Family of Tamil Poet Inquilab Declines Sahitya Akademi Award

December 23, 2017

The family of Tamil poet Inquilab (pictured), who was bestowed the Sahitya Akademi award in the poetry category earlier this year, declined it on Friday in a ‘tribute’ to the writer who had always been openly indifferent towards awards bestowed by governments. The Sahitya Akademi had conferred the award to the Tamil poet, who passed away at the age of 72 in December last year, posthumously.

The family, in a letter reportedly sent to the Akademi secretary, quoted the poet’s stinging lines, “Awards may be showered on us, If we live like corpses”. The family recalled that Inquilab’s take on felicitations and awards was always indiference. Inquilab (born Shahul Hameed) was popularly known as the ‘People’s Poet’.

In 2006, he returned the state’s Kalaimamani award in protest of the government’s failure to protect Sri Lankan Tamils. His poem ‘Kanmani Rajam ’, criticising the moral bankruptcy of politicians, was prescribed in school textbooks until the DMK government removed it after he criticised one of their moves.

Karnataka Assembly Polls 2018: BJP starts stirring the Communal Pot

December 23, 2017

“Only you will decide whether you want the land of Bajrang Bali (Hindu God Hanuman) or a land of worshippers of Tipu Sultan (a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore),” Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reportedly told the crowd gathered at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Parivarthan Yatre rally on Thursday at Hubballi in Karnataka.

Yogi was there as part of the BJP’s preparation for next year’s Assembly elections. And, his inflammatory speech looks to be part of a key strategy of the saffron party – to communally polarise the state’s people and take electoral advantage. As a result, communal hate mongering is in full swing in Karnataka.

“When Lord Hanuman is being worshiped across the country, the Congress government in Karnataka, the state known for Vijayanagar Empire, is promoting worship of Tipu Sultan. The Congress is insulting our rich tradition,” he said apparently attempting to divide the society on religious lines.

This is not the first time that such language with communal overtones is being used in the south Indian state ahead of the elections. Recently, T Raja Singh Lodh, a legislator of the saffron party from Telangana, addressing the Virat Hindu Samavesh convention in Karnataka’s Yadgir district on December 14, called for violence , bragged about ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and said “Hindus must pick up swords”.

He went ahead and called Tipu a “harami” (an abuse), accusing the emperor of converting Hindus into Muslims.

“Whosoever comes in path of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu Nation), his existence will be wiped out. We will not spare them,” Lodh reportedly said. He represents Goshamal constituency in Hyderabad.

“I promise you that integral ‘Hindu Rashtra’ will come into existence, but we will have to fight for it. Brothers, prepare yourself, because we need to learn to wield swords,” he said.
“Why do we need to learn it? To protect our country, our religion. To turn the dream of the Hindu rashtra into a reality,” he said.

“Every Hindu must keep arms in their houses. If you don’t have weapons, neither can you save yourself nor your family,” he added.

If its recent strategies are something to go by, the BJP is looking ahead of the complex caste combinations in the state to reach out to all fragmented Hindu voters and isolate the Congress. The party, which came to power at the Centre on the slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (collective efforts, inclusive growth), seems to have shifted to the narrative that “if Congress can use casteism or social engineering, why should we not use religion”.

Analysts say that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who came to power by successfully consolidating the AHINDA (acronym for minorities, Dalits and backward classes) support base in 2013, continues to hold the controversial castes combination that is likely to challenge the Lingayat-Vokkaliga dominant narrative. Therefore, the BJP does not want to leave any stone unturned and is banking on its Hindutva strategy, which is likely to make next year’s polls one of the most polarised elections in the state’s history.

In the 225-member (224+1 nominated) Assembly in Karnata, the Congress has 123 MLAs in addition to the Speaker, the BJP has 44, the Janata Dal (Secular) has 31 plus 8 rebels, 16 independents and two seats are lying vacant. The majority mark stands at 113.

Courtesy: Newsclick.

The Meaning of Jignesh Mevani

December 23, 2017

Photo credit: New Indian Express

The rise of Jignesh Mevani constitutes a significant landmark in the political configuration in which the Congress has risen, despite itself, from a state of utter disarray to become the point of articulation for a possible political realignment in the near future. The process of political reconfiguration had already begun as a very significant section of the powerful patidar community, long understood to be the bedrock of the BJP’s social base in the state, had broken away from it. But alongside this, the rise of the young leaders Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani together produced the new young face of emergent Gujarat.

There is no doubt that the vacuum that characterized the space where the opposition should have been, no longer exists. The masthead of a new opposition formation is evident on the horizon. This turnaround in the fortunes of the Congress would not have been possible without the re-alignments in the non-electoral arena, facilitated in no small measure by the rise of this young leadership.

Jignesh Mevani’s resounding victory from Vadgam constituency in Banaskantha district by over 18,000 votes over his BJP rival Vijai Chakravarti, is an important event in the state’s history. Mevani’s political rise came in the wake of the Una floggings of four Dalit youth supposedly suspected of having killed a cow. That vigilante action of the cow protectors, in July 2016, called forth a massive movement of unprecedented militancy from sections of the state’s Dalit population. And leading that struggle was the 36 year old lawyer, Jignesh Mevani, who famously coined the slogan the ‘you keep the cow’s tail/ give us our land’. The movement took the form of an ‘Azadi Kooch’ or the ‘March for Freedom’, where Dalits in large numbers took an oath that they would not henceforth lift carcasses of dead cows.

The decisive intervention by Mevani in that struggle was characterized by two very distinctive features. First, it raised the question of land that had supposedly been earmarked for Dalits but had never been transferred to them. Mevani’s demand for the transfer of land to Dalits was not just a vacuous slogan – for he had done detailed homework about the precise lands in question and their legal status. His interest in the land question has been quite unique insofar as contemporary Dalit politics is concerned, for it is based on the recognition that while questions of identity and self-respect are important they cannot be ensured while remaining in the prison-house of what has come to be called ‘identity’ politics. His was not a mere middle class oriented Dalit discourse for it recognized without hesitation that questions of class and economic freedom were central for the large masses Dalits throughout the country.

It is important to underline here, in parenthesis – and I have made this argument at length on many other occasions – that what is loosely called ‘identity politics’ is not necessarily opposed to economic and class questions (ref: the tired Western debate on ‘recognition’ versus redistribution). Indeed, lower caste movements, and the Dalit movement in particular, have long had land on their agenda, through the early twentieth century, for instance in Kerala. Lately however, in the politics of the BSP, RPI (one of whose luminaries is part of the present government) and some other strands of the contemporary Dalit movement, the question of social justice and self-respect has been evacuated of all economic content. One exception is the agenda of Dalit capitalism that came out of the 2001 Bhopal Conference, where identity and economic questions were clearly tied together – but that did not really concern the poorest of the poor Dalits who did not have the resources to become entrepreneurs. In that sense, the the politics of the last few decades has seen the excision of economic questions from the agenda of self-respect and freedom, turning it into a purely ‘identity’ issue. That is where the novelty of Mevani’s intervention lay – in bringing together these two concerns into a single agenda.

Second, Mevani’s stamp was evident in the very selection of the name for the movement ‘Azadi Kooch’ – recalling the viral Azadi slogans that had reverberated in and from JNU earlier and which had been cast as ‘anti-national’ by the government, the ruling party and the RSS. Azadi was deftly tied up with the question of Dalit emancipation and immediately established connections with other movements and struggles elsewhere in the country. And the connection was not simply ideational. He established direct connections with young student leaders from JNU, Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid, Umar Khalid and many others like the late Gauri Lankesh, who became part of the new kind of emergent left-wing sensibility in different parts of India.

Jignesh Mevani had had his earlier ‘training’ in politics of a different sort with the charismatic lawyer Mukul Sinha, who had been fighting many of the cases of the victims of the 2002 carnage as well as of ‘fake encounters’ in the state. Sinha was a lawyer but he was also an organizer and ran a left wing organization by the name of New Socialist Movement based in Ahmedabad that works among the city’s poor residents. Mevani is quite forthright in accepting his debt to Sinha insofar as his exposure to a certain left-wing sensibility is concerned.

Later, as Mevani began to get involved in mass politics he also got involved with the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat and left it only when the Una movement gathered momentum and the BJP used his AAP connection to attack the movement as ‘politically motivated’. However, repeatedly, it has been evident that Mevani’s fidelity to the Dalit struggles notwithstanding, he was not just another Dalit leader who was unconcerned about the other political questions that India is faced with today.

Repeatedly, through his election campaign, Mevani has made it clear that confronting the ‘fascist threat’ was of paramount importance – without the defeat of the Hindutva forces there would be no liberation for the Dalits. Hence his insistence that it was not only about supporting the Congress against the BJP, in the false equivalence that the big media continuously tried to set up. In his understanding therefore, politics rather than birth is crucial in determining political strategy: a Dalit-cause-supporting non-dalit counts for more than a right-wing, RSS-and Manuvad-supporting Dalit. That was why Jignesh Mevani was able to garner support for his explicitly Dalit agenda from so many different sections and political currents.

In fact, it was this that not only made possible Jignesh’s emergence as a leader, a point of articulation, where a range of different kinds of people could invest their hopes in him. His election campaign too bore the stamp of this distinctiveness. The funds were crowd-sourced and many different kinds of people contributed to his campaign. But actual monetary funding is only a small part of the huge mobilization that took place as volunteers from all parts of India landed up in Vadgam to help in the campaign and local supporters provided their hospitality in putting up and feeding the volunteers.

Whatever the pitfalls of entering the privileged portals of the Assembly against which Jignesh will no doubt have to guard, there is little doubt that this is a moment full of possibility for the articulation of a Dalit-Bahujan oriented left-wing politics – not just in Gujarat but elsewhere in the country. And Jignesh, who stands at the intersection of many different currents, is the messenger of that new politics.

Republished with permission from Kafila.

Making Sense of Afrazul’s Lynching

December 23, 2017

Photos credit: Scroll

It was mind numbing to watch those visuals. A man armed with an axe, attacking another from behind, chopping him up and putting his body on fire. To top it all, it was all filmed by a fourteen-year-old. The fact that the camera did not shake in this teenager’s hand is perhaps a pointer to the larger dystopia in which we are entering. The boy’s firm hold of the camera is a signifier of the death of the generation of innocence. The act of killing was done for the camera. It was a performance. Afrazul was to be killed for the consumption of those images and the underlying message behind it which makes Afrazul incidental to the plot. Any Muslim would have easily replaced him. But a labourer from Bengal, a poor Muslim was an easy target as he would not have deep roots within the city or the locality. Nationalism, after all, picks up the most vulnerable to make statements of valour and bravery.

There were systematic attempts to portray the act as the vile expression of a demented mind. Who would do such a thing, we were asked. However, the ‘disturbed mind’ theory is a diversionary tactic as it later turned out that Shambhulal Raigar did not exhibit any such behaviour in the past. Then there were attempts not to see this as another example of Muslim lynching. Humanity died, proclaimed many a headline conveniently forgetting that the human who was killed had a name and a religion. Convenience also plays a part in glossing over the fact that Muslims have been lynched with rather agonizing yet monotonous regularity, particularly in the state of Rajasthan where the Chief Minister has at one time been a liberal herself.

What also got lost in the din was the more ominous fact that those accused of similar crimes in the same state today walk free. Impunity is a culture which is promoted by state complicity. In this case, it is absolutely clear that the motive and purpose behind the public act of murder was to send across a message. Two different sets of constituencies were being addressed here: the fanatic Hindus who despite their proclaimed vegetarianism bay for the blood of Muslims and secondly to the Muslims who were being told to ‘behave’ themselves.

For a person who lost his livelihood due to demonetization, the fury he unleashed on Afrazul that day was not without a method. Making prior and post videos of the incident and then circulating it widely points to a deeper problem. And that means that Afrazul was minor to the whole scheme; the point was to paint an entire community as guilty of engaging in love-jihad and therefore the proposed punishment was not just for Afrazul but for the entire community. In a way, the entire community has been marked out by the Hindu fanatics as deserving of such a fate when they cross a line. It matters little whether Afrazul was engaged in some kind of love jihad or not, what matters is the perception that has been created among a section of Hindus against the Muslim community. Fuelled by absolute hatred coupled with fantastic ideas with no material basis at all, this discourse about Muslims has many takers. One can only see the many voices which have emerged to save the accused to get to the sense that something within our society is deeply rotten.

Shambhulal Raigar did this horrible enactment on the 6th of December and this symbolism cannot just be a coincidence. We all know that the mosque got demolished on 6th December and that is celebrated as Shaurya divas (victory day) by Hindu nationalists. What fitting tribute to the memory of that victory than to kill a Muslim? Of course, the similarity does not end there. Like the Babri mosque which stood in a forlorn state, Afrazul was also alone in the city, cut out from his roots and community network. What is also worth mentioning is that 6th of December is also the day of empowerment for millions of Indian Dalits. Nationalist Hinduism has always tried to appropriate the Dalits within the broader Hindu fold. We saw this in the case of Babri demolition, in Gujarat and now in Rajasthan. For the average Dalit, this gives them the opportunity of acceptance within the Hindu social order.

Those who talk about Dalit Muslim identity always gloss over the fact that there has been a slow Hinduisation of various Dalit castes. On the other hand, it is also true that Muslims, by and large, including low caste Muslims have shunned the Dalits because of their deep-rooted prejudice and casteist attitudes. In the absence of a dialogic relationship between Muslims and Dalits, the nationalist Hindus have worked hard to bring the Dalits into their fold and infuse them with nationalist ideas. Generally, no one should have a problem with nationalism. However, the peculiar variety of our kind of nationalism has only translated into being synonymous with anti-Muslim ideas and practices. The average Dalit today is as rabid anti-Muslim as one would expect anyone under the influence of Hindu nationalist ideology.

What is most distressing was the attempt on part of the media to portray it as the handiwork of some abnormal mind. There was hardly any talk in terms of how an ideology which manufactures hates against Muslims can be responsible for this. There was no discussion on how this was a targeted killing of a Muslim. And there was no discussion on how this kind of killing would go on until the killers or potential killers are assured of immunity. There are credible reports that some Hindu nationalists are collecting money to be donated to Shambhulal’s family and there are others who are readying themselves for legal support. What it tells us that the virus of hate runs deep within a section of Hindu society and that they largely see this as a justified act of revenge.

There has been an outpouring of grief on the social media and elsewhere for Afrazul. However, they are nowhere close to what we witnessed in other cases. It is sad but true that we live in times when Muslim lives matter less than other lives. Those who organised protests against the lynching of Afrazul were also not convinced that this has to be talked about as a specific hate crime against Muslim identity. As if to appear politically correct, they insert another line in their campaign—all lives matter. This meant that the protest was not specifically about Muslims being lynched but also about others meeting the same fate.

Let me add a caveat here. I am not saying that one should not protest against all kinds of lynching and other forms of oppression. But in a context where Muslim lives have become precarious for the precise reason of being Muslim; then the protest against Afrazul’s killing should have made this statement boldly. In trying a balancing act, these protests have only reduced the depraved ideological gravity of this targeted killing. It was also a little rich that some of these protests were organised by those who had defended the killings of Muslims in Nandigram and Singur. If Hindu nationalism has to resurrect itself on dismembered bodies of Muslims, then it is Muslims themselves who should be at the forefront of protesting against this barbaric dystopia for it is the Muslim alone who can feel the pain of being Muslim in India today.

Arshad Alam is a www.NewAgeIslam.com columnist

Republished with permission from New Age Islam.

Neta Glamour Will Help My Grassroots Work: Jignesh Mevani

December 22, 2017

Basking in his significant electoral debut, young Dalit icon, Jignesh Mevani speaks to Teesta Setalvad in this exclusive interview:

“A huge amount of positive energy was generated during this campaign though the BJP did all it can to malign me,” says Mevani

“I shall traverse the country and mobilize Indian youth, Dalit youth against unemployment and expose this regime,” says Mevani

“Karnataka will be my first priority where I will be ten days of every month until the state elections. I will also demand justice for Gauri Amma,” says Mevani

“It is a victory of the people of Vadgam. All castes and communities backed me to ensure my win. The BJP used dirty slander against me,” says Mevani

“Fascists do not believe in free and fair elections. So, we must return to the paper ballot,” says Mevani

Christmas as a symbol of Democracy

December 22, 2017

It could have been said a long time ago, but Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India was not too late in saying the faith of the Christian community has become shaky in the wake of increased attacks on Christians and members of the clergy. There was more he could perhaps have said as he listened two Catholic priests and 30 seminarians who had a close brush with death in Satna, Madhya Pradesh, where they had gone to sing Christmas Carols, but were assaulted, their cars burnt, and to rub in the political reality of the day, they found themselves in jail on charges of fraudulent and forcible conversion of local people to Christianity.

Image: picscristmas.com

It was a ridiculous tableau. But a dangerous one. India has found 2017 a year of hate, and bloodshed. With elections in Gujarat, and more coming in the new year ending in the general elections in 2019, the atmosphere is already surcharged. The Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, has led from the front in radicalising his vote bank with his challenge to the Congress and the opposition, asking them “do you want a Ram Mandir, or not?”. Muslims and Dalits face lynching at the hands of self-styled Gau Rakshaks, or cow protectors, almost daily, sometimes even in the national capital New Delhi. With impunity at its peak, and much of the young cadres of the police force indoctrinated in the Hindutva theology, it is the Dalit, the Muslim and the Christian victim of violence who finds himself in jail.

“The anxiety of the religious minorities is increasing because of the lack of confidence in the administration. So, the onus is on the government to bring back the confidence of religious minorities.”

Every Christmas season these last twenty years, since the National Democratic Alliance under the great Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee took the reins of power in New Delhi – they already were rulers in many of the provinces, or States – Christians have their Joy of Christmas mixed with just a tinge of fear.

Churches across the countries now have more closed circuit TV and long lengths of bared or blade wire on their high walls. Police, many armed, will be deployed in front of major churches in the National Capital, and elsewhere. It is the new normal. In Kandhamal in Odisha, scene of two rounds of a systematic pogrom in 2007-08 – 120 killed, scores raped, 320 churches burnt, 6,000 houses demolished and 60,000 Christians forced to flee by hoodlums of the collective Sangh Parivar under the benign gaze of local police and civil officials – an assertive survivor community celebrates the birth of their Saviour hoping the police around them will protect them, just in case, and not turn on them.

Impunity reigns, drawing strength from Mr Modi who infamously made longer Christmas into Good Governance Day, and his patron, Mr Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS chief, proclaiming that everyone in India is a Hindu, or else. His lieutenants have translated that into hate speech calling for action – violence ranging from a thrashing of a priest to the molestation of a woman, or a full-bodied assault that threatens death.

More than 700 cases of attacks on Christians were reported on the United Christian Forum (UCF) toll free helpline number 1800-208-4545 since 2014. Last year, 216 incidents were recorded and this year 216 incidents have already been reported as on date.

Out of 29 states in India, at least 19 regularly witness attacks on Christians. Tamil Nadu tops the list with 41 incidents as on November 30th followed by Chhattisgarh (39) Uttar Pradesh (27), Madhya Pradesh (22), Maharashtra (16).

The Modi Government admitted in Parliament on the 7th of February this year that over the last three years, over 278 persons, most Muslims, have been killed and over 6,500 people were injured due to communal violence in over 2000 incidents. The World Watch List 2017, ranks India 15th in the list of countries where the practice of the faith is a high-risk activity. India was ranked 31 only four years ago. the police filed complaints only 43 criminal complaints or First Information Reports (FIRs) despite the information about attacks against Christians being provided repeatedly to them in over 200 incidents.
The data is incomplete.

The fear high.

But then, Christmas is also a reminder of Herod and Cesar.

That it will pass off with minimal violence is a test of India’s democratic and secular tradition.

(John Dayal is a human rights and political activist. He is a member of the National Integration Council (NIC) of India, Secretary-General of the All India Christian Council and a past president of the All India Catholic Union.)

The UPCOCA Potential Weapon to Suppress Dissent

December 22, 2017

Pointers to What Makes UPCOCA a ‘Draconian’ Bill

The Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime (UPCOCA) Bill, instead of fighting organised crime, might be used as a weapon to criminalise dissent, attack political rivals and voices of dissent and target religious minorities.

The UP cabinet passed this Bill last week. This Bill is considered “draconian” as, instead of fighting organised crime and land and mining mafia as intended, it is feared that it will be used as a weapon to settle political scores, suppress rivals and voices of dissent and target religious minorities. The proposed law was tabled in the Assembly on December 20 for discussion, after it was approved by the State Cabinet a week back. The bill has been prepared on the lines of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

MCOCA was also widely criticised when it was enacted in Maharashtra.

Predictably, it is the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state considers the proposed law “efficient” to combat organised crime, opposition parties have come together to disapprove of it. Former Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has opposed the bill, saying that it was only being brought to “intimidate leaders of other political parties” and “deceive the people”.“First the CM said law and order would improve after encounters. But it only got worse. Now they are saying UPCOCA. This is to deceive the people…UPCOCA will not improve law and order,” he said, recalling the recent murder of a former BJP MLA’s son in the heart of Lucknow.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and four-time former Chief Minister Mayawati has said that the UPCOCA will be used for the “suppression of Dalits, poor and religious minorities”.

Some of the crimes defined under the UPCOCA are — land grab (government and non-state property), illegal mining, manufacture and sale of illegal medicines and illicit liquor, money laundering, wildlife smuggling, extortion, abduction syndicate, hafta collection, murder, conspiracy to murder and white-collar offences.

The Bill says that whoever conspires or attempts to commit or advocates, abets or knowingly facilitates the commission of an organised crime or any act preparatory to such an organised crime, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years but which may be extended to life imprisonment along with a fine of minimum of Rs. 15 lakh.

The UPCOCA has 28 provisions in addition to the Gangsters Act, the existing law against organised crime in U.P.

Provisions that May be Misused

1. No bail for 6 months: The accused booked under the UPCOCA will not be able to secure bail before six months of their arrest (this goes back to laws like POTA and TADA).

2. The proposed law has a provision for prolonged police remand of 30 days for an accused, apart from his closed-door interrogation. This also won’t allow those taken into custody, on the basis of doubts, to get bail early.

3. The convicts would face a minimum jail term of three years and a maximum of life imprisonment or even death sentence. It also levies a fine of Rs 5 lakh to 25 lakhs and extends the period of filing a charge sheet from 90 days to 180 days.

4. The proposed Bill has shifted the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused, violating the basic principle of the criminal law that says everyone is innocent until proven guilty. If the person has to prove his or her own innocence, who will conduct the investigation?

5. The confessional statements made before the police will be the final. This contradicts CrPC, under which only a statement made before a magistrate will be admissible as confession and only when they are made voluntarily.

6. Instead of organising identification parade, the police will get the accused identified through videos and photos that can easily be tampered with.

7. The provisions of the UPCOCA states that those arrested under the Act will be lodged in the high-security area of the jail. Only after the permission of the district magistrate, their relatives or associates will be able to meet them in the jail and only after the approval of the medical board, the accused will be granted permission to stay in in the hospital for more than 36 hours.

8. The UPCOCA law would give special powers to the police to arrest accused and members of the crime syndicates. Under the proposed Bill, the state would be empowered to seize the property of such people after taking the consent of a special court constituted to hear the cases – a provision which is already there in the Gangster Act.

9. The new Bill will allow the state to confiscate such assets after the conviction. As in the case of the MCOCA, the UPCOCA will also empower the police to intercept wire, electronic or oral communications and present them before a court as evidence against the accused.

10. One of the provisions of the proposed Bill requires journalists to take permission from competent authorities before publishing anything on organised crime. “… passing on or publication of, without any lawful authority, of any information likely to assist organised crime syndicate, and the passing on, or publication of, or distribution of any document, or matter, obtained from the organised crime syndicate,” says the bill.
What the UP Government is Saying in the Bill’s Defence

The government argues that the Bill has provisions to check misuse. Here is how: (a) cases under the proposed UPCOCA would be filed only after the approval of a two-member committee comprising the Divisional Commissioner and a DIG-rank officer, (b) the permission of the zonal IG will be required before filing the charge sheet, (c) assets would be taken over by the state with the permission of the court and (d) special court would be constituted for hearing cases under the proposed law – which proposes a state-level organised crime control authority.

Activists Apprehend Misuse

Civil rights activists are clear that this Bill, if it becomes law, will be used to “curb the voices of dissent”.

“In addition to other objectionable provisions, shifting the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused to prove his or her innocence makes the proposed bill draconian like TADA and POTA,” senior activists told Sabrangindia.

Why is media being brought under the proposed law? This move is “meant not only to persecute the opposition but also to harass media and prevent it from writing about the dark corridors of crime. This is an attempt to put a gag on the media”.“Complicating the procedure of the accused meeting the relatives and associates is clearly a violation of his or her basic rights,” he further added.

The UP government has been criticised for a spate of “extra-judicial killings”, all in the name of eradicating criminals in the past six months. With an even more unaccountable law, the chances of such intemperate and unlawful acts will increase.

After the Yogi Adityanath government came to power in Uttar Pradesh with a promise to improve law and order, encounters appear to have been taken up as part of a new strategy to control crime. Data released by the government said more than 430 encounters have been carried out over the last six months, which roughly means one encounter happened every 12 hours.

The Chief Minister recently said, “Criminals will be jailed or killed in encounters”. Taking suo moto cognizance of the report, the National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the UP Chief Secretary calling for a detailed report on the matter.

“NHRC has taken suo moto cognizance of media reports about the Government of Uttar Pradesh, allegedly, endorsing killings in encounters by police seeking improvement in law and order situation in the State,” the human rights body said in a statement.

“It has observed that even if the law and order situation is grave, the State cannot resort to such mechanism, which may result in the extrajudicial killings of the alleged criminals. The reported statement of the Chief Minister tantamounts to giving police and other State governed forces, a free hand to deal with the criminals at their will and, possibly, it may result into abuse of power by the public servants.”

“It is not good for a civilized society to develop an atmosphere of fear, emerging out of certain policies adopted by the State, which may result into violation of their right to life and equality before the law,” said the NHRC statement.

They are spying on us and we know it

December 22, 2017

Instant messaging has become the main digital tool for social and political activism. As its use expands, so do doubts about its confidentiality. Español Português

Demonstration against PRISM in Berlin, organized by the Pirate Party, during United States president Barack Obama’s visit. Mike Herbst/Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

For some years now, we have been witnessing the emergence of relational, cross-over, participative power. This is the territory that gives technopolitics its meaning and prominence, the basis on which a new vision of democracy – more open, more direct, more interactive – is being developed and embraced. It is a framework that overcomes the closed architecture on which the praxis of governance (closed, hierarchical, one-way) have been cemented in almost all areas. The series The ecosystem of open democracy explores the different aspects of this ongoing transformation.

Freedom of expression is one of the pillars of modern democracy, and the right to the privacy of our communications is a part of it. During the last century it was said that, in some dictatorships, they opened letters with steam – so that the peeping could go unnoticed -, they read the contents – to detect divergent thinking -, they closed the envelopes again, and let the letters reach their addressees – to avoid suspicions.

Today, when we send a message from the simulated intimacy our electronic devices give us, it is traced by a complex communication intercepting system. The root cause of the problem is this: the internet is a network designed for sharing information which, at the time it was created, was not intended for its current use – nor was the problem of privacy taken into account.

The problem is bigger than we can possibly measure. Whenever we connect to a website that does not have https – when a little padlock appears in our url – all the interactions we make are clear. This means that anyone who is viewing our connection – which goes through several intermediate servers – can read everything we write – passwords, emails, attachments – in addition to the url we are visiting.

When we talk about virtual communications, e-mail and messaging apps, the issue becomes even more complex. Gmail and Hotmail, the two most common providers, know all the content of all the emails we store with them. WhatsApp has been encrypted since April 2016 – but messages only. Telegram uses other encryption versions, and traditional SMS are not encrypted. In short: it is very easy to spy on us.

Massive spying
The internet design has always been the problem, but not even the most paranoid hacker in the world would have imagined the terrifying picture Snowden introduced us to in June 2013. The Five Eyes Alliance – the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK – spies on all internet users on a consistent, systematic and cumulative basis. Not a minor detail is the fact that the US invented the internet in the first place, and that it is the country that controls it the most.

Yahoo gave the National Security Agency (NSA), the US agency dedicated to digital espionage, full access to all its users’ emails. Google responded to the NSA’s requests but did not give them full access, and since the NSA deemed it insufficient, it chose to illegally enter Google’s servers and check the information anyway. No Internet company is free from these pressures.

Your electronic devices spy on you. It is not only Wikileaks that says so, but a US court: your SmartTV spies on you without asking for your consent. It not only records everything you are watching, but even when it is not on it can record and share your private conversations. The same thing happens when we activate our cell phone’s voice control: it listens to us.

All these data are being processed with the aim of spying on us massively. In this process, metadata are crucially important. Metadata are the data which describe the data: date of creation, modifications, size, format, GPS coordinates, among others. It is on the basis of this information that behaviours can be determined which the agencies analyze so as to gauge the degree of surveillance they need to apply to us.

Ads on the internet work in a similar way: how many times, after seeing a particular product on some web, does not this product chase us through ads on the other websites we visit? This is only advertising; just imagine what spy agencies can do. Think about what might happen if, by any chance, you have the misfortune to coincide twice in the same site as a person who is under government surveillance.

Programs to infect
Digital espionage is not only massive, it is also customized. The Five Eyes Alliance has been spying on government leaders like Angela Merkel, internet tycoons like Kim Dotcom, and has become so pervasive that even Donald Trump dares to be frivolous about it.

You can spy on a device in many different ways and to different effects: capturing everything written, sending all the actions you perform while browsing, accessing all your WhatsApp messages, using the webcam and the microphone unnoticed – among many others. The problem is so real that even Mark Zuckerberg and James Comey – director of Facebook and the FBI respectively – taped their laptop webcam as an anti-espionage measure.

There are companies like Hacking Team that sell spyware and their main clients are governments. Their exploits – i.e. programs for taking control over a computer – can be attached to a Word file and take control of your Mac or PC unnoticed, when the file is opened. Among Hacking Team’s top customers: the governments of Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Chile.

But you do not have to be a government: a simple internet search can offer you some very advanced program licenses at a small cost – about 50 USD dollars. The slogan of one of the most popular of these programs is: “If you are in a committed relationship, have children, or manage employees, you have the right to know! Discover the truth, spy on their cell phone.

The importance of privacy
“Arguing that you do not care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you do not care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say”, Edward Snowden famously said in a debate on Reddit in 2015. There is nothing better than putting oneself in his position as a whistleblower to understand what is to be done.

Due the complexity of modern society, it is very often individuals with no media connections who get to know about some malpractice, a case of corruption, or a violation of human rights. Probably, their access to this information comes from knowledge picked up at their workplace, or at an organization they belong to, or the place where they live. If they publicly denounce this situation, it is quite likely that their way of life will be severely affected. In many cases, even if they denounce the fact anonymously, the accused may deduce the source.
Every society needs its citizens to denounce acts which harm and corrupt the community. But it must protect those who, through an act of courage, put themselves at risk by denouncing corruption, malpractices, or violations of human rights. This protection must be offered by both civil society and the state – through specific legislation protecting and encouraging whistleblowing.

In most Latin American countries there is no protection available for whistleblowers, nor is there an agency that protects officials who report malpractices within the public sector. This being so, and while we keep on waiting for protection mechanisms to be set up, civil society must propose measures so that people can report anonymously and safely. This can only be achieved with encryption.

If you do not have the key, it is not safe
In the physical space, when we want to keep something safe, we put it under lock and key. No one would ever think that a keyless door is safe. In the digital world you have to ask the same question: who has the key?

The first service to doubt is WhatsApp. They tell us they encrypt everything, but we do not have the key. We do not even have to put a password to generate it: from our number, the messaging service itself generates a key – which, of course, it controls. Messages are encrypted, but whenever WhatsApp (or its owner, Facebook) wants to, it can read them. The same happens with any other service that we do not have a password for.

The most common system for encrypting communications is PGP, which literally means “Pretty Good Privacy”. It works with a public key system, which you share with everyone else, and a private key, which you are the only one to have. When someone wants to send you a message, they cipher it with your public key and you are the only one who can decipher it with your private key. The equivalent in the physical world would be to distribute open padlocks which, once closed, you are the only one who can open them.

Encrypting is the only way to keep communications and files private. If you have to send a message that you do not want to be tracked, forget about messaging and use PGP mail. Even better: use your own servers or non-intrusive services like riseup.net. For more information on this, check Tactical Tech’s Security in a Box manuals.
Arguing that you do not care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you do not care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

The future of communications
There is currently considerable tension between encryption and national security, and the national security theses have the upper hand. In 2014, the most heavily used and robust encryption program was discontinued for no apparent reason. In 2015, a judge in Spain considered the use of Riseup and encryption in private communications an aggravated circumstance. In 2016, the FBI admitted that it could break the iPhone encryption, and refused to share its finding with Apple.

These are just three examples, and we could go dig much deeper, but in the end we have to accept reality: our communications are becoming increasingly insecure. It is a global problem, which the non-politicized citizen has, and so does any activist, journalist, businessman, policeman or whistleblower. We are all on the same boat.

In order to change this trend and allow for safer communications, our governments should start promoting and distributing free software tools. This is the path that cities like Munich have begun to follow which, in the long run, will help them to break free from the big multinational corporations and become self-sufficient in information technology and information management in a democratic context. Just think about this: in order to govern your country, all your MPs are using software that is owned and controlled by US companies – and yes, you can be sure that they are listening to them too.

Eduard Martín-Borregón is a data journalist who specializes in digital security. He is currently Coordinator of Technologies for Transparency at PODER, an organization that co-founded Méxicoleaks and Perúleaks, and promotes the creation of new anonymous and safe whistleblowing platforms in the region.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net

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