All posts by Nivedita Menon

Law, Theory

Contempt of Democracy: Time for Judicial Reform

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What would you call an institution that can overturn any policy adopted by democratically accountable governments; whose decisions are final, and cannot be reconsidered in any other forum; and which can throw into prison anybody who criticizes it? What would you call this institution accountable to nobody but itself, which has the sole power to appoint its own members and the sole power to decide if one of its own is guilty of a misdemeanour?

In India you would call it the Judiciary.
Cheered on vociferously by the freedom-loving media and its viewers/readers, the judiciary for about a decade, has been taking over more and more functions of government, until finally on January 11, 2007, the decisive judicial coup d’etat took place. By a judgement delivered on this day, the Supreme Court gave itself the power to strike down any law if it violates fundamental rights, resulting in the violation of the basic features of the Constitution. It is important to remember that constitutionally, no fundamental right is unconstrained, ‘reasonable restrictions’ being necessary to ensure that every citizen can enjoy these rights. Further, no right is beyond interpretation – does ‘right to equality’ entail affirmative action, for instance? There may be contradictions between fundamental rights; say between the right to equality of individual citizens and cultural rights of minorities. What exactly are the features that constitute the ‘basic features of the constitution’?

Continue reading Contempt of Democracy: Time for Judicial Reform →

Politics, Violence/Conflict

Why Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV is Broadcasting Sunday Mass

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By SOPHIE McNEILL

Sophie McNeill is a reporter with SBS Television Australia, her blog from Lebanon can be found at http://www9.sbs.com.au/

[Note from NM: I received this from nothing2report@gmail.com, and was struck by how this kind of complex reporting is almost non-existent in India, at least in the English media . How often do reporters actually speak to participants in a rally, going beyond the media-designated ‘stars’ who are present (whose own sincerity and commitment the media itself then paints as being ‘merely for publicity’ – it’s a vicious cycle.) How much political protest by non-party citizens’ groups gets covered at all except as traffic disruptions or if it has been ‘newsworthy’ because of stars/violence/self-immolations? How many reports in print or on the 24 hour TV news channels actually give the consumer a sense of what the issues are, what are the debates, or try to go beyond the Big Fight format of For and Against? Do news reporters do any background research ever? How many 6th of Decembers have passed with no coverage at all of huge-to-small (differing from year to year) secular protests by a range of people from Gandhians to the ultra left; but with two predictable photographs every year – one of recognizable Muslims and another of the Shiv Sena/Bajrang Dal protesting and celebrating respectively, counterposed on front pages of newspapers?
Apart from being an exemplary piece of reportage, Sophie McNeill’s article below give us a fascinating insight into politics in Lebanon.]

A truck laden with yellow Hezbollah flags drives past the Christian neighbourhood of Gemayzeh early Sunday morning in downtown Beirut. There’s a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on the windscreen, but it’s not his name that the young men on board are chanting. “General, General!” yell these young Shiite boys.

Their chant is for the leader of Hezbollah’s largest Christian ally, the former General Michel Aoun. And this van captures an important dynamic that many of the international and Lebanese press have omitted from their coverage of the last few days — that almost a quarter of the crowd at the huge anti-government protests have been Lebanese Christians. Continue reading Why Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV is Broadcasting Sunday Mass →

Everyday Life, Media politics

Playing Cops and Reporters

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This article was published in The Telegraph, Kolkata, December 5, 2006.

Here’s an amusing little story. According to reports in a leading daily, (August 26 and September 4), Hoshangabad police charged a couple with the murder of their twelve year-old son. Their son was indeed missing, and a body was found near the railway track. The parents confessed to the crime, and spent over 45 days in jail. Six months after his murder, young Gabbar turned up in town. He had fallen asleep while selling peanuts on trains, and woke up in Jalgaon. There he was put into a correctional institution, and later, sent to Bhopal. Finally he managed to convince someone to send him back home. Present in court, he listened to the government pleader arguing that the parents had confessed to the murder, so he could not be Gabbar; that the body found near the railway track was not Kallu alias Tufan, as claimed; and that neighbours had identified the dead body as that of Gabbar. The neighbours meanwhile, told the reporter they had never identified the dead body as his, and that this boy was indeed Gabbar. “We know him since he was born”, said one of them simply, “how could we make such a mistake?” Continue reading Playing Cops and Reporters →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life

The Lumpen Bourgeoisie

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The kidnapping of little Anant and his release for ransom highlight once again the great ease with which police fabricate accounts that suit their purposes. (Means: They Lie). Turns out that the case they claimed shamelessly to have cracked was resolved on the terms set by the kidnappers. (Most probably, the two arrests made subsequently are arbitrary and it seems pretty certain the ransom has not been “recovered” as claimed). The holes in the police versions are being relentlessly revealed by the mainstream media, concerned as it is with law and order, especially when it comes to “posh” areas like NOIDA ( a small – tiny – prize awaits anyone finding an English paper that did NOT use this adjective once during the whole Anant episode), and posh people like CEOs of MNCs. I need do no more on this front, except just to mutter “What about Afzal?” before I move on to another aspect of the coverage on the incident.

The Servant Angle. Or, as the French might put it, Cherchez le Servant. No opportunity is too slight for the police and the media to drill this lesson home: Verify Your Servants. They Are Out to Get You.

Continue reading The Lumpen Bourgeoisie →

Media politics

Azad Media ki Ajeeb Dastaan

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Strange tales of the independent media

Tale #1

Recently, after endless rants against the NBA our favourite paper, The Indian Express, finally gave some space to Medha Patkar to set the record straight (November 4 2006). Her blunt and effective challenge to Indian Express common-sense concluded with some record-straightening by the Express Kolkata office.

The supposed response from the newspaper to Medha’s pointed questions, consists SOLELY of information from government sources: “according to the Addl District Magistrate”; “We have verified this from Singur’s block development officer”; and “land compensation rates reported by us are all official figures.” The best part is where they triumphantly say – the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 is the law of the land, much though Ms Patkar may view it as a one-sided process.

Hello – have you missed the point? She and thousands of others all over the country, insist it is an anti-democratic and draconian law and it must be radically changed. So you simply reiterate that it is the law of the land? THIS is a debate? Here are some other Laws of the Land: the Armed Forces Special Powers Act that keeps the North-East under the military jack boot; Section 377 that says if you have sex that the judge thinks is against the order of nature, you’re a criminal; rape laws that say it is not rape but a much lesser crime if someone shoves a finger up an infant’s vagina…

Who ARE these people who get hired to write this stuff? They’d fail a decent BA degree.

Continue reading Azad Media ki Ajeeb Dastaan →