The Murder of Muslims

In India today, nationalism has a religion. Hinduism. We may pussyfoot around it and refer to it as Hindutva, saffronisation or, what the ruling rightwing Bhartiya Janata Party calls “fringe elements”, but the discourse is clearly embedded in the faith of the majority community. 

Slurs against Muslims have become commonplace. A country that wants to declare the cow as the mother of the nation and where minorities have to prove their patriotism not by allegiance to the flag but to the political party in power is bound to descend into chaos.

Two years ago, a mob brandishing hockey sticks and knives barged into Mohammed Akhlaq’s house in Dadri in north India and assaulted all the family members before killing him because they suspected there was beef in their fridge. The meat was sent to the forensic lab and it was found to be lamb. 

When one of his killers died (of natural causes), he was given a martyr’s funeral; his coffin was draped in the national flag and there were speeches by leaders from Hindu organisations that have direct access to the government. 

Last month towards the end of Ramadan when Junaid boarded the train to return home with his Eid shopping bags, he might not have imagined that the elderly man whom he offered the seat to would egg on a mob punching him and his friends. Abuses flew. “Beef eater”, “antinational”, “mullah”. They pulled at their skull caps and newly-sprouted beards. Knives came out telling them to go to Pakistan. They were bleeding. Nobody came to their rescue. Junaid was stabbed. He died. He was 16.

At the stations en route some of the lynch mob got off, enough to let the cops shrug about little evidence. 

A scuffle for seats got transformed into a fight for political and religious space. Or, perhaps, religious assertiveness is seeking out reasons. 

Meat trader Alimuddin Ansari was beaten up by a mob and his van, ostensibly with cattle meat, was set on fire in Jharkhand. There seemed to have been a dispute with some people who were extorting money from him. Such excuses have become the norm where the victim is invariably Muslim, for it was not a spontaneous act. His movements were tracked for hours before he was murdered. 

Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan of Latehar were taking their cattle to a fair many miles away. Five men with a mission waylaid them. After they killed the 35 and 13 year old, they tied a noose around their necks and hung them from a tree.

“Prima facie it appears to have been a case of a gang attempting to loot cattle,” the cops said. For those in a hurry to rob and make a quick escape with the cattle to profit from it, they seemed to have relished in committing the murders. Not only did they kill the two, they hanged them. The hanging was a message. To shame. To hold them up as an example. How dare they not respect their gau mata, the cow mother, their religion? 

It is disconcerting that mobs are using cow protection as the higher cause even to settle petty disputes. The shaming has got a further boost because the videos are uploaded and shared. The message gets more traction. What is so evident in these viral videos is that the so-called ‘jihadi mentality’ that Muslims are accused of does not respond in kind. The victims are just overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack; in some instances they are pleading, in one the man does not even have the energy or presence of mind to protest as they grab his hair and kick him. He just takes it like a stoic who has become accustomed to lie on a bed of nails.

***

Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has not uttered a word condoling any of these deaths. He tweets mourning for the loss of lives in a fire in Portugal, but makes no attempt to reach out to the families of those killed by men purportedly supporting his party’s Hindutva dream, a dream to reclaim ancient India and transform the country into a Hindu nation.

When he does speak, it is evasive: “All (state) governments should take stringent action against those who are violating law in the name of cow protection.”

How will this happen when some state governments are handing out expensive beef detection kits to the cops to smell for trouble, effectively converting the police force into cow protectors too? The very fact that there are several cow protection groups is worrying, for they aren't animal rights activists but soldiers of the faith.

“Bolo Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Rama), is the war cry. People are stopped in the streets and asked to owe allegiance to their god. A mentally unstable woman was slapped and forced to utter the words; a cleric was pummelled just outside the mosque by a group insisting he chant the phrase; journalist Munne Bharti was driving with his elderly parents. Suddenly, their car was surrounded by a group. They threatened to set the car on fire if they did not chant “Jai Shri Ram”. They did. An adult was frightened, for himself and his aged parents.

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How is this not about religion, then?

It was always about religion, perhaps by a few skewed minds. 25 years ago Bal Thackeray, the leader of the militant Shiv Sena, had asked for the disenfranchisement of Muslims. He would address huge rallies at an open ground referring to Muslims as “katuas”, the cut ones without a foreskin. After the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, on the instructions of these political parties, and the riots reached what was then Bombay, the men in the streets would point at the crotches of Muslim men and snigger, “katua”. They were stopped and asked to strip for a random check by random people. Unlike the Sikhs after the riots in 1984 who discarded their turbans and shaved off their hair to protect themselves, Muslims could not get back their foreskin.

At the All-India Hindu Convention held last month in Goa, for 4 days all the cars at the venue were sprayed with cow urine to purify them. “Their car needs shuddhi karan. We do it to all objects — watches, clothes, sometimes even handbags. It’s a spiritual exercise.”

How people choose to practise their faith is a personal matter. But when you have a cow piss soda, cow dung and urine being made a part of ayurvedic medicines and astrologers treating people in hospital OPDs, then it becomes obvious that the cow and beef are incidental here. They are only the more potent batons to beat the minorities. There is also the commercial angle. Giving a charlatan guru called Ramdev land and business rights to run an empire ostensibly selling indigenous products is a strategy to bring the devil close to your home.

Young Hindu women are training in self-defence to protect them from “love jihad”, a bogey created by the rightwing suggesting that Muslim men are luring them to fall in love to later convert them.

In May last year, there was a report about a camp in Uttar Pradesh training the youth wing of militant Hindu organisations to protect the country from terrorists. In the video images they are aiming their air guns and sticks at men wearing skull caps. The governor had justified the drill: “Those who cannot defend themselves, cannot ultimately defend the country and there is nothing wrong if some youths are getting arms-training purely for self defence.”

That instead of urging these fit youth to join the army, they are being brainwashed to target a particular group makes the intention clear.

How is this not about religion?

***

The fallout of such brainwashing is not restricted to the extremist Hindutva proponents alone. There is a not-so-subtle attempt to deflect from the Hinduness of the terror by liberals too. An academic who has taken it upon himself to explain India to Indians on social media from his perch in the US has written about the global Muslim victimhood industry by playing victim: “One cannot use the term ‘Muslim terror’ (but Hindu or Christian or Left terror is fine) or even Islamic terror without worry of being termed communal, bigoted, or Islamophobic. The appropriate phrase is 'Islamist terror,' which, we are expected to clarify, has nothing to do with Islam.”

Some commentators have begun to call India Lynchistan, the land of lynching. We do not seem to realise that mobs thrive on notoriety. They are not seeking a popular mandate, because they already are the popular mandate. Paper tiger responses only embolden their cause. The truth is that nobody in mainstream media or in activism or with an outsider’s perspective, like Dr. Amartya Sen, has had the courage or the will to call these planned lynchings as Hindu terrorism. 

Is such nomenclature important? It is. Because it is a systematic attempt to annihilate the minorities, specifically Muslims. (Quite different from Islamist terrorism whose victims are mainly Muslim and, in some cases like the ISIS’s victims, also people who are liberal enough to support Muslims.) 

Muslims immediately distance themselves from any jihad violence, even though that does not assuage their neighbours from seeing them as potential suspects. Hindus are not doing so in large enough numbers, and they are chary of admitting the faith angle because they believe that Hinduism is not a monotheistic faith with allegiance to one book and one god. It is amorphous and therefore fluid, they reason.

The caste system and its treatment of Dalits and the backward castes certainly reveals ‘fluidity’. All the government-engineered riots have been masterminded by a vile intellect that outsources the war to the police and army and pumps up the trading class to decimate minority businesses. The murder of minorities is only a more violent assertion of this sheltered ghettoisation of the elite majority. 

There are many who use their internet liberalism to rationalise their own subtle bigotry. That many of them also have a stake in steak does lend weight to their public “I'm not too Hindu” utterances. 

In one such recent piece, the headline flashed about how Hindu victimhood is a manufactured cry. In the first para itself, though, the writer gave a clean chit to Muslims quoting, of all people, George Bush: “India is a country which does not have a single al-Qaida member in a population of 150 million Muslims.” Hindus do not have to prove whether they have allegiance to any extremist organisation, even if they elect them to power.

The usage of Islamist phrases like fatwa and jihad to explain Hindu terror acts and suggest they are only “mimicking” reeks of another version of Islamophobia and projects violence by Hindu extremists as a reaction to centuries of abuse by Muslim rulers. This historic narrative pushes the ‘tolerate Muslims despite their past’ idea, the moral compass revealing who considers itself the superior side.

These recent attempts to call out Hindu extremists is not organic. They are a response to some of us wondering why we did not link the Hindu word with terrorism. We have woken up or, in good old Hindu speak, and in deference to many of us being converts from the ancient religion, our third eye has been awakened.

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Published in CounterPunch

How Social Media Dishonoured Qandeel Baloch

Qandeel Baloch sometimes looked like Amy Winehouse; her death was as tragic as Amy's. Both were on drugs. Winehouse was on the hard stuff; Baloch on the harder one.

Addiction to social media is narcotic. I do not mean the persistent need to check the walls and timelines or click on likes, or even to voice an opinion or an inanity, but the recreating of life online — to be completely subsumed by the persona one has birthed as well as the perceptions. In fact, Baloch was no more her own creation. She was an opinion. As she had said, "Love me or hate me both are in my favour. If you love me I Will always be in your heart, if you hate me I'll always be in your mind."

In the real world, she was killed by her brother — sedated and then strangulated, as her parents slept in the other room, sedated too. This murder falls into the honour-killing category. And immediately, we hear of the yawn-producing argument that these murders should be called dishonour-killings because, they ask, where's the honour.

Such ridiculous assertions forget that by doing so they suggest the victim would have brought dishonor as much as the perpetrator has, when we are in fact talking about misplaced ideas of honour, prevalent in almost all societies.

In Pakistan, the victim's family can forgive the man. Baloch's father has refused. He wants to wreak vengeance upon the son. One article even quoted the parent calling out, "Qandeel, Qandeel!" Strange, because that was not the name she was given at birth. She was Fouzia Azeem. Qandeel Baloch was the pseudonym she chose for herself. To escape, among other things, memories of being forcibly married off by her parents when she was a teen.

It was her new life that took care of them. Baloch was the only earning member. Her brother says he killed her because of the stuff she posted. But it could also be because his male ego could not handle being dependent on a sister, that too one who was unapologetic about her self-portrayal.

The latest news is that her mother says the brother was taunted by his friends regarding his sister's shenanigans, somehow softening the opinion against him. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility for judging her. She is now, as she was then, just a daughter, a sister, a trigger for the self-righteous.

Qandeel Baloch was not as unusual a phenomenon as is made out. The pretty provocative at 26 is often what rebellions are made of. I watched an interview in which she referred to herself as a social media sensation. That was her identity.

It is no different from the social media celebrities around who primarily feed their followers minutiae of their lives — the animals they rear, the food they eat, the places they visit, the clothes they wear. They flash these as a badge of frankness, when what such trivia does is to act as a camouflage for their opinions and feelings or, more likely, lack of them.

They feed on events and trolls. The more trolls they get for a stray comment the more they begin to market their boldness. Being in-your-face is projected as honesty. The cliques to which they belong — and they sure as hell wouldn't survive without them — ensure that their machinery is well-lubricated with their fan-like leech behaviour.

The Qandeel supporters were different. They might have enjoyed her exhibitionism, but they could not possibly invest in her emotionally because they felt they were not equal. As long as she could be patronised, it was okay. In some cases, she reminded them of their own struggles. But, yet again, there was a kid glove treatment.

I watched The Ali Saleem Late Night Show where she appeared alongside Pakistani comic actor Rauf Lala. The latter had the audacity to leer at her and make it seem like doing so was a part of his acceptance of her. He resorted to the typical subcontinental trope of, "You are like my sister." She shot back, "Can't you say daughter?" He agreed, in the same leering manner, "Ok, ok, like a child I've rocked in my lap."

If you think this was just another character from the entertainment industry, then you are wrong. I've witnessed much sniggering by Pakistani liberals online. Upon her death, they might have surely spoken some shit about how horrible honour killing is and how she was merely a misguided youngster. Short of calling her a floozy, because they are so desperate to be politically correct, they meant just that.

Qandeel, obviously, had a different opinion of herself and her agenda. In a Facebook post a day before her death, she had written:

"I believe I am a modern day feminist. I believe in equality. I need not to choose what type of women should be. I don't think there is any need to label ourselves just for sake of society. I am just a women with free thoughts free mindset and I LOVE THE WAY I AM."

But this love for herself was the result of going regularly viral due to the 'love' of others. Did the liberal society ever grant her the status of feminist? Even Mathira, a model and actress known for her item numbers, had mentioned in an earlier interview about her drawing the line somewhere as opposed to Qandeel, who apparently knew of no such line.

Qandeel did a bad version of twerking, she wore transparent clothes and seduced the camera. The viewers were added bonus. And she sang. That's what she wanted to do. That's what nobody was interested in. Unless she sang wearing night clothes in bed just before signing off in a video she shot to share with strangers.

Did anybody notice her voice? Clearly not. Even in that 'understanding' interview with Ali Saleem, the host made her run on a treadmill and sing. To be fair, he made the other guest do so too, but Rauf Lala had no singing ambitions. Qandeel did.

But she was just time-pass for those on social media who even as they while away the hours in their echo chambers look down on people like Qandeel who do the same.

They refuse to accept her not only on her terms, but even on theirs, should she have made it. She had to be kept in her place, even as they pretended not to show her her place.

In the end, the social media voyeurs were witnesses to the murder of Qandeel Baloch.

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An earlier one on Amy Winehouse

Cry censorship, then apologise: the AIB Knockout's fake fight for FoE

When a comedy show that has managed to bring out the closet bad taste in comedy elite to openly vouch for it offers unconditional apology for hurting religious sentiments, does it have a leg to stand on where freedom of speech is concerned? More importantly, will those who stood up for it now feel let down?

In the most recent complaint against the AIB Knockout, a Roast organised by the All India Bakchod (AIB) group of comedians with Bollywood stars Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, the Catholic community was upset. In its response, AIB wrote:

It may be relevant to mention here that during our interaction with the archdiocese, both parties agreed on another important thing; these matters are best solved by frank, patient conversation, not by pointless rabble-rousing or politicization or by taking up adversarial positions for the sake of eyeballs.

Till just the other day, they and their cheerleaders were talking about the right to offend and how terrible it is to be touchy. It is quite obvious that this new-found need not to grab eyeballs is a result of some chastisement from those with hurt sentiments over jocular mentions of the virgin birth and altar boys. If all expression is to rely on seeking permission, then quit the grandstanding about breaking the mould and feeding the unpalatable truth.

Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of a society better than how it treats freedom — its own versus that of others. It is invariably about Us vs Them and it does not matter if Us agrees to apologies to Them.  It was anyway about a selective sense of outrage where one version of the outrageous was okay.

Professional liberals who spend their waking moments trying to be politically correct are holding a candle for all that is politically incorrect and offensive. When AIB took down its YouTube video, there was more breast-beating. It would not do well to highlight that the organisation had said they were not threatened and they were only being pragmatic.

The first complaint was from the president of a Hindu sounding organisation, which said:

"The show, which can be seen on YouTube and other websites, was extremely abusive and it is not only ruining the clean image of the Indian culture & women, but is also misleading today's youth."

This business about the clean image of Indian culture is ludicrous, because culture is certainly not the moral prism of one group.

However, the posting of pictures of ancient art in response to this does not serve to make any cogent point. If we do not wish to wind the clock back, why use the examples of temple sculpture? At the very basic level, those sculptures were supposed to be a celebration of the body and sexuality. The Roast was about insulting these. The jokes were the sort most people are done with by the time they've finished college. So, the content was not a surprise, although there was an attempt to promote it as bold and shocking.

The reason I don't have a problem with jibes at girth, sexuality, colour is because nothing should be sacred if everything goes. The debate on freedom of speech has impeded what should be a more serious discussion about 'taking it'.

We had two young Bollywood actors seemingly being sporting about the digs at them. I say seemingly because the jokes were already vetted by them. They knew what was coming, so they were prepared with their spontaneous jollity. In the event, one wonders just how accommodating they were and whether vetting itself is not a form of censorship.

In the event, director Karan Johar's sexual orientation being discussed was not a surprise to anyone, including him. His social career is pretty much about it. His adding nuggets about his favoured position just made him more accessible to the posh crowd that usually likes to fake liberalism.

If his sexual preferences were so normal to them, why would there be the awkward guffawing as though it is not? Karan Johar revels in being the lonely guy despite a hectic public life, so all of the jokes played according to script.

Similarly, why would a Ranveer Singh, who does not have too many hits to his credit, mind if he is portrayed as a playboy? Or why would an Arjun Kapoor who is typecast be bothered about references to it when that is how Bollywood gives you a niche? These are all safe areas.

Yet you have people talking about how the show pushed the envelope, when all it did was get some 4000 people, many friends and families of those participating, to buy tickets that cost Rs 4000 and laugh publicly at old jokes they've laughed over privately. The money collected would go to charity, which immediately gives all elite liberals an opportunity to make a conscience argument.

The organisers had already expressed concerns about backlash, not just from the political class but the industry. How come nobody questioned probable pressure from the latter?

It is rather obvious that much of FoE in these instances is about the right to air inside jokes. Add to it is the belief that these would never be seen as vulgar. They run down folk humour that uses lewd language and double entendre, but expect different standards if these are in English.

Would liberals enjoy being the butt of a Roast? How about the TV anchors and martyr editors of mainstream media who stand up for such freedom — wouldn't it be nice to see them as the subject of a good Roast?

The fact is they would not like it one bit, and might try to scotch it in their own patented devious ways. The "if you don't like it, don't read/listen/watch" argument gets a bit tiring and fake, especially if the urbane talk about shutting down an Astha channel and how the media should not entertain discussions on ayurveda.

This should tell us that freedom is not the fiefdom only of those who talk about it in a socially incestuous setting. They cannot have a problem with others objecting because freedom also means the right of others to object. 

Sterilisation or Sexism: The Opportunistic Battle for Primetime

One did not realise this was about competition, that too of the superficial kind. The celebrated anchor moving on to the sterilisation deaths in Chhatisgarh said, "Now to our next. This should be the first story across news channels..." Amazing. Why did he then choose to feature it after the 'girls not allowed in AMU library' and 'Abhishek Manu Singhvi spending Rs 5 crore on laptops' stories?

Are news items about what comes first, and if so who is in a position to judge others when they themselves do not follow the rules of conscience? Do the issues matter or not in this oneupmanship?

What happened in those sterilisation camps is really the sad state of affairs in our health sector. Hopping mad is not a solution, neither is demanding quick-fix action or primetime space. Indeed, dissemination of such news is important if only to make people aware that they cannot be confined to the la-la-land of full HD, but live in a larger world. One hopes such news also reaches those not leading such an existence, potential victims who need to be alerted.

According to this Guardian report, between 2013-2014 four million operations were performed; in a nine-year period between 2003-12, 1,434 people died due to such surgeries.

On November 8, some women were forced to attend the camps:

More than 80 women underwent surgery for laparoscopic tubectomies at a free government-run camp in the central state of Chhattisgarh on Saturday. About 60 fell ill shortly afterwards, officials said. At least 14 were in a very serious condition by Wednesday and the death toll was expected to rise.

Force is one of the factors that make it difficult to stem the problem. Reminds me of the horrible Turkman Gate surgeries helmed politically by Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency. More than meeting targets, it was an assertion of power as it continues to be in some form.

India has to control its population. No question about it. The government cannot target the rich and the middle class, and perhaps due to education and a better living standard the "another hand to work" argument does not apply here, although the gender disparity is no less among these classes. So, invariably the poor are targeted. They are offered a small compensation, which they may or may not get.

Health workers are supposed to meet targets, and this results in a race, ignoring the health status of the women and whether they will be in a position to undergo the operation. The onus is on the women to control the population. This aspect is not addressed with enough seriousness, given that women are malnourished anyway and hardly in a position to demand a child. Childbirth is not easy for those who are expected to ensure that a boy child is born, or else they would have to bear the consequences.

This needs intervention, more than forced sterilisation. We cannot blame it on patriarchy and sit back to watch.

* * *

Talking about patriarchy and sexism Zameeruddin Shah, the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), got himself into trouble for saying that if the main library was opened up for women then four times more men would visit it. The Times of India read "attract" to mean attraction between the sexes. It was an alarmist report. However, the response to it is no less alarmist.

The V-C saying more young men would visit if women were allowed implies they would do so because of them. I don't think there can be any dispute over this. It does not mean that AMU as an insitute of learning is backward; it just means that the V-C made an uncalled for comment. There was bound to be a reaction.

National Front of Indian Women general secretary Annie Raja said, “This shows the diseased mindset of the V-C. He is not fit to sit in that position. They should address the question of infrastructure rather than stopping girls. The library is meant for all students.”

Mr. Shah clarified:

“The issue of permitting undergraduate girls will have to wait until we create necessary extra space. Once the infrastructural issues are resolved and arrangements for safe transport for girls are made, we would certainly have no objection in permitting these girls have access to the central library. We are not at all sexist. We want women's empowerment and certainly don’t want to segregate our girls."

Many universities in India come up with weird rules, whether it is for what women should wear, whether they should be allowed to carry mobile phones, speak to men, be segregated. These incidents get widely reported, and nothing comes out of it, absolutely nothing. Each time a sexist remark is uttered, you will see the people who ought to be punished on TV justifying what they said. Those who would have been forgotten end up as newsmakers. Unless such news ensure that action is taken against the perpetrators, it just adds to the imbecility of discourse.

A different sort of alarmism comes from TV-dinner analysts. Another celebrated anchor said: "Systematic campaign to demonise Muslims ( &liberals). AMU VC comments in bad taste maybe, but blown into Islamic medievalism by media."

Oafs circumambulate their lives, and drive their opinions. AMU has students from all communities and faculty from all communities. The V-C is a former armyman and his faith ought to be of no consequence if he has said something that is cause for pause. One gets the intent quite clearly when "liberals" are deviously tagged along with "Muslims", conveying that the libs suffer a similar fate when they take up the Muslim cause.

If such people want to hit out at the BJP, then they should learn to aim and not use the shoulders of Muslims to fire the gun. The HRD minister Smriti Irani did jump in to respond to the V-C's remarks by saying it hurt her and agitated her. It is a political ploy, there is no doubt about it. But, did she speak about AMU being medieval, or Muslims and Islam being medieval? Even had she done so, she is a politician. What are these self-labeled opportunistic liberals?

They have a nice coterie to protect them. Suddenly, with the magnanimous gestures so typical of majoritarianism — "some of the most intelligent/progressive people we know are from AMU" — adding to the noise, it was about how AMU was a grand institute that was being slaughtered, when sterilisation deaths should have been given more attention. (In doing so, they did not realise that they had fed the frenzy, to begin with.) The media was blamed, often by other media persons. It has stopped being funny. This is just competitiveness for space. The fence sitters are always poised in such a way that they fall on the cushioned grass where they are butt-safe.

What I would like to hear about is how the Chhattisgarh deaths are about medieval practices of modern medicine that India continues to use. This should be drummed into our heads, and it does not mean we need to ignore sexism elsewhere for it.

Does not abuse of these women count?

Only because the police force represents the establishment, should we ignore how some cops, especially female, are treated by civilians? In Bareillly, Uttar Pradesh, men have been calling up the police stations and harassing women cops with sexually provocative comments.

This reveals a certain cockiness, besides a problem with attitude. It does not help that this report refers to the men as "desperate romeos" and the sexual harassment they indulge in as "dirty talk".

A frustrated police department has now blocked the SIM cards of 90 mobile phone owners. In October alone, more than 1,738 such calls were made. Many among those, knowing full well that the calls were being recorded, spoke such obscenity that the women cops were forced to run to their seniors for help.

Why does the report make these female cops sound like 'damsels in distress'? They have a legitimate right to complain about abuse at the workplace, whether it is by their colleagues or callers. Had a male policeman been threatened, he too might have approached his seniors.

The CO (Circle Officer) added that there were occasions when the woman cop would just hand the phone over to a male colleague, but the intrepid caller would roundly abuse the male cop, too, and threaten him with dire consequences.

Clearly, the Indian media may talk about using terms like "survivor" instead of "victim" for those who've suffered sexual violence, but has no concept of how to respect the rights of women without such sound bite crutches.

***

Should the fight against 'love jihad' be restricted to Hindu-Muslim alliances? Why are moderate Hindus and liberals not taking up intercaste 'honour' crimes?

Those news items are relegated to inside pages and rarely get any prominence, that too only if there is a hook to make them saleable. Meanwhile, incidents such as these continue to take place:

A Vijayawada-based man was arrested for allegedly raping his teenaged daughter over several months as punishment for having an affair with a youth from a different caste, after the victim and her mother approached the police...

"Initially, his intention was to punish her with that cruel deed. Subsequently, he developed an interest in her and went on repeating the same for almost a year", said PI (Nunna rural) Vara Prasad, who is probing the case.

A Appa Rao started out with vengeance, revenge against another caste person. There were no political ideologies involved, which is often the case. Do they matter less if there is no 'love jihad'-like catchphrase attached to them? Is there any sympathy for his teenage daughter, about her future and the love she lost?

If the Sanghis are hanging on to the phrase to demonise it, those battling against it have also made it into a business franchise. As there is a steady stream at the doors to partake of it, they realise it makes little sense to diversify into what stares them in the face by the same perpetrators — caste divisiveness and anti-Dalit sentiments. Should someone find an appropriate title, maybe our concerned liberals might join the bandwagon.

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Also my piece on love, jihad and politics

The Dumbing Down of Debate — Of Bhagwat, Jayalalitha and a news anchor

Why are we a part of so much noise?

Sometime last month, a friend from Pakistan sent me a text message after a long gap of non-communication. He began by asking why I had not written anything on azadi and inquilab, the public protests of Imran Khan's party. I did subsequently post something, but the fact is that unlike earlier I did not feel the need to time it.

Part of the timing thing is, of course, old journalistic habit of commenting on an event or doing a follow up feature story. It wasn't mere deadlines I was meeting; thoughts were racing through my mind and wouldn't rest until they were put down. The mental race continues.

However, I have begun to wonder and ponder. There are many reasons for it, but here are a few.

I was trying to locate an old column of mine after Jayalaithaa's arrest. Not only did I recall where it was published around the time when the case first got in the news, I remembered the picture that was used as well. While rummaging through the piles, I stopped. What was I doing and why? Did I want to scan the piece and put it up? What would it achieve? Did I want to use bits of it? Both were possibilities, and although my views are not dated I am conscious that despite the long articles written now, what registers most are stray sentences. Like some others, I do have a few of such sentences that can be highlighted. But, it is tidbits that seem to overwhelm — the number of the Tamil Nadu CM's domestic staff, what she ate, drank, wore. Would one want to break the linkages, the ingrained cohesiveness? Would one want 'light' readers to snigger about what they register as pop psychology, the calling out of which is another pop fad?

In any event, I gave up the search. Along the way, I found several pieces. One of them was on the RSS, another mentioned Mohan Bhagwat, who is in the news today because as chief of the Hindutva organisation he managed to get direct entry into national TV as Doordarshan telecast his speech live. If he has said pretty much the same things on earlier occasions, why should what happens now surprise me at all? Nothing has changed. If anything, it is the public secularists who are claiming their pound of flesh by revealing how fearful they are when they cannot even critique this kowtowing to a non-party organisation and drag in religious heads of other communities that do not — and thankfully so — have the standing to be so propped up.

It is the political wayfarers who find sustenance in such liberal rabble-rousing. In the process they ignore that history was no different. Perhaps, the ignoring is willful: It is about grabbing a spot in the sun. It is about a whoa moment holding on to the crutch of a meme to make a point that skims only the crust and lacks the drive, patience and integrity to probe the crux.

One would understand had such testosterone response been from novices. Why do seasoned analysts too join in the dirge of "We are going downhill" when all this has happened before, and not in ancient times? It has happened before our eyes in the 80s, 90s and the 2000s. The RSS speeches are the same.

What we should be doing is to keep our antenna up and raise our voices instead of looking like frightened deer before headlights. There is a horrible fallout of this: the guys in the front are getting hit. The mastermind is safe. For example, Doordarshan gets blamed for the Bhagwat speech when we know that the national channel follows government diktats. Besides that, attention is diverted from similar rightwing nonsense from previous regimes. It is one reason you rarely hear about the 1992-93 riots. This bothers me a lot.

Everybody likes a good fight, to be able to nurse wounds and egos, knowing well that in this junk-food version of news things come cheap and don't last long. And that is such a convenient thing for them. There is no fealty expected in the long run, no commitment.

During the PM's trip to the US, the way the word Modi was used revealed how indebted many in the media are to the new government and its head. A play on the name became less pun and more about building the cult.

Following an altercation between a media person and the rightwing cheerleaders, an industrialist close to the PM reportedly conveyed a message that Modi regretted what had happened. This is what should concern us more, that a businessman is acting as the conduit between a PM and a journalist.

Those holding forth have little or no experience in or about the media, just as the neo-experts are not experts at all. Journalistic space has been taken over by rightwing think-tanks or liberals with too many books and a lot of dust in their shelves. All that is debated is not news. Trivia and gossip too are discussed, and they have a place. But in the enthusiasm to legitimise the trivia or the addenda, opponents are getting more importance. Which is what they want and what they probably incited. Worse, the serious is getting reduced to the level of the frivolous, with its own version of flouncy bouncy analyses.

The Artful Dodgers

If a celebrity sells a refrigerator to an Eskimo, it will be sold. We see this often in our society pages. So, why is it surprising if a painting by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee goes for Rs. 1.8 crore?

Narendra Modi landed up in Kolkata for the BJP campaign and alleged:

"Your (Mamata) paintings used to be sold for Rs. 4 lakh, Rs. 8 lakh or Rs. 15 lakh, but what is the reason that one of your paintings sold for Rs. 1.80 crore. I respect art. But who was the person who bought the painting for Rs. 1.80 crore?"

The reason for his interest in art is, of course, to score political points. In this case, "the multi-crore Saradha ponzi scam". Sudipta Sen, the key accused, said, "I didn't buy the Chief Minister's painting."

A couple of points:

• Is there also a check on those who act as decoys for such deals? Does the reputation of a buyer matter?

• If it is alleged that this is illegal money, then all parties take donations that are not all above-board.

• The Trinamool Congress (TMC) maintains that all payments for the paintings are taken by cheque, and used for social service activities.

• In January last year, at Kolkata Town Hall, Ms. Banerjee did exhibit her works for polls:

The entire amount which will be raised from this exhibition will be used to run campaign of the Trinamool Congress for the ensuing panchayat elections.

The Election Commission is being called upon to intervene in such cases now and is wasting its time. If there was indeed such a transaction, it is not possible to keep tabs if some of the money was paid in cash. And certainly no party can take a moral position on this.

The TMC's Derek O'Brien repeated his bluster, seeing how his 'bravery' is appreciated by social media activists:

"Blood is still fresh in the hands of the butcher of Gujarat. If he makes personal attacks against (TMC chief) Mamata Banerjee, we can also ask tough questions."

Why is it a quid pro quo? Why hasn't the party asked those questions before their leader was the target of personal attacks? This personality cult stinks. The riots and killings are well-documented. A bunch of people capitalise on them only when it suits their politics.

Memories are evanescent. Or, perhaps, agenda-driven. If you hate Modi, forget Mamata Banerjee's track record in Singur, in rape cases, in dislocating villagers, in censoring, in not permitting any criticism of her?

This is what passes for liberal analysis.

© Farzana Versey

A Mirage called Malala

A Mirage called Malala: Another Daughter of the East? 
by Farzana Versey, CounterPunch, July 15

Had Edward Snowden exposed the dirt of the Taliban, he would have been standing behind the lectern in New York at the UN hall on Friday, July 12.

The contrast, and irony, is stark.

• A young man is hounded by the government of his country for exposing its sly mechanism, of its covert war against the whole world, not to speak of its own citizens. He waits at an airport in Russia that had fought a war against Afghanistan, which was backed by the CIA.

• A teenager’s birthday was officially declared Malala Day by the United Nations. She addressed a well-heeled gathering in the United States that was one of the two countries to oppose the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; the other was Somalia.

Malala Yousafzai’s speech had a captive audience. 

Malala at the UN - Pic The Guardian

They wanted a cinematic moment. The gooseflesh groupies, including the mainstream media and urban Pakistanis, were not interested in going beyond the script of her address. They became the protectors of a girl who they could not protect in their own country. The legal imperative is not even considered to fight such cases. What bothers them is their pretty position would be threatened and questioned.  

Politician or puppet?

If we are to treat her as just a courageous 16-year-old, then perhaps we ought to disregard her role as activist. She cannot be hoisted as a symbol of resistance as a cocooned marionette.

In the very first sentence, Malala said it was an honour to wear a shawl of Benazir Bhutto. This was a political statement. From being a victim of the Taliban, she appears to be a “mind-controlled victim” of the elite. Like Benazir, Malala’s power comes from being wronged. Nobody will deny that they indeed were. However, the dynamics of power play are not about the literal, and this the souvenir dealers do not wish to understand.

When she was being treated at the hospital in Birmingham,  President Asif Ali Zardari visited her wearing a coat with a lapel that had her photograph on it; to honour her, he pledged $10 million for girls’ education to UNESCO because “sending girls to school was the best way to combat extremism”. While Malala’s school in Mingora, in the Northern region of Swat, was renamed after her, the President did not offer this money to a local organisation. To get legitimacy, it would appear the issue has to have global appeal.

The Interior Minister at the time, Rehman Malik, was quoted as saying:

"Until terrorism is over, she will continue to have security until we feel she is OK. You never know the circumstances, what will happen. The Taliban might be zero tomorrow. Still [while] we think or successive government feels she needs security, it is of no issue, to be honest, because she has become the icon of Pakistan, she has stood against terrorists and Taliban and she has become an icon for the education of young girls.”

Why do many Pakistanis refuse to see this as a convenient ploy by the leadership to put the onus on iconoclasm to deal with the issues, knowing well that this would work only as a mirage? Where are the political initiatives to tackle terrorism? Benazir Bhutto too supported the Taliban regime in its initial years to ensure that her position was not threatened. The progressive discourse overlooks the fact that she did not expunge any law that was anti-women.

Ever since she was shot at by the Taliban, the cheerleaders have expressed cursory concern for the “other Malalas”; the sidelight is brought out only as a nervous tic. Malala too made a nodding mention of her friends, now forgotten by everyone. They were also shot at, but not as grievously. Where are they? Are they protected? Any school named after them? No one seems to notice that despite her environment, she managed to learn, to seek peace, and to take on the militants.

The omission of any inspiring contemporary figure in her speech was startling. Yet, she managed to please the activists when she spoke about “hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for their rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goal of peace, education and equality”. 

Students in Mingora (Pic: Pak Magazine)

It would have been politically incorrect for her to add that her sponsors and their allies not only kill civilians in the regions they occupy, but also employ child soldiers. In an earlier piece, I had raised these points: Is this courage or just canny marketing by consumerist consciences? Do we even pause to think about the consequences of creating or supporting such vulnerable ‘revolutionaries’? …Just think of the kids the US forces fought in Iraq and then took them captive to Abu Ghraib. Think about them in the Maoist Army in Nepal, as human shields in India’s Naxal groups, of them in Israel, of stone-pelting Palestinians now holding guns. These are representatives of their countries, not fringe groups.

Malala even sent out a message of forgiveness for the Taliban using time-tested figures: 

“I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion I have learned from Mohamed, the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This is the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. This is the philosophy of nonviolence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa.”

This is what Barack Obama says. This is exactly what the West, specifically the US, has done with its neat division of good Talib, bad Talib. Besides, as America is due to exit from Afghanistan in 2014, it will have to deal with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Whoever drafted Malala’s speech was taking no chances, even carefully omitting Hinduism, aware that it is a touchy issue in Pakistan where the infidel is associated with the idol-worshipping faith more than any other.

Besides, what change did Jinnah bring about? His major contribution was before the Partition and in helping to formulate the idea of Pakistan. He did not live to watch it veer away from the avowed secularism he hoped for. Malala recalling Mandela and Gandhi seems like a staple politician-beauty pageant fortune cookie moment, but Bacha Khan? He did not want to be with Pakistan and had specified that he should be buried in Afghanistan, to retain the purity of his Pashtun dream. Violence of thought is not something to be shrugged off.

Who is educating whom?

Like the caricature of the Taliban frightened of a girl with a book is simplistic, the catchphrase at the UN that day –‘Education First’ – is restrictive, especially when you consider the number of school dropouts in the West. But American kids willingly emptied their kitties for a charity that turned out to not only misuse the funds, but also mislead. Greg Mortenson, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who wrote the bestselling ‘Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time’ set up the Central Asia Institute charity that funds schools in the Balti region. President Obama made a handsome donation, and the book compulsory reading for the forces in Af-Pak.

However, the greater crime, as I wrote in the Counterpunch article Fabricated Philanthropy was “one by default – of whitewashing the image of the US administration, even if to a small degree. It has come to light that he was not kidnapped by the Taliban. In one of the photographs of 1996, his so-called kidnapper turns out to be Mansur Khan Mahsud, a research director of the FATA Research Center.”

Those who oppose religious factionalism that the Taliban propagates have been using religious arguments against militancy. Certain clerics had issued a fatwa against those who targeted the girls; the liberals did not know how to negotiate this similarity. Pakistanis have lived with their Islamic laws, so they cannot ignore the mullahs.

Such lounge activists do not take on the Taliban or the government. They merely participate in the usual candlelight vigils and sex up the debate with their passive-aggressive act. Quite reminiscent of what Madonna did soon after Malala became a talking point. At a concert in Los Angeles, the singer had said, “This made me cry. The 14-year-old schoolgirl who wrote a blog about going to school. The Taliban stopped her bus and shot her. Do you realize how sick that is?” As reported: “Later in the show, Madonna performed a striptease, during which she turned her back to the audience to reveal the name ‘Malala’ stenciled across it.”

When Malala mentioned the problem of child labour, it did not strike her that she is now even more a victim of it, albeit in the sanitised environs of an acceptable intellectual striptease.  

© Farzana Versey

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Do read Our Guns, Children's Shoulders

Wharton Woes: Modi Gets a Feel of Poison Ivy League

Those applauding the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for dropping Narendra Modi from its list of keynote speakers had better pause. 

If anything, Wharton can be seen as the ‘Vibrant’ wing of the university. By denying Modi the opportunity to address what is clearly a capitalist-driven agenda, it has managed to imbue itself with a liberalism it may not possess. It is essentially a conformist management institution and the sole concern is to further precisely what Narendra Modi is claiming to do.

The Wharton Economic Forum is run by students, so clearly there are many who did not consider inviting Modi wrong. Even the protests are conformist, and playing into a politically-correct pattern from the humanities stream, working the stereotype. The US administration had already denied the Gujarat chief minister a visa in 2005, and that stands.

Recall the last time this happened, senior BJP leaders like L.K. Advani, Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley addressed a rally when Gujarat organised a ‘Bharat Swabhimaan Divas’ (self-esteem day) to regain the lost prestige of a state chief minister who could not visit America to address some hoteliers in Florida.

Modi had responded with: 

“No court of India, or the world, has passed any judgment against either the Gujarat government, or its chief minister. The decision is heavily lopsided, against the tenets of democracy and human rights and a violation of natural justice. The American government, which prides itself on being a democracy, has indulged in the misdeed of insulting the Indian Constitution and the five crore people of Gujarat.”

Modi is not India. And he has gone against the tenets of the Constitution and degraded the self-esteem of his people.

Mr. Advani had said, 

“The US regards India as a ‘pushover state’. However, this time they have chosen the wrong person. The fight for swabhimaan initiated by Narendra Modi will become the fight of the entire nation. It must be noted that even those who are ideologically against us have stood by Mr. Modi.”

This was an insult to the country, for India has not fallen prey to US moves in its internal policies or even on how to deal with foreign powers. The entry of multinationals too is debated and argued.

If his self-esteem was so important, why did Modi agree to address the forum via satellite on March 23? This time the BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, “It doesn’t matter as Americans don’t vote in India.”

But, a huge PIO population does exercise this right. Then, there is the funding and a promise of investment. Besides, America is itself an imperialistic power. How much does its antipathy towards Modi have to do with the fact that he "did nothing to prevent a series of orchestrated riots that targeted Muslims in Gujarat” and how much because it wants to ensure that the economic promises made by Modi could considerably reduce its leverage in the market and lead to the prodigals returning home?

The main sponsor, Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group, has backed out as a protest. Other speakers too are dropping out.  The Shiv Sena that has problems with Indians from other states coming into Maharashtra, has said, ”Wharton’s move is an insult to India.”

There is some noise about how Modi will become a martyr because of it. The rightwing parties have little opportunity to get sympathy votes, so clutching at such straws often helps ride a storm.

Why has the rejection of Modi become such a huge issue?

The educated middle class aspires to get into Ivy League colleges. One has to only see the desperation over getting an entry into this rarefied world. The alumni associations help these wishes come true with annual sponsorships. The universities are happy to gain a bunch of bright students who will add to the US economy in future. However, its mainstay is the significant contribution by India's rich. All the scions of business families have performed the ritual of that mandatory MBA, and the parental wealth has helped a good deal to keep these universities in a happy frame of mind.

That is the reason Wharton had no ethical or technical issues when Anil Ambani got a lecture series dedicated to his father Dhirubhai, a man who used the simple old-fashioned method of keeping people in fine fettle to get where he wanted without any management technique. Wharton is, therefore, not terribly picky. It is important to note that Anil Ambani has not commented on Modi's invitation being cancelled. Just a month ago he had hailed him as the "king of kings".

The Wharton Forum has no lofty principles. Described as one of the big-ticket “India-focused business conferences that provides a platform for leaders to discuss the opportunities present in India and the challenges that need to be addressed", this meet is essentially about how to make the most of the Indian economy that has suffered fewer blows than the US or Europe.

So, whether it is Modi or anyone else, this would be like a preview trade delegation. It has been doing so for 16 years and has never got much attention.

The protest petition states:

“We find it astonishing that any academic and student body at the University of Pennsylvania can endorse ideas about economic development that are based on the systematic oppression of minority populations, whether in India or elsewhere. Our role as scholars and students—and indeed as would-be entrepreneurs and business managers—must be to develop conscientious and efficacious modes of economic organization, not to piggy-back onto the inhuman policies of politicians who not only lack a commitment to human rights and to ideals of social justice, but whose political success is based on the suppression of substantial sections of their own citizens. Modi still does not have a US visa to enter the US, but Wharton plans to present him on Skype to the audience. Recently there have been efforts to whitewash Modi’s grim record and to grant him respectability. Wharton’s invitation lends itself to doing just that.”

All good. But business models anywhere in the world ride on political initiatives. The very idea of a liberalised economy lends itself to some amount of wiggling. The Occupy Wall Street Movement was not organised by big business and bankers. A group of Wharton students, essentially expats, are indulging in diaspora nostalgia. How many minorities are accommodated in US universities? Pointing out a universally-recognised wrong in India does not absolve the flaws within their own system. 
 
To make up for the snub, news has come in that the expats under the aegis of ‘Overseas Friends of the BJP’ have decided to redeem him. He will address them at Edison, New Jersey, Chicago, Illinois, of USA through video conference.

One hears that Aap Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has been invited. This is irony for he will be the only aam aadmi they will get to see, as the university has no place for commoners. How many cabbies and corner store owners have been to management schools in the US or even in India?

Recently British Prime Minister David Cameron on his visit to India went to express his regret over the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. He was not revisiting history; he was ensuring that the Southall population kept the UK economy buzzing via Amritsar. He assured that the brightest students and big bucks got easy access to the old colonisers.  And he is not against the Gujarat chief minister. Most political leaders use a convenient modus operandi of semantics and split ‘acts of commission and omission’ with proactive development.

This is what the Wharton Economic Forum had done.  And this is also what the protests are doing. They are merely denying him space to speak. Will any of them sign petitions that say they would not invest in Gujarat and do business with anyone associated with Modi and the state?

If they get a good ‘package’, they’d pick it up in the future when the T-shirts and the slogans are frayed and the management cap seeks out talking heads.

(c) Farzana Versey