[While Modi is rather well known for systematically sidelining people who're capable of taking their own stands, "good" or "evil", Adityanath very well belongs to that category. That makes the "choice" all the more scary.
If Modi has opted to take such a high "risk", even without any apparent hint of compulsion, the "gain" that he's driving at must be that stunning big.] I/II. https://kafila.online/2017/03/18/a-leaf-from-the-illustrious-life-of-the-cm-designate-of-uttar-pradesh/ A leaf from the illustrious life of the CM designate of Uttar Pradesh ON 18/03/2017 BY APOORVANANDIN BAD IDEAS Account of a ten year old story : Helps you understand the CM designate of UP What happened in the eastern Uttar Pradesh town was not a conflict but violence unleashed by MP Yogi Adityanath and his henchmen If one tries to understand the developments in Gorakhpur and its neighbouring areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh (Poorvanchal) from January 26 to 31, 2007 through the eyes of the print and electronic media, one moves further away from the truth. It is a sordid story of a highly communalised media conjuring up a riot, collaborating with BJP MP Yogi Adityanath, a Bal Thackeray clone and heir to the Gorakhnath Peeth operating from the Gorakhnath temple. Adityanath is a BJP MP for ‘technical’ reasons and cares a damn for the niceties of party discipline because he knows that the party cannot dissociate itself from him. Though he mocked the party by holding a Vishwa Hindu Maha Sammelan at the same time as the BJP’s National Council meet in Lucknow, the party did not mind. It had earlier swallowed the defeat of its candidate in the Assembly election by Adityanath’s candidate. One should know that he is a Thakur; and a Thakur heads the BJP now . The Thakur spread across party lines ensures that Adityanath is allowed to have his own way in his fiefdom, i.e. Poorvanchal. He makes it a point to give calls for a Gorakhpur bandh whenever the chief minister visits the town. Poorvanchal mein rahan hai to Yogi-Yogi kahan hoga (You have to chant Yogi’s name if you want to live in Poorvanchal) is a slogan popularised by his gang. But how true is the claim of his hold on Gorakhpur, leave alone Poorvanchal? He has lost all local elections held recently in and around Gorakhpur, and could only manage to lure the relatively respected Samajwadi Party (SP) member and mayoral candidate Anju Chaudhary to his side. Apparently, Chaudhary fell a victim to the myth spun around him during the last 15 years. Adityanath has been called the Yuvak Hindu Samrat, Narendra Modi of Poorvanchal, the premier of the Hindu Rashtra of Poorvanchal. He has used the wealth of the Gorakhnath Temple to sustain his army of lumpen youth. Adityanath has followed the rss methodology in creating organisations with different names that he calls cultural bodies. Among these are Hindu Yuva Vahini, Sri Ram Shakti Prakoshtha, Gorakhnath Purvanchal Vikas Manch, Hindu Mahasabha and Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh. Adityanath himself is the main functionary of these unregistered outfits. He also controls much of the functioning of the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagran Manch. He holds his durbar in his temple that is attended by local police and officials. Adityanath has perfected his technique of manufacturing riots. An insignificant incident like a Hindu’s clothes getting stained accidentally by the paan spat by a Muslim is turned into an act of humiliation of Hindus. A rape in which the victim is dalit and the perpetrator Muslim is used to substantiate the allegation that “Muslims rape our women” and all hell is let loose on the Muslims. The last 11 years are witness to several such acts. No criminal case has been registered against him except once in 1999 when a case was registered against him in Maharajganj after the killing of the official gunman accompanying sp leader Talat Aziz. The police and administration have remained mute spectators with the political leadership looking the other way. All this has given him an air of invincibility. Muslims have been given to understand that neither the Bahujan Samaj Party, nor the sp is willing to rein him in. Perhaps the SP is seeking to counter Mayawati’s Brahmin card with its own Thakur card by indulging him. The Congress is nowhere and also lacks a will to take him on. All this leaves the Muslims here with no option but to resign themselves to their fate. This time, however, his plans went awry. On the night of January 26-27, Pankaj Rai, a history-sheeter, and his gang chased a dance party performing at a marriage. They mingled with a Muharram procession and the processionists thought that they were being attacked. Suddenly a gunshot was heard, which the then administration thinks was Rai’s act. As panic set in, more people — both Hindu and Muslim — were beaten up and a young man, Raj Kumar Agrahari, was badly injured and hospitalised. The District Magistrate (DM) was informed at 1.30am and he told officials to brief Adityanath that he should not visit the site. Initially, the MP agreed. But as Agrahari died, Adityanath declared that now he would go to the spot and seek revenge for the killing of a Hindu by Muslims. He reached the spot with his lumpen who destroyed a mazhar. He declared his resolve to ensure justice for the Hindus, swords were flashed before the dm and senior police officers. Short of policemen, the administration tried to persuade the MP to vacate the place but he didn’t budge. When the now-determined dm took the dagger away from a goon, they charged towards him and demanded the dagger back. Upon this, the dm ordered the police to disperse them by force. Suddenly the MP found himself facing a situation that was not in the script. Afraid that the lathis might find Adityanath, his well-wishers cried out for compromise. The MP demanded that curfew be imposed and withdrew. Though the dm didn’t think a curfew was required as the violence was designed to disrupt Muharram, he agreed to the MP’s demand. Later, however, Adityanath announced a torchlight procession. The administration succeeded in preventing it from moving but it was captured on camera and a non-procession was turned into one by the willing media. Emboldened, he announced a Shraddhanjali Sabha the next day at the town’s busiest crossroad. By this time, the dm had resolved not to allow it any further as the police reinforcements were in. He issued orders that no meeting was to be allowed and that any violator was to be arrested. With unambiguous orders, the police moved. Adityanath dismissed the warning as a hollow threat but landed in an unforeseen situation. He and his ‘followers’ were taken to the police line. Soon, a police van arrived and the detained people were asked to board the jail-bound vehicle. Adityanath jumped into the bus, declaring that he cannot leave his followers. To their surprise, the bus started moving and they realised that they were in trouble. The three-km journey to the jail took more than 90 minutes as his goons pelted stones and every other means to block the van but to no avail. For the first time in his life, Adityanath is jailed under Section 151A of the crpc only to find later that he has also been booked under Sections 146, 147, 279, 506 of the Indian Penal Code for leading the attack on the mazhar. On the strength of this fir, Adityanath is remanded to 14-day judicial custody. On January 29, his followers assembled at Gorakhnath Temple that falls in an area where more than 50 percent of the population is Muslim. They start hrowing stones and burning tyres in the direction of the Muslim locality and on the road. But there is no retaliation from the other side. Dr Hari Om, the then dm in-charge, wishes to put it on record that not a single incident of slogan-shouting or stone-pelting was resorted to by Muslims. He wants the world to know that although much grieved by the decision to impose curfew as it hampered Muharram, the Muslims, led by the venerable Miyan saheb, assured the administration of all cooperation as peace was more important and kept their word. Meanwhile, the media kept screaming that Gorakhpur was burning, the walls of the Gorakhnath Temple were demolished. Which, of course, was a naked lie. And all of a sudden, the dm was informed that he’s been shunted along with the superintendent of police. As he moved away, Rashid, a Muslim youth, was killed. It is a matter of discussion in Gorakhpur that it was done by a Hindu Yuva Vahini man who injured himself to use it as a cover. Newspapers flashed the pictures of the Yuva Vahini man’s bandaged leg, obliterating the killing of Rashid altogether. So where was the riot, as imagined by the interested media, asks Hari Om. From January 27 to 29, Adityanath and his goons laid siege to Gorakhpur without any provocation from Muslims. A mazhar was gutted, masjids and shops of Muslims destroyed, government properties damaged by the gangs, stone pelting on the police by his goons: do these make a perfect riot? A riot involves some degree of involvement of two warring groups. How is it that areas with substantial Muslim population did not experience any untoward incident barring the planned attacks of Adityanath’s gangs? Why did cm Mulayam Singh Yadav remove the officers who jailed the BJP MP who was hell-bent on destroying peace? Why did the officers’ successors go straight to Adityanath for forgiveness? Why did the media fail to report the facts as facts? Hari Om has one regret — that he had assured Muslims that by giving a reprieve of 7-8 hours in the curfew on January 29, he would ensure that the Muharram tradition was not disturbed. However, the moment he was removed, Rashid was killed to celebrate it as Adityanath’s victory and the curfew was extended. Tazias remained where they were. The Muslims kept their word, he did not. This young officer has just one question for his country: can a community feel at home where it is prevented from even mourning by all kinds of machination? Can a community celebrate its existence in a country where law-keepers look over their shoulders when it is attacked? Such is the sad story of Uttar Pradesh, the truth of one of the many riots that were not. First published in Tehelka.com, Feb 17, 2007 https://communalism.blogspot.in/2007/02/riot-manufactured-in-gorakhpur.html II. http://www.business-standard.com/elections/uttar-pradesh-assembly-elections-2017/yogi-adityanath-the-way-of-the-sword-and-the-monk-s-cowl-114040200025_1.html Yogi Adityanath: The way of the sword and the monk's cowl How BJP's Yogi Adityanath has used religious polarisation to trump caste divide in Uttar Pradesh Aman Sethi | Gorakhpur March 18, 2017 Last Updated at 19:34 IST Business Standard is republishing this April 2014 profile as the Bharatiya Janata Party's legislature has unanimously elected Yogi Adityanath as its leader and the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. >From 8 am to 10 am each morning, Yogi Adityanath, high priest of the Gorakhnath mandir and Gorakhpur's Member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party since 1998, tends to his constituency from a low desk in a spacious room in the administrative block of the temple's sprawling lands. Assisting him is a team of scribes, seated cross-legged on the ground before a set of ancient Devnagari-script typewriters, balanced on bricks wrapped in old newspaper. Petitioners pass through a security check, leave their shoes at the gate, and approach the priest with folded hands and bowed heads. Adityanath - short, stocky, and clad in saffron robes, thick transparent plastic earrings, and vermillion socks - listens with the fragile patience of a self-consciously busy man. "Write an application," he occasionally declares. The clerks nod dutifully and slide another sheet of paper into the typewriter. Recent reports describe Adityanath - a Hindutva hardliner, and prime accused in Gorakhpur's 2007 communal riots - as a key coordinator of the BJP's election strategy for Uttar Pradesh, the state with the most Lok Sabha seats. He first won the Gorakhpur seat when 26-years-old; now 42, he has fashioned himself as the BJP's most recognised face in east Uttar Pradesh. The BJP has spoken of a wave in favour of their prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, but Lokniti-CSDS post-election surveys over the past 15 years establish that a quarter to a third of the electorate vote on the individual qualities of a candidate rather than the party she represents, suggesting many seats could turn into head-to-head contests between candidates with specific local histories, rather than the competing narratives of Modi and Rahul Gandhi. In 1999, Yogi Adityanath won Gorakhpur by the slimmest of margins - 7,339 votes; 10 years later in 2009, he romped home with a winning margin of 2,20,000 votes. This year, locals are speculating on the winning margin, rather than the possibility of his victory, despite no particular signs of progress in this constituency. Gorakhpur appears a melancholic border town on the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border, yet to overcome the loss of its fertiliser factory, shuttered in 1990, its sugar mills that collapsed over the next decade, and its children - claimed by the hundreds every year by Japanese encephalitis. Male and female workforce participation is amongst the lowest in the country and a little more than 70 per cent of households still do not have an indoor toilet. Over 15 years, Adityanath, an upper caste Kshatriya, has sunk deep roots in Gorakhpur. His clerks resolve squabbles in city neighbourhoods; his foot soldiers from the Hindu Yuva Vahini have been criticised for engineering riots in the countryside. His inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric has polarised eastern Uttar Pradesh, while his position as the mahant of the Gorakhnath temple lends his pronouncements an air of mystical profundity. This election season, the BJP has publicly focused on the need for good governance and development and steered clear of overt communal and regional propaganda but on the ground, Modi is banking on regional satraps like Adityanath to bring in the votes at all costs. "We solve problems," said Dwarika Tiwari, Adityanath's head clerk, gesturing to his typewriter, his telephone, and a stack of tattered notebooks filled with telephone numbers gathered over decades, "We write to the appropriate authorities, we telephone the superintendent of police, we inform the district magistrate and tell him to investigate." Jung Bahadur, a retired infantryman, has come on behalf of his grandson, "Rajbir, my grandson ran away with a dhobi caste girl. Her parents say she was kidnapped. He is in police detention." Chandra Prakash Gupta, dismissed from a private distillery eight years ago, has been coming ever since in search of a job. Suresh Sharma, a Gorakhpur resident now employed as an accountant in Chennai, has dropped by to have his photograph taken with the yogi, "I go to the BJP office in Chennai; it is good to have a photo to show them." No problem is too small for Adityanath's attention, no trouble too trifling. "We'll do whatever is needed," Tiwari said, as he churned out the latest application on official MP letterheads, "This? This one is for someone who urgently needs a train reservation using the MP quota." An MP is expected to legislate, hold the executive to account and represent the interests of her constituency in Parliament. Adityanath, for his part, has sponsored five Bills - there was one in 2009, asking the Centre to pass a national law banning cow slaughter, another to change the country's name from "India that is Bharat" to "Bharat that is Hindustan", and a third banning forced religious conversions. He has also called on the Allahabad High Court to set up a bench in Gorakhpur, and for a uniform civil code. Yet, in their constituencies back home, MPs aren't judged by House attendance, questions asked, or participation in debates, but on their ability to leverage the state on behalf of their constituents. Most MPs have neither the funds nor staff to implement big-ticket projects that could ensure re-election. For example, a representative can spend Rs 5 crore per year on her constituency under the MP Local Area Development Scheme, which works out to a total of Rs 400 crore a year for Uttar Pradesh's 80 Lok Sabha members; a minuscule sum compared with the state government's budgeted expenditure of Rs 221,201 crore for this year. This is where Adityanath's morning meetings prove crucial. "Voters perceive the role of MPs as that of a problem solver," said Chakshu Roy of PRS Legislative Research, explaining MPs are often voted for doing everything apart from their constitutionally mandated jobs, "Voter expectations, therefore, align the incentive structure for MPs to address constituency concerns at the cost of their legislative responsibilities." Further, before selling their message to their electorates, prospective MPs must first convince their own parties of their candidature - this makes the creation of a committed base and local politics even more critical. Rajnath Singh could replace BJP stalwart Lalji Tandon in Lucknow, but no one is likely to replace Adityanath in Gorakhpur. "The public is deeply attached to my name, to my thought process, to me," said Adityanath in an interview soon after his durbar, "The public wants their elected representative to be in touch with them." Through his daily hearings, he said, "I have a constant conversation with the public about their personal problems, problems with the administration, problems with a powerful oppressive person. That is why they vote for me." Yet, any other candidate could arguably set up an equally efficient grievances cell. Adityanath's biggest asset, his critics said, is an amorphous vigilante army of youth organised as the Hindu Yuva Vahini and tasked with protecting the Hindu faith. In 1999, Yogi Adityanath made front-page news as an MP. "BJP out to protect trigger-happy MP" ran the second lead on the March 6 Lucknow edition of The Times of India, detailing an extraordinary story that began as a minor dispute over the fate of a peepul tree in a Muslim graveyard in a faraway village, acquired increasingly communal overtones, and ended with Adityanath desecrating the graveyard and his supporters fatally shooting a 26-year-old policeman in the face. "A pattern emerged," said Manoj Singh, a senior journalist in Gorakhpur, "Yogiji or his supporters would interfere in a village-level fight between two communities and turn it into a big case of Hinduism under threat." An anecdotal list of communal incidents compiled by Singh describes the vigilante group's involvement in at least 18 separate incidents of communal violence since 1999. While the 2007 Gorakhpur riots, in which a Hindu man was killed and hundreds of Muslim shops burnt, were widely reported, the incomprehensible banality of minor incidents makes for more chilling reading. In 2002, for instance, Adityanath and his followers arrived at Gorakhpur's Turkmanpur locality and escalated a squabble between a Hindu and Muslim over who spat paan on whom into a full-blown communal confrontation in which stones were thrown, a street brawl erupted and the police were called in. Adityanath insists the Yuva Vahini is simply a cultural organisation. "Our philosophy is to live and let live, but if someone puts their hand on our throats, we have the right to remove that hand by force if need be," he said. Yet, his critics, both inside and outside the BJP, said Adityanath's vigilante army was set up to build a power base and grassroots network independent of the the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. BJP leaders begged off from commenting on Adityanath or his politics. "To be honest, I don't have the time," said Varun Gandhi, the BJP's other star campaigner in Uttar Pradesh, before hanging up. His critics in the Congress were more forthcoming. "Adityanath is undoubtedly a rabble rouser. His speeches are venomous and vitriolic even in Parliament," said Jairam Ramesh, the Congress leader who most recently served as the Union minister for rural development, "He is more of a politician than a sanyasi, peddling a very destructive ideology of hate and prejudice." In the meantime, the Yuva Vahini has expanded its influence across the region and its strategy of casting routine street fights as ideological struggles is paying dividends. Last month in Rasoolpur, a village in Azamgarh constituency, 100 km south of Gorakhpur, a group of Hindu youth decided to build a brick enclosure around a Hindu deity installed under a roadside tree. The Muslims protested, a fight broke out and a young Muslim man was shot. He survived but his friends grabbed Vijay Pratap Yadav, a father of four and the brother of the sarpanch of Rasoolpur, and beat him to death. Days after Yadav's death, the local representative of the Hindu Vahini contacted his elder brother, Uma Shankar, and asked him to join the vigilantes. "Of course, something will have to be done," Uma Shankar said in a recent interview at his house, "The Muslims have terrorised us." Despite the fact that Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, will contest from Azamgarh this time, Uma Shankar said the family was switching allegiance from the Samajwadi Party, the party of choice for most Yadavs, to the BJP. "The Samajwadi Party thinks it wins because of the Muslims, so let's see what happens when the Yadavs leave it," he said, "I think we will join the Yuva Vahini, and if we do, we will bring another 50 men with us for Yogiji." UTTAR PRADESH'S PRIESTLY POLITICIANS With each generation, Gorakhpur's mahants have harnessed the Goraknath temple to consolidate their unchallenged hold on power 1967: The high priests of the Gorakhnath Mandir have played a role in Eastern UP's politics since Mahant Digvijai Nath represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha from 1967 to 1971 from the Hindu Mahasabha 1984: Digvijaynath's successor, Mahant Avaidyanath, sets up the Sri Ramjanmabhoomi Mukti Yagna Samiti and leads a march from Sitarmahi, Bihar, to Ayodhya to "liberate" the temple. Avaidyanath served as an MLA from nearby Maniram from 1962 to 1980 and as Gorakhpur's MP from 1989 to 1996, frequently using the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to garner votes 1992: Avaidyanath plays a crucial role in mobilising crowds around the destruction of the Babri Masjid. On the eve of the demolition, the mahant is spotted on the terraces of the 'Ram Katha Kunj', the building facing the Mosque, among senior leaders such as L K Advani and Ashok Singhal, according to court documents 1998: Avaidyanath retires from politics and his role as the head of the Goraknath temple. His protege, Ajay Bisht - a disciple from Uttrakhand who takes on the moniker Yogi Adityanath - wins the Gorakhpur constituency at the age of 26 2014: With the Ramjanmabhoomi issue losing its appeal, Adityanath recasts village level conflicts as religious ones and is set to win his fourth full term -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. 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