Latest allegations of sexual assault show how the legal system discourage victims from coming forward

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February 12, 2019

Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is refusing to resign after denying charges by two women who have said that he sexually assaulted them.

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The first woman to come forward was Vanessa Tyson, a politics professor at Scripps College. She initially contacted The Washington Post after Fairfax’s election in December 2017, alleging that Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex in 2004.

The Post stated it did not publish a story at that time because it “could not corroborate Tyson’s account or find similar complaints of sexual misconduct.”

So Tyson’s story did not make national headlines until this week, when it was first published by the conservative blog Big League Politics.
The second woman to come forward is Meredith Watson, who alleges Fairfax raped her while they were both students at Duke University in 2000. According to a statement written by her attorneys, Watson told a dean at the school about the rape, and the dean “discouraged her from pursuing the claim further.”

On Feb. 9, Fairfax asked the FBI to investigate their allegations. While it’s not clear that the FBI will investigate, the controversy raises important questions about how the legal system deals with cases of sexual assault.

I am a scholar of domestic and sexual violence, and my work has focused on analyzing the stories survivors share when they seek safety and hold perpetrators accountable for abuse. I’ve also studied what happens when the legal system encounters and processes these stories.

What I’ve found is a fundamental mismatch between what survivors disclose and what legal systems need to hear to take action.

Survivors and systems unaligned

Survivors of sexual assault expect to be able to share what they have experienced in a way that reflects how they have made sense of the event and its aftermath.

In contrast, courts want a report that is linear, providing an almost objective, dispassionate accounting of abuse with specific names, dates and “facts.” They want independent evidence of the abuse.

Activists demonstrate as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from both Ford and Kavanaugh. AP//J. Scott Applewhite

The problem is, acts of sexual and domestic violence rarely occur in front of other people, and survivors of sexual and domestic violence often have little external evidence of their assault other than their story.

The end result is that systems that are supposed to help are, in general, unable to adequately assess and respond to survivors’ stories.
For example, officers responding to cases of domestic violence often do not make arrests, especially in cases of sexual violence.

In an analysis of FBI data, my colleague Matthew Fetzer and I found that only 26 percent of cases of sexual domestic violence reported to the police resulted in an arrest (in comparison to 52 percent of cases of physical domestic violence).

This may be due to the intimate nature of sexual violence and the difficulty of proving sexual assault. As one woman who experienced sexual violence told researchers: “I was raped by my husband. There was no evidence except for bruises on the inside of my legs or the pain on my breasts, and you just can’t prove it.”

Many institutions and organizations make decisions based on stereotypes about survivors that rarely reflect their actual circumstances.

That’s especially true with survivors who are not “good victims,” who are not white, middle-class women, and who do not have external documentation of their abuse.

For many survivors – especially women of color, women reporting violence committed by perpetrators who hold power or women who experience sexual violence – it’s easier and safer to not report the abuse and pretend that the resulting trauma never happened.

To an outsider, the choice not to report an assault in the moment, or even years later, does not make sense.

They do not understand how survivors compartmentalize in order to survive or even thrive.

Many legal options for reporting sexual assault – such as calling the police – aren’t designed with survivors’ goals, needs and motivations in mind. So survivors do not see reporting as an option, and do not see the legal system as a resource.

Many survivors of assault are afraid to make reports to the police. Jacek Wojnarowski/Shutterstock

Expecting a survivor to disclose their abuse to someone in the moment does not reflect current knowledge and theory about sexual and domestic assault.

Rethinking responses to violence

The Fairfax story is an opportunity to rethink how to help survivors of violence and how to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.
In the right environment and with the right support, survivors will want to come forward, share their stories, and gain strength from doing so.

However, the legal system is an adversarial system with confusing and complex bureaucratic procedures and often untrained staff. As trauma scholar Dr. Judith Herman explains, “If one set out intentionally to design a system for provoking symptoms of traumatic stress, it might look very much like a court of law.”

Survivors are asked to recall specific details about their victimization that they have repressed in order to survive. As one advocate said to me in an interview, “They’re trying to forget what happened and here I am, asking them to write down, with as many details as they can, what they went through.”

How might we create a more responsive system?

First: Stop requiring survivors to narrate their abuse. It’s more detrimental than helpful, especially if we simply discount it as a “story” afterward.

If there is some form of external documentation, survivors should be able to provide that instead. If there is no external documentation, then the narrative should be elicited in a supportive environment of the survivor’s choosing, with trained staff available to help them better understand the kinds of information that judges and law enforcement need.

Second: People charged with listening and responding to survivors need to be educated about the dynamics of domestic and sexual violence. While some are, many do not fully understand the ways in which domestic and sexual violence affect survivors. It is impossible for them to hear and respond appropriately unless they understand those dynamics.

Finally: Explore what believing and supporting a survivor means.

While the words “I believe” and “I support” are critically important, they should not become buzzwords that replace actions. When you believe a survivor and decide to support that survivor, you must act. You must make hard, even unpopular, decisions.

You must work to adapt the system in order to uphold justice.

I believe. Period. I believe.

Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a story originally published on Oct. 12, 2018.

Courtesy: The Conversation

How neoliberalism is normalising hostility

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February 12, 2019

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From working conditions to welfare policies, from immigration to the internet – this zero sum game of winners and losers benefits only the far right.

Image: Homeless man with commuters walking past, Waterloo Station, London. Credit: Jessica Mulley/Flickr, CC 2.0

The hostile environment is not just about the Windrush generation in the UK, or the harassment of migrants at the Mexican border in the USA, or the unwelcoming treatment of refugees trying to reach Europe. It has become ubiquitous and widespread. We encounter it in many aspects of daily life. In worsening conditions at work such as zero-hour ‘contracts’. In obstacles to accessing social and health services due to cutbacks, making people’s lives more precarious. Online threats and trolling are other signs of this normalisation of hostility.

The normalisation of hostile environments signals a worrying and global shift in values of tolerance, empathy, compassion, hospitality and responsibility for the vulnerable. It’s a normalisation that was criticised recently in the UK by UN Poverty Rapporteur Philip Alston, who described how “punitive, mean-spirited, often callous” government welfare policies were contributing to an “increasingly hostile and unwelcoming society”.

There’s a pattern to hostile environments that harks back to the 1930s and 40s. As we know, at the time, those targeted were considered as the enemy within, to be subject to expulsion, exclusion and indeed, genocide, as happened to Jews and other so-called ‘inferior races’. In more recent time, the iterations of this discourse of the alien other who must be expelled or eliminated to save the ‘pure’ or ‘good race’ or ethnicity and reconstitute the broken community have found traction in Europe, the USA, Rwanda, India, parts of the Middle East. In its wake, refugees have become asylum seekers, migrants are labelled illegal or criminal, cultural differences become alien cultures, non-binary women and men are misgendered, and at the extreme, those targeted for violence become vermin. It marks a shift in political culture that inscribes elements of fascism.

Why has this atmosphere of hostility become the default position in politics? What have been the triggers and what are the stakes in this great moving rightwards shift? One may be tempted to identify the change in mood and attitudes with recent events like the election of Trump in the USA. But the far right has been on the rise in Europe, the UK and the US for some years, as seen in movements like the Tea Party, UKIP, or the National Front in France. They have been given a boost by the flood of refugees generated by wars in the Middle East, Afghanistan, parts of Africa, as well as by the spread of fundamentalist religious creeds that have an affinity with forms of fascism.

Why? Two related sets of developments that from the 1970s have gradually altered the political terrain. Economically, globalisation emerged as an integral part of a transnational corporate strategy aimed at securing advantageous conditions for the consolidation of global capital at a time of risky structural changes in the global economy. And politically, neoliberalism took hold when the crises of the 1970s started to undermine the postwar consensus in the Keynesian mixed economy and the role of the welfare state.

Globalisation saw the systematic deployment of outsourcing production in countries offering cheap labour, minimised corporate tax burdens and other incentives for transnational corporations, and the invention of the trade in derivatives (financial mechanisms intended to leverage the value of assets and repackaged debts). They contributed to the 2008 crash. The general public were made to bail out the banks through increased taxation and the establishment of policies across social services that produce hostile environments for claimants seeking state support.

As Ha Joon Chang has shown, by the 1990s, financial capitalism had become the dominant power, prioritising the interest of shareholders, and incentivising managers through share ownership and bonuses schemes. The disruptions due to this recomposition of capital have been a global squeeze on income, the creation of a new precariat, and the debt society. People who feel insecure, abandoned to forces outside their control become easy prey to demagogues and prophets of deceit who promise the return of good times, provided enemies and outsiders who wreck things are expelled.

Meanwhile, neoliberal political economy gradually became the new orthodoxy, increasing its impact through right wing thinktanks and government advisors and spreading its influence in academia and economic thought. Its initial success in terms of growth and prosperity in the 1990s and turn of the century consolidated its hold over the economy until the crash of 2008.

What is important here is the radical shift in values and attitudes that recall utilitarian values in the 19th Century. In particular, it is reflected in the neoliberal hostility towards the poor, the weak, the destitute, the ‘ losers’, expressed in its denial or abnegation of responsibility for their plight or welfare, and its project of dismantling the welfare or providential state.

This pervasive atmosphere of hostility is the real triumph of neoliberal political economy. Not the economy – privatisation, monetisation, deregulation, generalised competition, and structural adjustments are immanent tendencies in globalised capitalism anyway. But neoliberal political economy reanimates attitudes and values that legitimate the consolidation of power over others, evidenced for example in the creation of an indebted population who must play by the dominant rules of the game in order to survive. It promotes new servitudes, operating on a planetary scale. What is rejected are ideas of common interest and a common humanity that support the principle of collective responsibility for fellow humans, and that radical liberal philosophers like John Stuart Mill defended. They were the values, along with the principles of fundamental human rights, that informed major reforms, and inspired socialism. The establishment of the welfare or providential state, and programmes of redistribution, enshrined in Beveridge or New Deals, draw from these same principles and values.

Neoliberalism has promoted a self-centeredness that pushes Adam Smith-style individualism to an extreme, turning selfishness into a virtue, as Ayn Rand has done. It is a closed ontology since it does not admit the other, the stranger, into the circle of those towards whom we have a duty of responsibility and care. It thus completes capitalism as a zero-sum game of winners and ‘losers’. Apart from the alt-right in the USA, we find its exemplary advocates amongst leading Brexiteers in the UK, backed by dark money. It is not the social democratic compromise of capitalism with a human face that could support the welfare state. Seen in this context, there is an essential affinity between alt-right, neoliberal political economy and neo- fascisms, punctuated by aggressivity, intolerance, exclusion, expulsion and generalised hostility.

There are other important stakes at this point in the history of humanity and the planet. We tend to forget that support for fundamental human rights, like equality, liberty, freedom from oppressive power, has long been motivated by the same kind of concern to defend the vulnerable, the poor, the destitute, the oppressed from the injustices arising from unequal relations of power. We forget too that these rights have been hard won through generations of emancipatory struggles against many forms of oppressions.

Yet, it is sad to see many institutions and organisations tolerate intolerance out of confusion about the principles at stake and for fear of provoking hostile reactions from those who claim rights that in effect disadvantage some already vulnerable groups. Failure to defend the oppressed anywhere and assert our common humanity is the slippery slope towards a Hobbesian state and great suffering for the many.

Couze Venn is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Theory in the Media & Communications Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Associate Research Fellow at Johannesburg University. His recent book is After Capital, Sage, 2018.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

Ex-CBI Interim Director Nageswara Rao held for contempt of court by SC

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February 12, 2019

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Rao was found guilty of shunting out a CBI officer who was in charge of the Muzaffarpur shelter abuse probe despite a freeze on transfers by the Supreme Court.

M Nageswara Rao, acting Central Bureau of Investigation director, was found guilty by the Supreme Court of contempt for ordering the transfer of an officer investigating the sexual abuse of children at Bihar’s government-run shelter homes on Tuesday.

Rao was found guilty of shunting out a CBI officer who was in charge of the Muzaffarpur shelter abuse probe despite a freeze on transfers by the SC.

“It’s not an error. It’s willful disobedience,” a livid Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, also finding the CBI’s Director of Prosecution and Additional Legal Advisor S Bhasuran, guilty of contempt.

Rejecting their apology, the judges fined the officers Rs. 1 lakh each and asked them to sit in the corner of the court till it rises for the day as punishment. “We can send you to jail for up to 30 days,” the court said before accepting the Attorney General’s request for leniency.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took serious note of the violation of the two earlier orders dated October 31 and November 28, 2018, and issued contempt notice to Rao for transferring Sharma to the CRPF on January 17 without taking prior permission from the court. The court clarified that Sharma would not return to join the probe into the Muzaffarpur shelter home case.

The court was not happy with Rao’s actions. “You are playing with the order of the Supreme Court. God help you…Never, never play with the order of the court.” Turning to the CBI officer who filed the document, CJI Gogoi remarked “never ever file an affidavit which is not in your personal satisfaction. Law is the only master you serve…”

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, the officer had said he accepts his mistake of not seeking permission before transferring the officer probing the Muzaffarpur shelter homes case.

“I sincerely realize my mistake and while tendering my unqualified and unconditional apology, I specially state I have not willfully violated the order of this court as I cannot even dream of violating or circumventing order of this court,” Rao, who was a decision maker during his tenure as the agency’s interim chief, wrote in his apology.

Breaking: Richa Singh Assaulted, left Unconscious in Allahabad

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February 12, 2019

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Youth leader and spokesperson Samajwadi Party (SP) Richa Singh was attacked in Allahabad on Tuesday afternoon. She was allegedly physically assaulted by police personnel and left bleeding and unconscious on the road.

Richa Singh

When some of the protesters tried to take her to a hospital, the police promptly arrested her and whisked her away to the police station!

SP Chhatra Sabha leader Illyas Adnan who was at the spot shed light on the incident saying, “SP leader Akhilesh Yadav was to address University students at a program here today, but the administration did not even allow him to board his flight from Lucknow. MP Dhananjay Yadav then addressed the nearly 10,000 strong crowd that had gathered here to hear Akhilesh Yadav. We then commenced a Shanti March. Richa Singh and several student leaders were present in the march. That’s when the police attacked us!”

Adnan added, “They beat up several SP leaders including Dhananjay Yadav, Azamgarh MLA Sangram Yadav and also Mahindra Patel from Phulpur who were present at the protest. But were particularly brutal in the manner in which they beat up Richa Singh. She sustained head injuries and they also broke two of her teeth! She fell unconscious but we were not even allowed to take her to the hospiatl. She was arrested and taken to police lines!”

Richa Singh is a feisty former student leader and holds the distinction of becoming the first woman President of the Allahabad University Students Union in its 119 year history. She has been a constant thorn in the flesh for the Adityanath administration. She had earlier been subject to police brutality and institutional violence for protesting Adityanath’s visit to the University and showing him black flags.

Anand Patwardhan’s Raam Ke Naam age-restricted on YouTube

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February 12, 2019

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The documentary can be streamed on Patwardhan’s YouTube channel anandverite but it now comes with a disclaimer saying it may be “inappropriate for some users”.

Renowned filmmaker Anand Patwardhan’s seminal work “Ram Ke Naam,” based on the Babri Masjid demolition, has been age-restricted on YouTube.

The National Award-winning documentary from 1992 received a ‘U’ certificate from the Central Bureau of Film Certification and was shown at prime time on Doordarshan after the High Court ordered its telecast in 1996. Patwardhan said he is shocked how the film has now been termed for “adults” only, 26 years after its release.

The director said the video-sharing website is “catering to Hindutva goons who want to kill all secular content.” The 1992 documentary explores the campaign waged by the Hindu-nationalist Vishva Hindu Parishad to build a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, as well as the communal violence that it triggered, a report said.

The documentary can be streamed on Patwardhan’s YouTube channel anandverite but it now comes with a disclaimer saying it may be “inappropriate for some users”.

Accusing the video sharing platform of quasi-censorship, Patwardhan said in a Facebook post, “YouTube is at it again, catering to Hindutva goons who want to kill all secular content. Latest is they have put an “age restriction” on my film Ram Ke Naam which has a ‘U’ certificate from CBFC, won a National Award and was shown at prime time (9 pm) on Doordarshan after the High Court ordered its telecast in 1996. The film is 28 years old!”

Ram Ke Naam won the National Film Award for Best Investigative Documentary and the Filmfare Award for Best Documentary. The film observed the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s campaign to build a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which Hindutva groups claim is the birthplace of Ram. It followed the Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani’s rath yatra in those days which culminated in the demolition of the mosque by Hindutva mobs on December 6, 1992, sparking riots across India that left more than 2,000 people dead.

Patwardhan urged people to write protest letters to Google and YouTube. “Please write protest letters to Youtube and Google. They did the same thing to Jai Bhim Comrade as well, another film with a “U” certificate and a National award. Is YouTube even worse than our CBFC?” he wrote.

“After further review, we’ve determined that while your video does not violate our Community Guidelines, it may not be appropriate for a general audience. We have therefore age-restricted your video,” YouTube wrote in response to Patwardhan.

“Now, if you are a child over 14 and under 18 you are allowed to do hazardous labour but you are not allowed to see Ram Ke Naam,” Patwardhan responded on his Facebook profile.

Communal Violence: Locating the Role of State and Changing Nature of Violence

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February 12, 2019

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As per newspaper reports, the number of communal incidents all over India in 2018 has been the lowest in the past four years. The Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) monitors reports of communal incidents in five newspapers every year. In 2018 the number of communal incidents reported was 38 as compared to 43 in 2017, 62 in 2016 and 47 in 2015 according to the reports in five leading newspapers.

Representation Image

Rajnath Singh said that the number of communal incidents has fallen 12% in 2018 (Economic Times, 2018) which supports the finding of CSSS monitoring of communal violence to some extent. Though there is a decline in the number of communal incidents/ communal riots as per the CSSS findings, communal polarization and religious intolerance has sharpened in India in 2018. There is a steady rise in the number of incidents of mob lynching (85) over suspicion of cow slaughter and child lifting and hate crimes according to CSSS findings which are also indicators of the prevalence of communal violence in the country.

Further the number of communal incidents has to be examined carefully. This number is arrived from the reports of only five newspapers and might vary from the number of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which has better access to comprehensive data of communal incidents. The numbers published by MHA are always way higher than the numbers from CSSS findings. The increase in mob lynching and over all communal violence is attributed to impunity and patronage given to the non-state actors by those who are the helm of power. This impunity and patronage have emboldened vigilantes to perpetuate violence.

The prospects of justice in the cases related to communal violence were abysmal in 2018. After decades of pursuing and positive role of the judiciary, convictions were achieved in the anti- Sikh riots of 1984 and Hashimpura riots. But overall the state has done very little to secure convictions and justice for the survivors, betraying to an extent of bias of the state against certain religious communities. This explains the dominant trend of communal violence in 2018 where the ruling dispensation has been promoting and patronizing violence.

Methodology followed:
The findings of Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) are based on its monitoring of communal incidents published in print media reports of Mumbai edition of five newspapers – The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Hindu, Sahafat and Inquilab. CSSS in its reports on communal violence, in the past, compared its findings with the number published by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

However the MHA has stopped publishing data related to incidents of communal violence. Transparency and accountability in governance are the hallmarks of democracy. In this light the trend of the government ceasing to publish data on incidents of communal violence, which they published until a couple of years back, has blocked out the information of the number of communal incidents taking place in the country according to official sources. Often it is found that the data released by the (MHA) reports substantially higher number of communal incidents than the media reports and thus reports by CSSS. This is natural given the access that the MHA has to all the police stations and subsequently the data.

For example, while the monitoring of the newspaper reports by CSSS arrived at the figure of 43 of communal incidents in 2017, the Union Minister of State for Home reported 111 people were killed and 2,384 others were injured in 822 communal incidents in the country in 2017. He also reported that in 2016, 86 people were killed and 2,321 others were injured in 703 incidents of communal violence. In 2015, a total of 97 people were killed and 2,264 were injured due to 751 incidents of riots (The Hindu, 2018). As opposed to this data, CSSS reported 43 incidents in 2017, 62 incidents in 2016 and 47 incidents in 2015.

Table 1: Comparative Table of Communal Incidents according to CSSS and MHA in 2017, 2016 and 2015

Graph 1: Comparative Graph of Communal Incidents according to CSSS and MHA in 2017, 2016 and 2015

Sections in the report:
The low figures of communal incidents from CSSS finding may not imply decline in communal violence. Communal incidents are but only one of the aspects of communal violence, only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Communal violence constitutes communal incidents, mob lynching and hate crimes in today’s context. While communal incidents/ riots come under the category of physical violence, hate crimes may not necessarily be physical violence but predominantly constitute hate speeches, discriminatory attitudes and violence that are perpetuated in a structural manner through institutions.

While there are similarities between mob lynching and communal riots, the most salient difference between the two is that in communal riots, the entire ‘other’ community is targeted, but in mob lynching a particular individual or individuals are targeted. These targets are proclaimed by the mob to be guilty of specific ‘crime’ or ‘wrong doing’. Communal riots mete out collective punishment. All members of ‘enemy’ community are targeted even those innocent and believed to be innocent of any wrong doing other than membership of their community. Mob lynching seems to be continuation of that pattern of low intensity communal violence. The innocuous looking isolated incidents of mob lynching are in fact new pattern of low intensity communal violence. The objectives of sustained communal polarization can now be achieved by this method (Engineer, 2018).
This report is divided into three sections giving analysis on communal incidents/ riots, mob lynching and hate crimes.

Section 1: Communal incidents/ riots in 2018
Religion wise break up of deaths and injuries:
In 2018, from 1^st January to 31^st December, according to the reports in the abovementioned newspapers, 38 communal incidents took place claiming 12 lives and injured 271. Out of the 12 deaths reported, 7 dead belonged to the Hindu community, 3 dead belonged to the Muslim community, the religion of one is not specified and one deceased was a policeperson. Two Hindus killed were Sadhus who were not killed during the communal incident but their death was a trigger for the violence. It was not ascertained who killed them. Amongst the reported injured, 13 were from Hindu community, 6 from the Muslim community, 12 from Christian community, 40 were policepersons and the religion of 200 was not specified.

Table 2: Religion-wise breakup of No. of people Killed

Graph 2: Religion-wise breakup of No. of people killed

Table 3: Religion-wise break-up of No. of people Injured

Graph 3: Religion-wise breakup of No. of people Injured

Religion wise break up of arrested:
In these 38 communal incidents, 464 persons were arrested. Amongst the 464, religion of 418 is not specified, 34 were Muslims and 12 were Hindus. In 2018 too, the number of Muslims arrested is higher than Hindu arrested. However this year, more Hindus were injured and died compared to the Muslims unlike earlier years where the causalities suffered by Muslims were higher. But the criminalization of Muslims continues this year too.

Break up of incidents- State wise:
It is no surprise that the trend continues from the previous four years which saw the highest communal incidents in Uttar Pradesh. In 2018, out of 38 communal incidents, 17 were reported from UP. This was followed by 7 in Bihar and 5 in Maharashtra.

Graph 4: State wise no. of Communal Incidents

Majority, in fact 36 out of 38 communal incidents took place in BJP ruled states. Two communal incidents took place in West Bengal which is ruled by Trinamool Congress. 22 states out of 29 in India today are ruled by BJP.

Graph 5: Regime wise comparison of number of Communal Incidents in the year 2018

The salient highlights of communal violence in 2018:

1. Change in nature or form of violence:
The nature of communal violence has changed in India over the past few years and this change is more distinct in 2018. While communal violence is a broader term, it encompasses communal riots, hate speeches targeting particular religious community, structural violence targeting any community.

Communal riot as seen above is when members of one community target the members of another community. The innocent from the community is targeted as a form of collective punishment for the alleged wrong doing of that community. This was predominantly the nature of communal violence till 2014. The scope and intensity of the violence was larger where the number of the deaths was higher and the expanse of the geographical area wider albeit mostly urban areas. This has changed vastly where communal violence has extended to rural areas.

As the numbers suggest, over the last few years, the number of communal incidents or riots have gone down. In 2018, the figure stands at 38 as compared to 85 incidents of mob lynching. There are no longer large scale riots but sub radar incidents which don’t attract wide media attention or criticism. The incidents are to that extent contained or controlled, enough to polarize the communities and strengthen narratives of conflicts.

While the communal incidents have reduced, the incidents of mob lynching by vigilante groups have increased. The number of mob lynching incidents stand at 85 in 2018. That’s more than double of the number of the communal riots/incidents. Here the vigilante groups, on mere suspicion, lynch the person for some alleged wrong doing of that person himself/ herself. Majority of the lynching incidents have taken place over suspicion of abduction of children, cow slaughter and inter religious marriages. The person is subjected to violence because the perpetrators are convinced that the person has committed that alleged wrong. While communal riots require planning and mobilization in the institutionalized riot system as explained by scholars like Steven Wilkinson and Paul Brass, mob lynching also requires a context and discourse out of which to operate. 41 incidents of mob lynching over child abduction and 16 over cow slaughter all over the country are not mere coincidence.

The cow as a holy symbol is propagated through the dominant political ideology of the ruling dispensation which is then given legitimacy through legislations in the garb of protection of cows. But the hysteria created around cow and its protection from the “other” (whoever harms the cow is deemed as a threat to the Hindu religion and country itself) creates an environment of impunity and also priorities or symbols of nationalism in the social and political landscape which then become more cherished than human lives itself.

The same applies to the suspicion of child abduction. Children symbolically are looked upon as innocent entities to be protected. A narrative was created to plant the idea that Muslims abduct children which was allowed to grow and paranoia was built up to make the situation volatile. The vigilante groups patronized by those in power through hate speeches, openly glorifying such acts or choosing to remain silent when lynching takes place, and draconian legislations, encourage this state of lawlessness targeting individuals from marginalized communities. This targeting in turn creates a sense of insecurity amongst the marginalized groups.

2. Triggers of communal incidents:
In 2018, CSSS findings suggest that religious festivals, processions and rallies have been the trigger for communal incidents. Out of 38 communal incidents, 20 took place over religious festivals. Reversing the trend from last year, this year social media was trigger only for two communal incidents out of 38 though it was used in various cases for mobilization and spreading rumours. Further the Sangh Parivar outfits were involved in 10 of these 20 communal incidents. Most of them took place in Bihar.

In March, in Nathnagar, Bihar, BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal workers organized a rally led by Arijit Choubey, son of Union Minister, Ashwini Choubey. Some persons complained over loud music and clashes took place. The procession was organized for celebrating Vikram Samvat year. In West Bengal, on the occasion of Ram Navami, two lives were lost when Sangh Parivar outfits were involved in the processions; in fact armed rallies were organized by them in the face of ban by the state government.

It is notable that the violence faced by Christians arose out of the opposition to the freedom of the Christians to observe and celebrate their festivals or prayers. Four (4) incidents out of 38 were of anti- Christian violence.  In Maharashtra, in Palghar district, a group of Adivasi Christians were targeted after a prayer session and were forced to flee to the jungle for safety. Similarly a group of Dalit Christians was attacked at a prayer gathering where goons entered with sticks and guns at Raikashipur in Uttar Pradesh.  In Tajganj, UP, a group of 20 to 25 men barged into the Agra Hotel shouting slogans of Jai Shri Ram. A meeting was organized under the banner of UP family Church to discuss the preparations for Christmas. The women attending the meeting were dragged by their hair and pastors attacked by hockey sticks. In Kowad village of Kolhapur district, a Sunday mass was disrupted by assailants who pelted stones and attacked the attendees. The vehicles of the attendees were vandalized.

Two communal incidents that took place perhaps are very insightful about communal violence that takes place with impunity that some outfits enjoy and thus want to demonstrate their assertion in public.

The first is the communal incident took place in Kasganj in UP where a flag hoisting programme organized in a Muslim locality was disrupted by a group which undertook a bike rally on 26^th January, 2018 without the requisite permission. The youth from the bike rally demanded passage through the Abdul Hameed chowk and demanded the chairs be removed from the chowk. The residents of the locality requested that the youth from the rally join them for the flag hoisting and then allow them passage after the event. But the youth shouting aggressive slogans clashed with the community. The ensuing firing by the police claimed life of one youth from the rally.

The second incident took place in Mirzapur in UP where the VHP organized a Ram Janaki bike rally through a minority populated areas without necessary permission. Stone pelting ensued after there was a clash. Though no action was taken against the VHP workers, five persons were arrested on the complaint of the VHP. The festivals and rallies are organized by the right outfits to demonstrate their assertion and superiority in Muslim dominated areas to instigate violence. Adequate police action is not taken against the perpetrators. This gives the perpetrators a sense of security and emboldens them to carry out more such rallies.

Two communal incidents took place over social media. Like mentioned above though social media is used in most cases for mobilization and spreading rumours, in these two incidents, social media and more specifically objectionable videos/posts were the direct trigger for communal incidents.

In Agastyamuni in UP, a fake video was circulated alleging that a 10 years old Hindu girl was raped by a Muslim man. Though it was made clear later that this video was fake, 15 shops belonging to Muslim traders were vandalized by agitators including people from the traders’ body, a local students’ group Jai Ho, and members of the ABVP.

In another incident, Surbhog in Assam, a post was uploaded on facebook with words like Pakistan Zindabad. It was found later that the account belonging to Ahidul Ali, a local butcher was hacked by Jyotish Nath who had a personal enmity with Ali. Ali’s shop was vandalized and part if it burnt. Later an inebriated crowd shouted slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” and “Jai Shri Ram”.

3. Theatre of violence
As mentioned above, earlier communal riots were largely an urban phenomenon. Now the violence engulfs the rural areas as well. While northern India and especially Uttar Pradesh have remained the hotbed of riots over the years, there is communal tension fomenting in the other parts of the country, namely West Bengal, Bihar and Kerala. It is interesting to note that West Bengal and Kerala are states not ruled by BJP and in Bihar BJP recently entered the ruling alliance.

Starting with West Bengal, there is a strong rhetoric of TMC supporting migration from Bangladesh coupled with the allegations of appeasement of Muslims. In the highly competitive arena of electoral politics in West Bengal, the TMC and BJP have locked horns. The BJP to win over the Hindu votes is polarizing the religious communities in the state especially through the medium of festivals. Clearly the Sangh Parivar is aggressively mobilizing for polarization. Two communal incidents took place in West Bengal and the involvement of Sangh Parivar outfits in both the incidents was evident and reported.

In Purulia, on 25^th March, the BJP and Bajrang Dal workers were involved in the communal clashes which claimed life of one youth. In the other communal incident, in Asansol in West Bengal, clashes broke out during Ram Navami celebrations with the support of VHP. Loud music played in the rally led to altercation claiming one life. In the face of the brutal death of his son Sibtulla Rashidi, Maulana Sindadul Rashidi, a Muslim imam, appealed for calm and peace which averted more violence.

Similarly, at the base camp of Sabarimala, the RSS has mobilized supporters to ensure that no women can enter the Ayyappa shrine albeit the Supreme Court judgment which allows women to enter the temple. The RSS opposition to the women’s entry is a stand to again position itself as the representatives of the Hindus in the state and gain electorally from the polarization in this state which BJP never ruled.

In Bihar, it is reported that, since July 2017, when the JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar broke its alliance with the RJD-Congress and went back to the NDA, there have been 200 incidents of communal tension, as many as 64 this year alone, according to a scrutiny of official records by The Indian Express. Compare this with data of the last five years: 50 such incidents in 2012, 112 in 2013; 110 in 2014, 155 in 2015, 230 in 2016. At 270, 2017 recorded the highest number of communal incidents in recent times (Singh, 2018). Thus there were 64 communal incidents till April 2018 itself. According to the findings of CSSS, 7 communal incidents took place in Bihar in 2018. This violence is used as a weapon to make inroads electorally in Bihar keeping an eye on the 2019 general elections.

4. Partisan role of the police:
The role of the police was largely partisan in the incidents of communal violence. In the communal incident of Aurangabad in Maharashtra, the police was seen walking with the perpetrators and protecting them in videos that were circulated on national television. The police in the cases of mob lynching are seen walking in front of the mob which is dragging the injured victims like in Hapur or remaining mere bystanders. In the case of Alwar mob lynching, the police stopped in the way to have tea and wasted crucial two hours taking the victim, Rakbar Khan to the hospital who eventually succumbed to his injuries.

5. Discrimination through state machinery:
The ruling dispensation also used the state machinery like the NIA to probe if “love jihad” is a medium to trap innocent Hindu girls, convert them into Islam and mobilize them for terrorism. This investigation was ordered in the wake of Hadiya case. It is unthinkable and clearly betrays the bias and attempt to stigmatize and demonize the Muslim community by those in power by deploying state machinery to strengthen the myths against the community.

Similar example is that of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. By setting up arbitrary procedures and demanding impractical proofs of citizenship, the state has left 4 million residents of Assam out of the ambit of citizenship and rendered them stateless. Most of them are from socio-economically marginalized groups and driven to the point of suicide in the quest to prove their citizenship.

The latest action of the state that caused shock and outrage was the Noida police asking the companies to direct their staff to not offer prayers or Namaz in public spaces particularly in the Noida park and employers will be held liable for Friday prayers by their staff in the park. This discriminatory move has larger ramifications on the principle of equality and also on the employment prospects of the Muslim community.

6. Role of the state:
The role of state has been highly questionable and lacking in many respects. In this section, the role of the state is analysed in all these aspects- communal incidents/riots, mob lynching and hate crimes. In very stark terms, the approach of the state or more specifically the government can be categorized in the following:
1. The state has helped in creating and nurturing a culture of impunity:
The state and more specifically the executive is responsible to ensure that the rule of law should be implemented strictly and that law and constitutional values shapes the public discourse in the country. The state is also accountable and responsible to protect equally the right to life of all citizens. Unfortunately the executive and some in the legislature/ elected representatives were seen blatantly promoting the culture of impunity. The political ideology and considerations of electoral gains were the driving force behind the action of the executive and legislature.

The heightened number of cases of mob lynching which came up with alarming regularity were not merely isolated cases but part of a diabolic and violent ideology upheld by the executive with an objective to polarize and strike fear in the hearts of the marginalized communities. The significance attached to cow and making it a litmus test for nationalism gave a free hand to the vigilante groups. While human lives were lost both from Hindu and Muslim communities, the state took no strict action against the vigilante groups.

Even when the a policeman, Subodh Kumar Singh was beaten to death by a mob over suspicion of cow slaughter in Bulandshahr, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh ordered for strict action and speeding up arrests for cow slaughter but remained quiet over the murder of the cow (Pandey, 2018). This gave out a clear signal that vigilantism is accepted by the government if it achieves its political agenda and rule of law can be neglected.

The lack of action of the executive against those indulging in communal violence- both communal riots and mob lynching is creating a culture of impunity where the perpetrators are fearlessly flouting laws since they are aware and confident that they will not be punished for their acts. No major convictions took place in 2018 in the crimes that took place in the same year or the preceding year. In fact, the government of UP sought to withdraw 133 riot related cases, some of the accused include local BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan, BJP MLAs Suresh Rana and Sangeet Singh Som, VHP leader Sadhvi Prachi- all holding constitutional positions and bound to protect constitutional values. This is misuse of power and sets a wrong precedence as far as the objectives of accountability and justices are concerned.

2. The state is extending patronage to the perpetrators:
The role of the ruling dispensation has been that of patronizing violence and non-state actors who perpetrate violence. The perpetrators of the violence feel emboldened to indulge in violence since the powerful are shielding them and giving them direct and indirect patronage. This can be illustrated with some examples.

Firstly, the examples of Jayant Sinha and Giriraj Singh, both Union Cabinet Ministers- Jayant Sinha felicitated cow vigilantes who were convicted of killing a trader in Jharkhand. Giriraj Singh, BJP MP visited Nawada district jail and met Bajranj Dal and VHP members who are accused of inflaming communal passions. He went to the extent of stating that these accused were implicated in false case (Kumar, 2018). In effect it implies that the elected representatives who hold highest constitutional posts give a clean chit to accused of communal violence before the judiciary can give its judgement on one hand and on the other laud convicted persons the judiciary found guilty. This amounts to endorsing and patronizing such vigilante elements that undermine law and order.

In many cases the right wing outfits indulge in violence openly on the cue on the hate speeches given by those in power or the powerful supporting them. In the case of Gurgoan, Friday prayers were disrupted in different parts of the city by Hindutva outfits who shouted slogans like Jai Shri Ram and Bangladeshi wapas jao. Local unit of VHP also threatened to disrupt namaz at open places if the police didn’t take action. In another incident, a couple from different religious communities were harassed and manhandled, allegedly by a group of BJP workers, outside the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) court in Bijnor, western UP, when they had gone there to submit their marriage certificate on Thursday. One of the two named in the FIR is the district BJP vice-president. This incident is a manifestation of the aggressive propaganda of ‘love jihad’ carried out by the government.

A case bordering on discrimination by the government as well as giving obvious patronage is the case of kanwariyas. In Khailam in UP, the UP government spent INR 14 lakhs on choppers to track the yatra where the police was seen showering rose petals to greet the kanwariyas. The aggressive sloganeering of the Kanwariyas led to communal tensions and sense of insecurity in the Muslim dominated village. Instead of allying fears, the police issued red cards to 250 locals! The Kanwariyas in other places and instances had vandalized vehicles in Delhi and attacked car followed by looting it in Muzaffarnagar.

3. The trend of revictimization of the victims continued in 2018:
It is found generally in communal incidents and particularly in the last couple of years that the marginalized communities that are targeted in the communal incidents are not only denied justice in terms of prosecution and punishment meted out to their culprits but injustice is done by doubly victimizing them. This is done by taking punitive action against them on one hand and taking very little or no action against the perpetrators on the other hand.

For instance, in Muzaffarnagar village in UP, 27 men from the Muslim community were arrested amongst them three under the stringent National Security Act (NSA). It was alleged that they led an attack on Purbaliyan’s Hindu community. It was further alleged that the youth from the Muslim community were picked up arbitrarily. These arrests preceded a hate speech by BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar, Sanjeev Balyan who urged the administration to press charges under NSA and the Muslims harassed the Hindu Pal community.

In Bahraich too, in a clash that took place over procession of Durga idol immersion, FIR was filed against 80 Muslims and 100-200 unnamed people. Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was invoked against the accused. No FIR was filed against the other group which is seen chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and threw gulal inside a Mosque.

Re-victimization is seen particularly in the cases of mob lynching over suspicion of cow slaughter. As seen last year, Pehlu Khan was lynched but a charge sheet was filed against him alleging that he did not have the necessary permits to transport the cattle. In 2018, in the Hapur mob lynching, the police drew flak for its shoddy investigation and the delay in filing of the charge sheet (Rai, 2018). The intimidation continues to deter the families of the victims as was seen through the attack on Pehlu Khan’s sons and other witnesses who were on their way to depose in the sessions courts in Alwar.

In another incident of re-victimization in Shamli, UP, large number of vigilantes stopped a mini truck carrying two cows. They pulled out the vehicle’s crew and attacked two men from the minority community in front of a police constable for allegedly trying to smuggle cows for slaughter. The police was mere spectators and have filed a case against the victim along with those who attacked. Recently Sagir Khan was lynched by a mob over suspicion that his vehicle carried cows. Khan tried to flee in his vehicle but was waylaid and beaten up by the villagers. The police have filed a case against Sagir for cattle smuggling.

(To be continued…….)

Courtesy: http://csss-isla.com/

144% More Funds For Agriculture, But Not Enough To Quell Farm Unrest

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February 12, 2019

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Agriculture has got an unprecedented 144% rise in allocation in the interim budget announced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government–from Rs 57,600 crore in the 2018-19 budget estimates to Rs 1,40,764 crore in the interim budget

Image Courtesy: IANS Mumbai: Farmers participate in a protest march.

This took the share of the agriculture ministry in the total union budget to 5.2%, a benchmark succeeding governments will be compelled to match for political reasons. For context, the share has been around 2.3%-2.4% since 2014-15, when the BJP came to power.

However, this unprecedented hike in allocation will be inadequate to fight the ongoing agricultural crisis that has led to widespread farm agitations in India. Our analysis of the budget allocation for the sector shows that the amount provisioned for various agricultural schemes, such as the critical irrigation mission, is inadequate. The new income security scheme is short-sighted and inadequate, providing eligible farmers just Rs 500 per month or Rs 3.5 per person per day (considering a household size of five)–not enough to buy a cup of tea, as has been pointed out. It also offers less effective coverage than the Odisha and Telangana income support schemes whose success inspired it.

Not enough to compensate for long years of neglect

In an era of record harvests, prices of agricultural produce have crashed, unpaid agricultural loans have grown, and 600 million Indians who depend on farming struggle to get by, as IndiaSpend reported on November 30, 2018.

The root cause of the agricultural crisis is the perennial neglect of farmers and the deficient policies implemented over the last two decades. Farmers have been demanding the expansion of public provisioning and definitive steps towards the proper implementation of programmes such as Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the flagship programme for the agriculture sector, and more flexibility for states to adopt interventions needed to address local concerns.

The continued low priority accorded to public spending on agriculture has resulted in severe gaps in the implementation of schemes with huge shortages of human resources, particularly in agriculture extension services that provide critical information on agricultural practices and schemes to farmers.

Agriculture faced two drought years in succession–2014-15 and 2015-16–when the average growth in the sector was just 0.1% per annum. Data show that over these years the ratio of allocation for this sector to gross domestic product (GDP) remained in the range of 0.3 to 0.4% during 2014-15 and 2018-19. Inadequate public investment also ended up discouraging private investment in agriculture. Between 2014-15 and 2016-17, the private sector investment to GDP ratio came down from 2.2% to 1.8% which led to an overall decline in investment–from 2.6% to 2.1%. This added to the rural crisis and agrarian distress.

Source: Numbers That Count: An Assessment of Union Budgets Of NDA II, 2019; Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability
Note: *budget estimate, **revised estimate

Irrigation networks will remain underfunded, income support inadequate

The two drought years could have been effectively managed if the government focused on strengthening the irrigation network systems in the country. But little attention or budget was given to creating infrastructure for the agriculture sector.

The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (prime minister’s irrigation scheme) has always been underfunded, its allocation has seen no rise since its implementation in 2014-15. The budget estimate for 2019-20 for the scheme shows just a Rs 100-crore rise over last year’s budget.
In 2016-17, when the country was yet to recover from drought, the total allocation for the irrigation scheme was reduced from Rs 10,780 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 6,134 crore in 2016-17. In 2017-18, the actual expenditure on the scheme was lower even than the proposed budget, indicating both underfunding and underutilisation of funds.

The agricultural crisis pushed the government to shift its attention towards improving farmers’ income. In the NITI Aayog’s three-year action agenda, the government promised to double farmers’ income by 2022 using 2015-16 as the base year. As 2015-16 was a drought year, farm incomes were lower. This implied that any jump would be easy to manage.

The farming community is still struggling to cover the cost of cultivation leave aside make any income or profits. The BJP government did follow some short-term strategies to raise farmers’ income. One was to increase the minimum support price (MSP) to make farming more remunerative. Raising the MSP to at least 1.5 times of the comprehensive cost of cultivation was one of the recommendations of the National Commission for Farmers led by MS Swaminathan on ways to deal with farm distress. In 2018-19, the MSP for most kharif crops was raised by 23% and for rabi crops by 13%. The annual average rise in MSP for most crops between 2014-15 and 2018-19 was 5-10%. But, this rise was less than 5% in drought years.

The second strategy to address agri distress was to provide a minimum income support to farmers. In the interim budget 2019, the government announced an annual income support of Rs 60,00 to every farmer with less than 2 hectare of land under a scheme called the Pradhan Mantri Kisaan Samman Nidhi (prime minister’s farmers’ fund). This income support is to be provided annually in three installments. There are 120 million farmers deserving of this scheme, as per the government, and the annual estimated cost of supporting them would be around Rs 75,000 crore.

The government proposed to implement this scheme retrospectively from December 2018. For 2018-19, Rs 20,000 crore is proposed and this can only cater to 100 million farmers. This means a transfer of Rs 2,000 per farmer for four months or Rs 500 a month.
(Acharya is the research coordinator at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability.)

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

Courtesy: India Spend

Resurgence and resistance: Convention in TISS, Mumbai celebrates the stories of Adivasi women

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February 12, 2019

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Fourteen Adivasi women came together on stage to celebrate their struggles and victories at the Adivasi/Tribal women’s convention held at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.

The day-long session organised by the Tribal Women’s Collective, TISS, Mumbai, included various panels like ‘Wounded Warriors’ (activists), ‘Zoom from Within’ (art and media), ‘I give you Back’ (academicians and writers), ‘The Undefeated’ (sports) and saw the participation of women achievers from various fields like sports, literature, academia, media etc.

Soni Sori, a formal school teacher and currently a noted social and political activist from Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, recounted the horrors of torture she faced at the hands of the state and security forces. She said, “Even when I was arrested, I faced torture as the cops repeatedly said that I am a Gond Maria Adivasi and I have no rights. I faced unspeakable acts by the police.” She highlighted the plight of Adivasi women adding, “If a mother is going to the village to feed her child, the forces would ask her to prove that. They would forcefully milk the mother to prove that she is indeed going to breastfeed the child. This is the situation of mothers in forests of Bastar. We will never bow down to the government, we will bow only to our communities. We will not give our lands to the government. Jal, Jangal, Jameen is ours and we will save it.”

Dr. Vasavi Kiro, former member, Jharkhand State Commission for Women pointed out how development has been brought at the cost of displacement. “Development-induced displacement is the biggest topic of the day, but no one is talking about it. Unless we debate on development, the cases happening in Bastar, Dantewada and Jharkhand won’t stop,” she added.

The marginalisation of tribes is experienced not only by women from the rural centres but also from the urban centres of India. Growing up in Aarey colony in Mumbai, Sheetal Bhorade faced discrimination as a young Adivasi woman. She asked the audience, “Do you know that there are Adivasis in Mumbai?” Among the 220 different Adivasi padas in Mumbai, Sheetal hails from Aarey Colony which has been at the epicentre of protests against Adivasi evacuation. Sheetal depicts the ongoing deforestation and destruction of Adivasi padas through her paintings in Warli art. Sheetal who learnt the Warli art by observing her father as a child depicts the ongoing deforestation and destruction of adivasi padas through her warli paintings. She uses variety big natural materials like bamboo, tree barks and mushrooms for her paintings.

From their artistic expression to the forms of discrimination, the sessions resonated with different facets of resilience by women. Similar experiences of growing up in Kolkata were narrated by Shikha Mandi, the first Santhali female radio jockey from Jhargram, West Bengal. She recalled how growing up in a city made her feel alienated from the Santhali culture and discriminated at school, but taking up her dream job as a radio jockey enabled her to assert her identity. Shikha Mandi hosts her radio show on Radio Milan and has over 40,000 listeners.

Alienation from one’s mother tongue and the imposition of the state language and rampant discrimination at school has resulted in a slow process of alienation for Adivasi children. Ruby Hebrom, founder and director of Adivaani publishing House said, “In school, once a kid came and asked me: When you polish your shoes, do you polish your face too? Experiences like this made me resent my school, among people who looked down on me due to my skin colour and my being an Adivasi.”

She recalled how while doing a course in publishing, the invisibilization of Adivasis she witnessed left a lasting impression. She said, “I saw the list of people who came to meet us, I was so disturbed by seeing the invisibility of Adivasis. I wondered if they did not know that we exist, that we too published books. That’s when I decided, I will publish books of Adivasis, and I will do it in English.

From teachers to academician to publishers, Adivasi women’s’ foray into education also meant giving back to the community. Ujwala Bogamiji is a teacher who has been translating Marathi book in Madia Gondi language, She said, “When the Adivasi children speak in their own language, they are very happy. This is why we are working to bring more school syllabus in Adivasi languages.” Starting off in 2011, Adivaani has published a host of books including children’s books depicting Santhali culture through illustrations.

Adivasi women academicians Dr. Rimi Tadu, Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research at Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi and Dr. Sonajharia Minz, School of Computer and Systems Science JNU took centre stage and spoke about breaking the dominant discourses formulated around Adivasis. Dr. Minz, whose research and teaching includes fields like Mathematics and Big Data, is one of the first three women professors from an Adivasi background to teach in JNU.

L to R Santhali RJ Shikha Mandi, Warli Artist Sheetal Bhorade and Theyiesinuo Keditsu of (@mekhalmama Instagram page)

Not only are Adivasi women making a mark in the fields of academia and literature, but they have also taken social media by storm. Theyiesinuo Keditsu from Kohima, Nagaland who runs her Instagram page @mekhalamama, is documenting the Mehaka the traditional Naga women’s attire.

The youngest participant was national-level archer Gohela Boro, who charmed the audience with her wit and humorous retelling of her childhood growing up in Kokrajhar, Assam and her encounter with the sport of archery. Presiding along with Gohela was Sumrai Tete, women’s hockey team captain and Dhyan Chand award winner. Gohela was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2016 which she has been fighting fervently. Post her diagnoses Gohela has not been able to compete, but she has started her own academy and has also been training 40 children in her village in Archery. At just 22, Gohela has already won around 80 medals. She said, “People ask me, Gohela, do you have a lucky bow? But I say to them if I don’t work hard, where will I get my luck from? So I always believe in working hard.”

Courtesy: Two Circle

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Resurgence and resistance: Convention in TISS, Mumbai celebrates the stories of Adivasi women

Fourteen Adivasi women came together on stage to celebrate their struggles and victories at the Adivasi/Tribal women’s convention held at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.

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