Category: Opinion

Mr Narendra Modi taunted and ridiculed him as Shehzada. Mr Modi’s followers in the Bharatiya Janata Party took the cue and chanted ‘Pappu’. Over the decade of the BJP’s rule, Mr Modi’s media friends coined new terms to ridicule the 54-year-old Congress leader, who is the son of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and traces a political lineage back to India Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Motilal Nehru.

Motilal, too, was a leader of the Opposition in 1923. He was elected to the new Central Legislative Assembly of British India in New Delhi and became leader of the Opposition. In that role, he secured the defeat, or at least the delay, of finance bills and other legislation.
Mr Rahul Gandhi formally became the Opposition leader on Wednesday, the day Mr Om Birla was elected for a second successive term as Speaker.

For ten years, the position was not filled as the Congress, then the largest party in the Opposition, but with just 52 members, could not reach the 10% of the house membership required for its leader to qualify for the title and post of LOP. Experts, however, say there are no rules, and this limit is just a presumption.

Mr Om Birla, handpicked in 2019 by Mr Modi, won his second term in a token contest with the senior most Congress member in the Lok Sabha, Mr Suresh. Mr Birla could have been elected unopposed, but the BJP rejected the Opposition’s demand that their member be chosen as the Deputy Speaker.

The deputy speaker, too, is a statutory post. But Mr Modi ensured Mr Birla had no deputy last time. Now, with the razor-thin majority of his National Democratic alliance, the prime minister cannot risk having an Opposition leader in any parliamentary position of official power.

At stake is the longevity of his government and possibly even the life of the 18th Lok Sabha. If there is a motion of no confidence against the Speaker, the deputy speaker presides with full powers. He can allow a scathing debate. It would be a parliamentary coup.
Political observers say Mr Modi has always wanted a speaker who would do his bidding to avoid the possibility of such a coup. Mr Birla fits the bill. In the Rajya Sabha, the vice-president of India is the ex-officio chairman. It is no accident that both Venkatesh Naidu and then Mr Jagdeep Dhankar remain loyal to the BJP doctrines and personally to him.

But try as he will, Mr Modi will not be able to get rid of Mr Gandhi—not in the House, not in other forums, not even outside Parliament. As Leader of the Opposition, Mr Gandhi has the rank of a Cabinet Minister, like Home Minister Mr Amit Shah or Defence Minister Mr Rajnath Singh.

As the opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi also has a say in appointing key bureaucrats. He will be a member of crucial committees, including the Public Accounts, Public Undertakings, and Estimates Committees of Parliament, where much of the backroom work of legislation and policies is done. He also becomes a member of selection committees that appoint heads of statutory bodies such as the Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Information Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the National Human Rights Commission of India.

He politely asserted this in words and gestures. His hair was groomed, his salt and pepper beard trimmed close, and in a near-long, white khadi kurta, he looked every inch the holder of the new title. He was not the politician who had revived Congress and the Opposition in two long cross-country marches and then headed a searing election campaign in which he matched Mr Modi step by step.

He came close to defeating not just the BJP but also ensuring a considerable erosion in Mr Modi’s image. In Varanasi, his constituency, Mr Modi lost some three lakh votes. He now ranks low in the list of votes of winning candidates, a blow to his notorious ego.
Mr Modi and Mr Birla sought to begin the new term with an attack on the Congress party, harking back to the state of Emergency Mrs Indira Gandhi had imposed this day in 1975, a full 49 years ago. Mr Modi and the BJP sought the Congress to apologise. Mr Birla, in his inaugural speech, called for a two-minute silence to record Parliament’s condemnation of Mrs Gandhi’s actions. Elsewhere, Vice President Dhankar recorded his concurrence with their sentiments. President Murmu ended her address at the joint session of Parliament with a long condemnation of the Emergency.

The government will continue to attack the very image of Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia, who is now in the Rajya Sabha, and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra if she wins from Wayanad, where there is now a vacancy. This will be the first time three members of the Gandhi family will be in Parliament. The collateral branch, Menaka and Varun Gandhi, who too were together on the BJP benches for several years, are no longer MPs. The mother was defeated, and the son was not given a ticket. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh and his wife lead the five-member family group from Lucknow.

Mr Gandhi was prominent on camera when he joined Mr Modi to escort Mr Birla to the Speaker’s chair. He then finessed it with a short speech of felicitations in which he reminded the Speaker of his role in allowing the Opposition benches to be the voice of the people in the House. “We are confident that by allowing the Opposition to speak, by allowing us to represent the people of India, you will do your duty of defending the Constitution of India,” he said.

“The idea that you can run the House efficiently by silencing the voice of the Opposition is non-democratic. This election has shown that the people of India expect the Opposition to defend the Constitution,” the Congress leader said. “The Opposition would like to assist you in doing your work. We would like the House to function often and well. It is very important that cooperation happens on the basis of trust. It is very important that the voice of the Opposition is allowed to be represented in this House.”

The point was taken further in the House by Mr Akhilesh Yadav. “We believe you will move forward without discrimination and as the Speaker, you will give equal opportunity and respect to every party. Impartiality is a great responsibility of this great post,” he said. It is clear that these two young parliamentarians will be closely and powerfully monitoring the government and challenging Mr Modi at every turn.

But Mr Birla earned terrible notoriety in his first term in office. Many consider him obnoxious because he silenced speakers from the Opposition parties. Others referred to the manner in which he presided over the suspension of a large number of members and the disqualification of TMC member Mahua Moitra after a kangaroo court trial by a committee of the House.

A Parliamentary research report published in The Wire highlighted how the Opposition was all but sidelined under Mr Birla’s watch. Between December 14 and 21, 100 MPs were suspended from the Lok Sabha and 46 from the Rajya Sabha. This accounts for 19% of each House’s strength. This is the highest number of suspensions in any Lok Sabha term. Ms Mahua Moitra was expelled on grounds of ethical misconduct. She is the fourth ever to be suspended.

All bills introduced in the session passed; none were referred to Committees. With almost no one from the Opposition present in the House, all 10 bills introduced in the session were passed, in addition to seven bills pending from previous sessions. The Telecommunications Bill of 2023, which restructures the regulatory framework of the telecom sector, was passed within three days of its introduction. It was discussed for one hour and four minutes in Lok Sabha and one hour and eleven minutes in Rajya Sabha.

Most importantly, the three Bills replacing the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, were discussed and passed. Most of the speakers were from the BJP and its allies.

Mr Birla is unlikely to change, but he will feel the pressure more than he did during his last tenure. India’s 18th Lok Sabha is a testimony to the innate strength of the people’s democratic instincts. This commitment to democracy is an inheritance from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s massive, peaceful, unarmed freedom struggle, which defeated not only colonial Great Britain but also several millennia of entrenched feudalism.

The 2024 elections also brought political equilibrium in Parliament, bringing to life a set of political parties that had been decimated in the 2014 and 2019 elections, in which Mr Narendra Modi emerged as India’s prime minister. He led his Bhartiya Janata Party to victory on a platform which was equal parts rabid Islamophobia and delusions of rapid development, targeting “aspirant” classes of hundreds of millions of young voters who had been led to believe that the fruits of freedom had been grabbed by the poor, the Dalits and other deprived classes, and the religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians.

Mr Modi heads his third government as a coalition with a razor-thin margin. All the sheen and starch the first two tenures had, and even washed out in his party’s virtual rout in two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, their stronghold. Mr Modi’s own winning margin had been whittled down to a fifth of what it was when he won in 2019. However, he has presented a brave and perhaps even aggressive face to the people and to his critics. When he was sworn in on June 9, he continued with his old cabinet—barring the many junior ministers who lost their seats.

He almost immediately went on his first foreign jaunt as a third-term Prime Minister as a guest at the meeting of developed nations. The Pope had been invited to speak on artificial intelligence and climate change issues. Mr Modi embraced him, took a selfie with the young prime minister of Italy and was photographed with the leaders of Europe and America.

The future of this Lok Sabha may well depend on whether Mr Modi, whose regime was dubbed dictatorial by critics at home and abroad, will embrace a more humane and democratic way of governance. His attitude may not work when serious legislative business begins, and the Opposition will challenge him for debate on every point. Hopefully, we will see new laws emerge after exhaustive discussion and negotiation.

The new Parliament demands that the government seek the cooperation of the Opposition instead of ramming decisions and legislation down its throat. That has been the practice in the last ten years, and for the last five, Mr Birla, as Speaker, has connived with the prime minister. This may not come naturally to Mr Modi. He is steeped in the ways of the 99-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an unregistered religious and nationalistic organisation with a uniformed cadre and the political goal of a Hindu nation.

His 15-year rule as chief minister of his home state, Gujarat, and his 10 years in New Delhi as prime minister have shown a megalomaniac persona that demands total and absolute obedience and brooks no criticism, much less Opposition. He takes this arrogance as strength and keeps critics and opponents in check. After Mr Birla was installed as Speaker, Mr Modi focused almost entirely on the Emergency Mrs Indira Gandhi enforced for a year and a half 49 years ago.

Her election was overturned by the Allahabad High Court; Mrs Gandhi suspended the Constitution. For close to 20 months, she and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, ran a government which suspended civil liberties and imprisoned tens of thousands of political leaders across the country. The people punished her when she lifted the Emergency in 1977. Her Congress party was wiped out in north India, winning but a humiliating two seats. In later developments, she was temporarily arrested, her membership of the Lok Sabha revoked, and a judicial enquiry was ordered. Mrs Gandhi returned to power in the 1980 general elections and was prime minister till her assassination by her Sikh guards in October 1984

In Delhi, as in Gujarat, Mr Modi has bent the judiciary, police, bureaucracy, and education system to his will, massively eroding democratic institutions. Many think he came close to threatening the Constitution itself. The election results told him that perhaps the people would no longer obey.

India became a republic on January 26, 1950, with a written Constitution and well-defined freedoms, including the cherished Freedom of Religion and Belief. Arguably, for the first time in 3,000 years, all Indians, including women, were equal in the eyes of the law. Caste remains an integral part of the majority faith of Hinduism, but untouchability is now a federal crime with strong penalties. That caste tensions remain close to eight decades after Independence is another story.

The Christian community needs a broad spectrum of political support and cannot afford to make new enemies

Narendra Modi took the oath of office as prime minister of India for the third consecutive time at Rashtrapati Bhawan, home to its president, on a warm Sunday night, an unusual time for such magnificent functions of state.

Squirming under the cloudless night, lit not by the moon and the stars but by gigantic floodlights, were heads of government of neighboring South Asian countries barring Pakistan, India’s trillionaires, and political stars across party lines.

Only some in the several thousand invited gathering would have noticed that among those sworn in were two junior ministers from the tiny state of Kerala in the extreme south of the country.

One was a Christian who had not contested any seat in the elections but was a staunch loyalist of the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Kurien George, a former vice chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, and a senior state leader of the party, was sworn in as a minister of state. He is expected to be made a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, from one of the states where the BJP has significant strength in the legislative assembly.

The other new minister is also a strong BJP loyalist. Film actor Suresh Gopi created political history by winning for his party its maiden parliamentary seat in Kerala. The BJP had worked for it, conspired for it, and prayed for it, for all of half a century, without success. It had, though, come tantalizing close once when the then railway minister O Rajagopalan gave Congress star debater Shashi Tharoor a scare. Rajagopalan lost by a thin margin.

Gopi won rather handsomely from Trissur, beating seasoned professional politicians of both the Congress and Communist Party Marxist. In many ways, he did it without the help of Modi’s very noisy wooing of the Christian religious leadership in the state, and in New Delhi.

Observers attribute Gopi’s victory to not just his celebrity status as a popular film actor, but to his close connect with the people, particularly Christians who form a sizable chunk of the electorate in the Trissur constituency.

Gopi is chummy with bishops, is generous to local churches, and helps those in need. The bishops did not have to issue any calls from the pulpit to endear the people to this good Samaritan despite the baggage of his party’s image as a persecutor of Christians in north and northeast India.

Gopi by all accounts has also had more than a helpful nudge from the state’s Marxist Chief Minister Piniyari Vijayan, whose several visits to Trissur in the elections invited comment.

These developments are no less than a volcanic eruption and have sent strong shock waves through the state’s political structures.

For the Church, it is a time for introspection. The Catholic Church’s playing footsie with Modi and his party in Kerala, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and some other regions, has not gone down well with the community which bears the brunt of the violence wreaked by the BJP’s militant associates in the militant Sangh Parivar or Hindu nationalists’ outfits affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the mother organization of the BJP, and alma mater of Modi.

Christians have traditionally been seen as supporters of the centrist Congress party which nationally is locked in a deathly tussle with the BJP-RSS.

For Vijayan, this is a fraught time. He too is a third-time elected head of government — of a state, though. Under his watch, his party has fared terribly, winning just one seat in the recent general election to parliament, with the remainder going to the Congress, an enemy in politics of the state, but a coalition partner in the rest of the country.

Vijayan faces criticism from his party as much for his personal style and family baggage, as for his poor stewardship, in managing the general election.

The spat this week between the chief minister and a local bishop has taken both Christians and Communists by surprise, though perhaps Modi, Gopi and George must have been greatly amused.

Mercifully for the Catholic Church — which is yet to get out of its own serious internal binds — no bishop of any of its three rites are involved.

The man in the spotlight is Dr. Geevarghese Mar Coorilose, the former Metropolitan of the Jacobite Syrian Church’s Niranam Diocese.

Mar Coorilose is a very popular and pleasant prelate known in the state as much for his simplicity and humor as for his commitment to the poor. This has earned him the sobriquet of being a leftist in the Church. He told people not to use the feudal “Thirumeni” in addressing him. He also resigned as bishop to spend his time in meditation and service.

It was possibly in that frame of mind that he took the chief minister to task for inviting an electoral defeat by his acts of commission and omission. In a Facebook post, Mar Coorilose said the huge defeat that the Marxists had to face in the general election was due to the erosion in people’s faith, and the poor performance of the second Pinarayi government, compared to the first one.

His advice was that the biggest political movement in Kerala, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, should not lose its relevance. And should be open to criticism. For good measure, the prelate seemingly mocked the relief packages the government had given to people impacted by the devastating floods in the state in 2018.

“Arrogance and opulence, if continued, would spell doom for the leftist government. Floods and epidemics will not come to your rescue every time, and the people will not fall for the ‘kit politics’ time and again, especially in Kerala,” Mar Coorilose posted on Facebook.

He cautioned that unless remedial steps were taken, the Marxists faced the sort of political wipeout they had faced in Bengal and Tripura, once their strongholds.

That touched the chief minister to the quick. He retorted with an epithet; language used more by young children in street fights than by a chief minister of a state.

“There has been no change in the behavior of this person, who once called a priest a wretch, and today he calls another priest ’empty-headed’. It can be understood that the nature of the caller has not changed,” said the Kerala Council of Churches (KCC), a joint confederation of Christian organizations, which came to the rescue of one of its own.

The last has not been heard of this exchange of words between the Church and the politician.

But beyond the bombast and brimstone, serious questions are being asked about relations between Church and State, and in particular, between the hierarchy and political parties and their leaders.

At 2.3 percent of India’s more than 1.4 billion people, the Christian community has no real say in the political processes, other than in Kerala, Goa, and the small states of the northeast such as Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, and Manipur. In the eastern states, the community has done well for itself in the general election this time. But in some states in North India, it is less than a tenth of a percent, and yet suffers in great measure with its nuns and pastors attacked, house churches outlawed, and schools and colleges vilified.

Also, though religious freedom is a constitutional right, the community still needs the goodwill of all political players in the land for its economic development and growth. The community needs a broad spectrum of political support and cannot afford to make new enemies.

This demands that its political, social and religious leaders work with all political parties in each one of the 30 states, big and small, to carefully impact policy-making and devolve resources from the state and federal exchequers to help the Dalits, tribal peoples and youth of the community.

The BJP, which is making friendly sounds in Kerala is hostile to the Christian community across the country. It has been vigorously curtailing Church activities through anti-conversion laws, curbs on foreign funding, and administrative pressure on its educational, medical institutions and activism.

I have been living in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, for the past one month. In my general conversations with many people living in Shimla from different parts of Himachal Pradesh, there has been some discussion about the Lok Sabha elections also. The election is to be held in the last phase on four Lok Sabha seats here. One day five-six BJP workers came to my house in Summerhill. As soon as I opened the door, a senior worker among them said, ‘We have come   for Modiji . . .’ I welcomed them smilingly and asked them to first tell me about your candidate contesting from Shimla constituency. Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of the country, everyone knows him. Pointing to the candidate’s photo printed on the poster they were holding, they said, ‘Yes, yes, he is our candidate from Shimla.’

While taking the election material from them, I apprised them that my vote was not here. I will definitely read your pamphlet. I kept talking about the elections with those workers for ten-fifteen minutes. They were not in a hurry. At my query they told me that there is a close contest on the Shimla seat. They further said that BJP’s victory in Hamirpur and Kangra seats is certain. The Congress may win the Mandi seat again. (The BJP candidate had won from Mandi in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Congress won this seat in the midterm elections held in 2021 due to the death of the elected MP.) I asked why it seems that there is no tough competition in Mandi? The senior worker explained that such candidates can be fit in big cities. It is difficult for them to make a mark in a small city like Mandi. They all seemed to be very ordinary level workers of the party. During the entire conversation, they presented their assessment of the elections with a lot of neutrality and objectivity. I bid them farewell by saying my best wishes for your efforts.

A day before this, the Congress workers had come to our colony. I could not meet them. They had left their election material on the ground floor and put up posters in the compound and left. Maybe they thought that since the house is closed on the ground floor, there will be no one on the upper floors

The recent ‘pran pratishtha’ (consecration) of Lord Ram in Ram Temple in Ayodhya has been a major spectacle. This has accompanied the promotion of the mass display of religiosity in most parts of the country, more so in northern India. This also saw the fusion of the roles ‘chief of religion’ and ‘chief of political power’ into a single person, the Prime Minister of India. It was immediately followed by Narendra Modi inaugurating another big temple (Swaminayan) in Abu Dhabi with gaiety and publicity. Soon the foundation for another temple in Chambal, Kalki Dham, was also done by Modi. Impressed by the serial temple events many right-wing ideologues are claiming that Modi is the first statesman from post-colonial societies to move towards the decolonization of cultures in post-colonial societies.

How did colonialism affect South Asia in particular? South Asia was predominantly a feudal society, ruled by the landlord-kings legitimized by the clergy. The British succeeded in colonizing most parts of South Asia, the Indian subcontinent in particular. Their primary focus was on plundering its wealth and creating markets for the goods being produced in England. It had to lay the structure of a colonial state in which transport, education and foundations of modern administration were laid down. Incidentally, they also supported the eradication of some of the ghastly practices like sati. For other reforms, the likes of Jotirao Phule, Savitribai Phule, B R Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi moved the mountains to bring in reforms and cultural changes.

The culture of society is not a static thing. It did start changing in multiple ways during the colonial period. While a blind aping of the West was a small part of cultural change, the major accompanying part was the journey towards a society with equality. These were baby steps towards the culture of industrial-modern society in India. This was looked down upon by the conservative political forces like the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, the communalists, as being “Western values”. They were essentially piqued by the journey towards equality of the downtrodden, they were opposed to it and they labeled it as being ‘Western’.

On these lines, they called the Indian constitution, the embodiment of India’s political culture, as being based on Western values. One recalls that the ideologues of the Hindu Right were opposed to the ideology that talks of equality. In opposition to this, they harp on holy books like Manu Smriti, which talks of the inequality of caste and gender. Interestingly those social forces that had roots in feudal power structure stuck to the ‘anti-Western narrative’. At the same time, they collaborated with the colonial rulers. Interestingly the national movement was shaping the culture and also opposing colonial rulers.

One recalls the Muslim Brotherhood (West Asia) at this point as yet another example. It also calls the democratic culture and values as Western import and tries to impose dictatorial norms and social inequality in the name of Islam. In India, the Hindu Right wing seeks to oppose equality as being a Western import. The opposition to the values of the Indian constitution is also couched in the garb of opposition to colonial culture and is propagated as a glorification of ‘Indian culture’.

Misplaced cultural convictions

So what is being called opposing colonial culture at times is the culture that bases itself on opposing fraternity and justice. Justice for all, irrespective of caste and gender, has been the goal of the emerging Indian democracy; this gives space to pluralism and diversity. Amongst the post-colonial states, India had the best political journey till a few decades ago. This was also accompanied by a culture, which had continuity and change. This was reflected in the life patterns promoted by the likes of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Bose and Maulana Azad, to name a few. This was an attempt to tune the culture which is compatible with democratic values.

The spree of temple-related events is accompanied by the right-wing assertion that this is the decolonization of culture. Also, the impression being created that the inauguration of the temple in Abu Dhabi is the first one in the ‘Muslim countries’ of West Asia is false. One knows there are many temples in the region, including UAE, Muscat, Bahrain and Oman to name a few. As the global migrations; the economy in this case, of Indians are accompanied by the temples in the region. We also recall there are many temples in our neighboring Muslim countries. Dhakeshwwari temple in Bangladesh is well known and we also recall that apart from other existing temples in Pakistan, Lal Krishna Advani visited Pakistan to inaugurate the renovated Katasraj Temple.

The glorification of Modi for ensuring a Hindu temple is unwarranted. To assert that by inaugurating temples in India and in Abu Dhabi, Modi is showing the conviction to bring in decolonization is misplaced. In India the colonial impact was undone during the freedom movement itself, as the roots of progressive social steps and progressive writings, the theatre also ran parallel with the national movement. Post independence the process continued with Nehru’s encouragement of scientific temper and Ambedkar’s well-drafted Indian constitution.

India did not get subdued by colonial culture in totality. What we are facing today is the promotion of religiosity and conservatism. Since politics is stalking the streets in the garb of religion, India’s traditional syncretic culture is coming under attack from conservative and orthodox values. A hilarious example of this is the opposition by BJP associate VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and company legally challenging the forest department to let the lion Akbar cohabit with the lioness Sita at the Kolkata zoo.

Onslaught of orthodoxy

As far as Abu Dhabi is concerned, not only Abu Dhabi but the whole of West Asia (Middle East) has suffered the onslaught of orthodox values due to the promotion of Islamic fundamentalism by the United States. In pursuit of its control over oil resources, it had overthrown the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 paving the way for a fundamentalist regime in due course. Later it was instrumental in propping up madrassas in Pakistan to train mujahedeen which gave rise to Al Qaeda with huge funding and also supplied them with armaments. This whole American intervention shifted West Asian culture towards a retrograde one.

The inauguration of the temple in Abu Dhabi in no way can undo the cultural damage done to the region by the global forces with infinite hunger for oil. Temples are one part of the culture. The definition of culture has to be much broader than just temple-related events.

(The writer, a former IIT Bombay professor, is Chairman, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai. Views are personal.)

Read more at: https://www.southasiamonitor.org/perspective/temple-inaugurations-are-not-decolonization-indian-culture-much-broader

I mean by Ramarajya-Divine Raj, the kingdom of God. Ramarajya of my dream ensures equal rights alike of Prince and Pauper…. Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy…. (Young India, September 19, 1929)

On January 22 in Ayodhya, the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, presided over the Pranapratistha ceremony at the Ram Mandir. In his speech after that, he claimed that the event heralded the birth of a new era. Further, he declared that the foundation for the next thousand years had been laid. The Sangh Parivar, its allies, and sympathisers announced that India is moving towards Ramarajya. The term Ramarajya was close to the heart of Mahatma Gandhi, and it was his vision for an independent India. This article attempts to understand the concept of Ramarajya as used by the Father of the Nation and the reality in India today.

Gandhi’s Idea of Ramarajya

According to Gandhi’s political philosophy, Ramarajya literally means Rajya or reign of Rama. Rama being the seventh avatar of Lord Vishnu, Ramarajya could be understood as the ‘reign of Lord Vishnu or God’. In the common parlance, Ramarajya is a ‘perfect democracy’.

Gandhi wrote in Hind Swaraj in 1929, “By Ramarajya, I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramarajya, a Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me, Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of Truth and righteousness.”

For Gandhi, the state embodies a relationship between the government and its citizens. The state unites its people into a community and provides all possible means for its well-being, security and development. The state functions in the common interest without neglecting the last individual’s interest (Anthyodaya). Gandhi’s concept of Ramarajya is inspired by morality, ethics, and spirituality, as Rama is believed to embody all these virtues. Therefore, in Ramarajya, laws are guided by morality, power is decentralised, and the interests of every individual are attended to.

According to Gandhi, religion binds one inextricably to the Truth within and purifies one’s thoughts, intentions and actions. For Gandhi, there is no religion higher than Truth and Righteousness. Religion and morality go hand in hand. Therefore, one who loses morality ceases to be religious. For India, which is heterogeneous, multireligious, and characterised by inter-caste and inter-religious problems, Gandhi proposed the concept of Ramarajya, which is based on morality and virtues. Not one religion’s dominance over other religions. Rama is the embodiment of morality and virtues.

Rama is Truth incarnate. Truth is God. Every religion worships ‘Truth’. Therefore, the end of all religions is Truth. But the means to achieve this end may be varied. Different religions may perceive the Ramarajya in different terms. Muslims may call it ‘Khudai Raj’. For Christians, it is the ‘Kingdom of God’. Or ‘Dharmarajya’ may be a more inclusive word.

In Dharmarajya or Ramarajya, every individual is of great value. No one should be discriminated against on any basis whatsoever. Gandhi was against any social discrimination, so he called for eradicating untouchability. Ramarajya, of his dreams, ensures equal rights to princes and paupers alike.

Features of Gandhi’s Ramarajya:

Gandhi’s Ramarajya is a reign characterised by wisdom, compassion, morality and justice. The following are some of its features:

• Equal status of all: In Gandhi’s Ramarajya, all individuals are equal regardless of their caste, creed or gender and therefore, all must have equal opportunities and rights.
• Equal distribution of resources:Gandhi’s Ramarajya is where there are no rich or poor, no class conflict, where there is an equal distribution of national resources, and where there is a self-sufficient economy. The nation’s wealth is to be used to serve the common good. The prosperity of the country should be shared by all its citizens. In such a Ramarajya, the wealthy and powerful would act as trustees and use their resources for the betterment of the poor and the needy.
• Decentralised Power:Ramarajya of Gandhi advocates local self-government and decentralisation of power. Decisions that affect the local people should be made locally, involving people at the grassroots level.
• Morality and Spiritual Values:Ramarajya of Gandhi’s dreams is governed by morality and spiritual values. Truth, love, compassion, and forgiveness are characteristic values of every citizen, and an Individual’s conscience should be his or her guiding light.
• A Just Society:In this Ramarajya, no one is above the law, and all should be treated justly. Self-discipline is the most crucial ingredient of justice. A self-disciplined person respects the rights of others as well.
• Non-Violence:Non-violence is Ramarajya’s mantra. All violence should be done away with, and all conflicts should be resolved peacefully. Non-violence and Satyagraha are the means to press for one’s rights.
• Education for Empowerment:For Gandhi, education is essential for the development of individuals and the whole society. He emphasised the importance of holistic education, including intellectual and moral development.

In the background of these features of Gandhi’s Ramarajya, let us cast a bird’s eye view on the Modi’ Ramarajya’ during the past ten years, its relentless attempts with phenomenal success to communalise and polarise the Indian society and how it has undermined the democratic values of the Indian Constitution.

The Ram Mandir movement catapulted the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) to power in 2014. Notwithstanding the promises of efficient and corruption-free governance, the country witnessed a gradual and steady onslaught on its democracy and its institutions. The governance was transformed into totalitarianism with religious hegemony. When Gandhi’s concept of Ramarajya is juxtaposed with that of Mr Narendra Modi, one may get a fair idea of what the Sangh Parivar and its allies meant by Ramarajya and what to expect in the coming years.

• Poverty and Unemployment:Most of India’s public enterprises have been handed over to corporates. About 10.1% of people have been affected by unemployment. Rising prices of food grains and commodities of daily consumption are soaring to the skies. The lives of rural and urban poor have been reduced to abject poverty. Many young Indians leave the country to pursue education and jobs in foreign lands.

Demonetisation grounded the economy almost to a halt. Sales, traders’ incomes, production, and employment nose-dived. Small producers and traders lacking capital to stay afloat were shut down. India’s multitude of daily wage workers could not find employers with the cash to pay them. Local industries suspended work for lack of money. The informal financial sector, which conducts 40% of India’s total lending, predominantly in rural areas, collapsed.

• Socio-Economic Inequality:According to Oxfam’s Report “Survival of the Richest: The India story”, the rich have grown richer and the poor poorer over the past decade. Thewealthiest 1% in India now own more than 40% of the country’s total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3% between 2012 and 2021. The report also highlighted gender inequality in India, stating that female workers earned only 63 paise for every 1 rupee earned by male workers.

The Scheduled Castes and rural workers are the worst affected. They earned only 55% and half of what the advantaged social groups earned, respectively, between 2018 and 2019. Oxfam India stated that the country’s marginalised communities, such as Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, Women, and informal sector workers, are continuing to suffer in a system that prioritises the survival of the richest.

Thanks to the implementation of GST, the poor in India are paying disproportionately higher taxes and spending more on essential items and services compared to the rich.

• Standard of Education:In an era of science, technological revolution, and artificial intelligence making inroads into daily lives, the country’s education system is being taken back to primitive times. Everything from science to history is being mythicised in such a primitive manner that India has become a laughing stock at the international level. The following findings of the latest ASER report titled “Beyond Basics” smack at the face of the country with a pathetic scenario of our educational standard.

1. About 25% of this age group still cannot fluently read a standard II-level text in their regional language. 
2. More than half struggle with division (3-digit by 1-digit) problems. Only 43.3% of 14-18-year-olds are able to do such problems correctly. This skill is usually expected in Std III-IV. 
3. A little over half of the surveyed group between 14 and 18 can read sentences in English (57.3%). Almost three-quarters of those who can read sentences in English cannot tell their meanings (73.5%). 

• Religious Intolerance and Discrimination:Ram, who was an avatar of God, is taking the avatar of a destroyer. Hailed as the ‘Maryadapurusha’ and ‘Purushottama’, Rama’s values have been thrown into the winds. Hatred, intolerance and vilification of minority religions are being disseminated in all possible ways, the media being the leading national channel for this purpose.

The Indian constitution provides for freedom of conscience and the right of all individuals to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion; as a secular state, it requires the state to treat all religions impartially and prohibits discrimination based on religion. But the ground reality is devastating.

• Thirteen states in the Indian Union have passed laws prohibiting religious conversions for all faiths. Some states have imposed penalties and severe punishments against religious conversions, even for the purpose of marriage.
• The police and law enforcement authorities have been let loose on minorities in the states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. They harass, persecute, penalise and even publicly flog men of minority religions based on allegations. Some state governments have bulldozed Muslim-owned homes and shops following communal violence. A report drafted by a Citizens Committee stated that there were “multiple instances of apparent police complicity” in violent actions against protestors, who were chiefly Muslim, in the Delhi riots in 2020.
• In its report, the ‘Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC)’ said Christians were “increasingly targeted using these anti-conversion laws,” as “allegations of forced conversion, no matter if false, have led many Christians to be attacked, arrested and detained by police.” In several BJP-ruled states, the Sangh Parivar’s foot soldiers disrupted Christian prayer assemblies, desecrated Christian churches and beat up Christian congregations. The police either witnessed the attacks, sometimes joined the miscreants and finally arrested the Christians alleging conversion.
• In its annual report, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the government “continued its systematic discrimination and stigmatisation of religious and other minorities, particularly Muslims.”
• United Christian Forum (UCF) said till November 26, 2022, 511 anti-Christian incidents around the country had been reported to its hotline, compared to 505 in all of 2021. It urged the government to take action in response to these incidents. The Modi administration maintained a deafening silence.
• Religious leaders, academics, political figures, and activists made inflammatory public remarks about religious minorities. The cries of minorities, the anguish of the right-thinking citizens and letters of senior government officials and retired bureaucrats did not cut any ice with the Prime Minister.
• Justice for all?

The state violates the Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and the right to dissent daily. Any criticism of the ruling dispensation or public disagreement with its policies is construed as ‘anti-national’ and an act of ‘sedition’. Protests or demonstrations are silenced in the name of national interest, and human rights are violated with impunity.

Here are five instances out of the many others that signify the slow but steady withdrawal of the promise of social justice enshrined in the Constitution of India.

1. Public Lynchings

The public lynching incidents have steadily increased since 2014. Muslims, Dalits and other minorities have been victims of public lynching based on false allegations.

1. Arrests of Journalists

At least fifty-five journalists have faced arrest and imprisonment for practising their profession and exercising freedom of speech and expression on various issues of national concern. Journalists arrested on charges of sedition during the Modi rule include Siddique Kappan, Prashant Kanojia, Rahul Kulkarni, Dhaval Patel and many others.

III. Misuse of the UAPA

The UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) has been misused as a weapon to subdue social activists or human rights activists. The Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, the arrest of journalists in Kashmir, and the violence against activists in the Delhi riots cases are but a few examples. The incarceration of 83-year-old Stan Swamy and his murder in the police custody has stirred the nation’s conscience.

1. Police Atrocities

The protest of Students of Jamia Millia Islamia against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was brutally handled by the Delhi Police. The police were given a free hand to enter the university campus, to thrash the students and to damage university property. JNU also saw a similar ferocity.

1. The Manipur Ethnic strife

The state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the BJP-ruled state of Manipur set ablaze the state. The gross human rights violations and wanton killings and pillage are the orchestrated events. The rape, the naked parade and the torture of women of the Kuki tribe are the ultimate blot on Indian democracy. Aren’t these the ‘Sita Matas’ in Modi’s Ramarajya?

If this scenario is the foretaste of Modi’s Ramarajya, one shudders to think what will be the actual Ramarajya that is envisioned by the Sangh Parivar on the occasion of ‘Pranapatishta’ of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.

As “India, that is Bharat” plunges into a frenzied if largely risible political jockeying over the country’s nomenclature, reading the debates of the Constituent Assembly dating back to December 9, 1946, reveals a sober and civilized parliamentary discussion on the subject.

A sampling of comments in the Constituent Assembly debates shows none of the current angst over the name triggered by the speculations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is about to rename India as Bharat. The incongruity of “India, that is Bharat”, as given by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who drafted the Constitution, was pointed out by some members of the Constituent Assembly just as an independent India was taking shape.

The incongruity of “India, that is Bharat”, as given by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who drafted the Constitution, was pointed out by some members of the Constituent Assembly just as an independent India was taking shape.

Addressing the Assembly. Dr. Ambedkar said, “I propose to move amendment No. 130 and incorporate in my amendment No. 197 which makes a little verbal change in sub-clause (2). I move “That for clauses (1) and (2) of article 1, the following clauses be substituted: India, that is, Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

Blending of East and West’

Mohammed Tahir, a member from Bihar, said, “I would like to submit that it is a matter of shame that our Constitution could not fix a name for our country. This is a proof of the intelligence of Dr. Ambedkar that he suggested a hotch-potch sort of name and got it accepted. Well, if somebody would have asked Doctor Saheb about his homeland, he could have replied with pride that he belonged to Bharat or India or Hindustan. But now the Honourable Dr. will have to reply in these words: “I belong to India that is Bharat”. Now, Sir, it is for you to see what a beautiful reply it is.”  Tahir’s comments came during a debate on November 24, 1949.

Algu Raj Shastri, a member from the United Provinces, said this on November 21, 1949, “It is, Sir, a matter of deep sorrow and deep regret for me that we in this country did not rise above the slave mentality and we did not say frankly what would be the name of our country. I think, Sir, there is no single country of the world which has such a clumsy name as we have given to our land that is ‘India, that is Bharat.’ The fact, Sir, is it is no name at all and we have failed very badly in giving it a proper name.”

Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, a member from East Punjab took a more nuanced position on November 18, 1949, saying, “Now I would like to draw your attention, Sir, to a few minor things embodied in the Constitution. India has, no doubt, recovered herself; we have got our ancient India now. As regards the name of the country the term India that is Bharat” has been laid down in the Constitution and some of my friends objected to this term. As for me, I have no serious objection to it. It is a fact that we cannot live in isolation from the rest of the world; We have centuries-old connections with England and the rest of the world. The world will always know us by the name of India. But so far as we are concerned, in our hearts and souls our country shall always remain as Bharat. So the terms India and Bharat have been bracketed in order to meet the needs of our countrymen as well as of the outsiders. The world will call us as India and we ourselves will call us as Bharat. Thus there will be blending of the East and the West.”

Divergent opinions

Hari Vishnu Kamath, a member from Central Provinces and Berar, put a much finer point on the debate on November 14, 1949.  “The Draft as passed by the House reads, “India, that is, Bharat”. The revised draft presented to the House says, “India, that is Bharat”. That I do not think is what was intended by the House when we accepted article 1. What was meant was, India, that is to say, Bharat. That is why two commas were inserted and the phrase was interposed. It does not mean, “India, that is Bharat,”. This is wrong English, so far as the meaning intended is concerned. I think the original was perfectly correct and it was absolutely wrong on the part of the Drafting Committee to change the wording.”

In another debate he also said, “Some ascribe it (name of Bharat) to the son of Dushyant and Shakuntala who was also known as “Sarvadamana” or all conqueror and who established his suzerainty and kingdom in this ancient land. After him this land came to be known as Bharat. Another school of research scholars hold that Bharat dates back to Vedic…”

That seemed to test Ambedkar’s patience. “Is it necessary to trace all this? I do not understand the purpose of it. It may be well interesting in some other place. My friend accepts the word “Bharat”. The only thing is that he has got an alternative. I am very sorry but there ought to be some sense of proportion, in view of the limited time before the House,” he said.

Jagat Narain Lal, a member from Bihar, had a different spin altogether. “I come to some of the drawbacks, or, I might say, some of those omissions which I regret. For example, Sir, I would have liked the name ‘Bharat’ to come before India. It is a fact that ‘Bharat’ and India have come in, but I would have liked ‘Bharat’ to come before India, he said on November 25, 1949.

R K Sidhva, a member from the Central Provinces and Berar, was both prescient and reasonable in saying on November 25, 1949, “India in future will be called Bharat but that does not mean that we discard the name Hindustan.”

Kamalapati Tripathi, a member from the United Provinces, said, “We are pleased to see that this word has been used and we congratulate Dr. Ambedkar on it. It would have been very proper, if he had accepted the amendment moved by Shri Kamath, which states “Bharat as is known in English language ‘India’”.

Change in debating nature

To which Ambedkar responded saying, “This matter was debated at great length last time. When this article came before the House, it was kept back practically at the end of a very long debate because at that time it was not possible to come to a decision as to whether the word “Bharat” should be used after the word “India” or some other word, but the whole of the article including the term “Union”—if I remember correctly— was debated at great length. We are merely now discussing whether the word “Bharat” should come after “India”. The rest of the substantive part of the article has been debated at great length.”

Several other members had also chimed in during the historic debates. Seth Govind Das, also from the Central Provinces and Berar, said on November 17, 1949, “In this Constitution, our country has been named ‘India that is Bharat’. It is a matter of gratification that the name Bharat has been adopted, but the way in which this has been put there has not given us full satisfaction. ‘India that is Bharat’ is a strange name.”

Lakshminarayan Sahu, from Orissa, said on 17 November 1949, “Our country was first named Bharat. Then it was thought that ‘Bharat’ would not be understood by other countries of the world and the words ‘India that is Bharat’ were included. What is this?”

A.B. Mandloi of the Central Provinces and Berar, said on November 18, 1949, “Taking into account our ancient civilisation, culture and traditions, we have adopted a suitable name for our country, namely, Bharat. That has also been done with the common consent of all.”

“It fills our heart with joy when we consider that once more this ancient land which was hitherto known as India only will be known as Bharat,” said Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri, of Assam, on November 22, 1949. “For the first time, after a dependence of more than 1,000 years India, Bharat has emerged as a Sovereign Democratic Republic,” said S. V. Krishnamoorthy Rao of Mysore State the same day.

The overall tone of the debates over the name of the country as incorporated in the new constitution was reasonable even though at times very detail-oriented. Dr. Ambedkar did seem to occasionally display impatience over the way some of the members dwelt on the country’s ancient past to make their points.

From there to now, there has been a remarkable change in the way the same subject is being discussed with the politics of its timing as well as its hidden motivation, namely, to thwart the newly minted INDIA opposition alliance, dominating the discourse. (The author is a Chicago-based journalist, author, filmmaker and commentator. Views are personal. By special arrangement with Indica) Read more at:

It has been almost three months since the State of Manipur in India has been in flames. The latest news reports speak about 140 or more people killed, 50,000 or more people made destitute and homeless, many hiding in forests, 317 churches burned, and 6137 homes set ablaze. It is indeed a colossal human tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes, and the power centers in the State or at the Center seem to be cavalier in their approach to a resolution.

The Godi media in India is spinning the story as an age-old rivalry between two ethnic groups, and many pundits have dismissed it as some tribal infighting that occurs relatively often. However, there is little doubt that since the 3rd of May, the Kuki-Zomi tribals have been at the receiving end of this horrible attack, which has all the designs of a well-orchestrated and planned campaign of ethnic cleansing. Kuki-Zomi forms about 16% of the population of Manipur, and the Meiteis, predominantly Hindus, make up about 53% of the State.

There is a raging debate over whether this ongoing crisis has any religious undertones! There is no doubt that it all started with an effort by the State Government to empower the Hindu majority at the expense of the Scheduled Tribes (mostly Christians) as regards their land rights. A writ petition filed in the High Court by members of the Meitei Tribe Union towards that goal appeared to have produced a ruling in favor of Meities, triggering the current mayhem. These anti-tribal policies are increasingly put in place in various states by the BJP government. Fr. Stan Swamy is a victim of those disastrous initiatives supporting crony capitalists that have hurt the indigenous and tribal people across India.

The attacks appeared to have been pre-meditated and well-planned. In the valley, the reports indicate the precision pinpointing of minority houses that were selected and burnt. The Hindu militants, who mostly belong to Arambai Tenngol and Meitei Leepun, appeared to have the tacit support of the Police and the law enforcement authorities. As per sources, it has now been revealed that over 4000 weapons, including sophisticated ones, have been looted from different locations in Manipur since the unrest began. These arms appeared to have played a critical role in exacerbating the violence. Using mortars against fleeing Kukis-zomi refugees to the forest to escape death and destruction may point to a higher-level conspiracy in aiding and abetting these militant groups.

It is also a known fact that there are Christians among the Meities. According to Dominic Lumon, the Archbishop of Imphal,  249 churches belonging to the Meitei Christians had been destroyed within 36 hours since the start of the violence. He said, “The wonder is, amid the fight between the Kukis and the Meiteis, why did the Meitei mob burn down and destroy 249 churches in the Meitei heartland? How is it that there was almost a natural attack on the church in the Meitei localities itself, and how did the mob know where the churches were located if not previously planned”. He attributed these attacks to the revival of Sanamahism, and the emergence of groups like Arambai Tenggol and Meitie Leepun.

Therefore, the theory that has been promoted by vested interests that there is hardly any religious angle to the whole unrest is quite suspect. BJP has long been critical of Northeastern states and blamed foreigners, especially missionaries, for their separatist tendencies. Although people in those states are apprehensive about the Hindutva agenda, they have given in to supporting the party because it allows proximity to state power and, more importantly, to central funds. After the BJP took control of the central government in 2014, political leaders in these states gradually switched loyalties to the BJP. Now, they are beginning to pay a heavy price for their wanton disregard for making crucial decisions.

While looking back at recent BJP history, the initial grabbing of power in Manipur and the subsequent unrest and violence come directly from the BJP playbook. According to Human Rights Watch, a majority of the reported incidents of violence against Christians in 1998 occurred in the western State of Gujarat, the same year that the BJP came to power in the State. The year began with an unprecedented hate campaign by Hindutva groups and culminated with ten days of nonstop violence against Christian tribals and the destruction of churches and Christian institutions in the southeastern districts at the year’s end. Human Rights Watch investigated these attacks in Dangs district in southeastern Gujarat. The events were preceded by escalating violence throughout the State in which many police and state officials were implicated. Biren Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur, seems to be following the same model. Before the current crisis, his government bulldozed three churches in the name of an anti-encroachment drive, though some have existed since the early 70s in Imphal’s’ East district Tribal colony.

Despite widespread destruction and human loss of lives, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept a vow of silence until now while making several important state visits to various capitals around the world, including the United States. His primary constitutional duty is to protect the lives and property of every citizen of India, regardless of caste, religion, or region. Yet, this leader of a great nation, whose aim is to make India the Vishwaguru and would readily tweet if a cricketer is involved in an accident, found it convenient to close his eyes to a State ablaze under his premiership. On his foreign visits, he often asks foreign leaders, especially in Christian-majority countries, to protect Hindu shrines and safeguard their sanctity. Yet, he is pretty undaunted about the destruction of 300 or more Christian Churches under his watch. His External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar who has specialized in propaganda, could always rationalize his thoughts in the name of traditions and culture, and even as he has redefined human rights, one that would fit the people of his stripes abroad and the other for the marginalized communities in his homeland.

For astute political observers, Manipur is coming apart at its seams, and so does the rest of India. The politics of polarization championed by the Modi administration is taking its toll on human lives and personal properties. However, more than anything else, transforming trajectories are not only causing the alienation of its people and the dismantlement of its institutions but also destroying the moral underpinnings of a great country. The party that prides itself on nationalism has given the impetus to the extremist elements to tear the nation apart for the selfish pursuit of power regardless of its consequences. Who is anti-national now: is that someone who drives the country towards disintegration with odious policies using religion as a tool with disastrous results or who honestly criticizes the downward spiral of a nation under the current governance? This question remains to be answered!