Monday, November 28, 2016
Who can become an Indian citizen?
Partition’s long shadow is evident on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which seeks to introduce a religious distinction in the law. It must be debated
It is not hard to guess why the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) reviewing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 decided at the last minute to postpone the public hearings in Assam it had scheduled for the first week of November. The decision apparently was made after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat met Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. Too much of a spotlight on the citizenship amendment bill, they seem to have concluded, could hurt the party’s electoral prospects in the by-election in Lakhimpur — the BJP won the seat, though with a reduced margin.
No one familiar with the deeply contested history of immigration and citizenship in Assam should be surprised that the citizenship amendment bill would be controversial in Assam. It has rekindled the long-standing foreigner controversy. Opinion is divided along expected lines between the Brahmaputra Valley and the Barak Valley that nurture very different memories of the Partition.
The bill’s staunchest critics are the old guard of the Assam Movement. Since Sonowal himself was one of its prominent leaders, he has been criticised for not openly objecting to the bill. But the vociferous opposition by some of Sonowal’s one-time comrades in the Assam Movement, who are now leaders of regional parties and allies of the BJP-led state government, has made the bill politically toxic for the BJP.
The BJP must reconsider the bill, says the AGP president and Assam’s agriculture minister, Atul Bora, since it had promised to implement the Assam Accord. The controversy threatens to unravel the coalition that brought the BJP-led alliance to power in the state only a few months ago.
Electoral tacticians will have no trouble understanding the decision. But the JPC’s action sends troubling signals: The ruling party appears unwilling and unprepared to engage in a serious public debate on an issue that involves how the membership in the nation is defined. Winning elections by any means necessary is its priority.
Critics of the bill have expressed concern that it could trigger a new influx of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh. Former Assam chief minister and AGP founder-president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has said that religious persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh is not as much of an issue under the Sheikh Hasina government than what it once was. He points out that more than 29,500 Durga pujas were held in Bangladesh this year and that many of them had received financial assistance from the government.
Mahanta’s statement is entirely consistent with the Modi government’s policy towards Bangladesh. The concern that the change in India’s citizenship laws could trigger a new influx is not out of place. Yet the BJP accuses Mahanta of “causing confusion” on the issue by opposing the bill. A BJP leader has charged that the AGP did little to implement the Assam Accord when it was in power under Mahanta’s leadership. But whatever the shortcomings of the Mahanta-led AGP government, the reason for its failure to implement the Assam Accord is not hard to find. Most people in Assam understand the main obstacle to be the IMDT law: It had severely limited the government’s capacity to act.
When in 2005 the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional, it said in its ruling that the IMDT law had created “insurmountable difficulties” for the government in the identification of unauthorised immigrants living in Assam. Indeed the court had agreed with much of what the leaders of the Assam Movement were saying. The IMDT law, said the apex court, encouraged massive illegal migration from Bangladesh to Assam and that it was the “main barrier” to identifying illegal immigrants.
Ironically, the BJP’s evident disinclination to openly engage in a public debate on the citizenship amendment bill reminds people in Assam of the way in which the IMDT law was passed. The seventh Lok Sabha elected in 1980 had enacted the IMDT law in 1983. While the 1980 election is remembered in the rest of India for sweeping Indira Gandhi back to power, the memory of that election is very different in Assam. The Assam Movement had just begun and its organisers had called for a boycott of the elections. Elections could be held in only two of Assam’s 14 parliamentary constituencies — both located in the Barak Valley, where the Assam Movement had little resonance. Thus a law that had more consequences for Assam than for any other part of the country was passed by Parliament at a time when Assam was grossly under-represented. That’s not how a deliberative law-making body should function.
One hopes that Parliament this time will not make the same mistake: That it will do more to facilitate public participation and public input in the course of legislating the citizenship amendment bill. A thorough discussion of the bill, however, requires that its goals be spelt out in a more transparent manner.
The proposed amendment, in its current formulation, seeks to exclude undocumented immigrants belonging to certain minority communities of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — from the category of illegal migrants making them eligible to apply for Indian citizenship. The list of religious minorities excludes Muslim groups like the Ahmadis, certainly a persecuted religious minority in Pakistan.
It is hard not to read the proposed amendment as being about something else: To deal with what some people have long taken to be a piece of unfinished business of the Partition. They believe that Indian citizenship laws should recognise a right of return of Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh to India, similar to the right of Jews to return to Israel, or of ethnic Germans to Germany. Those of this persuasion are unhappy with the Indian Constitution’s rejection of the two-nation theory since Indian law cannot distinguish between Hindu and Muslim arrivals from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The real purpose of the citizenship amendment bill seems to be to introduce this distinction into India’s citizenship laws.
The implications of the amendment are huge, not only for Assam, but for the rest of India and the subcontinent. The Constitution’s rejection of the two-nation theory is crucially important for the status of Indian Muslims as equal citizens. The proposed amendment will impact not only the sense of security of Indian Muslims, but also the future security of Hindus in Bangladesh, and the credibility of India’s historical position on the Kashmir question.
Whatever the form the amendment finally takes, there is no alternative to developing a shared understanding of the issue through a hard national conversation. The implications of the bill are far more profound than the innocuous formulation “persons belonging to minority communities, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.. shall not be treated as illegal migrants” might suggest.
Source: Indian Express, 28-11-2016
Fidel Castro, a Case Study of Right, Wrong
There is more to the Cuban icon than standing up as an underdog
El Comandante, the people of Cuba called him, if not just Fidel, adoringly . But there was more to him than cigarchewing, Yankee-munching charisma. He was loved, deeply and mostly , but also despised as a tyrant by his countrymen and Cuban emigrès who understood the downsides of being hauled into jail, their freedoms curtailed, for simply being critics. But the fact remains that Fidel Castro is one of the most influentlial figures in world history . If all it takes to be a leader, an underdog, a David to take on Goliath, Castro would have deserved his halo. Unflinching courage nothwithstanding -and genuine passion, eloquence and leadership -Castro perfected the Potemkin Village, the charade that sells progress in the name of 'standing up to imperialism'.The Cuban revolution did not begin as a communist takeover. The dependence on Soviet subsidy and political support turned that initial narrative. Castro's party got people to inform on their neigh bours. They hauled people into prison. The spirit was kept ali ve despite the system, not be cause of it. Cubans danced through hardships and want.
They developed world-beating healthcare, mass schooling and sporting prowess. But, blood less as it was, Castro's Cuba was anti-humanist, freedom being traded for a 'higher cause' -that has hurt a people for two generations. The Soviet Union collapsed, people expected Cuba to crumble. David stayed proud and defiant, and survived, thumbing his nose at Goliath. And Castro's will and ringing passion egged a nation on, to endure and thus stand up against 'Yankee America'.
Expect the Cuban revolution to disintegrate, with the pace accelerating when Fidel's younger brother, Raul, steps down as president in 2018. Cuba, however, is better prepared than most nations for broadbased capitalist growth, in terms of education and healthcare, even if some fundamentals remain lacking.
Source: Economic Times, 28-11-2016
They developed world-beating healthcare, mass schooling and sporting prowess. But, blood less as it was, Castro's Cuba was anti-humanist, freedom being traded for a 'higher cause' -that has hurt a people for two generations. The Soviet Union collapsed, people expected Cuba to crumble. David stayed proud and defiant, and survived, thumbing his nose at Goliath. And Castro's will and ringing passion egged a nation on, to endure and thus stand up against 'Yankee America'.
Expect the Cuban revolution to disintegrate, with the pace accelerating when Fidel's younger brother, Raul, steps down as president in 2018. Cuba, however, is better prepared than most nations for broadbased capitalist growth, in terms of education and healthcare, even if some fundamentals remain lacking.
Source: Economic Times, 28-11-2016
Free Will and Fate
Free will relates to our exercise of will while performing actions in the present, whereas fate is the sum total of the effect of past actions that influence our present life. Exercise of free will in the past becomes our fate in the present. In a broader sense, free will and fate are not separate; they are, in fact, one as they are both grounded on the exercise of free will.
Free will relates to our exercise of will while performing actions in the present, whereas fate is the sum total of the effect of past actions that influence our present life. Exercise of free will in the past becomes our fate in the present. In a broader sense, free will and fate are not separate; they are, in fact, one as they are both grounded on the exercise of free will.
Fate or destiny is conventionally described thus: whatever has to happen will happen and one can do nothing to change the course of predestined events. This is irrational. Many of us do take up challenges and fight our way out of situations.Once we accept that everything is dictated by fate, we will remain passive, adopting the path of least resistance. We wait for things to happen rather than make things happen. We need to look at obstacles as opportunities and overcome them.
Life would become boring for a person if he knew his future.He would be left with no imagination, no will power and an unused intellect. Free will means action guided by wisdom and intuition, not doing anything indiscriminately .
Can the effect of bad karmas be reduced or obliterated?
When a person surrenders to God, renounces the fruit of his actions and offers them to God, then no fate operates for him.When he rises towards perfection, then his free will merges with the divine will, and God works through him as he has surrendered before Him. Ramana Maharshi asks, what could fate do if you give up? Then, when a passive man proposes, God disposes.
When a person surrenders to God, renounces the fruit of his actions and offers them to God, then no fate operates for him.When he rises towards perfection, then his free will merges with the divine will, and God works through him as he has surrendered before Him. Ramana Maharshi asks, what could fate do if you give up? Then, when a passive man proposes, God disposes.
Demonetisation and its discontents
Demonetisation seems to have made friends of foes, and foes of friends in the political firmament. If Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar differed from his allies while heaping praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for embarking on demonetisation, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was critical of his party’s senior partner in government for “bringing tears in the eyes of the people” who had voted it to power. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress showed a readiness to join hands with arch-rival Left Front to fight the demonetisation drive. While the withdrawal of high-denomination notes can hardly be expected to trigger a political realignment anywhere, political parties seem to be rising above mundane political calculations while reacting to the demonetisation. A cynical view might be that Mr. Kumar is keeping his political options open by building bridges with the BJP, and keeping his politically junior but numerically stronger ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, in check. Arguably, he could be trying to recover his assiduously cultivated anti-corruption image, which took a beating following his electoral pact with Lalu Prasad of the RJD. But a simpler explanation cannot be ruled out: that Mr. Kumar saw some merit in the demonetisation drive, even as he recognised the difficulties in implementation. Similarly, the Sena cannot afford to break with the BJP at this juncture. Quite likely, Mr. Thackeray was prompted not by the possibilities of political realignment (of which there is practically none), but by the realities on the ground, in distancing himself and his party from the demonetisation decision. In West Bengal, an alliance between the Trinamool and the Left Front is inconceivable, but that did not stop Ms. Banerjee from reaching out to the CPI(M) in her fight.
If political parties have thus reacted unpredictably, it could just be on account of the mixed results seen on the ground. None can afford to be seen as directly opposing measures to clean up black money and weed out counterfeits. However, stories of cashless banks and shuttered ATMs seem to have given some life to opposition parties looking for an issue to pin the government down on. Reports of the BJP having made huge cash deposits in banks in West Bengal, and land deals in Bihar days before the demonetisation, have provided some ammunition to opposition parties that were initially reluctant to criticise the move for fear of being labelled supporters of black money hoarders and counterfeiters. Demonetisation might not have changed political equations, but it has shaken up the political scene. What they cannot oppose in principle, parties have opposed in practice.
Source: 28-11-2016
Cuba after Fidel
Latin America’s last revolutionary leader and towering and charismatic anti-imperialist torch-bearer, came to signify the high point of Cold War ideological hostilities of the 20th century. At home, his policies to promote affordable and accessible health care, housing and education, as well as his standing up to global hegemony, endeared him to the majority, even as his record on human rights came in for serious scrutiny. But these domestic issues played out in the larger shadow of his defiance of American power, which has outlasted that of the Soviet Union. When Castro captured power in 1959, there were few signs that the Marxist radical would emerge a global champion of Third World countries in his nearly fifty-year rule. But the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, by Cuban exiles trained by the U.S., to overthrow his regime began a pragmatic partnership between Castro and the Soviet Union, bringing the Cold War into the western hemisphere. This was the context to Russian preparations to house nuclear missiles in Cuba to threaten the U.S., which took the world to near-catastrophe in 1962. The U.S. misperception of the threat posed by Castro led to CIA plots to assassinate him. As it turned out, he lived long enough to see the rollback of Washington’s decades-long sanctions that crippled the Cuban economy.
The clearest example of Castro’s global standing was the clout he commanded in the Non-Aligned Movement. In more recent times, his slogan of “socialism or death” inspired the nationalisation of natural wealth by governments across Latin America as a counter to the appropriation of oil and mineral resources by corporations. Changes in the global economic climate may have exposed the deficiencies of an economic model reliant on riding the commodity cycle. But the process of resumption of diplomatic ties between Havana and Washington under the stewardship of his designated successor and brother, Raúl, is still fragile. U.S. President Barack Obama, who undertook a historic visit to the Caribbean nation earlier this year, sought to build the new rapprochement between Washington and Havana based on the relative distance of current generations in both countries from the painful memories of the past. Clearly, this is the path for President-elect Donald Trump to pursue, assuming that his pre-poll rhetoric would make way for a more reasoned approach once in office. Meanwhile, with incumbent Raúl Castro having announced his intention to step down by 2018, it will be a long transition in Havana.
Source: The Hindu, 28-11-2016
Fidel Castro lived a rich revolutionary life
There is no better description than the word ‘revolutionary’ for the 90-year-old Cuban leader.
With the death of Fidel Castro, the last of the iconic revolutionary figures of the 20th century is now no more. The word, “revolutionary” is a bit too easily bandied out these days to describe leaders, but there is no better description to encapsulate the 90-year-old Cuban leader’s life and achievements.
The son of a rich landowner, Fidel — as he has always been called by his compatriots, his fellow Cubans and many in the Third World — began his political career as a militant student leader committed to social justice and the establishment of a corruption-free government in Cuba. Later, he became part of movements that sought to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista who came to power in 1952 through a coup.
Batista was presiding over a system that promoted “casino capitalism”, and oversaw widespread corruption even as the country’s economy was dependent largely on one crop — sugar and had high unemployment and rural poverty. Fidel’s first foray into armed revolution was the attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba in July 1953, which failed spectacularly but set the stage for his future revolutionary movement that was named the 26th of July movement.
Soon, in the mid-1950s, Fidel, after his release from prison, along with his revolutionary comrades, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, brother Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida, among several others sailed from Mexico to the Sierra Maestra to launch a guerrilla struggle. It took them close to half-a-decade and several setbacks and victories later, Fidel was able to attain power after Batista went into exile in 1959.
While the Cuban Revolution was largely an anti-dictator and nationalist armed struggle, Fidel and his associates sought to gradually build a socialist system after coming to power, arguing that a thorough break from the past was only possible through recourse to anti-imperialism and state control of the economy. Ergo, Cuba began pursuing socialism in the early 1960s right next to the United States, which soon severed its ties with the regime after Havana nationalised all major foreign-owned assets in the country. It was the beginning of a long lasting enmity between the two countries as the U.S. sought to overthrow Fidel by instigating armed attacks such as the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, and to covertly assassinate him.
Fidel survived by rousing the Cuban people against the “imperialist” attacks, and the U.S. also retreated itself from overt machinations after the Cuban missile crisis invasion nearly brought a nuclear war as the Soviet Union got involved in the conflict.
After the success of the Cuban revolution, Fidel and his comrades sought to export the “foco” model of guerrilla armed struggle to other countries, both in Latin America and later in Africa. Most of these ended in failures — exemplified by Che Guevera’s lack of success in the Congo and later his death in the jungles of Bolivia.
Cuba also played a major role in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), having sent Che Guevara to New Delhi to discuss its formation and later when Fidel was the secretary general between 1979 and 1983. Fidel came up with the clearest enunciation of the NAM’s aims as an anti-imperial, anti-racist organisation. Fidel had re-invented himself as a Third World internationalist and an anti-imperialist who spoke for the developing world, inspiring anti-colonial struggles. He sent Cuban forces to participate in anti-colonial wars in countries like Angola (and resulting in the independence of Namibia – then South Western Africa) and was revered by leaders such as Nelson Mandela for these actions and his voice against Apartheid.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro shouts a slogan as he raises his fist during the VIII Ibero-American summit group picture in Oporto. | Photo Credit: AP
Fidel’s Cuba always enjoyed good ties with India, with both countries supporting multilateralism internationally and need for a more democratised United Nations. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Fidel during his visit to Havana for a NAM summit in 2006, “I had gone there only to greet him, but he engaged me in intense discussion. We covered a whole range of issues, including the future of the international financial system, the future role of NAM, India’s development prospects and how we are dealing with our population, food and energy problems… I felt I was in the presence of one of the greatest men of our times.”
Fidel lived through a five-and-a-half decade-long Cuban economic embargo imposed by the U.S. Cuba’s socialist system emphasised investment in free education and health for its largely peasant population while discouraging free enterprise and nationalising most foreign assets in the country. This emphasis resulted in a mixed legacy. By the 21st century, Cuba had among the most advanced health care systems in the world, a largely well educated and socially conscious population, but a battered economy characterised by low wages and little diversification.
Partially, the collapse of the Soviet Union was responsible for the dire straits that Cuba found itself in the 1990s, resulting in severe shortages of essential goods and supplies, but Fidel refused to give up on socialism, persisting with the social development model till he stepped down provisionally in 2006 and handed over powers to his brother Raul in 2008.
In his last decade, Fidel was an avuncular figure who took to writing regular columns that were published as his “Reflections” in Cuban newspapers. He soon became a symbol of anti-imperialism in Latin America, which saw the rise of the “pink-tide” — a series of social-democratic and “new socialist” regimes across the continent — and which were inspired by the success of the “social model” in Cuba but remained politically liberal democratic systems. Leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa paid rich tributes to his legacy and sought to emulate Cuban successes in health and education while others such as Brazil’s Lula, Chile’s Michele Bachelet worked towards closer ties with Cuba. In many ways, Fidel’s greatest achievement was to inspire a truly independent Latin America that was no longer dependent or under the imperial sway of the northern behemoth, the U.S.
Fidel remained an old-school communist till the end of his life even as Cuba embarked upon gradual economic liberalisation under Raul’s rule, which eased restrictions on the economy and freed it up for limited enterprise led development. U.S. President Barack Obama, in the meantime, revived diplomatic ties with Raul’s Cuba, and even as the embargo continues, ties between the U.S and Cuba have been never better since the Revolution.
During Mr. Obama’s historic visit to Havana in March 2016, he harped on constructive dialogue between the two countries that represented starkly different systems – Mr. Obama called into question, Cuba’s policies on political prisoners, political dissidence and human rights, while Mr. Raul spoke about the U.S’s poor record on economic inequality, race relations and health care. Fidel’s response was an unapologetic defence of the socialist system and his country’s record during what the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm described as the “Age of Extremes”.
It was not surprising to see Fidel railing against the times that were changing. He was a revolutionary of the 20th century who achieved what he set out to do, knowing that “history will absolve him” as he de-classed himself from his roots and led substantial changes that benefited millions in his poor country. True to his self, he seemed to accept that the contradictions unleashed by the system’s very same policies had to bring about fresh change and some degree of reversal of state socialism but it was difficult for him to countenance that the state-socialist model was by design, flawed. At the same time, Fidel, the columnist, wrote about the dangers of unrestrained capitalism to the environment and need to arrest climate change.
Fidel lived a rich revolutionary life as a committed, “cultured” Communist, who offered a stark contrast to the later day apparatchiks of the Soviet Union, present day China or the closed minded dictators of the other surviving “true communist” regime, North Korea.
It is difficult to sum up his life in a few words. With Fidel’s passing away, the era of state-led socialism can now be called to have officially ended. But his ideas on internationalism: a truly democratic world order and solidarity among the people of the third world; a thorough reorientation of the state to promote overall human development; – hold true and important today and for the foreseeable future. The Cuban’s muerte (death) will not just be mourned in his patria (fatherland), but the world over. Fidel is no more, but the revolution he unleashed, persists.
Source: The Hindu, 28-11-2016
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