By the way, belated Happy Republic Day! Say it loud and clear brother, lest you also get an order like this one of these days!
(Thanks, Chandni Parekh.) Continue reading Republic Day in Srinagar
The New Footsoldiers
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
Reading Swarup, Watching Boyle
When I read Vikas Swarup’s Q & A a year or so ago, I was intrigued and disappointed equally. I felt the author had focused all his energies on the tight and intricate plot, moving rapidly through it with no slip-ups, but this resulted in a grand plot outline rather than a novel. The prose is functional, characters inked in strongly but with little nuance, and when it all comes together with a click at the end, it is sort of morbidly satisfying, but one feels cheated nevertheless. All the more so because the story lingers stubbornly in memory.
I was interested enough keep track of Swarup, and found an interview in which he said that after writing four chapters he had to wind it up in a month since he was getting posted back to India and knew he would not have time for it back home.
“It was August 2003, and I had one more month in London. The plot was in my mind, so I took up the challenge and wrote down the remaining chapters in one month. Over one weekend I wrote 20,000 words.”
Well, that certainly explained the strange slightness and lack of density – the author’s hurry to reach the finish line shows drastically.
After seeing Slumdog Millionaire though, Q & A in retrospect appears serpentine in its complexity, so completely has Danny Boyle extracted the simplest and most predictable story line out of it. Continue reading Reading Swarup, Watching Boyle
Beyond violence and non-violence – K Balagopal
Via Jamal Kidwai
[We are posting this piece by K Balagopal, hoping to continue our reflections on violence and non-violence in political movements. – AN]
The public arena is witness to dispirited discussion of the ineffectiveness of people’s movements, which are at the most able to slow down things, and nothing more. The discussion often turns around violence and non-violence, not as moral alternatives but as strategic options. Those who are sick of sitting on dharna after dharna to no effect are looking with some envy at violent options,
while many who have come out of armed groups find the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) fascinating.
It is good that there is some openness in the matter now, for dogmatic attitudes have done considerable harm. To say that one should not be dogmatic about violence may be morally a little unsettling but it is a defensible position even without adopting a relativistic attitude towards the preciousness of life or a casual attitude towards one’s moral responsibility for injury caused in the course of a struggle. More of that in the right context. But the
discussion will unavoidably be based on assessments of the effectiveness of the alternatives, and a distant view is likely to colour the reality with hopes and assumptions, even illusions. A realistic assessment of what each strategy has been able to achieve would better inform the debate.
The plain and stark fact is that while all strategies have been effective in curbing some injustice, none has succeeded in forcing the government to take back a single major policy in any sphere. And none has been able to reverse the trends inherent in the structures of society and economy. Yet no serious political movement or social struggle we know of is only for softening oppression or improving relief. The general understanding is that governance of the country – and may be the systemic infrastructure of society – is fundamentally wrong and needs remedying, maybe overturning. Do we know of any
effective strategy for that? I am not talking of political strategies,
but strategies of struggle that will successfully put pressure upon the State and the polity to stop them in their tracks. The struggle may be built around class or caste or any other social combination. It may in the end seek reform or the upturning of the polity. It may operate mainly or in part within the polity or keep out of it altogether. Whichever it is, the common problem is this: the experience of this country is that governments do not stop doing some thing merely because it has been demonstrated to be bad. Or even contrary to constitutional directives and goals. They stop only if going along is made difficult to the point of near impossibility. No democratic dispensation should be thus, but Indian democracy is thus. Short of that, you demonstrate the truth of your critique till you are blue in the face or shout till you are hoarse in the throat, it is all the same.
Continue reading Beyond violence and non-violence – K Balagopal
Corporate Complicity and Gujarat
The 4th ‘Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit, organized by the Gujarat government on 12-13 January 2009 in Ahmedabad, and the statements by some prominent Indian corporate leaders, have spawned protests, analysis, debates and questions about corporate accountability, complicity, responsibility and rights in Indian democracy. At this biennial event, ‘Jai Jai Garvi Gujarat’ has been showcased as an ‘ideal investment destination, both for Indian and foreign investors’, where prospective investors have ‘only Red Carpet and no Red Tape and it is where investors can sow a rupee and reap a dollar as returns’ (see Official portal of Gujarat Government).
Bringing together business leaders, investors, corporations and policy makers by a democratically-elected government, exploring business opportunities and signing memorandum of understandings are legitimate economic activities. However, the projection of the Chief Minister of the State, Narendra Modi, as the next Prime Minister of India by corporate cheerleaders is much more than mere economic activity. It is turning a blind eye to gross abuses of rule of law, and knowingly assisting a political leader and his government to continue committing them. It is becoming party to a specific political vision in a manner that incurs responsibility and blame. Such corporate leaders thus become complicit with a government and its leader in serious human rights abuses. It is negative and unacceptable.
A short note on National Interest
The list of things that can be done in national interest appears to grow longer every day. While in India it can be used for anything from destroying working class housing to build stadiums to destroying tribal communities to build dams, to torturing, illegally detaining, and killing innocents under false pretences; in the US, officials and executives are coming to terms with how to deal with an “economic emergency”.
As information on Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch begins to trickle through the American financial press; news of Merrill’s larger than expected losses seems to have taken some of the sheen of BoA Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis’s knight in shining armour costume.
As reported by Reuters on Jan 16th, shareholders at BofA believe that, at $19.4 billion, Lewis not only overpaid for Merill Lynch; but Merrill’s staggering $15.3 billion dollar loss suggests that he did not do his homework on the deal. As Dennis K. Berman notes in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, the murkiness surrounding the deal has meant that “in the past five trading days, Bank of America’s market capitalisation has dropped 45 %, wiping away a sum greater than the Merrill transaction itself.”
Are you an Al Badr militant?
CBI irked by special cell for framing 2 informers as terrorists
Fresh probe needed against two suspected terrorists: Delhi Police
CBI, Special Cell in row over terror suspects
CBI for discharge of two alleged Al-Badar terrorists
Police official hampering probe, CBI tells court
Special Cell threatening officer: CBI
Court to hear two probe agencies in framing youths as terrorists
“Why?”
(Uma Singh, a journalist with Radio Today in the southern town of Janakpur in Nepal, was killed on 11th January 2009. The Federation of Nepali Journalists has mounted a campaign asking for immediate action against Uma’a killers and a firm commitment by the government to the freedom of press. Uma’s killinng comes in the wake of attacks on different media houses in Kathmandu. Like Lasantha Wickrematunge in Sri Lanka, Uma was killed for writing and speaking fearlessly at the other end of Southasia.)
Janakpur: It was impossible to believe that Uma Singh at Ganga Sagar Ghat on Tuesday morning – an FNJ flag draped over her still body, face bandaged all across, the cuts on the head visible – was the same Uma I had met two months ago.
Uma’s looks were deceptive, for the tiny frame contained abundant energy. By the time I strolled into Radio Today’s studio at 6 am in mid-November, Uma had wrapped up her morning bulletin. She was running around the office and passing instructions in a matter-of-fact professional way
She briefed me on the format of Janakpur’s most popular Maithili political discussion show, Garma garam chai. I still remember how Uma said to both her co-anchor and me, “Please avoid English words. The programme is meant for people in villages.” I nodded, a little ashamed my Maithili was not as fluent. Continue reading “Why?”
Hindutva Terrorism in Karnataka
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
The use of “Lese majeste” in Thailand against freedom of speech
Lese majeste literally means an offense or crime committed against the ruler or supreme power of a state – or, in other words, the crime of dissent. In Thailand, this provision is routinely used to silence any form of criticism of the government.
A recent case that has been brought to our attention is that of Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn, from the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. He is facing Lese Majeste charges for writing a book A Coup for the Rich, which criticised the 2006 military coup. He also wrote an article on the coup for Asia Sentinel. Others who have been accused of Lese Majeste are former government minister Jakrapop Penkae, who asked a question at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Bangkok, about exactly what kind of Monarchy they have in Thailand. There is also the case of Chotisak Oonsung, a young student who failed to stand for the King’s anthem in the cinema. Apart from this there are the cases of Da Topedo and Boonyeun Prasertying. In addition to those who opposed the coup, the BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, an Australian writer names Harry Nicolaides and social critic Sulak Sivaraksa are also facing charges. The latest person to be thrown into jail and refused bail is Suwicha Takor, who is charged with Lese Majeste for surfing the internet. The Thai Minister of Justice has called for a blanket ban on reporting these cases in the Thai media. The mainstream Thai media are obliging. Thus there is a medieval style witch hunt taking place in Thailand with secret trials in the courts.
A petition of protest in support of Giles is available here.
Chavez Expels Israel’s Ambassador, Becomes New Palestinian Hero
Via Liberation News Service
Venezuelan leader accuses Israel of being ‘murder arm’ of US, says solution to Gaza crisis is in Obama’s hand.
Report by Anna Pelegri of Middle East Online – BETHLEHEM, 12 January 2009
“Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip”, says the report.
The report continues:
The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’ ambassador from Caracas — the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step — has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians.
Hamas has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example.
ग़ाज़ा, इस्राइल और इस्राइल बनने की मंशा
प्रणव मुखर्जी से किसी पत्रकार ने पूछा कि क्या भारत पाकिस्तान में वैसी ही कार्रवाई करेगा जैसी इस्राइल गाज़ा में कर रहा है. शुक्र है कि हमारे विदेश मंत्री ने यह कहना ज़रूरी समझा कि इस्राइल की तरह भारत ने किसी और की ज़मीन पर कब्जा नहीं कर रखा है. इस सादे से तथ्य को कहना आजकल गनीमत है क्योंकि हमारे आदर्श बनते जा रहे अमरीका में फिलीस्तीनीयों को ही इस रूप में पेश किया जा रहा है मानो वे ही शांति से रहने वाले इस्राइलियों को चैन से नहीं रहने दे रहे. तो क्या यह मान लिया जाय कि हमारी याददाश्त भी ‘गजनी’ की तरह सिर्फ पंद्रह मिनट की रह गई है? क्या हम यह भूल गए है कि गाज़ा के उस पतली सी पट्टी में जो पिछले साठ साल से पीसे जा रहे हैं वे एक ज़िओनवादी राज्य इस्राइल की स्थापना के लिए उनकी अपनी ज़मीन से उखाड कर फेंक दिए गए लोग हैं?
अगर हम साठ साल की बात को याद नहीं रखना चाह्ते तो क्या हम यह भी भूल गए हैं कि अभी दो ही साल बीते हैं कि फिलीस्तीन की जनता ने हमास को चुनाव में बहुमत दिया था! क्या हमें यह भी याद दिलाना होगा कि हमास की चुनावी जीत को इस्राइल, अमरीका , युरोप और उनके पिट्ठू फतह ने मान्यता देने से इंकार कर दिया था?
हमास एक आतंकवादी संगठन नहीं है, जैसा अमरीका और इस्राइल चाह्ते हैं कि उसे माना जाए, वह फिलीस्तीनी जनता का वैध प्रतिनिधि है. क्या चुनाव में उसकी जीत को मानने से इनकार वैसा ही नहीं जैसा मुजीबुर्रहमान की जीत को मानने से तब की पकिस्तानी हुकूमत का इंकार ? उसका नतीजा था पाकिस्तान का विभाजन और बांग्लादेश के रूप में एक नए राष्ट्र का जन्म. यहां अंतर सिर्फ यह है कि हमास ने गाज़ा पट्टी पर संघर्ष के बाद नियंत्रण कर लिया. तब से इस्राइल के कहने पर अमरीका समेत पूरे विश्व ने हमास का बहिष्कार कर रखा है. क्या हम इसकी कल्पना कर सकते हैं कि भारत में भारतीय जनता पार्टी के चुनाव में जीतने के बाद उसकी राजनीति से असहमति रखने के कारण उसे मान्यता न दी जाए?
Speech and silencing on the Right and Left
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…?
Guantanamo and Illegal U.S. Detentions: Time for Real Change
[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.
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
Character builders of the nation
‘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
One small question about Scam Satyam
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
In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups
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.
UAPA: Legalising the police state
Guest post by ANUJ BHUWANIA
Recently the clamour for a draconian terror bill came to fruition with rare alacrity. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA) Bill was introduced and passed within two days by both houses of Parliament – quite a contrast to, say, the Women’s Reservation Bill, gathering dust now for more than a decade. Coming from a government that repealed POTA soon after it assumed power, the Bill unimaginatively mimics POTA almost entirely, revealing that little has been learnt from the recent history of TADA and POTA and the problems leading to their removal. While such statutes giving extraordinary powers to the police are introduced to cater to ‘exceptional’ situations, they can easily be deployed in ‘ordinary cases’ and indeed routinely are. The bleeding of one category into the other is inevitable, when the police alone decide which is which.
Fight Terror – Stop Thinking
Oxford Book Store in Mumbai was visited by a cop about ten days ago, and offered a friendly caution to be “careful” about stocking books and CDs related to Pakistan, as the shop might be “targeted” after the recent terror strikes in Mumbai.
Trick question: The reason the cop dropped in was
a) to reassure the store that they would receive police protection in case such threats materialize
b) to pass on a message from Raj Thackeray
(Hint. Looks like there are two options, but there is only one)
Truly important questions
On another first day, with its inevitable attempts to divide things into new and old at the end of all the “rapid change” that the world apparently is going through at every second of every news channel’s life, a [to me, lovely] reminder that times have not changed all that much:
Google reports that urban Indians top “how to” search in 2008 was “how to lose weight.” But, at number two, shyly sneaking in was: “how to kiss.”
now there is something worth learning in 2009.
Army wanted Abdullah, who’s surprised?
Ashish Sinha in Mail Today:
Any political decision on Kashmir — especially when the ball is in the Congress’s court — cannot afford to ignore the sentiments of lakhs of troops stationed here because, at least for now, they appear to be a more permanent fixture than any party, even the National Conference (NC). [Full text]
And Siddharth Varadarajan asks the right question:
But if these motives propelled the ISI to either mount or at best turn a blind eye to the Mumbai plot, why did the same agency — which essentially manages Rawalpindi’s links with militant groups active in Jammu and Kashmir — not seek to disrupt the assembly elections? [Here]
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 