Hassan Cheruppa

Saudi Gazette 

 

JEDDAH — A prominent Indian journalist underscored the need for joint efforts to safeguard the Indian secular fabric by foiling the attempts initiated by the Hindu nationalist government led by Narendra Modi to saffronize the world’s largest democracy.



P. Ahmed Shareef, associate editor of Thejas daily, said Indian minorities, especially 180 million Muslims, are in the grip of fear whether they could preserve their religious and cultural identity intact in the wake of the intensified efforts of the Hindu nationalist forces to transform India into a Hindu state.



“Media, the fourth estate in a democratic system, must play a pivotal role in making aware of the public about the dangers involving the communal agenda of the Hindu Fascist forces and defeat them through all possible democratic means,” he said.



Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Shareef said that the Sangh Parivar, which refers to the family of Hindu nationalist organizations, is treading on a dangerous path of inflicting colossal damage to the country’s secular polity and the judiciary’s impartiality.



“Modi and his close aide Amit Shah are aggressively pursuing Parivar’s saffronization agenda and there have been attempts even to influence the judiciary soon after Modi’s swearing-in as prime minister of the country.”



Citing several examples for this, Shareef said, the recent attempts to interfere in the appointment of judges is an alarming threat to India’s judiciary. Amit Shah, the new president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is an accused in several criminal cases, including the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Tulsiram Prajapati.



“Modi decided to elevate Uday Lalit, who represented Amit Shah in encounter cases, as a Supreme Court judge. Even chief justice of India came out in public against the government’s decision to turn down the collegium’s recommendation to appoint former Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam as a judge. This is apparently because Subramaniam served as amicus curiae in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case and brought out new facts on the basis of which SC had ordered a CBI probe into the case,” he said.



Shareef, who is in the Kingdom on a short visit, slammed the ulterior designs of Parivar to expand its saffronization agenda to rewriting history and school text books.



Apart from picking of Parivar ideologues at the helm of the country’s top cultural and historical bodies like the appointment of Professor Y. Sudershan Rao as chairperson of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR), the Modi government also initiated moves to rewrite school text books.



Dinanath Batra,who served as general secretary of Vidya Bharati, the school network run by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, will decide what should be learned by the Indian younger generation.



Referring to the debacle of BJP in the assembly by elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, which it had swept in the Lok Sabha (parliament) polls four months ago, Sharif said that the pluralist Indian society, which is predominantly secular, started giving bitter lessons to the Modi government’s divisive and anti-populist policies.



He noted that the Indian voters had no option other than choosing the alternative BJP-led coalition because of the dismal performance of the second United Progressive Government led by Manmohan Singh.



The disillusioned people, who voted the scandal-ridden Indian National Congress out of power, are soon coming to realize that BJP is the worst option.



“There are more than one dozen tainted ministers in the Modi Cabinet. Kalyan Singh, who faces court contempt cases for his alleged big role in the demolition of the historic Babri Mosque, has been appointed as the governor of a state,” he pointed out. 



Shareef said that people, who pinned hope on Modi government that it can contain price rise, are now desperate to see that the government has failed to contain the spiraling price rise.



“There has been a steep railway fare hike besides a move to lift control over diesel prices. A big increase in prices of cooking gas is around the corner with lifting of subsidy,” he said while emphasizing that Modi government is pursuing with the measures unilaterally, taking the advantage of the absence of a powerful opposition in the parliament.



“The government has blocked the Congress party to be recognized as the main Opposition party on some technical grounds, and the situation where no recognized Opposition leader in parliament is disastrous for the Indian democracy in resisting the onslaught of the Parivar Fascist forces,” he said. 



The journalist said that it is high time to make joint efforts to defeat the hidden agenda of the Modi government to transform India into a Hindutva state as well as to highlight India’s immense strength, which lies in its inclusiveness and unity in diversity.



He urged the media organizations, writers, cultural figures, and academics to rise to occasion to shoulder their historic responsibility of defeating the communal agenda of the Parivar forces and safeguard India’s secular credentials at any cost.



Shareef is a Kerala-based journalist who served earlier in Dubai as chief editor of the Middle East Chandrika daily, consultant editor (safety and security) of Dubai Police magazine, chief reporter of Malayalam News daily, editor of the World of Environment, news editor of Kala Kaumudi, Mumbai and sub editor of Kerala Kaumudi, Calicut. He also authored three books: Fatima, Bombay Riots, and Jinnah and the Partition.