A slap that failed to stir the nation

The day Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar received ‘the slap’ I and Sharad Joshi were speaking at a national conference of farmers in Haridwar. A little after lunch, Swami Ramdev walked in to take his seat on the dais and expressed his apologies for being late. He said he was late because he had got busy responding to media questioning on the thappad.

The moment he gave out the news of the ‘the slap’ there was a round of applause. I think the clapping and cheering that followed was louder than the applause any one of us had received during and after our presentations. Meanwhile, the stream of messages on my mobile seemed never ending. My twitter too was flooded with congratulatory messages. I am aware that howsoever we may strongly condemn the incident, which was the politically correct thing to do, the fact remains that there was a sense of jubilation all around.

For a country reeling under an unprecedented price rise, corruption and economic policies that benefit only 1 per cent of the population, ‘the slap’ was an expression of the simmering anger and increasing frustration. While the more daring have picked up the gun (in the Maoist-affected areas) against the inequalities being continuously perpetuated with impunity, the liberal and the educated in the urban centres too are getting restless. I agree with Shobha De when she says ‘this is not about Sharad Pawar. He just happened to be the man at the receiving end of the most recent slap’.

Please do not get me wrong. I am not advocating throwing shoes to be a democratic form of dissent. But at the same time, I want you to think, and think deeply, as to why this democracy finds nothing disturbing when farmers kill themselves in order to draw the attention of powers that be to their plight. Such arrogance and indifference in a people’s democracy can’t go on for long. “The slap’ and the chappal cannot be simply dismissed as the work of a mentally unstable person. It is an expression of growing anger among the masses. Let us not wait for an Arab spring to force the Indian democracy to truly respond and represent the people. It is a question of the forgotten 99 per cent. #

Devinder Sharma in Ground Realities. Here.

Who cares for innocents languishing in jails?

Have the political parties of India given up morality and humanism? Did any honourable Member of Parliament raise his powerful voice against the indefensible but ever-continuing incarceration of young Muslim boys, charged with enacting Malegaon, Ajmer, Hyderabad and Samjhauta Express blasts?

Did any TV channel organise any meaningful talk-show on the redundancy of criminal cases, needlessly destroying careers of Muslim youth in various jails?

Are the State Home Ministers of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh cocksure they will not have to, at the end of the day, hang their heads in shame before the nation in this regard?

What does the law say on the subject in concrete terms? Is this being misused by the morbid minds?

Cannot the Supreme Court, the last ray of hope of the hopeless, take notice on its own as it does in some cases to right a grave and grievous wrong to the principal minority of the country?

TALE-TELL CONFESSIONS

Pragya with senior BJP leaders

After tale-tell confessions, in addition to misleading statements as well, by Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit, Ms. Pragya Singh Thakur and Swami Aseemanand, detention of the Muslim accused appears to be utterly unjustified to the minority leaders, opinion makers, whistle blowers and social activists. If it is a confusing case, let the State and Central governments remove the cobwebs for the sake of clarity and political ethics. 

Here are a few glimpses of some chilling, real life stories, told not by any idiot but by close relations of the police victims:

“I am Saliha Khatoon from Gujarat, Zahid Sheikh’s sister. He had been accused of 26 July 2008 bomb blasts. The police asked him to come for some enquiry regarding mobile SIM cards. He went on his motorcycle and has not returned since then. My parents want to see him. They saw that he was unable to walk. He was severely tortured. We were allowed to meet him for two minutes only.”

“I am Jamil Msiullah from Malegaon, Maharashtra. I am the elder brother of Shabbir Masiullah. The police arrested my brother at 3:30 a.m. on August 3, 2006 from his house. He was given electric shocks on his private parts and acid was poured on his private parts to make him confess that he was responsible for either the Malegaon or the Mumbai local train bomb blasts.”

“I am Abdul Kareem from Hyderabad. I used to drive an auto-rickshaw before arrest. One day police barged into my house and took me away. I was tortured, hit on the soles and other body parts with a rubber belt. I was asked what I knew about the Hyderabad bomb blasts. I answered I did not know anything. But they were still forcing me either to admit to the crime or to speak about it.”

Not only the parents but the nation as a whole must be taken into confidence by the state governments as well as the central government with regard to use of electric shocks and pouring of acid on the private parts of even the proven criminals. This is a subject that deserves sympathetic consideration of the powers-that-be. 

Does our civilized society approve of it? Does it not run counter to human rights, which we think are enjoyed even by the criminals, proven or otherwise.

INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS

Victims of Malegaon blasts

The above reproductions are from a booklet titled “What It Means to Be a Muslim in India”, brought out by the Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD). 

What a poor, semi-literate, helpless accused can do to sensitise the callous police and the not-so-callous lower level judiciary and administrative officers? Add to it the planned infiltration of communal mindset in the system.

A recently retired Intelligence officer has, not long ago, admitted in black and white: “Hindu link to blasts was ignored at the outset.” To quote him from a story by Josy Joseph from the Times News Network: “... several vital clues that should have prompted us to be far broader in our approach towards those blasts were ignored. We were swept away by the overwhelming opinion in the (security) establishment that only Islamic groups could carry out the sophisticated blasts we saw in Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid.”

Such blasts, he added, were ignored in cases that are now being seen as the handiwork of the Abhinav Bharat network. For example, in the initial days, after the twin blasts in Jama Masjid (on April 14, 2006) we had intercepted suspicious phone calls to an RSS member. But we chose to ignore it.” He added. A senior official pointed out the “environment was so overwhelming” in the belief that only Muslim extremists could carry out terror attacks – “we did not even have discussion on other possibilities.” Mind it: this is from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

UTTERLY ILLOGICAL

Otherwise in each and every democracy, but particularly in a plural polity, justice and even-handedness is a must. What ensures rather strengthens a heterogeneous setup is judicious treatment with various religious, linguistic and cultural segments. The Congress as a party perhaps forgot to look beyond its nose in this regard. Our charge is graver as all the affected States except Gujarat are governed by the Congress Party. See the secularist lethargy on the one hand and on the other observe the systematic plantation by the Rightists of their cadres in various sectors and services. Does the very thought of Muslims blasting the faithful in a mosque during the Friday prayers not run in the face of commonsense? At similar footing rests the case of destruction of a divine’s mausoleum or train carrying Muslims back to their country.

MINDLESS PERSECUTION

But neither at the State level nor at the Central plane, the logic of Muslims killing Muslims appears to be odd. And they continued persuing and prosecuting the innocent Muslim youth. This mindless persecution resulted in legthening the shadows between Muslims and the government, Muslims and Congress and Muslims and other communities. What the Untied States was laboriously popularising after 9/11 that Islam is a terrorist ideology, so are its friends doing in India, official denials notwithstanding.

For what crime Ishrat jahan was murdered?

It is noteworthy that almost each and every fanatic, owing allegiance to the Abhinav Bharat has, direct or indirect, relations with the known fascist outfits.

On the other hand, it is not the case of a few hundred Muslim youth standing between Malegaon and Samjhauta Express. The entire 170-million strong Muslim minority stands in the dock, charged with terrorism not only against the Hindu brethren but against their own co-religionists.

BEYOND ASEEMANAND

Aseemanand

Things would not stop at Swami Aseemanand. Those would go beyond him. The official machinery appears to be acutely conscious of that embarrassing eventuality. Therefore, perhaps they are putting blocks after blocks against the withdrawal of the framed cases and bail to the fictitiously manufactured accused. The less-than-morally conscious officers and their less-than-bold bosses see their political future in keeping the innocent as long as possible in the jails. Inexplicable delay in enquiries, illogical denials of bail and hurdles in the release of the Muslim accused speaks volumes of the nervousness of the bureaucracy. 

ROLE OF SHARAD PAWAR

You must have heard Mr Sharad Pawar periodically vaxing eloquent on the Muslim plight. What you appear to have forgotten is that both at the time of Malegaon and even now the Home Minister of Maharashtra was, and is, from Mr. Pawar’s party, the NCP. At the time of innocent Muslim youths arrest, Mr. Pawar did not raise his little finger. Now when the bail applications of the accused are put forward, they are successfully opposed by police working under the NCP Home Minister. Mr. Pawar, we feel, is doing what an ace politician should, having nothing to do with morality. But what has happened to Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. P. Chidambaram? True, law and order is a State subject and security is more than a state subject. But all this should not be used as a tool to persecute a peaceful minority’s upcoming children, whose careers and future are being destroyed mindlessly. Another question of importance is: will it not raise the level of frustration breeding among Muslims? Is it good for national integration?

Let the all-India Muslim leadership rise to the occasion and hold mirror to the morally weak, myopic, unethical leaders of the country and demand justice for the innocent youth who are suffering for crimes which they never committed.

Dr S Ausaf Saied Vasfi in Radiance Weekly. More Here

A Suresh Kalmadi is an easy target than a Sharad Pawar

There is a Soviet silence on television these days. Beneath the noise of the 2G scam and the chaotic cacophony of Parliament lurks a deeper silence that haunts every minute of every channel. The decision to blank out the murky goings-on involving some of India's top names in journalism is a staggeringly significant one. To be sure, the silence pervades most of mainstream media but leaps out of television strikingly because of its tendency to pounce on stories of this kind. For television channels, otherwise willing to go to any lengths for the sake of eyeballs to collaborate with each other in this way is quite unprecedented, and therefore particularly revealing.

But some facts are undeniable. The authenticity of the recordings have not been seriously challenged. The conversations on record show that senior journalists go way beyond the brief of news gathering into news-making by brokering power. It is quite clear that corporate interests are actively injected into the framing of news coverage. Lobbyists do not seem to plead for favourable coverage but issue instructions to journalists, including senior editors. Which are willingly listened to and in some cases, followed.  And finally, when these facts come to light, almost all of media clamps down and blanks out any coverage whatsoever .
The clarifications issued by those allegedly involved so far have been terse and interestingly, have been largely focused on the internet, which is the only space where one can catch a glimpse of the widespread public outrage. Even here, none of the people concerned allow for any comments to be put on their sites. The attempt is to brazen it out by denying the existence of any problem in what amounts to an Orwellian erasure of the present. What we have here is in effect, a case of media issuing a massive vote of no-confidence in itself and in everything it professes belief in. The desire to pursue the freedom of expression and the public's right to know has evaporated the moment the object of scrutiny is the media itself.

It is important to listen to the recordings and not go only by the transcripts, for the tonality of these exchanges is quite revealing. There is an ease, a feeling of being on the same side that pervades conversations between the media and the powerful. The eagerness to please is evident as is the thrill of being part of the world of such important people.

In the last few years, journalists have become Big People who are most comfortable when dealing with other Big People. It is no coincidence that we have a 'summit' run by a media house that is underway and which carries photographs of ornate looking journalists mingling with the bejewelled power elite –described as 'the who's who enjoying free flowing conversation over a lavish spread of cocktails and sumptuous food'. Of course, this is hardly limited to any one media house — every media organisation worth its name has something similar — an event which is designed to get cosy with powerful people and glamorous celebrities. In a deeper, more fundamental way, the interests of the media and the power elite have begun to coincide. The media today is an exponent of power, rather than a watchdog over those who exercise power as it is a participant in the culture of celebrity rather than its critic.

As a consequence, the media rarely attacks the truly powerful. It uses its power to isolate the vulnerable and trains its guns at them. The really powerful politicians are rarely put to sword and critical stories about the rich are almost unheard of. The interests of a few are looked after and the successful media people in turn lead lives of sponsored magnificence. 

A cozy circle drives the media agenda — we see the same people on all the talk shows and it is no coincidence that a large number of them appear on these tapes. The illusion of media activism is created not by the incisiveness of the reportage but by its shrillness.  

A Suresh Kalmadi is much easier to attack than a Sharad Pawar and it takes no courage to go after Ruchika's molester. By going after easy targets and chasing symbolic issues rather than substantive ones, the media discourse is flattened; the aristocracy of banality flourishes even as it schmoozes with each other.

Whichever way you look at it, there is no justification for the media to black out this controversy. Of course, it must be careful about not casually besmirching the reputation of the individuals involved by ensuring that it uses the highest standards of fairness in its coverage. But to argue that the issue does not merit coverage is untenable. If it feels no reservations about covering sting operations, which are flagrant violations of the privacy of those involved, it can surely not hide behind the privacy fig leaf. If the silence is attributed to wanting to make absolutely sure that the tapes are authentic, then that principle should have been applied in other cases too. Also, no one has seriously challenged the authenticity of the tapes. And if, the silence is part of an unwritten code of protection that the media offers to itself, then it is time to dismantle that pact. Not only because it must treat itself in exactly the same way as it treats others but because it is the right thing to do.

From Santosh Desai's column in Times of India. More Here