The Modi Card And The Muslim Ace – By Ajit Sahi (Mar 30, 2013, Tehelka)

India’s Muslims, goes the conventional wisdom, are a votebank. That bank is now working aggressively towards becoming the central bank of Indian politics with a view to dominating its future political currency. If conversations, events and initiatives of the past four weeks are an indicator, Muslim social and political organisations as well as prominent Muslims have evolved a one-point agenda: to deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman Narendra Modi a shot at becoming India’s prime minister after the 16th General Election that is due in a year. Their tactic: defeat the BJP and its potential allies in every Lok Sabha constituency where the Muslim vote can sway the result.

“Narendra Modi is the No. 1 enemy of India’s Muslims,” says Salman Hussain, a fiery Islamic scholar who teaches at one of India’s most influential Islamic seminaries, the 19th-century Darul Uloom Nadwatul, at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. “If Modi becomes prime minister, more Muslims will be massacred, more mosques demolished.” While that may be rabble-rousing at its worst, there is no denying that the anti-Modi sentiment among India’s nearly 180 million Muslims has deepened since a cry went up in the BJP last month to name Modi the party’s top prospect for the Lok Sabha election.

“The BJP is fundamentally an anti-Muslim party and Modi proved that with his role in the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat,” says Arshad Madani, who leads a faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, an influential sociopolitical organisation of clerics. Five months after Modi became chief minister, more than 2,000 Muslims died in February-March 2002 in violence by Hindu zealots of the BJP-RSS after a train fire killed 57 Hindu passengers. “Muslims know that if the BJP comes to power, their troubles will worsen.”

Indeed, the chant of Modi-as-PM that shot up in decibels at an all-India meet of the BJP in New Delhi in early March set the cat among the pigeons. Until then, the Muslim electorate across India was widely disenchanted with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for unkept promises in its nine-year-rule. They were miffed as the UPA has failed to introduce reservations for them in jobs and educational institutions, a pre-election promise. They were also angered by the sudden hanging in February of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri who had been on death row for years after being convicted as a conspirator in the 2001 Parliament attack. Muslim leaders have long slammed the Congress for what they see as its failure to improve the Muslims’ lot after a panel led by former Delhi High Court Chief Justice Rajinder Sachar reported in 2006 that Muslims were one of India’s most neglected social groups in terms of education, employment, poverty and health.

Disappointment has also been rife among the Muslims at the refusal of the Congress-led UPA to declare the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), the premier Muslim educational institution set up in the 19th century, a minority institution as the Muslims have long demanded. “AMU had hoped Congress President Sonia Gandhi would make the announcement in her telephonic address at the university’s last convocation,” says political commentator Hafiz Nomani. “But she referred to such a major issue only in passing.” But with Modi’s name to the fore, the foremost concern among Muslims now is to stop the BJP from returning to power in New Delhi at any cost. …

http://tehelka.com/the-modi-card-and-the-muslim-ace/

SEE ALSO:

• On Modi’s Social Engineering – By Subhash Gatade (Mar 1, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/gatade010313.htm
• Decoding Modi mania – By Kancha Ilaiah (Mar 24, 2013, Asian Age)
  http://www.asianage.com/columnists/decoding-modi-mania-295
• The Theatre Of Hindutva – By Vidya Bhushan Rawat (Mar 5, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/rawat050313.htm

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Our Keystone Cops – By Sagarika Ghose (Mar 12, 2013, Hindustan Times)

When in doubt about a terror investigation, blame the most readily available Muslims. Within days of the Dilsukh Nagar blasts in Hyderabad on February 21, the police announced the suspects were the Indian Mujahideen (IM), that its founder Riyaz Bhatkal was the possible “mastermind”, and that ‘Imran’ and ‘Maqbool’ had recced the area. In the same week as the names ‘Bhatkal’, ‘Maqbool’ and ‘Imran’ swirled around in the media, two youths, journalist Muthi-ur Rahman Siddiqui, also once dubbed “mastermind” in a terror conspiracy by the media and DRDO scientist Aijaz Mirza were released after six months in jail. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) admitted it could find no evidence against them. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde was made to apologise by the BJP for his remarks on saffron terror. But the Opposition did not ask the home minister to apologise for the wrongful arrest of two young men.

Why? Because they are Muslims? Why one set of standards for “saffron” terror and another for “Islamist” terror, when repeated pious declarations are made that terror has no religion? Across the country scores of young Muslim men are being jailed and tortured for their alleged links to terror. The police are invariably unable to muster clear evidence except vague theories, the cases are thrown out by the courts and the security agencies are forced to let the youths go. Imran Syed, a Hyderabad student arrested for the Mecca Masjid blasts in 2007, given third degree torture and electric shocks, was accused of spending 10 years training as a terrorist in Pakistan. Since Imran was 22 at the time of his arrest, it would mean that he had run away to Pakistan to become a terrorist at the age of 12! After 18 months in jail, Imran was acquitted.

A caricature narrative is born from a paranoid imagination. Sheer communal prejudice and a copycat “war on terror” mentality on the part of keystone cops busily chasing bearded look-alikes of Osama bin Laden in India’s galis and mohallas, is leading to the bizarre phenomenon of hundreds of arrests yet no stoppage to the low intensity blasts in tiffin boxes or on bicycles. Why have the Andhra Pradesh Police not been able to successfully investigate, bring to trial and secure a conviction in the many blast cases that have taken place in Hyderabad? Social prejudice and religious discrimination must be separated from terror investigations. The police must resist the temptation to jump the gun, arrest Muslims and announce names of suspected groups within hours of a blast to satisfy the ‘patriotic’ media.

So far, with the exception of additional sessions judge Vijendar Bhat’s scathing denunciation of police conduct in terror cases in February 2011, the courts have not reprimanded investigative agencies strongly enough. It is a positive sign that the NIA has developed a culture of admitting it was wrong. But generally, there is an inability on the part of the police to be patient about collecting evidence carefully and painstakingly over a period of time. Who are these ‘terrorists’ who bomb India’s marketplaces without any stated objectives or demands? The Irish Republican Army had a stated objective to throw out English occupation of Ireland. …

When terrorists are anonymous and refuse to indicate why exactly they are repeatedly bombing markets, the police must proceed only on the evidence they are able to collect from the site and through patiently gathered intelligence about other such blasts. Unless there is a clear separation of community from terrorist, unless a community-specific line of investigation is given up in favour of a hard-headed evidence-specific line of investigation, India’s mysterious urban bombers will never be caught. …

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/1025380.aspx

SEE ALSO:

• ‘State Is Biased Against Muslims, Dalits, Farmers’ – Naveen Soorinje with Imran Khan (Mar 25, 2013, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/i-think-jail-was-a-gift-from-the-police-for-me-says-journalist-naveen-soorinje/#
• National Muslim strategy: We need to change the gear – Dr Syed Zafar Mahmood (Mar 15, 2013, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2013mar15/national_muslim_strategy_we_need_change_gear.html

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Mini Scams Dot The Cauvery – By Imran Khan (Mar 30, 2013, Tehelka)

Not many Bengaluru citizens are aware of the damage that mini hydel projects are causing to the city’s water supply. A string of projects cleared by the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd (KREDL) has not only ruined the ecology of some of the most sensitive areas in the state, but also threatens to undermine the water supply from the Cauvery river to the city. Now, armed with the recent Karnataka High Court judgment on the ban of mini hydel projects in the Western Ghats, activists want to challenge KREDL’s decision to allot 74 such projects in the Cauvery basin. It was recently reported that “following the drastic fall in the water level in the Shiva Balancing Reservoir, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board has asked the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (KPTCL) and Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd (KPCL) to stop power generation from four mini hydel projects in the Cauvery basin at least till May”. These are located at Madhavamantri, Satyagala, Shiva Anicut and Shimsha.

However, KREDL has allotted 74 mini hydel projects in the Cauvery basin, apart from the 24 projects that have already been commissioned, most of them downstream Krishnaraja Sagar Dam. Some of them are downstream from the Shiva Anicut from where water supply is routed to the capital city. “Besides the decrease in water availability, water stored by several mini hydel projects also increases the evapo-transpiration rate of water, particularly in the summer,” says Parineeta Deshpande-Dandekar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, an informal collective of organisations and individuals working on water-related issues. “These projects also hold back water, critically affecting water supply cycles to Bengaluru and other towns and villages. Last year, similar conditions had occurred in Mangalore where water levels in the Thumbe Dam fell to alarming levels due to mini hydel projects hoarding up water in the upstream.”

Apart from the issue of drinking water, several of these projects are located close to the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. In fact, the 24.75 MW Pioneer Genco project shares a border with the sanctuary. Many of the mini hydel projects are inside reserve forests, and some of them, such as Satyagala and Limbavalli, are known to be impeding the movement of elephants; leading to more human-elephant conflicts. Activists are a puzzled lot, wondering how the Forest Department gave the nod for the projects. Due to their cumulative impact on ecology, the HC has halted construction of any such projects in the Western Ghats. Responding to a PIL filed by Prashant Yavagal and Western Ghats Environment Forums on 27 February, the HC cancelled 12 such projects, as they were located in the ecologically sensitive zones. And the HC has asked the state not to allot any more projects in the Western Ghats.

Under the law, private players are allowed to build and operate mini hydel projects that have a capacity of less than 25 MW. In order to circumvent the stringent law, private firms split one big project into different mini ones. By doing this, they also escape the mandatory Environmental Clearance, Environment Impact Assessment or Public Hearing, which are compulsory for large power projects. There is also an added economic benefit for the private players in splitting the projects. Under the subsidies granted to mini hydel projects, the government purchases power at the rate of Rs 3.40; however, if it is a mega project, then it is bought at just Rs 2.30. Many mini hydel projects have been purposefully split to show them as below 25 MW to get a higher power tariff.

“The difference is causing a loss of Rs 300-400 crore to the state government every year,” says Sanjay Gubbi, a wildlife scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation. “Consumers also end up paying higher tariffs due to this scam.” “While permitting mini hydel projects in the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats, officials hid the fact that there are rare and endangered species in the area,” he adds. Many of the officers TEHELKA spoke to refused to speak on this subject. After initially avoiding our calls, KREDL Managing Director MB Dyaberi said, he doesn’t want to comment on the issue.

http://tehelka.com/mini-scams-dot-the-cauvery/#

SEE ALSO:

• Caste, corruption and romanticism – By Kancha Ilaiah (Mar 22, 2013, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/caste-corruption-and-romanticism/article4534892.ece
• How Pharma Giants Use Litigation To Evade Fines – By Shonali Ghosal (Mar 30, 2013, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/how-pharma-giants-use-litigation-to-evade-fines/
• Gloves & Veins – By Chandrani Banerjee (Mar 25, 2013, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?284386

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Aadhaar For Birth, Marriage And Death – By S.G.Vombatkere (Mar 25, 2013, Countercurrents)

Extant law makes it mandatory for every citizen to formally register births, marriages and deaths in the family. A birth certificate is proof of age and a death certificate is proof that a person has died and, for example, his/her name is to be deleted from a Voter’s List. A marriage certificate shows that a man and a woman are legally married, their living together is socially acceptable and their progeny are legitimate. The civic body recording these events issues birth, marriage and death certificates, which are legal, primary civic documents concerning biological persons for identity, legal liability and inheritance, besides other legal, social and welfare purposes.

Government of Delhi (GoD) has very recently announced [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/uid-number-aadhar-scheme-identification-crisis/1/259075.html “With 95 per cent registrations in order, Delhi to soon switch to UID numbers for utility services”] that “[f]rom paying bills to getting a driving licence, Delhiites will soon have to depend on a unique identification (UID) number to avail a host of utility services”. The Chandigarh UT administration had made the UID-Aadhaar number mandatory for registration of motor vehicles and for obtaining driving licences. The order was challenged in the Punjab & Haryana High Court, and was withdrawn. GoD now passing a similar order in ignorance of the Chandigarh case, will result in coercing citizens to enroll for the Aadhaar number or to engage in unnecessary litigation. Demanding an Aadhaar number for transactions (paying bills, driving licence, etc) where the citizen is paying for the service rendered with no loss to the state, is without logical or legal strength – it appears to be a crude ploy to force people into enrolling for UID-Aadhaar.

Administrations appear to be ignorant of the basis of civic documentation, because they are even making the UID-Aadhaar number mandatory for citizens to obtain basic civic documents like birth, marriage and death certificates, as GoD has done. How would a birth certificate be issued in respect of an infant whose parents do not have Aadhaar numbers? How would the death certificate be issued in respect of a person whose death is reported by his progeny if the deceased or his progeny do not have an Aadhaar number? There are other questions, but suffice it to say that birth, marriage and death are the most fundamental events for biological persons, and when responsibly reported to civic authorities as mandated by law, the civic authorities are duty bound to unconditionally register these events. Possession of certificates recording these events are the right of every citizen.

If issue of birth and death certificates are made subject to UID-Aadhaar, it is entirely possible that numbers of people may be demographically excluded because they were not able to obtain those certificates for want of the Aadhaar number. To carry the argument a bit further, if a man and a woman without Aadhaar numbers marry, they will not be able to get a marriage certificate, without which their children will be technically illegitimate. Also, their children will not be able to get birth certificates. Thus, the whole family will become non-persons. In fact, such a couple without a UID number would be well advised to use an IUD or other contraceptive device, and produce no children!

Civic authorities demanding a UID-Aadhaar number (which is not covered by any extant law) as a pre-condition for issue of a primary civic document which is mandated by law, puts bureaucratic ignorance and callousness on display. The political executive which is finally responsible cannot plead ignorance. The coercive mission of UIDAI is being pushed to ridiculous lengths by political-bureaucratic incompetence.

http://www.countercurrents.org/vombatkere250313.htm

SEE ALSO:

• Dangerous for democracy – Editorial (Mar 21, 2013, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/dangerous-for-democracy/article4530365.ece

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Still Faceless in Despair – By Nupur Sonar (Mar 30, 2013, Tehelka)

What do I live for?” asks 14-year old Tuba Tabassum. It’s a muffled utterance but the rage in her voice is palpable. Six months after acid devoured much of her face, every breath is an effort in vengeance. A man threw acid on her face after she rejected his advances. She still vividly remembers the morning she was attacked on her way to school, in her native village in Bihar. Her refusal left her face burning, as the acid ripped through her flesh, eating away her nose and welding her lips together. It dissolved her facial bones, blinding her partially. Six months after the attack, Tabassum now has trouble breathing and swallowing solid food. Once a bright class IX student, the promise of a future now eludes her. Although the accused and his accomplices are behind bars, it is day-to-day survival that is wearing out Tabassum and her family. Due to lack of medical facilities in her village, Tabassum and her father were forced to move to New Delhi, where they have been running pillar-to-post, in an attempt to finance her treatment that costs Rs 30 lakh. Her father now works as a contract labourer in the city, earning Rs 5000- 6000 a month, depending on the amount of work he manages to complete. “Although I don’t have the financial capacity to survive in this city or have my daughter treated, I am here because right now, her treatment is the priority,” he says.

According to a study conducted by Cornell Law School in 2002, India, Bangladesh and Cambodia have the highest incidence of acid attacks in the world. In 2009, the 226th Law Commission report suggested an increasing trend in acid related violence across India. At present, statistics available on acid attacks in India are scattered and inaccurate. It wasn’t until this year that acid attacks were recognised as a specific criminal offence. According to Bengaluru-based NGO Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women 53 cases were reported in 2006. “The numbers that have been reported in the media and cited by studies are skewed and hence fail to draw attention to the gravity of the situation. But what should prompt the State to take action beyond recognising acid attacks as a specific offence in the absence of accurate statistics is the amount of physical, psychological and economical reconstruction that is required for an acid attack victim to survive,” says Madhu Mehra, a Delhi-based lawyer and executive director of Partners in Law and Development, a legal resource group. Another such survivor is Anu Mukherjee, 30. Orphaned at the age of nine, she went on to become a dancer at a prominent hotel in Delhi, managing to build a life for herself and her brother, who was still in school then. A colleague threw acid on her her. Following a lengthy trial, Anu received compensation from the guilty but it did not cover her medical costs, nor did it compensate for the loss of livelihood. For the past 9 years, Anu has been confined to her house in a New Delhi slum and depends on her brother for survival.

Even in the case of Sonali Mukherjee, who was attacked in 2003, and received much media attention, a compensation of Rs 50,000 came in from the government six years after the gruesome attack. Nine years and 26 surgeries later, which cost close to Rs 30 lakh, she still has another 5-6 surgeries lined up this year. Even as the recent amendments to the anti-rape Bill introduces acid attacks as a separate offence with a minimum punishment of 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment and increases the amount of government compensation to Rs 10 lakh, the State needs to devise a plan for medical treatment, counseling and rehabilitation of acid attack victims. The 2009 Law Commission report on acid attacks had proposed the setting up of a Criminal Injuries Compensation and Rehabilitation Board to issue directions to appropriate authorities that would ensure proper medical, psychological and legal assistance to the victims and issue directions for their rehabilitation in consultation with the Centre and the states. The commission’s report was followed by a National Commission for Women (NCW) scheme for relief and rehabilitation of acid attacks victims. The NCW also proposed constituting a Criminal Injuries Compensation and Rehabilitation Board. Four years later, the board is yet to be formed, confirms NCW chairperson Mamta Sharma.

Although there is a scheme for compensation of victims under section 357 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it is only disbursed at the end of trial. “Under the existing government rules, the procedure for obtaining compensation is so onerous that by the time the victim gets the money, it is too little and too late,” says Kirti Singh, former member of the Law Commission. Taking this into account, the Law Commission had recommended that the Criminal Injuries Compensation and Rehabilitation Board should provide compensation immediately without procedural complications. “The government should focus on making amendments and should stop taking suggestions made by welfare bodies so lightly. In most cases, amendments take too long and when they are made, they are inadequate, half hearted and fail to do substantial justice to victims,” she says. So far the Goa and West Bengal governments have cleared compensation packages for acid-attack victims, yet the budgetary allocations of upto Rs 10 lakh and Rs 2 lakh per victim respectively are petty compared to the medical costs incurred by the victims. Other states are yet to follow suit. In the absence of a legislation that guarantees immediate compensation, most victims and their families are left to fend for themselves.

“The definition of justice needs to go beyond the narrow prism of penalty. Justice for acid attack victims should be reparative and compensative,” says Rebecca John, a senior advocate at the Supreme Court. She adds that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board for victims of violence, with acid attack victims as the priority, should have been set up with specific budgetary allocations from the Centre. In Bangladesh, when the instance of acid attacks peaked in 2002, laws that controlled the sale of acid were put in place. Since then, the incidence of acid attacks has gone down by 15-20 percent. The Supreme Court of India has directed all states to devise a policy on the regulation of sale of acid due to its easy availability. So far, only the Tamil Nadu government has introduced a bill to regulate the sale of acid.

http://tehelka.com/still-faceless-in-despair/

SEE ALSO:

• Controversial end – By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta (Mar 23, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300611400.htm

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Social Justice: Atrocities in focus – By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta (Mar 23, 2013, Frontline)

TO help strengthen the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (or PoA Act), the National Advisory Council (NAC) has included several long-standing recommendations to amend the Act in its new policy paper released in mid-February. The proposed amendments are now subject to public discussions. Among the recommendations are the setting up of special courts and exclusive public prosecutors for speedy trials, inclusion of offences such as tonsuring, garlanding with chappals, and social and economic boycott as also the inclusion of a chapter on the rights of victims and witnesses. The NAC has also recommended enhancing compensation commensurate with inflation and expanding the scope of presumption in the crimes.

Considering the varied nature of crimes against the S.Cs and the S.Ts in the last decade and a poor conviction rate, the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), a coalition of Dalit civil rights group, felt that apart from canvassing aggressively for the better implementation of the Act, it was necessary to point out gaps in the Act.

Sirivella Prasad, general secretary of the NCDHR, said: “The emerging trend shows that there is an increase in the quantum of atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis even after the existence of the PoA Act. During the last 15 years (1995 to 2010), a total of 5,58,103 cases of atrocities (4,71,717 against the S.Cs and 86,386 against the S.Ts) were registered in police stations. A rough estimate reveals that around 1.5 crore Dalits and Adivasis were affected by the atrocities in the last 15 years and that the number is increasing at the annual rate of 2.9 per cent. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat cumulatively account for 93.3 per cent of atrocities against the S.Cs.”

He said discriminatory practices against Dalits and Adivasis did not figure in the list of atrocities. “I am glad that the NAC has put such offences up for further public discussion,” he said. He added that some of their recommendations, which would have been important deterrents, were not included by the NAC. “The elements of negligence by government officials, which are not mentioned in the Act now, need to be clearly defined. How do we ensure that a police official registers the case under the PoA and not under ordinary criminal laws?”

http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300612001.htm

SEE ALSO:

• Punctuated Solidarities: Caste and Left Politics – By Balmurli Natrajan (Feb 9, 2013, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://www.epw.in/commentary/punctuated-solidarities.html
• Indomitable spirit – By Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed (Mar 23, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300611200.htm

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