Current Events
An Appeal to The Citizens of India
On The Eve of The Election
INDIA'S ACADEMICS, ARTISTS & CONCERNED CITIZENS
The following appeal has been issued by the academics, artists and concerned citizens from India, as listed below.
Never before in post-independence India have political forces, which are a front for an organization committed to creating a “Hindu Rashtra“ -- a Hindu Nation -- made as strong a bid for power as in the coming elections.
These forces are led by a person who presided over a pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and has never expressed any contrition over his role in that ghastly mass-muder.
As well, they enjoy the backing of the most powerful corporate houses in the country.
The prospect of this alliance of corporate capital and communal forces coming to power constitutes a palpable threat to the future of our secular democracy.
We urge all responsible individuals and political formations to ponder over the situation and urgently take whatever steps are necessary for defending our secular democracy. We appeal to the electorate to foil this corporate-communal alliance’s bid for power by voting against the BJP-led NDA.
Signed:
Rooprekha Verma
Sashi Kumar
Vivan Sundaram
Achin Vanaik
Jayati Ghosh
Prabhat Patnaik
Kumar Shahani
Nirmalangshu Mukherjee
Abhilasha Kumari
Githa Hariharan
Ajeet Caur
Anand Sahay
Doodh Nath Singh
Arpana Caur
Amit Sen Gupta
Maya Rao
Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Akeel Bilgrami
Irfan Habib
M.K. Raina
Amit Upadhyay
Ram Rahman
Saeed Mirza
C.P. Chandrasekhar
Shakti Kak
Anil Sadgopal
Janaki Nair
Suvira Jaiswal
S. Kalidas
M.M.P. Singh
Vishwamohan Jha
Neeladri Bhattacharya
Madan Gopal Singh
Aban Raza
Abdul Maboob
Lima Kanungo
Ali N. Rizavi
Amar Farooqui
Amar Kanwar
Amarjit Singh Chandan
Jehangir Jani
Aijaz Ahmad
Angelie Multani
Aniket Alam
Anil Bhatti
Anita Cherian
Apoorva Gautam
Archana Prasad
Arjun Dev
Arunkumar H.G.
Asad Zaidi
Ashish Dasgupta
Ashish Ghosh
Ashley Tellis
Ataullah
Atlury Murali
Atul Bhardwaj
Ayesha Kidwai
Anuradha Kapur
B.P. Sahu
Badri Raina
Banwari Taneja
Biswamoy Pati
D.N. Jha
Deepak K. Singh
G. Arunima
Praveen Jha
Geeta Kapur
Girish Mishra
Girish Shrivastav
Gitanjali Shree
Gunjan Doogar
Harbans Mukhia
Harun Riaz
Imrana Qadeer
Indira Arjun Dev
Indira Unninayar
Ishrat Alam
Indira Chandrasekhar
Iqtidar Alam Khan
Jasodhara Bagchi
Jauhar Kanungo
Javed Malick
Jawaharlal Pande
Jawarimal Parakh
Joe Athialy
K.M. Shrimali
Kanti Mohan Soz
Kesavan Veluthat
Keval Arora
Lata Singh
Madhu Prasad
Madhu Trivedi
Madhusree Dutta
Manas Ray
Mandira Sen
Malini Bhattacharya
Mandira Sen
Manjari Katju
Anand Bala
Mazher Hussain
N.K. Sharma
Mihir Bhattacharya
Mohan Rao
Mohd Arif
Moloyashree Hashmi
Mushirul Hasan
Nalini Taneja
Navjot Altaf
Neena Rao
Neera Chandhoke
Wasi Haider
Neeraj Malick
Nilima Sheikh
Oishik Sirkar
Pamela Philipose
Parthiv Shah
Prabhat Shukla
Pushpamala N.
R. Ramachandran
R.C. Thakran
Rahul Verma
Rajinder Arora
Rajiv Gupta
Rajni Arora
Rakhshanda Jalil
Ramesh Rawat
Rashmi Sawhney
Rebecca Kurian
Reena Ginwala
Rekha Awasthi
Ritu Jerath
S. Anand
Shabnam Hashmi
S.Z.H. Jafri
Saba Hasan
Selvyn Jussy
Seshnarayan Singh
Shamshad
Sherna Dastur
Shibanj Kinkar Chaube
Shikha Sen
Shilpaa Anand
Shireen Moosvi
Shivaji Panikkar
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
Smita Gupta
Sohail Hashmi
Srinivasan Ramani
Sruti Bala
Sudhanva Deshpande
Sudhir Chandra
Sudhir Gandotra
Sukumar Muralidharan
Sumitra Purkayastha
Sunil
Suresh Jayaram
Ujjawal Gupta
Zoya Hasan
Utsa Patnaik
V. Ramakrishna
Venkatesh Athreya
Vidya Das Arora
Vivek Monteiro
Xavier Dias
Yogesh Snehi
Veenapani Chawla
Rani Ray
Ramnik Mohan
Mallika Taneja
Debjani Sengupta
Radhika Prasad
Manish Kansara
Sumant Sengupta
Meghna Joshi
Mukul Priyadarshini
Shanta Gokhale
Ira Anjali
Urmimala Sarkar
Kajri Jain
Anomita Sen
Neha Chaturvedi
K.P. Jayashankar
Jaideep Chatterjee
Annie Koshi
Mahavir Sharma
Dvijendra Nath Kalia
Lakshmi Krishnamurty
Rimli Bhattacharya
Gargi Chakravartty
Saskia Sassen
Chitra Joshi
Supriya Verma
Kamala Menon
Yousuf Saeed
Sheba Chhachhi
Malathi A.
Soumya Dutta
Sumangala Damodaran
Saumyajit Bhattacharya
Jaishankar Monteiro
Rabin Chakraborty
Shubhradeep Chakravorty
Madhu Sahni
Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay
Kumkum Roy
Abdullah A. Rahman
Mukul Mangalik
Shubhra Chakrabarti
Kunal Chakrabarti
April 5, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: H. Singh (United States), April 06, 2014, 12:20 PM.
Diaspora Sikhs should work with secular and open-minded Indians on this.
2: Harinder Singh (Punjab), April 06, 2014, 12:26 PM.
We don't want any fascist force ruling India. Hinduization of India with its accompanying Hindutva is as much a real threat to this country as the Islamification of any country with its accompanying Sharia laws. Just look at Pakistan ...
3: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 06, 2014, 1:25 PM.
I would have taken these people seriously had they come forward and issued a similar appeal against those responsible for the outrage of 1984. I know many of them secretly if not openly applauded and supported those responsible for 1984. These people are of no consequence in the criminalized polity and society of this country. You can't pick and choose your victims, and protect some, and brutalize others. Worse still, find the energy to become activists only when the chickens come home to roost ...
4: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 06, 2014, 2:16 PM.
In India, it's okay to rape, torture and massacre minorities so long as it is being done under a secular government? Jai Hind.
5: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), April 06, 2014, 2:33 PM.
How much more different would a Hinduized India be than what currently exists? The government may claim to be secular, but India is a country run by what is loosly termed as 'Hindu law and culture'. The reservation system is the caste system 2.0, it is officially supported by the Indian government. The constitution of the country insists on labelling Sikhs, Jains and Bhuddists as being Hindu, forcing Hindu laws on these communities. The government's refusal to accept the Anand Karaj is a good example. There are never any serious investigations into attacks on minorities committed by Hindus, but the opposite situation is not the same. The riot which happened in Muzaffarnagar only a few months ago is a good recent example, the victims, mainly Muslim, are still wallowing in squalid refugee camps. For 10 years in Punjab the police were roaming the country side murdering young Sikh men under the guise of restoring stability for the sake of the Hindus. The same thing is happening in Kashmir. So, how much more "Hindu" could India get under Modi?
6: Surjit Singh (Long Island, New York, USA), April 06, 2014, 4:26 PM.
The shape of things that are likely to happen in India if Modi comes to power can be gauged from the chilling account of the Gujarat massacre as described in the link below, which claims that the genocide of the Muslims was planned much before the Godhra train incident. In fact there is enough circumstantial evidence to support the fact that the train was set on fire by agent provocateurs and blamed on Muslims to justify the "natural and normal reaction" of the Hindus. Human rights organizations in their reports have described it as a military style efficient operation where mobs were led by police and involved many agencies of the Gujarat Government headed by Chief Minister Narendra Modi who by many eye-witness accounts himself was personally responsible. In fact the Bannerji Commission appointed later on by the Railway Ministry and the Ahmedabad based forensic laboratory debunked the BJP version of events that there was a Pakistani hand. This RSS led operation also had the blessings of then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani who ensured that the army was not called for three days to enable the Hindutva forces to complete the carnage. This massacre of the innocent seems to have many similarities to the Sikh genocide of 1984 which was conducted under the aegis of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his cousin, Arun Nehru. http://www.anti-caste.org/on-godhra-and-the-2002-gujarat-massacre.html
7: Bisram Khatke (Mumbai, India), April 06, 2014, 5:43 PM.
A 'Hindu' India? Borrowing Shakespeare's words: "I had rather be a dog and bay the moon ..."!
8: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 06, 2014, 11:27 PM.
Many of these signatories are nothing but just a front to show the world that there exists a secular section in an otherwise communalized society. It would be no surprise if these guys have the backing of the Congress which masquerades as a secular party and as you can see that they are raising concerns about Hindutva forces, that is referring to the opposition BJP. Even if the BJP comes to power, nothing will change except more massacres of hapless minorities. Mass murders are a sure shot formula for 'success' in this secular democracy. Many people don't know that in 1984 there was competition going on between Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, HKL Bhagat and the other goonda-leaders as to who could kill more Sikhs and Bhagat took the top prize and was rewarded with a top cabinet post in the Govt. for his services.
9: Kaala Singh (Punjab), April 07, 2014, 12:13 AM.
@6: Congress and BJP are two sides of the same coin. There is a tacit agreement between the two as far as the minorities are concerned. Vajpayee had promised the Sikhs that if he comes to power he will ensure speedy justice for 1984. He did nothing and instead carried out his 1984-style carnage in Gujarat. Even though these two parties may fight in public about the genocides carried out by the two, nothing would be done to bring the culprits to justice. Those who think that any of these parties would make a difference in the lives of Sikhs and other minorities are living in a world of illusions. Recently, we have seen Amarinder Singh who is a Congress candidate in Punjab and has switched sides many times, telling blatant lies about 1984.
10: Col Dr Dalvinder Singh Grewal (Ludhiana, Punjab), April 08, 2014, 6:37 AM.
RSS propped Modi, who was then advertised by media financed by Ambani and Adani, in a bid to spread Hindutva in entire India -- certainly a danger to all the minority communities. Muslims being butchered and Sikhs being displaced from Gujarat are the burning examples of the scenes to come. Beware ... and vote for the right candidate who is truly Indian, totally against corruption, and in favour of balanced development and reduction of the rich-poor gap.
11: Gurjender Singh (Maryland, USA), April 08, 2014, 11:57 AM.
#9 Kaala Singh ji: The Akali pary is also supporting BJP. They should be held accountable for their actions.