Editorial

For Muslim women in India, the new year began with a new edition of stale old Islamophobic abuse by Hindu supremacist forces. An app displayed photographs and names stolen from  social media profiles of Muslim women, offering them up for “auction” online. Many of the Muslim women were journalists and activists. This was a new version of an app that had surfaced last year, also “auctioning” Muslim women online. The apps are named after derogatory and abusive words used by Hindu supremacists for Muslim women: we will not use those words.

In the national capital Delhi, in Haridwar (Uttarakhand), and Raipur (Chhattisgarh), assemblies have been held in which saffron clad leaders gave calls for genocide of Muslims and administered oaths to convert India into a Hindu Rashtra. These assemblies, termed “Dharm Sansads” (Religion Parliaments) are being spearheaded by a dangerous network of violent terrorists. Under the garb of “dharm” (Hindu religion), they are openly giving training in radicalised terrorist ideology as well as weapons to Hindu children.

The passing of the The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 in the Lok Sabha is a dangerous step towards eroding India’s democracy. This proposed amendment seeks to link voting rights with Aadhaar verification. Like so many other anti-people laws, this amendment too was bulldozed through the Lok Sabha by a voice vote, overriding the demand by many Opposition MPs that the Bill be referred to a parliamentary committee that could reflect on its implications and consult experts.

Despite having been forced to beat a retreat on the pro-corporate farm laws, the Modi government is aggressively pushing for reversal of nationalisation in another key sector: banking. Five decades after the historic bank nationalisation, the government now desperately wants to bring down the minimum government holding in public sector banks from 51 percent to 26 percent apart from carrying out outright privatisation of select public sector banks.

The massacre of coal mine workers by a Special Forces unit of the Army in Oting village of Mon district in Nagaland is a heinous crime, compounded by attempts to cover it up by staging a fake encounter. The attempts by Home Minister Amit Shah and the Army officials to explain it away as a “mistake” cannot convince even the BJP’s own members and allies in the North East.

The manner of the repeal of the draconian and anti-farmer Farm Laws by the Modi regime has been as undemocratic and dishonest as the manner of their enactment. The laws were passed in Parliament by voice vote, ignoring demands for a discussion; likewise they were repealed without any discussion, in the high-handed style that is the trademark of the Modi regime.

The historic farmers’ movement will complete one year on 26 November, 2021. In its nearly yearlong existence the movement has demonstrated the amazing potential of people’s power in an extremely adverse situation. Hundreds of farmers’ organisations representing a wide social and ideological spectrum have stuck together with unprecedented unity, indomitable spirit and collective discipline in the face of continuing provocations, demonising propaganda and orchestrated violent attacks.