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Banning kids from using technology is counter-productive

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Children are accessing technology at an earlier age than ever. Pixabay

Children are accessing technology at an earlier age than ever. Pixabay

by Joanne Orlando, The Conversation

Taiwan recently made the unprecedented move of banning children two years and younger from using any form of digital technology.

Older children and teenagers will also be severely restricted, with new laws stating children aged 18 years or less will only be permitted to use electronic devices for a “reasonable” length of time. What is “reasonable”, however, is yet to be defined.

As with the use of any illegal substance or product, severe fines (in the vicinity of A$1,500) are in place for parents should their child break these new laws. This new ruling is a measure to limit children from potentially spending long hours in front of a screen.

In neighbouring China, online addiction among young people has reached epidemic proportions. The Taiwanese government does not want the island nation to follow in China’s footsteps. And they’re not alone.

Children’s use of technology is booming around the world, and this is causing anxiety for many. Governments and lobby groups internationally are making moves to restrict the ways children can use technology.

In an attempt to combat cyberbullying here, the Australian Council on Children and Media is urging the Australian government to launch a debate regarding the age of ownership of smart phones. Current figures indicate that the majority of children get their first mobile phones at about the age of 10 years.

This new lobby initiative is based on the premise that many children have unsupervised access to technology, and therefore have a greater opportunity and inclination for cyberbullying.

Japan has moved in a similar direction to combat cyberbullying, with parts of the country introducing a curfew that bans children from using smart phones and mobile devices after 9pm.

Similarly, in a recent article in the Huffington Post, a paediatric occupational therapist called upon “parents, teachers and governments to ban the use of all handheld devices for children under the age of 12 years”. Under the proposed guidelines, children older than six would be allowed a total of two hours of screen time, including television, per day.

Growing up with a screen

These new laws, initiatives and pleas are motivated by the idea that technology is bad for children, and that only by restricting their access will they be able to grow up happy and healthy.

This suggests that by the single (and seemingly simple) act of removing technology from their lives, bullying will become non-existent, all children will be fit rather than overweight, and that mental health problems such as aggression and depression in childhood will diminish.

Children’s health and happiness are essential goals. However, magic wand thinking is not going to get us there. Children may be young, but this does not mean their lives are simple. There are many factors at work that would lead to a child cyberbullying, just as there are multiple factors that contribute to an individual being obese.

Technology is an intricate part of life today and there is a lot of benefit to its use. Banning or restricting children’s access has far reaching implications for their health and happiness.

Not allowing children to use devices or the internet hampers their ability to engage with the world they live in. Similarly, technology offers many educational benefits for children; school curricula around the word rely on technology for this very reason. If children’s access to technology is restricted, long term implications for children’s opportunities for learning may arise.

Digital technology is already being used for education. Lexie Flickinger/Flickr, CC BY

Long-term economic implications could also arise from this. How will children ready themselves for the job market when they are 18 years old if they have had little chance to develop deep knowledge of how to use technology to find, organise and communicate ideas?

It would be like waiting until a child is 18 years old before they can own and use their own literacy tools such as pens, paper and books. This is the knowledge economy, yet this plan is from the dark ages.

With banning devices also comes the need for surveillance. One might envisage that parents or teachers would be expected to undertake this role. Child/parent and child/teacher relationships are vitally important for children.

Research consistently tells us that positive relationships with key adults have long term and unmatched implications on children’s self esteem, confidence and happiness.

A government adding an unfathomable surveillance role of not allowing technology use (in our technology bound society) gives the message that children are not be trusted and will add significant strain to these relationships at a cost to children.

Embracing technology

Technology is not going away. Locking children away in a tech-free tower until they are adults is not the answer. Why not shift gear to one of hope, potential and the pursuit of how to live well with these devices?

This doesn’t necessarily mean listening to all the advertising about technology and how it can change our lives, but rather taking a critical approach to considering the benefit it holds for our children and how to achieve it.

Part of this is seeing technology from the perspective of children to understand the value they find in its use and how this matches our own goals for them as they grow and develop.

It also means understanding how technology can be managed in the home so complaints about children’s use do not remain the unwavering focal point. Many families have developed meaningful strategies that work for children and adults. It is these families that should be the starting point for this understanding.

While Taiwan’s tech-laws have been introduced to support the wellbeing of children, learning to grow well with technology rather than restricting it, may be more conducive to that goal.

Joanne Orlando is a Senior lecturer, Educational Technology at University of Western Sydney.

The Conversation

'Supari journalism': When Arvind Kejriwal defeated the Indian media

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In the run-up to polls,the AAP leader faced hostility from the TV channels, or was totally ignored by them.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal flanked by his wife, Sunita, addresses supporters at the party office in New Delhi.

by Rajdeep Sardesai

In the 2015 Delhi elections, Arvind Kejriwal didn’t just demolish his opposition: he also defeated the media. That might seem a strange thing to say since the general impression for a long time has been that Kejriwal and his AAP party are a creation of the media, and television news in particular. The fact is, February 2015 is not December 2013. Then, we couldn’t get enough of Kejriwal:  he was popping in and out of TV studios and every move, every soundbite, was tracked with relentless energy.

“Would you do it with any other chief minister?” I recall Narendra Modi asking me once in a phone conversation. His concern was not unjustified. The so-called national television media essentially operates out of a small corner of Noida. So much easier to have OB vans parked outside Kejriwal’s residence in the vicinity than, let’s say, in distant Panaji. “I am also an aam admi chief minister, Manohar Parikkar told me in 2013, “but you won’t highlight that I also live a simple life because I am not in Delhi.” I have no doubt that Manik Sarkar living in distant Agartala would have had a similar grouse.

Yes, Kejriwal received disproportionate coverage in the build up to the 2013 elections. He was the new start-up, there was a buzz and excitement around him. He also had an astute media strategy and understood prime time television (his party has an unusually high proportion of journalists too in its ranks!) And then, there was the ill-fated dharna in January 2014 and suddenly the bubble was burst. “Anarchist” Kejriwal became the most common epithet we used to describe the man and AAP now became bad news.

Modi mania peaks

This was also around the time that Modi mania was beginning to peak. Television news couldn’t have enough of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the run up to the 2014 general elections: every speech of his was covered live, often two and three a day. A Centre for Media Studies survey suggested that in this key election period around 70% of air time was hogged by Modi. The others, including Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi, languished in single digits. The same media which had cheered the rise of Kejriwal towards the end of 2013 was now cheerleading the Bharatiya Janata Party’s mascot in his unstoppable ascent to 7 Race Course road.

But in the run-up to the 2015 elections, there was another twist. A large section of the media actually turned either openly hostile, or else totally ignored Kejriwal. The AAP leader began his comeback bid in October 2014 in near-anonymity: his initial Delhi dialogue had no live coverage, didn’t make Page One headlines. As he travelled across Delhi’s constituencies, there was no large media entourage tracking him. None of his speeches or press conferences got live coverage. Most were barely mentioned. Some channels took the extreme step of blanking him and his party out of their channels: AAP leaders were not to be called for studio discussions. This was “supari” journalism at its worst. By contrast, when Modi entered the Delhi campaign fray with a rally at Ram Lila maidan in January, most channels devoted 24 x 7 coverage to the event.

Fresh wind

Modi was clearly still box office; Kejriwal was not. It changed a little bit in the last fortnight of the campaign as we began to sniff the changing air. The political hawa was changing and, typically, the media was beginning to feel the shifting mood. Suddenly, Kejriwal interviews were back on prime time and on the front page. And yet, the fact is, right till the end of the campaign, every prime minister rally was live but no Kejriwal speech was given similar prominence. Most exit pollsters were cautious in predicting a Kejriwal win. Some fly by night operators even suggested that the BJP was level pegging and in some cases even in the lead (I do hope these truly “bazaroo” pollsters are held accountable).

In the end, none of it mattered. AAP won an astounding 67 of 70 seats, one of the biggest victories in the history of Indian elections. The mainstream media’s ambivalence to Kejriwal didn’t matter. The AAP leader had gone over our heads, effectively used social media, but most importantly, gone directly to those who really mattered: the voter! Pompous editors, noisy anchors and a corporatised media ownership had all been defeated. In a democracy, we in the media are only the surround sound: the actual power in the end rests with the real aam admi. As they would tell you on the streets of Delhi, Janata janardhan!

This article first appeared on Rajdeep Sardesai’s website.

Teesta Setalvad is being framed by Gujarat govt; but where’s the outrage?

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Teesta Setalvad

by G Pramod Kumar, FP

The Gujarat Police’s overt enthusiasm to arrest Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand no sooner than the state high court rejected their plea for anticipatory bail in a curious “embezzlement” case didn’t raise any eyebrows, but justified the perception that the BJP government was on a hot pursuit of the activist.

The BJP leaders and their proxies found nothing extraordinary in the action of Gujarat Police, which landed up at the doorstep of Setalvad in Mumbai in no time, because, according to them, the police was at liberty to arrest the accused when the courts refuse anticipatory bail. Some would even say that the police was duty-bound to pursue the case.

But what was unsaid was the deviousness in the police’s insistence of custodial interrogation of the couple for alleged diversion of funds collected by her NGO to convert Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad, where 69 people were killed in the 2002 riots, into a museum. The charge was that the couple had transferred Rs 14.2 lakhs from the NGO’s account to clear their credit card bills and had transferred large sums of money to their personal accounts. The police said that the expenses included payments for wine and groceries.

Setalvad had clarified that credit card expenses that the NGO paid for were not personal, but official such as travel. It’s not unusual for people to use personal credit card for official purposes and then get the official expenses reimbursed. But by conflating the personal (wine, groceries, books etc.) and official, the police tried to besmirch their reputation and make out a case. Similarly, additional money used from the account was for salaries and legal expenses.

The police case was based on a complaint by 12 members of the Gulbarg Housing Society, which curiously refused to take note of the submission by the secretary and chairman of the Society that the case was false. The latter had also informed the police that the complainants had misused office stationery.

That despite an official clarification from the Gulbarg Society, the police went ahead with the case looked clearly motivated. And now their overzealousness in seeking custodial interrogation of the couple nails their intent.

One cannot clearly miss the police targeting Setalvad, but what makes one more worried about their motive is their track record in foisting spurious cases against her. In 2012, the Supreme Court came down heavily on the state for initiating a probe for “illegal exhumation” of the 2002 riot victims. “This is a hundred percent spurious case to victimise the petitioner (Setalvad),” said the court. “This type of case does no credit to the state of Gujarat in any way,” it further said.

A year later, the police came up with the embezzlement case, despite the official representatives of the Gulbarg Society affirming that they had no complaint, and wanted to arrest Setalvad.

The police’s dogged pursuit brings us to the question of who Setalvad is. She is an exceptional character in India’s human rights campaigns – she is the principal reason for getting justice, although partial, to the victims of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. For the first time in India, 117 perpetrators of communal violence, including a minister in the then Modi state cabinet, had been convicted. Had it not been for her and other rights activists, the victims would been gagged to submission. She is also the biggest obstacle to Modi’s image management efforts.

Obviously, Setalvad is a marked person because she is refusing to give up, along with Zakia Jafri, the complainant in the Gulbarg Society massacre case, against the Gujarat state government and the then chief minister Narendra Modi although a Special Investigation Team had found no prosecutable evidence against him. Setalvad and her supporters, point to the dissenting notes by the Supreme Court appointed amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran, who had said that the evidence against Modi was significant.

Setalvad may be particularly unsparing of Modi, as some allege, but that doesn’t allow for continuous police harassment. The victimisation of Setalvad is too evident to ignore. And it hadn’t started yesterday. In 2005, she was accused of pressuring Zaheera Sheikh in the Best Bakery Case to given evidence against the government. The SC had later absolved Setalvad and sent Zaheera Sheikh to jail for a year. “This is a classic example of a case where evidence were tampered with and witnesses won over,” the court had then said.

This record of victimisation against Setalvad for the simple reason that she is standing up for her fellow citizens’ battle for justice is a warning to human rights activists and a reminder of the abominable misuse of power by the state.

The international media is failing to report the Syrian war properly

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Civilians in Aleppo: not in the news. EPA/Ali Mustafa

Civilians in Aleppo: not in the news. EPA/Ali Mustafa

by Scott Lucas, The Conversation

February 2015 has already seen some major developments in Syria’s four-year conflict. At the start of February, rebels launched more than 100 rockets into Damascus and the Assad regime fired mortars on areas of its own capital, hoping to discredit the insurgents. At least six people were killed in the attacks.

Then came almost 50 regime air strikes on opposition-held areas near Damascus, which killed at least 82 people. Another 25 were killed in Aleppo when a barrel bomb hit a bus on a roundabout.

Meanwhile, rebels also claimed to have blown up 30 men fighting for the Assad regime – Hezbollah troops, Iranians, and Iraqis among them – at a militia headquarters west of Damascus.

All this while US-led coalition air strikes were carried out in eastern Syria against the Islamic State (IS), with Jordan in particular vowing to “wipe them from the face of the Earth” after the group murdered a captured pilot.

Take a look at the world’s media coverage, though, and you might be forgiven for thinking things were rather more quiet.

Silence

If you read The New York Times, you are unlikely to learn about much of this; the newspaper has no reporting from correspondents, only a Reuters report. The same is true of the Washington Post, CNN, and al-Jazeera English. And the BBC? As the attacks and the deaths mounted on February 5, its lead story was on the conviction of former pop star Gary Glitter on sexual assault charges; the corporation later made partial amends on its website with a story headlined Syria Conflict: Dozens Killed in Heavy Damascus Fighting.

However, both the BBC and Reuters articles relied heavily on the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which often passes off rumour and chatter gleaned from social media as a news “network” inside Syria.

There are obvious practical reasons why gathering and circulating important news from Syria is such a fraught business. The world’s media has had to withdraw journalists because of threats to their security, drastically elevated by the rise of Islamic State, and most local stringers have had to flee the country for the same reasons. The fog of war and the attempts by all sides to “spin” events makes independent verification a nightmare.

This is what Aleppo looks like. EPA/Ali Mustafa

But it’s still possible to provide in-depth day-to-day coverage of the conflict, with careful analysis of the political, economic, humanitarian, and military dimensions. Even a small news organisation can work with local activists, citizen journalists, and official sources from all sides to keep readers informed and ask challenging questions.

The real problem is not the impossibility of “seeing” what is happening in Syria. The problem is that instead of dealing with the complexity of the crisis, it’s much easier to cling to simple and often misleading narratives to explain what’s going on.

Towards the end of 2014, the favourite narrative (which never quite played out) could be summed up as “Assad is winning”. This year, the theme is “jihadists versus extremists versus jihadists”: this refers to both the Islamic State, which is fighting against Syria’s rebels, and to the “al-Qaeda-linked” Jabhat al-Nusra, which often fights alongside those rebels (but not always).

The international attention given to IS is of course understandable. However, overlooking the travails of Syria’s insurgents and the opposition to “Jabhat al-Nusra” is a serious distortion of the situation.

Main attraction

While its paramilitaries have proved effective enough on the battlefield, Jabhat al-Nusra provides only a fraction of the forces fighting against the Assad regime. It is small compared to the largest insurgent factions, the Islamic Front and the Free Syrian Army. These are part of blocs with the vast majority of Syria’s rebels, such as the Sham Front and Southern Front, which go almost unnoticed in Western media.

In recent months, these assorted anti-Assad groups have not only turned the tide on the Damascus regime’s forces, but have made notable advances throughout Syria. Sometimes working with Jabhat al-Nusra, they have moved into towns and villages and captured Syrian military bases.

They now control most of north-west and south-west Syria, and, in January 2015, they advanced from the south towards Damascus. They have also been battling the Islamic State throughout Syria, from Aleppo Province in the northwest to Hama and Homs Provinces in the centre, to the greater Damascus area.

But without any “jihadists” or “extremists” for the headline, it seems this real news hardly registers outside Syria itself.

This just in

Many analysts have effectively given up on thorough evaluation, since it’s far easier and more dramatic to post the latest social-media flutter about a foreign fighter. An entire website is dedicated to “Jihadology”, and a leading news agency creates “Under the Black Flag” on the Islamic State, with critiques such as “‘Watch Out For Satanic Earrings!’ IS Publishes Women’s Manifesto”.

Syrian refugees at the Turkish border. EPA/Ulas Yunus Tosun

In contrast, relatively little journalistic time is being spent monitoring the state of the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime, or indeed the situation of the many Syrian people who do not align with one of the competing sides.

The outcome is that there are two very different Syrian conflicts. On the one hand there’s the byzantine soap opera rendered in the international media, a saga of slaughter in which the villainous Islamic State outshines Assad and extremist factions upstage his other opponents. The current episode is “Jordan Unleashes Wrath on Islamic State”, in which the extent, location and impact of Jordan’s claimed air strikes are starting to become clear.

Meanwhile, the more substantial Syrian conflict – the one with another 200 deaths daily, and 300,000 since 2011, with 4m refugees worldwide and 7m people displaced inside the country – has all but disappeared from view.

Remembering Shahid Azmi: Can the love of justice be assassinated?

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shahid-azmi

by Arvind Narrain & Saumya Uma

Progressive lawyers, social activists and academics have invested much time in trying to puzzle out what is the progressive potential of law. Sometimes, answers to deep philosophical questions emerge from a single life. Shahid Azmi’s life  (1977-2010) exemplifies one answer to this perennial question. It was a life which took to the legal profession with the objective of using  law as a shield and tool in the quest for justice. It was also a life which was tragically cut short, when Shahid Azmi was assassinated at the age of thirty three.

Shahid entered the legal profession, emerging out of a crucible of experiences which few people have had. At the age of sixteen, in the midst of the Mumbai communal violence of 1992-93, he faced violence from the mob, courageously confronted  a policeman who was threatening to shoot a woman and thereafter did relief work in  the Muslim community. Disillusioned by the way Muslims were targeted in Mumbai 1992-93,  he then left to Kashmir with the aim of joining the militants. Unhappy with that experience, he  returned to  Mumbai.

In December 1999, he was  arrested by the Mumbai police and taken to Delhi where he was implicated in a plot to assassinate politicians including  Bal Thackeray.  He was in jail for five  years, during  which he experienced various forms of physical and mental torture as well as several months of solitary confinement. According to Shahid’s brother, Khalid Azmi, in Tihar jail, Shahid was told by one of his co-prisoners: “There are two ways in life: one is to take to the gun to assert your rights, but that is the wrong path. You can also take a pen and fight your enemies till your death. Which path you decide is in your hands.” Shahid was also encouraged by Kiran Bedi  to study.  He completed his twelfth standard as well as a  B.A. while in Tihar  jail. He was subsequently acquitted by the Supreme Court.  On his release, at the  age of twenty two, he was determined  to continue the struggle against injustice.  For this reason, he studied and completed  a course in both journalism and law.

Shahid Azmi’s journey from the Mumbai slums to courts is unique. His life in Govandi in  Mumbai, where he was raised in a lower middle-class woman-headed family with four brothers, taught him the meaning of poverty and deprivation; the communal violence in Mumbai made him conscious of the vulnerability of Muslims in a climate charged with religious fundamentalism; his experiences in the Tihar jail gave birth to a feeling,  that perhaps law was a tool in the struggle against oppression. Shahid did not have the advantage of an affluent family, a law degree from a renowned university or clientele which was passed down from other family members. He stepped into the helms of the legal profession with a baggage of disadvantages, including the fact that his Muslim identity and the history of imprisonment put him on the radar of the police for several years after his release from jail.

As a lawyer in his brief but impressive career of seven years, he represented those who were falsely accused of  terror charges by an Indian state all too willing to tar innocents with the brush of terrorism. The iconic case in Shahid’s legal career was the trial in the Mumbai terror attacks of 26 November 2008. Shahid represented Faheem Ansari who was a co-accused along with Ajmal Kasab.

Shahid’s sharpness and brilliance as a criminal lawyer was instrumental in securing the acquittal. In  Khalid’s opinion,  Shahid was able to cast reasonable doubt on the case of the prosecution that Faheem Ansari was indeed involved in the attack at all. The state’s case was that Faheem prepared the map,  went to Nepal and forwarded it to Sabauddin who forwarded it to Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) or Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the map was shown as recovered from the pocket of Abu Ismail – who was killed in the same encounter in which Ajmal Kasab was taken into custody.  Shahid’s argument was that Faheem never prepared a map, and that at the relevant time , Faheem was in Lucknow jail. Shahid highlighted to the court  that  the map which was shown as being recovered was a fresh map and did not even have folds on it. There was not a single drop of blood on it, which was most strange, if it had actually been recovered from the pocket of Abu Ismail. The map is supposed to have changed many hands, and  travelled from Nepal to Pakistan and from Pakistan via sea to Mumbai and was yet creaseless and had not become soft due to the sea’s humidity. Shahid also questioned the need for a hand-drawn map in the age of computers, as well as writings with two different inks on the panchnama – indicative of manipulation of evidence. The cross-examination of  Shahid ensured that Faheem was acquitted by the  trial court. Unfortunately Shahid was killed some months before the order of acquittal dated 3 August 2010. Both the High Court and the Supreme Court concurred with the findings of the sessions court subsequently.

Shahid represented the accused in other cases such as the Ghatkopar bus bombing case of 2002, Malegaon blast case of 2006, Aurangabad arms haul case of 2006 and Mumbai train blasts of 2006. Shahid also took up the cases of 64 suspected operatives of the Indian Mujahideen involved in the Ahmedabad terror strikes of 2008.  He argued that the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) should  be used for organized crime but not for terror cases. He argued that Section 2 (1)(e) of MCOCA which focuses on “causing insurgency” could not be justified solely on the basis of confession unless corroborated by circumstantial  evidence. The Supreme Court responded positively and stayed the trials in Malegaon blasts case, Mumbai train blasts case and Aurangabad arms haul cases.

Shahid alleged custodial torture of persons accused in the Mumbai train blasts case, in Arthur Road jail and petitioned the Bombay High Court in July 2008.  The High Court ordered an inquiry and found his allegations to be true, and held that jail superintendent Swati Sathe was responsible for supervising and directly perpetuating  the torture.  Strictures were passed against her by the court and predictably, she was transferred without loss of pay. Shahid was also successful in preventing the screening of the film ‘Black Friday’ until completion of the trial into the 1993 attacks, in order not to prejudice the mind of the public or the courts. Unfairly named as a ‘terrorist’s lawyer’, he did not confine his work to anti-terror cases, but worked for asserting the rights of the poor who were ousted when Mithi river was beautified  as well as slum dwellers whose houses were being demolished. The numerous people who sought his legal assistance and  the late hours which Shahid kept are testimony to his commitment as well as his courageous advocacy.

The words of Roy Black – an American criminal defense lawyer – were pinned on Shahid’s desk and inspired him till the day of his death. It aptly summed up the principles Shahid stood by in his life:

“By showing me injustice, he taught me to love justice. By teaching me what pain and humiliation were all about, he awakened my heart to mercy. Through these hardships I learned hard lessons. Fight against prejudice, battle the oppressors, support the underdog. Question authority, shake up the system, never be discouraged by hard times and hard people. Embrace those who are placed last, to whom even bottom looks like up. It took me some time to find my mission in life – that of a criminal defense lawyer. But that ‘school’, and that Teacher, put me on my true path. I will never be discouraged. Even thorns and thistles can teach you something, and lead to success.”.

Perhaps emblematic of the impossibility of extinguishing the ideal for which Shahid stood for is the path taken by his youngest brother Khalid. Khalid was inspired to study law by Shahid, who told him that sooner or later he would be killed and that ‘if something happens to me you should carry forward the work’. It was barely four months after Khalid completed studying law that Shahid was shot dead in his office in Kurla. The responsibility fell on Khalid to take up his brother’s cases and complete them.

The time following Shahid’s assassination was a time of fear, with many advocates unwilling to take on Shahid’s cases. However Khalid ensured that there was a continuity in his brother’s work by first appointing counsel after much difficulty, and thereafter arguing the cases himself. He  simultaneously  built a team of young and committed lawyers to carry forward  the sensitive and life-threatening work. Khalid himself is  barely thirty years of age and seems too young to discharge such an enormous responsibility.  When asked  whether he was ever afraid that he too could be killed, Khalid responded: ‘I have never felt a fear because I have nothing to lose. I have lost my brother – that means that I have lost everything.’ It is also admirable that their mother, Rehana Azmi, after losing one son, extends  consistent support to the work of the other son in the perilous path of justice, while the eldest brother, Arif Azmi, quietly backs his family.

Shahid’s story also  spoke directly to film director, Hansal Mehta and producer Anurag Kashyap, who  recently completed  a film on Shahid’s life, titled ‘Shahid’. A Shahid Azmi memorial lecture has also been commenced in February 2012. These will,  perhaps,  inspire many others to take forward the legacy of Shahid.

The question which his killers need to ponder on is – Did you kill the desire for justice by killing Shahid Azmi? Shahid’s assassination may have created an initial fear and insecurity among defence lawyers handling similar cases. But today, it has inspired numerous Muslim youth in the locality where he worked and was killed, to study law and enter the legal profession, to carry forward the ideals that Shahid stood for. This, despite the clear and imminent danger to their own lives, which they are acutely conscious of. In a manner similar to the shooting of Malala Yousufzai that has strengthened the determination of girls to access education, the killing of Shahid has given a new lease of life to his work – from within an underprivileged community of Mumbai that has long been wronged by state agencies and fundamentalist groups alike. The assassination of Shahid, instead of killing the work that he had undertaken, has only succeeded in multiplying  the quest for justice in innumerable hearts and minds.

Arvind Narrain is a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum. Saumya Uma is an independent researcher on gender, law and human rights.

How AAP Won a Historic Result in Delhi

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AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal flanked by his wife, Sunita, addresses supporters at the party office in New Delhi.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal flanked by his wife, Sunita, addresses supporters at the party office in New Delhi.

by Ashutosh

Historic. Yes, history has taken a decisive turn. The Delhi elections are finally over and the results are out. Many myths have been busted. The leader often described as most popular and most powerful has been humbled. The aura of invincibility is broken. The impossible has been achieved. The Aam Aadmi Party has won. The BJP has lost.

If we had predicted something like this a few months ago, people would have laughed at us and called us a bunch of loonies. I still remember how just some weeks after the parliamentary elections, people in Arvind Kejriwal’s constituency shut doors on his face. He once told me how a local guard, seeing him walk by, had commented sarcastically about wanting to be the PM. His reference was to Arvind going to Varanasi to contest against Modi, then the darling of the masses.

The last Parliamentary elections were the worst thing that could have happened to any party or leader other than the BJP! AAP had lost all the seven seats in its pocket burrough of Delhi. It had contested more than 400 seats and its candidates had lost their deposits in almost 90% of the seats. The Party was ridiculed as zamaanat zapt party (the party which has lost its deposits).

Arvind Kejriwal was ridiculed no end. He was badly bruised. Experts had written his obituary. AAP as a party was declared dead despite improving its vote share in Delhi by 4% and winning four seats in Punjab.

We all were down. We knew elections in Delhi were due and could be announced any moment. We had to pull ourselves together and above all, we all had to believe that though we had lost the battle, the war was still on. For the first time, I saw Arvind shaky and vulnerable. He was not the same person. He seemed tentative. But like a General, he slowly gathered himself and decided to face the miseries of life with courage and made plans on ‘how it could be done’. For us, it was a do-or-die situation. Victory was the only alternative. A plan was chalked out. We identified our negatives and listed three major ones:

  1. We realised that the people of Delhi were very upset. They felt cheated. They had wanted Arvind to continue as the Chief Minister. He should not have resigned. So Arvind openly admitted that he had committed a mistake. He admitted he should have continued despite his failure to make the Jan Lokpal a law. He was still considered honest. His integrity was unmatched. He tried assuring people that he would not resign again. He asked for Forgiveness.

  2. As a party, AAP has been accused of specializing in ‘Dharna’. Our record as a party of governance was very poor in the eyes of the intellectual class. We looked for a framework. Delhi Dialogues was one such idea. It broke the myth that manifesto-making is a one-day phenomenon. AAP decided to bring back the equilibrium. AAP had to prove it could be a party of governance. The party unleashed a policy framework; it took the discussion about Delhi development to the people, the ‘common man.’ It was decided to make the campaign ‘positive’, to keep the development of Delhi as the main focus.

  3. During the last assembly elections, our volunteer base was very strong but it did not have a structured shape. It was decided to augment the energy of the volunteers and strengthen the organisation to the booth level. More than ten frontal organisations were also created. By the time elections were declared, AAP was already a well-oiled engine. And Arvind had already toured every constituency twice.

Once the list of negatives was made, the effort was to overcome these with an open mind. It was tough but not impossible. Arvind was of the opinion that AAP, as a matter of strategy would not participate in any election, be it assembly or municipal outside Delhi. Some of the leaders did not like the idea. Arvind was adamant. He did not want any adverse impact on Delhi elections. Energy was to be consolidated.

By mid-December, we had regained our confidence. We knew it would be a tough contest but we would pull through. Modi was the only hitch. We waited for Modi to address his rally at Ram Lila Ground. The rally flopped. We were ecstatic. The BJP’s trump card had failed. The BJP became desperate and started looking for someone who could be as credible as Arvind. It could not find one in its party. It had to borrow from outside. Kiran Bedi was declared the Chief Ministerial candidate. We were a little apprehensive. But we knew that if she started talking to cameras, she would be a great asset for AAP. She delivered. Our script was complete. Bedi could not control herself.

The BJP committed another mistake. In trying times, it resorted to negatives and abuses. We were careful and decided to stick to our development plank. We talked about eradication of corruption, providing electricity at half the current price and water free of cost. Free Wi- Fi was another hit. The poor and marginalised were strongly with us. Minorities joined us as the Congress was nowhere in the contest. The middle class which was disenchanted with us due to our shrillness when we were in government, got disillusioned with the BJP’s negative campaign. The BJP’s personalized attack on Arvind put them off. Big promises but zero delivery broke the myth that Modi was in any way different from Manmohan Singh. We wanted these elections to be a referendum on Arvind and in the end we succeeded in doing so.

These elections will go down in history as the turning point- a game-changer. They proved the point that clean politics and affordable politics is possible. AAP did not have the money to match the might and resources of the BJP, but it had the moral edge over its opponent. People of India are fed up with traditional politics of money power, muscle power and manipulation. They are looking for an alternative.

AAP’s massive victory will start a new alignment of forces; a new dawn has appeared. It will make politics cool. The common man can now afford to enter politics and succeed. It will no longer be a game of only scoundrels. A small step by AAP, but a big leap in politics.

Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014. The former journalist took on former Union minister Kapil Sibal and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in the national election from Chandni Chowk in Delhi. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author.

An Election of Hope Versus Fear

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muffler-man-kejriwal

by Sunalini Kumar

Yes it’s a simplistic dichotomy, but there is really no better way to describe the current Delhi elections. On the one hand, a little ragtag army of Davids behind “Mufflerman”, as his faithful supporters affectionately call him, a person in baggy sweater and sneakers, one you wouldn’t look at twice if you passed him on the road.

On the other hand, a massively funded, aggressively confident political  formation, openly backed by the corporate bodies and full-page ads, riding a  national “Wave” higher than most Tsunamis, topped by the 56-inch chest of “Modiman”, even if recently modestly covered by a 12-lakh rupee vest.

On the one hand, a fearful and awed media establishment donating PR for free to the seemingly invincible King of Gujarat, and on the other, an aam aadmi, a volunteer-cadre run campaign and a palpable vibe of trust and openness on the ground. I know I know, some will say it’s all ‘perception management’ and PR, but barring the googly of the 2 crores party donation thrown at the opportune moment, if Mufflerman’s party was any cleaner, it could have given Lalita ji’s Surf a run for its money. Whatever the result on the 10th (and there is reason to be hawk-eyed about the possibility of tampering as Nivedita Menon’s post has urged), how does anybody not get what a miracle this alone is, in a political economy with a black economy of a size that is higher than the GDPs of most smaller countries? Perhaps this is in fact about hope and fear after all, however clichéd that sounds.

Hope is what has sustained the AAP campaign until now, one which has begun to look more and more concrete as the results draw closer. It is fear too that I am thinking about, when considering elections again, on a much more humble scale – at the level of the University. Delhi University teachers just voted to elect officials for the Academic Council and Executive Council of the University – statutory bodies of the University that are in clear and present danger of being dissolved if the Knowledge-Industrial Complex has its way in the near future. For they function on the increasingly archaic-looking principle of workplace democracy – a principle that nobody seems to really understand, leave alone support. Much more convenient to simply empower the VC to take all decisions. Which would be wonderful if the VC had descended from heaven, solution in hand for the myriad plagues of our vast and complex universities, just as we hoped Modiman could offer to a nation of 1.2 billion. But the inconvenience is this: the number of scandals involving past VCs – charges of plagiarism, unsafe research conditions (and by unsafe I mean radiation-in-the-chemistry-lab-level unsafe!), shielding sexual offenders, silencing any inconvenient voices, the list is sordid and long…should be enough to wonder if this office is seriously compromised. More importantly, we should wonder further if that actually is the plan, dumbed down and compliant universities topped by bullies, so when in doubt, appoint a retired army general or naval chief as VC, as many especially minority institutions have had the grand luck to recently experience. Attention!! Learning!! March Past!!

None of this should surprise us of course. This is a country that spends an abysmal 3.1% of our GDP on education, (below not only almost all the developed countries with the exception of Singapore) and our arch rival China (which has since the 1950s provided a nine-year compulsory school education to a fifth of the world’s population, apart from supporting an expanding list of top class universities) but also below countries like Burkina Faso, Samoa and Saudi Arabia. The low spending on education has remained constant, like Brahma himself, while other political and economic indicators have swung wildly from this corner to that. Neither Nehruvian “socialism” nor Modi-ist “development” have found place for education, for hiring and training teachers, for infrastructure, for equity and access, for even real merit or quality which is supposedly the hallmark of a market system. So teaching increasingly attracts either the very privileged, or those with no other options, creating a swelling reserve army of footloose adjunct faculty across the country and a field day for authorities who would always prefer a vulnerable employee to one who has secure employment and a chance to assess her situation. The link between tenure and academic freedom has been recognised and pursued since at least 1940 by University Professors in the U.S. What is amazing is that the conversation hasn’t even started here.

Take the entry qualifications for university teachers – either an almost comically arbitrary examination called the National Entrance Test (NET) or a PhD. The NET examination is possibly the only examination in India that a genuinely talented scholar is embarrassed of passing – so inexplicable are its questions, and so random are its results. With an average pass percentage of less than 10%, the thousands who don’t qualify must enrol in one of a tiny handful of decent universities for a PhD. This in itself would be no problem at all of course. But what awaits these PhDs at the end of years of research on meagre research grants and practically no infrastructure? At a recent interview for permanent posts in a college in Delhi University, 200candidates were interviewed for 8 posts! Nearly half of them – a hundred – had PhDs from good universities. Ok, NET is exempted for teachers in some of the better private universities that have been set up recently. But the catch is that while you don’t need a NET, you probably don’t stand a chance without a foreign PhD. By foreign is meant from one of the recognised First World universities. So where do these thousands of Indian PhDs go, after years spent preparing for an academic career?

Back to the public universities, where an absolute epidemic of contractualisation combined with stressful working and service conditions including no possibility of promotions, leave alone pension, leave and medical benefits has meant a pervasive culture of fear and self-censorship amongst faculty members. Staff associations – teachers’ unions – where they exist, are demonised – the current Delhi University VC famously denounced them as illegal bodies that were made up by the teachers themselves. Yes, Sir, that is because you or your predecessors were not going to make a union for us in any hurry! There is a widely-felt sense that surveillance – both formal and informal – is on the rise, that colleagues are ratting on each other to authorities, and that classrooms and tutorials are being watched for any signs of anti-establishment talk. One visible result is the construction of the good teacher as one who is intellectually self-effacing, competent without being brilliant or charismatic, and ultimately a conformist. This of course has long term consequences for that other archaic thing that apparently research can’t do without – freedom of thought and ideas. Ramachandra Guha’s points to the damaging absence of a genuine research culture in India, in the midst of what he terms the staggering vanity of the powerful in academia. I am reminded of the VC’s infamous arrival on an elephant for an annual cultural “fest” at Delhi University a couple of years ago. From that height, his colleagues who ‘simply’ teach and go about their daily lives must have looked really small and inconsequential.

The vanity of the powerful is only matched by the mousiness of the not-powerful. Recently, Spiked Magazine published the results of a survey of universities in the U.K, and concluded that more than half were in serious danger of becoming anti-free speech zones. This survey is itself controversial, since it argues against student unions policing speech in order to rule out fascist, sexist or other extremist views. It is arguable that these views do need policing in fact, even if of the mildest and most self-regulated form. However, what is at stake at universities worldwide is the freedom of various members including teachers to speak without fear, and it is such a survey that Spiked’s survey indirectly points to the need for. One surprising – perhaps not so surprising – finding is that the more elite and better funded universities fare worse on free speech norms.

The only reason this country still functions is because we have a high tolerance for collateral damage as a society. Long before the Americans introduced the euphemism to the global vocabulary by carpet-bombing parts of Afghanistan and Iraq, Indians already knew that shoving our way to the top without looking down or back is the way to go. But maybe Perhaps Mufflerman is a powerful portent. As I have been writing this post, the exit polls have predicted a big edge for Mufflerman, and Abha Dev Habib of the Left-oriented Democratic Teachers’ Front – a classic teachers’ union of the old style – has won in the election at Delhi University, giving us another day to fight on. If we have chosen the daily humdrum right to take decisions in the workplace and the city over shiny vests and chests and the always-receding horizon of development, we have chosen hope over fear. Hail the humble Muffler!

New art exhibition explores what happens when everyone can be a journalist

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The power and potential of social media dominates Jesse Hlebo’s show.

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces (for Sebastian), 2015. 15 minute video loop on 55" LCD TV, embedded in burnt plasterboard. panels, gasoline, found palettes. Edel Assanti

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces (for Sebastian), 2015. 15 minute video loop on 55″ LCD TV, embedded in burnt plasterboard. panels, gasoline, found palettes. Edel Assanti

by Mel Bunce, The Conversation

Jesse Hlebo is troubled. The New York-based artist’s latest exhibition, In Pieces explores information overload and authenticity in the internet era – and it’s a challenging place to spend some time.

Walking into the gallery space in Fitzrovia is like opening a laptop to find three YouTube clips blaring at full volume and 16 tabs open on the browser.

In the middle of the room, a large screen projects an endless loop of amateur videos from crises around the world: conflict in the Ukraine, fighting in Gaza, the aftermath of the Boston bombing and the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy. The events flow seamlessly together, and the crises become increasingly difficult to distinguish. There’s no context or information; the audience is taken on a GoPro tour through a post-apocalyptic world, with no guide.

The loop captures some of Hlebo’s concerns about the internet’s vast media ecosystem: “In the amalgamation, there’s just so much,” he says. “There’s constant documenting, constant streaming … People don’t question its validity or where it comes from.”

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces. Edel Assanti

Everyone’s a journalist

Hlebo is far from alone in his sense of unease. Over the past two decades, technology has radically altered media content, and raised a host of questions around authenticity, representation and power.

In the early 2000s, digital cameras and mobile internet access transformed everyday citizens into amateur journalists and the line between media producer and consumer started to blur.

As researcher and journalist Glenda Cooper notes, the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 was a touchstone event in the rise of citizen-generated news content. There were almost no foreign correspondents in South-East Asia when the disaster hit – and the raw and powerful images captured by citizens and tourists came to dominate international news coverage.

For a few very short years, citizen-generated content was mediated by traditional news gatekeepers. Citizens would send their pictures and footage to a mainstream outlet: a wire service, the BBC, a newspaper. At these outlets, journalists could (potentially, but not always) contextualise and explain the content to their audiences.

And then came Twitter

The development and mass uptake of social media disrupted these processes once again. With Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, citizens become the distribution channels for media content.

When an aircraft miraculously landed on the Hudson River in January 2009, Jānis Krūms was on a nearby ferry. Instead of sending his now famous image to a news outlet, he uploaded it to Twitter where the picture went viral – 15 minutes before the “old media” had the story.

The event became known as Twitter’s “defining moment“, and media outlets realised they had, to a large extent, lost control of the message. Images and information could be uploaded, disseminated, replicated, decontextualised and re-purposed ad infinitum.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy became the archetypal example of our new media ecology. Millions of photos were uploaded and endlessly circulated online. Some were authentic. Others were of historical weather events, cut-and-paste from fictional movies or dramatically edited on photoshop. And inevitably (this is the internet) there were cats.

The high circulation of de-contextualised and unverified images remains problematic. On January 12, photos purporting to depict a Boko Haram attack in Northern Nigeria last summer were revealed to be re-circulated images showing the aftermath of a fuel tanker explosion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The organisation stopfake.org has identified a number of false images in high circulation about Ukraine. One particularly dark image, claiming to show a morgue in Ukraine, was taken five years ago in Mexico. In their redistribution, these photos are infused with new meaning, and can become significant political tools. And such issues have been widely noted in content about Syria, calling into question the credibility of both traditional and social media depictions of the crisis. The promise of new voices Of course, it’s not all bad. The liberation of images from traditional storytellers has also opened up huge opportunity. Social media played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring, which academics are still working to understand. And it allows audiences to challenge dominant representations in the mainstream media. In Kenya, for example, the hashtag #SomeonetellCNN was used to effectively critique and parody a problematic CNN report, leading to an apology and eventual retraction.

The power and potential of social media is explored in the second screen that dominates Hlebo’s exhibition. The amateur film – also very difficult to watch – shows Michael Brown’s mother receiving the news that the police officer who killed her son would not be indicted.

The mother’s raw anger tells a different side of the Ferguson story. For Hlebo, it reflects the potential of narrative unleashed from the traditional channels:

To see a mother receive that information in front of the world, without mediation, the power of that. We’re seeing it. It may have taken 270 years. But we’re seeing it.

Around the walls of the gallery hang pieces of Hlebo’s art that were damaged by a demolition team knocking down his Brooklyn flat. The pieces are black and burned, with only a passing resemblance to their original form. Their significance? Entirely up to the viewer.

Saudi Arabia's tyrant king misremembered as man of peace

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KING ABDULLAH

by Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept

After nearly 20 years as de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah ibn-Abdulaziz al-Saud died last night at the age of 90. Abdullah, who took power after his predecessor King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, ruled as absolute monarch of a country which protected American interests but also sowed strife and extremism throughout the Middle East and the world.

In a statement last night Senator John McCain eulogized Abdullah as “a vocal advocate for peace, speaking out against violence in the Middle East”. John Kerry described the late monarch as “a brave partner in fighting violent extremism” and “a proponent of peace”. Not to be outdone, Vice President Joe Biden released a statement mourning Abdullah and announced that he would be personally leading a presidential delegation to offer condolences on his passing.

It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials. Even more perplexing, perhaps, have been the fawning obituaries in the mainstream press which have faithfully echoed this characterization of Abdullah as a benign and well-intentioned man of peace.

Tiptoeing around his brutal dictatorship, The Washington Post characterized Abdullah as a “wily king” while The New York Times inexplicably referred to him as “a force of moderation”, while also suggesting that evidence of his moderation included having had: “hundreds of militants arrested and some beheaded”. (emphasis added)

While granting that Abdullah might be considered a relative moderate within the brazenly anachronistic House of Saud, the fact remains that he presided for two decades over a regime which engaged in wanton human rights abuses, instrumentalized religious chauvinism, and played a hugely counterrevolutionary role in regional politics.

Above all, he was not a leader who shied away from both calling for and engineering more conflict in the Middle East.

In contrast to Senator McCain’s description of Abdullah as “a vocal advocate of peace”, a State Department diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks revealed him in fact directly advocating for the United States to start more wars in the region.

In a quote recorded in a 2008 diplomatic cable, Abdullah exhorted American officials to “cut the head off the snake” by launching fresh military action against Iran. Notably, this war advocacy came in the midst of the still-ongoing bloodshed of the Iraq War, which had apparently left him unfazed about the prospect of a further escalation in regional warfare.

Abdullah’s government also waged hugely destructive proxy conflicts wherever direct American intervention on its behalf was not forthcoming. Indeed, in the case of almost every Arab Spring uprising, Saudi Arabia attempted to intervene forcefully in order to either shore up existing regimes or shape revolutions to conform with their own interests.

In Bahrain, Saudi forces intervened to crush a popular uprising which had threatened the rule of the ruling al-Khalifa monarchy, while in Syria Saudi-backed factions have helped turn what was once a popular democratic uprising into a bloody, intractable proxy war between regional rivals which is now a main driver of extremism in the Middle East.

Saudi efforts at counterrevolution and co-optation under Abdullah took more obliquely brutal forms as well.

In the midst of the 2011 revolution in Egypt, when seemingly the entire world was rallying in support of the protestors in Tahrir Square, King Abdullah stood resolutely and unapologetically on the side of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. When it seemed like Mubarak was wavering in the face of massive popular protests, the king offered to step in with economic aidfor his government and demanded that President Obama ensure he not be “cast aside”.

A few years later when the pendulum swung back towards dictatorship after General Abdelfattah al Sisi’s bloody 2013 coup, Abdullah and his fellow monarchs were there to lavish much needed financial assistance upon the new regime. This support came with the endorsement of Sisi’s unrelentingly brutal crackdown on Egypt’s former revolutionaries.

With increasingly disastrous consequences, Abdullah’s government alsoemployed sectarianism as a force to help divide-and-conquer regional populations and insulate his own government from the threat of uprising. It also cynically utilized its official religious authorities to try and equate political dissent with sinfulness.

This ostentatiously reckless behavior nevertheless seemed to win Abdullah’s regime the tacit approval of the American government, which steadfastly continued to treat him as a partner in fighting terrorism and maintaining regional stability.

Despite recent tensions over American policy towards Iran and Syria, Saudi under King Abdullah played a vital role in U.S. counterterrorism operations. The country quietly hosts a CIA drone base used for conducting strikes into Yemen, including the strike believed to have killed American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. More controversially, Abdullah’s government is also believed to have provided extensive logistical support for American military operations during the invasion of Iraq; an uncomfortable fact which the kingdom has understandably tried to keep quiet with its own population.

Perhaps most importantly however, King Abdullah upheld the economic cornerstones of America’s long and fateful alliance with Saudi Arabia: arms purchases and the maintenance of a reliable flow of oil from the country to global markets. The one Saudi king who in past failed to hold up part of this agreement met with an untimely end, and was seemingly on less positive terms with American government officials.

Given the foundations upon which American-Saudi ties rest, it’s unlikely that the relationship will be drastically altered by the passing of King Abdullah and the succession of his brother Prince Salman. Regardless of how venal, reckless, or brutal his government may choose to be, as long as it protects American interests in the Middle East it will inevitably be showered with plaudits and support, just as its predecessor was.

Development and Dalits: Political Scenario In New Delhi

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DALITs

by Rahul Sonpimple

Once again Delhi is getting ready for political battle of the throne. This time all parties seem well informed about the present political scenario in the city and are taking calculated steps to influence all sections of voters, as the last assembly elections have been an eye opening episode. Dalit votes in the city are estimated to be around 25 lakhs, a significant fraction to change the game and ensure a soothing end for any political contender.

Interestingly, all major political parties after the last assembly election in the city seem to be widening their pool of political considerations for Dalits, since majority of the population lives in severe vulnerability and are placed at the receiving end. This election will also be marked by the absence of any strong non-Congress and non- BJP Dalit –Bahujan political party and leadership since many of them have either assimilated in the ruling party (BJP) or fail to influence the community’s views anymore. For instance the assimilation of Dalit leaders like Udit Raj in BJP and the weakening hold of BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) in city politics . With such an absence of leadership from within the community, parties like BJP and AAP effectively cash in on the opportunity to attract the community’s votes with their developmental agendas.

While AAP is promising to modernize the cleaning equipments, BJP is venturing to disclaim its image of being a party of upper caste Hindus. With the old rhetoric on inclusive development as Congress has done in the past, both BJP and AAP are claiming to offer a development for Dalits within the larger developmental agenda of the city. However, none of them has outlined how they will execute these promises. Although AAP and BJP both claim to be different from Congress, their strategies to influence Dalit votes by using a Dalit face are similar to the success mantra of Congress.

Kanshi Ram, the founder of BSP, would refer to such Dalit leaders as ‘Chamchas’. At the first glance politics around Dalit voters in the city may seem similar to other parts of the country. However, the complete control of demands by political parties and no negotiation from the community, signals to the powerlessness of Dalits in Delhi, which may not be the case in states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. In the case of Dalits in Maharashtra, the creation of demands and political negotiations are not necessarily representative of political aspirations of leaders, rather very often they are a result of struggles led by the community and responses to the daily challenges. In the absence of any struggle or movement from the community, Dalit politics in Delhi completely rests in the clutches of a handful of political agents among Dalits and on mercy of NGOs .

The history of Dalit struggle has always been a struggle for self respect. Despite many re-formative attempts by caste Hindus to neutralize the struggle and retain Dalits in the Hindu fold, Dalits have always challenged such dubious intentions. For instance, in Punjab, young educated Dalits from the Chamar community had first been in the Arya Samaj, attracted by some of its ideals which held open the promise of purification (shuddhi) to the lower castes, they soon became disillusioned by the control of upper castes in the movement and rejected the paternalistic implication of shuddhi that untouchables needed to be ‘purified’. Later they started the Ad-Dharm movement. Moreover, such action, either by challenging caste hegemony or by religious conversion, against the attempts of liberal upper caste Hindus, has always been a part of Dalit history. As a result, acknowledging their struggle for separate socio-religious identity, distinct from Hinduism, has become a political compulsion for political parties.

This struggle has also been integrated in the larger political discourse. However, due to the lack of social movement from the community, recent development of discourse on Dalits in the Capital is colored by conservative notions of both the leading parties i.e. AAP and BJP. Whether it is Modi’s Swachch Bharat Mission launched from Valmiki Basti in New Delhi or Kejriwal’s ideas to give respect to the Dalits, both bear a resemblance to the conservative reformation which their ideologues had initiated in the past. For long, Dalit struggle has critiqued and countered such dubious efforts, however this is apparently not true in the case of recent political scenario in Delhi. In order to create a power of negotiation and a space for self realized demands, Dalits in the city should strive for a strong ideological mobilization and should limit the influence of political agents from community.

Rahul Sonpimple,
Programme officer (Dalit Rights Initiative),
Human Rights Law Network (HRLN)

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