People's Democracy

A Day Of Violence To Browbeat Judiciary

BJP’s Jharkhand Model After Gujarat

ON September 2, the BJP-led government of Jharkhand patronised the Sangh Parivar-sponsored brutal violence and vandalism in Ranchi, the state’s capital. On that day, armed gangs of the VHP, Bajrang Dal and other outfits of the Parivar mobilised lumpen sections to challenge the Ranchi High Court in the streets. They blocked the railway tracks with boulders and kidnapped a cabin man of Ranchi to paralyse the rail movement. All this they did on an innocuous issue of re-location of a temple that was situated at the entrance of Ranchi station.

Throughout the day, at the instance of chief minister Babulal Marandi, the district administration remained completely paralysed even though the innocent were beaten up, vehicles were damaged and burnt, shopkeepers were forced to down their shutters. The police remained silent onlookers. The vandals raised slogans condemning the chief justice of the High Court and threatening the judiciary. The aggressive Hindutva line of BJP’s Goa meeting was thus seen in operation in the second biggest BJP-ruled state of Jharkhand, after Gujarat’s fascistic communal experience.

Next day, in total disregard to the constitution and rule of law, the Marandi government submitted an affidavit before Ranchi High Court, misleading the court on the basis of this contrived situation. The affidavit stated that an Ayodhya-like situation had arisen in Ranchi. Consequently, the High Court passed an order of maintaining the status quo, changing its earlier order about the temple’s re-location.

The Jharkhand state committee of the CPI(M) condemned the Babulal Marandi government for patronising this violence. Its purpose of adopting such arm-twisting methods was to subjugate the judiciary to the fascistic dictate of the Sangh Parivar. This perpetration of violence and vandalism in the streets amounted to holding the people to ransom. The CPI(M) expressed grave concern on this development which has sent an ominous signal to other forces to adopt violent methods so as to force the judiciary to change its orders.

The state committee of the CPI(M) has cautioned secular, democratic and peace-loving people about similar attempts by the BJP and Sangh Parivar in other parts of the state. They are out to pursue their sinister designs to rouse communal passions to divert the people’s attention from their and the state’s burning problems due to the anti-people policies of the central and state governments, both led by BJP. The Parivar wants to push under the carpet the Marandi government’s total failure in ameliorating the sufferings of the people in the face of a severe drought in the state. This is also a crude attempt on part of the BJP to recover the ground it has lost and overcome its rapid isolation from the people, as was reflected in the last Dumka Lok Sabha bypoll when the polling was polarised against the BJP.

The BJP-led Marandi government has also received severe drubbing due to its unconstitutional and unlawful job reservation and domicile policies. Already the High Court has struck down the highest job reservation quota in the country; the announcement made by the Marandi government raised the quota to 73 per cent. The High Court has ordered the government to restrict the job reservation upto 50 per cent as per Supreme Court judgement, and to appoint the rest 23 per cent on an ad hoc basis. The High Court also directed the state government to appeal to the Supreme Court that the latter must club the issue with the pending case of more than 50 per cent job reservation in Tamilnadu. During the hearing on the domicile issue, the High Court’s comments and interventions exposed the unlawful and unconstitutional basis of the Marandi government’s domicile policy. The final judgement on the policy is to come shortly.

It is in this background that the Sangh Parivar outfits created a sudden spurt in violence on the temple issue. According to the CPI(M), this is a deliberate attempt to subjugate the judiciary to fall in line with the government’s decisions. Fascistic aggressive Hindutva has been trying to raise its ugly head in Jharkhand. The BJP and Sangh Parivar have defied the constitution and openly declared that they would not abide by court judgements on Ayodhya issue if it was not in their favour. They challenged the constitutional authority of the Election Commission. They are suppressing the voice of the press that dares to expose their corrupt deals that are spreading like cancer. At the all-India level, they were found involved in the petrol pump scams. At the state level, several corrupt practices by the Marandi government’s ministers and Sangh Parivar leaders have surfaced. That these luminaries are illegally occupying huge tracts of tribal lands is just one example of their corruption.

The CPI(M) is of the view that the incoming battle in Jharkhand must therefore take note of these fascistic communal developments in the state. The former has decided to take these communal forces head on, within the limited capacity that it has in the state. (INN)