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Distressing state of Pakistan’s minorities

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Jinnah Institute releases its second report on the sorry state of religious freedom in Pakistan

Discrimination and violence against minorities and vulnerable communities in Pakistan poses a grave threat to society, and a change in mindset is needed to ensure that the life, dignity and rights of minorities are protected. This was the fundamental assertion made at the launch of Jinnah Institute’s latest report, ‘State of Religious Freedom in Pakistan” and the screening of its documentary “Strangers in Their Own Land” aired at the Marriott Hotel, Islamabad on January 19 (2016).

The report, which is the second report in a series on religious freedom, examines the state of Muslim and non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan through quantitative and qualitative research based on reported incidents on discrimination and violence, along with interviews and focused group discussion with vulnerable communities across Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, Jinnah Institute President Senator Sherry Rehman noted that while discrimination against minorities is part of a larger regional trend across South Asia, this was no justification for the distressing state of religious freedom in Pakistan. She called on all stakeholders to recognize the real and present danger posed by prejudice, bigotry and exclusionary practices towards the state’s vulnerable citizens. She emphasized the need of incorporating Quaid-e-Azam’s August 11 speech in curricula to ensure that future generations uphold the principles of a tolerant and plural Pakistan. As such Senator Rehman welcomed Jinnah Institute’s report, and painstaking research that included over 100 interviews, as an important step in the country’s quest for a tolerant and inclusive society.

Ali Dayan Hasan, who supervised and edited the report, noted that the state’s response to discrimination has become more nuanced in recent years. He noted that it was important for policy think-tanks in Pakistan to speak to minority rights issues in indigenous voices. Executive Director Christian Studies Centre, Jennifer Jag Jiwan took the opinion that bigotry, prejudice and bias cultivated the space for discrimination against marginalized groups. Religion is just one of several vectors responsible for discrimination in Pakistan. It is the foremost responsibility of any state to protect its citizens and not discriminate when it comes to different groups.

Ramesh Kumar Vankvani, MNA Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), noted that the Supreme Court in its seminal June 2014 judgment has given a roadmap to the government for ensuring that the rights of minorities in Pakistan are upheld according to the Constitution. He lamented that despite the passing of a year and a half, the SC judgement had yet to be implemented in its entirety. He highlighted that curricula reform was also essential to cultivate societal change.

Human rights advocate Tahira Abdullah praised the report as a significant contribution to the debate on minority rights. She urged the government to convene an inter-provincial meeting of education ministers to ensure that hate material is expediently removed from curricula across Pakistan.

Forced marriages, abductions and rape of Hindu girls were the overriding concerns of the Hindu community of Pakistan.  In 2015 alone, at least ten incidents of forced conversion, one case of rape and abduction, and two cases of desecration of worship places were reported. Shia Muslims continue to face some of the gravest consequences of religious intolerance in Pakistan

The report notes that recent years have witnessed an escalation in the persecution of minority communities in Pakistan. Faith-based violence and discrimination against non-Muslims is only half the story. Over time, extremists have also targeted Muslims from the minority sects of Islam. During the period, 2012-2014 at least 351 incidents of faith-based violence were reported across Pakistan. 43 attacks of varying intensity targeted the Christian community; seven churches were damaged; and 14 people were charged with blasphemy. 39 Ahmadis lost their lives in faith-based killings; the highest number of targeted killings were carried out in Sindh and Punjab. Little improvement was noticed in the socio-cultural attitudes of majority Muslim sects towards Ahmadis in Pakistan. Mass desecration of the Ahmadi graveyards was also reported.

Forced marriages, abductions and rape of Hindu girls were the overriding concerns of the Hindu community of Pakistan.  In 2015 alone, at least ten incidents of forced conversion, one case of rape and abduction, and two cases of desecration of worship places were reported. Shia Muslims continue to face some of the gravest consequences of religious intolerance in Pakistan. During 2012-2015, 23 attacks on the Imambargahs and 203 targeted killings took place. In addition, 1304 lives were lost in bomb blasts.

Until the launch of the National Action Plan (NAP) in December 2014, there was no high-level policy by the state to tackle the menace of faith-based violence and discrimination, even now progress on safeguarding minority groups remains uneven. Civil society, human rights advocates and sections of the media have been highlighting faith-based violence; and there were some gains made too. For example, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment in 2014 on minority rights, and a young Christian Rimsha Masih was acquitted of blasphemy in 2013. Similarly, the National Commission for Human Rights has been activated with a retired judge as its head, however its powers and remit remain limited.

The report highlights the following recommendations, among others, to improve the status of minorities in Pakistan:
1.   A parliamentary committee should undertake a review of constitutional provisions that spur discrimination against minority groups including the oaths administered to the office of high level officials of the state.
2.    The National Commission on Minorities should be given authority to take suo motu notice of discrimination and violence against minorities, with the ability to pursue public interest litigation to protect the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.
3.     The implementation on the June 2014 Supreme Court judgement should be carried out in its entirety and the progress of provinces monitored diligently.
4.     Full implementation of job quotas for minorities and protection of businesses owned by non-Muslim groups.
5.      Hate speech and hate campaigns need to be curbed by further strengthening existing legislation and policies.
6.       Curriculum reform through inclusion of messages of religious tolerance, and shunning of violent methods against non-Muslims is urgently required in support of the Supreme Court ruling.
7.       Intensive training of police forces across all provinces to ensure that they are equipped to deal with faith based violence in their areas with sensitivity.

Click here for full report in PDF format.

(Source: http://jinnah-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Minority-Report-2016.pdf)

 

Statement of Concern by Professors of Turkish Studies and Ottoman History Regarding Diminishing Academic Freedoms in Turkey

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Photo credit: New York Times

[On 10 January 2016, 1128 academics from Turkey and 356 from abroad signed a petition calling the Republic of Turkey to end ongoing violence and curfews affecting 1.5 million predominantly Kurdish citizens of Turkey. At a press conference the next day, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the letter as "treachery." By the end of the week, the government had launched 109 criminal investigations into academics based in Turkey. According to reports, the government arrested 33 academics who were later released.
The following statement was issued by a group of scholars of Turkish Studies and Ottoman History on 20 January 2016 in regards to concerns over academic freedoms and freedom of expression in Turkey.]

Statement for Academic Freedom In Turkey

Prof. Dr. Ahmet Davutoğlu, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey.

We, the undersigned professors of Turkish Studies and Ottoman History working at various universities throughout the world, from the USA to Asia, declare that we are profoundly concerned about the diminishing academic freedoms in Turkey.  On 10 January 2016, 1128 academics from Turkey and 356 from abroad signed a petition calling the Republic of Turkey to end ongoing violence and curfews affecting 1.5 million predominantly Kurdish citizens of Turkey in seven cities in the eastern provinces and to return to negotiations with the Kurdish movement.

We consider this petition within the framework of freedom of expression and consider the criminalization of our fellow academics unacceptable. We are deeply worried about the campaigns by the political authorities accusing our colleagues of “treason” and “supporting terrorism” as well as investigations by the prosecutors and Turkish Higher Education Council (YÖK) against them. We, thereby, invite the Turkish political authorities, judiciary and YÖK to abide by the universal standards of academic freedom and freedom of expression.

We also remind the Turkish authorities that Turkey is a signatory of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Based on these conventions and, and more importantly, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, the state is required to protect freedom of thought, expression, association, and assembly. Thereby, we ask the authorities of the Republic of Turkey to respect academic freedom and freedom of expression.

References
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/turkish-academics-pay-price-speaking-out-kurds

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/15/turkey-rounds-up-academics-who-signed-petition-denouncing-attacks-on-kurds

Signature list as of January 20, 2016

Prof. Dr. Daron Acemoglu – Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, MIT, USA
Dr. Can Açıksöz – University of Arizona, USA
Dr. Iris Agmon – Ben Gurion University, Israel
Dr. Gabor J Agoston – Georgetown University, USA
Prof. Dr. Samim Akgonul – University of Strasbourg, France
Prof. Dr. Jun Akiba – Chiba University, Japan
Dr. Yigit Akin – Tulane University, USA
Dr. Karabekir Akkoyunlu – University of Graz, Austria
Prof. Dr. Virginia Aksan – McMaster University, Canada
Dr. Ayca Alemdaroglu – Associate Director of Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program, Northwestern University, USA
Dr. Ece Algan – Director, Center for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, California State University at San Bernardino, USA
Prof. Dr. Guillermo Algaze – University of California, San Diego, USA
Prof. Walter Andrews – University of Washington, USA
Dr. Sedef Arat-Koc – Ryerson University, Canada
Dr. Febe Armanios – Middlebury College, USA
Dr. Tuna Artun – Rutgers University, USA
Dr. Senem Aslan – Bates College, USA
Dr. Nurcan Atalan – Skidmore College, USA
Dr. Sabri Ateş – Southern Methodist University, USA
Dr. Marc Aymes – CNRS, France
Dr. Kathryn Babayan – University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Dr. Marc Baer – London School of Economics, UK
Dr. Ulas Bagci – University of Central Florida, USA
Dr. Onur Bakiner – Seattle University, USA
Prof. Asli Bali – University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Prof. Dr. Karl K. Barbir – Siena College, USA
Dr. Sami Bargaoui – University of La Manouba, Tunisia
Dr. Betul Basaran – St. Mary’s College, USA
Prof. Dr. Shahzad Bashir – Stanford University, USA
Dr. Birol Başkan – Georgetown University, USA
Dr. Sahar Bazzaz – College of the Holy Cross, USA
Prof. Dr. Joel Beinin – Donald J. McLaclan Professor of History, Stanford University, USA
Dr. Ceren Belge – Concordia University, Canada
Prof. Faruk Bilici – Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, France
Dr. Patricia Blessing – Society of Architectural Historians, USA
Dr. Grigor Boykov – CRSA, University of Sofia, Bulgaria
Prof. Dr. Hamit Bozarslan – EHESS, France
Prof. Dr. Sibel Bozdogan – Harvard University, USA
Dr. Marcy Brink-Danan – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Prof. Dr. Petra de Bruijn – Leiden University, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Palmira Brummett – Brown University, USA
Dr. Guy Burak – New York University, USA
Dr. Rebecca Bryant – London School of Economics, UK
Dr. Michelle Campos – University of Florida, USA
Dr. Lale Can – City University of New York, USA
Dr. Giancarlo Casale – University of Minnesota, USA
Dr. Sinem Casale – University of Minnesota, USA
Prof. Dr. Ekrem Causevic – University of Zagreb
Dr. Erdem Çıpa – University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Natalie Clayer – CNRS-EHESS, France
Prof. Dr. Juan Cole – University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Dr. Howard Crane – Ohio State University, USA
Dr. Robert Crews – Stanford University, USA
Dr. Ferenc Csirkés – Tübingen University, Germany
Prof. Dr. Jocelyne Dakhlia – EHESS, France
Dr. Rosito D’Amora – University del Salento, Italy
Emeritus Prof. Robert Dankoff – University of Chicago, USA
Prof. Dr. Linda T. Darling – University of Arizona, USA
Dr. Yorgos Dedes – School of Oriental and African Studies, UK
Emerita Professor Dr. Carol Delaney – Stanford University, USA
Prof. Dr. Devin DeWeese – Indiana University, USA
Emeritus Professor Dr. Arif Dirlik – University of Oregon, USA
Prof. Dr. Beshara Doumani – Joukowsky Family Distinguished Professor of Modern Middle East History, Brown University, USA
Dr. Markus Dressler – University of Bayreuth, Germany Dr. Vera Eccarius-Kelly — Siena College, USA
Dr. Howard Eissenstat – St. Lawrence University, USA
Dr. Lerna Ekmecioglu – McMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History, MIT, USA
Dr. Evrim Emir-Sayers – San Francisco State University, USA
Dr. Bogac Ergene – University of Vermont, USA
Prof. Carl Ernst – Kenan Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Dr. Sinem Eryilmaz, CSIC, Madrid, Spain
Dr. Tolga Esmer – Central European University, Hungary
Dr. Kristin Fabbe – Harvard University, USA
Prof. Dr. Khaled Fahmy – Harvard University, USA and American University in Cairo, Egypt
Dr. Heather Ferguson – Claremont McKenna College, USA
Dr. Emine Fetvaci – Boston University, USA
Emeritus Professor Dr. Carter Findley – Humanities Distinguished Professor in History, Ohio State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Cornell Fleischer – Kanuni Suleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies, University of Chicago, USA
Dr. Benoit Fliche – CNRS, France
Prof. Dr. Ben Fortna – University of Arizona, USA
Dr. Elizabeth Frierson – University of Cincinnati, USA
Prof. Nancy Gallagher – University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Dr. Pascale Ghazaleh – The American University in Cairo, Egypt
Prof. Dr. Fatma Muge Gocek – University of Michigan, USA
Dr. Banu Gokariksel – University of North Carolina, USA
Emeritus Professor Dr. Peter B. Golden – Rutgers University, USA
Dr. Rachel Goshgarian – Lafayette College, USA
Prof. Dr. Rossitsa Gradeva – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and American University in Bulgaria 
Prof. Dr. Molly Greene – Princeton University, USA
Prof. Dr. Alexander H. de Groot – Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. Mehmet Gurses – Florida Atlantic University, USA
Dr. Gottfried Hagen – University of Michigan, USA
Prof. Dr. Shirine Hamadeh – Rice University, USA
Prof. Dr. Jane Hathaway – Ohio State University, USA
Dr. Beatrice Hendrich – University of Cologne, Germany
Dr. David Henig – University of Kent, USA
Prof. Dr. Bernard Heyberger – Directeur d’études, EHESS, France
Prof. Dr. Colin Heywood – University of London, UK
Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Hurd – Northwestern University, USA
Dr. Asli Igsiz – New York University, USA
Prof. Dr. Colin Imber – University of Manchester, UK
Dr. Katharina Ivanyi – Columbia University, USA
Dr. Ralph Jaeckel – University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Prof. Dr. Cemal Kafadar – Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, Harvard University, USA
Dr. Efthymia Kanner – University of Athens, Greece 
Dr. Burcu Karahan, Stanford University, USA
Dr. Ayfer Karakaya-Stump – The College of William and Mary, USA
Prof. Dr. Ahmet T. Karamustafa – Maryland University, USA
Prof. Dr. Hakan Karateke – University of Chicago, USA
Prof. Dr. Resat Kasaba – Stanley D. Golub Professor of International Studies, University of Washington, USA
Dr. Dimitris Kastritsis, St. Andrews University, UK
Dr. Zeynep Kaya – London School of Economics, UK
Dr. Hasan Kayali – University of California, San Diego, USA
Dr. Michael Kemper – University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dr. Zeynep Kezer – Newcastle University, UK
Prof. Dr. Dina Khoury – Elliot School of International Affairs and George Washington University, USA
Dr. Ilham Khuri-Makdisi – Northeastern University, USA
Prof. Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser – University of New Castle, Australia
Dr. Ramazan Kilinc – University of Nebraska, USA
Dr. Mariya Kiprovska – CRSA, University of Sofia, Bulgaria
Dr. İpek Kocaomer Yosmaoğlu – Northwestern University, USA
Prof. Dr. Markus Koller – Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany
Prof. Dariusz Kolodiejczyk – University of Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland; Honorary Member of Turkish Historical Society (TTK)
Dr. Elias Kolovos – University of Crete, Greece
Dr. Zeynep Korkman – University of Arizona, USA
Prof. Dr. Yavuz Kose – University of Hamburg, Germany
Dr. Tijana Krstic – Central European University, Hungary
Dr. Harun Kucuk – University of Pennsylvania, USA
Dr. Paul Kubicek – Oakland University, USA 
Prof. Dr. Timur Kuran, Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University, USA
Dr. Vjeran Kursar – University of Zagreb, Croatia
Dr. Ahmet Kuru – San Diego State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Selim Sirri Kuru – University of Washington, USA
Dr. Paul Levin – Stockholm University, Sweden
Prof. Dr. Mark Levine – University of California, Irvine, USA
Dr. Darina Martykánová – Universidad Autonóma de Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Mark Mazower, Columbia University, USA
Dr. Morgan Y. Liu – Ohio State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Beatrice F. Manz – Professor of History, Tufts University, USA
Professor Lenore G. Martin – Emmanuel College and Harvard University, USA
Dr. Elise Massicard – Sciences-Po CERI, France
Dr. Adam Mestyan – Society of Fellows, Harvard University, USA
Prof. Dr. Laurent Mignon – Oxford University, UK
Dr. Alan Mikhail – Yale University, USA
Dr. Amy Mills – University of South Carolina, USA
Dr. Mostafa Minawi – Cornell University, USA
Prof. Dr. Timothy Mitchell – William B. Ransford Professor, Columbia University, USA
Dr. Yael Navaro – University of Cambridge, UK
Prof. Dr. Gülru Necipoğlu – Agha Khan Professor of Islamic Art, Harvard University, USA
Prof. Dr. Christoph K. Neumann – Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
Dr. Vanessa Ogle – University of Pennsylvania, USA
Prof. Dr. Bernard O’Kane – American University in Cairo, Egypt
Dr. Kerem Oktem – University of Graz, Austria
Prof. Dr. Ozlem Onaran – Greenwich University, UK
Prof. Dr. Victor Ostapchuk – University of Toronto, Canada
Dr. M'hamed Oualdi – Princeton University, USA
Prof. Dr. Umut Ozkirimli – Lund University, Sweden
Dr. Hakan Ozoglu – University of Central Florida, USA
Dr. Esra Ozyurek – Chair for Contemporary Turkish Studies, London School of Economics, UK
Dr. Tatjana Paic-Vukic – The Oriental Collection of the Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Croatia
Prof. Dr. Leslie Peirce – New York University, USA
Dr. Karen Pinto, Boise State University, USA
Dr. Oyku Potuoglu-Cook – University of California, Riverside, USA
Prof. Dr. Scott Redford, SOAS, UK
Dr. Andras Riedlmayer – Harvard University Libraries, USA
Prof. Dr. Aron Rodrigue – Charles Michael Professor in Jewish History and Culture, Stanford University, USA
Prof. Dr. Dani Rodrik – Harvard University, USA
Prof. Dr. Eugene Rogan – Director of the Middle East Center, Oxford University, UK
Dr. E. Natalie Rothman – University of Toronto, Canada
Dr. David Romano – Missouri State University, USA
Dr. Avi Rubin – Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Prof. Dr. Khaled El-Rouayheb – James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual History, Harvard University, USA.
Dr. Kim Rygial – Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Dr. Hanan Sabea – American University in Cairo, Cairo
Dr. Dana Sajdi – Boston College, USA
Dr. Adam Sabra – University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Dr. İbrahim Kaya Şahin – Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Dr. Christa Salamandra – City University of New York, USA
Dr. Ariel Salzmann – Queen's University, Canada
Dr. Safa Saracoglu – Bloomsbury University, USA
Dr. Marinos Sariyannis – Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH, Greece
Dr. Hakan Seckinelgin, London School of Economics, UK
Dr. David Selim Sayers – San Francisco State University, USA
Dr. Jan Schmidt – Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. Kent Schull – SUNY, Binghamton, USA
Dr. Anna Secor – University of Kentucky, USA
Dr. Günter Seufert – German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Germany
Dr. Prakash Shahah – Queen Mary, University of London, UK
Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Shakman-Hurd – Northwestern University, USA
Prof. Dr. Wendy Shaw – Freie University, Germany.
Prof. Dr. Kim Shively – Kutztown University, USA
Prof. Dr. Kemal Silay – Indiana University, USA
Dr. Brian Silverstein – University of Arizona, USA
Prof. Dr. Amy Singer – Tel Aviv University, Israel
Prof. Dr. Radhika Singha – Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Dr. Mark L. Stein – Muhlenberg College, USA
Dr. Gerrit Steunebrink – Radboud University, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Martin Strohmeier – University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Prof. Dr. Martin Stokes – King’s College, UK
Dr. Emmanuel Szurek – EHESS, France
Emeritus Professor Richard Tapper – University of London, UK
Dr. Eren Tasar – University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Dr. Deniz Tat – Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. Baki Tezcan – University of California, Davis, USA
Dr. Gunes Murat Tezcur – Jalal Talabany Chair for Kurdish Political Studies, University of Central Florida, USA
Dr. Nicholas Trépanier – University of Mississipi, USA
Dr. Cihan Tugal – University of California, Berkeley, USA
Prof. Dr. Berna Turam – Northeastern University, USA
Dr. Zeynep Turkyilmaz – Dartmouth College, USA
Prof. Dr. Masayuki Ueno, Osaka City University, Japan
Dr. Ebru Ustundag – Brock University, Canada
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Vatin – Collège de France, France
Dr. Ali Yaycioglu – Stanford University, USA
Dr. Eunjeong Yi – Seoul National University, Korea
Dr. Kadir Yildirim – Rice University, USA
Dr. Zeynep Yurekli – Oxford University, UK
Prof. Dr. Sabra J. Webber – Ohio State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Jenny White – Boston University, USA
Dr. Charles L. Wilkins – Wake Forest University, USA
Dr. Carole Woodall – University of Colorado, USA
Dr. Sara Nur Yildiz – St. Andrews University, UK
Prof. Dr. Gokce Yurdakul – Georg Simmel Professor of Comparative Studies on Diversity and Social Conflicts, Humboldt University, Germany
Dr. Konstantina Zanou – Columbia University, USA
Prof. Dr. Fariba Zarinebaf – Chair, Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, University of California, Riverside, USA
Prof. Dr. Dror Zeevi – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Prof. Dr. Madeline Zilfi – University of Maryland, College Park
Prof. Dr. Erik-Jan Zürcher – Leiden University, Netherlands

How to mourn terror victims as a leftist

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Leftists in Israel always worry that the Right will exploit violence to advance its political agenda, so we remain silent. The Left needs to learn how to mourn while rejecting the political programs of our leaders — and even the victims.

On Sunday, Dafna Meir, mother of six was murdered in her West Bank home with three of her children nearby, allegedly by a 16-year old Palestinian stabber. On Monday, a young pregnant woman was stabbed in her West Bank settlement of Tekoa; she is in stable condition. These attacks against unarmed civilians are unambiguously, absolutely and completely wrong.

There is no international convention for war or peacetime to condone such acts, and no justification of human morality. Not even the brutal instrumentality of politics defends attacks that are guaranteed to set back any national or collective goals. The occupation did not cause this 16 year old to kill Meir; the proof is that the vast majority of people living under Israeli occupation are not doing such things. The victims must be mourned and the killings condemned on an individual basis.

But there is more than an individual human side. Like it or not, these acts do have political meaning as well and they highlight how key political actors think at present.As often happens, the Jewish-Israeli Left becomes mealy-mouthed when faced with such violence. I know why: we already know how the violence will be manipulated in the service of the Right, exploited to entrench the conditions we deeply believe perpetuate violence in general. We feel the Israeli media has overdosed on Jewish victimization for as long we’ve been conscious and we see how this is destroying both sides. We hate adding to it.

Both Jews and Palestinians who oppose the occupation must be very honest and resist any subtle legitimization of violence against settlers. The creeping sense that settlers are not civilians and they are legitimate targets for violence must be rejected.

I believe it is our responsibility to swallow these bitter truths and speak out anyway — Bradley Burston has done so nobly. Disavowing such acts must be part of our embrace of universal humanity as well as an affirmation of our own moral guidelines.Both Jews and Palestinians who oppose the occupation must be very honest and resist any subtle legitimization of violence against settlers. The creeping sense that settlers are not civilians and they are legitimate targets for violence must be rejected.

I don’t mind being called all sorts of names related to privilege, violence against unarmed settlers is not defensible in any way. Settlement in occupied areas violates international law but it is also a violation of international law to harm people — including settlers – who are not in uniform, not armed, not actively engaged in battle, and who do not pose an imminent threat to someone’s life.

Both the Jewish and Palestinian Left could do better.

But the Israeli Right’s exploitation of the death is intolerable. The blood had not even dried before Israeli politicians have pounced on her memory to dismiss criticism, justify violence against Palestinians, perpetuate political wrongs, and deepen them.

Thus, when U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro points out that there are two standards of law enforcement in the West Bank, Prime Minister Netanyahu waved the attacks in his face like a flag. “On the day that a murdered mother of six is buried and a pregnant woman is stabbed, [the Ambassador’s observations] are not acceptable and not correct,” said Netanyahu’s office in a statement. If he didn’t want such statements on the very day of her funeral, the conference where the Ambassador spoke should have been canceled. Instead, every other kind of policy conversation was deemed acceptable on that day, just not ones the prime minister doesn’t wish to hear, about policies he wishes to perpetuate.

Naftali Bennett also shamelessly paraded the death around on his Facebook page to encourage settlement. “We are all settlers,” he crowed on his page, before laying the cornerstone for a new high school dormitory in Otniel where she died. “Do not talk. Take action,” he wrote.

Now, it is true that Dafna Meir politicized her life by living deep inside the West Bank. But I reject the idea that mourning her death demands adopting her political platform.
So do Israelis. Ariana Melamed wrote a powerful and simple truth in Haaretz: 95 percent of Israelis have rejected settlement with their feet, despite the most enticing temptations the government can offer: cheap land, numerous tax exemptions, a disappearing Green Line. So Bennett may spew sickly platitudes like “life is the answer to terrorism.” But for Israelis, life is not settlement.

Finally, Israel’s Right ignores Palestinians killed by Israel every day. If anything, it justifies those it kills at all costs. The deputy defense minister calls for the expulsion of the Otniel killer’s family, collective punishment just like home demolitions. These actions are unimaginable for Jewish perpetrators. (To be clear, I wish they would not be used for anyone).

In sum, the Right is using the violence to ignore or justify what is wrong, and make the political circumstances worse. More Israelis and more Palestinians will suffer.

The role of the Left is to maintain our humanity and integrity by mourning the violence while rejecting the political program of the victim and our leaders. There is no historical imperative to advance those politics to honor the dead. After all, the country mourned Yitzhak Rabin for decades while throwing his political program in the bin.

(This article was first published on +972mag).

The Death of Merit: Dalit Suicides in institutes of higher learning

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This article written by K.P. Girija (girijakp@gmail.com)  was the cover story of the magazine Insight Young Voices (Feb-Mar, 2009). It was reproduced on thedeathofmeritinindia.wordpress.com.
 
Death: The Only Legitimate Protest
Death seems to be the only legitimate form of protest for the Dalit students to highlight their discrimination as well as their right for equal share in the higher educational sphere. The ‘Dalitness’ of these students, in modern spaces, is yet to acquire a language to articulate the pain and the recurrent acts of injustice meted to them.

All the three suicides can be read as statements of protest against the insensitivity of various institutions and the discrimination being practiced there. Still, there has been a tendency to depict these deaths as acts of desperation (of course, personal) of the students and their inability to cope with advanced studies, especially in the Sciences. One can see a clear-cut trajectory of these students’ lives, which lead to personal desperation and suicides. Could we assess all these as something that happened without any intervention from the world they were situated in?

When alive, not one of them could politicise their experiences of discrimination and raise it at a macro level. Yet, all of them would have experienced caste in its micro formations. The fact that Rejani’s primary confidant with whom she shared her humiliations seems to be a woman friend who happens to be a Dalit, is crucial. In his diary Ajay writes about “superiority/inferiority” gazes, which unsettle him in his laboratory, clearly suggesting caste humiliations. Senthil was part of Ambedkar Students’ Association, a Dalit students’ political forum in the University of Hyderabad and might not have been a stranger to the caste debates and its theoretical formulations.

Yet, none of them could raise the issue at a collective level. The structure, which accommodated them within it, did it only as a .compensatory allowance. While it provided representation, it definitely did not provide dignified representation and no space to ask for it, either. Thus, while alive, none of them could raise the issue of caste and discrimination in a way it would be heard. It is tragic that only death could bring out the discrimination towards the ‘Dalitness’ of a student in all three cases.

Dalitness in Modern Spaces
How did these students experience their ‘Dalitness’? A short examination of the immediate incidents just before their deaths is all that we have. (In Ajay's case we hardly have that also).The often threatening phone calls received at Rejani’s neighbor’s house by her or her parents from the N.S.S. hostel, to whom she owed her fees, are not sufficient enough to unwrap the acuteness of caste discrimination.

The continuous journey to one particular bank, more than twenty times, for getting an educational loan to which she was officially entitled under a Reserve Bank of India order – neither is this enough to prove the denial of a loan to a Dalit student. [From the statements of K.Santhakumari, Mother of Rejani, given before Justice Khalid Commission on 14.05.2005].

Yet, we know that the Bank would have denied her loan precisely because of her status as both Dalit and woman though this was not hinted at anywhere except in the overall, tedious procedural approach. As a woman, the Bank would not be convinced that she would take up a career. They might not have been confident of her completing her course at all. Also, her coming to the Bank alone or sometimes accompanied only by another woman, her mother, might have destroyed her image as a ‘respectable’ woman.

As a Dalit, they would not have read her as ‘meritorious’ enough to gain employment, even after the completion of the course, and therefore loan worthy.

Due to her Dalit womanhood, the student life of Rejani seems to have become an endless knocking at various doors for financial support. The last straw seems to be the apparent denial of Transfer Certificate (T.C) from Adoor Engineering College. Rejani had got a chance to join Mary Matha College, which had promised her free education and lodging.

When she approached her college for a T.C, they sent her off to pay the dues. She was sent to the Entrance (Engineering and Medical courses) examiner’s office. It is here that she committed suicide by jumping out from the seventh floor of that building. The choice of her place of death was dramatic; it was the the Entrance examiner’s office. The act was charged with layers of symbolic meaning.

She, a Dalit, had gained her ‘entry’ into an inaccessible system by the impossible feat of passing the exam without attending formal coaching classes. Despite this, her entry was treated as ‘provisional’. In fact, with her death, we realise what Rejani would have constantly heard from the system that apparently gave her entry: “No Entry for Trespassers.”

When Rejani was alive, neither she nor the students’ union or caste organizations could bring out any of this. The deliberate tedium and drawn-out torture of an exasperating process as valid points of discrimination. There might have been protests at a personal level in a minimal way. More than protesting, Rejani had desperately tried her maximum to obtain a loan in order to cope with the situation, to continue her education, her only hope for a better future.

As far as Senthil was concerned, when he was alive, he could not point out the discrimination in the Physics department, which denied him a supervisor. This inability to politically voice his concern happens even though he was an active member of the Ambedkar Students’ Association. Failure in a subject in his course work was the determinant of his merit. Through his death, Senthil can be seen to raise doubts about the acceptance of Dalit students into the Science departments.

He evokes questions through his death on the formal acceptance of Dalit students in the higher academic studies and its true spirit. The ‘logic’, ‘rationality’, and the ‘merit’ that Science claims for itself need to be questioned, if the entry of a Dalit student creates so many ruffles within the system. The structure of the Science discipline was such that Senthil himself, at some point might have believed that he was not competent and meritorious at all to survive in the discipline.

The details of Ajay’s case are not known. Yet, his dairy notes and his status as a student who got twelfth rank in the All India Entrance, yet admitted to the institute as a reservation candidate, would have posed problems of the same Dalithood for him also. These Dalit students, or their existence and day-to-day encountering with their Dalitness (this is not as direct expressions of ritual untouchability, but denying access through new meanings of merit, untimely payment of dues, failure in many subjects/course work etc.) was something that could not be translated into a political process for agitation or bargaining for justice, when they were alive.

Yet, none of them could raise the issue at a collective level. The structure, which accommodated them within it, did it only as a .compensatory allowance. While it provided representation, it definitely did not provide dignified representation and no space to ask for it, either. Thus, while alive, none of them could raise the issue of caste and discrimination in a way it would be heard. It is tragic that only death could bring out the discrimination towards the ‘Dalitness’ of a student in all three cases.

Paradoxically, and tragically, the value of their death is much more than the value of their life to raise the various nuances of institutionalized casteism. As if death is the only elucidation to legitimize the worth of their life!

Refusal to Accept the Direct Meaning of their Deaths
There were instances to subvert the political reasons behind these suicides. For e.g., when Rejani committed suicide, there had been a demand to test the virginity of the girl. Lack of virginity, which pointed to the patriarchal world that she was not quite ‘moral’, was accepted as an overriding factor for a woman to commit suicide. But the fact of caste based harassment staring right into everyone’s face was not accepted or seen as one.

Also, it is strange that one was not thinking of analytically combining these factors – sexuality and caste. Sexuality, like many other categories, can manifest only in the context of other structures like caste. Her lack of virginity, as revealed in the test, assumes the primary importance in comparison to the obviously biased treatment from all corners that she knocked for help. Gender (together with her Dalitness) has played the role here as if her ‘immorality’ took away her right to protest against the caste-biased nature of the educational structure.

Similarly, the University of Hyderabad authorities maintained, even before the post-mortem examination, that Senthil died of a heart attack. The SC/ST employees had to invoke the Right to Information Act to get the post mortem report, which stated poisoning as the cause of Senthil’s death.
Ajay’s father never got to know why his son committed suicide, when he went to Bangalore to collect his body. He had to wait for a whole month to know the details of the tense situation faced by his son, in the lab in IISc, till the IISc SC/ST employees union took up the issue as one of caste discrimination.

‘Conditional’ Representation in Modern Spaces
These cases are examples of how caste functions in a ‘modern’ space like the Higher Educational institution. The structure seems to apparently include Dalits through representational measures like reservations. By this very act of representation, the system claims its neutrality to caste. However, this act of inclusion/representation is coded within certain conditions that are very often invisible and built into the so called inclusive nature of the system.

Paradoxically, these conditions result in the exclusion of the Dalit herself. Dalits have the right to enter the system through reservation, a ‘compensatory discrimination’. Yet, they do not have the right to be treated as equal with the mainstream representatives of the system in all terms and in all situations. There are various determinants to decide this equality such as merit, performance, articulation etc.

There is inclusion through representation and exclusion through different ‘assessment’ and differential approaches. While the system might claim credit for the entry of students like Rejani, Senthil and Ajay and their very presences might be seen as their inclusion into the system, we can see that their subsequent suicides were also a result of the conditions/exclusions that this very inclusion threw up.

Science and the Notion of Merit
If we measure merit in terms of marks obtained, all the three students got very good marks up to their intermediate courses and began losing marks (their brilliance/merit) after joining for the applied science courses. Does it mean that these students were not capable enough to cope with professional courses or applied science courses? If so, does it also mean that there is something wrong in the environment and attitude (in essence, the structure) of the professional institutions towards Dalit students?

Rejani had failed in nine out of the ten courses in her first semester. Senthil too had to clear one paper from his course work, which was understood as a condition to allot a supervisor for him and continue his research in the Physics department. Ajay had problems to cope in the laboratory. His diary shows that he was scared of one or more faculty members.

In general, these can be read as the inabilities of the students to cope with the applied science department, which needs ‘talent’ and ‘hard work’. Yet, it also carries the hidden meaning of the inability of the high skilled department to generate a friendly atmosphere to a group of people who are yet to be familiar with its language, hierarchy and protocol. Science seems to see itself as privileging logic and would shun perspective.

Rationality is prioritized and this is defined as transcending individual experiences. With this logic, students are supposed to be modern individuals who want to become scholars or scientists rather than bringing their other identities – like that of caste, community or gender. This rational and logical frame itself places the subaltern as the ‘other’ in the science department. The attributes of irrationality, illogic and intolerance are not for the mainstream students; those are reserved for the subaltern communities.

Modern Secular Institutions embedded in Caste
There is a preconceived notion that our educational institutions are caste neutral. If at all caste is expressed or practiced there in any form, it is treated as existing only because of the insensitivity of certain individuals. In addition, people do not believe that there is such a thing as ‘institutional casteism’.

Therefore the cultural democratic space like an educational institution will hardly be questioned until some direct caste atrocities happen in those spaces.

Marginalized individuals also do not experience the hegemonic control of the knowledge over them as discrimination and a structural problem. For them, caste is experienced as an attitudinal problem – either from department heads, economical institutions or from authorities who represent the institutions.

He evokes questions through his death on the formal acceptance of Dalit students in the higher academic studies and its true spirit. The ‘logic’, ‘rationality’, and the ‘merit’ that Science claims for itself need to be questioned, if the entry of a Dalit student creates so many ruffles within the system. The structure of the Science discipline was such that Senthil himself, at some point might have believed that he was not competent and meritorious at all to survive in the discipline.

One could think about the environment of this higher education as a space where there is a mingling of different kinds of students from different castes and classes and religions. Irrespective of the caste and religious identity, anonymity to a certain extent is possible in these spaces.

Yet, within this anonymity, the determinants of caste, religion or region could be ‘read’ through language, lack of or command over English, submissiveness or assertion, articulation capacities, regional or urban nature, mode of dress, complexion etc. In other words, these determinants of Dalitness or upper casteness are much more practically applied than the details in official records.

Conflict in Dual Representation
Dalit students have to carry the mark of their community (not in terms of the name of their jati but in terms of their Dalitness). They are also modern individuals in elite higher educational spaces. In these spaces, they face humiliations at a very personal, individual level, yet those very humiliations happen due to their Dalitness as a community. None of the above mentioned students could communicate their humiliations to their parents.

The parents residing in faraway places were not able to give emotional support to their children. To some extent, the parents were not aware of the intensity of the humiliation of the modern spaces. The humiliation for a Dalit student comes in the form of lack of performance or rather lack of merit, not paying the dues in time etc. It never comes directly as caste discrimination.

It never acknowledges itself as the inability of the system to assimilate some social groups. How to translate these kinds of approaches into caste discrimination and communicate it to the parents who stayed away from the modern institutions would be another painful task. It would be difficult for the children to tell the reality to the parents very often; whose only hope would be these kids.

In most cases, the parents/family did not get any hint of the desperation from the part of their daughter/son. Communities could overcome the humiliations in their togetherness in sharing and laughing out, negotiating and sometimes protesting too. Individuals have their own limitations to take the burden of these humiliations.

These students tried to negotiate and struggle their best, but after a point they couldn’t bear it anymore. Simultaneously, they were forced to shoulder the dual identities – that of a modern, educated individual (as science students, rational, logical etc) and at the same time, as a merit less Dalit. The contradiction was too much for them to bear. Finally it ends in their suicides through which they tried to question or destabilize the structure in whatever little way they could through their deaths.

They had all proved that they were ‘capable’ and ‘meritorious’ for this very educational system till their intermediate/degree courses. In that case, would they ever think about turning back and do some menial labour there after coming through the long 12-15 years of education?
In their aspiration to become modern educated individuals with better jobs, they fitted neither in the higher educational system nor in their villages. The long and excruciating journey from a remote village to an urban secular space lead them to a nowhere place.

Inherent Structural Tensions
Dalits or Tribals have entered the system mostly through representational measures like reservations. But, this is seen as an ‘excessive’ presence and hence ‘threatening’ presence to the system. That is why a bank manager is reluctant to sanction a loan to a poor Dalit girl for her higher education instead of thinking about the possibilities to grant it. That is why the University stopped the scholarship of Senthil Kumar instead of formulating a new approach to deal the situation. (Even though there is no law of the university which states that scholarship is connected to passing or failing in exams).

When the structure has been destabilized or questioned in a minimal way (only) through the death of the Dalit students, immediately it tries to retain its status quo, often using compensatory measures. In Senthil’s case, the University had granted an amount of Rs five lakhs to Senthil’s family. Here, it was the cost of a Dalit youth’s life and hope which was burnt in a University. Another ‘compensation’ was the immediate allotment of guides to two Dalit students. In Rejani’s suicide case, the State immediately enhanced the amount of monthly stipend for SC/ ST students from Rs 315 to Rs 1000.

These temporary compensations or welfare measures would pacify the troubled situations. It would also help various institutions to wash their hands off from the crime of pushing the students to suicides. Through compensation or some welfare measures the institution or the State is admitting its inability to assure distributive justice to the subaltern communities. Through these compensatory measures it is also trying to reinstate the status quo by reducing tensions though temporarily.
 

Cry Freedom: GN Saibaba’s petition before the Supreme Court of India

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Can an under trial, who is 90 per cent disabled, suffering from 90% post-polio paralysis, who can only move in a wheel chair with the assistance of two attendants and, moreover, one who suffers from serious cardiac issues including a history of heart stroke be refused bail?
 
This among others are the questions raised by the special leave petition (SLP) filed by professor Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba in the Supreme Court of India. Notice was issued by the court on Friday, January 22 and the matter is posted for two weeks later. (See also https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/flawed-verdict-bombay-high-court-judgement-refusing-bail-gn-saibaba)
 
The SLP was filed to challenge the order of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court dated December 23, 2015 on the regular bail application of professor Saibaba. At the time of passing of the order, the professor had been out on interim bail (granted by another bench of the Bombay High Court) until December 31, 2015.
 
Professor Saibaba was arrested in May 2014 and while other co-accused in the case have all been released on bail by the Nagpur bench of the High Court from July 2014 onwards, the differently abled professor has been denied his freedom A detailed Time-Line of this case can be read here.
 
The special leave petition before the Supreme Court raises serious questions of law and merit. Professor Saibaba, who surrendered on December 25, 2015, can only move in a wheel chair with the assistance of two attendants. He suffers from Anterior Horns Cell Disease; suffers bone deformity; has neurological problems; has a history of kidney and gall bladder stone; has restricted movement in the functioning of the left shoulder due to which he requires constant medical evaluation and treatment.  Besides he suffers from a condition of systemic hypertension and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as certified by the Executive Director and Dean of cardiology Fortis Hospital, Delhi.
 
The serious questions of law raised in his petition are:

a)   Whether bail on medical grounds should be denied to an accused who is disabled; suffering from 90% post-polio paralysis; can only move in a wheel chair with the assistance of two attendants; suffers from serious cardiac issues including a complicated and serious medical condition as detailed above — due to which he requires constant medical evaluation and treatment – particularly when the charge sheet has been filed before the Trial Court and trial is underway, and when there is no apprehension that the accused will abscond?

b)   Whether the fact that an under trial, who is 90% disabled, and requires at least two attendants for day-to-day activities including his toilet functions, and has several other medical ailments and complications so as to disable him from acting in a manner prejudicial to public order or security of State should be a factor to be considered in deciding bail?

d)   Whether bail ought to denied to an accused against whom the sole allegation is membership of a terrorist organization (as designated under the Schedule to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967, as amended in 2008), without any allegation of involvement in any terrorist act or any act of violence, especially after he has already spent 14 months in custody and when all other co-accused persons have been granted bail?

e)   Whether the marked deterioration in the health of an under trial while he is in custody, such as to threaten his life, is a relevant change in circumstance for reconsideration of bail?

f)   Whether some improvement in an under trial’s health after being admitted to interim medical bail on the grounds that his health had suffered in judicial custody, is a relevant change in circumstance for reconsideration of bail?

g)   Whether an under trial can be denied bail when the sum total of the evidence claimed against him by the prosecution is “objectionable literature” and letters addressed by him to a terrorist organisation complaining that he was being discriminated and not allowed to interact with underground members of the organisation?

h)   Whether mere membership of a terrorist organisation – absence of any evidence of participation in acts of disturbance of public tranquility and absence of any evidence of incitement to imminent lawless action – can be a punishable offence?

i)   Whether an under trial against whom the only relevant material claimed by the prosecution is that he complained to a terrorist organisation that he was being discriminated by that organisation since they were denying him interaction with its underground activists, can be denied bail?

j)   Whether a person can be denied bail for unpopular opinion and expression where such opinion and expression has neither been aimed at disturbing public tranquility nor at incitement to such disturbance?

k)   Whether the High Court can dismiss a bail application on the basis of material that does not form part of the court record, i.e. an article about the accused written by a person not connected with the accused or his defence?

 
In the course of the hearing of the matter in the High Court, the Spinal Injuries Centre had prescribed that the petitioner (G.N. Saibaba) can be treated on an OPD basis. This was the sole factor relied upon by the Nagpur Bench of the High Court in denying him bail and cancelling his interim bail. As stated in the petition, in fact Saibaba suffers from several complications including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and recurrent syncope requiring continuous follow-up and medical interventions.
 
In the 14 months that professor Saibaba remained in judicial custody, the petition states, his health has substantially deteriorated since the prison authorities could not provide him with bedding appropriate to his medical needs. These included low floor transportation to and from hospitals for his treatment; attendants who were trained or equipped to attend to him given his many complications including brittle bones; access to comprehensive, highly specialised, medical care to deal with his many complications and ailments.
 
He was granted medical bail by a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on account of his deteriorating health while in judicial custody. (This was especially noted by the Division Bench in its order of June 17, 2015, relying on the report of the Chief Medical Officer, Nagpur Central Prison, dated June 16, 2015).
 
Following the December 23, 2015 order of the Nagpur Bench of the same High Court that had earlier granted him interim bail, professor Saibaba returned to judicial custody. There are grave chances that his health would have suffered since.
 
The SLP also states that there is absolutely no likelihood of the petitioner fleeing justice since he has strong roots in society – a mother, wife and child, and a permanent job as assistant professor of English literature at Ram Lal Anand college, University of Delhi
 
 

Untouchable God

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The hotel was an old mix of florid Mughal art and rather shabby modern contrivances. They ate breakfast in the dining hall and went out to explore Old Delhi. At the Red Fort Isaiah noticed two ticket counters. ‘Foreigners pay fifty dollars, Indians pay five!’
 
Jacob smiled a little. ‘The politicians choose to think you are rich.’
 
‘Fair enough. I suppose we are.’ The ticket collector looked at Isaiah quizzically, then motioned him into the Indian line. ‘Sir, whites pay the full price but since you are black you can pay the Indian price,’ he said.
 
Isaiah laughed and said, ‘I’m honoured to be a notional Indian. Thank you.’ They went round and saw the fort. Isaiah was impressed by its mass, its sheer size: it had been clearly intended to be the heart of a vast empire. He could see in its stolid permanence the eternal reality of Delhi: a place to rule from, with the business-like bustle of a military camp and the flamboyant decadence of a highly sophisticated court. He did not doubt that the modern reality would be no different.
 
The next day they chartered a car and went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. This is the place where every foreign tourist spends some time. They found a guide there, a tall, distinguished-looking man in a churidar kurta who rescued them from the rougher gang that hung around the gates of the great monument. The man explained the Taj Mahal’s history and glory in sophisticated Urduized Hindi, which Jacob haltingly translated. Isaiah was impressed at the grandiose scale of the Taj, and the fact that unlike the Red Fort, this building was supremely purposeless: it memoralised a dead love who had never walked under its domes. He felt the flash of an insight into this culture: no one in America would build anything like this: if they did, the building would also have a function: it would be a concert hall, an art gallery or a theatre, or even a casino. But merely to exist, to embody memory through its beauty and grace, like a painting or a sculpture: that idea was strange and somehow humbling, as though a higher consciousness had conceived it. Would the British empire have ever built anything like this? ‘Is there any historical monument around here that the British built?’ asked Isaiah. There was none, replied the guide. Only the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, which was a museum. ‘These inlays that you see are semi-precious stones,’ the guide said, pointing to a graceful creeper inlaid into the while marble. ‘Green malachite, purple amethyst, orange jasper, rose quartz, mother of pearl, blue lapis lazuli. The technique was called pietra dura and developed in Italy in the sixteenth century.’
 
‘What’s your name? asked Isaiah, intrigued by the man’s gentle air and fine features. ‘My name is Shahabuddin. I am originally from Benares; I used to be a scholar there. But times are hard, and being a guide pays the bills.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘I have a particular interest in the Mughals. If only all our kings had been good kings the whole of India would have become Muslim.’
 
‘Why do you think that?’ asked Jacob with surprise.
 
‘Because of caste. All untouchable people and Shudra people have nowhere to go except to Allah. Before Islam came here they did not know there was Allah above the sky. No one had any love and brotherhood to give them, only curses and sops. Now sir, except Brahmins, Kayasthas and Rajputs all the others will go to Allah. Why should they not? What does Hinduism offer them? I know the truth of this because of my own history. My grandfather was a dhobi, a washerman, in the holy city of Benares. We too were untouchables, with no education, nothing.’
 
‘Really?’ said Isaiah, intrigued, when Jacob translated this for him. ‘How did you come here?’
 
‘We lived by clearing the dirty clothes of the upper castes. I remember one day my father toiled all day to clean a silk dhoti stained with crusted vomit. We laboured at washing and drying those clothes, but when we brought them back neatly ironed and folded, they would be sprinkled with Ganga water to ‘purify’ them before their owners would take them back. Because our touch defiled those upper-caste clothes, you see. They had to be symbolically washed again. In return, we would be given some rotten flyblown food that had been lying around the house. Thus we lived like dogs-worse than dogs, because dogs don’t labour for their beatings. Like cattle. Our people never looked at the face of a book, till we saw the book of Allah.’ He pulled a tiny, beautifully bound volume from his pocket.
 
‘Who brought the word of Allah to you?’ Isaiah asked.
 
‘If you wish to hear my story, let us sit in that tea-shop. It’s run by a friend of mine: he’ll let us sit there for as long as we want.’ He smiled a littled apologetically, his fine features creasing. ‘It is a long story, and will take up some of your time, so best to be comfortable.’
 
Isaiah and Paraiah sat on one of the string cots laid out for the customers of the dhaba. Several Muslim youths in pajamas and kurtas were running round serving tea and food to the guests with raw onion salad and green chillies. Isaiah and Paraiah were hungry but Isaiah was not sure of the hygiene of the place. Shahbuddin called a youth with a wave and ordered him to bring freshly made, piping hot food on a clean plate. ‘You will not fall ill, Sahib. They will take especial care.’
 
Tea arrived, then rotis with palak paneer. ‘Delicious!’ Isaiah exclaimed. Jacob translated, but Shahbuddin had correclty understood the broad grin on Isaiah’s face.
 
‘Now let me tell you how my grandfather, Dhobiram, found Allah,’ Shahbuddin resumed once the food was cleared away. ‘One day, my father says, his father was washing clothes at a stream near my village at a place called Dhobi Ghat. A Sufi saint came there to wash himself, do his namaz, and eat his food. He offered some of the food to my grandfather, who accepted it. It was nicely cooked biryani. The saint shared food with my grandpa from the same leaf plate. For the first time in a dhobi’s life a religious saint had eaten food with him and prayed for him. At the end the saint also gave my grandfather Allah’s book, the Holy Qur’an. But my grandfather was illiterate. He held that book in his hands as if it were solid gold. He kissed it again and again.
 
‘My grandfather was so excited he felt that he should see Allah then and there. But the saint told him to wait and think seriously about Allah. After four days the saint again came to my grandpa’s house. My grandpa wanted to become a Musalman, but the saint replied as before: wait. My grandfather wept. He said, “I want to see Allah and become a human being.” The Sufi saint was convinced that he was genuinely interested in becoming a Muslim. He asked my grandfather to have a bath and come back wearing a pajama kurta. My grandfather had some old clothes about the house that no customer would claim. Among them was a kurta pajama set. He put them on. That was the first time he wore anything but a scrap of loincloth. He used to dress like Gandhi-you know Gandhi, yes?’
 
‘Yes,’ said Isaiah, listening with great interest. ‘I see.’
 
‘For my grandpa to be seen clothed from head to foot was a grave offence against Hindu customary law. He could have been abused, attacked and punished. But he decided to wear the clothes. His head was reeling. Yet there emerged an unusal courage in his mind. Maybe Allah was working on him. He felt different, stronger, more protected, with those clothes touching all of his body. His entire house was shocked. His wife – my grandma – started abusing him for wearing Muslim dress. She was scared of the consequences. My grandpa said nothing. He swallowed the filthy abuses from my grandma as he would swallow the tastily cooked food from her hand. He used to enjoy her cooking but they hardly had occasion and resources to cook food in their own house. Mostly dhobis survive on the cooked food – mostly rotten food at that-given by customers. My grandpa went to the Sufi saint who beckoned to him to follow.

Now let me tell you how my grandfather, Dhobiram, found Allah,’ Shahbuddin resumed once the food was cleared away. ‘One day, my father says, his father was washing clothes at a stream near my village at a place called Dhobi Ghat. A Sufi saint came there to wash himself, do his namaz, and eat his food. He offered some of the food to my grandfather, who accepted it. It was nicely cooked biryani. The saint shared food with my grandpa from the same leaf plate. For the first time in a dhobi’s life a religious saint had eaten food with him and prayed for him. At the end the saint also gave my grandfather Allah’s book, the Holy Qur’an. But my grandfather was illiterate. He held that book in his hands as if it were solid gold. He kissed it again and again.
 
‘He took him to a nearby mosque, a building so grand that Dhobiram had never even dreamed of the possibility of entering it himself. The Sufi saint opened a chapter in the Qur’an and asked Dhobiram to hold it open and read. Of course Dhobiram could not read, but the Sufi saint said, “That is all right, you can learn later. Come here to the mosque every Friday and they will teach you. For now, hold it and look at the letters.” He asked my grandfather to say “Allah ho Akbar,” and to repeat after him, “I bear witness that Allah is great and Muhammad is his prophet”. My grandfather repeated the words of the Kalima. The saint asked him to hold his hands up and look at his own palms. The palm is like a book for the illiterate, said he. The lines in it are the letters written by Allah. Read them carefully. Then he asked my grandfather to kneel and touch his head to the earth, then stand and fold his hands and look at the letters written on the wall of the masjid in the name of Allah. While this was going on the rich and the poor alike started to gather in the mosque for the midday prayers. It was Jumma….. Friday,’ said Shahabuddin.
 
‘This man is a great storyteller,’ thought Jacob as he finished translating the last part and sipped his third glass of tea. Not only were he and Isaiah listening raptly to the story, but the waiters, were standing around and listening too.
 
Shahbuddin continued, ‘A rich man who knew us spotted my grandfather and ran up to him. My grandfather always used to call that man “nawab” in his mind, although of course the man was not a nawab: it was because of his beautiful courtly manners. This nawab who was a customer of my grandpa saw him, came running to him. He said that Dhobiram, you have become a Musalman. Allah has brought you here. This is wonderful, this is excellent! He came and hugged him. Everyone around started hugging him. The nawab, actually hugging him! Dhobiram started repeating, Allah….ho……Akbar! Allah……ho……Akbar!
 
‘The Sufi saint declared that Dhobiram’s name would be Jalaluddin. What about my wife and family members? asked Jalaluddin. But the saint told him that Allah will take a soul only on that individual’s agreement. “If He calls your wife and children they will have to take to the Qur’an on their own,” said the saint. After the namaz was over, the nawab asked the Sufi saint and Jalauddin to have a meal at his house. Dhobiram the nawab’s washerman, was now going to be the nawab’s guest. He went straight there from the mosque. They set at a table and ate biryani from the same dish. My grandfather had never been close enough to a table to touch it. No doubt he made mistakes, but the nawab never once made him feel ashamed. Trembling, he told the nawab, “I am your servant.” But the nawab said, “Nonsense, in the eyes of Allah all are one.” And he gave him this little Qur’an I carry.’
 
As he looked at the ornate little book in Shahbuddin’s hand, Isaiah, mind was a whirl. He had known, of course, that India had Muslims as well as Hindus, but the implications of this had not occurred to him till now. Clearly this situation was different from that of the hypocritical church fathers he had met in Madras. Lots of questions started whirling through his mind. Were there surviving caste practices in Indian Muslim society as there were among Indian Christmas? Did converted Muslim untouchables live in slums as Rosy and Daniel did? He now had an answer for his local church: they had wondered why, if Christianity offered a way out from the oppressions and injustices of the caste system, Indian people were still unwilling to become Chrisitians? Clearly the persistence of caste in that socieyt held the answer. And if Muslims were comparatively caste-free, then of course the untouchables would prefer that option. He remembered that Ambedkar had chosen to be a Buddhist, but so far he hadn’t met a single Indian Buddhist. He filed this question away to ask Jacob later.
 
‘So what happened next?’ he asked as Shahbuddin put away the book. ‘Did the Hindus accept your grandfather’s conversion?’
 
Shahbuddin’s face became very grave. ‘I am sorry that the next part of my story will give you pain,’ he said. ‘News got about very quickly of my grandfather’s escapade. The village priest went to see the local landlord, and the landlord put his strongmen at the priest’s disposal. All of the strongmen were untouchables like us. But they were brainwashed into believing they are the counterparts of Lord Hanuman, the monkey servant of Rama, who did his bidding, fought for him, ran errands of him, out of great love. Even today people believe this story: it makes them feel wanted, vindicated. So, out of great love, the untouchable servants of the landlord came to my grandfather’s house. My grandfather had feared this would happen, but he had no idea what to do. Only my grandmother was clever: she took my father, who was then seven years old but very small for his age, gave him the Qur’an to hold with orders never to let go, and tied him up in a bundle of clothes in the courtyard with a straw to breathe through and strict instructions not to move a muscle. My father in that bundle saw nothing, but he heard everything, and perhaps that was worse. The men who knocked at the door were polite at first, pretending Dhobiram was a respected elder they had come to visit. Then the leader said, “I hear you have accepted a gift from a beef-eater. Can I see this precious object?” Then there was silence, broken by the words, “Search the house.” My father held his breath. Then the screaming started. It went on for a long time, interspersed with cries for mercy, curses from the men, and the sickening thuds of flesh being reduced to pulp. The women’s screams were the worst.
 
‘My father does not know how long he lay in that bundle. He says a part of him still lies there. All he could think of, all he knew was that he had to hold on to the book. At one point he felt a violent blow between his shoulderblades. Then, when everything around him was utterly black and quiet, he wriggled out of the bundle. A sword was sticking out of it, having run through almost of the centre, leaving a gash on the skin of his back: he still has the scar. Then with weak steps he left the courtyard. The house smelt of blood: he stumbled on something inside that was soft, and when he came out, his hands and knees were black with blood. In the middle of the road lay the body of his aunt, who had been eight months pregnant. Her face was untouched, but her body from the breastbone down was a mangled shell slit open and spilled. Beside her lay a bloody shape, no longer something that could have been human…..I see I am giving you cause for distress.’
 
‘No, no,’ Isaiah said. ‘I mean, I admit it’s hard to hear this, but my grandmother taught me never to fear the truth. You tell it like it happened: I can take it.’
 
‘Your grandmother was a wise woman.’
 
‘She saw much pain not unlike yours. Please go on.’
 
‘My father walked out of the village towards the nawab’s villa. He could not speak, only held out the holy book in his hand. A Hindu servant of the nawab’ found him outside the gate and brought him in. The nawab wept to see the blood on the boy’s face and body. My father fell into a kind of trance, from which he later learned he took several months to recover. During that time the nawab let him stay in his house. He slowly improved, though he was troubled by dreams and night terrors, and when he was better, the nawab sent him to Benares to join a madrasa. He got a job as a scribe, married a servant of the nawab’s, and had me. For many years I thought he was born a Muslim: he told me this story a few months before he died. It changed everything for me. Suddenly I understood the air of secret sadness he sometimes wore, and why my mother would be especially tender to him at certain times. To know that my family has been the target of such hatred, it turns the food in my mouth to ashes and the air to choking dust. Now I dream about justice. I dream about making those criminal suffer for what they did. If only I had the means….’
 
‘I am sorry,’ said Isaiah, knowing how inadequate the words were. ‘But what of your new life: has caste ever been a problem for you? Has anyone ever thrown your origins in your face?’
 
‘Never,’ said Shahbuddin with a fierce look. ‘I was once beaten for not knowing my Qur’an correctly, and once for drinking my own tears durng Ramzan, but never in all my life has a fellow Musalman treated me any different because of my birth. Hence I know that we are right, and we will prevail. Allah has made us good.’
 
‘Do you hate the Hindus?’
 
‘No, I love justice. That is why they must be punished: to wash away their sins against my family. Then both they and I can rest in peace.’
 
‘I hate to say this to you, but won’t that just perpetuate the cycle of threats and reprisals?’
 
‘Why should it? Rather I would say that if they go unpunished, they will torture others like this again. Some other child’s family will be butchered because they dared to embrace God. God has said that wrongs must be answered with just punishment, yet in this country, the law will never punish the killers of my family. I need a Samson to bring down this temple of hatred and falsehood.’
 
Samson was blind, thought Jacob Paraiah. But he said nothing, and led Isaiah back to the car.
 
(Extracted from Untouchable God,  Kancha Ilaiah, Stree-Samya Publisher, 2013, pages 219-230 and published with the permission of the author)
 

In defence of dissent: Arundhati Roy

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Roy challenges the Bombay High Court (Nagpur bench) order to launch criminal proceedings against her, in the Supreme Court. SC issues notice but directs her to appear before the High Court on January 25 


Image Courtesy: K. Pichumani, The Hindu

The order of the Bombay High Court directing criminal contempt proceedings against me is untenable legally besides raising crucial questions of the right to freedom of expression in a democracy, says Arundhati Roy in her appeal; SC issues notice to Bombay High Court and the Maharashtra government on Friday (January 22) but directs Roy to appear before the Court on January 25, 2016

Noted writer Arundhati Roy has challenged the order of the Napur bench of the Bombay High Court dated December 23, 2015 directing criminal defamation proceedings to be filed against her[1]. The special leave petition was filed on January 7, 2016 in the Supreme Court of India.
 
Roy has challenged the High Court’s Order on grounds that it is not tenable in the eyes of the law and in fact militates against the law laid down by Constitutional Courts from time to time. Besides, it raises crucial questions of freedom of expression and the right to criticise governments and state institutions in a democracy.
 
The judgement directing Roy to be proceeded against through criminal contempt proceedings was based on an article that she wrote for Outlook magazine on May 9, 2015. In response, her special leave petition states that “ a reading of the contents of the article authored by the petitioner (Roy) on the basis of which criminal contempt proceedings have been initiated, would reveal that she was only bringing forth the plight of a person who is ninety per cent disabled, wheelchair bound and suffers from a degenerative medical condition that requires constant medical care.”
 
The special leave petition of Arundhati Roy argues that there are three crucial aspects which show that the Bombay High Court has erred in law. These  are:

  1. That no application for bail was pending when the petitioner (Roy) had written her article. The court itself had noted that the previous proceeding that resulted in the dismissal of the bail application moved by Dr. Saibaba, had come to an end on August 25, 2014. The article authored by the petitioner was published by Outlook magazine on May 9, 2015, a full seven months later. Therefore, there is no basis to hold that the petitioner had a “malafide motive” or a “game plan” to “interfere in the administration of justice.”
  2. That Roy’s article was a bonafide exercise of her Freedom of Expression. Arundhati Roy has stated in her petition, that “For the sake of argument let’s leave the decision about whether Dr Saibaba is guilty or innocent of the charges levelled against him to the courts. And for the moment let’s turn our attention solely to the question of bail—because for him that is quite literally a matter of life and death.”  Roy believed that the question of Dr. Saibaba’s liberty in the given circumstances, was quite literally a question of life and death due to his worsening medical condition, and therefore it was of urgent and utmost importance that he be granted bail.

 
The same Court that is the Bombay High Court (that had cancelled Professor Saibaba’s interim bail on December 23, 2015), had, on June 26, 2015 (in Criminal PIL No 4/2015) stated quite the contrary to what was held in the December 2015 order. The Court had earlier said, “We are satisfied that if Professor Saibaba is not released on temporary bail for medical treatment and supportive care as indicated above, there could be a risk to his life and health.” At that stage, the High court at Bombay had held that the medical condition of Dr. Saibaba required immediate medical attention, and hence he was entitled to be released on temporary bail.

Further, Arundhati Roy’s petition states, “The Division Bench (of the High Court at Bombay) comprised of the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and Hon’ble Justice S.B. Shukre, who had previously dismissed the bail application of the prisoner in question. Therefore the Judge was clearly aware of the case concerning the prisoner in question and his medical condition, and the Court found such condition to be fit for grant of relief ". 

If at all, this is a vindication of what the Booker prize winning author, Arundhati Roy, wrote in Outlook. To quote, “This further vindicates the stand taken by the petitioner (Roy) in her article regarding the question of bail being one of life and death for Dr. Saibaba.In these circumstances, the petitioner’s expression of her views, was a bonafide exercise of her rights under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. In the same order the division bench (that granted temporary bail to Saibaba), had held that “In the circumstances, if this Court does not exercise extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution this Court would be failing in its duty of protection the fundamental rights of Professor Saibaba.”  The petition adds, "It is submitted that in the same spirit of the Learned Division Bench, the Petitioner, far from committing a criminal act, was only doing her duty as a writer.”
 
“The article by the petitioner is an expression of her belief that the treatment being meted to Dr. Saibaba was incorrect and inhumane. The petitioner did not intend, and could not have intended to cause any obstruction of justice, as assumed in the impugned order, by expressing her views in her article. Her views did not cause any obstruction in any judicial process since no judicial proceeding for bail was pending at that juncture.

Criminal Contempt proceedings are bound to create an intense, chilling effect on the fundamental right to the Freedom of Expression as enshrined in the Indian Constitution, as well as on other fundamental rights.
 
The petition makes a strong case against the initiation of criminal contempt proceedings as directed by the High Court. "If contempt proceedings are indeed initiated the fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of speech, would be indelibly affected."  Roy states that she has approached the Supreme Court of India to seek “protection of my fundamental right to the Freedom of Expression." The petition also argues that there would be a far reaching, adverse impact if contempt proceedings are initiated against her. "In the absence of a well founded basis in law, " the petition lays out, "the very trial of the petitioner (Roy) would be her torment, and the process will be the punishment. It is bound to create an intense chilling effect on the fundamental right to the Freedom of Expression as enshrined in the Indian Constitution, as well as on other fundamental rights of the petitioner. It is also likely to have a serious, adverse and rippling effect, much greater in magnitude on anybody who expresses any genuine “opposition”, to any of the actions or policies of the Government.”
The Timeline of these proceedings from the special leave petition of Arundhati Roy, is given below.

A critical aspect of the debate are the proceedings on the law relating to criminal contempt during the Constituent Assembly Debates. These too can be accessed here.
 
References:

  1. Judicial overreaction; http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-on-criminal-contempt-proceedings-by-bombay-hc-against-arundhati-roy-judicial-overreaction/article8026159.ece
  2. The contempt notice against Arundhati Roy is yet another reminder of why this law must go http://scroll.in/article/778529/the-contempt-notice-against-arundhati-roy-is-yet-another-reminder-of-why-this-law-must-go

 
 
Timeline
The petition of Arundhati Roy seeks to point out that a reading of her entire article would reveal that the article does not contain anything which may even remotely be construed as an offence under the law of contempt of court, nor does it even remotely tend to denigrate the majesty of courts or lower their image. The timeline of events is as follows:
 
 

09.05.2014 to 30.06.2014 and from 25.12.2014Dr G.N Saibaba, a lecturer at the University of Delhi, who is wheelchair bound and is what is known in medical terms, as 90% disabled, was arrested and remanded to custody in solitary confinement (‘Anda Cell’) at Nagpur Jail. Crime No. 3017/2013 was registered against him for offences punishable under Sections 13, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (Amendment 2008) (hereinafter referred to as “UAPA”), at Police Station Aheri, Distt. Gadricholi.
 
25.08.2014Dr.G.N. Saibaba’s Bail Application No. 485/2014 was heard and dismissed by the Learned Single Judge of the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur.
 
09.05.2015Exactly one year after the day of Dr.Saibaba’s arrest, Outlook magazine published an article by the petitioner (Roy) detailing the factual backdrop of the arrest, the adverse impact that the year-long incarceration had had on the health of  Dr.Saibaba. A bare reading of the article will demonstrate that the petitioner’s narrative of the entire episode was informed by Professor GN Saibaba’s severe medical condition of post-polio paralysis and 90% disability, which was aggravated and worsened by an acute lack of proper medical treatment available during his incarceration. This narration was in line with observations made by the division bench of the High Court of Bombay, at Mumbai, in Criminal PIL No. 04/2015.
Throughout the article, Roy’s arguments centre around the arrest and continued detention of Dr.Saibaba, despite his severe disability and worsening health. She writes that, as a signatory to international treaties and protocols, India had specific obligations and duties concerning the treatment of people with disabilities. The article (states her petition) accurately and journalistically recounts the facts and circumstances of Dr.Saibaba’s detention and the dismissal of his bail applications by the Sessions Court, as well as the subsequent deterioration in his health.
Roy has based her narrative on facts available publicly and/or gathered through journalistic enterprise, and not on a single conjecture or surmise. All submissions are backed by sources clearly mentioned in the body of the article, and at no point has she sought to scandalize or cast aspersions on the functioning of the Court, to which she has barely alluded.
Roy states that her opinion, which is based on a journalistic distillation of facts, cannot be construed to have a “malafide motive to interfere in the administration of justice” or to be “reflecting a surly, rude or boorish attitude” or have wild motives, such as the petitioner, Roy, ‘having a game plan’, imputed to it.
Petitioner Roy’s perspective is based wholly on facts relating to Dr.Saibaba’s medical condition, and is completely in line with the observations of the Bombay High Court in Criminal PIL No. 04/2015 in June 2015.
 
10.06.2015On the basis of an email by Purnima Upadhyay, a social activist, who relied upon a report about the physical condition of Dr Saibaba written by Pavan Dahat in an article in The Hindu dated May 8, 2015, the  High Court at Bombay, took suomotu cognizance of the incarceration of professor, Saibaba and registered Criminal PIL No. 04/2015.
 
17.06.2015In Criminal PIL No. 04/2015, the High Court examined the medical report of the Chief Medical Officer, Prison Hospital, Central Prison, Nagpur, which detailed the worsening medical condition of professor Saibaba and the onset of further medical complications which required surgery, including angioplasty. On the basis of the said medical report, the High Court observed that “there cannot be any objection to the prisoner being taken to the above private hospital initially for diagnosis and for considering the treatment required to be undergone by the prisoner.” Accordingly it was directed that professor Saibaba be taken to the “Neuron” Hospital, Nagpur, within 24 hours where he was to be examined and the relevant report be submitted to the Court within one week, pending which he was allowed to remain admitted in the concerned hospital for treatment, in the presence of his family members.
 
23.06.2015In Criminal PIL No. 04/2015, the High Court took note of the fact that further tests were required to ascertain Dr. GN Saibaba’s treatment prognosis, and accordingly, it ordered that he be admitted to a private hospital of his choice in Nagpur, where such testing facilities were available. Non-compliance of the order dated June 16, 2015 by the State, as brought out by petitioner, Roy insofar as disallowing Dr. Saibaba’s family to stay by his side during the course of treatment, was also taken note of by the High Court.
 
26.06.2015In Criminal PIL No. 04/2015, (Purnima Upadhay) prayed that Dr.Saibaba be granted bail so that he could get medical treatment in Delhi since his family members were based there and were not in a position to continuously be at his side in Nagpur. The High Court observed that the deteriorating health condition of Dr. Saibaba during the period of his incarceration, constituted ‘material change’ in circumstance since he last applied for, and was denied bail, and on that basis, a fresh plea for grant of bail needed to be re-examined.
 
30.06.2015In Criminal PIL No. 04/2015, the High Court granted temporary bail for a period of 3 months to Dr. GN Saibaba, inter alia observing:
“16. In the facts and circumstances of the case, therefore, it is clear that Prof. Saibaba badly requires pain management, supportive care and medical treatment at New Delhi where his family members being aged mother, wife and daughter are residing. We are satisfied that if Prof. Saibaba is not released in temporary bail for medical treatment and supportive care, as indicated above, there could be a risk to his life and health. On the other hand, releasing Prof. Saibaba on bail for a period of 3 months for medical treatment would not cause any threat or risk to the security of the Nation.
21. In the circumstances, if this Court does not exercise extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution this Court would be failing in its duty of protection the fundamental rights of professor Saibaba under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, was confined to a secluded cell and was not in a position to move this Court on his own. Hence we are inclined to direct the respondents to release the under trial prisoner, professor GN Saibaba on temporary bail for a period of 3 months for his medical treatment and supportive care by his family and medical personnel at New Delhi.”
 
November 2015In the light of the liberty granted in Criminal PIL No. 04/2015, Dr. Saibaba filed an application for the grant of regular bail before the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur for consideration on merits. It was registered as Criminal Application (BA) 785/2015.
 
23.12.2015In Criminal Application (BA) 785/2015, the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur, dismissed Dr.Saibaba’s bail application. Also, without any prior warning or impleadment, it issued notice of criminal contempt (returnable on 25.01.2016) to the petitioner, Arundhati Roy, who was not even party to the bail proceedings. The notice of criminal contempt was based on a highly selective reading of the petitioner Roy’s aforementioned article published in Outlook magazine. Words and phrases in the article have been reproduced in the impugned order sans context, or in an entirely different and unintended context, and without taking into account the fact that there is not a single allusion to mala fide motives of any judicial body or court. The High Court has neglected to see that the petitioner’s perspective which is based solely on facts and circumstances relating to manner of the arrest and the nature of incarceration of a prisoner who suffers from 90% disability and whose medical condition was aggravated during the period of his custody, as noted by a two member bench of that Court, at Mumbai
 
 

 

 

[1] Special Leave Petitin filed in the Supreme Court of India Against the order dated 23.12.2015 passed by the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, Nagpur in Criminal Application (BA) No. 785 of 2015
 

Suicides that left us Unmoved

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From the article written by K.P. Girija which was the cover story of the magazine Insight Young Voices (Feb-Mar, 2009).
 
Rejani S. Anand, a Malayalee student of Institute of Human Resource Development (IHRD) Engineering College at Adoor in south Kerala committed suicide on 22nd July 2004.

Senthil Kumar, a Tamil student hailing from an interior region in the state, admitted for PhD in the School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, took his life on 24th February 2008.

Ajay Sree Chandra, a Telugu boy and an Integrated-PhD scholar at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, committed suicide the year before, on 27th August 2007.

If one were to look for similarities that bind these three disparate incidents, we find that all were doing courses in Sciences and admitted to prestigious institutions. They all were also in the prime of youth. Rejani and Ajay were both just 21 years of age at the time of their death. Senthil was 27.
Their youth might have been mixed with hope and an equal measure of uncertainty about their future. However, the most striking feature, that binds all these deaths, would be the caste of the deceased. All the three students were Dalits.

No suicide can perhaps be seen only as a result of .personal frustrations, least of all, Dalit suicides. These personal frustrations have visible connections with the context around them. They are political, cultural and social and therefore need special attention. Hence it becomes important for all concerned to analyse whether these suicides were intrinsically connected to the power structure of the higher educational institutions and the entry of Dalits into it.
 
Senthil Kumar
In 2007, Senthil Kumar came all the way to University of Hyderabad, from a village of Salem district in Tamilnadu. He was admitted for his PhD in the School of Physics. He belonged to the panniandi caste, which is traditionally involved in pig rearing and is at the bottom of the caste-hierarchy.

Both his parents are illiterate and are devoid of regular income. He was the only person in his family as well as in his caste to register for PhD. After completing his M.Phil from the Pondicherry University, he had to discontinue his studies for quite some time due to financial constraints. Since his graduation days, Senthil had been supporting his parents through his scholarships.

On February 24, 2008, just after one year of his admission, Senthil Kumar committed suicide in his hostel room. University authorities immediately claimed that he had died of cardiac arrest. But the postmortem report gave the cause of death as poisoning. Surprisingly, this report was kept as a secret until the Dalit students started demanding an enquiry and compensation for his family.

After the political intervention from the Tamilnadu MLA. Ravikumar, the University of Hyderabad had appointed an internal fact finding committee under Prof Vinod Pavarala. From the batch of 2007, Senthil was the only student who has not been assigned a supervisor till his death. In this batch, initially four students had not been assigned a supervisor.

Out of these four students, two eventually left the programme as dropouts and one got allotted a supervisor. Obviously, all the four students were from the reserved categories. Does it mean something? Was it an evidence of the inability of the School of Physics to accommodate the Dalit students in its culture of hierarchy?

Senthil failed in one of the four required courses. He failed the same course in the supplementary exam in January 2008 also. He had the provision of writing the exam again in March to clear this backlog. The students with backlogs, stop receiving fellowships as per the University of Hyderabad guidelines. Hailing from a poor family, the University fellowship was the only source for him to support his family and his own survival.

The University changed the rule of curtailing the fellowship to the students who had to clear the backlogs, a week before Senthil’s death, but did not make it public. Prof Pavarala committee made very clear in its report that, “All the Physics students that this Committee could meet have reported their sense that the School was acting against the interests of the SC/ST students.” Still, there is no culprit who led to the suicide of Senthil Kumar.

 
Rejani. S. Anand
Was a student of Institute of Human Resource Development Engineering (IHRDE) College at Adoor in south Kerala. She got admission on 6.11.2002 in the government quota seat under merit. The Scheduled Caste (SC) Department had remitted her fee. On 22nd July 2004, she committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of the Office of the Entrance Commissioner (Medical and Engineering courses) at Trivandrum.

The sequence of events that could show the immediate trajectory that led her to take her own life is as follows – Since her college had no hostel facilities, Rejani was staying in a nearby N.S.S (Nair Service Society) hostel. The government had been paying an amount of Rs 315 as a monthly stipend to the SC students that was not sufficient for Rejani to meet her hostel fee of RS 1000 apart from transportation charges, cost of books etc.

Her father was a daily wages labourer and was unable to support her education. Rejani and her parents tried to get a Bank loan to meet her essential financial requirements. She first went to Indian Oversees Bank (Puzhanadu branch) for the educational loan. The bank manager was reluctant to even give her the application form.

Then Rejani and her mother went to the local M.L.A. Thampanur Ravi and asked him to intervene. It was only then that the application form was given to her. When she presented the application for loan in the bank, she was told to come after two weeks. Later, Rejani together with her mother went to the bank more than 20 times to enquire about the status of her educational loan application.

Finally, she was told that she was not eligible for an educational loan. Her family had no property other than their 2.5 cent land and a hut, and that was not valuable enough for the bank to sanction an educational loan. It seems that her gender and caste together played an important role towards this refusal of loan by the bank. In Kerala, a woman going to a bank without her father, brother or husband would be normally ignored.

Rejani could not afford to take her father along for the necessary .respectability.. Her father was a labourer and his daily wages were essential for the family. She had applied for an educational loan, which does not require surety, legally. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s circular on the educational loans – any merititorious candidate could avail herself a loan of up to Rs 4 lakhs for one course without furnishing security and without accruing interest on the loan until she gets employment.

Here the non-secured ‘future’ of a Dalit woman might be an obstacle for the bank manager to sanction loan. As a woman, there was no guarantee that Rejani would complete the course; she might have dropped out of her studies if she were to get married. As a Dalit girl, there was no guarantee of a good job even after the completion of the course.

These points might be bothering the non-Dalit manager and in that case, how can a bank grant the educational loan? Afterwards, Rejani went to the State Bank of Travancore but here also she was denied the loan. Then her parents approached Thampanur Ravi (the local MLA) for financial assistance.

Though he immediately made the promise but never bothered to fulfill it. They went to the Block Panchayat for assistance but were told that it had no such financial assistance programme and funds. They went to Pazhavangadi Scheduled Caste office but were returned empty handed.

She could not go to her college for more than two months as her hostel authorities were threatening her to deposit the hostel fees. The last straw seems to be the apparent denial of Transfer Certificate (T.C) from Adoor Engineering College due to the non-payment of the fees. Rejani had got a chance to join Mary Matha College, which had promised her free education and lodging. When she approached her college for a T.C, they sent her off to pay the dues. She was sent to the Entrance (Engineering and Medical courses) commissioner’s office. It is here that she committed suicide by jumping out from the seventh floor of that building.
 

Ajay Sree Chandra
On 26th august 2007, Ajay sree Chandra commited suicide in his hostel room. Ajay had a middle class background, as his father is a faculty at the Government Polytechnic College in Hyderabad. He belonged to madiga community and hailed from Malipuram village, Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. Ajay was a second generation literate from a Dalit family and was ‘meritorious’ enough to compete with the normative ‘value’ of merit. Yet, as a Dalit he had no choice except to commit suicide!

Ajay was meritorious (in terms of marks secured) enough to get a seat in IISc in the general quota. He was one of the top twelve in India, to get into PhD course in Biological sciences at IISc Banglore. Still he was admitted in the reserved category. Labels are labels and one could not even symbolically discard them just because of ‘merit;!

The diary that Ajay maintained was possibly tampered with at the time of his death and it is quite probable that this must happened at the behest of the institute with the help of police. The suicide note had disappeared.

The only clue of the circumstance that would have led him to commit suicide is given in his diary where he described the atmosphere of his lab in the following word-“Those eyes, they scare me, they look with such inferiority/superiority complex @you. They tell everything (most of that time). Those eyes scare me… those scares me a lot. My legs are paining…”

According to his friends at IISc, Ajay was undergoing tremendous mental torture by couple of professors, who are non-cooperative and often humiliated him on caste lines. But according to the Institute, Ajay commited suicide, because of his ‘personal’ stress.

When informed by the IISc authorities, Ajay’s father came there to receive the body of his son and at that time he did not had any clue about caste discrimination. Later, after some time when the SC/ST union from the institute informed him of the caste discrimination, he was shocked.

As a middle class student, Ajay had all the tools to be a meritorious student, to compete well with the mainstream upper caste students. But failed, as merit is not the percentage of marks one secured, it seems to be the mark of caste.
 

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