Archives for 2014

A captivating look back at 100 years of Leica photography

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

The Deutsche Welle video “100 years of Leica Photography” looks at the history of Leica Camera, the German camera company that developed the first practical compact 35mm camera back in 1914. The video is also a preview of Eyes Wide Open: 100 years of Leica Photography, an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Leica camera. The exhibition runs through January 11th, 2015 at Deichtorhallen Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.

via Leica Rumors, PetaPixel

Women beat up their husbands

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Jeddah/Arab News: In a strange twist to the issue of domestic violence, reports of women beating up men have recently come to light, prompting widespread public debate. Wai center for social consultations stated that it received more than 557,000 complaints from abused men. However, Nouf, a teacher, rejected the claims.

“Women tend to avoid violence often for the sake of the children,” she said.

Abeer Okal, on the other hand, attributed male abuse to women’s backlash of enduring life-long neglect and abuse from their own families.

“When women are driven to anger, they are capable of the unthinkable,” she said.

Many believe that female violence is the result of insecurity because some husbands do not appreciate married life.

Mohammed Al-Sayyed, also a teacher, denounced this behavior, saying it is impossible to live with an abusive wife and that it is better for such couples to be separated.

Imad Al-Khouli said some women are naturally violent, saying: “A friend of mine can’t stay in the house for long hours because his wife begins abusing him in front of their children.”

Dr. Eid Al-Inizi, social consultant at Wai center, said that issues of women’s violence against men are fewer than men’s violence against women, and such cases are often witnessed when the latter have had enough that they turn to violence.

Other reasons for women becoming abusive are when husbands are unable to provide basic necessities to their families, forcing their wives to assume the responsibility or because of mental disorder among some women, Al-Inizi said, adding that some women are simply copying what they have seen their mothers doing in terms of abusing their father.

If the husband drinks alcohol or has unlawful relations, he becomes even more vulnerable making it easy for her to vent out her frustration. Experts say lack of respect generating from recurring conflicts leads to escalation of abuse between men and women.

Hink Al-Otaibi, a social specialist said women’s violence can result from discovering the husband’s infidelity which makes the man ashamed of his actions, and incites the desire for revenge among women.

Sometimes violence can result from the husband’s inability to deal with his wife.

Afghan retreat echoes of Vietnam defeat

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

by Finian Cunningham, Press TV

It didn’t quite garner the same media highlight, but nevertheless there was the unmistakable comparison this week between the evacuation of American troops from southern Afghanistan and the Fall of Saigon, South Vietnam, in 1975.

Both events mark embarrassing retreats by a failing American empire whose hubris always manages to deny reality until the illusion of power finally comes crashing down.

This week thousands of US and British troops were hurriedly airlifted from the giant military base known as Camp Bastion in southern Helmand Province.

It was a huge logistical operation involving a fleet of transport planes and helicopters landing and taking off over a 24-hour period.

The scene of hasty imperial removal from Helmand reminded one of the classic photographs taken in 1975 by UPI photographer Hubert Van Es, which captured American Huey choppers lifting hundreds of desperate personnel from off the rooftop of the CIA headquarters in Saigon ahead of imminent defeat by Vietnamese insurgents.

This week in Helmand the evacuating troops were the last of the US-led NATO force that has occupied Afghanistan for the past 13 years. At its peak, there were 140,000 American troops in the country with the second biggest contingency being the British, along with soldiers from nearly 50 other nations.

Now Camp Bastion has been handed over to Afghan troops and police, who will take over the daunting task of maintaining security across the country against a deadly resurgence of Taliban militants.

Officially, the US-led international force is to wind down its operation in Afghanistan at the end of this year, but some 10,000 American military and CIA will remain in the country in a “support role” to national security forces under a deal signed between Washington and the new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Just like the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, in which thousands of American personnel were scrambled out the country ahead of the Vietnamese victory, the retreat from Afghanistan this week signals another humiliating defeat for the warmongers in Washington.

Not only a humiliating defeat, but the end of a long and bloody chronicle of futile war. Thirteen years ago, the Americans invaded Afghanistan allegedly to topple a fundamentalist Taliban regime and eradicate an international source of terrorism led by Saudi al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Tens of thousands of deaths later, plus trillions of dollars billed to the American taxpayers, the US troops are clearing out from a country that is left in worst shape. The American-installed government can barely maintain security in the capital, Kabul, never mind the surrounding regions. What’s more terrorism of the Al-Qaeda brand has spread internationally eliciting the deployment of even more American militarism abroad, and the ramping up of state security powers within the US and its NATO allies.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent not only in their southern heartlands, but have taken over large parts of the east, west and north of the country, where they previously had little presence. Schools and other civic administration in these areas are now reportedly run, not by the US-backed government in Kabul, but by the militants.

Cultivation of poppy for heroin production – a main source of finance for the Taliban warlords – has reached an all-time high with over 200,000 hectares under cultivation. Nearly half of all Afghan poppy is harvested in Helmand Province, where US President Obama launched his much-vaunted surge of 30,000 extra marines in 2009-2010. Despite Washington spending $7.6 billion to curb poppy production, Afghanistan has emerged as the world’s biggest source of heroin, while drug addiction in the US is reportedly soaring.

On security matters, between March and August this year, nearly 1,000 Afghan troops and 2,200 police officers were killed in militant attacks. That represents the worst casualty rate for local forces over the past 13 years.

With the last of the US-led foreign forces pulling out this week, there is an ominous sense of the security levee bursting across Afghanistan.

If anything, the prognosis for Afghanistan is a lot worse than it was for Iraq where US troops beat a similar hasty retreat three years ago.

By comparison, Afghanistan has a much more active insurgency raging even as the Americans are pulling out. Iraq has gone on to descend into chaos, so the portent for Afghanistan would seem a lot worse.

Reuters news agency reported the view of US Marine Staff Sergeant Kenneth Oswood, who participated in both the Iraq withdrawal and this week’s evacuation from Afghanistan. He said: “It’s a lot different this time. Closing out Iraq, when we got there, we were told there hadn’t been a shot fired in anger at us in years. And then you come here and they are still shooting at us.”

The US marine added: “It’s almost like it’s not over here, and we’re just kind of handing it over to someone else to fight.”

More like handing it over to someone else to do the dying.

The “exceptional” Americans in Washington like to refer to their foreign interventions as “nation building.” Like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, among dozens of other unfortunate countries to have hosted American “nation builders” over the past century, the people of these wretched lands have experienced Washington’s reverse Midas Touch. Far from turning to gold, everything Washington touches brings death and destruction.

And in the end when the American destroyers finally pack up and run, it is the people that remain who must pick up the pieces and actually begin the real process of national development. How easier it would be if Washington just kept its imperialist, predatory hands off others.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

Why we need public intellectuals

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

by Praful Bidwai

When Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani said of the Indian media during the Emergency that “when asked to bend, they crawled”, he received widespread praise from the intelligentsia and even from people opposed to the BJP’s ideology – because he spoke the truth.

Today, not just the media, but leaders from the fields of education, culture, healthcare and law, are crawling before the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh without even being asked to bend. They include the University Grants Commission chairman, Delhi University vice-chancellor, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences director, and numerous serving and former bureaucrats.

These were among the 60 luminaries who met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat over lunch in Delhi on October 12 at his invitation. Although many of them said they went “only to listen”, media reports suggest that some were ingratiating themselves to the unelected head of an organisation which spawned the BJP – an act unworthy of their positions and democratic propriety.

This is happening when the RSS, BJP and their affiliates have declared their intention to radically reorganise educational curricula along Hindutva lines, including the purging of textbooks of secularist ‘misrepresentations’. Parveen Sinclair, the upright director of the National Council for Educational Research and Training, was forced to resign.

Delhi University’s Sanskrit department, which has no expertise in history, has begun a campaign demanding that history textbooks show that the Aryans were indigenous to India, and not migrants, as most historians believe.

Articles are appearing in the mainstream media glorifying a fiction called ‘Vedic mathematics”’, based on a 1965 book by Bharati Krishna Tirtha, which fails to provide evidence that the sutras (formulas/algorithms) he cites exist in the Vedas. (For a scientific refutation of these claims, see http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/nothing-vedic-in-vedic-maths/article6373689.ece)

Meanwhile, calls for banning/burning books that advance non-Hindutva views have become strident. Fanatics are rampaging through colleges, bookshops, theatres, art galleries and cinema-halls, baying for punishment to dissidents. Everything from political belief, cultural identity to personal morality is being targeted in hysterical campaigns demanding conformity; dissenters are branded ‘un-Indian’.

Intolerance for the right to dissent, palpable in all regions, is now backed by the BJP. This is not to exonerate other parties, including the Congress, regional outfits, or even the Left, which too don’t fully respect the right to dissent.

However, they are not as instinctively, viscerally, and viciously anti-dissent as the BJP/Sangh Parivar, which regards dissent as ‘betrayal’ which must be snuffed out. This is in keeping with the profoundly undemocratic culture of the RSS, which long ago dispensed with the “cumbersome clap-trap of internal democracy” and opted for Ek-Chalak-Anuvartitva (unquestioningly following a single leader, or the Fuehrer Principle).

Yet, the right to differ, dissent, and express dissenting views is at the core not just of democracy – without which it would be impoverished into a majoritarian despotic system – but of knowledge production itself. Without the right to dissent, there can be no progress in the sciences, whether natural or social, and no generation of new knowledge and its dissemination in society through education, dialogue and public debate.

This is a theme that Professor Romila Thapar, one of India’s greatest historians and internationally respected scholars, emphasised in her Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture on October 26 in Delhi. This was the third lecture in the series: the others were delivered by economist-philosopher Amartya Sen and eminent British historian EJ Hobsbawm.

The theme of dissent couldn’t have been more appropriate for the memorial lecture. Chakravartty was a doyen among India’s post-Independence journalists, who edited the weekly Mainstream. He was for long a member of the Communist Party of India. Yet, he sharply criticised the Emergency – which the CPI then backed – and had to shut down the publication temporarily.

Thapar’s lecture was a tour de force covering many epochs and continents. It was at once a rigorous, scholarly analysis of the evolution of critical intellectual traditions over more than 2,000 years, and a passionate appeal to reason, scepticism and the spirit of questioning authority.

Thapar traced the relationship between dissidence and science from Socrates and Galileo in the west to the Buddha and Charvaka schools in India, and showed that certain principles, precepts and methods of science were common to all civilisations, from Athens and Arabia, to India and China. In our part of the world, we had the Buddha espousing agnosticism, and many materialist schools of thought which questioned karma, afterlife and the immortality of the atman (soul), and spurned various Vedic rituals.

If Aryabhatta hadn’t opposed contemporary royal astrologers, he wouldn’t have been able to show – a thousand years before Galileo – that the earth goes around the Sun. The key to this lay in the primacy he gave to logic and rationality, as distinct from faith and religious dogma. The method was to postulate a hypothesis linking observed phenomena to their causes, and test it through experiments; the results would be tested against future observations and refined till a scientific law was established.

Through her panoramic survey Professor Thapar showed the continuity of rational thinking and logical explanation across different countries and periods, which was invariably opposed by religious orthodoxy. Buddhist ideas were described in Brahminical orthodoxy as “delusional”, and a range of different schools like Charvakas, Ajivikas, atheists, materialists and rationalists, were all lumped into “one category – nastikas”, because they questioned the Vedas as “divinely revealed”.

Thapar says this reminds her of “the Hindutvavadis of today for whom anyone and everyone who does not support them, are Marxists!”

Numerous streams of thought coexisted in ancient and medieval India. Some “questioned beliefs and practices upheld by religious authorities”. Among them were women, such as “Andal, Akka Mahadevi and Mira, flouting caste norms, who were listened to attentively by people at large…” Amir Khusro is best known as a poet and composer, but he also studied astronomy; his heliocentric universe “distanced him from orthodox Islam”.

Later came social reformers like Ram Mohun Roy, Phule, Periyar, Shahu Maharaj, Syed Ahmed Khan and Ambedkar, who developed modern-liberal progressive values. Indian society has since been undergoing major changes, which need “insightful ways of understanding” so that social and economic conditions can be related to culture, politics and other phenomena. Public intellectuals are needed to explore these connections and “to articulate the traditions of rational thought in our intellectual heritage.”

As Thapar reminds us, there are “many specialists in various professions, but many among them are unconcerned with the world beyond their own specialisation.” These professionals are not identical with public intellectuals. “There are many more academics, for instance, than existed before. But it seems that most prefer not to confront authority even if it debars the path of free thought.”

Public intellectuals must take positions fiercely independent of those in power, must be seen as autonomous, and question received wisdom. In addition to possessing an acknowledged professional status, they must have a concern for “what constitute the rights of citizens” and particularly “issues of social justice”; and must be ready “to raise these matters as public policy”.

Thapar ends with an analysis of why public intellectuals are in decline in India and what they can do to become more assertive and effective. She didn’t speak a day too soon. (A recording of her talk is available for non-commercial use at http://sacw.net/article9874.html)

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and rights activist based in Delhi.

Academics must question more, intellectuals must to resist assault on liberal thought: Romila Thapar

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

by Pheroze L. Vincent, The Hindu

Historian Romila Thapar asked a full house of Delhi’s intelligentsia on Sunday why changes in syllabi and objections to books were not being challenged.

Prof. Thapar was delivering the third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture here on Sunday, titled ‘To Question or not to Question: That is the Question.”

“There are more academics in existence than ever before but most prefer not to confront authority even if it debars the path of free thinking. Is this because they wish to pursue knowledge undisturbed or because they are ready to discard knowledge, should authority require them to do so,” the eminent historian asked.

Tracing the lineage of the modern public intellectual to Shamanic philosophers of ancient India, Prof. Thapar said the non-Brahminical thinkers of ancient India were branded as Nastikas or non-believers. “I am reminded of the present day where if you don’t accept what Hindutva teaches, you’re all branded together as Marxists,” she added.

“Public intellectuals, playing a discernible role, are needed for such explorations as also to articulate the traditions of rational thought in our intellectual heritage. This is currently being systematically eroded,” she explained.

Prof. Thapar stressed that intellectuals were especially needed to speak out against the denial of civil rights and the events of genocide. “The combination of drawing upon wide professional respect, together with concern for society can sometimes establish the moral authority of a person and ensure public support.”

However she said academics and experts shied away from questioning the powers of the day.

Why no reaction?

“This is evident from the ease with which books are banned and pulped or demands made that they be burned and syllabi changed under religious and political pressure or the intervention of the state. Why do such actions provoke so little reaction from academics, professionals and others among us who are interested in the outcome of these actions? The obvious answer is the fear of the instigators — who are persons with the backing of political authority,” Prof. Thapar said.

“When it comes to religious identities and their politics, we witness hate campaigns based on absurd fantasies about specific religions and we no longer confront them frontally. Such questioning means being critical of organisations and institutions that claim a religious intention but use their authority for non-religious purposes,” she said.

Prof. Thapar rued the fact that not only were public intellectuals missing from the front lines of defending liberal values, but also alleged a deliberate conspiracy to enforce what she termed a “Lowest Common Denominator” education.

“It is not that we are bereft of people who can think autonomously and ask relevant questions. But frequently where there should be voices, there is silence. Are we all being co-opted too easily by the comforts of conforming,” she asked.

This is the full audio of the Third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial lecture delivered by Professor Romila Thapar. This audio recording was made in public interest by South Asia Citizens Web and may be used freely for non commercial use.

BCCI asks $42 million settlement from West Indies Cricket Board

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Bridgetown: The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will have to cough up nearly $42 million in order to stave off a lawsuit from the Board Of Control For Cricket In India (BCCI), stemming from the abandoned tour of India last month.

Indian authorities Friday told the WICB that its losses as a result of the abandoned one-day and Test tour had been estimated at $41.97 million, and gave the regional board 15 days in which to come up with a plan of compensation, reports CMC.

The BCCI had announced two weeks ago it would seek compensation from the WICB for losses sustained as a result of the cancelled tour, and followed through with formal correspondence to the Antigua-based organisation Friday.

Media rights make up the bulk of the losses with the BCCI estimating them at just over $35 million, while ticket sales account for around $2 million and the title sponsorship from Micromax estimated at $1.6 million.

The BCCI has also factored in losses in kit sponsorship from Nike, team sponsorship, in-stadia sponsorship and stadium concessionaires, in the compensation package.

“The BCCI calls upon the WICB to formally inform the BCCI, in writing, of the steps it intends to take to compensate the BCCI towards the losses quantified above as well as those losses yet to be quantified by the BCCI in relation to the cancelled WICB tour,” said the letter, signed by BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel.

“In the event the BCCI does not receive such a proposal in acceptable terms, within a period of 15 days from receipt of this letter, please note that the BCCI has peremptorily instructed its attorneys to initiate steps for recovery of the losses by filing appropriate legal proceedings against the WICB in the appropriate Indian court and you may treat this notice as a formal demand in that regard.”

Imran Khan, the WICB’s corporate communications manager, confirmed the WICB had received the BCCI letter but opted not to comment further.

In detailing its losses, the BCCI said the cancelled tour had resulted in “adverse financial ramifications” and accused the WICB of having “complete disregard” for legal commitments.

“The consequences on the BCCI of not delivering a scheduled home tour to its members, sponsors, broadcasters and the fans are multi-fold and crippling,” the BCCI letter said.

“The BCCI is faced with huge revenue losses, a loss of reputation and is at risk of losing valuable commercial partners. The consequences of cancellation of a committed home tour during the biggest festival season.

“Diwali in India is a monumental disaster for the BCCI. It is during this season that our partners derive the most value from their rights. Our broadcaster had committed to its advertisers during this season and on account of your actions, is facing a severe crisis the effects of which are felt by the BCCI.

“The BCCI holds the WICB responsible and liable for all such consequences and intends to enforce its rights to seek compensation from the WICB to the fullest extent permissible in law.”

Noting the figures outlined were “tentative and constitutes an approximation of the losses that BCCI is able to quantify at this time”, the Indian board said any other losses would be communicated to the WICB at a later date.

The BCCI also informed the WICB it was formally suspending all bilateral relations until the legal issues were resolved.

Indian authorities were furious after the West Indies players quit the tour following the fourth ODI in Dharamsala, with an ODI in Kolkata and Twenty20 in Cuttack remaining.

The three-Test tour, scheduled to bowl off Oct 30, was also scuppered.

The Windies players were protesting new playing contracts which they argued would have resulted in up to a 75 percent reduction in their earnings.

(IANS)

AIFRTE condemns Prime Minister’s Mythology of Science

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

by All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE)

Inaugurating Mukesh Ambani’s new hospital in Mumbai on Saturday 25th October 2014, the Prime minister stunned the nation by claiming that the Mahabharat’s story of Karna, who was not born of his mother’s womb, was evidence of the fact that “genetic science” was prevalent at the time, and that worshippers of Ganesh should reflect that there must have been some “plastic surgeon” who performed the “surgery” of affixing an elephant head on to a human body!! (Full text available at PMO website)

This muddling up of scientific terminology with religio-mythical texts is typical of evangelists and preachers on television and at mass meetings where they impress uninformed followers of the ancient glories of a country that currently boasts of having the largest number of illiterates of any nation in the world. But to have the Prime Minister promoting such vain boasts at the inauguration of a contemporary state-of-the-art medical facility reveals the mind-set of a politician who, for all his talk of transforming India into a scientifically and technologically developed nation, is unable to intellectually rise above the limitations of his Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) training. Not surprisingly then, his views are in tune with the ideas of the likes of Dina Nath Batra, whose books the Gujarat government has introduced in all schools in the state.

That such an ideology is being promoted in schools, and that the PM himself creates official opportunities to lecture students and the nation along these lines is not merely laughable or outrageous. It is a blatant violation of the Constitution which the PM, all central and state governments and political parties are bound to defend as they derive their legitimacy and authority solely from the Constitution.

Further, this ideology presents a real threat to any attempt at promoting rational and critical thinking among children and youth in the country. Public figures of authority who present themselves as role models before young people should be ready to shoulder their responsibility towards the future generation. They have to overcome the desire to be ideologues and propagandists for anti-constitutional values.

AIFRTE Presidium:

Dr. Meher Engineer, West Bengal, Chairperson, AIFRTE;
Ex-President,Indian Academy of Social Science; Kolkata
Prof. Wasi Ahmed, Bihar, Former Joint Secretary, AIFUCTO; Patna
Sri Prabhakar Arade, Maharashtra, President, AIFETO; Kolhapur
Prof. G. Haragopal, Andhra Pradesh, National Fellow, ICSSR; TISS, Hyderabad Prof. Madhu Prasad, Delhi, Formerly Dept. of Philosophy, Zakir Husain College, Delhi University
Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Madhya Pradesh, Former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University; Bhopal
Prof. K. M. Shrimali, Delhi, Formerly Dept. of History, Delhi University
Dr. Anand Teltumbde, West Bengal, Professor of Management, IIT, Kharagpur

It's official: Bangalore is now Bengaluru; 11 other Karnataka cities renamed

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah addressing the 59th Karnataka Rajyotsava celebrations.

Bangalore: Bangalore is now officially Bengaluru. Twelve cities in Karnataka woke up to new names on Saturday, which is also the 59th Karnataka Rajyotsava.

The state government issued a special gazette notification on Friday to bring the new names into effect from Saturday. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reportedly announced the change of names of the 12 cities, from his residence, according to The Hindu.

Now, Mangalore will be called Mangaluru, Bellary will be called Ballari, Belgaum will be called Belagavi, Hubli has become Hubballi, Tumkur is Tumakuru, Bijapur has changed to Vijapura, Chikmagalur to Chikkamagaluru, Gulbarga to Kalaburagi, Hospet to Hosapete and Shimoga will now be known as Shivamogga.

Bengaluru is said to be a derivation from the older name Benda-Kaal-Uru, which means ‘the city of boiled beans’.

“We have changed the names. It is now left to institutions and government bodies to make suitable changes,” law and parliamentary affairs minister T.B. Jayachandra was quoted saying by The Hindu.

While authorities have suggested that institutions must adopt the new names, some, such as the Bangalore University, are not keen.

“The name change applies only to cities and not to the institution,” Bangalore University vice-chancellor B Thimme Gowda told The New Indian Express. “When names of cities like Madras and Bombay were changed, university names remained the same,” he said.

Gowda added that the university had not received any communication on this from the government.

The central government approved the renaming of 12 Karnataka cities on 17 October, eight years after the first proposal by the state government was put forth. The ministry of home affairs formally cleared the proposal.

It was late Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy who first brought up the idea of renaming Bangalore during Karnataka’s golden jubilee in December 2005, which he suggested to then chief minister N Dharam Singh.

“I want Brand Bangalore to become Brand Bengaluru. I want the distinctive Kannada syllable ‘u’ to be on the lips of people all over the world. Let this bit of ‘ourness’ be part of our international presence,” Ananthamurthy, who passed away in August, had said, as reported by Bangalore Mirror.

Old Name	New Name
Bangalore	Bengaluru
Mangalore	Mangaluru
Bellary	Ballari
Belgaum	Belagavi
Bijapur	Vijapura
Hospet	Hosapete
Hubli	Hubballi
Chikmagalur	Chikkamagaluru
Mysore	Mysuru
Tumkur	Tumakuru
Gulbarga	Kalaburagi
Shimoga	Shivamogga

Police targeted Muslims in Trilokpuri: Shabnam Hashmi

November 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Shabnam Hashmi is a known social and political activist fighting against communalism in the country. Her major contribution is the efforts she has undertaken for the relief and rehabilitation of the victims and survivors of communal violence, particularly those of 2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat carnage. In the wake of large-scale bloodshed in Gujarat, she felt an urgent need to fight the ideology of communalism on a day-to-day basis and carry out “absolutely action-oriented programme”. This led her, along with other activists and academics, to establish ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy), a voluntary organisation in March 2003 in defence of the idea of India. As a founding and managing trustee of ANHAD, she has, in a decade, spread the areas of her activities to states including Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Kashmir and Bihar etc. While her activism has won kudos among secular and progressive sections as her name was proposed in the list of 1000 women for 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, this has, many a time, invited the wrath of the Hindu communal forces and physical attacks by them. She believes that the rise of Modi poses an ever bigger challenge to secular forces as the incidents of communal violence have increased many times in the last few months, including the latest one in Delhi’s Trilokpuri area and tension in Bawana earlier. Against the background of this, Mishab Irikkur and Abhay Kumar interacted with Hashmi at ANHAD’s office in Nizamuddin, Delhi, on 28 October on a wide range of issues. Following are excerpts of the interview:

Last month ANHAD prepared a report on the hundred days of Modi regime and the question of minorities. What can minorities, particularly Muslims, expect from Modi?

If anyone is under the delusion that social and economic conditions of minorities will improve under the Modi regime or that they are going to benefit in any way, he or she should study the past records of Modi and the Sangh Parivar more critically. I have no doubt and hesitation in saying that Modi is a dictator and a fascist. Since his coming to power at the Centre there were more than 600 incidents of attacks on both Muslims and Christians. We have documented this in “100 Days under the New Regime: The State of Minorities in India – A Report” published by ANHAD and edited by John Dayal. Every single riot is now created and there is a well-oiled mechanism, run by the RSS and its sister organisations that work through the year to systemically manufacture incidents of communal violence. They are being assisted by the police who are highly communalised and they play a partisan role, targeting mostly Muslims.

Do you also see such mechanism working in Delhi’s Trilokpuri area where the situation has still not completely returned to normal?

I have been told that the police in Trilokpuri picked up nearly 50 young Muslims. They were beaten up and were even denied food. It was only after the intervention by activists like Kiran Shaheen that a court ordered that they should be provided food. Lawyers and their relatives were not allowed to meet them. Worse still, Block No 15 of Trilokpuri, where mostly Muslims live, was blocked by the police who did not allow anyone to enter. The police did a massive combing operation and did not let journalists go inside Block 15. News reaching us suggests that Muslims are undergoing atrocities. If minorities are not guaranteed a life with dignity and a life without fear by the government, then it inflicts the biggest harm to them. That is why I do not have any hope from the Modi Government. As I hinted earlier, the sense of insecurity and fear created by a large number of attacks on Muslims and Christians, including their Churches and Fathers, is likely to increase. It is high time we struggled for protecting the idea of India.

You have launched a nationwide campaign in defence of the idea of India. How is it under threat after coming of Modi-led BJP to power?

The idea of India is based on democracy, equality, secularism, justice, pluralism, cultural diversity, communal harmony, gender equality and women empowerment, etc. But the RSS and Modi’s idea of India is to establish a Hindu Rashtra which will only be for the people who believe in Hindutva, not even for all Hindus. In fact, under the India of RSS, only the upper castes will be considered as first class citizens and the rest will be reduced to second class citizens. In this Hindu Rashtra there will be no place for lower castes, classes, women and all those who believe in the Indian constitution, democracy and secularism. The UP unit of the Shiv Sena has announced that it will award a cash prize of Rs. 21,000 to those Hindus who have ten or more children. While the Shiv Sena is desperate to see the population of Hindus increase, it does not mind treating women as just child-producing machines! How unfortunate it is that the BJP Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar blamed women themselves for the incidents of rape. Besides, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat has said that everyone who lives in India is Hindu. He also wants to get the Ram Temple in Ayodhya built by 2019. The Hindu Right is also using the issue of cow slaughter to instigate anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, Haryana and UP etc. Moreover, the issue of “Love Jihad” is fabricated and propagated by the Hindu Right to foment hatred against Muslims — a similar method was earlier used by Hitler against Jews in Germany.

Are you worried about the fact that some of the recent communal conflicts, as reported in media, were fought among Dalits/lower castes and Muslims, who are the most oppressed sections in the Brahmanical social system? How much the RSS has been able to “saffronise” lower castes, particularly Dalits?

The term “Dalit” is not simply a caste but a political category. Anyone who fights against caste system is a Dalit. Thus real Dalits cannot fight against Muslims. Those who are fighting against Muslims are a miniscule minority of their community and they have been saffronised by the RSS. The process of saffronization of lower castes has been going on for the last two to three decades.

You have worked with the victims of 2002 Gujarat communal violence. Is it true that now the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP do not want to organise riots on a massive scale. Instead, they want to keep it at a low intensity level so as to maintain the atmosphere of communal tension. In other words, do you see any shift in Hindu Right’ strategy about riots?

In the last few years, communal forces have changed their strategy. They are now going for low-intensity riots so that they may not be reported in media and the national or international attention could not be drawn to them. Even the locations of riots have shifted and now they are organised mostly in small places and rural areas with a view to creating and maintaining hatred among different communities and in places where people have lived in peace in the past. One should also keep in mind that the constructed image of Modi as the person standing for development (vikas), may be tainted if a large-scale violence, like 2002 Gujarat, breaks out in the country.

You have been leading campaigns against assaults on freedom of expression, communalisation of media and saffronisation of education etc. Could you tell us more about this?

Let me begin with social media. My ‘Facebook’ page is followed by 5000 friends and some 9000 followers. Earlier, whatever I used to post on my Facebook wall, it was liked by a large number of people. But today their likes have drastically gone down because people are frightened of a possible crackdown on them if they appear to be “anti-ruling classes”. Earlier, in social media, the presence of secular and communal contents was almost balanced but today the space is captured by communal forces. Increasingly, media is now owned and controlled by Right-wing corporate forces. The point I want to stress is that the secular voices and dissents in social media have been drastically reduced to one tenth of what they had existed earlier. There is also an attempt to saffronise education. HRD Minister Smriti Irani is just a new kid on the scene. This process of saffronisation of culture and education began some two decades back.

Moreover, over 60-70,000 RSS-run schools, Saraswati Shishu Mandir, teach hatred and they have penetrated in society. Communal-minded administrators, officers, academics and journalists have been placed at almost all the institutions of the country. Even the peaceful Kanwariya (devotees of Lord Shiva) have been militarised by the RSS. As far as TV programmes are concerned, they have been used to poison the minds of people. Who could forget that the demolition of Babri Masjid was preceded by telecasting the Ramayana serial? Today most of the soap operas are highly anti-women. The Hindu Right has also appropriated Uniform Civil Code as its agenda, creating fear among minorities. Let me make it clear that the advocacy of the RSS and the BJP for Uniform Civil Code is not aimed at democratising society but to use it as a tool to impose Brahminical culture on all of us where there will be no rights for women. Unlike the BJP, the kind of Uniform Civil Code I am supporting is based on the idea of equality, gender justice, freedom and democracy etc.

Your critics have alleged that you are soft on the Congress and you tend to overlook its failures. How far is it true?

I have strong differences with the Congress on its economic policies but I disagree with Left critics including those of the CPM, who talk about maintaining equal distance from both the Congress and the BJP. I also disagree with the view that the Congress and the BJP are the same. I think the Congress does believe in secularism and democracy in principle while the BJP is anti-democratic and anti-secular. But it is also a fact that when it comes to practice and implementation, the Congress has many times failed to fulfill its promises. The reason behind this failure is the growth of communal consciousness among a large number of Congress’ leaders and cadres. Yet, around 25 per cent of Congress’ leaders and cadres remain secular but in the BJP there is not even one percent secular force. In the absence of any secular and Left force at the national level, one should choose the lesser evil. About its failure to fully implement the Sachar Committee recommendations and to pass Prevention of Anti-Communal and Prevention Bill, it is the growing influence of communal consciousness in the Congress that has halted the welfare policy for the minority. But one should also not deny the fact that during UPA-I and UPA-II considerable work was done for minorities in the light of the Sachar report as well as other marginalised sections.

Mishab Irikkur (mishabirikkur#gmail.com) and Abhay Kumar (debatingissues#gmail.com) are pursuing Ph.D at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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