Jawaharlal Nehru lighting a cigarette for the then British high commissioner's wife

“One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money. “ - Indira Gandhi

Disclaimer notice: First and foremost, the author seeks your invaluable blessings. The views in this article are those of the author only. Any and all faults of understanding the topic at hand are the shortcomings of the author. A healthy debate is always encouraged and all criticism (both constructive and destructive) is welcomed. The author and the readers should never lose sight of the main goal: seeking TRUTH.

Introduction – As a follow up to one of my previous articles, Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011, I’ve decided to focus my grievances with the unscrupulous subversion of India’s population as perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its minions. I am quite upset by watching India celebrate the failures of the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its continued erosion of the country’s social, religious, political and economic fabric. You know, we usually hear people say things like: “you don’t give this woman or this man enough credit for all the good things he/she has done”. My task in this modest essay is to shed light on what we don’t hear people say enough: “you don’t give this woman or this man enough credit for all the bad things he/she has done”. So be forewarned, I’ll be quite negative in the following paragraphs. If you are a diehard fan of the Nehru-Gandhi family (the clan), then be prepared to get the wakeup call of your life. I will briefly highlight the failures of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and that imbecilic brat unofficially known as Rahul Gandhi. Following the failures of the Nehru-Gandhi clan will be a brief list of present day malaises of India which can be attributed to the clan. I shall conclude with a juxtaposition of Mahatma Gandhi’s insights with the failures to live by those insights by the Congress Party figures and their corporate allies as one final jolt of reality.

Chacha Nehru my foot! Chacha Blunder is more befitting

I get really upset with some arrogant and stubborn historians who attempt to shove the belief that there is no “if” clause in history down my throat. This, to me, is the highest form of subversion! All disciplines should be analysed and reassessed based on the tweaking (up or down) or insertion/omission of certain variables (characters/events – for historical studies) in a model which explains a certain phenomena or occurrence. With your kind permission (dear readers), I shall use the “if” clause to better explain my grievances with the Nehru-Gandhi clan. So let us begin with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (affectionately known as Chacha Nehru). My own take on the fellow is that he was a power hungry cry baby. Nehru exhibited questionable morality – as his affairs with Lady Mountbatten and others are well documented. He was more at ease with experimenting with unproven foreign policy alternatives such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) which went on to weaken Sino-Indian, Indo-American, Indo-Pak relations while it strengthened Indo-Soviet relations.

And now, let us insert my ‘if’ clause and look at Nehru’s tenure as Prime Minister (PM) of India. If Nehru was not such a cry baby, then he would have conceded his defeat to Sardar Patel in the Congress leadership vote. If Sardar Patel was the PM of India, then we could bet with a high degree of confidence that the map of India would be quite different (I’m alluding to Kashmir and other territorial disputes). If Patel was PM, then India would not be governed by the idiotic and experimental foreign policy dictates of Nehru’s “Pancha Sheel – Five Pillars” framework within the Non-Aligned Movement. Nehru’s idiocy is perfectly exemplified by his turning down of the American offer of a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council in 1955. Instead, our beloved Chacha Nehru chose to be the ‘chamcha’ of our shrewd and realistic neighbours, the Chinese. Nehru vouched for China to have a permanent seat on the council. Nehru’s arrogance in avoiding border discussions and over-confidence in his experimental ‘chamchagiri’ caused India to pay a heavy price on the battlefield in 1962. Nehru never recovered from this blunder and neither did India’s foreign policy. In addition, we should not forget that Nehru (at the insistence of Lord Mountbatten) even put the offer of a plebiscite on the table at the UN in order to resolve the Kashmir dispute. This stupid move is still costing India a high price! Thank you, Chacha Nehru! Next, we analyse Nehru’s daughter.

“Garibi Hatao” – Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi

Indira Gandhi

Where to start with Indira Gandhi? We give lots of credit to Mrs Gandhi for having chopped Pakistan in two pieces. She gave the green light for “Smiling Buddha” to make India a nuclear state. And she brought over to India the Green Revolution (a new age of agricultural best practices and research) which was to alleviate India’s food shortages.  That is where the positive vibes end. Mrs Gandhi was elected as PM for three consecutive terms from 1966-1977 (the third of which was rendered invalid by the courts) and came back to power from 1980-1984 until her assassination by a bodyguard.

Indira Gandhi holds two distinctions: 1) She was the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state of emergency so that she could ‘rule by decree’ and 2) She was the only Indian Prime Minister to have been incarcerated after holding the office (Mrs Gandhi committed election fraud in 1971 during her ‘Garibi Hatao’ campaign and was found guilty in 1975). The only ‘Garibi’ that Mrs Gandhi was concerned with was her own. Mrs Gandhi’s ‘rule by decree’ during the state of emergency was simply for two reasons: 1) to eliminate dissidents, and 2) to maintain her stranglehold on the country.

Mrs Gandhi’s son, Sanjay, was instrumental in implementing draconian measures in order to eliminate Congress and anti-Indira dissidents as well as to ravage slum dwellers and poor people during the state of emergency. The infamous ‘family planning’ campaign spearheaded by Sanjay is still fresh in the minds of many Indians. Sanjay’s mass vasectomy campaigns were not conducted under proper sanitary conditions and one can only imagine the pain of infection and death that some of the lured patients felt.  Also, to win the blessings of the Gandhis, many public officers and doctors performed more-than-necessary amounts of vasectomies in order to meet the quota prescribed by Sanjay. Mrs Gandhi failed the Indian people by ruling like a tyrant. She took away the rights and freedoms of Indians while projecting a persona of “Mother” of the nation. For what did she do this? For power!

Indira Gandhi’s failures also hit the Punjab. She let Bhindranwale and his followers get to the point where they could assassinate anyone that they deemed heretics (Nirankaris etc.) as they pleased. At the same time, Bhindranwale’s friends received training from the ISI and they all jointly devised a plan to create Khalistan by taking over the Golden Temple. Indira Gandhi was left with no choice but to show Bhindranwale who was boss. Operation Bluestar and the subsequent actions of India’s supercop, KPS Gill, virtually eradicated the Khalistan movement from India. However, there were some very negative consequences. Sikhs were alienated and violated as their holiest shrine was ravaged. We also had the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. As well, I would like to share that this conflict also took the lives of over 329 passengers of Air India flight 182 in 1985. The passengers of that flight were brutally killed by a time bomb placed in the aircraft planted by Canada-based Khalistanis. 291 innocent Indo-Canadians lost their lives due to Indira Gandhi and the Khalistanis!

As a final criticism, many foreign policy experts suggest that Mrs Gandhi did not push hard enough on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to make the LoC a permanent border between India and Pakistan (with respect to Kashmir). But that is a dwarfed issue as her victory in carving Pakistan in to two pieces overshadowed this criticism.

Indira Gandhi’s legacy is nothing short of tyranny. However, her assassination gained her sympathy and it seems that many people have forgotten all of the bad that she had committed. We now move on to her elder son, Rajiv.

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi was a mixed bag. He came in to politics after the assassination of his mother. She had initially planned to push Sanjay (her younger son) in to the top seat of Prime Minister, but he died in an airplane accident. However, Sanjay did rule the country under his mother’s name. Oh, and what a horrific job he did. Rajiv Gandhi came in to politics by accident but left his mark on India’s history. He started off by promising to modernize India, to press for global nuclear disarmament, to decentralise power, to clean up the Holy Ganges and many other promises. However, he was only partially successful in keeping some of his promises. Rajiv Gandhi helped to pave the way for India’s modern economy and peace with China, but that is where the glory stops. He was voted out of office due to his role in the Bofors scandal.

Rajiv Gandhi’s glories of institutionalising peace with China and modernizing India’s economy were overshadowed by his failures. I’ll list some of TK Arun’s thoughts on Rajiv Gandhi’s failures verbatim:

• “The foremost failure is the contempt he showed for the Indian people….The strategy of serially appeasing first Muslim fundamentalists and then Hindu fundamentalists reflected cynical contempt for the people and their intelligence.”
• “A related failure was his tendency to see people as objects of development, rather than as its subjects, the driving force. This led Rajiv Gandhi to trust technology missions to deliver clearly defined development goals.”

Rajiv never got the opportunity to rectify his mistakes and was brutally assassinated by LTTE terrorists in a suicide bomb blast. Rajiv Gandhi had just started to show some political wisdom while in the opposition but never got the chance to prove himself. I suppose the torch needed to be passed on and his time on earth had come to an end.

Sonia and Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi (real name - Antonia Edvige Albina Maino Gandhi)

Take a moment to bow your heads in reverence to Dr Subramanian Swamy. If it wasn’t for his swift actions, then Sonia Gandhi would be the Prime Minister of India (instead of Manmohan Singh). This one man has singlehandedly taken down political powerhouses. Many of the corruption scandals that we hear of and which were perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan were exposed and brought to the Supreme Court by Dr Swamy’s petitions. I don’t have anything positive to say for Sonia Gandhi and her silly son, Rahul. They both have slapped the small positive legacy of Rajiv Gandhi in the face with the record-breaking levels of corruption and sheer incompetence. Sonia doesn’t speak English or Hindi well. She can only do one thing well, and that is corruption. It must have been something she learned from the infamous Mafia of Italy, her motherland. Sonia is going to be brought to justice eventually. Her role in the numerous scams of the day is being exposed. Her son-in-law, Robert Vadra, became a billionaire out of thin air due to the connections that she had. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

One should understand very carefully that Sonia runs and operates India and her Congress party much the same way as a Grand Patriarch in a Mafia of Italy would do. Sonia is the Grand Matriarch of the Congress party and not a single decision is made without her stamp of approval and cut in the share of profits. Politicians and business people know damn well that they must pay respects and hefty tributes to the Grand Matriarch, Sonia in order to rape and pillage the country. I’ll share an example of how desperate some lowly politicians are to get in to Sonia’s inner circle. A few years back, Amar Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar were attending a function in Delhi. Both gentlemen enjoyed their drinks but Aiyar had one too many. In a drunken stupor, he provoked Singh in to a mini-brawl. What was the reason? Aiyar was jealous that Singh and his leader (at the time) Mulayam Singh was gaining much clout with Sonia while Aiyar was struggling to get a berth in the Congress Working Committee. Enough about Sonia let us briefly discuss the brat, Rahul.

Sonia’s dear son Rahul does speak Hindi but he is a walking buffoon who has shown absolutely no political maturity. Rahul’s idea of being a man of the people is to roll up his sleeves and sit down at a villager’s home (near his constituency of Amethi) and eat puri-sabzi while NDTV and CNN-IBN report his every move as “Breaking News”. His staged humility is a sham!

Both Sonia and Rahul have dubious education records. However, Rahul takes the prize for the worst Gandhi as he is also an alleged rapist. If India elects Rahul Gandhi as its next PM, then nothing can save the country from pure and utter disaster. Also, what message will India be sending to the world if it elects an uneducated and alleged rapist to the posting of PM?

To sum up, the culture of failing the Indian people has been well preserved by Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul. One doesn’t even feel like wasting one’s time by discussing the endless list of failures that are attributed to these people. Let us now focus on the social, economic and political malaises that India suffers due to the aggregated efforts of the Nehru-Gandhi clan.

Thank you, Congress! You created the vote bank Beast!

Reservations

It is without doubt that reservation has helped the scheduled castes and tribes (SCST) ameliorate their social status – albeit at a snail’s pace. But there are some real positives that we should focus on: India has had an SCST President, Chief Justice, and female Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh (the most populous state). So to an extent, India’s affirmative action project has been working. However, the sticky point is where there are other groups which desire reservations including: Brahmins (the poor ones), poor Hindus of other castes, Muslims, and Christians. These groups have also had the desire to derive some utility from the reservation system so that they could also land public jobs and send their children to IIMs and IITs to be competitive in the Indian market. However, countless governments on both ends of the political spectrum have been able to accomplish nothing for these unfortunate groups. There has been campaign promise rhetoric here and there by tyrants like Mayawati, but that holds no value unless some changes are made.

What the Hajj?

‘The Law of Double Standards’ is my term for the Congress Party’s special treatment given to our fellow Indian sisters and brothers of the Islamic faith. By special treatment, I mean that our Muslim sisters and brothers have huge, government sponsored subsidies which support and encourage them to go on their Hajj pilgrimages (to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina). Conversely, there are no such luxuries for Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Hindus of India. India bends over backwards to protect only one group’s religious identity. I am sure that all jurists who are truly secular would not let any such luxury be enjoyed by any religious community. Also, these same jurists should also believe that there is no room for Sharia law in India’s legal system. All Indians should have to go through the same processes in order to file for divorce etc. I hold all political parties which have ever governed India responsible for this. It does not matter if we are talking of Congress or the BJP. The entire political spectrum is guilty of this double standard.

Biased Indian Media

Media Bias

If there is the Congress Party in the political realm, then its propaganda wing consists of most of the media outlets in the country. All leading news agencies are guilty of pro-Congress rhetoric. I will lash out on one specific individual who stands out the most. I must admit my endless disdain for the likes of Barkha Dutt and her Congress-biased colleagues in print and TV media. Barkha Dutt’s crocodile tears at the suffering of Hindu groups are not only wretched but quite comical. Ms Dutt will openly cry genuine tears of sorrow for the pain and suffering of our Muslim sisters and brothers in India and across India’s borders. Ms Dutt is also more pro-Kashmiri independence than the Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Sajjad Lone, Sheikh+Farooq+Omar Abdullah, and Syed Geelani combined! If I was Ms. Dutt’s career advisor, then I’d advise her to join hands with fellow sell-out Arundhati Roy to completely liquidate India’s borders!

The Scams

I won’t even elaborate on the exact details of the following scams. The list is actually much larger, but please have a quick peek at the table to get an idea of some of the high profile scams perpetrated by the Nehru-Gandhi clan and its minions.

• Jeep 1947
• ISRO spectrum Scam, Coal Scam and 3G scam
• Bofors
• Adarsh
• CWG
• IPL
• 2G
• Various Land Scams
• Rajiv Gandhi Trust

Disaster

India’s economy is growing at a fast rate and the demographics of the country are promising. However, corruption, lousy infrastructure, and poor governance are all great reasons for concern! Failure to plug these holes may pose the risk of devastating the country. You can thank the Nehru-Gandhi Clan + Congress for the majority of this mess. However, there is a way out.

A homeless young boy waves the Indian flag

Solutions

The first step to improving from the status quo is awareness. I’m not so sure if all Indians are aware of what is truly going on in the country. Media subversion (funded by Congress and its industrialist friends) has played a very negative role in misinforming the public. Alternative media must be further nurtured by the civil society to fight this subversion! It is fast, cheap, democratic, and self-policing. It will be the game changer!

Solutions to India’s problems will only be formulated and executed when the entire population of India knows about the current state of affairs and feels that enough is enough. A collective effort is needed to bring about positive and sustainable change in the Motherland. I would like to offer some food for thought and action:

Mahatma Gandhi gave his grandson, Arun Gandhi, a list of the Seven Blunders of the World that lead to violence. Arun Gandhi added his own idea to the list. Steven W. Gilbert has added four more blunders to the list which focus on teaching, learning, and technology. I’ve added some names beside each blunder (in the Indian context). You be the judge and decide whether my opinions carry any merit or not.

1. Wealth without work [Mahatma Gandhi]  –> Robert Vadra became a billionaire due to Sonia Gandhi’s connections (there are more cases but let us stick to one for now).
2. Pleasure without conscience [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Jawaharlal Nehru (womanizer), Rahul Gandhi (alleged rapist).
3. Knowledge without character [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Manmohan Singh (what use is your education when you have no spine to make decisions?).
4. Commerce without morality [Mahatma Gandhi] –> 2G and CWG Scandals (in recent times). Let us not forget Natwar Singh’s payoffs in the Iraq oil-for-food program!
5. Science without humanity [Mahatma Gandhi] –> Montek Singh Ahluwalia who is lobbying for Monsanto and European/American Pharmaceutical firms to destroy India’s food supply and affordable access to medication!
6. Worship without sacrifice [Mahatma Gandhi] –> All the vote bank seeking politicians who simply pay lip service to communities but are not true to their word.
7. Politics without principle [Mahatma Gandhi] –> P.Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Amar Singh, Salman Khurshid, Digvijay Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi (let’s stick to contemporary politicians only – or else the list will never end).
8. Rights without responsibilities [Arun Gandhi] –> The Apathetic voters who don’t stand up to corruption and tyranny but who complain that their lives are destroyed.
9. Technology without direction [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Nandan Nilekani’s UIDAI government venture has ballooned from Rs 3,023 crore to Rs 17,863 as Nilekani wants to increase his biometric capture mandate. Hmmm, this sounds like a typical consulting engagement which was agreed at one rate and then finalized at a rate which is grossly over budget. It builds dependence of the client on to the consultancy. Typical business model!
10. Connection without community [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Political or business leaders may have Social Media followers or may meet the common man or woman at a face-to-face public event, but that does not translate into true community building. Need I offer examples? I think not.
11. Teaching without joy [Steven W. Gilbert] –> Education is no longer a noble profession in India and elsewhere. It is simply a business! Not to discount the noble educators in the country.
12. Learning without hope [Steven W. Gilbert] –> All of those young students who are working so hard but feel that they have no future due to reservations, corruption, slow job creation, nepotism, and a lack of meritocracy in India!

With that, I sign off wishing you all peace, health, righteousness, self-awareness, and endless resolve to clean up the homeland and the world!

Your humble servant,

Abhaya Shanker Dube

Youth protesting for human rights treatment of Kashmiri (Hindu) Pandits who were pushed out of Kashmir by Islamic extremists

By Abhaya Shanker Dube

Note: The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the writer only. The writer is a Hindu who wishes no ill will upon any community. The writer would also like to express his sincere sympathy towards the victims of communal/targeted violence (in all of its forms) and would also like to express unlimited condemnation towards those who indulge in communal/targeted violence. The author is a student and follower of restorative justice. Also note that the terms ‘bill’ and ‘act’ (as used in definitions) are sometimes used interchangeably.

India’s secular fabric is at risk. Despite the small and yet-to-be materialized and executed victory of Indians in the fight to pass the Jan Lokpal bill (anti-corruption ombudsman), there is one truly disturbing bill that the Hindu community must watch out for. The Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence bill (the bill) is getting closer to being passed. The bill is well-intentioned in name only. In this paper, I seek to raise the issues of unfairness and ambiguity – as this proposed bill is littered with such faults. If one is to read the bill line-by-line, then one finds that the bill is completely one-sided. I present a humble attempt to dissect the key concerns of Hindus regarding this bill.

Problematic Definitions & Institutions

The bill defines those who are victimized as:

the ‘group’ where group means a religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within the meaning of clauses (24) and    (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution of India.

What is one to take away from this definition? The way it reads, the bill is simply stating that communal and targeted violence is only perpetrated by a majority community upon a minority community. A member or members of a majority community can never be victims! If identical offences were committed by minority groups against the majority, then they would not be deemed offences according to this bill. In addition, the definition of ‘group’ in its current form opens the door to many different interpretations of who all are eligible. Is communal violence a one-sided affair? Aren’t their retaliatory actions perpetrated as well? Isn’t it possible that minority groups may also instigate and perpetrate communal and targeted violence towards other groups?

Let us go deeper into the analysis by defining the term ‘victim’ as per the bill:

a ‘victim’ means any person belonging to a group as defined under this Act, who has suffered  physical, mental, psychological or monetary harm or harm to his or her property as a result of the     commission of any offence under this Act, and includes his or her relatives, legal guardian and legal heirs, wherever appropriate.

Once again, this definition further enhances my suspicion that this bill limits the scope of victimhood to members of minority communities only. A perfect example of how there is an anti-majority bias in this bill is found in Clause 7 which states that a person is said to commit a sexual assault offence against a person belonging to a ‘group’ by virtue of that person’s membership of a group. This clearly implies that a sexual assault is only considered an offence under this bill if it is perpetrated by a member of the majority community. How is this fair? What about the reverse situation? The Clause in its present form is a slap in the face to all victims of sexual assault as it ranks the level of severity based on the community/group that the victim belongs to. Sexual assault is an inhuman act which cannot be taken lightly.

Another concern that I have is that the bill aims to form a new level of redundant and wasteful bureaucracy which will grab away law and order powers from the States. The bill aims to set up the National Authority for Communal Harmony, Justice and Reparation (a seven member panel) to exercise the powers and perform the functions assigned to it under this bill. The composition of the authority is defined by the bill below:

The National Authority shall consist of a Chairperson, a Vice-Chair-person and five other Members. Provided that, at all times, not less than four Members, including the Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson, shall belong to a group as defined under this Act. Provided further that, at all times, there shall be – 1. One Member belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes; 2. Four women, whether Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson or Member.

On top of the National Authority, a State Authority will be set up in each state. The size and composition of the State Authority will perfectly mirror the National Authority. The potential risks of having the new National and State Authorities will be discussed in the section on risks.

Criticisms of this bill have come from many directions. One of the leading voices has been Arun Jaitley of the BJP. Jaitley has argued: “law and order are squarely in the hands of the State”. Then why must a Central Government agency handle a State’s law and order issues? Doesn’t that compromise and usurp the jurisdictional privileges of the state? What message are we sending to State governments regarding communal violence? That they are incompetent and are not qualified or honest enough to handle the problem? The Central government cannot become too powerful. That is a recipe for disaster. History has taught us how an overly powerful center can have very negative and destructive consequences.

Double Standards?

If we talk of communal and targeted violence and justice for victims, then our dear and unfortunate Kashmiri Pandits/Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs are not guaranteed safety by this bill. The bill extends to the whole of India. But it will only extend to the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) if the State grants consent to the Central government. Many may argue that since J&K has special status in India, that it goes without saying that this bill would be voluntary for the State. However, it is also very convenient that the only State which has such an option is also a Hindu minority State.

While reading numerous articles regarding this bill, I came across a truly disturbing double standard. When faced with the question of how this bill would treat a situation in which a Muslim group were to attack a Hindu group (where Hindus are in minority), Justice M S Liberhan (of Ayodhya Commission fame) replies “the law can be amended later to accommodate them (the Hindus)”. Why can’t this bill accommodate Hindus to begin with? Why must Hindus be victimized first and then be granted the right to be accommodated by this bill? Does anyone remember J&K and what happened there? We’ve already had our Hindu brethren victimized in places where they were in minority. We do not even need a legal precedent in order to strengthen the case for having Hindus accommodated in this bill. Yet, our legislators would prefer their tyrannical bill as it is. What message is the Central government sending to India’s Hindu population? Also, just imagine hypothetically how horrible a scenario we could have if J&K’s government decides not to enforce the bill in its jurisdiction and sponsors violence against its Hindu minority! What safety net is there for the Kashmiri Hindus? I can only see vulnerability and the mouths of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, and other terrorist groups watering.

Risks

I certainly believe that the imposition of this bill may create many risks. I’ve already discussed how this bill does not accommodate Hindus. However, in the event of communal or targeted violence perpetrated by members of the majority community, would the perpetrators have the right to a fair and unbiased trial? The way I read the bill suggests that the seven-person National and State Authorities will be predominantly composed of women and members of the ‘groups’ as defined in this bill. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having women or members of the ‘groups’ as the authorities in this bureaucracy, but one may argue that this creates a serious judgment bias. How can we guarantee the neutrality and fairness of judgment of these members of the panel? There is not a single line in this bill which discusses this area of concern.

Secondly, a truly major risk that I see from this bill is that it may provide terrorist and secessionist groups (like the Naxals) with ample scope to operate their businesses under the shelter and auspices of this bill. It is worth mentioning that Sundeep Waslekar (President, Strategic Foresight Group) wrote a fine article on Forbes India (August 2011) which neatly laid out the misconceptions about terrorist groups and their abilities. Waslekar argues that terrorist groups are very well organized, politically savvy, and are shrewd business people. They are always looking for new revenue sources and the way I see it, communal and targeted violence is the next source of growth for them (given that this bill may soon pass). The consequences of terrorist infiltration in to communal issues can be absolutely devastating for the future ofIndia. The worst part is that this bill provides loopholes for these trouble creators to operate and not even be pursued.

Lastly, the secular fabric of India will be ravaged by this bill. I do not foresee future communal harmony in the light of such a backward, anti-progressive, and draconian bill. Heaven forbid that another large-scale act of communal/targeted violence was to occur after the successful passing of this bill. Every step of the process of seeking justice would create even more conflict and carnage. Just the thought of what we may have in store for us is a scary one. I can go on to list many more risks and criticisms about this bill but what is important is to focus on the fact that the bill exhibits inequality and unfairness – both of which go against the very nature of law.

A Sincere Appeal

I want to make some concluding remarks which may or may not sit well with some. This bill reeks of political and judicial revenge against the majority Hindu community of India, post-Gujarat riots. Laws should not be made in order to take revenge on certain groups. Also, retributive justice is a vicious cycle. Restorative justice gives us a chance to try and live together and heal each other’s wounds. Why can’t our legislators in India understand this? India has more laws than it can handle and enforce. The goal of all legislators should be to help enforce the laws that exist and amend them when need be. Simply adding one more level of bureaucracy will not prove to be a solution for the communal and targeted violence problem of India.

I do not seek to influence the thinking of others and so I urge you all to read the draft bill and its numerous criticisms from a wide spectrum of community groups. Formulate your own opinions about this bill and fight to either support this bill, negotiate fair amendments, or fight to have it dismissed. It is the civic duty of all Indians, and all Hindus to be responsible citizens of the land. It is also a civic duty of all Hindu NRIs to lobby from wherever they are to pressure the Indian government to legislate responsibly.

We live in the 21^st century and we pride ourselves as hailing from the world’s largest secular democracy. But I argue that this democracy is becoming a draconian and anti-progressive system of hyper-appeasement and inter-caste/inter-community retribution. This bill will usurp the powers of the States and it will create a wasteful new layer of bureaucracy to an already over-burdened judicial system. This anti-communal violence bill will only create more unrest and resentment between the various communities of India as it considers communal violence as an act perpetrated only by a majority community on a minority community. It will also incentivize terrorists, Naxalites, and corrupt politicians to infiltrate minority groups in order to stir up trouble. Where a terrorist attack may kill some people and strike fear in others, a pre-meditated communal violence incitement can have larger, longer-lasting collateral damage. We can’t give the enemies of India this golden opportunity!