Hindutva Groups Fail to Push Caste Oppression Out of California Textbooks

April 3, 2016

HINDUTVA GROUPS FAIL TO OMIT CASTE OPPRESSION – California Education Commission denies anti-Dalit revisions in favor of academic-backed positions on history of caste-based violence

California Education Commission denies anti-Dalit revisions in favor of academic-backed positions on history of caste-based violence

The California Department of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission’s History-Social Science Subject Matter Committee convened on March 24, 2016 in Sacramento for a public hearing on the state’s K-12 History and Social Science curriculum framework. The process determines the guidelines for California’s textbooks and instructional materials and through a multiyear series of hearings welcomes and assesses content submissions from the public. During the submission process, minority groups representing Dalit and other low-caste communities were alarmed to see revisions they claimed would lessen the historical significance of caste-based oppression and subsume minority religious identity under Hinduism. Dalit (meaning "oppressed”) is the name for members of the lowest-caste in the Hindu Varna system, often called the "untouchables.”

As the curriculum touches South Asian history in several grade levels, submissions ranged from geographical designations of South Asian landmarks to the accuracy of the information presented about the region’s religious heritage. Majoritarian Hindutva organizations like Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Vedic Foundation, and Uberoi Foundation submitted revisions to separate and disassociate the history and impact of the caste system from the religious teachings of Hinduism, as well as challenge the framework’s emphasis on the inequity between men and women in Hindu culture. “Denial of such a painful history is more disrespectful and only adds to the discrimination,” said Srikanth Jandhyala of the Association for India’s Development. “As a Hindu by birth I care to know the true history.”

“Our primary concerns are human dignity and academic integrity,” said Steve Macias, outreach coordinator for Organization for Minorities of India, “It would be a grave injustice to ignore the plight of the minorities and to downplay the violent segregationist history of Hindu caste. We are thankful that the committee has sided with evidence-based scholarship over religious and political agendas.”

The committee chaired by Bill Honig rejected a multitude of submissions from Hindutvawaadi groups including all eight of the submission from the Hindu America Foundation (HAF). The HAF has been involved in the curriculum battle in several U.S. states and is ideologically aligned with the right-wing, suprmeacist organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Suhag Shukla, executive director for the HAF, also financially supported the congressional campaign of the 1984 Sikh Genocide denier Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove, CA). Past submissions from HAF included striking “Sikh” from the descriptions of America’s first Asian American Congressman Dalip Singh Saund. According to attendees, HAF’s submissions on Sikhism were the catalyst to involve several California Sikh organizations to take a more active role in the curriculum discussion.

“It is important to recognize the elements of creeping Hindu fundamentalist revisionism,” said Bhajan Singh, Director of the Stockton-based Sikh Information Centre. “We've experienced how these beliefs inspire people to view others as untouchable, deviant, and deserving of whatever suffering assigned to their birth caste, including death.” Singh was pleased with committee’s decision to reject the additions from HAF, but credited the success to the South Asian Faculty Group and the several Dalit-rights groups who attended the Sacramento hearing.

“The South Asian Faculty are not an advocacy group, but they are a committee of experts from California’s universities,” said Umar Malick with the Indian American Muslim Council. “Their work is now being targeted by Hindu fundamentalists who have a long track record of meddling with the history books to advance their views and spread hatred among minority communities.” Followers of Islam make up over one-sixth of India’s population, yet Malick sees the textbook battle as an attempt to malign the religion’s history in South Asia. “They are bent on propagating a negative portrayal of the Muslim rule in the subcontinent and have even tried to blame the caste structure inherent to Hinduism on Muslims,” added Malick.

He joins a growing coalition of South Asian minorities who were galvanized by the adamant attempts of the HAF to bring ideological battles about caste and Hinduism to America. Representatives from the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, Association for India’s Development, Ambedkar Association of California, Friends for Education in India, Indian American Muslim Council, Organization for Minorities of India, Sikh Coalition and Sikh Information Centre testified before the subject matter committee.

Among the controversies in the curriculum was the use of the term India to identify ancient and historic regions that pre-date the modern Indian state. While Hindu groups lobbied for the absolute usage of the term India, the committee instead qualified definitions of India by recognizing the historic diversity of South Asian with the inclusion of other nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh. Despite this compromise, Hindu groups continued to claim that the curriculum would unfairly affect their Indian identity. Dalit groups lobbied for an understanding of Indian history that reflected the diversity of South Asian. “Much of the history of South Asian identity has been written by upper-caste [Hindu] academics,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan of the Ambedkar Association of California. “They have written much about class, but omitted the vital organizing of Dalit Bahujans and the religious minority communities of Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims.”

The hearing also revealed the complicated relationship between sentiments and academic accuracy in California’s textbooks. Hindu groups claimed that the proposed depictions of the Hindu caste-system would encourage a negative view of Hinduism. While evaluating a submission about Hinduism’s relationship to religious diversity, committee chairman Bill Honig commented, “I don’t know if it is true, but it is a good sentiment.” It followed the trend of testimony from other Hindu organizations that claimed that the academic perspective could lead to “diminishing the dignity” of Hinduism. A revision was also submitted by Hindu groups to identify a river in Punjab as the Saraswati River, a sacred river which appears in ancient Hindu religious texts. “Punjab means land of five rivers, but Hindu activists want the mythological Saraswati to be the sixth,” said Bhajan Singh, who sees the addition as an attempt to anachronistically impose the Hindu religion into the curriculum.

The Burning Question: Bangladeshi, Bhagwa, Beef and the Assam Elections

April 3, 2016

Assamese exceptionalism and the ambivalence of the Assamese Muslim to the Sangh Parivar’s designs against all Muslims regardless of ethnicity or descent could prove to be at the root of BJP’s win in the Assam polls. The state goes to polls on April 4 and 11, 2016 in two phases

Assam enters into polls on April 4, 2016. Unlike previous elections, this time the state has caught some significant attention of the ‘nation’. The ‘nation’ is watching. The competition and stakes are high. The incumbent Congress is contending against a rising power in Assam and its long time contender in national electoral politics, the Bharatiya Janata Party – BJP. BJP’s aggressive drive to expand its mata-led nation building project, riding upon the back of a cow, is in eager and impatient wait to sweep a vast portion of electoral gains in Assam. This gain would establish its crucial presence not only in Assam but also in the rest of the states in the north-eastern region.

This election, with the national parties fighting for supremacy, can be read as symptomatic of a significant step towards the nationalisation of regional politics, and remarkably so given the marginal status ‘enjoyed’ by the blob of geography known as the north-east of India, which for long has been perceived by mainland India as a habitat of insurgents, secessionists and anti-nationals.

The spectacular performance of BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections where it wrestled 7 out of 14 seats in Assam, promised a rise in its reach beyond mainland India. After all, in a state where it has no organisational grass root presence, the BJP’s performance was unprecedented.

Almost as a boon to the BJP, immediately after the 2014 elections the discontentment within the Congress began to manifest itself out in the open. Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was one of the pillars of the Congress government for 14 long years, joined the BJP along with 12 other rebel Congress MLAs. Sarma’s rebellion against the Tarun Gogoi led Congress government was a smartly carried out performance to gain public support even in an act of defection, as he smoothly went on to the side of a new contender in the political field of Assam. To keen observers of Assam politics, Sarma’s defection to BJP did not come as a surprise as he had already started flexing his muscles before the Lok Sabha polls in 2014. In fact many in the Congress party went to the extent of accusing Sarma of implicitly aiding the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.

I. Barring the ‘Illegal Immigrant’ from Economic Activity, a Fascist Agenda

In this Election BJP seeks to form the government and has, in a show of strategic political wisdom, drawn alliances with some of the smaller parties of Assam, namely the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) and the Tiwa and Rabha organizations. Its alliance with the first two does not come as a surprise at least for following reasons – a) in the first case, both the BJP and the AGP identify ‘Illegal Infiltration’ as being the core of the Assam’s problem, b) in 2012, the killings and displacement of a specific section of the population in Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) areas are reflective of the think-alike position of clearing the ‘excesses’ upheld by both the BJP and BPF.

While releasing the Vision document on March 25, 2016, the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, flanked by Himanta Biswa Sarma and Chief Ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal, announced that “Our priority is the illegal infiltration and detection and deportation of these infiltrators”. This is one of the most sensitive issues that has kept Assam burning for decades.

For instance, the Bodos did not purchase anything from Bengali speaking Muslim vendors in Kokrajhar district for some time after the 2012 riots. Posters were put across the district announcing that whoever indulges in economic transactions with “illegal Bangladeshis” would be levied a fine of Rs. 10,000.

The vision document boldly announced the promise of a “law to be enacted to “deal sternly” with industries, businesses, small and medium enterprises or any other agencies employing infiltrators.” It needs to be pointed out here that this idea of economic boycott of “illegal Bangladeshis” is not the brainchild of just the BJP think-tank; it has been very much a part of the public discourse in Assam for over three decades dating back to the Assam movement (1979 – 1985). In fact, deployment of economic boycott has been unofficially attempted in several cases. For instance, the Bodos did not purchase anything from Bengali speaking Muslim vendors in Kokrajhar district for some time after the 2012 riots. Posters were put across the district announcing that whoever indulges in economic transactions with “illegal Bangladeshis” would be levied a fine of Rs. 10,000.

The xenophobic language, tone and the barely-veiled threat of incitement to violence of this electoral promise sounds as close to fascist propaganda as it can get in contemporary India, because for the first time a political party has promised to turn this widely held idea into a law if it wins the election.

II. Ghar Vapsi, Beef Eating win no brownie points in the campaign

The spectacular success of the BJP in Assam during the Lok Sabha polls of 2014 owed much more to the anti-incumbency fatigue of people with 14 long years of Congress rule rather than any positive presence of the BJP. The latter’s success was not, and is still not commensurate to its organisational presence in the state. In any case, the spectacular success created a room for strengthening organisational presence and greater possibility of success for the BJP in this Assembly election.

Over the last two years BJP has been seen trying to consolidate its Lok Sabha success into a widespread acceptance of itself in Assam as a political force, and it has attempted to project itself as the upholder of Axomiya jatiyotabaad (Axomiya nationalism) [We use the term Axomiya as an ethno-linguistic category comprising of non-tribal Axomiya speaking caste-Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in Assam; we use the term Assamese to connote all denizens of the state of Assam.]

It wasn’t unexpected that the issue of “illegal Bangladeshi” became the cornerstone of BJP’s poll agenda in Assam: an issue that has been at the heart of Axomiya jatiyotabaadi politics. However, it didn’t happen without testing the political waters on a few other issues largely derived from the conventional organisational programme that it deploys in various parts of India where communalism is an easy seed bed for escalating conflicts and violence.

Campaigns like “Ghar Wapsi” or “Love Jihad” didn’t find any resonance in Assam. So it tried to rally around the differentiation of “Illegal Bangladeshis” into Hindus and Muslims, the former to be assimilated into the Assamese – Indian fold and the latter to be detected and deported. In the first week of September 2015, the Union government sent a notification to Assam government announcing its decision to allow Hindu Bangladeshis in Assam who sought shelter before December 31, 2014 to continue living in Assam. The Union government’s justification for this benevolent exception was “due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution” in their country of origin. The announcement didn’t go down well in Assam as it was seen to be in contradiction with the core principles of the Assam Accord of 1985, and large scale protests erupted across the state spearheaded by jatiyotabaadi organizations like All Assam Students Union (AASU) and Axom Jatiyotabaadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) .

Subsequently, it tried to bring beef on the menu card – an issue which so significantly determined the trajectory of the recent Bihar Elections to the detriment of BJP’s poll ambitions. Amidst an ethnically diverse state like Assam where beef is eaten not only by the Muslims who constitute 34 % of the total population but also by a substantial section of the tribal groups as well as the Cha Janajaati (Tea Tribes), beef could not establish BJP’s much desired diet plans.

However beef did turn handy in another way, even if it appeared to be a leaf out of Bhisham Sahni’s famous novel Tamas: a new trend (at least in Assam) of throwing beef chunks and cow heads in mostly Kali temples has emerged in past one year. According to local (both social and conventional) media in Assam, there have been at least 22 reported cases of “beef-found-in-temples” since 2015.

However owing to the specific history of being largely secular, throughout Assam where these incidents occurred, the reactions of the public were quite different. Where the presence of Bengali Hindus were significant, communal tensions appeared volatile, unlike in Axomiya dominated areas where such incidents did not become an issue of any significant attention.

III. Project to Dis-enfrancise the entire community of Muslims of East Bengal Descent

BJP’s forceful thrust on detection, deportation and economic boycott of “Illegal Muslim Bangladeshis” cannot be misread – it is not just about Illegal Bangladeshis. It is an attempt towards disenfranchising an entire community of Muslims of East Bengali descent, irrespective of when their ancestors migrated to Assam from erstwhile East Bengal. In this respect a recent interview given to a national daily by Sarbananda Sonowal is telling where he doesn’t mince words:

“We have reached out to genuine Assamese Muslims who have been living in the state for 800 years (as against those whose forefathers came from East Pakistan, now Bangladesh). The Assamese Muslims are known by different names such as Garia, Maria, Desi, Jula, Sayed and the like. They are the genuine Assamese Muslims. We have been working towards protecting their interests” (emphasis our own).

The assertion that only those Muslims who have been living in Assam for 800 years are genuine Axomiya Muslims is a cunning deployed to drive home the point that the East Bengali Muslim peasants who migrated to Assam from 1890s onwards and their progenies are not legitimate residents of Assam. It might be worth mentioning here that only between 1901 and 1941, a little over10 lakh East Bengali Muslim peasants settled in Assam.

This assertion, again, is not the original brain child of BJP. It has very much been a part of the consciousness of the present generation of Axomiyas. Despite huge historical complexities involved in differentiating an “illegal Bangladeshi immigrant” from a Muslim citizen of East Bengali descent, to the young urban Axomiya any Bengali Muslim is a Bangladeshi. However the question arises as to how does one identify an “illegal Bangladeshi immigrant”? What are the ways of telling the difference? It is most certainly not difference but the similarities between an “illegal Bangladeshi immigrant” and a Muslim citizen of East Bengali descent which supplies the paraphernalia for slotting people of both the categories in a single category of the “illegal Bangladeshi immigrant”; it is physical and cultural markers, religion and language.

IV. Assamese Exceptionalism could open doors for the BJP

The rise of Sonowal from an Axomiya Jatiya Nayak (Amoxiya National Hero), as hailed by AASU, to becoming an important leader of the AGP and then finally the State President of the Assam BJP and its Chief Ministerial candidate for 2016 elections has been based on the anti-“illegal Bangladeshi” cause.
Both AASU and AGP, even today, vouch by the Assam Accord of 1985 which sets the cut-off date for detection and deportation of Bangladeshis from Assam as 26th March 1971, whereas the current BJP posture of Sonowal supercedes the provisions of the Accord to make a sweeping identification and marking of “illegal Bangladeshis” irrespective of the important dates and deadlines laid down in the Accord and giving it a communal edge.

It was also on the basis of the Assam Accord that the Indian Citizenship Act of 1955 was amended in 1986. Through this amendment, Article 6A was inserted to retrospectively grant citizenship to those who migrated from East Pakistan to Assam before 1st January 1966, and those who came on or after 1st January 1966 but before 26th March 1971 would enjoy all rights as citizenship except voting rights for 10 years.

Sonowal is the Jatiyotabaadi face of BJP in this election. For past six months, in his interviews and speeches Sonowal has been strongly putting forth the BJP magic card of development as one of the main agendas of the polls. It, however, comes with an important rider – this is development for the genuine people of the greater Assamese society, which according to him and Assam BJP, apart from the Axomiyas (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians) and various tribes, includes Bengalis (read Hindu Bengalis), Marwaris, Punjabis and Nepalis. Sonowal and his party have also been harping that once elected their government will pay special attention to genuine Axomiya Muslims who have been “outmaneuvered by Muslim migrants”.

A substantial section of Axomiya Muslims have taken BJP’s bait. Out of three lakh Axomiya Muslim members of BJP, two lakh seventy thousand have joined the party in past one year. BJP’s election thrust of rooting out “illegal Bangladeshis” from Assam goes down well with this section of the population. Axomiya Muslims and Muslims of East Bengali descent might share the same religion but cultural difference, real or perceived, has always pitted the two communities against each other.

The anti Bengali Muslim sentiment among Axomiya Muslims is as pervasive as it is among the caste-Hindu Axomiyas and many other communities like the Bodos. In fact organisations claiming to represent Axomiya Muslims like the Federation of Indigenous Muslim Organisations of Assam (FIMOA), All Assam Goriya Moriya Desi Jatiyo Parishad, Axomiya Muslim Kalyan Parishad, All Assam Goriya Yuva Parishad have long been demanding special development package for the community and have long asserted that they not be equated with Bengali Muslims just because of a shared religion. These organisations have also been a vocal critic of Badaruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIDUF) (which is perceived by Axomiyas to be a party exclusively of Muslims of East Bengali descent) and on several occasions accused Ajmal and his party of protecting illegal Bangladeshis, condemning him of trying to foment religious communal divide in an otherwise “secular and tolerant society”.

An important question arises here: what explains the fact that BJP and its Hindutva fascist politics doesn’t make a substantial section of Assamese society wary? There seem to be two plausible explanations.

Firstly, in Assam there exists a very strong sense of Assamese exceptionalism, that the Assamese are inherently tolerant, easy-going, secular and peaceful people. This sense of exceptionalism is pervasive among not just the Axomiyas but also among various tribes. A common refrain that can be very frequently heard is that “Assam is different. BJP can do a Gujarat or a Muzzafarnagar in other parts of India, but here in Assam BJP cannot and will not foment riots against Axomiya Muslims in Assam”. Another refrain that is often heard is that “Assam has never witnessed any violent conflict between Axomiya Muslims and Hindus”. It is a fact that there has been no history of violent conflict between Axomiya Muslims and Hindus; not even in the aftermath of the demolition of Babri Masjid, except for one small flare-up. However, this history will not stand as a guarantee that if BJP wins this election it will not turn Assam into a Hindutva laboratory in the garb of rooting out “illegal Bangladeshis”.

A good illustration of this confidence in the sense of exceptionalism is the curious case of the dynamic peasant leader Akhil Gogoi who leads the largest left-leaning social movement under the banner of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samati (KMSS). KMSS has also been the de-facto opposition to the Congress government for the past one decade albeit outside the legislative assembly.

Amidst an ethnically diverse state like Assam where beef is eaten not only by the Muslims who constitute 34 % of the total population but also by a substantial section of the tribal groups as well as the Cha Janajaati (Tea Tribes), beef could not establish BJP’s much desired diet plans.

Though Akhil Gogoi and KMSS are now at the forefront of the fight against what he calls BJP’s Hindutva fascism, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections the need to defeat the Congress took precedence and Akhil Gogoi released a list of ‘who to vote for’, for his supporters and he also appealed to the people of Assam to consider his list. The list comprised of one CPM candidate, one CPI-ML candidate, three AGP candidates, two AIUDF candidates and 7 BJP candidates. This political blunder on part of Akhil Gogoi stems precisely from this flawed sense of Assamese exceptionalism.

On the contrary, one of the composite features of this exceptionalism has created a public sphere that denounces any regressive general communal slogans and statements; any overarching anti-religious minority statement made in Assam is met with hostilities and protests by people in general, including the jatiyotabaadi groups. One of the reasons for such political behavior could be because Axomiya religious minorities have had equal investment in the jatiyotabaadi project. Assam BJP is cognizant of this fact and has played it to its own advantage. To give a recent example, in 2015 Subramanian Swamy gave a statement in Guwahati that Mosques are merely a place of religious congregation and hence can be demolished. Theologically speaking Swamy might have been right, but the statement didn’t go down well in Assam. Effigies were burnt and protests were organized by various groups of people including the jatiyotabaadis; even Assam BJP condemned and distanced itself from Swamy’s statement.

V. ‘Genuine Assamese Muslims’ allies of the BJP in Assam?

The 2016 Assam election is a litmus test for the non-communal population of Assam to withstand the rightwing agenda of bringing religion and religious identity to the fore; it simply does not require another reason to burn. The ‘genuine Assamese Muslims’, however genuinely anxious they may be, are in the danger of allying and becoming complicit in the spread of a politics and ideology whose history talks more than loudly its destructive, divisive will. The BJP’s utilisation of the religious separation is derived from a specific Hindutva project unlike the sons-of-the-soil who have strongly and for long basked in the idea of Assamese exceptionalism. The exceptionalism may be present, may have been there, but times have changed.

It is crucial to recognize that BJP’s focus on Assam latches on to the most convenient and available issue of illegal Bangladeshis immigrants. Initially, as we have noted earlier, BJP tried to play its classic Hindu-Muslim segregation of the “illegal Bangladeshis”, although unsuccessfully.

The Bangladeshi problem in Assam does not fit into the mainstream Hindu rightwing understanding along the lines of religious identities and binaries, though it will be fallacious to say that such an element is not present in the ‘Assamese’ understanding.

With the twin combination of ignorance (about Assam and northeast) and desire ( to bring the northeast into its nation building project), the BJP is trying to create something of an optical illusion, especially to the people of Assam – the image of a flexible national party with concerns for the regional specificities, willing to go soft accordingly on hard core communal agenda which it deploys in other parts of the country, and take a hard line position on the main issue of Assam, pitting themselves against the ‘protectors’ of ‘illegal Bangladeshis”- AIDUF and the Congress. If not beef, Bangladeshi will do – B for BJP.

(Amrapali Basumatary teaches at the University of Delhi and Bonojit Hussain is an Independent Researcher in Delhi)

SC should help remove ambiguities on secularism in practice: Hamid Ansari

April 3, 2016

This is the full text of Vice President M. Hamid Ansari's speech at the 16th Convocation of University of Jammu on Saturday (April 2, 2016).

This is indeed a special occasion. The university is honouring one the most eminent sons of the State of Jammu & Kashmir whose achievement is but a rarity and worthy of celebration. After all, it is only the chosen few in the calling of law who climb the ladder to the very top in the highest court of the Republic to join the galaxy of men who have presided over the Supreme Court of India.

Our founding fathers gave us a Constitution that encapsulates in its text the ideals and values of People of India. The first among these is Justice and, as John Rawls put it, "rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests". To ensure this, Article 32 of the Constitution gives us the right to move the Supreme Court which has the power to take corrective measures for the enforcement of these rights. A similar power is conferred, within their area of competence, on the High Courts, under Article 226.

From this emanates the centrality of the judiciary in securing for citizens the rights bestowed by the Constitution. In our own times, as an eminent judge elsewhere noted some years back, "people increasingly turn to the judiciary hoping it can solve pressing social problems".

An essential concomitant of this is accessibility of the judiciary; another is affordability; a third is the confidence that justice will be dispensed speedily. The latter is contingent not only on the technicalities of the law but also on the unstated major premise underlying the thought process. It is said that the judiciary is above but not beyond the issues of the day. "We may try," said the American judge Cardozo, "to see things as objectively as we please; none the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own."

And yet, he continued, "the training of the judge, if coupled with what is styled the judicial temperament, will help to broaden the group to which his subconscious loyalties are due". Hence arises the need "of constant checking and testing of philosophy by justice and of justice by philosophy". To this may be added Lord Bingham’s caution about the need for judges to "neutralise any extraneous considerations which might bias their judgement", or else decline to make the decision in question.

Judge Albie Sachs of South Africa expressed the needed balance differently. The required approach is "neither purely libertarian one, nor simply communitarian. It was dignitarian. Respect for human dignity united the right to be autonomous with the need to recognise that we all live in communities".

This is precisely what is prescribed in the last part of the Preamble of the Constitution of India. The operative principles arefraternity, dignity, and unity to be sought through Justice, Liberty and Equality.

One of the matters in the societal domain that figure prominently in public discourse relate to the constitutional ideal of India being a ‘secular’ republic having a "composite culture". The former expression is in the Preamble and the latter in Article 51A(f).

Any discussion of these constitutional values has to be premised on the existential reality of our society. It is characterised by heterogeneity; a population of 1.3 billion comprising of over 4,635 communities 78 percent of whom are not only linguistic and cultural but social categories. Religious minorities constitute 19.4 percent of the total. The poet Pandit Kailash Narain Kaul Bedil Dehlavi expressed it finely in a couplet:

Ilahi lutf kya aata jo sub mai-khwar hi hote
Teri dunya ki raonaq barh gai sheikh o barahman se

Our democratic polity and its secular State structure were put in place in full awareness of this plurality. There was no suggestion to erase identities and homogenise them.

Political scientists and sociologists have written a good deal on the Indian perception of secularism. The three generally accepted characteristics of a secular state, namely liberty to practice religion, equality between religions as far as state practice is concerned, and neutrality or a fence of separation between the state and religion, have been invoked but "their application has been contradictory and has led to major anomalies". Commenting on the debate on secularism, Amartya Sen observed that "secularism is basically a demand for symmetric political treatment of different religious communities" but that leaves open "the choice between the forms that symmetry can legitimately take"; he added that "there is a real difference between achieving symmetry through the sum-total of the collective intolerances of the different communities rather than through the union of their respective tolerances". Very recently, Soli Sorabjee has reminded us of theEmmanuel v. State of Kerala and of Justice Chinappa Reddy’s remarks on the subject of tolerance.

The challenge, then, is to reduce if not eliminate these anomalies.

This leads us to the question: how has the Indian Sate, in principle and practice, given shape to the essential ingredients of the secular principle and composite culture?

Apart from the principles enshrined in the constitutional text and policy pronouncements of public figures, often nuanced to suit the occasion, judicial pronouncements shed useful light on the matter.

The Basic Structure doctrine relating to our Constitution is now settled law.9 One of its ingredients is secularism. This is accepted in principle by most segments of opinion (barring advocates of some version of theocracy). It is more than a passive attitude of religious tolerance; it is a positive concept of equal treatment. Its most emphatic assertion in a pronouncement came in the set of judgements in the Bommai case:

"Secularism has both positive and negative contents. The Constitution struck a balance between temporal parts confining it to the person professing a particular religious faith or belief and allows him to practice profess and propagate his religion, subject to public order, morality and health. The positive part of secularism has been entrusted to the State to regulate by law or by an executive order. The State is prohibited to patronise any particular religion as State religion and is enjoined to observe neutrality. The State strikes a balance to ensue an atmosphere of full faith and confidence among its people to realise full growth of personality and to make him a rational being on secular lines, to improve individual excellence, regional growth, progress and national integrity… Religious tolerance and fraternity are basic features and postulates of the Constitution as a scheme for national integration and sectional or religious unity. Programmes or principles evolved by political parties based on religion amount to recognizing religion as a part of the political governance which the Constitution expressly prohibits. It violates the basic features of the Constitution. Positive secularism negates such a policy and any action in furtherance thereof would be violative of the basic features of the Constitution."

The principle so laid down is emphatic. Despite its clarity, however, different interpretations were placed on it and "there is no real consensus within the Court on what secularism entails". It has been opined that what the Court said is different from what it did. Observers have noted that subsequent pronouncements of the Supreme Court have "effectively vindicated the profoundly anti-secular vision of secularism" of some quarters. For this reason, it has been argued "whether a more complete separation of religion and politics might not better serve Indian democracy".

The difficulty lies in delineating, for purposes of public policy and practice, the line that separates them from religion. For this religion per se, and each individual religion figuring in the discourse, has to be defined in terms of its stated tenets. The ‘way of life’ argument, used in philosophical texts and some judicial pronouncements, does not help the process of identifying common principles of equity in a multi-religious society. Since a wall of separation is not possible under Indian conditions, the challenge is to develop a formula for equidistance and minimum involvement. For this purpose, principles of faith need to be segregated from contours of culture since a conflation of the two obfuscates the boundaries of both and creates space to equivocalness. Furthermore, such an argument could be availed of by other faiths in the land since all claim a cultural sphere and a historical justification for it.

Within the same ambit, but distinct from it, is the constitutional principle of equality of status and opportunity, amplified through Articles 14, 15, and 16. This equality has to be substantive rather than merely formal and has to be given shape through requisite measures of affirmative action needed in each case so that the journey on the path to development has a common starting point. The Kundu Report on Diversity Index in 2008 had drawn attention to the "Inequality Traps" that prevent the marginalised and work in favour of the dominant groups in a society and had concluded that "unequal economic opportunities lead to unequal outcomes which in turn lead to unequal access to political power. This creates a vicious circle since unequal power structure determines the nature and functioning of the institutions and their policies. All these result in persistence of initial conditions".

III

The same absence of homogeneity holds good for "composite culture". The freedom movement recognised this existential reality of immense diversity on the ground. The Bommai judgement said that ‘this cultural heritage in India shaped that people of all religious faiths, living in different parts of the country are to tolerate each other’s religious faiths or beliefs and each religion made its contribution to enrich the composite Indian culture as a happy blend or synthesis.’16 Thus secularism and composite culture are two sides of the same coin. A historian has analysed it in some detail:

"The social and cultural life in India incorporated within it a multi-regional and multi-religious form and content. This interpretation of cultural influences was neither uniform nor equally intense in all regions. Yet their presence is marked all over. As a result, although historically cultural transactions and social negotiations embraced the entire subcontinent, they led to variety and plurality rather than to homogeneity. In almost all realms of cultural production – music, drama, painting, architecture, and so on – as well as religion, different influences made their mark, imparting to them a composite character. As a result, historically India developed as a colourful cultural mosaic and not as the manifestation of cultural practices inspired by a single source. The dynamism of Indian culture is derived from this diversity, which moulded the cultural practices of the people. It is in this sense that culture was embedded in national identity."

Furthermore, and to revert to the same author,

"The cultural implication of this historical process is not limited to diversity and plurality at the national level, but within each region itself as well…The coming together of people of diverse cultural moorings and traditions had several cultural consequences. These have been variously conceived as synthesis, assimilation, acculturation, and eclecticism…Whether India developed as a melting pot of cultures, or only remained a salad bowl is no more the issue. The crucial question is whether Indian culture is conceived as a static phenomenon, tracing its identity to a single unchanging source, or a dynamic phenomenon, critically and creatively interrogating all that is new."

To Jawaharlal Nehru, India was a palimpsest on which many had written their contribution and none were to be disowned. The poet Ragupati Rai Firaq expressed the process in a couplet:

Sar zamin-e-Hind par aqwam-e-aalam ke Firaq
Karwaan aate gaye, Hindostan banta gaya

It is evident from the foregoing that despite the clarity of enunciation in some of the Bommai pronouncements, political perceptions have sought to interpret its intended meaning for their own purposes.

Some years back in a volume published on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Supreme Court, two eminent jurists had observed that "as we transit into the next millennium, the Supreme Court has a lot to reflect upon, and not least on how to protect the minorities and their ilk from the onslaught of majoritarianism". So, as an acknowledged authority on the Constitution put it, "unless the Court strives in every possible way to assure that the Constitution, the law, applies fairly to all citizens, the Court cannot be said to have fulfilled its custodial responsibility".

Is it therefore bold to expect that the Supreme Court may consider, in its wisdom, to clarify the contours within which the principles of secularism and composite culture should operate with a view to strengthen their functional modality and remove ambiguities that have crept in?
Indian secularism has been described as ameliorative whose spiritual core is incrementalism. A citizen could well hope that this incremental approach is used to enhance social cohesion and social peace.

I felicitate Chief Justice Thakur on this very happy occasion and thank the Chancellor of the University, Hon’ble Governor Narendra Vohra sahib, for inviting me today.

Jai Hind.

An Open Letter to Muslim Men from an Angry Muslim Woman

April 3, 2016

Courtesy: The Independent, UK

I recognise the irony of the fact that the first university in the world was established by a Muslim woman, yet today many are denied an education. That the Prophet Mohammed fought on horseback alongside a woman, and yet now, many are told to stay in their houses and denied the right to drive

Dear Muslim men,

I still remember the day my mother was told her life was in danger. Her right to exist on this earth was suddenly being questioned because she decided she was exhausted. Exhausted for all her sisters, mothers and daughters who are unfortunate enough to have been born with another X chromosome rather than a Y.

What were her demands? Merely a space to pray in the mosque. Despite knowing she was potentially putting herself on the line, she stood her ground to claim what has been snatched from us. This did not happen in a faraway land, but here in the UK, and the heinous crime my mother committed that warranted such a savage response was requesting her God-given rights.

Until all of society learns to respect the half of society that bears and births them, humans will remain crippled, our social ills cannot be healed. We are hurting. Exhausted. But I have hope. Because, as Al Ghosaibi says, 'when a wound is tired of crying, it starts to sing'.

She should have been smart enough to know not to ask for something that may threaten the towering, carefully constructed, religiously disguised pedestal that has cradled the male ego for centuries. The outrageous desire to pray in a mosque that has only welcomed men since its creation represented values far too Islamic for these chauvinists.

We attended a mosque meeting advertised as being 'open to the public', and were abusively shouted down as soon as my mother attempted to make a contribution. No one had yet informed us that 'the public' does not include females.

Following police involvement, we were begrudgingly afforded a small place to pray, and saw the intimidation tactics become even more pathetic: tutting, head-shaking and sneering comments followed us round every corner. We felt unsafe.

And this isn't an isolated incident. When certain Muslim Labour councillors were accused of systematically and calculatedly blocking Muslim women from becoming MPs, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised at another result of relentless animosity, the opening of a woman-led mosque in Bradford, either.

There's no religious illegitimacy here. Making room for Muslim women isn't un-Islamic. And I haven't been pushed away from my religion by sexist men in the Muslim community.

Instead, I have drawn closer to my faith. I recognise the irony of the fact that the first university in the world was established by a Muslim woman, yet today many are denied an education. That the Prophet Mohammed fought on horseback alongside a woman, and yet now, many are told to stay in their houses and denied the right to drive. That in Mecca, at God's house, I walk hand-in-hand with my husband while worshipping, but UK mosques deny me entry. That the majority of the 5,000 annual British converts to Islam are women, because they see the Quran affirming gender equality, and have realised a deeper liberation – even as a culturally asphyxiated brand of so-called Islam run by chauvinists oppresses us.

Quite simply, in being your intellectual, spiritual and social equals, we recognise the immensity of the paradox that some of you continue to propagate. Despite your fervent attempts to use mistranslations and misinterpretations of scripture and tradition to satisfy your desires, we don't believe you. We do not need strengthening, we need recognition of the different forms our strength comes in.

This is an injustice at one end of the same spectrum that groups like Isis operate on. And for those of you who do not actively enforce this injustice, by remaining complicit in the shackling of even one woman, you are shackling all of us. How can a society progress if half of it is chained?

We're desperate to pull back the paralysing grip of the lethal combination of male ego and cultural deadweight, to untangle this mess and to live how our faith truly tells us to live, relieved of our exhaustion.

Ultimately, we need you to help us reclaim Islam.

Until all of society learns to respect the half of society that bears and births them, humans will remain crippled, our social ills cannot be healed. We are hurting. Exhausted. But I have hope.

Because, as Al Ghosaibi says, 'when a wound is tired of crying, it starts to sing'.

Muslim men, you owe us our rights – and the Quran says so. Don't forget that.

Sincerely,

A Muslim woman.

(Source: The Independent)

ALERT Anti Mining Activist Beaten and Tortured n Custody in Goa

April 2, 2016

Human Rights Groups across the country have issued an appeal to express grave concern at the allegedly brutal custodial beating and torture of anti-mining activist Ravindra Velip, who has been held in custody by the Goa police since March 23. Reports indicate that he and his colleagues were arrested for participating in an anti-mining protest in Cauvrem village of South Goa where they were opposing transportation of illegal iron ore. Further media reports suggest that the human rights defenders from Cauvrem-Pirla village in Quepemtaluka were blind folded and beaten up mercilessly by inmates in judicial custody inside Sada sub-jail in Goa.

Below is a Draft Appeal that could be sent to all authorities. Addresses of local authorities are also given below:

MODEL APPEAL
(Your Organisation/Individual Letterhead)

Date:

Address:

Sir/Madam,

(A line of introducing yourself / your organisation)

We are writing to express our grave concern regarding Mr. Ravindra Velip, an anti-mining activist and human rights defender from Cauvrem-Pirla village in Quepemtaluka who was blind folded and beaten up mercilessly by inmates in judicial custody inside Sada sub-jail in Goa. The incident happened on March 23, 2016, after Mr.RavindraVelip and his colleagues were arrested for participating in an anti-mining protest in Cauvrem village of South Goa where they were opposing transportation of illegal iron ore.
Source of Information on the Incident:
Media Reports
The Human Rights Defender:

Mr. Ravindra Velip hails from a tribal community and is a resident of Cauvrem-Pirlavillagein Quepemtaluka, South Goa. He is an anti-illegal mining activist associated with the non-governmental organisation known as ‘Goa Foundation’ whose petition in the Supreme Court resulted in a two-and-a-half-year ban on mining in the state. Mr. RavindraVelip has been consistently working to expose the illegalities of mining lease holders in Cauvrem. It was due to the efforts of his group that the authorities could locate lakhs of tonnes of iron ore illegally extracted and hidden in artificial mountains under layers of mud, after the closure of mining was announced by the State Government. Mr. RavindraVelipwas instrumental in revealing the information to the mining directorate that the excess amounts of iron ore discovered by his group with the help of villagers were being systematically removed under the garb of e-auction. The situation has been turning grim due to the unmonitored movement of mineral ore in the mining belt amid claims of the government that it lacks manpower and resources to prevent illegal mining and monitor movement of trucks.

The Perpetrators:
Jail authorities,
a mining firm and
A BJP MLA masterminding the assault
Goa Mining Lobby
Date of Incident:
March 23, 2016
Place of Incident:
Sada sub-jail
Incident detail:

According to sources on March 22, 2016, Mr.RavindraVelip was arrested along with four others for participating in an anti-mining protest in Cauvrem village of South Goa. Their arrests were made under Sections 143 (unlawful assembly) and 341 (wrongful restraint) for blocking transportation of iron ore e-auctioned by the state government to a private trading company. They were remanded to judicial custody in Sada sub-jail.

Around 9 PM on Thursday March 23, 2016, when he was getting ready to move out of the Sub-Jail facility after securing bail, suddenly someone from back blindfolded him and began hitting him. He was beaten up with boots and fists. He was lifted and thrown from a height due to which hesuffered multiple fractures on his arms and suffered internal injuries. Mr. Ravindra was taken to the Goa Medical College and got medical treatment.

Anti-mining activist Mr.RavindraVelipalong with his colleagues were protesting mining operations in Cauvrem village of South Goa. They were arrested after they questioned the veracity of the iron ore consignment passing through their village. The villagers of Cauvrem are protesting against transportation of iron ore by a mining firm through their village road. The iron ore export in Goa has begun after Supreme Court lifted the ban imposed on the mining activity.
Anti-mining activists of Goa alleged that “a mining firm, a ruling BJP legislator and jail authorities were behind the attack. They filed a complaint with State Chief secretary against the jail authorities on Friday the March 25, 2016, and urged that the government should initiate proper inquiry into the incident and demanded that guilty should be punished.

Appeal:
We, therefore urge you to immediately take necessary steps to ensure that the concerned authorities in Goa:
Order an immediate, thorough, transparent, effective and impartial investigation into the above-mentioned physical assault made on the anti- mining activist and human rights defender Mr. RavindraVelip;
Ensure complete medical check-up of human rights defender Mr. RavindraVelip totally at state cost in the best medical facility available in the state to ensure that he is not suffering from any internal medical ailments;
Take immediate action on the perpetrators by arresting them and using all provisions of law to ensure that the defender is not harassed or attacked in future and provide a re-assurance of not engaging in such acts against HRDs;

Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of human rights defender Mr. RavindraVelip and his family members from further reprisals from the perpetrators;
Ensure provision of reparation, compensation, apology to the human rights defender for the physical and psychological sufferings he has undergone and also ensure to compensate Mr. RavindraVelipfor his medical expenses incurred during his treatment and give this assurance to the NHRC of India in writing immediately and urgently;

Put an end to all acts of attack and harassment against all human rights defenders in the State of Goa to ensure that in all circumstances they carry out their activities without any hindrances;
Takes steps to conform to the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially:

Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels;
Article 12.2, which provides that “"the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”;

Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint the SHRC in Goa to also take necessary steps to establish a state focal point for HRDs in order to ensure that HRDs have a new protection mechanism in their own state;

Recommends urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the NHRC to convene a meeting of all state human rights institutions in the state [the SHRC, the SCW, the SCPCR, the SCM, the SIC, State Commissioner for PWDs, etc.] to ensure that a coordinated strategy is developed within the State of Goa for the protection of the rights of human rights defenders;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint the State Government of Goa in collaboration with the NHRC Focal Point on HRDs and the SHRC Goa to provide sensitization training to law enforcement and security forces on the role and activities of human rights defenders as a matter of priority, with technical advice and assistance from relevant United Nations entities, NGOs and other partners;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the State Government of Goa in collaboration with the SHRC Goa to publicly acknowledge the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, i.e. anyone who, “individually and in association with others, … promote[s] and … strive[s] for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels” (art.1 of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders);

More generally, ensures in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with international human rights instruments ratified by India is strictly adhered to in the state of Goa.

ADDRESS

Shri A. K. Parashar
National Focal Point – Human Rights Defenders & Joint Registrar
National Human Rights Commission
Manav Adhikar Bhawan,
Block-C, GPO Complex, INA,
New Delhi – 110 023
Email: hrd-nhrc@nic.in

Justice (Retd.) H L Dattu,
Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission,
Manav Adhikar Bhawan, Block-C, GPO Complex, INA, New Delhi – 110 023 
Email: chairnhrc@nic.in

Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association 
Mr. Maina Kiai
Palais des NationsCH-1211 Geneva 10Switzerland
Fax: + 41 22 917 9006 
Email: freeassembly@ohchr.org info@freeassembly.net

Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises 
c/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations Office at Geneva
8-14, avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland e-mail: wg-business@ohchr.org

Mr. Ajit Kumar 
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations
Office and other International Organizations in GenevaTel:
+41-22-731 28 54Fax: +41-22-906 86 96
E-mail: pr.genevapmi@mea.gov.in mission.india@ties.itu.

GOA HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Old Directorate of Education Building,
1st floor, 18 thJune Road, Panaji, Goa-403001
Email: sect-ghrc@nic.in

Shri R.K. Srivastava IAS
Chief Secretary Government of Goa
Email : cs-goa@nic.in

Shri T.N. Mohan IPS
Director General of Police – Goa Near Azad Maidan, 
Panaji – Goa. Email :dgpgoa@goapolice.gov.in
Superintendent of Police – Goa South
Near Azad Maidan, Panaji – Goa. Email :sps-pol.goa@nic.in
Shri SachinShinde IAS

Collector & District Magistrate – South Goa Email :cols.goa@nic.in

Suspended VC Appa Rao set to Demolish Rohith Stupa and Veliwada with Political Blessing?

April 2, 2016

Despite nationwide and international criticism of Appa Rao and the Centre’s police brutality unleashed against peacefully protesting students of the Hyderabad Central University, there appears every likelihood that the suspended VC Appa Rao with the full backing of the Centre is likely to unleash a further set of confrontations with students.

Instead of entering into collaborative discussions with students, the administration has, on March 24, 2016 at a meeting discussed how to ensure permanent presence of the police on campus and even contemplated destroying the Rohith Stupa and Veliwada constructed by students on campus in memory of Rohith and as a symbol of struggle.

The Joint Action Committee ( JAC) of students has released images of the Minutes of the Meeting that it got access to. In response the JAC has also issued a strong statement:
"University of Hyderabad that became a graveyard for Dalit students is now being converted into a military camp. These strong use of words are not an exaggeration or a political rhetoric but is supported by substantial evidences. The minutes of the VC’s meeting with the deans held on the 24th of March, which reads like a death sentence to the students of this university and the university itself, were leaked in the public domain. Our faculties who were arrested, after coming out made a statement that they felt that the jails were much more democratic than this university, this document proves them right"

"Coming to the document, it mentions that the UGC guidelines that recommend the installation of a police outpost in university campuses will be mandated in UoH. It also states that CISF, the central industrial security forces force will be instated at the earliest. The document states that “It was also felt that the university should not hesitate on the expenditure incurred on security”. It stated that the velivada and Rohith’s stupa that has been installed by the students in memory of Rohith will be removed using police and security force regardless of any consent or consideration to the students. We are again witnessing a pre-planned ploy by the university to erase the memory of Rohith so that people will forget about the injustice and stop holding the university accountable. "

Film Makers, Writers, Cultural Personalities and Activists Demand Release of Deba Ranjan Sarangi

April 1, 2016

UPDATE:
More than 500 Renowned film makers, writers ,artistes and activists have demanded the immediate release of Deba Ranjan Sarangi who was suddenly picked up on the morning of March 18 in Odisha . Some of them are Nayantara Sehgal, Arundhati Roy, Amrit Wilson, Uma Chakravarti , Sandeep Pandey Medha Patkar, Nandita Das, Konkanasen Sharma , Mallika Sarabai, Paromita Vora , Anand Patwardhan, Sandeep Pandey , Meena Kandasamy , K N Panikkar Endorsements have been also received from various parts of the world
Renowned film makers, writers and activists have demanded the immediate release of Deba Ranjan Sarangi who was suddenly picked up on the morning of March 18. Some of the signatories include Anand Patwardhan (Film Maker) Sudhir Patnaik (writer, editor) Dhirendra Panda (Human Rights Activist) K.P. Sasi (Film Maker, Human Rights Actvist) and Ajay TG (Film Maker,Human Rights Activist)

Text of the statement:

We the undersigned film makers, writers, professionals in the area of art & culture, academics, activists and social organisations are deeply shocked to hear about the arrest of independent documentary film maker, writer and human rights activist Deba Ranjan Sarangi. We strongly condemn the arrest view it as part of an overall strategy of the Indian State to curb freedom of speech, freedom of expression of artists, writers, film makers and cultural personalities. We also condemn it in the context of the overall suppression of dissent and suppression of human rights defenders in the era of strong facilitation of the forces of communalism and globalisation by the Indian State and in particular, by the Odisha government.

Deba Ranjan Sarangi was arrested on March 18, 2016, by plainclothes policemen from the Kucheipadar village of Rayagada District, Odisha. Debaranjan was in Kucheipadar to attend a funderal ceremony of one of his friend’s father. He was arrested with a non-bailable warrant issued by the court of JMFC, Kashippur in pursuance of a case registered in Tikri police station of Rayagada district in 2005, when Debaranjan was actively involved in the struggle of the Adivasis in Kashipur to protect their lands from the invasion of the bauxite mining companies.

Deba Ranjan Sarangi has been a consistent and passionate voice against injustice both within and outside Odisha. As a writer, film maker and human rights activist, he has highlighted and critiqued policies of destructive development, unbridled mining practices, displacement, police impunity, atrocities on Dalits, Adivasi issues , growth of communal fascism in Odisha, violence on women and farmers’ suicide in the context of acute agrarian.

As per the reports, Deba Ranjan Sarangi was detained at Jaraguda police station for interrogation. It is learnt that Tikiri police arrested him in an old case warrant with GR case no: 12 of 2005 under Sections 147,148 and 506 of Indian Penal Code. HRDA has been informed that the case is related to a protest and agitation against Utkal Alumunia Company in Kashipur block of Raigada district which took place in the year of 2005. During that period a non-bailable warrant was issued against the defender under section 506 of IPC which is apparently being executed now after a gap of 11 years. If the police machinery was really convinced about these fabricated cases on Deba Ranjan Saragi, there was no need to take 11 years to arrest him, since Debaranjan was active as a film maker and a writer during the entire period.

Writer and documentary film maker Deba Ranjan Sarangi who has spent his precious time for the struggles of Adivasis in Odisha is also a member of Ganantrik Adhilkar Surakya Sangathan (GASS). His films include: 1. At the Crossroads, 2. The Conflict: Whose Loss Whose Gain, 3. From hindu to Hindutva, 4. Visit to Basaguda.

We the undersigned hereby strongly reiterate that it is not possible to silence the voice of dissent, the expressions of our conscience or even the reporting of facts by intimidation, imprisonment or through fabricated cases. We remind the authorities that the arrest of Debaranjan Saragi is a clear violation of Articles 14, 19, 21 and 22 enshrined in the Indian Constitution in defense of freedom of speech, freedom of expression and human rights. Authorities have also violated the safeguards mandated by the Supreme Court in various decisions regarding the arrest of an individual. Such arrests are not only undermining Indian democracy, but also the flourishing growth of all artistic creativity. Deba Ranjan has been put behind bars because he had the courage to show what he witnessed to the world through his expressions of film making, writing and speech. He is neither a Maoist nor a terrorist. We call upon the Odisha government to address the issues raised by the human rights defenders in the State of Odisha rather than imprisoning them and crushing the voices of film makers. We call upon the Odisha government to desist from such disgraceful attempts of violating the Indian Constitution and Indian democracy.

Therefore we demand the immediate release of Debaranjan Sarangi and an immediate dropping of all false charges against him. We also appeal to the civil society to circulate this information widely within your reach.

Journo Prabhat Singh Denied Bail Remanded to Judicial Custody: Bastar, Jagdalpur

April 1, 2016

Despite the illegal arrest, without appropriate warrant on March 21, independent journalist Prabhat Singh was denied bail by the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh on March 26. After being denied release on bail, the human rights defender Mr Prabhat Singh was sent to judicial custody in Jagdalpur Central Jail, pending investigation into his case. He has been held in detention since his arrest without warrant on 21 March 2016.

Frontline Defenders an international organisation that leads advocacy for human rights defenders has issued a string statement in this regard.

Text of the statement:

Prabhat Singh is a human rights defender and journalist, reporting for Patrika newspaper on the situation in the tribal region of Bastar. During the past three months, he has been reporting on allegedly false cases brought against tribal villagers in the areas of Chhattisgarh affected by an insurgency by Maoist groups. He has also reported on harassment of and attacks on human rights defenders and journalists in the region. He has been a strong critic of the Chhattisgarh police and has played a key role in highlighting several cases of police brutality and involvement in human rights violations in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. Prabhat Singh has also played a vital role in organising peaceful protests and discussions devoted to the drafting and implementation of a law that would ensure the independence and security of journalists reporting from areas affected by the Maoist conflict in Bastar.

On March 26, 2016, Prabhat Singh's request for bail was denied at a court hearing at the CJM in Jagdalpur. The Court also refused an application by the police for the extension of Prabhat Singh's police custody and ordered the human rights defender to be sent to the Jagdalpur Central Jail, where he will remain in judicial custody at least until the next court session on April 13, 2016. The police will be required to report on the investigation's progress at this session, and the Court will then decide on whether to release Prabhat Singh from judicial custody. A medical report was produced before the judge during the hearing, stating that no injuries had been discovered during a prior examination of the human rights defender. Prabhat Singh opposed the report, claiming that he had never been examined by a doctor and had been forced to sign the report. The judge, however, did not take his objections into account.

During the court hearing, which was conducted amidst a heavy police presence, the human rights defender denied all the accusations against him, claiming that the cases had been opened in reprisal for his critical reporting, including his revelation of large-scale fraud at the Aadhaar facilitation centre in Geedam and the mentioned school. After the court hearing took place, Prabhat Singh was returned into custody.

On 22,March 2016, Prabhat Singh was officially charged by the CJM in Jagdalpur under section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67(A) of the Information Technology Act, as well as section 292 (publication of obscene or scurrilous matter) of the Indian Penal Code, for allegedly posting an “obscene message” about a senior police officer on the WhatsApp group “Bastar News”. On the same day, the human rights defender was also charged in three other cases from 2015. In two of these cases, Prabhat Singh was charged under sections 420, 120B and 35 of the Indian Penal Code for alleged fraud linked to his work at the Aadhaar Facilitation Centre in Dantewada. In the third case the human rights defender was accused of taking pictures of female students from Geedam Higher Secondary School without permission, and manhandling an examiner and demanding money from him. The charges were brought under sections 448, 385, 353, 186, 34 of the Indian Penal Code and section 6 of Chhattisgarh Examination Act.

During the court hearing, which was conducted amidst a heavy police presence, the human rights defender denied all the accusations against him, claiming that the cases had been opened in reprisal for his critical reporting, including his revelation of large-scale fraud at the Aadhaar facilitation centre in Geedam and the mentioned school. After the court hearing took place, Prabhat Singh was returned into custody.

On March 21, 2016, a white-coloured Bolero car stopped in front of the office of the Patrika newspaper in Dantewada. Several policemen in plain clothes got out of it and without presenting an arrest warrant, picked Prabhat Singh up and put him in the car. The human rights defender was then taken to the Parpa Police station in Bastar, where he was detained over-night.

While in custody the human rights defender was beaten and sharp objects were used to cut his hands. Police officers also verbally abused and made death threats against him, forcing him to sign several blank pieces of paper, which allegedly were subsequently used to fabricate the medical report.

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Hindutva Groups Fail to Push Caste Oppression Out of California Textbooks

HINDUTVA GROUPS FAIL TO OMIT CASTE OPPRESSION – California Education Commission denies anti-Dalit revisions in favor of academic-backed positions on history of caste-based violence

California Education Commission denies anti-Dalit revisions in favor of academic-backed positions on history of caste-based violence

The Burning Question: Bangladeshi, Bhagwa, Beef and the Assam Elections

Assamese exceptionalism and the ambivalence of the Assamese Muslim to the Sangh Parivar’s designs against all Muslims regardless of ethnicity or descent could prove to be at the root of BJP’s win in the Assam polls. The state goes to polls on April 4 and 11, 2016 in two phases

SC should help remove ambiguities on secularism in practice: Hamid Ansari

This is the full text of Vice President M. Hamid Ansari's speech at the 16th Convocation of University of Jammu on Saturday (April 2, 2016).

An Open Letter to Muslim Men from an Angry Muslim Woman

I recognise the irony of the fact that the first university in the world was established by a Muslim woman, yet today many are denied an education. That the Prophet Mohammed fought on horseback alongside a woman, and yet now, many are told to stay in their houses and denied the right to drive

ALERT Anti Mining Activist Beaten and Tortured n Custody in Goa

Below is a Draft Appeal that could be sent to all authorities. Addresses of local authorities are also given below:

Suspended VC Appa Rao set to Demolish Rohith Stupa and Veliwada with Political Blessing?

Film Makers, Writers, Cultural Personalities and Activists Demand Release of Deba Ranjan Sarangi

Journo Prabhat Singh Denied Bail Remanded to Judicial Custody: Bastar, Jagdalpur

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