South Asia Citizens Web

Audio recording of public lecture by Prof. Daniel Klingensmith on 28th April, 2014 at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi.

These brazen acts of violence by both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalist parties, within the protective umbrella of the police, are horrifying and must be strongly condemned. These parties are breeding an inhumane culture of intolerance in the name of religion and corrupting the law and order system.These incidents provide a glimpse of the hatred, disorder and deteriorated law & order situation that will be the order of the day when these parties come into power.

Election time is season for Manifestoes of major political parties participating in the poll. Manifestoes are seen by some members of the public with cynicism and disinterest as they are observed more in breach by the party voted to power and major promises forgotten. When BSP was voted to power in UP, they did not have a manifesto and in any case given the levels of literacy, how many members of the electorates bother to read manifestoes of the parties is a good question. Large sections of voters in India go more by oral promises of the candidates contesting elections, some vote on consideration of caste, ethnicity, language and religious community, others vote on the basis of local constituency level issues and popularity of the candidate contesting.

Modi, BJP Prime Ministerial candidate is rushing through the country projecting Gujarat development model which he claims will be applied on All India level so as to make India as one of the envious countries of the world. It is a different matter that many credible critics like Peoples Union for Civil Liberties a Human Right Organization “founded by Jaya Prakesh Narayan during Emergency 1975” has published a book Truth on Gujarat development, which shows all these claims to be false. But when Modi invokes God to his support in the elections, as he did recently by saying “that he has been chosen by God to rescue the country…..that God chooses certain people to do the difficult work and he believes God has chosen me for this work”, is a statement that violates every teaching and tradition of Hinduism.

Even the High Court’s rejection of bail for the workers indicates that their fate is linked to the desire to keep attracting foreign industrial investment to the state.