(The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu . You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.)
Prison diaries, and what it says about Indian democracy
Godman and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a prison sentence in a Haryana after being convicted for murder and rape, has been granted parole for 40 days – and this coincides with the Adampur bypoll in BJP-ruled Haryana, which is scheduled to be held on November 3. He had conveniently walked out on parole for earlier elections too. Soon after release, in a video message from the sect’s Uttar Pradesh ashram on Saturday, he asked his followers to not exercise their free will and follow the directions of the sect’s elders. “You have to act as told by the sect elders. Don’t exercise your free will. Don’t cause stampede. Please follow this. You always adhere to what you are told. We are proud of you. We are proud of our children,” Singh said, adding that he would continue to interact with his followers while on parole.
The Gujarat government is strongly defending its decision to release 11 people who were convicted of rape during the 2002 riots. Upon release, the convicts were garlanded and felicitated in their village. A Gujarat government affidavit in the Supreme Court showed that the Special Judge and the CBI in Mumbai opposed the premature release of 11 convicts sentenced to life in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case while the Centre and Gujarat authorities went ahead and approved the proposal to set them free early. Gujarat is going to the polls soon, and the BJP wants to make some political gains from its generosity towards these rape convicts.
Letting some people out is politically gainful, while keeping some others inside jail might have the same effect. The Supreme Court of India acted with alacrity to and suspended the operation of a Bombay High Court judgment discharging G.N. Saibaba and others in an alleged Maoist conspiracy case. The Hindu editorial points out that is “quite unusual and raises critical questions.”
‘Narrative terrorism,’ and who gets to tell our stories
We have heard of various types of terrorism, and now there is a new one – “narrative terrorism.” Or so we are told. The J&K State Investigation Agency (SIA) recently filed a chargesheet in a case of a “narrative terrorism,” describing journalist and editor Fahad Shah and scholar Aala Fazili as “contaminated and compromised media persons.” According to the SIA, the duo was indulging in “narrative terrorism”, as part of a criminal conspiracy to spread terrorism and create a false narrative. “Their (Shah and Fazili) end objective was to create, sustain, and spread disaffection, hatred and enmity against the Indian State. Their interim objective was to preserve Pakistani influence by manipulating and playing with facts, subtly or brazenly, by putting information without context or out of context or selective reporting or selective exaggeration or underplaying or muting others and by craftily and cunningly invoking the legal rights to press freedom and political dissent guaranteed by the very Indian State which they wanted to undermine,” the SIA statement said.
Controlling the narrative is a critical part of politics – and state control. It is noteworthy here that the SIA is claiming the right to decide what is ‘fact.’ The battle over narrative is often premised on who decides what is fact and what is not. ‘Fact checking’ is a new field of journalism, and parallelly the state asserts its right to have the final say on what indeed is fact.
Who tells our stories? About 90% of leadership positions in the Indian media are occupied by upper caste groups with not even a single Dalit or Adivasi heading Indian mainstream media, according to a new report. The second edition of Oxfam India-Newslaundry’s Report ‘Who tells our stories matters: Representation of Marginalised Caste Groups in Indian Media’ reveals that around 90% leadership positions in print, TV, and digital media are occupied by general caste groups with no Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) heading mainstream media outlets, as reported by agencies.
Federalism Tract
Sourav Ganguly – the mascot of Bengali nationalism
Cricketer Sourav Ganguly did not a get a second term as chief of BCCI, leading to reactions in West Bengal on the basis of regional pride. Mr. Ganguly was seen moving close to the BJP and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who visited his home for a meal some months ago. Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen was the first one to spot this slight to Bengali pride. He took to Twitter to call it political vendetta and pointed out that Mr. Shah’s son Jay Shah was retained as Secretary of BCCI. Mr. Ganguly remains a hero of Bengalis and he has shown an ambition to spread his wings beyond cricket. But the BJP seems to be done with him, at least for now. Later, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the Centre should sponsor Mr. Ganguly as a candidate to head the ICC, and now the BJP is on the defensive in the State where it was pushed back in last year’s Assembly elections by an upsurge of Bengali regionalism. This is not the first time that Mr. Ganguly becomes the flagbearer of Bengali nationalism, though he may not have directly sought to be so. It may be recalled that in 2005, when Mr. Ganguly was dropped from the Indian team, political parties in West Bengal made it into a prestige issue. The CPI(M) which was supporting the UPA government from outside, made public statements against the exclusion of Mr. Ganguly from the team.
Counting heads, and votes
Infiltration and conversion are causing a population imbalance in India and to control the same, the country needs a comprehensive population policy, according to the general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Dattatreya Hosabale. “Infiltration and conversion are also the main reasons behind the population imbalance. The laws made to prevent this need to be implemented effectively,” he said.
Connecting Tamils to Varanasi
We discussed the power of the narrative earlier in this newsletter. The Union Government has announced a new scheme to bring 2500 Tamils for a cultural tourism of Varanasi which is part of the New Education Policy. The programme is to “strengthen” and “rekindle” the cultural and civilisational bond between Tamil Nadu and Varanasi, according to the government. Named the ‘Kashi-Tamil Sangamam’, the programme would be held from November 16 to December 16 this year. The tour would include seminars, lectures, group meetings and visits to the Kashi Vishwanath temple and centres of important Tamil cultural heritage in Varanasi. The “360 degree” cultural connectivity would also include a slice of the culinary traditions of Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution urging the Centre not to implement the recommendations made in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Languages, submitted by its chairman to the President of India.
Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians
Recently, the Union government formed a three-member Commission of Inquiry headed by former Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, to examine whether Scheduled Caste (SC) status can be accorded to Dalits who have over the years converted to religions other than Sikhism and Buddhism. Here is a discussion on the question, with Sukhadeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commission and Professor Emeritus at JNU; Subhajit Naskar, Assistant Professor at Jadavpur University.
