Religious freedom and economic prosperity

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY

Open to Public, RSVP
Time 11:30 to 1:00 PM
Friday, July 19k 2019
Location:  100 Maryland Ave, NE, conference Room 3, Washington DC 20002
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Website: http://centerforpluralism.com/religious-freedom-and-prosperity/

Organization(s): Center for Pluralism

Preview: The economic prosperity of a nation is directly proportional to religious freedom. It frees people from the daily tensions of what to eat, drink, wear and believe, or loss of income. They become a productive employee and devoted members of their family and contributing to the prosperity of the nation.

PARKING
Union Station metro and Capitol South Metro are about 10 minutes’ walk from the United Methodist building, the building is in the corner of Maryland Ave, NE, and First Street NE – ring the doorbell. You might find parking north of 2nd street on the constitution avenue/

Preview: The economic prosperity of a nation is directly proportional to religious freedom. It frees people from the daily tensions of what to eat, drink, wear and believe, or loss of income. They become a productive employee and devoted members of their family and contributing to the prosperity of the nation.

The prosperity hinges on the prosperity of people around us and the success of nations around us. None of us will succeed if some of us are left behind. Moreover, our very survival as a society may be at stake.

We are committed to restoring justice to my fellow Americans   We will restore our glory days, and in the end, no human will be left out.

We will discuss the solutions … and what we can do about it.

Imagine a child raised with ill will towards Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Arabs, Chinese or Asians. I have closely monitored the results with Indian kids raised to hate Pakistani kids and vice-versa. The idiotic parents poison their kids.

When that child grows up to be an adult and has to work with the other who is not to be trusted, you can guess the anguish that person endures. There is an unwanted battle he/she encounters causing him non-stop distress. As an owner of the business, do you welcome these inner battles between employees, don’t they cut down the productiveness of your firm?

You want to get along with all and focuses on delivering quality products and services to your customers.  You also want to go home with no baggage from work and give 100% of himself or herself to the family. A happy person is productive for his/her family, your community and the nation.

Should employers look for employees who have no problem with others?
Dr. Swamy’s example

Questions to the audience – how many of you feel tense working with….

Disaster is waiting to happen in India.

This is an early warning signal to the Indian businesses and IT employees who do not want to see a disaster and lose all that they have gained in the last two decades. The course can be corrected, and PM Modi needs to be approached.

‘Let’s start with an ideal society that functions cohesively, where each member of the community feels secure about his/her faith, culture, language, ethnicity, and other uniqueness. Indeed, the prosperity of a nation and religious freedom is directly proportional to each other, the higher the freedom, the greater the economic prosperity.

That’s the central lesson of the “2008 Index of Economic Freedom,” released by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. “A country-by-country survey of how free people are worldwide to direct their economic fortunes; the Index repeatedly demonstrates the vital link between freedom and prosperity. In simple words, the freer the people are, the more an economy grows — and the more everyone benefits.”

Gill and Owen in a paper “Religious Liberty and Economic prosperity,” write in a Cato Publication, ” A casual glance suggests nations that have developed strong legal guarantees of religious freedom are also ones that have had long-term sustained economic growth (Grim and Finke 2011).”

One should be free to eat, drink, wear, think, speak, and believe whatever the individual wants in the pursuit of his/her happiness. The greater the security, the higher the productivity, and one starts contributing more than his share to the growth of the company and the nation’s GDP as a whole.

Right now, most minorities, but particularly the American Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Latinos are the worried, concerned and are tense. African Americans have been tensing all through history. I live in a predominantly Black community; in fact, I am the only non-black there.

         Let the audience take a minute to share it.

When a black man sits behind the wheel to go to work, he is apprehensive, never knowing when he will be stopped….and even shot.

The Jewish Community, 119 Cemeteries

Muslims Mosques, declarations by a few stupid presidential candidates that they will not hire Muslims in their administration – Harmon had said, Gingrich had said, Romney had said. all of them did the damage

the Indian Christians, Muslims, and Dalits are not feeling secure in their neighborhoods. Every day is laden with tensions, and everyone is apprehensive about walking alone on the street lest he/she be beaten, harassed, raped, or even lynched. Lynching is not only on beef pretext but clearly demanding to renounce one’s religion.

Let this be clear; the innocent majorities believe that everyone around them is treated fairly and equitably. However, the moderate white majority does not understand the fear a black man feels when he sits behind the wheel to go to work, nor does the moderate Hindu majority understands the concern a Muslim, Christian or a Dalit man or a woman feels walking alone on a given street in Modi’s India.

Since ‘Modi’s re-election on May 23, 2019, in less than a month, seven cases of brutal lynching have occurred. Muslims, in particular, are afraid to get out on the street, lest someone lynches them for the suspicion of carrying beef. Just this week, a woman was hung to a tree and beaten non-stop while a huge crowd gathered around and watched the shameless act. An individual was hacked to death with bare stones and ax in public, and they videotaped the gory murder for the world to watch.

Does Modi recognize the ruthless, mindless, and violent new generation he is fostering? What kind of Next generation are we raising?

Modi needs to get out of the mode of giving three days for the violent men to clean up before he takes action as happened in Gujarat Massacre where nearly 2000 men, women, and children were killed and burnt alive.   Last year, the men who gang-raped and brutally murdered a six-year-old girl in a Hindu temple were greeted with garlands by Modi’s men as if they were heroes. Two years ago, the Chief Minister (Governor equivalent) Yogi stood on the podium next to a man who announced to the extremists to dig out dead Muslim women from the graves and rape them, and it happened as well. There is a whole list out there, but the question is what kind of Indians are we looking forward to being in the new generation.

On the other hand, can a nation afford to undermine and underutilize the productivity of her 300 million Dalits, 200 million Muslims, and 30 million Christians? Can it afford to keep the people under eternal tensions?

India may get the certificate of country of Particular Concern by the Department of State? Would Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other mega-corporations see a future in ‘India’s growth, would they continue to partner or hold back for lack stability?

Indian Muslim must be appreciated; they have shown extraordinary resilience and patience. Despite the lynching’s and injustices, they have not resorted to violence, unlike their counterparts in other nations. Presidents Bush, and then Obama, as well as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have appreciated Indian Muslims. It is time for Modi to do the same and stop the growing discord.

Prime Minister Modi and his party is living in the past and want to get even with the Muslims for the acts committed by some kings three hundred years ago, who happened to be Muslims. Indeed, almost all the kings of yesteryears, be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian or otherwise expanded their territories by killing the neighbors and robbing their wealth.  The Muslim of independent India has nothing to do with anyone beyond his/her grandfather; in fact, no one should be responsible for the acts he did not commit. Should one be jailed for the actions of his father?

If Modi cannot change the mindset of the mobs, no one can. All he has to do is to speak up and boldly announce that anyone who harasses another Indian will be taken to the court and appropriate punishment will be met. That is all it takes.

There is a limit to pushing, harassing, and lynching people and that limit is approaching a breaking point, it needs to be stopped before it blows up.

What if Indian Muslims, Christians, and Dalits cannot take it anymore and resort to violence? What will happen to the economy, investments from overseas, and the political stability of the nation? Every Indian will live in hell should that happen. I hope Modi brings law and order and restores the cohesiveness of India. No Indian wants a chaotic India.

If India goes through serious social upheaval and terrorism, How does it affect American Interests?

Geopolitical
Economic
Freedom

References:

Heritage – https://www.heritage.org/commentary/the-link-between-freedom-prosperity

Cato: https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2017/2/cj-v37n1-9.pdf

Outrageous Observations on Indian Democracy

Outrageous Observations on Indian Democracy

If you have the answers to Hemant Acharya's response, either write in the comment section of the letter or send it to me, I will compile responses with your quotes and with your name.

https://www.indiawest.com/letters_to_editor/outrageous-observations-on-indian-democracy/article_fc1a74a4-57d8-11e9-9449-87b97ee8b182.html

Another response - Balance restored
https://www.indiawest.com/letters_to_editor/balance-restored/article_b5f503ce-4cd7-11e9-82a8-ef200e98d61a.html 

Original Article - India's prosperity hinges on Religious freedom

https://www.indiawest.com/letters_to_editor/india-s-prosperity-hinges-on-religious-freedom/article_a0615b64-3aeb-11e9-b82f-170e037f72a5.html 

White Washing Religious Freedom in India

By Dr. Mike Ghouse

India has an impeccable history of welcoming the stranger and giving refuge to the oppressed, rejected and the evicted. She has welcomed Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and the Baha’is. Indeed the very first mosque built outside of Arabia was in India by a Hindu King in the state of Malabar. The Tibetan Buddhist refugees found a home in India; the Ahmadiyya Muslims felt secure, so were the displaced Bangladeshi and Afghan refugees.

This beautiful pluralistic 5000-year-old tradition of India is in peril now. BJP and its affiliates (The SanghParivar) that govern India “currently” are hell-bent on destroying that heritage. They want to force non-Hindus into obedience and tell them what they can eat or believe, and whom they can marry or live as 2nd class citizens. They want to free India from Christians and Muslims and plan to convert them by 2025 to Hinduism. Indeed, the ISIS had given similar options to the Christians and Yazidis.

Make no mistake about it; Hinduism is a religion of peace like all other religions. The problem is not between people of faith, but the radicals.

A few Indian American organizations linked to the SanghParivar want to whitewash the situation. They want to portray that everything is hunky dory in India.

Hunky dory it is not, the Congressmen and Senators are fully conversant of the harassment, lynching, raping and killing of Christians, Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs, Atheists and others in India.

It is time for the Indian Americans to save the honor of India and restore her pluralistic heritage that got derailed in the last four years.

The prosperity of a nation stands on her two firm legs; economic growth and social cohesion, one will not sustain without the other.

If the minorities continue to live in apprehension and fear, the whole nation gets engaged in useless battles and the prosperity will come to a grinding halt, and the country will limp until it reaches a new life or loses all that was achieved.

The confidence of foreign investments in a nation spurs the growth, India’s IT industry, call centers, and businesses have raised the standard of living for many. As long as the investors feel secure about their investments they will pump in more funds. However, when they see chaos emerging with the nations discriminative practices, harassment, lynching, rapes and killing of the minorities, they will pull out and everyone stands to lose.

It was embarrassing to note the missing presence of India at the religious freedom conference held by the Department of State in July 2018. If the violations continue, India may get stamped as a “Country of Particular Concern” for violations of religious freedom. It will hurt India, particularly the business community and the information technology sector.

The whitewash report produced by the Hindu America Foundation is understandable. No Indian wants India to lose, but neither should we compromise on the truth to look good. We hope to produce an accurate state of the union; after all, India’s emblem includes the phrase, SatyamevaJayate – Truth triumphs.

The majority of Indians of all faiths believe in Pluralism, i.e., respecting the otherness of other. It is not Hindus either, but the radicals among Hindus that are causing the problems with the subtle encouragement from the BJP government.
“The Indian government provides “unprecedented” religious accommodations to its religious minority population, says a report by a US-based Hindu advocacy group.”
The truth is far from it. It sounds like the majority is doing a favor to the minorities in ‘accommodating’ them. It is like saying “we give equal rights to women” who the hell are we to give them their rights, to begin with, the rights were theirs. Indeed, every Indian is guaranteed those rights; we are all equal citizens. No one has more privileges than the other.

“To bring greater stability to the region and prevent the growth of radical Islamist and Communist/Maoist terrorism.” This statement is too hypocritical and divisive to exclude radical Hindutva terrorism from the list. The issue is not with Hindus or Muslims; it is with radicals among them.

“Overall, it seeks to show the broader story of religious freedom and pluralism in India, which is often not, reflected in the media or US policy circles.” Indeed, India was a pluralist nation until the Hindutva brigade took over the country four years ago.

We need to come together and appeal to the Government of India, to issue visas to the commissioners of the USCIRF to investigate the Sikh Genocide, Massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, killing of Christians, Rapes, and lynching of Dalits, and harassment of Sikhs. If the commission gives a clean certificate, it will help boost the investor confidence in India; on the other hand, if India’s record is of particular concern, then it is time to fix it than pretending to be holier than thou.

I would appeal to the Hindu America Foundation to issue press releases condemning the lynching of Muslims, killing of Christians, harassment of Dalits and Atheists, by condemning each event, it will give them the credibility to be a legitimate pluralist organization for Human rights.

We will also write a letter urging Prime Minister Modi to speak out forcefully against harassment of any Indian and pledge that no Indian has more privileges than the other. Ambassador Sam Brownback says, if evil acts get condemned as they occur, they will be choked and will not see the light of the day.

(The writer is president of the Center for Pluralism and is committed to fostering cohesive societies where no human has to live in apprehension or fear of the other)

Published in several Indian Newspapers including https://www.thekashmirmonitor.net/whitewashing-religious-freedom/

India’s prosperity hinges on Religious Freedom

India’s prosperity hinges on Religious Freedom

The Indian-Americans have a moral duty to prevent India from being labeled as a “Country of Particular Concern” by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

If India were to be ascribed with such a label, it would hinder the flow of foreign direct investments and subsequent reversal of economic prosperity achieved in the last twenty years. This label may not affect the poor Indians, but it will severely impact all those Indians working in information technology related jobs and businesses involved in software development and services.

South Africa once was an apartheid nation, and its prosperity came to a grinding halt when the foreign corporations realized that they are supporting a regime that discriminates her citizens. The harassment, lynching, and killing of Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in India needs to stop; if not, it will hurt all Indians as the investors will start pulling out of the country. Who wants to invest in a place where their investment is not secure?

The success of the American economy is based on the rule of law, the law is enforced equally, and no criminal will get away with the power of his or he monies. If someone violates the rules, the individual or the company will pay the penalty, and this builds confidence and trust in the society and frees them from tensions. Every Indian should feel secure about his or her faith, ethnicity, language and culture.

The First Amendment of America’s constitution serves as a model of success for any government. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Ambassador Sam Brownback had once said that the prosperity of a nation hinges on religious freedom. Indeed, the success of a country is directly proportional to religious liberty. It frees people from the daily tensions of what to eat, drink, wear and believe. It allows them to become a productive employee to the company, and a fully participating member of the family by giving the family the full attention it deserves instead of worrying about a fellow employee at the place of work.

Furthermore, the quality of life is directly proportional to freedom from religious and cultural tensions.

The sense of security is diminishing rapidly. A Christian is apprehensive of going to the Church on a Sunday, and a Muslim is afraid of storing meat in his refrigerator should the vigilantes descend on him. The women including little girls are not safe either. The murderers and rapists got felicitated with Garlands from among the current leaders instead of sending them to prison.  The man who lynched and brutally killed a Muslim man was videotaped and shared on WhatsApp, and the lyncher was rewarded with a party ticket to contest elections.   This is shamefully a weekly occurrence.

Ambassador Brownback had once said referring to mob violence around the world. If the leaders respond immediately to such incidents and tell the nation that the lynching and harassment of fellow citizens will not be acceptable, then the violence will cease or at least mitigate. Unfortunately, the current Indian leadership has remained silent when vigilantes kill and maim the people, causing every Indian to live in fear – both the minorities and the ones who frighten.

Please note that Hindutva ideology propagated by RSS and its family of parties is not Hinduism. Hindutva is to Hinduism; what Islam is to Islamists. Hindutva and Islamist are anti-Hinduism and anti-Islam respectively.   It may take a few generations for Hindutvadis and Islamists to see the value of respecting the otherness of the other and accepting the God-given uniqueness of the other. When we get there, conflicts will fade, and solutions emerge. Ultimately, every Indian wants to live in peace and feel secure about his faith and focus on contributing to the common good of the nation.

The Indian Americans have equal access to all the opportunities in the market without discrimination, and I hope the Indian Americans would want India to treat her minorities as America does hers. It is an embarrassment to note that a few Indian Americans don’t want Muslims, Christians, and Dalits to have equal rights in India.  On top of it, they are poisoning their children with ill-will towards each other.

The good news is that most of the American Indian youth are rejecting the ugliness of their parents and choose to respect the otherness of the other. After all, they have to work with people of different faiths and races, and it would be a pain for them to work with others if their parents have dumped their biases on their children.  Should parents poison their children?

We appeal to all the India oriented American organizations including the Hindu America Foundation, the Indian American Muslim Council, Federation of Indian American Christian Organization of North American to support our petition.

The petition will be addressed to the Government of India to issue Visa’s to the Commissioners of USCRIF.  They can do the investigations about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, Sikh Genocides, Gujarat Massacre, Lynching and harassment of Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and others.

If India gets a “Clean Chit” it will ensure continued prosperity and investor confidence in India’s democracy.  However, if the Indian government is found guilty of the violations of religious freedoms, then two choices left to deal with are; risk losing the confidence of the investors in the stability of India, or fix the problems and earn a clean chit.  Every Indian American must ensure the sustainability of India’s democracy and prosperity.

In Washington DC, there are three Indians who regularly attend the meetings about religious freedom issues from among about seventy-five individuals to talk about the concerns in different nations. Jay Kansara has been representing the Hindu America Foundation, John Prabhudoss represents Federation of Indian American Christians of North America, and Mike Ghouse serves the Center for Pluralism, standing up for the rights of people from all faiths.  Now, Ajit Sahi of Indian American Muslim Council has joined the group to address Religious freedom issues of Indian minorities. The Dalits and Sikhs have been represented on an off by different visitors.

Swami Agnivesh was in Washington DC and spoke to a group of defenders of religious freedom across the world.  The Ambassador of religious liberty Hon. Sam Brownback presided the meeting. He was eloquent and precise, and it was an honor to meet the man whom I have come to admire for his stand on eradicating bonded labor, and fighting for religious freedom of all Indians.

Here is a short speech of Swami Agnivesh – https://youtu.be/eIwPXyQQi7g

Full speech of Swami Agnivesh.

Dear Ambassador Brownback and my fellow campaigners for human rights and religious freedom. I am grateful to you for this opportunity to speak here. Since the time allotted for me to speak is limited, I will get to the point immediately.

There is a grave threat today to civil liberties in general and religious freedom in particular in India. Indeed, the levels of violence we see in today’s India against the social and religious minorities are in many ways unprecedented in recent decades. The victims of such vicious violence are some of India’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities. They include Muslims, Christians, the Dalits, who are the former untouchables of the Hindu caste society, and the Adivasis, or the indigenous tribal people whose very existence is under threat.

Moreover, the perpetrators of this violence are directly linked with the RSS, which is the mother organization of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party. Especially since Mr. Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, the attacks on the religious minorities have sharply increased. Armed mobs owing allegiance to the RSS and other Hindu groups have been lynching to death Muslims at will, accusing them of eating beef or slaughtering a cow. Such Hindu mobs also disrupt mixed-religion weddings in which the groom is Muslim, and the bride is Hindu because they don’t want Hindu girls to marry Muslim boys. There have been instances in which such Muslim grooms have been killed, too.

Similarly, these vigilante groups owing allegiance to the RSS have been attacking Christian Churches, priests, and congregants all over India. Once again, they blame the victims for the violence, accusing the Christians of converting Hindus to Christianity.

For thousands of years, the Dalits have suffered the worst violence and indignities at the hands of upper caste Hindus. However, now, that indignity is doubled because laws have been created to deny positive quota benefits to Dalits who convert out of Hinduism to Christianity and Islam. Converted Dalits face even greater violence and assault.

As for the Adivasis, the indigenous people, the RSS-BJP have for decades been forcing Hinduism on them even though millions of these Adivasis clearly state that they are not Hindus and they have their indigenous faiths. I have myself been a victim of their violence over the years. Twice in the last six months only I have been attacked by these violent mobs. Of course, it is futile to expect any police action against such violent perpetrators.

If I being a prominent human rights defender in India cannot expect the police to act against my attackers, you can imagine what would be the story of these social and religious minorities I have spoken about, the Dalits, the Adivasis, the Christians and the Muslims, who are being targeted in their hundreds of thousands across India.

Even more worrying is that some organizations in the United States that claim to represent the interest of the Hindus defend the highly divisive and violent activities of the RSS-BJP and instead blame the religious minorities. They try to create a false equivalence between the highly organized and structural violence of the RSS-BJP, who are in power in the federal government in India as well as more than a dozen and a half of India’s 29 states, and random acts of violence against Hindus that may occur.

The truth is that the biggest perpetrator of anti-minority violence in India is the RSS-BJP, which is now in power across India and is therefore grossly abusing its control of government machinery to provide impunity to its henchmen carrying out such violence. It would be a pity if the international community did not open its eyes and take notice of this worsening situation in the India of Mahatma Gandhi.

(Swami Agnivesh also added that he was coming from giving the keynote address at the Parliament for World’s Religions in Toronto, Canada and that the Hindu rightwing forces tried to prevent him from speaking there. He also said he had been a campaigner for justice for 50 years and had faced numerous attacks on his life, the most recent in Jharkhand in July, when hundreds of goons attacked him, and then again in Delhi in August. Swami Ji also spoke of his work with bonded laborers and said his organization had secured freedom and rehabilitation for more than 170,000 bonded laborers in India in the last thirty plus years.)

Dr. Mike Ghouse is a public speaker and the Executive Director of the Center for Pluralism in Washington, DC. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.  More about him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeghouse/

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Religious freedom in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka

A Summary of Religious Freedom concerns in South Asia.   

Friday, March 9, 2018 –Washington, D.C., The South Asia working group’s initial report to the International Religious Freedom Round-table.

There is a dire need to address the violations of religious and political freedoms in South Asia comprising the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

A critical note – when a reference is made to the Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, India, Russia or others, it is not “all” people of that faith or country.  It is usually a small percent of disaffected people from among the majority who feel threatened about their future and their way of life.

The Center for Pluralism offers a solution to counter that – We need to reassure each other in conflict, particularly those who may be troubled by the changing paradigms and demographics of the society that we are committed to safeguarding the way of life for everyone.  As Citizens of a given nation, we uphold, protect, defend and celebrate the values of liberty and freedom enshrined in the Constitution. We acknowledge that not all constitutions have the element of freedom embedded in it – an example would be the rights of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan and rights of Arab Israelis.

There are pending issues that are simmering and may boil over one day. We hope to understand these issues and do our share of reporting them to the International Religious Freedom Round Table, an informal group.

This group will identify problems and offer recommendations and possible solutions, and they are;

1. Monitoring to ensure the individual rights of people are protected.
2. Facilitate democratic values and hoping for stable political and economic climate
3. Secure our long-term interests of the safety of Americans and their investments

Governor Sam Brownback, the newly appointed Ambassador for religious freedom, said in the inaugural reception.  The essence of which was -if you want a nation to have peace, give the people their freedom, but if you push them to the corner, their anger will morph into extremism, and everyone will lose in the end.

Here is a summary; a detailed report is in the making and will be produced upon a request.

There is no doubt a lot of good things are happening, but our focus is how to identify exceptional violations of human rights and religious freedom.

India:

The commissioners of USCRIF have been the denied visa to India to investigate, among other things; Sikh Genocide, Massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, the plight of Hindu Pundits and the caster system that mistreats the Dalits who are shamefully called untouchables. Most of the Hindu American organizations have an affiliation with the ruling party in India; we need them to stand up for the religious rights of the people and work on getting the Visas to the commissioners for an honest evaluation of the situation.

The policies of the government will lead to mass suicides by the farmers. The Farmers raise the cattle to sell and eke out a living.  Now, they are afraid to sell the cattle for fear of being killed by the vigilantes and the Government does nothing.  The Cows have gone astray and are eating the farmer’s crops and eating trash on the streets – the cows are treated with disrespect and left on their own, its gross violation of animal rights.

In India currently, you do not have the freedom to eat, drink, wear or believe in the pursuit of your happiness.

A Dalit* groom rode a horse on his wedding Baraat (Procession) in the state of Uttar Pradesh last month; the upper caste Hindus could not stomach the “neech –i.e., the low caste untouchable” ride above them and they ended beat him up. Last week an Adivasi (Tribal) Girl was burnt alive. The upper caste Hindus feel entitled to the Dalit women for their pleasures.  It is an endless agony for the Dalits. They cannot even convert to other faiths to escape these attitudes due to enforced anti-conversion laws.

Here is a report from the Dalit Leaders in India.

“The many millenia old caste systems and the ‘unparalleled social abuse of untouchability (A.J.Toynbee)’ are based on religious doctrines of Brahminical Hinduism. Thus, caste based violations of human rights in India are expressions of the utter lack of religious freedom.

This perilous situation is aggravated by anti-conversion laws that have been passed in many states of India. Their purpose is to prevent Dalits from converting to other religions where they would not be considered untouchable’.https://www.loc.gov/law/help/anti-conversion-laws/india.php

The inferior status that Hinduism accords to Dalits, in spite of the equalities guaranteed by the constitution of the country, reflects in severe social, economic, and educational inequalities.

Dalits continue to suffer extreme prejudice and deprivation, apart from institutional harassment. Violence against Dalits – public shaming, beatings, rape, murder – is a daily occurrence. The law enforcement agencies, police and the judiciary, largely remain mute spectators, if not actively conniving in the violence.

Statistics show that violence against Dalits has only increased in recent years. Religious freedom and equality thus remain a mirage for 200 million Dalits in India. ”

The Muslims are lynched and killed for doubt of possessing beef; fake encounters is common practice to trap the young Muslim boys; RSS (political Hindus in the guise of culture) set the bomb blasts in Mumbai and other places and blamed Muslims.  Muzaffarnagar and other riots were created to pit Hindus against Indians.

Christian Nuns are raped; pastors are chased and beat up in the public. The Christians Churches are burned, and the couples are constantly harassed on Valentine’s Day and Christmas Day. The Dalits are forced to convert back to Hinduism.

Justice to Sikhs is not done yet; mothers are still waiting for their unaccounted children from the Sikh Genocide of 84 where in three days, the extremists among Hindus butchered about 3000 Sikhs.

Blatant discrimination births frustration leading to violent expressions, when that happens the foreign investors will pull out, who wants to invest in a place where their investments are not secure.  It’s happened in India in the mid-60’s, mid 70’s and it has happened in South Africa. The consequences do not bring goodwill.

There is a significant crisis brewing in India, and the Supreme Court will render a judgment about the disputed land and authority to build or not build a Hindu temple, where a 500-year-old Muslim Mosque was razed to the ground.

The Supreme Court of India would review the documents if that Mosque were built razing a temple.  The internationally famed Guru of Art of Living, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has sowed the seeds of discontentment.  Instead of suggesting the public to respect the Supreme Court’s decision, he has predicted civil war if the Court decides one way or the other. He has shown disrespect to the average Hindu and average Muslim who have demonstrated respect to the decisions of the Apex Court, several times in the recent past.

We pray that the Modi government and the State Government will offer strong safety protections to the public at least for a few months after December 5, 2018, the new date of the verdict.

Pakistan

Harassment of all minorities continues unabated. Ahmadiyya Muslims are denied their right to call themselves Muslims. There are numerous billboards that proclaim that it is legitimate to kill Ahmadiyya. The Hindu population is steadily declining as a percentage of the overall population with forced conversions. Christians are targeted with blasphemy and apostasy laws; these are the fake encounters. The Apostasy and Blasphemy laws were created to appease the tyrant kings and have no basis in the religion of Islam, and both are tools of oppression.

Bangladesh

The Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, and Ahmadiyya Muslims live in apprehension; the Atheist bloggers have been killed.  There is a deficiency of law and order.

Sri Lanka

The ethnic violence continues between the Buddhists and Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims. Sri Lanka’s president declared a state of emergency Tuesday amid fears that anti-Muslim attacks in several central hill towns could spread. The emergency announcement came after Buddhist mobs swept through the cities outside Kandy, burning at least 11 Muslim-owned shops and homes. The attacks followed reports that a group of Muslims had killed a Buddhist man. Police fired tear gas into the crowds, and later announced a curfew in the town. The government will “act sternly against groups that are inciting religious hatred,” Cabinet minister Rauff Hakeem said after a meeting with the president.

Nepal

It seems this nation is free from religious strife at this time, as it has undergone tumultuous political conflicts including a change in the form of Government from Monarchy to a democratic Republic.

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A full report will be made available upon request.

Mike Ghouse
IRF Roundtable – South Asia working group.
Mike@CenterforPluralism.com
(214) 325-1916

India’s Elite Institutions Are Facing a Credibility Crisis

Milan,


Thanks for the write up on India’s Elite Institutions,  you have precisely identified the problem and hope it leads to solutions.

You made a very powerful statement, a dire warning indeed, “This should concern Indians, but also foreign investors and governments seeking to do business with India. India’s democracy is its most important calling card, but its governing apparatus has failed to keep pace.”

I have expressed similar thoughts in my write up about the need to respect human rights. An online newspaper in Indian published my interview; 

How can International Religious Freedom Caucus exert its influence on the Indian government against atrocities against Muslims, Christians and Dalits?

The Americans (that includes all of us) are aware of what is going on, we are driven by our interests, and human rights are one along with business and security of our investments. Do you remember South Africa? American companies will pull out of India if they sense injustice and eventual chaos, hurting everyone. Any investor wants security for his investment. It is in the interests of Indian corporations as well to ensure that their investments are safe. We need responsible business people to be involved who will bring prosperity to all.

The success of a nation hinges on its two solid feet; economic prosperity which brings “sab ka vikas,” (development of all) not just “mitron ka vikas” (development of friends) and “sab ka saath,” (with everyone) where every Indian should feel included. That is a cohesive India, where no Indian feels excluded or lives in apprehension. Both the economy and social fabric must remain intact. One will not succeed without the other, otherwise what we will witness would a langda (lame) India and ultimately everyone will suffer.

We need to work on this. Being an Indian American, my interests are long-term sustainable security of India in terms of stable economy and cohesive social structure.    Full interview at http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/02/hindu-right-changes-come-when-people.html  

Mike Ghouse
Center for Pluralism
Washington, DC
(214) 325-1916
Mike@Centerforpluralism.com

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India’s Elite Institutions Are Facing a Credibility Crisis

MILAN VAISHNAV

February 20, 2018

The realities of India’s institutions are captured most evocatively by Lant Pritchett’s notion of a “flailing” state. Pritchett’s term refers to the fact that India’s public institutions have a Jekyll and Hyde quality to them: an exclusive set of elite agencies that are high-functioning and a patchwork of lower-level institutions that are not. As Pritchett wrote: “the head, that is the elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound and functional but this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs.”

If one were to ask a reasonably well-informed Indian to name which of the country’s apex institutions—the proverbial “head”—they held in high esteem, three would invariably appear near the top of the heap: the Election Commission (EC), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the Supreme Court. Indeed, these federal institutions are not only well regarded by many Indians, but are also considered by many developing democracies as models to be emulated.

Against this backdrop, one cannot help but reflect on recent events and wonder whether India’s elite institutions are as healthy as we had once thought. In the last 12 months, each of the aforementioned institutions has experienced a crisis of credibility. These events—and the systemic infirmities they point to—suggest that we should no longer take the health of these apex institutions for granted.

Start with EC, which is one of the world’s most respected elections agencies. It has historically benefitted from a robust constitutional mandate, which granted the body wide powers and significant independence from the executive. Whereas some developed democracies struggle to implement even rudimentary improvements to their electoral machinery, the EC routinely executes logistically complex elections for millions of voters while relying exclusively on electronic voting machines. But within the past one year, the EC’s judgement has been called into question on several occasions. Consider two examples.

In October, the EC broke from convention by announcing dates for elections in Himachal Pradesh while staying mum on Gujarat, despite the fact that these two states have followed nearly identical electoral calendars since 1998 (with the exception of 2002, when the assembly polls in Gujarat were delayed on account of riots). Typically, the EC holds elections together in states where the terms of the incumbent governments coincide. The chief election commissioner (CEC) A.K. Joti’s stated excuse for the delay was a desire not to disrupt flood relief work underway in the state. Several former CECs, men not eager to speak against their former agency, swiftly criticized the move. Former CEC T.S. Krishnamurthy called the delay an “avoidable controversy”. The Model Conduct of Code, which prohibits the government from announcing new public schemes on the eve of elections, “does not stand in the way of any emergency relief work”, he reasoned. Former CEC S.Y. Quraishi was similarly puzzled, stating that the EC’s delay raised “serious questions”. The reason for the strong reaction had to do with the perception that the EC was giving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gandhinagar an advantage by ceding it more time to announce populist schemes designed to woo voters, which is precisely what transpired.

A second questionable act was the EC’s about-face on the Narendra Modi government’s creation of a new political funding vehicle known as “electoral bonds”. These bonds create a mechanism for private actors to fund political parties through the banking system rather than cash (a good thing), but without the actor or the political party having to disclose a single rupee (a very bad thing). The EC, which has been agitating for greater transparency in political finance for decades, told a parliamentary panel in May 2017 that the scheme was a “retrograde step” because transparency would be “compromised”. Former CEC Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi demanded that the Indian people “have a right to know who has contributed to political parties”. Yet, Joti proclaimed in mid-January that the scheme was a “step in the right direction”. This was a disturbing flip-flop absent any change in the underlying material facts.

Next, we come to RBI, an agency with a respected track record on monetary policy, banking and finance. While the RBI has often tussled with the executive when it comes to the central bank’s independence, it has maintained high standards of competence and professionalism. Unfortunately, the bank’s credibility has taken a hit in the wake of the Modi government’s demonetisation exercise. The ruling party has maintained that notebandi was a call taken by RBI, although the facts suggest an alternative narrative. On 7 November 2016, the government advised the RBI Central Board that it ought to consider withdrawing Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes to mitigate the triple threat of counterfeiting, terror funding and black money. The very next day, RBI accepted the advice and that same evening Modi went on national television to announce the move.

So, either the RBI was used by the government or it genuinely backed the half-baked measure. Either way, the institution’s stature stood diminished—a position further supported by the foibles associated with the policy’s sloppy implementation. To make matters worse, RBI then prevaricated when it came to informing the public how much old currency had come back into the system post 8 November. It was finally forced to disclose in its August 2017 annual report that 99% of the notes that had ceased to be legal tender wound up in Indian banks—an embarrassment to the government. While it is true that the new Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has held the line on interest rates—much to the consternation of the executive—one cannot help but wonder whether institutional lines were crossed.

The third example of an elite institution grappling with credibility issues is the Supreme Court, whose internal fissures have played out in spectacularly public fashion. The Supreme Court has historically enjoyed widespread popular support, especially when compared to the highly uneven lower judiciary. Over time, however, a number of structural issues affecting its operations have gone unaddressed. One of these is the accumulation of power in the hands of the Chief Justice of India (CJI). The CJI is the “master of the rolls”, and therefore exercises considerable discretion both in setting up benches and in deciding what cases get heard. In an unprecedented January press conference, four Supreme Court justices accused CJI Dipak Misra of selectively setting up benches in order to shape the outcomes of particular cases pending before the court.

One notable example involves the case of the Prasad Educational Trust, a matter which the CJI had been overseeing. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the trust had retained a retired Odisha high court judge to “fix” the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision. When an NGO implored the apex court to set up a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the matter, Justice J. Chelameswar ordered the establishment of a five-judge Constitution Bench to consider its plea. The CJI quickly overruled his colleague, listing the matter before a bench of relatively junior justices on which he also figured. Misra took this decision despite the fact that he had been personally involved in the Prasad case—the very one that required an independent investigation into its handling.

Then of course there is the enigmatic subject of Justice B.H. Loya, a judge who presided over a case in a special CBI court in which BJP president Amit Shah stood accused of murder. After Loya’s unexpected death, the court cleared Shah of all wrongdoing, prompting many to speculate that Loya himself was murdered. Given the sensitive nature of the case, the Supreme Court was compelled to take it up, but Misra assigned it to a junior bench. Only after Misra’s colleagues failed to persuade him to constitute a more senior bench to hear the potentially explosive case did they decide to hold their controversial press conference.

Sceptics might respond to these examples by claiming they are aberrations linked to individual personalities, rather than hallmarks of institutional malaise. Such a reaction blinds us to the multiple systemic challenges India’s core federal institutions face. First, across the board, Indian institutions continually struggle with managing human capital, as evidenced by the unending morass concerning judicial appointments. Second, exogenous actions, like the passage of the Right to Information Act, have compelled greater accountability to the public. Yet the quality of external accountability is in doubt, as evidenced by how all three institutions have struggled to balance the demands of public justification with the temptation to hold on to discretion. Third, internal accountability mechanisms have largely foundered. In nearly all Indian institutions, power remains far too centralized in the hands of the chief. Fourth, political interference remains an ever-present obstacle. Much of this interference comes down to subverting behavioural norms rather than actual violations of the law. As US President Donald Trump has shown us, the grey area in between offers ample room to manoeuvre.

The meta-lesson from the trials and tribulations of India’s elite institutions is the stark divergence between the rule of law in practice and the rule of law on paper. This should concern Indians, but also foreign investors and governments seeking to do business with India. India’s democracy is its most important calling card, but its governing apparatus has failed to keep pace. For certain public functions, there is scope for institutional regeneration from below and state-level experimentation. Unfortunately, these remedies do not apply to India’s core federal institutions. Either government must tackle their challenges head on or risk facilitating greater institutional decay.

Milan Vaishnav is senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a co-editor of Rethinking Public Institutions In India (Oxford University Press, 2017).