Calcutta High Court sets aside restrictions on Durga idol immersion by Mamata government

September 22, 2017

The West Bengal government had issued an order banning idol immersion after 10pm on September 30, the last day of the five-day festival, and on October 1 on account of Muharram.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the inauguration of Durga Puja pandal on the occasion of ‘Mahalaya’, in Kolkata on September 19, 2017. Photo credit: PTI

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday set aside the Mamata Banerjee government’s order banning immersion of Durga idols on Moharram and directed the police to ensure adequate security arrangements to avoid any communal flare-up.

The West Bengal government had earlier issued an order banning idol immersion after 10pm on September 30, the last day of the five-day festival, and on October 1 on account of Muharram.

A division bench of acting chief justice Rakesh Tiwari and justice Harish Tandon took the view that the government order was arbitrary. The justices directed the police to chalk out separate procession routes for Durga Puja and Moharram processions on September 30 (Vijaya Dashami) and October 1 (Moharram). Immersion of the goddess’ idols marks the end of the 5-day Durga Puja.

Responding to the judgment, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said if there was any violence on October 1, the “conspirators” will be responsible. The reference was clearly to the BJP and the sangh parivar who have repeatedly accused her of Muslim appeasement.

“Someone can even slit my throat, but I will not succumb to conspiracy,” Banerjee said while inaugurating a community Durga puja in south Kolkata, without referring to the high court order.

Speaking at a Puja pandal in south Kolkota a day before the judgment, the chief minister asked why no one accused her of Hindu appeasement when she attended Durga or Ganesh festivals.

Insisting that the government order on restricting idol immersion had nothing to do with appeasement she had declared, “If this is appeasement I shall continue to do so as long as I am alive. I will do it even if a gun is held to my head. I don’t discriminate. That’s the culture of Bengal, that’s my culture.

While many had called the government’s two-week old order as an infringement on fundamental rights, the government had held that maintaining law and order at a time when large numbers of people are on the streets was the sole concern.

Stop Forced Evictions & Rights Violations in Chennai: CM Petitioned

September 21, 2017

A mass signature campaign to Thiru Edappadi K. Palaniswami, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, petitions him on the forced evictions of small dwellings in Chennai urges him to stop these violations.

The evictions are taking place in the name and guise of of ‘restoration of water bodies and disaster management,’ the petition alleges. The two most recent incidents of forced eviction on September 9 and September 15, 2017 stand in violation of India’s international and national human rights obligations and commitments.

In response to a 2015 order of the Madras High Court to take “expeditious steps for early removal of encroachments by construction of alternative tenements,” the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), Public Works Department (PWD), and Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB), as part of the Cooum River Eco-Restoration Project of the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (CRRT) have been undertaking joint department surveys and started the eviction process in November 2016, which recommenced in September 2017.

The state, however, has only applied the court’s order to low-income settlements and homes of the urban poor along the Couum River, not to other commercial establishments that could also be considered ‘encroachments.’ Two instances of forced eviction already have taken place in Chennai, on September 9 and September 15, 2017. In both these evictions, reportedly, the state did not follow due process, including providing affected persons with adequate legal notices, conducting consultations/public hearings, and providing them with information on the resettlement site, the resettlement package, location of the alternative houses, and nature of tenure at the resettlement site.

On September 9, 2017, reportedly, the GCC evicted 347 families at MSP Nagar in Maduravoyal. Even though the Corporation claims to have provided families 400 square feet houses worth Rs 16 lakh (1,600,000) in Gudapakkam near Thirumazhisai, the resettlement site is located at a distance of 24.3 kilometres from people’s current sites of residence. Relocation could thus lead to loss of livelihoods and education. The evicted families are also concerned that the eviction has taken place in the middle of the academic year, thereby impacting children’s right to education.[1]

On September 15, 2017, GCC evicted 46 families that had been living along the banks of the Cooum River at Aminjikarai for more than 10 years and shifted them to the remote relocation site of Perumbakkam, situated at a distance of 30 kilometres from Aminjikarai. This drive was undertaken by GCC under CRRT.[2] The eviction came as a surprise for residents, as they had not been given any official notice. They alleged that they had been verbally informed to move out of their homes on Tuesday, September 13; the demolition took place on Thursday, September 15, in the morning at 7 a.m. The corporation’s eviction drive did not touch the mall in Aminjikarai, but has rendered low-income families living along the river homeless. This reveals the arbitrary nature of implementing the court order and discriminating against the urban poor. Furthermore, the residents were informed that they would be shifted to the resettlement site at Gudapakkam. However on the day of the eviction, the officials from GCC informed the affected persons that they were being shifted to Perumbakkam. This came as a rude shock to the families.

By forcefully evicting and relocating families from the banks of Cooum River, the Government of Tamil Nadu has violated their human rights. The state did not carry out any Social Impact Assessment (SIA) to identify the adverse impacts of the resettlement; neither has it prepared any Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) to mitigate identified adverse impacts. The poor and marginalized are being pushed to the fringes of the city in the mid-academic year. This could result in an increased school drop-out rate and loss of employment/livelihoods of affected persons. There is also no adequate mechanism for grievance redress for the affected persons.

Violations of National and International Human Rights Law:
The petition argues that these evictions are in violation of both national and international law: The demolitions in Chennai indicate a violation of the human right to adequate housing. These forced evictions without adequate rehabilitation violate the affected people’s fundamental right to life and livelihood as enshrined in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Reaffirming the principle of indivisibility of all human rights, the fundamental right to life encompasses the right to live with human dignity. Furthermore, Article 14 of the Constitution of India guarantees equal protection under law. The demolitions in Chennai also contravene the provisions of the central government’s scheme called Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or Housing for All by 2022.

By these evictions, the local authorities have breached their treaty obligations under, inter alia, Articles 2, 11, 12, 13, and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which India acceded in 1979. The State has been derelict in its obligations as elaborated in the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comments No. 4 on the right to adequate housing and No. 7 on forced evictions. India also has contravened its obligations under Articles 16, 27, and 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to which it acceded on 11 December 1992, and Article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which it ratified on 9 July 1993.

The UN Commission on Human Rights (in 1993) recognized that forced evictions constitute a “gross violation of human rights, in particular, the right to adequate housing.” The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement (2007) stipulate that evictions must only be carried out in ‘exceptional circumstances’ and in accordance with international law and human rights standards. They present operational guidelines for states to follow before, during, and after evictions. In areas along Cooum River in Chennai, the local government did not follow due process. Officials did not provide any notice of the demolition to residents; neither was any consultation carried out with them.

The Supreme Court of India, in several judgments, has held that the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right emanating from the right to life protected by Article 21 of the Constitution (“No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”). There have been several important court judgments that have clearly established the relation between the right to housing and the right to life as guaranteed by Article 21. In the case of Chameli Singh and Others v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1996), the Court has given a clear understanding of the right to life by stating that the “Right to life guaranteed in any civilized society implies the right to food, water, decent environment, education, medical care and shelter.” The High Court of Delhi in the case Sudama Singh and Others v. Government of Delhi and Anr. (2010) also clearly establishes the duty of the state to uphold the rights to housing and resettlement.

The petition states that the actions against Chennai’s urban poor constitute a violation of their basic human rights to life, security, health, work, and adequate housing; i.e., the right of all women, men and children to gain and sustain a secure place to live in peace and dignity. The authorities have especially violated people’s entitlements to security of tenure and freedom from forced evictions; access to, and benefit from public goods and services; information, capacity and capacity building; participation and self-expression; rights to resettlement and adequate compensation for violations and losses; and physical security and privacy.

Stating that the petitioners are deeply concerned about the plight of the evicted families and those who face the imminent threat of eviction in Chennai, the petition makes the following demands:
1.   Recognizing and upholding the human right to adequate housing, which includes tenure security and the right to freedom from forced evictions, of all residents.
2    Not treating all low-income residents living in informal settlements along rivers and water bodies as “encroachers” and evicting them.
3.   Stopping all forced evictions in Chennai and initiating a participatory human rights-based process to develop solutions aimed at protecting the rights of all residents, including their right to disaster protection.
4    Developing a human rights-based disaster management policy that is based on international guidelines, including the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s Operational Guidelines on the Protection of Persons in Situations of Natural Disasters, and incorporates principles of gender equality, non-discrimination, and ‘do no harm.’
5.    Ensuring the provision of disaster-resistant housing to all low-income groups and assisting them with in situ upgradation where possible.
6.    In areas where in situ upgradation is not possible, ensuring that alternative houses are constructed not more than five kilometres from people’s original places of habitation.
7.    Following due process for any eviction/relocation, including providing adequate notice to all affected families, conducting public hearings and consultations with all potentially affected persons, and fulfilling human rights standards at all resettlement sites, as per the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement.
8.    Granting compensation to all affected persons for any losses and damage incurred during the eviction/relocation process.
9.    Ensuring that resettlement processes are carried out in consultation with the communities at the planning, implementation, and evaluation phases.
10.   Ensuring the continuation of children’s education by providing easy transfer to schools at the resettlement site as well as other support services.
11.   Protecting livelihoods of affected persons by ensuring free bus passes to commute to places of work as well as education, where required.
12.   Implementing India’s national and international legal obligations and upholding judgments of the Honourable Supreme Court of India that have recognized the right to adequate housing as an integral component of the fundamental rights to life.
13.   Implementing recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, in her mission to India report. These include the need to place a moratorium on evictions in India and to end homelessness by the year 2030.[3]
14.   Implementing recommendations related to housing and sustainable urban development made to India under its third Universal Periodic Review (May 2017) and accepted by India.[4]
We await your humane and timely intervention to restore the violated human rights of the affected and to prevent more forced evictions in Chennai and resultant violations of the human rights of the urban poor, who in the absence of low-cost housing options are forced to live in precarious locations.
(Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), New Delhi)
Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC), Chennai

ENDNOTES
[1] ‘Greater Chennai Corporation to evict 46 more families from Cooum bank,’ The Times of India, 13 September 2017. Available at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/corporation-to-evict-46-more-families-from-cooum-bank/articleshow/60485130.cms
[2] ‘46 families evicted from Cooum banks in Chennai,’ The Times of India, 14 September 2017. Available at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/46-families-evicted-from-cooum-banks-in-chennai/articleshow/60511955.cms
[3] Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Mission to India, A/HRC/34/51/Add.1 , January 2017. Available at: http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/34/51/Add.1
[4] Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, India, A/HRC/36/10, July 2017. Available at: https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/document/india/session_27_-_may_2017/a_hrc_36_10_e.pdf

Undeclared Emergency, Mass Arrests & Repression of Farmers & Activists : Chhattisgarh

September 21, 2017

Chhattisgarh is in a state of undeclared emergency as hundreds of farmers and activists, protesting an uncaring government’s serious rights violations have been illegally detained and the media stifled. Arrests and detentions have been taking place all over the state since September 13.

On September 13, 2017, a meeting was held by the Chhattisgarh Kisaan Mazdoor Sangh in Aarang in order to discuss the worsening financial conditions on account of the consistent drought situation in Chhattisgarh over the last three years. In view of the drought, the farmers demanded that the restrictions on all governmental events, state celebrations, inaugurations, foundation stones, Kisan Mela, etc should be imposed in 2017-18 in the state of Chhattisgarh and the entire state be declared drought-affected.

The Kissaan Mahasangh condemned the misappropriation of Gram Panchayat’s funds in Rajnandgaon for the Chief Minister Raman Singh’s honour ceremony. For the last three months, the farmers of the state have been reminding the Bharatiya Janata Party’s promises to them, i.e., 300 rupees bonus, free electricity, loans at zero percent interest, implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee and Rs 2100 for the support cash. At the behest of the strengthening farmers struggle in Chhattisgarh, the state had declared a bonus three months back, but has not delivered on its promises.

The Mazdoor Sangh has demanded for exemption of the farmers debt and electricity bills which have increased multifold on account of this drought situation and non-existent State support.
With an intent to remind the government of their poll promises, and to hold them accountable, it was decided in several meetings all over the state in villages by villagers that the residence of the Chief Minister in Raipur would be gheraod (surrounded) by a huge rally of farmers on 21 September, 2017.

But as the farmers’ struggle gains momentum, the state has been clamping down on it with increased intensity. Arrests and detentions began on September 19.

On September 19, the Sankalp Yatra was to begin from Rajnandgaon.

Rajnandgaon, early morning Sudesh Tekam, trade unionist and farmers leader Ramakant Banjare, Chandu Sahu, Tribal farmers leader Chunni Sahu, Sanjit, Madan Sahu of the Kisan Sangh along with hundreds of other people were arrested. On the same day, Alok Shukla of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan was arrested enroute Rajnandgaon. While Alok Shukla was released, the rest are still in jail. A fortnight before, on August 28, 2017 as many as 50,000 farmers had held a peaceful demonstration and declared their faith in the constitution and the law. Now using Section 151 of the law on preventive detention, the state has clamped down on democratic protest. The law is clear on this matter: after determining whether the person is likely to cause unrest, etc the person is released within 24 hours of arrest on a bond, with or without surety. However, here in Chhattisgarh, the SDM (district magistrate) himself has been missing since the protest !

As farmers struggle to get their constitutional rights heard in these drought conditions, there is an absolute media blackout, with zero news trickling down of the rally and the clampdown. The state proves how little it cares about the farmers who bring food to the plates of all in this “agricultural economy”. Until today, hundreds of farmer leaders have been arrested.

A Longworth ex-MLA and farmers leader Janaklal Thakur 8 other farmer leaders were arrested at 2:30 am last night. In Dhamtari, leaders such as Shatrughan Sahu, Shrikant Sonwani, Purushottam Chandrakar, Shrikant Chandrakar, Chainsingh Sahi, Tejendra Todekar from the Dhamtari Kisaan Mazdoor Mahasangh Dhamtari were arrested when they went to the Collector to submit a memorandum protesting against the imposition of Sec. 144 (Unlawful Assembly) in Dhamtari. Today, AAP leader Sanket Thakur, PUCL President Lakhan Singh, Mahila Adhikar Manch and AAP Durga Jha, CBA Alok Shukla, Ex-Union Minister Arvind Netam, Farmer leader from AAP Anand Mishra, CPM Sanjay Parate, Uttam Jaiswal were arrested. 45 tribal men and women who served as SPOs during the time of Salwa Judum and had come to Raipur for a press conference seeking rehabilitation post the disbanding of Salwa Judum were also arrested. The police searched the residence of farmers leader Jagmohan Baghel and AAP party functionary Samir Khan in Bastar.

The railway station of Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh is being manned by heavy police personnel. Strict checks are in place to ensure that no farmer can reach the protest site by train or by bus. More than 15 cycles have been prohibited from being parked in cycle stands. All roads to the capital of Chhattisgarh Raipur have been barricaded with heavy police presence, the boundaries of all the villages who are rising in protest have been barricaded and no one is being allowed to enter or exit villages, all villagers have been detained within their own villages.

News of more and more arrests trickle every fifteen minutes.

Chhattisgarh is in a state of emergency. All to stifle democratic protests of farmers!

Give Peace A Chance!

September 21, 2017

In a powerful speech to world leaders on September 19, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, kicked off the UN General Assembly 2017. “We are living in a world in pieces”, he warned the leaders; going on to add, “our world is in trouble. People are hurting and angry. They see insecurity rising, inequality growing, conflict spreading and climate changing.”

Image Courtesy: UN.org

Guterres went on to outline seven key threats facing the world, and the major challenges to resolving them: the risk of nuclear conflict, international terrorism, unresolved conflicts and violations of international humanitarian law, climate change, rising inequality, cybersecurity, and the refugee crisis. He concluded with an appeal, “my message to world leaders today: only together, as truly United Nations, can we build a peaceful world and advance human dignity for all.”

The words of the UN Chief which revolved around peace and human dignity, could not have come at a more appropriate time- when several so-called “world leaders” are spewing the venom of hate, violence, war and even indulging in it.The world observes yet another International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) on September 21^st . The day is to “commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.” It is therefore necessary to remind ourselves that each one of us is called to be a channel of peace and that we need to have the courage to hold our leaders accountable in ensuring peace for all.

Very significantly, the theme for this year’s ‘Peace Day’ is “Together for Peace: Respect, Safety and Dignity for All” This theme is based on the TOGETHER global campaign that promotes respect, safety and dignity for everyone forced to flee their homes in search of a better life. TOGETHER brings together the organizations of the United Nations System, the 193 member countries of the United Nations, the private sector, civil society, academic institutions and individual citizens in a global partnership in support of diversity, non-discrimination and acceptance of refugees and migrants.

Many will certainly doubt whether some key leaders will take this timely theme seriously.

Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s military junta continue with the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in their country. More than 400,000 Rohingyas have fled to neighbouring Bangla Desh in just about a month. Appeals from all over the world to stop this genocide have been ignored. In total violation of the past track record, India has closed the doors to the persecuted and helpless refugees.

The war in Syria is in its seventh year. Violence continues in South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Congo and other parts of Africa. The hopes for lasting peace in Colombia, Venezuela and elsewhere in South America remains an illusion. Trump continues to breathe war on several nations across the globe. Duterte in the Philippines has no qualms of conscience in legitimatising violence and murder of his people.

Modi and his henchmen in India seem to be proving that hate, violence and discrimination bring them ‘power’. The brutal murder recently, of well-known journalist Gauri Lankesh is a case in point. In the not too distant past, the country has also witnessed the gruesome killings of rationalists and intellectuals like Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi and of several other journalists, human rights and RTI activists. It is said that on November 17^th (Modi’s birthday)‘the Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat was lit up and 2,00,000 people (comprising farmers, fishers, potters, pastoralists, tribals, Dalits and small enterprise holders) had to be submerged for the ‘Narmada Mahotsav’ to be a success’. The violence against minorities in India continues unabated.

Pope Francis has consistently and unequivocally asserted the need for peace. In a letter to the International Meeting “Paths of Peace” held in Germany from September 10^th to 12^th he wrote, “what we may not and must not do is remain indifferent, allowing tragedies of hatred to pass unnoticed, and men and women to be cast aside for the sake of power and profit. Your meeting in these days, and your desire to blaze new paths of peace and for peace, can be seen as a response to the call to overcome indifference in the face of human suffering. I thank you for this, and for the fact that you have gathered, despite your differences, to seek processes of liberation from the evils of war and hatred. For this to happen, the first step is to feel the pain of others, to make it our own, neither overlooking it nor becoming inured to it. We must never grow accustomed or indifferent to evil”.

Some leaders however, obviously do not care with being “Together for Peace” and ensuring “Respect, Safety and Dignity for all.” Many people across the globe lack the respect, safety and dignity and the peace, which they rightly deserve. It is therefore incumbent on each one of us to make real once again the immortal lyrics of John Lennon, who in 1969, in the wake of the anti-Vietnam war protests sang,

“All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance”

(The author is a human rights activist)

Flooded by patriotism

September 21, 2017

Tagging two of his friends, Mizanur Rehman, a young primary school teacher of Naskara Lower Primary School in lower Assam’s Dhubri district, uploaded a photograph in the morning hours of 15^th August on his Facebook timeline. The photograph featured an elderly man, a male adolescent, and two toddlers saluting the fluttering Indian flag while murky flood waters rose upto their chest, threatening to engulf their salutations. By afternoon, most people had seen and shared the post, the image itself had been catapulted to the heavenly skies of social-media circulation. Detached from the original context, it moved freely as a lone object.

The image and the textual commentary that made its way around opened the ’emotional floodgates of nationalistic pride’, with many expressing deep admiration of the people photographed, their unabiding love for the nation being largely compared to the sacrifices of militarymen at border outposts. As ABP-News made no attempt at concealing, this image was particularly affective because

a.) it featured Muslims, and
b.) the blackboard at the background mentioned a school address which did not read in Hindi.

The imperial projection of the Hindu-nation was therefore complete: its tentacles espousing unflinching respect had spread beyond the periphery of the Hindi-speaking belt, and had deeply ingrained itself within the Indian-Muslim community even in its furthest crevices. The rabble-rousing minority community was now fully co-opted, managed and cleverly placed within a majoritarian discourse that respected the national flag even under dire circumstances.

Rehman’s image automatically drew comparisons with the French semiotician, Roland Barthes’ encounter with a magazine cover which he mentions in his book Mythologies. [1]

Visiting the barbershop one day, Barthes came across a French magazine Paris Match, which on its cover had the picture of a ‘young Negro in a French uniform saluting with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on the fold of the tricolor’.[ii] Barthes argued that at the preliminary level of meaning-making, the image conveyed a simple literal message only – a soldier, an uniform, a raised arm, eyes lifted, a French flag. However, on further digging, he asserted that, the image revealed a lot more. The sign, the boy, the flag, the gestures in the first level merely became signifiers in the second level of signification: they carried another, a higher order of truth within them. Such a step-by-step analysis, Barthes insisted, provoked him, and possibly the reader alike to ask as to “What was Paris Match telling us, by using this picture of a black soldier saluting a French flag?”[iii] Barthes averred that one such plausible meaning would be that the magazine wanted to convey the greatness of the French empire, and ‘that all her sons, without any colour discrimination’ faithfully served under her flag.[iv] Moreover, ‘there was no better answer to her detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors’.[v] Barthes’ line harrowingly echoed the nationalist celebration of Rehman’s image – the detractors who alleged cultural colonialism by an overbearing Hindu nation upon a defiant muslim community had to now acclimatize themselves with the image of Muslims voluntarily saluting the flag, their zeal calibrated to the eternally rising flood-water levels.

Barthes felt that with the heady concoction of militariness, French-ness and racial anxiety, the image itself had, in fact, become a myth: a seemingly benign sign drawn to convey a larger truth, a medley of smaller signs that cumulated into a larger, more abstract one, a cascading series of meanings where the final brew could appear only as ‘natural, stilled and timeless in time, both distant and auratic, and simple and self-explanatory.’[vi] Aiding this myth-making process was the textual commentary itself – the Paris Match issue spoke nothing of France’s colonial ambitions, just as Rehman’s original text was forgotten in the midst of social media circulation, his identity and his plea for help getting lost amidst the countless “Vande Mataram, Jai Hind” texts that now accompanied the image. Even as the text drew parasitically upon the image, it nevertheless rationalized the image in the given context of a hectoring nationalist aspiration, sublimating it as something entirely detached from Rehman’s original post, a desperate call for help to these humane individuals. Now rationalized to convey a ultra-national political ethos, the photograph nevertheless was forced to weigh in on its sensory reality. While one could readily see, feel and experience the salute as a credible, well recognized gesture, one also had to negotiate the dilapidated building, the waters, and the flag hastily tied to a bent bamboo pole in its material reality. However at the same time, the image became ‘tamed’, ‘transparent’ and docile.[vii] The history of the image was either forgotten in due course of circulation or perhaps mildly remembered to highlight that Independence Day is a celebrated reality even in the worst flood-affected regions of the country. Here meaning was tapped only to resurrect a nation’s ethos, but swiftly dismissed to elide the ‘what, how and why’ of the image and the people involved. Therefore, when news started pouring in about the image a couple of days later, these media reports specifically engaged in a myth busting activity, tracing the origins of the image, and the contexts around which they might have come around in the first place. The journalists reported that one of the reasons why this photo was taken was because, it had to be sent to first to Amir Hamza at the cluster-resource co-ordination centre in Dhubri, who would then forward it to the block officer, and who in turn would send it to the education department, so on and so forth. All of this was in fact a response to an MHRD circular dated 7^th August which ‘instructed’ schools to organize a set of programmes around Independence Day, asking students and teachers alike to promise to rid India of ‘corruption, terrorism, communalism and casteism by 2022’, and also document, share, upload and promote the same on social media.

A Huffington Post article claimed that by the headmaster’s admission, two children who knew how to swim were only chosen to stand near the hoisted flag, while the other kids stood at a distance of 10 metres from the flag, singing the national anthem. “We hoisted the flag, sang Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram while the rest of the students followed us from the road. In my 22 years of service, this is the first time we faced flood on Independence Day,” the headmaster informed the paper. While Rehman’s original motivation could not be known for certain, questions about why it was at all mandatory for schools to record Independence Day celebrations in a state reeling under heavy floods came to the forefront. More so for Dhubri, which is not only one of the worst-hit districts in Assam, with nearly 9 lakh people affected, but also a district with a majoritarian Muslim population. Soon after, the internet was also rife with this expose, expressing pleasure, sadness and anger in equal measure at this piercing of nationalist pride, illuminating the real reasons that lay behind the image.

While the image began to circulate as a discourse-generating object, it increasingly found itself playing a game of hide-and-seek, between a history that established too much of itself in the image, and a history that had to be obliterated for the myth (of the nation, of the photo) to sustain itself. And yet, as Barthes continued to hover around my experience/encounter with the image, one also re-realized that the actual site of myth-making about the nation was not necessarily only in the History textbooks that erased the Mughals, or the Aurangzeb Road that had to be re-named as Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road. The actual site of the murky nationalist fervor, the writing of myth-as-history, lies in the thousands of hate-speech clips, small churnings of fears, doctored clips, magazine covers or even ordinary images like the one here which can easily travel, gather momentum of their own, shape-shift as the need be. Nationalism lay, in fact, in the quite ordinary. As Barthes wrote elsewhere, “within each sleeps that monster, the stereotype, which is itself a repetition” of all that precedes it.

A myth is something therefore that pleads for repetition, returning each time to fulfill its presumed destiny with a ritualistic obsession, like an always unfinished GIF that performs its cycle of incompleteness time and again. There is no nationalism without its symbols (beef or beef ban, national flag, anthem, Hindu vs. Muslim social law, caste system, language, gender, occupations etc.) but there is no nationalism without a ritualistic repetition of symbols either. Hence the perpetual need to share and validate, the perpetual need to devise, develop and pass various patriotic tests, the perpetual need to answer shrill calls of endurance and sacrifice. The waters are rising, and like the kids in Rehman’s image, the marginalized find themselves dangerously close to being washed away.

[1] Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: The Noonday Press, 1972), 115.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Presentations and Signifying Practices (London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997), 39.
[iv] Barthes, op cit.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid, 111-115.
[vii] Ibid, 118.

Courtesy: raiot.in

What Sheikh Hasina should tell the UN General Assembly: View from Bangladesh

September 21, 2017

The world must demand rightful citizenship of Myanmar for the Rohingya

As a citizen, I feel the upcoming speech of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the United Nations General Assembly is a critical opportunity to highlight the Rohingya crisis on the world stage.

Since August 25, Bangladesh has been consumed by the largest refugee crisis since its independence in 1971, with over 410,000 refugees entering the country from Myanmar due to persecution by the Myanmar military.

We are witnessing the mass expulsion of a community that holds a remarkable heritage in the historic Arakan region of Myanmar. The UN has affirmed that Myanmar has committed ethnic cleansing. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has demanded the right of return under the cardinal principles of international law enshrined in the Geneva Convention.

I would begin by addressing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Daw Suu Kyi has insisted on upholding the rule of law. Where is the rule of law in Myanmar when an entire community is placed under legal apartheid by the 1982 citizenship law?

How can Suu Kyi make meaningful reform in Myanmar with the military retaining control of key ministries like home, defense, and border affairs; 25% of seats in parliament, and one vice president under the 2008 constitution?

Why should those born in Myanmar not be entitled to that country’s passport? Why should residents of Myanmar need a permit to travel within the country? Unjust laws are no laws at all.

I would tell the General Assembly that the Rohingya are the native community of Arakan whose roots date back over a millennium in that land

Bangladesh must demand the restoration of Rohingya human rights. If Suu Kyi is unable to fulfill these basic humanitarian principles, she should resign from the power-sharing diarchy with the Myanmar military.

As her fellow Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Muhammad Yunus noted, the world would like to see Suu Kyi at the peace level, not at the hatred level.

Bangladesh must firmly point out that no amount of strategic geopolitics can trample the importance of saving a population under genocide. Yes, there has been militancy and terrorism. But security issues should be left to be firmly handled by law enforcement agencies within the principles of due process and civic military doctrines.

The general population cannot be targeted for the sins of a few. Bangladesh should also question whether the projects taken up by China and India in Rakhine State involved Rohingya forced labour.

Bangladesh should question the sale of arms to Myanmar by countries like Russia, which may have been used to target the civilian population.

Bangladesh must point out that much of Myanmar remains embroiled in ongoing ethnic conflicts including the Shan, Kachin, Kayah, Chin, Mon, and Kayin peoples. The continuance of these conflicts harms the stability and potential of our neighbourhood.

I would tell the General Assembly that the Rohingya are the native community of Arakan whose roots date back over a millennium in that land. I would quote the Rohingya identity in their own words.

MA Gaffar, a member of the Myanmar constituent assembly, presented a Memorandum of Appeal to the government in 1949, stating: “We the Rohingyas of Arakan are a nation. We maintain and hold that the Rohingya and Rakhine are the two main nations in Arakan.

“We are a nation of nearly 900,000, which is more than sufficient for the population of a nation; and what is more, we are a nation according to any definition of a nation, with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitude and ambitions; in short, we have our distinctive outlook on life and of life.

“By all canons of international law, the Rohingyas are a nation in Arakan.”

I would point out the election of Rohingya legislators since British rule, including one of Myanmar’s first female MPs. I would note the Rohingya participation in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movements.

The world is witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in the northern townships of Rakhine state, which can escalate into a Frankenstein threat to regional stability.

The world must demand the return of full citizenship and freedom for the Rohingya. A UN administration should be established if necessary, to bring back peace.

Umran Chowdhury is a law student in the University of London International Program.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

3 Qazis and 8 shaikhs arrested in crackdown on Hyderabad’s ‘bride bazaar’ racket

September 21, 2017

Girls paraded before the Arab Shaikhs for fixing ‘bride price’, says police

8 Sheikhs from Middle East, Gulf were among 20 arrested in a ‘contract marriage’ racket in Hyderabad. Photo credit: NDTV

HYDERABAD: An international child bride racket has been busted here with the arrest of 20 people, including five Omani sheikhs, three Qataris and three qazis. Among them is the chief qazi of Mumbai, Farid Ahmed Khan, who is accused of being the kingpin and brokering the illegal contracts with forged nikahnamas.

The Times of India reports that twelve minors were freed from the clutches of the sheikhs late on Tuesday. The crackdown followed a tip-off from a reluctant 16-year-old girl, who was interviewed by a 50-year-old sheikh for marriage.

Read the full Times of India report.

Triple Talaq Judgement: Gender, ‘Othering’ and a Medieval Paradigm

September 21, 2017

Psychoanalysis has always been a bit harsh, if not downright suspicious of altruism. However, the spectacle of the overwhelming concern for Muslim women from Prime Minister Modi to U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the whole gamut of Hindu organisations does seem to strain credulity a trifle. Perhaps, the caution of psychology to step back and examine our narcissistic feelings may have a point.

All of us like to feel good about ourselves. Rescuing “poor Muslim women” from “villainous” men of their own community is a measure par excellence for fulfilment of ‘rescue’ fantasies and the accompanying heady feelings. It adds an irreproachable and unanswerable dimension to the demonising of the males of the ‘other’ community as part of a certain agenda. The general formula is the construct of the virile black male as lusting after white women in white supremacist ideology; and likewise of the Muslim male as lusting, if not raping ‘pure’ Hindu mothers and sisters.

However having said that, the holding of the practice of instant triple Talaq as unconstitutional and invalid by the majority verdict of the Supreme Court is most welcome and long overdue. The waiting for reform within the community, while having many takers, has the flavour of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’. Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer having devoted his life to reform within the Dawoodi Bohras died without making much of a dent in the powerful Syedna’s autocratic powers. The Honourable Supreme Court of India enjoying a paramount position in the polity played a crucial role in the context of rights of individuals and authoritarian religious practices.

The case of Sardar Syedna Taher Saifuddin Saheb versus State of Bombay, AIR 1962 SC 853 is telling as to the pivotal role of the courts in the interplay of religious practices and the rights of the individual. The Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act, 1949 by Section 3 decreed that: “… no excommunication of member of any community shall be valid and shall be of any effect”. The preamble to the Act states that in keeping with the changing times and in the public interest, it was expedient to stop the practice of excommunication prevalent in certain communities. The definition of “community” contained in Section 2 of the Act included the included the Dawoodi Bohras.

The Syedna, the religious head of the denomination challenged the constitutional validity of the Act on the ground that it violated its fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution. The majority judgment of the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in its wisdom pronounced the impugned Act void as making excommunication invalid infringed the right of the community under Art. 26(b)to manage its affairs. The judgment declares that the fact that the rights of an excommunicated person would be affected is of no consequence. Strangely, without offering any reasoning the verdict laid down that ex-communication could not be said to prejudicial to public order, morality and health, nor could it be said to be a law “providing for social welfare and reform” which are permissible grounds for imposing restrictions on the right under the Constitution.

Justice Sinha, the Chief Justice to the institutions’ credit gave a dissenting judgment more in tune with the spirit and ethos of the Constitution. Sinha held that the actions of the religious head touching upon the civil rights of the members of the community were justiciable and liable to interference by the legislature and the judiciary. The Act was held to fall within the saving provisions of Article 25(2)(b) as a measure of social welfare and reform and valid.

It is good to keep in mind that even after the passage of more than half-a-century since Sinha’s lone dissenting judgment in 1962, the present majority judgment outlawing triple Talaq in a suo moto petition taken up by the Apex Court titled Muslim Women’s quest for Equality versus Jamiat-Ulema-I-Hind, the verdict is a close 3:2 ruling. A wafer thin single judge margin indicates that it could well have gone the other way.

The frame of discourse of the arguments advanced and the discussion in the triple Talaq judgments seem discordantly medieval. Gender discrimination and equality fall by the wayside. The discourses are in the nature of – Talaq-e-Biddat or triple Talaq as invalid solely because it is arbitrary and does not give any reasons. Reasons like that the woman is not docile and obedient or is of ‘bad’ character are in tune with the Quran and would make the talaq acceptable and valid! Thus we have the judgments excerpting Verse 34 in Section 6 of Sura IV of the Quran:

“34. Men are the protectors
And maintainers of women,
Because God has given
The one more (strength)
……
As to those women
On whose part ye fear
Disloyalty and ill-conduct,
Admonish them (first),
(Next), refuse to share their beds,
(And last) beat them (lightly);”

“Light beating” for “disobedient wives” is apparently advocated by God himself. The couplet in Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas -‘Dhor, Ganwar, Shudra, Pashu, Nari Sakal Tadan Ke Adhikari’ which has been given various spins, translates as ‘The drum, the illiterate, the untouchable, animals and women are deserving of being beaten’ and seems in a similar vein. Whatever may have been conceptually the progressive origins of marriage as a contract in Muslim personal law, as compared to a sacrament in other religious paradigms; the lived realities of women speak for themselves. Shayara Bano, one of the petitioners, speaks of being tortured and beaten for cash and a car as dowry. Regardless of postulated imagined utopias, Ram-rajya or communism or marriage as a contract in Islamic Law, the concrete practices constitute the reality and cannot be disassociated from the conceptions and ideologies.

Rakesh Shukla is an Advocate and Member, Supreme Court Bar Association

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org

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Calcutta High Court sets aside restrictions on Durga idol immersion by Mamata government

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The world must demand rightful citizenship of Myanmar for the Rohingya

3 Qazis and 8 shaikhs arrested in crackdown on Hyderabad’s ‘bride bazaar’ racket

Girls paraded before the Arab Shaikhs for fixing ‘bride price’, says police

Triple Talaq Judgement: Gender, ‘Othering’ and a Medieval Paradigm

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