Nehru, Ambedkar and Challenge of Majoritarianism

January 23, 2018

(Photo courtesy : The hoot)

(To be published in the special issue of ‘Janata’)

The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interests.
– Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru (1936), pp. 240–241.
If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.
– Ambedkar, ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’, p. 358.

Introduction
India’s slow ushering into a majoritarian democracy is a matter of concern for every such individual who still believes in pluralism, democracy, equality and a clear separation of religion and politics. The way people are being hounded for raising dissenting opinions, for eating food of their choice or entering into relationships of their own liking or celebrating festivals according to their own faith is unprecedented. The situation has reached such extremes that one can even be publicly lynched for belonging to one of the minority religions or for engaging in an activity which is considered to be ‘suspicious’ by the majority community.

No doubt there is no direct harm to the basic structure of the Constitution, its formal structure remains intact, de jure India does remain a democracy as well as a republic, but de facto democracy has slowly metamorphosed into majoritarianism and the sine qua non of a republic—that its citizens are supreme—is being watered down fast. It does not need underlining that this process has received tremendous boost with the ascent of Hindutva supremacist forces at the centrestage of Indian politics.

The brazen manner in which a Union cabinet minister—who has taken oath to abide by the Constitution—declared in public that they have come to power to ‘çhange the constitution’ and the manner in which ruling party members preferred to remain silent about it can be seen as a sign of the crisis facing Indian society. Perhaps less said the better about the man who calls Constitution ‘the most sacred book’ and who loves to project himself as a disciple of Dr Ambedkar.

A sobering fact at this juncture is to remember that leading lights of the movement for political and social emancipation—which unfolded itself under British rule—definitely had a premonition of things to come and had rightly cautioned / underlined / warned the people of the bleak future which awaits them if they do not remain vigilant. As Patel’s biographer Rajmohan Gandhi points out:

Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Patel formed a crucial trimuvirate that agreed that independent India would not be a Hindu Rashtra but one that offered equal rights to all. After Gandhi’s departure and until Patel’s death, Patel and Nehru differend on several matters but not on some fundamentals. With the help of others including Ambedkar, Maulana Azad, Rajendra Prasad and Rajaji, they entrenched secularism and equality in the Constitution.[i]

An inkling of the collective thinking among them is evident if one looks at the Objectives Resolution moved in the Constituent Assembly by Pandit Nehru on 13 December 1946 and adopted unanimously by the Constituent Assembly on 22 January 1947. It declared its firm resolve not only to make India an independent sovereign republic but also to guarantee and secure for all the people of India

social, economic and political justice; equality of status and opportunities and equality before law; and fundamental freedoms—of speech, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, association and action—subject to law and public morality;

and also ensure that

adequate safeguards shall be provided for minorities, backward and tribal areas, and depressed and other backward classes.

The key importance of the Objectives Resolution (which was then called / moved as ‘Resolution on the Aims and Objects of the Constitution’) can be gauged from the fact that according to the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, it was the basis of the ‘Preamble of the Constitution’. The Chairman of the Drafting Committee was Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who was appointed to this post at the suggestion of Mahatma Gandhi possibly due to his scholarship in legal and constitutional matters.

One can take a look at the way Gandhi’s last struggle—the way he undertook fast unto death to stop the communal riots in 1947—unfolded itself, or the way Jawaharlal Nehru cautioned people about the possibility of India turning into a ‘Hindu Pakistan’[ii] or the way he led the fight against danger of majoritarianism within the Congress itself. Describing communalism as an ‘Indian version of fascism’, Pandit Nehru said in 1947 that the tide of the fascism gripping the country was the direct consequence of the hate speeches given against non-Muslims by the Muslim League and its supporters.[iii]
On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary in 1951, Nehru said that if a person attacks another on the issue of religions, he will fight against that person till the end of his life both in his capacity of being the head of the government and as a true Indian. He advocated a ban on organizations based on religion and enpowered the government by getting the Constitution amended to exercise restraining power to suppress communal writings and communally provocative speeches.[iv]

One can look at his correspondence with chief ministers on various occasions or his instructions or his speeches in Parliament to know how he debunked ideas of special ‘protection for the majority’:

If I may venture to lay down a rule, it is the primary responsibility of the majority to satisfy the minority in every matter. The majority, by virtue of it being a majority, has the strength to have its way: it requires no protection.[v]

Patel, the ‘Iron Man of India’, had declared in the Jaipur Session of the party that the Congress was dedicated to upholding secularism at any cost: ‘India is a true secular country’. He described the talk of ‘Hindu Rajya as an act of insanity’ in 1949.[vi]
That day Delhi caught Punjab’s infection. ‘I will not tolerate Delhi becoming another Lahore’, Vallabhbhai declared in Nehru’s and Mountbatten’s presence. He publicly threatened partisan officials with punishment, and at his instructions orders to shoot rioters at sight were issued on September 7. Four Hindu rioters were shot dead at the railway station in Old Delhi.[vii]

In a speech in Madras (1949), he underlined how apart from other challenges before the nation the government was dealing with the ‘RSS movement’:

We in the government have been dealing with the RSS movement. They want that Hindu Rajya or Hindu culture should be imposed by force. No government can tolerate this. There are almost as many Muslims in this country as in the part that has been partitioned away. We are not going to drive them away. It would be an evil day if we started that game, in spite of partition and whatever happens. We must understand that they are going to stay here and it is our obligation and our responsibility to make them feel that this is their country.[viii]

Perhaps foreseeing that attempts would be made by interested quarters to drive a wedge between him and Nehru, he categorically stated in Indore on 2 October 1950, just three months before his death:

Our leader is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Bapu appointed him his heir and successor during his lifetime and even declared it. It is the duty of the soldiers of Bapu that they abide by his orders. One who does not accept this order by heart would prove a sinner before god. I am not a disloyal soldier. For me it is unimportant what my place is. I only know that I am at that very place where Bapu asked me to stand.[ix]

In the following writeup we do not intend to deal further with the role played by the likes of Nehru, Patel or other leaders in giving a shape to the emergent republic. Our focus is rather limited. We focus attention in this article on how Dr Ambedkar perceived of a future roadmap for India, his perception of the dangers of a ‘Hindu India’ or the possibility of a ‘majoritarian rule’ emerging here.

It is a rather neglected theme because under pressures of political exigency, discussion is usually restricted to one or the other aspect of Dr Ambedkar’s life and struggle, and his overall vision does not get the attention it deserves. The urgency of this intervention is because while the Hindutva Right is overenthusiastically appropriating Ambedkar for its cause, the response from the seculars as well as the left is less than expected.

A close look at the last decade of Ambedkar’s eventful life (1946-56) can help us discern various threads in his worldview or vision of a new India.

I
The making of the Constitution itself was marked by pressures and counterpressures—from believers of radical change to the status quoists—and what came out can at best be called a compromise document between various contending forces and ideas. Dr Ambedkar’s separation between the beginning of political democracy in India with the advent of the one-man-one-vote regime, and the long hiatus he saw before the ushering in of social democracy—the regime of one-man-one-value—while dedicating the Constitution to the nation was in fact a reminder of the fact that the struggle was still not over.
Without doubt he was the chief architect of the Constitution, and it was his interventions—of course with due support from Nehru and others—that led to the inclusion of important pro-people or pro-dispriviledged provisions into it, but we should not be under any illusion that ‘his vision’ ultimately triumphed and was inscribed in the Constitution.

Ambedkar in fact was very aware of the limitations of such a constitutional exercise in a backward society like ours:

Indians today are governed by two ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity, whereas their social ideal embedded in their religion denies it to them.[x]

His ‘vision’ about a future India can be discerned from his less discussed monograph, States and Minorities: What are Their Rights and How to Secure them in the Constitution of Free India which was basically a memorandum on the safeguards for the Scheduled Castes that was submitted to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation that he led. This monograph does not limit itself to ‘safeguards’ but also talks of the danger of majoritarianism, incompatibility of Hinduism with any change, and also proposes a model of economic development that he himself described as ‘state socialism’.
It is a monograph that would be quite enlightening for many of us. In it, he envisaged that the ‘state shall not recognise any religion as state religion’ and ‘guarantee to every citizen liberty of conscience’. Simultaneously, on the aspect of protection against economic exploitation, he not only declared that ‘key industries shall be owned and run by the state’, but also that non-key but basic industries shall also ‘be owned by the state and run by the state’. He was of the opinion that ‘agriculture shall be state industry’, where ‘the state shall divide the land acquired into farms of standard size’; the ‘farm shall be cultivated as a collective farm . . . in accordance with rules and directions issued by the government’; and the ‘tenants shall share among themselves in the manner prescribed the produce of the farm left after the payment of charges properly leviable on the farm’.

He further explains this clause in the following words:

The main purpose behind the clause is to put an obligation on the state to plan the economic life of the people on lines which would lead to highest point of productivity without closing every avenue to private enterprise, and also provide for the equitable distribution of wealth. The plan set out in the clause proposes state ownership in agriculture with a collectivised method of cultivation and a modified form of State Socialism in the field of industry. . . . State Socialism is essential for the rapid industrialisation of India. Private enterprise cannot do it and if it did it would produce those inequalities of wealth which private capitalism has produced in Europe and which should be a warning to Indians. Consolidation of Holdings and Tenancy legislation are worse than useless.[xi]

Interestingly, he does not propose that the idea of State Socialism should be left to legislatures and instead wants it to be implemented by Constitutional law:

The plan has two special features. One is that it proposes State Socialism in important fields of economic life. The second special feature of the plan is that it does not leave the establishment of State Socialism to the will of the Legislature. It establishes State Socialism by the Law of the Constitution and thus makes it unalterable by any act of the Legislature and the Executive.

II.
In the same monograph he clearly differentiates between ‘Untouchables’ and ‘Hindus’.

Gone were the days when he felt that Hinduism would reform itself from within. More than a decade had passed since his famous declaration at the Yeola conference that ‘I was born as a Hindu but I will not die as a Hindu’.

He is unequivocal about the ‘Hindu population which is hostile to them (Untouchables)’ and emphasises that it is ‘not ashamed of committing any inequity or atrocity against them’. He is also not hopeful about their situation under Swaraj:

What can Swaraj mean to the Untouchables ? It can only mean one thing, namely, that while today it is only the administration that is in the hands of the Hindus, under Swaraj the Legislature and Executive will also be in the hands of the Hindus, it goes without saying that such a Swaraj would aggravate the sufferings of the Untouchables. For, in addition to an hostile administration, there will be an indifferent Legislature and a callous Executive. The result will be that the administration unbridled in venom and in harshness, uncontrolled by the Legislature and the Executive, may pursue its policy of inequity towards the Untouchables without any curb. To put it differently, under Swaraj the Untouchables will have no way of escape from the destiny of degradation which Hindus and Hinduism have fixed for them.[xii]

He was very much aware about the dangers of majoritarianism implicit in the way Indian nationalism had developed which according to him had

developed a new doctrine which may be called the Divine Right of the Majority to rule the minorities according to the wishes of the majority. Any claim for the sharing of power by the minority is called communalism while the monopolising of the whole power by the majority is called Nationalism.[xiii]

And so, to protect the rights of the minorities (remember that he does not restrict himself here to religious minorities but also includes the ‘scheduled castes’ in his definition) he proposes a form of Executive which could serve following purposes:

(i) To prevent the majority from forming a Government without giving any opportunity to the minorities to have a say in the matter.
(ii) To prevent the majority from having exclusive control over administration and thereby make the tyranny of the minority by the majority possible.
(iii) To prevent the inclusion by the Majority Party in the Executive representatives of the minorities who have no confidence of the minorities.
(iv) To provide a stable Executive necessary for good and efficient administration.

In fact, his fears vis-a-vis the majoriatarian impulses were evident in the political manifesto of the Scheduled Castes Federation itself—the political organisation that was set up by him in 1942 which rejected the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha as ‘reactionary’ organisations:

The Scheduled Castes Federation will not have any alliance with any reactionary party such as the Hindu Mahasabha or the RSS.[xiv]

Anyone who has studied the making of the Indian constitution would tell us why Ambedkar considered the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha as ‘reactionary’ parties. History is witness to the fact that they opposed its making and suggested in their organs that instead of a new Constitution, the newly independent nation should adopt Manusmriti. A laughable suggestion today, but the fact is it was then seriously raised by its proponents:

The worst (thing) about the new Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bharatiya about it. . . . there is no trace of ancient Bharatiya constitutional laws, institutions, nomenclature and phraseology in it. . . . no mention of the unique constitutional developments in ancient Bharat. Manu’s laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity (among Hindus in India). But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.[xv]

In his monograph ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’ he reiterates his fears vis-a-vis the possible majoritarian turn at the hands of those who vouched for ‘Hindu Raj’:

If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will no doubt be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost.[xvi]

III.
Much on the lines of lack of debate / discussion around States and Minorities, another important intervention of Ambedkar during that period has also received little attention. It was related to the struggle for Hindu Code Bill and happened to be the first attempt in independent India to reform Hindu personal laws to give greater rights to Hindu women. Through this, his attempt was to put a stamp on monogamy, also ensure separation rights for women and also grant them rights in property. We know very well that it was a key reason for Ambedkar’s resignation from Nehru’s Cabinet because he felt that despite lot of attempts not much headway was being made in granting these rights. In his resignation letter he underlined the importance he attached to the bill

To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu society, untouched and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap. This is the significance I attached to the Hindu Code.[xvii]

How the Hindutva right and the conservative sections within the Congress coupled with the saffron-robed swamis and sadhus joined hands to oppose the enactment of Hindu Code Bill is well-known history. In fact, this motley combination of reactionary and status quoist forces did not limit themselves to issuing statements. They also opposed the bill on the streets and led large scale mobilisation at pan India level against the bill. There were occasions when they even tried to storm Dr Ambedkar’s residence in Delhi.

Their main argument against Ambedkar was that the bill was an attack on ‘Hindu Religion and Culture’. The enormous resistance to this bill becomes clear from this excerpt from Ramchandra Guha’s book:

The anti-Hindu code bill committee held hundreds of meetings throughout India, where sundry swamis denounced the proposed legislation. The participants in this movement presented themselves as religious warriors (dharmaveer) fighting a religious war (dharmayudh). The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh threw its weight behind the agitation. On the 11th of December, 1949, the RSS organised a public meeting at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, where speaker after speaker condemned the bill. One called it ‘an atom bomb on Hindu society’ . . . The next day a group of RSS workers marched on the assembly buildings, shouting ‘Down with Hindu code bill’ . . . The protesters burnt effigies of the prime minister and Dr Ambedkar, and then vandalised the car of Sheikh Abdullah.[xviii]

Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of BJP’s predecessor, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, declared that the Bill would ‘shatter the magnificent structure of Hindu culture’.[xix]

In his intervention in support of Ambedkar and the Hindu Code Bill during the debate in Parliament on this bill, Acharya Kriplani stated:

Much has been said about Hindu religion being in danger. I am afraid I cannot see the point. Hindu religion is not in danger when Hindus are thieves, rogues, fornicators, black-marketers or takers of bribes! Hindu religion is not endangered by these people but Hindu religion is endangered by people who want to reform a particular law! May be they are over-zealous but it is better to be over-zealous in things idealistic than be corrupt in material things.[xx]

In fact, like Mahatma Phule—whom he called the ‘Greatest Shudra’ and considered him his teacher along with Buddha and Kabir—the concern for women’s emancipation always existed in the movement led by Ambedkar.

IV.
How did he envisage the idea of democracy ?

Perhaps his speech on the ‘Voice of America’ radio (20 May 1956) which he gave few months before his death could best summarise his ideas around this concept.

The first point which he makes is that ‘Democracy is quite different from a Republic as well as from Parliamentary Government.’ According to him:

The roots of democracy lie not in the form of government, Parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is more than a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in the social relationship, in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society.[xxi]

He then goes on to explain the meaning of the word ‘society’. He says:

When we speak of ‘Society,’ we conceive of it as one by its very nature. The qualities which accompany this unity are praiseworthy community of purpose and desire for welfare, loyalty to public ends and mutuality of sympathy and co-operation.

Examining Indian society, he questions whether ‘these ideals are found in Indian society?’ He says that Indian society is nothing but ‘an innumerable collection of castes which are exclusive in their life and have no common experience to share and have no bond of sympathy’, and concludes that:

The existence of the caste system is a standing denial of the existence of those ideals of society and therefore of democracy.[xxii]

He goes on to say that ‘Indian society is so embedded in the caste system that everything is organised on the basis of caste’. He shares examples of how the daily life of individuals revolves around the twin concepts of purity and pollution, then discusses how caste is prevalent in the social–political arena too, and wryly concludes that ‘there is no room for the downtrodden and the outcastes in politics, in industry, in commerce and in education.’

Further he discusses other special features of the caste system which ‘have their evil effects and which militate against democracy’. He particularly discusses the feature of ‘Graded Inequality’ wherein ‘castes are not equal in their status’ but rather ‘are standing one above another’ and form ‘an ascending scale of hatred and descending scale of contempt’ which has the most pernicious consequences as ‘it destroys willing and helpful co-operation.’

Deliberating about the difference between caste and class, he takes up the second evil effect in the caste system which is ‘complete isolation’ which is not there in the class system. This manifests itself in the fact that ‘the stimulus and response between two castes is only one-sided. The higher caste act in one recognised way and the lower caste must respond in one established way.’ Such influences ‘educate some into masters, educate others into slaves. . . . It results into a separation of society, into a privileged and a subject class. Such a separation prevents social endosmosis.’

The third characteristic of the caste system, that ‘cuts at the very roots of democracy’, is that ‘one caste is bound to one occupation.’ Ambedkar says ‘there is in a man an indefinite plurality of capacities and activities. A society to be democratic should open a way to use all the capacities of the individual.’ However, this binding of the individual to one occupation leads to stratification which stunts ‘the growth of the individual and deliberate stunting is a deliberate denial of democracy.’

In the concluding part of his speech, Ambedkar discusses obstacles in the way to end caste system. He says that the first obstacle is ‘the system of graded inequality which is the soul of the caste system.’ The second obstacle is that ‘Indian society is disabled by unity in action by not being able to know what is its common good. . . . Every where ‘the mind of the Indians is distracted and misled by false valuations and false perspectives.’ He ends his speech by emphasising that mere education cannot destroy the caste system: ‘If you give education to those strata of Indian Society which has a vested interest in maintaining the caste system for the advantages it gives them, then the caste system will be strengthened. On the other hand, if you give education to the lowest strata of Indian society which is interested in blowing up the caste system, the caste system will be blown up.’ And so he concludes: ‘To give education to those who want to keep up the caste system is not to improve the prospect of democracy in India but to put our democracy in India in greater jeopardy.’[xxiii]

As opposed to the conservative notions about democracy that consider it to be an instrument to stop bad people from seizing power, Ambedkar considered democracy to be related to social transformation and human progress. He defined democracy as “a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed.”[xxiv] The conditions for that are as follows:

(1) There should not be glaring inequalities in society, that is, privilege for one class; (2) The existence of an opposition; (3) Equality in law and administration; (4) Observance of constitutional morality; (5) No tyranny of the majority; (6) Moral order of society: and (7) Public conscience.”[xxv]

In his speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949 he expressed three cautions and believed that paying heed to them was critical to ensure that our democratic institutions did not get subverted:

(i) Constitutional methods; (ii) Not to lay liberties at the feet of a great man; (iii) Make a political democracy a social democracy.[xxvi]

For Ambedkar, democracy and secularism are inseparable. Looking at the fact that India happens to be a multi-denominational society where the common denominator could be secularism which is understood as one of the pillars on which the superstructure of our democracy rests and is a unifying force of our associated life, he emphasised :

The conception of a secular state is derived from the liberal democratic tradition of the West. No institution which is maintained wholly out of state funds shall be used for the purpose of religious instruction irrespective of the question whether the religious instruction is given by the state or by any other body.[xxvii]

In a debate in Parliament, he underlined:

It (secular state) does not mean that we shall not take into consideration the religious sentiments of the people. All that a secular state means is that this Parliament shall not be competent to impose any particular religion upon the rest of the people. This is the only limitation that the Constitution recognises.[xxviii]

At the same time, he emphatically states that it is the duty of the state to ensure that the minority does not become victim of the tyranny of the majority:

The State should guarantee to its citizens the liberty of conscience and the free exercise of his religion including the right to profess, to preach and to convert within limits compatible with public order and morality.[xxix]

In an insightful article, Prof Jean Dreze argues that ‘Ambedkar’s passion for democracy was closely related to his commitment to rationality and the scientific outlook.’ Jean Dreaze elaborates the connnection. Rationality is necessary for democratic government since public debate (an essential aspect of democratic practice) is impossible in the absence of a shared adherence to common sense, logical argument and critical enquiry. And, scientific spirit is inherently anti-authoritarian, as a person then does not believe in authority, but in coherence of the argument and quality of the evidence. Dreze goes on to argue that Ambedkar shared this belief. This is evident from one of Ambedkar’s last speeches, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, wherein he summarises the essential teachings of Buddha as follows:

Everyone has a right to learn. Learning is as necessary for man to live as food is. . . . Nothing is infallible. Nothing is binding forever. Everything is subject to inquiry and examination.[xxx]

Jean Dreze says that it is important to bring forth this relationship between democracy and rationalism / scientific outlook because of the ‘recent threats to Indian democracy (which) often involve a concerted attack on rationality and the scientific spirit.’ (Ibid.)

V .

I will accept and follow the teachings of Buddha. I will keep my people away from the different opinions of Hinyan and Mahayan, two religious orders. Our Bouddha Dhamma is a new Bouddha Dhamma, Navayan.[xxxi]

An important development in the last decade of Ambedkar’s life was his decision to embrace Buddhism with lakhs of followers. Apart from his deep fascination for Buddhism from younger days, his conversion to Buddhism had also to do with his contention that the ‘untouchables’ were in fact former Buddhists. He elaborates it in his book The Untouchables: A Thesis on the Origin of Untouchability (1948).[xxxii] Thus it could also be said to be a return to ‘their’ original religion than a conversion. Interestingly one finds deep commonality between Dr Ambedkar and Jyothee Thass, the great Tamil-Buddhist Scholar, who also maintained that ‘Untouchables’ were early Buddhists.

His ‘conversion’ to Buddhism was also renouncement of Hinduism which according to him had

proved detrimental to progress and prosperity of my predecessors and which has regarded human beings as unequal and despicable.[xxxiii]

If one refers to the 22 pledges he administered to his followers on the occasion then one can broadly categorise them into four parts: complete rejection of Hindu gods (for example, I will not accept Brahma,Vishnu and Mahesh as Gods) and their worship and the related rituals (I will not perform Shraddha Paksh or Pind Dana, rituals to respect the dead); acceptance of the principles and teachings of Buddhism; declaration that ‘all human beings are equal’; and ‘no faith in divine incarnation’.

An important aspect of this ‘return’ or ‘conversion’ is the fact that it was also a reinterpretation of Buddhism which he described as Navayan—a new vehicle. Apart from a big monograph Buddha and His Dhamma where he tries to revisit Buddhism, one can get a glimpse of his reading of the Buddha and his teachings from the speech he delivered in Kathmandu merely a fortnight before his death which was posthumously published as Buddha Or Karl Marx.

Summarising the ‘Creed of Buddhism’, while on the one hand he underlines the necessity of ‘religion for a free society’, at the same time, he says many things which would be rather unacceptable to a scholar or follower of religion because he appears to reject the ‘necessity of God’ as well as Shastras and rituals. Thus for instance, he says:

Religion must relate to facts of life and not to theories and speculations about God, or Soul or Heaven or Earth.
It is wrong to make God the centre of Religion.
It is wrong to make salvation of the soul as the centre of Religion.
It is wrong to make animal sacrifices to be the centre of Religion.
Real Religion lives in the heart of man and not in the Shastras.
Man and morality must be the centre of religion. If not, Religion is a cruel superstition.
It is not enough for Morality to be the ideal of life. Since there is no God it must become the law of life.[xxxiv]

Ambedkar differentiates himself from popular definitions of religion first by criticising the way religions have tried to explain the origin and the end of world and says that its ‘function is to to reconstruct the world and to make it happy’. He then goes on to explore the source of unhappiness, and does not talk about ‘sins’ or ‘otherworldly affairs’ but says that ‘unhappiness in the world is due to conflict of interest and the only way to solve it is to follow the Ashtanga Marga.’ Further elaborating on the ‘Creed of Buddhism’, he says that ‘private ownership of property brings power to one class and sorrow to another’ and ‘it is necessary for the good of Society that this sorrow be removed by removing its cause.’ While religions the world over have remained the basis of ‘othering’—which in extreme cases have resulted in genocides too—Buddhism as perceived by Ambedkar believes that ‘all human beings are equal’ and ‘worth and not birth is the measure of man’.

While supporting ‘war for truth and justice’ and also emphasising that the ‘victor has duties towards the vanquished’ in the last part of his summary of the ‘Creed of Buddhism’, he not only challenges the monopoly of a few over learning but also emphatically states: ‘Nothing is permanent or sanatan. Everything is subject to change. Being is always becoming.’

This speech—as the title shows—also throws light on his views about Marxism. Of course it is not for the first time that he had expressed his views on the theme. In his famous booklet Annihilation of Caste he had already made it clear that while he appreciates the goal of Marxism, he is repelled by its Indian practioners. In this speech too, he declares that ‘Buddha is not away from Marx’ if ‘for misery one reads exploitation.’

For him non-violence is not an issue of principle: ‘The Buddha was against violence. But he was also in favour of justice and where justice required he permitted the use of force.’ Ambedkar further writes that:

Violence cannot be altogether dispensed with. Even in non-communist countries a murderer is hanged. Does not hanging amount to violence? Non-communist countries go to war with non-communist countries. Millions of people are killed. Is this no violence? If a murderer can be killed, because he has killed a citizen, if a soldier can be killed in war because he belongs to a hostile nation, why cannot a property owner be killed if his ownership leads to misery for the rest of humanity? There is no reason to make an exception in favour of the property owner, why one should regard private property as sacrosanct.

He goes on to assert that even Buddha established communism:

The Russians are proud of their communism. But they forget that the wonder of all wonders is that the Buddha established communism so far as the Sangh was concerned without dictatorship. It may be that it was a communism on a very small scale but it was communism without dictatorship, a miracle which Lenin failed to do.

Of course, he underlines that:

The Buddha’s method was different. His method was to change the mind of man, to alter his disposition, so that whatever man does, he does it voluntarily without the use of force or compulsion.

The concluding remarks he makes while ending his speech seem to validate, in Anand Teltumbde’s words, ‘his decision as confirming to Marxism, minus violence and dictatorship in the latter.’[xxxv]

It has been claimed that the Communist Dictatorship in Russia has wonderful achievements to its credit. There can be no denial of it. That is why I say that a Russian Dictatorship would be good for all backward countries. But this is no argument for permanent Dictatorship. . . .
We welcome the Russian Revolution because it aims to produce equality. But it cannot be too much emphasised that in producing equality society cannot afford to sacrifice fraternity or liberty. Equality will be of no value without fraternity or liberty. It seems that the three can coexist only if one follows the way of the Buddha. Communism can give one but not all.[xxxvi]

VII.
These are no ordinary times to discuss the future of our republic.

We have before us an India where (to quote Prof Achin Vanaik):

The centre of gravity has shifted perhaps decisively to the right, in three crucial spheres: economy, secularism and democracy.

It is an India where the political dispensation at the centre is busy furthering the exclusivist/majoritarian worldview of Hindutva supremacism coupled with the neoliberal agenda under the glib talk of development and a concerted attack has been unleashed on (what Ambedkar defined as) minorities of various kinds and other deprived sections.

What can then be the contours of Dr Ambedkar’s Vision for our times?

It will necessarily have to be: ensure that the ‘state shall not recognise any religion as state religion’ and ‘guarantee to every citizen liberty of conscience’; stand against ‘majoritarianism of every kind’ and, more specifically, prevent the majority from forming a government without giving any opportunity to the minorities to have a say in the matter; stand up for women’s emancipation, for state ownership in agriculture with a collectivised method of cultivation and a modified form of State Socialism in the field of industry; stand against inequalities of wealth which private capitalism produces. It will necessarily have to be for annihilation of caste as ‘the existence of the Caste System is a standing denial of the existence of ideals of society and therefore of Democracy.’[xxxvii] It will be for reason and rationality and scientific temper and not for dumbing of minds.

It does not need reminding that it will not be based on sanitisation or vulgarisation of Dr Ambedkar in any form as is being experimented with these days. While his appropriation by the Hindutva Right and its attempts to carve out a ‘suitable’ Ambedkar for its project based on exclusion and hatred has been widely commented upon and exposed, much needs to be done to expose the projection of Ambedkar as a free market economist.[xxxviii] Scholarly sounding pieces have appeared based on selective quotes from his vast corpus of writings to project him as a ‘Free Market Economist”.[xxxix] In contrast to Ambedkar’s views, there are also articles valorising capitalism for supposedly annihilating of caste.[xl] This latter article by a noted columnist and an upcoming industrialist from the oppressed communities argues that:

Capital is the surest means to fight caste. In Dalit’s hands, capital becomes an anti-caste weapon; little wonder that the traditional caste code prohibits dalits from accumulating wealth. Dalit capitalism is the answer to that regime of discrimination. The manifesto demands promotion of dalit capitalism through a variety of means-procurement, credit options and partnerships.

Last but not the least one will have to be wary of ‘hero worship’ or laying ‘liberties at the feet of a great man’ as it can culminate in ‘subverting of institutions’ in a democracy as Ambedkar has warned us. In fact he had this to say while dedicating the Constitution to the nation:
This caution is far more necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country. For in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.[xli]

Everybody can see that this caution has contemporary import. No month passes when some responsible member of the ruling dispensation compares the honourable PM to God or as ‘God’s gift to India’.

While Bhakts can rejoice about this unique gift to India, every sensible person would agree that if this trend is allowed to continue then it is a ‘sure road to degradation and eventual dictatorship.’

References:
[i]
Seema Chisti, “The Disputed Legacy of Vallabhbhai Patel”, October 30, 2013, http://indianexpress.com.
[ii]      Cited in: Krishna Kumar, “Battle for Peace”, https://books.google.co.in.
[iii]     C.N. Chitta Ranjan, “Remembering Jawaharlal Today”, Mainstream, May 28, 2016, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net.
[iv]    “Pt. Nehru Stems the Tide of Communalism”, June 22, 2016, https://www.inc.in.
[v]     Jawaharlal Nehru, Lok Sabha speech in 1955, “Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, Vol. 3 (1953-1957)”, Publications Division, https://books.google.co.in.
[vi]    “Pt. Nehru Stems the Tide of Communalism”, June 22, 2016, https://www.inc.in.
[vii]   Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel : A Life, Navjeevan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, p. 428
[viii] Excerpts from Sardar Patel’s address in Madras, 1949, taken from: S. Irfan Habib (ed.), Indian Nationalism: The Essential Writings, Aleph Book Company; see: Book Extract, “Sardar Patel on RSS and the perils of imposing Hindu Rajya”, https://www.dailyo.in.
[ix]    Translated from: Pyarelal, Purnahuti, Chaturth Khand, Navjeevan Prakashan, Ahmedabad, p. 465.
[x]     Dhananjay Keer, Ambedkar : Life and Mission, Popular Prakashan, Mumbai, 1990, p. 456.
[xi]    B.R. Ambedkar, States and Minorities, Appendices, Appendix I: Explanatory Notes, http://www.ambedkar.org.
[xii]   Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] “Rejected as ‘Reactionary’ by Dalit Icon, RSS Eyes BR Ambedkar’s Legacy”, April 14 , 2015, http://www.hindustantimes.com; Nikhil Thiyyar, “Appropriating Ambedkar”, April 14, 2016, http://www.hardnewsmedia.com.
[xv]   Excerpts from the editorial on the Constitution published in the Organiser, November 30, 1949. Taken from: Ramachandra Guha, Which Ambedkar? April 26, 2016, http://indianexpress.com.
[xvi] B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or Partition of India, p. 358; also cited in: Ziya Us Salam, “Smothering with Affection”, March 25, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com.
[xvii] Nikhil Thiyyar, “Appropriating Ambedkar”, op. cit.
[xviii]        Ramachandra Guha, Bhagwat’s Ambedkar, December 10, 2015, http://indianexpress.com.
[xix] “5th February in Dalit History – Dr. Ambedkar introduced Hindu Code bill in the Parliament, Hindu leaders opposed it”, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Caravan, https://drambedkarbooks.com.
[xx]   Full text of “Dr. B.R Ambedkar_CompleteWorks_Created by Dr. Anand Teltumbde”, https://archive.org.
[xxi] Ambedkar’s speech on Voice of America radio cited in: “Prospects of Democracy in India – Babasaheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar”, BAMCEF, http://www.old.bamcef.org.
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii]        Ibid.
[xxiv]        “Cohesion, Fragility and the Challenge of Our Times: Vice President Delivers Indira Gandhi Memorial Lecture of The Asiatic Society”, October 3, 2016, http://pib.nic.in.
[xxv] Shyam Chand, “Dr Ambedkar on Democracy”, Mainstream, December 11, 2007, https://www.mainstreamweekly.net.
[xxvi]        “Constitutional Methods, Uphold Liberties and Social Democracy: Vice President of India”, October 17, 2015, http://pib.nic.in.
[xxvii]       Shyam Chand, “Dr Ambedkar on Democracy”, op. cit.
[xxviii]      Ibid.
[xxix]        Ibid.
[xxx] Jean Drèze, ‘Dr. Ambedkar and the Future of Indian Democracy’, http://econdse.org.
[xxxi]        Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Press interview, October 13, 1956, cited in: “Navayana”, https://ipfs.io.
[xxxii]       For more on this, see: “Jayadeva Uyangoda on Ambedkar’s Legacy”, April 26, 2016, https://kafila.org.
[xxxiii]      “Pledge given by Dr Ambedkar to Buddhist People”, May 27, 2013, http://ambedkarimedia.blogspot.in.
[xxxiv]      Dr B.R. Ambedkar, “Buddha or Karl Marx”, Volume 1, https://books.google.co.in.
[xxxv]       Anand Teltumbde, “Ambedkar And Communists”, August 16, 2012, http://www.countercurrents.org.
[xxxvi]      Dr B.R. Ambedkar, “Buddha or Karl Marx”, Volume 1, https://books.google.co.in.
[xxxvii]     Ambedkar’s speech on the ‘Voice of America’ radio, May 20, 1956, op. cit.
[xxxviii]    Anand Teltumbde, “Ambedkar And Communists”, op. cit.
[xxxix]      B. Chandrasekaran, “Ambedkar, the Forgotten Free-Market Economist”, April 14, 2011, http://pragati.nationalinterest.in.
[xl]    Chandrabhan Prasad and Milind Kamble, “Manifesto to End Caste : Push Capitalism and Industrialisation to Eradicate this Pernicious System”, January 23, 2013, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com.
[xli]   “Why BR Ambedkar’s Three Warnings in His Last Speech to the Constituent Assembly Resonate Even Today”, January 9, 2018, https://scroll.in.

Men who are afraid of women’s feminist self assertion

January 23, 2018

I
The recent reference to how the distribution of food in Malayali homes is often skewed against women by the actor Rima Kallingal in a recent talk has sparked off yet another round of attacks against feminists in Kerala. It is interesting to see how this seems to have brought together men of all political stripes and colours (may I say, from pro- and anti-Hadiya camps!). The attacks range from mild smirking to outright abuse, but are equally revealing of the fear of women’s feminist self-assertion. So even those men who supported Hadiya’s decision to choose her faith and community find it hard to swallow when women start laying bare the injustices of the ubiquitous patriarchal family, fearing that there may be an implicit choice in this criticism, to move away from the patriarchal family, and indeed, craft other non-patriarchal forms of intimate connection and commitment. After all, whatever be the community, the patriarchal family is acknowledged by patriarchal authorities everywhere as the foundation.

Malayalam actor Rima Kallingal

What is more disturbing however, is the mobilization of the anti-caste charge to the cause of this aangala-insecurity by some male commentators who seek to trivialize Rima’s observation of how the most savoured items of food, like fish, was always offered first and most to men and boys in her family, and how her perception of gender injustice began from the day she protested against that, as a child. The condescension with which such men address Rima and her female supporters is breathtaking. Quite reminiscent of CPM intellectuals of the late 1980s who insisted that (1) gender injustice can only be subordinate to class; (2) patriarchal relations were a bourgeois issue, (3) that it was not even a sociological feature of the working classes, (4) patriarchs are always bourgeois or feudal, (5) the only ‘real feminists’ were working class heroines of class struggle, these men now tell us that (1) gendered inequalities in families is an elite, not lower caste, issue,(2) it cannot be but subordinate to caste injustice, (3) patriarchy wasn’t a sociological feature of lower caste life, (4) patriarchy is always upper caste, (5) the only ‘real feminists’ are those who fight caste injustice or patriarchy perpetrated by caste injustice (which, according to them, is the only patriarchy in existence). For all our talk of intersectionality, we fail to avoid setting up caste, class, and gender and other axes of social power as mutually competing vectors that run parallel to each other and insist that all other vectors must necessarily be subordinate to what we think is the dominant one.
Even more egregiously, these anti-caste champions assume the aangala-tone in their advice that feminists better focus on minority and dalit women heroes instead of highlighting what in their view, is a trivial complaint, mere resentment, about the way food is distributed in families. It is an insult, really, because very many feminists have indeed been active in the campaigns raised by dalit and minority women and don’t need their sanctimonious advice. Through this disgusting gesture, these men try to erase feminists from these campaigns. More strikingly, the tactic is to point to distributional inequalities elsewhere, to draw attention away from the patriarchal family. That works in the case of one of the dalit women they mention, Chithralekha, the dalit working class heroine whose protests called out the immense anti-dalit orientation of the CPM in their strongholds, but also the gendered nature of that hostility. Her protests were about the distribution of resources by the state – of its casteist and gendered nature.

But the idea that one can sidestep the question of the distribution of power in families is belied by the other hero mentioned, Hadiya: but her struggle too was against the distribution of power within her family. As a daughter, she was denied the freedom to choose her faith and her partner. Hadiya had repeatedly told her father that she did not wish to severe relations with her family; she wanted acceptance of her faith in her family of birth. It was only her father’s refusal to accommodate her that prompted her to seek other spaces and relationships. She exited her natal family precisely when denied equal voice and space there.
The denial of voice and space comes in different ways, big and small – through discriminatory treatment, and not just through outright denial. In any case, there is no way one can avoid talking of gendered distributional inequalities. And to claim, like these aangala-males do, that they exist only in families or in families of particular communities/classes and so on, is to play the ostrich when it comes to the injustices of gender. Of course, those with a stake in the entrenched order will not consider evidence that goes contrary to their treasured beliefs. And so none of these men will take seriously the data on nutritional disparities readily available in large-scale datasets on Kerala.

II
However, what really rattled me was how a certain aangala, tried to use the myth of Nangeli and her resistance against the oppressive caste elite order in the kingdom of Travancore, through the gesture of offering her cut breast to the tax-collectors who demanded the ‘breast-tax’ against ‘trivial feminists’. Rima Kallingal did not invent feminism, Nangeli did, he claims. Now there can be little dispute about the first part of this claim: it is his insecurity that makes him think so. About the second part too, there can be little dispute that the Nangeli is a foremother of all anti-patriarchal struggles in contemporary Kerala. But the irony of this being thrust in our faces by someone who would deny that patriarchal families deny women equal resources is truly intriguing. Also, if it were a feminist who tried to trace an unbroken legacy for feminism to the early 19^th century in this simplistic fashion, these men would have immediately cried foul, accusing feminists of appropriating anti-caste myth and history.

I want, therefore, to make an attempt to reflect on the Nangeli myth in a way that does not reduce it to the terms of contemporary politics and subordinate it to immediate ends, and yet tells us about the specificity and complexity of social hierarchies, power and resistance to it in pre-modern Malayali society. Also, I want to see if an intersectional understanding that does not project modern frameworks of sex/gender into the past is possible, of the significance of Nangeli’s resistance. Attempts to reclaim it have too often projected present-day hierarchies and forms of power into the past. My attempt is of course utterly preliminary and what I want to present is just a set of hypotheses — but we all have to start somewhere and bear the risks of refutation – which can only lead to richer discussions.

The first step in this, I feel, is to turn critical towards the celebration of the claims about the seemingly-timeless presence of cosmopolitanism in Kerala, propagated, for instance, by scholars who see a non-western model of cosmopolitanism in the strategies of accommodation practiced by the Brahminical rulers of Kerala of the precolonial times. My scepticism about projecting Malayali society’s cosmopolitanism into the far past stems from the feeling that we would be making rather too much of the social contract between three internally-hierarchical social orders – the brahmanical, the elite christian, and the elite muslim.
Of these, the first held political power and created the political space expressed in the language of varna in which the other two were granted space. All three have settler myths, focused on leaders close to the respective master-figures in each faith — Parashurama, St Thomas and Malik Dinar – and they lay out the terms of association between the three. Correct me if I am wrong, the origin myth of the Jews was different. I am not sure if this is cosmopolitanism at all.

If we look at the periphery of this society, we may find three kinds of oppressed people. One, groups that are abjected for the most, but permitted occasional inclusion, such as the Arayas of the Coast and the Theyyam-performing communities. Secondly, the large section of Avarna labouring classes especially the Ezhava and Tiyya who were made to pay ‘body taxes’, named after body parts — thala (head), mula (breast), and meesha (moustache). These groups were offered a ‘conditional recognition’ of their bodiliness, i.e. on the condition that they pay these taxes. Thirdly, there were the communities completely denied any such recognition, treated as infinitely usable and utterly disposable labour, in theory at least. This ordering was undergirded by the projection of the brahmanical order as the brahmanical swargam on earth, with brahmins as bhudevas and the sudras as their servants, essentially occupying the position of the say, the minions of heaven (thus sudra women sexually available to Brahmins were assigned the dharma of the apsaras in the brahminical terms). This is the social imagination of Brahmanical political power that assigned trading communities distinct and delimited spaces in the Brahmanical order and rendered abject those who sustained it by their labour.

Secondly, we need to ask new questions about sex/gender and power in the premodern order of Malayali brahminism. It appears that for the upper-most strata of Kshatriyas, women, particularly women senior by virtue of age and/or their position in the kinship order, could take over the same power as senior males and had the same designation that we now read as exclusively male (Tampuraan, for example, was a designation fully available to women in Kshatriya ruling households) and indeed, in the turmoil of the seventeenth century do see several women rulers asserting their right to rule like men – in the swaroopams in southern Kerala, in Kochi, and the north as well. It appears that reduced versions of such access could have been a feature of the more powerful sudra elite families as well. In the early records of disputes in tarawads in Malabar, several senior women appear as litigants claiming equal position and space, indicating that the modern division of labour in families – men in charge of material sustenance, and women in charge of moral and emotional labour – cannot be projected in it. In other words, women of the elite could, under certain circumstances, access power over the bodies placed lower in the order. Marthanda Varma’s subordination of Attingal in the mid-18^th century puts an end to these privileges and gradually, the very memory of these waned.

In other words, maybe one can hypothesize that in the premodern brahmanical order of Janma-bhedam while full power over the bodies of the oppressed was available to senior women in ruling houses, and lesser versions of such power were available to senior women in powerful sudra houses, for the most oppressed groups, the avarnas, bodiliness was either ‘conditional’ (through body-tax, and it is perhaps not coincidental that precisely those parts — the head, the moustache, and the breasts — that were less relevant to the labour that the oppressed performed for the elites figured in the tax-names) or actually denied. Those groups reduced to slavery were probably not even granted this: their bodies were abjected even more, regarded as mere generators of labour, of different kinds of labour for the reproduction of the elites (productive, sexual, reproductive – all equally extracted). The casual ease with which the slave people could be murdered and sacrificed by the elite – all such stories and myths we have heard of such killings –seem to confirm this. Of course this does not mean there was no resistance to this, rather the contrary: that resistance comes alive and is alive and well in myth and stories which the dalit and other anti-caste assertions in Kerala are reclaiming.

This reading also means that this society which was modeled on the Brahmanical swargam was perhaps one of the most oppressive social orders ever in human history, in which the laboring classes and slaves were not simply oppressed but actually abjected and denied even bodiliness.
Nangeli’s act of cutting off her breast rather than pay the breast tax that could have assured her conditional acceptance within the order is, therefore, not to be reduced to resistance to merely the objectification of the female body – since it is probable that even unconditional bodiliness was not conceded to the oppressed at that time . Rather, it could be read as the very founding moment of a history in and through which the abjected refused abjection and rose up to reclaim their bodiliness and full humanity. I do not need to pay tax to affirm my breasts, she seems to declare. Paradoxically, through cutting off her breasts, she affirms herself as a bodily being, not requiring confirmation of the brahmanical order. That act, then, could be revered as the founding moment of the rising up the abjected whose labour sustained the brahmanical swarga-on-earth.

Thanks to Nangeli and countless others after her who fought against the worst-known order of human oppression, that of Janma-bhedam (yes, it indeed has a local name, and so the argument that the oppression that came to be called ‘caste oppression’ was not a figment of anyone’s imagination as some are apt to claim nowadays), today we can debate hierarchy and power, demand their dismantling, claim voice, and protest injustice without such spectacular acts. Indeed, when feminists joined the campaigns for justice around questions raised by Chithralekha and Hadiya, the demand was precisely that they must not be forced to pay the huge price that those who revolted against the feudal order had to, to gain a voice. In other words, we were certain they must not be made to suffer like Nangeli to secure their rights, constitutional and natural.

Rima however already has a voice which she employs against deep-rooted family patriarchy, and how is that such a crime? Or is it these men’s case that the only women worth listening to are those who suffer and die resisting power and so can be considered ‘truly resistant’? If that is so, then one can only tell them to go fuck themselves.Nangeli’s legacy can be claimed by anyone who lays bare the workings of power and hierarchies, who takes the risk and the pain of doing so. That risk and pain may not be as big as Nangeli’s but still. It cannot be claimed by those who use her as a shield to deflect attention from hierarchies and power, and who use her name to silence inconvenient voices. So these men can all go to hell as far as I care, and frankly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see both pro- and ant- Hadiya fellows swelling the ranks of the Dickhead Brigade.

Courtesy: https://kafila.online/

SC bats for Adivasis’ rights over natural resources, Govt disagrees

January 22, 2018

Some facts:

The Central Indian States of M.P, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bengal are blessed with enormous amount of minerals, water sources and forests;
Adivasicommunities have for centuries lived, owned and used these natural resources;
While enormous wealth is extracted from Adivasiland by the state and private companies, the people are being deprived of their rights over their natural resources;
Many tribals are falsely implicated and arrested for daring to protest against the violation of their constitutional and human rights like the right to possess and protect their land and livelihood resources. Label given to them ‘naxal’ / ‘maoists’;
90% of so-called naxals are adivasis… but 90% of adivasis are not naxals;
Currently thousands of Adivasi youth are languishing in the jails of Jharkhand as under-trials prisoners;
Fake encounters and fake surrenders have become a norm;
Trial of under-trial prisoners is deliberately prolonged because if they are tried, most will be acquitted.
At long last, admitting a PIL on under-trial prisoners, Jharkhand HC has directed state govt to provide detailed information about all under-trial prisoners in all the jails of Jharkand by January 2018

How does theJharkandgovt deal with so-called ‘naxals’?

“Either make the naxals surrender or shoot them down in encounters” [the Internal Security Adiviser’s order to the police/para-military forces on April 2, 2015 at Rania, Jharkhand ] In obeying this order, Jkd police and para-military forces claim that during 2017 they have arrested 608 ‘maoists’, 47 surrendered their arms and, and 12 maoists have been gunned down. They also have announced that they are all set to confiscate the property owned by top 40 Maoist leaders. The DGP rewarded each of the twenty Jharkhand Jaguar personnel with Rs, 10,000 cash and congratulated them for gunning down a maoist splinter group area commander a few days ago. [ Hindustan Times, Ranchi ed., Jan. 20, 2018].What a reward for killing people!

How does SC analyse the ‘naxal’ question?

In the context of a writ against the purchase of tribal land in violation of CNT Act in Jharkhand the SC observed “If tribals’ land is being sold illegally, then they (tribals) will turn into Naxalites…” [ SC verdict on , March 25 2014 on a PIL on illegal transfer of tribal land]
In yet another judgment against Chattisgarh State arming some tribal youth as Special Police Officers to fight their fellow tribal brothers under the tag of SalwaJudum the SC observed “ the fight against Maoist/Naxalite violence could not be conducted purely as a mere law and order problem to be confronted by whatever means the State could muster…The primordial problem lies deep within the socio-economic policies pursued by the State on a society that was already endemically, and horrifically, suffering from gross inequalities. Consequently, the fight against Maoists/Naxalites is no less a fight for moral, constitutional and legal authority over the minds and hearts of our people.” [NandiniSundar and Ors vs. the State of ChattisgarhSC/0724/2011]
In reference to a case of a young tribal woman being paraded naked by the powerful section of a village in Maharashtra, the lower courts failed to give her justice, finally the SC came to her rescue and ordered severe punishment to the accused. The apex court observed: “ the most disadvantaged and marginalized in India are the Adivasis (STs), the descendants of the original inhabitants of India, and are the most marginalized and living in terrible poverty…They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on them for centuries. They were deprived of their lands, and pushed into forests and hills where they eke out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease, etc. And now efforts are being made by some people to deprive them even of their forest and hill land where they are living, and the forest produce on which they survive.” [SC:Kailas &Orsvs State Of Maharashtra, Criminal Appeal No. 11/2011]

The above testimonies are self-explanatory. They do not need any further comment.

May the conscience of the nation awake!

Will you fire Hegde for calling Dalits stray dogs: Mevani asks Modi

January 22, 2018

Newly elected independent MLA from Vadnagar, Gujarat has demanded the removal of union minister Anant Kumar Hegde from the Narendra Modi cabinet for abusive and derogatory statements against Dalits across Karnataka. The minister has reportedly insulted Dalit activists who were staging a protest against his statements in Ballari district by calling them “barking stray dogs”. Jignesh Mevani, in a press release issued today has stated that ‘this shows the brahmanical and evil mindset of the Sangh Parivar and its functionaries from top to bottom which has no place for Dalits.’

Mevani has strongly condemned the vitriolic statements recently made by Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ananth Kumar Hegde in various public programmes held across Karnataka targeting Indian Constitution, secularists, writers, Dalits and other oppressed communities.

Mevani states that what the minister has said is clearly a painful assault on the dignity and self respect of the dalits of the country. More over this is an offence under Atrocities Act and hence there must be and FIR against him and he be arrested earliest.

All set to be sworn in as MLA in the Gujarat assembly tomorrow, January 23, Mevani in this strongly worded statement has demanded:

“I demand Prime Minister Narendra Modi to drop this man who called Dalits as dogs, from his Council of Union Ministers.

“Clearly Hegde, who is opposed to the Indian Constitution and the values enshrined in it, had no right to continue as a Minister and even the member of Lok Sabha that functions in accordance with the same Constitution.

“I also demand the President of India who himself is a Dalit and a supreme custodian of the Indian Constitution to consider the seriousness of the remarks and disqualify the minister from his Lok Sabha membership.

“I also expect the election commission to take note of these anti-Constitutional acts of the minister and take necessary action to ensure that he is removed from Lok Sabha and also to see that he would no longer contest any elections in future.

“I call upon the Dalits and other oppressed communities to defeat the BJP that views Dalits as dogs in the coming elections of Karnataka.

  The young MLA adds in this press note, that, this is not the first time that the minister has made the ‘manuvadi’ (upper caste) agenda of the BJP clear.   At a public programme held in Koppal district last month, the minister had said “the very purpose of the BJP coming to power is to change the Constitution of India”. In the same meeting, he had also described secularists as “people who don’t have an identity of their parental blood” and proposed the changes in the Constitution to do away with the idea of “secularism”.

Later on, when there was a big furore against it, BJP tried to distance itself from his statement, and he attempted to cover it up. But some top leaders of BJP justified it by saying that several amendments had been made to the Constitution.

In this context it is important to remember that just a month ago, even the Pejavar seer of Udupi Mutt which openly practices caste discrimination among its devotees had expressed a similar opinion in the Dharma Sansad. The agenda of the Manuvadi-corporatist BJP is very clear. What they are striving to do is to bring amendments to Constitution not to make it more egalitarian, but to replace it by Brahminical social and political order. Ananth Kumar Hegde’s statement reflects the real objective of BJP and Sangh Pariwar.

Minister Hegde is the same person who had encouraged his followers to cleanse the stage with cow urine in his home constituency. Outspoken film actor and critic of Hindutva politics Mr. Prakash Rai has too rightly condemned the religious bigotry of the Hindutva fanatics.

Addressing another meeting in Belagavi on January 16, he insulted writers and intellectuals by terming them a group of people who call themselves as intellectuals only to seek government benefits.

Earlier Ananth Kumar had openly called for the elimination of Islam faith from the world by stating that, as long as Islam exists on the earth, there would be no peace in the world.

High Level probe sought into Kidney failure, related deaths in Odisha

January 22, 2018

A Citizens’ Enquiry has found that there are rising number of deaths and illnesses due to kidney failure in villages surrounding Indian Rare Earth Limited’s (IREL) monazite processing facility in Chhatrapur Block of Odisha’s Ganjam district. The team demanded immediate investigation by a high level expert team into the increasing incidences of chronic kidney disease in the surrounding villages in order to conclusively establish the causal factors and recommend actions for prevention and remediation.

The group that comprised human rights activists, Dr. Kalyani Menon Sen, Dr Nisha Biswas, Basudev Mahapatra and Ranjana Padhi conducted the fact finding in three of the affected villages (Badaputti, P-Lakhimpur and Baginipetta) of Chhatrapur Block. During their visit they met and interviewed 25 affected persons, their families and local leaders and District Collector and IREL officials, district health officials and the senior Consultant Nephrologist of MKCG Medical College.

At a press conference organised on January 21 in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, the team shared its key findings. One of the major findings was that at least 200 cases of chronic kidney diseases were reported in a span of last three years. This included the 70 deaths in which people died quite young. This number is reportedly higher than the national average of 229 per million population as per a national level study done by GK Modi and V. Jha titled, “The incidence of end-stage renal disease in India: a population-based study.”

The high occurrences of the diseases has had an adverse impact on the socio-economic fabric of the area. In a situation of very limited and near absent facilities at the nearby MKCG Medical College, patients suffering from various ailments are compelled to visit private hospitals depleting all their resources and selling or mortgaging their land holdings. The villages have been socially quarantined and hardly anyone from outside villages is willing to do any form of social exchange with the residents of these villages. Many children have had to join the work force and drop out of schools as adult members have fallen sick, the fact finding team reported with distress.

Suggested Role of IREL in increasing cases of Kidney Failures
It must be noted that the affected villages are also the sites where land was acquired on long-term lease by IREL, a PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy, in the late 1980s. The IREL is located about one km from the Badaputti village.

The acquired lands were thickly forested with cashew trees earlier, providing a source of income for the nearby communities. The mandatory afforestation that was carried out on the reverted land could not bear the same fertility and this caused a considerable loss to the community.

The fact finding highlighted the belief held by the local population that the high rates of kidney diseases afflicting the area are a result of the contamination of ground water with toxic by-products of monazite processing at the IREL. The team noted that the water drawn from local tube-wells had a thick sediment of some chalky substance at bottom and that every household had to install expensive RO filters in their homes.

Further, the team recorded that the district administration and officials of the IREL opposed the theory held by the local population, offering the results of water testing conducted by the Regional Pollution Control Board, the State Public Health Engineering officials and a district medical official, which declared the water to be fit for drinking. But the team had contrarian views on the tests. It said that the tests tracked the presence of only two heavy metals (lead and cadmium) and did not test for the several other toxic by-products of thorium processing such as molybdenum, mercury and psyrium.

Need for Investigation
The fact finding team also met Dr. Saroj K Panda, the consultant nephrologist at the MKCG hospital in Behrampur, who apart from confirming that the dialysis facilities at the hospital were indeed very limited leaving out many patients, who then had to visit private hospitals, also expressed the view that this phenomena was new to the area and definitely a result of one of the environmental factors. Since there are several research studies confirming the association of heavy metal elements with chronic kidney disease, he agreed that this aspect should be rigorously researched.

The team was able to access the report of a study undertaken by the district health department in 2015, following an intervention by the NHRC in response to a petition from a local person. The study report (a copy of which was shared by the CDMO’s office) speculated that likely causes could be contamination of water with heavy metals or pesticides, or inhalation of pollutants expelled into the air by the IREL facility. The report recommended evacuation and resettlement of the affected villages pending investigation and remediation of the problem. However, the team found out that although this report was submitted to the State government three years ago (March 2015), no action whatsoever has been taken to follow up on the findings and recommendations.

Demands of The Fact Finding team
Condemning the silence of the Odisha government on this issue, the team has demanded immediate relief to affected individuals through free treatment at MKCG or other government facility with adequate infrastructure and expertise to handle the large patient load. The team has also demanded setting up a system for preventive and promotive measures such as regular village level medical camps for early identification and treatment of individuals suspecting any such symptoms. It also urged the State government to immediately work towards the right of the communities for safe and clean drinking water. Finally it demanded action to remove potentially toxic solid waste in and around the affected villages, in particular the waste dumps around the tailing ponds outside the IREL facility.

Restore Press Freedom, Allow Coverage of Soharbuddin Trial: BUJ, Journos to HC

January 20, 2018

BUJ and journos move Bombay High Court seeking a quashing of the controversial ban order on reporting passed by the Sessions Court on November 29, 2017

Image Courtesy: http://en.protothema.gr

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 final hearing in the matter concerning the gag order on the media will be on January 23, 2018. Senior advocate Mihir Desai appeared for the Bombay Union of Journalists (BUJ) and A. Ponda for a group of journalists. The two petitions may be read here.

The BUJ Petition
Petition by Journalists

The BUJ which is a registered society registered under Maharashtra Societies Registration Act, 1860. Petitioner society was formed on April 16, 1947 by members of Journalists with various objects and aims including one amongst them to strive to secure the right to information as a fundamental right and to ensure freedom of expression and safeguarding it against encroachments from any quarters. In its petition, the organization has challenged order November 29, 2017 order in the Sohrabuddin Case (Sessions Case nos. 177 of 2013, 178 of 2013, 577 of 2013 and 312 of 2014). The Order was passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Sessions Court, Mumbai, at Mumbai under section 237 of Code of Criminal Procedure, whereby the Learned Additional Sessions Judge has restrained media personnel from reporting any proceedings of ongoing trial in the session’s case in print media, social media and electronic media. The gag order reads,

“….. Considering the sensitivity in the matter, likelihood of happening of any untoward incident and likelihood of effect on the trial of this matter, in case of day to day publication of evidence that may be brought on record, I am of the view not to allow media to may publication of any of the proceedings during the trial in the matter until further order. It may happen that the publication may create security problem for the accused persons, prosecution witnesses, the defense team and the prosecutor as well. I therefore find justification in the request of the defense team of lawyers. The Application is allowed.”

Construing the act of the Sessions Court as being a direct incursion on press freedom the BUJ petition argues that:

The order of the Sessions Court is illegal and bad in law;
The Additional Judge, Sessions Court failed to appreciate that the application was filed under section 327 of Code Of Criminal Procedure Code which does not deal with restraining media personnel from reporting of day to day proceedings or orders in trial;
The gag order defeats the purpose of open court trial set out in section 327 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that Sessions Court has no powers u/s 327 of Criminal Code Of Procedure to restrain media/press from reporting proceedings of the trial unless it’s a trial u/s 327 (2) of Criminal Procedure Code;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that no case was made out for an order in the Application filed by Respondent no. 2.
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that the case is of utmost public importance which was also acknowledged by the Supreme Court on several occasions;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that no case was made out on trial being affected by any media report whatsoever;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that no case was made out by the original accused in the case “real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice”;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that no case was made out by the original accused of clear and present danger in administration of justice;
The Trial Court failed to appreciate that no case of exceptional circumstance was made out by the original accused to protect interest of justice on the other hand Supreme Court has observed from time to time high handedness and biased investigation in the session case as the accused persons are none other than those who were meant to protect the citizen including the victims of offense being heard;
The Trial Court ought to have considered that the order of restraining media, in general, from reporting any proceeding until judgment in the session’s case violates fundament rights of media protected under articles14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The impugned order fails at the test of reasonableness as it does not satisfy the parameters of necessity and proportionality;
The Learned Trial Court, in any case ought, to have relegated the original accused to High Court for seeking order as no such order could be passed u/s 327 of Criminal Procedure Code;
In any event impugned order is bad in law, unreasonable, illegal and deserves to be quashed and set aside.

Background of the present case:

The trial concerning the alleged fake encounter in November 2005 of one Sohrabuddin Sheikh who was allegedly travelling on a public bus with his wife, Kauser Bi, from Hyderabad to Sangli, Maharashtra. It is alleged that at midnight, accused herein (Members of Gujarat Police Force) stopped the bus and took them away. Three days later Sheikh was allegedly killed in staged encounter on a highway at Vishala Circle near Ahmedabad. Two days after Sheikh was killed, Kauser Bi was allegedly raped, strangulated and cremated. On December 28, 2006, Tulsiram Prajapati was allegedly killed in fake Encounter by Accused in the sessions case.
Originally law enforcement agencies of Gujarat were investigating the complaints of fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Kausar Bi and Tulsiram Prajapati. On a petition filed by the deceased’s brother Rubabuddin Sheikh, the Supreme Court, by an order dated January 12, 2010, transferred the investigation of the said case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Pursuant to this, CBI filed the first charge sheet on July 23, 2010.
The CBI has stated in its charge sheet that, that between 2004 to 2006 accused in the sessions case entered into a criminal conspiracy to nab and kill one Sohrabuddin Sheikh, who was an accused in several cases of murder, abductions, extortion, carrying firearms, etc. pending in various courts of State of Gujarat and State of Rajasthan. Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed, allegedly in a fake encounter in the morning of November 26, 2005. It is further alleged that after about 3 days of killing Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi was also killed by police and her dead body was burnt and disposed of. After about one year there from, on December 27, 2006, Tulsiram Prajapati was also allegedly shot dead by Gujarat and Rajasthan police in a fake encounter. Trial in respect of these offences have been transferred by the Supreme Court by orders dated September 27, 2012 and April 8, 2013 to Learned Additional Sessions Judge, Mumbai i.e. Special Central Bureau of Investigation Judge.
Tragically, as of today out of the original 38 accused in the cases, 15 accused have been discharged and the trial is being conducted against 23 accused.
On November 29, 2017, the original accused in the case (Rehman Abdul) filed an application before the Trial Court seeking an order barring any media (Print, Electronic or Social) from reporting any proceedings of the Sessions Case before the Trial Court till its judgment. The Application said: “This Hon’ble Court may graciously be pleased to ban the print, electronic and social media from publishing, posting, and/or reporting the proceeding of the present trial till its judgment, as such act will prejudice the case of prosecution, defense. The same may create security problem for accused facing trial, prosecution witness, Ld. Prosecutor as well as Defense Team. The case is having checkered history and mis-reporting has already caused prejudice to both side.”
The BUJ has submitted that by impugned Order, the Petitioner and its members and all other press/media throughout, are restrained from reporting “any” proceedings of the sessions case in media.
Further, BUJ has said that that the offence being tried, investigation thereof and trial of the said sessions case in being reported in media (print, electronic and social) worldwide since year 2005 by members of the organisation as well as other reporters.

The petitions pray for a stay in the interim and a quashing of the order of the Sessions Court. Apart from the CBI and the original accused, the Home Department of the government of Maharashtra are respondents in the case. The matter will now be heard on January 22.

Related Articles:
1. CBI U-Turn against its own charge sheet in the Sohrabuddin case, the caged parrot syndrome?
2. A Family Breaks Its Silence: Shocking Details Emerge in Death of Judge Presiding Over Sohrabuddin Trial
3. DG Vanzara, MN Dinesh discharged by CBI Court, Mumbai: Sohrabuddin Sheikh Encounter Case
4. With Asthana as Interim CBI Chief, CBI Resembles the Gujarat Bureau of Investigation

How A TV Serial Watched By 400 Million Changed Gender Beliefs In Rural India

January 20, 2018

In Pratapgarh, a village that could be anywhere in the Hindi belt, a young man, Ravi, gets to know that his wife, Seema, is pregnant with a girl child, third time in a row. He wants her to get an abortion because he wants a male child. He forces Seema to accompany him to a doctor who agrees to conduct the abortion though the foetus is past the 20-week deadline for a medical termination of pregnancy. Seema undergoes the abortion but is critical, having lost a lot of blood. She is rescued by her sister Sneha, an idealistic young doctor who rushes her to the hospital and threatens to call the police.

This is the plot of the fourth and fifth episode of Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, a woman, can achieve anything’), a soap produced by Population Foundation of India (PFI), a Delhi-based population research and advocacy organisation.

What marked this soap apart was its use of education-entertainment, or ‘edutainment’, to talk about women’s reproductive health and gender rights. Through its protagonist Sneha Mathur, the series dealt with topics such as child marriage, age at first pregnancy, spacing, family planning, sex selection, quality of healthcare and domestic violence.

The serial ran for two seasons on the national channel, Doordarshan, from 2014 to 2016 and was watched by 58 million viewers in its first season, according to television audience measurement and Indian readership survey. The two seasons and their reruns together reached over 400 million people, according to Doordarshan.

The project, funded by United Kingdom’s department of international development, Gates Foundation and supported by United Nations Population Fund, managed to change attitudes, according to a 2015 PFI study.

While 73% women knew about the legal age of marriage before the show, their numbers increased to 83% after the first season, the study found. Before the serial, 57% men cited the fear of side-effects for not using modern methods of contraception. This number fell to 32% after the first season.

How popular entertainment became a tool for social messaging

Why is popular entertainment being used to deliver critical social messages on gender rights? Because it can reach and convince the target audience fast, according to activists.

Here are some discouraging trends in women’s empowerment: In 2015-16, only 53.5% women in the reproductive age-group used modern methods of contraception, a decline from 56.3% in 2005-06, according to National Family Health Survey-4 data. In 2015-16, 28.8% of married women faced spousal violence, the figure is 31.1% in rural areas.

Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the PFI and a 40-year veteran of the development sector, said she was disappointed and frustrated at how little organisations such as hers had impacted social norms and attitudes. Most information education communication initiatives had shown little impact, she said.

Then, on a visit to a Gates Foundation conference on behaviour change communication, she became aware of the impact of entertainment education, or edutainment as it is called. In South Africa, Soul City, a television series in the 1990s, talked about a range of health and development issues such as HIV/AIDS, rape, disability and alcoholism and created positive impact on people’s behaviour.

Could such an approach work in India? With this thought, Muttreja sought the expertise of Arvind Singhal, a US-based communication and social change expert.

Singhal used the concept of “positive deviance” in the show. This meant nudging communities to re-discover traditional wisdom and act on it. Singhal and Muttreja documented 60 cases of those who had defied regressive social norms but stayed rooted in their communities.

“We made sure that the serial had great aesthetics like a Hindi film because we wanted to be aspirational,” said Muttreja. The team approached theatre and film director Feroz Abbas Khan, who made films such as Gandhi, My Father, to direct the series. The script took a year and a team of 12 experts, ranging from sociologists to gynaecologists and theatre artists, contributed.

The plot stayed real but pushed for social change

The series used characters who reflected rural reality–Sneha’s brother, Purab, is an unemployed alcoholic who beats his wife and doesn’t think about contraception. Despite this, Sneha’s aunt prefers him over his sisters. Purab’s wife, Ratna, has three children, is pregnant again and has little decision-making power.

But the serial shows Purab reforming into a responsible and positive character.

“People are tired of showing evil mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law plotting against each other,” said Muttreja. “They are ready for positive content that talks about real-life issues.”

The makers used multiple tools to increase the series impact–TV, radio, social media and celebrity spots.

Each episode ended with a message and a quiz and a number on which to give a missed call. When called back, respondents could either answer the quiz or participate in a discussion. The serial received 1.4 million calls from across the country over two years. Men and women called and shared their opinions, poems and vowed to change. The calls were recorded and analysed.

‘Sneha Clubs’, where viewers discussed issues raised, were formed with the help of 10 nonprofits in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The show was also converted to radio, with readings from Sneha’s diaries, and broadcast on 230 All India Radio stations. It was also translated into 12 languages for regional telecast.

To reach ‘media-dark’ regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh–areas with little TV–a radio adaption was broadcast using six community radios.

Impact: Disapproval of early marriage for girls rose from 23% to 43%

To assess the impact of the serial after the first season, the PFI undertook an evaluation of 30,000 households in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. These two states account for 15% of India’s population and are in need of greater awareness about family planning.

It was found that the programme reached 36% of TV-owning and 72% of radio-owning population in these two states. Of its viewership, 52% were women.

As we said earlier, the show helped boost awareness about critical gender issues. Among women with married children, awareness about the legal age of marriage was 59% before the start of the series, rising to 80% after the show was screened. Around 23% of these women felt that early marriage leads to loss of opportunity before the show; after the first season, the numbers rose to 43%.

Only 2% men felt that marriage meant loss of opportunity before the show; the numbers grew to 31% after the first season.

There was also a shift in beliefs about the age at a woman should have her first child–before the start of the show, 57% of mothers-in-law voted in favour of 21-25 years. After the first season, 86% agreed that this age bracket was ideal for motherhood.

The show also appears to have reduced the number of women who believed that a girl shouldn’t return to her parental home once she marries–from 45% at the start of the season to 28% after it ended. The series also convinced many female viewers that it was not okay for men to hit their wives on the suspicion of infidelity–66% supported the ‘punishment’ before the show, and it came down to 44% afterwards.

There are other instances of how the show’s protagonist inspired communities. In Nayagaon village in Madhya Pradesh, where no girl had ever gone to college, Ladkuwar Khushwaha, a 16-year-old girl decided to continue her studies after school. While her parents supported her, the village objected. It is alleged that those who opposed her even rammed a car against her legs. But Khushwaha persisted and today, ten girls from her village go to college.

In Chhattarpur village in Bihar, a few men formed a group and vowed to stop domestic abuse, plan their families and help their wives with housework. “Ghar mein haath bataeinge, hum khana bhi banaenge (We will help our wives in chores, we will also cook),” was their slogan.

The show expands, but funding has now run out

When the makers of the serial found that 40% of their viewers were between 15 to 24, the ministry of health and family welfare requested them to include the government’s adolescent programme, Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK), National Adolescent Health Programme, in the second season.

The second-season’s focus was on teen problems. It talked about Prita, Sneha’s sister, and the challenges she faced running a girl’s football team in the village.

Farhan Akhtar, Bollywood actor and director, volunteered to be a sutradhar or narrator in the second season and talked about gender equality after each episode.

“We, then made eight films around the six themes of the [RKSK] programme of nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, mental health, preventing injuries and substance abuse,” said Muttreja.

PFI researchers created the name ‘Saathiya’, meaning friend, for peer educators who run the programme. CDs of the films were made part of the kit distributed to peer educators.

After the last episode ended in 2016, the makers found it difficult to find funders for a third season, despite the show’s popularity. There is little corporate funding available for projects that revolve around behaviour change, said Muttreja.

The makers calculated the cost of production, outreach, promotion and interactive voice response service and the reach (400 million as per Doordarshan), at Rs 1.08 per capita for both seasons or Rs 0.72 per capita per year.

(Yadavar is a principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

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

Courtesy: India Spend

‘He wants to kill us’ – Gazans fear for the worst as Trump severes aid to Palestinian refugees

January 19, 2018

The Trump administration informed the United Nations yesterday it would cut aid for Palestinian refugees by more than half, withholding $65 million in funds. The announcement was made by an official with the State Department who said “It is time other countries, some of them quite wealthy, step in and do their part to advance regional security and stability.”

Palestinian refugees pick up aid from a United Nations depot in the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

For Halima Abu Hendi, 40, a Palestinian living in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Trump’s steep cut could mean that her pantry will be empty next month. Halima survives off of food assistance from by the United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA) that comes in the form of parcels she picks up from a distribution center every 90 days. At the moment, her stock is already running low, with under a pound of chickpeas, sugar, and rice, and nearly out of milk powder to feed her husband and herself, and their seven children.

“We rely on chickpea to prepare Falafel for the three daily meals, and could replace it with sweetened noodles or canned tuna,” Halima said, explaining the UNRWA staples fill up 90 percent of her family’s diet.

Halima and her husband Abdul Baset Abu Hendi, 44, were both born in Jabalia camp.

Halima Abu Hendi. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

Abdul Baset Abu Hendi. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

Palestinian children sit on steps in Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

Last year the U.S. contributed $368 million to UNRWA, of which over $100 million went to services in Syria. The move to cut aid takes place amid enormous pressure on Palestinian leaders to accept the U.S.’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and to continue discussing the prospects of a U.S. brokered peace deal.

UNRWA provides services to 5.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. The refugees in Gaza live in eight UNRWA run camps, constitute 70 percent of the local population of nearly 2 million.

Yet in recent weeks UNRWA has become under review by the Trump administration as it eyes options to pressure the Palestinian leadership to work with the U.S. envoy for Middle East peace.

“[W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect,” President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter while most of the Middle East was sleeping two weeks ago. “With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace,” he added, “why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed suit last week. He told his cabinet, “UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem,” and “It also perpetuates the narrative of the right of return, as it were, in order to eliminate the State of Israel; therefore, UNRWA needs to pass from the world.”

Back in Jabalia, Abdul Baset, does not expect he can make up the coming food shortages. Although he is a tailor, Abdul Baset says he has not sewed for months. Gaza’s economy is depressed and unemployment is a staggering 42 percent, the highest in the world.

“I use my UN ID card to receive canned tuna, frying oil, flour… .The aroma of sweetened noodles and fried falafel. Refilling the pantry is a festive moment for my family,” he told Mondoweiss days before the Trump administration made the announcement to hold the UN funds. At that time, the couple said most of their updates on the flow of UN goods came from casual conversations, which had turned worrisome in recent days.

“We do not know anything. Concern is endless and the feeling has taken control over this camp. It is in our daily conversations with neighbors who meet each day and night by our front doors,” Halima said

Aside from food aid, many Palestinians relay entirely on UNRWA’s health services. The UN runs nearly 200 health clinics for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA provides services for more than nine million patients visits at health care facilities in the region.

Mariam Oraif. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

In Western Gaza City, Mariam Oraif, 74, waits at an UNRWA’s health center to pick up her insulin and get weekly treatment. Aside from diabetes she has high blood pressure. Mariam was not aware of the then impending cuts to UNRWA. When asked what she will do if this clinic is no longer able to provide her with medication, Mariam said of Trump, “He wants to kill us.”

“I can barely buy a 5 Shekel ($1.4) Paracetamol tablets. What should I do if I am forced to buy these free drugs from a pharmacy? Are you kidding me? I’m talking about $80, I never had such cash in my wallet,” she continued.

Wijdan Dahman, 28, was in the same clinic. Her infant was getting the Polio vaccine. She too was surprised to learn of the coming U.S. funding cut.

“Is this two-month-old infant politically involved?” Wijdan asked, “Do they want a disabled or sick generation, is it not enough to be a refugee in camps?, why should such baby pay the price for this foolish policy?”

Wijdan Dahman (R) carries her baby into a United Nations medical clinic in the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

Sufian al-Wadiya. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

Near the parking leading to the clinic, Sufian al-Wadiya, 38, a municipal employee, said “Stopping UNRWA’s services is more dangerous than launching a war jets and tanks.”

If Trump reduces aid to Palestinian refugees, Sufian said “it would be a war against patients and schoolchildren who will turn into thieves.”

More than 500,000 Palestinian children are enrolled in 700 UNRWA schools across the region.

Nadia Abu Ta’ima, a teacher at an UNRWA school in Gaza, and student Hanan. (Photo: Mohammed Asad)

In front of the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, teacher Nadia Abu Ta’ima and her pupil, Hanan, 9, protested ahead of the Trump administration’s announcement. Nadia was among dozens of educators demanding pay increases.

Hanan carried a banner: “Miss Nadia must get a fixed-term contract.”

“Can you imagine the feeling of being a teacher who instructs around 50 pupils in one classroom and you might get a call one day that you no longer will come into school anymore?” Nadia said.

Hanan chimed in, “I do not understand why they might want fire miss Nadia. Is UNRWA bankrupted? My friends and I can collect money to pay our teacher.”

UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide aid in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced in the Middle East. UNRWA was initially intended to be a temporary agency, but it has continued to provide support for Palestinian refugees for the better part of 60 years.

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High Level probe sought into Kidney failure, related deaths in Odisha

Restore Press Freedom, Allow Coverage of Soharbuddin Trial: BUJ, Journos to HC

BUJ and journos move Bombay High Court seeking a quashing of the controversial ban order on reporting passed by the Sessions Court on November 29, 2017

How A TV Serial Watched By 400 Million Changed Gender Beliefs In Rural India

‘He wants to kill us’ – Gazans fear for the worst as Trump severes aid to Palestinian refugees

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