Brute Violence by Men in Uniform: Chhatisgarh

January 21, 2016

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.

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.
Kartami, the wife of Bhuiyan was badly beaten, her right hand was injured, right thigh and lower back has got swelling.
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.
Kartami Kosi, the daughter of Budhva was stripped by the police. They made fun of her breasts and then beat her badly.
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.
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.
First 29 people had been taken into custody by the security forces, three were released, they are also badly injured.
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

January 21, 2016

“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.

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):

‘When Survivors Become Victims’ by Sameera Khan in ‘Missing Half the Story: Journalism as if Gender Matters,’ Kalpana Sharma (ed.), Zubaan Books, 2010
The Hoot (www.thehoot.org): a media watch website – http://www.thehoot.org/resources/reporting-rape
Press Council of India: Norms of Journalistic Conduct (http://presscouncil.nic.in/NORMS-2010.pdf)
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)
Report Responsibly (http://report-responsibly-india.tumblr.com): a platform to host conversation and generate debate about responsible reporting on sexual assault in India.
The Blue Pencil (pencilblue.wordpress.com): a media watch project to monitor reporting on gender violence.
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)

No dialogue between sheep and wolves

January 20, 2016

I had my first close encounter with Mr. Narendra Modi in the late 1990s, sometime before he was parachuted into Ahmedabad as the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s choice as the new chief minister of Gujarat. He had accompanied RSS chief Kuppahalli Sudarshan, now dead, to the office of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India in New Delhi to meet Archbishop Alan de Lastic, the late Archbishop of Delhi who was then head of the Catholic Church in India.

It was not a structured “formal dialogue”, but the Archbishop was persuaded to meet them after a long chain of violent events, with several intermediaries including a US-based Christian scholar who claimed he was doing a doctoral research study on inter religious dialogue. The man did not explain why the talk was fixed with the RSS chief, and not with the several Shankaracharyas and heads of various sects and “mutts” in India, or even with the Ramakrishna Mission with whom the church had, through its interfaith dialogue commissions, been regularly in touch then, as it is now.

The Archbishop insisted that the talk be held in his headquarters, and not at the RSS offices, or even a “neutral” place. He also chose a delegation of clergy, women and some laypersons, I among them, to join the meeting. I was even more reluctant than the Archbishop. In a lifetime in journalism – now 46 years and counting – I had covered scores, if not hundreds, of riots targeted at Muslims, and the one against Sikhs in 1984, had read every single judicial enquiry report, and seen first hand Sangh “shivirs”, training camps and shakhas in various states of India, including Delhi. As most reporters of that time did, we had also gone through the founding texts of the RSS, including “A bunch of Thoughts”, and “We, our Nationhood Defined”. And most of the “parchas”, booklets, pamphlets and handbills that we could collect in the riot hit areas. I am sure the police and the Intelligence Bureau would have sackfuls of these in their archives.

The so-called meeting was the disaster it had been anticipated to be by the Archbishop. Mr. Modi uttered very few words, but Mr. Sudarshan was articulate in his opposition to Hindus being converted to Christianity, which he implied was not at their own volition, but by some fraud or trick being played by Christian priests. He wanted the Church to stop conversions immediately. Archbishop Alan tried to explain to him the theological underpinning of conversion, a change of heart and mind-set. I do not think Mr. Sudarshan was listening. He said no one converts as a matter of choice, or of free will, a concept of which he was perhaps ignorant. One of the women in our delegation, a social worker and communications expert from Nagpur, and an official of the Church of North India, told Mr. Sudarshan that she was the daughter of a Hindu family, upper caste at that, a post graduate, and had converted to Christianity without anyone forcing her to do so. Mr. Sudarshan was not expecting this retort, and from a woman at that. He kept quiet. That was also the end of the meeting.

It was also the only time in my life I have been in a “meeting” or a “dialogue” with the RSS, though I routinely attend meetings with almost all political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, and count many religious heads, including prominent Hindus, among my friends. I meet them frequently, alone, in groups, and in formal “dialogue” settings.

There may be individuals, possibly those seeking some political opportunity, who may have met RSS leaders in the almost two decades since then, and of course those living in Nagpur who run into the Sangh leadership in the city which is their headquarters, but to my knowledge, there have been only two major group meetings between Christian religious leaders and the Sangh leadership of any senior rank. There are many genuine and self styled Christian Bishops, and others, including former Supreme court judges, who routinely meet BJP leaders, and a few who even subscribe to the BJP ideology. But they remain in a very small minority.

One of the women in our (Chritistian) delegation, a social worker and communications expert from Nagpur, and an official of the Church of North India, told Mr. Sudarshan that she was the daughter of a Hindu family, upper caste at that, a post graduate, and had converted to Christianity without anyone forcing her to do so. Mr. Sudarshan was not expecting this retort, and from a woman at that. He kept quiet.

One of these two meetings was in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack in Orissa in the wake of the massive violence against Christians in the district of Kandhamal. Just to recall, more than 6,000 houses and more than 300 churches were destroyed in district wide arson in August 2008, following the assassination of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati by Maoists in his ashram in the district. More than 120 Christians were murdered, and about 60,000 people had to flee into the nearby Sal forests to save their lives. The death toll would have been massive if the forests had not given them shelter. Tens of thousands remain in government camps because of continuous threats. The church helped rebuild their houses when the government arbitrarily shut down the camps. The other meeting was in a guise of a Christmas get together where Mr. Indresh Kumar, the senior RSS leader, was present. He is apparently the point person for Sikhs, Muslims and Christians. This is not the occasion to dwell on his antecedents and his record at the hands of the National Investigations Agency.

The so-called dialogue in Orissa saw the Sangh repeat its well-known arguments as it blamed the Christians for inviting the violence on them. At the end of the “talks”, the Sangh leaders went away saying they would decide on a statement. The statement never came. This is the way these dialogues end.

The church loves dialogue. It is a tenet of the Catholic teachings. Various Popes and Congregations have propounded on the need for continuous dialogue. A special emphasis is dialogue for peace, against terrorism, and for the welfare of people. But it does not see dialogue as capitulation to evil, or violence, or to moral issues, which go against the values taught by Jesus Christ. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” refers to governments, constitutional agencies, official and accepted structures as excising in democracies, and sometimes even in dictatorships. Many in the church still look askance at some of the actions of the Church during the rule of Adolf Hitler.

The current talk of a possible dialogue is because of a report that the Sangh is setting up a Rashtriya Isai [Christian} Manch on the lines of its frontal organisations for Sikhs and Muslims. Both communities have rejected those organisations, which now remain mostly on paper with a few minority representatives heading them for the occasional show at election time.

According to the Catholic media, the Church is on a wait-and-watch mode towards the RSS' plans to float the Christian Manch. Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the current president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) has said that he was yet to be convinced about the new outfit's actual objectives. The Cardinal is not unaware of the ideology of the Sangh.

Apart from the main objection to the ideology of the RSS, which is rooted in a Nazi-Fascist inspiration, and racist and religious hate against other faiths, there are several other reasons why I oppose any bilateral dialogue with a group whose short history of 90 years is so steeped in violence and bloodshed.

The presence of Christians in India is historic, and they constitute an important strand that makes the composite culture of the south Asian landmass. Their contribution towards the evolution of a modern nation is also historic. But it is often forgotten in debate that their citizenship, as of other religious minorities, is cemented in the Constitution. They are not here on sufferance, or because they are “tolerated” by another group or political entity.

As citizens of a constitutional state, they are answerable to other instruments of state, such as the courts, and parliament. How can they allow themselves to be judged by non–state actors such as the RSS?

A dialogue with non-state actors effectively betrays the State, and the Constitution, and dilutes the rule of law. There can be no question of Muslims, Sikhs or Christians “buying” or negotiating collective or separate peace and security with the RSS. The Constituent assembly saw the creative dialogue required for rule of law and creation of a civil society in which people can live in peace and pursue development and happiness.

Can Christians, or any other community, seek bilateral treaties with various groups in India? This suggestion is fraught with serious consequences for the unity of the country. All communities have to live together, and this can happen only if they swear common allegiance to the Constitution and the rule of law. We shudder to think of a situation there two or more communities gang up against a third one. This has happened in some nations, which have been rent asunder in civil strife.

What will be the Terms of Reference, TOR, of any dialogue? What will the Christian community seek in such a dialogue? That it be left alone? Or seek a certificate from the RSS that it is a good Christian community? That it will give up all its unique activities, including speaking of Jesus Christ and will confine itself to mere closed-door rituals? That it will run its schools and colleges and hospitals as mere social work or commercial establishments and not reach out to the poor, the Dalits and tribals, the marginalised people?

What is the guarantee that any assurance by such non-state actors can be trusted?

There is an ongoing dialogue of life between people of all groups. For Christians, this dialogue of life is 2,000 years old, beginning in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

This on-going dialogue between the peoples of all communities is why there is peace in the countryside in such a complex nation, unless fanatics such as of the RSS come and polarize the people. This dialogue, which brings unity in commerce, social needs and goodwill, and a common commitment to the rule of law, is permanent. This is the experience of all democracies across the world.

Dialogue is good. We need to dialogue with other spiritual traditions. We need to dialogue with different Christian denominations. And in the Catholic Church, there must be a healthy dialogue between the laity, the religious, the hierarchy, and the clergy. This is essential for a healthy church. Let us begin with this essential dialogue. And let the RSS learn more about India and its constitution.

(The author is a journalist, occasional documentary film maker and social activist)

For freedom’s sake

January 20, 2016

Why the current criticism of Charlie Hebdo is not only factually wrong but also dangerous

Kavita Krishnan’s recent article (https://sabrangindia.in/article/racism-not-anti-racist-%E2%80%98satire%E2%80%99) makes a scathing criticism of Charlie Hebdo’s alleged racism. This article and one other was shared widely on social media and Facebook, including by several left-wing writers, politicians and poets. Another such was in the Citizen: http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=6499&CHARLIE%2FHEBDO%2FDOES%2FIT%2FAGAIN#comment

Why am I referring specifically to the left-wing? Not because I am against their views in general; quite the contrary. If such articles were written by some right-wing authors writing for a right-wing audience, I would not even bother to comment on a single FB posting, as there is little to no point trying to change any views there. (Just as it would not be possible to do so with a “better” cartoon in CH or elsewhere).

What bothers me, and what has prompted me to comment on Krishnan's FB postings to a point where she almost blocked me (Thanks to her for not doing so and apologies for having been a nuisance), is the fact that many sane and highly politically aware people are criticising a publication (Charlie Hebdo) that is by no means an “enemy”. In fact it is very much on their side; for freedom of expression, of the press, and of opinion.

The sad fact that they so strongly criticize CH in front of their own left-leaning audiences is what causes me to write this, as they provide these audiences with a totally incorrect and out-of-context view of this magazine and its intentions. What really puzzles me is the motivation behind trying to prove that CH is sexist and racist. What is to be gained here?

Such castigation not only goes against freedom of speech, it ultimately plays into the hands of those who have said all along that CH deserved what they got last year. As it were, these voices have already been seen in FB comments underneath the postings of Krishnan and others. It will be argued that CH is despised (not only) in the West as racist and sexist, plus they insulted the prophet, so it was right to kill them? I refuse to believe that is what Krishnan and others would advocate. But how else is one to understand the allegations?

Why is left-wing damnation of CH so problematic and why should it be clarified, and if possible, revised? Because such criticism of CH is in fact not a matter of opinion, but arises from a complete and utter misunderstanding of the cartoons themselves, their socio-cultural context, and the history of such specifically French satire, which is sharp and often extremely direct. To make things worse, a CH cartoon from 1970 (!) was also dug up to show their “sexism“, in another crass misrepresentation of facts, by way of a Facebook posting that has already been shared widely in the same left-wing circles and is being used to further criticize and “expose” the magazine. This however will not be discussed in detail here and now.

I will deliberately leave aside the question whether the recent CH cartoon – which supposedly alleges that Aylan Kurdi would have grown up to be a groper in Germany – is in good taste or not. Whether one approves of the way it uses the picture of a dead child for the purpose of a cartoon is a matter for debate, and it is clearly a matter of personal opinion more than anything else. But as argued above, what is definitely not a matter of opinion is whether this cartoon (and others in CH) may be considered openly “racist“, as Krishnan and others have claimed, based on how a hypothetical adult Aylan Kurdi is shown with the face of a pig running after a woman he wants to grope.

The cartoon is simply taken at face value here and the conclusion drawn that it shows the cartoonist's (and Charlie Hebdo's) own statement or conviction that this is what would have inevitably happened, had he not drowned. However, as context and history clearly show this is utterly wrong and therefore the accusations are baseless. Holding on to such accusations nonetheless will be self-defeating as argued above.

Before going into cultural context and quoting an example from the history of CH cartoons, it is important to point out that the allegedly racist cartoon has also been taken out of its editorial context (deliberately?) to score anti-CH points. This is but one of four cartoons in a column, appearing below a headline that reads, “France is not what people say”. The first one refers to a discussion in France on whether or not terrorists with double citizenship should be stripped of their French citizenship. French Justice Minister, Christiane Taubira, who is depicted here, and who has also been the subject of allegedly “racist” CH cartoons (more on that below), opposes this. The other politician says she will have to accept it or step back. The second cartoon is the one being hotly debated. The third one satirizes the fate of cartoonists. It says, “Since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, people no longer draw the same way”, with the man in the cartoon commenting, “We now do self-portraits”. The fourth one refers to protests against the construction of an airport, and says, “All united except in Notre-Dame-des-Landes” (the name of the place). The policeman's shield refers to “Je suis Charlie” and says, “So am I, normally, but not today”.

This context alone might provide ample evidence of the fact that the Aylan Kurdi cartoon can neither be viewed in isolation, nor taken at face value as a straightforward statement against the dead child. Instead, it clearly satirises and thereby criticises those who do hold such views, some of whom may have earlier shared the dead child's photograph out of compassion when it was first published. As an aside, this issue of CH also contains four drawings by the same cartoonist (‘Riss’), which are anti-clerical and anti-theist in nature, equally attacking Christian, Jewish, and Islamic clerics.

If this is not enough evidence, one will need to look at earlier cases of such CH cartoons that appear “racist” at first, but turn out to being the exact opposite if seen in the right political and socio-cultural context. I will pick one example, and provide a number of links for a better understanding of CH cartoons, as others have already analysed these in a way far better than I could.

It is important to realize first of all that CH cartoons never were, and still are not, meant to cater to the tastes of a streamlined global audience, and its expectations of what “good satire” may or may not be, say, or do. CH has a long history of saying the unsayable and thinking the unthinkable. For CH, whether or not global readers are able to personally relate to it must not become a basis for factually incorrect accusations of “racism”, “sexism” etc.

CH is specifically French not only in its language, but also in the way it makes its statements. Those who claim that good satire should not need an explanation might want to look at political cartoons in their own country and ask themselves whether these would be accessible to global audiences without a solid background knowledge of who is being portrayed how and in what context. This certainly applies to Indian cartoons (anything beyond Modi cartoons will likely not be understood elsewhere), but also to specifically American or British caricature. Obama and Trump will need no explanation, but what about Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders?

Now to a prime example of how CH cartoons are prone to be misunderstood if taken at face value: This is a cartoon showing the French cabinet minister Christiane Taubira. CH's then editor-in-chief, the late Stéphane Charbonnier, aka ‘Charb’, actually drew her as a monkey. Now, is that not blatantly racist? No. Not at all. A quote from the website ‘Understanding Charlie Hebdo' (now offline, archived version here
https://web.archive.org/web/20150905180008/ http://www.understandingcharliehebdo.com/) explains it as follows:

“The cartoon was published after a National Front politician Facebook-shared a photoshop of Justice Taubira, drawn as a monkey, and then said on French television that she should be ‘in a tree swinging from the branches rather than in government’ [Le Monde] (she was later sentenced to 9 months of prison). The cartoon is styled as a political poster, calling on all far right ‘Marine’ racists to unify, under this racist imagery they have chosen. Ultimately, the cartoon is criticising the far-right's appeal to racism to gain supporters”. (The red/blue logo in the corner is that of the neo-fascist French ‘Front National’, a kind of BJP/RSS/VHP conglomerate…).

Now Christiane Taubira not only did not criticize this cartoon, she later went to the CH cartoonists' funerals, and held a eulogy on one occasion, where she made the following statement: “Do taboos exist? Well, yes, according to them, it’s better to avoid drawing and caricaturing the CGT trade union for printers, for daily newspapers. [Laughter.] But otherwise no, no taboos. One can draw anything. Even a prophet. Because in France, in the France of Voltaire and of irreverence, one has the right to make fun of religions. A right. Yes, because a right, that’s what democracy is about. Democracy is the rule of law, according to the philosopher Alain.”
(http://www.steamthing.com/2015/05/christiane-taubiras-elogy-for-the-charlie-hebdo-cartoonisttignous.html)

This one example could suffice to show that one must simply not draw conclusions on CH cartoons from what one sees on the surface, much less make these conclusions the basis for accusations and attacks. Sadly, though, that does not seem to be the case. This is what leads Krishnan and others to publish scathing attacks, despite being presented with ample evidence (and personal statements directly from France) that clearly debunk these allegations. In the interest of the audiences they are catering to, and in the interest of the freedom of expression (regardless of personal tastes), I hereby request her and others to seriously reconsider their position, and better yet, publicly retract and correct the accusations and allegations against CH, which already have and will continue to do a lot more harm than good to the same causes they otherwise strongly defend.

A few more links for a better understanding of CH cartoons follow:
• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/11/1356945/-On-not-understanding-Charlie-Whymany-smart-people-are-getting-it-wrong
• http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-charlie-hebdo-cartoon-about-aylan-kurdi-and-sexattackers-is-one-of-its-most-powerful-and-a6812346.html
• https://blogs.mediapart.fr/olivier-tonneau/blog/110115/charlie-hebdo-letter-my-britishfriends
• http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/01/15/in-defense-of-charlie-hebdosalan-kurdi-cartoon/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
• http://www.salon.com/2015/01/08/freedom_democracy_and_the_hidden_meanings_of_the_charlie_hebdo_massacre/

(The writer is a concerned reader from Germany, a staunch atheist, who spent two years in India, mostly in Delhi between 1985 and 1994)

India’s Not So Hidden Apartheid

January 19, 2016

Dalit Students as Victims of Institutional Casteism in India

Re published from http://routesblog.com/2016/01/19/dalit-students-as-victims-of-institutional-casteism-in-india/

India’s unparalleled revolutionary leader B.R.Ambedkar’s infamous dictum is ‘Educate, Agitate, Organise,’ none of which the Indian Brahmanical state wants the 200 million Dalits (former untouchables) to do and this intentional objective of the state was exemplified in the death of an young Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula of University of Hyderabad who aspired to become a scientist like Carl Sagan.

His only fault was that he was a Dalit, that too someone who was conscious of his identity and followed the footsteps of Ambedkar involved in the construction of a Dalit selfhood and claimed himself as a Dalit-Marxist, a political category propagated and made famous among the student community by comrade Chittibabu Padavala.

As president of Ambedkar Students Association, Rohit worked hard to forge a Dalit-Muslim solidarity and fought against food fascism by organising beef festivals a visibly upsetting political exercise for right wing Hindutva forces in the state who had earlier in another educational institution of higher learning had tried hard to foil the establishment of a study circle on Ambedkar but in vain. A whole young generation of conscious Ambedkarites is the most threatening factor for these right wing forces.

What followed was arm-twisting by the Hindutva politicians and the casteist university administration, which succumbed to it and expelled five Dalit students. The expelled students continued their protest by staging a sleep-in-protest within the campus, however as a result of deep inflicted psychological pain, one of the students committed suicide leaving a note depicting the cruelty of caste, he wrote, “The value of a man is reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility to a vote, a number to a thing, never was man treated as a mind.” This evaluation of what is being valued it is not mind but identity which in practical terms does count in the most hierarchical society in the world leaves us with what Gopal Guru[1] famously formulated as the Theoretical Brahmins and Empirical Shudras where the latter is a matter of mere numbers while the former is associated with cognition.

The Brahmanical state follows certain uniformity when it comes to dealing with the Dalits, they practice humiliation to an extent that is disgusting. The state, which was not able to provide a dignified life to Dalits at least should guarantee a honourable final journey. More like the recent incident that happened in Tamil Nadu where a 100 year old Dalit man whose funeral procession was prevented by caste Hindus despite a High Court Order which finally saw the police instead of implementing the HC Order were found carrying the body doing the cremation.

In Rohit Vemula’s case too, the state after seeing the students assemble in huge numbers sensed that they would showcase the anger towards state secretly without a grain of respect for the departed soul hurriedly performed the cremation.

The educational institutions in India are largely nothing but an extension of rural life marked by caste rigidity for most of the Dalit students, the only difference is caste is tangible in the latter case while in the former it is a combination of visible forms of caste practices and also in more subtle forms. The caste discrimination starts from the level of primary schools where once can cite numerous cases of Dalit kids being asked to clean toilets to use separate utensils to eat and drink.

And, it is also a common phenomenon to witness the social boycott of Dalits as mid day meal programme cooks. Citing ritual pollution the caste Hindu parents would make their children go hungry than eat food cooked by a Dalit. In a recent incident, a Dalit kid was asked by his teacher to remove faecal material in front of fellow students using bare hands. Ashamed by this act the child has developed a psychological disorder, an obsession to constantly wash his hands. Suspecting reasons for this change in his behavior, when parents probed the child to find out what had happened, and it was only after strong protests that the caste Hindu teacher was arrested. This is one among numerous cases we see unfolding in what are called “spaces of learning.” Coloured wrist bands as a form of identification of their respective castes is a common feature in most of the schools in the rural and semi urban pockets of southern Tamil Nadu and a few areas in Northern Tamil Nadu.

You can pick any random Dalit and inquire with him about caste discrimination in classrooms prevalent there. There would be many tales to tell, the perpetual psychological fear of being discriminated against and humiliated based on their identity is a lived experience that every Dalit has to undergo inside educational institutions in India. Many are in fact living their lives masquerading their identity for want of caste discrimination.

As deftly put forward in a recent piece by Meena Kandasamy,“ Education has now become a disciplining enterprise working against Dalit students: they are constantly under threat of rustication, expulsion, defamation, discontinuation.” By restricting social interaction the Dalit students are thus faced with deprivation of capabilities, a common feature practiced and perfected by caste Hindus in educational institutions to maintain and safeguard their caste privileges.

The percentage of Dalit students who enter higher educational institutions are meagre in number and even they are not spared. In the name of accumulated privilege over centuries in the form of both cultural and social capital the upper caste Hindus function within an invented realm called meritocracy. Entering the corridors of elite educational institutions like Indian Institute of Technologies (IIT) and Indian Institute of Managements and Central Universities for scores of Dalit students is like walking into hell, the fear of being shamed and humiliated based on birth status hangs like a Damocles sword above their heads. After years of relentless struggles in their everyday lives they reach these institutions only to get caught in the entanglement of the most-unfair game of caste based micro power politics. It was no wonder why given nature of its exclusivity the IIT’s were dubbed as Iyer and Iyengar Technology, a stronghold of Brahminical supremacy.

Root of the Problem

The root of this problem definitely lies with the caste Hindus who are nurtured and brought up within a feudal mindset and even the progressive among them carry a patronizing self as pointed out clearly by Ambedkar,

It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry. We must do something for the Untouchables. One seldom hears any of the persons interested in the problem saying, ‘Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu.’

It is invariably assumed that the object to be reclaimed is the Untouchables. If there is to be a mission, it must be to the Untouchables and if the Untouchables can be cured, Untouchability will vanish. Nothing requires to be done to the Touchable. He is sound in mind, manners and morals. He is whole; there is nothing wrong with him. Is this assumption correct? Whether correct or not, the Hindus like to cling to it. The assumption has the supreme merit of satisfying themselves that they are not responsible for the problem of the Untouchables.

The idea of caste Hindus to empathise and sympathise with the Dalit cause needs to be shunned, instead they should all question their own selves and accept the bitter truth that they as part of this Brahmanical structure indeed failed not only to see annihilation of caste as a praxis but used it as a mere rhetoric. The guilt as practitioners of the most carefully planned hierarchichal system should haunt them as they in a way by remaining silent also played a part resulting in the death of Rohit Vemulas, Senthil Kumars and Nagaraju Koppalas. Ambedkar both as a symbol and an ideologue remains as the ‘weapon of the weak’ in India and carrying his ideals let us march forward to brazen out the social distinctions, inequalities and injustices of a caste-ridden society.

References

[1]. Guru Gopal (2002) How Egalitarian Are the Social Sciences in India? Economic and Political Weekly 37: 5003-5009.

(The writer is a doctoral candidate at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on caste processions and commemorations in Tamil Nadu, and his interests include, identity politics, social movements, caste and class, film studies and urban studies. He was previously working as a Correspondent for The Hindu Newspaper in India)

रोहित वेमुला को एक उदास पुष्प- जो अन्याय की धरती से कल चला गया

January 18, 2016

‎

आओ हम फिर एक शोकगीत गाएँ,
अपने प्यारे बच्चे रोहित वेमुला के नाम
उसी शोक गीत को जो जिंदा है
न जाने कितनी सदियों से
पेशवा युग, पाषाण युग से भी पहले से
जिसे सुन रहे हो तुम, न जाने कितने वषों से
तुम्हारे सतयुग त्रेतायुग द्वापर युग
और युग पर युग बीतते गए.
न बदली तुम्हारी जुबान न बदले तुम्हारे वार
अब जबकि ये कलयुग है
तुम्हारे झूठे किस्से कहानियाँ मनगंढत
शास्त्रों पुराणों की बातों का नही
पर साहेब,
न्यायाधिकारी दंडाथिकारी
धर्माधिकारी, महागुरु द्रोणाचार्यों
की पूरी जमात लगी है
कलयुग को पलटने में
कलयुग तो कलयुग है
जिसकी जुबान काली है
मजबूत है तीखी है
भोथरी है धारदार है
जिसमें संघर्ष के लिए तनी कई मुट्ठियाँ है
तैयार हो रहे है सब हाथ में हाथ डालकर
लिपट रहे है गले मिल मिलकर
एक साथ साथ रोने और लड़ने के लिए।

अनिता भारती

Can Feminists save the Anglican Church?

January 18, 2016

Libby Lane became the first woman bishop in the Church of England in 2015. Image: Reuters/Phil Noble

Feminist theology attempts to re-frame Christianity to allow oppressed groups access to God, who, it turns out, does not privilege the male, white, middle class and heterosexual humans after all

The Anglican Church is experiencing internal angst – again. For those looking in, the endless debates about gender and human sexuality seem unreasonable, outmoded and downright unjust.

Challenges that rattle the “divine order” are difficult for the church. For centuries doctrine has been fixed on notions of a “natural” order; God made man, then woman as the second sex, and he made them heterosexual.

As Rosemary Radford Ruether, a brilliant theologian of the feminist movement, reminded us, Christianity has always absorbed cultural change to match people’s real lives – thankfully. Yet Christian doctrine seems to be continually out of step with social progress.

On the other hand, feminist theologians of the 1970s and 1980s have a message that is still relevant today. If religious symbols or doctrines do not match people’s experiences and identities, the symbols and doctrines need to change. The more fundamental the change, however, the more painful it appears to be.

Diverse theologies are, no doubt, part of the training for the priestly caste, but both the hierarchy and the lay population of the worldwide Anglican Church may well be missing out on the discussion of feminist theology happening at the margins.

Changing what seemed fixed
Feminism has produced some startling and radical theologies over the years, making it possible for women to claim their place in the Anglican Church hierarchy as priests and bishops.

Christian feminists are working to subvert the patriarchal dogma of Christianity from within, dealing with some awkward, misogynist biblical passages and some awkward traditionalists. Read Mary Daly or Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and it becomes possible to imagine Christian symbols in ways that are not oppressive.

Feminist theology attempts to re-frame Christianity to allow oppressed groups access to God, who, it turns out, does not privilege the male, white, middle class and heterosexual humans after all. Queer theology, like feminist theology, operates at the boundaries of the Church, though there is much more hope, acceptance and optimism at the grassroots.

Christian theology widely asserted that women were inferior, weak, depraved, and vicious. The logical consequences of this opinion were worked out in a brutal set of social arrangements that shortened and crushed the lives of women.

Feminism started a theological ball rolling. As a result the worldwide Anglican Church has seen dramatic, if uneven, change. In the 1960s, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, said with confidence that it would take “millions and millions of years” for women to be ordained in the Church of England. Those millions of years turned out to be just 30.

In that time, feminists worked tirelessly to talk the church out of its most blatant sexist dogma. The same process is happening for the LGBTQ Christian community. Of course, sexual identity is much more than being able to be married in church, but it would be an outward sign of theological transformation.

For those who identify as Christian and are part of any group that could be considered marginal, the importance of feminist theology cannot be overstated. We now have ways of seeing religious myths and symbols separately from the dominant masculine heterosexual perspective. Christ can be imagined as female, lesbian, gay, queer, black – blowing the symbol wide open.

In 1975, Mary Daly gave feminists the task of challenging all religious symbols that result in discrimination and oppression. For her, the women’s movement is in the business of raising consciousness so that religious beliefs negating a person’s identity can (and must) be changed.

This is important, as Mary Daly puts it, because, “Christian theology widely asserted that women were inferior, weak, depraved, and vicious. The logical consequences of this opinion were worked out in a brutal set of social arrangements that shortened and crushed the lives of women.”

People who are not heterosexual, living in communities where traditional Christian dogma influences socially oppressive views, may well relate to this statement.

Feminist theology has the capacity to change Christian spirituality into a liberating force. Daly spoke loudly from the revolutionary atmosphere of second wave feminism in the 1970s, believing the women’s movement was “the greatest single hope for survival of spiritual consciousness on this planet”. Feminism, she said, would be the saviour of the human species. Perhaps feminism could, at the very least, be the antidote to schism over same-sex marriage?

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Education for All: Join the #Occupy UGC National Campaign

January 18, 2016

90 days down, the build up to an All India University Strike

It has been close to three months since the‪ #Occupy UGC movement started as a spontaneous response of students to UGC's utterly rash decision of discontinuation of the non-NET fellowship scheme.

Due to the sustained protests, the government was compelled to review the decision, pass it on to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) which has further passed the matter on to a Review Committee. There is still no clear communication from the Government about the proceedings or decisions of the MHRD, the UGC or the Review committee on the status of the non-NET fellowships.

Over two months ago, on November 5, 2015 the HRD Minister, Smriti Irani had given certain reassurances to the protesting students. There has been no clear-cut reassurance however, from the MHRD, backed by any written order (government resolution) indicating clearly that the fellowship(s) would be either enhanced or expanded. When she met the protesting students, Irani had also assured them of fair representation before the Review Committee; far from representation, for over a month after the first protest, students were not even given an appointment with the Ministry. On January 13, 2016 when irate students finally blocked the road in front of the MHRD, they were given an audience with officials in the MHRD, but not with the Minister.

The workings of the Review Committee meant to look into the usefulness of the fellowship are also suspect. Students were first put in touch with the head of the Review committee who informed them of the Committee’s meeting slated for January 16, 2016. Since then however students have been informed that no further date for any meeting has been fixed. This has been the reason, among others of the decision of the protesting students to intensify the protest. The #Occupy UGC group of protesting students has called the attitude of the government towards students' issues ‘irresponsible’ and further criticized the government for lack of accountability in the functioning of the UGC and the MHRD.

The indefinite delay on part of the government in resolving the issue — discontinuation of the non-NET fellowship scheme that benefits students with lack of opportunity and access—is completely unjustified and intolerable. There is a sense of restlessness and impatience at the absence of any written commitment, Order or GR from the MHRD.

Hence the next one month will see spiraling protests:
1) A nationwide signature campaign will be started on the January 18, 2016 reiterating the demands for an increase in the budgetary allocation to the non-NET fellowship and an expansion of the non-NET scheme to state universities without any exclusionary criteria, for all research scholars. Also, the signature campaign will raise the demand that the overall budgetary allocation for education be increased to 10 per cent in the upcoming budget session, as fund-cuts in education under World Bank and WTO diktats are undermining the education system in the country.

2) The signature campaign will conclude by the February 15, 2016 and students from all Universities have been urged to send signatures sheets to the JNU Students' Union office till February 17, 2016. The signatures will be submitted to the MHRD, the President of India and the Prime Minister of India. The signature campaign will also run online, to ensure maximum participation.

3) The #Occupy UGC Campaign has also called for an All-India University Strike on the February 18, 2016 in all Central and State universities, demanding adequate funds for research fellowships. On the day of the strike, the signatures collected thus far will be submitted to the MHRD.

References:
1. To Study or to Not be Able to Study
2. Where is the news? Peaceful students protest faces police brutality in Delhi
3. Why higher education in India must not bow to the market

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Brute Violence by Men in Uniform: Chhatisgarh

Uncovering Rape

No dialogue between sheep and wolves

For freedom’s sake

India’s Not So Hidden Apartheid

Dalit Students as Victims of Institutional Casteism in India

रोहित वेमुला को एक उदास पुष्प- जो अन्याय की धरती से कल चला गया

Can Feminists save the Anglican Church?

Feminist theology attempts to re-frame Christianity to allow oppressed groups access to God, who, it turns out, does not privilege the male, white, middle class and heterosexual humans after all

Education for All: Join the #Occupy UGC National Campaign

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