Arrest the guilty Police Officers without delay

PRESS NOTE

New Delhi: Khalid Mujahid, proclaimed by the police as one of the executors of the serial blasts that rocked UP courts in November 2007, died in police custody yesterday (18th May 2013). This young man, with no past medical record, the police claim died of sudden medical complications, on his way back to Lucknow prison, having made his appearance in court in Barabanki in connection with the serial blasts case. In 2011, a report, Torture in India, had documented how custodial killings were rampantly passed off as sudden medical complications and natural deaths (ACHR, p. 8).

Foul Play Obvious:

- The DIG, Faizabad, Dharmendra Singh Yadav, first announced that his death had been caused by ‘heat wave’ and then the story quickly changed to ‘heart attack’.

- His lawyer, Md. Shoaib, who met Khalid in the court, and in fact was with him till 3 in the afternoon, had found him to be normal, healthy and in high spirits. Eyewitnesses who saw the body before it was sent for autopsy found signs of bleeding from his mouth and ear.

- Moreover, Advocate Md. Shoaib has pointed out that whilst he was wearing a kurta pyajama in the court appearance earlier in the day, the dead body wore lowers and T-shirt, clearly indicating foul play.

- Why was the inquest conducted in such a hurried manner without the presence of Mujahid’s family and lawyer? Indeed, had it not been for the large public mobilization, the police and local administration were planning to conduct the autopsy quickly and secretively.

It may be recalled that while the UP STF had claimed to have arrested Mujahid and Qasmi from the Lucknow Charbagh railway station 22 December 2007, the two has actually been picked up days before in full public view, triggering fears of abduction. There had been demonstrations at the local administration demanding for their release as well as filing of a missing persons complaint before the sensational press conference by the STF announcing their arrests.

The long struggle by the democratic forces in UP against the blatant framing of Khalid Mujahid and Tariq Qasmi in the serial court blasts case, which led to the institution of R.D. Nimesh Commission, and the subsequent dismissal of the police claims about the timing and place of arrest of Mujahid and Qasmi, had made the police establishment in UP very nervous. It was obvious that the public pressure was not simply to release the duo but also to seek the prosecution of those policemen, then in the STF, who had falsely framed them.

In these circumstances the ‘heart attack’ theory looks implausible and a brazen attempt to hide a blatant case of custodial killing.

We reject the UP Chief Minister’s announcement of a High powered enquiry committee packed with senior bureaucrats and high ranking UP police officers. We demand that:

- Khalid Mujahid’s death be treated as a case of custodial killing and a case of murder be booked against those police officers escorting him;

- Those policemen named in the FIR filed by Khalid Mujahid’s family in the early hours today, should be arrested without delay

- The CBI enquiry be made time-bound;

- The post mortem report and the videography of the postmortem be made public;

The Chief Minister should assure the safety and protection of Tariq Qasmi and other accused in the case;

- The Chief Minister should immediately order compensation to the family of Khalid Mujahid.

Sd/-

Teesta Setalavad (activist, Mumbai); Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD), Kavita Srivastava (PUCL); Ahmed Sohaib (JTSA); Mansi Sharma (activist, Delhi); Mahtab Alam (activist, Delhi); Manisha Sethi (JTSA), Sangahmitra Misra (JTSA), Mukul Kesavan (writer and historian, Delhi), Ajit Sahi (journalist, Delhi), Prof. Harbans Mukhia (Academic, Delhi), Prof. Shohini Ghosh (filmmaker and academic, Delhi), Harsh Kapoor (SACW.net, Delhi), S R Darapur (Retired IPS), Saba Naqvi (journalist, Delhi), Panini Anand (journalist, Delhi), Pervez Bari (journalist, Bhopal), Trideep Pais (lawyer, Delhi), Mayur Suresh (Lawyer), Dr Zafarul Islam Khan (Senior Journalist, Delhi), Asad Zaidi (writer and publisher, Delhi), Sukla Sen (Ekta, Mumbai), Prof. Anuradha Chenoy (Academic, Delhi), Prof. Kamal Mitra Chenoy (Academic, Delhi), Prof. Mohan Rao (Academic, Delhi), Anuradha Bhasin (Senior Journalist, Jammu), Dr. Lubna Sawarth (Hyderabad Aman Manch, Hyderabad), Iqbal Ahmed (journalist, Delhi), Zafarullah Khan, Kamayani Bali Mahabal (Lawyer, Mumbai), Wilfred D’Costa (Insaf, Delhi), Mukul Dube (Writer, Delhi), Subhash Gatade (New Socialist Initiative); Himadri Mistry (Delhi School of Economics); BRP Bhaskar (senior journalist), Arundhati Dhuru (NAPM), Aijaz Zaka Syed, (Columnist and Writer), Dr. Sandeep Pandey (Magsaysay Awardee), Areeb Rizvi (Student, Jamia), Uma V Chandru (WSS and PUCL-Bangalore), Md Shadab Ansari (lawyer, Jharkhand), Gauhar Iqbal (Activist, Delhi) Atanu De, Faizullah, (Academician, TISS Mumbai), Himanshu Bhagat ( Freelance journalist), Syed Hassan Kazim (Journalist , New Delhi), Kumar Sundaram, (Researcher and Activist, Delhi), Madhumita Dutta (activist, Chennai, Tamilnadu), Musab Iqbal (Journalist, Bangalore), Amalendu Upadhyaya, (Senior Journalist, Ghaziabad, UP),Arshad Ajmal (Activist, Patna), Abu Zafar (journalist, Delhi),Kundan Panday (Journalist), Salar Khan (lawyer, Delhi), Swami Agniwesh (Activist, Delhi), AarizMohammed (Muslim Empowerment Movement, Hyderabad), M Siddiqui (United Kingdom), Ovais Sultan (activist, Delhi) and many others.

A storm has destroyed everything in my life. I am not even beginning to come to terms with the loss in my life. Death, like storm, is God’s hand and you are so helpless. Never knew that death would snatch my very loving father Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer from us. I was not prepared yet for this colossal loss! But let me remember what he has bequeathed to me. My sister Seema rightly told a reporter that our father wanted us to inherit his legacy equally – legacy of his teachings. In the lull after the storm I am trying to reflect on his legacy to gather some pieces of my inheritance.

What is the legacy that I have inherited from my father?

1) The discipline and the punishing schedule that he followed.
He never budged from his daily routine which included morning walks to maintain his health; working from morning 8:00 am till 10 pm in the night with a small nap in the afternoon until he was hospitalized on 13th February 2013; divided his day into four segments – administrative work, responding to e-mails, reading and writing, and followed the time schedule meticulously. Office staff was not allowed to violate. Visitors from outside city would be entertained even in violation of the time distribution, but visitors from within city were requested to seek appointment, but even then he would be considerate if they came from far. Even on Sundays and holidays, the schedule would hold for him and even if he had to sit in the office alone. Sunday evenings sometimes was a time for a little stroll or a drive. Frequent travels deprived us, his family members, from his company. However, he did not distinguish between the groups that invited him. His commitment once given, he would honour it, even if later some more important invitations arrived on his table. Even his ill health would not force him to change his mind. He has conducted his peace and conflict resolution workshops when sick. This discipline and long day enabled him to contribute so much to the world but perhaps contributed towards shortening his life. How organized and disciplined can we be?

2) Nothing except the values of justice, equality, love, dignity, and diversity were sacred for him. No rituals and no traditions and no cultures. Cultures were only media through which humans made a sense of the world. All cultures, all faiths were to be respected. Except the values, everything else should be subjected rational scrutiny and reformed, reinterpreted, re-understood and refashioned to serve the sacred values. His lifelong search for truth knew no limitations and was checked by no sacred symbols, rituals, traditions, language or culture. Truth could be achieved only through relentless and fearless pursuit. No cost was high enough to attend truth. Truth required only an honest inner search dictated by conscience. He paid a price for his search of truth – transferred often and promotions delayed when in service of Bombay Municipal Corporation as a civil engineer for his honesty and for leading Engineer’s Association, took voluntary retirement to work full time for the cause, suffering great loss of income, socially boycotted by Syedna’s establishment which meant being cut off from his mother, brother, sister and other near and dear ones, his house and office was attacked and completely destroyed by Syedna’s fanatical followers in February 2000, was physically attacked 6 times by Syedna’s fanatical followers with sharp weapons in order to kill him, often abused and threatened, but nothing deterred him from his search for truth and no sacrifice was too high a price to be paid for his principles. He was like a rock so far as his principles were concerned. How honest and relentless can we be in our search for truth?

3) If one realized any dimension of truth, it should be shared with people and without fear of consequences and in language that people understand. He often told me that the difference between a prophet and philosopher was that prophet communicated his message in language that people could easily understand whereas often philosophers spoke in language comprehensible only to a privileged few. The latter made careers, the former brought about social change and left a lasting impact and legacy. As an activist scholar, Engineer always talked in simple understandable language through his writings and oratories. He consciously chose that! He had begun writing in academic language initially, but soon checked himself, for he wanted to work for social change! How passionate can we be in our quest for social change? Will we walk the talk?

4) Dr. Engineer often said that search for freedom required enabling environment. It required freedom and democracy and free dialogue. Three Ds, he would say – Democracy, Dialogue and Diversity. All were necessary for honest understanding and knowing each other and more facets of truth in all its complexity. One had to be a patient listener and open minded before we strive for truth. The differences between two individuals and two or more groups can be made a bridge to reach out each other and to enrich our understanding through dialogue with those with whom one had differences.
Diversity was important as different cultures represent different systems of meaning and visions of good life. Since each realizes a limited range of human capacities and emotions and grasps only a part of the totality of human existence, it needs other cultures to help it understand itself better, expand its intellectual and moral horizon, stretch its imagination, save it from narcissism to guard it against the obvious temptation to absolutize itself, and so on. This does not mean that one cannot lead a good life within one’s own culture, but rather that, other things being equal, one’s way of life is likely to be richer if one also enjoys access to others, and that a culturally self-contained life is virtually impossible for most human beings in the modern, mobile and interdependent world. No culture is wholly worthless, that it deserves at least some respect because of what it means to its members and the creative energy it displays, that no culture is perfect and has a right to impose itself on others, and that cultures are best changed from within.

5) For a person who has realized truth, it was absolutely necessary to be humble. More than anything, Dr. Engineer was a very very humble human being. While returning home from office (when he could walk home), often he would be stopped on road by a stranger and the insignificant stranger would discuss or ask his doubts and even argue with Engineer on various issues. He would passionately argue with the stranger his opinions for, sometimes, hours. My legs would ache standing with him but until the stranger was fully satisfied or decided to quit, Dr. Engineer would passionately keep discussing with him. Later when I would inquire why he invested so much time, he would reply, everyone was important. He was highly approachable and anybody could contact him anytime of the day and night with their queries. He would reply to abusive e-mails, and he could patiently reason with every opponent. His humility influenced even the most indoctrinated cadre who passionately opposed his views. His patience in arguing with them and making them see reason was remarkable. No case was beyond redemption for him. Each human being could be made to see reason and convert her to be a justice and peace worker. Humility was very natural for him and was the other side of coin of truth, but it was also his tool to win over worst opponent! He has conducted his peace workshops in challenging conditions that the organizers can afford. Sometimes in conditions that would appall any decent person. People were important to him and not luxuries and comfortable situations. He would easily trust people and particularly those who were needy. Compassion for those needy, suffering and victims of injustice was an important value for him which he followed lifelong. He was softer than molten wax as far as marginalized, oppressed and persons needing justice, or suffering or otherwise needy people were concerned.

6) Peace with justice was another value to which Dr. Engineer was absolutely committed to. There could be no peace without justice and justice meant not only restorative justice where violators of one’s rights were brought to justice and punished and the victims had the right to reparations. Justice for him also meant distributive justice where class based inequalities were not to be tolerated. In order to work for peace, he studied communal conflicts in depth and understood the roots of the conflict were in economic, social and political inequalities. He wrote extensively on major communal conflicts and explained that though religion was used as a tool to promote conflicts, religion was not the root cause of the conflicts. The real nature of conflict was competition between elite to control socio-economic institutions, including the state and establish one’s hegemony over the other. Religion was used as a tool to mobilize large number of gullible people. Communal conflicts would not be possible without wide spread prejudices against the minorities. Prejudices against the minorities were the foundation on which the infrastructure of communal conflicts was built. Dr. Engineer painfully gathered facts and data to counter the prejudices against minorities convincingly. Many people have approached this author to recall how the workshop and sound arguments and facts placed by Dr. Engineer changed their attitudes towards minorities. One Haryana police officer by the name Sharma met me while Dr. Engineer was in ICU to tell me how attending Dr. Engineer’s workshop was life changing moment for him. He never hated minorities from that day onwards and, more important, would never believe in stupid propaganda like Aurangzeb would eat only after gathering 20 manns of sacred threads of Brahmin.

7) One truth that he arrived through his search was the need to liberate religions from the clutches of the priestly establishments and restoring agency to a common believer would rejuvenate the religion, but more importantly, reveal the hidden meanings that we had failed to understand hitherto. Religion would become true moral power in the hands of the oppressed to fight injustice and change the oppressive status-quo. To him religion was not religion if it didn’t inspire to question status-quo, question the dominant understanding, and taught the followers to be rebels. He challenged the understanding of the left ideologists for whom religion was opium of masses. Even to Marx, religion was not frozen into single role of opium. Marx propounded that religion was also sigh of the oppressed and heart of the heartless world.

8) Gender justice and equality in general and for Muslim women in particular was a great passion for him. He pressed his entire knowledge of Islam and understanding of Quran, Islamic history, study of Islamic jurisprudence to service for the cause of Muslim women. Quran, according to him talked only of rights of women and not of men in Surah An-Nisa and reference to men was always with respect to their duties and not rights. That was to set the social imbalance right where women only had duties and no rights. He argued that during medieval period, as Muslim rulers conquered territories and spread, and became an empire, patriarchal culture snatched the rights given to women by Quran. Muslim Ulema seldom could counter his Quranic arguments and would respond with and defence of patriarchal cultural values on the basis of morals. He instructed me to give his daughter and my sister her share in his property after him. He of course struggled for equality of all and was part of struggle for implementation of Mandal Commission Report much before we all knew about it.

9) Mission of Asghar Ali Engineer was to liberate religion from religious establishments, make it a tool to question established interpretations of religious scriptures and make it a inspiration to search for truth and change the oppressive social reality; to embrace diversity and learn to co-exist through dialogue of cultures and equality, particularly gender equality and rights of Muslim women and by bringing scholarly works to bear to achieve these objectives was the mission of Asghar Ali Engineer. He expanded the horizons of knowledge and values and opened up many avenues for us to achieve the goal of equality, justice, peace, dignity for all and diversity. Asghar Ali Engineer was an institution in himself. Are we ready to carry forward his mission with the discipline and dedication that he had? We will strive!! May his soul rest in peace.

New Delhi, May 18, 2013: A people’s convention on the State’s Onslaught On Right to Freedom of Expression and Association organized here in the backdrop of suspension of INSAF’s FCRA and freezing of its bank account resolved to fight against the demonizing and draconian laws of Indian state in favor of dispossessed people and their basic rights.

Speaking on the occasion in the Constitution Club of India, NCP spokesperson Devi Prasad Tripathi informed the packed house that he has recently written a letter to the Home Minister of India Sushil Kumar Shinde to revoke its FCRA orders against INSAF unconditionally as this step may cause embarrassment to the government. The letter states, “…I apprehend that you actions against INSAF may appear to be motivated and may cause embarrassment to the government…INSAF and its allies are engaged in defending democratic rights of deprived communities and in strengthening secular spirit of the nation”. Tripathi said that the judicial and political system of this country needs to be transformed completely.

The convention started with paying homage to Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, the founder President of INSAF who passed away two days back. Delhi University Professor Achin Vinaik elaborated on the life and works of Dr. Engineer. After this, senior journalist Anand Swaroop Verma gave a detailed backgrounder of the corporate-security establishment nexus in India that started with a report of FICCI and ASSOCHAM and including the “wise” suggestion of the Prime Minister to “co-opt” the media in a meeting with home ministers of states way back in 2006. Manisha Sethi of Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association updated the same issue with new facts regarding defence deals and media-corporate nexus where Reliance group has a shareholding in 25 news channels.

Forward Block General Secretary Devbrat Biswas emphasized on continuing the struggles and people’s movements with people’s resources and leadership whether FCRA is continued or not. Educationist Anil Chowdhary categorically said that if the government vows not to take any foreign funding for development, then INSAF will be the first to surrender its FCRA and continue struggles without foreign funding. He said that since the government does not have the courage to do so, hence it may categorically state on its website whether which struggles are not applicable for foreign funding. Chowdhary satirically said that the government has a last and very easy resort to add a footnote in the constitution that all the rights apply to just 15 percent population of this country.

Other speakers including Kalyani Menon Sen, Ramesh Dixit, Anil Singh, Ashok Chowdhary, Ranjana Padhi and John Dayal expressed solidarity with the struggling pro-people forces and condemned the state’s onslaught on people’s basic rights. The convention concluded by passing a five point resolution condemning the recent arrests of anti-POSCO leader Abhay Sahoo, social activists Madhuri and PUCL activist Jaya Vindhyala.

Resolutions adopted

1. This house condoles the passing away of Dr. Asgar Ali engineer , an unparallel social reformer and a robust fighter against communalism.
2. This house condemns the arrest and implication in a false case of Madhuri bhen from Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangattan and Comrade Abhay Sahoo and demands their immediate and unconditional release
3. This house calls for immediate restoration of FCRA of INSAF and stands for INSAF’s legal and political fight.
4. This house salutes the numerous troubles from POSCO to Niyamgiri and Kudankulam against large corporations for the land and livelihood and condemns the mass FIRs and cases of seditions filed against the struggling people
5. This house resolves to continue and strengthen its struggle against repressive laws used by the State to crack down on Peoples’ movements and Right to expression and association.

Police wait outside Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, on the day of Ram Singh’s “suicide”

India then launched into a nation-wide process of introspection, with vociferous protests and even a change in laws related to rape. Also in this period, Ram Singh, the main accused of the six, was found hanging in his jail cell on the morning of 11 March. The case has been abated qua Ram Singh, and the State maintains that he committed suicide, while his lawyer alleges murder. The report on the same is yet to be submitted in the court. Today, the trial finished the examination of prosecution witness 74.

A second accused, is Vinay Sharma. A resident of Tihar Jail 7, he has been hospitalized since 3 May and has thus not been attending any of his hearings since. Now his lawyer AP Singh says that Vinay has been slowly administered “sweet posion” at the jail hospital where he had been admitted for a fever and chest pain and that his condition is “critical.”

The case of Vinay requires concern- this is not the first time he has had a serious health issue since the trial began. The young man has had a particularly eventful five months. In March, the former gym instructor announced that he plans on writing entrance exams for the Indian airforce. His lawyer went to the extent of filing an application for him to be supplied with fruits and milk, which the presiding judge agreed to. A day before he was to write his exam, he was found to have a broken hand. He alleged that he had been tortured. The jail authorities said that he got into a fight with other inmates.

This time, Vinay’s condition is even more serious. His lawyer reports that on the night of 2 May he was beaten on his chest. “Vinay told me that while beating him, the jail authorities said that they would beat him on his face, but the marks would show, and so decided to beat him on his chest,” says Singh. He had been suffering a fever for a few days before that, and this coupled with the chest pain, had him admitted to the hospital within Tihar Jail. Instead of getting better, things got worse. The boy began vomiting blood. His lawyer says that Vinay has been receiving a “sweet poison” in his medicines consistently, since being admitted in the jail hospital. He has been transferred to three hospitals in two weeks and has been vomiting blood at all these places. Singh says that at Tihar and at the second hospital (Deen Dayal Upadhyay, a government hospital), the doctors seem to have made light of Vinay’s sickness, calling it just a fever. A bail application for Vinay on the grounds of his ill health has been rejected by the court in Saket where his case is being heard.

The medical officer at the Tihar jail has submitted a status report today on Vinay. It lists some of the efforts of and opinions made by doctors at Tihar and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. Tihar referred him to a government hospital citing “fever, sore throat and oral ulcers.” The government hospital has provided a “provisional diagnosis of Pyrexia of Unknown Origin with Bicytopenia” and referred him to a third facility (Lok Nayak Hospital, also a government one). In the two days since he has been admitted at what is considered a specialist facility, there has been no accurate diagnosis of Vinay’s condition besides that it is “critical.” The report is expected tomorrow.

Allegations of torture of the accused within the jail have been made since the beginning of this trial. Akshay Thakur, another accused, has also just last week claimed to have been tortured. His lawyer says that the jail authorities report that he has been bothering other inmates instead.

Of the six accused of her rape, one is a juvenile, which means he will compulsorily receive a very light sentence, and his proceedings are ongoing at the Juvenile Justice Board.

After the suicide of Ram Singh, the sessions court hearing this case ruled for increased security to be given, and for the accused to be treated well so that they do not commit desperate acts that could lead to mishaps. But something is definitely amiss when the accused persons are found dead, with a broken hand, alleging torture, or alleging torture to the extent that leaves them hospitalized for two weeks with no convincing diagnosis. Is it not in the interest of their justice and ours, for them to be kept alive? Or is it normal for undertrials to fall away during due process? If it is, then does it not require critical concern?

Courtesy: SoapBoxFound blog

The case was filed against Madhuri, Baniya Bai’s Husband, Basant and others by the compounder and was registered as FIR No 93 of 2008. Madhuri and others had received a court notice to appear in the Court of Shri D.P. Singh Sewach, JMFC on 16th May. Madhuri appeared and was informed that the police had filed a closure report (khatma) but had not stated clear reasons for the closure and therefore the report was refused. Madhuri was arrested from the court complex. She has been remanded in JC till 30th May 2013 and will be placed in Khargone women’s Jail.

This case of baniya Bai is also part of the writ petition filed in the High Court Of MP, Indore Bench in which the status of maternal health services was raised in light of 29 maternal deaths recorded in a span of 9 months in barwani DH.

Details of the case are as follows:

A ST resident of of village Sukhpuri, Barwani. Baniya Bai was taken to the Menimata PHC for delivery by her father-in-law, Dalsingh, on the night of 11 November 2008. They made the 15 km journey on a bullock cart because no other transport was available. After admitting and taking a cursory look at her, the compounder, V.K. Chauhan, and nurse, Nirmala, left the PHC and went home.

The next morning, Baniya was forced by the compounder and the nurse to leave the hospital. Her family was asked for Rs. 100, which they did not have and so Dalsing immediately went to get money from their village. Despite attempts to re-admit Baniya Bai to the PHC, the compounder flatly refused saying that they could not manage the delivery so she would have to go to Barwani DH or Silawad Hospital.

Baniya’s relatives tried to get the Menimata hospital compounder, nurse and staff to call for the Janani Express, but were unsuccessful. The family was told to make its own arrangements to refer to a higher hospital. When forced to leave the PHC Baniya Bai crawled out of the labour room, on to the road outside the PHC, where she lay down in severe pain.

Eventually, Baniya’s mother-in-law, Suvali Bai, went looking for a Dai in the marketplace and found Jambai Nana, who had come to market collect her wages. After hearing about Baniya Bai’s situation, Jambai agreed to assist her, and at around 12PM, conducted a normal delivery on the road outside the hospital. The father-in-law gave his dhoti (loin cloth) to provide cover for Baniya Bai during delivery. Following this incident, a crowd gathered outside the health centre.

Madhuri was passing by, inquired about what was happening. She then called up the Silawad CHC, the Silawad Police Station as well as health officials from Barwani. Upon being informed, senior officials from the health department ordered for a vehicle to be sent immediately to the Menimata PHC. After being denied emergency obstetric care and being forced to deliver in public view, Baniya Bai’s and her child were taken to the Silawad Hospital for admission. The compounder was suspended after repeated demands for action from JADS, but was soon reinstated.

[By Malik Aabid]

There rests a small village, quite attractive, in this king of vales; Kashmir. One enters in the garden of seclusion, in the beauty of nature, in the silence of scenery and in the greenery of greeneries, when one enters this village. Mountains surround it and protect it. People are attracted to blossoms which sprout there like pearls. The village’s idyll is enhanced by the gift of nature and that exquisiteness is in the form springs (Nag). Springs in the village are the indication of its utmost beauty, says Walter Lawrence. Twittering and chirping of birds solely had to do the work of breaking the silence in this village in the past.

So I am told.

The people of this place were joyful, living a decent life, and simple. Children were polite, plain, and untidy, as not only appearance but their vision was too simple; they were most often than not found gnawing nails in the effortless manner as if they were not civilized, although that was not the case. Women were found mostly in fields, carrying samovars with them and the basket for the purpose of farming. They were considered most charming, most beautiful. Men were simpletons too, almost boy like even in their old age.

So I am told.

This was the life of the village where I was born and it was given the name of “Trehgam” means thirty villages. Maybe because of the fact it consisted of thirty small villages. The charming Shiva nag located in the village was a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity.

So I am told.

Then came the time of the new occupation. This time it was not the Mughals or the Sikhs or the Dogras but the new state of India. There in this simple village was born a man who refused to fear, who refused to accept being colonised. He did not want to digest what the brutal Indian rule implied for his people. He did not think of the village but the entire valley, the entire land of Kashmir. The moustachioed man in a simple Khan had a modest beginning. He was born on 18 February 1938 in this small village. When he grew up, he tried every method to get justice. He was a lover whose only love was Kashmir. He was Maqbool Bhat.

This I know.

The brute colonial face of Indian rule in Kashmir was demonstrated in its clearest form in the way Bhat was hanged in Tihar Jail on 11 Feb 1984. His body was never given to his family, to his village, to his valley, to his people. His body was snatched by the Indian state. But his vision, his passion, his message could not be snatched. That day, we lost our revolutionary. We lost a man with whom our hopes were connected. We lost our innocence. The village was not the same ever again.

This I know.

Over the next many years, households never had a day when one could be sure of the day ending without a story of tragedy, humiliation or suffering. Morning was converted into mourning, as by the early 1990s the Indian military had crossed all the limits of brutality, harshness and cruelty. The beauty of the village felt like the beauty of a graveyard sometimes. Silence was no more broken by the chirping of birds for now the guns and grenades had taken over. My village became devoid of springs as water was replaced by blood. Joyful days went away and sufferings began. Not only some sections but all and sundry suffered; some suffered death, some mutilation, but most all suffered indignity. I grew up with this suffering and silence all around. I grew up feeling something was amiss. Something was not right. Something felt occupied.

This I know

It was no consolation that my village of Trehgam did not witness what a neighbpuring village Kunan-Poshpora did. There the brutality had the ugliest face. Mass rape. From an eighty year old lady to an eight year old girl. No one spared. Multiple rapists, multiple raped, all rapists scot free, all raped still awaiting justice that never comes. 53 is the number that Indian state denies but we Kashmiris will always remember.

This I know.

Today, when I stroll through the lanes of these two villages, which had faced the miseries, I blame myself and the fate of the people. I read and hear about humanitarianism. I wonder where the International community was at that time, in slumber or their eyes had turned blind? How can a nation that suffered Jallianwala Bagh Massacre perpetrate this on us? Why is the world silent? This question still resides in my mind, and I am not able to get the answer. Can we move on without justice? Can we trust a state that refuses to acknowledge the violence it wrote over our bodies? The villages await in silence for the lady justice to knock the door but she seems to have lost her way somewhere. I wish those dark days never come back to us any more.

This I hope.

[Malik Aabid is a young Kashmiri writer residing in Srinagar and available at www.facebook.com/malik.abid3]

“Vande Mataram! These are the magic words which will open the door of his iron safe, break through the walls of his strong room, and confound the hearts of those who are disloyal to its call to say Vande Mataram.” (Rabindranath Tagore in Glorious Thoughts of Tagore, p.165)

The controversy becomes more complex in the light of Rabindranath Tagore’s rejection of the song as one that would unite all communities in India. In his letter to Subhash Chandra Bose (1937), Rabindranath wrote:

“The core of Vande Mataram is a hymn to goddess Durga: this is so plain that there can be no debate about it. Of course Bankimchandra does show Durga to be inseparably united with Bengal in the end, but no Mussulman [Muslim] can be expected patriotically to worship the ten-handed deity as ‘Swadesh’ [the nation]. This year many of the special [Durga] Puja numbers of our magazines have quoted verses from Vande Mataram – proof that the editors take the song to be a hymn to Durga. The novel Anandamath is a work of literature, and so the
song is appropriate in it. But Parliament is a place of union for all religious groups, and there the song cannot be appropriate. When Bengali Mussulmans show signs of stubborn fanaticism, we regard these as intolerable. When we too copy them and make unreasonable demands, it will be self-defeating.”

In a postscript to this same letter, Rabindranath says:

“Bengali Hindus have become agitated over this matter, but it does not concern only Hindus. Since there are strong feelings on both sides, a balanced judgment is essential. In pursuit of our political aims we want peace, unity and good will – we do not want the endless tug of war that comes from supporting the demands of one faction over the other.” [1]

1. (Letter #314, Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, edited by K. Datta and

A. Robinson, Cambridge University Press)

‘Bharat Mata’ – painting by M F Hussain

Subhash Gatade is the author of Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India, and The Saffron Condition: The Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neoliberal India. He is also the Convener of New Socialist Initiative (NSI)

Article courtesy: New Socialist Initiative

The echo of the Shahbag protest in Bangladesh was heard about 200 miles away here on Sunday with citizens, under the banner of Janamat, expressing solidarity with protesters in that country. Janamat, a Guwahati-based socio-cultural body which organised the solidarity meet here, said that the issue raised by the Shahbag protesters is relevant to India in general and Assam in particular because both the countries’ secular and democratic fabrics are threatened by communal forces.

Solidarity meet in city for Shahbag protest. Times News Network, April 29, 2013
Representatives of different Gonojagoron Mancha across the country on Friday suggested spreading its activities to grassroots level to aware people about its demands. They urged all to be united to fight against Jamaat-Shibir and move forward with a view to realising their demands …Around 300 representatives from 167 gonojagoron manchas from seven divisions attended the daylong representative conference at Senate Bhaban of Dhaka University to express their views and suggestions to strengthen the movement.

Imran H Sarkar, spokesperson for the Gonojagoron Mancha, announced a mass rally at Mymensingh on May 18 and a grand rally at Projonmo Chattar in Dhaka on May 31 at the end of the conference.
The Daily Star, May 3, 2013

Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umari, President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, (Born in 1935), seems to be a learned man, at least that’s what his biographical details tell us. Elected for the second time as Ameer (President) of the Jamaat he is known to have ‘authored more than thirty books’ and is ‘considered an ‘authority on human rights in general, and women and Islamic family system in particular’. Interestingly, despite his long innings in social-political life and exposure to the outside world his understanding of some crucial developments in this part of the subcontinent seems to be at variance from what can be said as a general consensus around the issue.

The manner in which he and the organisation he leads reacted to the recent developments in Bangladesh, the emergence of what is known as Shahbagh movement – the spontaneous movement initiated by youth seeking ‘exemplary punishment to the war criminals’ and banning of ‘politics based on religion’ – is an indicative of this disconnect between what Maulana Umari and the organisation he leads thinks and what actually happened.

Cartoon Credit: Ruhin Afrin Joyee

As everybody knows the question of trial of ‘war criminals’ in Bangladesh’s liberation struggle still remains unsettled, despite the fact that it has been a longstanding demand of the Bangladeshi people who faced genocide at the hands of Pakistani army. The support rendered to them in this venture by local activists of Jamaat-e-Islami belonging to then East Pakistan is another ignoble aspect of this whole episode. The way post-liberation history of Bangladesh unfolded itself, where one witnessed assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, towering leader of the liberation struggle and the first prime minister of the newly independent country, followed by coups and a period of instability, this important task could not be addressed. Yes, time and again there were attempts at the non-official level to underline and emphasise this unfinished task : e.g. Way back in 1992, an organisation led by Jahanara Imam ( called Shaheed Janani – mother of martyrs) called ‘ Ekattorer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee’ had held mock public trial of people accused of war crimes in a People’s Court. The immediate context of having this trial was that Gulam Azam, whose citizenship was revoked by Sheikh Mujib, was elected as the Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The High Court, however, in 1993 restored his citizenship which was later upheld by the Bangladesh Supreme Court in 1994.

These attempts received a boost when Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Haseena returned to power (2009) and set up an International War Crimes Tribunal to try some leading activists of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh and Bangladesh Nationalist Party as part of fulfillment of its electoral promise. Critics also see it as an attempt to claim legacy over the historic struggle for liberation. A War Crimes Fact Finding Committee in April 2010 published a list of 1597 suspects. As far as evidence to be presented during the trial, the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973 states: “A Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence; and it shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and may admit any evidence, including reports and photographs published in newspapers, perio-dicals and magazines, film and tape-recordings and other materials as may be tendered before it, which it deems to have probative value.” (As cited in Julfiqar Ali Manik, “The Trial we are Still Waiting For”, Forum, Daily Star, 3(12), December 2009.

Last night passed by without anyone in our political class having recalled the entire day what Mahatma Gandhi had said once — “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” What took place in the Kot Balwal jail in Jammu yesterday was appalling and it should make us all Indians as a nation sit upon the ground and think where we are heading.

Right-wing nationalism has never imposed its viewpoint so assertively and arrogantly as the one and only viewpoint, and, evidently, its propagandists are influencing a lot of people — including Sepoy Vinod Kumar from Uttarkhand.

Where are we heading as a nation? Does the 2014 parliamentary election warrant all this hullabaloo? Is the foreign policy really in a shambles? isn’t it also an optical image that is being thrust upon the nation by the media and the politicians?

Why is the media or the political class shying away from even discussing the ground reality that history didn’t begin on April 15 in northern Ladakh and much water had flown under the bridge in the vicinity of the Chumar post in the Depsang Bulge area where Indian has been apparently acting belligerently when Gen (Retd) V K Singh was in command in South Block?

Why is it that no one asks whether the civilian leadership and the policymakers were aware of what was going on, or was it a case of the army’s Northern Command forcing the pace of events, or, worse still, was it yet another Himalayan blunder? The nation has a right to know.

Again, when we did what we did by executing Afzal Guru just like that and then went on to put on pompous airs as a ‘hard state’, why didn’t we factor in the grave consequences that would inevitably follow in the downstream?

Both the government which acted pompously and the BJP which brayed for Guru’s execution are equally answerable for Sarabjit’ Singh’s ghastly murder.

The biggest danger facing the country today is that the right-wing nationalistic wave which is rising to a crescendo — and increasingly locking in the UPA government — is so perilously out of tune with the fragility of India’s political economy.

India cannot afford — and it does not really need — confrontation with its two big neighbors. Yet, we seem to be precipitating the confrontation.

To my mind, President Pranab Mukherjee should have given some sane advice to the NDA stalwarts who met him yesterday to generally calm them down and encourage them as adults to mobilize their political ingenuity to fight the 2014 poll on real issues that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of destitute people in our country. After all, there is no dearth of such issues and there is a real India waiting out there beyond the middle class opinion.

N. Jayaram is a journalist now based in Bangalore after more than 23 years in East Asia (mainly Hong Kong and Beijing) and 11 years in New Delhi. He was with the Press Trust of India news agency for 15 years and Agence France-Presse for 11 years and is currently engaged in editing and translating for NGOs and academic institutions. He writes a blog: http://walkerjay.wordpress.com/

International Labour Day 2013 has been and gone and today is another day. Vast numbers of workers are back to wallowing in disunity, uninvited to lose their chains. And on this the 2^nd of May, I have three disjointed thoughts:

Solidarity with the people of Hong Kong, a city where I spent a total of 16 years and where the labour movement is quite vibrant albeit under the thumb of an undemocratic government beholden to business lobbies and to Beijing, which listens more to tycoons rather than to workers and ordinary people, never mind that the ruling party in China continues to use the word “communist” in its name for perhaps nostalgic reasons (if one might be charitable).

Hong Kong’s dockworkers have been on strike for a month now.[1] All they are asking is for wages to be returned to levels before they were reduced on the pretext of economic downturn.[2] The man who is denying them the small consideration is Hong Kong’s richest tycoon, Li Ka-shing, who reputedly enjoys a direct line to the Beijing leadership.[3]

For several years until 2011, I marched on May Day with Hong Kong’s tens of thousands of workers from Victoria Park to Government House in scorching afternoon heat. The drumbeats of Indonesian domestic workers in colourful clothes and similar antics of others provided a bit of entertainment along the route, making up for the machinations of the police force mindlessly trying to restrict the space available for the rally.

Since moving back to Bangalore, India, in February 2012, I march, shout slogans and raise fist vicariously. To be sure, there were May Day rallies here too but mostly by individual political parties or groups linked to them.

Yesterday (May 1), Garga Chatterjee, rightly said in his Facebook update: “… Almost all of my Facebook friends from the subcontinent belong to the middle/upper-middle class. Since yesterday (April 30), many of them have been talking about May Day and workers’ rights, posting pictures and what not. Most of their homes have at least one domestic help working for them. I am sure, that person did not get a day off on May Day…”

Touché.

And too late.

By the time I’d read it, a part-time worker had been and gone after her roughly one-hour stint helping clean dishes from overnight and beating up a few clothes on a stone, in addition to cleaning the floor around my parents’ house and the front-yard. She has a mobile phone but I doubt she’s on Facebook. How many domestic workers, full-time or part-time, in India are even aware of IWD?

In Hong Kong, foreign domestic workers – mostly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand and Nepal – have formed a number of unions and organisations to deal with not only their employers and the local authorities but the unreasonable fees and rules their own countries’ governments gouge out of them.

Garga Chatterjee might have had Facebook friends from among them had he lived in Hong Kong, as a large section of the foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong are on Facebook and use it partly to organise.

Eni Lestari is one such. She’s bright and dynamic but however long she lives in Hong Kong, she’ll not be granted permanent resident status. I got it after seven years, because my visa conditions were different. I once asked Eni if she couldn’t try and squeeze a scholarship to study in a university in Hong Kong. She said the foreign domestic worker visa precluded conversion to a student visa. Apartheid.

I too am a worker. I used to be a full-time journalist for decades. For 11 years I worked at a French organisation whose branch had no union but which nevertheless allowed a five-day working week (with compensatory offs for night shifts), 13th month salary and medical coverage until 2006 when I opted out, taking sabbatical leave to enrol in Hong Kong University. I subsequently worked for several months full-time but mostly part-time as a journalist for both commercial entities and human rights NGOs, something I still do since returning to my hometown, Bangalore.

The payment per day for freelance editing has stagnated at the 1990s level in Hong Kong. And that per word of translation for another Hong Kong-based entity has remained the same since, I am told, 2006. An agency in Taipei that used to be under the thumb of the ruling Kuomintang party – a once rabidly anti-communist group that presided over “White Terror” on the island until democratisation began in the late 1980s – pays a more decent rate and I might do a spot of work for them.
I am a freelance/independent journalist and translator. We hacks sell our wares and services to those who’ll have them at a price they quote. No union. Nada.