India Government

The Government of Delhi is the supreme governing authority of the Indian national capital territory of Delhi and its 9 districts. It consists of an executive, led by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, a judiciary and a legislative. The present Legislative Assembly of Delhi is unicameral, consisting of 70 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) handles civic administration for the city as part of the Panchayati Raj Act. New Delhi, an urban area in Delhi, is the seat of both the State Government of Delhi and the Government of India. The National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) has three local municipal corporations namely, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Delhi Cantonment Board.

The head of state of Delhi is the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, appointed by the President of India on the advice of the Central government and the post is largely ceremonial, as the Chief Minister of Delhi is the head of government and is vested with most of the executive powers. The present chief Minister is Sheila Dikshit, who is currently serving her third consecutive term since 1998.

The Delhi High Court has jurisdiction over Delhi, which also has two lower courts: the Small Causes Court for civil cases, and the Sessions Court for criminal cases. The Delhi Police, headed by the Police Commissioner, is one of the largest metropolitan police forces in the world.[1] The headquarters of Delhi Police are located at ITO, a Delhi landmark that connects East Delhi (popularly known as Yamuna paar) to the rest of the city.

The BJP is a religious conservative political organisation. It sees itself as rising to the defence of indigenous culture, and Indian religious systems which include Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism. To many Hindu nationalists,Bharat is a Hindu Rashtra, literally a Hindu nation.

According to BJP, this definition does not exclude Muslims, Christians. Hindu Rashtra is portrayed as cultural nationalism and Hinduism as the entire complex system of culture, history, faith and worship that have evolved in India over the past 5,000 years. In the political language of Hindu nationalists, all the peoples of India, their cultures and heritage are "Hindu," which literally means "inhabitant of the land of the river Sindhu," the modern-day Indus.

While the draft manifestation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (The organization that spawned the BJP) mentions the "Hindu Rashtra", the BJP has historically raised objections to this view. The party's chief objective is the "building up of India as a modern, progressive and enlightened nation" which draws inspiration from India's ancient Hindu culture and values. The key theorist of the party, K. Upadhyaya, authored the publication titled Integral humanism which laid down the foundations for this view. According to Upadhyaya, the so-called "monarch" and "state" are the dharmaand the chiti (genius) of society. He asserted that the very source of meaning in Indian society is the concept of "national identity". The BJP stresses the importance of integrating the four ends of human life in accordance with Hindu scripture ie, kama(gratification),artha (wealth), dharma (faith), and moksha (spiritual release).[2]

The BJP has been accused of being a xenophobic and fascist organization by its opponents. Its supporters, on the other hand, argue that it is no more than a conservative, nationally-oriented party which does not wish to polarise the country on communal (religious) grounds. These accusations are largely regarded as a smear campaign against the BJP by left-wing pundits. In addition, accusations of "fascism" in BJP the Hindutva movement coming from the left wing parties and western academics such as Christoffe Jaffrelot have been criticized by former professor of political philosophy[3]and Times of Indiacommentator Jyotirmaya Sharma as a "simplistic transference [that] has done great injustice to our knowledge of Hindu nationalist politics".[4]

The life and work of the BJP is seen by many as strongly influenced by the Partition of India in 1947. The partition was traumatic legacy for most religious communities in India. Millions migrated to find safety in one of the two new states. During the chaos surrounding partition over half a million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, were killed in communal riots wake of horrendous carnage. The trauma of midnight evacuations of ancestral homes, and being forced to wade through murderous violence, chaos and confusion to despair and helplessness in a different land which became their home, has struck deep in the veins of Hindu nationalists.

Another important factor in the ideological construction of the ideology of BJP is the ongoing territorial dispute overJammu and Kashmir and the wars of 1947-48, 1962, 1965, and 1971 and recently the 1999 Kargil War. The BJP and its supporters feel India must remain vigilant against threats from Pakistan, the People's Republic of China, and elsewhere such as Bangladesh even Sri Lanka.

The BJP has often been accused of participation in religious violence and using religiously sensitive issues for political advantage. These accusations, largely a political smear campaign by opposition parties, have tarnished the image of BJP in the eyes of many Indians, particularly Muslims. Many left wing journalists and observers feel that the BJP is a fascist organization with a clear anti-Muslim bias. This is in spite of the fact that the party has promoted a number of Muslims like Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the late Sikandar Bakht and Dr. Najma Heptullainto prominent leadership position, and even had a prominent member of the Indian Jewishcommunity, J.F.R. Jacob, among their ranks.

The Caucus Case was a court case handled by Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the behest of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta at the Bombay High Court in 1905. He won the case and emerged as an outstanding lawyer in India.

In 1908, a number of Europeans, led by C. H. Harrison, who was then the Accountant-General of Bombay, formed a combination to break the power of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta in the Municipal Corporation of Bombay. This combination afterwards came to be popularly called the "caucus". Besides Harrison, it included Gell, the Police Commissioner, Sheppard, the Municipal Commissioner, and Lovat Fraser, the then editor of the "Times of India". Lovat Fraser was undoubtedly the most distinguished and gifted journalist who had ever come to India. He wielded a most powerful pen, vigorous and vitriolic; and in his day, the Bombay Times was a power and a terror in the country. He had already made fun of Pherozeshah in a powerful leader, at the time when Pherozeshah staged "a walk-out" from the Bombay Legislative Council, along with a number of other elected members of the Council, by way of protest against the Land Revenue Bill which government had introduced. I believe, this was the first instance of a political walk-out from the Indian Legislatures, which have become so ludicrously common nowadays.

Pherozeshah was always returned to the Corporation from the constituency of Justices of the Peace, who were entitled to return sixteen corporators to the Municipality. The caucus put up sixteen candidates; and vigorous canvassing was made on their behalf by the caucus, so that all the caucus candidates may be elected, and Pherozeshah may be ousted. According to Setalvad, even Lowndes canvassed briskly for the caucus candidates in the Bombay Bar. When the result of the election was announced, these sixteen candidates got in; and Pherozeshah stood 17th, so that the caucus appeared to have achieved its object. However, as luck would have it, the last caucus candidate elected was one Suleman Abdul Wahed, who was a partner in the firm of Ludha Ibrahim & Co. This firm held large contracts from the Municipality. His election was thereupon challenged by Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the behest of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta before the Chief Judge of the Small Causes Court, who has jurisdiction over election petitions. Suleman Abdul Wahed was declared disqualified for serving as a member of the Corporation, with the result that Pherozeshah got in automatically; and all the elaborate plans of the caucus were upset. This abortive attempt to destroy Pherozeshah's domination in the Municipal Corporation resulted in enhancing his influence, popularity and prestige, both in the Corporation and with the public generally.