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Lips Free to Kiss are Lips Free to Speak: JNU and the ‘Sex Dossier’

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Does the State Have Lips to Kiss Me With? : The ‘Sex-Sedition’ Dossier & The Spectre of Anti-Capitalist Love

Reina Gattuso

Two months after news first hit that prominent politicians were apparently digging for condoms and empty liquor bottles in the trash bins of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a new wave of sexual-political sensationalism has emerged.

This time it takes the form of a so-called ‘sex-sedition’ dossier (we could call it the “sexism-racism-communalism” dossier as well), a 2015 document authored by 11 JNU professors and recently released to several journalists. Besides offering run-of-the-mill political leaflets as evidence of supposed anti-national and separatist activity on campus, the report continues the trend of lurid fan-fiction about JNU students’ apparently rollicking sex lives.

“Sex workers have been openly employed in hostel messes, where they not only lure JNU girls into their organized racket but also pollute the boys,” reads one particularly charming fiction (the word “pollute”, good lord).

“Freshers are particularly inducted in this ring of vice by luring through money, sex, drugs and alcohol, so that they become tied up with the cause of foreign agencies.” (We should make it clear that while as far as anyone on campus can tell, the whole sex-racket thing is false, being compared to a sex worker isn’t and ought not to be an insult.)

While this wild sexism is characteristic of the report, the dossier has deep political significance, having been released in the midst of an ongoing JNU students’ hunger strike protesting against harsh punishments handed down by the High Level Enquiry Committee (HLEC) — a committee whose composition, procedures, and findings the JNU student and teachers’ unions have both protested as illegitimate — in response to the incidents on 9th Feb. Its creators (as well as the document itself) represent a right-wing vision of state, nationalism, and a gendered, racialized citizenship — one that reinforces much of the ideological artillery that has thus far been thrown at the students of JNU.

The emergence of the dossier was quickly followed by fantastic takedowns by Kavita Krishnan and Ayesha Kidwai, who analysed the two foundational figments of the frightened Indian right-wing imagination: The threat of women having “free sex,” and the threat that this “free sex” will result in the destabilization of not only gender norms, but also oppressive race, caste and religious lines.

Krishnan — who herself has been “accused” of engaging in “free sex” — pointed out the ethical crux of the issue: the opposite of “free sex” can only be “unfree sex,” and sex engaged without freedom or consent is rape. We know all too well, of course, that the logical conclusion of conservative gender roles, despite their appeals to “women’s safety,” would often rather see us raped than free (as then, we are at least still under patriarchal control).

We know all too well, of course, that the logical conclusion of conservative gender roles, despite their appeals to “women’s safety,” would often rather see us raped than free (as then, we are at least still under patriarchal control).

Kidwai further expounds on the way in which the dossier’s vision of sexual immorality is about more than gender — it is about the way in which love, sex, and desire can threaten hierarchies of religion and caste. She writes: “Well, if sexuality and amorous choices can be freed from the borders and boundaries enforced by caste and community, the main social institution crucially involved in the reproduction of caste and exclusionary religion — the FAMILY — is in danger of being reinterpreted.” Conservative nationalists desire and approve of family formations that reproduce hetero-patriarchy; the evils of communalism, casteism, and racism; and the consumerist logic of capitalism.

But it is perhaps more than that — a conservative nationalism that stresses abstract ideas of nation over the actual wellbeing of human beings demand not just allegiance, but love. Nationalism has its own eros, its own rhetoric of passionate desire, and it becomes oppressive when it emphasizes love for the nation over love for fellow human beings, for human lives. When adherents of oppressive nationalisms express fear of both free speech and free love, they do so because we threaten to unravel the hierarchies of the status quo — it is the fear that we will love and desire one another, and one another’s dignity and freedom, more than the social roles to which we are supposed to be devoted.

The state, through the discourse of nation, wants to be our beloved — and even if we must be forced, we must love it back. Systems of gender and sexuality regulate this flow of desire toward socially-acceptable forms. In this logic, gender infractions thus become infractions against the nationalist ideal.

How is this playing out in the context of the JNU dossier? We of course know that specific formations of gender are pivotal to right-wing imaginations the world over, and that the burden of national and racial identity and “purity” often falls on women. Our abilities to love and reproduce with the “wrong” person, to violate the norms of caste, race, nation, and religion, are a threat to social hierarchies that maintain oppression.

We can see as much in the way in which the sexual charges in the document come alongside the scapegoating of racial others. As a recent campus protest against the dossier by the Northeast Students’ Forum pointed out, the dossier implies a connection between female sexual “misbehavior” and a whole host of racialized, sexualized others: Not only women students in general, but specifically Northeastern students, Kashmiri students, Muslim students, and Dalit students. The dossier specifically accuses minority students of separatism and anti-national activity — and the spectre of female sexual misbehavior pointed to elsewhere in the report haunts and colors these allegations as well.

But it is not just any form of sexual activity that haunts the right-wing imagination animated in this document: it is particularly non-reproductive sex. This is the logic at play in the famous 3,000 condoms allegation: Gyandev Ahuja, a BJP MLA, draws attention not only to the notion that JNU students are having sex (which, yes, many — but not nearly that many — of them are), but that they are having sex for pleasure, sex from which no discernible benefit to the state will come.

But repressive gender regimes (à la the compulsory hetero-patriarchal family) are not the only way to keep people in check. Liberalism itself can also become a tool of control, as the proper sexual subject under patriarchal capitalism is also a consuming subject: a member of a family unit that buys Marutis or Fords; that gives gifts on Christmas and Diwali; a family that aspires toward the ownership of Apple watches and a new fridge. Find a way to integrate unruly sexual subjects into proper consumption patterns, and you can cut down on their unruliness, too.

In the American context, for example, queers (still problematic figures in our refusal to shut up about our marginalization) have become increasingly accepted and acceptable; we were even granted the right to same-sex marriage last year. Radical critics have raised the concern that this campaign for civil liberties has also had the side effect (or maybe this is actually the ideology at its core) of allying queerness with capitalism. A quick walk down the streets of New York City’s pride, festooned with expressions of how much companies like Uber love gays, is testament to this. What does it mean when sexually disruptive citizens can now be properly recognized through marriage — and courted by companies? We can see from this that gender and sexual freedom alone are not inherently disruptive forces.

But gender and sexual freedom coupled with anti-racism/communalism/casteism and anti-capitalism? Now that, my friends, is a dangerous cocktail. We could refuse to become both proper sexual subjects and proper consumers. The family being the primary unit of consumption, challenging both conservative notions of proper libidinal organization and the logic of capitalism is potentially revolutionary.

Because at the end of the day, the state is not a person. The government is not a person, the nation — though often characterized as one — is not a person. Political parties are not people, ideologies are not people, companies are not people (I’m looking at you, American Supreme Court), and foetuses are not people, either (just for the record, American right-wing).

People are people.
And when we love people — people we are not supposed to love, people we are supposed to oppress or be afraid of, people unlike us — more than we love governments, more than we love ideologies, more than we love businesses and more than we love going to Big Bazaar and buying things — then we pose a threat. We especially pose a threat when we express our love for people in ways that challenge the logic of capitalist hetero-patriarchal order: by touching each other in ways that make right-wing politicians flush with orgiastic fantasies; by politicizing public space through protest, art, and the simple act of being women walking at night; by forming friendships and falling in love and organizing across social boundaries.
Most importantly, we become threatening by animating that love through acts of material, social, and political solidarity. That is the sex-race-sedition report’s underlying anxiety.

The state does not have lips to kiss us with. Our friends and comrades do. It’s these lips that those who stubbornly wish to maintain oppressive social orders the world over are so afraid of. Kiss-of-love lips. Free lips. Lips that are smooching, smoking 8,000 cigarettes, committing carnal acts against the order of nature, lagana-ing naras, and cupping around a bottle of beer.

Bol, ke lab azaad hai tere — free lips can have free sex; lips free to kiss are lips free to speak. The authors of the sex-sedition dossier are afraid of the possibility of an open society — and they hear it coming from our open mouths.
 
(The author is an American Fulbright fellow in cinema studies at JNU. She writes a weekly column for Feministing)

Courtesy: EyeArtCollective

Image Courtesy- Pixabay
 
 

354 pro-Palestine human rights and church groups, trade union and political parties mount pressure on EU

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European Parliament

The European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCPalestine) have issued a Press Release yesterday:

More than 300 human rights and aid organisations, church groups, trade unions and political parties from across Europe have called on the EU to uphold its legal responsibilities and hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and to defend the right of individuals and institutions to take part in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for justice and equality.

Signatories to the letter called on the EU commission to “introduce the human rights guidelines guaranteeing freedom of speech and right to boycott and to use all other means you have in your disposal to support European citizens in their struggle to uphold basic human rights.”

Having failed to stop the growth of the BDS movement, Israel has launched an unprecedented attack against the BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality.

The 354 strong list of signatories includes: Transform! Europe – a European network of 28 European organisations from 19 countries, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, The Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions, Parti de Gauche in France, Podemos in Spain, Norwegian Church Aid, the Flemish branch of Oxfam in Belgium, major Belgian NGO coalition CNCD 11.11.11, Defence for Children in Belgium, Greenpeace in Germany, the international catholic peace movement Pax Christi International in Belgium and major French Catholic NGO Terre Solidaire. See here for letter and full list of signatories.

At Israel’s request, European governments including the UK and France are introducing anti-democratic legislation and taking other repressive measures to undermine the BDS movement. In France, one activist was arrested simply for wearing a BDS t-shirt.

The EU envoy to Israel was criticised recently for participating in an anti-BDS conference in Jerusalem at which Israeli government ministers threatened BDS activists.

Israel has also imposed an effective travel ban on BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti, following thinly-veiled threats of physical violence against him by Israeli government ministers that prompted Amnesty International to express concern “for the safety and liberty of Palestinian human rights defender Omar Barghouti”.

Israeli state repression against human rights defenders and the BDS movement is designed to shield it from being held accountable for its violations of international law. Israel has openly boasted that it is spying on international BDS activists.

Riya Hassan, Europe Campaigns Officer for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the broadest coalition of Palestinian organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement, said:

“Rather than helping Israel to repress the BDS movement, it is time for the EU to meet its obligations under international law and hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. The EU must uphold the right of European, Palestinian and Israeli citizens to uphold human rights and take part in the nonviolent BDS movement.”

Aneta Jerska, the coordinator of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP), one of the organisations that has signed the statement, said:

“It is empowering to see so many European civil society organisations and representative bodies publicly declaring their support for the right to participate in the BDS movement that aims to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and human rights.

“This is a powerful sign that European public opinion is increasingly viewing BDS as an act of free speech. We will continue to fight to bring an end to Israel’s unjust system of oppression over the Palestinian people.”
 

Republished with permission from Mondoweiss.

Why the West reacts Differently to Terror Attacks Depending on Where They Happen

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Photo credit: NDTV

Terrorism is a threat everywhere. According to a Foreign Policy report, the worst terrorist events in 2015 occurred in Cameroon, Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen. 2016 has followed in step, with terrorist attacks occurring in locations as diverse as Belgium, Pakistan and Turkey.

Although most of these attacks led to injuries and fatalities, some writers have decried double standards in the media reporting and have highlighted the “seemingly differing public reaction to bombs in Belgium and attacks in Turkey”.

The nature and prominence of the way the media covers terrorist attacks is a good way to judge the public’s reaction – is the story on the front page or is it hidden away on page 13? But there are a range of other public responses – such as the solidarity rally of world leaders following the Paris attacks, flying official flags at half-mast on governmental buildings and lighting up landmark monuments in the colours of the national flag of the afflicted country.

Activity on social media, such as using Twitter hashtags and changing Facebook profile pictures to show solidarity is another potent indicator of the public’s response.

But all of the above indicators have to be approached with a degree of caution. Assessing the public response to an outrage by monitoring social media, for example, raises questions of computer accessibility. Not only that, but not everyone necessarily perceives social media as the appropriate medium for public expressions of solidarity.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

Seeking common ground

With respect to the seemingly differing Western public responses to terrorist events across the globe, several factors may play a role, including the spread and availability of journalists. Others have suggested a racist narrative. Will Gore, writing in The Independent about the attacks in Brussels in March, concluded that there is a “fundamentally racist narrative at play … we value white European lives more than those of dark-skinned people beyond Europe’s borders”.

But another factor is the common cultural and historical heritage of the West which may appear heightened in times of adversity. As an article in The Atlantic suggested: “Americans are much more likely to have been to Paris than to Beirut – or to Cairo, or to Nairobi, or to any number of cities that have experienced bloody attacks. If they haven’t travelled to the French capital themselves, they’ve likely seen a hundred movies and TV shows that take place there, and can reel off the names of landmarks. Paris in particular is a symbol of a sort of high culture.” For Americans, read most audiences in the West.


For a few days the whole world was Paris. EPA/Various photographers

By contrast, writing in the aftermath of the Ankara terrorist attacks, Turkey-based journalist Liz Cookman notes that the country “continues to teeter on the line between East and West, making it hard to understand – a Muslim country with increasingly conservative values that also has its sights set on the EU”.

‘Otherness’

This lack of understanding of non-Western countries may in part, as Cookman suggests, be down to ignorance. But it may also be related to what Edward Said refers to as “Otherness”. Said argues that Westerners imagine the Orient as an exotic and strange place and describe it in stereotypical and mythical ways which serve to accentuate and reinforce the Orient’s difference from the West.

The Economist found that, in the period 2000 to 2014, most of the deaths from terrorist events occurred in the Middle East and Africa – not the West. Indeed, according to Foreign Policy, in 2015, the most devastating terrorist attacks took place in Nigeria (with death tolls that ranged from 150 to 2,000) and Egypt (with a death toll of 224).

However, Western public responses to such events may appear more muted, perhaps because of an emphasis on the Otherness of non-Western countries, which enables Westerners to more readily accept a lower standard of protection in those countries. While in the West, terrorist attacks such as the ones we witnessed in Paris and Brussels are shocking and unthinkable, in “other” parts of the world – from a Western point of view – they are, sadly, a fact of life.

This notion of the “Other” may, to some extent, also emerge in Middle Eastern reporting of terrorist attacks. According to a review of the Middle East press on the Paris attacks, “within the overall rejection [of the terrorists' violence] that dominated the papers' front pages, a small number of papers raised questions about Western governments' policies in the world”. These papers saw a Western role in “feeding terrorism” and that such attacks took place after “a wave of Islamophobia has emerged in France’s neighbour, Germany”.

But most of the coverage of the Paris attacks in the Middle East was filled with sympathy and concern. Al-Arabiya English, based in Dubai, carried a comprehensive roll-call of Middle East and Gulf leaders condemning the attacks and offering condolences and support. Meanwhile, Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News offered strong analysis and opinion in the days following the atrocity, taking the line that: “This is no longer a fight within the boundaries of the Middle East and Mesopotamia” and calling for a concerted strategy to fight IS.

So for the Middle East press, the West can be the “Other” – and, perhaps, not without justification. But what is also clear is that, perhaps because of their tragic familiarity with terrorism, people in the Middle East and Africa are more generous with their responses to terrorism in the West.

(The writer is senior lecturer in International Law, Anglia Ruskin University).

This article was first published on The Conversation.

Modi Gifts Away India’s National IPR Policy to Obama

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The National Intellectual Property Rights[2] policy was approved by the cabinet on May 12, 2016 and released to the press on May 13, 2016 by the Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitely. It is India’s ‘first of its kind’ policy that covers all forms of intellectual property together in a single framework. The policy follows a completely new set of principles which are pro-intellectual property (IP) owners in every possible way.
 
The principles laid down in the policy incentivize the IP owners by granting them monopoly rights. The policy rewards the big capital without caring for the balance to be established vis-à-vis public interest or development concerns. Although the present government believes in arguing that it is pursuing the agenda of development, it is ironical that the policy gives very little importance to either the public interest or the challenges facing India in respect of development.
 
The stated rationale of this policy is that strong intellectual property rights system is necessary in order to promote creativity and innovation in India. Evidence to the contrary however exists in plenty.
 
Monopoly rights stifle and not promote innovation. Barriers to research collaboration can grow, diffusion of knowledge suffers and access to knowledge and innovation is harmed under any strong IP system.
 
The policy of the Modi Government is clearly informed by a conservative pro-IP ideology which big capital promotes with the aim to appropriate, to and for itself, all the gains made from progress underway in the systems of science and technology, across the world. The policy was framed with the help of a committee whose convener is from the FICCI and was filled with lawyers who have worked with the Finance Minister in the past. Actually, the rationale behind this policy, is the pressure from the multinationals emerging out of the US, Europe and Japan. 
 
It is no secret that in the recent past India has been under pressure from the US government under their Special 301 law[3]to change its patents regime.For the last two years in the conferences being held on trade and investment, the Ministry of Commerce officials are known to have talked favourably about the benefits of joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which has several TRIPS-plus provisions[4]. The argument of how it is not possible for India to keep out of mega-regionals has been invoked by many of these officials. Furthermore the timing of this policy is extremely significant. The Prime Minister is leaving on his fourth visit to the United States on June 7-8 and is expected to address the US Congress.
 
The policy will govern the Patents Act, Trade Marks Act, Design Act, Geographical Indications of Goods Act, Copyright Act, Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout Design Act and Biological Diversity Act.
 
As a result, the impact of this policy is expected to be felt in sectors as diverse as pharmaceuticals, software, electronics and communications, seeds, environmental goods, renewable energy, agricultural and health biotechnology, and information and communications.
 
The policy has adopted an IP maximalist agenda (of maximum possible incentive for IP owners) to drive the future course of development of industry, publicly funded research and development organisations, educational institutions and government departments in India from now on.
 
Even when the policy admits that the intellectual property of foreign corporations has gained from the changes made to India's IP laws after joining the WTO and that the size of Indian IP is small, the policy continues on this path without adducing an iota of evidence in favour of the assumption which states that a strong IP based policy framework is essential to promote creativity and innovation in India.
 
It is also a matter of significant concern that India is ranked quite low on the index of creativity and innovation; we are at 56, somewhere pretty low down on the ladder.
 
Indian applicants lead in the matter of trademark applications and not patents. Take, for instance, the number of new drug applications filed by the Indian companies with USFDA—it has never crossed the single digit figure.
 
However, in the sphere of trademarks, out of the 179, 317 applications in 2010–11, the class consisting of “medicinal, pharmaceuticals, veterinary and sanitary substances” accounted for 31,634 trademarks, representing 17.64 per cent.
 
Analysis shows that the number of Indian design patent assignees, as provided in the US system, was as small as 271. Thirty three per cent of design patents came from the fields of jewellery and ornaments. Put starkly, there is no point, or need, in exaggerating our ‘creativity in innovation to justify a case for strong IP protection.
 
The Minister spoke of accelerating the registration and approval of trademarks. The policy speaks of promoting IP as a financial asset and an economic tool. However, policymakers need to be reminded of how the public banking system was robbed when it relied on the valuation of the Kingfisher brand to release funds to Vijay Mallya!  
 
Both the Vision Statement and the Mission Statement[5] of the policy proclaim that creativity and innovation are stimulated by Intellectual Property for the benefit of all. The policy states that it shall promote entrepreneurship and enhance socio-economic and cultural development including access to healthcare, food security and environmental protection; but,what is the basis of this proclamation?
 
Did the committee set up by the Ministry for the formulation of National IPR Policy sift and analyse the evidence? None of the evaluations made by the committee are clear. Had the committee gone into this question, it would not have been able to argue that the adoption of a stronger IPR is necessary for the enhancement of innovations.
 
A strong IP based system was not responsible for the creation of foundational elements of new generic technologies such as software, semiconductors, microprocessors, mobile telephony, recombinant DNA technology, monoclonal antibodies and many other such biotechnological tools.

Monopoly rights stifle and not promote innovation. Barriers to research collaboration can grow, diffusion of knowledge suffers and access to knowledge and innovation is harmed under any strong IP system.
 
The same is the story when applied to the fields of 3 D printing. Patents, designs and layouts were not applicable to such technologies when the foundational tools emerged in the case of all these generic technologies. Scientists had to be pushed to treat some of these cases as IP by the technology transfer offices of the US universities.
 
Did a strong IP regime work for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industry after the adoption of TRIPS Agreement? The policy does not demonstrate how a regime favouring maximum possible incentive for IP owners and the granting of monopolies will be able to ensure the “socio-cultural development” of India.
 
Analysis of the impact of the patents granted on new chemical entities (NCEs) by this author in the forthcoming publication for the two hundred sixty two drugs introduced in India since 1995 indicates that the market power of foreign firms is on the rise due to the adoption of the product patent in various therapeutic groups such as anti-cancer, cardiovascular, central nervous system, diabetes, urology and other such non-communicable diseases.
 
The data clearly reveals that the market power of foreign firms would have been greater had India opted for early TRIPS implementation like many of the countries in Latin America did and made their industries as well as people suffer the adverse consequences of a strong intellectual property regime.[6]
 
In fact, far more contrary –and interesting –evidence is directly available from the pre-TRIPS period. The Green Revolution took place in India without any IP protection for the breeders of new varieties of seeds.
 
The Indian pharmaceutical industry became the pharmacy of the Third World because of the rejection of the strong intellectual property rights (IPRs) system in the 1970s. Since the domestic pharmaceutical industry supplies a large number of pharmaceuticals to the regulated markets of US and Europe and is the lifeline for patients particularly in the developing world, it is paradoxical that the policymakers of the Modi Government choose to do little more than give lip service to India's global role in the case of generic pharmaceuticals. With no mention at all of the use of critical safeguards in India's patent law such as compulsory licenses, parallel imports or support for patent oppositions, it seems there was some merit to the news of India's assurances to the US industry that compulsory licenses will no longer be issued in India.  
 
The policy focuses on improving the IPR output of National Research Laboratories, Universities, Technology institutions and researchers by encouraging and facilitating the acquisition of IPR.

It proposes to link research funding and career progression with the creation of IPR and includes this as a key performance metric for public funded R&D institutions as well as Technology institutions. Although it is clear that the policy suggests the harnessing of intellectual property by public institutions to be undertaken in a big way (through, for example, the patenting or licensing of research results) and the partnering of public institutions with the private sector, it chooses not to ask the obvious question of what has been the outcome of the perusal of precisely such policies in the laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Since the mid-1990s, CSIR researchers were directed to file patents but the policy failed to yield patents that could earn CSIR revenue. A vast majority of patents obtained by CSIR (2001–2010) lie idle and have not able to generate licensing revenue to the extent of covering even four to five percent of the cost incurred on the filing of patents by the CSIR. 

The policy on patenting has cost the CSIR not just money to maintain these patents in India and abroad, it has also directed CSIR away from more important directions. In order to generate IP that can be commercialised, the laboratories are required to plan patent portfolios without which enforceable IP will not get generated.

It is not enough to celebrate the intellectual property of individual researchers. Indian patents are the outcome of non-collaborative individual organisation based efforts, both for industry and research institutions. Analysis indicates that 90 per cent are single entity patents and the percentage was as high as 96 per cent in 2010 for India’s US patents. Only seven per cent of the total patents are outcomes of collaborative R&D.[7]

Even in the case of patents filed with the Indian Patent Office (IPO), a large majority (75 per cent) were filed and obtained by individual assignees. Both R&D institutions and industry have been acting separately in their pursuits of technology development related investments.

The same can be said of the collaboration between the academic institutions, universities and research institutions that have been granted patents—the trend is to “go-alone”.

The Indian scenario on international collaboration is no different. Analysis indicates that industry collaboration with universities and R&D laboratories is also negligible. There have been no more than 0–10 patents in any given year. Analysis of the patent assignment database of the USPTO indicates that only 173 out of the total 2420 patents obtained during the period resulted in licensing of other entities.

Further examination reveals that 32 of the 173 patents were instances of internal trading. Just 7.15 per cent of India’s patents were licensed on the whole and 5.83 per cent of the total, if we leave out cases where the transfer was to one’s own subsidiary[8]. 

Clearly, the message of this analysis is that the Indian industry and R&D organisations are not at the stage of development wherein the patent strategy is going to yield much returns. It seems that our policymaking is not informed by Indian reality but by pressures on and of the multinationals. Multinationals and R&D organizations abroad do not treat the challenge of IP generation without a strategy. They spend money on patent litigation. Does India want its laboratories to focus on science or litigation?

It is also a matter of significant concern that India is ranked quite low on the index of creativity and innovation; we are at 56, somewhere pretty low down on the ladder.

Further, it should not be forgotten that if publicly funded laboratories are encouraged to patent their research contributions, seek exclusionary rights and make money from the private sector from their research contributions, the tax payers will be paying twice.

The private sector will include the total R&D expensesincurred in the cost of product after adding a huge mark-up.

Why should the policymakers opt for exclusive licensing of public IP?

Exclusive licensing is an important element of a strong IP system. This is a matter of serious concern. The policy proposes to establish and strengthen IP facilitation centers as nodal points in industrial and innovation university clusters.
Evidence on the performance of Science and Technology (S&T) parks is not very encouraging with regard to IP based entrepreneurship from India. There is significant gap between scientists and industry with regards to important factors in the process of technology transfer from publicly funded R&D sector to private sector industry. Scientists consider the lack of motivation and demand from industry for investment in indigenous technology development to be a key barrier to sustainable collaboration.

Experience of success with IP based entrepreneurship and technology transfer from National Research and Development Corporation (NRDC), National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Technology and Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), SIBRI and BIRAC of Department of Biotechnology is hardly encouraging. 

However, thanks to the high voltage propaganda that favors a strong IP, the same mantra of IP based entrepreneurship is repeated. Take the case of NRDC which manages the IP generated from the programme aimed at technological self-reliance[9] (PATSER) of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR).

In royalty paying projects, there was only one case where the firm paid on a regular basis. In most cases it was paid for one or two years by the firms. The amount of royalty paid varied widely, from as low as Rupees 954 to Rupees 86 lakhs. Most common reasons mentioned for non-commercialisation were either that the technologies developed were obsolete or there was no market demand for the technology developed[10].

The policy considers IP rights as private rights. The policy wants to promote IPRs as marketable financial assets. The policy views IP as an economic tool. But intellectual property is a regulatory tool for the government. The government should not be using it only as an incentive.

The government needs to provide safeguards to protect public interest when statutory monopolies are being offered to IP owners. The objectives and instruments of policy need to be guided by a social contract between state and society on the basis of the consequences of intellectual property regime for the development process.

As a regulatory tool, the state has to ask how and what benefits will corporates deliver and what kind of costs it entails to the Indian people.

A social bargain should reward or grant incentives to innovators but not without asking what kind of innovation and access to innovation is being offered by this particular system of reward,that is, exclusive rights through IP.

Incentive has to be as per the stage of development and be commensurate with the quality of intellectual property. Intellectual property has to maximize disclosure, diffusion and dissemination, access to knowledge, and public interest.
The policy is vague in how such a balance is to be achieved and how the rights of IP owners will be implemented in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare and to prevent misuse or abuse of IP rights. Although the policy speaks of encouraging open source drug discovery (OSDD), it is well known that the OSDD programme is no longer being pursued by CSIR.

While the policy speaks of promoting free and open source software, it could have given a genuine boost to the idea of open source in the areas of software, seeds and creative publishing if the government was willing to announce a public procurement policy for encouraging open source in software and seeds.

The policy should have announced a law favoring open source licensing. Special licenses for non-exclusive dissemination of intellectual property could have been encouraged. Twenty-five countries including Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Italy provide for legislative support to open source[11].

The policy also refers to open innovation as part of the promotion of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Open innovation is practiced by large companies as a programme of collaborative R&D strategy, and it is not a CSR activity for them. Apart from the NIF (National Innovation Foundation) which has tried collaborating with Big Bazar to market the “outcomes of grassroots innovations” (wherein also we are yet to see the market being developed for such innovations), there are not too many corporate social responsibility (CSR) examples which can be multiplied by the R&D organizations. The CSIR has many rural technologies to offer from its own shelf, but we have not seen large companies being willing to transfer these technologies to the base of pyramid population. 

The policy provides for the enhancement of the capacity of IP enforcement agencies at various levels, including strengthening of IPR cells in State police forces. It proposes to adjudicate IP disputes through Commercial courts. The policy marks a major departure from the earlier well-stated understanding by BakshiTekchand and Justice Iyengar committees[12] that guided the framing of Indian patent law. These committees created the Patent Act, 1970.

The model patent act provided for granting of rights for the use of new processes for the benefit of the pharmaceutical and food industries and laid the basis for creative imitation or reverse engineering approach which led the Indian R&D institutions to create over fifty new chemical reactions processes for more than one hundred essential drugs.

The policy states in writing that the government will engage constructively in the negotiation of international treaties and agreements. It also states that it will examine accession to some multilateral treaties which are in India's interest. Is this a signal that India could be party to Trans-pacific partnership (TPP) where the TRIPS plus agenda is already in place?

Needless to say, the IP maximalist agenda of the new IPR policy will warm the heart of the US government in a big way. It seems that the government wanted to gift something to the USA, and decided on gifting the IPR policy. This particular gift to the US must be withdrawn. It should be prevented from becoming the national policy.

The policy seeks respect for IP and in its usual style the present government wants this message to be taken to the schools, colleges and public.

It wants to involve multinational corporations in the IP awareness programmes. The policy proposes to strengthen and spread IPR facilitation centers. The policy proposes to open up the traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL) to the corporates. What is of greatest concern perhaps is the targeting of the judiciary through “awareness” and “training” on an IP maximalist agenda that is likely to threaten the fine balance between public interest and IP that the courts have struggled to maintain. This is going to be a big change.

The policy says India will remain committed to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS Agreement and Public Health with no real provisions of the policy dedicated to the actual use of public health safeguards in India's patent law.

Nor can it be ignored that the Government of India agreed to give in to the US Government’s twenty-first century issues of trade and investment at the Nairobi Ministerial at the WTO. According to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the Doha Development Agenda is dead. There has been no progress.

Needless to say, the IP maximalist agenda of the new IPR policy will warm the heart of the US government in a big way. It seems that the government wanted to gift something to the USA, and decided on gifting the IPR policy. This particular gift to the US must be withdrawn. It should be prevented from becoming the national policy.
 
(The author is Convener, National Working Group on Patent Laws)

 

[1]Convener, National Working Group on Patent Laws.
[5]http://dipp.gov.in/English/Schemes/Intellectual_Property_Rights/National_IPR_Policy_12.05.2016.pdf
[6]Forthcoming Working Paper on ‘Foreign Firms, Product Patent and Pharmaceutical Innovation in India after TRIPS’
[7]See India Science & Technology, CSIR-NISTADS, Volume 3, 2015 for the details of the co-evolving scenario in respect of the generation and use of IP in India.
[8]See India Science & Technology, CSIR-NISTADS, Volume 3, 2015 for the details of the co-evolving scenario in respect of the generation and use of IP in India.
[9] DSIR, PATSER Programme, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India
[10]See India Science & Technology, CSIR-NISTADS, Volume 3, 2015 for the details of the co-evolving scenario in respect of the generation and use of IP in India.
[11]Metzger, Axel, and Stefan Hennigs. "General Report." Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and other Alternative License Models. Springer InternationalPublishing, 2016. 3-48.

A School of Law Deploys Police on Peacefully Protesting Students: NLU Assam

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NLU Assam on lockdown: Police forces deployed amid student protests

 
The matter was simple, peacefully protesting students. Yet, in what seems to have become a pattern in dealing with universities these days, police forces armed with shields, batons, barricades and water-cannons patrol the campus of the National Law University and Judicial Academy, Guwahati, even as students protest administrative inaction.

The issue stems from the administration’s apparent reluctance to provide students with services paid for as part of the university’s annual fees, which amount to around 2 lakhs a year. Among these are the Student Bar Association Fee, which was paid by the students despite the fact that the student bar only came into existence four years after the inception of NLUJAA. The students’ attempts at securing a refund of the fees for these four years have thus far been fruitless.

In addition to this, the students are also miffed at the fact that the university has not shifted to the new campus in Amingaon. The shift was supposed to take place in December 2015. The present campus and facilities are described by the students as “inadequate and oppressive, with students having to live in congested spaces and pathetic conditions”.

This is not the first time these issues have been raised; in September 2014, the students went on a hunger strike to protest the shambolic state of affairs at the university. This protest prompted erstwhile Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court K Sreedhar Rao to inspect the campus and take note of the lack of permanent faculty and the absence of a Vice-Chancellor.

A month later, Prof Vijender Kumar was appointed as NLUJAA’s Vice-Chancellor. After the ex-NALSAR Registrar brought in a number of improvements, it seemed that the university was headed in the right direction. However, the issue of refunding the fees has gone unaddressed. This, despite the Chief Justice of the High Court appointing an external committee of three Vice-Chancellors of three leading NLUs to address the matter of refund in June 2015.

Here is a copy of the Memorandum submitted by students on May 16.

View the report of the external committee:
 
In addition to this, Prof Kumar constituted a sub-committee comprising three faculty members and student representatives from the first batch, which graduates this year. After initial discussion bore no fruit, the same committees were reconstituted in February this year. Subsequently, the recommendation put forth by the external committee was found to be “unacceptable” by the student representatives and the student body in general.

Moreover, the students’ requests to attend the Executive Council meetings to put forth their grievances were turned down. Just last week, they were also denied admission to a General Council meeting presided over by Chancellor and Chief Justice of the High Court Ajit Singh.

Thus, the students have decided to conduct a peaceful protest on the campus. The protest is now into its second day and classes have been suspended indefinitely. Vice-Chancellor Prof Kumar was not available for comment at the time of publishing this story

.

 

Gender Equality and the Concept of the Dargah In Islam

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Women at Ajmer Sharif Dargah

In the Quran it is mentioned that those who are killed in the cause of Allah are alive. All the Islamic Messengers (1,24,000 messengers) are also considered alive (by most of the Islamic schools) because they all came for the cause of Allah and died for the same.

It is also mentioned in the Quran that if anyone who asks for forgiveness and comes to the Prophet (pbuh) then the Prophet (pbuh) also prays to Allah on behalf of that person for forgiveness. This is called praying through waseela (in the name of Prophet).

Therefore, many early schools of Islamic belief pray to Allah in the name of Allah’s Prophet/s (pbuh) and in the name of Martyrs and Saints.

There are few schools of Islam who don’t subscribe to the above philosophy and they consider it against Islam, therefore, they don’t go to the Dargahs; some even go to the extent of demolishing Dargahs.

The Dargahs are more open and secular places of worship than Mosques. The concept of Dargah is non-judgemental, and there contain, in this worship, the ancient traditions of respecting gender equality.

Gender discrimination is a new phenomena within Dargahs; earlier Men, Women, Children, Muslim, Non-Muslims, Transgenders, LGBT, anyone and everyone, was allowed to enter and pray, pay obeisance in their own way.

 The Prophet's Mosque (Al-Masjid Al- Nabawi) in Medina holds the Prophet Muhammad's burial chamber. The keys to this holy site and the mosque's minbar were kept by a group of eunuchs originally from Abyssinia, known as the Guardians.

Saudi Arabian portrait photographer Adel Quraishi has trained his camera on this theme: the handful of surviving Guardians of the Prophet’s burial chamber at Medina. Prophet Mohammed lived, died and is buried there, and every Muslim aims to visit the site at least once.

Since the Ottoman Empire, the keys to this holy site have been kept by eunuchs – originally from Abyssinia, later wider in origin.   They are eunuchs who entered the role long ago, and are now at least 80 years old – one is said to be 110, which would fit with research suggesting that ‘reduced testosterone gives eunuchs increased life expectancy’.

Be that as it may, three of the eight photographed in 2014 have died since the photographs – the only ones ever permitted – were taken, and only three remain fit to carry out their full duties. The Guardians are eunuchs, not because they have access to women’s accommodation, but for the spiritual aspect of a faith that is undistracted by sexual desire and uninfected by ritual impurity.

They are revered as mediators who cross boundaries, and there’s also a sense in which time is suspended for them, as they have never gone through the changes of adolescence. That state matches the suspension of time said to occur in the well-preserved state of the Prophet’s body.

Presently, no new Guardians are being taken on, so where once there were hundreds responsible for all aspects of running the mosque complex, the remaining few spend their days in a small room connected to the burial chamber itself.

They pray, clean the floor with rosewater and look after the set of keys which must be used in a closely-guarded sequence to access the chamber. Even Quraishi was not allowed to photograph the keys, but he was able to take an image of the chamber through which a constant stream of pilgrims pass: we see the architectural and decorative detail, but a long exposure time converts the worshippers to abstract marks passing through. Quraishi’s project, then, makes the most of the photograph as record: to look at the eight faces ranged – life sized or somewhat larger – around the ideally suited dimensions of Leighton House’s contemporary exhibition gallery is to look at the only pictures ever taken of an 800 year tradition which is set to disappear.


Ajmer Sharif Urs

During the Urs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisty in Ajmer, the prime reason for the huge participation of eunuchs is thanksgiving for their wishes being granted by him. The notion arose from the belief that the Khwaja had blessed eunuchs and allegedly, one of them even got pregnant after being blessed by him. There is a tomb of the eunuch (Hijde Ki Mazar) in Taragadh, Ajmer. This Mazar is believed to be the Mazar of the eunuch who was blessed and a disciple of khwaja garib nawaz.

Hijron Ka Khanqah is also an Islamic monument located in Mehrauli, South Delhi, India. The literal meaning of Hijron ka Khanqah is a “Sufi Spiritual Retreat for Eunuchs”. It is maintained well by the Hijras of Turkman Gate, in Shahjahanabad (present day Old Delhi) who are in possession of this 15th-century monument.

(The author is a communication designer)

References from the Quran:
ALI 'IMRAN (FAMILY OF IMRAN) Quran 3:169 171
وَلَا تَحْسَبَنَّ الَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتًا ۚ بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ يُرْزَقُونَ
فَرِحِينَ بِمَا آتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِ وَيَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِالَّذِينَ لَمْ يَلْحَقُوا بِهِم مِّنْ خَلْفِهِمْ أَلَّا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
يَسْتَبْشِرُونَ بِنِعْمَةٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَفَضْلٍ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision,
Rejoicing in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty, and they receive good tidings about those after them who have not yet joined them – that there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve.
They receive good tidings of favour from Allah and bounty and that Allah does not allow the reward of believers to be lost

AN-NISA (THE WOMEN) Quran 4:64
وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا لِيُطَاعَ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ۚ وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ إِذ ظَّلَمُوا أَنفُسَهُمْ جَاءُوكَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا اللَّهَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ لَهُمُ الرَّسُولُ لَوَجَدُوا اللَّهَ تَوَّابًا رَّحِيمًا
And We did not send any messenger except to be obeyed by permission of Allah . And if, when they wronged themselves, they come to you, [O Muhammad], and asked forgiveness of Allah and the Messenger had asked forgiveness for them, they would have found Allah Accepting of repentance and Merciful.

Note: لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ For you is your religion, and for me is my religion. (Quran 109:6)
لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ ۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَيِّ ۚ فَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِالطَّاغُوتِ وَيُؤْمِن بِاللَّهِ فَقَدِ اسْتَمْسَكَ بِالْعُرْوَةِ الْوُثْقَىٰ لَا انفِصَامَ لَهَا ۗ وَاللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
There shall be no compulsion in the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing. (Quran 2:256)

References:
1. Adel Quraishi's Portraits of The Guardians
2. A queer rights activist on her visit to the shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti
3. Hijron Ka Khanqah
4.Hijra Chadar Ceremony At Ajmer Shrif 1
5.World of Hijras At Ajmer Urus ,, Qawwali 1

Nagaland: Where Women are Blamed for Sexual Violence

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Audience in Chui Village during a public meeting, Nagaland. Photo: Dolly Kikon

Perpetrators of sexual violence escape justice, while their victims are trapped between exhortations by women's advocacy groups not to ‘suffer quietly' and the social stigma attached to sexual violence.

The Indo-Naga armed conflict is recognised as the longest insurgency in South Asia. It started as a movement for the right to self-determination in the Naga Hills during the transfer of power from the British colonial administration to the government of India around 1947. In 1997, the government of India and the Naga armed opposition groups signed a cease-fire agreement. The post 1997 ceasefire period came to be known as the era of peace process.

However, during this period, violence against women escalated. When I was carrying out fieldwork on women’s testimonies of sexual violence in Nagaland two years ago, Naga women activists and advocacy groups emphasised that survivors of sexual violence must not ‘suffer quietly’. Yet, the social stigma attached to sexual violence was glaring. The tendency of blaming women for the violence they experienced contributed to the culture of impunity.

During my fieldwork, a woman in Dimapur observed, “The girls are not completely blameless. They are partly responsible for it. Men can smell the sexual signals that girls give out. They attract men and get raped.” I came across such comments regularly.

I realised how children were socialised and taught about morality and chastity on the basis of such world views. The male and the female reproductive organs were described as calculators that performed the arithmetic and values of profit and loss. The logic went like this, “Once a man touches a woman (sexual intercourse), if he does not marry her, the girl’s life is destroyed”. Yet, the logic of moral chastity was detached from social realities like the structural violence and the militarisation of Naga society as a consequence of the Indo-Naga armed conflict since India’s independence in 1947.

A majority of male household members between the 1960s and the early 1990s either joined the Naga armed groups and went underground, or were tortured and killed by the Indian security forces. For several decades during the heights of the Indo-Naga conflict, it was women who sustained and held the family together. Today the number of women-headed households, widows, women destitutes, survivors of sexual violence, and teenage pregnancies are some of the pressing issues in Naga society, yet it is the hymen centric moral and cultural code that is perpetuated in overwhelming ways.
 

Konyak Women performing during the Road Show in Mon town, Nagaland. Photo: Dolly Kikon

With the help of counsellors and activists who were involved in the case, and the consent of her guardians, I documented the experiences of Beth, a fifteen-year old survivor of sexual violence in Dimapur. Beth’s father sexually abused her from 2010 to 2013. As a cadre in one of the Naga insurgent groups, her father lived in the ceasefire camp, where newly disarmed insurgents were relocated (and where many thousands of Naga insurgents have languished since the 1997 ceasefire), but frequently visited the family and raped Beth.

In 2013, the father fled from Dimapur after Beth’s aunty reported the incident to the police. The case travelled between different legal jurisdictions – the insurgent courts, the customary family meetings, and the state police stations – because Beth’s father and the aunt who reported the case to the police belonged to rival insurgent groups. Political rivalry and family rivalry were intertwined. The state agencies like the police were apprehensive to get into an internal matter where rival insurgent groups were involved.

Beth’s story captures how violence transgresses the boundaries of the family, the political associations, the legal courts, and the state agencies as well in conflict zones. Beth described the composition of her family in Dimapur as follows: "There are six of us (siblings) but none of us have any contact with one another. We are all out of touch. There are three of us from my mother who was the first wife, and there are three children from my stepmother, the second wife. All my step-siblings stay with my step-mother, but my real brother and sister have been distributed in different relative’s houses. My real mother lives in the neighbourhood and has remarried. She lives with her husband".

Often, women and children are clubbed together as a single category in rehabilitation programs on militarisation and conflict, even though a large number of children are often abandoned, trafficked, or become orphans in such situations. The urgency to provide care and security to children in conflict zones for state agencies and humanitarian organisations alike requires the arduous task of locating relatives willing to become guardians for children like Beth and her siblings. The home is interpreted as a natural hub of love, security, and care without taking into consideration the structural violence and trauma that the social units and relations have undergone.

Issues of rehabilitation and trauma counselling are huge challenges in militarised societies. In cases of sexual violence, competing authorities that involves both state and non-state actors, often present their own versions of justice. Since the 1997 Indo-Naga ceasefire agreement, the legal institutions of the state, quasi-legal units like the insurgent justice system (i.e different tribunals and institutions set up by the Naga insurgents to adjudicate between the Naga public and the armed groups) and the state administrative organs (like the judiciary, executive, and the legislative) including the tribal customary courts all co-exist within their respective constituencies.

For instance, female cadres of two Naga insurgent organisations who were sharing with me about crime against women in Dimapur city stated that perpetrators (whether it was civilian or their respective cadres) were given ‘capital punishment’ when found guilty. Why would the onus of providing justice in Naga society fall on the Naga armed groups? How did Naga insurgents living in ceasefire camps since 1997 become the harbingers of justice in militarised societies like Nagaland? What was the role of the Indian state in this arrangement?

We have to understand this phenomenon in the light of the history of militarisation and violence. The Indian state is deeply implicated in escalating the culture of sexual violence and impunity. Granting impunity to perpetrators like the Indian security forces since Indian independence under extra constitutional legislations like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) (1958) only legitimised this culture of violence.

Today, hundreds of cadres continue to wait inside the camps, uncertain about their future. Some have surrendered and become entrepreneurs, while others have lost their lives in factional conflicts. The government of India is yet to accept its role and responsibility in the destruction of property and the psychological trauma and loss of lives in the Indo-Naga conflict. The act of sexual violence was always inscribed on others like the Indian security forces. However, Beth’s story tells us that Naga men also commit sexual violence on Naga women. This reality will force us to break the silence and taboo against sexual violence in Nagaland.

(Dolly Kikon is a social anthropologist, and teaches in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. She is involved with civil and political rights movement in Northeast India and closely works with advocacy groups focused on land rights, women’s rights, and campaigns against sexual violence).

This story was first published on Open Democracy.

Polarisation and a Murder in Jharkhand

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Not much has been heard about the case since the Reverend  Abraham Soreng of Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jharkhand was found in Rourkela in the  neighbouring state of  Orissa, his throat slit with a knife on May 6, this year. The body was found near a railway bridge, the police said. 

The priest had come to Rourkela apparently to meet the Ranchi Bishop, a meeting fixed for the next day. He had not been robbed, and his mobile phone helped establish his identity. 

The body was buried in his home village of Kadma in the Jharkhand’s Kunti district, where Christians number more than a  fifth of the population of half a million. The Catholic news agency UCAN quoted the investigating police officer, Mr. Ranveer Singh, who had examined the body, saying that the pastor was probably a victim of a conspiracy. 

One would not be surprised that the state governments now come out with some theory pinning the murder on Muslims, or even Christians. That is par for the course for Jharkhand, and the three other central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, all three ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Orissa where a former BJP ally, the  Biju Janata Dal, has been in power for a decade and a half. 

The four states, which form the core of the Tribal homeland in the heart of the Indian subcontinent, have had more than their share of violence targeting the Christian community in rural areas and forest villages. Itinerant pastors leading them in worship or working with them in development activities are particular targets, as are small home churches where local families come together in prayer. 

Community leaders of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in particular, are agreed that there has been a perceptible intensification of targeting of the community, though it does not always end up in murder.  There has been a flexing of muscle by aggressive  members of local organisations which claim allegiance to the Sangh Parivar. And part of the strategy is to polarise the various tribal segments, rousing local youth in particular against the Christians who may be first generation converts or older communities. 


Mourners attend the funeral service of the Rev. Abraham Soreng, who was found murdered May 6, at Goosner Evangelical Lutheran Church on May 7 in Kadma village of Jharkhand state.   Image: ucanews.com

The pastor’s murder has got a sharp response from the Catholic Bishop’s conference secretary general, Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, who is also an Auxiliary Bishop of Ranchi under Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, one of the four Catholic Cardinals in India. “Any act of violence is condemnable, when it comes to a religious person, it is more condemnable. Efforts are underway to polarise the population in the state, which is not going to help anybody,” Bishop Mascarenhas has said. 

The police response across the tribal belt can be unpredictable. In some areas, often, posses of policemen have accompanied local political thugs hell-bent on “teaching the Christians a lesson”. Often enough, also, the gangs come accompanied also by local stringers of the print and television media. Such has been the case in the earlier violent disruption of a marriage ceremony in a church in Madhya Pradesh.

Equally disturbing is the manner in which the police register what are called cross cases against the victim Christians and the members of the aggressive group attacking them. This effectively puts the small Christian community of the area under great duress, ultimately making them withdraw the complaints against those who beat them up and stopped their worship service,

Recently, the local media made much of how two persons, allegedly of the local Hindutva groups who had vandalised a church in Chhattisgarh's Bastar in April and attempted  to set its pastor and his pregnant wife afire, were granted bail by a local court “because the pastor said he had forgiven them.”

Mriyam Borai, 32, and Akash Singh, 27, were arrested setting fire to the small church in Karanji Matagudi Para village and pouring petrol on the pastor and his seven month pregnant wife on April 17. The couple was fortunately unhurt and managed to escape. In march last year, the state had seen several villages pass orders banning the entry of Christians after a sustained campaign against “missionaries” by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.  The state had remained a mute spectator to these unconstitutional methods.

This is not the first such bizarre cased of the lower judiciary attempting to minimise or to trivialise serious crimes, including attempted murder.

Chhatisgarh indeed has multiple layers of violence, targeting the tribals and Dalits in general, but also lawyers trying to come to their aid, and the local media which is terrorised into silence. The State inaction has aggravated the situation. The on-going confrontation between the state security forces and the Maoists in Bastar provides the backdrop for state impunity and the lack of interest shown by national media to cover violence against the Christian community and other marginalised groups. 

The Evangelical Fellowship of India in its recent reports of targeted anti Christian violence in 2015 has noted that “topping the list of 177 cases are the States of Madhya Pradesh with 36 cases, and its neighbour, Chhattisgarh, 20 cases, , and Uttar Pradesh, with 22 cases.  The first three months of 2016 registered 55 verified incidents of hate crimes targeting Christians in 16 states throughout the country. Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 10 incidents, followed by Maharashtra with 7 incidents. Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand followed this with 5 each, and by Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Uttarakhand with 4 each.”  

The actual volume of violent persecution is not known, the EFI said. “State agencies are reluctant to speak on this matter and governments do not keep records unless local police register formal cases under the Indian Penal and Criminal Procedure codes.”

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