Public dissent and debate are robustly expressed in India

The fractures around the fault-lines of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ in India have again threatened to surface after the release of the 2011 religious census results. The timing of the official announcement was conjectured by some observers to covertly try to influence and polarise the Bihar elections. Majoritarian sentiment was agitated because the share of the Hindus in India’s population fell a few decimal points below 80%, ignoring that the Muslim population growth slowed more than that of the Hindus.

Minority sentiment was also wounded a few weeks earlier, when one man was hanged in a jail in Nagpur. I noticed a young Muslim colleague in office uncharacteristically troubled after Memon’s execution. “I have no problem if a terrorist is punished,” he explained. “But when government at its highest levels, the Supreme Court and President, all conspire to hurriedly hang a man on his birthday, I realise that however much I love my country, I am still in the end only one of its minority.”

He went on: “I feel the way I did when, as a boy watching a cricket match with friends on our television, Pakistan won over India; and my friends said I must be very happy. I feel as I do when my mother agitatedly calls me each time my beard grows slightly long, begging me to shave, otherwise I may be ‘picked up’. I feel as when I find myself instinctively avoiding moving out of home after 10, with the same vague fear of being ‘picked up’.”

I reached my hand into his, and replied, “I too felt anguished when Yakub, jailed for 21 years without one day’s parole, was denied the two weeks he sought before his hanging to make peace with God and settle affairs with his family.

“But with one thing I don’t agree. I’m convinced that you’re not part of a minority in India. The battle in our country never has been, is not, never will be between Hindus and Muslims. It’s between those who misuse religion to divide people and incite hate, and those who believe this country belongs equally to people of every faith. Both you and I belong to the second group, supporting tolerance and harmony. I’m convinced this group is the country’s majority.”

My long-held conviction that the majority of Indians are secular was severely tested with shrill strident public discourse of disharmony surrounding Memon’s hanging. Triumphalism overpowered television studios, newspaper columns as well as the internet. Sandipan Sharma chronicled the proliferation of hashtags like #Have a blast, #Happy Birthday Yakub, #Go Yakub, #See you in hell, labelled fittingly by Pratap Bhanu Mehta as “the postmodern equivalent of a medieval lynch mob”.

But these were not the only voices. Their belligerence could not bully into silence nuanced, thoughtful assertions of resistance, despite dissenters being branded anti-national terrorist apologists. And the majority of these opinions — of human rights lawyers and social commentators, but also numerous young people on social media — were not just of people of Muslim identity, but of people of every religion and community, united against both bigotry and the partisanship of the establishment.

In a quick scan of the deluge of alternative outpourings in social media, I found, first, disquiet with the divisive character of the public discourse. One post read: ‘You keep shouting “hang, hang, hang” but you’re really saying “kill, kill, kill”. Am I the only one feeling terrorised?’

Many lamented the unequal justice of our public institutions. One post confessed that ‘the thought of this man’s hanging still keeps me from sleeping at night. His interviews, his conduct as gathered from people who knew him spoke of an educated, remorseful man who … deserved much better. That the provokers of this whole bloody affair have yet to be brought to justice pains me too deeply for words'.

Another despatch read ‘India is becoming more and more communal’ … ‘If the law is equal for everyone, the people who were involved in the riots of ’93 should be given the death penalty before. Also 1984…’

Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves observed: ‘Over the last 22 years, none of those who conspired, planned and led the (Mumbai) riots were even investigated; no one who participated in the attacks has been punished…; and Bal Thackeray, who the Srikrishna Commission identified as the “veteran general” who led the riots, was given a state funeral. On the other hand, in relation to the blasts, hundreds of suspects were investigated, many remained in jail while a fifteen year trial was conducted, a hundred persons were convicted and are serving their sentences and Yakub Memon, who even the prosecution did not claim to be among the chief conspirators, has been executed’.

Some internet postings raise grave doubts about the fairness of our paramount public institutions. One charged that ‘the highest office receiving a petition did not have the guts to decide Memon’s fate on its own merits’, echoing Krishnadas Rajagopal’s penetrating questions in the Hindu about the unprecedented situation in which the president gave a personal hearing to the home minister and decided against Memon’s clemency petition less than eight hours before the man’s hanging, and the Supreme Court sat before dawn to deny him the 14 days he sought before his hanging.

Arun Ferreira, who shared for 16 months the same death row, recalls that Memon ‘displayed an unbelievably solid faith in the judiciary’. One post poignantly observed: ‘What the hangman offers is only a crude approximation of the cherished ideal that justice is’.

The noisy diversity and frequent shrillness of opinion around Memon’s execution do illuminate many deep fissures in India’s social fabric. And yet the discussions — in courtrooms, television studios, newspaper opinion columns, too little in Parliament, but most vibrantly in the popular democratic space of social media — also reflect that, with all their failings and the powerful stresses to which these are subject currently, public dissent and debate, as well as the defence of the secular, continue to robustly assert themselves in India today.

Harsh Mander is convenor, Aman Biradari. He is the author of Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India. The author's views expressed are personal.

Source: Hindustan Times, 2 Sep, 2015

Sep 03 2015 : The Economic Times (Bangalore)

Work for a Shared Political Economy





That is the key to better labour relations

The nationwide strike called by 10 central trade unions did not quite bring the nation to a halt, but affected work in several sectors of the economy in different parts of the country . To that extent, the unions have demonstrated to the government that they still remain relevant and cannot be written off. But have they advanced the interests of India's workers, by causing loss of production and hampering transport and financial transactions? Not in the least. They say they oppose the present government's labour reforms. Are they certain that the existing array of central and state laws on labour are incapable of any improvement? The sad fact is that the unions have got trapped in a discourse of futility , in which they oppose any and every move to accelerate economic growth.The way out is for workers, employers and the political leadership to work out a shared political economy . The unions' ideological leaders are the Left, which swears by a piece of dogma thrust upon them by the Soviet commu nist party in the early 1960s, namely , that capitalism has become moribund and exhausted all the revolutionary potential that Marx had so eloquently described. Since all production is cap italist production, including in the state sector, the unions' leftist dogma leaves them opposed to production per se. This does no good to either the economy or the workers themselves. Workers must accept that it is possible to create vigorous economic growth with broad-based popular participation, which would improve living standards across the board. They must defend workers' inter ests but in a political economy framework that works with, not against, the dynamics of modern production.
In return, employers must appreciate that better-paid workers expand the market for industry's produce and that high-quality production results not from workers beaten down to survival conditions but from a workforce that is content and voluntarily innovative. The politician must help industry transcend the individual interest of minimising wage cost to achieve the collective interest of expanding the market and enthusing the workforce.

the speaking tree - Make Your Destiny

SADHGURU JAGGI VASUDEV





All along, you've been shaping your destiny unconsciously .But you can also work on it consciously . If you make the effort to access your core and realise that everything is your responsibility , and shift your focus inside you, then you can rewrite your destiny . All the time, your focus is scattered, because what you consider is `you' and `yours' is your house, car, wife, child, pet, education, position and power.If you are stripped of all these things, you will feel like a nobody . So, what you call yourself is what is spread around you.`You' means it is you, not this carpet, wall, child or anything else. `You' is just you. Right now, you're not an established being; you are a scattered being. You are not you; you are a crowd. The crowd's fate is always predestined.
Once you act as an individual, the indivisible Self can no longer be divided; it is this. It can't be here and there. Once you become a true individual, your destiny is within your grasp; it is yours. Those who are in a hurry to grow spiritually avoid getting into marriage, children and relationships because the moment you have a spouse, you get identified with `this one'. Once you have children, you get identified with them.Now, `you' includes them also.
However, searching for the real `you' does not mean denial of family or social situations. The root of all identification is in the two fundamental accumulations: body and mind. Once removed from them, `you' become free from all identifications. In this freedom, you become the master of your destiny .

the speaking tree - Sri Krishna Taught And Embodied Yoga

M N Kundu





Sri Krishna was undoubtedly the best exponent of yoga, the art of cosmic union with the Absolute and work ng in daily life with that consciousness.n the Gita and the Bhagavatam, he explained the theory of yoga while in real ife he demonstrated the practice of the ame. He clarified that equanimity is yoga, the art of right action which enables one to remain steadfast amid worldly tribulations and tackle all disharmony, the oot cause of all evils and problems with divine anchorage. His yoga was not the preparatory Hatha Yoga for health and healing but the highest yoga for liberation and living. He placed transcendental yoga of Maharishi Patanjali into social ontext, linking it with selfless service to humanity, infinite expansion of Self with ultimate wisdom and entire abolition of delimiting ego with divine devotion.
Entire creation is an ideational compo ition of consciousness of Spirit which is manifested in and through Nature. While Nature is constantly active, creative and operative consciousness lying at the backdrop is always behind the screen.Mind, matter and prana owe their existence to consciousness. As a yogi, Krishna was always anchored in cosmic consciousness, yet perfect in enactment of his human role. This is the yoga of wisdom with which he was simultaneously more divine and more human in the stupendous drama of creation exhibiting what true yoga is. The simplest method of yoga is to develop nonattachment with discriminating wisdom and cultivate unconditional love for God.
In the life of Krishna we find the ideal golden mean for living.He did not follow any worldnegating life of renunciation but showed what mental renunciation is. Clinging to anything was absolutely foreign to his smiling nature.He perfectly played the role of a naughty child, a playful youth, a statesman par excellence, an intimate friend, a beloved husband and above all embodiment of wisdom. His prescription for life is to maintain non-attachment to anything and everything being calmly active. Thus he exemplified the practice of Karma Yoga.He himself remained thoroughly within worldly life, being entirely aloof from it despite apparent involvement. He never hesitated to leave his dear gopis, kingdom and even life, being ever fixed in witness-Self. In the Gita, Krishna advises us to do our duties knowing fully well that the result will be in the hands of the Almighty. Practice of detachment to worldly matters and maintenance of perfect equanimity under all circumstances with absolute surrender to the will of God are the best course.Thus he prescribed yoga, the art of right action as the way to unification with the eternal Self. Keynote of Krishna Consciousness is divine love for the Omnipresent Absolute in everybody. Krishna is the embodiment of love ­ love for mother Yashoda, cowherd friends, classmate Sudama, devotional gopis, Pandavas, specially Arjuna and even his killer-hunter Jara who shot his deadly arrow by mistake.With Christ-like love, he consoled his killer saying that it was all predestined and the killer acted as an actor in the drama of divine love. These are all manifestations of same divine love which enables us to see Krishna in everybody and see everybody in him and serve them all.
Assertion of non-doership despite doing everything, never expecting fruits of action and accepting all that follows despite taking the best action and surrendering everything to the will of the Almighty enables us to acquire our divine inheritance and enjoy peace, bliss and everlasting joy . The life of Krishna embodied his presentation of the aforesaid concept of yoga.

75,000 youngsters killed in road crashes last year

Dipak Dash

New Delhi:





Delhi Tops List Of Deadly Cities With 1,671 Dying In 2014

India's killer roads claimed the lives of 75,000 people aged between 15 and 34 years last year. Over 82% of these victims were males, according to the Road Accident Report for 2014 prepared by the road transport and highways ministry .“The detailed age profile of road accident victims for calendar year 2014 reveals that the age group of 15-34 years accounted for 53.8% of the total road accident fatalities, followed by the age group of 35-64 years (35.7%),“ the report says.
The latest estimate by the World Health Organization also shows that globally , world road traffic injuries are the number one cause of death among young people aged 15-29 years. Annually , about 3.4 lakh youngsters in this age group die in accidents. “This shows that there is a need to pay attention to making young people more aware of road safety issues.It's a mammoth loss and calculating the social cost would reveal how big it is,“ said road safety expert Rohit Baluja.
PM Narendra Modi too made an appeal on the issue to elders of families in a recent radio address.
According to the report prepared by the ministry's transport research wing (TRW), the total number of road crashes has increased marginally from 4.86 lakh in 2013 to 4.89 lakh in 2014. The number of fatalities has also gone up by about 1.5%. Thirteen states -Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana -account for about 83.2% of the deaths.
It says about 12% of the fatalities happened in 50 cities with populations of over a million each, Delhi leading with 1,671 deaths and Chennai registering the second highest number at 1,118.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Risky portents in Manipur

The crisis in Manipur stems from the demand to stop ‘outsiders’ from buying land in the State, in a context where the local population, predominantly the Meiteis, harbours fears of being marginalised. The valley constitutes only 10 per cent of the State’s geographical area and Meiteis constitute about 50 per cent of the population there. The long-standing demand has been to introduce a system similar to the Inner Line Permit (ILP) in other northeastern States, or some similar stipulation, to stop in-migration. But for this to be effective, the State needs to identify the ‘outsiders’ first. But that is a complex issue anywhere in the northeastern region as the borders are largely porous and the Government of India has not done enough to check the passage of people across them. One reason this was not done was to protect the state’s own interest: for a long time now, a section of the immigrants have been engaged to counter local insurgent groups. But as the demand for an ILP escalated, a cut-off year of 1951 was determined in the new Bills passed on Monday in order to identify outsiders. However, one of them, the Protection of Manipur People’s Bill, and two amendments, have been opposed by the tribal organisations, which claim control of the Manipur Hill districts. These are chiefly groups of Kukis, Mizos and Chins. They feel insecure as many of them who came to Manipur after 1951 or whose lineage may not meet the list of criteria set out in the Bills, could now be legally identified as ‘outsiders.’ Many of them also believe a rumour that the two amendments would be valid in the Manipur Hills districts, which is untrue.

The issues might not have escalated had the State government consulted the Hill Areas Committee before passing the Bills in order to clear any misunderstanding. Neither the organisation that had led the pro-ILP movement nor any of the tribal organisations was approached for any kind of dialogue. The pro-ILP movement was mostly confined to the Valley districts, while the people in the Hills isolated themselves, assuming and arguing that they were protected from outsiders under existing laws. As the tensions grew in the absence of dialogue, political groups added fuel to the fire to try and topple the Congress-led government and invite President’s Rule. Hence, it is not any genuine fear of becoming marginalised but realpolitik that is playing out in the hills of Manipur. But from any perspective, this is a dangerous portent for all the northeastern States. The Centre and the State need to come forward quickly to engage the people and figure out a solution to the crisis in order that it won’t go out of control.

Keywords: Manipur, Inner Line Permit, Protection of Manipur People’s Bill

Source: The Hindu, 3 Sep 2015

The case against death penalty

The Law Commission of India has taken a historic step by declaring that the abolition of the death penalty must become a goal for India. It has recommended, for a start, the scrapping of the death penalty for all crimes except terrorism-related offences and those that amount to waging war against the state. The Commission’s report on the death penalty declares deterrence to be a myth, based on extensive research. It makes a clean break with the ‘rarest of the rare’ principle that was laid down inBachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980): that judgment noted that the application of the death penalty would remain arbitrary and judge-centric and hence would be constitutionally unsustainable. It has attempted to raise the level of discourse on the death penalty by observing that opposition to it amounts to objecting to the taking of lives, and not to all punishment as a concept. Retributive justice is important, it notes, but it must not descend to the level of vengeance, as numerous Supreme Court decisions that refer to “the conscience of the people” seem to indicate. It has sought a return to the notions of restorative and reformative justice, and urged a change in tenor, in such a manner that victims are not made to think that the death penalty is the only, best or ultimate form of punishment. Most crucially, it has placed the death penalty in the context of India’s flawed criminal justice system, noting that even safeguards such as the right to appeal and mercy petitions do not provide foolproof protection from miscarriage of justice, given the uneven and error-prone application of relief.

But the Commission has not gone far enough. By creating an artificial distinction between terror cases and others despite admitting that there is no penological justification for doing so, it has created an unfair hierarchy of crime and justice. It notes the death penalty is no deterrent for even a terrorist. Some of the most egregious instances of miscarriage of justice that it cites as an indictment of India’s criminal justice system relate to terrorism-related cases; the 2002 Akshardham temple attack case, for instance, in which the death penalty was imposed by the trial court and confirmed by the High Court, was based on what the Supreme Court later ruled was wholly fabricated evidence. The concerns such instances raise about the death penalty disproportionately affecting the poor and marginalised are more sharply in evidence in terrorism cases — 93.5 per cent of those on death row in terrorism cases are Dalits or those from the religious minorities. By holding itself back from recommending a total abolition, the Commission has put the ball in Parliament’s court. The government and the principal opposition are unlikely to support such an abolition at this point. It can only be hoped Parliament will complete the good work the Law Commission has begun.

Keywords: death penalty, Law Commission of India, Yakub Memon, 2002 Akshardham Temple attack