Tag Archives: Badaun

Bad ideas

Statement on the Murder of Three Young Persons in Badaun and Pune: P.A.D.S.

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People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism (P.A.D.S.)  Statement on the murder of three young persons in Badaun and Pune
 
 
While introducing the Draft Constitution in the Constituent Assembly, Dr B. R. Ambedkar had observed, “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.”  The same continues to hold true sixty four years later. A few weeks ago the people of India participated in the largest-ever election of their representatives in a largely free and fair process. However, other events since then have revealed the shallowness of this democratic top-dressing along with the tyrannical side of our society and polity.
 
On 27 May two girls aged 12 and 14 from an oppressed caste family of Katra Sadatganj in Badaun district of UP were sexually assaulted and killed when out to answer nature’s call. The rapists, belonging to the local dominant caste, hung their bodies from a tree in a public display of their power.
 
On 2 June in Pune, twenty-eight year old Mohsin Shaikh, an information technology professional was beaten to death by a group of men belonging to an outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena. The killers even celebrated their cruelty in messages declaring that the ‘the first wicket is down’.  

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Feminism, Sex, Violence/Conflict

Enough is enough: Anand Teltumbde

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ANAND TELTUMBDE in The Hindu today

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The tree in Katra Shahadatganj village (Badaun district) from which two young Dalit women, sisters, were found hanging after being gang-raped on May 27, 2014. Their bodies were found on May 28th.

The images of two innocent Dalit girls hanging from a tree in Katra village in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh and a crowd of spectators looking bewildered at them best describes our national character. We can endure any amount of ignominy, can stand any level of injustice, and tolerate any kind of nonsense around us with equanimity. It is no use saying if those girls were our own daughters or our own sisters, we would still stare at them, bewildered and resigned like anyone in that crowd did. In just the past two months, while we as a country were busy playing fiddle to Narendra Modi and his promise of acche din, there have been a series of gory rapes and murders of Dalit teens across the country.

But beyond the residual anger, there is hardly any real concern for these atrocities. The rulers are not concerned, the media is hardly interested, and then there is indifference of the progressive lot and Dalits’ own frigidity towards them. It is shameful that we take the rape and murder of innocent Dalits as an adjunct of our social environment and forget about them.
Read the rest of this searing piece here.