Tag Archives: Vice President Hamid Ansari

Ex-VP Hamid Ansari’s ‘Challenges to a liberal polity’ book review: The politics of being Indian

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Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

A collection of speeches and articles by former vice-president Hamid Ansari, offering engaging insights into our democracy.

Challenges to A Liberal Polity: Buy Challenges to A Liberal Polity by Ansari M. Hamid at Low Price in India | Flipkart.com
Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity / by M Hamid Ansari / Publisher Penguin / Pages 277 /Price 799 INR

For the past decade, public discourse in India has remained sharply focused on challenges to the liberal polity and the threats that have grown to human rights. Issues of citizenship and identity are entwined inextricably in this. It is in this context that Challenges to a Liberal Polity: Human Rights, Citizenship & Identity assumes not only topicality but also a significance that can be overlooked only at the readers’ own peril.

Hamid Ansari is a distinguished diplomat, academic, statesman and also, the often misused word, a public intellectual. He has, in his long career, worn many hats. He has served as the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Chairman of the Minorities Commission and the Vice President of India. Throughout his life, Ansari has never shied away from speaking his mind—bluntly if need be.

The author has, at times, been exposed to unfair criticism and deliberately humiliated by persons in high office who should have known better. When bidding him farewell, PM Narendra Modi was unnecessarily sarcastic—some thought gracelessly—by mentioning that Ansari had spent most of his diplomatic career in Islamic countries and perhaps he would be more comfortable now that he was relieved of the burden of the constitutional position to freely voice criticism of whatever he didn’t agree with. The PM conveniently forgot that the former vice-president served with distinction as India’s permanent representative in the United Nations and as Chief of Protocol when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister in an era of dynamic Indian diplomacy. But, let us not digress.

This volume is a collection of speeches, forewords and articles contributed by the author on subjects that overlap and cover a vast time span from the turn of the century to the present day. The introduction is stimulating and thought-provoking. It presents a distilled essence of state-of-the-art research in political science and Indian society. This prepares the readers for what is to follow.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section deals with human rights and group rights. The subsections or mini-chapters can be read profitably as independent essays. Of particular interest are the ones titled––‘India and the Contemporary International Norms on Group Rights’, ‘Minorities and the Modern State’ and ‘Majorities and Minorities in Secular India: Sensitivity and Responsibility’.

The second section is titled ‘Indian Polity, Identity, Diversity and Citizenship’. This is more substantial than the preceding segment and covers a range of topics that should engage readers with different interests and ideological orientations. Examples include ‘Identity and Citizenship: An Indian Perspective’, ‘Religion, Religiosity and World Order’, ‘Two Obligatory -isms: Why Pluralism and Secularism is Essential to our Democracy’. There are shorter pieces like ‘The Ethics of Gandhi’ and ‘The Dead Weight of State Craft’, ‘India’s Plural Diversity is Under Threat: Some Thoughts on Contemporary Challenges in the Realm of Culture’. How one wishes that these themes had been explored in greater detail.

To some it may appear that this is nitpicking, but this is the hazard of compiling a collection of comments and observations made on commemorative occasions such as inaugurating or concluding a seminar, a workshop or writing a short preface. Ansari is primarily a scholar, who is deeply distraught by the happenings around him and is restless to share his constructive thoughts and not just the distress and despair. The tone is always cautiously optimistic.

The concluding section deals with ‘Indian-Muslim Perception and Indian Contribution to Culture of Islam’. The essays on ‘Militant Islam’, ‘Islam and Democratic Principle’ and ‘India and Islamic Civilisation: Contributions and Challenges’ deserve to be read by all Indians, particularly the young. One may disagree with the author, but it is impossible to imagine that any meaningful dialogue can take place between the majorities and minorities in India without an understanding of how the ‘other’ thinks and perceives the world.

His convocation addresses delivered at Jamia Millia Islamia (where he taught) and the AMU (his alma mater) have a different flavour. The tone is personal and evokes shared nostalgia. The final essay is a review of India and muslim world.

The book has substantial end-notes that provide useful bibliographical information. One can flip through these pages to pursue the themes dealt in the book according to one’s own inclination and at leisure.


This book is for all. The general reader, who has no scholarly pretensions, too can turn the pages of this book with great pleasure. Many a time, the author peppers the prose with Urdu couplets that hook the reader to his line of arguments. One such piece is his Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Memorial lecture. Most people remember this vice-president as the supine individual who signed on the dotted line with dimmer when Indira Gandhi declared Emergency at midnight. Ansari, however,  has used the book brilliantly to make some hard- hitting comments that are im- possible not to take on the chin.

The chapter begins with: Yaad-e-maazi azaab hai yaa rab/ Chheen le mujhse hafiza mera (The memory of the past is torturous, O God/Take away my memory from me), and concludes with: “Can the amnesia, the compromises and the misconceptions of recent and not-so-recent past be overcome?” Yes, only if meaningful alternative is offered. We do stand at the crossroads.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Books / by Pushpesh Pant / Express News Service / November 06th, 2022

‘By Many a Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life’ review: Reflections of a nationalist

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Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

In his autobiography, Hamid Ansari, Vice-President for two terms, brings to the fore the predicament of Indian Muslims, who still live in the shadow of Partition

The Indian republic has had 13 vice-presidents since 1952 and only two, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and Hamid Ansari, got two terms in office. Therefore, it would be natural and tempting to focus on Ansari’s vice-presidential years, but it needs to be kept in mind that the post of Vice-President is essentially an inconsequential office in terms of power and authority; to the extent, the Vice-President also doubles up as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha does allow the incumbent some wiggle room, but that too can be misleading. Of the 13 men, only one, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, had some political heft but he too was to discover that parliamentary conventions and politicians’ conveniences ensure that a party man gets cordoned off from the power vortex.

Civility and grace

The other hat Ansari wore for many years was that of an Indian diplomat. He was a competent, loyal foot-soldier and at his joyful best when crossing swords with Pakistani counterparts at global forums. It would perhaps be most rewarding to read the book as the reflections of a nationalist Indian Muslim.

Ansari acquaints readers with a different generation that valued civility, grace, erudition, and took pride in its love for scholarship, language and poetry.

He anchors himself firmly in the nationalist milieu; early in the book we are informed that his father spurned Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s invitation, on the eve of August 14, 1947, to all senior Muslim officers to proceed to Pakistan. The senior Ansari expressed his inability “to change my country.” The Ansari family was only one of the two at the senior level to stay back in India. A choice was made: India was home.

Modernist at heart

This confidence in the new, free India was justified when Ansari made it to the elite Indian Foreign Service. A meritocracy was at work. The new arrangements were fair, in letter and spirit, and being a Muslim attracted no discrimination nor endowed any advantage.

He locates himself unapologetically in the modernist milieu. He fell for — then married — a young “cigarette-smoking and sherry-sipping” woman. He did not defer to traditionalists and conservatives. There is not an obscurantist bone in this doubly cosmopolitan man, who is just as much at ease in any western environs as he is well-versed in the civilisational richness of the global Islamic world.

Consequently, he never allowed himself to get inveigled in the intrigues and pettiness that soon came to define the Muslim political crowd, especially when Muslim leaders and the masses got entangled with the exigencies of electoral politics. Nor was he unobservant of the unhealthy tendencies creeping upon Muslim society and its institutions.

For precisely this reason his reflections on the state of the Indian Muslims command our attention and respect.

Ansari acknowledges that from the very beginning the Indian Muslims have lived under “a shadow of physical and psychological insecurity” because they were made “to carry, unfairly, the burden of political events and compromises that resulted from the Partition.” And, as the Sachar Committee Report would record, they remain on “the margins of structures of political, economic and social relevance.”

Islam and nationalism

Given our own constitutional commitments, Ansari wants to underline “the imperative to recognise pluralism and secularism as the normative principles of politics” along with “an unflinching adherence to principles of equality and equal treatment.”

He is not reticent about reflecting on the unresolved and unsettled equation between Islam and nationalism. A ‘successful synthesis of Islam and nationalism’ is very much feasible, because, as he argues, invoking Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, “…nationality is not synonymous with religious community since the two are in the shape of concentric circles that do not collide…”

Nor, for him, is there any fundamental incompatibility between Islam and democracy in the Asian Muslim world.

Yet, as he puts it, there is global dimension to the followers of Islam. The Muslim communities all over, including India, do subscribe “to an emotional bond of ‘Muslim-ness.’ The sentiment is amorphous as well as real; it is usually taken for granted but gets evoked at times of stress when protection physical or emotional, is perceived to be required.”

Ansari also tackles the ticklish issue of the majority-minorities syndrome in a democratic society. He argues for a need to move beyond ‘assimilation’ and ‘tolerance’. Both are inadequate from the minority perspective. While ‘tolerance’ does prohibit discrimination, it does not endorse diversity, and, therefore, leaves room for the problematic ‘other.’ And, of course, ‘assimilation’ simply boils down to absorption of the minority personality in the larger, majority crowd.

He comes across as a rare breed in these vulgar times. Instead of stridency, Ansari contextualises the many ‘accidents’ of his life with subtlety and sensitivity. With enormous reasonableness he enjoins us to ponder on the matrix of ‘accommodation’ and ‘acceptance’ intersecting with temptations of majoritarian politics. Perhaps it is this very gentleness in reminding us of our obligations to the social contract inherent in the Constitution that Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocked on the occasion of Hamid Ansari’s last day as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Neither leopard is willing to change his spots.

By Many a Happy Accident: Recollections of a Life; M. Hamid Ansari, Rupa, ₹595.

The reviewer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Reviews / by Harish Khare / March 13th, 2021

Free media, a necessity in a free society: Ansari

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Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

Vice President Hamid Ansari, AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the release of National Herald’s commemorative publication, “70 years of India’s Independence” on Monday. Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Vice President Hamid Ansari, AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah during the release of National Herald’s commemorative publication, “70 years of India’s Independence” on Monday. Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Bengaluru :

Vice President Mohammand Hamid Ansari, on Monday, said a free media is not only beneficial but also a necessity in a free society and any attack on press freedom will result in jeopardising citizens’ rights.

Mr. Ansari, who launched National Herald’s commemorative publication – “70 years of India’s Independence” – in the presence of All India Congress Committee Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a function here, said the State should not impede the free flow of information.

When faced with unjust restrictions and the threat of attack, self-censorship in the media could have the opposite effect, aiding the covering up of abuses and fostering frustration among marginalised communities.

Mr. Ansari also said the Constitutional framework provided for required intervention by the State to ensure smooth working of the press and society; but the laws state that it should only be in the interest of the public at large. “The media, if it is to remain true to its calling, has to do likewise. In an open society like ours, we need a responsible press to hold power to account. This is why freedom of press under Article 19 (1)(A) of the Constitution is subject only to reasonable restrictions in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, public order, decency, contempt of court, defamation and incitement to an offence.”

The Supreme Court has held that ‘freedom of speech and of the press is the Ark of the Covenant of Democracy’ because public criticism is essential to the working of its institutions. In this age of ‘post-truths’ and ‘alternative facts’ where ‘advertorials’ and ‘response features’ edge-out editorials, “we would do well to recall Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of the press playing its role of a watchdog in democracy and look at the ethos and principles that powered his journalism.”

Noting that Nehru, who started National Herald newspaper, believed that media was a pillar of democracy, Mr. Ansari said he envisioned a free, unfettered and honest press. “Nehru watched over the interests of media persons in independent India.”

The Working Journalists Act, which tried to give a degree of protection to journalists, to ensure freedom of press, was largely Nehru’s doing.” However, the Act, I believe, is now in disuse, and short term contracts, that make journalists beholden to the ‘preferred lines’ of the publications, are in vogue.”

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said it was heartening to note that the Associated Journals Ltd. is reviving National Herald by launching its English website and resuming phased publication as a multi-media outlet, focusing primarily on a news presence in digital form.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – June 12th, 2017

Ansari warns of public despair fuelled by inequality

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Kolkata, WEST BENGAL / NEW DELHI :

Vice-President Hamid Ansari at the inaugural session of The Huddle in Bengaluru on Friday.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari at the inaugural session of The Huddle in Bengaluru on Friday.

Gap between rich and poor is not narrowing, he says at The Huddle

Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Friday called attention to the increasing economic inequality worldwide, particularly in India with all its social and political consequences, and noted that protest movements globally are being fuelled by public despair.

Delivering the inaugural address, titled ‘Living in Febrile Times’, at The Huddle, a three-day conclave of ideas, he said, “We need to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. Can we just accept the growing insularity, intolerance and discrimination?”

Noting that the gap between the rich and poor shows no sign of narrowing, Mr. Ansari suggested that the situation demands impatience with business-as-usual development policies. “Perhaps the time has come,” he said, “to move the development discourse beyond the current discussion of outcomes and opportunities. A conceptual framework is provided by Amartya Sen and others who see human capabilities as the capacity and freedom to choose and to act; and calls for opportunities that give individuals the freedom to pursue a life of their own choosing to be equalised.” He linked such a compact back to the Preamble to the Constitution and cited the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report of 2017 to frame the dangers of failing to bridge income inequality: the rise of populism. In India, he pointed out, the richest 1% have claim to 60% of the country’s wealth, and the bottom 50% to 2%. “Rising inequality is seen as a contributing cause for the rise of authoritarian leaders, often with a divisive agenda fuelled by sectarianism, xenophobia and nationalism,” he said.

Rising inequality results in conflict, and threatens the stability of democracies. Surveying protests worldwide such as the Occupy Movement and the Arab Spring, he highlighted the Naxalite issue: “The growing threat of left extremism, which has been repeatedly acknowledged as the gravest security threat to [the] Indian state, has its roots in economic deprivation and inequality in access to resources.”

Calling for equity in development, Mr. Ansari cautioned against writing off inequity as an “inconvenient truth” in the quest for a “shining future”. He counselled a rethink on the trickle down model of growth, and cost-benefit analysis of the environmental impact of “our material progress” – as well as an appraisal of India’s investment in human capital and public goods.

Equity is integral to justice and fairness, he said, and went on to ask the ‘uncomfortable question’: “Are conflicts and human suffering the new normal? To what extent are they induced by failed ventures in [the] quest for unrealisable utopias?”

Earlier having made a passing reference to the age of “post-truths” and “alternate facts”, Mr. Ansari’s was in total a plea to see the complete picture: not just the rising incomes of many, but also the rising inequality in wealth and income; not just the number of people lifted out of abject poverty, but also “the majority of people on the planet today… in countries where economic disparities are bigger than they were a generation ago.”

source:  http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Special Correspondent / February 11th, 2017

Morocco: New Delhi Eyes Big Investments, Indian Vice-President to Visit Rabat

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KOLKATA (West Bengal) / UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

REUTERS
REUTERS

The Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari is expected in Morocco from May 30 to June 1, a visit expected to highlight by the signing of several Memoranda of Understanding (MoU.)

The Indian Vice-President’s visit is taking place few months after King Mohammed VI visited India to participate in the India-Africa summit held in October last year. The king was the guest of honor of the India-Africa summit.

During this diplomatic visit, the first in 50 years since the last visit of an Indian Vice-President, Ansari will hold talks with Moroccan officials on a wide range of issues including economy and UN Security Council expansion, Indian sources say.

“This visit intends to further strengthen the cordial relations between the two countries, further develop and diversify profile of bilateral economic cooperation and explore new avenues of co-operation and partnership on a wide range of issues of shared interest,” a statement from the Indian external Affairs Ministry said.

The Indian Vice-President will also launch, together with the Head of the Moroccan Government Abdelilah Benkirane, the India-Morocco Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to Indian sources.

Besides the political dimension of the trip, a special accent will be put on the economic issues as India plans to expand market outreach of its cars and truck manufacturers.

MoUs will be signed in education, IT and communication technology sectors during the visit.

Several economic initiatives have been undertaken by both sides over the past months. Last month, officials of the two countries’ ministries of transports mulled in Mumbai the idea to launch a direct air link between the two countries.

Also in the course of April, a team of Moroccan business people visited New Delhi to study business partnership opportunities that can be established between India and Morocco.

source: http://www.northafricapost.com / The North Africa Post / Home> Headlines> Morocco / by Kamailoudini Tagba / May 27th, 2016

Vice-President Hamid Ansari releases Darda’s book

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New Delhi :

Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday released senior Congress MP Vijay Darda’s book ‘Public Issues Before Parliament’.

The book catalogues public issues that Darda has raised through his two-decade-long parliamentary career, making skilful use of parliamentary devices: interventions which often drew effective responses from the government.

Those present at the book launch included noted constitutional expert Fali S Nariman, minister for heavy industries Praful Patel , minister for new and renewable energy Farooq Abdullah and Lok Janshakti Party leader Ramvilas Paswan.

Herro K Mustafa, minister counselor for public affairs in the US embassy in New Delhi, and Silvia Costantini, first counselor, political affairs in the delegation of European Union, were also present.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> India / TNN / February 20th, 2014

Hamid Ansari calls for water conservation

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders,

New Delhi :

Vice President Hamid Ansari  on Monday said water scarcity was a developing crisis which needed to be addressed urgently. Ansari said desalination would become a major exercise in the not too distant future.

“We are facing a crisis situation. Why should we not look at desalinating water,” said the vice president, while releasing a book – Water, Peace, and War – by geostrategist Brahma Chellaney.

“A message needs to go to every family, every child that water is a scarce commodity which should not be wasted,” said Ansari.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> India / TNN / February 25th, 2014

Quality Education At All Levels Is Critical: Ansari

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AnsariMPos11feb2014

Echoing the concerns of various stakeholders at the valedictory function was Vice-President Mohd. Hamid Ansari. He pointed to the fact that India would have one of the youngest populations in the world in six years. “It is estimated that by 2020, the average Indian will be only 29 years of age, compared with 37 in China and US, 45 in Western Europe and 48,” he said at the concluding session of the ThinkEdu Conclave.

Hence, at the centre of all efforts to create a knowledge-based society should be provision of high quality relevant education for all at the primary, secondary and higher levels, including professional, technical and vocational education. Any shortcomings or failure in the effort could transform the potential ‘demographic dividend’ into a possible nightmare, of a ticking demographic time-bomb, with all its economic, social and economic consequences, he warned.

Posing three queries on the status of education in India, the vice-president quoted official reports highlighting the declining quality at all levels due to poor infrastructure, poor curricula and poor teacher and teaching quality. He saw far-reaching correctives in the sector, including introduction of holistic education, carried out in a time-bound manner as the only solution to the malady.

In the Vice-President’s view, holistic education drew its relevance from the need to address to challenges such globalisation, materialism, consumerism, commercialisation of education and other threats due to climate change, environmental degradation and terrorism. “It is essentially an education concerned with both individual freedom and social responsibility,” he said.

Ansari called for the cooperation and support of parents, guardians and community members to make the endeavour a success.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The Sunday Standard / Home / by The  Express News Service / February 02nd, 2014