UPA’S ‘communal award’

The lead article in this week’s Organiser, by editor R. Balashankar, headlined ‘UPA’s communal award’ slams the National Commission...

The lead article in this week’s Organiser, by editor R. Balashankar, headlined ‘UPA’s communal award’ slams the National Commission for Linguistic and Religious Minorities headed by Justice Ranganath Mishra for recommending a 15 per cent reservation for minorities and calls upon all Hindus to launch a “massive protest movement” against the report.

Describing the Mishra report as “a shameful charter of national disintegration”, it takes particular umbrage at the recommendation that Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims should also be entitled to reservation provisions meant for Scheduled Castes. Balashankar writes, “This seems to be a Sonia Gandhi-driven device to promote large-scale conversion from weaker sections of Hindu society. In the name of minority welfare the idea is to create quotas within quotas presently given to Hindu OBCs and Dalits. This means that Dalit Christians, for instance, will get proportionate quota within that meant for Hindu Dalits while the rest like Christians and Muslims will get a similar proportion from the quota meant for Hindu OBCs.”

Muslims and Christians, it adds, deserve no reservation at all because “they are not economically or socially backward or deprived. They were the rulers of this country for centuries. They have huge financial muscle in the form of petro dollar and evangelical funds from hundreds of Islamic and Christian nations across the globe.”

No cheers for PM

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A sharply critical editorial on three years of UPA rule says the government “has no achievement to show other than the widespread impression that the prime minister has no control over his ministers and that he is a puppet in the hands of Sonia Gandhi and the heads of UPA constituents like RJD, DMK and NCP.”

Elaborating, it says, “He cannot choose or retain his ministers as he cannot choose or distribute portfolios. He has no control on policy matters and often he is made to retract under humiliating circumstances from his own initiatives. The prime ministerial authority has been severely undermined by powerful regional satraps and Sonia Gandhi by her wily manipulations.”

Ignoring the landmark legislations and schemes of the last three years, the editorial states that “by introducing the Sachar Committee and Ranganath Mishra Commission to devise communal quota, by soft-pedaling on terrorist outfits, indulging the Maoists by politicising internal security and Islamising the foreign policy, the UPA has created a cantankerous mess of governance. Sometimes the UPA gives the impression that it is working on an agenda for national disintegration.”

Call to arrest Husain

In an ‘Open letter to Kerala CM’, P.B. Menon — who describes himself as the managing trustee of Sardar K.M. Panikkar Memorial Trust — strongly protests the Kerala government’s decision to award the Raja Ravi Varma Prize to artist M.F. Husain.

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Accusing Husain of depicting Hindu gods and goddesses in a “despicable” manner, he urges V.S. Achuthanandan “to withdraw the decision to award the prize to such an undeserving person and, when he arrives in Trivandrum, arrest him and hand over him to police of the state in which arrest warrants have been issued by the respective courts. I am aware of the fact that arrest warrants against him have been temporarily stayed by the Supreme Court of India, but cases against him are still pending trial.”

Compiled by Manini Chatterjee