The Gujarat Model of Social Welfare – By Archana Prasad (Oct 20, 2013, Peoples Democracy)

The Raghuram Rajan committee on evolving a composite index for the ranking of states categorised Gujarat as a “less developed state.” The state ranked 12th from the top and was surpassed by Sikkim, Tripura and Himachal amongst the other “less developed states” within the index. At the same time, states with similar growth rates like Maharashtra and Tamilnadu were termed as “relatively developed states” in terms of the composite index.

The index has been attacked by the supporters of the chief minister, Narendra Modi, who claim that Gujarat is a model of inclusive development. However, a closer look at the patterns of state intervention in social welfare reveals that the state’s claims of “growth for all” are not entirely true. The evidence presented by researchers as well as recent government reports proves this fact. Recent reports on the state of Gujarat’s social sector indicate that the Gujarat model is based on less investment in the social sector and higher investments in industrial infrastructure. …

As far as Gujarat is concerned, the state ranks 16th in regard to the education sector and 14th in regard to the health sector. The only sector where it can be considered ‘relatively developed’ is in infrastructure (where its ranking is number 6). Given this fact, it is not surprising that every third child in the state is malnourished and that the state has to depend on corporate funded non-government organisations (NGOs) to bring children into schools. Thus the aim of its Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is to subsidise the existing infrastructure of private schools and make “private school education more affordable for poor children.”

Similarly, the PPP model being used in the state provides the framework for subsidising private health services in the state. In both cases, the focus is to spend on infrastructure for the privatisation of social services. This model is compatible with the overall model of corporate growth where social services are being restructured for the benefit of big corporate businesses. …

Thus we can see that the impact of the Gujarat model of development has been very negative insofar as the vulnerable social groups are concerned. This is largely because such a model is largely driven by a restructuring of the social sector for the benefit of corporate enterprises. Such an extreme form of corporate capitalism needs to be opposed and its truth needs to be exposed in order to build up a broadbased campaign against the communalised developmental politics of Narendra Modi and his cohorts.

http://pd.cpim.org/2013/1020_pd/10202013_gujarat.html

SEE ALSO:

• How Modi Sanitises Untouchability! – By Subhash Gatade (Oct 16, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/gatade161013.htm
• The shifting sands of Sangh-BJP relationship – By Prashant Jha (Oct 17, 2013, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/the-shifting-sands-of-sanghbjp-relationship/article5241200.ece
• Love Jihad: From illusory slogan to potent weapon – By Ram Puniyani (Oct 18, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani181013.htm
• Has Congress always been averse to RSS? – By Saeed Naqvi (Oct 19, 2013, Economic Times)
  http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-19/news/43200180_1_rss-rashtriya-swayamsewak-sangh-gurumurthy

[Back to Top]

What Really Happened At Jauli Canal? – By Deevakar Anand (Oct 26, 2013, Tehelka)

Though it is widely believed that the Muzaffarnagar riots started with an attack on a Jat convoy by a Muslim mob on 7 September, details of the preliminary investigations by the police suggest a different narrative. According to the FIRs accessed by TEHELKA, more Muslims were killed in the violence at Jauli village than Hindus. The FIRs registered so far mention the death of only seven persons. Four of them were Muslims. And the only person recorded as missing is also a Muslim. The bodies of the four Muslims were found at the site of violence and that of the three Hindus were fished out from the Jauli canal that runs through the village. Eighty percent of Jauli’s 5,000 residents are Muslims and the canal separates the Hindu and Muslim parts of the village.

On 7 September, a group of Jats were allegedly waylaid by an armed mob of Muslims at Jauli while returning on tractors from the ‘Bahu-Beti Izzat Bachao Jat Mahapanchayat’ at Nangla Mandaur, about 10 km away. More than a lakh Jats had assembled at the mahapanchayat to protest against the alleged “one-sided” police action following the killing of two Jat cousins and a Muslim youth at Kawal village. According to local accounts, the Muslim youth was stabbed to death on 27 August because he was allegedly stalking the school-going sister of one of the Jat cousins. In retaliation, a group of Muslims allegedly beat the cousins to death.

Rumours that a large number of Jats were massacred at Jauli – many of whom were thrown into the canal – led to communal riots spreading across Muzaffarnagar and parts of the neighbouring Shamli district over the next two days, killing 52 and rendering 50,000 homeless. But, according to the FIRs, four Muslims – Latafat, Nazar Mohammed, Salman and Mohammed Nazim – were killed at Jauli, while Nissar from the nearby Kisanpur village went missing. The Hindus killed were Ajay Kumar, Sohanveer Singh and Brijpal Rana. While the details in the FIRs point to a violent clash between two mobs and not a one-sided attack by Muslims, many eyewitnesses and survivors refuse to believe that only three Jats were killed.

Bagesh, a Jat from Jauli told TEHELKA that he had seen an armed Muslim mob hiding in the sugarcane fields near the village. “I was standing on the other side of the Jauli canal when I saw them attack the convoy of around 15 tractors returning from the mahapanchayat,” he says. “The mayhem continued for over an hour. People were killed and thrown into the canal. I cannot believe that only three Jats were killed.” Baba Hari survived the Jauli attack with bullet injuries in his leg. “I was not part of the Jat convoy, but got caught in the violence while returning on a bike from a nearby temple,” he says. “I couldn’t keep an exact count, but I am sure at least a dozen Hindus were killed in the attack.”

However, according to a senior police officer, all complaints of dead or missing persons have been recorded. “It’s been more than a month since the incident but if we receive more complaints, we will register additional cases,” says the officer, who didn’t want to be named. “There was perhaps a major confrontation between people from the two communities. Had there been a one-sided attack by an armed Muslim mob, many more Jats would have been killed. But let’s wait for the SIC (Special Investigation Cell, set up after the riots) to finish its probe and come out with the truth.” A senior officer of the SIC told TEHELKA that what really happened at Jauli on 7 September will become clear only after the investigations are completed. “Our investigation into every riot incident will be based on the facts and not on any of the narratives doing the rounds,” he says.

http://www.tehelka.com/what-really-happened-at-jauli-canal/

SEE ALSO:

• A strange fire – By Ashutosh Varshney (Oct 20, 2013, Indian Express)
  http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/1171477/
• Muzaffarnagar: Post Riot Assessment – Report of Citizens’s Inquiry Team (Oct 15, 2013, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/cit151013.pdf
• Story of two riots – By A.G. Noorani (Nov 1, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/story-of-two-riots/article5233190.ece

[Back to Top]

Lalu’s nemesis – By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta (Nov 1, 2013, Frontline)

The conviction of Lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra, two former Chief Ministers of Bihar, by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court in Ranchi on October 3 in the fodder scam case, opened a Pandora’s box. The verdict not only underlined the increasing criminalisation of politics but exposed the manifold ways in which an ubiquitous but invisible corrupt nexus of bureaucrats, politicians and private contractors works in a State administration. The 700-page judgment of Special Judge Pravas Kumar Singh has become the most pertinent example of how corruption in the legislative and executive bodies is often guided by the business interests of a few individuals.

The verdict is significant as Lalu Prasad, a sitting Member of Parliament, faces immediate disqualification and will be rendered ineligible to contest any election for at least six years. He is the second MP to be disqualified on the basis of the recent Supreme Court order. In a ruling delivered in July, the court struck down Section 8 (4) of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) and mandated that elected representatives convicted of any criminal charge should face immediate disqualification. Section 8 (4) had provided an additional layer of immunity to lawmakers to retain their seats upon conviction if they could appeal to a higher court within 90 days.

Rasheed Masood, Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, was the first MP to be disqualified under the apex court order. Masood was found guilty of fraudulently nominating undeserving candidates to seats in medical colleges across the country when he was Union Health Minister in V.P. Singh’s government during 1990-91. While the verdict quashing Section 8(4) will help raise the level of accountability in the Indian political system, it will also significantly alter the political landscape of Bihar in the coming years.

Lalu Prasad was the Chief Minister of the State between 1990 and 1997. He resigned in 1997 following corruption charges relating to the fodder scam and disproportionate assets cases but continued to be at the helm of affairs until 2005 when his wife Rabri Devi was Chief Minister. Lalu Prasad emerged as a social justice hero during Jayaprakash Narayan’s “Total Revolution” in the 1970s. By the 1990s, he had established himself as a mass leader of a substantial Yadav population in Bihar. By forging a powerful Yadav-Muslim alliance, he ended the dominance of the upper-caste Bhumihar-Brahmin-Rajput-Kayastha alliance in the State’s politics. As is famously held, he gave the backward classes swar (voice) andsamman (dignity). Bihar remained free of communal riots during his tenure. Many observers believe that Lalu Prasad’s political masterstroke was that he united the traditional adversaries, Yadavs and Muslims.

However, rampant corruption and the absence of a sustainable governance model began to take their toll on the State. The high-handedness of Lalu Prasad and his power-hungry family members caused public outrage. It is in this context that the chara ghotala (fodder scam), involving the embezzlement of some Rs.950 crore from the State treasury, was exposed. It was alleged that huge amounts of fodder was shown to be procured for a large number of fictitious livestock over a period of 10 years. While corrupt practices were known to be rampant in his administration, what was shocking about the fodder scam in monetary terms was its magnitude. Since the allegations were against top officials and politicians, including the two Chief Ministers, the case was referred to the CBI in 1996. …

http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/lalus-nemesis/article5229031.ece

SEE ALSO:

• Fodder Scam, Lalu, and the Conviction – By V Krishna Ananth (Oct 26, 2013, EPW)
  http://www.epw.in/commentary/fodder-scam-lalu-and-conviction.html
• Civil resistance – By V. Venkatesan (Nov 1, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/civil-resistance/article5233153.ece
• BPL Cardholding Politician Caught On Camera On ‘Bed Of Cash’ – By Ratnadip Choudhury (Oct 20, 2013, Tehelka)
  http://www.tehelka.com/bpl-cardholding-politician-caught-on-camera-on-bed-of-cash/
• Activist verdicts – By Arghya Sengupta (Nov 1, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/activist-verdicts/article5229019.ece

[Back to Top]

Violence Against Women In India – A Review Of The Popular Mythologies And Their Implications For VAW – By Cynthia Stephen (Oct 15, 2013, Countercurrents)

India’s reputation as a destination for spiritual seekers seems to have faded in recent years. Reputed worldwide to the be the land of the oldest living civilisation, with a rich culture, living tradition, and a climate of ahimsa (non-violence), as exemplified by the struggle against the British colonisers which was almost bloodless, and resulted in the Independent Indian nation on the 15th of August, 1947. A part of this tradition, it is claimed, is revering women in the form of the mother or the goddess. Proponents of this viewpoint cite a verse to the effect that “Where women are worshipped there the gods reside”. But there has always been ample evidence that this was more observed in the breach; that the societal structures discriminated severely against women in all arenas: economic, social, legal, political, personal. The evidence came in the 1970s, in the form of the Report “Towards Equality” – A report of the Status of Women in India. The elite women who formed the study team, set up by the Central Government, were stunned at the disparity between men and women in India. It was in the aftermath of this study, which was prepared for the first UN World Conference on Women in Mexico in 1975, that the government of India began to undertake policy measures and provide funding work among and for women.

Be that as it may, India has now begun to have a reputation for misogyny which appears to be richly deserved. Figures for violence against women across the world continue to alarm. But those for India hit new records in the last couple of decades: a widening child sex ratio, persistent reports of rapes and molestation of women in public, and a justice system that has done little to bring the perpetrators to book. What is the reason for the existence of such persistent, wide-ranging and endemic violence and misogyny against women, of all classes, but especially against the dalits and tribals, in this culture? Could it be the myths and legends that play a strong but subliminal and conditioning role in determining attitudes and behaviours which tend to be misogynistic in nature? Women are supposed to submit silently to any atrocity that any random male chooses to subject them to, whether in public or private. The situation is such that it is almost impossible for women to get redressal for the blatant violations of their human rights. Witness the incident in March 2013 when a girl and her father were beaten up in a police station in Punjab when they went to file a complaint against some young boys who had been subjecting her to unwanted sexual harassment. …

Close to Guwahati, the capital city of the Northeastern Indian state of Assam, is the site of the famous Shakti peeth, the Kamakhya temple. The temple which dates back to the middle of the second millennium, does not have any idol. There is, instead, a hollow depression in the ground, about 10 inches deep, formed where a sheet of stone slopes downward from both sides. It is constantly wet due to a perennial spring and is worshipped as the most important abode of Shakti, the female form of divinity. Another – and later – name for the goddess is Sati. The temple has been a sacred space for centuries, and is an important site for Tantric worshippers. There is a story attached to the temple and its status as a Shakti peeth.[ii] The legend underscores the practice of Tantric – or goddess-oriented worship systems in Eastern and parts of Northeast India. But this area is also known for the practice of “witch hunting” – one of the most vicious forms of public and organised violence against women.

There are other well-known stories in the popular puranas – the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha – which appear to legitimise extreme violence against women, even if they are goddesses or belonged to the families of kings. For instance, Surpanakhi, who is a forest-dweller, expresses attraction to Lakshmana, the brother of Rama, as they are in their forest exile. His response is to “cut off her nose”, which can either mean that he literally chopped her nose off, or be a euphemism for sexually insulting her. The story goes that she was the sister of Ravana, who then planned the abduction of Sita in retaliation for this insult. The outcome of the story does not go well even for Sita, the wife of the Purushottam – the ultimate man – Rama. He too subjects his wife to a test of virtue, in public. She ends up self-immolating her body in protest. The practice of Sati, that is, of the wife being expected to immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband also owes its existence to the story of Sati who also commits self-immolation to protest a perceived insult to her husband by her father. Could this be the subliminal reason for people in India choosing to set themselves on fire almost as a preferred form of committing suicide? A way of demonstrating, by dying in a ‘purifying’ fire, their basic purity of intention and faith? This is a particularly common method of suicide in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu. They even have a special term for it – it is called “Bathing in fire” (Thee kulikkirathu)

From the Mahabharatha comes the wellknown story of Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandava brothers. She is used as a pawn in a game of dice by the eldest of the brothers, ironically known as Dharmaraya – king of dharma or virtue, and loses. The winners, her husband’s cousins and adversaries, take her to the centre of the Kaurava court, and verbally abuse her. Duryodhana attempts to disrobe her publicly. She escapes with her modesty intact by the grace of Krishna: – her saree, while being pulled off by Duryodhana, turns out to be never-ending. Echoes of these practices are still seen in the public disrobing of women from dalit and adivasi groups – both Surpanakhi and Draupadi are said to have belonged to indigenous people groups. Only here, there is no intervention by a divine being to protect their ‘modesty’. Some of the more enduring myths in India have to do with the fight of good over evil. The popular festival, Navaratri or Dasara, or Durga Puja, depending on the region, is celebrated with this theme during the month of October. The central theme is of the goddess, in a martial form, with her multiple arms bristling with weapons, depicted as being victorious over a dark-skinned male adversary on whose body she dances in triumph. In South India, the notable celebration is held in Mysore, where the goddess is known as Chamundi, who triumphs over Mahisa, king of the dark-skinned Asuras – or demons. In fact the name Mysore is a corruption of the name Mahisa. …

http://www.countercurrents.org/stephen151013.htm

SEE ALSO:

• Democracy without equality – By Brinda Karat (Oct 14, 2013, Indian Express)
  http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/1182263/
• The danger behind closed doors – Editorial (Oct 14, 2013, DNA India)
  http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/1903402/editorial-dna-edit-the-danger-behind-closed-doors
• In the name of honour, again – By T.K. Rajalakshmi (Nov 1, 2013, Frontline)
  http://www.frontline.in/social-issues/in-the-name-of-honour-again/article5229025.ece

[Back to Top]

No, Not Good News – By Valay Singh Rai (Oct 28, 2013, Outlook)

Even in disaster, the worst blow has been dealt to an already marginalised group in Orissa. The Hadis are a pig-rearing community and can be found living at the periphery of villages. Seventeen families of this community are the only ones whose houses have been completely destroyed by Cyclone Phailin in the Old Baxapalli village of Ganjam district. They are also the only ones to take shelter in the local primary school. Having lost their meagre food stocks, they are surviving on the generosity of the villagers and the nearby army camp, which has been serving them khichdi every day. They may still have their lives but they have lost everything else they possessed to the cyclone. Yet, till three days after, nobody from the government has bothered to assess their losses. There are single-women households, disabled people and young children who need immediate care and support. Without it, they will be reduced to utter penury, a prospect millions others in Orissa are facing.

True, both the government and the people were better prepared to face the ‘badya’ (as a cyclone is called in Oriya) this time. Ever since the 1999 supercyclone, which claimed 12,000-plus lives, the state had become much more disaster-sensitive. Several NGOs in the state had been running disaster preparedness programmes, working closely with the government and communities, even schools. But that would be half the work done. In Ganjam district alone, 15 lakh people have lost their homes and all their belongings to the cyclone. People in the villages we visit are angry that the government is yet to take note of the damage to their houses, the loss of crop like coconut, cashew, paddy and plantain, or their fishing nets and boats. Srita Nayak, a single mother of three young children, of whom six-year-old Mary is paralysed, is inconsolable. The cyclone made an already bad situation worse for her, forcing her to work as a daily-wager to support herself and her children. For her, it is a disaster.

The situation is no better in Baddanouliyanaugam village, 30 km away and barely 300 metres from the sea. Its residents, almost all of them fisherfolk, left their houses a day before the cyclone struck, but didn’t take shelter in the government-built storm shelter. They went instead to Chhatrapur, the district headquarters of Ganjam. “Have you seen what bad shape it is in? Who’ll stay there?” retorted a villager when asked why they didn’t go there. The villagers returned on Sunday to find Phailin had not spared even a single house. But like elsewhere, the government had made no assessment till the time of writing, even though chief minister Naveen Patnaik had made a quick visit to a neighbouring area. Kammudu and her husband were among those who had left home a day before the cyclone with their two small children and a month-old baby girl whom they have not even named yet. Their meagre food stock is ruined and Kammudu has been feeding her children only chatua and biscuits. According to the local accredited social health activist M. Parvathi, there are 25 pregnant women and 145 young children in this village of 1,700 people.

According to government figures, the crop loss is to the tune of Rs 4,005 crore. Prahlad Sethi, a farmer who owns a four-bigha plot in Venkatraipur village, is desperate because he has lost 90 per cent of his coconut, chiku and plantain crop. “One coconut tree used to fetch me Rs 3,000 annually, now there are only five of them standing; my chiku and mango trees too have been destroyed,” he says. “We have no recourse but to borrow or beg now.” In the same village, 60-year-old Kalagang-amma sits desolately in the veranda of her damaged house. She says she doesn’t have a BPL card and there is nothing to eat in the house. Village after village, it is the same story; people are alive but desperate, having lost their houses and livelihoods. Socially excluded groups like the Hadis, along with women, children and disabled people, are the worst hit.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?288204

SEE ALSO:

• Lessons in preparedness – Editorial (Oct 15, 2013, DNA India)
  http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/1903707/editorial-dna-edit-lessons-in-preparedness

[Back to Top]

Justice delayed and denied – Editorial (Oct 15, 2013, DNA India)

The acquittal of the 26 accused in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre case is the latest in a long line of such verdicts that disempower Bihar’s Dalit population. When applied inadequately, the principles of natural justice can undermine the broader societal justice they are intended to serve, as emphatically as they can uphold it. The Patna High Court’s acquittal of the 26 accused in the 1997 Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre case has thrown that into sharp relief. Certainly, neither the capital punishment awarded to 16 of them nor the life imprisonment given to the rest should have stood if it failed to prove culpability beyond reasonable doubt.

That is the first principle. But the high court’s claim that it failed this test is on shaky ground itself when it comes to the second principle: Nemo judex in causa sua. Let no man be a judge in his own case; in essence, no legal decision should be influenced by any interest or bias. When seen from a broader perspective, those biases become regrettably clear. One such outcome may be happenstance and two coincidence, but when the pattern is repeated as often as it has been, it becomes apparent for what it is. Either actively or via a lack of rigour in enforcing the law, an institutional and political bias in favour of the caste and socio-economic elite has permeated the state apparatus in Bihar.

Consider the statistics. In the span of the past year alone, three similar verdicts have preceded this one with men from the upper-caste landlord militia Ranvir Sena, accused in the Miapur, Nagari and Bathani Tola massacres of Dalit villagers, walking free. This is part of a larger pattern. In the quarter century ending at the turn of the millennium, there were 80 such incidents where Dalits or those affiliated with them were killed. It is no one’s case that retaliatory violence did not take place as well, but the numbers make the skewed balance of power clear: 15 incidents in which upper-caste villagers were killed.

Seen in this context, the Laxmanpur-Bathe verdict underscores the many problems plaguing the treatment of such incidents. The inordinate length of time it takes cases to work their way through the legal system is a common issue across the country, of course; the longer the process, the weaker the prosecution’s case inevitably becomes. There are other, more specific issues as well. Why, for instance, are eyewitness accounts blithely dismissed as unreliable as they were in this instance? Why are trial court verdicts finding the accused guilty so often overturned by the high court? Why are Bihar’s politicians, cutting across party lines, silent, save for token expressions of regret and sympathy and a predictable ramping up of rhetoric when it is time to go to the hustings?

The last is, perhaps, the most troubling. The reality and perception of Dalit political empowerment are an absolute must in a state with a long, violent history of caste conflict centred on land issues. Instead, with moves such as Nitish Kumar’s abolishment of the Justice Amir Das Commission of Enquiry – set up to look into the Ranvir Sena’s links with political parties – soon after coming to power in 2005, the message the political establishment sends is that the state and legal apparatus are out of bounds for Dalits. This is a potentially incendiary mistake. And it is an affront to the victims of Laxmanpur-Bathe and those before them.

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/1903706/editorial-dna-edit-justice-delayed-and-denied

SEE ALSO:

• No One Ever Killed Dalits In Bihar, No Government Ever Cared For Justice – By Jay Mazoomdaar (Oct 20, 2013, Tehelka)
  http://www.tehelka.com/no-one-ever-killed-dalits-in-bihar-no-government-ever-cared-for-justice/

[Back to Top]