In Mamata Banerjee's Bengal - don't ask, don't yell

Shiladitya Chowdhury, arrested for asking questions.

Tilak Chowdhury has just had his worst Indian Independence Day. 

His brother Shiladitya Chowdhury was arrested last week for asking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a few uncomfortable questions about the rise in fertiliser prices at a public rally. In Mamata’s version of democracy that is unacceptable and the poor man is now in jail. But it looks bad to imprison someone over a few questions and perhaps even Mamata knows that, so the “Maoist” label was quickly dusted off and pinned on him. Without the words “Maoist” and “terrorist” what would our police force do?

Tilak watched his brother being led away by the police bizarrely on live television. He and his family have been Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress supporters for years but he said that this is not what he signed up for. “Is this our democracy where we’re not even allowed to speak? We didn’t want this” he said on the phone before bursting into tears.

“How can my brother be a “Maoist” when he has attended a CRPF masonry training? How would he have received a place if he was a “Maoist”? The CRPF or Central Reserve Police Force is primarily responsible for fighting insurgency in India. “They’ve said that my brother was screaming. There were 20,000 people in the crowd. He probably had to, to be heard!”

Tilak desperately needs solidarity in this struggle. When I asked him if other Trinamool workers in his village had come to offer moral support he despondently said that no one had said a thing. “I’m not asking anyone to lie. Just tell people the truth about my brother.”

The police bungling and manipulation in all this is evident again. They arrested him from the public rally but finding nothing, released him. When Shiladitya gave an interview to a TV channel that evening they probably realised he could cause them and Mamata a PR disaster so they promptly came back and re-arrested him the next day, dragging him from his field without a shirt on his back.

What is really dangerous is the way in which the state machinery, the police and the courts have lined up to carry out every one of Mamata Banerjee’s dictatorial whims. From purging libraries of critical newspapers to arresting professors for forwarding cartoons to now jailing farmers for inquiring about rising prices - the only positive element in all this is that she could be digging her own grave and faster the better.

Meanwhile Tilak wants his brother released and is hoping that people will join him in this struggle for his brother’s freedom. You can sign his petition here.

Women’s boxing makes its breakthrough at London 2012

India's M. C. Mary Kom in action at the Olympics

Another all-male bastion was broken into today with the start of the first ever women’s boxing competition at the Olympics and it was a lucky last-minute internet search that revealed two tickets for a place at this historic ringside. My interest in women’s boxing was really due to the belated discovery that an Indian woman from Manipur, Mary Kom, was a five-time world champion in the fly-weight category and a gold medal prospect for the nation.

Mary Kom is from a conflict-ridden and economically depressed part of India that barely registers on the national consciousness. I am embarrassed to admit, I hadn’t heard of her till this wonderful cover story in the Intelligent Life magazine. That’s why when she stepped into the ring and a chant of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” went up amongst her hundreds of Indian supporters, I felt some immediate irritation. Bharat has been screwing around with the 7 eastern states of which Manipur is a part and official Bharat has given Magnificent Mary all but half-hearted support over the years.

So I was much happier just to chant her name “Mary Kom, Mary Kom, Mary Kom.” She had hundreds of supporters in the crowd and the atmosphere was electric. Why the IOC took so long to deny spectators good, solid sporting action in women’s boxing is a mystery.

Mary was shorter than her Polish opponent Karolina Michalczuk, and although she slipped a few times she appeared more agile around the ring. The pair drew equal on the first round, but after that Mary started landing the punches and at the end of round four she won with a final score at 19 - 14 and is now through to the next stage.

The other really exciting match of the day was between the US and UK in the middle-weight category.  

The guitar riffs of Lenny Kravitz’s ‘Are you gonna go my way’ blasted through giant speakers inside the boxing arena accompanying the entry of Quanitta Underwood of the USA. Like the thousands in the crowd, she was pumped up by the music and punched the air with her red gloves.

Then the camera panned to Britain’s Natasha Jonas in blue coming out of the vomitory with the crazy guitar riffs continuing to electrify the crowd. But she was cooler than ice, seeming to embody the “Keep calm and carry on” approach.

Underwood won the first round 4 - 3 and the crowd realised they needed to get their vocal chords behind Jonas. The “Team GB” chants through the next two-minute round, along with some confident jabs from Jonas, produced a win with 7 points to her and Underwood, one short. The momentum continued and the match ended with the referee holding up Jonas’s hand at the final score of 21 - 13.

Day 9, was just yet another fabulous day at the London Olympics. 

Urban houses for an ancient tribe destroys a way of life in Nicobar

One of the new houses built by the government for the Nicobari tribals. Courtesy: Prince Rasheed.

The force of the 2004 undersea Indian Ocean earthquake was so intense that the island of Trinket split in three. Trinket is part of the Nicobar archipelago of 22 islands that belong to India. The government moved all the local Nicobari tribals to a neighbouring island but Gopinath Jeem and a few others came back because they couldn’t bear the temporary tin shelters made by the government. He says, “All the families want to come back but we were the first because we could not tolerate it there.”

Back in devastated Trinkat they have found their own fresh water source and using trees from the forest, they have built their own traditional Nicobari huts called machans. 

The Nicobar archipelago is one of India’s furthest outposts. The 2004 earthquake pulverised the islands and the tsunami killed nearly a fifth of the Nicobari tribal population. Prior to the disaster the Nicobarese were primarily a hunter-gatherer tribe living in large joint families in a close-knit societal structure called a tuhet. But after the tsunami there has been such a massive injection of money and new housing that their ancient way of life has changed drastically.

The Nicobar islands are closed to outsiders so the government 3000 kms away in New Delhi along with the local administration in Port Blair felt the need to step in to provide food and shelter. Samir Acharya who represented the Central Tribal Council of Nicobar in negotiations with the government on housing says, “The new houses are bad news for the Nicobarese and bad news for the islands.”

Problems began shortly after the tsunami when Nicobarese demanded tools to be able to build their own houses as they had done for decades. But the government didn’t give them the opportunity. Dr. Simronjit Singh, a senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Social Ecology in Austria wrote a paper titled, “Complex Disasters: The Nicobar Islands in the grip of Humanitarian Aid.” In it he criticizes the sometimes well-meaning but generally insensitive forced help given to a people who were in fact keen to help themselves. He says, “The anxiety to begin a new life and fend for themselves, despite a trauma not so long ago, reflects the resilience of the Nicobarese in the face of tragedy along with the ideology that life must go on, and singularly so, aid or no aid!”

And yet the “help” kept coming. First it was in the form of temporary shelters that the Indian Army built for the Nicobarese. They were built in haste to beat the monsoon but were made of tin and were like hot ovens during the day in the tropical heat. The Nicobarese suffered these houses for nearly four years. The National People’s Tribunal on Post-tsunami Rehabilitation declared that the government had failed in its “legal and moral responsibility of upholding the human rights and ensuring the welfare of all those affected by the tsunami.”

The Nicobarese detested the tin shelters and wanted to build their own permanent shelters but again this was thwarted. The negotiating process was bewildering for the tribals who were not used to such a heavy influence of government in their lives. However, Shakti Sinha the Chief Secretary of the Andaman and Nicobar islands says, “Maybe the process was not perfect, but it was definitely consultative.”

Prince Rasheed, a Nicobari who studied on the Indian mainland and is a spokesperson for the Tribal Council however feels that the negotiating power was so unequal, the tribals simply gave in. He said, “In the end we thought we would take the houses since the government was giving them to us for free but we are now realising that we made a bad choice. The government has built colonies.” 

The house designs are creating a less personal culture. Replacing the large, wooden machans where a joint family would live, the government has built small concrete two-room houses meant for nuclear families. These new houses have also increased the community’s cost of living. For example, earlier Nicobarese did not use electricity in their machans but now many have TVs and fans in their home for which they have to pay. They have also lost the ability to fix things in their homes themselves because all the material used on the homes is exotic. Samir Acharya says, “The way these new houses are built will do very long-term damage to the social fabric of the Nicobarese.” 

The Nicobarese used to be a cash poor but resource rich society unused to hoarding and saving money. After the tsunami many spent their government compensation money in a burst of consumerism buying whiskey, TVs and motorbikes. Now much of that money is spent and they are stuck without even their primary source of income from their coconut plantations which were destroyed during the tsunami. They are realising that the lifestyle imposed by the new houses is unsustainable. Prince Rasheed says, “The government’s food rations have stopped and 95% of the people are finding it hard to survive. Some people are just eating papayas and living.”

Free-spirited Gopinath Jeem would rather live in Trinkat than suffer the government shelters. He knows perfectly well how to survive on his own island without outside help. As night falls over Trinkat mosquitoes descend in droves as though the air were filled with needles but it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He says, “We have a love for this island and we can never leave it.”

Eleven families have returned to Trinkat and built their own homes. But for the many others adapting their lives to the new houses, the government’s costly housing intervention will continue to impact their lives.

Cricket made me nostalgic about India

I rarely get homesick. But today, on the eve of the Indo-Pak cricket world cup semi-final, I’m bummed that I’m not in India.



I love what cricket does to the country - how CEOs, housewives, students, peons, society types, slum dwellers and everyone in between is just Indian (or Indian origin, if you want to get technical) for a day.


I remember that feeling so well from a match between India and Pakistan from the 2003 world cup. I was watching it at home in Chennai when suddenly the electricity went out. A collective wail went up around the city but fortunately there were giant screens set up on the two main beaches in Chennai and everyone had the same idea to immediately rush out and continue watching the match there.


When I reached Besant Nagar beach, the atmosphere was surreal. I joined the hundreds, indeed thousands, sitting on the sand, under the stars watching a gripping match between the two iconic rivals of world cricket. An India-Pakistan match is always a zero sum game. For the losing country there is devastation and for the winner delirious joy.


That night, fortune favoured India and we beat Pakistan decisively, winning by 6 wickets. The crowd went berserk and the wild smiles and excitement were enough to light up India’s darkest villages and our own city.


There are very few moments like this in India when we are not so divided and listening to Hindi music this evening in distant London while thinking about the match in Mohali suddenly made me really wish I was there tomorrow.

 

10 things to know about the injusitce done to Dr.Binayak Sen

Dr.Binayak Sen's appeal hearing is coming up on Monday, 24th January. Any reporter will tell you that covering a legal battle involves so many twists and turns that audiences and readers end up getting overwhelmed and bogged down in the detail killing their interest. To simplify things, here is a brief background and some key things to know about Dr. Binayak Sen.

Introduction: Dr. Binayak Sen is a pediatrician from Kolkata. He has lived in the central-Indian state of Chhattisgarh since 1991 where he founded an NGO that provides medical care to 20 adivasi villages through a network of community health workers. He has also set up a hospital funded and run by mineworkers. He is the vice-president of one of India's leading human rights organisations - the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

In Chhattisgarh where he works, a violent armed conflict between the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and a militia group Salwa Judum, which is allegedly supported by the state government, has led to widespread human rights violations and abuses against members of local communities. Dr Sen has been a vocal critic of the conflict, drawing attention to these abuses and calling for the protection of the rights of local communities. 

Here are 10 things to know about Dr. Binayak Sen’s case:

1) Dr.Binayak Sen has lived in Chhattisgarh since 1991 where he has been heavily involved in running rural community health projects.

2) Dr. Sen was arrested in May 2007 shortly after he publicly criticised the Chhattisgarh police for killing local adivasis & not armed Maoists as the police claimed. 

3) He had also publicly criticized the Chhattisgarh authorities for enacting state security legislation which put excessive restrictions on human rights.

4) The lower courts repeatedly refused Dr. Sen bail until May 2009 when the Supreme Court finally ordered his release. 

5) Then again on 24 Dec.2010 Dr. Sen was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of sedition and conspiracy after an unfair trial. 

6) Dr Sen has been convicted of sedition (Sec. 121A of the IPC) and conspiracy (Section 124A) and under various sections of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA). His trial commenced on 30 April 2008.

7) On 5 Jan. 2011 Dr. Sen challenged his conviction and life sentence by filing an appeal in the Bilaspur High Court.

8) The vaguely worded provisions of the security legislation used to charge Dr Sen – the CSPSA which is only in force in the state of Chhattisgarh and the UAPA – are so broad that they may be abused to restrict and criminalize the peaceful exercise of rights and freedoms.

9) The shockingly severe life sentence handed down to Dr Sen will set a dangerous precedent, leaving open the possibility that state level authorities will seek to impose harsher sentences against outspoken human rights defenders across India. 

10)  Demand Dr. Binayak Sen’s immediate release and tell the Indian government to drop all charges against him. Click here to take action.

Release adivasi leader Lado Sikaka

Sana Sikaka, a leader of the Dongria Kondh indigenous communities who was abducted by gunmen on 9 August, has been released. Another leader is still being held.

Sana Sikaka, one of the Dongria Kondh indigenous community leaders in the eastern Indian state of Orissa who was abducted on the evening on 9 August, was released yesterday evening. 

He has informed journalists that he and Lado Sikaka, (in picture), were stopped at Izrupa at the foothills of Niyamgiri as they were leaving with a group of activists in a van to catch a train to Delhi. About fifteen men in plain clothes, armed with automatic weapons, had parked their two vans nearby and were hiding in a forest. They surrounded Lado and Sana and said they were taking them. They intimidated the other activists, snatching their mobile phones and the van key and forced them to walk towards Lanjigarh, the nearest town. Then the plainclothesmen, along with Lado and Sana, walked to the vans and then made a long drive towards the neighbouring district of Rayagada, stopping at a few places en route. Yesterday evening, when they reached Bijepur town, they pushed Sana Sikaka out of the vehicle, forcing him to commence a long journey back to Niyamgiri. They appear to have taken Lado Sikaka to Rayagada town and detained him there. 

Lado Sikaka and Sana Sikaka are both campaigning against a proposed bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hills in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. Research by Amnesty International indicates that the Niyamgiri bauxite mining project, which would be located on the Dongria Kondh's sacred sites, traditional lands and habitats, is likely to result in violations of their rights to water, food, health, work and other rights to protection of their culture and identity. The project is currently awaiting clearance from India's Ministry of Environment and Forests. 

Please write to the Governments of India and Orissa to take all necessary measures to ensure his safe return. Also appeal to them to launch an investigation into the complaint over the abduction of the two Dongria Kondh leaders, in full compliance with the country's obligations under international human rights law. 

You can write to or email the Chief Minister of Orissa - Naveen Patnaik at the following address:

State Secretariat

Sachiyalaya Marg,

Bhubaneshwar,

Orissa 750 001, India

Tel: +91 674 2536682

Fax: +91 674 2390562

Email: cmo@nic.in (or) cmo@ori.nic.in

Salutation: Dear Chief Minister

You can also write to or email the Minister of Home Affairs - P. Chidambaram at the following address:

104, North Block, 

New Delhi 110 001, India

Tel: +91 11 2309 2462

Tel: +91 11 2301 7256

Fax: +91 11 2301 7256

Email: hm@nic.in

Salutation: Dear Home Minister

(Photo and text courtesy Amnesty International)

The thrill of the long-list

Delighted! My piece on police brutality in India made the long-list in the Guardian International Development Journalism Contest. You can read ‘Killing India’s Poor With Impunity’ here.

Punishing the Victims Saves Precious Public Resources.

In India we punish the victims of crime. Yeah, I know many countries punish the perpetrator but that approach assumes we don’t have a choice. Of course we do! Besides, its also easier to punish the victim because you often know who they are, unlike the more cumbersome approach of finding perpetrators. It is a waste of public resources.

Also, if victims weren’t so foolishly vulnerable, would people go about victimising them? The answer is a clear negative. For instance, if you didn’t ride a bicycle on the main road, you wouldn’t get run over by a bus. Or if you weren’t old and diabetic, you wouldn’t get overpowered by your burglars. Or if you weren’t a female, you wouldn’t get raped. Its all so obvious and yet people don’t get it! They continue to fall into all sorts of traps instead of just getting under the covers and staying there so that no harm may come to them.

Recently in Orissa, “boyfriends” were caught filming their girlfriends naked and selling the stuff on the market. One girl killed herself when she found her naked images on a CD. Now authorities in Orissa want to warn all girls against rushing into physical relationships. Combining moral science with law is such a superb idea.

But that’s not enough because there may be some rotten wenches who will still disobey despite knowing these dangers. So just to make doubly sure that this campaign is successful, the Orissa State Women’s Commission chairperson, a free thinker by the name of Jyoti Panigrahi, has told parents to ‘monitor the movements of their daughters and keep an eye on their activities.’ It’s a good suggestion but doesn’t go far enough. Locking women up would be so much easier. But sometimes it is hard to make such suggestions without avoiding charges of sexism.

Some lawyers in Kamakshanagar have held a protest rally demanding the immediate arrest of the “boyfriends” involved. This is outrageous. Now every man in Cuttack will be looked at suspiciously. How will the police prove that the guys were in a relationship? Are the police supposed to drop VIP duty to chase after boys in the street now? Is this what its come to? Mad.

Can An 8-Year Old Be a "Failure"?

My experience in secondary school in India makes me particularly sympathetic to victims of torture and arbitrary detention. I was in Rosary Matriculation School, on Santhome High Road, in Chennai, from UKG to 4th standard and even if someone had launched a national search for the ‘Most Miserable Child’ in the land, they’d have been hard-pressed to find one worse-off than me.

In the post below, I will rant about the humiliation heaped upon my 8 year old self and if such a thing still happens, it’s got to stop.

Like most Indian schools Rosary loved ranks to grade kids at the end of exam results. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and on and on it went reaching the bottom of the class to about 58th. Least fun way to practice numbers. However, there was a category worse than those bottom ranks. If you didn’t get the requisite 40 marks to pass, you were, rather too easily in my opinion, labeled a “Failure”. You have to love the lack of nuance.

I was in 4th standard and my fear of numbers had just set in. In the high-speed rush to go through the syllabus the teachers only kept pace with the sharpest kids in class. If you stumbled you’d be trod on by a fast-moving little regiment of nerds who like the teacher had little patience. Basically, you could get left quite far behind, dazed and confused, which is precisely what happened to me.

So far behind that for the first time in my life, at the wee little age of 8, I failed Maths. FAILED.

And immediately, I was pushed into the category of “Failures” with the speed of Alice going down the rabbit-hole.

But that wasn’t all. As if the semantics weren’t bad enough, this whole business of ‘failing’ was visually represented as well.

Rosary had a tradition where the school Principal, invariably a stern nun, went to every classroom to individually hand over each student’s report card to them. It was always a tense interaction where the class teacher nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other and the Principal smiled a pained smile to the pupil while handing her the report card. To make this affair orderly, we had to sit along the benches according to rank with the highest rank holders starting from the first bench and flowing downward from there.

The last rows were reserved for the “failures”. With feet that weighed a million tones, I dragged my little self to the back and arranged me in the midst of the ‘Failed’. I now recall that many of the girls at the back were invariably from less privileged backgrounds – their blue uniforms having faded and shrunk, streaked with lines of white - a remnant of excess starching because their uniforms were long past their sell-by date. It was a sad, little lot.

Sister Teresita, a goggle-eyed terror, was the Principal that year. It has just occurred to me that she should have spelt her name “Terrorsita”. Hyuk Hyuk. Anyway, she came in and distributed the report cards, while maintaining a stiff smile throughout. I may now be imagining this, but I thought I received the cold stare of a dead cod. Nehru would have cried.

For this humiliation and also simply because I wasn’t as good as the other kids, I went through all my years in school setting the bar very low. I only wanted to pass Maths. I didn’t want to sit at the back again and I didn’t want nosey uncles and aunties asking me how much I had got in “Max”. I just wanted to pass. So I took the focus away from wanting to do well to figuring out how I could pass.

Improving the school system will require an overhaul of gargantuan proportions. But we can begin by getting rid of labels such as "Failure" and other discriminatory practices which sometimes parade as discipline. If this nonsense is still on at Rosary, its got to stop.

Give Me What I Want, What I Really, Really Want

When I was younger, marriage wasn’t a particularly appealing prospect. I mean how boring to be stuck with one man all your life when variety is a well-known spice. However even in the deep cynicism that sometimes afflicts the young, I have to say that one thing about marriage was wonderful even back then. Gifts. Aaaaaahhh. The idea of standing on a stage receiving hundreds, indeed thousands, (hey, I’m Indian) of gifts on your wedding day was mesmerizing. For that one thing alone it was all worth it, I thought. But then I really did get married and what a great shock it has been to the system. Things are not what they seem and everything has turned upside down. The idea of one man is now very appealing but the gifts – oh dear, oh dear – what a great big disappointment!


So here I propose a radical overhaul in the way we give gifts at weddings in India.


I’m writing about this many months after my wedding because I had to go out to buy a gift today for a little new born. Allow me to digress completely here. The mother and child will be leaving town soon to return home so I took great care to avoid bulk. After a quick browse, for I hate dallying in malls, I settled upon a little blue pillow and a little blue baby suit. If you’re good at packing a bag, you know that both these items can be compressed to the size of an adult fist - easy to pack, unbreakable and utterly useful. No mother looks at a little blue pillow and tosses it into the rubbish heap. And if it has a stuffed teddy on it, no way! Pleased with my purchase I have now packed the gift into a little, believe it or not, blue bag which is ready to be personally delivered tonight.


At the risk of beating my own drum I want to say that I took great care to buy the gift. I had a modest budget but I put an effort into creating something of value for the user. And here I want to show you how this is all connected to wedding gifts.


Is it just me or have any of you had the experience of getting odd cups and saucers palmed off to you on your wedding day? Our parents had pleaded with the invitees not to bring “boxed gifts”. Basically we were subtly trying to tell everyone that we would be leaving the country so just bring cash. Or bring gold bars if you really must. Or just bring yourself for Christ’s sake. But please don’t bring in the crockery you don’t use.


Most people didn’t listen.


We ended up with lots of unwanted coffee mugs, tea cups, a kettle, random cut glass dishes and a hideous photo frame. It’s all sitting in cupboards at our parents’ house, occupying space and will probably not be of use to us in this millennium or the next. Why, oh why can’t people be more thoughtful about what they give? Don’t get the wrong impression, I really don’t mind recycled gifts. My grandmother is constantly giving me things she doesn’t want but only because she knows I’ll love them. She never gives me a jute sack or a gold tray, or a Swarovski pig. That she knows will go out the window. So why can’t more Indian wedding guests put some effort into gift-giving?


Because they don't, here is my proposal. If the gift registry concept won’t work in India because people won’t use their credit cards online, then the bride and groom may have a collection of gifts of every price range ready at the door. Just pay up front, put your name down against it, wish the bride and groom, eat and leave. All’s well that ends well and the couple can live happily ever after without the clutter of bad china.


Doable you think?

Insecure at an Indian Airport

I have held the view for a long time that Indian air passengers are plain lucky. In fact, there should be a prayer room at every arrival lounge because security at Indian airports is so lax that every time we fly and emerge at the other end of a flight alive, we can all head to the prayer room for a little thanks to the Almighty.

I was flying from Chennai to Calcutta a few days before Independence Day, when everything is generally on “high alert.” At the Chennai airport, the machine that puts the stubborn plastic tape around checked baggage was not working. No one put any stickers on my lock and neither did they insert a thin plastic strip through the zipper handle that keeps bags locked. All I got was a flimsy sticker with the date on it and that too was ready to drop off at the lightest touch. I could have put a baby crocodile into my suitcase if it had suddenly caught my fancy.

I handed over my bag to the airline agent hoping that there would be another level of security after that so that anyone else deciding to travel with live animals or explosive devices might yet be detected. But there probably wasn’t.

After collecting my boarding pass, I headed over for a personal security check. I entered the ladies screening area and as the bored lady in a khaki saree started running her metal detector device on my upper body, I remembered that I had a set of keys in my jeans. But before we could get to my lower half she surrendered her device, stamped my boarding pass and sent me on my way! If I’d had the time, I might’ve insisted, “Lady, I have metal in my pocket. Don’t you want to check?”

But she may have still said no because it was lunchtime and two of her colleagues were already at a table in the curtained screening area eating rice in an eager, hurried manner. I shoved off to collect my things.

Once at my destination a few hours later, I found that one of my bags arrived without its lock. It was gone. Vanished. These days it’s more worrying because of the things people can put into your bag rather than remove from it. Anyone could’ve introduced a packet of some banned substance and had any sniffer dogs been around I would probably be clocking time in jail. Curiously, nothing was stolen from my bag but I can’t rule out the possibility that the person trying was disgusted with the tangle of clothes and probably just gave up.

None of the scary scenarios involving baby reptiles and contraband substances took place of course. But the manner, in which security was handled, really does not inspire any confidence in the security measures in place at many Indian airports. Even the basic, very first level of security is handled in a half-hearted, bored, perfunctory way that makes it all one big joke. Laugh on. Pray on.

Why We Need Police Reform in India. Badly.

I argued all day. But in the end the assailant won.

He was a police officer.

In February 2006, my cameraman and I had been assaulted by a senior police officer and his henchmen (not policemen) while filming their brutality trying to put down a protest on an engineering college campus in Chennai.

In an irony of Indian bureaucracy, I had to plead with the same police officer to write a complaint against himself in his own police station!

Of course he didn’t.

Instead, I was given a useless piece of paper that said a Revenue Officer would investigate my claims because my allegation was against a Police Officer.

No action was taken. Nothing happened.

And that in fact is also the two-word summary of police reform in India.

Business leaders should join civil society groups to lobby the government to overhaul our police system. Thousands of Indians live below justice and a corrupt, ineffective police adversely affects us all. It affects the health of our democracy and also our economic growth.

Police reform is crucial in three main areas.

First, India’s basic police law needs to change. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has triumphantly dedicated the 21st century to India. We seriously need to ask why then are we are still using 19th century laws?

The Indian Police Act in use today was written in 1861 by the British Empire whose primary use of the police was to protect their commercial interests against the rising tide of nationalism. Descendants of that Imperial Police, our policemen in 2009, continue to behave as though they need to tame the natives rather than maintain order for citizens.

Acting as a stooge of the ruling party, the Indian police is often brutish and insensitive, siding largely with the powerful rather than protecting the weak. After Independence, several states introduced their own laws governing the police but many of these laws are modeled after the 1861 law and some in fact are even worse, requiring little police accountability. That’s why India needs a new law structured around democratic policing and human rights. This imperial, 19th century law belongs in a history text book.

Second, policing needs to be depoliticized.

It would be unfair to lay the entire blame for the abysmal law and order situation on the Indian Police Service (IPS). The police is crippled in large part because of its bosses – the parliamentarians and legislators – many of whom are corrupt to the core. Any honest police officer who stands up to them is promptly transferred. The threat of transfers hangs over every policeman’s head and for officers with families, constant transfers takes a huge personal toll. Avoiding transfers in turn breeds a culture of conformity and corruption.

According to Transparency International’s 2005 report, the value of petty corruption in the police is estimated at Rs.3,899 crores (approximately 800 million dollars). The report also found that 80% of people who had contacted the police had paid a bribe. That percentage should set off alarm bells but there is absolutely no political will to change the status quo.

Politicians have resisted legislation to make the police more independent because it threatens their power directly. After Indira Gandhi’s infamous Emergency ended in 1977, the government set up a National Police Commission which made several important recommendations to shield the police from political interference. Over 30 years later, many of those recommendations are still in cold storage.

As governments come and go, police officers go through a merry-go-round of transfers. This practice has become so entrenched that there are reports of corrupt police officers in turn, bribing politicians for powerful positions. The whole thing stinks.

Third, the Indian police needs to be sensitized to human rights, gender rights and constitutional guarantees of equality. People constantly talk about how we need tough terror laws. I think, in fact, what we need is a kinder police. Statistics on police brutality quite naturally don’t reflect the scale of the problem. But there is plenty of anecdotal and video evidence to show that police officers at best stand by silently during mob attacks and at worst, participate in violence themselves.

In a rapidly changing rural landscape, the traditional forums of justice like the Panchayats (local village councils) are fast vanishing and the police are required to step in to solve disputes. But the police, with their own caste and communal baggage, act in partisan ways. In a milieu where people have a higher consciousness of their civic rights this creates further turmoil because traditional forums don’t always work and the police take sides further inflaming the problem.

Economic and social changes are placing a much heavier burden on the police and the threats of terrorism and insurgency are only too real. Of India’s 611 districts, 172 are said to face tribal and Maoist insurgencies and urban India is still recovering from the latest shock of the Mumbai attacks. Our police forces are hopelessly unprepared to meet the challenges of policing modern India.

After the Mumbai attacks many angry protesters carried posters saying they would not pay their taxes. Disengaging is unfortunately not the solution if we want a robust democracy and a stable political and economic climate. Indian business has a strong stake in this and should use its leverage in government to push for police reform.

For the business community, this is a great way to help India while helping itself.

This op-ed was published in a Kellogg School of Management publication, brought out during the 'India Business Conference.'

EAST OR WEST, FAIR AND INNOCENT IS BEST

I was looking at the matrimonial page in a leading NRI (non-resident Indian) newspaper and couldn’t help noticing a few unusual new additions to the sales vocabulary for young Indians of “marriageable age”. Or maybe these are not new around here although I certainly haven’t seen these terms before.

The parents of the girls describe their daughters' in usual glowing language. These girls are always “slim”, “fair”, “gorgeous” and one even said “exceptionally beautiful”. What they seek for their daughters is someone from the same religion and caste of course, but also someone who has a good “East West blend.” Haven’t seen that one before. . .

US citizens and green card holders are handed a clear advantage and if they are “into fitness” - even better.

Many of the boys’ parents also describe their sons with generous adjectives such as “fair”, “handsome” and one said, "charismatic". The son's wealth is nakedly mentioned with the promise of even greater riches because he is invariably from an Ivy League school. But curiously, most of these wonderful sons are in the market to re-marry. Nothing wrong with that except that he is described almost as a victim since advertising a divorce raises a hundred red flags for most Indian parents. So, the new invention in the wedding vocab is “innocently divorced”! Have you heard that one before? I haven't.

The poor, helpless handsome, fair, wealthy son was innocently divorced by some wicked witch of the east-west. But thankfully, the parents can guarantee that the affair ended “issueless.”

SOME THOUGHTS ON ORISSA

Houses and churches were vandalised even in the first round of violence that hit Kandhamal district over Christmas 2007. Nearly 11 people were killed. Photo credit: Dr. Angana P. Chatterji

The Indian media devoted significant chunks of time and space to the Indo-US nuclear deal. But in the US, its coverage was conspicuous by its absence. The 700 billion dollar bail-out package and the shenanigans of the legislators on the Hill overtook everything else. Bush’s rare foreign policy ‘success’ went largely unnoticed.

So, given that a huge story involving India, of tremendous national and international importance got the royal ignore, how did the communal conflagration in Orissa make it to the front page? In the New York Times this morning was a colour photograph with a story headlined – ‘Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee.’

I am surprised not because it made the front page. I am surprised because there is enough and more happening on the campaign and in the American economy to dominate the front page. This is not to say that I am disappointed. I think such awareness forces India to be more accountable for its actions and that is a very, very, good thing.

What intrigues me is why this particular story received such prominent status.

The obvious answer is of course that several western Christian nations, the Vatican included, have questioned India on what it is doing to protect its co-religionists.

But a somewhat deeper and more convoluted answer is that the concern of the west is itself part of a long tradition of Christendom. For instance, before the 20th century, humanitarian intervention in military form, to protect people other than the intervening nation’s own nationals was largely done to protect only Christians from the Ottomans. In fact, “human” in the word 'humanitarian' two centuries ago usually meant being Christian. Persecuted Jews and Turks were ruthlessly massacred with nary a word of concern from anyone.

And interestingly, the discussion in India over the Orissa story has involved the damage to India’s image because it is the powerful west for the first time seeing one of its interests threatened inside India and raising questions on its conduct. Contrast this concern over the dent to the Indian image with the outrage over the US denying Modi a visa over Muslim killings in Gujarat. There was plenty of nationalistic anger over Indian sovereignty being undermined. With the Orissa story it is almost entirely about ‘image’.

Isn’t the contrast interesting?

MAJORITARIANISM AND THREATS TO DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

When the attacks against Christians started in Orissa in late August, one lady in faraway San Francisco was not surprised at all. Angana P. Chatterji has been warning of exactly that since 2003. Dr. Chatterji is associate professor of social and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and has studied Orissa’s land reforms and witnessed the state’s growing communalization for more than a decade. Her forthcoming book, Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present. Narratives from Orissa examines the mobilization of divisive Hindutva forces in the state within the larger narrative of Hindu majoritarianism. I discussed with her Orissa’s communal conflagration, the Sangh Parivar’s dangerous propaganda about minorities and the threats to Indian democracy.

Q) Maoists claimed responsibility for the killing of Lakshmananda Saraswati, a Hindu priest in Kandhamal district in Orissa. His killing started the violent attacks against the Christian community. But what do you make of this Maoist claim?

A) The murder of Saraswati was brutal and a Maoist group claimed responsibility even while Maoist activity in that particular area is actually not so strong. On the other hand, Subhas Chauhan of the Bajrang Dal blamed Christian militants for this. The Sangh's propaganda is not linked to truth. It doesn’t really change things if the Maoists claimed responsibility. They are now alleging that Christians are part of Maoist groups, and are still targeting Christians who have no connection to the murders.

Q) Hindus don’t justify the violence against minorities, Christians in this case. But there is a latent anger even amongst ordinary people not involved in the Parivar’s organizations who genuinely believe that Hinduism is under threat in India. The threat in the Orissa case is from supposed forced conversions of Hindus of lower caste into the Christian fold. Therefore the violence against minorities is often explained away as “spontaneous” although not justified. Why are Hindutva groups so easily able to tap into the anger of ordinary people?

A) The blur between soft Hindutva and hard Hindutva gives the Sangh Parivar this permission. In the United States, for example, when there are instances of racism, what is our response to that? That people need to unlearn racism, right? That because they are the dominant group they are unreflective of national privilege and unreflective of structural and racialised privilege. Reciprocally, in India, which is an emergent superpower, Hindus are the dominant group. Where is the national commitment to addressing Hindu majoritarianism, revisionist history, and the subjugation of minority and disenfranchised peoples?

If you participate, and this is what Romila Thapar has warned us of for a long time… if you participate in writing revisionist history and then starting to believe in it, within a generation it begins to masquerade as true. Isn’t that what we saw in Germany?

Q) By way of corrective measures then, what should the Orissa state government be doing?

A) There are two things the government needs to do – one immediate, the other long-term. There is an abdication of responsibility for education. The text books are teaching, in many instances, revisionist history and at a parallel there is the extensive network of educational institutions run by the Sangh Parivar where there are no standards of curriculum, no commitment to social facts and ethical history. Then there’s a growth of Sangh Parivar organizations which has reached staggering proportions in Orissa. There’s no scrutiny or intervention into their activities. How are they influencing communities? How are they communalizing the polity? The activities and status of these groups must be investigated, and they must be held actionable. Civil society groups and the Left need to be far more vigilant. There needs to be a national outcry - other than the few leaders who insist on the integrity of India's secular state.

Q)You were part of a Tribunal that published a report in 2006 warning the government of such violence but your report was ignored. You even deposed before the Commission of Inquiry looking into the Kandhamal violence of December 2007. How is the Orissa government complicit in this violence against Christians?

Congress introduced ‘The Communal Violence Prevention Control and Rehabilitation of Victims Bill of 2005’ twice. But it hasn’t been passed. The Bill talks about holding the state accountable in instances of violence against minorities, crimes against humanity, genocide etc. That bill hasn’t been passed, so legally there is also abdication of central responsibility.

Then in terms of the state so many times it has been pointed out that the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, the Cow Slaughter Protection Act all of these acts should be repealed. No action has been taken. The two most urgent things that need to be done – one an investigation into the status, rights and privileges enjoyed by these groups - the Bajrang Dal, the VHP, the RSS, the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram etc. Some of them have charitable status but they function as political organizations. They should not have charitable status and they need to be scrutinized in terms of the activities they undertake and its impact on society and their intent to communalise. They openly state that they are working for a Hindu state in India.

The second failure is the response to the riots. Why is it that both in December and now it took so long to stop the violence? The December riots were premeditated, and yet there was no timely action on part of the state. As well, the government should have anticipated Hindutva groups violence after Lakshmananda Saraswati was killed, especially following the statement made by the VHP and other Sangh groups.

Q) Do you think this was simply lethargic governance or complicity or both?

A) I think both. Lethargic governance has a lot to do with complicity with Hindu majoritarianism. So many in dominant society believe that minority groups (here Christians) are 'anti-national' and deserving of repression. And, so many in dominant society see Hindutva's violence as an aberration. The state and central government's refusal to restrain Hindu militias evidences their linkage with Hindutva (BJP), soft Hindutva (Congress), and the capitulation of dominant civil society to Hindu majoritarianism. How would the nation have reacted if groups with any other affiliation than militant Hinduism executed riot after riot?

Q) Have you seen any evidence of Christian groups, bribing or coercing people to convert to Christianity in Orissa? That is the main grievance against the Christian minority in this case.

A) I have spoken to so many people of the church from the Archbishop of Orissa to peasant Dalits and Adivasis who are Christians. I have not found coercion in terms of bribery, or in terms of threat. When I have spoken to Adivasis and asked, “Why did you convert?” They have repeatedly stated because Christians seem to have dignity, because in Christian society they would be held equal even when they are poor. For Adivasis and Dalits, conversion functions as resistance to structural and habitual caste oppression within Hinduism. For example, in August 2008, Madhusmita Das, a Dalit girl from Oranda village was barred from offering prayers at the Balunkeswar temple in Khaira in Jagatsinghpur district. As well, the priest asked that Das pay 5,000 rupees for the purification of the shrine.

Q) So given that what you’ve seen in Orissa is that there is no coercive conversion in the way that the Sangh Parivar would like people to believe, how come there is so much ready anger for them to work with? If indeed there are no forceful conversions then how are right wing groups able to turn the Adivasis and the Dalits so strongly against Dalit Christian groups and the missionaries?

A) India remains segregationist. The average upwardly mobile person of Hindu descent in Orissa has little relation to Muslims or Christians. Their sense is these are people different from them. The Sangh Parivar has capitalized on this to portray difference as a threat - to portray difference as something 'other', as an enemy to India and to India’s national culture.

Q) What is the problem with the way Orissa is being discussed in the mainstream media? Is there something in the story that is missing?

There are 6000 RSS shakas in Orissa. You have a decade of unchecked communalization in conditions that, at times, mirror those of a feudal society. Leaders of civil society, many ordinary Hindus in villages, in quiet places where they are not subject to the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda, think differently. Media representation of the Sangh's communalization also, often, reflects Hindu majoritarianist perspectives.

The brutality of Hindutva's violence should concern us, and the the extent of communalization, the creation of popular perception, and the unchecked access to resources, people, and propagandising of the Sangh Parivar in Orissa and so many other states should absolutely frighten us.

Q) What about the politics of reservation? Hindus feel that the government is stealing from them to give to minorities. Are they justified in their frustration with state policies?

I am of Hindu descent and I think that people, who are historically disenfranchised, by virtue of their gender, caste, creed or religion, deserve the state's support to exercise their right to equality, so that they have an equal opportunity in life. In the United States, where I also live and teach, I argue for affirmative action. I insist on the same for India. In India, Hindu majoritarianists allege that reservation gives minorities greater access to resources that rightfully belong to Hindus, upper castes, men, heterosexuals... . No. The non-disenfranchised within the majority community have disproportionate access to resources in the first place - resources that are not just their own. That’s the thing to understand. The majority community does not own the nation. Just because we might not understand difference, that does not make it undesirable. We have to share and shape the nation equally. Otherwise, it fails. Let’s start there.

Q) A lot of people argue openly that India “belongs” to the Hindus. What would you say to that argument?

It’s like arguing with someone who states that the Third Reich was worthy. There has to be to a large-scale secularization of society by having acknowledgement of, and care for difference, secularization, and democratization. Democracy dies with the assertation that India belongs to the Hindus.

Q) The majority community in India believes that minorities are actually well protected, indeed appeased. It is also often pointed out that the fact that a Muslim and Dalit can become the President of India is evidence of democracy’s success. But clearly, as the repeated riots and death toll suggest, minorities are threatened in India. So, what does Indian democracy need to do to really protect its minorities?

Not in reality. An argument that Dr.Ambedkar made is that to 'protect' minorities as secondary citizens, already tells us that they are not equal in the nation. To have Indian democracy function minorities and other disenfranchised groups cannot remain people with special rights and special laws that work at the discretion of the majority community.

Q) Tell us something about your book ‘Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present’? What is the central argument you make on the communal situation in Orissa?

Since June of 2002, I made 15 research trips, to about 73 villages and towns across 17 districts in Orissa.The book is an intensive look at the slow and spectacular violence of Hindutva in Orissa since 1999, against a larger story of Hindu militancy and majoritarianism in India. It offers an account of the regimentation of Hindu militant mobilizations in the making of 'nation', manifest through culture and society, politics and economy, religion and law, on gender and body, and land and memory. I examine Hindutva's proliferation, linking village to state and state with nation, in manufacturing imaginative and identitarian agency for violent nationalism.