by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Patna : Communal tension gripped a village in Bihar’s Bhojpur district on Sunday over rumours about killing of a cow, police said. Beef was seized and two people were arrested.
A mob led by cow vigilantes on Sunday morning surrounded a house of a Muslim family in Abhgila village in Bhojpur district, about 60 km from Patna, on suspicion of cow slaughter.
“Rumours of killing of a cow spread like wildfire and soon people from neighbouring villages surrounded the Muslim family’s house,” an officer of Sahar police station told IANS.
“Police were informed and a team reached there, and managed to pacify angry villagers with an assurance that strict action will be taken against offenders.”
However, an elected local body representative on condition of anonymity said that the timely arrival of the police averted a disaster as the mob, instigated by Bajrang Dal activists and Bharatiya Janata Party workers, was about to set ablaze the Muslim family’s house.
“If police team had arrived half an hour later, the situation would have been very different because some people were asking to kill those who killed a cow,” he said.
Police officials admitted that tension prevails between two communities in the village.
“This incident took place during ongoing Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Adha, when animals are sacrificed as a part of rituals,” he said.
Exactly a month ago, on August 3, in a first of its kind in Bihar, a mob in Bhojpur led by cow vigilantes thrashed a truck driver and two others on a mere suspicion of transporting beef. All three men were arrested after being rescued from the mob.
Last month, in a similar incident, seven Muslims were arrested in Dumra village in West Champaran district for allegedly killing a calf and consuming its meat.
In that case too, a mob of cow vigilantes had surrounded the house of the suspects, demanding the arrested people be handed over to them. When the police refused, the mob staged a protest and pelted the police vehicle with stones, according to local media.
Cow vigilantes have suddenly become active in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dumped allies Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress in July and formed the government with the BJP.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : Ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, a number of prominent Muslim organisations and leaders have urged the followers of Islam to avoid offering animal sacrifice on roads, maintain hygiene, exercise restraint and not give a reason to people of other communities to complain.
However, they have exhorted the Muslims to perform “qurbani” (animal sacrifice) notwithstanding the difficulties arising out of “a particular situation” as it is an important “sunnah” (tradition of the Holy Prophet).
“This time, due to a particular situation you may encounter certain difficulties in procuring and sacrificing the animal for qurbani. Just because of difficult circumstances, you should not become negligent of this important responsibility,” various Muslim bodies have said in a statement.
“Do not offer the qurbani on the roads, footpath and pathways, rather perform it in open spaces. Kindly ensure the highest level of cleanliness and hygiene,” the joint statement, issued by Jamate-e-Islami Hind (JIH), Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadees, read.
“Do not give a chance by your actions and behaviour for any kind of complaint to your neighbours especially those belonging to other faiths. You should not allow relations to become strained and must exercise maximum self-restraint. You should not take the law in your hands under any circumstances,” it said.
The leaders including AIMPLB President Maulana Rabey Hasni Nadvi, JIH President Maulana Jalaluddin Umri, JUH President Maulana Mahmood Madani and Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad Naqvi have suggested forming a committee of elders in every area to ensure the “process of qurbani passes off smoothly under their supervision”.
The Eid-ul-Azha or Baqrid is scheduled to be celebrated on September 2 across India.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
When the Supreme Court excluded the “creamy layer”, or the well-off sections, among the backward castes from the benefits of reservations in its 1991 judgement, it had taken a logical step to ensure that the advantages of the quota system in the matter of social advancement were not enjoyed in perpetuity by the identified communities.
What the judicial pronouncement entailed was that once those who had suffered for centuries from the inequities of the caste system had been able to overcome much of their social disabilities via the officially sponsored affirmative action, they would lose their right for preferential treatment. The criterion for those who would be excluded from the benefits of the quota system was an annual income of Rs 100,000.
However, while deciding on the concept of the “creamy layer”, the judiciary does not seem to have taken into account the possibility of the intervention of the political class to circumvent the legal objective.
Over the years, the politicians across the board have succeeded in dodging the income limit by periodically increasing the quantum of the annual earnings of the backward castes from Rs 100,000 in 1993 to Rs 250,000 in 2004 to Rs 450,000 in 2008 to Rs 600,000 in 2013.
Clearly, to the political class, the creamy layer is an elastic concept which can keep on expanding with the express purpose of retaining within its fold even the affluent among the backward castes in order to make them eligible for reservations in employment and education.
Considering that the reservations were meant to be in force for only the first 10 years after Independence, there is little doubt that the present practice is a travesty of the original intent. As much is evident from the contention of the now-defunct National Commission for Backward Castes that the annual income should be Rs 15 lakh.
It not surprising, therefore, that the Narendra Modi government has decided to increase the annual income from the present Rs 600,000 to Rs 800,000. There will be no prizes for guessing that the amount will keep on increasing year after year and that being a part of the creamy layer will be an ever-receding goal for the backward castes.
By this token, no matter how high is the income of a backward caste person, he will always be poor in the government’s eyes — though not to his neighbours — and in need of clutches for securing jobs and education.
The reason for this oddity is the political need to secure votes even if the grant of such largesse means ignoring the concept of merit. However, it also boosts the caste system which is often deemed to be the bane of the Hindu social order.
The belief among the idealists at the dawn of Independence that the caste system will gradually wither away with the nation’s progress has proved to be a chimera.
As if to confirm this regressive trend, the Modi government is now contemplating identifying various sub-castes among the backwards for extending the benefits of reservations on the ground that the quotas have mostly been grabbed by the more dominant castes, such as the Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
This slicing of the cake is an extension of the electoral policy which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) successfully pursued in Uttar Pradesh by courting the non-Yadav backward castes and the non-Jatav Dalits to wean them away from the Yadav-dominated Samajwadi Party and the Jatav-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party.
Ironically, it was to counter the caste card played by the Janata Dal leader and Prime Minister V.P. Singh in 1990 that BJP leader L.K. Advani embarked on his Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra to keep the party’s Hindu flock together.
Today, however, the BJP is playing the caste card with a vengeance to boost its political position. Its motivation is possibly all the stronger because of the knowledge that it will not get the Muslim vote. So, it has to try all the more to rope in the backward castes and add them to its tally of upper caste votes which the party believes are already in its bag.
In the process of wooing the backward castes, not only the age-old “varna vyavastha” or the caste system but also the concept of reservations is strengthened.
To make matters worse, since the number of government jobs is dwindling in a time of the free market, voices are bound to be raised for extending the quota system to the private sector, thereby ringing its death-knell where efficiency is concerned.
As these retrogressive steps are advocated and implemented, the “sabka vikas” or the agenda of development for all is bound to be hit.
Moreover, the calls that are sometimes given for dispensing with quotas, as by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, Mohan Bhagwat, are likely to be ignored. For those who see Hindu society through the lens of caste, all will be well in the foreseeable future.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday said that its holding of the right to privacy to be a fundamental right could have some bearing on the hearing of a batch of petitions including by Maharashtra government challenging the Bombay High Court verdict permitting the possession and eating of beef brought from outside the state.
“Yes, that judgement may have some bearing in these matters,” the bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan said as senior counsel Chander Uday Singh urged the bench to give them time to study the judgment by the nine judge bench which may have bearing on their matter.
The judgment pronounced by a nine-judge bench on Thursday has held that the right to privacy was a fundamental right.
Chander Uday singh who appeared for a Mumbai-based lawyer Haresh Jagtiani referred to Justice J.Chelameswar’s judgment on privacy which said: “I do not think that anybody would like to be told by the State as to what they should eat or how they should dress …”
Appearing for some other petitioners, senior counsel Indira Jaising told the court that 2005 majority judgment (6-1) by a seven judge bench had wrongly decided in favour of complete prohibition on the slaughter of cows and calves including other milch and draught cattle.
She said that Mirzapur judgment as 2005 judgment is commonly known in legal circles needs to be relooked and urged the court to pass necessary orders.
At this, the bench said that it would consider whether this should be sent to a larger bench.
While permitting the possession and eating of beef brought from outside Maharashtra, the Bombay High Court had by its May 6, 2016, judgment had uphold the ban imposed by the state government on the slaughtering and sale of beef within the state.
The Maharashtra government had moved the top court on August 10 challenging this verdict.
The top court is hearing a batch of cross petitions including one by Akhil Bharat Krishi Go Sewa Sangh, which questioned the high court judgment holding that the right to eat was a fundamental right forming a part of right to privacy.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Holy Prophet Mohammad (SAW) had declared divorce to be the most disliked among the lawful things in the eyes of God as it broke the marital tie which is fundamental to family life in Islam, the Supreme Court yesterday said.
Justice R F Nariman, who wrote one of the two separate majority judgements, said divorce not only disrupted the marital tie between man and woman, but had severe psychological and other repercussions on the children from such marriage.
Justice Nariman, whose views were concurred with by Justice U U Lalit, noted that marriage in Islam was a contract, and like other contracts, it could be terminated under certain circumstances.
“There is something astonishingly modern about this no public declaration is a condition precedent to the validity of a Muslim marriage, nor is any religious ceremony deemed absolutely essential though they are usually carried out,” he said.
“Apparently, before the time of Prophet Mohammad (SAW), the pagan Arab was absolutely free to repudiate his wife on a mere whim, but after the advent of Islam, divorce was permitted to a man if his wife by her indocility or bad character rendered marital life impossible,” Justice Nariman said.
In the absence of good reason, no man can justify a divorce “for he then draws upon himself the curse of God.
“Indeed, Prophet Mohammad (SAW) had declared divorce to be the most disliked of lawful things in the sight of God. The reason for this is not far to seek. Divorce breaks the marital tie which is fundamental to family life in Islam,” Justice Nariman said.
The five-judge Constitution bench, by a majority of 3:2 in which Chief Justice J S Khehar was in minority, said the practice of “‘talaq-e-biddat’ triple talaq is set aside“.
The two separate judgements, written for majority by Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman, did not concur with the CJI and Justice S Abdul Nazeer that ‘triple talaq’ was a part of religious practice and the government should step and come out with a law.
—NNN-PTI
