The Congress and the Muslim League..

The adherence of pre-independence era Indian National Congress to both the electoral politics of legislative council on the one hand and mass agitation on the other hand, had ensured that it was not merely an oppositional force, but had produced leaders schooled in the arts of government. Finally, the post independence ability to oversee nation building was enhanced by the legitimacy of its leaders who had been prepared to spend years in prison as part of their sacrifice for the greater cause of freedom.

The movement for Pakistan, like that for Indian Independence, was to provide an important political inheritance. It was not however, to exert as favourable an impact for future democratic consolidation and nation building. The Muslim league was not as firmly institutionalized as Congress. Neither did its leaders possess a similar experience of Government.

Within the ranks of the Muslim league there was much greater opportunism and lack of a public service ideal than was evident in congress. The party was thus less well equipped on a number of counts to perform the task of political development.

Acknowldegement : Excerpted from the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics.

By these actions were the Jat agitators reaffirming their faith in the Indian constitution ?

Someone has just put up on twitter, a purported list of 29 slogans raised by JNU students. you can see it here.

If true, some of those slogans should not have been used. But these are slogans only - not violent action. Similar slogans are raised in kashmir many times a year. Should sedition charges be applied in Kashmir or should the people there be talked to ?

Whereas the Jat agitators (and countless other agitators throughout our land, at other points of time) have caused a large no. of deaths by their actions, denied the poor their daily wage for days, put ordinary people through great difficulty by blocking roads, and caused enormous damage to public and private property.

By these actions were the Jat agitators reaffirming their faith in the Indian constitution ? Instead their actions remind me of those of the Muslim league in Pre-Independence India which engineered violence across large swathes to force the hand of the British and the Congress to create Pakistan. So it is the violent Jat agitaor who is following the footsteps of those who divided India. But BJP has no qualms about appeasing them... after spending decades whipping passions against appeasement !