'Modi Silenced Me on Lapses Leading to Pulwama, Is Ignorant on J&K, Has No Problem with Corruption'

 Government

In an explosive interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Satya Pal Malik, the Modi government’s former Jammu and Kashmir governor, paints a damning picture of the prime minister and his closest advisors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karan Thapar (left) and Satya Pal Malik. Photos: The Wire.

 

Government    Political Economy   Politics    Rights    Video  15/Apr/2023

 

New Delhi: In an interview that could cause political earthquakes in the Modi government, the Bharatiya Janata Party and in Jammu and Kashmir, Satya Pal Malik, the last governor of J&K before it was divided and reduced to Union territory status, says “Mein safely keh sakta hoon Prime Minister ko corruption se bahut nafrat nahin hain” (‘I can safely say the PM has no real problem with corruption’). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malik, who was governor during the Pulwama terrorist attack of February 2019 and the scrapping of Article 370 in August that year, also says the prime minister is “ill-informed” and “ignorant” about Kashmir and told him not to speak about the Union home ministry’s lapses which led to the devastating terrorist attack on soldiers in Pulwama in February 2019. 

In a wide-ranging interview, Malik revealed that the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force convoy in Pulwama was a result of “incompetence” and “laparvahi” by the Indian system and specifically the CRPF and the home ministry. At the time, Rajnath Singh was home minister. Malik gave extensive details of how the CRPF had asked for aircraft to transport its jawans but was refused by the Union home ministry. He also spoke of how sanitisation of the route was not done effectively. 

More importantly, he said all of these lapses were raised by him directly when Modi called him from outside Corbett Park shortly after the Pulwama attack. He said the prime minister told him to keep quiet about this and not tell anyone. Separately, Malik said that NSA Ajit Doval also told him to keep quiet and not talk about it. Malik said he immediately realised that the intention was to put the blame on Pakistan and derive electoral benefit for the government and the BJP.

Malik also said that there was grave intelligence failure in the Pulwama incident because the car carrying 300 kilograms of RDX explosives had come from Pakistan but was travelling around the roads and villages of Jammu and Kashmir for 10-15 days without being detected and without anyone knowing.

Also read: Two Years After Pulwama, Questionable Official Lapses Still Remain to be Probed

Malik discusses in detail why he did not let Mehbooba Mufti form a new government even though she claimed a majority of 56 in the 87 member assembly and why he chose instead to dissolve the assembly in November 2018. At one point, he accuses Mehbooba Mufti of lying. At another point he says the parties whose support she was claiming, such as the National Conference, were separately telling him to dissolve the assembly because they feared horse-trading. 

Malik gives details of how, when he was governor of J&K, he was approached by the BJP-RSS leader Ram Madhav to clear a hydro-electric scheme and a Reliance insurance scheme but he refused to do so, saying “Mein ghalat kaam nahin karoonga (I won’t do a wrong thing)”. Madhav came to see him at seven in the morning to try and get him to change his mind. Malik says at the time people were telling him that he could get Rs 300 crores for clearing both schemes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Manoj Sinha, Amit Shah, Farooq Abdullah and others during an all-party meeting of political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir, in Delhi, June 24, 2021. Photo: PTI

Malik said the prime minister is “ignorant” and “ill-informed” about Kashmir. He said removing Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood was a mistake and it should be restored immediately. He said the PM “mast hain apne mein – to hell with it!”

Speaking about Modi, Malik said the prime minister is not at all concerned about corruption. He said he was removed as governor of Goa in August 2020 and sent to Meghalaya because he had brought to the prime minister’s attention several instances of corruption which the government chose to ignore rather than tackle. He alleged that the people around the prime minister are indulging in corruption and often use the PMO’s name. Malik said he had brought all of this to Modi’s attention but added that the PM did not seem to care. That’s when he said, “Mein safely keh sakta hoon Prime Minister ko corruption se bahut nafrat nahin hain”.

Malik also said that all the appointments granted by President Droupadi Murmu are, in fact, vetted by the PMO. He said an appointment he had been given by the president when he was still a governor was cancelled at the last moment when he was actually en route to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Among Malik’s other explosive news points:

• He says the prime minister’s handling of the BBC is a terrible mistake. 
• He was sharply critical of the PM’s and several minister’s treatment of Muslims. 
• He says the Prime Minister has suffered serious damage because of the Adani scandal and adds that this has seeped down to village levels and could seriously damage the BJP in the next elections, particularly if the opposition can field a single candidate against the BJP.
• Malik says refusing Rahul Gandhi permission to speak in parliament was an unprecedented mistake. Rahul Gandhi has raised the right questions on the Adani scandal, he adds, which clearly the prime minister cannot answer.
• Malik accuses the government of appointing ‘third rate people’ as governors. 

The interview was conducted bilingually, in both (simple, colloquial) Hindi and English. 

The interview ends with Malik confirming that he stands by everything he has said about the prime minister and is not worried or scared of any repercussions. However, he does reveal that he has been given minimal security – a lot less than the official security committee recommended – but adds that does not worry him.

Watch the full interview here.

§

To help readers understand the range of issues brought up and the extent to which Malik was questioned I now list below the 28 questions that were put to him.

1) You became Governor of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2018 when there was President’s rule. Three months later when Mehbooba Mufti desperately tried to contact you to say she had support from Congress and the National Conference and therefore had a majority of 56 in the 87 member assembly you wouldn’t take her call and it was claimed the fax at your residence didn’t receive her letter. Yet minutes later you dissolved the assembly. Why did you do that?  Did the Modi government tell you not to let Mehbooba form a government?

2) This is what Mehbooba Mufti tweeted: “In today’s age of technology, it’s very strange that the fax machine at HE Governor’s residence didn’t receive our fax but swiftly issued one regarding the assembly dissolution.” She’s clearly suggesting it’s a lie your fax machine didn’t receive her letter.

3) Now look at your explanation. You told a TV news channel: “My office was shut because of Eid so I got no communication from Mehbooba Mufti. On a holiday, no one was sitting next to the fax machine.” Is that really how things are run at the Governor’s house, because this is beginning to sound like a comedy? (Hindustan Times).

4)  The result was you dissolved an assembly that could still form a viable government with a majority. That’s clearly unconstitutional and the wrong thing for you to do as Governor. Are you proud of what you did? Or do you regret it?

5) Three months later in February 2019 Pulwama happened. Let’s talk about that. There were adverse intelligence reports right through January and up to the middle of February and yet 1,000 CRPF jawans were taken by road in a convoy which was a sitting target. You were Governor at the time, how do you explain this?

6)  In an interview you have given on YouTube you have said the route was not properly sanitised and security was not proper. Can you give me details of the lapses you are talking about?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schoolgirls in Pulwama paying tribute to the CRPF soldiers who were killed. Credit: PTI

7) In that interview you said this was “incompetence” and “laparvahi”. Kisski incompetence and kisski laparvahi?  

8) Subsequently there were reports that a senior police officer called Davinder Singh had some sort of conspiratorial role to play. You have said you know him personally. Who was this man and what was the role he played? Will we ever know the full truth about what happened at Pulwama?

9) Now on the 5th of August Article 370 was abruptly abrogated. Two days earlier you gave a public assurance nothing like this would happen. It seems you were deliberately misleading people. Were you asked by Delhi to do so?

[“Only rumour-mongering is going on … till today I have no inclination, no information, I have talked to everybody in Delhi and nobody has given me any hint that they will do this or that. Somebody says there will be trifurcation. Somebody says Article 35, Article 370. Nobody has discussed these things with me either Prime Minister or Home Minister.” – Satya Pal Malik to ANI, August 3, 2019.]

10)  The BJP has a long commitment to abrogating Article 370, but why was the state divided into two and demoted to union territory status? Many people thought that was a deliberate attempt to humiliate Kashmiris.

11)  After the abrogation of Article 370 it seems your administration unleashed a reign of terror against journalists. This is what Anuradha Bhasin, the Executive Editor of the Kashmir Times, has written in The New York Times: “Journalists were routinely summoned by the police, interrogated and threatened with charges such as income tax violations or terrorism or separatism. Several prominent journalists were detained … at least 20 were placed on no fly lists to prevent them from leaving the country.” Why did you do this? What was the need for it?

– “Modi’s repressive media policies are destroying Kashmiri journalism (and) intimidating media outlets into serving as government mouthpieces”.  

12)  Now in your YouTube interview you spoke about an attempt by Reliance Insurance to start an insurance scheme in Kashmir. In this connection, Ram Madhav came to see you at 7 a.m. one morning – before you had even had your bath – to get you to agree but you said “mein galat kaam nahin karoonga”. What was the galat kaam you were being asked to do?

13) So Ram Madhav was clearly asking you to do the wrong thing?

14) In that interview you say you were offered Rs 300 crore to clear this scheme. Who made the offer?

15) You said in that interview that when the CBI questioned you you replied, “Pradhan Mantri ke log hain”. Does that mean Mr. Modi was involved in this?

16) Now just 14 months after you arrived in Srinagar you were transferred to Goa. Why was that done? Was it connected to this Reliance Insurance matter and your claim “Pradhan Mantri ke log hain“?

17) I believe you are writing a book about the 14 months you spent as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Will this be an honest book where you will reveal everything, including the subjects you have talked about today?

18) Let’s widen our discussion. In January last year at a function in Dadri in Haryana you spoke about a meeting with the Prime Minister during the farmers’ agitation. You said: “Meri panch minute main ladai ho gayi unse … who bahut ghamand main the”. (Indian Express, January 3, 2022). You also met Amit Shah who said of Modi “Satya Pal iski akal maar rakhi hai logon ne”. (Indian Express, January 4, 2022). So let me ask you what do you think of Narendra Modi today?

19)  Modi doesn’t stop ministers and even chief ministers who publicly taunt muslims. They call them “Babar ki aulad, abba jaan and Go to Pakistan.” Modi himself has said “kapde se pahchan lo” and “kabristan aur shamshan ghat”. Is it right for the Prime Minister of India to speak this way and let his ministers speak this way about Indian citizens who are Muslims?

20) What about the Prime Minister’s handling of the BBC documentary which he forced social media to take down? And what about the tax raids on the BBC after that? Was this the right way for the Prime Minister of a democracy to handle criticism from the media?

21)  The Adani scandal is one of the most serious to have affected India in recent times. Again the Prime Minister is completely silent and many people think this is because he is defending Adani. Has the Prime Minister handled this properly?

22)  In 1989 V. P. Singh, who you were close to, made Bofors an election issue and defeated Rajiv Gandhi. Does the Adani issue have the same potential and power in 2024?

23)  Finally, there’s the treatment of Rahul Gandhi. He wanted to speak in parliament because four BJP ministers had been allowed to speak about him. He wanted to reply. The Speaker did not allow it. Was that correct?

24) What about the disqualification? 24 hours after his conviction he was disqualified. But in the 2016 case of Naranbhai Kachhadia, a BJP MP, he was not immediately disqualified but given 16 days to get a stay. Isn’t this double standards?

25)  Finally, in that YouTube interview you said that the vice chancellors appointed by BJP Governors are RSS people who should never have been appointed. Are you saying they lack the academic qualifications to be vice chancellors?

26) You have also said Governors should be appointed after consulting the opposition and you have suggested it should be similar to the way the Supreme Court wants election commissioners appointed. So you want a Collegium to make the appointment not the Prime Minister on his own?

27) Should people who have just retired from politics be appointed Governors? Should governorships be treated as retiring grounds for people the Prime Minister no longer wants in his cabinet?

28)  Finally, if the opposition can unite and put up one-to-one fights against the BJP can Modi be defeated in 2024?

Watch the full interview here.

Source: https://thewire.in/government/watch-karan-thapar-satya-pal-malik-narendra-modi

What will be the impact of erasing the Mughals from Indian history?

 Published

10 Apr, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Aurangzeb holds court. Credit: Bichitr, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to The India Fix by Shoaib Daniyal, a newsletter on Indian politics. To get it in your inbox every week, sign up here (click on “follow”). Have feedback, interesting links or Mughal-era memes? Send them to theindiafix@scroll.in. 

The National Council of Educational Research and Training has just published a revised set of textbooks. The biggest change: an entire chapter related to the Mughal empire has been dropped from the Class XII history book, relating the workings of the imperial courts.

NCERT textbooks are used by students taking the Central Board of Secondary Education examinations, which are managed by the Union government. In terms of absolute numbers, the CBSE is followed by only a small proportion of Indian high school students. But given its prestige, it often acts as a guiding light for other boards.

For CBSE students, the removal of the chapter is a loss. The 30-odd-page text is beautifully written by Najaf Haider of Jawaharlal Nehru University and provides a succinct description of how the Mughal court was extensively involved in the production of its own histories. Texts such as this offer a wealth of information not only about the a highly centralised Mughal bureaucratic empire but also about medieval India.

A partial history

Without an understanding of the Mughals, it is unclear how history students will be able to understand medieval South Asia and, especially, the Hindi belt, which was the heartland of the empire. To take one example of how tightly the Mughals are woven into subcontinental culture, biographers of Tulsidas tell of a meeting between the Vaishnav poet-saint and Emperor Akbar. While probably apocryphal, given that in the tale, Akbar is impressed by Tulsidas’ power to work miracles, it illustrates how important the Mughal state was even for cultural and religious figures.

Similarly, in 1857, when the sepoys of the British East Indian Company revolted, they rushed to Delhi to solicit the Mughal stamp of approval, even though by that time, the emperor was powerless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Capture of the leader of the Indian rebels and last Mughal King, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Source: London Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

However, the effects of the deletion of this chapter will not be limited to students. The demonisation of Mughals is a core part of Hindutva, India’s ruling ideology that now stands on a nearly equal footing with Indian nationalism itself. As Hindutva’s chief ideologue Vinayak Savarkar laid out, Hindutva sees Muslims and Christians as perpetual outsiders in India. Attacking the Mughals is a key part of how Hindutva imagines Hindus as victims as victims even though they are the majority in India.

While mainstream historians recognise the British Raj as a colonial period, Hindutva supporters extend this idea back much further. In 2014, for example, the newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of India having undergone “1,200 years of slavery”, presumably dating the country’s colonial age to the eighth century Arab conquest of Sindh in modern-day Pakistan. Framing India’s colonial experience as the longest-ever in the world provides a powerful source for Hindutva to draw on for its politics of victimhood.

Though this is ahistorial, it has paid rich dividends for the Bharatiya Janata Party. The constant ideological battle over India’s medieval period has provided powerful ideological buoyancy to the BJP that other other parties have found difficult to counter. This nationalist debate over history, in turn, has allowed the BJP to paper over economic and social fault lines that would have easily felled less ideological governments such as the United Progressive Alliance.

Lack of history

Of course, the battle for history will have much longer-term consequences than merely a few elections.

For one, the attack on the Mughals remakes the idea of India, casting it as a Hindu state. For a sovereign to be legitimate to Hindutva supporters, the ruler has to have been Hindu. This obviously rules out the Mughals and the many sultanates that dotted South Asia from Bengal to the Deccan. In some ways, it also excludes the Buddhist Ashoka. Sanjeev Sanyal, one of the Modi government’s chief ideologues, has sharply attacked Ashoka for “large-scale religious persecution”. (This analysis leaves out Hindu kings, who on the matter of, say, caste, are not held up to modern standards.)

In an even more fundamental way, however, these omissions will end up reshaping the foundation of the Indian state. Modern nation-states are, as the theorist Benedict Anderson suggested, based on “imagined communities” that share most commonly a language or, in some cases, religion. However, they also look back to historical states to legitimise themselves.

Modern China, for example, is a state with the Han ethnicity as its majoritarian core. Yet, it takes great care to include non-Han dynasties as a legitimate part of the historical Chinese state. The final Chinese dynasty, for example, are the Qing who were not Han but from the minority Manchu ethnicity. Yet, modern China includes them as legitimate emperors of China. It views the Mongol Yuans who ruled it the same way. (As it so happens, the word Mughal is a Persianised form of Mongol and the Mughals proudly noted the fact they descended, on the maternal side, from Genghis Khan).

This is not only catholic. It is a clever part of state formation. It allows China to project the myth of an unbroken history of thousands of years. It is also a powerful historical weapon for Beijing to wield in international affairs. For example, China’s claim to Tibet is based on the region’s conquest not by any Han king but by the Mongols. It now this to justify its occupation of significant swathes of Indian territory.

Hobbling India

In contrast, India is currently in an odd situation. Legally, modern India is a successor state of the British Raj – universally seen as a foreign-controlled, colonial state. But while the British might offer some legal justifications, modern India clearly would not want to claim inspiration from Britain’s Indian empire.

Till now, Indian nationalists could fall back on the Mughal empire. The powerful medieval state, at its height, covered a large section of territory that now forms part of the Indian Union. However, if the Mughals too are branded as a colonial power, the modern Indian state has nothing to offer as medieval equivalent. Unlike the Chinese, who can easily deploy the Mongol conquest of Tibet, the current Indian government will not be able to use the powerful argument that Ladakh has been a part of India since the Mughals integrated it in the seventeenth century.

To understand how powerful this history is for state building, it is worth noting that even Modi has, for a decade now, used the Mughal Red Fort in Delhi as a backdrop for state functions such as Independence Day. In 2021, when farm protestors stormed the Red Fort, harking back to Sikh oral histories of attacks on Mughal Delhi, there was widespread outrage in Hindutva circles: given the continuities between the Mughal state and the modern Indian Union, they saw the Red Fort as an Indian symbol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modi at the 2022 Independence Day function at the Red Fort. Credit: PTI.

Space for a non-Delhi history?

While the erasure of the Mughals might present problems in extending the Indian state back in time, it may inadvertently address a long-highlighted problem: the lack of texts that correctly portray the subcontinent’s diverse political pasts.

Given that much of medieval North Indian history overlaps with Mughal history, it was easy to give the dynasty the lion’s share of historical space. However, other states in India have their own histories that often diverge sharply from Delhi’s. With the gradual erasure of the Mughals and the pan-subcontinent history they so easily portrayed, the Indian Union’s many states and communities may finally have the opportunity to tell their own rich histories.

Source: The India Fix

Blogger's Note:

Christianity came to India in the 1st century C.E. The reason for the suppression of the real strength of Christianity in India, as Jenkins put it, “is because of systematic and widespread persecution by Hindu extremist sects, often operating in alliance with local governments and police authorities" Sep 12, 2020

Islam came to India in the 10th century.

History is repeating.  Hindutva is not Hinduism.