Introspecting Aloud

The deputy Israeli Health minister wants to rename swine flu to Mexican flu as swine is too filthy for them to even mention in daily conversation. Ophelia’s response made me burst out laughing:

Oh right, so they do! Therefore it’s a hell of a good idea to name a scary lethal disease after a set of people instead of after an animal that one isn’t allowed to eat by one’s whimsical deity. Yes indeedy. Sure you don’t want to name it Perez flu? Juan and Maria flu? Spic flu? Funny little brown people on the far side of the world flu? They don’t wash their hands in Mexico flu? In deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork and everything?

I just read Sujai’s post on the possibile turn that Pakistan might take due to the onslaught of the Talibans. None of the possibilities sound very encouraging for Pakistan.

An amusing thought crossed my mind. It is kind of dark humour, really.

Don’t you find it amusing and ironical that a country like Pakistan (which means “The purest land” literally) which was formed on the premise of building the perfect Islamic state (it has that dream even today), is today facing the biggest threat to its survival (bigger than any of the wars since it’s inception) not from a non-Muslim country like India, but from a muslim group which believes that the country is not pure enough?

In fact, the message that Pakistanis are having to convince themselves is that they don’t exactly want the state envisioned by the leader of the religion of the state. The arguments that are going on, are less of patriotism (as is the case of a threat to survival of a nation) and more theological. They are actually discussing how Islam should be interpreted into a modern country.

Just found out from this post about the report on Cultural Policing in Dakshin Kannada(PDF) just released by The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka (PUCL-K). An interesting excerpt mentioned in the blog post:

As one observer, who has been covering the events in Dakshina Kannada, put it, “Today saffron is the colour of power. You just walk around with a big red tilak and see how people treat you. Right from the shop keeper to the bus conductor to the policeman, everybody gives you respect. Without the tilak you are nothing, with the tilak you become a power structure.” Munir Kattipalya of the DYFI echoes this sentiment when he says, “This district is not only communalized but also progressively criminalized.”

What is indicated by such statements is that there is a strong link between communalization and criminalization. It is precisely because the state has chosen not to act when criminal activities are perpetrated under the garb of religion that criminal elements now feel that they have the sanction to perpetrate violence and Cultural Policing in Dakshina Kannada other forms of intimidation by using the garb of religion. This possibly explains the proliferation of vigilante groups in Dakshina Kannada.

Sanjukta’s post alerted me to an event that slipped my notice. Apparently, the supreme court had quashed an appeal by a Muslim student against his convent school disallowing him to sport a beard. While disagreeing with the student’s counsel, one of the judges was allegedly heard making a remark “We don’t want to have Talibans in the country“. This has understandably caused quite a furor among part of the Muslim community who have been pointing this remark as a display of injustice or an insult against Muslims. Amusingly, the Muslim counsel appearing on behalf of the student and asserting that the beard was an essential part of the Muslim identity was pointed out by the judge to be not sporting a beard himself!

Now while I agree that the Talibanisation sentence was unnecessary in such a case, I essentially agree with the court’s assessment, especially the rest of that comment that is attributed to that judge: “…Tomorrow a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa, can we allow it“. This is an issue which Britain faced not too long ago, and I consider Britain handled it not as well as they should have. Every society has a few fundamental principles that they should live by and others attempting to join the society can ask for understanding and accommodation as long as they don’t compromise with these principles of the society. I expected the Britishers to say more forcefully that their society is based on respect and dignity for women and wearing the veil does anything but that. Instead they cloaked their objection in euphemism of security etc. which was regrettable.

India is a different case. While we too claim that our society should ideally be based on similar principles, the truth is that the majority religion Hinduism is still battling perceptions of Sati and child marriage. Punjab has one of the highest incidents of female infanticide and one of the most skewed sex ratios. Girls are still considered a burden in less than progressive families, dowry is a common malpractice. In such a situation, where none of the communities can claim to be morally at a high ground with caring for women, Indian courts would probably face a tougher case when something like what happened in Britain, happens here.

Coming back to the “beard means Talibanisation” case, an Outlook blog post by Sundeep Duggal cuts through some of the misinformation about the case – read his “FAQ: The Supreme Court’s Beard Judgement“. One relevant part is:

4.1 What are the legal ramifications of Justice Katju’s remarks?

None whatsover. It should be borne in mind that there is routinely a lot of give and take between judges and counsel in the supreme court, especially given that counsel in this case was an ex-colleague on the (HC) bench. Most significantly, the order of the Supreme Court does not consist of “the reported remark about Taliban”. Therefore it cannot even be considered as obiter dicta.

In other words, these remarks mostly came about in conversation on the case, and is not part of the judgement.

To those claiming that the right of Freedom to practice your religion has been violated, Telegraph has an interesting precedent to offer:

Experts point out that although our Constitution guarantees one’s freedom to practise one’s religion, there are reasonable restrictions to Article 25 imposed by the state on such grounds as public order, morality, health and other provisions. We can perhaps refer to the Commissioner of Police & Others vs Acharya Jagadishwarananda Avadhuta & Another case where Ananda Margis argued that their tandava dance with tridents and other objects was part of their religion and it should be allowed in public.

Deciding on the case, the apex court ruled, “Though the freedom of conscience and religious belief are absolute, the right to act in exercise of a man’s freedom of religion cannot override public interest and morals of the society and in that view it is competent for the State to suppress such religious activities which are prejudicial to public interest.” The court also found that the tandava dance was not an absolute requirement of their faith.

Another great point has been made by Sherwani Mustafa on Khabrein.info:

…

As such, ‘The Muslim Women ( Protection of Rights on Divorce ) Act was in fact the destruction of ‘ Muslim women’, and a glaring fraud on ‘shariat’ played by the ‘mullaiyat’. Similarly, instead of tracing the essence of ‘ Islam’ in  a foolish student’s attempt to sport beard and making all this humbug, if a vehement movement is launched in India for the enforcement of  ‘Islamic Criminal Law’ for Muslims, I will be the first person to support it whole-heartedly. Let the community and its intellectuals come forward with a strong demand that if a Muslim commits theft, his hands must be chopped off, if he is guilty of murder, he must be beheaded in full public view, if he is found guilty of fornication, adultery or rape, he must be stoned to death, and so on. I am sure the entire country will support such a demand.

Sounds fair to me. Instead of picking and choosing which aspect of their religion should be applied to their lives, why not go the whole hog and add the rest of the barbarian punishments also into the mix? You can’t on one hand use religion to justify special treatment for part of your social life, and then whenever inconvenient, use the other laws of the country to govern aspects of life where the rules of the religion are too tough to swallow.

There is a very interesting debate going on at talkislam.info after an Islamic Cleric in Harvard, no less, claimed how capital punishment is the right punishment for people deserting the Islamic faith.

The common premise of those defending the cleric in the comments of that post, is that for a theocratic state apostasy is like treason. While I can’t completely agree with that notion – it has to be an extremely insecure and intolerant theocracy to have such a position, I can’t but help see the convenience of such a rule. Convenient for the masters of such a theocracy, that is. These masters are likely to be de-facto leaders of the state religion, and like any autocracy (I look at all theocracies as a form of autocracy) they would rather use any means necessary to hang on to their positions rather than be secure in a faith which survives by conviction alone. For faith and thought can seldom be peaceful co-dwellers.

In fact, I couldn’t help putting such a situation in India’s scenario today. We now have a major political party, really close to gaining power in the country, which is philosophically almost completely in disagreement with the premise on this country was formed. One easy way to finding it out, is to go through their manifesto and see the number of times they talk about modifying the constitution (you know, repeal this, overturn that, enact this, etc.). The party is backed by a sinister pan-india organisation which has been at work to overturn the premise of this country from the day that we became independent.

So what happens if this prominent political party eventually manages to convert this country to a theocratic state as has been their quite public fundamental aim all this while? Will we see people being executed for leaving their religion? Well, we already see a bit of their vision in what they are doing in Orissa. Will we stop debating religion as other Islamic theocracies have done? And by the way, unlike the Muslims, we Hindus do not have an equivalent of Qu’ran or Hadith or Sharia to run this country. Oh yes, I forgot, maybe the 2000+ years oldManusmriti – the document being quoted by this party to provide justification for all their social policies? Or maybe, the Gita, which regrettably far being a reference of wisdom is now quoted by people of this party as a justification for chopping off hands of people from other religions.

In an article in Guardian, Julian Baggini wrote:

Intelligent atheism rejects what is false in religion, but should retain an interest in what is true about it. I don’t think many of my fellow atheists would disagree.

In response, I found Ophelia’s reply to be so well articulated and to the point.

I would – depending on what is meant by ‘what is true about it.’ I don’t think anything is true about it, if we mean factually true. If we mean something much looser by ‘true’ such as ‘having some good things to say about compassion or peace’ then I don’t think religion has anything to offer that is inherent to religion as opposed to simply widely-shared moral intuitions, so again, I don’t really think there is anything true about it (about it alone, to the exclusion of other ways of thinking). If I want wisdom about morality or justice I don’t turn to clerics. There are other sources, who are less encumbered by beliefs that need to be protected.

The Hindu has this brilliant article by Harsh Mander on the importance of continuing the struggle for getting justice for the atrocities committed in the Gujarat riots, even if it has been seven long years since it happened.

Here is the question that he tries to answer:

It is often suggested that there is a self-evident conflict or disconnect, some would suggest even a contradiction, between the goals of justice (particularly legal justice or justice delivered through the formal and impersonal instruments of the modern State), and reconciliation. In the aftermath of Gujarat 2002, there are many who argue that the efforts of human rights groups (including those that I am engaged with) which strive to secure justice for the survivors, are actually blocking efforts at reconciliation, or the spaces for forgiveness. Such enterprises are seen to be akin to scraping the scab off old wounds and not letting these heal naturally: they are seen as not letting the survivors forget their suffering. Those opposed to such efforts dispute: “What is achieved by reviving memories of what is done and over with? We should let the people affected by the admittedly unfortunate mass violence move on, without being constantly pulled into the quicksand of a painful past”.

He goes on to argue that reconciliation cannot be forced on people who have actually suffered in the pogrom.

Of course as a nation and as a people, we need to move on, pushing decisively behind us chapters of collective shame and tribulation, such as what unfolded in the killing fields of Gujarat in 2002. But the decision to impatiently surge ahead without looking back cannot justly be imposed on women and men, boys and girls who live with not only with the memories of the trauma of unspeakable loss and violence, but the daily lived realities of continued persecution, boycott, expulsion, fear and hate. They should not feel coerced into a spurious amnesia, imposed on them by those who did not suffer and by their absence of remorse and compassion. It is only when the survivors are able to deal voluntarily with this painful past, and when they are assisted to rebuild their homes, livelihoods and social relations, that they will be able to look to the future with optimism and confidence.

He makes a great analogy of this problem to the violence suffered by women.

Those who oppose post-violence human rights struggles also often suggest that efforts for legal justice undertaken long after visible violence has ceased on the streets, only revive enmities and cause further unrest and tensions rather than encourage peace. These threaten the fragile peace that is constructed with so much difficulty in post-conflict societies. This argument reminds me again and again of beliefs that a family in which a woman accepts repeated violence in the hands of her spouse without complaint or resistance is a peaceful one, and a household in which she is encouraged or supported (or instigated?) to be emboldened enough to speak out is one in which the peace and sanctity of family life is being imperilled and destroyed.

…

In the painful stoic or muffled silences of the survivors, the questions still shout to be heard about whether there is an impossibility of reconciliation for survivors of rape, especially when the rapists and those who instigated them walk free? Who can speak to them of finding spaces in their hearts for forgiveness, and who indeed should? Do such paths exist at all for the women who carry burdens of the pain and humiliation such as of 2002? If such paths exist, they must I believe traverse also the daunting treacherous journey of justice.

Towards the end he also mentions a fact about Gujarat that not many young people might know.

In my interviews with hundreds of survivors of the Gujarat carnage of 2002, I learnt that the families of most had not suffered for the first time in the carnage of 2002. Each had many agonising tales of losing loved ones, and the looting and torching of their homes in several successive riots. In fact, the saga of their lives seemed like the spaces between various communal riots, often starting with the cataclysmic upheavals of 1947.

…

This, to my understanding is crucial, that all notions of authentic reconciliation relate to a situation when the moment of atrocity can be relegated to a past. But for the Gujarat survivors, the persecution is repetitive: what can then be reconciliation in these situations of sustained boycott, segregation and hate?

I have heavily quoted from the article, but there is still a lot more to read from this amazing article. Read it to get the full picture.

( Via South Asia Citizens Web(SACW) )

Hindutva groups backed CAPEEM loses the California Textbook Court Case.

Here is the Text of Summary Judgment.

The list of edits being debated about here are listed here.

Notice how unlike the seemingly valid misrepresentations listed by CAPEEM on their website, the actual edits being disputed by them in court is totally different. Similar to BJP’s attempt in textbook distortion in India, CAPEEM is also advocating edits which among others, dispute: Aryan invasion on India, casteism in hindu society, any mention of criticism of Hinduism being the reason behind the birth of Buddhism and Jainism, lower rights for women in hindu society, presence on untouchability in hindu society, etc.

The tentacles of communalism is not restricted merely to Gujrat, Orissa and Karnataka. Religious violence and blackmail, this time from a section of the Muslim population came up again in Kolkata.

In November 2007, a certain section of Muslim population rioted in Kolkata against granting of visa to Tasleema Nasreen, who they claimed has insulted Islam by asking for greater rights for women. The state government, instead of showing a spine, succumbed to the blackmail and sent Tasleema packing to Jaipur. As usual, the government claimed that they had to do this to ensure law and order. However, the bottomline of what happened was that the city was blackmailed by violence and instead of doing the right thing, the government chose the politically safer option. Thus ensuring that a precedent was set in which no Kolkata based author critical of religion, especially Islam, can ever hope to find themselves safe in the city.

This is 2009, and instead of taking a chance to redeem itself, the same Kolkata government has shown it’s spineless self again. When the Statesman merely re-published this brilliant article by Johann Hari, a section of the muslim population started a riot once again, and yet again, the government instead of defending the people being attacked – the editor of Statesman, instead arrested him and charged him under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code which forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings”.

If you read the article, you will find out that the article actually talks about all religions and how each of them are playing a part in undermining the institution of United Nations in following their goals of all resisting all attempts to reform or self-criticize.

If you read the article you might find a particular passage about the prophet having sex with a nine year old as perhaps unnecessary or being too unjustly specific. I did too. This was one of the text which was protested against. However, you should realise how topical this particular fact is, as just last month (January 2009), top clerics in Saudi Arabia approved marriage of girls as young as 10-12 years, for no other reason other than the fact that the prophet had done the same.

However, as Johann wrote in his response to the riots, he was uniformly harsh on all religions – Islam, Judaism, Christianity. Islam got a bit more attention simply for the fact that its proponents were much more active than others in subverting the UN charter.

The bottom line is, the Kolkata government got one more chance to show that it represented a modern country which while remaining secular by constitution but deeply religious within, is progressive enough to not just make safe but encourage literary space to reform and take the country forward. A Kolkata which once was a city of literature, is now a city where only sanitized political and religious discussions can take place. Which is just a shame for a city I like so much.

Nirmukta reports about a meeting held on 20th February by like minded citizens of Mangalore ( as well people across Karnataka) protesting against the recent events of moral policing, the compliant state administration, and the current unsafe social environment in the city.

I had somehow missed one of the many reported incidents from Mangalore mentioned in the post.

They had the temerity to stop a bus carrying students of a college which had boys and girls from various communities going on an educational tour from their college. This was despite of the parents of the girls telling them that the girls were going with their permission. This incident had taken place bang in front of the Police Head quarters with the police standing as mute spectators. The same bus had to go on the next morning with two police escorts at the front and back. One can imagine the state of affairs if adult students of a college going on an official tour with the permission of their parents have to have a police escort!

As expected, an attempt was made to prevent this meeting. One of the speakers was threatened  thus.

These groups had tried a number of methods to stop this meeting including, threatening an elderly lady, Mrs. Lalitha Nayak an Ex-Minister of Karnataka with rape if she attended it. This was highlighted by her in her address. She was not angry but only lamented the state of affairs in which young men of the age of her grandsons made such threats. She also wondered as to what culture they were protecting with threats of that sort!

Interestingly the mayor of Mangalore got quite a few barbs for his recent filing of FIR against Renuka Chowdhury. The author of the Nirmukta post is Narendra Nayak, who also happens to be the president of the federation of Indian Rationalist Associations which he was representing at the meeting. Remarking about the mayor FIR, he reminded the mayor how the term Talibanisation of Mangalore was mentioned by him, a citizen of Mangalore, way before Renuka and how the publication which printed his views was prosecuted for the views.

The attitude of the Mayor of Mangalore City was also heavily criticized. He had filed a criminal case against a minister of the   central govt., Ms. Renuka Choudhary, for making a statement that Mangalore had been talibanised. He was reminded that, six months before she had made the statement, an article under the heading Talibanis of Dakshina Kannada had been published in September, 2008 in a local eveninger- Karavali Ale. The Mayor was challenged to dare to prosecute the author of the same- Narendra Nayak, the President of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. In my speech, I told the Mayor that it was my opinion about what was happening in the city and that I had more of a right to make that statement being a native of the same city and having been born much before him (the mayor). The story of the hounding of the owner of Karavali Ale is another saga of the fight of a determined man to preserve the freedom of press and expression in a democracy. Mr. Seetaram was hounded by the police, arrested and taken in handcuffs as if he was a dangerous criminal. He was finally released after a habeas corpus petition was filed in the Karnataka High court.