Opinions and Editorials

Indians push to tame Hindu-Muslim rioting with new bill – By Rama Lakshmi (Dec 20, 2013, Washington Post)

Sabra Rashid fled her village three months ago, as Hindu mobs started attacking their Muslim neighbors. With nowhere to return after her home was looted and burned, she is living in a tent camp with thousands of other Muslims. One night this month, the youngest of her four children, 9-month-old Sufian, who had been shivering in the cold, suddenly went still. He was dead. “My heart cannot bear this anymore. It will explode,” said Rashid, 32, fighting back tears as she ran her fingers over the image of her son’s face on a cellphone – the only photograph of him her family still has. “As a mother, all I want is a safe home for my other children, to stay healthy, to stay alive. Is that too much to ask?”

Rashid was one of 50,000 people forced from their villages in and around the Muzaffarnagar district of northern Uttar Pradesh state during the September rioting. In its wake, there is new momentum to pass a long-discussed bill aimed at curbing religious and ethnic violence. Tensions between the majority Hindu population and the Muslim minority go back centuries. Half a million people died in rioting during the partition of India in 1947, when Pakistan was created as a Muslim homeland. Although religious violence has dropped dramatically since then, the number of incidents is ticking upward of late – from 668 last year to 725 in the first 10 months of this year, causing 143 deaths, official data show. And many Indians are concerned that divisions between religious groups could deepen with the national elections scheduled for next year, especially because the main opposition party is led by a controversial Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi.

“Each government has dealt with communal rioting in a completely arbitrary and prejudicial manner,” said Farah Naqvi, a member of the National Advisory Council, a government-appointed group of academics and activists, some of whom have worked on the bill. “Hundreds of thousands of people who have been permanently displaced by rioting are not even counted and recognized by the government. And those who incite riots from behind the scene are rarely brought to justice. It is unconscionable if the new, 21st-century India continues to look the other way.” The bill, yet to be introduced, would put in place policies to prevent and limit communal and ethnic rioting. It would establish fines and jail sentences for public officials and police officers for failure to control violence. It would also guarantee speedy investigations and trials in special courts, and it would set guidelines for reparation for victims.

The legislation has been in the works since riots in Gujarat state in 2002 left more than 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims. The measure could finally pass in the coming year, because it is being supported by the Congress-party-led governing coalition. The bill has been strongly criticized by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party, which has called it a maneuver to garner the votes of religious minorities. In a recent letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Modi called the measure a “recipe for disaster,” saying it would lead to ordinary fights being labeled as communal violence. Modi is accused by human rights groups of not doing enough to stem the 2002 riots in Gujarat, his home state. The recent Hindu-Muslim rioting in Muzaffarnagar, the worst such violence in India in more than a decade, was sparked by an incident in which a Muslim youth was killed by two Hindus after he was alleged to have sexually harassed their female cousin. This set off a cycle of reprisal attacks across the district.…

After the riots, about 6,400 people were named in police complaints in connection with killings, rapes, looting, arson and inciting riots. But police have arrested only 200 people. “We have gone out to arrest the men at least 10 times, but the women came out armed with axes and sickles and blocked our entry into the villages. They pile bricks and stones on the dirt paths to stop our vehicles. They surround the villages with tractors,” said Kaushal Raj Sharma, the district magistrate in Muzaffarnagar. Activists say that after each riot in India, diverse neighborhoods have shrunk in population as residents have moved to areas where people of their own faith and ethnicity live. “That produces its own kind of polarized politics, something a developing country cannot afford,” said Naqvi, of the National Advisory Council. Although activists have high hopes for the proposed law, some Muslims said it may not change much on the ground. “We have enough laws in this country; what we need is people who have the will and the heart to implement the laws,” said Abdul Jabbar, a real estate agent who runs the camp in Loi.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indians-push-to-tame-hindu-muslim-rioting-with-new-bill/2013/12/20/a2550204-659e-11e3-997b-9213b17dac97_story.html

SEE ALSO:

• A bill that doesn’t fit – By Abdul Khaliq (Dec 16, 2013, Indian Express)
  http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/1208107/
• Communal Violence Bill is a Travesty of Democracy – By Rakesh Sinha (Dec 22, 2013, New Indian Express)
  http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinion/Communal-Violence-Bill-is-a-Travesty-of-Democracy/2013/12/22/article1958091.ece

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No Excuse for Callousness – Editorial (Dec 28, 2013, EPW)

More than 50 infants and children have reportedly died in the camps housing the thousands of displaced families affected by the riots in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh (UP) on 7 September 2013. They died not because of any disease, but because they were hungry and there was nothing warm to protect them from the freezing-cold weather. As families continue to battle the cold with only a flimsy tarpaulin as cover and small fires that shed light but little heat, the situation in these camps is a scandal that ought to be a national concern. Not only is this an unconscionable violation of the rights of citizens of this country, it is the result of the complete callousness of the local authorities and the state government of UP. What is worse, despite reports by the media and civil society groups working in the area, the state government has chosen to pretend that there is no problem. Indeed, for weeks it denied the fact of these deaths and only now, after the Supreme Court’s order following a writ petition, has the UP government acknowledged that 11 children have died. Also, only at the Supreme Court’s prompting have medical facilities been extended to the camps where scores of women are pregnant and need urgent care. Whether anything will be done about the almost total lack of sanitation in the camps, something that has made life a living hell, especially for the women and children, still remains to be seen.

The UP government’s attitude towards the displaced families following the Muzaffarnagar riots, in which an estimated 60 people died, has been not just extremely callous but also unthinking. First, it issued a notification offering compensation only to Muslims affected by the riots. Predictably, this was challenged in court and the Supreme Court struck this down as being discriminatory. Thereafter, the notification had to be reframed and reissued. As if that was not enough, the government seems determined to push people out of the camps and back to their homes without understanding why people are hesitant. If things had been tolerable in the areas where these people lived before the riots, would they have preferred to live under leaky tents in freezing weather, watching their children literally freeze to death, rather than returning? Obviously the reason they hesitate is because their prospects on their return are, in their minds, worse than what they face in the camps. These are families that have to confront not just homes that have been burned down but will also have to live with the very people who attacked them in an atmosphere where the resentments that triggered the conflict are still alive. It is hardly surprising then that they do not want to return yet, something that the state government seems incapable of comprehending.

Above all, the shocking and unacceptable state of affairs in the Muzaffarnagar camps is a reminder of the absence of a comprehensive policy for relief and rehabilitation after such calamitous events. Similar situations have arisen in other states too. Immediately after a riot, the state government, the district authorities and the central government release resources to assist those affected. Camps are established. People are herded into ostensibly “safe” areas. And then, they are virtually forgotten. For the media, the story often ends once the embers of the conflict have died. For the administration, the camps are temporary shelters and it insists that people move out as soon as possible. Only when people refuse to move, or if the conditions in the camps deteriorate to the point where deaths are reported, does the administration wake up and take note. Even then, as is clear in this instance, there is little comprehension of why people are afraid to return, or to put in place policies that will help make their return possible. As a result, in many instances, the displaced get uprooted yet again because they are compelled to move to areas that they deem “safe”, usually enclaves where only people of their own communities live. For the administration, the problem is solved. For the affected people, the challenges of life are compounded.

Governments routinely treat those displaced by conflict of any sort as people whose loyalty they can buy through doles and compensation packages. Yet, the history of similar displacement should tell us that people never get over the trauma until there is justice, a sense of closure and security. When all these three factors are missing, the displaced are left with the kind of impossible choices the mothers in the camps in Muzaffarnagar face – how to share one sweater between three children, how to find a dry space at night when the tarpaulin leaks and the dew soaks everything, how to warm your children with fires without exposing them to injury, how to feed them when the essentials are not available – basically how to ensure that they survive these ostensibly “temporary” dislocations. No mother should have to make such choices. No decent government should put its people in such a situation. There is simply no excuse.

http://www.epw.in/editorial/no-excuse-callousness.html

SEE ALSO:

• Thread Bared – By Neha Dixit (Dec 30, 2013, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?288907
• Muzaffarnagar riots: The cold reality of the SP’s politics – Editorial (Dec 20, 2013, Hindustan Times)
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/1164821.aspx
• Ground report from Muzaffarnagar: Cruel winter in camp of no hope – By Avijit Ghosh & Rakhi Chakrabarty (Dec 20, 2013, Times of India)
  http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-20/india/45416945_1_muzaffarnagar-and-shamli-districts-phugana-relief-camp
• No home, no food, no shelter and still state wants them to vacate the relief camps – By Areeb Rizvi (Dec 18, 2013, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2013dec18/no_home_no_food_no_shelter_and_still_state_wants_them_vacate_relief_camps.html

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The struggle for justice for Ishrat Jahan – By Abdul Rauf Lala (Dec 21, 2013, Twocircles.net)

As we came to know through the media that a Mumbra girl namely Ishrat Jahan has been gunned down in an encounter in Gujarat, we reached her home at Rasheed Compound which is at walking distance from my house in the city. There we saw the house comprising one bedroom along with a washroom and a tiny kitchen. There was a tiny wooden box which contains of their clothing. And the family had access to neither television/newspaper nor a telephone. On our request, her mother Shameema Bi provided us with details.

Ishrat’s father, Shameem Sheikh, died in 2002. He worked as a constructor. After the sad demise of Ishrat’s father, the whole responsibility came to her mother’s shoulder and she joined a medical company so as to feed her family of six. There her work was to stick tags/labels on the medicine wrappers. Her elder daughter, Ishrat, was a B. Sc. (2nd year) student and was helping her mother by teaching at a coaching centre as well as giving private tuitions at her home. In fact, Ishrat was the backbone of her family and it was she who was winning the bread for the family. Days ago, she was out for some business purpose only to meet her ill fate.

After listening to the complete story, we smelt a rat in the incident. And first of all, we demanded from the authority to return her body as we wanted to bury her in her hometown. Then a team comprising of myself, my friends Munna Sahil, Shakeb Khan, Asadullah Hanafi along with Ishrat’s mother headed towards Ahmedabad the very next day. When we reached Ahmedabad at 5 in morning, a reporter from Gujarat Samachar approached us soon and told us earnestly to raise the issue strongly, as he said that was a fabricated story and a fake encounter. He further added that many of them knew the truth but could not speak out for one reason or another.

Then our team reached the Gujarat Crime Police Head Station at Haweli. At the police station, we met Singhal and NK Amin. They conducted their investigation upon us in a very rough manner. They talked to us as if we were criminals and were detained in our way to carry out some big mission. We were not given even water to drink and meal to eat during the period and were not allowed to perform Juma Namaz that day. After 5-6 hours of traumatising enquiry, Vanzara came and then started his turn which lasted for three more hours. Our only demand that made them torment us was our claim to return the body of Ishrat. They left no stone unturned to persuade us to withdraw our demand of taking the body to the hometown. When we refused to lend an ear to their requests or rather orders they put a condition before us and said the body would be released provided we bury it in Ahmedabad. We again declined their order and after 9-10 hour long torture we were given access to the body.…

But we never even thought of giving up and I think when a person has complete trust in Allah and believes that the ultimate decision is of Allah’s, he should never give up. Today the case of Ishrat has become a national issue. This goes to suggest that if you start fighting for a good cause even though you have limited resources, it is the Almighty Allah who will help you. I request all the citizens in general and Muslims in particular to take all such cases seriously and go through legal proceedings instead of issuing emotional and political statements. There are many a non-Muslim activist who is fighting for human cause and ready to help on humanitarian ground. Take assistance from them and be constant while fighting for social causes. Leave behind the idea of giving up.

http://twocircles.net/2013dec21/struggle_justice_ishrat_jahan.html

SEE ALSO:

• The Human Right To Live Without Terror – By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (Dec 21, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/wkhan211213.htm
• Are Muslim populated Villages in Ramanathapuram District Out of Bounds for Hindus? – By Dr. M.H.Jawahirullah (Dec 21, 2013, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2013dec21/are_muslim_populated_villages_ramanathapuram_district_out_bounds_hindus.html

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The AAM Army – By Avalok Langer & Deevakar Anand (Dec 28, 2013, Tehelka)

They were the underdogs. The political idealists that everybody counted out. No one truly believed that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would be able to compete with two established political parties – the Congress and the BJP – in the DelhiAssembly election.

Before the triangular contest, theCongress remained smug; the BJP was confident of an outright win. Sample the statements that were made in prime-time debates: “They should have remained a pressure group, they would have been able to do more”; “Arvind Kejriwal is making a mistake taking on Shelia Dikshit, he can’t beat her”; “If they get even 10 seats, it will be a miracle!”

However, within a year of its formation, AAP has proven everyone wrong. Kejriwal obliterated former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit from the New Delhi constituency. Though the fledgling party did not win the Assembly polls, it managed to gain 28 (of the 70) seats by fighting on an anti-corruption plank. As the issue goes to press, Kejriwal & Co are asking the citizens of Delhi for their opinion on whether they should form the government.

AAP’s success has come as a breath of fresh air. The party has busted the myth that one needs money power to fight elections. Not only did they collect campaign funds from the people, they relied on volunteers who had left their jobs, homes and families. Many had travelled across continents to come and work for the brand-new party.

According to a report published by the Association for Democratic Reforms, 10 of the 28 AAP candidates who won in Delhi have declared personal assets ranging from Rs 20,800 to Rs 13 lakh – proof that you no longer need personal wealth to enter and triumph in Indian politics.

http://www.tehelka.com/the-aam-army/

SEE ALSO:

• Dog And The Bone – By Arati R. Jerath (Dec 30, 2013, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?288933
• Aam Aadmi Party: Government of the Governed? – By Manash Bhattacharjee (Dec 28, 2013, EPW)
  http://www.epw.in/web-exclusives/aam-aadmi-party-government-governed.html
• X’mas Gift: Power At Half Price? – By Anuradha Raman (Dec 30, 2013, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?288931
• Is Aam Admi Party A Hope? – By S. Mohammed Irshad (Dec 23, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/irshad231213.htm

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A cure worse than the malady? – By R. K. Raghavan (Dec 21, 2013, The Hindu)

An empowered and high-profile ombudsman for India, a dream for long, is finally a reality. The millions of sceptics, including this writer, who believed that our lawmakers would never get down to vote for it have been proved wrong. This was an exercise that began 46 years ago. It took an eternity because of an obvious lack of political will and a fear of the unknown. Some of those who are powerful in our political firmament have a lot to hide. And they could not take a chance by creating what could perhaps prove to be a monster. Those who are now claiming credit for this heart-warming denouement of a heroic campaign are making a virtue out of necessity. The prospect of facing a knowledgeable and angry electorate in the next few months is what persuaded the two main political parties to sink their differences and ensure the smooth passage of the Lokpal Bill in both Houses of Parliament.

Here, one cannot but acknowledge the stellar role played by Anna Hazare in keeping up the pressure on the executive. You cannot fault him if he sounded unreasonable and stubborn at times. This was not a case of exhibiting ego, but one of conviction that a corruption-ridden nation needed an ombudsman with singular focus on restoring the credibility of a much-abused public service.

However, this is not the time to lose track of the realities and gloat. There is a need to educate the common man on what he can and cannot expect from this new experiment. The chairman and eight members of the essentially anti-graft body will be selected by a collegium comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of India or a sitting Supreme Court judge nominated by the CJI, and an eminent jurist. It will have jurisdiction over all public servants under the Union government, including the Prime Minister. In the case of the Prime Minister, a probe can be initiated only with the approval of two-thirds of the Lokpal’s members. This stipulation is because of the apprehension of frivolous complaints being made mainly to unsettle a government in position.

While it will have its own investigative wing, which will conduct a preliminary inquiry into a complaint received by it, the Lokpal can entrust such an inquiry to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or to any other agency. Significantly, the Lokpal can initiate prosecution through its own team. Perhaps, the most welcome feature of the legislation is the empowerment of the Lokpal to provisionally attach any property suspected to have been acquired by an accused through illegal means. Such action will not have to wait until the prosecution successfully establishes the charge in a court of law. Strict exercise of this authority will certainly be lauded by the honest citizen, currently dismayed by the sight of corrupt public servants continuing to enjoy the fruits of their misdeeds even after being taken to task. …

I had long pleaded for a Lokpal which would look after personnel matters of the CBI (such as inductions and transfers) and a Department of Personnel which merely took care of budgetary allocations to the CBI. In my view, the CVC is a needless appendage – especially after the creation of the Lokpal – that only stifles the CBI without adding value to the quality of its investigations. On the whole, the Lokpal cannot be viewed as anything but a cosmetic imposition on a CBI that is craving for autonomy – without any great success. The commendable support to its cause by the Supreme Court is still in the realm of theory, with the Union government uninhibitedly rejecting all suggestions that the CBI be allowed to function unhampered by the executive. Against this backdrop, I am of the view that the Lokpal will have only a marginal impact on corruption in high places.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-cure-worse-than-the-malady/article5483545.ece

SEE ALSO:

• Will Lokpal Bill End Corruption In India – By Syed Ali Mujtaba (Dec 20, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/mujtaba201213.htm

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Tribal ‘Annihilation’ and ‘Upsurge’ in Uttar Pradesh – By A K Verma (Dec 21, 2013, EPW)

Uttar Pradesh (UP) has long been treated as a non-tribal state where tribes did not merit consideration for inclusion in the scheduled tribes (STs) category created by the Constitution for according them affirmative action benefits and political representation through reservation. This paper challenges the conventional wisdom and points out that there is a substantial number of tribes in UP that merits recognitionas STs.

Census 2011 data indicated a growth rate of about 2,500% decadal (2001-11) in the ST population in UP (Verma 2013), whereas it was just 17% during 1971-81, 23% during 1981-91 and 26% during 1991-2001 (Table 1, p 53). The very magnitude of this decadal growth rate, as reported in the 2011 Census (Verma 2013) is indicative of major wrongs at various levels in the political and administrative systems in identifying the STs.

It also raises fundamental issues regarding the “annihilation” of tribal identity in UP and denial of justice and political representation to them in state and national legislatures. This paper argues that the annihilation of tribals in UP is contingent on a fundamental error made by the Constitution makers vis-à-vis the objective definition of parameters that should have been used to identify backward tribes and accord them ST status.

In addition, a plethora of factors ranging from historical, constitutional, legislative, and administrative also contributed to the chaos in identifying the STs in UP. Based on census records, this paper starts with the tribal population in UP in 1891 and by scaling population figures on a time-scale of 120 years works-out their present numbers. The projected tribal population in UP at present appears very big. That is also supported by the 2011 Census data on ST households for UP …

http://www.epw.in/special-articles/tribal-annihilation-and-upsurge-uttar-pradesh.html

SEE ALSO:

• The Crisis And Challenge Of Dalit-Bahujans – By Braj Ranjan Mani (Dec 17, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/mani171213.htm
• Dalit Humanism, Literature and ‘Technologies of Deification’: Understanding the Politics of Matang Samaj – By K V Cybil (Dec 21, 2013, EPW)
  http://www.epw.in/special-articles/dalit-humanism-literature-and-technologies-deification.html

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