Guest post by WALED AADNAN: On 10th April, 2013, an unprecedented incident happened at Presidency University (erstwhile Presidency College), Kolkata. Now, unprecedented is a strong term when it relates to Presidency College, because it has, over its 196- year- long history, seen much. It has been broken in by rioting mobs in 1926; in the 1960s and 70s, it was the so-called headquarters of the Naxal movement in Bengal; it has nurtured Indian Nobel Prize and Oscar winners and consistently over its history. It has been one of India’s elite colleges and a hotbed of left-wing politics.
Guest post by HARTMAN DE SOUZA. The article was written a few days before April 12, the CPI’s day of solidarity with Odisha mine workers.
When the Goa State Committee of the erstwhile Communist Party of India (CPI) and its national secretary, our very own Comrade Christopher Fonseca, tells you that April 12th will be observed all over India as a day of solidarity with the Adivasi people of Odisha struggling for seven years to save more than 4000 acres of their ancestral lands from falling to mining conglomerates as rapacious as their Goan counterparts, ageing leftists in the village bar are not too sure whether they should laugh or just weep.
Perhaps one needs to paint the larger picture to highlight the irony that lurks in the shadows.
There was a time it needs to be said, when the CPI ran a long, hard and lonely battle in Goa, led by Comrade George Vaz who it is hard to believe was once Comrade Fonseca’s mentor. He was a short, somewhat portly, soft-spoken, widely-travelled man fluent in at least four languages. Not many Goans would know that Comrade Vaz ran a free kitchen in his home at Assenora open to anyone in need of a simple, nourishing meal, or that some of us who now want to weep in our glasses have eaten there several times…
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL lists some reasons why death penalty should be abolished in India:
Inconsistency: Three people, Harban, Kashmira and Jeeta were sentenced to death for a crime in which they played similar roles. But they met different fates. Kashmira Singh’s petition to the Supreme Court was accepted and his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Harbans Singh was recommended by the court for clemency from the President. Jeeta Singh’s petition was dismissed and he was hanged.
Flaws: In August 2012, 14 retired judges wrote to the President of India, pointing out that the Supreme Court had wrongly awarded the death sentence to 13 people. They called the execution of two wrongly sentenced prisoners in 1996 and 1997, “the gravest known miscarriage of justice in the history of crime and punishment in independent India”.
Bias: “I thought I should get all these (capital punishment) cases examined from a normal citizen’s point of view in terms of the crime, intensity of the crime and the social and financial status of the individuals who were convicted and awarded capital punishment. This study revealed to my surprise that almost all the cases which were pending had a social and economic bias.” APJ Abdul Kalam.
To sign their petition to the Prime Minister of India, go here.
Press statement put out by the PEOPLE’S UNION FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS on 12 April 2013.
PUDR strongly denounces the Supreme Court’s dismissal this morning of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar’s plea for commutation of the death sentence awarded to him to life. The issues at stake in this dismissal are multiple, that of clemency, death penalty, miscarriage of justice and precedence.
Bhullar was sentenced to death in 2003 for carrying out a bomb blast outside the Delhi Youth Congress office which killed nine people in 1993. He has been deemed mentally unstable. The High Court’s decision of upholding the death sentence was not a unanimous decision. After he was given the death sentence by the Supreme Court, he appealed to the then President of India for clemency in 2003. The President, after a lapse of over eight years, dismissed his mercy plea in 2011. Bhullar had sought commutation of his death penalty to life sentence by the Supreme Court on the ground that there was inordinate delay by the President over his plea for clemency. Continue reading On the Supreme Court of India’s rejection of the mercy plea of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar: PUDR→
This is a guest post by Ram Krishnaswamy For the last three years activists opposing Aadhaar/UID have argued that it can lead to communal targeting, can aid illegal migrants, can invade privacy, is unconstitutional, does not have parliamentary approval, is illegal, etc. Yet all such objections and more have been successfully stonewalled by UIDAI and UPA leaders.
Further, Aadhaar is not compulsory and so such allegations are considered invalid. The middle and upper class Indians have remained silent about the UID debate, as it does not affect them in the least. The long lines of persons stretching before UID enrollment centers must be proof, then, of the popularity of this concept.
Nandan Nilekani and UIDAI Director General R.S Sharma have repeatedly told the nation that UID, now called Aadhaar, is not mandatory. Yet, over a period of time, they say, it could become ubiquitous, if service providers insist upon it compulsorily, in order to receive their services. To quote UIDAI Chairman, Nandan Nilekani, “Yes, it is voluntary. But the service providers might make it mandatory. In the long run I wouldn’t call it compulsory. I’d rather say it will be come ubiquitous.”
(This piece has been published by the Times of India in its Delhi City section on 14 April, 2013. We are reproducing it here, given the importance of the issue involved. It is somewhat disappointing that it is being treated as a local , internal issue by the media. What we read there are uninformed reports and stories which do not give us the real picture of the academic scene of DU.
Please read and react. We are looking for solidarities of all kinds, Apoorvanand)
The unnecessary and yet frantic haste with which Delhi University is introducing a new Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) brings to mind the advice that autorickshaws often offer on their bumpers: Jaldi mat kar, der ho jayegi (Don’t hurry, or you will be late!). Given the longstanding need for reforms in Indian higher education, the FYUP could be worth examining as a possible option. It could also pilot test the XIIth Five Year Plan strategy for “re-crafting undergraduate education” through FYUPs. But the reckless speed of implementation at DU threatens to wreck all positive potential and derail the national reforms process. At stake here is the future of every college-aspiring Indian, not just the quarter million who will apply to DU this June. Continue reading DU’S 4-year degree course: Reforms at reckless speed→
This is a press release from the Parveena Ahangar-led ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS on 11 April 2013:
The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) strongly refutes the recent claim of the police that Showkat Ahmad Paul, of Lawaypora, is part of a fidayeen squad of a militant group planning to carry out a strike in the civil lines area of Srinagar City. APDP states that the claim floated through a section of the media quoting police sources is utterly baseless and false. After having abducted and disappeared Showkat Ahmed Paul in 2003, this is a fabricated attempt by the security forces and state intelligence agencies to obfuscate and deny responsibility in the case of his disappearance. The family who are being harassed by the security agencies fear for the safety of their son who is in their illegal and unlawful custody since 2003. They fear that after branding him as a Fidayeen the security agencies now intend to murder Showkat, by staging an encounter or using some other extra judicial method. Continue reading Showkat Ahmad Paul is no terrorist: APDP→
Combining field and event, camp is in effect spatial practice.[…] Camps are spaces where states of emergency or legal exception have become the rule. [They offer] the setting for the normative permanence of a suspended rule of law.
~Charlie Hailey, Camps: A Guide to 21st Century Space
The story of Aadhar is not unknown—a new, cutting edge piece of documentary practice jack-booted for this 21st century, it seeks to cull out fraudulent persons tied to dubious places or circumstances (words like ‘ghosts’, ‘fakes’, ‘frauds’, ‘duplicates’ abound in its context). Paeans to the powers of biometrics have been sung from numerous citadels of power—the project’s uniqueness lies in its capacity to channel biological anatomy to a singular fantasy of individually-determined (and fixed) citizenship; its ability to weed out duplication and duplicity in favour of fool-proof individuality; its promise to identify seamlessly; its realization of that ultimate bureaucratic fantasy that seeks to eliminate the noisiness of personhood and the messiness of individual lives by inaugurating a system of identity constructed and at once accomplished through a 12-digit number tied to the bedrock of fingerprints and iris-scans. These seductive powers of identity and technology, long wished for by visions and bureaucratic pursuits of rationality, contrast against fears of the invasion of privacy, the dangers of centralising data, and the abuse of powers and of information by functionaries of government, as well as—by no means less important—prospects of technological malfunction in the field of civic services or anatomical recalcitrance.
We have watched with disgust and horror the brutal police assault on students during a peaceful demonstration organized by four Left students’ organizations on 2nd April, 2013 in Kolkata and the subsequent death of Sudipta Gupta, a participant in the demonstration, while in police custody. Sudipta was a bright student and a leading activist of the Students’ Federation of India. We are shocked to see the Chief Minister of the state absolve the police of any responsibility for Sudipta’s death before a proper enquiry had even been initiated. We do not perceive this incident as an isolated one but rather as the egregious culmination of a series of systematic attacks on the civil and democratic rights of the academic community in West Bengal over recent months. We strongly condemn this unprovoked singular attack on a peaceful students’ demonstration and the subsequent custodial death of Sudipta Gupta. We demand an immediate and impartial enquiry into the incident. Continue reading Statement by concerned academicians on the death of a student in police custody in Kolkata→
Statement from Melbourne Academics in Solidarity with Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Toorjo Ghosh and others at the University of Pennsylvania.
The statement follows the brief background to the issue below:
Ashley L Cohen in The Daily Pennsylvanian
In the pages of The Daily Pennsylvanian and elsewhere, supporters of Narendra Modi have framed the issue of Modi’s disinvitation from the Wharton India Economic Forum as one of free speech. The framing is a clever one. Narendra Modi is a rather unsavory figure, and he is difficult to defend on any other terms. Continue reading Melbourne Academics in Solidarity with UPenn Professors→
It is over two months since policemen and others allegedly molested women students of Delhi University as they protested against Narendra Modi’s presence at a college event within the University Campus. Not a word of support or concern has emerged from the Vice Chancellor. Instead, cases have been filed by the police against students and teachers who participated in the protest. The Vice Chancellor’s silence is probably among the less hypocritical responses that he could have had. At least students don’t have to hear assurances about their safety once more, and that lie has been laid to rest.
Sometime last year I happened to be present at an interaction between the local Delhi police and women hostel residents of Delhi University. The police had informed three hostels of a ‘meet the public’ programme at which we were required to be present and urge students to attend as well. The students, who were preparing for exams at the time, attended the event somewhat reluctantly, but in the course of the evening, provided the feedback that was asked for with unexpected vigour. A woman DCP and other police representatives who had been called to address us, chose to assure us that the city was in fact safe despite a lot of media noise to the contrary, and that the reliability of the police could be counted on in all instants. This did not go down well. Various students asked what they should do when the police leered at them, exposed themselves to the women, urinated deliberately in front of them, lolled in their chairs chatting with security guards while cars slowed down threateningly in front of the hostel gates. The DCP, flummoxed by this flood of complaints, finally said that the police were after all a part of society and would reproduce its problems. This rare if honest admission should be taken seriously as a sign of how women should regard the question of their own safety.
The New Socialist Initiative (NSI), Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA), Nishant, Anhad, Krantikari Lok Adhikar Sangathan and the Stree Mukti Sangathan have put out this statement in advance of the demonstration tomorrow (9 April) 2 pm before the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi.
The neighbouring country of Bangladesh is going through a new churning. Hundreds and thousands of people have hit the streets of Dhaka, demanding strict punitive action against ‘war criminals’ and their organisations, who forty-two years ago—at the time of the liberation struggle/war of the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)—colluded with the Pakistan army and committed untold acts of atrocities on the general public.
Basically, there are two main demands of the protesters: war criminals should be strictly punished and organisations like the Jamat-e-Islami, Bangladesh, should be banned and all commercial and other kinds of establishments run by it should be proscribed. Continue reading In Delhi for Dhaka: A solidarity vigil for Shahbagh→
Being here at this moment, in Shahbagh (Projonmo Chottor, as it is now called) and on the streets with activists from the Gonojagoron Mancha – young people, academics, veterans of the liberation movement, singers, artists, writers, professionals and thousands of ordinary people – is a unique and inspiring experience.
Battle for the soul of Bangladesh – Rally in February against the killing of Rajab Haider, the blogger who was a key figure in the protests against Islamists
Loud voices singing the alphabet ring clear through the otherwise silent morning at Ardhanaripura. Bright eyed children assemble themselves in the school’s only classroom, chattering excitedly while waiting for their teacher to arrive. The school compound is alive with the laughter of the children. The only other sound in the village is that of the wind blowing through the locked, empty houses.
Children at a school in another village of Kollegal district lining up for the midday meal (Image by Junaid A Tagala)
As is the case in most villages in the taluk, the only residents of Ardhanaripura in Kollegal district of Karnataka are the aged and the very young, as all able bodied persons go out of the villages in search of work. Continue reading Children of Kollegal: Blassy Boben→
On 23 March 2013, NDTV featured one of its Walk the Talk features with Shekhar Gupta interviewing Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This was reproduced a few days later in the Indian Express. Coming shortly after the second anniversary of the multiple accidents at Fukushima, the purpose of the interview is made clear by Gupta late in the interview when he says:
…some of us who support the idea of [expanding] nuclear power [in India] need more reassurance from people like you.
And Amano does oblige by asserting,
with more caution, with further measures, I am very confident that nuclear power is much safer than before.
To those already supportive of more nuclear reactors, the interview is likely to have been successful in offering them the assurance that they need, not so much for themselves, but to silence those skeptical of the expansion. But if one reads the interview more carefully, it is clear that the assurance is not really a guarantee that no catastrophic accidents will happen. Continue reading Nuclear Energy – Reassurances Don’t Guarantee Safety: M V Ramana→
Ur-Fascism [Eternal Fascism] is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances – everyday, in every part of the world.
-Umberto Eco
Introduction
Politics in this part of South Asia unfolds itself in very many ways. We have before us a spectrum of regimes ranging from electoral democracies at one end to countries which could be said to be unambiguously authoritarian at the other, and some others with varying mixes of electoral democratic and authoritarian features ‘packed in between.’ Since early 1980s we have also been witness to an emergence of right-wing populist parties and movements throughout a growing number of these countries. Appealing to public anxieties in the wake of rapid economic change, these movements have succeeded in mobilizing and exploiting popular resentments against immigrants, minorities, and the political establishment.
Guest post byDHRUBA JYOTI PURKAITandDEEPSHIKHA HOODA.
Sakhra (Yavatmal): Deep in the heartland of Maharashtra’s suicide-ravaged Yavatmal district, the Gond tribal settlement of Sakhra holds a surprise. “There are no husbands here, just children,” explains Kishore Tiwari, president of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti. A member of the VJAS accompanies us on the bumpy two-hour ride out of Pandarkawada.
We turn onto a dirt trail that runs through a forest clearing; an hour passes before we start spotting cotton fields. We stop and our guide calls out to two female labourers. Only then does it strike us. Most of the labourers picking cotton are women.
It has been 10 years since Laxmi, now 24, gave birth to a son. She met a rich, upper caste boy who had promised to marry her. “Pyaar jataya tha mujhse,” After the delivery, he refused to acknowledge the parentage of the baby. “Congressi tha woh,” she says.
This is a review by JUSTIN PODUR of Nirmalangshu Mukherji’s book Maoists in India: Tribals Under Siege (Pluto Press 2012)
The Maoists in India, Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Central India is a place where all the fault lines of “development” in today’s world converge. Indigenous people, vast stretches of natural forest, mineral-hungry corporations; media, government institutions, and political parties heavily compromised by private interests; people’s struggles, armed insurgency, counterinsurgency, military occupation, paramilitarism – all are present, and until recently, it has all been a well-kept secret.
The struggles play out differently in different parts of Central India. In Orissa, indigenous people’s movements have battled mining companies and stalled projects for years, in Kashipur and Lanjigarh. In Chhattisgarh, in the northern Bastar region, one of India’s billionaires, Naveen Jindal of the Jindal Group (also a polo player and a Congress Party Member of Parliament for a different district), wields tremendous economic and political power. The mines use captive power plants, coal or hydro, so each mine causes massive ecological and agricultural damage. In a profile by Mehboob Jeelani in Caravan Magazine on March 1, 2013, Jindal explained his philosophy: “We don’t control all the raw materials, but we have captive mines for 60 or 70 percent. This is something my father really believed in—that we must control our raw materials. If we don’t, then other people control us. So we made a conscious effort to acquire coal and iron ore mines.” In southern Bastar in Chhattisgarh, a Maoist insurgency is fighting against government forces, police, paramilitaries, and vigilante groups, from bases deep in the forest, in a war that was largely unknown for decades.
In India, the secret of the insurgency was broken by a series of atrocities committed by a group called Salwa Judum, starting around 2005. Salwa Judum in the Americas would be called paramilitaries, but in India is called a vigilante group. Salwa Judum was organized by the state and headed by a Congress Party politician named Mahendra Karma. It burned hundreds of villages, committed murder and rape, and tried to channel the indigenous people of the forest villages into roadside camps, where their movements could be controlled. This was all done in the name of fighting the Maoist insurgency, and it largely failed on those terms: Maoist numbers increased, the indigenous people went deeper into the forest. But it was a human disaster, and that human disaster has continued. The objective is the lands where the indigenous people (in India called adivasis) live – specifically the minerals underneath those lands, which put them in the way of the extractive development model and hence, in the line of fire. Continue reading To Break a Siege: Justin Podur→
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 