Bhupendra Singh Chudasama, Education minister of Gujarat and his colleague Atmaram Paramar, who handles the Social Justice Ministry, were in the news sometime back- albeit for wrong reasons. A video went viral which showed them participating in a felicitation ceremony of exorcists in Botad. They were also seen watching how a couple of the exorcists were beating themselves with metal chains to live music near the stage.
Perhaps it did not matter to them that the Constitution frowns upon such activities and Article 51A (h) of the Indian constitution clearly says that it shall be a fundamental duty of all citizens “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform.” Neighbouring state Maharashtra has even enacted a law (The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013) to rein in all such activities and it criminalises practices related to black magic, human sacrifices, use of magic remedies to cure ailments and other such acts which exploit people’s superstitions. And it was a culmination of a prolonged movement led by activists led by Dr Dabholkar – who even faced martyrdom for his activities. Continue reading Promoting Superstition – Everything Official About It !→
The recent incident of violence that led to the death of a police officer, DSP Ayub Pandith, was condemned by all kinds of people in Kashmir, as well as elsewhere. It prompted introspection, sadness and regret – like any tragedy of this nature should.
Guest Post by Sanjay Kak, for #Notinmyname / Statement from Not In My Name, Delhi
Last evening’s (June 28th) spirited protest at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, under the banner of Not In My Name, was an autonomous citizens protest against the recent spate of targeted lynchings of Muslims in India – the most recent of 16 year old Junaid, stabbed to death on 23 June 2017 in Delhi (NCR).
For an audience that was estimated to be 3500 strong, the torrential downpour at a little past 8 pm may have rained out a part of the programme. But something remarkable had already been achieved: the evening had washed away, even if temporarily, an almost overwhelming sense of despondency, of hopelessness, and of fear.
Since the Not In My Name protest had announced that the platform was not meant for political parties, and their banners and slogans, the stage saw the marked absence of the speeches (and faces) of routine protest meetings at Jantar Mantar. Rhetoric was displaced by feeling, and it was left to the poets and musicians to carry the sharp political messages of the day. On an evening that was often very emotional, the most difficult moments came when a group of young men from Junaid and Pehlu Khan’s extended families (and residents from their respective villages) came on stage and spoke to the audience.
When the call for a protest meeting went out last Sunday we were hoping that a few hundred people would gather to express their outrage at what is happening around us. For the attacks on Muslims are part of a pattern of incidents that targets Dalits, Adivasis, and other disadvantaged and minority groups across the country. In almost all these incidents the possibilities of justice seem remote, as the families of the victims are dragged into procedures they are ill-equipped to handle. Through all these heinous crimes the Government has maintained a silence, a gesture that is being read as the acquiescence of all Indians.
Not In My Name aimed to break that silence. But the scale and spirit of the protest meeting at Jantar Mantar became amplified many times over, as similar gatherings were spontaneously announced all over the country. As word spread through social media, groups in 19 other locations announced Not In My Name protests, and this phenomenal synergy inevitably drew media attention to all the events, and gave the protest a solidarity and scale that was truly unprecedented – there were at least 4 protests in cities abroad too. (And more protests have been announced for later this week…) The protest meeting ran on the shoulders of a group of volunteers who managed to put together everything in less than four days. No funds were received (or solicited) for the expenses from any political party, NGO, or institution. Instead volunteers worked the crowd and our donation boxes received everything – from Rs 10 coins to currency notes of Rs 2000, and everything in between.
Citizens hold placards during a silent protest Not in My Name against the targeted lynching, at Janter Manter in New delhi on wednesday. Photo by Parveen Negi/Mail Today, June 28, 2017
The impact of the Not In My Name protest at Jantar Mantar yesterday only points to the importance of a focused politics to deal with the crisis this country seems to be enveloped by. Less than a day after the protests Prime Minister Modi broke his silence on the matter of lynchings. It could not have been a coincidence: speaking in Ahmedabad he said killing in the name of gau bhakti is unacceptable. But to protect the life of a 16 year old being brutalised in a train needs more than a tweet, and we all wait and watch.
This fight has just begun. In the days to come the exceptional solidarity attracted by the protest in New Delhi will have to become less exceptional, and more everyday.
Sanjay Kak is a filmmaker and writer based in Delhi.
The #NotinMyName protests, which began in a response to a Facebook post uploaded by Delhi filmmaker Saba Dewan, have since taken place in more than twelve cities in India, and also in the UK, USA and Pakistan. More protests, under the #NotinMyName tag, as well as independently of it are being planned by citizens groups, organizations and individuals in many places.
Tomorrow, July 2nd, 2017 will see a sit in at Jantar Mantar from 11 in the morning, at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi called by families, individuals and panchayats from Nuh, Ballabhgarh and Faridabad, they will be joined by students, activists and other individuals.
ऊपर से शांत दिखने वाली भीड़ का हिंसक बन जाना अब हमारे वक्त़ की पहचान बन रहा है. विडंबना यही है कि ऐसी घटनाएं इस क़दर आम हो चली हैं कि किसी को कोई हैरानी नहीं होती.
15 वर्ष का जुनैद ख़ान, जिसकी चाहत थी कि इस बार ईद पर नया कुर्ता पाजामा, नया जूता पहने और इत्र लगा कर चले, लेकिन सभी इरादे धरे के धरे रहे गए. उसे शायद ही गुमान रहा होगा कि ईद की मार्केटिंग के लिए दिल्ली की उसकी यात्रा ज़िंदगी की आख़िरी यात्रा साबित होगी. दिल्ली बल्लभगढ़ लोकल ट्रेन पर जिस तरह जुनैद तथा उसके भाइयों को भीड़ ने बुरी तरह पीटा और फिर ट्रेन के नीचे फेंक दिया, वह ख़बर सुर्ख़ियां बनी है.
दिल्ली के एम्स अस्पताल में भरती उसका भाई शाकिर बताता है कि किस तरह भीड़ ने पहले उन्हें उनके पहनावे पर छेड़ना शुरू किया, बाद में गाली गलौज करने लगे और उन्हें गोमांस भक्षक कहने लगे और बात बात में उनकी पिटाई करने लगे. विडम्बना है कि समूची ट्रेन खचाखच भरी थी, मगर चार निरपराधों के इस तरह पीटे जाने को लेकर किसी ने कुछ नहीं बोला, अपने कान गोया ऐसे बंद किए कि कुछ हुआ ही न हो.
ट्रेन जब बल्लभगढ़ स्टेशन पर पहुंची तो भीड़ में से किसी ने अपने जेब से चाकू निकाल कर उन्हें घोंप दिया और अगले स्टेशन पर उतर कर चले गए. एक चैनल से बात करते हुए हमले का शिकार रहे मोहसिन ने बताया कि उन्होंने ट्रेन की चेन भी खींची थी, मगर उनकी पुकार सुनी नहीं गई. इतना ही नहीं, रेलवे पुलिस ने भी मामले में दखल देने की उनकी गुजारिश की अनदेखी की.
विडंबना ही है कि उधर बल्लभगढ़ की यह ख़बर सुर्ख़ियां बन रही थी, उसी वक़्त कश्मीर की राजधानी श्रीनगर की मस्जिद के बाहर सादी वर्दी में तैनात पुलिस अधिकारी को आक्रामक भीड़ द्वारा मारा जा रहा था. जुनैद अगर नए कपड़ों के लिए मुंतज़िर था तो अयूब पंडित को अपनी बेटी का इंतज़ार था जो बांगलादेश से पहुंचने वाली थी.
( Read the full article here : http://thewirehindi.com/12095/mob-lynching-and-india/)
On 22 June 2017 fifteen-year old Hafiz Junaid was stabbed to death on a Mathura-bound train from New Delhi. He was traveling home for Eid with his brothers and two friends. A dispute over seats resulted in a group of men repeatedly assaulting and stabbing Junaid and his companions. The assailants flung their bodies onto the Asoti railway platform. A crowd gathered. At some point an ambulance was called and two bodies were taken away. Junaid is dead. His companions are in critical condition. While one person has been arrested the police investigations are running into a wall of social opacity since they have been unable to find a single eye-witness to the incident. Of the 200 hundred strong crowd that assembled on Asoti railway platform on Thursday evening, the police cannot find one person who can say what they saw. The police cannot find a witness because something very peculiar seems to have happened to those present at Junaid’s death. A report by Kaunain Sherrif M in the Indian Express provides specific details. When asked if he had seen anything that evening, Ram Sharan a corn-vendor whose daily shift coincides with the killing, Sharan said he was not present at the time of the incident. Two staffers who were sent to investigate by the station master were unavailable for comment. Neither the station-master, the post-master or the railway guards saw the event they were present at.
In this startling piece the journalist reports how the public lynching of a Muslim child becomes a social non-event in contemporary India. He shows the reconfiguring, and splitting, of a social field of vision. He reports all the ways in which people – Hindus- did not see the body of a dead – Muslim – child that lay in front of them. The Hindus on the Asoti railway platform managed to collectively not see a 15 year old Muslim boy being stabbed to death. Then they collectively, and without prior agreement, continued to not see what they had seen after the event. This is the uniquely terrifying aspect of this incident on which this report reflects: the totalising force of an unspoken, but collectively binding, agreement between Hindus to not see the dead body of a Muslim child. Hindus on this railway platform in a small station in north India instantly produced a stranger sociality, a common social bond between people who do not otherwise know each other. By mutual recognition between strangers, Hindus at this platform agreed to abide by a code of silence by which the death of a Muslim child can not be seen by 200 people in full public view on a railway platform in today’s India. Continue reading Why Two Hundred Ordinary Hindus Did Not See A Dead Muslim Child On A Railway Station In North India→
At some point during the Khalistan movement, I came across a brief news item about a constable of the Punjab Police killed by Delhi Police personnel. The two teams had completed their interrogation of a suspected militant. Whose job was it to clean up the blood? Disagreement, a scuffle, a killing.
Legitimized brutality; the stench of blood inflaming the senses; the knowledge of absolute power and absolute impunity.
All of India is that interrogation room now.
Hindu Rashtra is here.
Has there not been violence earlier in this land? Yes of course there has been. A full seven decades of an independent state’s violence against the people of the land declared to be India – against dispossessed peasants and tribal people, against industrial workers, against the people of Kashmir, and of the states of the North East; centuries of violence by savarna Hindu society against the Dalit-bahujan; misogynist, sexist violence against women, up to and including female foetuses in the womb; decades of coldly planned and executed communal violence by institutionalized systems of riot production coordinated by the organizations of the RSS – against Muslims, against Christians, and as a secondary force, against Sikhs in 1984.
(Protest in Guwahati against unconstitutional and discriminatory policy of the Assam govt. in teacher recruitment, organised by KMSS on 19 June 2017 (Photo courtesy: Amar Asom)
In an unconstitutional and discriminatory move, the Education Department of the Assam government has recently come up with a notification that bars candidates who have studied in the vernacular medium from appearing for the Special Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) for Graduate Teachers in the Adarsha Vidyalayas in Assam. The advertisement No. RMSA/Special TET/842/2017/2 dated 7 June 2017, issued by the Secondary Education Department of the state government states: “The candidates must be passed out from English Medium Schools as Adarsha Vidyalayas are CBSE affiliated English Medium School (sic).” To further clarify the matter, the Education Minister of the state, Himanta Biswa Sharma, said in a press conference that those who studied in Assamese or vernacular medium schools do not have the essential ability to teach in English medium schools. Mr. Sharma not only ridiculed and questioned the qualifications of those who studied in the vernacular medium but also invalidated the entire vernacular medium education system of the state. Continue reading The method in madness and the case of Adarsha Vidyalayas in Assam : Delhi Action Committee for Assam→
On the First Anniversary of the Una Floggings – Call from JIGNESH MEWANI and RASHTRIYA DALIT ADHIKAR MANCH
उना से आई फिर आवाज़,नहीं सहेंगे हिंदु राष्ट्र, भगवा आतंकवाद और पूंजीवाद!
Una floggings, image courtesy Indian Express
दलित, मुस्लिम, मज़दूर और किसान साथ मिलकर मांगेगे तीन साल का हिसाब
बहुजन,मज़दूर और किसान साथ मिल फिर ललकारेंगे ‘गाय की पूंछ तुम रखो, हमें हमारी जमीन दो’
साथियों,
आप जानते हैं, 11 जुलाई को उना के दलितों के उत्पीड़न की जगानेवाली घटना को एक वर्ष होने जा रहा है. जिस तरह पिछले वर्ष 11 जुलाई को गुजरात के गिर सोमनाथ जिले के मोटा-समधियाला गांव के बालू भाई सरवैया और उनके चार बेगुनाह लड़कों को दिन दहाड़े, भरे बाजार गाड़ी के साथ बांधकर पुलिस थाने के सामने बेरहमी के साथ मारा गया और जिस तरह इस कारनामे को अंजाम देने वाले इन तथाकथित गौ रक्षकों ने खुद ही अपने इस कारनामे को सोशल मीडिया पे वायरल किया, उससे पूरा देश हिल गया था.
इस अमानवीय कारनामे को अंजाम देने वाले लोग खुद ही अपनी इस घिनौनी हरकत को सोशल मीडिया पे वायरल करे उससे पता चल जाता है कि यह तथाकथित गौ रक्षक कितना बेखौफ महसूस करते और उनको राजसत्ता की कितना संरक्षण मिला हुआ है.
Guest post by C.K.RAJU
Did you find math difficult in school? Does your child? If so, what is the solution: change the teacher or change the child? Blaming the teacher or the child for math difficulties is a common but unsound explanation. Thus, problems with teachers or students should equally affect all subjects, not only math.The right solution is to change math. That seems impossible. People naively believe that math is universal. In fact, the math taught today, from middle school onward, is called formal math; it began only in the 20th c. with David Hilbert and Bertrand Russell. It differs from the normal math which people earlier did for thousands of years, across the world, and still do in kindergarten.Formal math adds enormously to the difficulty of math but nothing to its practical value. The practical value of math comes from efficient techniques of calculation, used in normal math, not prolix formal proofs. For example, the proof of 1+1=2 took Whitehead and Russell 368 pages of dense symbolism in their Principia. That proof is a liability in a grocer’s shop. In contrast, normal math is easy. One apple and one apple make two apples as most people learn in kindergarten. So should we switch back to normal math at all levels?
Is it not time for this channel that sets new lows with each programme, to be totally boycotted by all right-thinking people?
Don’t watch Republic TV, don’t participate in its programmes.
Dr SP Udayakumar’s complaint to the Press Council of India follows. He is
Coordinator, People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) and
Pachai Tamizhagam Katchi (Green Tamil Nadu Party)
June 21, 2017
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad
The Chairman, Press Council of India
Dear Sir:
Greetings! I write to bring your kind attention to the ongoing deceit and harassment of me and my family by Mr. Arnab Ranjan Goswami and a few of his colleagues such as Shweta and Sanjeev from the Republic TV.
On April 8, 2017, one “Shweta Sharma” (I later found out that her real name was Shweta Kothari) came to my home at Nagercoil and introduced herself as a “research scholar” from the Cardiff University in the UK. She asked for my help with her dissertation research. She had been accompanied by her “local friend” Sanjeev. I gave her several books and answered her questions.
On April 9, 2017 she requested me to stop by her hotel room as she had a few more questions. There she told me that “one of her British professors” was very keen on supporting our struggle against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant. I told her that we did not accept money from foreigners and our movement had no bank account also. She then asked me if there was any other way of donating money to us. I told her that my personal account was frozen and that even our party account could not receive foreign funds.
Prime Minister Modi is set to meet President Trump on June 26 and we can anticipate an exciting contest between bear hugs and crushing handshakes. We indeed live in interesting times where symbols rather than spoken words determine the fate of nations (Trump is rumoured to have partly pulled out of the Paris Agreement after losing a handshake duel with the new French President). Both Modi and Trump deploy symbols effectively to further a conservative agenda that is in many ways self-serving rather than ideologically dogmatic. I wondered if a list of ways in which they are different despite being strikingly similar in many ways might be an interesting experiment but all my points could be bracketed under one larger word: privilege. Everything that follows in this article are ways in which this privilege operates in the case of Trump and how the lack of the same has shaped much of Modi’s career.
आखिर जिन छोटे बच्चों को क़ानून वोट डालने का अधिकार नहीं देता, जीवनसाथी चुनने का अधिकार नहीं देता, उन्हें आध्यात्मिकता के नाम पर इस तरह जान जोखिम में डालने की अनुमति कैसे दी जा सकती है?
17 साल का वर्षिल शाह – जिसने 12 वीं की परीक्षा में 99.93 परसेन्टाइल हासिल किए, अब इतिहास हो गया है.
दुनिया उसे सुविरा महाराज नाम से जानेगी और वह अपने गुरु कल्याण रत्न विजय की तरह बाल भिक्खु में शुमार किया जाएगा, ऐसे लोग जिन्होंने बचपन में ही जैन धर्म की दीक्षा ली और ताउम्र जैन धर्म के प्रचार में मुब्तिला रहे.
बताया जा रहा है कि इन्कम टैक्स आफिसर पिता जिगरभाई शाह और मां अमीबेन शाह ने अपनी सन्तान को बिल्कुल ‘धार्मिक’ वातावरण में पाला था, उनके घर में टीवी या रेफ्रिजरेटर भी नहीं था और बिजली का इस्तेमाल भी बहुत जरूरी होने पर किया जाता था क्योंकि शाह दंपति का मानना था कि उर्जा निर्माण के दौरान पानी में रहने वाले जीव मर जाते हैं, जो जैन धर्म के अहिंसा के सिद्धांत के खिलाफ पड़ता है.
वर्षिल-जो अभी कानून के हिसाब से वयस्क नहीं हुआ है, जो वोट भी डाल नहीं सकता है, यहां तक कि अख़बारों में प्रकाशित उसकी तस्वीरों में मासूमियत से भरे उसके चेहरे को भी देखा जा सकता है- के इस हालिया फैसले ने बरबस तेरह साल की जैन समुदाय में जन्मी हैदराबाद की आराधना (जो चार माह से व्रत कर रही थी) के बहाने उठी बहस को नए सिरे से जिंदा किया है, जो पिछले साल खड़ी हुई थी.
( Read the full article here : http://thewirehindi.com/11503/monk-jain-bal-diksha-fasting/)
[The title is inspired by Balachandran Chullikkad’s searing poetry]
I have recently been asked about why I didn’t write anything about the anniversary of the CPM-led government of Kerala. Have also been asked why I don’t write about politics in Kerala anymore. The answer to the first is easy and painless: governments are not organic things. You measure your kid’s height and weight and other things and think about how they have grown in their minds and hearts on their birthdays. There is nothing that proves that anniversaries are the best occasions to reflect on how governments have grown and thrived. The answer to the second question is more conflicted and excruciatingly painful: it is because we have no politics in Kerala, but plenty of anti-politics. therefore, what one needs to do is invest in the silent, unglamorous, unpopular, long-haul intellectual and political labour that may preserve the possibilities of politics in the future, and that may even create internalities capable of courage and responsibility necessary for being political. Continue reading Losing the Soul’s Acid Tongue … Terrorist State, Unbowed Children at Kerala’s Puthvype→
In February this year, University of Delhi officials invited chairpersons of the six best known colleges to apply for autonomy. So far, only the governing body of St Stephen’s College has reacted, authorising its principal to take up the application process. Teachers and staff associations of the university, DUTA (Delhi University Teachers’ Association) and DUCKU (Delhi University Karamchari Union), are against the move. Besides affecting the working conditions of faculty and staff, college autonomy has bearing on the academic content of undergraduate learning. It is surprising that many of the academic red flags are not even noticed in the policy. These obvious blind spots indicate that real motivations are not academic, but lie elsewhere.
The XII plan document of the UGC sets the target to make 10 percent of eligible colleges autonomous by the end of the plan period. It boldly declares, ‘(t)he only safe and better way to improve the quality of undergraduate education is to the link(sic) most of the colleges from the affiliating structure’. The claim is surprising, because world over university education is considered a good undergraduate education. A university with active research, accomplished faculty and diversity of subjects to offer is the best place for a young person to get initiated into the adventure and challenges of higher education. How taking students away from the ambit of a university becomes the way to better education requires a bit of an explanation. Continue reading Elephants in the Room – Who Gets the Autonomy in Autonomous Colleges? : Sanjay Kumar→
बिहार फिर से खबर में है. इंटरमीडिएट परीक्षाओं के परिणाम आए हैं.पैंसठ प्रतिशत छात्र फेल हो गए हैं.बिहार में विरोध प्रदर्शन चल रहे हैं.कॉपियों की दुबारा जाँच कराने की माँग की जा रही है. जन संचार माध्यमों के जरिए वैसे छात्रों की व्यथा और क्रोध का पता चल रहा है जिन्होंने आई आई टी जैसी कठिन प्रवेश परीक्षाओं में सफलता प्राप्त की है लेकिन जो बारहवीं की बोर्ड परीक्षा में फेल हो गए हैं.इसे पर्याप्त माना जा रहा है यह कहने के लिए कि परीक्षा परिणामों में घपला ज़रूर है वरना इतने प्रतिभाशाली युवा, जो आई आई टी की परीक्षा की बाधा दौड़ पार कर गए हैं,बोर्ड के इम्तहान में फेल कैसे हो जाएँगे! Continue reading बिहार क्या सिर्फ बिहार में है ?→
अरुंधति राय के खिलाफ अपशब्दों की, गाली-गलौच की, आरोपों की हिंसा ने हमें एक बार फिर यह प्रश्न पूछने के लिए विवश कर दिया है – क्या हमने सचमुच अपने देश में सभ्यता व सहिष्णुता के महान मूल्यों की रक्षा करने के दायित्व से छुटकारा पा लिया है? कहीं हम पूरे राष्ट्र को ‘डिसोसिएटिव आइडेंटिटी डिसआर्डर’ (खंडित व्यक्तित्व मनोरोग) का शिकार बनते तो नहीं देख रहे हैं जिसमें किसी व्यक्ति नहीं बल्कि पूरे राष्ट्र के चरित्र में परस्पर विरोधी मूल्य इस प्रकार विषैले कांटों की तरह उग आते हैं कि राष्ट्र का पूरा व्यक्तित्व चरमराने या दिग्भ्रमित होने लगता है! एक सभ्य-लोकतांत्रिक देश के रूप में आत्मछवि और हिंसक बाहरी आचरण में जितना गहरा भेद पैदा हो जाता है, वह राष्ट्र की आत्मा मार देता है। जिसने भी स्वयं में अनूठी लेखिका को जीप के बोनट से बांधने की कल्पना की, उसे संभवतः अंदाजा भी नहीं था कि वह केवल एक वक्तव्य नहीं दे रहा है, बल्कि मनुष्यता के सभी संभव परिकल्पनाओं के विरुद्ध अपराध कर रहा है। ऐसी कल्पना में बीमार विचारशून्यता ही नहीं बल्कि भयानक सड़ांध, विकृति और मनोरोग की झलक मिलती है। परेश रावल के अरुंधति के विरोध में लिखे ट्वीट से उल्लसित सोशल मीडिया के एक समूह ने तो अरुंधति राय की सामूहिक ढंग से हत्या कर उनके शव को पाकिस्तान में दफनाने की वकालत भी कर डाली।
It was summer of 1985 when we were visiting New Delhi, the national capital of India to attend a wedding in the family. I had a long hair back then and was aged 15. Both me and my uncle who were wearing turbans like other Sikh men were waiting at a bus stand for the next bus to go to our relatives. As soon as the bus arrived and we were about to climb in after other waiting passengers, the door was slammed on us. When my uncle protested, the conductor shouted that there is no seat inside. Even as we pointed out at some empty seats, the answer was – “we have told you there is no seat.” Before we could argue the bus sped away.
यूँ तो अम्बेडकर जयंती हर साल आती हैं और दलित-पिछड़े समुदाय का एक बड़ा तबक़ा इसे बड़ी शिद्दत से मनाता आया है। लेकिन इस बार अम्बेडकर का 126वां जन्मदिन कुछ और ही नज़ारा ले कर आया। यू॰पी॰ का सहारनपुर ज़िला जहाँ अच्छी ख़ासी तादाद में दलित समुदाय के लोग रहते हैं और अन्य जिलों की बनिस्बत ज़्यादा संगठित हैं, वहाँ दो आयोजनों और उसकी अनुमति को लेकर दबंग जाति के लोगों ने जम कर उत्पात मचाया, जिसका दलित समुदाय के द्वारा ना केवल डट कर मुक़ाबला किया गया बल्कि एक वाजिब जवाब भी दिया गया। हालाँकि प्रशासनिक कार्यवाही हमेशा की तरह एकतरफ़ा रही जिसमें 40 दलित युवकों को जेल में ठूँस दिया गया और दबंगो को सस्ते में जाने दिया गया। शब्बीरपुर की ये घटना(एँ) कई दिनों तक चलती रही जिसमें दबंग जाति के लोगों के अहम को चोट तो लगी ही, साथ ही साथ एक और संदेश दे गयी : जिस तरह से दबंग जाति के लोगों ने हिंसा को अपनी बपौती समझ लिया था, अब वैसा नहीं हैं, लगभग देश के कुछ हिस्सों में तो।
Debalin Roy takes us to some specific moments in the rally, aside from the bird’s eye view of the massive rally that we have already seen.
Dalits from all over northern India gathered at Jantar Mantar, Delhi on the 21st of May to protest the Saharanpur violence and increasing atrocities on Dalits across the country.
Although there were representatives from various states, especially from Haryana, U.P. and Rajasthan, Bhim Army took the center stage, with their blue flags waving like a giant dark blue field of tall grass, shaking and waving with every chant of Jai Bhim.
Guest Post by Bastar Solidarity Network Delhi Chapter
The democratic forces, organizations and the thinking minds of IIMC took part in a spirited protest today against the invitation extended to notorious ex-IG Kalluri by the IIMC administration to take part in a seminar. To start with, since last two days, there were several attempts on the part of the organizers to confuse/conceal Kalluri’s invitation. Immediately after the declaration of the protest, Kalluri’s name was dropped from the poster. There were also threats of counter-mobilisation by the BJP goons. But undeterred, as we reached the gates of IIMC at 11am, the site echoed with slogans of “Killer Kalluri Go Back”!
CPI-ML- AISA Team’s Visit to Saharanpur – A Report
“Sarkar Hamari Hai, Police-Prashashan Bhi Hamara Hai”- Yogi Government Boosts Up Morale of Casteist Feudal Goons Who Burnt Dalit Village in Shabbirpur!
Casteist Goons from Dominant Rajput Community Enjoy Complete Impunity while Bhim Army Activists Continue to Face Witch-Hunt!
CPI-ML-AISA Appeal Everyone to Join Hands with the Dalits of Saharanpur in their Struggle for Justice!
Saharanpur Carnage: Teaching a Lesson to Politically Assertive, Self-Reliant Dalits Who Refuse to be Foot Soldiers of Hindutva’s Hate Politics
When BJP gains electoral majority, Saharanpur happens.
For last several years the belt of western Uttar Pradesh has been made the laboratory of the RSS-BJP’s sinister design of communal polarization and violence against Muslims. The 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots was a planned design by the RSS-BJP to polarize the belt on communal lines and reap electoral benefits. And now, after that design had delivered ‘electoral success’ for the RSS and BJP, upper caste feudal forces have started celebration of their ‘victory’ by unleashing attack on Dalits.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 