
of
homogenisation.
And what are your nal thoughts
about the usefulness of MEGA2 for a
new generation of scholars of Marx?
Thanks to the important new
publications of MEGA2, the Marx
who emerges is in many respects different from the one presented by so
many opponents and ostensible followers. It is not at all an unknown
Marx, as some scholars argue exaggerating, but the stony-faced statue
of Marx who pointed the way to the
future with dogmatic certainty on
the squares of Moscow and Beijing
has given way to the image of a deeply self-critical thinker, who, feeling
the need to devote energy to further
study and checking of his own arguments, left a major part of his lifetime work unnished.
Any future rigorous contribution
to the research on Marx, in India as
elsewhere in the world, will have to
take into account the new textual acquisitions of MEGA2.
From them emerges the richness
of a problematic and polymorphous
thought and of a horizon whose distance Marx Forschung (the research
on Marx) has still so many paths to
travel.

DEBATE

Nationalism,
then and now

SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP

What is happening in India today is a transition from liberal secular

nationalism to religious fundamentalist nationalism. B Y K . N . P A N I K K A R

A WELCOME consequence of
the recent despicable incident of
slapping sedition charges on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is the widespread
discussion it generated on the complex and multilayered character of
Indian nationalism. I am not referring to the shouting sessions in the
visual media, aired in the name of
debate and news analysis, but to the
efforts by students and teachers of
several universities in the country to
explore the meaning of nationalism
and its changing contours. The notable and innovative of them were a
series of sit-ins organised by the
teachers and students of JNU in

A N RS S M A RC H in Allahabad in March 2014. During the last 50 years, the

RSShasspread its net very wide by sponsoring a variety of outts that can
intervene in almost all aspects of social life.

which scholars of different disciplines raised searching and provocative questions on nationalism.
Understandable because that is
what a university is meant for. An
academic venture it certainly was,
but it was also a unique form of protest against the highhandedness of
the state in the name of nationalism.
What triggered this novel form of
protest was the denigration and demonisation of JNU as an institution
and its students in general as antinationals, terrorists and anarchists
97

whose activities are nothing short of

sedition. That even after about 70
years of independence from colonial
rule, wrested after a popular and protracted struggle for civil liberties, it is
rather ironical that the independent
state should invoke the same laws
which the colonial rulers had used to
suppress dissent and deny freedom
of expression. It is not fortuitous,
though. It is occasioned by the communal right-wing takeover of the
government of India by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the conseFRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

quent resurgence of Hindu religious

fundamentalism directed by the
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS) and its affiliates.
THE CONCEPT OF
NATIONALISM

When the national movement was

entering its mass phase in the 1920s,
the different possibilities inherent in
nationalism had come under critical
scrutiny. The dialogue between Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi, in
the wake of the violence that erupted
during the course of the non-cooperation movement, is a pointer towards
the anxieties and apprehensions
aroused by aggressive nationalism.
While the latter emphasised the
emancipatory potential of nationalism, the former drew attention to the
aggressive possibilities inherent in it.
A little later, Jawaharlal Nehru tried
to explore the historical roots of nationalism in his highly acclaimed
work, The Discovery of India, which
is worth a read for every Indian. Except for these two instances, there
was no notable attempt in this direction.
The other participants in the anti-colonial struggle did not carry forward the debate, possibly because
nationalism had already become an
inuential sentiment by that time.
There could be other intellectual and
political reasons. For instance, was it
because there were not many who
could match the intellectual ability of
these three? Was it also because patriotism was conated with nationalism in popular imagination? The
state was seen as an alien imposition
and the nation, on the other hand,
was considered a given by history.
The intellectual engagement was
more with the virtues of composite
nationalism and its historical trajectory rather than with the possible
pitfalls of nationalism.
I may digress a little bit into Chinese history by way of contrast. The
Chinese, who had faced an equally
complex situation, adopted a more
pragmatic path. After the nationalist
revolution of 1911, with the warlords
emerging as centres of power in different parts of China, the authority of
the state had declined and multiple
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

centres of power had emerged. The

nation lacked cohesiveness and there
was nothing tangible to bind the people together. When Sun Yat-sen, the
leader of the nationalist revolution,
invoked the metaphor of loose sand
to describe the Chinese situation, he
was trying to indicate the unity and
diversity of the country and its fragmented polity and the need to construct unity from diversity. In order
to achieve that, Sun Yat-sen believed
that the consciousness of being a nation had to be imbibed in the popular
mind. Towards that end he undertook a journey across the country,
reminiscent of the journey Gandhi
undertook after his return from
South Africa, although for entirely
different reasons.
Gandhis was a journey of discovery, whereas Sun Yat-sens was an
attempt to bring the disparate elements of the nation within the cultural-political logic of nationalism.
But there was similarity in one aspect: both shared the conviction that
they can realise their goals only if
they identied with the masses. In
Lord Attenboroughs celebrated movie on Gandhi, there is a frame which
shows Gandhi discarding his upper
cloth, which is a symbolic representation of establishing his identity
with the common man. Sun Yat-sen
could not make any such identity and
hence his nationalist project went
awry. Gandhi, on the other hand, not
only empathised with the poor, but
strove hard to approximate his lifestyle with that of the common man.
It was this identication with the
masses which enabled him to galvanise the nation to effect a transition
from colonial rule to an independent
India. In the amazing story of this
transition lies the spirit of the making of modern nationalism of India.
NATION AND NATIONALISM

It is arguable that India as a nation

did not exist before nationalism,
even though efforts are afoot to establish its antiquity tracing back to
the Indus Valley Civilisation. Earlier,
the claim had stopped with the Vedic
times; with the new-found condence imparted by Narendra Modi,
the origin of Hindus has been pushed
98

back at least by a millennium. Even if

the claim is true, as Ernest Gellner
remarked, nations do not create nationalism; it is the other way round:
nationalism creates nations. Further, Nationalism is not the awakening
of
nations
to
self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist, says
Benedict Anderson.
The invention of the nation is
contingent upon the ability to imagine a political community on the basis of perceived common interests. In
India this commonness was engendered by the controlled conditions
created by colonial modernity. In
contrast, the Hindu nationalists
trace nationalism to the Vedic times.
They are reading history in the reverse and thus celebrating presentism. The shining example of this
distortion is the Hindi serial on the
life of Asoka, who swears by Akhand
Bharat every day.
There were several empires and
kingdoms in India in the pastthe
Maurya, the Chera, the Pandya, the
Chalukya, the Mughal, the Bahmani,
and so onbut there were no nations
or nationalisms. These kingdoms
could at best generate dynastic patriotism, which is a medieval virtue.
This does not mean that the spirit of
nationalism did not draw upon the
past. It did to a good measure from
history, culture, politics and geography. The appeal to the past had two
strandssecular and religious. Anticolonial nationalism derived its credo from the secular tradition, which
privileged the universalist trend in
the Indian socio-religious thought.
Therefore Asoka and Akbar on the
one hand and Ram Mohan Roy and
Vivekananda on the other became
part of the nationalist pantheon.
The spirit of nationalism is difficult to dene. Its inspiration lies in a
variety of sources. Territorial patriotism, cultural identity and political
tradition contribute to its making.
But it is as much a result of structural
changes in society as the rise of new
classes and new technologies. As
such, nationalism has different trajectories of manifestation in different countries. In Europe, it made its
appearance through the formation of

politanism which served as a check

on nationalism going overboard. The
Indian Constitution, of which B.R.
Ambedkar was the main architect,
was conceived as an instrument embodying the democratic-secular-liberal principles. The Constitution, in
fact, contains the essence of Indian
nationalism.

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

WEAKNESSES OF
NATIONALISM

SA NT I N I K E T A N , 194 0 : While Gandhi emphasised the emancipatory

potential of nationalism, Tagoredrew attention to the aggressive
possibilitiesinherent in it.

nation-states, whereas in India it is a

product of the struggle against colonialism.
It was anti-colonialism that
brought the people of India together
on a common platform. The Indian
National Congress at the time of its
formation described itself as a platform for the coming together of the
people of India. The conditions for
the coming together were indeed
occasioned by colonial rule, but Indian nationalism was not a dispensation of colonialism. Its emergence
was not because of but in spite of
colonialism. It was not a movement
which was purely oppositional, but
one which addressed the tasks of
nation-building.
Apart from being a modern phenomenon, nationalism was also a
modernising phenomenon. Its ideological legacy was liberalism, rooted
in the Enlightenment values of humanism, rationalism and universalism. That is why the early national
awakening in India was accompanied by a critique of social and religious practices which were not in
sync with modernity.
The invocation of the practices of
the past as represented in the religious texts was part of the strategy of
reform and not an attempt to resurrect tradition. The approach to tradi-

tion was critical, innovative and

instrumentalist.
A dening feature of anti-colonial nationalism, both in its ideological
articulation and political practice,
was secularism. It recognised the
multicultural and multireligious
character of Indian society and stood
for non-discrimination on the basis
of caste, creed or religion. The universalist and humanist traditions, as
expressed in the Hindu religious
scriptures and the teachings of 19th
century reformers and the mutuality
developed among the people
through religious-social interaction,
led to the notion of secular-liberal
democracy. Liberalism was its political creed.
Throughout the national liberation struggle, its perspectives and
practices were informed by the principles of liberalism, except among
the revolutionary nationalists and
the communists.
Even while ghting the British,
the Indian nationalists remained
great admirers of British liberalism
as it provided a space for dissent and
discussion. Both before and after Independence, attempts were made to
institutionalise a political system
based on fundamental civic rights
like freedom of speech and expression. It promoted a sense of cosmo99

In a highly differentiated society like

that of India, the ideal is never the
real. There were far too many ssures
in society which impinged upon the
political project of national liberation. The most glaring of them was
the non-inclusiveness of the marginalised. The notion that nationalism
was the expression of an overarching
contradiction between the people of
India and colonialism may well be
right. But the people is an aggregative category which consists of an array of social and political groups with
conicting interests. When the interest of any group is seen to be compromised, nationalism suffers a
setback.
Although the national movement
took cognisance of social differentiations, no solution was found to resolve the internal contradictions. As
a result, the marginalised sections of
society, like the Adivasis, Dalits, minorities and women, were not adequately incorporated into the
mainstream anti-colonial nationalism. Gandhi tried to overcome this
through various strategies like persuasion, remonstration and outright
disapproval and by launching a constructive programme. But their
grievances could not be resolved
within the limits of nationalist politics because its focus was on the binary contradiction between people and
colonialism. The internal contradictions were not overlooked but were
subordinated to the demands of primary contradictions.
Those who focussed on internal
contradictionscaste, class and genderand sought to recover the rights
of the oppressed and the marginalised in society opted out of the nationalist mainstream. The critical
attitude of Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

and B.R. Ambedkar towards the national movement was mainly guided
by this perspective. Raising the question of the limitations of anti-colonial nationalism, Periyar rhetorically
and famously asked: Is the Brahmins rule swarajya for the paraya?
Is the cats rule swarajya for the rat?
Is the landlords rule swarajya for
the peasant? Is the owners rule swarajya for the worker?
Unfortunately these questions
still remain relevant. Nevertheless, it
foregrounded the all-important
question as to whose interest nationalism represented.
The question of the place of minorities also generated strain within
the movement. The story of the national movement was not of an uninterrupted joyous journey to the
secular goal. On the contrary, the
progress of the national movement
was offset by the simultaneous
growth of religious communitarian
consciousnesses, among both Hindus and Muslims. The roots of this
separateness can be traced to the
community-based religious reform
movements in the 19th century. The
early movements like the Brahmo
Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj were
universalist in their outlook. But later movements like the Arya Samaj
tilted towards revivalism. Their penchant for cultural defence against colonialism earned them a social base.
They played a powerful role, particularly in north India, in generating
religious solidarity among Hindus.
Simultaneously, the Wahhabi
and Aligarh movements helped the
formation of Muslim religious consciousness. Based on this foundation, a religious view of the nation
gained ground with the formation of
political parties with religious association, like the Muslim League in
1905 and the Hindu Mahasabha in
1914. However, the national movement tried to distance itself from religious identity, but it did not entirely
succeed in making the dissociation
real. An undercurrent of religious
identity persisted throughout the national movement, among both Muslims and Hindus. Was it a result of
the inability to demarcate the cultural from the religious? Indian nationFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

alism placed rather unwarranted

faith on cultural synthesis, whereas
cultural differences based on religion
continued to be powerful. That colonialism contributed to the widening
of the gulf is a different matter.
The Indian nation which
emerged from the anti-colonial
struggle was a fractured one, torn
asunder by internal contradictions of
religion, caste and class. Yet, anticolonial nationalism did not compromise with religious fundamentalism which enabled India to emerge
as a secular democratic republic, despite Partition and the formation of
Pakistan. This success, though partial, can be attributed to the secular
democratic character of nationalism
that the anti-colonial struggle advocated and practised.
RISE OF RELIGIOUS
NATIONALISM

At the same time, the religious element became an integral part of the
political discourse. As a result, a new
narrative of nationalism emergedthe narrative of religious nationalism. Although the Islamic state
of Pakistan was formed in 1947, it
took a long time for Hindu communalism to make its presence felt in
independent India. The RSS, which
was formed in 1925, had a fairly chequered career. It not only did not
take part in the anti-colonial movement, but chose to collaborate with
colonialism. This unpatriotic stand
accounts for its initial unpopularity.
The assassination of Gandhi by
Nathuram Godse, who had links
with the RSS, made it a political outcast. Until the imposition of the
Emergency, the RSS was not able to
make much headway. What gave it a
llip and helped it to enter the mainstream was the Emergency. The
Emergency was not only an assault
on Indian democracy; it also opened
the way for the future success of communal forces.
The post-Emergency situation
greatly helped the Jana Sangh (the
earlier incarnation of the BJP) to
wriggle out of its political isolation
and untouchability. It also earned
political legitimacy by being part of a
formation created in opposition to
100

the Emergency. The main beneciary of this access to state power was
the RSS. It used this opportunity to
the hilt to spread its inuence to areas to which it had no access earlier,
like Dalits, Adivasis and the backward castes. That provided the
springboard to launch the future offensive.
The waning of the liberal forces
and the decline of the Left helped it
to achieve its objective, namely the
capture of state power. Consequently, today the RSS controls almost all
apparatuses of the state. Although
the BJP is technically the ruling party, the real power is vested with the
RSS. Narendra Modi is a gurehead
who acts at the behest of the RSS. It
appears that a convenient arrangement has been worked out between
the political and cultural sectors: the
political leaders are given enough
space and freedom to practise their
right-wing ideas and the cultural
maa is let loose to pursue its divisive
activities intended to bolster the
cause of Hindu Rashtra.
The liberal-democratic-secular
nationalism is under considerable
strain today and it is being replaced
through state intervention by an alternative discourse of nationalism
based on religious identity. Such a
possibility has been created by the
sustained and silent grass-roots level
work done by the hydra-headed RSS.
During the last 50 years, the RSS has
spread its net very wide by sponsoring a variety of outts which can intervene in almost all aspects of social
life. Posturing itself as a cultural organisation, it has managed to mark
its presence on all important occasions in urban localities and villages.
By doing so, it has succeeded in creating goodwill at the grass-roots level
which comes in handy during the
time of elections. Given this social
reach, it is not easy to dislodge the
RSS from power.
The cause of the BJP is also
helped by certain structural changes
in society during the last two decades
owing to the neoliberal policies pursued by the government. One of the
consequences of this policy has been
the growth of a large crisis-ridden
middle class. Its crisis has been

mainly cultural, as it found it difficult

to reconcile its new-found modernity
with the inherited cultural backwardness. It sought the resolution of
this conict in the obscurantism and
superstitions propagated by the Hindu fundamentalist organisations.
Narendra Modis hollow and
meaningless rhetoric and the promises to turn the country into a heaven
appeals to the vanity of this frustrated class. Modi has assigned to the
corporates, both national and international, the privilege of presiding
over this transformation of India into a religious state.
The combination of corporatism
with religious fundamentalism ensures the RSS both material support
and ideological inspiration.
TOWARDS AUTHORITARIANISM

The RSS, which controls most apparatuses of the state, is in the process
of replacing the liberal-secular-anticolonial nationalism with aggressive
Hindu religious nationalism, which
in the vocabulary of communalism is
cultural nationalism.
It gives the impression that there
is a disjunction between cultural nationalism and secular nationalism.
In fact, it is a false dichotomy. Cultural nationalism is very much a part
of secular nationalism. The problem
is the way culture is conceived.
To the RSS, Indian culture is
Hindu culture as dened by Vinayak
Damodar Savarkar in Hindutva and
M.S. Golwalkar in Bunch of
Thoughts. Based on these sources,
the Sangh Parivar has been trying to
forefront a concept of nationalism
which is anachronistic. It is essentially anchored on what Meera Nanda calls the fabrication of heritage
through a domestication of the past.
With scant regard to the historical experience of the people of India,
it tries to freeze history to an imagined glorious period in which Bharat
Varsha excelled the world, in science,
technology, philosophy and what
not. It is intended to give a false sense
of pride in the past. It shrouds history in myth and science in saffron.
What we are witnessing is a transition from liberal secular nationalism to a religious fundamentalist

nationalism. The future emerging

out of this is rather frightening.
Reminiscent of Golwalkars demonisation of Muslims and communists as enemies of the nation, all
those who raise voices of dissent are
being targeted as anti-national. Kanhaiya Kumar, the student leader of
JNU, is the latest example. He is unlikely to be the last. He was arrested
for sedition for raising slogan for azadi from deprivation and oppression
and kept in jail for nearly three
weeks. Similar incidents are taking
place in other universities and cultural institutions all over the country. They are not widely known
because they are less publicised by
the media.
In the universities of Banaras,
Lucknow, Delhi, Rajasthan, Pune
and so on students are being victimised for their political views. The
vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim
University was insulted in the presence of his colleagues, and Amit Sengupta, a widely respected intellectual
teaching in the Indian Institute of
Mass Communication, has been
shunted out of Delhi for expressing
critical views on the suicide of Rohith
Vemula. The Sangh Parivar seems to
be searching for anti-nationalists in
every nook and corner of the country.
Amit Shah, the BJP president, discovered recently that JNU had taken
an anti-national stand at the time of
the Babri Masjid demolition. A climate of intolerance and intimidation
has come to prevail in the country.
There is enough indication that
the Indian state is moving towards
authoritarianism. It is pointed out
that most of the characteristics of
fascism listed by Umberto Eco are
already present in India. It may as
well be. Nevertheless it is not yet a
fascist state. The characterisation is
important because our reading of the
phenomenon determines the nature
of resistance. Fascism will not allow
citizens to assemble in a public space,
to voice their opposition to the state.
But the emerging fascist tendencies
are unmistakableauthoritarianism, religious hatred, violence and
presentism. Yet, there is still some
manoeuvring space. It is possibly because the state machinery has not
101

been fully hegemonised or coerced

into submission. In this context, the
Army, the police and the judiciary,
though apparatuses of the state but
expected to function impartially in a
democracy, have a crucial role to
play. The police are easily susceptible
to the pressure of the government, as
demonstrated by the chief of the Delhi Police in dealing with the students
of JNU.
The heterogeneous character of
the armed forces with an independent command structure and multiethnic composition, and an impartial
and independent judiciary are the
possible bulwarks against an authoritarian takeover.What is happening
in India today is a deliberate attempt
to transform the character of the Indian nation and Indian nationalism
from democratic-secular-liberal to
religious-fundamentalist.
Those
who oppose this project in order to
safeguard the liberal-democratic
character of the nation are termed
anti-nationalists and charged with
sedition. The success or failure of this
communal agenda will largely depend upon the resistance from civil
society. How civil society responds to
this challenge is a matter of great
consequence to the nation.
In these trying times, there are
two sections of society the people
look upon to lead the way for defending civil rightsthe intellectuals and
the media. It is a good augury that a
fairly large section of intellectuals
have come out in strength to oppose
the attack on the freedom of expression and the saffronisation of institutions. They have been able to sense
the direction in which the Indian
state is moving. At the same time, the
overwhelming majority have chosen
to remain silent. This is true of the
media also. While a section of the
media has been critical, the others
have been either objective or clearly
partisan. Some have even chosen to
be the ag-bearers and brand ambassadors of the government.
Long back, Rabindranath Tagore
cautioned us that nationalism is a
great menace. The time has come to
ask the question whether we are living in a time when nationalism has
actually become a great menace.
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

ESSAY

COLONIAL RELIC
The law of sedition was
introduced by the British colonial
regime to stie dissent. The time
has now come for a movement
against the way in which the
current regime is using it.
BY A.G. NOORANI

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

HE history of Indias freedom movement is the

history of the law of sedition in India and its
systematic use by the British colonial rulers as a
weapon to crush the freedom movement. That history is
studded with notable trials of its leaders on charges of
sedition. When India became independent, its leaders

expressed their loathing of that law, which the British

had maliciously inscribed on the statute book.
None expressed the sentiment better than the rst
and greatest Prime Minister everJawaharlal Nehru.
He said in Parliament on May 29, 1951: Take again
Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code. Now so far as I
am concerned that particular section is highly objectionable and obnoxious and it should have no place both for
practical and historical reasons, if you like, in any body
of laws that we might pass. The sooner we get rid of it the
better. We might deal with that matter in other ways, in
more limited ways, as every other country does but that
particular thing, as it is, should have no place, because all
of us have had enough experience of it in a variety of ways
and apart from the logic of the situation, our urges are
against it. (Parliamentary Debates; Volume XII, Part II,
Col. 9621; emphasis added, throughout.)
It is a matter of shame that in 1962 the Supreme

B A L GA N G A D H A R T I L A K S second trial for sedition in 1908. He was sentenced to six years transportation.
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102

Court of independent India upheld Section 124 A of the

Penal Code, which denes the offence of sedition, albeit
with a tortuous proviso that made no sense. It is a matter
of disgrace that in 2016 the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
government headed by Narendra Modi should use Section 124 A to imprison student leaders and to prosecute
political leaders.
The raison detre of Section 124 was stated all too
clearly in a denitive work on the subject. (A Treatise on
the Law of Sedition and Cognate Offences in British
India, Penal and Preventive by W.R. Donogh; Thacker,
Spink & Co., Calcutta, 1891.) Donogh, a barrister who
practised in the Calcutta High Court, laid bare his motivation at the very outset in his preface. If an apology be
needed for the production of a work of this character, it
might be possible to justify it on two grounds. One is the
prominence which political offences of this type have
assumed in India; the other, the importance of the preventive legislation recently introduced on the Statutebook, which, without prejudice to previously existing
measures in pari materia, aims at a better control of the
Platform and the Press. The present work has been
designed to accomplish this object.

tion of its citizens; ruling monarchs do. English law has

its origin in the days when the monarch ruled as well as
reigned, though it persisted after he had ceased to rule.
Sedition was a short step away from treason. Secondly
the provision of imprisonment for life reveals the colonial
rulers mindset. Its purpose was to crush Indian rebels.
To Stephen the phrase liberty of the Press was mere
rhetoric. As a small mercy comments expressing disapprobation of official acts and policies were permitted
by Section 124 A but with a proviso. Those comments
must not arouse any of the dreaded emotions it listed.
This became law on November 25, 1870. It was made
even more stringent on February 18, 1898, as a result of
Justice Stracheys ruling on Section 124 A in the rst
Tilak Case (Queen Empress vs Bal Gangadhar Tilak; 22
Bom.112). He held that mere excitement or attempt to
excite the forbidden emotions sufficed to constitute sedition even if there is nothing to show that he succeeded
or that any disturbance was caused. He was upheld by
the Privy Council. Tilak was sentenced to 18 months
rigorous imprisonment.
On December 25, 1897, a Bill was moved by M.D.
Chalmers to amend the general laws relating to sedition
and cognate offences so as to make it efficient for its
COLONIALISM AND RACISM
purposes. The mover of the Bill said: Then it is urged,
Section 124 A existed as Section 113 in Thomas Babing- that the proposed clause goes further than English law,
ton Macaulays draft Penal Code of 1837, but it was and again some passages in Sir Fitzjames Stephens
omitted in the Indian Penal Code when it was enacted in speech are referred to. All I can say is this. If in 1870 he
1860. It was introduced through an amending Bill by the thought that an appeal to force was a necessary constituLaw Member of the Governor Genent of sedition, he afterwards
erals Executive Council, Sir James
changed his mind. I take it that the
Fitz James Stephen, on August 2,
offence is complete, both in India
1870. He said: This law was suband England, if it be proved that the
stantially the same as the law of Enoffender has attempted to excite disgland at the present day, though it
affection towards the government. It
was much compressed, much more
is not necessary that he should himdistinctly expressed, and freed from
self appeal to force. What he does is
a great amount of obscurity and
to excite or attempt to excite feelings
vagueness with which the law of Enof discontent which make people
gland was hampered. He then went
ready for mischief should the opporon to state how the law of England
tunity arise.
stood on this subject. It consisted of
But after all, these arguments
three parts. There was rst the Statuare more or less academic. No one in
te, commonly called the Treason-Fehis senses would contend that belony Act (II Vic., c.12); secondly, the
cause a given law is good and suitable
Common Law with regard to sediin England, it is therefore good and
tious libels; and thirdly, the law as to
suitable in India. If a rule of law exseditious words.
ists in England we may fairly considSection 124 A is, thus, deeply
er whether it is suitable to India, but
rooted in English law as its very lan- M O H A M M A D A LI J I N N AH. He
the answer to the question must alguage revealsWhoever brings successfully defended Tilak in his third ways depend on the conditions which
or attempts to bring into hatred or and last sedition trial in 1916.
prevail in India. How much licence of
contempt, or excites or attempts to
speech can be safely allowed is a quesexcite disaffection towards, the government established tion of time and place. If I smoke a cigar on the maidan it
by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for pleases me, and hurts no one else. If I smoke a cigar in the
life or with imprisonment which may extend to three powder magazine of the Fort, I endanger the lives of
years plus ne.
many, and do an act well deserving punishment. LanThe features deserve note. First, no democratic gov- guage may be tolerated in England which it is unsafe to
ernment with any self-respect would demand the affec- tolerate in India, because in India it is apt to be trans103

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

formed into action instead of passing off as harmless gas.

In legislating for India we must have regard to Indian
conditions, and we must rely mainly on the advice of
those who speak under the weight of responsibility and
have the peace and good government of India under their
charge.
The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Sir Alexander
Mackenzie, said: It is clear that a sedition law which is
adequate for a people ruled by a government of its own
nationality and faith may be inadequate, or in some
respects unsuited, for a country under foreign rule and
inhabited by many races, with diverse customs and conicting creeds. It is impossible in India to accept the test
of direct incitement to violence or intention to commit
rebellion, and limit the interference of the government to
such cases. It is not the apparent intention of the writers
or speakers so much as the tendency of the writings or
speeches which has to be regarded, and the cumulative
effect of depreciatory declamation on the minds of an
ignorant and excitable population has to be taken into
consideration.
Thus, Section 124 A is rooted not only in colonialism
but also in racism.
Donogh reproduced with enthusiastic approval opinions by other colonial gures in India to the same effect,
namely that Indians were an ignorant and excitable
peoplean outlook shared, doubtless, by those who in
2016 slap charges of sedition on university students and
political opponents.

G AN D HI , an undated photograph. His trial for sedition in

1922 has become a legend for his admission of
responsibility for the violence in Chauri Chaura and for
the judges generous remarks while pronouncing the
sentence.

PROGRESSIVELY DRACONIAN

Originally, Section 124 A penalised excitement of disaffection alone. The 1898 amendment added hatred or
contempt. The warning was clearyou must neither
hate the British rulers nor despise them. This is the form
in which Section 124 A exists still on our statute book.
Strachey had warned: Disaffection may be excited in a
thousand different ways. A poem, an allegory, a drama, a
philosophical or historical discussion, may be used for
the purpose of exciting disaffection just as much as direct
attacks upon the government. You have to look through
the form, and look to the real object: you have to consider
whether the form of a poem or discussion is genuine, or
whether it has been adopted merely to disguise the real
seditious intention of the writer. There followed a spate
of repressive press legislation.
Mention of the word sedition aroused in Indians
the very emotions of hatred and contempt for British that
Section 124 A sought to forbid. Emotions or opinions
cannot be stied by legislation. The trials for sedition that
followed further aroused nationalist feelings.
Tilaks trial stirred people as none before and since
did. Deance came naturally to this brave man. His rst
trial was in 1897 before Justice Strachey and a jury. The
second trial for sedition was in 1908 before Justice D.D.
Davar, his counsel in the rst trial, and a jury of whom
seven Europeans returned a verdict of guilty while the
two Indians, both Parsis, returned a verdict of not
guilty. Justice Davar sentenced Tilak to six years transFRONTLINE .

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portation. At his third and last trial in 1916 for sedition,

he was successfully defended by M.A. Jinnah. He had
been ordered to execute a bond for Rs.20,000 for good
behaviour for disseminating seditious matter. Justices
Batchelor and Shah quashed the order.
In 1891 opinion in Bengal was outraged by the prosecution for sedition of the editor, owner, printer and
publisher of the newspaper Bangobasi. It had trenchantly criticised the Governor-General for the Age of Consent
Bill as being offensive to Hindu sentiment. This divided
Indian opinion because some welcomed the Bill, opposed
though they were to British rule. The jury was divided
(7-2). The Chief Justice discharged the jury. This is not
the case on which I should accept anything but an [sic]
unanimous verdict. The thousand-strong crowd of Natives cheered the result. But the accused apologised to
the Government of India for their intemperate language and the matter was dropped (J. Ghosal (Editor);
Celebrated Trials in India; M. Banerjee, Bhowanipore;
1902; pages 165-232).
SEDITION AND INDIAN NATIONALISM

It was a great moment in the history of Indias struggle

for freedom when Maulana Mohammed Ali, Maulana
Shaukat Ali and the Shankaracharya of Sharada Peeth
were tried jointly in 1921 at Karachi for sedition along
with other charges at the height of the Khilafat move-

104

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

AU R O B I N D O G H O S E . His trial in the Alipore Bomb Case

in 1908 was among the trials that moulded public opinion in
colonial India.

M AULAN A A BUL KALA M A ZAD . His trial for sedition in

1922 became famous for the deance that he hurled at the
colonial government.

ment. Convicted, the Ali Brothers were released from

prison in 1923.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azads trial for sedition in 1922
became famous for his magnicent statement in which
he hurled deance at the rulers. It was an oration deserving penal servitude for life, Gandhi wrote in Young India
on February 23, 1922.
Gandhis own trial for sedition in 1922 at Ahmedabad
became a legend for two reasons. His open and full
admission of his responsibility for the diabolical crimes
of Chouri Choura or the mad outrages of Bombay. Next,
for the sessions Judge C.R. Broomelds generous remarks while pronouncing the sentence. It will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category
from any person I have ever tried or am likely to have to
try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that in the
eyes of millions of your countrymen you are a great
patriot and a great leader. Even those who differ from you
in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of
noble and of even saintly life. (A.G. Noorani; Indian
Political Trials 1775-1947; Oxford University Press;
2005; page 236).
Broomeld became a highly respected judge of the
Bombay High Court. An error has crept in some writings
that the judge was Justice Strangman. Sir Thomas
Strangman, the Advocate General, was appointed Special Prosecutor in the case.
These trials and others for graver offencessuch as
that of Aurobindo Ghose in the Alipore Bomb Case

(1908)moulded public opinion. Trials create drama.

These involved the tallest gures. People hated the law of
sedition, which put them in peril. Sir Maurice Gwyer, the
rst Chief Justice of the Federal Court and a committed
liberal, spurned the Strachey amendment and sought to
inject the condition that reasonable anticipation or likelihood of public disorder is the gist of the offence (Niharendra Dutt Majumdar vs The King Emperor (1942
Federal Court Reports 38). It was a brave and well-meant
effort. The Privy Council, an instrument of colonial control, overruled him (King Emperor vs Sadashib Narayan
Bhalerao (1947) Indian Appeals 89). The Viceroy Lord
Linlithgow so hated Sir Maurice that he asked London to
send a K.C. to brainwash the Chief Justice. He stayed on
in India as Vice-Chancellor of the Delhi University.
This was the state of the law on sedition that the
British rulers imposed. Indian opinion was reected in a
pamphlet published by the Foreign Department of the
All India Congress Committee (AICC). Written by Rammanohar Lohia, it was entitled The Struggle for Civil
Liberties and had a foreword by Jawaharlal Nehru. Lohia
wrote: The ordinance law of sedition, Sea Customs Act
and the Board of Censors are in themselves sufficient to
put a ban on all advanced opinion, thought and art (page
42).
The framers of Indias Constitution proceeded warily
only to arrive at a sound conclusion. The Draft Report of
the Constituent Assemblys Advisory Committee on Minorities, Fundamental Rights, etc., dated April 3, 1947,

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mentioned sedition among the grounds on which freedom of speech and expression may be restricted (B. Shiva
Rao (Ed.) The Framing of Indias Constitution; the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi; Volume II; page 139). The Drafting Committee also retained
this ground later in 1947. In October 1948 it recommended replacement of the words or undermines the
authority or foundation of the state in clause (2) by the
words or undermines the security of or tends to overthrow the state (ibid; A Study; page 220). On October
3, 1947, the Drafting Committee retained sedition. So did
the Draft Constitution published in February 1948.
K.M. MUNSHIS ROLE

It is to the credit of K.M. Munshi that he secured the

deletion of sedition when the Constituent Assembly debated the Draft on December 1, 1948. Moving his amendment for its deletion, he said: The word sedition has
been a word of varying import and has created considerable doubt in the minds of not only the members of this
House but of courts of law all over the world. Its denition has been very simple and given so far back as 1868. It
says Sedition embraces all those practices whether by
word or deed or writing which are calculated to disturb
the tranquillity of the state and lead ignorant persons to
subvert the government. But in practice it has had a
curious fortune. A hundred and fty years ago in England, holding a meeting or conducting a procession was
considered sedition. Even holding an opinion against,
which will bring ill-will towards government, was considered sedition once. Our notorious Section 124 A of
Penal Code was sometimes construed so widely that I
remember in a case a criticism of a District Magistrate
was urged to be covered by Section 124 A. But the public
opinion has changed considerably since and now that we
have a democratic government a line must be drawn
between criticism of government which should be welcome and incitement which would undermine the security or order on which civilised life is based, or which is
calculated to overthrow the state. Therefore the word
sedition has been omitted. As a matter of fact the essence
of democracy is criticism of government. The party system, which necessarily involves an advocacy of the replacement of one government by another, is its only
bulwark; the advocacy of a different system of government should be welcome because that gives vitality to a
democracy. His amendment was adopted. (Constituent
Assembly Debates; Volume VIII; page 731). Accordingly,
the Revised Draft Constitution of November 1949 omitted sedition by a deliberate, considered decision (B. Shiva
Rao; Vol. IV; page 755).
Article 19 (2) of the Constitution as it originally stood
read thus: Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall
affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it
relates to or prevents the state from making any law
relating to, libel, slander, defamation, contempt of court
or any matter which offends against decency or morality
or which undermines the security of, or tends to overthrow, the state.
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It was, however, amended by the Constitution (First

Amendment) Act, 1951. Clause (2) now read: Nothing in
sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of
any existing law, or prevent the state from making any
law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions
on the exercise of the right conferred by the said subclause in the interests of the security of the state, friendly
relations with foreign states, public order, decency or
morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation
or incitement to an offence. It was in support of this
amendment that Nehru denounced sedition.
The amendment made some changes: (i) Three new
grounds of restriction were introduced viz. (1) Friendly
relations with foreign states; (2) public order; and (3)
incitement to an offence. (ii) The ground tends to overthrow the state was deleted. (iii) The words any matter
which offends against or undermines the security of the
state were substituted by the words in the interests of
the security of the state. (iv) The words libel, slander
were dropped retaining only the generic term defamation. (v) The qualication reasonable restrictions were
inserted to govern all the grounds.
In Romesh Thapar vs State of Madras (AIR 1950 S.C.
124 at 128) Justice Patanjali Sastri said: It is also worthy
of note that the word sedition which occurred in Art. 13
(2) of the Draft Constitution prepared by the Drafting
committee was deleted before the article was nally
passed as Art. 19 (2). Deletion of the word sedition
from the draft Art. 13 (2), therefore, shows that criticism
of government exciting disaffection or bad feelings towards it is not to be regarded as a justifying ground for
restricting the freedom of expression and of the press,
unless it is such as to undermine the security or tend to
overthrow the state.
The Press Commissions Report noted the ruling of
the Punjab High Court in Master Tara Singhs case
(A.I.R. 1952 Punjab 27). It was held that Section 124 A
had become void as contravening the right to freedom of
speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19 (1) and
that the section was not saved by Article 19 (2), under
which only those utterances could be penalised which
undermined the security of the state or tended to overthrow the state. Weston C.J. said in the course of the
judgment, The section has become inappropriate by the
very nature of the change which has come about, viz.,
India becoming a sovereign democratic state. It recommended repeal of Section 124 A (paragraph 1,054, page
403). Headed by Justice G.S. Rajadhyaksha of the Bombay High Court, it had among its members men of high
stature such as C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyer, Acharya Narendra Dev and Dr Zakir Hussain.
OMISSION OF SEDITION

When the Constitution of India came into force on January 26, 1950, sedition did not gure in Article 19 (2)
among the grounds on which the fundamental right to
freedom of speech and expression [Art. 19 (1)(a)] could
be subjected to reasonable restrictions by law. Its history and case law suggested clearly that it could not be

106

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP

stretched to fall within public order or incitement to an sitting even in this meeting. The people of India drove out
offence. Sir Maurice Gwyer sought to do that but with the Britishers from this country and elected these Congood intentions. The Government of India Act, 1935, did gress goondas to the gaddi and seated them on it. The
not contain a Bill of Rights. He had to enforce the law of capitalists and the zamindars of this country help these
sedition against Indians, as Linlithgow desired. He chose Congress goondas. These zamindars and capitalists will
another option, which was to read it down and inject also have to be brought before the peoples court along
into Section 124 A, by judicial at, the ingredient of with these Congress goondas.
incitement to public disorder. This of course was conOn the strength of the organisation and unity of
trary to the intention of the framers of Section 124 A, kisans and mazdoors the Forward Communist Party will
especially after its amendment in 1898, and was contrary expose the black deeds of the Congress goondas, who are
to Justice Stracheys exposition, which had held sway for just like the Britishers. Only the colour of the body has
half a century. The Privy Council reversed Gwyer.
changed. They have today established a rule of lathis and
The author of Section 124 A, Stephen, had noted that bullets in the country.
the Penal Code contained no provision at all as to sediThe Forward Communist Party does not believe in
tious offences not involving an absolute breach of the the doctrine of vote itself. The party had always been
believing in revolution and does so
peace was the clear intention of the
even at present. We believe in that revframers of S.124 A.
olution, which will come and in the
After the Constitution came into
ames of which the capitalists, zaminforce, the High Courts did the correct
dars and the Congress leaders of India,
thingstrike down Section 124 A as
who have made it their profession to
being violative of Article 19 (2). Courts
loot the country, will be reduced to
exist to erase blots on the statute book.
ashes and on their ashes will be estabIt is no function of a court of law to
lished a government of the poor and
recycle statutory garbage. As early as in
the downtrodden people of India.
Romesh Thapar vs State of Madras
It will be a mistake to expect any(AIR 1950 SC 124) Justice Patanjali
thing from the Congress rulers. They
Sastri had drawn pointed attention to
[Congress rulers] have set up Vinoba
the deliberate omission of sedition in
Bhave in the midst of the people by
the Constitution. That was message
causing him to wear a langoti in order
enough for the High Courts. A full
to divert the peoples attention from
bench of three judges of the Allahabad
their mistakes. Today Vinoba is playHigh Court unanimously held Secing a drama on the stage of Indian
tion124 A to be void. (Ram Narain vs
politics. Confusion is being created
State AIR 1959 Allahabad 101). It com- A F Z A L GU RU being escorted to
among the people. I want to tell the last
prised Justices M.C. Desai, R.N. Gurtu court in New Delhi in December
word even to the Congress tyrants. Toand N.U. Beg, each of whom wrote a 2002. His hanging in the
day the children of the poor are hanjudgment of considerable learning and Parliament attack case has been
kering for food and you Congressmen
cogency of reasoning. No precedent, widely questioned.
are assuming the attitude of nawabs
English, American or Indian, was
overlooked. Justice Desai was against importing words sitting on the chairs. He was sentenced to rigorous
in S.124A and held that the right to spread disaffection imprisonment for a year. There was nothing remotely
against the government or any other person is included in seditious in the speech; not even the advocacy of revoluthe right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed tion. There clearly was no immediate incitement to vioby the Constitution danger to public order is not an lent revolution.
A unanimous judgment delivered by Chief Justice
ingredient of the offence. He also cited the Press Commissions recommendation for its repeal (paragraph 29). B.P. Sinha remarked: This species of offence against the
Concurring, Justice R.N. Gurtu noted the omission of state was not an invention of the British government in
sedition in Article 19 (2), while Justice N.U. Beg sur- India, but has been known in England for centuries.
veyed the legislative process which led to the enactment Every state, whatever its form of government, has to be
armed with the power to punish those who, by their
of Section 124 A in 1870 and its amendment in 1898.
conduct, jeopardise the safety and stability of the state, or
disseminate such feelings of disloyalty as have the tendTHE KEDAR NATH SINGH CASE
There came the judgment of the Constitution Bench of ency to lead to the disruption of the state or to public
the Supreme Court on January 20, 1962, in Kedar Nath disorder. In England, the crime has thus been described
Singh vs State of Bihar (AIR 1962 SC 955; (1963) 1 SCJ by Stephen in his Commentaries on the Laws of
18). Kedar Nath Singh, a member of the Forward Com- England.
Old English cases were relied on, as was Gwyers
munist Party, had delivered a speech nearly a decade ago
on May 26, 1953, in which he said: Today the dogs of the ruling. These observations by the Supreme Court are
C.I.D. are loitering round Barauni. Many official dogs are noteworthy. Any acts within the meaning of S.124A
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which have the effect of subverting the government by

bringing that government into contempt or hatred, or
creating disaffection against it, would be within penal
statute because the feeling of disloyalty to the government established by law or enmity to it imports the idea of
tendency to public disorder by the use of actual violence
or incitement to violence. In other words, any written or
spoken words, etc., which have implicit in them the idea
of subverting government by violent means, which are
compendiously included in the term revolution, have
been made penal by the section in question.
Thus the mere advocacy of revolution was sedition
itself. Freedom has to be guarded against becoming a
licence for vilication and condemnation of the Government established by law, in words which incite violence
or have tendency bringing the law into line with the law
of sedition in England, as was the intention of the legislators when they introduced S.124 A into the Indian Penal
Code in 1870 as aforesaid, the law will be within the
permissible limits laid down in cl. (2) of Art.19 of the
Constitution. If, on the other hand, we give a literal
meaning to the words of the section, divorced from all the
antecedent background in which the law of sedition has
grown, as laid down in the several decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, it will be true to say
that the section is not only within but also very much
beyond the limits laid down in cl. (2) aforesaid.
The record shows this assertion to be untrue. Bar a
perfunctory reference to Justice Patanjali Sastris observation, there was no discussion of the process by which
the framers of the Constitution chose deliberately to omit
sedition; no reference to the Press Commissions recommendation and, worst of all, no reference to the Full
Bench ruling of the Allahabad High Courtamidst copious quotes from old obsolete English rulingsand no
reference to Nehrus speech in 1951 denouncing sedition.
An undergraduate whose essay on sedition contained
blemishes such as these would earn a deserved reprimand. Kedar Naths case passed muster and its baleful
impact survived to poison the wells of free speech. Chief
Justice Sinhas apologia betrayed his outlook and that of
the other four judges: The species of offence against the
state was not an invention of the British government in
India, but has been known in England for centuries.
Kedar Nath Singh was relied on unquestioningly in
the following cases.
1. Balwant Singh & Anr. vs State of Punjab (1995) 3
SCC 214). A liberal bench acquitted the appellant who
had raised the slogans Khalistan Zindabad and Raj
Karega Khalsa because no disturbance was caused
(page 218).
2. Bilal Ahmad Kaloo vs State of A.P. (1997) 7 SCC
431. Acquitted. Why? Because he had not done anything
against the government (page 434).
3. Kedar Nath Singh was not relied on in Nazir Khan
vs State of Delhi (2003) 8 SCC 461, but its spirit so
possessed Justice Arijit Pasayat that he went so far as to
say: Section 124-A deals with sedition. Sedition is a
crime against society nearly allied to that of treason, and
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it frequently precedes treason by a short interval. Sedition in itself is a comprehensive term, and it embraces all
those practices, whether by word, deed, or writing, which
are calculated to disturb the tranquillity of the state, and
lead ignorant persons to endeavour to subvert the government and laws of the country. The objects of sedition
generally are to induce discontent and insurrection, and
stir up opposition to the government, and bring the
administration of justice into contempt, and the very
tendency of sedition is to incite the people to insurrection
and rebellion. Sedition has been described as disloyalty
in action, and the law considers as sedition all those
practices which have for their object to excite discontent or
dissatisfaction, to create public disturbance, or to lead to
civil war; to bring into hatred or contempt the sovereign
or the government, the laws or constitutions of the realm,
and generally all endeavours to promote public disorder.
U.S. SUPREME COURT RULING

Illiberalism pervades the Supreme Courts rulings whenever its judges face the insecurity or dissent they
dreadbe it Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) or the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
The law of sedition is in an unholy mess. Its import
depends on the outlook of judges, which is none too
liberal. Contrast these rulings with the unanimous ruling
of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 in Brandenburg vs
Ohio (395 U.S. 444; 23 L. Ed. 2nd 40). It concerned a Ku
Klux Klan leader who shouted at a meeting, where others
carried rearms, Bury the niggers, The niggers should
be returned to Africa and Send the Jews back to Israel.
The majority held that the constitutional guarantees of
free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid
or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting
or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to
incite or produce such action. As we said in Noto v United
States, 367 US 290, 297-298, 6 L Ed 2d 836, (1961), the
mere abstract teaching of the moral propriety or even
more necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the
same as preparing a group for violent action steeling it to
such action. We are here confronted with a statute
which, by its own words and as applied, purports to
punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal
punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate
the described type of action. Such a statute fails within
the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth
Amendments.
Concurring, Justice William Douglas asked: Suppose one tears up his own copy of the Constitution in
eloquent protest to a decision of this court. May he be
indicted? Suppose one rips his own Bible to shreds to
celebrate his departure from one faith and his embrace
of atheism. May he be indicted? Will one who burns
Manusmriti be indicted? What of Mayawatis attacks on
Manuwadis?
In Hector vs A.G. of Antigua (1990) 2AC 312, the
Privy Council held: In a free democratic society it is

108

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

almost too obvious to need stating that those who hold offence considerably. There has been no prosecution
office in government and who are responsible for public for sedition since 1947, and the offence now serves no
administration must always be open to criticism. Any purpose in the criminal law. In terms of Article 10, it is
attempt to stie or fetter such criticism amounts to politi- hard to see how it is necessary in a democratic society or
cal censorship of the most insidious and objectionable proportionate to any legitimate aim.
kind. At the same time it is no less obvious that the very
Sedition was indeed abolished through the Coroners
purpose of criticism levelled at those who have the con- and Justice Act, 2009. The then Justice Minister, Claire
duct of public affairs by their political opponents is to Ward, said at the time of the Acts enactment: Sedition
undermine public condence in their stewardship and to and seditious and defamatory libel are arcane offences
persuade the electorate that the opponents would make a from a bygone era when freedom of expression wasnt
better job of it than those presently holding office. In the seen as the right it is today. Freedom of speech is now
light of these considerations their Lordships cannot help seen as the touchstone of democracy, and the ability of
viewing statutory provision which criminalises state- individuals to criticise the state is crucial to maintaining
ments likely to undermine public condence in the con- freedom. Britains Law Commission had recommended
duct of public affairs with the utmost suspicion. it the abolition of the law of sedition in 1977.
would on any view be a grave impediAccording to Claire Ward, The exment to the freedom of the press if
istence of these obsolete offences in this
those who print, or a fortiori those
country had been used by other counwho distribute, matter reecting crittries as justication for the retention of
ically on the conduct of public authorsimilar laws which have been actively
ities could only do so, with impunity if
used to suppress political dissent and
they could rst verify the accuracy of
restrict press freedom. It is very likely
all statements of fact on which the critthat she had India in mind.
icism was based.
Robertson and Nicol point out that
These observations establish the
many of the criminal laws that affect
fundamental fallacy underlying Chief
the mediaofficial secrets and prevenJustice Sinhas logicwords cannot be
tion of terrorism, and most of the laws
read into a penal statute in order to
relating to contempt, reporting restricvalidate it. Their Lordships are willtions and obscenitycannot be ining to give full weight to the presumvoked in the criminal courts by anyone
ption of constitutionality but think
except the Attorney-General or the Dithat the attempt to contrive a suitable
rector of Public Prosecutions (who
implied term in this context only
works under the Attorneys superinserves to emphasise the inherent con- Y A K U B M EM ON , a 1993
tendence). In all these cases the Atict between the provision which it is photograph. Questioning his
torney-General is not bound to take
sought to rescue and the constitutional execution in the 1993 Mumbai
legal action, even if the law has clearly
safeguards of free speech.
been broken. He has a discretionto
serial blasts case and Afzal Gurus
prosecute or not to prosecutedein the Parliament attack case is
ENGLISH HISTORY AND
pending on his view of the public inseen as seditious behaviour by the
SEDITION
terest. In exercising his discretion he is
current regime.
English history is rich in trials for sedientitled to take into account any contion which shaped it and bestirred the people. The vol- sideration of public policy that bears on the issueand
umes of State Trials record the struggle for freedom of the public policy in favour of free speech is important in
speech; most notably, in the magnicent speech by the deciding whether to launch official secrets or contempt
greatest advocate of all time, Sir Thomas Erskine in or obscenity prosecution. Actions that appear to comprodefence of Thomas Paines The Rights of Man (Speeches mise free speech are likely to be criticised in Parliament,
of Thomas Lord Erskine by Edward Walford; Reeves & where the Attorney must answer for both his and the
Turner; 1870; Volumes 1 and 2).
DPPs (Director of Public Prosecution) prosecution
In 1984, Lord Denning expressed the view that the policy.
offence of seditious libel is now obsolete (Landmarks in
Sir John Simon said on December 1, 1925, in the
the Law; page 295). No one has cited Stephen on sedition House of Commons: There is no greater nonsense talked
as approvingly as Chief Justice Sinha did. The author- about the Attorney-Generals duty than the suggestion
itative work Media Law by Geoffrey Robertson Q.C. and that in all cases the Attorney-General ought to prosecute
Andrew Nicol, Q.C. opined that Stephens denition of merely because he thinks there is what lawyers call a
seditious libel is frighteningly broad and the crime has case. It is not true, and no one who has held that office
been used in the past to suppress radical political views. supposes that it is. That is why both Sir Chimanlal
Even in the twentieth century it was used against an Setalvad and Sir Ibrahim Rahimtullah advised the GovIndian nationalist and against Communist organisers. ernor of Bombay not to prosecute Gandhi for sedition.
However, the post-war tendency has been to narrow the The result vindicated them. Gandhi emerged stronger
109

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

after the trial. In the Kedarnath case in 1962, as well as in

later cases, the Supreme Court overlooked one fundamental difference between English law and Indian law.
In England the Attorney-Generals prior consent is necessary before a prosecution for sedition is launched. He
acts in a quasi-judicial capacity, not as a party hack.
In India, it is the Central or even the state government that sanctions the prosecution (Section 196 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure). This executive act is performed for political, partisan and even communal reasons. One shocking case will suffice. All the documents

are included in Secular Horror by Mustafa Kamal Sherwani; Pharos Media and Publishing Pvt. Ltd.; New Delhi
110 025; Rs.80). The rst information report for sedition
was led on March 18, 1985. The accused were acquitted
on July 25, 2000fteen years later.
APPROPRIATING A JUDICIAL PREROGATIVE

No Minister or executive officer has any right to pronounce on the guilt of a citizen, as Rajnath Singh did.
That right belongs to the courts. In a powerful dissent in
Gitlow vs New York 268 U.S. 652 at 673 (1925) Justice

The Vaidya sedition trial

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

THIS trial received less notice than it

are not rights upon which the allegiance
deserves. The fearless advocate C.R. Das
of the subject depends.
truly excelled himself. Narayan KashiAt one stage Das said: I hope your
nath Vaidya was a member of the Nagpur
honour has not made up your mind, and
I submit, if your honour has, your honBar and Secretary of the Provincial Home
our ought not to have.
Rule League. He had gone to Damoh to
Court: What particular benet does
defend one Bhaiyalal who was charged
he expect to the British people from
under the Defence of India Rules with
Home-rule?
dissuading persons from entering milDas: I am afraid, your honour is not
itary service. The hearings over, he adin touch with the politics of this country
dressed a meeting in a temple in the town
[laughter].
on the evening of June 6, 1918, along with
Court: That is not my business.
two other lawyers. Three weeks later, VaiCounsel: No, that is not; but by keepdya was arrested on a charge of sedition
ing in touch with the political thought of
and placed on trial. He was charged unC . R. D A S. The conduct of
the day, you could understand the peoder two broad heads: for sedition and for
the upright judge in the
ple. The speaker says it will benet both.
dissuading persons from entering miltrial of Narayan Kashinath
It is not only he [Vaidya] who says that.
itary service.
Vaidya in which Das acted
R.C. Dutt, one of the shining lights of the
The rst was in respect of statements
as counsel is in stark
Civil Service, said that. Dadabhoy Naolike these: Does anybody consult you
contrast to attitudes
roji, Mr Montague have said that. So, it
when [revenue] settlement is being done,
displayed today.
is not so very comical that the establishas to how you maintain yourself, and
ment of Home-rule, the introduction of
what are your circumstances, how much
you spend, and how many dependants you have, and responsible government will really mean far greater
what rent ought to be assessed? Without any enquiry prosperity of India as well as of England.
rent is assessed according to their sweet will, and a
While C.R. Das was trying to explain the meaning of
Tahsildar is deputed to make realisations. What is to be these words, the Court lost its temper and, on counsel
done? The stream of money ows to England.
asking the Court for a patient hearing in order to be able
Secondly, Even in commerce the English have tak- to explain what he meant, said, I have already listened
en away everything The idea is that the European may to a long lecture, I have already spent a great deal of
time. On this, Das offered to sit, if the Court did not
ourish and India may fall into a well.
C.R. Das argued Vaidyas appeal before Sir Henry wish to hear him.
At another stage C.R. Das said: Your honours
Drake-Brockman, Judicial Commissioner of The Central Provinces and Berar, now Madhya Pradesh. His observation lls me with trepidation for my client, if
main defence was that the Indian legislature could not upon this you come to the conclusion that is a maligtake away the primary rights of the citizen. Only the nant lie.
British Parliament could. Second, that a plea for swaraj
Court: That is my view.
or Home Rule did not amount to sedition. He said: I
Counsel: If your honour has formed views, your
rely upon the constitutional rights which are all those honour should not try this case at all. It is a very slight
rights upon which the allegiance of the subjects de- exaggeration.
pends. There are many rights of the common law which
Court: I cannot agree with you.
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110

Oliver Wendell Holmes gave a historic dissent with Justice Louis Brandeis concurrence: Benjamin Gitlow, a
member of the left wing of the Socialist Party, was convicted under the Criminal Anarchy Act for writing a
pamphlet called The Wing Manifesto, which advocated
non-parliamentary methods. In 1925, the court affirmed
his conviction. Holmes wrote a dissent in which Brandeis
joined: It is said that this manifesto is more than a
theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and, if believed, it is
acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some

Counsel: But I do protest against those observations when you said that this is a malignant lie. It
is a perfectly honest criticism.
Court: It cannot be honest criticism.
Counsel: That may be your honours view, but
my submission is that it is a perfectly honest statement, probably a little exaggerated.
C.R. Das argued that the ow of money from
India to England had long been a matter for complaint among Indians who had not only voiced the
opinions of many followers in this country but had
earned the esteem of their political opponents. I
refer particularly to the late Messrs. Dadabhoy
Naoroji and G.K. Gokhale. The same point is dwelt
upon in the chapter entitled Indias Economic
Problems in Sir Henry Cottons New India, published in 1907. More to the same effect will be
found in Indian Trade Manufacturers and Finance, written by the late Mr. R.C. Dutt, published
in 1905.
That the martial spirit of India has declined as
stated by the appellant is a fact which has been
noted by prominent Englishmen and in this connection I would quote the remarks of Sir Richard
Temple, which would be found reproduced at page
221 of Sir Henry Cottons New India. In his judgment the judge made scathing remarks on the
magistrate before acquitting Vaidya. In this as in
other respects the Magistrates judgment appears
to be to make every possible presumption against
the accused and to omit any consideration of what
the accused himself had to say by way of explaining
his utterances. Where there is room for doubt it is
the accused person, and not the prosecution, who
must have the benet of that doubt.
This upright judges conduct is in stark contrast to the petty vindictiveness of some judges
who, when faced with assertive counsel, wreak
revenge on his client. The trend began 50 years ago
when that fearless advocate, K.M. Munshi, deplored the spectacle of fawning judges and frowning counsel. Munshi once ticked off the abrasive
Justice M. Munir of the Lahore High Court.
A.G. Noorani

failure of energy sties the movement at its birth. The

only difference between the expression of an opinion and
an incitement in the narrower sense is the speakers
enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set re to
reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant
discourse before us, it has no chance of starting a present
conagration. If in the long run the beliefs expressed in
proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by
the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning
of free speech is that they should be given their chance
and have their way.
How much stronger then is the case for restraint
when students activities on a university campus are
involved? Involved here are two valuesfree speech and
the autonomy of universities. These are values which
neither Rajnath Singh, the Home Minister, nor Smriti
Irani, the Human Resource Development Minister, and
least of all Amit Shah, the BJPs president, care for.
Kings turn men into coins to which they assign what
value they like, and which others are obliged to accept at
the official rate, and not at their real worth. La Rochefoucaulds maxim ts Amit Shah perfectly. He is invited
to places which would have turned him away at the
doorstep, only because he is very close to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.
Amit Shah is a swadeshi Joseph McCarthy. His latest
edict is that even organising an event on Afzal Guru is
anti-national. This is too late in the day. More to the
point, it betrays his and the BJPs perverted concept of
Indian nationalism and its pluralities.
Very many in the country, this writer included, believe with every reason that Afzal Guru was: (1) framed;
(2) was innocent; (3) did not receive a fair trial; and (4)
the Supreme Courts approach and emotive rhetoric did
not indicate a judicial approach. Most, if not all, of these
applied also to Yakub Memon. (See Yakub Memons
execution, Frontline, September 18, 2015 and Supreme
Court and Yakub Memon, Frontline, October 2, 2015).
But the nation cares for its values, and it is time an
organised campaign is launched against the law of seditionwhich is sought to be saved by reforming itagainst the BJP style McCarthyism (anti-national) and
for the autonomy of universities. (See Donald Alexander
Downs; Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus;
Cambridge University Press, 2005.)
Section 43(1) of the British Education Act, 1986, lays
down: Every individual and body or persons concerned
in the government of any establishment to which this
section applies shall take such steps as are reasonably
practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the
law is secured for members, students and employees of
the establishment and for visiting speakers. Thus, the
British statute provides the right to invite speakers from
outside as part of the students rights to form their
unions; publish their magazines like the Harvard Crimson; and express political opinions.
Such a statute will not be enacted in India, but Indians can and should unite against repressive laws and for
the autonomy of universities.

111

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Aravindan: Anew
and again
An event to mark the 25th death anniversary of the lm-maker
G. Aravindan demonstrated the allure of his unique artistic instinct
and the way it transcreates the lmic screen so that it seizes ones
imagination in a mesmeric hold and yet eludes ones grasp.

FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

OR a lm-maker to be in advance of his time during his

lifetime is rare enough. To continue to be so two and a half decades
after his death is nothing short of phenomenal. The allure of G. Aravindans
unique artistic instinct and the way it
transcreates the lmic screen so that
it seizes our imagination in a mesmeric hold and yet eludes our grasp was
demonstrated at a three-day commemorative event marking his 25th
death anniversary in early March in
Thiruvananthapuram. The magic
came alive almost like a frisson of
interactive mirror neurons among
those who had gatheredthose who
knew him and his work intimately,
those who had worked with himto
rekindle the Aravindan mystique dormant in them. It was, at the end of the
day, like receiving grace.
That mystique is as compelling as
it is strange. It has an enduring after-

G. A RA V I N D A N .

life because it is as much about the

man as his work. He was always accessible, personable, genial, largehearted and individually and implicitly in sync with each of those who
connected with him when he was
alive. The rapport was instant. The
112

communication was mainly unspoken. What was left unsaid was always
more than, and more signicant
than, what was discussed. Ideation
was intuitive rather than discursive.
Intuition was the sensory language in his close relationships. Professor Satti Khanna of Duke
University recalled, in a video tribute
to Aravindan, once asking him what
the word for father was in Malayalam. Do you want to know what the
word for father is, or what I say when
I wish to speak to my father? Aravindan asked him. What you say
when you wish to speak to your father, Khanna replied. When I wish
to speak to my father, said Aravindan, I nd that he is already looking
at me. Such instances of sublimation are common in the experience of
those who interacted with him frequently. A Malayalam term he often
used was nimitham, which would lit-

THE HINDU ARCHIVES

erally translate as fortuitously ofthe-moment. It would seem that he

plotted his journey as lm-maker, if
he plotted it at all, from nimitham to
nimitham.
He was no hermit or saint, although a part of him always dwelt in
some deep reserve of his mind to
which none had access. He had his
share of human foibles. He was quick
to be upset if he felt the circle of trust
around him was breached. He cartooned and sketched and painted
brilliantly, was a compulsive doodler, sang soulfully and with abandon in memorable soirees with close
friends, where he would also occasionally launch vehement laments
against those he considered devious
or dubious or generally, in his opinion, on the wrong side of life.
His lms, the best of them,
seemed not so much to be made as to
spontaneously evolve and happen.
There was little mechanistic or structured about them. In its approach to
the temporal, in its contemplative
gaze of the image, in its noumenality,
his cinematic work was a clear departure from the organisation and
method, the cluttered frames, the development of multiple characters
and narratives, the meticulous calibration of time and Euclidean use of
space that informed his earlier substantive body of cartooning work.
Through the decade of the 1960s
and well into the beginning of the
next, Aravindans cartoon series
Cheriya Manushyarum Valiya Lokavum (Small People and the Big
World), which was a xture on the
last page of the Malayalam periodical Mathrubhumi, captured the
zeitgeist of the times through the
humdrum quotidian concerns and
larger existential reections of his
characters. As the contemporary cartoonist E.P. Unny pointed out in a
perceptive analysis of Aravindans
cartoons, there was clockwork preci-

A RA V I N D A N ON THE S E TS of Thampu (1978).

sion and chronometry in his schema.

His stock characters were, even in
their appearance, meticulously subject to the progression of time: for
example, a stubble would sprout on a
clean-shaven face and develop as the
days of the week went by. This, noted
Unny, was rare in the world of cartooning even now and was certainly
exceptionally unique at the time
when Aravindans trademark series
was being published in the magazine.
From that detailing and subjection to the agency of time in his cartooning to internalising optical and
acoustic and musical time in his lmic image was a transition that was
occurring even with his rst lm, Uttarayanam (1974), although that
lm itself may have borne vestigial
traits of his cartoon narrative. In the
ve successive lms coming year after year from 1977Kanchana Sita
(1977), Thampu (1978), Kummatty
(1979), Esthappan (1980) and Pokkuveyil (1981)he transcended into
the language of the pure image; the
image that was self-referential, not

representative. In these lms he was

already moving, boldly and intuitively, beyond the neorealist tradition into which much of what is seen as
prestigious new Indian cinema has
been slotted, a tradition that Satyajit
Ray exemplied and one that a host
of lm-makers off the mainstream,
including Adoor Gopalakrishnan,
carried forward and continue to
practise.
In his taxonomy of cinema in the
two volumes, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The
Time-Image, published a decade after Aravindan had begun making
these lms, Gilles Deleuze deals
mainly with the European, AngloSaxon, American and Russian lmmaking of the pre- and post-Second
World War period. Japanese cinema
(Yasujiro Ozu, Kon Ichikawa, Akira
Kurosawa, among others) is fairly
strongly in his ken but little else of
the emergent cinema of the East. He
does not, unfortunately, look at modern (or for that matter any) Indian
cinema. If he had, he would have
found the distinctive and breakaway

His lms, the best of them, seemed not so much to be made as

to spontaneously evolve and happen.
113

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

A STI L L F R O M Kummatty (1979). Tadao Sato, the president of the Japanese

Institute of the Moving Image, said he considered it the best international lm
and Aravindan himself among the best lm-makers in the world.

visual idiom and aesthetic of Aravindan anticipating, idea for idea, his
postulate of the time-image as the
more evolved cinematic expression.
Deleuze really suggests that the
transition from the movement-image to the time-image is a maturing
into self-realisation of the cinematic
language, although he is at pains to
point out that he is not partial to one
over the other: It cannot be said that
one is more important than the other, whether more beautiful or more
profound. All that can be said is that
the movement-image does not give
us a time-image. The sensory-motor
linkage which is implicit in the
movement-image, and which is already being snapped in neorealist
cinema, is completely broken and
separated in the cinema of the timeimage, which proceeds beyond neorealism. Time is out of joint and
presents itself in the pure state, and
a purely optical and sound situation replaces the sensory-motor situation.
This is not to suggest that the
time-image does not allow for movement. It does mean an economy of
movement, but more crucially it implies the reversal of the subordination; it is no longer time which is
subordinate to movement, it is
movement which subordinates itself
to time. Viewers are not asking
themselves what are we going to see
in the next image?, but what is
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

there to see in the image? The seer

(voyant) has replaced the agent (actant).
Although the theorist and the
lm-maker may have been strangers
to one another, it is almost uncannily
striking how closely Deleuzes concept of time-image tracks, and is fullled, in these ve lms of
Aravindan. Reading the one is like
watching the other. In his later works
such as Chidambaram (1985), Oridathu (1986) and Vasthuhara
(1991), Aravindan himself may have
broken the spell of his image meditation and shifted to movement, plot
and characterisation (the disparateness of his work makes it really difficult to speak in terms of a denitive
Aravindan oeuvre). It is as if the savant had come down from the mountain to dip into the narrative in
currency on the plains. But while he
was up there in communion with the
time-image, it was a revelation,
frame by epiphanic frame, he offered
for those who could, who cared to,
see.
STUNNING DISCLOSURE

Among those who cared to see are

some who know the nest work in
world cinema. In his video statement
remembering Aravindan, Tadao Sato, the president of the Japanese Institute of the Moving Image, made
the stunning disclosure that he considered Aravindans Kummatty the
114

best international lm and Aravindan himself among the best lmmakers in the world. It was stunning
only because it was not known here
in India until now that someone like
him, who could compare with the
best, thought so. And we ourselves
have a way of not recognising genius
in our midst until someone abroad
points us in that direction. Sato was
unequivocal about it. He was not saying it just for the occasion of Aravindans death anniversary but said so
every time anyone asked him to
name the best lm in the world. He
also disclosed that he had introduced
Kummatty to the Japanese lmmaker Shohei Imamura (the legendary director of The Ballad of Narayama and winner of the Palm dOr
twice) and that Imamura was really
dumbstruck by the beauty of the movie.
By the same token, it is perplexing that Adoor Gopalakrishnan is in
a state of denial about Aravindans
stature and accomplishment as a
lm-maker. In the lead-up in the
Malayalam press to the Aravindan
anniversary, Adoor made it known
that he did not think much of Aravindan as a lm-maker, although he
rated him high as an artist. He has
said as much before, in an interview
on television a few years back. While
Adoor is, of course, entitled to his
opinion (who is not?), when he
draws this distinction between Aravindan as artist and as lm-maker,
the assumption is that a great artist
need not necessarily be a good lmmaker. One wonders whether, without any insinuation, the opposite can
be as true: that a celebrated lmmaker need not be a good artist.
Adoor, of course, must mean
what he says, and without malice,
even if it raises the hackles of cineastes who have followed Aravindans
work and believe his work to be trailblazing and in a class if its own. It
may just be that Adoor is unable to
break free of his neorealist moorings
and empathise with Aravindans visionary, crystalline, cinematic perception, a perception unencumbered
by craft and narrative devices. Maybe, just maybe, the Aravindan lm is
in advance of Adoors time too.

Indias forgotten people

Economic policies and processes continue to operate in ways
that both rely upon and increase inequality and lack of voice of
major groups and social categories.

HERE has been a lot of talk

among policymakers in India
about ensuring inclusion. The
United Progressive Alliance government talked about inclusive growth
and made it the headline for its Five
Year Plan documents. The National
Democratic Alliance government has
dispensed with planning but still
wants to jump on the inclusion bandwagon, so its various policies and
schemes, from smart cities to Make
in India, generally come with the tag
of being inclusive. Despite all this
talk, however, the evidence generally
points to intensication of inequalities and lack of inclusion in terms of
most important social and economic
outcomes.
This is not only because of lack of
genuine political will (although that
is certainly a factor), but also because
the nature of inclusionor, more importantly, exclusionhas not been
studied and understood adequately,
and as a result even policies that are
supercially well-intentioned can
miss the mark completely. There is, of
course, the basic problem that economic policies and processes continue to operate in ways that both rely

upon and increase inequality and

lack of voice of major groups and
social categories. But there is also a
genuine lack of understanding of the
complex yet intertwined nature of
exclusion in its various manifestations.
This gap is sought to be lled by
the India Exclusion Report. For the
past two years, this report has sought
to highlight various aspects of exclusion and the plight of those who continue to face multiple forms of
exclusion, which are often even reinforced rather than mitigated by public policies. The recently released
India Exclusion Report for 2015 specically takes up the nature of exclusion from essential public services
and amenities.
The report denes the term public goods differently from how economists perceive it, which is in terms
of whether the consumption of the
good or service reduces aggregate
availability or consumption by others. The reports focus is on what can
more accurately be called those
goods and services that must be accessible to the public at large because
they are essential for living a life with
115

dignity. This is clearly a looser denition, and also one that is socially and
temporally specic, so different societies at different moments in time
have their own notions of what constitutes such public goods.
The report focuses on three essential public goods so dened: urban health; urban water and
sanitation; and access to equal and
dignied work for women. Even with
this limited focus, it brings out the
comprehensive and overlapping
character of exclusion. The report
nds that those who are excluded
according to the relevant indicators
are generally those who are recognised as disadvantaged in other areas
as well: women, Dalits, Adivasis,
Muslims, persons with disabilities,
and persons with age-related vulnerabilities (children and the elderly).
The association with class-based
indicators is also strong. Most critically, the report nds important areas of overlap in the exclusion in
these areas and in the household indicators of occupation and housing.
So, while urban areas in general have
more extensive health services than
rural areas, access to adequate health
FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

GAUTAM SINGH/AP

TH OS E W H O L I V E in slums lack
space and amenities and have
limited access to water and
sanitation. Here, at Dharavi, in
Mumbai.

care is signicantly lower for the urban poor, while those in certain occupations with very poor conditions
of work and those in particularly
poor housing conditions (and particularly the homeless) may have hardly
any access at all. They are also much
more likely to have lower or no access
to basic drinking water and sanitation.
The signicant role of the housing, in terms of nature and location,
is highlighted across the various indicators of exclusion from public
goods. Thus, there are strongly negative health consequences of the denial of decent housing and the
associated exposure to atmospheric
and other pollution. Those who live
in slums that have poor infrastructure, lack space and amenities and
have problematic or limited access to
drinking water and sanitation, and
especially those who are forced to
occupy places such as open drains
and the banks of effluent tanks, are
more exposed to health hazards.
The homeless, obviously, are not
only the most destitute but also the
most deprived of access to minimum
public goods because of the residence-based nature of all public service delivery. They, and among them
especially street children, are often
excluded completely from any kind
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

of health care. They are more likely to

be trapped in low-end jobs with unsafe, unhealthy and debilitating
working conditions. Their access to
water and sanitation services is
hugely inadequate to ensure good
health, and they are typically forced
to drink non-potable water, often
fetched over long distances, and defecate in the open or use poorly maintained public toilets without running
water and with little privacy or security.
The report highlights how working women face particularly adverse
forms of exclusion, and they are
mostly those who face some of the
multiple deprivations already outlined. Within the broad category,
some specic forms of work that are
particularly oppressive are highlighted, such as manual scavenging
(the dominant part of which is performed by women) and hazardous
occupations such as construction or
mining, where they are also paid signicantly less than men.
Some attention is paid to especially vulnerable groups that are often ignored in the wider discourse.
The rst is single women above the
age of 35 years, a porous and heterogenous category that is nonetheless
profoundly unsettling for society and
that often faces dramatic expressions
of patriarchy through neglect or
open oppression. State action, including both the design and the implementation
of
government
policies, often reinforces and intensies the social and economic exclusions that single women have to deal
with.
A really pathetic and stressing
story emerges from the account of
the Devadasis still found in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu
and the Travancore region of Kerala.
Despite being legally banned, clandestine practice was found even in
early 2015, and the practice has mutated in different ways, but still remains as oppressive and akin to a
form of sexual slavery with little
agency or autonomy for the children
and women who are victims of the
practice. There is intersection with
caste oppression, as such victims typically come from certain Scheduled
116

Castes, and there are massive exclusions in terms of lack of fundamental

rights at work; risk to lives, health
and security; and denial of freedom
and human dignity. In addition to
extreme poverty, such women face
extreme exclusion from the public
goods described in the India Exclusion Report.
The report also examines some
other specic cases of exclusion dened in the larger sense, such as victims of communal violence (with
focus on survivors of communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli
districts of Uttar Pradesh and of the
recurring incidents of mass violence
in the Bodo Territorial Autonomous
District region of Assam). The case of
the tiny group of Jarawa (or Ang)
tribal people in the Andaman Islands
raises more complex issues of how
their very survival is threatened by
active contact with the wider world,
which is generally insensitive to their
needs and conditions.
So, there is a clear, if devastating,
picture of various forms of exclusion
that prevail in India, some of which
are barely noticed, while others appear in the public gaze without generating active intent to remedy the
situation. Yet, diagnosis of the problem is only the rst step, so it is a
positive feature that the report also
examines cases of how state policies
can be, and in some cases have been,
designed to ensure greater inclusion
of vulnerable populations. There are
various recommendations, including
scal and economic policies and
more aware and sensitive modes of
implementation, that point to pathways in which some of the pervasive
exclusions that characterise so much
public intervention can be reduced
or reversed.
Achieving such change at any
scale, however, will require a different political economy as well as
much altered sensibilities not just of
policymakers and implementers but
of society at large.
If this report can make even a
small change in the attitudes and
awareness that allow so much exclusion to persist, it will be more than
worth the effort that has gone into
producing it.

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

Battle for Dispur

PTI

The Congress in Assam ghts both the anti-incumbency sentiment and

the alliances formed by its opponents. B Y P R A B I R K U M A R T A L U K D A R

A SSAM I S G E AR I N G U P FO R THE 14TH

Legislative Assembly elections. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will complete his tenure in June 2016. The election
will be held in two phases to select legislators from 126
constituencies. In the rst phase, 65 constituencies will
vote on April 4; in the second phase, 61 constituencies
will vote on April 11. The votes will be counted on May 19.
Dissidence, defection and new alliances mark the

CHI E F M I N I S TE R Tarun Gogoi before ling his nomination

in Titabor constituency in Jorhat district on March 18.

campaign of the major parties. Gogoi, who will contest
for the fourth time as a chief ministerial candidate, will
have to counter the anti-incumbency wave generated
among the young people of the State. Hoardings and
life-size posters have been installed all over Assam to

117

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

PTI

showcase 15 years of development by the Congress.

The Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) stated objective is
to win 84 seats (Mission 84), which would give it a
two-thirds majority in the Assembly. The party has gone
all out to get high-profile leaders to campaign in the last
few weeks before polling. Unsurprisingly, the BJP has
reposed faith in Sarbananda Sonowal as its chief ministerial candidate; Sonowal will contest from Majuli. With
alliances with the Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF) and the
Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the BJP is set to make its
presence felt in hitherto unconquered territory.
But that is easier said than done. The BJP, which won
just ve seats in the 2011 Assembly elections with a vote
share of only 12.9 per cent, did put in
an impressive performance in the
2014 Lok Sabha elections. It won
seven of the 14 parliamentary seats
with a total vote share of 37 per cent,
riding on the Modi wave that
swept the country then. But much
has changed in these two years. Assam, with its dense forest cover, has
competing ethnic groups, a history
of insurgency, and livelihood problems. Clashes over linguistic identities are complicated by fears of
losing space to outsiders. In this
context, political loyalties on the
ground keep shifting, and local parties command large followings.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

S AR B AN A N D A S ON OW AL, the BJPs chief ministerial

candidate, addressing a public meeting after ling his
nomination in Majuli in Jorhat district on March 16.

Among the strong regional parties are the All India

United Democratic Front (AIUDF), perceived as protecting the rights of Muslim voters; the AGP, which was
formed after the anti-foreigners movement; and the
BTAD (Bodoland Territorial Area District) parties. In
the last group, the BPF enjoys wide public support. The
BPF was formed after the Bodo Liberation Tigers Force
(BLTF) was disbanded in 2001 and is led by Hagrama
Mohilary, former chief of the BLTF.

118

BJP-BPF ALLIANCE

Earlier this year, the BJP formed an

alliance with the BPF. Until 2014,
the BPF was a Congress supporter.
There was no alliance between the
Congress and the BPF in the last
Assembly election, but the Congress
enjoyed post-poll support from the
BPF. In 2014, the BPF cut its ties
with the Congress and accused it of
neglecting the BTAD. There is no
point in continuing in this government if we cannot full the aspirations of the Bodo people, Hagrama
Mohilary said. In 2001 and 2006,
the BPF played kingmaker when the

Congress fell short of the magic number. The 11 seats of

the BPF helped the Congress form the government after
the 2006 elections.
Yet, for the BPF, an alliance with a national-level
party is crucial in order to ensure that the voices of the
Bodo people are heard. And the BJP, caught up in
controversies in the rest of the country, is keen to
prove itself in a region where ethnicity is a major
driving force. The BJP-BPF alliance was nalised
when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kokrajhar on January 19. Modi promised Scheduled
Tribe (Hills) status for Bodo people living in the hills
of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts, a longstanding demand of Hagrama Mohilary.
There was another promise from the BJP, but not
honoured in full measure. BJP president Amit Shah said
in a public speech at Kokrajhar in February 2016 that the
Centre would allocate more than Rs.1,000 crore for the
development of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
But when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented his
Union Budget, the proposal was for a grant of Rs.100
crore for the 6th Schedule Councils in the StateRs.50
crore for the BTC, Rs.30 crore for the Karbi Anglong
Autonomous District Council and Rs.20 crore for the
North Cachar Hills Autonomous District Council under
the head of Special Development Package. A Rs.1,000crore package has been one of the main conditions laid
out by the BPF for support to the BJP. Hence the Budget
proposals must have already generated tensions between
the two alliance partners. The BPF will contest in 13
constituencies but has promised the BJP its support
outside the BTAD area.
BJP AND AGP: NATURAL ALLIES

The AGP, which was formed after the famous Assam

Accord of 1985, was in power in Assam from 1985 to 1989
and again from 1996 to 2001. But the AGPs record is
marred by the reputation of being a party without a
backbone. Dissidence, defections and corruption charges
against its own president and former Chief Minister
Prafulla Kumar Mahanta have reduced the partys popular appeal. In July 2005, Mahanta was expelled from
the party on the charge of involvement in anti-party
activities. He went on to form the AGP (Progressive),
which however merged with the parent party in October
2008.
In the Assembly election of 2011, the AGP won 10
seats with a 19.72 per cent vote share. In the 2014 general
elections, it did not secure a single seat. Secret killings
during the AGP regime became a serious issue. In 2011,
Sarbananda Sonowal, who was then AGP general secretary, left the party over its inability to tackle the foreigners issue. In an interview, he said that AGP is formed out
of six years of Assam agitation in dealing with the illegal
foreigners issue. Eight hundred fty-ve people laid
down their lives for it. However, the party has failed to
honour the sacrice of the martyrs.
Sonowal joined the BJP in February 2011. He rose
quickly in the party, becoming a National Executive

Member, State spokesperson and the general secretary.

He was appointed State BJP president in 2012. Known
affectionately as Sarba among his followers, he headed
the BJPs campaign in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He
was elected from the Lakhimpur constituency. He was
made a Union Minister of State with independent
charge. Now once again the BJP has demonstrated its
faith in him by projecting him as its chief ministerial
candidate. This was a well calculated move. Sonowal
belongs to the Sonowal-Kachari tribe, and choosing him
is a nod to Assams large tribal constituency. The National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre has also
made promises on granting S.T. status to Other Backward Classes communities such as Moran, Motok,
Ahom, Koch-Rajbongshi and Tea tribes.
The AGP had allied itself with the BJP in the 2004
and 2009 parliamentary elections. The present alliance
between the BJP and the AGP was inevitable. Neither has
any chance of winning on its own. The AGP, in fact, has
been dodging the question of an alliance for some time.
But given the condition of the party, it had to eventually
happen. The alliance was sealed in the presence of the
BJPs Amit Shah, Sonowal and Himanta Biswa Sarma
and AGP president Atul Bora. Atul Bora said at a meeting
that his party decided to join hands with the BJP to
ensure a total rout of the Congress in the larger interest of
the State.
But workers of both parties are unhappy with the
alliance. Some leaders of the BJP who have been with the
party through repeated electoral setbacks are also unhappy with the decision to project Sonowal as the chief
ministerial candidate. AGP workers are also unhappy
over the fact that six dissident MLAs of the Congress who
defected to the BJP under Himanta Biswa Sarmas leadership have got the party ticket.
CONGRESS AND ITS STRATEGY

The 79-year-old Gogoi is hopeful of winning a record

fourth term. Quashing Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Anjan Duttas hopes of being projected
as the chief ministerial candidate, Gogoi has made it clear
that he will not make way.

119

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

RITU RAJ KONWAR

After the drubbing that the BJP received in Bihar at

the hands of the Mahagatbandhan or Grand Alliance,
Gogoi invited Prashant Kishor, one of the key strategists
of Bihars Grand Alliance, to work out an election strategy for the Congress in Assam. But Kishors assessment
was not acceptable to Gogoi: Kishor felt a campaign
focussed on one individual was not a good idea at a time
when the party had been in power for 15 years. Kishor left
once it was clear that his views would not be accepted.
The Congress did not have too many options for
forming an alliance. There was never any question of an
alliance with its arch rival, the AGP. The Congress shut
the door on the AIUDF, too, calling it a communal
party. But it managed to clinch a crucial pre-poll tie-up
with the United Peoples Party (UPP) led by the former
Rajya Sabha member Urkhao Gwra Brahma. The deal is
that the Congress will support the UPP in all the four
constituencies inside the BTAD, while the UPP will support it in the rest of the State.
In an important clash before the elections, the Con-

The BJP is looking to wrest

power in Assam, but that
may be easier said than
done.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

AS OM G AN A P A R I S HA D president Atul Bora (centre)

with senior BJP leader Hemanta Biswa Sarma (right) and
Keshab Mahanta (left) at a rally before ling his nomination
in Bokakhat constituency in Golaghat district on March 17.

gress managed to secure both the Rajya Sabha seats from

Assam. The independent candidate Mahavir Prasad Jain
failed to garner a single vote. Only 86 of the 114 serving
MLAs of the Assam Legislative Assembly came to cast
their vote for the two vacancies. Ripun Borah of the
Congress got 38 rst-preference votes, while his colleague, Ranee Narah, managed to get 47 rst-preference
votes. One vote of the Congress MLA Robin Bordoloi was
found invalid. Ten AIUDF MLAs cast their votes in
support of Ranee Narah, taking all parties including the
Congress by surprise, and pushing her tally up to 47, nine
more than the rst preferential candidate Ripun Borah.
The State is also facing a dilemma over D voters, or
Dubious/Doubtful voters. According to the government, they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. For
more than 20 years they have been ghting their issue in
the court. Now on the order of the Gauhati High Court,
they have moved to the D Voter list, which simply
means that they have no voting rights. The BJP accuses
the Congress of using illegal migrants as a vote bank. The
AIUDF has joined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal
(RJD) and the Janata Dal-United, or JD(U), to form an
alliance of secular parties. The AIUDF will contest 66
seats and has announced a list of 23 candidates for the
rst phase of the election. The RJD and the JD(U) will
contest in around 12 seats.

120

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

Mamata vs the rest

PTI

With the opposition joining forces and a sting operation exposing

corruption within the party, West Bengals ruling Trinamool Congress
nds the going tough in the elections. B Y S U H R I D S A N K A R C H A T T O P A D H Y A Y

SIX MONTHS AGO, VICTORY IN THE 2016

Assembly elections was more or less a foregone conclusion for the Trinamool Congress ruling West Bengal.
With a weakened opposition clutching at straws to revive
itself, there was little doubt that Chief Minister and
Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee would secure another huge majority in the 294-seat Assembly for a second consecutive term.
However, as the elections drew near, furrows of concern began to show on Trinamool workers brows. The
rst blow to the ruling partys complacence came from
the joining of forces by two unlikely allies, the Communi-

TR I N A M OOL CON G R E S S workers carrying hoardings of

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as part of the campaign for

the Assembly elections, in Kolkata on March 18.
st Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front and the West
Bengal Pradesh Congress. Even if the party had found a
way to counter this development with political and ideological arguments and jargons, the expose by the Narada News sting operation (story on page 128), in which
senior, high-prole party leaders, including MPs and
Ministers, were seen accepting cash on camera, has dealt
a severe blow to the reputation and image of the party.

121

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP

With the revelations coming to the fore with less than

three weeks before the rst phase of the Assembly elections, the Trinamool has not been left with any time to
even attempt to salvage the situation.
The elections in West Bengal will be held in six phases
over seven days between April 4 and May 5 (see graphics). The spread of the elections and the Election Commissions (E.C.) decision to deploy Central forces in all the
52,306 polling stations in the State indicate the E.C.s
concern over the possibility of violence during the elections.
Political violence has increased manifold since Mamata Banerjee assumed power. Muscle power to dominate turf has
become the order of the day, and an
opposition-less government, the ultimate objective. Mamatas style of
conducting elections has been referred to by political observers as
corporate stylea performanceoriented approach where whosoever
wins by a great margin is rewarded.
As a result there is competition within the party as to who can orchestrate
a bigger victory. The ends justify the
means, and this has led to the increase of violence at practically every
level of politics, as was seen in the
2015 civic elections in the State.
In 2011, when Mamata stormed
to power ending the 34-year rule of
the CPI(M)-led Left Front with her
battle cry Paribartan (change), it
was a mandate for the rejection of a
deeply entrenched political order. In
order to attain this, all the opposition
political forces (with the exception of
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

ACTI VI S TS OF THE CPI(M) and the Congress at a joint

campaign rally they held in Siliguri on March 18.

the Bharatiya Janata Party) had to join hands. With a

seat-sharing understanding with the Congress, the Trinamool won 184 seats and the Congress 42. After more
than three decades of Left rule, it was a call for change for
the sake of change. Ironically, in just ve years, it is the
Trinamool which is facing a combined opposition that is
willing to forget its own history of violent confrontations,
for the single purpose of defeating a common enemy.
With the Trinamools position getting stronger with
every passing election and the opposition getting weaker with the erosion of its workers and dwindling
support base, the Left Front and the
Congress arrived at an understanding guided primarily by the impulse
of self-preservation. In the panchayat elections in 2013, the Trinamool won 13 of the 17 zilla parishads,
214 out of the 329 panchayat samitis
and 1,783 of the 3,215 gram panchayats, and in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 it secured 34 of the 42
seats. In the municipal elections in
2015, the party won 71 of the 92 municipalities that went to the polls,
including the prestigious Kolkata
Municipal Corporation. In a triangular ght, both the Left Front and
the Congress faced the possibility of
not being able to win even the bare
minimum number of seats required
to have the status of opposition in the
Assembly (30 in the West Bengal
Assembly).

122

If the results of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections are any

indication, the situation appears bleak for the opposition.
In the Assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituencies, the Trinamool secured a lead in 214 of the 294
constituencies, the Left Front and the Congress in 28
each, and the BJP in 24. The Trinamool secured 39.79
per cent of the votes, the Left Front 29.94, the Congress
9.69, and the BJP 17.02 per cent.
THE BJP FACTOR

In 2014, the BJP, fuelled by a pro-Modi wave, saw an

unprecedented rise in its vote share from the usual 6 per
cent. In the subsequent panchayat and civic elections,
however, its vote percentage fell drastically, shattering
any hopes the party may have harboured after the Lok
Sabha elections. The vote percentage of the Left-Congress combine still falls slightly short of that pulled by the
Trinamool. One of the crucial factors for the opposition
will be where the BJPs votes will go this time.
The Left-Congress combine pins its hopes on a large

share of the BJP votes of the 2014 elections coming its

way, but there is no certainty that it will not go the other
way eitheras was the case in more than 50 wards
during the Kolkata Corporation Municipal elections
where the decrease in the BJP vote share saw a corresponding increase in the Trinamools vote percentage.
Moreover, the BJPs vote share may not drop to the level
expected by the opposition as the Trinamools brand of
politics has resulted in a polarisation of Hindu votes in
quite a few parts of the State.
The Muslim vote, which constitutes nearly 28 per
cent of the total, has played a key role in Mamata Banerjees continuous ascendancy. She herself has been quite
unabashed in playing the religious card in politics. Soon
after assuming power, she announced a monthly honorarium to imams in the State and a stipend to muezzins,
who perform the task of calling to prayer. This decision
was struck down by the Calcutta High Court as unconstitutional. She has also been seen sharing podiums with
Muslim religious leaders who often have put pressure on
the government on various issues.
With the Left and the Congress teaming up against
her, the Muslim vote is now more crucial for her than
ever. This perhaps explains why this time she has
gone out of her way to woo every prominent
Muslim leader, political and religious. She even
gave seats to the inuential Muslim leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who heads the West Bengal
wing of Badruddin Ajmals All India United
Democratic Front. Her brand of vote-bank politics has turned out to be divisive for the State and as
a result West Bengal has been seeing regular communal disturbances in the past few years, State BJP leader
Ritesh Tiwari told Frontline.
FRIENDLY CONTESTS

If the Left and the Congress decision to join forces has

created some panic in the rank and le of the Trinamool,
the latter must also have found some reassurance from
the oft-emerging cracks in this compact between the two
traditional adversaries. As of March 22, the seat-sharing
arrangement between the Left and the Congress was
largely complete, and there were suggestions that in a
few of the seats where no consensus could be reached,
there might be friendly contests between the two. Such
a scenario will no doubt be confusing for the supporters
of both parties.
Moreover, even if the tie-up is nally formalised, the
success rate of the transfer of votes may not be uniform.
According to the noted psephologist and social scientist
Biswanath Chakraborty, studies have shown that the
highest rate of vote transfer may be expected in the
districts of South and North 24 Paraganas (94 per cent),
Nadia (91 per cent), in the Congress-dominated districts
of Malda (90 per cent), Murshidabad (78 per cent) and
Uttar Dinajpur (74 per cent). We expect a low rate of
vote transfer in places where the rivalry between the Left
and the Congress was particularly bitter, like Bardhaman, Hooghly and Bankura, said Chakraborty.
123

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Uniting secular, democratic forces

Interview with Surjya Kanta Mishra, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Leader of the
Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly. B Y S U H R I D S A N K A R C H A T T O P A D H Y A Y
forces to unite to ght the coming battle. The battle has
to be organised at the grass-roots level irrespective of
political affiliations as all sections are under attack. It is
the urge of the people to replace the government that
has prompted different secular democratic political
parties to discuss with each other how this objective can
be realised.

SURJYA KANTA MISHRA, Polit Bureau member of

the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and State secretary of the party, is the face of the opposition in the
State. In this exclusive interview with Frontline, Mishra
says that it is the peoples urge to replace the Trinamool
Congress government that has prompted different secular democratic political parties to come together.
Excerpts:

How is the opposition combine working out?

The fundamental change in the situation now [from
2011 when the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance
came to power] is that the constituents of the rainbow
alliance with which Mamata Banerjee came to power
have all deserted her and her party. They realised how
impossible it is to stay with her as they were repeatedly
subjected to attacks. Even people within her own party
are not spared. There is turf war happening everywhere
and Trinamool members are killing each other regularly. Most of the constituents which deserted her approached us and asked us to take the initiative and lead
the battle for democracy. Ultimately it was the urge of
the people.
I must also add that one cannot manufacture anything in a vacuum, and the situation for the secular
democratic forces to come together was created by the
Left through its different political programmes. People
began to think that it was possible to defeat this government provided the votes were not divided.

You are the face of the opposition in West Bengal and

you are leading the electoral battle against the ruling
Trinamool Congress. Though premature at this
moment, how do you think the elections will span out?
First, I do not believe that I am the face either of the
opposition or of the party. We believe, as Jyotibabu
[Jyoti Basu] used to say, it is the people who make
history. It is the people who are our face ultimately. We
have been reiterating from time to time that the Left
and democratic front is possible only by the change of
the correlation of class forces.
As for the election battle, I think it is spanning out
on the lines we had envisaged. What we have is a new
challenge that we have never faced before. In the 1970s
we faced a challenge when the question of democracy
had become the foremost question. Today, added to the
attack on democracy is the threat to the secular fabric of
West Bengal.
The unholy alliance between the ruling party in the
State and the BJP at the Centre has been instrumental
in fuelling communal passions, resulting in communal
polarisation. This is to their mutual benet. Their basic
economic policies remain the same so far as livelihood
of the poor is concerned.
Theirs is a three-pronged attackon democracy, on
secularism, and on the livelihood of the masses. Our
foremost task is to oust this governmentour call is to
oust the TMC to save Bengal and to oust the BJP to save
India.
There have been no free and fair elections after 2011
and it is of utmost importance for all secular democratic

Tie-up or not, the Trinamool, before the Narada

expose hit the State, seemed ready for elections. The very
day the election dates were announced, the party released
its list of candidates. While the Left and the Congress
were wrangling with considerable acrimony over seatsharing, the Trinamool and Mamata Banerjee were already campaigning in full force. Then out of the blue
came the Narada revelations that brought fresh wind in
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

How far is the opposition likely to capitalise on this

latest setback for the ruling party brought about by the
Narada News sting operation?
To us it is a political battle. It is not about simply
capitalising on an issue. This new global order, and the
neoliberal economy pursued in the country, itself
breeds corruption. The sting vindicates how corrupt the
top levels of the Trinamool party are. Such a thing has
never happened in Bengal before and it is our shame.
Imagine the police chief of a district taking money
authorised by the ruling party! What role can be expect-

the sails of the opposition. There is no denying that the

Narada sting has set us back. The image of the party has
taken a beating. How can we convince voters, when many
of the party workers themselves are not convinced of the
innocence and integrity of their leaders? a Trinamool
activist told Frontline.
The Narada sting was the last thing that Mamata
Banerjee wanted at this time. With violent inner-party

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ed from such police to ensure proper voting? This is a

manifestation of the economic system that we live in.
But there is no denying that there is match-xing
between the BJP and the Trinamool on the Narada
issue. The BJP referred the matter to the Ethics Committee in the Lok Sabha, but then in the Rajya Sabha,
the Chair had to say that the government does not want
an investigation. We do not know what kind of an
understanding the Trinamool and the BJP have reached. But we do know that the Trinamool is nervous
now.

S UR J YA KA N TA M I S HR A with CPI(M) general secretary

Sitaram Yechury (right) and Left Front chairman Biman

Basu at a meeting on February 12 at the State party office
in Kolkata.
enterprises], etc. In the last seven years of Left Front
rule, job creation in West Bengal in the manufacturing
sector was the highest in the country according to NSS
[National Sample Survey] data. Gujarat was a distant
second.
Now there is drastic reduction in employment in the
manufacturing sector in the State. This reects the
health of the industry. Industries are simply running
away from the State.

How do you assess the performance of the

government in the areas of agriculture and industry?
In the unforeseen agrarian crisis in the State, 167
farmers committed suicide, and the Chief Minister sent
a report to the Centre saying that there have been no
suicides. Take the case of the tea industry where there
have been hundreds of starvation deaths, and she sent a
report stating that there have been no starvation deaths.
Not just the tea industry, see the condition of other
industries as well, particularly the jute industry, the
engineering industry, the SMEs [small and medium

What is the Lefts strategy in this election?

We have highlighted the achievements of 34 years
of Left rule; and, of course, we looked into our weaknesses too, so we can learn from them. We are comparing that with what has been happening in the last ve
years under the Trinamool. Our point is to go to the
people and learn from them, nd out what they want.
That is our strategy.

feuds over turf domination spiralling out of control, and

the party still reeling from the battery its reputation has
taken from the multi-crore Saradha scam, the Trinamool
leadership seemed at a loss on how to deal with the
situation.
Moreover, a perpetual thorn in Mamata Banerjees
side has been the ever-deteriorating law and order situation in the State. Rising crimes against women, repeat-

ed attacks on the police and police stations, the seeming

impunity with which terrorist organisations such as the
Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh operate in the State,
and the governments perceived apathy in addressing
these problems have done considerable damage to its
reputation. A new phenomenon, known as Syndicate
Raj (a euphemism for extortionists operating in the
housing and infrastructure industries), allegedly estab-

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

Some psychological barriers remain

Interview with Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, West Bengal Congress president.
BY SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY

There is still a gap between the

lip and the cup.

ADHIR RANJAN CHOWDHURY, Lok Sabha member and president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, is known for his no-nonsense
approach in politics. In this exclusive interview with
Frontline, he speaks of the necessity of the Left-Congress understanding in the coming elections and its
prospects. Excerpts:

You are yet to come to a

consensus on all seats. Do you
not think that a friendly ght
will ultimately hamper the
prospects of victory?
There is a high chance of
coming to an understanding in
95 per cent of the seats. But in
some of the places, the CPI(M) is not being able to
convince its allies. The problem lies not with the CPI
(M) but with its allies. The CPI(M) has not been able to
accommodate its allies, and so these allies want to
encroach upon Congress turf, and are giving their candidates those constituencies that are our strongholds.
We have managed to come to an understanding with
our particular allies, the JD(U) [Janata Dal (United)]
and the RJD [Rashtriya Janata Dal]. The CPI(M) has
not been able to accommodate its allies, and that is their
problem. That problem is now spilling over to our side.
So I have said there will be friendly ghts in some
places, because if we do not put up our candidate, the
Trinamool will stand to gain. As I said, some psychological barriers still remain, and in such a short time it will
be difficult to convince Congress supporters in those
places to vote for the Left. You see, Congress supporters
are traditional and emotional. But we are trying to
minimise such problems.
PTI

Both the Congress and the Left claim that the

Congress-Left understanding was something that was
thrust on them by the people of the State. How
difficult was it for you to overlook 34 years of bitter
political rivalry during Left rule?
In West Bengal, political atrocities committed by
the Trinamool regime have affected the workers and
supporters of both the Congress and the Left. Such has
been the severity of the persecutionthe democratic
space for doing opposition politics has been squeezed in
such a ruthless mannerthat we have been practically
gasping for life. Out of desperation the workers of both
parties decided to forge an alliance in order to get rid of
the source of these atrocities. A common refrain was
sounded that by whatever means the present regime
has to be dislodged; otherwise the opposition will be
obliterated from the soil of Bengal.
Are you satised with the understanding you have
reached with the Left?
It is sheer desperation that has brought both parties
into the same frame. The workers of both parties want
it. But for 34 years we have belonged to diametrically
opposite poles. So, naturally, some psychological barriers still remain which need to be sorted out. Through
the electoral process these psychological barriers will be
diffused. Chances of success depend on diffusing these
obstacles. But I must admit we are still in the process of
doing so. I cannot say everything has been sorted out.

lished by the members of the ruling party or those close to

it, has also emerged in West Bengal under Trinamool
rule.
The existence of rival syndicates within the same
area, owing allegiance to the same party, has led to
vicious inghting and even murders on the streets.
POLITICAL DIVIDENDS

Mamata Banerjee is now falling back on her governments achievements and her personal charisma. For this
election, her partys slogan is development.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

How far do you think the Narada News sting will

improve the prospects of the opposition?
Certainly this improves the prospects of the opposition. The articulate section of society will be convinced
that the Trinamool, which once advocated politics of
transparency, is steeped in corruption. This is a blow to

To date, two of her biggest achievements have been

bringing peace to the strife-torn Darjeeling hills and
ending the Maoist reign of terror in the Jangalmahal (the
contiguous forest area spread over parts of Pashchim
Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia districts).
But what will pay her the biggest dividend is the work
that her party has been doing at the grass-roots level,
particularly in the areas of health and infrastructure
building.
She has extended the benets of the coverage of the
National Food Security Act to a large number of people in

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PTI

the Trinamool as far as that section of society is

concerned. But the whole of the electorate does not
comprise that articulate society. This is one of the
issues that will give us the advantage. But it is not
one that will sweep the Trinamool out of the soil of
Bengal. There are a number of other factors like
political atrocities, violence, anarchy, the politics of
muscle power and money. For the past ve years, the
State has not seen any kind of industrial rejuvenation. Thousands of industries have shut down, and
unemployment is a major issue. The government
has taken no tangible measures to address this problem. A few months ago everyone thought that it
would be a cakewalk for the Trinamool. But slowly
things are getting difficult for them. A lot depends
now on the opposition gaining momentum. The
sting operation has given fuel for picking up momentum.

B J P LE AD E R S (from left) Rahul Sinha, Siddarth Nath

Singh, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and State
BJP president Dilip Ghosh at a rally in Singur on March 3.

Have you been able to stem the erosion of your

support base and worker strength?
We certainly have. If you look at the 2014 Lok
Sabha elections, the Congress won four seats. The
CPI(M) won two seats, and that too from Congress
areas. We have managed to maintain our strongholds, and our vote share will increase. It is the Lefts
vote share that has plummeted. We still have organisational strength. Suppose there was no alliance
this time, the Congress would have been able to tell
you the 20-25-30 seats that we would have won and
from where. It is not possible for the CPI(M) to do
so. There has certainly been poaching by the Trinamool. Our strength of 42 MLAs has been reduced to
32. But since talks of the Left-Congress alliance
began, the erosion has been stemmed.
The TMC was already deep into campaigning while
the Congress and the Left were trying to reach an
understanding. Do you think you are a little behind?
You are correct. Theirs is a monolithic structure,
so they have an advantage there. We had to go
through the complex process of coming to an understanding over seats; so obviously we are a little behind. This is a new experience for us all.

the State and has come up with a number of popular

social welfare schemes which she has successfully distributed through the bureaucratic system to even remote
areas.
She herself has been working indefatigably, monitoring the developments and regularly conducting administrative meetings at the district and block levels.
As much as 54 per cent of the total voters have been
beneciaries of the State governments schemes. Though
this kind of dole politics can work only for a limited
period of time, it will bring her success in this election,

said Biswanath Chakraborty. However, there is little indication of any long-term plan for the industrial revival of
West Bengal. The legacy of Mamata Banerjees violent
movement in Singur, which led to the departure of the
Tata Motors project in 2008 (and paved the way for her
political revival), still lingers, mainly because of the land
policy of her government, and try as she might, Mamata
Banerjee has not been able to shake off the tag of being
anti-industry.
While on the one hand Mamata Banerjees reputation is that of the benevolent Didi, on the other her
intolerance for any dissent, howsoever minor, and her
impatience with any deviation, howsoever trivial, have
given her the image of a ruthless autocrat. Criminal
charges have been brought up against people for perceived offences and imagined conspiracies. This attitude
has served to alienate from her a large section of the
urban intelligentsia and the literati, who once hailed her
as the agent of Paribartan.
If the Congress-Left understanding has prompted
Mamata Banerjee to recall all those leaders who had
fallen out of favour, like Mukul Roy, give the ticket to
Madan Mitra even though he is in jail, and forge an
understanding with fringe elements in Bengal politics
such as the Islamist leader Siddiqullah, the Narada sting
has forced her to fall back on the one trump card that has
never failed her so farthe image of Mamata Banerjee
herself.
Days after the Narada sting became public, Mamata
Banerjee said at a rally in north Bengal: I am the candidate in all 294 seats.
In her desperation she has turned to the electorate
and laid bare a fundamental truth of her politics: no one
else in the Trinamool really matters, apart from her.

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

Caught on camera
The Narada News revelations come at the most inopportune time for
the ruling party. B Y S U H R I D S A N K A R C H A T T O P A D H Y A Y
A STING OPERATION CARRIED OUT BY THE
news portal Narada News, where top Trinamool Congress leaders were seen allegedly accepting cash, came as
a rude shock to the ruling Trinamool Congress in West
Bengal. The operation, which was carried out just before
the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, was revealed on March 16,
less than three weeks before the Assembly elections in the
State.
It shows inuential Cabinet Ministers Firhad Hakim,
Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra (no longer a Minister); MPs and party heavyweights Mukul Roy, Subhendu Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Saugata Roy, Kakoli
Ghosh Dastidar and Prasun Banerjee; the Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Trinamool MLA Sovan
Chatterjee; and Deputy Mayor and MLA Iqbal Ahmed,
all receiving wads of notes from the representative of a
ctitious company, Impex Infrastructure (set up for the
sting operation), in exchange for promises of favours and
lobbyings. Also featuring prominently in the video is
the then Superintendent of Police of Bardhaman district,
S.H. Mirza, known to be close to the ruling party, claiming to accept money on behalf of Mukul Roy. Though, as
of March 22, the authenticity of the video was yet to be
ascertained, the latest embarrassment for Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee could not have come at a worse time.
The footage that has been released by Narada takes
the viewers into the houses and offices of the leaders and
reveals a side of their personality quite different from
their public persona. Firhad Hakim, the dynamic and
apparently upright Minister in charge of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, a close aide of Mamata
Banerjee, is seen at his residence wearing a sleeveless vest
and smilingly saying, If we deal in small matters, what
will be left for kids to deal with? He then instructs one of
his men to take the sting operative downstairs and collect
the money.
Another favourite of Mamata Banerjee, Madan Mitra, who was Cabinet Minister for Transport and Sports
at the time of the sting operation, is seen reclining on his

bed wearing a lungi and T-shirt, impassively watching

the money being piled before him. He then orders one of
his aides to keep the money away. Madan Mitra at present is in jail for his alleged involvement in the Saradha
scam. His proximity to Mamata Banerjee allowed him to
retain his status as a Minister for nearly a year while still
in prison, before he resigned in November 2015. The fact
that Mamata Banerjee has once again given him the
ticket to contest in the Assembly elections is an indication of the favoured position he continues to enjoy in the
party.
At the time of the sting, the full effect of the Saradha
scam had not yet hit the ruling party, and Mukul Roy was
then the undisputed number two in the Trinamool Con-

ONE O F T H E PO S T E RS alluding to the Narada News sting

operation that appeared in Kolkata. The revelations have
become a terrible embarrassment to Mamata Banerjee.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

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BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

gress after Mamata Banerjee. The former Union Railway

Minister, long considered the right-hand man of Mamata Banerjee until his fall from grace, is seen to be unwilling to take the money in his house. You go to my
office. I am not taking it straight away. I will tell my men,
you will give it to them. The sting operative says, I have
Rs.20 lakh, I will give it to you, to which Roy nods assent.
The sting also reveals that Mirza, the then S.P. of Bardhaman, was collecting money on his behalf. You talk to
Mirza. Everything will be communicated to me through
Mirza, Roy tells the operative. Mirza is seen loudly
counting the bundles of money handed over to him at his
official residence in Bardhaman.
Sultan Ahmed, Lok Sabha member and one of the
most respected leaders of the party, is seen at his office
with a bundle of notes before him on the table. When
asked by the sting agent if he wanted more, Ahmed
answers, If you have, yes. He assures the operative,
Whatever you want, my assistance I will give you.
Former Union Minister and one-time academic Saugata Roy, seen receiving allegedly Rs.5 lakh in cash with
both hands, is heard saying, This is a lot of money. He
appears not to have even the slightest knowledge of the
organisation which is giving him the money. You are
from? he asks the operative after receiving the payment.
The Mayor of Kolkata, Sovan Chatterjee, smoking a
cigarette, is seen covering up the money (allegedly Rs.4
lakh) in a piece of cloth, and assuring the operative that
he will introduce him to all the power centres in the
State.

State Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee, party

heavyweight and MP Subhendu Adhikari, inuential MP
and physician Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, and former football player and MP Prasun Banerjee, are all shown accepting wads of money from the representative of the
ctitious company. Deputy Mayor of Kolkata Iqbal
Ahmed, after receiving the money, even tells the operative that Subrata Mukherjee will need to be paid Rs.1
lakh as well.
If the alleged involvement of some high-prole Trinamool leaders in the multi-crore Saradha deposit collection scam, which ruined lakhs of poor investors in the
State, came as a shocker, video images of party heavyweights with a reputation for probity and transparency
accepting bribes nonchalantly and asking for more have
rocked the collective Bengali sensibility which still places
great value on the nancial integrity of its political gures. The revelations just before the elections have given
the opposition a fresh handle with which to attack the
ruling party. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister, and the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) wants the Election
Commission to take up the matter and, if necessary,
postpone the elections. This is a devastating blow to the
pride and prestige of West Bengal. The way the Centre
has been dragging its feet on the expose is also a matter of
concern, said Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra.
TRINAMOOLS REACTION

The Trinamool Congress reaction has been confusing

and self-contradictory. Initially, it tried to trivialise the
matter and dismiss it. At best a minor distraction on a
Monday morning, was how party spokesperson and
Rajya Sabha member Derek OBrien described the development at rst. But as matters began to heat up in
political and social circles, the Trinamool quickly
changed tack and labelled the whole operation as a political conspiracy. It claimed the video footage was manufactured. However, the party leaderships reluctance to
order a forensic test to establish that the video was indeed
doctored or order an investigation into the issue further
lowered the partys credibility.
The Trinamool Congress also protested when the
contents of the Narada sting were referred to the Ethics
Committee of the Lok Sabha by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. These allegations are very serious in nature and seek
to impact upon the very credibility of parliamentarians
and Parliament as an institution, said Sumitra Mahajan
while referring the matter to the Ethics Committee, a
15-member panel headed by former Union Home Minister and veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani. Saugata Roy,
who was seen allegedly accepting cash in the sting operation, called the decision unilateral and pointed out
that the matter related to something which is dated
April 2014, or in other words, questioning whether the
present House, which had not been constituted at that
time, could investigate a matter that occurred before it
came into being.
The matter was also raised in the Rajya Sabha, where

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

There is peace in West Bengal

Interview with Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, senior Trinamool Congress leader and Chief
Whip of the Trinamool in the Assembly. B Y S U H R I D S A N K A R C H A T T O P A D H Y A Y
SOVANDEB CHATTOPADHYAY is
one of the senior-most leaders of the
Trinamool Congress and the Chief
Whip of the party in the West Bengal
Assembly. He has been with the party
right from its inception in January
1998 and has the distinction of being
the rst elected MLA of the Trinamool, having won a byelection the
same year. In an exclusive interview
with Frontline, he talks about the electoral prospects of his party. He also
believes that someone from inside the
party has a hand in the Narada sting operation.
Excerpts:

Banerjee government?
First and foremost, she has been able to
provide food to the poorest of the poor
people. The Government of Indias National Food Security Act ensures food for
3.5 crore people of the State. Mamata Banerjee has decided to extend this benet
to eight crore people out of a total population of 9.1 crore. As of date, she has
reached 6.5 crore.
Under Mamata Banerjee, there has been
massive infrastructure development, including roadways, hospitals, schools, colleges, ITIs, polytechnics, etc.; on top of these there has been the
beautication of Kolkata and the district towns. We
have managed to take electricity to 90 per cent of the
households. Today there is peace in West Bengal, there
is power and developed infrastructure. In fact, we can
very well claim that this is a destination for industries.
Let us talk of education. Since assuming power, in just
four and a half years Mamata Banerjee has added 15
new universities in the State and 46 colleges.
One of her biggest achievements is in the health sector,
particularly in the rural region. She has set up 41 superspeciality hospitals. Generic medicines are now available at low cost everywhere.
She has set up a pipeline from Malda to Digha to
provide pure water to the people of the State. As you
know, West Bengal has a problem of arsenic presence in
groundwater in many places.

After the Saradha scam and the Narada sting, and with
the opposition coming together to take on the
Trinamool, are you still expecting a huge victory?
Yes, I think we will certainly win with a great majority.
In the last ve years, the amount of work that Mamata
Banerjee has done has been seen by the people. She has
worked with absolute transparency and has increased
the State revenue by 3.5 times and has increased the
planned budget 6.5 times. Planned budget is an index of
development. The people of West Bengal can virtually
feel and touch the fruits of development.
Apart from bringing peace to the Darjeeling hills and
ridding the State of Maoist threat, what else would you
say are the main achievements of the Mamata

the Union governments reluctance to order a probe into

the sting operation drew severe criticism from the Left
parties. CPI(M) general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury alleged that the inaction on the part
of the Centre was a result of match-xing between the
BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
Rather than addressing the real issue of alleged corruption within the party, the Trinamool leadership tried
to obfuscate the matter by drawing attention to the fact
that the headquarters of Narada news was in Dubai and
questioned the source and credibility of the organisation
on the basis of that. However, the party seemed to be
making no effort to prove their allegations. Why should
we want an investigation into something that we do not
believe in, said Trinamool secretary-general and Cabinet Minister Partha Chatterjee.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

That the matter has been referred to the Ethics Committee, in fact, has saved the party from a situation of
considerable discomfort. What has not been proved yet
is being made out to have been already proved, and we are
being made to look as though we do not want an investigation. The matter is now with the Ethics Committee, said Chatterjee the day after he had made his earlier
statement. Matthew Samuel, the owner of Narada News,
dismissed doubts regarding the authenticity of the video.
These people can give the footage to the forensic lab in
Kolkata. It is a 100 per cent genuine footage, he said.
Denying that there was any political conspiracy behind
the sting, Samuel, who was also a part of the Tehelka
sting, said, I decided to go for the sting operation because of the Saradha scam.
He claimed that there was 52 hours of footage from

130

We have spent the maximum money in the country in

extending 100 days work, and have been number one in
India in the creation of man-days of employment. We
have been awarded the rst prize for our work in The
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, or PMGSY, and
the Swachh Bharat Mission, which we have named here
Nirmal Bangla Mission.
In fact, our election slogan is See the development and
give us votes.

even expelled, and reprimanded from time to time.

How far will the Narada sting hurt the partys electoral
performance?
There is no doubt that it has come as a jolt to the people.
But let me also tell you that people are also suspecting
that this is part of a conspiracy. Somehow these leaders
have been inuenced by some people inside the party,
and the fact that these leaders have trusted these people
is what has led to this development. It took place just
before the elections [2014 Lok Sabha elections], at a
time when money is most needed. This sting operation
was carried out through someone who is our partyman,
someone whom these leaders trusted.

Are you not nervous regarding the Left-Congress

understanding?
No. Let me tell you, this tie-up will not be successful. To
date the tie-up has not been 100 per cent. Those who are
still working for the Congress are orthodox Congress
supporters, otherwise they would have joined the Trinamool; the Congress politics for the last 50 years has
been anti-communist. They will not be giving their
votes to the CPI(M). As for the CPI(M), apart from a
few, most are very orthodox, to the point of being
fundamentalist in their politics. From their perspective
too there will not be a proper alliance. In fact, we will
gain from such an attempt. In my opinion we will get
around 220 seats.

So the betrayal is from someone within the party?

I am not sure, but I think so. Common sense tells me so.
Another allegation against the present government is
that there is lack of industries and job opportunities in
the State and that the government has done nothing
about it.
The rate of industrial growth in the State is higher than
that in the country. We are concentrating on small and
middle enterprises, where there is a lot of scope for
employment generation. Already there has been considerable employment generation in this sector.

How far will the violent inner-party conicts affect the

Trinamools prospects this time?
No, its not like that. There is greater democracy within
our party than most other parties, and greater independence to express ones opinions. Still, Mamata Banerjee has been able to bring discipline. But it will take
more time. Her focus has been more on the development of the State. After all, she has to show the people
all that has been accomplished by her government. If we
did not perform, how would we face the people of the
State? After this election she will give more attention to
bringing more discipline within the party. It is not as
though the party does not take disciplinary action
against erring members. People have been suspended,

Your land policy is believed to be a deterrent for

investors in the manufacturing sector. Your
comments.
The ght that Mamata Banerjee is waging for land is
something that will happen in the whole country. There
is a population explosion, and in this situation if an
investor comes and asks for 400 acres when 100 acres
will suffice, it is not fair. This is Mamata Banerjees
point. In the years to come that will be the question in
Indiahow much land to give to industry and how
much to agriculture.

the operation, and the project was crowd-funded, with

friends chipping in. Even as the Trinamool leaders have
been crying themselves hoarse, proclaiming their innocence, the Trinamool chief has maintained a studied
silence on the issue. Not once in her election rallies so far
(as of March 22) did she make a direct reference to the
sting operation, though she accused the opposition of
spreading canards and challenged them to ght her
politically. Ironically, this is the same Mamata Banerjee
who, in 2001, used the Tehelka sting (Operation West
End), which exposed the corruption in the then BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance government, to walk out of
the alliance at the Centre and forge a tie-up with the
Congress to defeat the CPI(M)-led Left Front government of West Bengal.
The Narada sting has undoubtedly been a huge set-

back for the ruling party, which is nding it difficult to

convince its own rank and le of the innocence of its
leaders, let alone the election-bound people of the State.
What has hurt Mamata Banerjee the most is that the
sting has destroyed her partys honest image, which had
already taken a beating in the Saradha scam for which
several inuential party leaders were arrested. But the
alleged deals in the Saradha scam took place behind
closed doors. Even though the amount of money involved
in the Narada sting is less than a fraction of the total
amount in the Saradha scam, the video images of respectable leaders of the party seen to be taking bribes brazenly
have made a greater political and social impact. Until it is
proved that the visuals shown were indeed doctored as
claimed by the Trinamool, the party will nd it very
difficult to live down this embarrassment.

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FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

PTI

CH IE F M I N I S T E R O O M M EN C H A N D Y anked by Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala (right) and Kerala Congress chief
K.M. Mani during an UDF election convention in Ernakulam on March 8.

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

Testing times
In the face of a string of anti-incumbency factors and allegations of
large-scale corruption, the United Democratic Fronts ambition of coming
back to power in Kerala is not easy to achieve.
BY R. KRISHNAKUMAR IN THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

EVER SINCE THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC

Front (UDF) came to power in Kerala on a thin majority
in 2011, it has been the practice of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to declare every election about to be held in
the State as a referendum on his government. Even at the
worst of times, when the Congress-led coalition government was being overwhelmed by crises and scandals, the
Chief Minister would say boldly that if the verdict went
against the ruling Front, the responsibility for it would
rest on him rst and foremost.
But now, as political parties get ready for the election
to the State Assembly on May 16, the Chief Ministers
statements have acquired a defensive, aggrieved tone. Of
late, he presents himself rather as a victim of a witchFRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

hunt in which the opposition had tried to run him down

brutally, at times preventing him from entering the Secretariat, leaving his residence or meeting people and, on
one occasion, attacking and injuring him physically. He
describes the oppositions move as the nastiest campaign ever in history against a State Chief Minister and
accuses his opponents of hitting below the belt by unfairly including his family members too in their politically motivated allegations.
The complaints are not entirely without merit. As the
UDF government got embroiled in controversies and
corruption allegations, especially in the last one year, the
opposition attacks against the Chief Minister turned extremely harsh. Regardless of the earlier impression that

132

LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS

But the results belied such misplaced condence. After a

gap of nearly six years, the LDF won its rst decisive
victory, gaining 58.08 per cent of the
total seats in the three-tier local body
institutions; the UDF got only 39.42
per cent of the seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a meagre
1.25 per cent. With this share, the
LDF now rules in 551 of the 941 gram
panchayats, 90 of the 152 block panchayats, seven of the 14 district panchayats, 45 of the 87 municipalities
and four of the six corporations. The
UDF runs only 362 gram panchayats, 61 block panchayats, seven
district panchayats, 40 municipalities and two corporations.
Two reasons stood apart, among
several others that saw the UDF nally losing an election in the State
towards the fag end of its governments term. One, after a long gap,
the CPI(M), with new leaderships at
the national and State levels, managed to ght the election unitedly,
surprising its opponents and without
there being any outward sign of the
factional feud that had been the bane

S. RAMESH KURUP

his government would not last long, what with just 72

MLAs (initially) in a House of 140 members, the coalition
he led emerged triumphant in all the elections held in
Kerala in the rst four and a half years of its rule. It won
all three byelections to the Assembly, including the recent one held at Aruvikkara in June 2015, and managed
to gain the largest share of seats in the Lok Sabha election
in 2014.
In part, the UDFs dream run was a result of the
political dexterity and skill with which Oommen Chandy,
a master tactician, handled the crises that besieged his
party and the government. Yet, throughout this period,
signicantly, the opposition Left Democratic Front
(LDF) was in disarray. The two-decade-long factionalism within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the
State, which leads the alliance, was still simmering, with
the majority in the State party led by former secretary
Pinarayi Vijayan on one side and a minority led by Opposition Leader V.S. Achuthanandan, with his popular image as a crusader politician, on the other.
No doubt, therefore, buoyed by the successive electoral victories it won irrespective of the many drawbacks of
its government, the UDF had been nourishing the hope
of being re-elected for a second consecutive term in the
State Assembly in 2016. (Only once in history, in 1977,
has a government been re-elected in Kerala.) During the
November 2015 elections to the local bodies, the UDF
even began asking the people of Kerala to vote for development and continuity.

S TA TE B J P President Kummanam Rajasekharan (left)

with BDJS President Tushar Vellappally in
Kozhikode on March 15.

of the party and the LDF for several years. Two, for the
rst time, the BJP too had entered the fray in a big way,
posing itself as a third force in a State which had so far
remained politically bipolar, shifting its preferences only
between the two Fronts led by the CPI(M) and the Congress.
Reecting the BJPs ambitions, there was a threefold
increase in the number of seats contested by it in the local
body elections this time and it gathered 13.28 per cent of
the total votes polled (though much below its target),
with the help of a carefully calibrated strategy that had
been in the making ever since the
Narendra Modi government came to
power at the Centre.
As part of it, in the months that
followed, and at the initiative of BJP
president Amit Shah and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS),
the party had held discussions with
leaders of several community organisations. Amit Shah made several
visits to Kerala. The Prime Minister
himself addressed rallies tailormade for facilitating possible alliances with several backward caste organisations. In the end, it got 13.28 per
cent of the votes in the rst Statewide elections after its targets were
set. It won only 14 gram panchayats
and a municipality, but gained a fairly decent number of seats in many
other local bodies, especially in the
urban areas of the State.
As Kerala gets ready for the next
Assembly election, the two factors
that led to the fall of the UDF in the
panchayat electionsthe unity in

133

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

the CPI(M) and the LDF in general, and the attempts by

the BJP to gain critical mass in the Statehave become
more prominent. At the same time, anti-incumbency
factors and instances of corruption and other scandals
that the UDF had cleverly managed to sidestep away
from during many previous elections have come to the
fore.
Within the CPI(M), the intervention of its central
leadership has ensured that both Achuthanandan and
Pinarayi Vijayan would contest this time, thus avoiding a
conict that would have otherwise affected the LDFs
prospects seriously. However, it was not immediately
made clear who among the two would lead the election
campaign or its MLAs eventually in the State Assembly.
This strategy has ensured that, unlike in the past, the
CPI(M) would present itself as a more cohesive force, and
not a party vehemently ghting itself even as it engages
with its opponents. Though it still leaves the door open
for renewed inner-party struggles once the elections are
over, the unity forged for now has come as a big relief for
the opposition coalition as a whole and as a source of
alarm for its political opponents.
SOCIAL COMPOSITION

The Kerala unit of the BJP too is a divided house that is

sought to be put in order with the appointment of Kummanam Rajasekharan (an RSS pracharak closely associated with the Hindu Aikya Vedi and the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad) as the State president. The partys electoral
strategy is dictated mostly by the social composition in
Kerala, a State with a sizeable minority population, with
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

CP I ( M ) G E N E R A L S E CR E TA R Y Sitaram Yechury and

other party leaders at the concluding ceremony of Nava
Kerala March led by Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan,
in Thiruvananthapuram on February 15.

Muslims accounting for 25 per cent and Christians for

nearly 18 per cent of the total population. Nearly 57 per
cent of the population are Hindus and, according to a
rough recent estimate, about 24 per cent belong to the
Ezhava community, about 16 per cent to the Nair community and about 10 per cent to the Scheduled Castes
and the Scheduled Tribes; and others form the rest.
Minority communities form a signicant chunk of
the voters in any constituency in Kerala and a large share
of the minority votes are often claimed by well-established political parties such as the Muslim League and the
Kerala Congress groups (constituents mostly of the
UDF). But Kerala in general has always had a secular
mind.
The Hindu vote has remained divided, for example,
with the CPI(M) and the Congress being the two major
claimants to it. In addition, there are several politically
inuential community organisations, which shift their
loyalty from one front to the other depending on what
their leaders perceive to be a communitys changing
needs.
The majority of members of these communities, however, have independent political preferences and do not
vote according to the dictates of the community leadership. It is such a situation that often restricts parties
such as the BJP from gaining much ground in the State.

134

followers mostly from the SNDP Yogam, and an assorted

bunch of smaller caste and community groups, is now a
part of the BJPs National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in
Kerala, along with about ve other small groups.
Leaders of both the LDF and the UDF have said that
they do not take the increase in the share of votes of the
BJP in the recent elections lightly, even though the partys ability to win a seat in the Assembly still remains a
matter of speculation.

PTI

BJP PRESENCE

Last year, however, the BJP succeeded in forming a

tentative alliance with the leadership of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, an organisation
of the Ezhavas, the largest Other Backward Classes
(OBC) group in the State whose members have been
traditional supporters of the CPI(M) and the Left Front.
At the same time, the BJP was rebuffed by the leadership
of the Nair Service Society (NSS).
It is a moot point whether the alliance forged with the
SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan had
the support of all SNDP Yogam members or if at all it
helped the BJP win more votes in the two crucial elections held in 2015: the Aruvikkara byelection in June and
the local body elections in November.
However, with former Union Minister O. Rajagopal
as its candidate in Aruvikkara, the party could increase
its tally more than fourfold vis-a-vis its share in
2011even though it still only came third there, after the
UDF and the LDF. In the local bodies, it won 13.28 per
cent of the votes as against the 6.2 per cent of votes it got
in 2010.
Since then, Natesan and his politically ambitious son,
Tushar Vellappally, have been thoroughly discredited,
with demands being raised by Achuthanandan for a
vigilance inquiry into their alleged involvement in a micronance scam run by the SNDP Yogam.
With protests also rising against the politicisation of
the SNDP Yogam for personal gains, after much hesitation, they have oated a new political party, the Bharat
Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), ostensibly representing
backward class interests. The new party, made up of

But the BJP has the potential to play the spoiler in many
Assembly constituencies. For the Congress and especially
the CPI(M), the results of the 2016 Assembly election in
Kerala would be a crucial factor deciding their very relevance and survival at the national level. The increasing
involvement of the BJP in the electoral arena in Kerala
does not allow the two established political fronts any
room for complacency.
For example, the UDF leaderships casual reading
that the rise of the BJP, along with its alliance with the
SNDP/BDJS, would only drain away the votes of the LDF
has been proved wrong in the last two elections. In fact,
the BJPs presence affected the UDF more, as it led to
secular voters, among them traditional minority supporters of the UDF, turning more towards the Left Front.
If the results of the panchayat elections are an indication, the UDFs ambition of coming back to power
does not seem to be an easy proposition. But the LDF too
cannot take victory for granted, because the difference
between the vote share of the two fronts has been very
small in several constituencies in Kerala, and, this time,
the BJP is unusually focussed on gaining a foothold in the
Assembly. The BJPs performance can therefore affect
the prospects of both the Fronts, even though the LDF
then stands a better chance of bringing about a consolidation of secular votes in its favourthat is if it puts its
act together.
As this report went to the press, the three fronts were
still engaged in their seat-sharing and candidate-selection processes. The ruling fronts trump card in this
election, a list of development initiatives (a number of
them inaugurated only in the past few months), is increasingly being eclipsed by a string of anti-incumbency
factors and allegations of large-scale corruption, especially in the solar, bar bribery and land grab scandals.
Moreover, the Congress was on the brink of a subdued
factional war over many of these issues, including the
selection of candidates.
The LDF appears to be a more unied and motivated
force this time, and, at least initially, there has been no
sign of factional feuds dominating the CPI(M)s candidate-selection process.
The NDA is set to eld candidates in all 140 constituencies of the State, with 37 seats set apart for the BDJS.
But BJP leaders say the partys special focus is on 20
select Assembly constituencies, especially in districts
such as Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod where it has
decided to eld its most prominent State leaders.

135

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

The game changer?

Vijayakanth joins hands with the Peoples Welfare Front, leading to a
ve-cornered ght in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. B Y T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
would be formed, its leaders said. CPI(M) State secretary
G. Ramakrishnan, CPI State secretary R. Mutharasan,
MDMK general secretary Vaiko and VCK founder Thol.
Thirumavalavan are condent that the alliance will provide a credible and viable alternative to the two major
Dravidian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK, which
have been alternately ruling Tamil Nadu for nearly 50
years now.
Vijayakanth, who had always wanted to project himself as the chief ministerial candidate, used his favourite
expressions again on March 23 when he met reporters:
When the PWF leaders met me today and told me that
You be the king and we will be the kingmakers, I immediately signed the seat-sharing agreement. Vaiko asked
me whether he could announce that a coalition government would be formed [if this alliance is voted to power].
I immediately told him that he could do so.
Ramakrishnan said the alliance would bring about a
big transformation in Tamil Nadu politics. A change of
government is a certainty, he said.
The AIADMK, the DMK, the BJP and the PMK are
now without any major allies. The AIADMK, headed by
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, has not been able to win over
any important party to its side. The Tamil Maanila Con-

M. PRABHU

L. SRINIVASAN

AFTER MAKING HIS POLITICAL SUITORS

wait for weeks on end, the lm actor Vijayakanth nally
announced on March 23 that his party, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), would join hands
with the Peoples Welfare Front (PWF) in the Tamil
Nadu Assembly elections scheduled to be held on May 16.
The PWF comprises the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and
the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a Dalit party.
With this, the State is likely to witness a ve-cornered
contest to the 234 Assembly seats, the others in the fray
being the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-led alliance, the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK)-led front, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK).
In a swift and dramatic move, Vijayakanth and the
leaders of the four PWF constituents came together on
March 23 to forge what has been christened the DMDKPWF alliance. Vijayakanth has been projected as its
chief ministerial candidate. While the DMDK will contest 124 seats, the four PWF constituents together will
eld candidates in the remaining 110 constituencies. If
the alliance is voted to power, a coalition government

DM DK L E A D E R V I J A Y A K A N T H ; Vaiko (centre) of the MDMK announces the formation of the alliance in Chennai on
March 23. Others in the picture are Thol. Thirumavalavan (left) of the VCK, G. Ramakrishnan of the CPI(M) and
R. Mutharasan of the CPI.
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

136

gress (TMC), founded by G.K. Vasan

after he fell out with the Congress in
November 2014, is all set to throw in
its lot with the AIADMK. But the
TMC is an electorally untested entity.
The AIADMK is bereft of big allies after it shabbily treated the
DMDK, the CPI(M) and the CPI
which had partnered with it in the
2011 Assembly elections. Once ensconced in power, the AIADMK
drove a wedge in the DMDK. Eight
of its 29 legislators deserted Vijayakanth and threw in their lot with the
AIADMK. On February 25, they formally joined the AIADMK and Vijayakanth lost his position as the
Leader of the Opposition. Jayalalithaa also refused to
allot any constituencies to the CPI(M) and the CPI in the
Lok Sabha elections held in 2014.
The DMK has only the Congress, enfeebled by factionalism, and the Indian Union Muslim League, as its
allies. The BJP has no partner whatsoever. Its leader Pon.
Radhakrishnan, the Union Minister of State for Road
Transport & Highways and Shipping, admitted that the
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that the BJP heads
at the Centre and in other States does not exist in Tamil
Nadu now. The DMDK and the PMK pulled out of the
NDA after they faced the Lok Sabha elections together in
2014. The BJP will, therefore, contest in all the 234
seats, Radhakrishnan said.
The PMK is ploughing a lonely furrow but is gallantly
projecting its leader, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, who is the
son of the partys founder, Dr S. Ramadoss, as its candidate for the post of Chief Minister.
CAUGHT UNAWARES

Both the DMK and the BJP, which were assiduously

wooing Vijayakanth, were ill at ease with the actors
decision. DMK president and former Chief Minister M.
Karunanidhi had repeatedly invited Vijayakanth to partner with his party in the coming elections. The DMK
considered the DMDKs 6 per cent vote share crucial for
it to return to power in the State.
When Vijayakanth made it clear at a DMDK conference in Kancheepuram on February 20 that his cadres
wanted him to be the king and not merely a kingmaker, DMK leaders kept inviting him for a tie-up.
Again, even after Vijayakanth announced on March 10 at
the womens wing meeting of the party that I will go it
alone and I thank those who invited me to their alliances, DMK leaders were hoping in vain that he would
join hands with them.
Again, on March 20, he appealed to voters, in an
interview to a television channel, not to vote for either the
DMK or the AIADMK and instead favour the DMDK as
they were aware of these parties performance for about
50 years. Yet, when Karunanidhi met reporters on March

21 after he chaired a meeting of DMK

district secretaries, he said, I have
still not lost hope about the alliance
with the DMDK. He answered in the
affirmative when asked whether
talks were under way on this.
DMK leaders were therefore
shell-shocked two days later when
Vijayakanth forged a seat-sharing
arrangement with the PWF. When a
reporter asked M.K. Stalin, DMK
treasurer and Karunanidhis son,
how he viewed the development, he
replied, We dont look at it in any
way. We are merely doing our work.
Informed sources said that Vijayakanth opted out of the alliance
with the DMK because he felt humiliated by the propaganda reportedly unleashed by the
DMK about the negotiations between the two parties.
The propaganda apparently pertained to the number of
seats that the actor wanted, his reported insistence on
being given the Deputy Chief Ministers post, and his
apparent bid for a big share in the number of seats for the
local body elections which would follow the Assembly
elections. Besides, Stalin kept insisting that the DMK
would not agree to form a coalition government.
If he went with the DMK, he could not become an
alternative to the DMK. He thinks it is necessary to
project himself as a chief ministerial candidate, informed sources said. He was also afraid that just as the
AIADMK lured eight of his party MLAs to its fold, the
DMK would weaken his party once he helped it to return
to power. He had a phobia of allying with the big parties
after his experience with the AIADMK, the sources
added.
Vaiko said there was hope at the PWF leaders rst
meeting itself with Vijayakanth on December 23 last year
and so the four parties in the front had agreed to project
Vijayakanth as the chief ministerial candidate. I will be
the commander of the joint forces of the DMDK-PWF
front and lead it to victory, Vaiko said.
According to K. Balakrishnan, CPI(M) legislator, although the CPI(M) had an alliance with the MDMK in
the 1996 Assembly elections and earlier in 1984 with
other parties, this is the rst time in 50 years that we
have forged a strong front against both the DMK and the
AIADMK. He was, therefore, condent that people will
vote for us.
The BJP is isolated because of its refusal to consider
Vijayakanths demand for the DMDK to head the NDA in
the elections and for him to be declared the chief ministerial candidate. The BJP also brushed aside the DMDKs
demand that Vijayakanths brother-in-law, L.K. Sudeesh, be made a Rajya Sabha member and a Union
Minister.
With the line-up clear now, campaigning will hot up
once the parties nalise their candidates and the constituencies they will contest from.

137

FRONTLINE . APRIL 15, 2016

LETTERS
The Budget

THE government was forced to roll back

its Budget proposal to tax withdrawals
from the Employees Provident Fund
(EPF), but the struggle of the salaried
class is far from over (Cover Story, Double whammy, April 1). The government
has cut the interest rates for small savings schemes. The rationale for these
unkind interest cuts is that it will help the
economy move to an overall interest rate
regime.
The corporate sector gets a plethora of
concessions, subsidised power and water, and it need not pay sales tax initially
when a new factory is set up. Wilful defaulters on bank loans get away with it.
But the middle class, which is the backbone of the economy, has to bear interest
cuts on its savings and cannot even enjoy
the freedom to use its savings.
DEENDAYAL M. LULLA
MUMBAI

THE governments proposal to tax 60 per

cent of EPF withdrawals was criticised,
but one needs tounderstand that only
employees who get over and above the
statutory wage limit of Rs.15,000 a
monthwould have been affected. The intent behind the proposal was to ensure
that people did not use up their pension
accruals immediately after retirement.
India does not have the strong social security schemes that the U.S. and other
developed countries have, so people
here need to be disciplined about their
nancial investments and savings.
BAL GOVIND
NOIDA, UTTAR PRADESH

EVEN though many people were disappointed with the railway budge , I feel that
the Railway Minister presented a wellthought-out and balanced budget (Cover
Story Off the rails, April 1). He rightly
avoided presenting a populist budget and
focussed on the fact that the Railways is
FRONTLINE .

APRIL 15, 2016

already in the red and needs a major

overhaul. The budget was primarily
aimed at meeting the aspirations of the
common man by focussing on safety,
punctuality, cleanliness and passenger
amenities and by not increasing passenger fares. A novel aspect of this budget is
the proposal to introduce a long-distance
fully unreserved train for the benet of
the aam aadmi. It is unfortunate that as
usual many political parties made scathing remarks about the budget just for the
sake of opposing it.

Italians to examine the roots of their own

popular culture. One of the consequences of this new perspective on culture
studies was to remove the traditional
prejudice of the custodians of high culture to products of mass culture.
His novels were never far removed
from his philosophical musings derived
from linguistics and semiotics. Although
they are not easy to read, Ecos inimitable
style, enlivened by his sublime wit and
exquisite sense of humour, keeps readers enthralled.

K.R. SRINIVASAN
SECUNDERABAD, TELANGANA

MOSTAFA MURSHID PASA

HARIHARPARA, WEST BENGAL

Domestic violence

JNU

IN India, any violence perpetrated within

the four walls of a house is not a cognisable offence unless someone reports it
to the police (Law and limitations, April
1). For too long women have been subjected to harassment and violence by
their families. The time has come to
make women aware that they have rights
even after marriage and that they need
not put up with violence. Family courts
should be more sympathetic to the plight
of married women facing violence as they
often stand alone in their ght against
injustice.

ONE felt that the Cover Story (March 18)

could have presented a more balanced
view of the February 9 event at JNU. To
raise slogans against a governmentis a
democratic act. Here the prime question
is whether the slogans were anti-government or anti-state. Only an impartial
probe can unravel the truth. These days,
political parties of all huesare ghting to
impose their ideology on university students.
Even after six decades of Independence, India has not been able to build an
egalitarian society where Dalits and the
backward classes are treated on a par
with others. For these people real freedom is yet to come.

D.B.N. MURTHY
BENGALURU

Art of living
IT was disquieting to note that a spiritual
guru of the stature of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
chosethe fragile oodplains of the Yamuna as the venue of his Art of Living
Foundations mega cultural event
(Against all norms, April 1). It seems
ridiculous that a spiritual guru, who is
supposed to guidehis followers to a path
of peace and tranquillity, was trying to
enter the Guinness World Records for
mundane reasons.
N.C. SREEDHARAN
KANNUR, KERALA

Umberto Eco
UMBERTO ECO was a classic example of
what the Italians call a tuttologo, that is
someone who knows something important about practically everything (Interpreter of cultures, April 1). He has been
ranked with Benedetto Croce, the great
Italian thinker, in terms of his enormous
inuence on 20th century cultural life in
Italy and beyond. His treatment of such
iconic ctional characters as James
Bond, Superman and Peanuts inspired
138

SHAJIMON P.
CHERTHALA, KERALA

THE government under Narendra Modi is

desperate to saffronise all universities,
including JNU (Cover Story, The nation
according to Hindutva, March 18). All
democratic rights are sought to be suppressed.
G. AZEEMODDIN
ANANTAPUR, ANDHRA PRADESH

IN the article The new nationalism (Cover Story, March 18), it was stated that
Gandhiji described the Hindu and the
Muslim as the two luscious eyes of India. In fact, it was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
who said: India is like a newly wedded
bride whose two beautiful and luscious
eyes are the Hindus and the Mussalmans; if the two exist in mutual concord,
the bride will remain forever resplendent
and becoming.
SUSHIL PRASAD
HYDERABAD
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