“Right there, right there!”
“Where? I can’t see the damn station. Where is it?”
“Right there, you walk past that little lane, you will hit the station.”
Grudgingly, I walked through the lane and lo and behold! I was at the platform of Govandi railway station. It just took me a little row of settlements and some open drains running by them to get to that wretched Govandi station (not to forget to mention, passing by some of the children playing around and that sole bhaiyya woman sitting idly).
Did I say wretched? Yes, wretched is the feeling I get when I am at Govandi station. Perhaps in my life, I must have been to Govandi station exactly six times. Of the four of those six times, I have traveled in the east of Govandi, towards the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). But the last two times, I have actually experienced the wretchedness of Govandi station, when I have had to get off platform number 1 and then go past all the squatter settlements, till I eventually get to the infamously famous Lallubhai Compound.
Category Archives: Government
Join The Dots: Silent Emergence of Hindu Terrorism
I
What is common between Kathmandu – the capital of Nepal ; Thane, Vashi which happen to lie in Maharashtra; Tenkasi, which is part of Tamilnadu and Indore, which lies in Madhya Pradesh? Aprops there seem to be no commonality, although a close look at stray sounding incidents in these places brings forth a pattern which has serious import for the manner in which (non-state) terrorism is viewed in this country. It is disturbing that media which calls itself ‘watchdog of democracy’ and which has no qualms in stigmatising the minority community on unfounded allegations of ‘terrorist acts’ has suddenly gone mute since the perpetrators of terrorist acts in all these cases belong to the majority community.
Continue reading Join The Dots: Silent Emergence of Hindu Terrorism
Gomti Nagar to Bundelkhand
It has been over a year since Mayawati came to power in UP and I am absolutely sick of seeing news reports beginning with the comment, “In a state ruled by a Dalit chief minister, a Dalit youth was killed…” This hostility towards Mayawati is ironically couched in the language of ‘Dalit empowerment’, the phrase used so loosely its is completely devoid of meaning. Where were all these reporters and their editorialising and their concern for Dalits when Yadavs were running the state?
What has Mayaywati been doing for Dalits? That question will be answered again and again without talking to a single Dalit. But if you do go looking for something, you will find it. The redoubtable Nilanjana Bose reports: Continue reading Gomti Nagar to Bundelkhand
The Hyde Act and the 123 Treaty
I have for a long time wondered about the noise that constantly gets made on the possibility of an Indo-US nuclear deal. And recently, for quite unrelated purposes, had to do some thinking on this for a posting on the Sarai Reader List. I thought that the substance of what I had to say in that posting, might be of interest to Kafila readers. So apologies for cross posting of this material, which has appeared previously on the Reader List.
Now, what is the Hyde Act, what exactly is the 123 Treaty? These matters need a little clarification.
The Hyde Act, or, the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006, to give the act its full title, is a piece of legislation, introduced by Congressman Henry Hyde, passed by the US Congress, which creates the legal basis for co-operation between the United States and India. See the Wikipedia articles on the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement. Continue reading The Hyde Act and the 123 Treaty
Kavita Srivastava’s report on last year’s Gujjar confrontation in Rajasthan
[This detailed report was prepared by Kavita Srivastava, the Jaipur-based general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. Posting this here to make it publicly available as it is not on the PUCL website. Please note that this was a rough draft. ]
State Violence and Caste Confrontation in Rajasthan
I. Outline of the week long movement for ST Reservation by the Gurjars
Soon after independence the Bhil Meenas got reservations in the Districts of Dungarpur, Banswara, Chittorgarh and Udaipur. At the time of 1931 census the Bhil Meenas were over 20, 000, however today they have reduced to half they are only 10,000 in number.
This was an issue of contention for the Meenas as they felt that they also deserved to be STs so they decided to raise their voice against this injustice as they called it. Under the leadership of Lakshmi Narayan Jhirwal they organized themselves.
11th June 1952: Meenas organized a sammelan near Dudu (Jaipur) district for the inclusion of the Meena community in the Schedule list for reservation. The Gurjars supported this wholly. Continue reading Kavita Srivastava’s report on last year’s Gujjar confrontation in Rajasthan
Individuals at Risk
At the heart of all peoples’ rights work is the individual – as the person at risk of human rights abuses, as the survivor, as the partner in the defense of rights, and as the activist speaking out, and working with and for other individuals. Individuals, as part of the political, social and cultural collective and spread over the length and breadth of the country, lie behind much of the activism of Indian social-political groups, working at local, grassroots and community levels in India today. They try to change lives by acting on their own or with other people and political groups making the same demand – an end to injustice in all its forms.
These individuals are increasingly at risk in India today. We have witnessed the killings at regular intervals of activists like Safdar Hashmi, Shankar Guha Niyogi, Satyendra Dubey, Sarita and Mahesh, S. Manjunath, Mahendra Singh and Chandra Shekhar in the past two decades. We have had a series of cases of arrest and detention of people like Dr. Binayak Sen and T. G. Ajay. At a time when the patterns of human rights abuses against rights activists are becoming widespread and showing signs of further deterioration, with the governments showing their apathy, we need to draw attention to the situation, point to the concrete failures of the governments to live up to their obligations, and plan on some concrete actions, so that the human rights activists can carry out their important work free from attacks, fear or reprisals. Continue reading Individuals at Risk
Judging Women
The honourable judges of the honourable judiciary are on an honourable roll…
Anuradha Roy of Permanent Black sent out the following:
On the 9th of February 2008, remarks by two eminent judiciary members the Chief Justice of Karnataka, Cyriac Joseph and State Human Rights Commission Chairperson Justice S.R.Nayak, stating that immodest dressing was the cause of increasing crimes against women were reported in the press.
The Hon’ble Chief Justice further elaborated his statement by mentioning that “Nowadays, women wear such kind of dresses even in temples and churches that when we go to places of worship, instead of meditating on God, we end up meditating on the person before us” and that the “provocative dresses that women wear in buses” put the “men travelling in the buses” in awkward situations and hence “women must dress modestly.”
The Chairperson, State Human Rights Commission, speaking on ‘Human Rights and the Lawyers Role’, gave his opinion on the Mumbai New Year molestation issue, when two women had their dresses torn off by a mob
of men outside a nightclub: “Yes, men are bad… But who asked them (the women) to venture out in the night…Women should not have gone out in the night and when they do, there is no point in complaining that men touched them and hit them. Youth are destroying our culture for momentary satisfaction.”
Anuradha sent this out without comments. I understand her mood. I’m done too. No witty commentary, no smart asides. I’m just plain exhausted.
Statement on Taslima Nasreen
Public Statement by Forum For The Protection of Free Speech and Expression
At a time when India is projecting itself on the
world’s stage as a modern democracy, while it hosts
international literary festivals and book fairs, the
Government of India, most mainstream political parties
and their armed squads are mounting a concerted
assault on peoples’ right to Free Speech.
It is a matter of abiding shame that even as some of
the world’s best-known writers were attending the
Jaipur literary festival and prestigious publishers
were doing business at the World Book fair in Delhi,
the exiled Bengali writer Taslima Nasrin was (and is)
being held in custody by the Government of India in an
undisclosed location somewhere in or around Delhi in
conditions that amount to house arrest. Contrary to
misleading press reports stating that her visa has
been extended, her visa expires on the 18th of
February, after which she is liable to be deported or
remain confined as an illegal alien. Continue reading Statement on Taslima Nasreen
Conscience of the Company
A nocturnal gas leak in 1984 took the lives of more than 7,000 people in Bhopal over a three-day span, and a further 15,000 in the years that followed. The leak came from a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), now owned by Dow Chemical (DOW). The company is still denying its responsibility, and refuses to reveal the toxicological information of the gas, thwarting medical efforts to deliver appropriate treatment to more than 100,000 surviving victims. Should not there be a conscience of the company, which ensures that the Bhopal factory site and its surroundings are promptly and effectively decontaminated, that the groundwater is cleaned up, that the stockpiles of toxic and hazardous substances left at the site are removed, and that full reparation, restitution, compensation and rehabilitation are promptly provided for the continuing damage done to people’s health and environment by the ongoing contamination of the site? Should they not be ashamed of the lack of effective regulation and accountability systems, which have meant that court cases are dragging on, and corporations and their leaders continuing to evade accountability for thousands of deaths, widespread ill-health and ongoing damage to livelihoods?
Of course, our government has the primary obligation to secure universal enjoyment of human rights, and this includes an obligation to protect all individuals from the harmful actions of others, including companies. However, while the government has been frequently failing in regulating the human rights impact of business or ensuring access to justice for victims of human rights abuses involving business, the companies too have been complicit in their human rights abuses. In a democracy, a government will be taken to task for its failure. At the same time, there has also to be a call for the companies to be conscientious and accountable for their activities related to human rights. A few of them claim to engage with human rights responsibilities through voluntary consultations, relief and rehabilitation initiatives. While these have a role to play, such voluntarism can never be a substitute for concrete standards on businesses’ mandatory compliance with human rights. In India, as a minimum requirement, all companies should respect the right to information; free, prior, informed consent; and no displacement without rehabilitation, regardless of the sector, state or context in which they operate.
How To ‘Carve Out A Terrorist’ from an Innocent Person And Say It Works?
(Judge: The papers on my table show he is not Mukhtar. So what is his real name?
Officer: He is actually Aftab Alam Ansari.
Judge: That means you have arrested a wrong person. How can this horrible blunder take place?
The officer stayed silent.
Judge: If he is neither Mukhtar nor Raju, why did not you write that in the petition clearly? Have you written that? Please underline that and show it to me.
As the officer began scanning the petition, he looked puzzled.
Judge: I’m not going to accept this petition. Please go and make a fresh one.)
Aftab Alam Ansari, an electrician with a power company in Kolkatta, is finally free. And the ordeal through which he had to go through as a ‘terrorist’ is finally over.Recenly he met with the Chief Minister of Bengal to apprise him of the whole situation and seek help for his mother’s frailing health.
Continue reading How To ‘Carve Out A Terrorist’ from an Innocent Person And Say It Works?
State Repression In Chhattisgarh And Continued Detention Of Dr Binayak Sen
STATEMENT OF CONCERNED CITIZENS AND PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATONS
A group of former bureaucrats, academicians, lawyers and social activists visited Chhattisgarh from 18 – 22 January 2008 in connection with the prolonged incarceration of Dr Binayak Sen. The team met the Governor and Director General of Police and also met Dr Binayak Sen in the central prison at Raipur. Some members of the group also visited areas in the districts of Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur.
In the light of the information gathered, the team is of the opinion that the charges filed against Dr Sen under the IPC, CrPC and the Chhattisgarh Public Safety Act (CPSA) are unwarranted and unconstitutional. The CPSA enables the government to interpret the rendering of simple humanitarian acts as unlawful The Act defines “unlawful activity” so broadly that every act of vigilant citizenship can be construed as unlawful and anti-national. Thus it is clear that Dr Sen is being targeted in his capacity as General Secretary of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Chhattisgarh. The reports produced by the PUCL have highlighted the anti-constitutional violence legitimized by the state through the Salwa Judum campaign.
Continue reading State Repression In Chhattisgarh And Continued Detention Of Dr Binayak Sen
Quote of the day
“It hasn’t got any definite meaning,” CJI K G Balakrishnan said today in response to a PIL that wanted ‘socialist’ deleted from the Constitution’s Preamble.
In a world where “comrades” want to embrace capitalism, does meaning have meaning?
Each day Binayak Sen spends in jail is one day less for democracy in India
ON DECEMBER 10 this year, the day internationally observed as Human Rights Day, the Supreme Court of India denied bail to the veteran rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen, incarcerated since May in Raipur jail under the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. For those present, the 45-minute-long hearing was a horrible experience. We heard the prosecution claim that Dr Sen was part of the dreaded Maoist formation, and that giving him his freedom would mean setting him loose to spread subversion against the State. We saw, to our shock, how no verification was made of the prosecution’s claims, even as the government lawyer presented his summary of the contents of Dr Sen’s computer in the vilest terms, telling the court it contained letters describing how Dr Sen had helped organise an arms training camp at Nagpur. Defence counsel Rajeev Dhawan pointed out that the prosecution was distorting the letter’s contents, that Dr Sen had been in Nagpur in the course of a fact-finding mission into last year’s lynching of a Dalit family at Kherlanji and that he had nothing to do with any underground training. But the court felt that Dhawan’s arguments were matters to be looked into by the trial court, and it was satisfied that there was enough reason to deny Dr Sen bail.
Continue reading Each day Binayak Sen spends in jail is one day less for democracy in India
Human rights and public health are now the gravest threats to people’s safety
Excerpts from Saikat Datta on the doctored case against Binayak Sen.
What is the basis of the Chhattisgarh police’s case against Dr Sen? The chargesheet against him says he is a Naxalite sympathiser. This conclusion was reached after his name came up when the police recovered three letters from suspected Maoist Piyush Guha, arrested at the Raipur railway station. These were written to Guha by another alleged Maoist, Narayan Sanyal, presently lodged in Raipur Jail. The police claim Guha, under custodial interrogation, confessed that Dr Sen acted as courier.
Dr Sen did meet Sanyal in jail on several occasions. But each time it was with due permission from the jail superintendent and a body search before and after his meetings. And even if we were to accept that Dr Sen smuggled the letters out, what exactly was “incriminating” in them? One letter deals with farmer-related issues, the letter writer’s health and so on. In another note, Sanyal is discussing issues relating to his case and the approach his lawyer has taken in court. In yet another, he complains of there being “no
magazines” to read in jail and terrible conditions in prison.
Activist-lawyers like Prashant Bhushan see the framing of Dr Sen on such flimsy evidence as “a message that clearly states that people must shut their eyes to violations of human rights of the marginalised or risk arrest”.
Continue reading Human rights and public health are now the gravest threats to people’s safety
It’s a new year, and Binayak Sen is still in prison
Binayak Sen’s appeal to the Supreme Court for bail was dismissed on December 10, 2007 (in one of those meaningless ironies, December 10th is of course, International Human Rights Day).
A doctor working in Chhattisgarh, Binayak was arrested on May 14th 2007. His crime? He visited and treated an ailing prisoner in Raipur Central Jail with the permission of the jail authorities. The prisoner is a Naxalite. So Dr Sen is assumed to be a terrorist conspiring to overthrow the state, so dangerous that he cannot be given bail.
Continue reading It’s a new year, and Binayak Sen is still in prison
REDD Salam
A week ago, I had promised a short post on the Forest Issue. As promised, here it is:
Nusa Dua: As the UNFCCC World Climate Change Conference crossed the 10,000 attendee mark , delegates braced themselves for what could be one most difficult and divisive issues of what could constitute “The Bali Breakthrough.” “The working group on Reduction of Emissions by Deforestation (and Degradation) in Developing Countries (REDD) was constituted and has begun work today,” stated UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer in his daily press briefing at the World Climate Change Summit today. The working group is tasked with arriving at a mechanism to incorporate deforestation reduction into the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and the carbon market.
6th of December 1992 on 6th of December 2007
What were you doing on December 6, 1992?
We remember with a great sadness that winter’s day on which the unthinkable came to pass…
Continue reading 6th of December 1992 on 6th of December 2007
Imagining Governance and Governing our Imagination
Manmohan Singh from the Indian Express two days ago:
I sincerely pray and hope that we remain a functional democracy. But democracy has certain disadvantages. I have a friend in the International Monetary Fund, who went to Korea in the days it was run by an authoritarian system. They were discussing the issue of devaluing the currency. When my friend talked with the finance minister, he said, “That’s a very difficult question. You don’t expect me to give an answer right away.” When my friend asked him how much time he would need, the finance minister said, “I will take half an hour, I have to book a call to the president.”
We have to work, therefore, to create a new mindset. Some ten days ago, I was in Singapore and had the privilege of meeting Premier Wen Jiabao of China, for whom I have great admiration, both for him and President Hu Jintao. The type of leadership that China has produced since the days of Deng, I think, is the greatest asset that China has. [Link]
Narratives, says French philosopher DeCerteau, go ahead of social practices to make way for them. Continue reading Imagining Governance and Governing our Imagination
Doing What States Do (Very Well)
Arundhati Roy articulated in her interview last night on IBN7, the deep suspicions of the “deep state” that many of us have harboured in our collective anti-national (and now apparently anti-left) bosom. How convenient that the violent anti-Tasleema protests have deflected the anger of the left-secular folks from Nandigram to Islamic fundamentalism. Arundhati responded to a question about whether she was claiming there was a conspiracy, by saying, quite correctly, that there doesn’t need to be anything as crude as that. But we know, people on the street know – there’s something way too convenient in the timing. Or, as she put it elsewhere, quoting a Hindi film song, “yeh public sab jaanti hai.”
Imagine my disappointment as a political theorist to discover that we don’t need to make any intellectual forays into the complex ways in which states “see” and “do”. There was a conspiracy, and it worked out like the the script of a bad street play, in which the villains mutter and grimace and do bad things in the dark of the night, while the good folk get all confused by the sudden transformation of their peaceful locality by dawn. (Life is in fact a bad street play, a realization I came to long ago).
The Trojan Horse of Neo-liberal Capital in Kerala
In mid-November, a pro-tribal outfit, the Adivasi Rehabilitation Council, demanded that the Kerala Government hand over to them, land leased to Hindustan Newsprint Ltd. The Adivasis had been given title deeds to this land in 2003, when A K Antony was chief minister, but it was never handed over. They dispersed after local revenue officials assured that this would be done.
But when nothing was done about it, the tribals regrouped and went into the land again, building little huts and vowing to start farming. Around November 26th, the 200-odd families were physically removed by truck-loads of CPM cadre.
J Devika on the need for a new perspective on Left politics:
When the CPM-led LDF coalition swept into power in the elections to the Kerala State Legislative Assembly in 2006, the victory was widely interpreted to be the individual triumph of V S Achuthanandan, who seemed to be nothing less than the personification of Principled-Opposition-to-the-State-and-Global-Capital. During the campaign, VS received the mantle of A K Gopalan, whose brilliant strategies of mass mobilization and militancy had made him the most admired and best-loved of all communists in Kerala. Throughout Kerala, life-size posters of a smiling VS proclaimed him Paavangalude Padatthalavan (NM – something like garibon ka masiha)
Continue reading The Trojan Horse of Neo-liberal Capital in Kerala
Pakistan’s student movement
I saw this first in an incredible Pakistani blog on the matrial law shared by fellow Kafila-ite Mahmood Farooqui.
Lets face it, right now the Indian media can learn a few things from its Pakistani counterparts, let alone all of us…
This report is about Punjab University terrorised by Jamaat goons for many years, this is a turning point, when students rallied against the JIT, whose local leaders had grabbed Imran from a demo at the University and handed him over to the police…
Students rise for Imran, against IJT Unprecedented campus march
By Mansoor Malik
LAHORE, Nov 15: A large number of Punjab University students on Thursday held a protest demonstration against Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT) for its manhandling of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf Chief Imran Khan.
The event was unprecedented in the history of campuses in Punjab, which have been under the Jamiat’s rule for decades. Continue reading Pakistan’s student movement
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 