About Us Contact Us
Home Blog Page 2610

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

By
-
0


 
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

By
-
0


 
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

By
-
0

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

By
-
0

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

By
-
0


 
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.
 

HCU bows to Campus Outrage: Rohith Vemula Suicide

By
-
0

Suspension of five students including Rohith who took his life revoked

About an hour back, about 3.30 pm on Thursday January 21, 2016 agitating students if HCU were informed that the highest body if the university, Hyderabad Central University (HCU), the Executive Council has revoked the suspension of five students including Rohith Vemula who committed suicide on January 17. The text of the resolution can be read here.

Agitating students see this hurriedly taken decision as a response to the cross country protests against what is being increasingly viewed as the institutional murder of Rohith. 

Rohiths scathing letter to Vice Chancellor Appa Rao dated December 18, 2015 is a precursor to what happened.

Agitating students representing the Ambedkar Students Association and the Students Federation of India see this as a placatory measure meant to diffuse the demands for  fair probe. The conduct of the Vice Chancellor and ministers of the Modi government in the targeting of these students has raised serious questions of improper exercise of executive power.

Brute Violence by Men in Uniform: Chhatisgarh

By
-
0


 
Adivasi Women in Chhatisgarh have complained of brute sexual violence against them by  officers of the police during search operations conducted on January 12, 2016.  Eight specific brute incidents of gendered violence by men in uniform have been reported in a collective complaint by them to the Commissioner, Bastar.
 

  1. Hadme w/o Deva Kartam was stripped by the police, her “waist string” was broken, her upper cloth was removed and police sat on her and abused her with filthy language.
  2. Kartami, the wife of Bhuiyan was badly beaten, her right hand was injured, right thigh and lower back has got swelling.
  3. Hadpi, the wife of Lakhma had her blouse torn, and was made to do sit ups. She was asked why she does not have children, and told that if she slept with them, she would have babies. When she started crying, she was beaten with a thorny stick.
  4. Kartami Kosi, the daughter of Budhva was stripped by the police. They made fun of her breasts and then beat her badly.
  5. Podiyami Jogi, wife of Ganga was dragged out of her house. She has injuries on her face and body. Her husband and children were picked up and taken to Gadiras Camp.  When she said her child is small, she was told to milk her breast. A policeman came and milked her breast. Her necklace, ear rings and Rs. 1500 were snatched away.
  6. Apart from this, many other women were also beaten and insulted. Rice, hens, cash and ornaments were also looted. A grenade was also thrown so there was a fire.
  7. First 29 people had been taken into custody by the security forces, three were released, they are also badly injured.
  8. Police has claimed that there was an encounter in the village during which one police man was injured. Actually when that policeman entered a house, his foot got entangled in a sack and his weapon went off accidentally injuring him. All the villagers are aware of the incident.

 
Soni Sori, a social activist and convenor of the Aam Admi party has presented the Bastar Commissioner with a collective complaint of this gendered violence, along with the affected women of Village Kunna, Pedapara, Block Chhindgarh, District, Sukma. The Commissioner has given a written notice to the IG, SP and Collector on the complaint and directed them to conduct an immediate enquiry into the incident. In the complaint a demand has been made for a judicial enquiry and medical help has also been sought.

Earlier, on November 1, 2015, affected women of five villages including Pedagelur and Chinnagelur of Bijapur district had registered an FIR concerning rape and sexual violence during search operations. Till date no action has been taken on this FIR. In fact, senior police officers, without even investigating into the FIR, are commenting on the reliability of the complaint. Under these circumstances there is little likelihood of an unbiased police enquiry and hence the Chhatisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has demanded a high level Judicial Enquiry into both the above incidents. Over the past two-three months more and more incidents are coming to light where sexual violence has become a part of the anti-Naxal operations. The United Nations and other international human rights organisations have expressed concern that wherever wars are going on the world over, violence against women has been used as a weapon to humiliate and subjugate that society. Such an attitude towards the Adivasi communities of Bastar is unjust, reprehensible and unconstitutional, and will only alienate them further from the government.
 

Uncovering Rape

By
-
0

“When a lovestruck 14-year-old girl decided to run away from home to meet her boyfriend, she had no inkling of the horror she was in for.”  That was the opening sentence of a news report about the repeated rape of the teenager by two Indian Army jawans on a train to Amritsar in December 2015.

“It all started with Facebook – initially by sending friend requests to each other, followed by messages and then late night chats,” the story continued. “For the minor girl, that was perhaps enough to fall in love with a boy who actually hailed from Punjab's Ludhiana district.”

Once again a media report on rape diminished the seriousness of the crime by highlighting extraneous details about the young survivor instead of focusing on the most relevant information: in this case, the sexual assault of a minor girl by two soldiers.  As a letter to the editor from the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) asked, “How does the girl being lovestruck connect with the rape at all? How does it matter where she met her boyfriend –  on Facebook or elsewhere – or even that she had one?” 

The fact that the multiple violent attacks on the girl amounted to statutory rape under the law was evidently missed in the process, as was the fact that the crime was all the more heinous because the perpetrators belonged to the armed forces, which presumably exist to protect citizens of the country, not harm them.

The report was accompanied by a lurid illustration which, as the NWMI letter pointed out, contributed to the sensational nature of the story as told. 

It is difficult to avoid a feeling of déjà vu every time such flawed reports on rape surface.  Issues relating to media coverage of sexual assault have been discussed and debated for decades, at least from the campaign against rape sparked off in the early 1980s by the Supreme Court judgment in what has come to be known as the Mathura rape case onwards. 

Media coverage of rape and the campaign against it was among the five topics included in the 1994 book, “Whose News?  The Media and Women’s Issues.” When Kalpana Sharma and I revisited media coverage of sexual violence in India for the second edition of the book in the mid-2000s, we found that rape was back on the media agenda – a quarter of a century after it had become a legitimate subject for media attention – thanks to a number of high-profile cases in the political and commercial capitals of the country, Delhi and Mumbai.  Our review revealed that media coverage of rape in the new millennium was “something of a mixed bag, ranging from the serious, concerned and gender-sensitive through glib, superficial and celebrity-oriented to sensational, irresponsible and intrusive.”  

That assessment is still more or less applicable today, a decade later, although heightened competition in the burgeoning news media space has added new dimensions to the coverage.  Privately-owned Indian television news channels – with their characteristic high-pitched reporting and confrontational panel discussions that invariably generate more heat than light – now play a dominant role in setting the public agenda.  This has had an impact on the style and substance of news coverage in large sections of the print media as well. 

Critiques of media coverage of sexual violence in general and rape in particular tend to focus primarily on sins of commission.  While some of these – such as sensationalism and prurience – are professionally indefensible, others are more complicated:  the amount and type of detail to be included in news reports, for example. 

Take the question of the right to privacy.  The Indian Penal Code, as well as the limited ethical guidelines issued by the Press Council of India and the News Broadcasters’ Association, stress the need to protect the privacy of victims and survivors of sexual violence.  Death does not automatically release the media from this obligation:  according to the law, “the name or any matter which may make known the identity of the victim” can be published only if the next of kin authorises it in writing. 

In the case of a young woman who went missing near Chennai one mid-February night in 2014, her name, age, place of origin and employer were made public the day her body was finally discovered over a week later.  Of the reports I scanned, only The Hindu persisted in referring to her as an employee of Tata Consultancy Services, providing no further details.  In contrast, some media reports even included her photograph with no attempt at morphing.

Most media outlets chose to report that the woman was raped before the results of forensic analysis, which alone could establish the nature of the crime, were available – presumably going by information provided by the police about confessions by the first two men arrested.  Again, The Hindu was an exception.  Some reports included several details about the likely sequence of events before, during and after the crime, obviously relying purely on police sources yet again. 

Take the question of the right to privacy.  The Indian Penal Code, as well as the limited ethical guidelines issued by the Press Council of India and the News Broadcasters’ Association, stress the need to protect the privacy of victims and survivors of sexual violence.  Death does not automatically release the media from this obligation:  according to the law, “the name or any matter which may make known the identity of the victim” can be published only if the next of kin authorises it in writing.

Besides the over-arching journalistic principles of accuracy, fairness and independence, the key precept that should inform decisions about necessary and unwarranted details is, surely, the interest of justice.  Many details now routinely included in news reports on rape cases serve no constructive purpose and may, in fact, have negative consequences. The references to a teenaged survivor being “lovestruck,” having met her boyfriend on Facebook, and so on, in the report described above represent a case in point.

The controversy over when a legitimate and ethical, if aggressive, pursuit of truth in the interest of justice turns into an illegitimate, unprincipled trial by media that can result in miscarriage of justice raises troublesome questions which call for serious reflection even if there are no easy answers.  The tragic death of social activist Khurshid Anwar, who committed suicide in December 2013 following charges of rape – possibly pushed to the edge by a television programme – underlines the grave consequences that thoughtless or irresponsible journalism, however well-intentioned, can lead to. 

The good news is that there is growing debate among journalists themselves on issues concerning media coverage of sexual violence in general, and rape in particular.  Such welcome introspection has led to several attempts – by journalists or with their involvement – to evolve practical dos and don’ts that recognise the realities of reporting news in an ever more competitive media environment, but seek to promote ethical practice despite the undeniable, disagreeable pressures that most journalists, especially reporters, have to contend with.

However, the media’s equally critical sins of omission have yet to receive the attention they demand if coverage of sexual assault, including rape, is to serve its logical purpose:  justice in general, gender justice in particular and, ultimately, a necessary decline in the prevalence of such violence.

A collaborative academic study focussing on “sexual violence journalism” in four leading English language publications before and after December 2012 concluded that, although this section of the press has made “small but important progress with respect to reporting on gender justice,” the news media need to move beyond “the incident and crime cycle,” and away from the sensational aspects of such crimes, to progress towards “gender justice sensitive reporting.”

What would this involve?  To begin with, an acknowledgement – especially by decision-makers in the media – that coverage of gender-related events and issues, including sexual violence, is serious business.  Those reporting and commenting on the subject need to acquaint themselves with the complexities of the subject, the history of efforts to deal with these issues, and the debates and actions that have taken place in the past (in India from at least 1980 onwards).

In the wake of the December 2012 gang-rape, for example, some sections of the media spearheaded a vociferous crusade calling for capital punishment in cases of sexual assault. There is little doubt that the relentless, emotive, campaign-style coverage and impassioned, impatient television debates contributed to the apparent manufacture of consent among vocal sections of the media-consuming public about the desirability of the death penalty for rape, if only in high-profile cases.  Little attention was paid to the fact that women’s organisations with long experience in tackling gender violence, as well as other groups and individuals committed to human rights, oppose the death penalty on the ground that it is not only wrong in principle but also unlikely to work in practice, especially in terms of reducing the incidence of sexual assault or increasing the conviction rate or both. 

The excessive and blinkered focus on retributive justice also obscures genuine hurdles in the path of justice of any kind:  prejudice, ignorance, negligence, incompetence and worse within the investigative, legal and judicial systems. The media would serve the cause of justice better if they spent time and energy on creatively exposing these impediments instead of chasing elusive “exclusives” that are often based on unconfirmed (often incorrect), inconsequential or salacious trivia that shed no light on the matter and often violate the rights of the human beings involved. 

Data on sexual crimes represent another area crying out for critical attention.  Apart from the fact that undiscerning use of statistics is often misleading, it appears that National Crime Records Bureau data themselves may be unintentionally deceptive, going by a report in The Hindu in October 2013 flagging a statistical flaw that could mean that even the December 2012 gang rape would not be counted in NCRB data on rape. Surprisingly, this sensational revelation, which was not denied, caused barely a ripple in the media.

Sometimes startling statistics are blandly presented when further examination is clearly required.  For example, according to data attributed to the Delhi police a couple of years ago, 95 per cent of the accused in rape cases were less than 25 years old.  If this was indeed true it obviously has major implications for efforts to deal with the problem of sexual violence. If it was not, why was such incredible data released by the police?  Or was police information misreported by the media? 

The law is another area that requires more informed reporting.  The new amendments to the law relating to rape, greeted with glee by much of the media in early 2013, were later widely criticised in the context of the charges filed against Tarun Tejpal later that year.  Both the initial reaction and the subsequent reassessment would have been more instructive and convincing if lawyers and activists with the requisite knowledge and experience had been consulted.

And then, most importantly, there is the social, cultural, economic and political context in which the apparent proliferation of sexual crimes is taking place.  It is significant that the most serious efforts to delve into the lives of the perpetrators of the December 2012 gang rape, exploring what could possibly have led them to commit such a brutally violent crime, appeared in two international newspapers.

Articles situating rape within the larger context of gender inequality and patriarchal attitudes towards women, on the one hand, and women’s growing consciousness, confidence and mobility, on the other, have appeared in the opinion and features sections of the print media; so have explorations of the skewed concepts of masculinity that underlie such crimes. However, such essential perspectives (often put forward by professionals from outside the media world), which could promote better understanding of such violence, its causes and consequences, and what needs to be done to tackle the scourge, have not yet permeated sufficiently into regular media practice. 

There is clearly an urgent need to step up and institutionalise ongoing efforts to improve media coverage of sexual violence. In some parts of the world media professionals have sought sensitivity training from survivors of crime and those helping them to secure justice in order to improve the accuracy of their coverage and minimise the trauma it can cause.  Such initiatives could make all the difference provided media institutions are willing to do things differently in order to make a difference. 

(The writer is a journalist and author based in Bangalore)
 
References (Some Resources):

  1. ‘When Survivors Become Victims’ by Sameera Khan in ‘Missing Half the Story: Journalism as if Gender Matters,’  Kalpana Sharma (ed.), Zubaan Books, 2010
  2. The Hoot (www.thehoot.org):  a media watch website – http://www.thehoot.org/resources/reporting-rape
  3. Press Council of India:  Norms of Journalistic Conduct (http://presscouncil.nic.in/NORMS-2010.pdf)
  4. News Broadcasters’ Association: Guidelines on Reportage of Cases of Sexual Assault (issued http://www.nbanewdelhi.com/images/uploadfile/43_PRESS%20RELEASE%207-1-13.pdf)
  5. Report Responsibly (http://report-responsibly-india.tumblr.com):  a platform to host conversation and generate debate about responsible reporting on sexual assault in India.
  6. The Blue Pencil (pencilblue.wordpress.com): a media watch project to monitor reporting on gender violence.
  7. Network of Women in Media, India:  http://www.nwmindia.org (e.g., http://nwmindia.org/about-us/statements/nwmi-statement-on-insensitive-media-coverage-of-gang-rape-victim-in-west-bengal-june-14-2013, http://nwmindia.org/about-us/statements/nwmi-statement-at-mumbai-february-2013-the-media-must-be-part-of-the-solution-not-the-problem, http://www.nwmindia.org/national/identifying-survivors-of-sexual-assault-who-decides)
1...2,6092,6102,611...2,697Page 2,610 of 2,697

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Join our mailing list to get the latest human rights news that matters, straight to your mailbox.

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Join our mailing list to get the latest human rights news that matters, straight to your mailbox.

Important Links

Other Links

CONNECT

Email: sabrangind@gmail.com

© Sabrang | All Rights Reserved