Defeat Pernicious Hindutva Terror Designs – Editorial (Feb 19, 2012, Peoples Democracy)

Yet another link to the terror web cast by the RSS and its affiliates has been established with the arrest of one Kamal Chauhan by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for his alleged involvement in the terrorist bomb blast on the Samjhauta Express that claimed the life of 68 passengers of the Delhi-Lahore train around midnight of February 18, 2007. The arrest of this longstanding RSS activist from Madhya Pradesh is the second in this case. Earlier, in June 2010, one Lokesh Sharma, also from Madhya Pradesh, was arrested on charges of attending a meeting in which this terrorist attack was planned. Media reports suggest that investigative agencies are now framing fresh charges on his alleged participation in the actual bombing itself. Crucial leads indicating the involvement of RSS and its affiliates in the Samjhauta bombing came after investigations that established that these outfits were linked with the terrorist attacks at Malegaon (September 8, 2008), Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad (May 18, 2007) and at the Dargah in Ajmer Sharif (October 11, 2007). These have established the RSS links in creating this web of Hindutva terror.

The CPI(M) had, in fact, drawn the attention of the central government, much earlier, at a meeting of the National Integration Council on October 13, 2008. “Police investigations in the past few years have noted the involvement of Bajrang Dal or other RSS tentacles in various bomb blasts across the country – in 2003, in Parbani, Jalna and in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra; in 2005, in Mau district of Uttar Pradesh; in 2006, in Nanded; in January 2008, at the RSS office in Tenkasi, Tirunelveli; in August 2008, in Kanpur etc etc. Internal security of our country can be strengthened only when all such cases are also probed impartially and with the same degree of intensity”. Following this and the subsequent leads, the union home ministry’s report card for July 2010 announced that the NIA will probe the terrorist attacks on the Samjhauta Express. It is these investigations that have led to the current arrest. Investigations also revealed, according to media reports, that a core group of RSS leaders were involved in the manufacture of explosives and planned a series of Hindutva terrorist attacks that began in 2002. The disillusionment that set in amongst sections of the RSS following the then reigning Vajpayee led central government’s alleged dilution of the core Hindutva agenda (by putting on the back burner issues like temple construction in Ayodhya, to appease NDA allies for the government’s survival) and the apparent refusal to replicate nationwide the 2002 communal genocide in Gujarat are believed to be the reason for the rise of militant Hindutva terror.

Surely, the RSS, as is its wont, will once again proclaim that such terrorist acts may be the result of actions by a few ‘deviant elements’ but will insist that the organisation as a whole is not to be blamed. Such claims are nothing original. This is precisely what was said about Nathuram Godse following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Godse’s brother, however, is on record, in a media interview, to say that all brothers in the family were active members of the RSS. However, the history of the RSS and its methodology of functioning belies such theories of a differentiation between the ‘core’ and the ‘fringe’. The issue of imparting militant training to the Hindus and using violence as a political weapon by the RSS has a long history. It was Savarkar (who advanced the two nation theory – Islamic and Hindu – full two years before Jinnah did) who gave the slogan “Hinduise all politics and militarise Hindudom”. Inspired by this, Dr B S Moonje, mentor of RSS founder Dr Hegdewar, travelled to Italy to meet the fascist dictator, Mussolini. The meeting took place on March 19, 1931. His personal diary notes of March 20 reveal his fascination and admiration of the manner in which Italian fascism was training its youth (read storm-troopers) militarily. Upon return to India, Dr Moonje established the Central Hindu Military Education Society at Nasik in 1935, the precursor to the Bhonsala Military School (now charged with importing training to Hindutva terror) established in 1937. Golwalkar, in 1939, exults Hitler’s purging of the Jews under Nazi fascism and says that it is “a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by”. Subsequently, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the RSS tentacles, VHP and Bajrang Dal, had publicly prided themselves at the training imparted to ‘kar sevaks’.

The RSS often questions the term ‘Hindu terrorism’ asking, “How can you club an entire community with the concept of terrorism?” Its former chief once went further to state, “Coining such terms is the conspiracy to defame the Sangh. It is a political conspiracy to defeat and defame Hindutva forces.” Very cleverly, the terms ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hindu’ are used synonymously. What we are speaking about is Hindutva terror, not Hindu terror. Clearly, no religious community, as a whole, can be held responsible for the terrorist activities of individuals embracing that religion. Same yardstick, however, should apply to other religions as well. However, not, according to the RSS. The RSS routinely adopts resolutions seeking to, “curb Islamic terrorism with an iron hand”. This is not merely an expression of double standards. It reflects the ideological roots of converting the modern secular democratic republic of India into the RSS version of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ based on rabid religious intolerance. In these columns, we continue to maintain that terrorism has no religion. It is simply anti-national and, hence, the country should display zero tolerance. Further, terrorism of all varieties only feed and strengthen each other, seeking to destroy the very unity and integrity of our country. To safeguard and strengthen modern India’s secular democratic foundations, it is imperative that such pernicious terroristic methods for realising this RSS political objective needs to be decisively defeated.

http://pd.cpim.org/2012/0219_pd/02192012_1.html

SEE ALSO:

• Hindutva Lab 2.0 – By Rana Ayyub (Feb 25, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ne250212coverstory.asp
• Communal curriculum – By Venkitesh Ramakrishnan (Feb 11, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2903/stories/20120224290301000.htm
• Why BJP not finding buyers of communal products? – By Mumtaz Alam Falahi (Feb 15, 2012, TwoCircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012feb15/why_bjp_not_finding_buyers_communal_products.html
• Sacred cow – By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta (Feb 11, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2903/stories/20120224290301400.htm

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Ten Long Years – By Smruti Koppikar (Feb 16, 2012, Outlook)

The confusion that reigned for the first few hours, on and fuelled by news television, after the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate’s order Wednesday Feb 15 afternoon on Zakia Jafri’s petition, would have been hilarious if the matter was not so sombre. Every reporter had a differing piece of information to offer, some contradictory; likewise, the lawyers for each side offered different interpretations of the order – from Jafri will get the already-controversial report of the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) Report to Jafri will not be given a copy of the report. It’s not as complicated as it appears. Jafri and her co-petitioners – activists Teesta Setalvad and lawyer Mukul Sinha – had filed separate applications in Magistrate M.S. Bhatt’s court on February 9, a day after the SIT had submitted its report in a sealed envelope. There were two sets of applications: one seeking to obtain copies of the SIT report and the other objecting to the manner in which SIT had filed its report which the applicants argued was “not in compliance” with the SC’s September 2011 order.

On Feb 15 afternoon, the magistrate upheld the second set of applications in which Jafri and her co-petitioners had argued that the SIT had not complied with paragraph 9 of the SC order. The key part of this says SIT must “forward its final report, along with the entire material collected by it” which means all documents, case papers, annexures, recorded statements, investigation papers and the report filed by amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran – which together run into thousands of pages. This allows the magistrate – and at a later stage the petitioner and public – to read the findings in the report against the material/evidence they are based upon. The magistrate stated that once this is done, on or before March 15, the court will “act according to law”. Only when the report is submitted in full will the magistrate formally decide on Jafri’s application for a copy; Setalvad and Sinha are not entitled to get copies because they have no locus standi in the case, the magistrate stated. Jafri will have to wait for the SIT to comply and submit all the documents relevant to the Gulbarg Society massacre of February 28, 2002, where her husband and Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed with 57 others by a violent mob.

Significantly, this means the question is when, not if, Jafri will get a copy of the SIT report. And, the phrase “act according to law” strengthens her plea because, under section 173 (2) (ii) of the CrPC, Jafri should get a copy of the report. She is the original complainant in the case, right from the police station, in the lower courts, the Gujarat high court and later in the Supreme Court. Though the SIT submitted its report in a sealed envelope, information that immediately leaked out suggested that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had been given “a clean chit” as “no prosecutable evidence” had been found against him. Jafri’s original complaint stated that Modi and 61 others be charge-sheeted for the Gulbarg Society massacre, one of the many areas attacked by raging mobs in the wake of the fire in two Sabarmati Express coaches, at Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002, that killed 59 people including kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya.

The magistrate today received another application from the petitioners seeking that he declare the contents of the SIT report, on the grounds that no document from an investigating agency can be termed confidential. The order on this application has been posted for February 29. If the order is in their favour, Jafri and others will know that day or thereafter if the SIT has, indeed, given a closure report – as widely speculated after the leaked contents – or recommended filing a charge-sheet and if so against whom, or sought time for further investigation. Many in the legal community in Ahmedabad, not to mention sections of the BJP, are keen to amplify the strategic leak about the “clean chit” but has Modi really escaped being in the dock? In the Gulbarg Society massacre case, it will be prudent to wait for the magistrate to open the sealed envelope and make the report public. The focus on this case has eclipsed two other cases this month; Modi has been rapped twice in two weeks by the judiciary for the apathetic attitude shown by him and his government during and after the communal violence of 2002.

In a severe indictment of Modi, the Gujarat high court, last week, observed that the Gujarat government had failed during the 2002 violence and shown negligence in protecting citizens and religious structures. A petition filed in 2003 by Islamic Relief Committee seeking compensation for damaged religious structures had been opposed by the state, on the grounds that it had neither a policy nor an obligation to pay such compensation. The two-judge bench slammed this position; it said the state machinery had completely failed to anticipate communal disturbance and had subsequently floundered in containing the violence. “The state’s inaction resulted in the damage,” the bench observed, and ordered the government to “repair and rehabilitate” nearly 600 damaged places of worship, majority of them mosques and dargahs. In the second case, on Feb 15, even as the SIT report was fought over, the Gujarat high court served a contempt notice to Modi administration for not complying with its order of September 2011 to pay compensation to 56 petitioners whose shops in Rakhial area had been gutted in the 2002 violence. The Ahmedabad district collector has to file reply by March 14. As Gujarat – and the nation – marks ten years of the horrific violence in Godhra and later across the state, and Modi completes his carefully-calibrated Sadbhavna mission in a bid to erase the 2002 blot, he finds the courts closing in on him and his government.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279916

SEE ALSO:

• ‘Divisive consolidation’ – Teesta Setalvad with Anupama Katakam (Feb 11, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2903/stories/20120224290302600.htm
• 2002 Gujarat riots continue to haunt Modi despite SIT’s clean chit – By Uday Mahurkar (Feb 16, 2012, India Today)
  http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/2002-gujarat-riots-narendra-modi-government-sit/1/173797.html
• A history of violence – By Nandini Oza (Feb 17, 2012, The Week)
  http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?contentId=11049136&programId=1073755753&tabId=13&categoryId=-172201

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Pure speculation on SIT closure report – By RB Sreekumar (Feb 15, 2012, DNA India)

Media reports on Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) Final Report u/s 173 CRPC on Zakia Jafri’s complaint/FIR against the Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others generally confirm the exoneration of nearly all culprits for want of evidence. Indeed, it is flabbergasting and frustrating development for all those who value the Rule of Law, social cohesion and unity of our motherland. If the media version is true, the riot victim survivors and the officers who risked their career and marshalled evidence against perpetrators would be depressed.

A hypothetical exercise as to what could have been done by SIT for building an impenetrable defence for rioters will be rewarding. Any police officer with the motive of defending the riot accused will try to denigrate, marginalise and invalidate copious of evidence available on (1) scheming and consummation of anti-minority carnage, (2) subversion of the state administration to delay and deny justice to riot victims and (3) intimidation of witnesses to block the flow of evidence against the state government functionaries, narrated in Jafri’s FIR.

Witnesses, had, reportedly, tried to prove the conspiracy by the state government, by stressing on facts, i.e. (A) CM giving instructions in a late evening meeting of officers at Gandhinagar on February 27, 2002, to give a free play of Hindu revengefulness, in the context of killing 59 Hindus in Godhra train fire incident. SIT would find contradictions in the semantics of three versions about the CM’s instructions, in the depositions of the late Haren Pandya (to the Citizens Tribunal), RB Sreekumar and Sanjeev Bhatt (both before the judicial bodies). Moreover, Haren Pandya and Sreekumar were not present in the meeting also. Bhatt’s presence in the CM meeting is also questioned after refusal by his subordinate officer Pant to support Bhatt. (B) Secondly, allegations about bringing the bodies of Godhra train fire victims to Ahmedabad, VHP leaders accompanying the bodies and so on would not be deemed to be incriminating as these actions were taken on the request of the relatives of deceased persons by the CM.

(C) SIT would also be reluctant to draw any adverse inference on facts like, (1) the government not keeping minutes of meetings chaired by the CM and other senior officers, (2) positioning of ministers in DGP and CP, Ahmedabad officers on VHP sponsored bandh day on February 28, 2002, (3) transfer of officers who took effective actions against the rioters in the thick of riots, i.e. Rahul Sharma, Vivek Shrivastava, MD Antani and others, despite DGP’s objection, (4) rewarding those who collaborated in riots, (5) CM characterizing the riots as operation of the Newton’s Law, (6) failure of the government to take action on media making communally inciting reports and (7) non-implementation on regulations on riot control in Gujarat Police Manual, and other government documents, which facilitated riots. These are to be deemed as mere administrative omissions without any malicious motive.

The evidence supporting the charge of subversion of the administration are, (1) failure to take follow up action on reports from State Intelligence Branch (SIB) for countering the anti-Muslim bias of government officials, i.e. police and public prosecutors not performing duties properly and this resulting in damage to cases of riot victims.

http://www.dnaindia.com/print710.php?cid=1650559

SEE ALSO:

• Some Basic Questions the SIT Needs to Answer – By Ashish Khetan (Feb 25, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ne250212amicusreally.asp
• Sanjiv Bhatt is the witness of the ‘gory’ tale of Gujarat, not an accused! – By Sayema Sahar (Feb 15, 2012, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012feb15/sanjiv_bhatt_witness_%E2%80%98gory%E2%80%99_tale_gujarat_not_accused.html

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The NCTC Imbroglio – By Lt Gen Prakash C. Katoch (Retd) (Feb 17, 2012, Outlook)

A number of Chief Ministers and political parties have raised strong objections against the establishment of the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) that was to come into effect on March 1, 2012 as reported by the media. The main fear of the these Chief Ministers, being vehemently aired on TV channels, is that the government will use the NCTC to target non-Congress states, the issue was not discussed with the opposition/states and that the establishment of the NCTC will be an infringements of the rights of the states. The first part of the objection by the concerned Chief Ministers is very genuine. Switch on any TV channel or pick up a newspaper today and you get the view that everything wrong is going on in non-Congress governed states while Ram Rajya prevails in the ones governed by Congress. The ruling polity obviously feels that the citizenry is totally naïve. What is more significant is to note is what M.K. Dhar, former Joint Director Intelligence Bureau wrote in his book Top Secret – India’s Intelligence Unveiled. He says that irrespective of which party is in power in India, the entire intelligence effort of the country is focused on how to do down the opposition. He also mentions that during the entire tenure of Zail Singh as the President, all the phones in his bedroom and office in Rashtrapati Bhavan were tapped. So, how does the country get over such a malaise?

The second part of objections relate to the NCTC not having been discussed with the opposition/states. Michael Krepon wrote an article titled “Prime Ministers and Army Chiefs” (an abridged version was also published in the Dawn of Pakistan) last month. In this article, he quoted what V.R. Raghavan wrote in the Nonproliferation Review wherein he says, “There has been a shift in Indian decision making from a collegial and consensus-based approach to decisions arrived at by a small group of individuals based in the Prime Minister’s Office”. This has been emerging as the pattern in most cases and not in the case of nuclear issues alone, the latest proof of PMO’s involvement being even in the case of denying justice to the General V.K. Singh in the deliberately created age row. Do we see a replay of the Emergency era – political arrogance et al? No denying the fact that the issue of the NCTC should have been discussed both with the opposition and the states especially when it has took 22 excruciating months to sanction its establishment.

The third objection that the NCTC will infringe on the rights of the states stems from the fact that despite facing decades of insurgency and terrorism, India has failed to look at how our Constitution should strengthen our hands in fighting this twin malaise. Take the example of the Maoist insurgency that since past five-six years is being described as the biggest internal threat by the Prime Minister. Yet, the response is left largely to the states aside from dishing out Central Armed Police Forces (CRPF) and intelligence related warnings. No centralized set up has come up to tackle this major security threat holistically. That is the reason that the proposal of the home minister to establish a ministry of internal security (akin to the US ministry of Homeland Security) was shot down. The moot question here is how long India will continue to cope with such issues, given that ‘Law and Order’ is a state subject? Though our founding fathers gave us a solid Constitution as a base, have we not undertaken hundreds of amendments? Why can we not de-link terrorist and insurgent acts from the states and bring them under the centre?

There is no doubt that this will require thorough discussion and consensus, which is unlikely unless the government in power can convince everyone that adequate measures have been instituted to ensure that the intelligence effort of the country is not utilized to target the opposition- a very difficult proposition in the current dispensation considering the reluctance displayed in bringing even the CBI under the Lokpal. The fact is that without such measures our response to terrorism and insurgencies will remain disjointed and our adversaries will continue to exploit this asymmetric battlefield being offered by us on a plate. There was considerable merit in the home minister’s original proposal that the entire counter-terrorism architecture including the proposed NCTC function under the home minister till the creation of a ministry of internal security was accepted and implemented. However, what eventually has been sanctioned implies that while Multi Agency Centre (MAC) hitherto run by the Intelligence Bureau is subsumed into NCTC but organizations like the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) will continue functioning independently albeit all intelligence agencies are to provide inputs to NCTC.

Notwithstanding this, the NCTC in the proposed shape too will take many months/years to attain optimum level of real-time use operationally. To start with, it must have data links and standardized protocols with and amongst all intelligence agencies for real time passage of information. More significantly, state counter terrorism centres (SCTCs) must be established, which will ensure regular flow of ground level intelligence upwards and collated and analyzed intelligence flowing down. SCTCs should be established in all states and not like UHQ (Unified HQ) in selected few as is the current practice, for the simple reason that the threat of terrorism is omni-present. Look at Mumbai today- periodically suffering from terrorism, it has hubs of the MARCOS (marine commandos of the Navy), NSG (National Security Guard) and Force One (Special Police unit created post 26/11 Mumbai terror attack) and yet no SCTC and no UHQ (Unified HQ) either. Same is the state in Delhi. The SCTCs should function under respective State UHQ and be linked with the NCTC through the NATGRID. The requirement to incorporate a Decision Support System (DSS) is also essential, enabling short, medium and long term assessments. The national focus must shift from ‘investigating’ to ‘preventing’ terrorism. Is India ready for all this? More importantly, do our politicians have it in them?

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279947

SEE ALSO:

• Treaties & States – By A.G. Noorani (Jan 28, 2012, Frontline)
  http://www.flonnet.com/fl2902/stories/20120210290204300.htm
• NCTC, Not KGB – By B. Raman (Feb 18, 2012, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279954

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Dirty picture – Editorial (Feb 9, 2012, The Hindu)

Legislative proceedings are usually far from stimulating and we have grown accustomed to MPs and MLAs stealing a surreptitious nap or even snoring defiantly to escape the tedium of debate. But the three Karnataka BJP ministers who were forced to resign Wednesday morning chose a most unusual way to escape what they regarded as an arid discussion on the drought situation in the State. Much to the embarrassment of themselves and their party, TV cameras caught them transfixed by, ahem, a film clip, on one of their cell phones. Laxman Savadi, who was Minister for Cooperation, may protest till he is blue in the face, but his explanation that he was watching a newsclip about a woman being gang-raped simply doesn’t wash.

The best that can be said in an age where our legislatures are sporadic witnesses to a range of boisterous activity – fisticuffs, abuse, screaming, overthrown furniture, ripped out microphones, torn papers and flung slippers – is that the trio were at least passing their time in quiet communion. Watching pornographic material in the House is a first in the history of Indian legislatures, but like almost everything else in the sleazy world of politics, somebody’s already been there, done that. Last April, an Indonesian MP belonging to an Islamic party that campaigns for anti-pornography legislation was forced to resign after being caught watching porn in parliament, presumably to acquaint himself better with the subject matter of what he was opposing.

On a serious note, there is an important message in this, one that exposes the unalloyed hypocrisy of those who adopt conservative and hardline postures on issues relating to sex and morality. It is in Karnataka that fundamentalists assaulted women in pubs, ran campaigns against Valentine’s Day, launched investigations into the so-called love jihads – all professedly to protect Hindu culture from immoral foreign influences. For a party that likes to think it is different, the porn incident is a severe embarrassment for the BJP. To have forced the three ministers to “voluntarily resign” is hardly going to check the damage caused to the party and State government, which is already under some fire for permitting a reportedly wild rave party in Udupi.

When privilege motions are moved against legislators and outsiders for lowering the dignity of the House, it would be really strange if no more action is taken against the erring MLAs. But rather than reacting to what they did with blustering moral outrage, the incident should be used as an opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of the BJP and its aggressive fellow travellers in the Sangh Parivar, who, through their moral policing and self-styled vigilantism, regard themselves as the custodians of Indian morality.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2872933.ece

SEE ALSO:

• BJP’s ‘dirty picture’ – By Seema Mustafa (Feb 13, 2012, Free Press Journal)
  http://freepressjournal.in/news/47720-bjp-s-dirty-picture

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At the crossroads of mediaphobia – By Amitabh Mukhopadhyay (Jan 30, 2012, The Hindu)

Recently, the Telecom Minister was attacked by a large number of netizens for his move to screen content on social networking sites. Some bloggers called this drive idiotic. The characterisation seemed harmless till a little reflection brought The Idiot of Dostoyevsky to mind, and I felt crediting a Minister with a trusting nature as in that story might be good for our social imagination but not grounded in any evidence.The shifting sands of his reasons for objecting to certain matter carried on social media are interesting. Apparently, he first found a page maligning Sonia Gandhi and told Facebook officials on September 5, 2011 this was unacceptable. He then wrote a letter and held meetings with Google and Facebook. In an interview on NDTV in November, he said he objected to pornographic images. Then there was a mention in newspapers that at a press conference on December 5 he was worried about things that hurt religious sentiments.

Some of us are often disturbed by the politicisation or corruption of individual personality by journalism. I remember as a ten-year-old boy, my father asked me to read The Statesman first thing in the morning to improve my English and my grandmother took me aside to advise that I start my day with thoughts about Ishwar instead of reading reports about rape and murder. Philosophers have commented that journalists make people doubly ridiculous – first by making them feel they must necessarily have an opinion on every matter and then by renting them their opinion as an object of necessity they can flaunt around. We may not agree with the first, but the second point, about the role of journalists as purveyors of public opinion is of great relevance in the present context because the internet enables the world to break through the filter of journalism and reach individuals directly. The internet has been described as the network of networks. Through social networking, it helps isolated individuals constitute themselves as a group or a ‘public’. By playing the role of intermediation, it has helped all trades and professions expand their working communities and given us a practical source of two-way communication with the capability for everyone to hear both sides of the story. It has had a great democratising impact the world over.

In the context of the scourge of ‘paid journalism’ as a means of state and corporate control of media, social networking sites are a countervailing force. Google’s Transparency Report says 70 per cent of what was objected to by government agencies in 2011 related to political criticism. Only an insignificant number of items, just eight out of 352, could be termed hate speech. The Minister is obviously worried about social networking sites because he cannot control them to his advantage. How is he to regain control? To gauge this, the sequence in his reactions to what he saw, or was caused to see, is important. He first encountered something denigrating Sonia Gandhi and colloquially cried “blasphemy”; next, he objected to extreme pornography and finally he referred to things hurtful to religious sentiments. He can well cry blasphemy even though India does not have a state religion, because blasphemy laws exist in several European countries and the U.N. too has some resolutions against defamation of religions.

Blasphemy was a canon law offence in the U.K. till the 17th century when it was made an offence against common law. When BBC staged “Jerry Springer – the Opera” in 2005 and thousands of Christians objected to scenes set in hell with Jesus and Satan, the High Court said the Theatres Act, 1968 of the U.K. prevented any prosecution for blasphemy in relation to public performances of plays. Besides, the Broadcasting Act, 1990 did not allow for any prosecution in relation to broadcasts. Blasphemy as an offence was abolished in the U.K. by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, 2008. However, the same Act introduced new offences described as ‘possession of extreme pornographic images’ (Sec. 63) and ‘publication of obscene article’ (Sec. 71). Hate crime could be tied to these to make a case for ‘reasonable’ restriction of freedom of speech and expression. Like people in the U.K. till 2008, we in India also happen to be very sensitive to anything irreverent about any religion. Despite this common perception of our national character, both while framing the Indian Constitution as well as when working it, Rajendra Prasad and B.R. Ambedkar staunchly defended the freedom of expression. After the famous Crossroads case, when Nehru tried to broaden the scope of restrictions to freedom of expression and framed the First Amendment, they succeeded in persuading him to allow the word ‘reasonable’ qualifying the word restriction in Article 19 (2) to remain unchanged. This was due to their understanding that the Constitution is the vehicle of a nation’s progress. The Press (Objectionable Matter) Act, 1951, based on the First Amendment, was itself repealed in 1957.

More recently, in 2004, the Delhi High Court dismissed the complaints against M.F. Hussain of promoting enmity between different groups. Despite this, a case was registered in Mumbai in February 2006 against the painter for “hurting sentiments of people” by painting Hindu goddesses not as deities but visual stimuli, which forced him to live and die in exile, shaming all Indians. Even during the otherwise repressive British Raj, though Sarat Chandra’s novel Pather Dabi was banned, he walked around as a free man. The failures of government to provide equal protection of the law under Article 21 of the Constitution to Hussain the painter and, more recently, to Salman Rushdie the writer, are both reprehensible. Similar law-ways appear to have been deployed in the present case as well, with a private civil suit being filed by one Vinay Rai in a District Court of Rohini in Delhi which passed an ex-parte order asking 22 networking sites to remove certain content because they amount to “defamation and derogation against the sentiments of every community” and might “hurt religious sentiments”. The order did not spell out whether it is pornographic images/obscenity/hate speech that is being objected to or something blasphemous. Apparently, on another petition filed by the founder of a website FatwaOnline.org, a civil judge issued summons to Facebook and Google India, who sought relief from the Delhi High Court. …

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2842921.ece

SEE ALSO:

• ‘Media Alone Won’t Ensure Critical Thought’ – Arjun Appadurai with Smruti Koppikar (Feb 27, 2012, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279926
• Corporatisation of the Media – By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Subi Chaturvedi (Feb 18, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17123.pdf
• Writers must serve a social purpose – By Markaney Katju (Jan 28, 2012, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2837586.ece

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