[Reader-list] Reg: Mail on nationalism and Gujarat's secular development (And my experiences)

[Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi]

Did they tell you this from all over India, Rakesh ji.? By the way,Prof.
Mumtaj Ali Khan, is minister of wakf and muslim welfare, in karnataka, and
is a muslim. At the district level many are from other faiths and please be
my guest as i have been studying this aspect of societal change in karnataka
for the last fifteen years as many of other castes and faiths gravitate
towards power and the party in power. !
regards,
rajen

On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 6:15 PM, Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com> wrote:

> The fact is that Nitish is the face on which the BJP today can contest. The
> BJP can't contest on its own in Bihar even if it wanted to simply because
> they lack OBC leaders with the possible exception of Sushil Kumar Modi, the
> deputy CM of Bihar, who lacks charishma of the kind Nitish has. People have
> respect for Nitish Kumar for what he has done.
>
> As for faiths, I don't disagree with you, but then the fact is that BJP
> only gave ticket to Muslims in Bihar because there it had to prove it was
> 'secular'. In Gujarat and Karnataka, it didn't give ticket to a single
> Muslim for any assembly or Lok Sabha poll, so also in Madhya Pradesh. People
> know its' real intentions, at least the Muslims do.
>
> Rakesh
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 5:56 PM, Rajendra Bhat Uppinangadi <
> rajen786uppinangady at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rakesh,
>> your post made very interesting reading material for me, thanks. But the
>> fact is Nitish by himself without the support of BJP was a non starter when
>> Lalu had mis managed the state for decades, and again, it is BJP which lacks
>> the savvy sense of being aloof and not trying to break the shackles of
>> getting labelled as communal, the propaganda against it being powerful,
>> leaders not active enough to manage this negative perception pressed for
>> years in the minds of population. Though there are many more MPs from
>> different faiths including Islam in BJP, the efforts to make a conscious
>> efforts to be with ALL the citizens irrespective of their faith in
>> governance is needed to more urgently correct the perception, which does not
>> come by tokenism of advertisements of secularism, but by practice at the
>> grass root level.
>> regards,
>> rajen.
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Rakesh Iyer <rakesh.rnbdj at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> First of all, I am excited to be back posting on Sarai after a long time.
>>> I
>>> had been to Araria in Bihar for 20 days with regard to an internship
>>> doing
>>> social audit of MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
>>> Guarantee
>>> Act) in two panchayats of Araria district. I enjoyed the experience, and
>>> was
>>> also sad and pained to see the levels of corruption in the scheme. The
>>> social audits also consisted of public hearings where the problems and
>>> compalints of citizens were brought to the fore among the district
>>> officials
>>> who have started acting against the complaints made against officials. I
>>> also realized the importance of MNREGA particularly in the rural
>>> backgrounds
>>> of this diverse nation of ours where this scheme could reverse not only
>>> the
>>> social and economic but also the political dynamics of our nation, and
>>> certainly wish it succeeds.
>>>
>>> Also, I would like to say that my perception of Nitish Kumar has
>>> certainly
>>> changed in some extent. Earlier I thought that the rural populace was not
>>> interested and also the Muslims, but at least at the ground level, though
>>> with a limited experience of groundwork, I did find Muslims actually
>>> liking
>>> Nitish Kumar's rule (the places I went to had up to 90% of Muslims),
>>> though
>>> they certainly didn't approve of the BJP. Ironically, the poor however
>>> found
>>> that the bureaucracy was more corrupt under Nitish's rule as compared to
>>> the
>>> Lalu rule, which gave them a sense of dignity. Also, the fact that Nitish
>>> is
>>> completely hamstrung in the implementation of land reforms and higher
>>> education reform reports shows that he is still held as a puppet by his
>>> MLA's and the BJP.
>>>
>>> Coming back to nationalism and the mail Bipin bhai sent, I would say that
>>> nationalism is something not only me but the great Rabindranath Tagore
>>> was
>>> himself against. Nationalism is something which has destroyed Israel
>>> itself.
>>> Tagore was against Gandhi on many ideas, and one of them was nationalism,
>>> even though Gandhi's own idea of nationalism was something Ashish Nandy
>>> described as 'leading to internationalism' and hardly involved violence
>>> of
>>> any kind. The reason was something we should all understand. Nationalism
>>> thrives on the feeling that one should place the nation-state before
>>> oneself. This is a highly dubious stand simply because a nation-state is
>>> not
>>> what Bipin bhai may think it to be.
>>>
>>> A nation-state, in an ideal case should mean a collection of people who
>>> have
>>> decided to live together, devising a commonly understood way of
>>> administration with minimum differences amongst them while having decided
>>> so. It is not the case. A nation-state simply means an authority which
>>> has
>>> the legitimate right to indulging in violence upon its' own citizens and
>>> others who act against the state. The problem with this is that the
>>> threat
>>> lies that the nation-state or those who control it can simply do as they
>>> wish and attack those who stop them in their steps, terming it as
>>> anti-state, and others are simply expected to follow it. Also, the
>>> violence
>>> of the state is justified and supposed to be taken as the verdict without
>>> ever questioning it. Nationalism has dangers of its own. Moreover,
>>> violence
>>> can't be justified in the name of protecting a state because the state
>>> may
>>> be oppressive, and the best option may be to throw off the state.
>>>
>>> Therefore, to state that nationalism is justified and would lead to
>>> development is travesty. Development should be for the people and not for
>>> those who control the nation-state and other sections who benefit from it
>>> where the major section of the population has to only suffer and not have
>>> the ability to change the situation. Naxalism is one result of what
>>> happens
>>> when this is the case. What will help the country is not nationalism, but
>>> instead a pro-people outlook which will guide the development process and
>>> help bring peace and prosperity to the citizens. Hence, let us stop
>>> bragging
>>> about nationalism here itself.
>>>
>>> Am fine sharing things with you in person (on my gmail id) on my trip to
>>> Araria, as this may not be the appropriate forum to do so.
>>>
>>> And happy to be back. Probably one of the few reasons I enjoy my dreary
>>> life
>>> in IIT, is Sarai.
>>>
>>> Rakesh
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Rajen.
>>
>>
>


-- 
Rajen.