India: Centre’s silence over techi’s murder in Pune, Muzaffarnagar riots will have long-term disastrous effects (editorial, Kashmir Times)

Kashmir Times, July 07, 2014

Editorial
Modi’s communal agenda
Centre’s silence over techi’s murder in Pune, Muzaffarnagar riots will have long-term disastrous effects

ActIT Jammu, ASP.net Projects, Java, Vb.net, C# Training Jammu
The hidden agenda has begun revealing itself, gradually and slowly injecting itself while the prime minister and his coterie of ministers continue to look the other way and simply continue to sell the dream of fostering inclusive development, boosting economic growth and setting foreign policy on rails. There are, of course, no doubts that such an agenda of development and economic growth are to be achieved by following the Manmohan-Chidamabaram-Montek formula of boosting the morale of the corporate world, rather by perfecting the art of making Indian economy more and more corporatised at the cost of ignoring a major chunk of the country’s voiceless population. This policy may be far more dangerous than the one pursued by the previous UPA government, not only due to the probability of the present government’s willingness to move a good few notches ahead of its predecessor in pursuit of the cause of the big business interests and for ushering in development that looks slick, fashionable and modern without making any positive impact on the lives of the teeming millions. Its virulence apparently lies more in the ability of the Narendra Modi-led government to use it as a twin garb of both luring the nation in the glamour of its enticingly worded entrapment and to camouflage the more sinister agenda of enlarging the footprints of Hindutva and lending it a legitimacy through the abject silence of the government. While corporatising the entire economy remains Modi’s pet project (his government much against the promise of bringing down prices and inflation has shown scant regard to the peoples’ woes and sufferings due to further escalation of prices), his more traditional project remains the Hindutva project.

This is evident from the complete criminal silence he and his government have maintained over a slew of incidents of communalization in the short duration of less than two months of his tenure. The hate violence of Pune is a case in point. Despite massive destruction and harassment of the minorities in Pune and the killing of an innocent techie in Pune, attacked allegedly to avenge derogatory references to Shivaji and Bal Thackeray on the social media and for his sole crime of wearing a skull cap, there was no word of assurance to the minorities from Modi sarkar which only sought to whitewash these heinous crimes with the slogans of ‘inclusive development’ and ‘sabka vikaas’ to cast itself as a government in favour of modern, progressive and inclusive outlook. Bolstered by this silence, the saffron brigade loonies are once again at work in Moradabad, recreating the Muzaffarnagar effect and maverick leader turned BJP loyalist Subramaniam Swamy has invoked his hate soaked campaign against Muslims. Not only has he spoken about enforcing forcefully a uniform civil code and abrogation of Article 370, he has also indulged in usual shameful Muslim bashing, a statement that is extremely provocative in nature. Instead of allaying the fears of the damage that such a volcanic outburst can cause and the repercussions of the dangerous trends emerging from Moradabad with local BJP leaders deliberately playing with fire, there has been no word from the government, much less an attempt to rein in BJP’s own cadres including the firebrand Swamy. Such covert ways of patronising such elements are demonstrative that the Modi sarkar is simply waiting for an appropriate moment to strike and fulfill its hidden agenda. It would serve to remember the page from recent history of Gujarat 2002 where an inactive prime minister chose to simply dismiss heinous murders and rapes by simply reminding the present prime minister, accused of facilitating those murders in the capacity of chief minister of Gujarat, of his “Raj Dharma”. We may only end up seeing a trail of more such incidents where the Centre may blissfully turn a blind eye. It may take shorter time than anybody’s expectations.