Sharing some thoughts on eve of India’s Independence Day

I am greatly beholden to PM , so is this nation of ‘ek sau pacchees krore deshwasi’, for inviting suggestions for his Independence Day speech. It’s a privilege no other PM ever accorded us. They spoke their ‘mann ki baat’ at all times, only Mr Modi uses such national moments to elicit ‘ jan ki baat’.  This emboldens me to open up my heart in this short piece. Though he will receive millions of suggestions which may even include the ones I make here, still I dare to go ahead ,if for nothing, then the edification of my soul. 

We are now a ‘free’ nation with freedom of speech, freedom of faith, freedom to pursue any occupation anywhere, and with many fundamental rights including the one recently recognised, right to privacy, ‘freely’ granted. But some organisations and influential men within PM’s influence think only right, but not rightly. In this hallowed land of sants and sufis, flourish organisations like Hindu Yuva Sena, Santana Sanstha, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti avowedly intolerant towards any version of Hinduism and Hindu way of life other than their own. Their followers are suspected of eliminating radical thinkers like Gauri Lankesh, MM kalburgi and Govind Pansare who dared to be critical of their belief. There are others that brainwash and radicalise our Muslim youths for participating in Islamic wars elsewhere. With such niggles in national sinews ,its citizen cannot avail of free practice of faith. A huge opportunity lies before the PM to do a Nehru on what Nehru did 69 years ago when he banned RSS till it gave an undertaking of good conduct. Please do the same. 

And there are men, all within the PM’s influence, who ‘freely’ and publicly fulminate against Muslims touching a cow, or who pontificate that as long as people eat beef cow related lynchings will continue to happen. I see two fetters to freedom in this. Is the occupation of cattle rearing and dairying being denied to Muslims ? Secondly, is the country’s law and order and justice apparatus to be commandeered by mobs to dispense instant justice in kangaroo courts in suspected ‘cow’ crimes ? Aren’t victims being denied the right to trial by a ‘free’  court ? Surely, these ‘learned’ dignitaries from PM’s stable don’t mean all this , then why say it ! They deserve the PM’s public rebuke on this momentous day. That would keep brewing xenophobia in rein and sound so reassuring, particularly, to our minorities. 

Then there is this little matter of freedom from want. The dystopia of recurrent famines that killed millions under British Raj is no longer with us.  But a little less than a third of our people are still impoverished, going to sleep hungry for one meal a day is all they can afford.  A distressing number of our children are malnourished and stunted . Many are vagrant, homeless and subject to multiple abuses including sexual abuse. Even among the ten million or more able-bodied, literate young men and women who enter the job market annually, few find settled employment in organised sector, the rest have skills that render them unemployable and are therefore compelled to eke out a living selling pakodas or running betel shops or in extreme cases enter the maelstrom of crime. Surely the nation has failed them secure even basic wants.

Should we then be borrowing to put elites on bullet trains or borrowing for purposes that eventually puts food in gnawing bellies and jobs in empty pockets ? Or should tax monies go into building world’s tallest statues on land and sea ? Building these symbols of national hubris on empty bellies of citizen is a cruel expression of vanity . We are not even at the stage where the rich western economies were fifty years earlier. Their citizens had won the battle for basic wants long long ago. Yet many still do not have bullet trains and their monuments too are still small . 

We need to introspect, deep and wide . Has the economy been freeing more people from basic wants by yielding more jobs than that lost ?  Is it distributing its income more widely ?  On both counts ,the lessons from operation of market economies like ours are no longer hidden. It only exacerbates income inequalities. For a country in lower middle income category, it implies mounting numbers of empty bellies and more millionaires and billionaires. Latest statistics bear it out - ‘crowding’ in the millionaires club and further down sliding in rank in the world hunger index.

We need a different development paradigm, the traditional belief of trickle down of national income through GDP growth is busted. Development needs new moorings. And how to go about it should be uppermost in our national consciousness. Resolving to secure not ease of doing business but ease of eliminating basic human wants should be the national flavour this Independence Day. 

I may sound morbid but freedom from fear and want ,and freedom to avail constitutional rights is a sine qua non of a maturative democracy. A citizen in dread or one agonising with hunger isn’t ‘free’ in any sense of the word. 

I repeat, I may sound alarmist but it would have served a noble cause if it prompts a quick rethink. And it is always good to err on the side of caution. 

The erosion of Muslim leadership in India

Zaiuddin Ahmed is woebegone.Born 55 years ago in Kamrup district of Assam he and his family are confronted by imminent statelessness,  stripping of civic rights including voting rights ,or even worse, detention and deportation. What went wrong ? 

His improvident father did not document,in any manner, his birth in Assam. That his uncle , Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, rose to the highest office in the land, Presidentship, didn’t help. Zaiuddin’s misery is typical of a significant number of muslims among the 40 lakh missing from the draft National Register of Citizens in Assam. They were born after the Register was last updated in 1951 and had failed to register the fact of their arrival on earth. Lakhs of families, to all intents and purposes, genuine citizens, now find themselves torn apart. Fathers and children declared citizens, mothers, aliens.

Seeds of doubt and despair have been sown in lives settled. For the few Hindus in the same boat there is hope yet, citizenship by naturalisation under the proposed amendment to Citizenship Act. But the Muslims  stare at the dim prospect of getting permanently uprooted from the land that suckled them for generations,provided succour and livelihood.The lush verdure of the land now seems mottled. Truly harrowing and undeserved ! Should genuine citizens become aliens merely for lack of documentation ? It’s like denying existence of God but acknowledging his avatars on earth.The avatars left their footprints and legends behind, but God, only an unshakeable but subjective reality. 

A huge humanitarian crisis  is looming large. Some way needs to be found to treat such legitimate cases differently. The state also needs to draw up humane responses to people identified as illegal immigrants. The numbers are likely to run in double digit lakhs.

One solution could be to grant illegal  migrants permanent residence-ship without political rights. The Citizenship Act would need to be further amended to implement it. For the undocumented citizens sources of acceptable non-documentary evidence need to be identified. 

However,this is a quagmire our netas need to wade in, not an amateur. Nor is the palpable
lack of empathy for the wretched ones of immediate concern here. What worries me is the lack of ardour , bordering on apathy,  among their coreligionists to evangelise their cause. When Amit Shah waggles his fingers  in triumphalism ‘ we have courage and we are doing it’ (identifying illegal  Bangladeshi immigrants) it’s not a Muslim neta that counters him but Mamta Bannerji,a Hindu    , by stridently highlighting their anguish 

Messrs Shahnawaz Khan, Naqvi and M J Akbar of
the ruling party  have sloughed off their ‘muslim’ skins and become ‘bovinated’, mannequins that look good in showcases of the ruling party but no good as leaders of their 

community. Then there are Azam Khans, Owaisis and Salman Khurshids - self-centred, steeped in provincialism and consumed by their little fiefs. Congress ,once flaunted a galaxy of national Muslim leaders capable of influencing the Muslim psyche,  is now ‘muslim’ bankrupt. No muslim leader of any national stature has emerged in any of the regional parties either.   

At this crucial juncture when it has become fashionable in RW circles to ‘other’minorities and limit its life choices,they are confronted with  a vacuum of enlightened statesmanship from  within .Consequently,the Muslim community, in particular, is forced to underplay its identity to avoid a backlash from tidal waves of aggressive   majoritarianism. The pique, angst and restlessness can only be getting bottled up, an ominous portent for social harmony. 

A responsive community leadership that gives voice to their fears, hopes and aspirations could act as a salutary safety valve letting off of pent up steam. Therefore, to  denigrate minority assertion of its rights and voicing of its felt slights of which there are many,  as divisive is camouflaged majoritarian  bullying that subverts ‘samajik samrasta’.  

And it is here that national parties need to groom minority leaders  who show capabilities of  worming  their way into the hearts of their communities. They,not mono-religious entities, are best suited to ensure minority assertion without social disruption. While championing  a just and fair treatment and nurturing the aspirations of minorities it can also gently nudge it towards richer assimilation within the whole, a warp and weft of a plural social tapestry.

But if  they don't hurry up and get their act going, sectarian elements even more vicious than Owaisis and Azam Khans will move in to fill the vacuum. They will lead the community into dense shrubberies not the happy hunting grounds.