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In a front page report headlined 8220;Sachar as Sonia8217;s nemesis...This country won8217;t allow another Jinnah"...

November 9, 2006 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

In a front page report headlined 8220;Sachar as Sonia8217;s nemesis8230;This country won8217;t allow another Jinnah8221;, writer Easwaran Nambudiri lambasts the findings of the prime minister8217;s high-level committee headed by Justice Retd Rajinder Sachar on the social, educational and economic status of Muslims in India. Basing his comments on reports that have appeared in the Indian Express on the committee8217;s findings that Muslims were worse off than scheduled castes in education, had higher poverty and unemployment levels than OBCs and had a disproportionately higher representation in Indian jails, Nambudiri writes: 8220;Some secessionist document this. Or is it the manifesto of pre-Partition Muslim League or propaganda material of Pakistan television?8221; Describing the findings as 8220;seditious and anti-national8221;, the writer slams the committee for 8220;blowing the symptoms out of proportion while ignoring and blacking out the root causesiquest;it should have been bold enough to point out to the Muslims their shortcomings which have hindered their joining the mainstream.8221; Fearing that the findings might lead to the demand for reservations for Muslims, Nambudiri concludes, 8220;The nation should rise as one man to vehemently oppose fresh partition moves in the 60th anniversary of its independence.8221;

Happy Hindu, morose Muslim

This week8217;s editorial focuses on the findings of a UK-based think tank, New Economic Foundation, which compiles the Happy Planet Index HPI and has found that India is much ahead of advanced western nations in the happiness index. The secret of this phenomenon, the editorial insists, lies in Hindu culture. Swami Ramdev8217;s yoga, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar8217;s Art of Living and S.N. Goenka8217;s Vipassana meditation 8220;have become a rage with the western audience iquest;and are heralding a spiritual revolution in India too.8221; Referring to Tory leader David Cameron8217;s praise for Hindus at a function in UK recently, the editorial says it has a special relevance in a milieu 8220;where a new paradigm has become fashionable quoting the ill-conceived and divisive Sachar Committee Report, which wails that except in the share of prisoners, in all other statistical data, Muslims are missing.8221; Accusing Muslims of never looking within and always blaming others for their regression and crime, the editorial seeks to contrast the existential difference between Hindus and Muslims. 8220;The Hindus as a nation believe in conquering the heart, not the world. The Muslim religious establishment, with its expansionist overdrive, has created an existential problem which is encouraging bloodshed and strife world over. The Indian thought on the other hand is proving a whiff of fresh air, a balm of universal values of tolerance, honesty, enterprise and respect for the law.8221; It goes on to claim that while a large part of the Muslim community 8220;encourages and indulges in terrorism and smuggling8221;, Hindus have withstood slavery and subjugation for a thousand years and yet 8220;atrocities of history have not stopped the Hindu revival.8221;

Chouhan shows the way

The Organiser is all praise for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for winning the byelections in Vidisha and Bada Malehra. A report on the results states that the most significant factor of the outcome is that 8220;Chouhan8217;s development agenda clicked. It also proved that caste politics don8217;t work.8221; The report points out that Uma Bharati8217;s fledgling party failed to win Bada Malehra which was perceived to be her stronghold since she had won the seat by a margin of over 31,000 votes in December 2003. This time, her candidate Rekha Yadav lost to the BJP8217;s Kapoorchand Ghuwara by over 4000 votes. The report, however, concedes that the BJP did not do as well as before in Vidisha but refuses to attribute that erosion to the Uma Bharati factor. It says, 8220;Low voter turnout appears to have affected the voting figures. The BJP8217;s winning margin in Vidisha this time around is low as compared to that of 2004 when Chouhan bagged 65.19 per cent votes and defeated his nearest rival by over 2.5 lakh votes.8221; That margin came down to 85,088 this time.

Compiled by Manini Chatterjee

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