Marathwada Water Crisis: What is the Way Out?

May 10, 2016

Maharashtra is staring in the face of one of the biggest water crisis in recent decades, with the Marathwada region’s water reservoirs drying up. The water crisis is intensifying across the region. In the arid region of Marathwada, which received just half its regular rainfall, water storage in the dams is down. Eight of the region's eleven major dams are at dead storage level, meaning water from these dams cannot flow out but has to be lifted out by other means.

This is the fourth year of drought in Marathwada in the past five years. Each of its 8,522 villages have been affected for at two consecutive years. As many as 2,745 water tankers are being used in the region compared to 939 this time last year.

The water crisis is so severe in some parts of the region that water is being delivered through a special “water train” filled at Miraj in western Maharashtra.

P. Sainath speaks at “National Consultation on Drought" about the crisis the region is gripped with. According to him, the region is not just looking at drought, but a full blown water crisis. This video is the part 1 of the series.

Coutesy: Newsclick

Why I am an anti-Zionist Jew

May 10, 2016

'Not in our name': members of Jewdas at a Free Palestine demo, 2014. Credit: Ray Filar.

The Israeli government deliberately invokes terrorist attacks, rockets, and scary brown men in headscarfs to stoke the population's fear, but I am scared of the racism Zionists use to justify the occupation. Originally published August 2014.

“I was in prison for eleven years,” says Munib, angrily. He explains how his Israeli jailers would make him stand in water: “Up to my neck, for three days”. He gesticulates, showing how he was also electrocuted on the leg, as we drive the narrow road to Bil'in, a tiny Palestinian village south of Jerusalem, next to the separation wall.

I am in the West Bank to understand why everything I have been taught is wrong. Munib is there because – though constantly under attack – Palestine is his home. The facts are casual to him, but they are told with fury.

Later I speak with Ertefaa, a self-deprecating Palestinian woman who works at the refugee centre in Aida camp near Bethlehem, where 5000 Palestinian refugees live in cramped confines: “My husband was in jail twice, six months. My brothers were imprisoned. The brothers of my husband, two brothers, were killed – four months in between both of them. My daughter's husband was also imprisoned.”

As a child I learned that “the Israel/Palestine conflict” is highly complex, with a long history of wrongs on both sides. Growing up as a member of an orthodox synagogue, pro-Israel politics were the norm, and certain kinds of questions frowned upon. Zionists – those who believe Israel should be a Jewish homeland – say it is us vs. them: the victimised Jews against the murderous Arabs. To condemn Israeli human rights abuses is to ignore the Jewish history of persecution that makes the modern Israeli mentality intelligible.

Those who support Israel are buying into the idea that Palestinian lives are worth less than those of Jews. A cursory glance at prisoner exchange numbers is demonstrative: in 2011 IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 1027 Palestinians.

But the reality is much more simple. Today the so-called “Jewish, democratic state” is synonymous with daily brutality, land occupation, militarism, settlements, and dispossession. Though varying forms of Zionist thought exist – each imbues the worthwhile aim of protecting the Jewish people with nationalist imperative. For us to be safe, the thinking goes, we must have our own country. To keep the country safe, we must use force to keep out threats. Because the people living there don't like us pushing them out, they are by definition threatening, and in need of suppression.

Invoking security as the reason to maintain a ethno-religious majority in an area where no such majority exists, Zionists simultaneously dream up a mass of bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorists. But to homogenize all Palestinians is fundamentally racist.

Despite all this, at Sunday morning Hebrew school, Diaspora Jews like me learn to celebrate the 1948 Declaration of Independence, with nothing said about what this meant for the 700,000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed or displaced from their homes. I was taught that any criticism of Israel, or of Zionism, means that you want to see Israel destroyed and the Jewish people evicted.

At 19, at the time of a university occupation against Operation Cast Lead, I found out for the first time that many people thought Zionism was wrong, that massacring the people living in Gaza could not be justified as self-defense. I was shocked, then angry, then upset. A combination of revisionist history and group mentality maintains a significant Zionist consensus among Diaspora Jews – we see Palestinians living in poverty, their families killed and their homes destroyed, and are told that this is because Hamas does not care for its own people…unlike Israel.

Operation Protective Edge, in which over 1900 Palestinians and nearly 70 Israelis have now been killed, is just the most recent, inevitable consequence of a brutal, militaristically-advanced settler-colonial occupation encroaching on the lives and lands of a subjugated people – using a 30-foot wall, settlements, missiles, tanks and the withholding of basic human necessities to perpetrate continued domination. This form of militarism is not specific to Israel – the Islamic State, the treatment of Native Americans in the USA, and South African apartheid bear comparison – but that doesn't make it any more defensible.

People arguing in favour of Israel often play on its relative democracy and tolerance, its status as a beacon of enlightenment in the savage east. But Israel today is obsessed with ethnic purity – its more totalitarian policies strategically enacted out of sight of Tel Aviv's bougie bars and beaches.

While in Israel this year I lost count of the number of times I was quizzed as to my religious heritage by random Israelis. The question,“Are you a Jew?” was asked of me more in a month than at any other time in my life. Refusing to answer caused some consternation – and where all interactions are guided by fears of the Palestinian majority, of the loss of “the Jewish democratic state”, I can see why. As a counterpoint I also experimented with purposefully telling Palestinians that I am Jewish, the primary reaction being surprise, then pleasure, and the short response: “welcome”.

In this way Israel is characterized by the twin paranoias of security and ethnicity. The government pretends that ever increasing policing of Palestinian identities is what will eventually lead to Jewish safety – but the continual violent suppression of another group will only cause violent resistance.

The policing is enacted through daily indignities, including restrictions on freedom of movement. Military checkpoints like Qalandia – which guards the route between the West Bank and Jerusalem – exemplify the harsh reality of occupation. With its blackened concrete towers and enclaves of barbed wire, Qalandia is strategically designed to convey a message to Palestinians: you are criminals.

To cross the checkpoint you queue in steel bar enclosed cages barely wide enough for one person to stand, surrounded by rubbish and asinine “keep clean” signs. IDF guards bellow through loudspeakers from behind small, plastic windows: “Israel forever” is graffitied onto one window, next to a Star of David. Travelling to Jerusalem one day on a Palestinian coach, I was surprised when the majority of the people got off the coach and stood outside in a queue, leaving three other non-Palestinians and me.

As a white tourist I was allowed to stay on the coach, treated politely by teenage, machine-gun wielding IDF soldiers, while people in their own country were routinely lined up outside, treated as suspicious terrorist others.

These facts of Palestinian life don't gel with what pro-Israel Diaspora Jews believe about Israelis and Palestinians. Zionist Jews simply do not comprehend that the only people who are in real danger of being made refugees are the Palestinians, that while Israelis stress the abstract right to exist, Palestinians are being killed in their thousands. Like other neoliberal states, Israeli government strategy deliberately plays on the population's existential fear: invoking terrorist attacks, rockets, and frightening brown men in headscarfs. This enables the occupation to entrench itself across land it is not entitled to.

All of this erases an important anti-Zionist Jewish tradition. While today a majority of observing Jews identify with the state of Israel, there is both a growing and visible minority of anti- and non-Zionist Jews, and a rich history of anti-Zionism within Judaism. Political movements like The Jewish Labour Bund and thinkers such as Abraham Serfaty, Emma Goldman and Leon Trotsky are often ignored or dismissed as “self-hating traitors”.In the UK today groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewdas, Young Jewish Left and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist networkare active voices against the occupation.

In practice Zionism is indistinguishable from the Israeli nationalism that sees the oppression of Palestinians like Ertefaa or Munib as necessary collateral for Jewish survival. Those who support Israel are buying into the idea that Palestinian lives are worth less than those of Jews. A cursory glance at prisoner exchange numbers is demonstrative: in 2011 IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 1027 Palestinians.

This month, hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated worldwide against the massacre in Gaza. Marching in London with the Jewish bloc has been a powerful experience. Under the banner “not in my name”, we show that Israel does not speak for all Jews.

Some names have been changed.

This article was first posted on: Open Democracy

The JNU administration now faces a crisis of credibility: Ayesha Kidwai

May 10, 2016

The indefinite hunger strike by 17 Jawaharlal Nehru University students has been continuing since April 28, with university teachers and students also showing their solidarity by joining as relay hunger strikers.

Despite the searing heat and failing health of many – including Chintu Kumari, Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar – the declaration by the Vice Chancellor of JNU that a hunger strike is an “unlawful activity” has only fuelled the strikers’ determination. Although over a hundred teachers met the Vice Chancellor and his team (as he likes to call them) in a bid to break the deadlock, no progress has been made because the JNU administration seems to believe that the fight here is one about the quantum of punishment.

Such is the chasm that separates the current JNU administration’s understanding of what the law is and what justice actually demands that the law has become something of a fugitive in JNU these past few months. The extremely obstinate, vengeful and motivated enquiry proceedings anddisciplinary action over the February 9 event have so perverted university procedures and institutions that the entire JNU administration now faces a crisis of credibility.

Common thread
Like any other institution, it is of course not the case that JNU has always acted fairly. On July 6 2012, the High Court of Delhi, in its judgement on Ms Flora Gupta 2012 vs. Jawaharlal Nehru University & Ors. set aside both the enquiry report of March 7, 2008, and an Office Order dated August 5, 2008, that had declared the JNU campus out of bounds for Ms Gupta and debarred her admission in any programme of the University for the same period.

This setting aside of an enquiry report and of a Vice Chancellor’s disciplinary action against a student was a rare decision by the High Court, as normally, courts order infirmities in procedure to be rectified by the university enquiry committee itself. And if the Court finds that the enquiry has failed to establish the culpability of the individual concerned, it usually orders further investigation to achieve this. In this case, however, the High Court did not adopt either of these two routes, because the university enquiry had so fully failed to establish the case against Ms Flora Gupta (as the 34-page-order painstakingly detailed), that in asking the JNU to do a proper enquiry would amount to punishing her well beyond the debarment for five years imposed upon her. Therefore, out of concern for the plaintiff, the High Court ordered JNU to immediately grant her admission to the PhD programme in Biotechnology.

The enquiry in the Flora Gupta case was on the allegation that the two students, Flora Gupta and Gargi Roy, had obtained prior access to the question paper of the PhD in Biotechnology entrance examination through her supervisor, Prof Uttam Pati, and therefore had topped the entrance examination. In substance, the case bears no resemblance to the controversial High Level Enquiry Committee enquiry and punishments meted out on April 25 to 21 current and former students over the event “Poetry Reading – A Country Without a Post Office’’ on February 9, 2016.

Nevertheless, the two cases are yoked together by a common thread of impunity and utter disregard for established procedures of enquiry, guarantee of principles of natural justice, and a reasonable, proportionate disciplinary action, which transparently and logically follows from the substantiated findings of an enquiry committee. For example, both in the 2008 case involving Flora Gupta as well as in the 2016 case involving the 21 students, those punished were not given any formal explanation (statements or documents, et cetera) about the reason why the Vice Chancellor decided to appoint a special Enquiry Committee. In both cases, the statements of witnesses and the documents relied on by the two enquiry committees were not supplied to those charged, nor was cross-examination allowed, and despite repeated requests, including under the Right to Information law, neither parties were given the full enquiry report.

Most importantly, however, in both cases, the evidence relied upon for charging the students was completely compromised: the current High Level Enquiry Committee has relied on video evidence that has been shown by the Delhi Metropolitan Magistrate’s Inquiry to be “doctored”, and oral testimony shown to be “tutored” (namely in the case of the JNU security guards). In the Flora Gupta case, the “evidence” the One-Man Enquiry Committee relied upon was Gupta’s “confession”, which was dismissed by the Court as having been extracted under duress by the faculty of the School, which incidentally also included Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar, the Chair of the current Enquiry Committee.

In the 2008 case, Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar, along with Prof Aparna Dixit, had been alleged to have dictated the confessional statement to Gupta and another woman student. In fact, Gupta was made to submit four distinct versions of her confessional statement under threats of defamation, until the two faculty members were satisfied with the result. All this happened in the presence of her supervisor, Prof Uttam Pati,who later testified to the fact that Bhatnagar had indeed dictated the confessions. Although Pati himself was left under something of a cloud in the judgement, with the Court failing to understand why no enquiry was ever initiated against him for a leak of the question paper, the choice of Bhatnagar to head the Enquiry Committee now was surprising, to say the least. Appointing someone whose unethical and improper conduct had led to a vitiated enquiry in the past, and a huge embarrassment to the university in the High Court, can not simply be a colossal error of judgement, but would appear instead to be a calculated decision.

An eyewash
Considering the manner in which the proceedings have been conducted, the only conclusion worth making is that the enquiry had already decided to punish a specific set of students and its proceedings were just an eyewash. Why else would an enquiry committee not respond to nearly 60 letters written by at least 20 students? Why would it fail to provide them with a copy of the complaint and the material and testimonial evidence against them so that they could be rebutted? How could students present any evidence in their defence when they did knot know what they were charged with? Rather than these being mere procedural lapses, these are proof of the Enquiry Committee’s – and the JNU administration’s – prejudice against the students it has charged.

As a consequence of this dedication to a predetermined outcome, the charges against many students have swung wildly from the first punitive order of suspension to the show-cause notice to the final order of punishment. For example, Aishwariya Adhikari and Shweta Raj were two of the eight students suspended on February 12, 2016, for what they were informed were any of four misdemeanours: misrepresenting the nature of the event of February 9, forcibly organising it despite withdrawal of permission, creating a law and order situation in JNU, and shouting anti-constitutional slogans and/or making derogatory remarks about the nation.

In the show-cause notice, both were told that they had been found guilty of committing “[a]ny other act which may be considered by the VC or any other competent authority to be an act of violation of discipline and conduct”, and were asked to explain why action should not be taken against them. In other words, it was a show-cause notice that couldn’t be responded to with a substantive defence. In the final order, both Aishwarya and Shweta have been found guilty of “shouting objectionable slogans in wrongfully organised event”. Note the move from “unconstitutional” to “objectionable”, thereby shifting all evaluation to the great Indian terrain of “hurt sentiments”. This, taken together with the fact that Aishwariya is not even mentioned in the Enquiry Committee report (a fact which she pointed out in her reply to the show-cause notice) suggests an overweening will to punish rather than one to fix accountability for an event that went out of hand as a result of a verbal clash between two groups of students
Like Aishwariya, other students’ replies to the show-cause notices have not been taken into account. Even completely plausible explanations such as why a wrong hostel address ended up on the permission form have not been accepted, and in many cases, an entirely new charge has been added. For example, amongst many others, Reyaz ul Haque, whose name was not even mentioned in the Enquiry Committee, has been accused of rousing “caste and communal feelings” for lending his name to a poster announcing the cultural evening as a protest against the “Brahmanical collective conscience” that led to the execution of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt. (Interestingly, this charge has not been applied to any of the students recorded by the Committee report as shouting slogans like “Duudh mango to khiir denge, Kashmir maango to chiir denge!” – if you ask for milk, we will give you khir or milk pudding but if you ask for Kashmir, we’ll cut you up).

Test of prejudice
Anirban Bhattacharya, Umar Khalid, JNU Students Union Joint Secretary Rama Naga and former JNUSU President Ashutosh Kumar have been penalised for “addressing a gathering consisting of outsiders at Ganga Dhaba”, and somewhat ludicrously, of being part of the procession from Sabarmati Dhaba to Ganga Dhaba during which objectionable slogans were shouted (by 10-15 outsiders).

Charges like these do not even flow from the extremely flawed Committee report, but have been framed post-hoc, in a frantic scrabble around the disciplinary rules to find a misdemeanour to be applied to signing on a poster – or responding to a slogan about Azadi. A similar lack of rationality inflects the severity of the punishments that have been meted out to all the 21 students: exorbitant fines, the failure to pay which shall attract dire consequences, and the completely unwarranted rustication of Umar and Anirban.

Indeed, Anirban is the worst sufferer of them all, as although his punishment will let him submit his PhD in a six-day window in July, he has been declared out of bounds of the JNU campus for five years. This was the identical punishment given to Flora Gupta by JNU, and despite the fact that this extremely harsh penalty did not stand the test of the law, it has been repeated.

In setting aside the punishment in Flora Gupta’s case, the High Court used the “the test of prejudice” as its keystone – that is, whether the person had received a fair hearing, considering all things. If the persons being proceeded against have asked for their rights and been denied, then there is no need for any further proof of prejudice.

For the JNU students union and its teachers association, it is this test of prejudice that the JNU administration and its high level enquiry committee has failed spectacularly. A mere amendment of the quantum of punishment cannot – and should not – be the means by which this gross miscarriage of justice is naturalised as the means by which disciplinary action and justice is delivered on our university campuses.

Ayesha Kidwai is a Professor of Linguistics at JNU.

Article first appeared on: Scroll.in

An Iconic Moment: Radhika Vemula Shares the Pain of Rajeshwari, Jisha’s Mother

May 9, 2016

One struggling mother with another struggling mother seeking Justice: Justice for Rohith Vemula and Justice for Jisha

Today, May 9, Radhika Vemula, who has become a national icon struggling for Justice for Rohith travlleled south to Kerala and met with Rajeshwari, distraught and inconsolable mother of Jisha, a Dalit woman who was brutally attacked, raped and killed on April 28 at Perumbavoor in Kerala. Invited by an independent forum in Calicut she travelled down to the hospital to meet the grieving mother of Jisha. There Radhika Vemula also bet with about four to five students who were beaten up by the Kerala police while protesting and demanding Justice for Jisha yesterday, May 8. Ironically, yesterday was seen and celebrated as "Mother's Day' and it was just the day after that these two strong survivors and mothers, united in tragedy, met.

Silence of the ‘national media’ around the death of Kerala student, Jisha, who was beaten savagely, sexually assaulted, similar to the Delhi bus gang rape, as revealed by the post-mortem has raised serious questions about media priorities and ethics. Sabrangindia had raised the issue of selective prioritization of such crimes even related to the mysterious death (after alleged rape) of Delta Meghwal a 17-year old Dalit student in Rajasthan

The post-mortem report on the death of Jisha, the 29-year-old student who was found dead at her house near Perumbavoor in Kerala on April 28, reveals that she was brutally and sexually assaulted before she died, similar to the infamous 2012 Delhi gang-rape.

According to a report by Malayalam newspaper, Mathrubhumi, Jisha was beaten savagely by a stranger/s using a sharp weapon that pulled out her intestines. More than 30 injuries were found on her body. As per the autopsy report, two sides of her chest were pierced to almost two inches deep using a sharp knife. She was also struck in the genitals with an iron rod. A severe injury on her head is cited as the main reason of her death.

See also
1. PM to Meet Jisha's Mother: Sorry there are no Elections in Rajasthan
2. Dalit Woman Brutalised Before Being Killed
3. Do Not Rest in Peace, Jisha: Shehla Rashid
4. SFI Protests Poor Investigation in Jisha Murder Case
5. Jisha's Death Sparks Countrywide Protests

Nationalism : The Malignant versus The Benign

May 9, 2016

Nationalism is not necessarily a blessing , it can be a curse as well.

Hitler was a diehard nationalist , who butchered 6 million Jews (of which a few lakhs were German citizens ) in the ‘national interest’. He slaughtered millions of others and was responsible for the start of the Second World War, driven by this exclusivist nationalism.

Britain, France and many other nations of Europe conquered scores of countries by hook or by crook, looted their colonies to enrich the coffers of their own countries. China attacked and humiliated India in its ‘national interest’ just as Pakistan massacred 3 million of her own citizens and raped 4 lakh of her own women in the ‘national interest’ during the war of liberation of Bangala Desh (former East Pakistan ).Those Pakistanis who shared this sense of ‘nationalism’ were not ashamed or shocked .

The Independence Movement in India was also Nationalism in action; but while it sought the departure of the British rulers, it did not want either their blood or their women. It did not preach a tit for tat policy. Our freedom struggle presents an example of Benign Nationalism. It was inclusive. It accepted, the equal rights of all Indians born and brought up in the country. It made sincere efforts to unify all Indians to fight the British.

The Constituent Assembly produced a Constitution embodying benign nationalism, i.e. a nationalism which is for ALL and against NONE . This Benign Nationalism is committed to the national interest of the country without being unjust to anyone within or outside the country .

What is the evidence of this Benign Nationalism in action? How can it be identified ? Who would decide whether a certain act is an act of malignant or benign nationalism? What touchstone can be used to test the real character of a nationalist act acceptable to all Indians, who are committed to adhere to the constitution of India ?

THE TOUCHSTONE FOR TESTING WHETHER AN ACT IS IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST OR AGAINST NATIONAL INTEREST IS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE COUNTRY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THE RULE OF LAW TO WHICH INDIA AND INDIANS ARE COMMITTED.

Since there is so much drummed up ‘controversy’ on what is anti-national, the touchstone should be used to test their real character. The following cases may be tested on the touchstone of the Indian constitution and the principle of the rule of law :

1. A member of Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha has been suspended from the house for refusing to say, "Bharat Mata ki Jai".

Neither the Constitution of India nor any law of the country obliges any citizen to say, "Bharat Mata ki Jai". Refusing to raise the slogan is the right of a citizen and it is also his duty if asked to do it under threat .

The Maharashtra Assembly's resolution is against the letter and spirit of the Constitution and is against "national interest".

2. Some persons (allegedly) raised the slogan "Pakistan Zindabad" and are, being branded as anti-national.

The Indian constitution gives citizens the right to think freely and express their opinion. There is no law that says to say Pakistan Zindabad is a punishable criminal offence. It is as permissible as saying "USA ZINDABAD, CHINA ZINDABAD OR AUSTRALIA ZINDABAD".

Those who raised the slogans did not violate any law and cannot be called 'traitors' as has been done.

(I am discussing a principle and am not going into the fact that some outsiders with covered faces had actually raised the slogans)

Our freedom struggle presents an example of Benign Nationalism. It was inclusive. It accepted, the equal rights of all Indians born and brought up in the country. It made sincere efforts to unify all Indians to fight the British.

3. To shout, "Afzal Guru Zindabad" or to say that he was unjustly hanged is not an offence punishable under the law. One has the right to hold a judgment to be wrong and criticise it. Thus nothing unlawful was done and nothing anti-national was done in raising this slogan.

Note: If Mahatma Gandhi's murder may be celebrated and Nathuram Godse may be deified with impunity by the Hindu Maha Sabha, the same impunity cannot be denied to the supporters of Afzal Guru.

4. The mere shouting out of a threat without the evidence of planned action to follow it, is no offence in law. It is not uncommon common to hear people shout in anger "I will kill you", but no prosecution follows. So if someone merely shouts, "Hindustan to Barbad Kar denge" or "Hindustan ke tukde tukde kar denge", it is not illegal and not enough to declare the person a Desh Drohi (a traitor ).

5. Kashmir is a problem between India and Pakistan. There are people in Kashmir who want 'AZADI'. If some citizens feel that giving Kashmir Azadi is a good solution, it is his /her right to communicate /express his thought to the people and the government. Such persons are only exercising their fundamental right guaranteed under Art.19 of the constitution.

No person exercising his /her fundamental right can be held to be a Desh Drohi or anti-national.

6.Some Indians believe that Kashmir is under occupation of India .It is just an opinion. It may be considered wholly wrong, but the person holding the opinion cannot be held guilty of being anti-national or guilty of an illegal act

7. A citizen has the right to feel FEAR AND EXPRESS IT. Amir Khan's wife violated no law when she felt frightened by the rise of intolerance in the country and wondered if they should think of moving out. Amir Khan violated no law when he shared this with the media. It was most unjustified to compare him with dreaded terrorists and ask him to go to Pakistan.

8. Shahrukh Khan, like anyone else, has the right to hold and express his opinion. He exercised this right when he said that there was a rise in intolerance in the country. The condemnation that followed including asking him to go to Pakistan was an attack on his right as an Indian citizen.

There are numerous acts which are not anti-national and can be tested on this touchstone, yet they are condemned as anti-national. It is because they have been tested on the touchstone of a MALIGNANT NATIONALISM, which is against the Constitution, against the principle of the rule of law and the ways of a humane society.

The distinction between Malignant and Benign Nationalism and the way to test an act should always be kept in mind while judging whether an act is in the national interest or against it .To overlook the difference would be against benign nationalism and the national interest.

(The author is a veteran civil rights activists associated with major movements and the People's Union for Civil Liberties, PUCL).

(Ghazal) Udhar Islam Khatre Mein, Idhar Hain Ram Khatre Mein

May 9, 2016

Video

MEA Curtails Freedom of Movement: Tribal Rights Activist Gladson Dungdung Offloaded at Delhi Airport

May 9, 2016

Gladson Dungdung, a tribal rights activist and author from Jharkhand, was “offloaded” at Delhi airport from a flight to London in United Kingdom, where he was scheduled to take part in a workshop on environmental politics at the University of Sussex later this week. Dungdung is general secretary of Jharkhand Human Rights movement and author most recently of Mission Saranda: A War for Natural Resources in India, was sent back by immigration officials early on Monday morning.

“The immigration official said I cannot board the flight, though I had a valid academic visa for six months,” said Dungdung. “When I asked why, immigration officials said my passport showed it had been impounded. I explained that my passport had been impounded in January 2014 but it was returned to me after verification a few weeks later. My passport shows that I had even travelled to United Kingdom in 2014 and Denmark in 2015 for conferences. Then, why was I being stopped now, I asked them.”
Dungdung was scheduled to fly on Air India flight 115 to London to attend a workshop on environmental politics and history of South Asia on May 10 at the University of Sussex's Centre for World Environmental History. He had a return ticket for May 14 to New Delhi.

“I had reached Delhi from Ranchi on Sunday and reached the airport at 4 am this morning,” said Dungdung. “At first, the immigration official made me wait an hour without explaining anything. Later, after I told him that I work in the field of human rights, the official left me waiting and consulted other officials. They told me I will not be allowed to board. My luggage was then offloaded from the flight.”

Immigration officials had confiscated his passport. “Defaulters like Vijay Mallaya are not offloaded from flights but those who speak of human rights are being targeted by government,” he said, referring to a previous incident in which Greenpeace's senior campaigner Priya Pillai was not allowed to board a flight to London in January 2015 when she was scheduled to address British legislators on the violation of human rights in Mahan, a coal mining area in Madhya Pradesh.

“If the government is going to curtail free speech, they should state it openly as a policy. This way they are subjecting ordinary citizens to mental harassment and to financial costs,” said Dungdung, who was forced to return to Ranchi, Jharkhand, on Monday afternoon.

Not the first time
Dungdung has written extensively about the effects of counter insurgency operations on tribal villagers and was a member of the assessment and Monitoring authority under the Planning commission from 2011 to 2013. His passport issued in 2010 had earlier been impounded after he had returned from Germany and Thailand after speaking at conferences organized by INGOs Adivasi Koordination and Asia Indigenous People's Pact in October 2013.

“I had received two notices from Ranchi Passport Office in 2013, one saying that I must contact their office, and a second dated the same day, saying my passport had already been impounded,” recounted Dungdung. At the time, Dungdung had alleged that this was being done because he had spoken against government's land acquisition policy in tribal areas, and because he had refused to comply when local police officials had asked him to pay a bribe during the process of passport verification.

He had got his passport back after six months. After his latest book on mining and counter-insurgency operations in Saranda forest in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum was published in July 2015, he had traveled for the launch of his book in the United Kingdom in November 2015, and to attend a conference in Denmark in October 2015, he said.

The ministry of external affairs has not responded to media queries so far.

Says Gladson Dungdung”

This morning, I was offloaded by the AirIndia from Delhi-London Flight AI 115, I was going to attend the Workshop on Environmental History and Politics of South Asia to be held in the University of Sussex, UK on May 10th. The reason given to me is that my passport had been impounded in 2013, therefore, they will send it back to RTO, Ranchi for verification.

The fact is that my passport was impounded in 2013 and returned to me after proper verification in 2014. Thereafter, I had attended couple of international conferences in Denmark and London in 2014 and 2015 subsequently but there was no issue at all.

Therefore, I m sure that this is a clear impact of my book "Mission Saranda: A War for Natural Resources in India". Defaulters of millions of rupees like Mr. Vijay Malaya are not offloaded but allowed to escape the law, but activists like me are bound to be offloaded.

My fight for the Adivasis' ownership rights over the natural resources, Adivasi identiry, human Rights, ecology and against unjust development processes will continue till they take away my right to life forever. Jai Adivasi!

The Modi government has achieved notoriety for its treatment of dissenting voices whether it is in the realm of those opposing the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or those fighting the battle for preservation of natural resources (jungal zameen—forest and land).

Priya Pillai of Greenpeace India was similarly disallowed from travel and prevented from flying at the airport. IE EDIT. Greenpeace in fact has been harassed at many levels including by the Tamil Nadu state government. The Courts have however stood by the civil and political rights of citizens

See also
1. Modi government cracks down on green NGOs
2. Strategy to Quash Dissent Published on Economic and Political Weekly (http://www.epw.in) Vol – L No. 17, April 25, 2015
3. Travel restrictions on activist Priya Pillai finally revoked

Dalit organisations ‘shocked’ at NITI Aayog’s abdication of duty towards Dalits, Adivasis

May 9, 2016

In a joint statement four national Dalit organisations have expressed “shock” at the decision of NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Aayog – set-up by the NDA government after scrapping the Planning Commission – to wash its hands of the responsibility to monitor and review the implementation of Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) and Schedule Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP).

Stating that “This decision stands contradictory to the Constitutional rights of the marginalised communities”, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) has expressed “its shock and disappointment at this turn of events” and demanded that the prime minister take cognisance of the same”.

As reported in a business daily, NITI has written to Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment asking the two ministries to take over the monitoring and review responsibility. The statement adds that the decision of NITI to shift its burden to the two ministries without even bothering to propose the creation of a robust mechanism within the ministries for effective implementation of SCSP- TSP amounts to “abdicating its responsibility towards an important section of the Society”.

The statement draws attention to the fact that while dissolving the Planning Commission, the NDA government had established NITI Aayog through a Cabinet Resolution in January 2015 with the mandate to develop a ‘vision’ for ‘national development’ which includes the development of SCs and STs.

Should NITI Aayog and the NDA government fail in its duty to create the necessary mechanisms within the two ministries through comprehensive legislation, it would be directly responsible for “excluding the marginalised communities from development”.

Full text of the statement:

We (the undersigned) are alarmed at the recent exchange of letters between National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. According to these letters, NITI Aayog lacks ‘mandate’ and expressed its inability to monitor and review the implementation of Tribal Sub-Plan and Schedule Caste Sub-Plan and asked the two ministries to conduct the exercise. Instead of proposing a robust mechanism for effective implementation of SCSP-TSP and transferring the responsibility to the concerned Ministries we find it negligence by NITI Aayog that they are washing away their hands and abdicating their responsibility towards an important section of the Society.

According to the contents of the letter as published in a news piece in, Economic Times on May, 1st 2016, the mandate of NITI Aayog unlike its predecessor the Planning Commission is not geared towards a five-year planning. NITI Aayog proposes to shift the mandate of allocation, implementation and monitoring of Dalit and Adivasi Budgets under Scheduled Castes Sub Plan, (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) to the concerned Ministries of Tribal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment.

Planning Commission of India, which held the responsibility of review and monitoring Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) and Schedule Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP), was dissolved and NITI Aayog was constituted following Cabinet Resolution on January 1st 2015. The mandate of NITI Aayog as spelled out in its Constitution points at developing a ‘vision’ for ‘national development’ which includes the development of SCs and STs. In this context, the NITI Aayog took over the mandate of monitoring and review of SCSP-TSP from the erstwhile Planning Commission. After a year and half, we find it alarming for the NITI Aayog to transfer the responsibility to the concerned ministries without the government putting in necessary mechanisms within the concerned ministries.

The current move by the NITI Aayog undermines Constitutional provisions and rights of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes leading to a deep negative impact on the communities for generations to come.

At this critical juncture NITI Aayog has an important role in creating a body within MoTA and MSJE as nodal authorities with necessary powers and resources for implementation of SCSP and TSP. If this is not done not only the NITI Aayog, but the whole government will be responsible for excluding the marginalised communities from development. These ministries thus far have not been vested with adequate power and mandate to implement and review SCSP and TSP. This may be done through a comprehensive legislation for implementation of SCSP and TSP with necessary provisions as mentioned above for the concerned ministries. Such a draft already exists with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment which had also completed public as well as inter-ministerial consultations.

We therefore appeal to your esteemed self, to take cognisance of the serious matter at hand initiate immediate steps to —

1. Legislate on Scheduled Castes Sub Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan with necessary institutional and administrative resources for its effective implementation.

2. Empower MoTA (Ministry of Tribal Affairs) and MSJE (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) and nodal authorities with necessary human and fiscal resources to effectively monitor and review SCSP and TSP.

Signatories:

Vimal Thorat, convener, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights

N Paul Divakar, general secretary, Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan

Asha Kowtal, general secretary, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch

V Ramesh Nathan, general secretary, National Dalit Movement for Justice

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