Culture, Right watch

Why I Celebrate the Wedding of Nusrat Jahan: Zakia Soman

Leave a comment

Guest post by ZAKIA SOMAN 

The wedding of Nusrat Jahan the TMC MP to Nikhil Jain is refreshing news. It is heartening to see two young Indians from different faith backgrounds uniting and celebrating their marriage in the times of religious hate and division.

The mixing of politics and religion has led to a climate where marrying a person from another faith has become extremely difficult specially for young people. The case of Hadiya may have been highlighted in the media but it is certainly not the only instance where a couple had to undergo tremendous hardships for falling in love. The self-appointed guardians of religion who seem omnipresent in family, community, police, judiciary, government, media would walk great lengths to prevent inter-faith marriages from taking place. Continue reading Why I Celebrate the Wedding of Nusrat Jahan: Zakia Soman →

Capitalism, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life

Effects of Climate Change are not Contained within Nations – The Impact on India: Nagraj Adve

2 Comments

Guest post by NAGRAJ ADVE

This post is the second part, excerpted and slightly adapted, from the booklet by Nagraj Adve, Global Warming in the Indian Context: An Introductory Overview (Ecologise Hyderabad 2019). The first part appeared in Kafila on 1 July 2019

While the earlier post covered the basic science of global warming, the roots of the problem, and how inequality relates to climate change, this part focuses on key impacts of climate change in India, on humans and other species, and the reasons for urgency in tackling the problem. 

Villagers try to catch fish in drying pond in West Bengal, image courtesy Science News

Before we consider impacts in India and elsewhere, a few things are useful to keep in mind:

– Unlike most other forms of pollution, the source of carbon dioxide and where its effects are felt can be very far apart. Carbon dioxide generated in the United States affects people on the Orissa coast.

– A significant portion of carbon dioxide emitted today will remain in the atmosphere for centuries, influencing future climates.

– Even after the world ceases to emit carbon, higher average temperatures are “largely irreversible for a thousand years” because the gains of lesser radiation being trapped gets offset by the reduced loss of heat to the oceans. Hence, climate change is the new ‘normal’.

– Impacts will worsen because of the time lag between emissions and warming. Some of it is unavoidable. Our urgent intervention is needed to make sure they do not get much worse, and that the situation does not spiral out of our control. Continue reading Effects of Climate Change are not Contained within Nations – The Impact on India: Nagraj Adve →

Government, Politics, Right watch

Lok Sabha Elections 2019 – Calling the Election Commission to account: Statement by retired civil servants, veterans, academics and concerned citizens

9 Comments

Letter to the Election Commission of India written by 64 former civil servants, endorsed by 83 veterans, academics and other concerned citizens.

Shri Sunil Arora, Chief Election Commissioner, Shri Ashok Lavasa,  Election Commissioner, and Shri Sushil Chandra, Election Commissioner.

Election Commission of India.

Sirs,

Serious Irregularities in the Conduct of General Elections, 2019  

  • We are a group of former civil servants that takes up, from time to time, matters of exceptional national interest, seeking to remind our cherished democratic institutions of their responsibility to uphold the lofty ideals of the Constitution. We write to you today to draw your attention to the several very troubling and still unexplained issues pertaining to the conduct of the General Elections, 2019, by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
  • From time to time, the media has reported on various irregularities in the conduct of the 2019 General Elections. While we accept that not every media report is accurate or true, the ECI’s non-rebuttal of an untrue or inaccurate story leaves the public to draw its own conclusion: that the ECI has no valid explanation to offer. The mere dismissal of the allegations as baseless, without an explanation as to why they should be so considered, is unsatisfactory. As the custodian of the most precious commodity in a democracy – the people’s mandate – it is your duty to be transparent, and accountable to the Constitution and the people of India. Continue reading Lok Sabha Elections 2019 – Calling the Election Commission to account: Statement by retired civil servants, veterans, academics and concerned citizens →
Bad ideas

“वन्दे मातरम” जय नहीं, क्षय का नारा है

Leave a comment

जब संसद में सरकार का कोई मंत्री कहे कि “वन्दे मातरम” न कहने वाले को भारत में रहने का हक़ नहीं है, तो उसे संसद में और बाहर जवाब देना ही पड़ेगा कि भारत में रहने की शर्त “वन्दे मातरम” का जाप या नारा नहीं है।नहीं हो सकता। भारत में रहने के लिए आप मुझे “जन गण मन” गाने को भी बाध्य नहीं कर सकते। आप मुझे किसी झंडे को सलाम करने को मजबूर नहीं कर सकते।

गाँधी का दिसंबर,1947 की एक प्रार्थना सभा का वक्तव्य याद कर लें हम जिसमें वे कहते हैं कि आप मेरे सर बंदूक लगाकर मुझे गीता पढ़ने के लिए भी बाध्य नहीं कर सकते।

यह तो कहने की ज़रूरत भी नहीं कि आप मुझे “जयश्री राम” या “भारत माता की जय” बोलने का हुक्म नहीं दे सकते। अगर आप ऐसा करते हैं तो आप अपराध कर रहे हैं। आप मेरी स्वायत्तता और मेरी गरिमा का अतिक्रमण कर रहे हैं। यह भारत के संविधान और क़ानून के मुताबिक़ जुर्म है।सज़ा मुझे नहीं आपको होनी चाहिए। लेकिन यह तभी होगा जब भारत का पुलिस और प्रशासन और न्याय तंत्र भारत के संविधान के मुताबिक़ काम करे। आज के भारत को देखते हुए इसकी पूरी गारंटी करना संभव नहीं है। अगर सबसे बड़ी अदालत सिनेमा घर में राष्ट्र गीत बजाने और सबको सावधान खड़े होने का हुक्म दे सकती है तो प्रशासन और पुलिस पर शक लाज़िमी है।
Continue reading “वन्दे मातरम” जय नहीं, क्षय का नारा है →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Politics

Global Warming – The Disaster that has Long Been Brewing: Nagraj Adve

3 Comments

Guest post by NAGRAJ ADVE

This essay is the first of a two-part excerpt from the booklet by Nagraj Adve, Global Warming in the Indian Context: An Introductory Overview (Ecologise Hyderabad, 2019). This covers the basic science of global warming, the roots of the problem, and how inequality relates to climate change. The  second piece, to appear soon, will focus on impacts in India, both on humans and other species, and the reasons for urgency in tackling the problem. You can read the second part here.

 What they told us in Gujarat

A few years ago, a group of us went to northern and eastern Gujarat to find out how climate change was affecting small farmers there. In villages in eastern Gujarat, they told us that the wheat and maize crops had been getting hit for some years during winter. Wheat and maize are important sources of nutrition for poor households in these and nearby regions. But because winters have been getting warmer, the dew (os) had lessened, or stopped entirely for the last few years. For those without wells—most of them poor households—dew is the only source of moisture for their crop. With less or no dew falling, either their crop dried up, or they were being forced to leave their lands fallow.

When we asked them why the winters had been getting milder, the people’s response there was interesting: “Prakruti ki baat hai (it has to do with Nature).” They did not consider it imaginable that human beings had the power to alter Nature on this scale. We do.

 

Sick Earth
Sick Earth, image courtesy Epispastic clipart (UI-Ex.com)

Continue reading Global Warming – The Disaster that has Long Been Brewing: Nagraj Adve →

Culture, Debates, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Gujarat Today Could be What ‘Hindu Rashtra’ Will Look Like for Dalits

Leave a comment

The recent spate of attacks on dalits in the state is an indicator of the fact that the unfolding project of RSS’s Hindu Rashtra has entered a new phase where the community is being construed as the ‘new other’.

Hindu Rashtra

When I was born, I was not a child

I was a dream, a dream of revolt

that my mother, oppressed for thousands of years,

dreamt.

Still it is untouched in my eyes

Covered with wrinkles of thousand years, her face

her eyes, two lakes overflowing with tears

have watered my body….

– Sahil Parmar (Noted Gujarati Poet)

 

‘You are Welcome to Enter … Village of Hindu Rashtra’!

It was around two decades ago that headlines in a few national newspapers reported the ‘arrival’ of Hindu Rashtra in parts of Gujarat. A few inquisitive journalists had even displayed photographs detailing the nascent phenomenon then.

The shock generated by the news died down in a short while.

Hardly anybody then could have a premonition that it won’t take much time for the idea of Hindu Rashtra to gain wider acceptability across India with a commonsense gaining ground rather getting consolidated where religious minorities were increasingly understood as ‘the other’.

Could it be said that the recent spate of attacks on dalits — leading to at least three deaths in the past one month in the same state, coupled with growing instances of life of insecurity of many concerning their lives or their continued deprivation by the dominant castes, is an indicator of the fact that the unfolding project of Hindu Rashtra has entered a new phase where dalits are being construed as the ‘new other’, one who could wreck the project of ‘Hindu Unity’ from within.

Perhaps it is too early to draw any such conclusion, but portents are there for everyone to see.

( Read the full article here : https://www.newsclick.in/Hindu-Rashtra-Gujarat-BJP-RSS-Dalits)

Culture, Education, Identities

Statement of Academics on Rabindra Bharati University Incident of Harassment

1 Comment

Dear Friends,

As some of you might be aware, our friend and colleague, Dr. Saraswati Kerketta (Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Rabindra Bharati University), has recently been a victim of caste-based attack in the university. We write this statement to unequivocally condemn the attack.

We, the concerned faculty members/research scholars across institutions in India and abroad, are deeply disturbed by this incident of caste-based attack on Dr. Kerketta. Dr. Kerketta is a young faculty member from a Scheduled Tribe background, and the sole faculty member appointed in a substantive position in her department, thereby taking on the tremendous task of running the department on her young shoulders. This brazen instance of caste-based harassment meted out to her by a group of students who claim to be affiliated to a political party has hurt and disturbed us immensely as citizens of India. The nature of attack meted out to her – for instance she has been followed by the students up till home after the incident – also showcases the gendered nature of her vulnerability. The incident has been followed by mass resignation on the part of other faculty members from various positions in the university, thereby showing indirect proof of the same.

Continue reading Statement of Academics on Rabindra Bharati University Incident of Harassment →

Debates, Education, Right watch

Draft New Education Policy 2019 through a Gender and Sexuality Lens

1 Comment

Recommendations on Draft New Education Policy (DNEP) by a collective of women’s groups, queer groups, NGOs, students, and academics working in the field of gender, sexuality and education.

We, a collective of women’s groups, queer groups, NGOs, students, and academics working in the field of gender, sexuality and education, across India strongly recommend and reiterate that for all the recommendations given here, the policy and thereafter, the Government of India and State Governments must ensure that there is a proactive strengthening of democracy within educational institutions. The right to expression, liberty, equality and diversity are rights enshrined in the Constitution of India. We welcome that the DNEP 2019 as it states that it will promote constitutional values in education. However, for the implementation of this objective, changes in the content of the curriculum will not suffice. Constitutional values must be protected in the processes and institutional structures of schools and higher education bodies.

We commend the policy for introducing the following provisions:

  1. DNEP 2019 addresses the issue of early childhood education, especially the timely recommendation of making Years 3 to 8 as a foundational stage. This becomes critical as early education and experiences are the most formative in a child’s life, and a holistic pre-school education continues well beyond traditional schooling years.
  2. It is the first policy to uphold the Honourable Supreme Court’s 2014 directives around transgender inclusion in education.
  3. The policy has taken cognizance of many children who continue to dropout at different levels, and the even more serious problem of enrolled children not attending school regularly.
  4. It seeks to strengthen departments/ centres of education at universities.

Having said this, the subsequent list of recommendations is laid down to strengthen the DNEP 2019 from the lens of gender and sexuality, especially for the most marginalised communities. We feel that gender and sexuality related rights could only be ensured if there is a larger enabling environment, in which diversity of thought and practices are respected. These, we feel, would be critical in developing a robust educational policy for the country, which would address the fundamental intersectionalities that individuals and communities face in their lives. Continue reading Draft New Education Policy 2019 through a Gender and Sexuality Lens →

Law, Politics, Right watch

Standing up for those who stood with us – Statement of support for Lawyers Collective

1 Comment

We, the undersigned concerned citizens, are extremely perturbed at the increasing tendency of the Government, through its agencies, to use excessive power to curb the voice of the people, which is the very essence of democracy.

The work of Lawyer’s Collective in general and that of Indira Jaising and Anand Grover in particular, has contributed to changing the lives not just of individuals but of citizens of a democratic republic. They have not only represented the rights of individuals and communities such as slum dwellers, workers, trade unions, prisoners, SC/ST associations, Bhopal Gas tragedy victims, women, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities as lawyers, but have also contributed immensely to the discourse of human rights and state accountability as public intellectuals.

Continue reading Standing up for those who stood with us – Statement of support for Lawyers Collective →

Debates, Education, Right watch

Draft New Education Policy 2019 – Mass Feedback Campaign: Better Universities

7 Comments

In support of the campaign launched by BETTER UNIVERSITIES.

The Government of India has finally unveiled the much-awaited draft of the National Educational Policy (NEP) 2019, and with that, has come a host of new issues to address and engage with.

To access a copy of the draft, please click here.

Here is the full point by point critique made of the Draft NEP by Better Universities, that anybody concerned about education in India should read very carefully.

At the end you will find the link that will take you the campaign for mass feedback on the NEP.

Response to the Draft National Education Policy 2019

Most significant point in my opinion:

What is even more damning is that the appointments to all statutory bodies in the higher education sector will have to be made by the RSA – and must, by default, await the nod of the Prime Minister. It is unambiguously stated that appointees to the NHERA, HEGC, NRF, NAAC and all other standard-setting bodies must report to the RSA and thus be beholden to the infirmities of political will and favour. Needless to say, this amounts to the NEP’s unashamed surrender to ruling party intervention and an effective imagining of higher education as subservient to political interests. Autonomy is shown the door, both structurally and ideologically – despite the Draft making a shrill pitch for it through the previous chapters.

Introduction

While the former HRD minister’s message (included in the Draft policy) congratulates the exercise as evolving “path breaking reforms” based on the “foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and Accountability”, the higher education sector is instead coming under greater political control and contributing to wider inequities with respect to institutional inputs and outcomes. Even the employment goals envisioned by the curricular reforms proposed in the Draft policy might produce greater job insecurities among students coming into higher education from across different social and economic backgrounds. Continue reading Draft New Education Policy 2019 – Mass Feedback Campaign: Better Universities →

Bad ideas

Tabrez is dead, India lives

Leave a comment

My friends from Jharkhand sent me a video of a man – to be exact, a Muslim – being lynched. I avoided opening it. Then a message followed – that the man being beaten up on camera has now died. They were at the police station and were meeting senior officers later. I decided to watch the video.

It is a long clip: ten minutes and 49 seconds. In it, you see a man – a young man – tied to a pole. He is half bent. You can see that he is writhing in pain. His head is unsteady and his legs twisted. There is darkness around him, but there is also some light – from the mobiles being flashed at him, to keep him in focus. There are sounds. Human sounds. Abuses. People moving. You can see eyes. Again, human eyes.

A stick is swung in the air and then you see a hand catching it. The man cries out loud. You cannot see if he has been hit or has cried out anticipating a beating. The camera is brought closer to the face. The man is asked to look into the camera. The crowd is moving around, you can sense some excitement in the air. He is asked his name. Continue reading Tabrez is dead, India lives →

Culture, Debates, Feminism, Right watch

The politics of Hindutva and its erotic charge: Jaya Sharma

10 Comments

Guest post by JAYA SHARMA

In the post election bewilderment that continues to grip us, might it be that we are asking the wrong questions?

The questions are by now familiar. How can it be that a Pragya Thakur wins and an Atishi loses? How can it be that demonetization doesn’t translate into loss of votes? How can it be that the party under whom lynching of Dalits and Muslims becomes a norm gets re-elected? How can it be that hatred for the other wins over humanity?

In response, journalists, political scientists and writers have pointed out that our assumptions related to the significance of macro economic indicators, caste-based voting patterns, among other things, were faulty. But the questions still remain,  including the big one: why did facts and logic lose so dramatically?

Might it be that the bewilderment continues because there is a glaring blind spot in the way in which we understand politics? Might it be that facts and logic were never the only driving force? I will argue here that in order to understand the recent election results and the power of Hindu Nationalism more broadly, we need the lens of the psyche. The play of desire and the erotic is key to understanding politics and dipping into our own sex and love lives can help us see this.  ‘The personal is political’ mantra can come to the rescue in the bewilderment that we feel today.  In making this argument I will draw upon research that I have undertaken for a book that I am in the process of writing called Fantasy Frames: Sex, Love and Indian Politics, to be published later this year. Continue reading The politics of Hindutva and its erotic charge: Jaya Sharma →

Culture, Debates, Movements, Politics

Caste and other demons

1 Comment

Can Dalits rightfully claim that they have a ‘homeland’?

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar

( Review of The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate — Caste, Race, and Annihilation of Caste; By Arundhati Roy, Penguin, Rs 299)

“Gandhiji, I have no homeland.” The first meeting between Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar, who later became chairman of the drafting committee of independent India’s Constitution and its first law minister, is memorialized in this sentence. It expresses the centuries-old plight of those most oppressed in the varna hierarchy under the “institutionalised social injustice at the heart of the country”.

Has there been a qualitative change in the situation of the ‘ex-untouchables’ since this meeting some 90 years back? Can Dalits rightfully claim that they have a ‘homeland’? Figures collated by National Crime Records Bureau show that “a crime is committed against a Dalit by a non-Dalit every sixteen minutes”, including four rapes a day and murders of 13 Dalits every week. And these figures do not include “the stripping and parading naked, the forced shit eating, the seizing of land and the social boycotts…” This is the backdrop of the book, The Doctor and The Saint: The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate — Caste, Race, and Annihilation of Caste by Arundhati Roy. It earlier formed part of an introduction to an annotated 2014 edition of Annihilation of Caste — the historic pamphlet Ambedkar wrote when invited by the ‘Jat Paat Todak Mandal’ in Lahore. The invitation was withdrawn after the hosts read the lecture draft. Continue reading Caste and other demons →

Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Politics, Religion

How Many More ‘Halal’ Ponzi Schemes?

1 Comment

It is important to note that the very idea of Islamic banking and promoting it as a parallel to conventional banking – which is being portrayed as un-Islamic – and which has caught the imagination of a section of god-fearing Muslims, is a clear manifestation of shifts in Muslim politics over the world.

'Halal' Ponzi Schemes

Image for representational use only.Image Courtesy : Business Today

Afzal Pasha, a 55-year-old labourer, is dead. He died of a heart attack a few days back.

The news that the attractive scheme in which he had invested his life’s savings worth Rs 8 lakh went bust proved unbearable for him.

While Afzal’s tragic death could catch headlines, we will never know the plight of the thousands of investors – all of them belonging to the Muslim community – who had similarly invested their hard-earned savings in the said investment scheme launched by Mohammed Mansoor Khan in 2006 through his firm I Monetary Advisory (IMA).

The scheme was declared ‘Shariah-compliant’ and worked on ‘“no interest” policy of Islamic banking. A section of the clergy had even certified this scheme as “halal”, which means “lawful” or “permitted” in Arabic, which helped it easily earn the trust of the Muslim community. Small investors from across the state of Karnataka had flocked to it with their investments ranging from a few thousand rupees to a few lakhs.

A few days back, the promoter of IMA just disappeared from Bengaluru and is supposed to have fled to Dubai.

Continue reading How Many More ‘Halal’ Ponzi Schemes? →

Culture, Debates, Government, Media politics

रामचरण मुंडा की मौत पर दो मिनट का मौन!

Leave a comment
सोचने का सवाल है कि क्या इन मौतों को महज तकनीकी गड़बड़ियों तक न्यूनीकृत किया जा सकता है? क्या इसके कोई संरचनागत कारण नहीं हैं? ‘आखिर अधिक अनाज पैदा करने के बावजूद हम भूख की समस्या को मिटा क्यों नहीं पा रहे हैं।
Munda

‘‘रामचरण मुंडा, उम्र 65 साल को विगत दो माह से सार्वजनिक वितरण प्रणाली के तहत राशन नहीं दिया गया था। हमारे अधिकारियों ने इसकी सत्यता की पड़ताल की है।’’

लातेहार, झारखण्ड के डिप्टी कमीशनर जनाब राजीव कुमार द्वारा लातेहार के दुरूप गांव के रहने वाले उपरोक्त आदिवासी की मौत पर की ऐसी स्वीकारोक्ति बहुत कम देखने में आती है।

अपनी पत्नी चमरी देवी और बेटी सुनिला कुमारी के साथ रामचरण गांव में ही रहते थे। उनके बेटे की मौत दो साल पहले टीबी के चलते हुई थी। राशन डीलर की बात मानें तो चूंकि इलाके में इंटरनेट की सेवा में दिक्कते हैं, और राशन वितरण के लिए ऑनलाइन बायोमेट्रिक सिस्टम कायम किया गया है, इसलिए रामचरण को अनाज नहीं दिया जा सका था।

इस मामले की असलियत कभी सामने आएगी इस पर संदेह है।

वैसे भूख से होने वाली मौतें अब देश में अजूबा चीज़ नहीं रही।

दो साल पहले झारखण्ड के ही सिमडेगा जिले के कारीमाटी गांव की 11 वर्षीय हुई संतोषी की मौत के बाद ऐसी मौतों पर लोगों एवं समाज की अधिक निगाह गयी थी। पता चला था कि पूरा परिवार कई दिनों से भूखा था और राशन मिलने के भी कोई आसार नहीं थे क्योंकि राशन कार्ड के साथ आधार लिंक न होने के चलते उनका नाम लिस्ट से हटा दिया गया था। अपनी मां के गोद में ‘भात भात कहते हुए दम तोड़ी संतोषी की दास्तां ने लोगों को विचलित किया था।

( Read the full article here : https://hindi.newsclick.in/raamacarana-maundaa-kai-maauta-para-dao-mainata-kaa-maauna)

Bad ideas

Who cares for bengal?

1 Comment

( First published in a different form in the Wirehttps://thewire.in/communalism/bengal-violence-tmc-bjp on 14 June, 2018. This article is its revised and updated version.)

Do all of us, those who love Rabindra Sangeet, those who wistfully talk about Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mirnal Sen, Aparna Sen, those who cannot live without Nazrul Islam, those whose first love across generations remains Sukanto Bhattacharji, women and men, ever thankful to Raja Ram Mohan Roy for his relentless struggle against his own people for abolishing the practice of Sati ,and this list is long, just sit and wring our hands and let Bengal bleed to death?  

Bengal is being ravaged by a cynical game between political parties. It is up for grabs. The Bhartiya Janata Party is relishing the moment and the Trinamul Congress, by its foolishness and hotheadedness is driving the state into the hands of the BJP. Mamata Banerjee needs to realise that she is the Chief Minister of the state and not merely the head of her party. It is unbecoming of her when she says that among the people killed after elections, the number of her people is higher than their( BJP’s) number. All suffering violence are the citizens of Bengal and therefore it is her responsibility, as the CM of the state  to give them a sense of security. It is not for her to only speak for her party members. But we can see that she is doing exactly this. She has started looking partisan and her appeal to save the Bangla culture sounds hollow and unconvincing to the people. Cannot she see that her own party people are now joining the BJP in large numbers?

Continue reading Who cares for bengal? →

Government, Politics, Right watch

Update on “tally mismatch” in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections: Ravi Nair

1 Comment

In an earlier post  we made note of the serious matter of unaccounted movement of EVMs in private vehicles in different parts of the country and the mismatch between the ECI figures for voter turnout and EVM votes cast, neither of which the EC has satisfactorily explained until today.

Now in a detailed analysis in NewsClick, Ravi Nair points out that even three weeks after the last phase of the election, ECI is yet to publish the “final data”, and whatever it has put out till now is “provisional numbers”.  More worryingly, Nair points out that when glaring anomalies came into the public domain, ECI not only deleted the uploaded data from both Suvidha Portal and its main website, but also issued a release to say that whatever was published was “the provisional voter turnout data”, which was “tentative”.

However, the ECI never bothered to answer the fundamental questions: How did it announce winners based on these “provisional” and “tentative” data? How did the automated counting of votes polled in EVMs become “tentative”?

Read Ravi Nair’s article “ECI’s stance on data discrepancies: No right to question?” on NewsClick here.

Culture, Debates, Government, Law, Religion

God in the Classroom!

1 Comment

Unfolding Debate about Secularising Education

( To be published in ‘Indian Journal of Secularism)

“There is in every village a torch – the teacher; and an extinguisher – the priest.”
-Victor Hugo

Introduction
“Keep the words God, Jesus and the devil out of the classroom.”

A school teacher’s message on the first day of the school for first-grade students had caused tremendous consternation among a section of the parents.

She had a simple rationale to present her proposal. With their being a public school with children coming from different religions and beliefs joining it, she did not “[w]ant to upset a child/parent because of these words being used,” In her letter she had also advised them to talk to the children when they go to the church/temple/synagogue – whatever might be the case – or discuss the issue at home at an appropriate time and place of talking about it.” (https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2017/08/30/teacher-tells-first-graders-dont-talk-god-classroom/612118001/)

Well, instead of the discussion getting fixed on the slow imposition of the concept of God or closing of child’s minds it turned into a debate on students’ free speech rights. It did not take much time for the management of the school to rescind this proposal.

There is nothing new about this dilemma faced by a teacher who has welfare of students at the center of her/his concerns. Continue reading God in the Classroom! →

Culture, Education, Everyday Life

A Case of Harassment of Dalit Student in Jadavpur University: Srijan Dutta

1 Comment

Guest post by SRIJAN DUTTA

“The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility.”

The line quoted above is from Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula’s ‘last’ letter, discovered after he was found hanging in his hostel room in January 2016. The letter had exposed how caste-based discrimination is used as a medium of oppression against Dalits and other minorities. Casteism serves both as an ideology and as a means for exploitation by the upper castes and upper classes of the Indian society.

Recently, a complaint has been made by a second year Masters student of the Department of Library and Information Science in one of the hotbeds of Bengal student politics, Jadavpur University. Jadavpur Uiversity is also a premier institution of higher learning, with a well deserved reputation.  Raja Manna, a student belonging to the ‘Scheduled Caste’ category, has revealed that he has been facing a lot of harassment and discrimination at the hands of his dissertation guide, Prof. Udayan Bhattacharya, an upper caste Brahmin.

Continue reading A Case of Harassment of Dalit Student in Jadavpur University: Srijan Dutta →

Bad ideas

हमदर्दी और हमशहरीयत: ट्विंकल, टप्पल और भारत

Leave a comment

( सत्य हिंदी.कॉम पर 10 जून,2019 को सहनागरिकता का भाव विकसित करना ज़रूरी शीर्षक से प्रकाशित टिप्पणी https://www.satyahindi.com/waqt-bewaqt/twinkle-sharma-murder-case-aligarh-102906.html का परिवर्द्धित रूप)

अलीगढ़ के क़रीब टप्पल में दो साल की ट्विंकल की हत्या के बाद सिर्फ़ अलीगढ़ नहीं, देश के कोने कोने से बच्ची के लिए इंसाफ़ की माँग की जा रही है। हत्या पर अफ़सोस, शर्म और नाराज़गी का इजहार किया जा रहा है।

दो साल की बच्ची को आपसी रंजिश के चलते ही क्यों नहीं, मार डालना परले दर्जे की विकृति है और उसका कोई मनोवैज्ञानिक औचित्य नहीं दिया जा सकता। यह तथ्य कि अभियुक्त पहले से ही ऐसा था, कि उसपर अपनी बच्ची के साथ बलात्कार का आरोप था, मारी गई बच्ची के परिजनों को कोई राहत नहीं पहुँचाता।दो साल की बच्ची की हत्या इसलिए भी अधिक क्रूर है कि वह किसी भी तरह अपनी रक्षा नहीं कर सकती थी।

शायद ट्विंकल बच जाती अगर पुलिस ने पहले ही परिवार की गुहार सुन ली होती। इसलिए ज़िम्मेवार पुलिसकर्मियों को सज़ा भी ज़रूरी है।

Continue reading हमदर्दी और हमशहरीयत: ट्विंकल, टप्पल और भारत →

Culture, Literature

Alvida, Girish Karnad, we promise to keep up the fight for India

5 Comments

Girish Karnad 1938-2019

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE