The Orchestra at the recent National Convention of Bahai’s of India (2010)

More often than not, we see that the National Convention of every
country is an orchestra in which the members to be elected are
predecided. The recently concluded elections to the NSA of India are a
further proof to this principle.

So what exactly happened in this election? Eight members of the
previous assembly were reelected. For the ninth member, it was
declared a tie amongst Mr. Sohail Mohajir, Mr. Sunil Oliyai and Mrs.
Shireen Malahati. It is no coincidence, but selectively all are of
Persian background. The delegates were then asked to break the tie and
elect the ninth member from these three members only. Finally, as
reported, Mrs. Shireen Malahati was elected.

The process by itself was not conducted in a transparent manner and in
a fashion befitting a democratic process of election. There was no
disclosure of how many votes each members received. How many votes did
the 9th member receive? And by how many votes was the tie was broken?
This is a complete violation of a democratic election, in which as
claimed by the Baha’is, the number of votes polled by each member
should be declared too.

By conducting this orchestra the Universal House of Justice has
clearly tried to convey to the Baha’is that “The elections are true
elections because a member like Mr. Sohail Mohajir who is related to
UHJ member, Mr. Payman Mohajir can not be re- elected”. Interestingly
last year too, Mr. Sohail Mohajir was not elected and Mr. Ahmed Ansari
was made the sacrificial lamb and asked to resign to make a way for
Mr. Sohail. Let us see what is the policy of UHJ this year.

The process seems to be one of selection and not election because for
the ninth member all the three members were Persians. The two were
first timers. In this way, the UHJ has given the indication that who
are the tenth and the eleventh member in the waiting list. An
indication to the delegates that if any of these nine members fall
away from the grace of UHJ then whom they should vote for.

A new policy of UHJ, “preparation of pool of names” a hidden way of
nomination of candidates.

The UHJ, through the counselor present in the national convention, has
instructed delegates to prepare a pool of names to whom they can vote.
These pure souls are then asked to write the names of about 20 to 25
members for whom they have to vote. During this so called spiritual
atmosphere the incumbent members keep on moving in front of the
delegates to remind them lest they forget. So it does not take much
effort to understand the preparation of pool of names is nomination of
candidates.

All the NSA members were present during the preparation of pool of
names and during the deepening sessions, the delegates commented upon
the behavior of the outgoing members but with no result.

It is very true that there are some Baha’is who never worked and will
never work for the Faith. What they want is let others work. They can
only order for work and be in the position of authority. One cannot go
against the prescribe norms because this is what the UHJ wants.

A delegate at the National Convention India (2010)