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After aping each others’ political styles, Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal seem to be avoiding each other

OpIndia Staff
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After aping each others’ political styles, Rahul Gandhi and Kejriwal seem to be avoiding each other

Despite growing pressure on them by like-minded allies to set aside their differences and present a united front against the BJP in 2019, it seems like Aam Aadmi Party and Congress could hardly see eye to eye. And as reported by TOI, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal took special care to ensure that they never appeared on the same frame during the protest organized by RJD against the mass rapes in Bihar at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.

The story thus far suggests that although the central leadership of the Congress party may be well disposed to an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, their state unit is not warming up to the prospects. Merely days after informal talks between the two parties for an alliance, Congress leaders conspicuously gave Kejriwal’s iftar party a miss. Although Rahul Gandhi’s recent ‘Shiv-Bhakti’ might have contributed to their absence, personal differences with the AAP in light of a possible alliance likely played its part as well.

Earlier, Delhi CM was also pushed into oblivion during the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy.

Where is Kejriwal in ‘United Opposition’?

Rebel AAP MLA Kapil Mishra claimed in March that Arvind Kejriwal will ally with Congress and is willing to dump the Punjab unit of the party as part of a bargain. And in June, it was confirmed by various sources, including a senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, that an alliance between the two parties was indeed a possibility. Many people were amused by Kejriwal’s U-turn on the matter when he has sworn on his children that he will never ally with either the Congress or the BJP.

Kapil Mishra’s claim that Arvind Kejriwal will dump the Punjab unit of his party if necessary to secure an alliance with Congress does not seem too far-fetched considering the rift between central leadership of the party and its Punjab unit was out in public after Kejriwal’s apology to Shiromani Akali Dal’s general secretary Bikram Majithia in a defamation case. The Punjab unit was also accused of ‘lack of support’ to Kejriwal while he was fighting the case against Majithia. However, the biggest roadblock to an alliance between Congress and AAP is the state unit of the Congress party which appears resolute in its stance against the alliance. It is also unclear how Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh will react to an alliance between the two parties considering the Aam Aadmi Party is known to have flirted with Khalistani elements in his state during the run-up to Punjab elections.

Tribal girls in Kondagaon of Chattisgarh choose hockey sticks over radicalisation by Left-wing terrorism

OpIndia Staff
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Tribal girls in Kondagaon of Chattisgarh choose hockey sticks over radicalisation by Left-wing terrorism

In a bid to eradicate the radicalization of the young people, who are often the targets of the Left-wing terror groups, the governments and security forces with effective state-based interventions, are keen to utilize the energy of the youngsters into a positive outcome.

According to reports, the tribal girls in Kondagoan, Chhattisgarh, amidst of all the violence, have picked up hockey sticks to fight the left-wing terror in the state. The group of girls from a small village of Kondagaon district has been training very hard along with the Indo-Tibetian Border Police (ITBP) and have secured the second position in a recently concluded tournament held in the district.


The ITBP has been very pro-active in channelizing the positive energy of the youths of the Naxal affected region. They are keen to bring a positive change in the state by using sports as an avenue for the development of the region. Apart from building a girls hockey team, ITBP has also started to train girls, to build the first girls football team in the Bastar region of Chattisgarh.


The Commandant of the 41st Battalion of the ITBP, who trained the village girls said, “We have added Beti Khelao to Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. We selected hockey as it is our national game. We started giving hockey training to 30 girls in a school adjacent to our camp. The girls are taking part in many tournaments.”

Kondagaon district of Chattisgarh is known to be one of the worst affected regions by Left-wing terrorism in the country. But things seem to be changing on the ground as the present government has been following a multi-pronged approach to not only eliminate the red-terror, but also develop these poorest regions of the country.

The present NDA government has been fighting the menace of the ‘Left-wing-terror’ successfully by using the “carrot and stick” policy to eradicate the terror in the region.

The security forces have carried out extensive and targeted operations in the strongholds of the Naxals and have succeeded in eliminating the terrorists. The security forces, along with state government have also devised rehabilitation initiatives so that the Naxals can give up guns and join the mainstream without any violence. This approach is considered to be one of the successful initiatives of the government, as many Naxals have come out of the camps and is part of the social life now.

The government has also backed up this with the massive financial outlay for developing the basic infrastructure like roads, railways, schools, electricity in the region. Access to technology and mobile network has brought major changes in the region, as it has brought success in providing hhealth careand educational benefits and has  helped the locals to take advantage of government schemes to enhance their livelihood opportunities.

Recently, few Naxals had surrendered before the security forces, after security forces gunned down eight down eight Naxals in forests of Timinar and Pusnar during Anti-Naxal operation, along Dantewada-Bijapur border. The surrendered naxalites talking to the media said that they face a lot of problems in the Naxal camps. The administration, through various policies and initiatives of the government, has managed to rehabilitate many former Naxals who surrender.

The Left wing terror is on the verge of extinction in the country has been trying extremely hard to survive with often using terror to keep their grip on the tribal areas. But it seems, the tribal people who were earlier manipulated to be sympathetic to their cause are now deserting them for better lives.

Madhya Pradesh: In another act of bestiality, a cow raped, accused Chotu Khan arrested

OpIndia Staff
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Madhya Pradesh: In another act of bestiality, a cow raped, accused Chotu Khan arrested

In yet another repulsive act of beastliness, a cow has been reportedly raped by an elderly man named Chotu Khan, in Suthaliya town, Madhya Pradesh reports MyNation. The outraged public in the Madhargan’s Rajgarh district on Saturday, jammed the buses on the bus stand, demanding the accused be arrested and a case registered against the person involved in such a depraved act.

As per reports, on Friday night, the city’s businessman Mahesh Agarwal, while returning home from his work spotted this elderly man named Chotu Khan, engaging in unnatural sex with a cow. He shared this information with people sitting around in that area. Subsequently, the news spread rapidly in the city and in the next afternoon people demanding the arrest of the accused jammed the buses in the bus stand, trying to show their rage against this act of bestiality.

Police shortly reached the sight and managed to dissipate the crowd, after which a case was registered against the accused under, section 295, 377 and the accused was detained by the police. Section 295 of the IPC talks about injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class.

Such ghoulish incidents have been surfacing time and again, with OpIndia reporting, not very long back, of a pregnant goat who died in Marodha village of Haryana’s Mewat, after it was allegedly gang-raped by eight accused on 28th July 2018. As per the report the eight accused who are believed to drug addicts and alcoholics, raped the goat in a deserted house, following which she died.

In yet another incident reported by us, almost exactly a year ago, Satpuli town of the Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand witnessed communal tensions and protests by local residents after a man from the Muslim community was caught indulged in unnatural sex with a calf (young cow). The accused Shah Alam had been booked under Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalizes unnatural sex.

How media defames people for daring to criticise a journalist. This is what India Today did to me

auldtimer
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How media defames people for daring to criticise a journalist. This is what India Today did to me

It is fairly common these days for “mainstream” media outfits, especially Congress-leaning ones like India Today, to subject social media users to pejorative labeling. I offer proof once again that most of such malicious “journalism” is a product of journalistic mediocrity, which is endemic in India. In fact, what I am going to narrate to you is a first-hand experience of the infamous Indian journalistic non-application of the mind.

India Today TV did a story on its favorite bugbear, the “troll”. The general plot of such stories is by now firmly established and is as formula-driven as are Bollywood movies: the villain of the piece is a BJP-supporting troll, and the victim-hero is a Congress-leaning journalist. No variations are permitted. The gripes of the victims are also a standard-issue laundry list: victims are abused; threatened with rape, death; called anti-national; asked to go to Pakistan; etc, etc. The only touch of ingenuity to this drama is the trick it employs to achieve its objective of tarring all criticism of Lutyens journalists with the same broad stroke of the brush: it deftly lumps legitimate criticism with examples of abuse. But of course, “How to Deligitimzie Your Critic” is a skill that Lutyens journalists are vastly better trained in than “How to Do Journalism Well”.

India Today’s Troll Story flatters me by citing me as an example of a troll, and right in the beginning of the segment too. I lead the cast of characters, so to speak. Now, in my time, I did lose my temper on a few occasions and there are tweets of mine that I am not proud of. When I heard that Troll Story trolled me, I was dreading they found one of those tweets. I need not have feared, for as I said earlier, intelligence is not an attribute that the Lutyens journalist is richly imbued with. So, this is all they could find.

India Today story on trolls referring to @auldtimer as troll

Some background is in order. First, let us dispense with a little piece of information.

Anna Vetticad, the film critic referred to in the tweet above, is a Catholic. An activist Catholic to boot. She spoke at at least one event of the association of the upper crust of the Catholic priesthood (see here). In theory, a Hindu film critic who is friends with VHP is not necessarily incapable of delivering prejudice-free reviews of films, but what if VHP is also keenly interested in manipulating media to “manage” the portrayal of its image? The Catholic church in India is very touchy about its image, and it did demand censorship of, as well as succeed in enforcing it on, several films that it did not approve.

Getting back to the point, India Today’s hatchet job begins with victim-hero Anna Vetticad telling her sad, gut-wrenching victimhood tale. She has just dispensed with the generic list of gripes listed above (“I have been called anti-national, boohoo…”) and is now moving on to specifics. It is at this point, in connection with her review of the Bollywood film Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, that she mentions my murderous tweet. (In which I presumably also issue disguised rape-threats and invisible death-threats). She says I accused her of panning that film on the orders of the old man in Vatican.

I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. In fact, my tweet had nothing to do at all with her review of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo! I bet this revelation doesn’t shock you at all, what with you being very accustomed by now to the fact that Lutyens journalism in general, and India Today in particular, can never be accused of possessing an abundance of scruples. Check my original tweet, reproduced with context:

@auldtimer’s tweet in which he criticised the reviewer

As you can see, my comment is a response to Ms Vetticad’s Bahubali review. Click here to read it in full if you have the stomach, but quoting from it what I was specifically commenting on should suffice:

There is so much else that is troubling in Rajamouli’s worldview: for one, the undisputed right of the Kshatriya to rule. If there is a question here, it is only: which Kshatriya – the good guy or the bad guy? And either way, it has to be one of the guys. All the spectacle in the world, the Durga-esque positioning of Sivagami and Devasena, and the emphasis on Mahendra/Amarendra’s virtues cannot camouflage Baahubali’s disturbing romanticisation of social status-quoism.

(Emphasis mine).

Let us for a moment set aside India Today’s slimy sleight of hand of clubbing my (unrelated) tweet with her accusation. Let us focus instead on how journalistic mediocrity unfolds here. Both Vetticad, and India Today’s consulting editor Sujay who must have reproduced that tweet with the approval of Vetticad, show no signs of comprehending what the tweet was trying to tell. People of normal intelligence should not need the explanation that follows, but alas, we have to explain stuff to journalists here, even if that should put us at the risk of getting accused of “Lutyensplaining”, maybe.

Bahubali is a (fictional) period drama, harking back to the (unstated but ancient) times when Kshatriya clans ruled Hindu kingdoms. Though the film does not depict what might be typical of its assumed era (warrior queens, not unknown, were rather the exception than the norm) it is set way too back in history to make “progressive” statements of the kind that Vetticad demands, for that would knock it out of character. At any rate, the flick aims to thrill with the adventure (and to entertain with the romance) of a fantasy world set in a bygone era; its objective is not to deliver a profound message of social reform for the 21st century from the mouths of Maurya dynasty characters. That was the point I was making.

If I was addressing our simple-minded Catholic journalist-critic, I’d’ maybe have said: “Your criticism makes no sense. How would a Hollywood adventure film set in 13th century Rome sound if it went off on a tangent to depict a conflict between a white pope and a black contender?”. The answer of course is that such a film would be ridiculous; there were no black contenders to the papal office then and there aren’t any to this day (though a non-Kshatriya, OBC PM is ruling India). But I wasn’t even addressing our complexity-challenged victim-critic. So I did what I love most: I used sarcasm.

Sarcasm often draws a picture of exaggerated contrast to bring out the absurdity of the point it is ridiculing. Sarcasm allows me to go farther than a black pope. Though sex scandals galore in the Church, its priesthood is in theory celibate. Sex is the original sin. So, I can aim even “higher” than an African pope: a black, sexually active pope! But wait a minute, I don’t have to stop my imagination at a black, forni… err… love-making pope either. More reform is possible, since the Catholic church is also opposed to same-sex relationships. Let us teach it liberalism by asking for a black, lesbian Pope. And so on. Thus, making the final leap, we arrive at: how about a film set in 13th century Rome that shows a villainous white pope defeated by a black, female, lesbian, pregnant Pope? Surely, the revolutionary message of social reform that it delivers will receive standing ovation from a 2017 audience comprised of CBCI and its favored film critic, not to mention the delight it would subject the laity to, though the laity may have thronged cinemas to watch the spectacular feats of the black, female, lesbian, pregnant pope?

That is what I was saying to the best of my ability within the then-prevailing 140-letter tweet limitation. Of course, my choice of pope as a film character to illustrate the point was not arbitrary; to succeed, rhetorical analogies have to hit closer home. But perhaps it is the keyword “pope” that triggered the insecurities of our talented film critic, so she ran crying “he attacked my pope! he attacked my pope!” to India Today, wholly oblivious to the point I was making.

What about the sanity of the consulting editor who picked that tweet to illustrate my alleged trolling of the hapless woman? Same story there too, it seems. A Lutyens journalist is distinguished by his innate inability to do any research related to the story he is working on. Had Sujay clicked on my tweet and followed it to the film review authored by the woman he is airing publicity for, he’d surely have noticed the folly of using it. But he too went by what his lazy, unthinking tribe do: satisfied himself with the keyword.

That is how the Sujay-Vetticad duo attempted to pin the label of “troll” on me. Do I attribute it to malice? Of course, it all starts with malice. But to concoct the foul-smelling ghoulash that Lutyenistas serve, it takes a special ingredient: incompetence.

If they ever label you a troll because they are too dense to understand you, consider yourself Sujay’ed, or Vetticad’ed.

(This article was originally published on author’s blog and republished here with permissions.)

Sordid ‘solidarity’ saga: Politicians caught laughing and make merry while protesting against Bihar rapes

Nirwa Mehta
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Sordid ‘solidarity’ saga: Politicians caught laughing and make merry while protesting against Bihar rapes

If yesterday’s ‘solidarity’ protest against rapes in shelter home in Bihar is anything to go by, the bar for basic decency set by the Indian politicians just went a couple of notches lower. Fodder scam convict Lalu Yadav’s MLA son Tejashwi Yadav called for a protest against the rapes for ‘dignity of Bharat Mata’s daughters’ at Jantar Mantar last evening. Politicians took this unfortunate incident to settle political scores. Derek O’Brien, who bullies private citizens by abusing the parliamentary privilege, tweeted in solidarity for the protests where his ‘party’ would be represented by TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi.


The subtle undertone was that a political party was being represented at the protests, not an individual angered over the heinous crime.

And if there are protests, how can AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal be far behind?


Arvind Kejriwal tweeted a threat that how one ‘Nirbhaya’, the 16th December 2012 incident of rape in national capital which shook the conscience of the entire nation, brought down the UPA, the 40 ‘Nirbhayas’ will not spare even bigger thrones, making a sly reference to Prime Minister Modi and the BJP that is in power. It was this very case of Nirbhaya from 2012 which helped AAP gain a foothold in Delhi. It was back then that Kejriwal had promised the nation to take on the Congress and other corrupt politicians, only to get a cold shoulder from Congress while trying to forge an alliance with them for 2019.

But this is not the worst that has come today. The images that have emerged from the so-called protests show how low the politicians have sunk.

Rahul Gandhi smiles his eerie, misplaced smile

Congress’ prime ministerial candidate for 2019 elections and party president Rahul Gandhi continues with his embarrassingly creepy smile while protesting for an incident where dozens of girls were sexually assaulted. Rahul Gandhi has maintained silence on the accusation of Congress IT cell member accused of sexual harassment and the accused continues to get ‘full support of Congress.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and JNU freelance protestor Shehla Rashid share a joke

The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and JNU’s freelance protestor Shehla Rashid share a joke. Few months back, Shehla Rashid blocked traffic, danced on drum beats and gave an interview while ‘protesting’ demanding arrest of a professor accused of sexual harassment, even as an injured child bled profusely. Arvind Kejriwal had allegedly asked AAP activist Soni, who had accused another AAP worker of sexually abusing her, to ‘compromise’

Kanhaiya Kumar from ‘tukde tukde gang’ and D Raja, National Secretary (CPI) having smiling casually.

Kanhaiya Kumar, along with fellow collegemates of JNU, has been accused of raising anti-India slogans in JNU.

That is not all. At one point, the politicians gathered together and held hands and raised them in the air as if they are using the platform as show of strength of ‘united opposition’

Sordid saga of ‘United Opposition’

Makes one wonder whether this was a protest against sexual harassment to seek justice for ‘Bharat Mata’s daughters’ or a pitch for the 2019 general elections?

The ‘game’ of thrones just got dirtier.

Congress and JDS a match made in heaven: Karnataka man arrested for trolling CM Kumaraswamy

OpIndia Staff
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Congress and JDS a match made in heaven: Karnataka man arrested for trolling CM Kumaraswamy

In a possible display of rising intolerance in the Congress-JD(S) led Karnataka government, a man has been arrested for allegedly trolling Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on social media:


As reported by ANI, the Mangalore police decided to take suo motu cognisance against the accused Prashant Pujary and arrested him.

A Daji World report claims that Pujary was arrested on Friday after a complaint was filed against him at the Kadri police station for the allegedly offensive statements. The 24 year old Pujary hails from Meramajalu near Farangipet.

Incidentally such an effort to stifle the freedom to criticise an elected chief minister might lead some to believe that the JD(S) is learning a thing or two from the Congress party which has made a name for itself in undermining freedom of speech.

As reported by us, some of the anti-Freedom of Expression initiatives of the Congress include:

  • Jawaharlal Nehru amending the constitution to impose reasonable restrictions on Freedom of Expression, the grounds to impose these restrictions though were pretty broad
  • The Indira Gandhi government after imposing Emergency in 1975 imposed censorship of press during that period
  • Rajiv Gandhi also had a penchant for brutally muzzling ‘Freedom of Expression. He banned the import of Salman Rushdie’s book Satanic Verses

Such disregard of freedom of expression has also rubbed onto current Congress President Rahul Gandhi, some of the instances being:

  • In 2012, the UPA government under Congress moved to block ‘anti-Prophet’ cartoons, published by Charlie Hebdo ‘fearing communal tension’.
  • In June 2017, a Congress leader was sacked for calling Congress President Rahul Gandhi ‘Pappu’. Guess who stayed silent?
  • When Congress goons disrupted the screening of the film Indu Sarkar in July last year, Rahul Gandhi maintained radio silence

Even on a state level, the erstwhile Siddaramaiah led Karnataka government saw the arrest of people for allegedly creating the CM’s fake twitter handle, and for allegedly posting derogatory comments about Tipu Sultan.

It remains to be seen whether Pujary’s arrest is a one-off occurrence, or would the Congress-JD(S) alliance also decide to create an anti-Freedom of Expression list of its own.

Over 3800 kg worth cannabis sized in the last two days from Tripura and Assam

OpIndia Staff
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Over 3800 kg worth cannabis sized in the last two days from Tripura and Assam

In an operation carried out by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) teamed up with Tripura police, Assam police and Border Security Force (BSF), seized over 3878 kg of cannabis in two separate back-to-back cases in Tripura and Assam on 1st and 2nd August respectively.

In the first search operation carried out on 1st August, on the premises of two people identified as Delowair Hossain and Hussain Ali, both residents of Sepahijala District in Tripura, about 3390.69 kg of ganja (dry cannabis) packed in 85 plastic drums of different sizes was buried under the soil of the land belonging to the same. The cannabis consignment has been seized and the accused arrested in connection under the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.

In the second operation conducted on 2nd August, 488 kg of ganja at Angla Bazar, Badarpur in Karimganj district of Assam was seized from an abandoned house by a team of Assam police, BSF, and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.

As confirmed by the DR, in the last few months a total of 8900 kg ganja has been seized from Tripura alone.

Tripura becoming the hub for the illegal trading of narcotics, last month too, news surfaced where  East Agartala Police in Tripura seized a huge consignment of dry marijuana (ganja), weighing 900 kg, in sealed packets, meant for smuggling in Mohiskhola area on the outskirts of State capital, Agartala.

The newly-formed BJP-led Government in Tripura declared that it wanted to make the State drugs free besides it expressed its concern about the smuggling of drugs as Bangladesh has raised this issue at various levels.

For the last two months, Tripura Police and Border Security Force (BSF) have been making continuous efforts to curb smuggling of drugs to Bangladesh. The BSF along with the State administration of Tripura recently have seized huge quantity of Yuba tablets, brown sugar besides dry marijuana and also destroyed marijuana plantations in the bordering areas.

Lok Sabha passes bill for National Sports University in Manipur, to offer 13 courses through 4 schools

OpIndia Staff
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Lok Sabha passes bill for National Sports University in Manipur, to offer 13 courses through 4 schools

The Lok Sabha had passed the bill for the National Sports University in Manipur yesterday. According to reports, the bill, which was sought to replace an ordinance promulgated by the NDA government was passed by a voice vote.

Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore later shared that the University will offer 13 courses through its 4 schools. He assured the parliament that the vice chancellor of the university will be a sportsperson and the academic council will have sportspersons as members. The four schools are as follows,

  1. School of Sports Education
  2. School of Interdisciplinary Studies
  3. School of Sports Management and Technology
  4. School of Sports Science and Sports Medicine


The government of India has reportedly signed an agreement with two Australian Universities namely the University of Canberra and Victoria University to develop the curriculum, laboratories and research facilities.

He added that the University will also focus on sports coaching, physiology, nutrition and sports journalism. According to reports, Rajyavardhan Rathore informed the parliament that though the legislation was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in August 2017, it could not be passed.

The NDA government had promulgated an ordinance on May 31, 2018, that had allowed the government to establish a national sports university in Manipur. Yesterday in Parliament NK Premachandran of RSP had asked why an ordinance was necessary on such a routine legislation. To which Rajyavardhan Rathore had replied that since the bill could not be passed last year. He reportedly added that since the university was already functional, and the Budget session became a washout, the ordinance route was taken to safeguard the future of the enrolled students.

President Kovind had approved the ordinance as the formal bill could not be passed due to opposition’s legislative blockade in the parliament.

Maharashtra : Political pundits misjudge the mood of the masses, again

OpIndia Staff
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Maharashtra : Political pundits misjudge the mood of the masses, again

In the recently declared results of civic polls in Maharashtra, BJP has won 41 of 78 seats in Sangli-Miraj-Kupwa and 57 of 75 seats in Jalgaon. Sangli has long been a Congress bastion and BJP’s success in Congress terrain reaffirms Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis’s popularity and administrative capabilities.

Liberal political commentators, who are yet to come to terms with the fact that they are not well versed with the mood of the nation, did not hesitate to wax eloquence on how the public wasn’t too happy with the BJP.

On 2nd August, Nikhil Wagle wrote about how he had travelled extensively and asserted that people are upset with BJP in Maharashtra.

The very next day, BJP swept Sangli. A Congress stronghold. Wage then proceeded to wonder if Congress and NCP would introspect. Not acknowledging the fact that his prediction was so off the mark.

If the BJP is winning even in Congress strongholds, it can be safely assumed that unlike elitists on Twitter, public opinion is very much favourable towards the BJP. Nikhil Wagle wasn’t the only one who incorrectly gauged the mood of the citizens of Maharashtra. Another pundit opined that the BJP is viewed as a Brahmin and Gujrati party and with the rise of Maratha identity politics, Amit Shah will have to ‘prostrate’ before Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray to avoid annihilation.


Contrary to the beliefs of political pundits, the BJP is going from strength to strength in Maharashtra and Devendra Fadnavis himself appears to be hugely popular among the masses. And despite the Maratha agitation and the Dalit Andolan by vested interests, the BJP doesn’t seem to have incurred too much damage. And the BJP’s victory in Sangli, in particular, appears to have rattled the ecosystem pretty hard. One wonders at what point the pundits will throw their hands up in the air and call it a day but judging from the events from the past couple of years, it is unlikely to be anytime soon.

Congress’ abhorrent treachery : It is time Congress answers for Assam and to Assam

Nupur J Sharma
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Congress’ abhorrent treachery : It is time Congress answers for Assam and to Assam

With the National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft being published in Assam, the opposition has joined hands in opposing the government’s move to identify and deport illegal migrants mostly from Bangladesh. As of now, 40 lakh people have been left out of the NRC, however, they have the opportunity to reapply if they believe a mistake has been made.

The Congress has been at the forefront of stoking tension after the NRC draft.

One wonders why the grand old party would oppose something so basic and logical. A nation, any nation, has limited resources which are reserved for her citizens regardless of caste, creed or religion, Any country, and especially a country like India needs to cater to her own. Other than the logical arguments that support the NRC, one must wonder why Congress feels compelled to play with fire considering the bloodied struggle Assam saw in its demand for the deportation of illegal Bangladeshis. After all, it was Sonia Gandhi’s husband who signed the Assam Accord and Congress has often furthered that as a mark of his intent. Why then, would Congress reignite this dangerous narrative?

To understand it becomes imperative that we look at history for what it really is. We look at History not just through the prism of facts, but the hidden nuances that are often missed, intentionally or otherwise.

Perpahs the best place to start is a WikiLeaks cable that proves how little the Congress respected the terrible and violent insurgency problems of Assam and also how little the Congress scion Rahul Gandhi respects democracy. When one analyses the cable further, one also recalls the duplicitous treachery of the Congress party. This cable was denied by the Congress party. But, at the same time, then Assam Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi had endorsed the cable. Tarun Gogoi of Congress had said that AGP was an ‘insurgent group’.

The confidential WikiLeaks cable from February 2006 talks about a 30-minute meeting between now President and then Vice President of the Congress party Rahul Gandhi and USA Congressman Joseph Crowley (Democrat from New York City). The cable talks in details about the conversation that took place between Rahul Gandhi and Democrat Crowley ranging from the Iraq war to Assam politics.

The mention of Assam politics comes in the part of the conversation about Israel and Palestine conflict.

Point 7 of the cable talks about Rahul Gandhi asking Crowley about the Democratic party’s position on the Hamas victory in Palestine. Hamas, which is in part or in whole considered a terrorist organisation by many countries, had won the elections in Palestine on 29th January 2006, days before this meeting happened on 20th February 2006. According to Crowley, Hamas won because it promised to deliver governance and the people’s frustration that forced them to put faith in Hamas, and the very same problem was being seen in Bangladesh with respect to Jamaat-Islami.

Gandhi then asked the Congressman what the Democratic party position was on the recent Hamas victory. He responded that many observers have determined that Hamas did not win because of its ideology, but rather for its promise to deliver much-needed services and honest government to the frustrated Palestinian people. Crowley pointed out that there is a similar phenomenon in Bangladesh, where the GOB’s all-pervasive corruption has led to faulty delivery of services, while the Ministries run by the Jamaat-Islami have acquired a reputation for honesty and efficiency. Congressman Crowley emphasized that the situation is troubling and should it break down, there could be a growing threat of civil war.

Rahul Gandhi equated the Hamas situation with the one in Assam. He said (emphasis added):

Gandhi responded that the GOI has faced a similar problem in Assam, where it for years battled a separatist insurgency. The Indian strategy, he pointed out, was to allow the insurgent group to form the Assam government. This “defanged and discredited” the insurgency, as the insurgents proved unable to govern and lost popular support. He envisaged that a similar outcome was possible in the Occupied Territories. Gandhi noted that he had attended a lunch with former President Clinton the day before and had heard similar views from him, as Clinton stated that the Hamas victory could be an “opportunity for progress” in the Middle East over the long term.

There are multiple problems with Rahul Gandhi’s reasoning and response to Crowley which shows how little Rahul Gandhi knew about India when he was meeting foreign dignitaries.

Failure to differentiate between ‘separatist insurgency’ and ‘occupied territories’. 

To put it simply, an insurgency is what one would say is happening in Kashmir where a group of terrorists fight for the independence and secession of a state from the country. This is also what happened in Assam during the 70s with terror groups like ULFA fighting for independence. A terror group which cashed in on disenchantment and has been mostly reduced to irrelevancy today.

An occupied territory is what Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is. PoK is undisputably Indian territory which has been occupied by Pakistan by force and remains so till this date. When Rahul Gandhi talks about fighting ‘insurgency’ in Assam and then talks about the “solution” (which is misplaced too) to help occupied territories, he conflates the two and ends up exposing his ignorance.

Rahul Gandhi talks about the central government’s strategy being to “allow” a certain section to form the state government

The central government doesn’t “allow” the state government to be formed. That is not how democracy works. And if that was the case, Rahul Gandhi admitted to Congress tinkering with the democratic process as it has done many times.

Did an “insurgent group” form the state government in Assam? 

State elections in Assam have been held since 1946. From 1946 to 1978, Assam had a Congress state government. From 1978 to 1979, Assam had a Janata Party government. The Assam movement or the Assam agitation started from 1979 and lasted till 1985. A movement initiated by All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the ‘All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad’ (AAGSP) against illegal immigration of Bangladeshis in the state. The aim was to ensure the government identifies and deports illegal migrants and provide constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to the indigenous Assamese people. In 1978 during by-elections, it was found that there was a massive spike in voters owing to Bangladeshis and AASU did not let the by-elections take place. In 1979, the state saw mass agitation, and eventually, the elections could not take place and the President’s rule was ordered. Between 1979 and 1985, Assam saw intermittent spates of a Congress government and President’s rule owing to the agitation.

The first non-Congress or Janata Party came in 1985, after the Assam accord when Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was the Chief Minister and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won state elections. AGP was constituted as a result of the Assam movement that demanded illegals be deported. While AGP also formed the government in 1996, in the given context, the only government that Rahul Gandhi says Congress “allowed to be formed” must be AGP in 1985.

Considering AGP was a political culmination of the Assam movement, that Rahul Gandhi calls it an “insurgent separatist” group and equates it with Hamas is perhaps the greatest insult to the people of Assam and a movement that aimed at getting indigenous Assamese people their rights in India and not secession.

Did Congress “allow” AGP to form the government in 1985? 

1979 to 1985 was a turbulent period for Assam. The Assam agitation was at its peak and the Assamese people’s anger against the Bangladeshi influx was at its highest. Amid the turbulence, the Indira Gandhi government railroaded the Assamese people and forced elections upon them in 1983. The AASU boycotted these elections. As the reader may recall, even in 1979 the AASU had agitated against elections since the voter list had a massive spike owing to illegal Bangladeshis.

The Indira Gandhi government’s decision to thrust elections upon Assam in 1983 turned a mostly peaceful agitation into a violent once, perhaps one of the most violent in the history of the country. The consequence was the heinous Nellie massacre of 1983. A 6 hour long, bloodied rampage by tribal group Lalung, where 2,191 mostly Bangladeshi Muslims lost their lives (unofficial numbers could be as high as 10,000). During this massacre, the state was under President’s rule. Which basically meant under Indira Gandhi’s direct rule and this ghastly massacre was allowed to happen. Post the massacre, in another agitation-filled election, Congress government came to power in 1984, where mostly the Bengali-majority areas voted.

Indira Gandhi was subsequently assassinated on 31st October 1984. Rajiv Gandhi, to his credit, signed the Assam Accord in 1985 where 1 January 1966 became the base year for detecting foreigners and 24th March 1971 was decided as the cut-off date for detecting illegal foreigners and removing them from the electoral rolls. Thereafter, the Congress state government was dissolved and in the subsequent election, AGP came to power.

By all logical standard, Assam voted for AGP because it was their agitation that led to the Assam Accord being signed. By all standard, Assam identified with AGP because it met the Assamese aspiration of deporting illegals from the state. For Rahul Gandhi to assert that ‘they allowed the government to be formed’ sounds outlandish and ill-informed. Like the assertions of a man who has no idea that the history of Assam was coloured in red.

What if Rahul Gandhi was right and Congress did ‘allow’ AGP to form the government? 

Fact remains that the AGP was absolutely, 100% not an insurgent group. Fact remains that AGP was a culmination of an agitation that aimed at getting the Assamese people their rights and demanded the deportation of illegal Bangladeshis. Fact remains that the ghastly Nellie massacre happened when there was President’s rule in Assam which meant that the state was directly under Indira Gandhi’s rule. Fact also remains that in an interview to Financial Times, when asked why she didn’t stop the Nellie massacre earlier, Indira Gandhi brazenly said: “One has to let such events take their own course before stepping in.” Fact remains the Congress party (including Rahul Gandhi who sprouted nonsense about Assam to a USA Congressman) has never explained what Indira Gandhi meant and why their government didn’t act. Fact remains that out of 688 criminal cases, there was never a conviction. Nobody got punished for the Nellie massacre.

Fact remains that the Tiwari Commission report on the Nellie massacre is still a closely guarded secret (only three copies exist). The 600-page report was submitted to the Assam Government in 1984 and the Congress Government (headed by Hiteswar Saikia) decided not to make it public.

The AGP government eventually could not prove its governance mettle and Congress was voted back in power in 1991 (after a year of President’s rule). While on the face of it, Rahul Gandhi seems ignorant, one must pause to wonder – what if the Congress government did tinkle with the democratic process and ‘allowed’ AGP to form the government? By Rahul Gandhi’s logic, was it done so Assam would forget the bloodied morning of the Nellie massacre and vote Congress back to power subsequently?

Fact remains that on 3rd August 2018, Ram Pradhan, the Union Home Secretary who negotiated the Assam Accord with AASU has gone on record to say that Rajiv Gandhi did not pursue the Assam Accord because “it would have impacted Congress’ votebank”.

Ram Pradhan said, in connection with the survey to identify illegals, “This was a part of the accord, but they realised that the survey would seriously impair the votebank of the Congress”.

This revelation by Ram Pradhan coupled with the multiple Wikileaks cables we analysed recently which revealed that while the BJP and Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) the main opposition in Assam were fragmented, Congress still had not lost support from the critical Muslim community. Sonia Gandhi had then offered to amend the Foreigners Act to prevent the deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. And earlier, allegations were also levelled against Manmohan Singh for not doing enough to deport illegal Bangladeshis.

The Nellie massacre, Indira Gandhi’s inaction, her brazen statement, no convictions, a closely guarded commission report was a brazen attempt of the government giving itself a clean chit. Rajiv Gandhi’s government not implementing the Assam accord, Ram Pradhan’s revelations, the revelation that Sonia Gandhi didn’t want illegals deported, and Rahul’s statement to the USA Congressman is a testament to Congress’ treachery.

Now, when Congress wishes to stir the hornet’s nest once again, it is time they provide answers to these questions. Rahul Gandhi must answer why Sonia Gandhi did not want illegals to be deported (according to the previous Wikileaks Cable we reported) despite Assam’s struggle and Rajiv Gandhi’s Assam Accord. Rahul Gandhi and his party must answer why Rajiv Gandhi’s accord was not implemented. Rahul Gandhi and Congress must answer whether the sentiments of Assam were toyed with simply to retain their vote bank. Congress must answer for Indira Gandhi’s statement and the Nellie Massacre. Congress must answer why, after everything Assam has been through, are they playing the dangerous game even today.

Congress must answer for Assam and to Assam.

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