Opinions and Editorials

The war on terror & the collateral damage. 33 innocent lives destroyed – By Baba Umar (Dec 8, 2012, Tehelka)

ON 31 July 2001, Syed Wasif Haider’s life changed, going from the humdrum to the hunted in the course of one long night. The plainclothes policemen, who came knocking at his door that night, were not guests the 1972-born sales manager in American multinational Becton Dickson was expecting. Haider calls it a kidnap because “they didn’t have an arrest warrant”. In the FIR, the police claimed to have arrested Haider on 3 August 2001. The next morning, a credulous media splattered the story across its pages. It made for ‘big’ news. Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran’s headline screamed: “Chamangunj Mein ISI Key Teen Agent Giraftaar” (Three ISI agents arrested in Chamangunj). The story quoted “highly placed sources” on Haider’s links with the Kashmir-based outfit, Hizbul Mujahideen. The condemnation came before the trial, and much before the case even reached the courts.

So when, on 18 November 2012, General Secretary of the CPM Prakash Karat led a delegation to President Pranab Mukherjee to demand the rehabilitation of wrongly imprisoned youth, Haider, who had spent eight long years in prison, found a place in it. The CPM had warned Parliament of the “dangerous consequences” of certain provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) Bill that are similar to the now-abolished TADA and POTA. Now, he told the president, these youth needed to be rehabilitated. “What has happened with many of these youth justifies the apprehensions we had spelt out then,” he said. “The new provisions of UAPA, added in 2008, in fact, give sweeping powers to police; and make it extremely difficult for the accused to get bail. So our party wants those provisions to go.”

With Haider were Mohammed Aamir from Delhi and Syed Maqbool Shah from Kashmir. Both had stayed behind bars for 14 long years, only to be acquitted. Aamir told the president that in the name of fighting the war on terror, Indian security agencies were inventing terrorists where none existed. Shah recounted several years of incarceration, of how young men are left to rot in jails for years together before being freed with a hollow redemption that leaves them jobless, stigmatised, and with the question: “Why us?” Aamir, the most outspoken of the trio, handed over a list of 33 youth who had been “implicated” (in a total of 22 cases) and remained in jail for over a decade before being acquitted by the courts. Each of them is today, Aamir asserts, without work, considered unskilled, and faced with a future that looks uncertain at best.

http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne081212MainLanding.asp

SEE ALSO:

• Acquitted by court, media trial still continues – By M. Reyaz (Nov 24, 2012, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012nov24/acquitted_court_media_trial_still_continues.html
• ‘The State created paranoia about Islamic terror to dodge real issues’ – By Shazia Nigar (Nov 22, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://www.tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ws221112PROTESTS.asp
• As many terror cases fall flat in courts, the stigma stays forever for the acquitted – By Mufti Islah, Shawan Sen (Nov 28, 2012, IBN)
  http://ibnlive.in.com/news/as-many-terror-cases-fall-flat-in-courts-the-stigma-stays-forever-for-the-acquitted/307766-3.html

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As protests roil Charminar, Hyderabad’s heritage slowly vanishes – By A.Srivathsan (Nov 20, 2012, The Hindu)

A small Hindu temple constructed by the side of and abutting one of the four minarets of the 420-year-old Charminar has been at the root of recent troubles in Hyderabad. What started as objections to erecting a temporary structure over the shrine has now grown into a violent protest that questions the legality of the temple. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) – responsible for protecting this national monument since 1951 – is blamed for failing to protect Hyderabad’s Islamicate heritage. Over the past 10 days, vehicles have been burnt, people have been attacked, and shops in this busy hub have been shutdown. The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), the political party that is at the forefront of the protest, has withdrawn its support to Congress both in the State and at the Centre over this issue. The fight in the name of Charminar is not a warning flare about the condition of just one heritage structure. It is a reflection of persisting state apathy, dismal performance of institutions that manage the city’s heritage and the misuse of history for political gains.

Contrary to the claims by Hindu groups, an old photograph available with The Hindu shows that the contentious temple dedicated to goddess Bhagyalakshmi is not as old as the Charminar. There is no date stamp on the photograph, but from the presence of the cars, it can be inferred that the photograph was taken about 60 years ago. No temple structure is visible in the picture. This lends credence to reports that the temple is only a few decades old and that what started as a tiny structure surreptitiously expanded into a shrine of significant size. There may not have been any serious protest against the presence of the Bhagylakshmi temple in the past, but the fact remains that the ASI failed to check the construction of the temple and its subsequent expansion. This is the case even in Golconda fort, another centrally protected monument located at the outskirts of the city. This fort along with the Charminar is vying for World Heritage Site status. Despite being a protected monument, more than 2000 illegal constructions have come up within this complex and the ASI has not been able to prevent them.

“Though ASI is empowered by an Act, we can only issue legal notice, but enforcing and removing encroachments cannot be done without State government support. We neither have the manpower nor the force,” an official explained. The State department of archaeology does not fare any better. Of the 42 protected structures listed by the department, five are missing. Anuradha Reddy, convenor of INTACH Hyderabad chapter who inspected these sites as a member of the technical committee, points to the case of Malkajgiri fort as a classic example of state apathy. “This ancient structure has been leased to a brewery company. Not only have they added many new buildings inside, even public access has been blocked,” she explained. Even the 16th century Badshahi Ashurkhana, which is a revered sacred space in the city and world renowned for its mosaic tile work, was not easy to protect. The Ashurkhana is a state protected monument, but shops and others structures steadily encroached the site. Following public interest litigation, in 2009, the High Court ordered the removal of unauthorised constructions. But the shop owners and MIM party members tried to resist it. Till date, for want of police protection, the state authorities could not fence the cleared area and erect a board declaring that the structure is a protected monument.

The authorities have remained indifferent to many insensitive and unauthorised expansions of beautiful old mosques which are also in the protected list. The three storied concrete construction in front of the Musheerabad mosque is a case in point. The condition of another 150 historic structures in the city declared as heritage buildings by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority is even more precarious. Theoretically these structures are regulated by special building rules and any plans to modify them have to be scrutinised by the Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC). But in reality these rules have been selectively applied and largely overlooked. The Hyderabad Corporation, citing ASI rules, rejected an application to build in a private property near Charminar. But in another case, when a shopping complex was built within the prohibited zone of Charminar, the Corporation regularised it without referring to the HCC. It has also de-notified a few heritage structures despite the HCC opposing it. The pedestrianisation of the Charminar area which was first planned in 2000 is yet to be implemented in full.

MIM, which is demanding better protection for Charminar, has not been consistent in its position on heritage structures either. Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM president and a Member of Parliament said that “a general answer cannot be given” regarding conservation of the city’s Islamicate heritage. “Each building has to be separately looked at,” he told The Hindu in an interview “We welcome road widening projects and do not agree with some of the objections made by heritage groups. But in the case of the proposed metro, we have recently submitted a letter asking one of the alignments be changed to save a large number of Islamic historical structures from being affected,” he added. The situation was neatly summed up by Sajjad Shahid, heritage activist and a member of the HCC: “Hyderabad was the second city in the country after Mumbai to bring in legislation to protect heritage structures. But all that enthusiasm and benefits of an early start were lost. A general apathy has set in and planning has failed. The government has no political will and had not upheld the law. The Charminar incident is an instructive example.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/andhra-pradesh/as-protests-roil-charminar-hyderabads-heritage-slowly-vanishes/article4116422.ece

SEE ALSO:

• The temple near Charminar: Genesis of a controversy – By Ayub Khan (Nov 16, 2012, Twocircles.net)
  http://twocircles.net/2012nov16/temple_near_charminar_genesis_controversy.html

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Modi’s Gujarat and Its Little Illusions – By Neera Chandhoke (Dec 8, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)

For some unfathomable reason, the Gujarat elections are being show-cased as if they were a run-through of the 2014 general elections. If Chief Minister Narendra Modi, it is predicted, wins, not only will he stake claim to the prime ministerial berth, he will also straddle it, preferably wearing a jewelled crown. His party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going about this task in the same methodical way it prepared Gujarat as a laboratory for Hindutva in the 1980s. But when last checked, the map of India had not changed. Gujarat had not expanded geographically and become coterminous with India, and neither had India shrunk to the size of Gujarat. Apart from geographical vastness, substantial parts of India remain committed to democracy and diversity, to secularism, to toleration, to pluralism, and to just letting people be. Politics can be unpredictable, but as of now the assumption that there is some inescapable link between winning elections in a state that has been hammered into homogeneity, and winning national elections in a country as diverse as India, seems an adolescent’s dream. For one, many have not forgotten 2002. Even if we were to believe that the BJP government did not mastermind the pogrom, it did stand by and watch while 2,000 people died brutal and premature deaths. That should not be forgotten, for those who cannot remember the past, Santayana reminded us, are doomed to repeat it.

Or perhaps Modi believes that the rest of us clutch the region of our respective hearts in breathless admiration for the so-called development miracle of Gujarat. Certainly, Gujarat has done well out of globalisation. Businesses have been subsidised, sales tax reduced, exemptions in taxes mandated, industrial parks developed, ports upgraded, and foreign investments encouraged. After 2000 the state domestic product in Gujarat escalated compared to the rest of India. During the period 2000-01 to 2007-08, agriculture and allied sectors grew at almost 10% per annum. Yet as every student of development knows, it is not only about the growth of gross domestic product, it is also and mainly about human development. Gujarat’s performance in poverty reduction and human development has been poor compared to other states which are growing at a lower rate. According to the 2011 India Human Development Report, in the human development index the state slipped from the 5th rank in 1996, to the 9th rank in 2006. It is the worst performer in child malnutrition with 69.7% of children up to the age of five anaemic and 44.6% malnourished. Health indicators for the scheduled tribes (STs) are worse than that at the national level, and also poorer than that for other social groups in the state. According to the Global Hunger Index brought out by the International Food Policy Research Institute, India ranks 66 among the 88 countries listed. Among the five worst performers is Gujarat. Gujarat’s literacy rate is only marginally above the national average, and is extremely low in the tribal belt. In sum, Gujarat has proved to be one state where social welfare has not proved commensurate with increases in rates of economic growth.

Compare this with Tamil Nadu which has managed to combine a high degree of globalisation with the delivery of the preconditions of well-being. The reasons for success in this field can be traced to the historical legacy of the anti-caste movement, a committed leadership and a well-functioning bureaucracy, and a politically aware electorate. But it is the institutionalisation of a two-party system that has contributed to this success in more ways than one. Though these parties resemble each other, doppelgängers in more ways than one, the leadership of each party tries to outbid the other, and promise to the electorate all manner of good things ranging from bicycles to colour television sets. The power of the vote has both been understood and used effectively by voters. Viewed in this particular frame of reference, political expectations of the state in Tamil Nadu appear as a unique product of policies and political practices of the Dravidian parties who came into power in the state in the late 1960s. This enabled the electorate to make a choice between alternatives. The political expectations of the electorate in Gujarat on the other hand have been shaped by a very specific political context. Since 1995 the BJP has ruled the state and the other party, the Congress has lost out completely. Since 2001 Gujarat has been ruled by Modi, who is the longest serving chief minister of any state. The problem is that a de facto one-party system does not allow for political choices, and thereby does not compel the ruling party to heed popular expectations. Thereby, Gujarat has failed to ensure well-being even though it is one of the richest states in India.

The simple fact is that voters require a two-party or a multiparty system in order to use their vote effectively. Where a particular party is led by a figure who is considered to be charismatic, e g, Modi in Gujarat, or when he and his party, succeed in mobilising the electorate on grounds such as hyper nationalism or what is called Gujarati self-respect orasmita, the electorate actually tends towards depoliticisation. Political choices, for this party over that one, are not a given. They are the outcome of historical processes. In other words, the shaping of political preferences takes place in the context of institutions that bear traces of their own history-ideologies, leaderships, and actors which mould state-society relations. Conceivably political actors will behave differently in another situation. The contrast between Tamil Nadu and Gujarat is more than illustrative of this finding. Gujarat also lacks a vibrant civil society which in the case of Kerala has propelled social democracy. Despite some serious flaws, Kerala has achieved high indicators of social development such as infant mortality, literacy, and life expectancy. These compare favourably with those of several developed countries (IHDR: 65). In terms of health indicators, the performance of the state is the best in the country. It is undeniable that competent healthcare is directly related to the establishment of supportive infrastructure, high literacy rates, the mass media, social movements, and a strong political will.

Kerala’s success in ensuring well-being to a majority of its people is largely due to the interaction of two main factors. One, the goals of the Left Front government led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – CPI(M) – have been institutionalised, and are generally adhered to even when non-left parties are in power. Second, Kerala possesses an active civil society, which has constantly pressed for the delivery of social goods. The anti-caste movement, missionary activities, and left movements in Kerala have aided in raising human development and social security for the poor. Women have played an especially important role in these movements. It is by now clear that states with high social development indicators might or might not be states with highest incomes. This finding has been substantiated by theHuman Development Report 2010. “One of the most surprising results of human development research in recent years…is the lack of a significant correlation between economic growth and improvements in health and education” (UNDP HDR 2010: 4). Kerala is a reluctant globaliser but performs best on literacy and infant mortality indicators. Gujarat is a high globaliser but lags behind on well-being. This is not to say civil society does not exist in Gujarat. Since the turn of the 20th century, Ahmedabad alone has an impressive number of civil society organisations. Many of them are philanthropic; many others are in the business of social service, and delivery of social goods. Sadly, however, civil society has kept silent on malnutrition and poor health services. It has certainly kept quiet on rampant injustice to the minorities. In 1919, when Gandhi was arrested by the colonial government, and the crowds erupted in anger on Ahmedabad’s streets, Gandhians walked the streets and counselled patience. Where were all these Gandhians in 2002, where were the leaders of the substantial Jain community wedded to non-violence, and where were the so-called holy men who head wealthy institutions and presumably teach the virtues of nirvana? Citizens of Gujarat were slaughtered in the streets, women were raped, little children were knifed, and civil society watched! So much for the much vaunted autonomy of civil society from the state. Civil societies it turns out follow the script authored by states and ruling parties. And this particular script enjoins on them the quietude of the tomb. Let us get the picture right. Today Gujarat appears peaceful because the minorities have been banished to the spatial margins or the ghetto, and bludgeoned into acquiescence by a muscular ideology that has tamed both political and civil society. The people of Gujarat have paid a heavy price for buying into demagoguery. Let us hope they understand that growth without human development is hollow, and democracy without minority rights is tyranny.

http://www.epw.in/commentary/modis-gujarat-and-its-little-illusions.html

SEE ALSO:

• Opportunity Costs Of A Leader – By Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan (Dec 10, 2012, Outlook)
  http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283185
• Gujarat: Campaign diet – By Anupama Katakam (Dec 1, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2924/stories/20121214292411001.htm

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A troubling legacy – Editorial (Nov 19, 2012, The Hindu)

Like all those who mobilise on the basis of ethnicity and religion, Bal Thackeray fashioned the Shiv Sena’s formidable clout out of political building blocks that were base and primordial. The language of hate and, when needed, violence were deployed to generate fear and insecurity, pride and solidarity. The founder-leader of the Shiv Sena first invoked Maratha pride against the State’s linguistic minorities and then the divisive agenda of Hindutva against religious minorities. Mumbai’s jobless were not offered land or employment, but they were taught whom to blame for all their miseries: the south Indians, the Gujaratis, and the Muslims. As a strategy of political mobilisation, this worked wonderfully well. The Sena’s brand of collective identity and the use of lumpens in direct action displaced trade unionism as the organising principle in political bargaining. Thackeray’s legion of followers raised him to the status of a demigod who could force an entire State to shut down with the mere threat of violence.

Of course, the Sena leader did not gather strength overnight. From his days as a caricaturist, he perfected the art of lampooning political rivals, and drew crowds with his acerbic oratorical skills. Like Hitler, whom he admired, Thackeray knew how to command loyalty and inflame passions. Every failing of his opponents added to his muscle power. Although the Sena took time to grow into a political force, and come to power with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party, in another sense, it was a rapid political success, inspiring organisational fear in opponent parties, and proving to be of political use to the powerful and the moneyed classes.

But the Shiv Sena’s success came at a great price for not only Mumbai and Maharashtra, but India as well. Mumbai’s communal fault lines were thoroughly exploited by Thackeray and his Sainiks, especially in the weeks after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. As the Srikrishna Commission documents, Muslims were systematically killed in riots engineered by Sena leaders. The brazen anti-minorityism of the Sena fed the BJP’s agenda in other parts of India too.

Other States in India have seen the rise of regional parties, which too have invoked regional and linguistic pride in their political mobilisation. But none of these parties displays the unreconstructed chauvinism of the Sena. Ironically the one outfit to rival its methods and approach is the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, which broke away from Bal Thackeray in 2006. Even as people in Mumbai and Maharashtra mourn the passing of the patriarch, they ought to reflect on the manner in which his sectarian politics diminished the great city and State and demand of his legatees a change of course.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/a-troubling-legacy/article4108876.ece

SEE ALSO:

• Bal Thackeray: Identity Politics To The Fore – By Ram Puniyani (Nov 20, 2012, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani201112.htm
• Bal Thackeray’s death has as many difficult lessons for our democracy as did his life – By Shoma Chaudhury (Dec 1, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Op011212Editer_cut.asp
• How the tiger got his saffron stripes – By Kumar Ketkar (Dec 1, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne011212How.asp
• ‘Thackeray got a state funeral largely because he was an artist, not as much for his politics’ – Prithviraj Chavan with Rana Ayyub (Dec 1, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne011212Thackeray.asp

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The Unwisdom Of Ajmal Kasab’s hanging – By N. Jayaram (Nov 24, 2012, Countercurrents)

Wednesday, 21 November 2012 was a difficult day for the many Indians cutting across barriers of class, caste, religion or region, who oppose the death penalty. With no prior public discussion or even announcement, India’s cowardly government put to death Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, a 25-year-old Pakistani, the sole survivor of the 2008 attacks on the western Indian city of Bombay in which nearly 170 people were killed and more than 300 injured. The execution was carried out in secret and by stealth, in a manner unbecoming of a country that preens itself as the world’s largest democracy. It is undemocratic countries that execute quietly and at short notice. The convict’s hanging came days after the natural death in Bombay of Bal Thackeray, founding leader of Shiv Sena, which is widely believed to have been behind the killings, over the decades, of thousands of people in the city and other parts of Maharashtra – mostly Muslims and large numbers of South Indians and others. His death drew routine expressions of condolences from official India, which said his death was an “irreparable loss”. His body was draped in the national flag and given a 21-gun salute.

This speaks of the abject cynicism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government and of a society large parts of which bays for the blood of religious minorities engaged in alleged terrorist activities but looks askance at what ought to be labelled crimes against humanity by Hindu fanatics. None of the prime leaders behind the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi in which more than 3,000 people were killed have faced trial. It took a little more than 10 years after the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat where more than 2,000 people were killed, to pass sentence on a few dozen accused including former state minister Maya Kodnani in one case. In passing sentences ranging from life imprisonment shorter terms (Kodnani was handed 28 years), JudgeJyotsna Yagnik observed that capital punishment “undermines human dignity”. Again many prime movers have remained scot free. Kasab’s killing came within hours of India joining Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and other recalcitrant states in opposing a United Nations resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty (passed with 110 states supporting and 39 opposing). The execution also came a day after a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India made some confusing pronouncements on the issue: it said – correctly – that the Court’s now 32-year-old precept of handing down the death penalty in the “rarest of rare cases” was being differently applied by different judges (in other words, these judges were playing with human lives, albeit the lives of convicted criminals). But bizarrely, it went on to bar the authorities from granting sentence remissions.

Hardly any major Indian politician has criticised the hanging. A man who goes by the name of Anna Hazare (‘Anna’ being an assumed or conferred honorific) and who claims to be a Gandhian, reportedly said: “It’s taken too long to hang Kasab. He should have been hanged in public (chauraha – street corner). A public hanging of Kasab would have been a lesson for anybody who causes loss of life in our country. But it is heartening that sections of the media have criticised it and on online social networks many people from all sections of society and all age groups have expressed dissent. With Kasab’s hanging, India lost a prime witness who would have been valuable in efforts to get Pakistan to book Hafiz Saeed who is believed to be the prime suspect behind the Mumbai terrorist attack. In March 2011, The Hindu, quoting Wikileaks documents, reported that a dossier linking the Jamat-ud-Dawa chief to the Bombay attacks, which had been handed to Pakistan, was “drawn almost entirely from the confession of the surviving guman, Ajmal Amir Kasab, and statements by Fahim Ansari and Sabahuddin.” Ansari and Sabahuddin are implicated in other cases too. “(Former) National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan described the material in the dossier as ‘Grade-1 evidence’,” The Hindu had noted. Why did the Indian authorities execute the most important witness?

Some oft-heard arguments advanced in defence of Kasab’s execution are that victims and survivors have rights, that his life in jail costs the tax-payer crores of rupees, that keeping him alive would provoke more terrorist attacks or motivate a hijacking attempt. It is heartening that at least one Bombay film star, Ashish Chowdhry, stated openly that he was not celebrating Kasab’s hanging, even though he had lost his sister and her husband in the attacks. There is a great need in India for forming network of survivors of crime and terrorist attacks opposed to retribution. Indians need to begin to acknowledge that the right to life is unexceptionable. Howsoever hate-worthy, everyone, including those convicted of terrorist attacks, those who have monumentally failed to respect the right to life of others, have an inalienable claim on the right to life, the most fundamental of rights.

And the same applies to the cost of keeping a convict alive. In the United States, given the high cost of litigation – anti-death penalty activists are well-organised and ensure that appeals and objections are filed to keep the administration occupied for months or years – keeping a convict alive is cheaper. India need not wait until human life becomes less cheap here in order to choose life-imprisonment over the death sentence. Some bizarre claims had been made in respect of Kasab’s life in jail. At least one, that he was kept plied with biriyani, has been exploded. Other rumours regarding cost need to be nailed. As for hijacking risks, Turkey spared the life of Kurdish separatist leader Abullah Ocalan when it abolished the death penalty as part of its application requirement to join the European Union (all of whose members are abolitionist). There has been no known attempt to get him freed through terrorist acts. Rather, Ocalan is reported to have mellowed in jail and to have called for a peaceful solution to regional problems. Executing a captured terrorist is the easy way out. Dealing with the causes of terrorism is the difficult task that the Indian state has thus far failed to engage in, be it in Kashmir, the northeastern states or the central Indian tribal belt. …

http://www.countercurrents.org/jayaram241112.htm

SEE ALSO:

• Questions left hanging – By V. Venkatesan (Dec 1, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2924/stories/20121214292412800.htm

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500 Dalit Homes Burnt, And A News Blip – By Imran Khan (Dec 1, 2012, Tehelka)

The aftermath of the caste violence in Dharmapuri district of northern Tamil Nadu has rendered thousands of Dalits homeless and living in constant fear of another possible attack. On 7 November, a mob of 2,500 backward-caste Vanniyars had burnt and looted around 500 houses of Dalits, claiming to avenge the death of a Vanniyar who committed suicide after his daughter married a Dalit. Adding to the fear is a statement by Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) MLA Kaduvetti Guru, who heads the Vanniyar Sangam, forbidding inter-caste marriages. Locals and even the police officials posted in the area say the attack was premeditated and done with the connivance of pro-Vanniyar sections of the police and cadres of the PMK. Between 5 pm and 10 pm on 7 November, every single house of the three hamlets of Nathamkottai, Kondampatti and Annanagar was burnt down. “Around 4:30 pm, the police started doing the rounds, asking us to run for our lives as a mob of Vanniyars was on its way to attack us,” says Paulina, 30, a Dalit Christian and mother of three, who ran to the nearby fields to save herself, along with other women, children and the elderly. There were few men in the villages at the time as most of them work as labourers in the construction sector in Bengaluru and Coimbatore, or in the garment-manufacturing sweatshops in Tirupur. Now, Paulina stays in a temporary community shelter set up a stone’s throw away from the charred remains of her oneroom house. “They even took away the cash and jewellery we had left behind,” she adds.

Madiwayan, 36, works as a scrap-dealer in Bengaluru and was not in the village at the time of the attack. His parents were hiding in the nearby fields when the irate mob arrived. “It took me over a decade to save Rs 24 lakh, which I spent on building my house. They burnt it to the ground and also looted Rs 2 lakh that I had kept to buy some land nearby,” he says. Usha, wife of Periyaswamy, a cook in the local government hospital, says the police was unable to stop the mob. “The police came back only around 1 am and announced over the loudspeakers that those who had fled the village should come back.” The women returned the same night, followed by the children and the elderly the next morning.

The genesis of the recent violence is traced to the marriage of a Dalit man, Ilavarasan, 23, from Nathamkottai, with a Vanniyar woman, Divya, 20. As Divya’s father, 48-year-old R Nagarajan of Sallinkottai village, disapproved of their relationship, the couple had got married in secret a month ago. Nagarajan asked his daughter to return home, but she refused. Then, a meeting of the Vanniyar community was held, where it was decided that Divya must return to her father’s house. When she did not relent despite the community’s pressure, her father allegedly felt humiliated and committed suicide on 6 November. The Dalits of the three hamlets attacked by the Vanniyar mob allege that the father’s suicide was used as a pretext to whip up caste sentiments and fuel anger over inter-caste marriages. “There are more than seven inter-caste couples in our village. My wife Radha is a Vanniyar. We haven’t seen any violence in the 12 years of our marriage. The Vanniyars are just angry that we do not work in their fields for meagre wages,” says NC Armugham, 36, who runs a grocery store in Bengaluru.

Agrees Palaaiswamy, 40, who works as a newspaper vendor in Bengaluru. “Even a month after the couple had eloped, Nagarajan did not seem particularly upset,” he says. “We suspect his community must have pressured him to take this extreme step.” The attack has left the Dalits of the three hamlets economically devastated. A fact-finding team of People’s Watch, a Chennai-based NGO, which visited the area on 11-12 November along with the state representative of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights for RTE in Tamil Nadu, estimates the total economic loss caused by the attack to be around Rs 12 crore. According to this report, 215 families were affected in Nathamkottai, 152 in Kondampatti and 36 in Annanagar. The Jayalalitha government has offered Rs 50,000 as compensation to the victims.

“Violence of this kind would not have happened without the active support of the police,” says Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director of People’s Watch. “We found that the Vanniyars used more than 150 petrol bombs. It looks like a planned attack, instigated by the PMK, though Vanniyars from other parties also participated in it.” So far, the police has arrested 92 Vanniyars and filed cases against 218 more. PMK State Council Member Senthil denies any party hand in the violence. “Our party has worked for the upliftment of Dalits and it played no role in the incident,” he says. “Our position on inter-caste love marriages is that boys and girls less than 20 years old should not be allowed to get married as they cannot support themselves independently. Most end up getting divorced within six months. We are also campaigning for raising the marriageable age for girls to 21,” he adds. At best, this is an absurd argument. Moreover, in the case of Divya and Ilavarasan, neither was below 20. It is as if all the violence could be justified on the ground that Divya missed the PMK cut-off by a year. …

http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne011212DALIT.asp

SEE ALSO:

• For a Dalit perspective – By Jayati Ghosh (Dec 1, 2012, Frontline)
  http://flonnet.com/fl2924/stories/20121214292411200.htm

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