Category Archives: Right watch

Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Condemns Killing of Children in Taliban Attack

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The HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN has issued the following statement on the Taliban attack on school children in Peshawar

December 16, 2014

Lahore, December 16: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called the killing of more than 120 children in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar a national tragedy which it said must open the eyes of anyone still harbouring any doubts that Taliban and Pakistan could coexist.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Commission said: “HRCP is deeply saddened by the large number of children killed in the Taliban attack on ArmyPublic School in Peshawar. This is a national tragedy of immense proportions, and an extremely sad day for Pakistan. Our heart goes out to the families of the children whose lives have been cut short by this abhorrent act of terrorism.

“The target was an army-run school, but it was a school nonetheless. It is not children who fight against the Taliban. And yet the choice of the target and the heavy casualties among the children leave no doubt that the massacre was aimed at killing as many children as possible.

“Nothing, including religion, norms of armed conflict or even common decency, justifies such brutal targeting of children. But it is no secret that the killers and those who dispatched them to attack the school have respect neither for religious commandments nor notions of civilised or decent behaviour. The targeting of children made sense to them because they stand for blood-letting and not much else.

“HRCP reiterates its firm belief that Taliban and Pakistan cannot coexist and anyone still harbouring any notions to the contrary is naive beyond belief.

“It had already been established, much before Tuesday’s massacre of children in Peshawar, where the Taliban stood in terms of education or value of children’s lives. Their actions today have shown once again that Pakistan will not know peace until this madness is taken on in all its manifestations and defeated. Continue reading Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Condemns Killing of Children in Taliban Attack →

Identities, Images, Law, Politics, Right watch

Wave after Wave, We Refuse to Die Down: Kiss Protest Against Fascism at IFFK

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If you are in Thiruvananthapuram, please do join us at one o’clock at noon in front of the Kairali-Sree theatre complex at Thampanoor, the main venue of IFFK.

We do believe that the rising tide of fascism in Kerala, the creeping fear of the sheer violence of fascist goons, can be combated only through love, humor, and moral courage. The victory of Hindutva right wing forces in the national scene seems to have emboldened them in Kerala. They are attempting to import here the instruments of terror that they brazenly unleash on people in the states which have become laboratories of their hate-politics. We will not let their evil grow; we will fight it with love.

We will use as an instrument of self-defense precisely all that which fascist forces deny us in this society. We will reclaim that ultimate symbol of tender and intimate human contact, the Kiss; we will kiss against fascism.

And each of us has different, but interconnected reasons, for kissing against fascism.

sunilKissable boymikek edited 3aswatyrenuedited 2nisaaratrikasinghabipshaKAF solidarity

 

Bad ideas, Education, Everyday Life, Feminism, Right watch

‘Law of the land’ on Kissing in Public: Sanjay Palshikar

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SANJAY PALSHIKAR, Professor, Political Science department, University of Hyderabad, clarifies the ‘law of the land’ on kissing in public, to the Committee set up by the Vice-Chancellor to ‘look into the matter of the incident of November 2, 2014.’

Respected Members,

At the centre of the incidents of November 2, 2014, is the alleged act by some students to display demonstratively mutual affection in the form of kissing. Without going into the factual correctness of the charge, let me share with you what I have learnt from legal scholars and activists. I do so in the hope that this will help the Committee “ascertain” “the position of the law of the land” regarding kissing in public.

  1. Indian judiciary at the higher levels has not universally treated kissing in public as illegal. In appropriate context, spelt out variously by the relevant judgments, it has been seen as an expression of love, expression of love and compassion, and its artistic representation as defensible. Absent in all theses cases is the tendency to presume that every kiss is an act of sexual expression and that indulging in this act in public is always obscene. (A & B vs State Thr. N.C.T. of Delhi 2009; Friday vs K.J. Sebastian 2001).
  1. The Supreme Court has observed that the Indian Penal Code “does not define the word obscene and this delicate task has to be performed by courts….” If the Apex Court considers it a delicate task, how much more challenging it would be for university teachers and police officers to say if an act is obscene! (Udeshi vs State of Maharashtra 1965).

Continue reading ‘Law of the land’ on Kissing in Public: Sanjay Palshikar →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

We, or our Nationhood, Redefined.

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A couple of weeks ago, filmmaker Anand Patwardhan was invited by the Editors’ Guild to deliver its annual lecture. Patwardhan’s speech, titled We or our Nationhood Redefined, was marked by his characteristically cool tone, systematically reassembling facts that have a tricky habit of leaking from national memory. Facts like the twentieth century’s worst genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler and his programme of racial cleansing has a respectable and massive following in India in the form of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. That the RSS has at least 50,000 branches across the country with over 40 million members, and runs a network of 18,000 schools across India. That one such child, recruited from the age of 8 from a relatively poor family, is Prime Minister Modi; and another is Party Chief Amit Shah. That just before the recent reshuffle, 5 Chief Ministers and 17 of the 23 Cabinet-level senior ministers were current or former RSS members. That the assassins of Gandhi are really the RSS, not the lone lunatic Godse who merely carried out what others dreamed about. That RSS’s poisonous communal agenda was roundly condemned by Sardar Patel, of whom PM Modi has promised to build the world’s tallest statue. Or more obscure but equally revealing facts, like the letter written by RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras from jail during Emergency, praising Indira Gandhi and especially her programme of sterilisation of Muslims. And those truly mind-boggling-in-their-irony facts, like the widespread involvement of the RSS in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, when the BJP cynically says “1984” every time somebody says “2002”.

On a day when the Nanavati Commission has termed the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat as a purely communal reaction to Godhra, and cleared then Chief Minister Modi’s government of any wrongdoing, or even inaction, it is critical we re-read Patwardhan’s speech, to remind ourselves exactly what we are up against if we believe in a non-communal, non-divided, heterogenous India. As Patwardhan put it, given the history of the RSS in this subcontinent, if a Modi didn’t exist, he would have to be invented. Read more.

Bad ideas, Education, Everyday Life, Feminism, Right watch

A kiss for your thoughts, University of Hyderabad: Anu K Antony, Mohan K Pillai, Sinjini Bhattacharya and Vaikhari Aryat

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Guest Post by ANU K ANTONY, MOHAN K PILLAI, SINJINI BHATTACHARYA, VAIKHARI ARYAT 

HYD

The protest meeting organised by the students of the University of Hyderabad on the university campus

‘That is knowledge which liberates’, proudly proclaims the crest of University of Hyderabad, a prominent central university in our country. A University space has been traditionally seen as the vanguard of socio-cultural critique and change. Universities pride themselves in upholding the values of freedom of thought, expression and debate. And yet, the reaction of the administration of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to a recent event, in an otherwise liberal-tolerant and progressive-leaning campus, leaves much space for thought.

On November 2nd, a group of students organised an event on campus in solidarity with the much discussed “Kiss of Love” protest in Kerala. Titled “UoH Against Moral Policing”, the on-campus event, publicised solely on online social media, was supposed to create a space to discuss issues surrounding moral policing and the chain of Kerala incidents, bring out narratives of moral policing, talk about morality and Indian culture, and recite poetry. Also planned was a symbolic act of kissing on a chart paper, with the slogan “Our lips don’t char”. However, some ABVP and BJYM activists, with the aim of saving the students and the Indian culture from Western “immorality”, barged into campus and tried to attack the student protesters. The Telangana Police and campus security, who had failed to stop the intruders, did later succeed in cordoning them off from the protesting crowd, while insisting that the students call off the protest and disperse.

Unaccustomed to Police chauvinism and empowered enough to insist on their rights, the students managed to continue with their planned activities, although once in a while some right-wing activists managed to break ranks and tried to incite violence. The campus community however showed great restraint and continued protesting peacefully.  In response to such moral policing inside campus, the 250-plus students spontaneously started hugging and kissing each other, before dispersing.  Continue reading A kiss for your thoughts, University of Hyderabad: Anu K Antony, Mohan K Pillai, Sinjini Bhattacharya and Vaikhari Aryat →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Excavation, Frontiers, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The Class Politics of Blasphemy in Pakistan: Fatima Tassadiq

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Guest Post by FATIMA TASSADIQ

The brutal murders of Shehzad and Shama, a Christian couple in the village of Kot Radha Kishan in Kasur district on 4th November, spawned predictable outrage in the press and social media. The rush of horror, the diagnoses and prescribed course of action against such violence involved the familiar paternalistic discourse of the ‘illiterate masses’ whose ‘ignorance’ evidently leaves them particularly vulnerable to the manipulation of the much maligned mullahs. Such a narrative serves the dual function of reducing religious violence to the faceless masses while at the same time reaffirming the educated urban upper class as the rightful custodian of Islam and Pakistan. This construction conveniently ignores the role played by the state and the elite in producing religious violence and feeds the class-based blind spots that exist in our understanding of what constitutes religious extremism.

Continue reading The Class Politics of Blasphemy in Pakistan: Fatima Tassadiq →

Right watch, Capitalism, Debates

Whatever happened to the great debate? Ankita Anand

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Guest Post by ANKITA ANAND

On 6 November 2014 BBC World invited three panellists from different sectors to debate on ‘A New India: Free, Fair and Prosperous’ as part of the World Economic Forum. Issues of content and objectivity apart, one still has high expectations of a group like BBC when it comes to setting high standards of form. But this ‘debate’ fell flat on its face on all counts.

No rules of the game

One would think that in a discussion like this all three panellists would bring in varied viewpoints due to their specialization in their individual sectors. However, if one wants to quote either the minister or the corporate voice in the debate, it would require constant rechecking to distinguish who said what. Of course businnesses and governments need not always be in conflict with each other. But this smooth overlapping can be dangerous if those who are to be at the receiving end of this coalition between corporate bodies and governing bodies get completely left out. So for all practical purposes, instead of having three distinct voices, the format of the session (to keep calling it a debate would be to perpetuate technical erroneousness) was two against one. The yesmanship resulting out of this format naturally dulled the sparkling energy any debate worth its salt should have. Continue reading Whatever happened to the great debate? Ankita Anand →

Everyday Life, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

There is hatred in the air yet again: Preeti Chauhan

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Guest Post by PREETI CHAUHAN on the recent communal tension in Noor e Illahi area of Delhi.

It was around 9 pm on Tuesday, November 11th, I was heading to my parents’ home to go with my sister for an interview the next morning, when my cellphone rang, my sister was asking me frantically where I was. I replied a bit anxiously but with irritation, ‘Kya hai? Pahunch jaaungi thodi der mein’. She said don’t come, turn back. I asked why, ‘yahan dange hone waale hain, saari dukaanein band ho rahin hain’, my sister replied. In those two-three seconds my heart skipped many beats, a strange fear about the safety of my family gripped me. I could for the first time feel what it is to live in fear of communal riots. I called up my close relatives who were out of home to ask where they are. There was such an uncertainty as to how will my sister go for the interview tomorrow? Would I be able to reach home tomorrow morning? Would my vehicle be attacked if I decide to go home now?

In those three- four minutes the world seemed to have taken a terrifying turn for me. Mundane, everyday things, everyday routes suddenly turned hostile and suspicious. I could feel the agony and fear so very close. Then there was a sudden burst of anger that I felt against the communal forces that are so hell bent on creating communal trouble everywhere in Delhi. I had not read the newspaper the whole day yesterday and hadn’t watched TV but just before I was leaving home my spouse told me that my native place is in the news and it was then that I had read about the communal tension and curfew in Noore-illahi. It’s the area, the vicinity of my childhood, adolescence and my adulthood too. It’s the area of the weekly bazaar for us, the Eid bazaar as well from which we had returned at 1 am at times. Noor Chicken is where Noor Jahan furniture once stood if I remember correctly; it belonged to the family of one of my classmates in school. I hear today that Noor Chicken’s owner and his son was badly beaten and the son is rumored to have succumbed to injuries. I shudder to think if he is my primary school classmate Shahnawaaz… Continue reading There is hatred in the air yet again: Preeti Chauhan →

Culture, Everyday Life, Genders, Right watch

This is What Frightens Them….

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And the struggle continues, image courtesy Manorama online
And the struggle continues…Kochi, image courtesy Manorama online
“If conservative elements can capture our public spaces and impose their diktat on us, we will do the same in retaliation. Our university spaces, parks and roads are not free any more. We are reclaiming them now. We live in an age where a Dalit man is hacked to 40 pieces because he fell in love with a woman from a higher caste. This Kiss of Love campaign is a defiance of moral policing and a struggle to uphold the spirit of love in all its forms and for everyone,” said Zareen, a campaigner.
Kiss of love Delhi, image courtesy, DNA
Kiss of love Delhi, image courtesy, DNA
Culture, Feminism, Genders, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch

‘Downtown’ – Where the Kiss of Love Began: Sudha K. F.

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Guest post by SUDHA K. F.

[This article was written in response to the recent incident of vandalism and violence meted out by BJP- affiliated Yuvamorcha activists against a restaurant called Downtown in Kozhikode, Kerala. This was the incident that led to the protest – the Kiss of Love at Kochi, Kiss of Love in Kolkata, and now, most audaciously outside the RSS Office in Jhandewalan. Wherever it goes, it acquires a flavour of its own. Thus in Kolkata, hokkolorob (let there be turmoil) mutated into another set of slogans – hokchumban (let there be kiss – or, let us kiss) and now, Sanghi gunde hoshiyar, tere saamne karenge pyar (beware Sangh goons, we will (make) love right before you. Sudha K. F. gives a sense of what it felt like after the goons attacked, the sense of indignation that subsequently burst forth.]

Kiss of love, Delhi
Kiss of love, Delhi, from the official facebook page

The now “notorious” Downtown restaurant is 5 minutes away by foot, from my home in my hometown Kozhikode. During my schooldays, that place was an old workshop. The restaurant came up after I had been away from my hometown for quite a while for my higher education. I remember being thrilled at the sight of this fine looking restaurant/coffee shop with glass windows, near my home during one of my visits. Earlier a few establishments had replaced the old workshop but didn’t do well commercially and closed down hastily. As I passed Downtown one evening, its busiest hour, my father remarked that this might have a longer life because it is so crowded with so many people frequenting the place for dinner. Still I remained a stranger to that place. Continue reading ‘Downtown’ – Where the Kiss of Love Began: Sudha K. F. →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Feminism, Genders, Images, Right watch, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Resist the Sangh Parivar’s Hatred of Love: Nayanjyoti and Subhashini

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Guest Post by Nayanjyoti and Subhashini

In late October, the youth wing of the Sangh Pariwar among others vandalised a café in Calicut on the pretext that lovers ‘date’ each another sitting in this café. When many young men and women in Kochi gathered together to protest by expressing their love in public, they got beaten up by various right wing groups and the police in response. The students and youths in different regions of the country gathered in solidarity of this protest going by the name of ‘Kiss of Love’. At the same time, as the news spread rapidly through the media and social networking site, a polarization continues to develop in the society, even among the individual activists and similar organizations, for and against the form of this movement.

Continue reading Resist the Sangh Parivar’s Hatred of Love: Nayanjyoti and Subhashini →

Capitalism, Debates, Identities, Politics, Right watch

धर्मनिरपेक्ष दक्षिणपंथ – एक कल्पना का सच: सुशील चन्द्र

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Guest post by SUSHIL CHANDRA

पिछले जयपुर साहित्योत्सव (हालांकि मैं उसे ‌‌‌तमाशा-ए-अदब कहना अधिक पसंद करूंगा) के दौरान अमर्त्य सेन ने अपनी सात अभिलाषाएं व्यक्त कीं। दिलचस्प यह है कि उनमें से एक अभिलाषा उलटबांसी अधिक नजर आती है – कि वह देश में एक धर्मनिरपेक्ष दक्षिणपंथ चाहते हैं । यह मासूम सी सदिच्छा न सिर्फ कई प्रश्न उठाती है बल्कि एक साथ कई सारी विवेचनाओं की मांग भी करती है। सच तो यह है कि यह कामना कोई नई बात नही है और पश्चिम की अधिकांश दक्षिणपंथी पार्टियां जैसे रिपब्लिकन पार्टी़, कंजरवेटिव पार्टी़, क्रिश्चियन डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी इत्यादि इसी संकल्पना की उपज हैं। वस्तुत: यह संकल्पना इस अवधारणा से निकली है कि दक्षिणपंथ के धार्मिक-सामाजिक पक्ष (जिसकी परिणति कठमुल्लावादी रूढि़वाद में होती है) और आर्थिक पक्ष (जो अंतत: नव रूढि़वाद में प्रतिफलित होता है) बिल्कुल अलग अलग हैं और उनके बीच कोई पारस्परिक निर्भरता नहीं है।

पहली नजर में यह सही भी लगता है जहां फ्रांस में लंबे समय तक दक्षिणपंथी शासन के बावजूद प्रशासन राज्य और धर्म के बीच संपूर्ण अलगाव के प्रति समर्पित नजर आता है। यहां तक कि भारत में भी न सिर्फ स्वतंत्र पार्टी बल्कि मनमोहन सिंह सरकार भी अपने सारे नवउदारवादी आग्रहों के बावजूद धार्मिक रूढि़यों से मुक्त नजर आती थी। मैंने जानबूझ कर नजर आती शब्दों का इस्तेमाल किया है क्योंकि सचमुच ऐसा है या नहीं इसकी जांच अभी बाकी है। लेकिन इसके पहले कि हम इस बिंदु की पड़ताल करें, इन दो बहुचर्चित शब्दों ‍- वामपंथ और दक्षिणपंथ को समझना जरूरी है । जरूरी इसलिए है कि इन दो शब्दों का अर्थ संदर्भ के साथ बदलता जाता है । Continue reading धर्मनिरपेक्ष दक्षिणपंथ – एक कल्पना का सच: सुशील चन्द्र →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Government, Identities, Metropolis, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

On The Recent Communal Disturbances in Trilokpuri: People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism

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Guest Post by People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (P.A.D.S)

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

(Members of P.A.D.S. have been interacting with and visiting residents of Trilokpuri ever since the communal disturbances started on Oct 23. Along with many other citizens we are involved in efforts to re-establish peace and in providing legal aid to those wrongfully arrested. This statement is based on the experiences of P.A.D.S members.)

The inhabitants of Trilokpuri, a densely populated neighbourhood of working people in Delhi, went through a harrowing week after Diwali night on 23 October. A brawl around two places of worship that night proved to be the first event. Although the situation appears to have settled down that night, some motivated planning and mobilisation must have taken place that night itself, because the next day it was a full scale communal clash. Armed mobs from outside the locality are reported to have joined the rioting that involved brick throwing. Firearms were also used and two boys suffered critical bullet injuries.  Inhabitants are emphatic that the police fired into the crowd. The police first denied firing at all. Its latest claim is that it fired only in self defense. One apparel show room owned by a Muslim resident was gutted. Police intervened in force only two days after the clashes started. It turned the neighbourhood into an occupied war-zone. More than fifty men and minor boys were arrested randomly, many picked up forcibly from their houses amid verbal abuse and physical violence. Road intersections were barricaded and entry and exit points were closely monitored. Drones were used in surveillance and houses systematically searched. Essential supplies were in short supply. Daily wage earners, contract workers, and self employed who could not go out lost their source of livelihood. Seriously wounded and ill had no access to medical aid. While the entire neighbourhood suffered in one form or another, inhabitants of three blocks in particular, nos 15, 27 and 28, and attached  jhuggi clusters, mainly occupied by citizens who are Muslims bore the brunt of police action.

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Communal Hatred the Mahapanchayat Way – A Report From Bawana, Delhi: Mohit Pandey

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Guest Post by MOHIT PANDEY

An All India Students Association  team visited Bawana on Sunday (November 2, 2014), met local people, witnessed the Mahapanchayat and the developments around it. This report is based on that visit.

Long standing communal tension in Bawana (at the outskirts of Delhi) took a vicious inflammatory turn, when a Mahapanchayat was called on 2nd November to provoke hatred against the Taziya (Moharram procession) in Bawana. Since Bakrid, the blatant lie of ‘cow slaughter’ in the JJ Colony (nearby Bawana) was used as a pretext to mobilize the whole Hindu community against Muslims. India’s ruling party BJP, as well as an entire battery of RSS backed Hindutva outfits were involved in the campaign to divide Hindus and Muslims of the poorest classes.

Our observations about the Mahapanchayat are as follows :

  • People were mobilized from Bawana and many places close to Bawana, from both Haryana and Delhi.
  • The agenda of Mahapanchayat was to prevent the Taziya procession in Bawana. But residents of the JJ Colony told us that the Muslims of the colony had already agreed, in a meeting on 28th October where leaders from both communities and the ACP were present, to limit their procession to the JJ Colony itself. If the issue of the route of the Taziya procession had already been settled, why did the police even allow the mahapanchayat to be held? Continue reading Communal Hatred the Mahapanchayat Way – A Report From Bawana, Delhi: Mohit Pandey →
Culture, Genders, Right watch, Sex

Love for Fawad Khan vs Jihad against Love: Charu Gupta

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Guest post by CHARU GUPTA

Fawad Khan, a Pakistani Muslim male, has become an endearing and enduring metaphor, a fascinating icon, the new heartthrob and fantasy of Indian girls and women. Zindagi, an Indian entertainment television channel, launched just four months ago, which telecasts cross-border serials from Pakistan, has captured our imagination. The central idiom of the channel has proven to be Fawad Khan, who besides having looks to die for and undeniable charm, portrays a sensitive, emotional and mature lover and husband in top of the charts serials Zindagi Gulzar Hai and Humsafar. He has entered Bollywood through the film Khubsoorat. Fan mails from women have poured over websites. One of them says: ‘You have to be living under a rock if you have not heard of Fawad Khan yet…. Did your mother just tell you she has a crush on Fawad Khan? Your female colleagues are probably head-over-heels in love with him too…. Women maybe have more photos of Fawad Khan in their phones than their own.’ Describing the film Khubsoorat, Shobha De articulates: ‘So, who is the real “khubsoorat” in the movie….Any guesses? You’ve got it! It’s a slim, bearded bloke from across the border…. He’s as yummy as those irresistible Lahori kebabs, and desi ladies want him.’

Fawad Khan’s religious and national identity is not hidden or muted; it is explicit and out there. But Indian women, most of them Hindu, are totally disinterested or unconcerned with the fact. While the ‘love jihad’ hysterics are crying themselves hoarse, Indian girls are not giving a damn whether Fawad Khan is a Muslim or a Pakistani. Instead, they are dreaming of having someone like him in their lives to romance and to love, who can make them feel so very special. This swooning over Fawad Khan by Indian girls and women of all ages reveals a religious and national liminality that can stump the hysteria over the constructed bogey of love jihad. The representation of Fawad Khan and the construction of love jihad, both in very different ways are part of fictive imaginations, myths and rhetoric, spectacles and obsessions. At the same time, they undercut each other, reflecting women’s desires on the one hand and Hindu male fears on the other. Love for Fawad Khan personifies allegories of intimacy and romance, while the love jihad campaign embodies hatred and anxieties. One contests power, the other attempts to reinstate it. It is these disjunctive representations that make their juxtaposition stimulating. Continue reading Love for Fawad Khan vs Jihad against Love: Charu Gupta →

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Organized Fundamentalist Hindutva Forces trying to Instigate Communal Tension in Bawana, Delhi

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Pressurize the Administration to immediately intervene and stop the communal Mahapanchayat on 2nd November!

Organized Hindutva forces are again trying to instigate communal polarization and spread terror in Bawana area of North-West Delhi in the last few days. They have called for a ‘Mahapanchayat’ at 4 pm on Sunday, 2nd November 2014 to oppose the Taziya procession taken out for Moharram in the area, calling it supposedly a ‘terror procession’.

Only three-four policemen loiter in the area tonight on 1st November, while the administration, including the Lt. Governor and Police Commissioner, has been alerted in the afternoon itself  by various pro-people forces and local people on the rabidly communal ‘parcha’ that has been circulated in the area. This parcha explicitly gives a ‘call for Bawana’ to stop the supposed terror procession and ‘show of arms’, ‘display of strength’, disruption of peace and other baseless allegations on the Muslim community.

The situation of communal tension in Bawana is not spontaneous, but is being instigated by organized Hindutva forces, much like Trilokpuri in the past week. Earlier, on 2nd-6th October, just before Eid celebrations, the ‘Hindu Krantikari Sena’ outfit of the RSS tried to make a case out of imaginary ‘cow slaughter’ and instigate terror and communal tension among residents of Bawana JJ Colony and nearby Bawana village. They had also put up communal posters then calling for a gathering in Bawana Gaushala on 5th October. Continue reading Organized Fundamentalist Hindutva Forces trying to Instigate Communal Tension in Bawana, Delhi →

Everyday Life, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Witness Account of the Trilokpuri Clashes on October 25, 2014: A.M

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AM, a journalist,  writes on Sabrang. Excerpts below and link to the whole piece at the end.

I with a colleague of mine reached East Delhi’s Trilokpuri by 12:00 pm on Saturday. News about alleged clashes had reached us late on Friday night. We were told that the clashes had broken out at around 8:00 pm on Friday but no one was visibly injured. Bricks and empty beer bottles were hurled to and fro interspersed with occasional gunshots. The police reached the area and restored calm. Heavy police presence in the area restored confidence and sent people back into their homes. This is what we had heard.

When we reached the spot on Saturday afternoon at around 12:00 pm, both of us happened to walk right into a mob which had assembled on the main road. Then they started hurling bricks into the air, upped with roaring jubilation and thrill. All at a physical enemy that was not visible. Terrified and taken by surprise, we ducked and ran over to a nearby car parked by the curb. We crouched behind it for over five minutes till we could run farther down to a relatively deserted and safer stretch next to a mother dairy kiosk. That was only one of the many such walk-ins we had and had walked in and out of…

This senseless and directionless fury, we realised, was being whipped up for the fun of it. And, as journalists, we sensed individual families had gathered ammunition, mainly bricks and beer bottles, over the night for a final showdown on Saturday morning. A couple of hours later, my colleague followed a rag picker collecting in a sack bricks strewn over various roads. He saw the rag picker climb into a house and he heard him saying, “Chalo bhai, aaj ke raat ka intezaam ho gaya hai.”…

The atrocities started when policemen began arbitrarily searching houses and rounding perpetrators in the absence of clean evidence or proof. Almost 1000 persons were actively involved in the stone throwing and no one knows which blocks they belonged to and where they had walked to to participate in the violence. Police, clueless and worked up, therefore, randomly began banging on closed doors and shoving their lathis into houses to drive fear and establish control over residents. Most of these houses, however, happened to be in Muslim dominated areas especially in Blocks 14 and 27. The Indian Express reported that “the police have arrested 44 people — 32 Muslims and 12 Hindus” on charges of rioting as listed in the FIRs. This despite Trilokpuri comprising 80 per cent Hindus ( Balmikis) and 20 per cent Muslims. Lopsided statistics and arrests say much about what was happening on the ground…

I was witness to how the Delhi police, had brazenly, in view of  journalists, albeit without cameras employed anarchic, illegal arrests, communal and extrajudicial tactics to impose what they call ‘law and order’- a phrase which constantly equivocates with us, we who lie on the “clean” side of law and those who live outside its underbelly.

READ THE WHOLE ACCOUNT HERE.

Feminism, Media politics, Right watch, Sex, Violence/Conflict

The ‘new and improved’ Love Jihad formula, unethical media and ‘social science’ votaries

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Caught on the back foot by the humiliating backfiring of their fantastical Meerut scenario of ‘gangrape and forcible conversion’, in which the role of the BJP as well as of sundry Hindutvavaadi organizations in breaking up a consensual Hindu-Muslim relationship have been thoroughly exposed, the Hindu Right appears to have arrived at a new formula. This formula has made its appearance in several spaces – in comments on Kafila (some of which have been passed, many more deleted; mostly pseudonymous or anonymous, and in varying degrees of abusiveness); on the social media and in personal blogs; and more respectably, in newspapers, in signed op-eds and articles, the most recent of them by the perennially amusing Madhu Kishwar.

The formula is patented across these sites and involves all or several of the following claims:

a) Hindutvavaadi groups are not the only ones to fear ‘Love Jihad’ – the Church in Kerala and the Akal Takht have also expressed their anxieties about this campaign. So there must be some fire generating all the smoke.

b) So real is the danger that the claims have been investigated by the police, as directed to do so by courts.

c) Hindutvavaadi groups have no objection to inter-faith marriage, what they object to is the cheating of Hindu women into marriage in a well orchestrated campaign by Muslim men who trap them in polygamous marriages only to convert them and produce several children, thus raising the Muslim population.

d) What is happening in India is only a small part of the Global Islamic Terror Machine’s global campaign to use non-Muslim women as sex slaves, to prostitute them, or to seduce them in order to convert them. The recent exposure of a pedophile ring in the UK run by Pakistani men is treated as proof of the existence of such a globally coordinated campaign in which all Muslims are suspect – from Al-Baghdadi of ISIS to your classmate.

e) As irrefutable proofs, three links are generally circulated: a) a programme of IBN7 that ‘exposes Love Jihad’, and b) two videos of young women who supposedly speak about being victims of Love Jihad.

Madhu Kishwar in her article asserts all of these claims produced by the RSS Myth Machine, although she is probably not yet aware of the last item – which I will address at length in conclusion. Continue reading The ‘new and improved’ Love Jihad formula, unethical media and ‘social science’ votaries →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Language, Right watch

Sanskrit and Language Politics Then and Now: Muruganandham

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Guest post by MURUGANANDHAM*

When all the arrangements were made by the corporate media and Hinduist forces for ensuring that Modi became the next Prime Minister, the democratic forces and progressive political organizations were still trying hard to make people understand his real agenda of imposing corporate capitalism and Brahminical Hinduism, in a rapidly fascist manner, in the guise of “development”. Middle class voters were lured by the media and believed him to be the harbinger of “development”. After taking over the rule at the center, Modi’s government has taken up the burden of disproving the undue trust placed on it by the unfortunate Indian middle class – through an array of anti-people activities like cutting of the gas subsidy, privatization of the public sector and substantial hike in train-fare, not to mention the red-carpet rolled out to FDI investments in defense and railway sectors. The Modi government has also been quite manipulative, and has tried to distract people’s attention from these vicious schemes, by working out cultural and social programs with attractive sounding slogans.  The imposition of Sanskrit week, Hindi usage for official purposes, Guru Utsav and more recently the Svach Bharat Abhiyan are only some of those programs which rely purely upon empty rhetoric, hardly having any logic or working mechanism. Invoking people’s imagination towards the “national” symbols is a constant resort of the rulers for political mobilization. More often than not in the Indian context, Sanskrit has been used for this political end in order to sustain the eternal hegemony of Brahminical forces. The present politics behind imposing Sanskrit as the symbol of national heritage and culture by the BJP government certainly demands a much broader understanding of the historical role played by Sanskrit and other languages in shaping the societal structure and cultures. The language which was once denied to the people is now promoted to be the language of all Indians. Let’s attempt to unearth this irony of imposing Sanskrit as the language of “ALL” so as to reveal the ridiculousness of these announcements and the urgent need to oppose them. Continue reading Sanskrit and Language Politics Then and Now: Muruganandham →

Debates, Everyday Life, Right watch

Love Jihad and the roots of hate: John Dayal

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JOHN DAYAL writes:

Three parallel strands of India’s cultural history have merged in recent times into a lethal phenomenon that has been termed “Love Jihad”, which has not only obtruded into the personal lives of young men and women of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian religious communities, but has put to grave risk individual security and community peace.

A attitude to Muslims that verges on Islamaphobia, a pathological hatred for conversions to Christianity – both seen as disturbing the demographic equation in India to  overwhelm the Hindu majority take the traditional national culture of feudalism and patriarchy to a new and explosive level. The current crisis in the Middle east and on the borders with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir provide the trigger, as it were, to the short fuse.

The Indo-Gangetic plans of North India are the main sites of this confrontation but its repercussions have been seen deep in the states of southern India, and the Indian and south Asian diaspora in the United Kingdom and the United states of America.

Political encouragement and patronage to lumpen and criminal moral vigilante groups, administrative and police impunity have led to targetted violence, a wave of hate campaigns, a polarized landscape, and deeply traumatised young couples who have dared, and sometimes married across religious borders. The media has taken sides, the Hindi language newspapers and  television news channels  exhibiting majoritarian bigotry. Civil society has found itself outnumbered.

The church, willy nilly, has found itself dragged into this unsavoury situation. Senior  episcopal and lay leadership of both Catholic and  protestant  denominations have so far not been audible in the defence of what, at the end of the day, are issues of human rights guaranteed under the Indian Constitution  and the Charter of the United Nations.

Read the rest of this article here.

Capitalism, Government, Politics, Right watch

‘Make in India’ – Modi’s War on the Poor

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For some months now, I have been thinking of someone whom I saw on television during the parliamentary election campaign. The place was Benaras and Modi’s candidature from the seat had just been declared. The television journalist was interviewing a group of clearly poor people, taking their reactions on this new, though expected development. This person, fairly drunk in his Modi-elixir – and perhaps also a bit literally drunk – swaggered as he answered, affirming his support for Modi: Modi bhi chaiwala hai, hum bhi chaiwala hain (Modi is also a tea-seller and I am also a tea-seller). His words reflected the success of the remarkable gamble – that of projecting the new poster boy of corporate capital as a humble tea-seller. It was clear how so many of the poor had bought into this campaign.

What reminded me of this person initially, was that very soon after the election results were out, even before the government was formed, ‘team Modi’ announced a series of measures for the development of Benaras, which included the building of 60 flyovers – ‘to ease traffic congestion’. Mainly meant for the benefit of smooth flow of motorized traffic (rikshas, cycles and pedestrians, after all, have little place in the economy of the flyover), this was the beginning of a plan that would transform this holy city. If the experience of building flyovers anywhere in India is any experience, this would additionally mean mass demolition of settlements of the poor, shops and even entire informal markets – including tea shops that have long been part of life of local communities.

Then the government took office. Within a couple of months, the plan for Varanasi’s upgradation started being drawn up more concretely. Not everything in the proposed subsequent plan (end July 2014) seemed objectionable -not the least the idea to work on a possible mono rail, improvement of the bus network, and a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) like the one in Ahmedabad. Except that this would mean more and more dislocation of the poor and destruction of their livelihoods. We have seen this happen in city after city in India, including in Delhi. Continue reading ‘Make in India’ – Modi’s War on the Poor →