Courtesy: The Quint. Click here:

An attempt was made to strangle a professor with his own scarf. He, and some other students who were injured had to be hospitalized. Luckily, they are shaken, but out of immediate danger. The incidents have been characterized as ‘clashes’ between right wing and left wing student groups by some sections of the media. Nothing can be further from the truth. These were not ‘clashes’. They were straight-forward one sided attacks by a mob intent on violence. A riot is not a clash.

Delhi Police, which was present in strength on both occasions did not fire pellet guns at the stone pelters and rioters. After all, this is Delhi, not Kashmir, and the Standard Operating Procedure of the Delhi police is to not disturb ‘patriotic’ stone pelters. Rather, patriotic stone pelting, violence and vandalism are protected and encouraged activities, when done in the defense of the nation by  the enthusiastic ‘children’ and wards of the present regime. The ABVP knows this well, because one of their persistent slogans heard yesterday, was, reportedly, ‘Yeh Andar Ki Baat Hai, Police Hamare Saath Hai’ (‘we know it from the inside, the police is on our side’).

You can fault the ABVP on many things. You can accuse them of being a fascist militia intent on destroying higher education in India, which they are. You can call them thugs out to crack skulls on campuses, which they are. You can accuse them of derailing education by preventing debate and discussion in universities, and you would not be wrong in doing so. You can point, correctly, to their colorful habit of using maadarchod (‘motherfucker’) as invective against students who are not with them, even as they cry themselves hoarse shouting  ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ as ways of expressing their feelings towards ‘Mother India’. You can call them stooges of corrupt university administrations, which they are. You can call them informers and scabs, which they are.  And the list of the things that you can call them, with accuracy, can grow longer still.

But you can’t fault them on the extent of honesty and sincerity with which they admit that the Delhi Police and the ABVP are in bed with each other. The ABVP is law and order disguised as thuggery, and the police is present to enforce, not suppress law and order in university spaces. When student activists are violently attacked by right wing goons and ABVP cadre outside the RSS headquarters, the Delhi police shields the attackers. When ABVP level false charges against students in JNU, the Delhi police obliges them by arresting the accused students for sedition.

When a student like Najeeb Ahmed disappears from JNU following intimidation and violence by ABVP members, the Delhi police ensures that the names of the assaulting students are not registered in the FIR. It also ensures that they are not investigated for Najeeb’s disappearance. And yesterday, when students who were attacked with stones, molested and manhandled violently by the ABVP, the Delhi police not only refuses to file an FIR, rather, resorts to a lathi charge at Maurice Nagar police station against the students who had gathered there to demand the filing of the FIR. All of this happened while the ABVP jeered in the background.

Reports from tonight indicate that while the Delhi police has declared section 144 in Delhi University (making gatherings and protests on campus illegal) ABVP goons are moving in motorcycle borne squads, armed with sticks and razors, through hostels and the neighborhoods close to the university, looking for the students whom they believe took an active part in the protests. A Facebook message doing the rounds is asking students who may be attacked to leave north campus and its neighborhood and move in with friends in other parts of the city until things calm down. The Delhi police, as is usual, has not given any assurance of safety or security to any students who fear being attacked. It is not preventing these ABVP ‘search’ squads from undertaking their patriotic duties of intimidation, harassment and the spreading of fear and hatred.

Attacks and a climate of intimidation in universities and institutions of higher education are growing by the day. They are undertaken by the ABVP and Hindutva hooligans in Delhi and Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh with the blessings of the BJP Modi regime at the centre, by the ABVP and the student outfits of the Shiv Sena and the MNS in Maharashtra, by the Trinamool Chchatra Parishad in West Bengal, by student groups allied with Islamist organisations (and even with some mainstream, so called ‘secular parties’) in places like Aligarh Muslim University and by the CPI-M backed SFI in Kerala. Often these attacks have the tacit backing and approval of university administrators and local authorities.

There is, as I have said before, a state of war against the young, and universities are their battleground. The current regime has been successful to a certain extent in dividing students by creating an atmosphere where the constant playing up of the ‘identity’ of different communities within university spaces seems like a relevant and necessary option. In the long run, this has to be seen for what it is,  as a campaign of attrition and distraction that saps the energy of student activism from within.

The time may have come for everyone concerned to think beyond the standard response of holding protest gatherings that themselves become targets, or organizing ‘lecture series’ that provide us with some satisfaction, but do little to tackle the facts on the ground. So far, left student groups have been forced to adopt defensive postures to contain the ratcheting up of pressure, violence and intimidation tactics from the right. This is required, as no one could predict the extent to which the right-wing thugs and their protectors in universities could descend to unleash their poison. But its been little more than a year since Rohith Vemula died, since the events of 9th February happened in JNU and its been several months since Najeeb disappeared. In the interim, the UGC has cut seats, and the ABVP has cut its teeth on a fresh wave of violence.

However given the scale of what we are encountering, as it becomes clear we are in this battle for the long-haul, is it time to consider what other response and politics may be forged at this juncture? Is there a way for us to take back the initiative? Even as I salute the extraordinary courage that students and young faculty have displayed in protecting their spaces, protecting each other and ensuring that the right is unable to perpetuate silence, I also worry about the toll in fatigue that another round of hunger-strikes will take, or the prospect of being entangled by the red-tape that is attendant to the endless ‘petitioning’ mode. We have to find ways of responding that are mindful of ketone levels and the burn-out that accompanies waiting for court appearances.

I fear otherwise the right-wing will exhaust our energies given the vast resources at their command if we are continually in fire-fighting mode. Clearly, there are several traps ahead. The government and its stooges are waiting for students to make a false move, to answer provocation with badly thought out, violent provocation. Students and their friends all across India have to think, swiftly, to ensure a co-ordinated, well thought out, militant but non-violent responses to the danger that their spaces, their lives and their freedom is in today.

We hope that Kafila, and other online platforms, social media and offline public spaces can become practical forums where a new, imaginative, radical wave can be shaped with a view to taking back universities and all spaces where the young gather to learn and to live. We welcome reports, ideas, accounts, conversations and strategies that can make that happen. In the coming days, especially, if the election results are not favorable to the BJP, we can only expect that the ABVP will unleash more terror out of their own levels of frustration and rage. Let us never forget that the ABVP and the other thugs are resorting to intimidation because they know they and the regime that is backing them is rapidly losing all legitimacy and support. They are afraid, and that is why they need the ‘cover’ of the police and university authorities. Its time to give it right back to them. We need the support, not just of students and teachers, but also of parents, and people in society generally, so that universities are not held hostage. We need mothers and fathers to stand with students and their teachers, as comrades, everywhere.

Let us make them (the right wing thugs and authoritarian tendencies of all kinds) wish that they had never started this fight.

Courtesy: Kafila Online.
 

The post ABVP Riots in Delhi University with Police Protection appeared first on SabrangIndia.

गुजरात के उना में दलित युवकों के साथ जो बर्बरता हुई, उसे पुलिस चाहती तो पूरी तरह रोक सकती थी। इस मामले में सचाई का पता लगाने के लिए स्वतंत्र रिसर्चरों की जो टीम गुजरात गई उसकी रिपोर्ट में यह साफ कहा गया है कि पुलिस गाय की खाल निकालने वाले युवकों को घसीट कर उना ले जाने से पहले ही इस हमले को रोक सकती थी।

तथ्यों की पड़ताल करने गई टीम की रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक स्वयंभू गौ-रक्षक खाल उतारने का काम करने वाले चार युवकों को उनके गांव से जबरदस्ती उठा कर कार में उना ले जा रहे थे तो रास्ते में एक पुलिस वाहन ने उन्हें रोका था। लेकिन कार को रोकने के बाद भी पुलिस ने कोई कदम उठाया? नहीं। पुलिस ने हमलावरों से चंद मिनट तक बात की और उन्हें अपने रास्ते जाने दिया।

इस रिपोर्ट ने दिल दहला देने वाली इस घटना में पुलिस की भूमिका पर कई और सवाल उठाए हैं।  रिपोर्ट में पूछा गया है कि उना पुलिस ने अपने दफ्तर से बाहर किए गए इस अत्याचार पर एफआई दर्ज करने में छह घंटे क्यों लगा दिए? पुलिस ने यह सुनिश्चित क्यों नहीं किया कि  दलित युवकों के घायल मां-बाप 11 जुलाई की रात को उना के अस्पतालों तक पहुंच सकें।

घटनाक्रम का ब्योरा
तीन पेज की यह रिपोर्ट आठ स्वतंत्र दलित अधिकार कार्यकर्ताओं की एक टीम ने तैयार की है। उन्होंने अस्थायी तौर पर दलित अधिकार मंच नाम के एक फोरम का गठन किया और 17 जुलाई को उना का दौरा किया। तथ्यों की पड़ताल करने वाली टीम में मेहसाणा के एक लॉ स्टूडेंट सुबोध परमार और दलित आंदोलनकारी, किरिट राठौड़, कांतिभाई परमार और कौशिक परमार भी शामिल थे।

रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक दलितों पर हमला मोटा समधियाला गांव में 11 जुलाई को शुरू हुआ।

कई पीढिय़ों से मरे हुए जानवरों की खाल निकालने का काम करने वाले परिवार से ताल्लुक रखने वाले दलित बालूभाई सरवैया को पड़ोसी गांव वालों ने दो मरी गायें दी थीं। बालूभाई के बेटे वेसराम और रमेश ने उनके भतीजे बेचर और अशोक के साथ मिल कर गांव में ही खुली जगह पर खाल निकालने का काम शुरू कर दिया। करीब दस बजे सुबह उधर से गुजरती हुई एक कार की  नजर उन पर पड़ी लेकिन वह वहां नहीं रूकी। इसके बाद कुछ ही मिनटों में वहां दो और कारें और लगभग 35 लोग लाठियों और लोहे की पाइप लेकर वहां आ धमके।

भीड़ चारों दलितों पर गाय को मारने का आरोप लगाने लगी। चारों ने यह समझाने की कोशिश की वे लोग सिर्फ मरी हुई गाय की खाल निकाल रहे हैं। लेकिन गौ-रक्षकों ने उनकी एक नहीं सुनी और उन्हें पीटना शुरू कर दिया। साथ में वे उन्हें गंदी गालियां देते जा रहे थे।

दलित युवकों पर लात-घूंसे और लाठी-डंडे बरसते देख एक ग्रामीण ने बालूभाई को फोन पर इस घटना की जानकारी दे दी। बालूभाई की पत्नी कुवरबेन सरवैया ने कहा, हम तुरंत घटनास्थल की ओर दौड़ पड़े। वहां पहुंचते ही हम हाथ जोडक़र बच्चों की पिटाई रोकने के लिए गिड़गिड़ाने लगे। इसके बावजूद वो लोग एक घंटे तक उनकी पिटाई करते रहे और उनकी कमीजें उतार दी। इसके बाद चारों को जबरदस्ती एसयूवी में बिठा लिया। हमें पता नहीं था कि वे इन लोगों को कहां ले जाएंगे। इसलिए मेरे पति ने भी साथ जाने के लिए कार में बैठने की कोशिश की। लेकिन उन्होंने उनके सिर पर काफी जोर से मारा और मेरे कंधे पर जोरदार चोट की।

पुलिस पर मिलीभगत के आरोप
फैक्ट फाइंडिंग के मुताबिक दलित युवकों को कार में ठूंस कर 20 किलोमीटर दूर उना शहर की ओर ले जाते समय एक पुलिस वाहन ने हमलावरों की गाड़ी को रोका। बातचीत शुरू हुई तो हमलावरों ने कहा कि वे इन दलित युवकों को उना ले जा रहे हैं। रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है- हमलावरों के साथ लगभग मिल कर काम करने जैसा व्यवहार करते हुए पुलिस ने कहा कि वह घटनास्थल की ओर जा रही है। इससे साफ है कि पुलिस भी इस अत्याचार में शामिल है।

उना में जिस कार से दलितों को बांध कर घसीटा गया पर एक प्रेसिडेंट- शिवसेना डिस्ट्रिक्ट- गिर सोमनाथ का स्टीकर चिपका था। वहां उन्हेंं फिर एक घंटे तक पीटा गया और हमलावरों ने इसका वीडियो बनाया। इसके बाद इन दलित युवकों को उना थाने में छोड़ दिया गया। पुलिस ने उन्हें वहां अगले कुछ घंटों तक बिठाए रखा। पिटाई खत्म होने के छह घंटे तक कोई एफआईआर नहीं लिखी गई। इतनी बड़ी भीड़ की ओर पीटे जाने के बाद भी सिर्फ छह लोगों के नाम आरोपी के तौर पर लिखे गए।

इधर, मोटा समाधियाला में गांव में लोगों ने एंबुलेंस बुला कर हमले में घायल हुए बालूभाई और कूवरबेन को उना के अस्पताल ले जाने की कोशिश की पुलिस ने अड़ंगा लगाया। रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक, पुलिस ने एंबुलेंस ड्राइवर को उन्हें उना ले जाने के बजाय गिर गढ़दा (तालुका) ले जाने के लिए कहा। जब दोनों ने इसका विरोध किया तो पुलिस ने उन्हें धमकी दी और उनके साथ दुव्र्यवहार किया।

सिर्फ एक घटना नहीं, पूरा पैटर्न
फैक्ट फाइंडिंग टीम  के एक  सदस्य सुबोध परमार ने दावा किया कि गोरक्षा से जुड़े लोगों की ओर से दलितों पर अत्याचार का यह एक मात्र मामला नहीं है। उना की घटना सिर्फ इसलिए प्रकाश में आई कि हमलावरों ने इसका वीडियो बना कर इसे प्रसारित कर दिया था। लेकिन गुजरात में इस तरह के कई मामले प्रकाश में ही नहीं आते। परमार ने कहा- पिछले कई महीनों से हम देख रहे हैं कि गो-रक्षक होने का दावा करने वाले लोगों की ओर से दलितों पर इस तरह की कई घटनाएं हो रही है।

सबरंगइंडिया ने दलितों पर हमलों के इस पैटर्न और इन्हें रोकने में प्रशासन और सरकार की लापरवाही के बारे में रिपोर्टंे छापी हैं। यह पैटर्न इसलिए  और भी गंभीर है क्योंकि हमलावरों या आरोपियों में से ज्यादातर दरबार जाति के लोग हैं। यह और भी भयावह है कि ऐसे हमलों के बाद हमलावर उनका वीडियो बना कर सोशल मीडिया पर प्रसारित करते हैं।

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मुख्यमंत्री आनंदीबेन पटेल को भेजी गई प्रेस रिलीज और अपील यहां पढ़ी जा सकती है।
 

The post चर्मकारों पर हमले में पुलिस की मिलीभगत : फैक्ट फाइंडिंग टीम की रिपोर्ट appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Policemen from the local police, including DYSP Bharadwaj did not take action in the case of the severe beating  of Dalit youth by several others from the Rajula village of Kadi taluka in Gujarat’s Mehsana district on May 22, 2016. One and a half months after complaints were lodged against over 35 accused for the beating up of cattle tanners on May 22, 2016, the police acted and arrested four persons only the day before yesterday. Senior Dalit leader and advocate http://www.inkhabar.com/national/21624-gujarat-police-start-arresting-accused-very-old-dalit-cases, Valjibhai Patel of the Centre for Social Justice said that it was these serial and perpetual atrocities against Dalits that had been spreading that has now boiled over into a protest since the July 12 incident. Patel had submitted a CD with all the video evidence of the atrocities himself to the police 90 days ago. July 22, that is tomorrow is the day when the charge sheet should have been filed but this has not been done, Patel said.
 
In Rajula, too the aggressor took videos of the incident and circulated these.

“It is the mindset of those in power, those who believe that ‘their’ Hindu Rashtra is a reality that is granting a kind of social and political sanction to such acts of violence, “ added Patel. It is imperative that serious action is taken against the policemen for delays in filing FIRs, arrests and prosecution and that these are followed up in the Courts. Patel will appear before the State Human Rights Commission tomorrow and is also contemplating approaching the Gujarat High Court.
 
Since Monday, Gujarat states has been in the news for an angry uprsing, today the fourth day of the protest, Thursday, July 21, Dalits burned down two buses in Kadi and angry protests were also witnessed in Surat, Kishodh (Junagadh) and Dhodka. An independent fact finding report had found the Gujarat police complicit in deliberately not preventing the violence.
 
Gujarat passed a law that provides for seven years imprisonment, Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 2011, that specifically prevents the transportation of cow, the calf of a cow, a bull or a bullock. While mob hysteria has been whipped up by the vocal proponents of the Hindu Rahstra, the cattle rearing Maldhari community that rears cattle had about 3.32 lakh hectare of land for grazing at their disposal. However first the Modi and now the Anandi Patel government has given away this gauchar land at a throw away prices to the industrial houses. Also earlier, non-productive cows were sent to graze in these areas, but since there are no more gauchar land available, cattle herders were forced to spend Rs 40-50 per cow for fodder. Besides the issue of handling dead cattle and their hides has always been foisted off on Dalits and Muslims.
 
Some of the Videos can be seen here.

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गुजरात में दलितों का विद्रोह खास क्यों है? यह इसलिए कि जिस गाय के सहारे आरएसएस-भाजपा अपनी असली राजनीति को खाद-पानी दे रहे थे, वही गाय पहली बार उसके गले की फांस बनी है। बल्कि कहा जा सकता है कि गाय की राजनीति के सहारे आरएसएस-भाजपा ने हिंदू-ध्रुवीकरण का जो खेल खेला था, उसके सामने बाकी तमाम राजनीतिक दल एक तरह से लाचार थे और उसके विरोध का कोई जमीनी तरीका नहीं निकाल पा रहे थे। गुजरात में दलित समुदाय के विद्रोह ने देश में आरएसएस-भाजपा की ब्राह्मणवादी राजनीति का सामना करने का एक ठोस रास्ता तैयार किया है।

देश में भाजपा की सरकार बनने के बाद पिछले लगभग दो सालों से लगातार कुछ ऐसे मुद्दे सुर्खियों में रहे हैं, जिनसे एक ओर वास्तविक मुद्दों से समूचे समाज का ध्यान बंटाए रखा जा सके और दूसरी ओर पहले से ही धार्मिक माइंडसेट में जीते ज्यादा से ज्यादा लोगों के दिमागों का सांप्रदायीकरण किया जा सके। साक्षी महाराज, योगी आदित्यनाथ या दूसरे साधुओं-साध्वियों की जुबान से अक्सर निकलने वाले जहरीले बोल के अलावा जो एक मोहरा सबसे कामयाब हथियार के तौर पर आजमाया गया, वह था गाय को लेकर हिंदू भावनाओं का शोषण और फिर उसे आक्रामक उभार देना। हाल में इसकी चरम अभिव्यक्ति उत्तर प्रदेश के दादरी इलाके में हुई, जहां सितंबर, 2015 में हिंदू अतिवादियों की एक भीड़ ने गाय का मांस रखने का आरोप लगा कर मोहम्मद अख़लाक के घर पर हमला कर दिया और उनके परिवार के सामने तालिबानी शैली में उन्हें ईंट-पत्थरों से मारते हुए मार डाला।

लेकिन इस तरह की यह कोई पहली घटना नहीं थी। अक्टूबर 2000 में हरियाणा में झज्जर जिले के दुलीना इलाके में पांच दलित एक मरी हुई गाय की खाल अलग कर रहे थे। उसी जगह से हिंदुओं के एक धार्मिक आयोजन से लौटती भीड़ ने उन पांचों को घेर लिया और गोहत्या का आरोप लगा कर उन्हें भी ईंट-पत्थरों से मार-मार कर मार डाला था। तब आरएसएस की एक शाखा विश्व हिंदू परिषद के एक नेता आचार्य गिरिराज किशोर ने कहा था कि एक गाय की जान पांच दलितों की जान से ज्यादा कीमती है।

गुजरात में मरी हुई गाय की खाल उतारने ले जाते दलितों को बर्बरता से पीटे जाने की घटना से पैदा हुए तूफान के बाद भी एक बार फिर विश्व हिंदू परिषद ने अपनी वास्तविक राजनीति के अनुकूल बयान ही जारी किया। परिषद ने कहा- "नैसर्गिक रूप से मरी गायों और पशुओं के निपटान की हिंदू समाज में व्यवस्था है और वह परंपरागत रूप से चली आ रही है। इस व्यवस्था को गोहत्या कह कर कुछ तत्त्वों द्वारा जो अत्याचार हो रहा है, उसका विश्व हिंदू परिषद विरोध करती है।"

यानी सैद्धांतिक तौर पर आरएसएस या विश्व हिंदू परिषद मरी गायों और पशुओं के निपटान के लिए हिंदू समाज में 'परंपरागत व्यवस्था' होने की बात कहते हैं और व्यावहारिक तौर पर उन्हें जब भी अपनी राजनीति के लिए जरूरत होगी, मरी गायों को ले जाते या उनकी खाल उतारते दलितों को देख कर उन्हें गो-हत्यारा घोषित कर देंगें और फिर उनकी जान तक ले लेंगे। विश्व हिंदू परिषद या आरएसएस का रवैया इस मसले पर बिल्कुल हैरानी नहीं पैदा करता। बल्कि अच्छा यह है कि कई बार दबाव में आकर ये हिंदू संगठन अपना असली चेहरा दिखाते रहते हैं।

बौद्धिक हलकों में शायद इन सब पहलुओं से विचार किया गया होगा, इसके बावजूद सच यह है कि हिंदुत्व की सियासत में गाय के इस मोहरे का जवाब नहीं ढूंढ़ा जा सका था। पिछले तकरीबन दो सालों से देश के अलग-अलग इलाकों से आने वाली खबरें यह बताती रहीं कि समाज में 'गाय का जहर' हिंदू पोंगापंथियों के सिर पर चढ़ कर बोल रहा है और जगह-जगह पर जिंदा या मरी हुई गाय ले जाते लोगों के साथ गऊ-रक्षक बेहद बर्बरता से पेश आते हैं। इसके अलावा, समूचे समाज में गाय अब एक मुद्दा बन चुकी है। बहुत साधारण रोजी-रोजगार में लगे लोग, जिन्हें गाय से कोई वास्ता नहीं है, वे 'गऊ-हत्या' के नाम पर उन्माद में चले जाते हैं। कुछ समय पहले उत्तर प्रदेश के दनकौर में पंद्रह से पच्चीस वर्ष के तकरीबन पंद्रह युवाओं से एक साथ बात करते हुए मुझे हैरानी इस बात पर हुई थी कि वे यह कहने में बिल्कुल नहीं हिचक रहे थे कि 'कोई गऊमाता को मारेगा तो हम उसे काट देंगे जी…!' इन युवाओं में कुछ दलित पृष्ठभूमि से भी थे। दस मिनट की बातचीत के बाद 'गऊमाता' के सवाल पर दलित किशोर चुप हो गए, लेकिन बाकी अपनी राय पर कायम थे।

हालांकि गाय को लेकर उन्माद पैदा करने की कोशिशें हिंदुत्व की राजनीति का एक औजार रही हैं, लेकिन पिछले दो-तीन सालों के लगातार आबो-हवा में गाय के नाम पर जहर घोलने का ही नतीजा है कि एक जानवर के नाम पर लोग इंसानों को मारने-काटने की बातें सरेआम करने लगे हैं। सड़कों पर गोरक्षक गुंडे खुले तौर पर कानून हाथ में लेते हैं और मवेशी ले जाते वाहनों को रोक कर लोगों को बुरी तरह मारते-पीटते हैं या मार भी डालते हैं। झारखंड के लातेहर और हिमाचल प्रदेश से गोरक्षक गुंडों द्वारा मवेशी ले जाते लोगों को पकड़ कर मार डालने की खबरें सामने आईं। लातेहर में एक किशोर और एक युवक को मार कर पेड़ पर लटका दिया गया था। जहां-जहां भाजपा की सरकार है, वहां तो जैसे इन्हें अभयदान मिला हुआ है।
गुजरात के ऊना में जिन लोगों ने चार दलित युवकों को सरेआम बर्बरता से मारा-पीटा, वे भी एक तरह से बाकायदा जिस पुलिस से संरक्षण प्राप्त थे, वह भी भाजपा सरकार की ही है। यों भी, पुलिस अपने राज की सरकार के रुख के हिसाब से ही किसी को खुला छोड़ती है या उसके खिलाफ कोई कार्रवाई करती है। कम से कम गुजरात में तो सन 2002 के दंगों से लेकर अब तक पुलिस ने यही साबित किया है।

लेकिन उन गोरक्षक गुंडों से लेकर शायद आरएसएस-भाजपा तक को इस बात का अंदाजा शायद नहीं रहा होगा कि जिस गाय के हथियार से वे बाकी मुद्दों को दफ्न करने की कोशिश में थे, वह इस रूप में उनके सामने खड़ा हो जाएगा। पिछले दो-ढाई सालों में यह पहली बार है जब गाय की राजनीति को इस कदर और मुंहतोड़ तरीके से जवाब मिला है। ऊना में मरी हुई गाय की खाल उतारने ले जाते दलितों पर बर्बरता ढाई गई, उसी के जवाब में गुजरात के कई इलाकों में दलित समुदाय में मरी हुई गायों को ट्रकों में भर कर लाए और कलक्टर और दूसरे सरकारी दफ्तरों में फेंक दिया। संदेश साफ था। जिस सामाजिक व्यवस्था ने उन्हें इस पेशे में झोंका था, अगर उससे भी उन्हें अपने जिंदा रहने के इंतजामों से रोका जाता है, उसके चलते उन पर बर्बरता ढाई जाती है तो वे यह काम सरकार और प्रशासन के लिए छोड़ते हैं। अब वही करें गायों के मरने के बाद उनका निपटान।

अपने ऊपर हुए जुल्म के खिलाफ खड़ा होने का यह नायाब तरीका है, यह अपने खिलाफ एक राजनीति का करारा जवाब है, यह एक समूची ब्राह्मणवादी सत्ता की राजनीति की जड़ पर हमला है। अच्छा यह है कि मुख्यधारा के मीडिया के सत्तावादी रवैये के चलते गुजरात में आए इस तूफान की अनदेखी और सच कहें तो इसे दबाने की कोशिशों के बावजूद विरोध के इस तरीके की खबर देश के दूसरे इलाकों तक भी पहुंची है और इसके संदेश ने व्यापक असर छोड़ा है। अब जरूरत यह है कि मरी हुई या जिंदा गायों को इस देश में गोरक्षा का कथित आंदोलन चलाने वाले आरएसएस-भाजपा और उनके दूसरे संगठनों के सदस्यों के घर छोड़ दिया जाए, ताकि वे अपनी 'गऊमाता' के प्रति अपनी निष्ठा दर्शा सकें। मरी या जिंदा गाय से पेट भरने लायक जितनी आमदनी होती है, उससे ज्यादा दूसरे किसी रोजगार में हो सकती है।

जाहिर है, यह एक ऐसा जवाब है जिससे आरएसएस-भाजपा की समूची ब्राह्मणवादी राजनीति की चूलें हिल सकती हैं। अगर यह आंदोलन आगे बढ़ा और समूचे देश के दलितों ने मरे हुए जानवरों के निपटान के काम सहित मैला ढोने, शहरों-महानगरों से लेकर गली-कूचों या फिर सीवर में घुस कर सफाई करने या जातिगत पेशों से जुड़े तमाम कामों को छोड़ कर रोजगार के दूसरे विकल्पों की ओर रुख करते हैं तो बर्बर और अमानवीय ब्राह्मणवादी समाज के ढांचे को इस सामंती शक्ल में बनाए रखना मुश्किल होगा।

गुजरात में दलित समुदाय ने पहली बार मरी हुई गायों और दूसरे जानवरों के जरिए आरएसएस-भाजपा और हिंदुत्ववादी राजनीति के सामने एक ठोस चुनौती रखी है। इसके अलावा, उन्होंने सड़क पर उतर कर और उनमें से कुछ ने आत्महत्या की कोशिश में छिपे दुख को जाहिर कर अपनी मौजूदगी का अहसास कराया है। इस स्वरूप के आंदोलन के महत्त्व आरएसएस को मालूम है और वह अपनी ओर से इससे ध्यान बंटाने के लिए कुछ भी कर सकता है। इसलिए इस विद्रोह की अनदेखी करने या दूसरे कम महत्त्व के मुद्दों में उलझने के बजाय अब दलित समुदाय की ओर से शुरू की गई इस सामाजिक क्रांति का स्वागत और उसे आगे बढ़ाने की कोशिश उन सब लोगों को करने की जरूरत है, जो आरएसएस-भाजपा की ब्राह्मणवादी राजनीति को दुनिया का एक सबसे अमानवीय सामाजिक राजनीति मानते हैं।

(चार्वाक ब्लॉग से)
 

The post गुजरात में दलित विद्रोह – स्वागत, इस सामाजिक क्रांति का… appeared first on SabrangIndia.

धर्मशास्त्रों में मरी हुई गाय के निपटान की क्या व्यवस्था है?

यह काम किस जाति के हिस्से है?

दफनाया जाना है या अग्नि को समर्पित करना चाहिए?

वेद, पुराण, गीता… ये ग्रंथ क्या कहते हैं?

अंतिम संस्कार के मंत्र क्या हैं?

मालिक की उपस्थिति होनी चाहिए या नहीं?

श्राद्ध होगा या नहीं?

पिंडदान कराना है या नहीं?

अस्थि विसर्जन करना पड़ता है या नहीं?

तेरहवीं, चौथा, उठाला, ये सब होता है या नहीं?

सिर कौन मुंड़ाता है?

शास्त्रों के जानकार लोग बताएं तो देश को पता चल पाएगा.

फोटो – टीकमगढ़ में सूखे के दौरान खेत में मरी गाय, जिसका अंतिम संस्कार नहीं हो पाया.

गुजरात कांड पर विश्व हिंदू परिषद का बयान –

“नैसर्गिक रूप से मरी गायों और पशुओं के निपटान की हिंदू समाज में व्यवस्था है और वह परंपरागत रूप से चली आ रही है. इस व्यवस्था को गोहत्या कह कर कुछ तत्वों द्वारा जो अत्याचार हो रहा है, उसका विश्व हिंदू परिषद विरोध करती है.”

विश्व हिंदू परिषद को इस अपमानजनक बयान के लिए देश के दलित समाज से और पूरे देश से माफी मांगनी चाहिए.

आखिर क्या है हिंदू समाज में गाय की लाश निपटाने की परंपरागत व्यवस्था?

एक पवित्र धागा इन गुंडों को संपादकों और एंकरों से जोड़ता है.
 

कई बार एक चिंगारी पूरे जंगल में आग लगा देती है.   दिल्ली, 24 जुलाई.
 
दुनिया की सबसे बड़े ब्रॉडकास्टिंग संस्थाओं में एक BBC, गोरक्षकों को ठोककर “गुंडा” लिख रही है. दुनिया के हर देश में इसकी पहुंच है. वहीं भारत के किसी चैनल या अखबार ने गुंडों को गुंडा नहीं कहा… एक ने भी नहीं.

The post धर्मशास्त्रों में मरी हुई गाय के निपटान की क्या व्यवस्था है? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Police Authorities could have halted attackers even before they reached Una town, claims an investigation by a team of activists

Gujarat has seen angry statewide protests for four days now, since Monday last against the brutal assault of four Dalit leather tanners by self-styled cow protection vigilantes in Gir Somnath district’s Una taluka on July 11. After beginning to beat up the tanners in their village, the assailants continued to thrash them right by a police station in Una town, and four police officers have been suspended for allowing the attack to go on. A video taken by the assaulters was circulated on social media by the assaulters.

An independent fact finding by eight researchers has revealed how the police could have halted the assault even before the attackers dragged the tanners to Una town. After the self-proclaimed cow protectors forced the four Dalit men into a car in their village and were driving them to Una, they were stopped by a police vehicle on their way to the town. Did the police intervene? No, the police simply
spoke to the assailants for a few minutes and then allowed them to continue on their way, the report says.

The report also raises a few more questions about the role of the police in the horrific events. Why, for instance, did the Una police take six hours to lodge an FIR about an atrocity perpetrated outside its premises? And why did the police ensure that the injured parents of the Dalit youth could not travel to hospital in Una on the night of July 11?

Time Line of Events
The three-page report was compiled by a team of eight independent Dalit rights activists who formed a temporary forum called the Dalit Adhikar Manch and visited Una on July 17. The fact-finding team consisted of Subodh Parmar, a law student from Mehsana, and activists Kirit Rathod, Kantibhai Parmar and Kaushik Parmar.

According to the report, the attack began in the village of Mota Samadhiyala on the morning of July 11.

Balubhai Sarvaiya, a Dalit leather tanner whose family had been in the profession of skinning dead animals for several generations, had just received two dead cows from people in neighbouring villages. Balubhai’s sons Veshram and Ramesh, along with his nephews Bechar and Ashok, began to skin the carcasses in an open spot in the village. At around 10 am, a car drove by, saw them, and drove away, only to return a few minutes later with two more cars and around 35 men armed with sticks and iron pipes.

The mob accused the four Dalit men of killing cows. Even as the tanners tried to explain that they were merely skinning animals that were already dead, the gau rakshaks (cow protectors) began to rain blows and verbal abuse on them.

By this time, a villager made a phone call to Balubhai to inform him of the developments. “We rushed to the spot and pleaded with folded hands to those men, asking them to stop beating our sons,” said Kuvarben Sarvaiya, Balubhai’s wife.

Instead, the mob continued to beat the four men for more than an hour, stripped off their shirts and forced them into one of their SUVs. “We didn’t know where they were going to take them so my husband also tried to sit in the car,” said Kuvarben. "But they hit him hard on the head and hit me on my shoulder."

Allegations of Police Complicity
According to the fact-finding report, while driving from the village towards Una town 20 km away, the assailants’ cars were stopped by a police vehicle. A conversation ensued, in which the attackers reportedly told the police that they were taking the Dalit men to Una. “The police, almost joining front with the attackers, told them that they were going to the place of the incident,” said the report. “This shows that the police was involved in this atrocity.”

In Una, the four leather tanners were tied to the back of a car that bore a sticker reading “President – Shiv Sena, District – Gir Somnath”. They were then beaten again for an hour, with the attackers recording videos of the assault. The tanners were finally left at Una police station. Once again, instead of detaining the perpetrators of the assault, the police kept the victims of the crime at the station for the next few hours. A First Information Report was not lodged until six hours after the thrashing ended, and only six men were named as the accused despite a much larger mob participating in the assault.

Back in Mota Samadhiyala, villagers had called for an ambulance to take the injured Balubhai and Kuvarben to the civic hospital in Una town. According to the report, the police interfered yet again. “The police told the ambulance driver to take them to Gir Gadhda [taluka] instead of Una town,” said the report. When the couple protested, the police “threatened them and misbehaved with them”.

Technically, says Balubhai, their village is in Una taluka and Gir Gadhda is in the opposite direction. “The police was clearly taking the side of those attackers – they stopped us from going to Una because they wanted to keep us away from what was being done to our boys,” said Balubhai.

A Pattern, Not a Solitary Incident
Subodh Parmar, one of the members of the fact-finding team, claims that the Una incident is not the only atrocity against Dalits by people linked to cow protection.
“This particular incident came to light because the attackers were brazen enough to put up videos of it,” said Parmar. “But so many crimes against Dalits go unreported in Gujarat, and from what we have seen over the past few months, there have been other incidents of Dalits being attacked by people claiming to be gau rakshaks.”
 
Sabrangindia has reported on the pattern of attacks against Dalits and the overall laxity of the administration and government in addressing the issue. The pattern is all the more serious since a large section of the attackers/accused appear to hail from the Darbar community and have also displayed a horrific pattern of gloating after the incident –videos of assaults are taken while the attack takes place and shared on social media by the aggressors themselves.

The Press Release and Appeal to the Chief Minister, Anandi Patel can be read here.

The post Gujarat Police Complicit in Attack on Dalit Tanners: Fact Finding Report appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Courtesy: IANS

The recent carnage in Gujarat — some call it genocide — has been well–documented, thanks to an alert media and the dedication and diligence with which some citizen groups and NGOs have gone about the job of exposing the administrative atrophy and the collusion of the law and order machinery with a partisan political leadership. Their contribution in highlighting the criminal negligence of the police and magistracy in handling one of the worst communal episodes in the country as well as their alleged collusion with their political bosses in furthering their diabolical sectarian agenda, is undoubtedly an act of great courage and of immense value.

It is also, in a different sense, a tribute to the strength and vibrancy of the secular tradition that thankfully still runs deep in Indian society as a whole, not excluding a vast majority of Hindus. Admittedly, there has been a major ideological shift to the right in Indian society, especially in the northern and western states in recent years, in the wake of the empowerment of sundry outfits of the sangh parivar, as a sequel to the BJP’s ascendancy to power. In consequence, a certain enfeeblement of the secular sentiment has taken place because of determined and calculated assaults by the Hindutva proponents, against communal harmony and the composite nature of Indian culture.

What is even more dangerous is that such intolerance and anti–minority biases are no longer confined to the uninformed and ignorant segments of the people; they have seriously undermined the secular belief systems of a large number of the well-educated and well–to–do middle classes. Considering all these factors, it is highly creditable that Indian civil society still retains enough fire and sparkle to be able to rouse the collective conscience of the nation so as to effectively challenge the forces of obscurantism, intolerance, atavism and communal hatred that triggered the recent Gujarat happenings.

In the event, the horrendous designs and goals of the current rulers in Gujarat stand discredited and stalled, at least for the present. However the issues of police and magisterial collusion with the politicians in such matters and their failure to implement the law of the land in the process are equally alarming and need to be examined in some depth.

That the Indian police have, by and large, lost their credibility with the minorities is no longer a matter of opinion. The fast spreading virus of communalism in the force is a stark reality, which has troubled  well-meaning members of the service now for several decades. The matter has engaged the attention of police leaders for long and has been debated at length in umpteen in-house meetings, seminars and conferences. It has also been written about and projected in the media ad infinitum.
Commission after inquiry commission has provided ample evidence of the increasing deterioration of the force in many different ways. It is not as if the political classes are unaware of the inherent vulnerabilities of the Indian police as constituted under the Indian Police Act of 1861 that make it open to misuse and manipulation by the State, which really means, in the current situation, the political party holding office. No political party for the last several decades has made any effort to restore to the police and magistracy some measure of functional autonomy so that they are able to uphold the rule of law and provisions of the Constitution. The sad fact is that no political party is averse to using this coercive instrument of state power in advancing its own selfish interests and political agendas, hidden or otherwise.

As late as mid–April this year, the parliamentary standing committee in the ministry of home affairs castigated the Gujarat police in severe terms for its partisan role in handling the communal frenzy in that state. It asserted in very clear terms that the police all over the country are “politicised and politically polarised.” It described the police as a “pawn in the hands of its [political] masters.”

The committee further asserted that policemen consider political “patronage essential for their survival… and police personnel are found to be divided in camps having distinct political leanings” and that this connivance of the police with the powers that be is giving rise to cynicism among people… “These are, by all means, very dangerous signs for the continuance and survival of democracy.” Recommending the preparation of a blue print for a “model police force” to be followed by all states, the committee impressed upon the home ministry to “make earnest efforts to depoliticise the institution of police before it becomes too late to retrieve it from the morass of degeneration.”

It is interesting to note that the committee that made such profound observations was presided over by the veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee. Unless he was suffering from temporary dementia, surely the suave Mukherjee could not have forgotten the reign of terror let loose on the Sikhs in Delhi and many other Congress–ruled states in October-November 1984, when the police stood by and watched hundreds of Sikh men and women being murdered in cold blood and according to a plan hatched by his own senior colleagues.

Not one of those police officials, including some IPS officers, indicted by several official and non–official committees, was disciplined or so much as superseded. His party government adopted the same lackadaisical attitude to guilty police officers in the Mumbai riots in 1992–93, or earlier in Meerut. The latter case, in fact, is an interesting study in itself. Although indicted in no uncertain terms by an eminent commission of inquiry for shooting down dozens of Muslim men and dumping the dead bodies in a canal, the impugned PAC personnel could never be brought to justice because of want of government sanction to prosecute them.

The Congress party, which has been in power at the Centre and in the states for much longer than others, must also take the major part of the blame for failing to effect structural and operational reforms in the police and its law–enforcement procedures, in tune with the new constitutional and other imperatives.

During that period, UP was ruled by all political parties at some time or the other — the Congress, BJP, BSP and the Samajwadi Party of the wrestler–turned–political leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. One need not labour too hard to expose the hypocrisy and pretensions of Indian politicians, for they are in evidence at every single moment in some part of the country or the other.

 The Congress party, which has been in power at the Centre and in the states for much longer than others must also take the major part of the blame for failing to effect structural and operational reforms in the police and its law–enforcement procedures, in tune with the new constitutional and other imperatives.

It is incredible but true that the Indian police continues to function under a legal framework that dates back to the mid–nineteenth century. The Indian Police Act that governs the police in India and indeed in the whole of South Asia except Pakistan, was enacted in 1861, the Indian Penal Code in 1862 and the Indian Evidence Act in 1872. Most other laws that the police are expected to enforce also belong to the 19th century.

It is not that the urgency for updating the law–enforcement organs of the State has not been underlined again and again by expert bodies, police and administrative commissions and many other forums over the years, including the national police commission [NPC], state police commissions, administrative reforms commissions and any number of inquiry commissions. Even the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission are on record for having stressed the need for urgent and meaningful police reforms.

That the Indian political classes have continued to turn a blind eye to this most important subject is not because they are unaware of the total decay of the system in recent decades but because they are loath to lose this servile and obedient instrument of oppression that can be manipulated to serve their partisan interests in a most effective manner, not unlike their imperial predecessors.

The question that worries the concerned citizens of the country is why do Indian cops refuse to change with the times and why do they continue to behave in the same high–handed and insensitive manner as during the colonial era. These are by no means vacuous worries and are perfectly justified. However, in the absence of substantive reforms to update the legal architecture that governs our police and taking it out of the control of politicians, no worthwhile change can be foreseen.
One need only go through section 23 of the Indian Police Act, 1861, to realize that under the law, Indian police have no commitment to or concern with accountability to the community or earning their support. As against this, out of nine principles of conduct that govern the British police and which serve as their mool mantra right from the time a recruit joins the force, as many as seven deal with community participation and support.          

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2002, Anniversary Issue (9th), Year 9  No. 80, Partisan police

The post Partisan police appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Courtesy: Amit Dave: Reuters
 
If Black people had accepted a status of economic and political inferiority, the mob murders would probably have subsided. But because vast numbers of ex–slaves refused to discard their dreams of progress, more than ten thousand lynchings occurred… Whoever challenged the racial hierarchy was marked a potential victim of the mob.  The endless roster of the dead came to include every sort of insurgent — from the owners of successful Black business… to those who refused to be called ‘boy’ and the defiant women who resisted white men’s sexual abuses. Yet public opinion had been captured and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood. And an important question remained unasked: What about the numerous women who were lynched – and sometimes raped before they were killed by the mob.
— Angela Davis¹

My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame… I force myself to write a small fraction of all that I heard and saw, because it is important that we all know…What can you say about a woman, eight months pregnant who begged to be spared. Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes?…What can you say?… I have never known a riot which has used the sexual subjugation of women so widely as an instrument of violence as in the recent mass barbarity in Gujarat. There are reports everywhere of gang rape, of young girls and women… followed by their murder by burning alive, or by bludgeoning with a hammer and in one case with a screw driver.
— Harsh Mander²  

Two different cultural divides, one of race, the other of religion, situated within two great democracies of our times. Both ensure equality before law and equal protection of law and proclaim non–discrimination on the grounds of race, caste, sex, and religion. The conjunctures and parities in the way the language of rights unfolds within them is the focus of this essay.  

The vocal, visible and highly articulate women’s movements in both countries, the United States and India, have contextualised gender concerns and examined the overarching influence of patriarchy upon the lives of women. State interventions have been invoked through sustained campaigns to release women from its clutches. But how has this articulation addressed concerns of women who are at the margin of social boundaries, whose reality is marked not only by patriarchal dominations but also by racial, religious and caste prejudices?

Within a hierarchy of social relationships, gender concerns are articulated from the context of the mainstream — for India, it is the Hindu woman and for the West, the White woman. A slogan coined by women of colour in the US succinctly captures this reality:  All women are White, All Blacks are men… but some of us are brave.   

What is worse, even when gender concerns of the marginalised women hit the headlines, they do so primarily to strengthen the prevailing stereotypical biases against the community at large. Rather than the explicit pro–women concern, what gets foregrounded is the anti-community undertone. No other example can better serve to explain this, than the Shahbano controversy.  

The controversy arose out of a Supreme Court ruling in 19853  which upheld the right of a divorced Muslim woman for maintenance. The adverse comments in the ruling against the Prophet and Islam led to a backlash and a demand for separate statute based on Islamic jurisprudence. The then Congress government gave in to the pressure exerted by the Muslim fundamentalist lobby and enacted the Muslim Women’s Act in 1986. But over time, this statute, advertently or inadvertently, bestowed upon Muslim women, a superior economic right than the one enshrined in S.125 CrPC. But despite this, for well over a decade, the statute enacted amidst protest from human rights and women’s groups, was viewed as a marker of ‘Muslim appeasement’ and a defeat of secular principles within the Indian polity.   

The denial of rights of a meagre maintenance dole was lamented by all and sundry, notwithstanding the fact that the maintenance awarded to the wife of an advocate with a flourishing practice was just Rs.25 in the first instance and Rs.179 upon appeal. So long as the debate could be used as a stick to beat the community with, these minor details didn’t seem to matter. What did matter is the fact that a communal campaign could be mounted upon a patriarchal paradigm and thereby legitimised. The irony lay in the fact that the groundwork for mounting this campaign was laid by the women’s movement, with genuine gender concerns, but firmly located within the cultural ethos of the mainstream. Within this framework, a similar appeasement of Hindus, by strengthening coparcenaries4  by various legislative measures went unnoticed.

Even when gender concerns of the marginalised women hit the headlines, they do so primarily to strengthen the prevailing stereotypical biases against the community at large. Rather than the explicit pro-women concern, what gets foregrounded is the anti-community undertone.

The communal fervour could be sustained only by denying the fact that the Act provided for an alternate remedy, far superior to the one that had been denied to Muslim women; by negating the fact that since 1988, the Act was being positively interpreted by various High Courts in the country by awarding substantial amounts as ‘settlements’; by glossing over an important development in the realm of family law, that of determination of   economic entitlements upon divorce, rather than the prevailing right of recurring maintenance.

So even while homes of poor Muslim women were looted, gutted and razed to the ground in various communal riots which broke out in the country in the post-Shahbano phase, while teenage sons of Muslim women were killed at point blank range in police firings, while Muslim women were raped under floodlights in post-Babri Masjid riots, the mainstream continued to lament over ‘Muslim appeasement’ and denial of maintenance to  ‘poor Muslim women / the Shahbanos’.    

One could overlook even this. Perhaps there was a justification. Denial of maintenance by husbands was as loathsome as rape of women in communal riots. In the ultimate analysis, it was the Muslim woman who suffered. So far so good. But how can one logically explain the recurring motif of ‘Muslim appeasement’ even after the Supreme Court decision in the Danial Latifi5  case, when the controversy was finally laid to rest by upholding the Constitutional validity of the Act? Yet, the rhetoric continues.
The symbolism becomes even starker, when one is confronted with the gruesome sexual violations of women during the recent Gujarat carnage. While exploring possible legal portals to place these blood–curdling barbarities, one hits a dead end at each turn.  As one hears the narratives of young women, running helter-skelter, slipping, falling and becoming prey to the marauding mobs, their violated and mutilated bodies being thrown into open fires, the question keeps haunting: where and how does one pin the culpability?

When violence of this scale supersedes the parameters of criminal jurisprudence which is bound by conventions of proof and evidence, medical examinations and forensic reports, when criminal prosecution itself is a closed-end process in the hands of the state machinery, what legal measures can be invoked to bring justice to the dead and the surviving? But the danger at the other end, if these violations do not form part of  ‘official records’ they can be conveniently negated as NGO exaggerations or normalised as routine occurrences as our defence minister, George Fernandes did, on the floor of the Lok Sabha during the marathon debate on Gujarat.  

The official discourse is geared towards denial. Uma Bharati, the woman minister of the NDA government, (who had cheered and goaded the crowd while the Babri Masjid was being demolished) asked in feigned disbelief, “Who is she whose stomach was slit and foetus taken out? No one has heard of this woman. She is a fiction created by the media.”     

A further report by another statutory body, instituted presumably for the protection of women, the National Commission for Women, continued with this denial mode. In a cursory report, brought out after the commission’s whirlwind tour of the riot torn state forty days after violence broke out, it gave no details of sexual violence on the pretext that media and fact–finding teams had already done so. A member of the team, ironically a former women’s movement activist, further trivialised this through a newspaper report, by stating that only three women admitted to being raped. A cultural argument was advanced that Indian, subcontinental and even Asian women are reluctant to admit rape as it may result in abandonment. Within this cultural reality, should women be forced to share their experiences, she wondered.  

The entire logic and rationality of the anti–rape movement gets turned on its head here. The catalyst for that inspired campaign of the ’80s was an isolated incidence of rape by   state functionaries. The author of the article was one of the signatories to the open letter to the chief justice to reopen the case. It was this open letter, which turned Mathura into an icon of the movement. One wonders whether permission of this poor, orphan, rural, tribal young woman was ever sought before writing off the open letter. Mathura, Maya Tyagi, Rameezabi, Suman Rani, Banwari Devi, Kuntaben — all individual cases. Here the numbers did not matter. Each isolated incident was sufficient to trigger a national campaign for law reform. But when it comes to state complacency in communal carnage, when sadistic gang rapes and brutal sexual violations are buried under a more grievous and yet, more acceptable crime of murder, one tends to resort to a game of numbers. How many more young girls’ vaginas need to be slit open, how many more rods need to be inserted into as yet unformed uteruses, how many more foetus’ have to be gorged out of the bellies of pregnant women, for the state administration to take serious note of the scale of sexual violence on minority women?

The genocide in Gujarat, as well as the earlier communal riots, have taught a painful lesson to Muslim women — that when threatened with a life and death situation, in the face of blood–thirsty and sexually debased mobs, mosques, dargahs and madrassas are transformed into an oasis of security and solace. The secular and women’s rights voices are too distant from their harrowing realities.

The genocide in Gujarat (as well as the earlier communal riots) have taught a painful lesson to Muslim women — that when threatened with a life and death situation, in the face of blood–thirsty and sexually debased mobs, mosques, dargahs and madrassas are transformed into an oasis of security and solace. The secular and women’s rights voices are too distant from their harrowing realities. Communal and patriarchal identities get forged.

Women in relief camps narrated incidents of camp organisers helping out, not only with arrangements of food and first aid, but also with cleansing bleeding wounds on private parts and extracting wooden splinters buried into the deepest crevices. While women gave birth in the open in those traumatic days, they were forced to help in the birthing process. Before government aid could be accessed, hungry children were fed only through hurriedly put together community resources. Women partook in the festivity of marriage celebrations of young orphaned girls, arranged by camp leaders. They cried out, when the men were picked up in combing operations and bore the brunt of police brutalities. The bonding between people under siege is cemented through the adhesive of shared fears and sufferings. In the struggle for day–to–day survival, gender concerns and patriarchal oppressions seem remote, which in the long run will weaken the fight against patriarchy.

How should concerned groups within civil society respond to this social and political reality? When the moral basis for the rights itself shifts, where can one start the process of renegotiating and reframing the covenant of equality and equal protection? What are the myriad ways in which the seemingly innocuous laws get unfolded within the complex terrain of social hierarchies?  These are difficult questions.

Angela Davis is perhaps one of the first scholars to raise some of these difficult questions. She explains how the hard won abortion right of the White women’s movement became a draconian measure of state-sponsored genocide for women of colour. Within a racially tinted population policy of the US government, involuntary sterilisations were used for mass birth control of black and coloured and Native American women.  In her own words:

“It was not until the media decided that the casual sterilization of two Black girls… was a scandal worth reporting that the Pandora’s box of sterilisation abuse was finally flung open. But by the time the case of the Relf sisters broke, it was practically too late. It was the summer of 1973 and the Supreme Court decision legalising abortions had already been announced in January. Nevertheless, the urgent need for mass opposition to sterilisation abuse became tragically clear. The facts surrounding the Relf sisters’ story were horrifyingly simple. (The sisters) aged twelve and fourteen had been unsuspectingly carted into an operating room, where surgeons irrevocably robbed them of their capacity to bear children.”⁶   

By 1976, 24% of all Native American women of childbearing age had been sterilised. A Choctaw physician told the senate: Our bloodlines are being stopped…Our unborn will not be born… This is genocidal to our people^.7
Picking up cudgels with the anti-rape movement, she explains that the myth of the Black rapist is located within insidious racist ideology and women of colour, for their own survival, had to stick with their men to explode the myth. Susan Brownmiller’s⁸  discussion on rape and race evinces an unthinking partisanship which borders on racism:

“Given the central role played by the fictional Black rapist in the shaping of post-slavery racism, it is, at best, irresponsible theorizing to represent Black men as the most frequent authors of sexual violence. … (It) is an aggression against Black people as a whole, for the mythical rapist implies the mythical whore. Perceiving the rape charge as an attack against the entire Black community, Black women were quick to assume the leadership of the anti-lynching movement.⁹
The historical knot binding Black women —  systematically abused and violated by White men — to Black men — maimed and murdered because of racial manipulation of the rape charge — has not been adequately analysed by feminist theorists during the anti–rape movement in the US, she laments.

Covenants of equality and equal protection may unfold diagonally opposite trajectories for the mainstream and the marginalised. Within the Western women’s movement, several Black feminist scholars, Martha Fineman, Patricia Williams, Toni Morrison, to name a few, have challenged the theories advocated by a predominantly White women’s movement and have attempted to rewrite the covenants of equality and equal protection, within the alchemy of Race and Rights.

The women’s movement in India has continued in its scholarship primarily within the ethos of the mainstream, though there are some tentative formulations, which are yet to be evolved into complex feminist theories. The challenge for the feminist legal scholarship in India is to develop a new praxis within which the covenants of equality   and equal protection can be rewritten in the context of the marginalised.     

Footnotes
 1  Women Race & Class Vintage (1983) p.190-1.  
 2 ‘Cry My Beloved Country’, The Times of India, March 20, 2002.   
 3  Mohd Ahmed Khan vs. Shahbano Begam, AIR 1985 SC 945.
 4  Coparcenary is the term used for Hindu Undivided Family  (HUF) properties within which inheritance rights are confined to male heirs.
 5 II (2001) DMC 714 (SC).
 6 Supra n.1 at p.216.
 7 Ibid p.218.
 8 Against Our Will, Men, Women and Rape Penguin (1975).
 9 Supra n.1 p.191.

The post Gender and community appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Courtesy: PTI

Our Constitution stands for democracy, sovereignty, socialism, secularism, republicanism, equality, liberty, justice, dignity of the individual and unity of India. The Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar is the negation of every basic feature of our Constitution. Though the Supreme Court of India has declared the basic feature of our Constitution as unalterable and not amendable. And despite the unanimous view of the Parliament and the Legislatures, the BJP–RSS–VHP–Bajrang Dal combine have acted in the way Hitler did in Germany: subverting the Constitution and the law from within by resorting to perversions and distortions and by destroying them from without by openly violating and defying every legal and constitutional provision and authority through its volunteers and mobs.

So far we had some glimpses of their ‘Hindu agenda’. Now we have their entire agenda fully unfolded and acted upon without any fear, scruples and remorse in Gujarat. Let us see how Narendra Modi’s ‘One day cricket match’ was played in Gujarat.

The tragedy of the Bharatiya Janata Party is that its defeat starts from the first moment of its victory. Once it comes to power on a communal platform of anti-Muslims and anti–Pakistan, it loses its raison d’etre, as it has no other people–centred socio-economic program of governance, despite its big talk. It cannot continue to bank upon communal riots for its strength and legitimacy because communal riots then tend to be counter–productive. Frequent riots, if unchecked, will cast doubts about its capacity to govern. And if attempted to be checked, it will antagonise the rioting Hindus by its police actions to control them.

The same tragedy overcame the BJP’s Keshubhai–led government earlier. Once riots were not on their agenda, it had nothing to offer except hollow promises in highly sanskritised words, like ‘Bhay, Bhukh, Bhrastachar Mukt Gujarat’ (Fear, hunger, corruption–free Gujarat), Gokul Gram Yojana, etc. All it could really offer to the people of Gujarat was insensitive and inefficient management of natural calamities like cyclone, drought, earthquake, and man–made maladies, criminalisation of politics, gross violations of human rights both by state agencies and dominant castes, communalisation of police and administration, rampant and all–pervasive corruption, least concern for social justice and healthy environment. In short, an almost
total absence of any kind of governance.

When the BJP high command realised that Keshubhai’s BJP government was fast losing ground, as was clearly evident from its defeat in the Panchayat elections and a few by–elections, and there were hardly 12-15 months left for the next Assembly elections due in February–March 2003, they decided on a change of guard. Modi, the sangh pracharak, who was brought in as the new chief minister of Gujarat gave a new slogan: ‘Apnu Gujarat, Aagvu Gujarat’ (Our Gujarat, unique Gujarat).

The induction just 10–12 months before the Assembly elections of a staunch RSS pracharak, a hyped–product of the mass media, an organisation man without any exposure to or experience of government or administration, and a special favourite of the RSS–VHP–BJP was the surest indication of the direction in which Gujarat was to move: a laboratory for the Hindutva agenda. As the BJP was losing elections in one state after another – it ended up in the third position behind the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in UP — its hawks started attributing its defeat to the dilution of the Hindu agenda.

Narendra Modi, “a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer” (first recognized a decade ago by Ashish Nandy – Seminar, May 2002) was ordered to march into Gujarat, not to reform or improve governance or to provide a just, responsive and people–centred government that works, but to saffronise Gujarat, implement the Hindutva agenda and offer a model of a Hindu state for the next round of elections, first in Gujarat in 2003 and then in India in 2004.

On assuming the reins of power in Gandhinagar amidst boisterous Hindu mobs chanting ‘Jai Sia Ram!’ and ‘Modi, March ahead, we are with you’, Modi significantly projected his short stint in power as a ‘one day cricket match’ in which he had to prove himself. For some time he fumbled, unable to get a grip over the government and the administration. While he managed to win his own election with a slender majority, he lost two other by–elections to the state Assembly. He tried to avoid Panchayat elections in the name of ‘Samras Yojana’, which meant unanimous or uncontested elections, by offering monetary incentives. He was about to lose his lustre. And then, suddenly but not so unexpectedly, in the midst of the rising crescendo of the Ram Shila Nyas program of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, came the Godhra carnage of ‘kar sevaks’ on February 27. This was followed by a call for a Gujarat Bandh by the VHP–BD and supported by the BJP on February 28 to voice ‘people’s reaction, resentment and anger’ against the Godhra killings. This provided the golden opportunity that Modi and his ministers had been eagerly awaiting.

Thus, under the stewardship of Modi, Gujarat witnessed in Year Two of the 21st century a new kind of communal barbarism, where the chief minister and his government virtually presided over the well–organised and systematic liquidation of the life, liberty, property, business and dignity of lakhs of Muslims across Gujarat. Clearly anticipating the RSS’ Bangalore message to the Muslims that “the Muslim minority can live in India only if they can win the goodwill of the Hindu majority.”
After the Godhra killing of Hindu kar sevaks, Muslims in Gujarat — remember, not just the culprits of the Godhra incident — lost the ‘goodwill of the Hindu majority’ and therefore had to pay a price for it.

And what a price they paid: Hundreds of innocent Muslims were burnt alive; women were raped, molested and killed, even pregnant women were not spared; children and old people were butchered; thousands of homes, buildings and business houses with their belongings were looted and destroyed; a large number of Muslims’ religious places were razed to the ground and replaced by Hindu temples or thoroughfares; more than 2 lakh people were forced to leave their houses and to live in relief camps, without  adequate relief facilities and with no hope of just resettlement  and rehabilitation; the police continued  to act  in a partisan manner, indulging  in indiscriminate firings, arbitrary arrests, ruthless combing, abuse of criminal law process, refusal to start criminal proceedings against the criminals and closing the doors of justice  to the  victims. As if Modi was impatient to finish his ‘One–day cricket match’ well before the allotted number of overs.

Earlier, Prime Minister Vajpayee announced at election rallies in UP that the “BJP does not want Muslims votes for its victory.” The subsequent revised version was, “We will win even if Muslims do not vote for us”. Gujarat’s chief minister Modi perverted it into: “We do not care, not only for your votes, but even for your lives.” He converted ‘Apnu Gujarat’ (‘Our Gujarat’) into ‘Maru Gujarat’ (‘My Gujarat’), claiming to speak as the sole defender of the image, prestige and honour of Gujarat; and ‘Aagvu Gujarat’ (‘Unique Gujarat’) into Hindu Gujarat reducing Muslims to helpless victims and second–class citizens.

Once the polity is controlled by the Sangh Parivar and civil society is substantially communalised and polarised in terms of ‘We’ and ‘They’, and ‘They’ are identified with international Islam, Pakistan and terrorism and branded as anti–national, the threat is more open, direct, serious and dangerous for the forces of democracy, rule of law, secularism, justice and pluralism.

And now he is planning for early elections in Gujarat trying to capitalise on the communal divide and hostility to win a majority in the elections, as if winning elections even with a greater majority, with Hindu support, would legalise and legitimise the killing and looting of the Muslim minority and the gross violations of their basic human rights. Modi is hailed by many as ‘Chhote Sardar’ (Junior Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) but in fact he is only a ‘Chhote Hitler’.

The question which agitates the minds of hundreds of well–meaning people in Gujarat, in India and elsewhere in the world is: What explains the successful arrival of ‘Chhote Hitler’ in Gujarat? Why the macabre dance by the killers of Mahatma Gandhi in the land of Gandhi himself? Why this Hindu tribalism and medievalism in ‘Nay Gujarat’ in the 21st century? What is still more disturbing and horrifying is the boast of the elite of Gujarat and the fear of those who are committed to democracy, secularism and social justice, namely, “What Gujarat is today, India will be tomorrow.” The elite claim with pride that Gujarat is always “a path–breaker for India.” Will this turn out to be true?    

The commonly accepted picture which emerges from various writings and reports is that what we have witnessed in Gujarat are not the ordinary communal riots between Hindus and Muslims Gujarat has had many in the past. Nor are they a mere product of the communal divide surcharged with intense mutual hatred and hostility, something we have had in abundance in our history. What is significant and striking is that these communal disturbances, commonly described as Hindu–Muslim riots, are qualitatively different from earlier Hindu-Muslim riots.

Since Independence and particularly during 1969 and thereafter,  Hindu–Muslim riots have been by and large one–sided, causing larger casualties and losses to the Muslims in general. But the recent riots in Gujarat are perceived to be nothing but a kind of genocide and ethnic cleansing, comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews in Germany.

These trends were increasingly visible and discernible with each successive riot, particularly after the rise of Hindutva in the ’80s. Now they have emerged so distinctly, visibly, intensely and in accentuated and aggravated form that the quantitative difference has now become a qualitative difference, amounting to a distinct phenomenon. It is not merely a question of more violent and more widespread nationwide riots, but of a clear and present danger of fascism, threatening and undermining the very basis of our constitutional system.

What happened in Gujarat after February 27 has no parallel in India; it is even worse and more dangerous than the Emergency of 1975-77. The latter was certainly a gross abuse of the constitutional system for avoiding a direct threat to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s power and authority in the name of the poor and for saving the country from chaos threatened by “reactionary forces.” And yet it maintained some semblance of constitutionalism.

Moreover, it was in a way a ‘coup’ by a handful of Indira Gandhi’s supporters, led by Sanjay Gandhi. But there was a lot of discontent even within the ruling Congress Party and large sections of civil society in India were totally opposed to the Emergency. It led to a very powerful JP–led people’s movement for democracy.

The Emergency could not take root in society and was perceived even by Smt. Indira Gandhi to be nothing but a temporary phenomenon, to be removed when circumstances were favourable, as she well knew that her steps to remain in power were so inherently against the basic values of democracy, civil liberties, rule of law, independence of judiciary and resistance to any form of authoritarianism.

These values were so well understood and accepted in the polity and society that the authoritarian super-structure sought to be created by Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi was bound to face cracks or to collapse sooner or later. Realising this, Indira Gandhi, on the basis of intelligence reports which turned out to be incorrect, declared elections and lost power. The constitutional system was soon restored.

But the communal carnage carried out in Gujarat after February 27 was an expression of majoritarian communalism nurtured, developed and consolidated by the Hindutva forces in civil society, winning substantial support among Hindus, and with the open support, assistance and participation of the BJP government, administration and police. During the Emergency, a vibrant civil society resisted state power. But in Gujarat,the communalised state acted in close collaboration with the support of a large number of Hindus, while the rest of Hindu society remained silent or passive as Muslims were made the targets.

Once the polity is controlled by the Sangh Parivar and civil society is substantially communalised and polarised in terms of “We” and “They”, and “They” are identified with international Islam, Pakistan and terrorism and branded as anti–national, the threat is more open, direct, serious and dangerous for the forces of democracy, rule of law, secularism, justice and pluralism.

The Hindutva ideology of the RSS parivar, namely, India is Hindu and Hinduism is nationalism, of the ideal of a Hindu state within which Hindutva is seen as constituting the national mainstream or cultural nationalism, a state in which Muslims and Christian are minorities and second–class citizens and can live only if they win the goodwill of the majority, cannot be implemented in India through the constitutional system we have. Both cannot co–exist. And therefore the Gujarat situation is a direct subversion of the Constitution and presents a permanent threat, which if not defeated will destroy the Constitution itself.

Courtesy: AFP

Let us briefly describe what happened in Gujarat after February 27.

• The government of Gujarat failed to discharge its elementary constitutional obligation, viz., protecting the life, liberty and properties of its citizens, irrespective of their caste, religion or community. Modi’s government did not act as a constitutional government but a government of the Sangh Parivar, meant for the implementation of the Hindutva program and only for the protection and defence of the Hindu community.
• The government and its administration directly participated in the communal holocaust in aid and support of the marauding mobs of the Hindu fanatics, attacking members of the Muslim community throughout Gujarat and looting or destroying their property, thereby violating its constitutional obligation of non–discrimination as enjoined by the Constitution of India.
• Even though the BJP is a ruling party having its own government in the state, it openly declared support to the ‘Gujarat Bandh’ of February 28 declared by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, even though bandhs have been declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India.
• Modi is most reliably reported to have instructed the officers and  police personnel not to come in the way of what he called the natural reaction of Hindus to the Godhra killings. The government of Gujarat directly and openly violated and infringed upon the basic rights of the Muslim minority under the Constitution of India, resulting in the killing of hundreds, destruction of houses and places of business, desecration of Muslims’ religious places, thereby violating Art.14, Art.19 (1))(g), Art.21 and Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution.
• Instead of accepting responsibility for the mass killings and mass destruction, of the Muslims, Modi’s government justified the killing and destruction thereby taking sides with one community only. The law and order machinery itself participated in the communal violence against Muslims either directly or by remaining indifferent and passive in controlling the mobs.
• The government originally discriminated between the victims of Godhra violence even in respect of payment of compensation. Subsequently it was forced to withdraw the discrimination.
• The government also failed in providing efficient, effective and speedy relief to the victims belonging to the minority community and also did not take effective steps in providing rehabilitation to the inmates of the refugee camps. A few ministers of Modi’s government and almost all important leaders of BJP, the party in power, participated in the violent activities perpetrated by Hindu mobs throughout Gujarat.
• The government condoned and justified the attacks by the Hindus upon Muslim women, thereby encouraging them to violate the fundamental duties regarding gender equality and regarding respect for women.
• The ruling party and its allies threatened all secular forces and also attacked some of them so as to prevent them from exercising their fundamental rights in the society.
• The government has openly abused the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and has failed to enforce the criminal law, blocking the filing of proper FIRs and proper investigation into the crimes, and by appointing its own party men as police or public prosecutors. This has resulted in a denial of justice to  members of the minority community even in respect of crimes committed against them by the ruling groups.
• Modi continued to attack the mass media for their factual reportage of the communal carnage in Gujarat, branding them as anti-Gujarat, anti–Hindu and even foreign agents, thereby directly violating the freedom of speech and expression under Art.19 (1)(a) of the Constitution.
• The chief minister attacked the Parliament of India, particularly the leaders of the opposition parties by making all sorts of allegations against them for their visits to Gujarat and their observations on the happenings and the continuance of violence in Gujarat.
• The Modi government abused every legal and constitutional machinery for its partisan ends. For example, it imposed SSC and HSC examinations, ignoring the all–pervading atmosphere of fear and insecurity only in order to show that everything had become normal. Similarly, in order to pre–empt any allegations or accusations against him for his direct responsibility for the riots, the government even abused the provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act by appointing a commission, which was not generally acceptable to the independent citizens of the state.
• The government, through its agents, tried to malign even the National Human Rights Commission through a public interest petition in the Gujarat High Court, making all sorts of wild allegations against the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission.
• Modi’s government also made it very clear by its various actions that Muslims cannot enjoy equality with Hindus and must be content to live as second–class citizen at the mercy of the Hindu majority.
• The administration and the police to a substantial degree were communalised thereby violating the basic principle of a constitutional government, viz., objectivity and impartiality of the administration and law and order machinery.
• The central government controlled by the BJP failed to exercise its constitutional obligations under Art.356 of the Constitution of India and failed to protect the members of the minority community from the violence perpetrated against them by Hindu militants with the support of the state government. Not just that, the BJP government at the Centre abused the so–called principle of state autonomy, not for protecting the people but for protecting Modi’s government.
• The government deliberately did not  call the meeting of the state Legislative Assembly to avoid any discussion over the government’s failure. Instead it dissolved the Legislative Assembly even though the term of the legislature was to expire only in March 2003. This means that the government abused its power by dissolving the Legislative Assembly and deprived the people of Gujarat of an elected legislature by totally unjustified premature dissolution.
• Modi’s government also tried to abuse Art.174 of the Constitution, going so far as trying to force the Election Commission to hold elections in Gujarat at a time chosen by the BJP Government irrespective of ground realities where free and fair elections are not possible.
• On the one hand, the government of Gujarat has humiliated, alienated and destroyed the economic backbone of the Muslim community. On the other, it has created an atmosphere of insecurity in the minds of the Hindus by encouraging rumours of reprisal and terrorist attacks from the Muslim community. Thus the whole of Gujarat society has been polarised into two warring groups.
• Even the judges of the High Court, sitting or retired, were not spared. No steps were taken for their protection, thus making even the highest judiciary in the state feel insecure. Even top officers belonging to the Muslim community were not saved.

Thus every institution and authority, whether constitutional or legal, has been abused and perverted by Modi’s government in the implementation of its Hindutva agenda. At the same time, the government has encouraged and supported Hindu militant groups acting outside the law and the Constitution to pulverise the Muslim community. All these lead to one irrefutable conclusion – the Sangh Parivar cannot implement the Hindutva agenda legally within the framework of the Constitution because it directly attacks and violates every basic feature of our Constitution.

What has happened in Gujarat cannot therefore be described as “temporary aberration”, “transitory disruption” or “momentary insanity”, but has to be understood and accepted as an inherent and inseparable part and parcel of the Sangh’s Hindutva agenda. It is either the Constitution or Hindutva; there is no way the two can co-exist.

What has happened in Gujarat cannot therefore be described as ‘temporary aberration’, ‘transitory disruption’ or ‘momentary insanity’, but has to be understood and accepted as an inherent and inseparable part and parcel of the Sangh’s Hindutva agenda. It is either the Constitution or Hindutva; there is no way the two can co-exist.

What happened in Gujarat was not within the legal and constitutional framework or parameters. It was completely outside the law and the Constitution — a kind of Hindu terrorism. It was not merely a question of the misuse of state institutions committed to constitutional principles; it was nothing short of a calculated and well–planned experiment to superimpose a Hindutva-inspired state over the present democratic, secular, republican State apparatus. And the Hindutva forces have actually demonstrated, successfully to an extent, their vision of a ‘secular Hindu’ state. It is not just a competing vision of modern India within the Constitution, but an alternative vision totally outside and hostile to the constitutional framework.
Gujarat, therefore, offers us distinct and clear glimpses of a Hindu fascist polity working within a totalitarian Hindu worldview. To achieve this goal, even to attempt this in a single state in a federal country is very difficult, particularly when the Union government is of a different complexion. But the Gujarat experiment was possible because the NDA government in New Delhi was effectively a BJP government, supported by weak allies.

Even the benevolent principle of state freedom or autonomy was grossly abused, not for protecting the Constitution and for discharging the constitutional obligations of the Union under Art. 355 and 356, but for protecting the BJP’s Modi–led government, granting it the freedom to act as it wished.

This was the most treacherous behaviour of the Union government led by Vajpayee and Advani — a most shameful betrayal of the Indian Constitution. Double–dealing, double–speak, cunning, hypocrisy, blatant lies mark the conduct of the top BJP ministers and leaders at the Centre, whose motive was and is to show the entire nation what a full–fledged BJP government can do ‘for the Hindus’, to extract political mileage from the genocide of Muslims and to project the real face of Hindutva in the next Lok Sabha elections in 2004.

The fight then will not be an ordinary electoral contest between political parties, but a clash between two visions of our nation, two alternative processes of nation–formation. It is to be a struggle for the protection, preservation and defence of the Constitution against the naked bid for the perversion, desecration and subversion of the Constitution. If we lose the elections, it will not be a loss of one battle — we would have lost the war.

The true character and design of the Sangh Parivar in all spheres of our polity, society, economy and culture are now clearly, distinctly, unambiguously and nakedly exposed, leaving no room for doubt. Gujarat has revealed the true nature of Hindutva not only ideologically or theoretically but also in actual practice. This is what they stand for and this is what they want to do. Our ideology, our policy, programme and strategy must effectively respond to this and counter it.

In this context, therefore, our approach should be total, comprehensive and clearly focused, not merely fragmented or diffused. Hence how the riots actually broke out, the causes and consequences of the Godhra incidents, the nature, extent, intensity and dimensions of violence, the magnitude of the damage and loss to Muslims, the Muslims’ poverty, illiteracy and backwardness, or the Hindus’ sense of insecurity or neglect, the absence of social interaction or tolerance or understanding between different communities, police action or inaction, adequate or unjust rehabilitation, the recourse to courts, though important in themselves must not be dealt with or treated in isolation from one another. Their importance lies in exposing the true character of the menace we are facing.

Therefore, any partial or issue–based approach or strategy, no doubt important and necessary in its own way, will not be sufficient, adequate or effective. It is the new fascist threat of the 21st century combining authoritarianism, sectarianism, religious   fanaticism and an amoral economic policy of self–aggrandisement, cultural hegemony and brute force. They are operating both constitutionally and extra–constitutionally, inside the Parliament and courts and outside in the streets, and working on people’s minds. But the Gujarat events must not defeat, disillusion, disappoint or frustrate us, but must charge and unite us, open our eyes, shake off our complacency and prepare us for defeating them. In this sense, the Gujarat tragedy could retrospectively prove to be a blessing in disguise, in that it warns us of the impending danger and disaster in 2004.

The elections to the Lok Sabha in 2004 without the backdrop of the Gujarat riots would in a way have been deceptive and misleading. Gujarat at least has rid us of that illusion. Modi and his BJP-VHP-RSS want to replicate Gujarat throughout the country. It is for us to prevent this. The issue is no longer confined to Gujarat. It has become an issue for the entire nation. For Modi, it was a ‘One-day match’ finished in good time. For us now, it is a full 5-day Test. Either they win or we win. Even a draw will be ruinous for the country.        

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2002, Anniversary Issue (9th), Year 9  No. 80, India Modi-fied

The post India Modi-fied appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Courtesy: virtualclassroom.org

For centuries Hinduism has been the most tolerant of all religions. It was from the ranks of the Brahmins that the first converts to Buddhism were recruited in the sixth Century BC. Two hundred years after Ashoka’s death Buddhism had replaced Hinduism in vast areas of the sub-continent, although the Buddhism that prevailed was not of the purity envisaged by the Enlightened One. But within two centuries after Buddha’s death, eighteen varieties of the Buddhist doctrine divided and confounded the converted faithful!

And then, at the beginning of the first millennium, the growth of monasticism left India open to easy conquest. When the Arabs came, they looked with scorn upon the Buddhist monks and destroyed their monasteries, making the new faith unpopular. The survivors, under the influence of the youthful Adi Shankara, were then reabsorbed into the Hinduism that had begotten them.

As the historian Will Durant records in an elegant sentence: “the ancient orthodoxy received the penitent heresy Brahmanism killed Buddhism by a fraternal embrace.” And all this because Brahmanism had always been so tolerant. The history of the rise and fall of Buddhism and of a hundred other sects in this subcontinent records much disputation, but no instances of persecution (except from foreign invaders). After five hundred years of gradual decay, Buddhism disappeared from India, not violently or with bloodshed, but quietly and peacefully. And throughout Hindustan, Hinduism (after centuries of decline and decadence) came back into its own: still tolerant, still accommodating.

But all this was in the past. During the last few years I have been a querulous spectator of a new phenomenon — on occasions almost a frightened one. The Hindu tradition of toleration is showing signs of strain – the strain of religious tension,
fanned by fanaticism. This “great orchestra of different languages praying to different Gods” that we proudly call “India” is now seen and heard playing out of tune.

Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilisation. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a standardisation of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and customs was practiced and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.

Is Hinduism then changing its face? I hope not — but I fear it is. It is as well to express this fear openly. Secular India versus militant Hinduism is reminiscent of ambassador George Keenan’s metaphor when contrasting democracy with a dinosaur. “You practically have to whack off his tail,” said Keenan of the dinosaur, “to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed: but once he grasps this, he lays about him with such blind determination that he may destroy his habitat with his adversary.” We must not let the dinosaur destroy our habitat.

Look back a little and reflect on what a great patriot of India had to say — a man whose birth centenary we ritualistically celebrate in November each year. He never regarded the varied peoples of India as the dinosaur looked at he Earth’s smaller inhabitants.

Writing in the quiet seclusion of a prison in 1944 (his ninth term of imprisonment for revolting against the British) Jawaharlal Nehru contemplated “the diversity and unity of India”:

“It is tremendous (he wrote): it is obvious; it lies on the surface and anybody can see it… It is fascinating to find out how the Bengalis, the Malayalis, the Sindhis, the Punjabis, the Pathans, the Kashmiri, the Rajputs and the great central block comprising of Hindustani–speaking people, have retained their particular characteristics of hundreds of years, have still more or less the same virtues and failing of which old traditions of record tell us, and yet have been throughout these ages distinctively Indian, with the same national heritage and the same set of moral and mental qualities.”

There was something living and dynamic about this heritage (says Nehru) which showed itself in ways of living and a philosophical attitude to life and its problems. Ancient India, like ancient China, was a world in itself, a culture and civilisation, which gave shape to all things. Foreign influences poured in and often influenced that culture, but they were absorbed. Disruptive tendencies gave rise immediately to an attempt to find synthesis. And (Nehru adds) almost lyrically: “some kind of a dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilisation. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a standardisation of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and customs was practiced and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.”

Many Hindus, many Sikhs, many Muslims, many Buddhists — in fact, most Indians — endorse and share this dream; Nehru’s vision of the diversity and unity of India.

But events in Gujarat and elsewhere show that  ‘Dinosaurs’ breed fast — on hatred. Dinosaurs in one religious camp give impetus to the breeding of them in another — as recent events in Pakistan bear testimony. Scientists tell us that it was a great meteorite that finally destroyed all the dinosaurs on this earth. If so, I like to think that the meteor was the symbolic wrath of God!

I belong to a minority community, a microscopic wholly insignificant minority, which spurned the offer made (at the time of the drafting of our Constitution) — to Anglo–Indians and Parsis alike to have, for at least a decade, our representative in Parliament. The Anglo–Indians accepted the offer — but most of them migrated to places abroad. We Parsis declined the offer — and most of us stayed in India.

In the Constituent Assembly, Sir Homi Mody said that we would rather join the mainstream of a free India. We did. And we have no regrets. I have never felt that I lived in this country at the sufferance of the majority. I have been brought up to think and feel that the minorities, together with the majority community, are integral parts of India.

I have lived and flourished in secular India. In the fullness of time, I would also like to die in secular India, when God wills.       

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2002, Anniversary Issue (9th), Year 9  No. 80, Tolerant tradition 

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