'THE LION IS AN INDIAN, NOT A GUJARATI': JUDGE

By Nand Kishore (Guest Writer)

By stressing ‘intrinsic value’ and ‘best interest’ of species, the Supreme Court wants conservation to be pan-nation rather than State-bound.

In response to calls to shift some of India’s last Asiatic lions to neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, the Gujarat State Wildlife Board went to the extent of calling lions [exclusively] Gujarati ‘family members’. But, in a historic judgment lauded by the world conservation community, (Centre for Environmental Law WWF-1 v. Union of India and others, Supreme Court, 2013) the Supreme Court has ruled that Gujarat has to part with some lions, to be shifted to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno-Palpur wildlife sanctuary, upholding the nation’s right to have a second habitat for lions.

WHY INDIA SHOULD STILL BE 'VERY ASHAMED'?

By Pramod Kumar (Guest Writer)

For a country of 1.2 billion people with a million contradictions, what matters more?

That a large number of its children are malnourished OR that they appear to be more malnourished than the children of Sub-Saharan Africa?

Ideally, it should be the former that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seemingly ashamed of; but for some, it’s the latter that matters.

'ARUNACHAL' TOPS IN HANDLING 'CHILD NUTRITION'

By M H Ahssan / New Delhi

The problem is likely to be less severe than UN statistics indicate, given faulty yardsticks. If asked to name the state with the lowest incidence of child malnutrition in India, readers will overwhelmingly pick one of Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab or West Bengal. But they will all be wrong by a wide margin: none of these states appears among even the top five performers. 

IN LAKSHADWEEP, PETROL IS SELLING AT 200 PER LITRE!

By CJ Rajendran in Lakshdweep

At Lakshadweep Islands, which is not quite the paradise you would have imagined. Muhammad Basheer is the only and well-known Cameramen in the island of Kavarati, to whom islanders are used to reach for the video coverage of wedding ceremonies. He is roaming besides the sea by carrying his camera on the left shoulder. As all other youngster in islands he was studied in Kerala and successfully attained graduation in Arabic language.

During his Kerala days he was being dreamt about to own a Motor cycle. Five years ago his dream accomplished with unlimited pain and sorrows.

DEADLY 'PARTY DRUGS' IS NEW CRAZE IN DELHI

By Kajol Singh / New Delhi

India's capital hits a new high as seizure of party drugs such as ecstasy and speed shows a fivefold increase. Delhi's party circuit is perched high on cloud amphetamine. The Capital has emerged as a major supplier of pseudoephedrine, the key raw material for manufacturing Amphetamine Type Stimulant ( ATS), whose variants are popularly known as ecstasy, speed, base and ice in party drug circles.

TERROR HAVEN: THE NASTY AND THE NORTHEAST

By M H Ahssan / Shillong

Manir Khan's 'operational area' was Assam. The sub-inspector with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had executed two 'assignments' in the state. But he was third time unlucky, as Indian sleuths nabbed him from west Tripura in July 2010. 

Khan told interrogators that his duty was to ferry back “quality information” for better “tactical appreciation” of cross-national issues to his masters in Pakistan. In his initial visits, Khan had carried out “feasibility recces” of the Tripura corridor connecting Bangladesh-Tripura and Assam, says an interrogation report. 

DISGUSTING BUSINESS - 'CURSE OF THE RHINO HORNS'

By Kajol Singh, Sandeep Muzkala / Dispur

Soaring prices of rhino horns have led to a new spurt of poaching in the Kaziranga National Park, Assam. Once heralded as a conservation success story, the park is now being held hostage by poachers. INN travels to the park to investigate and find answers to the conservation riddle.

Many emotions flit across Kartik Pegu’s face when he talks about his exploits. Only one emotion is missing—remorse. Each time Kartik mentions killing a rhino and chopping off its horn his face lights up with enthusiasm. He curls up the fingers of his right hand around an imaginary trigger; the same hand is used to show a make-believe barrel.

GUEST COLUMN: Manipur And Its Demand For Internal Autonomy

By Rangja Samerkez (Guest Writer)

Reviewing the fraught political situation in Manipur with the diverging demands for autonomy, which revived after apparent progress and near closure of the talks with the Nagas, this article assesses those demands and traces their origins. Arguing that the government has now an opportunity to force a compromise solution on all parties, it calls for a proactive role of the government to bring about lasting peace in the region.

Recent days have seen much commentary on the festering turmoil in Manipur where different ethnic groups are making competing autonomy demands. These demands were always there, but they were given a fresh lease of life by the ongoing Indo-Naga political talks. The Indo-Naga talks are actually more about Manipur than about Nagaland, as the issues discussed impinge directly on Manipur and its territorial integrity. The proverbial sword of Damocles hangs over Manipur’s head. These talks have meandered for the last 15 years, still with no solution in sight. 

WISHING YOU A 'HAPPY UGADI, A TELUGU NEW YEAR 2013'

Ugadi or Yugadi, the festival reserved to celebrate the commencement of New Year, is a day especially celebrated with huge fun and fervor in Deccan regions of India. It is assumed that Lord Brahma, the creator of the world began His creation on this day. The first day of bright half of the lunar month Chaitra is considered to be the day for Ugadi celebration, which generally falls in the months of March - April of the English calendar. The festival of Ugadi also welcomes the spring season when nature seem to be immersed in the festive mood and new leaves and new buds along with fresh breeze of spring manifold the Ugadi spirit. Scroll down the article to learn how the festivity is honored and rejoiced in several parts of India. 

Andhra Pradesh
The day is dedicated to Lord Brahma, the great creator of the world who began creation on this very day. It is also a belief among Hindus that Lord Vishnu incarnated in Matsya avatar on this day. As one of the major festivals of Andhra Pradesh, it gathers huge attention of public as well as the media. Celebration includes cleaning of house and surrounding, decorating entrances with green mango leaves, buying new clothes for family and various other rituals. They wake up early morning and use Sesame oil to massage their head and body, post which they take head wash and visit temples to offer their prayers. People make delicious dishes on this day which they share with their loved ones. Some places like Telangana celebrate the festival for three days. 

Karnataka
The day marks the beginning of the New Year and is considered to bring new hopes and happiness in life. At this auspicious occasion of commencement of spring, people make garlands of sweet scented Jasmine and offer them to God. They visit temples and offer prayers with sincerity while priests chant various mantras, developing spiritual aroma in surroundings. People whitewash their homes and decorate them with fresh mango leaves and flowers and they also practice the ritual of placing Kalasha beside their doors with coconut leave on it. For peace and harmony of their homes, they sprinkle cow dung water in front of their homes and make attractive Rangolis. Delicious dishes including Ugadi Pachchadi, Puliogure and Holidge are prepared for this occasion. At many places Bhakti songs and Kavi Sammelan are also held to give a platform to new blood so that they can reflect their literature and culture. 

Maharashtra

Ugadi is famous as Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra, where it is believed that new ventures started on this day or purchases made give fruitful results. In Maharashtra, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is remembered on this day, so the day is seen as one depicting valiant Marathas who return home after a glorious victory in war. They raise swastika marked metal pot tied with a silk cloth which exhibits their victory and joy after successful expeditions in war.
On this day, after washing and cleaning their home, people decorate it with fresh green mango leaves and rangolis. They visit temples to offer prayers and distribute bitter Neem leaves as Prasad.

Sindhis
The day is known as 'Cheti Chand' among Sindhi people and it is seen as the birthday of Water God, (Varun devta) Sai Uderolal or Jhulelal. He is considered to appear on material earth to protect Sindhis from dictatorship of a ruler and saved Sindhi culture and Hinduism. The day is celebrated by worshipping water gods - Lord Jhulelal and Behrano Sahib; Chej, the folk dance of Sindhis is also performed on this day. 

Manipur
Manipur knows Ugadi by 'Sajibu Cheiraoba', where 'Sajibu' refers to first of all the six seasons that make a year and 'Cheiraoba' means end of a year leading to beginning of another. Hence, the spirit and motive behind the celebration is same in Manipur as in other states, only the way of celebration and the name of festival differ.

On the day of Sajibu Cheiraoba, Manipuri people start rituals very early in the morning. Women of the house prepare Athelpot with the help of fine whole rice, raw vegetables, flowers and fruits of new season which is meant for offering to Lainingthou Sanamahi and Leimarel Ima Sidabi placed on southwest and middle north corner of the house respectively. Post prayers, food is cooked and offered to God spirits Hanu-Kokchao and Hanu Leikham with a prayer to protect the well-being of their house. At the fire place, Emoinu Ima is offered food in round-cut plantain leaves to defend the family from sorrows in the coming year. After rituals and prayers, whole family dines together, while married people visit their parents; this way the festival serves in strengthening the bonds in family.

All About Ugadi Festival
The New year festival or Ugadi comes close on the heels of Holi. While the strong colors of Holi start fading away, the freshness of spring lingers on with sprightliness all around. The flame of the forest (trees with bright red flowers that blossom during holi) are in full bloom signifying an affluent season.It is believed that the creator of the Hindu pantheon Lord Brahma started creation on this day - Chaitra suddha padhyami or the Ugadi day. Also the great Indian Mathematician Bhaskaracharya's calculations proclaimed the Ugadi day from the sunrise on as the beginning of the new year, new month and new day. The onset of spring also marks a beginning of new life with plants (barren until now) acquiring new life, shoots and leaves. Spring is considered the first season of the year hence also heralding a new year and a new beginning. The vibrancy of life and verdent fields, meadows full of colorful blossoms signifies growth, prosperity and well-being.

With the coming of Ugadi, the naturally perfumed jasmines (mallepulu) spread a sweet fragrance which is perhaps unmatched by any other in nature's own creation! While large garlands of jasmine are offered to Gods in homes and temples, jasmine flowers woven in clusters adorn the braids of women.

Predictions of the Year
Ugadi marks the beginning of a new Hindu lunar calendar with a change in the moon's orbit. It is a day when mantras are chanted and predictions made for the new year. Traditionally, the panchangasravanam or listening to the yearly calendar was done at the temples or at the Town square but with the onset of modern technology, one can get to hear the priest-scholar on television sets right in one's living room.

It is a season for raw mangoes spreading its aroma in the air and the fully blossomed neem tree that makes the air healthy. Also, jaggery made with fresh crop of sugarcane adds a renewed flavor to the typical dishes associated with Ugadi. "Ugadi pachchadi" is one such dish that has become synonymous with Ugadi. It is made of new jaggery, raw mango pieces and neem flowers and new tanarind which truly reflect life - a combination of sweet, sour and bitter tastes!

Preparing for the Occasion
Preparations for the festival begin a week ahead. Houses are given a thorough wash. Shopping for new clothes and buying other items that go with the requirements of the festival are done with a lot of excitement.

Ugadi is celebrated with festive fervor in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. While it is called Ugadi in A.P. and Karnataka, in Maharashtra it is known as "Gudipadava". On Ugadi day, people wake up before the break of dawn and take a head bath after which they decorate the entrance of their houses with fresh mango leaves. The significance of tying mango leaves relates to a legend. It is said that Kartik (or Subramanya or Kumara Swamy) and Ganesha, the two sons of Lord Siva and Parvathi were very fond of mangoes. As the legend goes Kartik exhorted people to tie green mango leaves to the doorway signifying a good crop and general well-being.

It is noteworthy that we use mango leaves and coconuts (as in a Kalasam, to initiate any pooja) only on auspicious occasions to propitiate gods. People also splash fresh cow dung water on the ground in front of their house and draw colorful floral designs. This is a common sight in every household. People perform the ritualistic worship to God invoking his blessings before they start off with the new year. They pray for their health, wealth and prosperity and success in business too. Ugadi is also the most auspicious time to start new ventures.

The celebration of Ugadi is marked by religious zeal and social merriment. Special dishes are prepared for the occasion. In Andhra Pradesh, eatables such as "pulihora", "bobbatlu" and preparations made with raw mango go well with the occasion. In Karnataka too, similar preparations are made but called "puliogure" and "holige". The Maharashtrians make "puran poli" or sweet rotis.

Season For Pickles
With the raw mango available in abundance only during the two months (of April/May), people in Andhra Pradesh make good use of mangoes to last them until the next season. They pickle the mangoes with salt, powdered mustard and powdered dry red chilli and a lot of oil to float over the mangoes. This preparation is called "avakai" and lasts for a whole year.

Mangoes and summer season go hand in hand. Ugadi thus marks the beginning of the hot season which coincides with the school vacations. For the young ones, therefore, Ugadi is characterised by new clothes, sumptuous food and revelling. The air is filled with joy, enthusiasm and gaiety. Some people participate in social community gatherings and enjoy a tranquil evening with devotional songs (bhajans).

Kavi Sammelanam
Kavi Sammelanam (poetry recitation) is a typical Telugu Ugadi feature. Ugadi is also a time when people look forward to a literary feast in the form of Kavi Sammelanam. Many poets come up with new poems written on subjects ranging - from Ugadi - to politics to modern trends and lifestyles.

Ugadi Kavi Sammelanam is also a launch pad for new and budding poets. It is generally carried live on All India Radio's Hyderabad "A" station and the Doordarshan,(TV) Hyderabad following "panchanga sravanam" (New year calendar) narrating the way the new year would shape up in the lives of people and the State in general. Kavis (poets) of many hues - political, comic, satirical reformist, literary and melancholic - make an appearance on the Ugadi stage. Ugadi is thus a festival of many shades. It ushers in the new year, brings a rich bounce of flora and fills the hearts of people with joy and contentment.

Special Delicacies
It is a season for raw mangoes spreading its aroma in the air and the fully blossomed Neem tree that makes the air healthy. Also, jaggery made with fresh crop of sugarcane adds a renewed flavour to the typical dishes associated with Ugadi.

"Ugadi Pachchadi" is one such dish that has become synonymous with Ugadi. It is made of new jaggery, raw mango pieces, Neem flowers and new tamarind. The inner significance of this preparation is to indicate that life is a mixture of good and bad, joy and sorrow and all of them have to be treated alike.

All experiences have to be treated with equanimity. Every one should make a resolve that he will face calmly whatever happens in this year, accepting it with good grace and welcoming everything. Consider everything as for one's own good. Men should rise above sorrow and happiness, success and failure. This is the primary message of the Ugadi festival.

In Andhra Pradesh, eatables such as "Pulihora", "Bobbatlu" and preparations made with raw mango go well with the occasion. In Karnataka too, similar preparations are made but called "Puliogure" and "Holige". The Maharashtrians make "Puran Poli" or sweet 'Rotis'.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: 'India Is Less Hungry Now'

An NSS survey shows that almost all people are now reporting eating two square meals a day. So why then do we need a universal Food Security Bill? In what could further roil the bitter poverty debate in India, a government survey shows that close to 99 percent of Indians say they are getting two square meals a day.

This could also beg the question – is there a need for a universal food security legislation, as the UPA seems so keen on legislating?

The National Sample Survey on Perceived Adequacy of Food Consumption in Indian Households shows that the proportion of rural households saying they are getting two square meals a day throughout the year has increased from 94.5 percent to 98.9 percent between 1993-94 and 2009-10. The proportion of urban households saying the same increased from 98.1 percent to 99.6 percent.

Correspondingly, there has been a decline in the proportion of households saying they did not get two square meals in any month or got it only in some months. Only 0.2 percent of rural households said that they did not get two square meals in any month in 2009-10, against 0.9 percent in 1993-94. In the urban areas, no household said it did not get adequate meals in any month in 2009-10, against 0.5 percent in 1993-94.

These figures will be laughed out by all of us who know that there are a lot of people going hungry out there. If the survey is right, we may well ask, how come India ranks 65th in the Global Hunger Index, below Sudan, Rwanda and Burkina Faso? Can 355 million people who get to spend less than Rs 30 a day on food, medicines and education actually say they get adequate food?

Let’s get things in perspective. One, the survey isn’t about any income or poverty line drawn arbitrarily by economists ensconced in ivory towers. Nor is it based on hard data on certain indicators, as in the case of the Global Hunger Index. It is a perception-based survey. That is, households were asked whether they had two square meals a day every day throughout the year.

The survey, the report points out, did not set any standards of food adequacy.  “How much and what kind of food should be considered as adequate was left to the informant’s judgment.” So it is possible that for some people, just two dry rotis with an onion could be one square meal. Getting this twice a day will be two square meals. So let’s factor that skew in.

Two, this is a sample survey covering a little over one lakh households across different income and social groups in rural and urban India, and not a census, where each and every household is covered. So it’s quite possible for 99 percent households to say that they are getting two square meals a day and for large numbers to face near-starvation conditions.

The right way to look at the survey is to see it as the trend over different time periods. The increase in the number of people reporting that they get adequate food throughout the year and the decline in those who say they don’t is steady. So in each survey, the first category has increased and the second decreased bit by bit.

It is this that is important, regardless of what the poverty industry would like us to believe – that we are going downhill. Just as it is important to see that irrespective of the formula used to estimate poverty, there has been a significant reduction in poverty levels in recent years.

Disaggregated data in the survey shows that some sections are still not better off than others. In rural areas, agricultural and other labour accounted for a higher share of those saying they did not get adequate meals all through the year. In the urban areas, casual labour and the self-employed (hawkers, rickshaw pullers, cobblers etc) accounted for a larger share of the same category. Similarly, scheduled castes and tribes form a larger proportion of this category in both the rural and urban areas.

Wouldn’t, then, it be better for any food security legislation to focus on these categories rather than including people who may be getting more than two proper square meals a day?

In four states – Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – more rural households than urban households said they got two square meals a day throughout the year. The report doesn’t give any reasons for this, but this could be either because people may be growing their own food in rural areas or social support systems are more robust in villages than in towns.

There’s a wake up call in the report for those ruing the dismantling of the socialist-influenced economic management in 1991. West Bengal, with its three uninterrupted decades of communist rule, had the lowest number of rural households saying they got adequate food through the year – 95.4 percent. Even Odisha did better with 96 percent. The proportion of agricultural labour households in West Bengal reporting that they did not get adequate food was 6.9 percent. Only Manipur and Odisha did worse in this respect.

The states with the highest proportion of families saying they got adequate meals through the year are, predictably, the high growth, investment friendly states – Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan (where 99.8 per cent of rural households and 100 percent of urban households said they were satisfied) and Tamil Nadu.

There’s a lesson in this, isn’t there?

Over 1,000 IAS Officers Fail To Submit Property Returns

Over 1,000 IAS officers have failed to submit their immovable property returns (IPRs) to the government within the stipulated time frame this year.

Of the total of 1,057 officers who did not submit their IPRs for 2012, a highest of 147 are from Uttar Pradesh cadre, 114 of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT), 100 of Manipur-Tripura, 96 of Jammu and Kashmir and 88 of Madhya Pradesh cadre among others, according to Department of Personnel and Training data.

Suspended IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi of MP cadre are also among the list of erring officials. Joshis, both 1979 batch officers of Madhya Pradesh cadre, made headlines after Income Tax department raided their residence in February, 2010 and allegedly unearthed assets worth over Rs 350 crore.

58 IAS officers of Karnataka cadre, 53 of Andhra Pradesh, 48 of Punjab, 47 of Orissa, 45 of West Bengal, 40 of Himachal Pradesh, 35 of Haryana, 25 of Jharkhand, 23 of Assam-Meghalaya, 22 of Rajasthan, 20 of Tamil Nadu, 17 of Maharashtra, 16 of Nagaland, 14 of Gujarat, 13 of Bihar, 10 of Kerala, nine each of Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh and eight of Sikkim cadre have not given their IPRs, it said.

The total sanctioned strength of IAS is 6,217, including 1,339 promotion posts. Of these, 4,737 officers are in position.

An all-India service officer is bound to file property returns of a year by January end of the following year, failing which promotion and empanelment to senior level postings may be denied.

Besides, there are 107 IAS officers who have not submitted their IPRs for 2011. As many as 198 IAS officials did not give their property details for 2010. “A circular has already been sent to all cadre
controlling authorities to inform them about timely submission of their IPRs,” said an official of the DoPT, which acts as a nodal agency for administrative matters of the IAS officers.

UPA Anti-Terror ‘Strategy’: When Doing Nothing Looks Like Success

According to the South Asia Terrorism expertise database, terrorism and insurgency-related fatalities in India have fallen from a peak of 5,839 in 2001 to 804 in 2012. Indeed, the decline has been sustained in each year since 2001, with a significant reversal of the trend only in 2005, and a marginal reversal in 2008.

The most dramatic drop has, of course, been in Jammu and Kashmir, for long the country’s worst insurgency, which witnessed a collapse from 4,507 fatalities in 2001 to 117 in 2012 (down from 183 in 2011, and 375 in 2010).

For a while, it appeared that a rampaging Maoist rebellion would escalate to fill up the gap, as fatalities surged from 675 in 2005 to 1,180 in 2010. Worse, the Maoists appeared to be expanding their theatres of operation at an unprecedented pace, confronting India with the most widespread insurgency of its Independent history. By 2010, 223 districts (out of a total of 636) in 20 states were thought to be affected by varying levels of Maoist ‘activity’, though only some 65 of these witnessed any recurrent violence. But the Maoist insurgency also appears to be in retreat. Total fatalities in Maoist violence dropped to 367 in 2012, even as the number of afflicted districts shrank to 173.

The broad trends in the chronically-troubled North-east have also been salubrious, with total fatalities declining from a recent peak of 1,051 in 2005 to 317 in 2012. Disturbing proclivities, however, do persist. The Maoists have extended their presence into this unstable region and are creating new partnerships with its fractious and collapsing insurgencies.

Some states, most prominently including Manipur, see a cyclical trend in violence. So, while fatalities were down to 190 in 2002, they rose almost steadily thereafter, to 485 in 2008, dropping to just 65 in 2011, and rising, again, to 111 in 2012. Fratricidal turf wars between various rebel Naga factions have also seen a spike in killings in this state, from 15 in 2011, to 65 in 2012.

Attacks by Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorists across India recorded a remarkable decline, with just one incident in 2012 outside J&K – a low intensity blast in Pune. 2011 had registered three such attacks outside J&K, with at least 42 killed. 2008, of course, saw such incidents peaking, with seven attacks, and 364 fatalities, of which 195 (166 civilians, 20 SF personnel and nine terrorists) were accounted for by the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack alone.

It is natural, in the present circumstances, to attribute this broad trend towards internal security stabilisation – at least in part – to state policy. The argument, crudely put, is that the government must be doing something that is right if all our insurgencies are collapsing, and Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorists are in evident retreat, both in J&K and across the rest of the country. Such an assessment, the argument goes, cannot be undermined by an occasional attack, such as the 21 February 2013, twin blasts in Hyderabad, which killed 16.

Indeed, some supporters of the present United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime have sought to interpret the contrast between insurgency-terrorism-related fatalities under the preceding National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the current trend as evidence of the great sagacity of strategy and policy that the former has brought to internal security management.

Curiously, as an aside, it is interesting to notice that, on the one hand, the government and its supporters argue that declines in violence are the result of the ‘success’ of ‘policies’ and ‘strategies’ (neither of which appear to have been defined in any distinctive terms, or to have been implemented on any measurable parameters); on the other, at the first sign of trouble – the Hyderabad blasts, for instance – they insist that it is necessary to create the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) if terrorism has to be fought successfully.

But if recent improvements in trends are the consequences of ‘good policies and strategies’ – obviously implemented by existing institutions – the NCTC is, evidently, not necessary. On the other hand, if the NCTC is, indeed, necessary, then the declines in terrorist violence would need to be attributed, not to any great strategic coherence or operational effectiveness, but to extraneous factors for which the government cannot claim credit.

The Hyderabad blasts, in fact, tell us precisely that our vulnerabilities remain undiminished, and that it is in a wide range of other factors – and not in any spectacular augmentation of state capacities and capabilities, or any impressive evolution of national strategy – that we would find explanations of the broad decline of insurgent and terrorist violence in India.

This is not to say that the state and its agencies have done nothing, or that there has been no capacity augmentation. Rather, what is being done does not constitute any radical departure from what was being done earlier – with very limited impact – and capacity augmentations have been far too modest to register any remarkable improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of CI-CT capabilities and responses.

To take one obvious and visible parameter, between 2008 (the year of the 26/11 attacks) and 2011 (the last year for which credible data is available) the police-population ratio rose from 128 to just 137; significant, of course, but nowhere near the strengths required even for peacetime policing – which, on international estimates, should range well above 220 per 100,000.

Various institutional innovations, prominently including the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence (JTFI) in the IB, and the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), which were to provide the core of augmented CI-CT capabilities, remain mere shells, years after they were sanctioned, with no measurable impact on ground level capabilities of the state.

Of course, state and central agencies have made continuous arrests and have successfully identified and neutralised a wide range of the state’s enemies on a fairly regular basis. However, such preventive operations and arrests were also carried out when violence was rising, and there is no evidence to suggest that the plummeting trends in insurgent and terrorist violence are the consequence of extraordinary operational efficacy.

It is, indeed, safe to say that, in the main – though not in their entirety – the improvements in India’s internal security environment are consequences of factors extraneous to the strategies, policies and actions of the state and its agencies; unless, of course, an attitude of majestic indolence can be regarded as ‘strategy’, ‘policy’ or ‘action’. It would, in fact, not be far from the truth to say that India has, more often than not, simply worn out its enemies by its indifference, than defeated them by the vigour and sagacity of its responses.

There are, of course, exceptions to this broad observation – Punjab, Tripura and Andhra Pradesh provide dramatic examples of what the state and its agencies can do when they actually find the clarity of purpose and the determination. But the lessons of these theatres have largely been ignored in a muddled discourse on ‘developmental’ and ‘political’ solutions, and by those who have given vent to immature anti-Maoist fantasies on ‘clear, hold and develop’, or to theatrical institutional innovations such as the NCTC, to the abiding neglect of the nuts and bolts of capacities and capabilities of the country’s intelligence and policing apparatus on the ground.

It is not a coincidence that the sustained reversal in terrorism-insurgency trends commenced after 2001. The 9/11 attacks in the US signalled the beginning of a new age in which the opportunistic ‘tolerance of terrorism’ that had marked the attitudes of the West was brought to an end. The enveloping global environment became abruptly hostile to those who used extreme violence to secure their political ends, and to the states that sponsored them.

The attacks of 9/11 also brought the massive US-led Western intervention in Afghanistan, and its gradual impact on the wider AfPak region. The result was progressively rising pressure on the Pakistani covert establishment to end at least visible levels of support to terrorism on India soil, as well as the impact of escalating domestic destabilisation that came to afflict Pakistan as a result of the ‘blowback’ of its support to international terrorism and its campaigns in Afghanistan.

A shift in Pakistan’s strategic priorities, towards the more urgent imperatives of its campaigns in Afghanistan, and away from Kashmir and India, further weakened India-directed terrorist impulses, providing tremendous relief, particularly in J&K. It remains the case, however, that Pakistan has kept anti-India terrorist formations of various hues alive and in reserve, hoping that a Western withdrawal from the region will reopen opportunities for a renewal of its Indian campaign.

The collapse of the regime of ‘tolerance of terrorism’ had it wider impact on other insurgencies in India. It was in December 2003 that the multiple insurgencies of India’s North-east received their first body blow, when the groups – led by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) – were expelled from Bhutanese soil, where they had received safe haven for years. After 2007, the environment became hostile in Bangladesh as well, and after the Sheikh Hasina Wajed government came to power in 2009, Bangladesh intensified action against the North-east insurgent groups and even dismantled the structure of Islamist extremist and terrorist groupings that had crystallised on its soil.

Large proportions of the North-east insurgent leadership were simply handed over to Indian authorities. Others found surrender or negotiations with the state more attractive, against the now-rising uncertainties of a fugitive life. The degraded insurgencies of the North-east are now also afflicted by an exhaustion brought about by the protracted and ponderous insensitivities of the Indian state.

Significantly, as the West grew more intolerant of their antics, insurgent groupings have been finding it difficult to secure some measure of political and propaganda space abroad, even as many of their domestic apologists have started running out of enthusiasm in the face of rising criticism. This has certainly blunted recruitment potential and the political space for extremism, once again, eroding prospects of insurgent mobilisation.

The Maoists remained substantially insulated from these developments. Reinvigorated by the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre in September 2004, the newly formed Communist Party of India – Maoist (CPI-Maoist) embarked on an ambitious adventure to “extend the people’s war throughout the country”. Over the succeeding six years, they expanded into regions that were far from the population, geographical, administrative and developmental profile of the Red Corridor areas where they had found their natural habitat.

This was a tremendous strategic miscalculation, exposing them to the obvious risks of penetration during a phase of rapid expansion, compounded by the fact that these regions were much better connected, better serviced and (relatively) better administered. The result was that the Maoists suffered massive leadership losses – for instance, at least 18 members of the 39-member Central Committee of 2007 were arrested or killed during this phase. An overwhelming proportion of these losses were far afield, in urban centres and in states where the Maoists were making tentative forays to set up their networks, and not, with only occasion exception, as a result of the vaunting ‘clear, hold and develop’, or ‘cordon and search’ operations that the Centre launched in 2009 – and that came to a virtual and abrupt end with the Chintalnar massacre of April 2010.

Much of the Maoist escalation during the 2009-10 phase was, in fact, a retaliation against the Centre’s decision to challenge them in their areas of strength, though the pre-election mischief in West Bengal also gave them space for dramatic intensification in that state. Nevertheless, it is the leadership losses that have now forced the Maoists into a tactical retreat and an effort to reconsolidate their bases in their areas of strength – the Red Corridor.

Right to the end of his tenure as Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram had repeatedly stated that, despite the enormous investments and institutional transformations he took credit for, “all of India’s cities” remained vulnerable to terrorist attack. This would be a fairly correct assessment of the overall situation even now – we remain as vulnerable today as we were on 26/11, or as our forces were at Chintalnar.

It is true that our enemies have weakened – some temporarily, some more permanently; but it would be wrong to believe that we have become significantly stronger.

Starvation Politics: Kejriwal’s ‘Upvaas’ Vs Sharmila’s ‘Suicide Attempt’

Size zero came back in vogue in Indian politics thanks to the runaway success of Anna Hazare‘s hunger strike, until his magical malnourishment show grew dull with repetition. Starvation politics lost its sheen, and all of us went back to the business of eating as usual.

Now with Arvind Kejriwal planning a comeback, so is extreme undernourishment  Don’t worry, as Kejriwal assures us, this isn’t Grandpa Anna‘s hunger strike: “Those were anshans. We had certain demands from the government. This time, it is an upvaas. We don’t have any demand from the government. We are concerned only with the citizens.” He plans to hop from one supporter’s home to another to protest hikes in the prices of electricity and water. The starving just adds a little oomph to the proceedings.

Anorexia without a cause! When Bollywood starlets needlessly starve themselves, it’s a diet. When our leaders do the same, we call it satyagraha. Sorry, make that ‘upvaas.’ And when Irom Sharmila does it, our government calls it an “attempt to commit suicide.” Unlike Uma Bharti‘s intermittent —  now I eat, now I — ”indefinite fast,” Sharmila’s hunger strike has endured 12 years of force-feeding in police custody. She’s also facing charges in a Delhi court for declaring her intention fast unto death in 2006 during a protest in Jantar Mantar. Guess, that didn’t work out quite as well for her as Annaji, who was instead rewarded with a long line of UPA supplicants urging him to just eat something!

Hunger strikes are all about turnout — as Hazare well knows. Human rights violations in distant Manipur aren’t quite as popular as that big-C crowd-pleaser, Corruption. Anna tum sangharsh karo, Hum tumhare saath hain! Irom, not so much.

At the time, left-leaning intellectuals embraced the reverse double-standard. In a widely circulated essay, Shuddhabrata Sengupta thusly described Anna’s bourgeois ann-shan antics:

The current euphoria needs to be seen for what it is – a massive move towards legitimising a strategy of simple emotional blackmail – a (conveniently reversible) method of suicide bombing in slow motion. …The force of violence, whether it is inflicted on others, or on the self, or held out as a performance, can only act coercively. And coercion can never nourish democracy.

Other than rebuking middle class myopia for the absence of “a tele-visually orchestrated campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,” however, Sengupta remained wilfully silent as to whether Sharmila’s hunger strike qualifies as a “method of suicide bombing in slow motion.” In politics, satyagraha lies in the eyes of the beholder. It’s never about the fast, but the person fasting. And it’s always a person who matters.

Hunger strikes are the weapon of the important. They are less about suicide than wilfulness: I’m not going to eat! That kind of threat works only when it’s pulled by a toddler or a VIP.  It assumes the presence of an interested audience – be it of concerned parents, adoring supporters, or harried authorities — who care about when you had your last meal. Or in the case of Irom, a government that cares enough to feed you through a tube against your will. Lots of nameless people go hungry in India; a number of them even die. But no one cares about the death of statistics.

This is why ordinary people in dire circumstances rarely go on a hunger strike.  No one can summon up the interest to stand around watching them die, or rather threaten to maybe, possibly die — but only if everything goes terribly wrong, and as a very last resort. To merit any kind of attention, the common man has to go the whole hog and actually kill him or herself. Hence, while Kejriwal, Hazare et al threaten starve until death, a Tariq Ahmad Rather sets himself, his wife, two sons and mother on fire because his family is starving — and then is charged by the police for attempting suicide.

On the other hand, the mighty authorities can choose to ignore plebian suicides when required. Like those 19 farmers in the Cauvery Delta who — in the words of the Tamil Nadu government  — met an untimely death “due to a variety of reasons from old age, family problems to accidents.”

The good news for Kejriwal and his admirers is that his latest fast is unlikely to require such unseemly fudging of facts. While the hunger strike is “indefinite,” it is highly unlikely to prove fatal. The upvaas instead marks the birth of a new trend: fasting as political accoutrement, the must-have accessory to make your protest pop!

Inside RSS Women’s Wing: Yes To Wife Beaters, No To Divorce

Following the incident of rape in Delhi, which left a 23-year-old physiotherapy student dead, the struggle for women’s rights and safety has gathered momentum in the country. While one would like to think that women across the country echo the same feelings and are probably equally restless about the patriarchal structure around which they have to arrange their lives, the RSS women’s wing seems to be a study in contradictions.

One one hand they encourage women to come out of their homes to join a political organisation and organise camps to encourage sports on the other hand they keep reiterating that a woman’s primary duty is towards her family and its well-being.

An Outlook article by Neha Dixit, explores the amusing mechanisms within the women’s section of the party, called the Rashtra Sevika Samiti.

The article traces how the pracharikas or the workers of the group take pride in the fact that they are not backing or demanding women’s rights. Rather, they seem to be content with the fact that they are working towards the creation of a ‘Hindu’ nation. The women’s wing, which has close to 55,000 branches across the country also seem skeptical of the feminist movements working their way against patriarchal domination in the country.

In a particularly interesting section, the reporter talks to a young woman about the dynamics of the man-woman relationship, to which the said RSS workers reveals shockingly misogynistic ideas. What is even more strange is probably that, in the mammoth women’s organisation she works in and for, such ideas are endorsed as perfectly credible.

The reporter quotes twenty-something Sharda from Jabalpur: I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don’t parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband’s moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “Our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

While women of the country might be busy taking potshots at men and the likes of Mohan Bhagwat, perhaps it’s time to take a deeper, critical look at their own kinds.

Last fortnight saw two debuts: One, the nation for the first time thronged the streets on the issue of gender. Two, RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s moment of epiphany was well timed, like never before, for the nation to reflect upon his misogyny and sexism. Bhagwat, within a span of three days, came up with two significant statements: a rapist prefers ‘Indian’ women over ‘Bharatiya’ women and a woman must satisfy her husband for food, shelter and protection. The Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the RSS’s women wing, with 55,000 shakhas all over the country, not just ascribe to the above tenets but also holds camps and indoctrinates thousands of girls-toddlers, adolescents and old- to propagate the idea of a ‘culturally sanitised’ Hindu rashtra and the patriarchal roles it offers women to conform.

The rubber slippers were neatly lined outside the assembly hall. Thirty eight pairs, I counted. The multi-coloured chalks decorated the blackboard, next to the shut door, that announced, ‘12th December, Swadeshi Diwas, Akhil Bhartiya Pracharika Abhyas Varg, Sambhajinagar.’ This, one of the many, three day training camp for the Pracharikas of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti commenced just a day before Gujarat went to polls. A sudden cacophony of hurried footsteps broke the silence, that was powerfully guarded by the hillocks of Jatwada village twenty five km from Aurangabad district for Arya Chanakya Vidyadham, the venue for the this training camp.

Three black dots appeared in the corridor where I was waiting. They were three women.. Sunita, the first dot was the organiser of the camp in her early forties, ran to the hall to instruct the pracharikas to maintain silence. Shanthakaka, the Pramukh Sanchalika of the Samiti, and Sharad Renu, the Bauddhik pramukh tried to match the fast steps of Suresh ‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi, the general secretary of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Bhaiyyaji was here to train the pracharikas over the next three days. Shanthakaka’s authority reflected in her salt and pepper hair and double chin, Sharda’s stoic face changed with a flush of reverence and submission. Bhaiyyaji entered the hall, grabbed the microphone and said, “ Gaiy jab ghas khaati hai to apne bacche ke liye baandh kar nahin laati magar ek mahila kuch bhi khaati hai to apne parivar ke liye baandh kar lati hai. Is antar ko pehchaano. Yahi ek mahila ki shakti hai ( A cow does not pack grass after she finishes grazing but a woman packs some part of it for her family to bring it back home. Identify this difference. This is the strength of a woman.)” While motherhood is taught as the absolute objective for a woman , it is this subordination of Shanthakaka and her battalion of Samiti whole timers to be indoctrinated by a man with alacrity, is what establishes the existence of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, India’s largest right wing women’s organisation.

Even though the RSS was founded in 1925, when women were already active in all shades of anticolonial movements-nonviolent as well as revo­lutionary extremism-it did not even develop a women's front for the next eleven years. Lakshmibai Kelkar, known as ‘mausiji’, the mother of a Maharashtrian RSS veteran, had approached Dr. Keshav Bali­ram Hegdewar, the founder and leader of the RSS, many times in the early thirties for the admission of women, but he was not responsive. At last in 1936 he agreed to her proposal and advised her to set up a separate women's wing. The Samiti was formed with intention to create awareness among women about their cultural and social responsibilities. Replicating the RSS schedule, the women are trained in the Hindutva idealogy and paramilitary through shakhas, vargs, yoga and discussions.

“Mausiji lived next to my mausi’s house, where I grew up, in Nagpur. Mausiji was touring the region with her son to spread the network of Samiti Shakhas. Her idea of worshipping Devi Ashtabhuja drew me to the Samiti. Devi Ashtabhuja is a symbol of realisation of Hindu women’s image. That of a woman’s chastity, purity, boldness and sacrifice. Above all, a woman has the divine power of womanhood who can nurture a character based society, ”says 83 year old Pramila Medhe fondly known as Pramila Tai. She is the oldest member of the Samiti and has served with all the four Pramukh Sanchalikas and has been a Samiti Pracharika (whole-timer) for the last sixty years. Epitomising the tenets laid down for a samiti pracharika, Pramila Tai is a celibate like the pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

The position of Pramila Tai, as a pracharika in the Samiti is a prestigious one. With a high level training in paramilitary and the Hindutva ideology, they are expected to take on the responsibility to move into new and sometimes remote areas to spread the message. Chastity heightens their iconic status for it is deeply associated in Hinduism with notions of spirituality, purity. These qualities also make these women reliable spokes­persons for the future Hindu rashtra sons for the future Hindu rashtra (nation). Renunciation-both sexual and material--exercises enor­mous moral force within the parameters of Hinduism. 

Immaculately dressed in a pink cotton nine yard Maharashtrian saree and a spotless, crisp white blouse, she gestures me to eat the freshly plucked custard apples as she goes on to explain the basic values and the purpose behind forming the Samiti and the role of a pracharika. “Pracharikas pledge their lives to the making of the hindu rashtra instead of running towards material and domestic bliss. Once we commit ourselves to the cause, it is the Samiti’s responsibility to take care of our well being. In that process we need to learn to live humbly and simultaneously train ourselves to be strong enough to travel to villages, often alone and use public transport like bus, trains etc.” Once the pracharikas are trained, they establish new shakhas in their areas and train other sevikas in physi­cal or intellectual skills and organize campaigns.

It is important to note that the name Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh means ‘Nationalist Volunteers’. In contrast, the term Rashtra Sevika denotes women who serve the nation. This difference in the meaning does hint at the conventional humble service that is expected of a sacrificial woman. The sense of autonomy and self-choice that are associated with the word "volunteer" are notably missing.

The pracharikas are categorically told that the difference between the Rashtra Sevika Samiti and other women’s organisation is that unlike others they do not fight for women’s rights, instead they fight to create a Hindu rashtra. With the ‘bhagwa’ (saffron) flag for guru, the Samiti believes that the Indian women already enjoy equal rights in an egalitarian Hindu rashtra. “It is the western women who had fight for their rights in the 1920s unlike us,” says Tai emphatically. 

When I ask her how possible is it in a patriarchal society like India where women are expected to conform to the subordination, she is outraged and echoes the same ‘social contract’ Mohan Bhagwat talked about last week, “We are not feminists, we are familists. We believe in ‘dampatya’ (conjugality) where a man and a woman together need to bring up a family.” . The Samiti does not confront them with the larger problems of their socially exploited sisters, so that the Hindutva women are never forced to choose between gender and their own class/caste privileges. It keeps them tied to family interests and ideology while spicing their lives with the excitement of a limited but important public identity.

The gong rings and pracharikas break for lunch. I am invited to join them as they sit in queues, legs folded, waiting for their turn to be served food by the volunteers. That is when I got a chance to interact with Sunita, the organiser of the camp. Sunita, originally from Aurangabad was sent to the Northeast to organise shakhas and mobilise women to join the Samiti. Her posting was a follow up to the Nellie massacre in Assam in 1983 where the Bangladeshi muslims and Assamese Muslims of Bengali origin were targetted as ‘outsiders’ by the locals. Official records suggest that over 1800 people died and several injured. The report submitted by the Tiwari Commission in 1984 was never made public by the government. “I have been working there for the last 25 years under difficult circumstances battling the Muslim and Christian invasions.” 

Conflict areas like the Northeast, often ignored by the Indian state, sometimes for their remoteness and mostly because of cultural alienation are the breeding grounds for indoctrination. Kokrajhar, an Assam district, recently in news for communal riots has been at receiving end of the tensions between the locals and the Muslims, who have to keep proving their East Bengal origins. With increased competition for livelihood, land and political power has led to frequent violence in this district due to its geographical proximity to Bangladesh.

In 2008, in an exact replica of the recent violence in Kokrajhar in July this year, Bodos-minority community violence killed 100 people and displaced nearly 200,000.Twenty eight year old Karabi’s house was also burnt and she lived in the refugee camps for the next three months. “The food was limited, there was no place to even sleep. My family was dispersed and my mother died during the riots. The camp was infiltrated by the Bangladeshi immigrants. It is then when I met Sunita didi. She took me to the Samiti shivir where I learnt how to fight for my rights and to take away what is mine.” 

Karbi, originally from the Bodo tribe is now a carrier of the Hindu religion in Assam. Roma Chakraborty, a Grahini sevika (part-timer) who joined the Samiti in 2009 after retiring from her job at a local power grid, is helping Karbi organise bal shivirs in Silchar district in Assam. They are required to travel to all the tribal villages in the state and distribute Hindu literature, lockets, pamphlets. According to them, travelling to muslim villages in particularly difficult. “By the end of January 2013, we wish to see photographs of Bharat mata in each household in this area.” says Roma. 

The increasing conversions to Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh is another threat that needs to be tackled. “The christians have money and thats how they are luring the tribals and converting their faith.” To fight this, 13 pracharikas from Assam have travelled to train themselves at the camp. Roma also hints at a joint action that is being planned by the samiti along with the RSS to stop the Bangladeshis to cross the border and stay in the refugee camps at Kokrajhar.

The bal shivirs, Karbi and Roma are set to organise, are popular tools to inculcate ideas and cognitive Hindutva strategies in the kids. These kids, often in the age group of 5 to 8, attend camps of different durations ranging from one day to three day organised by the Samiti. “Isn’t it better if they learn ‘Bharat desh, mera desh, meri mata aur pranesh, meri jaan, mere praan, Bharat mata ko qurbaan’ instead of ‘Baba black sheep, have you any wool’, says Radha Mehta, Delhi Prant Karyavahika. The malleable minds of these kids are worked upon through games, patriotic songs, arts and crafts workshops to teach the importance and the need of a Hindu rashtra. “We make them draw Lord Ram, Rani Laxmibai and Lotus flower and make them curious enough to ask about these figures,” she adds. 

Door to door campaigns and counselling of the families helps them convince the parents to send their kids for the camps. Lure of free food and clothing are often reasons enough that these kids become regulars at these camps, the importance of which is best realised in conflict zones like the Northeast, poverty stricken areas like Vidarbha or the ghettos in metros like New Delhi that accommodate the migrants from the villages.

Another training camp targeted at the adolescents is called the kishori varg. In Delhi alone, last year over 250 girls attended the 15 day camp. Door to door campaigns, targeting young girls who hit puberty and thereafter are engaged in ideological discourses about Hindutva and paramilitary exercises like sword fighting and martial arts. The social base of the women of the Hindu Right, however, is easily identified as overwhelmingly upper caste, middle class, and urban. When I ask Radha, sitting in the drawing room of her West Delhi home, with the embellishments accordingly matched to her maroon velvet sofa and cushions, about the socio-economic status of these girls who attend the camps, she is evasive, “ We get volunteers from all classes. There are several migrant families near our office in Paharganj. And then there are girls from areas like Chandni Chowk from ‘well to do’ families.” 

At this point, it is interesting to note that in the last elections in the Chandni Chowk constituency in New Delhi in 2009, it was recorded that the Muslim electorate went down from 40 percent to 13.38 percent with a 62 percent Hindu population, mostly dominated by OBCs and SCs. Inducing the alacrity in the parents to send the daughters to the kishori vargs is lined with initial complications. “People are often apprehensive about sending their daughters to the camp because they think like the pracharikas, their daughters too will opt out of a family life,” says Roma.

Dressed in a salwar kameez, with the dupatta slung across one shoulder and tied on waist diagonally, she was serving food and refilling the pracharikas’s plates at the Aurangabad camp in the most efficient manner. Supriya Hattekar, 22, has been associated with the Samiti since she was 12. When I sit her down and ask her where is she from, she emphatically says, “Sambhajinagar.” In January, 2011, the ruling Shiv Sena in Aurangabad passed a resolution to rename the city to ‘Sambhajinagar’. 

Several centuries ago, the city was named Aurangabad after the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb whose mortal remains are buried in the city. The city has almost 60 percent Muslim population. Supriya is a student of Master of Computer Application and aspires to become a software engineer. “Besides unemployment, there are two major problems that need to be addressed”, she says. “One is that young girls must be stopped from putting their pictures on social networking websites like Facebook. They risk their honour and then their pictures are morphed into nude ones and circulated. They invite blackmailing by this. Secondly, when girls are eve teased, they are scared to talk about it for the fear of defamation. 

There is a need for a body which these girls can approach to avoid this.” It reverberates the misogynist comments like that of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj who described a rape survivor as a ‘zinda laash’ (corpse). To add to that it also reminds of the fatwa issued by Madarsa Manzar-e-Islam of Dargah Aala Hazrat, an organisation of Sunni Muslim clerics, last month who termed as 'haraam' the uploading of photos on the internet for matrimonial purpose and on social networking sites. Curiously but expectedly, the patriarchal idea of female honour, a commodity that needs to be protected, and the religious practice of putting the onus on women for being wronged are deeply manifested in Supriya’s notion of female values.

It is also significant that female-pattern violence is more often characterized by self-defense as opposed to male pattern violence. The body-centered practices for women have old and varied meanings and values within different currents of Hindu patriarchy. Supriya also volunteers to teach sword fighting and martial arts at the kishori vargs. These trainings can be witnessed at the training camps: elaborate, passionate drills with cries of ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’ and ‘Jai Maa Durga ki’ follow after each attack on the opponent. When I ask Pramila Tai, the purpose of training the girls in sword fighting in this day and age, she says, “I know it is obsolete. But it gives the girls a confidence that if an invader attempts to violate them, they can turn around and hit him hard with any object that comes handy.”

Muslim lust for the Hindu woman has been one of the staples of RSS propaganda and selective memories of rape during the Partition riots are well known.The ‘invader’ here is a direct reference to non-Hindus i.e. Muslims and Christians. From Savarkar's formative writings on Muslim rule in India, the stereotype of an eternally lustful Muslim male with evil designs on Hindu women has been reiterated. While the women are made to establish themselves as political subjects through an agenda of hatred and brutality against a besieged minority, it is love jehad that is seen as a crucial combat that they need to collectively and strongly engage in. Says Shanthakaka, “Muslim boys are encouraged to elope with our girls. The money they are paid to elope and marry a Hindu girl depends on the caste of the girl. The remuneration for Rajput girls is Rs one lakh and for Brahmin girls is Rs two lakhs.” Girls from lower castes are not seen as a good ‘catch’ neither does it bother the Samiti enough.

The kishori vargs are most potent tools to entangle seething teenage emotions with patriarchy. They propogate the idea of gendered spaces, curbing young questioning minds to aspire for domesticity and motherhood instead of independent, ambitious, liberated lives. Says Rekha, “ When the girls join the camp, they question us when we ask them not to wear western outfits like jeans or backless tops. They are told that it not our tradition to show the shape of our body parts. It takes time to make them understand the logic.” Comparatively, this may seem a lesser battle to fight. 

The Samitis regard higher education and professional careers for women as desirable, even though strictly conditional upon pa­rental consent. Not surprisingly, most pracharikas are graduates and postgraduates. However,the Samiti manual clearly mentions that ‘after marriage, a girl will have many responsibilities in her new home. It is not advisable for her to bring disquiet by refusing to compromise. If ordained by her fate, her husband will permit her to study.’ This stems from the clear understanding that domesticity is the sole purpose of a woman’s existence and that equilibrium has to maintained at all personal costs. Similarly, love marriage can only be allowed through parental consent.

Kemi Wahengbam, 26, has been a whole timer for the last two years. Originally from Manipur, her association with the Samiti dates back to when she was a teenager. Initially hostile and then hesitant to talk to me, she said, “ Our work is like sugar in water. You cannot understand it unless you taste it.” Kemi later reveals, “I grew up amidst the army rule, bombs, killings. Association with the Samiti was a welcome change. Religion not just gave my life a direction but also a chance to see the rest of the country.” Kemi has been posted in Gujarat for the last two years and under her tutelage at least 50 new girls have joined the Gujarat shakha. When I ask Kemi about the Gujarat riots and the killings of 2,000 Muslims she resorts to the age old definition of a riot, which is irrational, spontaneous violence, not once acknowledging the possibility of it being organised. She says, “It was a reaction. Hindus are very tolerant by nature. 

Hindu kings have even funded the construction of mosques and churches in this country. So clearly, during Gujarat 2002, all thresholds were crossed for the Hindus to turn so violent.” Kemi’s answer exposes the complicity of the Samiti in the riots and the violence against the Muslims in the way that involves their informed assent to the brutalities against Muslim women which involves gangrapes, slicing of their breasts and the tearing open of pregnant wombs. Refusing to talk to me further, Kemi leaves the dormitory, where the pracharikas were staying for the camp.

I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late twenties, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don't parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband's moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non option for women. She says, “our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try counsel the husband too.”

Discussion in the Samiti are no mindless gestures but highly informed convictions. Knowledge and education are often used to vociferously debate contemporary issues in the light of Hindutva. The next session was to discuss such issues. FDI, the most recent point of opposition evoked passionate debates among pracharikas. Pramila Tai goes on to give an example, “Twenty years back, there were television commercials for food products that claimed that it is like ‘home-cooked food’. Now a days, the television commercials sell food products with a tagline that it is ‘restaurant-like’. 

Isn’t this an insult to women?” Her argument against capitalism is seen through the prism of the domesticated roles assigned to women. She adds, “Even when I may have ideological differences with Indira Gandhi, she took great care to meet the smallest of demands of her sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.” Live-in relationships are seen as an anomaly. “They do not guarantee legal rights to the women, neither do they provide the framework for a family and children to lead a normal life,” says Poonam, the pracharika from Delhi. She goes on to discuss homosexuality, “These days, western concepts like lesbianism have seeped into the Indian culture. They are destructive and abnormal.” Falling female sex ratio emerges as another talking point. Sharda, the bauddhik pramukh argues, “If the number of girls will go down, the number of Hindus will decrease. 

And it has been historically proven that whenever, the number of Hindus has gone down in this country, the nation has suffered a crisis.” In an ideology, where women are predominantly mothers who could help the Sangh cause most by rearing their children within the RSS framework of samskaras- a combination of family ritual and unquestioning deference toward patriarchy and religion, these responses are predictable. However, the areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance, sexuality, and reproductive rights in this context also define the place of women and assign them a subordinate status within the community. When I ask them about Hindu terrorism and Sadhvi Pragya, Tara from Panipat jumps to the defence of Hindutva, “She cannot be involved in such an incident. It is a conspiracy to malign Hinduism as a religion. The Samiti teaches the concept of ‘vasudev kutumbakam’. 

A Hindu can never be a terrorist. Terrorism in itself is an ‘American concept.’ She cannot harm on her own family members. What she did could have been a reaction.” I see this as an apt moment to bring in the age old debate about the Ram janmabhoomi and Babri Masjid. There is tense silence when Pramila Tai decides to take the lead. “The ASI has handed over evidence of the mandir. Inspite of that we have been suffering the humiliation of not being able to construct a mandir. When we demand it, we are branded as communal. Hindus have a history of tolerance. Unlike, in Russia where people demolished the statues of Lenin and Stalin, we have allowed mosques to exist that were built during Aurangzeb’s era. Instead of appreciating that we are denied our rights and are instead misinterpreted.”

In the company of such forthright women, it is only pertinent to ask why women still do not hold powerfully political positions in the country. Shathakaka answered,” We do not believe in satta. Parliament is simply a law producing machine. We believe in reforming the society which cannot happen through the weak foreign and economic policies of the political parties.”

No wonder, when compared to the women’s organisations of the Left like the All India Democratic Women’s Association, the Samiti has always taken a backseat in initiating social reform movements.

The Samiti has led a low­ priority, non innovative, routine-bound existence and it is that passivity and unquestioning attitude that is being indoctrinated in young girls through these camps. They are brainwashed with that Hindu nationalism that has always sought legitimacy in notions of female selflessness, sacrifice, and martyrdom. The image of a sustaining, nurturing commu­nity is then used to undercut all left attacks on political and social hierarchies-be it the demands of the states for greater autonomy or of the lower castes, classes, and women for equal rights and affirmative action.

It is in this light of the recent Delhi gangrape protests, the statements of a Mohan Bhagwat propagating patriarchy and blaming western attacks on family values as the reason of rape in the urban India and that of Asha Ram Bapu who said, “the woman could have been saved had she attempted to evoke brotherly sentiments in the six rapists,” that the Hindu right wings notions of a family need to be questioned. The Sevika Samiti, entangled in its own patriarchal values, will never attempt to don this mantle. 

Or get rid of its myopic vision to see that family values are no less corrupted by the corrosive effects of individualism, consumerism and injustice. As Pramila Tai says, “Women demand extra freedom at the cost of the family. This is destructive.” Instead it legitimises gender differences embodied in traditional attitudes. It never empowers women and alter gender relations in the household. In the Samiti, the women continue to be neither subjects of the democratic discourse, nor active participants in it, but the invisibilized site on which masculinist arguments about state transformation unfold.