Articles
Legislative Moves That Should Be Initiated By The BJP Without Any Further Delay
Dt: 28/2/18
Legislative Moves That Should Be
Initiated By The BJP Without Any Further Delay
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
( Matters of moment for the Bharatiya ideology to prevail over pseudo secularism, pseudo socialism and pseudo garibhi hatao. )
The BJP has its origins in 1979; from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh of 1951 and the Rashtriy Swayam Sangh (RSS) of 1925. All along, the founders were painfully aware of the discrimination against Hindus and the increasing appeasement measures for the benefit of religious minorities (Muslims & Christians) at the cost of Hindus all during the dominance of the rulers from the Nehru dynasty buttressed by Marxists. In the 2014 elections to the Lok Sabha, the aspiring young Hindu voted for Sri Narendra Modi as he was thought to be a sincere and serious politician that could undo the injustices and discriminations heaped upon Hindus since Independence and even before. That Sri Modi braved the intense and extensive calumny he was subjected to by the secular left, liberal, Marxist missionary crowds and did not buckle under their intense hate propaganda, encouraged and emboldened the young Hindu to vote for Sri Modi.
3. Alas! Four years have passed; not much has been done by Sri Modi and the BJP -led NDA government to reassure the wounded Hindus that a process of undoing the injustices would be begun. Mere development and repeated talk about it alone does not win elections. Proof, if required, was the defeat of the BJP -led NDA in 2004 elections India was shining economy-wise but that did not contribute to electoral success of the BJP. On the contrary, it lost not only the 2004 but even the 2009 election to the Lok Sabha very ignominiously. This should not happen, in 2019 and to see that it does not happen the following matters long over-due must be addressed ; at least attempted even if they do not get concluded. A serious attempt is made will send the right signal to the wounded Hindu young. More than 150mln new voters there would be in 2019. With gains in the election to the Rajya Sabha in March 2018, BJP may not be totally thwarted in its legislative agenda.
4. Serious attempts to be made:
· Define Secularism: The Janata government (1977-‘79) had this word secularism defined, got it passed in the Lok Sabha but it could not be passed in the Rajya Sabha. So, it lapsed. Since the Supreme Court had held that secularism and socialism are, among others, the basic features of the Indian Constitution, it would strike down any legislation that goes against these concepts - concepts which remain to be defined or described and brought into the Statue Book or added to the Constitution as appendices .
· Article 30: This is the most obnoxious and discriminatory article, favouring religious minorities and discriminating against the so called Hindu majority. The world “minority” itself is not defined. In Kerala, very soon even Hindus will be less than 50%. So all the three communities Hindus, Christians and Muslims will each be less than 50%. Who then will be the minority? Will Hindus, the single largest group but less than 50% be considered the majority ?
o The right given to the religious minorities to establish “educational institutions of their choice” ( and unsaid is the limit ) is not given to the so called Hindu majority. Democracy and a secular state must treat all religious groups equally and not give some groups rights and privileges not given to the so called majority group. Actually, Hindus are divided into more than 5000 castes and the loyalty to caste is much more than to the Hindu dharma, although all profess to be Hindus. A move should be initiated to amend this article to the effect that the right to “establish educational institutions of their choice” would be available equally to all religious communities or, “religious minorities can establish and manage educational institutions to impart knowledge about their religion, its history and culture”. They shall however not receive any state funds.
· Management & administration of Hindu places of worship, namely temples : Government of all the five South Indian States ( Karnataka, Kerala, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana ) are managing and administering the places of worship, temples of Hindus only leaving the Churches and Mosques to be managed and administered by bodies comprising of the followers of those regions only. This is adverse discrimination. In practice, the resources of the temples are misappropriated and diverted for purposes not connected with the preservation, promotion, propagation and defence of Hindu dharma. In fact, non - Hindus especially Christians and to some extent Muslims are becoming employees of Endowment Department and are acting to undermine these institutions, alienate their properties and even desecrate temples and distort their functions.
· The Trust bodies of these temples are filled with financiers and partisans of the political party in power.
o The Central government should bring in a law which specifically directs or prohibits the State governments from management & administration of Hindus temples and directs them to dis-engage themselves within say two years by bringing an appropriate legislation like the Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee Act of 1935.
· Resettle the Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in a sanitised and secure area in the Kashmir Valley which is part of the Indian Republic. It is indeed a disgrace that the government of a party founded to end discrimination against Hindus and for preservation of Bharatiyata has done precious little either during 1998 -2004 or since 2014 in resettling Hindus and Sikhs in their home and for millennia but from where they were expelled by Islamist terror. If the mighty government of India cannot resettle the internally displaced Hindus by threats of violence and destruction, it has hardly any reason to be supported by the people. Decisive steps must be initiated to identify sufficient area and construct settlements for the rehabilitation of the expelled Hindus and Sikhs from the Kashmir Valley.
It may be recalled that noting east Pakistan’s wave after wave of expulsion of Hindus from what is now Bangladesh in 1948 & 49, Sardar Patel, the then Dy Prime Minister and Home Minister addressed a mammoth meeting in Calcutta’s Maidan and declared that if forced Hindu exodus was not immediately stopped, India would liberate one third of the territory of East Pakistan and settle all the Hindu and Buddhist minorities in that area giving them sufficient security and protection . The result was the Nehru -Liaquat Ali Pact of 1950 April which, of course was in practice not honoured by the faithless Pakistan government.
· Discontinuance of nominating Anglo- Indians to the Lok Sabha and some state legislatures: There are hardly any Anglo Indias left in this country. Most of them had migrated to Australia, New Zealand and Canada and those who have remained here, are integrated with the Indian Christians almost all. If at all there are any, they must be less than a few thousands, not tens of thousands. We should do away with this nomination and instead the Constitution must be amended to provide for nomination of Parsis, the most patriotic and accomplished small minority in India to the Lok Sabha and to the State Legislature of Maharashtra and Gujarat .
· Insufferable and obnoxious entitlements to MPs: The privilege of 34 flight tickets per year for every MP by Air India is obnoxious. It may be cut by half. The heavily subsidised cafeteria for MPs in the premises of the Parliament is in obnoxious contrast to the exhortations that the well –to- do people should give up gas subsidies. There should be no subsidised gas or food services to the MPs in the parliament premises or any were else .
· MPLADS: There should be an audit for what purposes and how effectively Rs. 5 cr per year per MP under the MPLADS scheme is operating . There is widespread belief with ample evidence that upto 50% of such amounts are misappropriated .
· Reservations: The Hindu society is being disintegrated by different castes competing with one another to be declared as backward, most backward (MBC), extremely backward (EBC) and so backward that they should be included in the ST category.
· All people denounce the caste system but if the castes are not there, there could be no basis for reservations. So the continuance of caste - based reservations and the pontification that castes are a blot on Hinduism and this should be eliminated are contradictory harangues. Governments run by regional parties are building religion-wise, caste-wise welfare corporations and declaring more and more sections of Hindus as well as Muslims and Christians as BCs with the prefix M or E. There ought to be a sunset date for reservations which the constitution makers envisaged to last for only 10 years. Now, no politician will talk of the ending reservations as it would amount to his hara-kiri, suicide.
· Continuance of reservations has been leading to an increase in the population for whom these are meant. SCs who were 15% are now about 22%; STs who were 7.5%, are more than 12% and Muslims who are clamouring for reservations had increased from 9.8% to nearly 16%. And these percentages are increasing. Reservations and targeted welfare are unfortunately leading to limitless growth of these populations.
· As it is politically inconvenient and impermissible to talk of elimination of reservation altogether, nation’s interest require that leaders talk of limiting the reservation for one generation and for one person in the family so that the families who are not yet benefited even by one reservation, get this benefit. Just as surrender of gas subsidies had enabled the government to give the gas subsidies or free gas to millions of poor people, the new reservation policy enunciated here will enable not yet benefited families to benefit and would also constitute a dis-incentive for furious population growth among these sections. (1,628 words)
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