Why are you targeting us for sympathizing with Rohingya’s, citizens to HM Rajnath Singh

November 27, 2018

According to a news report, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has instructed the intelligence agencies to make a list of organisations and individuals who are aiding the Rohingya refugees in India.

A group of individuals from across the country have come together to write an open letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh in the light of the recent news that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has instructed the intelligence agencies to make a list of organisations and individuals who are aiding the Rohingya refugees in India.

“According to the news story published in the Pioneer (Nov. 19), the list includes the names of a former Ambassador, top lawyers, civil society members and a professor of a renowned university, as well as organisations like the Delhi based Working Group on Alternative Strategies, Bondi Mukti Committee, Kolkata, Kerala Muslim Culture Centre and Amnesty International, India and several others,” they wrote.

“Though, the Rohingya do not live in refugee camps. The Indian state, unlike a much poorer country Bangladesh, has never bothered to provide the Rohingya refugees with any economic assistance. The Rohingyas living in India, work for their living, thus adding to our gross national income,” they said in the letter.

They also wrote to Singh and said that instead of protecting the Rohingya refugees, he was allowing anti-Rohingya sentiment to grow. They said that in 2017, in Jammu, where about 5,500 Rohingya were living, leaders of several Hindu groups aligned to his party, the BJP began a campaign to expel Rohingya from the region. They said that several BJP leaders have been saying that “Rohingya Muslims should not live here and nor should those who sympathize with them”.

Identifying themselves as sympathizers of the persecuted Rohingya people, they wrote that, “We wonder what will be the next step of your Ministry. Will you prepare a case against the sympathizers of Rohingya like that in which several academics, poets, writers, lawyers and human rights defenders are being persecuted for alleged links with the Maoists in the Bhima- Koregaon case?”

“We have never turned people back to where they would be tortured, raped and killed. That is the essence of our ethos,” they wrote talking about the country’s response to refugees in the past.

Full Text of the letter:

Open letter to Mr. Rajnath Singh, Home Minister of India

Sub: MHA prepares a state-wise list of Rohingya sympathizers.

Hon’ble Home Minister,

We understand from news reports that under instructions from your ministry, the intelligence agencies have prepared a state-wise list of several organisations and individuals, who are sympathetic to the Rohingya refugees in India and are providing assistance to them.

According to the news story published in the Pioneer (Nov. 19), the list includes the names of a former Ambassador, top lawyers, civil society members and a professor of a renowned university as well as organisations like the Delhi based Working Group on Alternative Strategies, Bondi Mukti Committee, Kolkata, Kerala Muslim Culture Centre and Amnesty International, India and several others.

Hon’ble Home Minister, we are sympathizers of the Rohingyas. They are the most persecuted community in the world. Thousands of people around the world express sympathy with the Rohingya community as they been subjected to massacres, rape, torture, confinement in concentration camps and denial of health care, education and employment by the military junta of Myanmar and the current government under Aung San Suu Kyi.

Several governments around the world, Nobel laureates like Mairead Maguari of Northern Ireland, Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, Amartya Sen and Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, civil society organisation and the UN Fact Finding Mission have concluded that the Rohingya are the victims of an ongoing genocide. In 2016, twelve Nobel laureates in an open letter to the UN Security Council in December of 2016 requested intervention to end the humanitarian crisis in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. I may add that earlier, UN SG’s Special Adviser for Myanmar Vijay Nambiar had also called for an impartial investigation into the violence in Arakan/Rakhine state.

While a few thousands of Rohingyas are in India, there are more than a million are in Bangladesh. In addition, hundreds of thousands of the members of this persecuted community are scattered all over the region of South-East Asia and South Asia. The systematic persecution of Rohingya ethnic community has been going on since the 1970s. In 1977 the military junta began Operation Nagamin or Dragon King. In the name of “screening the population for foreigners” and relocation of Muslim villagers, the army carried out widespread looting, rape, arson and the desecration of mosques.

As a result of continued assaults by the Buddhist vigilante groups and Myanmar army, which has been described as “slow-burning genocide”, more than half a million Rohingyas were already out of their country by 2017 when Myanmar’s military, on the pretext of retaliating the attack by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched a massive reign of terror which led to one of the most catastrophically fast refugee exoduses in modern times. More than 780,000 Rohingya Muslims had to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh.

The widespread, systematic, pre-planned burning of tens of thousands of Rohingya homes and other structures in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, and Rathedaung Townships of Rakhine State by the military, Border Guard Police and vigilantes across northern Rakhine State from 25 August until at least October 2017 has been documented and analyzed by many independent civilian groups, governments including the USA and the UN. The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission in its report to the UN Security Council has called for the investigation and prosecution of Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and his top military leaders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

You are aware that Myanmar’s military dictatorship had stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship by enacting a new citizenship/nationality law in 1982. This law violates the long-established globally accepted norms of nationality and a series of international legal instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is abundant evidence that the Rohingyas were living in Arakan even before the arrival of Buddhists in Rakhine. However, moving away from history, let me point out that there is no getting away from the fact that no state can render stateless, as a matter of policy, people born in its territory under the UN Charter. If a person is born on the territory of a country and has no other legal citizenship, then they must be given citizenship by that country. The Rohingyas are Burmese by birth and according to international law, it does not matter where their distant ancestors might have come from. And no amount of history, factual or fabricated, can change that basic fact. No amount of history can then justify any attempt at ethnic cleansing.

Hon’ble Home Minister, the entire world knows that Rohingyas are victims of an ongoing genocide. Yet, your Junior Minister Kiren Rijiju claimed that since the Rohingyas were illegal migrants they could be deported. “Raj Dharma”, which you claim to be following, dictates that you must protect the oppressed and the vulnerable. Yet a letter issued a letter issued by your ministry said, “Illegal migrants are more vulnerable to getting recruited by terrorist organisations. … Infiltration from [Myanmar’s] Rakhine state … into Indian territory, especially in recent years, besides being [a] burden on the limited resources of the country, also aggravates the security challenges posed.” Is it not the duty of the state to guard the “vulnerable” against the unscrupulous and are we such a small country that we cannot help 40,000 refugees. Though, the Rohingya do not live in refugee camps. The Indian state, unlike a much poorer country Bangladesh, has never bothered to provide the Rohingya refugees with any economic assistance. The Rohingyas living in India, work for their living, thus adding to our gross national income.

Instead of protecting the Rohingya refugees, it appears that you are allowing anti-Rohingya sentiment to grow. In 2017, in Jammu, where about 5,500 Rohingya were living, leaders of several Hindu groups aligned to your party, the BJP began a campaign to expel Rohingya from the region. Like the Buddhist extremists of Myanmar, they put up posters naming Rohingyas as Bangladesh Muslim migrants, connecting up with long-standing prejudice against Bangladeshi migrants, in Assam and the Northeastern states. They threatened a campaign to “identify and kill” Rohingya if the government did not deport them. [Also] in September 2017, Rohingya refugees living in Rajasthan were asked to leave.

Since the publication of the report in The Pioneer, there have been several calls on social media for action against the sympathizers of the Rohingya. The Rohingya sympathizers are being called “pseudo seculars and liberals”, and have been falsely blamed for demanding that the government provide the Rohingya with a home and other necessities. Already there are calls for arresting and prosecuting the Rohingya sympathizers for supporting “terrorists” and “killers of Hindus and Buddhists”. Several BJP leaders have been saying that “Rohingya Muslims should not live here and nor should those who sympathize with them”.

We wonder what will be the next step of your Ministry. Will you prepare a case against the sympathizers of Rohingya like that in which several academics, poets, writers, lawyers and human rights defenders are being persecuted for alleged links with the Maoists in the Bhima- Koregaon case?

Last year in August (2017), when human rights groups condemned the government for seeking to deport the Rohingya, Minister Rijiju had claimed, “India is the most humane nation in the world. Millions of refugees live in India. There is no other country in the world which hosts so many refugees.” Yes, Hon’ble Home Minister, that is the glorious tradition of our country. We have never turned people back to where they would be tortured, raped and killed. That is the essence of our ethos.

Yours sincerely,

Tapan Bose, Filmmaker, Delhi
Anand Patwardhan, Filmmaker, Mumbai
Rita Manchanda, Researcher, Author, Delhi
Sumanta Banerjee, Author, Cultural Historian, Hyderabad
Bharat Bhusan, Editor, Columnist, Delhi
Sahana Basavapatna, Lawyer, Bangaluru
Nandini Sundar, Academic, Author, Delhi
Farah Naqvi, Author, Journalist, Delhi
Arundhati Dhuru, Feminist, Social Activist, Lucknow
Sandeep Pandey, Social Activist, Writer, Lucknow
Jawed Naqvi, Writer, Journalist, Delhi
A.K. (Dunu) Roy, Social Activist, Writer, Delhi
Dinesh Mohan, Academic, Author, Delhi
Alok Rai, Academic, Allahabad
Om Prakash Mishra, Academic, Kolkata
Sushil Khanna, Academic, Kolkata
Ranabir Samaddar, Academic, Kolkata
Pradip Bose, Academic, Kolkata
Gautam Mody, General Secretary, New Trade Union Initiative, New Delhi
Ravi Himadri, Director, Development and Justice Initiative, Delhi

(The letter has been slightly edited for narrative flow.)

Victim-blaming culture holds back #MeToo in Indonesia

November 27, 2018

Women in Indonesia are joining the #MeToo movement, with victims of sexual assault reporting their abusers to authorities. Recently, two cases have captured public attention. One was an alleged rape of a student of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta by a peer. The other involved unwanted sexual advances over the phone by a school principal to one of his teachers in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.

The UGM rape case is a reminder that our priority should be to stand with the survivors of sexual assault. www.shutterstock.com

In the US, victims’ testimonies have brought down powerful men and introduced new corporate norms rejecting sexual assault. But in Indonesia the women’s testimonies have criminalised them as victim blaming is still pervasive.

The media play a role in both exposing and reinforcing such culture.

Blaming the victim

The UGM rape case went public after UGM’s student press, Balairung, published a report. Balairung reported that Agni (not her real name) was sexually assaulted by a fellow student identified as HS during a community service program for college credit at a village on Seram Island in the Moluccas.

They interviewed Agni and reported in detail on the university’s response to her report. Following her report of rape, her alleged abuser was taken out of the program, while she continued. However, she was given a low mark. The campus representatives blamed her for being “reckless”, hence contributing to the incident, as well as embarrassing UGM in front of local villagers.

Balairung quoted one of the female supervisors saying: “If you didn’t sleep in the same room as him, this would have never happened.” A male official suggested we should not be in a rush to call Agni a “victim”, saying:

Like a cat given salted fish, it will at least sniff it and might even eat the fish.

Meanwhile, in Lombok, Baiq Nuril, a teacher who recorded a phone conversation between her and the headteacher, as evidence of unwanted sexual advances, has been sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of Rp500 million. She was found guilty of recording and spreading indecent material under Indonesia’s electronic information and transactions law.

This case is just the tip of the iceberg on the prevalence of victim-blaming culture in our society.

The culture is so rampant that many rape survivors are afraid to report the case because of the risk that they could be criminalised for reporting their abuse.

The role of media

Victim blaming is an attitude of putting the blame on women for the abuse they experience. It also takes the side of the perpetrators and accepts their side of stories.

By engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society accuses women of being somehow responsible for sexual abuse. Such an attitude also tolerates the assaults and allows the abusers to escape punishment.

The pervasiveness of victim blaming in Indonesia is strongly influenced by a patriarchal culture, based on an ideology of hierarchical relations between women and men. Under patriarchy the position of men is more dominant and more influential. Women are subordinates. As a result, men demand respect and obedience from women to a certain extent.

News media play a role in combating victim-blaming culture. Media are the primary source to inform how society understands violence against women and girls. Media in this case help victims to be heard. The Balairung‘s exposé of the UGM rape case, for instance, helps draw public attention to it.

However, media coverage can also reinforce victim-blaming attitudes due to the media tendency to represent women as victims, instead of survivors, and associate them with their lack of power. Media also tend to blame women in reports on sexual abuse.

Research on sexual attacks against Chinese descendants during the Indonesian political transition in May 1998, by Susan Blackburn from Monash University, Australia, highlighted the Indonesian media’s role in spreading the victim-blaming practice. She found that media often framed that rapes occurred because women provoked uncontrollable male sexual urges with their “provocative” and “sensual” clothing. In other words, the media said it was women who were inviting rape.

The victim-blaming attitudes in patriarchal society have made the survivors of sexual violence suffer from double victimisation: being raped and being blamed. This results in them not feeling safe in sharing their stories with others.

Victim blaming can also have another negative consequence.

A study by Indonesian sociologist Ariel Heryanto of Chinese female descendants who were raped and sexually abused in 1998 found that many of them chose to run away from home and attempt to lead a new life in a distant place due to trauma and fear of stigmatisation. Many others try to overcome the trauma by forgetting the violence, or denying that the sexual violence occurred. As a result, it is still difficult to obtain facts and justice related to the 1998 rape cases.

The patriarchal environment also reinforces the rape culture that perpetuates victim-blaming attitudes. Rape culture is defined as an environment that tolerates rape and sexual violence.

This culture is preserved through the use of sexist language, the objectification of women’s bodies, body shaming of women and the use of sexually explicit jokes. It creates a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

Defending survivors

The UGM rape case is a reminder to us that, in every case of rape, our priority should be to stand with the survivors. Public support for Baiq Nuril from Lombok should also trigger reform in law enforcement and the judiciary to protect victims of sexual abuse.

Given that the victim blaming and rape culture are a persistent problem in our society, we should consistently fight against any kind of violence against women and girls. We must stand by the survivors every time, and not only when their cases generate a public outcry. We can start by respecting any kind of clothing they wear.

Iwan Awaluddin Yusuf, Lecturer in Department of Communications, Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Importance of Art in Hard Times

November 27, 2018

Kanika Katyal in conversation with Ramu Ramanathan

On 15 November, the Polish Institute organised the second edition of “Readings in the Shed”, an evening of poetry readings in New Delhi, the first edition of which was held in Mumbai. The reading was performed by acclaimed playwright, Ramakrishnan (Ramu) Ramanathan at the snug hall at Studio Safdar, and was composed of poetry from some of his favourite Krakow Poets.

One familiar with Ramanathan’s work will find that his art is situated in a dialogue – an extended conversation with artists who came before him, as well as his contemporaries. Be it through adaptations of Becketts’s plays or recreations of King Lear, or even collaborations with professionals and students from non-theatre backgrounds, Ramanathan’s work always engages with the life and imagination of artists, cultural narratives, and political discussions both Indian and global.

In his poetry reading session, he etched out intimate portraits of “some of his friends”, the Polish Poets, namely, Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Anna Swir, Czeslaw Milosz and Adam Zagajewski. He read verses they wrote, drawing with them, a kinship that was artistic but also historical and philosophical, throwing light on vital issues that have continued to play out in the domain of art and aesthetics.

Ramanathan has also produced a book of poetry. Published in 2016, My Encounters With a Peacock is a series of exchanges with a talking peacock. First published by the author in 2016, My Encounters With A Peacock is a series of enchanting exchanges with a talking peacock articulated in the form of short poems. These exchanges take place over the course of six months, from January to June, and constitute a total of sixty-five poems. Each poem is a conversation between the poet and the peacock, who are sometimes sharing a rickshaw, rarely eating akkhar masoor wali khichdi, often grieving about lost lovers, and always discussing bank interest rates like old pals. Adorned with just the right amount of delightful illustrations by Mansi Ghuwalewala and an intricate book design by Dibyajyoti Sarma, the 2017 edition of My Encounters With A Peacock makes for an enjoyable read. It also educates the human reader about living, breathing, talking unconventional peacocks, who challenge stereotypes by refusing to dance in the rain. Here’s a verse from the book

“Half a kilo of pure happiness
Can you home deliver that to me?
After all, I am the national bird of this unhappy country.
Since 1963.
You don’t want me flying
Across the border,
To Burma or Ceylon
As a mark of protest.”
– Ramu Ramanathan, My Encounters With A Peacock

Kanika Katyal of the Indian Cultural Forum had the pleasure of speaking to the playwright post the reading. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Kanika Katyal: Why did you dedicate your “Readings in the Shed” session to Kedarnath Singh and Vishnu Khare?
Ramu Ramanathan: Both poets passed away this year. Kedarnath Singh is a true master. Three of his favourite Krakow poets were present that evening at Studio Safdar. Vishnu Khare was unwell when I last saw him for the Balshastri Jhambekar award program at Sane Guruji School in Dadar. I had to meet him in Mumbai a few days later. Unfortunately, that meeting did not happen. Again, one of the brightest minds I met. Their absence is a huge loss.
Today both of them will be with five of the poets: Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska and Zbigniew Herbert and Tadeusz Rozewicz and Slavomir Mrozek. Only Adam Zagajewski and I are alive.

KK: You told us that you had never been to Krakow or read the original works of the Krakow Poets in Polish, and yet you engaged with them intimately. I want to ask you,
a) How does a young reader in India in 2018 locate kinship with them?
b) Does this say something about translation as an enabler? Especially because you have prolific work on artists across languages, space and time, both as a theatre practitioner, as well as an editor of a print weekly.
RR: a). As I mentioned Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself “I don’t know” … If she had, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying I don’t know, and these words led her, not just once but twice, to Stockholm, where restless, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize. Poets, if they’re genuine, must also keep repeating, I don’t know.
b). The beauty is, as I mentioned during my reading session, the masters have translated each other’s poems. The same thing happened with playwriting in India in the sixties and seventies, when the masters (Tendulkar / Karnad / Mohan Rakesh) translated each other’s work. Likewise, the modernists who translated each other Ashok Shahane, Vasant Dahake, Dilip Chitre, Arun Kolatkar and Dhasal, etc.

KK: Let’s talk about this Marie Curie reference in a poetry reading. I found it a very interesting dialogue on the scientific temper in arts. Was it that?
RR: Yes, because immediately after that I quoted from M Holub, the immunologist. Also, most of the important theatrewallahs (from Kashinath Ghanekar to Dr Lagoo, from Mohan Agashe to Jabbar Patel, etc) in Pune / Mumbai are doctors. Likewise, some of the best theatre people I know in Mumbai were from BARC / TIFR!

KK: Then what makes a poetry reading different from a play from the audience’ point of view?
RR: Theatre needs an audience. That is the primacy of the spoken word. Sometimes, it is true with poetry. The two most popular poets in Hindi heartland are Kabir and Tulsi. People know their work through the spoken word.

KK: I’m reminded of what Belgian writer and critic, Luc Sante, said in an interview on discovering Rimbaud. He said, “That riff in “A Season in Hell” about liking idiotic paintings and reading outmoded literature and dreaming of unrecorded voyages of discovery and seeing carriages on the roads in the sky—that was virtually the template for my entire life! I could almost say that everything I’ve done has come from that poem.”
In your presentation, you showed us maps and talked about real and mythical cartographies. Could you reflect on living vicariously as a creative compulsion/commonality?
RR: I referred to Alberto Manguel’s The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. In it, Manguel takes us to … 1200 imaginary cities, islands, countries, and continents, from Homer to the late 1990s. … I tried to do the same with Krakow. Try to see the city through the poems. I don’t think I need to visit Krakow.

KK: You are seen as one of the voices of dissent in the theatre circuit. What is the importance of art in tough times?
RR: I recall what Ibsen said centuries ago in An Enemy of the People — The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against.

KK: What are the complexities behind the identity of an Indian writer writing in English about a diverse India? How do you negotiate the local, ‘Marathi tradition’ with the national, and the global? Can you tell us a little about your creative process as a writer?
RR: Language is a strange beast.
When Alberuni came to India, he accompanied Ghazni
He sought to learn Sanskrit
But the Brahmins said no
So he sat outside the temple
Among slippers and chappals
And mastered the language
Became the father of Indology.
Doing research has become a habit now. I’m not a historian or a scholar so to speak; I suppose I’m compensating for some deficiency from my student days. One of the plays that have just been completed is set around the time of World War I in India. While doing the primary phase of research that involves collating neutral information available about what transpired in Mumbai at the time, a few other aspects emerged. One was the question of Indian nationalism set in the time between 1850 and 1925, coming down all the way to the sort of ultra-nationalism one sees around the world today.
Around this time, there were about 7-8 political affiliations being formed in the city, interestingly in its southern tip. The RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha, Communist Party of India, the arrival of Gandhiji and Dr Ambedkar into the city — creating a sort of tussle for affiliation. This happened while unknown peasants and farmers were put on ships and sent off to Flanders to fight a war for the British that nobody understood. He says, “If you study that time, look through the speeches of some of these guys (some of whom were booked for sedition or were under the gaze of the British police), what emerged is that theatre was an adhesive to seemingly unrelated events in Mumbai. A lot of these plays were staged in South Mumbai, in the red-light areas… some of them were official, some other unofficial… I’ve spoken to two important scholars who have studied this time. These stories are so fascinating. All this is present in this longish and laborious play about the WW I in Mumbai.

KK: Please tell us about your future projects.
RR: [An] Idea for a play about Gandhiji. So, Barrister VV Oak attended the Nathuram Godse case in 1948. When the court was in session, Oak made sketches of the people in the courtroom. Also, he was a photographer who devised a way of enlarging a negative based on the principle of Camera Obscura. [An] Idea for a play about Dilip Ranade, ex-taxidermist at the CSMVS Museum in Mumbai. He stuffed animals during the day. At night, he read Kafka’s Trial and Castle. One day, Ranade created fibreglass sculptures of frogs, Edison’s electric bulb, Marilyn Monroe’s bra as a fossilised icon show.

Ramakrishnan (Ramu) Ramanathan is an Indian playwright-director with acclaimed plays to his credit. His list of plays include Cotton 56, Polyester 84, Comrade Kumbhakarna and more recently, Postcards From Bardoli.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

Mizoram–India’s Future Gateway To Southeast Asia–Is Among Country’s Top States, But New Government Will Inherit 4 Worries

November 27, 2018

Mumbai: On November 28, 2018, Mizoram–the last northeast bastion of the Indian National Congress (INC)–will vote to power a new government that will oversee what is planned as India’s gateway to Southeast Asia.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to BJP supporters, in Lunglei, Mizoram.

With about half as many voters as south Mumbai, Mizoram is one of India’s fastest-growing, healthiest (second) and most-literate states (third).

However, our pre-election analysis of a state with 1.1 million people–as many as in Chandigarh– reveals it is challenged by poverty, high dropout rates, racial tensions and inter-district inequalities, worries that the new government will have to address.

These issues threaten to slow the growth of a state that has been administered by either the Congress or the Mizo National Front (MNF), ever since a peace accord ended a long-running insurgency in 1986. That agreement officially ended a long-running Mizo uprising, marked by air raids on capital Aizawl 52 years ago in March 1966, the only time the Indian Air Force bombed its own people.

Mizoram’s 768,000 voters will vote in 40 constituencies to determine if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will make its first inroads and complete the party’s surge into India’s northeast.

After the victory of the BJP-led Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura in March earlier in 2018, seven of eight states in the region —Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur–are governed by the alliance.

Better than the rest, mostly
Led by Lal Thanhawla, former insurgent turned mainstream politician, the Congress has administered Mizoram for the last 10 years. Previously in the 2013 elections in Mizoram, the party won 34 of 40 seats. But since 2014, the Congress’ vote share declined 13.4 percentage points across the northeast, IndiaSpend reported on March 10, 2018.

Mizoram has been positioned as the epicentre of the union government’s Act East Policy, which aims to harness shared cultural and border ties shared between the India’s northeast and south-east Asian countries, such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand and other ASEAN nations, some of which are the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Filtered through various indicators, Mizoram boasts a raft of high-performing statistics.

The state is one of the fastest growing states in the country, according to the Economic survey, 2017-2018, with its economy growing by 12% between 2013-2016. It has India’s second-best health indicators and third best literacy.

However, our analysis revealed that the state’s achievements are challenged by increasing poverty, racial tensions, high school-dropout rates and inter-district inequalities, which hinder growth.

Big ferment in a small state
Mizoram also grapples with illegal migrants, inter-tribal differences, an inability to create jobs for its educated youth and tensions sparked by allegations of corruption against the current government. These tensions have led to the rise of sub-regional alliances, such as the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM)–comprising of regional parties such as Zoram Nationalist Party, Mizoram People’s Conference and Zoram Exodus Movement–and this may disrupt the traditional exchange of governments between the INC and MNF.

More than 94% of Mizoram is tribal, 80% is Christian, and minorities, such as the Chakmas and Brus, claim racial discrimination at the hands of majority communities, such as the Lusei, Ralte, Hmar, Khiangte and Lai.

Last year, Buddha Dhan Chakma, the sole Chakma minister in the government, resigned alleging racial discrimination, after four Chakma medical students were denied admission even though they cleared the national exams.

What’s holding Mizoram back?
Mizoram has one of the lowest rates of anaemia among women in the northeastern (24.8%), child wasting (8.4%), stunting (28.1%) and underweight children (12%), according to data from the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4).

It ranked first among smaller states and second nationally in NITI Aayog’s overall 2018 health performance index. The state’s health-related successes can be attributed to its per capita expenditure on health, which as IndiaSpend previously reported, was five times the national average: 4.5% of gross domestic product (GDP)in 2015, compared to India’s 1.02%.

However, Mizoram’s progress has lagged other states. Manipur, which ranked second among smaller states in NITI Aayog’s Health index, improved by 7.18% compared to Mizoram’s 2.43%.

What is slowing Mizoram?
Even as northeast India experiences a surge of growth, with more educated citizens and dwindling reliance on agriculture, not enough jobs are being created, IndiaSpend reported on February 1, 2016.

The region is simultaneously experiencing an increase in poverty–a trend opposed to the national experience, with the proportion of the northeastern population rising from 21.9% to 29.8% over two years to 2011, according to the latest available government data.

Source : Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy, Reserve Bank of India, 2016.
Note: Population below poverty line is as per the “Tendulkar method” on mixed reference period (MRP).

The proportion of Mizoram’s people living below the poverty line rose from 15.4% to 20.4% over seven years to 2011, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy, 2016, which uses an index called the mixed reference period (MRP) The MRP measures consumption of five items over 365 days. These include clothing, footwear, durables, education and health spending.

Our analysis also found that Mizoram’s high literacy rates are marred by high school-dropout rates and inter-district disparities. The dropout rates in primary and secondary schools are 15.36% and 30.67%, respectively, more than the comparable national averages of 6.35% and 19.89%; Mizoram’s dropout rates are also the northeast’s highest, according to 2017 government data.

There is a 38.76 percentage point gap in literacy between the most literate district (Serchhip,98.76%) and the least literate (Mamit,60%), according to Census 2011. The districts of Lawngtlai (66%) and Mamit (60%) suffer literacy rates lower than not just the state average but the national average of 70.04%.

Mamit (82.51%) and Lawngtlai (85.06%) also had Mizoram’s highest proportion of rural households and were the state’s poorest districts with 90% of Lawngtlai living in poverty in 2009, followed by Mamit (83.2%),according to 2013 state government data, the latest available. The capital, Aizawl, Mizoram’s most-urban district, also had the lowest poverty rates.

Source : Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011, Mizoram Human Development Report 2013

Farm protests, decline in agriculture
Hills cover over 80% of Mizoram, and with 60% of the population dependent of agriculture, according to 2014-15 government data, the state is challenged by difficult-to-farm areas and declining soil quality, affected by the tradition of jhum–or slash and burn–cultivation.

A National Land Use Policy, 2009 (NLUP), which aims to revitalise the primary sector by introducing alternatives to jhum cultivation, such as reforestation and market infrastructure, has been a prominent promised intervention by the state government and the Congress’ previous election campaigns.

But NLUP funding has been roiled by allegations of corruption. In 2015, a government audit found funds for bamboo plantations filched. Farmers took to the streets of Aizawl to protest the NLUP’s failure in providing a market to farmers, who were made to choose broom grass and ginger cultivation, the Morung Express, reported on September 29, 2018. The farmers also protested the lack of roads.

As on March 2016, Mizoram had 8,108 km of roads, 17.6% less than the 9,831 reported the previous year. While the length of national highways (1,381km) has remained unchanged, state highways declined from 214 km in 2015 to 170 km in 2016. Mizoram is a multi-hazard prone area and is annually affected by torrential rainfall, flash floods and landslides. The deteriorating condition of roads are further exacerbated by poor maintenance.

Women are educated, working, but none in the assembly
Mizoram reports 976 females per 1000 males, as per Census 2011–the national statistic is 943 females per 1000 males–and it records the second highest rate of female labour force participation (54%) after Chhattisgarh, according to data from the Employment-Unemployment Survey, 2015-2016.

Yet, as the state goes to vote, another contradiction emerges: Mizoram had 2.62% more women voters than men in 2013. But all 40 legislators are men. Of the six women who contested the 2013 elections, only one was from the Congress.
In 2018, 4.8% more women electors are set to vote. Whether any of the men will be displaced will be clear on 11 December 2018.

(Chhetri is a graduate of Lady Shri Ram College for women. Singh is an intern with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

Sabarimala: All women face backlash, but the worst is being reserved for Dalit women

November 27, 2018

Several women tried to enter the Sabarimala temple in southern Kerala following the Supreme Court order allowing entry for all women to the temple. None have been successful in having a ‘darsan’ of the deity, as all had to return following harsh protests by the Sangh teams. And at least some women still face the consequences of having made the attempt.

Bindu Thankam Kalyanai, Courtesy: Wokejournal.com

Bindu Thankam Kalyani attempted to enter the shrine on October 22, but couldn’t. And there changed her life totally, with fresh attacks every day in whichever way possible. Bindu, who was working as a teacher of English at the Government Higher Secondary School in the Government Medical College campus in Kozhikode, was prevented from entering the school and evicted from her rented house in Kozhikode, according to reports. She was then transferred to a school at Agali near Attappady in Palakkad district on October 29, where also protests came up. She was received by ‘Ayyappa sharanam’ slogans and abuses outside the gates of the school, which she had to enter with police protection. She had to face protest by her own students even inside the classroom, however the school and principal stood by her right to use the SC order. On November 12, some protestors in Attappady organized a ‘namajapa yatra’ (procession chanting Ayyappa slogans organised in different parts of Kerala protesting against women’s entry to the Sabarimala temple) from a local Ayyappa temple to Bindu’s school. They tried to include students from the school also in the protest but the attempt was prevented by the police who locked down the school gates and the principal warned that he would not let any student protestor to attend exams. The attackers then marched to her house at night, hurled stones from the gate and threatened her. In addition to all this, she also faced harsh cyber attacks against which she has reportedly filed a police complaint.

While speaking to TwoCircles.net, Bindu said that she has been eagerly waiting for the court verdict to go to the temple in a healthy young age. “I am a believer not of the recent types of worships in the temple, but of the tribal beliefs that have been in practice in Sabarimala for a long time,” she clarified. She said that they had been attacked as they talked out loud about the politics and history of Sabarimala, which is predominantly tribal and matriarchal. “Even the name ‘Sabarimala’ came from the name of the tribal woman ‘Sabari’ who ruled the hill. Now these people are saying women should not enter there, after stopping the matriarchal power structure in practice there and ousting that community altogether. They have in a way stolen our things to seize our customs, to force servitude on us. The temples on hilltops were actually of the tribals or the lower castes. Others began to take them over after money began to flow in. They have the most difficulty when we question that,” she added.

The tribal community of Malayaraya has now come out in the open claiming their right to the temple. The community had controlled the temple following its own customs such as the 41-day fasting, commemorating the fast that the parents of Manikandan (the deity) observed to conceive the child. The names of important priests have been inscribed on the 18 steps leading to the main sanctum, and the first three among them are said to be those of the chiefs from the Malayaraya community. Bindu also said that the original idol is still with the Malayaraya community, the one in the temple now was installed later by the priests.

Another Dalit rights activist S.P. Manju who tried to enter the Sabarimala temple last month but couldn’t is now facing fresh threats from the Sangh for her upcoming second attempt. Soon after she reached home after filing the online application to enter the temple, the Sangh team came to her house and threatened that ‘she would be killed if she went.’ Manju had her house vandalized after her first attempt to enter the temple. Even the doors and windows of her house were broken and all home equipments destroyed. A television set and a gas cylinder used for cooking were missing. And her pet dog was killed. She has received some police protection since returning from the hilltop shrine. However, while talking to the TwoCircles.net, Manju expressed her concern that ‘this prevention of women from the temple might lead to the denial of entry for the lower castes as before’.

“All the women who went to Sabarimala have been tortured in one way or the other, but even in that matter, more caste-based pain is inflicted upon Manju and Bindu”, opined Dalit activist Mrudula Devi Sasidharan while talking to TwoCircles.net. Other women below 50 years of age who tried to enter the temple – Rehana Fathima from Ernakulam, activist Liby from Thrissur and Mary Sweetie from Thiruvananthapuram – also faced protests and are under police protection.

On November 11, a group of women activists organised a programme in Ernakulam in which several well-known activists and feminists attended, and upheld their support to the Supreme Court order. However, even in feminist circles, Dalit women seem to have a hard time finding full solidarity. Bindu herself stated that the programme did not give the expected space and coverage to Dalit women. However, organisers denied these charges.

“The people from the Sangh said they would burn me. I am from the Dalit community. Hundreds and thousands in my community have been burnt in independent India. None of them (were killed) for voicing their opinion. Even a three-year-old child has been burnt in my community; what opinion did she voice? Since it is sure that one would be burnt for having been born a Dalit, I decide to get burnt only after strongly voicing what I have to say,” said Dalit rights activist Sunny M Kapicaud while speaking at a programme organised in support of Bindu on November 22 at Agali.

Photo credit: Bindu Thankam Kalyani

Socio-cultural and human rights activists such as Dr. P. Geetha and Sainaba and others spoke at this programme organised with the involvement of local people. The programme also expressed solidarity with others facing protests and threats from the Sangh forces for their support to the Supreme Court order.

Meanwhile, the Pathanamthitta district Collector clamped prohibitory orders in Sabarimala during the ‘Mandala-Makaravilakku’ season from November 16 to 22. The Hindu Aikya Vedi leader Sasikala was arrested at Sabarimala for violating the prohibitory orders and then released, and a hartal called by the organisation was observed in Kerala on November 17, 2018. The BJP state general secretary K. Surendran was also arrested on November 17 for the same reason and he is still in prison. There is strong police presence in Sabarimala and nearby places currently.

Courtesy: Two Circles

Ram Temple: The Farce of A ‘Movement’

November 27, 2018

The Sangh Parivar’s attempt to reignite the Ram Temple movement did not draw much support in Sunday’s (November 25) twin meetings while their leaders were in disarray.

The much-hyped November 25 Dharm Sansad in Ayodhya, organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), turned out to be a damp squib, as did the parallel rally in Nagpur which was addressed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) supremo Mohan Bhagwat. These rallies were supposed to kick-start the renewed ‘movement’ for building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on the disputed site where the demolished Babri Masjid stood till 1992.

Manufacturing a Movement
According to reports, attendance at the Ayodhya meet was as low as 30,000 while another report put the number at 50,000. The local police reportedly put the figure at 80,000. The VHP had claimed that 2 lakh people would be congregating for the important meet where the building of Ram Temple was to be the agenda. It was claimed that people from 48 districts in Uttar Pradesh were brought to the city in 2000 buses, besides locals and others coming in trains.

The RSS had thrown its full weight behind the programme with Bhaiyyaji Joshi, the general secretary himself, supervising arrangements. Several dozen BJP MLAs and ministers were in attendance. However, two of Ayodhya’s three main akharas had reportedly boycotted the meet.

Despite these full-blown logistical arrangements, the lack-lustre attendance revealed what was being suspected all through – that there is indifference towards the so called ‘movement’. True, most Hindus in UP or surrounding areas would – if asked pointedly – say that they would like a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. But that doesn’t mean that they support the Sangh Parivar’s opportunist attempt to revive the ‘movement’ just when elections are around the corner.

In fact, as reported by many outlets, and shown on live TV coverage, many common people even in Ayodhya were openly saying that all this is being done for electoral purposes. They blamed electoral politics for the delay in building of the temple. Many others clearly indicated that they were told that the construction “would start today itself”.

In Nagpur, a similar VHP event organised in parallel with the Ayodhya meet, saw the RSS supremo make a last-minute appearance. He said that the Supreme Court was not giving the issue due priority.

“Though law is necessary, can society run only on the basis of law? Can any question be raised against matters of faith?” Bhagwat said. This rally too saw a poor turnout with only about 25,000 people attending despite the claim by organisers that one lakh would be turning up.

Leaders in Disarray
Meanwhile, the disarray among the saints and seers, the VHP leaders, the Sangh leadership and the BJP was evident from their divergent and rather absurd statements about the Temple. While some were claiming that a law was in the offing and giving all kinds of prospective deadlines for its promulgation, others were calling for following the Supreme Court’s directions and still others were calling for a society-wide struggle to pressurise the government to act quickly.
Campaigning in Rajasthan, Prime Minister Modi bizarrely alleged that the Congress was responsible for delaying the Court case related to the Ram Temple by forcing the Supreme Court to delay hearings.
His right-hand man and BJP President Amit Shah, campaigning in Madhya Pradesh, said that there was need to wait for the Supreme Court’s hearings to resume in January 2019.

Both were thus perceived as skirting the issue of bringing in an ordinance, as demanded by many VHP and RSS leaders. In fact, Shah’s statement clearly contradicted this demand.

In Nagpur, the RSS supremo set a much bigger target when he said that the whole Hindu society will have to be organised for this movement to pressurise the government.

At the Ayodhya meet, Ram Bhadracharya, a saint from Chitrakoot made the sensational claim that an unnamed Union minister had told him that the matter would be taken up by the PM after December 11. The significance of the date is unclear: it will be the day results of the five Assembly elections will be announced, but the Parliament will also convene that day.

“I am sure Modiji will not cheat us and the ordinance route may be opted for,” he said, adding that once a temple was built, India will become a “ghoshit Hindu raashtra (declared Hindu nation)”, Bhadracharya was reported as announcing.

Mahant Ramji Das of Nirmohi Akhara, one of the parties in the Ram Janmabhoomi title suit pending in the apex court, said at Ayodhya that the date for construction of Ram temple will be declared at the Kumbh Mela, scheduled for January-February in Prayagraj (Allahabad).
The whole tragi-comic nature of the exhortations issued from the dais at Ayodhya were best captured by the reported speech of Hansdevacharya who said that people should write letters to the Supreme Court seeking an early hearing on the matter. Strangely, he went on to quote the famous lines of Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar “Yaachna nahin, ab rann hoga (no more requests, there will be battle now)” – quite the opposite of what he was proposing!

The VHP has, meanwhile, announced that it would hold two big meetings (also dubbed Dharm Sansads) at Delhi and Bengaluru, followed by 500 meetings in almost all parliamentary constituencies in the country where people will approach their elected Members of Parliament (MP) to expedite the Ram Temple construction.

Whether this will have the desired effect or not is perhaps of low concern to the Sangh Parivar because the operative part is – ‘parliamentary constituencies’. That’s where all these activities are geared towards.

Will the people get taken in by this rather childish and transparently opportunistic strategy to garner votes for BJP? Sounds highly unlikely although its purpose is possibly to cause communal polarisation more than anything else. Even that is uncertain because the people’s anger towards the failed Modi regime is far outweighing these shenanigans.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

Azad Walks the Talk, to Ayodhya

November 26, 2018

Keeping good his promise to read the UP administration and government a class in Constitutional Values and the rule of law, Bhim Army chief, Chandrashekhar Azad reached the office of the District Magistrate Faizabad-Ayodhya and handed over a copy of the Indian Constitution to him. While on the one hand, various segments and off-shoots of the far right, supremacist Hindutva forces are building a clamour for the Ram Temple ahead of the ongoing state elections and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, and the Opposition parties are largely playing the Wait and Watch game, this direct and peaceful move by dynamic Bhim Army chief is like a breath of fresh air. It is appropriate that Azad performed this unqiue form of political protest on Constitution Day.

In images, Chandrashekhar Azad’s journey from Delhi to Lucknow to Ayodhya (Sunday November 26-Monday, November 26). At 4.30 p.m. Azad addresses a press conference at Vinay Khand, Gomtinagar, Lucknow.

Background (https://sabrangindia.in/article/azad-plans-gatecrash-hindutvas-ayodhya-party-copy-indias-constitution)

Yesterday, at a press conference in New Delhi today, Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad declared that he would head to Ayodhya on November 26th with a copy of the Indian constitution and a photograph of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar to remind the local administration of its’ duties. His unique plan comes in the backdrop of a massive communal mobilisation by Hindutva forces in Ayodhya supposedly to push for a Ram Temple (even while the case is being heard by the Supreme Court of India) but clearly with an eye on the upcoming general elections of 2019.

Chandrashekhar also said that if the governments led by Prime minister Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath cannot provide adequate security to the people of Ayodhya then they must resign and let the oppressed castes take power. He reminded how the UP government under Ms Mayawati had not let any untoward incident to happen when the Allahabad HC had pronounced it’s judgement in the Ram janmabhoomi case a few years ago. Chandrashekhar also said that the renewed call for the construction of a Ram Mandir at the disputed site is against the constitution and is being done because the BJP has not had any success in the last four and a half years. Fearing an outbreak of violence, Chandrashekhar said that the Ayodhya movement is being done to ‘break the country’. Responding to the question of how exactly he will enter Ayodhya, which reportedly resembles a fortress right now, he said ‘ Only time will tell how I manage to enter Ayodhya’. He also said that until the SC pronounces a verdict, status quo must be maintained in Ayodhya.

Pellet guns return to Kashmir, baby girl shot in the eyes

November 26, 2018

She might be the youngest victim of pellet gun firing in the valley. The number of disabilities in the valley rose by 74% under the BJP-PDP rule.

Image Courtesy: Indian Express

Shopian: 20-month-old baby Hiba Nisar had just woken up to the sound of gunfire when security forces fired pellet guns at her family at their home in Kaprin – Batgund area of Shopian district in Jammu & Kashmir. A pellet hit her right eye. She underwent an immediate surgery but the doctors fear that she may lose her eyesight.

“Clashes broke out between civilians and security personnel in Shopian following an early morning encounter on Sunday. According to reports, a civilian was killed and over 50 people were injured in the protests that led to Hiba’s injury,” a report said.

Hiba’s mother Masarat Jan, also called Marsala Jan in other news reports, said that she was with her two children when pellet guns were fired at her. “Masarat said due to continuous teargas shelling, smoke started filling their house and Hiba refused to eat anything, coughing aggressively. “I couldn’t tolerate my daughter choking and nauseating with tear-smoke and decided to take her and my five-year-old son away from the house, somewhere where they could breathe better,” recalled Masarat, as tears rolled down her eyes. “As soon as I opened the door of my house, I saw a pellet gun aimed at us while youth were rushing away from the spot. I pushed my son to a side and shielded my daughter’s face with my hand,” Masarat said. “Three pellets hit my hand suddenly, but one hit my daughter in her eye,” she said in a report by Greater Kashmir.

“Hiba was brought to the hospital by her neighbours when Masarat fell unconscious after seeing blood oozing from her daughter’s eye. “I wish the pellet in her eye had hit me,” Masarat cried loudly, alongside her husband Nazir Ahmed, who was away for work when the tragedy befell the family,” the report said.

“She has a corneal perforation and its prognosis is not very good,” said the doctor, who had operated upon her at the trauma theatre. He explained that a pellet has made a hole right in the middle of her eyeball, causing bleeding in the eye and damaging its parts that are vital for vision,” Indian Express reported.

It was also noted that Hiba might be the youngest victim of pellet gun firing in the valley.

Insha Mushtaq was hit by pellets on the evening of July 11, 2016, when she opened a window to look outside her home in Sedow village of south Kashmir’s Shopian district. She lost her eyesight and was lauded when she completed her 10th class exams in January.

Most of this year’s military operations have taken place in Shopian.

74% rise in disability during BJP-PDP rule
In three years to 2017–when the coalition government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power in Jammu & Kashmir–31,085 people were certified as disabled in the 10 districts in Kashmir valley, up 74% from 17,898 people in the three preceding years, data obtained through right to information requests show.

In six years to 2017, Kupwara district registered the most people with disabilities (10,825), followed by Anantnag (8,638), Baramulla (7,274) and Pulwama (5,461).

As of 2014, more than 100,000 disabilities were due to conflict, according to a November 2015 study published in the Journal of Business Management and Social Sciences Research (JBM & SSR). Post 2016, the use of pellet guns has increased the number of disabilities, according to Srinagar-based human rights activist Khurram Parvez.

Since 2016, 1,314 eyes of 1,253 people were impaired after being hit by pellets, and the chances of recovery are poor, Greater Kashmir, a local daily, reported on April 8, 2018. Blindness accounted for 68.9% of disabilities in the state compared to 44.5% nationwide, according to the JBM & SSR study quoted above.

Amnesty International India called for a ‘complete ban’ on the use of pellet guns in Kashmir in their report titled “Losing Sight in Kashmir: The Impact of Pellet-Firing Shotguns” which was released in 2017. The report depicts the plight of 88 victims of pellet guns in Kashmir whose eyesight was damaged in one or both eyes by metal pellets fired from pump-action shotguns used by the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) between the year 2014 and 2017.

The report says pellet-firing shotguns, which have been responsible for blinding, killing and traumatizing hundreds of people in Kashmir, “must be immediately banned.” The pump-action shotguns, as per the report, have been used by forces in Jammu and Kashmir since at least 2010. The report says the use of shotguns in Kashmir has “blinded hundreds and killed at least 14 people since July 2016.

The report had also noted that many school and university students who had been hit in the eyes continue to have learning difficulties.

More than 200 people hit by pellets fired by security forces during street protests in 2016 lost their vision either permanently or partially.

The unrest began on July 8, 2016, when Hizbul commander Burhan Wani was killed by the security forces in Anantnag district.

28-year-old Mohammed Ashraf Wani, a resident of Rahmoo village in Pulwama district of North Kashmir registered a not for profit trust “Pellet Victims Welfare Trust” in 2016 in Srinagar which has approximately 1,250 pellet and bullet victims as its members.

“Most of their families had to sell their land, houses and in some cases even jewellery to fund the treatment of pellet injuries. Now they are almost bankrupt with no money left for the continuous treatment,” he said.

He further said that the government has left them at the mercy of God after crippling them.

Union Ministry procured more pellet guns
The Union Home Ministry’s authorised Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to procure additional 5000 pellet guns with six lakh cartridges in 2017, to be used on Kashmiri protesters.

“I don’t think the weaponisation can control the situation in Kashmir, it will only aggravate it,” human rights defender and coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Khurram Parvez, told Firstpost.

According to a report, after the Home Ministry’s authorisation for 4,949 pellet guns for CRPF, their total number will rise to 5,589 which will be powered by 6 lakh cartridges. Every CRPF company will be equipped with nine pellet guns.

“I don’t understand the logic behind the idea of increasing the number of pellet guns in Kashmir when the use of this so-called non-lethal weapon has already backfired. Is India preparing to blind another generation of Kashmiris?” a political science professor at Kashmir University, who wished not to be named, told Firstpost.

“The Government of India should shun the policy of meeting Kashmiri protestors with weapons. It is a failed policy. It seems that the policy corridors in Delhi are facing intellectual bankruptcy when it comes to think about Kashmir,” the professor said.

“The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir has banned the use of pellet guns in Valley last year. But both the Union and State Government dishonored the Court decision and went ahead with the use of pellets on protesters during the 2016 anti-India protests in Valley. According to the protocol, the pellet guns or any other crowd control weapons should be aimed at the legs of the protesters to make them less lethal. However, the number of injuries caused by pellets last year in Kashmir only suggest that they were aimed above the waist height, to damage vital parts of the body including head,” the report said.

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Why are you targeting us for sympathizing with Rohingya’s, citizens to HM Rajnath Singh

According to a news report, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has instructed the intelligence agencies to make a list of organisations and individuals who are aiding the Rohingya refugees in India.

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Defending survivors

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Mizoram–India’s Future Gateway To Southeast Asia–Is Among Country’s Top States, But New Government Will Inherit 4 Worries

Sabarimala: All women face backlash, but the worst is being reserved for Dalit women

Ram Temple: The Farce of A ‘Movement’

The Sangh Parivar’s attempt to reignite the Ram Temple movement did not draw much support in Sunday’s (November 25) twin meetings while their leaders were in disarray.

Azad Walks the Talk, to Ayodhya

Pellet guns return to Kashmir, baby girl shot in the eyes

She might be the youngest victim of pellet gun firing in the valley. The number of disabilities in the valley rose by 74% under the BJP-PDP rule.

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