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Rectifying wrongs Insensitivity
against women |
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Ugly side of beauty
Extremism in
Pakistan
The great doers
A state of shame
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Insensitivity against women After
the visit of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to Jind, the question haunting everyone’s mind is: had the ruling party chief not been a woman, would anyone have visited the traumatised families of Haryana whose women went through unspeakable humiliation? If you read the fine print involving the official response to all 13 reported cases of rape in Haryana in the last one month, you will find the entire discourse of the state and the law and order machinery revolving around seeking justification for such crimes. “It happens in other states and other countries too”, “the number of reported cases has, in fact, come down” and, the worst, “there is a design behind these cases to discredit the government.” When such insensitivity exists among those who are expected to take care of the vulnerable sections of society, it explains why crimes against women continue to be on the rise. In 1996, Sakshi, an NGO, released a study called ‘Gender and Judges’ which analysed the views of 119 judges from all over India, and came out with the fact that most judges found it impossible to believe that men could rape a woman without an element of consent or provocation. Some judges came on record saying penetration of a woman is physically impossible without her ‘consent’. This explains why only one in four accused is convicted. To add to the misery of a large section of women, the pendency of rape cases in trial courts has increased from 78 per cent to 83 per cent. Since most rape cases fall flat in the court of law in the absence of proper medical report and proof, to eliminate any kind of foul play, a number of women’s organisations in Maharashtra had prepared a kit for doctors/nurses with a clearly drawn out format. This would help make a foolproof case against rapists and would eliminate the chances of their acquittal. One hopes after Sonia Gandhi’s promise for speedy justice to the women of Haryana, steps like these will be implemented for ensuring speedy justice. |
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Ugly side of beauty The
irony with beautiful places is everybody wants to visit them, and then the sheer number of visitors leaves them filled with filth and, therefore, ugly. Kashmir is arguably considered one of the most scenic destinations, and Pahalgam is the cherry on this cake. Unfortunately, it is succumbing to the very tourists who are the lifeline for its economy. A peep behind the hotels, many of them unauthorised, will reveal mounds of garbage, which eventually finds its way into the Lidder river, the centrepiece of the beautiful area. Untreated sewage also flows into this major source of water. To check the pollution, the tourist economy of the valley does not have to be cut back. Only hotels should not be allowed to come up just anywhere, and without pollution clearance. To keep them at a safe distance from the water bodies is also important, as being on the banks facilitates direct release of sewage into the water, and many hotels do not even build septic tanks. The case of Manali in Himachal has been quite similar, if not worse. The hundreds of hotels there have been an assault on the Beas river passing below. One saving grace for Himachal has been its largely successful ban on the use of plastic bags, which are a major component of non-biodegradable pollution. Jammu and Kashmir is still struggling with its ban on plastic. While cleaning up garbage is a civic issue and a factor of how well rules are implemented, it is also a result of the use-and-throw culture that has taken root in India, too, along with economic growth. The country is at a stage where we have started heavy consumption of materials, as in the more developed countries, but are yet to reach the civic sophistication and development that can take care of the mountains of garbage that consumerism generates. In the meantime, the only way to address the problem is to enact tough civic and environmental laws, and then implement them with no scope for exception in any circumstance.
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A man is what he thinks about all day long. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Extremism in Pakistan Pakistan’s
Railway Minister Ghulam Mohammed Bilour stunned the world on September 22 by announcing that he would pay $ 100,000 for anyone who killed the California-based Egyptian who posted his blasphemous film “Innocence of Muslims” on YouTube. Bilour added: “I invite my brothers in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to join me in this blessed mission”. His statement was surprising as he represents the moderate and secular Awami National Party, headed by the grandson of Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Bilour’s statement reflected a deeper malaise afflicting Pakistani society, where religious zealots now dominate the public discourse. Those challenging extremist views on issues ranging from blasphemy to the role of armed religious groups now live in constant fear of their lives. On September 3, Senator Iqbal Haider, Pakistan’s former Minister for Human Rights, Law and Justice, expressed concern at what he said was “unchecked, unrestrained and repeated barbaric killings of Shia Muslims” all over Pakistan. Haider also slammed the “continuing harassment, victimisation, killings and forced conversions of Ahmedis, Sikhs and Hindus, who have been forced to leave their places of residence for protection of their lives”. He held “one sect of Wahabism” guilty of these acts of “barbarism”. Haider averred that these acts by Wahabi armed groups were being perpetrated with the support of the civil and military establishment of Pakistan as well as their intelligence agencies “to implement a well-conceived plan to allow Talibanisation of Pakistan and convert it into a Wahhabi State”. Ejaz Qadri a leader of the Barelvi (Sufi-oriented) Sunni Tehriq, meanwhile, accused Pakistan’s State organisations of massacring Shias and Barelvis, especially in Karachi and Gilgit-Baltistan. Haider asserts that the army routinely facilitates the entry of the Wahabi Afghan Taliban into Shia-majority Gilgit. In Karachi alone, 118 persons, mostly Shias, have died this year in sectarian conflicts. Over the past decade, most Shia doctors have fled Karachi. Even members to the peace-loving Bohra community have recently been targeted like Shias in Karachi. While Shia-Sunni tensions have been a long-term feature of Pakistan’s polity, sectarian differences within Sunnis have grown rapidly because of the continuing patronage, including weapons supplies provided by General Zia-ul-Haq to radical Wahabi-oriented groups and the rapid inflow of money from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to these groups. The military establishment has continued its links with and assistance to these Wahabi-oriented groups in its efforts to “bleed” India in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere and to secure “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. Sufi-oriented Barelvis constituting just over 50 per cent of Pakistan’s population also became targets like Shias, as Wahabisation of Pakistan proceeded apace, with the growing influence of the state-supported Afghan Taliban and their Deobandi allies within Pakistan. According to an American study, Wahabi-oriented Ahle Hadith and Deobandi madrasas receive $ 100 million annually from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureishi spoke of the Barelvi Sunni Tehriq as representing “a national consensus against Taliban-style terrorism emerging across the country”. The extent of the Wahabi/Deobandi-Barelvi divide in Pakistan is, however, evident from the fact that there have been major shootouts involving the Taliban and the extremist Sipah-e-Sahaba, targeting Barelvis across Pakistan. Major attacks on Barelvis by these groups have occurred in 2006, 2007 and 2010. It is not the army alone that supports armed Wahabi-oriented jihadi groups. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, with his Ahle Hadith orientation, has enjoyed the backing of the Sharif family from the days of Nawaz Sharif’s father, Mian Mohammed Sharif, who was also a patron of the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamat. As Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif directed the Governor of Sind and Federal Information Minister Mushahid Hussain to call on Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed at his headquarters in Muridke in 1998. Rana Sanaullah, a minister in Shahbaz Sharif’s Punjab Government, is a supporter of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked Sipah-e-Sahaba. The key role in the establishment of the Taliban, with its cadres drawn from Pakistani Madrasas, was played by Benazir Bhutto’s Interior Minister Major-General Nasrullah Babbar. The links of Imran Khan with the military establishment and Taliban-oriented groups are well documented. The 2.4 million Ahmedis in Pakistan are the most persecuted group in the country. Despite their reverence for the Quran, Ahmedis are forbidden from describing themselves as Muslims or “posing” as Muslims. They are forbidden to describe their places of worship as “mosques”. The minarets in their mosques have been demolished. They now find the graves of their kin desecrated if the gravestones carry Quranic quotations, and their Mosques attacked by religious zealots. Ninety-five Ahmedis recently perished in a Taliban suicide bomb attack while praying in their mosque. In India, however, the Kerala High Court held in 1970 that Ahmedis had every right to describe themselves as Muslims. According to Sind police records, 25 Hindu girls are forcibly converted to Islam every month in that province. There has even been a case of conversion to Islam of a young Hindu, before a live television audience. Ironically, this persecution is perpetrated in Sind primarily by supporters of the avowedly secular People’s Party. The fate of Christians in Punjab is no better, especially when they are falsely accused of “blasphemy” (which carries a death penalty). Those who criticise the draconian blasphemy laws meet the fate of former Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who was assassinated, or Sherry Rehman, now Ambassador to the US, who requires high security. The nexus between the military and the ISI with radical and armed Wahabi-oriented groups is leading to growing Wahabi extremism in Pakistan. Taliban-style rule prevails across virtually the entire Pakhtunkhwa province and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, with girls being denied education, movie theatres closed, television shunned, barber shops shut down and men compelled to have beards. Voices of sanity in civil society are being progressively silenced. CIA report Global Trends-2015 noted even in January 2001: “Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of economic mismanagement, divisive politics and ethnic feuds. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control will probably be reduced to the Punjab heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.” With its military backing, the Taliban and other radical Wahabi-oriented groups, continuing economic mismanagement, a political class bent on preserving the prevailing feudal order and a civil society terrorised by the spread of the gun culture, Pakistan appears headed for what its most perceptive writer Ahmed Rashid has described as a “Descent into
Chaos”.
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The great doers In
my view, post-Independence India has produced only six real ‘Bharat Ratnas’. They are M.S. Swaminathan, Sam Pitroda, Dr Kurien Verghese, M.M.Suri, Dr E. Shreedharan and, of course, Dr Manmohan Singh. Maankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan ushered the ‘Green Revolution’ in the country. Earlier, we used be standing permanently with a begging bowl before the Americans to feed our hungry through the PL 48 arrangement. Satyanarayan Gangaram Petroda revolutionised the tele-communication networks of the nation. But for the timely ‘White Revolution’ of DrVerghese Kurien, we would have been drinking milk made out of urea and detergents. Diesel engines manufactured all over the world, including our own locomotives at Chitranjan, have the transmission system invented by Er. M.M.Suri. Dr. Elattuvalapil Shreedharan has brought us the Konkan Railway and the Metro networks that are the pride of the nation. By Dr Manmohan Singh as the ‘Bharat Ratna’, of course, I mean the vintage Finance Minister who salvaged our nearly sunk economy in the closing years of the last century and not the one who is seen to have fallen to the lure of history by agreeing to be a proxy Prime Minister. Most of our bureaucrats, undoubtedly, pass their time holding conferences over coffee and cashew nuts and doing hardly anything of substance. There is, indeed, a sprinkling of some brilliant bureaucrats here and there who are somehow keeping the wheels of the government moving while being often hidden from view themselves. One among such ‘Mini-ratnas’ was late R.N. Sheopory, former Director-General of the Central Reserve Police Force who sorted out many festering problems of the force during his tenure at the helm. A large bulk of our senior-scale officers was then holding their ranks in an ad hoc capacity because of the seniority disputes between the ex-Army and the directly appointed officers. Nobody wished to hold this hot potato in hand. I, during my short tenure as the establishment officer, had left a note in the relevant file which was a key to the solution of this problem. Mr Sheopory took pains to read this note and made up his mind instantly. No time was lost in obtaining government approval and orders were flashed overnight regularising all the ad hoc promotions to the great relief of the officer cadre. Similarly, the issue of giving combatant ranks to our ministerial staff had been hanging fire for years. Whenever the options were invited from the staff, the opinions were understandably divided. Securing unanimity on the point was impracticable. Mr Sheopory instructed his staff officers to prepare a log of all the 38 conferences held over the matter. This log clearly showed that the things were coming to Square One after every five to six meetings. After manoeuvring clearance from the Law Ministry that this could be done, he gate-crashed into the Ministry of Home Affairs, leaving no room for them to defer the decision by holding yet another conference. Another gift that he gave to the force was the Risk Premia Scheme, an internal insurance arrangement for all ranks. Next in line with him was the formation of a proper cadre for the force officers on the lines of the other Central services. Sadly, he did not live long to see this goal achieved and the great doer died the death of a soldier with his boots
on.
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A state of shame
The shocking spurt in crimes against women in Haryana finds its genesis in an archaic patriarchal structure and the modern politics of vote bank. Dalit women fall prey to the power struggle between the caste-based social structure and its politics of disgrace
Caste cauldron and women There are six hundred cases of atrocities pending before the commission. Surprisingly out of a hundred cases, 90 cases of criminal sexual assault are directed against dalit women. The incidence of criminal assault include rape, molestation, sexual harassment and murders have been reported from Hisar, Bhiwani, Sonepat, Panipat, Jind, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Jhajjar, Karnal, Kaithal, Faridabad and other districts. And they have a history. The brutal killings of dalits reported from Dulina village and Jhajjar district on the eve of Dussehra in 2002 exposed the high handedness of police as the incident occurred inside Dulina police post. It was condemned by all sections of society. A year after Dulina incident what happened in Harshola village of Kaithal District in 2003 was all the more disturbing as the rift between socially dominant castes and dalits took a dangerous turn when about 200 families were denied use of open field for defecation. The land apparently belonged to the families of dominant caste groups. Dalits were threatened, intimidated and apprehending threats to their lives about hundred dalit families decided to flee from the village. Two years later, in 2005, a petty quarrel between the member of a dominant caste and dalit boy took a dangerous turn in Gohana. The murder of a dominant caste member by a dalit boy brought hell for 100 dalit families living in Gohana. The houses of dalits were set on fire and the dalit youth Lara was murdered to avenge the death of Baljit, a youth of a dominant caste group. Silence
of the lambs
The Jind gang rape The
Bhiwani rape The
Sonepat gang rape The Jind gang rape The
Hisar gang rape In yet another incident that occurred in Mahmudpur village of Karnal in 2006, on the issue of celebrating Ravi Dass Jayanti, dalits were targeted by the dominant caste group of the local area. In the Salwan village of Karnal district once again the smouldering cauldron got inflamed when a farmer Mahipal’s murder saw organized attack against dalit families in 2007. About 70 dalit houses were torched. In all these cases of endemic violence two groups apparently involved in fierce fight against each other were found to be divided along caste lines. The background of growing enmity that invariably triggers violence in the assembly and the election of local Panchayats can easily be identified as the factors responsible for such violence. Besides, one third reservation of women in local panchayats have further bruised the so- called male centric patriarchal ideology. The perpetrators of criminal assault who target women of dalits find it difficult to accept them holding a position of power in democratic polity. The traditional bastion of power centre is seen being demolished. The sharp reaction against the political ascendancy of dalit men and women manifest immediately after the election is over. The power grid When the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act of 1994 came into force and panchayat elections were held in 1995, a large number of families of dominant caste groups fielded their women folk as candidates for the post of sarpanch, as they could not tolerate the seat of power slipping out of their hands. After all the elites of the dominant castes who had reaped the advantage of green revolution realized that so long as they have an access to political power they would manipulate the village resources and panchayat for their own well being. A brief political background will set things in proper perspective here. The ruling coalition party in the government lacked absolute majority of a single party in the mid nineties (1996). The silver lining of the mid nineties ruling politics saw the second political reincarnation of Bansi Lal, who came to power independent of the Congress party. Even the issue of prohibition saw women folk repose confidence in the Haryana Vikas Party of Bansi Lal. His earlier image as an ‘iron man’ and builder of Haryana came handy. The political turn around had its impact in maintaining the social amity in the villages between different caste groups. But the assembly election of 1999 and local self government with 1/3rd of women’s representation brought to the fore intense competitive rivalry between dominant caste groups and dalits who had historically surrendered themselves into subordinate positions. A relative degree of calm prevailed in Haryana during late nineties. The political situation, thereafter, changed the political equations and power swung in favour of Congress. More than the solid political programmes and the people-centric policies, it was the weak and discredited opposition party that saw the political ascendancy of Congress in ruling position in which token representation of dalit leaders was ensured. Dalits, however, found themselves in a relatively comfortable position. The growing impatience of dominant caste groups to corner maximum benefits further sharpened the contestation of power. Dalits are not given their due share and that has led to growing resentment. The feudal tendency with a patriarchal mind- set has seen resurrection of traditional panchayats locally known as Khap Panchayats in Haryana. These khap panchayats have taken very strong positions regarding cases of violation of prevailing mores in Haryana. The young boys and girls going for the marriage of their own choice has invited the ire of the traditional custodians of panchayats. Both communities are asserting their cultural identities and space. The vote bank politics does not allow the state to take strong measures against the verdict of local panchayats. These issues have further eroded a situation of caste and communal harmony in Haryana. The ostrich syndrome Unfortunately the legacy of brokerage politics and politics of co-option has vitiated the social and political fabric of Haryana. The soft pedaling of issues and constant desire to appease different sections allow the people to regroup along the caste lines. The secular and the modern idiom of politics of debate and positive discourse on women and dalit issues suffer from neglect. The caste based recruitment agenda gains predominance over the secular political ideology. The sectarian interest and myopic vision in sorting out the discontent provides fodder to the caste-based vote-bank politics. The police forces allow issues to linger. Their recalcitrant attitude on atrocities committed against dalits emboldens the perpetrators of crime. No wonder the records of National Crime Bureau of Haryana reports steady increase in the incidences of rape. Last year 733 cases of rapes were reported. In all these cases of rape 51 cases were those in which close relatives were involved, 393 were the cases of neighbour’s involvement and shockingly, 289 cases were reported of those persons whose identity could not be established. The Director General of Police, Haryana, claims that there has been a decline of 15% in the reported cases of rape. But, the figures reveal otherwise. The overall incidence of rape at the National level was reported to be 24,206 while in Haryana alone the figure was reported to be 733 in 2011. This year in the last one month there have been 13 reported cases of rape from different parts of Haryana. What is all the more disgusting is that the school going girls and the members belonging to socially and economically weaker sections are targeted for sexual abuse. Ironically, in Haryana family members are finding it extremely difficult to protect their daughters and women, which, in a twisted way lends justification for female foeticide. The state claims to have provided crutches to the dalits under its welfare schemes but the same crutches have been used to beat them up. The writer is Professor and Head, Dept. of Sociology, M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana
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The
What should disturb the sociologists is a bizarre development in the state, in some cases women and policemen are alleged to have guarded the place where rape took place. Over a period of ten years the rise in the crime graph curve against women suggests that women generally bear the scourge of structural changes taking place in society. Women belonging to disadvantaged groups, minors, poor and those belonging to socially and economically weaker sections are targeted with periodic regularity. It is reported by the Vice-President of National Scheduled Castes Commission that in Haryana there has been a sharp rise in the incidence of criminal assault against dalits in the last few years.