Kairana and the politics of exclusion

The National Human Rights Commission’s report on the ‘Kairana exodus’ raises questions about its remit as an unbiased arbiter in conflict situations

For over three years now communal politics has been on the upswing in Uttar Pradesh. With Assembly elections due in early 2017, the communal pot has been stirred up again in this crucial State. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre, polarisation on issues such as ‘love jihad’, ‘ghar wapsi’ and the beef ban have become a regular feature of political mobilisation in Uttar Pradesh and the country at large. The urge to engage in a politics of polarisation must be understood in the context of the Muzaffarnagar violence of 2013, which worked to the party’s benefit in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Its impact can be seen from the fact that BJP leaders who were implicated in the violence were given tickets and they won their seats with large margins. For the first time, not a single Muslim candidate was elected to Parliament from the State even though Muslims constitute over 19 per cent of its population and over 30 per cent of the population in quite a few districts of western Uttar Pradesh.

The claim of an exodus

In June, the BJP’s Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Hukum Singh released a list of 346 members of Hindu families that had allegedly fled Kairana town in Shamli district of western Uttar Pradesh due to persecution and pressure fearing atrocities at the hands of Muslim criminals and extortionists. (The chief complainant is an accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar violence.) BJP President Amit Shah called the allegations of a Hindu exodus an ‘eye opener’ at a public rally in Allahabad, and he later cautioned that “UP should not take Kairana lightly”. Aligarh’s BJP MP Satish Gautam declared that there is a need to find out about “other Kairanas”. It is clear from these statements that the ruling party is not averse to using the issue as a plank for political mobilisation even though it could aggravate social tensions in the region.

However, the forced exodus claim was denied by the State government and the district administration. Several investigative reports by the media, notably in The Hindu, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times and Quint, also exposed these claims. They found it to be exaggerated and false as many of the people had migrated for various reasons and some had done so in search of better opportunities. In short, the Kairana exodus was dismissed as a non-event until it was revived by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). In response to a complaint filed by Monika Arora, a Supreme Court advocate, and a vocal and active member of the BJP, the commission constituted a team from its Investigation Division to look into the complaints of exodus of Hindu families from Kairana due to fear of criminals.

A ‘partisan report’

The NHRC report released on September 21 observed that these allegations are ‘serious’ and that several Hindu families have migrated because of the worsening law and order situation after victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots settled there. It stated that: “In 2013, the post-rehabilitation scenario resulting in resettlement of about 25/30 thousand members of Muslim community in Kairana Town from district Muzaffarnagar, UP, the demography of Kairana town has changed in favour of the Muslim Community becoming the more dominating and majority community. Most of the witnesses examined and victims feel that the rehabilitation in 2013 has permanently changed the social situation in Kairana town and has led to further deterioration of law and order situation.”

The report came to this conclusion on the basis of verification of six victims/persons and telephonic verification of members of four displaced families in three randomly selected residential localities, which makes it a total of 10 out of the 346 cases of migration from Kairana for reasons of insecurity.

Overall, the NHRC report provides no substantive authentication of its controversial findings; furthermore, it provides no details of the total number of families who migrated from Kairana, the specific time frame for when these families left and the exact reasons behind their decision to do so. The five-page report comprises brief statements on the criminal incidents given by select witnesses. There is no evidence in the report that these crimes were committed by displaced people who had settled in Kairana, even though the report asserts that the presence of Muzaffarnagar riot victims has changed the demography of Kairana and this has led to a further deterioration of law and order in the town. This is a conjecture, not a fact; there is no factual evidence to establish a connection between the presence of internally displaced persons and the increase in incidents of crime mentioned in the report. In any case, there is no corroboration to back the figure of 25-30,000 Muslim victims having settled in the town.

The impression conveyed by the report that only members of the majority community are impacted by the faltering law and order situation in western Uttar Pradesh is deeply flawed. The attempt to paint a largely criminal phenomenon with a broad communal brush without citing any independent and credible evidence is surprising from an institution mandated to investigate human rights violations. Sure enough, the labelling and stigmatising of the minority community in this manner has dismayed civil society activists and victims of the Muzaffarnagar violence who have demanded a withdrawal of the ‘partisan and prejudiced’ report. Social activist Farah Naqvi, who has been working for the rehabilitation of the people displaced by the Muzaffarnagar riots since 2013, called the NHRC report nothing more than “communal rumour-mongering”.

It doubles victimisation

The 2013 communal violence had initially displaced over 75,000 people. A 2016 report,Living Apart: Communal Violence and Forced Displacement in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, based on detailed ground-level research done by the non-governmental organisations Aman Biradari and Afkar India, found 50,000 people still scattered all over Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and other districts, of whom nearly 30,000 victims were in 65 internally displaced people colonies. According to the report, 270 families (approximately 2,000 people) had settled in Kairana. It found that even after three years, riot victims are living in ghetto-like resettlement colonies with little support from the State administration. It further notes that the Uttar Pradesh administration not only failed to rehabilitate riot victims displaced from their homes and villages, it also actively encouraged Muslim refugees, who used to live in Hindu majority villages, to resettle in Muslim-majority colonies, thus escalating the social divide.

Curiously, the large-scale displacement caused by communal violence in 2013 did not lead to any investigation or recommendations by the NHRC. But the Commission saw it fit to investigate the exodus of 346 people, and what’s more, recommend the formation of a high-level committee of the Government of U.P. “to meet each of the displaced families from Kairana Town now living in districts Dehradun, Panipat, Muzaffarnagar, Roorki, Karnal, etc. of Uttarakhand and Haryana in order to redress their grievances and facilitate their return to Kairana, if so desired…” It did not make the same proposals for the rehabilitation of over 75,000 people displaced from Muzaffarnagar in 2013.

Even though communal mobilisation and internal displacement is a process that still continues in many parts of western Uttar Pradesh, it finds no mention in the NHRC report. It is mentioned only in relation to the displacement from Kairana for which the NHRC blames those who are themselves displaced by communal violence. In so doing, it displays a complete lack of sympathy for people who have been affected and displaced by violence. Rather than supporting them, what the report has in effect done is to double their victimisation by tagging them as people whose presence “has led to further deterioration of law and order situation”.

Damaging a shining legacy

The NHRC has played a critical role in investigating violations of human rights in the country. ‘In 2002, the Commission, under former Chief Justice J.S. Verma, was the first public body to visit Gujarat after the riots, and it subsequently moved the Supreme Court to transfer cases outside the State to secure a fair trial’. This legacy creates unparalleled social expectations but it also invites civil society scrutiny from national and international actors for any potentially detrimental action by the apex body. Its neutrality is critically important because that is what gives its reports and decisions credibility as a record of ground reality, without serving any person or party’s interest. Its impartiality has been undermined by the decision to investigate an exodus list supplied by a political party with a clear stake in upping the communal ante ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections. In the event, the report vindicated the ruling party’s claims but it compromised its own autonomy and non-aligned status. This is an inevitable consequence of interpreting broader societal trends like migration and security through a communal prism, which sets a perilous precedent of giving an ethnic colour to law and order problems.

The idea of the NHRC as an unbiased arbiter in conflict situations is widely perceived as essential to the promotion and protection of human rights in our democracy. As an icon of independence, the legitimacy and credibility of the NHRC or of any human rights body rest on its ability to address the problems relating to human rights in a society generally, and not those of a particular community. The public needs to have the confidence that the Commission will investigate cases of rights violation without fear or favour. Hence, the effectiveness of human rights commissions depends on how a particular commission locates itself in a society and is able to confront the issues before it. Majoritarianism is a real issue in India today. It has led to legitimate fears about this creed dictating policy and compromising the functioning of public institutions; in this scenario, it is the responsibility of rights watchdog institutions to prevent this tendency from dominating institutions. For a democracy to thrive, institutions like the NHRC have to play a counter-majoritarian role.

Zoya Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Keywords: Kairana exodus, politics of exclusion, National Human Rights Commission

Source: The Hindu, 17-10-2016

Half of world’s disabled children are kept out of schools: Report

At least half of the world’s 65 million school-age children with disabilities are kept out of the classroom because little to no money is budgeted for their needs, a disability rights groups said in a report on Monday.

Light for the World, a charity which supported the research, said stigma and misinformation surrounding disability as well as a lack of data on the numbers of disabled children contributed to the problem.

“People don’t see them (children with disabilities) as a worthy investment,” Nafisa Baboo, adviser for inclusive education at Light for the World, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Many think for example that there’s no point investing in their education as people with disabilities can’t work.”

The rights groups said billions of dollars of potential income from the world’s poorest countries are being lost through lack of schooling and employment for people who have disabilities.

“Children with disabilities are constantly left at the very back of the queue, and the impact on both individuals and economies can be disastrous,” Julia McGeown of Handicap International said in a statement.

The report by the International Disability and Development Consortium said the exclusion of children with disabilities was a major obstacle to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030.

In September, a report by the U.N. education and cultural agency UNESCO found that the education sector globally has been substantially underfunded, and international aid to education is declining.

“The SDGs give governments an opportunity to up their game,” said Baboo, adding that donors should prioritise efforts to reverse the decline in aid for education.

The new report urges governments to provide facilities for the education of disabled children within a mainstream system.

“Inclusive education can drastically reduce out-of-school populations, it can tackle discrimination in society, and it is considerably cheaper than segregated education,” said Baboo.

“It’s not just morally right, it’s also a smart investment.”

Source: Hindustan Times, 17-10-2016

GM CROPS - How to Plant the Future

C D Mayee





India faces a massive challenge to feed its growing population, particularly in the absence of sustainable agriculture solutions. According to the UN World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, India's population is expected to surpass China's by 2022.A combination of factors like climate change, increasing industrialisation, urbanisation and new pests and diseases coupled with regulatory challenges have connived to bring about increasing pressure on our farms over the years, limiting their capability to enhance production, especially on small land holdings as prevalent in India.
With regular droughts or floods affecting the country , productivity is taking a heavy toll and India's already bulging food import bill is likely to reach crippling proportions.
To increase farmers' income without inflationary pressure on the economy , we need to increase our productivity urgently . Technology has played a vital role in most sectors to improve quality of life, as well as the productivity of products and services. The same should apply to agriculture.
While most agriculturally advanced countries are adopting rigorously tested and proven genetically modified (GM) technology in agriculture, India has been comparatively regressive. Bangladesh has wholeheartedly embraced GM technology to resolve declining productivity by putting in place an encouraging policy environment. It has not only commercialised India's Bt Brinjal technology three years ago, but it is also at an advanced stage of field trials in other crops including Golden Rice and Late Blightresistant potato. The Philippines and Vietnam, too, are actively pursuing GM crop cultivation.
All this is possible only with government support for science and technology and free market trade. However, in India, there is a huge resistance to this technology . The furore caused by various anti-science voices have continued to discourage innovation as well as commercialisation of this promising technology . Adding to this uncertainty are the recent regulatory developments in respect of crop biotech that have the potential to stifle the flow of modern technologies to farm.
The cotton price control and compulsory licensing guidelines for GM crops proposed have already done enough damage to India's image as a technology-friendly nation. These proposals have not only discouraged R&D and innovation professionals and investors, but also the student community who want to pursue fulfilling careers in agri-biotechnology .
The Indian agri-biotech industry is suffering due to the vested interests of one influential seed industry player misusing the system. As the proposal of compulsory licensing guidelines faced stiff opposition from various corners and from key stakeholders, it appears that through the National Seed Association of India (NSAI), attempts are now being made to indirectly interfere in the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime and compulso ry licensing of GM crops through the convoluted reading of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (PPVFRA), 2001.
This act won't protect the interest of companies involved in R&D of modern and safe technologies like GM crops. So, they should continue to be guided by the current patent law of the country . PPVFRA is designed for an altogether different purpose: that of protecting varieties.
Hence, playing up this legislation against the Patent Act for the narrow benefit of a few seed companies to appropriate technology without the obligation of paying fees for accessing the technology is a travesty of India's innovation protection system.
The PPVFRA cannot override the Patents Act. Any contrary argument will have a severe ramification not only on Indian agriculture but also on the government's policies to encourage technology transfer and innovation in the farm sector that still employs over 50% of country's workforce.
The government must look at this Act on the basis of plant varieties and its protection for which it was framed, much before GM crops came into India. It shouldn't allow vested interests to misinterpret and misuse this Act.
No country has progressed when innovations are curbed and the free market is stifled. In today's global environment, where public-private partnerships are encouraged for achieving development goals, it is disheartening that in India, we are pursuing a regressive policy at the cost of longterm interest of our small and marginal farmers.
The government must listen to industry associations and experts who have been criticising the cotton price control and compulsory licensing notification. It must intervene to ensure its decisions are broad-based and in the long-term interest of farmers, consumers, industry and the economy .

Source: Times of India, 17-10-2016

Justice And Civil Society Nurture Each Other

Homayun Taba





In a world where voices are getting `shriekier', each trying to shut the other out, where narratives thrive on combativeness on our daily TV screen, the light of civil society grows dimmer by the day . What are we to do?
They asked the wise Loqman, this cultivated man of unusual civility and character, from whom he had learnt `adab', civility? He said, from the `be-adabaan', the uncivil; whatever seemed `naa-pasand', reprehensible, i refrained from doing.Uncivil means distasteful, rude, abusive, intrusive, disruptive, inconsiderate. Civility by extension implies maintaining one's poise, control of rough emotions and reactivity in inappropriate settings.
Another meaning of adab is breeding, so baa-adab is well-bred and be-adab is ill-bred. Which brings us to what Seneca says: no man is good by accident, virtue has to be learnt. We need then to look at modern day family settings and popular TV serials to see from where the next generation is picking up its civility ­ or lack of it.
An old saying goes: If a way to be Better there be; it exacts a full look at the Worst. In other words, it is also helpful to look at anti-role models, as examples of what not to do. Seneca again: “If you wish to be stripped of your vices you must get right away from the examples others set of them.“ If you notice others' errors and these serve to wake you to your own, everybody becomes a teacher to you, and the whole life becomes your classroom.
We speak of `civil society' as if it will come into being by itself, forgetting it is the deliberately chosen, collective behaviour of each citizen that creates it.In such a society both leaders and other citizens do not go in for only sensational declarations and gestures, but demonstrate their intentions in a thousand considerate small daily acts ­ in driving they signal their turn, they give pedestrians a chance to walk across, request rather than demand, talk with dignity with their juniors, are inclusive and respectful. The list is long but the values are simple to follow.
To unpack the word `civility' or `civil' we need to know that it is much deeper than the surface observances of etiquette and codes of politeness; it is all about genuine concern and a wider perspective. It calls for sensitivity and compassionate attentiveness to the next person, whoever that might be.
Civil society is marked by the degree of the core values of consideration and compassion.An unjust society , where each ks of itself and forgets the cell thinks of itself and forgets the well-being of the whole organism, cannot boast of being a civil society . The unethical, adharmic behaviour here means `only to think of oneself '. This gradually weakens and negates the rule of law, allowing more injustice to emerge. What happens next is inequality , de-humanisation and other indignities; social injustice on a large scale. Justice and civil society nurture and strengthen each other.
In the light of declining standards of social interaction, and of graciousness being in such a short supply, the fuelling of disharmonious acts should not be treated as peripheral or fringe issues. Incremental uncivil acts gnaw away at the roots of a civil society and can create irreversible damage. Each one needs to exercise affectionate solidarity not by sloganeering but by example. Civility brings decency, consideration, respect, kindness to the canvas of a civil society.

17th IASSI ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2016 9-10 December 2016, Chandigarh.

17th IASSI ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2016 9-10 December 2016, Chandigarh.

17^TH IASSI ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2016

9-10 December 2016, Chandigarh

CALL FOR PAPERS AND INVITATION FOR PARTICIPATION

Theme: Educational Development: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

Venue: Centre for Research in Rural & Industrial Development CRRID), Chandigarh

ABOUT: The 17th Annual Conference of the Indian Association of Social Science Institutions (IASSI) for the year 2016-17 will be held during 9-10 December 2016 at the Centre for Research in Rural & Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh.

For details please visit: www.iassi.org

CONTACT: 

1) Conference Organising Secretary, PROF. SUCHA SINGH GILLOrganising Secretary, IASSI Annual Conference 2016
Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development
2-A, Madhya Marg, Sector 19, Chandigarh-160019
Phones: 0172-2784133, 2725406
Email: gsuchasingh@gmail.com/sscrrid@hub.nic.in

2) Co-Conference Organising Secretary, PROF. S.K. GUPTAIndian Association of Social Science Instituions
Room No. 76, IIPA Hostel Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA)
IP Estate, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-110002

Phone: 23324581; 23356834
Email: iassi.conference@gmail.com

Source: http://iassi.org/confrence/call_for_page.html

The right to copy

In this age of copy-and-paste, plagiarism and piracy are rarely regarded as serious issues.

Who invented the revolver? I am not sure the question deserves an answer, since multiple people invented multiple things. Forced to give an answer, most people will opt for Samuel Colt. Thanks to Samuel Colt’s patent (there were separate British and US patents), he had a monopoly on manufacturing revolvers till 1856. The limited point is that because of Colt’s patents and his attempts to guard against infringement, innovations and development of firearms manufacture were impeded. Until the Colt patent expired, Smith and Wesson couldn’t do much.

Researchers agree, from a social welfare point of view, these patents did more harm than good. There is a similar hypothesis, though contested, about how patent wars impeded the initial development of aviation in the US, with the Wright brothers (holders of the patent) fighting Glenn Curtiss and others. Therefore, at the time of World War I, US airplanes weren’t good enough and the government had to enforce a patent pool. All forms of intellectual property right (IPR) protection involve a limited monopoly. That’s an incentive for placing details of the invention in the public domain and the static welfare loss (because of the monopoly) is compensated by dynamic welfare gains through new inventions and investments. The National Intellectual Property Rights Policy of May 2016 cites these arguments.

That trade-off between the static and the dynamic, the immediate short-term and the medium term, is an old debate and we have legislation (WTO, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), bilateral, unilateral) on IPR protection. There are various forms of intellectual property — copyrights and related rights, trademarks/service marks, geographical indications, industrial designs, patents, lay-out designs of integrated circuits, plant varieties, undisclosed information. Some implementation (patents, designs, trademarks, GI-s) is with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, plant varieties with the agriculture ministry, integrated circuits with Department of Information Technology and biodiversity with environment and forests ministry. Finally, copyrights are with the human resource development ministry. We may have reduced all kinds of IPR to a common conceptual template, such as through the WIPO, but the two roots and antecedents are different — the Paris Convention (1883) for Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention (1886) for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. In the general discourse and debate, irrespective of legislation, we have accepted IPR more for varieties of industrial property, trade marks, industrial designs, patents, integrated circuits. We haven’t quite accepted IPR for copyright and related domains such as performing artists, recordings, broadcasters. At the back of our minds, we accept the Paris Convention stuff as inherently commercial, the Berne Convention stuff less so.

There was a recent Delhi High Court judgement, involving Delhi University and a photocopying kiosk inside the Delhi School of Economics. The kiosk prepared study packs — photocopying parts of books — and a few publishers brought an infringement case. The court dismissed the suit.
Under Section 52(1)(a), this act of photocopying was “a fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work”. My intention is not to get into the judgement. In any case, that is only about a very specific form of copying. How many people walk into a store and walk out with a stolen product? Barring thieves, this is a rare phenomenon. Within the set of honest people, how many have used pirated software, or downloaded and watched pirated films, musical performances and songs? Let’s ignore those who indulge in commercial counterfeiting and piracy. Barring them, even within the honest set, the number who have indulged in piracy will be high. Notice, a person will not typically steal a music CD from a store, but is quite amenable to downloading songs from the internet. Stated differently, there is a notion of theft when there is something physical or tangible, not otherwise. Copyright and related rights may assume physical form, but the notion is inherently that of something intangible and non-physical. We don’t accept these things as commercial. To the extent we accept copyright and related rights as commercial, we do it more for neighbouring rights and less for old-fashioned and narrow copyrights. Hence, plagiarism is rarely regarded as a serious issue, in this age of copy and paste.

Add to this a perception that copyrights benefit publishers, not authors (this debate on authors versus publishers goes back to the late 19th century). Books by Charles Dickens were published in the US for which he received no royalties. “Show me the distinction between such pilfering as this, and picking a man’s pocket in the street: Unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature has a regard for pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men’s brains, except when they are knocked out by violence, to take care of themselves.” This is a quote from Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens. Books by Edgar Allan Poe were published in Britain and he got no royalties either. Legislation for author versus publisher relationships may have improved since then, but there is still the perception that authors get little royalty from books. Those huge advances are extremely rare. An average (varies between hardback and paperback) royalty will be between 7.5 per cent and 12.5 per cent of the printed price, with a large part of that price swallowed up in the distribution chain. On royalties and sales records, few authors are happy with publishers and this undoubtedly reinforces the general impression of publishers being sharks. There is a famous economist with left-wing views. Being left-wing and anti-market, he doesn’t like IPR and vehemently argues against it. But his books always indicate the copyright is in his own name and he too rails against publishers.

The writer is member, Niti Aayog. Views are personal

Source: Indian Express, 13-10-2016

Unless social infrastructure improves, India will not get out of the hunger trap

Hunger levels in developing countries may have fallen 29% since 2000, but unfortunately, India is still rated as a country with ‘serious’ hunger levels in 2016, says the Global Hunger Index (GHI), which was released on Tuesday. It also said that the country is slated to become the world’s most populous nation in six years, and it’s crucial that it meets this milestone with a record of ensuring that the expected 1.4 billion Indians have enough nutritious food to lead healthy and successful lives. Since 2000, the country has reduced its GHI score by a quarter and has a score in 2016 of 28.5 (rank 97 of 118 countries). Recent data show that almost 40% of Indian children under five years of age are stunted compared to over 60% in the early 1990s. The GHI ranks countries based on four key indicators: Undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting and child stunting.

The report brings back the focus on the implementation of the National Food Security Act. To date, several states and Union Territories have implemented the food security law and the basic entitlement s are being delivered. However, it will not be entirely correct to say that only implementation of the Act will solve the India’s problem. This is because hunger and malnourishment are closely linked to sanitation issues. According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor Jean Humphrey, the stunting in children is not simply due to a lack of food. The constant ambush of germs and bacteria from their environment forces “these children’s bodies [to] divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritise infection-fighting survival,” Dr Humphrey told The New York Times.

Then there are other issues such as health, the anganwadi infrastructure and incomes of people. India’s health infrastructure is in a pitiable state and that has a direct impact on maternal health, which in turn impacts the health of children. As far as incomes are concerned, rural distress has been quite widespread in India for the last couple of years. In other words, unless and until the full social infrastructure improves, India will not be able to get out of the hunger trap.

Source: Hindustan Times, 12-10-2016