Veteran RSS leader MG Vaidya tells Ajit Sahi that the RSS wants to organise every section of Indian society along Hindu values
Photo: Nirmal Soni
So the RSS has moved in because the BJP was imploding.
Kati patang.
Well, yes, that’s what Arun Shourie says. What do you think?
Not true. Stuff happens. These aren’t big things. They will pass.
Shourie says the RSS should take over the BJP.
What he means is that the RSS should intervene, pay greater attention to the BJP. So, yes, it should.
Just what is the relationship between the RSS and the BJP?
Why don’t you ever ask what’s the relationship between the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad? RSS and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh? RSS and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram? The relationship between the RSS and the BJP is the same as between the RSS and all its other offshoots. We don’t write their constitutions, or oversee their day-to-day functioning and projects, but yes, we have sent our people into them to help them run themselves.
LK Advani and Rajnath Singh have deferred to Mohan Bhagwat and will step down from their positions. This reminds us of what Sonia Gandhi said during the Lok Sabha elections: Advani is a slave of the RSS.
We’d like to make even Soniaji a slave. What does a slave mean? If Advani was a slave how could he have spoken favourably of Jinnah? There is total freedom in the RSS. If even I am not a slave of the RSS, how can Advani be its slave? In its 84-year existence, the RSS has not once had reason to bring disciplinary action against anyone in its ranks. We believe in persuasion, not force.
Commentators such as Swapan Dasgupta have been suggesting that the BJP should move away from Hindutva and evolve a new paradigm to win elections.
Unki marzi [It’s up to them]. Sudheendra Kulkarni said the same, so I said, ok, go ahead. Break off from Hindutva, if that’s what the BJP wants.
But Rajnath Singh said the BJP is committed to Hindutva.
Doesn’t this tell you something about the BJP? Rajnath said the BJP must continue to espouse Hindutva. So that ends the debate, right?
What is the role of the RSS appointees who work inside the BJP as Organising Secretaries?
Isliye ki party theek dhung se chaley [So that the party is run properly]. The first in this role was Deendayal Upadhayay with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. We have sent people like Sunder Singh Bhandari and Kushabhau Thakre to the BJP in this role. The last person was Sanjay Joshi. Now it is Ramlal. They work very closely with the RSS.
‘RSS Appointees Are Sent To Run The BJP Properly’
Walls not a prison make
Terror accused dare to take on their brutal jailers – and win
Ajit Sahi Editor-at-Large
We who live in prison, and in whose lives there is no event but sorrow, have to measure time by throbs of pain, and the record of bitter moments — Oscar Wilde
FOR SOME months, 22-year-old Saeed has worked as a “recovery agent” for a bank in Pune, chasing credit card defaulters. No one at work knows his fraught second life. His father, Sohail, in jail now for nearly three years, is accused of bombing Mumbai local trains in July 2006 and killing 187 people.
Sohail is a Kafka protagonist in Catch-22. He can’t seek bail because his trial hasn’t started. His trial hasn’t started because the Supreme Court has stayed it. The Supreme Court has stayed it because Sohail has challenged it as unlawful, arguing that the law under which he is being tried is unconstitutional. He has asked the Supreme Court to declare this law illegal and set him free. Until the Supreme Court rules on Sohail’s challenge to the law, the trial is stayed. Because the trial is stayed, Sohail fails to get bail.
Brought to Mumbai’s Central Prison in 2006, Sohail and his fellow accused were quickly branded traitors not just by the jail staff but also by the “regular” prisoners and faced all-round hatred and contempt. This prejudice erupted on June 28, 2008, when the jail staff brutally assaulted him and 26 other inmates in the prison, raining blows, belts, bamboo sticks and stones on them, smashing their heads, breaking their bones and spilling blood.
Jail authorities claimed that the prisoners had rioted unprovoked shouting Pakistan Zindabad, Hindustan Murdabad [Long live Pakistan, Down with India] and attacked the jail staff. The rare mention that the story found in local newspapers merely copy-pasted this official version.
But such is human spirit that, no matter how beaten, it gathers enough valour to fight the unlikeliest of battles. The father-son duo of Sohail-Saeed did exactly that, filing a case against the jail authorities despite the odds and actually winning a favourable ruling. Indeed, the order of Bombay High Court judges Bilal Nazki and AR Joshi, delivered on July 21, 2009, does not just bring justice to Sohail and the others the prison staff brutally attacked. The ruling is historic because it restores the Constitutional rights of tens of thousands of inmates who face indignities and brutalities inside Indian prisons without let or hindrance. It also prescribes criminal prosecution of the jail staff for brutalising the inmates.
Write the judges: “… We have found [that] force was used against the under trial prisoners for no fault of theirs. Force was used excessively for extraneous reasons and [the] law was also flouted. Even as a formality, the Jail Manual was not followed. We, therefore, direct the Chief Secretary, State of Maharashtra to initiate [a] disciplinary inquiry against all the Officers involved in the incident… If need be, in addition to the departmental inquiry, criminal action be also initiated against the concerned Officers.”
Moreover, the judges unequivocally lay down that the jail authorities have no authority over an inmate’s life: “Once a charge sheet has been filed, nobody has authority over the custody of an under-trial except the court… It has to be remembered that the convicts or the under-trials are human beings and they have to be treated like human beings. The jail authorities who have custody over them have [a] special responsibility to protect their rights and in fact they are their custodian, reformer and counsellor.”
“They cannot assume the role by which they turn into [a] villain. They in fact should command respect from the prisoners and that respect should come as a result of their conduct with prisoners. This is no longer in debate in this country whether or not the prisoners have fundamental rights available to them as this has been decided in [a] number of cases by the Supreme Court.”
There’s more. The judges slam the Jail Superintendent at the Central Prison, Swati Sathe, a female officer whose brutalities are legend among former and current inmates, and who, it is widely held, runs her fiefdom on mafia-style intimidation and threats. (A news photographer in Mumbai recalls that when once he took her picture she thus threatened him: “Destroy it now, or I will have you picked up.” He complied.)
The judges write: “One cannot condone the conduct of the jail authorities particularly the Superintendent of the Jail because all other Officers must have done what they did under her command. [The] least said about this conduct, is [that it] was shameful. Jail Superintendents in a free democratic republic behaving inside the jail like a dictator is not acceptable. Such Officials if left to manage the jail would negate all the principles on which our democratic set up is built.”
‘Force was used against the prisoners for no fault of theirs. The law was flouted. If need be, criminal action be initiated against jail authorities’
A departmental inquiry has since been started against Sathe. Sohail’s lawyer, Shahid Azmi, told me that on behalf of his client, he would seek her criminal prosecution once the departmental inquiry is completed.
ON JUNE 28, 2008, Saeed had reached the jail with a lunch of mutton for his father but was stopped at the gates. An hour later, being driven away in a van, his bloodied father had managed to shout at him, “We have all been badly beaten.”
Cleaning out the Augean Stables
With the BJP turning away from self-correction and factionalism spilling out into the open, the RSS has decided to rein in the BJP. Ajit Sahi reports
Photos: Monica Chaturvedi
THE TIMING couldn’t be worse for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the organisation whose diktat was once binding on its political child, the BJP, on every issue from core ideology to its leadership. In a television interview broadcast on Tuesday on the news channel Times Now, Mohan Bhagwat, who was appointed RSS chief four months ago, chided the BJP for its infighting and disarray and warned its leadership to take charge … or else.
It turns out that the BJP has little time for such advice. On August 19, a day after the interview was broadcast, the party expelled Jaswant Singh, a party stalwart and a founder member, who had been in charge of the external affairs and finance ministries in BJP-led Central governments between 1998 and 2004.
Ignoring Bhagwat’s stern advisory to resolve issues internally, the BJP leadership also read out the riot act to former Rajasthan Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje during its three-day brainstorming meeting at Shimla this week. Raje has refused to quit as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly – a post she assumed after she was voted out of power in last November’s elections in the state.
Disgusted at the open infighting in the BJP, the Nagpur-based RSS blames the BJP’s top two leaders, Lal Krishna Advani and party president Rajnath Singh, for the party’s mess and says the duo have failed to bring the BJP back on the rails since its stunning loss to the Congressled coalition in last May’s Lok Sabha elections. “Advani will have to go,” an RSS functionary bluntly told TEHELKA in New Delhi, declining to be identified.“Yeh sab kachra saaf hoga (All this garbage will be cleaned up).”
The RSS has, in fact, been pushing for a change in the BJP’s top leadership since the Lok Sabha elections. Its top functionaries have been upset with Advani for continuing to be the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha after the defeat. Bhagwat claimed in his TV interview that Advani first told him he would step down from the position that he held in the outgoing Lok Sabha, but changed his mind a few days later, citing “pressure from within the party” to stay on.
Not that the RSS has had any love lost for Jaswant Singh, one of those rare BJP veteran who have never been RSS members. Deeply hurt at his expulsion from the party that he helped found, Singh was never particularly liked by the conservative RSS brigade, who found him too westernised for their liking.
An RSS leader recalls with irritation that Jaswant Singh disclosed in his previous book that he had opened a bottle of whiskey to drink up after completing one of his most trying assignments – ferrying top Islamic terrorists from an Indian prison to Afghanistan in exchange for the safe return of a planeload of Indian passengers who had been hijacked and held hostage for a week in December 1999. “The RSS prides itself on promoting Indian values and cultures,” the RSS leader said. “What message do we send out to our cadres by talking so openly about drinking alcohol?”
Another reason for the RSS’s anger with Jaswant Singh has been his meddling in the politics of his home state of Rajasthan in order to destabilise Vasundhara Raje. Two years ago, Jaswant Singh’s wife had filed a criminal case against Vasundhara Raje after posters had appeared in Rajasthan depicting the former chief minister as the Hindu goddess Durga.
A third and perhaps the biggest reason for their anger with Jaswant Singh was his decision to contest this year’s Lok Sabha election from the mountainous constituency of Darjeeling in West Bengal, a seat he won with the overt support of a clutch of political outfits that harbour separatist tendencies.
Nightmare in Free India
Chhattisgarh hounds rape victims who dare to raise their voice
Ajit Sahi
LAST MONTH, TEHELKA published a report on how India’s apex statutory human rights watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), has virtually connived with the Chhattisgarh police to deny justice to that state’s poor tribal women – women who were raped by Special Police Officers (SPOs) from a tribal militia paid by the state police. Ever since these women moved a judicial court in the southern Chhattisgarh district of Dantewada two months ago, police and SPOs have been terrorising them to take back their case, forcing them to run from their ‘protectors’.
This militia, the Salwa Judum (literally: peace march), has wreaked havoc on the poor and defenseless tribals of Chhattisgarh for four years, burning entire villages, beating men and women and forcing thousands into government-sponsored and -protected camps. From these forced migrants, the state police have enrolled over a thousand people and has had them turn guns and brutalities on other tribals.
In June 2008, on orders from the Supreme Court, an allpolice team from the NHRC met several women who accused SPOs of raping them – but rejected their testimonies. Even as copies of the TEHELKA issue which carried the horrifying rape testimonies were being distributed, SPOs began swooping down on the villages of these women, threatening them openly. In one such village, Shamshetty, a dozen SPOs rode in on motorcycles, claiming they wanted to meet the women “to pay them money.”
One rape victim who lives in a village close to the border with Andhra Pradesh had the AP police arrive at her door, threatening to take her and her husband to AP – unjustifiable because she has no criminal or civil case, against her or filed by her, in AP. In a third village, the SPOs were actually accompanied by the police. They asked for the rape victim by name.
On August 2, these rape victims turned up at the makeshift office of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), a Gandhian NGO run by activist Himanshu Kumar, at Dantewada town. Angry over Kumar’s fearless and resolute campaign against the Salwa Judum atrocities, the police had illegally demolished his 17- year-old sprawling ashram three months ago. On August 11, Kumar took the victims to meet the city’s district magistrate (DM), IAS officer RB Kangaley. “Police goons are threatening to kill these women on Independence Day, August 15th,” he told her. Is this freedom? Is this Gandhi’s free India? Kumar says Kangaley has promised them protection. Will she succeed?
A word here about the judge hearing the rape victims’ testimonies in Konta, a sub-district of Dantewada. For the last two hearing dates – July 17 and August 12 – the judge has been “called away to headquarters”. The victims’ lawyer says they have no formal explanation why he is unable to come to court when the victims are to be heard.
‘Police goons are threatening to kill these women on August 15th, our Independence Day’
Is it just the State that is callous and brutal towards hapless, defenseless victims of rape? Or are we as a class complicit in refusing to accept these rape victims as full citizens of independent India? Nine years of pioneering journalism has made TEHELKA a household name across India, with wide acceptability overseas. Last week, one of India’s most prestigious journalism awards, instituted by the Rajasthan Patrika newspaper, was awarded to my colleague, Harinder Baweja, for her stunning exclusive reportage from the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan. On the other hand, India’s top media organizations – from newspapers to TV channels – have ignored the heartrending testimonies of these six women from Chhattisgarh. It is a pity that sixty-two years after India earned independence, promising justice and liberty for its sons and daughters, tribals in our forest lands find no support from India’s social and political elite in their fight for justice.
Why Can’t You See the 26/11 Report?
Will the tabling of the Ram Pradhan Committee report affect Ajmal Kasab’s trial or is it under wraps only for political reasons? Harinder Baweja accesses the report to find the answers
DURING HIS visit to Mumbai after the terror attack, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram apologised to the citizens of the state; this itself indicated lapses from the Union government… Forget the Mumbai police, no police force of the country was prepared to face the warlike situation.”
This is what RD Pradhan, former governor and union home secretary, said in April, soon after submitting his committee’s report to the Maharashtra chief minister in April. In many ways, Pradhan’s comments reveal the tone of the report. The two-member committee had been constituted in December 2007, soon after the horrific attacks in Mumbai on 26/11 and had been expressly asked to uncover any lapses by the state government in acting on intelligence inputs provided by the centre and probe lapses by the Mumbai Police in reacting to the attacks.
The report was submitted in April but Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has steadfastly refused to table it in the assembly and has stalled it being made public – on the grounds that it could affect the trial of Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist to be caught alive.
What does the report really contain? Is the information really sensitive or is the state government worried that the contents could become politically damaging in Maharashtra’s forthcoming assembly elections? The BJP is already in rabble-rousing mode, with Nitin Gadkari, its state President alleging that the government is attempting a “cover up,” while “the common man needs to know who is responsible for the deaths of several police officers and citizens. If there is any incriminating information on the role of ministers and bureaucrats, it should be made public.”
TEHELKA has managed to examine the controversial Pradhan report. We found that while the Committee has detailed the Mumbai Police’s fault lines — no arms, no ammunition and no coordination — it has not fixed any responsibility. Alarmingly, while it details the entire process of how the state government handled the intelligence alerts, as well as the Mumbai Police’ rigor mortis under fire, the report stops short of naming names. The only two who come up for criticism are the then Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor and Chhagan Bhujbal, though the latter has not been named but is identified only by his designation – deputy chief minister in 2002, when an order passed by him severely delayed the procurement of arms and ammunition, crip pling the police’s modernisation process.
Let’s examine some findings of the Pradhan committee as to how Maharashtra reacted to intelligence inputs.
“The Committee found total confusion in the processing of intelligence alerts at the level of the state government and the Police”
It is well known that there were several intelligence inputs indicating a possible attack on Mumbai via the sea route. It has also been documented and established that the Taj Hotel was specifically mentioned in some of these reports. So what happened to these IB and RAW reports that ought to have been taken seriously? Why did the Mumbai Police fail to put their heads together and realise that a major attack was being planned on the city? As the committee’s report says, “an overall assessment of the intelligence reports would have revealed a strong indication that some major terrorist action was being planned against Mumbai city, had the essence of these intelligence alerts been analysed.”
The answer to why the intelligence was not ‘analysed’ — mildly put — is shocking:
Two senior officers – Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and the Principal Secretary (Home) – told the Pradhan committee in writing that they had NOT (emphasis needed) received any intelligence alerts from the Ministry of Home Affairs
‘I have taken a step back so that I can hit harder’
Accused of involvement in a sex scandal, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tells Harinder Baweja that he is in an honour battle
Kashmir is a political landmine but did you expect an allegation of involvement in the Srinagar sex scandal?
Well, I knew that my Opposition would do everything possible to rattle the government. But I didn’t expect them to stoop as low as this.
Why now? The scandal is three years old. How do you explain what the Opposition has done?
They are obviously panicking. We have our problems but we deal with them in a far more transparent and timely manner than they did. They are seeing the support we are getting from the government of India. They are, in desperation, willing to fling mud everywhere and hope that something sticks.
People feel you have reacted emotionally rather than politically.
If we divorce politics from emotions then there is nothing to separate a politician from a robot. We are still very sensitive to allegations of moral corruption as opposed to financial corruption or administrative mistakes and things like that. I don’t think there was any other way of reacting to it and I am actually glad that I have done it.
So would the state now have to stay without a chief minister?
The state is not without a chief minister. I have 22 very competent ministers who are going about their work and it’s not as if we have suddenly left a vacuum.
What would you say to people who are saying that you don’t have the stomach for a fight?
They just have to look at my record over the last six years of surviving in the Opposition when Mufti [Mufti Muhammad Sayeed] did everything possible to destroy us. I fought. If I didn’t want to fight this, I would have quit and said I’ll go abroad. I haven’t left the ring. By taking a step back, I am in a position to hit back harder.
Only a few months ago you heralded hope as a young, clean politician. Now you are in the thick of controversy. And I am referring not just to what happened in the Assembly, but to Shopian as well.
Nobody expected Kashmir to be an easy state. It never has been, it never will be. But even if Shopian was my worst mistake, I don’t think that’s a bad track record. What happened in Shopian and the way the government reacted could have been better, but there have been lessons learnt.
You spoke a new language of development, of employment, of janta darbars. Do you think you have been judged too soon?
No, I have always maintained that the people will sign my report card in six years from now when we go back to them for a fresh mandate. Till then, the media is welcome to judge me as much as they like.
Was Delhi better than Kashmir?
If by better you mean easier, sure. Delhi is a cushy place to work. The blame falls on the prime minister and the ministers get away scot free. Here the buck stops at my table. So just because something is easier doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better.
Do you regret your statement about the Shopian case, that “it was death by drowning”?
I did not make a statement. I arrived at that press conference to announce a judicial enquiry stating very clearly that we are dissatisfied with the initial findings. The mistake I made was only in answering the question about the initial findings.
Justice Jan has created a controversy by saying that the police have actually added a report to his report, which he does not stand by.
As far as I know what was released and what was acted upon was the report that came to me in a sealed envelope from the Justice Jan Commission. If anything has been added to this report, then Justice Jan needs to explain how a report was handed over to me without him verifying what went into it.
But we still don’t know who raped and killed those women.
We will do everything possible to arrive at those facts but we have lost two or three crucial days of evidence-gathering partly because of the local involvement in the covering up of the evidence, which Justice Jan has alluded to in his report, and partly because of the circumstances that were created there in terms of the civil unrest.
So clearly the police does have a lot to hide, right?
This is now a matter for the special investigation team to find out.
There is criticism that you spend more time in Delhi than in Kashmir.
None of my visits to Delhi are without justifiable reasons. Without the intensive lobbying that I did in Delhi, it would have been impossible for Jammu and Kashmir to get a jump from Rs 4,500 crore to Rs 5,500 crores. My work is not suffering, my files are not piling up. If my trips to Delhi are being used as a stick to beat me with, so be it.
You also have detractors who say you lack political experience.
The only thing I lack is age because I have as much, if not more, administrative experience than a number of chief ministers. I had spent almost 11 years in politics by the time I became chief minister. Give the Devil his due.
In the middle of all this, Kashmir is suffering. One of your main promises was to seek cooperation from Delhi to dilute or to get rid of the AFSPA.
Trust me when I tell you, nothing is suffering. What frustrates my political opposition is that nothing is stopping me from doing what I am supposed to do.
Is Delhi paying attention to the larger problem of Kashmir, now that you are in coalition with the Congress and reportedly close to Rahul Gandhi?
The real issue is political and I have been making this point from the very beginning, including in the prime minister’s roundtable initiative. The genesis of the Kashmir problem lies in its politics and a dialogue is essential. Even the home minister has realised this and has talked of a political engagement. To expect Delhi to have a homogenous opinion is impossible but the prime minister recognises the need for engagement.
So are we soon going to see a phased withdrawal of troops?
Commenting like this gives the impression to the troops here that somehow they are an unwelcome force. There is a need to strengthen the role of the J&K police and reduce the footprint of the other armed forces. But it won’t be done in a hasty manner.
Muzaffar Baig has said that if his allegations turn out to be false, he is willing to go to jail
Well, he is welcome to go to jail. I am not bothered. Let’s not forget until six months ago, he was law minister under the leadership of Ghulam Nabi Azad. I am only going to remind him of a statement he made sometime in 2006 when he told a Srinagar news agency that the women involved were willing to sell themselves for Rs 250.
Farooq Abdullah has said that you are fighting a battle for honour. Is that how you see it?
Absolutely. It’s a battle for honour, a battle for my selfrespect, and I am not going let people snatch that away from me.
shammy@tehelka.com
With Justice In Mind
Ajit Sahi
Editor-at-Large
Some readers and activists have faulted our coverage of the rape victims in Chhattisgarh whose testimonies the NHRC has denied. Their key points are: Naming the rape victims and their villages, and publishing their pictures (not pixellated enough in the opinion of some) has “severely compromised the victims’ attempts to cope with the assault” and “jeopardised their security”. It has also made it “that much more difficult” for these women to seek justice in the “highly polarised environment” of Chhattisgarh “amidst documented atrocities by the Salwa Judum”. Some letter writers say these rape victims are now “vulnerable to harassment and pressure to retract the testimonies”.
Veena, a mother of two little daughters, is a social activist from north India who settled in the tribal forest heartland of south Chhattisgarh 17 years ago. She has dedicated her life to working among the extremely poor and destitute tribal people. Veena is the vice-president of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, an NGO that is fighting a grim battle against an extremely violent security apparatus, to bring justice for the tribal people being brutalised by the State and the Salwa Judum. Veena has risked life and limb to champion the cause of these rape victims.
The rape testimonies
Veena, who works with the rape victims, says the Tehelka report does not jeopardise their security but will, in fact, make the Salwa Judum fearful
This is what she said to me after the publication of The Rape Testimonies in TEHELKA: “You have done a great service by publishing these rape victims’ stories in this format. These girls are my family. They have been our lives for years. I have run from pillar to post with them to get justice. Especially since they went to the NHRC and the NHRC rejected their testimonies, they have lived in the dread of the Salwa Judum. They have constantly faced pressure to retract their testimonies. It is important that we don’t hide the truth about them. The publication of this story does not compromise or jeopardise the rape victims’ security. It makes them safer, not more insecure. TEHELKA’s report ensures that the Salwa Judum will now have some fear. By hiding the truth about these women, we were emboldening the State and the Salwa Judum. The Salwa Judum, the police, the government have always known the identities of these women. And they were taking advantage of the fact that the outside world knew nothing of these unfortunate victims, because nobody was willing to write about them. TEHELKA has done absolutely the right thing by taking their story to the outside world. You should know that this story is just the tip of the iceberg. The men of the Salwa Judum have raped hundreds of women.”
Sudha Bharadwaj, who, too, is a woman, is a criminal lawyer at the High Court of Chhattisgarh based in Bilaspur city. She represents some of these rape victims in the case they have initiated in a judicial magistrate’s court in the south Chhattisgarh town of Konta. When I spoke to her on the phone before writing the story, Bharadwaj expressed some misgivings about my attempt to document The Rape Testimonies. However, after the publication of the story, she sent me this text message from her mobile phone: “Excellent and factual report! No hard feelings about my earlier reservations, I hope.”
Nandini Sundar and a few letter writers claim I gave an “undertaking” that the identities of the rape victims will not be revealed. This is a reference to a series of e-mails Sundar and I exchanged roughly three months ago. (Some letter writers claimed that Sundar led me to the victims, but withdrew that line from a reworked mail they sent me later.) I have never met Nandini Sundar. She did not lead me to the rape victims. I have traveled rather extensively inside Chhattisgarh since last January, and I found out about the rape victims through my sources. I travelled to one village to meet a victim who had deposed before the NHRC.
Upon hearing of my quest, Nandini Sundar wrote to me asking me not to reveal the identities of the women. I wrote back saying the choice rests with the rape victims, who, I humbly believe, do not need lawyers, journalists and activists to tell them how to run their lives. Yes, I did in the end write back to her saying we would not reveal the victims’ identities. Short of giving the women fake names, we have not revealed their identities: we scratched out their faces from the pictures and we abbreviated their given name.
TEHELKA has always practiced journalism of integrity, and to publish The Rape Testimonies in its current format was no easy decision for us. Our own unique experiences in the battlefield over the last nine years have convinced us that the best “protection” we can provide the underdog is to push their story into the public domain, because the fear of exposure of their criminality often best deters the evildoers, especially those who represent the State. It is this principle which has, over the years, protected TEHELKA itself as it broke story after story — exposing the truth behind the Gujarat killings of 2002 as well as the truth of the Sikh massacres of 1984 — that upset the establishment and hit out at vested interests.
The Evil That Men Do
In the Indian setting, refusal to act on the testimony of the victim of sexual assault in the absence of corroboration as a rule is adding insult to injury. A girl or a woman in the tradition-bound non-permissive society of India would be extremely reluctant even to admit that any incident that is likely to reflect on her chastity had ever occurred… [A rape victim’s testimony] does not require corroboration from any other evidence, including the evidence of a doctor. — Supreme Court justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam, July 2008
FOR DECADES, the Supreme Court of India has cleaved to a rigorous legal standard in cases of rape: the testimony of the victim is enough evidence to launch the prosecution of the accused. Successive judgments over the years have reinforced this position. Thousands of convictions of alleged rapists have been effectively obtained on the basis of victims’ testimonies, with no corroborative evidence sought or offered. Often, the courts have overlooked minor discrepancies in the victims’ accounts, if the main narrative holds up.
Jurists and social commentators in India have long argued that, apart from being a most heinous crime against a woman’s person, her rape doubly curses her in the Indian society by imparting her a stigma that no other crime matches. That is why criminal investigation processes that the police must follow, as well as the judicial procedures prescribed when charges of rape arise, are unambiguous. This is best illustrated in the case of Hindi film actor Shiney Ahuja, who was arrested last month in Mumbai when his maidservant accused him of raping her. Ahuja has been denied bail, and rightly so, for his right to seek justice shall arise at the trial and not before or outside it.
What happens when the victims are destitute tribal women with no access to police, judiciary, media?
But what happens when rape becomes a brutal tool of class oppression in a wider social, political and economic war that men wage against one another, the raped women merely the pawns on their chessboard, the act of rape itself a side story, a cold-blooded strategy to terrorise an entire population into submission? What happens when the victims of rape are some of India’s most destitute tribal women, who live in virtually unreachable forests in subhuman conditions; who have absolutely zero access to the police, the judiciary, the media; whose verdant lands the mighty industrialists covet because they hold in their womb some of India’s richest mineral resources?
What happens when those accused of rape are the hired guns of a dubious state-backed militia that is the frontline in one of the world’s most brutal civil wars? What happens when the Indian State pivots this war against deeply entrenched Maoist insurgents on a take-no-prisoners approach, because unless the Maoists are killed off and millions of tribal people removed from their forests, hills and fields, corporate India won’t be able to claim the bounties of their lands? What happens when it is abundantly clear that accepting the charges of rape from such women would be very dangerous indeed because that step just might begin to unravel this barbaric anti-people militia, bringing an end to its unchecked reign of terror?
THIS IS the heartrending story of Chhattisgarh, and all the above questions have only one answer: the Indian State cannot afford to honestly investigate these women’s charges of rape and secure them justice. Therefore, it must be forced to do so. In the following pages, readers of TEHELKA will find graphic gut-wrenching testimonies of some tribal women of Chhattisgarh describing how they were brutalised by the men of the Salwa Judum, the tribal militia that the state government sponsored four years ago and has since terrorised tens of thousands of innocent tribal people, burning their houses down, forcing them to abandon their villages where they had lived for generations, to move into squalid government- controlled “camps”.
We traveled deep in the state’s highly forested southern region known as Bastar, and located six women who were raped by the men of the Salwa Judum [literally, peace movement]. We also spoke to one man who saw his sister raped and then found her killed; their father, too, was killed then. The women and the man we met voluntarily gave their testimonies to us, which we have recorded on tape. Most rapes pertain to the period following the setting up of the Salwa Judum in 2005.
But the most disturbing part of this story came last year when the Supreme Court asked the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to go to Chhattisgarh and investigate the charges of murder, rape, pillage and arson brought against those men of the Salwa Judum who have been hired and armed by the state police as Special Police Officers (SPOs). The report that an NHRC ‘fact-finding’ team wrote is deeply troubling in that it blindly toes the police and government line.
The NHRC report is deeply troubling as it blindly toes the police version. It absolves the accused, too
Created by Parliament in 1993 as an autonomous statutory human rights watchdog, the NHRC has long pretended to be the champion of the underdog. Log on to its website today, and you will be justified to feel a gush of relief at the rather self-congratulatory headlines about jobs well done – “NHRC takes suo moto cognisance of the alleged fake encounter in Uttarakhand and recommends CBI inquiry”; “NHRC takes the railways police IG to task as cops throw pregnant woman from moving train”; “NHRC orders the payment of three lakh rupees monetary relief in a case of death in police custody”.
And yet, the NHRC refused to accept the testimonies of these tribal women of Chhattisgarh that unequivocally detail how SPOs brutally raped them. Instead of making the legally and morally sound recommendation that the state government launch the prosecution of the accused, the NHRC wrote: “During the enquiry of some specific allegations, the enquiry team also did not come across any case of rape which could be substantiated.” Shockingly, the NHRC happily absolved the accused too: “The allegations of rapes levelled against the SPOs and security forces were not substantiated during the enquiry.”
The most stunning fact, of course, is the NHRC’s rejection of the testimonies of five women from a single village – Pottenar in Bijapur district – who deposed before it. Says the report: “The matter was personally enquired from each of the five girls by a lady IPS officer of the team. During the enquiry, it was observed that there were many inconsistencies in the versions of alleged victims, in the petitions given by them, as well as in the statements of the alleged victims. These inconsistencies were with regard to the number of rape victims, number of SPOs who took them away from the camp, number of SPOs who actually committed the act and their identity and the accompanying circumstances.”
Shockingly, the report goes on to say: “All the victims stated that none of them reported this matter to their parents or relatives or anyone else in the camp or to the police.” Because the women raped by policemen did not report the rape to the police, their testimonies are suspect?
So just when did the NHRC convert itself into a trial court? Just when did it become the job of the NHRC to summarily dismiss, without proper investigation, the charges of rape directly brought forward by the alleged victims of that crime?
The NHRC was asked to probe charges also against Salwa Judum. But it spoke mostly to Judum supporters
The chicanery at the NHRC began as it formed the investigative team. Acting on a lawsuit from activist-lawyer Nandini Sundar against the Salwa Judum, the Supreme Court said: “…We feel that in view of the serious allegations relating to violation of human rights by Naxalites and Salwa Judum and the living conditions in the refugee settlement colonies, it will be appropriate if the NHRC examines/verifies these allegations… We leave it to the NHRC to appoint an appropriate fact-finding Committee with such members as it deems fit…”
So what did the NHRC do? To investigate charges of rape against Special Police Officers who are fully backed by the state police and the government, the NHRC decided to send a 16- member team — made up of exclusively policemen and women! This included three IPS officers, four Deputy Superintendents of Police, seven inspectors and one constable. Just why would the country’s premier human rights watchdog not include even one well-respected independent social activist in its fact-finding team? (The team head, former DIG Sudhir Chowdhary, refused to talk about this. “I have nothing to add to what is already in the report,” he told TEHELKA.)
IRONICALLY, THE NHRC investigation in Chhattisgarh was launched at the behest of complainants Nandini Sundar and others, because they claimed that the Salwa Judum was brutalising innocent tribal people of Chhattisgarh. Yet, an overwhelming part of the NHRC report is based on the testimonies of people inside the Salwa Judum camps – all, therefore, predictably speaking in support of the Salwa Judum. An overwhelming number of documents and conversations relied upon are with the state police – whose very conduct the team had gone to investigate. The police and/or other security agencies accompanied the NHRC team’s “independent” visits to the villages to investigate allegations of police excesses. The petitioners complained that, once, after the NHRC enquiry team had visited a village, “the Salwa Judum leaders subsequently went there and issued death threats…” So how did the NHRC investigate this complaint? It sought a report from the state’s Director-General of Police!
In fact, the entire NHRC report reads like a primary school textbook that pares down everything to a simple black-andwhite narrative, the Salwa Judum overwhelmingly white – and hardly guilty of any excesses, absolved of all charges of rape and murder – and the Naxals the blackest of the blacks, the grossest violators of human rights. The 16-member NHRC team toured the region a total of only two weeks. But its report reads like a sociological treatise waxing eloquent on the history of the Naxal movement, offering innumerable sweeping statements without any piece of evidence that they may have collected during their two-week investigations.
Shockingly, the NHRC report says: “From the interaction with the villagers it also appears that many of the tribal girls were sexually exploited by the Naxalites.” And yet, the NHRC did not move to document the testimonies of such girls.
At least one of the petitioners, former CPIMLA Manish Kunjum, says the NHRC report quotes him wrongly that he “admitted during interaction with the enquiry team that the policies followed by the Naxalites were responsible for the spontaneous outburst of the tribals”. “I never said anything of this sort,” Kunjam told TEHELKA. “They are exaggerating my view.”
All is not lost, though. On June 16, 2009, some of these victims saw a glimmer of hope as Amrit Kerkatta, a local judicial magistrate in a Dantewada sub-district, began recording the testimonies of six rape victims after receiving their petitions. On July 3, he heard six witnesses, one for each of the victims. The judge has now fixed the next hearing for July 17.
Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer at the Bilaspur High Court in Chhattisgarh who is representing these women, told TEHELKA: “The magistrate has taken the longest possible route to make doubly sure that the testimonies of the women are on record. It is now up to him to prepare the charge-sheet — which the police should have done in the normal course — and commit the case to trial.”
If indeed the accused are finally tried on the basis of the testimonies of the raped women, then the lawyers representing the victims will certainly press these words of Supreme Court justices Pasayat and Sathasivam:
“It is an irony that while we are celebrating woman’s rights in all spheres, we show little or no concern for her honour. It is a sad reflection on the attitude of indifference of society towards the violation of human dignity of the victims of sex crimes. The socio-economic status, religion, race, caste or creed of the accused or the victim are irrelevant considerations in the sentencing policy. Protection of society and deterring the criminal are the avowed objects of law and that is required to be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence.
“We must remember that a rapist not only violates the victim’s privacy and personal integrity but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm. Rape is not merely a physical assault — it is often destructive of the whole personality of the victim. A murderer destroys the body of his victim, a rapist degrades the very soul of the helpless female.
“A prosecutrix of a sex offence cannot be put on par with an accomplice. She is in fact a victim of the crime… What is necessary is that the court must be conscious of the fact that it is dealing with the evidence of a person who is interested in the outcome of the charge levelled by her.”
ajit@tehelka.com
‘The RSS can walk straight without the crutches of the BJP’
RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya takes the BJP to task in a hard-hitting interview with Harinder Baweja
I want to start with the concept of Hindutva. What is the meaning of Hindutva? Even senior leaders like Jaswant Singh are asking this question and you were a general secretary with the BJP when this word was coined.
There are five constituents of Hindutva. First, respect to all modes of worship. Second, there is one and the same consciousness in all animate and inanimate beings. There is nothing like inferior or superior. Therefore egalitarianism is Hindutva. Third, man is not a conqueror of nature but a part of nature. Therefore, an eco-friendly economy is what Hindutva proposes. Fourth, because of the special quality of motherhood, women have a special respect in the public welfare society. The purpose of life does not end in eating, making merry and dying, but transcends that. And finally, there is the nonmaterial value of pursuing a goal, even if it may be endless. A faint realisation or feel — that is what Hindutva is. That is what the RSS also believes in.
So how does the RSS expect the BJP to translate this politically?
The BJP must have an understanding of what Hindutva means in terms of governance, economic policies, relating itself to the whole spiral of individuals, society, cosmos and reality. They must understand the statecraft pertaining to these aspects. That is what is expected of the BJP as the political component of the same ideological family.
And you feel that the BJP has failed to translate the concept of Hindutva?
I won’t be uncharitable to them because they neither had any conviction nor did they want to understand Hindutva. Therefore they cannot be blamed for functioning contrary to their beliefs. In a way, they were the tools of pseudo-Hindutva. For example, the content and tenor of Varun Gandhi’s election speech could be endearing to some people, but it wasn’t Hindutva. It is pseudo-Hindutva of the reactionary, irresponsible kind. In response to MG Vaidya’s article, if BJP president Rajnath Singh says that he is a strict adherent of Hindutva and so is his party, he is also being opportunistic; without having the onus to prove that they are following Hindutva.
Are you saying that the current leadership of the BJP, including President Rajnath Singh, is practising pseudo-Hindutva?
Yes, because they neither have the conviction nor the commitment. They think politics is everything – from the beginning till the end. Their thought process revolves only around power. They are more of achievers than performers.
They have not succeeded in achieving either. The BJP is down to 116 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.
They still have some six to seven state governments and for the post of prime minister, they had a challenger in Advani. They had enough to win with and therefore I wouldn’t attribute much value even if they had come to power. How they function and what they can deliver is more important. For example, if ecofriendly techno economic order is Hindutva as I see it, then the attitude and response of the Uttarakhand government should’ve been different to the ecodestructive hydel projects that don’t subscribe to the norms. Such an unscrupulous handling of such a pious issue like Gangaji speaks of how hollow the claim of having worked with Hindutva is. There could have been 100 ways of generating electricity to fulfil the needs of Uttarakhand and saving the surplus too without destroying the fragile eco-balance of Uttarakhand. Similarly, there were five more alternatives for Sethu Samudram Pariyojna, for which even the environmental assessment could not be carried out. They catered to the ideology of Hindutva neither as a party in power nor as a party in opposition. They could not endear to vast mass of supporters they had gathered 20-25 years back. They ran out of that capital.
How is the RSS leadership viewing the election results?
As a responsible swayamsevak, this is how I read the mind of the RSS leadership — the RSS will have a straight talk with the BJP now, and tell it to decide what kind of relationship it wants to have with the RSS. Whatever the paradigm of the relationship was till now, it needs to be discussed further. If needed, the mechanism has to be thrashed out. The RSS will tell them: if you want to go without us, don’t worry; you are welcome to take your own course. We don’t even attribute good or bad values to it. If you are taking yourself with us then we will proceed on our own path. We feel that we don’t need any appendage or extra baggage. Nor any crutches. The RSS can walk straight without the crutches of the BJP. This is the message the Sangh leadership has given to the BJP. One more thing, if at all the BJP thinks of having a relationship with the RSS, then the RSS has made it clear that it should function in terms of ideology. The Sangh will then definitely want to have a say, command and intervention. That’s what they have conveyed to the BJP.
To Advani or Rajnath Singh?
To both.
You said the RSS does not need the crutches of the BJP. But isn’t the opposite true – the BJP needs the Sangh?
I don’t know. There is a big section in the BJP – and the number has gone up in the last 15 years — that thinks that the RSS is an appendage and that if they get rid of the RSS, they will be able to fly much higher. I will just compare this with an anecdote of a soaring kite, which is connected to a thread. The kite may think that it can fly on its own, and if it thinks it better to delink the thread and soar higher, it’s okay.
Which is the section in the BJP that thinks it can do without the RSS?
I had a glance over the list of the MPs elected this time. Of them, 30 odd MPs have some link, weak or strong, with the RSS or with its ideology of integral humanism; the ideology propounded by Deendayal Upadhyay. That’s the basic ideology of the BJP, even today. But there are about 85 MPs who may not have even heard of Deendayal’s ideology. And among them there may be many who may think that the RSS is not needed. If this is the problem with the composition of this parliamentary party, then the executive committee will have the same problem. The BJP therefore is a party full of opportunists and careerists and if I were to be charitable, then I can say that it is a party full of liberal democrats. They are taking politics only as a career, or a dhanda.
What about the better-known leaders of the BJP like Advani, Jaswant Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Yashwant Sinha. Does the RSS consider them as careerists and opportunists?
There is not just one group. There are subgroups. There is a phenomenon of ego conflicts and personality clashes. Such factors are there in the BJP and this has created many complications. Suppose the person speaks in favour of Hindutva, it does not mean that the person is actually in favour of Hindutva. For him, it may be suitable at the moment. Among other parties also I have seen many people who privately say that they are strong Hindus but don’t say it openly. I have found these double standards in some BJP leaders also. For example, if one says Ram Janmabhoomi is a cheque which can be encashed only once, what does it mean? Similarly, there are innumerable examples, anomalies, conflicts, duplicities. So what I feel is that 20 to 25 MPs can talk on ideology. Whether they can function as a lobby needs to be seen.
As far as the RSS is concerned, you said it is okay if the BJP goes a separate way, but if they don’t, what would the RSS expect of the BJP?
Perhaps some people of the RSS and the BJP must be sitting together to chalk out a roadmap on how to bring the BJP back on the roads of ideology and idealism. It may also happen that the RSS may think in terms of promoting new names from the lower rung of the party cadre and also freshly induct from other organisations.
Was the RSS totally behind projecting Advani as the BJP’s PM candidate?
It was.
Did he make a mistake by running a presidential style campaign?
I didn’t keep the track of the election. I saw it from a distance. I think the basic premise of the election campaign itself was on a wrong footing. It said, ‘mazboot neta, nirnayak sarkaar’. People’s issues could have been projected better instead of entering into an arena of competition.
Do you refer to Advani harping on Manmohan Singh being a weak PM?
That is one issue. Similarly, in the realm of mazboot neta or strong candidate, the issue of Kandahar kept coming up. It was really a competition between two weak prime ministerial candidates. On the one side, there was Manmohan Singh and on the other side there was Advaniji. Both of them were weak. As home minister, Advani’s comparison can only be made with Shivraj Patil. There was nothing much to choose from.
Do you think the BJP runs the risk of losing its space as a national party?
In the present scenario, BJP exists as a competing political force more at the state level than at the Centre.
‘BJP leaders are tools for pseudo-Hindutva. They are opportunists who use Hindutva as a vote plank. For them, politics is a career, a dhandha’
So it is no longer a national force?
It is not a national party in terms of ideology, policies, and conviction. I feel the Congress and BJP are both pro-US and pro-rich. This does not go in favour of Bharat. Take disinvestments — when the UPA mentioned it, Arun Jaitley said that was also their position, so both BJP and Congress become pro-disinvestments.
One of the things that created quite a stir is what Sudheendra Kulkarni wrote for TEHELKA. He said that the RSS and the BJP made a strong man like Advani look weak and helpless.
He shouldn’t have made the RSS a scapegoat. In no way was the RSS involved in any kind of election strategies. Only BJP people occupied the war room and they should be held responsible for all this.
Jaitley was a member of the war room. Is it okay that he is now the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha?
See, Rajnath Singh has come out with a dictum – that the BJP take collective responsibility. That does not allow for individual accountability. That, in fact, gives an escape route to everybody, including the BJP president. In Rajnath’s own home state, Uttar Pradesh, there was a pathetic performance. But now I see that he is enacting the same strategies and taking the very steps he took in Uttar Pradesh as its state president (when Kalyan Singh was the chief minister). Those strategies did great damage to the party at that time.
Has the RSS asked for accountability?
No, the RSS does not involve itself unless asked to. The BJP comes for advice. The RSS says if you are fine with it, do it. Face the music.
But then the RSS can’t be happy with Rajnath Singh as the president.
No, the RSS will not analyse in political terms as I am analysing now. I analyse because I have been in the BJP.
But Mr Vaidya’s article enters the political realm.
He only says very sarcastically that if you want to get rid of the RSS, you are welcome. Go ahead, if you dare. And face the music afterwards.
I am quoting from Kulkarni’s article that a lot of the BJP’s allies went away because of Gujarat. Do you agree?
I don’t agree with it. Because the allies have come closer to the BJP for two reasons. One, when they don’t have to protect a Muslim base because there is no Muslim vote base in their state, be it Orissa, Punjab, Haryana or even Tamil Nadu. Two, when they think that the BJP’s vote share is more than the Muslim vote in their state, they just measure it in terms of loss and profit and then they ally, like in Bihar. Therefore the BJP is easy to ditch, like the Telugu Desam Party did. They are all opportunist political groups. Ajit Singh and the TRS had no qualms going against the BJP or coming towards it as the occasion demanded. They are just opportunist groups that take advantage when required for political gains.
The BJP is introspecting the whole business of Hindutva. Do you feel that maybe Hindutva is out of tune with today’s India?
Their perception may be out of date or irrelevant. But Hindutva is a steering wheel for the post-industrial society in the world. Hindutva is tomorrow’s ideology, not just yesterday’s. So the introspection is because of the lack of knowledge, and conviction about Hindutva. So if anybody says that they don’t know anything about Hindutva, I don’t know what they mean.
Jaswant Singh said on record that he does not know.
He should have specified as to what he thinks of it. I know personally that he also thinks about Hindutva on the same lines as Govindacharya. If he were given the opportunity to complete his thoughts he would have done it. I am confident about it. Because he is a practicing Hindu.
Does the BJP appear like a party of yesterday because of Hindutva?
It’s because of its opportunist approaches – of treating Hindutva as a vote plank rather than a comprehensive vision and ideology, complete in itself.
‘Many in the BJP think the RSS is not needed. The BJP has 85 MPs who may not have even heard of Deendayal Upadhyay and integral humanism’
Why is the BJP such a divided house?
Because it could not evolve the scientific form of functioning required. The Congress could evolve in a manner that is power-centric. And the Left could also evolve in a style whose history goes back to 1848. When the BJP started out as the Jan Sangh, function methodology was a feeble thought. They thought more about ideology than the style of functioning. I feel personally that the BJP’s main problem is that it lacks a style of functioning. That is why today it appears to be so divided.
Is that why you say there are too many ego problems?
Naturally. If ideology and idealism take a back seat and the style of functioning doesn’t enforce those components, then naturally politics becomes just a power game. You cannot avoid ego-politics and ambition clashes. There has to be something more moral and superior as the chief parameter. When that goes missing, only vote gaining and fund raising capacities matter. Gradually, the degeneration starts. Sycophancy and conspiracy take front seats. Dedication, sacrifice, hard work – they will not matter.
‘The election was a competition between a weak Manmohan Singh and a weak Advaniji. The slogan“mazboot neta, nirnayak sarkar” was wrong’
Was it a mistake to project Narendra Modi’s name as the PM?
It was certainly by default. Not by design. Arun Shourie held a press conference in Ahmedabad and said that Modi has all the capabilities of becoming a PM, which was thoroughly unwarranted. But the war room should have taken immediate initiative to instruct all the responsible office bearers of the party to not engage or respond to this question. But they just sat. So this issue was raised by the opponents and also by the media.
Is there a feeling within the RSS that perhaps it’s time for Advani to retire?
The RSS, unless asked to think and advise on these aspects, will not apply its mind on such issues.
That’s not true because some years ago, Sudarshanji said on camera that there should be a retiring age.
As a person, he may have said that, but it was never discussed in any forum of the RSS. It was not a collective feeling.
Is there such a thought now?
Advaniji has definitely expressed the will for a retired life. He desires it and deserves it also. He doesn’t deserve this kind of lampooning and cartooning from either the media or from within the sections of the BJP. He deserves a happy and serene life.
‘Advani wishes a retired life; he desires it and deserves it also. He doesn’t deserve to be lampooned by either the media or the party’
So why defer it till December?
I don’t think there is any such decision. I don’t think there will be any change except that the working time of Rajnath Singh is ending in December. Advani has never said anywhere that he is going to quit in December. This is rumour, conjecture.
Who will make a good president of the BJP after Rajnath retires?
I don’t want to spoil the chances of that person by naming him. He will be unnecessarily targeted.
So are you a ruling out a ‘she’?
(Laughs.)
What do you think of Yashwant Sinha’s letter?
Yashwant Sinha had all the time at his disposal in the last 10 years. He should have deliberated upon these matters with all the responsible people concerned.
Somebody like AB Vajpayee, who was considered to be more moderate, was able to lead the party to power at the Centre. There’s something that needs to be said about the moderate face. Does the RSS also need to introspect?
At that time Atalji was the supreme leader. He never adhered to Hindutva.
That’s my point. If the BJP, without adhering to Hindutva, could be in government for six years…
But they could not win on the basis of disconnecting themselves from Hindutva. Because of Hindutva they rose from 2 to 182 seats in the 1980s and when they left it, they came to 137, and now 116. Let them experiment. They are more than welcome. But don’t blame Hindutva.
There is something called a youth vote now and in contrast, the BJP came across as a communal party. That’s why I am asking, should the RSS too not introspect?
Don’t attribute the whole success to Rahul Gandhi. What happened to his karishma in Bihar and Orissa? It is a cumulative effect of various factors. Elections are a complex game.
Does the RSS need to reconsider the way it remote controls the BJP?
The fact of the matter is that it should have controlled remotely but it hasn’t. That you can deduce from Sudarshanji’s interview. He sought the resignation of Brajesh Mishra but he couldn’t. So there is no pressure like that. At best, the RSS plays the role of an elder person giving suggestions. It is the BJP that has come to the RSS, twice or thrice. Once at the inception of Jan Sangh, then after the defeat in 1984, and then in 1991, when they asked for more pracharaks. Even in 1984, the RSS told the BJP to return to the ideology of integral humanism. The same as they are being told today.
Given the divisions in the BJP, the way it is rocked, how do you see the future of the party?
I leave it to the wisdom of the leaders. If things go as they are, the party will be reduced in the arithmetic of elections, and then they won’t even hold as many states in power as they do today.
WRITER’S EMAIL
shammy@tehelka.com
Drop the ‘We are Victims’ Stance
Credible information post 26/11 is not enough if India doesn’t act on it
Illustration: Anand Naorem
Harinder Baweja
PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh has informed us once again that “There is credible information of ongoing plans of terrorist groups in Pakistan to carry out fresh attacks.” Describing cross-border terrorism as “the most pervasive threat” facing India, the prime minister stressed the need for continuing vigilance. After the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the Prime Minister, should in fact, be asking senior ministers and bureaucrats in his own government this: what are you doing with this ‘credible information’? Even if Manmohan Singh’s statement was an attempt at putting pressure on Pakistan to accelerate its investigation against those involved for the Mumbai attack, he still needs to be asking his team for daily reports on what they are doing with the credible intelligence.
A rigorous analysis of advance information is the only effective way of thwarting attacks but a careful look at our past record only points to talk and little action. Let us just take a few heavy-duty statements that preceded the Mumbai attacks. Defence Minister AK Antony had himself informed the Lok Sabha that “Pakistan based terrorist groups, particularly the Lashkar-e-Toiba LeT have been exploring possibilities of induction of manpower and terrorist hardware through the sea route.” Then, former Home Minister Shivraj Patil too had categorically said, “Some Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives are also being trained specifically for sabotage of oil installations. There are plans to occupy some uninhabited islands off the country’s coastline to use them as bases for launching operations on the Indian coast…”
Yet, the LeT succeeded in hitting Mumbai with both, impunity and ferocity. India quickly moved into ‘martyr and victim’ mode. But now, as the Prime Minister informs us of the possibility of another 26/11 attack, is it enough to just mount diplomatic pressure and not seriously attempt at refurbishing our own internal security apparatus? Should our politicians and security establishment not pay a price? Is it enough to only set up inquiry committees?
Several committees have submitted voluminous reports in the past. Back in 2001, after the sharp but short war in the mountainous heights of Kargil, the Girish Saxena Committee gave a report on the country’s intelligence apparatus. The report recommended an overhaul of technical, imaging, signal and, electronic counter-intelligence capabilities. The recommendations were accepted by a Group of Ministers (GoM) but in the seven years since they gave the report their stamp of approval, it has never been implemented beyond a few symbolic changes. More importantly, the Saxena Committee had called for a Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) to be set up under the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The MAC was to collect and coordinate terrorism-related information. It is functional, but under-staffed and underequipped. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released funds for MAC only after the bomb attack in Delhi in September 2008, seven years after the Committee first recommended that it be set up.
The most indicting finding of the still to be tabled Ram Pradhan Committee — set up to probe the 26/11 intelligence lapses — is that the Multi Agency Centre had not even marked its alerts to Mumbai’s Commissioner in charge of the state intelligence department. This officer, ostensibly supposed to be the fountainhead of all intelligence gathered by IB, RAW and other central agencies had, in fact, not even received a single one.
Blame Pakistan and its ISI for sure, but isn’t it time for heads to roll at home? Time too, Mr Prime Minister, to drop the martyr victim act. If there is credible evidence, assure us, that it is being acted upon.