‘MY’ socialist Mulayam Singh Yadav passes away; India’s Xinjiang vacillation; Weighing SC Collegium
Opinion Watch
‘MY’ socialist Mulayam Singh Yadav passes away
Indian political commentary suffers from the poverty of honest analysis, and tendencies often are visible that writers resort to court poetry.
Predictably, the newspapers have sought to weigh former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister late Mulayam Singh Yadav in gold, if not in diamond, ascribing several virtues to him by digging into the cobweb of social justice, OBC politics, empowerment of downtrodden, etc.
Lead Editorial of The Indian Express is an example in everything that is wrong with Indian journalism, for the daily is visibly without competence to bring edge of the sword analysis and in place serves a shallow news report.
True, the Indian politics during 1989-2005 was thrown mid-air by the stormy waters of the Mandal politics, which camouflaged as social justice, but was essentially creepy casteism accompanied by horrendous unleashing of criminals on the street. The social justice icons of the era presided over the worst communal riots, caste violence, loot of public properties and land, birthed dynasty, marginalised women in politics, and guarded the locked factory of economy in their territory from any scope of betterment.
The Indian Express loudly tells that Yadav has left an enduring legacy, which his son Akhilesh Yadav would surely seek to search for, as even Azamgarh has now dumped the Samajwadi Party for its rotten politics of Muslim-Yadav.
The Pioneer too paid rich tribute to the departed politician, stating he made politics inclusive, while detailing that he had friends in all camps. The daily rightly tells that socialist politics lapsed into casteism, while reminding Yadav was not an economic doctrinaire and under his watch the law and order situation was unsastisfactory. In fact, ascendance of law and order as top priority of the people in Bihar and UP is solely because the SP and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal empowered the goons and not the marginalized sections of the society who afterwards sought redemption in Mayawati and Nitish Kumar.
India’s Xinjiang vacillation
India stunned many by abstaining from the vote on the United Nations Human Rights Council motion for debate on unprecedented abuse of people in Xinjiang in China, which the international watchdog has described as crime against humanity committed against ethnic Muslims on the orders of Chinese ‘dictator’ Xi Jinping.
The Economic Times has questioned the explanation of the Ministry of External Affairs that the decision to abstain on the vote was in line with the long-standing policy, asking if it’s in tune with the changing ambitions of New Delhi. The daily rightfully flogged India’s foreign policy for still wearing Nehruvian detachment to its skin. The daily tells foreign policy mandarins in India that there’s a trade off for a seat on the high table, and New Delhi runs the risk of ‘naval-gazing’.
China by all accounts has been a rogue nation under the watch of Xi, and India would be failing the world if New Delhi looks at Beijing with Nehruvian glasses.
Weighing SC Collegium
The Supreme Court Collegium gives out that it’s a glasshouse that no one can look into, giving rise to speculations about delays in the appointment of judges in the apex court. The Times of India has commented on the rare clarification issued by the top court that it’s weighing the judgments of the candidates, as part of the September 26 decision of the Collegium for an objective assessment of prospective judges.
The daily wonders why the yardstick was not employed in the selection for judges for over three decades. It calls for publicizing the criteria used by the Collegium in the selection of judges, while reminding that the apex court had struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission. Judiciary has ducked all attempts of reforms, and the sufferings of the people who spend their lifetimes while awaiting justice tell the loud tales of faded, fatigued and farce judicial system in the country.
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