SACW | July 18-19, 2009 / Afghan Docus / Nepal Ethnic Fronts / Bangladesh Muslim Right / Pakistan Court Rulings / Northwest by northeast / India: Academics Welcome Delhi Court Ruling on Section 377; Beemapalli; Manipur / Sharia Law / Acoustic Weapons
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Sun Jul 19 02:30:32 CDT 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | July 18-19, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2646 -
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net
[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]
____
[1] Afghanistan: Recent documentaries 'Afghan Star' and 'Audition'
[2] Nepal: Fragmentation Danger: The Maoists should reel in their
ethnic fronts or step back (Sarjan Gautam)
[3] Bangladesh: Muslim Right Funding Plans / Internal Feud (reports)
[4] Pakistan:
- Text of Judgment of Supreme Court of Pakistan - Nawaz Sharif
Versus The State
- Right to equality (Dawn Editorial)
- KK Aziz: alienated historian (Editorial Daily Times)
- Hassan Nasir: A Story of McCarthyism in Pakistan
[5] Pakistan and India: Peace Activists Welcome Official Indo-Pak
Statement
[6] India: Statement by 180 Scholars and Academics Welcome Delhi
Court Ruling on Section 377
+ Landmark Judgment on Gay Rights: Litmus Test for Tolerance
(Praful Bidwai)
[7] Pakistan's NWFP / India's former NEFA:
- Northwest by northeast: a tale of two frontiers (Sanjib Baruah)
- India: End Manipur Killings Repeal Law That Gives the Military
License for Violence (Human Rights Watch)
[8] India: Battle Against Latent Communalism and For Justice For
Victims of Communal Violence
- Sitting Ducks : A Beemapalli reflection (Bobby Kunhu)
- Call the BJP’s bluff: Centre must table the Liberhan report in
Parliament (Rajindar Sachar)
[9] Miscellanea:
- No to sharia law in Britain (Denis MacEoin)
- Acoustic Weapons (Adam Shatz)
- Women's History Network 18th Annual Conference (Oxford, 11-13
September 2009)
_____
[1] AFGHANISTAN: RECENT DOCUMENTARIES 'AFGHAN STAR' AND 'AUDITION'
Two films at this year's Hot Docs offer a refreshing take on daily
existence in Afghanistan and both of them do this through Afghans
auditioning for the camera.
'Afghan Star' is a documentary about Afgan 'Pop Idol'.
'Audition' stages a number of auditions where men and women display
their acting talents.
Both films expose the challenges women continue to face in Afghanistan.
The two directors sat down to talk about their films and the films
subject matter; 'Afghan Star's Havana Marking and 'Audition's Nelofer
Pazira.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1zcWd6yAM
_____
[2] Nepal:
FRAGMENTATION DANGER: THE MAOISTS SHOULD REEL IN THEIR ETHNIC FRONTS
OR STEP BACK
by Sarjan Gautam
http://tt.ly/1p
_____
[3] BANGLADESH: ISLAMISTS FUNDING PLANS / INTERNAL FEUD
Banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami set up a charity
called Faruqi Welfare Foundation last year to use it as a cover for
receiving funds from abroad.
http://tt.ly/1o
Internal feud rife in JMB over money, ideology
http://tt.ly/1n
_____
[4] Pakistan: Court Rulings / Obit. for a Rare Historian / Anti
Communist Witch Hunts
FULL TEXT OF JUDGMENT OF SUPREME COURT OF PAKISTAN IN CRIMINAL
PETITION NO.200 OF 2009 (NAWAZ SHARIF VERSUS THE STATE)
Dated: 17 July 2009
http://tt.ly/1q
o o o
Dawn, 16 July 2009
Editorial
RIGHT TO EQUALITY (DAWN EDITORIAL)
‘Transvestites’ should benefit from income support schemes such as
the BISP, they should be given educational and vocational training
and awareness campaigns should be run to change societal attitudes
towards them. - File photo
IN a country where the rights of citizens are abused routinely, the
importance of the recent Supreme Court decree that the federal and
provincial governments take steps to protect the rights of
transvestites is welcome. Discriminated against by virtually every
section of society, this group of people is separated from the
mainstream because of a backward societal mindset and lack of
awareness about physical and emotional gender-related conditions —
it must be remembered that the term ‘transvestite’ is used
generally in Pakistan to describe hermaphrodites, eunuchs, cross-
dressers etc. These people are often forced into the lowest strata of
society, subjected to mental and sexual abuse and denied their right
to education and employment. Indeed, it is not unknown for families
to wash their hands of the responsibility of raising children with
gender-related physical abnormalities by handing them over to
‘gurus’, or leaders of ‘transvestite’ gangs, to be raised as
prostitutes, beggars or dancers. In the absence of a law or a
sizeable forum actively reiterating their rights, these people have
been routinely harassed by many, even the police if approached for help.
After hearing the petitioner argue that as a welfare state, it was
the government’s responsibility to look after this community, the
Supreme Court observed on Tuesday that as equal citizens of
Pakistan, ‘transvestites’ should benefit from the federal and
provincial governments’ income support schemes such as the Benazir
Income Support Programme and that they were entitled to funds from
the Baitul Maal. These are encouraging developments and it is hoped
that they will lead to an improvement in the financial and societal
status of ‘transvestites’. However, there is also a need to
address the educational and vocational training requirements of this
section of the citizenry. An awareness campaign is just as crucial if
societal attitudes are to be changed.
o o o
Daily Times
July 17, 2009
KK AZIZ: ALIENATED HISTORIAN (EDITORIAL DAILY TIMES)
Khursheed Kamal Aziz (1927-2009) who died on Wednesday was in the
classical tradition of historians with the native instinct of a
ferret and untrusting of anything that was not substantiated by
written records. He carried a lot of his desiderata with himself and
had thankfully advanced technologically as far as a word processor, a
feat not many of his age have been seen to accomplish. “KK” had to
be reclusive because he was naturally prolific and could undertake
the writing of three or four books at the same time. His interests
were wide-ranging although history came first and he gave an account
of himself writing it. But surprisingly he had enough time too to
write on art and compile his favourite lines from Urdu and Persian
poetry.
The trauma that happened to KK was his alienation from the grand
narrative of the Pakistan Movement. And when he realised that he had
been following the context of “my country right or wrong” he
produced in the early 1990s his two volumes on the lies that
Pakistani history textbooks had been spreading to poison the popular
mind. In the late 1990s, when the textbooks were challenged by some
Pakistani academics, their doyen was KK, the alienated historian who
admitted that he had ghost-written Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi’s The
Struggle for Pakistan and had slanted facts to favour the nationalist
version of history. His investigation of the career of Chaudhry
Rehmat Ali remains a classic, divorced from the official narrative of
the man who had turned against the Quaid.
KK had 50 books to his credit, and a Sitara-e-Imtiaz that he returned
because he was not treated well by the government. KK was sitting on
top of a roomful of the preparatory works of the Hamoodur Rehman
Report when he was unceremoniously kicked out of the Pakistan
Commission for Historical and Cultural Research by General Zia and
made to flee the country. One can be sure that he would have produced
the book that Pakistan deserved after the debacle of East Pakistan,
had he stayed on. Dispassionate as a historian, he was an extremely
sensitive and emotional man in private life, but always rewarding as
a conversationalist during a relaxed evening with his admirers.
He was a good and great man. May his soul rest in peace.
o o o
The Friday Times, July 10-16, 2009
HASSAN NASIR: A STORY OF MCCARTHYISM IN PAKISTAN
by Umer A. Chaudhry
Book Review: Hasan Nasir Ki Shahadat, by Major Ishaq Mohammad. Xavier
Publications, Multan; Rs. 500.
The letters of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg moved the lyrical pen
of Faiz Ahmed Faiz to write his monumental poem ‘hum jo tareek rahon
mein mare gaye.’ The Rosenbergs were Marxists and victims of
McCarthyism. A few hours before they were sent to the electric chair
in 1953, they left an everlasting message of hope for their
children: “Be comforted then that we were serene and understood with
the deepest kind of understanding, that civilization had not as yet
progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the
sake of life; and that we were comforted in the sure knowledge that
others would carry on after us.”
McCarthyism is widely documented as a dark chapter in the
history of the U.S.A. It is considered synonymous with Communist
witch-hunts, state-sponsored red bashing, illegal detentions of left-
wing activists and the arbitrary use of state power to censor
progressive political expression. McCarthyism was not merely an
American experience. During the heyday of the Cold War, systematic
repressive measures against Communism were introduced by almost all
allies of the U.S.A. Pakistan was no exception, although there has
been very little written on this subject, and there is no accessible
documentation in this regard.
Who were the victims of anti-Communist repression in Pakistan?
How were these radical Socialists persecuted? What is their history?
These unconventional questions are usually sidelined or silenced.
Major Ishaq Mohammad’s book ‘Hassan Nasir ki Shahadat’ lays
bare to some extent the murky historical chapter of state repression
of Communism in Pakistan. Major Ishaq Mohammad needs no introduction.
He was imprisoned for four years along with Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Syed
Sajjad Zaheer in the hitherto unresolved 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy
Case.
Ishaq Mohammad gained massive popularity during the 60’s and
70’s as the leader of the Mazdoor Kissan Party. He led the peasant
revolts of Hashtnager and was well-known for his militant stand
against capitalism and landlordism. Arrested after the military coup
of General Zia-ul-Haq, he suffered from paralysis during his
imprisonment. Despite his ill-health, he refused the military
government’s offer for medical help provided he tendered an apology.
Defiant till his last breath, he bade farewell to this world in 1982.
‘Hassan Nasir ki Shahadat’ is woven around a tale that has
never been told. The story is set in the winter of 1960 when Ishaq
Mohammad, a young lawyer well into the second year of his legal
practice, met Faiz Ahmed Faiz on Lahore’s Mall Road and found him
unusually depressed and perturbed. Faiz told Ishaq Mohammad that ‘a
Communist from Karachi’ had been brought to the Lahore Fort. He was
subjected to heavy torture – so much so that his cries of pain
terrified other prisoners in the Fort. It was the wife of one such
prisoner who had told Faiz about the horrifying torture.
Ishaq Mohammad had been to the Lahore Fort as a detainee in 1959
and 1960, though only for short periods of time. The Lahore Fort was
a symbol of terror in Pakistan at that time. This symbol of Mughal
majesty had been turned into a draconian detention and investigation
center during the period of British colonialism. The ‘criminals’
of the independence movement were often detained in the Fort for
questioning through questionable means. After 1947, the Criminal
Investigation Department (CID) took over the command of the Lahore
Fort. The conditions there, well-documented in the book under review,
were already horrific enough to paralyze a sane mind. The law
enforcers, trained under the colonial regime, applied their
“investigation techniques” on stubborn detainees.
After the ban on the Communist Party along with its sister
organizations, and the military coup of 1958, the Lahore Fort was
often used to interrogate leftist political activists. Major Ishaq
Mohammad knew that the ‘Communist from Karachi’ was none other
than Hassan Nasir, the Provincial Secretary of the banned underground
Communist Party active in Karachi. He was also a member of the
National Awami Party (NAP). Despite being the scion of a landlord
family of Hyderabad, Deccan, Hassan Nasir had taken up the cause of
the oppressed in Karachi. He was arrested in 1952 and exiled to India
for one year. He returned to Pakistan immediately after the
completion of the exile period and gave up his comfortable life to
continue with his political struggle.
Ishaq Mohammad moved a habeas corpus petition in the High Court
at Lahore through the able representation of Mahmood Ali Kasuri on
November 22, 1960. It was during the hearing of the petition on the
next day that the news of Hassan Nasir’s death surfaced. According
to the government version, Hassan Nasir committed suicide by hanging
himself from a nail in his detention cell at the Lahore Fort on
November 13. Progressive circles around Pakistan were shell-shocked.
How could a young man full of hope and commitment take his own life?
Ishaq Mohammad also refused to believe the government’s version. In
order to protect his comrade’s dignity, he devoted himself to the
magisterial inquiry into the cause of death of a detainee in police
custody, mandated under section 176 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, 1898.
Gradually Ishaq Mohammad started to uncover the lacunas in the
State’s version: the discrepancy about the position of hanging marks
on Hassan Nasir’s neck, the contradictory accounts of marks found on
Hassan’s elbow and knee, and the absence of any plausible motive for
suicide. A great deal was required before the inquiry could be
finalized. The attitude of the state officials and the magistrate
towards Ishaq Mohammad was highly hostile. For more than half of the
questions asked by Ishaq Mohammad during different cross-
examinations, the police officials standing in the witness box took
the plea of secrecy in order to frustrate the legal process.
The most sordid episode in the magisterial inquiry emerged when
the dead body of Hassan Nasir was exhumed. Ishaq Mohammad considered
the dead body to be his primary evidence that could conclusively
prove that he had died due to torture and not suicide. Despite his
repeated requests before the magistrate and the High Court, the dead
body was not permitted to be exhumed. Even the site of the grave was
not identified by the police, nor did the Court order the police to
do so. Hassan Nasir’s dead body was only allowed to be exhumed when
his mother arrived from India to take the body back home with her. On
closely inspecting the teeth, hair and feet of the corpse shown to
her, his mother, Zehra Alambardar Hussain, refused to accept it as
that of her son. The police had decided to conceal Hassan Nasir’s
body from even his mother. It was at this point that Ishaq Mohammad
decided to withdraw from the magisterial inquiry. The whole apparatus
of the state
under military rule had united to keep the circumstances of
Hassan Nasir’s death a secret. The judicial probe was thwarted.
Ishaq Mohammad’s efforts to document the course of the inquiry
have filled a major vacuum in Pakistan’s history. While informing
readers about the proceedings in the magisterial inquiry, the book
under review touches some very important topics like the colonial
character and workings of the Punjab police, state sponsorship of
torture, and the cruelties that occurred in the Lahore Fort.
At many points in the book the author has written that history
will do justice to the cause of Hassan Nasir. Disappointed by the
magisterial enquiry, Ishaq Mohammad left the final verdict to the
conscience of the people of Pakistan by writing ‘Hassan Nasir ki
Shahadat’. He was sure the records that were buried by the police
under the plea of secrecy and “the broad national interest” would
one day see the light of day. That day has not yet arrived. The
publication of the book under review is a grim reminder of justice
denied to a person who sacrificed himself for the betterment of
humanity. It is also an indictment against the current rulers of
Pakistan who continue to keep the details of this gruesome episode a
secret.
Umer A. Chaudhry blogs at The Red Diary and this book review was
first published in The Friday Times, Lahore July 10-16, 2009 issue.
[The above is also available at: http://www.sacw.net/article1018.html ]
_____
[5] India - Pakistan: Voices for Peace
http://www.sacw.net/article1025.html
Released on 17 July 2009
PEACE ACTIVISTS WELCOME THE JOINT INDO-PAK STATEMENT
We, the undersigned, welcome the Joint Statement of Indian Prime
minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani signed at the Sharm-e-Sheih, Egypt on the sidelines of Non-
Aligned Movement (NAM) summit. The Joint Statement has put the Mumbai
attack and terrorism up front unlike the impression sought to be
created by hawkish elements in both the countries. The statement by
the Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Gilani committing “that whosoever
was behind the Mumbai attack will be brought to justice” is a
positive development and we urge Pakistan to follow it up with
appropriate and immediate action. India and Pakistan both need to
work together on the issue of militancy as quickly as possible as
both are victims of terrorism- mostly from the same elements.
That the statement de-links terrorism from dialogue is a positive
sign, as the terrorists have the capacity to hijack and derail the
peace process through their nefarious activities. The only way to
isolate and defeat the terrorists is by both the countries engaging
in constant dialogue and cooperation to root out this menace. A joint
mechanism against terrorism is necessary.
We welcome the resumption of regular dialogue at the foreign
secretary level and hope that all steps would be taken and an
atmosphere is created that is conducive for an immediate resumption
of the composite dialogue process. Prior to Mumbai terrorist attack,
four rounds of composite dialogue were held on the identified eight
issues and significant progress was made on all fronts and major
breakthroughs were in sight when the Mumbai terror attack derailed
the process. In hindsight it appears that Mumbai terrorist attack was
perhaps enacted to scuttle such breakthroughs that appeared imminent.
The resumption of composite dialogue is the only roadmap towards
permanent peace in the sub-continent. If the Joint Statement is
implemented in letter and spirit the resumption of composite dialogue
can take place as early as September when the leadership of both the
countries meet on the sidelines of UN General Assembly.
1. Admiral (Retd.) L Ramdas
2. Kamla Bhasin, SANGAT, Delhi
3. Mahesh Bhatt, Mumbai
4. Prof. Kamal Chenoy, JNU, Delhi
5. Nandita Das
6. Jatin Desai, PIPFPD, Mumbai
7. Mazher Hussain, COVA
8. Varsha Rajan Berry, Focus
9. Lalita Ramdas
10. Ramesh Pimple, Peoples’ Media Initiative, Mumbai
11. Sukla Sen, Ekta, Mumbai
12. Manisha Gupte, PIPFPD, Pune
[For queries contact: Dr Mazher Hussain on 9394544244]
_____
[6] India: Secular Voices
sacw.net, 19 July 2009
http://www.sacw.net/article1026.html
INDIA: STATEMENT BY TEACHERS, RESEARCHERS AND ACADEMICS WELCOMES THE
DELHI HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT READING DOWN SECTION 377
We, teachers, researchers and academics from all over India, welcome
the Delhi High Court judgement reading down Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code to decriminalize consensual sex among adults in private.
The judgement held that “Section 377 IPC, insofar as it criminalises
consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles
21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.” In other words, the court
believes that continuing to criminalize citizens on the grounds of
their sexual preference violates the Fundamental Rights to life and
personal liberty, to equality, and the right not to be discriminated
against on non-relevant grounds.
We in the academic community have had a hitherto silent engagement
with the pain, harassment, fear and discrimination that comes with
being non-heterosexual/queer. We know students, colleagues, friends
and family members who are queer, or may be queer ourselves.
But sexual preference and identification is only one part of
people’s identities. We believe that a modern democracy must respect
diversity regardless of whether consensus exists in society on the
desirability of each such practice, provided such practices respect
the personhood of others. There need not be consensus in society, for
instance, on either meat-eating or vegetarianism as desirable,
provided both groups are free to follow their dietary preference.
Similarly if “religious leaders” believe that homosexuality is not
sanctioned by the scriptures, they have the right to propagate their
views, provided that these views are not taken as having the final
sanction on the issue for society as a whole.
At the same time, religious identity is as important for many
homosexuals as for heterosexuals. Homosexual people who are
practicing Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians have fully
participated in this challenge and supported the decision.
We state emphatically that Section 377 as it exists is anti-
democratic, and reiterate our support for the Delhi High Court
judgement.
180 Signatories:
Apurba K Baruah, Manorama Sharma (NEHU, Shillong);
Tilottama Sharma Misra, Udayon Misra (Guwahati);
Shaila Desouza, (Goa University and Member, Goa State Commission for
Women);
Alito Siqueira, (Goa University);
Prabhakar Bhimalapuram, K Madhava Krishna, Harjinder Singh
‘Laltu’, (IIIT, Hyderabad);
Sowmya Dechamma, G Haragopal, Jenson Joseph, R.V.Ramana Murthy,
Yasser Arafath P.K, Sanjay Palshikar, Sujata Patel, Arun Kumar
Patnaik, Aparna Rayaprol, (University of Hyderabad);
A.Suneetha, (Anveshi, Hyderabad);
Satish Poduval, M. Madhava Prasad, N. Manohar Reddy, Susie Tharu
(EFLU Hyderabad)
Anup Dhar, Rakhi Ghoshal, Tejaswini Niranjana, Rochelle Pinto, (CSCS
Bangalore)
Annapurna Garimella, Lata Mani, Kavery Nambisan, Vijay Nambisan,
Rekha Pappu, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, (Bangalore)
Janaki Abraham, Sadhna Arya, Naman P. Ahuja, Pratiksha Baxi,
Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Anuradha Chenoy, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Rohan
D’Souza, Ajay Gudavarthi, Siddharth Mallavarapu, Ranjani Mazumdar,
Nivedita Menon, Padmini Mongia, A.K.Ramakrishnan, Mohan Rao, Anupama
Roy, Tanika Sarkar, Urmimala Sarkar, Kavita Singh, (Jawaharlal Nehru
University, Delhi);
Amrapali Basumatary, Amita Baviskar, Shahana Bhattacharya, Brinda
Bose, Gautam Chakrabarti, Uma Chakravarty, Anita Cherian, Radhika
Chopra, Prem Chowdhry, Nonica Datta, P. K. Datta, Satish Deshpande,
Anita Ghai, Saroj Giri, Charu Gupta, NA Jacob, Rachana Johri, Chitra
Joshi, Sunalini Kumar, Mukul Manglik, Dilip Menon, Krishna Menon,
Rajni Palriwala, Sumit Sarkar, Parth Shil, Mohinder Singh, Ujjwal
Kumar Singh, Sanjay Srivastava, Nandini Sundar, Achin Vanaik, Madhvi
Zutshi, (Delhi University);
Sabeena Gadihoke, Shohini Ghosh, K.S.Kusuma, Sanghamitra Misra,
Ambarien Al Qadar, Sreerekha, Shamuel Tharu, (Jamia Milia Islamia,
Delhi);
Ratna Kapur, (CFLR, Delhi);
Anu Aneja (IGNOU, Delhi)
Sarada Balagopalan, Aditya Nigam, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi
Sundaram, Ravi Vasudevan, (CSDS Delhi);
Renu Addlakha, Mary E. John, Sreelekha Nair, N Neetha, (CWDS, Delhi);
Malavika Karlekar, Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies
Shah Alam Khan (AIIMS, Delhi);
Vineeta Bal, (National Institute of Immunology,Delhi)
Pulapre Balakrishnan, (Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi)
Kailash K.K., Deepak K. Singh, Janaki Srinivasan, (Panjab University,
Chandigarh)
Mangesh Kulkarni, Sharmila Rege, Anagha Tambe, (University of Pune)
Ajit Menon, Anandhi.S, Padmini Swaminathan, (MIDS, Chennai);
MSS Pandian (Chennai); Meena Kandasamy (Anna University, Chennai)
Nasreen Fazalbhoy, Kamala Ganesh, Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh, Kanchana
Mahadevan, Leena Rao, Sam Taraporevala, Vrijendra (University of Mumbai)
K. Sridhar (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai)
Vineeta Bhatia, Amita Bhide, K.P. Jayasankar, Nandini Manjrekar,
Anjali Monteiro, Bindhulakshmi P, Lakshmi Lingam, B. Manjula, Shilpa
Phadke, Monica Sakhrani, (TISS, Mumbai)
Supratik Chakraborty, Om Damani, Anindya Datta, Siby K. George,
Siddhartha Ghosh, Farhana Ibrahim, Shishir K. Jha, K. D. Joshi, Piyul
Mukherjee, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, Bhaskaran Raman, Sharmila, (IIT
Bombay)
Kaiwan Mehta, (K Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture, Mumbai)
Chhaya Datar, Rohini Hensman, Rohan Shivkumar, Rajinder Singh (Mumbai)
Gita Chadha (University of London External Programme, Mumbai)
Johannes Manjrekar, Shivaji K Panikkar, Indrapramit Roy, Santhosh.S
(M S University of Baroda);
Meera Velayudhan (Ahmedabad);
J Devika, Praveena Kodoth, V.J.Varghese, (CDS Thiruvananthapuram)
Jiju Varghese Jacob (Govt. Polytechnic College Punalur)
T.V.Sajeev (Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi)
Janaky Sreedharan, Mini Sukumar, K.Gopinathan, (University of Calicut)
V C Harris (Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam)
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, Anjan Ghosh, Epsita
Halder, Janaki Nair, (CSSS Kolkata);
Abhijit Gupta, Kavita Panjabi, (Jadavpur University)
Nikhila H., (Pondicherry University)
Pushpesh Kumar, (SRTM University, Nanded)
Rekha Chowdhary, Ellora Puri, (University of Jammu)
Oishik Sircar (Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat)
K.Srilata (IIT Madras)
Sukla Sen, Life Fellow, Indian Academy of Social Sciences, Allahabad
o o o
http://www.sacw.net/article1017.html
LANDMARK JUDGMENT ON GAY RIGHTS: LITMUS TEST FOR TOLERANCE
by Praful Bidwai (sacw.net, 18 July, 2009)
The Delhi High Court judgment in the Naz Foundation case is a
landmark verdict which decriminalises homosexuality and strikes a
blow in favour of personal freedom on the solid foundations of
inclusiveness and respect for diversity. It deserves to be welcomed
by all those who value constitutional morality and the principles of
personal privacy and human dignity. It “reads down” Section 377 of
the Indian Penal Code—which treats “carnal intercourse against the
order of nature” as a punishable offence—by confining its
application to non-consensual penile non-vaginal intercourse and
paedophilia.
One doesn’t have to be even remotely inclined to a particular
sexual orientation or a belief system other than tolerance to
appreciate the scope and logic of this judgment by Justices A.P. Shah
and S. Muralidhar. It conceptualises freedom expansively within an
uncompromisingly modernist perspective and offers a social vision
that genuinely respects difference and diversity and does not
discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste,
sex or place of birth (Article 15 of the Constitution).
The verdict doesn’t merely uphold the rights of the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. It enriches our
understanding of discrimination, prejudice and social exclusion, and
imparts new meanings to the concepts of inclusiveness, liberty and
human dignity. It speaks to all citizens. It concerns all of us.
That’s why we must all welcome it.
It’s dismaying therefore that relatively few social and
political organisations have extended support to the judgment and
committed themselves to amending Section 377 of the IPC. Religious
groupings across the spectrum have expectedly opposed it. Less
expectedly, no political party, barring the Communist Party of India-
Marxist and the Nationalist Congress, has welcomed it, and that too
with caution. The Congress is badly divided on the issue. The Hindu
Right fiercely opposes the verdict.
Yet, there are compelling reasons to break the social taboo
against non-heterosexual orientations. It bears recalling that
Section 377 is a colonial legacy enacted in 1860 by Lord Macaulay,
who was as deeply rooted in Victorian morality as he was devoted to
the British Empire. It followed a larger agenda which Macaulay
himself defined in 1825:
…I propose that we replace [India’s] old and ancient education
system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is
foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will
lose their self-esteem, their native culture and … become what we
want them, a truly dominated nation…
Victorian morality was ultra-conservative and had a
puritanical notion of sex as legitimate only for procreation. It was
also profoundly hypocritical. Upper-class Victorians would cover the
legs of their tables and chairs! But prostitution and child abuse
were rampant. Wealthy aristocrats would have sex with under-age
virgins in the ridiculous belief that it would rid them of venereal
diseases. Section 377 is a leftover of the anti-sodomy laws of that
period. It should have been abolished decades ago. That task is still
nationally overdue. The Delhi judgment is a good beginning.
¨
The judgment’s central rationale lies in the extension of the
definition of sex to include not just gender, but a person’s sexual
orientation, as a ground for discrimination, exclusion and
punishment, and its elaboration of the right to life under Article 21
as including the right to a dignified existence and privacy, and the
inviolable liberties guaranteed by Article 19.
All these fundamental rights, including the right to equal
treatment and non-discrimination (Articles 14 and 15), it cogently
argues, are violated by Section 377, which involves “unfair
treatment premised upon personal traits or circumstances which do not
relate to individual needs, capacities, or merits”, quoting a
Canadian judgment.
Human dignity means that an individual or group feels self-respect
and self-worth [and concerns]… physical and psychological
integrity…Human dignity is harmed when individuals and groups are
marginalised, ignored or devalued.
This is precisely what Section 377 does.
Section 377’s basis lies not in science or rationality, but
in hopelessly archaic notions of “deviant sexual behaviour”. The
judgment reviews the current scientific and professional literature
on the issue and notes that according to psychologists, “the core
feelings and attractions that form the basis for adult sexual
orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early
adolescence”. These patterns of sexual attraction generally arise
without any prior sexual experience.
Thus, homosexuality is not a disease or mental illness that needs to
be, or can be, ‘cured’ or ‘altered’, it is just another
expression of human sexuality.
The judgment makes an impressive survey of contemporary
jurisprudence, including verdicts from different countries, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights,
and the Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of Human Rights Law
in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, formulated in
2007 by experts from 25 countries, including a former UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, numerous judges, academics and activists.
These principles recognise that “human beings of all sexual
orientation and gender identities are entitled to the full enjoyment
of all human rights”. All have the right to privacy. Every citizen
has a right to take part in the conduct of public affairs including
the right to stand for elected office, participate in the formulation
of policies affecting their welfare, with equal access to all levels
of public service and employment without discri-mination.
Says the judgment:
The constitutional protection of dignity requires us to acknowledge
the value and worth of all individuals as members of our society. It
recognises a person as a free being who develops his or her body and
mind as he or she sees fit. At the root of the dignity is the
autonomy of the private will and a person’s freedom of choice and of
action. Human dignity rests on recognition of the physical and
spiritual integrity of the human being, his or her humanity, and his
value as a person, irrespective of the utility he can provide to others.
Equally illuminating is the verdict’s discussion of the right
to privacy, or a “space in which man may become and remain
himself”. The right to be let alone doesn’t derive from efforts to
protect other interests.
It should be seen not simply as a negative right to occupy a private
space free from government intrusion, but as a right to get on with
your life, your personality and make fundamental decisions about your
intimate relations without penalisation.
We all have a right to a sphere of private intimacy and
autonomy and to nurture human relationships without interference from
outside.
The way in which one gives expression to one’s sexuality is at the
core of this area of private intimacy.
The only limitation is that this must be done without using
coercion or harming others.
The judgment persuasively shows that religious faith,
tradition or customs cannot be an argument for restricting liberty,
including sexual freedom. Underlying this argument, quoting a South
African judicial committee, is
revulsion against what is regarded as unnatural, sinful or
disgusting. Many people feel this revulsion… But moral conviction or
instinctive feeling, however strong, is not a valid basis for
overriding the individual’s privacy and for bringing within the
ambit of the criminal law private sexual behaviour…
The argument that the state should criminalise homosexuality
“to preserve public order and decency” and protect citizens from
what is offensive or injurious is wrong in principle because such
means exceed the proper ambit and function of criminal law in modern
society. They oppress a minority and
target them for an attribute of their nature that they do not choose
and cannot change. In this respect they are like other laws of
colonial times that disadvantaged people on the ground of their race
or sex. They also fly in the face of modern scientific knowledge
about the incidence and variety of human sexuality; and put a cohort
of citizens into a position of stigma and shame that makes it hard to
reach them with vital messages about safe sexual conduct, essential
in the age of HIV/AIDS.
It’s simply wrong to contend that decrimi-nalising
homosexuality would corrupt public morals and encourage delinquent
behaviour. The contention fails all three tests applied by the Delhi
judges: reasonableness, strict scrutiny (of laws not for their stated
goals, but for implications and effects), and proportionality between
ends and means.
We all have our sexual preferences and differing opinions on
the issue. A majority of people probably disapprove of non-
heterosexual relations. This reflects the heavy burden of patriarchy
in this society. But that’s no reason why majoritarian views should
be allowed to stigmatise specific sex orientations and destroy
individual autonomy, dignity and freedom.
The judgement deserves to become our own Brown vs Board
of Education (which abolished racial segregation in US schools) or
Roe vs Wade (which legalised abortion)—a marker of the victory of a
social struggle for justice. But for that to happen, we’ll have to
educate opinion-makers and shapers, the Swami Ramdevs and Laloo
Prasads, besides bureaucrats, jurists, members of the National
Commission on Women, and many others.
The author, a free-lance journalist, is a well-known political
commentator.
_____
[7] Pakistan's NWFP and India's North East:
NORTHWEST BY NORTHEAST: A TALE OF TWO FRONTIERS
by Sanjib Baruah
Published on open Democracy News Analysis (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
Sanjib Baruah is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, New
York and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New
Delhi. He is editor of the recently released collection Beyond
Counterinsurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India [3]
(Oxford University Press 2009).
Created 2009-07-17 16:56
The violence unleashed by unmanned US drones, with the acquiescence
of the Pakistani government, on remote mountain villages in the
"lawless" Tribal Areas bordering Pakistan's North West Frontier
Province (NWFP) is more than a tactical shift in the US war on
terror, or what has since been redubbed Overseas Contingency
Operations [1].
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas [2] (FATA), consisting of
seven largely autonomous "agencies" and six semi-autonomous "frontier
regions", have increasingly come into the purview of western
strategists and media after Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants
gained footholds in the rugged region. The focus on Pakistan's Tribal
Areas privileges a history of violence across the western border with
Afghanistan - a story that spans the western-backed Afghan jihad of
the 1980s and the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. Thus most
commentators see unrest in the NWFP and FATA as an extension of
Taliban militancy.
Little attention is paid to the much more intricate, difficult
context of local conditions and structures. This much neglected local
story has a crucial historical dimension. And curiously, Pakistan
shares that history not with Afghanistan, but with its neighbour to
the east.
The administrative structure of Pakistan's northwest - including its
system of tribal governance - owes its shape to the peculiarities of
what the Viceroy of India and imperialist par excellence George
Nathaniel Curzon [4] called the "frontier system" of the British
Empire. While Pakistan, as a successor state of British India,
contains the North West Frontier, the old North East Frontier is part
of India, the other successor state. The northeast of contemporary
India, like the northwest of Pakistan, is restive and wracked by
violence, scarred by armed "separatist" movements and the heavy
footprint of state counter-insurgency. Both frontiers were, in
Curzon's conceptualization, "threefold" frontiers, with an
"administrative" border, a frontier of "active protection", and an
outer or advanced "strategic" frontier.
The threefold frontier
Only in the areas inside its "administrative" border did Britain try
to establish regular rule. In the North East this was the area -
mostly comprising the present-day state of Assam [5] - where, by the
latter half of the nineteenth century, a promising new economy of
tea, oil and coal production had emerged.
In this enclave of global capitalism, British officials considered it
crucial to establish modern property rights and a modern legal and
administrative system. Using the fiction of Assam's vast
"wastelands," the British had given away huge tracts of land to
European tea planters. But the process in reality involved the
massive disruption of old economic and social networks, and property
regimes. As a result, the tea plantations of Assam in their early
years were subject to attacks [6] by neighboring tribesmen. So the
colonial rulers had to find a way of fencing off the fledgling
plantations from the marauding "barbarians" protesting their
dispossession. This "Inner Line", cordoning off areas of clear,
cemented colonial rule, was first introduced in 1873 [7].
Beyond it were "Tribal Areas" that were claimed as British
territories - a zone of "active protection" in Curzon's words - but
the colonial government maintained little interest in extending
modern governmental institutions into that zone. Launching occasional
military expeditions to teach the tribesmen a lesson was considered
enough. Thus the Inner Line, in the words of Boddhisattva Kar, a
brilliant young historian of Assam, was "not only a territorial
exterior of the theatre of capital - it was also a temporal outside
of the historical pace of development and progress" ("When Was the
Postcolonial? A History of Policing Impossible Lines," in Sanjib
Baruah ed. Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in
Northeast India [8] (Oxford University Press, 2009). Even though a
minimal administrative presence - very different from the edifice of
colonial rule set up within the administrative borders - was
gradually established in many of the Tribal Areas, there were still
many places at the time of independence where the state had no
presence whatsoever.
Beyond the Tribal Areas, on the empire's outer edge, was what Curzon
called the advanced "strategic" frontier. These were territories that
were technically independent but it was the task of imperial
diplomacy and military power to ensure that they serve as buffers for
the British Empire. It is not surprising that the two lines drawn to
define the outer limits of Curzon's zones of "active protection" -
the Durand Line [8] in the North West, and the McMahon Line [9] in
the North East - are both contested international borders today.
Elusive peace
Despite the different histories and trajectories of independent India
and Pakistan, peace under post-colonial sovereignty has eluded both
frontiers. They both remain fractious, disputed zones. In the North
East, starting with the challenge at the very moment of India's
independence by the Nagas [10] - a people of one of the Tribal Areas
- numerous armed groups have resisted the Indian state. Nor did the
rebellions remain limited to the "Tribal Areas". By the 1980s the
United Liberation Front of Assam [11] emerged to challenge the
postcolonial order in the state of Assam, the economic heartland of
the North East Frontier.
During the final years of British rule in India, anti-colonial
nationalists objected to the exclusion of the Tribal Areas from the
jurisdiction of India's fledgling elected provincial governments, as
well as how British officials attempted to insulate the people living
in those areas from nationalist ideas and campaigns. However, after
independence in 1947, there was no sweeping overhaul of the threefold
frontier system; the leaders of both India and Pakistan retained many
of the old exclusionary arrangements (albeit with a few
modifications). Taking apart the system did not seem politically
viable at the time. In neither Pakistan nor India, did nationalist
leaders enjoy enough support and credibility among people living in
the Tribal Areas to change the status quo.
In an effort to counter or pre-empt rebellions, the Indian government
gradually took to turning many of the old Tribal Areas into formally
full-fledged states in India's federal structure. However, they
continue to retain many of the properties of Curzon's frontier
system. For instance, movement back and forth across the Inner Line
of 1873 to the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram is
still regulated for Indian citizens and foreigners alike.
The cost of counter-insurgency
A horrendous piece of legislation, the Armed Forces Special Powers
Act [12] (AFSPA), has since 1958 provided the legal framework for
counter-insurgency operations targeted against the numerous armed
rebellions that have wracked the region. At various points of time in
India's postcolonial history, this law has enabled de facto pockets
of military authoritarian rule in the North East, at odds with
India's much vaunted commitment to democracy.
The AFSPA allows the government to declare any area in the North East
"disturbed." Following such a declaration, the security forces can
make preventive arrests, search premises without a warrant, and shoot
and kill civilians with relative impunity. Legal proceedings against
soldiers are contingent on the central government's prior approval.
Folk memories of postcolonial repression - of being on the receiving
end of counterinsurgency - has by now produced newer generations of
rebels in cases like the six-decades old Naga movement for
independence. Such movements have thrived by taking advantage of the
imperfections of the rule of law, maintaining ties with mainstream
politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, and engaging in criminal
violence (see Bethany Lacina, "Rethinking Delhi's Northeast India
Policy: Why neither Counter-insurgency nor Winning Hearts and Minds
is the Way Forward," in Sanjib Baruah ed. Beyond Counter-Insurgency:
Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India). These conditions - not
unlike those associated today with the unrest in the North West - are
the product of the peculiarities of a system of governance that has
been only stutteringly reformed in postcolonial times, remaining
firmly grounded in the legacy of Curzon's threefold frontier.
Missed connections
In October 1946, under a year before independence, India's future
prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru [13] toured the Tribal Areas of the
North West Frontier Province in his capacity as External Affairs
member of the Interim Government (and even after independence,
certain areas in both frontiers remained for a while under the
jurisdiction of the External/Foreign Affairs ministries of the two
successor states). "India, which for a long stretch of years has been
more or less isolated on its land frontier," he said in his note to
the then NWFP Governor Olaf Caroe [14], "is now bound to develop
closer relations with its neighbors both on the North West and North
East." He speculated on railway lines connecting "the Chinese railway
system through India with the Western Asian railway system and
Europe" - developments that were destined to have "far-reaching
consequences in the social structure of the Tribes."
Recent rhetoric from Indian officials about the future of northeast
India echoes the hopes expressed by Nehru sixty years ago. For
instance, in 2004 a top Indian diplomat [15] explaining the India's
"Look East" policy [16] - a plan to build closer economic and
diplomatic ties with India's neighbors to the east - said that it
"envisages the northeast region not as the periphery of India, but as
the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two
dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines,
transmission lines crisscrossing the region." Yet the vision of
transforming the colonial-era frontier regions into normal,
governable national spaces remains unfulfilled in the North East as
well as in the North West.
If today the sovereignty over the lives of people living in certain
so-called "ungovernable" territories has entered the realm of
international scrutiny and intervention, the fault lies not with
Islamicist radicals or "ethnic separatists" alone. It is instead
largely because the project of decolonization has long run out of
energy, idealism, creativity and political imagination.
Source URL:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/northwest-by-northeast-a-
tale-of-two-frontiers
Links:
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/obama-war-terror-
overseas-contingency-operations
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Administered_Tribal_Areas
[3] http://www.oup.co.in/search_detail.php?id=144948
[4] http://www-ibru.dur.ac.uk/resources/docs/curzon1.html
[5] http://assamgovt.nic.in/
[6] http://www.apcss.org/Publications/Edited%20Volumes/
ReligiousRadicalism/
PagesfromReligiousRadicalismandSecurityinSouthAsiach10.pdf
[7] http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Assam.html
[8] http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Counter-Insurgency-Breaking-Impasse-
Northeast/dp/0195698762
[9] http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/USPics39/58207.jpg
[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4071121.stm
[11] http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/assam/
terrorist_outfits/Ulfa.htm
[12] http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/document/
actandordinances/armed_forces_special_power_act_1958.htm
[13] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3axLmUHCJ4cC&dq=Jawaharlal
+Nehru
+tharoor&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=jV3zXRcEpC&sig=DekaaldI4kGCrf
IeXCBzk6AzMxw&hl=en&ei=4zZfSuuSB5CsjAe92LnjDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=res
ult&resnum=2
[14] http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2309/stories/20060519001908300.htm
[15] http://www.manipuronline.com/North-East/November2005/
theproblem23_2.htm
[16] http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/
162/27908.html
(The above is also available at: http://www.sacw.net/article1024.html)
o o o
Human Rights Watch
July 17, 2009
INDIA: END MANIPUR KILLINGS REPEAL LAW THAT GIVES THE MILITARY
LICENSE FOR VIOLENCE
(New York) - The Manipur state government in northeastern India
should act to end a cycle of unpunished violence, including killings,
by security forces and armed groups, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch said that urgent action is needed by the Indian
government to support this process by repealing the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act, which has facilitated serious security force
abuse for many years. A government-appointed review committee
recommended the repeal in 2004, but the government has yet to act.
"The situation in Manipur is nothing less than a breakdown in the
rule of law," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher at Human
Rights Watch. "Repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act would
help to put an end to the abductions, torture, and killings, and help
restore people’s confidence in the government."
Local human rights groups have documented several killings in Manipur
in recent months in which the killers are alleged to be members of
the security forces. The Special Powers Act gives members of the
armed forces broad authority to search, arrest, and shoot-to-kill -
and protects them from prosecution. The culture of violence
perpetuated by this law has become so deeply rooted that the police
now routinely commit the same kinds of abuses long practiced by the
army and state paramilitary forces.
In several cases, security forces allegedly robbed and killed people,
but then claimed that the deaths resulted from "encounters" -
shootouts with armed groups. On the morning of June 20, 2009, for
example, Waikom Kenedy and Thokchom Samarjit disappeared on their way
to an educational institution in Imphal, Manipur’s capital. That
afternoon, their families learned that both had been killed by
Manipur police commandos. The police admitted to the killings, but
claimed they occurred during an armed encounter. The relatives
believe that the men were robbed of their cash and a heavy gold
chain, and then killed.
On January 14, Naorem Robindro left his home with cash to pay a rent
deposit, but never returned. His family recovered his body from the
morgue, where the police had left it, claiming he was a militant. A
joint team of police and members of the paramilitary Assam Rifles
said Robindro was killed in an armed encounter. The family believes
he was killed for the cash he was carrying and a gold ring and chain,
all of which were missing from his body.
On November 7, 2008, Ajit Singh and Yumna Binoy Meitei set out with
the equivalent of over US$4,000 in Indian rupees to buy business
materials. When they failed to come home, relatives went to check two
bodies that a joint team of police and members of the 39th Assam
Rifles alleged were militants killed in an encounter. The families
identified the bodies as those of the two men, whose money was missing.
On December 20, Mohammad Islamuddin was carrying the equivalent of
nearly US$1,000 in cash to purchase construction materials for his
house, when he failed to return home or answer his mobile phone. The
next morning, newspapers reported the killing of two unidentified
militants by the police. One proved to be Islamuddin; the second was
his friend, Mohammad Azad, who had gone along to help with the
purchases. The money was missing.
"The security forces have a long history of faking ‘encounters,’"
said Ganguly. "The central government should order an independent
investigation into these killings."
In a September 2008 report, "These Fellows Must Be Eliminated," Human
Rights Watch documented human rights abuses by all sides in Manipur,
where close to 20,000 people have been killed since separatist rebels
began their movement in the 1950s. The title of the report is a quote
from the Manipur police chief, who told Human Rights Watch that many
of the militants were not political fighters but petty extortionists
or criminals who should be "eliminated." In this environment, members
of the security forces apparently believe that it is acceptable to
kill suspects instead of pursuing prosecutions through the legal system.
"Unexplained killings attributed to the security forces or armed
groups have become common in an increasingly lawless Manipur state,"
said Ganguly. "The state and central governments can restore some
public confidence by getting serious about investigating and
prosecuting these killings and ensuring that justice is done."
Nearly 30 armed groups are estimated to operate in Manipur. Some have
such a strong hold over Manipuri society that ordinary citizens have
been forced to build alliances with them to ensure protection from
others. The government’s failure to end the lawlessness has also
encouraged corruption and common crime. The armed groups routinely
extract "taxes" from people, even including government officials, and
carry out abductions for ransom.
_____
[8] India: Battle Against Latent Communalism and For Justice For
Victims of Communal Violence
(i)
http://www.sacw.net/article1021.html
SITTING DUCKS : A BEEMAPALLI REFLECTION
by Bobby Kunhu
It is with the utmost hesitation that I write this. Hesitation
because I think I have not understood, nor have many others who have
written about the May police firing in Beemapalli. Not that there is
any ambiguity in anybody's (who has visited the place) mind about the
specific incidents that took place on 17th of May this year. As a
part of a small fact finding team trying to tie up its report, I'd
rather use this space to raise contextual questions about the police
firing that have been haunting me since I heard the first reports of
the firing.
At the outset, I need to assert as a human rights lawyer (and
independent of the socio-economic realities of Beemapalli) that what
happened on May 17th in Beemapalli is one of the worst possible
crimes - where lives of 6 people were taken by forces of the state,
without following the procedure established by law - in other words
extra-judicial murders - and calling it by any other name is as
offensive as the incident itself. In my mind, the incident involves
the police allegedly firing 50 rounds of bullets at a gathering in a
coastal village. The facts are that 43 people were injured and 6 died
in the police firing. The fact is that all the people who died and
were injured were Muslims. The fact is that there is no credible
evidence shown that the crowd fired at was violent or provocative.
The fact is that there is no damage reported from the police side.
The fact is that the police bypassed the usual procedures that need
to be adopted before a firing. Having made that assertion, let me
move on to the first set of concerns that have been haunting me.
Silent Media, Silent Opposition
The first of these is the general social and political reactions to
Beemapalli firing. In fact one of the factors that led me to take the
initiative in organising a fact-finding was the deafening silence
that followed the violence in Beemapalli. It looked like that only
"Muslim" organisations were interested in taking up the issue. Even
the political opposition did not seem like wanting to capitalise this
serious lapse in governance. When I tried prying into the possible
reason, a newspaper report lauding the media for acting sensibly by
maintaining silence and thereby averting a communal issue was
literally thrown at my face. (The report was titled, Signs of a
Mature Media, Opposition).
But was this violence communal to start with? The victims of the
violence did not seem to think so - despite all of them belonging to
one single community!!
Interestingly apart from the high profile Lavalin case, the national
and Kerala media was filled with stories of racist violence in
Australia around this time. Then how did such gruesome violence fail
to capture collective social imaginations? The only plausible answer
that comes to my mind is the identity of those killed and injured in
Beemapally - they were all from fish worker Muslim community - and do
not have messiahs touting their cause.
There are other reasons as well for my arrival at this hypothesis.
The first being that in the past couple of decades state violence in
all its manifestations is being directed against traditionally and
structurally marginalised groups. Formal expressions were
demonstrated in Muthanga, Chengara and now Beemapalli. Insidious and
subtle expressions through changes in reservation structure,
discourse on terror used to de-legitimise communitarian political
expressions and so on.
Dangerous Activities
Interestingly Beemapalli, being a Muslim ghetto has figured many a
time in police narratives on terror. It would take another full essay
to analyse this. It is in this context that couple of weeks after the
firing, an intelligence report dated before the firing was leaked to
the press. This report warns the state police of dangerous and
illegal activity in Beemapalli and Malappuram. Much to my amusement,
what the newspapers omitted was that this "dangerous" activity is the
trade in pirated CD/DVDs that Bheemapally is notorious for.
Interestingly, this has been subsequently used to close down this
trade and increase police presence in Beemapalli. One of the
speculations that was aired as a reason for the extreme violence from
the police firing was to gain a foothold into this lucrative terrain.
Claims on Coastal Resources
The next reason is rooted in the socio-economic conditions prevailing
in coastal areas generally and Beemapally specifically. The Indian
coast has been a simmering pot of discontent for sometime now -
aggravated especially after the tsunami. This discontent is rooted in
multiple contestations for coastal resources and fish-worker
resistance articulated through their right to the coast as a common
property resource. I have been witness to a number of concerted
efforts to divide the coastal community during the tsunami
rehabilitation process. Some of these experiences have been
documented as well. These contestations are grounded in the fact of
the vulnerability of the coastal communities and Dalit and Muslim
communities amongst these are even more vulnerable. Beemapally
violence needs to be seen in this context as well. Portrayal of the
police violence in Beemapally as communal riots instigated by a
Beemapally mob by the police and a section of society including
segments of the Catholic church subtly fails to acknowledge that the
neighbouring hamlet Cheriyathura is inhabited by Latin Catholics.
This reading is inherently dangerous as it pits two similarly placed
vulnerable communities against each other.
Two Beemapallis and a Free Run
Further, Magalene, a fish worker leader confirms my suspicion that
social indicators in Beemapalli are much worse compared to
neighbouring fishing hamlets. She points to the fact that there are
two Beemapallys in existence - one glossy Beemapally made of the DVD/
CD trade and the other fish-worker hamlet which lacks even basic
hygiene and sanitary requirements. She also points to the abysmal
female literacy and empowerment in this hamlet in support of her
claim. This also perhaps points to a hegemonic social apathy towards
people that are forced to live on the fringes - a certain lack of
value for their lives. This also could have contributed to the
unchallenged free run that the Police is having with their version of
the violence and attempts to portray their violence as a communal clash.
My next set of concerns is regarding the impunity with which the
Police framed a community as communally volatile and in all
probabilities is getting away with it. In his report to the
government, DGP Jacob Punnose claims that the police fired 50 rounds
and there are 43 injured and 6 dead - indicating that police fired to
hit. This also dispels claims that several rounds were fired in the
air. Of course there are other unsubstantiated claims in DGP
Punnose's report. But what gets my nerve is the shoddy framing that
the police has indulged in, without having done any homework
whatsoever - is this born out of a confidence that the Police force
would get away with murder since the people killed are fishing
Muslims? The confidence of the police seems to be bolstered by the
collective silences and framing of Bheemapalli as a dangerous area
mentioned above. It needs to be remembered that DGP Punnose is
spearheading the demand for Police reforms and reducing political
control over the police. In the process many vital questions remain
unanswered, including questions that would legally place the violence
as cold-blooded murder within criminal jurisprudence.
The silence on Beemapalli violence opens many cans of worms -
including the deeply hegemonic nature of Kerala's responses to its
marginalised, latent communalism within the administration and media
and so on and so forth. The responses to Beemapalli has left me
perplexed, especially after having visited the place. But, having
spend considerable time and energy on conflict situations, my sense
is that Kerala might be sitting on a social time bomb, if it
continues this lackadaisical attitude towards its marginalised
population.
I believe Beemapalli calls for a classical "secular" response and
honest peace building exercises that would instill a sense of
confidence in Beemapally residents that they are not being persecuted
- but that might be a difficult job and would call for extreme
commitment.
o o o
The Tribune, 15 July 2009
CALL THE BJP’S BLUFF: CENTRE MUST TABLE THE LIBERHAN REPORT IN
PARLIAMENT
by Rajindar Sachar
So mercifully at last after 17 years (probably a record) Justice M.S.
Liberhan has given his report after a gruelling and according to him
non-co-operative attitude of officials and stay orders by courts. The
validity of this explanation will naturally have to be tested after
the report is officially released. However, so far as its relevance
for some inside information as to the origin, execution of this vile
venture by the BJP, the VHP and their unholy nexus is concerned, it
is unlikely that any new information would be disclosed.
We had been seeing the ugly face of communal demon of these groups
right from the start of Rath Yatra by Mr L.K. Advani to the near mad
frenzy encouraged by the BJP leaders when their goons were engaged in
the despicable task of demolishing the mosque. The specious excuse
exercise now being put forward by the BJP leadership that though it
made all preparations for a massive Rath Yatra with lakhs of sewaks
and provocative speeches at the spot by Mr Advani and more direct
appeal to the mob to demolish the mosque, it was only an oral
exercise and was not meant to demolish it as humbug.
It is like pointing a double-barelled gun at an individual asking him
to get aside otherwise it will shoot — a person might have been able
to save himself, but the mosque could not because it could not move
itself — all actions pointed out a single-point plan of demolition
squad. Ms Uma Bharti, one of the top leaders of the Sangh at time
openly and proudly owns it up. Mr Advani, Dr Murlimohan Joshi and
other leaders have been charge-sheeted, of course, after a number of
years for their prima facie guilty intention. All this material has
been in the public domain for years. So Justice Liberhan is not going
to add anything on this account. But till it is released, the BJP
will profane its innocence by taking cover under the pretext of non-
publication of the report.
To prevent the BJP from indulging in accusations, it will be in the
fitness of things if the Government of India immediately tabled the
report in Parliament (it should not wait for the Union Budget to be
passed as that will take weeks and add to further cloud the matter).
Let the people read the report and take action accordingly. The BJP
has already been told by the electorate where its communal poison can
lead to its almost certain road of extinction in the country’s
future politics.
No, this writer is not expecting the Liberhan Report to disclose any
earth-shaking information — the only point is that without
publishing it the BJP is being provided a cover for self-defence by
taking the plea that unless the report is made public there is no
point in discussing the most horrible and shameful event of free
India. This writer had at that time proposed that the Government of
India should announce observance of December 6 as National Repentance
Day every year so that people will fast and pray for unity and
welfare of all the communities. However, it seems politics is a
different cup of tea and the communal poison continued to grow. The
damage it has done to the psyche of Muslims is immeasurable and will
always remain a permanent scar on our secular republic.
May be the BJP’s rout in the current general elections will serve as
a balm, but the scar remains. But then, nations have to move forward.
Unfortunately, the continuance of legal case in courts for over a
decade is only keeping the fire alive and a matter of embarrassment.
Frankly, any objective student of law will know that the litigation
at the Allahabad High Court is a wasteful exercise; it is only
delaying the BJP’s hollow claim from being exposed. It is impossible
to prove after 5000 years whether Lord Ram was actually born under
the broad area covered by the mosque.
Then it is said that it can be proved that the temple existed where
the mosque stood. So the mantra of the Babri mosque being Lord
Rama’s birth is an impossibility built up only by the frenzy demonic
wails inflaming communal passion. Though the masjid may only be a
furlong from the claim of Lord Rama’s birthplace, and even assuming
that improbability of proof, it will not advance the claim to the
ownership of the masjid land.
Muslims may or may not wish to use the space if there was a mandir at
the masjid spot, but this does not mean that the masjid will then
automatically go to the BJP. It will still retain as the property of
the Masjid Board. There is in law a formidable uncrossable hurdle in
the way of the BJP and its cohorts. It cannot be denied that the
mosque existed for over 400 years and it was in the Muslims’
possession. Any claim by the BJP on whatsoever ground, either as Lord
Ram’s birthplace or a mandir having been destroyed before the mosque
was built is a non-starter because of the bar of limitation to pursue
this suit.
This writer says this in view of the precedence of the case of Masjid
Shahid Ganj situated in Lahore (Pakistan) versus the SGPC decided by
the Privy Council in 1940. Muslims failed to win back the masjid
built in 1200 and converted into a gurdwara in 1760 as the 12-year
period for filing a suit provided under limitation had expired.
Whatever the nature of the title of the site under the Babri masjid,
the very fact that it had existed for over 400 years before the suit
was filed would automatically non-suit the VHP allies.
The same bar of law of limitation will apply and the suit filed is,
therefore, not maintainable and the RSS and its cohorts can never
claim any little to the mosque site. Let the BJP, if it is seriously
wanting to do some internal cleaning, refrain from wrong deductions
from the past history and culture to spread communal fires. A correct
and impartial reading of history will show that the people who can
look forward than backward can easily live with each other harmoniously.
Surely we owe it to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad to
restrain ourselves well in time. The legal position is clear. It is
only the weak political will that is responsible for the Ayodhya
imbroglio to continue as one of the most festering sores within the
country. By keeping the Ayodhya issue alive, the country has been
kept from addressing its most urgent task — how to meet the
challenge of the growing pauperisation of the masses. And that
includes both Hindus and Muslims, Christians and other minorities.
The writer is a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court
______
[9] Miscellanea:
The Guardian
NO TO SHARIA LAW IN BRITAIN
Sharia has no place in a civilised society. Ban Islamic tribunals and
let everyone in this country abide by a single code of laws
Denis MacEoin
guardian.co.uk, 29 June 2009
There are many reasons to find problems with sharia law. In its full
form, it contains numerous provisions that are barbaric and
irreconcilable with any advanced society: stoning married adulterers,
flogging the unmarried, throwing homosexuals from roofs or steep
hills, amputating limbs for theft, and much more.
But sharia is much wider than that. It moves seamlessly from the
public to the private realm, and it is in the latter that we find
demands that a measure of sharia be introduced to this country. Such
demands have been made, not just by Muslims, but even by an
astonishingly naïve Archbishop of Canterbury. Sharia is only
marginally about how a believer prays, fasts, pays the alms tax, or
performs the pilgrimage. For the individual it carries obligations
and penalties that cut deep into personal life. Here is a very simple
example. If a Muslim man in a fit of temper uses the triple divorce
formula, even if his wife is not present, the law considers the
couple divorced. But if he comes to his senses, he cannot simply
resume relations with his wife. In order to remarry, she must wait
three months to determine that she is not pregnant. Thereupon, she is
obliged to marry another man and to have sex with him, and this man
must then divorce her (or not, if he decides to keep her). She must
then wait another three months, after which her first husband may
remarry her – see also Ask Imam). This revolting practice, known as
halala, demeans the woman. In British law, it would be considered a
form of coercion into unwanted sexual relations. Is this what the
archbishop wants?
But sharia has already entered the UK through a back door. In October
2008 Bridget Prentice, parliamentary under-secretary of state in the
Ministry of Justice, stated that the government does not
"accommodate" any religious legal systems, but confirmed two
developments. First that sharia courts are operating under the 1996
Arbitration Act, which allows private disputes to be settled by an
independent arbitrator. And second that sharia rulings on family
matters (that are not covered by arbitration) could be given the
authority of a British court by seeking "a consent order embodying
the terms" of the sharia court ruling. There is now a Muslim
Arbitration Tribunal which claims that the lord chief justice
endorses alternative dispute resolution under sharia law.
The idea that Muslim tribunals arbitrating in matters of family law
can take place without introducing contradictions to UK law, mainly
through severe discrimination against Muslim women, is not well
thought through. We have already seen one way that sharia law may
have repercussions for wives in certain instances of divorce. Giving
tribunals semi-official status will, assuming they work according to
sharia, introduce similar anomalies.
I have not been able to get reports of live rulings from tribunals,
but there are a large number of online sites which offer fatwas in
answer to questions posed by believers and these seem likely to
represent the kind of answers which tribunals in Britain must produce.
If couples do not marry according to UK civil law (and I have seen a
fatwa ruling that they need not register their marriage with the
British authorities), there may be serious consequences in the event
of divorce; in the custody of children (which always goes against the
woman); with respect to alimony (a man does not have to pay any,
except for the children) and with regard to rights to a share in the
family home (which a woman does not have). During the marriage, a man
may coerce his wife to have sex, (though wives do not have that
right); a husband may confine his wife to their home; if one or the
other partner abandons Islam, (the marriage is declared null and
void). It is considered wrong to reject polygamy. If a woman wishes
to divorce her husband, it is made dependent on obtaining her
husband's permission and the agreement of a sharia court. A woman may
not marry a non-Muslim and a man may marry only a Jewish or Christian
woman. Legal adoption is prohibited, but if a child has been adopted,
he or she may not inherit from the adoptive parents. The Leyton-based
Islamic Shariah Council has issued rulings including one that forbids
a woman of any age to marry without a male "guardian"; another that
says a man only has to intend to divorce for it to be valid; one that
insists that a polygamous marriage must be maintained even in the UK
(Islamic Shariah Council); and another that excuses a man from making
alimony payments after divorce.
If Islamic tribunals are to arbitrate according to such antiquated
and discriminatory rulings, they condemn British Muslim women to a
life as second-class citizens with barely any rights. And if they
claim to advise only within the framework of British law, then what
are they doing in the first place? The only solution to this
scandalous situation is to ban such tribunals entirely and let
Muslims, like everybody else in this country, abide by a single code
of laws. Sharia courts must be excluded from recognition under the
1996 Arbitration Act if justice for all does not become a farce.
Denis MacEoin's report into sharia law in the UK was published by
Civitas on Monday 29 June
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prcs91.php
o o o
London Review of Books, 23 July 2009
SHORT CUTS / ACOUSTIC WEAPONS
by Adam Shatz
Imagine you’re confined to a dark, windowless space, and a piece of
music you find especially disagreeable is piped into the room at a
volume so piercing it seems to be throbbing inside you. You might
call this excruciating. Now imagine the music on a round-the-clock
loop, with no indication of when or whether it will stop, and no
escape. You might call this torture.
That’s how Binyam Mohamed spent his time in the secret CIA-run
prison outside Kabul, where he was forced to listen to Eminem and Dr
Dre, without pause, for 20 days. He’s just one of possibly thousands
of detainees in the ‘war on terror’ who have been subjected to
protracted, lacerating barrages of heavy metal, gangsta rap, disco
(the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’) and numbingly repetitive
children’s tunes (Barney the Purple Dinosaur’s ‘I Love You’)
– what American military interrogators call ‘futility music’.
There’s some debate as to whether this practice is a form of torture
(as the UN Committee against Torture decided in a 1997 ruling against
Israel’s practice of keeping Palestinian prisoners awake for days
with loud music) or of ‘inhuman and degrading’ treatment (as the
European Court of Human Rights decided in the case of the RUC’s use
of white noise against IRA prisoners in the 1970s). In both cases
it’s forbidden under international law. In the last year or so a
movement to ban this practice has attracted the support of a number
of artists whose work has been on the interrogation playlist,
including David Gray, Massive Attack and Rage against the Machine.
Reprieve, the group that provides legal representation for detainees
at Guantánamo, has joined with a group of musicians to form Zero dB,
an initiative whose goal is ‘to end the suffering caused by music
torture’.
It isn’t hard to see why loud music appeals to interrogators. But
it’s no less aggressive, or invasive, for leaving no visible marks.
As anyone who’s gone to a rock concert or rave knows, its power lies
in the fact that it seems inescapable, at once outside and inside the
listener’s body: ‘what better medium than music to bring into
being . . . the experience of the West’s (the infidel’s)
ubiquitous, irresistible power?’ Suzanne Cusick asks in ‘Music as
Torture/ Music as Weapon’, in the Transcultural Music Review. As she
sees it, the use of music in interrogation began with the
psychological experiments on the effects of continuous noise exposure
conducted just after the Second World War by US, British and Canadian
intelligence at Yale, Cornell and McGill. What the researchers
discovered was that by inducing feelings of helplessness sonic
disturbances could break down prisoners more effectively than
beatings, starvation or sleep deprivation.
Cusick calls them ‘acoustic weapons’, and one way or another
they’ve been in use for a long time. The Greeks and Romans used
brass and percussion to send messages, and to rattle their
opponents’ nerves; Joshua’s trumpets probably helped to wear down
Jericho’s Canaanite defenders. In Sound Targets: American Soldiers
and Music in the Iraq War (Indiana, £16.99), Jonathan Pieslak argues
that music has played an increasing role in psy ops ever since the
1989 US invasion of Panama, when Manuel Noriega, an opera
connoisseur, was driven from the Vatican Embassy, where he had taken
refuge, under a deafening barrage of Led Zeppelin and Martha Reeves
and the Vandellas (‘nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide’).
Just before the siege of Fallujah in 2004, Pieslak writes, hard rock
‘was played so relentlessly. . . that the Marines renamed the city
“LalaFallujah”’; Iraqi mullahs attempted to resist the sonic
blitz by blasting Koranic chants on their own loudspeakers. What made
it possible for the 361st Psy Ops company to bombard Fallujah with AC/
DC’s ‘Shoot to Thrill’ was the Long Range Acoustic Device
(LRAD), designed by the American Technology Company and sold to the
US army and marines, the coast guard and a number of US police
departments. Attached to an MP3 player, the LRAD can project a
‘strip of sound’ that can be heard – and can’t be ignored –
for 500 to 1,000 metres.
Why is the American military using music this way? After all, it
could as easily use white noise, or ‘sonic booms’, Israel’s
weapon of choice whenever it has wanted to frighten Lebanon without
going to war. Moustafa Bayoumi, in an article in the Nation in 2005,
suggested that music is used to project ‘American culture as an
offensive weapon’. But if the use of American music is a blunt
assertion of imperial power, why are metal and gangsta rap the genres
favoured by interrogators at Gitmo? One reason, Pieslak suggests, is
that metal is uniquely harsh, with its ‘multiple, high-frequency
harmonics in the guitar distortion’, and vocals that alternate
between ‘pitched screaming’ and ‘guttural, unpitched
yelling’. ‘If I listened to a death metal band for 12 hours in a
row, I’d go insane, too,’ James Hetfield of Metallica says.
‘I’d tell you anything you’d want to know.’ (One interrogator
told Pieslak that he tried Michael Jackson on Iraqi detainees, but
‘it doesn’t do anything for them.’)
One can imagine other dissonant forms of music – serial music, or
free jazz – being equally effective. But not many military
interrogators listen to Schoenberg or Stockhausen – or, for that
matter, to Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler. The use of metal and rap, it
turns out, mainly reflects the soldiers’ taste. As Pieslak shows,
it’s the music many of them listen to when they’re ‘getting
crunked’ – pumped up for combat missions. Songs like Slayer’s
‘Angel of Death’ put them ‘in the mood’ to fight because their
pounding, syncopated rhythms sound very like a volley of bullets
being fired from an automatic gun, but the same songs are also
deployed in interrogation, and in combat, to terrify people and break
them down. It all depends on where you’re listening, and who
controls the loudspeakers.
Adam Shatz is an editor at the London Review.
o o o
WOMEN'S HISTORY NETWORK 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Women Gender and Political Spaces: Historical Perspectives
11-13 September 2009
Oxford
Website: http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/conferences/whn/index.htm
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