Communalism controls Voting in India, Katju! JUSTICE MARKANDEY KATJU (RETD), in The Print, 16 May, 2020. For about 90% of India's voters, PM Narendra Modi's lies are irrelevant and real issues don't matter in elections, says former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju. File photo of Markandey Katju | @justicekatju/ Facebook

 This article is published mainly for two reasons:1. to present the MAN (Katju’s face not presented in CCV; and 2. His Ideas (unseen in honesty and frankly speaking among  judges) Therefore Markandey Katju is unforgettable to those who have seen him or read him. So, read him whenever you meet him, to get inspired or provoked.

We already quoted him in our last post in CCV(See  Pope backs brotherly prayer  CCV · 17/05/2020) 

Lies or double talk?

In this article Katju is criticizing Shivam Vij in ThePrint who also is trying to point out  Modi’s technique to justify or cover-up his lies: through ‘changing goal posts’ or ‘double talk’: eg.’don’t say, I stole, but say I took it, similarly saying demonetisation was to destroy black money which also did’t work.

Similary Modi government recently announced Rs 20 lakh crore as stimulous package. Was it all a dole from him to the penniless migrant laborers  or just a part of the existing national subsidy  to the states? The devil in the detail instead is the  virus of ‘Commu- nalism’ which irreparably controls the voting pattern of our majority commuty, 80% of Hindus who won’t change come what may!

Caste vote or vote your Caste?

In the article Katju asserts India is in fact a highly communal country; “Hindus are communal, as are most Muslims.” The principle in democracy is: “All of you must cast your vote for the honest candidate!”, but all that we do is that we, starting with Hindus, the majority community: “Vote their Caste” and what other result can you except helping Modi win again and again!

Read critically retired Judge Katju on How communalism and voting in India are inseparably linked and If you have a different view from his or ours, please come forward to correct this anomaly. james kottoor, editor ccv.

Please read below Justice Katju

on Voting and Communalism in India!

I read the article ‘Why the Modi government gets away with lies, and how the opposition could change that’ by columnist Shivam Vij in ThePrint.

With due respect to Shivam Vij, the article is superficial, and only reveals the fatuity and intellectual vacuity of the so-called Indian intelligentsia. In times of elections in India, it is completely irrelevant whether the leader of a party or a candidate is a liar.

Shivam Vij refers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rs 20 lakh crore economic package to say it is far from a stimulus and is instead a “grand loan mela”. He calls the Modi government’s statement of paying 85 per cent of the migrants’ train fare during the lockdown a lie. He was also critical of Modi’s statements on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), demonetisation, electoral bonds, etc.

Shivam Vij refers to the term ‘doublethink’, coined by author George Orwell in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and asks: “Why do people accept all this so willingly? Why do people who are lied to every day go and vote for the BJP?”

Shivam answers by referring to a paper that Christopher Paul and Miriam Mathews wrote for the RAND Corporation, dealing with the four ‘fire-hosing of falsehood’ propaganda techniques of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vij then suggests five ways to India’s opposition to counter Modi’s lies. 

Lacking depth

Shivam Vij’s thinking is totally superficial, inane, and lacking in depth. Here’s  why the BJP keeps winning elections despite Modi’s lies.

As I have explained in several articles — ‘India is still India-A Response to Aatish Taseer’ published in indicanews; ‘Is India truly a secular country?’ published in Punjab Today; ‘Dark days are ahead for India’ published in Daily Times — although the Constitution declares India to be a secular country, the ground reality is very different.

India is in fact a highly communal country. That is because secularism is a feature of industrial society, but India is still semi-feudal. In India, most Hindus are communal, as are most Muslims. This I can say from my personal knowledge. When I am sitting with my relatives and Hindu friends, and they are sure no Muslim is present, they often spout venom against Muslims. When a Muslim is lynched, most Hindus are indifferent, some are even happy. 

Of late, polarization in Indian society has increased to such an extent that Hindu children in many schools tell their Muslim classmates that Muslims are terrorists and anti-nationals. They sometimes ask Muslim kids if their fathers manufacture bombs.

But it is not that India became communal only after the BJP came to power in 2014. India was a communal country even before that, but communalism was usually latent, erupting only occasionally. This was because the Congress and other secular parties depended on the Muslim vote bank and appeased the community in many ways. After 2014, communalism has become open, virulent and relentless, since the BJP does not depend on Muslim votes to win elections.

When it comes to voting, most (probably 90 per cent) people in India vote on the basis of caste and religion. They do not see whether the candidate is good or bad, educated or uneducated, or whether s/he has any criminal antecedents (a large number of MPs and MLAs have criminal backgrounds).

And the voters certainly do not consider whether the candidate, or the leader of the party s/he belongs to, is a liar. All that India’s 90 per cent voters see is which caste/religion the party represents.

BJP’s relationship with Hindus

Since about 80 per cent of India’s population is Hindu, and the BJP presents itself as a party of Hindus, it started winning elections after successfully galvanising and arousing Hindus’ religious sentiments based on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and Lal Krishna Advani’s Rath Yatra, and stoked up the communal fire. From a party with only two seats in the Lok Sabha in 1984, it reached to 182 seats in 1999, and 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

As is evident from the 2019 election, the real issues facing India — such as poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, lack of healthcare and good education — were non-issues for the voters. All that mattered for 90 per cent of them was religion and caste of the candidates.

Most politicians are liars, and not just Modi. They promise the moon at the time of elections. Indira Gandhi had said ‘Garibi hatao’, and our gullible masses swallowed this slogan lock, stock and barrel. So why blame Modi alone?

Shivam Vij’s five ways of fighting the ‘fire-hosing of falsehood’ betrays a superficial understanding of a phenomenon. Most Hindus, who constitute 80 per cent of India’s population, will keep voting for the BJP. Modi’s lies are irrelevant. (The writer is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Views are personal.)