India: Meet the Meitei Singer Tapta, the voice behind Manipur's 'Genocide Song' | Saptarshi Basak (The Quint)

The Quint

'We Won't Stop The War': Meet Tapta, the Voice Behind Manipur's 'Genocide Song'

Speaking to The Quint, the popular Meitei singer has stood by his lyrics and blamed Kukis for the ongoing violence.

Saptarshi Basak

Published: 12 Jul 2023, 6:33 PM IST

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Trigger Warning: The article contains description of hate speech.
"Where have I written this song from? I am writing it from a war zone. This is not a song written during a state of peace. What will be the lyrics be?" asked Tapta, when asked about his latest song that has caused quite some furore in Manipur.
Amidst the ethnic violence that engulfed the state since 3 May, Jayenta Loukrakpam, known by his stage name Tapta, a popular Meitei singer based in Imphal, released a controversial song on Friday, 7 July. Among other things, the song says "Meiteis will never have peace until every Kuki is killed."
There are other lines as well from the song that could qualify as hate speech or even incitement to genocide. Here are some of the lines.

Some of the lyrics from Tapta's new song. 
(Illustration: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)
The lyrics also contain a derogatory claim about the Indian Army. The song with the aforementioned lyrics can be found below.
Tapta entered the music scene in Manipur with a hard-hitting debut album called 'Power of Attraction', and has cultivated a cult following ever since, having a fanbase among across all communities in Manipur.
The Quint spoke to Tapta about his extremely controversial song. In a telephone conversation. here is what he had to say in his defence.
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'They Started This War': Tapta Blames Kukis for Violence
"I put out this song on Friday, 7 July. Violence has been going on since 3 May. I waited for two months before writing the song, two months. Kukis don’t want to live with us. I might also release another song in the coming Friday. Kukis are committing crimes, that’s why I have written this song," asserted the 57-year-old Meitei singer.
When asked about his lyrics that accuse the Indian Army of siding with the Kuki community, Tapta told The Quint that he was told this by the Meiteis living in Churachandpur and Moirang. "They have said that because of the Kukis, there is no peace. They have said these things, and therefore, I have written it into a song."
Tapta then went on to blame the Kukis for the ongoing violence. 
"They (the Kukis) have said that they will kill us. They are still preparing to attack. They started this war, we were living in peace. It was their solidarity march. Who all participated in that, do you know? They burned houses and killed people. In Churachandpur, in Moreh. They have guns, We don’t have anything, not even guns. The indigenous Kuki militants plus migrant Kuki terrorists plus the Indian central force, all of them combined are attacking the Meiteis. What have Meiteis done wrong? We have not done anything. Meiteis are only defending. They have guns, snipers, and sophisticated automatic rifles. What do we have?"
Tapta, in conversation with The Quint
The award winning musician, however, also went to say that Meiteis want peace and that they will welcome the Kukis with open arms. "Through my song, I am telling the Kukis, that you are still welcome. We want peace. But if they don’t, then we shall see," Tapta added, in what appeared to be a veiled threat.
Also Read
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'Writing From a War Zone, You Won't Understand'
Tapta's main defense throughout the conversation for his genocidal song was that he is writing in the context of a war zone.
"Where have I written this song from? I am writing it from a war zone. This is not a song written during a state of peace. What will be lyrics be? You are sitting in Delhi. How will you understand? I am not writing it sitting in Delhi. I am writing it in Imphal. Understand the sentiment. Before this, what did I write? For two months, I was hoping for peace. But peace did not come. I waited for two months. Waited for peace, waited for PM Modi. Neither came."
Tapta, in conversation with The Quint
When repeatedly questioned about how his song contravenes his desire for peace, the singer merely said, "Why don't the indigenous Kukis surrender? Otherwise, more Meiteis will die." 
When asked about his Kuki fanbase, "Yes, I have Kuki fans, but they are harming us. They are with Kuki terrorists. We will warmly welcome the Kukis if they stop the violence. Why are the Kukis staying with the terrorists? Why are they demanding Kukiland?"
He added that he is not afraid of going to jail. "Even if they file a police complaint, I am not scared of jail. They can send me to jail. This is for my motherland. I can become a martyr for Manipur. Meiteis have done nothing wrong. Kukis have done us wrong."
The Quint reached out to multiple authorities within the state's police department including the director general of police, the superintendent of police and the station officer in Imphal, and the SP in Bishnupur, to ask whether the police have taken any cognisance of the song and the hate speech in its lyrics. None of them responded to The Quint's calls or emails This article shall be updated with their responses as soon as they come.
However, Churachandpur Superintendent of Police Karthik Malladi did tell The Quint that no police complaint has been filed at the district police station, and no Kuki leader or organisation has approached the police regarding the same, yet.
Also Read
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'Tried to Get Him to Take Down the Song': Meitei Community Leaders Criticise Song and Singer
Many in the Meitei community have not reacted positively to the song.
Deben, a peace activist who works for interfaith relations and harmony with an organisation called the Interfaith Forum for Peace and Harmony in Manipur, told The Quint that Tapta's song is unacceptable.
"The song is absolutely unacceptable. I have even contacted a woman activist in the Meitei community, about the the interfaith forum would do about Tapta's song. Since we don't have access to the internet, there is no documentation of what hate campaigns have been going on, from both sides though, I should add. I have asked to collect evidence of such hate campaigns, so that the forum can deal with them."
Deben, Meitei peace activist
He went on to add, "Look, we are clear. We want a cessation of violence. This is my personal statement, and not the forum's. We want both sides to stop the violence and the hate campaigns," he asserted.
Similarly, Heigrujam Nabashyam, chairman of the World Meitei Council, told The Quint, "The moment I got know about the song, I tried to get him to delete, to take down the song. Is it still there on the internet? I don't agree with these lyrics at all. I tried to tell him through a third party, someone who knows him, to tell him to take down the song."
When told that the song was still getting circulated on YouTube and Twitter, Nabashyam said: "Look, Tapta may be a great singer. But human beings are human beings! There is some talk that the Kuki militants under the SoO (suspension of operations) agreement are backed by the army. So, we are requesting the government, the prime minister, and the home minister, to scrap SoU. Then peace and normalcy can return."
For context, the SoO pact was signed in 2008, a tripartite agreement between 25 Kuki insurgent groups, the Government of India, and the state of Manipur. According to the agreement, state and central security forces, including state and central forces would not launch military operations against the insurgent groups, and the latter would also maintain peace with the primary objective of engaging in dialogue. However, in March earlier this year, the BJP-led Manipur government decided to withdraw from the agreement.
Ninglun Hanghal, a Kuki based in Imphal expressed shock when asked about the song. "Tapta is a very popular band. I am shocked to hear the song. I didn't expect this from him at all. It's very sad that the situation has deteriorated to this extent."
As of now, Tapta's song continues to circulate around the internet. No police complaint has been filed, and the police or the judiciary do not seem to have taken suo moto cognisance of the hate speech in the song.
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At New Delhi's Jantar Mantar, Meiteis Rally for Peace in Conflict-Torn Manipur

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)
Topics:  Manipur violence

 

India: Hindu Nationalist Circles and the Politics of Inventing a ‘Genocide’ | Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Inventing a ‘Genocide’: The Political Abuses of a Powerful Concept in Contemporary India

Sanjay Subrahmanyam

 

 

 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2022.2153974

India: Historian Tanika Sarkar on Modi's silence following calls for a genocide of Muslims and the Opposition’s lack of reaction

Genocide: Prime Minister, as a lifelong RSS activist, is committed to concept of Hindu nationhood 

Subhoranjan Dasgupta   |   Calcutta   |   Published 17.01.22 [The Telegraph]

[ . . .]

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/genocide-prime-minister-as-a-lifelong-rss-activist-is-committed-to-concept-of-hindu-nationhood/cid/1847876

 

India: 76 Top Lawyers Alert the Chief Justice On Genocide Call, Will the Top Court Act ?

 ndtv.com

"Grave Threat": 76 Top Lawyers Write To Chief Justice On Genocide Call

The speeches, the letter to Chief Justice NV Ramana said, pose a "grave threat not just to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens"

All India Reported by Sreenivasan Jain, Edited by Anindita Sanyal Updated: December 26, 2021 9:56 pm IST

 

[ . . ]

 

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/haridwar-dharma-sansad-76-top-lawyers-write-to-chief-justice-on-genocide-call-grave-threat-2672722

 

Simon on De Swaan, 'Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder'

H-Net

Abram De Swaan. Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015. 344 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-20872-6.

Reviewed by David Simon (Yale University)
Published on H-Diplo (October, 2015)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach

Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder is an ambitious book. The Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan takes on a core puzzle—if not the core puzzle—of the political mass murder of civilians: why do such calamitous events happen so frequently even though norms against killing exist between nations, within nations, and among individuals? De Swaan focuses on “mass annihilation—that is, massive, asymmetric violence at close range, where killers and victims are in direct confrontation” (p. 5). He excludes combat between military forces that might otherwise fit that description, as well as remote targeting of noncombatants, as in the detonation of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The short version of de Swaan’s answer is that there is a process taking place at each of the levels by which perpetrators and bystanders cordon off the victims from the protection of ordinary and prevailing norms. Once placed in a separate compartment from the rest of society, victims are vulnerable. Even otherwise “ordinary” members of society can engage in deadly violence against them; equally, even “ordinary” members of society can ignore the destruction of those who have been compartmentalized.

At aggregate levels of analysis, de Swaan’s thesis, elegantly established and convincingly supported, reflects an established tradition in genocide studies. In particular, when de Swaan considers episodes of mass annihilation at what he calls the “macrosociological,” “mesosociological,” and “microsociological” levels, his theoretical work and case studies comport with the conventional wisdom. At the “macrosociological” level, which refers to “shared memories, collective mentalities, and similar dispositions,” de Swaan takes an evolutionary view (p. 203). As technology from agriculture to state control improved, any individual’s circle of concern—that is those with whom one shares a common destiny versus with those with whom one does not—widened. But even with the gradual incorporation of new communities within the circle, those falling outside—in particular indigenous populations vis-à-vis the metropolitan state—gain no normative protection. Here de Swaan echoes theories of the nation and state, such as those attributed to Benedict Anderson (in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism [1991]) and Charles Tilly (for example, with Gabriel Ardant in The Formation of Nation-States in Western Europe [1975]). De Swaan also acknowledges Michael Mann’s The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (2005), both to illustrate compartmentalization at the macrosociological level (in democracies in particular) and to identify its insufficiency as an endpoint of analysis.

De Swaan insists that one must also consider the “mesosociological” level, where state or sub-state regimes develop institutions that serve to compartmentalize society, “creating an ever sharper separation between the regime’s people and the target people” (p. 211). The institutions (in a sociological sense) in question include propaganda and legal measures, all in the service of segregation. Although de Swaan does not refer to Barbara Harff’s publications “Early Warning of Humanitarian Crises: Sequential Models and the Role of Accelerators” and “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955” and Gregory H. Stanton’s short essay “The Eight Stages of Genocide,” there is a clear resonance.[1] De Swaan essentially describes several of Stanton’s eight stages—“dehumanization,” “organization,” “polarization,” and “preparation”—in various shapes and forms. De Swaan does cite Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler's Willing Executioner's: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), which also operates at this level of analysis. Indeed, the subtitle implies that “Germans,” as a nation and having been primed by macrosociological forces like culture and history, engaged in compartmentalization when they accepted the Nazi regime’s framing of social problems in terms of “the Jewish question.”

But, argues de Swaan, that level of analysis is not complete either. “Microsociological” processes, referring to how “people function within the context of these institutions,” including how perpetrators and bystanders sort themselves out, appreciate their responsibilities, and respond to incentives to perform accordingly, must also be understood (p. 204). At this level, the “compartments” exist, and people begin to behave with reference to the different statuses those within them are accorded. De Swaan explicitly connects this line of reasoning with the situationalist school of mass violence studies. He discusses the Milgram experiments, as described by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in his article “Behavioral Study of Obedience” and by historian Christopher Browning in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1992), at length, noting how both show that some people act monstrously when they feel the situation permits—indeed, warrants—that they do so.[2]

Yet, for de Swaan, even microsociological situationalism falls short of an explanation. De Swaan is at his most innovative when he probes Milgram and Browning for questions left unanswered—or, indeed, unasked. De Swaan cites the common finding that between roughly two-thirds of actual subjects in Milgram experiments comply with the (fake) experimenters’ instructions to deliver (fake) pain-inflicting shocks to (fake) subjects. For de Swaan, the behavior of the other third, the “naysayers,” is just as interesting (p. 244). That some subjects did not follow orders suggests that despite the power of the situation, agency is not altogether obviated. Concludes de Swaan, “the hidden side of the Milgram’s findings (is that) personal dispositions are essential in determining what people do when a person in authority presses them to badly hurt (and possibly kill) another person” (p. 25). Likewise, of Browning’s subjects, de Swaan notes, “the men of Battalion 101 coped in quite different ways with the situation they found themselves in” (p. 223). While the final and aggregate result did not subvert Police Battalion 101’s annihilationist ambitions, Browning’s own study shows that different individuals do appear to internalize and rationalize their task differently, and at different speeds. All too few opted out entirely, but some indeed did.

It is this evidence of agency that leads de Swaan to call for greater focus on the “psychosociological” level, which addresses the “differences in behavior by people in the same situation ... in terms of differences in their personal disposition” (p. 214). Here, too, there are precedents: one example is James Waller’s Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (2002), even if, per de Swaan, it derives a significant portion of its assessment of the disposition to commit atrocities from sociological and situational factors. De Swaan contends that there is a process (and a corresponding state) of “dysmentalization” that reaches beyond the simple psychological categories of psychopathy and antisocial absence of empathy (which, at any rate, would appear to occur far less frequently in societies than the rate of perpetrators in mass violence episodes). The term refers to the reversal of “mentalization,” which is essentially the process of acquiring the capacity to become compassionate. De Swaan identifies this process as one that occurs at both the macrosocial level (chapter 3) and the psychological one (chapter 8).

Dysmentalization describes what happens when super-psychological processes place segments of the population into compartments and beyond the reach of empathy. De Swaan writes that “Genocidaires at work in their killing compartments may often look like psychopaths, but before and after their genocidal episode, or outside the genocidal setting, they are usually quite capable of empathy and even compassion to those they consider close to them” (p. 232). Later he notes, “Like a vibrating sieve that in a sequence of slight tremors in the end separates the smaller from the larger pebbles, a succession of minor chance events may sort out the less compassionate for careers in the killing compartments while discarding those whose disposition makes them less suitable for the job. It appears as if personal choice plays no role in the process, and yet, at every turn there was a choice, at least with hindsight” (p. 235). Thus, per de Swaan, the capacity to dysmentalize varies across the population, and perhaps across populations. Differences in child-rearing, and in penetrative capacity of institutions like church, state, and school may provide some basis for those differences.

De Swaan admits that there is little direct empirical support for the microsociological component of this hypothesis. However, that fact stems not from the existence of countervailing evidence, but from the absence of research on microsociological factors in general. Writes de Swaan, “what is overdue is an assessment of the importance of personal biography, of the individual dispositions that may lead to genocidal actions” (p. 265). Whether one is inclined to agree with de Swaan at the theoretical level, his assessment of the state of research is spot on. The implied research agenda is an important one for genocide studies.

Overall, the attempt to build a unifying theory of mass annihilation is laudable. Despite a couple of omissions, as noted above, de Swaan is well versed in the genocide studies literature, while he refreshingly draws in insights from other fields, including psychology and the evolutionary sociobiology. De Swaan is transparent about what can and cannot be inferred from the available evidence; indeed, he makes important inferences from precisely that.

The organization of the book is a little curious, in that two empirical chapters—chapter 5 on Rwanda and chapter 7 on other “case histories” (p. vii)—sit somewhat unmoored amid the theoretical work of the others. Both chapters do reveal elements of compartmentalization at work, although the Rwanda chapter comes before much of the theorization (laid out in chapters 6 and 8) has taken place, which weakens the potential of the case—which is well developed on its own terms—to illustrate the theory. Chapter 7 features twenty cases (by my count), categorized into four different modes: “Conqueror’s Frenzy,” “Rule by Terror,” “Loser’s Triumph,” and “Megapogroms.” The categorization scheme is interesting but not necessarily connected to the broader theories of compartmentalization that are the focus of the book. The chapter does illustrate how compartmentalization operated, and served mass violence, in each of the cases. The inclusion of cases outside of the United Nations’ definition of “genocide,” such as Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao Zedong’s China, is both enlightening and unproblematic (as it is not the author’s intention to hew to that definition). Other cases seem ill-fit to their category; for example, the episodes of mass annihilation in Eastern Bosnia, including the genocide at Srebernica, do not strike me as an instance of “loser’s triumph,” as the Bosnian Serb militias believed in mid-1995 that they could complete their mission to overrun Bihac, Gorazde, Srebenica, Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Zepa by the end of the year.[3] Still, the scope of these examples, taken collectively, is impressive. I only wonder if their placement elsewhere in the organization of the book might have served de Swaan’s purposes more effectively.

Overall, The Killing Compartments is an excellent contribution to the field of genocide studies. By proposing a difficult, yet viable, realm of inquiry into perpetrator psychology, it offers a break to the logjam of situationalist thinking that has left this main current of genocide studies somewhat stagnant in recent years. I hope it will encourage scholars to take on the difficult task of understanding participant motivations through original research with perpetrators.

Notes

[1]. Barbara Harff, “Early Warning of Humanitarian Crises: Sequential Models and the Role of Accelerators,” in Preventive Measures: Building Risk Assessment and Crisis Early Warning Systems, ed. John L. Davies and Ted Robert Gurr (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998), 70-78; Barbara Harff, “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 57-73; and Gregory H. Stanton, “The Eight Stages of Genocide,” Genocide Watch (1998), http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/8stagesofgenocide.html.

[2]. Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, no. 4 (1963): 371-378; and Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).

[3]. Ivo Daalder describes this in his article “Decision to Intervene: How the War in Bosnia Ended,” Foreign Service Journal 75, no. 12 (December 1998): 24-31.

India - 2002 riots: 'Ethnic cleansing, genocide are foreign terms...' says Ahmedabad magistrate

2002 riots: 'Ethnic cleansing, genocide are foreign terms... cannot be considered'
Satish Jha : Ahmedabad, Fri Dec 27 2013

In her petition challenging the clean chit given by a special investigation team to Narendra Modi and others in the Gulberg Society killings, Zakia Jafri had used the expressions "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide". On Thursday, Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate B J Ganatra dismissed both "foreign terms" as not applicable while rejecting Zakia's petition.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/-ethnic-cleansing-and-genocide-are-foreign-terms...-cannot-be-considered-/1212232/

India: Gujarat 2002 vs Delhi 1984 - Which genocide should we vote against?

The Times of India

Gujarat 2002 vs Delhi 1984: Which genocide should we vote against?
Anahita Mukherji
14 September 2013, 04:57 PM IST


The two most widely reported news stories on Friday the 13th, 2013, have a lesson in store for the country. The men who raped and brutalised a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi last year have been awarded the death sentence. The man who oversaw one of independent India’s worst instances of communal violence, in which thousands of women were raped and tortured, has been given the chance to become India’s next prime minister. And the party he wishes to defeat has gone largely unpunished for another dastardly act of communal violence.

Some skeletons refuse to remain locked in a closet, no matter how firmly we shut the door. The ghosts of Sikhs roasted alive in Delhi 30 years ago, and Muslims gang-raped and chopped into pieces over a decade ago in Gujarat have come back to haunt India’s two largest national parties in the run up to the 2014 elections.

For many young Indians — the census suggests that much of India is young — the bloodbath in Gujarat is a distant memory and most were not born when Sikhs were slaughtered in Delhi. But in the last one year, both massacres have clawed their way back into public memory. A BJP minister from Gujarat was sentenced to life imprisonment for her role in the 2002 violence, and court cases against two Congress leaders have resurfaced in connection with the 1984 massacre.

Both Gujarat 2002 and Delhi 1984 have often been dismissed as spontaneous riots. There is much to suggest they were neither spontaneous, nor riots, but systematic acts of ethnic cleansing targeting two of India’s minority communities.

Recent debates focus on the impact of both pogroms on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. But can we reduce crimes against humanity to an election campaign? Is that all that genocide means to us? How do we decide which genocide to vote for and which to vote against? Is there any foot-ruler or weighing scale that can help us measure two acts of barbarism to figure out which one is worse?

Or maybe we could use the response to the Delhi gang rape as a benchmark for how justice should be sought. We did not compare the Delhi rape case to other rape cases in order to judge the extent of brutality committed. We did not say that, since many rape victims have been denied justice, we should deny this young girl justice too.

So why should we pit Gujarat 2002 against Delhi 1984? Can we not, as a nation, use the 2014 elections to demand justice for both genocides?

Much has been said on the need to move over the massacres, and focus, instead on “the development plank” which refers, among other things, to building roads, highways and efficient transport. But can the denial of justice for genocide be substituted with good roads? Is that the price of human life? If so, how many dead bodies are equal to one good road?

No country that I am aware of has successfully moved on from genocide without dealing with the ghosts of the past. Germany did not overcome its Nazi legacy by forgetting the pogrom against Jews. Instead, it witnessed the Nuremberg Trials, where some of the most prominent members of Hitler’s Third Reich were brought to book. There is a Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, and Nazi concentration camps such as Auschwitz in Poland have been turned into museums. The streets of Germany are strews with Stolperstein (German for stumbling block), cobblestone sized memorials for Holocaust victims.

Post-apartheid South Africa set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with the aim of promoting “reconciliation and forgiveness among the perpetrators and victims of apartheid by the full disclosure of the truth.”

Neither country moved over community violence by forgetting about it and building roads instead. Its time India, too, remembered its dead and looked both massacres straight in the eye.

It’s time we revisited the story of Kausar Bano, a pregnant young woman in Gujarat, whose stomach was slashed open, foetus torn out and burnt alive.

Women in Gujarat weren’t simply raped, they were also mutilated, burnt, chopped into pieces and had hard objects inserted inside them. While analysing the “special savagery” with which wombs and vaginas were attacked in Gujarat, Tanika Sarkar writes in the Economic and Political Weekly of how rape is seen as a sign of collective dishonouring in community violence. Mobs in Gujarat were dressed in khakhi shorts and saffron underwear, with rape viewed as a religious duty.

The targeted violence against Muslims and Sikhs was as symbolic as it was grotesque. The manner in which Sikhs had their hair torn off before being dismembered showed the simultaneous defiling of one’s body and religion.

William Dalrymple writes of “hair, piles of hair, cut from Sikhs before they were burnt alive.” Every journalist who has covered the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi’s Trilokpuri colony talks of having to tread with care while walking the streets for fear of stepping on human entrails and hacked off limbs. Little wonder then, that senior journalist Khushwant Singh, who sought refuge in the house of a Swedish diplomat at the time, told a commission probing the violence that he had felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany, a refugee in his homeland, all because he was Sikh.

Many Sikhs removed their turbans and cut their hair to survive the pogrom. Gurmej Singh was not one of them. His turban marked him out on a train from Punjab to Bombay, which stopped at a station near Delhi the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated. His widow, Mohinder Kaur, fights back tears on a BBC documentary as she recalls the armed men who jumped onto the train, beat her husband with iron rods, dragged him out and set him on fire.

Both massacres involved the cynical use of religion. Both used similar rhetoric. The butchering of Muslims in Gujarat was seen as a way to teach a community a lesson for the burning of a train in Godhra, while the killing of Sikhs was viewed as punishment for the assassination of a Prime Minister by her Sikh bodyguards.

In both instances, the entire state machinery worked against the victims of violence, while shielding the perpetrators. Many have spoken of the military precision with which the violence took place.

“No riot can continue beyond a few hours without the active connivance of the local police and magistracy,” writes Harsh Mander, social worker and member of India’s National Advisory Council, on the violence in Gujarat.

Both the BJP and Congress have been accused of crimes of omission and commission.

An eye-witness-turned-hostile in the anti-Sikh pogrom, said in his first affidavit that he saw Congress politician Jagdish Tytler lead a mob which set fire to a Gurdwara and burnt a man alive.

While Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was acquitted in one of three cases against him in the anti-Sikh violence, the CBI had earlier talked of a “conspiracy of terrifying proportion with the complicity of police and patronage of local MP Sajjan Kumar.”

Mayaben Kodnani former minister of woman and child development in Gujarat — was awarded a life sentence for her role in the massacre of nearly 100 people in Naroda Patia, the same massacre where Kausar Banu’s stomach was ripped and foetus torn out. Eyewitnesses say Kodnani led a raging mob to attack the Muslim area, fired a shot from a pistol and distributed weapons. One witness in the case was hacked to death in 2011.

The Narendra Modi-led BJP government in Gujarat distanced itself from Kodnani after the conviction. But could Gujarat’s BJP leadership have been completely clueless about her role in the violence, when, in 2007, she was promoted to minister for woman and child development?

The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigative Team’s claim that the violence in Gujarat was spontaneous has been hotly contested. Investigative journalist Ashish Khetan showed that the Gujarat government ignored early warnings of crowds being mobilised and the possibility of riots.

An election year is a great time to press for justice for both genocides. Those among us who have grown weary and cynical of elections in India might want to seek inspiration from Egypt, a nascent democracy emerging from an era of dictatorship, with far fewer electoral options than India, which voted with its feet against Hosni Mubarak, a secular, neo-liberal dictator, and then took to the streets against the Muslim Brotherhood which replaced him.

My piece is not about which party one should vote for or against in the 2014. Voting for one or another national party, or any other party for that matter, is a personal choice. My point is simple. Can’t we, the people of a nation with far more evolved legal mechanisms than the struggling democracies of the middle-East, use a national election to demand the justice for genocide?

Upcoming seminar: Sexual Assault, Mass Crimes And Justice - A Gendered Perspective (Bombay, 12 January 2012)

Sexual Assault, Mass Crimes And Justice: A Gendered Perspective


2 - 6pm, Saturday 12 January 2012,

Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, Fort, Mumbai

Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW) and Women’s Research & Action Group (WRAG) are pleased to invite you to a seminar on “Sexual Assault, Mass Crimes and Justice: A Gendered Perspective.”

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the communal violence that shook Mumbai consequent to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, it is important to remember our own history and examine the multifarious ways in which it has changed our city, as well as our perspectives. In particular, there is a pressing need to shed light on the experience of women during the carnage, and other instances of large scale violence that have marred the recent history of the country.

The sexual assault and death of a young girl in Delhi has sparked a justified and much needed public outrage and protests. The sexual assault that women around the country experience day-in and day-out, the social conditioning to condone and tolerate such acts forms the basis for targeting of women for sexual assault in the context of mass violence and conflicts, with impacts that is exacerbated manifold.

The seminar on ‘Sexual Assault, Mass Crimes and Justice: A Gendered Perspective’ will examine the unique forms of victimization to which women are subject during the commission of mass atrocities, and to examine the various roles they play during and in response to the outbreak of such violence. The panel discussion aims to revisit the 92/93 violence and examine the experience from a gendered lens. In addition, it would also discuss and deliberate upon the use of sexual and gender-based violence in contexts of anti-Sikh attacks 1984 and Kandhamal violence in Odisha 2007 and 2008. The climate of impunity for mass crimes and the failure of justice in all three situations is the overall context of the discussion.

This seminar is organized as part of the as part of the month-long remembrance of the December 1992-January 1993 riots that shook the city. We look forward to your participation in the discussion.



SCHEDULE

Time


Theme


Speaker
14:00

Registration


14:30


Introduction


Chayanika Shah

14:40
Bombay after riots: impact on women survivor and state response

Hasina Khan

15:00
Bombay riots: Assessing long term impact on / consequences for women

Meena Menon

15:20


“Some Narratives from Kandhamal – Told, Retold and Untold”


Saumya Uma

15:40


Cr. law amendments to address sexual assault – the experience of 1984


Vrinda Grover

16:00


Summing up and key points


Chayanika Shah

16.10


Discussion, Questions and Comments

Text of Romila Thapar's intervention at an event marking 10 years of Gujarat Genocide (9 oct in Jamia Milia)

Would those who encouraged the victimisers to kill in Gujarat be willing to apologise or make a conciliatory gesture to the victims? That would be a confession of guilt and guilt is what Narendra Modi is constantly denying

FULL text at: http://www.sacw.net/article3287.html

Report on a seminar on how the media should handle coverage of mass crimes and genocide

From The Hindu, October 22, 2012

Not just a news item

Mohammad Ali

A panel discusses how the media should handle coverage of mass crimes and genocide

‘Memorial to a Genocide’ — a series of seminars dedicated to the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat n Delhi recently gave way to an intense panel debate on the role of media during mass crimes and genocide. Participating in it were former editor-in-chief of Outlook Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of IBN 18 Network Rajdeep Sardesai, academician Dipankar Gupta and investigative journalist from Tehelka, Ashish Khetan.

While Mr. Mehta felt that the media has little power except that of bringing issues in the public domain and mobilising public opinion, Mr. Sardesai strongly argued that in the age of 24x7 news channels, when today’s news is tomorrow’s history, the media cannot treat a genocide as just a news item.Mass crimes cannot be reduced to a zero sum game and genocide should not be forgotten like news of yesterday. Media has to continue telling the story until every victim gets justice because only after justice can we talk about reconciliation, he said.

Mr. Sardesai, who had once argued that if the electronic media would have been present Babri Masjid would not have been demolished, said he was wrong at that time. “If the State is complicit in allowing a mob to do something then there is very little media can do.”

Referring to the media’s role of a watchdog, he modified his comment and argued that had an independent and vibrant media been there at the time of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Babri Masjid demolition, the justice delivery system and accountability of those responsible would have got a boost.

Mr. Sardesai argued that even after a decade of post-Godhra riots, the discourse on Gujarat has got so polarised that there is hardly any space for real debate. The real challenge for a journalist is how to come out of the polarised debate and become a sane voice which the silent majority understands, he said.

While appreciating the positive role played by the media during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and post-Godhra riots of Gujarat in 2002, Mr. Mehta felt that in the larger scheme of things the media has failed. “People think that the media has a lot of power and it can change things. But the reality is that media has a very limited, very little, virtually no role to play in the larger scheme of things. Yes, we can only prod the judiciary by mobilising public opinion. Seen in this context I think the media failed,”

Mr. Khetan, who exposed the role of the Modi administration in the post-Godhra riots in several stories he wrote, slammed the media, electronic media in particular, for not doing its job in that limited space of bringing facts to the public domain. Whatever limited justice has been delivered to the victims of post-Godhra riots, happened “in spite” of the media. It was made possible due to persistent efforts of a few activists and lawyers who relentlessly followed the case, he said.

Arguing that the media and journalists cannot leave “journalistic standards of proof” and instead go by “the judicial standards of evidence”, Mr. Khetan said journalists did the “biggest injustice” to their profession by not raising “uncomfortable questions” regarding the role of the Modi administration in the post-Godhra riots.

Criticising the “culture of communalisation” which had permeated the media, he questioned the silence of the media on the “truth” of the Godhra train burning and what had transpired in the Modi administration three days after that and just before the beginning of the riots.

Commenting on the pattern followed by the electronic media, Mr Khetan said it doesn’t follow the build up or the aftermath of any riot. For instance, currently there have been innumerable incidents of attacks on minorities by right wing Hindutva groups in the coastal regions of Karnataka, but not even a single report by news channels has highlighted them. “One day news channels will wake up to know that a big communal riot has engulfed the entire region of Karnataka.”

Arguing that it was not up to the victims to “forgive”, Dipankar Gupta on the other hand said it is the job of the media not to let the State “forgive” the perpetrators of any genocide before every single victim doesn’t get justice.

“There is some thing wrong with an administration which sponsors genocide and media should expose them,” he said.

Gujarat: the Ghosts of the Past and the Future

The Auschwitz Of Our Times !

Where Are Our Raphael Lemkins !

By Subhash Gatade

20 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org

For If I Shall Not Burn
And You Shall Not Burn
If We Shall Not Burn
Then Who Will Dispel The Dark

- Nazim Hikmet

I

Whether anybody is familiar with a place called Auschwitz which is around 270 kms. from Warsaw, capital of Poland. It has been more than sixty years ago that the brick kiln structure there which housed detainees witnessed silent sufferings of lakhs of people who were put to death in myriad ways by the henchmen of Hitler.

A majority of the victims were just put inside a gas chamber where they died immediate death after inhaling a poisonous gas like cynaide. Or many of them were literally choked to death or starved to death. Quite a few of the detainees died because of intense hard labour and malnutrition.

Looking back we know that the killings were no spontaneous action on the part of the Nazis, Hitler in his autobiography 'Mein Kampf' had specifically talked of 'submitting twelve to fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation' to be '.. forced to submit to poison-gas'.

The recent revealations in the Tehelka expose of the Gujarat carnage in the year 2002 vividly brought back to' life' the deaths of 11 lakhs people in Aushwitz. One could easily draw a parallel between the likes of Rudolf Hoess, Dr Joseph Mengel, Dr Clark Clauberg. Arthur Libenatial, Richard Baer and the likes of Dr Praveen Togadia, Dr Maya Kodnani, Dhimant Patel, Jaideep Patel, Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt, Anil Patel and to top it all Herr Modi..

History bears witness to the weird 'scientific' experiments conducted by the likes of Dr Joseph Mengle on the detainees where caustic chemicals were injected in the bodies of women to test a new series of contraceptives.Perhaps the perpetrators of Gujarat carnage were no less 'innovative'. If the Germans had devised special gas chambers for the hapless Jews and many dissidents of the Nazi regime, the likes of Babu Bajrangi turned a sewer line into a gas chamber by just putting a big boulder on a sewer line where a group of Muslims were hiding from the marauders of the Hindutva brigade. Only their dead bodies could be recovered from the pit after a few days. If the Nazis use to put the detainees in a small pit with little source of oxygen where they used to die for want of oxygen, the followers of Modi-Togadia managed to drop oil on their hapless victims who were hiding in a pit and burn them alive. Babu Bajrangi, the main perpetrator of the Naroda Patiya massacre, a leading Bajrang Dal/VHP figure, explaining his 'heroism' during those killings, naratted an incident how '.they were clinging to each other in the pit. Then we threw in oil and burning tyres and killed them'. One could just go on drawing one's attention to the similarities and the dissimilarities in the Aushwitz experiment and the one Genocide which all of us witnessed before our own eyes - thanks to the 24 hour news channels beaming out 'war' or 'riots' live into our homes.

It is now history how the humanity tried to exorcise itself of Auschwitz and the ghost of Nazism and Fascism. The historic Nuremberg trials gave its final verdict on the Nazi criminals. Leading perpetrators of Auschwitz were sent to gallows in front of Aushwitz itself. Rudolf Hoess who led the Auschwitz camp for full three years and who gave graphic presentation of the working of Auschwitz in his memoirs and described it in detail before the court also was the first to be hanged.

Perhaps it is a sign of changed times or the slackening of the resolve of humanity that today sixty years after Auschwitz the 'Neros' of Gujarat have been allowed to go scot free. Forget punishment, these perpetrators of ghastly killings, - the strategists, the planners and the actual footsoldiers - are today a respectable lot. All those people who have accepted their crimes before camera about the planning that went in making the genocide happen and the role played by them in burning down houses,killing innocent people or raping innocent girls/women have been allowed to go scot free. If the victories of their political masters over the dead bodies of thousands of people in a 'democratic' process was hailed as the 'vindication of their succesful experiment' last time, if they receive an encore in a similar exercise in coming days then it would further legitimise their crimes against humanity.

A question naturally arises whether every sensitive, humane, justice loving person / formation on this part of the earth is ready to take this further humiliation with folded hands or is ready to break asunder the carefullly maintained conspiracy of silence. Would it be correct on our part to hold the carnage as an act of few 'psychotic killers', a 'product of few crooked minds' and leaving the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliated organisations - who planned and executed it - intact ? Would it be correct on our part to accept the fictious division between 'Hindutva' and 'Moditva' and reserve our scorn for Narendra 'Milosevic' Modi alone or keeping ourselves focussed on the dangers of majoritarianism in a multireligious/ multicultural country like ours ?

II.

At the beginning of the Great War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas…then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Campf ( My Struggle)

The year 1933 saw an interesting presentation by a Polish-Jewish scholar Raphael Lemkin in a legal conference held under the auspices of League of Nations ( a precursor to the United Nations ) at Madrid. This gentleman who had closely studied the massacre of Armenians in Turkey during first world war or the genocide of Assyrians in Iraq the same year and the manner in which all such crimes against humanity went unpunished made a novel suggestion in his paper 'Crime of Barbarity'. According to him all such crimes against humanity which take the form of killing of innocent people merely because they belong to particular community, region, ethnicity etc should be considered crimes under international law.

It was expected that the imperial countries who were themselves cosying up to the Nazi and Fascist regime in Germany and Italy did not find any merit in Lemkin's argument. And his own government which had established good rapport with the Nazis by then also disapproved of his suggestions.A few of his comments at the Madrid Conference so infuriated the Polish government that the Polish Foreign Minister asked him to resign from his job as Public Prosecutor and as teacher in a college.

Of course, very few people realised then that it was an idea whose time had come. The beginning of the genocidal Second World War and the establishment of concentration camps like Auschwitz and the persecution of particular communities under the Nazi dispensation further pushed humanity to do something concrete to avoid such genocides in future.

The year 1944 saw publication of Lemkin's magnum opus 'Axis Rule In Occupied Europe' getting published in US. The book comprised of detailed legal analysis of Nazi rule in World War II in occupied countries. Lemkin further concretised his ideas of Genocide as an offence against international law.

The international community did not find much difficulty in accepting Lemkin's ideas now and it formed the legal basis of the historic Nuremberg Trials which were held against the Nazi leaders who 'conducted deliberate and systematic genocide - namely, the extermination of racial and national groups.' The year 1948 saw the adoption of a Convention by the international community in the form of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by the UN General Assembly ( 9 th December 1948) which came into effect on 12 January 1951. This contained an internationally-recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

III.

After killing them, I felt Like Maharana Pratap ......
- Babu Bajrangi, Bajrang Dal leader

As the CM, Narendra Modi couldn't say 'Kill at the Muslims'... I could say it because I was from the VHP
- Rajendra Vyas, VHP leader, Ahmedabad

Put lathis aside and pick up AK-56s, if you are to develop Hinduism. It is clear who the enemies are, Muslims and Christians
- Dhimant Bhatt, Chief Auditor of M.S. University, Vadodara

DCP Gadvi promised VHP's Kalupur zila mantri Ramesh Dave that he would kill "at least four-five Muslims" if Dave pointed them out to him. Dave took him to a house from where a group of Muslims could be seen. "Before we knew it, he'd killed five people." Dave said
- Quoted in 'Tehelka'

Any sensible person who has browsed through the sting operation done by Tehelka or who has seen its telecast on few channels would confirm that there was nothing spontaneous about the carnage which occurred in Gujarat which officially saw deaths of more than 1,000 people.
The sting operation done by a young journalist Ashish Khetan, over a period of six months, wherein he managed to talk to many ringleaders of the RSS-BJP-VHP who spearheaded the carnage about their role in the events, is definitely the 'the most important story of our time'. Ashish Khetan and the Team Tehelka need to be given kudos for the marvellous job done to persuade the 'killers' speak themselves.

Every sane person would agree with Tarun Tejpal about three particularly disturbing things about Gujarat 2002. 'The first that the genocidal killings took place in the heart of urban India in an era of saturation of media coverage' , 'The second that the men who presided over the carnage were soon after elected to power not despite their crimes but because of them' and 'the fact that there continues to be no trace of remorse, no sign of penitence for the blood-on-the hands'.

The 'sting operation' makes it clear that right from giving green signal to the Sangh workers to start an attack on the Muslims to the planning that went in making it happen the top bosses of Sangh Parivar were involved at every level. In fact they met and strategised about every aspect of the attack carefully. To shield the attackers from the law, they even consulted prominent lawyers as well as senior police officers.All sorts of weapons - from bombs to guns to trishuls - were either manufactured by the Sangh workers or were smuggled through Sangh channels from all over India. BJP's MLA from Gujarat even managed to manufacture rocket launchers in his factory. Its other contacts in the quarrying area managed to manufacture other explosives also. Since 'cremation is considered un-Islamic' Fire was the 'most favoured weapon in the rioters hand'.

But it is a sign of our changed times that neither the Congress nor other Secular parties nor the Highest court of the country who otherwise becomes hyperactive on flimsy issues deemed it necessary to go in for either 'prosecuting Narendra Modi' or 'go in for arresting the bloodthirsty criminals who had the audacity of sharing their exploits during the genocide without any sign of remorse'.

A question that naturally arise is that why did not the people in power decided to act despite clearcut evidence before them about the complicity of the Hindutva goons behind the carnage. The foremost reason seems to be the electoral considerations where the 'secular parties' wanted to forestall any attempt on part of Modi to further polarise the voters on communal lines. Apart from their own gameplan, the muted reaction on the part of the articulate sections of our society must have guided their consideration.

A few of the doubting Thomases even raised the issue of the 'timing' of the exposure and its likely impact on the electoral (mis) fortunes of the parties involved.

Perhaps some may argue that despite India signing the UN Convention on Genocide way back in 1959 it has failed to comply with international legal norms, by formulating a suitable domestic legislation.Thus the absence of domestic legislation to not only prevent and punish genocide, but also designate a tribunal for the trial of those charged has helped create a strange situation where the ability of the Indian criminal justice system to dispense justice - when it comes to mass crimes - seems to be in grave doubt.

IV

How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,
The answer is blowing in the wind

- Bob Dylan, Blowing in the Wind

There are very many ways in which India is presented and projected to the outside world. For some it happens to be the biggest democracy in the world, while for others it is one of the fastest growing economies of the world, which has now 'arrived'. Many talk about its becoming the new superpower with the demise of the yankees from the world scene.

But rarely does anyone talks about its being a 'land of mass crimes' where the perpetrators of such crimes have always gone unpunished. None of the opinion makers talk about the unholy alliance between politicos, mafiosi and the law and order machinery which has emerged down the years where the art of 'invisibilising mass crimes' is being perfected. And the target of such mass crimes are - mainly the religious minorities or people on the lowest rung of social matrix or the toiling masses of the country.

Would anyone believe that the 'first' massacre of around fourty Dalits -mainly women and children - in independent India at Kizzhevanamani (Tamilnadu, 1969) by the local uppercaste landlords went unpunished with a specious argument on part of the judiciary that ' these are upper caste people and it is impossible to believe that they would have gone walking to the dalit hamlett'. It is a wellknown fact that the dalits and other toiling masses of the area had started a strike for better wages under the leadership of the Communist Party.

Would anyone believe that Delhi, capital of the great democracy called India, was witness to the killings of around 3,000 innocents ( mainly Sikhs) merely 23 years ago and today, ten enquiry commissions and three special courts later, merely three people have been found guilty of killing the hapless 3,000 Sikhs.

Even a cursory glance at the 60 year old history of post-independent India makes it clear that neither the killing of around 40 dalit women and children in Kizzhewanamani ( Tamilnadu, 1969) nor the massacre of around thousand plus Muslims in Nelli ( Assam 1983) ; neither the genocide of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi ( 1984) nor the cold blooded murder of 42 Muslims in Hashimpura ( UP, 1986) ; neither the killling of around 1,800 people ( majority of them Muslims, Bombay 1992) nor the massacre of scores of Dalits in Kumher ( 1993, Rajasthan) ; have been punished till date.

It would also enlighten you about the manner in which such mass crimes are rationalised or legitimised by the powers that be where a Prime Minister of a country has no qualms in commenting after massive carnage of capital's Sikh community led by his own party people that "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes". Or the chief minister of a state shamelessly discovers Newtonian 'action-reaction' thesis to cover up crimes of his own Parivar people.

Intellectuals who are quite enamoured about the tolerance inherent in 'our great culture' and the sense of inclusiveness would rather be shellshocked to find that how the ordinary, peaceloving people themselves are ready to 'metamorphose overnight' into murderers and rapists of their own neighbours on a small pretext. All the orgy of violence and their 'joyous participation' in it is then followed by a conspiracy of silence where nobody is then ready to talk the truth. Bhagalpur in Bihar which had become such a site of violence where officially over a thousand people had been slain, most of them Muslims, is still remembered for a particular incident. In Logain village, 116 Muslims were massacred, buried in a field and cauliflowers grown over their bodies.

The scenario needs to be drastically changed if India wants to emerge as humane society. It is a challenge before everyone of us. If people of the subcontinent resolve that 'the biggest democracy on the face of the earth' should not henceforth be remembered as a 'land of mass crimes' then it can happen soon.

Times are such that this simple proposal may appear utopian to a large cross-section of people. But there is no other alternative than to persist in one's attempt at individual as well as collective level, to unleash processes and strengthen institutions so that it could be expedited.

As mentioned above it was the year 1933 when a Polish-Jewish scholar called Raphael Lemkin first thought of this idea. We are also told that at a personal level Lemkin faced tremendous tragedy. He lost 49 relatives in the holocaust who were among the 3 million Polish Jews who were killed during the Nazi occupation. But all such personal tragedies did not deter him from continuing his work to convince humanity.

Where are OUR RAPHAEL LEMKINS who can yell IT'S ENOUGH !