My Opinion

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered a 24-hour halt to immersions of idols of Goddess Durga this year due to Muharram. If one sees this in the light of similar orders in the past, it does not seem to relate to law and order at all. Last year too, Vijayadashami took place a day ahead of Muharram, and Mamata Banerjee had then halted the immersion of idols. Her order was criticized by a single bench of Calcutta High Court headed by Justice Dipankar Dutta, which described the order as ‘arbitrary’ and a “clear endeavour to appease the minority section of public”. “To put it straight, the State government has been irresponsibly brazen in its conduct of being partial to one community, thereby infringing upon the fundamental rights of people worshiping Maa Durga”, the High Court had observed. It is now clear that Mamata Banerjee wants to appease the Muslims and wants to consolidate her vote bank. But the chief minister should know that creating a wedge between Hindus and Muslims for petty political gains does not portend well, either for West Bengal or for the rest of India. People of both communities have the right to celebrate, but imposing unreasonable restrictions is unfair.

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There can be no lame excuses for negligence resulting in train accidents. It was Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s tough luck that these accidents on the tracks occurred one after another within a span of three days, but I will appreciate Prabhu for taking moral responsibility after the two rail accidents and offered to resign. I somewhat feel Prabhu overreacted by becoming too sensitive. If one looks at Wednesday’s rail accident near Auraiya, a dumper stuck on the rail tracks caused the accident. How can a minister be held accountable for that? Similarly, in the Utkal Express accident near Muzaffarnagar, it was caused by negligence on part of the Section Railway Manager. Despite several requests, the SRM did not give permission to halt rail traffic for carrying out urgent track repairs. And yet, Suresh Prabhu took moral responsibility for this. In the past, Lal Bahadur Shastri has taken similar moral responsibility after a train accident during Pandit Nehru’s regime, and resigned. Suresh Prabhu, by resigning, has set standards of accountability, and as, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, ‘accountability is a good system in the government’.

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The historic verdict by the Supreme Court has given Muslim women the long-awaited freedom from the 1,400-year-old curse of triple talaq. For years, I have been listening to the travails of Muslim women, who were living a life of fear lest their husbands utter the dreaded word ‘talaq’ thrice. Most of these women did not raise their voice against this practice all these years out of fear. Their only aim was to ensure that their husbands do not get angry. Their second worry was about ‘halala’, wherein if a husband utters ‘talaq’ thrice and then realizes his mistake, his wife would have to sleep with another man and then obtain talaq in order to remarry. One cannot understand the pain behind this dreadful practice, but today Muslim women are now free from such fear. They have now been empowered by this historic verdict.

Political interpretations of this landmark judgment have already begun. Some politicians have begun saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may now get the support of Muslim women. Whatever the interpretations are, the fact is that this verdict will bring a big change in the lives of Muslim women. They will be empowered and their contribution to the creation of a New India will increase. One will have to agree that PM Modi and his government have played a major role towards that end.

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Today, 22nd of August, 2017, shall be written as a red-letter day in the history of Indian judiciary, as well as for all Muslim women fighting for equality and empowerment, as a five-judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court, by a majority 3-2 judgement, struck down the practice of ‘triple talaq’ as unconstitutional.

There were five judges on the bench, including Chief Justice J.S.Khehar, who belonged to different faiths – Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Christian and Sikh. Justice Rohinton Nariman, Justice U.U.Lalit and Justice Kurien delivered the majority judgement striking down ‘triple talaq’, while outgoing Chief Justice J.S.Khehar and Justice Abdul Nazeer gave the minority judgement calling for a Central legislation to replace ‘triple talaq’. The five judges had been hearing various petitioners for the last three months. The majority verdict clearly said that ‘triple talaq’ practice was violative of Article 14 that grants fundamental right of equality before law.

Muslim women in India have been suffering for centuries because of the abominable ‘triple talaq’ practice, that has already been abolished by more than 22 Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. They have been petitioning the government and courts seeking justice. At last, the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has heard their voice and advocated their cause before the Constitution Bench. Past governments had been wary on this issue because of the votebank politics since the powerful Muslim ulema had been opposing any tinkering with Muslim Personal Law.

With today’s verdict, Muslim women will now be able to empower themselves. There have been umpteen cases in which Muslim men in India had given ‘triple talaq’ to their wives through WhatsApp, Skype, telephone and even telegram. The long-suffering Muslim women can now heave a sigh of relief.

After nine years of incarceration in jail, Malegaon blast accused Lt. Col. C. P. Purohit was granted bail by the Supreme Court on Monday. According to senior public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, the court might have found conflicting statements in the chargesheets filed by ATS and National Investigation Agency and granted him bail. This may be a lawyer’s opinion, but giving political colour to this apex court order amounts to raising finger at the judiciary. Leaders from the opposition have alleged that the army officer got bail because of help from Modi government. Such allegations are harmful, both for the judiciary and for the democracy.

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On Friday, Mirwaiz Moulvi Farooq made a fiery anti-India speech before his devout followers in Srinagar’s Jama Masjid. He said, ‘if one youth dies, there are 10 more youths to fight’. In short, he was openly praising terrorists. One thing is now clear from his speech. It does not matter at all to Mirwaiz and Geelani if youths throw stones, get injured, take up arms, and die in encounters with security forces. It does not matter to these separatist leaders if they give sudden strike calls bringing civic life to a halt, if traders suffer huge losses or school buildings are burnt. It, however, matters more to Mirwaiz and Geelani, if their main fundraiser Zahoor Ahmed Watali is arrested, if Shabbir Shah and seven other leaders are caught on the charge of terror funding, and if the terror funding tap from Pakistan is shut. Hurriyat leaders then become flustered, and then they resort to inciting people in mosques. On Friday, Mirwaiz tried to do exactly the same thing, but he and his associates have probably forgotten that the common man in Kashmir now knows his true face and the influence that Mirwaiz and Geelani once wielded, is now on the wane.

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Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has raised a valid question. He has said that if namaaz can be performed on main roads, azaan can be played on loudspeakers at odd hours, then DJs and loud music should also be allowed during Kanwad yatras and Janmashtami should be allowed in police stations. What he meant was this: if there is a ban on loudspeakers at odd hours, it should be applicable to all communities and religions. There should be no discrimination between Hindu and Muslim communities. It is a bitter truth that during the Samajwadi Party rule in UP, Janmashtami was banned in police stations, and discriminations were made between Hindu crematoriums and Muslim cemeteries. The first and foremost duty of any elected government should be appeasement of none, exploitation of none, and insult of none.

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The Supreme Court has ordered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe links of ‘love jehad’ cases in Kerala to Islamic State and submit its report. This comes in the backdrop of an interesting case from Kerala where a Muslim youth married a Hindu girl, converted her to Islam, but the marriage was annulled by the Kerala High Court on grounds of ‘love jehad’. The Muslim youth has now appealed to the Supreme Court, which has taken up the case for hearing. Legal eagles from both sides are appearing in this landmark case. But the issue is quite big, and serious too. If one goes through statistics, one is bound to find something fishy. Five years ago, on June 25, 2012, the then Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy had told the state assembly that there were 7,713 cases of religious conversion between 2006 and 2012. In all cases, either Hindus or Christians converted to Islam. The interesting part is that, between 2009 and 2012, 2,195 Hindu girls and 492 Christian girls in Kerala converted to Islam before marrying Muslim youths. Oommen Chandy as chief minister had then given official figures, but the actual figures are quite huge. According to the conservative estimate, more than 10,000 Hindu girls were converted to Islam in Kerala in the last ten years. Kerala is the only state in India from where the largest number of Muslim youths fled to Syria to join the radical outfit Islamic State. Now that the apex court has ordered an NIA probe into ‘love jehad’ cases in Kerala, one hopes that the truth will come out and preventive measures would be taken.

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This year Prime Minister Narendra Modi dwelt on most of the issues agitating the minds of people while speaking from Red Fort on Independence Day. He responded to most of the questions raised about his three-year-old government. In his 55-minute speech, he spoke about the policies and intentions of his government.

Here I would mention three big issues. People wanted to know how the situation would improve in Kashmir valley. Modi said, his government would continue to deal firmly with terrorists but would opt a conciliatory approach towards common Kashmiris (not gaali or goli, but embrace).

The second question that is often asked is what happened to his promises to check black money. Modi disclosed that his government has so far detected Rs 1.25 lakh crore black money.

The third question that is often asked is about the benefits of demonetization. Modi said, people in the tax net are now twice than earlier and Rs 3.5 lakh crore black money has come into circulation. The Prime Minister replied to most of the questions. This is what a democracy should be about.

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The death of 30 kids undergoing treatment in Gorakhpur medical college hospital, due to disconnection of oxygen supply, highlights the sordid state of affairs prevailing in our public health care system. The deaths took place within a span of 48 hours and the hospital administration is now busy in an elaborate cover-up. The deaths occurred three days after the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the hospital to supervise all arrangements. The oxygen supplying company had threatened to discontinue the supply of oxygen due to non-payment of dues, and the hospital authorities were assuring the district administration that they had an alternate mechanism in place. Naturally, the deaths will now be investigated into, the company will say it did not get its dues in time, the hospital staff will say that it had already alerted the authorities about the dangerously low level of oxygen, the district administration will say that it had been assured by hospital authorities that adequate alternative mechanism was in place, and the doctors will say that such deaths are normal occurrences and were not due to lack of oxygen. In all, every stakeholder will have an alibi in place. The fact remains that the criminal negligence behind the abrupt discontinuation of oxygen supply is unpardonable. Will the lives of 30 kids be restored if the company gets its dues now? Time has come to consider all aspects of this incident and the government should ensure that such crass negligence never takes place in future.

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Hamid Ansari has been a distinguished diplomat, Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, a scholar in his own right, and he adorned the post of Vice-President of India for 10 long years. On his last day in office as Vice-President, he decided to give an interview in which he clearly remarked that there is a “sense of growing unease” among Muslims in recent years. The question is: if he knew that Muslims were feeling insecure, what did he do? Maybe his remark was correct. There are sections of people in every religious community who think they are living in a state of fear and unease, but when individuals in high positions make such statements, one is surprised. If Hamid Ansari felt that fear and unease was rising in the minds of Muslims, he should have taken steps. Making such a remark on the last day in office clearly shows he is indulging in politics and trying to corner the government. This needs to be addressed.

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BJP President Amit Shah never dreamed that his party’s third candidate Balwantsinh Rajput would lose the Rajya Sabha poll in Gujarat despite carefully orchestrated micro-level management. Congress leader Ahmed Patel never dreamed that he would win the RS poll despite 13 out of 57 Congress MLAs ditching him and the party. Both the Congress MLAs who voted for BJP never dreamed that their votes would be invalidated. The Election Commission never dreamed that seven Union Ministers and senior Congress leaders would come to its door thrice in a span of three hours in Delhi, and it would have to take a midnight decision after watching video footage of the polling. Nobody imagined all such things would happen for a single Rajya Sabha seat. In all, neither Amit Shah’s tricks succeeded, nor did Ahmed Patel’s man management. The single thing that clicked at the last moment was Ahmed Patel’s fate. The only consolation is that democracy ultimately triumphed. In political circles, the general belief is that this Rajya Sabha poll result will not affect Amit Shah’s Plan 150 for the forthcoming assembly polls, but the fact remains that Ahmed Patel’s win could act as a morale booster for the Congress, though the party is still presently far behind in the assembly poll stakes in Gujarat.

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