I/II.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/04/narendra-modi-as-prime-minister-womens-rights-india
Narendra Modi as prime minister would roll back women's rights in India
If Modi is elected, the many struggles rocking India - including violence
against women and state repression - look likely to intensify
-
- Amrit Wilson <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/amrit-wilson>
-
- theguardian.com <http://www.theguardian.com/>, Friday 4 April 2014
08.30 BST
The BJP prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. Photograph: Altaf
Qadri/AP
India's general election begins next week, and Narendra
Modi<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/narendra-modi-india-bjp-leader-elections>,
the prime ministerial candidate of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata party, is
said to have a good chance of winning. If this happens, Modi's political
party and other member organisations of the Sangh
Parivar<http://narendramodifacts.com/faq_Sangh.html> family
of Hindu right
organisations<http://www.tmg-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Modi_Exposed_website.pdf>,
will consolidate their powerful grip on India's institutions.
Gender violence and women's rights continue to be highlighted in India by
the massive anti-rape movement which arose in the wake of the horrific gang
rape and murder of a student in Delhi in December
2012<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/13/delhi-gang-rape-men-sentenced-death>.
How will this movement and its key demand of "freedom without fear" for
women be affected if Modi becomes prime minister?
The Sangh Parivar approach to women's rights and gender violence is clearly
illustrated by women's status in Gujarat, the state where Modi has been
chief minister for 13 years and which he projects as a model of
development. According to 2011 census figures, Gujarat has 918 women for
every 1,000 men, below the national average of 940, hinting at a high level
of female infanticide. School enrolment of girls is lower and malnutrition
among children higher than nationwide. As for violence against women, the
state conviction rate for rape and abduction of women are among the lowest
in India.
However, it is the fascistic violence of the Sangh Parivar that, more than
anything, indelibly marks women's lives in Gujarat. During the 2002 pogrom
against Muslims <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/>, women and
children were specifically targeted. Countless women and girls were raped;
nearly 2,000 men, women and children were massacred, and 200,000 displaced.
The attacks, as the British high commissioner noted in a leaked
report<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/%201951471.stm>,
were "planned, possibly months in advance ... with the support of the state
government ... reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims is impossible while
the chief minister [Modi] remains in power".
Nishrin Jafri Hussein, whose father, the former MP Ahsan Jafri, was
brutally murdered in the violence in 2002, described her visit to the
villages around Gujarat's capital, Ahmedabad, three months after the
violence took place. People took her, she said, to the "narrow lanes, small
houses, places where the TV and NGOs were not allowed" and she met the
survivors, women and young girls. "They had been raped, tortured, their
parents killed, their children killed before their eyes. ... It was the same
lane after lane, house after house." Nishrin's mother Zakia Jafri has filed
a petition against Modi accusing him of complicity in the attacks. Modi
denies his involvement and has been cleared in several legal inquiries.
Since 2002 the Hindu right's gangs have repeated this brutal violence:
first, in the eastern state of Orissa in 2007 against the Christian
minority<http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/27/india-stop-hindu-christian-violence-orissa>,
whose families - like those in Gujarat - are yet to be rehabilitated; and
last year in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, against
Muslims<http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/09/19/muzaffarnagar-riots-muslims-displaced-fe-idINDEE98I0CA20130919>
in
the run-up to Modi's election campaign. In village after village in
Muzaffarnagar, women tell of incidents of rape and torture strikingly
similar to those in Gujarat in 2002.
Whether in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh or elsewhere in India, the violence has
not been spontaneous. Sangh Parivar politicians have instigated, organised
and justified it, creating tropes of Muslim men as rapists and abductors of
Hindu women, and urging Hindu men to regain their masculinity by raping
Muslim women.
The notion of the "love jihad" deployed in Muzaffarnagar is typical. It
claims, with no factual basis, that Muslim men seek relationships with
Hindu women in order to convert them and increase the Muslim population as
a result of this. In the UK, too, the organisations of the Hindu right have
taken up this myth, making baseless allegations of "love jihad" in British
universities in
2007<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/2012/11/23/the-hindu-right-dfid-2/>,
which were immediately seized upon by the police despite the absence of any
evidence for such "conversions".
The Hindu right has mobilised Hindu women to lead some of its most violent
attacks, but this is underpinned by a deeply patriarchal ideology in which
women serve the nation as wives and mothers, and domestic violence is
condoned. Young women who are seen as transgressive face attacks by Sangh
Parivar thugs in the name of "moral
policing"<http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/hindu-activists-play-moral-police-assault-girls-at-party--17167.html>
.
Modi has been endorsed by India's billionaires, to whom he promises more
ruthless repression of the widespread resistance to corporate land-grab.
For women in the resource-rich but impoverished regions targeted by
corporations, it will mean further intensification of the systematic sexual
violence<http://www.rd.ap.gov.in/IKPLand/MRD_Committee_Report_V_01_Mar_09.pdf>
which
has been used by armed gangs who try and break this resistance.
British foreign and commonwealth office minister Hugo Swire has made it
clear that the relationship with Modi is in "the UK's national
interests"<http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/embracing-the-darkness/article4023194.ece>
-
meaning the interests of British business - and David Cameron, despite his
oft-stated concern for human rights and gender violence, is waiting eagerly
to welcome Modi to Britain whether he becomes India's prime minister or
not. If Modi wins, however, the many struggles rocking India - violence
against women, state repression and human rights - look set to intensify.
II.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21600106-he-will-probably-become-indias-next-prime-minister-does-not-mean-he-should-be-can-anyone?frsc=dg%7Ca
India's electionCan anyone stop Narendra Modi?He will probably become
India's next prime minister. That does not mean he should be
Apr 5th 2014 | From the print
edition<http://www.economist.com/printedition/2014-04-05>
WHO does not marvel at the prospect of India going to the polls? Starting
on April 7th, illiterate villagers and destitute slum-dwellers will have an
equal say alongside Mumbai's millionaires in picking their government.
Almost 815m citizens are eligible to cast their ballots in nine phases of
voting over five weeks--the largest collective democratic act in history.
But who does not also deplore the fecklessness and venality of India's
politicians? The country is teeming with problems, but a decade under a
coalition led by the Congress party has left it rudderless. Growth has
fallen by half, to about 5%--too low to provide work for the millions of
young Indians joining the job market each year. Reforms go undone, roads
and electricity remain unavailable, children are left uneducated. Meanwhile
politicians and officials are reckoned to have taken bribes worth between
$4 billion and $12 billion during Congress's tenure. The business of
politics, Indians conclude, is corruption.
So there is much to admire. Despite that, this newspaper cannot bring
itself to back Mr Modi for India's highest office.No wonder that the
overwhelming favourite to become India's next prime minister is the
Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi. He could not be more different from
Rahul Gandhi, his Congress party rival. The great-grandson of Jawaharlal
Nehru, India's first premier, Mr Gandhi would ascend to office as if by
divine right. Mr Modi is a former teaseller propelled to the top by sheer
ability. Mr Gandhi seems not to know his own mind--even whether he wants
power. Mr Modi's performance as chief minister of Gujarat shows that he is
set on economic development and can make it happen. Mr Gandhi's coalition
is tainted by corruption. By comparison Mr Modi is clean.
Modi's odium
The reason begins with a Hindu rampage against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002,
in which at least 1,000 people were slaughtered. The orgy of murder and
rape in Ahmedabad and the surrounding towns and villages was revenge for
the killing of 59 Hindu pilgrims on a train by Muslims.
Mr Modi had helped organise a march on the holy site at Ayodhya in 1990
which, two years later, led to the deaths of 2,000 in Hindu-Muslim clashes.
A lifelong member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist
group in whose cause he has vowed lifelong celibacy, he made speeches early
in his career that shamelessly whipped up Hindus against Muslims. In 2002
Mr Modi was chief minister and he was accused of allowing or even abetting
the pogrom.
Mr Modi's defenders, and there are many, especially among the business
elite, point to two things. First, repeated investigations--including by the
admirably independent Supreme Court--have found nothing to charge their man
with. And second, they say, Mr Modi has changed. He has worked tirelessly
to attract investment and to boost business for the benefit of Hindus and
Muslims alike. Think, they say, of the huge gains to poor Muslims across
India of a well-run economy.
On both counts, that is too generous. One reason why the inquiries into the
riots were inconclusive is that a great deal of evidence was lost or
wilfully destroyed. And if the facts in 2002 are murky, so are Mr Modi's
views now. He could put the pogroms behind him by explaining what happened
and apologising. Yet he refuses to answer questions about them. In a rare
comment last year he said he regretted Muslims' suffering as he would that
of a puppy run over by a car. Amid the uproar, he said he meant only that
Hindus care about all life. Muslims--and chauvinist Hindus--heard a different
message. Unlike other BJP leaders, Mr Modi has refused to wear a Muslim
skullcap and failed to condemn riots in Uttar Pradesh in 2013 when most of
the victims were Muslim.
The lesser of two evils
"Dog-whistle" politics is deplorable in any country. But in India violence
between Hindus and Muslims is never far from the surface. At partition,
when British India fractured, about 12m people were uprooted and hundreds
of thousands perished. Since 2002 communal violence has died down, but
there are hundreds of incidents and scores of deaths each year. Sometimes,
as in Uttar Pradesh, the violence is on an alarming scale. The spark could
also come from outside. In Mumbai in 2008 India suffered horrific attacks
by terrorists from Muslim Pakistan--a nagging, nuclear-armed presence next
door.
By refusing to put Muslim fears to rest, Mr Modi feeds them. By clinging to
the anti-Muslim vote, he nurtures it. India at its finest is a joyous
cacophony of peoples and faiths, of holy men and rebels. The best of them,
such as the late columnist Khushwant Singh
(seearticle<http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21600081-khushwant-singh-indias-pre-eminent-gadfly-died-march-20th-aged-99-indias-gadfly>)
are painfully aware of the damage caused by communal hatred. Mr Modi might
start well in Delhi but sooner or later he will have to cope with a
sectarian slaughter or a crisis with Pakistan--and nobody, least of all the
modernisers praising him now, knows what he will do nor how Muslims, in
turn, will react to such a divisive man.
If Mr Modi were to explain his role in the violence and show genuine
remorse, we would consider backing him, but he never has; it would be wrong
for a man who has thrived on division to become prime minister of a country
as fissile as India. We do not find the prospect of a government led by
Congress under Mr Gandhi an inspiring one. But we have to recommend it to
Indians as the less disturbing option.
If Congress wins, which is unlikely, it must strive to renew itself and to
reform India. Mr Gandhi should make a virtue of his diffidence by stepping
back from politics and promoting modernisers to the fore. There are plenty
of them and modernity is what Indian voters increasingly demand (see
article<http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21600108-rapid-social-change-and-assertive-voters-will-improve-indian-democracy-we-are-connected>).
If, more probably, victory goes to the BJP, its coalition partners should
hold out for a prime minister other than Mr Modi.
And if they still choose Mr Modi? We would wish him well, and we would be
delighted for him to prove us wrong by governing India in a modern, honest
and fair way. But for now he should be judged on his record--which is that
of a man who is still associated with sectarian hatred. There is nothing
modern, honest or fair about that. India deserves better.
>From the print edition:
Leaders<http://www.economist.com/printedition/2014-04-05>
-
---
Peace Is Doable
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