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New Indian Express
a day ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
VCs draw flak for attending Gyan Sabha conclave
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State ministers have lashed out against university vice chancellors for participating in the Gyan Sabha, which was attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. 'Our educational institutions have students from different communities, and it is impossible to let those spaces become preparation yards to build Hindu Rashtra,' Higher Education Minister R Bindu stated in a release. Citing that working towards the RSS agenda will saffronise and destroy the reputation of the position of vice chancellors, she said that the participating officers will have to keep their heads down before the academic society. Adding that the Sangh Parivar has turned against Kerala, she mentioned that the outfit is trying to tie the state to the Brahminical values. 'Sangh is trying to create an ideological atmosphere in universities and higher education centres that will aid them to build a religious nation- based on Manu's scriptures,' she stated. Education Minister V Sivankutty said that the governor is using his powers to and forcefully make the vice-chancellors participate in these events. 'I am disappointed to say that the governor has become the biggest spokesperson of the RSS in Kerala today,' he said. He opined that if the government representatives attended the programme without its permission, they should be removed. 'Kerala's citizens don't wish to keep the people who attend RSS programmes in these posts,' he said. Tourism Minister P A Mohammed Riyas said that the BJP is making active efforts to make universities in non-BJP-ruled states the centres for discord. LSG Minister M B Rajesh called the move 'not expected from vice chancellors', KPCC president Sunny Joseph too condemned the act.
New Indian Express
2 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Sangh imposing Brahminical values through universities: Minister R Bindhu
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Adding to the long-ongoing conflicts in the higher education sector, Minister R Bindu has lashed out against university vice chancellors participating in the Jnana Sabha, which was attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. "Our educational institutions have students from different communities, and it is impossible to let those spaces become preparation yards to build Hindu Rashtra," the minister stated in a release. Citing that working towards the dubious agenda of the RSS will saffronise and destroy the reputation of the position of vice chancellors, Bindu said that the participating officers will have to keep their heads down before the academic society. Adding that the Sangh Parivar has turned against Kerala with their hatred, she mentioned that the outfit is trying to tie the state to the Brahminical values. "Sangh is trying to create an ideological atmosphere in universities and higher education centres that will aid them to build a religious nation based on Manu's scriptures," the minister stated. Criticisms were raised from multiple corners regarding the vice chancellors attending the Jnana Sabha, organised by a Sangh organisation, Shiksha Samskriti Utthan Nyas. Vice chancellors of Kerala, Calicut, Kannur and KUFOS universities reportedly attended the conclave.
India Today
4 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
Why BJP old guard in Punjab, national leadership aren't buying the SAD reunion talk
When Sunil Jakhar stood before the media and declared it was time for the BJP to rejoin hands with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), many in the party's Punjab unit heard not a call to action but an echo from a past they have been trying to leave former Congressman-turned-BJP state chief framed the idea as essential for preserving communal harmony in Punjab, but those who've spent decades in the trenches of the state's politics—BJP old-timers, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) swayamsevaks and ideological foot soldiers—felt a creeping dj vu they had hoped was long July 7, BJP national president J.P. Nadda appointed Pathankot MLA Ashwani Sharma as the state unit's working president. Punjab was the only state, along with Manipur, that couldn't complete the organisational elections to elect unit chiefs for mandals and districts, which forced the appointment of Sharma as working president, not a full-fledged one. However, days later, the party high command conveyed to Sharma to complete the process and get the regular elections done. These weren't ordinary developments but the party returning to its trusted years ago, the party high command had experimented by appointing Jakhar to lead the state unit, but the decision backfired. Jakhar could neither read party old-timers' pain points not was aligned to the BJP and Sangh's core ideology. For the generation that built the BJP in Punjab through the eighties and nineties, mostly as a junior partner of the dominant SAD, there is little romance in that alliance. Sharma was party chief twice during the alliance and among the leaders who felt suffocated during those days. The biggest signal from the party high command of admission of a past goof-up came with the return of Sharma, who had been removed mid-term to accommodate BJP leaders in the state argue that the experiment with Jakhar had failed because he couldn't understand the DNA of the party and the Sangh's value system. 'Whatever Jakhar has conveyed are his personal views. The decision of alliance or no alliance [with SAD] will be taken by the party leadership,' said a top BJP leader from old-timers in Punjab argued that the central leadership, while handing back the state unit reins to Sharma, had conveyed that there was no scope for any re-alliance with SAD. 'The party will grow organically as well as inorganically on its own merit,' said a BJP leader in Delhi with a grip on Punjab voters in Delhi voted for a BJP contesting without any alliance with SAD. In Punjab, the challenge is to build the structure and communication lines in the countryside—the boroughs dominated by Jat Sikhs. In the past, SAD would come in handy. The BJP tried to do the same with Jakhar, a Hindu Jat from the rural pockets.A BJP leader in Punjab said the erstwhile alliance with SAD was an arrangement that suited the Badals more than the BJP. 'The Akalis dictated terms, took the lion's share of seats and kept the BJP confined to urban pockets,' the leader said. Even then, the BJP had to tiptoe around the Akali line on everything, from religious issues to rural politics. Over time, it became clear to the BJP that this wasn't a coalition of equals but one tilted steeply in favour of the BJP-SAD alliance finally broke in 2020, triggered by the contentious central farm laws, it wasn't just a political divorce—it was a moment of liberation for many within the BJP in Punjab. For the first time, the party could test its real strength in the state. They argue that SAD has no ground presence left, and the Sukhbir Badal faction is no comparison to the erstwhile panthic party, enjoying neither credibility nor the core voter base. 'We don't see all factions of the Akali Dal realigning under the Badal family anytime soon,' said a BJP modest results in the assembly elections in 2022 hinted at long-term potential. More significantly, the 2024 Lok Sabha polls delivered some validation. The BJP may not have won any Lok Sabha seat, but it led in 23 assembly segments and came a close second in around 10 more—without SAD help. The BJP got around 19 per cent of the votes while SAD's share slipped below 12 per cent. In 65 assembly segments, the BJP got more votes than SAD. And this when radicalisation was at its peak and residual anger of the farmer unions was against the leaders who had once campaigned under the suffocating weight of Akali dominance, this was a breakthrough. There was finally space to articulate a nationalist, development-focused Hindutva pitch that didn't have to pass through SAD's panthic filter. Many in the party's older generation now believe that rekindling the SAD alliance would be akin to trading away their hard-earned autonomy for a partner in terminal under Sukhbir Badal's stewardship, is a pale shadow of its former self. Credibility has eroded across constituencies—from rural Malwa to the urban fringes. The party's handling of the sacrilege incidents, its back and forth on farm law politics, and reputation as a dynastic, insular outfit have all contributed to the steep fall. SAD won just three assembly seats in 2022, its worst performance ever. In the 2024 general election, its vote share stagnated and its appeal among younger Sikhs seemed even more all this, Jakhar's push to renew the alliance has come with a sense of urgency. He argued that communal amity in Punjab was best served by a SAD-BJP partnership. But in the backrooms of BJP offices in Patiala, Amritsar and Ludhiana, that logic is being questioned—not just on ideological grounds but political arithmetic.A senior BJP leader from the Doaba region, who's been part of the organisation since the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era, put it bluntly: 'We've finally started talking to Sikh voters without SAD as the interpreter. Why would we give that up now?' Indeed, for this generation of BJP leaders, the goal isn't just to win elections—it's to build a political identity that resonates with Sikhs independently of the Akali evolution aligns with the RSS's long-term view. Over the past decade, the Sangh has deepened its outreach to Sikh scholars, institutions and cultural bodies not only in the state but nationally and internationally. The aim has been to engage in ideological dialogue, not transactional but certainly, Sangh leaders—in Punjab and nationally—have fostered spaces for Sikh voices that are both devout and nationalist, without leaning on SAD as the intermediary. These include scholars working on Sikh history with a national lens, Dera leaders with social service platforms and even local granthis open to engaging with Sangh-linked the past, SAD and its leaders took credit for work done by the central government. A top BJP leader in Delhi argued that the Modi government, in its first two terms, had erased the list of 'blacklisted Sikhs' who were denied entry into India, worked with the Pakistan government to open the Kartarpur Sahib corridor, besides adhering to Sikh sensibilities, such as allowing Amritdhari Sikhs to carry kirpans on domestic flights. To take the messaging down to the grassroots was ally SAD's job. 'But because of their credibility crisis, the party (SAD) still finds it challenging to convince Sikhs in the state,' said a BJP reacting to Jakhar's statement, said that elections in Punjab were far away and his party would align only with those who stand for the cause of Punjab. Akali Dal insiders list their demands as including the release of convicted Sikh militants, but BJP leaders point out that the Modi government, in its first term, had released some Sikh militants, yet their party got no BJP and Sangh leaderships, over the past five years, have intensified engagement with the Sikh leadership in social, political as well as religious spheres. The engagement is bearing fruit. The rise and decline of figures such as Amritpal Singh, the weak showing of Khalistan-aligned candidates in Canada's 2024 elections, and the broader disinterest among Punjab's youth towards separatist narratives suggest that de-radicalisation is underway. It's slow and uneven, but unmistakable. The vacuum left by this decline offers space—not to SAD but to a BJP that can speak clearly, confidently and respectfully to Sikhs without hiding behind old changes are visible, such as the state BJP taking a stance in favour of actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh over the controversy erupting from his movie Sardaar Ji 3 featuring a Pakistani actress opposite him. Radical Sikh groups were using the issue to rile against the central government as well as Hindutva elements. The BJP effectively curtailed it by backing Dosanjh instead of indulging in precisely why many in the BJP view Jakhar's suggestion as a step backward. 'This is old medicine for a new disease,' said a party leader from Bathinda. 'Jakhar wants to treat Punjab 2025 with the formulas of Punjab 1995. It doesn't work anymore.' Even those who respect Jakhar's political instincts see his idea as a reaction to short-term electoral anxiety, not a strategy rooted in ground also growing belief that SAD no longer brings votes to the table. If anything, an alliance with them might drag the BJP down with the baggage of past controversies and declining credibility. 'We've spent years distancing ourselves from their misgovernance,' said another senior BJP hand from Amritsar. 'Why would we want to share a stage with them again now?'Instead, there's a growing push within the BJP to design its own political matrix for Punjab—from scratch. This means looking at caste equations anew, building alliances with backward classes, reaching out to ex-servicemen and traders and expanding in regions where neither the Congress nor the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is Majha, for instance, the BJP sees potential among the border villages and Hindu-Sikh mixed constituencies. In Doaba, NRIs and Dalit voters are increasingly open to hearing a non-Akali nationalist pitch. In urban Malwa, BJP leaders are betting on middle-class fatigue with both AAP and a BJP leader explained, Jakhar's nostalgia for the old alliance may come from his days in the Congress, where broad-based coalitions were the default. But the BJP's DNA in Punjab is different. It has been forged through ideological struggle, often against the grain, and with long-term vision rather than short-term now, senior BJP leaders are choosing not to confront Jakhar publicly. But their message is clear: the BJP must not outsource its Sikh outreach to SAD again. The future lies not in reviving tired partnerships but in forging fresh connections—one village, one dera, one scholar at a to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch
The Print
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Print
RSS chief Bhagwat meets Muslim clerics. On agenda: how to foster ‘dialogue between Mandirs & Masjids'
All parties, the AIIO head said, decided that more such meetings would be held on a regular basis with the aim of clearing 'misunderstandings' that exist between the two communities. Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi told ThePrint that the meeting was organised by the All India Imam Organisation (AIIO) on its 50th anniversary at a time when the Sangh, too, is celebrating its centenary year as it completes 100 years in October. New Delhi: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat held a closed-door meeting with senior Muslim clerics, including the chief of All India Imam Organisation, Thursday with an aim to bridge 'misunderstandings' that exist between the two communities. 'It was proposed in the meeting that a dialogue should be initiated between Mandir and Masjid, Imams and Pujaris, and Gurukuls and Madarasa. We will take it forward now. The meeting focused on clearing misunderstandings, ending hate, and fostering trust through open discussion. Dialogue is the solution to every problem. Despite differences in worship or caste, our nation is supreme,' he said, terming the get-together a 'landmark meet'. The meeting at Haryana Bhawan in Delhi lasted nearly three hours and included top leaders of the Sangh, over 60 Muslim clerics, intellectuals, maulanas, and scholars. 'This is a continuous process of extensive dialogue with all sections of society. The main objective is how everyone can work together in the interest of the country. Today's discussion was positive,' RSS national publicity and media department head Sunil Ambekar told ThePrint. According to sources, the aim of the meeting was to discuss ways to strengthen communal harmony in the country. 'Sangh as an organisation works for all. We always focus on connecting with people. Bhagwat ji always meets people, and connects with intellectuals and people from all communities. This meeting too should be viewed that way,' a senior RSS functionary said. Ilyasi said that they had requested Bhagwat for a meeting. 'Open discussions happened on every topic. It is the start of a dialogue. Dialogue is the solution to every problem. Dialogue removes misunderstanding, ends hatred, and creates love and mutual trust,' he added. 'Today, for the first time, the RSS under Mohan Bhagwat ji met with 60 people and this dialogue happened. He also spoke openly. Talks dwelled on national topics; a lot of discussions happened, and I feel that this effort will continue further.' Another source pointed out that emphasis was laid on improving communal bonds within the society. 'Emphasis was laid on the fact that communal harmony needs to be strengthened, which is vital for the progress of the nation. At the same time, both sides agreed that there exist a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings and that emphasis should be laid on removing them in a systematic manner,' the source said. On the other hand, Ilyasi said it was also decided that the discussion and dialogue should be visible at the ground level, and, hence, 'it has been decided that from temples, from mosques, from priests, from Imams, from gurukuls, from madrasas, this effort and dialogues will be taken forward'. Regarding the topics that came up for discussion, Ilyasi said all national issues were touched upon, especially those which are in the 'interest of the nation'. 'I feel this dialogue will continue ahead and it will keep going. For that, we all have to take it ahead on a big scale, that has been decided,' he added. This is not the first time that Bhagwat has met intellectuals from the Muslim community. In 2022, a group of Muslim intellectuals, including former Chief Election Commissioner and former Delhi Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung, had met Bhagwat. Soon after this, Bhagwat had visited a mosque in Delhi's Kasturba Gandhi Marg to meet Ilyasi at the All India Imam Organisation's office there. In 2019 too, Bhagwat met Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind head Maulana Syed Arshad Madani at the RSS office and had discussed several issues, including strengthening unity between Hindus and Muslims and also the incidents of mob lynching. 'There can be differences of mind, but there should not be differences of opinion. All of us (should be) together in the same way… Our nation is supreme, and this should always be kept in mind. Our castes may be different, the ways we pray may surely be different, our ways of worship may surely be different, our religions may surely be different, but first of all—we all live in India and we are all Indians,' Ilyasi said. (Edited by Tony Rai) Also Read: RSS chief Bhagwat draws the line at 75. India's politics stares at the Modi Exception
The Wire
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
When Vajpayee Chose to Fall in Line After Godhra
The following is an excerpt from Abhishek Choudhary's The Believer's Dilemma: A.B. Vajpayee and the Ascent of the Hindu Right. Even in late March 2002, after a month of riots, half a dozen people were getting killed in Gujarat every day. Vajpayee frequently called up Modi, often late in the night, for updates, advice, and rebukes. But his ire was not personal. He knew the failure was a mix of Modi's deliberate administrative inefficiency and the Sangh Parivar's planned vendetta. He hated Modi for strengthening himself by polarizing the atmosphere in Gujarat, though he was perfectly aware of the Sangh affiliates' intricate tapestry on the ground. Had Modi not allowed the local BJP–VHP– Bajrang Dal cadres to vent their anger, he risked becoming unpopular among his peers. But soon everyone – eight of the NDA's twenty-three allies, opposition, media, civil society – publicly demanded Modi's head.* Vajpayee thought it prudent to rehabilitate him in Delhi. He flirted with the idea of swapping Modi and his fellow Gujarati, Kashiram Rana, the textiles minister. (Talking to Delhi journalists in public, Modi had, in the recent past, mocked Rana as a 'maans khaane waala' – a meat-eater – not sufficiently self-aware that most Delhi journalists ate meat too, and what worked as a great joke in Gujarat didn't land nearly as well in the national capital.) Abhishek Choudhary's The Believer's Dilemma: A.B. Vajpayee and the Ascent of the Hindu Right. Picador (May 2025) Simultaneously, however, a four-member team was meeting every week at 7 RCR – Vajpayee, Advani, Kushabhau Thakre, Madan Das Devi – to discuss the matter. The other three disagreed. The party had lost all major assembly polls. Gujarat was the last bastion, awaiting polls in less than a year. Firing Modi would be a top-down decision, which would pit the centre against the local cadres, worsening the confusion on the ground. Instead, a mid-way solution might be to call for early elections. There seemed to be a Hindu resurgence at work, and they calculated that the party would massively benefit. Winning the POTO vote on 26 March proved that he could easily survive the exodus of an ally or two. Vajpayee still wanted to play safe and replace Modi. The prime minister was to make a week-long foreign trip in early April 2002. Partly out of the anxiety that he might be grilled abroad about evading his executive responsibilities, he decided to visit the riottorn state. In preparation, Vajpayee summoned Modi to explain why the rehabilitation had been sluggish. On 27 March, while Modi made a PowerPoint presentation at 7 RCR, Vajpayee sat with a pout. He snubbed the unflappable chief minister when the latter defended himself, claiming he had no funds to build houses for the victims whose homes had been burnt and were now living in the relief camps. Well, raise money from private agencies, the boss rebutted, like Patel had for the earthquake victims. Modi complained of exaggerated media reports. Vajpayee countered that he was not bothered so much about media or opposition, but what should he tell the NDA allies who enquired why the killings had not stopped. Advani sat by awkwardly. The prime minister landed in Ahmedabad on the morning of 4 April. Three helicopters flew his delegation to Godhra, where the remains of the S6 coach lay near an abandoned building in the railway yard. Vajpayee climbed into the coach using a special wooden chair. He walked through the coach with a stiff face. Only Modi followed his boss into the coach, his calm face concealing the awkwardness of the occasion. On return, the helicopters landed at a football ground near the Kankaria relief camp in Ahmedabad, the majority of whose inhabitants were Hindus. This quickly done, Vajpayee left for the Shah-e-Alam camp. Modi had never visited Shah-e-Alam, the largest of all relief camps, sheltering Muslims. The PMO had rejigged Vajpayee's itinerary the previous evening to include it. Vajpayee entered to find a 4,000-strong crowd – miserable, grieving, and agitated – waiting for him. Among the first things he heard was a slogan directed at the chief minister: 'Modi – haaye, haaye!' As Vajpayee caressed a five-year-old orphan's head, a young man pointed at Modi and screamed: 'He is the killer.'27 Another victim who had lost six members of his family broke down, saying the attacking mob had said they had been ordered by the government: 'Upar se hukum hai.' Yet another one stooped to touch Vajpayee's feet, begging him to stop the violence. They were whisked away. His voice choked and eyes welled up, Vajpayee addressed the crowd, asking half to himself: 'Have satanic forces overtaken humanity?' He promised, amid applause, that the refugee camps would continue as long as necessary, and the government would rehabilitate them all; and that widows, orphans, and the destitute would receive money as part of relief packages. The visit was to be wrapped up with a press conference at Ahmedabad airport. Asked whether he was considering a change of guard in the state, Vajpayee responded: 'I don't think so.' To another question, Vajpayee answered that Hindus were capable of safeguarding themselves: 'It is the minorities who need protection.' The PMO had planted the 'one last question' on a friendly scribe. She asked if Vajpayee had a message for Modi sitting on his left. Vajpayee paused for a few seconds before replying that he 'would want the chief minister to adhere to rajdharma'. He took another long pause, then added: 'Rajdharma – this word is imbued with meanings. I adhere to this principle too, have been trying to.' Modi feigned a smile but was beginning to look embarrassed. The prime minister went on: 'A king cannot treat his subjects unequally – not on the basis of birth, or caste or religion.' Unable to fight his urge to stay quiet, Modi retorted that he was doing his job rather fine: 'Hum bhi wahi kar rahe hain, saheb.' The crowd chuckled at his audacious response. Vajpayee closed the press interaction with an oblique, half-sarcastic remark, which could be interpreted in whichever way: 'I am certain Narendrabhai is doing exactly that.' This exchange is often invoked as a mark of Vajpayee's liberalism. It was at best an executive head's pusillanimous appeal. It proved that Vajpayee was admitting Modi's culpability but he just could not find the courage to sack him. Here was a crafty patriarch balancing his contradictory loyalties, hoping to prolong his survival in office. If the prime minister felt embarrassed by his subordinate's audacity, he had only his ego to swallow. As he sat aboard his flight to Singapore, Vajpayee feared being humiliated abroad. That the cursed place was not the Hindi heartland, rather India's fastest-growing state, could scare away potential investors. By the time he landed, he had found an answer. In a post-9/11 world, it was easier to fix the causality: India's communal problems were a consequence of a global jihadi network. He felt further encouraged after his hosts informed him that the Al-Qaeda tentacles had touched Singapore, and that they had recently arrested a dozen-odd suspects. The second leg of his trip, Singapore to Cambodia, was time-travel from the future into the past. His most significant engagement was signing an agreement to restore the Ta Prohm Temple in the Angkor Wat complex. Walking with the help of a stick, he took in the remnants of the old Hindu state of Kamboj, some of whose sky-high temples constructed a millennia ago still survived. While the prime minister was away, the Sangh Parivar carried out a fierce whisper campaign: Modi had to be defended at all costs; Vajpayee 2002: The Survivalist 337 was too out of sync with the party's dominant mood, too old in any case, and had led the party into one electoral mishap after the other. He had entered a fifth year of office: maybe he should demit in favour of Advani. The morning after he returned, he left for the national executive meet in Goa, where he had to formally deliver the verdict on Modi. Brajesh Mishra had arranged for the senior ministers to travel in Vajpayee's plane. Just before landing in Panaji, Advani agreed to ask Modi to offer – though only as roleplay – his resignation. At the national executive that afternoon, everyone played by the script. Though visibly tense, Modi rose to make a passionate defence of his conduct in the aftermath of Godhra. At the end, he offered his head. Suddenly, most of the 175-odd members gathered there began a chorus in his support. It was a stage-managed decision to be sure, so much so that even the Gujarat chief minister's sworn foes – Keshubhai Patel, Pramod Mahajan – trimmed their sail and vigorously backed him. Even so, Vajpayee was surprised by the force of Modi's backing. The BJP president Jana Krishnamurthi announced that the final decision would be discussed at 8 p.m., after the prime minister returned from a rally he was to speak at in Panaji. His authority fading, Vajpayee chose to fall in line.
