India Heading Towards Misery by Elyas Muhammad Thumbe

India under the rule of BJP government is heading towards more and more miserable condition. Narendra Modi's so called "Ache Din Anewala Hai" proved to be a damp squib. The PM and his team instead of safeguarding welfare of the people of the nation, devote to realize their Hindutwa agenda in all roots and grounds. The socio economic and foreign policies of the government accelerate the speed of strengthening corporates, riches and colonialists. BJP President Amit Shah's statement  'Ache Din may realize around 2025’ sounds that the BJP government is playing "Development" card with the hidden agenda of "Hinduization or Saffronization of the nation".  Let us have a look at the present condition of our nation.

1. WIDESPREAD CORRUPTION

Corruption has spread its tentacles now even to food and education sectors. PDS Scam, Chikki (Candy) Scam, Vyapam Scam are the latest cases. Scam in the Public Distribution System (Food Distribution) to the tune of Rs.36,000 crores in Chathisgarh, and  in supply of Chikki (candy) to school children to the tune of Rs.270 crores in Maharashtra  which indicates that Indian political system has stooped to such a low level selfish motives that the politicians don't even spare a single field. Vyapam scam has even more terrific and evil design in which top brass politicians and bureaucrats are involved and it has been taken the toll of number of lives suspected to be the victims in the hands of alleged criminals involved in the scam to eliminate the evidences of the scandal.

 "Vyapam" (Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal), is a government body responsible for conducting several entrance tests in the state. For recruitment to government jobs and admissions to educational institutes in the state, Vyapam conducts entrance exams. The Vyapam scam is an admission and recruitment scam involving politicians, senior officials and businessmen of Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), is popularly known as Vyapam. The scam involved a collusion of undeserving candidates, who bribed politicians and MPPEB officials through middlemen, to get high ranks in these entrance tests.

Though the irregularities were reported in 1990 it was not taken seriously. In 2009 the government decided the investigate the matter after receiving complaints in the pre-medical test (PMT) and the committee submitted its report in 2011 and more than 100 were arrested. A Special Task Force (STF) was established in 2012 but the veracity of the scam came out in 2013 after arresting several persons involved in this racket. By June 2015 more than 2,000 people had been arrested including politicians, bureaucrats, candidates, parents, middlemen, etc.

Style of Operation:

In exchange of kickbacks, high marks in the examination were offered to the undeserving candidates. This crook game was handled by involving the government officials, middlemen and exam candidates. The following methods were used in the examination by the racket:

1.      Impersonation – The admit card of the candidate was used to execute the trick. All the information of the candidate remained intact except the photograph. Candidate’s photograph was replaced by that of the impersonator and after the exam, it was changed back to the original. All this was done in collusion with the corrupt Board officials. The impersonator was always some brilliant student and used to get hefty amount to secure the seat.

2.     Engine and bogie system – A person was strategically seated adjacent to the candidate. The person let them copy from his sheet or exchanged the sheet at the end of the exam.

3.     OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets – The select candidates were asked to leave their answer sheets blank. They were randomly given high percentages after the exam. Concerned authorities of the Board then filed an RTI demanding to view those answer sheets. They then filled in the answers in the OMR booklet according to the marks they have already been given. This was done so that if someone were to ever check those answer sheets, there would not be any loopholes that could give them away

A report says around 1,40,000 people are involved in this racket. Several high rank officials, ministers including Governor Ramnaresh Yadav were also alleged to be involved in it. The scam has taken such a serious angle that hitherto around 50 people alleged to be involved in the scam died mysteriously. The allegation on CM Shivaraj Chouhan that he is trying to protect the criminals involved in the racket. Even though the SIT has been investigating the scam, the process was going very slow and the public have lost trust in it and the demand was to handover the probe to CBI. Now that the Supreme Court has ordered CBI investigation.

All the above scams tell the stories that Indian Political system is so corrupt that every government regardless of any party is plundering public fund and spoiling the progress of the nation. It seems that these parties and politicians are interested in utilizing the opportunities to loot the public to build their dynasties and not to serve the country and public. They don’t even hesitate to kill the people to eliminate the witnesses and proofs. The governments are though aware of the seriousness of the scam in 25 years back itself, but it was least bothered about the stop the racket and to book the criminals because the criminals are ruling the states in the form of government. More and more sharks will be fished out belongs to BJP and even Congress party if CBI investigates the scam transparently.

Hence, our party views that very stringent action should be taken on such criminal politicians and bureaucrats and a pool proof system to be adopted across the nation to prevent corruption and to develop the nation.

2. Lalit Raje Sushma Trio

It has been evidently clear that Sushma Swaraj the minister of External Affairs and Rajasthan's CM Vasudara Raje have helped Lilit Modi to procure travel documents facilitating to travel from London to Portugal. Lalit Modi is a financial offender who wanted the Indian investigating agencies. He has been absconding since then and living in England by evading enquiry.  Further allegation on Vasundara Raje is that her son Dushyant Singh's company has received a monetary benefit of around Rs. 9 crores and a loan of Rs.3 crores from Lalit Modi's company.

The facts clearly show that these ministers from BJP have helped the criminal and violated the law of the land and received the benefits in return. There is a hue and cry from every corner of the country in this regard but PM Narendra Modi is not opening his mouth about the scandal. Those involved in the nexus should be sacked immediately and punished strictly. The central government has to take immediate steps to impartially investigate the matter by CBI. 

3. Now… to Abolish AFSPA

Killings of people by the security agencies in Kashmir is a grave concern. The government is using draconian laws to such heinous crimes against its own people. Amnesty International in its report released on 1st July 2015 titled 'Denied: Failures in Accountability for Human Rights Violations by Security Force Personnel in Jammu and Kashmir' had called the cruel law AFSPA, one of the 'primary facilitators of impunity' by armed forces. Amnesty International demanded its repeal and sought investigation into cases of human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir by an independent and impartial authority. It said, Section 7 of the AFSPA provides protection to the security forces from prosecution for alleged human rights violations.

Amnesty International's 72 pages report analyses the legal and government documents related to over 100 cases of human rights violations committed between 1990 and 2013. It said "It does not behove a democratic country like India to have a draconian law like AFSPA exist in any part,"

Apart from the killings of people in Kashmir by the security forces, there are number of reports about rapes, missing, custodial deaths, torture, illegal custody etc. The court martial enquiry conducted whenever such violations took place proved to be futile.  Indian government is responsible for such a boiling and gruesome situation in Kashmir. To bring normalcy in Kashmir the government has to repeal the draconian law AFSPA and should appoint SIT to investigate every cases of human rights violations.  It is the time now to abolish like UAPA, AFSPA  and the government should not use such on its own citizens anywhere in India.

4. India's Changed Stance on Palestine

India abstained on a recent UN HRC voting on 2014 Gaza Conflict.  On July 3 The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) conducted vote adopting the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. The Report largely condemns Israel's seven week long military operation into the Hamas controlled Gaza strip by killing more than 2000 people including women and children and wounding several thousand civilians. Israel's inhuman action attracted wide spread condemnation throughout the world.

India abstaining from voting has really shows that it has changed its policy in favour of Israel and against Palestine. India is now maintaining very close ties with Israel which is continuously expanding its illegal settlement on the lands of Palestine and grossly violating human rights. India's stance is the indication changed foreign policies influenced by the right wing BJP and its Hindutwa ideologies. PM Narendra Modi's proposed visit to Israel is a matter of concern to the Arab world which are traditional allied of our country and neighboring countries of our nation. India should abstain from the relationship with Israel which is violating all International & UNO norms and invading the lands of its neighboring countries. India's change of stance in favor of Israel by sacrificing the close ties with Arab nations is not a wise move. 

5. Fake Degree Racket

Delhi's former law minister Jitendra Singh Tomar was arrested and had to resign from his post over the charge of having fake degree. He has been sent to Judicial custody. Another AAP MLA Bhavna Gaur has come under scanner over her educational qualifications with a Delhi court taking cognisance of a complaint for allegedly furnishing false details in the affidavits for assembly polls.

The network racket of fake degrees has been spread all over the country which has brought the shame on the educational system of the nation. Recently about 1400 primary teachers have resigned from service fearing government action over possession of fake educational degrees. Recently, Patna High Court has passed an order to the possessor of fake degrees to quit the job and it is expected more such resignations in Bihar. In Delhi, police have busted a racket of fake degrees arrested several kingpins. Since many years it has been heard that the rackets of fake degrees are working around the country but the government has not taken any strong will to eliminate such evils.

6. Saffronization of Culture

The BJP governments in the Central and State has been making full efforts to saffronize the culture of the nation by imposing Vedic gestures and traditions.  Its recent manifestation of saffronisation was promotion of Yoga in the name of health and tradition. Though yoga may be a healthy exercise, the motive behind this promotion was to publicizing and inculcating some kind of religious gestures and postures in the minds of people. Recently the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan have ordered the schools in the states to start mandatorily Surya Namaskar, Saraswathi Vandana, Chanting Bhagavad Geetha Shlokas and Singing Vande Matharam. HRD minister Smriti Irani declared that ancient Hindu texts should be included in school curriculum.

The HRD ministry’s approval of creation of The Bharatiya Shiksha Niti Ayog (BSNA), which has been constituted by the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, that is mandated to “suggest corrective steps” to “Indianize” the education system. Even Dinanath Batra - sent proposals to Irani after she assumed office, demanding a revamp of school curriculum so that "values and nationalism' could be inculcated in students. He said "NCERT textbooks will be rewritten according to the aim and objects of the nation so that it inculcates feeling of patriotism among children. Modernity is not westernisation. We want modernity with Indian base". Batra has historically been the man behind the push for more 'saffron textbooks'.  He is the lead campaigner for RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas (SSUN), Batra was the driving force behind reforms Murli Manohar Joshi introduced as HRD minister.

In a secular and democratic country how can a democratically elected government order to exercise such kind of religious exercises in schools. It is not a surprise that the BJP government is trying to promote such kind of Brahminical hegemony in the nation. After much uproar from the public against the mandatory of the BJP government, it has withdrawn its mandatory order but made it as an optional exercise. This move also should be condemned. We are well aware that the HRD ministry under the leadership of Smriti Irani has already in an effort to saffronize the educational system in the country.

Some Parliament Members from BJP and Shivsena have been barking the communal howls to rewrite the history of our nation. They are targeting the archaeological masterpieces like Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, etc and calling to rewrite Indian history especially targeting Muslim rule.  This is a very calculated conspiracy to divide the society on the basis of religion to gain political benefits.

7. Rewriting Indian History

This is the calculated agenda of RSS. As per the media sources RSS is planning to piece together the history of over 670 districts and 600 tribal communities in the country. RSS is already undertaking a decade long project to produce a version of Indian history based on Puranas. "Purananthargat Itihaas' is the name of the project baptized by Akhil Bharatiya Itihaas Sankalan Yojna (ABISY) a RSS affiliate established the Bharatiya  Puran Adhyayan Sansthan (Indian Institute of Purana Studies). It says there are 106 Puranas and not 18 which were spread different countries and libraries. Both BJP and RSS have denied working in tandem since the polls ended, despite many expressing fear that both BJP & RSS are allegedly working in tandem in the agenda of rewriting Indian history which would eventually trickle into school syllabi.

It is evident that the ABISY is "planning to tap local historians who can write the history of their districts, providing them all possible help." Even during Joshi's time, critics had derided him using the garb of "reformation" to sell the saffron agenda: claiming the reforms were objective and academics. During the previous NDA government the then HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi had put lot of efforts to saffronize the education and supported the floating howling of twisted Indian history.

Here are the sample of ABISY's version:

·         Qutub Minar was built by emperor Samudragupta and its real name was Vishnu Stambha,

·         Our original ancestors Manu and Shatrugan who gave life to this earth. That man took birth in Tibet, originally a part of India, and all beings were Aryan beings.

·         The  stem cell research was invented by India’s Dr. Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar,

·         The invention of television dates back to the Indian rishis using their yog vidya which would help them attain divya drishti for e.g. In Mahabharata, Sanjaya sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his divya shakti would give a live update of the battle of Mahabharata, to the blind Dhritarashtra?

These are few of the “Facts” about the world and national history that lakhs of students are learning as a part of their curriculum under RSS run schools all over India. One may laugh at or simply overlook the digressing ‘facts‘ mentioned above, but the underlying impact and erroneous amount of details and portrayals regarding minorities and different ideologies other than Hindus have set alarm bells ringing in the past. The National Steering Committee on Textbook Evaluation (consisting of a large number of experts from all over the country) appointed by the NCERT itself, a few years ago, came to the conclusion that ‘the main purpose which these books would serve is to gradually transform the young children into bigoted morons in the garb of instilling in them patriotism’.

The ICSE History and Civics textbook, Part II for Std. X, devotes a whole chapter to the ‘Formation of the Muslim League’. But there is no mention at all of Hindu communal organisations. It is in the same book that when assassination of Mahatma Gandhi is talked about, no mention or comment is made on Nathuram Godse or the ideology that drove him to assisinate Gandhi and neither the fact that the Government Of India banned RSS because of Godse’s close links with the organisation and the Hindu Mahasabha. Similarly, the Social Studies text for standard VIII of the Gujarat State Board has a tiny sub-section titled, “The Murder of Gandhi”. This reads thus: “After Independence there were severe communal riots in India. Gandhiji tried his utmost to suppress it. Many people did not like this. Gandhiji was murdered at the hands of Godsay on 30th January 1948.”

Call it saffronisation of education, communalisation of education or politicisation of education, the basic fact remains that young minds are increasingly becoming laboratories for fundamentalists and extremists propagating their views and ideologies, while the innocent minds get fashioned in the beliefs which are inculcated in them and the result is creation of a generation which is fed half baked truths, misrepresented facts and distorted history. Is this the education our new generation needs to lead the country?

7.  Misleading the Nation

Recent revelation by Senior Public Prosecutor Ms Rohini Salyan was very shocking that NIA (National Investigation Agency) had reportedly asked her to 'go soft' in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case was wherein Hindutwa extremists were involved. This evil motive by NIA was the input of NDA government came to power at the centre in 2014.  

The  Public Prosecutor Ms Salian stressed that the NIA has "done nothing'' since it took over investigations in 2011 — when the UPA Govt. was in office. The agency has not filed new charge-sheet or any material. In fact, their failure to file a charge-sheet led to the three accused who were arrested after 2011 being released on bail on technical grounds. The Supreme Court has not dropped the MCOCA charges against the accused as the defense team is now trying to wrongly interpret.

Ms Salian's revelation is the sample of the way the Hindutwa backed BJP government protecting the Saffron Terrorists and burying the cases on them. Previously, when any terror strike in the country It was the custom of the Police and Government to show the finger towards Muslims and arrested, tortured and branded them.  The hue and cry against the prejudiced and malicious attitude by the government towards Muslims was never heard by the deaf ears of the biased government which were running as per the advises of the Hindutwa minded bureaucrats. It was only when a honest officer like Hemant Karkare investigated and found that the actual culprits and conspirators behind the blasts and terror are Sangh Parivar. It is no surprise that the BJP is trying to protect the Sangh outfits from through NIA.

It only shows the country's already half-dead, half-alive law and justice system is being corrupted and degraded by the communal thugs. The Modi Govt. is absolute disappointment. With each day the masks are falling down.

8. Double Standard by the Judiciary

The rejection of curative petition of Yaqub Memon who has been convicted to be hanged  for the 1993  Mumbai blasts case is a clear instance of  double standard by the judiciary. The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider his execution and rejected his curative petition. While Yaqub Memon is to be hanged for being a relative of Tiger Memon on the other hand Bal Thackeray who sponsored the 1992 Mumbai riots following the demolition of Babri Masjid was given a state funeral. About 900 persons died in the riots in December 1992 and 10 days in January 1993. The riots left no area and no class of Muslims untouched.

It is to be pointed out that Justice B. N. Srikrishna's report, submitted in 1998, created waves like no other commission of inquiry report had because it named Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray as the man who directed the violence in the January 1993 phase of the riots. Thackeray was the “remote control” of the then Maharashtra government when Justice Srikrishna submitted his report. The commission also indicted the Mumbai police force as communal and indicted 31 policemen, including a former additional police commissioner of Mumbai Ram Deo Tyagi.

It should also be noted that those scheduled to hang for two other crimes, the assassins of Rajiv Gandhi and Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, have not yet been hanged. Three of Rajiv's assassins -- Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan -- had their death sentences commuted after the Tamil Nadu assembly asked for mercy. Beant's assassin Balwant Singh Rajaona has proudly acknowledged his guilt and has in fact been demanding that he be hanged, but has been kept alive, perhaps also due to the efforts of the Punjab state assembly.

It looks unfair that the Maharashtra government is trying to wreck vengeance on the members of the Memon family, who chose to surrender because of faith in our government and judiciary. Yaqub was singled out for the death sentence while the main perpetrators are at large. There is ample evidence that the main culprits have escaped the law with the help of agencies across the border.

There are many in the country who feel that Yaqub Memon should not be hanged. This is a perfectly valid argument because all the guilty in 1984 Sikh massacre and 2002 Gujarat riots have not been punished. Instead of hanging, solitary confinement for remaining years of his natural life would meet the ends of justice

9. Neglecting Farmer Community

Since many years our country has been witnessing series of farmers suicide in a  massive number. A report says in the last 20 years, nearly 300,000 farmers have ended their lives by ingesting pesticides or by hanging themselves. Maharashtra state - with 60,000 farmer suicides - tops the list. Now in Karnataka the farmers taking extreme steps of committing suicides fearing the burden of debts caused by the nonpayment of prices for their grown sugarcane. In the last two months several number of farmers have committed suicide in Karnataka. Sugarcane growing farmers lives  become a big tragedy because of the non payment of prices to the farmers by the sugar factory owners which resulted the farmers in a heavy burden of debts owing to money lenders who harass them to return the money with huge interest. 

In a country where agriculture remains the largest employment sector the government both in Central and States have no concrete plan and willpower to solve the miseries of the farmers. Though the governments well aware of the multiple problems of farmers like draught, crop failure, fall of price, etc they have least concerned to find out all time solution. Instead of giving more and more priority to the agricultural sector the central government, in its budget, has reduced the allocation. BJP's economic model is only for the corporates and riches and not for famers and rural folks.

Conclusion

Our party has completed 6 successful years. It has been a very successful journey for a movement like us. Our beginning was a very small one with lot of speculations and questions about our relevance and future. Our case was like a tiny stick in an ocean with huge wave. With very limited resources we started our political movement. The only thing we had in abundance was the determination of our each and every member and cadre. And it is only the determination of our cadres, leaders and members that we were able to face all the hurdles and move ahead.

One of the prominent achievements of the party is the public involvement in our campaigns, agitation and electoral politics. It is a clear fact that in most of the political rallies audiences is gathered with money power. It is rarely seen that public involves in any political campaign due to sincere intention of bringing a change. In this case our party was successful in involving the masses in all our campaigns, agitation and electoral politics. The reason behind this success is our effort to continuously educate the masses about the issue. What we have seen is that people were actually ignorant about the true facts about the core issues. When we went to masses and used various means to explain the issues and educated them we saw the masses wholeheartedly support us in our party.

It is noticed that public is ready to listen to us but we need to ask a question to ourselves whether we were able to take up all the issues concerning the common masses?

           

The real issues are the issues we see at our Branch, Ward, Block, Assembly and district level. These are the issues that impact a lot on the decision making of the local public. They face these issues on daily basis and always have a hope that someone will help them to solve these issues. In such a scenario if we take up these issues then we will get very good acceptance from the local masses and this will increase our popularity and also reflect in our vote share.

As we discussed earlier we are a party with a real change. A party which is serious about the issues of the backward and oppressed sections. A party which sees all Indian with equality.A party which is striving to present before the masses a new meaning of politics.And for the term 2015-18 we have elected our leaders from branch to national levels to take forward our mission. All cadres, members have full faith on our new leaders and also give complete support to the new leaders. It is our teamwork that will bring us success in all fronts.