Amit Shah(@AmitShahOffice)'s elevation as BJP President signals a generational change and Modi's complete takeover of the party

In March 2014, around the time BJP was yet to take a final call on fielding Narendra Modi from Uttar Pradesh, Amit Shah, the general secretary in-charge of the state, was clear that Modi had to contest from its eastern region. He made the recommendation to then party president Rajnath Singh. For someone who had always seen himself as first among equals in Uttar Pradesh, Singh was less than enthused. Would it be right for the party president and the prime ministerial candidate to contest from the same state, he asked. Shah did not respond, moved on to the next issue on his agenda and left the meeting with a request that Singh reconsider his suggestion.

The matter rested there for a while with Singh taking his time and also exploring Patna as a compromise choice for Modi because Bihar was equally important. But Shah is intrinsically opposed to such compromises-possibly one of the key attributes that endears him to Modi. He had arrived at his decision after a detailed analysis-the only way BJP could transcend the complex matrix of caste and religion in Uttar Pradesh was by creating and then continuously reinforcing a Modi wave.

With the prime ministerial candidate on his side, Shah came back with a reminder, followed it up with more reminders and then, finally took it as a given and asked the next question: So, from where does adhyakhshji (the president) want to contest? In a matter of a few weeks, the issue had turned on its head and now Singh was hurrying to finalise his constituency. There were nervous moments too, when suggestions were made that Singh contest from Jharkhand. His camp moved quickly and firmed up Lucknow to claim Atal Bihari Vajpayee's legacy.

Modi trusts Shah's judgement and admires the steadfast manner in which he goes about getting things done once he has given clearance. After he delivered Uttar Pradesh to his boss, with the BJP-Apna Dal combine winning a record 73 of the 80 seats there, the way for Shah's elevation was clear. Modi pushed his candidature through, quelling opposition from within the party and some RSS quarters on the grounds that both the PM and party president could not hail from Gujarat and there are fake encounter killing cases pending against Shah. Modi's retort: is there a more competent candidate available to deliver the states that BJP needs to win?

Amit Shah with Narendra Modi after his appointment as BJP chief, in Delhi.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

At 49, Shah is the youngest-ever BJP president. His advent is likely to see the party leadership getting younger in the coming days. Modi, say insiders, clearly thinks that the party needs to deepen its connect with young voters and consolidate recent gains. But a younger organisation is only a part of what it means to have Shah as the new BJP president. The import of his appointment is threefold. One, he is Modi's closest aide and his elevation completes the Prime Minister's grip over the party, bringing an end to the domination of the Delhi coterie that refused to step down despite failing to deliver in two Lok Sabha elections (2004 and 2009). Secondly, his elevation makes way for clearing up the organisation of older leaders who are no longer considered useful. And more importantly, in Uttar Pradesh, Shah demonstrated the ability to fulfil Modi's command while taking RSS along. He carried along Modi's management style and tapped into the Sangh's organisational abilities, to which he added a meticulous use of technology.

Two days before Shah was announced as BJP president on July 9, senior RSS Pracharaks Ram Madhav, also 49, and Shiv Prakash, in his early 50s, too joined the party. While Prakash, a kshetra pracharak, had worked with Shah in western Uttar Pradesh, Madhav has been the media face of RSS as its spokesperson for a decade now. From the day he joined BJP, he has been by Shah's side. Even though Madhav has not been given any specific role yet, he has been part of every meeting that Shah has held with party office-bearers until now. These include initial discussions with BJP units of four states-Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra-that go to polls in the next six months.

Shah's target is to ensure BJP forms the government in at least three of these states. The party also wants to build on the unprecedented gains in Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Says Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai: "Shah is a man of not just vision but firm resolution and immediate execution. We've already had a crucial meeting with him on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, which are scheduled for 2017. On our next visit, we will look at the criteria for ticket distribution."

With Shah taking orders directly from Modi, it is unlikely that the party and the Government will be pulling in different directions. BJP has already formed a policy facilitation group under General Secretary P. Muralidhar Rao, 48, to monitor the Government's policy compliance with the manifesto and other key promises made during the Lok Sabha campaign.

However, some leaders also have concerns, which they voice in hushed tones these days. "He takes orders directly from Modi and then passes them on to the people he trusts. Transparency could suffer. The party leadership will be replaced by a smaller coterie in the name of efficiency," says a BJP general secretary.

THE TECH EDGE

A closer look at Shah's winning strategy in Uttar Pradesh shows that he will rely immensely on technology to re-energise the party system. He transformed the party's Lucknow office, had a war room set up to plan for the battle ahead and an IT cell to tap potential voters using social media, particularly first-time voters. "India added nearly 110 million voters in the last General Election and BJP and RSS went into it believing that these new voters would be game-changers," says Sunil Bansal, 44, who was loaned by RSS to assist the BJP-managed war room of Shah in Lucknow. BJP had set up a call centre as part of its war room. It served a dual purpose. Party sympathisers and supporters could give a missed call on the call centre number to know about BJP programmes. The call centre workers were able to convert more than 20,000 of these callers into active volunteers of the party. Already, the word is out is that new IT systems are being looked at to aid better electoral planning from the headquarters. Shah's message, according to insiders, is that the party worker must find easier ways to communicate with the leadership than wait for hours before the houses and office of leaders to be heard. Insiders say the new BJP president wants technological solutions that organise the leader-worker interaction in a way that the urgent can be segregated from the not-so-immediate.

For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, he had cell phones provided to booth workers; those manning the call centre in Lucknow would call up these workers daily and submit a report every evening to Bansal. He, in turn, would give a constituency-wise daily report to Shah. "This helped charging up the workers and allowed us to address problems faster," adds Bansal.

After the Uttar Pradesh poll success, those from RSS who had assisted Shah have been brought into the party. Bansal was inducted into BJP three weeks before Shah became president.

He is now general secretary (organisation) of the Uttar Pradesh unit. RSS Joint General Secretary Krishna Gopal, who coordinated with Shah in Uttar Pradesh, is now set to replace Suresh Soni as the Sangh's pointperson to liaison with the party. Gopal and Shah worked closely with each other. While Shah relied on a number of RSS functionaries to act as 'paalaks' (care-takers) for different constituencies, Gopal ensured that BJP had the complete support of the RSS's frontal organisations and cadres where its base had been eroded over the years. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had held a three-day meeting of the RSS zonal in-charges in Varanasi in February to oversee the planning and coordination between BJP and the Sangh.

The party is also set to get new faces with Shah planning to bring in young talent from states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka for the future. Given that General Secretaries Ananth Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Dharmendra Pradhan are now part of the Government, Shah has opportunity to build his own team of general secretaries. J.P. Nadda, another general secretary, is expected to join the ministry in the next expansion. The BJP parliamentary board, too, will have vacancies-Kumar and Gehlot are likely to be dropped and Madhav inducted into the highest decision-making body.

JOURNEY FROM NOWHERE

A clear signal of Shah's increasing clout in the party comes from the way in which the party brass was in attendance at this son Jay's engagement on July 13 at Ahmedabad's YMCA club.

The celebrations saw over 20 ministers of the Modi ministry from Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari to RSS leaders Soni and Madhav. Shah's journey from a junior RSS and BJP worker who even pasted BJP posters in his initial days on barren city walls to the pinnacle of political glory today is best illustrated by the contrast between the July 13 function and Shah's own pre-wedding dinner about 27 years ago in Ahmedabad's Naranpura area. According to Ratibhai Patel, 78, an RSS worker who gave Shah his first lessons in the organisation, only 150 guests attended Shah's dinner and the leftover sweets had to be distributed among his neighbours. On July 13, over 1,500 guests were in attendance. A senior cabinet minister even remarked on the side that there were more BJP leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi at the function than those from Gujarat, where Shah started his political journey.

Shah isn't Modi's man alone. He enjoys respect in RSS and its allied organisations for his ideological commitment and sensitivity towards grassroots workers. Bharatbhai Bhatt, 58, another RSS functionary who worked with Shah in the local unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), recalls how the unit started a number of innovative public programmes at Shah's behest-a book bank for poor students, singing patriotic songs in schools and running a vocational employment bureau for needy students so that they could work part-time to cover their expenses. Says Bhatt, now a primary school principal, "There was one quality that set him apart. Courage. On his suggestion, we started a picketing programme against black marketeers at cinema theatres, catch them and hand them over to police. Amitbhai himself took the lead in this."

It was perhaps this courage that brought him closer to Modi when he refused to turn approver against the then Gujarat chief minister in the fake encounter killing cases. "Just one statement against Modi at that time could have put the current Prime Minister's political career in jeopardy," reveals a party leader. A court order in 2010 releasing him on bail after three months of jail but asking him to stay out of Gujarat for almost two years "so that Shah didn't tamper with the evidence in the case" came as a blessing in disguise. Shah used the banishment to build contacts with top party leaders in Delhi; he even rented a house last year in Jangpura Extension on the periphery of Lutyens' Delhi.

Modi first spotted Shah as a pracharak in 1985 at an RSS meet in Ahmedabad and took a liking for him after a few meetings. Shah was one of Modi's strategists when the latter clashed with bete noire Shankarsinh Vaghela in 1995, which had resulted in Modi being banished from Gujarat to Delhi as BJP national secretary. The banning of Modi resulted in many of his followers in Gujarat deserting him for other leaders. When Keshubhai Patel started distancing himself from Modi on becoming chief minister for the second time in 1998, Shah, who was an MLA then, stood by Modi and became his backroom boy in the fight. He also played a role in creating an atmosphere for Modi to step in as chief minister in October 2001 replacing Patel.

Shah got his first big chance in December 2002 when Modi made him the minister of state for home, transport and law. The fake encounters during his tenure were used by his opponents to defame him and two of these had him entangled-those of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati. His arrest in Sohrabuddin encounter case turned out to be his worst period. The upshot of it was that it burnished his credentials as a Hindu hardliner. Shah remains an accused out on bail in both the cases which have now been clubbed together by the Supreme Court. He was recently exempted by a lower court in Mumbai which is hearing the case from personal appearance in court.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley at Amit Shah's son Jay's engagement ceremony in Ahmedabad.

MAN FOR THE TURNAROUND

Shah's administrative acumen is borne out by his achievements. He turned around the loss-making Gujarat State Finance Corporation in 16 months flat after taking over as chairman in 1995. Three years later, he repeated the feat as chairman of Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank, taking the balance sheet from losses of Rs.40 crore to a profit of Rs.20 crore in one year. As transport minister, he brought the lossmaking Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation back in black.

Soon after his elevation to the top job, a close Modi aide reportedly told Shah: "Are you able to fathom what you have achieved at such a young age? Even Modiji could never become the party president." Shah replied, "I know it very well. I have to prove myself in the 18 months that are left of my term," referring to the fact that he has come in as a mid-term replacement for Rajnath Singh. Modi's expectations from the new BJP president will be sky-high given Shah's administrative and organisational track record. And Shah has only half a term to prove himself to his boss. At least to begin with.

Death Anniversary of Dadabhai Naoroji

Born: September 4, 1825

Died: June 30, 1917

Achievements: First Indian to become a professor of the college; instrumental in the establishment of the Indian National Congress; was President of the Indian National Congress thrice; the Congress' demand for swaraj (self-rule) was first expressed publicly by him in his presidential address in 1906

Dadabhai Naoroji is fondly called as the "Grand Old Man of India". He is viewed as the architect who laid the foundation of the Indian freedom struggle.

Dadabhai Naoroji was born in a poor Parsi family in Bombay on September 4, 1825. His father, Naoroji Palanji Dordi, died when Dadabhai Naoroji was only four years old. He was raised by her mother Maneckbai who despite being illiterate herself ensured that Dadabhai Naoroji got best English education possible. As a student Dada Bhai Naoroji was very good in Mathematics and English. He studied at Elphinstone Institution, Bombay and on completion of his education he was appointed the Head Native Assistant Master at the Elphinstone Institution. Dadabhai Naoroji became a professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Elphinstone Institution at the age of 27. He was the first Indian to become a professor of the college.

Dadabhai Nauroji entered the political fray in 1852. He strongly opposed the renewal of lease to the East India Company in 1853. He sent petitions to the English government in this regard. But the British government ignored his pleas and renewed the lease. Dadabhai Naoroji felt that the British misrule of India was because of ignorance of the Indian people. He set up the Gyan Prasarak Mandali (Society for Promotion of Knowledge) for the education of adult menfolk. He wrote several petitions to Governors and Viceroys regarding India's problems. Ultimately, he felt that the British people and the British Parliament must be made aware of India's plight. In 1855, at the age of 30 he sailed for England.

In England, Dadabhai Naoroji joined several learned societies, delivered many speeches and wrote articles on the plight of India. He founded the East Indian Association on December 1st, 1866. The association was comprised of high-ranking officers from India and people who had access to Members of the British Parliament. Dadabhai Naoroji was elected to the British Parliament in 1892 from Central Finsbury as the Liberal party candidate. He got a resolution passed in British Parliament for holding preliminary examinations for the I.C.S. in India and England simultaneously. He also got the Wiley Commission, the royal commission on India expenditure, to acknowledge the need for even distribution of administrative and military expenditure between India and England.

Dadabhai Naoroji was instrumental in the establishment of the Indian National Congress founded by A.O. Hume in 1885. Thrice he was elected to the post of the President of the Indian National Congress, in 1886, 1893 and in 1906. During his third term, he prevented a split between moderates and extremists in the party. The Congress' demand for swaraj (self-rule) was first expressed publicly by him in his presidential address in 1906. Dadabhai Naoroji believed in non-violent and constitutional methods of protest. He died at the age of 92 on June 30, 1917.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay birth anniversary

Through his writings, this man breathed a new passion and life into an entire civilisation, particularly his native region of Bengal, which became kindled with religious, nationalistic and artistic fervour after being infused with the powerful visions contained in his writings.

Born on 27 June 1838 in the Kantalpara district of Bengal, the first striking event we have of his life was that he mastered the alphabet as a child in a single sitting. This was an image and prophecy for the rest of his life.

Apart from the breathtaking legacy of his literary works – his life was quite “normal” and not in any way out of the ordinary. He was a man who never clamoured for place or power, but did his work in silence for the love of his work, even as nature does. And just because he had no aim but to give out the best that was in him to his people, he was able to create a language, a literature, a freedom struggle, and steer the course of history.

Bankim was 19 years of age when India’s First War of independence (known in the west as the “Sepoy Mutiny”) was waged. The following year (1858) India had lost the war. Bankim was finishing his studies at the time, and in that same year graduated from the University of Calcutta. The British authorities immediately appointed him to the post of Deputy Magistrate.

Young Bankim had suffered a shock in seeing the failure of India’s War of Independence. He could not rest until he knew why the great movement for liberation ended up being crushed in the manner in which it was, and that too with the help of many Indian’s themselves (most notably the Sikhs). In his effort to discover the causes of that failure he set his sharp intellect to the task of analysing the great problems that India was facing. Influenced and inspired by three great figures of that epoch, Raja Rammohan Roy, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar and Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi (the Hindu queen who led her soldiers against the British during the war) – he soon recognised the existence of a number of startling facts.

Foremost among these was that the people of India were fast becoming denationalised by English manners and customs, English fashions, and English whiskies and wines – not to mention the Christian missionaries (who had made Bengal their storm centre). The British government used their educational system to further this agenda (after abolishing and outlawing the traditional Indian education systems). Chatterji’s soul winced when he perceived that the Indian who spoke good English was more honoured by his own people than the man who spoke and wrote their own tongue exquisitely. Wherever he looked, he saw educated Indians jumping frantically on the bandwagon of British culture.

From the moment he had first learned to think for himself, Bankim realised that there was a titanic struggle ahead to reverse the trend and bring physical and cultural freedom to the sacred motherland. He felt that he had his own divinely ordained effort to make in this veritable battle – which he played silently and humbly. If India was to be uplifted, her children must once again create literature and language dynamic and inspiring to enlighten and inspire the entire people of India.

Soon, the profound effect of Chatterji’s novels and essays, with their compelling beauty, subtle humour and inspiring themes could be seen, firstly in Bengal and then spilling over into greater India. Indians who were nurtured on Shakespeare, Milton and Shelley began to read the works of Kalidas, Bhavabhuti, Chandidas and Vidyapula. They turned eagerly to the Puranas, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Whereas before, elite Indians took pride in their knowledge of the Magna Carta strugle, the times of Oliver Cromwell and the tragedy of Charles the First, they began to relish the ballads of Rajasthan and Maharashtra. A new feeling was born. Millions began to hold their heads high once again and talk in terms of “our language”, “our literature”, “our history”, “our country”.

His Literary History

Bankim began his literary career with a desire to write in English, and wrote a novel called Rammohan’s Wife.” He at once realised his mistake with the realisation that the his work was much more natural and powerful in his own mother tongue.

The major novels he wrote were: Chandrashekhar, Kishna Kanta’s Will, Debi Chaudhurani, Sitaram, Indira, Kamal Kanta and Anandamath.

The last of these, Anandamath deserves special mention here. It wasn’t necessarily the best of Bankim Chandra’s works, though still great in its own right. Yet because of its astonishing political consequences, with no other of his works is Bankim so closely identified.

The Anandamath story is set in 18th century India, when a group of warrior sannyasis mounted a guerilla war against Muslim rule (based on a true historical attempt by sannyasis to do precisely this). It was a riveting story line with amazing characters and meaningful dialogues. Yet more importantly, hundreds of thousands of Indians (primarily Hindus) took the story as a metaphor for their own present day situation, understanding it as a call to arms to drive the new tyrants (the British) away from the sacred soil. Indeed, the main revolutionary group in Bengal chose its name as that of the sannyasin group from Anandamath. The most important and widely known section of this book was the poem “Vande Mataram” which means “Hail to the Mother(land)”. The song became the battle cry for India’s freedom struggle. It was set to become India’s National Anthem, but was rejected because a section of Muslims considered the song as idolatrous due to its metaphor comparing India to the tiger-borne Goddess Durga “with instruments of punishment in each of her ten hands”. To placate the Muslims (and Jawahalal Nehru) the constituent assembly rejected it as the National Anthem. Incidentally, Rabindranath Tagore, the great poet whose “Jana Gana” eventually became India’s National Anthem had stated on several occasions that he desired very much that Bankim Chandra’s “Vande Mataram” should become the National Anthem of free India. For example, in 1928, he said in an interview with Mulk Raj Ananda “I share his ideas of inheriting the past – if made relevant for the present! Bankim Chandra is our master in this respect. In our school here, students sing “Bande Mataram” every morning…..I hope it becomes the national anthem of free India!”

Bankim Chandra’s Anandamath demonstrated the most powerful example in modern history of how art can affect real life to a tremendous extent – especially in an artistically orientated civilisation like that of the Hindus.

Towards the end of his life, Bankim Chandra turned his attention to write about spirituality – the very essence of Hindu civilisation. A Life of Krishna and a book on the Essence of Religion, a rendering of the Bhagavad Gita and a commentary on the Vedas were his aims to give to his fellow countrymen. The first two he managed to complete, and the rendering of the Bhagavad Gita was three parts finished, but the commentary on the Vedas, which should have been a priceless possession, never got into the stage of execution. Death, in whose shadow he had so long dwelt, with his ailing health, took the pen from his hand before he could accomplish this feat. Yet his contributions to literature are enough to immortalise his memory.

Vande Mataram!

Indians, why 25th June, 1975 was called the darkest day in the history of democratic India?

PART: 1

25 June 1975 will go down in the history of the Indian Republic as a most infamous day and a black day when the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who headed the Congress Party as its dynastic head imposed an 'Internal Emergency' in India for reasons which had no bearing to the internal security of the country.

The Emergency was declared by PM Indira Gandhi to suppress the widespread political unrest and agitation generated by her refusal to submit to her unseating from power in a judgment by the Allahabad High Court on an election petition charging her with electoral corruption in her Lok Sabha General Elections . Rather than to submit gracefully to the verdict given in the Court judgment the Congress Prime Minister by political subterfuge decided to continue in office.

The political agitation against the Congress PM was not led by any run of the mill Opposition political party leader. It was led by one of India's most venerated Gandhian and Sarvodaya leader Shri Jaya Prakash Narayan who stood for high moral values ​​in political office and political life. He was a freedom fighter of Indira Gandhi's father's generation and he could have assumed a high political appointment after Independence. But seeing the emerging trends in the closing stages of India's freedom movement he opted to be a crusader for morality in public life and of India's political leaders.

The Emergency was declared post-midnight with Congress PM Indira Gandhi virtually forcing a pliant President Fakhruddin Ahmad to sign the Proclamation imposing the Internal Emergency. Placed in office as a pliant President, by Indira Gandhi, he did not even question the reasons from the Prime Minister for such a grave measure.

Overnight, hundreds of political Opposition leaders and activists were arrested and put in jails all over India. The Indian media was strangled and put under stringent censorship. Human rights and freedoms were brutally suppressed by the Indira Gandhi regime. India's Supreme Court judiciary was interfered with. Some reports indicate that as many as eighteen Supreme Court judges were changed including a Chief Justice. There was talk of a committed judiciary. Even from within the Congress Party, the Young Turks MP's led by later PM Chandra Shekhar were also put behind bars for questioning Indira Gandhi's policies earlier.

Pliant bureaucrats were positioned in important appointments and were given sweeping powers to stifle all opposition to the Government and they really went on a rampage. Some of them occupy high Constitutional positions today under the present Congress Government.

The Indian democracy stood subverted by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and India was to be under a draconian siege till the 1977 General Elections. Till then the unquestioned writ of Indira Gandhi and her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi as an unconstitutional power centre plagued India. The Emergency imposition was to impose a 'shock and awe' effect on the Indian polity and the Indian public for their temerity to agitate against the existing political set-up.

In a manner of speaking the Emergency rule in India imposed by Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was no different from the military dictatorship regimes of Pakistan.

It was ironic that an Emergency was imposed in India for reasons of political survival by the daughter of India's most admired democrat and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was more tragic that Indira Gandhi who also joined the freedom struggle for India's freedom struggle alongside her father should in 1977 stoop to suppress the very same freedoms and democracy that were fought for in order to continue as Prime Minister. The self-proclaimed high political morality of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty stood compromised.

It was also ironic that the vast majority of Congress Party political leaders with the exception of the Young Turks did not raise even a whimper of protest against their dynastic political leader for the subversion of democracy. They supinely went along and many of the senior Congress Party leaders stooped low even to touch the feet of the young dynastic heir apparent.

Another 25 June came and went past without India even pausing to recall this infamous black day thirty two years ago. The Congress Party could not be expected to recall the political misdeed of an earlier dynastic head. The Bharatiya Janata Party which fought against the Emergency in its earlier avatar as the Jan Singh seems to be politically frozen today by political inertia. This was an occasion which should have been highlighted on a massive scale by it all over India. It was only in the Punjab Legislative Assembly that Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal made special mention of the excesses of the Emergency despite vehement protests by Congress MLA's. Many would not know that the Akalis under the leadership of Badal spearheaded a massive protest against the Emergency rule. More than 40,000 Akali workers were put in jails.

The bulk of the Indian media controlled by industrial houses close to the ruling Congress Party, did not highlight this infamous day. If for nothing else they could have emphasized that India's democracy should never be allowed to be subverted by self-seeking politicians.

Congress Prime Minister Indira Gandhi Imposes Internal Emergency

Against such a background, the only redeeming feature that strikes the mind is that the people of India did no hesitate to strike back in 1977 against Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her subversion of democracy and the Emergency excesses. They unseated her from power. Though she came back to power again, not because of any new found political popularity but because of the internal squabbles of the Janata Party, politically the things were never the same again for her. Her image took a dive.

In this lie many lessons for the India of today stretching from attempts to put into Rashtrapati Bhavan once again a pliant political non-entity as President by the Congress Party President, to the questioning of Supreme Court judgments on unconstitutional legislation passed by the Parliament by political leaders and contriving dubious legislative measures to perpetuate in office those unseated as happened in the Office of Profit controversy.

India's middle class in1977 was small and yet they along with the rest of India unseated Indira Gandhi for her political transgressions and subversion of democracy. Today India's burgeoning middle class is over 300 million strong and they must politically empower themselves not only to correct the distorted electoral arithmetic imposed by casteist political leaders and custodians of minority vote banks, but also to act forcefully as sentinels of Indian democracy.

Never again should the people of India ever allow another Internal Emergency to be imposed on India by self-seeking Indian politicians, however charismatic. It is well said that 'Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty' and every Indian citizen should be alive to it.

24-Jun-2014

Emergency: The Darkest Period in Indian Democracy

PART: 2

April 28th 1976 is remembered as a black day in the history of Indian democracy. The very foundations of democracy were murdered on this day when the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment in ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla. The decision of Supreme Court in ADMJabalpuer Vs shukla had greatly disappointed the Indians who loved the pledges of justice and liberty incorporated in the preamble of our constitution.

FACTS OF THE CASE

The germs of this case were to be found in the election of Mrs Indira Gandhi (the then prime minster of India) which had been held to be invalid by the Allahabad High Court. In her desire to stick to the chair of prime minster she chose to declare a national emergency on 25th June 1975 on the ground of 'internal threat' to the security of India. As a result of the emergency censorship was imposed on the press on 25th June 1975 itself. On 5th August 1975, Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was approved by the parliament and a number of opposition leaders were detained under this law. Any person who was considered to be a political threat or who could raise the voice of opposition was detained without trial under the MISA. According to Amnesty International, 1, 40,000 persons were arrested without trial during the emergency period. Many of the detained persons challenged their arrest through writs before the High Courts under Article 226 of the constitution of India. As a result of these writs the state governments in many of the High court's raised the issue that, whether such writs were maintainable on the ground that under the presidential order declaring emergency the right to file such writ was taken away. All the High court's declared that despite the suspension of fundamental right of a detained person, he could show that his detention was not in accordance with the law under which he was detained or that there was a mistake of identity.

The government being unsatisfied with this decision appealed to the Supreme Court and thus the most controversial case of ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla came before the Supreme Court for hearing.

The then attorney general Niren De contended that the writ petitions would necessarily be dismissed since the right to move any court had been suspended and the detenue had no locus standi.

ISSUE

The main issue before the Supreme Court in this case was: -

Whether the high courts can entertain a writ of habeas corpus filed by a person challenging his detention, during the emergency period?

DECISION OF SUPREME COURT

"In view of the presidential order dated 27th June 1975 no person has any locus standi to move any writ petition under Article 226 before a high court for habeas corpus or any other writ or order or direction to challenge the legality of an order of detention on the ground that the order is not under or in compliance with the Act or is illegal or is vitiated by mala fides factual or legal or is based on extraneous grounds ".

This was the judgment delivered by four senior, most judges of the Supreme Court including chief justice ANRay. The dissenting judgment was that of justice HRKhanna. His contentions were opposed to that of the majority judgment. Justice Khanna made a significant quote in his judgment which runs as follows: -

"As observed by CJ, Huges, judges were not there simply to decide cases, but to decide them as they think they should be decided, and while it may be regrettable that they cannot always agree, it is better that their independence should be maintained and recognized than that unanimity should be secured through its sacrifice. A dissent in a court of last resort, to use his words, is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possibly correct the error into which the dissenting judge believes the court to have been betrayed ".

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The chief reason behind the filing of this writ petition was the political unrest during that period. Opponents had long made allegations that the congress party had taken recourse to electoral frauds to win the 1971 election. Cases of election fraud and misuse of state machinery for election purposes were lodged in the Allahabad High Court against Indira Gandhi by Raj Narain who had been defeated in the parliamentary election by Indira Gandhi. The Allahabad High Court in its judgment declared Indira Gandhi's election as void and also unseated her from the Lok Sabha. This decision in course of time became the primary reason for the imposition of the 1975 emergency.

On 26th sept. 1975, the 39th amendment to the constitution was made so as to place the election of prime minster beyond the judicial scrutiny. This was an intelligent step by Indira Gandhi to safeguard her seat.

A close study of the facts behind the filing of this writ petition reveals that it was in fact a case for assertion of political powers by one party over the other.

Further during 1975, another National emergency was also in operation on the ground of war with Pakistan. But before the imposition of national emergency on 1975 an amendment was made and a new provision was added in the constitution which provided for imposition of more than one national emergency under Article 352 at the same time. This was done to overcome any legal difficulty which may arise from the simultaneous operation of two national emergencies at the same time. This was in fact another intelligent step by Mrs Indira Gandhi to legalize the imposition of 1975 emergency.

As a matter of fact it is evident that the majority judgment of Supreme Court in ADM Jabalpur Vs Shukla is to a great extent influenced by the political circumstances prevailing at that time. The supreme court even refused to follow the ruling in Makhan Singh Vs state of Punjab (1964) wherein the supreme court had pointed out that if a detenue challenged his detention on the ground that it violated statutory provision or the detention is vitiated by mala fides the challenge could not be barred because of the presidential order under Article 359 (1),

However, the lone dissenting voice of justice Khanna was paid due respect in the year 1978 when the constitution 44th amendment Act was passed. Justice Khanna had paid the price for his dissent. He was supposed to be the next chief justice of India but unfortunately he had to resign before he could become the chief justice of India.

Before the 44th amendment the national emergency provision under Article 352 (1) was as follows: - 'the president can proclaim emergency when he is satisfied that a grave emergency exists whereby the security of India or any part of the territory thereof is threatened by ( a) war; or (b) external aggression; or (c) internal disturbances'

The words "internal disturbances" was in fact responsible for the successful imposition of the 1975 emergency. The words "internal disturbance" is a vague one and it is difficult to ascertain the situations covered under this words. However the 44th amendment to the constitution has substituted the words "armed rebellion" for the words "internal disturbances" and thereby narrowed the scope of emergency situations.

The constitution 44th amendment Act has a great significance in the Indian legal history. It has made the proclamation of emergency under Article 352 (1) so complex that after 1975 no emergency has been proclaimed till today under Article 352 (1). The 44th amendment has placed a number of significant safeguards to check the misuse of Article 352 (1) in future.

Thus in conclusion it is clear that the 1975 national emergency was a pre planned drama of the Indira Gandhi govt. in order to secure certain political objectives.

The 12 things to expect from @arunjaitley's 10 July budget

When governments change, priorities change. However, Union budgets prepared immediately after a general election tend to be large on announcements about change rather than real changes in allocations and priorities. This is because there is very little time between election results and budget day to be able to comprehensively change the contours completely.

This time, the election results came on 16 May, and the formation of the central government took another 10 days as this was the first time a sitting state Chief Minister was elected Prime Minister. The delays related to the need for Narendra Modi to hand over power in Gujarat smoothly before moving to Delhi.

Moreover, when the political order changes, as in this general election, the new ministers would not have had the time to familiarise themselves with their own ministries before dealing with the finance ministry on the budget.

The net result is the previous interim budget tends to be the guiding document, with the big changes being largely cosmetic in nature or about things to come in future.

Will the 10 July budget be any different? Will it be more or less what P Chidambaram presented on 17 February (the interim budget), with only the medium-term policy goals being different, and the budget proposals largely remaining tweaked versions of the last UPA budget?

These are what I would expect in the budget to be presented by Arun Jaitley on 10 July:

#1: Marginal changes in the minimum tax-free bracket (Rs 2 lakh now) to reflect higher inflation.

#2: Some changes and increases in the 80C savings limit to boost savings.

#3: Special tax breaks for industry to start investing, including possible quicker depreciation.

#4: Scrapping of some centrally-sponsored schemes and transfer of the resources to states – which will be explained as a push to greater state autonomy.

#5: A restatement of Chidambaram’s fiscal deficit numbers so that the burden of lowering it this year is eased.

#6: A higher disinvestment target than what Chidambaram proposed, thanks to a more buoyant market.

#7: Very few changes to indirect taxes – both excise and customs.

#8: A new deadline for the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), probably around mid-2015 or 1 April 2016.

#9: Announcement of a new Direct Taxes Code effective from 1 April 2015 – with details to come later.

#10: Higher allocations to education, skill-building, health, and urban schemes. All of Modi’s pet projects – toilets, rural housing, roads, special manufacturing zones - will find a mention in terms of intent, and there will be token allocations, but nothing major. The money and actual details will come later

#11: Possible announcement of a changed, reduced, role for the Planning Commission, with the finance ministry itself being the nodal agency for dealing with state plan outlay. Maybe, even a scrapping of the 12th plan, with focus shifting to annual plans. The distinction between plan and non-plan outlays may be given up, and revenue and capital spending being the only distinction.

#12: NREGA and Land Bills will be tweaked to make them more pro-growth, pro-infrastructure development.

But the bottomline is not much money will be shown for all the pet NDA schemes. In short, the Jaitley budget will probably draw on Chidambaram’s underlying budget because he has had no time to overhaul it.

Over the last 23 years, from 1991 to now, we have seen big changes in the political orientation of new governments in 1991, 1996, 1998, 2004 - and now. But barring 1991, when within a month after the elections Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh simply changed the entire direction of the Indian economy – with external bankruptcy concentrating minds wonderfully – no new government has really managed to do all that it wanted to in its very first budget. There is simply too little time.

The hiking of railway fares and freight hikes last week – which was a UPA government proposal – further confirms to us that NDA’s first budget math will not be too different from that of the UPA.

In 2004, when UPA-1 replaced Vajpayee’s NDA, Chidambaram as finance minister paid lip-service to the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) agreed between the Congress, the Left and other alliance parties. But the budget made very few sweeping changes in its first attempt: the big changes related to just one or two areas, and not the whole budget.

Chidambaram changed very little on direct taxes, and the key changes related to the introduction of securities transaction tax (STT) on stock exchange transactions and the abolition of long-term capital gains tax. An education cess of 2 percent on all taxes was also introduced for the first time.

Chidambaram explained why he was not making big changes in his budget speech of 8 July 2008: “The government has to shift gears; and even if we are able to do so quickly, it would leave us only about six months to achieve our objectives for this year. We have, therefore, decided to adopt an innovative approach. The Planning Commission has advised the ministries and departments to redefine their priorities and redraw their programmes in accordance with the NCMP. Besides, new programmes or schemes may have to be launched, and old ones restructured. Under the circumstances, it was considered optimal to allow the ongoing programmes to continue until the Planning Commission completes an exhaustive review and reorients the expenditure pattern to conform to the NCMP objectives.”

Chidambaram’s "innovation" was simply to buy time.

On direct taxes, he simply shifted the changes to the next budget. “I am a votary of tax reforms but it would be unwise on my part to attempt to do tax reform in a hurried or piece-meal manner. Seven months from now there will be another Budget, and there will be an occasion to visit the subject of tax reform.”

So, given the short time available, Jaitley is more than likely to do what Chidambaram did in 2004. Make big announcements in directional change, but make only small changes in the actual budget numbers.

SYAMA PRASAD MOOKERJEE (1901-1953)

FOUNDER OF THE BHARATIYA JANA SANGH

The BJP is the successor party of the BJS, which merged itself into the Janata Party in 1977. The BJP was formed as a separate party in 1980 after internal differences in the Janata Party resulted in the collapse of it's government in 1979.

A BRIEF LIFE

Dr. Mookerjee's mother Jogmaya Debi exclaimed, on hearing of her son's death.
"Proudly do I feel that the loss of my son is a loss to Mother India !"

Born on 6th July 1901 in a famous family. His father Sir Asutosh was widely known in Bengal. Graduated from Calcutta University he became a fellow of the Senate in 1923. He enrolled as an advocate in Calcutta High Court in 1924 after his father's death. Subsequently he left for England in 1926 to study in Lincoln's Inn and became a barrister in 1927. At the age of 33, he became the world's youngest Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University and held the office till 1938. During his tenure, he introduced a number of constructive reforms and was active in Asiatic Society of Calcutta as well as was a member of the Court and the Council of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Chairman of the Inter-University of Board.

He was elected as member of the Legislative Council of Bengal as a Congress candidate representing Calcutta University but resigned next year when Congress decided to boycott the legislature. Subsequently, he contested the election as an independent and got elected.

He became the opposition leader when Krishak Praja Party - Muslim League coalition was in power 1937-41 and joined the Progressive Coalition Ministry headed by Fazlul Haq as a Finance Minister and within less than an year resigned. He emerged as a spokesman for Hindus and shortly joined Hindu Mahasabha and in 1944, he became the President.

After the assassination of Gandhiji, he wanted the Hindu Mahasabha not to be restricted to Hindus alone or work as apolitical body for the service of masses and broke away from it on this issue on November 23, 1948.

Pandit Nehru inducted him in the Interim Central Government as a Minister for Industry and supply. On issue of Delhi pact with Likayat Ali Khan, Mookerjee resigned from the Cabinet on 6th April 1950. After consultation with Shri Golwalkar Guruji of RSS Shri Mookerjee founded Bharatiya Jana Sangh on 21st Oct. 1951 at Delhi and he became the first President of it. In 1952 elections, Bharatiya Jana Sangh won 3 seats in Parliament one of them being that of Shri Mookerjee. He had formed National Democratic Party within the Parliament which consisted 32 members of MPs and 10 of Members of Rajya Sabha which however was not recognised by the speaker as an opposition party.

To voice his opposition he turned outside Parliament and on Kashmir he termed the arrangement under Article 370 as Balkanisation of India and three nation theory of Shaikh Abdullah. Bharatiya Jana Sangh along with Hindu Mahasabha and Ram Rajya Parishad launched a massive Satyagraha to get removed the pernicious provisions. Mookerjee went to visit Kashmir in 1953 and was arrested on 11th May while crossing border. He died as detenu on June 23, 1953.

A veteran politician, he was respected by his friends and foes alike for his knowledge and forthrightness. He outshined all other Ministers in the cabinet except perhaps Pandit Nehru by his erudition and culture. India lost a great son at a very early stage of Independence.