It was meant to be a joke posted by a university teacher on his own Facebook wall, some liked it, some did not, some were extra ‘hurt’ and angry they their religious sentiments had been hurt at this:

It is perhaps just an imaginary ‘conversation’ at best, or  whatsapp forward at worse. However it was seen as strong enough to ‘hurt’ some. A few people shot off letters of complaint, and some others filed online complaints with the police, after the joke started doing the rounds of social media, and became more visible. Soon, the Assam Police took action against the assistant professor and booked him for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by posting  his “derogatory” joke. 

According to media reports, the Assam police have registered a case against Anindya Sen on August 8 based on a complaint from Rohit Chanda, who identified himself as a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. “Yes, a case has been registered over the FB post,” Cachar Superintendent of Police BL Meena was quoted by The Indian Express, “the complaint is about the post hurting religious sentiments. We will investigate the matter.”

The media reports state that, Anindya Sen, an assistant professor of English at Assam University in Silchar, has been booked under sections 294 (obscene acts or words in public), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts to outrage religious feelings) and 501 (printing or engraving matters known to be defamatory) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR has been lodged at Silchar, Assam, against Sen, alleging that his post was fuelling ‘religious hatred, communal feeling, cyber crime’. The section 295A, is a non-bailable one. Another letter of complaint has been addressed to the Superintendent of Police, accusing Prof. Sen of “distorting the Ramayanas to deliberately hurt Hindu sentiments.”

Sen had posted this joke on August 5, the day of the Ram temple bhoomi pujan at Ayodhya, and Chanda alleged that Sen had made derogatory remarks against Ram. “He also continuously posts such abusive posts defaming Hindu dharma and also abuses constitutional posts like Prime Minister and Home Minister of the country,” the FIR read.

However, according to Scroll Sen has said that “The Ramayana is an epic,” he said. “It has many versions. At different points, Ram has been criticised. I am not the first one to point out the criticism. It has been done before as well.”

Meanwhile, a large number of concerned citizens have signed and issued a statement in Sen’s support. The full text is as follows:

An FIR has been lodged at Silchar, Assam, against Anindya Sen, an Assistant Professor of English, Assam University, based on a joke that he posted on his own Facebook wall.  The charges levelled against him are that of ‘religious hatred, communal feeling, cyber crime’. One of the sections of the IPC that he has been charged with, that is Section 295A, is a non-bailable one. Another letter of complaint has been addressed to the Superintendent of Police, Cachar district, accusing Prof. Sen of distorting the Ramayanas to deliberately hurt Hindu sentiments.

The joke shared by Prof Sen that has supposedly ‘hurt Hindu sentiments’ is as follows: 

She: And all this drama for a man who threw out his wife.

Me: Ya. Abandoned his wife. Right.

She: In fear of what ‘people’ would say.

Me: Oh! You mean Sriramchandra! I was thinking of you know who!

The view on ‘Sriramchandra’ that one can glean from this Facebook post has drawn numerous trolls many of which are nauseating in their abusive language and threatening in their content. The trolls are clearly an attempt to intimidate him and people related to him with rape, grievous bodily harm and professional harassment.

Prof. Sen’s post reiterates a very common point that is well established in academic discourses on the Indian epic ‘Ramayana’ – more specifically in any gendered reading of the text. A. K. Ramanujan writes on five ‘tellings’ of ‘Ramayana’ in his scholarly essay Three Hundred Ramayanas. Again we have the 17th century Bengali poet Chandravati’s ‘Ramayana’ along with many folk traditions that locate Sita and her suffering as the central motif of the ‘Ramayana’. In the 1980s, Kannada critic Polanki Ramamurthy wrote Sitayana, a retelling of the epic from Sita’s perspective.

It seems that these people are ignorant of the fact that there is not one Ramayana, but more than three hundred Ramayanas, from time immemorial, in this vast and diverse country. In a way each Ramayana is a ‘distortion’ of the other, and all of them do not portray Ram in the same light. So should complaints be lodged against these other Ramayanas?

Ramayana, as everyone should know, is an epic, and NOT a religious text. Thus the complaint of ‘religious hatred’, ‘communal feeling’ or ‘cyber-crime’ levelled at Prof Sen is baseless to the point of being ridiculous.

In this country, as long as the Constitution is alive, democracy is alive, everyone has the right to express their views, however unpalatable that may seem to the current majoritarian worldview. Anindya Sen’s Facebook post has no unparliamentary words, no threats, no instigations; but many of the comments attacking him are unparliamentary, provocative and threatening.  These threats that attempt to silence any voice that goes against one particular ideology has become a frequent occurrence in the recent past. ‘Hurting religious sentiments’ has become a common narrative that is being used as a veil under which organised violence is thriving. We earnestly urge that these choreographed rampant abuse and threats and frivolous FIRs lodged on flimsy grounds to intimidate and stifle free expression in a free country should be given Suo Moto cognizance by the Indian judiciary.

Above all we condemn the verbal abuse and harassment that Anindya Sen is being made to go through and stand in solidarity with his right to express his opinion–an opinion that is in tune with the plural, diverse, democratic traditions of India.

Please consider endorsing the statement, here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1OSZydb6QboqS9umEZCRS8md0fEHxqEgFMdGI0AHlrKY/viewform?edit_requested=true

Related: 

Terrorised by trolls, comedians apologise for hurting religious sentiments
Accusing Dr Zafarul Islam Khan of sedition, is an attempt to intimidate: Activists  
Defend freedom of expression

The post Jokes are not funny in Assam, FIR against Prof for sharing one appeared first on SabrangIndia.

इस साल की शुरुआत में उस चाय-हाउस का उद्घाटन मुख्यमंत्री महबूबा मुफ्ती ने किया था। हालांकि रूही नाज़की एक व्यवसाय करती हैं, लेकिन जनता से जुड़े मुद्दों पर अपनी राय जाहिर करने के लिए अपनी निजी क्षमता के दायरे में सोशल मीडिया का इस्तेमाल कर रही हैं। उनके फेसबुक पोस्ट ने इस बात का एक सशक्त चित्र खींचा कि कश्मीर में सरकार की प्रतिक्रिया के खिलाफ असंतोष की तीव्रता और निराशा कितने गहरे पैमाने पर फैली हुई है। भारतीय सेना की ओर से किए गए पैलेट गोलीबारी के शिकार होकर सौ से ज्यादा कश्मीरी युवकों और युवतियों की आंखें जिंदगी भर के लिए पूरी तरह से या करीब-करीब चली गईं। रूही नाज़की पीडीपी के वरिष्ठ विचारक और शिक्षा मंत्री नईम अख्तर, राजस्व मंत्री बशारत बुखारी और कश्मीर घाटी में मौजूदा पुलिस का नेतृत्व करने वाले पुलिस महानिदेशक सैयद जावेद मुजतबा गिलानी की रिश्ते में बहन भी हैं।

नाजकी लिखती हैं- “उन्हें हर हाल में रुकने की जरूरत है, ताकि हम यह मान सकें कि यह जरूरी नहीं है कि हरेक चुनी हुई सरकार सत्ता में आते ही गैरजिम्मेदार और केवल एक पत्थर के खंभे की तरह हो जाए! कश्मीर में हर सफल सरकार ने अपने पहले की सत्ता से अलग तरह से नहीं सोचा-समझा। हमारे नेताओं को सभी चीजों को भयानक, अदृश्य और बेआवाज शक्ल में तब्दील करने की जरूरत नहीं है।”

“मुमकिन है कि है कि उनका पीछे हटने से नाइंसाफी फिलहाल नहीं रुके। लेकिन यही सब कुछ नहीं है। उनके लिए अपने विरोध को दर्ज करना ज्यादा मायने रखता है। हमेशा की तरह अपराध में साझीदार नहीं होने के लिए… खामोशी के साथ इंतजार और चुपचाप देखने के रिवायत को तोड़ने के लिए… अपनी अंतरात्मा की आवाज को बनाए रखने के लिए… अगर इंसाफ नहीं तो सच के साथ के लिए…!” नाज़की ने सरकार पर यह कहते हुए सवाल उठाया कि “हमलोग हर वक्त के बहानों से तंग आ चुके हैं। यह अनैतिक है, त्रासद और गलत है। पिछले दिनों कश्मीर में जो हुआ वह भयानक तौर पर गलत है। बच्चों तक का बर्बर कत्ल, विरोध प्रदर्शन करने वालों की आंखों की रोशनी आपराधिक तौर पर हमेशा के लिए छीन लेना और एक समूची आबादी को बेशर्म तरीके से घुटने के लिए छोड़ देना..! अगर यह पिछले दो दशक या इससे ज्यादा से हो रहा है, तब भी यह गलत ही है। कश्मीर को जलने से बचाने के लिए कई एजेंसियां काम कर रही हैं, तब भी यह गलत है। यह गलत है कि कोई हमारे सामने तमाम बहाने परोस रहा है।”

“और सबसे बुनियादी रूप में, सबसे शर्मनाक और घातक तरीके से गलत है। यह कश्मीर के बच्चों के साथ हुआ, जो हमारे देश के उन सुरक्षा बलों के हाथों गलियों में मारे गए, जिसने उनके युवा शरीर में पैलेट डाले। यह एक लोकतांत्रिक देश में हुआ कि एक समूची आबादी को बिना किसी बुनियादी जरूरतों, बिना फोन, अखबारों के कई दिनों तक के लिए बंधक बना लिया गया। और यह एक बार फिर एक चुनी हुई लोकप्रिय सरकार की आंखों के सामने हो रहा है।”

सरकार की प्रतिक्रिया को अस्वीकार्य बताते हुए नाज़की इसे फिर से दुरुस्त करने की जरूरत पर जोर देती हैं- “सत्ता को गलत कामों को दुरुस्त करने में लगाने या फिर पूरी तरह छोड़ देने की जरूरत है। हमें भावी पीढ़ियों के लिए विश्वास पर ध्यान देना चाहिए था, ताकि वे अब सच के चेहरे के तौर पर जाने जाएं। उनका सच, हमारा सच। वे यह कर सकते हैं। और उन्हें यह करना भी चाहिए..!”

The post बेशर्म बहानों की आग में झुलसता कश्मीर appeared first on SabrangIndia.

FB photo, Home Page Image from Cover FB Image

Haseeb Drabu’s wife Roohi Nazki, a former Tata executive, who recently returned to Srinagar to start a high end tea-house, Chai Jai on Jhelum banks, termed the government’s response to the mass uprising across Kashmir triggered by the killing of Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani as “immoral, unethical, tragic and wrong”. Her husband, Haseeb Drabu is finance minister in the PDP-BJP government, in Mehbooba Mufti's cabinet making her strong and outraged words on a facebook post even more significant.

The tea house was inaugurated by CM Mehbooba Mufti earlier this year. Though Roohi Nazki is a  professional who is outspoken on issues of public import in her individual capacity on social media, this facebook post, is fair illustration of how deep and widespread the intensity of resentment and frustration against the government’s response to the mass upsurge in Kashmir is. Young persons, girls and men have fallen victim to the pellet fire by the Indian army that has left over 100 blinded or near blined, for life. Roohi Nazki is also first cousin of top PDP ideologue and minister of education, Nayeem Akhtar, revenue Minister Basharat Bukhari and and the Inspector General of Police Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani, who is presently heading the J&K Police in Kashmir valley.

“They need to step down so that we can be convinced that every popularly elected government doesn’t necessarily turn into an unresponsive monolith as soon as it is sworn into power. That each successive regime in Kashmir does not have to become indistinguishable from the previous one. That our leaders do not all have to transform into horrific, faceless, and voiceless entities,” Nazki wrote.

“Their stepping down may not stop the injustice. But that is not all that matters. What matters more is for them to register a protest. To not become complicit by default. To break the silence and the cycle of waiting and watching. To have a conscience and keep it. To uphold truth if not justice”.

Nazki questioned the government, saying “..it is wrong, no matter what excuse we are fed, day in and day out”.

“It is immoral, unethical, tragic and wrong. Whatever has been happening in Kashmir over the last 14 days is terribly wrong. The brutal killings of children, the criminal blinding and maiming of protesters, and the shameless suffocating of an entire population is wrong. It is wrong even if it has been happening over the last two decades or so. It is wrong even if there are ‘far too many agencies at work trying to keep Kashmir burning’. It is wrong no matter what excuse we are fed, day in and day out. It is wrong irrespective of who feeds us the excuses, she wrote.

“And it is wrong in the most fundamental, most shameful and the most damning way. For it is the children of Kashmir that are being killed on street corners, by the security forces of our country. Who pump pellets into their young bodies. It is in a democratic nation that a whole population is taken hostage for days on end, without basic amenities, without phones, without newspapers. And it is happening under the watch of a popularly elected government. Yet again!”

“The government must step down” because “the brutal killings of children, the criminal blinding and maiming of protesters, and the shameless suffocating of an entire population is wrong”.

Nazki termed the government’s reaction “unacceptable” which “needs rectification”.

“It is wrong, it is unacceptable and it needs rectification. The powers that be need to either step up and stop the wrongdoings. Or they need to step down. I guess they just need to step down,’’ she wrote. “…what matters most is to keep the faith for our future generations. So that they can know the face of truth. Their truth. Our truth. They can do this. And they should”.

The post Roohi Nazki, Wife of PDP Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu asks Govt to Step Down appeared first on SabrangIndia.