Category Archives: Politics

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Bhagat Singh Then and Now: Harsh Mander

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Guest post by HARSH MANDER

Eighty five years ago, on 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh walked bravely, proudly to the gallows, his two young colleagues Rajguru and Sukhdev by his side. His lustre continues undimmed as an icon for succeeding generations, so that it is easy to forget he was only 23 years old. Subhash Bose spoke then of Bhagat Singh as a ‘symbol of the new awakening among youth’. Nehru saw in him ‘a spark that became a flame in a short time and spread from one end of the country to another dispelling the prevailing darkness everywhere’. His popularity rivalled that of Mahatma Gandhi.

In the decades after his passing, in times of public ferment, despair, confusion and anger, successive generations in India have found their own inheritors of young Bhagat Singh’s mantle, men and women embodying defiant youthful idealism and dissent, young people battling for social and economic equality, for true freedom, sparks that once again set aflame a beleaguered wearied country battling the darkness of the times.

Continue reading Bhagat Singh Then and Now: Harsh Mander →

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University of Hyderabad Alumni Teachers Protest the Brutal Police Acts on Campus

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We are deeply pained to see the heinous attack by the state police and paramilitary force on students who are protesting the activities of Appa Rao Podile, the controversial Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad University. As the alumni of one of India’s premier educational institutions, presently teaching in various universities in India, and abroad, we strongly feel that such high handed actions and state sponsored police violence on students – both young men and women – must be condemned. This is crucial in an age of extensive authoritarian silencing. In this open communication with the higher ups in UoH, we would like to reiterate the fact that your dealing with the students has been miscalculated and has provided no reassurance at all. Blinded by a casteist mindset and a resurgent confidence in the wake of a political regime change, the university has failed miserably to instill much needed assurance in the students whose protests have been intensified since the forced suicide of Rohith Vemula.  To our utter dismay, we realise that the failed university administration has begun to work hand in glove with the police in order to silence students’ demands, which should have merited a careful hearing and meaningful resolution. However, the VC and his entourage in the university feel that such sustained efforts have no value in a democracy. The shameful activities of the Police-raj, and the subsequent choreographies of complacency at the university clearly display an abysmal misreading of subaltern issues and concerns about the every day survival of students from marginalised backgrounds. Continue reading University of Hyderabad Alumni Teachers Protest the Brutal Police Acts on Campus →

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Let us not be little Arnolds in these times : Sudha K F

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This is a guest post by SUDHA K F

“His right to march where he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot where he likes, threaten who he likes, smash as he likes. All this I think tends to anarchy. (Mathew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 1866)

….It certainly does. Nothing is stranger, in Arnold’s often scrupulous, often self-consciously charming and delicate prose, than the escalation, the coarseness of these Hyde Park verbs…It is a point of view. Certainly it contrives to forget the start of the disorder: the defeat of the reform legislation, the locking of the gates against the reform meeting (for which, as it happens, there were no legal grounds). As so often, it picks up the story at a convenient point: at the point of response, sometimes violent, to repression; not at the repression itself. Even so, it is a point of view and a familiar one.”

 

 

The above excerpt is from an essay by the British Marxist thinker Raymond Williams “One Hundred Years of Culture and Anarchy”, which is part of his path-breaking collection of essays Culture and Materialism. The first paragraph is a quotation that Williams makes from Mathew Arnold’s essay Culture and Anarchy written in the 1860s in response to the workers’ demonstration at Hyde Park asking for voting rights for workers. Arnold’s argument and language is all too familiar to us now, as that is the language available to us through mainstream media and in general the middle class public sphere, while talking about the brutal deployment of force and violence on the students at the University of Hyderabad. Many seem to be in the business of picking up stories at convenient points. Continue reading Let us not be little Arnolds in these times : Sudha K F →

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Break the Blockade: A Message from a Faculty Member at UoH

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[I just got this message from a friend who teaches at UoH and has been trying to support students there. The situation sounds so serious, I asked her permission to post part of the email on Kafila]

 … It has been a very crazy time for us here. However, at this point, in my personal opinion the highest priority is to remove the blockade of entry into the campus. Let me document for you what is still happening in the campus.

 

1. Parents of students arrested and sister of Thathagata, the arrested faculty member are also not being allowed into campus.

2. Bhim Rao who is the currently acting lawyer of the Velivada students was also not allowed into the campus yesterday. Two of us faculty went and fought with the security officer and told him to give in writing that following the orders of the registrar, he is refusing entry of the lawyer into the campus. Then, he talked to the Registrar, went and got approval and allowed the lawyer in.

3. Rohith’s mother has attempted entry into the campus alone and with the help of civil society multiple times and has been refused entry always. On March 26th morning she was coming to the univ. and fell ill due to her high BP and her right hand going numb. She needed immediate medical attention. When a faculty member attempted to bring her into the campus so she can be looked at by the doctors in the health centre, she was not allowed. Then, doctors went out of the main gate and measured her vital parameters and got her shifted to a hospital. She was under observation for 24hrs.

4. There is still police patrolling on campus.

5. We hear now that new names have been added to an existing FIR in which students are named but not yet arrested.

So, the harassment continues. Students are standing strong despite the extreme intimidation by the administration.

I am sorry to say this and I may be accused of overstating it. However, I feel we are in Chattisgarh when I see the mainstream newspapers. We are in a war without witnesses too, it seems. No reporter is even attempting entry into the campus. There is no media outrage at what is happening on campus. There are no opinion pieces on what is happening on campus from any of the intelligentia of this country in the newspapers. I remember seeing a piece every day about JNU and we were with them. But, we now feel utterly abandoned by all. Is there no way to pressure at least the print media to cover what is happening? Maybe we do not know how to be publicity savvy?! We are stretched so thin trying to protect students – whenever there is any demo by students and so on, at least two of us faculty are around to be at least a witness if not to stop any attacks.

Appreciate any help/advice from you people on this. But, our appeal is that civil society with political parties HAS TO BREAK THE BLOCKADE OF ENTRY. The Registrar’s order states: political parties, politicians, external student organisations and media ONLY. How come lawyers are not being allowed inside? How come parents and families of affected students and faculty are not being allowed inside? What is happening in this country?

Continue reading Break the Blockade: A Message from a Faculty Member at UoH →

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Solidarity Statement from Concerned EFLU Alumni Against State Crackdown in UoH

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We, the alumni of English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, condemn in the strongest possible words the brutality unleashed by the police with the cooperation of the university administration on 22 March 2016, after the Vice Chancellor, Prof Appa Rao Podile, ‘took charge’. We are disturbed seeing the chain of events that the VC triggered to ensure ‘his smooth return’, in spite of being accused of abetting the suicide of research scholar, Rohith Vemula. In the wake of an ongoing case, the VC chose to orchestrate his return with the aid of the police so that any voice of dissent opposing his return is crushed mercilessly. As former students of this university, we are extremely angry seeing this State sponsored violence inside a university and disturbed seeing students become victims to it. An ideal university must exist as a space for dialogue, dissent and strive to be devoid of power structures inherent in relationships that students have amongst themselves, with the university workers and the teachers. However, like the world outside of the university space, all of our classrooms have not in effect been a ‘clean space’. Rather, it has been a microcosm of the realities that exist outside of our pristine gates. Thus, when ASA activist and research scholar, Rohith Vemula took his life, what was thrown open to this nation was the bare truth of caste that the intellectual and political class has been avoiding for long. Instead of interrogating this systemic problem that has been a part and parcel of this nation since its formation, the UoH administration under VC Prof Appa Rao sought to suppress a student movement, unleasing a first of its kind seeking justice for Vemula and all other Dalit, Adivasi and Bahujan students that were ruthlessly harassed and humiliated by universities. Triggering nation-wide protests, the movement had also become a topic of discussion in the center where news such as the death of a Dalit student had often been blacked out.
It is in the wake of this two months long peaceful student protest that the VC used the might of the police and the RAF to ‘protect himself’ from the democratically protesting students. Alleging that the protesters vandalised the VC’s residence (with zero evidence), the police came down heavily on the student protesters and went onto assault faculty members who were trying to protect these students. Arresting 30 students and 2 faculty members and taking them to ‘unknown’ locations, the police managed to create an atmosphere of terror for the students of UoH, wherein possibilities of fake encounters creeped on everyone’s mind. If this wasn’t enough, the VC also managed to convince workers to go on strike and leave the student community without food for 48 hours. Power and internet were subsequently cut off and women students who tried to hold their ground were threatened with rape by the RAF. When there was no food, a few students who took the initiative of cooking food at the university premises were beaten and detained, all the while when the UoH VC had taken ‘steps’ to store milk and water at his residence. Now, with reports of the police particularly picking and beating up the Muslim students badly, among those who were arrested, we are forced to believe that what happened at UoH is the ugliest face of this regime with respect to student community in India. Even more so with the Telengana government standing as mute spectator to the protest, fully knowing how students across universities in Hyderabad had supported the Telengana movement. The police has also released a fresh list of students to be arrested.
This is a planned and systematic attempt to break down the students movement demanding action against the VC and the implementation of Rohith Act. In the wake of such brutalities, we are amazed seeing the spirit of the students of UoH in standing up to the bullies and goons who have taken law into their hands. We stand in solidarity with them, their struggle and condemn the violation of their rights and dignity by the VC and the state government. We condemn the branding of students as ‘antinationals’ and vandalisers, the physical and emotional abuse of the arrested students and faculty, the assault on women students, faculty and media persons and the ruthless targeting of Muslim students by the police and the RAF. We condemn in strong words the rape threats and the police rule that was implemented on campus violating basic human rights. We demand the immediate withdrawal of cases against the students and faculty and the withdrawal of the police from the campus. We demand that the VC be removed from inflicting further harm to the students and that Rohith Act be implemented with immediate effect.
We have also seen photos and videos of the police brutally attacking student protesters in Chennai, Calicut and Mumbai who raised their voices against the atrocity meted by the UoH students. We condemn the act of the state government in the respective places and their draconian attempts of charging the protesters with IPC 153 etc to silence any voice of dissent.
In solidarity

Continue reading Solidarity Statement from Concerned EFLU Alumni Against State Crackdown in UoH →

Debates, Government, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Insurgent Ambedkar and a New Moment in Politics

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Both the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) events were “ultra-Left movements” also involving a small section of “jihadis”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley contended on Sunday.

In the case of JNU, the predominant section of those involved in the agitation was “ultra-Left” barring a small section of “jihadis”, who had their faces masked during a demonstration on the campus on February 9 in which anti-national slogans were raised, Mr. Jaitley said.

The name of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was “unfairly used” in the case of HCU, where protests erupted after the suicide by research scholar Rohith Vemula, he told PTI. (emphasis added. See full report in The Hindu here)

 

Ambedkar at the barricades, Express photo, courtesy Tashi Tobgyal
Ambedkar at the barricades, Express photo, courtesy Tashi Tobgyal

Ambedkar has become an insurgent figure today, breaking out of all the pre-set molds in which he was sought to be confined all these decades. He is no longer neither a mere Dalit leader, nor is he simply the Constitution-maker and constitutionalist who taught us to have faith in the law – the two comfortable and domesticated roles in which he has been presented to us so far by all interested parties and the powers-that-be. In the face of the new Sanghist/ fascist assault, he has broken his chains to come out on the streets, as universities and colleges across the country begin to reverberate with his spirit of rebellion. Ambedkar, the name and the face, is ubiquitous by his presence in all the struggles that mark this moment. Even as the struggle of the HCU students for justice for Rohith Vemula continues and the news of the first victory – their release on bail – trickles in, the figure of Ambedkar at the barricades gives the lie to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s claim above: that HCU and JNU movements were ‘ultra-Left movements’ and ‘jihadis’, and that “the name of Dr Ambedkar was ‘unfairly used’ in the case of HCU. How easy it would be, Mr Jaitley, to thus pronounce the dog mad and go about your business, and how embarrassing to have to confront Ambedkar facing your police and lathis, your courts and prisons. Continue reading Insurgent Ambedkar and a New Moment in Politics →

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Police Attack on SIO March in Support of UoH in Calicut: Students Approach Child Rights Commission

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The students arrested during the march conducted by Students Islamic Organisation in Calicut, Kerala on 26 March in protest of the police brutality in Hyderabad University filed a petition to the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The Calicut Town Police lathicharged the peaceful protesters near the Calicut Head Post Office. About 40 were injured and about 30 protesters were arrested. SIO leaders who visited the police station were also arrested. Several of the protesters who faced violence were school students. Worst, the arrested students have been charged with Section 153 for instigating communal riots!

Continue reading Police Attack on SIO March in Support of UoH in Calicut: Students Approach Child Rights Commission →

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International Statement of Solidarity by Academics, Activists, Artists and Writers with University of Hyderabad

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Over 300 academicians, activists, artists and writers condemn the state violence and unlawful detention of faculty and student protesters of the University of Hyderabad.

If you would like to endorse this statement please send your name and institutional affiliation (if any) to justiceforhcu@gmail.com 

We, academicians, activists,  artists and writers, condemn the ongoing brutal attacks on and unlawful detention of peacefully protesting faculty and students at the University of Hyderabad by the University administration and the police. We also condemn the restriction of access to basic necessities such as water and food on campus.

The students and faculty members of the University of Hyderabad were protesting the reinstatement of Dr. Appa Rao Podile as the Vice-Chancellor despite the ongoing judicial enquiry against him related to  the circumstances leading to the death of the dalit student Rohith Vemula on January 17th, 2016. Students and faculty members of the university community are concerned that this may provide him the opportunity to tamper with evidence and to influence witnesses. Suicides by dalit students have been recurring in the University of Hyderabad and other campuses across the country.  The issue spiraled into a nationwide students’ protest with the death of the dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. The protests have pushed into the foreground public discussion and debate on the persistence of caste-based discrimination in  educational institutions, and surveillance and suppression of dissent and intellectual debate in university spaces.

Since the morning of March 22 when Dr. Appa Rao returned to campus, the students and staff have been in a siege-like situation.  The peacefully protesting staff and students were brutally lathi-charged by the police, and 27 people were taken into custody. The 27 detainees were untraceable for 48 hours, brutally tortured, and denied legal access. In short, all legal procedures of detention have been suspended. After the incident, the university has been locked down with no access to food, water, electricity, and Internet connectivity.   Students were brutally assaulted when they opened community kitchens.  Lawyers and members of human rights organization as well the ordinary citizens of the city were denied access to students. University of Hyderabad is one of India’s biggest public universities.

We have followed, with deep concern, similar violent attacks and undemocratic crackdown on students on the campuses of Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Film and Television Institute of India, the University of Allahabad, Jadavpur University, Burdwan University, and others across the country. That the highest administrative authorities in the university have allowed the silencing of debate and dissent is unfortunate. We are disturbed by the pattern of growing nexus between student vigilante groups, youth wing of the ruling party, state and university authorities in colleges and university campuses across the country in order to mobilize the state machinery against vulnerable students. This has created a climate of fear and oppression in the country, and continually violates fundamental human and Constitutional rights of students.

We stand in support of the protesting students, staff and faculty of the University of Hyderabad and demand the following:

  1. Immediate withdrawal of police from the campus.

  2. Immediate release of, and withdrawal of all cases against, all arrested students and faculty.

  3. Suspension of the Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao.

  4. Judicial enquiry into the role of the HRD Ministry, the HRD Minister and Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya in inciting violence against Dalits on campus.

  5. Independent enquiry into the incidents of violence on the campus including the role of the ABVP in vandalising the Vice-Chancellor’s office.

  6. Action against police personnel named by students in their complaints.

  7. Passage of the “Rohith Act” against caste discrimination in education.

Signatories

  1. Lawrence Cohen, Director, Institute for South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley Continue reading International Statement of Solidarity by Academics, Activists, Artists and Writers with University of Hyderabad →

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JNU Students in Solidarity with Students in Hyderabad

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Students across universities in India are standing together against the extraordinary assaults unleashed on them by the Modi regime. Students in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi have been having regular meetings, ever since 22nd March on the situation in Hyderabad. There have also been marches in Kolkata and meetings in TISS, Mumbai. Reports are just coming in of a police lathi (cane) charge on left youth and student activists in Mumbai. Again, the mainstream media is NOT reporting the fact that young people are being attacked and that seventeen of them have detained by the police in Mumbai for coming out in support of the students in Hyderabad. Kafila welcomes accounts from the participants of these gatherings, so that the students in Hyderabad get to know that they are not alone.

Profile Picture graphic of the 'Stand With JNU' Facebook Page that inserts the JNU Logo on to the UoH (University of Hyderabad) Acronym.
Profile Picture graphic of the ‘Stand With JNU’ Facebook Page that inserts the JNU Logo on to the UoH (University of Hyderabad) Acronym.

Some JNU students also took out a  protest march to the Ministry of Human Resources Development to register their strong protest against the police action in Hyderabad University on the 23rd of March. A big march is being planned in Delhi soon, which will have participation of many student organizations cutting across different universities in Delhi.

Call from BAPSA-JNU for solidarity march with Hyderabad Students on the 'Stand with JNU' Facebook Page
Call from BAPSA and JNUSU for solidarity march with Hyderabad Students on the ‘Stand with JNU’ Facebook Page

One effect of the media blackout on the Hyderabad situation is a silencing of the different voices of support and solidarity for the Hyderabad students from their comrades in Delhi, especially from JNU and other places. This is a tactic of the regime to make students in Hyderabad think that their struggle is not being supported and echoed in other places, such as in JNU, and in Delhi generally.

This is totally untrue. This is moment for even greater co-ordination and solidarity. Do not let yourself be distracted by those who want to divide the student movement at this critical juncture.

Watch the videos below, they have statements by Rama Naga, General Secretary of JNUSU, Anirban Bhattacharya (who was recently released from police custody together with Umar Khalid) and Shehla Rashid, vice president of JNUSU.

Thanks to the ‘We are JNU’ youtube channel and the ‘Stand with JNU’ Facebook page for the videos.

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Statement by Concerned Faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University on the Police Crackdown at HCU

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We, the concerned faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, strongly condemn the police brutality at the University of Hyderabad on 22nd March 2016, after the return of Prof. Appa Rao Podile, the Vice-Chancellor accused of abetting the suicide of the Dalit Research Scholar Rohith Vemula. As an academic community, we are extremely disturbed by the excessive interference of the state machinery, administrative conspiracies, the abuse of power and systemic oppression that prevail in many of the universities in India of late. A university should be a just and egalitarian space. But the suicides of Dalit students with the recent case of Rohith Vemula lay bare systemic structures of oppression and institutional legitimization of caste violence existing within Indian universities. Our university spaces need serious re-vamping to ensure equal opportunity, social justice and critical discourses. Continue reading Statement by Concerned Faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University on the Police Crackdown at HCU →

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A Fig-leaf Called ‘Vandalism’ by UoH Students: SC and ST Faculty Forum and Concerned Teachers of University of Hyderabad

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For the past three days the news media has been circulating widely, stories about ‘vandalism’ by students of the University of Hyderabad that led to the police crackdown. Surprisingly little information is actually there on the actual context, timing, duration and nature of the vandalism. It appears that the claim that a group of students indulged in acts of vandalism is enough to justify a full scale war on the entire campus community of over 5000 students.  Yet this charge of vandalism is no more than a fig leaf . Continue reading A Fig-leaf Called ‘Vandalism’ by UoH Students: SC and ST Faculty Forum and Concerned Teachers of University of Hyderabad →

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Open Letter from Hyderabad University Alumni against Repression on HCU Campus and the Return of Appa Rao as VC

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Guest Post by UoH/HCU Alumni

UoH Alumni Open Letter against the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, the return of Dr. Appa Rao as UoH’s VC, and the brutal display of state violence in campus.

As alumni of the University of Hyderabad, we observed with dismay the return of Dr. Appa Rao Podile as the Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad (UoH) on March 22. We strongly condemn this provocation that led to the police brutality on campus. The shutdown of the university which has followed is unacceptable and unlawful.

A couple of days ago, a report ranked three departments of the University of Hyderabad among the top 500 university facilities in the world. The education we received at UoH helped us to not only shape our careers, but also to question, critique and analyse concepts such as equality, fraternity and social justice.  Upon entering a central university of this size, we were exposed to the sheer diversity of this country. UoH, like other central universities in India, is an amalgam of many languages, cultures, religions and regions.

However, much like the rest of the country, the university campus is a space where systematically oppressive caste structures operate and are institutionally legitimised. Recent events at UoH have left us dismayed and angered at the treatment meted out to peacefully protesting students at the hands of the administration and the police.

Continue reading Open Letter from Hyderabad University Alumni against Repression on HCU Campus and the Return of Appa Rao as VC →

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“I used to feed fish to my widowed grandmother” by Buddhadeb Dasgupta: Soumashree Sarkar

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This is an English translation by SOUMASHREE SARKAR of a column by Buddhadeb Dasgupta which appeared in the Sunday special supplement, Rabibashoriyo, of the Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika on March 20, 2016 and can be found in the original Bengali here.

It was probably the month of November. Winter had set in firmly in a city that neighboured Kolkata. The quilts had come out even before that. Morning had not even broken and there was still a lot of sleep left to be slept when Ma yanked the quilt away from me and woke me up, “Don’t you remember who’s coming today? Get up and hurry, I’ve been calling you for the longest time, Khrushchev and Bulganin are coming, they might have reached already. My cooking’s almost done.” The words were pouring out of my mother’s mouth with frightening speed and excitement, all in the Dhaka’s native Bengali tongue.

Bathed in cold water, shivering through chattering teeth, and sufficiently clothes, we siblings went and stood in front of our mother. With a comb in hand, Ma sat on a chair, and neatly parted all our heads of hair.

I asked, “What does Khrushchev look like? What does Bulganin look like? The same rice-dal-fish curry that we eat – do they also eat that?”

Continue reading “I used to feed fish to my widowed grandmother” by Buddhadeb Dasgupta: Soumashree Sarkar →

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Students Testify to Police Brutality on the HCU Campus in Hyderabad : Guest Post from HCU Students

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Guest Post by HCU students (Taken from Youtube Uploads and Facebook Status Updates)

[Since there is a virtual media blackout of the situation in Hyderabad Central University we have decided to share video testimonies by students of the violence unleashed by CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) and the RAF (Rapid Action Force) which were called in at the behest of the Vice Chancellor Appa Rao – who is already under a cloud for having created the circumstances that led to Rohith Vemula’s suicide, which many students consider to be an ‘institutional murder’. When Appa Rao returned to the University, students were enraged, and they started a ‘sit-in’ outside the Vice Chancellor’s lodge. It was then that the central forces were called in. Later, electricity, water and internet facilities were cut off. The debit card used by the students, linked to the State Bank of India branch on the campus, were blocked. The non teaching staff was persuaded not to give food in university hostel canteens to students. Some students who started a community kitchen were taken away by the police. One of them, a research scholar called Uday Bhanu was so badly beaten up that he has been admitted to intensive care at a local hospital. His condition remains critical.

Courtest, 'University Community' & '#DalitLivesMatter'
Courtest, ‘University Community’ & ‘#DalitLivesMatter’

Hyderabad Central University, is now a virtual prison camp.

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According to reports, 36 students are still missing. Several are hospitalized and are being treated for injuries. At least one of the students is in a critical condition.12671963_1656941941246803_5210071450630800436_o Continue reading Students Testify to Police Brutality on the HCU Campus in Hyderabad : Guest Post from HCU Students →

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भगतसिंह, सुखदेव और राजगुरू की शहादत पर डा अम्बेडकर

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(Dr. Ambedkar’s editorial on Bhagat Singh-Rajguru-Sukhdev execution on 13th April 1931-available in English here – http://www.bhagatsinghstudy.blogspot.in/2016/03/dr-ambedkars-editorial-on-bhagat-singh.html)
समसामयिक विचार
(जनता, 13 अप्रैल 1931)
भगतसिंह, सुखदेव और राजगुरू इन तीनों को अन्ततः फांसी पर लटका दिया गया। इन तीनों पर यह आरोप लगाया गया कि उन्होंने सान्डर्स नामक अंग्रेजी अफसर और चमनसिंह नामक सिख पुलिस अधिकारी की लाहौर में हत्या की। इसके अलावा बनारस में किसी पुलिस अधिकारी की हत्या का आरोप, असेम्ब्ली में बम फेंकने का आरोप और मौलमिया नामक गांव में एक मकान पर डकैती डाल कर वहां लूटपाट एवं मकानमालिक की हत्या करने जैसे तीन चार आरोप भी उन पर लगे। इनमें से असेम्ब्ली में बम फेंकने का आरोप भगतसिंह ने खुद कबूल किया था और इसके लिए उसे और बटुकेश्वर दत्त नामक उनके एक सहायक दोस्त को उमर कैद के तौर पर काला पानी की सज़ा सुनायी गयी। सांडर्स की हत्या भगतसिंह जैसे क्रांतिकारियों ने की ऐसी स्वीकारोक्ति जयगोपाल नामक भगतसिंह के दूसरे सहयोगी ने भी की थी और उसी बुनियाद पर सरकार ने भगतसिंह के खिलाफ मुकदमा कायम किया था। इस मुकदमें में तीनों ने भाग नहीं लिया था। हाईकोर्ट के तीन न्यायाधीशों के स्पेशल ट्रीब्युनल का गठन करके  उनके सामने यह मुकदमा चला और उन तीनों ने इन्हें दोषी घोषित किया और उन्हें फांसी की सज़ा सुना दी। इस सज़ा पर अमल न हो और फांसी के बजाय उन्हें अधिक से अधिक काला पानी की सज़ा सुनायी जाए ऐसी गुजारिश के साथ भगतसिंह के पिता ने राजा और वायसराय के यहां दरखास्त भी दी । अनेक बड़े बड़े नेताओं ने और तमाम अन्य लोगों ने भगतसिंह को इस तरह सज़ा न दी जाए इसे लेकर सरकार से अपील भी की। गांधीजी और लॉर्ड इरविन के बीच चली आपसी चर्चाओं में भी भगतसिंह की फांसी की सज़ा का मसला अवश्य उठा होगा और लार्ड इरविन ने भले ही मैं भगतसिंह की जान बचाउंगा ऐसा ठोस वायदा गांधीजी से न किया हो, मगर लार्ड इरविन इस सन्दर्भ में पूरी कोशिश करेंगे और अपने अधिकारों के दायरे में इन तीनों की जान बचाएंगे ऐसी उम्मीद गांधीजी के भाषण से पैदा हुई थी। मगर यह सभी उम्मीदें, अनुमान और गुजारिशें गलत साबित हुई और बीते 23 मार्च को शाम 7 बजे इन तीनांे को लाहौर सेन्ट्रल  जेल में फांसी दी गयी। ‘ हमारी जान बकश दें’ ऐसी दया की अपील इन तीनों में से किसी ने भी नहीं की थी; हां, फांसी की सूली पर चढ़ाने के बजाए हमें गोलियों से उड़ा दिया जाए ऐसी इच्छा भगतसिंह ने प्रगट की थी, ऐसी ख़बरें अवश्य आयी हैं। मगर उनकी इस आखरी इच्छा का भी सम्मान नहीं किया गया। न्यायाधीश के आदेश पर हुबहू अमल किया गया ! ‘अंतिम सांस तक फांसी पर लटका दें’ यही निर्णय जज ने सुनाया था। अगर गोलियों से उड़ा दिया जाता तो इस निर्णय पर शाब्दिक अमल नहीं माना जाता। न्यायदेवता के निर्णय पर बिल्कुल शाब्दिक अर्थों में हुबहू अमल किया गया और उसके कथनानुसार ही इन तीनों को शिकार बनाया गया।

Continue reading भगतसिंह, सुखदेव और राजगुरू की शहादत पर डा अम्बेडकर →

Debates, Education, Politics, Right watch

Medical professionals challenge Indian Medical Association (IMA)

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STATEMENT BY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS RAISING QUESTIONS TO IMA

The National President and Honorary Secretary General of Indian Medical Association (IMA), on behalf of its 2.6 lakh members, have written a letter to Home Minister Shri Raj Nath Singh condemning the ‘anti-national’ incident that had taken place recently at JNU. The office bearers have appealed to the government to take strict and necessary action against any persons or organizations or group carrying out any ‘anti-national’ protests, speeches, debates or writings in the country. They have also appealed to the government that investigations should be fair and free and the culprits be punished as early as possible as per the law so that in future no one can dare to do ‘anti-national’ activities in the country. The office-bearers have extended their whole-hearted support to the government in this matter, again, on behalf of it 2.6 lakh members. As per the statement of IMA’s Honorary Secretary General published in The Hindu on 24th February 2016, this letter is also an intervention to tell medical students, nursing students etc. that ‘anti-national’ activities will not be tolerated and that such ‘anti-national’ incidents should be curbed and not debated upon.

For anybody who may be unaware of the ‘anti-national’ incident at JNU being referred to in the above-mentioned letter, here is a description: Continue reading Medical professionals challenge Indian Medical Association (IMA) →

Bad ideas, Government, Identities, Media politics, Politics, Right watch

Nation and its Violences: Sanjay Kumar

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Guest Post by Sanjay Kumar

Violent thoughts and deeds are increasingly getting justified in the name of Indian nation. A mob of lawyers has attacked students, teachers and journalists, right in the middle of a court complex in the national capital. Leaders of these patriotic lawyers were later caught bragging on camera about how they will next time throw bombs on anti-nationals. A young woman in Delhi has received emails and face book posts threatening her with acid attack and sexual assault, because she happens to be a sister of Umar Khalid, one of the organisers of the JNU programme, during which according to police anti-India slogans were raised. The mere being of this woman, and her defence of her brother, is enough of a provocation for many men and women of the country to justify the threat of ultimate male violence against women. Another man, Mr Adarsh Sharma put posters in the central district of the capital announcing an award of Rs 11 lakh for anyone who kills Mr Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of  the JNUSU, charged with sedition. Mr Sharma claims that his ‘blood boiled’ when he saw Mr Kumar’s much publicised speech after his release on bail. The popular movie Pyasa (1957) of Gurudutt had a song ‘Jinhen Naz hai Hind par vo kahaan hain’, which used the reality of social degradation to question celebrations of the nation. Sahir’s poem worked because it asked Indians to look at themselves in the mirror of public morality of the recently independent India. That mirror has been cracked for long. With the brazenly violent now claiming that their violence and threat to violence should really be the pride of the nation, we are now witnessing the final shattering of that mirror. Continue reading Nation and its Violences: Sanjay Kumar →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Government, Politics

Petition to Demand Release of Anti-Mining Activist , Writer, Film-maker Debaranjan Sarangi

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Guest Post by Kamayani Bali Mahabal

Release Anti-Mining Activist , writer, film-maker - Debaranjan Sarangi

Debanjan Sarangi , , documentary film maker, writer and human rights activist  has been arrested in the early hours around 6.30 AM on March 18, 2016, by the Odisha police in Kuchaipad village in Kashipur block of Raygada district of Odisha. The defender has been arrested with the help of local police on the basis of a non-bailable warrant issued against him in a previous case of the year of 2005.

Debaranjan Sarangi along with others went to Kuchaipad village in Kashipur block of Raygada district of Odisha to participate in the FUNERAL  of activist late Mr. Laxman Majhi on March 16, 2016, evening. The rituals were completed on March 17, 2016. While other persons accompanied the defender returned on the same evening,

Debaranjan decided to stay back in the village for another day. In the early morning on March 18, 2016, he went out to a nearby riverside and while he was coming back, he saw two police men in civil clothes who came to him and took him. They did not allow him to change his clothes and forced him to go along with them in his lungi to the nearest police station at about 6.30 AM. Continue reading Petition to Demand Release of Anti-Mining Activist , Writer, Film-maker Debaranjan Sarangi →

Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Identities, Images, Law, Movements, Politics

Mera Piya Ghar Aaya: Umar Khalid and Anirban Return to JNU and the Students’ Struggle

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I have come home a little while ago from Jawaharlal Nehru University after listening to Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya take back the night. As I drove home  through the quiet streets of Delhi after midnight it occurred to me that somebody should whisper into Narendra Modi’s ear that he should now start stocking up on sleeping pills. (Maybe Baba Ramdev’s enterprise makes some that he could prescribe to the Prime Minister, unadulterated). With young people like Umar and Anirban as his adversaries, the Prime Minister can only have sleepless nights ahead of him. It is perhaps fortunate for him that the team from Madame Tussaud’s came by and did their job yesterday. Because from now on, his real skin tone will only envy the lustre of his wax work. Umar and Anirban, and their friends, took away the little remaining shine that Modi had left at midnight.

Continue reading Mera Piya Ghar Aaya: Umar Khalid and Anirban Return to JNU and the Students’ Struggle →

Government, Politics, Right watch

Intimidation of Pushp Sharma and the future of Indian democracy

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Freelance journalist Pushp Sharma, who broke the story that AYUSH Ministry, which promotes traditional medicine systems, does not hire Muslims for short-term positions as trainers for World Yoga Day as it is against government policy, was taken in by the police for questioning on March 15th. He was released at night after interrogation, and asked to report again to the police station on the 16th.

The AYUSH Ministry had filed a formal complaint with the Delhi Police asking them to probe the alleged ‘fake’ response to an RTI query on which Sharma based his story.

The Milli Gazette which published the story, and Sharma himself, stand by the story.

For the story with updates, see this story in Huffington Post.

For an interview with Sharma just before he was taken in for questioning, see Sabrang.

After his temporary release last evening, Sharma wrote a letter to his readers in which he said that he had told the police that the internationally accepted procedure if a news story was contested, was for those challenging the veracity of the story to send the relevant documents. These documents are cross checked, and if the story turns out to be wrong, then a correction and apology are published.

Why is the AYUSH Ministry not releasing documents that prove Sharma’s claim to be false? Why has a journalist been handed over to the tender mercies of the Delhi Police, simply for writing a story? At the police station, he says, “I heard just abuses, and shouts and allegations, like: who is behind you and what is your motive?”

If the AYUSH Ministry believes that its credibility is dented by the “fake” RTI response, it needs to demonstrate that in fact it has not followed such a policy. For instance, release the original pages of the file that Sharma has allegedly falsified. There are legal routes to follow in the case of defamation, setting the police on a journalist who wrote an inconvenient story is unacceptable. It has never happened before that an RTI user has been put through police interrogation like this, says a story in The Wire. The story also says:

Meanwhile, Zafarul Islam Khan, editor of Milli Gazette – which ran Pushp Sharma’s story, told The Wire that while he had read in some newspapers about his newspaper being charged under Section 153-A of the IPC for promoting hatred among communities and Section 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), he has neither received notice of this or a call from the police.

An overall atmosphere of intimidation and suppression of criticism of discriminatory policies of the government is being put in place. The portents are grim.

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Education, Everyday Life, Government, Identities, Images, Metropolis, Movements, Politics

Save Democracy, Release Umar, Anirban and SAR Geelani, Enact Rohith Act – JNU Marches again in Delhi

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For the fourth time since the early February, students, faculty and their friends marched in Delhi. Once again, there were thousands of people, walking from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar. This time, there was focused attention on the demand for the release of the detained JNU students – Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, the DU Professor S.A.R Geelani, solidarity with JNU Prof. Nivedita Menon and the poet-scientist Gauhar Raza against their media trials, and a direct attack on the creeping fascism of the Modi regime. Here are some moments from this march.

(Thanks to Aniket Prantdarshi, Kavita Krishnan, Samim Asgor Ali and Anish Ahluwalia, ‘We are JNU’ for their photos and videos, which I have taken from their Facebook pages and Youtube Channels)

Continue reading Save Democracy, Release Umar, Anirban and SAR Geelani, Enact Rohith Act – JNU Marches again in Delhi →