Category Archives: Violence/Conflict

Left watch, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Nandigram Tribute to the October Revolution – CPM style

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When a people lose the confidence of the government, it is time to dissolve the people and elect a new one. Thus spake Brecht and this is exactly what the Indian heirs of Stalin are doing in West Bengal. On the day of the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution the armed gangs of the CPM launched another bloody attack on the people of Nandigram who had committed the crime of refusing to be its Praja anymore. The Home secretary of the West Bengal who is supposed to know what is happening in the state said that it is a war like situation in Nandigram and the CPM is leading the attack. He was promptly censured by the patriarch Jyoti Babu and the hawk Biman Bose. They castigated him for his ‘lack of understanding’ of the ground situation which, they claimed was based on misinformation. Who has the ‘Right’ information, pray? Who, but the Party! The Party is all pervasive in the state of WB and the Home Secretary was trying to commit the greatest blasphemy questioning it.

How many people have been killed and how many displaced? You would never know the exact figure and extent as the area is under seige and the CPM would never allow ‘outsiders’ to meddle into their affairs. They are sorting it out and the state government of the West Bengal has given them a free run. This is one reason why the party has asked Buddhadeb to wait a little till they have finished their business of cleansing Nandigram of the undesirable elements.

Continue reading Nandigram Tribute to the October Revolution – CPM style →

Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Myanmar: India’s Escalating Security Response and Denial of Rights

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Reality has an incurable habit of striking back at rhetoric. The Indian government’s support for the demand to release Aung San Suu Kyi in the UN, and a few statements in favour of democracy in Myanmar, might be effective in hiding the larger foreign policy issues for a while for a few; but it cannot make the foundational structural and political issues disappear in their entirety, or for long, or for the majority. The government, with scant concern for the democratic and peaceful movements of the Myanmar people, continues to compromise at the level of discourse and direct action.

See the actions of our government along the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur and in other north-eastern states, to prevent the influx of individuals who are fleeing the ongoing crackdown in Myanmar. Take the cases of several other Myanmar nationals who are now at risk of being forcibly returned to Myanmar. After the crackdown on peaceful protests, along with searches, surveillance and harassment of individuals who took part in these protests, numerous Myanmar people have had to go in hiding. They are also fleeing to neighboring India and Thailand. The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper warned that ‘anyone who is detained for his violation of law must be charged and serve prison terms if he is found guilty.’

Continue reading Myanmar: India’s Escalating Security Response and Denial of Rights →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Saffron Terror

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Nanded, in Maharashtra, is a town with a significant population of different faiths – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist. Nanded could well have become a new metaphor for secularism as practised in the Subcontinent, but this was not to be. Instead, Nanded has come to represent the emergent danger of a violent new brand of Hindu militancy, with due support from a section of the state machinery. A place that was once witness to the final days of Guru Gobind Singh, Sikhism’s Tenth Guru, has today metamorphosed into an epicentre of violent Hindutva. Indeed, Nanded represents the build-up of the violent fundamentalist Hinduism of the past half-century. The town has been witness to a new spate of acts that can be inarguably dubbed ‘terrorism’.

The inner workings of this new form of Hindutva were on show recently in two, evidently accidental, explosions in Nanded within a span of nine months, in April 2006 and February 2007. These blasts, which killed four people, took place at the houses of activists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena. The arrival of Nanded on India’s ‘terror’ map was followed by media investigations into similar previous incidents, which also showed the involvement of Hindu youth in terrorist actions.

The new element here is the increasing similarity between Hindu militancy and ‘terrorism’ of other hues. Continue reading Saffron Terror →

Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Suspend All Military Support to Myanmar Junta

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yangon demonstrations

There has been a flood of reports of alleged brutal killings, disappearances and arrests as the military in Myanmar stamped out the anti-government protests of the last week. At least 1,000 people have been arrested in Yangon alone, the majority of them monks. Arrests are also reported from towns and cities across the country. This is in addition to at least 150 other persons arrested in August at the onset of the protests. Numerous key figures in the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party, and other activists are among those arrested. However, it remains extremely difficult for anyone to confirm details about who has been arrested, where they are held, why and under what circumstances. This uncertainty is partly as a consequence of restrictions on internet and phone use.

Continue reading Suspend All Military Support to Myanmar Junta →

Government, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

“IB’s bearded ‘jihadi’ moulvis trapping Muslims “

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[Evidence is piling up – of a whole range of so-called encounters to actual ‘terrorist’ acts, conducted by police, intelligence agencies and their undercover agents. Different groups and organizations have been gathering evidence, meticulously documented, that shows clearly how police have gone about ‘fighting terrorism’ and in effect (if not by intent) actually created an atmosphere of terror for the minorities. Every time such a suggestion is made, predictably, there are howls from certain quarters. So we think this extremely important and silent work of documenting will eventually help to uncover the nefarious ways of these agencies. Often these are carried out in cahouts with the organizations of the Hindu Right. How many times have we not wondered about so-called terrorists who come out of a railway station, take a taxi to go and either blow up Akshardham temple or the Ayodhya ‘Ram Mandir’! What if their train was late? what if, they did not get a cab on time. What if….But does it really matter, with a gullible and all to complicit media to blow up police versions as ‘serious terrorist plots’? Here then, is a small story from The Kashmir Times. The characters mentioned in this story are not unfamiliar to those who follow how they were first recruited as ‘mukhbirs’ or informers and when they refuse to play along, they become ‘terrorists’ – exactly the way the ex-surrendered Afzal Guru was made into the ‘terrorist ‘who, even the Supreme Court felt should be hanged to satisfy the ‘collective conscience of the nation’ even though no evidence could be produced against him. So, much for the “world’s largest demcracy”. – AN ]

NEW DELHI, Sep 21: Next time, you confront a long bearded Maulana with some sob story extorting young men to take to ‘Jihad”. Beware! He could be an intelligence mole, hunting for fodder to the canon of “war on terrorism”. A former informer of Delhi Police’s Special Cell and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) now cooling heals in Delhi’ Tihar Jail is spilling beans.

Continue reading “IB’s bearded ‘jihadi’ moulvis trapping Muslims “ →

Media politics, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Deoband Muftis Criticize Fatwa Against Taslima

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[A report from khabrein.info by the Staff Reporter, Khabrein. Did anybody see this report filed in the mainstream media? Maybe we missed it. Barkha Dutt sure did not see the placard-wielding protestors protesting against the attack and subsequent fatwa against Taslima Nasreen. Do we by ignoring such voices of internal opposition and by arrogating all secular wisdom to ourselves, really advance the cause of  ‘secularism’, Ms Dutt? We wonder. Extracts from the report:]

Clerics at world renowned seminary Darul Uloom Deoband (waqf) have denounced fatwa against controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen saying that the fatwa in itself was illegal. Prominent muftis of the madrasa Maulana Khursheed Alam, Asst. rector of the seminary Mufti Ehsan Qasmi, Mufti Muhammad Arif and Maulana Abdullah Jawed said that in a democratic and secular country like India a fatwa like the one that sought beheading of Taslima Nasreen was not based on a sharia law.

A cleric in Kolkata had issued a fatwa or a death warrant Friday against Taslima Nasreen if she did no leave India. “Anybody eliminating her would be given Rs 100,000 and unlimited rewards if she does not leave the country immediately. She has insulted Islam and continued to create problem in this country,” said Syed Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati, the shahi imam of Tippu Sultan Mosque in Kolkata. He went on to say that “We are forced to issue such a warrant because the government is not making use of the constitutional provisions and driving her out of the country”.

Read the full report here.

Countryside, Government, Law, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Roma’s Arrest, Land Mafias and the Indian Police State

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Even as semi-literate journalists and supposed pundits in the Capital celebrated the 60 years of the “world’s largest democracy”(incidentally the greatest and most grotesque cliché of our times), away from the “watchful eyes” of the media, other less savoury stories have been playing themselves out. Brave and self-effacing women activists like Roma, have been arrested under the National Security Act and have now been labeled as ‘Maoist’, according to a report in the Jansatta (Ambarish Kumar, 17 August, “Manavidhikar Karyakarta to Ab Naxali Banane ki Muhim”). This is no small and isolated happening. It is, in a microcosm, the story of what this ‘largest democracy’ is all about. The ultimate weapon of a desperate police force (widely used all across the length and breath of the country) of ‘labeling a dog mad before killing it’ is being brought into play to deal with peaceful struggles of ordinary people.

For those who have any idea of the activities of activists like Roma, this is a lie of the most blatant sort. Roma has been long active in organizing the tribals and landless Dalits, and especially, of late, landless women to fight for their property rights. Roma’s struggle has been fought under the banner of Dr Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Savitri Bai Phule, Birsa Munda and Rani Lakshmibai and has never resorted to any kind of violent means. Nonetheless, her arrest, along with Shanta Bhattacharya and Malati, in Sonbhadra district of UP, shows that even such non-violent and constitutional struggle is becoming impossible in large parts of the country today. It is the state and the police that are producing Maoists by the hour. It is not without reason that former Prime Minister VP Singh had to proclaim in utter exasperation that he too wants to become a Maoist. It is the utter cynical contempt with which the state, the judiciary and the media have treated a long and peaceful struggle against land acquisition – the Narmada Bachao Andolan – that sends out the signal, loud and clear that the only language that the state and the cohorts of corporate capital understand is that of the gun.

Continue reading Roma’s Arrest, Land Mafias and the Indian Police State →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

‘Bal Thackeray’s Big Heart’ : Bombay Riot Victims Pe Mat Ro

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It is difficult to say how many journos or politicos managed to have a look at the recent meeting between Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chief Minister of Maharashtra ; his deputy Mr R.R. Patil, who also handles the home ministry and Bal Thackeray, the octogenarian leader of the Shiv Sena, at Matoshree, the house of the Thackerays. It was reported that the Congress high command had specifically asked Mr Deshmukh to visit the Sena Supremo to thank him for his support to Ms Pratibha Patil in the Presidential election.As was expected the meeting went well. While the two sides formally maintained that not much should be read into their convergence of views over the Marathi Manushi’s candidature for the august post, it was evident that a new chemistry was unfolding itself between the long time adversaries. At least one could gather it from the exchanges they had or the body language of the leaders. “You have a big heart.” Vilasrao Deshmukh is learnt to have told Balasaheb Thackeray. The Sena chief’s prompt reply was worth noting: ” I have a big heart indeed, but people fail to understand this.”( Indian Express, July 19, 2007) Continue reading ‘Bal Thackeray’s Big Heart’ : Bombay Riot Victims Pe Mat Ro →

Government, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Bangladesh: Faces of Emergency and Human Rights Issues

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Cholesh Richil had no charges of corruption or criminal activity in Bangladesh, which is ruled under emergency and a civilian caretaker government, backed by the army. An outspoken leader of the Garo indigenous community, who live in the Modhupur area north of Dhaka, Cholesh had been campaigning against the construction of a so-called ‘eco (ecology) park’ on their ancestral land, on the grounds that it would deprive them of their land and means of livelihood. He was arrested by the Joint Forces (army and police) personnel on 18 March 2007 and taken to Modhupur Kakraidh temporary army camp. Tortured for several hours before being taken to Madhupur Thane Health Complex, he was declared dead the same evening.

After Choesh Richil’s body was handed over to the Garo community church on 19 March, his family observed multiple bruises, nails missing from his fingers and toes, and cuts and scratches consistent with blade wounds. His testicles had been removed. Local government officials have stated that an ‘administrative inquiry’ into the case has been initiated, but none are aware of the terms of reference or the progress of the inquiry.

Continue reading Bangladesh: Faces of Emergency and Human Rights Issues →

Bad ideas, Debates, Everyday Life, Images, Media politics, Right watch, Sex, Violence/Conflict

A Modest Proposal to End All Controversies on Freedom of Expression in India

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(apologies for cross posting on Commons Law and Reader List)

As we know well by now from the freedom loving sentiments (that are expressed loudly and frequently) by all sections of the guardians of social order in India, (that is Bharat, that is Hindustan), the real reason why certain insignificant documentary independent and student films, contemporary art exhibitions in university campuses and performances are banned, and their heinous perpetrators arrested has to do with the general populations right to sleep undisturbed each night and not to see anything other than cricket matches, news about cricket matches, election analyses, kaun banega crorepati, Abhishek Bacchan’s wedding, and yoga on TV.

Why should anyone in their right mind want to see, read, listen to or even think about anything else?

Consider the folly that some students in Kottayam have recently contemplated, making a film on of all things ‘Homosexuality’ .

Or, of the students in the Fine Arts Department of M.S.University in Baroda who went ahead and organized an exhibition of student work that contained offensive erotic imagery.

Both of these moves have been met with swift and timely responses. The offending students in Kerala have been expelled by the Christian educational institutition where they were enrolled, and the offending art student in Vadodara, one Chandramohanm has been arrested by the local police at the urging of Hindutva minded citizens.

There are only two things we need to learn from incidents of this nature. The first is as follows –

Actually, all that people need to do is to insist that only the self appointed guardians of public morality (of all stripes and shades) have the right to appear in any broadcast, exhibition, film or other forms of mediated communication. We need every channel to broadcast morally cleansed reality TV all the time. How else will this nation boldly venture where none other has gone before – into that heaven of bliss and freedom known as ennui for the billions.

Continue reading A Modest Proposal to End All Controversies on Freedom of Expression in India →

Media politics, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Vanzara’s Parable

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Economy of language, as we know, is vital in an era marked by the proliferation of too many words. So my plea is that we stop using the phrase ‘fake encounter’ because encounter will suffice. Fake encounters somehow seems to posit a difference between a real encounter (that’s the one in which the police go on an investigation and the assailants open fire and the police gun them down in self defense) and a fake one (that’s the one in which the police go on an investigation and the assailants open fire and the police gun them down in self defense). A difference, which has clearly escaped my comprehension. In India we have got used to accommodating words that don’t really serve a purpose, or where their meaning has been displaced, and they serve almost as empty pronouns. The names of shops like Zevar Jewelry, Chitra Pictures serve as good examples. Fake encounter is a good addition to the list. Continue reading Vanzara’s Parable →

Government, Law, Metropolis, Violence/Conflict

The Impossibility of Satire

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The first impulse that one has after coming out of a court hearing is to create a satire that accurately captures the slightly bizarre and terrifying vision of judges that one has had a chance to experience. But can caricature really live up to its responsibility of laughing truth to power? John Beger has said that “Graphic caricature is dead because life has outstripped it. Or more accurately, because satire is only possible when a moral reserve still exists, and those reserves have been used up. We are too used to being appalled by ourselves to be able to react to the idea of caricature”. So instead of imposing an impossible goal for satire, let us allow the court speak for themselves. Continue reading The Impossibility of Satire →

Government, Law, Media politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Gujarat Fake Encounters: The Spin Doctoring has Begun

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The Gujarat Fake Encounter Story is rapidly being scripted along the familiar lines of the ‘Corrupt Policeman-Corrupt Politician-Underworld Links’ nexus. While this may be true, (and I do not doubt that Narendra Modi, who holds the ‘Home’ portfolio in Gujarat, must not be entirely un-involved in this matter) it would be unfortunate if the Gujarat ‘fake encounter killings’ , like ‘fake encounter’ stories in Kashmir, Delhi or elsewhere are now spun into ‘systemic aberrations’. Rather, they should be seen as evidence of how the system actually works, and how efficient it is.

Continue reading Gujarat Fake Encounters: The Spin Doctoring has Begun →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Apko Goli Kisne Mari?

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[I wrote the following report in July 2002 when a group of us -including some present-day Kafila writers – worked in a riot relief camp in Vatwa, Ahmedabad. Before Gujarat, and this report, I was an unhappy student of Chemistry in Delhi University, un-sure of what i wanted to do post-graduation. I’m not saying that I chose to become a journalist specifically after the Gujarat riots; but this was the first long report I had ever written, and revealed to me the possibilities of journalism – not as a tool of communication and dissemination, but as a means to make the world intelligible to one’s self. Gujarat in 2002 did something to you that could not pin-point, but having left you knew that something profound had changed. Re-reading it (before posting), I found myself ( as a journalist) a little embarrassed by some of the conclusions I drew, some of the sentences I constructed, and some of the grammar I bridged. But I have resisted the urge to correct it beyond a spell-check.]

6th July 2002

When I arrive in Ahmendabad, 3 months have passed since the grisly horror of Febuary, but the scars are still there for all to see. All except for the State Government i.e., which continues to turn a blind eye to the plight of the victims. The people of Gujarat are a study in numbness, a numbness which hangs heavy in the air, and affects all who touch it, including myself. After a point, the sight of burnt buildings and broken localities no longer produce a feeling of outrage and horror, and instead I lapse into a mood of hollow despair. Continue reading Apko Goli Kisne Mari? →

Identities, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Cows, Women and Hindu Manhood

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Life in Modi’s Gujarat

Gujarat is calm. And is on the march. Every village of the state is a Jyotigram. Narmada water is flowing in abundance in the canals quenching the thirst of Gujaratis. “Was not Surat flooded a few months back and did not the people of Gujarat suffer?” I ask my driver. “No, was not Narendrabhai there to take care of everything,” he replies. How can anything go wrong when Narendrabhai is keeping watch!

Narendra Modi, you see, does not have a family and he works round the clock, we are informed. I find Modi smiling down at us benevolently from the digital billboards that dot Ahmedabad. There is no escaping his firm developmental smile. “The man has impressive qualities. Gujarat is bound to forge ahead under this workaholic chief minister. A citizen may have doubts of his secularism, but even his enemies don’t doubt his competence,” writes Gunawant Shah, a popular Gujarati columnist.

Continue reading Cows, Women and Hindu Manhood →

Capitalism, Left watch, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Insider’s Account of What Happened in Nandigram

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A senior journalist based in Kolkata has given a chilling account of the “police blueprint” for action in Nandigram in an exclusive to sacredmediacow.

Everyday Life, Identities, Violence/Conflict

Mortuary Blues

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Post-Gujarat riot people asked me have you written anything – a poem, an essay, a short story, anything? It is strange. Every time a cataclysmic event takes place, there is pressure on a creative person to respond to it. As if it is proper to respond to a catastrophe. As if it is an obligation if you are creative. As if art must serve a purpose in the end. As if underneath every creative urge there is a political undercurrent. As if there is a subtle politics that must consume every art form in the end. As if every expression of art is a grand statement redeeming a belief. But unfortunately creativity is not subservient to anything. It has its own mysterious, enigmatic, whimsical way of manifesting.

I read about the riots like million others as a news item. I had a vague confusion within, mixed with rage and a sense of injustice. (This does not mean I feel less enraged hearing a non-Muslim’s death. Normally, I don’t need to qualify a statement like the one above but I have heard such retarded inane counter-remarks that I think I need to clarify it.) And in spite of trying hard my pen spluttered nothing. Then seven months later, one August afternoon, as I was rehearsing for a play (George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and The Man – Why that play I wonder?) it all came to me. I do not know how I should categorize this poem. This was neither a response nor a rant. I wasn’t trying to make any statement. I just wrote a poem. And I know Gujarat was on my mind when I wrote this.

Mortuary Blues

Slithering
through her soul
are few uneasy thoughts.
A blob in her throat,
her voice choked,
she stretches her hand,
as if a magic wand
will bring it all back –
the dreamful of sack
bit-by-bit stacked
in afternoons doing nothing.
Her son, perhaps, lies dead here
(She doesn’t even know it!)
amidst the decomposed heap.
She stretches her hand
to reach out for what,
I don’t know.

She may be a Muslim
or a Hindu, who cares
in this urban milieu.
Haven’t we all died
in our own mother’s eyes
so many times, whenever she wished
for a son or a daughter
to hold her if she falters.
But we all had our reasons,
perfectly justified reasons.
It’s no different here;
She only looks for a son
who is not there.

She wades through
her resolve, her stubbornness.
It has acquired
a macabre face now.
She stumbles,
gets up, only to stare
at a charred face.
Maybe he’s her son,
maybe he’s not.
She lost her reason
long before she lost her son.

I stand quietly
with a list in my hand
I don’t know who’s who,
all I have here are few names.
A stink greets us.
My soul silently pleads,
silently pleads to her
to quickly confirm
that this room
does not have her son.

I am just a municipal clerk,
doing an honest work,
diligently counting the dead
to earn my humble bread.
Arrey! This is just a mortuary!
I’ve seen worst crimes
at a spin of a coin –
the crime where one kills
one’s own conscience.
In this age of karseva and jehad,
wonder anyone heard a word called ittehad?

She straightens up, sighs,
looks at me with moist eyes.
Her face though sad
is at peace. She says
does it matter? Does it matter this room
has her son or not?
Even if this room had her son,
it means nothing.
I quickly extend my hand
expecting her to grease it.
See, I’ve been kind enough
to let you in, to let you
search for your son.
She smiles sadly
they took it all away in the riot.
I shrug my shoulders,
Ok! For once I shall be magnanimous!

© Dan Husain
August 26, 2002

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Powerful Bomb Explosion in Nanded : Milli Gazette

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One person was killed on the spot and another severely injured when a powerful explosion took place in the house of Shivram Manganarikar at Shastri Nagar, Nanded. The explosion is suspected to be caused by the accidental blast of a bomb that was either stored or was being manufactured.According to reports, the explosion took place at around 12:30 on Friday night. Shivram Mangnarikar is a retired school teacher whose house was severely damaged due to the explosion. One youth called Pandurang Bhagwan Anilkandwar, aged 30 years, was killed on the spot. Another youth, Gyaneshwar Manikwar, was severely injured with 70 percent burns. The explosion was so powerful that the shutter of the front-side shop was thrown off to a distance of 40 feet. The windows were burnt and glass cracked. The household belongings were scattered everywhere with blood and flesh. Walls were cracked and the site is in total disarray.

Continue reading Powerful Bomb Explosion in Nanded : Milli Gazette →

Images, Language, Media politics, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The Ghost of the Middle Ground

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Uncertainty, Ambiguity and the Media Response to Efforts to Secure a Commutation of the Death Penalty for Mohammad Afzal Guru and An Enquiry into the Events of December 13

Shuddhabrata Sengupta, January 1, 2007 (posted earlier on the Sarai-Reader List)
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‘Now is the Winter of Our Discontent made Summer by the Pleasing Light of Television’

At the beginning of each new year, it is customary to take stock of what has happened in the last 365 days, and reflect on options for the future. I don’t want to speak for the entire year (let’s leave the year end newspaper and magazine supplements and the TV round-ups to do that). But I do want to look at this bleak now, the ongoing “winter of our discontent”, especially as it has played out on that hallowed and late, lamented entity called the ‘middle ground’.

This ‘middle ground’ is a territory currently under the occupation of large bastions of the mainstream media in India. It was on the parched soil of the ‘middle ground’ that the beast called public opinion was so eagerly sought to be beaten into shape (or pulp, depending on your point of view) in a daily gladiatorial during the course of the last few months. While this has always been the case, it did come into especially sharp focus ever since the question of the execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru came back on to what is sometimes called the ‘national agenda’ in late September – early October 2006. What began during our brief autumn rapidly gathered momentum as winter set in.

The thick fog that descends on Delhi with the onset of deep winter is a time where plots are laid ‘in deadly hate’, and ‘dangerous inductions, drunken prophecies, libels and dreams’ are aired by means of strategems that have every reason to be called ‘subtle, false, and treacherous’. Had William Shakespeare been writing a draft of Richard the Third in Delhi during an early twenty first century winter, he might have set the bleak iambs of the opening soliloquy in a television studio, and made the actor speaking them wear the pressed suits of a certain variety of senior journalist or news anchor, or the uniform or distinguished plain-clothes attire usually to be found adorning the person of an operative of the special cell of the Delhi police, or the Intelligence Bureau. Perhaps there might even be some actors who could essay both roles (a certain kind of journalist and intelligence operative) with practised ease, because there is so little left nowadays, to distinguish between the two functions. Call it what you will, embodied intelligence, or embedded journalism.

Continue reading The Ghost of the Middle Ground →

Violence/Conflict

Thinking Kambalapalli in times of Khairlanji

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M Venkatrayappa, a dalit from Kambalapalli, Kolar district, Karnataka still remebers the last glimpses of his wife Ramakka, sons Sriramappa and Anjaneya and daughter Papammas. It has been more than six years that they died a very tragic death. All of them with four others from their hamlet were burnt alive by the local Reddys.The police termed it revenge killing, supposedly in retaliation against the killing of Krishnappa Reddy, a village functionary belonging to upper castes.

Kambalapalli massacre in March 2000, had made national headlines.The tremendous public uproar compelled the then Congress government not only to apprehend the culprits but also shift the dalits to a new village which is situated around 40 kms from Kambalapalli.

Today all that is passe. The first week of December when the whole nation was debating the growing surge in atrocities against dalits came the damning verdict in this particular case. All the accused were acquitted.In legalese they call it the case getting settled as all ‘witnesses turned hostile’ during the court hearings. Continue reading Thinking Kambalapalli in times of Khairlanji →

Right watch, Violence/Conflict

One Question

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It is a matter of great satisfaction that our sluggish justice delivery system has bestirred itself and through a process of daily hearings found 100 people guilty of the conspiracy for the Bombay blasts. Almost 90% of them were Muslims, they as well as the remainder, have all been served their just desserts.

Justice has not only been done, more importantly, at least as far as our 24X7 media is concerned, it also appears to have been done. Every one knew from day one, who those fellows were, now the courts are saying that as well. So once these two basic requirements of appearance and deed have been met the national conscience, so gravely disturbed over the last several decades, can heave a collective sigh of relief and all men of good faith can take a well deserved rest.

One question, however, continues to bother me. Continue reading One Question →