What agitates Kashmiris & What’s to be done? Fact-finding Report of Concerned Citizens’ Group

November 9, 2016

The 5-member group of “concerned citizens” led by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has submitted its findings to the Home Ministry in Delhi. This report has been released to the media too, not however receiving the coverage it deserves. The group had visited Kashmir on October 25 for three days during which it met various people from across Kashmir’s ideological divide.

Brief Report of a Visit by Concerned Citizens’ Group to Srinagar

A group consisting of concerned citizens visited Srinagar from October 25-27, 2016.

Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation played a catalytic role in facilitating this visit and arranged its programme in Srinagar. The group was not, however, limited to any ideology or institution and was not sponsored by anyone.

Although former minister, Mr. Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and former MP Ms. Brinda Karat of the CPI (M) were also scheduled to join the group, they were unable to do so for various personal reasons.

The visiting group consisted of the following:
1. Yashwant Sinha (Former External Affairs Minister )
2. Wajahat Habibullah (Former Chief Information Commissioner and former Chairman of National Minorities Commission)
3. Air Vice Marshal (Retd) KapilKak
4. Bharat Bhushan (Editor, Catchnews) and
5. Sushobha Barve(Executive Program Director of Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation – CDR)
Everyone paid for their own expenses and no security or financial help was accepted from any institution or government body to ensure that the integrity of the group as concerned citizens was maintained.
The group had the following meetings in Srinagar over three days (October 25, 26 and 27:

25th October
11.45AM – 12.45 PM    Meeting Syed Ali Geelani at his residence
(Present at the meeting were his two sons, Dr Nayeem Geelani and Mr Naseem Geelani as well as one Yusuf Mujahid/Mushahid and a video cameraman)
2.00 PM – 3.00 PM    Meeting with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq at his residence.
(Except the group members, no one else was present at this meeting with the Mirwaiz)
5.00 PM – 6.00 PM    Meeting with Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat at his residence
(Except the group members, no one else was present at this meeting with Prof. Bhat)
6.15 PM – 7.00 PM    Meeting with Shabbir Shah at Raj Bagh Police Station (Group members met him minus Yashwant Sinha)
8.00 PM    Separate Meetings with Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Mr. Vijay Dhar

26th October
10.00 PM – 11.00 PM    Meeting with Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(About a dozen past and present office bearers of the KCCI were present)
11.30 PM – 12.30 PM    Meeting with Kashmir Economic Alliance at Hotel Grand Mumtaz
(About 20 members of various trade and commerce unions were present)
1.00 – 2.00 pm    Meeting with Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti members
2.00 PM – 3.00 PM    Meeting with intellectuals – academics, writers/journalists, doctors at Comrade Inn Hotel, Raj Bagh
3.30 PM- 4.30 PM    Meeting with members of Kashmir Centre for Development Studies at Comrade Inn Hotel, Raj Bagh.
5.00 PM – 6.00 PM    Meeting with High Court Bar Association
8.00 pm    Dinner meeting with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti (No officials present)

27th October
9.30 AM    Second meeting with Syed Ali Shah Geelani at his residence (minus Yashwant Sinha and Wajahat Habibullah )
11.30 AM    Meeting with the Governor N N Vohra (No officials present)
2.00 pm    Meetings with Members of Kashmir Hoteliers Association
The meetings with Main stream political leaders – Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Mr Saifuddin Soz and Mr. Yousuf Tarigami who are supporting this initiative were by individual members of the group. All of them were unanimous in welcoming the group’s visit and talks with the Hurriyat leaders. Members also met separately with other civil society organizations……

BASIC FINDINGS:
Across the political spectrum, the Kashmiris we met spoke to virtually the same script about the history of the Kashmir issue. They may have varied in the exposition of a particular issue but basically all of them argued for a political solution to what they perceived as a political issue. They made the point that this is the fifth generation of Kashmiris which was protesting but to no avail.

Each one spent a considerable amount of time recounting the activities of the security forces which had alienated the population of the Valley. Our interlocutors told us the reasons for the immediate anger and the long term anger which we are quoting below without endorsing them –

REASONS FOR IMMEDIATE ANGER:

A person, who received back injuries, being treated in Srinagar’s SMHS hospital on Thursday. Dozens of persons from Khrew –Pampore in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district were allegedly left injured after the army and Special Operation Group (SOG) raided their residences last night and beat them up ruthlessly A person, who received back injuries, being treated in Srinagar’s SMHS hospital on Thursday. PHOTO BY BILAL BAHADUR

1. Excessive use of force by the security forces

The violence which began with the funeral procession of slain militant Burhan Wani has so far resulted in the death of nearly a hundred people. The question that most Kashmiris are asking is: Why were unarmed people going to offer last prayers for Burhan Wani fired at? They were not carrying any sticks, firearms or grenades that they represented a threat to the security forces. Nor did they attack the security forces. The firing at the funeral processions (there were nearly two lakh people gathered for the funeral and the last Namaz Janaza for Burhan Wani had been offered 40 times) is being seen as action of unaccountable security personnel and is being projected as an example of India’s ‘inhumanity’.
The business and trading community is claiming that in the current situation it is not bothered about profit and loss but human loss and about the worsening situation in the Valley. They want an amicable resolution and end to violence by the security forces.

2. Use of pellet guns

Use of pellet guns for crowd control was the sorest point of all conversation with Kashmiris we met. They want the pellet guns banned and cannot understand why GoI is delaying this decision and why Indian security establishment is reluctant to give up this weapon.

The use of pellet guns has led to several people, including children – some as young as 4-years-old – being blinded or partially blinded. These weapons, the Kashmiris point out, are not used in the rest of India even under grave provocation. They were not used in the Jat agitation in Haryana, the protests against Cauvery water sharing in Karnataka or the Patel agitation in Gujarat. All these agitations had resulted in large-scale damage to public property and in some cases even in gang rape of innocent women as in Haryana. Yet pellet guns were not used against the protestors. The fact that the use of pellet guns was reserved only for Kashmir elicited the most amount of anger against India and Indian security forces in the people we talked to.

Asked about stone-pelting, most Kashmiri leaders denied that youngsters were being paid to throw stones. They claimed that this was being done in ‘self-defence’ by unarmed people protesting against India.

Laptops in their hands! Damaged in forces action during raid in Barzulla on Oct 23, 2016 at 4:30 AM. (KL Image: Bilal Bahadur)

3. Night-time raids by security forces

These are ostensibly search operations which have resulted in destruction of property at Kashmir homes –windows, doors, and household goods. Apparently electrical and electronic gadgets are destroyed in the name of search operations. This continues even when the search operation yields nothing.

One explanation we heard of this was that because the security forces get pelted with stones while returning to camp in the evening, they go back at night in anger to take revenge. That revenge in the form of wanton destruction of property to punish the people.

Youth arrested by police at Bemina.

4. Misuse of Public Safety Act (PSA)

The PSA is seen as a revolving door process by the Kashmiris to keep people in jail. Brought into being to deal with timber smugglers by Sheikh Abdullah this draconian law, which does not require the victim to be produced before a magistrate and charged for up to a year, is used to keep trouble-makers in jail for longer than a year. As they are released in one case, another one under PSA is slapped on them in a different police jurisdiction.

However, the major misuse of the PSA is against minors. The amended Juvenile Justice Act for the state does not allow the police to arrest minors under PSA. Yet this has happened on a significant scale. The separatist leaders claim the number is about 6,000 while government sources place the figure at slightly less than half at 2,500. Even this is a large number of children. As there are no juvenile homes or Borstals for confining minors in J&K, they are kept with hardened criminals which can have long term deleterious impact on the minors imprisoned.

Kashmir leaders also allege that people arrested from the Valley are being housed in jails in the Jammu region so that their families cannot get easy access to them. This they claim is against a Surpeme Court order. Kashmir, they claim, has also become the only state which has run out of jail space and seeking to transfer the overspill to jails in MP and other states.

5. Destruction of electric transformers and crops in rural areas

A strange phenomenon of destruction of electric transformers in rural Kashmir is being reported. Apparently over 200 transformers have been destroyed – allegedly by the security forces. This again is apparently aimed at punishing villagers for either pelting stones at them or protesting against them.

There have also been some cases of standing paddy crop ready for harvesting being set on fire at some places. It is not known who is behind this. However, the news of such incidents – some verified and others unverified — is also fanning anger amongst people.

Scores of students marched on Residency Road in Srinagar on Sep 29, 2016 demanding resolution of Kashmir Issue. (KL Image: Bilal Bahadur)

6. Attacks on Kashmiris outside J&K

There have been some reports of Kashmiri students as well as some Kashmiri traders being attacked in states outside J&K. The Kashmiri people want the safety of students and traders to be ensured by the GoI.

With everyone we strongly raised the issue of opening of schools.

REASONS FOR LONG TERM ANGER:

1. Refusal to recognize Kashmir as a politically contentious issue
Across the cross section of people we met there was anguish about India not recognizing that Kashmir was a dispute. The refusal to see Kashmir as a political issue, people claimed, had resulted in the present situation because a political issue cannot be solved through law and order measures.

2. Refusal to recognize the emotional and sentimental aspects of the Kashmir issue
India, Kashmiri separatist leaders believe, has not understood the wounded psyche of the Kashmiri people. Therefore, it is unable to understand why Kashmiris have locked horns with the world’s largest democracy.

Their argument is that because India does not see the psycho-historical aspects of the problem it tries to reduce it to issues of lack of development or economic growth, need to create jobs or offering economic packages and incentives.

This has not suppressed the sense of hurt in the Kashmiri people or quell their political aspirations because these measures do not address the political issue of Kashmir.

3. Designating all Kashmiris as Pakistani puppets
There is also anger among Kashmiris that everything that happens in the Valley is being seen through the Pakistan prism and that this is being done to deny that they are free agents who are raising their own issues with India.

Another consequence of equating the protests in Kashmir with Pakistani machinations, they believe, is that every protesting Kashmiri can be equated with a terrorist and leadership, especially the Hurriyat Conference, is projected on a par with extremists when in fact, it was organised as the political face of a peaceful protest movement.

Even if GoI gets upset with the Azadi slogans, they argue, there is a need to recognize that the Kashmiris are upset and there is a sentiment for Azadi; and that this has little to do with Pakistan. Protestors pick up Pakistani and Chinese flags not because they want to solicit support from these countries but because they know that this riles India. And they want to rile India because it does not listen to them. “If everything that happens here is because of Pakistan, then what are we doing here?” a Hurriyat leader asked.

Prime Minister NarendraModi (right) with his Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore on Friday

4. No dialogue with Pakistan
Kashmiri separatist leaders also think that unless India and Pakistan talk there can be no permanent solution to the Kashmir issue. While most of them recommend tripartite talks on Kashmir between India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri leadership (without specifying which leadership), others are willing for some other form of dialogue between the three as in Vajpayee’s time. They called it “triangular dialogue” – presumably one in which India and Pakistan talk to each other and each of them then talks to the Kashmiris also.

There is widespread belief that without engaging Pakistan there can be no resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Hurriyat (M) Leaders with the then Prime Minister of India, AtalBihari Vajpayee.

5. Vajpayee line on Kashmir jettisoned
Most Kashmiris believe that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sincere in his approach to resolving the Kashmir tangle. They quoted him as saying that Kashmir is an issue which needs to be resolved and that even if Kashmiris want to distance themselves, even that had to be done through cooperation and goodwill.

They believe that Vajpayee saw the human aspect of the Kashmir issue and there was a need to once again appreciate the humanitarian aspects of the issue, irrespective of the state of India-Pakistan relations.

6. Indian public is indifferent to the plight of Kashmiris
Kashmiri separatist leaders believe that while Indian citizens are politically quite aware and quick to question the government, when it comes to the Kashmir issue, they keep quiet. This, they believe, is because they have been conditioned and encouraged to view the developments in Kashmir through anti-Pakistan glasses. GoI’s approach to Kashmir also pushes this point of view. As a consequence, even politically aware Indian citizens have no time for Kashmir.

7. Kashmir being pushed towards anarchy
The situation in the Valley is not being controlled by the separatist leaders as they were all in jail for four months since the day after BurhanWani’s death. The Hurriyat leaders admitted that the street protester is not under anyone’s control. The streets are being controlled by youngsters who give the call for spontaneous protests. If this continued, they think that they would lose whatever little authority they exercise over the local population and they would not be able to give the protests any political direction.

If such an anarchic situation was to develop in Kashmir, then India would have no reasonable person to talk to, they claim.

8. Kashmiri Pandits living in the Valley
The Kashmiri Pandits who have continued to live in the valley since 1990’s want to be treated on par with Kashmiri migrants and be given same benefits as them because in a sense they are also migrants who have shifted from the original villages to towns. This had been agreed to by the former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh but never implemented. Because of the ongoing agitation, many of the Pandit families, whose breadwinners were employees of commercial establishments were now deprived of a livelihood. The Kashmiri Pandits fear that in light of breakdown of law and order and withdrawal of security their own security was compromised leading to the migration of employees to Jammu where they were not getting salaries unlike other employees who were not able to their offices.In consequence, out of remaining 850 familes, 350 families were planning to migrate.

9. Regression from autonomy to uniformity; togetherness to communalism
Kashmiris believe that today Indian politics has taken such a turn that there is no willingness to listen to even demands for autonomy. Today Kashmir issue is being seen as Hindu vs. Muslim and governance is seen as Jammu vs. Kashmir.

RECOMMENDATIONS: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE:

The sense of despair and desperation in Kashmir is increasing by the day. There was unanimity among the civil society and mainstream political leaders that dialogue must begin with the inclusion of the separatist political leaders.
The question then is how to ease the existence of ordinary Kashmiris while leaving aside the complexities of resolving the Kashmir issue permanently.

Protesters throw stones at police after clashes erupted in old city following killing of a civilian by forces near martyrs graveyard, during his funeral in Srinagar, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016. (KL Image: Bilal Bahadur)

After listening to a cross-section of Kashmiri voices, the group came to the conclusion that some small steps can be taken by the State government and the Union government to bring some semblance of normality in Kashmir. These proposed steps are listed below.

Steps that the J&K state government can take:
1. Start the process of reopening schools and as a precursor to this, release forthwith all first time offender school children and minors arrested under PSA.*

2. Consider postponing school examinations to a later date instead of insisting on holding them from November 15. Children who have been in jail have not probably had access to textbooks and other teaching material. They should be given sufficient time to prepare for exams.*

3. Repeat offenders amongst minors must be shifted out of adult jails and put up in temporarily designated juvenile detention centres and given psychological counseling.

4. Compensation must be announced for the next of kin of the civilians killed and for those wounded in police or action by the other security forces. This money may be transferred as DBT to designated accounts to prevent extortion and rent-seeking from the suffering families by the state bureaucracy.

5. Rehabilitation packages must be announced to ensure the life-time income needs of those permanently blinded by pellet guns.

6. Compensation and free treatment (both in India and abroad, if necessary) at state government expense for those who have been partially blinded by pallet guns.

7. Set up a blind school in Srinagar for children blinded by pellet guns. The state does not have a blind school and this may be a means of rehabilitation by the state to provide education for children with blindness or partially blindness.

8. Order a judicial commission into excesses by the police, especially the wanton use of pellet guns. While it is widely accepted that such commissions rarely lead to any conclusions, they serve a therapeutic purpose of allowing people to emotionally express themselves and it also helps project the state government as an accountable institution.

*Syed Ali Shah Geelani reciprocated this sentiment when the group met him for a second time to urge him to allow children to go to school, although he couched this in rhetoric that made it the responsibility of the state government to provide the secure conditions for children to attend school.

PM NarendraModi in Srinagar on November 07, 2015. (KL file Image: Bilal Bahadur)

Steps that the Union government can take
1. Ban the pellet gun with immediate effect as a crowd control weapon. This will have a salutary impact on the Kashmiris. This is not something that should be left to committees or to the security forces.
2. Work with the media not to escalate the situation in Kashmir. Educate media owners about the sensitive nature of the Kashmir issue and not add fuel to the fire in search of viewers and revenue.
3. Dispel the perception that Kashmir and Kashmiris are mere tools to be used for electoral purposes.
4. In its interactions with Kashmiris the centre might reiterate the approach enunciated by the Hon’ble PM that Kashmiris are Indians.
5. GoI move quickly to give facilities of migrants to Pandits continuing to reside in Kashmir Division of J&K.

Although separatist leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq talked of being prepared for a dialogue (Geelani talked of “unconditional” talks), it was not within the competence of this group of concerned citizens to suggest when or if such a dialogue process should be started.

However, what we would like to emphasise is that we noted an overwhelming sentiment amongst the Kashmiris we interacted with for setting up a permanent process of dialogue with New Delhi. One of the reasons why so many doors were opened for us by the separatists and ordinary Kashmiris alike was because they saw our visit as a beginning of engagement with ordinary Indians.

The agenda of alliance of the BJP-PDP Coalition Government also commits to a dialogue with all the stakeholders. We recommend that such a dialogue is initiated at the earliest.

The Kashmiris we interacted with acknowledged that we had limitations in leveraging the complexities of the Kashmir issue. Yet, there was a consensus that we repeat our visit and continue this engagement with them.

Yashwant Sinha (Former Foreign Minister)
Wajahat Habibullah (Former Chairman Minorities Commission)
Kapil Kak (AVM-R)
Bharat Bhushan (Editor, Catch News)
Sushobha Barve (Programme Director, Centre for Dialogue & Reconciliation)

Modi Government’s Move Insensitive to Common People, Reveals a Blinkered View of Black Money: Prabhat Patnaik

November 9, 2016

Demonetization of currency notes by the Modi Govt on November 8

Narendra Modi went on national television at 8 p.m. on November 8 to announce that from midnight of that very date, i.e. in a mere four hours’ time, 500 and 1000 rupee notes would cease to be legal-tender. The justification advanced for this bizarre move was that it would strike at “black money”. An additional argument was thrown in, to the effect that fake currency notes used by “terrorists” would now cease to be effective; and some particularly enthusiastic supporters of the government even went to the extent of calling it a “surgical strike against terrorism”.

I shall come to the fake currency issue later. Let me first look at the “black money” argument which even President Pranab Mukherjee has gone out of his way to endorse. Thisargument,namely that the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes constitutes an attack on “black money”,is based on an utter lack of understanding of the nature of “black money,” a conception of it that is staggering in its simple-mindedness.

The implicit understanding is that “black money” consists of hoards of cash which are held in trunks or pillowcases or buried under the earth. With this understanding, it is then suggested that if 500 and 1000 rupee notes are demonetized, then people going to banks to exchange large amounts of old notes for the new legal tender would make the banks suspicious; and banks in turn would convey their suspicions to the tax authorities who would then catch the culprits. “Black money” would thus get exposed, and this would discourage further transgressions in future.

The demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes constitutes an attack on “black money”, is based on an utter lack of understanding of the nature of “black money,” a conception of it that is staggering in its simple-mindedness.

Now, the second part of this argument, even assuming that “black money” actually consists of cash-hoards, makes little sense. If a person possesses, say, unaccounted money of Rs.20 crore, and that too in 500 and 1000 rupee notes, then such a person will certainly not come with the entire Rs.20 crores to a bank to change it into the new legal-tender (he will not be allowed to do so anyway); he would rather send several factotums to the bank, each carrying a small amount, and would do so over a number of days prior to the December 30 deadline. In fact even this prolonged effort would be unnecessary, since all sorts of intermediaries would come up fairly soon who would do this job of exchanging old notes for new ones on behalf of customers for a consideration. With such “black operators”, exchanging “black money” from the old legal tender to the new legal tender, the idea, mooted by “experts” on several TV channels, that demonetizing 500 and 1000 rupee notes would unearth illegal cash-hoards makes little sense.

More importantly, however, this very conception of “black money” is absurd. Indeed the term “black money” itself is a misnomer, since it conjures up the image of a stock of money which is supposed to be held not openly, in the form of bank deposits, but clandestinely in the form of currency notes, and that too in pillowcases or in containers buried in the earth. Actually when we talk of “black money” we have in mind a whole set of activities which are either entirely illegal, such as smuggling, or drug-running,or procuring arms for terrorist organizations, or are undertaken in excess of what is legally permitted, or are not declared at all so that taxes are not paid on them. If 100 tonnes of minerals are extracted but only 80 tonnes are declared to be extracted, in order to reduce tax payment, then we have a case of “black money” being generated. Likewise, if $100 of exports are undertaken but only $80 are declared, and the remainder $20 are kept abroad in Swiss Banks, which is against the law, then we have a case of “black money” being generated. Or if rupees are changed into foreign exchange through the hawala route and kept as deposits abroad, then we have a case of “black money” being generated. In short, “black money” refers to a whole set of undeclared activities.

“Black money”, it follows,refers not to a stock but to a flow. ”Black activities”, like “white activities”,are meant to earn profits for those engaged in them; and simply keeping a hoard of money earns no profits. What Marx had said about business activities also holds about “black activities”, namely that profits are earned not by hoarding money but by throwing it into circulation; the “miser” does the former, the capitalist the latter. And those engaged in “black activities” are capitalists not misers. Of course, in any business money is also held for a shorter or longer period (e.g. during the C-M-C circuit); but this is true as much for “white activities” as for “black activities”, so that the belief that the differentia specifica of “black money” is that it is held while “white money” is used for circulation, is completely without any basis.All money circulates, with occasional pauses when it is held, whether it is employed in “black activities” or “white activities”. The essence of unearthing “black money” lies therefore in tracking down “black activities”, not in attacking money-holdings per se. And this requires honest, systematic, and painstaking investigation.

Long before the days of computers, the British Internal Revenue Service had earned the reputation that it would eventually catch up with any tax defaulter simply through a process of grinding and meticulous investigation. True, Britain is a small country compared to India, but that only means that the size of the tax administering personnel has to be larger, tailored to the needs of the country; and if this is done, then unearthing “black money”, at least in the domestic economy, is merely a matter of patient and efficient tax administration.

“Black money”, it follows, refers not to a stock but to a flow…The essence of unearthing “black money” lies therefore in tracking down “black activities”, not in attacking money-holdings per se. And this requires honest, systematic, and painstaking investigation.

A sizeable portion of “black activities”, however, is operated through banks located abroad; indeed some would say that this constitutes much the larger portion.NarendraModi himself before his election had talked of “bringing back” the “black money” stashed abroad, suggesting that the bulk of “black money” was located abroad, even though his remark displayed the same naïve understanding that “black money” referred to a hoard rather than to a range of activities. But if foreign banks constitute the predominant source of funding “black activities”, then the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes, while causing much hardship to ordinary people, will do little to eliminate such activities.

This is not the first time that such demonetization of currency notes has occurred in India. In January 1946, the 1000 and 10000 rupee notes were demonetized; and in 1978 the Morarji Desai government had demonetized 1000, 5000 and 10000 rupee notes from the midnight of January 16. But even in 1978, let alone in 1946, this had caused no hardships for the ordinary people, since most of them had scarcely ever seen such a note, let alone possess one. (Even in 1978 Rs.1000 was a lot of money and common people hardly saw notes of 1000-rupee denomination). But that move of the Morarji Desai government, even though it did not impinge on common people, did not end the scourge of “black money” either.The Modi government’s move, while equally ineffective in countering “black money”, has the added flaw of impinging severely on common people.

Some have argued that, whether or not the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes itself has the effect of countering “black money”, it represents a long-term move away from a cash-using economy, and amounts in that sense to a restraint on unaccounted activities that are typically not financed through recognized institutional channels. But quite apart from the fact that “black activities” financed through foreign banks will still escape detection in a cashless India, the very idea of a cashless India represents a pipedream of a segment of the elite, which is totally unaware of the difficulty that a common person faces in obtaining a credit card, or even opening a bank account (despite Modi’s loud boasts about expanding people’s bankability). The move towards a cashless economy, while not being realized, will simply become an additional means through which the common people will get squeezed.

But, what about the other argument that such demonetization acts against terrorism by preventing the circulation of fake currency notes printed “across the border”? This argument hinges crucially on the assumption that the technology employed in printing the new legal tender will prevent any possibility of faking it. Let us accept that assumption. Even so, the introduction of such new legal tenderwhich cannot be faked, at the expense of the existing legal tender, could have been effected in a gradual and altogether unobtrusive manner, exactly as the introduction of new currency notes in lieu of the old ones is routinely effected. It is not as if the government was expecting an avalanche of fake notes on the night of November 8; why could it not have avoided the sudden, surprising, and massive attack on the security and convenience of the people that it launched on the night of November 8?

What the Modi government has done is unprecedented in the history of modern India. Even the colonial government had shown greater sensitivity to the convenience of the people than the Modi government has done by demonetizing only those notes which were possessed by the super-rich and not those possessed by the people at large. This “emergency measure”, however, is in line with the numerous other measures being currently pursued by the Modi government which has embarked on an undeclared “Emergency”: it is as fatuous as it is against the people.

(The author is a renowned economist and this article was written for People’s Democracy and is being reproduced with permission)

Bar dancers entertain crowd in BJP’s parivartan yatra, flagged off by Amit Shah

November 9, 2016

BJP’s much-publicised parivartan yatra, which was flagged off by Amit Shah two days ago, has become a topic of intense conversation on social media platforms because of association of bar dancers.

The video of bar dancer being used to woo the voters has gone viral on Twitter and Facebook.

On Monday, the yatra (road show) reached Tugana in Bagpat area of Uttar Pradesh. Senior party leaders including Sanjeev Balyan (minister in Narendra Modi’s cabinet) and Satyapal Singh (BJP MP) were expected to address the crowd.

But when they didn’t arrive at the venue at the scheduled time, the panic set in and the local leaders decided to entertain the crowd by employing a bar dancer.

A local BJP leader, wishing to be unidentified, told Janta Ka Reporter that the decision was taken because ‘we didn’t want crowds to leave.’

He said, “We saw what happened to Amit Shah ji’s rally in Lucknow in September, when lakhs of chairs remained unoccupied. We didn’t want the same to happen here particularly during our leaders’ speeches. There’s nothing wrong if we organised a little bit of entertainment for the crowd.”

Courtesy: Janta ka Reporter

Teaching gender inequality in Sri Lanka

November 9, 2016

Sri Lanka has been lauded for equal access to education for girls and boys, but textbooks and traditions continue to play a role in perpetuating inequitable gender norms and stereotypes.

Sri Lanka has in some circles been considered a model of post-colonial gender equality compared to its South Asian counterparts due to high literacy rates for men and women, 97.7 and 98.6 respectively, universal franchise for both sexes as early as 1931, and two female state leaders. Sri Lanka’s long history of free and compulsory education for boys and girls which was achieved shortly after independence, and girls’ equal access to education and gender parity in all three levels (primary, secondary, and tertiary) of education has been an important contributing factor to this idea of gender equality.

Yet women still continue to grapple with the same old questions of gender inequality in Sri Lanka. In addition to experiencing high levels of gender based violence, women’s labour force participation is half that of men and double their unemployment rates. In 2013 only 35 percent of the working population were women. Women continue to be under represented in upper level management and decision making positions in both the private and public sector. Equal participation, retention, and performance by girls in education has not led to equal representation of women within decision making. A glass ceiling continues to keep women out of governance. Currently there is only a five percent representation of women in parliament and two percent in local government. Which begs the question, what is going on here, why haven’t gains in education translated to economically independent and empowered women in Sri Lanka?

Education is often championed for its transformative possibilities related to liberation, empowerment, social justice, individual freedoms, human rights, and the reduction of social inequities such as gender inequality. From this perspective, education is regarded as a means that will enable learners to think critically and have the ability to challenge the status quo. Schools are sites for the construction of girls’ and women’s identities and should ideally contribute to their active role in society. Generally, however, education systems reflect and help to reinforce the prevailing power arrangements of the state and society. Many education reforms focus more on utilitarian goals, such as the transmission of knowledge and skills, to help learners become contributing members of the existing and often hegemonic, political, economic, and social order. This has been the case in Sri Lanka, where utilitarian goals have side-lined the agenda of promoting values of gender equality. Rather than challenging gender norms and stereotypes, education has played a significant role in perpetuating them.

Sri Lankan classrooms are often embedded with gender boundaries that reproduce powerful patriarchal hierarchies. Interviews with civics teachers, analysis of the civics curriculum, discussion with students and classroom observations show that there exist two key challenges to promoting gender equality in Sri Lanka through education. These include strong gender biases and ideologies held by teachers and a curriculum particularly social studies and civics curricula and a school system that emphasizes the protection of culture and tradition at all cost. These factors work in tandem to maintain the status quo when it comes to challenging traditional gender norms.

Teachers generally hold strong gender biases based on their own upbringing and ideologies. Though they agree that gender equality is important, many teachers believe that because girls are doing so well in schools there is in fact no gender inequality in schools or Sri Lanka for that matter. This may be true on the surface level with respect to the classroom, where girls are on equal footing with the boys in classroom discussion and marks. The differences are apparent in the subtle hidden curriculum of the day-to-day practices of teachers and students. Whether it is the way teachers only call upon female students to sweep classrooms or ask only the male students to move desks, gender roles and responsibilities are assigned in the day to day life of the school through teacher-student and student-student interactions.

Some teachers took the “I don’t differentiate between girls and boys” stance, not understanding the need to move beyond the equal treatment of boys and girls to the equitable treatment of them. The characteristics attributed to boys and girls respectively also impacted their engagement in learning. For example, many teachers and students felt that girls were better in the social science subjects because they were patient and good at memorizing information. Boys were perceived to be adventurous, problem solvers who could think outside of the box and therefore are more suited to science and technology subjects. One can only imagine the detrimental effects these fixed expectations have on girls AND boys.

The gendered expectations of teachers are reflected in the students’ civics textbooks that promote gendered forms of citizenship, which is further protected with the seal of tradition, and culture, thus creating a rift in the way boys and girls are able to engage in society. The mandatory civics curriculum from grades 6-9 continues to depict men and women and girls and boys in outdated traditional gender roles, despite mandates by the Ministry of Education to avoid gender biases in textbooks. Much of the text feature male role models and historical figures. In rare instances there are images of girls in leadership roles; however, these instances are relegated to the school. Images related to men and women’s roles in society, such as work, or family conform to traditional fixed gender roles, thus reinforcing the status quo that although women have full access to education they should still maintain their traditional roles in society in and outside of the home.

The disparity in gender roles is further reinforced with an emphasis on the theme of the protection of traditions, cultures, and customs. In all of the textbooks examined, there was a strong and repeated emphasis on the need to follow traditions. For example, the grade nine civics textbook states, “Social Security is ensured by virtue of the individual upholding the customs and manners, social values, rules and regulations as well as traditions that prevail in society” and the grade seven texts states, “You should be well aware of the traditions followed by members of the family. You should vehemently follow and practise these traditions”. The depiction of women and men in traditional gender roles alongside the emphasis on the need to follow tradition to uphold society leaves very little space for teachers or students to challenge the status quo. Interlinked with tradition is the family, a space that is exulted as sacred and foundational to the core of society. The civics textbook creates a direct link between the family unit and the nation as a whole throughout all of the grades. One should be obedient to the leaders of the nation just as one is obedient to the head of the household i.e. the father. Thus the curriculum and classroom are essentially grooming girls to become good (well educated) mothers and wives and boys into providers and leaders in society.

Students and teachers, particularly in war affected communities, echoed the text books’ emphasis on holding on to tradition, culture, and family values. This is in response to the destabilization of the traditional family unit as a result of three decades of war and the rapid influence of globalization. War affected communities had been sheltered from mass media and globalization for close to 30 years and are now dealing with the consequences of open access to everything from Facebook to pornography. Many teachers and students’ response to this is to fall back to traditional values and norms. Some teachers and students felt that the influence of social media on the way women dressed was leading to the increase in gender violence against women. The example provided was the predominance of young women wearing leggings rather than traditional clothing. There is a growing belief that the shift away from tradition puts women at risk of violence and that it is in some ways warranted because women had strayed from the model of the traditional good women. This creates a dangerous space for women and girls who may challenge the status quo.

Even though education in post-war Sri Lanka is contributing to reinforcing gender norms rather than challenging them, currently there is a significant gap in knowledge and understanding of the link between education and subtle day to day practices that devalue women and girls. A fixation with equal access has led to a dangerous complacency that facilitates and normalizes inequity. Officials and policy makers often fail to consider that the content of education perpetuates negative norms and stereotypes. Challenging these deeply entrenched practices will require the explicit integration of gender equality training for all those involved in the education system from policy makers to teachers. But before that policy makers at the highest level need to confront their own ideologies and have an open and honest conversations on how long we are going to continue to hide behind gender parity, tradition, and the traditional family unit to allow gender inequality to persist in Sri Lanka.

Thursica Kovinthan is a doctoral candidate and Vanier scholar at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa. Her research interests include gender, citizenship, refugees, and post-conflict education

This article was first published on Open Democracy

“Rs 2000 Notes will also have Jio Sim with 4G connection!” What Zee News didn’t report

November 9, 2016

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 caused ripples across India as people thronged ATMs, petrol pumps and grocery shops in their desperation to use as much of their unused cash as possible.

Modi, in his announcement, said that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 will become illegal from the midnight of 9 November and they will be replaced by new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes.

While the BJP’s political detractors such as Mamata Banerjee, CPI-M and Congress slammed Modi for his ‘draconian’ decision, his supporters in the party and media were nimble-footed in singing praises for him.

Awe struck by Modi’s supposed ‘masterstroke,’ Zee News owned by BJP Rajya Sabha MP, Subhash Chandra, went a step ahead to announce how the new Rs 2000 note will have a secret chip, which will help the central government agencies to trace the note even when it was buried under 120 meters.

The theory crafted by Zee News sounded more adventurous than even the makers of James Bond series could ever have come up with. (See below)

Zee News’ Rs 2000 embedded chip theory was widely shared on WhatsApp prompting even some of Modi’s critics to believe it as a real story. But, there was one problem.
The story propogated by Zee News was fake.

This was enough to cause huge social media reactions as users on microblogging site posted funny comments.

Here are some of them:

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter

गुजरात: सूरत में पुलिस कस्टडी में दलित युवक की मौत

November 9, 2016

सूरत। गुजरात के सुरत में दलित युवक द्वारा पुलिस लॉकअप में मौत का मामला सामने आया है। पुलिस ने सुरत के पांडेसरा गाँव के नागसेन नगर निवासी प्रवीण अशोक इंद्रजीत को धारा 151 के तहत सोमवार को गिरफ्तार किया था। सुबह जब देखा तो युवक मृत था उसके गले में शर्ट का फंदा था। इस मामले में युवक के परिजनों का आरोप है कि पुलिस के टॉर्चर की वजह से युवक की जान गई है। उनका कहना है कि यह आत्महत्या नहीं मर्डर है। जबकि पुलिस इसे आत्महत्या बता रही है।

परिजनों ने बताया कि कल युवक को थाने ले जाने के बाद हमने पीआरओ से हिरासत में लिए जाने का कारण पूछा। इसपर उन्होंने कहा कि अभी मुझे इसकी जानकारी नहीं है कल बता दिया जाएगा। परिजनों ने थाने जाकर भी पूछताछ की लेकिन उन्हें कुछ नहीं बताया गया।

प्रवीण की मां ने बताया कि पुलिस ने उनसे भी दुर्व्यवहार किया। पुलिस वालों ने उन्हें धमकी दी कि यहां से चली जाओ वरना तुम्हें भी लॉकअप में डाल देंगे। अभी तक युवक की मौत का कारण पता नही चल पाया है। पुलिस अधिकारी की कहना है कि पुलिस स्टेशन के सीसीटीवी की फुटेज के आधार पर जांच होगी।

आपको बता दें कि गुजरात में दलितों को प्रताड़ित करने में पुलिस भी आगे रहती है। उना में चार दलित युवकों को पुलिस थाने के सामने ही पीटा गया था। कथित गोरक्षक उन्हें पीटते रहे लेकिन कोई भी पुलिसकर्मी पीड़ितों को बचाने नहीं आया।

Courtesy: National Dastak

The relativity of credibility: What Jha should have included in his response to Modi

November 9, 2016

Is the government really blameless for the crisis of credibility faced by the media?

On March 18, 2002, when the Gujarat violence had been dragging on more than a fortnight after its outbreak, then chief minister of the state, Narendra Modi, wrote letters of appreciation to over a dozen Gujarati newspapers for their coverage.

He was “grateful” to each of those newspapers for giving their “full support to the state government,” Modi wrote. “I am happy to note that your newspaper exercised restraint during the communal disturbances.”

Modi’s notion of “restraint” was, however, completely at odds with the damning evidence produced two months later by the Editors Guild of India against some of those very newspapers, particularly the big two of the time, Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar. Citing stories and headlines carried by the two “notable offenders”, the report of the Editors Guild said that their role during the riots was “provocative, irresponsible and blatantly violative of all accepted norms of media ethics”.

Thus, Modi’s praise for a section of the media was not for displaying restraint, as claimed by him, but for doing just the opposite, as brought out by the Editors Guild. This 2002 precedent, relating to the phase that led to Modi’s dramatic rise, vindicates a journalistic canon recalled by the Indian Express Editor Raj Kamal Jha at the Ramnath Goenka Awards function: “criticism from a government is a badge of honour”.

For, the Indian Express itself was among the publications that had been disfavoured by the Modi regime in 2002 for not toeing its line on Gujarat.

Raj Kamal Jha's speech begins at about 1.35 mark

Responding to Modi’s speech at the awards function, Jha said that he was actually “nervous” about the Prime Minister’s compliments to the Indian Express for its record over the years. He seemed to have got too close to the bone for Modi’s liking when Jha jokingly suggested

"So just as they do in smoking scenes in cinemas, I think we should have a ticker tape running whenever we hear praise of a journalist that criticism from a government is wonderful news for journalism. I think that's very, very important for journalism."

The awards function, as it happened, was taking place on the day the controversial order banning NDTV India for 24 hours was being issued.

Even as he put in perspective the issue of “praise”, there was little of that spirit of speaking truth to power on the equally contentious subject of “credibility”. Switching as if to the polite mode in which a vote of thanks is meant to proposed, Jha accepted without demur the little lecture on credibility that Modi had delivered in the same speech. Thanking him for his “wonderful underlining of the importance of credibility”, Jha said: “We cannot blame the government for that. That is our job. We need to look within.”

Though journalists do need to engage in a lot of introspection, given the media’s growing vulnerability to political and business interests, is the government really blameless for the credibility problems faced by the media? Jha might not have quite thought through this angle as he gave his impromptu speech immediately after Modi had ended his. Whatever the reason, Modi got away with his sermon on credibility although he never made any secret of his disdain for the freedom of the press and his proclivity to polarise even the media, right from the days of the 2002 carnage. Adding to the irony is Modi’s homily to the media to refrain from being divisive in a country that is inherently diverse.

The credibility question

Given the context in which Modi came up with these terms, one cannot miss the pernicious interdependence of “praise” and “credibility”. One has to be as skeptical about Modi’s invocation of “credibility” as Jha was about his “praise”. The need for such skepticism is evident, for example, from his choice of the newspapers to which he sent his letters of appreciation in 2002. Clearly, who has credibility in Modi’s estimation is as subjective or questionable as who merits praise from him.

The determination of credibility is liable to be fickle even when it is left to other stakeholders in the media. Jha’s approach of looking within for the increasing credibility deficit holds good, to be sure, in the case of those media houses or journalists who choose to be in bed with the government. They have to take the blame for abandoning watchdog journalism for access journalism or, as Jha put it so evocatively, “selfie journalism”.
But then, even those who take their watchdog role seriously may face the risk of their credibility being called into question, if the evidence they have relied upon, however official or irrefutable, happens to be disregarded by courts or other state institutions.

Indeed, the credibility of a journalistic work cannot be assessed without taking into account the frequent dysfunctionality of state institutions, especially the criminal justice system beginning with the police. After all, Modi raised the credibility issue just when some journalists were contesting the official line on the Bhopal jail break and encounter. Thanks to the glaring holes and contradictions in the police version, those dissenting journalists stuck their neck out to do stories that are more evidence-based than authority-based. Meanwhile, some of the journalists in the government camp, carried away by nationalist rhetoric, have dispensed with the norm against prejudging under-trial prisoners. An anchor who was found credible enough by Modi to be granted more than one of his rare interviews has repeatedly referred to the eight casualties of the Bhopal encounter as “terrorists” rather than “alleged terrorists”.

The saving grace is that, occasionally, the system does deliver justice. It helps to remember that on May 16, 2014, the very day Modi was sworn in as prime minister, the Supreme Court passed strictures on him in the 2002 Akshardham terror attack case. Acquitting all the six accused who had been framed on the basis of evidence that was found to be concocted, the apex court faulted the Gujarat home department – a portfolio then held by Modi – for not taking an “informed decision” while sanctioning prosecution under the terror law. “This would go to show clear non-application of mind by the Home Minister in granting sanction,” the court said.

More tellingly, there was “perversity in conducting this case at various stages, right from the investigation level to the granting of sanction by the state government,” the Supreme Court added. There is evidence of such perversity in a number of other cases too. The job of journalists is to expose it, against all odds, without fearing motivated attacks on their credibility from the government’s side.

Manoj Mitta is the author of The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra

This article was first published on Scroll.in

यज्ञ और गोमूत्र से दिल्ली की हवा साफ करेगा RSS!

November 9, 2016

नई दिल्ली। दिवाली के बाद से दिल्ली और इसके आस-पास के इलाकों में छाई धुंध ने आम जनजीवन को इतना ज्यादा परेशान किया कि लोगों का जीना दूभर हो गया है। कुछ लोग इसका कारण दिवाली पर जले हुए पटाखों को मान रहे हैं तो दिल्ली सरकार ने इसे पड़ोसी राज्यों में पराल जलाने की वजह मान रही है।

जहां एक तरफ एनजीटी और हाईकोर्ट इस धुंध को साफ करने के लिए जतन करने में जुटे हैं। वहीं राष्ट्रीय स्वयं सेवक संघ और महामंडलेश्वर श्रीश्री 1008 अनंत विभूषित अवधूत बाबा अरुणगिरि महाराज (पर्यावरण बाबा) ने धुंध को साफ करने के लिेए एक नया तरीका निकाला है। अब आरएसएस और बाबा जी मिलकर रथयात्रा और यज्ञों के सहारे पर्यावरण को साफ करेंगे।

न्यूज 18 की खबर के अनुसार महामंडलेश्वर श्रीश्री 1008 अनंत विभूषित अवधूत बाबा अरुणगिरि महाराज (पर्यावरण बाबा) ने वैष्णो देवी से कन्याकुमारी तक की 4500 किलोमीटर की रथ यात्रा आरंभ की है। बाबा का यह ऑटोमेटिक रथ फिलहाल दिल्ली में है। उनके इस प्रयास में राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ के नेता इंद्रेश कुमार भी सहायता प्रदान कर रहे हैं।

ऋषिकेश में रहने वाले पर्यावरण बाबा ने बताया कि दिल्ली में पर्यावरण की शुद्धि के लिए हिमालय में उगी औषधीय जड़ी-बूटियों से किए गए यज्ञ से इस तरह के हालात को नियंत्रित करने की जरूरत है। उन्होंने कहा कि यज्ञ के माध्यम से जहां परमात्मा वातावरण को साफ रखते हैं, वहीं सब 33 करोड़ देवी-देवता भी खुश रहते हैं।

इंद्रेश कुमार फिलहाल चंडीगढ़ में है और वह दिल्ली में पर्यावरण बाबा के पहले दिन के यज्ञ में भाग नहीं ले सकेंगे। लेकिन इस मिशन में वो अपना पूरा समर्थन दे रहे हैं। इंद्रेश कुमार ने कहा कि प्रदूषण के दानव से लड़ने के लिए हमें यज्ञ का आयोजन को सफल बनाने की जरूरत है। वहीं प्रदूषण के कारकों को मारने के लिए अगर हम गोमूत्र और जड़ी-बूटियों का इस्तेमाल करेंगे तो इसके काफी सकारात्मक परिणाम देखने को मिलेंगे।

Courtesy: National Dastak

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What agitates Kashmiris & What’s to be done? Fact-finding Report of Concerned Citizens’ Group

1. Excessive use of force by the security forces

2. Use of pellet guns

3. Night-time raids by security forces

4. Misuse of Public Safety Act (PSA)

5. Destruction of electric transformers and crops in rural areas

6. Attacks on Kashmiris outside J&K

REASONS FOR LONG TERM ANGER:

RECOMMENDATIONS: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE:

Modi Government’s Move Insensitive to Common People, Reveals a Blinkered View of Black Money: Prabhat Patnaik

Demonetization of currency notes by the Modi Govt on November 8

Bar dancers entertain crowd in BJP’s parivartan yatra, flagged off by Amit Shah

Teaching gender inequality in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has been lauded for equal access to education for girls and boys, but textbooks and traditions continue to play a role in perpetuating inequitable gender norms and stereotypes.

“Rs 2000 Notes will also have Jio Sim with 4G connection!” What Zee News didn’t report

गुजरात: सूरत में पुलिस कस्टडी में दलित युवक की मौत

The relativity of credibility: What Jha should have included in his response to Modi

Is the government really blameless for the crisis of credibility faced by the media?

The credibility question

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