An Aarti From Time, A Brookings Chalisa – By Anil Dharker, Cyrus Guzder, Nandan Maluste, Teesta Setalvad (Apr 2, 2012, Outlook)

Narendra Modi is no doubt a successful politician. There is almost a special kind of luck that accompanies him in the public domain, luck that can be explained in two decisive electoral victories and the attraction that follows such success. He is constantly in the news and a set of those who fear and adulate the man suggest that the more the institutions of justice berate him, the more his TRP soars. News constantly props up the picture of a decisive chief minister. Last week, Time had him on the cover and Brookings Institution had a favourable report on him. There is a curious timing behind these reports. They hint that he is prime ministerial material and that a realistic sense of politics demands that one engage with the emerging Indian future. One can match statistics with statistics to show that Modi’s achievement is exaggerated, that other states have done well or that GNP and GDP could take contrary turns in Gujarat. One can say, for instance, that in the five years between 2004-05 and 2009-10, Gujarat’s per capita income nearly doubled from Rs 32,021 to Rs 63,961. In the same period, neighbouring Maharashtra, the perceived laggard, saw its per capita income grow from Rs 35,915 to Rs 74,027. Several states besides Gujarat have shown double digit growth in their GDP in recent years, and Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have bigger economies. Gujarat now runs a revenue deficit – it spends more than it earns – and its surplus has disappeared. Several other states have improved their fiscal positions meanwhile. Reforms? Five states passed the Fiscal Responsibility Bill before Gujarat did in 2005, and 20 states preceded Gujarat in implementing VAT. Surplus power? Facts on the ground and increasing protests show this to be an exaggerated claim. Human development indicators?

Gujarat lags behind in access to primary and higher education, is high on the percentage of population prone to hunger and starvation, access to fiscal credit among the marginalised is low, girl child schooling shows poor figures. State and central government figures support all this. We think there is also a different way of responding – by asking what is the criteria for decency and well-being? One has to go to the structural roots of the argument, move beyond a gasping portrait of Modi already basking in a future at Lutyens’ Delhi. Time magazine’s two-page picture of Modi on the lawns is suggestive of that. It is as if the props are there, the script is also there, the players are waiting, and all one needs is an auspicious time. The Brookings essay on Modi goes one better and writes him a certificate of good conduct that would help revoke the ban on his US visa. For Brookings, banning a future prime minister would be bad politics. Time cites a social scientist in a preemptive act, a jumping of the gun proclaiming a once and future king before the democratic and legal process is over. Indian courts are yet to assess whether the evidence collected by investigators and assessed by the amicus curiae appointed by the Supreme Court can make out a case to prosecute Modi, his cabinet colleagues, ideologues, administrators and policemen. The charges are criminal culpability to conspire to commit mass murder, subvert the justice process and destroy critical evidence and records.

Why then, we may ask, the unholy haste by Time magazine and the Brookings Institution when courts are seized of the matter, Modi could (or may not) be charge-sheeted for criminal offences, when general elections are nearly two years away? The analysis presented states that Muslims are voting for Modi as the Congress is too weak to do anything for them. The question one has to ask is: Is such a lazy social science enough? Which section of Muslims is voting for Modi? Two, is a vote for Modi a legitimation of Modi or is it a shotgun wedding of a community that is desperate to survive and see that its people still wrongfully locked in jail are released? Anyone who watched the Sadbhavna festival would realise that the Muslims who came were paying court to a king. There was no rapprochement, no forgiveness. If anything, the ritual expressed its distance from Muslim life. The Sadbhavna yatra was more a power game like ancient times where people swore fealty to the lord. The state government, in the ultimate display of control, has refused activists access to accounts of the public monies spent on an autocratic chief minister’s personal agenda. One has to read the metaphors of the Time report. Modi is presented as wearing the white of a penitent embarking on fasts. The writer, Jyoti Thottam, suggests it’s an act of purification, humility and bridge-building. To read Modi’s Sadbhavna fasts in this way insults the idea of fast as a moral weapon and confuses it for a strategic tool. White, anyway, is the most hypocritical colour of politicians. The question one has to ask before one uses words like humility and purity is: What is the moral nature of the act? But Modi should not be seen only a personality. He is a Rorschach inkblot set before society, provoking basic questions. Modi, in terms of civic indicators like investment, rule of law and governance is scoring high. These statistics have been rigorously contested in the public domain, by the Gujarati media, by the opposition, even the state government’s own figures. And what about the CAG reports on Sufalam Sujalam project, the Kutch melas and the public disinvestment scams? A dispassionate assessment exposes the Modi makeover for the brazen public relations job it was meant to be.

And then how does one look at and talk about his institution-building? He has refused to allow the Lokayukta to function freely. He has silenced the bureaucracy with threats, incentives of plum posts, juicy extensions that let senior bureaucrats retain power and visibility. His privatisation of medicine has to be independently assessed in terms of ethics, care, cost and well-being. Ahmedabad, home to at least four universities and some of the finest institutes, still cannot produce a critical debate on him, as many institutes have quietly imposed a gag order on dissenting intellectuals. The Congress, though weak as an opposition, has highlighted a major issue. Land is being bequeathed to major corporations like Tatas and Adanis on easy terms, transforming public lands into private goods. At the Gujarati taxpayer’s expense. The Brookings narrative adds a second halo to Modi. It converts him tacitly from a politician to a statesman receiving courses on climate change and even writing a book on it. Behind both essays is an even more tacit semiotics. It is what we must call the Americanisation of Modi. It creates a political palatability to his reception abroad. Leave aside the American’s love of the Asian dictator with a keen and ready investment plan, there is first the Horatio Alger syndrome, portraying him as a self-made man, as a protestant ascetic, a journey Time portrays in the from-smalltown-boy-to-CEO-of-Gujarat, succeeding without family connections or fancy education. He seems very different from the young Congress elite, with their pampered backgrounds. Unlike other Indians, he keeps his family at a distance.

There is no family coterie hanging around him, unlike around Laloo Prasad Yadav or Karunanidhi or Yediyurappa. The Brookings report then steps in by showing Modi to be a keen student of American politics, wondering whether Indian states can have the sort of freedom states in the United States do. He is entrepreneurly, eco-friendly, and all in all, a global man awaiting his time, open to World Bank reforms and yet a home-grown nationalist. Modi is also presented not just as prime ministerial material but as the Indian answer to China, a note that will play deep into the American and Indian psyche, presenting them a streamlined politician for the future. The question one is asking is not whether Modi is a future prime minister. The logic of Indian electoral politics will answer that. The question is: Where does Modi fit into a vision of decent society in which the minorities and those in the margins have a place, in which dissent has a place? Is Modi’s future a participative future and a pluralistic one? His technocratic credentials are not in doubt, but his vision of democracy needs to be examined. Oddly, Modi might fail by the norms set by his own hero, Swami Vivekananda. Modi has failed to provide a civilisational answer to the crisis of Gujarat. Investment and development, even with the distorted statistics bandied around, are poor substitutes for such a vision. In Americanising him, the reports reveal the modernist flaw deep within his programme.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280343

SEE ALSO:

• Method in madness – By R.B Sreekumar (Feb 28, 2012, Deccan Chronicle)
  http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/west/method-madness-450
• Low Morale of Gujarat Police Needs Remedial Action – By R.B Sreekumar (Mar 19, 2012, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/sreekumar190312.htm

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Kafkaesque ordeal? – By T.K. Rajalakshmi (Mar 24, 2012, Frontline)

An uneasy silence fills the streets of B.K. Dutt Colony near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Named after the revolutionary freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt, who, along with Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929, the nondescript colony has been in the news with the arrest of one of its residents, who has lived here for the past 11 years. At 11-30 a.m. on March 7, the day after the results of the elections to five State Assemblies were announced, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police whisked away Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi, 50, a journalist with more than 25 years of standing, as he emerged out of the India Islamic Centre in New Delhi. Kazmi coordinated personality development and communication skills activities of the Noble Education Foundation there. An accredited journalist and a former Urdu newsreader with the government broadcaster Doordarshan, he was arrested for his alleged role in the “sticky car bomb” incident at Aurangazeb Road in New Delhi on February 13, wherein the wife of the Israeli Defence Attach� in India and two others were injured. Preliminary investigations had shown that the blast was caused by a magnetic device stuck to a car. Kazmi was tagged a conspirator in international terrorism, booked in a case of non-bailable offence under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and remanded in police custody for 20 days. The arrest of a senior and respected journalist like Kazmi under a stringent law drew widespread reaction from within and outside the journalist fraternity. He wrote regular columns in leading Urdu newspapers such as Al-Ahmeen, Sahafat, Milli Gazette and the Rashtriya Sahara Urdu. He is proficient in Arabic, Urdu and Persian. He also has a Master’s in geography and Persian and has studied mass communication. His first foray into journalism was as an operator with All India Radio in 1988. His multilingual skills landed him a job later with a popular news programme on Doordarshan, where he worked with veteran journalist Saeed Naqvi.

In 1990, Kazmi joined Media Star News and Features. Three years later, he was reading Urdu news on Doordarshan. In 1999, he travelled to the United States along with other senior journalists. In 2002-03, the then Director General of Doordarshan was keen that Indian journalists should cover world affairs. As a result of this, some of them, including Kazmi, got postings in West Asia. In this period he interviewed Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress and former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq. In 2002, the Iraqi government invited him along with several journalists to that country. Those who travelled with him recall that in Amman, where the team, which included a Congress Member of Parliament, was to travel by road to Baghdad, the Jordanian intelligence, Mukbarat, interrogated Kazmi, after it mistook him for an Iraqi agent. He was thoroughly rattled by that incident. He covered the Gulf war for Worldview India, a programme that Saeed Naqvi had started on Doordarshan. While he was covering the war, the Iraqis once mistook him to be an American agent. Kazmi also had brief stints with the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA, the state news agency of Iran. “He was friendly with everybody and his Iranian connections were well known. He used to attend press conferences at the Israeli embassy too,” said a journalist. “He had contacts in Najaf and Teheran, and recently he was invited, along with several other journalists, to Syria,” Saeed Naqvi told Frontline. He said Kazmi should have been considered an asset by the Indian government as he would have put them across to several people in Iran.

Kazmi visited Syria twice in the recent past. He was able to dig out information that did not fit in with the image of Syria that had been created by reports in the Western media, said a journalist. “International wars are being fought today in the media. The Indian media were not there and Kazmi, because of his contacts and his language skills, was able to penetrate areas and uncover issues that were not easily visible,” said a journalist who knew Kazmi closely. One of his visits to Syria was a week after the “sticky bomb” incident. He went there along with a team of reputed journalists on an invitation from the Syrian government. Like several other individuals, including Muslim and non-Muslim journalists, he held passionate views on the Palestinian issue and was critical of the imperialist interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Libya and Syria. Upon his return from Syria recently, he was singled out and detained by immigration officials. He was very upset, a journalist recalled. As was his normal practice, Kazmi was returning home for lunch and to offer namaz when he was arrested. A devout Muslim, he was not apologetic about his religious beliefs. In fact, on the day of the car bomb blast on Aurangazeb Road, he was on Akbar Road, protesting against an alleged land-grabbing incident involving the Shah-e-Mardaan shrine located near his home. The shrine was revered by Shia Muslims; it was not unnatural for Kazmi to take part in such a protest. “My father asked us not to do anything that would put oneself or the family to shame. Do you think he is the kind of a person who would do something like this?” asked his 18-year-old son, who was appearing for his 12th Class board examinations. The youngster was distraught at the manner in which the authorities treated his father.

Meanwhile, reports were being planted in sections of the media that Kazmi had “admitted” to his guilt. This was after the spokesperson for the police clarified that Kazmi was not directly involved in the attack. He was instead accused of providing logistical support to the main suspect, apparently a motorcyclist who attached the magnetic “sticky bomb” to the car of the Israeli embassy staffer. The man’s whereabouts have remained mysteriously unknown. The police told a local court where Kazmi was produced that the attack was a case of international terrorism and that the conspiracy was hatched outside India. Interestingly, for an attack in which there were no fatalities, the Delhi Police were seen working very hard. That there was immense international pressure to make arrests and produce results was not lost on anyone. Only last month had Israel accused Iran and the Hizbollah of having engineered two bomb attacks targeting Israeli embassy staff in Georgia and Israel. Serial explosions in Bangkok around the same time, in which an Iranian was killed, were also linked to Iranian terrorism. The Delhi Police have maintained that the Delhi and Bangkok blasts are unrelated. Born in a family of poor farmers in Dholri village in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, Kazmi was the only one among his 10 siblings to have made it big in life. “He struggled a lot, but he was determined to give us a good education,” his son told Frontline. Both his sons were born in Delhi. The family had earlier stayed at Welcome Colony in Shahdara, East Delhi, an area not known for being upmarket. The unassuming dwelling in a narrow lane in B.K. Dutt Colony too speaks volumes about a family that came up the hard way.

His elder son broke down like a child while addressing a press conference in Delhi. In normal circumstances, the 23-year-old, who has completed a Master’s course in Business Administration, would have been looking for a job rather than addressing press conferences or signing arrest memos. “My brother had not got the kind of exposure to a relatively better environment as I did. I studied in Shahdara for only a few years before our family shifted to B.K. Dutt Colony,” said the younger son, who is studying in a well-known public school in the locality. The question was why Kazmi would jeopardise all of this, especially his future and that of his children. Uncertainty looms large in the Kazmi residence. The family is yet to get over the shock at the manner of his arrest. The family members told Frontline that they panicked when there was no news from him until 9-30 p.m. on March 7. His phone was switched off. Soon, a posse of plainclothes policemen came to the house with Kazmi. “I was studying for my examinations in the room on the ground floor when I heard some voices. I thought my father had returned. I went upstairs. I saw my father along with some people. I initially thought they were my father’s friends. They were looking for something. My brother was out. I asked them, ‘Uncle, what are you doing?’ My father then said that they were policemen and that they were making inquiries relating to issues involving Israel and Iran and that he would be back soon. The policemen who were seven or eight in number began randomly searching the house. They took away all his original documents, including his PIB [Press Information Bureau] card, passport, two laptops, a CPU and two cellphones, including one belonging to my mother,” he said. … When contacted by Frontline, Rajan Bhagat, spokesperson for the Delhi Police, declined to say anything relating to the Kazmi case.

http://flonnet.com/fl2906/stories/20120406290603600.htm

SEE ALSO:

• Why no CBI probe into murder of family in Madhya Pradesh? – By S. Viswanathan (Mar 26, 2012, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/Readers-Editor/article3223237.ece
• Lawyers’ strike – By Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed (Mar 24, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2906/stories/20120406290603900.htm

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When leaders play game of thrones – By Rana Ayyub (Mar 31, 2012, Tehelka)

Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s rebellion and the ongoing face-off is symptom of a much deeper crisis within the BJP and the RSS. And the man feeling the most heat on this is party chief Nitin Gadkari. In itself, the Yeddyurappa decision is tricky enough for the party. BSY – as he is referred to – is not a quintessential RSS man and is not very rooted in its Hindutva ideology. However, as is commonly known, the former chief minister is a powerful Lingayat leader and was highly instrumental in the BJP coming to power for the first time in a southern state. He also has the support of several influential mutts. Further, though the Lokayukta’s corruption charges against him proved to be a huge embarrassment, his capacity to generate money for the party’s coffers had many pragmatic uses. With the high court quashing the FIR against him, his demand to be reinstated as chief minister is very difficult to ignore. His show of strength – 70 MLAs stacked in a hotel room – add greater urgency to that demand. However, the decision whether Yeddyurappa is to be reinstated is not entirely contingent on the dynamics of Karnataka alone. The incumbent Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda is deemed to be a financially honest but a highly ideological man. He flaunts his RSS moorings unabashedly and, in an unprecedented move for a sitting chief minister, he recently attended a public meeting in the RSS signifier of white shirt tucked into khaki shorts (Read Hindutva 2.0 by Rana Ayyub, 25 February.)

Who the RSS eventually chooses to bet on will reflect the answer they pick to a bigger riddle the Sangh Parivar is grappling with: what is the correct strategy in the run-up to the crucial Assembly elections in Gujarat this year, Karnataka next year and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls? Is it to be “development” or the old Hindutva line? Which is likely to pay better dividends? This was the core discussion in the three-day Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha of the RSS held over 15-17 March in Nagpur, under the aegis of RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat and his second-incommand Bhaiyyaji Joshi. Sources say Gadkari, who was summoned to brief the chiefs, came out none the wiser. No one in the party or indeed the RSS brass, is clear about what line to take. (The new mantra, if there is one at all, is “corporate Hindutva”.) A concept that has played well in Gujarat, a state that too has had its glaring share of contradictions. While the RSS tried to send in a strong signal to Narendra Modi over his defiance in not campaigning in Uttar Pradesh, the Sangh mouthpiece didn’t waste time in lauding him recently for his model of governance in Gujarat after the UP election. Gujarat and Karnataka (both states where Hindutva has been the core of governance) will be the litmus not just for the BJP, but more for the Sangh. In Gujarat, the Sangh, for now seems to have taken its call, by giving Modi a free hand.

In Karnataka, Gadkari has been given a juggler’s task. He has to placate BSY with the promise of making him election in-charge of the state and bringing in a deputy chief minister or in the worst situation for the RSS, make him or let him have a say in the CM’s position. At the same time, Gadkari has to keep Gowda in his seat and also open lines to the opposition JD(S), so that, in the event that Yeddyurappa breaks away from the BJP, the JD(S) can help maintain the numbers to keep the party in power. People close to Gadkari say neither he nor the RSS know what their own larger agenda is. Apparently, Gadkari even offered to wash his hands of the issue and step down out of sheer frustration but the RSS declined. In a sense, the older guard in the BJP is enjoying Gadkari’s consternation. The decision to make 54-year-old Gadkari the charg� d’affaires of the party in December 2009 was met with stunned silence by senior party functionaries. But an adamant RSS had cracked the whip on senior leaders LK Advani and Jaswant Singh and put to rest all speculation. The man at the top had to be their boy. There were rumblings in the party ranks. How could a man, who was himself chieftain of a warring faction in Maharashtra, glue together an already fissured party? But the RSS believed Gadkari had the answers. He was low-key, rooted, and spoke the correct mix of development and corporate wooing, while retaining his Hindutva core.

CIRCA 2012, however, much of that has changed. The election results in four states have not been encouraging for the party. In UP, particularly, its number of seats has come down. Gadkari is being forced to take the rap for all of this. It was under his instruction, prompted of course by the RSS brass, that Sanjay Joshi, Modi’s bete noire, had been made election in-charge of UP. Clearly that had worked no magic. Now in Karnataka, he has the unenviable task of facing down BSY, who was once his friend. He had invited BSY to Nagpur for an interaction with senior leaders but the Karnataka strongman did not show up. Three weeks ago, while Gadkari was visiting the state, he had to face a rather defiant BSY. An embarrassed Gadkari sent a strong warning to Yeddyurappa when he said at a meeting, “Those who wish to do business with the Reddy brothers can take a sabbatical from politics. Right now, we need people to work for the party.” However, as soon as he walked out of the meeting, he told the media that all is well with BSY. “Yeddyurappaji is a popular leader and will be given a suitable position,” he said. “Sadananda Gowda will continue to be the CM.”

This has, of course, not stopped BSY’s friends and followers in the state, including Energy Minister Shobha Karandlaje, indirectly referring to Gowda as ‘Mir Sadiq’ (Mir Sadiq had betrayed Tipu Sultan by siding with the British). However, the Karnataka crisis is only the face of another larger gameplay in the party. The RSS seems keen to clip the wings of the warring senior guard. The recent nominations for the Rajya Sabha are a case in point. Kirit Somaiyya and Ram Naik from Maharashtra, who are known to be close to Advani, were not nominated. Neither was SS Ahluwalia, who is close to Sushma Swaraj, given another term. Instead, Gadkari, alias the RSS, picked Ajay Sancheti, even though he is implicated in the Adarsh Housing Society scam, where it appeared his driver had owned a flat. “What’s the point of holding Gadkari responsible for all this?” asks a senior party leader. “He’s the goongi gudiya (dumb puppet) of the BJP. He’s just following the orders of the Sangh.” What’s hanging in the balance this week, therefore, is not just the fate of Gowda and Yeddyurappa, but Gadkari himself, the BJP and the RSS’ comeback.

http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne310312Leaders.asp

SEE ALSO:

• Election shocks – By Kanchan Chandra (Mar 24, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2906/stories/20120406290600400.htm
• The Citrus Blight – By Saba Naqvi, Sugata Srinivasaraju (Apr 2, 2012, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280340
• Whither identity politics? – By Kanchan Chandra (Mar 24, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2906/stories/20120406290602100.htm

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Student, Activist, Naxalite? Framed! – By Imran Khan (Mar 31, 2012, Tehelka)

The story of Vittala is uncannily similar to Lingaram Kodopi. On 10 September 2011, Kodopi, a tribal journalist from Chhattisgarh, was arrested and falsely accused of being a Maoist. Vittala’s story is no different. The 22-year-old tribal, a first-year student of Mass Communication and Journalism from Mangalore University and his father were arrested from their house by the elite anti-Naxal force (ANF) of the Karnataka Police on charges of aiding Maoists. Son of a farmer and a Malekudiya, a Scheduled Tribe community in the Western Ghats, Vittala is the only member from his community to have carved a name for himself in the world outside the jungles. How a young educated Adivasi could become a threat to Indian democracy is an intriguing account of presumptions and half-truths. Vittala’s present predicament dates back to 2009, when DYFI leader Muneer Katipalla and a group of mediapersons from Mangalore had visited the Kuthloor hamlet, 60 km from Mangalore, to do a series of stories on the plight of the Malekudiyas. The young tribal had then assisted the group, helping them trek through thick foliage. Impressed by his earnestness to study, Muneer and a few journalists decided to fund his education and help him go to college – a dream that came crashing down on 3 March when Vittala and his father were booked by the ANF for allegedly helping the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). His brother Purushottam, 19, is absconding. All three were charged with waging a war against the State; an offence that carries a maximum punishment of death. “The case against Vittala is completely fabricated,” says DYFI leader Muneer. “He was working for the empowerment of the Malekudiyas, making them aware of the administration’s misleading packages for eviction. This led to his arrest.”

The Malekudiyas inhabit part of the Kudremukh Wildlife Sanctuary. As part of Project Tiger, the tribals are being relocated from the sanctuary land to avoid human-animal conflict. While 20 families have accepted the relocation package of Rs 10 lakh and moved out of Kuthloor, the remaining 40 are resisting relocation. According to Vittala’s mother Honnama, 45, on 2 March around 6.30 pm, the ANF barged into their house and started beating up her husband Linganna, 50, who fractured his ankle. Vittala was visiting his relatives during that time. When he was informed of what had happened, he immediately rushed home. “Since it takes two hours of trekking through the jungle, he could reach home only the next morning,” says one of Vittala’s journalist friends on condition of anonymity. “We didn’t expect him to get arrested.” Vittala and his father have been booked under Sections 10 and 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and under Sections 34 and 121 of the Indian Penal Code. During the search of the house, the police claims to have found handbills, paper cuttings on Naxal issues, binoculars and other related materials. “The binoculars recovered from him were purchased four years ago during the Laksha Deepotsava festival in Dharmasthala,” says Vittala’s friends. “The handbills were of DYFI programmes and other than that, the police recovered 250 gm of tea and sugar from his house.”

Earlier in 2005, a study by the Samajawadi Adhyayana Kendra (Centre for Socialist Studies), Bengaluru, on the socio-economic problems in the Naxal-affected Malnad area, had concluded that feudalism and economic disparity, which gave rise to Naxalism in other states, are not found in the Malnad area. The area covers the western and eastern slopes of the Western Ghats mountain range and portions of Shimoga, Chikkamaguluru, Uttara Kannada, Hassan and Kodagu districts. The study cautioned about the apprehension among forest dwellers, especially the Malekudiyas, about not being allowed to collect forest produce and getting evicted from wildlife sanctuaries. Naxalism grew in Malnad on the issue of eviction. The Maoist party (then People’s War Group) under Saketh Rajan conducted a survey in 2000 to assess whether conditions in the Western Ghats were conducive to Naxals. SOCOMA (Social Conditions in Malnad, Karnataka), as it came to be known, found that forest coverage allowed the group easy access to the region. But over the years, the movement has declined to the point of almost disappearing, especially after the death of Rajan in 2005. “The actual number of Naxals in this area is not much,” says IGP Alok Kumar, head of the anti-Naxal force in Karnataka. “There are no real issues in Karnataka for them to take a strong ground.” Echoing similar sentiments, Muneer says, “Naxals have lost steam. There are no takers for the movement among the Adivasis. Then, why is the ANF unnecessarily creating problems by harassing innocent people?”

As a student with Mangalore University, Vittala had joined the SFI and later became the state committee member of the Budakattu Adivasi Samavesha Samithi, a tribal wing of the CPM that fights for the rights of Dalits and Adivasis in this region. The government and the police are wary of the possibility of a movement against Project Tiger under the banner of the samithi. But, does that justify Vittala’s arrest? In what can only be described as a shocking violation of the landmark Supreme Court judgment of 2011, in which the apex court had ruled that membership of a banned organisation by itself is not a crime, the FIR against Vittala seems to rest on flimsy evidence. “The news came as a shock to me,” says Wahida Sultana, Chairman of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, Mangalore University. “During the time he studied here, we found nothing to suggest that he had any sympathy for the Maoist cause.”

However, Mangalore IGP CH Pratap Reddy says that even though the movement has lost its popular support, the area has strategic value for the Maoists to conduct training programmes and to ease mobilisation of troops from other states. “We arrested Vittala based on the inputs we received from the intelligence wing and the ANF,” says Reddy. “The local police is investigating the case. We are not denying he is a journalism student, but we are acting based on credible intelligence.” Vittala’s friends in the media and civil rights activists say that he has been framed. A friend working for an English daily laments that even if he is given a clean chit by the police, the stigma of being a suspected Maoist will ruin Vittala’s future. “He didn’t want to be just another farmer or hunter. Even if he comes clean, who is going to give him a job now?” As Vittala finds the needle of suspicion pointed towards him, a strong case could be made for the manufactured truth of the charges against him. Meanwhile, the ambitious Adivasi waits for justice.

http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne310312Student.asp

SEE ALSO:

• Maoist in the net – By Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay (Mar 24, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2906/stories/20120406290604100.htm
• Why is this woman still in jail? – By Tehelka (Mar 31, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne310312JUSTICE.asp

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Koodankulam: Police Forces Withdrawn But PMANE Vows To Fight On – By Jeemon Jacob (Mar 24, 2012, Countercurrents)

The Tirunelveli district administration has decided to withdraw police forces from Koodankulam after the Madras high court ordered officials to reinstate supply of milk, water and power to Idinthakarai. However, leaders of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) insist that the struggle will continue. “We welcome the government’s decision to withdraw the police forces. But they were forced to do it after the high court order. We will continue our struggle till they shut down the plant,” says PMANE leader Pushparayan Victoria, who is among those observing a hunger strike.

Earlier, the state government informed the high court that there were no oppressive measures or government-sponsored sanctions against those living in Idinthakarai, the epicentre of the anti-nuke struggle. After the high court order, Tirunelveli District Collector R Selvaraj directed the police to withdraw its personnel. “We have scaled down the forces after reviewing the situation. We can position the forces within short notice in case of emergency,” Selvaraj told TEHELKA.

A government official told TEHELKA that the district administration was left with no choice after the high court order was issued. “We don’t want any negative publicity. If the high court strikes down Section 144 imposed in Radhapuram taluk, we will lose face,” said the official, on the condition of anonymity, adding that the media overplayed the issue and the court took serious note.

Meanwhile, PMANE leaders welcomed the decision of withdrawing the police forces. “We are not waging war against the government. It was the Tamil Nadu government which declared war on the people of Idinthakarai,” said PMANE convener SP Udayakumar. “If they have realised their mistake, we are happy. However, police offensive or repressive measures won’t kill our movement.” Even though the police withdrew forces from strategic locations such as Vairavikinaru and Tsunami Colony, a small force is still stationed in front of the nuke plant.

http://www.countercurrents.org/jacob240312.htm

SEE ALSO:

• The Koodankulam Conundrum – Editorial (Mar 31, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17275.pdf
• The tide rises against Amma – By Jeemon Jacob (Mar 31, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne310312Tide.asp

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The anatomy of a Rape – By Nishita Jha and Others (Mar 31, 2012, Tehelka)

Like last week, each time a woman is raped, there is a peculiar kind of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that stories around it take on. As if the 23-year-old girl who worked for a pub in Gurgaon inhabited another universe. In which these things happen. The precise way in which news of the rape is received by a society and the way it is discussed are often a fairly accurate and disturbing gauge of its people and how they think. Why are the conversations around a rape focussed on the victim rather than the perpetrators? Do we care to know anything about the seven men from Rohtak in Haryana? Why is the way a woman dresses important to this discussion? Or questions raised about women being out at night?

These are the conversations that do come up. The ones that do not are far more disturbing. For those, turn to Nishita Jha’s conversation with a rape victim who was asked repeatedly in court to describe the number of times she was penetrated and the size of the rapist’s erection. Turn also to Brijesh Pandey’s candid conversations with a policeman, and with a village elder of a hamlet in Noida who believes that if a couple is dating, then the girl is asking for trouble.

Or Revati Laul’s conversations with the chairperson of the National Commission for Women who believes what a woman wears is not the primary, but definitely an issue in a rape. All of these conversations dovetail into one large question underlying this special report – when will we change the way we talk about rape? The woman in Gurgaon and thousands of others who have been raped know something we don’t. If we continue to talk the way we do, we are all part of the ugly anatomy of rape and changing our conversations around it is the only way it can actually begin to change.

http://tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne310312spLanding.asp

SEE ALSO:

• Dignity is her birthright – By Prabha Sridevan (Mar 24, 2012, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3207094.ece

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