Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla's Visit and India-Bangladesh Relations

Smruti S Pattanaik

India and Bangladesh share a very close relationship. India played an important role in Bangladesh's liberation, and hosted 10 million refugees who escaped Pakistani brutality and took refuge in India. The relationship is based on strong people-to-people links and a close socio-cultural bond. This is reflected in India’s issuance of the largest number of visas to Bangladesh. Further, India remains the number one tourist destination for Bangladesh. Over the past 10 years or more, the two countries have witnessed visits by heads of state, chiefs of armed forces, and senior ministers. The bilateral relationship has thus largely been institutionalised.

It is in this context that Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla’s visit to Bangladesh assumes significance. The FS was the first foreign visitor received by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since the lockdown began in Bangladesh. They discussed a two-year road map for cooperation, which includes bilateral security issues, repatriation of Rohingyas, creating 'air bubbles' for transport, and other issues of mutual concern.

India also assured Bangladesh that the vaccine it is developing, currently under trial, would be available for its close friends in the neighbourhood. Beximco Pharma of Bangladesh has already agreed to invest with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to develop a vaccine so that it can be supplied at a cheaper rate to Bangladesh. In spite of this progress, India's relationship with Bangladesh has been subjected to constant media scrutiny in recent times.

An Analysis of Media Coverage

The visit received unprecedented media attention. Several questions were raised regarding the reason for this 'sudden' visit, the number of hours the FS was kept waiting to meet the prime minister, and what was discussed in the meeting.

In any case, such speculations about India’s relations with Bangladesh and vice versa are not new. The health of the bilateral relationship was a subject of media speculation over a month prior to Shringla’s visit. A spate of speculation began especially after an opinion editorial piece written by Shyamol Dutta appeared in Bhorer Kagoj, of which he is the editor, saying that Indian high commissioner was refused a meeting with Hasina. This news was picked up by The Hindu and was subsequently quoted in Dawn, Asia Times, etc. Several op-eds published in both India and Bangladesh only fueled further speculation, forcing the Indian High Commission to issue a clarification that the high commissioner had not sought an appointment for a meeting.

Some of  these op-eds argued that India is losing its ground to China, and China's influence on Pakistan led to Prime Minister Imran Khan's phone call to Hasina. Giving credence to China’s increasing role in Bangladesh, a news report said that Bangladesh has sought US$ 1 billion from China for the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration project. Many attributed Shringla's visit to Dhaka on short notice, which was reported a few days later, to this news.

However, perception is shaped not by reality alone, and but is based also on imagination, apparent grievances, and regional geopolitics. The India-China border conflict in Ladakh in fact has fueled speculation of a zero-sum game in terms of their influence in the neighbourhood. Many have read Dhaka's lack of a statement in support of India as an automatic China win. The question is: why should Dhaka take sides when it has good relations with both countries? Moreover, the news of China’s massive investments in Bangladesh is not a new development. It was announced in 2016, when the two countries upgraded their relationship to a strategic partnership. Still, some newspapers highlighted these investment to buttress their points, giving it more immediacy than is the case.

Bilateral Sticking Points

Delhi-Dhaka ties have been in some trouble since India announced the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and named Bangladesh as one of the countries witnessing minority persecution, alongside Pakistan and Afghanistan. This was perhaps a kind of jolt for the Hasina government, which had earlier put on a brave face when India carried out the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) exercise at the direction of the Supreme Court. Though Dhaka termed the NRC an internal exercise, the  political narrative surrounding it was not to Dhaka’s liking. The CAA took away the veneer of pretension that everything was fine bilaterally.

Not only were several bilateral meetings postponed, but Dhaka also did not make any attempt to hide its displeasure. The two countries could have found ways to mend ties—largely an Indian responsibility—during Prime Minister Modi’s scheduled visit for the Mujib Borsho celebrations. But COVID-19's interruption saved Dhaka from the political dilemma of striking a balance between its anger over the CAA, and hosting the Indian prime minister. Still, credit must be given to Sheikh Hasina for not allowing the relationship to suffer any set back. This visit by the FS was therefore essential to take stock of progress on India’s investments and discuss the necessary steps to address Dhaka’s concerns.

Way Forward

Dhaka has two major concerns. One, the return of Rohingyas to Myanmar, for which it has conveyed India’s help as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council would be required. India perhaps needs to nudge Naypyidaw to resolve the problem at the earliest as it has regional security implications. Two, the firing incidents at the border that have resulted in the death of Bangladeshi nationals. While cattle smuggling is the main reason for firing, which is acknowledged by both India and Bangladesh, the deaths on the border do not measure up to the ‘Shonali Adhayya’ that the two countries are trying to create. Increasing vigilance will require mutual cooperation—the responsibility for zero casualties lies with both. Therefore it is important to dispassionately look at the reasons for these firings and address them together, rather than pretending that only one side is responsible.

Indian projects, especially the High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP), should stand India in good stead. However, this should be backed by good public relations to project the positive aspects of the relationship while also working on the shortcomings. India needs to work more on the optics while staying the course on the substance of the relationship.

Is Nepal Skirting, Denying or Defying the Covid Pandemic?

B. Nimri Aziz

News from the Himalayas is scant this year. No Everest or K2 summiting; nothing about the railway from China; no new Sherpa biographies.

Demonstrations in Kathmandu protesting India’s territorial claim on Kalapani, a spur of land at Nepal’s furthest northwestern border subsided after a talk between their respective prime ministers. Then military skirmishes between India and China on their shared border raised anxiety in Kathmandu.

As for how the pandemic is affecting Nepal, scant news might lead to a conclusion that the country’s thin air or its pantheon of well-attended deities immunizes residents from Covid’s ravages. Nepal’s low death toll—336 (with 53,100 cases reported to date, although rapidly rising)—for a population of 30 million is remarkable, also inexplicable given the government’s weak public health policy and shoddy management. Some citizens timidly suggest they might share a genetic immunity; others claim that popular herbal bromides protect them. Cynics accuse the government of hiding the real death toll, or worse, that it simply doesn’t know the count.

Lack of information and public distrust heighten tensions around the growing medical threat. Throughout early summer, while Covid-19 wreaked havoc across Europe, U.S.A. and in nearby India, Nepal’s death toll remained below 100. This did not however mean the population was unaffected: migrant workers were stranded; essential imports were threatened and building projects and business in general came to an abrupt halt; tourism ceased too. When India and the U.S. (countries Nepali politicians closely follow) imposed lockdowns, Nepal’s administration followed suit. Except it did so as a knee-jerk reaction; it had no short-term relief plan and no long-term management strategy. When India eases rules, Nepal does too, and when its southern neighbor announces restrictions, officials in Kathmandu adopt a similar policy.

The government made no arrangements to mobilize social and economic services to help citizens cope. All schools and colleges closed (and remain shuttered); inter-city bus transport was halted and international air travel and domestic flights that link remote hill regions to lowland cites and the capital ended. Kathmandu’s streets turned eerily empty. Even travel by motorcycle was prohibited. Next, all these closures were strictly, often pitilessly, enforced by a heightened nationwide police presence.

Exacerbating Nepal’s crisis was an influx of returning migrant workers: — tens of thousands of more than four million, mainly men, employed in Malaysia, the Gulf States and India. Reports of jobless laborers walking long distances to their homes across India included Nepalis who, when they reached the border of their homeland, found entry barred, and were then quarantined in camps inside India. The Nepal government’s unkind response was matched by more obstacles for those who managed to cross the 1,088-mile frontier.

Once inside their homeland these beleaguered souls found themselves unwelcome in border cites and in Kathmandu on their first stopover en route to the interior. City residents feared those new arrivals might be carrying the virus with them. Then, many returnees who reached their home village (usually by foot) were banned fro entering until they passed yet another quarantine period.

Added to medical threats are lost incomes; so families who’d grown dependent on workers’ remittances—anecdotal reports claim that every household in Nepal has at least one member employed abroad– are also negatively impacted. Doubtless, Nepalis are among millions of other laborers caught in limbo in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

Nepal is not without resources of its own to alleviate Covid-related hardships but the government has been stingy, relying largely on lockdown enforcement and on a vigorous public information campaign to instruct citizens about what safety measures they should follow.

Several million dollars donated by the WHO was to provide for testing and for PPE and treatment facilities for stricken Nepalis. This finances limited testing at regional centers and pays for the construction of quarantine shelters. (Testing is reportedly contracted out to private agencies who charge the Nepali equivalent of $11.00 per test, but few people can manage this fee, although free tests are also available.) Beyond Kathmandu Valley and major cities, hospital treatment for serious Covid cases is scarce. (The ‘socialist’ government, led for several years by leftist parties, is hardly socialist in practice, promoting private hospitals over establishing a national health system for example.)

Many citizens feel their government must do more and they suspect Covid-targeted aid is yet another source for officials to line their pockets. Growing discontent at Kathmandu’s handling of the pandemic seems to have no effect on policy. The government response to the crisis remains simply an on-off imposition of the lockdown. Probably, like the public, ministers anxiously watch international news for a hint of a successful Covid vaccine.

Businesses in the capital are suffering badly, and with no government relief to tide them over, many will fail. Lines for food handouts from government and private or religious agencies are longer.

As in many Asian societies, Nepal’s elderly are well cared for by their children at home. So this country will not see the nursing home death toll that Americans and British experienced.

During the crisis Nepalis have made good use of IT facilities and their readily chargeable cell phones to weather the Covid storm. Nepal’s media have remained vigorous; and teachers and officials (urban and rural) have adapted to the use of zoom meetings, and online teaching, once limited to elite schools for children of the wealthy, is now widely used.

What citizens most lament is their incompetent, corrupt administration. Many had thought that with the unification in 2018 of squabbling dysfunctional leftist parties, they could build a stronger nation; they are sadly disappointed. As the eminent Canada-based Nepali writer Manjushree Thapa notes: “I think about how high people’s expectations were of Nepal’s governing party (an alliance between Marxist-Leninist and Maoist communist parties) when they voted it into a majority. It’s all just deteriorated into a cabal of “high” caste men.

Trump’s China Diversion

Mel Gurtov

The Trump administration’s orchestrated attack on China is commonly assumed to stem from upset over China’s human rights violations and its aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and along the border with India. Where once Trump was fulsome in praise of Xi Jinping’s leadership, now official statements on China are uniformly critical and alarmist.

With Secretary of State Mike Pompeo taking the lead, the criticism has escalated to the ideological level. Pompeo condemns not “China” but the Chinese Communist Party, using Cold War-era talking points that are reminiscent of the 1950s-1960s, when some US experts on the Soviet Union explained its behavior as due to Marxism-Leninism rather than national interest calculations.

But I suspect that behind the new level of China bashing lurks another motive: to divert Americans’ attention from Russia’s disinformation campaign, which is intensifying as the election nears.

Donald Trump never bought the 2017 National Security Council’s designation of both Russia and China as America’s chief security threats. Nor, as is well known, has he ever accepted the intelligence community’s findings—most recently amplified by a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report and Michael Schmidt’s book, Donald v. the United States—that Russian entities colluded with the Trump presidential campaign in 2016 to promote his election. (“The country’s greatest intelligence failure since 9/11,” Schmidt writes.)

On the other hand, Trump has been after China on trade issues since the late 1980s. So long as the possibility existed of a major trade deal with China that Trump could proclaim a big win, he was willing to treat Xi Jinping the same way he treated Putin—as a dear friend doing his best in difficult circumstances.

With the onset of the coronavirus and the disruption to the trade deal, Trump unleashed the voices around him hostile to China, from Peter Navarro and Pompeo to Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz. Thus began the lengthy list of anti-China measures—restrictions on technology transactions, closure of the US consulate in Wuhan; designation of the US office of the Confucius Institutes as an official Chinese mission; pressure on Chinese students and visiting scholars to return home; harassment of American scientists of Chinese descent as well as Chinese scientists collaborating with Americans; termination of the Peace Corps and public health cooperation with China; limitations on Chinese journalists and news organizations; sanctions on Chinese officials in Hong Kong and involved with military projects in the South China Sea; and (successful) threats to withdraw defense department funds from any US university that hosts a Confucius Institute. Most of these steps have prompted Chinese counteractions, bringing the relationship to its lowest point in more than 50 years.

Nothing of the sort has happened in US relations with Russia. The administration has haphazardly implemented sanctions voted by Congress, thus failing to resolve Russian support of breakaway forces in Ukraine’s east.

Meantime, the Putin regime carries out state terrorism with another brazen Novichok attack, this time on his main political opponent, Aleksei Navalny. Neither Trump nor any of his minions has said a word about the attack, just as they have said nothing about any other Putin assault on regime critics, or about the apparent Russian bounty for US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Nor has Trump said anything about Russian interference in the US electoral process, interference that is well documented and constant in social media. But of course the interference is for his benefit, for a price we can only guess.

Were Trump’s tax returns ever revealed, they would almost certainly show why Trump goes the extra mile to avoid any criticism of Putin’s authoritarian regime. Trump has long been compromised by his Russia financial entanglements. He has essentially become a Russian tool, a reliable agent of Russian policy—a “traitor,” according to his niece, Mary Trump—yet we hear nothing from the White House nor from supposedly anti-communist Republicans in Congress. With China, these same people can’t impose enough sanctions, can’t cry out with enough moral anguish, can’t warn enough about the strategic menace China poses—all while Russia gets a pass again and again.

US officials should certainly take China, as well as its corporate enablers, to task for its treatment of Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, and internal critics. But those officials should also recognize—as has the intelligence community—that it is the Russians, not the Chinese, who are interfering with elections in the US as well as in Europe, and therefore the Russians who are the most serious threat to US national security. And since those officials won’t do that, they must be replaced with people who will.

America’s War on Terror is the True Cause of Europe’s Refugee Crisis

Patrick Cockburn

Desperate refugees crammed into cockle-shell boats landing on the shingle beaches of the south Kent coast are easily portrayed as invaders. Anti-immigrant demonstrators were exploiting such fears last weekend as they blockaded the main highway into Dover Port in order “to protect Britain’s borders”. Meanwhile, the home secretary, Priti Patel, blames the French for not doing enough to stop the flow of refugees across the Channel.

Refugees attract much attention on the last highly visible stages of their journeys between France and Britain. But there is absurdly little interest in why they endure such hardships, risking detention or death.

There is an instinctive assumption in the west that it is perfectly natural for people to flee their own failed states (the failure supposedly brought on by self-inflicted violence and corruption) to seek refuge in the better-run, safer and more prosperous countries.

But what we are really seeing in those pathetic half-swamped rubber boats bobbing up and down in the Channel are the thin end of the wedge of a vast exodus of people brought about by military intervention by the US and its allies. As a result of their “global war on terror”, launched following the al-Qaeda attacks in the US on 11 September 2001, no less than 37 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to a revelatory report published this week by Brown University.

The study, part of a project called “Costs of War”, is the first time that this violence-driven mass population movement has been calculated using the latest data. Its authors conclude that “at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the US military has launched or participated in since 2001”. Of these, at least 8 million are refugees who fled abroad, and 29 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have taken flight inside their own countries. The eight wars examined by the report are in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, northwest Pakistan and the Philippines.

The authors of the study say that the displacement of people by these post-9/11 wars is almost without precedent. They compare the figures for the last 19 years with those for the whole of the 20th century, concluding that only the Second World War produced a bigger mass flight. Otherwise, the post-9/11 displacement exceeds that brought about by the Russian Revolution (6 million), the First World War (10 million), India-Pakistan Partition (14 million), East Bengal (10 million), the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (6.3 million) and the Vietnam War (13 million).

Refugees are visible once they cross an international frontier, but IDPs are far more difficult to trace, though three-and-a-half times more numerous. They may move multiple times as the dangers they face ebb and flow. Sometimes they return to their homes, only to find them destroyed or that the means to make a living has gone. Often they must choose between bad and worse as the battlelines shift, forcing them into a nomadic existence within their own country. In Somalia, the Norwegian Refugee Council says that “virtually all Somalis have been displaced by violence at least once in their life”. In Syria, there are 5.6 million refugees but also 6.2 million IDPs with out-of-work malnourished families struggling to survive.

Some of these wars were started as a direct consequence of 9/11, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq (though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the destruction of the World Trade Centre). Others, like the ongoing war in Yemen, were launched by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other allies in 2015. But it could not have happened in the first place, and have gone on for five devastating years, without a tacit green light from Washington. With 80 per cent of the Yemeni population in dire need, the only reason there are not more refugees is that they are trapped inside Yemen by the Saudi blockade.

This willingness to launch wars and to keep them going might be less if American, British and French leaders had to pay a political price for their actions. Unfortunately, voters have never understood that the influx of refugees, to which so many of them object, is the consequence of the vast displacement caused by these post-9/11 foreign wars.

Syria surpassed Afghanistan in 2013 as the country in the world producing the most refugees. As violence and economic collapse continue, the number of Syrians forced to flee their homes is likely to go up rather than down. One feature the eight post-9/11 wars have in common is that none of them have ended, despite years of inconclusive fighting. This is why the numbers displaced is so much higher than in extremely violent but far shorter conflicts in the 20th century. The endless nature of these present-day conflicts has come to seem to be part of the natural order of things, but this is absolutely not the case.

Foreign powers pretend that they are working ceaselessly to end these wars, but they only want peace on their own terms. In Syria, for instance, the president, Bashar al-Assad, strongly backed by Russia and Iran, won the war militarily by 2017/18. It had been a long time, in any case, since the US and the west genuinely wanted to get rid of Assad because they feared his replacement by Isis or al-Qaeda-type movements.

But Washington and its allies also did not want Assad, Russia and Iran to win an outright victory, so they have kept the pot bubbling in a conflict in which Syrians are the miserable cannon fodder. Similarly cynical calculations about denying the other side an outright victory have kept the other wars going, regardless of the human cost.

The US is not alone in bearing responsibility for these conflicts and the mass displacement of people they caused. The Libyan war, launched by Britain and France with US backing in 2011, was advertised as saving the Libyan people from Muammar Gaddafi. In reality, it turned the country over to murderous war lords and gangsters, making Libya the gateway through which immigrants from north Africa try to make their way to Europe.

Even leaders as dim-witted as David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Hillary Clinton should have foreseen the politically disastrous consequences of these wars. They generated an inevitable refugee and immigrant wave that energised the xenophobic far right across Europe and was a deciding factor in the Brexit referendum of 2016.

In Britain, the landing of refugees and immigrants below the White Cliffs is once again becoming a hot political issue. At the other end of Europe, migrants are sleeping beside the roads in Lesbos after the burning down of the camp where they had been living.

These waves of migration – and the anti-immigrant backlash that has done so much to poison European politics – will not end while there are 37 million people displaced by these eight wars.

This will only happen when the wars themselves are brought to an end, as should have happened long ago, and the victims of the post-9/11 conflicts no longer believe that any country is better to live in than their own.

The Difference Between the U.S. and China’s Response to COVID-19 s Staggering

Vijay Prashad & John Ross

In Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s new book, Rage, he reports on interviews he did in February and March with U.S. President Donald Trump about the coronavirus. Trump admitted that the virus was virulent, but he decided to underplay its danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” Trump said, “because I don’t want to create a panic.” Despite months of warnings from the Chinese authorities, Trump and his health secretary Alex Azar completely failed to prepare for the global pandemic.

The United States continues to have the largest total number of cases of COVID-19. The government continues to flounder as the number of cases escalates. Not one state in the country seems immune to the spread of the disease.

Meanwhile, in China, ever since the virus was crushed in Wuhan, the government merely has had to contain small-scale localized outbreaks; in the last month, China has had zero domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases. Martin Wolf wrote in the Financial Times on March 31 that China was successful in “bringing the disease under control in Hubei and halting its spread across China.” There was never a pan-China outbreak. It is more accurate to call it a Hubei outbreak.

Measuring People’s Lives

While Trump lied to his own citizens about the disease, China’s president Xi Jinping said that his government would be “putting people first.” China hastily subordinated its economic priorities to the task of saving lives.

As a consequence of a science-based approach, China’s government broke the chain of infection very quickly. By early September, this country of 1.4 billion had 85,194 COVID-19 cases and 4,634 deaths (India, with a comparable population, had 4.8 million cases and 80,026 deaths; India is losing more lives each week than the total deaths in China).

The United States, meanwhile, has suffered from 198,680 deaths and 6.7 million cases. In absolute numbers, the U.S. deaths are about 43 times China’s and the case number is about 79 times higher.

The U.S. government, unlike the government in China, hesitated to properly craft a lockdown and test the population. That is why, in per capita terms, U.S. deaths are about 186 times higher than those in China and the cases are about 343 times higher.

Trump’s racist attempt to pin the blame on China is pure diversion. China contained the virus. The U.S. has totally failed to do so. The enormous number of U.S. deaths were ‘Made in Washington,’ not ‘Made in China.’

Measuring the Economy

In the first quarter of 2020, the Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 6.8 percent compared to a year earlier. Due to the fast elimination of domestic transmission of the virus, economic recovery in China has been rapid. By the second quarter, China’s GDP has been up 3.2 percent compared to the same period in 2019. The International Monetary Fund projects that China will be the only major economy to experience positive growth.

How did China’s economy rebound so fast? The answer is clear: the socialist character of the economy. By July, China’s state investment was 3.8 percent above its level of a year ago, while private investment is still 5.7 percent below 2019. China has used its powerful state sector to boost itself out of recession. This illustrates the macro-efficiency of the state sector.

In mid-August, the Communist Party of China’s theoretical journal Qiushi (Seeking Truth) published a speech by Xi Jinping, in which he said, “The foundation of China’s political economy can only be a Marxist political economy, and not be based on other economic theories.” The main principles of this are “people-centered development thinking.” This was the foundation of the government’s response to the pandemic and the economy in its context.

Trump, meanwhile, made it very clear that his administration would not conduct anything near a national lockdown; it seems his priority was to protect the economy over American lives. As early as March, when there was no sign that the pandemic could be controlled in the United States, Trump announced, “America will again and soon be open for business—very soon.”

Disaster in the United States

Inefficient policies in the United States resulted in runaway COVID-19 infection rates. The basic protocols—masks, hand sanitizer—were not taken seriously. And the impact on the U.S. economy has been catastrophic.

The U.S. made it clear that it was not going to pursue anything near a people-centered approach. Trump’s entire emphasis was to keep the economy open, largely because he remains of the view that his election victory will come via the pocketbook; the human cost of this policy is ignored. The U.S. only had half a lockdown, and little testing and contact tracing.

The GDP of the United States in the second quarter fell by 9.5 percent as compared to a year earlier. There is no indication of strong improvement. The IMF estimates that U.S. economic contraction will be about 6.6 percent for the year. The “risk ahead,” writes the IMF, “is that a large share of the U.S. population will have to contend with an important deterioration of living standards and significant economic hardship for several years to come.” The disruption will have long-term implications. These problems are laid out clearly by the IMF: “preventing the accumulation of human capital, eroding labor force participation, or contributing to social unrest.” This is the exact opposite of the scenario unfolding in China.

It is as if we live on two planets. On one planet, there is outrage about the hypocrisy in what Trump said to Woodward, and outrage about the collapse of both the health system and the economy—with a harsh road forward to rebuild either. On the other planet, the chain of infection has been broken, although the Chinese government remains vigilant and is willing to sacrifice short-term economic growth to save the lives of its citizenry.

Trump’s attack on China, his threats to decouple the United States from China, his racist noises about the “Chinese virus”—all this is bluster designed as part of an information war to delegitimize China. Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has focused on “dual circulation,” which means domestic measures to raise living standards and eliminate poverty, and on the Belt and Road Initiative; both of these will lessen Chinese dependence on the United States.

Two planets might begin to drift apart, one moving in the direction of the future, the other out of control.

Blasphemy Estate: The ‘Deep State’ and Deepening Fundamentalism in Pakistan

K M Seethi

The deep state in Pakistan is no more a mere conglomerate of civil bureaucracy, army, intelligence, and/or other administrative agencies. The ‘state within the state’ has also its predictable partners in religious constituencies across the country. There is a growing concern now if the judiciary is also becoming a partner of the deep state congregation. A few years back, a report from the International Crisis Group argued that “the judiciary has failed to uphold the constitution and to oppose Islamic legislation that violates fundamental rights.” It pointed out that “the legacy of military rule in Pakistan includes discriminatory religious laws that undermine the rule of law, encourage vigilantism and embolden religious extremists.” The report underlined how the country’s blasphemy law discriminates people on the ground of religious views and “imposes harsher sentences, including the death penalty, for offences against Islam.” It said that Pakistan’s blasphemy law has been “widely abused, particularly by radical Sunni groups targeting religious minorities” (International Crisis Group 2008). The situation has not changed since then and it got worsened as years have rolled by. The latest incidents—that too in a gap of two months—have shown that even judiciary cannot be seen as the last hope of the common man in Pakistan.

On 8 September a sessions court in Lahore granted death sentence to Asif Pervaiz, a young Christian, after finding him guilty of sending ‘text messages’ containing ‘blasphemous content.’ Pervaiz was already in custody for nearly seven years, facing blasphemy charges that were targeted against him by his supervisor in a garment factory he had worked at. Pervaiz was accused of sending derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad in a text message, according to reports (The Dawn, 8 September 2020). The judgment says, Pervaiz would first serve a three-year prison term for ‘misusing’ his phone to send the derogatory text message. Then “he shall be hanged by his neck till his death” besides paying a fine Rs 50,000.  Pervaiz having already spent seven years in jail, and having denied all charges against him, the lawyer of the accused said he had no option but to go for an appeal to the Lahore High Court. On the same day, a local court in Peshawar remanded into police custody a suspect, Bashir Mastan, arrested on charges of committing blasphemy through a video message on social media (The Dawn, 9 September 2020). Reports also indicated that more than three dozen people were arrested in Pakistan, on the same charges, in the month of August alone.

It was only two months ago that Tahir Naseem, an American citizen on trial for blasphemy in Pakistan, was shot dead in a crowded courtroom in Peshawar by a teenager who accused Naseem—a member of the minority Ahmadiyya community—of insulting the Prophet Muhammad (The Washington Post, 31 July 2020; The Dawn, 30 July 2020). A few hours after Naseem’s brutal murder, a social media hashtag campaign began praising the killer as a ‘hero’ (The New York Times, 30 July 2020). There were many Taliban supporters among them who went on pushing the social media campaign on behalf of the ‘hero.’ Naseem was reported to have survived several Taliban assassination attempts already.  Even as the United States took the issue seriously, civil rights activists in Pakistan have come up against such judicial and extra-judicial acts, saying that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were frequently misused to persecute religious and ethnic minorities even to settle personal scores. There were reported cases of lynching or street vigilantism throughout Pakistan. According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, nearly 80 people were already imprisoned in Pakistan on such charges — half of whom face life in prison or the death penalty (USCIRF 2019; USCIRF 2020). It may be noted that Pakistan has been a strategic partner of the United States in South Asia for a long time.

Early this year, a Lahore court sentenced a man to death in a three-year-old blasphemy case which also involved a fine of Rs. 200,000. Similar cases were also reported in the recent past (The Dawn, 20 June 2020). The commencement of the year 2020 witnessed new measures being put in place in the country. For example, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution in early January 2020 to make Pakistan’s blasphemy laws more stringent and introduce a Saudi type filtering of online content to intercept blasphemous material. The Assembly urged the federal government to make new or improve existing laws to rigorously punish those indulging in blasphemy. The resolution reads: “The existing (anti) blasphemy laws in the country had a weak implementation and lack enforcement in letter and spirit, allowing some people to commit blasphemy in the garb of freedom of expression and hurt feelings of Muslims…Therefore, this house demands the immediate establishment of a Saudi Arabia-like central filtration and screening system to prevent blasphemous content.” The resolution also demanded that the authorities should ban and confiscate books containing blasphemous material. It called for revising the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 and Pakistan Penal Code Sections regarding blasphemy to ensure stricter punishments.  As soon as the resolution was passed in the Punjab Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s National Assembly also adopted a resolution to condemn all blasphemous content (The News International, 26 January 2020; The Dawn, 1 January 2020).  In late 2019, a Pakistani court in Multan convicted Junaid Hafeez, a Muslim lecturer at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, sentencing him to death under the blasphemy law for allegedly spreading anti-Islamic ideas.  Hafeez has been in jail for almost six years awaiting trial. He has been in solitary confinement most of the time because he would most likely be killed if left with the general population, according to reports (Arab News, 21 December 2019). Earlier, Hafeez’s first lawyer, Rashid Rehman, was killed in 2014 after he agreed to undertake the case (BBC News, 21 December 2019). The Amnesty International (AI) continued to press for his release before the judgment. It said “Junaid’s lengthy trial has gravely affected his mental and physical health, endangered him and his family and exemplifies the misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. The authorities must release him immediately and unconditionally and drop all charges against him” (Amnesty International, 25 September 2019). After the verdict came, AI called it “a gross miscarriage of justice” and described it as “extremely disappointing and surprising” (BBC News, 21 December 2019).

According to Al Jazeera, several people have been “extra-judicially killed” in Pakistan in connection with blasphemy allegations since 1990 and many still languished in jails for quite a long period. For instance, Wajeeh-ul-Hassan spent nearly half of his life in jails. Hassan was convicted of committing blasphemy way back in 2002, and he was sentenced to death by a Lahore court in 2002 when he was 25. Now he has spent more than 19 years in jail with no hope of getting released. The report also showed that many cases do not even reach courts, and such cases often ended up with ‘extra-judicial’ killings (Al Jazeera, 21 February 2020).

Almost a decade back, Pakistan’s blasphemy law had shot into global media attention when Salman Taseer, former Governor of Punjab, visited Asia Bibi—a Christian woman—who was   sentenced to death by a court for allegedly committing blasphemy. Taseer’s visit was to declare solidarity with her. After his visit he felt that the provisions in Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) regarding blasphemy were too bad and therefore he called it a ‘Black Law.’ Taseer’s comments eventually resulted in his death on 4 January 2011 when his own attendant killed him in Islamabad. However, after several years, the Supreme Court annulled Asia Bibi’s conviction in 2018. But her release saw thousands of Islamists in Pakistan protesting against her acquittal (The News International, 1 November 2018).  There were similar incidents reported during this time—most of them were against Christian minorities (CRSS  2014). The mob attack in the Joseph Colony of Christian community in Lahore in March 2013 was a major incident when a spat between two friends ended up in blasphemy charges, which eventually led to destroying as many as 150 houses of poor Christians in the area. There were several such blasphemy-related cases and incidents in the following years (The Dawn, 19 December 2015; The Dawn, 20 June 2019).

Draconian amendments to PPC under General Zia

The blasphemy laws in Pakistan emerged mostly from Sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The provisions incorporated essentially embody amendments made of the British-Indian Penal Code of 1860 pertaining to religious offences that were applicable to all religions. It was in 1927 that Section 295-A was added to the Indian Penal Code in the wake of communal tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities. After independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained the Penal Code inherited from the British colonial office. However, during 1947-1977, there were only ten reported judgments that were related to offences against religion. Meanwhile the Pakistani state had to deal with issues related to religious and ethnic minorities (Seethi 2015; Seethi 2019). The problem of Ahmadis continued to be a critical issue since the riots perpetrated against them in 1953 (Pakistan 1954). Successive governments did not consider their basic democratic rights even under the popular rule. For instance, in 1974,  during Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s rule, the National Assembly amended the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, to declare that any person “who does not believe in the absolute and unqualified finality of The Prophethood of Muhammad (Peace be upon him), the last of the Prophets or claims to be a Prophet, in any sense of the word or of any description whatsoever, after Muhammad (Peace be upon him), or recognizes such a claimant as a Prophet or religious reformer, is not a Muslim for the purposes of the Constitution or law.”  Following the second Constitutional amendment, the Ahmadiyya community, who considered themselves as a sect within Islam, were specifically branded as a “non-Muslim religious minority community” (International Commission of Jurists 2015:9). Yet, they were perpetually harassed in Pakistan and even the basic rights of a minority community have been denied all these years.

While a popular government (under Bhutto) did this draconian amendment to disempower the Ahmadis, it was during the military rule of General Zia, in the 1980s, that these ruthless provisions were further incorporated into the PPC. In 1991 Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif introduced the mandatory death penalty for blasphemy after the National Assembly failed to step in to reject the death penalty upheld by the Federal Sharia Court in 1990. According to Section 295-B of PPC (Defiling, etc., of Holy Qur’an), “Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur’an or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable with imprisonment for life.”  As per Section 295(C) – use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet- “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine” (Pakistan 1860). Section 298-A(Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of holy personages) says that “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of any wife (Ummul Mumineen), or members of the family (Ahle-bait), of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), or any of the righteous Caliphs (Khulafa-e-Rashideen) or companions (Sahaaba) of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.” While Section 298-B pertains to punishment for the “misuse of epithets, descriptions and titles, etc., reserved for certain holy personages or place,” Section 298-C prescribes punishment for person of Quadiani group (Ahmadis,) etc., “calling himself a Muslim or preaching or propagating his faith” (Ibid). According to Pakistan’s Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2004, offences relating to Section 295C of the PPC, which prohibits derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (Pakistan 1860), must be investigated by a police officer at the level of superintendent or above (Pakistan 2005).

It may be noted that before the Zia military regime (1977-1988), there was no provision in the PPC specifying punishment for blasphemy. According to The News International report, there were only ten blasphemy cases heard in court in the 58 years between 1927 and 1985, but since 1986, particularly after the amendments to the PPC, there were more than 4,000 cases, citing the data gathered by different non-governmental organisations working on the issue.  As per the information brought together by the Lahore-based Centre for Social Justice, not less than 1,472 people were charged under the blasphemy laws during 1987-2016. Curiously, majority of the accused were Muslims (730) while there were 501 Ahmadis, 205 Christians and 26 Hindus (The News International, 1 November 2018).

Way back in 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers found that the blasphemy laws “serve the vested interests of extremist religious groups and are not only contrary to the Constitution of Pakistan, but also to international human rights norms, in particular those relating to non-discrimination and freedom of expression and opinion” (UN 2012: 13).  The Special Rapporteur also recommended that “Pakistan should repeal or amend the blasphemy laws in accordance with its human rights obligations.” Moreover, it was further clarified that “the mandatory imposition of the death penalty, which is prescribed under section 295-C, is prohibited under international human rights law.” The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) opined that all institutions of the Pakistani State—the  executive, the parliament, and members of the judiciary—”have effectively abdicated their responsibilities under human rights law when people are accused of committing blasphemy, knowingly leaving them either at the mercy of mobs and organized extremist religious groups or facing trials that are fundamentally unfair” (International Commission of Jurists 2015: 6). According to the ICJ report,

Individuals accused of blasphemy continue to be vulnerable even after formally coming within the ambit of the criminal justice system. In many cases, blasphemy accused awaiting trial or serving sentences following convictions have been assaulted while held in custody and authorities have failed to protect them. Some have even been killed. In a few cases, police officials themselves have reportedly been the perpetrators. Individuals who are prosecuted for blasphemy are also routinely denied fair trial guarantees: blasphemy-related proceedings are unduly protracted; prior to trial accused persons are frequently unduly denied bail and are held in custody for extended periods of time awaiting trial; and while detained, they are often held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods (Ibid: 7).

Human rights groups and religious and ethnic minorities within and outside Pakistan    continued to demand repeal of the draconian anti-blasphemy regulations which have been repeatedly misused to target minorities and all voices of dissent, but the successive governments remained apathetic. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its Annual Report 2020 noted that the “systematic enforcement of blasphemy and anti-Ahmadiyya laws, and authorities’ failure to address forced conversions of religious minorities—including Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs—to Islam, severely restricted freedom of religion or belief.” On many occasions, the senior U.S. officials highlighted Pakistan’s religious freedom violations in their interactions with the government agencies. The Annual Report 2020 stated that several ongoing trials linked with blasphemy charges saw prolonged delays as cases were shifted between judges. Besides, as the Report says, “these laws create a culture of impunity for violent attacks following accusations.” The murder of Professor Khalid Hameed in March 2019 by a student over alleged ‘anti-Islamic’ comments is a case in point. Mobs attacked and burned Hindu shops and houses of worship in Sind following incidents related to accusations of blasphemy. Another mob attack on the Christian community was reported from Punjab. In yet another incident, as many as 200 Christian families in Karachi were forced to flee their homes following mob attacks, after a fake blasphemy accusation was put up against some Christian women. The USCIRF further pointed out that the Ahmadi Muslims, whose faith has been criminalized, became targets of relentless “persecution from authorities as well as societal harassment due to their beliefs, with both the authorities and mobs targeting their houses of worship” (USCIRF 2020: 32-33).

Blasphemy laws and attacks

Historically, the laws that criminalize blasphemy have been on the statute books of many countries for centuries. This was quite discernible in countries where Semitic religions held sway. Scholars argue that blasphemy laws were part of both Judaism and Christianity, much before Islam emerged in the seventh century (Levy 1995; Sanders 1990; Webster 1990). In the modern era, this assumed new dimensions with ruling classes resorting to tactics that would sustain their regime interests and legitimacy. According to a study recorded by the U.S. Congress, many countries in Western Europe still maintain blasphemy and related laws. In some countries they are never implemented, but “there have been prosecutions in recent years in Austria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, and Turkey.”  In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, “laws prohibiting proselytization or insulting religion are prevalent.”  Some of the recent cases are noted in the study from the experiences of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (The U.S. Congress 2017).

Most countries in West Asia and North Africa have stringent laws prohibiting abusive or offensive remarks and actions against Islam or religion generally. Many of them have lately enacted and sharpened such laws, including in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and the West Bank. Sub-Saharan African countries having such laws prohibiting blasphemy, proselytization, or similar conduct are Comoros, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe albeit their enforcement was not widely reported. In South Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan have blasphemy laws that are vigorously enforced.  India’s Penal Code retains the provisions of the British Indian Penal Code (1860) that has a blasphemy law that reportedly “is used by all of India’s faith groups when their religious sensibilities are hurt” (Ibid). Bangladesh also has regulations along these lines, but not to the extent of granting death penalty for blasphemy. However, in 2013, hundreds of thousands of people staged protests in Dhaka demanding that the government introduce an anti-blasphemy law that would make provision for death penalty for those who insult Islam. The Islamist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami was in the forefront calling for a new blasphemy law with a death penalty (Al Jazeera 7 April 2013). But prime minister Sheikh Hasina said that no such law was necessary because the existing laws were enough to handle such cases (it may be recalled that the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen had to escape from her country in 1994 following Islamists’ fatwa against her for “casting aspersions on Islam” in her novel Lajja).

Countries in Southeast Asia such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar have blasphemy-related laws that are in place. Other countries with such laws in the region, as well as in East Asia and the Pacific, include Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and New Zealand. There are only a few countries in Latin America and the Caribbean which have blasphemy laws. Canada has a blasphemy law in North America, but it is not enforced (The U.S. Congress 2017).

The world also witnessed attacks and fatwas on writers and media personnel in the recent past on charges of blasphemy. Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses had triggered mass protests across the world. In the wake of the publication of the novel in 1989, the spiritual and political leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (for death penalty) against Rushdie. Besides, Iran also offered a reward of several million dollars for the assassination of Rushdie. Rushdie had to go underground and, since then, lived under the protection of British security (Levy 1993). There were many other incidents associated with the Rushdie affair. The Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses was stabbed to death in 1991. The Italian translator of the novel was also attacked, but he somehow survived. Similarly, the Norwegian publisher of Rushdie’s work also suffered serios injuries in a firing.  The attack on the office of French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, in early 2015, resulted in the death of a dozen people. The incident happened following the publication of a cartoon on Prophet Muhammad (Trench   2016). There were similar attacks on magazine and newspaper offices in Europe. The publication of drawings of Prophet Muhammad in a Denmark newspaper resulted in similar attacks. Since then the International Blasphemy Rights Day (30 September) is held every year to show solidarity with those who oppose draconian laws and social prohibitions against free expression, to support the right to challenge prevailing religious beliefs without fear of violence, arrest, or persecution.

Is there really a blasphemy law in Islam?

There are contesting versions about ‘laws’ that prescribe punishment (including death penalty) for insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad. The Quran and Sunnah are the fundamental sources of Islamic laws, but they have been subject to different interpretations by various schools of Islamic theology over centuries.  Islamic jurisprudence involves hermeneutical engagements of the Quranic text and contexts. According to learnt Islamic scholars, the Quran embodies several allegories, metaphors as well as ambiguities that need interpretations based on appropriate principles of justice, fairness and virtues of a good life.  In fact, there are no references to blasphemy in the Quran. It did not appear anywhere in the history of Islamic jurisprudence. There are many instances in the Quran when disbelievers went on deriding and teasing Prophet Muhammad.  Yet, there is no specific command for punishing those who ridiculed him. Rather the Quran asks Muhammad to leave the punishment to God for such acts of insults and derogatory remarks. The Quran also tells believers to invoke God’s mercy and grace for the Prophet.

Those who agree that Islamic traditions have laws for blasphemy since its beginning will argue that such laws are based on the Sunnah (sayings and practices) of the Prophet. They bring in the instance of a Jewish woman who was believed to have been killed for writing provocative poems against the Prophet and Islam. There is no authenticity for this story that tells that the Prophet ‘praised the man’ who killed her. However, there is another version which says that the Jewish woman was actually killed for sedition for breaking the covenant signed in Medina, and not for any blasphemous comments. It may be remembered that whenever the Prophet was in Mecca, it was not quite unusual for the people to abuse and show disrespect or dishonour him for his radical measures. In the emerging context of setting up an Islamic state, it was natural that there were too many adversaries for the Prophet. Yet, he remained unmoved and showed tremendous patience.  The Quran itself provides a number of such instances.

The Surah 21:41 reads,

“Mocked were (many) apostles before thee; but their scoffers were hemmed in by the thing that they mocked” (Al-Anbiyaa – translation by Yusuf Ali).

The Surah 38:4 says,

“So, they wonder that a Warner has come to them from among themselves! and the Unbelievers say, “This is a sorcerer telling lies!” (Sad – translation by Yusuf Ali).

In spite of such attacks and ridicules, the Quran (Surah 73:10), in fact, advises the Prophet to “have patience with what they say and leave them with noble (dignity)” (Al-Muzzammil translation by Yusuf Ali).

The Surah 5:13 reads:

“But because of their breach of their Covenant We cursed them and made their hearts grow hard: they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the Message that was sent them nor wilt thou cease to find them barring a few ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them and overlook (their misdeeds): for Allah loveth those who are kind” (Al-Maida, translation by Yusuf Ali).

The Surah 25:63 is rather categorical:

“And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility and when the ignorant address them they say “Peace!” (Al-Furqan translation by Yusuf Ali).

The most oft-quoted Surah (2: 256) runs like this: “Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clear from error; whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things (Al-Baqara translation by Yusuf Ali).

The ‘texts’ of Islamic jurisprudence cannot ignore such instances of compassion, humility and patience displayed by the Prophet during his time. Ziauddin Sardar, a writer and commentator on Islam, argued that blasphemy laws have no basis in the Quran and that “there are better ways than demanding death sentences to show love and respect for the Prophet” (Sardar 1995). Asghar Ali Engineer, another scholar on Islam, says that the Prophet was “so spiritual that he would never indulge in seeking revenge for personal insult.” He was “a model human being to be followed by others” (Engineer 2011). He cites an instance of a Jewish women who used to insult the Prophet by throwing garbage on him whenever he passed her house. But the Prophet never sought to punish her. One day, when the woman did not turn up with garbage, the Prophet asked why she did not. When heard that she fell ill, the Prophet straightaway went to see her. The woman felt ashamed of herself by misbehaving with such a person and immediately embraced Islam. Engineer says that to “avenge an insult is not a sign of religiosity but betrays worst human instincts” (Ibid).

It may be noted that in the next two centuries after Prophet Mohammad, there was hardly anything like a blasphemy law. It was during the Abbasid rule, in the beginning of the ninth century, that the notion of blasphemy began to gain some acceptance, particularly in the context of rebellion against Islam and the state. Plausibly, the idea assumed new dimensions in the background of legitimising the political power of the ruling dispensations. When a military general like Zia-ul-Haq introduced blasphemy law in Pakistan, it all became clear that the purpose was only to legitimise his authoritarian regime under the garb of an ‘Islamic state.’ Gen Zia also acquiesced to the agenda of orthodox ulama in Pakistan with a view to making inroads into the society through his military dictatorship (Kennedy 1996; Seethi 2019). The situation has not changed since then, even after the transition to democracy.

In sum, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws put across a big question mark regarding its own Islamic credentials as well as its international legal obligations. The deep state in Pakistan has hardly any respect for protection for freedom of religion or belief, freedom of opinion and expression, equality before the law, the prevention of discrimination and, above all, ensuring a fair trial rights. The blasphemy laws have obvious repercussions for religious and ethnic minorities in the country, and segue into the situation of religious intolerance, fundamentalism and Islamic radicalism. Even as Islamabad has come under the international pressure of countering terrorism and religious extremism, the question is whether the deep state will allow the political forces and the civil society in the country to revisit the draconian blasphemy laws, in their present mode, and rescind or drastically revise all infractions related to religion in line with its international human rights obligations.

Weaponising the Virus is Dangerous for all and Against Humanity

Shahnaz Islam

This is a crucial time and an unprecedented crisis is unfolding where the worst-hit are the most neglected ones. The Government must find a way out with utmost dedication, even if it is an act of God, and look after the farmers, so that they do happy harvesting rather than committing unwelcoming suicides.

How does the novel coronavirus travel from China to all parts of the world without having proper documents – visa or passport, without either confirmed birthplace or language, class, creed, colour, gender or religion! However, when it landed in India; the virus got its identity with story characters. We did identify it in more than one ways. Aren’t we incredible people of India?

The virus came as a blessing in disguise for the Government in the Centre and melancholy tryst destined for the common people. India is a land of diversity only in the pages of its holy book called the Constitution of India and in some of the masses infrastructure. But in a broad sense it is hardly practiced, respected and preserved.

In any democratic system, the government owes much to the people of that nation. It is the people who form the government by casting their vote with a hope that they nurture in their minds, that their government body will fulfil their necessities at the time of need and will face the challenges during crisis times. Instead, look at the Government here, how easily it is trying to escape by weaponising the virus to polarize the common Indians in the name of religions and communities at times, or beholding an excuse that the novel coronavirus is an act of God, at some other times. By spreading their fabricated mental germs and not performing the duties towards the nation and to the people, they are simply using the virus as blessing in disguise.

Why the Government is so calm and blind over the issues that with no criminal base when some innocents are lynched only on communal or casteism grounds as because he or she is just a person from other religion or caste? Who blooded Delhi and who were the people who suffered the most?

Safoora Zargar, the 27-year old woman, from Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University, a research scholar, in the second trimester of her first pregnancy, was arrested on April 10 and spent her first day of Ramadhan in the high-security Tihar Jail in the Indian capital, New Delhi- charged under the stringent anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2019 (UAPA) by the Delhi police!

Further, Maulana Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi, the 77-year old man, an author and former dean of the Faculty of Theology, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), when some media houses played with “doctored” clip and claimed that he has been a cause to spread the virus while violating the lockdown restriction regulations, thus has been made a face of an entire community and put on lethal trial!

Unfortunately, some of us- Indians, are spreading venoms and even working constantly to make others believe in such hates against a particular group of people in India.

To build a strong and healthy nation; our primary concern must rightly be in serving the grassroot level workers- the farmers and the migrant workers. They are the souls to build the upsloping future of this nation. They let the other lives to fill their stomachs with three times meals and heads rest under beautifully roofed houses. The blooming cities, the roads and the skyscrapers owe more to their sweat and blood than the tenure of the air-conditioned apartments owned by the governments. Sorrowfully, in the pandemic affair, the Government neglected them and funds were sealed in the imperial treasury.

How millions of migrant workers walked barefoot to reach their natives and weather brutality forced them into chemical baths. The farmers went fasting due to lack of rations but tons of vegetables dumped as garbage waste due to no transport or business during the “lockdown festival”.

Remember, on the 5th of April this year, when majority of Indians went out of their homes for a march lighting and roaring aloud just abiding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a 9-minute gratitude for the frontline workers, neglecting the lockdown restricted regulations, to signal a festive mood. Let’s also recollect, the massive gathering of people in the Motera Stadium officially named as the Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, took place on the 24th and 25th of February 2020 for grand welcoming of U.S. President Donald J. Trump in COVID-19 pre-lockdown India. Why post days, no sanitizing with chemicals poured or later quarantine the masses who gathered on the unacquainted festive in India?

Killing the virus or seeking a vaccine, will be a worth development for human lives in future India. Nonetheless, painless shrouding of the corpses of farmers and migrant workers to burial is not a feast; it may cause famine in coming years in Indian living system itself.

‘‘He couldn’t face another year of penury’’ – instead of making this statement as the headline for tomorrow’s newspaper; let us make it as- “he left leaving a debt on humanity” and start fulfilling our responsibilities towards the humanity. Let our voices reach to the ears of those who are sitting by stuffing cotton over their ears. The Government and the system must realise that the loss of the farmers and the drastic downfall in the rate of vegetables, as the farmers were not able to find a buyer to sell their products; adding no transport facilities to reach the markets.

Bonojit Hussain, who has cultivated vegetables on 10 bighas, a Nalbari-based (Assam) research consultant and a farmer, said, “the integrated mechanism that the Government says it will create to solve farmers’ problems “exists” on paper. By the time it is implemented, it will be the next year. The agricultural produce lost, cannot be recovered. Compensation is the only way out,” he emphasized.

Farmers must receive compensations not based on land documents of ownership because maximum farmers in Assam and Nagaland etc. work in the fields on verbal lease only; the Government must think out of the box ways to reach them directly. This is a crucial time and an unprecedented crisis is unfolding where the worst-hit are the most neglected ones.

The Government must find a way out with utmost dedication, even if it is an act of God, and look after the farmers, so that they do happy harvesting rather than committing unwelcoming suicides in the days, months or years to come.

Every democratically elected Government is answerable to the people, even if it wins election after election by whatever means or using whatever tactics. The bizarre storm or the catastrophe actually set foot over the Indian economy is due to the Demonetisation act which followed by the massive nationwide anti CCA (CAB) agitation; engulfed the whole country in rages, and the people in Power were playing only their version of nationalistic music to please their bunch of trolls and hurt those who opposed. They smartly used COVID-19 Pandemic to crush the anti CAA agitation and kill evey decent voice. The fight against the Coronavirus was an opportunity in disguise for the Government to fight against all decent views in this “largest democracy of the world” – India.

When the number of Covid-19 cases soaring in India now, including each day ameliorate the lives of the people, shortage of bed in hospitals compared to rise in the positive cases of Covid-19, general mass is shattered and nothing is in regular function but our beloved Government in Assam plough up the legislation on delimitation of constituencies in the province!

The Covid-19 virus is significant, surfaced in China and it infected the rest of the world. The whole of mankind is trapped by this virus and adversely affected by it. Is this virus a practical weaponising mechanism by some against some others? Nobody might have the clear answer, except speculation. However, is it a crime to be a poor by birth that miseries muffled in agony and the elected Government ignores providing the basic human needs too?

Whether a war or a virus – man-made or God’s act; it is always the poor who are the most sufferers and pity victim creatures. The virus is a sickness; either it infects human lungs and causes death to an individual or it infects human minds and causes death to humanity of a nation through hate and vice – both are dangerous. Weaponising the virus against an individual, against a community or religious group, or against any nation or country is utterly uncalled for and against humanity.