Category Archives: Right watch
Right to Read Campaign
Right to Read Campaign – Problem Statement
Millions of Indians are unable to read printed material due to disabilities.
There are technologies available which can help them read print if the
material is converted into an alternate format such as large print, audio,
Braille or any electronic format. While the Indian constitution guarantees
the “right to read” as a fundamental right, the copyright regime does not
permit the conversion of books into accessible formats for the benefit of
persons with print impairment, as a result of which a “book famine” is
created. International conventions that India is a party to specifically
require India to amend its copyright laws for the benefit of persons with
disabilities and to make available information and material to persons with
disabilities on an equal basis as others. Publishers also do not make books
available in accessible formats as a result of which less than 0.5% of books
are available in accessible formats in India. As a result persons with print
impairments get excluded from the education system and it impacts their
career choices. In addition to this, there are no national Policies or
action plan to ensure that publications in accessible formats in all Indian
languages are available to persons with print disabilities all over the
country.
Objectives of the Right to Read Campaign
· To accelerate change in copyright law
· To raise public awareness on the issue
· To gather Indian support for the Treaty for the Blind proposed by
the World Blind Union at the World Intellectual Property Organisation
(WIPO).
This campaign is part of the global Right to Read Campaign of the World
Blind Union.
As part of the campaign we are creating audio visual clips of eminent
persons, celebrities etc. supporting the Campaign. If you know any eminent
persons, celebrities etc. who are willing to support the campaign do mail me
(rahul.cherian@inclusiveplanet.com) so that we can arrange for their
testimony to be recorded. Your support is vital for the success of this
campaign. More details will follow.
Magistrate Tamang, a hero: Vasudha Nagaraj
By VASUDHA NAGARAJ via FeministsIndia List
You can download here the report by Magistrate Tamang.
I cannot resist but recount this account of exemplary courage and commitment of a Magistrate working in the Metropolitan Courts of Ahmedabad. He is none other than Magistrate Tamang who has been in the news for the past few days.
Brief facts: We all know about the encounter of Ishrat Jehan and three others in the outskirts of the city of Ahmedabad which took place in June, 2004. Soon after the encounter there were enquiries by human rights groups which declared that it was a cold blooded killing and not an encounter. To counter the demands the Crime Branch ordered a Magistrate to enquire into the matter. It has been reported that no Magistrate was willing to stick his neck into this issue. Finally on 12 August, 2009 the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) ordered Magistrate Tamang to conduct the inquiry. The latter was supposed to conduct this inquiry under S 176 CrPC. This is the section of law in which a Magistrate is empowered to hold an inquiry into the cause of death whenever a person dies while in police custody or when it is a death in doubtful circumstances. Generally, under this section of law, Magistrates record dying declarations of women who are dying and lying in the hospitals.
Saffron Blunderland – Can the Saffrons bounce back?
The BJP would bounce back in the near future much on the lines of a Shav (dead body) metamorphosing into Lord Shiva.
Mohan Bhagwat, RSS Supremo talking to media in Delhi
There are rare moments in the trajectory of a modern democracy where one is witness to the apparent implosion, albeit in a slow motion, of a political party. Today, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal opposition party in India, which was yearning to reach the citadels of power just a few months back, presents such a spectacle. With two consecutive defeats, in the 2004 and 2009 parliamentary elections, followed by the factional bloodletting which is now reaching its pinnacle, the ‘Party With a Difference’, as it used to describe itself, presents a pale shadow of its earlier self. It is a sign of the tremendous crisis faced by the party that for the first time in its 29-year old history, the top leadership of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), recently had to intervene to put the house in order. Apart from newly-appointed RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat, a number of other senior leaders literally landed in the capital to hold consultations with the top brass of the BJP to find a solution to its seemingly intractable problems. The latest news is that BJP President Rajnath Singh and leader of the opposition L K Advani have been ‘persuaded’ to relinquish their posts. A search is on for possible successors.
Continue reading Saffron Blunderland – Can the Saffrons bounce back?
The Ghost of Jinnah, Advani and Jaswant Singh
[That the BJP expelled Jaswant Singh for writing a book on Jinnah is hardly surprising, even if it represents really the most rotten part of contemporary India’s political culture from the Right to the Left: intolerance of intellectual differences. What is intriguing is that Jaswant Singh wrote the bookknowing well that this would be the end of his political career; even LK Advani could not survive his praise of Jinnah and even though he came back, he remains a pale shadow of his former self. So Jaswant never really had a chance. I have not yet read the book but have tried to follow those who have. While a more detailed analysis will have to wait, I am posting a piece I had written sometime ago as part of a larger academic paper which deals with Advani’s Jinnah episode and the seductions of secularism. – AN ]
Advani Meets the Ghost of Jinnah
On 5 June 2005, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani unleashed a storm within his party and its allied organizations of the Hindu Right. On that day, speaking at a function organized by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law (KCFREAL), Advani referred to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s speech in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947 and described it as ‘a classic exposition of a Secular State’ and Jinnah as a genuine secularist (Advani 2005). In this speech, sections of which Advani read out at length, Jinnah, the founder of the ‘Islamic state of Pakistan’ had said: ‘You are free, you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the State…You will find that in the course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State’ (Jinnah 2005).
On the previous day, Advani had already fired his first salvo. He had visited the Qaid-e-Azam mausoleum where he made the following entry in the visitor’s book: ‘There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. There are very few who actually create history. Qaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah was one such rare individual.’ And further, recalling Sarojini Naidu, underlined: ‘Sarojini Naidu, a leading luminary of India’s freedom struggle, described him as an ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity. His address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, is really a classic, a forceful espousal of a secular state…’ (Sarwar 2005, Kapoor 2005). If there was any doubt in anybody’s mind that this was not just a polite entry in a visitor’s book, made in a formalistic way, Advani hastened to clear it in the speech that followed the next day.
Continue reading The Ghost of Jinnah, Advani and Jaswant Singh
Savarkar’s Phoney Followers
(Politics is a game of the impossible. The Sangh Parivar, which never enjoyed a smooth relationship with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar when alive, now wants us to believe that it is the true and the only heir to his legacy. It is a different matter that even Savarkar’s diehard followers do not seem amused with all their rope-tricks. The manner in which RSS-BJP handled the issue of memorial for Savarkar in faraway France indicates once again the floundering of their strategy.)
I
Gopinath Munde, senior leader of BJP, was in for a great shock the other day when he realised that his move to corner the ruling dispensation at the centre on the issue of Savarkar memorial had boomranged on himself and the party as well. In fact he had discussed the issue with his close associates and had informed senior leaders of the party about his plans. He had expected that by raising an emotive issue around ‘Swatantryaveer’ Savarkar on the eve of elections to the Maharashtra assembly, he would be able to score a point vis-a-vis the Cong-NCP coalition. Continue reading Savarkar’s Phoney Followers
BP Singhal: “I don’t have any problem with homosexuals. Do you?”
Bharatendu Prakash Singhal, 78, is a Hindutva ideologue, a retired IPS officer and a former BJP Rajya Sabha MP. On a Sunday afternoon I visited him to discuss his opposition to the decriminalization of gay sex by the Delhi High Court. He is preparing to appeal against it in the Supreme Court. Singhal explained that he wasn’t opposed to private consensual sex between same-sex adults, he didn’t want such adults prosecuted or persecuted, but he merely wanted the law to remain on paper as a deterrent. This is the transcript of a recorded interview; a much shorter, edited version has appeared in Open. Continue reading BP Singhal: “I don’t have any problem with homosexuals. Do you?”
Is the Naz Foundation decision the Roe v. Wade of India?
There are surprisingly few constitutional cases in India which have had the same symbolic power that cases like Roe v. Wade (affirming the right of abortion) or Brown v. Board of Education (dissolving racial segregation in schools) have had in the political history of the United States. For sure, there are a number of important constitutional cases which have contributed significantly to the democratic history of India. Kesavananda Bharati’s espousal of the basic structure doctrine, Maneka Gandhi’s introduction of due process in Art.21, but these cases seem to have an appeal largely within the legal fraternity. They are also cases where the relief sought by the petitioners have had little to do with the final outcome of the case, and it is highly doubtful whether his Holiness Kesavananda Bharati had any investment in the long term impact of the basic structure doctrine (not to mention that Kesavananda Bharati just doesn’t roll of the tongue as easily- in terms of recall value). Is it possible then that Naz Foundation v. Government of Delhi is the first equivalent of a case whose name conjures up the history of particular struggle, celebrates the victory of a particular moment and inaugurates new hopes for the future.
Continue reading Is the Naz Foundation decision the Roe v. Wade of India?
Hindu Rashtra in Delhi
(Protest by Hindutva organisations against construction of a mosque in Rohini Sector 16, Delhi…Prayer by the MUSLIMS not allowed by hindutva forces on 26.6.2009 and those who were coming for the NAMAZ were beaten up and chased back. .. Hooligans marched in street to look out for muslims…Women also participated in large numbers..Timely intervention by the police..19 arrested……Appeal to maintain communal harmony by citizens groups.
According to reliable sources, a piece of land was alloted by the DDA to the ‘Dargah Islamiya Intezamiya Committee’ for a mosque in the area in North-West Delhi to cater to the longtime demand of the minority community. In fact people from Rohini have to either to go to Badli or Avantika, if they have to offer Namaz on anyday..
– Based on newspaper reports appearing in Rashtriya Sahara, Rojnama Sahara (27 th June 2009) and others) Continue reading Hindu Rashtra in Delhi
Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror
Churches in Nepal, the erstwhile Hindu Rashtra on the face of the earth have maintained a unique tradition. They hold services on Saturdays because it is a public holiday when schools and offices are closed.
When Deepa Patrick, 22 and Celeste Joseph 15, both from Patna went to visit some of their relatives in Lalitpur, situated south of Kathmandu, they found this fact of Lalitpur’s christian communities social life very interesting. In one of her last emails to her parents back home Deepa even specifically mentioned this aspect of Lalitpur, which has a very small community of Christians living there for many decades. Continue reading Bomb Blasts in Nepal: Global Dimensions of Hindutva Terror
जे पी आन्दोलन की भूल
नीतीश कुमार आलोचना से परे हैं. इतिहासकार, राजनीतिशास्त्री, समाजवैज्ञानिक या पत्रकार, अभी सब नीतीशजी के गुणगान में व्यस्त हैं. इसलिए आश्चर्य नहीं हुआ जब जे.पी. आन्दोलन से जुड़े लोगों के लिए बिहार के मुख्यमंत्री ने पेंशन की घोषणा की, तो कहीं से आलोचना का कोई स्वर नहीं सुनाई पडा, एक जनसत्ता की सम्पादकीय टिप्पणी को छोड़कर. खबरों में यह बताया गया था कि कांग्रेस विरोधी उस आंदोलन में जो जेल गए या घायल हुए, उन्हें पेंशन दी जाएगी. जनसत्ता ने ठीक ही यह प्रश्न किया कि क्या जयप्रकाश के नेतृत्व वाले उस आन्दोलन को भारत के स्वाधीनता आंदोलन के समतुल्य माना जा सकता है. यह सवाल भी अपनी जगह ठीक था कि अगर बिहार अर्थ-संकट से जूझ रहा है, तो इस बेतुकी योजना के लिए पैसे कहाँ से निकल आए!
जे.पी. आन्दोलनकारियों के लिए पेंशन की इस योजना का लाभ किस एक दल या संगठन के लोगों को सबसे ज़्यादा मिलेगा, अंदाज करना कठिन नहीं है. राष्ट्रीय स्वयं सेवक संघ या तत्कालीन जनसंघ और अब भारतीय जनता पार्टी के सदस्य इस आंदोलन में बड़ी संख्या में थे. बल्कि यह आंदोलन पहला ऐसा बड़ा मौका था, जिसने आर.एस..एस और जनसंघ को राजनीतिक मान्यता दिलाने का काम किया. जयप्रकाश आर.एस.एस. के खतरनाक स्वभाव से परिचित न रहे हों, यह आरोप उनपर नहीं लगाया जा सकता. फिर भी कांग्रेस विरोध की राजनीति के कारण जयप्रकाशजी को आर.एस.एस. के साथ काम करने में हिचक नहीं हुई. १९७४ के पहले १९६७ वह बिंदु है, जिसे आर.एस.एस. को राजनैतिक वैधता दिलाने के सन्दर्भ में याद रखना चाहिए. कांग्रेस विरोध के प्लेटफार्म पर समाजवादियों और वामपंथियों को जनसंघ के साथ आने में कोई परेशानी नहीं हुई थी. तात्कालिक राजनीतिक यथार्थ और बाध्यताओं की दुहाई दी जा सकती है और इस तरह के गठजोड़ के पक्ष में तर्क दिए जा सकते हैं. लेकिन क्या हम यह मान लें कि जनसंघ को राजनीतिक और आर.एस.एस. को सामाजिक वैधता दिलाने का परिणाम भारत को आगे जा कर भुगतना था, इसकी कल्पना करने की क्षमता जयप्रकाशजी में नहीं थी! अभी इस आन्दोलन की सम्यक समीक्षा होना बाकी है, लकिन मैं २००३ के दिसम्बर महीने में एक साथ तीन राज्यों में भारतीय जनता पार्टी की जीत के बाद रांची के अपने मित्र, जे.पी. आन्दोलन के पहले दौर के कार्यकर्ता, पत्रकार फैसल अनुराग की बात भूल नहीं पाता हूँ. उन्होंने बड़ी तकलीफ के साथ कहा कि मैं अब सार्वजनिक रूप से यह कहने को तैयार हूँ की जे.पी. आंदोलन एक बहुत बड़ी भूल का शिकार था.
Continue reading जे पी आन्दोलन की भूल
To RSS with Love: The Real Story of 2009 Elections
If news reports are to be believed, the RSS has come out with the most classic analysis of the 2009 election verdict: Advani did not enthuse the Hindus. [Read carefully: He could but he did not. A small boy, kal ka chhokra, Varun Gandhi had to lead the way!] Only a shade better than the West Bengal CPM claiming that they lost because Karat and the central leadership withdrew support to the UPA…as if they themselves – or Nandigram had nothing to do with it! Or the Kerala CPM claiming that it was due to chief minister Achuthanandan that they lost – Achuthanandan the agent of the bourgeoisie who ‘roared with laughter’ when the party was losing the elections! Or Sitaram Yechury claiming that UPA won because they claimed the credit for NREGA and Forest Rights Act which ‘we had forced them to enact’ – but ‘we’ lost! Amazing stuff, these elections and even more amazing, the post-election antics. But today’s topic is not the CPM. For, the real story is the RSS and BJP love story that is once again on the rocks.
RSS spokesperson MG Vaidya was forthright: “The BJP must reflect Hindu nationalism or else it is free to remain as any other party not associated with the Sangh… What’s wrong if people have gathered the impression that the BJP uses the Ram temple issue only for political gains?… The mainstream in this country is Hindu and the RSS is engaged in unifying Hindus. The BJP or any other owing allegiance to the Sangh must reflect this philosophy in its deeds.”
Continue reading To RSS with Love: The Real Story of 2009 Elections
Kitnay Kashmir
To the growing voices of peace, return and reconciliation amongst young, exiled Kashmiri Pandits, Rashneek Kher has a revealing response:
I have neither been a votary nor a detractor of the idea or concept of Panun Kashmir but truth be told I have always found it as a perfect counterweight to the secessionists policy of Azad Kashmir. Continue reading Kitnay Kashmir
Ajmer Blasts: Revisiting Hindutva Terror
It has been more than one and half years that the great Sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti based in Ajmer, Rajasthan, which is equally revered by the Hindus and Muslims, reached headlines for unforeseen reasons. On 11 th October 2007 it witnessed a bomb blast which saw deaths of two innocents and injuries to many. In fact it was for the first time in its few centuries old history that blood of innocents lied splattered in those areas where thousands and thousands of people use to gather daily to offer their prayers.
As was the routine procedure then – when Hindutva terror had not reached headlines – a few fanatic Islamist groups were blamed for this ignoble incident. There were interrogations, arrests, quite a few people were illegally detained supposedly to extract their confession for this act. Media was not to be left behind, it had juicy stories about the plans and the execution of this inhuman and barbaric act, and definite clues about its real ‘masterminds’ remote controlling from across the border. Witch-hunting of the community went on for a while. And as usually happens in such case(s), after some initial hullabaloo Ajmer blasts were relegated to the inner pages of newspapers in one small corner. People also lost interest. Perhaps they had more exciting news awaiting them. Continue reading Ajmer Blasts: Revisiting Hindutva Terror
About Warped Minds
Update: See this FAQ by Sundeep Dougal.
Guest post by DILIP D’SOUZA
All over again, timed with the run up to voting, there’s plenty of uproar over Gujarat. A Times of India journalist called Dhananjay Mahapatra wrote a report (NGOs, Teesta spiced up Gujarat riot incidents: SIT, April 14) which casts doubt on a number of aspects of the violence in Gujarat in 2002.
In his report, Mahapatra mentions the Special Investigation Team that has been looking into the violence. On April 13, writes Mahapatra, “the SIT led by former CBI Director RK Raghavan told the Supreme Court on Monday that [Teesta Setalvad] exaggerated macabre tales of wanton killings.” (Note the impression he gives that Raghavan himself was in Court on Monday to say this). Mahapatra’s report also tells us several things that Gujarat counsel Mukul Rohatgi said in Court. Continue reading About Warped Minds
April 13 a Day of Ignominious Capitulation in Pakistan: HRCP
[The following is the text of a press release issued by Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on April 14, 2009. The formal adoption of the Nizam-e-Adl is widely perceived in Pakistan as a surrender to the Taliban and a way of imposing the Shariat Laws in the region. And for good reason. As it went up for approval to the National Assembly, the Taliban and the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) warned parliamentarians against opposing the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation. Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami Naib Amir Senator Prof. Khurshid Ahmad has criticized the liberal secular lobby for debunking the introduction of Nizam-e-Adl in Malakand Area.]
Lahore: The way the National Assembly resolved to back the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation for Malakand Division on Monday does no credit to the House, and the day will be remembered for the state’s humiliating submission to blind force, a statement by HRCP said on Tuesday.
Continue reading April 13 a Day of Ignominious Capitulation in Pakistan: HRCP
Swat Flogging and Public Outrage: Beena Sarwar
[This article was first published in Dawn 12 April 2009. It is reproduced here courtesy South Asia Citizens Web. The recent reports of the most spine-chilling instance of flogging of a young woman by Taliban goons unleashed a wave of indignation across Pakistan. This comment by Pakistani journalist Beena Sarwar is self-explanatory. For all the political illiterates and those given to anti-Muslim hate-speech in this country, this report and the innumerable discussions and posts on sites like Chowk, should indicate how much the Taliban and terrorism are hated and resisted by ordinary ‘secular’ people and women’s and human rights groups in Pakistan. They should indicate that ‘Islam’ and ‘being Muslim’ are themselves intensely contested ideas. But of course, we know that nothing can teach these hate-mongers anything, for they are the mirror-image of the Taliban. And as for us, as the old song goes: hum korea mein hum hain hindustan mein/ hum roos mein hain, cheen mein japan mein…And one might add: Pakistan mein bhi hain aur sare jahaan mein…
(There we are in korea and in hindustan/in russia we are, in china and in japan/and in pakistan too we are, we’re in the whole wide world…)
It is people like us there who must fight the Taliban, and people like them here who must fight the Hindutva fascists – always, relentlessly…Even when in the minority and especially when the political parties and leaders desert en masse. – AN]
In the “flogging video’s” undated footage shot with a cellphone in Swat (judging by the language and clothes) a man whips a woman in red, her pinned face down on the ground and encircled by men. The leather strap strikes her back as she cries out in pain.
The video, circulated on the Internet before local television channels broadcast it, caused a furore both in Pakistan and internationally. What caused the outrage? The public punishment meted out to a woman — or the fact that it was broadcast?
Continue reading Swat Flogging and Public Outrage: Beena Sarwar
Arise, awake, the people who run Facebook
From: Nisha Susan
Date: Sat, Apr 11, 2009
Subject: Pink Chaddi vandalised and taken over Continue reading Arise, awake, the people who run Facebook
BJP without RSS?
Right since the controversy over L K Advani’s remarks on Jinnah, there is a section of the ‘liberal’ Indian media which has argued that all the BJP needs to do is divorce/separate/delink itself from the RSS. It would then turn into a ‘normal’ right wing party. I remember this was a line taken up strongly by the Indian Express. The subtext of their editorial position was that there is a strong left tilt in Indian polity; Nehruvian socialist rhetoric remains ingrained; and a ‘non-communal’ BJP can provide the right balance. (Where they see the left tilt when few of us can or how much further right they still want to push India is an altogether different debate). In a chat with CNN IBN website readers, Ramchandra Guha takes up a similar position arguing what India needs is BJP without RSS. (and ‘a Congress without the dynasty and a modern and unified left’).
I do not understand Indian politics too well, nor have covered the BJP. There are others who have written about the relationship between the two in great depth. But from the little I have seen of them while reporting in a few Indian states, here is a simple thought – the BJP will not be BJP if it is detached from the RSS. To assume that BJP can remain a party without the RSS structure to back it or BJP can separate itself from the larger ‘parivaar’ seems to be based on a limited understanding of both the BJP and RSS. Continue reading BJP without RSS?
Apocalyse Now: A Swamp Rises to Swallow the Rock of the Faith
From the outside it is hard to tell. The glory of Kerala’s mighty Catholic Church, it appears, has weathered many a tsunami. The communists tried in 1958; they tried in 2006-07 too. Each time, the Church brushed off the challenge, transmogrifying itself, almost miraculously, into a murderous majoritarian tsunami in defense of theism that swept away the Unbelievers into the depths of hell. Again, the Church proved that the malicious schemes of Syrian Christian dissenters, puny individuals, Education Ministers in communist-led ministries — Joseph Mundassery then, M.A.Baby now — shall be foiled by the hand of God. Thus in 2006-07 too, the power of Faith burgeoned, once again, into a tremendous cyclone which swept the Unbelievers’ dastardly designs off the face of our Fair and Promised Land, Kerala. Continue reading Apocalyse Now: A Swamp Rises to Swallow the Rock of the Faith
Cultural Policing in Dakshina Kannada: Vigilante Attacks on Women and Minorities
[This summary comes to us from ARVIND NARRAIN (ALF) of a report brought out by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka (PUCL-K) in the wake of the attacks on women in Mangalore by cadres of the Hindu right-wing Sri Ram Sene.]
It was only after the continuous telecast of the images of the women who were subjected to an horrific assault by cadres of the Sri Ram Sene in a pub in Mangalore on January 24, 2009, that public attention gravitated towards what was happening in Mangalore. Self styled vigilante groups in Dakshina Kannada have begun to police social interactions between members of different religious communities such as boys and girls drinking juice together or sitting together on a bus merely because they come from different religious communities. Cultural policing also targets women in particular and lays down norms with respect to public spaces they can occupy and the clothes which they can wear. Cultural policing has as its primary target, young people. From Shefantunde (16) who was attacked for talking to a Hindu girl to a college student Shruti and Shabeeb for talking on a bus to Anishwita (23), Akeel Mohammmad (24) and Pramilla(22) for drinking a juice together, its the young which has come under vicious attack. Perhaps we also need to think of the young not just as victims but indeed as agents of social transformation who through their everyday acts of fraternal living are fulfilling the promise of the Indian Constitution and thereby imperiling the ideological agenda of those who see India differently. Cultural policing aims to punish all those who try to live out the meaning of the Preamble’s promise of ‘fraternity’ and is a fundamental attack on the very Constitutional order. The promise of fraternity held out in the Preamble is what is contested at its very roots by cultural policing. What cultural policing wants to produce are monolithic self-enclosed communities with no form of social interaction between them. It is antithetical to the idea of ‘We, the people of India’ and insists that India is no more one nation, but rather a collection of separate peoples. This Report documents how sixty years after independence, the vision of the framers of the Constitution is sought to be so completely repudiated by organizations which are bent on ripping out the heart of Indian Constitutionalism.
The full report is available on the Alternative Law Forum website and can be accessed here.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 