Congress Protects Bal Thackeray

Congress goes Communal

By Manuwant Choudhary

News today is a secular Congress Party shielding Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray in the 1992 riots.
All those who have lived in Bombay during those horrbile years will tell you how one man Bal Thackeray sitting in a suburban house Matoshri and spitting fire in a communal newspaper Saamna is responsible for the killings of hundreds.
The Srikrishna Commission set up to inquire the riots in Bombay in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition at Ayodhya held Thackeray guilty yet the Bombay High court held him not guilty.
Now instead of Maharastra's Congress government appealing against that decision they are soft-pedalling the riots and shielding Bal Thackeray.
Everyone who lived in Bombay during those years will also tell you how a Congress government then simply watched as the mahaartis continued every evening with communal Hindus marching the streets and then the violence from which Bombay will perhaps never recover.
The Congress Party is as communal as the BJP.
Its not surpring why the Shiv Sena supported the Congress nominee Pratibha Patil over their own NDA nominee Shri Shekhawat.
It was simply a deal for Thackeray!

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi

Not just who killed Gandhi but why was Gandhi killed?

By Manuwant Choudhary

I have never visited Rajghat in New Delhi yet today I wish to pay my respects to Mahatma Gandhi who sacrificed his own life for our freedoms.
It is well known that Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic Nathuram Godse as he was on way to his prayer meeting at Birla Bhawan, New Delhi. And every year on this day politicians pay their routine floral tribute to the Mahatma and soon thereafter they get on with their business to loot this country.
Most just talk about `Who Killed Gandhi?', and not `Why was Gandhi killed?'
If you try and find answers to the second question then you will see its more difficult but let me say what if Gandhi was not killed? What would India be like today if Gandhi lived a few more years?
I would say very different.
I recall attending a presser many years ago of Sushila Nayar in Bombay. She was the sister of Pyarelal, Gandhi's secretary. She said soon after India's partition and independence Gandhi called upon his supporters to stay where they were and continue their work. Sushila herself was in the newly created Pakistan and according to her Gandhi planned to walk across the border into Pakistan.

Socialism challenged in India's Supreme Court

`Our' Socialist Agenda: the time to oust it has come


By Barun Mitra

The world has come to admire India’s democratic institutions. However, many may be unaware that in this, the largest democracy, all political parties have to profess the same political ideology—socialism. The Supreme Court has now asked the government and the Election Commission to explain this apparent paradox. Under the Representation of the People Act, all political parties in India have to pledge allegiance not only to the Constitution and integrity of India, but also to socialism.
The socialist intent of the Preamble has been extended by law to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, (RP Act) through an amendment in 1988. Section 29 A (5) of the Act now states that the application for registration “shall be accompanied by a copy of the memorandum or rules and regulations of the association…shall bear…allegiance to the Constitution of India…to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy, …uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”
Rajiv Gandhi’s government introduced this amendment when the ruling Congress party enjoyed three-fourths majority in Parliament. The amendment was carried without any dissenting vote.
But at the root of this change, was the infamous 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, enacted by the Congress government under then prime minister Indira Gandhi during the days of national emergency, in 1976. The Bill had proposed nearly 60 amendments—one of these amended the Preamble to the Constitution to term India a “sovereign, secular, socialist democratic republic.”
When the Janata Party formed government after the Congress lost the 1977 election, it sought to undo a lot of the draconian provisions of the 42nd Amendment, but retained the section that pertained to socialism and secularism in the Preamble. While Indira Gandhi wanted to lean towards socialist policies and diluted protection of property rights in order to pursue a more active intervention in the private sector, Morarji Desai’s government actually deleted the right to property as a fundamental right from the Constitution in 1978. Clearly, there was an almost unanimous opinion in Indian politics that socialism was the preferred path for the country.
At stake is the democratic and political process, which includes campaigning and convincing the people of any particular political ideology
However, B.R. Ambedkar, the man who helped draft the Constitution, specifically gave his reason for the non-inclusion of the word “socialism” when it was sought to be inserted into the Preamble by another member during the deliberations. Ambedkar did not want the Constitution to tie down future generations. He said in the Assembly on 15 November, 1948 : “(H)ow the society should be organized in its social and economic side are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether… It is perfectly possible today, for the majority people to hold that the socialist organization of society is better than the capitalist... But it would be perfectly possible for thinking people to devise some other form...which might be better than the socialist organization of today or of tomorrow.”
In 1950, when the Constitution was adopted, the Preamble read: “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens…”
Six decades after Ambedkar’s caution, three decades after the amendment which added socialism in the Preamble and two decades after the change in the election law that made it mandatory for all political organizations in the country to affirm to the cause of socialism, there is now an opportunity to seriously reconsider this whole issue. The Supreme Court recently issued a notice to the government, in response to a public interest petition questioning the validity of the affirmation of socialism. The court wanted to know the practical and legal implications of having a socialist intent in the Preamble, as reflected in the RP Act.
The Swatantra Party in Maharashtra has been trying to challenge this provision in the high court for more than a decade, with little success. If all political parties are to have the same ideology, we would hardly need multiple parties. If we don’t have parties, there would be no need for contested elections. If we don’t have free and fair elections, we won’t have representative democracy. If we don’t have democracy…does this path sound familiar?
What is at stake is not whether one believes in the tenets of socialism or secularism. At stake is the democratic and political process, which includes campaigning and convincing the people of any particular political ideology; and the freedom of the people to choose from the competing policies.
Democracy is not just about majority rule, it is also about the freedom enjoyed by those who hold a minority opinion today to win over their fellow citizens. Without that freedom, democracy cannot have any substance. It is no coincidence that countries which had incorporated socialism as the only political ideology of the state inevitably degenerated into one-party dictatorship. This can’t be the goal of the most vibrant multiparty democracy in the world—India.




The writer is Director, Liberty Institute, New Delhi.
Article Courtesy: livemint

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SORRY, NO LOVE IN THE LAND OF THE TAJ

BY MANUWANT CHOUDHARY

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's love affair with Supermodel Carla Bruni has the Indian government in a tizzy and they are not sure how to treat the Presidents girlfriend when they arrive to attend India's Republic Day parade.
But Indian newspapers and TV channels may finally get the eyeballs they so desperately need and definitely this years Republic Day parade will hopefully be a love parade rather than a parade of missiles aimed at neighbouring Pakistan.
The photo-op will also not be the parade ground but the couple in front of the Taj Mahal, a masouleum built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in loving memory of his wife Noor Jahan.
But India's politicians say Shah Jahan did that for his wife, not would be wife!
Now newspapers quoting government sources say the Indian government is going to ask the French government to decide Carla's status, although the President has formally asked Carla for marriage.
Live-in relationships have the traditional Congress Party livid and even Hindi Bollywood films on live-in relationships are shot outside in Australia.
But what politicians do not know about Indian culture is what an activist working in West Bengal's Nandigram discovered. "The villagers there are allowed to select their own girl and even live-in with her for months as long as they eventually get married."
Carla is herself a left-wing supporter and she did not even vote for the President and I am surprised the Indian communists are silent on the issue considering they want to be consulted on every foreign `affair'.

Benazir Bhutto's obituary

Farewell Wadi Bua, my aunt

Fatima Bhutto

My aunt and I had a complicated relationship. That is the truth, the sad truth.
The last fifteen years were not the ones we spent as friends or relatives, that is also the truth. But this week, I too want to remember her differently. I want to remember her differently because I must. I can't lose faith in this country, my home. I can't believe that it was for nothing, that violence in its purest form is so cruel and unforgiving. I can't accept that this is what we have come to. So I must offer a farewell. One that is written in tears and anger but one that comes from a place far away, from the realm of memory and forgiving - a place where at another time, we might have all been safe. As a child I used to call my aunt Wadi Bua, Sindhi for father's older sister.
When I got the news, I was told that something had happened to Wadi Bua. It was an expression I hadn't heard or used in a very long time, when I heard it said to me over the phone I remembered someone different.
We used to read children's books together. We used to like exactly the same sweets - sugared chestnuts and candied apples. We used to get the same ear infections that tortured us throughout the years.
I have never before written an article that seemed so impossible.
We were very different. Though people liked to compare us, almost instinctively, because well, they could. It is difficult to write about two people, one in the present tense and one in the past, at the same time.
Especially when one person's passing makes the other one wonder whether there is a cusp to things and whether or not there really is a past and present to life.
I never agreed with her politics. I never agreed with those she kept around, the political opportunists, hangers-on, them. They repulse me. I never agreed with her version of events. But in death, perhaps, there is a moment to call for calm. To say enough. We have had enough. We cannot, and we will not, take any more madness. I mourn because my family has had enough. I mourn for Bilawal, Bakhtawar, and Asifa. I mourn for them because I too lost a parent. I know what it feels like.
I am at a loss. I am in shock because I have yet to bury a loved one who has died of natural causes. Four. Thats the number of family members, immediate family members, whom we have laid to rest, all victims of senseless killing.
I was born five years after my grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's assassination.
I was three when my uncle Shahnawaz was murdered. I remember Wadi Bua sitting with me and telling me stories while the rest of the family was with the police.
When I was fourteen, my life was ended. I lost my heart and soul, my father Murtaza. I am and have been since then a shell of the person I was.
I suppose there are cusps in life, and thank god for that because that way we can stay in between.
And now at twenty-five, Wadi. But this isn't about me, its about those whom we have lost. It's about the graveyard at Garhi Khuda Bux that is just too full.
I pray that this is the last, that from this moment onwards we will no longer have to bid farewell too quickly.

Wadi, farewell.

FATIMA BHUTTO is Benazir's niece, the daughter of her brother Murtaza.

Article: Courtesy The News International.