The Three New Techniques of Forming Governments in India

 

The Three New Techniques of Forming Governments in India

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Elections and party politics are perhaps a new phenomenon in the world, and one which came into existence only in the last few centuries. In India, although we have had party elections even before 1947 − indeed the party and electoral politics of the pre-1947 years (of the Congress, Communist, Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim League, etc.) laid the basic foundations of post-1947 party and electoral politics in the subcontinent − it is the "evolution" of electoral politics from these basic foundations in the post-1947 period that is intriguing and mind-boggling: from parties of all kinds (parties breaking-up into multiple pieces and reuniting, often temporarily, in different combinations), to caste politics (caste-based parties, reservations, caste-coalitions, etc.), to booth-capturing, to gangsters and bahubalis fighting elections from prison, to dynastic politics, to election engineering (forcing the main opponent to withdraw at the last minute, putting up multiple Independent candidates with names similar to that of the main opponent, etc.), India alone seems to have seen every shade of dubious or dirty electoral politics.

If we examine the electoral history of various European and American nations, of Communist countries, and of other "Third World" countries of Asia and Africa, we will see even more unbelievable kinds of political tactics, techniques and strategies being employed by different politicians in their quest for power.

The three main objectives are:

1. To influence voters to get votes.

2. To win seats to form the government.

3. To form the government, with or without a majority of the seats..

All these things are to be achieved using all possible ways and, by hook or by crook, through pre-election, election-time and post-election strategies.

 

As the saying goes, "there is nothing new under the sun". But, in spite of this fact, I find myself marveling at the new ways that the BJP has devised (perhaps, as a little digging into the past may show, in some cases with some obscure or unremembered past precedents as models) to subvert the electoral process.

The culture of "aya ram, gaya ram" or people jumping from one party to another, and of past foes ganging up together against past friends, is nothing new to Indian politics. What seems to be new is the degree to which these tactics have been fine-tuned and refined to a science or an art by the BJP. They have even given a new official name to this scientific process: it is called "Operation Lotus". In the last decade or so, using various tactics (I will not bother to list here what they are or may be), the BJP has managed to form governments in many states, after failing to win a majority on the basis of counted election results, by engineering defections from the other parties (mainly the Congress), e.g. in Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, etc.

But in the last few months or so, as a preliminary to the presently approaching Lok Sabha Elections 2024, three new techniques have been developed (with the active help of a captive Election Commission) which must be noted to understand what is happening to electoral democracy in India, and to appreciate the highly advanced and futuristic state of Indian electoral politics. They may be called:

1. Operation Split-and-Officialize (Maharashtra).

2. Operation Disqualification (Chandigarh).

3. Operation Uncontested-Victory (Surat).

 

1. Operation Split-and-Officialize (Maharashtra)

The state assembly (Vidhan Sabha) elections took place in Maharashtra in 2019, with the BJP and Shiv Sena aligned on one side (the alliance being called the Maha-yuti) and (mainly) the Congress and NCP on the opposite side (the alliance being called the Maha-aghadi). The results (out of a total of 288 seats in the assembly) were as follows:

Maha-yuti (161):   BJP (105), Shiv Sena (56).

Maha-aghadi: (98):  Congress (44), NCP (54).

Others (29).

 

Clearly, the Maha-yuti had won the polls by a clear majority. But sharp differences developed between the BJP and the Shiv Sena over the issue of Chief-ministership. As a result, the two partners started exploring options of braking the alliance and aligning with one or the other of the other parties to form a government. While the Shiv Sena was unofficially holding talks with NCP leaders in this respect, the BJP tried to execute a "midnight coup", as it had done earlier in the matter of cutting off thousands of trees in the Aarey Complex) by hijacking a section of the NCP. However, this was nipped in the bud, and a government (cutting across the two electoral alliances) was formed between the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP: having a total of 154 seats in the 288-seat assembly (plus of course the usual extras from among the "Other" parties not part of either alliance). This government lasted from 28-11-2019 to 29-6-2022.

On 29-2-2022, a section of the Shiv Sena split from the main party (which was aligned with the Congress and NCP),  and realigned itself with the BJP, and formed a new coalition government consisting of the BJP (105) and the breakaway Shinde Shiv Sena (40 of the original 56 Shiv Sena MLAs).

On 2-7-2023, a section of the NCP split from the main party (which was aligned with the Congress and UBT Shiv Sena),  and realigned itself with the BJP and joined the Maha-yuti government.

 

All this (and there are some more murky things which we will skip) is a sad commentary on Indian politics. But there is nothing new here. What followed was the new part:

Now there were two Shiv Sena parties (led respectively by Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde) both claiming to be the original Shiv Sena, and two NCP parties (led respectively by Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar) both claiming to be the original NCP.

There have been defections and splits in all parties in India throughout the history of electoral politics in Independent India. But whenever a faction split away, howsoever big the leader leading the break, the original name and electoral symbol of the original party have remained with the original party and not with the breakaway leader:

When Indira Gandhi broke away from the Congress in 1969, and formed a new party, her party came to be known as "Congress R" and the original Congress came to be known as "Congress O" (for Old but perhaps also Original). and "Congress O" retained the earlier electoral symbol of a "pair of yoked bullocks", while the "Congress R" was given a new electoral symbol of a "cow and calf".

Again, Indira Gandhi split the party in January 1978, and formed a new part called "Congress I": again her party was allotted a new election symbol: a "hand". Although the party got a landslide victory in 1984, it was only in 1996 that the Election Commission allowed the "I" to be dropped from the name and the party could again be called the "Indian National Congress" (but with the "hand" symbol).

When Sharad Pawar split from the Congress in 1999, he personally founded the NCP or the "Nationalist Congress Party" with a new electoral symbol of a "clock".

The Shiv Sena has seen many defections of groups of leaders or elected MLAs leaving the party. none of them claimed to represent the original party, or claimed the Shiv Sena electoral symbol, a "bow and arrow":

Long ago, in the seventies, a popular leader Bandu Shingre broke away and formed a party called Prati-Shiv-Sena. Later, Chhagan Bhujbal left with a significant group of MLAs a leaders, but he did not claim to represent the "real" Shiv Sena, he just joined the congress.NCP. And so, later, did Narayan Rane and his group of supporters. When a big split took place with Raj Thackeray forming his party the MNS, he neither claimed the name nor the symbol of the Shiv Sena. There have been other genuine splits and defections based on differences, without anyone trying to pirate the name and electoral symbol of the Shiv Sena.

In fact almost every time, anywhere in India, one group or faction has broken away from an existing party, it has taken on a new name and electoral symbol and not tried to claim or usurp the name and symbol of its parent party: whether the countless parties (including the BJP itself) which broke away from the Janata Party formed in 1977, or the CPI(M) which broke away from the CPI, or the MDMK, PMK, AIADAMK, etc. which broke away from the DMK, or the TMC which broke away from the Congress, or the various caste parties which split into smaller ones.

This time, with different tactics (that we will not bother to go into here), the BJP not only split the Shiv Sena and the NCP, but even used a captive Election Commission to declare that the breakaway groups that split from the original parties and joined up with the BJP were the original Shiv Sena and NCP, and to have the name and electoral symbols of both the parties allotted to the two breakaway factions.

This represents a totally new phenomenon in India politics.

 

II. Operation Disqualification (Chandigarh)

A second new and seminally historical technique was introduced and employed by the BJP in the Chandigarh mayor's election. Though it may appear a small and local affair − just a municipal mayoral election after all − it had great significance because of the approaching Lok Sabha elections, the AAP-Congress alliance, and the growing power of the AAP in Punjab and Haryana.

In these mayoral elections which took place in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation on 30-1-2024, the AAP (13 councilors) and Congress (7 councilors) formed an alliance with a majority of 20 in a house of 35 councilors. The BJP had 14 and the Akali Dal 1. Although one vote (a 36th vote) was to be cast by the local MP (of the BJP). It was inevitable that the Congress-AAP candidate Kuldeep Kumar would win over the BJP candidate Manoj Sonkar.

But surprisingly, the AAP-Congress candidate got only 12 votes while the BJP candidate got 16 votes − while 8 votes were declared invalid by the Returning Officer, Anil Massey (interestingly, a Christian convert). The BJP candidate was declared Mayor, and there were all round celebrations by the BJP.

But the bubble burst when it became clear that the Returning Officer was a BJP member, and the 8 votes he declared invalid were all in support of the AAP-Congress candidate. And, for a rare wonder, the whole sordid drama where the Returning Officer invalidated the 8 AAP-Congress votes, including the sly looks directed at the camera by him as he carried out the shady operation, was recorded on tape! This became a national (and even international) news-item and the Supreme Court not only declared the results invalid, and directed that the AAP-Congress candidate should be declared the elected mayor, but also passed strong strictures against the BJP-member Returning Officer who carried out the fraud, and ordered that stringent legal action should be taken against him for his criminal attempt to subvert the electoral process.

This represents a totally new and ultra-brazen technique or "operation" in the history of Indian electoral politics. To my mind it not only shows how much further the ruling party will not hesitate to go when the electoral process is taking place over a voter-base of lakhs of voters spread out over a large area, but even, for the first time, made me realize that the popular charge of critics of the BJP that the EVM machines have a big role in their electoral victories may not be all that completely wrong. Apparently honesty, ethics and scruples have no place in Indian electoral politics today.

 

III. Operation Uncontested-Victory (Surat)

The Lok Sabha elections 2024 are going on, with one phase of voting in 108 seats already over. The counting of votes for all the phases of voting will commence on 4-6-2024. Nearly one and a half months are left for this crucial event. But, amazingly, the result for one seat, Surat in Gujarat, has already been declared: the BJP candidate, Mukesh Dalal, has been declared the winner. And here we get this newest of techniques: the technique of winning a Lok Sabha seat without a single voter in the constituency having cast his or her vote!

There is no doubt whatsoever (to my mind at least) that the BJP would have won this seat anyway in the normal course of things: opinion polls and experts have consistently predicted that the BJP will win every single one of the 26 seats in Gujarat. So what was the need for this new technique to be employed here? Clearly this was basically a preliminary test-case to gauge the efficacy and durability of this technique.

To get down to the facts, there were 11 candidates in the fray: Mukesh Dalal of the BJP and Nilesh Kumbhhani of the Congress (AAP did not put up a candidate of its own despite indications of its increasing influence in Surat, where it had won a number of seats in the municipal elections a year or two ago, since it had agreed to support the Congress candidate), another dummy candidate of the Congress, four candidates from smaller parties, and four Independents. And then the dramas started, personally conducted throughout by the state BJP President, C.R.Patil, who later described the result as his personal tribute for the PM:

The Congress candidate filed his nomination with the Election Commission official alone and unaccompanied by the mandatory proposers to his candidature, and the official accepted the application which itself was unprecedented. The three proposers were not Congress party functionaries, as should normally have been the case, but relatives and business partners of the candidate Nilesh Kumbhani. The dummy Congress candidate  − parties often put up dummy candidates in case the main candidate gets disqualified − Suresh Padsala filed his application with only one proposer, again a relative of Nilesh Kumbhani. All the four proposers for the two Congress candidates then went into hiding within a few hours of the filing of the nominations, but before disappearing they gave written affidavits to the district official as soon as the nominations were filed, stating that their signatures on the applications had been forged. The EC officials forthwith rejected the applications of both the Congress candidates. The other 8 candidates in the fray (4 from smaller parties, and the 4 Independents) also went missing. They were all found to have congregated in the La Meridian hotel at Baroda, and were closeted in a meeting with the BJP state president C.R.Patil, and all these 8 candidates withdrew their nominations for the Surat seat.

Now, the BJP candidate, Mukesh Dalal, was the only candidate left in the fray, and he was declared elected unopposed to the Surat constituency, giving the first victory in this Lok Sabha elections to the BJP, 40 days before the start of counting! Needless to say, the "Congress candidate" Nilesh Kumbhani, is reported to be all set to be welcomed into the BJP.

 

An incredible story. But (apologists will crow) was the Congress party sleeping, or is it completely brainless and stupid? Yes, every time a candidate or party wins any election, the stupidity, or lack of alertness and preparation, of the opponents, always has a part in it. But if that is the only point that apologists will be able to make in order to excuse what happened in Surat, then the prospects in India − for the future of Indian democracy and public morals, and the welfare of the Indian people − are indeed bleak beyond description.

Predictably, supporters of the BJP will be gleeful and triumphant over all these things happening in India. And that is the biggest tragedy.

 

  

 

Raj Thackeray, Ram Mandir and Modi

 

Raj Thackeray, Ram Mandir and Modi

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

In an earlier article, "The Twelve Indian Political Figures I Like, Respect and Admire the Most", I had written:

"By coincidence, six of them are no more with us (and the first of them is in a class by himself in my estimation), and six are still alive (at least I hope the last one is, but I have no means of knowing), and the list, except for the first name in each of the two categories, are not in order of preference:

1. Swatantryaveer Savarkar.

2. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

3. Lal Bahadur Shastri.

4. Balasaheb Thackeray.

5. Balraj Madhok.

6. Hamid Dalwai.

7. Arvind Kejriwal.

8. Manik Sarkar.

9. Raj Thackeray.

10. Arif Mohd. Khan.

11. Dara Singh (of Orissa fame).

12. The unknown, unnamed Sentinelese tribal who shot an arrow and killed the American missionary boy of Chinese origin in November 2018".

 

It is always hazardous to express admiration in writing for politicians (or politically active figures) who are still alive and politically active. I should have learnt from the experience of Arun Shourie, who wrote a book in fulsome praise of Ramnath Goenka, and Madhu Kishwar, who likewise wrote a book in fulsome praise of Narendra Modi, and (although I do not know if they would like to openly admit it, but), both of whom (in my opinion at least) lived to feel some embarrassment over their words. In the above article, I included two names, Arvind Kejriwal and Raj Thackeray, and I have been left a trifle red-faced by subsequent events. In fact, in the case of Arvind Kejriwal, I was forced to write a mea culpa appendix to the article (on 24/3/2022: the actual article was written on 4/9/2021) as follows:

"NOTE added 24/3/2022: If I have made a mistake, I will accept it. In the above article, I have praised Arvind Kejriwal, and written: "Well, I have not as yet seen him do anything much more anti-Hindu and secularist than the Congress or the BJP or any other secularist or "Hindu-when elections-approach" party." Today, by referring to the film The Kashmir Files as a "jhoothi" film in the Delhi assembly, Kejriwal has made me eat my words and made me feel ashamed of myself for the praise I heaped on him in the above article for which I apologize to all Hindus and especially Kashmiri Pandits. Anyone who can deny the massacre of Kashmiri Hindus and the forced migration of 500,000 of them from Kashmir, and vindicate the powerful Leftist lobby which is out to destroy India and which has been exposed in the film, is a very dangerous person for the country. This does not whitewash the multiple sins of the BJP, but it does show that Kejriwal is not an alternative. I am adding this as an addendum rather than making any change in the above article.

In a Hindi film, there was a famous dialogue: "ek macchar aadmi ko hijda bana sakta hai" (one mosquito can make a man into a eunuch). Likewise, "ek shabd aadmi ko hijda sabit kar sakta hai" (one word can prove a man to be eunuch).

All in all (I think I am fairly confident I will not have to eat my words, and eat humble pie, in respect of any of the other names in the above list), it is true that almost all politicians are crooks: "birds of a feather", or as a Marathi phrase puts it: "ekach maleche mani" (beads from the same string), or, most accurately, as an earthy Konkani phrase from Mangalore puts it: "ɛkkā:: lɛṇḍyᾱ: ku:ḍkɛ" (pieces of the same lump of shit)."

 

Yes, it is time to eat my words, and eat humble pie, in respect of the other name as well: Raj Thackeray.

I was an admirer of Raj Thackeray's forthrightness and sharply logical analyses since many years (although the record of his party in respect of physically attacking North Indians, and in extortionism, and his own personal past, in for example the notorious Ramesh Kini case, were not positive factors), but it was his detailed and absolutely unparalleled analytical critiques of the BJP during the 2019 elections which aroused my admiration, and made me list him as one of my favourite present-day political figures. Today those same speeches from 2019 present a study in irony: they show how he has executed a sharp and totally inexplicable u-turn (whether to rescue the sinking ship of his party, or to escape the attacks of the now notorious governmental agencies like ED and IT). I think someone should make an equally detailed analytical critique of those speeches from 2019, and list out in detail the variety of issues on which he had exposed and criticized the BJP in detail and in totally unanswerable ways − in fact he himself would not be able to answer any of them now to explain why those points do not matter anymore and why they do not discredit his complete u-turn. He now completely ignores every single thing he had said at that time on any and every issue, and indulges only in child-like praises of the Great Leader, of the kind which have become a hallmark of the present day culture of political bhakti but are totally out of sync with his own bold and forthright personality.

After keeping observers and analysts guessing as to what exactly he would say in his Gudi Padwa speech at Shivaji Park on 9 April 2024 this year, he finally delivered an ambiguous and uncharacteristically muted speech in which he announced his "bin-shart pathimba" (unconditional support) for the BJP without being allotted a single seat by the BJP in the election. This speech resulted in confusing even his staunchest followers, with some prominent ones leaving the party or openly expressing their dissent, and most others (barring the inevitable blind followers) left clueless as to what exactly had happened or was happening.

 

Let me add here at this point that I still hold Raj Thackeray in great respect for his sharp analytic mind and deeply intelligent vision in many respects. Even as I was writhing in agony at his ignominious "bin-shart pathimba" speech, I came across the following (four-year old) video on youtube, which left me breathless with admiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-27USHlNiEw

 

It is incredible and almost impossible to believe that the man who gave the anti-BJP speeches in 2019, and who made the above video (which is not about electoral politics, but about nation-building in general, as, unfortunately, only a person knowing Marathi will be able to understand since the video is in Marathi), all of which demonstrate his incisive analytical logic, is the same person who called a press-conference on 13 April 2024  to try to stem the currents of dissatisfaction and confusion within his party after his "bin-shart pathimba" speech, by trying to explain why he extended his full support to Modi, and gave the Ayodhya Temple as the main reason for this support. At the very start of this apologetic press conference, he gave his views on this subject, and made two points:

1. That the Ayodhya Temple would never have been completed and inaugurated "so fast" (or perhaps "at all"?) if not for the leadership of Modi.

2. That, because of Modi's completion and inauguration of the temple, the souls of all those martyrs who died in the course of the Ayodhya agitation and (in his own words) whose bodies were to be seen floating on the waters of the Sharayu river at the time, can now rest in peace.

Is it really the incisive-minded Raj Thackeray making these above points?

 

To take the first point:

a) the Ayodhya movement for the restoration of a temple at the site of the Birthplace of Rama has been going on since centuries.

b) In 1857, a "chabutra" (platform) was erected at the spot by unknown Hindus to mark the birthplace.

c) In 1949, unknown Hindu devotees of Ram installed the idol of Rama inside the premises, and subsequently, it became a functional temple once again, although the century old court cases continued.

d) The actual present Ramjanmabhoomi movement and agitation in the nineteen-eighties was started by a group of Hindu Mahasabha and Congress leaders around 1983. The two prominent Congress leaders in the forefront of the movement were Dau Dayal Khanna and Gulzarilal Nanda: the latter, it must be noted, was a minister in the cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, and became temporary acting/interim Prime Minister of India twice: in 1964 after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and in 1966 after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. In the initial years of the movement, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, it was fully backed by the Hindu Mahasabha and some prominent Congress leaders, while the BJP (which had taken on a Secular avatar) was totally aloof from the movement; and it was only when they lost the 1984 elections (winning only 2 seats out of 543) and were on the verge of being wiped out, that the party suddenly (but unofficially) re-transformed itself into a "Hindu" party and was forced to plunge into Hindu/"Hindu" issues like Ayodhya, Bangladeshi infiltrators in Assam, and the Shah Bano judgment.

e) In 1985 (after the results of the 1984 elections), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad launched the Ayodhya movement in full blast all over the country, and it became practically the major agenda for all the affiliate organizations of the RSS.

f) In 1990, the BJP officially and directly entered into the fray, with L.K.Advani's rathayatra. With the killing of the karsewaks in Ayodhya by the U.P government, and the arrest of Advani (on his rathayatra) by the Bihar government, the BJP numbers in the Lok Sabha started shooting up graphically, and the BJP won a majority in the U.P. assembly and formed its government there.

g) The VHP/BJP combine, with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra also fully on board, intensified the agitation. The whole country resounded with the speeches of Ramjanmabhoomi firebrands like Sadhvi Rithambhara and Uma Bharati (who became particular icons perhaps because they represented "nari shakti": I remember my Muslim friends in Bhendi Bazar, all of them undoubtedly Babri Masjid supporters, asking me at the time to bring a cassette of Sadhvi Rithambhara's speeches I had bought at a VHP rally, and, even they were impressed with her rhetoric!)

h) But while the organizers were only interested in holding periodical ritual mass-participation ceremonies all over the country (baan-pooja, paduka-pooja, and the like) at the time of elections to keep up the political tempo, a group of unknown Hindus (including those belonging to all the Hindu organizations involved in the agitation, and many organizationally unaffiliated Hindus) decided to take matters into their own hands and started the process of demolition of the Babri-mosque-structure on 6 December 1993, and all this completely transformed Indian politics for ever. The demolition achieved a fait accompli: now that the most "controversial" part of the restoration of the Ramjanmabhoomi − i.e. the demolition of the existing Islamic structure − was a done fact, it would now always be automatically easier to build a temple on the site rather than to rebuild another Islamic structure, and it would also be easier for judges to give judgments to that effect. And both the opposing sides in the battle knew this very well!

i) What was the result of the demolition? The RSS/BJP leaders who had led the agitation were squirming in their pants at the unexpected event. They never had any intentions of actually replacing the Babri structure with a temple: they only wanted a perennial election issue. LK Advani burst into tears, and called it the saddest day in his life! He did not know what to say to the press which was bombarding him with questions. I was present in Sita Ram Goel's house on that historic day, and in my presence Goel received a phone call from Arun Shourie (who was with Advani) asking him what Advani should say to the press. Sita Ram Goel told him to point out that no-one had made such a hue and cry when a number of prominent temples were destroyed by Islamicists in Kashmir just a few weeks earlier. Within five minutes, Advani and Shourie appeared on TV, and Advani repeated the exact words suggested by Goel!!

j) But there was worse: Sunder Singh Bhandari (a top BJP leader and spokesperson) denied  that any RSS or Sangh Parivar person could have been involved in the demolition, and suggested that it could be the work of Shiv Sainiks! In contrast, Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena immediately declared that if his Shiv Sainiks had demolished the Babri structure, then he was extremely proud of them!

k) After the demolition, while arguments continued in different forums over the decades, elections continued to take place as per their schedules (with the BJP-Shiv Sena making giant strides in electoral successes) with the Ayodhya issue being only an "also-mentioned-if-at-all" issue in elections, and direct activism on the issue came to a halt: the matter now rested with the judiciary. First, the Allahabad High Court judgment in 2010, and then finally the Supreme Court judgment in 2019 confirmed that the site was indeed the site of a Hindu temple to Rama before it was replaced in medieval times by various Islamic structures, and the title of the disputed site was now fully, officially and legally awarded to the deity "Ram Lalla Virajman" for the construction of the temple. So now it was just a matter of time for the temple to be fully constructed and inaugurated, and press reports on the issue were mostly about the progress in its construction.

l) Finally, the inauguration (pran pratishtha) of the temple took place on 22 January 2024. The two dignitaries on the stage performing the rituals were PM Narendra Modi and the RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat (who, only a few months earlier, had publicly admitted that the RSS had never been interested in the Ayodhya issue or wanted to take part in it, but were compelled to do so by political compulsions).

 

From where, in all this, does Raj Thackeray (or, for that matter, do bhakts making the same assertion) derive the idea that "the Ayodhya Temple would never have been completed and inaugurated "so fast" (or perhaps "at all"?) if not for the leadership of Modi"?

"So fast"? Yes indeed. Although the construction was not absolutely completed, the inauguration was definitely speeded up so that it would take place before the 2024 Lok Sabha election − and especially before the code of conduct for the elections became applicable to prevent political capital being made of it by the BJP − after all, the actual festival of Ram Navami was also before the election, but not before the date from which code of conduct would become applicable. And so, yes, it was indeed the BJP leadership (i.e. Modi) who set this "fast" date for its inauguration. Strange that Raj Thackeray should not have been able to see the coincidence: his anti-BJP speeches in 2019 constantly highlighted how "Hindu" issues, riots, and skirmishes with Pakistan always "coincidentally" took place just before elections.

 

And let us take up the second point made by Raj Thackeray, "because of Modi's completion and inauguration of the temple, the souls of all those martyrs who died in the course of the Ayodhya agitation and (in his own words) whose bodies were to be seen floating on the waters of the Sharayu river at the time, can now rest in peace".

Why are the souls of the martyrs supposed to now be able to "rest in peace"? Because Modi (and Bhagwat) usurped all credit for the pran pratishtha ceremony, after having advanced the date of this pran pratishtha to fit in with the elections, which was their only direct contribution in the entire Ayodhya story? Or because Modi and his government awarded the second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the person directly responsible for all those kar sewaks becoming martyrs and having their bodies floating on the waters of the Sharayu?

Indeed, what has been the role of the Modi government and the present BJP (half of whose leaders and office-bearers are imported from parties which viciously opposed the Ayodhya movement) in the construction of the temple? Is it just because they happen to be in power at the moment (although it was the Congress and not the BJP which was in power when the Allahabad High Court gave its pro-temple judgment which the Supreme Court has now endorsed)?

I have already, in some previous articles, given this quotation from George Orwell's "Animal Farm" to illustrate the attitude of the subject animals of Animal Farm to attribute all good things to the rule of the Great Leader: "It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, "Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days"; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, "Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!"" Such behaviour behoves hens and cows − and fervent bhakts. It does not behove Raj Thackeray.

This last press conference of Raj Thackeray has saddened me beyond words − his references to the credit for the Ram temple even more than his "bin-shart pathimba". Are honesty and intelligence completely extinct in Indian politics today?

To end this article, since we have had to refer many times in this article to various strange "coincidences" taking place, here are two more:

First: Raj Thackeray's attacks on the BJP abruptly ceased after certain ED raids on him. And second:

https://www.barandbench.com/news/bombay-high-court-quashes-criminal-case-raj-thackeray-2008-stone-pelting

On 18 April 2024, the Bombay High Court has now (9 days after the Gudi Padwa "bin-shart pathimba" speech) suddenly "quashed" a 16-year old case pertaining to 2008. I am not concerned with the rights and wrongs of the case, but with the coincidental timing of the whole thing. 

 

 

A Fake and Fraudulent Chitrapur Saraswat

 

 

A Fake and Fraudulent Chitrapur Saraswat

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I am a Chitrapur Saraswat, and proud to be one. Proud not because of any kind of feeling of personal or ethnic superiority, because I do not believe in such a thing as ethnic purity or superiority: I know there must have been massive communal intermixing in the last thousand years alone. I would have been proud of my caste or community, whatever it was. I believe anyone and everyone in the world should be proud of their own identity and culture and of their ancestors, from a positive point of view, simply because it is their identity and origin, and because those were their ancestors. And not from a negative point of view which treats other identities and cultures, and the ancestors of others, as being in any way inferior to their own, or in any way requiring to be replaced or supplanted by their own: Cultural Imperialism, Deracination, Exploitative Colonialism, Racism, Casteism, and Religious Proselytism are some examples of viciously negative or vikṛta forms of pride in one's own identity, origin, culture and ancestry (or its equivalent "opposite": e.g. a person culturally or religiously converted to another culture or religion who bears hatred or contempt for his own ancestral culture and religion). In fact, it is because I am proud of my own identity, origins and ancestors, that I can completely identify, empathize and sympathize with every other person in the world who is proud of his own identity, origin and ancestry in a similar positive sense and concerned for their defence. 

[Incidentally, it is in this sense that I am proud to call myself a Hindu Nationalist: I do not consider the word "nationalist" to be a negative one, and one to be shunned, as so many people do. In my article on "Hindu Nationalism", a part of my longer article in the Sita Ram Goel commemoration Volume "India's Only Communalist" (edited by Koenraad Elst) published by Voice of India in 2005, I have made it very clear and in great detail that a true positive nationalist has respect and comradely feelings towards every other person in the world who is also a positive nationalist, and cannot feel disrespect for, or indifference or hostility towards, someone else's positive nationalism. Within India itself, as I pointed out in that article, and in all subsequent articles, my Hindu Nationalism equally encompasses our Vedic Hindu heritage as well as all other different cultures native to this land in their purest forms. The Andamanese culture, the oldest, most distinctive, and today the most endangered and most under-attack culture, is to me as much my own culture as the culture of the Rigveda, or as Konkani, Marathi or Kannada culture, and, I have written many articles about the Andamanese people and culture and their right to survival in pure form. From my writings, it should be clear to anyone that I am no lover of Islamic Kashmir, and I have even, in a recent article, condemned the government for pouring billions, if not trillions, of Indian/Hindu taxpayers' money in "developmental" projects in Kashmir in desperate bids to try to woo Kashmiri Muslim voters. But anyone, Kashmiri or non-Kashmiri, Hindu or Muslim, pro-Indian or pro-Pakistani, who agitates against environmental exploitation and destruction in Kashmir in the name of "development", will have my full and unapologetic support on that particular matter].    

 

My own particular pride in my community is based on the fact that a tiny community totaling around 22000 people is not only probably the most literate (and also dowry-free) community in the country but has produced some of the topmost luminaries in almost every field to an extent totally disproportionate to its numbers. My article lists these luminaries (many more have come to my notice after that, but I know where to stop!):

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-chitrapur-saraswat-community.html

But I am naturally not proud of anything and everything associated with my community. Like all communities in the world, there will always be specific things which require to be deplored or to be ashamed for: as a probably landowning Brahmin community in the villages of Karnataka, many feudal social evils were very present in our community (I am sure caste prejudice and exploitation of lower castes was one of them in the past), and as recently as fifty years ago we still had some living examples of the deplorable shaven-headed widow era (one of my mother's aunts was one of them).

Likewise, while I am proud to note the number of eminent luminaries in every field in my community, I am not an admirer of all of them: their numbers include many vicious and anti-Hindu leftist writers, dramatists and journalists. Recently, I was shocked beyond words to discover that the judge who sentenced Swatantryaveer (Vinayak Damodar) Savarkar to fifty years imprisonment in the Andaman islands was a Chitrapur Saraswat, and an eminent one: Narayan G. Chandavarkar, President of the Indian National Congress, 1900-1901. Many of these anti-Hindu leftist "intellectuals" as well as N.G. Chandavarkar are mentioned in the list of "eminent" Chitrapur Saraswats in my article: their anti-Hindu activities do not make them any the less "eminent", just as their "eminence" does not make their anti-Hindu activities any the less condemnable.

 

But this article is about another Chitrapur Saraswat whom I would never label as "eminent", and whom I would consider to be not only deplorable and condemnable but also a fake and a fraud. This is a Chitrapur Saraswat who has apparently converted from Hinduism to Christianity, and actually become an Evangelist "pastor" Shekhar Kallianpur. His actions are certainly deplorable and condemnable, as are the actions of all persons who convert and get alienated from their ancestral religions and cultures, and, worse, themselves actually join and become a part of the army of marauders attacking their ancestral religions and cultures. But this in itself is not the reason for calling him a fake and a fraud: the following video shows why I call him a fake and a fraud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ae9IqaAqnk

This video, put up by this fraud himself, shows a dramatized presentation of the story of how he converted to Christianity, which forms a regular part of his repertoire. Look carefully at the video: the extremely traditional Brahmin boy with his extremely traditional Brahmin father, both dressed up in the kind of extremely traditional Brahmin clothes that one sees in the Kannada films on traditional Karnataka Brahmins which leftist or art directors used to produce in the nineteen-seventies. This video would have us believe that a Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin boy from a village in Karnataka, who dressed in such traditional clothes and indulged in traditional studies of Hindu scriptures, was transformed into the extremely fanatical Christian Evangelist that this man is today, who speaks in a fake westernized accent and lives a modern westernized lifestyle!

I am not casting any doubts on this man being a Chitrapur Saraswat. But I would really be very interested in knowing his exact date of birth, and the exact name of the village, and the exact years CE, in which he lived in this extremely picturesque traditional attire and upbringing in his childhood. Was he a resident of our Chitrapur Math in Shirali in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka (or one of its branches in other parts of coastal Karnataka), which is the only place I can think of where a young Chitrapur Saraswat boy in the second half of the twentieth century could have been living in this manner. Our community has mostly lived in cities and large towns in the twentieth century, and even Chitrapur Saraswats living in villages in the most mofussil rural area have been more modernized and westernized in their clothes and activities. I am not saying this with pride: I am just pointing out a fact. Where exactly was this traditional village where this "pastor" lived as a "traditional Brahmin boy" steeped in Hindu scriptures in his childhood?

 

This is not a new matter nor a big one. Fraud has always been a major cornerstone of Evangelist Christian activity from the moment of birth of this religion, and countless books by countless Indian and western scholars (including our Voice of India books by Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swaroop, Koenraad Elst, Arun Shourie and others, not to mention the Niyogi Committee Report, published by Voice of India) leave no scope for any two views on this. And this "pastor" is just an infinitesimally small cog in the massive machine of Evangelist activities who should really be given no importance by us.

But this particular "pastor" being a Chitrapur Saraswat, his depiction of his traditional "Chitrapur Saraswat" childhood before he saw the light being so blatantly fake and false, and his being in the news a few years ago in connection with an eminent RSS leader, prompted me to write this article.

In pursuance of its role as a vote-getter for the BJP, top leaders of the RSS have been busy in the last many years (or rather more busy than they used to be earlier) in establishing comradely relations with Islamist and Evangelist organizations, where they expect their fulsome praise for those worthies to rake in the Muslim and Christian votes for the BJP.

In one such program in Delhi on 19 December 2019, where there was a gathering of Evangelists from over 17 nations, the vice-President of the RSS, Indresh Kumar, particularly notorious for this kind of super-Secularist activity, was the Chief Guest. Here, for this Chitrapur Saraswat "pastor", Shekhar Kallianpur, it was, in his own words "a God moment for me to bring this beautiful message of Jesus Christ" to this RSS worthy. Strangely (or appropriately?) the event was reported in the newspapers the next day; and in many of the reports, this Shekhar Kallianpur was described as "Vice President of the RSS" bringing the message of Jesus Christ! The "pastor" had to issue a clarification in a 6.54 minutes video (which I have on my computer, downloaded from youtube at that time, but which seems to be missing on youtube now), titled "Pastor Shekhar Kalyanpur CLARIFICATION!!!" which featured his message at the program preceded by a written message:

"CLARIFICATION: This is to clarify the WRONG INFORMATION that is being circulated about me being misrepresented as the Vice President of RSS in the video of my message of CHRISTMAS that was delivered on the 16th December 2019 at New Delhi in the presence of Dr. INDRESH KUMAR Ji, the VICE PRESIDENT of RSS".

Perhaps this was an "amen" of things to come?