Playing with Fire: Govt & Sangh fanning Rajput Flames

January 25, 2018

The scene of thugs on the street, throwing stones at innocent school children, sends out a chilling message. That Hindutva groups are deliberately using the entire Padmavat controversy to mobilise disgruntled caste groups. In a democratic state, we have to abide by the institutions and their authority. If the Supreme Court has cleared the film Padmavat, we should not rake up a controversy around it. Let us make it very clear that none of our children are going to learn history from Padmavat. Those who want to learn history from fiction and mythology ‘feel offended.’ Films, particularly from Bombay cinema have nothing to offer us, historically.

Image: Javed Raja / Indian Express

My reaction is not really about the story of the film in question but the way the government and politicians are responding to it. This reflects in which direction the Indian polity is going. I wrote long back that our democracy is nothing but the chess games of dominant communities: hence the Rajputs, Reddy’s, Gujjars, Jats, Marathas, Patels, will do the things they like. The fact is that you never knew about these ‘Senas’ in earlier times but now, with a hegemonic, majoritarian Hindutva ideology in place, prominence face-offs by such groups furthers their agenda. I am sure that if Sanjay Leela Bhansali were not involved, the media would have not taken note of it and even, possibly, justified the violence.

Rajputs are enjoying their ‘precious’ political revival at the moment. A minuscule minority is now trying to assert itself through violent means. Democratically, Rajputs cannot get anything on their ‘not so golden’ past as they remain a mere puppet of their brahmanical masters. The fact is that the stooge of the brahmanical masters who used Manu’s rigid and much-rubbished laws to push for their ‘divinely sanctified’ supremacy are placed as heroes and those who revolted against them have been portrayed as villains.

I can bet, also, that this whole drama of Karni Sena is nothing but a political game to raise the public temperature and to communalise the atmosphere. Today, it is the Sanghis who are riding this tiger. But, if allowed unchecked, this Sanghi game plan will boomerang on them. The brazen plan is to reduce these entire narratives into a Hindu-Muslim binary and try and rally all castes and communities within this logic. Whatever the urban elite may say, the Sangh and the Rajputs in particularly have benefited from these stunts, politically. But it is not that Rajput politicians have been like that. Prior to this infiltration by the Sangh within the Rajputs, most of them were politically inclined towards the Janata family and actually were people wedded to notions of social justice. The Sangh’s Hindutva agenda has countered the progressive Rajputs, today. This is why V P Singh, Arjun Singh and Digvijay Singh are so hated, because of their open stand against communalism and for support to a social justice agenda. This apart, even a person like Chandrashekhar was far superior to the street leaders today cry for heads of humans and provoke violence. To understand how the ‘young’ rabble rousers have been created through foul-mouthed utterances against Muslims, it is worth tracking the career graphs of Yogi Aditynath, Sangeet Som, V K Singh, and Daya Shankar Singh (who abused BSP leader Ms Mayawati) The BJP has made his wife a minister now. Even the whole conflict at Sahranpur reveals this fault-line, Rather than taking action against the goons who burnt the houses of the Dalits, the Adityanath government continues to take action against Chandra Shekhar Azad and others of the Bheem Army. In the 1980s, Rajput leaders in Rajasthan had supported the Sati of Roop Kanwar at Deorala. Their leader Kalyan Singh Kalwi was a supporter of the practice but this support did not influence politics elsewhere and it remained confined to Rajasthan. Today, an event from the ‘Padmaavat’ film has been used to ‘organise’ the ‘community’ all over the country. There are likely attempts to bring under the umbrella ‘those’ who till date were never ‘Rajputs’ but always ‘aspired’ to be like them. This is the new ‘show’ of ‘strength’. Though low on numerical strength, their muscle power is visible everywhere. This is an attraction for political parties of all hues who wish to use this clout for political gain.

The irony is that even the Dalit OBC political parties did not stand with Chandrashekhar Azad and the Bheem Army. There is no condemnation by political parties against the Rajput rampage. The same thing is happening now. The Rajput organisations have completely gone berserk because of the political patronage from the Sangh, brazenly trying to convert the entire Padmavat debate into a Hindu Muslim conflict. That is the agenda and even Bhansali could be a part of it. I do not think the film can hurt the sentiments of Rajputs. In fact, those who have seen it suggests that it glorify the feudal values and false valour.

Now both V K Singh as well as Digvijay Singh are saying that we should not ‘hurt’ the feelings of the community and have no right to ‘distort’ history. How can those who are converting mythology into history ever complain that someone is distorting history? Bhansali is not Salman Rushdie who can take on the religious gangs. His film would be just glorification of the Rajput pride and nothing beyond. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of political parties have kept quiet on the issue. As the rogues enter into newsrooms and bring Muslims into the central point of every debate and question, the not so hidden agenda needs to be understood. It is not merely a Rajput issue. The Sangh is not keen to make the ‘media’, art or creativity look a bit ‘different’. You have to surrender fully and Muslims and Dalits, Adivasis will always shown as villains of the piece. This further strengthens a stereotype among the people who were not ‘Hindus’. So, all the sins of the Rajput Rajas and their chelas are washed away in this overt falsification of history. No community can really gain anything with such street lumpen-ism. Worse, no state or government will get any legitimacy this way.

It is time we deal this issue as a law and order issue and that alone. Arrest those loudmouths openly abusing and threatening people and provoking violence. But this government will not do so. These are people who use ‘sentiments’ to increase their vote bank. They know well that elections loom large and rather than debate unemployment, demonetisation, law and order, the impending banking crisis, violence on Dalits and other marginalised, issues of women, law and order in BJP ruled states, a public debate is being generated on a film that the courts have cleared.

V K Singh says that people’s opinion must be respected and I ask him whether his government will respect the Muslim community’s opinion on triple Talaq ? You want to ‘sudharo’ (improve) everyone else except the communities that have gone beserk who are today playing havoc with our country and also justifying the Varna (caste) system. Brahmanism is dying but such ignorant communities will attempt its revival without gaining any benefit from it. While Parshuram threatened the Rajputs with seven generations of annihilation, it is tragic that Rajputs are today dedicating their lives for brahmanical values. The government must assert rule of law and bring the situation to normalcy. It can’t push India to anarchy and chaos. Don’t use this unrest for your political gains as you may win the elections but India will ultimately be the loser.

Repeal FRDI Bill Campaign Needs to Intensify

January 25, 2018

The Narendra Modi led NDA government has proposed a Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017 which will be tabled for legislative approval, possibly in the upcoming Winter Session itself. A joint parliamentary committee is currently studying the draft Bill. The committee is expected to come out with its report soon, following which the bill is likely to be taken up for legislative approval in Parliament.

The Bill has faced opposition from various quarters, namely bank unions, individuals, financial analysts and so on. An online petition initiated by Mumbai resident Shilpa Sree, against the FRDI bill got more than 40,000 signatures merely hours after it was started. Now the Campaign against the Bill urges you to:

“FRDI Bill, if enacted, might rob the common people of their savings; give authoritative powers to a body (Resolution Corporation) to weaken, merge and even liquidate public sector banks, leading to their privatisation. This is a Bill pushed through without a public debate and adequate consultations. Demonetisation and GST was bad enough, it left a deep scar on the common people informal economy and the poor. FRDI will fundamentally change the financial system of this country, where poor will be made to pay for the debts of the rich and wilful defaulters. Please ask your Member of Parliament to not to legislate the FRDI Bill. Visit http://www.repealfrdi.net to send an email to your MP or know more about the proposed bill.”

“Thank you for being a part of the Repeal FRDI campaign. In the last one month, over a couple of thousand people have sent emails to their Members of Parliament asking them not to legislate the proposed FRDI Bill.

“However, as the Joint Parliamentary Committee will submit its report in February, we urgently need to reach out to as many people as possible in the next one week or so. Collectively, can we aspire to get at least 25,000 emails by the month end so that there is a pressure on the government to withdraw the bill?

“One of the simplest ways through which we can make this a mass campaign is by reaching out to our contacts — in person, through email, website, social media, and publications — requesting them to not only send the petition themselves but also to share it widely.

“Given the majority of the ruling party, unless there is a mass appeal against the FRDI Bill, there is not much hope to prevent this bill from getting legislated.

Background

The Bill aims to establish a Resolution Corporation that will monitor financial firms, anticipate risk of failure, take corrective action and resolve those. The financial firms may be classified in several categories based on the risk of failure 1. Low, 2. Moderate, 3. Material, 4.Imminent, 5.Critical. Depending on the status of the financial firm, the Resolution Corporation may take over the management of the firm using methods such as (i) merger or acquisition, (ii) transferring the assets, liabilities and management to a temporary firm, or (iii) liquidation.

A contested definition in the bill is of the ‘bail-in’ provision which, analysts apprehend, will put the depositors’ money in the banks at the risk and drive the economy towards a crisis worse than demonetization.

Reward Work Not Wealth: India’s Economic Inequality

January 25, 2018

Need to ensure that income of bottom 40% of India’s population grows faster than of top 10%

Findings on India in Oxfam Inequality report “Reward Work, Not Wealth”:

India added 17 new billionaires last year, raising the number to 101 billionaires. Indian billionaires’ wealth increased by INR 4891 billion — from INR 15,778 billion to over INR 20,676 billion. INR 4891 billion is sufficient to finance 85 per cent of the all states’ budget on Health and Education.

73 percent of the wealth generated last year went to the richest one percent, while 67 crore Indians who comprise the poorest half of the population saw one percent increase in their wealth. In the last 12 months the wealth of this elite group increased by Rs 20,913 billion. This amount is equivalent to total budget of Central Government in 2017-18.

India’s top 10% of population holds 73% of the wealth. 37% of India’s billionaires have inherited (family) wealth. They control 51 per cent of the total wealth of billionaires in the country. Only four women billionaires in India and three of them inherited family wealth. Between 2018 till 2022, India is estimated to produce 70 new millionaires every day. Number of billionaires has increased from only 9 in 2000 to 101 in 2017.

51 billionaires out of the total 101 are 65 years or above and own Rs 10,544 billion of total wealth. If we assume that in the next 20 years, at least Rs 10,544 billion will be passed on to the inheritors and on that if 30% inheritance tax is imposed, the Government can earn at least Rs 3176 billion.

Rs 3176 billion sufficient to finance 6 crucial services–Medical & Public Health, Family Welfare, Water & Sanitation, Housing, Urban Development and Labour & Labour Welfare in all States. Over the next 20 years, 500 of the world’s richest people will hand over $2.4 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people.

In countries like India and the Philippines, at least one in every two workers in the garment sector are paid below the minimum wage. It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.

It would take around 17.5 days for the best paid executive at a top Indian garment company to earn what a minimum wage worker in rural India will earn in their lifetime (presuming 50 years at work).

It would cost around Rs 326 million a year to ensure 14,764 minimum wage workers in rural India were paid a living wage. This is about half the amount paid out to wealth shareholders of a top Indian garment company.

Results of Oxfam Survey

New research by Oxfam seeks to understand perceptions of inequality and support for redistribution policy options.137 Over 70,000 people were surveyed in 10 countries across five continents, representing over one-quarter of the world’s population and more than a third of the world’s GDP. These online surveys collected data from nationally representative samples in the United States, India, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands and Denmark.

In India, specifically among people who think they are poor, seeing where they actually sit in the national income distribution resulted in almost 15% more respondents agreeing it is difficult for a person to increase the amount of money they have despite working hard. 84% Indians agree or strongly agree that the gap between the rich and poor in [country] is too large.

In terms of attitudes and beliefs about inequality, nearly two-thirds of all respondents think the gap between the rich and the poor needs to be addressed urgently or very urgently. And many have an even stronger sense of urgency: 73% in India, 79%in South Africa, 85% in Nigeria, and 93% in Mexico believe this.

There is also strong support for increasing the tax rate for the top 1% of income earners. When asked whether government deficits should be reduced by cutting public services or by increasing taxes on the 1%, over half of respondents selected higher taxes for the 1%. 52% Indians agree that income taxes on the richest 1% of people should be increased.

When respondents were asked to choose specific policy options to be put in place to tackle inequality, in nine out of the 10 countries, the four most selected options across countries were: 1) provide free and high-quality education and medical care; 2) fight corruption; 3) raise the minimum wage; and 4) provide jobs with decent wages.

Recommendations

Oxfam India is calling upon the Indian Government to act on growing inequality ans create an equal India. Following are the recommendations:

Promote inclusive growth by ensuring that the income of the bottom 40% of the population grows faster than of the top 10% so that the gap between the two begins to close. This can be done by encouraging labour-intensive sectors that will create more jobs; investing in agriculture; and effectively implementing the social protection schemes that exist.
Seal the leaking wealth bucket by taking stringent measures against tax evasion and avoidance; taxing the super-rich by re-introducing inheritance tax, increasing wealth tax, reducing and eventually do away with corporate tax breaks; creating a more equal opportunity country by increasing public expenditure on health and education.
Bring data transparency, produce and make available high quality data on income and wealth. Regularly monitor the measures the government takes to tackle the issue of rising inequality.

Vigilante Violence an Increasing Threat to Peace, GOI fails to Investigate Attacks: HRW

January 25, 2018

Vigilante violence became increasing threat in India, govt failed to credibly investigate attacks

Image: Sajjad Hussain/Getty Images

Text of the chapter on India in Human Rights Watch’s latest World Report 2018:
Vigilante violence aimed at religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government—often carried out by groups claiming to support the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—became an increasing threat in India in 2017. The government failed to promptly or credibly investigate the attacks, while many senior BJP leaders publicly promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism, which encouraged further violence. Dissent was labeled anti-national, and activists, journalists, and academics were targeted for their views, chilling free expression. Foreign funding regulations were used to target nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) critical of government actions or policies.

Lack of accountability for past abuses committed by security forces persisted even as there were new allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings, including in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Supreme Court rulings in 2017 strengthened fundamental rights, equal rights for women, and accountability for security forces violations. In August, the court declared the right to individual privacy “intrinsic” and fundamental under the country’s constitution, and emphasized the constitution’s protections, including free speech, rule of law, and “guarantees against authoritarian behaviour.”

That month, the court also ended the practice of “triple talaq,” allowing Muslim men the right to unilaterally and instantaneously divorce their wives.

In July, the court ordered an investigation into 87 alleged unlawful killings by government forces in Manipur state from 1979 to 2012.

Violent Protests, Impunity for Security Forces
In the first 10 months of 2017, there were 42 reported militant attacks in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in which 184 people were killed, including 44 security force personnel. Several were killed or injured as government forces attempted to contain violent protests.

In May, the army gave a commendation to an officer who used a bystander unlawfully as a “human shield” to evacuate security personnel and election staff from a mob in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam district.

In a setback for accountability for security force abuses, the Armed Forces Tribunal in July suspended the life sentences of five army personnel who were convicted in 2014 for a 2010 extrajudicial killing of three villagers in the Machil sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

The government failed to review and repeal the abusive Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in force in Jammu and Kashmir and in parts of India’s northeastern region, which gives soldiers who commit violations effective immunity from prosecution. At time of writing, the government had yet to comply with a Supreme Court ruling civilian authorities should investigate all allegations of violations by troops.

Several parts of India witnessed violent protests in 2017. In August, at least 38 people were killed during protests in Haryana and Punjab led by supporters of a popular spiritual guru, after he was convicted of raping two female followers. In June, the West Bengal state government’s decision to make Bengali language mandatory in all schools triggered protests in Darjeeling district over the longstanding demand for a separate Gorkhaland state, killing eight. Five farmers were fatally shot in June in Madhya Pradesh state, allegedly by police, during protests demanding debt relief and better prices.

In April, 26 paramilitary soldiers from the Central Reserve Paramilitary Force were killed in an ambush by Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district.

In June, Manjula Shetye died in a Mumbai prison after six prison staff allegedly beat and raped her. The case drew attention to mistreatment in custody, but police reforms remained stalled.

Treatment of Dalits, Tribal Groups, and Religious Minorities
Mob attacks by extremist Hindu groups affiliated with the ruling BJP against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumors that they sold, bought, or killed cows for beef. Instead of taking prompt legal action against the attackers, police frequently filed complaints against the victims under laws banning cow slaughter. As of November, there had been 38 such attacks, and 10 people killed during the year.

In July, even after Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally condemned such violence, an affiliate organization of the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), announced plans to recruit 5,000 “religious soldiers” to “control cow smuggling and love jihad.” So-called love jihad, according to Hindu groups, is a conspiracy among Muslim men to marry Hindu women and convert them to Islam.

Two people died in caste clashes between Dalits and members of an upper caste community in Uttar Pradesh in April and May. Between April and July, 39 people reportedly died from being trapped in toxic sewage lines, revealing how the inhuman practice of “manual scavenging”—disposal of human waste by communities considered low-caste— continues because of the failure to implement laws banning the practice.

In November, following a two-week official visit to India, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, Léo Heller, called on the government to incorporate a human rights perspective into its national programs on water and sanitation, including the flagship Swachh Bharat Mission. As part of his preliminary findings, he said the government’s emphasis on constructing toilets to end open defecation should not “involuntarily contribute to violating fundamental rights of others,” including specific castes engaged in manual scavenging, or marginalized people, including ethnic minorities and those living in remote rural areas.

Tribal communities remained vulnerable to displacement because of mining, dams, and other large infrastructure projects.

Freedom of Expression
Authorities in India continued to use sedition and criminal defamation laws against government critics. In June, police in Madhya Pradesh state arrested 15 Muslims on sedition charges for allegedly celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India in a cricket match, despite Supreme Court directions that sedition allegations must involve actual violence or incitement to violence. After a public outcry, the police dropped the sedition case but charged them with disturbing communal harmony. Also, in June, the Karnataka state assembly punished two editors for articles that allegedly defamed two of its members.

In March, authorities in Maharashtra state charged a journalist for spying and criminal trespass for reporting that officers improperly used subordinates for personal work, filming on army premises without permission, and using a hidden camera.

Journalists faced increasing pressure to self-censor due to threat of legal action, smear campaigns and threats on social media, and even threats of physical attacks. In September, unidentified gunmen shot dead publisher and editor Gauri Lankesh, a vocal critic of militant Hindu nationalism, outside her home in Bengaluru city.

State governments resorted to blanket internet shutdowns either to prevent violence or social unrest, or to respond to an ongoing law and order problem. By November, they had imposed 60 internet shutdowns, 27 of these in Jammu and Kashmir. In August, the government issued rules to govern temporary shutdown of the internet and telecommunications services in the event of “a public emergency or public safety [issue].” However, the rules do not specify what the government considers to be a public emergency, or a threat.

Civil Society and Freedom of Association
Activists and human rights defenders faced harassment including under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), which governs access to foreign funding for NGOs.

In April, the government canceled the FCRA license of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), one of country’s largest public health advocacy groups, accusing it of diverting foreign funds to lobby parliamentarians, media, and the government.

Although FCRA may be revoked if the groups violate procedures laid down in the law, the government’s political motivations became evident after the Centre for Promotion of Social Concerns (CPSC) challenged the government’s decision in the Delhi High Court. A January 2017 government affidavit in response accused CPSC of using foreign funding to share information with United Nations special rapporteurs and foreign embassies, “portraying India’s human rights record in negative light.” In November 2016, India’s National Human Rights Commission questioned the government’s decision not to renew the FCRA for CPSC and concluded: “Prima-facie it appears FCRA license non-renewal is neither legal nor objective.”

Women’s and Girls’ Rights
Multiple high-profile cases of rape across the country during the year once again exposed the failures of the criminal justice system. Nearly five years after the government amended laws and put in place new guidelines and policies aimed at justice for survivors of rape and sexual violence, girls and women continue to face barriers to reporting such crimes, including humiliation at police stations and hospitals; lack of protection; and degrading “two-finger” tests by medical professionals to make characterizations about whether the victim was “habituated to sex.”

Rape survivors also lack adequate support services including health care, quality legal assistance, and compensation. While women and girls should have access to safe abortions if they become pregnant after rape, several rape victims have had to petition courts in 2017, including in Delhi and Chandigarh, seeking safe abortion when denied by doctors.

In a setback for women’s rights, in July the Supreme Court passed several directives on section 498A of the penal code—the anti-dowry law—to curb what it said was “abuse” of the law, directing police not to make arrests until complaints are verified by family welfare committees, bodies the court recommended be comprised of members of civil society, not police.

Children’s Rights
The murder of a 7-year-old boy in a private school in Haryana state in September highlighted that child sexual abuse is disturbingly common in homes, schools, and residential care facilities.

In a deadly outcome resulting from state corruption and neglect, over 60 children died in a public hospital in Uttar Pradesh state in August when a private supplier cut off the oxygen supply after government officials failed to pay long-pending dues.

Children’s education was frequently disrupted in areas facing conflict and violent protests. Clashes between protesters and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir state that began in July 2016, continued to simmer throughout 2017, leading to frequent closing of schools and colleges. In May 2017, a student was killed by paramilitary forces inside a government school in Anantnag district during a violent protest.

Schools and colleges also faced disruptions in Darjeeling district in West Bengal state after violent protests and strikes erupted in June over demands for a separate Gorkhaland state.

In October, the Supreme Court ruled that sex with a girl younger than 18 was unlawful, regardless of whether she is married or not, saying the exception for married girls was arbitrary and discriminatory.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In August, the Supreme Court, in its ruling that privacy is a fundamental right, gave hope to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in India by stating that section 377 of India’s penal code, which effectively criminalizes same-sex relationships between consenting adults, had a chilling effect on “the unhindered fulfilment of one’s sexual orientation, as an element of privacy and dignity.”

In July, a parliamentary committee submitted a report examining the draft Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, introduced in parliament in August 2016. The report recommended that the bill adopt a 2014 Supreme Court ruling, guaranteeing transgender people the right to self-determine their gender identity. The committee also recommended the bill recognize transgender people’s right to marriage, partnership, divorce, and adoption.

No date has been set for the Supreme Court to hear a set of curative petitions, filed in 2014, challenging the 2013 ruling that reinstated section 377 after a High Court had struck it down in 2009.

Rights of Persons with Disabilities
In April, India enacted a new mental health law that provides for mental health care and services for everyone and decriminalizes suicide. However, disability rights groups say much remains to be done to ensure that the law is properly enforced.

Death Penalty
There were no executions in 2017 but nearly 400 prisoners remained on death row. The number of people sentenced to death nearly doubled from 2015 to 2016, from 70 to 136. Most crimes for which capital punishment was handed down included murder, and murder involving sexual violence.

Foreign Policy
In May, India did not attend China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in Beijing, citing sovereignty and procedural issues. The initiative is China’s major development campaign to build infrastructure connecting it to countries across Asia and beyond.

Despite concerns over China’s influence, India intervened in Nepal to persuade the government to adopt inclusive policies that accommodated minority communities in the southern part of the country.

India continued to abstain, and even played a negative role, in country-specific resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and General Assembly.

In September, Prime Minister Modi visited Burma amid a growing humanitarian crisis as more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State fled to Bangladesh in the face of ethnic cleansing by Burmese security forces following attacks by a Rohingya militant group. India committed to providing aid for large-scale infrastructure and socio-economic development projects in Rakhine State, but did not call on the government to check abuses by its security forces or to amend its discriminatory citizenship law that effectively keeps the Rohingya stateless. At home, BJP leaders threatened to deport Rohingya refugees, saying they were illegal immigrants.

Key International Actors
In May, at India’s Universal Periodic Review at the UNHRC, countries raised numerous human rights issues and reminded India to fulfil its past commitments to ratify human rights conventions, including the Convention against Torture. Several countries, including the US, Norway, South Korea, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, and Sweden raised concerns over restrictions on civil society and called on India to ensure freedom of association.

During Modi’s visit to the United States in June, a US-India joint statement reiterated cooperation on increasing trade and combating terrorism, including calling upon Pakistan to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries. There was not even a token mention of pressing human rights issues in India, including limits on free speech and attacks on religious minorities.

China’s attempt to extend an unpaved road on the Doklam Plateau in June, part of the disputed territory between China and Bhutan, led to a three-month military standoff between India and China. India, competing with China for influence in the region, saw this as a move by China to extend its control. In August, both sides agreed to de-escalate tensions ahead of September’s BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Summit in Xiamen, China.

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/201801world_report_web.pdf
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A Man Who Broke New Grounds in Collective Bargaining: Lal Salaam Comrade Chauhan!

January 25, 2018

August 28, 1920, Kolhapur – January 23, 2018, Pune
NTUI President (2006-2009)

Com. Y.V. Chavan passed away around noon on January 23. The New Trade Union Initiative salutes his memory.

Com. Chavan was one of the senior most trade unionists of Maharashtra known throughout the country for his work.

Yashwantrao, as he was called by those closest to him, was born on 28 August 1920 to a Judge in the then Princely State of Kolhapur. His life remains representative of the personal sacrifices made by communists to advance the movement. He was active in the independence and communist movement from his teens. It’s when he came to study at Elphinstone College, Mumbai in 1939 that he began to directly address the working class question. While trying to evade arrest he was ‘underground’ at a friend’s house when he met Vimal Hemmady, his future wife who passed away in 2009. She too was a freedom fighter, active in the school teachers’ union and in the women’s’ movement. They are both survived by their only child, their son Madhav.

Recognising the aspiration and will of the working class for Com. Chavan was critical to advancing the Communist movement. He believed that aspiration of the working class in 1942 – during the Quit India Movement – was unequivocally against British imperialism and for independence and self-determination. Hence in his view, while there could under no circumstances be any compromise with fascism, the Communist Party of India’s support for the Soviet and therefore British efforts in the Second World War went against the dominant view in the working class and would weaken the communist movement. This difference meant his departure from the CPI. In January 1943 the Lal Nishan Group that he was a member of within the CPI created itself into the Lal Nishan Party. The Lal Nishan Party was to play a leading role in the Samyukt Maharashtra movement recognising that peoples’ culture and language must supersede identities of caste and religion and other forms of division and discrimination in society.

This foregoing understanding including of the need for democracy within the party was to remain with Com. Chavan throughout his life one which through the 1950s on also went on to influence his work on democracy within trade unions. Yet he remained a strong advocate of working class unity irrespective of party political affiliation. He steadfastly remained a member of the undivided All India Trade Union Congress until it was split in 1970 to form the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. At this point the vast majority of trade unions he was associated with became ‘independent’ of both the AITUC and the CITU.

In 1960 he replaced the AITUC stalwart Com. Vithal Choudhry as President of the Kamani Employees’ Union (KEU) reflecting the members’ urge for democratic control of their own union and through it the workplace. The events in the KEU marked a turn of the tide of sorts with both a new generation of leadership emerging as also more direct participation of workers in the leadership of trade unions in the Mumbai industrial belt.

In 1961, he led the formation of Sarva Shramik Sangh which soon became perhaps Mumbai’s largest general workers union at the time. He was active in the union until the early 1990s. He was long time President of the KEU, the Blue Star Workers’ Union and others – all unions that went on to be, with unions from across the country, the founding affiliates of the NTUI.

In his five decades of trade union work Com. Chavan led struggles across just about every area of work and employment. The unions he led, especially in the 1960s and the 1970s, broke new ground in institutionalising the framework for collective bargaining, setting norms for wage standards, annual bonus, work intensity and much more. In 1989 the KEU went on to lead the workers takeover of Kamani Tubes signalling a militant workers’ response to corporate graft and asset striping. In the 1980s he pushed his comrades to form unions among informal workers.

Com. Chavan’s most abiding commitment was to working class unity. It was in this spirit that he pressed the call for unity and solidarity action in support of the Mumbai textile mill workers strike in 1981, a call that reached every corner of the country and crossed every sectional divide. Ironically, having managed to evade arrest under the imperial government, he was arrested during the strike and on two earlier occasions – 1952 for leading an ‘illegal’ strike under the then Bombay Trade Dispute Rules and in 1962 for opposing the India-China war.

It is the understanding of unity and solidarity within the working class movement and the persistence with which he advanced it is what makes Com. Chavan a symbol for the movement not just of the past but in the present too. As we say farewell to him, we remember him but more than that we celebrate his life.

He inspired, and will continue to inspire. And that is why he was our President!

Com. Chavan Lal Salam!M MazdoorEkta Zindabad!I Inqualab Zindabad!
(Statement issued by N. Vasudevan, President and Gautam Mody, General Secretary of the NTUI.)

The New Opposition at the Barricades Challenges Manuvaad & the Market

January 25, 2018

The present regime can be seen as an exemplar of these twin assaults of Manuvaad and the Market. The collective mobilisations of Dalits, OBCs and Muslims, as shown at the Elgar Parishad in Pune, challenges both

The attacks on Dalits in Bhima Koregaon by sections of dominant caste groups bearing saffron flags on January 1, only vindicated the message of the Elgar Parishad, a massive conference organised by 250 progressive groups of Maharashtra the previous day in Pune. The bicentenary celebrations of the Mahar victory in the Battle of Bhima Koregaon over the Peshwas, who practised the worst forms of caste oppression and untouchability, carried with it a very distinct message for the present this year.

The Elgar Parishad, which was a culmination of a week-long yatra across different parts of Maharasthra, casted the BJP/RSS as the Peshwas of the present times calling upon people to defeat them, taking inspiration from the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. But this neo-Peshwahi, to borrow their term, is not simply a replica of the past.

Two hundred years hence, the ideology of Manuwaad has neatly coalesced with the demands of the market. The latter far from eradicating caste has co-opted and reconfigured it to meet its own requirements of cheap labour, land and other resources. This has accentuated older fissures in society while at the same time adding new layers of marginalization, dehumanization and oppression.

For example, the subordination and indignation of the Dalits in the countryside, reflected in their abysmal land-holdings, has only been compounded by the present agrarian crisis. Or if we were to turn our gaze to our cities, do the Dalit workers forced into inhuman jobs such as manual scavenging and cleaning sewages, where they die unacknowledged deaths amidst toxic gases, even have the option to opt out of their ‘jobs’ when there is hardly any creation of dignified jobs in our country today?

Today in India, the agrarian crisis is at its peak, job creation is at its lowest in the recent past, employment is most informal and insecure than it has ever been, labour reforms have added to the precarity of jobs and fund cuts in education and health have increased with each passing year of the Modi regime. The promises of Vikas & Acche Din have turned out to be bitter and brutal lies and a handful of big corporations have enriched themselves at the cost of the vast majority. Policies such as demonetization and the GST have only added to the woes of the people. Far from the promise of 10 million jobs, the unemployment rate has oly increased to 5%. And for even the jobs that exist ,a whooping majority (71.2%) of workers are beyond the purview of any social security benefits.

On the other hand, the violent manifestation of the RSS’s cultural project of Hindu Rasthra can be seen on a routine basis in lynchings and attacks on minorities and Dalits, be it in Rajasmand, Alwar, Una or Saharanpur – the list is long. The deafening silence of the Prime Minister to most of these attacks, while simultaneous campaigns by the BJP/RSS against cow slaughter or love jihad that were used as a pretext for most of these attacks, exemplify that these attacks enjoy political patronage from the ruling party.

The present regime can be seen as an exemplar of these twin assaults of Manuvaad and the Market. Our Prime Minister is hardly interested in abolishing manual scavenging, for it is not only a source of cheap labour and cost cutting, but he also sees it as a ‘spiritual exercise’ going by the tenets of Brahmanism that RSS upholds!

But here in also lies an internal contradiction within the Sangh project today. On the one hand, its cultural project seeks to deepen the existing hierarchies and polarise people on the basis of caste and religion. But on the other hand, its economic policies are simultaneously creating an ever expanding underclass of the excluded that cuts across caste and community.

As long as the responses to attacks on minorities and Dalits remained atrocity based and compartmentalized to each community fighting their own battles, it was not being able to make much dent in the larger game-plan of the RSS/BJP.

Of late however, the historically disadvantaged are not only coming out of their ghettoised existences in resisting the fascism of the Sangh Parivar but are also showing exemplary imagination in seeking to carve out newer alliances. In doing so, they are operationalising in practice Ambedkar’s message that both Brahmanism and capitalism are the enemies of the oppressed in our country.

For example, the attacks on Dalits in Bhima Koregaon and subsequent protests in Maharashtra were largely portrayed as a caste clash between Dalits and Marathas. But contrary to these representations, both Dalit and Maratha organisations were present at Elgar Parishad in Pune which focussed, apart from other things, on the agrarian crisis, unemployment and famine like conditions in Maharashtra – of which both Dalits and Marathas are victims. Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of farmer suicides in the country. Prior to that in Una, the struggle against lynching of Dalits not only joined hands with the Muslims in their shared oppression, but also sought to raise the question of material dispossession by raising the demand for land for the landless dalits.

The same cross-sectional alliance, hitting out at this internal contradiction of the sangh project, was also visible in the Yuva Hunkar rally which sought to unite a diverse section of students and youth along with minority and dalit organisations. The demand for justice for the persecuted minorities and Dalits was weaved into a larger demand of economic and social justice of all the oppressed.

A new alignment is emerging on the ground – where the historically oppressed, marginalised and the persecuted along with the students and youth are coming together to take on the sangh. This alignment is still in its nascent stages, and faces enormous challenges. But if it succeeds in bringing together diverse movements for people’s rights, the Sangh Parivar has much to worry about.

(The writer is a research scholar at JNU, member of Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students’ Organisation and was one of the invited speakers at the Elgar Parishad in Pune on the eve of the bicentenary celebrations of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon)

Images Courtesy: Mid-Day and Hindustan Times

Bombay HC quashes and sets aside Media Gag Order in Sohrabuddin Case

January 24, 2018

The Bombay High Court has quashed the November 2017 order of the CBI Sessions Court preventing journalists from day to day coverage of the controversial Sohrabuddin case. In an order dictated between Jan 23 and 24, 2018, Justice Revati Dere of the Bombay High Court has quashed and set aside the order of the CBI Court. This means that the media can cover the trial. The only rider is that in case the prosecution (which is the CBI) feels that a particular witness faces threats, an application to protect that witness can be moved to record the limited evidence in camera, of that witness.

In December, 2017, the BUJ and 9 journalists who cover courts had moved Bombay High Court filing two different petitions seeking a quashing of the controversial ban order on reporting passed by the Sessions Court on November 29, 2017. On January 19, the Bombay High Court yesterday clubbed two separate legal actions challenging the gag order on press reportage passed by the CBI Court in the Sohrabuddin case on November 29, 2017. The trial in the alleged fake encounter of one Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi and associate Tulsiram Prajapati of Sohrabuddin Sheikh is being conducted in Court of Sessions For Greater Bombay. Much controversy has surrounded this case in recent months, especially concerning the death in allegedly mysterious circumstances of Judge Brijgopal Harkishen Loya hearing the case. BJP President and former minister of home, Gujarat, Amit Shah was an accused in the case until he was discharged within months of the Modi government coming to power on December 30, 2014. A total of fifteen of the original 38 accused, charge- sheeted by the CBI –including controversial senior cop DG Vanzara and others have been discharged from this case. These let-offs all followed the coming to power of the Modi regime at the centre and the infusion of Gujarat cops into the CBI.

The quashing of the CBI Court’s gag order means that blanket censorship of coverage of the trial has been overturned. Liberty has been given to the prosecution to move an application for non disclosure of the name of a particular witness for the prosecution if the witness faced any threats.

The final hearing in the matter concerning the gag order on the media took place on January 23. Senior advocate Mihir Desaiassisted by advocate Chetan Mali appeared for the Bombay Union of Journalists (BUJ) and A. Ponda for a group of journalists.

We’re African women and we’re feminists

January 24, 2018

Feminism is not ‘un-African.’ This is a multi-generational, multi-layered movement of women across the continent, including those who resist gender roles in everyday life.

Many years ago, just before I became a teenager, my mother and my aunt rescued an 11-year old relative who was being forced into “marriage.” I don’t remember the full details of what happened but there were many conversations in my family about it.

The girl’s mother was my mother’s cousin. My relatives talked a lot about what her father’s relatives were planning to do. Her parents had died when she was a baby and she had lived with them since then.

My mother and my aunt decided to intervene. They made the journey from Nairobi to Lamu and literally stole her during the night. She was then delivered to her older sister’s house, where she lived until adulthood.

When I think about my feminism, and try to identify when I became a feminist, I remember this incident. I remember looking at my mother, in awe of her boldness. She was like a fierce warrior, ensuring that a young girl was not forced into marriage. I remember feeling that that’s who I wanted to be too.

I remember looking at my mother, in awe of her boldness.

This feeling stayed with me and grew when, years later, in high school, our english teacher Mrs. Ondiek wrote a poem called “Equality, change the slogan” for us to perform at a drama festival of schools in Nairobi.

The poem, and our dramatised performance of it, was so good that we became high school drama champions of Nairobi, and third nationally. It challenged us to go beyond women’s equality slogans to policy-making and system-changing, and noted that the goal is not a reversal of gender roles.

Feminism came slowly to me, through years of experiences which led to questions about the state of the world around me and my place in it. As a young woman, reading and talking about these issues helped me to stitch together the language I needed to understand and explain what feminism is and what it meant to me.

Finally, I chose to consciously identify as a feminist, which has since been a journey of re-discovery, unlearning, and learning that has now rooted my feminism in actions and interactions with other people and with the systems I exist and move in.
‘Feminism came slowly to me, through years of experiences and questions about the state of the world and my place in it.’

This is not uncommon; feminism has come to many African women over periods of time, through similar moments with their mothers and grandmothers, teachers, neighbours and other women they observed growing up.

Many of these women, despite performing socially-prescribed gender norms, still found small and big ways to resist them and to build small stepping stones that led to the boulders we stand on now. Sometimes, grandfathers also helped imagine what it meant to be a full human as an African woman on the continent.

While not always identified as such, feminism is as much a part of who we are as being African is. The only difference is that being African was considered an innate thing, something you are from the moment you’re born.

African history is a complex tapestry of events that over days, years, and centuries have connected to bring us to the Africa of today. The diversity of the continent’s peoples, cultures and histories make it difficult to pinpoint just one specific thing and say “yes, this black spot here is what makes you an African.”

Likewise it would be unfair and disingenuous to try and pinpoint just one thing, or just one moment, to define African Feminism. This revolution is a multi-generational and multi-layered movement. It’s also single moments, words and actions that, even on their own, are complete, complicated and valid expressions of this movement.

We are the accumulation of past words and actions. We are also how we define ourselves. We cannot dictate the authenticity of a movement which by its very nature is ever-evolving and changing to accommodate the new and discard the no longer useful.
It is impossible to say that feminism is un-African when African women right now are feminists.

In numerous debates, articles and conversations on social media I have heard the mistaken idea that ‘feminism is un-African’. But in order to claim something as ‘un-African,’ I believe that you must have to prove, beyond a doubt, that there is no history of Africans doing that thing and that there are no Africans doing it right now.

It is easy to claim that something has never been done by Africans. We know that history is distorted and has been shaped to suit its narrators’ interests. As women know intimately, it is easy to erase the memory of our existence, contribution and participation in history. Relying on such distorted historical accounts is difficult.

However, it is impossible to claim something is non-existent when there are people, in the right here and now, doing that thing. It is impossible to say that feminism is un-African when African women right now are feminists. And African Feminism right now does not exist in a vacuum – it was borne by African Feminism in the past.

It is impossible to disconnect us from African women of the past; the mothers who rescued girls, the teachers who taught us about equality, and many others. To do so is to erase them and to also erase us.

We African women, right now, are carriers of culture, in our own right. And culture is dynamic. If every African, on the continent and in the diaspora, can ‘claim’ Africa in some way, then African women have a right to redefine and recreate African cultures.
Our validity does not rest on a connection to the past. We exist right now, as those single moments of the movement that do not require explanation or justification. African Feminism exists because African feminists exist. It is impossible to separate one from the other without violently separating African women from Africa.

Aisha Ali Haji is a Kenyan writer and feminist activist. Her writing has been published in publications including This Is Africa and The Journalist, South Africa.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net

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The present regime can be seen as an exemplar of these twin assaults of Manuvaad and the Market. The collective mobilisations of Dalits, OBCs and Muslims, as shown at the Elgar Parishad in Pune, challenges both

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Feminism is not ‘un-African.’ This is a multi-generational, multi-layered movement of women across the continent, including those who resist gender roles in everyday life.

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