ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 4 May 2006

Vadodara Dargah Flareup

SAUDI ARABIA SHOWS THE WAY

By Insaf

Communal frenzy in Vadodara (Baroda) in riot-prone Gujarat and clashes between fundamentalist Muslims and the authorities over the demolition of an old dargah has raised a basic question for all the States: should religious structures, which obstruct widening or decongesting of roads, be demolished in the interest of planned development and modernisation?  Most cities in India, including the Union Capital, face this problem  and find themselves helpless because of religious sensitivity. The Dargah at Vadodara, which caused the communal flareup and resulted in at least seven deaths, was neither a protected monument nor did it have any ownership title. It was thus demolished as an unauthorized structure that obstructed traffic. But Muslims have made the demolition a religious issue, despite the fact that seven or eight temples, too, were demolished.

Mercifully, the Gujarat High Court has given a secular lead in the matter by taking suo moto notice of the demolition of the Dargah.  It has firmly ruled that all illegal structures, including religious and other encroachments, should be removed forthwith.  Significantly, its approach is in keeping with the enlightened stand adopted in such matters by none other than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, home to Hazrat Mohammad and to Mecca and Madina.  During a visit to the modern Saudi capital of Riyadh, Insaf gathered that the Government of the Kingdom had adopted a practical approach for dealing with mosques and graves which came in the way of its modernization.  All such mosques were given notice to shift to other sites, provided by the Government.  Similarly, keepers of graves too were ordered to be shifted.  Bulldozers moved in wherein the deadline was not kept. No one dared to protest.

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Massacre in Jammu

Militancy seems to be returning to J&K in its full fury.  The terrorists massacred at least 35 Hindus and injured many more in Doda and Rajouri on Monday last.  The carnage by the Pak-based Lashkar-e-Taibba is most worrisome.  More than a decade-old history of militancy in J&K shows that whenever signs of peace become visible in the State, the  militants strike with deadly vengeance. (As many as 17 massacres have taken place in the last ten years, leaving 270 Hindus dead.) This time the group was more livid than ever before,  provoked by a desire to avenge its humiliation at the hands of the J&K voters in the April 25 byelections. More than seventy per cent of the voters cast their votes, defying the militants’ call for boycotting the elections,

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s eagerly-awaited dialogue with the moderate Hurriyat group, led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, in New Delhi on Wednesday turned out to be satisfactory. The PM described the 100-minute second round of interaction as a “meeting of minds” that augured well for the future of Kashmir.  Both sides will now discuss specifics and look at out-of-the-box suggestions with a view to ensuring a lasting solution. In this regard, the Hurriyat moderates have agreed to evolve a mechanism for addressing the issue. The PM and his advisers will examine it in their next meeting. Happily, Hurriyat leaders, on their part, indicated willingness to join the PM’s Second Roundtable, scheduled at Srinagar on May 25.  They had skipped the First Roundtable.

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Naxal Menace Continues

There is no stopping the Naxalites from their killing spree in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.  Hardly a day passes when incidents are not reported from the States which are being presently targetted by the Left-wing extremists. Over the last week-end, three major incidents of great concern took place.  On Saturday, as many as 17 tribals were massacred at Bastar in Chhattisgarh.  Simultaneously, the CPI (Maoists) looted a bank and attacked a police station in Bihar’s Vaishali district, close to Patna.  Next day, the activity moved to Andhra Pradesh, the Naxalites’ main base.  They hijacked two luxury boats on river Krishna and kidnapped about ten of the 234 holiday-makers and 35 crew members.  The Centre and the affected States keep mouthing their concern and talking about “strong measures”. Yet all the talk has so far proved to be no more than shrill rhetoric.

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Hokishe’s Solution For Nagalim

Top Naga nationalist, Hokishe Sema has come forward with an interesting proposal to break the deadlock over the creation of Nagalim or greater Nagaland – demanded by the NSCN(IM) group, led by Isaac Swu and T. Muivah. The octogenarian leader has also shared his thoughts with the Centre’s interlocutor, Padmanabhaiah.  Sema has suggested that the Naga-dominated areas could initially be constituted into autonomous regional councils within their respective States.  Twice Chief Minister and former Governor of Himchal Pradesh, Hokishe Sema made two other points to Insaf during his visit to New Delhi. He wants Khaplang faction of the NSCN also to be involved in the talks for a durable solution. He also wants the parleys with the IM group to be held in India and not on foreign soil, a view that Nehru strongly held vis a vis the Naga rebels. He refused to meet Phizo in London since that would compromise India’s honour. Instead, he offered Phizo a safe passage to India.

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Difficult Task For Rahul In U.P.

The Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, and her election manager, son Rahul Gandhi, are sure to sail through smoothly in the Rae Bareli byelection on Monday, May 8.  But the youthful leader faces a Herculean task in mobilising the UP Congress for next year’s Assembly polls.  All the elections during the last two years in the politically most significant State have shown that the Congress is now reduced to the position of an “also ran”. The trend in U.P. today favours ‘bipolar politics’ with the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and the BSP of Mayawati as the front runners.  In the Assembly byelections in June last year, the Congress candidates in all the four constituencies forfeited their security deposits. This included Nehru Pariwar’s own Allahabad. The party got barely 660 of the 1,73,280 votes polled in the city’s West constituency. 

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From free rice to free gold. That is the latest from Tamil Nadu in the bizarre poll rivalry between the two main Dravidian parties, the DMK of Karunanidhi and the ruling Anna-DMK of Jayalalitha. Initially, both played the politics of rice for the one day poll on May 8. Now, Chief Minister Jayalalitha has announced that, if voted to power, she will gift four grams of gold to every newly-married couple.  Whether this gambit will work or not is anybody’s guess. One thing alone is clear. Jayalalitha managed to get 132 of the 234 Assembly seats in 2001. She may not reach the figure this time. Remember also, her party’s humiliating defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha poll. She failed to win even one of the 40 seats.

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Left Ahead In Kerala

With the last phase of polling ending in Kerala on Wednesday, the Left Democratic front seems to be poised for a win. This is indicated by the peaceful polling for the 15 constituencies in the Left-dominated Kannur and Kasargoda districts which went to the polls in the final phase.  In 2001, the Left had won 10 of the 15 seats in the two districts. This time the Front may score even better as suggested by the polling trend in 1842 booths which the Election Commission had declared as violence-prone and where nearly 13,000 security personnel were deployed.  Most Exit pollsters had given the Left Front the lead at the end of the first two rounds for 125 of the 140 Assembly seats.  However, top leaders of the ruling UDF have rubbished the Exit polls and claimed triumph.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)