Monthly Archives: December 2010

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Politics

Conditions of contract labourers in JNU: Rashmi Singh

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This is a guest post by RASHMI SINGH. This article is based on the research conducted by the author on informal labour, for AMAN Trust.

The recently concluded Commonwealth Games have exposed the government’s contempt towards the working class in Delhi.Even though some sections of the media did highlight the terrible working conditions of the labourers, much of it got lost in the noise about corruption scandals and nationalist jingoism. In the aftermath of the games, the so-called fourth estate continues to focus its energies on the question of corruption, while everyone seems to have forgotten about the lakhs of construction workers who built the very edifice of the Games. Indeed, the dusty secrets of labour code violations during the Games have been relegated to just that – the dust of the city.

Continue reading Conditions of contract labourers in JNU: Rashmi Singh →

Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation, Frontiers

Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

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Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

No, that is not someone’s clever response to the attacks on WikiLeaks. It was written fourteen years ago.

The article by John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation was quoted by Operation Payback which has done some great things recently! And Barlow says, “The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.” The MasterCard story of course runs deeper.

Operation Payback is the brainchild of pro-piracy hacker group 4chan, which incidentally has a Bollywood connection!

Debates, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

Maoist dilemmas in Nepal

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Exactly four years after a peace accord the end of Nepal’s civil war, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is going through a deep existential crisis. This was most starkly reflected in the separate political documents presented by chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, senior vice-chairman Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’, and another vice-chairman and ideologue Dr Baburam Bhattarai at an extended party meeting in Palungtar of Gorkha district last week. Almost 6,000 delegates – including 1200 Maoist combatants from UN-monitored cantonments – reviewed the party’s achievements and failures after entering the peace process, and discussed the future ‘political line’ the party should adopt. Continue reading Maoist dilemmas in Nepal →

Centre watch, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Sinister designs behind Muharram ban in Kashmir: Zafar Mehdi

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Guest post by ZAFAR MEHDI

Muharram, the month of epic action, has announced its arrival. Black banners symbolizing grief are fluttering around. A pall of gloom has descended. 1500 years later, the lessons of Karbala continue to be the beacon of inspiration for strugglers of truth and righteousness. Muharram, contrary to perception, is not an event, episode or chapter in history. It is a philosophy, a concept, a movement. As centuries roll by, the great uprising of Husain(as), the beloved grandson of Holy Prophet (saww), continues to drive believers to hurl defiance at the forces of evil. The final call Imam gave to humanity still lingers in the minds of millions of Muslims around the world. It teaches that notwithstanding the inadequacy of numbers, if you run down the gauntlet backed by the staunch faith in the Almighty, triumph will be yours.  Continue reading Sinister designs behind Muharram ban in Kashmir: Zafar Mehdi →

Government, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Gift the CBI a sheet for their next cover-up!

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CALL FOR ACTION  on CBI COVER-UP!

Let us Protest against CBI cover up report on Shopian Rape and Murder case

DEMAND  JUSTICE FOR NEELOFAR AND ASIYA!

A Public Event in New Delhi on 13th December, 2010 at 4 pm in front of CBI office, Delhi.

Come and participate with one white bed sheet with the words ‘TO THE CBI – FOR YOUR NEXT COVER-UP!!!’ written in huge letters across it with the name of the organisation/individual below.

Issued by: Women against Sexual violence and State repression (WSS), Delhi

For more details contact saheliwomen at gmail dot com

Continue reading Gift the CBI a sheet for their next cover-up! →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Politics

Uphold Freedom of Expression: Statement in support of KK Shahina

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We the following organizations express our strong concern on the charges framed by Karnataka police against journalist Shahina KK for her investigative report on Bangalore bomb blast case. Her recent article which showed that witnesses in the Bangalore blast case were fragile, false and forced has led her to be implicated under charges of IPC 506 which can lead to seven years of imprisonment.

The accusation of Karnataka police is that she ‘ intimidated the key witnesses’ in the Bangalore bomb blast case during the course of her article. The accusations of the police were also carried by the local news papers as “suspicious” visit by a “group of Muslims” to the place. The newspapers said that police were not sure about the identity of the woman, though she had showed a TEHELKA identity card! Continue reading Uphold Freedom of Expression: Statement in support of KK Shahina →

Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Apocalypse in Our Time: Ravikumar

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Guest post by RAVIKUMAR

Waking is Another Dream: Poems on the Genocide in Eelam, a slim anthology edited by Ravikumar, will be launched by Navayana on Wednesday, 8 December 2010 at 6 p.m. at The Attic, 36 Regal Building, Connaught Place, New Delhi.

[At a time when the Eelam issue is the news again owing to Channel 4’s coverage leading to the cancellation of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s talk at Oxford, citing emerging evidence of his war crimes, Navayana presents a volume of powerful poetry translated for the first time from Tamil into English. Says poet Cheran, “The lack awareness in a city like Delhi on the fallout of the genocidal war in Sri Lanka is appalling. People here who seem concerned about Palestine or even Kashmir seem utterly indifferent to the problem in India’s own backyard.”

Continue reading Apocalypse in Our Time: Ravikumar →

Bad ideas, Media politics

Of journalist citizens

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With Kashmiris forcing us to take note of them on Facebook and Twitter, with the internet noise on the Radia tapes making a mockery of the media’s radio silence over them, with WikiLeaks assuring us that we’re well into the age of information anarchy, the old, dogged question rears afresh its banal head: Are citizen journalists, journalists?

I was at a Google conference in Budapest in September, called ‘Internet at Liberty 2010’, which had bloggers, activists and policywallahs from 70 countries. At one of the theme dinners, we were asked how many of us identified ourselves as citizen journalists. No hand went up, even as we were all conscious that any one of us could be the first one to see a plane crashing and be the first to report it on Twitter. Continue reading Of journalist citizens →

Bad ideas, Government, Law

On sedition: Sarim Naved

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In this guest post, SARIM NAVED gives a chronological account of sedition in Indian law, and discusses the procedural aspects laid down for a magistrate to take cognisance of sedition

After the 1857 revolt, the Press Act of 1857 which prohibited all publications, without licensing, was passed. This Act known as Lord Canning’s Act  applied to all kinds of publication, including books in all languages and other printed papers in all languages. 1860 saw the enactment of the Indian Penal Code, which remains in force today in a relatively unchanged manner. The Indian Penal Code, while not directly dealing with the press, does incorporate provisions that impinge upon and regulate the activities of the press. The code dealt with issues ranging from offences against a person’s body or property to criminal breach of trust to offences like defamation and obscenity that directly concerned editors.  In the words of Rajeev Dhavan, “It was a comprehensive code. Not all these provisions were directed against free speech but virtually all could be used against it.” Amendments were later introduced to bring in the offence of sedition in 1870, the offence of promoting enmity between classes in 1898, the offence of outraging religious feelings in 1928 and imputations or assertions prejudicial to national integration, which were added by the government of independent India in 1972. Continue reading On sedition: Sarim Naved →

Everyday Life, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

City in Terror: Dilip D’Souza

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Guest post by DILIP D’SOUZA

Starting today eighteen years ago, for much of December and January (and then March 12), Indian killed Indian on the streets of my city. Terror at its most elemental: I felt it then. I saw it then. Others told me about it then.

Some memories of those weeks, in no particular order but they all still make my hair stand on end.

Debates, Law, Media politics

Clamping down on the dissenting voice

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Part 3 of a 3 part series by SIDDHARTH NARRAIN. First published on The Hoot.
 

While the Supreme Court’s decision lay to rest the debate on the scope and constitutional validity of the sedition law, the life of the sedition law is entangled with that of political dissent in the country. A brief search for reported High Court and Supreme Court cases on sedition gives us an indication of the kinds of situations where the sedition law is commonly used.

For instance, in 1967, the government prosecuted Ghulam Rasood Choari, the editor of an Agra based Urdu weekly called Ehsas for exhorting the Muslims of the country, especially the Muslims of Kashmir to violence against the government and bringing the readers of the paper into ‘hatred’ and contempt and dissatisfaction with the government (Ghulam Rasool Choari v. The State 1968 CriLJ 884).

Continue reading Clamping down on the dissenting voice →
Debates, Law

How Sedition crept into the constitution: Siddharth Narrain

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Part 2 of a 3 part series by SIDDHARTH NARRAIN. First published on The Hoot

While in their Draft Constitution, the Constitutional Framers included ‘sedition’ and the term ‘public order’ as a basis on which laws could be framed limiting the fundamental right to speech (Article 13), in the final draft of the Constitution though, both ‘public order’ and sedition were eliminated from the exceptions to the right to freedom of speech and expression (Article 19 (2)).Commenting on this omission many years later, Justice Fazl Ali said: 

The framers of the Constitution must have therefore found themselves face to face with the dilemma as to whether the word “sedition” should be used in article 19(2) and if it was to be used in what sense it was to be used. On the one hand, they must have had before their mind the very widely accepted view supported by numerous authorities that sedition was essentially an offence against public tranquillity and was connected in some way or other with public disorder; and, on the other hand, there was the pronouncement of the Judicial Committee that sedition as defined in the Indian Penal Code did not necessarily imply any intention or tendency to incite disorder.

Continue reading How Sedition crept into the constitution: Siddharth Narrain →
Debates, Law

We are all seditious now, but when did this start?

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I am afraid that unlike in Sholay, where the reply to Gabbar’s question and in our time, the reply to Nivedita’s question would have to be more than ‘Do sarkar’. But regardless of the rather large numbers, given the extreme nervousness which prompts a law like sedition, hopefully, they will still return to the sarkar, khaali haath.

As a part of the We Are All Seditious series, I am posting three guest posts written by SIDDHARTH NARRAIN which provides us with an overview of the history and the politics of sedition law in India.

These posts have been hosted by The Hoot, a highly recommended site for keeping track of the media in India. The first in the series looks at three major trials,  Gandhi’s trial and those of Tilak and Shiekh Abdullah. Continue reading We are all seditious now, but when did this start? →

Frontiers, Violence/Conflict

Xonzoi Barbora interviews Kyaw Zwa Moe on the elections in Burma

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Many thanks to XONZOI BARBORA for contributing to Kafila our first podcast. This podcast is an interview of Burmese journalist KYAW ZWA MOE. The interview was originally conducted for Panos Radio South Asia on 6 November 2010. Please allow a moment for the audio player to load on your screen.

Burma’s elections, like its new flag, constitution and capital, is part of an inventory of an elaborate make-over for the military junta that runs the country. This make-over has the tacit support of Burma’s powerful neighbours — China, India and Thailand — who cast covetous eyes on the oil, gas and mineral resources of the country. The elections that took place on November 7, 2010 was one designed to entrench the military in civic life and also provide a reasonable ground for big donor agencies to intervene in administration. Even as the National League for Democracy (NLD) boycotted the elections, other democratic forces were rendered powerless by the junta’s stranglehold over the electoral process. It reserved seats for itself; circumvented the electoral process in places where it thought it would lose and simply made it too expensive for its opponents to contest. Continue reading Xonzoi Barbora interviews Kyaw Zwa Moe on the elections in Burma →

Bad ideas, Government, Politics

Kitne aadmi the? We are all seditious now

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Here is a very short, utterly incomplete, hastily compiled list of people charged under Section 124 A in the last two years alone.

Our very own Shuddhabrata Sengupta figures  in this roll of honour.

(Incidentally, KK Shahina, who has guest posted with us, faces charges from the Karnataka Police under IPC 506 for intimidating witnesses. Her expose in Tehelka showed how the police case against Abdul Nasar Madani, head of the People’s Democratic Front (PDP), accused in 2008 Bengaluru blasts, was fragile and based on non-existent and false testimonies.)

There would be hundreds more, not named here, charged with sedition for “criticizing” the government, for exposing corruption and police nexus with mafias, or for expressing views that run counter to official wisdom on the “integrity” of India.

As if “integrity” is something pre-existing and eternal rather than something that has to be produced at every point. The existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite, said even historian Ernst Renan, a staunch supporter of the nation form. Not so Rabindranath Tagore, who was highly suspicious of the “fetish of nationalism”. He called the Nation nothing but the “the organization of politics and commerce” and warned that when this Nation “becomes all-powerful at the cost of the harmony of the higher social life, then it is an evil day for humanity.” (In his lectures on nationalism, published by Rupa and Co. 1994) Continue reading Kitne aadmi the? We are all seditious now →

Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation, Frontiers, Government

Why is WikiLeaks doing what it’s doing?

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The answer may lie in this poster they’ve put out:

 

Julian Assange explains The WikiLeaks Manifesto, and reveals more about WikiLeaks here.