THE DECLINING LEFT – BANGLADESH EXPECTS MORE

 

Mir Aftabuddin Ahmed

 

Suranjit Sengupta had been a stalwart of the Awami League for the last four decades or so. An articulate parliamentarian and a vociferous constitutionalist, Mr. Sengupta had been a robust voice in favour of socialist principles. Read more…

ROHINGYA INSURGENCY HERALDS WIDER WAR IN MYANMAR

Anthony Davis

 

The Harakah al Yaqin insurgent group, with leadership in Saudi Arabia and ties to Bangladeshi extremist groups, threatens to bring global jihad to Myanmar Read more…

EDITORIAL: GETTING READY FOR A YEAR OF STRUGGLE

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

On January 21, 2017, a day after Donald Trump ascended to the Presidency of the USA, women and men all over the world marched in a display of defiance that provided a spark of optimism in a year that had begun with a relentless barrage of bad news and apprehension for the vulnerable and their champions all over the world. The crowd in Washington DC, estimated at 1 million, easily dwarfed Trump’s stage-managed inaugural parade, and it was estimated that the participants at marches across the world numbered over 5 million. Read more…

2016: A YEAR OF OUTRAGEOUS LIES: FROM ECONOMIC GROWTH TO JOB CREATION TO DEMONETISATION

Mohan Guruswamy

 

On Thursday, I heard the spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sambit Patra, blithely claim that when the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Behari Vajpayee demitted office in 2004, gross domestic product was growing at 8.4%, and when the United Progressive Alliance regime under Manmohan Singh lost the elections in 2014, this growth was down to 4.8%. He made an attempt to wring some humour out of the reversal of growth figures, which would have been quite neat but for the fact that it is an outright lie. Read more…

ONE PERCENT OF INDIANS OWN 58% OF COUNTRY’S WEALTH: OXFAM INEQUALITY REPORT

Mridula Chari

 

Fifty-seven billionaires in India possess as much wealth as the poorest 70% of the country, according to a report on global inequality released on Monday by Oxfam, an international confederation of 18 non-governmental organisations. Read more…

PAKISTAN: ABDUCTING SOCIAL ACTIVISTS

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

Had last week’s kidnappings of bloggers and social media activists happened in Balochistan, it would have been a non-event. But all five abductions happened in Punjab — and now the authorities are feeling some heat. Read more…

BANGLADESH: CONTROVERSIAL DRAFT LAW ALLOWING CHILD MARRIAGE IN “SPECIAL CASES” IS THE ROAD TO REGRESSION

Elita Karim

 

Very recently, a law drafted by the Ministry for Women and Children’s Affairs stated that if a 16-year-old female gets married with the consent of her parents or the court for justified reasons or under special circumstances, she would not be considered underage or a minor. However, the authorities do not define what they mean by special circumstances. Read more…

INSIDE THE LIFE OF PAKISTAN’S FIRST FEMALE STRING THEORIST

Mahrukh Sarwar

 

Tasneem Zehra Husain, Pakistan’s first female string theorist at the mere age of 26, recently published her new book Only the Longest Threads, which fictionalises major breakthroughs in physics through the minds of the people who lived in those periods of discovery, reports the MIT Technology Review Pakistan. Read more…

WHY BOTH MODI AND TRUMP ARE TEXTBOOK POPULISTS

Amit Varma

 

As Donald Trump raised his tiny paw and took the presidential oath this Friday, I had just finished reading an outstanding book that, I thought, explained Trump as well as many other leaders on the world stage today. In ‘What is Populism?’ Jan-Werner Muller, a Princeton professor, lays out all the ingredients from which you can cook up a populist movement. I was struck by how closely our own prime minister, Narendra Modi, matched Muller’s definition. Consider the following characteristics that characterise populists, as defined by Muller. Read more…

INDIA: LAWLESS ON THE SHORE

Nirupama Subramanian

 

Protests are continuing in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu for a “permanent solution” to the demand that Jallikattu be allowed even after the quick, synchronised surrender of the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government through the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Ordinance followed by a bill. The permanent solution that the protestors want is the removal of the bull from the list of animals restricted from performing and exhibition in Section 22 of the Act through a constitutional amendment. Read more…

DEMONETIZATION: A FRAUD ON THE PEOPLE

Lokayat

 

[This is a comprehensive, well-formatted report by Lokayat that provides a clear understanding of demonetization and its attendant injustices. The URL for the full report is below, we include the introduction here] Read more…

TEESTA SETALVAD HAS WRITTEN HER MEMOIR, AND IT’S EVERY BIT AS CHILLING AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE

Teesta Setalvad

 

I was born in a family of Gujaratis, of Gujarati lawyers to be precise. Gujarat was always a part of me, though we were proud migrants to Bombay. My great grandfather left his government job in Ahmedabad within four days of taking his post to study law in Bombay. My mother, who was related to my father prior to their marriage, had a paternal uncle in Ahmedabad, who was the Advocate General of Gujarat for twenty-six years. Once or twice a year, we would visit Ma’s mama and mami. Read more…

INTIMIDATION DIRECTED AT BELA BHATIA

Please endorse the statement.

 

We strongly condemn the brazen act of intimidation directed at Bela Bhatia at her house in Parpa village, Jagdalpur. Clearly, this middle of the night attack is aimed at making Bela abandon her human rights work in the area and quit Parpa. Read more…

INSAF wishes its readers a Happy 2017! Hang in there, comrades, the ride may get a bit rougher, but we will have one another!

EDITORIAL: CASHLESS SOCIETY AND CLUELESS PATRIOTISM

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Narendra Modi’s recent acknowledgement that the aim of demonetization is to usher in a “cashless society” is a tacit admission of the fact that the goal is to greatly expand the fledgling financial product industry of credit cards, e-wallets, paytms and more and thus divert more resources from the pockets of the great masses of the poor to add to the fortunes of those atop this sector. For example, in every transaction of Re. 100, the aam aadmi will now have to lose Re. 2.50 or so paid as “transaction” fees to those who issue the plastic cards or their electronic equivalents. Considering that almost 90% of transactions in the Indian economy were carried out in cash, converting even a fraction to cashless forms is guaranteed to generate a bonanza for current and future cronies of Modi who stand to prosper from his risky diktat even as the masses suffer and the economy itself declines in the interim. This upward redistribution of resources, while shedding crocodile tears for the state of the poor, is the hallmark of Modi’s economic policies. Read more…

DEMONETIZATION: THE MOTHER OF ALL DISRUPTIONS

Jean Drèze

 

The tremendous power of the software industry in India may help explain why the disruptive effects of demonetisation are being taken lightly. Read more…

PRESS RELEASE: Kashmir Concerned Citizens’ Collective

SRINAGAR, December 16: The Concerned Citizens’ Collective team that visited Kashmir from 12 to 16 December 2016, expressed deep dismay to observe that the people of the Kashmir valley have been entirely abandoned by their central and state governments, in this time of their great suffering. The only face of government that the people of the Valley encounter is of a repressive security establishment, they declared. Read more…

‘CASHLESS? THAT’S A JOKE’

Bashaarat Masood, Kuwar Singh

 

Lanura, with a population of around 1,500, has only six shops — a chemist and five grocers. None of the shopkeepers has a card machine or has ever used Net banking. Read more…

PAKISTAN: UNION LEADERS LAMENT STRIPPING LABOUR ADVISER OF HIS POWERS

Leaders of trade unions and labour associations lamented on Tuesday that provincial labour adviser Saeed Ghani, on court orders, had been restrained by the government from exercising any executive authority in the affairs of the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution (SESSI). Read more…

BANK ‘GANDHIGIRI’, CASHLESS HARA-KIRI IN MARATHWADA

P. Sainath

 

A farmer in Nagur holds up an extract of his loan account from the credit cooperative society; further interest of 2-4 per cent gets added at the level of the societies. Read more…

PROMOTING ANTI-SCIENCE VIA TEXTBOOKS

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

A biology textbook is normally expected to teach biology as science, meaning a scientifically based study of the structure, growth and origin of living things. But what if such a book instead says science must follow ideology and loudly denounces the core principles of biology, condemning these as wrong and irrational? Read more…

FAITH, DISSENT AND EXTREMISM: HOW BANGLADESH IS STRUGGLING TO STAY SECULAR

Samia Huq

 

The recent violent attacks on a Hindu temple in Bangladesh’s Netrokona district, and previous assaults on temples and homes in October in Brahmanbaria are a troubling illustration of Bangladesh’s struggle to protect two of its fundamental values: secularism and pluralism. Read more…

NEPAL: A COSTLY CONSTITUTION

Anurag Acharya

 

Crucial issues ignored in the debate over the constitution will create faultlines in Nepali politics once it’s passed. Read more…

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN CONUNDRUM

Umar Riaz

 

Samuel P. Huntington in his celebrated theory of the Clash of Civilisations declared in 1996 that the Islamic Civilisation has bloody borders and ‘bloody innards’. Sectarianism embodies those bloody innards within the body of Islam. Almost all current religious schools of thought and denominations are universal in theory and sectarian in practice. They might be exclusive or inclusive, but there is none which is not distinctive or not possessive of its group identity. In our country, the sectarian fault lines are too deep, fissures too vast and consensus on exclusion too solid. These sectarian faiths have political, social and violent capital at their disposal and they wield all three, or any one, depending upon the situation. Read more…

REAL CAPITALISM: TURBULENT AND ANTAGONISTIC, BUT NOT IMPERFECT

Michael Roberts

 

A review of Anwar Shaikh, Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises (Oxford University Press, 2016), £35.99 Read more…

EDITORIAL: FAREWELL COMRADE CASTRO

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

By any measure relevant to a decent future for the world, November 2016 has been an extremely depressing month. In the United States, con-man Donald Trump was elected President on November 8, despite having lost the popular vote by over 2 million votes. Right-wingers across the world, including some in the Indian diaspora, are jubilant. Get ready for four years of unrelenting assaults on reproductive rights, minority rights, police brutality, health care and the reduction of public spending in the service of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. Read more…

TALLER THAN THE REST

Saeed Naqvi

 

An interview with Castro was a memorable experience on an epic scale.

 

AN itinerant journalist does in the course of his wanderings pick up an icon or two whom he values above others. Had I been old enough to have met Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru, they too would be at the top of the list. Read more…

ARUNA ROY AND THE GRASSROOTS REVOLUTION IN INDIA

Jooneed Khan

 

In the “multiple Indias” where firebrand social activist Aruna Roy has earned herself a world-wide repu-tation for integrity and commitment, women of all castes, classes and creeds come together more easily than anyone else in the struggle for rights, justice and for constant deepening of democracy. Read more…

INDIA’S CRACKDOWN IN KASHMIR: IS THIS THE WORLD’S FIRST MASS BLINDING?

Mirza Waheed

 

A bloody summer of protest in Kashmir has been met with a ruthless response from Indian security forces, who fired hundreds of thousands of metal pellets into crowds of civilians, leaving hundreds blinded. Read more…

MONTREAL WOMEN RESIST OCCUPATION, MILITARIZATION AND WARS OF AGGRESSION

Women from diverse communities marched through downtown Montreal on Saturday 26 November, after hearing messages that brought life to global and local conflicts and the resistance of women here and around the world to protect the land, water, the air and our futures! Read more…

TARGETING NANDINI SUNDAR (VARIOUS NEWS STORIES)

Murder Charge Is Absurd, Top Cop’s Attempt To Harass Us: DU Professor Sundar

Hindustan Times 8 November 2016.

 

Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar, who has been booked along with Maoists on charges of murder of a tribal villager in insurgency-hit Sukma district, said on Tuesday the FIR against her was “patently absurd”. Read more…

DEMONETISATION: RURAL INDIA HIT HARD, FARMERS SKIP SEASON, NO WORK FOR DAILY WAGERS IN ORISSA

Basudev Mahapatra

 

BHUBANESHWAR: With the sowing season for the winter (Ravi) crop in full swing, Nabarathi Kuanr, 60, of Sudrukumpa village of Kandhamal district in Odisha has no option but to skip a cropping season as he is unable to get seeds and fertilisers from the government and the cooperatives because of the scarcity of lower denomination notes after the Indian government on November 8 declared that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes have been demonetized. Read more…

PRESS STATEMENT BY FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT OF INDIA

Free Software Movement of India (fsmi.in)

 

INDIA: DANGEROUS ORDER BY DISTRICT MAGISTRATE OF INDORE BANNING ANY CRITICISM ON SOCIAL MEDIA OF DE-MONETISATION BY GOVT. OF INDIA – PRESS STATEMENT BY FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT OF INDIA Read more…

DEMONETISATION: THE POOR DON’T MATTER EXCEPT TO BUY VOTES

Pratap Antony

 

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows. Leonard Cohen. Read more…

DEATH BY DEMONETISATION

Satya Sagar

 

The abrupt demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes by the Narendra Modi regime is a drastic move that is staggering in its scale, ambition and repurcussions. The only other figures in modern history one can think of, devious or stupid enough to attempt something similar, are the likes of Marcos, Suharto, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. Read more…

THE CHIEF OF COUNTERFEIT GRIEF

Apoorvanand

 

“We hear that governance now will have a different cadence

Tyranny will now be the protector

Cities will be without walls or doors

The sky will tremble with counterfeit grief

Executioners will be in charge of funerals,

Killers will organise mourning

Orphans and widows will find their hands and feet bound

The heads of the faith will be held aloft on spears.

If this be the realisation of India’s ancient dreams

Then soon, there will be no India, nor any of its connoisseurs.” Read more…

A COUNTRY FILLED WITH ANTI NATIONALS!

K P Sasi

 

I thought the Muslims were the only anti nationals in this country. But I was mistaken. Earlier, thousands of people including even women and children who were questioning Koodankulam nuclear plant were declared as anti nationals. They are not the only ones outside the community of Muslims. Read more…

PAKISTAN: THE ESTABLISHMENT’S DILEMMA

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

THE oligarchy which runs Pakistan, often called the establishment, is in a quandary. The problem is that whatever it says through its diplomats abroad — and with however much energy — the world insists on perceiving Pakistan as an ideological state wedded to exporting jihad. This is undesirable, but so also is the idea of changing course. Read more…

BANGLADESH: THE SOUNDS OF MADNESS

Iffat Nawaz

 

There is no escaping it — the world is increasingly being divided by hatred

 

How fast does sound travel? Certainly not as fast as light. Under the bright sun, all sounds seem to dissolve into light, no residues, no gripes. But what about at night? Read more…

EDITORIAL: CULTURE POLITICS GETS UGLY

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

We begin by wishing our readers a Happy Deepavali. This festival is celebrated all over South Asia by lighting lamps, but this Deepavali, we remember Faiz’s forlorn poem Raushniyon ke Shehr (The City of Lights), where he articulates his worries about the prospect for peace:

 

Khair ho teri lailaon ki, in sab se keh do

Aaj ki shab jab diye jalaayen, oonchi rakhen lau

 

[May your nights remain safe, do tell them

When they light lamps tonight, keep the wicks high] Read more…

‘YOU ARE A REAL MAN’: AN INDIAN EDITOR’S AWKWARD INTERVIEW WITH DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump seems to inspire weird reactions and awkwardness just about everywhere he goes. Saturday’s rally for the American presidential candidate in New Jersey, organised by the Republican Hindu Coalition, lived up to this promise, mixing Prabhu Deva and Anupam Kher with dancing light-saber wielding terrorists. And then Trump said, “I love Hindu.” Read more…

IS THE MISUSE OF RELIGION TAINTING INDIA’S ELECTORAL PROCESS?

Teesta Setalvad

 

The Supreme Court will, on Tuesday, October 18 begin final hearing on a batch of petitions that could, potentially have far reaching consequences on the purity of the electoral process and the interpretation of the Indian Constitution. Read more…

FAR FROM BEING ANTI-NATIONAL, IT IS A PATRIOTIC DUTY TO QUESTION THE MILITARY

Saikat Datta

 

On March 16, 1968, US Army soldiers from the Company C of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division dropped in on two villages in South Vietnam, known as My Lai and My Khe. In the subsequent few hours, these soldiers of Charlie Company would go on to kill over 500 villagers – men, women, children and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Read more…

DON’T STOP THE MUSIC: SHARING CULTURE HUMANISES INDIA AND PAKISTAN — BANNING THIS PUSHES BOTH FROM PEACE TOWARDS WAR

Salman Ahmad

 

Despite the trauma of Partition, our history of conflict and the pain of the present moment, there still remains, miraculously, great love, friendship and deep spiritual harmony between Indians and Pakistanis. Read more…

A NEO-PATRIOTIC MOB IN INDIA

Salil Tripathi

 

In 1959, a Pakistani film-maker called Akhtar Kardar directed a film called Jago Hua Savera (The Day Shall Dawn), which brought together creative film-making talent across the Indian subcontinent the way it used to before Independence in 1947, and which is now fast becoming unimaginable. Read more…

HOW THE MEDIA IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN CREATED A WAR WHERE THERE WASN’T ONE

Haroon Khalid

 

At a time when Indians and Pakistanis – politicians, sportsmen, entertainers, media persons and regular civilians – are hurling abuses at each other, it probably renders me unpatriotic to say that Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru is one of my favorite books. Read more…

PATIALA COURT ACQUITS KOBAD GANDHY OF ALL CHARGES

Manish Sirhindi

 

The court of Additional Sessions and District Judge Mohammad Gulzar on Tuesday acquitted Kobad Ghandy, an alleged leader of banned CPI (Maoist), of all charges in a six-year-old case. He was booked by police in 2010 for delivering two “anti-national” speeches at Punjabi University. Read more…

A FILM CANCELLED, A TV INTERVIEW CANNED: COMPETITIVE NATIONALISM IS ERODING FREE EXPRESSION IN INDIA

Girish Shahane

 

As soon as I read that a previously obscure NGO was protesting the screening of a Pakistani film titled Jago Hua Savera at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, I knew the organisers would drop it from the schedule without a whimper. The festival is sponsored by Reliance Jio, never a firm associated with support of free expression, and one increasingly tied to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda. Read more…

BANGLADESH: VIOLENCE IS A CULTURE NOW

Fardin Hasin

 

The hacking of Khadiza is not an isolated incident

 

Our society has a morbid fascination with violence Read more…

SRI LANKA: WHEN THE COURTS ARE SILENT…

Shashik Dhanushka and Andi Schubert

 

The injunction order handed down against the public screening of Prasanna Vithanage’s latest movie Silence in the Courts has opened up space to question the function of Justice in Sri Lanka. The movie is said to  be based on a true story about a Magistrate suspected of sexually abusing a woman as a favour for releasing her husband from remand custody. Read more…

INDIA: LETTER BY CONCERNED ACADEMICS TO THE VICE CHANCELLOR, CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF HARYANA, PROTESTING THE ATTACKS ON TEACHERS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE PLAY ’DRAUPADI’

To the Vice Chancellor,

Central University of Haryana Read more…

HINDU REPUBLIC: INDIA IS BEING RECREATED INTO A MAJORITARIAN STATE

Samar Halarnkar

 

“Humko iska badla chahiye and aur hum iska badla le kar rahenge. Hinduon ne chudiyan nahi pahan rakhi hain. In mullon ko jad se ukhaad phenke ge hum…We want revenge and we will achieve this vengeance. Hindus have not worn bangles. We will uproot these mullahs (Muslims) from the roots and throw them away.” Read more…

EDITORIAL: INDIA-PAKISTAN TENSIONS, AND THE FUTURE OF THE LEFT

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

All it took was four heavily armed terrorists. The rest of the script played out like an old tired farce. Seventeen Indian army personnel were killed. In light of the ongoing unrest in the Kashmir Valley, the dogs of war strained to be let out. Irresponsible statements by certain motivated politicians and the leisure class demanded war. Read more…

TO MAKE SENSE OF URI, INDIA MUST UNDERSTAND COURAGE, COWARDICE – AND ITS OWN BORDERS

Girish Shahane

 

On reading about the assault on the Army base in Uri, I thought of Ashwatthamma sneaking into the enemy camp under cover of darkness, setting tents alight, burning to death a generation of Pandava princes. Read more…

INDIA – PAKISTAN TENSIONS: JOINT STATEMENT BY PAKISTAN – INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY

PIPFPD expresses its concern over the growing tensions between India and Pakistan following militants’ attack on strategically important army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. The leadership of both the countries needs to urgently act towards defusing the tense scenario rather than fuelling it. Read more…

CANADA: DEPLORE THE SILENCING OF JOURNALISTS

SANSAD strongly deplores the ongoing effort to censor journalists critical of the policies of the Indian government and to manipulate the media addressing the South Asian diaspora in Vancouver, BC. Read more…

BANGLADESH: THE PRICE OF FREE SPEECH

Ahsan Akbar

 

In February this year the authorities in Bangladesh took Shamsuzzoha Manik, a 73-year-old publisher, into custody for publishing a book titled “Islam Bitorko” (“Debate on Islam”). Read more…

SRI LANKA: TRAVAILS OF A WAR-TORN PEOPLE

Ahilan Kadirgamar

 

The Northern Provincial Council, which came to power three years ago, has been an abysmal failure. And Colombo has descended to business as usual. Read more…

INDIA – PAKISTAN TENSIONS: OUR PRESENT AND TERRIFYING DANGER

Darryl D’Monte

 

With the tension between India-Pakistan rising, Darryl D’Monte reports a recent discussion about the confrontation between these two nuclear states. Read more…

INDIA: A POOR JOB WITH SUMS – A CASE FOR DOUBLING THE OFFICIAL POVERTY LINE

Prabhat Patnaik

 

An important demand of the trade unions which had called for an all-India general strike on September 2 was that the minimum wage of unskilled workers should be raised to Rs 692 per day. Read more…

INDIA: ONLY THE CONSTITUTION – MUSLIM WOMEN MUST COUNT ON ITS GUARANTEES, NOT READINGS OF RELIGION 

Razia Patel

 

Syeda Hameed has written an article titled ‘Just keep the faith’ (IE, August 30) regarding the Mumbai High Court’s judgement allowing the entry of women into the Haji Ali dargah. Read more…

NEPAL: LETTING NEPAL BE

Kanak Mani Dixit

 

It should be in India’s interest to leave Nepal free to sort out its own challenges. New Delhi should consider the need for economic growth in U.P. and Bihar when it sits down to strategise on Nepal. Read more…

THE RETURN OF SANSKRIT – HOW AN OLD LANGUAGE GOT CAUGHT UP IN INDIA’S NEW CULTURE WARS

Ananya Vajpeyi

 

Indian scholar Ananya Vajpeyi examines the way the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is using Sanskrit to advance a Hindu supremacist agenda. She argues that academics need to step out of the ivory tower and resist the government’s manipulation of this ancient language. Read more…

DOES THE LEFT HAVE A FUTURE?

John Harris

 

There is more than one spectre haunting modern Europe: terrorism, the revival of the far right, the instability of Turkey, the fracturing of the EU project. And in mainstream politics, all across the continent, the traditional parties of the left are in crisis. Read more…

EDITORIAL

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Two discourses, both violent and toxic, have dominated the political scene in India recently. One is the topic of nationalism that has become a source of a vicious, undemocratic campaign directed against anyone who raises a voice against the RSS version of Indian nationalism that can be summarized by the slogan “Mera Bharat mahan (My India – great!). The latest victim of this campaign is the respected human-rights organization Amnesty International, which has been accused of sedition in a lawsuit filed in a court in Bangalore simply because Amnesty sponsored a meeting on Kashmir in which victims of violence by the Army and police recounted their stories. (A letter by Civil Society Organizations reproduced below addresses this issue). Read more…

PEOPLE OF INDIA HAVE LET DOWN IROM SHARMILA

Harsh Mander

 

As she licked honey from a fingertip, she could not hold back her tears. It was the first time in 16 years that any food or water had entered Irom Sharmila’s mouth. This tiny dab of honey ended the most extraordinary non-violent battle against injustice that India has seen in the last half-century. Read more…

MAHASWETA DEVI 1926-2016

Premankur Biswas

 

Hathighisa in Naxalbari is about 560 km from the south Kolkata nursing home where author and activist Mahasweta Devi spent her last few months. Yet, the Magsaysay award winner and Padma Vibhushan, who died on Thursday, is almost a local deity in the seat of the Naxalbari movement of the 1960s. Read more…

IN MAHASWETA DEVI’S FICTION, THE DISPOSSESSED TOLD THEIR OWN TRUTHS

Naveen Kishore

 

“A billion moons pass. A billion lunar years. Opening her eyes after a million light years, Draupadi, strangely enough, sees sky and moon. Slowly the bloodied nailheads shift from her brain. Trying to move, she feels her arms and legs still tied to four posts. Something sticky under her ass and waist. Her own blood. Only the gag has been removed. Incredible thirst. In case she says ‘water’ she catches her lower lip in her teeth. She senses that her vagina is bleeding. How many came to make her?” Read more…

KANDHAMAL: LONG WAIT FOR JUSTICE

Ram Puniyani

 

Today, nearly a decade later when we remember with pain the horrific violence of Kandhamal in 2008, many issues related to the state of affairs of communal violence, state of minorities, the state of justice delivery system come to one’s mind. Read more…

PRESS STATEMENT BY ALL INDIA SECULAR FORUM

All India Secular Forum extends solidarity with the Aazadi Kooch, a Pad Yatra organised by the Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti which started on 5th August 2016 and goes on till 15th August 2016. The yatra began in Ahmedabad on the 5th and is expected to complete 400 kms when it reaches Una on the 15th. Read more…

KASHMIR, AND THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS

Basharat Peer

 

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — On July 8, Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old rebel, was shot dead by Indian soldiers and police officers in a small village in the central part of Indian-controlled Kashmir. News of his killing spread as fast as the bullets that had hit him. Cellphones, emails, social media went wild: “They’ve killed Burhan! They’ve killed Burhan!” Everybody called Burhan by his first name. Read more…

INDIA’S TOP 1% OWNS MORE THAN 50% OF HER WEALTH

Bodapati Srujana

 

NEW DELHI: Today, wealth inequality in India is much sharper than ever before. The top 1% that owned a little more than a third of India’s wealth in 2000, now own more than half the wealth in the country. In this same period, the share of 99% of India’s population went down from almost two-third to less than half. Read more…

‘FOR BJP, THE COW IS A ‘SACRIFICIAL LAMB’ TO POLARISE VOTERS’

Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta

 

The former IPS officer is now part of the Dalit movement in Gujarat. In an interview he discusses the BJP’s implicit support of gau rakshaks, the condition of Dalits in India and where the Una movement is heading. Read more…

CASTE CAPITALISM IN PAKISTAN

Foqia Sadiq Khan

 

How the textiles sector in Pakistan came into the hands of Memons and Chiniotis after the Partition. Read more…

SRI LANKA: 10 YEARS SINCE AID WORKER MASSACRE

Human Rights Watch

 

Sri Lankan authorities have not brought to justice those responsible for the execution-style slaying of 17 aid workers a decade ago this week, Human Right Watch said today. On August 4, 2006, gunmen murdered local staff members from the Paris-based Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger, ACF) at their compound in the town of Muttur, in eastern Trincomalee district. Read more…

BANGLADESH: BAULS UNDER ATTACK

Editorial: The Independent

 

By attacking these mystics minstrels, the militants have not only attacked the pluralistic foundation of our country but have also shamelessly shown their contempt for our culture and customs. Read more…

BANGLADESH: FALSE NUCLEAR HOPE

M V Ramana and Zia Mian

 

Plans to construct Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant are moving forward fast. Read more…

FAST BREEDER REACTORS AND THE SLOW PROGRESS OF INDIA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

M.V. Ramana

 

Breeder reactors have always underpinned the claims of India’s Department of Atomic Energy about generating large quantities of electricity. Read more…

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, INDIA

Dear Friends,

 

As you have no doubt been following in the news, there is a concerted campaign against Amnesty International India (AII) by the ABVP and some sections of the government after the filing of the FIR on charges of sedition against them by Bangalore police, following their event on Kashmir there. Read more…

EDITORIAL: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN PAKISTAN, INDIA, BANGLADESH: SOUTH ASIA’S SHAMEFUL LEGACY

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

On July 15th, Qandeel Baloch, a popular social media celebrity in Pakistan was brutally murdered by her own brother in a horrific case of honor killing. According to the newspaper Dawn, in an unprecedented move by the state, the FIR registered against the killers under the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) made the offence unpardonable. Baloch, whose real name was Fauzia Azeem, was killed by her brother last week because she brought “dishonor” to the family. Physicist and rights activist (and member of the Insaf Bulletin collective) Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy who found Baloch a fearless young woman determined to “break taboos that shackle women in Pakistan’s patriarchal society”, believed she paid the ultimate price for her convictions — being strangled to death. Read more…

VALLEY VOICES IN KOLKATA – “WE AS KASHMIRIS REQUEST YOU”

Dolores Chew

 

On the night of 23 February 1991, soldiers of the 4 Rajputana Rifles of the Indian Army cordoned off the two villages Kunan and Poshpora in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district during a ‘crackdown’.  They took the men away and held them in barns and then gang-raped the women. Read more…

AZADI: WHAT EXACTLY DOES AZADI MEAN TO KASHMIRIS? WHY CAN’T IT BE DISCUSSED? SINCE WHEN HAVE MAPS BEEN SACROSANCT?

Arundhati Roy

 

The people of Kashmir have made it clear once again, as they have done year upon year, decade upon decade, grave upon grave, that what they want is azadi. (The “people”, by the way, does not mean those who win elections conducted in the rifle sights of the army. It does not mean leaders who have to hide in their homes and not venture out in times like these.) Read more…

THE DISHONOURABLE KILLING OF QANDEEL BALOCH

Moni Mohsin

 

Qandeel Baloch, who was murdered last week by her brother, was Pakistan’s first genuine social media star. Despite her fame – she had over 1 million followers on Facebook – 26-year-old Baloch was an unlikely star. Still less did she have the makings of the political and social icon that she has rapidly become in the four days since her death. Read more…

CALIFORNIA PASSES TEXTBOOK STANDARDS INCLUDING ‘COMFORT WOMEN,’ SIKHS

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

 

California’s State Board of Education approved a new History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools Thursday, adding changes on a wide variety of topics, including “comfort women” in World War II, the Bataan Death March and the Battle of Manila, discrimination faced by Sikh Americans, and the roles of LGBTQ community in U.S. and California history, according to the California Department of Education. Read more…

POLICE, POWER, PATRIARCHY

Rahul Srivastav , Manini Srivastav

 

In two separate cases in different districts of Uttar Pradesh, sub-inspector (SI) rank officers were suspended after videos of their abusive behaviour with female complainants went viral on social media. One was a station officer (SO) and the other in- charge of an outpost. In one case, the officer on reaching the spot, after getting a call from Dial100, hurled abuses at the female complainant: “Kya 100 no tere baap ka hai?(Does 100 number belong to your father?”. Read more…

INDIA OUTRAGE AFTER GANG RAPE VICTIM ASSAULTED AGAIN ‘BY SAME MEN’

Geeta Pandey

 

There has been outrage in India after a student was allegedly gang-raped by five men who had also raped her three years ago. Read more…

‘A MODEST PROPOSAL’ IS A BETTER IDEA FOR KASHMIR

Sadanand Menon

 

Almost 300 years ago, Jonathan Swift made ‘a modest proposal’ to the British nation. Erroneously remembered today as a writer of tales for children, Swift was in fact a fierce political satirist and fabulist, with a touch of misanthropy. Himself an Irishman, he proposed that allowing thousands of Irish children to die of malnutrition and starvation due to prolonged conditions of famine induced by the feudal system and British taxation, made for silly economics and a waste of resources. Read more…

COUP D’ÉTAT ATTEMPT: TURKEY’S REICHSTAG FIRE?

Aye Kadiolu

 

On the evening of July 15, 2016, a friend called around 10:30pm and said that both bridges connecting the Asian and European sides of Istanbul were closed by military barricades. Moreover, military jets were flying over Ankara skies. As someone living on the European side of Istanbul and commuting to the Asian side to my university on a daily basis and spending many hours in traffic in order to do that, I immediately knew that the closure of both bridges was a sign of something very extraordinary taking place. Read more…

DHAKA TERROR ATTACK: BANGLADESH PAYS THE PRICE FOR ITS GOVERNMENT’S POLICY OF APPEASING ISLAMISTS

Ikhtisad Ahmed

 

At 8.45 pm on July 1, the last Friday before Eid ul Fitr, an Islamist attack broke out in Gulshan, the diplomatic, expatriate and upper-class heartland of Dhaka. It developed into a hostage situation, with the assailants exchanging gunfire with the police. Two of the first responders were fatally wounded, and many others injured and hospitalised. Rumours abound on social media as shocked and distressed citizens gave in to voyeurism, but ten hours into the attack, neither the Bangladesh prime minister nor her ministers had addressed the nation. Their deafening silence echoed the tepid response of the Awami League government to rising terrorism. Read more…

1,528 FAKE ENCOUNTERS IN MANIPUR ALONE: WHY THE SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT ON AFSPA MATTERS

Saikat Datta

 

On the day the 19th battalion of the Army’s Rashtriya Rifles gunned down Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani in an encounter in South Kashmir, which led to massive protests in which at least 15 people have been killed, came an interim judgment of the Supreme Court that can have a profound impact on human rights in India’s numerous conflict zones. Read more…

ATROCITIES, DISCRIMINATION LED TO DALIT WAVE OF ANGER IN GUJARAT: MARTIN MACWAN

Vidya Venkat

 

“Gujarat has a mere 2.33 per cent of India’s Dalit population, but when it comes to atrocities, it ranks in the top half of the country”. Read more…

IN DEDICATION TO AMJAD SABRI & ALL QAWWALS

Jooneed J Khan

 

Qawwalis can be deadly. Case in point: the assassination of Pakistani Qawwal Amjad Sabri, brought down June 22 in a hail of bullets fired by two gunmen on a motor-bike as he drove with a friend in the ultra-violent city of Karachi. Read more…

MODI’S US TRIP – PERKS OF POWER AND COMPULSIONS OF EMPIRE 

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Modi’s recent trip to the White House and the many embraces he received from President Obama as well as the US Congress reminds us again of the nexus between empire and power. Hardly two years ago, Modi was a pariah in the eyes of the US Government that had refused to grant him a visa for nine long years on the grounds of violation of religious freedom. This denial was based on the pogrom of minority Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 when Modi was Chief Minister and directly in-charge of the police and the law and order machinery. The weakness of the Indian judicial system, which has rarely brought to justice anyone other than mere foot soldiers, in cases of communal violence, is well known. Despite mountains of evidence against Modi, amply documented in many reports, books, and proceedings, various official organs in India chose to issue “clean chits” to him on grounds that would strain the credulity of any impartial observer. However, the US State Department certainly recognized this reality when it opted to deny Modi a diplomatic A-2 visa in 2005 and continued to do so thereafter. Read more…

INDIA’S PATENT PROBLEMS: MODI AND THE END OF CHEAP MEDICINES

Sarah Asrar and Fran Quigley

 

When is a decision on a patent application not a decision at all? When it runs counter to the powerful commercial and diplomatic forces that protect massively profitable pharmaceutical monopolies. Or at least that is what many advocates for access to medicines are saying is the reason behind Indian patent officials last month reversing their own 2015 decision that denied United States-based Gilead Sciences a patent on its hepatitis C treatment sofosbuvir, commonly marketed as Sovaldi. The new decision holds that Sovaldi meets the Indian patenting requirements of novelty and inventiveness. But the earlier decision by the same agency came to the opposite conclusion, holding that Gilead’s drug was not a significant improvement over an already available compound. Read more…

RESIST MODI REGIME’S ASSAULT ON STUDENTS THROUGH SUBRAMANIAM PANEL REPORT ON STUDENT POLITICS

Shehla Rashid

 

The recent government constituted panel‘s (headed by former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramaniam) report on student politics is unconstitutional, highly regressive and politically motivated, and signals the upcoming onslaught of total commercialisation of education and imposition of Hindutva ideology in universities. The TSR Subramaniam Panel’s report is the logical follow up to the Birla Ambani report (which was submitted in 2000), following which student unions across the country were banned. The Birla Ambani report had lamented that student unions are not allowing commercialisation of education: we accept the charge and take pride in it! We believe that education should be a right of everyone, not a privilege of a handful of people. Read more…

NSG MEMBERSHIP PUSH “ILL-ADVISED, UNWARRANTED”: SRINIVASAN

The Padma Bhushan awardee said failure to get in NSG would not have adverse impact on India’s nuclear programme. Read more…

FIRST PRAFUL BIDWAI MEMORIAL AWARD GOES TO PEOPLE’S ARCHIVE OF RURAL INDIA (PARI)

Press Release

 

New Delhi, June 23: The first Praful Bidwai Memorial Award has gone to the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), which was set up in 2014 by noted Mumbai-based journalist and commentator, Palagummi Sainath. Read more…

INDIA: TWO YEARS OF HINDUTVA RULE

Mukul Dube

 

According to a report in the Hindu newspaper of 12 June 2016, Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson Abhay Vartak said that he is “sad to see that Hindu organizations [are] being targeted in spite of a Hindu government being in power”. He forgot that the law has no religion and that the law is above the government in power. A man who kills another human being is a murderer, plain and simple, and he is liable to the same punishment regardless of his religion. Most important, the Constitution of India requires the government of India to have no religion. Read more…

GULBARG SOCIETY CARNAGE: WHO CAST THE FIRST STONE?

Ram Puniyani

 

Communal violence is the big bane of Indian society. While on one hand the innocents are killed the guilty mostly get away without any punishment. The rate of prosecution of riot cases is very low. Even where punishments are meted out the big fish are let off while the foot soldiers get punished. Apart from these observations what is popularized and what has become part of the ‘social common sense’ is that ‘it is Muslims who begin the riot and then they get killed’. Read more…

FACT-FINDING REPORT ON THE ALLEGED EXODUS OF HINDUS FROM KAIRANA

A team of journalists and activists, deputed by The Milli Gazette, on 14 June 2016 visited the town of Kairana in Western Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli district which is in the national news due to the claim by the local BJP member of Parliament Hukum Singh that 346 Hindu families have been forced to flee Kairana town due to threats from the Muslim community. This claim aroused much media and political interest and focused lights on the law-and-order situation in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Read more…

PROF MAHESH GURU WALKS FREE TO FACE SUSPENSION FROM MYSORE UNIVERSITY

(SabrangIndia website)

 

Is Criticizing Prime Minister Modi Now A Crime?

 

B.P. Mahesh Chandra Guru walked out of the jail late on the evening of June 24 after getting bail only to receive a suspension order from the Mysore University administration that cities his ‘criticism of Prime Minister of India, HRD Minister and Vice Chancellor in foul and derogatory language” as the reasons for the action against him.  Inquiries made by SabrangIndia reveal that this is the matter before a judicial enquiry that is pending. Read more…

PROTEST THE ONSLAUGHT ON DEMOCRACY!

Call for a People’s Convention, 25 June 2016

 

25 June 1975 is marked as a day of shame, a blot on the history of independent India – the day when democracy was formally suspended through the imposition of the emergency. Today, more than four decades later, the nightmare is playing out again. We are now faced with the stark reality of achhe din, saffron style: an upgraded, corporate friendly, tech savvy version of the Emergency, packaged as a Hindutva dream. Read more…

EDITORIAL: SOUTH ASIA AND FASCISM: DESCENDING FAST, DESCENDING SLOW

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Two issues in South Asia have captured our attention this month. The first is the troubling regularity with which secularist bloggers and journalists are being murdered in Bangladesh. Several secularists including a professor were hacked to death by machete wielding goons in the months of April and May in a depressing “signature” modus operandi, along with a Christian doctor and a Hindu tailor. Likewise, the murder of secular anti-Shiaphobia activist Khurram Zaki in Pakistan in early May unfortunately echoes a similar incendiary mix of intolerance and impunity practiced by fascist goons pretending to be defenders off religiosity. The execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, by the Bangladesh state, is also an unfortunate development. Unsavory and murderous, he may have been, but a principled opposition to the death penalty, even for convicted murderers, should be our position as human rights activists. Read more…

BANGLADESH’S SLOW CAPITULATION TO ISLAMISM

Ikhtisad Ahmed

 

On April 25, Islamists butchered LGBTQ activists Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy Mahbub in the presence of Xulhaz’s mother at Mannan’s home in Dhaka, for being “the pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality in Bangladesh (sic)”. Two days before that, extremists hacked to death Rezaul Karim Siddique, a Muslim professor of English at Rajshahi University in northwest Bangladesh. His killers accused him of “calling to atheism”. Read more…

HAS BANGLADESH FINALLY BURIED THE GHOSTS OF 1971 WAR CRIMES ALONG WITH MOTIUR RAHMAN NIZAMI?

David Bergman

 

The beneficiary and then the victim of Bangladesh’s startling political turnarounds was hanged on May 11. Read more…

BANGLADESH: FASCISM FROM BELOW

Habib Khondker

 

A simple equation differentiates democracies from authoritarian systems. Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, it can be said that, in a democracy, the government is fearful of the people, and in an authoritarian system, the people are scared of the government. Read more…

ASSAM GOES SAFFRON: FOUR INGREDIENTS THAT THE BJP GOT RIGHT IN THIS CAMPAIGN

Ipsita Chakravarty

 

This will go down as one of the big success stories in the annals of Indian election history. After 15 years of Congress rule, Assam voted decisively for the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP has gone from five seats in the assembly polls of 2011 to around 60 in 2016. Mission 64 is in the bag and the BJP alliance looks set to notch up more than 80 seats in the 126-member Assembly. Anti-incumbency does not adequately explain such a dramatic verdict. This was a campaign where the BJP got the ingredients just right. Read more…

INDIA: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY IN NAGALAND

Dolly Kikon

 

Perpetrators of sexual violence escape justice, while their victims are trapped between exhortations by women’s advocacy groups not to ‘suffer quietly’ and the social stigma attached to sexual violence. Read more…

THE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS DECODED: BEHIND THE PROPAGANDA, THE COLD, HARD FACTS

The Citizen Bureau

 

NEW DELHI: The bombast is over, at least one hopes it is. And now that the television media channels are almost over with their customary ‘rah rah BJP’, the cold, sober, hard facts that have emerged from the five Assembly elections should prevail. Read more…

“WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING IN RECENT TIMES COULD WELL DEVELOP INTO FASCISM”: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROMILA THAPAR

The Caravan

 

For over five decades, the historian Romila Thapar has been at the vanguard of research and writing about ancient India. The author of 20 books including seminal titles such as A History of India and Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Thapar is also the author of history textbooks for the National Council for Research and Education (NCERT), used widely in schools across the nation. Read more…

INDIA SLIDING TOWARDS FASCISM UNDER HINDUTVA

Indian Writer, Feminist and Social Activist Noor Zaheer in Montreal, Canada. Read more…

LOOKING BEYOND THE KOMAGATA MARU APOLOGY

Gurpreet Singh

 

On May 18, Canada finally apologized for the Komagata Maru episode. The Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood in the House of Commons to say sorry for the incident that happened more than 100 years ago. Read more…

“THINGS THE LEFT NEEDS TO DO RIGHT”

Prabhat Patnaik

 

Exactly a century ago around this time, Vladimir Lenin was in Zurich completing a manuscript that would go on to become perhaps the most consequential book of the twentieth century. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism may not be the most widely read of Lenin’s works, but it is certainly the most important. Read more…

AIDWA STATEMENT ON TRINAMOOL VIOLENCE AFTER BENGAL ELECTIONS 

AIDWA strongly condemns the heinous attack unleashed by the winning Trinamul Congress activists on the women activists in West Bengal as part of post-poll result violence. Most of AIDWA activists are attacked and hundreds had to flee from the residence in village or city. Read more…

INSAF BULLETIN EXTENDS MAY 1 SALUTE TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD!

EDITORIAL: DROUGHT AND THE POLITICS IN SOUTH ASIA

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Several events in South Asia this month warranted an editorial, be it the uncovering of the Panama Papers scam that implicated a variety of South Asian politicians, the continued violence against secularists in Bangladesh, in particular the shocking murder in broad daylight of a Professor at Rajshahi University, or the fact that the Modi government was able to channel pretty large sums of money (at first glance, perhaps thousands of times the money they are persecuting Teesta Setalvad for “misappropriating”) to fake companies in the “KG scam.” The last mentioned event should also raise questions on how much of the Gujarat economic miracle was just a public relations fantasy that Modi used to ride to victory in the parliamentary elections two years ago. Read more…

PAKISTAN: TEXTBOOKS OF HATE

Zubeida Mustafa

 

PAULO Freire, the Brazilian educator and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, said education should aim at teaching students to think critically. They should work with the teacher in creating knowledge. Read more…

BANGLADESH: AUTHORITIES MUST ACT AS ANOTHER SECULAR ACTIVIST HACKED TO DEATH

 

The vicious killing of another secular activist in Bangladesh is a grave reminder that the authorities are failing to protect people exercising their right to freedom of expression, Amnesty International said. Read more…

ANOTHER MURDER IN BANGLADESH: PROFESSOR HACKED TO DEATH

Pen International

 

Bangladesh: University professor hacked to death 23 April 2016 – The tragic and brutal murder of university professor Rezaul Karim Siddique this morning in the northern Bangladesh district of Rajshahi, must be investigated immediately and thoroughly all perpetrators brought to justice, PEN International said today. Read more…

SWACCH BHARAT ABHIYAN INVISIBILISES CASTE AND GLAMOURISES THE BROOM

Bezwada Wilson

 

The 125 day Bhim Yatra which started from Dibrugarh and traversed 30 states and 500 districts to reach Delhi is now over.  Sabrangindia.in has been following the yatra since its first steps to concientise Indians. Read more…

INDIA: HATE SPEECH; HATE CRIMES AND COMMUNAL POLARIZATION

Ram Puniyani

 

While addressing a Sadbhavna rally organized by RSS in Haryana (April, 2016) Baba Ramdev, the entrepreneur cum yoga guru, while referring to Muslims said “Some person wears a cap and stands up, and “… says I will not say ’Bharat Mata ki jai’ even if you decapitate me. Read more…

A DAILY PLEBISCITE – KASHMIR, THE NORTHEAST AND INDIA

Mukul Kesavan

 

Regarding Kashmir and the Northeast, mainstream Indian political opinion – with some exceptions – ignores or underplays the violence inflicted on people who are formally citizens of this republic. Read more…

WHY BUSINESSES LOVE CHHATTISGARH

Sudeep Chakravarti

 

For businesses, it is as if the war with the Maoists doesn’t exist. As if half of Chhattisgarh isn’t a walking, talking, shooting match that ought to keep away businesses with the fear of aiding and abetting conflict. Being made liable for such action by ethics watchdogs and outraged investors. For being at the forefront of corporate social irresponsibility. Read more…

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana

 

Nuclear Security Summits have yielded little by focussing on securing small amounts of nuclear material. Any real progress must entail the U.S. and Russia reducing stockpiles and India and Pakistan reining in competitive nuclearisation. Read more…

GODSE’S FINAL SPEECH SHOULD BE COMPARED WITH MODI’S FERVENT WORDS OF PATRIOTISM

UR Ananthamurthy

 

One of India’s greatest storytellers chose the manifesto as the genre for his swan song. One needs the speech of manifestos to cut to the very core of Indian politics, the heart of darkness we call the nation state. Read more…

THE NEW KG SCAM

Jairam Ramesh

 

To pretend to extract non-existent gas requires extraordinary skill and sleight. And to banish all of it into thin air later is even more masterful. This is what the KG scam is all about. Read more…

INDIA – HARYANA: SILENCE AND COVER-UP OF GANG RAPES IN MURTHAL DURING JAT AGITATION?

Unsafe In Murthal: February 22 gang rape survivors deserve better from the Haryana police and government (Times of India – Editorial April 18, 2016) Read more…

NO LOVE FOR AMBEDKAR

Shamsul Islam

 

It is heartening to see Ram Madhav, a seasoned RSS/ BJP leader committed to Hindutva politics, praising Indian democracy, begotten by the “architect of our Constitution”, Bhimrao Ambedkar (‘What Dalits want’, The Indian Express, April 14). Madhav also demands that today’s caste system “go lock, stock and barrel” because it is a “stumbling block in achieving fraternity in society”. It’s indeed very pious, coming from an important functionary of the present government led by RSS pracharaks. Read more…

‘I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF THE PEN, NOT THE GUN’

Jyoti Punwani

 

Soni Sori doesn’t seek revenge for the torture she suffered at the hands of the Bastar police when branded a Naxal, her true victory will be to tell her story to the world. Read more…

ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT QUASHES DISMISSAL OF PROF. SANDEEP PANDEY

Sabrang India

 

In a landmark judgment that holds out of hope for free expression, and also quoting from Voltaire who famously said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it,” the Allahabad High Court today, ruled in favor of renowned Gandhian, professor and Magsaysay award winner, Dr Sandeep Pandey and quashed the decision of the IIT Banaras Hindu University (BHU) to prematurely terminate his contract.  The fact that the professor was not given a chance to explain the serious charges leveled against him was also strongly rebuked by the High Court. Read more…

EDITORIAL: THE ASSAULT CONTINUES

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

The unrelenting attacks on Dalit, progressive, and minority students in universities all around the country by right-wing thugs in cahoots with the police, orchestrated by the Central government, continue unabated. The latest episode is taking place, once again, in the University of Hyderabad (UOH) with brutal attacks by police on students protesting the return of the Vice Chancellor Apparao who had been sent on leave pending an enquiry against him for his role in the death of Rohith Vemula in January. Vemula, a Dalit post-graduate scholar in the university, had been hounded and discriminated against by the university administration to the point where he took his own life, an act that has been labeled an “institutional murder.” Read more…

WITHDRAW POLICE, SUSPEND VC, ORDER PROBE: 300 ACADEMICS ON HCU

Sabrang India

 

Statement of Solidarity By Over 300 International Academics, Activists, Artists and Writers who stand with the students of University of Hyderabad (Hyderabad Central University-HCU) Read more…

DARKNESS AT NOON IN THE ‘LIBERATED ZONE’ OF BASTAR

Nandini Sundar

 

Sukma (Chhattisgarh): The forests of Bastar are teeming with people while the villages are deserted. The Maoists walk the forests, keeping watch on the security forces, who have now taken to camping in the jungles, ostensibly to keep watch on the Maoists. The villagers themselves spend sleepless nights wondering which direction the forces will take and who they will attack next. Across Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur, people have taken to sleeping in the jungle at night or migrating en masse to Telangana to escape dawn raids and the mass round-ups. It is freezing in the open; no one can light fires for fear of being found, and the few blankets they possess are really no protection. Most cover themselves only with a thin cotton lungi. If they don’t die in an ‘encounter’, many will surely fall ill with the cold. Read more…

“37 YRS IN INDIA AND I’VE NEVER FACED PUBLIC HOSTILITY, UNTIL NOW’

Jean Dreze

 

I was surprised to hear yesterday that some people had come to my partner Bela’s house near Jagdalpur and instigated her neighbours against her. They took out a procession in the neighbourhood, shouting slogans like “Bela Bhatia murdabad” and “Bela Bhatia Bastar chodo”. They also distributed a leaflet accusing both of us of being Naxalites who are trying to “tear the country apart” – nothing less. Some of them advised Bela’s landlady to evict her. Fortunately, Bela’s landlady and neighbours are very fond of her and they did not lose their nerve. Read more…

GERMAN BAKERY BLAST ACQUITTAL: THE ATS OWES US AN EXPLANATION

Vijay Hiremath

 

In a span of just two weeks, two investigating agencies in India – the Delhi Police’s Special Cell and Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad – suffered massive setbacks after courts dismissed the theories the agencies built up around two cases by discharging the accused in one, and acquitting another of all terrorism-related charges. Read more…

NAILING THE SANGH PARIVAR’S LIES: HOW THE NAUJAWAN BHARAT SABHA IS DOING IT

SabrangIndia

 

In Mankhurd, a Mumbai suburb, the RSS is faced with a grassroots problem. Undeterred by the local police’s attempt to act at Hindutva’s behest, activists of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) in the area have been distributing leaflets in the area and in local trains exposing the fraudulent bid of the sangh parivar to claim Shaheed Bhagat Singh as their own. Read more…

BHAGAT SINGH AND SAVARKAR, TWO PETITIONS THAT TELL US THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIND AND HINDUTVA

 

Eighty-five years ago, on March 23, 1931, Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his two comrades-in-arms, Shaheed Rajguru and Shaheed Sukhdev were hanged in Lahore by the British colonial government. At the time of his martyrdom, Bhagat Singh was barely 23 years old. Despite the fact that he had his whole life ahead of him, he refused to seek clemency from the British as some well-wishers and family members wanted him to do. In his last petition and testament, he demanded that the British be true to the charge they laid against him of waging war against the colonial state and that he be executed by firing squad and not by hanging. The document also lays out his vision for an India whose working people are free from exploitation by either British or Indian “parasites”. Read more…

#WOMENSDAY2016: IF BRAVERY HAS A NAME, IT IS SONI SORI

Shriya Mohan

 

It’s 7 PM on a Sunday evening and hardly a minute after introducing myself, Soni Sori offers me momos out of a packet she’s helping herself to. The sight is unusual. Here is a woman, once called the greatest internal security threat, falsely implicated to be a Naxalite, one of Chhattisgarh’s only human rights defenders, a survivor of countless police brutalities and attempts to silence her, the recent one being blacking her face with a tar like substance that caused intense chemical burns and required her to be flown to the capital to be hospitalised in Apollo Hospital’s burn ward. Read more…

PAKISTAN: EASTER MASSACRE

Mahir Ali

 

THERE are times when it is possible to be shocked and horrified without entirely being surprised. Sunday’s atrocity in Lahore falls into that category. The mass murder in a public park, evidently aimed primarily at Christians celebrating Easter, in the full knowledge that a large proportion of the victims would be children, epitomises the mindless brutality of forces unleashed almost four decades ago. Read more…

A CRISIS FOR MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN

Rozina Ali

 

When the bomb went off in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, on Sunday, families were settled into the lull of Easter celebrations. Picnics were out and children were scattered across the playground. The suicide bomber walked purposefully to the swings before blowing himself up, along with the kids around him. More than seventy people died in the attack, at least twenty-nine of them children, and more than three hundred people were wounded. One reporter who arrived at the scene told me that victims were rushed to the hospital in ambulances, taxis, private cars, and rickshaws, while surviving children were rounded up as security guards tried to find their families. Read more…

SUICIDE BOMBING IN LAHORE IS THE LATEST ATTEMPT TO SHUT PUBLIC SPACES AND SILENCE MINORITY VOICES

Rosita Armytage

 

Minorities are increasingly facing exclusion from Pakistan’s public realm; and it’s not only terrorists who are responsible. Read more…

LAHORE ATTACK — WHERE DO THE REAL FAULT LINES LIE?

Akhtar Abbas

 

Gulshan-e-Iqbal is a big public park situated in Lahore’s Allama Iqbal Town. The place has long stretches of grass where families spend their leisure time eating home-made food over a spread bedsheet, or go boating in the lake, or explore the maze of inner Lahore or take joy rides in electric gondolas. Read more…

IS THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT TURNING A BLIND EYE TO TALIBAN VIOLENCE?

Dawn

 

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan announced that the government will clear the D-Chowk of protesters on Wednesday “at any cost”, if they don’t disperse by themselves in the night. Read more…

DR. DAYA VARMA AND PROF. HARI SHARMA: MEMORIAL MEETING

Rana Bose

 

This meeting has been organized as we all know by the West Bengal chapter of PIPFPD, to honour the memory of Daya Varma and Ved Bhasin. I will be talking about Daya and as well as, his close friend and comrade Hari Sharma. Both of who went to Canada some 55 years ago and have consistently fought for progressive values abroad.  In 2015 we lost Daya Varma. In 2010 we had already lost Hari Sharma. Both to cancer. Read more…

INDIA TODAY: FOLLOWING THE NAZI PATH

Editors

 

A form of fascism reminiscent of Nazi Germany is being enacted in India today. While the analogy is only partial it is nonetheless highly suggestive. Of course there are bound to be many differences between two countries a century and a continent apart. But if one recalls the praise showered on the racial policies of the Nazis by none other than Guru Golwalkar, one of the founders of the RSS, the similarities become clearer. Read more…

BE WARNED, THE ASSAULT ON JNU IS PART OF A PATTERN

Romila Thapar

 

There is by now little doubt that we are currently being governed by those that seem to have an anti-intellectual mind-set. This spells trouble for universities that are concerned with high standards of teaching and research. Read more…

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ‘NATIONAL’

Prabhat Patnaik

 

Nationalism that developed in India during the anti-colonial struggle was sui generis, an altogether new phenomenon the like of which the world had not seen earlier. It was essentially a democratic and egalitarian nationalism, as opposed to the aggrandising European form. Read more…

INDIA’S ANGST

Irfan Husain

 

“PATRIOTISM”, said Samuel Johnson in 1775, “is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

 

Over the intervening years, this famous quote may have become a cliché, but has lost none of its sting. This is because patriotism continues to be used to whip up virulent nationalism and fierce religious extremism. Governments and demagogues constantly appeal to this base sentiment to control and direct citizens and mobs. Read more…

THE COMING OF NIGHT – INDIA’S DESCENT INTO MUSCLE POWER

Rudrangshu Mukherjee

 

The famous declaration of Gopal Krishna Gokhale about what Bengal thinks today India thinks tomorrow has become an irrelevant cliché. No one seriously thinks of Bengal today as the harbinger of the future in the world of ideas or in any other sphere. But the time is upon us to revive and retrieve that declaration not with pride but in shame. Read more…

GOD, HOLY TEMPLES AND UNHOLY WOMEN

Neha Dabhade

 

The news is abuzz with the protests led by women to enter holy shrines – be it the temple of Sabarimala, Shani Shingnapur or Haji Ali. These women have one very fundamental and seemingly simple demand – entry to the shrines. Read more…

BAN RSS, INDIA’S NO 1 TERROR ORGANIZATION: FORMER MAHARASHTRA COP

Hindustan Times, Feb. 23, 2016

 

Maharashtra’s former inspector general of police SM Mushrif on Tuesday accused the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of being hand-in-glove with right-wing extremists, and called for a ban on the RSS describing it as India’s No.1 terror organisation. Read more…

EDITORIAL: HINDUTVA IN THE UNIVERSITY

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

On the 17th of January 2016, Rohith Vemula, a PhD student from the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide. The first ten pieces of this bulletin are devoted to examining Rohith’s suicide, but in this editorial, we wish to point out fact that this event shone an uncomfortable light on the shocking casteism that pervades Indian university hostels. Even in places like JNU, Dalit students are routinely subjected to social boycotts in hostels. Read more…

THEY CALL US ANTI-NATIONAL

Anand Patwardhan

 

Their founding fathers came from the most conservative Brahmin castes, with enormous faith in the culture that empowered them. Read more…

SUICIDE OF THE DALIT STUDENT ACTIVIST ROHITH VERMULA

Academics, Scholars and Concerned Citizens

 

The following is a compilation of responses by Academics, Scholars and Concerned Citizens to the suicide of the PhD student of University of Hyderabad in January 2016. Read more…

ROHITH VEMULA, DEATH OF A PHILOSOPHER TO PURIFY HIGHER EDUCATION

Kancha Ilaiah

 

The Dalit student whose suicide has generated political waves was a brilliant man. His letter to Prof Appa Rao, the newly appointed vice-chancellor of the university who was once believed to be anti-Dalit by the government, shows that at the time of his suicide, he was angry, upset and depressed. Read more…

ANCIENT PREJUDICE, MODERN INEQUALITY

Ananya Vajpeyi

 

If Ekalavya’s dismembered digit has haunted the Hindu schoolyard from time immemorial, Rohith Vemula’s tragic suicide lays bare the deep inequality undergirding the modern state and its institutions of higher learning. Read more…

A NEW DALIT IDENTITY

Apoorvanand

 

The RSS has taken upon itself to define who is a pure Dalit and who a nationalist. Read more…

MESSAGE ABOUT ROHITH VEMULA

Susie Tharu

 

Dear Friends

 

Some of you may recall that three years ago there were a spate of students suicides—once again mostly dalits. At that time the AP High Court had passed an order suggesting administrative measures and safeguards in universities. Barring a few desultory and soon abandoned moves to set up counselling centres neither the UGC nor the universities acted on the order. Read more…

END THE SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE AGAINST DALIT SCHOLARS IN INDIA

SANSAD News Release On Rohith Vemula

 

SANSAD mourns the suicide of Dalit PhD student, Rohit Vemula at the University of Hyderabad on January 17 and joins the students, academics, civil society organizations, and politicians across India in condemning the persistent and increasing violence against Dalits in India and the systemic discrimination in its institutes of higher education, of which Rohith’s tragic death is a consequence. Read more…

BEFORE I SPEAK OF THE STARS…

Ravi Sinha

 

Let me speak first of Rohith Chakravarthi Vemula. I never met him. I wish I had, although that would have made me hardly any worthier of speaking about him. Had I met him, I would have come to know that I shared with him a passion for science, nature and stars. I would like to think that he would have found in me, despite my being from another generation, a comrade-in-arms and a fellow campaigner for a better world. Perhaps I would have also recognized a few of the scars left over from a childhood spent in poverty. But, there, the similarities would have ended. Read more…

STATEMENT ON ROHITH VEMULA

Irfan Engineer

 

Dear friends, Hope by now you came to know about the unfortunate incident that took place in the University of Hyderabad.  Read more…

WHO KILLED AT BATHANI TOLA?

Anand Chakravarti

 

Two decades after the massacre, the families of victims wait for justice. Read more…

WHO WILL SPEAK FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS?

Pushkar Raj

 

The Bombay high court judgment cancelling Prof. Sai Baba’s bail and initiating contempt proceedings against the writer Arundhati Roy is a major blow to the human rights defenders in the country. Read more…

THE IDEA OF INDIA

Ram Puniyani

 

As we welcome the New Year (2016) with hope and optimism, the events of the year gone by flash to our mind; those events which are going to have influences in the times to come. We saw that the politics of the BJP led NDA government was practically marked by the controlling agenda of Hindu nationalism dictated by RSS. With the statements of the Sadhvis, Sakhis and Yogis the atmosphere of hate towards minorities saw a peak of sorts. Be it the issue of beef eating, love jihad or rational thinking; these elements came down heavily on the values of Indian democracy, principles of Indian Constitution and atmosphere of amity nurtured by Indian ethos for centuries. Read more…

THE RSS IS CONSPIRING TO GAIN A HOLD OF ALL ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS

Sandeep Pandey/Mayak Jain

 

On December 21, Banaras Hindu University convened a board meeting and decided to show the door to Magsaysay award winner and visiting professor Sandeep Pandey, allegedly for his “anti-national activities”. Pandey had been teaching at the Indian Institute of Technology-BHU for two-and-a half years. He sparked a storm in the academic community with his allegation that his political ideology had him a target of the Narendra Modi government. Read more…

BANGLADESH’S ISLAMIST CHALLENGE

The death sentence handed out to two students last week for the murder of a secular blogger in Bangladesh marks the first major verdict in a string of cases related to the killings of writers in the South Asian nation. Read more…

PAKISTAN: TEXTBOOKS AND MILITANCY

Fawad Ali Shah

 

They killed university students this time. Brutally. Who is responsible for this massacre? The elected government or the security establishment? Could the government have taken any steps to prevent this tragedy? Did it fulfill its promises made under the National Action Plan (NAP)? Read more…

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN 2015: A GLIMPSE INTO UP, BIHAR AND HARYANA

Neha Dabhade

 

North India has reported highest number of instances of communal violence in the year 2015.  Some news reports went as far as calling the cow belt of India a tinderbox of communal violence. Some characteristics were discerned to have beset the violence all over northern India and particularly in Uttar Pradesh. Read more…

EDITORIAL: HINDUTVA TARGETING BOLLYWOOD

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

For better or for worse, the Indian film industry, sometimes referred to as Bollywood, remains an important marker of the Indian identity. Bollywood is truly a contested terrain where forces of neoliberalism clash with socialism, where communalism engages secularism, where rampant sexism meets the forces of feminism and caste ideology is reinforced and contested. Read more…

REVISITING P.C. JOSHI IN TODAY’S CONTEXT

Sobhanlal Datta Gupta

 

It is an irony of history that P.C. Joshi, the architect of united front politics in pre-independence India, is a much-maligned, almost forgotten, figure in today’s Left circles, although it is precisely his idea of forging unity with the secular, nationalist forces under the slogan “Left-democratic unity” that is the key issue which now engages the Left. Read more…

INSTITUTIONAL RIOT SYSTEM AND CULPABILITY IN COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

Irfan Engineer and Neha Dabhade

 

Whenever confronted by increasing intolerance and increase in incidences of communal violence in the country, the standard response of the BJP leaders and spokespersons is that incidences of communal violence took place even during UPA regime in particular and Congress regimes in general. They point out the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 in Delhi and other states; and various communal incidences that took place when Congress Party was in power. Besides the fact that incidences of communal violence have actually increased in the year 2015 to 650 from 644 in 2014, it would be simplistic equate the incidences of violence merely on the basis of statistics. Read more…

FIRST PERSON: A POLICE OFFICER’S ACCOUNT OF BEING HARASSED FOR STOPPING A RIOT IN RAJASTHAN

Ajaz Ashraf

 

Superintendent of Police Pankaj Choudhary stopped a riot, but got a call from the Inspector General in the Chief Minister’s Office to release Sangh activists arrested for triggering it. Read more…

WORMS FOUND IN BABA RAMDEV’S PATANJALI ATTA NOODLES

Ajay Kumar

 

Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Atta noodles, which were set to raise competition in the market, seem to be falling prey to controversies with worms being found in a packet in Narwana city of Jind district in  One Vinod Kumar bought the Patanjali atta noodles packet containing worms from an authorised shop selling Patanjali products which was situated in Model Town road area of Narwana on Thursday. “I had gone to purchase half kg of ghee from the shop. Read more…

BANGLADESH: EXECUTIONS POLARIZE BANGLA ALONG LIBERAL & RADICAL LINES

Jaideep Mazumdar

 

DHAKA: Last week’s executions of two war criminals, convicted of genocide during the 1971liberation war that led to Bangladesh’s creation, have polarised the country along liberal and radical lines. Liberals say Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) functionary Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed’s hangings were necessary to defeat forces opposed to secular and progressive ideals the country was founded on. Read more…

INDIA, PAKISTAN TO RESUME DIALOGUE, BUT NO CRICKET YET

Amitabh Pashupati Revi

 

Sushma Swaraj, who went to Islamabad on Tuesday to attend a meeting on Afghanistan, today met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Read more…

TETE A TETE WITH HISTORIAN IRFAN HABIB

Manjula Sen

 

The Yamuna Expressway scoops up the car from Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi, and deposits you at the other end where a forked market-lined road eventually leads to Aligarh. There the 138-year-old Aligarh Muslim University’s sparkling campus sits picture perfect. Read more…

JOINT STATEMENT CALLING ON THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF PAKISTAN TO VOTE AGAINST THE PREVENTION OF ELECTRONIC CRIMES BILL IN ITS CURRENT FORM

Article 19, Digital Rights Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, the Association for Progressive Communications and other organisations remain seriously concerned by the proposed Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill in Pakistan. Read more…

WILL A SRI LANKAN WOMAN BE STONED TO DEATH IN SAUDI ARABIA?

Faizer Shaheid

 

A verdict of death has once again been delivered in the great Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and this time it was rather a question of morality than that of murder. The unnamed Sri Lankan woman has been found guilty of fornication and has therefore been sentenced to be stoned to death. Such is the infamous Shari’a law applied in Saudi Arabia. Read more…

I WORRY ABOUT MUSLIMS

Mohammed Hanif

 

KARACHI, Pakistan — I worry about Muslims. Islam teaches me to care about all human beings, and animals too, but life is short and I can’t even find enough time to worry about all the Muslims. Read more…

INDIA UNDER MODI IS LIVING THROUGH A DARK AGE: PROFESSOR DN JHA

Teesta Setalvad, of Communalism Combat interviews Professor DN Jha on Dietary Traditions in Early India, the calculated mis-representation of Early Indian and Medieval History by the present government under the direct control of the Sangh Parivar and the ‘dark age ‘ of Superstition and un-Reason being promoted by the current political dispensation. Read more…

EDITORIAL: APRES BIHAR

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

The triumphal drive of the Hindutva chariot, which began in May 2014, has been slowed  by the massive victory of the Grand Alliance in the Bihar election. The very Gandhian type of civil disobedience exhibited by Indian writers, artists, scientists and intellectuals who have returned very publicly their awards and honors in protest at the intolerant and thuggish acts of the Sangh Parivar has further tarnished the luster of the Modi regime; the poor fellow now has to run abroad to gather approbation from the likes of the British Tory Cameron or the hawkish Israeli Zionist Netanyahu. Read more…

GROWING INTOLERANCE

Neha Dabhade & Irfan Engineer

 

Recently in an interview at an award function, Amir Khan, mentioned that his wife, Kiran asked him whether they should leave the country. To Amir Khan, the statement of his wife was disastrous and indicated growing intolerance in the country. Though we condemn any such sweeping statement coming from a celebrity idolized by millions in the country, one must without politicizing the statement, reflect over the context it was made in. The Indian Prime Minister in London rightly pointed out, “India is full of diversity. This diversity is our pride and it is our strength. Diversity is the speciality of India.” (Indian Express, Nov 14, 2015). Read more…

MEASURE OF THE MAN – WHY MODI LOVES HOOPLA

Bharat Bhushan

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come back to India somewhat rejuvenated, his love for the grandiose nurtured by the attention, admiration and adulation bestowed on him by British Indians and the British Prime Minister himself, at London’s Wembley Stadium. Read more…

GENDER BENDER IN BIHAR: WHY WOMEN VOTED AGAINST MODI IN THE RECENT BIHAR ELECTIONS

Ruchira Gupta

 

For 20-year-old Nageena, a college student in Patna, life is about possibilities. She dreams of becoming an engineer.

 

For the first ten years of her life, she ran ragged on the dirt path of a red-light district in Forbesganj, Bihar. Her home, a mud hut had no doors, no roof, no toilet, no drinking water and no electricity. She could not read right or write, used to feel hungry all the time, was scared to go to the local school. Read more…

BANGLADESH: TRUTH BE DAMNED – THE ’OTHER’ IS ALWAYS THE CULPRIT

Mahfuz Anam

 

The PM blames Khaleda, the BNP chief blames Hasina, the killers continue to kill, the victims’ families live in fear, people remain confused and angry, friends of Bangladesh watch in disbelief and the smile of our enemies grow wider. So what more needs to happen to wake us up to the challenges we now face in our ’Sonar Bangla’? Read more…

THE SANGH AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDIA’S FREEDOM

Teesta Setalvad

 

On November 28, 2015, two days ago, the general secretary of the CPI-M, Sitaram Yechury, made an impassioned speech while speaking on the occasion of the Constitution Day debate, in the Rajya Sabha. Challenging this government governed by the ideology that aspires to a theocratic nation, he said that the motive behind this government’s observance of Constitution Day was that it wished to ‘re-write history” and “worm its way” into the history of the national movement and the struggle for India’s freedom. Communalism Combat brings to you a thoroughly researched investigation by Teesta Setalvad into the role of the Hindu right in India’s battle for freedom against British rule. This is part of the introduction to Beyond Doubt – A Dossier on Gandhi’s assassination published by Tulika Books in January this year. Read more…

HERE’S THE REAL REASON THE RAM JANMABHOOMI MOVEMENT IS DEAD

Aakar Patel

 

In December 1988, I was at MS University in Baroda when Arun Shourie arrived to praise the Hindutva leadership. He was then a Ram Janmabhoomi enthusiast and made a speech to a packed auditorium stressing how reason able its demands were. Hindutva was not about vandalism, he assured us. Why , Muslims could even dismantle their mosque and take it away , he said, (as if it were made of Lego) because to them the land beneath wasn’t sacred. For Hindus on the other hand, he insisted, the construction of this temple was an article of faith. Read more…

NEPAL APPEALS TO U.N. TO HELP LIFT ECONOMIC BLOCKADE

Thalif Deen

 

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 2015 (IPS) – A coalition of independent Nepali citizens – including diplomats, journalists, women’s rights leaders, medical doctors and former U.N. officials – is calling on the international community and the United Nations to take “effective steps” to help remove an “economic blockade” imposed on Nepal. Read more…

SRI LANKA: THE OTHER OPPRESSED MINORITY

Ahilan Kadirgamar

 

25 years since the eviction of 75,000 Muslims by the Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka’s North, the livelihood concerns of this marginalised section remain neglected. It is time for the political elite — both Sinhala and Tamil — to probe their own consciences and evolve a more inclusive resettlement framework. Read more…

EDITORIAL: KILLING AUTHORS, AND BEEF EATERS

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Culture wars in the illiberal atmosphere of Modi’s India have taken a turn for the violent. First, we had the targeted murders of rationalists by religious extremists. Eminent thinkers like MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare were murdered with impunity by Hindutva goons. Prof Kalburgi’s murder was not even condemned initially by the Sahitya Akademi, an institution that had once conferred on him one of India’s top literary honors. Read more…

THREE MURDERS AND A LYNCHING

Ram Puniyani

 

Laws of nature cannot be applied to human society so directly. Still sometimes these have been used to explain-justify social catastrophes, “When a big tree falls. Earth shakes (in the aftermath of anti-Sikh massacre 1984), ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction’ (during Gujarat carnage of 2002) are too well known. Read more…

FROM BABRI TO DADRI: STOP PLAYING WITH LIVES AND RIGHTS OF MINORITIES

Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

 

Bharatiya Muslim MahilaAndolan [BMMA] along with Bharat BachaoAndolan, Police Reforms Watch, VidyarthiBharti, Phule-AmbedkarManch and JagrutKamgaarManch is organizing a press conference to protest against the increasing low scale harassment of Muslim youth in Mumbai and the increasing intolerance towards the Muslim community.  Given below are a few instances that have happened in the last one week. Read more…

EIGHT THINGS NEPALIS DISLIKE ABOUT INDIAN INTERFERENCE

The ‘unofficial blockade’ imposed by India against Nepal expressing its discontent over the newly adopted constitution in Nepal has sparked anti- India sentiments in Nepal. Read more…

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

Keki Daruwala

 

[The eminent poet is the latest to add his voice to the rising chorus of protests against the silence of the country’s premium literary body on the murder of professor MM Kalburgi]. Read more…

INDIA’S ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH

Sonia Faleiro

 

London — In today’s India, secular liberals face a challenge: how to stay alive.

 

In August, 77-year-old scholar M. M. Kalburgi, an outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, was gunned down on his own doorstep. In February, the communist leader Govind Pansare was killed near Mumbai. And in 2013, the activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered for campaigning against religious superstitions. Read more…

PAKISTAN – LAW AND LAWYERS

THE law in Pakistan is sometimes far from safe in the hands of lawyers.

 

A section of the country’s legal fraternity — notwithstanding a number of courageous and upright individuals within its midst — has evolved into a formidable pressure group and many of its members have, time and again, thought nothing of flouting even fundamental rights to achieve their objectives. Read more…

HINDUTVA FASCISTS AND BARBARIC ZIONISTS ARE NATURAL PARTNERS!

Anand Singh

 

Last year, when Israel was carrying out one of the most barbaric genocides of this century by bombarding the Gaza strip, justice-loving people across the world, including India, were out on streets to protest. But it was the same time, when frenzied triumphalism of Hindutva fascists was at its peak in the corridors of power. Now more than a year has elapsed since the Hindutva fascists came to power in India under the leadership of Narendra Modi. As expected, the BJP government has made it clear through its conduct in the last one year that Hindutva fascists and Zionists are the ideological kins. To strengthen this bonhomie, Narendra Modi has announced his visit to Israel. As a gesture of friendship, Modi government has thrice abstained from voting in United Nations in the last three months, instead of voting against Israel. Read more…

BOMBING OF AFGHAN HOSPITAL IS A WAR CRIME

Kathy Kelly

 

Before the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing in Iraq, a group of activists living in Baghdad would regularly go to city sites that were crucial for maintaining health and well-being in Baghdad, such as hospitals, electrical facilities, water purification plants, and schools, and string large vinyl banners between the trees outside these buildings which read: “To Bomb This Site Would Be A War Crime.” We encouraged people in U.S. cities to do the same, trying to build empathy for people trapped in Iraq, anticipating a terrible aerial bombing. Read more…

GENDER EQUALITY SHOULD GUIDE THE PROCESS OF REFORMING FAMILY LAWS AND NOT NATIONAL INTEGRATION

Irfan Engineer

 

Supreme Court of India has yet again asked the Union Government to file affidavit and state whether it intended to bring Uniform Civil Code (UCC for brevity). In the Shah Bano Judgment (Shah Bano v. Mohammad Ahmed Khan, 1985) the Supreme Court observed “It is a matter of regret that Article 44 of the Constitution has remained a dead letter”. In Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995), similar observations were made. Though the Supreme Court takes on the role of a reformer assuming lack of courage in the political class, it is only the legislature that can bring in the UCC. Read more…

ROMILA THAPAR’S LECTURE ON SECULARISM IN MUMBAI OCT. 26, 2015

Prof. Romila Thapar’s Lecture on Secularism in Mumbai, under the auspices of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, in memory of the Centre’s founder, late Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, was a resounding success. Read more…

REPORT OF DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER MEMORIAL PUBLIC LECTURE

The Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer Memorial public lecture was organized by the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) and delivered by eminent historian Romila Thapar on 26^th October 2015 at KC College Auditorium in Mumbai. The lecture was chaired by prominent academician, Prof. Jairus Banaji. This lecture on the topic of “Indian Society and the Secular” was delivered by Romila Thapar also at Jamia Milia Islamia University at Delhi in August 2015. Read more…

EDITORIAL: THE NATION’S TRAJECTORY

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

Modi’s gyrations in the U.S. in the company of assorted tech tycoons in Silicon Valley exhibit his desperation to connect with his followers and cheerleaders, who now seem to be mostly in the diaspora, as a way of compensating for his lackluster performance at home.  Facebook, Google, and Microsoft executives are embracing him because their markets at home are saturating and they are looking for other opportunities to make money. It is interesting that the rosier accounts of his trip are all in the Indian media, which is still in thrall to him, while the mainstream U.S. press appears to have mostly ignored him. Read more…

WALK BEFORE YOU SPRINT

Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

 

India doesn’t need M-governance or e-governance. It needs governance. India doesn’t need smart cities. Just cities that Europe and America would recognise as such. Read more…

ON THE NEPAL CONSTITUTION

THE adoption of a federal, democratic and secular Constitution in Nepal is a historic occasion. The protracted struggle of the Nepalese people against feudal authoritarianism and for democracy has culminated in the establishment of a federal, democratic and secular state. Eight years after the interim Constitution, after a tortuous political process, the Constituent Assembly voted overwhelmingly (507 out of 601) to approve the Constitution. We congratulate the people of Nepal, the three major political parties – the Nepali Congress, the CPN(UML) and the UCPN(M) – and all democratic forces for this significant achievement. Read more…

FOR SANATAN SANSTHA, NATION IS GOD’S KINGDOM

Shruti Ganapatye

 

Emphasising that spirituality is the base for everything, the Sanatan Sanstha has envisioned religious rule in the country, which according to it is the best solution to “all ongoing problems”. The organisation in its literature has stated the current electoral system in the country — according to them — has “no place in Indian culture”. Read more…

LOOKING AT THE PAST: JAUNDICED VIEWS

Ram Puniyani

 

Using the jaundiced version of the past is one of the biggest tools of communal forces. The prevalence of hatred towards ‘other’ communities is rooted in the versions of past which are part carry over from the past legacy introduced by British and part constructed by the communalists, who in turn ‘select’ the incidents and distort it in such a way so as to fit in their scheme of things. The same incident may be interpreted from opposite angles by competing communal ideology. Read more…

CORBYN AND DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM

M K Bhadrakumar

 

An extraordinary thing happened in the Left politics in Britain and in the southern State of Kerala last week. There are similarities and dissimilarities between what happened in the two situations so far apart. But it gives much food for thought for all Leftist workers and their leaders as well as the fellow-travellers of the Left in India. Read more…

WOMEN’S VOICES FROM ATALI

Dr. Sandhya Mhatre and Neha Dabhade

 

A fact finding team consisting of Adv. Irfan Engineer, and these writers, visited the riot torn village of Atali and dwelled into the causes, contentions and nuanced positions of different stakeholders after two bouts of violence on 25th May and 1st July 2015 in the village. Read more…

PATEL-PATIDAR AGITATION

 

 

Ghanshyam Shah is a sociologist known for his work on social movements, land reforms and untouchability. Over the past decade, he has been examining the Gujarat model of development and its human costs. A keen observer of deprivation and development in India, he has closely followed the socio-economic transitions of Gujarat. Read more…

IN MY RELIGION, MEAT IS MA KALI’S PRASAD’: A SHAKTO HINDU OBJECTS TO ENFORCED VEGETARIANISM

Garga Chatterjee

 

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will enforce a two-day ban on the sale of meat and shut its slaughter-house during the Jain festival of Paryushan. Gurgaon in Haryana also has such a ban. Thankfully, I live in the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, where chickens, goats and cows can be slaughtered all the time and sold throughout the city without sensitivities being ruffled. However, the meat bans put into place in several other Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in response to the demands of their political backers are worrisome to my faith and me. Read more…

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE WITHIN THE SANGH PARIVAR

Irfan Engineer

 

Our PM Narendra Modi travels across the globe soliciting global capital to make in India and announces various deals making India a very attractive destination for multinational capital to earn its dream profits. Read more…

WHEN IT COMES TO INDIAN HISTORY, AMAR CHITRA KATHA IS THE NEW NORMAL: VISITING THE ‘RIG VEDA TO ROBOTICS’ EXHIBITION

Kai Friese

 

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi departed on his latest foreign mission to spread the word about Digital India in Silicon Valley, I embarked on a more nostalgic excursion to visit Rabindra Bhavan, one of the landmarks of Nehruvian modernism in New Delhi. My intended mission was one of architectural curiosity but I stumbled instead into the wormhole of an exhibit recently inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, Mahesh Sharma in Rabindra Bhavan’s art galleries. It was entitled Cultural Continuity from Rig Veda to Robotics. Read more…

GHADAR ALLIANCE STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO IMPENDING VISIT BY PRIME MINISTER MODI TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

San Francisco, CA

 

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, visits the San Francisco Bay area this weekend and is being celebrated by sections of the Indian diaspora. Mr. Modi was banned from entry into the United States from 2005 to 2014 on the stated grounds of “assaults on religious freedom” in connection with the 2002 Gujarat massacres, and now visits the country owing to his diplomatic status. Read more…

‘IT IS WITH THESE MEN ALONE THAT THE GATES OF HEAVEN SHALL OPEN FOR ME’

Anirban Mitra

 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the pan-continental attempts by Indian revolutionaries to launch an armed revolt against the British Read more…

EDITORIAL: SOUTH ASIA AT THE PERPETUAL CROSSROADS

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

The current issue of the INSAF Bulletin highlights issues across the South Asian spectrum, from the elections in Sri Lanka to the constitutional crisis in Nepal, and from the investigation of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder in Pakistan to the targeting of secular bloggers in Afghanistan. In India, the Bihar elections and growing inequality highlight the wobbly support for Narendra Modi. We also include a detailed and appreciative obituary of Praful Bidwai, highlighting his role as an activist in the nuclear debates. Read more…

CHATRAPATI SHIVAJI MAHARAJ: TO EACH ONES’ OWN!

Ram Puniyani

 

Some concerned citizens have filed a Public Interest Litigation (August 17 2015) to stop the highest award of Maharashtra Government, Maharashtra Bhushan to Babasaheb Purandare. Purandare is known for his work ‘Raja Shivaji Chatrapati’ and the play ‘Jaanata Raja’ (wise king) his is not the first time that such a controversy around Purandare has come up. Read more…

IS INEQUALITY IN INDIA HERE TO STAY?

Vamsi Vakulabharanam

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to narrow the gap between Indian elites and the rest of the population.

 

India has experienced a significant economic growth spurt in recent decades. After seeing annual growth of 3 percent in the years after independence in 1947, the rate began to double, reaching a rate of around 6 percent per year after 1980. However, the distribution of growth proceeds has been very uneven across different constituents of the Indian population. Read more…

BOOK WITHDRAWAL GAME

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/gujarat-pulls-books-with-anti-hindu-ambedkar-remarks/

 

Gujarat withdraws books with ‘anti-Hindu’ Ambedkar remarks – See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/gujarat-pulls-books-with-anti-hindu-ambedkar-remarks/#sthash.WHMtTVgC.dpuf Read more…

A CONSISTENT, PRINCIPLED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE CRITIC: PRAFUL BIDWAI ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ENERGY

M. V. Ramana

 

For about four decades, the late Praful Bidwai, no stranger to the readers of this journal, has written prodigiously on various aspects of nuclear weapons and energy. Even for someone as widely published as Praful, the sheer volume of his output is noteworthy. One could classify his writings into four categories: critiques of nuclear energy, dangers associated with nuclear weapons, nuclear diplomacy (pertaining both to weapons and energy), and chronicles of people’s resistance movements. These are not watertight compartments and many articles might be classified in more than one category; others may not quite fit in any. Read more…

SALUTING COURAGE: MEMORIAL FOR VASANT RAJAB

Ram Puniyani

 

Gujarat violence (2002) was horrific. In this, after the burning of train in Godhra in which 58 innocents died, the same tragedy was made the pretext to launch the massive violence in which over one thousand people perished. In the aftermath of that I got many occasions to visit different parts of Gujarat and also to come to know about two legendary youth who had laid down their life to protect the people when the communal violence was going on in Ahmadabad in July 1946. These two young men, Vasant Rao Hegishte and Rajab Ali Lakhani, close friends and workers of Congress Seva Dal, came to the streets to stop the killings. Vasant Rao trying to protect Muslims and Rajab Ali stood firm to save the Hindus. Both were done to death by the mobs. Read more…

WHY ARE THEY HOUNDING TEESTA SETALVAD NOW?

K.P. Sasi

 

The first time I met Javed Anand was in the early eighties. I met him since my close friend Paul Kurien used to admire the significance of his work. Javed used to be part of a documentation centre at that time. Paul Kurien who was a brilliant mind is a deep memory even now for many common friends. I found Javed as a deeply reflective person, who is extremely focused in his work, warm and compassionate. Read more…

2.87 MILLION INDIANS HAVE NO FAITH, CENSUS REVEALS FOR FIRST TIME

Sivakumar B

 

CHENNAI: India has 2.87 million people who have no faith in any religion — 0.24% of the country’s population of 1.21 billion — according to the 2011 census, which was the first to include a ‘non-faith’ category. The figure includes atheists, rationalists as well as those not interested in any religion but believe in some ‘unknown’ force. Read more…

BANGLADESH ISLAMISTS THREATENED BY SECULAR BLOGGERS ?- MINORITIES HIT AS GOVT WOOS ISLAMISTS

Imran H Sarker

 

Bangladesh is being roiled by gruesome murders targeting its secular blogger ommunity. Imran H Sarker is spokesperson for Bangladesh’s Shahbag movement which demanded maximum puni hment for 1971’s war criminals. Speaking with Rudroneel Ghosh, Sarker discussed why bloggers are being killed, the knowing apathy of political parties ? and how this inks to attacks on religious minorities. Read more…

THE BATTLE FOR SRI LANKA: BETWEEN A COMMUNAL / MAJORITARIAN VIEW VERSUS A MULTI-ETHNIC, PLURAL AND DEMOCRATIC VISION

Jayadeva Uyangoda

 

Putinization Has Been Stopped but Sri Lanka Needs a New Ideological Project.

 

The possibility of the Rajapaksa-led opposition using Sinhalese communalism to unsettle and undermine the new government of moderates is actually very real. Read more…

THE BATTLE FOR BIHAR: THE RELEASE OF RELIGIOUS CENSUS FIGURES BETRAYS THE BJP’S NERVOUSNESS

Anita Katyal

 

The party does not seem to be sure of its Modi magic working by itself and is likely to use the census data to fuel fear of a Muslim upsurge to consolidate its Hindu vote. Read more…

SABEEN MAHMUD: ANATOMY OF A MURDER

Naziha Syed Ali and| Fahim Zaman

 

It was a 9mm gun, probably a Stoeger. Before Saad Aziz got this “samaan” through an associate, by his own admission, he had already plotted a murder. On the evening of Friday, April 24, 2015, he met four other young men, all well-educated like him, somewhere on Karachi’s Tariq Road to finalise and carry out the plot. As dusk deepened into night, they set off towards Defence Housing Society Phase II Extension on three motorcycles. Their destination: a café-cum-communal space – The Second Floor or T2F – where an event, Unsilencing Balochistan: take two, was under way. Their target: Sabeen Mahmud, 40, the founder and director of T2F. Read more…

NEPAL’S CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS: IT’S TIME TO DROP THE ARROGANCE

Prashant Jha

 

Even as the Indian foreign policy establishment has been busy with the Sri Lankan elections and the NSA level talks with Pakistan, trouble has broken out right across the open border in Nepal. Protests for a particular form of federal demarcation have turned violent in the western district of Kailali, and several people have been killed – among them 6 policemen and 3 civilians. Unofficial reports put the figure at over 20. If the higher figures turn out to be correct, the state has not faced this scale of violence ever since the civil war ended in 2006. Read more…

YAKUB MEMON’S HANGING AND THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

Vinod Mubayi

 

The midnight vigil at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi failed. The 2.30 a.m. wake up call for justice addressed to the Chief Justice of India by eminent lawyers like Indira Jaising and civil society organizations failed.The Indian justice system, which Memon trusted enough to return to the country with his family, was shown to be a complete fraud. Read more…

EDITORIAL: DEFENDING SABRANG, DEFENDING INDIA’S PLURAL LEGACY

Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir

 

As this issue of the INSAF Bulletin goes to press, the case against Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand of the Citizens for Justice and Peace and SABRANG foundation has begun to acquire greater urgency. Read more…

TERRORISM AND INDIAN MUSLIMS

Irfan Engineer

 

In an interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria ahead of his US visit, Prime Minister Modi said that Indian Muslims would live and die for India and would not want to do anything bad for India. (Express News Service, 2014). Read more…

FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

Nishita Jha

 

Asaram Bapu rape case: As witnesses die, this family is keeping its hopes for justice alive.

 

The family whose daughter was allegedly raped by the self-styled godman lives in a state of siege, under perennial threat. But they have decided to fight on. Read more…

CLAMPING DOWN

Kalpana Sharma

 

Modi government’s hounding of Teesta Setalvad is a message to all dissidents.

 

The numerous cases foisted on her have little substance but are intended to paralyse work to seek justice for the victims of the Gujarat riots. Read more…

INDIA: MAJORITY RULE

Hartosh Singh Bal

 

The BJP’s view of democracy comes into conflict with the values of a constitutional republic Read more…

PEOPLE’S ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SECULARISM (PADS)

Statement by People’s Alliance for Democracy and Secularism following CBI raid at Sabrang Communications and homes of its editors and publishers Read more…

SOFT HINDUTVA AND HARD HINDUTVA

Irfan Engineer

 

The theme of the NDA Govt. seems to be – lavish spending on cultural events, tax cuts for the corporate India and cuts in budgets on social welfare touching the poor, peasants, dalits, adivasis, women and other weaker sections. Read more…

STOP YAKUB MEMON’S HANGING

People’s Union For Democratic Rights

 

On 15th July, the Maharashtra government announced that it has initiated the process for hanging Yakub Memon. Read more…

This issue of the bulletin is dedicated to the memory of Praful Bidwai (1949-2015) who passed away unexpectedly on June 24.

CULTURAL NATIONALISM IN MODI’S INDIA

Raza Mir

 

The Modi government declared June 21 “World Yoga Day,” and while steady pressure from secular elements in civil society forced it off its initial plan to make it mandatory for government employees, it has plans to make yoga compulsory for police officers and paramilitary forces in the near future. Several low-grade assaults on plural culture have marked the Modi era. These include the beef ban enacted in Maharashtra in April 2015, the reiteration by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat of the tired trope that “all Indians are Hindus”, the escalation of ghar vapsi programs aimed at coercive conversion of indigent minorities, scare tactics against inter-religious marriages by labeling them love jihad, and the imputation that the Indian population can be divided into the binary between Ramzada and haramzada made by a minister. These acts of menace have been supported by low-level riots such as the arson attack on five churches in New Delhi in December 2014, the burning down of Muslim homes and shops in the Trilokpuri locality of eastern New Delhi in October 2014, or the May 2015 act of burning down 150 homes belonging to Muslims in Ballabhgarh, Haryana. The strategy appears to be one of minimizing loss of life while maximizing loss of property, so as to stay below the radar of the global press. All these diverse data points intensify the feeling that the cultural nationalist strand of the BJP (led often by the RSS) has begun to flex its muscles. Read more…

PRAFUL BIDWAI (1949-2015): VOICE OF SANITY AND COMMITMENT IS NO MORE

Vinod Mubayi

 

Praful passed away very unexpectedly in Amsterdam of cardiac arrest a few days ago. He had gone there to attend a meeting of the Transnational Institute of which he was a member. Read more…

TRIUMPHALISM OVER MYANMAR RAID

Praful Bidwai

 

The debate over the June 9 raids by the Indian Army’s Special Forces unit against two Northeastern insurgent groups on Myanmarese territory has produced two main reactions. The first reaction, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diehard supporters, is triumphalist and holds that the retaliatory operation’s “great” success against National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) rebels must be trumpeted. The second reaction defends the present covert operation, but believes that publicising such operations is unwise, even self-defeating. Read more…

LALOO’S ‘POISON’ OR NITISH’S ELIXIR? SIGNIFICANCE OF BIHAR ELECTIONS

Praful Bidwai

 

Has a secular anti-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance at last been sealed in Bihar, following Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad’s declaration that he would consume “poison” by fighting the coming Assembly elections jointly with the Janata Dal (United) and the Congress, and proposing Nitish Kumar as its Chief Ministerial candidate in the presence of JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav? Read more…

THE IIT-M EPISODE SHOWS AMBEDKAR CAN NEVER BE A HINDUTVA ICON

Praful Bidwai

 

The ugly controversy triggered by the decision by the Dean of Students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to de-recognise the student body Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle has ended. The Institute director restored its recognition following a spate of protests in numerous cities by students and political parties, and a meeting with APSC members. The conflict’s continuation would have generated protests from the international scientific community and brought more opprobrium to IIT-M. Read more…

‘ARE YOU A MULLA OR ONE OF US?’

Apoorvanand, Ali Javed and Satish Deshpande report on Atali village.

 

http://kafila.org/2015/06/18/are-you-a-mulla-or-one-of-us/#more-25557 Read more…

365 DAYS: DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME

http://www.anhadin.net

 

Damage to India’s ethos may be irreversible, Civil Society report of One Year of Narendra Modi government Read more…

NO MERCY FOR THE POOR

Jean Drèze

 

http://thewire.in/2015/06/18/no-mercy-for-the-poor/

 

Even as it claims to be fighting the perception that it is anti-poor, the Modi government has just dealt a big blow to the poorest of the poor: the planned phasing out of the Antyodaya programme under the Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order 2015. This move is unjust and illegal. Read more…

PAKISTAN INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE & DEMOCRACY: PRESS STATEMENT

(Released jointly by the India & Pakistan Chapters of Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and democracy)

 

17 June 2015

 

We, the members of Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy appreciate the welcoming news from the Prime Minister’s Office regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call with his counterpart Nawaz Sharif to extend his best wishes for Ramzan which starts on 18th of June, 2015. We also welcome the decision by the Indian Prime Minister to release the Pakistani Fishermen from Indian jails to spend the blessed month of Ramzan with their families. While we appreciate these welcoming decisions by the PMO, we strongly feel that these efforts to maintain friendly relations with Pakistan should be consistent and not in fits and starts. Read more…

INDIA: YOGA HOGA

Dilip Simeon

 

16 June

 

The ongoing controversy about yoga is yet another example of deceitful polemic. It began with a reminder that yoga has nothing to do with religion. Of late, however, sundry political swamis have announced that anyone who disapproves of compulsory yoga should leave the country. So now yoga is essential not only to Hinduism but to national pride. Refusal to submit to this rule is treachery. The ‘Parivar’ presumes to decide what is or is not ‘national’ and who may or may not live in India. Perhaps some energetic policemen will lodge a case of sedition against anyone refusing to perform surya-namaskar. Read more…

ATTACK ON CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES

(Newsclick interview with Harsh Mander)

 

15 June

 

http://newsclick.in/india/modi-governments-1-year-systematic-attack-constitutional-values Read more…

UNDERMINING NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TO CREATE REGIMENTED MINDS

Irfan Engineer

 

The students of FTII are agitated over appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as President Chair of the Governing Council of the Institute. About 150 students pursuing various courses at the FTII are on an indefinite strike against the patent political appointment because of Chauhan’s affiliation with the BJP. When we google Chauhan, all the information we get is that he acted in films like Andaaz (2203), Baghban (2003) and Tumko Na Bhool Payenge (2002). Wikipedia informs us that he acted in 150 movies and 600 TV serials. However, links to only some of the movies Chauhan acted in are given and when we follow the link, often his name is not even mentioned in the star cast of the film. Chauhan claims that he has worked in 600 serials, however only one TV serial in which Chauhan acted was popular – Mahabharat where he played the role of eldest of Pandava brothers – Yuddhishthir. He may have acted in 600 episodes. Students felt that Chauhan lacked the vision, stature and experience and was not qualified for the post which was once occupied by Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Girish Karnad, Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalkrishnan. Noted film makers like Anand Patwardhan have expressed their serious concern over the appointment of Chauhan when the short list included Gulzar, Shyam Benegal, Saeed Mirza and Adoor Gopalkrishnan. The previous incumbents of the Chair were winner of prestigious awards, including Padmashree, Padma Vibhushan, Sahitya Akademi, Dadasaheb Phalke, Jnanpeeth and other prestigious Awards. Gajendra Chauhan has no such credentials. There is lack of transparency in the appointment. Read more…

EGGS AND PREJUDICE: CHILD NUTRITION IS BEING HELD HOSTAGE TO SPURIOUS, LARGELY UPPER CASTE, ARGUMENTS

Reetika Khera

 

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/eggs-and-prejudice

 

Child nutrition is prime-time news only when a tragedy occurs. Child undernutrition is no less a tragedy but rarely recognised as such. Read more…

CERAS-SAWCC MEMORIAL FOR DAYA VARMA

On Sunday 7th June, CERAS (South Asia Centre) and SAWCC (South Asian Women’s Community Centre) held in Montreal, a joint memorial meeting for Daya Varma. Read more…

HAVE ACCHHE DIN (BETTER TIMES) ARRIVED? THE EVIDENCE ONE YEAR LATER

Editors

 

In his election campaign last year, Modi promised “acchhe din” (better times) for the people of India.  What is the evidence one year later? No doubt, better days have arrived for some, mainly the corporate cronies who were beneficiaries of the so-called Gujarat model of development. In this model, public assets and properties, land, water, power and so on, were essentially privatized at low cost and handed over to Friends of Modi (FOM) to make handsome profits – all in the name of development.  This model is now sought to be applied to the whole of India. Read more…

DAYA VARMA’S MEMORIAL

Editors

 

On May 2, 2015, over 100 people gathered at the Centre Funéraire Côte-Des-Neiges Inc. in Montreal to celebrate the life of Daya Varma. Stephen Orlov chaired the meeting, with speeches from around 20 of Daya’s family members, colleagues and comrades. Through the two-hour program and the various speeches therein, a composite portrait of Daya re-emerged, as a scientist, an activist, a humanist and a human being. Read more…

MODI SARKAR’S FIRST BIRTHDAY

Irfan Engineer

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will complete one year in office on 25th May 2015. His swearing-in ceremony was on 26th May 2014. PM’s achievements remain contested true to his polarising personality. While the PM’s followers exaggerate his achievements as unprecedented, his detractors can only recount the promises that remain undelivered. An honest assessment becomes difficult if not impossible. However, here we are trying to capture some trends and directions of the Central Govt. headed by PM Modi. Read more…

ONE YEAR OF MODI SARKAR: HATE SPEECH GALORE

Ram Puniyani

 

The coming to power of Narendra Modi in a way gave an open license to all the affiliates of RSS combine to indulge in open hate speech against the religious minorities. The current agenda behind the hate speech is to consolidate the communal polarization of the society along lines of religion. The well known case of MIM’s Akarbar Uddudin Owaisi’s hate speech has been despicable and very rightly Akbarudin Owaisi had to be in jail for some time. The case against him should be pursued and the legal course of action must be followed.  At the same time what about the hate speech indulged in by the likes of Pravin Togadia, Subramaniam Swami, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sadhvi Prachi, Sakshi Mahraraj, Yogi Adityanth, Sanjay Raut and company? Read more…

INDIA: MODI GOVERNMENT – ONE YEAR OF DISMANTLING THE WELFARE STATE

Harsh Mander

 

A dominant feature of the first year of Narendra Modi’s leadership is the quiet dismantling of India’s imperfectly realised framework of welfare and rights, covertly, by stealth. Read more…

MEDIA JINGOISM ALIENATES NEPALIS: RISE OF ‘THE UGLY INDIAN’?

Praful Bidwai

 

Barely two weeks after a major earthquake which killed more than 8,000 people, Nepal suffered a powerful aftershock, adding to its misery and killing over 100 people. More than 3.5 million people are still in need of food assistance; 479,000 houses have been destroyed and 263,000 damaged; and only five percent of the $415 million aid Nepal needs has reached it. Given the extensive destruction and caving in of hill roads, it has been near-impossible to reach relief material to those in dire need. Read more…

RTI IS BEING SABOTAGED BY NOT ALLOCATING ENOUGH RESOURCES TO MAKE IT WORK

Shailesh Gandhi

 

India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act has caught the imagination of people in this country, while being appreciated across the world. A great change has come in India this decade in the power equation between the sovereign citizens of the country and those in power. This change is just beginning and if we can sustain and strengthen it, our defective elective democracy could metamorphose, within the next one or two decades, into a country where the promise of democracy is actualised. Read more…

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

Ramachandra Guha

 

Smriti Irani is by far the most controversial cabinet minister, and with good reason, writes noted historian Ramachandra Guha.

 

When, a year ago, Smriti Irani was first chosen as the Union minister for human resource development, I did not share in the general scepticism about her appointment. I had seen HRD ministers in UPA governments, with a string of foreign degrees themselves, display a conspicuous lack of interest in their portfolio. Irani seemed energetic and articulate; perhaps keenness and interest would trump lack of formal academic qualifications. Read more…

RESIST DEGRADATION OF INDIAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. RETIRED JUDGE JYOTSANA YAGNIK THREATENED; MURDER CONVICTS OUT ON BAIL

sacw.net

 

 

The undersigned civil society organizations and concerned citizens have taken serious note of a news report (IE May 11, 2015) about the intimidation of a retired judge, Ms Jyotsana Yagnik, who, in her capacity as special judge had, in August 2012, convicted former Gujarat BJP minister Maya Kodnani, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and 30 others in the 2002 massacre of 97 Muslims in Naroda Patiya. Ms Yagnik has received at least 22 threat letters since the verdict, as well as blank phone calls at her home. The 62 year old judge has informed the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team about the threats and phone calls, but instead of strengthening her protection, the government has scaled down her security cover. Read more…

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE AND AN INSECURE PAKISTAN

Ayesha Ijaz Khan

 

 

A wise man once said, “I am not sure if Pakistan was created in the name of religion but it sure is being destroyed in the name of religion.” The bus attack in Karachi claiming at least 45 innocent Ismaili lives is just one in a series of such heinous religiously-motivated atrocities that Pakistanis continue to face on a regular basis. Whether the victims are the Hazaras of Quetta, Christians of Youhanabad in Lahore, Bohras offering Friday prayers in Karachi, or the children targeted in the Army Public School attack in Peshawar, the root cause is the same. It is the belief that one has a right to judge others based on their faith and if they are determined religiously deviant (as in the case of other sects or religions) or religiously wanting (as in the case of the majority sect), then they are fair game. Read more…

PIPFPD CONDEMNS THE BRUTAL ATTACK ON ISMAILI COMMUNITY IN KARACHI

PRESS STATEMENT

 

 

Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) strongly condemns the brutal attack in Karachi where 47 people including women were gunned down. The attackers targetted an Ismaili community bus. Jundullah, an anti-Shia militia and a splinter group of Tehrik-e-Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Read more…

MASS MURDER OF ISMAILIS BY FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORISTS IN PAKISTAN

Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians

 

The Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians offers its deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the terrorist attack on May 13 in Karachi and to the religious community they belonged to, the Ismaili Muslims. We strongly condemn the perpetrators – religious fundamentalist terrorists who claim to be Muslims – of this cowardly attack on innocent and defenseless women and men. Read more…

A TRIBUTE AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY: REMEMBERING PEOPLE’S HISTORIAN AMALENDU GUHA (1924-2015)

sacw.net

 

Bonojit Hussain and Mayur Chetia

 

I have no desire for heaven,

Instead I go to the brewhouse,

Gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes – bringing them together

I sing of hope, sprinkling ashes from my soul’s pyre:

In flocks the phoenix flies to the sky.

 

— My Poetry” Amalendu Guha 1960 Read more…

LAND BILL’S PROSPECTIVE BURIAL: GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH

Editors

 

At the time of going to press, it seems likely that the infamous Land Acquisition Bill proposed in the Indian parliament, which had emerged as a major ideological test for the Narendra Modi government, is hurtling toward a swift demise. A coalition of political parties, motivated by a groundswell of farmer protests, have declared their opposition to it, underscoring its pro-rich character, and as a naked example of the intensification of the processes of “accumulation by dispossession” in the country. Read more…

GAJENDRA SINGH’S DEATH SPARKS TRAGIC MEMORIES OF MANDAL SELF-IMMOLATIONS OF 1990

Ajaz Ashraf

 

Then, like now, the government attempted to attribute the suicides to personal difficulties. To buy those stories would be to ignore the deep structural problems that have caused acute rural distress.

 

The apparent suicide of Gajendra Singh Kalyanvat at the Aam Aadmi Party rally in Delhi on Wednesday (April 22 – eds.) is reminiscent of the self-immolations committed in protest against the implementation of reservations for OBCs in 1990. Then as now, a self-inflicted death has become the feeble scream of the helpless, amplified through extensive media coverage. Read more…

CLAIMING AMBEDKAR, TRASHING THE CONSTITUTION: PARIVAR’S CRASS HYPOCRISY

Praful Bidwai

 

When it comes to sheer hypocrisy and double standards, it’s hard to beat the Sangh Parivar. It strenuously claimed the legacy of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a principal author of India’s Constitution, and a Dalit, on his 124th birth anniversary. This was motivated by nothing nobler than the coming election in Bihar, where a Dalit (former stopgap Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manzhi) has emerged as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s potential ally against Messrs Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad. Read more…

SUPPRESSION OF POETS IN MAHARASHTRA

Released by Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association

 

On April 10, 2015 Bombay High court refused bail to Sachin Mali, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor of Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), who have remained in jail for two years without a trial. They are not charged with committing violence, or possessing weapons or contraband; it was their singing and their songs that were found unlawful. Read more…

COW SLAUGHTER BAN FOR SCIENTIFIC ANIMAL HUSBANDRY OR FOR CULTURAL NATIONALIST STATE?

Irfan Engineer

 

In the previous articles we saw that the campaign by the Hindu nationalist organizations for cow protection is merely instrumental to achieve their political objective, establish cultural hegemony of the upper caste and declare the hierarchical and feudal culture privileging the upper caste as the national culture. The amendments passed by the Maharashtra Assembly in 1995 to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act, 1976, and which received Presidential assent in 2015 (hereafter referred to as “the 2015 Act”), too are not to protect the cow and its progeny despite the stated objectives couched language of scientific organization of agriculture and animal husbandry. The political objective of the 2015 Act is instrumental – to impose the hegemony of upper caste culture and empower extremist, anarchic and fringe Hindu nationalist groups to intimidate the marginalized sections, in particular, the Muslims on one hand, and to construct a hegemonic and authoritarian culture monitoring state. Read more…

INDIA’S POVERTY IS SOCIAL VIOLENCE

Harsh Mander

 

There are many exiles faced by India’s poor. They are exiled from the consciences of the people of privilege and wealth. They are exiled from our cinema, television and newspapers. They are exiled from the priorities of public expenditure and governments. They are exiled from debates in Parliament and offices. They are exiled from institutions that could offer them some basic security through education, healthcare and social security. And they are exiled from the hope that their children or their grandchildren will one day escape a life of backbreaking toil and social humiliation. Read more…

COLOR CODING OF COMMUNAL POLITICS

Ram Puniyani

 

As per the reports from Ahmadabad (12th April 2015) the uniform at Shahpur School; where most of the students are Hindus; is saffron and the color of uniform in Dani Limda school where almost all the students are Muslims; the color is green. This is absolutely shocking! One knew that the ghettoization of Muslims in Ahmadabad is probably the worst in the country but whether the things will go this far was unbelievable. The process of communalization which worsened after the 2002 Gujarat carnage is seeing a new low with incidents like this one. Read more…

THE JANATA PARIVAR INITIATIVE

Pritam Singh

 

The proposal for a third alternative, opposed both to the Congress and the BJP, continues to retain significance in the political landscape of India. The recent coming together of some regional parties that have roots in India’s socialist political tradition has again given boost to the prospects of a third alternative in Indian politics. The continuing turmoil in AAP, which could have been imagined as a possible third alternative, further adds significance to the Janata Parivar initiative. It cannot be ruled out that in future AAP, united or divided, the BSP and the Left parties can also be a part of a powerful third alternative. Read more…

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM VICTORY’S JAWS? AAP’S DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT

Praful Bidwai

 

Less than two months after it scored a spectacular victory in the Delhi elections to stop the Narendra Modi juggernaut, the Aam Aadmi Party got drawn into an ugly, bruising internal conflict which led to the expulsion of two of its best-known leaders from the national executive. Read more…

THE SIN AND THE ERROR

Ravi Sinha

 

“…it takes an error to father a sin.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

 

Future historians of India may well describe the past year as a year of political sin. This was the year in which the man who had earlier presided over the Gujarat Carnage was awarded the ultimate prize. The year saw an election that touched a new low marked by shallowness, vulgarities and lies – in no small measure by the labors of the man himself. Equally appalling have been the exertions of a large class of literati and glitterati to portray philistinism and inanities spouted by the most powerful mouth as wisdom of a visionary leader. Read more…

DAYA RAM VARMA: AN UNFORGETTABLE FRIEND

Iqbal Niazi – New Delhi

 

 

My association with Daya Ram began nearly 65 years ago in 1949-50 when I first came to know him while he was a studying at King George’s Medical College in Lucknow for the MBBS and MD degrees. My sister, Habib Bano, was also a student at the same Medical College during the same years. Between 1949-53, I completed my M.Sc. in Zoology and had become a demonstrator-cum-research student at AMU, Aligarh. During those years I had to come to Lucknow from Aligarh frequently in connection with the activities of the CPI and the U.P. Students Federation of which I was then the President.  It is during these visits that I first came to know Daya Ram then as one of a group of active workers, members and sympathizers of the Lucknow Branch of All India Students Federation and the then undivided Communist Party of India. The group consisted of a number of university students to name some:  Ravi, Robin Mitra, Anirudh Gupta, Yudhishtra, Krishnanand Bhatnagar (Anand also known as Kailash), P.C.  Joshi, Ruby, Khadija, Atiya, and medical students including my sister Habib Bano and Sharda Paul, and also some teachers of the medical college including Dr. N.P.Gupta (Pathology), Dr. P.C. Chaudhury (Physiology) and others. Many of the comrades of those days are no more. Read more…

MODI’S DEAFENING SILENCE ON ACTIVIST ASSASSINATIONS

Prachi Patankar

 

If left unchallenged, a hateful far-right ideology will shatter the dream of a pluralistic and democratic India. Read more…

POEM: I GIVE YOU THE BULLET TRAIN

BADRI RAINA

 

Are you hungry, are you in pain?

Come, I’ll feed you the bullet train. Read more…

DR. DAYA RAM VARMA (August 23, 1929 – March 22, 2015)

Editors

 

It is with great sadness that we announce the demise of the Founding Editor of INSAF Bulletin, Dr. Daya Ram Varma, who passed away on March 22, 2015 after a battle with lung cancer.  By any measure, Daya was an extraordinary person: he was a leading scientist and researcher in the challenging field of pharmacology, he had a deep and abiding commitment to secular, democratic and progressive politics in India and South Asia and among the South Asian diaspora in North America, and he was an extremely warm and generous person, ready to give his time and energy to whoever, wherever and whenever someone needed help. While we deeply mourn his passing, we also recall and celebrate the long, rich, and productive life he lived. Read more…

MY FATHER DAYA VARMA

Rahul Varma

 

My father, Dr. Daya Ram Varma, was a brilliant scientist with over 225 scientific publications and two full-length books — Reason and Medicine: Art and Science of Healing from Antiquity to Modern Times, and Medicine, Healthcare and the Raj: Unacknowledged Legacy — to his credit. He was the founder, editor and key writer of several political journals, including New India Bulletin, India Now and INSAF Bulletin, and was author of a boundless stream of articles, essays, critiques and chapters in prestigious scientific books and journals. A staunch secularist and socialist, he was the featured subject in world-class documentaries such as Bhopal: Beyond Genocide (Tapan Bose, Suhasini Mulay) and Bhopal: Search for Justice (Peter Raymond, Harold Crooks). He founded, supported or influenced many progressive organizations such as the Indian Peoples’ Association in North America (IPANA), CERAS, Kabir Cultural Center, the South Asian Women’s Community Center, Teesri Duniya Theatre, and many others. He championed the cause of peace and harmony between India and Pakistan and between people from these countries living in North America. He was a one-of-a-kind activist who combined science, politics and human rights, envisioning a society built upon the foundations of peace, equality and justice. Read more…

A GREAT SOUL SERVES EVERYONE ALL THE TIME

Dipti Gupta

 

A great soul serves everyone all the time – a great soul never dies – it brings us together again and again. Since Papa’s demise on March 22, I have been overwhelmed by the number of calls and messages we have received from all his fans and friends all around the world. I say fans because those of us who knew Papa well – knew that he had a magnetic persona that attracted and inspired people. Read more…

IF THERE IS ANOTHER DAYA VARMA, PLEASE STAND UP

Rana Bose

 

If there is another Daya Varma, please stand up. And nobody shall.  The room and the world will remain silent and still. Read more…

MY FRIEND AND COMRADE DAYA

Vinod Mubayi

 

Daya was my close comrade and friend for almost 40 years and it is very difficult if not impossible to accept that he is gone.  In what follows, I try to give a brief survey of some organizations and events where our interests and energies coincided.  I knew he was a distinguished researcher and teacher in pharmacology by virtue of his professional appointment at McGill University. But his work there is described below much more knowledgeably by those he worked with or taught. Read more…

MY FRIEND, MY MENTOR IS NO MORE

Feroz Mehdi

 

I spoke with Daya the day my father died, on 2nd January, and told him I am going to India for the funeral. I came back on 16 January and spoke to Daya again a few days later. He asked me how I was doing and about the memorial meeting that was held for my father in Delhi. Then he said “You have lost your father, and I am not doing well and can die any day. So, you will be left alone …”. This was one of the many ways he showed his concern for me. Read more…

WE WILL CARRY ON WITH THE IMPORTANT WORK YOU UNDERTOOK ALL OF YOUR LIFE!

Harinder Mahil

 

It is with great sadness that I write about Daya whom I have known since 1975. I came to know Daya soon after IPANA was founded in June 1975. The Vancouver unit IPANA often discussed Daya’ articles and other writings. Read more…

DAYA WILL REMAIN AS AN INSPIRATION TO ALL WHO WALK ON THE SAME PATH

Chin Banerjee

 

I first met Daya during the first convention of Indian People’e Association in North America (IPANA)  in Vancouver in 1976. But I knew of him as one of the founders and leading spirits of the organization that was established in Montreal shortly before Indira Gandhi declared Emergency in 1975, which I joined on my return from India at the end of that year. IPANA offered me a home in diaspora when the homeland I had left had been violated by a dictatorial regime. Daya’s wise and authoritative leadership in IPANA offered me the hope of reclaiming the homeland that felt I had lost. Read more…

HE WILL ALWAYS REMAIN IN OUR HEARTS

Anand Patwardhan

 

Daya Varma was a staunch supporter of revolutionary Marxism Leninism when I first met him in 1975. An Emergency had been declared in India in June 1975 to curtail the Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) led Bihar movement. I had just completed a film on this movement and most of my colleagues were already in jail and I would likely have shared their fate but escaped by getting a teaching assistantship to do a Masters degree in Montreal. Here I put an English voice over on our film and began to show it to raise public opinion against the Emergency. Read more…

ALL HIS LIFE, DAYA REMAINED A FIGHTER

Satinath Sarangi, Sambhavna

 

(Translated from Hindi)

 

On 22 March, Sambhavna’s research advisor and supporter, Dr. Daya Ram Varma, passed away in St. Johns, Canada, in the midst of his family and friends.  Daya was born in a small village in Azamgarh district of U.P. He began his education in a one-room school, and then went on to receive his MBBS and M.D. degrees from Lucknow University’s King George Medical College. In 1959 he came to Canada to do his Ph.D. in pharmacology and after obtaining his degree from McGill University he began teaching there and was a professor there until 2007. He was made Professor Emeritus in 2009. Read more…

A STAUNCH SECULARIST AND RATIONALIST

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

I first met Daya Varma in early 1976 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while I was a graduate student at MIT. We had been introduced by my friend Deepak Kapur, his devotee, who later became his son-in-law. Daya had been instrumental in founding the Indian Peoples Association of North America, IPANA, immediately after Indira Gandhi had declared the emergency and acquired draconian powers to quell dissent. Though quiet and laidback by disposition, Daya was a formidable organizer. Soon there were chapters across North America and Canada. Though a Pakistani, I was a kind of honorary member since there was so much that I shared with my Indian friends. Read more…

I FEEL DEEPLY PAINED AND SADDENED

Arshad Khan

 

I first met Daya, through our mutual friend Vinod, in Montreal around 1989-1990. Some of us were trying to organize a function in North America for the birth anniversary of Faiz Ahmed Faiz that used to be a hugely-attended annual event, known as Faiz Mela, in Lahore, until the Military Dictator Zia ul Haq banned it in the 80s. Some progressive friends, Faiz lovers all, had agreed to jointly host the function with progressive Indians in Montreal. Read more…

CONSIDERATION THE WAY PEOPLE THOUGHT

Herman Rosenfeld

 

I first met Daya over 40 years ago, in Montreal. He came much heralded, to the Afro-Asian, Latin-American Peoples’ Solidarity Committee, where I did most of my political learning and activist work at the time. Read more…

HE WAS SO COMMITTED TO THE DREAM OF A NEW SOCIETY

Alan Silverman

 

I first met Daya in the mid 1970’s in Montreal.  We met at some Third World support function. I was new to political activism and I had never met anyone like him. Read more…

DAYAJI WAS FOREVER HOLDING THE MOMENTUM

Swati Sharan

 

In 1999, our common friend Minoo Gundevia encouraged me to enter an essay contest on South Asian secularism and democracy for the International South Asian Forum or INSAF conference. As one of the chosen winners, I ended up in a life transforming experience. It was a place where many hearts were united for South Asian harmony and development and Dayaji was one of the organizers amongst them. Now, Dayaji, as we knew him, was a highly diverse individual. He was established as a researcher in Mcgill and later wrote two books on the history of medicine amongst many accomplishments. Read more…

DAYA DELIGHTED IN PUZZLES

Nitya Ramakrishnan

 

I have seldom met anyone quite as delightful as Daya. I doubt too, whether there is anyone so genuinely interested in things beyond oneself, as he. Read more…

COMPASSION GOD SHIELD

Maya Khankhoje

 

Daya Ram Varma: Compassion God Shield. Born with a name like that it is no wonder that Daya turned out to be the man he was, a man of infinite compassion who devoted a large chunk of his life to shielding the weak from the onslaughts of greedy corporations. He never let the world forget Union Carbide and its responsibility for the damage it caused to present and future generations. But he did not invoke God’s help for this task because the word God did not form part of his vocabulary. Daya’s vocabulary was that of science and rationality tempered by a radical humanism that brooked no compromise with the truth. Read more…

HE HAS LEFT US AN ENDURING MEMORY OF A PERSON WITH A HEART OF GOLD

Shireen Pasha (Anwar, Zaibun, Mariam and Qais Pasha)

 

How fortunate and blessed my family and I have been to have met and known Daya.  He had a remarkable insight, a quiet understanding, and generosity to give more than what he had already bestowed in terms of kindness, comfort and love…. and could intuitively sense people and what they were about. His generosity and kindness was bestowed on all the people lucky enough to cross his path. Read more…

PYARE (LOVING) DAYA

Zaibun and Mariam Pasha

 

You found us one winter day in the labyrinthine corridors of Royal Victoria, sitting at the edge of our seats, with fingers crossed, waiting to find out if our father would recover. We were looking for an apartment for ourselves but were finding it hard given the season, our limited resources and time. You heard of us through a common friend of my father’s, Vinod Mubayi, and wasted no time in finding us. Amidst all that uncertainty you offered us your home and your support and we accepted. Read more…

I KNEW THAT SEEKING ANSWERS TO SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS WOULD BE MY LIFE CAREER

Richard Gillis

 

I first knew Daya as a student at McGill during the 1960s.  He was a role model for me then and will remain so forever.  Read more…

DAYA WE WILL MISS YOU DEARLY

Sylvain Chemtob

 

I first met Dr Varma in 1985 when my PhD supervisor at the time (Jack Aranda) felt that I would benefit from a solid co-supervison through Daya’s involvement. Indeed I did, and very quickly I began to spend more time in his lab. Daya taught me how to write scientific reports (grants and papers). In this context I experienced a humbling event for my first paper as a PhD student. After having submitted my paper unsuccessfully to various journals, despite its approval by my main supervisor (Aranda), I finally decided to get a second opinion by consulting Daya. Daya gladly accepted and told me he would get back to me soon. Indeed, one week later, Daya asked to see me; upon meeting me, he said: “I hope you will not be offended, but the only text I left untouched is your name” – the paper was submitted and immediately accepted with minor revisions. Since, Daya and I co-authored 95 peer-reviewed papers. Read more…

RILLIANT SCIENTIST, INCREDIBLE HUMANITARIAN

Moshmi Bhattacharya

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Varma in 1995 when I first came to Montreal. I came to know about his laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology, McGill University having attended a course taught by his wife, Dr. Shree Mulay. Read more…

ALWAYS READY TO HELP

Jacob Aranda

 

Please accept my most profound condolence and sympathy for the loss of one of the most wonderful persons I know. Read more…

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