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The voyage of Nicolas Baudin and ‘art in the service of science’

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Christine Judith Nicholls, Flinders University and Dany Breelle, Flinders University

The real-life story of French navigator Nicolas Baudin’s sea voyage to map the unknown coasts of Australia is more gripping than any fictionalised account. In the wake of the French Revolution in 1789, the French were experiencing a maelstrom of political, social and cultural change. By the turn of the century Napoléon Bonaparte’s rise to power had begun. He had declared: “Citizens, the Revolution … is over.” The Enlightenment and Revolutionary ideals were being replaced by what was broadly termed “science”.

In 1800, Captain Nicolas Baudin, in command of the corvette Le Géographe, with Captain Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin captaining its sister ship Le Naturaliste, set off from Le Havre en route to what is now called “Australia”. On the way home, Baudin, the expedition’s leader, was to die in 1803 at L’Île-de-France (now Mauritius).

This “voyage of discovery” started with 23 men of science, including botanists, zoologists, astronomers and geographers selected by the National Institute. More than half of these men were to leave the expedition in L’Île-de-France, owing to illness or conflict with Baudin. Among those who left were the expedition’s official artists, Lebrun, Milbert and Garnier.


Lagostrophus fasciatus (Banded Hare Wallaby). Péron and Lesueur, 1807, Western Australia. Watercolour and ink on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre

The exhibition The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, which has opened at Port Adelaide’s Maritime Museum, offers a solid and complex picture of the voyage to Australia, albeit a selective one – there are relatively few botanical works in the Adelaide exhibition.

The objects, artefacts and artworks on show in this exhibition, on loan primarily from Le Havre’s Natural History Museum and from archives and collections of other French national institutions, have temporarily returned to Australia after a very long absence.

Encounter

While Baudin’s voyage was taking place, France and Great Britain were locked in the conflict of the Napoleonic wars. Later, the short-lived Treaty of Amiens, allowed Baudin and his crew to enjoy a long stopover at Port Jackson. This broader context affected every aspect of Baudin’s expedition.

Baudin’s captaincy was a troubled one, dogged not only by illnesses common on long sea journeys including dysentery and scurvy, resulting from contaminated water and lack of fresh food, but also on account of the fact that a number of very young down-on-their-heels young officers – several still in their teens – who had signed up for this voyage, tended to despise Baudin.

These young nobles’ relationship with Baudin was tense. Baudin was a product of the merchant navy, rather than of the more prestigious Royal Navy, and before the French Revolution he’d served the Austrian House of Habsburg. The premature deaths during the voyage of Baudin’s three staunchest (and virtually only) friends and allies on board – the naturalist Maugé, the gardener Riedlé and the zoologist Levillain – further isolated Baudin.

On top of these issues, in July 1801 the Englishman Matthew Flinders, captaining The Investigator, was sent to Terra Australis on a “hydrographical” mission. Flinders’ expedition was also one of scientific discovery: Joseph Banks was his patron, and the botanist Robert Brown and five other scientists were on board.

 


Coastal profiles of the southwest coast of New Holland, eastern part of Terre Napoléon, from the Pointe du Papillon to Cap Le Lièvre. This set of profiles bears the date 8 April 1802, which places Baudin and the Géographe off the coast of South Australia’s Coorong region. At the end of that day, at five o’clock, Baudin sighted another ship sailing towards him from the west. This was Matthew Flinders in the Investigator. Charles-Alexandre Lesueur or Nicolas-Martin Petit, Archives nationales de France, caption from Fornaserio et al, Wakefield Press 2016

 

Flinders was hot on Baudin’s tail, hoping to map the as-yet-uncharted parts of the island-continent. In 1802 the pair would meet at a place now called “Encounter Bay”, in South Australia.

The expeditions of both the British and the French were ideologically underpinned by what would later become known as the “doctrine of discovery”. This quasi-legal theological doctrine licensed Christian countries to take possession of non-Christian lands. However, in practice there were differences in how the two expedition leaders interpreted this.

In the case of Flinders, “discovery” was, in general terms, conceptualised as physical conquest; thus paving the way for Britain to continue to appropriate land without regard to Indigenous property rights, as Cook and later Governor Arthur Philip, had done. Nonetheless scientific enquiry also played an important part in the Flinders voyage.

In contrast, Baudin’s approach was, to a greater degree, founded on a desire for scientific discovery.

Floating laboratories

Also on board the ships, which have been described as “floating laboratories”, were measuring instruments, including two chronometers per ship and a dynamometer, which viewed from the present-day perspective is a bizarre contraption.


Régnier’s dynamometer. Musée de l’Armée

Originally created by French engineer Edmé Régnier to measure the muscular strength of humans and animals, it was repurposed by repurposed by the naturalist François Peron to calculate the relative hand and loin strength of adult humans belonging to different racial and ethnic groups (in practice, what Peron termed in the narrative of the voyage as “savage” and “civilised” populations). As Australian academic Miranda Hughes has written, “[t]he dynamometer became the lever to overturn the cherished Enlightenment doctrine of the Noble Savage”.

Baudin’s artists


Portrait of an Aboriginal women standing. Nicolas-Martin Petit, 1802, South Cape, Tasmania. Watercolour, gouache, ink and pencil on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre

Both the Flinders and Baudin expeditions aimed to record geographical data and map coastal profiles: to capture information for posterity by whatever means possible, while “on the hop”. On Baudin’s voyage, this record keeping took the form of – among other things – written notes, measurements, drawings and paintings, portraiture of Indigenous people, and musical notation of the Indigenous ceremonies they had observed in the course of their voyage.

As a result of the earlier defection of the expedition’s three official artists, two assistant gunners, the young nobles Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit, were elevated to the position of ship’s artists, thereby granting them an immortality that would otherwise have almost certainly eluded them.

It so happened that both young men were sublimely talented artists. It’s their artwork, including depictions of what was regarded as the rare, exotic fauna of southern Australia, including seals, kangaroos, wombats and the now-extinct dwarf emus of Kangaroo and King Islands, that lie at the heart of this exhibition.

The French were not only recorders but also avid collectors. Various live “Antipodean” species, including a number of dwarf emus, were captured with a view to transportation back to France.


Emu—Dromaius (possibly a composite image). Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Kangaroo Island. Watercolour and pencil on vellum. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre

Even though Baudin ordered some scientists and officers to give up their cabins to house the emus, some died on the journey, with only two still living by the end of the trip. To this day, a lone, taxidermied dwarf emu remains in the basement of the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur’s depiction of a small group of elephant seals basking on the King Island beach is a work of considerable tenderness. With their dark, alert eyes, long lashes, wispy little moustaches and beards, and captivating corkscrew-like proboscis, Lesueur’s watercolours are testament to the artist’s acute observational skills, and also to his humanity. At that time British sealers were actively engaged in clubbing this species to death and these seals were on the brink of extinction, although that has been avoided.


Elephant seals, Mirounga leonine. Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, King Island, Bass Strait. Watercolour and ink on paper. Muséum d'histoire naturelle, Le Havre

Petit and Lesueur’s coastal profiles, including their transcendent imagery of the contours of Aboriginal “country” in southern Australia that are visible from the shoreline, exude a sense of immediacy and elegance underpinned by stylistic economy. A solitary plume of smoke billowing from one of these parallel strips, freighted with symbolism, is indicative of the human habitation of the Coorong area by the Ngarrindjeri people. It tells a powerful story, both historically and in its contemporary setting.


Molluscs and Zoophytes. Engraving from a drawing by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur. CLICK TO ENLARGE Royal Geographical Society of South Australia

The drawings and watercolours of marine life made by Lesueur, including his bridled leatherjacket (a new species “discovered” during Baudin’s journey), are also imbued with the breath of life. His works Molluscs and Zoophytes, and Brown Flecked Jellyfish possess formal qualities that seem to charge – and to illuminate – his subject matter.

Lesueur’s “divas of the deep” and the other artworks on display in this exhibition collectively present a strong case for “aesthetic cognition” – when artistic interpretation creates a unique form of scientific and cultural knowledge. This is truly an art in service to science.

The lives of objects

It’s now broadly accepted that – like people – objects, artefacts and artworks have their own biographies. As the British curator and archaeologist Jody Joy writes:

The biography of an object should not be restricted to an historical reconstruction of its birth, life and death. Biography is relational and an object biography is comprised of the sum of the relationships that constitute it.

Scheduled to tour Australia for two years plus, related objects and artworks are to be added to each new venue in all stages.

This touring exhibition ensures that new chapters will be added to the already lengthy and continuing lives of these remarkable artworks and objects – which have long outlived the lives of their creators and, in the case of the dwarf emu, its extinct congeners.

 

The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804 will be on display at the South Australian Martime Museum until December 11, 2016.

Note that a handsome book, Nicolas Baudin’s Voyagers 1800-1804, edited by Jean Fornaserio, Lindl Lawton and John West-Sooby and published by Adelaide’s Wakefield Press accompanies this major touring exhibition.

 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Will Justice Forever Elude Survivors of Kunan-Poshpora?

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Image courtesy: greaterkashmir.com, Home page image courtesy: India Today

Over 25 years on, Freny Manecksha unravels the grissly twists and turns in the tale, a take that involves allegations of gendered violence by the Indian army

In April 2013, galvanised by the way in which the gang rape and death of a young physiotherapist in Delhi had become a raging national issue, a bunch of young women in Kashmir filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea in the High Court.They believed that if the death of one woman could evoke such an out pouring of emotion then why could one not seek justice for two villages of raped women? Inhabitants of Kunan-Poshpora had made complaints of mass sexual rapes and torture of men by the Fourth Rajputana Rifles Mountain Brigade of Indian army on the intervening night of February 23/24, 1991but nothing had happened.

Theseyoung women in their PIL sought implementation of the State Human Rights Commission’s order (SHRC) of 2011 directing criminal prosecution of the accused and officers responsible for the crimes and the subsequent cover-up and recommendation of monetary relief.

The High Court (HC) did not admit the PIL calling it ‘premature’ as the State had just filed a closure report. However, there was an interesting development when, on June 18, 2013, the Judicial Magistrate of Kupwara, (the district under which the villages lie) did not accept the closure report and ordered further investigations by the SP, to be completed within three months.

A full three years on from this order and twenty-five years after theincident of mass rapes and torture, the investigations have gone nowhere. Justice continues to be denied to the villagers.

And, in its latest round of delay tactics, the Indian army (through the Ministry of Defence, Union of India),has, on June 26 petitioned the Supreme Court (where the matters have shifted after considerable twists and turns) and challenged the ordersof the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on the question of both investigation(s) and compensation(s).

Interestingly, this very same order of the High Court had been earlier challenged by the government of Jammu and Kashmir in November 2014. It had informed the HC it would challenge its directions regarding compensation in the Supreme Court and that was how the case went to the highest court of the land.

The Union of India chose not to respond to the petition then, despite being given both time and the opportunity. It waited a full year wasting the court’s time and adding on to the agony on the survivors. (In the intervening years six victims of the rape and torture have already died).

It is also pertinent to note how in its present petition the army yet again resorts to the rhetoric of national security and casts aspersions on the victims saying the allegations of rape and torture are a “hoax orchestrated by militant groups,” part of a cleverly contrived strategy of psychological warfare to “discredit the security forces by indulging in false propaganda with a view to jeopardize the conduct of counter insurgency operations.”

In its latest round of delay tactics, the Indian has, on June 26 petitioned the Supreme Court (where the matters have shifted after considerable twists and turns) and challenged the ordersof the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on the question of both investigation(s) and compensation(s).

This bid, to thrust a counter-narrative is in line with the one made in July1991 when at the army’s behest a Press Council of India team, headed by the late B G Verghese,had submitted its report dismissing the complaints of rape, as a militant hoax.

But the villagers of Kunan-Poshpora have recounted their narratives to human rights activists, journalists, film makers and organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, over and over and over again -none of whom have raised doubts concerning their veracity. The SHRC team too has published its report and it is the state that has failed to file the Action Taken Report on the SHRC recommendations as is mandated by law.

The judicial magistrate Kupwara who had refused to close the case and who directed further investigations on the police’s final report has also stated he found an “unbreakable chain of facts and circumstances to put the suspects (125 army personnel) on trial.”

In fact even a cursory analysis of the labyrinthian twists and turns of the Kunan-Poshpora case will illustrate how seeking justice in Kashmir for crimes perpetrated by security forces becomes a Kafkaesque experience.

It is not just that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) makes it mandatory to seek sanction for prosecution. But, impunity is so pervasive that even normal procedures of criminal law like filing a closure report before the magistrate are routinely flouted. Investigations are shoddy and the court remains helpless as police and security personnel ignore standard procedures and prolong trials for decades on end.

In the book,Do You Remember Kunan-Poshpora? written by Essar, Ifrah, Samreena, Munaza and Natasha- four of the petitioners in the Kunan-Poshpora case – there are accounts of how the investigations by the police between March 1991 and September 1991 were improper and incomplete and how investigating officers were repeatedly transferred and changed.

Besides the shoddy investigations there were deliberate attempts at a cover up and to silence some voices. One of the book’s important chapters deals with this aspect and makes an attempt to create a parallel memory by meeting and talking with some of the people who had played an important role in 1991.

There is an account and interview with SM Yasin, the ex DC of Kupwara, whose controversial report became the official basis of the registration of the FIR filed on March 8, 1991. It was Yasin who had said in his report that “the armed forces had behaved like violent beasts.” Yasin also made the startling disclosure that the Press Council Team never actually visited the villages. In his recent interview Yasin spoke of how police officers as well as army officers had threatened and tried to intimidate him.

Even a cursory analysis of the labyrinthian twists and turns of the Kunan-Poshpora case will illustrate how seeking justice in Kashmir for crimes perpetrated by security forces becomes a Kafkaesque experience.

There is also the curious case of a first set of medico-legal reports going missing from the police file. In fact one of the key arguments of Verghese in dismissing the women’s complaints was that no medico-legal report had been filed as required. However the Block Medical Officer, Dr Makhdoomi, distinctly remembers doing a first round of medical examinations on March 8 or 9, 1991 on 18 women at the Kralpora Primary Health Centre. He said the reports were directly handed to the police as it was a police case. Verghese claimed he got a copy of reports from the Chief Medical Officer. Documents in the police file show detailed examination of survivors done on March 15 and 20 by which time there would not be much physical evidence of actual rape.

Sadly Dr Makhdoomi who is now old was not able to answer some questions posed by the young women saying he could not be expected to remember these after all these years. The chapter notes how some fragments of telling have been lost forever. Constable Abdul Ghani who played a crucial role in trying to help survivors was mysteriously killed in an encounter some years later.

It is also interesting to note in the detailed chronology of events proffered by the book, how the police investigations ground to a halt after the unofficial state-directed narrative of B G Verghese dismissed the complaints. In October 1991 the Jammu and Kashmir Police closed the Kunan-Poshpora case but did not place it before the magistrate as required.

It is only in 2013, after the young women fileda PIL in court that a hasty bid was made to place it before the magistrate who then ordered a fresh probe. It also speaks volumes of the quality of the fresh probe that three of the persons summoned before the police on July 30, 2013 as survivors/witnesses are no longer alive. An application by the SP Kupwara on September 13, before the court seeking extension by six months, shows that besides two letters and a few phone calls nothing has been done by way of investigation.

Furthermore, it is interesting to see how the army had filed a revision petition on November 12 2013 in the Sessions court to shut down investigations which was dismissed on August 12, 2014. The Sessions court also censored the J&K police for their ‘non seriousness’ and ‘casual and irresponsible manner’ apparent from years of delay in investigating the case.

It was Yasin who had said in his report that “the armed forces had behaved like violent beasts.” Yasin also made the startling disclosure that the Press Council Team never actually visited the villages. In his recent interview Yasin spoke of how police officers as well as army officers had threatened and tried to intimidate him.

Besides the crucial issue of investigations there is the question of compensation, which was raised in a petition made by the villagers before the High Court, citing the SHRC recommendations.
Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh, legal researcher and human rights activist who has keenly followed the Kunan-Poshpora case observes how from the time the case was re-opened for further investigations in the sessions court in Kupwara, the state government and army have played a complex game of collusion as well as contradiction of each other’s stand to cause maximum possible obfuscation and delays.
 
The promise of compensation was used as a way of trying to dilute the focus on investigation even as sufficient evidence exists (including names of the accused) to bring the alleged perpetrators to trial.
 
She observes how the counsel for government of J&K stated on August 12, 2014 they were not averse to the payment. The court later directed the government to pay compensation and produce receipts for the amount before the court. The court also sought a status report on investigation and additional advocate general asked for four weeks’ time to file the report.
 
But then the army filed a response saying compensation should not be paid and that the SHRC had no validity. And suddenly the J&K government too did an about-turn and said it would go on appeal in the Supreme Court challenging the order asking them to consider compensation for the victims.

Meanwhile the army and state separately obtained stays on the investigations from a different bench of the HC.

And now after a full year after this appeal (during which the case was stuck before the registry for serving all the parties) the army has gone on appeal against not just the issue of compensation but also the more crucial aspect of investigations- something that the villagers really wanted.

Another significant incident involving the question of compensation is that back in February 2012, then law minister Saifullah Mir had met with the survivors and handed over a sum of Rs. 39,25,000 in cash to some women supposedly as “official compensation.” But the state government then denied making such payment. This money was paid just before the efforts began getting underway for the PIL demanding fresh investigations.

It is interesting to see how the army had filed a revision petition on November 12 2013 in the Sessions court to shut down investigations which was dismissed on August 12, 2014. The Sessions court also censored the J&K police for their ‘non seriousness’ and ‘casual and irresponsible manner’ apparent from years of delay in investigating the case.

What does this latest move mean for the survivors who are determined to fight on?

The legal team said there will be further delays but are hopeful that if the Supreme Court should choose to take a proactive approach, rather than technical, it could be a useful opportunity to bring all the issues of investigations before the court which can view it as a grave human rights violation rather than a technical one of a routine case of appeal.

Decades have passed, the women have grown old. Some have died but there is a new generation who affirm crime never dies and neither does the struggle for justice.
 
References:
1. Army Petitions Supreme Court to Close Kunan Poshpora Rape Case
2.The story I never got to tell – of rape and torture by the Indian army
3. Valley of fear, depths of despair
 

Butter Chai Ruminations at Norbulinka

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Credit:Rukmini Sen

It was raining ferociously when we reached our hotel somewhere between Mcleodganj and Dharamkot on the evening of the fourth of July. We advised ourselves to stay indoors. You don’t step out on a rainy night in a terrain you don’t understand. My partner and I had settled for the TV show Durrels (based on the story of Lawrence Durrel’s family when they were in Greece) on our laptop that evening and decided to stay mostly indoors with some Momos and Thukpa (regular urban predictions). The large windows in our room and the precarious looking balcony opened to wild and dark clouds.  Behind them were the giant and magical mountains we were to explore next few days. This was meant to be a quiet holiday. The plan was to walk, trek, lounge in cafes and meditate in motion. My partner insisted I practice Wing-Chun with him. Mostly happily and sometimes not so happily, I trained with him.


Credit: Rukmini Sen

Suresh, however had some work to finish on the second day. After a large breakfast he settled in front of his laptop for the first few hours of the day. We were to meet after four hours in Mcleodganj.  The walk down the Dharamkot road is serene. Slightly slushy and slippery during the rains, but quiet nevertheless. I met old and young monks on my way down and up. Many of them were women. All the monks were in maroon robes. They looked at me, smiled and acknowledged me whenever I did the same. There were few other people on the hilly road. I clicked random photographs. Mostly of the colourful Buddhist flags.  I noticed a monk who helped a woman with a child and then he walked alone. He rested for a while alone.  Then he climbed up the road again.

Once in the mall road of Mcleodganj I decided to treat myself to some Kombucha (fermented and sweetened black or green tea good for digestion). I was very thirsty by now. So I entered this coffee shop which had many books. Once inside I skipped the books and headed towards their balcony full of bright red, pink and orange flowers. The balcony had stairs that, quite like a maze, took you to another part of the same coffee shop. This part was an open terrace. The owner of the coffee shop was friendly and political. We talked about Tibet and how Tibetans feel in Dharamshala. This conversation came back to me a few days later when a student of Buddhism became our guide at the Norbulinka monastery. He told us how most Indians were nice and curious. However, another Indian tourist was very unhappy with him because there were many dogs in the monastery. The tourist had told our young guide to go back to Tibet as according to him the Tibetans knew nothing about how a spiritual place should be kept. This student while narrating this story smilingly said “I told him we didn’t get these dogs from Tibet. This is their home”. He added that the rude tourist’s wife had smiled when he had said that.
 

Credit: Rukmini Sen

At Men-Tse-Khang which is the Tibetan Medical and Astro Institute, the Astro experts advise their clients to feed fish, dogs and animals along with poor people to resolve many life issues. For instance you may be advised to feed fish and dogs if you feel very lazy and tired.  Tibetan Buddhists clearly believe that inner harmony is possible if we also look outside and create harmony with fellow living beings not just human beings. The dogs thus are very happy in the monasteries. They are loved and fed well. None of them are, however, fat like some of the street dogs in Mumbai. May be they don’t eat plastic accidently like the animals in Mumbai.

I have wondered since that conversation with our young guide why the friendly dogs in Norbulinka had disturbed a tourist. We don’t know where the man came from and what values made him hate dogs so much! Or was it not the dogs? It was perhaps humans he didn’t understand. What makes people so sure of their own likes and dislikes? And then what is this stubborn faith that makes people hateful? What kind of values, faith and fears makes people dislike their guests?

I shudder at the thought of being a refugee, of living in exile. No community wants to migrate in such huge numbers till there is fear of life and wellbeing. Not the Buddhists of Tibet, not the Rohingya Muslims of Burma and Bangladesh, not the Bangladeshi Muslims, not the Hindus of Kashmir, not the Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan, not the Jews of Germany.


Credit:Rukmini Sen

Buddhism, Harmony, living in exile and the free association with these words made me ruminate how the privileged travel, commute and immigrate easily and legally. The privileged can improve their state of being by legally crossing borders of state/province and nation states. However, the poor are viewed as illegal immigrants in case of national borders or an unwanted immigrant if s/he travels in his/her own country.

The poor have no right to cross borders and dream of a better life especially if s/he is not a political community another nation state can benefit from. Our young guide, a trained engineer is now studying Buddhist philosophy on his mother’s insistence. He was born in India and still belongs nowhere or so he felt when he was asked to go back to a land he knows very little about by an absolute stranger. In my many conversations in cafes, shops, meditation centres I heard people talk of their gratitude to India while they shared their pain when a few people treated them with anger and disdain.

There are different reasons given at different times to stop poor from migrating. Demography, shortage of resources, criminal leanings, religion of violence etc. We all tend to forget that our ancestors must have migrated many times, that most of our ancestors migrated from Africa! We are the same people!

I chanced upon a poetry book called SONGS OF THE ARROW by Bhuchung D. Sonam in one of the coffee shops.

He like many other Tibetans has dogs in his narrative. He is a rebel poet of sorts. Someone who denounces the middle path in his work of art. The pain of being in exile is evident.


Credit:Rukmini Sen
 
A poet’s heart must ask questions. One that needs special mention here goes somewhat like this-

A FAT DOG
My name is Migyur
I am a Fat Dog
Barking from a kennel
On a borrowed land
I am witless, shameless, gutless
But I am in charge of
This dog operation
 
Listen
My name is Migyur
I like to wag my tail
To eat all of the time
To work the least of the time
And think none of the time
I am stupid, inspid and a puppet
But I am a fat dog
And that is enough
 
My name is Migyur
I am a fat dog
Growling from my arm chair
To all other dogs
The homeless, stateless, boneless
Tails tucked between their legs
“Don’t think just bark” I order
They listen because
I am a big fat dog
 
My name is Migyur
I am a fat dog
I don’t care about
Ther fangs, bangs, gangs
But I don’t like their minds
Stirring up things
Creating chaos
Bringing change
They want a revolution
My foot! Should have said- my paw!
 
I am a fat dog
I am in charge
I give orders
Get used to me or get out!


Credit:Rukmini Sen

Sonam, the poet in exile also questions the middle path as expounded by Mahayana school of Buddhists. HH Dalai Lama also preaches the middle path of the Mahayana sect. Some in Hinayana sect consider middle path seekers as nihilists. Some in Mahayana consider their counter parts as absolutists.

Sonam writes –

Dog Dead
There is no such thing
As middle path
We al gravitate to our sides
If there is a path in the middle
I would be the first to find it
I am neither here nor there…
To her right
To your left
Far from their centre
There is a dog chewing a bone
In the middle of the path
A truck comes speeding
 
When W. H Auden said “Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings” maybe he meant the above. His Holiness Dalai Lama’s decision to not go to war, to leave Tibet with his people, to protect his people at all cost, to keep the peace, to wait with grave patience reminds me of a story of Sri Krishna that my brother and I loved as children. His Holiness Dalai Lama is criticised by some who stayed back in Tibet and some Tibetans who crave for armed battle against China.


Credit:Rukmini Sen

In the Mahabharata we learn that Jarasandha, the King of Madgadha, was livid when he heard that Krishna had killed Kamsa, his son-in-law. His daughters-Asti and Prapti had sent a message to him that they had now become widows.

Jarasandha decided to teach Krishna and the Yadavas a lesson. He attacked Mathura seventeen times. Before Krishna and Balarama could come up with a grand plan they heard Jarasandha had entered into an armed alliance with Damghosha of Chedi, Dantavakra of Karusa, Rukmi of Vidarbha and the brothers Vind and Anuvinda of Avanti. The alliance had only a single aim-destroy Mathura and the Yadava clan. The Kingdom of Hastinapur expressed helplessness in coming to the aid of the Yadavas.
 
Krishna was the only person who repeatedly cautioned his clansmen against the war. He then hit upon the idea of shifting the capital from Mathura to Dwarka. Krishna placed the suggestion before King Ugrasena his grandfather. Ugrasena and all other courtiers and even the commanders of the Yadava army were against flight. Balarama too, wanted to fight against Jarasandha.
 
Urgasena told Krishna that if he ran away from battle field, he would be known as a Ranchod or one who has run away from a battle field. Krishna retorted that he had no worry about any new name being given to him. “I already have many names and one more does not make any difference”, he said. “Moreover, I am willing to sacrifice my reputation for saving my people and their lives”, he said.
 
Interesting descriptions about Dwarka’s construction are found in Puranas. "Fearing attack from Jarasangh and Kaalayvan on Mathura, Shri Krishna and Yadavas left Mathura and arrived at the coast of Saurashtra. They decided to build their capital in the coastal region and invoke the Vishwakarma the deity of construction. However, Vishwakarma says that the task can be completed only if Samudradev, the Lord of the sea provided some land. Shri Krishna worshipped Samudradev, who was pleased and gave them land measuring 12 yojans and the Lord Vishwakarma build Dwarka, a "city in gold".
 
While Sri Krishna and his sermons in Gita are mentioned repeatedly whenever war/battles/fights are talked about we rarely talk about how after the Mahabharata War Krishna lived for 36 years at Dwarka. At the end, the Vrshnis, Bhojas and Satvatas destroyed themselves in a fratricidal feud at Prabhasa but Krishna did not interfere to save them.
 
Like Sri Krishna, Hazrat Mohammed is also remembered for battles and wars by his detractors and many of his followers. What we often forget is that Muhammad left Mecca, in 622 CE, after he was warned about a plot to assassinate him. The migration of the Prophet and his followers from Mecca to Medina is known as Hijra or Hegira. After leaving his home in Mecca, Muhammad hid for three days in the Cave of Thawr, located south of his home city. He then travelled north and arrived at Quba' near Medina on July 2, 622. He moved from Quba' to Medina, two weeks later.

According to the Islamic faith, the Prophet was commanded by Allah to leave Mecca for Medina. The plot to assassinate him was the result of his preaching of the revelations God bestowed upon him. He could not preach in public and he had several opponents and enemies in Mecca. Medina was the place where Muhammad started to attract more and more followers.

For the next ten years, the city remained Muhammad's base, from where they marched to Mecca and conquered it without battle. Mecca was won by a treaty not by a war. Today, Medina is considered the second holiest place in Islam and is often referred to as the "City of the Prophet," home of the "Prophet's Mosque". After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, Medina remained an important centre and was considered the de facto capital of the Caliphate.

Sitting here in Norbulinka, drinking the Tibetan butter tea I can’t help but ruminate over HH Dalai Lama’s simple lines – “Nothing is permanent, not even exile”
 
On the evening of 5th of July, when Suresh and I sat down for our late lunch we read “Untitled” –
Hope is
A counterpoint to
Disappointment,
I wear it like
A belt whose holes
Widen each day
 
This is followed by the heart breaking lines-
 
When the sun admonishes
I cram my head into
The refrigerator
To reaffirm
My allegiance to
The cold mountains.

We were told by one of the men at the coffee shop that all Tibetans shops would be close on the 6th of July. It was HH Dalai Lama’s 81st Birthday. We decided to visit his temple that day and watch the students of Tibet School of Arts perform. After all, we live in interesting times. We want numerous answers about resistance, war and peace.

About time we groped for at least the right questions!

(The author, Rukmini Sen, has been an electronic media journalist for twenty years. She launched and produced shows like Special Correspondent and Seedhi Baat. For last three years she has been developing film projects for various film studios. She also edits Hillele. Org)


Credit:Rukmini Sen
 

NIA Court Convicts One for Life in 2014 Mass Killing of Muslims, Assam

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Image Courtesy: Countercurrents.org

The special NIA court, Guwahati, on July 8, 2016, sentenced Pradip Brahma for life imprisonment in the Balapara mass murder case. On May 1, 2014, 7 Muslims were gunned down by allegedly terrorists belonging to the NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland) at Balapara under Gossaigaon Police Station, Kokrajhar.  The Special NIA Court, Guwahati set a precedent on July 8,  2016 by convicting Pradip Brahma to life imprisonment. This is the first time in history of Assam that murderer of mass violence has been punished for killing Muslims. There were as many as 25 other accused in the case, however.

 
The FIR (FIR No 155 of 2014, Gossaigaon Police Station) filed by Md. Sayed Ali and two others alleged that 20-25 Bodo miscreants equipped with sophisticated arms entered the house of Batchu Saikh and complainant Mohammed Sayed Ali and resorted to indiscriminate firing killing seven persons. The victims were mainly women and children.
 
Four women, two children and one male became victims of unprovoked targeted killing. The NIA filed charge sheet against Pradip Brahma under sections 120B, 121, 121A, 302, 307, 386 r/w Sec 34 of IPC and Sec 16, 17, 18 and 20 of UA (P) Act. The NIA press release can be read here.
 
Since 1983 Assam has seen a spate of massacres of the minorities with bouts of mass violence against both Muslims and Adivasis having become part of a cyclical pattern. Successive governments have been indifferent towards this suffering and slaughter.
 
On February 14, 1983 around 500 Muslims were massacred in Chaolkhuwa, and four days later independent India saw its most brutal mass killing when, on February 18,1983 more than 3000 Indian Muslims, mostly women and children were slaughtered in a span of just over six hours.
 
The victims were branded as Bangladeshis as if that justified the massacre. As many as 688 cases were filed in connection with the Nellie massacre; the Police submitted charge sheets in only 310. The remaining 378 cases were closed after a final (closure) report said there was no evidence against those accused.
 
Finally, all cases were dropped when the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) came to power under the chief ministership of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. Hence the impunity against perpetrators continued as not even a single person responsible for the killings was punished despite these being mass killings of the minorities, read Muslims.
 
A one member Tiwary Commission was constituted by the then Congress government after the Nellie killings to investigate the cause of massacre. The Commission submitted a 600 pages report, but no government has had the commitment to transparency and accountability to make the report public.
 
Post Nellie, Assam saw a chain of targeted violence in the now BTAD (Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts) area. In 1993 more than 100 Muslims were massacred in Kokrajhar, the survivors, today, 23 years later, still live in relief camps. A majority of the victims have been denied any compensation whatsoever.
 
A year later, around 100 Muslims were massacred in Bashbari, now in Baksa District. In 1996 in the districts of Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon more than 200 Adivasis were massacred and around 2 lakhs were displaced, and many victims from the Adivasis communities still live a life of deprivation and suffering in relief camps.
 
In 1998, around 50 Adivasis were killed, leaving around 80000 homeless. In 2008 Muslims were targeted again, this time in Udalguri around 70 innocent Muslims were massacred.
 
In 2012 in the districts of Kokrajhar and Chirang more than 100 Muslims were killed and more than five lakhs were left homeless. The targeted violence did not stop there. On  May 1, 2014, 7 Muslims were gunned down by NDFB terrorist at Balapara under Gossaigaon Police Station, Kokrajhar.
 
On May 2, 2014 in a small village NK Khagrabari,  forest guards and terrorists, allegedly affilitated to the dreaded NDFB, mercilessly slaughtered 38 innocents Muslims, 22 were children. On May 7, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi declared that the case will be investigated by National Investigation Agency (NIA), but the case was handed over to NIA after as many as 83 days.. In December 2014 around 70 Adivasis were again murdered all over Assam on the same day.
 
In this long list of targeted violence against Muslims and Adivasis one thing is common-  not even a single perpetrator has been e punished in any case of mass murder except one.
 
Therefore, when on July 8, 2016, when a special NIA court at Guwahati sentenced Pradip Brahma to life imprisonment in the Balapara, this cycle of immunity appears to have, for the moment at least, been punctured.
 
Before this conviction all murderers right from the Chalokhuwa and Nellie massacre had enjoyed an absolute impunity. Every time either Muslims or Adivasis became victims of massacres, the perpetrators were let-off. This impunity only encouraged another massacre, that’s how mass violence became part of a cynical cyclical pattern in Assam.
 
Had murderers of Nellie been punished, had due process of law been followed, hundreds of innocent people would not have been killed with such impunity. In the Balapara massacre case the victims bravely deposed before the court against the terrorist. They are the real heroes behind this historic verdict. We hope their tribe grows.

References:
1. Hate Speech by Law Keepers: NCM Issues Notice to CS Assam
2. Wrong on History and Facts: NDTV’s Battleground Assam
3. When Law keepers trade in Hate: Complaint for Dismissal of DSP Anjan Bora, Assam

 
 
 

Cultural Nationalism is Nothing but Rogue Nationalism pitting ‘Us’ against the “Other”

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Image Courtesy: rangashankara.org

Sadanand Menon de-constructs cultural nationalism, majoritarian and exclusivist

 What is visible today is a new hatred for the idea of democracy as we know it and for the rights as guaranteed in the Constitution. This is quite in keeping with the agenda of cultural nationalism, which strives-through generating a climate of intolerance and intimidation-to keep civil society in a state of constant agitation by subjecting it to constant attack.

–Sadanand Menon

 
Cultural nationalism, by any definition, is a rogue version of nationalism which is already present in concepts of the nation state. Its cunning agenda is to evacuate all ideas of political rights from the idea of a nation state and transplant in its place ideas of cultural rights, obviously weighted in favour of concepts of primogeniture, racial purity and genetic ancestry as contained in ideas like janmabhumi or birthland/homeland and other emotive aspects that touch upon shared language, food and consanguinity. It is a highly charged area of irrational self-beliefs that give little credence to claims of history or any other kind of scientific research. It is an imaginary homeland constructed out of imaginary enemies, who always belong to religions and regions not (you believe, are) your own. It is a strange, anxious individual who will not pay the slightest heed to one’s own proven hybridity. In history, nothing stays ‘pure’. Or, as Salman Rushdie would have it, it’s all subject to ‘mongrelization’.
 
“…In the Indian context, the RSS’s effort has been to construct a ‘national identity’ which is anterior to an elides over the colonial as well Islamic periods of recent times to reach out to an ‘authentic’ India of the hoary past, which remains emblematic of its ‘real’ culture – unique, untrammeled and unadulterated by colonial or Islamic hybridity. In the past, this version found favour with the reigning tenets of Orientalist thought which divided the world into neat, essentialized compartments of the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The East was, then, nothing but ‘spiritual’. Partha Chatterjee, in Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse, has clearly argued how these tropes play out, sometimes straight and sometimes inverting their own claims.
 
“..A constant character of the manufacture of cultural nationalism, therefore, is the constant and nagging ‘unhappiness’ over the narratives of the past which digress from specious claims of purity, undifferentiated unity and political power. Every attempt then is to exhibit unbridled triumphalism over its own antiquity and past glories that anticipate similar fortunes in the future.
 
“..Soon after the NDA came to power in 1998 under Aral Bihari Vajpayee, an extraordinary event happened at the National Museum, Delhi. The Harappan Gallery in the museum was quickly ‘renovated’. As you entered that section, space had been created on the left wall of the gallery to inscribe a ‘civilizational timeline’. So there were Sumerian and Assyrian and Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, all indicated through coloured bands of varying lengths as per their historic antiquity – from 1200 BCE to 2500 BCE. There were about ten or twelve bands in different colours and of diverse lengths. The Chinese civilization, which originated in 3200 BCE, was indicated by a long red band which went halfway across the wall. Above this was a saffron band proudly proclaiming ‘Indian Civilization 7000 BCE’, which went all the way across the wall, dwarfing every other band. The figure, which is a figment of the imagination, has been floating around in the Indian national consciousness since the time Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his essay ‘The Arctic Home in the Vedas’, had somehow configured the Vedic period to be of around that antiquity. Sometimes these inflated figures were useful during the anti-colonial movement to mobilize nationalist opinion and to thumb your nose at the colonialist. However, post-Independence, even as these figures and strategies get contested through more rigorous research, they do get commandeered for purposes that aid in creating a majoritarian version of historic exceptionalism.”
 
“…Ideas of cultural nationalism emerged hand in hand with late nineteenth-century ideas of nationhood itself. Nationalist leaders like Tilak worked on constructing the idea of a glorious and ancient Indian past, heavily inflected with Hindu symbology, as a strategy to fight the imperialist. This was one of the ways in which the national movement hoped to forge a common Indian identity based on a glorious past (composed in equal parts of myth, legend and select incorporations of historical facts). The idea of the past that the national struggle sought to create in its early days was one of a pre-historic India of mythic origins that was divine, pure, monolithic and untainted by any polluting ‘external’ influence.
 
“..This itself was a myth, for the subcontinent has been host to an unending procession of cultures and claimants who have tromped through it over at least three millennia. Yet the attempt was to make culture the sole base for the formation of the independent nation. Inevitably, because of the majoritarian Hindu population and the national leadership that represented them, this notion of the past that was more or less upper caste and Hindu became conflated and interchangeable movement. In some cases, this was deliberate, in others it was inadvertent. The prototype of how cultural nationalism came to be constructed here can be divided into a few distinct phases.
 
“..The first phase is what would be best described as incipient nationalism. It begins with the early impulse to shape the country’s cultural identity by reforming Hinduism itself. English educated, upper-class/caste Indians of the period begin to take to heart the critique as well as construction of Hindu society by ‘well-meaning’ Western scholars. Customs considered ‘barbaric’ like child marriages, the practice of sati, the isolation of widows, the dedication of women to temples as ‘devadasis’, caste discrimination are all seen as retrograde and deplorable. Reformists like Raja Ram Mohan Roy emerge in the early part of the nineteenth century to campaign actively against such ‘evils’ and set the house in order.
 
“…The setting up of the Brahmo Samaj is clearly an early step in articulating a self-conscious new nationalism. It gets further articulated by more aggressive reformers later in the century like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Jyotiba Phule. Swami Dayanand Saraswati sets up the Arya Samaj, which simultaneously calls for reform within the Hindu religion and builds defences against erosion by other religions through elaborate rituals of purity and restitution. The frenzied ‘ghar wapsi’ of today is not all that original an idea. Here the Vedas are considered to be the foundation of Indian nationalism. Hindu tradition is invoked for claiming cultural autonomy, for critiquing certain social practices, as well as for providing cultural foundations for assertive nationalism. Mohinder Singh, in ‘Crisis & Critique: Diagnosis of the Present in Nationalist Discourse in Hindi, 1870-1908’, has made the point that ‘nationalism absorbs traditions superficially; in truth it remains nationalism’s suppressed other’.


 Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
“..As A.G. Noorani points out in his essay on the origins of Bharat Mata, a more militant version of nationalism is provided in 1882 by the publication of the novel Anandamath by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. This was to soon assume the proportion of a manifesto for Hindu nationalism, as Bankim plays with all the tropes of exclusive nationalism – protecting his nation from any external defilement. His idealized nation is Anandamath. The deity he worships is an already militarized, ready-for-battle Krishna who will lead his chosen ones to victory. And, of course, ‘Vande Mataram’ is the battle cry around which he rouses the hordes. It is pertinent here to evoke Sudipta Kaviraj’s masterly study, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India, where he suggests how Bankim works around the fantasy of war against ‘outsiders’, which included the British and the Muslims. He thus provides a powerful imagery for a future nationalism, which was influential enough to be celebrated in theatre and cinema over the next seventy years. And ‘Vande Mataram’ itself (coupled with ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’) emerged as the new talisman with which to measure not only one’s patriotism but one’s very nationality. The sheer ecstasy and rapture into which Hindutva hacks went when A.R. Rahman performed in a virtuoso track of ‘Vande Mataram’ nearly a decade ago was never repeated for any of his other works.
 
“..In 1905, coinciding with the partition of Bengal, Abanindranath Tagore paints an image of ‘Banga Mata’ (Mother Bengal). This was soon to be recast as ‘Bharat Mata’ (Mother India), which marked one of the earliest attempts, building on those by Bankim, to cast the nation in the shape of a benevolent mother. This was still a benign image in the gentle wash style of the Bengal School, where the image is soft and radiant and holds promise of bounty, prosperity and benevolence. Subsequently, as the struggle for independence intensified, so did this image of the benevolent mother become increasingly ferocious, a cross between a Durga and a Kali, riding a tiger and fully armed. Bharat Mata took on a distinctly militant identity that was used to mobilize the Hindu flock, irrespective of political persuasion.
           
“…It must be said here that ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ is not an attribute of patriotism, but of deep patriarchy. Extreme mother-love is a camouflage for extreme misogyny. Over the past few years in India. The nature of the violence inflicted on women during rapes, riots and caste retributions is of an order seldom witnessed before in any part of the world, except perhaps, in Bosnia during the civil war, or in the Congo, or in Sri Lanka during the final moments of the pogrom against the civilian Tamil population there. From the barbarity of the jawans of the Assam Rifles on Manorama Devi, to incessant mass rapes by soldiers in Kashmir, to the graphic and horrific brutalities (that were videotaped) on even pregnant women in Gujarat in 2002, to the Nirbhaya case in Delhi, there is no evidence to prove that devotion towards an abstract ‘Bharat Mata’ translates into even a semblance of affection or respect for real flesh-and-blood women. Indeed, here it is only literally the flesh and blood that seems to matter. Add to this the kind of vile trolling and rank verbal and mental abuse that independent women activists/writers who stand up for rights and against bullying-like, say, Kavita Krishnan, Teesta Setalvad, Arundhati Roy, Shabnam Hashmi, Shehla Rashid, Rana Ayyub and others – are attacked with indicates a level of morbidity and sexual repression that should be unsustainable in a democracy. Cultural nationalism can truly be said to have arrived when this confusion about one’s identity and sexuality produces a permanent pathology of inadequacy, about which Austrian psychoanalyst
 
Wilhelm Reich has so insightfully written in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1993). For Reich, cultural nationalism is the basic emotional attitude of the suppressed man. He sees the ‘authoritarian family’ as the base of the middle classes, which is held together with the help of religious fears and rampant mysticism, infused in turn by sexual guilt embedded in their emotions. Religion, thus, leads to negation of sexual desire. Sexual disability results in lowering of self-confidence.
 
This is often compensated by the ‘brutalization of sexuality’. The good doctor was analysing Germany of the 1930s; he might as well have been putting contemporary India on the couch.
 

 (The author is adjunct faculty, Asian College of Journalism and at IIT, Madras. He is currently managing trustee of the Arts Foundation, SPACES, Chennai; this piece of writing is excerpted from Aleph's just published work, On Nationalism where Menon's essay is titled From National Culture to Cultural Nationalism)
 

Repeal Draconian AFSPA Law: Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee, 2005

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Why has Irom Sharmila, been on an indefinite hunger fast since 2001? She has been demanding the repeal of a law that has allowed unspeakable excesses on the local populations of states in the north-east of India, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) even as it grants impunity to the armed forces from accountability or prosecutions.
 
In the wake of the intense agitation launched by various civil society groups in Manipur following the death of Kr. Th. Manorama Devi on July 7, 2004, while in the custody of the Assam Rifles, and the earlier indefinite fast undertaken by Ms. Irom Sharmila since 2001 demanding repeal of the AFSPA, 1958, the then Union Home Minister visited Manipur in September 2004 and reviewed the situation with the officers of the state government and the security/intelligence agencies.
 
In response, in late 2004, the UPA-1 government, under the Ministry of Home Affairs set up a Committee under a retired judge of the Supreme Court, BP Jeevan Reddy with four members, Dr SB Nakade,  former Vice Chancellor and Jurist, P Srivastav, a former special secretary with the MHA, VR Raghavan, former Lieutenant General with the Indian Army and Sanjoy Hazarika, senior journalist.

It is my view that the army must be deployed in the rarest of rare cases ­not as a knee-jerk reaction of governments at the Central and state levels. The army and security forces have, despite obvious shortcomings as are documented and well-known, tried to do their best and upheld their country's honour and integrity: Sanjoy Hazarika
 
The Committee that submitted its report in May-June 2005 recommended the repeal of the draconian law but replacement of certain provisions of the Unlawful Prevention of Atrocities Act (1967) Act with certain amendments. The UPA Act itself has been thereafter been amended in 2008 and 2012. The entire report can be read here. It is now eleven years since this recommendation, 58 years since its application to the states of the north-east, and the writ of the AFSPA continues, except in Tripura.
 
While recommending its removal from the statute books, the Committee said, “The Act is too sketchy, too bald and quite inadequate in several particulars. It is true that the Hon'ble Supreme Court has upheld its constitutional validity but that circumstance is not an endorsement of the desirability or advisability of the Act….besides.. the Act, for whatever reason, has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high-handedness”. 

In March 2015, the Left Front Government of Tripura, after a thorough review of the law and order situation of the State came to the conclusion that peace has been restored and that the situation is under control and has repealed the act and its writ in the state. See https://sabrangindia.in/interview/tripura-our-cadre-are-living-contact-people-and-their-problems-manik-sarkar-chief-minister
 

Annexure IV to the report is a Note to the Jeevan Reddy Committee Report authored by senior journalist Sanjoy Hazarika. We reproduce this here
 
At the end of a long night, there is a dawn…

Sanjoy Hazarika

When introducing the Armed Forces Special Powers Bill (1958) in the Lok Sabha, the then Home Minister Shri Govind Ballabh Pant declared that "certain misguided sections" of the Nagas were involved in "arson, murder, loot, dacoity etc." He added, "So it has become necessary to adopt effective measures for the protection of the people in those areas. In order to enable the armed forces to handle the situation effectively whenever such problem arises hereafter, it has been considered necessary to introduce this bill."

Some members of Parliament, especially from Manipur, and elsewhere opposed the Act; one of them, L. Achaw Singh of Manipur, described the proposal as "unnecessary … an anti-democratic measure … a lawless law."

AFSPA in the North-East has continued for 47 years. The Committee's essential recommendation, as laid out in both its conclusions and the proposed changes to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (as amended in 2004), is that AFSPA must be repealed forthwith; the gains of the law are extremely moot, its negative impacts have been overwhelming.

Many of the security problems of the region can be tackled by local police and commando forces, with the assistance of the armed forces where essential. But the dependence of the states on the army must be reduced to the minimum and armed forces should be deployed only as a last resort.

Numerous representations from the public as well as from the army, paramilitary and police have informed the Committee that political problems must be addressed politically and not militarily. These must include the processes of development of participative planning, involving local traditional groups in the role of self-governance, instead of sheltering behind the army and other forces. As we have noted earlier, there has been a sustained and systematic failure of governance; without the restoration of governance and the faith of the public in the ability of governments to rule justly and provide security to their citizens, the problems may become more acute.

This is a long and difficult task and the pressures are enormous. The Committee does not underestimate the scale of the challenges. But there is no option for the Indian State or the states of the Union. Faltering and even failing, at times, the states of the Union, and especially the North-east, must strengthen their own systems of governance, restoring the confidence of the people and providing the basics of governance.

AFSPA in the North-East has continued for 47 years. The Committee's essential recommendation, as laid out in both its conclusions and the proposed changes to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (as amended in 2004), is that AFSPA must be repealed forthwith

What started as a political demand and insurgency in the Naga Hills, now Nagaland, has developed into a number of militant armed uprisings in not less than five other states – Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. These have international connections with various armed groups and forces inimical to India and democratic forces. In addition, there are the problems of illegal migration into the region, especially Assam. The intensity of the challenges are immense: these range from ethnic standoffs and struggles for land and space as well as political rights.

In the past half century, another major change has affected the violence: on both sides of the "barrier", the lethality of weapons and their easier availability has transformed the power and quality of the fighting. RDX, AK-56s, machine guns and sniper rifles are used extensively. The immediacy of communications has also effectively changed the profile of these organizations as well of fighting: people can see, hear and even communicate with them by email!

A consequence of such long-drawn out conflicts has been the collapse of governance in a number of the states; the security of the citizens is at extreme risk, from security forces and the militants. During this period, there have been some positive gains – awareness of human rights has increased in India and the world, the media is stronger as are non-government organizations and civil society groups. Violations of human rights by state forces and by non-state armed groups cannot, in these days of instant information, be hidden any longer.

The upsurge in Manipur after the death of Ms. Manorama Devi last June in the custody of the Assam Rifles is a demonstration of this awareness, although there are official views that the agitation was also orchestrated by the underground groups. The latter are not the concern of this Committee, which was appointed last November, as a democratic response by the Central Government to a democratic demand by the people of the state for the repeal of the Act. After a detailed process of hearings in Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya as well as New Delhi and interactions in Arunachal Pradesh and extensive internal deliberations, the Committee has reached a conclusion which is detailed in this report.

It is my view that the army must be deployed in the rarest of rare cases ­not as a knee-jerk reaction of governments at the Central and state levels. The army and security forces have, despite obvious shortcomings as are documented and well-known, tried to do their best and upheld their country's honour and integrity

We have been encouraged by the openness with which people approached the committee and spoke their views without fear or favour, despite many pressures. We also are encouraged by the fact that many of the armed groups in the North-east are in the process of negotiation or seeking conversations which can bring armed confrontations to an end and restore dignity to civil society and the rule of justice and law.
 
The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in March 2003 that "respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law are essential tools in the effort to combat terrorism – not privileges to be sacrificed at a time of tension."
 
We hope that the report of the Committee will help in the process of reconciliation and democratisation in the North-east, create a space for dialogue and discussion, reducing conflicts and helping the region write a new chapter of peace, change and happiness in its troubled history. We also hope that it strengthens the county's unity, integrity and security and creates an atmosphere for people to live in dignity, honour and peace.

At the end of every dark night, there is a dawn, however delayed. And for every day, there is a dawn, whether we see it or not.

(Sanjoy Hazarika, New Delhi, May 30, 2005)

Impunity of Armed Forces Must Go: SC On AFSPA

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Image: E-pao.net

Every death caused by the armed forces in a disturbed area, whether the victim is a dreaded criminal or a militant or a terrorist or an insurgent, should be thoroughly enquired into, the Supreme Court held on Friday, July 8. This is to address any allegation of use of excessive or retaliatory force beyond the call of duty, the court said.

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court also said the largescale killings in Manipur in the guise of self defence while dealing with insurgency or militants was unacceptable. It said if members of the armed forces are deployed and employed to kill citizens of the country on the mere allegation or suspicion that they are the ‘enemy’, not only the rule of law but also democracy would be in grave danger.***

“It does not matter whether the victim was a common person or a militant or a terrorist, nor does it matter whether the aggressor was a common person or the state. The law is the same for both and is equally applicable to both… This is the requirement of a democracy and the requirement of preservation of the rule of law and the preservation of individual liberties,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit said in an 85-page judgment. The entire text of the judgement can be read here.

The verdict pulls down the cloak of secrecy about unaccounted deaths involving security forces in disturbed areas and serves as a judicial precedent to uphold civilian and human rights in sensitive areas under military control.

Plea by Manipur families

The judgment came on a petition by Survivors, hundreds of families in the north-eastern State of Manipur for a probe by a Special Investigation Team into 1,528 cases of alleged fake encounters involving the Army and the police.  
Dealing a blow to the immunity enjoyed by security personnel under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA) against criminal action for acts committed in disturbed areas, the apex court held that “there is no concept of absolute immunity from trial by a criminal court” if an Army man has committed an offence.

The court held that the army or Manipur police cannot use excessive force under the provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) or the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to deal with militants or insurgency.

A bench of justices Madan B. Lokur and Uday Lalit gave this ruling on a petition filed by Extra Judicial Execution Victim Families Association alleging 1,528 fake encounter deaths in Manipur in the last decade and demanding a probe by a special investigation team. If any death was unjustified, there is no blanket immunity available to the perpetrator(s) of the offence. No one can act with impunity, particularly when there is a loss of an innocent life, the judges said.

Argument thrown out
Throwing out the government’s argument that lack of immunity from prosecution would have a demoralising impact on the security forces, the court asked the Centre to spare a thought for the “equally unsettling and demoralising” picture of a citizen living under the fear of the gun in a democracy. The court dismissed the government’s argument that every armed person breaking prohibitory orders in a disturbed area runs the risk of being considered an “enemy.”

“It would not be correct to say that merely because a person was carrying arms in a prohibited area, he or she becomes an enemy or an active member of a banned or unlawful organisation… Before a person can be branded as a militant or a terrorist or an insurgent, there must be the commission or some attempt or semblance of a violent overt act,” the judgment held.

A thorough enquiry should be conducted into “encounter” killings in disturbed areas because the “alleged enemy is a citizen of our country entitled to all fundamental rights including under Article 21 of the Constitution.”

 
 

Will a People’s Movement Restore Sustainability & Peace to Arunachal Pradesh?

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Lama Lobang Gyatso, Tawang                                                          

Lama Lobang Gyatso speaks and explains the extent of state repression in the state

More than 100 large and medium dams are planned in the North Eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Lama Lobsang Gyatso from Tawang Valley talks about the large hydro-electric projects that threaten the very existence of his Monpa community. This powerful video conversation, with Lama Lobsang Gyatso (Newsclick.in) who was attached to the 17th century Tawang Monastery and is the leader of the Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF) explains the struggle of large sectiobns of Arunalachis against this self-defeating and environmentally defeatist course.

The Modi regime that had promised a re-look at the policy of dams in Arunachal (while on the election trail) has backtracked fast enough. On May 2, 2016, in an ugly turn of events, two people, namely Monk Nyima Wangdue and Tshering Tenpa, were killed and many injured, while protesting against the arrest of Lama Lobsang Gyatso in Tawang including a young Buddhist Lama. The Victims were protesting for the release of Lama Lobsang Gyatso, one of the most vocal opponents of hydropower projects in the Tawang region and secretary of the Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF), an organization of the Monpa Community in the Mon-Tawang region of Arunachal Pradesh.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
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Lama Lobsang Gyatso was attached to the 17th century Tawang Monastery and is the leader of the Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF). 


On May 02, 2016 in an ugly turn of event, two people, namely Monk Nyima Wangdue and Tshering Tenpa   

Background:
Even while the State government continues to remain apathetic to the whole situation, the Modi regime has in a surreptitious manner completely over-turned its electoral promises to stall hydel projects in the region that is seismic sensitive.
 As far back as September 24, 2014, six year and two rejections later, India’s largest hydro project was cleared. The project was rejected twice by the FAC, the original proposal in 2013 and a revised proposal in April.The 3000 MW Dibang Hydel project for which former prime minister, Manmohan Singh laid its foundation stone and which had twice been denied environmental clearance, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), gae it clearance subject to a reduction in the dam height by 20 m from the originally envisaged 288 m.
 
This clearance for India’s largest hydro project and the world’s tallest concrete gravity dam came after a September 3 letter from Nripendra Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, to the Environment Secretary to “clear the project expeditiously” as per the decision of the Cabinet Committee on investment. This was the person whom Modi had had a special ordinance passed to enable his appointment.
 
This clearance had raised eyebrows, since on August 28, 2014 the MoEF had written to the Arunachal Pradesh government rejecting the proposal for diverting more than 45 sq km of forest land to National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) for the project. A day after Mishra’s letter, the Ministry revived the project by writing to the “project proponent that sensitivity analysis of reduction of dam height up to 40 m may please be submitted for further consideration”.
 
In 2013, in the run up to the general elections of 2014, as the National Democratic Alliance’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Narendra Modi had given hope to anti-dam activists in Assam when he spoke against the controversial large dams proposed in Arunachal Pradesh. But those hopes were dashed on February 20, when Modi visited Itanagar to attend Arunachal Pradesh's 29th Statehood Day. At an election rally on February 22, 2013 at an election rally at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh, Modi had said that he would prefer smaller hydro power projects in the region, honouring the sentiments of the region’s people. A year later and the prime minister had forgotten his promise. He pushed for hydropower projects in the state and said Arunachal Pradesh can light up the entire country.

Sabrangindia has been regularly tracking this critical human rights and environmental rights issue. Reportedly, 13 of the over 150 hydel projects planned by the state since 2005 are in the Tawang. To stall this spree of dam construction and upcoming ecological devastation, the people from the Monpa Community joined hands with local Buddhist monks in 2011 to form the Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF).

Under Lobsang Gyatso's leadership, SMRF has been advocating socio-culturally and ecologically sensitive development in the Mon-Tawang region. The group has protested against ecologically destructive hydropower projects, demanded accountability in the execution of government schemes and development projects, and exposed corruption.

Their work has been bearing fruit as on April 7, the SMRF saw its first significant achievement. In response to its petition filed in 2012, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended the environment clearance granted by the Union environment ministry for the Rs. 6,400 crore Nyamjang Chhu hydropower project in Tawang’s Zemingthang area. The NGT noted that the project – promoted by the Noida-based steel conglomerate LNJ Bhilwara Group – did not consider its impact on the habitat of the endangered black-necked crane, which is endemic to the region. The bird is rated “vulnerable” in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of endangered species and is listed in schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Prohibition) Act 1972 and also considered sacred to the Buddhist Monpa community, who consider it an embodiment of the 6th Dalai Lama, who was from Tawang and wrote about the bird in his poetry.

Lobsang Gyatso and SMRF have been supporting villagers in recording their objections against other destructive hydropower projects in Tawang too, including Tawang II HEP.However Lobsang Gyatso’s success seems to have made him a target for the local police authorities. Following the events, he was arrested twice last month on charges of disrupting peace in the Gongkhar Village and for alleged critical comments against Guru Rinpoche, the Abbot of Tawang Monastery, in reply of that the Abbot has appealed to find a peaceful solution to the volatile situation but the politicians exploited the issue and filed an FIR  against the leader Lobsang Gyatso after which the protests erupted in the region for his release.

The political motivation is also clear as the SMRF is preparing to file public interest litigation in the Supreme Court against the Mukto Shakangchu hydel project, report sections of the media. Even though over 90 crores rupees were officially spent by the state government on the project, most of what was constructed has been washed away by the river waters within three and a half months of completion of work due to use of sub-standard material.

May 2016 Protests in the National Capital

Around 60 monks from the Tawang valley in Arunachal Pradesh valley have travelled to Delhi to draw public and media attention to alleged police atrocity in their district and to demand justice. Representatives from Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF) and National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) briefed the media yesterday about the developments in Tawang district.

According to them, 21-year-old Nyima Wangdi, a monk from the Tawang Monastery and 31-year-old Tsering Tempa from Jangda village were shot dead on May 2, 2016, while 19 others were seriously injured when police opened fire on a crowd of almost 2,000 people who had gathered peacefully at Tawang district collector’s office to demand immediate release of their community leader, Lama Lobsang Gyatso.

The issue started with the local community protesting the construction of 780 MW Nyamjang Chhu power project in the Tawang valley. The project is a threat to the wintering habitat of the black-necked crane, an endangered bird considered sacred by the Buddhist Monpa community. The bird is considered an embodiment of the 6th Dalai Lama who was from Tawang and wrote about the bird in his poetry.

The community of Tawang Valley had written several times to the local administration and the state government agencies but there was no response. Due to this, the tribal community of the valley had approached NGT which suspended the environment clearance of the project on the April 7, 2016. Ever since there was a coordinated reaction from the state administration, local MLA and zila parishad chairman (JPC), it is alleged.

On April 26, 2016, Lama Lobsang Gyatso was arrested but released the same day. On April 28, the zila parishad chairman called a public meeting ostensibly to discuss development of Tawang region but he singled out and attacked the Lama. Lama Lobsang Gyatso was rearrested on April 28. Due to these developments the community suspected that worse might happen to their leader and assembled peacefully on May 2 to demand his release from police custody.

Representatives of SMRF, an environmental civil society organisation working in the region along with representatives from NAPM and Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG) met with chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) on May 24 and with joint secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in New Delhi on May 25. The chairman assured that he will direct state authorities to register cases under Prevention of Atrocities (SC/ST) Act, and also ask for CID and judicial enquiry, not involving local police in investigation, and assured compensation to the injured and the families of people who were killed in police firing.

The joint secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, assured that they are not going to challenge the order dated April 7 of National Green Tribunal (NGT). He also gave assurances about conducting studies pertaining to the endangered bird through Wildlife Institute of India for the entire season as decided by the experts. Demand for the consultation with community and religious issues (linked to black-necked-crane bird) was also accepted.

The NHRC has also been approached and are looking into the matter. The demand for CBI enquiry and issue pertaining to the manner of project sanctioning / approval, are yet to be addressed.

Lobsang Chhodup, one of the monks who came from Tawang valley, said, “We want the government to pay heed to this. People in Arunachal should not feel as though they are being neglected”. 

Himanshu Thakkar, from South Asian Network for Rivers, Dams and People said, “The electricity generated from Tawang will not reach them even though the destruction will be entirely theirs.” 

Jampa Tsering who works with Humanity Foundation, Tawang, has said, “Tawang region needs micro-hydel power projects and not the mega projects.”  Vimal bhai from NAPM said that Arunachal Pradesh is not any Naxal affected region nor a conflict area nor a communally sensitive region. Instead, it is a peaceful place in the country which has a large population of Buddhist monks. There was no reason for the police to open fire on them without any warning. This incident forces us to think whether it was a pre-planned action.” 

The representatives from SMRF, NAPM and DSG condemned the high handedness of the administration in dealing with a peaceful protest and demanded that there should be an enquiry into the incident and the guilty punished. They also observed that the nexus between the state machinery and the private companies is working against the interest of the people in the region and that this cannot continue. They said that the directions of NGT and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change must be complied with and adhered to.


Image Courtesy: Savetawang.org

 

 

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