One World Family And The Global Citizen

Dada JP Vaswani





If the Divine animates each one of us, I are we not all part of one great consciousness, one great world family? Thousands of years ago, when human beings were blissfully free from the concepts of international travel and visas and resident permits, at a time when the longest distance a traveller could hope to cover was no more than a few miles per day , Indic scriptures spoke of essential human unity . Sadhu Vaswani would say , “Children of the earth, ye all are one.“We are global citizens enjoying multiple citizenships ­ consumer citizenship; flexible citizenship; even mobility citizenship; but in Vedic terms, we are, and always have been, members of the One Family of God's Creation ­ Vasudaiva Kutumbakam.
Experts tell us that it is technology, capital, flow of travel, trade and human potential that define global citizenship.Together, they constitute a new sense of belonging, a new sense of unity and a loyalty to a broad common ideal of humanity . But in India, we have a different `take' on this. The Rig Veda tells us: “Let noble thoughts come to us from everywhere.“
The idea here is that we are essentially spiritual beings ­ not the bodies we `wear' as outer garments. This is our real identity ­ not our race, religion or skin colour! The Atman, the soul, transcends all these divisions.
When we respect everyone's spiritual identity, we promote peace and happiness for all.This is why India has welcomed so many races and religions from ancient times. We don't believe in fighting or dying for our religion; but we would aspire to live up to the ideals our religion places before us! The Atharva Veda proclaims this truth: “We are all born on this planet; The same sky covers us; We gaze at the same stars We breathe the same air; ...We may live individually But we can survive only collectively .
I am told that there is a magnificent archaeological site in western Africa ­ the vast ruins of Jenne in Mali.Apparently , this was a city of over 1,00,000 people one thousand years ago ­ a world-class metropolis in the first millennium.
A visitor to the site observes: “Its art was stunning.
Its architecture reflected a complex society ... What struck t, however, was the fact that it me most, however, was the fact that it had been completely ignored by western archeologists for decades, because they found no evidence of military construc tions! The Jenne civilisation did not find its strength through military conquest or intimidation of its people, but through cooperation. It was a great city built not on fear, but friendship!“ This world is a garden of God.Krishna is in all and we all are in Krishna! When we have this vision of the One-in-all and All-in-one, we will grow in the spirit of brotherhood of all creation.
Our hearts need to be saturated with love, for love is the light that will illumine the world. For this, we need illumined hearts that can behold the vision of fellowship, unity and brotherhood. Love is what we need to build a new world of brotherhood and peace.(Abridged from Gita Publishing House.)

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Pratham partners with IITian’s NGO to promote girls education in India

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India’s largest educational NGO Pratham has partnered with WHEELS Global Foundation (WGF), a voluntary organisation started by an Indian Institutes of Technology alumnus in the US, to promote girls’ education in India. The two organisations will target underserved communities across five states of India.

Through this partnership, WGF will assist Pratham in enhancing its ‘Second Chance’ programme. The programme assists female school dropouts over the age of 14 in completing their secondary school education.

Under this programme, girl students will earn their 10th standard diploma through the provision of digital learning resources.

Sharing his views on the partnership with Pratham, WGF President Hiten Ghosh said, “Using digital teaching tools allows the young adults to learn at their own pace, which is important.”

WGF focuses on applying technology to uplift rural communities. It also provides technological solutions to global challenges in areas like water, health, education, energy, lifestyles, and sustainability.

Pratham has 33 centres in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana to support female school dropouts.

The partnership will introduce digital learning solutions in five of these states.

At Pratham learning sites, students will be able to access pre-loaded Pratham content in the areas of science, maths and English as well as ‘Spoken Tutorials’ through laptops and tablets

Renu Seth, Head of Pratham’s Second Chance programme, said, “By augmenting the girls’ education programme with access to interactive and engaging digital content, we hope to provide them with a more robust learning experience and improve outcomes.”

Source: Digital Learning, 16-11-2016

A sense of only itself

At one level, India’s middle class is now inured to the world outside its own class. At another level, it displays an aggressive nationalism and is completely disdainful of the idea of the community as a nation.

India’s middle classes have travelled a long way since the late 19th century when they planted the saplings of the freedom movement. On the way to India’s Independence, they filled the jails, and while they could not prevent the horrors of Partition, they wrote a unique document for the new nation: the Constitution of the Republic of India.

After Independence, it was the middle class again that supplied the teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, administrators and the other builders of Project India. It was a very imperfect project and there were strong disagreements, but there was no denying the pride these middle-class servants felt in building the Republic.

Middle-class activism

Things have changed in recent decades. Beginning in the 1990s, India’s middle class — many times its size in 1947 and amorphous in its composition — started to have a sense only of itself. Gone is a sense of the nation as a country which, while divided, is still one where everyone has equal rights and where no one should be left behind. In its place, the middle class is now happy to wear a flag-waving nationalism on its sleeve and is concerned only about itself.

The middle class as driving public action is now a thing of the past. The last time India saw mass protest by the middle class was after the horrific rape in New Delhi in December 2012. That did lead to new legislation. But December 2012 was an exception and mostly women marched on the streets. Middle-class activism, as it is now called, is usually only about matters of immediate concern — the neighbourhood, the locality, and the city.

It is not a caricature to say that the better off among the middle class are worried today only about their next gadget, next holiday, next car and next home.

At one level, India’s middle class is now inured to the world outside its own class. At another level, it displays an aggressive nationalism and is completely disdainful of the idea of the community as a nation.

In the initial days after the demonetisation of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, the middle class played to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s script. It was willing to put up with its own inconvenience for what it saw as a larger cause. But the middle class is impervious to how the members of India’s vast informal sector, the rural communities in unbanked regions, the savers of cash holdings and others were going to manage.

Today, when middle-class concerns are expressed in strength, they are expressed on social media — with hate. The voices in anger are overwhelmingly directed against “anti-nationals”, religious minorities, and, if they are reckless enough, they can be casteist too.

Bhopal as a test case

Consider, for example, the shooting in late October of eight Muslim undertrials after they purportedly broke out of Bhopal Central Jail while killing a prison guard. Even a decade or two ago, a shooting of such a large number and so suspiciously in abuse of the law would have attracted a measure of anger from the middle class which is aware of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Not now.

There has been the isolated statement by a civil liberties group and the odd statement by one or two political parties. Nothing more. In the media few newspapers have either editorialised strongly or sent their reporters in hunt of the true story. It has required the rare and fine exceptions like this newspaper to expose the lies. The silence of TV has been deafening.

Instead, there have been online diatribes against those who question the official version. Here is one posted on Twitter on October 31: “Why [sic] people are raising questions whether the encounter was fake or not? Terrorists should be neutralised wherever found.” And here is one from the Letters column of the digital publication Scroll.in in response to an article questioning the official version: “These law-abiding SIMI terrorists stayed as state guests in a high-security establishment which relies on the tax payers money — and you’re okay with that? These people should have been shot dead a long time back”.

India’s online population remains small, and on social media it is infinitesimally small. But it wields a power far beyond its size. What it says resonates with the political powers in ascendance. And what these political forces say resonates with this vocal social media population — drawn entirely from the middle class.

This is not the first time that the murder of undertrials has evoked the barest of protests from the middle classes. In April 2015, five Muslim terror accused who were in handcuffs and were being shifted from one prison to another in Telangana were shot dead inside a van by the police because apparently one of them tried to grab a policeman’s rifle. (This happened within weeks of two incidents in the State in which two Students’ Islamic Movement of India activists and three policemen were killed.) A few questions from a few newspapers, a few statements, and one state Special Investigation Team probe which has gone nowhere. It does not seem to matter.

Of course, the “who-cares” attitude or the “they-deserved-it” reaction is most obvious when Muslims are involved.

It is not just the professional trolls who are venting spleen on the Net. Visit any story of any English newspaper or magazine and see the comments on a story about India’s Muslims. You can only despair for the future after reading the venom being spewed there. The online comments on “SIMI men had no guns, say witnesses” in The Hindu of November 2 are a representative sample.

Anti-minorityism out in the open

It is time to stop pussyfooting about what the middle class (Hindus) think about some of their fellow citizens. We have to accept that a creeping anti-minorityism has now become full-blown among the middle class. From a whispering conversation among the like-minded it has now entered everyday conversation among families, friends and office colleagues. It is there all around us.

The disdain for everyone else is the outcome of the very successful build-up of Hindu majoritarianism over the past three decades. This has now reached a new peak under the Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It threatens to march even higher in the run-up to the next round of State elections in 2017 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The majoritarianism of the middle class reflects the essential philosophy of the party in power and in return it strengthens this exclusionary philosophy.

It has been a long journey since the beginning of the freedom movement and the drafting of the Constitution.

C. Rammanohar Reddy is Readers’ Editor of Scroll.in

Keywords: Middle-class, Nationalism

Source: The Hindu, 17-11-2016

Violence that’s not gender-neutral

There is a real danger that the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act could, in fact, be used against women and minors.

The recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Harsora v. Harsora on the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA) is of great concern as it deletes the words ‘adult male’ in Section 2(q) of the Act.

The PWDVA is a gender-specific law enacted to protect women against domestic violence at the hands of men. The core provision in this law is that complainants can only be women. The law also restricts under Section 2(q) that complaints can only be filed against adult males, or their relatives, who could be women. But it cannot be filed solely against the relatives of the husband. Section 2(q) states: “‘Respondent’ means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act. Provided that an aggrieved wife or female living in a relationship in the nature of a marriage may also file a complaint against a relative of the husband or the male partner.”

In this judgment, the constitutionality of Section 2(q) was challenged. The court, while referring to domestic violence, held that “it is clear that such violence is gender neutral. It is also clear that physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse and economic abuse can all be by women against other women. Even sexual abuse may, in a given fact circumstance, be by one woman on another. Section 3, therefore… seeks to outlaw domestic violence of any kind against a woman, and is gender neutral.”

Reality of domestic violence

With utmost respect to the Supreme Court, it is absolutely incorrect to state that domestic violence is gender-neutral. It is not. The world over, a vast majority of domestic violence is experienced by women at the hands of men. It is not a random event of violence but is a consequence and a cause of women’s inequality and is linked to the discrimination and devaluing of women. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, reported cases of domestic violence in India went up from 50,703 in 2003 to 1,18,866 in 2013. These are all cases of domestic violence against men. The U.K. Violent Crime and Sexual Offences study of 2011-2012 reported that 80 per cent of offenders in domestic or sexual violence were male.

In 1983, Section 498A was introduced in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and for the first time made domestic violence to married women a criminal offence. Section 498A is only against the husband and husband’s relatives because it recognised the gendered nature of the crime. When the PWDVA was drafted, the question as to whether the definition of ‘respondent’ should be restricted to men or should be gender-neutral was heavily debated and finally Section 2(q) was drafted to keep it consistent with Section 498A.

The judgment does not consider this history and background of domestic violence legislation. It goes on to declare that even the word ‘adult’ in Section 2(q) should be deleted, because a 16- or 17-year-old can also cause domestic violence. The court reasons that in the context of the object of the PWDVA, there is a “microscopic difference between male and female, adult and non-adult” and hence these words should be deleted.

Thrust on formal equality

The entire thrust of the Supreme Court’s decision is ironically on the principle of equality because it restricts the reach of a beneficial statute meant to protect women against all forms of domestic violence whether by men or by women, adult or minors. Our Constitution, however, has interpreted equality to mean substantive equality which, as elaborated by Oxford University professor Sandra Fredman, has four dimensions: redressing disadvantage; countering stigma, prejudice, humiliation and violence; transforming social and institutional structures; and facilitating political participation and social inclusion. Therefore, formal equality of treating all persons equally as ‘respondents’ is not sufficient and we need to look at the disadvantage and violence faced by women at the hands of men. The same principle of equality also mandates in Article 15(3) of the Constitution that special provisions can be made for women and children and the PWDVA was enacted as a special provision for their protection. It does not need to be gender-neutral.

While the judgment relies on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, where there is no restriction on the respondent being male, it surprisingly fails to observe the criminal offences of sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism and rape under the IPC which are all gender-specific and against men. This does not mean that men may not be victims of violence, but when women are victims of domestic violence, evidence shows that such violence is largely perpetrated by men.

With this judgment, there is a real danger that the PWDVA would be used against women and minors and not against the real perpetrators of domestic violence. It could lead to a further dilution of the PWDVA and also dilute other women-centric laws. In her 2015 Report, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Rashida Manjoo, pointed out that the shift in domestic violence laws from gender-specificity to gender-neutrality is regressive as it disregards the need for special measures that acknowledge that women are disproportionately impacted by violence. The Supreme Court’s decision will have serious repercussions on the lives of women in India.

Jayna Kothari is Executive Director, Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bengaluru.

Keywords: Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, Domestics violence, sexual harassment

Source: The Hindu, 17-11-2016

Azim Premji Foundation offers fellowships

The Azim Premji Foundation of Wipro czar Azim Premji on Monday announced its annual fellowship programme in education for the 2017-18 academic year.

Post-graduates in any discipline, with 3-10 years of work experience, will be offered monthly stipend of Rs 28,800. The candidates should be proficient in local language and should be willing to relocate to the districts where the foundation operates.

“The two-year programme offers ground experience in educational and social space, with teaching in state-run schools and participation in our field institutes in the first year and capacity building and preparation for teaching roles in the second year,” the foundation said in a statement.

After two-week induction in Bengaluru, the fellows will be posted in districts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttarakhand, where the foundation works through its field institutes.

The selection is based on an online assessment followed by personal interviews.

“We know there are people working in organisations with a heart and mind for social change. This is an opportunity for them to know first-hand about the working environment, challenges and the satisfaction one can get while working to improve the quality and equity in school education in India,” said the foundation’s Chief People Officer Sudheesh Venkatesh in the statement.

The decade-old not-for-profit organisation has been working for domino impact on the quality and equity of education in 350,000 schools in eight states across the country.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-11-2016

Pass the Citizenship Bill in Assam as soon as possible

The BJP government in Assam has not even completed six months in office but agitations have started against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was introduced by the Centre in July. Keeping its promise to provide succour to refugees from neighbouring countries, the Bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act so that Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities from these nations could be granted citizenship even if they do not provide the required documents.

This Bill did not come as a surprise since the BJP had been talking for a long while about the need to give persecuted minorities from those three countries and six communities Indian citizenship subject to certain conditions.

The protests that have started in Assam against the Bill are premised on the fact that Hindu Bangladeshis will overshadow the Assamese identity. But protesters such as former chief minister Prafulla Mahanta and activist Akhil Gogoi are giving the wrong figures of migrants: Post-March 1971, the number of Hindu Bengalis who came in is hardly about 1.5 lakh as compared to the 55 lakh Muslim illegal migrants.

Even former Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi who ruled the state for 15 years is seeing this as an opportunity to gain political limelight and has changed his stance to oppose the Bill.

Additionally, the opposition is hiding the fact that the Bill applies to the country and is not Assam specific.While the Bill proposes to reduce the number of years from 11 to six, which a person is required to live in India out of 14 years, to obtain citizenship by naturalisation, this could be further relaxed as the persecuted people from the six religions and three countries would have nowhere to go.

Thirty years have passed since the signing of the Assam accord in 1985 and the AGP and the Congress have failed to implement the accord while in power and the illegal migrant issue.

These are the same people that have remained indifferent to the corrupt network in the state administration that issued identity documents like ration cards to illegal settlers for paltry bribes and also sold land to these illegal settlers and employed many of them for labour or domestic help.

For Assam to grow economically, social and ethnic harmony have to be maintained. The state has lost years to movements, bandhs and militancy and these have affected the economy badly.

The government needs to deal maturely and sternly with protests against the Bill and ensure that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed by Parliament.

Subimal Bhattacharjee is a defence and cyber policy analyst

Source: Hindustan Times, 17-11-2016