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
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
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
[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
[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
From: Nisha Susan
Date: Sat, Apr 11, 2009
Subject: Pink Chaddi vandalised and taken over Continue reading Arise, awake, the people who run Facebook
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?
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
[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.
Brand Advani: Perils of Rebranding
[It is for the first time in his nearly five year old tenure as PM that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a stinging attack on L. K. Advani – PM in waiting as far as the Sangh Parivar is concerned. Prime Minister was candid enough to remind about the “prominent role” played by Mr Advani in the Babri Masjid demolition, or how he presided over Gujarat riots and failed to prevent terror attacks on Parliament and Red Fort as Home Minister.]
1.
L.K. Advani, the ‘Swayamsevak’ from across the border, the hawk of the nineties or the rediscoverer of Jinnah wants to do a makeover. Not a day passes when we are presented with a new look of the old man who has already crossed eighties. Sudheendra Kulkarni, his speechwriter shared the understanding behind LKA’s rebranding mission. ‘Man of Eighties, Vision of Twenties’. If one day he is presented as an emotional patriarch who has no qualms in shading tears after seeing a movie the next day he is packaged as the man in his energetic twenties and shown raising dumbells at a gymnasium or the next day he is with a family in hospital which tried to committ suicide because of financial problems. Continue reading Fighter for a Great Yesterday
Omid Reza Misayafi was a blogger.
That is not why he has lost his life in prison.
It’s because of what he wrote.
The Gujarat Earthquake in the year 2001 and the consequent relief and rehabilitation programme was an eyeopener to the outside world regarding the deep seated caste bias in the Gujarati community apart from the much talked about bias against the minorities. There were reports that at places the relief and rehabilitation work bypassed the dalits and the Muslims.
Interestingly Babasaheb Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar had asked his followers to stop Hindu Raj becoming a reality at all costs. Continue reading Dalits in ‘Hindu Rashtra’
Justice Balakrishnan, in refusing to quash criminal proceedings against a nineteen year old blogger, says that any blogger posting material on the web should be aware of the reach of the internet and hence also be willing to face the consequences of such action. This sounds fair enough, and it would seem that if bloggers are exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression, then they should be subject to the same norms as a newspaper or magazine would, including the possibility of legal action being taken against them.
This sentiment reminds me of Anatole France’s famous statement that the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. The quick equation of an individual blogger with the might of a newspaper or a magazine is a little troubling. Individuals do not have the same kind of power, money or reach to be able to defend themselves in the way that newspapers may be capable of. Continue reading Bloggers and Defamation
(Apologies for posting a mere press release, but it’s something important and yet I don’t think it will be ‘interesting’ enough for the ‘national’ media to pick up. This is not to take sides at all, because there are no sides to take.)
RASHTRIYA SAMAJ PAKSH
PRESS RELEASE
Rashtriya Samaj Paksh, Shiv Jayanti meeting attacked by Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai
The Shiv Sena once again proves that it is a Brahmanical party by attacking OBC’s
Mumbai – February 23, 2009
A meeting that was organized by the activists of the Kurla unit of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP) was attacked by Shiv Sainiks. The SS storm troopers, numbering 50, unleashed their fury on the meeting, shouting slogans, attacking the people and throwing chairs. The very fact that the Shiv Sainiks attacked Shiv Jayanti celebrations organized by the OBC (Other Backward Caste) activists, namely the Dhangar community (Shepherds) has once again exposed the Manuwadi – Brahmanical character of the Shiv Sena. Continue reading SS Stormtroopers attack OBCs celebrating Shiv Jayanti
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In line with that, a public service message about trolls, as much for ourselves as anyone else!
From here.
A friend said that last week in Bangalore and the drama(s) around Valentine’s Day would make a wonderful PhD thesis if one had the time and the distance. Two things are of relevance here.
One, the spread of communal politics that is inherently violent and divisive is not new to our country. Moral policing forming a major part of it and translating primarily into the control of the everyday lives of women, control over the institutions that could keep the regressive ideas around religion and caste in place such as marriage have been the standard points of attack in many parts of the world and in India. To maintain the notion of the ‘other’ that these divisive forces base their politics and everyday activities, we should never meet or get to know the ‘other’. And thus the attacks on young people who had friends across communities. It is these incidents that have sometimes spiraled into well-planned, thoroughly executed, state-sponsored carnage of people from certain communities, namely the imaginary ‘other’. Continue reading Valentine’s day and protest in Bangalore, 2009
The Manglore-style of violence against women is clearly not the style of the politically powerful guardians of sexual morality in Kerala. But maybe the style is more or less redundant over here: there are very few pub-going local (or local-looking) women over here. How convenient for us women of Kerala that we Malayalees live in social arrangements that insist on sexual segregation in public spaces and institutions.
This is of course related to the particular history of gender and spatiality that unfolded between the mid-19th and 20th centuries in Kerala.Spatial categories have always underwritten caste and gender exclusion in Malayalee society. Take for instance, the derogatory term chanthapennungal (‘market women’) that refers to women who get their way through loud and vociferous argument – who work for their livelihood in market-space and reject feminine modesty. The chanthapennu is the very antithesis of taravattil pirannaval (‘she who was born in an aristocratic homestead’). Thus the woman whose daily life and labours involves traversing spaces outside the domestic and the familial is forever poised at the brink — she is who may, at any instant, collapse into being chantappennu.In traditional Malayalee society, family spaces were named by caste and constructed through caste practices and gender norms. For instance, the Brahmin home was referred to as Illam or Mana; the Nair homestead as Taravadu or Idam.In other words, a generalized notion of domestic space housing the family was absent. Indeed, the observance of spatial regulations was often taken to be crucial in shaping feminine moral qualities found characteristic of the aristocracy — and hardly vice-versa.
Today is Valentine’s day and it is only befitting of the changing times that the Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik and his cohorts should receive huge consignments of pink chaddies. Responding to the call of the ‘Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women’, pink chaddies, we are told, “kept pouring into the Sene office all through the day. The parcels came mainly from Punjab, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kerala”, according to reports.
Many of us who wanted to be part of the open and vigorous demonstration of love but couldn’t, would like to send many more panties to the members of this monkey gang (Ram’s sena was after all, Hanuman’s!). And wherever we are, we will drink in pubs and make merry. Muthalik, you will always remain in the hearts and minds of all the ahle-junoon-i-ishq. Har ghoont sharaab ke saath tujhe yaad karenge…Aakhir kaun hai is duniya mein tere siva, jise jalaane ke liye ek bosa-e-gul, ek chaddi ya ek ghoont sharaab bas kaafi hai? Hamaare halaq se utri har ghoont teri chita ki aag hogi goya…
This is a guest post by PRAMADA MENON
Sundays are days for doing nothing much. Often I sit in front of the television and surf and watch many, many movies until all the story lines start merging into one. It’s fun because it does not require you to think. If one switches on a news channel, the chances are that you will start to splutter like mustard seeds in oil, since there is so much to splutter about – Nirmala Venkatesh, a member of the central government’s National Commission for Women, was put in charge of a three-member panel to investigate the attack on the women at a pub in Mangalore at 4pm in the evening. The way she sees it, Venkatesh is supposed to have said, women have the right to enjoy themselves but should also recognize societal limits. As part of her inquiry, she said, she plans to meet with the attackers, the bar owner and the families of the young women to see whether their parents
allowed them to go out to pubs every night at midnight. “My personal advice: Women should be very careful,” she said. “I can’t just roam after midnight.”
“Governments have always lied. They naturally deny it, even long after it is abundantly clear that they have lied, trailing multiple red herrings, dismissing inconvenient evidence, implying that there is counter-evidence they are not free to produce. When a lie can no longer be credibly denied it is justified, usually by an appeal to the national interest. Governments of modern representative democracies are no different, even if they are more liable than dictators to be exposed.”
– Colin Leys, Quoted in Socialist Register, 2006
The National Capital Region (NCR) witnessed a police encounter on the eve of the republic day. Two young men who were supposedly carrying a big cache of arms and ammunition were killed on the spot. We were told that this duo was part of a larger LeT module, which wanted to wreak havoc in the capital.
The killings of the two young men did not cause much uproar.
The police officers appeared jubilant over this episode for foiling such attempt. To blunt any possible criticism of the incident a due enquiry was also ordered by the powers that be and has even promised that it would be completed in a stipulated time.
The Ideological and institutional Incorporation of Dalits Into Hindutva maelstorm
There are many lower orders in the Hindu society whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of majority of Muslims and they would be far more ready to make a common cause with the Muslims for achieving common ends than they would with the high caste hindus who have denied and deprived them of ordinary human rights for centuries.
Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar – Writings and Speeches Vol 8., P. 359
(“[U]ntouchability, is a kind of disease of the Hindus..it is a mental twist.. I do not know how my friend is going to untwist the twist which the Hindus have got for thousands of years unless they are all sent to some kind of hospital.’
Dr B.R.Ambedkar , 1954 , Quoted in Bhagwan Das, 95 :53).
Introduction
Dalits, or ex ‘untouchables’, comprising one-sixth of India’s population, a majority of whom still live at the bottom of the social hierarchy called caste system live a precarious existence. The plight of this section – which is routinely discriminated against and subjected to overt-covert violence of many forms – has of late been much discussed in the international fora as well. Continue reading The New Footsoldiers
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 