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NY Times - A Minister Feting a Lynch Mob? India Recoils in Disgust

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A Minister Feting a Lynch Mob? India Recoils in Disgust
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A political poster in Hazaribagh, India, featuring an image of Jayant Sinha, a government minister who draped garlands on eight men convicted of beating a Muslim man to death.CreditSaurabh Das for The New York Times


By Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar

  • July 20, 2018
HAZARIBAGH, India — Jayant Sinha is a Celtics fan. He graduated from Harvard. He worked for McKinsey.

Born and raised in India but minted in the United States, he found wealth and success in the Boston area. His American friends say his politics were moderate, maybe even progressive.

Then he returned to India.

He ditched the suits he had worn as a partner at McKinsey & Company, an elite management consulting firm, in favor of traditional Indian kurtas. He joined the governing Hindu right political party and became a member of Parliament and then a minister, leading Hindu parades and showering worshipers with flower petals from a helicopter.

This month, he also feted and garlanded eight murderers who were part of a Hindu lynch mob that the authorities said beat an unarmed and terrified Muslim man to death. His embrace of the convicted killers has become the political stunt that Indians can’t stop talking about.

Across the country, the images of Mr. Sinha draping wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks have started a conversation about whether the state of Indian politics has become so poisoned by sectarian hatred and extremism that even an ostensibly worldly and successful politician can’t resist its pull.

Dozens of people have been beaten to death, often in cold blood, by crowds of bored young men who alternate between booting someone in the head and taking a selfie. Suggestions of whom to kill rip so fast through villages via social media, especially WhatsApp, that no one seems able to stop them.

In this atmosphere, some conclude that Mr. Sinha might actually win votes for his maneuver.

“He’ll get some benefit,” said Rajiv Kumar, a homeopathic medicine salesman and one of Mr. Sinha’s constituents. “I don’t agree with what he did; it’s only going to encourage more lynching. But Jayant was concerned his party would dump him, and this will help.”

Narendra Modi, became prime minister. Mr. Modi promised to stoke India’s go-go economy, and he recruited Mr. Sinha, who had built a small fortune in the United States as a consultant and hedge fund manager, to help him.

It didn’t hurt that Mr. Sinha’s father was a senior member of the Indian Parliament and the Bharatiya Janata Party. With Mr. Modi’s backing, Mr. Sinha easily won the election to take over his father’s seat. He was made a finance minister and then a minister for civil aviation, a post he still holds.

The territory his life spans is dramatic. Mr. Sinha, 55, owns a beautiful home in Chestnut Hill, a posh enclave outside Boston, where his wife still lives. He has degrees from some of the world’s best universities, including the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India’s capital, and Harvard Business School.

But the area he represents, centered in the bushy town of Hazaribagh (which means “a thousand gardens”), is poor, troubled and socially conservative. Lying more than 500 miles east of New Delhi in the state of Jharkhand, it is home to coal mines, Maoist rebels and land-grabbing gangs.

Like so much of India today, Hazaribagh is more polarized between majority Hindus and minority Muslims than it has been in a long time. Many people here support Hindu vigilante groups, especially the so-called cow protectors who hunt down those who break Hinduism’s taboo against killing cows.

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A woman tending to a cow near Hazaribagh, a poor and socially conservative part of Mr. Sinha’s constituency.CreditSaurabh Das for The New York Times
It was one such vigilante group that swarmed Alimuddin Ansari, a Muslim trader, in Mr. Sinha’s constituency last year. A rumor spread that Mr. Ansari was transporting beef, and a mob dragged him out of his van and beat him. Police officers eventually pulled him away, but he died a few hours later from internal injuries, officials said.

But a higher court recently granted an appeal, saying the evidence was flimsy. And where did eight of the men go the moment they were granted bail? Mr. Sinha’s house, where he was waiting with plates of sweets and wreaths of marigolds.

There is still a mystery about how Mr. Ansari died. A lawyer representing some of the convicted lynchers said that, yes, the mob had roughed up Mr. Ansari but that it was actually police officers who beat him to death, in custody. The lawyer pointed to photos that have been circulating on social media that show Mr. Ansari looking alert and apparently not badly injured as officers led him away from the mob. The trial court had heard many of these arguments and rejected them.

Mr. Sinha said he was helping the convicts because there was “no evidence” that they killed Mr. Ansari. He has actively supported their legal defense, paying several hundred dollars to one of the defense lawyers and connecting this lawyer to an experienced attorney friend to craft a persuasive appeal.

He celebrated their release from jail with sweets and flowers, he said, to show how happy he was that they “got a fresh lease on life.”

“a license to kill minorities.”

And a recent letter to the newspaper The Indian Express was headlined: “Despicable Act.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/world/asia/india-jayant-sinha-lynch-mob.html
 
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Innocent until proven otherwise. That's always been the system in all democratic societies.
 
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Innocent until proven otherwise. That's always been the system in all democratic societies.
But a Government Minister can stay neutral, like it happens in civilized Societies. Why Phooloon ki Mala Fete and praise them with wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks. he as a BJP Minister clearly supporting and taking sides while case is in the court, which is not a norm in civilized societies.

BJP official policy, do more lynching, hate crimes and you will get more praise and reward.
 
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But a Government Minister can stay neutral, like it happens in civilized Societies. Why Phooloon ki Mala Fete and praise them with wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks. he as a BJP Minister clearly supporting and taking sides while case is in the court, which is not a norm in civilized societies.

BJP official policy, do more lynching, hate crimes and you will get more praise and reward.

In India, when you are in politics, you can get lumped with court cases for no reason.

If these individuals are convicted, you will see the party avoid them, as is normal in any country.
 
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In India, when you are in politics, you can get lumped with court cases for no reason.

If these individuals are convicted, you will see the party avoid them, as is normal in any country.
Excellent.....

Your true Indian, this CM Hemant Soren knows nothing about India, he is not supporting and defending like you.

JMM working president and former CM Hemant Soren on Friday, tagged the minister's alma mater Harvard University. "This is truly despicable. @Harvard Your alumnus @jayantsinha felicitating the accused in cow related lynching death in India. Is this what @Harvard stands for?"
 
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Excellent.....

Your true Indian, this CM Hemant Soren knows nothing about India, he is not supporting and defending like you.

JMM working president and former CM Hemant Soren on Friday, tagged the minister's alma mater Harvard University. "This is truly despicable. @Harvard Your alumnus @jayantsinha felicitating the accused in cow related lynching death in India. Is this what @Harvard stands for?"

We don't get our morality certificate from you or anyone. India's justice system is seen as a relevant constitutional office even in Western countries.
 
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We don't get our morality certificate from you or anyone. India's justice system is seen as a relevant constitutional office even in Western countries.

Your own Supreme Court asking BJP to do something, law is crying, but BJP and people like you do not care about Law and highest court. want to talk about democracy, and western countries.

"IT IS NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE" is this Bhutan news paper...

Have fun, all is fake news.
 
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India's justice system is bullshit. They let Italian marines go because your Gov didn't want to confront the West.

:lol:

It's surprising that they were even detained for so long.

We held one of them for up to 4 years without formal charges, and were in an Indian led case even though they were in international waters when the "crime" took place. Hell, we asserted sovereignty over international waters just to have the case. Meaning, we simply claimed our territorial waters is 24nm instead of the usual 12nm.

An Italian Foreign Affairs Minister also had to resign when their bullying tactics didn't work on us.

We released them because we agreed to have Hague take over. They are now not allowed to leave Italy.

Your own Supreme Court asking BJP to do something, law is crying, but BJP and people like you do not care about Law and highest court. want to talk about democracy, and western countries.

"IT IS NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE" is this Bhutan news paper...

Have fun, all is fake news.

It doesn't look like you know what's happening.
 
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:lol:

It's surprising that they were even detained for so long.

We held one of them for up to 4 years without formal charges, and were in an Indian led case even though they were in international waters when the "crime" took place. Hell, we asserted sovereignty over international waters just to have the case. Meaning, we simply claimed our territorial waters is 24nm instead of the usual 12nm.

An Italian Foreign Affairs Minister also had to resign when their bullying tactics didn't work on us.

We released them because we agreed to have Hague take over. They are now not allowed to leave Italy.



It doesn't look like you know what's happening.

It is possible, I am not know it all.
 
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:lol:

It's surprising that they were even detained for so long.

We held one of them for up to 4 years without formal charges, and were in an Indian led case even though they were in international waters when the "crime" took place. Hell, we asserted sovereignty over international waters just to have the case. Meaning, we simply claimed our territorial waters is 24nm instead of the usual 12nm.

An Italian Foreign Affairs Minister also had to resign when their bullying tactics didn't work on us.

We released them because we agreed to have Hague take over. They are now not allowed to leave Italy.


No matter how you spin it, at the end of the day, you did not have your way, right?

Are you saying your extraordinarily gifted Gov officials staged such a well crafted drama just to let Hague take over?

Your politicians simply caved in, judiciary followed and in return you got entry into that international missile club. So much for.. "India's justice system".
 
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But a Government Minister can stay neutral, like it happens in civilized Societies. Why Phooloon ki Mala Fete and praise them with wreaths of marigolds around the men’s necks. he as a BJP Minister clearly supporting and taking sides while case is in the court, which is not a norm in civilized societies.

BJP official policy, do more lynching, hate crimes and you will get more praise and reward.

Thats is because they were only a suspect, if proven guilty he would have given them gold medals

Innocent until proven otherwise. That's always been the system in all democratic societies.

I know with 100% surety that Aliens descend in India at night and commit all these crimes
 
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No matter how you spin it, at the end of the day, you did not have your way, right?

Are you saying your extraordinarily gifted Gov officials staged such a well crafted drama just to let Hague take over?

Your politicians simply caved in, judiciary followed and in return you got entry into that international missile club. So much for.. "India's justice system".

The fact that we are professionals is the reason why we are capable of fighting it out in the international forums.
 
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Innocent until proven otherwise. That's always been the system in all democratic societies.
In India, when you are in politics, you can get lumped with court cases for no reason.

If these individuals are convicted, you will see the party avoid them, as is normal in any country.
The article states that they are convicted, yet were garlanded.
 
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