Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director of People’s Watch India, traveled to Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) in Tamil Nadu for the dedication of the People’s Inquest into the police firings at Thoothukudi on May 22, in which more than ten people were killed. The report was dedicated to the families of the deceased and injured. Tiphagne, one of the convening members of the Inquest, in a first-person account, outlined the extent of police repression that continues against the people of the area and human rights defenders helping them.
Tiphagne wrote, on July 22, “After all the cancellations of venue due to police pressure and the ‘illegal’ questions asked by the SHO of SIPCOT Police station for a private hall meeting, this morning at 11 AM we the organisers after a meeting with all the leaders of the political parties in the district and after conversations with the IG South at Madurai, decided that it was time to call a spade a spade and hence changed the venue to our own private venue and successfully conducted the event”. However, Tiphagne explained the extent of police pressure surrounding the event, saying “police terror” was created by the SP Thoothukudi “and the district administration through its revenue staff”. Tiphagne said police were “threatening families not to attend the meeting”. He wrote that the roads leading tot he city and the venue were “blocked with barricades,” and that the people traveling on the roads were forced to explain where they were going.
In spite of police pressure, Tiphagne wrote that former Supreme Court Justice Gopala Gowda was in attendance, along with other prominent citizens, including the Archbishop of Madurai, the Bishop of Thoothukudi, as well as members from political parties such as the DMK, CPM, TMMK, and Congress, among others. Amnesty International India and other parties and movements were also present, Tiphagne wrote. Despite the “police terror,” more than 500 people attended the event, he noted. Also present were several families of those who were killed.
Tiphagne noted that one “highlight of the event” was Justice Gowda being videographed as he entered the road near the venue, even as he was traveling in an official protocol vehicle with an official police escort. Tiphagne wrote that Inspector of Police Paulraj of Koilpatti who was on duty was unable to explain why a former Supreme Court judge was being videographed when attending a private function, saying that the Thoothukudi South SHO also could not explain who had given orders for the videographing. Tiphage wrote that no additional SPs or DSPs were present with the local SHOs “to carry on this illegality,” concluding, “This speaks of the politicisation and criminalization of the police and duly exposed the so called peace that the District SP claims has returned to Thoothukudi.”.
Tiphagne also took note of the fact that with 243 FIRs being registered thus far, the Thoothukudi SP, Murali Lamba, “who had been addressed complaints from all the families of the deceased almost a month ago asking that separate FIRs be registered and duly investigated, had the audacity to ensure that his SHOs issued summons to all the complainants to appear before them on the 21st July in an attempt to prevent them from attending this event.”
More details regarding the People’s Inquest’s report on the Tuticorin massacre can be found here.
The growing ill-educated pool in our country despite being literate, alert us. There is no complete solution to heinous crimes like mob violence unless inclusive efforts are invested.
On July 17, 2018, a three-judge bench led by CJI Dipak Misra, agreed that it was an obligation of the state to protect citizens and maintain the pluralistic social fabric of the nation against lynching. The court asked the government to see the judgement as a clarion call in a time of exigency and also to file compliance reports within next four weeks. The judgment came in a contempt petition filed by activist Tehseen Poonawalla against continued mob violence by cow vigilantes.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising argued that the incidents of lynchings go “beyond the description of law and order… these crimes have a pattern and a motive. For instance, all these instances happen on highways. This court had asked the states to patrol the highways.” Vrinda Grover, a Delhi based human rights activist commented, “India doesn’t need new laws to curb crimes as mob violence; the enforcement of existing laws is needed.” Her opinion was also shared by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves. “Provisions in the criminal laws are very comprehensive and good,” he agreed. “They just need implementation.”
By enacting a special law against lynching, India will become the first country to do so. Supreme Court’s order is undoubtedly appreciable but heinous crimes like mob violence themselves bear many twisted knots. The connotations associated with mob violence are deeper than they appear and it becomes important to reflect on some unavoidable missing loops at this stage of the debate. From the Google engineer’s lynching to Akhlaq’s murder, from Bidar-Karnataka to Dadri-Uttar Pradesh, from WhatsApp rumours to cow vigilantism, the face of intolerance is evident and it was necessary to create some sense of fear in the perpetrators. The law against lynching, if enacted, may help in warning them but it is something ingrained in our society which can only be removed by appropriate interventions.
Last year’s rallies under the phrase #NotInMyName still remain fresh. Earlier this year, the lynching of a tribal in Kerala on suspicion of rice theft enunciated the difference between literacy and education. A few days ago, a Google engineer was beaten to death in Bidar, Karnataka by a 2,000-strong mob in an attack sparked by false social media messages on the claim of kidnapping children in India. A man was lynched yesterday in Rajasthan’s Alwar on the suspicion of cow smuggling. These incidents highlight a wide spectrum of an apparently simple term but they must be questioned, investigated and addressed through a consensus.
The psychology being a scientific realm may help us understand a deep-rooted social violence. Among many theories, socialisation theories of crime stand strong in socially engaged communities like India’s suburban and rural areas. Learning theories such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning tell us how a mob mentality functions. Social theories ascertain that criminal behaviour is a learned behaviour and people learn criminal activity from close others, such as family, peers, or co-workers. Criminologist Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory explains how criminal values could be culturally transmitted to individuals from their significant others.
It is evident that cow vigilantism is not a result of natural tendency. This bears affiliation with a religious vendetta and is strongly backed by Sutherland’s theory. ‘Monkey see, monkey do’- a famous American saying can easily be related with recent episodes of mob violence on suspicions of kidnapping, supported by observational learning theory. Trained and paid rioters supplied with arms and ammunition, have attacked innocents in past. Gujarat 2002 pogrom marks operant conditioning, the third kind of learning theory. This context is very close to the Skinner Box experiment, which was developed by American psychologist B.F Skinner, in which he trained rats to press levers in order to get to their food.
As far as lynching fuelled by religious vendetta has been studied, it is found to be associated with a social facet. Recently, #TalkToAMuslim hashtag has emerged as a patronising action to fight the rising Islamophobia in India. This not only accentuated the rising gap between two major religions and certainly threatened Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb of Hindu-Muslim fusion. The recent Netflix show ‘Sacred Games’ compared the Hindu-Muslim division with Atapi-Vatapi, characters related to Hindu mythology. The show outlines how a soft and tolerant element as religion can be used to create havoc.
Disturbed Areas Act in Gujarat has emerged as a tool to discriminate against Muslims. The law prevents an adherent of one religion from selling/buying a property to/from an adherent of another religion in areas notified under the Act. The rationale given by the state government was for protecting people from being forcibly evicted by members of other religions under the shade of this law. Against the rationale given by BJP government, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia in a speech in 2014 at Bhavnagar, Gujarat, he had suggested spitting on a Muslim man and throwing tomatoes at him. This, while attending to a complaint reportedly about a Muslim man who had bought a property in a ‘Hindu area.’
Evoking the Disturbed Area Act in his speech, Togadia had stated, “This is a long-time conspiracy that Muslims have been executing in cities and villages of India. How can we stop this? There are two ways – one, to impose Disturbed Areas Act everywhere, two – consult a lawyer, barge into a house, occupy it forcefully and hang the board of Bajrang Dal. We can handle a case later.” His audience had cheered his hatred against Muslims. The chasm created between young generations of two communities is starkly evident in Gujarat. If this difference and distance between the two groups remain, the hate is not going anywhere anytime soon.
In addition to the psychological and social aspects of the turmoil, the educational conscience of a criminal also constitutes the loop. The value-based education is mostly inexistent in India’s education system. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) pattern brought by previous governments to develop cultural and social values among students and to extirpate the evolving ill mentality, was abolished by the BJP government. So, what else could be a methodology as an educational intervention to curb the growing hatred among young Indians if it not CCE? The current government fails to bring new educational framework tackling these unavoidable subjects of concern.
I wouldn’t add that the incumbent political party and its sympathisers are basic reasons behind mob savagery but irony too felt anxiety when union minister Jayant Sinha garlanded mob lynching convicts adding that he was ‘honouring the law.’ On the same day of SC’s directive on lynching, Swami Agnivesh was marginally saved from being lynched by members and sympathisers of the same party which was directed to take concrete steps on the same mob violence.
Following this, Ramchandra Guha tweeted:
Swami Agnivesh is known for his work to emancipate bonded labour, and for the promotion of inter-faith harmony. He also has a sense of fun, with a joyous laugh. A Hindu monk of courage, compassion, and humour; so naturally he must be beaten up in Modi’s India.
The criminal milieu and its foster care in India lug the political overtone. Political interference in enforcement bodies remains unavoidable in a big democracy like ours. The growing ill-educated pool in our country despite being literate alerts us, and there is no complete solution to heinous crimes like mob lynching unless inclusive efforts are invested.
[Author is a research scholar at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He serves as an Editor to Academia.edu & WikiProject.]
A cultural war is raging. We must unite across geography, across political parties, across class and caste to create a culture that is casteless, democratic, just and humane: Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan’s speech as he receives IDSFF Lifetime Achievement Award in Kerala
Kerala: Noted filmmaker Anand Patwardhan addressed the International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Kerala on July 20, 2018. He spoke about how Kerala has resisted extreme right wing Hindutva violence and how films on political subjects will have to chart the current geography. While receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, he said that the right wing is a well-oiled machine which spreads fake propaganda through films and it could only be countered with reason and compassion.
Full text of the speech:
Thank you, Kerala! Not only for this award, but for being what you are. For being the last bastion of hope for this country where despite their best efforts, the extreme right wing has never won more than a single seat in Parliament. Thank you for retaining a sense of community without letting it degrade into religious identity so that being a Keralite has more meaning than being a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jew. Thank you for being a State that has still not fully succumbed to the mindless industrialization and destruction of ecosystems that the rest of India proudly parades as “development.” Thank you for literally giving us a chance to breathe.
Thank you, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala and Chalachitra Academy for your hard work and your many years of existence. Thank you to the vision of the political party that gave birth to you and sustains you even when times are bad.
I know I mustn’t stray from the world of cinema so I will try to get back to talking films. The problem is, my films are always about the world I inhabit and that world is changing for the worse. A few years ago, when I was given a similar award it was at a point in time when the current Prime Minister was about to come to power in 2014. In introspecting whether my films over the years had changed the world in any way, I could only conclude that they had not. How could we elect whom we had elected if the films had made any difference? I know that many in the audience and outside will consider it an act of hubris that I expect my films to make this kind of a difference in the real world. But really, I am no poet who writes for myself or singer who sings in the bathroom or artist confined to the gallery. I want the world to take notice. That is the level of my ambition. Without it, I would not be able to make films.
The writing was on the wall in 2014 when I concluded I had failed. But people like me had not failed because our films were bad or did not communicate. They failed because the mechanism of showing our films far and wide had failed. Because those in power in different parts of the country did not prioritize the need to show them. Today, four years later things have gotten worse.
Today’s India has no freedom of expression unless of course you happen to be a right-wing murderer or part of a lynch mob, or a rapist-murderer of Dalits, minorities and weaker sections. Then you not only have freedom of expression, you also have full impunity. On the rare occasion you are arrested, not only will you get bail but ministers will come out to garland you.
Today we are up against the total corporatization of the media. And if you want to know what corporates do when fascists come to power, you don’t have to look far back in history. Today we don’t need a Goebbels to crack the whip. The corporates have already done it. Soon after the romance of Independence ended, we forgot our commitment to quality mass education and later the IMF and World Bank virtually enforced privatization, creating a new form of Brahminism. Dumbed down generations are now fed pop history and fake news. The iconography can change. Saffron can get temporarily covered under the tricolour. Hindutva can become the new National. But for Brahminism to rule, there must always be an object of hate. This Brahminism is not restricted to one caste. It is an exclusivist mindset that always needs to hate enemies. New technology in the form of social media carries the hate to ubiquitous cell phones in the pockets of every lynch mob.
They also train such people to use guns and we have lost many brave human rights activists. Kavita Lankesh is here tonight and it reminds us of our tragic losses.
How can we resist? We cannot do it with counter violence. We can only do it by addressing hearts and minds. A cultural war is raging. We must unite across geography, across political parties, across class and caste to create a culture that is casteless, democratic, just and humane. We are cultural warriors. Our weapons are reason and compassion.
I thank you once again for this award and accept it as a contribution for the work that lies ahead.
The Supreme Court, on Monday, July 24, 2018, ruled that there could not be a “complete ban” on protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, the Indian Express reported. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and A. K. Sikri said, “There cannot be a complete ban on holding protests at places like Jantar Mantar and Boat Club (near India Gate),” and directed the Central Government to formulate guidelines regarding the issue.
The ruling came in the case of a petition filed by Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan, which challenged an order from the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which in October 2017 had asked the Delhi government to end all protests in the Jantar Mantar area, Scroll reported. The NGT said the protests breached environmental laws, and that it was the state’s duty to shield people from nois pollution, the Indian Express reported. The bench, led by Justice R. S. Rathore, had directed the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to take down all temporary structures, loudspeakers, and other protest-related equipment on the road leading to Jantar Mantar. It had deemed the Ramlila Grounds in Ajmeri Gate as an alternative option for demonstrators, where, as per North body authorities, just one group can hold an event at a time.
It is Article 19(1) of the Constitution Of India that gives Indians the Right to Protest. Article 19 reads: Article 19 (1) All citizens shall have the right (a) to freedom of speech and expression; (b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;
The petition challenging the NGT’s order argued, “….holding peaceful demonstrations in order to air grievances and to see that their voice is heard in the relevant quarters, is the right of the people. Such a right can be traced to the fundamental freedoms that are guaranteed under Articles 19 (1) (a) and 19 (1) (b) of the Constitution. Article 19(1)(b) specifically confers the right to assemble and thus guarantees that all citizens have the right to assemble peacefully and without arms,” Bar and Bench reported. The petitioner had argued that authorities and the police had curbed protests by constantly imposing Section 144 of the CrPC. The petition had said that the Delhi Police had for multiple years been issuing such directives as soon as the previous order lapsed, which constituted an abuse of power and hampered citizens’ right to protest, violating Article 19. The petitioner also submitted that in other areas of New Delhi, protests were previously permitted but have been slowly curbed over time.
Just days after the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court in matters pertaining to mob lynchings, yet another man was lynched by a mob in Alwar, Rajasthan on Friday July 20. The man identified as 28 year old Akbar Khan of Haryana, was walking back home with his friend and two cows through a forested area in Alwar district’s Lalawandi Village, when he was killed by a mob on suspicion of cattle smuggling. Khan’s companion managed to escape.
Image Courtesy: ANI
Alwar IG Hemant Priyadarshi held a press conference on July 21, saying, “The police received intimation at 12:40 at night and immediately set out for the spot.” By the time the police reached the spot, Khan was bleeding profusely. He was declared brought dead to the hospital. “The body has been sent for post mortem. Two people suspected of their involvement were questioned and later arrested. We are still looking for the other suspects. We are committed to ensuring justice in the case,” said IG Priyadarshini. Meanwhile, an FIR has been filed against unknown persons.
Akbar Khan was a resident of Kol Village in Ferozepur Jhirka in Haryana. He is survived by five children. According to Jag Ram, the Sarpanch of his village, far from being a cattle smuggler, Khan was a shepherd who occasionally also worked as a labourer to make ends meet.
Activists claim that this is a part of a larger extortion network operated by the so called gau rakshaks. The People’s Union of Civil Liberties issued a statement on Saturday saying, ”
It is well known that extortionists under the garb of gaurakshaks are roaming the streets looking for a prey. If those carrying cows are able to pay the sum demanded, then they are allowed to go or else fired at and killed. This time too this has been the case, as reported by activists from the ground level.”
PUCL has also made the following demands:
the immediate transfer of investigation to an independent agency, like an SIT or under the IG.
Arrest the killers of Akbar Khan.
Immediately and restore the cows to the family of Akbar Khan.
Compensation including cash of 25 lakhs and land to the family. And a government job to his kin.
Aslam be given protection.
No false case of cow smuggling be filed against Akbar and Aslam.
The Ramgarh SHO be dismissed from duty. As the onus is on the State to protect the people from lynching.
The Home minister give a plan for the protection of dairy farmers particularly the Meos in Mewat region.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje responded to the lynching in a tweet saying, “The incident of alleged lynching of a person transporting bovines in Alwar district is condemnable. Strictest possible action shall be taken against the perpetrators.”
This incident comes just 15 months after dairy farmer Pehlu Khan was lynched by a mob along a highway in Alwar district. In fact, Ummar Khan whose body was discovered near railway tracks in November 2017 was also alleged to have been killed by cow vigilantes. These successive instances of a group of people feeling empowered and confident enough to take the law into their own hands in the state, one wonders if there is a reason why the fear of the law is absent in Rajasthan.
Akbar Khan who was lynched by alleged “Gaurakshaks” in Alwar, Rajasthan, was actually a victim of the growing pattern of extortion in the name of cow protection. This is the direct allegation made by the Rajasthan, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in a press release issued on July 21 from Jaipur
“It is well known that extortionists under the garb of ‘gaurakshaks’ are roaming the streets looking for a prey. If those carrying cows are able to pay the sum demanded, then they are allowed to go or else fired at and killed. This time too this has been the case, as reported by activists from the ground level.” The PUCL has collated this information from activists working at the ground level. “After having studied collectively with others activists, the lynchings in Mewat area of Rajasthan, it has become clear to the PUCL that Akbar Khan who had bought two cows from village Ladpur, Ramgarh tehsil, Alwar district and was taking back the cows in the night to his own village Kol near Firozpur Jhirka, Mewat, Haryana, was killed due to extortion. He was killed in Jungle Lalawandi, Ramgarh. It is well known that extortionists under the garb of Gaurakshaks are roaming the streets looking for a prey. If those carrying cows are able to pay the sum demanded, then they are allowed to go or else fired at and killed. This time too this has been the case, as reported by activists from the ground level.”
Facts of the Case
Reportedly, Akbar Khan bought two cows from village Ladpur, Ramgarh tehsil, Alwar district and was taking the cows back in the night to his own village Kolgaon near Firozpur Jhirka in Mewat, Haryana. He was accompanied by another man, Aslam. Suddenly, a group of people started thrashing them, as per Subhash Sharma, the officer at Ramgarh police station. The murder of Akbar is the complete failure of Rajasthan government in protecting Muslims, in particular dairy farmers from the killer “Gaurakshaks”, who are basically extortionists, the statement records. The Ramgarh police brought the deceased Akbar Khan to Alwar and lodged an FIR 0321/18 under Sections 143, 341, 323, 302, 34 etc. of IPC at the police station.
Since 2017, incidents of lynching had increased pointing to the deliberate subversion of the law and order machinery. Three incidents took place in that year alone:
May 30 2015, Abdul Gaffar Querishi, Birloka, Didwana tehsil, Nagaur district
April 11, 2017 Pehlu Khan, Behror thana, Alwar district
June, 16, 2017 Zafar Khan, Pratapgarh town, Pratapgarh district
September 10, 2017 Bhagtaram Meena, neem ka thaana Sikar district.
November 12, 2017, Umar Mohammed, a resident of Ghatmatika Pahadi, near Pahadi Kaman killed near RamgarahTehsil, Alwar
Lawlessness on the Rise
It was not merely lynching, but police encounters too had increased in frequency in cities such as Alwar, especially targeting Mev Muslims in the name of picking cows, it added. The civil rights body has also questioned the government on its inability to bring a halt to the “bloody madness” and alleged that the supposed Gaurakshaks have the full support of the police and administration. It highlighted, how Pehlu Khan’s killers roam around with impunity as his acquaintances, Azmat and Rafiq still face cases related to cow smuggling. Similarly, Zafar Khan’s killers too, are roaming scot free. Moreover, the eye witnesses in Umar’s case were lodged into jail making the cynical pattern of victims being made accused complete. Expressing concern over this prevalent culture of impunity to the killers, said, “There seems to be complete impunity to the killers, with the Home minister Gulab singh Kataria going on record that Gau Rakshaks to good work, after Pehlu khan was killed”.
All the killers named by Pehlu Khan were thrown out of the purview of investigation and cases of cow smuggling are still being faced by Pehlu khan’s companions, Azmat and Rafiq. Todate Zafar khans killers are roaming free and the eye witnesses in the Umar case were thrown into jail. In Bhagtaram’s case nothing happened, till the High Court intervened earlier this month in July. There seems to be complete impunity to the killers, with the Home minister Gulab singh Kataria going on record that Gau Rakshaks ‘do good work,’ after Pehlu khan was killed.
Among the demands made in the statement were sharp questions on whether or not the government of Rajasthan had any plans of implementing Supreme Court guidelines in which it has clearly made the Centre and the state responsible for lynching, and has said mobocracy will not be allowed. Further, it has said that all states should make nodal officers and there should be immediate arrests and filing of chargesheets as well as fast track courts and maximum punishment.
Besides there are specific demands made by PUCL:
The transfer of the case to an independent agency, SIT or under the IG
The arrest of Akbar Khan’s killers immediately
The restoration of his cows to the family
Compensation of Rs. 25 lakh and land to the family, a government job to the kin.
Immediate protection to eye witness, Aslam be given protection.
Ensure that no false case of cow smuggling be filed against Akbar and Aslam.
Dismissal that the Ramgarh SHO be dismissed from duty as the onus is on the State to protect the people from lynching.
Rajasthan Home Minister give a plan for the protection of dairy farmers particularly the Meos in Mewat region.
PUCL has I also urged that no cases related to cow smuggling should be filed against Akbar and Aslam. Moreover, that the Ramgarh SHO should be dismissed from his duty. It has asked the Home minister to give a plan for the protection of dairy farmers particularly the Mevs in Mevat region.
Finally, the PUCL has demanded from the CM that there should be an immediate halt to the cases of lynching.
Christian churches belonging to different denominations are facing a lot of heat in India, in light of the recent spate of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of women, allegedly by members of the clergy. While concerned church authorities have cooperated with the police during investigations, in some instances, they have also faltered in their response to the issue at hand by either defending or shielding the accused or shaming the survivor.
This is why there is a need for the Church to make public its standard operating procedures (SOPs) for investigating claims of sexual abuse as well as how it plans to stem the rot in the system that has become more and more evident in light of the following cases.
Case-1: The rape of the Kerala nun The controversy surrounding the rape of a nun and its alleged cover up by Syro-Malabar Church refuses to die down. Instead of assuring the nun of an impartial and thorough inquiry into the matter and subsequent action against the accused, the church’s Cardinal has claimed during a police investigation that he received no complaint of rape from the nun. This, just days after the accused Bishop made counter allegations that the nun had filed a false complaint against him because he was investigating allegations that she was having an affair with her cousin’s husband!
Brief Background of the case The nun had filed a police complaint saying that she was allegedly raped 13 times by Jallandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal over a period of two years (2014-2016), when she was at a convent in Kuravilangad, a small town near Kottayam in Kerala. The accused Bishop admits to have stayed in a room at a mission house at the convent on 13 occasions when he visited Kerala during that period.
The nun said that she had approached church authorities on multiple occasions, but her complaints fell on deaf ears, forcing her to approach the police. In fact, during police investigations, Joseph Kallarangatt who is Bishop of the Syro-Malabar diocese of Pala, told investigators that the nun had met him and told him about her ordeal.
Cardinal claims never received any rape complaint Now, fingers are being pointed at Cardinal George Allencherry for knowing about the abuse but failing to act against it. However, the Cardinal has claimed that his office did not receive any complaint of rape! When a police team led by Vaikom Dy SP K Subhash questioned the Cardinal, he said he never received a rape complaint from the nun, though she did raise some concerns about some issues at her convent for which she was directed to approach the concerned congregation.
In fact, the official communique from the Church said, “It is unclear from media reports who is this nun. However, a nun working with Jalandhar diocese had met the cardinal and complained about some appointments and transfers in her congregation and the inconveniences she faced. Since her congregation belonged to Jalandhar diocese, which comes congregation belonged to Jalandhar diocese, which comes under the Latin hierarchy, she was advised to approach it as the cardinal had no jurisdiction.”
Accused priest engages in victim shaming Meanwhile, Bishop Franco Mulakkal, the accused, has claimed in an interview to Times of India that his conscience is clear. In fact, in the same interview he launched a counter allegation against the nun claiming that she was getting back at him because he was investigating her for her alleged affair with the husband of one of her cousins. In 2016, the nun was posted with the Mission of Jesus Sisters in Jallandhar, where the accused is the Bishop of the diocese.
According to Sister Regina, Superior General of the mission, in November that year, the nun’s cousin had approached the church alleging that the nun was having an affair with her husband and she urged the church to step in to save her family. Sister Regina and a committee of four sisters pursued the investigation after getting the go ahead from Bishop Mulakkal. Interestingly, Bishop Mulakkal’s duties have neither been terminated nor has he been even suspended pending investigation.
Senior clergy and nuns write to CBCI and Vatican Several senior priests and nuns have written to Cardinal Oswald Gracious, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and Vatican Nuncio Giambattista Diquattro, demanding that that the accused Bishop be relieved of his duties. “Now that the case has gone to the courts, we urge you to please advise Pope Francis to relieve the bishop concerned of his pastoral responsibilities, so that the Church is seen to actually practice the ‘zero tolerance’ it professes to observe in abuse cases. With the accused bishop continuing to remain in his position, it will continue to erode the faith of the people in the credibility of the Church to implement its policy of zero tolerance and act justly in abuse matters,” said the letter to the CBCI president.
“The accused bishop continuing to remain in his position will erode the faith of the people in the credibility of the Church to implement its policy of zero tolerance and act justly in abuse matters,” said the letter to the Vatican Nuncio.
Case-2: Priest misuses Kerala woman’s ‘confession’, sexually exploits her with other priests Recently a Kerala woman had accused five priests from the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kozencherry of sexually exploiting her. According to a statement the woman from Pathanamthitta made before the Crime Branch, Father Abraham Varghese of Mundyapally had had sexual relations with her after promising to marry her when she was just 16 years old.
She further alleged that when she had confided into a priest, Father Jais K. George of Anicaud, about this during confession, instead of counselling her Fr George himself proceeded to sexually exploit her by threatening to reveal her secret to her husband. This betrayal of a confessor’s trust, that too by a priest who is expected to provide wise counsel and support, is shocking and despicable! Later Fr Job Mathew also allegedly joined in the exploitation. When she confided in yet another priest Father Johnson V Mathew, he too allegedly started sending her lewd and abusive messages!
The matter came to light when the woman’s husband discovered some discrepancies in transactions as per her bank statements and discovered hotel room rental bills. The woman then broke down and told him about her ordeal. The husband then called and spoke to a church official. An audio clip of this ended up on social media, exposing the entire story.
While the church assured to conduct an inquiry and take action against those found guilty, the husband alleged that he was being pressured to take back the complaint. Meanwhile two of the four priests are in custody, while the police are looking for the other two. The Crime Branch of the Kerala Police has slapped rape charges on all four. There is another, (fifth) as yet unnamed priest whose role is not clear so far.
Pope Francis and the new approach to cases of sexual abuse The Catholic Church had been long reeling under multiple complaints of sexual exploitation where the alleged perpetrators were members of the clergy. After Pope Francis took over the reins of the Catholic Church in March 2013, he had made his stand clear on a zero tolerance policy for sexual abuse, harassment and exploitation. He had even met survivors of sexual abuse who had been earlier exploited by church officials and clergy, and apologised for the Church’s previous silence on the matter. However, subsequent scandals including the one in Chile following which the Pope’s off the cuff remark demanding proof appeared to suggest that he was accusing the survivor of slander, showcase the Church in poor light. The Pope later apologised.
Guidelines to deal with Sexual Abuse cases In India, the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India (CBCI) came up with Guidelines for dealing with Sexual Harassment at the Workplace. Published in September 2017, the guidelines aim to provide a safe working environment for women in Church run facilities as well as suggest ways to deal with offenders. In a message from Cardianal Baselios Cleemis that is a part of the published guidelines, “The Catholic Church upholds the rights of personnel and others within working environments to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect in accordance with espoused values and the law. Any form or method of workplace harassment, bullying and discrimination is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
The foreword by Jacob Mar Barnabus OIC, Chairperson CBCI Council for Women says, “The Church, while wanting to ensure the protection and respect for women at workplace and without in any way underestimating the seriousness of sexual harassment of women at work place, wants to address all forms of sexual harassment at work place. In keeping this objective, ‘CBCI Guidelines to Deal with Sexual Harassment at Workplace’ is gender inclusive and has been formulated to create a safe, healthy and loving environment that enables its employees (irrespective of the gender) to work without the fear of prejudice, bias and sexual harassment and creates a mechanism for prevention of any form of harassment.” This showcases the Church’s progressive stand on sexual harassment that recognises that people of all genders can face sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment.
According to the guidelines, every diocese that employs 10 or more people is required to form an internal complaints committee. There are guidelines about how the committee should be composed, procedures for registering complaints, methods of investigation, and how to report matters to higher authorities. After hearing both parties and conducting an investigation, the committee is required to file a report within three months and the Church must act on the report within 90 days.
However, the awareness about the guidelines is limited. If this were to change, perhaps the certainty of an investigation and subsequent punishment would prevent potential perpetrators from engaging in any form of gender based discrimination, harassment or violence in the Church.
When Mahatma gave up expensive clothes in favour of Dhoti, it was seen as a revolution. For a Dalit to wear a three-piece suit, just like BR Ambedkar, is equally revolutionary. Why then is a Mahatma celebrated but a Dalit humiliated, even murdered?
Image Courtesy: Amir Rizvi
Sanjay Jatav wore a proud blue coloured suit for his wedding on Sunday. He shone when he rode on a horse-drawn carriage through his bride’s village routes, a velvety red cushion providing contrast from the back, making his face more visible to the dancing crowd below.
It was the first time in 80 years that a Dalit wedding procession had crossed the path of a Thakur dominated village.
It is no surprise that the upper caste people in the village have seen green over his proud, blue and suited appearance. Threats to the bride’s family have been surreptitiously made, even though the ceremony received unprecedented security.
Over the last few years, Dalits have been threatened, killed, maligned and maimed for apparently breaking age-old caste rules that often look petty on the surface. It could be twirling a moustache, wearing a white shirt, riding a horse, jumping into a pond, dancing to music and even having a common Indian name.
On July 17, human rights advocacy group Amnesty International released its data recorded on its ‘Halt the Hate’ website. “In the first six months of 2018, 100 hate crimes have allegedly been committed against people from marginalised groups. 67 incidents of alleged hate crimes against Dalits and 22 against Muslims were recorded in just the first six months of 2018. 42 incidents involved killings and 13 involved sexual violence against women from marginalised groups,” the report said. UP topped the list of hate crimes followed closely by Gujarat.
When mostly Savarna movie critics do not appreciate the significance of Rajinikanth’s suits in the movie Kabali, it is wilful ignorance on their part. A mere slip of the upper caste gaze. As compared to when Dalits, or the marginalised, cross caste lines indelibly drawn through the centuries, a laxman rekha crafted to keep them subservient and meek. Why do such actions of assertion by a Dalit person or a person supposedly from a lower caste, draw such murderous ire?
Social patents justify caste violence? Dalit rights activist Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’ took a militant approach to instil pride in every Dalit person. He twirled his moustache, wore a blue scarf and posed in front a banner which read ‘The Great Chamar welcome you to Gharkoli.’ The image drew immense focus on him and his politics. The UP govt wants to arbitrarily keep him behind bars (he has been in jail since June 2017) by slapping the draconian National Security Act against him. Why did his pride hurt upper caste sentiments so much?
A Dalit boy was murdered for wearing ‘Mojdi’s’ in Ahmedabad, Pradip Rathod was beaten to death for riding a horse in Gujarat and Maulik Jadav was beaten for adding the word ‘sinh’ to his name, also in the same western Indian state. A ‘sinh’ literally means a lion and Rajputs have claimed that name for themselves over centuries, apparently showcasing their bravery and past glory as warriors. Men were beaten for sporting moustaches and killed for watching the Garba dance in Gujarat. In Rajasthan, a mob attacked a Dalit wedding procession for playing a popular Bollywood song.
The answer lies in social patents.
“A social patent is a phenomenon in which dominant groups lay claim to exclusive enactments of social conduct, even of the most universal kind, apart from appropriating sartorial choices and facial hair styles for themselves. Their replication is then proscribed for the lower castes, who violate these social patents at their own peril,” wrote Ajaz Ashraf, a journalist from Delhi.
“A social patent is as restrictive as a manufacturing patent. Unlike products that are copyrighted, though, a social patent is a right that belongs to a group, not an individual. Social patents reward a social group not for its inventiveness but for ensuring that the inequality of status between its members and the downtrodden stays undiminished,” he added.
“A social patent determines who can sport a moustache, particularly of the sort that can be twirled. It decides who can hold a wedding procession, ride a horse to the bride’s house, hire a music band to strike notes of celebration. A social patent can debar a person from watching a dance performance, or riding a bicycle, or even wearing a white shirt. Social patents could include in their ambit any human activity likely to inject a sense of worth and joy among the lower castes,” he observed.
He said that the social patent of greatness lay with the Rajputs, so Azad claiming to be great while being a Chamar was an insult.
“Such stand-offs are a manifestation of a deeper struggle within society: Men and women from upper castes are increasingly anxious that Dalits – who makeup 16.3 percent of India’s population–previously considered untouchables, and relegated to jobs considered impure, are enrolling in schools in greater numbers, studying in colleges, finding better jobs and aspiring for long-denied equality,” reported Firstpost.
Could social patents be the only reason why traditionally advantaged classes resent the assertion of ‘inferior’ or ‘lower’ castes in personal and social politics?
Talking about upper caste insecurity, an article in DailyO said, “As modernisation and liberalisation create their own classes of the disadvantaged and take away tangible manifestations of their superiority – land, money – from some upper-class groups, they then hold onto the trappings even more fiercely. Any Dalit making pretensions to what had been their prerogative – leisure (attending garbas), pride (moustache, horse, dressing well) – has to be struck down, surely and swiftly. This attitude is by no means limited to rural societies alone. In the poshest of circles, Dalits most often exist only as ‘projects’ to be patronised, not equal humans to be fraternised with.”
Paying the price for existing The legend of Nangeli from Kerala is proof of how caste bias meant one had to pay a heavy price for being born. Even though the practice of taxing the backward and lower castes just for being themselves existed 300 years ago, the struggle for asserting their fundamental rights hasn’t quite ended.
“Over three hundred years ago, the southern state of Kerala had a system of taxation, whereby women belonging to backward castes and Dalits had to pay a tax, if they wanted to cover their breasts. Standing bare chested was taken as a sign of respect towards those castes supposedly “superior” to them – for both men and women. The tax however, was levied only on Avarna (lower caste) women who wanted to cover their chest. It goes without saying that some of these “superiors” would have also got their voyeuristic kicks out of this system as well. Royal officials would travel door to door, collecting this heinous “Mulakkaram” – literally Breast Tax- from Avarna women who had passed puberty. Sickeningly, the amount would depend on the size of the breasts,” wrote Supriya Unni Nair, a journalist from Bengaluru.
Nangeli had had enough of this humiliation. “When the pravarthiyar, or village collector came asking for her share, she lit a lamp and laid down a plantain leaf as per the custom, but instead of money, she cut off her breasts and placed them on the leaf, shocking the officials,” she wrote.
Having a name killed a minor boy in UP in 2011. “Ram Sumer and Jawahar Chaudhary have sons named Neeraj and Dheeraj and that has long been an issue between the two families, Sub-inspector Praveen Kumar said. Mr Chaudhary, who belongs to a higher caste, had given several warnings to Mr Sumer to change the names of his boys. On 22 November, Neeraj left home after dinner to watch television at a friend’s house. His body was found the next day. Police said he was strangled,” reported BBC.
A Dalit man was killed in Jharkhand for celebrating the festival of colours. In 2017, the police beat 52-year-old Pradeep Choudhary to death for ‘daring’ to throw colour on a man. He and his friends had thrown colour at a local chowkidar on Holi. The man then called the police to ‘teach them a lesson. Another Dalit man from the same state was tonsured and paraded in his village in 2015, on the suspicion of lighting the Holika pyre.
When did celebrating a festival become a death sentence?
The emperor’s new clothes Those aware of the fairy tale know how dangerous ignorance and blind fear can be.
While the upper castes find varied ways to secure their social hierarchy’s, they also find ways to not let those they consider below them to ever question their place.
Lessons in caste began early in a Tamil Nadu school where students had to wear wristbands with colour codes based on caste.
“It’s red and yellow for Thevars, blue and yellow for Nadars, saffron for Yadavs — all socially and politically powerful Hindu communities that come under the Most Backward Classes (MBC) category — while students of the Dalit community of Pallars wear wrist bands in green and red and the Arundhathiyars, also Dalits, wear green, black and white,” reported the Indian Express in 2015.
The colour of their tilak on their forehead is also a code for caste. “The headmaster at a school near Tirunelveli town said there were other markers. “Like you have different houses — green house, yellow house, etc — in city schools, children here wear coloured vests. We cannot ban everything, definitely not what children wear under their uniform. These vests come in handy during a game of basketball to draw up teams based on caste lines, but they are as effective to settle scores,” he said in the report.
In 2012, A Dalit man was beaten up for wearing a white shirt.
“Clothing, a symbol of social standing and power, has also been an instrument of oppression and an integral tool for determining and imposing identity in traditional Indian caste-hierarchies,” wrote Sunaina Kumar in Scroll.
“These codes of dressing have been a part of the wider social structure across India and anytime they have been broken, there have been reprisals from the upper castes. In Rajasthan, Dalit men were forbidden from wearing colourful pagdis and punished and thrashed if they dared to do so. In Tamil Nadu, lower caste men were forbidden from folding up their lungis and had to wear it to their toes. In parts of the state, this rule still applies. Dalits were generally not allowed to wear clean, bright or new clothes or sandals. In some places, if a Dalit wore new clothes, they had to be smeared with soot so they would appear unclean. Dalit women were not allowed to wear gold or silver jewellery, or saris in which gold thread was used,” she wrote.
The article makes a thought-provoking point. When Mahatma gave up expensive clothes in favour of the Dhoti, it was seen as a revolution. For a Dalit to wear a three piece suit, just like BR Ambedkar, is equally revolutionary. Why then is a Mahatma celebrated but a Dalit murdered?
Dehumanising people to perpetuate caste bias ‘Bhangi,’ ‘Chamar,’ ‘Harijan,’ are just some words that are used to deny basic human dignity to people from ‘lower castes.’ They are seen as pollutants to the ‘upper caste’ hegemony. A group of Dalit boys were paraded naked after being beaten in a village because they dared to ‘pollute’ a well by swimming in it to beat the summer heat.
Not just people in the patriarchal social hierarchy that traditional Hindus follow, Muslims are also called words and names to strip away their humanity. “Barbaric,’ ‘dirty,’ ‘Katua,’ (meaning circumcised,) are just some words used to describe Muslim people in the country.
Excerpts from the book ‘Genocidal Nightmares: Narratives of Insecurity and the Logic of Mass Atrocities,’ show how masses justify their violence against minorities by dehumanising them. It is written by Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, originally from Sudan, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Professor of Politics at Doha Univeristy and Co-Ordinator of University of Westminster’s Democracy and Islam Programme since 1998. He wrote about what preceded the Gujarat 2002 carnage.
[Embed 1,2,3,4 screenshots]
Caste bias during Ambedkar’s time BR Ambedkar seminal work, ‘Annihilation of Caste,’ is compulsory reading material to learn about caste. On December 12, 1935, Bhimrao Ambedkar had been asked by the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal (Society for the Abolition of Caste System), a Hindu reformist group, to address their annual conference and speak about the ill-effects of caste in Hindu society. When he sent them ‘Annihilation of Caste,” they responded by asking him to delete certain paragraphs. He responded by saying that he would not change a single comma.
He was swiftly uninvited and his speech lay undelivered. He published it himself and the rest is history. Excerpts from the speech show how caste symbols were used to defile and denigrate people:
Under the rule of the Peshwas in the Maratha country the untouchable was not allowed to use the public streets if a Hindu was coming along lest he should pollute the Hindu by his shadow. The untouchable was required to have a black thread either on his wrist or in his neck as a sign or a mark to prevent the Hindus from getting themselves polluted by his touch through mistake. In Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, the untouchable was required to carry, strung from his waist, a broom to sweep away from behind the dust he treaded on lest a Hindu walking on the same should be polluted. In Poona, the untouchable was required to carry an earthen pot, hung in his neck wherever he went, for holding his spit lest his spit falling on earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it. Let me take more recent facts. The tyranny practised by the Hindus upon the Balais, an untouchable community in Central India, will serve my purpose. You will find a report of this in the Times of India of 4th January 1928. ” A correspondent of the Times of India reported that high caste Hindus, viz. Kalotas, Rajputs and Brahmins including the Patels and Patwaris of villages of Kanaria, Bicholi-Hafsi, Bicholi-Mardana and of about 15 other villages in the Indore district (of the Indore State) informed the Balais of their respective villages that if they wished to live among them they must conform to the following rules:
(1) Balais must not wear gold-lace-bordered pugrees.
(2) They must not wear dhotis with coloured or fancy borders.
(3) They must convey intimation of the death of any Hindu to relatives of the deceased—no matter how far away these relatives may be living.
(4) In all Hindu marriages, Balais must play music before the processions and during the marriage.
(5) Balai women must not wear gold or silver ornaments; they must not wear fancy gowns or jackets.
(6) Balai women must attend all cases of confinement of Hindu women.
(7) Balais must render services without demanding remuneration and must accept whatever a Hindu is pleased to give.
(8) If the Balais do not agree to abide by these terms they must clear out of the villages. The Balais refused to comply; and the Hindu element proceeded against them. Balais were not allowed to get water from the village wells; they were not allowed to let go their cattle to graze. Balais were prohibited from passing through land owned by a Hindu, so that if the field of a Balai was surrounded by fields owned by Hindus, the Balai could have no access to his own field. The Hindus also let their cattle graze down the fields of Balais. The Balais submitted petitions to the Darbar against these persecutions; but as they could get no timely relief, and the oppression continued, hundreds of Balais with their wives and children were obliged to abandon their homes in which their ancestors lived for generations and to migrate to adjoining States, viz. to villages in Dhar, Dewas, Bagli, Bhopal, Gwalior and other States. What happened to them in their new homes may for the present be left out of our consideration.
The whole episode and the rest of the speech can be read here.
Donald Trump and the Nazi Throwback Dehumanising language and words have been commonly used throughout history to deny human rights to people and even justify their genocide. World media could not stop from making parallels between Donald trump’s diatribe against immigrants and Nazi propaganda employed to wipe out Jews.
He informed the world like he usually does, with a tweet. He called immigrants infestations. “Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!” he tweeted.
Infestations are caused by insects. Adolf Hitler consistently propagated this view about Jews. He compared them to rats and demanded their ‘extermination’ and eradication. The propaganda lead to the genocide of 6 million Jewish people.
“The use of the word “infest” to talk about people is literally out of the Nazi/anti-Semites’ playbook for talking about the Jewish threat. It was also a standard for talking about Chinese in the western United States and it remains part of the vocabulary for talking about Romani (Gypsies) in parts of Europe. This is the most hard-boiled kind of racist demagogic language, the kind that in other parts of the world has often preceded and signalled the onset of exterminationist violence. The verb “to infest” is one generally used to describe insects or vermin (rats), creatures which are literally exterminated when they become present in a house or building or neighbourhood,” said Josh Marshall, editor and Polk award winner.
Rwandan genocidaires also claimed that their victims, the Tutsi people, were cockroaches and snakes that had to be wiped out.
Closer home, all we need is the life of a dog, to dehumanise a person. Dilip Mandal wrote a searing essay ‘Just like a Dog’ in Sabrang India about how the animal has been used by Indian politicians to pardon violence and rid the criminals of guilt.
“Dogs are so prominent in mythology that we just can not ignore them. They are all over. As in the consciousness of General Singh. In the Mahabharata, the dog is the only companion of Yudhishthira in his journey to heaven, the dog is also present as a pathetic creature in the story of Drona and Ekalavya. In the 13th century Telugu text called Vijnaneshvaramu, as cited in the journal Modern Asian Studies (43-1) there is mention: if a Brahmin commits a crime deserving capital punishment, this is what should be done: shave his head, mark his forehead with the sign of a dog’s paw and so on. For others, less fortuitously born, the punishment is going to the gallows. So there is always some poor dog, or a dog reference, during life and even after death, the after life,” he wrote.
Perpetuating violence in the name of religion What has happened in the name of various religions over the past four years is not news.
Centuries-old dehumanising customs are making a comeback and being used to deny basic human rights enshrined in the Constitution and practised in the 21st century today. What changed in the last few years that caste biases, symbols, nomenclature and language became the sole obsession of the country?
“Last week, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat told a gathering at the Bombay Stock Exchange that politicians are compelled to practise caste politics because society votes on the basis of caste, that even those politicians who would seek to change caste politics feel compelled to pander to it first. Bhagwat’s portrayal of caste politics as a sort of necessary evil reflects the RSS-BJP world-view, which perceives caste primarily as an impediment to the forging of political unity of Hindus. A corollary is the refusal to acknowledge that caste politics has provided agency to historically disprivileged communities to fight social and political exclusion,” an Op-Ed of The Indian Express read.
Harish S. Wankhede, a professor at JNU summarised the hatred for Dalit assertion in politics. “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) understands the dynamic legacy of the Dalit movement in disturbing the Hindutva’s ideological rigour. Hence, to neutralise the impact of Dalit assertion on the political and social fronts, the right wing forces have improvised their tactics at both levels. On the political front, the BJP is showcasing its inclusive character; however, in the social sphere, the right wing is using anti-Dalit sentiments to consolidate its political base,” he wrote in The Wire.
“A recent study by the University of Pennsylvania under Social Attitude Research for India highlights that large sections within the upper-middle class society still hold explicit prejudices against the Dalits. Brahmanical conservatism grips the social psyche even in times of high-modernity and refuses to change. Social relationships are still disciplined through caste and communal prejudices. Muslims and Dalits face humiliation and violence everyday because of the ingrained hatred constructed by the conservative Brahmanical social values. The agenda of social reform, therefore, remains incomplete, as the radical transformation of social attitudes needs annihilation of caste pride. The social elites have not only resisted the agenda of social reforms, but have also categorically treated those who stood against Brahmanical values, rituals and customs as anti-social. The claims for constitutional safeguards, reservation policy and social dignity by the Dalits are often belittled as demands of ‘freeloaders’ and ‘non-meritorious’ people,” he wrote.
“The way Muslims as the ‘political other’ are required to be submissive to majoritarian Hindu communalism, the Ambedkarite Dalit minority, too, is being projected as the new ‘social other’ to help the right-wing mobilise conservative Brahmanical Hindus. One can see such trends, especially in UP and Maharashtra, where ideologically committed Dalit castes, like Jatavs and Mahars, are being projected as ‘aggressive’ anti-Hindutva castes. The Ambedkarite Dalits are thus branded as counter-culturists to the collective will of the Hindus and, therefore, as ‘anti-social’ and ‘anti-national,’ he added.
“The BJP is trying hard to retain its conventional upper caste support. It is pretty clear that the right wing is consciously trying to engineer a broad social alliance of upper castes and other dominant castes by projecting Ambedkarite Dalits as a new militant social “enemy,” he said.
When will we stop seeing these clearly caste-based provocations as a ‘minor skirmish,’ ‘isolated incident’ and ‘personal feud’ and call out the bullshit for what it is- a social and moral decline of a country. A rigid refusal to grow out of the retrograde custom, some sanctified by ancient scripture and move on, to embrace new realities. A cancer of the human community.
