The email by Father Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, virtually asking students not to vote by the BJP, has possibly been triggered by adverse feedback regarding the performance of the Congress-NCP combine in the first two phases of voting in Maharashtra on April 10 and 17. With the last phase due on April 24, and given the spectacular crowd-pulling potential of Narendra Modi, this was possibly the learned priests’ last chance to do his bit for secularism, which as the BJP veteran himself informs his audiences, is in danger.
Mascarenhas’ email, which has sparked a furore in the social media, is readily understood once one understands that he is a member of the Committee for Defence of Teesta Setalvad, an activist whose pro-Congress and anti-Modi credentials need no elaboration. As part of this august gathering, he is closely associated with several reputed secularists, some of whom recently signed an appeal to Indian voters to not vote for the BJP’s Prime Ministerial contender. Their ranks include some leading lights of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), sundry Maoists, and well known Leftists.
The committee is chaired by Justice PB Sawant, retired Judge Supreme Court; its vice chairpersons are Dr Asghar Ali Engineer and Sureshbhai Mehta and the conveners include Balwant Desai and Irfan Engineer. Some of the better known members include Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Prabhat Patnaik, Frazer Mascarenhas SJ, Ram Puniyani, John Dayal, Admiral Ramdas, Allwyn D’Silva, Anand Patwardhan, Joseph Dias, MK Raina, Saeed Mirza, Subhashini Ali, Rajmohan Gandhi, Jerry Pinto, Girish Karnad, Badri Raina, Binayak Sen, Ilina Sen, Aruna Roy, Nikhil De, Harsh Mander, Flavia Agnes and Mallika Sarabhai. Some NGOs are also part of this Committee to help Teesta Setalvad.
Mascarenhas’ email is possibly also triggered by the fact that he is a member of the Society of Jesus (hence SJ at the end of his name), a religious congregation of Christian males of the Catholic Church, whose members are known as Jesuits; its headquarters are in Rome. The society is intensely involved in conversions in 112 nations on six continents, and mainly functions through educational institutions. It was founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century, and Francis Xavier of the Goa Inquisition was possibly its most illustrious member in India.
In his controversial email to students, boldly uploaded on the college website two days before the last phase of voting in Maharashtra, Mascarenhas overtly lambasts Narendra Modi’s ‘Gujarat model’ of governance, asserts that Gujarat has had a terrible experience in the past ten years on several indices, and warns of the “prospect of an alliance of a corporate capital and communal forces coming to power”. Unabashed at the volley of criticism from the academic community for this blatant attempt to influence young voters, he claimed he was only responding to an appeal by the Election Commission to all principals asking them to encourage students to vote. He disregards the fact that the Election Commission did not request principals to impose their own political ideologies on their young charges.
In his email, titled, ‘In the Background of Elections – The Development Debate’, Mascarenhas states, “The approaching elections have brought an interesting discussion to the public forum on what constitutes human development and how it is to be achieved. The Gujarat model has been highlighted for our consideration. That is very apt because it puts in stark contrast two current views. Is the growth of big business, the making of huge profits, the achievement of high production – what we seek? Or is it the quality of life for the majority in terms of affordable basic goods and services and the freedom to take forward the cultural aspirations of our plural social groups that make up India?”
Gujarat, he states, may be doing well in the first sense, but even here it is “not as good as some other States in the country”. Mascarenhas claims that all the Human Development Index indicators and the cultural polarisation of the population shows that Gujarat has had a terrible experience in the last 10 years. He specifically alleges that schools for the ordinary people show abject neglect with a very high dropout rate; Higher Education has not been allowed to move forward. He charges Gujarat of being “the worst performer” in settling claims and distributing title deeds to tribal people and other forest dwellers.
Refuting the criticism of the Congress’s (though he does not name the party) schemes such as the Rojgar Yojana (MNREGA) and the Food Security Act that have been dubbed “election sops”, the padre states that “some of our best social scientists like Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze have supported these as necessary in the emergency economic situation the country and the world is facing”. He adds, “The country is grateful that committed activists like Aruna Roy and Shailesh Gandhi have worked with the Government to initiate and sustain the Right to Information Act which makes accountability possible. Corruption still needs to be addressed effectively but since it is so prevalent at every level of society, it will take civil society long agonizing efforts to root it out”.
Warning against “communal forces coming to power” he urges his students to vote for those “who commit themselves to a pluralistic culture in diverse India” (read Rahul Gandhi and Congress).
Ram Puniyani, another august member of the Committee for Defence of Teesta Setalvad, is a retired professor in biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He now works full time for communal harmony in India and is associated with various secular and democratic initiatives like All India Secular Forum, Center for Study of Society and Secularism and ANHAD.
According to Wikileaks, an October 5, 2005, cable by the then US ambassador Mulford revealed that the American Embassy regularly interacted with a cross-section of NGOs in India, and that USAID and PA “ensure that they have access to USG funding… Among those we meet with on a regular basis are the following: Center for Study of Society and Secularism”.
Is there, then, any surprise in this flurry of activity by the usual anti-Modi suspects?
Niticentral.com, 23 April 2014