Author: Prafull Goradia
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: February 21, 2003
It's time for the BJP to present
its preparatory campaign for the assembly elections that are to be held
this year. However, it must be understood that Gujarat cannot be re-enacted
in any of these states. The ghastly provocation provided at Godhra on February
27, 2002, made the people furious, but did not win the Gujarat polls for
the Hindutva party. The VHP's activities helped mobilise sections of the
people, but the BJP did not win 126 seats riding on anyone's shoulders.
The BJP's trump card in Gujarat was Narendra Modi, the like of whom no
other state has produced. By the time the campaigning officially began,
the contest had ceased to be between political parties. The issue had become
Modi versus terrorism, in every way exclusively a Gujarat phenomenon.
Nevertheless, the BJP can have decisive
victories in Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh
and Rajasthan provided it charts out a winning strategy and pursues it
with boldness. It needs to be far-sighted and simultaneously aim for the
2004 Lok Sabha election. It's too premature to decide which version of
Hindutva the BJP should adopt. After all, the BJP also has to consider
the opinion of its NDA partners. The emphasis should be on governance rather
than on ideology.
Illegal migrants or infiltrators,
especially from Bangla-desh, are a case of the poorer undercutting the
poor. In West Bengal, in particular, one comes across any number of such
complaints - incidentally, many more from Muslims than Hindus. Take a tailor
- who in Bengal is most often a Muslim - who would normally earn Rs 100
per day. But a tailor migrating from Bangladesh is prepared to work for
Rs 75.
Another example is of one Mehboob
Ali in Burdwan, who belongs to a family of masons, each of whom earned
Rs 60 per day in 1995. Thereafter came several families of masons from
Mymensingh who were prepared to work for Rs 40 per day. Communist parties
welcome such infiltrators - first giving them ration cards, then listing
them in the electoral rolls - as they later become loyal voters.
In this endeavour to expand their
electorate, the Marxist hearts cease to beat for the poor and it twists
the demand for halting illegal migration into a communal bias. This is
not true, as a Muslim landowner is as worried of Bangladeshi squatters
as is a Hindu. Fear abounds in the border areas of 24-Parganas and Murshidabad,
right up to West Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri. This partly explains why the
Lok Sabha MP from Nadia on the Bangladesh border was elected on a BJP ticket.
The Congress plays along with the
communists in the mistaken belief that any opposition to these migrants
would hurt Muslim sentiments. To what extent the grand old party can go
to placate these sentiments is illustrated by Illegal Migrants Determination
by Tribunals Act (IMDT), 1983, a legislation authored by the Congress for
Bangladeshi infiltrators. Amazingly, this act applies only to the state
of Assam and the rest of India works under the Foreigners Act, 1946.
The IMDT was made into law by the
Indira Gandhi government in 1983, soon after the election to the Assam
assembly. It was so framed as to make it almost impossible to deport any
foreigner from Assam. Its most outstanding feature was that the burden
of proving that a person was a foreigner was on the complainant who claimed
that the particular person was an illegal migrant. The Foreigners Act,
1946, puts the burden of proof rightly on the suspect. Also, Section 8
of the IMDT provides that any person may complain. But it is conditional
that the alleged illegal migrant must reside within three kilometres from
the residence of the complainant. And, the procedure prescribed for detection
of an illegal migrant is elaborate and time-consuming. The BJP should promise
a repeal of this discriminatory law.
Another promise that would be useful
to the electoral campaign is nationalisation of the wakf. However pious
its origin, over the centuries, it has deteriorated into an instrument
of exploitation. Asaf A.A. Fyzee, in Outlines of Muhammadan Law (OUP, 1999),
has written: "Wakf is a permanent foundation for a religious or pious object;
the corpus belongs to God and cannot be consumed." A religious motive is
the origin of the legal fiction that wakf property belongs to Almighty
God. The most common objective initially was to pay the staff at mosques
and to endow schools and hospitals with funds. Unfortunately, in India
now, most wakfs are in favour of the wakif's (founder of a wakf) family,
children and descendants.
Little wonder that the Caliph, way
back in 1917, thought it necessary to abolish the institution of the wakf
in the entire Ottoman empire. Many Muslim countries, including Egypt, Algeria
and Morocco, have no wakfs. In India, the institution enjoys a unique advantage
in that it is above all other laws. For example, the Urban Land Ceiling
Act cannot apply to wakf properties.
During the raj, an appeal went up
to the Privy Council which then served as the apex court for the British
empire. In delivering its judgment, Lords Watson, Hobhouse and Shand and
Sir Richard Couch described "the wakf as a perpetuity of the worst and
the most pernicious kind and would be invalid".
A large number of madrasas have
been established in India, especially on its borders with Pakistan, Nepal
and Bangladesh. Regrettably, the madrasas focus on teaching of religious
subjects and overlook the secular education that is so essential for earning
one's livelihood. Lately, the madrasas have gained notoriety for being
breeding grounds for jehadis and terrorists. The Pakistan government has
clamped down on the proliferation of madrasas in that country by insisting
on their registration. There is no reason why the BJP should not insist
on the same for the existing madrasas here and the necessity of prior permission
for opening new ones.
All in all, for the present, the
BJP should deport at least a thousand proven illegal migrants every month
across the Bangladesh border. The party should declare its intentions to
repeal the IMDT. It should promise to nationalise the wakfs, apart from
monitoring madrasas.
