A Christmas Wish

I normally write a short reflection during Christmas. My reflection this year is on Christmas in the aftermath of the Orissa violence…

A Christmas Wish

- dedicated to all the people of Kandhamal, Orissa, especially to the 8000+ people still living in relief camps, and to all those who live under the shadow of violence, anywhere in the world.

It was almost 12 at night
I tiptoed to where my children lay
Christmas was here, here at last, it was just a few moments away.
The Christmas star was burning bright
and it showed me the way, as I slowly tiptoed, very slowly tiptoed
to where my children lay.

Last year we had a blast,
Christmas had been a merry day
This year we are on a fast, on this beautiful Christmas day

By then I had reached the spot
the spot where they lay,
my children’s grave was bathed in light, in the silvery whey.
The Christmas star looked so bright
as it did that early Christmas morn,
much like the time in Bethlehem, when the little baby Jesus was born.

As in those days, Herod had said,
no baby boy should be alive, kill them all, show no mercy,
all I want is their head.

So it happened 2000 years later, in our very land,
in the land we call our home, they came,
and desecrated it with a sleight of hand
They burnt our places of worship
and set our fields on fire.
Next they came to our home with lathis and burning tyres.

As they looked at my sleeping children, I pleaded
and fell at their bloodied feet. Spare them, my brothers, and take my life, I cried.
but it fell on stone deaf ears.

2008 has been an eventful year for us.
driven out of home, plundered and murdered, were we
but Christmas this year has become, has become very real!
The baby who was born
on that cold Christmas night, grew up to show
that God’s love is for all, yea for all, irrespective of who we were.

Give it, spread it, never withhold it, He said,
more for those who hate you, than for a friend.
As a witness of this love, you I send.

As I knelt down at my children’s graves
I shed a silent tear. Yes, for my little children,
but also for those who shed their innocent blood.
With hearts cold with hatred, and eyes filled with fury,
no rest, no peace they knew
for as they killed my children, they killed a piece of themselves too.

With these thoughts raging in my head,
I wondered, if peace I would ever know,
Must be the same, I thought, for those, who had struck the fatal blow.

As I closed my eye in prayer, His Spirit did I feel
urging me to love them,
for they too needed to heal.
Filled with His Spirit, I shouted into the night,
Lord I have a Christmas wish. Help me to love as you did,
so much, that for us you even died!

- Naveen I. Thomas
Dec 24, 2008

Countering terror

The decision by the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Jamia Millia University to offer legal aid to its students accused of indulging in terrorist acts in laudable. Governments are under pressure to show quick results, and any suspect is presumed to be guilty if the case pertains to so-called ‘terror’. In this atmosphere, every care must be taken to ensure that the accused get a chance of proper defence and fair trial. The BJP’s protest against the VC’s action is only to be expected. They have a history of supporting and implementing laws, at the centre and in states ruled by them, which rides roughshod over principles of natural justice. It is for this very reason that laws like POTA and Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, which becomes an instrument in the hands of rulers to terrorise anybody must be opposed.

(A shortened version of this was published in Letters to the Editor, in The Hindu, Sep 26, 2008)

Violence as a religion

Reporting on the Malegaon blasts investigations, the media is full of reports about “Hindu terror groups”. (NDTV, Oct 26, 2008). Once again we are falling into the trap of linking an entire religion with groups who propagate violence and terror. The perpetrators of the violence claim to be indulging in the violent crimes for the sake of a particular religion or group of people. But that doesn’t mean that we label them as “terror groups” linked to a particular religion. Let us take a hypothetical situation. If a group of people go around bombing places in the name of protecting media rights, will we immediately call them “media terrorists”? Wouldn’t that be painting the entire media with the “terror” brush. And this time I have BJP to back what I am saying. Their spokesperson has asked “Should we condemn an entire religion or way of life for the indiscretions or misguided actions of but a few?” (Times of India, 30 Oct, 2008). It is very sad that it took a Malegaon case for them to realise how it feels to paint an entire community with a terror brush.

As I have said in all my earlier posts on this topic (Stop communalising terror, The faith of a fundamentalist, Who is a terrorist) let us desist from using the names of religions or communities to label an act of violence or terrorism. The perpetrators of the crime are only promoting one religion by their acts – the religion of violence.

The faith of a fundamentalist

It is not very difficult to stoke the flame of communalism in the country. The ground work has been surely and steadily laid over the years and is bearing fruit now. The job of a fundamentalist or an extremist or a fanatic is very easy these days, be it a Christian, or a Hindu or a Muslim, or a person of any religion or grouping.

My colleague was teaching in a Pre-University college (11th and 12th standards) in Bangalore. The college had many students who hailed from villages around Bangalore. Since they had studied in Kannada up to 10th standard, most of them struggled coping with Science subjects since they were taught in English. My colleague, took extra pains to ensure that each student understood what she taught and went to great lengths to make the subject interesting and accessible. Since she was fluent in Kannada, that also helped her to demystify the subject for the students who were facing difficulty due to the medium of instruction –English. Needless to say she was soon very popular among the students. One boy improved a lot in his studies after she began teaching him. He even brought his parents to the school one day. They came all the way to the college to thank her for helping the boy, who they said was doing very well in his overall performance. All of a sudden, he stopped going to her for help and he often missed her regular class. When she sent word through his friends for him to go and meet her, he refused. One day, she met him and asked him why he was not attending classes, and enquired whether he was alright, etc. After a lot of reluctance he spoke. Making the sign of the cross, he asked her, do you belong to that group. She said, “Yes, I am a Christian”. He said that was why he didn’t want to attend her classes or be associated with her in any way. Puzzled at the reaction, my colleague probed further.  It turned out that he had studied in a school, which was run by a right wing fundamentalist group where he grew up on propaganda which demonised Muslims and Christians. He told her all those things which he had been taught about them. It was so spiteful and dangerous!  She said that she was surprised that he only stayed away from her classes and didn’t do anything more.

My friend who worked in the State Government recounted a similar experience. A colleague of his after years of working with him, asked him whether ‘he was an exception, or whether all Christians were like him’. When asked for the reason of his question, he said that he grew up in his village hearing all kinds of things against Christians, that he was surprised to find that my friend was a “normal human being like him”.

The teachings and practices of fundamentalist Christians and Muslims and others are equally dangerous and harmful as the fundamentalist Hindus. All these fundamentalist and fanatic and extremist groups of different religions work in their own ways (knowingly or unknowingly) to create a lose-lose situation, where the teaching of their religion are dishonoured as are the followers of the different faiths. The actual religion of these extremist is not Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, but fundamentalism and the result of their faith is hatred and violence and destruction!!!

Who is a terrorist?

During recent discussions with a friend, I found him implying the oft-repeated notion that all those who were caught in recent times for “terrorist” activities were Muslims. I had dealt with a similar issue in an earlier posting (Stop communalising terror!)

While the police promptly come up with some Muslim group’s name for involvement in the terrorist activities, it remains a mystery as to how many of these actually end in convictions? Tehelka in an investigative piece on SIMI, which is accused in every other case, “reveals a shocking web of dubious cases being pursued against so-called operatives of SIMI — cases which lack evidence, cases which flagrantly ignore standard procedures of criminal investigation and trial, cases that callously destroy the lives of young men and their families.” (Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 32, Dated Aug 16, 2008)

It is interesting that those who say that “Muslims are behind every terrorist attack” conveniently ignore some incidences of violence. Today thousands of Christian families in Orissa are hiding in their jungles fearing for their lives. Their houses, churches and property have been destroyed and many of them killed. Does this not count as a case of terrorism? Oh sorry, the perpetrators of this violence were not Muslims, so this can’t be terrorism! In Gujarat, when the genocide took place and Muslims were killed in droves, we didn’t call it “terrorism”. We called it a “spontaneous outpouring of emotions”! In Orissa too, the violence followed the murder of a Swamiji. So, the violence was justified as “an emotional outburst of the Swamiji’s supporters”, and not an act of terrorism. The Government claimed that the Swamiji was killed by the Naxalities. So, again it was not terrorism as no Muslims were involved. The right wing extremist groups said, ‘yes, they were Naxalites, but they were Christian Naxalites, so the violence is only a retribution for the Swamiji’s killing’.

I am reminded of an incident which happened last year. One Sunday morning, a temple priest was found hanging from a tree near his temple. Violence followed for two days. Vehicles were stoned and normal life was disrupted. The supporters of the temple priest said that he had been murdered and it could not be a case of suicide. The Government moved in fast to bring the situation under control. They established talks with the violent groups and got them to hold their peace atleast until the post-mortem report was out. There was wide-spread fear of communal clashes if it turned out that the death was due to murder. Eventually it turned out that it had been a case of suicide and there ended the matter. Now, this situation too could have gone out of hand. Accusations could have been hurled at anybody or any community. Those who had an axe to grind could have easily vitiated the atmosphere. The minority communities in that area actually lived in great fear for 2-3 days, because they knew that they would be the first target. But the swift decisive action taken by the Government saved the day.

We seem to have perfected the art of calling violence by different names based on who is accused (please note, not proven guilty, but accused). We call it terrorism, we call it naxalism, we call it retribution. In essence it is the same thing – one human being killing another.

Why India does not await her Barack Obama?

Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN has written a blog titled ‘Who will be India’s Obama?’ He has compared the Indian and American political scenario and ends his article by saying “For the moment, India awaits her Barack Obama.” This is my response to that blog article.

Why are we comparing apples and oranges? America is as different from India as Kerala is from UP. Just b’cos something is seemingly different and packaged beautifully, it doesn’t mean that it will be good for India. Obama is already speaking of Venezuela, Iran and others as the ‘enemy’ (not much different from Bush’s axis of evil). When he comes to power (note the certainty!) he cannot be much different from his predecessors b’cos what finally rules the White House is not the President’s charisma or education, but the dictates of the money bags and cartels who finally decide the American policies. You think nobody saw the US sub-prime problem coming? You think nobody sees the insurance-less Americans dying for healthcare? Yes, they do. But they are all powerless to make a change. As long as profit-mongering (as opposed to making) corporates rule the roost, there will be no change! One might install a black president, a woman president, a democrat as president, a republican as president or even a wooden doll as president, all they can be is mute witnesses to the policies formulated in their names.

Our leaders may not be that savvy or Harvard educated for that matter (tho’ many are educated abroad). They may be corrupt, feudal, dynastic, patriarchal and whatever. But that is just a reflection of our society and its priorities. If today, an entire national party clamours for Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into politics there must be a reason for it. If an entire national party and their supporters root for Narendra Modi’s leadership, there must be reasons for it. Those may not be “right” reasons according to us, but they do have the potential to make a change at the vote-office.

And by the way, how can urban, educated, middle class leaders lay claim to understanding, representing and responding to the needs across the Bharat-India divide. When most of India reaches that level of living, we will see leaders from that strata appearing. Until then, bye Obama, & best wishes to you!

Cricket, injustice and POTA look-alikes

Many Indians are aghast! And rightly so, because an Indian cricketer (Harbhajan Singh) who was accused of making a supposedly racial remark against an Australian cricketer (Andrew Symonds), was declared guilty by ICC Match Referee Mike Proctor, without any corroborative evidence. The accusers were the Australian team (captain Ricky Pointing and co.) and the witnesses were also from the Australian team (Matthew Hayden and Michael Clarke). The match umpires testified that they had heard nothing. Sachin Tendulkar who was also on the pitch, testified that he had heard nothing. Yet, on the suspicion of having uttered a racial remark, and backed by the witnesses of the accuser’s mates, Harbhajan Singh was banned. [How did the word of some witnesses prevail over the other? Was it the colour of their skin? Well, that's a point for another debate.]

The point I am making is that while newspapers and news channels and Indian citizen groups (in the country as well as outside) are crying themselves hoarse over this alleged unfairness, similar instances are happening in our own backyard. In the guise of fighting terrorism, laws are being promulgated where people can be apprehended and kept in jail on mere suspicion. Even though the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was repealed by the Dr. Manmohan Singh government in 2004, many states still have draconian laws to deal with “terrorism”. I recently attended a court hearing of a person charged under such a law.

If the case was not serious, one could laugh away the charges being levelled against him as a cruel joke. But unfortunately they were for real. I got to witness the power of the state on that day and how anybody who dared to raise a voice against the powerful interests could be put away behind bars, without even as much as a shred of evidence. I saw the State using uniformed guards to make a mockery of public opinion and create an atmosphere of suspicion by projecting its citizens as dreaded terrorists. I saw how cruelly precious human lives were being held hostage to vested interests.

Where is the public outcry and media outrage at these events? Websites are not clogged with bloggers using their free speech to express anguish. In fact, most of us don’t even know that these things are happening. Such harsh incidents hardly make it to the newspapers and other news media. Even if they do, they are tucked away in the deepest, most invisible news spaces. After all, who wants to bust the booming, zooming India story with such unexciting news?

I was wondering about why a State would want to make such draconian laws against its own citizens. The answer is not far to seek. Recent events such as acquisitions of large tracts of fertile land in the country for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) by corporates, in the name of industrial development and economic growth have dispossessed (and will continue to dispossess) thousands and millions of Indians from their only source of livelihood. Unemployment and hunger will cause great unrest among the people, and they will turn against the State and against the powerful interests which exploited them. How can this be contained? How can this be quelled? That is where draconian laws come into the picture. This political economy understanding has been around for long. Yet, we fail to see the impending danger.

So, let me call upon my fellow-Indians who are protesting against the Harbhajan Singh (Bhajji) episode, to take some time after the Bhajji storm is passed, to look into our own backyard. We will see much more injustices and blatant violations of natural justice.

Let us also stand up together and voice our opposition on these fronts. That could make a difference between life and death for people who are being victimised under these laws.

Here’s wishing all of you a more just and equitable 2008!

Truth about the Gujarat genocide unravelled

Tehelka has called it the truth about Gujarat 2002 in the words of the men who did it. And what is ‘it’? It refers to how:
- a pregnant woman’s womb was indeed pierced with a sword and the foetus wrenched out.
- Muslims hiding in a gutter in the hope that they would survive were killed.
- the former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was hacked limb by limb and burned, in the Gulbarg Society massacre – a first-hand account
- dozens of Muslims hiding in a pit and clinging together in fear in Naroda Patiya were doused with kerosene and burnt alive.
and much, much more….

The press release of the investigation by Tehelka (which has all been recorded on camera) has claimed that “the investigation brings confirmation that the Gujarat murder of Muslims was not a spontaneous swell of anger, but a planned genocide strategised and executed by top functionaries of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the state authorities, with the knowledge and sanction of Chief Minister Narendra Modi”. To read the whole press release, click here

Well, if Tehelka has unearthed this clinching evidence, they need to be congratulated. They have trodden where nobody in this large ‘democratic’ country has dared to tread. Governments have changed… people threw out the then incumbent government at the centre, hoping that the new one would look into the matter. But all we got was stoic silence from the new rulers. No action, no reaction and the perpetrators of the mass murders continued to rule. Tehelka has bucked the trend and followed up on an old and forgotten ’story’.

Well, what does it say about Indian democracy? It says that there are still a few (handful) of people who are willing to stake their lives in pursuit of the truth, while the rest of us get on with our lives, forgetting all about the terrible genocide which happened in front of our eyes.

It is amazing to see the discussions in leading newspapers about the revelations. It is more about ‘who will gain in the elections by these revelations’, rather than how can the perpetrators of the mass murders and their cheer-leaders contest in the election and continue to ‘rule’. This is a total dumbing down of our democracy…

Free speech with a neighbour

Last night a neighbour invited me over for dinner. He said that we could share some ideas, clarify our thoughts on some issues and also discuss the latest news. I gladly agreed, and went over to his place. As soon as I entered, he began screaming at me, called me all kinds of names and began hurling accusations. I could have easily walked out, but I chose to stay calm and discuss with him, because he was called a “professor” and an “expert on free speech”.

Well, this incident did not happen to me, but a strikingly similar incident happened to a fellow human, who also happened to be the elected President of a sovereign country – Iran. And the professor who invited him to an academic institution and insulted him was somebody who claimed that he was “only a professor, who is also a university president”. The professor – the one who claims publicly to be an expert (Latin), who did the honours, was the President of Columbia University in the US, Prof. Lee Bollinger.

The professor who is called an expert on free speech, probably understood free speech as inviting people over and freely calling them names. Prof. Bollinger in the guise of delivering introductory remarks, used statements like “astonishingly uneducated” and “petty and cruel dictator” to greet and describe President Mr. Ahmadinejad in the academic institution. What a great academic tradition!

Academic honesty would have meant that Mr. Bollinger would have invited President Mr. Ahmadinejad to speak at his university by being upfront about his feelings for him, and stating that clearly in his invitation letter. That letter should have read something like this – Dear astonishingly uneducated President, who exhibits all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator, we would like to invite you to speak at our university. Sincerely, The Free Speech Expert. Then the President would have had a chance to decide whether to accept an invitation from those who thought so highly of him.

I am not a great fan of Iranian policies, but I am with them completely on their opposition to this kind of astonishingly uneducated (to borrow a phrase from the free speech expert) behaviour. There is a strong opinion that Prof. Bollinger went overboard in his criticism of the Iranian President, to silence critics who were upset over the University’s decision to invite the Iranian President. If that is the case, I am amazed much more at the behaviour of the critics who do not like to see debate and dialogue, even in academic institutions.

Stop communalising terror!

In this age of 24 hour television news channels, it is quite common to hear reporters quote unconfirmed reports and half-truths, especially when the situation is just developing. In the mad scramble to be the first one reporting the “story”, the causality figures are exaggerated, the cause of the incident speculated upon and the incident is thoroughly sensationalised. In most cases, this does not result in major problems, because soon the actual figures are out, and some responsible agency makes a statement, and life moves on. Nobody holds the channel to task for hiking the figures initially or for giving their ‘opinions’ as the news. It is at best seen as an irritant that one has to live with, because one also sympathises with the young reporters who are in the field, who are supposed to have all knowledge about the incident (sometimes even before it completely unfolds), and answer confidently when the news anchor sitting in the studio shoots off questions. (One hopes that the Indian news channels will work on this aspect, and minimise such incidents. It is a potentially dangerous trend). But the irritation turns into disgust when senior journalists write their dangerously biased opinions, and it is carried prominently in the middle pages of a Sunday newspaper.

A senior journalist has recently (What’s ailing RAW?, Times of India (ToI), Sep 9, 2007) tried to link the incidents of recent “terror attacks” in India to “states where the governments are hyper-sensitive about their avowed secular bias”. He asks if the terror groups have “taken advantage of the political constraints on effective policing?” As a contrast he points to Gujarat and asks “is their inability to strike, in Gujarat linked to the state’s no-nonsense policing?

Well, if non-nonsense policing means, refusing to file FIRs, multiple encounter killings, lapses in providing security cover to witnesses, taking no action when symbols and places of worship, and practitioners and leaders of different religions are targeted, then there are many reports to show for that kind of efficiency. Also, the attack on the Akshardham temple, killing 31 people and wounding more than 80, which happened in the “no-nonsense policing” state of Gujarat less than five years ago is still fresh in public memory.
In the article, the author blames “liberalism gone astray”. And what does that mean? He says that “it is all very well to drive home the truism that all Muslims are not terrorists”, and that the “slogan ‘terrorists have no religion’ is an adroit homily…”, which he says will cause complications when “transmitted down the line to mean that no Muslim is a terrorist”. These kind of statements not just communalise terror, they also, strengthen the already prejudiced views about Muslims. Kuldip Nayar, in a recent article in Afternoon, Mumbai says that “non-compliance of Krishna report spread the impression that when it comes to taking action against Muslims, the government is firm but lax in the case of Hindus”. He further states that, this reading is strengthened when one notices that action is still awaited on reports on riots at Jabalpur (1961), Ranchi (1967), Bhiwandi (1970), Jamshedpur (1979), Meerut (1982) and Bhagalpur (1989) where “Hindu extremists were found to be the instigators”, along with “politicians and police officials” . In some cases, “Muslim fundamentalists, too were involved”. Now, what message does this transmit down the line?
Communalising terror also means that only certain kind of terror and terror groups are considered, and one is blind to all the others. Does an incident need a bomb to be blasted to be counted as act of terror? Isn’t genocide an act of terror? Isn’t planned targeting of communities, with the connivance of the “no-nonsense police” an act of terror? Isn’t the fact that 3,660 families are still living in 69 temporary colonies (as admitted by the Gujarat government before the National Commission of Minorities) even five years after they were displaced as a result of the worst-ever communal riots in 2002, an act of great terror.
The author in the ToI article says that “the dimensions of jihadi terror are transnational”, and says that we need “quality intelligence from the neighbourhood to confront terrorism”. But, I would say, what we urgently need is to stop this practise of viewing violence and extremism with coloured lens and communalising issues. Let us remember that the roots of violence – be it terrorism, or domestic violence or communal violence is the same. By communalising these issues, we are falling into the same trap!