The Organiser editorial criticises the proposal to allocate 15 per cent of the plan outlay for minorities. It says, “Finally, the UPA government’s sinister device to promote communalism in all spheres of our national life is out in the open. The BJP chief ministers have done the right thing by protesting the UPA design to reserve 15 per cent of the 11th Five Year Plan exclusively for the minorities. The prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has the gumption to claim that this will not divide the society. It is not entirely surprising, only God knows the other disastrous plans he has in mind for dividing society further, since he thinks all that he has done so far is not enough”. “The UPA set up the Sachar and Ranganath Mishra committees to create a fictitious charter of grievances of the Muslims. This was reminiscent of the dirty and infamous communal award of the British to permanently create a feeling of alienation in that community. It was this award that ultimately led to the demand of the Muslim League for Pakistan. Now both Sachar and Ranganath Mishra have provided sufficient ammunition for hotheads in the community to whip up frenzy in the name of deprivation. There is no economic or literacy backwardness that is exclusive to one community. Yes, social and religious attitudes can ghettoise a community. For that the state cannot do much.” Community’s burdenPrafull Goradia writes that the time has now come to enumerate crimes committed by ‘Islamic terrorists’ and confront the Muslim community with the data. “Since 9/11, any number of blasts and explosions have been perpetrated by Islamist terrorists. On record since October 2001 are 13 bomb blasts in different cities of India from New Delhi in the north to Bangalore in the south, and from Gandhinagar in the west to Guwahati in the east. The terrorists may well be misguided youth, but what is particularly disturbing is that hardly ever does a responsible Muslim leader condemn such barbaric actions. Nor does he apologise for any of them. For the people of India, that is rubbing salt by the Muslim elite on the wounds inflicted by their misguided fellow religionists. The time has come when the major crimes of Islamists are enumerated and Muslim leaders are confronted with them along with a demand for their apology.”Journey to IranSandhya Jain welcomes the visit of the Indian foreign secretary to Iran and explains why: “New Delhi has done well to send foreign secretary S.S. Menon to Tehran for mending fences following sharp deterioration of ties as a result of India’s vote against the Islamic Republic at the IAEA. With growing turmoil in the American economy following mounting foreign debts to the tune of $5 trillion and the inability to afford a new war in West Asia, the White House has produced a new intelligence report ‘revealing’ that Iran closed its nuclear weapons programme as far back as 2003. India needs to watch emerging international economic trends with care. The emerging international economic order is likely to favour sovereign resources of nations, rather than subordinate national economies to private corporate interests. Before economic shocks or correctives come into play, our neo-liberal policies may have caused untold damage in terms of surrender of sovereignty, as almost all our mainstream political parties desire proximity with setting suns.”
