RSS Identifies Enemy: Ecosystem Of Islamists, Evangelists, Cultural Marxists, Academics, Tech Giants; Why Vir Das is in Hindutva’s Crosshairs
ED director’s term extended despite court order, Karnataka to deduct a day’s pay for gaushalas, Rajiv Gandhi convicts’ release order inspires godman, UGC locates birth of Indian democracy in Vedic age
A newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas | Contributors: MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, Sushant Singh and Tanweer Alam | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal
Are you new to The India Cable or getting by with just the truncated newsletter? Once a week, we relax our paywall so non-subscribers can see for themselves the value of paying Rs 200/month (or Rs 2000/year) to get the most definitive daily picture of India in their inbox every day.
We are a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Snapshot of the day
November 18, 2022
Pratik Kanjilal
A Varanasi Fast Track Court yesterday dismissed the Anjuman Islamia Masjid committee’s plea challenging the maintainability of a suit to hand over possession of the Gyanvapi Mosque premises to Hindus for worship. The court will hear the petition on December 2. The court essentially ruled that the 1991 law prohibiting the conversion of places of worship will not be a bar to the suit.
Ending an era, Farooq Abdullah will step down as chief of the National Conference due to health reasons, following organisational elections on December 5.
In a significant order, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has restrained the state government from moving against any contraventions of Section 10 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021, which requires a person desiring to convert to give a declaration to the District Magistrate. Holding it as prima facie unconstitutional, Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Prakash Chandra Gupta further directed the state to not prosecute adults marrying of their own volition.
The National Investigation Agency seeks to vacate the Supreme Court order permitting Gautam Navlakha to be moved from Taloja Jail. It says that the medical reports on which the Court relied to grant him relief, are biased ― they were prepared by Jaslok Hospital, where the main doctor is Navlakha’s brother-in-law Dr S Kothari. Navlakha has also moved the Supreme Court alleging that the NIA did not comply with its direction to inspect the location of house arrest within 48 hours. Both the applications are listed for today before the bench led by Justice KM Joseph.
In his quest to reach a $1 trillion (Rs 81.7 lakh crore) valuation, Gautam Adani has found a backer in LIC. Over the past two years, LIC has invested Rs 78,220 crore in five of the seven listed Adani companies, 4.9 times more than mutual funds. While the mutual fund industry hesitates to invest in the Adani group, LIC has no qualms, giving it the heft to raise more capital.
The COP27 draft text has omitted India’s proposal of phasing down all fossil fuels. The text also doesn’t mention a timeline or contours for loss and damage finance. Nearly the same language was used in the Glasgow Climate deal last year. A spokesperson of the Environment Ministry said the Indian negotiators do not wish to comment “as negotiations are going on”, reports PTI.
Free trade agreements being negotiated by India with the UK, the EU, and Canada may not amount to much because their import tariffs are already low, according to the report titled ‘FTAs: Fabulous, Futile, or Flawed?’ Things are likely to move along the lines of India’s existing FTAs with Japan, South Korea and ASEAN, under which India’s trade deficit grew faster than the rate in its open global trade.
RSS joint general secretary Arun Kumar has termed the “ecosystem of Islamists, evangelists, cultural Marxists and tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter” as India’s major challenge. Speaking in the presence of Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar at an event organised by RSS affiliate Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, Kumar, who is also coordinator between the BJP and the RSS, said these forces were collaborating to “prevent the rejuvenation of nationalist thought which they considered a threat as the world rapidly embraced Indian spiritualism and philosophy”. He described the “collaboration of academics, media and global tech giants as the second ecosystem the country must break”. Thirdly, stakeholders must conquer the “ecosystem of Islamists, evangelists, global capitalists and cultural Marxists who have their strength in academics and world institutions”.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) wants all institutions to conduct lectures on ‘India: The Mother of Democracy’ on Constitution Day, November 26, to push the idea that democracy was prevalent in the region since the time of the Vedas. It has provided 15 themes on which universities can hold lectures, among which are the “concept of the ‘ideal king (rajarsi or seer king or philosopher king)’ according to Kautilya as well as Bhagavad Gita, India’s ‘loktantra’ (self-governance), Harappans as the pioneering architect of the democratic system in the world, as well as khap panchayats and their ‘democratic traditions’”.
Senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, whose appointment as a judge has been stalled since 2017, has said that he believed the reason was his sexual orientation. Delays in judges’ appointments earned the disapproval of the Supreme Court this week. “I don’t think the government necessarily wants to appoint an openly gay person to the bench,” Kirpal said.
Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has agreed to list a writ petition to reconsider the collegium system. The petition seeks the revival of the National Judicial Appointments Commission or NJAC, struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.
“Will Mr Chandrachud stand more firmly against Mr Modi and his henchmen? His record also suggests he might not”, writes The Economist. “In 2019 he went along with a ruling that awarded the land in Ayodhya where, in 1992, Hindu extremists had demolished a mosque, to a trust intending to build a Hindu temple on the site. And Mr Chandrachud’s response last week to an attack by the justice minister on the “opaqueness” of judicial appointments sounded oddly conciliatory. Upholding the integrity of the court against such bullying requires more than espousing liberal values. It demands a willingness to defend them.”
Core retail inflation rose from 6.3% in September to 6.5% in October even as the overall rate of price rise eased from 7.41% to 6.77%, indicating price pressures will sustain longer than expected. The rate of core price rise has been over 5% for over two years and remained over 6% for five months till October. Core inflation refers to the rate of price rise in non-food and non-fuel items, which are less volatile. It is difficult to bring down inflation if the core part remains elevated.
SoftBank sold $200 million worth of shares in the parent of Paytm, One97 Communications. The stock fell more than 70% since its November 2021 listing, which raised more than $2 billion. Early investor SoftBank sold 4.5% yesterday after a one-year lock-in period expired, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Digital KYC verification is booming, and an open secret in the industry is that many store and sell the data. Several officials admit this is rampant and considered “normal”. There is now talk of new guidelines for the industry. The Digital Data Protection Bill draft has just been made public for discussion and comments by the public. [PDF]
Electoral bonds worth Rs 10,246 crore have been sold by SBI since they were launched in March 2018. In an RTI reply to Chandra Shekhar Gaur, SBI said less than 10% were of lower denominations (0.25% of value) ― Rs 10 lakh, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10,000 and Rs 1,000. About 93.5% were worth Rs 1 crore.
Meta has appointed Sandhya Devanathan Vice President of Meta India, in place of Ajit Mohan, who resigned early this month.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha will hold nationwide marches to Raj Bhawans on November 26, alleging breach of assurance by the Centre on farmers’ pending demands, the organisation announced yesterday.
In February 2019, the government was boasting about running India’s first semi-high speed train, capable of 160-200 kmph. But the latest Vande Bharat train between Chennai and Mysuru, launched by Modi, has an average speed of 75-78 kmph, compared with an average speed of 95 kmph for the first train between New Delhi and Varanasi. Not a great track record.
Indian drums and Argentina fans greet Messi’s arrival for the World Cup in Qatar. A crowd of more than 500 that had waited until nearly 4 am to see the arrival of their heroes was split evenly between Argentina’s Indian fans and those from Argentina.
ED director’s term extended again
The Modi government has once again extended the tenure of ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra by one year, with pleas challenging his earlier extension still pending before the Supreme Court. Mishra was first appointed ED director for two years on November 19, 2018. He was to demit office in November, 2020, having reached the retirement age of 60 in May, but remains in harness despite a Supreme Court order forbidding further extensions. In the interim, his term had been increased to this day, via two ordinances.
While granting bail to Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut on November 9, a Mumbai court made scathing remarks about the Enforcement Directorate, accusing the agency of making selective arrests. The court also noted that the ED is quick to arrest and slow to prosecute. It noted that, in the last decade, since the special court was created for Prevention of Money Laundering Act trials, the agency had not been able to conclude a single trial.
Rajiv Gandhi convicts’ release order inspires godman
The Centre has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against the November 11 order allowing the early release of all convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, which is an inspiration to self-styled godman Shraddhananda, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife Shakereh Namazi. He has moved the Supreme Court seeking release from prison. Alleging a violation of the right to equality, Shraddhananda said he has already spent over 29 years in jail without a day’s parole. “The petitioner was involved in only one criminal case and not released for a single day parole, and on other hand, those accused in the assassination of the ex-prime minister enjoyed every benefit including remission/parole,” the plea submitted.
Exports to stay muted till mid-2023
India’s exports will not rebound before the middle of 2023 given the weakness in global demand, says Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI). “Not in the coming months, certainly not before mid-2023 … but it’s just too soon to tell because our leading indexes don’t yet see any light at the end of the global recession tunnel,” Achuthan told Moneycontrol. In October, top IMF economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas warned that “the worst is yet to come and, for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession”.
India’s merchandise exports contracted 17% last month from a year ago to $29.78 billion. It was the first time since February 2021 that monthly exports had fallen below the $30-billion mark and declined on an annual basis. Growth has already started to slow, with GDP growing by 13.5% in April-June – well below economists’ expectations of 15% and the RBI’s own forecast of 16.2%. The rupee has been battered for 10 months and the RBI has failed to meet its inflation mandate.
Karnataka to deduct a day’s pay for gaushalas
The Karnataka government issued an order on Wednesday permitting the deduction of one day’s salary of government employees to fund its Punyakoti Dattu Yojana for gaushalas about Rs 100 crore. It was initially described as voluntary, but employees who don’t wish to contribute must apply in writing by November 25.
Group-D employees are not required to participate in the programme, however, Group-A employees must pay Rs 11,000, Group-B Rs 4,000 and Group-C Rs 400, and Group-D is exempt. Punyakoti Dattu Yojana was launched by the state government in July to encourage citizens to adopt cattle.
The Long Cable
Why Comedian Vir Das is in Hindutva’s crosshairs
Sidharth Bhatia
Stand up comic Vir Das, who had held several shows in the last few years without any trouble or controversy, is now facing the same problems as his peers — his shows are being cancelled at the last moment. The reason is also familiar — the performances would hurt “religious sentiments”.
Das is not known for causing offence to any religious group, but the right-wing Hindu Janajagruthi Vedike in Bengaluru has complained to the police. Clearly, this body has enough clout to make the organisers of his show develop cold feet.
Immediately after, Das was invited to Kolkata by the Trinamool Congress – no doubt wanting to showcase its commitment to free speech ― where he regaled a packed house. But then, Das’s show ran into trouble again, in Hyderabad. After complaints by Hindu Sanghathan Ekta Manch, the organisers decided to pull the show.
Why is Das suddenly the target of ‘Hindu’ groups? Their ire goes back to his hugely successful performance in the US where he spoke of ‘two Indias’, listing the contradictions of what Indians say and what they do. A sample: “I come from an India where we take pride in being vegetarians and yet run over the farmers who grow our vegetables.” Not particularly funny as jokes go, but sharp satire born out of angst. Another one pointed out that India, a country of young people, is ruled by 75-year-olds, which could be an indictment of the ruling party.
The particular line that angered these groups: “I come from an India where we worship women during the day and gang rape them at night.” This, they claim, insults India, and worse, he said it in a foreign country.
In a globalised world, don’t people living in the US or elsewhere read such stories in their own media? So what was new in what Das told them? But logic is obviously not a strong suit among these groups. They want him to apologise, an absurd demand because they have no locus standi. And if he does, will they stop? Hardly, because having tasted blood, they will become more brazen.
The dramatic rise of obscure and peripheral groups claiming to represent Hindus and their culture – defined in the narrowest terms – is a significant feature of the last few years. The BJP’s rise to power and its aggressive espousal of Hindutva has encouraged tiny outfits which have begun to throw their weight around. More often than not, the state machinery – the police, the local administration, even the state government – tacitly or openly back them.
Munawar Faruqui was arrested and thrown into jail because Eklavya Gaur, the son of Malini Gaur, a BJP MLA in Madhya Pradesh, complained to the police that he was joking about Hindu deities. Without any evidence, the police took Faruqui into custody and later said it was the comedian’s ‘intent’ to crack jokes against Hindu gods. During a bail hearing, the judge said that “such people must not be spared”. The farce continued till the Supreme Court finally granted him bail, but not before he had spent a month or so in jail.
There is also a not-so-subtle conflation of the Hindu religion with the nation itself. This is a long-held mantra of the RSS ― the ideological fount of not just the BJP but also these freelance outfits that have mushroomed all over ― which has always said that all Indians are fundamentally Hindus. Just this week, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat reiterated this view. He sounds reasonable and accommodating, saying that people are free to practise their own rituals and food habits, but it undermines not just Muslims or Christians, but also millions of tribals and smaller communities which follow their own religious beliefs, which may not be ‘Hindu’ in the Hindutva mould.
The Vedikes and Manches that have proliferated get the message and enforce it. Shutting down all those who ‘insult’ is part of that enforcement. Das’s jokes in his US tour talked about the vulnerability of women in a country that claimed to respect women — that was enough to provoke these outfits, which saw it as an affront to the Bharatiya Nari, the ideal Indian woman of Hindutva mythology. Instead of thinking why women feel unsafe in India or debating the issue with him, they chose to shut him down. Reasonable argument lost, intolerance won.
Vir Das is now in their crosshairs and they have succeeded in creating an atmosphere where organisers will hesitate to offer him a show. The fear of goons disturbing the event will be very much present and the local administration is not expected to be very helpful, freedom of speech be damned.
Reportedly
Earlier this week, the Uttarakhand government moved swiftly to revoke the ban announced by the Uttarakhand Ayurveda and Unani Licensing Authority on the production of five products of yoga guru Baba Ramdev. A fresh order states that the previous order has been ‘amended’. According to Uttarakhand drug regulator Dr GCN Jangapangi, it was issued in haste and the company should have been given time to explain. But it is being forgotten that besides the state authority, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), had also taken a firm view on advertisements of these products. But if the manufacturer happens to be close to the current political dispensation in the state and, more importantly, at the Centre, it is easy to blame a bungling babu.
Prime Number: Rs 28,400.60 crore
Till October, Rs 60,300.70 crore has been approved as additional loans to states as part of the central government’s capital expenditure scheme, according to Ministry of Finance data. Yet, only Rs 28,400.6 crore has been released so far. Rs 1 lakh crore worth of interest-free loans for the states, with very rigid conditionalities, were announced in the last Union budget. Many states including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana have thus not budgeted any spending under the capex loan scheme.
Deep Dive
From food to gadgets to sports, rest of world explores how the business empire of one of the world’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani, touches the everyday lives of millions in India.
Op Eds you don’t want to miss
“The lack of awareness about the complex nature of abuse, and the ability of abusers to gaslight and manipulate victims is reflected in the communal angle being given to the crime,” writes Isha Singh in a powerful piece on the Shaddha Walkar murder case, ‘Stop Asking Why She Did Not Leave’.
Asim Ali writes that it is important for independent institutions (such as the Election Commission and the Supreme Court) to step in with minimum institutional safeguards for electoral bonds.
Caught between a deeply religious citizenry and a religion-driven polity, secularism is facing threat both as an ideal and as a practice, writes Ashutosh Bhardwaj.
The EWS quota is a major step towards forgetting, by official decree, that caste is one of the main sources of injustice in India, writes Ankit Kawade.
Will allowing foreign tech companies to invest directly in manufacturing bolster India’s electronic manufacturing industry or provide greater security to Chinese companies, asks Kamala Thiagarajan.
Murali Krishnan writes that the statement recently made by former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit regarding how the GN Saibaba case was listed before the Supreme Court on a Saturday seems to have deepened the mystery.
The fast-paced rise in inflation of essentials will hurt the poor the most. The burden of corrective steps should be on fiscal policy and we need transfers not just to shield the vulnerable but also to stop already weak demand from weakening further, writes Himanshu.
What will the Bharat Jodo yatra achieve electorally? That’s not its point, writes Navika Harshe.
Shalin Maria Lawrence writes that it is important that the state considers manual scavenging deaths a criminal offence rather than an issue-based event.
“The Gujarati middle class… has become Hindutva-ised. By Hindutva-ised, I mean the middle class has become Hindu fundamentalist. For them, it is also a matter of importance to them that two of their own — Narendra Modi and Amit Shah — are calling the shots at the Centre,” says Achyut Yagnik.
Mainstream cinema’s rising interest in stories of domestic violence, and the acclaim many of these films have enjoyed, show that the audience too has evolved, writes Sowmya Rajendran.
Listen Up
Modi and Xi may have shaken hands, but Manoj Joshi explains why talks between India and China on the border dispute aren’t going anywhere and why China’s happy to keep India guessing.
Watch Out
Actors Neena Gupta and Sarika speak about their work, their dreams, their daughters and more.
Over and Out
Mongabay says that invasive species are blooming in India despite climate change.
Rock art symbols could point to the arrival of humans in the Nilgiris at the end of the last Ice Age.
At No 15 on the New York Times list of 25 travel experiences you must have is the architectural syncretism in South India’s Deccan Plateau, “a tradition that contemporary politics increasingly — and tragically — aims to erase.”
That's it for today. We'll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.
will you kindly talk some sense into the people who design your payment system