Sangh Parivar’s silent support to accused in Kathua case derives from their icon Savarkar’s exhortation.
The barbarism of the eight Kathua accused who conspired to abduct, rape and murder an eight year old girl, hiding her in a temple for three days, has shocked India. There have been widespread protests across the country and outraged calls for speedy justice. One fact that seems to be getting slowly air-brushed out of the picture is this: the conspiracy to abduct the Bakerwal (a Muslim nomadic tribe) girl was planned and executed by these men with the express purpose of getting rid of the Bakerwals from that neighbourhood. However you slice and dice it, the fact remains that it was a Hindu fanatic conspiracy against a Muslim community. It was the ultimate expression of the poisonous hatred sown and fostered by the Sangh parivar in the minds of the Hindu community in the Jammu region over the years.
It was because of this connection that RSS/BJP supporters, in the garb of the Hindu Sena, held protests when the accused were arrested, that lawyers prevented chargesheet being filed in the Sessions Court in Kathua, that a Jammu bandh call was given (though it flopped), and that two BJP ministers attended a rally in support of the accused.
There is a similarity between Kathua to the other case in Unnao, where the victim was not a Muslim but the accused is an elected MLA of the BJP. The similarity lies in this immediate rallying of support to rapists and murderers, attempts to disrupt the due course of law, diversionary tactics and use of political power to shield the guilty.
But it would be doing injustice to Kathua minor girl – and the rape victim in Unnao – if this is merely seen as some perverted, power-crazy men acting with impunity, some kind of lunatic fringe gone wild. The ideology of rape as a tool of exercising power over political or other opponents, or as a weapon to advance one’s ideology through force has been imbued in the Sangh Parivar by none other than their adulated icon ‘Veer’ Savarkar. He is referred to every so often by RSS and PM Modi himself went to lay flowers at his portrait that now adorns the Central Hall of Parliament thanks to Atal Bihari Vajpayee who got it installed back in 2003 when he was the prime minister.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, in one of his books Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History clearly explains why raping of Muslim women is justifiable and not to do so when the occasion permits is not virtuous or chivalrous but cowardly. (See Chapter VIII of the online edition made available by Mumbai-based Swatantryaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak)
Savarkar explains at length that Hindus in the past had suffered from a ‘suicidal’ (para 452) sense of virtuousness and chivalry in showing mercy towards Muslim women by letting them off easily. He gives examples (para 450) of such famous figures as Chhatrapati Shivaji who reportedly let off the daughter in law of Muslim governor of Kalyan, and Peshwa Chimaji Apte who similarly allowed the wife of Portuguese governor of Bassein to leave unscathed.
In passionate tones Savarkar argues that since Muslim oppressors had been punishing Hindu women, the same treatment should be meted out to vanquished Muslim women by Hindu victors.
“Once they are haunted with this dreadful apprehension that the Muslim women too, stand in the same predicament in case the Hindus win, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women,” he writes (para 451).
He argues that had Hindus adopted this policy of ravishing Muslim women from earlier times, their condition would have been far better than today:
“Suppose if from the earliest Muslim invasions of India, the Hindus also, whenever they were victors on the battlefields, had decided to pay the Muslim fair sex in the same coin or punished them in some other ways, i.e., by conversion even with force, and then absorbed them in their fold, then? Then with this horrible apprehension at their heart they would have desisted from their evil designs against any Hindu lady.” (para 455)
Apart from the erroneous notion which “every Hindu seems to have been made to suck, along with his mother’s milk” (para 429-430) that religious tolerance is a virtue, Savarkar also identifies the “foolish notion” among Hindus that to have “any sort of relations with a Muslim woman meant their own conversion to Islam” (para 453) as the reason for avoiding raping them. He writes that this notion restrained Hindu men from punishing “Muslim feminine class” (para 454).
In case somebody starts feeling sympathetic towards Muslim women, Savarkar takes us on an unsubstantiated ride through all the wrongs that Muslim women have committed which include enticing Hindu girls and sending them to “Muslim centers in masjids and mosques” and generally supporting Muslim men in their violence against Hindus.
This is the kind of stuff RSS and its fronts have been propagating over the years and Veer Savarkar remains a much admired hero among Sangh parivar followers. It has inspired Hindu rioters to commit horrendous atrocities on Muslim women in Gujarat (2002) and Muzaffarnagar (2013), and many others.
So, for the rapists and murderers of Kathua or Unnao, whatever be their psychological compulsions, the ethical and ideological sustenance is drawn from none other than Veer Savarkar. Small wonder that it becomes so difficult for the Sangh Parivar to condemn them or take action. Small wonder that the list of BJP/Sangh members committing crimes against women goes on extending.
Russia has made clear that any future attack will have major consequences, and also has promised to arm the Syrian forces with more advanced S-300 and S-400 anti-missile batteries to stop any such strikes.
With the Syrian missile attacks being declared as a one-of-action by the US, the immediate threat of further escalation has receded. The catch is in the premise of the strike: it was a punitive action by France, UK and the US – FUKUS – in response to Assad government’s alleged chemical attack on Ghouta. This means that if the strike was indeed engineered by Jaish al Islam, or al Qaeda lite—as has been claimed by the Syrian and Russian governments—the promise of such a response from the US/NATO will act as an incentive for rebels to stage similar chemical attacks. A collision course between the Russian-China-Iranian and NATO has now been set, with the control of the future in the hands of the ISIS, al Qaeda and similar forces.
Russia has made clear that any future attack will have major consequences, and also has promised to arm the Syrian forces with more advanced S-300 and S-400 anti-missile batteries to stop any such strikes.
There are three questions that need to be addressed. One is whether the Russians were informed of the impending strikes and targets. Second is the number of sites targeted by the US. The third is, how many missiles were interdicted by the Syrian anti-missile batteries, and if indeed 60 per cent of missiles were shot down, how could Syrian air defence, which is of Soviet vintage, i.e. pre 1990’s, be so effective?
We will deal with the allegations of Syria’s chemical weapons use separately. For all, who follow what is happening in Syria, it is beyond belief that the Assad government, which is clearly winning the war against the US and its “rebels”, should use chemical weapons at this juncture. This is even less believable, when we see that the Ghouta rebels were on the verge of surrendering their arms in lieu of a safe passage. Why would Syrian government forces take such a step, which would not only have international repercussions, but also invite the US to intervene? That too, specifically after Trump’s statement that he wanted to withdraw all US troops from Syria .
If we go by who has benefitted from the crime of the use of chemical weapons, it is certainly the rebels; or the proxy warriors for the US and its allies. If indeed chemical weapons were really used, and the Ghouta incident is just not a video production by the White Helmets, the group funded and trained by British intelligence .
The US and its allies launched – according to the briefing given by General Kenneth McKenzie, the Director of the Joint Staff – 105 missiles. All the missiles performed as planned, and hit three targets, one in Damascus and two in Homs. All the three are supposed to be chemical weapon development or storage sites.
The Russians and Syrians have contested the claims that only three sites were attacked, and said that a number of other targets such as Damascus airport, and critical installations were also attacked, but these missiles were brought down by the Syrian air defence.
The cruise missiles were launched by three US ships, one US submarine, and aircrafts. The aircrafts used were US B-1B strategic bombers, French Rafaeles and British Tornadoes. From the routes of the missiles, and the airports from which the aircrafts took off, it is clear that Turkey, Qatar, Gulf Emirates and Jordan have cooperated with the US and its allies. Turkey, used to a number of flip flops on Syria, again executed another flop ; they announced that their cooperation with the US forces in carrying out strikes was due to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. The Joint Chief of Staff of US Armed Forces General Dunford, in his press conference with General Mathis, the US Secretary of Defence, held that the US did not “ … do any coordination with Russia on these strikes, and neither did we pre-notify them”. Answering a specific question, General Dunford said that only “the normal deconfliction of the airspace” information was shared with the Russians.
Is this simply Orwellian doublespeak, meaning that the only difference between “deconfiction information” and “sharing information regarding strikes” is the information on specific targets? The rest is the same, meaning the Russians would have known well in advance when the strikes would take place, from where they would originate and the air path that would be followed. From this, the targets – or at least the broad areas being targeted would be easy to deduce.
There is evidence that the Russians did inform the Syrians of the impending strikes five hours before they took place. The Russians and the Syrians pulled out men and materials from possible strike sites. That would explain why the only casualties in this high visibility exercise are three Syrians being wounded, and three buildings and two bunkers being demolished.
The site Sic Semper Tyrannis say s: Russia was told where we were going to strike. Russia in turn warned the Syrians. Both the Syrians and the Russians evacuated key personnel and equipment from the target sites. Any claim by the United States that we caused devastating damage or destroyed essential capabilities is total fantasy.
The Dunford and Mathis briefing also talked about how every missile hit its target. The above article continues on how many of the 105 missiles hit their targets:
The second issue concerns the imagined success of the U.S. TLAM strike. Before General Mattis (retired) approached the podium Friday night, he knew full well that a significant number of the inbound missiles had been shot down inside Syria…The Russians and Syrians were not lying when they claimed to have downed more than 70 of the U.S., UK and French missiles.
The Russians and the Syrians have said that the bulk of the missiles – more than 70 – were shot down by the anti-missiles defences of the Syrian forces. Most were shot down by missiles using 1970’s Soviet technology. For those who believe in the technical superiority of the west, which includes Indian defence “experts”, this must be an unwelcome shock.
The US has also released pictures of the strikes. Such pictures are available from satellite imagery as well. Again, defence experts seem to concur that the amount of damage – three buildings and two bunkers – do not amount to more than a 100 missiles hitting such targets.
The US has also claimed that this time, they were targetting chemical weapon production and storage sites, not the delivery systems. There are pictures of people without any protective clothing and masks looking at or wandering around such bombed “chemical weapon” sites. We give below pictures, carried by UK’s Daily Mail, of the Barzah Research Centre in Damascus, struck by missiles on Saturday morning, and photographed a few hours later.
If indeed this was a chemical weapons site, such pictures, with people going about without any protection, is unbelievable. Similar pictures are also available for the other two sites near Homs that were hit. All these indicate that Syrians are right when they say these are not functioning chemical weapons sites.
The Syrians have said that these sites were dismantled as chemical weapon manufacture or storage sites in 2013. OPCW has verified periodically that these facilities are no longer in operation. Therefore, the story that the US and its allies are presenting to the world of the Assad government still continuing its chemical weapons program has no basis. At least on the basis of any evidence that the US and its allies have been able to produce.
It is impossible to not hear the term ‘Bangladeshi’ when you are in Assam. It is a term that divides Assam;a region where human migration precedes national boundaries by centuries. No one ever says that there are no Bangladeshis in Assam; the questions seem far more focused on “what to do with them”. It is also pretty clear that no one exactly knows who a “Bangladeshi” is: Assamese Muslims, Bengali Muslims, Bengali Hindus and sometimes even Assamese Hindus, along with even Nepalis and Bodos, have all been signalled out as Bangladeshis. When human lives are reduced to statistics and government policies put one religion against the other, it is the marginalised who suffer the most.
Sajahan Ali talking to TwoCircles.net about his detention.
The Idea Of a ‘Foreigner’ : The Assam Accord, signed in 1985, has played an extremely important role in this regard. The issue of ‘foreigner’ was central to this Accord. Contested migrations after two partitions (1947 and 1971) along with a subsequent surge in Assamese nationalism resulted in a policing of “foreigners”. As a result, the Assam accord enlisted a series of measures to be taken as part of a Memorandum of Understanding between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the All Assam Students Union along with Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. One of the most important points of the Accord was that all ‘foreigners’ who had arrived after March 1971 be expelled from the state.
The Creation of a D voter : Following the Accord, it was in July 1997 that the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked the state government to segregate its citizens and non-citizens. Following this, the ECI prepared a list of voters in the state and mark ‘D’ (doubtful) next to the names of people who were suspected to be non-citizens. In 1997, this list included 3.5 lakh names. As of February 2017 according to Assam Parliamentary Affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, the Assam Border Police were conducting investigations into 6,21,688 cases related to foreigners till October 2016. Of these, 4,44,189 were referred to the 100 Tribunals established in the state, where about 2,01,928 cases are still pending.
Detentions : Among the cases that have been ‘resolved’ however, are the stories of about 1,800 persons who have been detained across Assam on charges of being a Bangladeshi. Even the most cursory conversations with the families of the detained people show that almost all the detainees belong to poor families who could barely afford any lawyers or appeal against the judgement issued by the Foreigners’ Tribunal. Since this issue comes under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964, a lot of times the lawyers are unaware of how to approach the case but nevertheless take it for easy money.
In this three-part series, TwoCircles.net looks at how detention camps are wreaking havoc with the lives of people, especially Muslims, across the state.
In the first of the three-part series, we tell the story of Sajahan Ali, an Assamese-speaking Muslim who was in jail (detention) for 11 months on charges of being an illegal Bangladeshis. While he may be out now, the case has broken his family, left him with no savings, a sizeable burden to pay off and a mortgaged house.
A week before Ramadan was about to begin, Sajahan Ali, a resident of Buzurg Manikpur village in Barpeta District, had gone over to his mother’s house for the night. Dining at a stone’s throw away from his own house, Sajahan decided to call it a night in his mother’s house while his wife and two children remained home. At that time, Sajahan Ali did not realise that this was the last night his family was together. Around midnight, the police knocked on the door. Ali, confused and scared, thought that they had come to arrest him for a small-time feud which took place a few months ago. “I remember that night well…when the police came, I thought it was because I was involved in a local feud and a fellow resident of this village had filed a complaint. But I did not understand why they needed to arrest me in the middle of the night,” Ali says in a conversation with TwoCircles.net.
TwoCircles.net met Ali in a village called Kukiripada, located about 30 km from his village, where he was working with other men erecting electric poles as part of the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana. It has only been three days since he came out of the jail but Ali has little time to take rest or reflect on what happened over the past 11 months. Having erected the last pole for the day, Ali and other men sit down to discuss the trauma that Ali has undergone in the past year. “It was only when I was produced before the Foreigners’ Tribunal that I realised that I had been arrested on charges of being an illegal Bangladeshi in Assam,” he says. “I was shocked…all my life, I had been living here without any such issue. I voted in 2016 state elections and all elections before that. How did I become a Bangladeshi all of a sudden?”
Within a few days, Ali, who is in his early 40s, went from being a poor resident of an Assamese village to a poor ‘illegal Bangladeshi’ in Assam. He was now one of the about 1,800 people who had been put in one of the six ‘detention camps’ in Assam. Talking about his case, Ali explains, “When my case was brought to the Foreigners’ Tribunal, I found that I had been a D-voter (doubtful voter) since 2005 and that I was being arrested because I had failed to reply/honour any of the court summonses that had been sent to me.”
But like most of the cases of D-voters, Ali’s case was much more than what met the eye. Turns out, Ali says, he had been declared a doubtful voter in the same district (Goalpara), but in a different Tehsil (Dudhnoi) in 2005. Over the next 12 years, as the court paper shows, he had been sent a summons seven times by the Foreigners’ Tribunal but he never showed up so finally, he had been tracked down and arrested. “My voting is in Buzurg Manikpur, which falls under Goalpara East. I was declared a doubtful voter in a Tehsil and village that I had never resided in. How was I to know what happened?” Regarding the summons, he says, “I was supposedly sent a summons but at an address where I have never lived. Then how am I supposed to respond? If you live in one village and a letter comes for you in another village, how are you at fault?” he asks.
Ali’s claim might be valid, but this did not matter much when it came to the legal implications. As the summons went unanswered, his case was declared ‘hanging’ and the Assam Border Police, which is the main security force which looks after this issue, pushed for an ex-parte decree in this case. An ‘Ex parte decree’ is a decree passed against a defendant in absentia. On the date of hearing, if only the plaintiff appears and a defendant does not appear, the Court may hear the suit ex parte and pass a decree against the defendant. So, while Ali had been working as a labour in Assam and then in Meghalaya, the Police were on a ‘lookout’ for him.
All of this meant that after he was arrested in July, he was sent to the Barpeta detention camps, located about 100 km from his residence. Inside, he realised that being an illegal Bangladeshi was even worse than being a criminal. “We were kept separately from the convicts and treated much worse too. The food was horrible, the hygiene was non-existent and we had no money. We could not even work in the jail.”
Nurul Islam, a lawyer based out of Goalpara who handled Ali’s case, explained how the case unfolded “After Sajahan Ali was arrested, we approached the Gauhati High Court for a stay order since the FT had passed an ex-parte order. It took us nearly four months, but we finally got the stay. Then, the case was contested in Foreigners’ Tribunal and I presented all the required proof of residence on behalf of Ali. Earlier this month, Ali finally won the case in the FT and he was free after nearly eleven months in jail.”
Given that most people sent to detention camps either spend years inside or are still inside, one might even say that Ali was lucky: he, after all, came out within 10 months. But of course, the arrest has taken a massive toll on his life. “In the days following my arrest, my wife left with my son and went to her parents’ place. I am not sure why she did so…maybe she thought I would never come back. I haven’t even seen my son in almost a year…my daughter, who had got recently married, was sent back by her in-laws after they came to know that I had been arrested as an illegal Bangladeshi. Thankfully, my brother and his wife along with our extended family took care of her. My brother is also a worker. When I was in jail and we had an appeal in the High Court, he had to mortgage his brother’s house to raise the much-needed money. Now, Ali is scared thinking if/when he will lose the house. “I don’t know how I will save my house…and even if I save my house, my family is broken…who will live there?” he asks.
In such cases, the need for legal aid becomes paramount but given the complexities of the issue, there are no such facilities available for the detainees. “In any other case in Indian courts, if the accused cannot afford a lawyer, he/she is provided one by the government. But not in these cases…similarly, once sent to detention, there is no bail, no parole not even to appear in your own case even when you appeal the verdict in the High Court,” says Islam.
As we end our conversation, Ali can barely hold his tears. He says, “I am a poor person but I had a family. I lost a year’s worth of income, I have almost lost my house and my wife and son left me…for what? How can I be a Bangladeshi when I have lived here all my life, like the rest of my family?” He shrugs off any idea that he should file for compensation. “I do not have the time, money or the courage to approach the courts again…when you see the condition in which human beings are made to live in these detention camps, you thank Allah for bringing you out of it. I hope others also come out…it is hell inside. No human being, Indian or Bangladeshi, should ever be made to live like that,” he says.
Senior lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan has filed a criminal complaint against Madhu Kishwar and called her “fake news purveyor & communal hate & violence inciting tweets of Madhu Kishwar”He has filed the complaint “for serious offences u/s 153A, 295A & 505 of the IPC against serial fake news purveyor & communal hate & violence inciting tweets of Madhu Kishwar who thinks she can get away without accountability.” He said it was time to call her bluff.
The complaint has been filed with SHO, Tilak Marg Police Station in Delhi and accuses Kishwar of publishing “misleading and false information”through her twitter handle. It also says that she has been doing this for “last several months.
Apart from recent tweet, the complaint also cites Kishwar’s tweet dated April 14, 2018 in which she alleged that in the Kathua incident of rape and murder, it was,”very likely that family accused of rape have been scapegoated.”She further claimed that the “ Murder of Kathua Minor Girl suspected to be handiwork of jehadi #Rohingyas settled by PDP in Jammu region. Since Jammu people angry at settling criminal Rohingya in Hindu areas, Mehbooba used this murder as counterblast strategy”.
Prashant Bhushan also alleged that her tweets are meant to incite communal hatred and create a disturbance to public peace and tranquility. He said that she has a following of more than two million and her tweets have a far reaching impact.
All those accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case have been acquitted by a special NIA court. On May 18, 2007, a pipe bomb exploded in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, killing at least eight people, and wounding more than 50 people. Reports indicate that more than 10,000 people were in the mosque at the time of the explosion. Five other people were also killed when the police “opened fire” after there were riots during Friday prayers on that day. Police also recovered and defused two other live IEDs. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) plans to scrutinise the court’s judgment, after which a further course of action will be determined.
Image Courtesy: The Indian Express
Ten people, all allegedly belonging to the right-wing Hindu organisation Abhinav Bharat, were accused in the case. These included Nabakumar Sarkar alias Swami Aseemanand, Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma alias Ajay Tiwari, Mohanlal Rateshwar and Rajender Chowdhary. Two accused–Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra–are still absconding. One of the accused, RSS official Sunil Joshi, was murdered during the investigation.
Wrongful detention of Muslim Youth The Hyderabad Police conducted an initial probe, and reportedly detained more than 50 Muslim youth during the investigation. A fact-finding panel with the state’s minority commission found that the youth were illegally confined and tortured by the police. The youth were all subsequently acquitted, and, as per the National Minority Commission’s recommendation, the state government handed out monetary compensation to them. In September 2013, the High Court set aside the compensation paid to the youth.
How the Investigation and Trial progressed Following the police probe, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the Mecca Masjid blast case and filed a chargesheet. In April 2011, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case. The trial, which concluded last week, took place at the IV Additional Metropolitan Session Court, a special NIA court, at Hyderabad’s Namapally court complex. The verdict was scheduled for today, April 16. The prosecution was led by the NIA’s Chief Public Prosecutor N. Harinath, who interviewed 226 witnesses. 64 witnesses, including Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit, turned hostile during the trial. Purohit alleged that neither the CBI nor the NIA recorded his statement.
Aseemanand’s Confession and Retraction Swami Aseemanand, who was present at the Namapally court today, was arrested by the CBI in November 2010 in Haridwar over his alleged involvement in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast. In December 2010, Aseemanand confessed to plotting the 2006 Malegaon blasts, February 2007’s Samjhauta Express blast, May 2007’s Mecca Masjid blast, and October 2007’s Ajmer Sharif blast, and also implicated certain RSS officials.
In January 2011, following the news of Aseemanand’s confession, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad alleged that the Congress-led government was attempting to “malign the image of Hindu leaders by terming them as terrorists,” saying it was the “greatest lie” that Aseemanand had confessed. An editorial in the RSS’ ‘Organiser’ said it was “…intriguing that only persons named in alleged Hindu radicalism seem to be making ‘confessions’,” adding, “We have not heard of a Kasab or Afzal Guru or captured jehadi, terrorist making such a confession. Are they so tight-lipped?”
However, in March 2011, Aseemanand submitted a letter to an Ajmer court saying, “I have been pressurized mentally and physically by the investigating agencies to confess that I was behind these blasts.” He also alleged that the investigative agencies, such as the NIA and the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) were involving his family members in the case, and accused Rajasthan’s ATS unit of not allowing him to engage a lawyer.
Other evidence Forensic reports from the NIA indicated a link between the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon blasts, the 2007 Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid blasts, the 2008 Modasa and the 2006 Samjhauta Express blasts. In March 2017, Aseemanand was acquitted in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, and later granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case.
The curious testimony of Shaikh Abdul Kaleem In April 2017, Shaik Abdul Kaleem, 27, to whom Aseemanand allegedly admitted his involvement in the Mecca Masjid blast when they were both at Hyderabad’s Chanchalguda Jail, said he wanted to write a memoir, but questioned who would agree to publish it. He said, “When I heard Aseemanand was acquitted in the Ajmer blast case, I could not believe it. I could not believe when he was granted bail in the Mecca Masjid blast case also. I put my life at risk and went to Ajmer and Panchkula to give evidence based on what Aseemanand confessed to me… at Chanchalguda Jail”.
According to Kaleem, Aseemanand told him “how he and his group planned and executed the blasts, and apologised to me because I had to spend time in jail while he was the accused. He repented that”. Kaleem was detained by the police in July 2007 following the Mecca Masjid blast over the suspicion of being involved in terror activities. He was in jail for a year, and was acquitted in July 2008. Since then, he also spent time in jail in relation to another case, and was booked for alleged assault in a third case.
The recent student protests were only the tip of the iceberg
Student protests are nothing new MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU
A looming crisis of a countrywide political movement started by university students over the service quota system seems to have been averted by a bold move by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. She has taken the wind out of the sail of the movement by declaring her decision to end the quota system altogether, albeit in a sentimental but effective way.
Her decision may have taken everyone by surprise, even the protesting students, as the decision went above and beyond their call. They wanted reform of the system, not an end to it. The system benefited not just the freedom fighters and their descendants, but also women and under-privileged classes.
It remains to be seen how a total termination of a system that has been around for four decades would impact the country, and how the decision will be implemented.
The decision may halt a potentially bigger political outburst of a national scale ignited by an issue that affects a small segment of the population (people seeking government jobs), but it still does not answer the question why such marginal issues morph into national movements. An immediate reason for the student protests is the perceived unfairness of the quota system in government service that favours highly disproportionate reservation for the freedom fighters and their descendants.
But this may not be enough to explain the ability of the students to attract thousands of protesters to their cause in a matter of hours all across the country, unless there are deeper undercurrents. These undercurrents do not happen overnight. The countrywide unrest over this issue is just the tip of the iceberg. There are riptides that may lie deep under these currents.
A history of protest Historically, mass movements have been caused by seething anger and unrest over political rights such as freedom of speech, voting rights, and resistance to autocratic powers. Many times such resentments lie dormant but can surface only when triggered by some mistaken policies or missteps by the government. Such missteps may occur from neglecting early signs of trouble, or inability to handle an incident that affects general public.
The people movement, and later revolution, in Tunisia in 2011 were triggered by the symbolic suicide of a small shopkeeper. In an effort to escape the suffocating unemployment that was rampant in Tunisia, this young man had started a shop, which was raided and destroyed by the police on charges of a lack of license.
In protest, the young man committed suicide by burning himself in the public square. His death by burning spread like wildfire which was simmering from galloping economic disparity, uncontrolled corruption, and graft among politicians. Soon, the political storm would engulf the whole country.
The rest, as we know, is history.
Next came the well-known Tahrir Square protests in Egypt and the birth of the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab Spring may have wound up as the Arab Winter, but it is worthwhile to remember how a small group of students assembled via social media grew into a massive national movement. It was able to mobilize not only students but also people from all strata of the social spectrum, including the mighty army that threw its lot with the people in the streets.
The movement was able to not only dislodge the Hosni Mubarak powerhouse, but also dismantle a political coterie characterized by rampant corruption that Hosni Mubarak and his predecessors had built in the name of national integrity over four decades. Pity the old army-backed politics is seemingly poised for a rerun, but it does not alter the historical turnaround of 2011 in Egypt which was triggered initially by a small group of people.
There are several other such incidents that occurred in the last decade in several parts of the world that were started by seemingly innocuous gathering of people
There are several other such incidents that occurred in the last decade in several parts of the world that were started by seemingly innocuous gathering of people after an incident or some form of protest that gained strength to make a wider impact and develop into national movement. The incidents initiated by small groups brought together other larger groups and galvanized them into action by providing them a common platform of protests and nationwide campaign. The incidents helped to bring into fore grievances against authority that were not addressed before and people felt neglected. These grievances may be economic, political, social, or simply personal.
There is no reason to draw any parallel between the student protests which took place recently in Bangladesh and those which happened in the Middle East nearly a decade ago. But there are lessons that our government may take from previous unrests among the youth elsewhere.
It’s the economy The students who wanted a reform of the quota system wanted so because they felt marginalized in an economy where job prospects had become elusive with a system not allowing fair competition. According to a report of Economist Intelligence Unit of the Economist (2015) nearly 50% of college graduates in Bangladesh remained unemployed. A quota system turns job prospect further into an illusion.
Added to this is the frustration of the common man to be able to access services in the country which are supposed to help him. Be this in law enforcement, recourse to justice, education, or health. A pervasive system of graft, political favours, and nepotism has kept these away from the reach of the common man. And this happens when the authorities who control these institutions that provide the services remain unaccountable to people.
When the politics of a country becomes difficult because changes cannot be brought about in a transparent manner, people take extreme recourse. These extreme measures are sudden upsurge of sporadic movements from apparently simple or even non-political issues which appeal to a broader swath of public opinion and morph into bigger movement of a political change.
The issue of quota-based services may die down for now because of a bold political move by the PM, but it may not immune the country from other political movements in the future demanding redress of the grievances.
In a democratic country, such grievances are better addressed by elections where people participate freely to send those to the legislature who they think understand their problems and are well suited to serve them.
We will not require a patchwork solution of our problems and solve them on a retail basis if we have a parliament of legislators who are truly representative of our people. By removing the quota system, we may remove only one obstacle for your youth.
A more fundamental approach would be to build an economy that attracts investment and creates opportunities of employment. This investment will come from more transparency in our governance, restoration of rule of law, and establishing democratic practices. We hope the upcoming elections will lead us that way.
Only the promise of fair elections can remove the perils of any riptide underlying the latest student protests.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the US.
New Delhi: About 44 huts of Rohingya refugees caught fire in Kalindi Kunj area of Delhi on Sunday, April 15, leading to minor burn injuries to two persons besides reducing the shelters to ashes along with a complete loss of household materials.
The fire in Rohingya slum in South-East Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj reduced 44 huts to ashes. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
The fire which started in the early hours of Sunday morning also consumed a makeshift mosque and a madrasa.
“The fire started at 3 am in the morning when everyone was asleep,” says Shabir Alam, 37 a Rohingya. He says that the fire started near the Toilets close to the makeshift mosque. “That time everyone was running to save their lives. I took my 5 children to safety and when I returned everything was on fire,” he told TwoCircles.net.
Shabir Alam, 37 a Rohingya refugee feeds his child inside a temporary relief camp. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
The shanties were made of bamboo and polythene. “It is the reason why everything caught fire so quickly. The fire brigade arrived half an hour later. By then everything was turned into ashes,” he adds.
Fayaz Ahmed, 31 lost everything to the fire. He had saved 80,000 rupees in last five years after toiling hard by collecting scrap.
“I have lost everything. My house, money, utensils. I don’t even have clothes to wear. I had to ask NGO people to buy one shirt for me,” Fayaz told Twocircles.net.
A civil defense official walks past the burnt structure. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
The fire has affected 44 refugee families consisting of 230 members who mainly work as hawkers, laborers, rickshaw pullers.
According to Fayazul Kalam, a Rickshaw puller, it will take him years to rebuild back what he has lost in the fire. “For five years, I worked day and night and built a house, bought utensils, clothes for my two kids and wife, but today I lost everything. This was my second home along with the one in Burma,” he said.
Various Non-Government organizations are providing food and clothes to the fire affected families. The members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind are also camping at the spot and surveying the families who need help.
Fire affected families inside the temporary shelter. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
“We will make fireproof tents for them and provide them with utensils, clothes, and fans. The work will start in a day or two. As of now, we are surveying what else can be done for them,” Ghayur Ahmad, Jamiat member who is accessing the situation at Kalindi Kunj told TwoCirlces.net.
In last few years, the Rohingya slums across the country have seen various incidents of fire turning their shanties into ashes. In a similar incident in April 2017, five huts of Rohingya refugees caught fire in Nangali gaon, Nooh of Mewat in Haryana, leading to one person being severely burnt. In November 2016 more than 80 huts belonging to the refugees were reduced to ashes leading to the death of four refugees in Narwal area of Jammu.
The belongings of refugees consumed in the fire. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
Last year on August 19, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued a circular asking all states to identify and deport ‘illegal’ Rohingyas.
“Illegal migrants are more vulnerable to getting recruited by terrorist organizations. Infiltration from the Rakhine State of Myanmar into Indian Territory, especially in the recent years, besides being a burden on the limited resources of the country also aggravates the security challenges posed to the country,” the document read.
The Supreme Court is presently hearing a petition filed by the Rohingya.
Fayaz Ahmed, 31 a hawker who lost his house, utensils, clothes and 80,000 rupees in the fire. (Photo by: Raqib Hameed Naik)
At present, there are more than 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees living in four states: Jammu, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi majority of whom are living in Jammu.
Thousands of Rohingyas fled Myanmar during a spike of violence some five years ago. They arrived in India with hopes for peace and security. At first, the refugees were well-received by the locals, but the hostility has gradually increased over the past few years.
All will be fine, if you commit heinous crimes under the name of “nationalism” and waive national flag.
That Minor Girl abduction, rape and strangulation, a particularly gruesome crime, aroused a virulent response from Jammu High Court Bar Association, as well as the Kathua Bar, in the name of “sentiments of the (Hindu) people”, invites attention to a phenomenon which has long been there but rarely acknowledged. The case was investigated by the SIT constituted and supervised by the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, when J&K police bungled the initial investigation, in lieu of money according to the charge-sheet. The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Kathua was reluctant to accept the charge-sheet and relented only after five hours when orders were issued by his superiors. All this went on while the Hindu Ekta Manch supporters had a field day staging protests inside the Court premises unhampered by the J&K Police. There were no preventive detentions, lathis charge, tear gas, pellet guns and guns, which is the norm in Kashmir. And now comes the news that the authorities are going to appoint Sikh prosecutors to ensure that Hindu-Muslims divide does not widen. In other words, starting from January 23 when HEM was formed by RSS supporters to now, this vicious campaign was allowed a free run. No police force displays such generosity towards people protesting atrocities and persecution as they do towards rabble-rousing Hindutvawadis for imagined “hurt”.
The High Court and local Bar’s demand of handing over the matter to CBI rested on the argument that gruesome abduction, rape and killing of the 8-year-old girl ought to be investigated by Hindu police personnel, because SIT’s credibility is suspect as it comprises of more Muslim personnel in the team, was led by a Muslim police officer and which then pinned the blame on eight accused all of them Hindus, including four police personnel. The High Court and local Bar Association could carry on with their vituperative campaign, strike call, ‘bandh’ etc because they enjoyed the patronage of Jammu-based BJP, Congress and the National Panthers Party as well as BJP ministers in the state and at the Centre, especially the Minister in PM Office Jitendra Singh. Lending legitimacy to the demand for CBI inquiry the Minister in PMO reportedly said on February 22 that “If people feel that they do not have faith in the police or crime branch investigation and the case needs to be handed over to the CBI, I don’t think, there is any problem in handing over the case to the CBI”. But why carry on with the protest when charge-sheet has been filed and the veracity of the evidence presented by the SIT will be determined during the trial. Samar Halarnkar writing in Scroll.in [12/04/2018] is right when he says that India is being pushed into becoming “an apartheid state, a Hindu Rashtra where the Hindu has first claim to everything”, and evidently want the criminal justice system to favour them.
The sight of remorseless ‘Hindutvawadis’ waving the tricolour flag and mouthing abuse & provocative slogans, indulge in arson, plunder, molestation and even lynching in the name of “Gau Mata” or “Bharat Mata” or some imagined “hurt” represents the new ‘normalcy’ manufactured by pseudo-patriots of ‘Sangh Parivar’. That these luminaries of Hindutva in Kathua have been covering their crimes using the national flag to agitate in favour of perpetrators (which included four police personnel) of heinous crime against a girl child, promote ethnic cleansing by ridding Kathua district of Muslims and can carry on their murderous politics, is evidence of the official patronage and clout they enjoy. That the Union Government and its security apparatus still point fingers at Muslims of Kashmir and ignores the danger posed by Hindutvadis, illustrates that the religious radicalization Indian Government focuses on studiously ignores the radicalization of Hindus and the vicious politics they engage in India and in particular in Jammu.
In the aftermath of 1947 massacre of Jammu Muslims by the Dogra Maharaja’s troops, backed by RSS and the Akali Dal, the emergence of Sheikh Abdullah, led National Conference to power in 1947-48. The agitation by the Praja Parishad and then Jana Sangh was a thinly disguised attempt by the old ruling class under Dogra Rule (1846-1947) to retrieve what they had lost with the demise of the kingdom. In the process, they kept alive the communal fault-lines in J&K, while claiming to be represent the “nationalist force”.
These faultlines got exacerbated in mid-1990’s when Village Defense Committees were set up in Doda and Kishtwar comprising 95% Hindus as Special Police Officers mostly drawn from Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena. They still function and carry weapons. Lest we forget the entire Jammu and Kashmir Division has been declared as “Disturbed”, with extraordinary powers provided to the soldiers under AFSPA andto the police force. The charge-sheet filed in the Kathua case speaks of the crime meant to terrorise Muslims to vacate Kathua, which in a “disturbed” area would have invited extraordinary laws to be invoked. Not in this case. Although in border/LOC areas, sedition charges have been filed byJ&K Police on migrants for merely condemning the BJP government and PM Narendra Modi for betraying the border residents! Likewise, there are severe restrictions onownership, use and display of arms, being a “Disturbed Area”. However, in Jammu, the Army itsel fhas held weapon training camps for Bajrang Dal and such rabble-rousers. Authorities have also allowed Hindutvawadis to carry and publicly display weapons under the name of religious ritual. In a manner of speaking for the ‘Hindutvawadis “Disturbed” conditions has been an enabling condition for self-perputuation whereas for the rest of the population encumberances and restrictions are the norm, their constitutional Freedoms virtually suspended.
In 2008 too, Jammu surpassed itself by emerging as the centre for regressive ideas and promoted not only hatred and hostility towards Kashmiri Muslims, including of imposing economic embargo (an act of war under International Humanitarian Laws), targetted on the “National Highway’ anyone they suspected of being a Kashmiri Muslim. Then too, Hindutvawadis carried national flags, while they committed crimes. Lest we forget, in 2008 the only criterion for Lt General (retd) S K Sinha and also for Governor of J&K, to characterise the agitation in Jammu as “nationalist” and the one in the Valley as “anti-national” was because in Jammu “agitators have been carrying (the) national flag” whereas in Kashmir “they have been carrying Pakistani (actually they were green) flags”. The then National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan, not to be left behind, opined that security forces could not accept the Indian flag being abused by the agitators in Kashmir. However, then as now neither the sentiments of security forces nor the Government apparently got “hurt” when rape, lynching and plunder were carried out or being carried out by flag waiving criminals. So the subtle message to Hindus is that all will be fine if they commit heinous crimesso long as it is carried out in the name of “nationalism” and they keep waiving national flag. Unsurprisingly, this denigration of the tricolour goes on without anyone finding anything wrong with it. One wonders if the ‘sangh parivar’ which always derided the tricolour and wanted saffron colour as national flag now encourages its rank and file to carry the tricoulr flag to terrorise people, a clever way to demean and abuse the tricoulur they never wanted?
As in 2008 so even now the authorities treat agitation by Hindutva groups with kid gloves. Security Forces always claim that they use force as per the scale of provocation. What the forces do not say, however, is that while they used live bullets and pellets on the protesting civilians in Kashmir, they handle rioters gently in Jammu. Notice that none of the leaders of Hindu Ekta Manch was prevented from carrying on with their campaign in defiance of Public Order and clearly aimed at impeding the course of justice. They were inciteful which invites registering a complaint and possible arrest. Contrast this with Kashmir where at drop of a hat Kashmiri protestors are subjected to bullets, pellets, tear gas, lathicharge, detention, roughed up or tortured, booked under dreaded Public Security Act for years on end or accused of cognisable offence with years of gruelling trial. After such display of partisanship, there ought to be nothing surprising about what is taking place in Jammu where Hindutvawadis have had a free run.
So the point is we can continue to live in a state of denial and pretend that the problem facing India in J&K is radicalisation of Muslims inspired by Pakistan, when we are reminded again and again of the demon in our midst in the shape of Hindutva. This officially patronised ‘nightmare’ that is India, has been long in making. So we have no one else but ourselves to blame for ignoring this for far too long. Now that its there for all to observe its ‘naked glory’, it is time we connect the dots and see the reality for what its is being turned into.
