Two Tier Series 8 - Gilt And Longing

Modern Shillong may be a bustling city, but its citizens still hanker for the beauty and serenity of its self-contained past, writes Annie Sadaf

Take a small, but perfect little gemstone, surrounded by old, rose cut diamonds, in a classical setting — and you have the Shillong of the past. Surround this mount with a more morder, but gilt-edged hard setting, letting the entire piece acquire the grime inevitable with age — and you have latter day Shillong. A city in transition, Shillong still retains some of the beauty of its past, but it has been oppressed by the weight of a larger, uglier, modernity. Once dubbed by colonials the Scotland of the East, Shillong possesses both the geography and the climate to fit the bill. Only not so bleak — nestled in rich pine forests in the Khasi hills, verdant grassy downs, lakes and streams dot the region, with the added attraction of fine, wooden cottages complete with floral borders.

Shillong had a poetic beauty that echoed the best Scottish countryside, tempered with a softness lacking in the windswept heather-clad moors of the original. The city derives its name from the deity Shyllong or Lei Shyllong, which is worshipped at the Shilong Peak (1965 m high), about 10 km from the main town. Today’s Shillong is a more quixotic, if more modern city — some of the old, quaint houses and cottages still exist, but their large, lush lawns have been overtaken by the construction boom changing the skyline — and not for the better. Monstrous and ugly buildings have trampled these greens, to rise as concrete milestones on the path to progress. The various streams that flow through the city, once populated with picnic and angling spots, are now an ugly testament to development — filled with unregulated sewage, garbage and filth. More like nallahs, they drain Shillong of its former beauty.

Any old-timer would bemoan the fact that the distinctive black and yellow Ambassador taxis have been now overtaken by Marutis. Worse, the city’s narrow, winding roads — whose meanderings supposedly led a British gentleman to comment, “the Khasis made the roads when they were drunk” — are today choked with the growing traffic. Shillong’s place in the political sun came in 1874, when it was made the capital of Assam. It remained so for over a century, till the seat of government was transferred to Dispur and Meghalaya became a separate state. But like smaller, urban centres all over India, this old world gem is now a rapidly-growing city.

It’s among the 63 cities to be selected for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) project, launched by the Prime Minister in 2005. The city’s experiencing an onslaught of domestic tourists and hotels catering to different budgets are coming up. Once a typical hill station boarding school centre, with names likes St. Edmunds, Loreto Convent, St Marys and Pine Mount, the modern makeover of Shillong has brought an Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (NEIGRIMS) to the city. Shillong is also the headquarters of the Eastern Air Command and 101 Communication unit of the Army. Some of these may be good news for the city and the region, bring the hope of economic prosperity and the ability to retain the migration of its youth to more economically salubrious climes, but residents of Shillong still reminisce fondly about its erstwhile charm.

John F. Kharshiing, advisor & spokesperson, Federation of 25 Khasi States, talks of the ancient traditional markets that are a distinctive feature in Shillong localities. His grandmother told him that during the time of the British, the largest such traditional market, the Burra Bazaar, was manned by a British officer on horseback to monitor that there was no littering. Today, the same market is both crowded and filthy, a sad reminder of bustle gone to hustle. Some things, however, haven’t changed much: the one-stop destination for all gourmands is one of the oldest bakeries, Mahari & Sons in Mawprem. It started doing business in the 1930s and boasts of having supplied bread to the British Army. Today, it’s grown into a departmental store. Says proprietor Jwain Sing Kharshiing: “With the expansion of the city, demand for our bakery items and confectionary has grown.” Old-timers still remember the ‘Guiddeti’, another famous bakery whose deliveryman used to sell cakes and bread in different localities.

For A Christian-dominated state, it’s hardly surprising that there are over 100 churches dotting Shillong. But today the bells of the Catholic Cathedral in Laitmukhrah resonate amidst the chaos of the newly commercialised locality. Dominic Jala, Archbishop of Shillong, feels that the aura around the Cathedral has changed now, but the religious life of the people has increased. “We find newer challenges confronting us. We are actively involved in organising and improving the lives of domestic workers of Shillong, training school dropouts and care for women,” adds the Archbishop. And even for those who have moved out, the love affair continues. The romantic charm of the city exerts a powerful nostalgia on its former citizens, who might have moved to work elsewhere — but have their hearts still in Shillong’s gentle embrace.

Academic Alak Buragohain, who was born and brought up in Shillong and has moved to Assam, eulogises on how one could walk miles and miles and literally count the vehicles plying the roads and the quaint city buses on their routes. At the State Central Library librarian Ram Goswami remembered almost every reader. “He used to inform us if there were any new books. We used to even read the The Washington Post and The New York Times there,” Buragohain adds. He feels that there was a sort of bonhomie present in the past that is missing now.

There was a strong non-Khasi community, which was very localized in areas like Bishnupur and Moti Nagar. “In spite of these different ethnic backgrounds, there was a rich round of cultural activities like Ananda Sanmelan and Bihu Sanmelan. Most of the past landmarks, including the Assembly House with which we grew up, are now missing. The nostalgia is there but with a lot of pain. No doubt it’s a city in transition, but I don’t know if it’s for the better or the worse,” says Buragohain, sadly. Looking at the present-day Shillong, is hardly surprising that the Khasi hills are alive with the sounds of sentiment and nostalgia.

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Higher Education Scenario: On Offer At Private Varsities Are Heated Pools, Gyms, Stadia, Salons And Malls

The contrast with state institutions is particularly glaring during admission season, even though many of them have a much better academic reputation.

Like many government-run entities, public universities in India often get criticised by students and their parents for their poor infrastructure, ranging from overcrowded hostels to stinking toilets. Some campuses are located several kilometers away from a town, making the commute for students both tiring and unsafe. This, however, does not seem to deter students who flock from across the country to take admission in premier institutions, such as Delhi University, whose students have protested against the inadequate living conditions.

Revealed: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Rawat Shuns 15.81 Crore Official Bungalow 'Because It's Unlucky'

One of Uttarakhand’s most luxurious bungalows has been waiting for its occupant for a year now.

Located in the Cantonment area in the city, the state-of-the-art bungalow has failed to attract Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who continues to live at the state government's Bijapur guest house.

Sources close to him said that the CM’s hesitation to move to the bungalow is because of the ill-luck it had brought to the previous chief ministers residing there. 

6 Myths About Child Sexual Abuse Busted

Child sexual abuse is rarely discussed openly in India and is still shrouded by many myths. Child sexual abuse [CSA] by definition refers to the emotional, physical, psychological and sexual manipulation of a child, for the purpose of gratification of an older individual or adult.

In 2007, a much-awaited report on child abuse in India was published by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which brought to light some horrifying statistics on the state of the country’s children. Through interviews with 12447 respondents aged between 5-18 years and 18-24 years, the following facts emerged, which served to dispel many common assumptions about sexual abuse and its short and long-term impact on the survivor.

Myth 1: Children are not sexually abused in India

Fact: 53.22% of the child respondents reported having being sexually abused, of which 21.90% faced severe forms of abuse, while 50.76% reported other forms of sexual abuse. Children in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Delhi reported the highest percentage of abuse, among both girls as well as boys.

Myth 2: Children are sexually abused by strangers

Fact: 50% of the children reported that they were abused by someone they knew, who was in a position of trust and responsibility, thus bringing to light the reality of incest (which refers to sexual abuse by a family member) or abuse by someone who is trusted by the family such as a family friend, chauffeur, domestic help, tutor or teacher.

Myth 3: Girls are the “victims” and boys are the “perpetrators”

Fact: Of the 12447 respondents interviewed, 52.90% boys reported that they had been sexually abused, thus bringing forward a domino effect of subsequent realities, in the form of same sex abuse or non-consensual sodomy and women as perpetrators of abuse. These statistics are a well-deserved slap in the face of the many socially-constructed gender roles which stated that boys and men were in some way, immune to abuse and pain.
Myth 4: Children lie about being abused

Fact: The state-wise percentage of children not reporting abuse is a frightening 94.31% as compared with the tiny percentage [5.69%] who do report abuse. This is not because children lie about abuse, but because they are not encouraged to speak about sex or their bodies in the first place. If they do disclose an abusive experience, it is more likely that their faith in the person they are disclosing to will be shattered via responses along the lines of “you are lying, he/she [the abuser] loves you and would never hurt you”.

More than the children lying, which in fact, they do not do in context with being abused, it is the adults who are lying to themselves about the abuse not taking place. A child’s trust is broken once when he or she is abused, and is then broken a second time when called a liar. The ramifications of re-victimization constitute a lifelong emotional burden, which will be borne by children throughout their journey to adulthood.

Myth 5: Children entice or encourage the abuser

Fact: Children do NOT in any way encourage abuse, and it is not their fault if an abuser targets them. Victim blaming is common in most abuse cases; it is always the victim who “brought it upon” themselves to be beaten, hurt, humiliated and raped by wearing “provocative” clothes, displaying “inviting” body language and using “suggestive” speech.

The abuser is responsible for the manipulation and abuse of the child. The abuser is responsible for targeting the child and attaining gratification via the child. The child is not to blame for the abuse. Common sense dictates that the adult will naturally possess a more developed sense of what is appropriate and what is not, and will therefore not even remotely consider perceiving the child as sexually enticing; in the case that they do, the need to exercise impulse control and appropriate behaviour is solely their responsibility.

Myth 6: Sex education for children results in promiscuity

Fact: One of the most challenging myths in the context of preventing sexual abuse of children is one which states that “teaching children about sex will encourage them to have sexual relations, thereby resulting in promiscuity and pregnancy”.

Given that children and young people experiment with physical intimacy regardless of the existence of sex education, it is questionable as to whether teaching them age appropriate lessons on sex, sexuality and personal safety will actually promote so-called promiscuity or perhaps make the younger generation more aware of their bodies, their right to say “no” and give them safe, non-judgmental spaces in which to voice their concerns and report any abusive behavior which they might be experiencing.

As the myth challenging continues, it is important to note that establishing clear communication with one’s child is a deterrent to abuse, as the abuser is unlikely to target a child who is not going to keep the abuse a “secret”.

Insight: Manmohan's Mahasabha To Maul Marauding Modi

By M H Ahssan / INN Live

Strolling the sunset boulevard of his term, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has had enough with being lonely at the top. He has few confidants who can give him a sense of personal empowerment, nor too many hands to supply him with ideas on the move or willing to carry his advice and views forward. 

Nonetheless, stung by the audacious campaign of the saffron challenger Narendra Modi who has contemptuously given Singh sobriquets like “night watchman” and attacked him on secularism and Sardar Patel, the PM has realised—although belatedly—that he has no storm troopers of his own unlike Rahul Gandhi or Sonia. Hence, he is on discreet recruitment drive to form a crisis team of his own; not necessarily in tandem with the Congress party, but with a handful of senior members and ministers of his party.

CAG FINDS 13k CRORE HOLE IN UPA'S MNREGA SCHEME

By Kajol Singh / Delhi

The Comptroller and Auditor General has reportedly found Rs 13,000 crore worth of irregularities in the UPA government’s biggest cash-for-work welfare scheme MNREGA.

According to relaible sources, in a report tabled in Parliament today, the CAG has said that there are irregularities in the completion of projects and allocation of projects under the scheme.

The CAG has said that Rs 6,500 crore has been spent on projects that haven’t been created in the manner that they should have been, reported the channel.

'Forgotton Heros': 'The Veer Kargils That Go Unnoticed'

By Rajeev Chandrasekhar / Delhi

Kargil Vijay Diwas is upon us. It is a day of remembrance for and tribute to our armed forces and to the gallant soldiers whose determined efforts saved our country against the enemy on this day in 1999. Many lives and limbs were sacrificed to achieve this, and many families lost their loved ones. We can never forget this. This year, Kargil Vijay Diwas comes in the wake of the devastating floods in Uttarakhand and Assam.

Murder, rape, loot: We’re talking MPs

By M H Ahssan

CRIME INFESTED | It’s not just about a few parties and states anymore. HNN finds that the rot of criminalisation in politics runs deep, with roots spread far & wide

You have probably heard before that of the 543 men and women elected to the Lok Sabha in May 2004, 125 had criminal charges against them. Many among us have consoled ourselves with the notion that only a few of these 125 would have been charged with serious offences. Further, the malaise was largely restricted to a couple of states and finally that only certain parties were guilty of encouraging such ‘tainted’ candidates.

The reality is that each of these assumptions is seriously wrong. A large chunk faced serious charges including murder, rape, dacoity, kidnapping and corruption. The 125 MPs were from 17 different states and two Union territories which between them account for 499 of the Lok Sabha’s 543 seats. Also, these MPs belonged to 17 different parties. Clearly, the rot is spread — both spatially and politically — much worse than we normally think it is.

Of the 125, there were at least 96 who faced charges with potential sentences of two years or more. Under the Representation of the People Act, a person sentenced for two years or more is disqualified from contesting elections. The number could be even larger than 96, since in several cases the affidavits filed by the candidates detailing charges against them were either vague or illegible.

In the five years since then, some of the 125 — like Navjyot Singh Sidhu — may have been acquitted, while others have died. But we believe it remains relevant to analyse the situation as it was in April-May 2004, since that was what was available to parties when they nominated these candidates and to the electorate when it voted for them.

We analysed the charges faced by candidates and broke them up into categories based on the maximum potential sentence for each charge. Sections of the IPC which attract a life sentence, death or 14 years we treated as one category and at least 27 of those elected in May 2004 faced such charges at the time.

Another 14 faced charges which had a maximum of 10-year sentences. Apart from these, those with maximum 7-year potential sentences if convicted numbered 16. In other words, at least 57 had really serious charges against them.

We looked at which parties accounted for how many of the 96 MPs whom we could categorise based on the maximum possible sentence. It turned out that the BJP headed the list with 23 followed by the Congress with 17. It is true that the RJD’s seven, the SP’s nine and the BSP’s five constitute a much larger proportion of those parties’ MPs, but what is clear is that these smaller parties have no monopoly on MPs with criminal charges pending against them. What should be more worrying is the fact that all the parties that fielded candidates with criminal charges against them won 494 of the 543 seats in the April-May 2004 elections.

An analysis of which states these MPs come from was also revealing. While UP and Bihar did top the charts, as most would expect, the only states which had none of their MPs figuring in the list were the eight north-eastern states and the three northern states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. Barring Assam, which has 14 Lok Sabha seats, what is noticeable is that these are among the smallest states.

It is also worth pointing out that many of 125 winners who faced criminal charges were not becoming MPs for the first time. Several among them had already served more than one term in Parliament. More than a quarter of them had already done three or more terms.

All of the data, in other words, points to the same conclusion. Criminalisation of politics is no longer a matter for minor worry, if it ever was that. With virtually every party and every state embracing such candidates, the trend is getting more and more established.

'Defective EVM Transfers 'All Votes' To 'Congress' In Pune'

By Trivikram Sadbole | Pune

SHOCKING POLLING Some days back BJP in the news on EVM key votes in Assam, now it's time for Congress to show the competition on EVM key votes in Pune. The early morning voters of Pune were left stunned when an electronic voting machine (EVM) reportedly "transferred" all votes to the Congress.

The incident happened at a polling booth at Shamrao Kalmadi School in the city when voters found that whichever button was pressed on the EVM, only the Congress light blinked.

Some of the alert voters brought this to the notice of the election officials who stopped voting immediately.

Liberals Are Making The War Against Jihadi Terror

If Akbaruddin Owaisi, who had been arrested and subsequently released on bail for making a hate speech in December 2012, is to be believed, there would have been no jihadi terrorism in India if the Babri Masjid had not been demolished or Muslims massacred or raped in Gujarat.

Many Muslim organisations, including Owaisi’s Majlis Ittehad-e-Muslimeen, allege that many Muslim youths are being routinely arrested and tortured even though they are later discharged for want of evidence, and this is a theory that the Indian liberal elite has been willing to buy.

Earlier this month, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) decided not to charge charge three suspects in the Bangalore jihad case registered late last year: among them, defence scientist Aijaz Ahmad Mirza and journalist Mati-ur-Rahman Siddiqui. The fate of the three men has been widely read as part of a police-led persecution of Muslims. Indians liberals have tended to agree.

The facts, however, suggest the need for a more nuanced reading of these instances of Muslims who are released for want of evidence.  In fact, the liberal elite assumption that these are really instances of discriminatory police attitudes is imposing serious costs on India’s ability to frame a serious response to jihadi terrorism.

Let’s test the assumptions against the facts in the Bangalore case. Focused on the release of Mirza and Siddiqui, media accounts have mostly skimmed over the fact that 12 of the 15 alleged Bangalore jihad conspirators held have actually been charged. The NIA’s charge-sheet outlines perhaps the most ambitious jihadist project since 26/11, and the first Indian case involving online self-radicalisation.

In 2011-2012, it alleges, Bangalore residents Abdul Hakeem Jamadar and Zafar Iqbal Sholapur visited Pakistan, drawn by online jihadist literature to join the jihad in Afghanistan.  In Karachi, though, fugitive jihad organiser Farhatullah Ghauri persuaded them to fight against India.  The two men, the NIA says, were then introduced to operatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and the Lashkar, who trained them in “intelligence, cyber-crime, handling and shooting of weapons”.

The NIA alleges that the Bangalore jihad cell plotted to assassinate a string of figures associated with the Hindu-right wing, as well as journalists and police officers. Its members, the NIA says, also planned to conduct armed robberies to fund its jihadist plans, and conduct espionage for Pakistan.

No evidence was found to link Aijaz Mirza, Siddiqui and Yusuf Nalaband to this plot – but was it unreasonable to hold them on suspicion? The men shared the very room from where Shoaib Mirza is alleged to have used his laptop to stitch together the plot. Jamadar and Sholapur are alleged to have been tasked with conducting intelligence operations; Aijaz Mirza had access to sensitive information. Siddiqui visited jihadist websites.

It is true this writer and every other journalist covering national security issues also does this regularly – but then, no terrorist plot is being planned from my room. Put together, these surely constitute questions for investigation.

The NIA and the Bangalore Police did the right thing: they arrested suspects, examined the evidence, and decided not to prosecute men against whom there was none.  They did not fabricate evidence or coerce confessions.

Incarceration indeed caused harm to three men, as it would to any innocent caught up in the criminal justice system. Mirza has given a heart-wrenching account of the hardship caused to his family.  However, the harm caused to him has to be read against the possible harm to the community caused by the investigators’  failure to arrest – which in this case, might have been several deaths.  This is precisely why police forces across the world are allowed, by law, to arrest suspects during investigation. No demand of pre-arrest certitude is made in other kinds of cases, notably last year’s Delhi rape-murder: the suspects were held long before forensic evidence became available.

Eyes wide shut: So, why are élite liberals so reluctant to maintain an open mind on the NIA case? For one, they argue that investigations are driven by anti-Muslim bias. It is simply untrue, though, to argue – as Siddiqui has done – that the police would not have carried out the arrests “if I was not a Muslim”. Last year, in June, Lokender Sharma and Devender Gupta were granted bail  in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts case because  the NIA failed to file a charge- sheet against them in the prescribed time. Bharat Rateshwar, accused in the Mecca Masjid bombing, was also granted bail for the same reason. There are several similar cases from the NIA’s north-east investigations.

Police forces across the world face this dilemma.  In the United Kingdom, over two-thirds of suspects arrested in terrorism investigations were let off without being charged; only 14 percent of those arrested, or less than 50 percent of those charged, were eventually convicted.

The claim that the police targeted Muslims for the Mecca Masjid bombing has been repeated so often as to become received truth. Journalist Sagarika Ghose, not unfairly, tells the graphic story of “Imran Syed, a Hyderabad student arrested for the Mecca Masjid blasts in 2007, given third degree torture and electric shocks”.  Kuldip Nayyar accused the police of “tormenting Muslims”, pointing again to the fact that “21 Muslim youth from Hyderabad were wrongly implicated in the Mecca Masjid blast”.

The truth is that 22 Muslim men were indeed arrested, and found innocent during trial. However, anyone who has takes the trouble to read First Information Report 198 filed at the Gopalapuram Police Station in 2007 knows not one of the arrests had anything to do with the Mecca Masjid case.

Police officers driven by malice, or seeking to cover-up their incompetence, could have initiated false prosecutions linking these men to the Mecca Masjid attack.  They did not – and went on to uncover the Hindutva terrorist network now blamed for the attack.

There’s no doubt, of course, India’s overstretched and under-resourced police forces get it wrong plenty of times.  It is worth noting, though, that the sword of incompetence cuts in all directions.  I haven’t, for example, heard any outrage from Delhi-based human rights groups about the case of Hindutva hardliner Pragya Thakur – charged by the Madhya Pradesh Police with having murdered alleged Samjhauta Express bomber Sunil Joshi, and allegedly tortured.  The case was handed over to the NIA in 2011, and is now focused on different suspects. 

Yet, police don’t get it wrong as often as most people assume. Last year, the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association, a human rights lobbying group, published an apparently damning study of 16 prosecutions brought by the Delhi Police’s elite counter-terrorism Special Cell, showing that each case ended in acquittal amidst charges of illegal detention, fabricated evidence and torture. The Delhi Police, however, pointed out that they secured convictions in 68 percent of terrorism cases – and, notably, had done so in six of the 16 cases the JTSA flagged.  In the US, with enormously better-resourced police, the figure is around 87 percent

This writer has argued elsewhere that Indian police forces have a poor conviction record for serious crimes, due to poor training, bad forensic resources and human resource shortages. Conviction rates for murder have hovered around 40 percent, and rape at below a third. They’re even more abysmal for kidnapping. There is no reason to believe that conviction rates for terrorism will be higher.

Failing prosecutions, thus, are a cause for concern for everyone – but not evidence that the police are out to get Muslims, or Hindus, or anyone else. It is entirely possible that police officers share the same biases which suffuse our society. Look through the authoritative South Asia Terrorism Portal, though, and one fact is evident: a lot more Hindus, Christians and animist tribals are being arrested on terrorism charges than Muslims.

In 2012, 914 Maoists were arrested; less than a tenth of that number were held in cases related to Islamist terrorism.  This isn’t even counting-in arrests in two states where there are mainly Hindu-led insurgencies, Assam and Manipur.

Police, politics, and ideology: The problem isn’t, however, that élite liberals haven’t stumbled on the data. It is, rather, that their ideological blinkers have led them to reject their import. Part of the problem may be that our intellectual life has moved, too easily, from primitive fable to post-modern text, bypassing the stage of evidence-based appraisals altogether.

More important, though, this apparent position of dissent fits well with powerful establishmentarian tendencies. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh is one such pole; his hangers-on include Feroze Mithibhorwala, who alleged that the role of the “CIA, FBI & Mossad in fomenting and planning the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks are proved beyond doubt”. The Congress’ view is that the kinds of Muslims Owaisi represents will be drawn to its ranks by this kind of drivel. Left-liberals who loathe the Hindutva movement – people not unlike me – thus see assaulting the police on jihad-related issues as a defence of secularism.

This is perverse politics, which has had the signal consequence of communalising our national conversation on terrorism.  There is, indeed, a serious national conversation to be had on investigative incompetence, deficits in police capacities and the breakdown of the criminal justice system – crises which gave birth to prison torture and a culture of casual extrajudicial execution. Liberal critiques of India’s struggle to contain jihadi terrorism rarely engage with this challenge.

I’ve sometimes wondered if the problem isn’t deeper: whether the cultural memes inherited by English-medium liberals, including myself, cloud our judgment. The figure of the martyr Christ, rebel against tyrannical power, is profoundly seductive; it is the the unacknowledged foundation-stone for the western human rights movements. Yet, the Romans were right to caution against the seduction of the martyrs’ voice.

There is a real threat to this country of a communal conflict that could tear it apart along its faultlines. Keeping our eyes wide shut to the reality will ensure the secular-liberal state loses.

Votes cast as a 'weapon of the weak'

By M H Ahssan

India's rich and middle class urban voters have failed to show up in large numbers to exercise their franchise in the country's 15th month-long general election. Despite a massive campaign to get the educated to vote, the software hubs of Bangalore and Pune, the two main metros which went to the polls in the second phase of voting on April 23, registered poor turnout.

In contrast to rural areas, which had a turnout of 60%, constituencies in Bangalore city registered a mere 46% turnout, a figure that is below the national average in two phases of voting so far but also lower than turnout in the 2004 general election. As in previous elections, in the two rounds of voting that have been completed in India's multi-phase general election, urban middle-class voters have indicated that they are laggards in comparison to the rural or urban poor.

Media reports on the Indian elections often draw attention to the magnitude of the electoral exercise. Indeed, it is hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of the election. A 714-million-strong electorate will vote in 828,804 polling booths in 543 constituencies in a five-phase election spread over a month. Four million electoral officials and 2.1 million security personnel are overseeing the process to ensure that it is free, fair and peaceful. Animals, too, are on hand to assist in the process. In the states of Assam and Meghalaya in India's northeast, elephants carry officials and polling material to voting booths.

The Election Commission (EC), which conducts the polls, goes the extra mile to ensure that voters can exercise their franchise. In some parts of the country, which are inaccessible by roads, officials trek for three to four days or ride on the backs of elephants to set up polling booths.

In the western state of Gujarat, the EC has set up a polling booth for one voter - a priest in a temple in the heart of the Gir forest, which is home to the Asiatic lion. He will vote in the third phase of the election.

Officials brave wild animals, scorching heat, long treks, militants and impatient voters to ensure that people can exercise their fundamental right to vote.

As remarkable as these statistics or the logistics involved in conducting the election is the mass participation in Indian elections. Unlike the global trend of a steady decline in voting levels, in India voter turnout over the years has either increased or remained stable.

And what makes this rise in voter turnout significant is that it is spurred by the rise in participation in elections by the poor, women, lower castes and Dalits and tribals. The most vulnerable sections of Indian society are increasingly enthusiastic about voting.

Unlike Western democracies, which granted the right to vote first to propertied men, later educated men, then all men and only after much debate and agitation to women, independent India granted all adult men and women regardless of their religion, caste, language, wealth or education the right to vote in one fell swoop, points out Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy.

The Indian constitution granted all its citizens the right to vote. Right from the first general election in 1952, India's poorest and most marginalized sections have possessed the right to vote. And they have been the most keen to exercise this right.

Voter turnout in India has been higher in rural areas than in cities since 1977. The poor vote more than the rich, especially in urban areas and in the past four general elections, Dalits (or Untouchables as they used to be called) have voted more than upper-caste Hindus, says Yogendra Yadav, a political analyst with the Center for the Study of Developing Societies. "This 'participatory upsurge' from below has defined the character of Indian democracy in the past two decades or so," he says.

This is quite unlike the experience in Western democracies where it is the rich, the well-educated and those belonging to the majority community who are more likely to vote and participate in political activity.

Analysts have pointed out that if those at the lower end of the socio-economic hierarchy take the trouble to vote, defying threats and violence, it is because democracy is bringing change in their lives, however small these might be. Polling day is that one big day on which their decision matters, when their choice counts.

Voters defy militants' calls for a boycott of the poll to exercise their franchise. Maoists have called for a poll boycott and sought to impose it with intimidation and violence. Still, people in the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have come out to vote. In assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir in November and December last year, 62% of the electorate voted in spite of a boycott call by separatists.

The media have often underestimated the rural/poor voter, looking on him or her as someone who votes along caste or other parochial lines, who votes as told to rather than on the basis of an informed choice.

This might be true, but only to a limited extent. In 2004, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) campaigned on an "India Shining" slogan. But India was not shining for rural Indians and those at the bottom of the heap. Unlike the educated/urban voter who swallowed the NDA's propaganda campaign, the rural voters registered their protest through the ballot box. They voted out the NDA. The vote is the "weapon of the weak", points out Yadav.

This time around, whether the rural voter who is reeling under a severe agrarian crisis is impressed by the 8% average economic growth rate achieved under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is debatable. To its credit, the UPA has put in place a rural employment guarantee scheme that provides one member of every rural household with work for 100 days every year.

Both the Congress and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have made provision of heavily subsidized wheat and rice a central plank in their election campaigns. The Congress has promised every poor family 25 kilograms of wheat or rice at 3 rupees (US$0.06) a kilogram and the BJP 35 kilograms at 2 rupees per kg.

One of the districts that voted in the first phase was Kandhamal in the eastern state of Orissa, which was ravaged by anti-Christian violence last year. Voter turnout in the district was 65.7%. About 90% of those still living in relief camps - people who are too terrified to return to their homes for fear of communal violence - turned up at polling booths despite a Maoist call for a poll boycott and fear of communal violence. Clearly, these victims of communal violence are looking on the ballot box with some hope.

How do Muslims - India's largest religious minority - view the democratic process? Contrary to the perception worldwide that Muslims do not believe in democracy, Muslims in India are as enthusiastic as Hindus in their stated support of democracy. Voter turnout among Muslims, which dipped in the early 1990s and again in 2004, has generally been rising or stable and is as robust as that among Hindus. "Clearly, Indian Muslims are not opting out of democratic politics," says Yadav.

It is not religion but class that appears to influence voter turnout. The rich and middle class Indian doesn't seem to share the faith the poor have in the elections and the power of the vote. Over the years, urban apathy has grown. All the parties are the same, urban voters grumble, pointing to the fielding of criminal and corrupt candidates in some areas.

Voter turnout in successive elections over the past two decades indicate that for all their whining about the quality of politicians who represent them in parliament and state assemblies, India's educated and more privileged sections don't do anything about it on polling day. They simply stay away.

South Mumbai, where many of India's millionaires and billionaires live and work is notorious for poor turnout on polling day, as is Bangalore, India's software hub. State assembly elections in Bangalore in May last year saw an abysmal 44% exercise their franchise, the lowest in the past five elections.

Will Mumbai, Delhi and other Indian cities go Bangalore's way in the coming phases of voting? The terror attacks in Mumbai in November last year shook up the country's politically apathetic youth and brought them out into the streets demanding greater accountability and better performance from the political elite. Thousands participated in candlelight vigils and online campaigns.

Whether they will leave the comfort of their air-conditioned homes to wait in long lines outside polling booths to vote in scorching heat is another matter.

'Aaj Aane Ki Zid Na Karo': India Deserves Better Than Rahul Gandhi

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

There's a growing realisation within the Congress that whatever Rahul Gandhi's showing as the party's de facto leader, it appears that the Congress has no choice but to embrace his leadership. But here's the thing...

Rahul Gandhi's umpteenth threat of finally becoming president of the Congress reminds me of a famous ghazal by Fayyaz Hashmi popularised by Farida Khanum: Aaj aane ki zid na karo (Don't insist on coming today).

Will Forgotten 'Ghost of Godhra' Make Gujarat Muslims To Caste Thier Vote For 'Narendra Modi' In 2014 Lok Sabha?

By Shaukat Kazmi | INNLIVE

ANALYSIS After playing Dalit card, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to prevent polarisation of Muslim "vote bank" that can help or deny victory to competing political parties in the upcoming general elections. For this, the BJP has decided to field Muslim candidates from some minority-dominated constituencies.

There are even some within the saffron brigade who fear that his strident Hindu bias might alienate the Muslim community, raising the chance that they could vote as a block against a Modi-led BJP.

Big Worry: 'Household Debt Is Growing 10 Times In Metros'

India is slowly becoming a heavily indebted country with the average amount owed by each family jumping a whopping seven times in urban areas and more than four times in the hinterland during the period 2002 and 2012, shows a survey by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).

In 2012, as much as 22% of urban households were indebted and the average debt per family was Rs 84,625, up from Rs 11,771 in 2002, while in rural areas, 31% of households were indebted compared to 27% in 2002 with average debt rising to Rs 32,522 in 2012 from Rs 7,539 in 2002.

Education Scenario: Non-Conventional Courses A 'Hit' But Indian Universities Failing To Meet The Demand

Though universities like Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai University and Nagpur University offer some innovative courses, the attractive ones are being offered by the private standalone centres, which often lack recognition but charge hefty fee for the course.

Kshama Gandhi, a class-12 science student of a Mumbai school, is neither interested in pursuing engineering nor a medical career and has been devoting a lot of time these days surfing net to find something more "exciting" and "satisfying" than the traditional career options.

Focus: Can Criminals Really Be Kept Out Of Indian Politics?

By M H Ahssan / INN Bureau

The Supreme Court has struck a blow against criminals in politics. But evildoers will continue to hold sway unless political parties reform themselves. Everyone knows Raja Bhaiyya, the dreaded don from Uttar Pradesh who earned his first criminal case as a teenager and who has a symbiotic relationship with the prisons either as an inmate or as the minister tasked with running them. But ever heard of Bhaiyya Raja?

Modi's Cabinet Reshuffle: With 'Big Four' Immune, Will The Exercise Be Purely Cosmetic?.

By M H AHSSAN | INNLIVE

With eyes on Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet reshuffle on July 5,  is expected to factor in the BJP's political strategy in Uttar Pradesh. Some new ministers will take oath at about 11 am at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and sources told INNLIVEat least two more faces from Uttar Pradesh may join the Cabinet.

'PUBLIC FUNDS AND PONZY GAMES' OF SARADHA SCAM

By M H Ahssan & Richa Rai / Kolkata

‘Son of holy mother Sarada’, Sudipta Sen gives his interrogators a tough time as he spouts ideology about helping the poor.

Police detectives had a tough time interrogating Saradha Group chairman Sudipta Sen, who proved to be a hard nut to crack. In the face of sustained grilling, the scamster kept spouting his ideologies throughout on Friday.

Sen was interrogated by a number of detectives of Bidhannagar police led by deputy commissioner Arnab Ghosh. The grilling started at 10.30 am on Friday and continued till late at night in separate sessions.

Sen and his associates Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan, who were arrested along with him in Jammu and Kashmir, were quizzed by several police officers separately in three different rooms of the New Town police station.

IS JHARKHAND NEXT ON CHIT FUND PONZI SCHEMES?

By Sumit Rajan / Ranchi

West Bengal and neighbouring Odisha and Assam might be bearing the maximum brunt of the recent chit fund scams, but Jharkhand is not far behind. The deadly tentacles of the ponzi scheme have also gripped several people in the state. As usual, the people bearing the brunt are the lower middle class and the poor who trusted their life’s savings with these companies.