Hindi Article-Assam NRC

क्या असम के प्रवासी देश की सुरक्षा के लिए खतरा हैं? राम पुनियानी राष्ट्रीय नागरिक रजिस्टर (एनआरसी) का पहला मसौदा जारी होते ही पूरे देश में बवाल उठ खड़ा हुआ है। इस सूची से असम में रह रहे लगभग 40 लाख लोगों के नाम गायब हैं। शासक दल भाजपा के अध्यक्ष अमित शाह का कहना है कि जिन लोगों के नाम एनआरसी में नहीं हैं, वे घुसपैठिये हैं, देश की सुरक्षा के लिए खतरा हैं, इन लोगों के कारण राज्य के संसाधनों पर बहुत दबाव पड़ रहा है और राज्य के मूल नागरिक कष्ट भोग रहे हैं। अपीलों के निराकरण के बाद, एनआरसी का अंतिम मसौदा प्रकाशित होगा और जिन लोगों के नाम इसमें नहीं होंगे, उन पर अनिश्चितता की तलवार लटकने लगेगी। सामान्य समझ यह है कि जिन लोगों के नाम एनआरसी में नहीं हैं, वे बांग्लादेशी मुसलमान हैं। शाह के निशाने पर भी मूलतः यही लोग हैं। यह प्रचार भी किया जा रहा है कि ये लोग संसाधनों पर बोझ और सुरक्षा के लिए खतरा होने के अतिरिक्त, राज्य के भाषायी और नस्लीय स्वरुप को बदल रहे हैं। तथ्य यह है कि जिन लोगों के नाम इस सूची में नहीं हैं, उनमें कई समुदाय के व्यक्ति शामिल हैं। ऐसी खबरें हैं कि इनमें भारी संख्या में हिन्दू हैं और पश्चिम बंगाल व नेपाल आदि के रहवासी भी। यह दिलचस्प है कि एनआरसी ने कई परिवारों को बिखेर दिया है। ऐसे अनेक परिवार हैं, जिनके कुछ सदस्यों के नाम इसमें शामिल हैं और कुछ के नहीं। इससे छूट गए लोगों में असुरक्षा और भय का भाव जागना स्वाभाविक है। पश्चिम बंगाल की मुख्यमंत्री ममता बनर्जी ने एनआरसी के खिलाफ युद्ध का बिगुल बजा दिया है। यह मांग भी उठ रही है कि देश के अन्य भागों के लिए भी एनआरसी बनाया जाना चाहिए। नस्लीय और भाषायी मसलों को अगर हम छोड़ भी दें, तो सांप्रदायिक ताकतें लम्बे समय से बांग्लादेशी प्रवासियों का मुद्दा उठाती आ रहीं हैं। मुंबई में सन 1992-93 के दंगों के बाद भी यह मुद्दा ज़ोर-शोर से उठाया गया था। दिल्ली में भी कई मौकों पर यह मुद्दा उठाया जाता रहा है। हाल में दिल्ली में रोहिंग्या मुसलमानों की एक बस्ती को आग के हवाले कर दिया गया। मूल मुद्दा असम के नस्लीय और धार्मिक चरित्र में बदलाव का है। इसके कई राजनैतिक और ऐतिहासिक कारण हैं। औपनिवेशिक काल में ब्रिटिश शासकों ने 'मानव रोपण' कार्यक्रम शुरू किया जिसके अंतर्गत अधिक जनसँख्या वाले बंगाल से लोगों को असम में बसने के लिए प्रोत्साहित किया जाना था। इस कार्यक्रम के दो उद्देश्य थे: बंगाल पर तेजी से बढ़ती जनसँख्या का दबाव काम करना और असम की खाली पड़ी ज़मीन पर खेती शुरू कर, अनाज का उत्पादन बढ़ाना। इस कार्यक्रम के अंतर्गत बंगाल के जो रहवासी असम में बसे, उनमें हिन्दू और मुसलमान दोनों शामिल थे। आज़ादी के समय भी असम की मुस्लिम जनसँख्या इतनी अधिक थी क़ि जिन्ना ने यह मांग की थी कि असम को पाकिस्तान का हिस्सा बनाया जाना चाहिए। बाद में, पाकिस्तानी सेना द्वारा पूर्व पाकिस्तान (अब बांग्लादेश) में प्रारम्भ किये गए कत्लेआम के कारण, बड़ी संख्या में इस इलाके में रह रहे लोग असम में आ बसे। सेना के दमन से बचने के लिए उनके पास इसके अतिरिक्त कोई रास्ता भी नहीं था। बांग्लादेश के निर्माण के बाद, वहां की गंभीर आर्थिक स्थिति के चलते, कुछ लोग आर्थिक कारणों से असम में बस गए। एनआरसी कुछ दस्तावेजों के आधार पर तैयार किया गया है। क्या यह संभव नहीं है कि कुछ वैध नागरिकों के पास ये दस्तावेज न हों और कुछ अवैध नागरिकों ने नकली दस्तावेज बना लिए हों? जहाँ तक इस आरोप का प्रश्न है कि वोट बैंक राजनीति की खातिर देश में अवैध प्रवेश को बढ़ावा दिया गया, इसमें अधिक से अधिक आंशिक सत्यता ही हो सकती है। लोग केवल बाध्यकारी परिस्थितियों में दूसरे देश में अवैध प्रवासी के रूप में बसते हैं। आखिर यह उनके पूरे जीवन का प्रश्न होता है। ये लोग भी ईश्वर की संतान हैं और इस क्रूर दुनिया में किसी तरह अपनी ज़िन्दगी बसर कर रहे हैं। हमें यह भी नहीं भूलना चाहिए कि दुनिया में कई देश ऐसे हैं जहाँ कि कुबेर, धन के बदले नागरिकता खरीद सकते हैं। और ना ही हमें यह भूलना चाहिए की हमारे देश के कई नागरिक, जनता की गाढ़ी कमाई का धन लूट कर विदेशों में चैन की बंसी बजा रहा हैं। क्या गरीबों के लिए इस दुनिया में कोई जगह ही नहीं है? यह सही है कि असम में भारी गड़बड़ियां हुई हैं। परन्तु वहां जो कुछ हुआ, उसके लिए केवल बांग्लादेश से वहां बस गए मुसलमानों को दोषी ठहरना और उन्हें देश की सुरक्षा के लिए खतरा बताना ठीक नहीं है। पूर्व सरकारों ने भी कई ऐसे लोगों को निर्वासित किया है। ऐसे लोगों के साथ क्या किया जाये जो सबसे निचले दर्जे के काम करके अपना पेट पाल रहे हैं? हमारे देश में सामाजिक सुरक्षा कवच तो है नहीं कि उससे लाभ उठाने के लालच में लोग यहाँ बस जाएं। हम सब देख रहे हैं कि किस प्रकार 'देश-विहीन' रोहिंग्या मुसलमानों को विभिन्न देशों में पटका जा रहा है। सांप्रदायिक तत्त्व रोहिंग्याओं को भी खतरा बता रहे हैं और सभी बांग्ला-भाषी मुसलमानों और हिन्दुओं को बांग्लादेशी। अब तक भारत एक बड़े दिल वाला देश रहा है। हमने कभी शरणागत को नहीं ठुकराया। हमने तमिल-भाषी श्रीलंका निवासियों को गले लगाया और तिब्बत के बौद्धों को सम्मान से रखा। अफ़ग़ानिस्तान और बांग्लादेश से आने वाले हिन्दुओं को शरणार्थी और मुसलमानों को घुसपैठिया बताना अमानवीय है। अगर एनआरसी का अंतिम मसौदा तैयार भी हो गया तो इससे हमें क्या हासिल होगा? वतर्मान में बांग्लादेश के सामाजिक-आर्थिक सूचकांक भारत से बेहतर हैं। बांग्लादेश पहले से ही यह कह चुका है कि असम में रह रहे प्रवासी उसके नागरिक नहीं हैं और वह उनका देश-प्रत्यावर्तन स्वीकार नहीं करेगा। फिर हम, ऐसे लोगों, जिनके पास कुछ दस्तावेज नहीं हैं, को चिन्हित कर क्या करेंगे? क्या हम उन्हें शिविरों में कैद कर देंगे? वर्तमान में वे निचले दर्जे के काम कर अपनी रोज़ी- रोटी चला रहे हैं। आखिर इस पूरी कवायद से हमें मिलेगा क्या? यही कवायद देश के अन्य राज्यों में करने की मांग अर्थहीन है। आज ज़रूरी है कि हम इन लोगों के प्रति उसी तरह का करुणा भाव रखें जो हमने तमिल और बौद्ध शरणर्थियों के प्रति रखा था। विभाजन के बाद से भारत की जनसँख्या के स्वरुप में भारी परिवर्तन आया है और इसका कारण है आर्थिक व अन्य कारणों से हुआ प्रवास। हमारा यह दावा है कि हम वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम के दर्शन में विश्वास रखते हैं। हमें यह याद रखना होगा कि केवल वे ही नीतियां सफल होँगी जो करुणा और सहृदयता पर आधारित हों। हमें समाज के कमज़ोर वर्गों के प्रति सहानुभूति रखनी ही होगी। ऐसे वर्गों को सुरक्षा के लिए खतरा मानना अनुचित होगा। हमें मददगार और उदार ह्रदय बनना होगा। समावेशिता के अलावा कोई रास्ता नहीं है। (अंग्रेजी से हिन्दी रूपांतरण अमरीश हरदेनिया)

Rising Hate and Violence: What should Minorities do?

Countering Hate and Violence: What Should Minorities Do? Ram Puniyani The violence against religious minorities has been on the rise during last few years. Many a reports tell us not only about the overall rise in the violence but also about the portents of violence orchestrated in the name of Mother Cow and nationalism in recent times. It has increased the insecurity among the religious minorities to no end; leading to ghettotization, which has started affecting the social fabric in very adverse way. It is in this background that the efforts of Jamiat-e-Ulama Hind to start youth clubs for self defense have to be seen and assessed whether this is the right step? Maulana Mahmood Madani, the chief of the organization while telling about the efforts of his organizations gave an outline of the things to come. As per him the motto of the initiative is “to make youths capable of dealing with tough situations and help the country whenever there is a situation of crisis. He said that the outfit will provide training to the youths just like the Scouts and Guides.” Reacting to this the likes of Vinay Katiyar and spokesmen of RSS related organizations said that this may promote violence and that this is an attempt to copy RSS model, but it will not work. While Madani focused on the training like that of Boys Scouts and Guides, the self defense logic may lead it to an unwanted direction. Many a spokesmen from Muslim organizations have opposed this step of Jamiat by saying that Muslims have full faith in justice system and that giving safety and security to the citizens is the duty of the state. It’s undeniable that the feeling of insecurity among the Muslim and Christian community has seen an unprecedented rise; with the coming of Modi Sarkar to power. As such it has been RSS and its progeny which introduced the training in wielding lathi (baton), guns in a systematic way. RSS shakhas began with lathis in their shakhas. The question is that time the major problem of Indian society was with the British rule. Could they have used lathis against British? No way! It was primarily for the use within the society itself. From last few decades the Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini have been given training in guns as well. All this has been done in the name of self defense! What comes to one’s mind is that in post independence period we have the rule of law with Indian Constitution as the fulcrum of our values. Here we have police, judiciary for protection and justice. So what justifies the program of RSS combine in so called arms training? RSS is very fascinated with arms and every Dusshera day they worship armaments. They have an exhibition of armaments. There are reports doubting whether the police have information about these armaments with RSS, while they do hold license for that. While talking of non violence; RSS has glorified the arms and indulged in training the young boys and girls in these weapons. On the top of this RSS affiliates have undertaken Trishul (trident) distributions. These trishuls, which have been distributed times and over again; have contributed to rise in hate sentiments. Trishul has religiosity associated with Lord Shiva and is blunt; while the trishuls distributed by these groups have sharp edges like knife. Legal positions apart; such ‘self defense’ organized by communities is a negative phenomenon. Dilemmas of Muslim community and organizations like Jamiat are well taken. What should be the role of minority organizations in such troubled times? There are Muslim organizations which are opposing Jamiat’s move. Community’s plight cannot be saved by training some youths in techniques of scouts and guide, neither in copying the methods of RSS combine. What is needed is to call for proper implementation of justice and policing mechanism. Most of the communal violence reports tell us about the partisan attitude of the police and the lax attitude of political parties is the main reason for violence going up and up. Justice has not been delivered in 1984 anti-Sikh massacre; it might have given the major boost to the culture of impunity. In Mumbai Sri Kirshna Commission report was not implemented, boosting the trend of where criminal can get away, innocents suffer and justice is denied. In Gujarat violence, post Godhra, which took place right under the nose of the most efficient chief minster; nearly two thousand Hindus and Muslims were done to death, while state was accomplice in the violence. The Jamiat leadership should think whether they are going in the right direction. Good intentions alone are not enough. Let’s identify the core cause of violence. It’s the Hate manufactured in society. Hate in turn has peaked to mountainous heights due to the misconceptions about the minority community enhanced lately due to abuse of social media in a systematic and planned way. Islam has been demonized as violent religion and Christians are looked down as converters. In Gujarat the travails of the likes of Teesta Setalvad, foremost human rights activist, tell us that getting justice is a humongous task. The need to counter the divisive propaganda done by our TV channels, done through section of media and spruced up by social media needs to be countered. The perceptions about our medieval period, freedom movement and all inclusive nature of Indian nationalism need to be taken far and wide. What is needed is a broad alliance of those concerned about the security and protection of human rights of all. Right to life has lately been compromised heavily. All those working for preservation and promotion of rights of citizens need to come to uphold the basic Indian ethos of pluralism and the core values of Indian Constitution. Jamiat like organizations will do better by focusing on training the youth in the abilities to counter Hate by spreading the message of peace and love, by training them in countering the prevalent misconceptions against religious minorities and against weaker sections of society.

India: End Soft Approach Towards Sanatan Sanstha, Says Writer Konkan writer Damodar Mauzo

End Soft Approach Towards Sanatan Sanstha, Says Writer Facing Threat from Right-Wing

Seeking closure of Sanatan Sanstha, Konkan writer Damodar Mauzo says common people should rise up to the occasion to combat the culture of fear propagated by right-wing outfits.

Devika Sequeira

01/Aug/2018

Panaji: Almost a decade after the October 2009 bomb blast in Margao brought the shadowy activities of the Sanatan Sanstha into the open, the recent police disclosure that well known Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo also figures on the list of those marked for elimination by the group has hit a raw nerve. The Sahitya Akademi awardee was provided security cover after intelligence reports from Karnataka alerted the Goa government of the threat to Mauzo.

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https://thewire.in/rights/end-soft-approach-towards-sanatan-sanstha-says-writer-facing-threat-from-right-wing

Alternative legal redress systems are welcome but remember as experience in UK has shown sharia councils are the preserves of clerics who are intolerant of women’s equality

Courts of injustice
Alternative legal redress systems are needed and welcome. But, as debate in the UK has shown, sharia councils are the preserves of clerics who are intolerant of women’s equality and rights.
Written by Javed Anand

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/courts-of-injustice-sharia-law-triple-talaq-5282103/

India: Alwar lynching shows the government has put the burden of ending mob killings on victims themselves

https://scroll.in/article/888454/alwar-lynching-shows-the-government-has-put-the-burden-of-ending-mob-killings-on-victims-themselves

Alwar lynching shows the government has put the burden of ending mob killings on victims themselves

Relatives and neighbours of Rakhbar Khan, who was allegedly lynched to death on suspicion of cow-smuggling in Alwar's Lalawandi area on July 20, 2018. | Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo

Harsh Mander

I held Rakbar Khan’s father Suleiman’s hand in mine for a long time. His face was creased with grief, his eyes often welled up. Khan’s widow lay close by, stretched out on a string cot, her face fully covered with her red dupatta, unmindful of the claustrophobic heat, surrounded by women of her village who whispered around her in solicitous tones. “She has become crazed with her agony,” one of them said. “She just gets up and laughs.” Earlier, when she spoke publicly, she had lamented that she was left alone to raise her seven children, the smallest a boy who had only just spoken his first words. The children, most of them with light hazel eyes, gazed at us and the large crowd of village men who had gathered outside their home with puzzlement and nervous unease, unable to comprehend why their father had been killed, and why so many of us had collected there.

Some things are by now clear about the circumstances in which 28-year-old Rakbar Khan, an impoverished, nearly unlettered dairy farmer, was lynched in Rajasthan’s Alwar district on the night of July 21, a few kilometres from his village Kolgaon in Haryana’s Nuh district. Other facts are still disputed or deliberately obscured. The facts beyond dispute are that as Rakbar Khan was returning home on foot under cover of darkness with his friend Aslam Khan and two dairy cows he had bought from Rajasthan, he was attacked by a group of men claiming to be gau rakshaks or cow protectors. Aslam Khan managed to escape but Rakbar Khan was not so fortunate.

As a teenager, Rakbar Khan had laboured on sand and stone-mining sites in the surrounding Aravali Hills. After the mining was shut down a decade ago, he fell back on the only other vocation his family knew, dairy farming, supplemented with intermittent farm labour. Two milch cows were tethered outside the family’s small home. His father had aged, and Rakbar Khan alone could barely bring in Rs 5,000 a month for his parents and children. He decided that his only chance to improve his family’s lot was to buy a couple more milk-yielding dairy cows – the local metaphor is biyahi or married cows, impregnated cows fecund with milk. His father-in-law had loaned him Rs 50,000 to buy two cows. These, Rakbar Khan had hoped, would change their lives. They did, but not in ways he had hoped. What transpired instead was the worst nightmare of every Muslim dairy farmer in Nuh today.

The Karwan e Mohabbat team visits Rakbar Khan's family in Kolgaon village in Haryana's Nuh village. (Credit: @karwanemohabbat / Twitter)

Each of them knows that buying cows and transporting them have become ultra-high-risk enterprises on the watch of the current political regimes in the country and in Haryana and Rajasthan. Since Pehlu Khanwas lynched last summer for buying and ferrying biyahi cows and their calves in a pick-up truck, farmers are terrified of the risk of being spotted anywhere with cows, and now even buffaloes. The law bans the slaughter of cows, not their transport for dairying.. But who will explain this to a lynch mob? Or for that matter to a state home minister, and even police officials, who continue to defame both Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan as cow smugglers, thereby directly rationalising their mob killings? Cow vigilante groups, openly supported by the political establishment and the police, rule the streets. It has become routine for those who transport dairy animals to face violence and extortion at their hands. Aggravating matters, the Haryana Police have established an official Cow Protection Force of men and women in uniform, with the official mandate of saving cows. There are now special cow protection police chowkis that are dreaded by farmers for their coercion and extortion.

Rakbar Khan weighed all of these risks before opting to embrace the hazards of buying a cow. The two cows would have doubled his monthly income from Rs 5,000 and allowed his children to drink more milk and to go to school, his parents to eat better. Too poor to hire a vehicle, he decided to walk the dairy cows home. And he decided to avoid the highways and walk instead through fields in the dark. Nuh is a Muslim-majority district, and we find that most incidents of lynching of Muslim farmers from here occur not within Nuh but in districts like Alwar in neighbouring Rajasthan, where Muslims are in a minority. Rakbar Khan and Aslam Khan were just a few kilometres from the borders of their district when some farmers alerted cow vigilante groups, who chased down the two men. A terrified Rakbar Khan left his two cows and endeavoured desperately to escape, but the men caught up with him. Aslam Khan barely managed to escape. He reached his home at dawn, his clothes smudged with wet mud. He had crawled face down through the fields, petrified through his nightmarish journey that the vigilantes would spot him.

We could not meet Aslam Khan in Kolgaon when our Karwan e Mohabbat team visited Rakbar Khan’s family. We were told that since his escape, he felt dragged down with the shame of abandoning his friend and had left the village for a while.

In Rakbar Khan's village Kolgaon, residents rejected claims that the dairy farmer had not died of injuries sustained during the mob assault. (Credit: Ashish Soni)

Who killed Rakbar Khan?

What remains bitterly contested about the events of that night is how severely the attackers, who reportedly bragged that they were backed by Rajasthan Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja, beat up Rakbar Khan. The men claimed they only slapped Rakbar Khan and beat him “a little” to “show off” to the crowd and teach him a lesson.. They produced a number of witnesses who told television reporters that Rakbar Khan was able to sit up after the beating. It was at the police station, where he was taken before he was brought to a hospital, that they claim he was beaten to death. Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Singh Kataria too said that this seemed to him to be a case not of cow lynching but of custodial killing. He seemed more willing to sacrifice the uniformed men under his charge than his party supporters who were given to lynching Muslim men.

However, during the Karwan team’s visit to Rakbar Khan’s village, the residents insisted it was the mob that had thrashed him nearly to death, not the police. It was only to save themselves that they had shifted the blame to the police, the villagers said. They hoped that with this, they would be spared the charge of murder, and even in the unlikely chance that they were convicted, they would spend just a few years in jail and emerge heroes. The policemen would, again at worst, face administrative action, and ultimately be acquitted when public memory faded.

It was the post-mortem report that confirmed the villagers’ version, that the mob attack had left Rakbar Khan critically injured.. It stated that he had suffered 13 injuries – including a fractured wrist, another fracture in the left femur, bruises, abrasions and a laceration – in the attack, and concluded that he had died of “shock as a result of ante-mortem [before death] injuries sustained over body”. It also said the injuries on his body were 12 hours old, calculated from the time of autopsy. Since the post-mortem was conducted at 12.44 pm on July 22, the time of the assault that killed Rakbar Khan was around midnight the night before, when he was still at the mercy of the mob.

Not just an ‘error in judgement’

Even though Rakbar Khan probably died mainly because of the mob assault, the police were far from blameless. If there was any life left in him when they got to him, he could possibly have been saved had they immediately taken him to hospital, which was just 4 km away. Instead, as is now well-known, they took nearly four hours during which they (or members of the mob) washed him and changed his clothes (a wanton and criminal act of destruction of evidence), delivered his cows to a cow sanctuary, stopped by for cups of tea and only then delivered him to the hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

Senior Rajasthan Police officials described the actions of their men in Alwar as only an “error in judgement”. What they failed to acknowledge was that this failure may have cost an innocent man his life, and therefore was criminal. They also did not admit that the policemen felt emboldened to act in this way because of the unambiguous messages they receive from their seniors, both in uniform and the political establishment. A minister in the Rajasthan government, Jaswant Yadav, rationalised the lynching as he alleged that Muslims smuggle cows. And Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the rising graph of lynchings reflected the growing popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the Pehlu Khan lynching incident too, the Rajasthan home minister and senior police officials had described the victims as cow smugglers, and the police had registered criminal cases against his son and nephew, even as the men named by Pehlu Khan in his dying declaration were either deemed by the police to be innocent or are out on bail.

In this way, the messages junior rungs of the police receive from their superiors, in uniform or from the elected executive, in Rajasthan as in most parts of the country today, are clear – that attacks on Muslims by mobs or men in uniform in the name of protecting the cow (or the “honour” of Hindu women) are understandable acts by provoked Hindus who love their religion, the cow and their country (in deplorable contrast to Indian Muslims). These police personnel anyway belong to the same society that is today widely surcharged with communal hatred against Muslims and caste hatred against Dalits. There is little in their training and leadership to encourage them to interrogate and, even less, abandon their communal and casteist instincts. If they are then extensively fuelled by open hate speech and encouragement of hate violence by those who control their careers, how can we blame just junior policepersons for the casual disregard they display for the law and for protecting the lives of Muslim and Dalit victims of targeted hate violence?

Rakbar Khan had bought two milch cows to give his impoverished family a better life. (Credit: @karwanemohabbat / Twitter)

An unsaid message

I end by examining the frank rationalisation of lynching by representatives of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP that I have encountered in every television debate I have participated in (and watched) in recent weeks. This is that lynching is the outcome of understandable and righteous Hindu anger because Muslims refuse to respect Hindu sentiments and continue to illegally slaughter cows. To take just one recent public articulation of justification for lynching, let us listen more carefully to the words of Rajasthan minister Jayant Yadav. He appealed to Muslims to stop the business of cow smuggling and to understand and respect the sentiments of Hindus. “Smugglers stuff 50-50 cows into a truck to smuggle them and sprinkle acid on them,” he told Aaj Tak. “I request Muslims to not take to cow smuggling as this hurts the sentiments of the Hindus.” Lynching occurs, he added, because this “boils the blood of Hindus”.

There are, of course, innumerable problems with this kind of reasoning that is widely peddled to validate mob violence. Even if it were true that Muslims generally smuggle cows and Hindus as a whole object to cow slaughter, it does not justify in any way the raising of a single hand against a Muslim (or any other person) who is transporting cows. His guilt or lack of it must be resolved only by the process established by law.

But even apart from this, the alleged Hindu-Muslim divide on the question of cow slaughter is a disingenuous, false and communally mischievous construction. Since incidents of lynching of dairy farmers in Nuh have grown in recent years, I have come to know closely the communities to which Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan belong. They love cows no less than any Hindu farmer. Both Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan were lynched when they were transporting dairy cows that they had bought for milk, not slaughter. Both had borrowed and spent Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 on each cow. The maximum a person can earn from selling a cow for slaughter is Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000. It is, therefore, indisputable that they were legitimate and lawful dairy farmers, not illicit smugglers of cows for slaughter. Despite this, senior ministers, elected representatives of the BJP and the police persist in slandering them as cow smugglers. On the other hand, many Hindus also eat cow meat. The BJP needs to clarify if they regard Dalits to be Hindus, and if they do, how can they generalise that all Hindus oppose cow slaughter? What about Hindus who live in Assam and Kerala? And then, of course, the ordinary farmer, both Hindu and Muslim, who may deeply love the cow, but who does not have the wherewithal to feed and rear the cow when her milk dries and she ages?

Adityanath, the saffron-clad chief minister of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, declared that human beings must be protected, but so also must cows. “It is the responsibility of every individual, every community, every religion to respect each other’s sentiments,” he said, days after Rakbar Khan’s lynching. What he implied but did not say explicitly was that Muslims must respect the alleged sentiments of Hindus, but Hindus owe Muslims no such obligation.

In other words, the BJP unambiguously places the burden of ending lynching violence on the principal victims of this violence, the country’s Muslims. Muslims in India, after all, are themselves responsible for their own lynching.

Announcement:: Freedom From Hatred And Violence - Join The Protest on 9 August, 2018 (New Delhi)

Notinmyname Delhi

Dear Friends,
The Not In My Name group in Delhi has called for a protest on 9 August against the unabated mob attacks on minorities. As you are aware Dalit groups have given a call for nation wide strike and the farmers are doing a jail bharo abhiyan on 9 August. We felt that the campaign against mob lynching should also join the protests and raise the issue of communal violence and the free reign given to private militias. Please find below the announcement. Kindly spread the word. We are working on the social media campaign for the protest and the announcement should be up soon. We hope similar protests will be organised in other parts of the country and we can collectively assert our demand - Nothing Less Than Freedom from Hatred and Violence!
In Solidarity!
Saba Dewan | Asif | Sanjay Kak | Siddharth Rai | Banojyotsna Lahiri | Rahul Roy | Mandeep Raikhy | Michael Williams | Nitish Arora | Anatya Vallabh | Lokesh Jain | Devalina Kohli


Bharat Jodo|Do or Die!

Nothing Less Than Freedom From Hatred And Violence

Join The Protest on 9 August, 2018

#NotInMyName



Venue: Parliament Street, New Delhi

Date & Time: Thursday 9 August | 6:00 PM



In the past four years India has been bruised and brutalised by an unending cycle of violence against minorities and Dalits. Vigilantism in the name of cow protection has resulted in the death of 34 people and has left scores injured. Every day in some part of India a Muslim, Christian or a Dalit is either being killed or injured because engineering hate has become the central plank of political mobilisation. Falsehoods, fake news and manufactured data are being utilised to create fear and insecurity all across the country. Citizens have been encouraged to take law in their own hands and form private militias to fight an imaginary enemy who it is being claimed is a threat to Hindus. The fear psychosis has now led to a complete breakdown of law and order with indiscriminate attacks on strangers based on rumours of child kidnapping. Rape is being used as a weapon of war, to instill fear, to claim domination.

India is being ripped apart by hate. Mohsin, Akhlaq, Junaid, Alimuddin, Asifa, Rakbar and so many others are not just names but lives cut short, families destroyed. Through them a message of fear, victory and hatred is being sent to communities they belong to. Political leaders are seen openly garlanding those convicted of lynching, defending vigilantism as the duty of Hindus, leading rallies in support of criminals and issuing threats of more violence. Every day we read of ongoing cases against vigilantes being diluted, willfully compromised and mismanaged. Is this the India of our dreams? A country which is now being referred to as Lynchistan in mainstream media.

On 9 August 1942 inspired by Gandhi ji's call to – Do or Die - lakhs of Indians across the country had come out of their homes, staked their all to be part of the Quit India movement with Nothing Less Than Freedom as their demand. Today India is again confronted with a Do or Die moment in its tryst with democracy. Either we stand up against hatred and violence and say that it is Not In My Name or we will all perish.

The time has come to re-pledge ourselves to build an India that belongs to all; an India that has no space for discrimination based on religion, caste, gender or any other social difference. Babasaheb Ambedkar had reminded us that political democracy established through the value of one man one vote does not establish a social democracy unless inequality is removed. The politics of hate that surrounds us today is about maintaining inequalities, about ensuring the dominance of those who stand against the promises of the Indian constitution. Today we have to declare that we want Nothing Less Than Freedom From Hatred! Bharat Jodo! Do or Die!

We demand –

1. Immediate implementation of the Supreme Court directives of 17 July 2018 to prevent vigilantism.

2. Exemplary prosecution of all political and public figures who through action or speech support vigilantism.

3. Immediate dismissal of the government of Rajasthan for its failure to protect citizens against hate crimes.

4. Immediate financial support to all who have suffered attacks by vigilante groups.

5. An independent central monitoring mechanism of all vigilante cases in different parts of the country to ensure justice and a fair trial.

India - Muzaffarnagar riots: This graphic narrative tells the story of the courage of seven rape survivors | scroll.in

Muzaffarnagar riots: This graphic narrative tells the story of the courage of seven rape survivors

An excerpt from an account of the steps taken by the survivors to get justice in the face of severe opposition and threats.

Artwork by Priya Kuriyan

Neha Dixit  &  Priya Kuriyan

“Why were we raped if a boy eve-teased a girl? Did the whole nation go about raping the community of Nirbhaya’s rapists to avenge what was done to her?”
She is someone who could be called S, not because she does not want the world to know her name, but because her identity has to be protected, for the consequences it might possibly have. S is one of the “Muzaffarnagar rape survivors”, of the seven whose ordeal is the collective shame and guilt of our entire country. [. . .]

https://scroll.in/article/888567/muzaffarnagar-riots-this-graphic-narrative-tells-the-story-of-the-courage-of-seven-rape-survivors