IANS reports that Shyam Benegal’s sharp reactions to the violence and intimidation around the Padmavati crisis: As “Padmavati” crisis escalates and the film’s release got deferred ‘voluntarily’, veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal has spoken out, highly critical of the behaviour of The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

The filmmaker who headed a committee to recommend reforms on the censor board’s working, has strong words of censure for the panel. “I must say the CBFC is behaving very strangely in the matter of ‘Padmavati’. If the film did not carry a disclaimer it could easily be corrected. Why send the film back? Again it seems very suspicious,” said Benegal.

Benegal, who faced a furious backlash in his time for his cinema on socio-cultural equality, is baffled by the extent of the “Padmavati” uproar:

I am sorry I can’t comment on ‘Padmavati’. I haven’t seen it, have you? No one has seen it. Yet there are hordes of people objecting to its content. Does that make any sense? I can’t understand how the protest has spread across the nation when hardly anyone has seen the film. How can the protest against a film become so rampant when no one has seen the film, no one knows the content.
I am sorry, the protests make no sense unless we judge them against the political current political climate in the country.

Benegal, whose films like “Ankur”, “Nishant”, “Manthan” focused on the evils of the caste system, sees a pattern of vote-bank politics in the protests against “Padmavati”.  He also said: 
This is being done to consolidate the Rajput vote. Now, you must understand that the Rajput community is not one homogenized community across the country.

The Rajputs of Rajasthan possess a different mindset and cultural inclination as compared with the Rajputs in other parts of India. And even those Rajputs in different regions outside Rajasthan are diverse in their outlook. By raking up the ‘Padmavati’ non-issue, the Karni Sena hopes to homogenize the Rajputs across the country and unite them over an utterly irrelevant crisis. Sadly their ploy seems to be working. If I am from a particular caste and you tell me my cultural heritage is threatened I will naturally react against the threat.

Benegal urges the protesters to get reasonable and added, “Wait for ‘Padmavati’ to release then pass your verdict. What is the point in commenting on a film whose content has not been exposed to the public?”
Padmavati

The post Padmavati Row, a Bid to Consolidate the Rajput Vote: Shyam Benegal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

  
   Photo Credit: WUNRN

Researched in the context of the victim-friendly provisions in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, the micro study of 16 cases has found that though there has been some difference in the manner in which cases of sexual assault are handled in Delhi, there still continues to be widespread victim shaming, and lack of support and counseling services for victims.

In an attempt to identify the gaps in the existing procedures and to find out whether the large body of jurisprudence is complying with the reforms in relation to victim-centric procedures and reforms, the legal resource group conducted trial observations of 16 cases of sexual assault in four fast track courts in Delhi between February 2014 to March 2015. In each case, the accused was an acquaintance of the victim – which spanned all age groups between 18-50 years and belong to relatively weak social economic backgrounds.

The findings hold a mirror to society where women are repeatedly subjected to sexual assault at the hands of men who hold a position of dominance over them.

The findings from the research data shows:
•     Pre-trial records suggest formal compliance with timeline and protocol: Within 24 hours after the FIR is registered, the victim is taken for her medical examination, and in a few days, for her S.164, CrPC statement to the Magistrate. The accused are also arrested, and within the span of 2-3 months, the case is taken cognizance of by the Magistrate.
•     Some victims experience obstacles and harassment during registration: Despite an apparent compliance with protocol in pre-trial records, some victim interviews suggest resistance and harassment in registering an FIR, including efforts to dissuade the woman from registering a complaint based on opinions on the veracity of the complaint, or by invoking family values. While there is evidence on successful registration of zero FIR, there is also an instance of refusal of the same. Copies of FIR are not immediately available. The accounts of victims show inconsistency in implementing the law.
•     Medico-forensic procedures not conducted as per MoHFW Guidelines: The medico-forensic procedures, despite the new MoHFW guidelines, show little evidence of any transformation. a) the examination is still not conducted with the informed consent of the victim; b) internal examination of the victims continue, although the victims are not informed of their purpose. While they are a part of medical treatment afforded to the victim, they are also used to make insinuations of her sexual history by making notings on old tears in the hymen; c) express notings about the absence of injuries on the body of the victim also persist, to suggest a lack of resistance to the assault; d) hostility, disbelief and advise to not pursue the case by medical staff reported by at least one victim.
•     Medical examination neglects treatment and counseling: The medical procedures emphasise only those processes that are relevant for the collection of evidence to feed into the trial, and neglect granting continued medical attention to the victim for treatment of injuries incurred during the assault, and counseling. There is no evidence of counseling to victims except in two of the sixteen cases, although required under the guidelines. The counseling provided also does not adhere to the required standards, as it just involves asking the victim what her expectations of the legal proceedings are.
•     Victims/ complainants need legal guidance and support services: Beginning from the point of registering the complaint, the victims/ complainants experience confusion and uncertainty about what to do, what to expect and the logic behind each of the steps in the pre-trial as well as the trial stages. The lack of legal orientation, guidance creates enormous anxiety, leading to undue financial exploitation for gaining elementary legal information, including just obtaining a copy of the FIR. It also compromises the rights of the complainant, as we see later in trial stages, as they don’t avail of a companion during deposition or compensation or indeed, medical treatment. This is a vital gap in the system.
The recommendations for reform of pre-trial procedures, corresponding to the above findings are as follows:
1.   Hospitals/ Medical Guidelines: There appears to be little or no training of the hospital staff on the MoHFW guidelines and protocols based on this data. It is absolutely pressing that trainings areconducted in all hospitals to not just to be acquainted with new procedures, and be alerted to those that are discontinued. Emphasis must be placed on understanding why certain procedures are prohibited and the more importantly, what the current procedures signify.  Only then can the MoHFW guidelines and protocols be adopted in letter and spirit, and translate into attitudinal change and practice.
2.   Quality of trainings of all agencies involved in pre-trial stage: Much greater attention needs to be placed on the quality, curriculum, substance, duration and periodicity of trainings. These must go beyond the symbolic and perfunctory exercises that frequently pass off as trainings. There is a need for monitoring and evaluation of trainings so that the intended impact is tracked or trainings revised as relevant.
3.   Legal orientation/ support services and monitoring of the case: There is a need for a specialized agency such as a one stop crisis centre (providing support services discussed in later), whose role begins from the time of reporting, and includes orienting the victim on her rights. Besides being a necessary response to help victims of sexual assault, a specialized agency enables the victim to navigate the legal procedure, rendering her less vulnerable. It will additionally act as a monitoring body, troubleshooting as and when problems become apparent in a case.

The Trial Stage
In the trial stage, the study was limited to observing the deposition of the prosecutrix in court, since this is the site which most clearly suggests the hostility or sensitivity of the judicial process towards the victim. It is also in respect of the depositions of the victim that the Supreme Court has laid down guidelines in the cases of State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh and Sakshiv. Union of India, to shield the prosecutrix from the accused as well as the general public, and to place her at ease during her testimony by routing questions through the Presiding Officer, and offering her a chair, water and breaks as and when required. The 2013 Amendments also stipulate that the trial should be completed within a span of 2 months.
This stage was monitored by the researchers through observation of the deposition of the prosecutrix in court. Observations regarding the conduct of proceedings as well as the court environment within which the deposition is conducted were documented. These observations were further supplemented by the personal account of the prosecutrix through interviews.
The findings and recommendations in relation to this part include:
•     Fast-track courts oriented with procedures, but inconsistent in practice: The fast-track courts are overall well-oriented with gender sensitive procedures for conducting rape trials, but court practices vary, showing a degree of inconsistency in the application. One out of the four fast track courts where the cases were monitored demonstrated an exemplary understanding of these procedures, with consistent application, showing that it is entirely possible to implement legislative and judicial guidelines in letter and spirit to make the trial less arduous for victims.
•     Prosecutrix shielded from accused within court, but need for victim-witness protection outside court premises remains: Pursuant to the guidelines in State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh and Sakshi v. Union of India, our observation reveals that all trials were conducted in camera and the testimony of the victim was taken from behind a screen- both important measures to shield the victim from anxiety and intimidation generated by being in physical proximity of the accused. The Vulnerable Witness Deposition Complex achieves this more fully, by designating different physical spaces for the accused and the victim. Yet, these appeared to be insufficient, since we found the accused and his relatives continue to have access to the victim, even within the court precincts in the waiting areas. The access of the accused and his associates to the victim, is one of the complex reasons for compromises or the victims turning hostile. As all the cases that were part of this study related to acquaintance rapes, the accused and his relatives/associates also had access to the victim outside the court premises, pointing to a need for shielding and protection to the victim/witness beyond deposition during the trial.
•     Questions in cross-examination must be routed through the Presiding Officer: The defence questions are inevitably hostile, often sexually explicit, intended to insinuate lack of resistance to imply consent. This practice continues. To counter this, one of the guidelines in Sakshi v. Union of India requires questions in the cross-examination to be routed to the prosecutrix through the Presiding Officer, to prevent harassment and intimidation by the Defence Counsel. This is not an established practice. The practice seems to be followed only when the cross examination gets unacceptably offensive, after the distress of the prosecutrix becomes apparent according to our observation. However, at least one of the four courts that were part of this study, showed more vigilance in this respect. Mandatorily routing cross examination questions through the Presiding Officer would go a long way in minimizing the stress and harassment faced by the prosecutrix during the trial. 
•     Lack of legal orientation on procedure and rights impedes availing remedies under the law: The roles of Presiding Officer and Public Prosecutor are distinct, and even the best practice evidenced in this study indicates that no one is mandated to specially look out for the rights and well being of the prosecutrix. None of the prosecutrices seemed to know about their right to be accompanied by a support person or companion during deposition. Many certainly appeared to need one. The Presiding Officer allowed companions on an ad hoc basis when and if they remembered. The Public Prosecutor only meets the prosecutrix in court, and while she is familiar with the records, she is unaware of the pressures for compromise, the compulsion to re-locate, domestic violence, all of which often occur. Only in the case of one of the prosecutrices did the court refer her case to the Delhi Legal Services Authority for compensation, and she was apparently confused about how to avail of it. A need for a specialized agency to orient, guide the prosecutrix through the legal process, in addition to providing other support services cannot be emphasized enough.
•     Timeline of the trial: Contrary to the stipulation in S.309(2), CrPC of completing rape trials in a period of two months, it was found:
–    The deposition of the prosecutrix alone was not completed within this time period.
–    Delays occur for multiple reasons, including receipt of the FSL reports and systemic factors like increasing case-load, which make delay unavoidable.
–    The minimum time taken to complete just the deposition of the prosecutrix in our data was 77 days (2 months 16 days), with the average time period being 37 weeks (8.5 months).
–    In some cases, the deposition of the prosecutrix continued even after the 15 month period of the study.
The need for reform of all agencies that feed into the trial must be emphasized, as well as a stricter approach to adjournments. Yet, it is unlikely that an entire trial can be completed in two months. Setting a mandatory outer limit will neither be realistic, nor will it fully accommodate the demands of fair trial. The best option recommended is therefore, to conduct day-to-day hearings, and complete the deposition of the victim at the commencement of the trial so as to leave little room for influence and coercion.

Availability of Support Services
The most pressing lacuna that emerges from the study is the absence of support services that enable the victim to access judicial remedies and enable restorative justice outside of the court processes as well. While there is no provision for such support services currently, interviews with victims were most instructive about the nature of support services that were a necessary part of state response to sexual assault. Apart from being essential to restorative justice, such services are vital to enabling victim participation in the legal process and in safeguarding her rights.
•     Compensation available but inaccessible: Currently, the only form of support available to victims of sexual assault from the state is victim compensation, which includes costs incurred by the victim for medical treatment, judicial remedies and other disruptions caused by the assault. Owing to the absence of any actor who is mandated to inform and facilitate the victim’s access to these rights/ procedures, none of the victims were aware of their right to avail compensation. The case of only one victim in the entire study was directed by the court to the Delhi Legal Services Authority for compensation and she was unable to proceed owing to lack of guidance.
•     No pre-trial orientation of the victims: Victims get catapulted in the legal maze upon the occurrence and reporting of an assault. There is no pre-trial orientation of the victims. They walk blindfolded as it were, through the legal maze without knowledge of the objective of any of the steps taken or their role. This undermines ‘access to justice’ as well as informed participation. The Investigation Officer and the Public Prosecutor play distinct roles at different stage, with victim orientation not being part of anyone’s brief. This situation produces anxiety, which further makes victims and their families vulnerable to all influences and coercion, often making compromises seem as a more viable choice (as was evident in some cases in this study).
•     Uninformed participation leads to further exploitation: The noticeable outcomes of uninformed participation that were evident in this study include – random payments by victims to different personnel to gain elementary information about the legal process, lack of informed consent for medical examination, and most importantly, not applying for compensation available to victims under the law.
•     Support services for witness protection: Although compromises are often known to be in the offing, including by the court staff, there is no instance of the Presiding Officers being informed and taking action, including passing restraint orders against the accused. In such cases too, a specialized support group could be the via media for taking appropriate action to stymie pressures and influences.
•     Shelter and counseling to combat stigma and further vulnerability to violence: Victims also experience re-location on account of societal stigma as well as on account of internal pressures from the family. There was evidence of increased control by the family upon the victim after reporting sexual assault. Our research shows some evidence of increased domestic violence after reporting sexual assault. An incident of sexual assault triggers external and internal pressures rendering women more vulnerable, exposing them often to further victimization. In such circumstances, individual and family counseling, guarantee of safe shelter, and other support services must be available to help the victim recover. These however are not available currently.
 
No means for protection outside the courtroom
Even while there are provisions inside a courtroom, such as the presence of a prosecuting officer to funnel through the questions being asked of the victim and putting up of a green screen between the accused and victim to prevent intimidation, there is no means to protect them outside the courtroom.Since the accused is often known to the family of the victim, there is widespread intimidation and often pressure to settle the matter. Most victims relocate due to social stigma, rendering them even more vulnerable.
Being emotionally and financially dependent on her family, the victims face increased vulnerability and lose the power to negotiate.While a green screen might shield a woman from having to make eye contact with a man who assaulted her, outside the courtroom, both are made to share the same waiting area, and in some cases they even took the same mode of public transport to arrive at the court.
“There is no point putting a green screen up in a courtroom if everywhere else there is eye contact, intimidation, threat and coercion,” said senior advocate Rebecca John. “Somewhere the law has failed the victim because she doesn’t get the right kind of assistance.”

What happens before the trial
In the pre-trail stage, even while the police claim all the procedures are in order, in reality, quite often the police itself attempts to dissuade the victim from filing a FIR, the study found. Even when a case is filed, there are delays in providing a copy of the FIR to the victim, who in some instances had to pay to obtain it.
According to the study, in most of the cases the medical examination was not conducted in consonance with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare guidelines, with some victims even facing hostility from the medical staff. In one of the cases, according to Mehra, a 50-year-old was harassed and told that she was lying about being assaulted because “at her age, she couldn’t be raped.”

Victim intimidation
Another area where the reforms are failing is in the cross-examination of victims – who are also the witnesses – which remains highly hostile with the defence attorney attempting to unsettle the victim. In some of the cases observed for the study, the questions were so hostile that the victims broke down and left the room.
Even though the questions are required to be routed through a presiding officer, they often do not have control over the kind of questioning that takes place of the rape victim. “Not because the presiding officer is not sympathetic, but the hostility she faces in the cross examination is not at all unusual, because we hear that all the time,” John added.
Citing an example from the study, in one instance the defence counsel demanded to know from the victim through the presiding officer: ‘At the time of penetration, did you cry with your eyes?’ In another manner of intimidation, defence counsels often circle the victim. According to Mehra, even though the presiding officer was strict to make sure the defence counsels stood in their places in one of the cases observed, in the majority, this does not happen.

Unrealistic time frame set for trials
The 2013 amendments also stipulate that the trail should be completed within a span of two months, “which is completely unrealistic,” the study found. The PLD study – the scope of which was limited to the deposition of the victim in court – found that not even the testimony could not be completed in that time frame, which on an average lasted for about eight-and-a-half months. There are two forensic labs in Delhi, said Mehra, which means that there is are substantial delays in getting results and add to that the case load of the courts, the timeline set for the trails is highly unrealistic.
A massive gap has been observed in the support services that enable the victim to access judicial remedies and counseling services.

Compensation
Section 357A of the Code of Criminal Procedure holds that compensation should be given to victims of crime irrespective of whether there is a conviction or not, says PLD. “Acquittal doesn’t necessarily mean that a crime hasn’t occurred and the compensation depends upon the socio-economic status of the convict and on whether he is able to compensate the victim,” he added. Thus, the provision puts the responsibility on the state to do so.In most of the cases, the victims cannot afford to have a counsel, and hence fall back upon the legal services authority. But the study found that victims are not informed that they may apply to district legal service authority to get that compensation.
Under the provision, the compensation is available at two states – at the start of the case as an interim relief, which is then followed by a final compensation. However, according to Satish, there exists a myth that women file false cases to take the benefit of this interim relief and then turn hostile.
At present, the Legal Services Authority is required to assist the accused in getting legal aid as well as provide victim compensation, help them in getting a counsel and be their support system.
 

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At some point during the Khalistan movement, I came across a brief news item about a constable of the Punjab Police killed by Delhi Police personnel. The two teams had completed their interrogation of a suspected militant. Whose job was it to clean up the blood? Disagreement, a scuffle, a killing.

Legitimized brutality; the stench of blood inflaming the senses; the knowledge of absolute power and absolute impunity.
All of India is that interrogation room now.

Hindu Rashtra is here.

Has there not been violence earlier in this land? Yes of course there has been. A full seven decades of an independent state’s violence against the people of the land declared to be India – against dispossessed peasants and tribal people, against industrial workers, against the people of Kashmir, and of the states of the North East; centuries of violence by savarna Hindu society against the Dalit-bahujan; misogynist, sexist violence against women, up to and including female foetuses in the womb; decades of coldly planned and executed communal violence by institutionalized systems of riot production coordinated by the organizations of the RSS – against Muslims, against Christians, and as a secondary force, against Sikhs in 1984.

What is unique about this conjuncture, then?

What is specific, what is unique, is the entwining together of all these strands of violence into one thick, blood-soaked rope –  the violence of the pro-corporate and bought-out state; of ‘Indian nationalism’ cast in the savarna, masculinist, Hindu nationalist mould; of misogyny, of heteronormativity; of propertied contempt for the dispossessed – all of these now woven thickly into the Hindutva ideology, in which hatred and contempt for non-savarna North Indian Hindu culture is the driving force; in which the non-Hindu other is to be decimated physically, because the very presence of Muslims and Christians in the land of Savarkar and Golwalkar, is an affront.

There were signposts to this new land of India in 2014, when Narendra Modi’s multi-million dollar publicity machine (as well as many reasonable intellectuals) persuaded us  that Modi was done with carnage, that he would establish a centrist, reasonable, growth oriented  government.  ‘Growth oriented’ is code, as we all know, for corporate loot of common resources and the continued trajectory of an inequitable, unjust and ecologically unsustainable capitalist agenda, but that had already been established as the agenda of all mainstream parties.

But there was that other element, Hindu Rashtra as the explicit agenda, and the signposts to it were there, back in 2014, before the elections.

The physical attack in Thirur, Kerala by RSS and BJP activists on Hindu preacher, Swami Sandeepanandagiri, because he said in a public lecture that the Bhagavad Gita is a communist text, and Sree Krishna was the first communist.

The relentless propagation for about a decade at least, growing in strength since 2014, of the idea that there is a planned conspiracy of ‘love jihad’, claiming that Hindu women are being enticed by Muslim men into marriage so as to convert them. These claims have been demolished again and again, and yet the same lies are repeated till today by Hindutva ideologues, on prime time TV, on their tame channels.

The violence against women refusing to be docile – young women beaten for their dress, for being at pubs, for being women, for being defiant.
The signposts were there. Savarkarite Hindutva with its slogan of consolidating Hindu society and militarizing it – this consolidation or samrasta being touted by Hindutva ideologues today as being progressive and anti-caste; when in fact Savarakar’s attempt to modernize Hinduism and free it from its shackles, was only the road to forever rendering the Muslim and Christian non-Indian, for only those whose punyabhu or sacred land, is ‘here’ can be Indian.

But of course, so visceral is the savarna hatred for the Dalit bahujan, that this Savarkarite version of Hindutva has few takers – as Dalits from Una to those who have faced a thousand other humiliations and lynchings can testify.

It is still Golwalkar who has the last word on Hindutva:
The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture … In a word they must …stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizens’ rights.

This passage is often disowned by Hindutvavaadis – it was not Golwalkar who wrote it, it is an interpolation, and so on. Interesting, that they should not own up to the statement publicly and proudly. But that is quite characteristic of their slyness – disown even Godse if it comes to that. (They cannot of course, own up the fact that the sobriquet of ‘Veer’ was conferred on Savarkar by himself, in a text he himself wrote under a pseudonym!)

What has Modi accomplished in these three years? Under his shadow and with his explicit indulgence, Hindu Rashtra is being established. Not firmly yet, still being consolidated, but it is up, it is crawling on its millipede-like feet. There is absolutely no reason why a state driven by corporate capital should need xenophobia or racism or communalism or patriarchy or casteism. There is no necessary link between the two kinds of structures at all.

And that is the difference between earlier regimes and this one – despite every internal contradiction, this version of Hindu Rashtra fuses marauder capitalism with all of the above. Africans in India, people from the North East in the mainland, and of course, Kashmiris anywhere – deep visceral hatred and legitmized violence against all of these have been made visible as never before. This fusion is at the heart of Hindu Rashtra.

Hence the need to recognize two features explicitly, both of which are integral to Hindutva. The hatred of the Muslim Other is one. In this, the cow is but one alibi (we remember you, Akhlaque, we remember you Junaid, we remember you, Pehlu Khan…so many many others).

But the bland slogan of Swachh Bharat too, even the banal toilet, can serve as an opportunity to humiliate and even kill Muslims (we remember you, Zafar Hussain.)

Every slogan of this government is slick with blood.

JNU is under relentless attack for being ‘anti-national’, but Najeeb was disappeared for being Muslim.

But if only Muslims and Christians were Hindutva’s enemy, then Hindu Rashtra should be secure. If RSS ideology was natural to the rest of the people in this land called India, then Hindutva would not have to keep the violence going at an everyday level, normalizing blood lust and violence against every dissenter to the Hindutva project. From those refusing to stand compulsorily for the national anthem played at cinema screenings (in whose service proud ‘Indians’ can terrorize even a man in a wheelchair), to university students organizing a seminar on ‘Cultures of Protest’,

Hindutva’s “intimate enemy” (in Ashis Nandy’s immortal phrase) is very much to be sought out and destroyed – the Dalit, the hundreds of thousands of people classified as Hindu,  who may be savarna, but who do not subscribe to Hindutva.

The real question is – why is Hindutva not complacent yet? With the government and the courts very often, and the police and the army, and the Electronic Voting Machines, all with them?

Why are they afraid of women and men who define Hinduism their own way? Why are they afraid of centuries old traditions in which Sita is the heroine, not Ram; in which pre-Aryan goddesses are dark and fertile, dangerous and free; in which sex is not a pallid limited thing dictated by hypocritical priests but a multi-species, multi-gender splendid fluid thing in glorious technicolour? Why are they so afraid of people who love whom they love, regardless of their gender, their caste, their religion? Why are they afraid of independent women who choose to live their lives on their own terms, why are they so scared of young people who post anti-Hindu Right comments on Facebook?

But they should be afraid. Against Hindu Rashtra we are united – we, its Other and its Intimate Enemy. We will resist relentlessly their homogenizing and disenfranchising nationalist project – we who will not love by the rules; who will not be defined by our legitimate fathers because in the worlds we create, birth and fatherhood will not be the determinants of identity.

Amongst us of course, there are differences and arguments and bitter debates. Bitter histories to face up to and destabilize and heal. Privileges to be spurned, and rights to be snatched. But what we need to recognize is that solidarities and alliances are built not on birth-based identities, but on politics forged out of common struggle, as the women’s movement knows from its decades of experience. Most feminisms never thought of men, but of patriarchy as the enemy, and now we are not even a ‘women’s’ movement, but a mutually intersecting set of struggles and movements that are queer feminist, and we include transpeople and men and sex-workers, and also Dalit feminists who think sex work cannot be ‘work’ and that prostitution is violence. Yet we stumble along, we keep talking to one another, we keep shifting our own understandings in dialogue and argument.

And this is our strength. We are united against Hindu Rashtra, which would impose on us the peace of the grave. We will fight them, and we will fight among ourselves – cacophonous, unruly, turbulent, reckless
.
We will not let Hindu Rashtra proceed much further on its millipede legs.
As it creeps, we will march. Together and apart.

Courtesy: Kafila Online

The post Eid Mubarak, In solidarity, United We Stand Against the Hindu Rashtra appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Over the last 16 months 54 attacks on journalists in India were reported in the media, according to the Hoot’s compilation.  The actual number will certainly be bigger, because last week Minister of State for Home Affairs HansrajAhir said during question hour in the LokSabha that 142 attacks on journalists took place between 2014-15.
 
Though 7 journalists were killed, reasonable evidence of their journalism being the motive for the murder is available only in one case.
 
The stories behind each of the attacks reveal a clear and persistent pattern. Investigative reporting is becoming increasingly dangerous. Journalists who venture out into the field to investigate any story, be it sand mining, stone quarrying, illegal construction, police brutality, medical negligence, an eviction drive, election campaigns,  orcivic administration corruption, are under attack.
 
Leave alone going out into the field, those who host chat shows in the relative safety of a television studio or voice opinions on social media networks are also subjected to menacing threats, stalking and doxing.
 
The perpetrators, as the narratives of these cases clearly indicate, are politicians, vigilante groups, police and security forces, lawyers (apart from the Patiala House court incident in Delhi in the wake of the JNU protests, there werea  spate of attacks by lawyers in Kerala), jittery Bollywood heroes and, increasingly, mafias or criminal gangs that operate in illegal trades and mining, often under the protection of local politicians and with the knowledge of local law enforcing agencies. Hence, even with clear accusations of the identities of the perpetrators, they get away scot-free.
 
The data with The Hoot shows that law-makers and law-enforcers are the prime culprits in the attacks and threats on the media.
 
 
54  ATTACKS
 

 
 
25 THREATS TO JOURNALISTS

 
Details of attacks and threats
The Silencing of Journalists
 
 
 
NEWS CENSORSHIP
 

1. Governments at various levels attempt censorship, so do private sector media owners.  In the period under review there were a few  outstanding examples of media censorship, of holding back news, and of self censorship. 

2. In June 2016 the Andhra Pradesh government got cable operators across the state to block Sakshi News and  No 1 news channels, on account of their coverage of the Kapu agitation.The leader of the numerically dominant Kapus, MudragadaPadmanabham, a former minister, started an indefinite fast in support of his demands, triggering a tense situation in coastal AP. Sakshi TV channel, owned by Jagan Reddy of the YSR Congress Party, lapped up these developments whereas other media houses reacted very cautiously. Then suddenly Sakshi suddenly went off the air. The  Sakshi Media Group said their channel was blocked in the state.

3. After the killing of BurhanWani the Kashmir media experienced censorship and harassment. In July the offices of the two largest newspapers were raided, their copies seized, their printing presses closed down.

4. In October the Kashmir Reader which was doing a lot of reporting from the ground found itself  banned  for a period which finally extended to three months.  Its editor described  here why it incurred the displeasure  of the state.

5. In November a ban was imposed on NDTV India by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for a 24 hour period  for its Pathankot coverage which is supposed to have revealed strategic information about  the operation. The channel moved the Supreme Court against the ban. (See the section in this report on Free Speech and the Courts.) The Ministry put the ban on hold.

6. Also in November, in the wake of demonetization, the Indore District Collector passed an order imposing restrictions on “misleading and objectionable” posts on social media related to demonetisation. P Narhari, in his order, had invoked Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure making such posts or even sharing them on social media platforms a criminal offence in the district. The Internet Freedom Foundation  in Delhi sent a legal notice asking him to withdraw the order.

 
When Tamilnadu chief minister JayalalithaJayaram passed for seven hours by the hospital authorities though  TV channels were  reporting her passing away from fairly early in the evening.  

8. In March 2017 member of Parliament and businessman Rajeev Chandrasekhar got a Bangalore court to issue an ex parte injunction to The Wire to take down two articles about him. This was curious because the website was not the first to point a finger at him for attempting to align the media he owns with the political ideology he supports. Nor was it the first to describe his military-related business interests, even as his public activism has centered on the armed forces.

 
 
Self Censorship
 
 

 
 
On October 6 NDTV’s editorial director Sonia Singh sent an email to staff laying out how discussions and coverage of the surgical strike should be done. As thewire.inreportedSingh said that it had been decided across the NDTV network that it would not give space “to the political bickering that has broken out on the surgical strikes…..no debates, no airtime of my strikes vs yours, give proof etc…whether it is opposition or the govt….only the army…..to explain this.”
 
Under the title India Above Politics, Singh’s email also laid out the menu for the 9 PM news of 6 October– saying“national security cannot be compromised by politics”. An interview done by its anchor Barkha Dutt with Congress leader P Chidambaram was dropped from the evening news.
 
 
 
FREE SPEECH IN THE COURTS IN  2016-17
 
Defamation
Sedition
Bans
Legislature and the media
Community censorship
Digital challenges
 
 
 
As a year in which cases of sedition and defamation, and of censorship of films and other arts reached record numbers,  2016 saw the courts being tested constantly on the issue of  freedom of  expression. Significant orders and rulings in the supreme court and high courts this year spanned the gamut of conflicts between state and journalist, state and artist,  state appointed censor board and film makers, legislature and media, state and political opposition, and the conflict between societal censure and free expression—the right to free speech of  a citizen  versus another’s right to take offence.
 
Perhaps the most significant rulings in the course of the year were on upholding the validity of criminal defamation, and on defamation and sedition, and whether strong criticism would amount to either.
 
 
Criminal defamation, and what qualifies as defamation
 
In May, giving its verdict on a batch of petitions including the ones by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the validity of the criminal defamation law.  The court pronounced its verdict challenging the constitutional validity of sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code providing for criminal defamation. 
 
The law has no chilling effect on free speech, the apex court said. "Right to free speech is not absolute. It does not mean freedom to hurt another's reputation which is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution".  There was dismay over a ruling  which seemed to nullify efforts to decriminalize defamation.
 
A few months down the line, in August, however, the SC clarified that criticism did not constitute defamation.  The year which saw the demise of J Jayalalitha, CM of Tamilnadu, also saw the Supreme Court pull her up earlier in the year for using defamation as a political tool.   It quashed a non-bailable warrant issued against DMDK chief Vijayakanth, and said that criminal defamation proceedings cannot be initiated for merely critiquing the government.  (In the year under review the AIDMK government also filed 16 cases of defamation against in the media in just the first three months of the year.)
 
 
Sedition
 
2016 was a year when sedition went viral and a large number of cases were filed, 18 just between January and June. By the end of the year the figure was 40, according to media reports filed year-wise, state-wise, in the Hoot’s Free Speech Hub.
 
In a case hearing on  September 6  the SC clarified that sedition or defamation cases could not be slapped on anyone criticising the government: “Someone making a statement to   criticise the government does not invoke an offence under sedition or defamation law. We have made it clear that invoking of section 124(A) of IPC (sedition) requires certain guidelines to be followed as per the earlier judgement of the apex court,” a bench of Justices DipakMisra and U Lalit said while hearing a petition by Common Cause on the misuse of the sedition law.
 
In 2017 five cases have been filed so far going by media reports, in Assam, Bihar, Punjab (on 66 students which was subsequently dropped), Haryana, and Delhi.
 
 
Bans as regulation: I and B ministry vs TV channels
 

 
2016 saw three bans imposed on TV channels in the course of the year by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, for durations varying from one week to one day. NDTV India  was ordered to go  off air for a day for having revealed "strategically-sensitive" details while covering the Pathankot terrorist attack,  the one day ban quickly became a cause celebre.  The channel moved the Supreme Court   against the ban but the court deferred hearing the case. Care World TV, a health channel upon which a seven-day ban was imposed,  went to court as well and obtained a heartening  order. The Bombay High Court said the order was completely illegal and a breach of the elementary principles of natural justice.  It also observed that larger issue of the power of the central government to impose such a ban would have to be examined.
 
Given that there have been 32 bans imposed by the ministry over the last twelve years, this year may have seen the beginning of a significant push back.
 
 
Legislature and the media
 
In August 2015 an enquiry  committee set up by the UP Legislative Assembly had held staff of two TV channels of the  of TV Today group guilty of breach of privilege of Azam Khan, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister in the Samajwadi Party government in the state, and an MLA from Rampur constituency.
 
In March this year  the Supreme Court stayed the proceedings initiated by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Legislative Assembly. 
 
This committee had been set up by the Sadan on 17 September, 2013, to examine allegations aired against Khan  in a sting operation telecast on  AajTak and Headlines Today channels in relation to the  Muzaffarnagar riots. It held 48 meetings, it said in its report, examining the evidence and listening to the channel representatives, before it concluded that there had been a breach of privilege.   
 
Senior advocate Soli Sorabjee had filed a Special Leave Petition in the SC under Article 32 of the Constitution. Appearing for the TV Today Network's channels — AajTak and Headlines Today (now India Today) — submitted that UP assembly had no locus standi to direct journalists to appear before it for having conducted the sting operation since it pertained to a matter outside the assembly and did not in any way impede the functioning of the House or any of its members.
 
The case has not been heard by the apex court again, but it constitutes a significant test case on whether media exposing a legislator’s actions outside the assembly can attract a charge of breach of privilege. The detailed report of the enquiry committee does point out though that the legislator had not been given a chance to respond to the expose before it was telecast.
 
 
Triumphing over community censorship
 
In July 2016  came a judgement from the Madras High Court which was hailed  for striking a much needed blow against community censorship of the arts. In 2015 Tamil writer PerumalMurugan had announced his death as a writer after orchestrated protests demanding a ban on his novel  Mathorubhagan (One Part Woman)in his hometown of Tiruchengode in Tamil Nadu. He had been forced to tender an apology at a local peace committee meeting.
 
The Hindu  said in an editorial “The 160-page judgment by a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjay KishanKaul builds on a series of progressive rulings. It has applied the contemporary community standards test in concluding that there is nothing obscene in the novel.”  It however demurred later in its editorial that the suggestion of the bench that the state should set up an experts body to resolve conflicts such as these could itself represent a compromise. 
 
After the judgement the writer said in a statement that it had given him much  happiness."It comforts a heart that had shrunk itself and wilted. I am trying to prop up myself holding on to the light of the last lines of the judgment, "Let the author be resurrected to what he is best at. Write."
 
The following month, in August 2016,  there was  a victory in a similar case for a Mumbai writer charged with obscenity in 2005  for a  novel published in 1994.  In this case there was no judgementthe  charge was withdrawn 11 years after being filed.  The Hindu reported that a 19-year-old student at the Urdu Department of Mumbai University had registered a complaint at the Jogeshwari police station stating that she found two paragraphs in Mr Abbas’ 1994 novel, NakhlistankiTalash (The Search of an Oasis), “objectionable” and “obscene”. The allegations cost him his job as a teacher at the Anjuman-e-Islam’s English High School and Allana Junior College. The complainant retracted her statement this year and said she had misunderstood the writing.
 
Batting for the media:
 
2017 so far has seen two significant orders from the Supreme Court. 
 
In February it directed the Bihar government to transfer RashtriyaJanata Dal (RJD) leader Mohammed Shahabuddin, the influential accused in the murder in 2016 of journalist RajdeoRanjan, to Tihar Jail from a district jail in Siwan within a week, to facilitate the trial after the CBI said they wanted to conduct his trial in Delhi.  The politician belongs to the ruling coalition.
 
In March the SC dismissed a PIL seeking an SIT probe into the role of media in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam case, saying it is an "attack" on media's independence.  The apex court said it would not direct any investigation against the media unless there was evidence of a direct involvement. There cannot be an investigation into the role of media as a whole, it said.
 
The PIL had been filed by senior journalist HariJaisingh who alleged that alleged that some journalists were bribed and extended unwarranted benefits in exchange for favouring the VVIP chopper deal.
 
 
Digital challenges
Finally the courts grappled with internet bans and offences arising out of social media.
The year saw the Supreme Court rule on the  legality of Internet shutdowns under Section 144 CrPC.   In February the apex court ruled that mobile internet can be banned under this section, dismissed an appeal challenging a judgment of the Gujarat High Court which had upheld the ban on mobile internet under S.144 of Code of Criminal Procedure.  Dismissing the argument that there was a provision for such bans under the Telegraph Act the court said that using this section “becomes very necessary sometimes for law and order. There can be concurrent powers”, remarked one of the judges before dismissing the petition.
 
 
 
DILUTING THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION
 
 
Has the state been complicit in watering down the right to information conferred on Indian citizens via successive laws since  2005? Over the last two years there is increasing evidence of this. Diluting the right to information is a direct denial of the access to information the press needs to do its job. Journalists  increasingly use the law  for  their  own investigations, and frequently rely on the tenacity of the country’s RTI activists to get information about governance.
 
Pointers to dilution of  transparency and RTI
 
1.Rules currently being drafted for an amendment to the Whistleblowers Protection Act have proposed that when an RTI seeker dies his request will stand nullified. RTI advocates fear that this will increase the vulnerability of RTI activists the attacks on whom have increased over the 12 years that the Act has been in existence. The year 2016 ended with the murder of an RTI activist, and on 11April 2017 there was another murder, by attacking a tenacious Pune area activist with concrete blocks.
 
Maharashtra is the state which has both received by far the highest  number of RTI applications among states over 2005-2015, (46.2 lakh, merely a lakh less than the central government)  and has also recorded  25 per cent of  the total murders of RTI seekers countrywide,   since the Act’s inception (16 out of 66). Maharashtra is also the state which has recorded the highest number of attacks on RTI users. The correlation between heightened use of the law, and vulnerability to attack, is clearly discernable. (CHRI data).
 
2. In 2015 the Central Government submitted an affidavit opposing the decision of  the Central Information Commissioner in June 2013 to bring political parties as public authorities under the RTI Act.
 
3. The year 2017 began with an Information Commissioner seeing a transfer of the ministries under his charge, queries in relation to which he was handling.  This was after he allowed a plea seeking examination records relating to the period when the prime minister graduated from Delhi University. Was this request particularly subversive? This IC is a former law professor and the only Information Commissioner out of 14 members of the Central Information Commission who is not a former bureaucrat. 
 
4. The people chosen by the government system to deliver the right to information through the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commissions are increasingly former bureaucrats, though the Act says  they should be persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media or administration and governance. Administration and governance feature at the bottom of the list.
 
Currently 91.6 percent of the serving Chief Information Commissioners in the states are retired bureaucrats, as are 93 per cent of Central Information  Commissioners. 
 
5. Pointers to weakening of RTI in the states:
 

• In Karnataka  personnel sections of 34 ministers of the state have not declared public authorities under them.
• Telangana has not created a state information commission as yet. 
• The Kerala chief minister has gone in appeal to the state high court against an order by the state information commissioner.
• Information Commissions of Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh have not published any annual report on their website till date.

 
6. Pendency
The pendency of second appeals and complaints as on April 1, 2016 stood at 34,982 cases.  RTI activists say these numbers need to brought down to ensure that the applicants get information without any delays. (The Wire)
 
7. Rejection
The highest proportion of RTI applications were rejected not under the permissible exemptions under the RTI Act such as Sections 8, 9, 11 or 24 but under the category of “others”. At 43% rejections recorded under this category, more than four out of every ten RTI applications rejected were for reasons other than those permitted by the RTI Act. (CHRI data)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTERNET SHUTDOWNS
 
The Internet was  shut down 31 times in India in 2016, and 14 times already in 2017.  Twelve shutdowns in 2016 were as preventive action, 19 as reactive action. In 2017, 9 shutdowns were preventive action, 5 reactive action.
 
 
Most internet blocks in India are taking place under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973, which gives the state government the power to stop unlawful assemblies of people to prevent public disorder, rioting and so on. It can be brought into force by a notification signed by the district magistrate or a commissioner of police in a metropolitan area. However, legal experts have been arguing against the constitutional validity of imposing internet shutdowns, especially under Section 144 of the CrPC.
 
One argument is that Section 144 does not even contain the appropriate legal power to order a suspension of Internet services, since the power to regulate telegraphs (or the internet in this case) is vested with the Union and not with the state. In that context, any internet shutdown should really take place under Section 5(2) of the Telegraph Act and Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. (The former empowers the Union government to intercept or prevent the transmission of messages under certain circumstances and the latter refers to the blocking of specific websites.)
 
 
Statewise Shutdowns
 

 
(Source: SFLC.in)
 
Longest shutdown:   Jammu& Kashmir in 2016-17.
Following the killing of BurhanWani, Kashmir valley and the Jammu region experienced a suspension of mobile internet services to check the spread of rumors on 9th July, 2016.  Mobile internet services were restored in Jammu region on 26th July, 2016; after being suspended for 17 days. Mobile internet services were reported restored in the Kashmir valley on 19th November for post paid connections and on 27th January, 2017 for pre-paid connections.
 
 
 
Reasons for shutdowns
 
Kashmir
 

• To check rumor mongering
• On operational and security grounds and to prevent law and order situations
• broadband services suspended in light of re-polling in 38 stations of Budgam district.
• Due to bandhs being declared in the Chenab valley

 
Gujarat
Patidar agitation
 
UP
Communal tensions
 
Odisha

• Communal tension,
• To prevent rumour mongering over a social media post

 
Rajasthan

• Communal tension,
• Stabbing of a VHP activist,
• Social media post

 
Haryana
Jat agitation
 
Bihar
Communal clashes
 
Jharkhand
Communal clashes
 
Arunachal
Death of a former chief minister
 
Manipur
Law and order turmoil over economic blockade by the United Naga Council (UNC).
 
Nagaland
Unrest over reservation in local body elections
 
 
 
 
 
CENSORSHIP OF THE ARTS IN 2016-17
 
 

 
 
A SNAPSHOT
 
Issues on which Indian films were censored or blocked by CBFC or citizenry:
 

• Homophobia (KaBodyscapes, Aligarh, Moonlight, Mama’s Boys)
• Distorting history (Padmavati)
• Depicting female fantasies (Lipstick under my Burkha)
• Using Pakistani artistes (AeDilHaiMushkil)
• “Steamy” scenes  (AeDilHaiMushkil,  Wazir, Unindian,)
• Abusive language (Houseful 3,
• Showing a community in bad light (Parched, Santa Banta Pvt. Ltd)
• Showing a state in bad light (Udta Punjab)
• Baring body parts (Parched, Kathakali)
• Showing female inner wear (BaarBaarDekho)
• Using the F word (Raaz Reboot)
• Satirising religious epics (Mama’s Boys)
• Resemblance to PM, impending elections (ModikaGaon)
• Portraying communal riot of 1946 (Danga – The Great Calcutta Killing of 1946)
• References to political figures (Coffee with D)
• Too close to real life, could disturb peace in (Power of Patidar, SalagtoSawal)
• May disturb peace (SharanamGachchami)
• The director’s accent ('Serendipity Cinema')

 
 
Censorship on television
Pakistani serials  (Dropped from Zindagi channel)
 
 
Censorship of events

• Udaipur Film fest venue changed after ABVP complaint
• Issue:This whole event is not good for society. The event is being organised by people who have communist ideology”

• Shiv Sena seeks cancellation of RahatFateh Ali Khan’s concert in Ahmedabad.
• Issue: Country and Gujarat facing severe drought

• FIR against comedians for show telecast on TV channel
• Issue: Hurting religious sentiments by mimicking Sirsa-based DeraSachchaSauda’s head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh

• Opposing Kerala Litfest
• Issue: Festival had an “anti Muslim attitude.”

• Screening of film on Kashmir in IIT Delhi disrupted
• Issue: Anti-national

 
 
Censoring theatre
Jai Bhim, Jai Bharat
Issue: Words like ‘Khairlanji’, ‘Hindutva’, ‘Ramabai Nagar’, ‘kutra’ (dog)
 
 
Films denied certification:
Lipstick under my Burkha
Missing on a Weekend
MohallaAssi
 
Arts censorship in the states
 
In Punjab the ruling coalition  raised many objections to Udta Punjab,  a film portraying the drug culture in the state, and the CBFC order 94 cuts. The Bombay High Court stepped in however, to order that the film should be released with a single cut.
 
In Kaithal in Haryana in January 2016 television actor KikuSharda of the show‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’, was arrested for mimicking DeraSachaSauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on his show, and sent to 14 days judicial custody.
 
In January 2016 the Madhya Pradesh High Court issued notices to the government of India, Information and broadcasting ministry, censor board and the directors and actors of film 'BajiraoMastani' over its release without showing the script to the decedents of the royal family.
 
In February in Uttar Pradesh residents of Aligarh found that the film Aligarh
had been banned from being screened in the city after ShakuntalaBharti, the BJP mayor, protested against its screening. She felt the film would  defame the city by linking it “with homosexuality". 
 
In March 2016 the CBFC muted words in the  Kannada film KiragoorinaGayyaligalu which is an adapation of a novel fo the same name. Audiences inKarnataka  found themselves watching a  film interspersed with muted words.
 
In July in Kerala the Mammootty starrer-“Kasaba,” ran into trouble right after its release  with the  Kerala Women’s Commission today issuing notices to the actor, the movie’s director and producer for  allegedly “portraying women in a poor light” through some scenes and dialogues.”
 
In Tamilnaduin October 2016 The Madras High Court upheld an order of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT), which had refused to grant certification to a feature film in Tamil directed by K. Ganeshan, titled PorkalathilOru Poo, based on incidents in the life of a LTTE journalist named IsaiPriya in Sri Lanka. FCAT upheld the CBFC order on the grounds that the film criticises India and the Sri Lankan Army and justifies Tamil Eelam. The firm also portrayed Sri Lankan war crimes.
 
But earlier in March a Sri Lankan film Muttrupulliya, a docu-drama that portrays the life of the Tamil ethnic population in post-war Sri Lanka, has won its appeal with the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) after the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in Chennai refused to certify it.
 
 
PERPETRATORS OF CENSORSHIP
 
Central Board of Film Certification
Suomoto censorship in cases of more
than 30 films which came for certification
 
Religious groups:
Hindu Sena
DeraSachchaSauda followers
 
Political organisations
MahrashtraNavnirmanSena
ABVP
Shiv Sena
SAD-BJP
 
Cultural groups
Shri Rajput KarniSena
The Punjabi Cultural Heritage Board
 
Courts
Bombay High Court
censors Jolly LLB after  CBFC clears it.
 
Individuals and families
Shahid Rafi, son of late playback singer Mohd Rafi,
taking objection to dialogue that purportedly
insulted the singer in AeDilHaiMushkil
MasrubhaiRabari , a BJP worker  from Anjar town  Parched
Peter Mukherjea and his sister ShangonDasgupta
Subhash Chandra, RajyaSabha MP from Haryana and chairman of Zee
 
Professional bodies
Cinema Owners and Exhibitors Association of India (COEAI)
Single-screens in 4 states ban films with Pakistani actors
 
 
UPHOLDERS OF ARTISTIC FREEDOM
 
Bombay High Court in case of Udta Punjab
Bombay High Court in case of Dark Chocolate
Delhi High Court in the case of Santa Banta Pvt Ltd
Kerala High Court in the case of KaBodyscapes
 
 
However in 2016 the government appointed  a committee headed by film maker ShyamBenegal to examine the issue of censorship which had become increasingly contentious. The committee recommended certification of films for viewing by different audiences instead of censorship by ordering cuts,  and by the end of the year the Hindustan Times was reporting that the hyperactive Central Board of Film Certification had cleared new ratings to allow adult content in films. The first quarter of 2017 has seen a marked drop in the number of films ordered to drop scenes.
 
CBFC annual report. No of films released with a certificate in 2015-16  were  135.
 
http://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/2015-2016-brought-a-strict-side-of-censor-board-135-hindi-films-were-given-a-certificate-268565.html
 
Urdu writers asked to declare: My book not against the govt, nation
2016-03-19 | New delhi, Delhi
Ref: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/urdu-writers-asked-to-declare-my-book-not-against-the-govt-nation/
The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), which operates under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, has introduced a form which requires authors of books NCPUL acquires annually to declare that the content will not be against the government or the country. The form, received by several Urdu writers and editors over the past few months, also asks authors to provide signatures of two witnesses. Originally circulated in Urdu, the form, accessed by The Indian Express, reads: “I son/daughter of confirm that my book/magazine titled which has been approved for bulk purchase by NCPUL’s monetary assistance scheme does not contain anything against the policies of the government of India or the interest of the nation, does not cause disharmony of any sort between different classes of the country, and is not monetarily supported by any government or non-government institution.”
 
Censoring the arts—humouring offended mobs
 
RESEARCH:
 
Sevanti Ninan
GeetaSeshu
ShilpiGoyal
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The post THE INDIA FREEDOM REPORT, JANUARY 2016-APRIL 2017 (THE HOOT) appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Meanwhile, another report in today’s print edition of the Times of India says tension arose in Bulandshahar city when a group of men beating dhols in celebration of the BJP’s stunning performance in the UP Assembly elections tried to hoist a party flag on the roof of a mosque on Wednesday night.

In the first instance, the Muslims-get-out posters in Hindi have reportedly been put up at over two dozen places warning Muslims of “dire consequences” if they did not leave the village before the year-end. Around 200 of the village’s 2,500 residents are Muslims.

Taking their inspiration from the US travel bans attempted by President Donald Trump, the posters put up by BJP-bhakts read: :What Trump is doing in America, we will do in this village because BJP is now in power.

The posters put up over the last weekend are signed, “Hindus of the village”. The posters also identify a local BJP MP as their “guardian”.
In the Bulandshahar incident, police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) jawans have been deployed in the area and senior officials are closely monitoring the situation, it is reported.

The incident took place at Chahcrai village in Bulandshahar. Mohsin Ahmed, a villager who was witness to the incident told the Times of India: “It was around 9.30 p.m. when a procession of men with tilaks passed through the areas. A few of them first stood in front of the mosque gate and then began installing the flag on the roof of the mosque. We objected and this led to the altercation”.

Though timely intervention by cops tempered the situation, there is palpable fear in the village. “When police arrived, the men left the place but not before warning that they word come back with swords the next time. Ther is peace right now due to presence of the PAC contingent and the police force, but there is a sense of uncertainty prevailing within the Muslim community here,” Furkan Ali, another village resident told the Times of India.

The district unit chief has denied its involvement in the episode.
 

The post Posters in UP village ‘order Muslims out’; Bid to hoist BJP flag atop mosque in another village appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Union home ministry’s order directing the Lawyers Collective to show cause why its FCRA registration should not be cancelled and suspension of its registration for a period of six months with immediate effect has been condemned by the LC as a move to “suppress the voice of dissent”.  LC which headed by noted lawyer and former additional solicitor general of India, Indira Jaising and her senior lawyer, husband Anand Grover is well-known for its legal interventions concerning human rights.

Curiously, while LC is yet to receive a formal communication from the home ministry, copies of the Order were made available to the media yesterday and the same is now posted on the official website of the FCRA department.
According to the notice, LC has violated several provisions of the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, 2010 and Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules 2011. An FCRA team had inspected the accounts and related records of LC at its office from January 19-23, 2016 following which it had sought LC’s responses/ comments of LC to the alleged findings regarding FCRA violations.

LC responded to the findings in March end challenging each of the alleged FCRA violations.

However, the home ministry’s order dated June 1 states that after “detailed examination” of all the records made available to the ministry,   “it was found that the same was not satisfactory; that the same did not provide adequate explanation vis-à-vis the violations found and pointed out, and therefore it has been decided to reject the same and proceed in accordance with law”.

The statement issued by the Lawyers Collective has condemned the "blatant attempt of the government of India to victimise the organisation and its office bearers Indira Jaising and Anand Grover. This is nothing but a gross misuse of the FCRA Act which is being used to suppress any form of dissent”.

The statement further stated: “It is far too well known that both Anand Grover and Indira Jaising have represented several persons in their professional capacity as lawyers in several cases against the government and the functionaries including the president of the BJP party, Amit Shah protesting his discharge in the Sohrabuddin murder case.”

A major alleged violation according to the home ministry is that Jaising received payments from the foreign contributions received during her tenure as additional solicitor general. Challenging this, the statement added: “The allegation against Jaising was based on the footing that she was a government servant, who was prohibited from receiving FC under the FCRA. However, she was a public servant and not a government servant, on whom there was no bar to receive FC.”
 
Human rights defenders view the home ministry’s latest move against LC as part of the present government’s tactic of using FCRA Act as a weapon against NGOs who refuse to toe the government’s line. In the past one year, the ministry has initiated similar vindictive action against Green Peace and three organisations – Citizens for Justice and Peace, Sabrang Trust, Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt. Ltd. – with which the co-editors of Sabrang India are associated.
 
Among other things, LC had provided legal service to Priya Pillai of Green Peace and spoken out against the attempt to victimise and silence Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand.

The lawyers collective condemns the blatant attempt  of the government of India to victimize the organization and its office bearers India Jaisng and Anand Grover .This is noting but a gross misuse of the FCRA Act which is being used to suppress any form  of dissent . it is far too well know that both Anand Grover and Indira Jaising have represented several persons in their professional capacity as lawyers is several cases against the government and the functionaries including  the President of the BJP party ,  Amit Shah  protesting his discharge in the Sorabudin murder case . The lawyers collective intends to challenge the order as   unconstitutional and required to be set aside . 

The order/show cause notice is a malafide act and an act of vindictiveness on the part of the Government. This is being done because of the cases that Lawyers Collective (‘LC’) and its Trustees, Ms. Indira Jaising and Mr. Anand Grover, are involved in, including but are not limited to Sanjiv Bhatt, Yakub Memon and Priya Pillai. The aim is to destroy the credibility of LC by leaking it to the media, before even serving it on LC. LC till today has not received the order purportedly issued on 31st May, 2016, though it is available to the press. Specifically on the order, LC submits as follows:

At the outset, LC states that all the foreign contribution (‘FC’) received were spent for the purposes received and accounted for.

The allegation against Ms. Jaising was based on the footing that she was a government servant, who was prohibited from receiving FC under the FCRA. However, she was a public servant and not a government servant, on whom there was no bar to receive FC. In any event, FC was received only by LC and Ms. Jaising was only paid remuneration for her services rendered to LC, on whom there is no prohibition. This aspect has not even been looked at by the authorities.

So far as Mr. Anand Grover is concerned, it was the mandate of LC to work on the issue of Fundamental Rights, including the right to health. The work of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Right to Health was part of LC’s work. No money was received by Anand Grover as foreign contribution. He was only reimbursed expenses incurred by him, while abroad, for doing LC’s work, including telephone and internet expenses.

The Novartis case is part of LC’s mandate to work on access to medicines. Expenses were only incurred for that, including for Ms. Jaising for her advice on the case.

Expenses for workshops/seminars/conferences are part of the mandate of LC and money is spent only for that purpose. This allegation is made for the first time now and not in the observation report dated 29.02.2016.

The FC received from abroad can be spent abroad. There is no restriction in FCRA at all.
LC entered into legitimate contracts with foreigners to provide services in India and abroad. And expenses were incurred for that reason. There is no violation of FCRA at all.

The receipt of FC in FC-utilisation account and, opening of certain bank accounts, transfer of FC from FC-utilization to another utilisation account and from local accounts to FC-utilisation has been explained in detail in the Association reply dated to the Inspection Report but not considered.

No money was spent on rallies or dharnas having any political hue or colour. FCRA, 2010 was not applicable for expenses incurred in 2009, while in 2011 and 2014, it was spent from domestic/United Nations funding, which is exempt from FCRA.

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The aftermath of the genocide in Gujarat has had a tremendous impact on the role of media persons. The mainstream media, often accused of ignoring the fallout of tragedies, has in this more than in other cases, pursued the story, often at risk of isolation, intimidation and threat.

At what individual and organisational cost? Media groups, ever mindful of advertisement revenue, remain supinely dependent on the moolah rolling in. Hence Modi’s steamrolling efforts to promote a vision of normalcy – the aggressive advertisement of a ‘vibrant Gujarat’ campaign at the taxpayer’s cost – aided by the big guns of industry. But this has been resisted by resilient men and women in the media, reporting on state crimes.

Even the central government controlled Swagat magazine (January 2007) published by Indian Airlines and brought out by the Media Transasia group, carrying a message from a smiling civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, in its opening pages, gave ‘impressive Gujarat statistics’ a glowing certificate. It made no mention whatsoever of the growing suicides among the state’s urban business classes, the agricultural crisis, and other issues, let alone life for 10 per cent of Gujarat’s population, its Muslims, after the genocide.

But what of the individuals that make up the media’s larger whole? Reporters and correspondents, editors and subeditors, who have, sometimes at great risk, continued with free, fair and fearless coverage in Gujarat?

CC salutes the journalists who keep Indian democracy alive and breathing even when national human rights institutions and courts slip into arrogant slumber. We bring you their voices, their opinions, their life experiences. For obvious reasons, we protect their anonymity.

"There is never any scope for argument or debate in Gujarat"

The support I received both from my newspaper and also my colleagues, as a woman reporting on issues of the day, in 2002 and thereafter, has been rewarding. My family, too, has been very supportive, unusually so. So I did not have to face the struggles a woman has to within the home. During the worst period of 2002, my family let me move out of the house, and subtly, my colleagues protected me. A small thing, my identity card and purse were taken away from the very first day, and everywhere I went, a colleague accompanied me.

Now, there are two ways you can look at this, this removal of my identity and personal protection. I looked at it positively. This attempt to make me incognito in a small town like Vadodara where I had grown up, studied, etc, and where a lot of the people knew me. I received strange feelers, assurances from some local BJP leaders about my safety. It was bizarre…These same people who knew the circumstances under which my whole family was forced into a distress sale of our home of many years in a cosmopolitan area and our move to a Muslim locality in May 2002, were still inquiring after my personal safety.

An office jeep picked up my family and helped them move away. I couldn’t be with them. They knew I was safe. Fed up with living like that, living out of a knapsack for a week or more, I chopped off my long hair. During those days I wouldn’t give out my visiting card to anyone. Was hiding my identity cheating?

At that point it was survival. The anger and fear hit me about six months later. In the immediate aftermath, reporting under my byline or a shared byline, the nitty-gritty of being a journalist consumed me. A little later, my objectivity suddenly became a question, professionally, because of my religious identity. A couple of stories soured my ties with professional colleagues. One about a murder in Vadodara district which led to a boycott of the minority community. Suddenly the local media fraternity and the Vadodara collector were upset and even tried to tell me to stop doing such stories because of my ‘objectivity’! Now, that hurt.

In one sense I’ve lived with being a suspect since I was a kid, since college when cricket matches would be played or I would be picked upon during a college debate simply because I was a Muslim. I knew how to give it back. I, unfortunately, was not, am not, a shy person and picked fights. Having been a suspect for a large part of my 35 years, it is something that I, unfortunately, have to live with. But not in my profession – or so I thought.

Originally from Maharashtra, I did my postgraduation from Pune. But I was born and brought up in Vadodara. There is communal prejudice in both states but it is very different, the manner in which prejudice is handled, the manner in which issues are tackled. For example, in Maharashtra, a person with an RSS bent will have no pretences, like it or not, it will be up front. It prepares you to handle it. In college at Nashik I had a pracharak (RSS propagator) for a classmate, with whom I had loud disagreements and arguments. But once the argument was over we would walk together to the chai ki kitli (tea kettle) and canteen and eat and snack together. In Gujarat, the prejudice will never be spelt out. My neighbours in Ellora Park were very nice to us, we grew up there, but they didn’t stand up for us. We had to move out to Binanagar in the midst of the violence. There is never any scope for argument or debate in Gujarat.

One learns to live by these norms and realities. In retrospect, I did feel anger and fear but I felt I could handle it because no one came and threatened me. It was my city, the city where I was born, went to college, stood for student council elections and so on. In a sense I also confuse the locals a bit because I don’t fit into the stereotype of either the Gujarati Muslim or the migrant UP Muslim.

Personal relationships were sacrificed by the wayside in the flames of the genocide. Persons dear to you stop talking to you overnight. But then, I say, compared to what happened to others, this was too small a price.

One of my closest relationships died an abrupt death. A very precious relationship broke up when a person I loved, whom I had grown up with, suddenly couldn’t handle my being a Muslim, after 2002. This is what 2002 did and what 2002 brought. It wasn’t safe to be seen with a Muslim, and some just couldn’t handle the pressure. People were being killed, so there was no point in getting angry about this. So I gave up a relationship that had meant a lot to me ever since I was a child. My mother was also upset that I had to give it up. I had to pay a very heavy price for this break. I have no energy to try something like this again. I simply do not have it in me to take that emotional risk.

More than anything else, I feel scarred and unsure of myself as a woman. In Gujarat if you are a Muslim, people forget you are a woman. If I were to be raped it is not because I am a woman but because I am a Muslim. My femininity has been torn from me. I feel my feminine side broken from inside by the outside.

On the other hand, there is pressure from within the Muslim community. After 2002, marrying a non-Muslim was out of the question. Hell would have broken loose. I wouldn’t want to do something like that. It takes attention away from what the community needs, education, etc. I have younger siblings. So far my community admires me and supports me. My family and all of us need and feel this support. We are seen to be ‘decent Muslim girls’. If I were to take any step that would disturb that, my family and I would have to pay the price.

So at the moment I don’t have the energy for a personal relationship. I cannot trust a non-Muslim, or any man. And I’m not at all sure that a Muslim man will accept me as I am. He would not be comfortable with me as I am, a thinking woman whose profession means she has to fraternise with other men, who works odd hours, etc. So while the possibility of an intimate relationship with a non-Muslim man has been given up, with Muslim men there is this fundamental problem. I feel too tired to negotiate this politics of identity.

It is the innocence of your everyday life that has been taken away. Even today when I go to my old neighbourhood, post office, bank, laundrywala, I come back very upset, very disturbed. Then I tell myself, listen, you saw, first-hand, what had happened to women, children, men. The killings, the rapes… at least we are better off than that.

Now, five years after living in a rented house, we are building our home again, afresh. My brother is moving on… my family and I made it a point to see that while he was finishing his studies he spent three months with close non-Muslim friends. He is young so we didn’t want him to live in fear of the non-Muslim after what had happened, what he had seen in Vadodara.

In between, I visited the UK for a three-month period and had a chance to see how the Indian Muslim community in the UK lives. It was an eye-opener for me. I felt better and good in India, even in Vadodara.

Things are too conservative there… I had to face questions like, "How can a Muslim girl move around unescorted, without the hijab?" No one, not even my mother, asks me these questions here, nor does she herself live like that. Muslims there live in some other world; it is a bit frightening. In India I can fight back, I can cry. The system, or someone, will respond. But in the UK, you are being torn apart by two worlds. As a Muslim, this is still the best place for me.

"The stereotypes and prejudices run much deeper here"

What are the pressures and dangers of reporting on Gujarat?

Pressures and dangers are there only if you allow them to affect you and your work. From February 2002 till date, we at the TOI haven’t allowed our reporting to get blunted. Once those in power realise we can’t be browbeaten, and nor are we open to negotiation on reporting the truth, they start looking elsewhere for support.  

How easy or difficult is it to negotiate spaces in Gujarat given the kind of administration and government there is?

It is challenging, though easy at times. Given the autocratic nature of those at the top levels of the present government, you do find bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and even competing journalists who are more than willing to share information which would embarrass the government. Our best sources remain the dissenters within the administration and there is a whole army of them despite the fear psychosis around otherwise preventing leaking information to the media.  

Could you give some examples?

Entry to even accredited journalists to the Sachivalaya has been restricted. Entry to the Police Bhavan was banned for many weeks. The daily bus service for journalists from Gandhinagar is now restricted. Ministers cannot speak to the press without permission from the chief minister! Bureaucrats give information but don’t want their names in newspapers. Earlier, chief ministers had weekly press meets. With Modi, these are very rare.

What are the pressures or dangers felt by a working journalist in a decision making position from both state and non-state actors?

Tolerance of criticism among high-ranking politicians is the lowest in the present regime in Gujarat. If you are seen as being even mildly critical of the government’s policies, your access can get curbed. But as a journalist, you can’t allow your decision making to get clouded by these concerns. 

How do you compare Gujarat with the rest of the country?

That Gujaratis are a "mild community" is a deception. The prejudices run much deeper here, at least as far as other communities are concerned. In other states/cities, it is still possible to find Hindus and Muslims living together in a neighbourhood, same buildings. Not in Gujarat. There is not much exchange between communities even on occasions like Diwali or Id. The younger generation is growing up in isolation, without any appreciation of the others’ culture, religion. This mixing is not there even in some schools. That does not augur well for the future. The only hope is that Gujaratis do not want anything to come in the way of economic prosperity. There is a realisation that communal violence does retard the progress of the state.

 Could you elaborate?

The stereotypes and prejudices run much deeper here. Atrocities under centuries of Muslim rule and invasions from the north-west have been selectively documented by historians. These are passed on to the next generation not only by word of mouth but also in the form of published literature. The deep divide comes not only because of different faiths but also because of eating habits, as Gujarat is the cradle for vegetarianism. It is therefore much easier for politicians to exploit these sentiments. While intolerance is all pervasive, authoritarianism is a trait peculiar to Narendra Modi because it helps him nurture that carefully cultivated he-man image. 

"They tire you psychologically and drain you professionally" 

Manifold pressures

 The Gujarat government is infamous for gagging the press. It particularly hates any and everyone with secular credentials. The pressure, to be a working journalist and also be secular, is even greater for vernacular journalists. To brand all of them as a loud vernacular voice would be an injustice because these journos do have a voice, an ideology and a conscience that sometimes gets killed because they work for small managements. The pressures are manifold.

Number one is there is no free flow of information. In the name of security, access to information and people is curtailed. It becomes difficult to get the truth. Once you get the truth and the truth is what the government does not like, there are sophisticated government methods to distort the truth. In the case of Sohrabuddin (Sheikh), the media took the initiative. However everyone knows of how media reports were denied.

Dangers? Ceaseless amounts of defamation and criminal cases. In the past there were cases but most of them were not criminal offences. Now the trend is, file a criminal offence. The journalist gets tired going to the lower courts. They make you stand with criminals. They treat you like shit. The level of judiciary and its competence in Gujarat is a known story (and scandal). For one story…there would be complaints, criminal offences filed from four different places. They tire you psychologically and drain you professionally. I have about half a dozen of them going on at various lower courts at this point of time against the stories I have written.

Dissemination of false information is an important portfolio of the Gujarat government. First the government never lied. Now they never tell you the truth. So as you chase the truth, the pressure is to "toe the government line".

Phone tapping, anonymous dirty calls, pressure to influence your bosses, your peer, mud-slinging (typical RSS style), character assassination… there is a constant insecurity, a fear. Freedom of the press is an alien term. Often, the reporter may expose the best story but the management or the boss is "bought over". Lured by government ads, by private SEZ projects…an endless list. In the end, the journo ends up frustrated.

Selling one’s soul

Negotiation simply means a deal. A deal where you sell your soul. There are cases of reporters being obliged with bungalows, dealerships for siblings or jobs in some public sector undertaking (PSU). The government simply wants to gag all critical voices. Editorial policies are to emanate from the chief minister’s office…

 Personal attacks

Attempts to influence? By invoking religion and the son of soil factor in the main… Are you a Hindu, a Gujarati? How can you be anti-Hindu? You are a coward (at a time when the Gujarat Samachar was totally Modi-ised… articles with names criticising convent educated Gujaratis who have been educated abroad and have now gone ‘astray’ and ‘are following western culture’, apart from being ‘pseudo secular’, abounded. By naming you, they tarnished your image and branded you. In Gujarat, unlike in Mumbai or in Delhi, which are larger and with a degree of professionalism, there is some anonymity… in Gujarat you cannot separate the personal from the professional. The "branding" affects you everywhere.
 
‘Managing’ journalists

I have worked in Mumbai, in London and the USA too. In all these other places, if you are right, the government is magnanimous enough to appreciate and acknowledge this. You feel a part of an overall system. There is a certain satisfaction of doing the right thing; here you know you are going to be in deep trouble. There will be attempts to gag you, starting from Arun Jaitley’s level to Surendra Patel’s level. "Managing journalists" is an art that the BJP has mastered. When they are not able to manage journos with integrity, these journalists become ‘pseudo secular’ who are not ‘well-wishers of Gujarat.’

Under constant threat

Gujarat’s communalism is more neopolitical in nature than social. At the moment, there is no ideology involved. Editorial courage and independence are under constant threat. Modi has this particular quality where he can convert criticism into a public movement. He would demean the journalist instead of his journalistic work and publicly pronounce the person or that particular media house or channel a villain.

For small and medium newspapers, withholding of ads is a regular feature. The new media policy of the Gujarat government is skewed. The Jansatta’s Rajkot edition has been closed down because of massive ad cuts that make it difficult for operations. Government advertisements are important for any normal, small or medium sized newspaper’s survival and revenue.

Efforts are made by those in power at times, sometimes via the journos and sometimes at management level, for a complete news blackout. For instance, how many people have read about corruption charges against Modi (though this is now expected to blow up in the next two weeks), home minister Amit Shah’s murky deals, Surendra Patel’s obsession with a builder lobby? These are all examples of news blackout. 

At the moment there is a temporary unintentional pause in the government’s relentless campaign to muzzle the press but that is because the government is too busy sorting out its own rebels. Soon we will see several media houses and journos ganging up with the government. These self-proclaimed saviours from the media will, in the months to come, stoke up hatred against all whom Modi dubs ‘pseudo secular.’

(As told to Communalism Combat.)

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2007 Year 13    No.124, Genocide's Aftermath Part II, Voices 1

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