In a meeting organised by the editors of the Report ‘Dismantling India: A 4 Years Report’, which was published by Media House, Ashok Vajpeyi talks on ‘Culture in Darkness’. He talks about how violence in a new form is getting government protection and encouragement first time in the
history of independent India.
Courtesy: Newsclick.in
Image Courtesy: Indian Express
In a press conference addressed in Mumbai today, a civil society group of Indian Muslims has condemned the retrograde stand of the AIMPLB on triple talag, nikah halala and polygamy.
They have said:
The Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) fully supports the pending petitions in the Supreme Court calling for a ban on nikah halala, polygamy, muta (temporary marriage) and misyar (traveller’s stop-gap marriages). IMSD proposes to intervene in the Supreme Court in support of the petitions filed by Sameena Begum and Naish Hasan demanding the outlawing of such unconstitutional practices.
It rejects the claim of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board that the perverse practice of nikah halala as prevalent today cannot be questioned because it is Qur’anic.
The defence of a practice which is demeaning to women is shameful and totally contrary to the teachings of the Qur’an. What’s more, such blatantly discriminatory, unjust, anti-women and unconstitutional views contribute to the sangh parivar’s brazen ongoing agenda of demonising all Muslims even as it sheds crocodile tears out of pretended concern for “our Muslim sisters”.
Read together, verses 2:229 and 2:230 of the Qur’an state: “A divorce is only permissible twice: after that, the parties should either hold together on equitable terms, or separate with kindness (2:229); So if a husband divorces his wife (irrevocably), He cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and He has divorced her. In that case there is no blame on either of them if they re-unite (2:230).”
As has been conclusively established in the Shayara Bano case, as the Quran prescribes an elaborate procedure which must precede a divorce, triple talaq (instant divorce) is un-Qur’anic.
As many an Islamic scholar has pointed out, before the birth of Islam it was common practice for some men to treat their wives as playthings. They resorted to the practice of frequent divorce to torment their wives, keep them hanging, prevent them from marrying another man. Verses 2:229 and 2:230 were aimed at protecting women from such exploitative and unjust treatment. This is what may be called nikah halala in the Qur’anic sense.
In sharp contrast to this, and notwithstanding the Supreme Court order of August 2017 invalidating triple talaq, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board continues to maintain that though repugnant in theology, the practice remains valid in Islamic law. In keeping with this worldview, the current-day practice of nikah halala is nothing but a “one-night marriage” wherein a Muslim woman victim of triple talaq is forced to have sex with another man who then promptly divorces her to facilitate her re-marriage to her former husband.
Thus a Qur’anic methodology aimed at protecting women from being treated as a plaything has been perverted by the ulema and turned into its very opposite: an arrangement that effectively reduces a woman to a sex toy.
Nikah halala as practised today is nothing short of a shameful sex-racket, and that of a particularly obnoxious kind. Not only does it demean and degrade a woman, she or her family is obliged to pay for the “service” provided by a man for a fee that runs into tens of thousands of rupees. The said “service” is often provided by a molvi or a mufti himself. IMSD condemns the current-day nikah halala practice and anyone who endorses it.
For similar reasons, IMSD supports the outlawing of polygamy, muta (temporary marriage) misyar (traveller’s stop-gap marriage).
IMSD also has serious issues with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s recently declared intent to create ‘Darul Qazas’ all over the country. The Board’s announcement fuels the sangh parivar and its lapdog media’s communal propaganda that Muslims owe no allegiance to the law of the land and are setting up their own parallel “sharia courts”.
Some legal luminaries among Muslims claim that Darul Qazas are in fact only a kind of alternative dispute redressal (ADR) mechanisms which are sprouting all over the world as the “new norm”. For the Board, however, it is but evident that they propose to resolve marital disputes in accordance with their idea of the sharia or Islamic law.
The question before IMSD is this: what justice can Muslim women victims of triple talaq, nikah halala, polygamy, muta and misyar marriages expect from a clergy that proclaims such blatantly discriminatory, anti-women practices are in keeping with “Allah’s laws”?
The press conference held in Mumbai on July 19, 2018 was addressed by Javed Anand (Convener, IMSD), Feroze Mithiborwala (Co-convener), Hasan Kamaal (Member, Working Committee) and Zeenat Shaukatali (Member, Working Committee).
On July 17, two days ago, Swami Agnivesh, an 80 year old rationalist and social activist was attacked in Pakur Jharkhand on July 17 by a lynch mob allegedly affiliated to the ruling dispensation.
What was the provocation ? It appears that a speech given by him recently didn’t go down well with BJP supporters and irked them to unimaginable limits. Funnily, many BJP supporters posted a video of the speech on Facebook and other social media channels and justified the attack!
In the video Swami Agnivesh can be seen ridiculing various recent commentaries by political giants including none other than the Prime Minister, Mr. Modi. Most importantly, he can be heard attacking various myths and superstitions propagated by one interpretation of the Hindu religion and advocated officially by the current government and its various representatives.
Agnivesh’s speech is sharp and an expression of dissent, all made within an atmosphere where the simplest of acts have and can be labelled as ‘hurtful of religious sentiments’. It is an audacious act to dissect these practices in a manner not only to shock, but be accepted within a massive crowd of common, believers. The saffron clad seer is clearly more effective than many. Very few rationalists have been able to present such sharp critiques openly in the recent past. When they have, they have been unfortunately, attacked in the most gruesome manner. No wonder then, that the saffron clad seer is such a threat to the bhakt brigade.
Swami Agnivesh can be seen expressing his utter disbelief at the Prime Minister’s fallacious contentions, for example the one speech in which he says that in ancient India, the Hindu deity Ganesha underwent plastic surgery and his head was replaced with that of an elephant’s.
Referring to another peculiar statement by none other than the PM himself, again, he pointed out, “The PM said that the Kauravas (characters from a well-known Hindu epic, Mahabharata), multiplied themselves into hundreds. This, they achieved through stem-cell transplants” Mockingly, Swami Agnivesh laments, “Such lies, such pageantry, such superstitions, and India’s PM is perpetuating these! The country will move towards a deep abyss,” he predicts
The crowd whole-heartedly applauds Agnivesh’s speech and statements.
Swami Agnivesh, with even more grace, now speaking in a satirical and animated manner, imitating the PM, then adds, “When you go to Nepal as a PM, you spend two hours inside the Pashupati temple, [in your full attire], wearing a garland and a Tika (religious mark on forehead) and then worship inside for two hours, if you want to worship [like that], become a priest! The PM’s chair isn’t fit for your work”
He questioned the “Pooja” done by the PM in Bangladesh, in the temple of one deity Dhakeshwari and says that a PM worshipping Gods and Goddesses is against the secular spirit of the constitution. He adds also that he has condemned these ridiculous acts of the PM in Dehradun, and in Srinagar!
All these, the Amarnath worshipping, Tirumala, Tirupati, all these places are places where superstition was bred. Talking about a Hindu pilgrimage Amarnath Yatra he mentions, “TV persons asked me in Srinagar, Swami ji, Amarnath Yatra time period has been reduced by 15 days, what is your reaction? I told them why only 15 days, the yatra should be stopped altogether”
Shedding light on the superstitious belief that there was a ‘Barfani baba’ (Ice-God) or a Shivling (Hindu God Shiva) at Amarnath, he said that no such Gods existed. He adds that it is a well-known fact that the ice formations are a work of the stalactite and stalagmite deposits. When, at the height of more than 13,000 feet from sea level, the water drips from the Himalayas, the ice formations happen in a certain manner. He points out that this was a natural phenomenon and there is no divinity in it! He adds, “These claims, that the government has to take the effort to go all the way up to thousands of feet and deploy forces for the ‘yatra’, all this was an ostentatious pomp!”
Talking about an interesting anecdote, he recalls a time when the so called Shivlinga melted and the then Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Gen. S. K. Sinha went with artificial ice in a helicopter so that when the ‘devotees’ (Bhagat log) come, then they should be able to witness ‘Shiva’. He ridiculed such actions on the part of the government and rightly questions, “Is this the job of the government?”
When the Kumbh fair takes place every year, many die in stampede. People come to ‘wash their sins’ Swami Agnivesh says, “I roam around the fair distributing pamphlets about how all this is a spectacle. How washing in dirty waters [of Ganges] won’t wash off one’s sins, but will cause diseases!”
It is crucial that a sane and scientific voice like that of Swami Agnivesh is preserved and protected. When people are, on the one hand, going to ridiculous lengths to prove their secularism by coming up with hashtags such #TalkToAMuslim, or, on the other hand, are being pushed into ghettos, this speech by Swami Agnivesh is an act of courage, unmatched in its clarity and audacity.
Today, two days after the assault, protests have taken place in various parts of the country in support of Swami Agnivesh. Swami Agnivesh himself has pointed out that the violence on him cannot be seen in isolation and has also the elements of a conspiracy and pre-planned attack.
A shocking video of police brutality on Manipur University students has emerged on July 18. Manipur Police can be seen mercilessly beating up students. In the process, one student falls in front of a running vehicle and gets critically injured. The police not only witness this, they keep on beating the students. The students frantically stop another vehicle passing by and load the injured student on it.
Video (Sent on Whatsapp)
This is not a random video. The video is testimony to more than 50 days old protests and discontent building up in Manipur University.
A pamphlet issued by Manipur Students’ Association Delhi (MSAD) informed that a military battalion was stationed inside the campus which the students claim is “one of its kind in the whole world.” The reaction from the Centre has been to call in more armed forces within the campus. This is reminiscent of Sardar Patel’s statement made in 1949 in which he asked, “Isn’t there a brigadier in Shillong?”
The Manipur University Students’ Union (MUSU) gave a call for a general strike on July 17 and on the first day of the strike, ‘normal life’ seemed to have been “paralysed”
At the heart of the strike and protests is the demand for the removal of Manipur University’s Vice Chancellor, Adya Prasad Pandey from his current position. Students launched the protests to oust the VC from May 30, alleging “administrative failure” as the main reason for such a demand.
Students allege that the VC has not stepped inside the University campus since the time protests started. Instead, it appears he is busy hobnobbing with the Centre and made a trip to Delhi even amid an atmosphere of huge crisis. Simultaneously, in a booklet released by the MUSU, it has been alleged that the VC has a “bizarre habit of remaining away from the campus for very long periods” and most of these tours are “unofficial.” He has also been accused of violating the Manipur University (MU) Act, 2005 and failed to adhere to procedures related to financial assessments and planning. No convocation was held in the university since April 2014. Another serious issue flagged in the booklet is that a “large amount of unaccounted money is being donated to several politically motivated organisation with the ulterior motive” leading to “misuse.” The booklet also sheds light on the “notorious manner” in which the money from the university is being transferred to one Lucknow based firm. The VC has also been accused of failure to start much awaited courses such as LLM, MA fine Arts, M.Ed. Apart from that, there has been an apparent delay and disruption of academic calendar. And students also allege “psychological” harassment in the name of frequent frisking by guards.
Responding to the call for strike, all government and private institutions remained shut and all forms of transportation stayed off the road except for some private vehicles seen plying on the roads.
The MSAD also gave a call for protest in New Delhi, with key demands such as:
1) The ruining of Manipur University affecting the entire student community by the presence of VC, A.P Pandey.
2) Arbitrary eviction by the BJP government.
3) The border conflict between Manipur and Myanmar.
It is noteworthy that as many as 60-70 Undergraduate colleges fall in the ambit of the Manipur University. Students allege that the current crisis has impacted all of their functioning. Students also seem to believe that this is a systematic disruption of the University space in Manipur.
A joint statement released by the community of protesters said a joint meeting of the executive members of Manipur Teachers’ Association (MUTA), Manipur University Students’ Union and Manipur University Staffs’ Association was held on July 18 at MUTA office. And the bodies there resolved to reiterate that the removal of VC Pandey was non-negotiable before one could proceed towards any intervention to resolve the present crisis in the varsity.
The meeting also took serious note of the brutal force used against the students who were “democratically agitating” and strongly condemned the actions of the state police stating the “manner will even put the animal kingdom to shame.”
Also, another important and controversial issue is that of the “arbitrary eviction” at Khetri Bengoon, Imphal East, which, as per the MSAD statement, poses an existential threat to “the territoriality of Manipur” and “it seems that the policy is an appeasement foxship from the part of Delhi to Myanmar, considering the China factor” The alleged eviction drive wiped out an entire village without any rehabilitation plan, violating an MoU signed between CSOs and government.
There is a strong sentiment that interests and sentiments of Manipuri people are not reflected in the decisions that are being made at the Centre.
People across the United States and around the world have been rightly outraged by U.S. federal agencies’ detention of migrants and separation of their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Shortly after, the Supreme Court’s ruled to uphold the Trump administration’s racist travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, reviving another fierce reaction to the administration’s policy toward immigrants, travelers and asylum seekers.
In middle school, children in the United States learn that the three branches of the federal government are arranged with a system of “checks and balances,” so that no one branch oversteps its power and violates the rights of individuals. But now, the whole world can see that the only thing “checked” by the White House and the Supreme Court is the human right to freedom of movement.
The cases are united by more than one administration’s xenophobia. Much of Latin America and the Muslim world share a legacy of U.S. interventions driving the very migration now being cruelly restricted.
Latinx migrants at the southern border have been in the national spotlight. But too rarely has the question been asked: What situation would compel so many people to leave their homes and take the perilous journey north in the first place?
An honest answer requires an examination of U.S. policy in Latin America, particularly Central America.
While the Trump administration talks incessantly about its favorite villain, the gang MS-13, it says nothing about the origins of the gang. MS-13 was actually incubated on the streets and in the prisons of Southern California, where so many Salvadoran migrants were incarcerated in the 1990s. Washington’s deportation of former prisoners — among other Salvadorans — back to El Salvador was the context for the development of the MS-13.
The Salvadoran community that developed in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s itself emerged as Salvadorans fled a nightmarish civil war. The United States was deeply involved in that conflict, arming and supporting the Salvadoran government and right-wing paramilitary forces throughout Central America.
These death squads committed acts of unspeakable violence that still reverberate throughout the region today. Similar patterns have played out in Guatemala and Honduras, which are also countries of origin for refugees where the United States has a legacy of backing right-wing leaders past and present.
On the other side of the world is Yemen, one of the seven countries whose people are targeted by the travel ban — and the site of a catastrophic U.S.-backed war. We may not hear the cries of Yemeni children the way we heard those of children detained at the border. But many of them are also separated from their families here in the United States because of the travel ban.
As with Central America, the United States is committing crimes in Yemen that force millions into desperate circumstances.
According to the United Nations, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world todayexists in Yemen — a striking distinction, given that there’s no shortage of other disasters around the globe. There is a civil war in Yemen, in which combatants on both sides have taken actions that have had severe consequences for civilians. But the overwhelming responsibility for the destruction lies with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which has bombed Yemen mercilessly in support of the Saudi-friendly Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, whom the Gulf States seek to install as the president.
Their campaign has targeted civilian infrastructure, weddings, funerals and even medical facilities. As a result, tens of thousands have been killed and millions have been displaced. Millions face starvation as well as sickness and death from entirely preventable diseases like cholera. According to UNICEF, 11 million children, or “nearly every child in Yemen,” is in need of humanitarian assistance.
A dropped bomb or exploded missile leaves so much in its wake. But there is a particular and peculiar remnant of the blasts that have wounded Yemen. Yemenis find, again and again, labels on bomb fragments that indicate they are made and sold by the United States.
Indeed, last summer, Trump negotiated with Saudi Arabia to sell the kingdom $110 billion in weapons. The United States also approved $2 billion in arms sales to the U.A.E. last year. The United States is also supplying intelligence to the Saudi/Emirati coalition, as well as mid-air refueling for coalition aircraft.
The United States, therefore, is doing everything but dropping the bombs itself. But even that distinction dissolves when one remembers that the United States did bomb Yemen repeatedly using drone strikes and cruise missile attacks throughout the Obama administration.
The United States has bombed Yemenis. It is supplying the weapons for other countries to bomb Yemenis now. And, as it’s doing toward Central Americans in the most callous way, it is denying Yemenis the right to enter the United States.
The beginning of accountability for those actions is letting these — and all — refugees in. But that cannot be the end. Let this time of anguish and outrage be one of a deep reckoning — with what the United States does at its borders, within them, and beyond them.
This article was produced in collaboration with In These Times.
Khury Peterson-Smith is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Courtesy: https://fpif.org/
Lord Curzon / BBC Hulton Picture Library
It was on July 19, 1905, that, the British governor-general Curzon, in a cynical and divisive move, announced the partition of Bengal into two provinces-Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the rest of Bengal which included Bihar and parts of Orissa. Motive? To divide the Bengal population and to weaken the nationalist movement, of which Bengal was the most important entre. Also, the British move was also to disrupt Hindu-Muslim unity by convincing upper class Muslims that the newly created province with its Muslim majority was in their interest.
How the move failed. Seeing through this design of the colonial masters, all sections of the people in Bengali people came together in an unprecedented fashion, in a mass movement to oppose this move. Anger spread to many other parts of the country. The anti-partition agitation assumed a militant from on August 7, 1905 when thousands of people at a meeting in Calcutta resolved to boycott British goods until the partition proposal was withdrawn.
When the partition came into force on 16 October 1905 which day was observed as a day of national mourning throughout Bengal. It was during this movement that Swadeshi or use of Indian goods and boycott of British Goods became an integral part of the freedom struggle. At thousands of meeting people took the pledge of Swadeshi and boycott. Resolutions supporting Swadeshi and boycott were also passed at the Benares session of the Congress under the president ship of Gokhle in December 1905, although the Moderates then and later tried to restrict their scope.
The message of Swadeshi spread to the entire country and helped in promoting Indian Industries. A large number of educational institutions were also opened by nationalists and a National Council of Education was set up. The movement which had begun in Bengal over the question of partition was transformed into a wider movement for freedom of the country. The British rulers, in order to crush the rising tied of nationalism, unleashed naked repression.
Calcutta in Morning
The first part of a news item, which appeared in the Amrita Bazaar Patrika of October 17, 1905 entitled “Calcutta in Morning-A Unique Sight”, describing the situation in Calcutta on 16 October 1905, the day Bengal was partitioned, is given below.
YESTERDAY WAS one of the most memorable days in the history of the British administration of India. It being the day on whish the Bengal partition scheme took effect, the day on which our unsympathetic government forced a measure by a proclamation in the official gazette against the wishes of the whole population, the day on which our rules tried to separate the Bengali speaking people of the East Bengal from those of the West Bengal, the people of Calcutta, irrespective of nationality, social position, creed and sex, observed it as a day of mourning. The leaders of the Bengali community-Hindus and Mahomedans-did not however silently mourn and weep. They did something more. They as a legacy to posterity and as a landmark to British administration laid the foundation of the Federation Hall. They also took a practical step towards the furtherance of the Swadeshi movement by opening the National Fund.
The Scene on the Bank of the Hooghly
From the small hours in the morning till noon, the bank of the Ganges from Bag bazaar to Howrah presented a unique spectacle. It looked, as if it were, a surging sea of human faces. From all streets, lanes and bye-lanes, leading to the bank a quick succession of streams of people all bare-footed-found their way to the bank to have a plunge in the sacred river.
As the day advanced, the gathering thickened more and more and by 10, about a lakh of the male population of the metropolis-all in mourning-thronged the bank and the Ghats of tender sex. They cry of “Bande Mataram” now and then, broke the silence of the still air and reverberated through it imparting a chastening influence on the minds of those who gathered together there…innumerable processions consisting of scores and hundreds of men, after arriving at the bank of the sacred river and wearing Rakhi (yellow thread) proceeded in procession singing ‘Bande Matram’ all the way. Several thousands of such processions passed all over the city especially the northern quarter of it from 8 am. To 2 pm. They accosted on the way everyone they met with “Bande Mataram” in embracing each other and putting on “Rakhi”. It was a sight for the gods to see….
Roads and Streets
The scene in the roads and streets of whole Calcutta was quite novel and was perhaps never before witnessed in any Indian city….No purchasers were there and thus no sellers had to exhibit their articles…All the mills were closed and the mill hands paraded the city in procession…The only cry that was heard was of “Bande Mataram” . Bands of Mahomedans and Marwari’s joined the percussionists and greatly enhanced the enthusiasm.
Rakhee Sangeet
During the swadeshi and anti-partition agitation people in both the Benglas took out processions in the streets of towns and villages and sang swadeshi and patriotic songs. An English version of one such song, originally composed in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, is reproduced below.
Let the earth and water of Bengal,
Let the air and fruits of Bengal, be sacred, be sacred, be sacred, my god.
Let the homes and marts of Bengal,
Let the forests and fields of Bengal, be full, be full, be full, my god.
Let the promises and hopes of Bengalis,
Let the deeds and language of Bengalis, be true, be true, be true, my god.
Let the lives and hearts of Bengalis,
Let all the brothers and sisters in Bengali homes, be united, be united, be united, my god.
Excerpts from Gokhale’s Presidential Address
The following lines are taken from Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s Presidential Address at the Banares Congress (1905), where the made a detailed analysis of the question of the partition of Bengal and the swadeshi movement.
GENTLEMEN, THE question that is uppermost in the minds of all at this moment is the partition of Bengal. A cruel wrong has been inflicted on our Bengalee brethren, and the whole country has been stirred to its deepest depths in sorrow and resentment, as had never been the case before. The scheme of Partition concocted in the dark and carried out in the face of the fiercest opposition that any Government measure has encountered during the last half-a-century, will always stand as a complete illustration the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule-its utter contempt for public opinion, its arrogant pretensions to superior wisdom… Lord Curzon and his advisers… could never allege that they had no means of judging of the depth of public feeling in the matter. All that could possibly have been done by way of a respectful representation of the views of the people had been done. As soon as it was known that a partition of some sort was contemplated, meeting after meeting of protest was held…. The Secretary of State for India was implored to withhold his sanction to the proposed measure. The intervention of the British House of Commons was sought, first by a monster petition, signed by sixty thousand people, and later by means, of a debate on the subject raised in the House by our over-watchful mend, Mr. Herbert Roberts. All proved unavailing…. To add insult to injury, Lord Curzon described the opposition to his measures as “manufactured”-an opposition in which all classes of Indians, high and low, uneducated and educated, Hindus and Mahomedans had joined, an opposition than which nothing more intense, nothing more wide-spread, nothing more spontaneous had been seen in this country in the whole course of our political agitation.. . .
The tremendous upheaval of popular feeling, which has taken place in Bengal in consequence of the partition, will constitute a landmark in the history of our national progress. For the first time since British rule began, all sections of the Indian community, without distinction of caste or creed, have been moved by a common impulse and without the stimulus of extend pressure to act together in offering resistance to a common wrong. A wave of true national consciousness has swept over the province…. Bengal’s heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all India, and her sufferings have not been endured in vain, when they have helped to draw closer all pasts of the country in sympathy and in aspiration….
Many corners of the country are erupting with protests against the brazen attack on Swami Agnivesh. On July 19, Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi and more cities have organised a protest.
A citizen’s protest against the mob attack has been called at 5 pm at Parliament Street in New Delhi. It is being hosted by known social rights activist Kavitha Krishnan and Sucheta De from AISA .
A joint protest has been called in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha on July 19 at 5 pm at Master Canteen Square by Narendra Mohanty, State Convener of INSAF & Campaign Against Fabricated Odisha. The protest is a united effort by the left, democratic and human rights organisations.
Another protest has been organised for July 19 in Mumbai as well. “Various secular democratic organisations and parties have decided to organise a peaceful protest to condemn the fascist mob attack on Swami Agnivesh, a respected national leader, former parliamentarian and an internationally renowned social reformer,” read a forwarded message. The protest will be held near Capitol Cinema, CSMT at 4.30 pm.
“Many leading citizens of our city will be attending the protest to take on the rising tide of communal fascism and intolerance that threatens to engulf our nation. We appeal to all constitutional, democratic and secular forces to resist the tide of the fascist onslaught.”
Eminent people like Anand Patwardhan, Com. Rege, Com. Prakash Reddy, Com. Anil Tyagi, Varsha Vidya Vilas, Jatin Desai, Feroze Mithiborwala, Irfan Engineer, Ravi Bhilane, MA Khalid, Amol Madame, Ajmal Khan, Salim Alware, Nuruddin Naik, Jyoti Badekar, Smita Salunke will also be present.
Civil society groups and individuals are hosting a protest rally in Town Hall, Bengaluru on Thursday at 4 pm. “We all believe in the secular and democratic ethos of the country. We are against divisive and hate politics propagated by communal forces in the country. We are hosting the protest to raise our voice against the barbaric attack on Swami Agnivesh,” said a Bengaluru-based activist.”
The Students Islamic Organisation of India held protests at many of their centres across India. One was organised on July 18 at the Town Hall in Tumkur, Karnataka. Their page also said that the accused people from BJYM also held a protest in Jharkhand against the attack.
A protest was also held in Jaipur at Ambedkar circle on Wednesday.
Effigy of ‘fascist forces’ was burned in Khammam, Telangana on Wednesday. “Activists of various organisations representing students, youth, women, farmers and labourers took to the streets here on Wednesday to protest against the attack on noted social activist Swami Agnivesh allegedly by members of the BJP’s youth wing in Jharkhand on Tuesday. Members owing allegiance to the Progressive Democratic Students Union (PDSU), the Progressive Youth League (PYL), the Progressive Organisation of Women (POW), the Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) and the all India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha (AIKMS) staged a demonstration near the RTA office on the bypass road here vehemently condemning the incident,” reported The Hindu.
“The demonstrators set ablaze the effigy of ‘fascist forces’ in a symbolic protest against the alleged unabated attacks on writers, social activists, and other intellectuals by fascist elements across the country,” the report added.
The opposition also organised a noisy protest in the Jharkhand assembly. “Opposition parties today staged noisy protest over assault on social activist Swami Agnivesh in Pakur, forcing adjournment of the House. This happened despite Parliamentary Affairs Minister Nilkanth Singh Munda saying that Chief Minister Raghubar Das had set up a probe committee immediately after receiving the information,” reported NDTV.
“The Left and democratic forces organised protest demonstrations and burnt effigies of RSS at Ranchi, Jamshedpur & Koderma following the attack on Swami Agnivesh yesterday at Pakur by the sangh parivar hooligans. Comrade Brinda Karat along with Comrades GK Bakshi, Md Iqbal and Prakash Viplavi met SP in Pakur and condemned attack on Swami Agnivesh. They also demanded that all the accused who have been released on bail within a day of arrest should be taken back into custody and strict actions must be taken,” a facebook post shared by Rampari, a social activist and member of CPI stated.
Canadian organisation Indians Abroad for Pluralist India strongly condemned the recent attack on Swami Agnivesh by the supporters of Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). “Agnivesh is a vocal critic of superstition and religious fundamentalism. He has been speaking out against growing intolerance and attacks on minorities under the BJP government in India. He was viciously beaten during his visit to Jharkhand by those affiliated with the BJP. The attack was aimed at intimidating Agnivesh and muzzling a voice of reason. This follows series of murders of rationalist scholars and activists by those who are seeking to turn India into Hindu theocracy. The incident that left Agnivesh badly injured, must be taken seriously in the light of the killings of Narendra Dahbolkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh by the Hindu extremists. We also deplore the recent attack on the office of senior Congress Party leader Shashi Tharoor who came under sharp criticism from the supporters of BJP for denouncing attempts to turn India into an exclusionist Hindu state. Though we don’t agree with the policies of the Congress party and will continue to question its secular credentials for its involvement in sectarian politics for opportunistic reasons, we believe that Tharoor should not be targeted for saying the right thing. Any act of violence to suppress the voice of those who believe in a diverse and pluralistic society must be condemned by everyone,” they said.
Join our mailing list to get the latest human rights news that matters, straight to your mailbox.
Join our mailing list to get the latest human rights news that matters, straight to your mailbox.
