Category Archives: Right watch

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Hindutva Terrorism in Karnataka

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A Karnataka dacoit with links to a radical Hindu rightwing group has confessed to having carried out the Hubli district court bombing of May10, 2008.

The blast took place as the first phase of polling for the Karnataka Assembly elections was on – in a magistrate’s courtroom where cases against top SIMI leaders including Safdar Nagori were scheduled to be heard two days later.

(Dacoit with Hindu outfit links behind Hubli blast, Indian Express, January 13, 2009.) 

Does anybody remember the bomb blasts in Hubli (Karnataka, May 2008 ) courts last year when preparations were on for the coming state assembly elections? These blasts which took place on a holiday did not witness any casuality although they extensively damaged the court premises. But the most important part played by these blasts was the atmosphere it created in favour of the BJP.

As it always happens after any such mysterious sounding blasts, many innocents belonging to minority community were illegally detained and quite a few among them also were booked for their ‘role’ in the blasts. The police had promptly claimed that ‘sleeper cells belonging to LeT and SIMI’ had executed the blasts. Continue reading Hindutva Terrorism in Karnataka →

Left watch, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Speech and silencing on the Right and Left

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Lasantha Wickrematunge, the courageous editor of Sunday Leader, a weekly newspaper from Sri Lanka, was recently assasinated by the Sri Lankan state. Relentless in exposing corruption and human rights abuses, he was fully aware of the price he would have to pay. In a stunning editorial that he appears to have written for publication in the event of precisely such an eventuality, and which was published after his death, he directly accuses the government of killing him:

“It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.”

His words of farewell are defiant:

“If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.”

Meanwhile, in Nepal, the premises of Himal media were attacked by people identified as Maoist activists. Today the ‘bourgeois’ media, tomorrow – dissenting Left voices…?

Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Law, Politics, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Guantanamo and Illegal U.S. Detentions: Time for Real Change

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[On the seventh anniversary of Guantanamo Bay, 11 January]

The United States detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – seven years old on 11 January 2009 – have become emblematic of the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the US Government in the name of fighting terrorism. Though the U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close down the Guantanamo Bay, there are undoubtedly substantial challenges to closing. Every day that Guantánamo is kept open is another day in which hundreds of detainees and their families are kept in the legal shadows. Distressing to the individuals concerned and destructive of the rule of law, the example it sets – of a powerful country undermining fundamental human rights principles – is dangerous to us all. It would be no less dangerous, and no less unlawful, if the USA were simply to transfer the problem it has created at Guantánamo to another locations.

Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
Detainees at Guantanamo Bay

The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay isn’t the only prison where the United States is holding detainees from the ‘war on terror.’ At Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper in Iraq, and many more – some known and others secret – are used to detain those captured by the U.S. military. Camp Bucca alone has at times held 20,000 prisoners, most of whom live in groups of tents surrounded by wire. Most detainees are held unlawfully, without warrant or charge, and without recourse to challenge their detention. Even when Guantánamo is closed, the need to push for detainee human rights will continue.

Continue reading Guantanamo and Illegal U.S. Detentions: Time for Real Change →

Excavation, Government, Law, Politics, Right watch, Scams

Character builders of the nation

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‘Na Taala Toota na tijori, Phirbhi BJP Mukhyalaya se dhai karod chori.’
(Neither the lock was broken nor the safe, yet 2.5 crore Rs were stolen from the Party headquarters.)
– An SMS which was circulated widely in the journalist community.

What is the weight of Rs. 2.5 crore if one decides to have the whole amount packed in the denomination of Rs.1,000 notes ?

It is exactly 31 kilograms.

Please do not get surprised over my correct reply. I just wanted to share few details of the ‘theft’ at the headoffice of the main opposition party namely BJP which has appeared in different newspapers.

According to the treasurer of the party there is no cause of worry and once the ‘ankeshan” (auditing) is over then only something definite can be said about it. The latest news is that amount supposedly missing from the coffers has been reduced without any further explanation. Continue reading Character builders of the nation →

Media politics, Right watch, Scams

One small question about Scam Satyam

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Everyone’s blaming everyone for Scam Satyam.

What were the auditors (the hallowed PwC) doing?

What was SEBI doing?

What was India Inc doing?

What were Satyam’s ‘independent’ directors doing?   

Not surprisingly, politicians are also being blamed.

Even the ‘greedy investors‘ are being blamed.

But is it only me or are there others asking: what was the Continue reading One small question about Scam Satyam →

Debates, Everyday Life, Identities, Left watch, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups

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India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, USA, UK, Spain, the Russian Federation, to name a few, are a testimony to the cruel attacks on civilians and other human rights abuses in the recent past by non-state armed groups, including terrorist groups. They are showing utter disdain for the lives of civilians and others, continuing a pattern of serious crimes and crimes against humanity. They fail to abide by even the most basic standards of humanitarian law. The attacks and other abuses by armed groups are so frequent and the security situation so grave, that it is impossible to calculate with any confidence the true toll upon the civilian population, let alone the long term consequences that so many people inevitably suffer.

Continue reading In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups →

Empire/ Imperialism, Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

The Israeli Attack on Gaza: Chris Floyd

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Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza by Chris Floyd

DEMONSTRATION IN TEL AVIV AGAINST THE ISRAELI ATTACK

The Alternative Information Center
Courtesy: The Alternative Information Center, photo by Meni Berman

Award winning American journalist, Chris Floyd, author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Regime, writes:

Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations — for centuries now….”
“This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel — in Israel, but not the United States — are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended — it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect.

Read the rest of the post here.

Politics, Right watch

Welcome Mossad!

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The bloody terror attack in Bombay, which was supposedly directed by the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba, has had an interesting fallout as far as Mossad – the notorious intelligence agency of Israel – is concerned. One finds its growing mention in the Indian media as well as polity as a role model supposedly for ‘being successful’ in ‘curbing the terrorist menace’ inside Israel.

Little did all such ignoramuses ranging from the Barkhas to the Arnabs bother to know the fifty plus year old trajectory of the organisation which is formally responsible for intelligence collection but basically engaged in counter-terrorism, covert operations and paramilitary activities and political assassinations.One could say that it is part of amnesia that none from the chatterati brigade wants to take a critical as well as dispassionate look at its ‘myth of success’ vis-a-vis the Palestinian militants nor do they want know the terrorist acts engaged in by the agency to stigmatise its opponents.

Continue reading Welcome Mossad! →

Debates, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Mumbai, the Hindu Right, and the Problem with Sonal Shah

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Guest post by SVATI P. SHAH

Like so many millions of others, I was glued to the news for days during the Mumbai attacks.  In the aftermath of the terrible human tragedy that reverberates from those long hours, I share the universal concern about the political context for these attacks, a context that is about to change as the governments of India and the U.S. each undergo another major governmental transition. In his response to the attacks, President-Elect Barack Obama said that militants based in South Asia represent the biggest threat to the United States. As we well know by now, South Asia is about to become a foreign policy priority for the Unites States like never before, and this should give us pause. Continue reading Mumbai, the Hindu Right, and the Problem with Sonal Shah →

Debates, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Mr Friedman’s Demagoguery

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Guest post by SAADIA TOOR and BALMURLI NATARAJAN of the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI)

A response to his op-ed piece in The New York Times, December 3, 2008.

Among Mr. Friedman’s long list of talents seems to be the ability to directly access the minds of dead people.  After all, how else could he know that the real attackers in the Mumbai shootings shared the same set of intentions and motivations as the fictional characters he creates who murder an imam and his wife purely for being Sunni?  Maybe his short sojourns in South Asia through airports and the plush suites of the Marriot and the Taj Mahal Hotel do not allow him to imagine any other kind of Muslim than a unidimensional protestor of xenophobic cartoon images (produced, distributed and hotly defended, incidentally, by the enlightened West).  Maybe this talent comes from the same well of wisdom that made him the biggest promoter of the “innovative genius” of Wall Street bankers not too long ago, a position that he now has some trouble justifying, except by calling them “stupid”.  Or just maybe, he has simply made it a habit to promote views and policies that have no basis in fact and do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny.  After all, those are the perks that come with a regular column in a major newspaper and a guaranteed readership just waiting for one to provide the ‘expert’ fuel to their fire.  Continue reading Mr Friedman’s Demagoguery →

Culture, Everyday Life, Identities, Politics, Right watch, Theory, Violence/Conflict

The Fascist Mind: Reading Mein Kampf Today

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NOTES ON THE THEORY OF IDEOLOGY

It is highly instructive to go through the range of comments that some of our recent posts on terrorism and violence have elicited. Apart from some of the more mindless ones, there have also been some that raise supposedly substantive questions but in a manner that presupposes the answers. The very manner of raising the ‘questions’ is such that any answer but the one contained in the ‘question’ is bound to bring forth a volley of charges to which the comments themselves stand witness.

Continue reading The Fascist Mind: Reading Mein Kampf Today →

Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

An SMS and an online signature

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An SMS doing the rounds: Continue reading An SMS and an online signature →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Law, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Grotesque Terror Attacks in Mumbai

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Courtesy Indian Muslims Blog
Courtesy Indian Muslims Blog

In one of the most daring and yet cowardly terror attacks, Bombay/Mumbai has been attacked. In an earlier post we had discussed the question of violence – ‘revolutionary’ violence, and the utter futility of resort to such methods. Violence is not a solution to anything; it cannot be. If anything, it is part of the problem; it is the problem. For violence begets more violence. Continue reading Grotesque Terror Attacks in Mumbai →

Capitalism, Empire/ Imperialism, Left watch, Right watch

The Millennium that Never Came

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by Mike Keefe - The Denver Post
by Mike Keefe – The Denver Post

 

One day the story of the decade gone by will be unpacked by others. This was a decade that was bizarre and terrifying – cluttered with event-scenes: massacres, spectacles, war, endless staged media events, and a mysterious violence with shadow perpetrators whose names changed every day in police stories – a million changing acronyms of ‘terror’ groups.

Continue reading The Millennium that Never Came →

Bad ideas, Culture, Everyday Life, Identities, Politics, Right watch

Bhaiyya Troubles in Mumbai

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The Juhu Versova beach is divided into two sections, guarded by two stray dogs and the bare dirty arses of bhaiyyas who step off their kholis to shit straight into the sea. The other side of the invisible divide is reserved for the civil society which comes to walk, exercise and meditate in the morning. Including well off bhaiyyas like ourselves.

Returning from the beach when I accosted the panwalla by calling him bhaiyya, three bystanders gave me a sharp look. I figured they were marathi manoos. Leaving the shop I tried to inject some pathos by saying that it has become so dangerous to call anyone bhaiyya these days. They did smile, all of them. But I detected a gleam of satisfaction in their expression.

Continue reading Bhaiyya Troubles in Mumbai →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Everyday Life, Identities, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Right watch

Welcome to Kerala’s Haven of Ease and Vice — Chengara

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Make no mistake — this is not my assessment. I’ve just borrowed it from our Chief Minister, the redoubtable V.S. Achuthananadan, the foremost of (official) revolutionaries in Kerala, whose memories of struggle stretch back right up to the workers’ uprising of the 1940s in south Kerala, the Punnapra-Vayalar, celebrated in communist myth and legend.  In September this year it appeared as if the CPM was ready to negotiate with the protestors, but nothing has really moved. The latter have hung firm in their resolve, it requires a rather strange imagination to read that as evidence for ‘peace and prosperity’ at Chengara. The Congress has now emerged, after much slumber, with support for the struggle, and V.M. Sudheeran, one of the most popular and respected leaders of the Congress, has sharply condemned the CM’s statement (below).

Continue reading Welcome to Kerala’s Haven of Ease and Vice — Chengara →

Government, Identities, Law, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Mangalore – Hindutva in expansion mode

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Broken limbs (by amathad)

Guest post by APURVA MATHAD Continue reading Mangalore – Hindutva in expansion mode →

Everyday Life, Identities, Law, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Such absurdity on a Wednesday

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Guest post by SHAHRUKH ALAM

On Wednesday, I met some young men from Dhule. I am not at all sure where Dhule is and I said as much to them. “There was some violence there. It has been in the news lately,” they said. “Did any bombs go off in Dhule?” said I. “No bombs, no. But there was communal violence. It was on the news.” “I only watch prime time news. I don’t usually manage to view the afternoon bulletins. Nor the eleven PM one (informative though they are),” I explained. “So where exactly is Dhule?” I persisted. “It is a district on the north-western tip of Maharashtra. It’s not so far from Malegaon.” Ah, Malegaon! Where the blasts occurred? Finally I had a co-ordinate. Continue reading Such absurdity on a Wednesday →

Bad ideas, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Metropolis, Right watch

On dealing with fuss-tration

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So for those of us who thought that frustrated, naive and aggressive car drivers are a caricature, Hey we at Kafila found one just for our readers.  He is loud, aggressive and fuss-trated as they come. Read on …

The wonderful thing about blogging, I am told, is that it allows everyone to publish their opinions.  At times however, forgive me for saying this, I wonder if everyone should.  My most recent reason for this harsh indictment of the blogging world, is based on this recent post titled “This is what the fuss is about (you twit)”. The title stems from a spot of witty wordplay on one of my recent posts.

The “you twit”, I might hasten to add, is not my addition. it is the author’s impression of my arguments.  While his post is reasonably, if somewhat naively, argued; his frequent abuse stems, perhaps, out of the need to get his blog read. Or maybe it is a style that is much appreciated by his readers.  I will however, thank him for his incisive – if somewhat excessively enthusiastic – critique of my work.

Continue reading On dealing with fuss-tration →

Bad ideas, Identities, Law, Right watch

‘Dhule was burnt after 40 years, despite its glorious tradition of communal harmony’

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Aurangabad Times]
[This report about the recent riots in Dhule comes from from PRATIBHA SHINDE and AMBARISH RAI.] Continue reading ‘Dhule was burnt after 40 years, despite its glorious tradition of communal harmony’ →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Everyday Life, Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Converting lions to elephants

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As the most hideous kinds of violence are unleashed on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka by proud Hindu terrorists, one issue that the liberal Hindu mind-set stumbles over is that of conversions. Of course, violence is bad, it bleats, nothing justifies killings, but mass conversions, you know…

Conversions. Images of Muslim hordes waving their fierce banners, sweeping across the North Indian plains; images of sly Christian missionaries swindling innocent tribals and dalits with food and education and social status, into accepting an alien god. The liberal Hindu, who would never dream of converting anybody to Hinduism, shrinks at these images.

Aditya has drawn our attention to Ambedkar’s clear-eyed insight into why Hinduism is not a proselytizing religion. Can you convert a non-Hindu into a Brahmin? Nope.

Continue reading Converting lions to elephants →