Backing Modi, RSS takes on Nitish - The Hindu
No one can issue fatwa against us, says BJP; JD(U) against ‘fanatic face’ as PM nominee
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s recent statement that the Bharatiya Janata Party should project a person with ‘secular’ credentials as prime ministerial nominee (a veiled reference to the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi), has escalated into a full fledged war of words between the sangh parivar and the Janata Dal (United).
JD(U) general secretary Shivananda Tiwari, a confidant of Mr. Kumar, said on Wednesday that if the BJP were to project a “fanatic face” as the National Democratic Alliance’s prime ministerial candidate, his party would have to walk out of the alliance.
The JD(U) and the BJP run a coalition government in Bihar. The BJP retaliated by saying that no one had the right to issue a fatwa (diktat) on its secular credentials.
Rare intervention
In a rare political intervention, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat has been reported as telling a meeting of RSS workers in Latur (Maharashtra) earlier in the day that Mr. Kumar’s statement was aimed at appeasing some vote banks, a reference to the JD(U) base among minorities in Bihar.
Mr. Bhagwat has been reported as saying, “Nitish Kumar has said the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate should be secular. He has made the statement so that his vote bank remains intact.”
It is unusual for the Sangh chief to speak in such candid terms on political persons and it indicates that the RSS is fully behind the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Quoting those present at the meeting, PTI said Mr. Bhagwat described Hinduism as an “all-inclusive” religion and wondered why a “Hinduwadi” should not become Prime Minister.
“Hinduism is the religion of humanism. You are right and we are also right, Hinduism follows this broad philosophy,” he was quoted as having said.
To keep alive the Hindu ideology, the Hindu ‘samaj’ should come together and the country should have a prime minister who believes in that ideology or propounds that view, he reportedly said.
Growing antipathy
The antipathy between Mr. Modi and Mr. Kumar is not new. The latter has kept a safe distance from the former and had refused to share the dais with him in the last Assembly elections in Bihar.
Emergence of the Gujarat Chief Minister to the centre stage of the BJP at the recent Mumbai National Executive and the talk of Mr. Modi as possible prime ministerial candidate has been a cause of concern to the JD(U).
Mr. Modi’s remarks last week, blaming “festering caste politics” in Bihar as the main reason of its backwardness, gave an opening to Mr. Kumar to hit back at his Gujarat counterpart.
In an interview to The Economic Times on Tuesday, Mr. Kumar let it be known in unambiguous terms that the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate should be someone with “secular credentials.”
Mr. Tiwari asserted that the NDA could not come to power with a “fanatic face” and his party would not compromise on principles on which it had joined the alliance in 1996.
Incidentally, it was Mr. Tiwari who echoed the sentiments of Mr. Kumar that a contest for the sake of contest in the Presidential election would serve no purpose.
Mr. Tiwari had claimed that surveys had shown that had the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, dismissed the Modi government for the post-Godhra riots in 2002, the NDA would have still been in power and would not have lost the 2004 general elections.
JD(U) chief and NDA convener Sharad Yadav merely said, “Nitish Kumar is a responsible person. If he has said something on which somebody else has said something, what is the need for me to paraphrase it further.”
Needless controversy: Bulbir Punj
BJP Rajya Sabha member Balbir Punj said, “This is a needless controversy. Nobody has a right in this country to give fatwa as to who is secular and who is not. People have their opinions.”
RSS backs Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate - Daily Pioneer
"To keep alive the Hindutva ideology, the Hindu 'samaaj' (society) should come together. And the country should have a prime minister who believes in that ideology or propounds that view," Bhagwat told reporters here.
Bhagwat's comments came a day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar hit out at Narendra Modi without naming him and said that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, should announce a secular prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Nitish Kumar Tuesday made it clear that Modi is unacceptable as an NDA candidate for prime ministership.
"Will Nitish decide what sort of person makes a good PM?" Bhagwat questioned.
He also slammed Nitish Kumar and said that he is scared to call himself a Hindu.
The Nitish-Modi rivalry has been on a high for the past few days. Modi took a dig at politicians from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for what the Gujarat chief minister called "resort to caste-based politics".
Nitish Kumar then said that Modi, who has been a constant irritant in the JD(U)-BJP coalition ties in Bihar, should mind his own business instead of making comments on others.
Wakestock to be first UK festival to use wristbands - BBC News
Wakestock will become the first multi-day festival in the UK to use wristbands instead of paper tickets this summer.
The event takes place between 6-8 July at Cardigan Bay in north Wales.
Red Hot Chili Peppers will be the first band to use wristbands instead of tickets at an outdoor concert in the UK at Knebworth House this Saturday.
Wireless and the Isle of Wight Festival are both also planning to use cashless payment systems this year.
Wristbands are scanned as music fans enter and leave venues or areas
Wristbands are already widely used at concerts in north America.
Coachella in California has used ticketless systems since 2010 which include integrated social media tools so festival-goers can check-in.
Wristbands arrived in Europe earlier this year and were used at Eurosonic Noorderslag festival in Groningen, The Netherlands.
SmartphonesThe wristbands look like standard material festival bands but are fitted with a microchip instead.
It is a similar technology to London's Oyster card public transport swipe cards and uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.
People are registered in and out of venues or arenas with either turnstiles or hand-held devices scanning their wristbands, with organisers able to track the data.
Wakestock is a wakeboarding and music festival
Glastonbury's Michael Eavis was one of the promoters taking a look at the technology in January at Eurosonic Noorderslag festival and says it could be used at Worthy Farm in the future.
At Wakestock, festival-goers can choose to link bands to their social media profiles or used to enter competitions associated with the event.
The promoter of the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert and Wakestock, Stuart Galbraith, said: "We've been waiting for the opportunity to use RFID technology for a while.
"It's a great way to enhance and grow the customer experience for concerts and festivals of the future.
"We are very excited to be working with Samsung and Intellitix in being one of the first UK promoters to embrace this new technology and look forward to developing adaptations across many events."
Samsung says festival-goers will be able to use their smartphones as tickets soon as well.
What is wrong if a Hindutva leader becomes PM: RSS Chief - SamayLive
Speaking at a function of Swayamsevaks in Latur Mr Bhagwat asked “what is the problem if a political leader with Hindutva leanings becomes Prime Minister of the country.”
He also questioned Nitish rights to decide who is secular and who is not. Bhagwat wondered if in Nitish Kumar’s imagination, former prime ministers of India were not seculars.
Obviously, Nitish words on Narendra Modi has not gone down well not only with the BJP but also with RSS.
In an interview given to a business daily on Tuesday Nitish Kumar has categorically said that any body wishing to occupy highest post should have impeccable secular credentials.
A political leader whose vision is narrow and frame of mind pigmy would not fit the bill, he is reported to have said.
His other declaration that NDA must announce its Prime Ministerial candidate before the 2014 election also led to heated political exchange.
Two Ministers of BJP in Bihar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and Giriraj Singh are speaking at tangent. Modi was quick to obliquely endorse Nitish Kumar with the words “ a leader should have the secular credentials similar to that of Atal Behari Bajapai.
Giriraj Singh, another minister was quick to add that “ no body could be more secular than Narendra Modi.
Sushil Modi is held to be close to Nitish to the extent that he risks his relation in his own party, said political watchers in Bihar.
The fight within the BJP and the fight with allies like JDU are bound to worsen over a period of time.
The matter may come to a head when NDA meets on Wednesday to arrive at a consensus for Prez candidature which has eluded it so far.
RSS’s unsecular disservice to NaMo - Hindustan Times
I admire Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi — forget the economic parameters of the state, you just need to go out at 1 am in the morning in Baroda to see and experience the huge number of women and men walking on the roads, free from any threat, real or imagined. That state, when you know that the chances of your being assaulted at that time are close to zero, is to my mind the epitome of security, the first dharma of governance. This sense of security has attracted carmakers like Tata and Ford to Gujarat, a feat that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is only beginning to aspire for.
So, as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), when Kumar said that the “leader of the coalition should have secular credentials and a liberal frame of mind”, Modi followers seem to have taken it as an attack on Modi’s perceived non-secular credentials, following his abysmal and shameful mis-governance during the riots at Godhra in February 2002. I see nothing wrong with what Kumar has said. Of course, not only the leader of any political alliance that aspires to govern India, but any citizen of India must be secular. What else can s/he be — a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh and so on?
The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) feels otherwise. “To keep alive the Hindutva ideology, the Hindu ‘samaaj’ (society) should come together,” RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat told reporters today. “And the country should have a prime minister who believes in that ideology or propounds that view.” Nothing could be more dangerous or more divisive for India than such an ideology. Were Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Rajiv Gandhi ‘Hindu’ prime ministers? Is Manmohan Singh a ‘Sikh’ prime minister? Thank whichever god you believe in that that is not the case — irrespective of personal faith, India is yet to see a single prime minister who is as rabid about his religion as many in Islamic nations are about theirs.
As we all know, in the path shown by Vinayak Damodar (Veer) Savarkar, for RSS, you can’t be an Indian without being a Hindu. Lace that thought with a political agenda and the foregone conclusion is the creation of a Hindu nation. “For the RSS, Indian identity is the same as Hindu identity, and all members of religious minorities — mostly Muslims and Christians — should pay allegiance to the dominant religious community, at least in the public space,” writes Ingrid Therwath, head of the International Relations department at the Delhi-based Centre de Sciences Humaines, in Cyber-Hindutva: Hindu nationalism, the diaspora and the Web, a recent report I wrote about last week.
Do Indian Hindus want India to be a Hindu state? The rising tide of angry cyber-Hindus aside, most Hindus I know are very happy and secure being secular. While the word signifies a religion-indifferent nation, angry Hindus believe secularism has meant that followers of the world’s oldest religion have lost out, that the word ‘secular’ is really pseudo-secularism, that Hindus are being victimised in “their own home”. This false notion needs to end, but like all who revel in the glory of persecution complex, this is not going to happen soon.
At another level, if it is political change that is being sought — as Bhagwat’s statement suggests — they will have to walk the arduous road towards that regressive state. It is no longer a fringe that can define or change this. Secularism is now a Constitutional provision, through the 42nd amendment in 1976. To change this, the majority in Lok Sabha must belong to those who believe in the Hindu Rashtra theory. With the grace of all gods — Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and many more — that is not going to happen soon.
But in the interim, Bhagwat has done a terrible disservice to Modi by strengthening the impression that Modi stands for a Hindu identity, that if he becomes India’s prime minister he will push for the Hindutva notion of our nation. Modi will have to come clean on this himself. If he, as the prime ministerial candidate, walks towards a Hindu Rashtra, the alienation of BJP is destined. And unfortunately, the freedoms enjoyed by the citizens of Gujarat will not be available to the rest of us.
RSS rallies behind Modi - Asian Age
The secularism-Hindutva battle intensified Wednesday with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat rallying behind Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, saying the country needed a “Hindu” leader.
Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar had decided to take on Mr Modi when the Bharatiya Janata Party, at its Mumbai national executive, wanted to name Mr Modi chairman of its campaign and selection committee. This would have been a clear signal that the party wanted to project Mr Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for 2014.
Mr Nitish Kumar, who has to cater to Bihar’s Muslim votebank, made it clear the NDA needed a secular face, sources said. However, despite the war of words, sources said Mr Kumar had “assured the BJP leadership he will not quit the NDA”.
A BJP leader claimed the move to pick Mr Modi as head of the BJP campaign and selection committee was also “conveyed to Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa”, It was said if the BJP managed to get 200 seats in the 2014 general election on its own, the party will project Mr Modi as Prime Minister. “Naveen Patnaik and Jayalalithaa had no issues, but Nitish needs to cater to the Muslim votebank in Bihar”, the BJP leader added.
Some BJP leaders were apparently taken unawares by the RSS chief’s anti-Nitish remarks. There were whispers in saffron circles that the RSS chief and others like Balbir Punj should have been restrained in attacking Mr Kumar.
0 Responses to "Backing Modi, RSS takes on Nitish - The Hindu"
Post a Comment