Incidents of violence were reported in the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha constituency during the first phase of polling in the general elections on Friday, amid tight security measures in the northeastern state, according to The Hindu.

Miscreants fired at a polling station at Thamanpokpi, which is located in the Moirang Assembly segment, The Hindu reported. At least three persons were injured.

An incident of vandalism was reported at a polling station in the Thongju Assembly segment located in the Imphal East district, according to the newspaper.

Moirang and Imphal East district are in the Inner Manipur Lok Sabha constituency.

Both Lok Sabha constituencies in Manipur are polling on Friday. Voting in the Inner Manipur constituency is happening entirely on Friday. However, some Assembly segments in the Outer Manipur constituency will head for polls in the second phase on April 26.

As of 4 pm, the voter turnout in Manipur was 63%, according to the Election Commission.

In the 2019 general election, the final turnout in the state was 82.69%. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had won the Inner Manipur seat and the Naga People’s Front had bagged the other.

Manipur has been gripped by ethnic clashes between the tribal Kuki and the dominant Meitei communities since May. The violence has left 219 persons dead and displaced 60,000 people from their homes since May 3, according to figures released by the state government in February.

The members of the Meitei community account for 60% of the state’s population and are largely concentrated in the Imphal Valley.

The first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election began on Friday, with 102 parliamentary constituencies across 17 states and four Union Territories going to polls. Voting is also underway for the 92 Assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

Besides Manipur, the states that are voting in the first phase are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

The Indian embassy in the United Arab Emirates on Friday advised Indian passengers travelling to or through the Dubai airport to reschedule non-essential travel until operations normalise after unprecedented rainfall and floods in the city.

On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rainfall in the 75 years that records have been kept. The rains flooded Dubai, causing widespread damage to property and infrastructure, bringing much of the emirate to a standstill.

In its advisory, the Indian embassy said that airport authorities have advised that passengers may travel to the airport “only after final confirmation from their respective airlines regarding the departure date and time of their flights”.

The Indian diplomatic mission in Dubai said that while the authorities are trying to normalise operations at the airport “the situation is unprecedented”.

Watch: Unbelievable scenes of flooding in Dubai airport, streets, and malls after heavy rain in UAE

Flight operations at the Dubai International Airport, which is the busiest in the world by volume of international passenger traffic, has remained disrupted even as public transportation services have gradually resumed.

The airport started limiting the number of incoming flights from 12 pm on Friday. Emirates, one of the country’s flag carrier airlines, said it was suspending check-in for all passengers on its network travelling with onward connections through Dubai for the entirety of Friday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, India’s largest airlines IndiGo and Air India had cancelled several flights to Dubai.

A record 254 mm of rainfall was recorded in Al Ain, a town close to the country’s border with Oman. This was the highest rainfall ever in a 24-hour period since record-keeping began in 1949.

The country lacks drainage systems to cope with torrential rainfall.

Government schools across the country will remain closed till Friday as a precautionary measure.

Since 2002, the United Arab Emirates government has been cloud seeding to ensure water security. However, the country’s National Center of Meteorology said there had been no such cloud-seeding operations before or during the storm on Tuesday.

The New York Times quoted experts as saying that the deluge had likely been caused by a regular rainy weather system that may have been exacerbated by climate change.

The first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha election began on Friday, with 102 parliamentary constituencies across 17 states and four Union Territories going to polls. Voting is also underway for the 92 Assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

The states that will vote in the first phase of the Lok Sabha election Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

Elections will also be held in the Union territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

By 3 pm, West Bengal had recorded a voter turnout of 66.34%. While the turnout in Uttar Pradesh was 47.44%, Maharashtra had registered 44.12% voting. The figure in Bihar was the lowest at 39.73%, according to the Election Commission.

Mizoram had registered 49.77% voter turnout. Lakshadweep had recorded 43.98% voting.

Voting began at 7 am and will end at 6 pm in most seats.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to exercise their franchise in record numbers and particularly called upon young and first-time voters to cast their ballot in large numbers.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge urged people to carefully cast their votes and said that a “new era of economic empowerment and equal opportunities” beckons them. “The fight to protect our Constitution and Democracy begins today,” he said.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections commence today! As 102 seats across 21 States and UTs go to the polls, I urge all those voting in these seats to exercise their franchise in record numbers. I particularly call upon the young and first time voters to vote in large numbers. After all,…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 19, 2024

The fight to protect our Constitution and Democracy begins today.

My dear citizens, from 21 States and UTs who are voting in the First Phase of the Lok Sabha elections, I request you to carefully cast your vote.

A future where NYAY (JUSTICE) awaits you. A new era of Economic…

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) April 19, 2024

Clashes in West Bengal

Clashes between workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal were reported as soon as polling began in the state, according to Hindustan Times.

A functionary of the Trinamool Congress, Anant Barman, was also hospitalised after he was injured allegedly in a crude bomb attack in Bhetaguri.

The Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that members of the Trinamool Congress pelted stones in Chandamari to stop people from voting, reported The Indian Express. On the other hand, the Trinamool Congress accused the BJP of threatening voters in Begarkata.

Hours before polling began, a Central Reserve Police Force soldier was found dead inside the washroom of a polling booth in Mathabhanga, according to India Today. The soldier had sustained head injuries.

Over 16 crore voters across 1.87 lakh polling stations

The first phase is the largest of the seven phases in the elections that will end on June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

Over 18 lakh polling personnel have been deployed across 1.87 lakh polling stations in the first phase, PTI reported. There are a total of 16.63 crore registered voters in the first phase, of whom around 35.67 lakh are first-time voters.

Key candidates

Among the prominent candidates in the fray are eight Union ministers – Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal West, Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh, Jitendra Singh from Udhampur, Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner, Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar and Sanjeev Baliyan from Muzaffarnagar.

Among the prominent Opposition leaders in the fray in the first phase are Gaurav Gogoi from Jorhat, Karti Chidambaram from Sivaganga, Kanimozhi from Thoothukudi and Nakul Nath from Chhindwara.

Also read: Is the 2024 Lok Sabha election India’s last chance before the point of no return?

The Supreme Court on Friday directed district authorities to decide within three days on applications seeking permissions for public gatherings ahead of Lok Sabha or Assembly elections, reported Live Law.

The direction came on a public interest litigation filed by activists Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey.

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan told a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta that blanket prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure have been issued in the past six months for the whole duration of the Lok Sabha elections.

Bhushan told the court there has to be some “well-founded apprehension of breach of peace”.

When asked by the court to present any such orders by the district authorities, the advocate referred to one passed on March 16 by the district magistrate of Barmer.

“Lok Sabha elections have been announced by the Election Commission,” read the order. “As per the instructions of the Election Commission, the Lok Sabha elections should be conducted in a peaceful, free, fair, well-organised manner.”

It added: “No person will be able to organise a procession or public meeting without the prior written permission of the concerned returning officer but this restriction will not apply to marriage ceremonies and funeral processions.”

Bhushan said that the petitioners had asked for permission to conduct a “democracy yatra” to educate voters about exercising their democratic rights. “We asked for permission but nothing was given,” he was quoted as saying by India Today. “Within 48 hours, they should decide the application for permission.”

In an interim order that is applicable nationwide, the bench said: “We direct that if anyone submits an application to the competent authority, the same shall be decided within a period of three days from making of such application.”

The matter will be heard again in two weeks.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority has asked the Food Safety and Standards Authority to investigate claims that baby cereal products sold by Swiss food-processing conglomerate Nestlé in India contain added sugar, PTI reported on Friday.

The development comes after an investigation by the Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network found that Nestlé was selling products with added sugar to low-income countries. Experts maintain that sugar should not be added to foods fed to babies and young children because it is unnecessary and addictive.

However, infant cereals and formulas sold in the European market, including Switzerland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, did not have any added sugar, the investigation found.

Public Eye is a Swiss non-governmental organisation campaigning for fair globalisation and the International Baby Food Action Network is a network of public interest groups working to reduce morbidity and mortality among infants and young children globally.

In response to the report, Consumer Affairs Secretary and Central Consumer Protection Authority chief Nidhi Khare told PTI that she had written to the Food Safety and Standards Authority “to take cognisance of the report on Nestlé’s baby product”.

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also issued a notice to the Food Safety and Standards Authority about the report.

What the report said

According to the Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network report, all 15 Cerelac baby cereal products sold by Nestlé in India contain on average nearly three grams of added sugar per serving.

In South Africa too, all Cerelac baby cereals contain four grams or more of added sugar per serving and in Brazil, six out of eight such products sold by Nestlé contain an average of three grams of sugar per serving, they found.

On the other hand, infant cereals and formulas sold in the European market did not contain added sugar.

In a statement shared with Scroll on Thursday, a Nestlé India spokesperson said that the company’s “products manufactured in India are in full and strict compliance with CODEX standards [a commission established by the World Heath Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization] and local specifications [as required] pertaining to the requirements all nutrients including added sugars”.

The company added: “Over the past 5 years, we have already reduced added sugars by up to 30%, depending on the variant. We regularly review our portfolio and continue to innovate and reformulate our products to further reduce the level of added sugars, without compromising on nutrition, quality, safety, and taste.”

The report by the two organisations also showed that Cerelac wheat-based cereals, meant for consumption by six-month-old babies, contained over two grams of added sugar per serving in India, six grams in Brazil and over five grams in Ethiopia. The same product being sold in Germany and the United Kingdom did not contain any added sugar.

A video of Madhavi Latha, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, miming at shooting an arrow at a mosque during a procession drew criticism from the Opposition on Thursday. It said that such acts pose a threat to peace in the city.

The video appeared to have been shot on Wednesday during a Ram Navami procession, according to PTI.

Unacceptable provocation… BJP candidate from Hyderabad Madhavi Latha seen here pretending to shoot an arrow at a mosque during the Ram Navami procession in Hyderabad 👇🏼👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/CK1UWpJ8b3

— Akshita Nandagopal (@Akshita_N) April 18, 2024

Commenting on the video, Hyderabad MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the BJP was trying to destroy peace in the city, ANI reported.

“The people of Hyderabad and Telangana have seen the BJP's intentions,” he said. “I appeal to people to see what they are trying to do, and to use their votes wisely.”

Owaisi said that voters would not accept the BJP candidate’s “vulgar and provocative” action.

Latha, on her part, claimed that an “incomplete video” was being circulated in the media to spread negativity. However, she said: “…Even because of such video if any one’s sentiments are hurt then I would like to apologise as I respect all individuals.”

It has come to my notice that one video of mine is being circulated in media to create negativity.

I would like to clarify that it’s an incomplete video and even because of such video if any one’s sentiments are hurt then I would like to apologise as I respect all individuals.

— Kompella Madhavi Latha (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Kompella_MLatha) April 18, 2024

Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj, responding to a query about the BJP candidate’s action, said that such a video had not come to his notice, according to PTI.

The Maharashtra Chief Electoral Office on Thursday directed authorities in Pune to investigate Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s statement that he would give funds for development projects as long as voters chose the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the Lok Sabha elections, The Times of India reported.

The Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) had complained to the State Election Commission against Pawar.

“We have just received the complaint,” The Times of India quoted an unidentified official from the chief electoral office as saying. “We have asked the district officer to take cognisance of it and send a report.”

The Mahayuti alliance has fielded Sunetra Pawar, the deputy chief minister’s wife, from Baramati in the Lok Sabha elections against Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Supriya Sule. Sule has represented the parliamentary constituency since 2009.

On Wednesday, Ajit Pawar told a gathering in the Indapur town, which falls within the Baramati constituency, that his alliance would sanction as much funds as needed for development projects. “But if we are giving funds, we expect you to press the button next to our candidate’s symbol [on the Electronic Voting Machine] in the elections so that I will feel good about giving funds,” he said. “Otherwise, my hand will be restricted.”

Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Rohit Pawar said that the deputy chief minister was using funds to threaten voters who were not supporting him, adding that this was a violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the election commission that political parties have to follow while campaigning.

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday questioned Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan for over 12 hours in connection with alleged irregularities in appointments to the Delhi Waqf Board, reported The Hindu.

The case pertains to alleged irregularities in appointments and misappropriation of funds in the Delhi Waqf Board during Khan’s chairmanship between 2018 and 2022.

Late on Thursday, the MLA from Delhi’s Okhla constituency told media persons that he was called in for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate at 11 am following a direction from the Supreme Court. “I was questioned and my statement was recorded and now I am leaving,” he said.

#WATCH | Delhi: Amanatullah Khan, AAP MLA says, " I was called (by ED) for questioning, Supreme Court had directed me to appear so I had come at 11:00 am. I was questioned and my statement was recorded and now I am leaving..." pic.twitter.com/rkxs9v1xpi

— ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2024

Earlier in the day, the Aam Aadmi Party alleged that Khan had been arrested by the central agency. Party leaders Atishi, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Sanjay Singh also visited his residence after he had been taken in for questioning, reported News 18.

Atishi said the alleged arrest was an attack on the Aam Aadmi Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. “This is a conspiracy to break the Aam Aadmi Party by scaring its MLAs,” she told reporters outside Khan’s residence. “But we will not be scared.”

The Delhi unit of the Aam Aadmi Party criticised Khan’s alleged arrest in a social media post and said that “democracy is in danger”.

“Today, another page has been added to the list of BJP’s [ruling Bharatiya Janata Party] failed attempts to destroy the Aam Aadmi Party,” the party said.

लोकतंत्र ख़तरे में है,
तानाशाही बेलगाम है ‼️

आम आदमी पार्टी को खत्म करने की भाजपा की नाकाम कोशिशों में आज एक और पन्ना जुड़ चुका है।

फर्जी मामला बना कर AAP विधायक @KhanAmanatullah को भाजपा की ED ने किया गिरफ़्तार। pic.twitter.com/GwmMFgE4fx

— Aam Aadmi Party Delhi (@AAPDelhi) April 18, 2024

Khan had also posted on social media a pre-recorded message on Thursday ahead of leaving the Enforcement Directorate’s office. The MLA alleged in the video that he had been arrested as he had not testified against Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal. He also said the central agencies had been troubling him for over a year.

“Their attempt has been to get me to resign,” he can be heard saying in the video. “They want me to leave [Delhi chief minister] Arvind Kejriwal and testify against him.”

Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor policy case on March 21 and is currently in Tihar Jail.

Delhi Waqf Board case

On September 16, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Branch, which reports to Delhi’s lieutenant governor, arrested Khan hours after the police conducted raids at multiple locations related to the MLA.

Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Kumar Shrivastava had claimed that officials found money trails in Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana and Uttarakhand.

Khan was eventually granted bail on September 28, 2022.

In October, the Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at three premises linked to Khan in the national capital and alleged that he had received Rs 4 crore in cash for appointments to the Delhi Waqf Board and invested the “proceeds of crime” for purchasing immovable assets in the name of his associates.

In January, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a chargesheet in the case. However, Khan was not named as an accused person.

On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed Khan’s anticipatory bail petition in the case after the Enforcement Directorate had on April 11 moved a Delhi court seeking an arrest warrant against the legislator under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The Supreme Court directed Khan to heed the summons from the central agency and cooperate in the investigation. He had been summoned on April 18.

However, it also said that the non-bailable warrant sought by the Enforcement Directorate against Khan would not be granted. It said the Enforcement Directorate should not arrest Khan unless there is sufficient material against him.

Khan moved the top court after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him anticipatory bail in the case on March 11.

News television channel DD News, the flagship channel of state-run broadcaster Doordarshan, on Tuesday launched a new saffron-coloured logo that replaces its red one.

The state-run news channel unveiled the new logo in a social media post and said that while its values remained the same, it is “now available in a new avatar”.

While our values remain the same, we are now available in a new avatar. Get ready for a news journey like never before.. Experience the all-new DD News!

We have the courage to put:

Accuracy over speed
Facts over claims
Truth over sensationalism

Because if it is on DD News, it… pic.twitter.com/YH230pGBKs

— DD News (@DDNewslive) April 16, 2024

Several social media users criticised the change and said it amounted to the “saffronisation” of the state-run broadcaster. The colour saffron is often associated with Hindutva, an ideology espoused by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Former Prasar Bharti Chief Executive Officer Jawhar Sircar said that he has been watching Doordarshan’s saffronisation with alarm. “It’s not Prasar Bharati any more – it’s Prachar [propaganda] Bharti,” he remarked.

Doordarshan is one of the divisions of public broadcaster Prasar Bharti, the other being All India Radio.

National broadcaster Doordarshan colours its historic flagship logo in saffron!

As its ex-CEO, I have been watching its saffronisation with alarm and feel —
it’s not Prasar Bharati any more
— it’s Prachar Bharati! https://t.co/a2r6zBLc3C

— Jawhar Sircar (@jawharsircar) April 18, 2024

Saffronisation of Doordarshan

National Broadcaster DD News unveils its new logo on Ramanavami.

This will be used as logo for the DD henceforth pic.twitter.com/HTc33fsA9c

— Sridhar Ramaswamy శ్రీధర్ రామస్వామి ✋🇮🇳 (@sridharramswamy) April 17, 2024

They keep hammering nails in the coffin: https://t.co/BeCAfCnEZ7

— Saib Bilaval (@SaibBilaval) April 18, 2024

In March, Doordarshan National had said that it would telecast live the aarti ceremony held at the Ram temple in Ayodhya at 6.30 am every day.

The Ram temple was inaugurated in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22.

The temple, which is still under construction, is being built on the site of the Babri mosque, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born.

Earlier this month, the state-run broadcaster telecast the film The Kerala Story.

The film, directed by Sudipto Sen, was released on May 5. It claims to depict how women from Kerala were converted to Islam and recruited by the Islamic State terrorist group.

A day before the film was broadcast, Kerala Chief Minister and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Pinarayi Vijayan said that the state-run broadcaster should withdraw its decision to air it, on grounds that the broadcast could “exacerbate communal tensions” ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Vijayan said that the film incited polarisation.

If the Bharatiya Janata Party under Prime Minister Narendra succeeds in winning a third five-year term in the Lok Sabha elections, many fear that India’s religious minorities, especially Muslims, will see their second-class status formalised in law and practice.

But for Hindu supremacy to be fully realised, which is the stated aim of Hindu nationalists, they will have to expunge India of any Muslim influence, of which there is much historically. When Indians cast their vote in the coming weeks, they would do well to be aware of the weight of their electoral choices.

A rhetorical question

In a article in January, political scientists, Ashutosh Varshney and Connor Staggs ask the rhetorical question “Is India under Narendra Modi…beginning to resemble the American South under Jim Crow?” This was a reference to state and local laws introduced in the southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th century that enforced racial segregation.

The authors explain that Jim Crow was aimed at blunting the Reconstruction Amendments that abolished slavery and gave equal rights to African Americans. It was designed to make African Americans second-class citizens. Similarly, in India, Hindu nationalists seek to diminish the constitutionally guaranteed equal citizenship of Muslims and turn them into marginalised, less than fully equal citizens.

Jim Crow laws lasted for almost a century, ending only in the 1960s. Varshney and Staff claim that since Hindu nationalism is in its early phase, it could still be forestalled before it is institutionalised via political and legislative processes. They suggest that the Lok Sabha elections in April-May present an opportunity for Indians to do that.

But where the parallels between Jim Crow and Hindu nationalism end is in their ultimate goals. While Jim Crow merely targetted the equal citizenship of African Americans, Hindu nationalism has a more totalitarian goal.

What does Hindutva want?

To fully grasp the end-goals of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, it is necessary to read its foundational texts. There are none more seminal than We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who led the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from 1940 to 1973.

The Sangh is considered the heart and soul of the vast network of Hindu nationalists organisations, of which the BJP is the political wing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a life-time member and former official of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, credited the organisation for grooming him to political leadership.

In his text, Golwalkar writes of his wariness of “hostile elements” within the country that “act as menace to national security”, singling out Muslims as the number one threat, followed by Christians. His solution to “the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic” was offering the “foreign element” two options: “Either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow it to do so, and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race.”

Another of the movement’s foundational texts is Essentials of Hindutva (1923) by Vinayak Damodar Savakar, who is considered by many to be the foremost Hindutva thinker. In Essentials, he provided Hindu nationalism with an ideology, which in a nutshell claims that India was special as it offered something nobody else could – Hindu thought. This unique Hindu supremacy, Savarkar believed, was under threat because of the presence of non-Hindus.

Savarkar called on Hindus, fragmented as they were, to unite and reclaim their supremacy. Violence against Muslims, Savarkar said, was the means to achieve that goal.

Golwalkar drew on Savarkar’s thoughts. He also admired the race theories of fascist Germany and Italy and recommended that Hindusthan, the land of Hindus, should profit from their lessons. In We or Our Nationhood Defined, he wrote: “To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of its semitic races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here.”

Golwalkar saw the world in apocalyptic terms. His objective was clear: “To rule over the world was the heavenly task ordained to Hindu race.” He called upon Hindus to “rally to the Hindu standard, the bhagwa dhwaj [and] set our teeth in grim determination to wipe out the opposing forces”.

Some Hindutva leaders today have explicitly articulated this vision. For instance, in March 2020, a Hindu priest named Yati Narsinghanand, who is the president of Akhil Bharatiya Sant Parishad (All India Priests Council) and considered close to the BJP, was reported to have told his followers, “Humanity can only be saved if Islam is finished off. Hindus: Read the Gita along with Mahabharat, and learn how to die fighting.”

This call was made around the time BJP leader, Kapil Mishra was leading processions in Delhi calling for action against the mainly Muslim participants in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, chanting the mantra: “Desh ke ghaddaron ko, goli maro saalon ko.” Shoot dead the bastard traitors.

In 2023, another BJP leader, an MLA from Telangana, T Raja Singh, at a rally in Mumbai, urged his audience to take to arms. “I would like to request all my Hindu brothers that the coming time is the time of struggle, it is the time of war,” he said. “Every Hindu is obliged to unite. Hindu should not become one who rings temple bells, but rather he should become a Hindu who kills landyas”, a derogatory reference to Muslims.

At a public meeting of Hindu priests in December 2021, in the holy town of Haridwar, a star speaker,Annapurna Maa, the general secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, was heard exhorting her audience: “If you want to eliminate their population, then be ready to kill them and be ready to go to jail. If only a 100 of us become soldiers and each of us kills 20 lakhs of them, we will be victorious…”

Modi is circumspect in his speeches now, but he was not always so. As chief minister of Gujarat, soon after the pogrom there in 2002 during his term that left at least 2,000 dead, mostly Muslim, he was often reported in his public speeches to evoke visions of a religious struggle of good over evil.

“This is the holy place of shakti [godly power], the power for extermination of asuras [demons],” he said in one speech. “We have resolved to destroy and stamp out all forces of evil…”

The montage that is India

Beyond the goal of cleansing the Hindu land of the “cancer” to save the nation, there is another equally compelling reason for the Hindutva project to be more than just about marginalising Muslims.

It has to do with the fact that India today is, in the words of historians Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot, “an intricate montage assembled from assorted material”, of which the Islamic is a critical element. The desire on the part of Hindutva leaders to fully realise Hindu supremacy will also require extirpating Muslim life and Muslim imprint from today’s India.

Historians view the era between 1200 AD and 1750 AD (Medieval India in history textbooks) as the foundation for the highly diverse human landscape of modern South Asia, with its pluralistic culture that draws on both Indic and Islamic traditions. In their magisterial India Before Europe (2006), Asher and Talbot show how the Central Asian ethnic heritage, Persian cultural orientation and Islamic religious affiliation of North India’s ruling elite class in the period after 1200 AD led to the dissemination of many innovative elements through the subcontinent.

Whilst acknowledging that the encounter between Indic and Islamic peoples and cultures led to short-term conflicts, Asher and Talbot note the vast degree to which cultural practices inspired by Perso-Islamic traditions became integral to the subcontinent as a whole in the long run. South Asia’s art and architecture, its political rituals, its administrative and military technologies and even its popular religions were deeply inflected by the new forms.

This composite culture, the authors note, forms the basis of India that exists today, in its foods, dressing and music, languages that people speak, the built architecture, and its popular religions, among others.

In the south of the peninsula, the Vijaynagara empire (1350-1550) drew significantly from Islamicate influence in military technology, secular architecture, courtly dress, as well as local languages.

The Deccan Bahmani and their successor Qutub Shah and Adil Shah rulers, paid back in kind, especially in their contributions to local languages, Teulgu and Marathi. In Bengal, the Hussain Shahi (1493-1538) rulers adopted local customs, such as purification by the water of Ganga at coronation ceremonies, and the Sufi poet, Saiyid Sultan (d 1648) published a genealogy of prophets of Islam, called Nabi Vamsha that included the Hindu god, Krishna.

In Gujarat amid the flourishing literary tradition that the Ahmad Shah rulers patronised, was the Sanskrit work Raja-Vinoda (pleasure of the kings), written in honour of the ruler, Mahmud Begada (1460s), presenting the sultan as an ideal Indic king, whose court was graced by the presence of the Hindu deity Saraswati, the goddess of learning.

However, it was the Mughals, especially Akbar (1556-1605), who helped create a state that was more Indian in character. The aesthetic that developed under Akbar’s guidance was composed of a fusion of Timurid and Indic models, and which went on to set a standard for subsequent Moghul arts and culture, including food, architecture and courtly dress and culture, Asher and Talbot argue.

The tendencies towards synthesis had significant consequences. Man Singh, the highest ranking noble in Akbar’s court, next only to his sons, built temples throughout the domain, including the Govinda Deva temples in Vrindavan, the largest in North India, in a recognisably Mughal style. This helped to spread Akbar’s belief in multiculturalism, just as Akbar’s minister Abdul Rahim Khaan-e-Khanan did by commissioning an illustrated Ramayana.

There were other enduring contributions too, of this age and milieu, outside the courtly realm. A major influence in the early part of this period was Sufis, and their dispersal, throughout much of the subcontinent. By the 14th century the practice of Sama, devotional musical congregations, and Urs, annual pilgrimage to the shrines of Sufi saits, had become established Sufi traditions.

Sufi shrines drew both Muslims and Hindus, and were themselves influenced by local traditions, including the Shattari Sufis of Bengal drawing on Nath yogis, and Rishi Sufis of Kashmir who led celibate lives and practised vegetarianism.

Sufism also contributed to reform in Hindu tradition, starting in the 14th century with the rise of sants, who like Sufis, were mystics, believed in a formless god, and extolled devotion to god as a primary religious practice. Kabir, the most influential, attacked rituals and customs of traditional religions, and excoriated the caste system. Guru Nanak (born 1469), the founder of the Sikh tradition, also came from the same context.

Notably, Sufism also influenced the Hindu Bhakti tradition, as the historian of Indian religions John S Hawley points out. This is evident in the commonalities the latter began to show in its focus on love for god, as did Sufis, the use of poetry and music in worship, and an ethics of compassion for others. Tulsidas’ Ramacharitmanas (1575), crafted in about the same time and the middle Gangetic Awadhi milieu of Sufi poets, Malik Mohammad Jayasi (Padmavat, 1540) and Mir Sayyid Manjhan (Madhumalati, 1545), exemplified this shift. Ram, an incarnation of Vishnu, became the preeminent object of devotion.

It is these constructions of a cosmopolitan Indian paradigm, resulting in innovations that spoke to both traditions that Hindu nationalists must disentangle and destroy to be able to achieve their vision of a Hindu supremacist India. This will undoubtedly leave much violence in its trail.

‘Authentic fantasies’ of suffering

These historical accounts of co-living and co-production contradict Hinduva claims that have much purchase today, in popular as well as scholarly circles about the thousand years of conflict between Muslim “outsiders” and “local” Hindus and of forced conversions and the wanton destruction of temples. Hindu nationalists have developed a wide repertoire of suffering and victimhood of Hindus at the hands of Muslims. Evidence to support their thesis is slim.

Richard Eaton, one of the foremost historians of medieval India, shows how the claim that Islam spread in South Asia by the sword is incongruent with the geography of Muslim conversions in South Asia. There is an inverse relationship between the degree of Muslim political penetration and the degree of conversion to Islam, he notes. Most conversions happening in the north west and north east – Punjab and Bengal, farthest away from centres of Muslim power.

As to temple destruction, Eaton found, over a span of more than five centuries from 1192 to 1729, “some eighty instances of temple desecration”, well short of the 60,000 claimed by Hindu nationalists. Typically, the desecrated temples would have been associated with the authority of an enemy kingdom. The instances of desecrations followed long-established pattern in India, of temples having been natural sites for the contestation of kingly authority, well before the coming of Muslim Turks, including their destruction. Among most recent examples was the destruction in the 10th century of the Pratihara temple of Kalapriya near Jamuna, by the Rashtrakuta king Indra III.

But as the Bosnian historian Edin Hajdarpasic, shows from his study of Balkan nationalism in the 19th century, enthusiastic depictions of suffering convey the essence of a political threat more vividly than simple facts or documentary narratives, a phenomenon he calls “authentic fantasy”. Hindu nationalists, themselves inspired by European nationalist movements at the turn of the 19th century, relied much on the construction of suffering and victimhood of Hindus, however divorced from facts.

Hindu nationalists in power today, are seeking to inflict retribution for their perceived sufferings by rewriting history. In some cases, this has taken physical forms – such as in the destruction in 1992 of the 15th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya, a criminal act that was legitimised by the Supreme Court of India in 2019. Claims for several other historical mosques to be converted into temples, have been set in motions across the country.

Elsewhere, place names have been changed to erase any hint of their Muslim heritage. Allahabad is now Prayagraj, Mughalsarai station is Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction, Aurangabad is Sambhajinagar and Gulbarga is Kalaburagi. Not satisfied with occasional erasures, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has thought fit to change high school history and politics textbooks by significantly altering and in some cases, fully scrapping the sections on Mughal history.

The act of political forgetting targets minorities to deprive them of history, of the right to narrate, of the capacity for recognition. History tells us, it is also a precursor to violence. As eminent historians, Aditya and Mridula Mukherjee noted recently, “….genocide of a community is often preceded by the community being demonised, their names changed, their history being erased”, claiming “these processes have begun in India and open calls for genocide of Muslims are being given in various parts of the country with amazing impunity”.

More than Jim Crow South, the history of the Balkans in the late 19th century and post-Yugoslavia 20th century, provides a better guide to understanding the future of minorities in India today.

Bosnian historian Hajdarpasic’s account of Balkan history alerts us to the real consequences of the claims of victimhood. Nationalists there used stories of suffering not only to inspire collective sacrifice but also to encourage mass violence against entire communities perceived as threats.

He demonstrates how certain stories of victimisation in the region, long outlived their original inspirations. Decades after overthrowing Turkish rule, Serbian nationalists could revive narratives about Turk-like enemies even in the late 20th century, with catastrophic consequences.

It is in such violent contestations borne out of “authentic fantasies” of past sufferings that Hindu nationalists of today – following that of Savarkar and other Hindutva ideologues – seek to create Hindu supremacy, by waging permanent war against Muslims and other “foreign elements”.

Already United Nations experts are alerting us to the fact that “India risks becoming one of the world’s main generators of instability, atrocities and violence, because of the massive scale and gravity of the violations and abuses targeting mainly religious and other minorities, such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others.”

Mass atrocity experts are warning: “If nothing is done to address these risks, India may continue to experience a rise in the number of violent (and fatal) attacks against religious minorities, an escalation in the scale of the violence, and an increased level of state involvement in atrocities.”

The burden on Indian voters to use the ballot to forestall the institutionalisation of Hindu nationalism, before it reaches a point of no return, is therefore, even heavier.

Sajjad Hassan is a researcher of conflicts and peace-building in an uncertain world.

Also read:

In BJP’s outreach to Kerala Christians, why are some religious leaders paving its path?

All 15 Cerelac baby cereal products sold by Swiss food-processing conglomerate Nestlé in India contain on average nearly three grams of added sugar per serving, an investigation by Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network has found.

Public Eye is a Swiss non-governmental organisation campaigning for fair globalisation and the International Baby Food Action Network is a network of public interest groups working to reduce morbidity and mortality among infants and young children globally.

In South Africa too, all Cerelac baby cereals contain four grams or more of added sugar per serving and in Brazil, six out of eight such products sold by Nestlé contain an average of three grams of sugar per serving, they found.

However, the investigation also found that all infant cereals and formulas sold in the European market, including Switzerland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, did not have any added sugar.

In a statement shared with Scroll, a Nestlé India spokesperson said that the company’s “products manufactured in India are in full and strict compliance with CODEX standards [a commission established by the World Heath Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization] and local specifications (as required) pertaining to the requirements all nutrients including added sugars”.

“Over the past 5 years, we have already reduced added sugars by up to 30%, depending on the variant,” the statement read. “We regularly review our portfolio and continue to innovate and reformulate our products to further reduce the level of added sugars, without compromising on nutrition, quality, safety, and taste.”

The report by the two organisations also showed that Cerelac wheat-based cereals, meant for consumption by six-month-old babies, contained over two grams of added sugar per serving in India, six grams in Brazil and over five grams in Ethiopia. The same product being sold in Germany and the United Kingdom did not contain any added sugar.

The sales of Cerelac baby cereals in India surpassed over Rs 20,000 crore in 2022. In Brazil, Nestlé sold baby cereal worth over Rs 12,500 crore in the same year.

According to Rodrigo Vianna, epidemiologist and professor at the Department of Nutrition of the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, the company adding sugar to baby food is “a big concern”.

“Sugar should not be added to foods offered to babies and young children because it is unnecessary and highly addictive,” Vianna told Public Eye. “Children get used to the sweet taste and start looking for more sugary foods, starting a negative cycle that increases the risk of nutrition-based disorders in adult life.” These include obesity and other chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Nigel Rollins, a scientist at the World Health Organization, said that Nestlé was showing a “double standard that cannot be justified” by adding high quantities of sugar to products sold in low-income countries, an act he described as “problematic both from a public health and ethical perspective”. Rollins said this could be a way “to get children accustomed to a certain level of sugar at a very early age so that they prefer products high in sugar”.

Also read: Only 23% of Indian toddlers and infants get a balanced diet. Educating women can help change that

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday named Union minister Narayan Rane as its candidate for Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency, wresting the seat from Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s Kiran Samant. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will have to contest elections from “someplace across the oceans” in the future. Congress’ Jairam Ramesh, meanwhile, announced that Puducherry will be given full statehood if the INDIA bloc comes to power after the polls.

Here’s a look at today’s top developments:

• In its thirteenth list of candidates for the general elections, the BJP named Narayan Rane as its pick for the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat in Maharashtra. After the announcement, Shiv Sena leader Uday Samant said that his party’s candidate for the seat, Kiran Samant, would withdraw from the contest would work to ensure the victory of its Mahayuti alliance partner, reported The Indian Express. The alliance includes the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party. Rane will contest the seat against Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) candidate Vinayak Raut, the sitting MP.

• West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose on Thursday called off his visit to Cooch Behar on the Election Commission’s advice, reported The Indian Express. Bose had intended to oversee the election process during his now-cancelled tour. Bose alleged an attempt to “politicise the governor’s office” and said that “no one can restrict the movement of a Governor”.

• Speaking to the press on Wednesday, BJP leader and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said that Rahul Gandhi “ran away” to Kerala after losing his seat in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, reported PTI. “In future he may have to cross the oceans and contest election from somewhere else,” said Yadav, adding that Gandhi would be hard pressed to find a “safe seat” to contest from in future elections. He also said that the BJP would win all 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, including Chhindwara, which is known to be a Congress stronghold.

• Ahead of polling for the lone Lok Sabha seat from Puducherry, in Tamil Nadu, the Congress on Thursday reiterated its promise that the Union territory will be granted full statehood if the INDIA bloc comes to power at the Centre. “Last year was the 14th time that the Puducherry Assembly passed a resolution demanding statehood,” said party leader Jairam Ramesh in a social media post. “In 2024, the INDIA Coalition’s Government will hear the voice of the people of Puducherry.”

Why Puducherry cannot trust the Bharatiya Jumla Party:

• March 2023: BJP MLAs support assembly resolution demanding full statehood
• July 2023: Amit Shah declares UT status will continue “for now”
• April 2024: Puducherry missing from the BJP manifesto

In 2021, the… pic.twitter.com/bw5bEnZ0rF

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 18, 2024

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is in jail in the liquor policy case, is deliberately eating sweets and mangoes to raise his blood sugar, the Enforcement Directorate alleged in a Delhi court on Thursday, Bar and Bench reported.

The Aam Aadmi Party, on the other hand, alleged a conspiracy to kill the Kejriwal in jail by denying him insulin and other medicines for his diabetes.

Zoheb Hossain, the counsel representing the central law enforcement agency, alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party chief, who is diabetic, plans to apply for bail on medical grounds citing fluctuations in his blood sugar levels.

The court was hearing an application moved by Kejriwal seeking permission to monitor his sugar levels continuously and to consult his doctor.

Advocate Vivek Jain, representing Kejriwal, objected to the Enforcement Directorate’s claims and said that the agency was making allegations “only for the media”. However, he withdrew the plea and said that that he would file a better application.

The court sought a report from Tihar Jail officials about Kejriwal’s dietary chart, Bar and Bench reported. The hearing in the matter will resume on Friday.

“The Enforcement Directorate has repeatedly lied in the court,” Delhi minister Atishi said in a press conference later. “ED told the court that Arvind Kejriwal is drinking sweet tea and eating sweets…[He] is allowed tea and sweets with a sweetener prescribed by his doctor.”

Here is what Arvind Kejriwal has consumed as food items between 2nd April and 17th April

The ED has alleged that Kejriwal has been intentionally consuming foods that spike up sugar levels, in order to create a basis for bail by citing fluctuations in his blood sugar level. pic.twitter.com/m8RHacncb1

— IANS (@ians_india) April 18, 2024

Atishi said that Kejriwal has had diabetes for the past 30 years and has been advised to keep bananas, toffees or chocolates in case of a medical emergency. “Because when someone has serious diabetes, his sugar level can fall suddenly,” she said. “Sudden fall in sugar level can also be life-threatening.”

अरविंद केजरीवाल जी की जान लेने का षड्यंत्र रचा जा रहा

▪️ दिल्ली के लोकप्रिय मुख्यमंत्री @ArvindKejriwal जी को BJP हरा नहीं सकती है। जिसके बाद इन लोगों ने केजरीवाल जी की जान लेने की साजिश करना शुरू कर दिया है।

▪️ ED अरविंद केजरीवाल जी को जेल में मिलने वाला घर का बना हुआ खाना… pic.twitter.com/3dt8Kpnsak

— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) April 18, 2024

Kejriwal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 21 and is currently in Tihar Jail. On Monday, the court extended his judicial custody until April 23.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader has challenged his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the Supreme Court. The court has sought the agency’s response in the matter by April 24.

While rejecting the chief minister’s plea, the High Court had said on April 9 that the statements of Hyderabad-based businessman Sarath Chandra Reddy and Telugu Desam Party leader Raghav Magunta, two persons accused in the case who later turned approvers – or government witnesses – could not be doubted.

Hours before Kejriwal’s arrest, electoral bond data released by the Election Commission showed a company linked to Reddy had donated Rs 5 crore to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 2022, just five days after Reddy was taken into custody.

Another Rs 25 crore was donated to the BJP after Reddy turned approver in the case.

Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, the father of Raghav Magunta, got a Lok Sabha election ticket from the Telugu Desam Party, an ally of the BJP, on March 29.

The Enforcement Directorate is investigating allegations of money laundering in the liquor policy case based on the first information report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The two central agencies have alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government modified Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor excise policy by increasing the commission of wholesalers from 5% to 12%. This allegedly facilitated the receipt of bribes from wholesalers who had a substantial market share and turnover.

The additional chief electoral officer in Goa has referred to the Election Commission a complaint alleging that the state government signed a mining lease with Vedanta Limited in violation of the Model Code of Conduct, reported The Indian Express on Thursday.

The Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the election commission that political parties, candidates and governments have to follow while campaigning. The guidelines came into effect on March 16 when the poll body announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections.

On April 5, the non-governmental organisation Goa Foundation filed a complaint with the chief electoral officer in Goa, alleging that the lease deed between the state government and Vedanta Limited for resuming mining in Bicholim Mining Block 1 was signed on March 22.

The organisation alleged that the agreement was “now being used by the government to win votes by informing voters that mining has resumed in Goa”, reported The Indian Express.

Claude Alvares, the director of the Goa Foundation, claimed the purpose of the lease was to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the state, according to Hindustan Times.

The office of the state’s chief electoral officer subsequently sought a response to the complaint from the Directorate of Mines and Geology. In its reply, the state government said signing the lease deed was a “contractual obligation” and did not violate the Model Code of Conduct.

“The MCC prohibits the signing of new agreements or MoUs [memorandum of understanding] where the government is a party without prior clearance from the Election Commission,” said the department. “However, it is essential to recognise that the execution of the mining lease in Vedanta’s case was not a new agreement. It was a continuation of an existing contractual commitment and statutory requirement predating the MCC.”

The state government also said that the process of auctioning the mine had started on September 30, 2022, and was required to be concluded by April 12, 2024.

The additional chief electoral officer, however, said the government’s response was “not satisfactory”, according to The Indian Express.

In a letter to the Election Commission, the officer said: “It is observed that the mining lease deed executed by the department though may amount to be part of the same contractual commitment, however, it is an independent agreement and since it was executed during the Model Code of Conduct period, it was binding on the part of the department to obtain prior permission of Election Commission of India.”

A Hindutva mob vandalised a school run by a Christian congregation in Telangana’s Mancherial district on Tuesday after the principal told some Hindu students not to wear saffron-coloured clothes to class without permission, reported The Indian Express.

The incident occurred in St Mother Teresa English Medium School in Kannepalli village. The principal had reportedly asked the Hindu students, who were wearing saffron clothes in observance of the religious custom of Hanuman Deeksha, to bring their parents to school.

On Tuesday, a discussion between the parents and the school administration turned violent.

“The principal told the students to come in uniform and that if they wanted to wear saffron clothes, they had to get permission,” Mancherial Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Kumar told the newspaper. “That triggered the parents.”

He added: “It was a Tuesday and there was a temple nearby and all this escalated and led to vandalism.” Tuesday is a popular day in Hinduism for praying to the deity Hanuman.

Videos of the incident that were shared on social media showed a mob in saffron clothes vandalising the school amid cries of “Jai Sri Ram”. The mob assaulted school principal, smeared vermillion on his face and forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” as well.

“It was a miscommunication and false news was spread on social media leading to over 500 people reaching the school on Tuesday morning,” Father Jaimon Joseph, a member of the Missionary Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament that runs the school told The Indian Express. He said that the vandalism continued for nearly four hours and alleged that the attack was pre-planned.

“Had their [students’] parents even telephoned us, we would have granted the permission,” Joseph said. “On Tuesday morning, one of the students still came in saffron clothes and we did not stop the student. By then, a huge mob came to school and attacked us.”

The police have registered two first information reports based on complaints by the parents and the school administration. A student’s parents said in their complaint that his son and two of his classmates studying in Class 4 were not allowed to enter the school as they were wearing a “Hanuman Mala deeksha” dress.

The parents alleged that the school’s principal intentionally insulted their religious sentiments and promoted enmity between religions. The school administration in their complaint named four suspects for trespassing, wrongfully restraining the school principal and physically assaulting him. They said that a statue of Mother Teresa, along with the school’s gates, had been damaged by the mob and claimed a loss of worth Rs 30,000.

The incident was condemned by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as “abhorrent and unjustifiable”.

“We urge the authorities to swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice and ensure the safety of minority communities,” the party said in a post on social media.

We are appalled by the recent attack on St. Mother Teresa English Medium School in Telangana's Mancherial district. The vandalism and assault on Father Jaimon Joseph, over baseless accusations, are abhorrent and unjustifiable. We urge the authorities to swiftly bring the… pic.twitter.com/BxFgGaP5cn

— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) April 18, 2024

The Election Commission on Thursday rejected claims that Electronic Voting Machines had registered extra votes in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party during a mock poll in Kerala, reported The Indian Express.

This was during a hearing in the Supreme Court on a batch of petitions seeking the tallying of all Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips to verify votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines.

The bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta reserved its verdict in the case, Live Law reported. The first phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections begins on Friday.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms, told the court that a report published by Manorama Online had cited complaints raised in connection with the mock polls conducted using Electronic Voting Machines in Kerala’s Kasaragod Lok Sabha constituency.

The report said that the ruling Left Democratic Front in the state and the United Democratic Front had submitted complaints to the district collector stating that at least four of the Electronic Voting Machines had erroneously recorded extra votes in favour of the BJP.

In response, the court told Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, representing the Election Commission, to look into the claim. Later in the day, the poll panel told the court that it had received a report from the polling authorities and that the claim was “false”, The Indian Express reported.

The Election Commission also informed the court that the manufacturer of the Electronic Voting Machines did not know which button would be allocated to which candidate, or the constituency to which the machine would be sent, the newspaper reported.

The poll body told the court that it is impossible to tamper with the Electronic Voting Machines “at any stage”, reported The Hindu. Election officers press the “close” button on a control unit attached to the machine at the end of polling, after which the machines cannot accept any more votes. The presiding officers also record when the machine begins to accept votes and when it stops, the newspaper reported.

“After the close of polling…the ballot unit is disconnected from the control unit and kept separately in their carrying cases and sealed with paper slips on which the polling agents sign,” the Election Commission told the court. At the time of counting votes, the total number of votes recorded by the control unit is tallied with that of the ballot unit, the poll body said.

“If there is any discrepancy, the counting agents of the candidates can request the counting of VVPAT paper slips,” the Election Commission said.

The poll panel also told the court that there was no inconsistency between the votes polled and the declared results of the 2019 general elections, Live Law reported. The discrepancy was with the live voter turnout data uploaded on its website and not with the Electronic Voting Machines, the panel said.

Watch: Indian elections: How secure is the EVM-VVPAT process?

The case

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail is a machine that prints a paper slip of the candidate’s name, serial number and the party’s symbol after a voter has cast their vote. To avoid election fraud, it displays the paper slip for seven seconds for the voters to check if their vote has been cast correctly, for their chosen candidate.

The paper slip then drops down to a locked compartment that only the polling agent can access. The slips are not handed over to the voters. The collected slips can be used to audit voting data stored electronically.

After a 2019 Supreme Court order, Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips from only five randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly segment are verified.

The court has been hearing petitions seeking 100% verification of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail slips.

On Tuesday, Bhushan told the court that most European countries had gone back to ballot papers.

In response, Datta said that conducting elections in India was a humongous task that would not be possible for any European country to conduct. “We have to repose some trust and confidence in somebody,” he said. “Of course, they are accountable… But don’t try to bring down the system like this.”

Bhushan said that the petitioners were not claiming that the Electronic Voting Machines were being manipulated. “What we are saying is that EVMs [Electronic Voting Machines] can be manipulated because both EVM as well as the VVPAT [Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips] have a programmable chip.”

He also told the bench that the Election Commission had said that it could not share the source code of the Electronic Voting Machines chips as it was the intellectual property of the manufacturer.

The advocate claimed that the machines were assembled by two Public Sector Undertakings – the Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronics Limited – that had several members of the BJP as its directors.

Bhushan suggested allowing voters to physically take Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips and deposit it in the ballot box that would assure them that their vote had been recorded correctly.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing another petitioner, submitted a news report citing Election Commission data from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls that highlighted a mismatch in the number of votes cast on the Electronic Voting Machines and the number of votes counted in some constituencies.

Sankaranarayanan said that “serious discrepancies” were seen in several constituencies which went to polls in the first phase of the election.

The bench, in response, said that such discrepancies might arise occasionally because the button would not have been pressed immediately. “Each candidate will be given that data,” Khanna said. “The candidates would have immediately challenged it.”

In 2014, India’s young first-time voters played a crucial role in bringing the Bharatiya Janata Party to power at the Centre. Exit polls found that turnout in that election among Indians ages 18 to 25 surpassed that of the general population for the first time – at around 70%.

In that election, the BJP represented hope but five years later, in 2019, it represented a mixture of fear and hope. There was fear that the state would repress those who dissented and disagreed with it. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi's larger-than-life reputation and oratory skills kept the hope alive for those who still thought that he could take India higher. The party was given a second chance.

In 2024, will India’s youth support the BJP for the third time?

Voting starts on April 19 and is staggered over six weeks in seven phases, with the results scheduled to be announced on June 4.

The Election Commission of India last fortnight said that only about 38% of eligible first-time voters – 18 million out of 49 million – have registered to vote in the 2024 national elections. In Bihar, which has the country’s largest number of young people, only 17% have registered to vote. In Delhi, the centre of political action, the figure is 21%, while in Uttar Pradesh, it is 23%.

What is also baffling is that Maharashtra, which has always been a politically aware state, has also not done as well at 27%. The educated and politicised Kerala has 38% of first-time voters registered. In the east, West Bengal is at 48% and Odisha at 49%. The other end of the spectrum finds Telangana at an impressive 67% followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 62% and Himachal Pradesh at 60%.

Given the amount of noise about the youth being the key to India’s future as well as electoral outcomes, it is ironic that there seems to be little excitement when comes to them voting.

Mark Your Presence, an organisation focused on educating young voters in India, listed a few reasons for the unimpressive figure. Chaitanya Prabhu, its founder, said that the young cannot be blamed for their lack of interest in politics. Throughout school and college, he said, students live with the perception that politics is a bad word. “The basics of elections and politics are not even taught in schools as part of the syllabus, except under CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education],” he told The Times of India.

At the India Today Conclave last year, he suggested, “…What we need to do is fundamentally bring policies that are youth-centric and create more opportunities for young people”. He also pointed out that “there are no unions on campuses and there is no exposure to politics”.

Over the past ten years, political activism on college or university campuses has been not only covertly discouraged but overtly attacked. Still, the recent campus elections in March at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University after a hiatus of four years highlighted how eagerly youngsters participate in politics when they are gien the opportunity.

The Association for Democratic Reforms, a nonprofit working for electoral and political reforms, has a youth outreach programme that encourages young voters to register. The programme manager, Nandini Raj pointed out that many young voters are migrant students and workers. “Not all of them have the means to go back to their constituency and cast their vote,” she said. There is no arrangement for them to vote remotely.

The head of the Association for Democratic Reforms, Anil Verma, told The Times of India that informal discussions suggested cynicism among the youngest voters. “The apathy could come from a feeling that the leadership of major parties is made up of seniors and that there are not enough young leaders or candidates to whom young people can relate,” he said.

Raj noted that the trend of the young failing to register and vote is not just an Indian phenomenon – it is being observed in other countries too.

In the US, for instance, the turnout for the 2020 Presidential election among 18-24-year-olds was 48%, the lowest among age groups. According to Freedom House, this reflected apathy, mistrust and dissatisfaction with democratic processes and fed into the narrative of democratic backsliding.

A report by the Center for the Future of Democracy showed that the faith of young people in the democratic process and politics is lower than that of any other age group. Millennials across the world are more disillusioned with democracy than Generation X and baby boomers were at the same age for they find it all “morally flawed”.

Asim Siddiqui, an assistant professor at Bengaluru’s Azim Premji University who has been working with youngsters for the last 15 years, echoed the same sentiment. “There is a lot more confusion, precarity, and vulnerability at not being able to figure things out through the information overload,” he told The Economic Times. Young people are expressing a lot of angst but this is not being channelised properly as many are struggling to “find a value framework”, he said.

The inability to find a moral anchor is exacerbated since issues like unemployment are on the minds of India’s young people. A pre-poll survey by Lokniti-CSDS, the Delhi-based research institute, found that more than half of the respondents were very concerned with unemployment and inflation.

India’s youth continue to grapple with soaring unemployment rates, with 83% of the jobless population belonging to this demographic, according to India Employment Report 2024, published by the International Labour Organisation.

As India goes to poll on Friday, let us hope that India’s youngest voters realise that they have a greater ability to strengthen democracy than they believe.

Sreya Sarkar is a public policy professional who has previously worked as a poverty alleviation specialist in US think tanks.

What do young Indians who voted for the first time in 2014 think of the past decade? Scroll reporters find out in The Modi Generation.

Ahead of Starlink promoter Elon Musk’s visit to India, the Union finance ministry on Tuesday notified amended rules under the Foreign Exchange Management Act to allow up to 100% foreign direct investment in some space sector activities.

Musk, who is also the chief executive officer of United States-based electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, will visit India on Monday. He is expected to announce an investment of $2 billion (over Rs 16,000 crore) to $3 billion (over Rs 25,000 crore) in India, Reuters reported, quoting unidentified persons aware of the matter.

Starlink provides internet access through a constellation of satellites placed in low-earth orbit. The company has applied for a licence to start satellite communication services in India, according to The Economic Times. The application is pending before the government.

The gazette notification issued by the finance ministry on Tuesday allowed 100% foreign direct investment into the space sector category of manufacturing and operation of satellites, satellite data products and ground segment and user segment. Up to 74% investment in these categories would be through the automatic route, meaning that it would not require the Centre’s approval. However, investment beyond 74% would require the government’s nod.

Earlier, foreign investment in the manufacturing and operation of satellites was allowed only with the government’s permission.

The government also allowed automatic foreign direct investment up to 49% in the categories of launch vehicles and associated systems or subsystems, and the creation of spaceports for launching and receiving spacecraft. Investment beyond 49% would require the government’s approval.

Additionally, 100% foreign direct investment through the automatic route was also allowed for manufacturing components and systems or sub-systems for satellites, ground segment and user segment.

The notification issued by the government on Tuesday brings into effect the Union Cabinet’s decision in February to allow 100% foreign direct investment in certain categories of the space sector.

Also read: Elon Musk’s Starlink and Reliance Jio are set for an epic battle over broadband internet in India

A migrant worker was shot dead by suspected militants at Bijbehara town in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Wednesday.

He has been identified as Raju Shah from Bihar. Shah was taken to a hospital after he was critically injured in the attack that took place at around 9 pm, The Indian Express reported. He succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police said that the area where the firing took place was cordoned off and a search operation was underway.

The injured person, who was shot at by #terrorists, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Search #operation underway in the area. Further details to follow.@JmuKmrPolice https://t.co/uWSJI2cgeO

— Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) April 17, 2024

Shah’s mother told PTI that she got a call about her son’s death on Wednesday evening. “He used to sell pakodas,” she said. “He left behind his wife and son. He was the earning member of the family.”

Following the attack, National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah expressed “shock and sadness” at the news of the worker’s death, the party said on social media.

“They vehemently condemn the attack, emphasising that such acts of terror hinder peace in J&K,” it added.

JKNC President Dr. Farooq Abdullah and VP @OmarAbdullah express shock and sadness at the news of Rajshah Ji's death, who succumbed to grievous injuries after being shot at in Bijbehara today. They vehemently condemn the attack, emphasizing that such acts of terror hinder peace in…

— JKNC (@JKNC_) April 17, 2024

Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti extended her condolences to Shah’s family and condemned the “senseless act of violence”.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Altaf Thakur urged the authorities “to track down the killers of this innocent man and punish them sternly”, the Hindustan Times reported.

The attack took place on the eve of filing of nominations for the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Polling in the constituency will take place on May 7.

Earlier this month, a man from Uttarakhand’s Dehradun was injured after being shot by suspected militants in the Shopian district, PTI reported.

In February, two migrant workers from Punjab were shot dead by suspected militants in Srinagar.

The Mumbai Police on Wednesday filed a first information report against an unidentified person in connection with a deepfake video of actor Aamir Khan that purportedly shows him promoting a political party, PTI reported.

A 27-second clip shared on social media, which appeared to have been edited using artificial intelligence technology, purportedly showed Khan urging voters to be careful of “jumlas”, or empty promises. A spokesperson for the actor, however, said that the video was fake.

The BJP’s opponents have frequently taken digs at it using the word “jumla” since former party chief Amit Shah used the term soon after the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Shah had then said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a “jumla” when he commented that Rs 15 lakh would be deposited to each Indian’s bank account if black money stashed in foreign banks could be brought back.

A spokesperson for Khan said on Tuesday that after the deepfake video came to light, the actor reported the matter to several authorities and filed a complaint with the Mumbai Police’s cyber crime cell.

“We want to clarify that Mr Aamir Khan has never endorsed any political party throughout his 35-year career,” the spokesperson said, according to PTI. “He has dedicated his efforts to raising awareness through Election Commission public awareness campaigns for many past elections."

Deepfakes are techniques to manipulate audio and video content with the help of artificial intelligence software to show people saying or doing things that they never said or did. The content is made to appear as realistic as possible and is often used with malicious intent.

On Wednesday, the police registered a case at the Khar police station under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to impersonation and cheating and provisions of the Information Technology Act.

The Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1. The results will be declared on June 4.

Also read:

AI and elections: Like Pakistan, India too may see an increasing use of the tech this crucial summer

The Congress on Wednesday questioned the Election Commission’s decision to order the removal of posts on electoral bonds from social media platform X, alleging that the poll panel did so because discussing the now-scrapped scheme makes the government “extremely uncomfortable”, The Hindu reported.

On Tuesday, X said that it had taken down four posts by political parties and leaders – including one by a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader – for the remainder of the Lok Sabha elections period in compliance with the Election Commission’s orders.

On Wednesday, Supriya Shrinate, the head of the Congress’ social media department, said that the Election Commission should regulate hate speech, religious references, and crass and vulgar statements.

“So, that is why it is very surprising that the EC chose to get a tweet deleted which raised the issue of electoral bonds,” Shrinate told reporters. “Why would they do that? One does not understand but obviously electoral bonds is an issue which makes the government extremely uncomfortable.”

The Congress leader said that in the past, the social media accounts of farmer leaders, associations and independent journalists were all “restricted” during the farmers’ movement, even when the Information Technology rules were sub judice. “I do want to raise that there is a pattern as far as social media platforms are concerned,” the newspaper quoted Shrinate as saying.

Shrinate said that the government is “very uncomfortable” with social media platforms, digital platforms and YouTube channels because it has been able to “convert large sections of mainstream media into [its] cheerleaders” that do not question about unemployment, price rise and “justice for the girl in Hathras or our athletes”.

She said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s explanation of electoral bonds has stopped “making sense”.

Shrinate claimed that the companies donating to the BJP were winning big contracts and persons facing raids by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department were donating to the ruling party to ensure that the action by central agencies against them stopped.

“As my leader [Rahul Gandhi] earlier today said, the prime minister is a champion of corruption as he was breeding graft through the electoral bonds scheme,” she alleged.

In February, the Supreme Court verdict struck down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional saying it could foster quid pro quo relationships between donors and political parties. The court also directed the State Bank of India to reveal data on donations made to political parties through the scheme.

Analysis of the data shared by the State Bank of India revealed that the BJP received the lion’s share of electoral bond donations. Some of the buyers of the electoral bonds were companies that had faced raids by central agencies.

X was asked by the poll panel to take down posts by the Aam Aadmi Party, the YSR Congress Party, Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary for alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the election commission that political parties have to follow while campaigning.

The microblogging platform, formerly known as Twitter, published the takedown orders and said it had notified the users about its actions.

Read more analysis on this topic by Project Electoral Bond, a collaborative project involving Scroll, The News Minute, Newslaundry and freelance journalists.

At least 20 persons were injured after violence broke out during a procession organised to celebrate the Hindu festival of Ram Navami in the Rejinagar area of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Wednesday, The Indian Express reported.

A woman was seriously injured and admitted to the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, the newspaper said quoting an unidentified police officer. “The rest have been admitted at the local hospital.”

Stones were allegedly hurled at the procession from the roof of a house, which led to the violence, The Indian Express reported citing unidentified sources. Security was later tightened in the area.

Following the violence, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari on social media criticised Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and alleged that the police had fired teargas shells so that the procession would end abruptly.

“Mamata [Banerjee’s] Police joined the miscreants in this ghastly attack and fired teargas shells on Ram devotees to disperse them to ensure that the procession ends abruptly,” Adhikari said.

Just like last year, when the Shree Ram Navami Processions came under attack at Dalkhola, Rishra & Serampore due to the lack of intent of Mamata Police, this year as well Mamata Police failed to protect the Ram Bhakts.

A peaceful Ram Navami Procession, which had all the due… pic.twitter.com/1MaG5pfa4n

— Suvendu Adhikari (Modi Ka Parivar) (@SuvenduWB) April 17, 2024

“This is the result of Mamata Banerjee’s provocation and incitation,” he said. “For peaceful and incident-free celebration of religious festivals in West Bengal, this state government must be replaced.”

Adhikari also urged the Election Commission to take note of the “failure on the part of the police” in controlling the violence.

3 assaulted for shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’

In Bengaluru, three men were allegedly assaulted on Wednesday for shouting “Jai Shri Ram”, the Karnataka Police said, according to The Indian Express.

Four persons, including two minors, were arrested in connection with the assault, the police added.

According to the police, the attack took place as D Pavan Kumar, Binayaka and Rahul were in their car and shouting slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” near Vidyaranyapura in the city at 3.20 pm. They were stopped by two men – Farman and Sameer – on a motorbike who allegedly abused them and asked them not to chant the slogan.

A video of the incident was also circulated on social media where a person outside the car can allegedly be heard saying, “Jai Shri Ram, no. Only Allahu Akbar,” The Indian Express reported.

It also showed Kumar, Binayaka and Rahul getting out of the car and trying to chase the two men. While the three men were returning to their car, Sameer and Farman came with a few others and assaulted them before fleeing the spot.

The police said that it had registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Why is the Enforcement Directorate not using the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to investigate cases pertaining to the electoral bonds, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury asked in an interview with The Hindu on Tuesday.

“You have clear cut cases of money laundering in the electoral bonds,” Yechury told the newspaper. “There were many firms that bought electoral bonds many times over the profits they made. There were many firms that bought electoral bonds despite making losses. Where did they get this money from? Isn’t this an open and shut case of money laundering?”

The Supreme Court had on February 15 struck down the scheme as unconstitutional and said that it could lead to quid pro quo arrangements between donors and political parties.

The court had on February 15 directed the State Bank of India to issue details of the political parties that received electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, and submit them to the Election Commission.

Analysis of data shared by the bank showed that the Bharatiya Janata Party received the lion’s share of electoral bond donations. Some of the buyers of the electoral bonds were companies that had faced raids by central agencies.

Thirty-three companies that recorded losses or no profit over seven years donated a total of Rs 581.7 crore through electoral bonds, of which Rs 434.2 crore was encashed by the BJP, an analysis by The Hindu and an independent research team revealed.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) was also one of the petitioners in the case. It was among the political parties that did not accept funding through electoral bonds.

Yechury told The Hindu on Tuesday that electoral bonds have become a major poll issue, even if it seems otherwise.

“In fact, wherever we have gone for campaigning, the people said they never knew that Modi or this government could loot the country in such a way,” Yechury said. “And they have used all the tools available in the dictionary – extortion, quid pro quo, sweetheart deals, money laundering, threats of actions, and thereby collecting and amassing thousands of crores of rupees.”

In an interview with ANI on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the removal of the electoral bonds scheme has completely pushed the country towards black money. He claimed it was because of electoral bonds that a money trail could be found in political funding.

However, it was only after petitioners in the case approached the court that the State Bank of India shared the alphanumeric and serial numbers of electoral bonds that were used to match donations with the parties that received them.

Modi also claimed that 3,000 companies had purchased electoral bonds, out of which 26 donors were being investigated by central agencies. “Of these, 16 companies bought electoral bonds around the time that they were raided,” the prime minister said. “From these electoral bonds, 37% of the money went to the Bharatiya Janata Party, while 63% went to the BJP’s opponents.”

Also read:

• Why the electoral bond expose might not hurt the BJP
• Reports from Project Electoral Bond, which a collaborative project involving three news organisations – Newslaundry, Scroll, The News Minute – and independent journalists.

Raids by the Enforcement Directorate increased by 86 times between 2014 and 2024 – under the Modi government –as compared to the preceding decade when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power, an analysis of official data by PTI found.

Arrests and the attachment of assets by the central agency rose by 25 times in the past decade compared to the period between 2004 and 2014, according to the analysis.

The central agency conducted 7,264 raids in money-laundering cases since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. Under the United Progressive Alliance governments that were in power from 2004 to 2014, the agency conducted only 84 raids, PTI reported.

Under the BJP-led Union government, the Enforcement Directorate arrested 755 persons and attached assets worth Rs 1,21,618 crore, PTI reported. Under the earlier Congress-led governments, it had arrested 29 people and attached assets worth Rs 5,086.4 crore, according to the analysis by the news agency.

The central agency registered as many as 5,155 cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the last ten years as compared to the 1,797 cases filed in the previous decade. It secured its first conviction in 2014 and has since secured conviction orders in 36 cases, leading to the prosecution of 63 persons, PTI reported.

Out of the 1,281 charge sheets filed in courts during the last decade, only 73 have been disposed of.

The PTI report comes amid allegations by Opposition parties that the BJP government has weaponised the Enforcement Directorate to intimidate them and coerce them into join the saffron party.

In September 2022, The Indian Express reported that Opposition leaders comprised 95% of all politicians that the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate had taken action against since 2014. This was up from 60% between 2004 and 2014.

Also read:

• From arrests to defections, it’s not easy being the Opposition in India today
• How the Modi government has weaponised the ED to go after India’s Opposition

Voting is often the only chance that many of India's marginalised groups get to express themselves. As national elections approach, Scroll's reporters fanned out across the country to talk to groups with little socio-political power as part of a series called the View from the Margins. The aim: try to understand how the powerless and the voiceless have fared under a decade of the Modi government.

Christuraj S was seven or eight when he first recognised the role of caste in his life. At school, none of his classmates invited him home. During playtime breaks, they would all sometimes run to the homes of classmates who lived close by to drink water. But giving it to Christuraj made those classmates’ parents nervous. He was ordered not to let the glass touch his lips.

“I always knew their people were different from mine,” he said.

As he grew older, the caste lines became clearer, sharper to him. A friend told Christuraj he did not mind them hanging out, but that did not imply Christuraj would ever be worthy of marrying a girl from the friend’s community.

Christuraj is a fourth-generation Roman Catholic Christian. He hails from the village of Athipakkam in the Kallakurichi district of Tamil Nadu, where all the Scheduled Caste communities were converted generations ago to Christianity by French missionaries. He is one of five children. His father started as a havaldar in the Indian army and then joined a bank. His mother worked on their farmland.

Families like Christuraj’s are identified as Dalit Christians and bracketed by the Indian government under the rubric Other Backward Classes. For years, there have been calls for Dalit Christians to be included among Scheduled Castes, just like Dalit Hindus are. As recently as in April 2023, the ruling party in Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, had passed a resolution urging the Union government to grant Scheduled Caste benefits to Dalit Christians.

But the Union government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, is stridently opposed to the demand. In 2022, it filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court making its stand clear. “The Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order, 1950 was based on historical data which clearly established that no such backwardness or oppression was ever faced by members of Christian or Islamic Society,” the government said in its submission. “In fact, one of the reasons for which people from Scheduled Castes have been converting to religions like Islam or Christianity is so that they can come out of the oppressive system of untouchability which is not prevalent at all in Christianity or Islam.”

Denied opportunities

From Christuraj’s experiences, it is evident that, unlike what the government thinks, converting to Christianity does not foreclose the possibility of prejudice.

“I was an excellent football player and was good enough to have made it to the state level,” Christuraj recalled. “But my teachers would force me into hockey or basketball and refuse to allow me to be part of the football team. In retrospect, I realise, it was deliberate and casteist…. I was too young to argue and demand my rights.”

This kind of discrimination followed Christuraj into the next phase of his life – as a young seminarian.

Since he dreamed of serving society, he decided to study to become a priest in a seminary. “The fathers and brothers had a slew of questions for me in the first few days and I knew those questions were an effort to find out my caste,” he said. “After that, I began to be isolated. I could not fit into their cliques.”

Even in the seminary he observed that people tended to prioritise people from their castes and associate with them. “They would proudly claim what caste they were from.”

Like in school, he feels he was denied opportunities constantly in the seminary. “I knew it was because of my caste,” he said. “They did not want me to grow. Once I became good at something, they would change track, throw me into something else and leave me disoriented about my future.”

It troubled him that the church aimed to provide for the poor but failed to recognise what role caste played in their economic and social backwardness. Disillusioned, he left the church.

Hope for change

Christuraj is certain that following Christianity has not in any way shielded him from casteism. “At the most, we got some education. We did not get land or anything else,” he said. “So how can anyone claim we are more privileged because we are not Hindu anymore? How do I lose my social and economic status because of my religious belief?”

He points out that, unlike Dalit Hindus, Dalit Christians who are victims of caste violence cannot seek justice under the law meant to address such crimes, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Nor can they contest from reserved constituencies, which would have given them greater representation in mainstream politics. “There aren’t that many leaders from a Dalit Christian background even in Dravidian parties,” he said.

He hopes the coming Lok Sabha elections would bring a change at the Centre. “The Congress, in coalition with other parties, is the only hope for India,” he said. “Giving one party all the power is not good for democracy.” Under the reign of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he says, there have been increasing attacks on Christians. “The BJP has taken no proactive measures to improve the standard of living of Dalit Christians. They have in fact come out with bills constraining conversion, though it is the fundamental right of an individual. There are threats to Christian educational institutions in remote areas that are focused on educating the marginalised.”

After leaving the seminary, Christuraj ended up studying law and has since worked in the fields of education and child rights for three decades. Today, the upper castes in his village come to him for legal advice. But eating a meal at his home is still not acceptable to them. His mother no longer works in their field and so they have leased it to upper castes. “When they come to give us the share of the yield, they will refuse to come inside and drink or eat our food,” he said. “Even when we have a function at home, they may come to visit the house but they will refuse food.”

He notes that, to this day, in several Christian cemeteries in Tamil Nadu, “a small portion [of land] is allotted to Dalit Christians and the rest to upper castes”. There is only one Dalit Bishop in all of Tamil Nadu, Dalit Christians are often excluded from church festivities, and frequently allotted a separate area inside the church. “Even when it comes to marriage, upper-caste Christians prefer not to marry Dalit Christians,” Christuraj said.

India is not reaping the benefits of its democratic dividend and needs to focus on improving human capital and enhancing skill sets, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said on Tuesday, reported PTI.

“I think we are in the midst of it [demographic dividend], but the problem is we are not reaping the benefits,” PTI quoted Rajan as saying at a conference at The George Washington University in the United States.

The demographic dividend refers to the economic growth potential that stems from a country’s working-age population being larger than its non-working population.

“That’s why I said 6% growth – if you think that’s about what we are right now, take away the fluff in the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] numbers,” the former reserve bank governor said. “That 6% is in the midst of a demographic dividend. It is much below where China and [South] Korea were when they reaped their demographic dividend.”

Rajan added that India is being “overly complicit” in claiming that its current economic growth “is great”, despite high levels of unemployment among its working-age population. He said that this leads to the question of how India can create the required employment opportunities.

“The answer to my mind is partly enhancing the capabilities of the people we have, partly changing the nature of the jobs that are available and we need to work on both fronts,” PTI quoted Rajan as saying. “This idea of apprenticeship, which the Congress has in its manifesto is worth working on. I think there’s a lot that needs to be done to make it effective, but we need many more students to at least be capable of doing a good job.”

In its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on April 5, the Congress promised to introduce the Right to Apprenticeship Act to provide a one-year apprenticeship with a private or a public sector company to diploma holders or college graduates below the age of 25.

Rajan said on Tuesday that there also needs to be a focus on creating jobs. He criticised the government for spending billions of dollars on subsidising chip manufacturing while several job-intensive areas, such as the leather industry, were not doing well.

“We are going down in those areas,” he said. “No wonder we have more of a job problem. The job problem was not created in the last 10 years. It’s been growing over the last few decades. But if you neglect the areas which are more intensive, I’m not saying we need to now offer … subsidies to leather examples, but figure out what’s going wrong there and try and rectify that.”

Rajan also said that Indian innovators were moving to Singapore and the United States’ Silicon Valley because they can access final markets – where the final sale of a product or service takes place – more easily there.

“We need to ask what is it that forces them to go outside of India to set up rather than stay inside India,” Rajan said. “But what is really heartwarming is talking to some of these entrepreneurs and seeing their desire to change the world and increasingly many of them are not happy staying in India.”

Rajan said that Indian innovators want to expand globally. “I think there is a young India that has a Virat Kohli mentality – I’m second to none in the world,” he added.

Challenges to India’s demographic dividend

A report by the International Labour Organization and the Institute for Human Development published in March said that in 2022, India’s youth accounted for almost 83% of the country’s unemployed workforce. The share of youngsters with secondary or higher education among the band of total unemployed youth jumped from 54.2% in 2000 to 65.7% in 2022.

The report found that the country’s educated youth have higher rates of unemployment, reflecting a mismatch with their aspirations and available jobs.

In September, the United Nations said that the proportion of elderly citizens in India is projected to rise to 20% of the total population by 2050. This indicated that India has a limited time to reap the demographic dividend.

To this end, demographic experts had told Scroll in January 2023 that India can reap its demographic dividend provided timely measures are taken to solve challenges such as unemployment, and shortcomings in skilling and healthcare to harness the young population.

Also read:

• India can reap the demographic dividend – but there’s a deadline
• A decade under Modi: Rising unemployment, declining wages, poor quality jobs

The Centre does not maintain records of applications received under the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has said in response to a Right to Information application, reported The Hindu on Tuesday.

The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast-track to Indian citizenship for refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and have entered the country by December 31, 2014.

The Act was passed by Parliament in December 2019. Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah had said then that “lakhs and crores” of people would benefit from the provision, according to The Hindu. Shah, however, did not explained how he had arrived at the numbers.

Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien at the time had cited an Intelligence Bureau report stating that nearly 31,000 people would be the immediate beneficiaries of the Act.

Ajay Bose, a resident of Maharashtra’s Amravati, recently filed a Right to Information application seeking information about the total number of persons who have applied for citizenship under the Act after its rules were notified in March.

Responding to the query, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on April 15: “The records are not being maintained as desired by you because the Citizenship Act, 1955 and Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and the rules made there under does (sic) not have the provision to maintain the records of citizenship application received.”

The Centre notified the rules under the Act on March 11. Following this, Shah said that the Narendra Modi-led government had “realised the promise of the makers of our constitution to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians living in those countries”.

The notification of the law’s rules came despite the Act being widely criticised for disciminating against Muslims. The law had sparked massive protests across the country in 2019 and 2020.

Indian Muslims fear that the law could be used, along with the nationwide National Register of Citizens, to harass and disenfranchise them. The National Register of Citizens is a proposed exercise to identify undocumented immigrants.

While protests against the Act in the rest of India revolved around the law’s alleged anti-Muslim bias, ethnic groups in the northeastern states feared they would be physically and culturally swamped by migrants from Bangladesh as a result of the law.

Also read: View from the margins: How a Mumbai realtor is helping NRC-scared Muslims rectify their documents

Democratic Progressive Azad Party chief Ghulam Nabi Azad backed out from contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Kashmir’s Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, a day after his nomination. The Trinamool Congress released its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, promising to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Uniform Civil Code if the opposition INDIA bloc comes to power at the Centre. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, countering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim of the National Democratic Alliance winning 400 seats or more, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party will be restricted to just 150 Lok Sabha seats after the polls.

Here’s a look at today’s top developments:

• Democratic Progressive Azad Party chief and former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad withdrew his nomination for the Lok Sabha elections from Kashmir’s Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, reported PTI. Azad was to contest against People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti. Polling in Jammu and Kashmir will take place in the first five phases between April 19 and May 20. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

• The Trinamool Congress has included the repeal of the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and Uniform Civil Code in its poll manifesto. The ruling party in West Bengal has also promised to provide ration directly to people’s homes and 10 free cooking cylinders for families under the poverty line. It said that the prices of petrol and diesel will be controlled through the formulation of a price stabilisation fund. Party leader Derek O’Brien said that these promises would be fulfilled once the INDIA bloc forms the government at the Centre.

• Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP will be restricted to 150 seats in the Lok Sabha elections while addressing a press conference alongside Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on the last day of campaigning for the first phase of the general elections. “This is an election of ideology,” said Gandhi. “On one side are the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent body of the BJP] and BJP who are trying to finish the Constitution and the democratic set-up. On the other side is the INDIA alliance and Congress which are trying to defend and protect the Constitution and democracy.”

• “The Narendra Modi government will eliminate Naxals from the country in a very short period of time,” Union home minister Amit Shah said a day after twenty-nine alleged Maoists were killed and three security personnel injured in a gunfight in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district.“I can say with conviction that operations against Naxals will continue in the times to come, and under the leadership of Modi, we will uproot Naxalism from our nation.” Shah also said that since the formation of a BJP government in Chhattisgarh three months ago, over “80 Naxals have been eliminated, more than 125 arrested and more than 150 have surrendered”.

मोदी सरकार देश को नक्सलवाद से मुक्त करने के अपने लक्ष्य के लिए संकल्पित है और छत्तीसगढ़ के कांकेर में सुरक्षा बलों को मिली यह बड़ी सफलता नक्सलवाद के पूर्णतः उन्मूलन की दिशा में अहम कदम है। pic.twitter.com/JeO1CgikF0

— Amit Shah (Modi Ka Parivar) (@AmitShah) April 17, 2024

What do young Indians who voted for the first time in 2014 think of the past decade? Scroll reporters find out in The Modi Generation.

R Hari has never felt that the Bharatiya Janata Party had much of a role to play in Tamil Nadu’s politics. “It was never an option for me as a voter in 2014,” he said. “I didn’t consider that the party had any impact in Tamil Nadu.”

But 30-year-old Hari, who is from Ketti Palada village in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district, and voted for the first time in 2014, does have an overall view of the party. When he was in college, in the mid 2010s in Udhagamangalam, or Ooty, he read about the Gujarat riots and began to believe that the BJP’s politics were divisive in nature.

Over the past ten years, his mistrust of the party only deepened. Referring to the 2016 demonetisation measure, he said, “They said they would bring the black money back. But 99% of the cash was returned to the bank. So many people faced so much hardship for nothing.”

In contrast, he felt that the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu has “done a lot for people”. He cited the DMK government’s free bus pass scheme for students, and the scheme to provide free gas connections to poor families, both introduced under former chief minister M Karunanidhi, as examples of positive measures the party had undertaken while in power.

In his own life, however, Hari has struggled against discrimination at the hands of other communities in the region – both because he is Dalit, and because he is a Tamil repatriate from Sri Lanka.

Hari’s grandparents were among lakhs of Tamils, mostly Dalits, taken to Sri Lanka as tea and coffee estate workers during the period of British rule. In Sri Lanka, they came to be known as “upcountry Tamils”. These Tamils played a significant role in making Sri Lanka a hub of tea and coffee plantations. Gradually, the migrants began to consider the country their home.

But soon after Sri Lanka attained independence in 1948, the new government passed the Ceylon Citizenship Act, whose terms effectively rendered the Tamils stateless. The community’s position grew increasingly precarious after anti-Tamil riots broke out in the country beginning in 1958 and escalating in the early 1980s. Throughout, the Sri Lankan government refused to grant the Tamils citizenship, leaving them immensely vulnerable to violence and displacement.

When civil war broke out in 1983, and the Tamils looked to India for help, the Indian government at first refused to take them back, claiming that they had lived in Sri Lanka for over 100 years.

Eventually, the two countries came to a consensus. Under the Sirima-Shastri pact, they agreed that Ceylonese citizenship would be granted to 3,00,000 Indians, and that 5,25,000 would be repatriated to India.

Both of Hari’s parents, who were born in Sri Lanka, and had never been to India, were among those who were repatriated. They entered India through Rameshwaram, and then heard about tea estates in the Nilgiris. Some of Hari’s relatives worked at the Tamilnadu Tea Plantation Corporation, or TANTEA, which the state government established to provide jobs to repatriates. Others, like his parents, found work at small private estates in the hills.

It was during this time that his parents were introduced and got married and then had Hari and his sister. This year marks 50 years since his father first set foot in India.

Hari believes the DMK played a crucial role in bringing workers back from Sri Lanka. “We became a country-less people for a while, but thankfully the Dravidian leaders fought to bring us back,” he said.

But as a local journalist and repatriate explained, the repatriation was also followed by an increase in tensions between communities in the Nilgiris. Before the resettlement, he noted, the hills were dominated by the Badaga community, who are classified as Other Backward Classes. Afterwards, the repatriates, together with other Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities, became the majority, “and that unsettled the Badagas”, he said.

Ever since, repatriated families have often been treated and referred to as outsiders by locals, particularly the Badagas. Even at home, Hari’s parents were always on guard because they worked at the estates of these dominant castes. “We would not even be able to eat meat freely because the owners of the estates were often vegetarian and would yell at us if we cooked meat,” he said.

This kind of discrimination also extended to children in schools. “In school, the other children would refer to me as ‘Ceylon kaara’,” or the Sri Lankan, Hari said. “Teachers would always treat me and other repatriate children like we didn’t belong here.” Sometimes, teachers would taunt them, he added, and “ask us why we bothered to go to school when we would anyway end up only grazing cows”.

Hari said some of the students from repatriated families struggled to keep up with their studies, and that instead of helping them, teachers often scolded them for being unable to cope. “I personally know so many of the repatriates discontinued studies because they never felt welcome in the schools,” he said.

Hari’s sister was among them. “She could not cope with the intense discrimination and dropped out after the tenth standard,” he said.

Hari managed to pursue a master’s in commerce, and then enrol for an MPhil, which he did not complete. He said that he never had anyone to advise him about what course of study to pursue. After he left his MPhil, he sought jobs, but found none in the Nilgiris.

He currently procures carrots from farmers in the region and finds buyers in Coimbatore district. “It is a very unstable profession, and during the times when business is not good, I resort to daily wage jobs,” he said.

He also said that young people were denied opportunities because of entrance exams introduced by the Central government – these include NEET for medical education which, many argue, students from poorer backgrounds struggle immensely to clear because they cannot afford the coaching that privileged students access. “The DMK has been consistent in their fight against NEET,” he said. “On the other hand, the BJP seems to be bringing more and more entrance exams, which narrows opportunities for minorities.”

Another major reason Hari still firmly supports the DMK, is that he fears that the BJP will move forward with implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act and compiling the National Register of Citizens. When the party began talking about these plans, it sent waves of fear through the repatriate community. “We have only been here for the last 40-50 years,” Hari said. “We came here only with our passports and nothing else. If we are asked to prove that we owned land here or belonged here from a time before that, we have no idea where to go.”

He believes that to ensure better livelihoods and financial security for the repatriate community, the state government should redistribute TANTEA’s plantation land to them, especially since the company has in recent years been seeing reduced operations and a fund crunch. “Since people don’t have jobs either now,” he said, “at least they can give all the repatriate families an acre or two so we can make some kind of a living.”

In 2014, the year Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, Elaiyakumar boycotted the general election.

At the time, Elaiyakumar, who goes by one name and is known as Elaiya, had just started studying for his BTech at Anna University in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. In college, he was associated with the cultural wing of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War. Elaiya wrote and performed songs for the organisation, fundraised and even campaigned for the boycott of elections.

As Maoists, he and his comrades “opposed the BJP”, but also saw voting as unnecessary because they believed that a “revolution would come soon”, recounted Elaiya, who is 28 today.

But over the course of his college days, Elaiya’ attraction to Maoist ideology faded. This occurred largely as a result of conversations with his professors and reading that they recommended – specifically, work by anti-caste thinkers, including Annihilation of Caste by BR Ambedkar and Why Women Were Enslaved by Periyar. Among other arguments, these professors noted that it was unjust that insurgent leaders kept their identities and locations secret while students like Elaiya were at risk of being arrested.

Elaiya also realised that his comrades were from relatively privileged backgrounds – in contrast, he came from a family of Dalit agricultural labourers in Kelapparai village in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district.

Indeed, Elaiya had only been able to pursue his education because he had been a bright student in middle school and received a scholarship to study at a private school until Class 12. After this, he benefitted from a scheme introduced by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in 2007-’08 which waives off tuition fees in technical courses for first-generation learners. He also received a state-level scholarship for Scheduled Caste students.

At one conference, he recounted, his comrades tore up their educational certificates on stage as an act of protest. “I couldn’t do that because I knew the reality of life without an education from back home,” he said.

Disillusioned, he left the CPI (ML) PW’s cultural wing and turned toward the Dravidian movement and anti-caste work. He began working with the team of Kaattaaru, a Tamil publication that publishes writing relevant to Periyar and the Dravidian movement.

In 2017, Elaiya decided to pursue a master’s degree. He had learnt some Hindi and had considered going to a university in north India – but was advised against the move. “Because I was politically active, people told me to study in Tamil Nadu itself,” he said. “They felt that going outside the state, especially to the north, was extremely scary.”

He explained that his friends and college-mates felt that under the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Central government was unsympathetic towards marginalised groups and vindictive towards critics. They cited incidents from across the country as indicative of this – these included the death of Rohith Vemula, who was protesting against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the administration at the University of Hyderabad; the death by suicide of Muthukrishnan, a Dalit scholar from Tamil Nadu, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University; and the derecognition of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle at IIT Madras, which practised anti-caste politics and was critical of the Central government. “The impression was that BJP had grown powerful to such a level that they lynch and kill people,” Elaiya said.

Elaiya finally enrolled for a master’s programme in development policy and practice at the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. While a professor who had taught him during his undergraduate degree paid the tuition fee, he also received a scholarship that helped with his expenses. For additional income, he worked as a mess secretary and began giving career guidance to students in schools and colleges.

In 2019, Elaiya voted for the DMK and was also engaged in campaigning work in support of the alliance it led. He now views the BJP as a “pro-Brahmin party” that works for “Aryan welfare”. He believes that its propagation of Hindutva will only serve to maintain caste hierarchy. Today, Elaiya believes that a “social justice politics” that unites Bahujan and Dravidian people has the potential to counter Hindutva.

In 2019 Elaiya also started Revamp, an NGO that organises talks, university visits and workshops to support first-generation learners through their higher studies and their early career. “I started this because nobody is there to tell people like me that we have to aim for higher studies,” he said. He added with a laugh, “Luckily, I had a mentor telling me this was the time to study and come out of revolutionary politics.”

Elaiya also encourages students to think from an anti-caste perspective. “I want to make them realise that the monopoly of education by Brahmins has to be fought by us,” he said. “Policies like the NEP and entrance exams for all courses will work against marginalised students.”

The current DMK government in Tamil Nadu has opposed the Central government’s New Education Policy, arguing that, among other problems, it is intended primarily to benefit the elites, reinforces caste-based work, and above all intrudes upon states’ right to set their own education policies.

Other flashpoints in the conflict over education between the Centre and Tamil Nadu include the former’s introduction of the Common University Entrance Test for admission to Central universities and affiliated colleges, and its introduction of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to undergraduate programmes at medical colleges across the country. Opponents have argued that among other problems, these exams place marginalised students at a disadvantage and encourage the proliferation of coaching centres. “Until the Congress was at the Centre there was still space for Tamil Nadu to negotiate and to not conduct NEET,” Elaiya said. “But this space has been finished when the BJP came to power.”

Elaiya noted that this fight is note a recent one. “The entire Dravidian movement has been a fight for education,” he said. In the early twentieth century, at the start of the Dravidian movement, he said, “Brahmins monopolised educational and administrative posts, and the Dravidian or SC, ST, BC population was not to be found anywhere. Those in the Justice Party demanded their reasonable representation in institutions.” Presently, Tamil Nadu reserves 69% of seats in government educational institutions for students from SC, ST and BC communities.

After obtaining his master’s degree, Elaiya pursued an MPhil from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; he is currently a PhD candidate at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. When we spoke on March 25, he noted that earlier in the month, he had been shocked to see police and paramilitary personnel inside the campus, sent in to prevent protests against the implementation of the CAA.

Elaiya continues to believe that the anti-caste movement holds a promise for a more equitable future for the country. “The fact that the Congress itself is advocating for the removal of the 50% cap on reservations and demanding a caste census is a huge change,” he said. “For years we’ve been demanding these things, now finally it has reached mainstream political discourse.”

He added, “There is space for social justice politics to counter Brahminical Hindutva forces. Maybe not in these elections, but I have faith when you think long-term for the future.”

Voting is often the only chance that many of India's marginalised groups get to express themselves. As national elections approach, Scroll's reporters fanned out across the country to talk to groups with little socio-political power as part of a series called the View from the Margins. The aim: try to understand how the powerless and the voiceless have fared under a decade of the Modi government.

It was nearly 11 pm when Sajeed Sheikh walked into the community centre he runs in the suburb of Jogeshwari in northwestern Mumbai, but the room was bustling with activity. Sheikh, with the help of volunteers, began arranging for foodgrain to be distributed among poor families in the neighbourhood during Ramzan, a month of prayer, charity and fasting. Instructions about the logistics flew thick and fast, but so did anxious questions – about the Citizenship Amendment Act, the contentious law that had been implemented just two days earlier.

Queries ranged from the practical to the conceptual. Will all of India be made to apply for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens? What documents could be needed for it? Was the Citizenship Amendment Act in keeping with India’s commitment to secularism?

With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, and given the distinct possibility that the Bharatiya Janata Party may return to power, the volunteers in Jogeshwari are not the only ones who fear that the Act, in conjunction with a nationwide National Register of Citizens, could be used to harass and disenfranchise Muslims. There are many.

The National Register of Citizens is meant to be a record of all bona fide Indian citizens, which could be used to identify and deport undocumented immigrants. The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to naturalisation to refugees from six religious communities – except Muslims – who fled Bangladesh, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

When the National Register of Citizens was updated in Assam a few years ago, it had unleashed a Kafkaesque nightmare. Around 3.2 crore people had to provide identity documents to prove that their roots were firmly in the state. Over 19 lakh people who ostensibly could not do so were left out of the register. Many of them struggled to find jobs. Hundreds were packed off to detention camps after being declared foreigners.

It is possible that the nightmare may be repeated across India. In the past, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has explicitly linked the Citizenship Amendment Act with the National Register of Citizens and laid out the design behind the two. “First the CAB [Citizenship Amendment Bill] will come,” he pronounced. “All refugees will get citizenship. Then [the] NRC [National Register of Citizens] will come. This is why refugees should not worry, but infiltrators should. Understand the chronology.”

First we will pass the Citizenship Amendment bill and ensure that all the refugees from the neighbouring nations get the Indian citizenship. After that NRC will be made and we will detect and deport every infiltrator from our motherland. pic.twitter.com/oB2SlBaQ0j

— Amit Shah (Modi Ka Parivar) (@AmitShah) May 1, 2019

Document correction

Given this backdrop, Sheikh – a real estate agent by profession – has for the last six months been helping people from his neighborhood ensure that their identity documents are free from discrepancies. “If the government implements a nationwide National Register of Citizens exercise, it is the poor who will suffer the most,” he said. “We want to be prepared for any eventuality.”

Sheikh’s volunteer group, the Modern Youth Association, has partnered with several local mosques to spread the word about the assistance it is offering. He says he plans to next set up a centre where people can get help.

“I needed to get the spelling of my name corrected on my Aadhaar and PAN [Permanent Account Number] cards,” said Qureshi, a Jogeshwari resident who wanted to be identified only by her last name. “Earlier this month, I contacted Sajeed. He guided me on collecting supporting documents, and then got the changes done online.”

An hour away from Jogeshwari, in the Nagpada area of South Mumbai, lawyer Nadeem Siddiqui is providing neighbours the same assistance as Sheikh: rectifying identity documents before the possible implementation of a nationwide National Register of Citizens.

“People may not actually be forced out of the country [through the National Register of Citizens], but they may still face harassment in the form of them being made to run around for documents,” Siddiqui said. Getting rid of errors in official paperwork is a way to avoid such a scenario.”

Anti-CAA protests

For Sheikh, the Citizenship Amendment Act is part of a larger design to disempower Indian Muslims. “The government’s intention is to marginalise Muslims by whichever means possible, whether by implementing the National Register of Citizens or by arresting them in false cases,” he said.

Many human rights organisations feel the same way as Sheikh. In the past 10 years, since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Delhi, they say, Muslims have been singled out for persecution. Under Narendra Modi, the community has faced mob violence, discriminatory laws, vilification on the streets, demonisation on TV screens, and trumped-up cases.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, if combined with the National Register of Citizens, may be the final straw.

The Union government pushed the Citizenship Amendment Act through the Parliament in 2019, facilitating naturalisation of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Jains who escaped to India from religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014. The law met with nationwide pushback, with critics calling it a dilution of the nation’s secular identity – never before had there been a religious test for citizenship in the history of independent India.

Protests erupted everywhere. In 2019 and 2020, Sheikh and many from his neighbourhood had participated in those protests. They agitated in Jogeshwari, at the August Kranti Maidan in Tardeo, and for one night even went to Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, where hundreds of Muslim women were holding a sit-in protest. “Normally, protests erupt in a spurt of anger and then dissipate,” he said. “The police know that. But women are not so easily swayed by emotion. In Shaheen Bagh, women led protests with hosh [awareness] rather than josh [passion].”

Whiplashed by the pushback, the Union government argued that the Citizenship Amendment Act does not discriminate against Muslims – it is instead a helping hand for the persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. But that does not explain why the Muslim communities persecuted in these countries – the Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan and the Hazaras in Afghanistan – have been left out. Or why the law does not include Myanmar and Sri Lanka, where the Rohingyas and Tamils respectively face persecution.

Despite the criticisms, on March 11 of this year, the Union government went ahead with the law, notifying the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024, which would enable the law’s implementation.

“If persecuted Hindus want to come to India, they are welcome,” Sheikh said. “All that Muslims are saying is, don’t snatch our homes in the process. If you try to do that, we will certainly raise our voices.”

Battling prejudice

Sheikh accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Delhi of sowing distrust and fear in people’s minds. “The new generation has not seen the kind of destruction that riots cause, and so, they don’t understand right from wrong,” he said. “They hold all kinds of hateful views about Muslims.”

Sheikh’s job as a real estate agent gives him a vivid view of the deepening prejudices against his community. “My work involves finding properties for people in areas such as Andheri and Lokhandwala,” he said. “Many times, clients discuss all the details of a property with me on the phone. But as soon as they learn I am Muslim, their approach towards me changes and they cut me off completely.”

With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections approaching, 52-year-old Sheikh has a word of advice for the Bharatiya Janata Party. “I want to say to the government: if you want to make this country a sone ki chidiya – a beacon of prosperity – Muslims will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you. But instead, you are doubting our loyalty.” He added: “Muslims have given sacrifices for this country against the British colonial rule, just as Hindus have. But today, our sacrifices are being disregarded, and we are facing hostility and discrimination.”

Sheikh added: “If the government’s intentions on the National Register of Citizens had been right, it would have been clear on whether it would implement such a measure across the country, and what the exact modalities would be. But it is not doing so.”

Despite the ill omens, Siddiqui sees an upside: “Because of all the talk about the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens, people are at least getting their documents in order. The question of any further protests will only arise if the authorities start asking people for their papers. For now, the future is bright.”

On April 1, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission to respond to a petition calling for a complete count of the paper slips generated when votes are cast on electronic voting machines to allay “doubt among the general public as to whether there is a mismatch between the vote cast and the vote recorded”.

The news was buried in the inside pages of most metropolitan newspapers.

And yet by April 4, word had travelled to Suar, a speck of a town of about 30,000 people in Rampur district in western Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim voters told me they saw the court order as validation of their concerns that elections are being rigged in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

“Now even the Supreme Court is saying this,” said Nasir Ali, who sells fruit from a handcart. “Earlier the media was speaking about this in hushed tones. Now, it is speaking openly.”

The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for the third week of April – the same week in which the first day of polling takes place in India’s seven-phase parliamentary elections.

Among the areas voting on April 19 are eight constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh. In six of them, Muslims constitute more than one-third of the voting population. In two, their population is close to the half-way mark.

Travelling through three constituencies, I found that an overwhelming number of Muslims harbour doubts about the integrity of the electoral process. So do some Dalits.

In the Jatav Dalit quarter of Dhakka Karamchand village in Bijnore district, shopkeeper Vijendra Kumar said it was now common perception that “no matter which button you press, the votes go to the BJP”. Overhearing the conversation, Waheem, a dealer from the nearby Nehtaur town, who was piling up scrap purchased from Kumar on his handcart, interjected: “Vote humara har baar kharab ho raha hai.” Our votes are going to waste each time.

Not just manipulation of machines, most Muslims here are convinced that their votes are being suppressed, either by their names being struck off from voter lists, or by physically obstructing them from voting. As a result, election conversations centre around “dhandlebaazi”, or rigging, with EVMs being the most visible target of anger.

“EVM hatao, ballot paper se karao” – junk EVMs, bring back ballot papers – a Muslim man in a working-class neighbourhood of Moradabad summed up the mood.

In Rampur, an independent candidate is contesting elections on the issue: Supreme Court lawyer Mehmood Pracha, who has filed an intervention application in the court, arguing that it isn’t enough to count paper slips, that voting should happen only through ballot papers.

His election symbol is the stamp, picked to match his cause.

“The law as it exists today – Section 59 and 61A of the Representation of the People Act – clearly states that elections have to be held by paper ballots,” he said, “unless the Election Commission on a case to case basis, on a constituency to constituency basis, passes an order justifying the use of EVMs and clearly stating why the election cannot be held by paper ballot in this individual constituency.”

More precisely, the law states: “...the giving and recording of votes by voting machines in such manner as may be prescribed, may be adopted in such constituency or constituencies as the Election Commission may, having regard to the circumstances of each case, specify”.

It is unclear if the Election Commission has been issuing constituency-specific orders for the use of EVMs. Questions emailed by Scroll to the commission went unanswered.

On March 28, Pracha shot off a letter to the commission, asking for a copy of orders issued justifying the use of EVMs in Rampur constituency. He hasn’t heard back from the commission so far.

The lawyer hopes to use the election contest as an opportunity to strengthen the legal challenge to EVMs. But the court proceedings are unlikely to conclude before polling day.

The result: voting in Muslim-dominated western UP will take place under an unprecedented cloud of doubt.

Voter suppression

Once relegated to obscure YouTube channels and little-known websites, the debate over EVMs is now front and centre.

A day before the Supreme Court issued notice to the Election Commission, at a public meeting organised by the Opposition INDIA alliance, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the BJP cannot win more than 180 seats without manipulating EVMs. In the 543-member Lok Sabha, the winning mark is 272. The BJP has claimed it will win more than 400 seats.

However, on the ground in western Uttar Pradesh, EVMs are not the sole cause of worry. Rather, Muslim complaints here echo the findings of the much-discussed research paper by economist Sabyasachi Das, who found there was good reason to suspect both voter lists and turnouts had been manipulated in constituencies that saw close contests in the 2019 elections.

In Rampur, voters say these aren’t simply fears – this is their lived experience.

A pocket borough of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, the constituency has the highest share of Muslim voters in UP, just over 50%. In the smaller assembly constituency area, their number goes up to nearly 65%.

In a bye-election in December 2022, necessitated by Azam Khan’s disqualification from the Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested its first-ever victory here, amid widespread allegations that Muslim voters had been denied a chance to vote – allegations denied by the state government and by the Election Commission.

But booth-level data, as reported by the Indian Express, was revelatory: in Muslim areas, voter turnout in some booths plunged to a low of 4%-5%, while it was as high as 80% in booths in Hindu areas.

A year and a half later, Muslim voters still vividly recall how the police blocked their paths to the polling booth, spreading dehshat, or terror.

“It seemed like there was a curfew,” said a handicrafts entrepreneur. “There were police everywhere, as if this was Jammu and Kashmir, or a Naxal area.”

“If you were in a burqa, the police would stop you repeatedly,” his wife recalled. “Show your fingers, they would say, using abusive language, hitting their batons on the ground in a threatening way.” While she managed to cast her vote, her sister-in-law scurried back in fear. So did an elderly neighbour, who was hit on the legs by police batons.

Across Rampur, there is the same refrain: “Chunav cheena gaya.” The election was snatched away.

A Muslim businessman, who holds an organisational post in the BJP’s district unit, called it the “murder of democracy”. “Rassa bhi aapka hain, bhais bhi aapki, laathi bhi aapki, jo chahe karo” – you have all the power, you can do what you want.

Even fruit vendor Nasir Ali’s enthusiasm for the Supreme Court order stems from his experience in the 2022 bye-poll. “My family has 10 votes. Seven were not on the list,” he said, reeling off the missing names. “The remaining three were in three different booths.” While he and his son managed to find their booths and cast their votes, his wife returned home unsuccessful.

Similar complaints about the deletion of Muslim names from voter lists echoed across other constituencies.

In Galshaheed locality in Moradabad, Mumtaz Jahan last voted in 2012. “I was a young bride then,” said the former teacher, who taught in schools run by the National Child Labour Project for 12 years.

“Ever since Modi-Yogi came to power, my vote has been missing,” she said, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Adityanath, both from the BJP.

She said she had combed through voter lists, petitioned every possible government office, pleaded with Booth Level Officers, and yet hadn’t been able to vote. “This is the case in every home here,” she said. “Votes are missing from lists.”

A Muslim leader, who is currently the chairperson of a municipality in western Uttar Pradesh, said the problem was not just that Muslim names were being purged from voter lists, but that fake Hindu names were being added to them.

He showed me stacks of papers printed with booth-level voter lists – each page featured crosses marked in pencil against some entries. The chairperson, who requested anonymity, said that in the months leading to the civic election he contested last year, he and his team did an exhaustive verification of voter lists in their town. They found about 2,500 names were bogus. They filed complaints and managed to get 1,700 names deleted.

“The total electorate in the town is about 45,000, and of this, about 25,000 vote,” he said. “The bogus names accounted for 10%, enough to swing an election.”

“Booth verification is what Opposition parties and candidates should have done on a mass scale ahead of the Lok Sabha election,” he continued. “This is how elections are being rigged, not through EVMs.”

The debate over EVMs

Early morning on April 5, in the town of Dhampur in Bijnore, BJP ward councillor Ajay Mittal drove around Mohalla Khatiyan, not to canvass for votes, instead to sell dairy products laden on his mini-truck.

“How many buttermilk packets do you want?” wholesaler Mittal asked a Muslim shopkeeper, interrupting the conversation I was having with him.

Noticing the BJP symbol on Mittal’s mobile cover, I turned to him, curious to know who he thought was winning the election in the constituency. “Everyone is working hard,” he said. “Let’s see kiska rajyog hai – who has the destiny to rule.”

At this, the Muslim shopkeeper interjected: “Ab election nahi, jadu ho raha hai”. What is happening is not an election, it is an act of magic.

Before Mittal had arrived, the shopkeeper had pointed out to me that in the 2022 assembly election, the Samajwadi Party candidate in Dhampur had lost the election to the BJP candidate by merely 203 votes, just 0.1% of the vote share. The same wafer-thin margin resulted in a BJP victory in nearby Chandpur. In neighbouring Nehtaur, the BJP’s winning margin was 0.13%, and in Moradabad city, it was 0.24%. Akhilesh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party president, blamed these narrow losses on rigged EVMs.

At the shopkeeper’s jibe, Mittal smiled. He said: “Those who complain about EVMs are the ones who first introduced it.”

Electronic voting machines were first deployed in an election in Kerala in 1982. But it was only in 2004 that they were scaled up for use across all 543 Lok Sabha constituencies. By then, most older democracies in the world had abandoned their use. Germany’s federal constitutional court banned the use of electronic voting machines in 2009.

The same year, after the Congress won the Lok Sabha election, BJP leader LK Advani raised doubts about the functioning of EVMs and demanded the reintroduction of the paper ballot.

In 2013, a petition filed by BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy resulted in the Supreme Court ordering that a system of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT be introduced to ensure “the confidence of voters in the EVM”.

A decade later, the use of VVPAT remains limited: only five EVMs in each assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency are subject to a paper audit, that is, paper slips generated by the voting machines are counted and tallied against the votes recorded in the machines.

In 2023, based on a report prepared by retired bureaucrats and academicians, the watchdog group, Association for Democratic Reforms, filed a petition seeking 100% paper audit of votes cast through EVMs. Another petition filed by activist Arun Agrawal in March this year resulted in the Supreme Court’s April 1 order, asking for a response from the Election Commission.

While these petitions focus on the need for a complete paper audit trail, some believe that the VVPAT system is itself part of the problem. Writing in the India Forum in 2021, former Indian Administrative Service officer, Kannan Gopinath, explained how the VVPAT system introduces vulnerabilities in the security of the EVMs since the machines must now be connected to an external device to load printable election symbols. This belies the Election Commission's claim that EVMs are standalone machines which cannot be compromised.

Lawyer Mehmood Pracha believes that asking for 100% VVPAT amounts to “sitting on the bandwagon” created by the regime. “They create an atmosphere where a false narrative is made the narrative and everybody falls for it,” he said. He argued that the paper ballot is the gold standard that India must return to.

It is a demand that the Ambedkarite group, the Backward and Minorities Communities Employee Federation, or Bamcef, has been making for a decade.

In the winter of 2023, the movement against EVMs, which has the support of lawyers like Pracha, got a fresh ballast after the BJP won unexpected victories in state assembly polls. The Opposition INDIA alliance adopted a resolution asking for 100% paper audit of votes cast on EVMs.

On January 5, Pracha and other lawyers were detained by police as they marched to the Election Commission’s office to ask for a meeting with the chief commissioner. Their protest did not get coverage in India’s mainstream media. But in western Uttar Pradesh, even working-class Muslims had heard of it.

Pracha said he decided to contest elections solely to further the aims of the movement. “Now I am not just a concerned citizen pursuing public interest litigation. I have direct locus against the election commission as a candidate,” he said.

“I will collect evidence in person,” he said, pausing to simultaneously ask his assistant to shoot off an email to the Returning Officer asking for videography of the EVM randomisation meeting to be held later that day. “I will be questioning them at every stage, and documenting it,” he continued. “I will be bringing on record through various applications that this is what is happening on the ground for a case which will be fact based, evidence based.”

He added that the Opposition should see him as a “role model for every contesting candidate” and follow his path so that “elections can be demonstrated to be unfair, a strong reason for setting aside elections which are happening through EVMs.”

My step by step struggle to highlight that not only the entire #EVM process is unsafe and farcical but even the procedures laid down by the @ECISVEEP of this faulty system are being violated at the ground level.
I once again request all candidates and political parties to watch… pic.twitter.com/YdAUZbn7yj

— Mehmood Pracha (@MehmoodPracha) April 8, 2024

Voters confused

The day the Supreme Court issued notice to the Election Commission, journalist Ravish Kumar did a show on YouTube on the subject. It garnered over three million views in five days.

Among those who watched it was Saba Khan, the former computer science teacher in Rampur. She said it strengthened her resolve to skip voting yet again. “If the election is held by ballot paper, I will vote, else I won’t,” she said. Won’t this benefit the BJP, I asked. Either way, the BJP stands to gain, she said.

The Samajwadi Party candidate in Rampur, Maulana Mohibullah Nadvi, acknowledged that the Opposition’s questioning of EVMs runs the risk of discouraging voters from going to the booth. “On one hand there is worry about the EVMs, on the other, there is concern about voters feeling dejected,” he said. “So we are actively telling them to go and vote.”

In the election fray in Bijnore district is Chandrashekhar Azad, who is contesting his maiden assembly election from Nagina constituency. The firebrand Dalit activist has steadfastly campaigned against EVMs since 2019. Asked whether it was contradictory to contest elections held by EVMs, while campaigning against the use of the machines, he said: “All national parties are raising questions about EVMs, but are still contesting elections. Why should we sit them out?”

He said his party had mapped out voting data booth-wise and was prepared to challenge the results if they defied known trends.

But what about voters, I asked. Wasn’t the messaging confusing for them? “We are telling them please go out and vote, it is our responsibility to stop the theft of your votes,” Azad said.

Azad’s voters seemed to have got the message. “He is saying ‘vote daalo, hakk ka hum dekhenge,’” said Kapil Kumar, a Jatav voter in Khalilpur village. “You take care of the vote, I will take care of your rights.”

But in Rampur, the Muslim handicrafts entrepreneur was less accepting of the Opposition’s stand. “Rahul Gandhi questions EVMs, but also contests elections held using EVMs. When the Congress wins Karnataka, suddenly all is fine with EVMs.”

Resorting to some black humour, he said: “The Opposition should not field candidates. It should allow the BJP to win uncontested. The country will be saved from election expenses. We will be saved from getting abused. And the world will get to know the real picture of the world’s largest democracy.”

All photographs by Supriya Sharma

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Tuesday wrote an open letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing his government of creating a “chimera of free water” and failing to address a water shortage in the national capital, reported ANI.

Saxena’s letter to the jailed Aam Aadmi Party leader came two days after Delhi water minister Atishi wrote to the lieutenant governor asking him to suspend the chief executive officer of the Delhi Jal Board for failure to ensure adequate water supply across the capital.

Atishi alleged that the water crisis in Delhi is being artificially created by senior officers appointed to the Delhi government by the Centre under provisions of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Amendment Act, 2023, which received the president’s assent in August.

The Act created an authority to administer the transfer and posting of bureaucrats serving in the Delhi government and diminished the powers of the elected government of Delhi over services.

Atishi’s letter to Saxena on April 14 mentioned that a woman had been stabbed to death after a quarrel with her neighbour over the fetching of water from a common tap in the Farsh Bazar area of northeastern Delhi. She alleged that the incident was a result of “criminal negligence” by the chief executive officer of the Delhi Jal Board.

However, Saxena on Tuesday described Atishi’s letter as “insensitive communication” and accused her of using “the unfortunate death of a woman in East Delhi for narrow and partisan political goals”.

The lieutenant governor said that by linking the inadequate supply of water to the incident, Atishi had indicted her own government. “Her note indeed is a prima facie admission of guilt, inaction and inefficiency over the past almost 10 years,” Saxena said in his letter to Kejriwal.

“[Atishi] has yet again targeted the Chief Secretary, Chief Executive Officer of DJB, officers of Finance and Urban Development Department,” Saxena said. “It has almost now become habitual on part of your ministers to blame officers for their own failures, be it in the field of health, hospitals, sanitation, education or water supply.”

Delhi LG VK Saxena writes an open letter to CM Arvind Kejriwal, raising questions on water supply-related issues. pic.twitter.com/AO9dzRrXWi

— ANI (@ANI) April 16, 2024

Atishi’s letter to Saxena, however, clarified that the chief executive officer of the Delhi Jal Board had refused to share any information with her on the water supply situation in the national capital, citing the Model Code of Conduct ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The Model Code of Conduct is a set of rules issued by the Election Commission that political parties, candidates and governments have to follow during the election campaign period.

Atishi’s letter also alleged a conspiracy to impede funding for the Delhi Jal Board in the financial year 2023-’24.

“Non release of funds by Finance Department brought Delhi Jal Board to a standstill for the last 8-10 months,” she said. “Installation of borewells had been requisitioned in many parts of Delhi; however to shortage of funds almost none of these borewells was installed.”

Atishi also alleged that she has written to the chief secretary of Delhi several times seeking action against government officers in various cases, but was told in response that the workings of the services department is outside the purview of the Aam Aadmi Party government.

“So it is clear that whatever action has to be taken [against errant officers], needs to be taken by the Hon’ble LG,” Atishi said.

A total of 250, or 21%, of the 1,192 candidates contesting in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections have criminal cases against them, non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms said in a report on Tuesday.

The organisation analysed the self-sworn affidavits filed by 1,192 out of the 1,198 candidates who are contesting in the second phase of the polls on April 26, in 13 states.

A report based on the analysis showed that Bharatiya Janata Party candidates K Surendran and ​​Dr KS Radhakrishnan have the most number of criminal cases against them.

Surendran, who will contest the elections from Kerala’s Wayanad against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, has 243 cases against him, of which 139 are serious offences. Radhakrishnan, the BJP’s candidate from the state’s Ernakulam constituency, has 211 criminal cases and five of them are serious.

The organisation categorises “serious offences” as those carrying a punishment of five years or more.

The third name on the list is Congress’ Idukki candidate Dean Kuriakose, who has 88 cases against him, of which 23 are serious.

Of the total 1,192 candidates whose affidavits were analysed, 167, or 14%, have serious offences registered against them.

Of the 250 candidates with criminal cases, 32 have declared cases where they have been convicted. Three candidates have declared cases related to murder, whereas 24 have declared attempt to murder cases.

A total of 28 candidates have been accused in cases related to crimes against women and one of them has also declared a case related to rape. Of the total, 21 candidates have declared cases related to hate speech.

Among the major parties, 31, or 45%, of the 69 candidates from the BJP and 35, or 51%, of Congress’ 68 candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.

All five candidates of the Communist Party of India and all four candidates of the Samajwadi Party contesting in the second phase also have criminal cases against them. The Janata Dal (United) has fielded two candidates, out of its total five, who have been accused in criminal cases.

The number stands at 14 out of 18 candidates for the Communist Party of India (Marxist), two out of three for Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction and two out of four for Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).

The Association For Democratic Reforms also said that 45, or 52%, out of 87 constituencies going to polls in the second phase are “red alert” constituencies. A constituency is classified as “red alert” if three or more candidates contesting there have declared criminal cases against themselves.

Assets analysis

The election watchdog’s report also included analyses of the share of wealth among the candidates and showed that 390, or 33% of the 1,192 candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

Of them, 140, or 12% of the candidates have assets worth over Rs 5 crore, whereas 112, or 9%, have assets worth between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore.

All five candidates from the Janata Dal (United), all four Trinamool Congress candidates and all four of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) candidates contesting in the second phase of polling have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

Additionally, all four candidates from the Samajwadi Party and all three candidates from Shinde’s Shiv Sena group are also crorepatis.

A total of 64, or 93% of 69 candidates from the BJP and 62, or 91%, of Congress candidates have also declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

Of all the candidates contesting in the second phase, 353, or 30%, have said that they have assets worth less than Rs 10 lakh. There are six candidates who have declared that they have no assets.

The candidate with the most assets, worth over Rs 622 crore, is Congress’ Venkataramane Gowda who is contesting from Karnataka’s Mandya. He is followed by DK Suresh from Bangalore Rural, also a Congress candidate, with assets worth over Rs 593 crore.

Actor-turned-politician Hema Malini, who has been fielded once again from Mathura by the BJP, is third on the list with assets worth over Rs 278 crore.

Also read:

• Beyond the hype: Why the BJP is eyeing Tamil Nadu’s most prosperous region

• ‘Will Modi visit us if we vote?’: Why this election means little for Manipur’s displaced

Former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen was released from jail on Wednesday, days after she was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the Bhima Koregaon case. She had been in jail since June 6, 2018.

Sen’s lawyer, Indira Jaising, confirmed her release on X.

Sen is among 16 academicians, activists and lawyers who were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for their alleged role in instigating caste violence at Bhima Koregaon near Pune in January 2018.

While granting bail to Sen on April 5, the top court observed that the allegations of terrorism against her are prima facie untrue.

She is finally out , Shoma Sen wit her daughter outside Byculla jail pic.twitter.com/8k2J9B9ymF

— Indira Jaising (@IJaising) April 17, 2024

“If we examine the acts attributed to [Sen] by the various witnesses or as inferred from the evidence relied on by the prosecution, we do not find prima facie commission or attempt to commit any terrorist act,” the bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Augustine George Masih observed.

The top court also said that the National Investigation Agency had failed to prove the allegation that Sen funded terrorist acts or received any money for that purpose. “What we can infer on the basis of the materials produced before us are mere third-party allegations that money has been directed to be sent to her,” the court said. “None of the materials reveal receipt of any funds by her or her direct role in raising or collecting funds.”

The Supreme Court held that Section 43D(5) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act – which requires a court to deny bail to persons accused of terrorism if there are reasonable grounds to believe the allegations against them – would not apply in Sen’s case.

The court also cast doubt on the allegations of conspiracy against the former professor. Sen’s “participation in some meetings” and attempts “to encourage women to join the struggle for new democratic revolution” did not reveal the commission of an offence under the anti-terrorism law, it said.

The National Investigation Agency has alleged that Sen “is an active member of CPI (Maoist) and conspired with other accused persons to violently overthrow democracy and the State”.

However, the court said that its observations were only prima facie views and that the future course of the trial would depend on the framing of the charges against Sen by the National Investigation Agency. “If charges are framed, the nature of evidence the prosecution can adduce against her in trial, as also her own defence,” the bench said.

On March 15, the National Investigation Agency told the court that it did not need Sen in its custody any longer. The court granted Sen bail on account of her old age, poor health and the delay in the trial. She has been prohibited from leaving Maharashtra and has been directed to surrender her passport, if she has one.

Sen is also required to keep the Global Positioning System, or GPS, feature active on her mobile phone and keep it paired with the device of the investigating officer so that her location is known.

Sen is the sixth person accused in the Bhima Koregaon case to have been granted bail.

Trade union activist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj was granted default bail in 2021 after the National Investigation Agency failed to complete its investigation and file a chargesheet as per the anti-terrorism law’s stipulated time frame. Writer and caste scholar Anand Teltumbe received bail in 2022. Poet Varavara Rao was granted bail on medical grounds in 2022. Trade union activist Vernon Gonsalves and political cartoonist Arun Ferreira got bail in 2023.

The passage of the long-pending women’s reservation act granting women 33% reservation in Lok Sabha and state assemblies signalled a commitment to improve political representation.

But as of April 8, women account for only 16% of the 414 candidates announced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and 13% of the 246 candidates announced by the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections that begin on April 19.

The poor representation of women in Parliament has been a persistent concern.

Three quarters of a century ago, as India’s Constituent Assembly deliberated on the Constitution of what would be the world’s most populous democracy, women accounted for a mere 4% of that body – 15 of 389 members.

Although women’s representation in the Lok Sabha has increased over time, the progress has been slow, as seen in Figure 1. Until as recently as 2009, women accounted for less than 10% of the Lok Sabha. Progress in the Rajya Sabha has been even slower.

More generally, the relative absence of women MPs reflects the large gender gap in women’s political participation and leadership although the gender gap in voter turnout is low.

Representation and representation gaps in political leadership matter. That is why, even before independence, there were experiments to guarantee representation to large religious communities – and why the Constitution guarantees representation for some social groups. Guarantees can be in different ways – for instance, through nominations separate from elections, separate electorates, or seat reservations.

Last year’s decision to extend guaranteed representation to women, while laudable, may be delayed in implementation until the end of this decade. The continued low representation of women in political leadership greatly tarnishes the attainment of democratic ideals, besides being consequential for governance, policy-making, and development outcomes.

Across the world, the gender gap in political leadership is far greater, and persists more stubbornly, than gender gaps in education, health, and economic opportunities.

In India, of the 17 general elections since 1951, the last election, held in 2019, produced the most women MPs – 78. Yet these MPs account for less than 15% of the Lok Sabha. By contrast, women’s representation is far higher among Indian-origin politicians in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

In 2019 almost a third of the constituencies had no women candidates (Figure 2a). Further, in 70% of constituencies, the total vote share of women candidates was less than 5% (Figure 2b).

The maps in Figure 2 also suggest geographic patterns in the vote share of women candidates and the presence of women MPs (Figures 2c and 2d) – specifically, the East did better and the South did worse. Figure 3 (left graph) shows five broad regions: North, West, South, East, and North East.

Despite relatively better gender-and-development indicators, the South had the smallest vote share (9%) and smallest fraction of MPs (8%). The figures for the South are smaller than the North and West and only half of the figures for the East.

Consider individual states (Figure 3, right graph). Of the 18 states with over 4% of Lok Sabha seats, Kerala has the lowest presence of women MPs and Odisha has the highest. The two states have a similar number of Lok Sabha seats (20 and 21) and yet Kerala has only a single woman MP while Odisha has seven. In fact, of the 18 states, three of the five lowest figures are for the South (Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka).

The low political presence of women in the South – particularly in Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu – is odd since these states are conventionally considered less gender-unequal than the states of the North and West.

Figure 4 shows, for the 18 larger states, the cross-state relation between the Gender Development Index on the one hand, and women’s vote share or women MPs on the other. It reveals that in fact there is little correlation. The figure also shows little correlation with the Human Development Index. That is, states with a higher Gender Development Index or higher Human Development Index do not have better representation of women in politics.

Kerala’s case is particularly interesting. While the state has the highest gender and human development index among the 18 larger states, today it accounts for only 1% of women members of the Lok Sabha. Three-quarters of a century ago, the same region had accounted for 20% of the women members of the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, the presence of women in Kerala politics seems to have regressed.

If social indicators such as the human development index or gender development do not seem greatly relevant for women’s presence in politics, what about the nomination patterns of political parties?

The two national formateur parties – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leading the NDA coalition and the Congress leading the United Progressive Alliance coalition – did not distinguish themselves in nominating women candidates. In 2019, both nominated 13% women candidates. However, there was a regional difference: for the BJP the percentage was greater in the West while for the Congress it was greater in the East – but the South had the lowest percentage for both parties (Figure 5).

Despite the two parties contesting a similar number of seats and nominating a similar percentage of women, women candidates of the BJP won at a far greater rate than in Congress. This has to do with party rather than gender: 75% of women and 69% of men candidates of the BJP won, while for the Congress it was 11% women and 13% men. See this essay for a historical mapping of BJP and Congress electoral support.

The East had the best performance in 2019 because a quarter of MPs from West Bengal and a third of MPs from Odisha are women (Figure 3). The reason is that these states had strong regional parties that committed to nominating more women. The Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha explicitly committed to this. In 2019 they nominated by far the most percentage of women among all parties (Figure 6).

The two parties have nominated a number of women in the upcoming 2024 elections as well – 29% for the Trinamool Congress and 33% for the Biju Janata Dal.

However, other parties in West Bengal and Odisha did not follow their lead – in 2019 they nominated far fewer women nominees (Figure 7). Further, even the stances of Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal were unstable and dependent on political calculations more than ideology. This led both parties to nominate far smaller percentages of women in state elections.

India’s electoral history suggests that without institutional nudges or guarantees, adequate and sustained representation may not occur even in the medium term. The women’s reservation law passed in September is an important step to increase women’s representation in the Lok Sabha and in state assemblies – although implementation delays are expected.

In addition, there has to be sustained effort to strengthen the foundations so that citizens on the one hand and parties on the other both feel that such representation is important.

Misconceived perceptions about gender and politics need to be addressed, such as the notion that their gender makes women parliamentarians less active. Without more efforts to align both ideology and political calculations in favour of representation, even parties that supported the women’s reservation bill will not live up to its spirit.

Suraj Jacob teaches development and policy at the Azim Premji University.

In my childhood there was a lot of talk of treasure. Many people hunted for treasure, even though finding a trove was fraught with risk. Buried by rich families who had fled dire circumstances, treasure stashes were thought to be cursed and guarded by venomous snakes.

That didn’t stop the quest.

There were rumours of shovels clanging against earthenware while a road or the foundation for a new house was being dug. Sometimes, the diggers would come across urns – called nannangadi – in which human bodies had been buried centuries before.

Many had actually found treasure. It was visible in the dramatic ways in which their lives changed. Thatched, single-roomed huts were replaced by concrete homes. Rough lungis gave way to see-through muslin double mundus or glistening flared trousers. Beedis were swapped out for 555, Rothmans and Dunhill cigarettes.

These were the migrants who worked in the Gulf, returning once every two, three or even five years, to spend a couple of months at home.

The Gulf, as the Arab countries of West Asia are referred to, on the other shore of the Indian Ocean, seems to have been a place full of treasures. In the Arabian tales of migrants, one kept hearing of the Arabi ponnu, or gold. Those with no job training, who had passed no exams and possessed no cultural capital were now returning with perfumes and tape recorders, cameras and duty-free shopping bags.

The Gulf became, for Kerala, a zone of exaggerations.

The kathaprasangam is a performance in which the dramatic narration of a story is interspersed with songs that propel the narrative. Kathaprasangam performers spoke of a Gulf where everything was extra-large. “Haven’t you seen our puttu [steamed rice cake]? They are so small. Have you seen the puttu in Dubai? They are so big!” the performer would exclaim and his hands would make a wide gesture, as if giving a bear hug.

People would throng such performances, travelling in jeeps with four people in the front, many more in the back, one seated on the spare tyre fixed to the back door and a crowd hanging to the roof with a toehold on the running board.

“In Dubai, they travel in the planes hanging by rods,” the kathaprasangam performer would narrate and we would imagine a land where people travelled in aeroplanes just like that.

Anything was imaginable about the Gulf. A new social energy was unleashed in Kerala. Canadian-born scholar Robin Jeffrey notes that in the 1940s, Kerala experienced social turmoil as the underclasses were swayed by the promises of radical politics. In Jeffrey’s words, this was the time when the folded hands of the depressed classes, which signaled their servility, gave way to raised fists of protest. But the radical politics did not carry this spark for long.

He says that the Gulf phenomenon of mass migration in the 1970s and ’80s held the same promise of social transformation in Kerala as politics did in the 1940s.

In the late 1970s, when my father built the first concrete house in our village, he had already spent half a decade in Abu Dhabi. People flocked to see the elsewhere-world now being born in our village too. It would have felt like Macondo, the fictional town that author Gabriel García Márquez refers to in his book One Hundred Years of Solitude, where things did not yet have their names and had to be named afresh.

The Gulf was an event in Kerala unfolding in the shape of the multitude of departures and arrivals of millions of migrants. When a migrant was about to leave for the airport, everyone would form a line on either side. There would be an empty path between the migrant and the vehicle that would carry them to the airport. All chappals, except those of the migrants, would have been removed from the door of the house.

As migrants walked to the vehicle, they were not supposed to look back. They might hear the murmurs of their mother, the distant cry of their children or feel the determined stiffness of their spouse. But they were not supposed to look back, a reminder of the stories where the warrior, upon turning around, is turned into a statue incapable of movement and life.

The photographs of migrants and mainstream Malayalam films of the 1980s gave glimpses of the fantasy that the Gulf was, strengthening these ideas. In these photos, taken by the migrants themselves thanks to the cheap cameras that became available in markets there from the late 1970s, the Gulf was a place of wonders: not of deserts but of vibrant urbanscapes, of landscaped gardens and tall buildings, of consumer goods and caravan housing.

Malayalam films of the early 1980s also brought home what development looked like – with glimpses of Tokyo and Florida and Singapore and Dubai.

Yet, when the Gulf is studied, it is largely along two aspects. One is that of remittances: of the money sent back home and how it is spent. The magic of the Gulf – its promise and perils, its demands and covenants – is reduced to money, its need, its use, its trajectory.

The other aspect is exploitative labour conditions – such as the kafala system that binds the labourer to a native employer – the pangs of hunger, the unpaid salaries and the coffins of migrant labourers.

Analysing remittances and labour conditions are important to enable better conditions for migrants. But also necessary is research into the reasons for the apparent disconnect between current academic language and the discourse about the Gulf from the 1970s and 1980s all the way to the 2000s.

Often, the ignorance about the “real” Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s is attributed in Malayalam discourse to the silence of migrants who do not want to speak about the hardship or their real jobs in the Gulf.

But speaking to migrants and looking at representations of migrants right in the 1980s, it is fairly clear that the migrants did speak about their hardship to those back home. Some families even lost relatives in the Gulf. It was known that life in the Gulf was perilous.

So why is the story of the silent migrant so hegemonic?

There are several reasons why discussions about the Gulf both became private but also acquired the form of myth and exaggeration, or tears and sweat.

The reasons include the withdrawal of politics from the issues of livelihood in Kerala, the association of labour with the idea of citizenship and national progress. The labour practices in the Gulf, too, made discourse about the Gulf “private” and unavailable to “public” speech, such as academic enquiry.

For academics, the task is to forge a new language that will communicate this wonderland of private talk. This language will have to be sensitive to the grammar – the dead weight of past generations and the ineffable intensities of new social energies – that shape the dreams and aspirations of the migrants and those they leave behind.

The story of migration is made of the biographies of many journeys and their universal resonances. The story, however, is also made of how these migrants try to distinguish themselves from those who have not yet seen the Gulf.

It is, therefore, a story of translation in two senses – one, the Gulf as a foreign land had to be translated into local idioms of respectability in Kerala so that the migrants feel they were different from the others. The other translation is the way the migrants translated their experiences to a story of humankind that transcends all boundaries.

It should be possible, within the bounds of academic language, to go back to childhood, relive the thrill in those possibilities of treasure, while not losing sight of a revolution that could have been, forged in the lonely length between the door and the car, encouraged, blessed, admired and envied by people on either side.

Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil is Associate Professor at Manipal Centre for Humanities. He is the author of The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala: Reading Borders and Belonging, Oxford University Press, 2024.

Marathammal ran out of breath walking barefoot in the blazing afternoon sun. The elderly Kurumba woman sat down on the steps outside a row of shops, about 100 metres from a large public ground in Mettupalayam where the Bharatiya Janata Party had organised an election meeting on April 10.

In her hand, Marathammal clutched a VIP pass. Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked out from it.

What does she think of Modi, we asked. “I don’t know anything about him,” she said. “But I have seen him on TV.”

Why had she come to the meeting, we asked. “The people in my village asked me to get into the bus so I did,” she said.

Marathammal had been told she would get some money. “But so far I haven’t received anything,” she quickly added.

Mettupalayam lies at the foothills of the Nilgiris, on the road from Coimbatore to Ooty. In ten weeks, this was Modi’s seventh trip to Tamil Nadu – a state where the BJP had won a vote share of just 3.66% in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and not a single of the 39 seats. The party’s performance in the state has so far peaked at four Lok Sabha seats in 1999 and four Assembly seats in 2021.

And yet, this time, the party is pushing hard to increase its presence in the state, with every Modi trip setting in motion frenetic news coverage and hyperbolic headlines like: Can BJP breach the Dravidian fortress?

For decades, Tamil Nadu has swung between the two Dravidian parties – the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, both founded by charismatic leaders, who are still remembered by voters.

The only political leaders that Marathammal knew, for instance, were MGR – MG Ramachandran, the founder of AIADMK – and his protege, six-time chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

But the BJP senses an opening in the state – for a reason.

Who had she voted for the last time, we asked Marathammal. She raised her hand, parted her fingers, and made the victory sign – also the shape of the AIADMK’s symbol, the two leaves.

Most women who had come to Mettupalayam had a similar story to tell: they had voted for the two leaves symbol in the past, they did not know much about Modi or the BJP, they had been bussed into the meeting by someone from their village who had promised them some money and a meal.

While their presence at the rally did not guarantee votes for the BJP, the backstory of how they had arrived here suggested the national party was now in command of parts of what was earlier the AIADMK’s organisational network.

Could this pay dividends?

Walking away from the rally grounds while Modi was still speaking, Papathi, a resident of Mettupalayam, said: “He hasn't done anything so far that has helped me personally, but I think he will do a lot for us in the future.”

An alliance and an opening

The AIADMK is widely seen to have opened the gates for the BJP in Tamil Nadu. After Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, the faction-ridden party took on the BJP as an ally in both the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections. The alliance between the two parties came undone in September 2023, with the AIADMK accusing BJP state president K Annamalai of disrespecting their icons.

A former Indian Police Service officer, Annamalai, 40, quickly rose to become the state president of the BJP within a year of joining the party in 2020. Pugnacious and aggressive, he has found ways to dominate the news cycle.

But aggression aside, there is another reason for the AIADMK to worry: both Edappadi Palanisamy, the leader of the AIADMK, and Annamalai belong to the Kongu Vellalar Gounder community. A landowning caste that embraced entrepreneurship, the community dominates Kongunadu, the region in western Tamil Nadu that is economically the most industrialised and prosperous part of the state.

It is in this region, and among dominant castes like the Gounders and the Vanniyars, that the BJP fancies its chances. As part of this strategy, Annamalai is contesting elections from the Coimbatore constituency, where the Hindu right has had pockets of support since a series of bomb blasts ripped through the city in 1998.

The DMK has been historically weak in the region. “We have won only two of the 10 seats in the last five elections,” said Manisundar Nallasamy, who is handling DMK’s campaign in one of the Assembly segments in Coimbatore. “This means only two victories in 50 contests.”

But this isn’t the only opening that the BJP seeks to capitalise on.

Travelling through the region, I found a deep disquiet among young people who are rejecting both the Dravidian parties as corruption-ridden. In what seems like a profound contradiction, the search for an alternative is leading some young voters to the BJP, a party still perceived by most as a North Indian “Hindi” outfit, and others to Naam Tamilar Katchi, a Tamil nationalist party led by Seeman.

In this ferment, the BJP is leveraging the powers it wields as the ruling party at the Centre – most of all, its control over federal investigative agencies. Last year in June, the Enforcement Directorate arrested former state minister Senthil Balaji in a money-laundering case. Balaji, who hails from Karur, in western Tamil Nadu, belongs to the Gounder community.

The arrest has created a chilling effect among the local political class.

A DMK leader, also from the community, recalled running into politicians from the AIADMK at a wedding last month. When he complimented them for the strong statement made by one of their party colleagues against the BJP, he said they scoffed at him, saying: “He was not a minister in the past five years so he can afford to speak up. If we say something, the ED will come after us.”

Caste and faith

Melapalayam is a village about two hours east of Coimbatore, part of the fertile sugarcane and coconut growing block of Kangayam, famous for a native cattle breed. Hearing that I had come from Delhi, P Shanmugam, a resident who trades in coconuts, insisted on taking me to a temple in the village.

“Dheeran Chinnamalai used to pray at this temple,” he said, referring to a powerful regional chieftain who fought the British in the 19th century.

“He was from the Kongu Vellalar community,” Shanmugam added, with visible pride.

In recent years, this blending of caste pride with the Hindu faith has brought the region into the limelight, often for the wrong reasons. In 2015, writer Perumal Murugan, who taught Tamil in a college in neighbouring Namakkal, was forced to leave after a furore broke out against his book One Part Woman.

Set in colonial times, the book told the story of a childless Gounder couple being subjected to a custom that involved the woman being sent to the Ardhanareeshwarar temple in Tiruchengode to sleep with other men, in the hope that she would produce a child. Hindutva groups took offence. Alleging that Murugan had hurt the sentiments of Hindus, they filed a case against him, which the courts eventually dismissed.

The same year in Namakkal district, a Dalit student was beheaded for merely speaking to a female classmate from the Gounder community. Both caste outfits and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh spoke in support of the local strongman who led the murder – Yuvaraj, the chief of a group named Dheeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment by a court.

Against this backdrop of caste-based Hindutva mobilisation in the area, it wasn’t surprising to hear Shanmugam’s response, when I asked him who should form the government in Delhi. “Hundred per cent Modi,” he said.

“The central government gives Rs 6,000 to small farmers every year,” he said. Food rations, health insurance, toilets, 100 days of guaranteed work – all these were central government schemes, he added, even though people mistakenly attributed them to the DMK government in the state.

While Shanmugam couched his support for the BJP in terms of the central government’s initiatives, another resident, who was listening in, credited Modi for a muscular defence of the nation. “Except Pulwama, there has been no major attack on the country,” he said, referencing a suicide bombing in Kashmir in 2019, and ignoring India’s skirmishes with China. “In the past we would be scared of travelling in trains because we feared there would be bomb blasts, but not anymore.”

This resident identified as an RSS supporter and said he was voting for the BJP.

Despite his professed support for the BJP, Shanmugam said he was going to vote for the AIADMK – as a matter of habit. “For generations, my family has supported the AIADMK,” he said. “This time also, we will be voting for them.”

But he wanted the AIADMK to ally with the BJP – never mind if that meant becoming a junior partner to the national party in the future. “Modi has spoken highly of Jayalalithaa and MGR, and so AIADMK supporters know that the enemy of the BJP too is the DMK,” he said.

Shortcuts to growth

The AIADMK hasn’t made it easy for its supporters to tell the difference between the two parties. In Erode constituency, of which Melapalayam is a part, the Dravidian party’s candidate is Aatral Ashok Kumar, who was with the BJP until five months ago. He is the son-in-law of C Saraswathi, one of the four BJP MLAs in Tamil Nadu, who had won the 2021 Assembly election from Modakurinchi.

“The only reason she won was because the AIADMK cadre worked for her,” a local journalist said.

The same organisational heft of the AIADMK helped Nainar Nagendran win the Assembly polls on a BJP ticket. Now contesting the Lok Sabha elections from the Tirunelveli constituency, 300 km south of Erode, he is widely considered the BJP’s strongest candidate in the state.

Leaders of the AIADMK recognise they have nourished a party that might prove to be their undoing. “The BJP always takes advantage of the regional parties. They enter the states with their support and then begin to dominate them and eventually finish them off,” said a party leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Look at what happened to Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra.”

Publicly, though, party leaders maintain that the AIADMK’s vote is intact. “The BJP is just a newborn child,” said former state minister and Rajya Sabha member, KV Ramalingam, dismissively. “It will take long to grow.”

Supporters of the BJP, however, believe there are shortcuts to growth.

Claiming that the Lok Sabha election was a sideshow and the real battle was the 2026 Assembly polls, a textile entrepreneur in Tiruppur said: “If the BJP wins 20 seats in the Assembly election, the AIADMK will be forced to form an alliance with them.”

“A year or year and half later, they will split the party, they will buy the MLAs, AIADMK will be swallowed by the BJP,” he added, gleefully.

Just minutes ago, he had told me that he supported Modi because he was “not corrupt”.

Simultaneously, the entrepreneur, a man in his fifties, had claimed: “Modi has come to power because a huge section of people felt we are without a ruler who can safeguard Hinduism.”

While this sentiment may be common in North India, did it also prevail in Tamil Nadu, I asked.

“No, no, we don’t bother. We are educated and beyond all this,” he said, extolling the virtues of the Dravidian social welfare model that had placed Tamil Nadu ahead of other states. “Before India or Hinduism was incorporated, Tamil was there. We are foremost Tamil.”

Many have argued that Tamil pride stands as a bulwark against the Hindi-Hindu politics of the BJP. But the entrepreneur showed that seemingly contradictory impulses can be sublimated.

By picking Annamalai as its leader in the state, he claimed, the BJP had shown its willingness to adapt. The young leader will moderate the party’s stance on Hindi, else “he will be booted out of politics”.

Before the conversation had turned to politics, the entrepreneur had run through a litany of complaints against the central government, from its failure to prevent cheap garment imports from Bangladesh flooding the Indian market, to a shortfall in quality cotton, to the lack of support for small enterprises during the Ukraine war when European markets had crashed.

He had personally suffered. The annual turnover of his company, he said, had plummeted from Rs 10 crore to Rs 1.5 crore last year.

Yet, he wanted the BJP to hold on to power at the Centre – and form a government in Tamil Nadu in 2026. “We are fed up with both the Dravidian parties,” he said.

The more significant political milestone in 2026 could be delimitation. The redrawing of India’s electoral constituencies based on population is a fraught issue since it could reduce representation for the South. The Opposition suspects the BJP could use it to obviate the need to cultivate support in the South.

While the issue wasn’t part of the popular discourse in Tamil Nadu, the entrepreneur had heard about it. “We know that they will do some sort of nonsense. But let it come, then we will show,” he said, knitting his brows.

From demonetisation to inflation

The BJP may have won over a section of the elites of Kongu region. But among the working classes, it is either ignored or despised. Modi, in particular, is remembered for the economic shocks of demonetisation, the Covid-19 lockdown, and the upheaval caused by the choppy implementation of the Goods and Service Tax.

On the outskirts of Tirupur town, around 9 am on April 11, a row of buses entered the Netaji Apparel Park, a hub for garment-making companies. Alighting from them, scores of young men and women quickly disappeared into factory compounds. Most of them were migrant workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Odisha. None of them had the time to talk.

By 10 am, the only workers who could be spotted outside were cleaners, gardeners, loaders, drivers – all local residents.

S Aravind, a loader from the nearby Unjapalayam village, said his family had voted for the DMK in the past, and would continue doing so. The BJP stood no chance of winning in Tamil Nadu, and in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi was better than Modi. “Even the North Indian migrants are now saying that they want a change,” he claimed.

Aravind said he earned Rs 800 a day. V Murthi, a sanitation worker from the same village, said he earned Rs 1,000. Both spent only a few hours at the apparel park. In contrast, the migrant workers who toiled all day at their machines made just Rs 700-Rs 750 a day.

“If Modi is doing good work, why are people from North India coming here?” asked S Prasad, a driver from Perumanallur, whose job was to transport migrant workers from hostels to factories and back each day.

Prasad said his father had always voted for the Communist Party. He personally liked the Congress. Since both the parties are in alliance with the DMK, he said he will vote for the DMK this time.

Asked about the Modi government, Prasad was livid. “Modi is a complete waste,” he said. “He hasn’t done anything for the country. There is no proper planning. GST is a huge problem. Even demonetisation happened without planning. I had so many old notes with me and overnight he said they would become invalid.”

The final straw was the Covid-19 lockdown, he said. He used to own a 12-wheel truck, earning up to Rs 50,000 a month. But unable to travel, unable to pay his debt, he had to sell the truck. He now works as a driver, earning just Rs 16,000.

“The Congress should win at the Centre. Rahul Gandhi is better than Modi,” he said.

G Sampath, the general secretary of the Centre for Trade Unions, affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said the Modi government’s policies favoured the rich over the poor, big businesses over the informal sector. In rural areas, “landlords” shared the “anti-Dalit, anti-minority” politics of the BJP. “The feelings are not just against the Muslims,” he said. “Many Dalits convert to Christianity because they want to be treated as humans.” The dominant castes resented these conversions, he said.

In Modakurichi, a small figurine of Mary adorned the deck of V Prabhu’s autorickshaw. The driver said he used to support Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, but since the party had not grown in Tamil Nadu, he had switched to voting for the DMK. He planned to vote along the same lines this time.

“We need a change of government in Delhi,” he said. “All prices have gone up during Modi’s rule, whether of LPG gas, or fuel, or even taxes. It is best that Rahul Gandhi comes to power and reduces the prices.”

Youth shaped by social media

For Modi’s seven visits to Tamil Nadu, Rahul Gandhi has so far only one to show.

On the evening of April 12, the Congress leader, along with chief minister and DMK president MK Stalin, addressed thousands gathered under a brightly-lit, sprawling ground on the outskirts of Coimbatore. The organisational might of the DMK was at full display at the meeting, described by the media as a “mega poll rally”.

But while the BJP can’t match the “ground game” of the Dravidian parties, it is stronger on social media and online canvassing, a strategist working with the DMK said. And this makes a difference among the youth.

Among the sanitation workers in the apparel park in Tiruppur, all of whom said they were voting for the DMK, the youngest said he wanted Modi at the Centre. “Old people don’t know about Modi,” V Murthi said, “but I know through my phone that Modi is travelling all over the world and bringing industries to India, creating job opportunities for us.”

But the BJP wasn’t the only challenger leveraging the power of the internet. Naam Tamilar Katchi, a Tamil nationalist party, has been steadily increasing its vote share in the state. Contesting the 2021 Assembly election in alliance with the AIADMK, the BJP got 2.62% of the votes. The NTK, contesting alone, bagged 6.58% of the vote.

Outside the Erode Arts and Science College, a group of students sat listlessly in the afternoon heat, waiting for a bus. They turned up their noses when asked about the Dravidian parties. They showed indifference towards the BJP. But when I mentioned NTK, they perked up. “We have expectations from Seeman, we want to see what he will do [once in power],” R Sangeetha, a final year BSc Chemistry student, said.

Seeman, the founder of NTK, is an ultranationalist who claims only “original Tamils” from native castes can rule Tamil Nadu. His provocative speeches have fetched him popularity among the youth, but also repulsed many who find him exclusionary.

Fatigued with an older politics and in search for newer alternatives, young voters say they face imperfect choices.

A young couple, both civil engineers, said they had been debating who they should vote for. The woman, who had studied from the same Coimbatore college that Annamalai had attended, said: “Last night we were talking and I said if I would vote for Annamalai had he not been in the BJP.” Her aversion to the BJP, she explained, came from a work stint she had done in North India where she had been mocked for not knowing Hindi. Then, turning to her husband, she added, with a laugh: “He said he would vote for the NTK if Seeman was not in the party.”

Complicating the picture further, Prasad, the driver in Tiruppur, pointed out that actor Vijay was expected to contest the 2026 Assembly election. “We will all vote for Vijay then,” he said. The name of Vijay’s party: Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam, or Association of a Victorious Tamil Nadu.

Johanna Deeksha contributed reporting from Mettupalayam

All photographs by Supriya Sharma

The Election Commission on Tuesday issued a notice to Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekar Rao over an alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct, days after he made allegedly derogatory remarks against Congress leaders on April 5.

The Model Code of Conduct is a set of guidelines issued by the election commission that political parties have to follow while campaigning.

The poll panel ordered Rao to give an explanation for his alleged derogatory remarks by 11 am on Thursday. Failing this, it “will be presumed that you have nothing to say in the matter and the Election Commission will take appropriate action or decision in the matter without making any further reference to you,” the panel said.

The notice was issued after Telangana’s chief electoral officer submitted a report on a complaint filed by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee leader G Niranjan alleging that the former chief minister had made vulgar, derogatory and objectionable remarks against leaders of the Congress at the press conference in Sircilla on April 5.

Rao had allegedly referred to some Congress leaders as “sons of dogs”.

He also allegedly threatened Congress leaders with violence, saying that if they failed to give a bonus of Rs 500 per quintal of paddy to farmers, “we will bit (sic) your throats and kill”.

Congress is currently in power in Telangana.

The Election Commission cautioned Rao to be more careful, reminding him of previous instances of him having violated the poll code. This included an incident in Karimnagar in May 2019 and a speech he gave in Banswada during the Assembly polls campaign in November.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed criticism of voting through the Electronic Voting Machines and said that attempts should not be made to “bring down the system”, PTI reported.

A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta also said that the electoral process in India was a “humongous task” and rejected suggestions by petitioners to order a return to ballot papers in polling.

The bench recalled how polling booths were allegedly captured when ballot papers were in use to manipulate the election results. “We have seen what used to happen earlier,” Khanna said.

The court was hearing a batch of pleas seeking tallying of all Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips to verify votes cast through the Electronic Voting Machines.

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail is a machine that prints a paper slip of the candidate’s name, serial number and the party’s symbol after a voter has cast their vote. To avoid election fraud, it displays the paper slip for seven seconds for the voters to check if their vote has been correctly cast for their chosen candidate.

The paper slip then drops down to a locked compartment that only the polling agent can access. The slips are not handed over to the voters. The collected slips can be used to audit voting data stored electronically.

After a 2019 Supreme Court order, Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips from only five randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly segment are verified.

Watch: Indian elections: How secure is the EVM-VVPAT process?

On Tuesday, advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the nongovernmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms, said that most European countries had gone back to ballot papers, The Indian Express reported.

In response, Datta said that conducting elections in India was a humongous task that would not be possible for any European country to conduct. “We have to repose some trust and confidence in somebody,” he said. “Of course, they are accountable… But don’t try to bring down the system like this.”

Bhushan said that the petitioners were not claiming that the Electronic Voting Machines were being manipulated. “What we are saying is that EVMs [Electronic Voting Machines] can be manipulated because both EVM as well as the VVPAT [Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips] have a programmable chip.”

He also told the bench that the Election Commission had said that it could not share the source code of the Electronic Voting Machines chips as it was the intellectual property of the manufacturer.

The advocate claimed that the machines were assembled by two Public Sector Undertakings – the Electronics Corporation of India Limited and the Bharat Electronics Limited – that had several members of the Bharatiya Janata Party as its directors.

Bhushan suggested allowing voters to physically take Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips and deposit it in the ballot box that would assure them that their vote had been recorded correctly.

He also sought reversal of the Commission’s decision to replace the transparent glass on VVPAT machines with an opaque glass through which a voter can see the slip only when the light is on for seven seconds, PTI reported.

The petitioners also noted that the poll panel had earlier said it would take 12 days to declare the election results if all Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips had to be counted.

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, representing another petitioner, submitted a news report citing Election Commission’s data from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls that highlighted a mismatch in the number of votes cast on the Electronic Voting Machines and the number of votes counted in some constituencies.

Sankaranarayanan said that “serious discrepancies” were seen in several constituencies which went to polls in the first phase of the election.

The bench, in response, said that such discrepancies might arise occasionally because the button would not have been pressed immediately. “Each candidate will be given that data,” Khanna said. “The candidates would have immediately challenged it.”

Sankaranarayanan also cited a report of the Committee on Government Assurances from July. He noted that the parliamentary panel has said that “the Union government is yet to provide a reply for the last four years after it promised Parliament that it would obtain information from the Election Commission about possible discrepancies between the EVMs and VVPAT rally during the 2019 elections”.

The bench, in response, said it would ask the Election Commission about it.

The hearing of the matter will resume on Thursday.

The general elections will be held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

Demand for tallying all VVPAT slips

In January, the Congress alleged that the Election Commission had failed to provide any substantive response to the INDIA bloc’s “genuine concerns” about the Electronic Voting Machines.

A month earlier, former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi said that 100% of the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips should be verified as part of the vote counting process.

“[Counting all VVPAT slips] won’t take more than a day,” Quraishi had said in a social media post. “But [this will] restore people’s confidence. That’s essential for credible elections.”

The former election commissioner was responding to a question by a social media user who asked if it would be viable for voters to deposit their Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail slips into ballot boxes at the time of voting, and for these slips to be counted later to corroborate the data from the Electronic Voting Machines.

On December 3, Quraishi had written in The Telegraph that there is a “need for serious affirmative action” by the polling body to assuage doubts that have been raised about India’s electronic voting system.

The United States said on Tuesday that it encourages India and Pakistan to avoid escalation and resolve their conflicts through dialogue.

US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked at a press briefing on Tuesday whether the Joe Biden-led administration was concerned about the recent statements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh that India would not hesitate to cross borders and kill terrorists.

In response, Miller said: “As I have said before, the United States is not going to get into the middle of this, but we do encourage both India and Pakistan to avoid escalation and find a resolution through dialogue.”

On April 4, Modi, while addressing an election rally in Bihar’s Jamui, said that in the past, terrorists from small countries would attack India, but the Congress government would only complain about it to other countries. The prime minister said that in contrast, today’s India “goes inside enemy territory to strike”, according to The Indian Express.

Later that day, The Guardian reported that the Indian government had allegedly assassinated at least 20 persons in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a new strategy to eliminate terrorists living on foreign soil.

The British daily had claimed in its report that it had seen documentation allegedly tying India’s Research and Analysis Wing to the killings of Indian dissidents in Pakistan, which are said to have been orchestrated by sleeper cells based in the United Arab Emirates. Pakistani officials have accused these cells of paying millions of rupees to local criminals or poor Pakistanis to carry out the assassinations.

The next day, Rajnath Singh said in an interview with News18 that the Indian government would not hesitate to carry out extra-territorial killings of terrorists “who flee to Pakistan”.

Singh asserted: “If any terrorist tries to disturb the peace in Bharat or tries to carry out terror activities in Bharat, we will respond fittingly. If any terrorist flees to Pakistan, we will enter their house and kill them.”

The Ministry of External Affairs, however, denied the allegations to The Guardian, reiterating an earlier statement against Pakistan’s allegations and terming them as “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”.

On Tuesday, the US state department spokesperson also responded to a question on why the United States had not imposed sanctions on Indian citizens in the wake of alleged assassination attempts, and said: “I am never going to preview any sanctions actions, which is not to say that there are any coming, but when you ask me to talk about sanctions, it’s something that we don’t discuss openly.”

The journalist’s question appeared to refer to an alleged plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil and the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada last year.

In November, the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, announced that it had filed “murder-for-hire charges” against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, in connection with his alleged participation in a thwarted plot to assassinate Pannun. It also alleged that Gupta had been recruited by an Indian government employee who “directed a plot to assassinate on US soil an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York city”.

The United States’ Justice Department alleged that the alleged plot to kill Pannun was part of a larger conspiracy to kill one person in California and at least three in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his Parliament in September that his country’s intelligence agencies were pursuing “credible allegations” linking agents of the Indian government to the killing of Nijjar.

Social media platform X on Tuesday said that it took down four posts by political parties and leaders – including one by a senior Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearer – for the rest of the Lok Sabha election period in compliance with orders from the Election Commission.

The social media platform, however, said that it disagreed with the action and that freedom of expression should extend to the posts.

X, formerly known as Twitter, was asked to take down posts by the Aam Aadmi Party, the YSR Congress party, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and state Bharatiya Janata Party president Samrat Choudhary.

The microblogging platform published the takedown orders and said it had notified the users about its actions.

https://t.co/iYKxeXeE7o

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) April 16, 2024

The social media platform also called on the Election Commission “to publish all of its takedown orders going forward”.

The post by the Aam Aadmi Party featured a headline from the news website The Quint that read: “ED Arrested Aurobindo Pharma’s Director. 5 Days Later, It Bought Electoral Bonds”. The party had added a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the post, editing the image to redden his eyes, The Hindu reported.

Naidu had posted what appeared to be a document from the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Telugu Desam Party chief had said that the agency “seized a staggering 25,000 kilos of drugs at Vizag Port, today,” and alleged that the refusal of the Andhra Pradesh Police and port authorities to cooperate indicated the complicity and possible involvement of the ruling party.

Choudhary, in his post, had called Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav a “seasoned player” in selling election tickets, according to The Hindu. He remarked that Yadav “did not even spare his daughter” and made an apparent reference to the RJD chief’s daughter Rohini Acharya donating her kidney to him for a transplant in February 2023.

The post by the YSR Congress Party was not available on Tuesday evening, indicating that the party may have deleted it.

In a takedown request from April 2 posted by X on Tuesday, the Election Commission had directed it to remove the posts by the YSR Congress and Naidu for violating a provision of the Model Code of Conduct against criticism of the private life of political leaders and criticism based on unverified allegations.

On the same day, the social media platform was asked to remove the post by the Aam Aadmi Party. A day later, the poll body had requested Choudhary’s post to be withheld. The Election Commission alleged that both posts violated the Model Code of Conduct provision and an advisory issued by the poll body on March 1 asking parties to maintain decorum during campaigning.

India’s democracy is “strong, vibrant and robust”, Indian Ambassador to Ireland Akhilesh Mishra said in a letter to the editor of The Irish Times on Monday. The envoy also criticised the “deeply entrenched ecosystem of corruption” allegedly created by the Congress, albeit without naming it.

The letter was in response to the newspaper’s editorial on April 11 that described the Bharatiya Janata Party government as having “severely tarnished” India’s democratic credentials.

The editorial – “The Irish Times view on the Indian election: Modi tightens his grip” – said that “an intolerant Hindu-first majoritarianism is the order of the day” under the Modi government.

However, in his response to the newspaper, Mishra praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi while defending his governance and party.

Mishra claimed that the Modi government has had to fight against a “deeply entrenched ecosystem of corruption” that had been created during “the 55-year rule, including the first 30 years, by a single dynastic party”. The diplomat was referring to the Congress.

The ambassador also defended India’s central agencies and claimed that the Modi government had given them a “free hand” to facilitate the detection of the “nefarious, multilayered web of corruption and tax evasion by politicians, NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and media”.

The Irish Times’ editorial had also said that the BJP under Modi has embraced “Hindu nationalism in this 80% Hindu nation” and stoked “anti-Muslim tensions and violence”.

Mishra said that this claim was misleading because “Hinduism is inherently inclusive and fundamentally pluralistic”. The fact that the BJP is in power in only 12 out of 28 states “can happen only in ‘Hindu majority’ India”, he pointed out.

Mishra cited the proposed 33% reservation for women in Parliament as an achievement of the BJP government, among others. He also claimed that the BJP government had uplifted 250 million people out of poverty during its tenure.

The editorial had said that while Modi may win the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on account of his personal popularity and economic success, his government has cracked down on free speech and the Opposition. It also mentioned the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Income Tax Department’s freezing of the Congress’ bank accounts before the polls.

“The BJP denies any role, with Modi insisting the federal agency conducting most of the investigations, the Enforcement Directorate, is independent,” said The Irish Times. “Yet 95 per cent of its political cases have been filed against the opposition.”

Diplomat acting like BJP apparatchik: Congress

The Congress responded to Mishra’s letter claiming that he had breached his rules of service.

“Defending the Government of India is one thing and is to be expected,” said party leader Jairam Ramesh in a social media post. “But to attack Opposition parties openly in thus manner like a party apparatchik [an obedient party functionary] is not expected from an Ambassador even if he be a political appointment.”

Ramesh added: “This Ambassador is actually a career diplomat which makes his comments even more shameful, disgraceful and completely unacceptable. He has actually breached service rules and should be sacked right away.”

Defending the Government of India is one thing and is to be expected. But to attack Opposition parties openly in thus manner like a party apparatchik is not expected from an Ambassador even if he be a political appointment. This is unprofessional and disgraceful behaviour on his… https://t.co/t0YQSKZSLQ

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 16, 2024

Also read:

• Elections are India's greatest festival – so why is this one so dull?

• ‘Modi wants to be king forever’: Why ordinary voters flocked to the Save Democracy rally in Delhi

Twenty-nine alleged Maoists were killed and three security personnel injured in a gunfight in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district on Tuesday, The Indian Express reported.

The gunfight took place in an area under the jurisdiction of Chhotebethiya Police Station.

“Based on specific intelligence, a joint operation by teams of BSF [Border Security Force and DRG [district reserve guards] was launched on April 16,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified spokesperson of the Border Security Force as saying. “While the operation was under progress, the BSF operations party came under fire from CPI [Communist Party of India] Maoist cadres, and BSF troops effectively retaliated against them.”

The area was searched and 29 bodies of Maoists along with arms and ammunition were recovered from the spot, Inspector General Sundarraj told The Indian Express.

This development comes days ahead of Lok Sabha polls in the state. Elections in the Kanker Lok Sabha constituency will take place on April 26. The adjoining Bastar seat will go to the polls on Friday.

Since December, 68 alleged Maoists have been killed in separate gunfights with security forces in the Bastar region, the Hindustan Times reported citing police records. The violence has also claimed 17 civilians and six security personnel since January.

Communist Party of India (Maoist) alleges aerial bombing

On Sunday, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) alleged that the Adivasis in the nearby Sukma district had been aerially bombed on Friday. They alleged that Adivasis residing in the area were being injured in such attacks after a police camp was set up in Sukma’s Puvarti village. The attacks allegedly destroyed the surrounding forests killed animals.

The party accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government of waging a war against the state’s Adivasis and handing over their land to corporations for the exploitation of natural resources.

Several reports of aerial bombings against Adivasis have been reported from the region. A member of the European Parliament had last year posed questions in the House about alleged aerial bombings in Bastar.

Also read:

Bastar villagers allege aerial bombing by security forces. What is the truth?

Farmers’ protest isn’t the only target of drones deployed by Indian security forces

A trial court judge on Monday apologised before the Allahabad High Court after he was summoned for religious discrimination against a Muslim lawyer and making observations about the Muslim community in his orders, reported Bar and Bench.

The bench of Justice Shamim Ahmed had last month stayed the orders passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge Vivekanand Sharan Tripathi in a case pertaining to alleged forced religious conversions by Muslim clerics. This was after one of the persons accused in the case moved the High Court.

The case in the trial court was filed by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad against two Muslim clerics, Mohammad Umar Gautam and Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi, and other persons.

On January 19, Tripathi had acted against the men’s wishes in appointing an amicus curiae to represent them in the trial. Tripathi did so citing that the counsel for the accused men, a Muslim, often left the court to offer prayers.

On April 3, the High Court said that this move shows “clear discrimination on the part of the trial court on the basis of religion, which is a clear violation of fundamental right enshrined in Article 15 of the Constitution of India”.

Article 15 guarantees that the state will not discriminate against any person on the basis of their religion, caste or sex. The High Court held that Tripathi had “clearly discriminated” against one community solely on the basis of religion.

The High Court also observed that the trial court had failed to provide the accused men with electronic copies of the evidence being relied on to prosecute them.

“It is a cardinal principal that a person tried of serious offence should be furnished with all the material and evidences in advance,” the High Court said. “Any other view would not only impinge upon the statutory mandate contained in CrPC [Code of Criminal Procedure] but also the right of the applicant to a fair trial.”

Following the court’s orders, Tripathi appeared before the single-judge bench and offered an unconditional apology for his conduct, reported Bar and Bench. Tripathi said that he had passed the orders “under misconception” and would remain cautious in future.

The High Court in its order on April 3 remarked that judges must be held accountable to legal and ethical standards. “In holding them accountable for their behavior, judicial conduct review must be performed without invading the independence of judicial decision-making,” the court said.

The Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab on Tuesday announced the names of four more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party released its twelfth list with the names of seven candidates, three of whom will contest from Punjab. Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election rally in Bihar, the Congress questioned why Bihar has not been accorded special status despite the BJP being in power at the Centre for 10 years. The Opposition party also asked for an update on the Centre’s plans to construct more airports in the state.

Here’s a look at today’s top developments:

• The Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab has announced the names of four more Lok Sabha candidates, including three sitting MPs, for the general elections. The incumbents who have been given a ticket again are Jagdeep Singh Brar from Ferozepur, Amansher Singh Kalsi from Gurdaspur and Ashok Parashar Pappi from the Ludhiana Lok Sabha constituency. Former MLA Pawan Kumar Tinu, who recently joined the Aam Aadmi Party after leaving the Shiromani Akali Dal, has been fielded from Jalandhar.

#LokSabha ਚੋਣਾਂ ਲਈ AAP Punjab ਦੇ ਉਮੀਦਵਾਰਾਂ ਦੇ ਨਾਮ ਦਾ ਐਲਾਨ#Punjab pic.twitter.com/uCxTSu9WXh

— AAP Punjab (@AAPPunjab) April 16, 2024

• The BJP has released its twelfth list with the names of seven Lok Sabha candidates. Three names are from Punjab. Union minister Som Parkash has been replaced by his wife Anita Som Parkash as the BJP candidate from Hoshiarpur. Parampal Kaur Sidhu, a 2011 batch Indian Administrative Service officer who recently resigned and joined the BJP, will contest from Bathinda. Sidhu is the daughter-in-law of senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sikandar Singh Maluka. Manjeet Singh Manna has been fielded from Khadoor Sahib.

भारतीय जनता पार्टी की केन्द्रीय चुनाव समिति ने आगामी लोकसभा चुनाव-2024 के लिए 12वीं सूची में निम्नलिखित नामों पर अपनी स्वीकृति प्रदान की। pic.twitter.com/VdGHChERQa

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 16, 2024

• The Congress on Tuesday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi as to why Bihar had not been granted special status as promised by his party a decade ago. “In 2014, when campaigning for his current position, Modi effectively promised special state status for Bihar,” said Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in a social media post ahead of Modi’s rally in Bihar. “Ten years later, what is the Modi Sarkar waiting for? Why has the PM forgotten the people of Bihar?” Ramesh also asked the prime minister when the BJP-led Central government will address the issue of the annual flooding of the Kosi river.

आज प्रधानमंत्री बिहार में हैं। उनसे आज के हमारे सवाल:

1. प्रधानमंत्री ने अपने वादे के अनुसार बिहार को विशेष राज्य का दर्ज़ा क्यों नहीं दिया?
2. कोसी नदी से बाढ़ के रूप में हर साल आने वाली तबाही पर मोदी सरकार कब ध्यान देगी?
3. पीएम ने जिन हवाईअड्डों का वादा किया था उनका… pic.twitter.com/6HCQQQCHmS

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 16, 2024

• During a rally in Bihar’s Gaya, Modi criticised the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal, saying that the party had ruled in the state for “several years but they do not have the guts to discuss the work done by their government”, reported ANI. “RJD has given only two things to Bihar – jungle raj aur bhrashtachar [and corruption],” said the prime minister.

• Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, during a rally in Kerala, criticised Modi for his statements on electoral bonds, reported The Indian Express. Referring to the prime minister’s interview with ANI, Gandhi said: “I do not know if you have noticed his face and eyes. He was trying to defend the biggest corruption scandal on earth – electoral bonds, through which the BJP extorted thousands of crores of rupees from businesspeople.” In the interview aired on Monday, Modi said that the scrapping of the electoral bonds scheme by the Supreme Court is a development that everyone would regret if they reflected on it.

• Businessman Robert Vadra, husband of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra once again expressed his interest in contesting the Lok Sabha elections. “As far as my role in active politics is concerned, people have always strengthened me when I have worked for them,” Vadra was quoted as saying by ANI. “The country wants me to be in active politics. If the Congress party feels that I can bring a change, I will come into active politics.” On April 4, he told the news agency that the people of Amethi expected him to represent their constituency.

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday moved a bail petition before a special court in Ranchi alleging that his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate was politically motivated and part of a conspiracy to coerce him to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, reported PTI.

On January 31, Soren was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case. This was shortly after he resigned as the state’s chief minister after being questioned by the central agency.

The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court will hear Soren’s plea on April 23. The court also asked the Enforcement Directorate to file a reply to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader’s plea.

Soren’s petition contends that his prosecution and arrest is politically motivated by “extraneous considerations and is part of a well-orchestrated conspiracy by the Central government to browbeat, intimidate and humiliate the prominent opposition leaders”.

He also alleged that the Centre was using his arrest to coerce him into joining the saffron party or align with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

The central agency on Tuesday took custody of Afshar Ali, another accused in the case, PTI reported. Ali is already in jail in connection with another money laundering case.

What does the chargesheet say?

The chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate on March 30 named Soren, Bhanu Pratap Prasad, Raj Kumar Pahan, Hilariyas Kachhap and Binod Singh as accused persons in an alleged land scam. The agency has also attached 8.86 acres of land allegedly owned by Soren.

The prime accused in the case is Prasad, a former Jharkhand revenue department official and custodian of government records, reported PTI.

The agency has accused Prasad of misusing his position to assist several persons, including Soren, in their activities linked to illegal occupation, acquisition and possession of proceeds of crime in the form of landed properties.

According to the Enforcement Directorate, Soren acquired 8.86 acres of land located at Baragain Anchal at Bariyatu Road in Ranchi through such means. The agency also accused Soren of misusing his power and influence false evidence in the case after he was issued the first summons for questioning on August 7, reported PTI.

The Opposition leader has denied the allegations in his statement to the central agency, saying that he has no link to the land in question and no relation with Prasad, reported PTI.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave one week’s time to Patanjali Ayurved’s Managing Director Balkrishna and co-founder, yoga guru Ramdev, to issue a public apology in the contempt proceedings initiated against the company for its misleading advertisements, reported Live Law.

Ramdev and Balkrishna also apologised to the division bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Indian Medical Association against Patanjali Ayurved Limited accusing the company of carrying out a “smear campaign” against modern medicine and the Covid-19 vaccination drive.

“What we did at that point of time, it should not have been done,” Ramdev said, addressing the company’s decision to continue publishing misleading advertisements. “We will remember this in future. We released the advertisements on an impulse.”

In its previous hearings, the court reprimanded Balkrishna and Ramdev for an advertisement issued by their company on December 4 after it had said in an undertaking on November 21 that it would not make any “casual statements claiming medicinal efficacy or against any system of medicine”.

“You are doing good work but you can’t degrade allopathy,” the court said on Monday, reported The Indian Express. “Why are you asking for other methods to be stopped in favour of your methods?”

To this, Ramdev said that Patanjali wanted to bring out Ayurvedic products that are backed by research-based evidence.

The court posted the matter for April 23 and asked both Ramdev and Balkrishna to be present for the hearing.

Previous hearings

On April 12, the Supreme Court said that it was concerned about companies deceiving customers and creating risks to their health. The bench said that public health suffers because of such products despite the large sums of money they cost. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” the court said.

On April 10, the Supreme Court rejected Patanjali’s second apology and said that Balkrishna and Ramdev only expressed remorse when they were “caught on the wrong foot”.

The court remarked that Ramdev and Balkrishna tried to evade appearing before it personally by making false claims about foreign travel. It noted that though an application seeking exemption from personal appearance was filed on March 30, their flight tickets were dated March 31.

The bench also castigated the Uttarakhand State Licencing Authority for failing to act against Patanjali and its subsidiary Divya Pharmacy.

The court ordered the current and previous officers of the Uttarakhand Licensing Authority to file detailed affidavits explaining why they did not take any action against Patanjali under the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, reported The Hindu.

During a hearing on April 2, the bench also questioned why the Ministry of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) had chosen “to keep its eyes shut when Patanjali was going to town saying there [was] no remedy for Covid in allopathy”.

Also read: A brief history of Patanjali’s dangerous claims

The Supreme Court on Monday extended its stay on the Allahabad High Court’s order allowing for a court-monitored “scientific survey” of the Shahi Idgah mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura, reported PTI.

“All interim orders will continue,” a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said, listing the matter for hearing in the week starting August 5.

On December 14, the High Court had allowed a petition demanding that a court commissioner be appointed to inspect the mosque adjoining the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura.

The mosque management committee approached the Supreme Court seeking that the Hindu petitioner’s plea for a survey of the mosque be rejected, on grounds that it is barred by the Places of Worship Special Provisions Act, 1991, which prohibits any change in the character of religious places after Independence.

The committee also told the Supreme Court that the High Court should have first considered its petition for rejection of the plaint by the Hindu parties before deciding on any miscellaneous applications filed in relation to the suit.

The Hindu petitioners in the case have demanded full ownership of the 13.37 acres of land around the mosque, claiming that it is the birthplace of the Hindu deity Krishna.

The top court on January 16 stayed the survey after the Committee of Management, Trust Shahi Masjid Idgah, filed a batch of petitions challenging the High Court’s May 26 order.

The High Court on May 26 had transferred to itself all the petitions pending before a Mathura court seeking various reliefs in the case, including removal of the mosque.

Also read: How SC’s evasion on Places of Worship Act challenge is powering new Hindutva claims on mosques

The Janata Dal (United)-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Bihar has told the Supreme Court that it supports the caste survey conducted in the state, reported Hindustan Times on Tuesday.

“The caste survey was carried out under the constitutional mandates and aimed to achieve equality enshrined under the Constitution,” the state government told the court in an affidavit on Monday. “The state had declared its aim and object for the survey and has now taken steps to achieve the same on the basis of facts appearing in the survey report.”

The caste survey in Bihar was initiated in January 2022 when the Mahagathbandhan coalition, comprising Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress were in power in the state.

Kumar has since quit the Mahagathbandhan coalition. On January 28, he took oath as Bihar’s chief minister once again, for the ninth time, with the support of the BJP.

After Kumar’s defection to the Hindutva party, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that the Bihar chief minister was feeling “trapped” after the completion of the caste survey, which was done under pressure from his Mahagathbandhan partners, and that the BJP had “provided him with a way out” of his predicament.

In its affidavit to the top court, Kumar’s government said it that is making plans for the welfare of Bihar’s residents based on data from the caste survey.

“The copy of the report on data released under the caste-based survey has already been sent to all the departments of the state government for framing plans and making schemes,” the affidavit said. “Different departments are working to provide the required welfare benefits to the people of Bihar.”

Caste census data

On October 2 last year, the Bihar government released the findings of its caste survey, revealing that the Other Backward Classes and the Extremely Backward Classes constituted more than 63% of the state’s population.

The survey also found that Bihar’s population was about 13.07 crore. Of this, the Extremely Backward Classes, at 36%, were the largest social segment followed by the Other Backward Classes at 27.13%.

The population of Scheduled Castes in Bihar stood at 19.7% and Scheduled Tribes at 1.7%. Bihar’s general population accounted for the remaining 15.5%.

Based on the findings of this survey, the Bihar Assembly in November unanimously passed a bill to increase caste-based reservations in education and government jobs from 50% to 65%, crossing the ceiling set by the Supreme Court.

Petition against caste census

Several petitions have been filed challenging Bihar’s caste census. Non-governmental organisations Youth For Equality and Ek Soch Ek Prayas have approached the Supreme Court against the Patna High Court’s decision to uphold the caste survey. They have argued that the survey is equivalent to a census exercise that only the Centre can carry out, according to the Constitution.

Besides them, a Nalanda resident named Akhilesh Kumar has contended that the notification issued by the state government for the census exercise is against its constitutional mandate.

The Supreme Court in February had set April 16 as the date for a final hearing on the batch of pleas challenging the Patna High Court’s order, reported PTI.

In January, the top court asked the Bihar government to release the caste survey’s findings to allow the public to challenge any inferences drawn from the data.

The Supreme Court in October last year refused to stop the Bihar government from acting on the findings of its caste survey.

Also read: How findings of the Bihar caste census push the BJP into a corner