STIR-it-UP

Message in a bottle

2011-04-22T20:28:00.021+05:30

Urumi refuses to be pushed into the wasteland of Malluwood

A visual statement against invasions: from the old Gama who crossed the ocean with fanatical missionary zeal to the modern-day Gamas who go on an expansion rampage with corportate seal. This is what I’d like to sum up Urumi, a bilingual movie by cinematographer-director Santosh Shivan.

The film is highly relevant in the contemporary socio-political scenario because it sends out a strong message against trans-national mining companies, which in cahoots with the local governments, drive away the Adivasis and rob their mineral-rich lands.

An incorrigible pessimist of present-day Malayalam movie field, I felt relieved watching Urumi, for it helps hammer a social reality into those apolitical movie buffs out there. (There are still souls who dismiss the movie as a flop because they just couldn’t grasp the essence in it!). In a movie industry that churns out substandard, treacle-dipped and worn-out plots with the pathetic bellicose bombast of Suresh Gopi clan, Urumi is refreshingly fantastic for two reasons. The message it sends out and its Santosh Sivan signature visual appeal.

The film is an eclectic blend of fact and fiction; the director successfully blends history with imagination to weave a historical thriller drama anchored on a contemporary social reality: MNCs v/s marginalized Adivasis.

Portuguese murderous ghoul Vasco Da Gama has been given a dressing down, a deviation from the popular textbook portrayal of “a hero on a voyage in search of distant lands and fortunes”. His overly romanticized cowboy image is broken into pieces with scenes of him mercilessly cutting down the ears of Zamorin's emissaries who are sent to him for negotiations.

Gama is given a virtual reincarnation by Alexx O’Nell. Three cheers for that!

The minister, portrayed by Jagathi Sreekumar, could well be the Chidambaram of our times; Nirvana reminds us of Vedanta, which is hell-bent on destroying the pristine Niyamgiri Hills and the livelihood of ancient tribes in Orissa.

Urumi is not without blemishes. Prithiraj has done it well; but at times his warrior-hero postures appear gross. However, his graphic-induced muscles are cool. The female leads wear blouses. We know that fifteenth century Kerala women didn’t have blouses; they started using them only in the 19^th century. But we can forgive Shivan for this and some of the other hiccups like a chain of pearl Jagathi sports throughout the film (The chain appears to be plain plastic. I had taken note of it the moment I saw it on the poster itself); for he has given us an entertainment par excellence with a relevant message.

And as I complete this piece, my journo buddy Jabir Musthari tells me that a song in the movie, Alakadaloliyano, is a copy of a beautiful song by Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt. But I am not surprised. Plagiarism in India has been elevated into an impeccable art form long, long time ago.

Thank you Lennon

2010-12-08T11:28:00.005+05:30

Remembering 20th century's greatest peacemaker

Today (December 8) is the 30th death anniversary of John Lennon. It was on this day that Lennon fell to the bullets fired by a lunatic. I think it fit to reflect on a wonderful biography of Lennon which I read recently. The book must be the most authentic one, for Ray Coleman Coleman, a music journalist, was a close friend of Lennon and experienced first hand the musician so intimately right up to his tragic death.

Coleman’s sensitive approach to minute details of Lennon’s various facets is praiseworthy. Teddy bear, rebel student, pop star, propagandist for peace, song writer, oddball, loving husband, doting father…Without eulogizing or denigrating Lennon, the biographer provides an honest and unvarnished portrayal, dissecting Lennon in myriad ways. It’s a definitive biography of a musician and a great philosopher who influenced the 20th century anti-war resistance movement and the ideals of a generation.

One gets a detailed description of things like his bitter rivalry with co-singer Paul McCartney (amplified in How do you sleep in which he takes a dig at Paul), his troubled formative years, post-Beatles days, efforts for world peace, his voracious appetite for women, etc. Though an ardent Lennon fan, I felt bad to read that he mercilessly abandoned wife Cynthia to live with Yoko Yono, the Japan woman who went on to change his life in so many ways. Of course, John wasn’t a fickle lover. It was only that he decided to live with the Yoko the moment he saw her, for, he realized that it was the Woman of his Life.

Jesus Vs Beatles

The book throws light on the controversy that Beatles once claimed themselves to be superior to Jesus Christ. The whole controversy is irrelevant as it was the result of the universal phenomenon of quoting out of context.

The controversial quote appeared in an interview Lennon gave to Maureen Cleave for Evening Standard in the spring of 1966. Lennon said: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right, and I will be proved right. We are more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock'n'roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

It didn’t cause any stir in England, used to an overdose of Lennonism. All hell broke loose when the article was republished in an US magazine, Datebook, after four months. This time, instead of getting submerged in the context of a general article, it was front-paged: Lennon was claiming that the Beatles was bigger than Jesus!

It caused a storm across America, especially the American South, the Bible belt, with anti-Beatles demonstrations – the deadly Ku Klux Klan marched - and the bonfires of Beatles records. Radio stations banned their records. The church was irked; a minister even threatened to excommunicate any member of his congregation who attended Beatles concert tour which was to begin in two weeks time.

In London, Maureen was trying her best to place Lennon’s remarks in their true perspective. “He was simply observing that so weak was the state of Christianity that Beatles were, to many people, better known. He was deploring, rather than approving, this.”

But nothing damped down the flames. Finally Lennon was forced to apologize. In a press meet in Chicago, Lennon said: “I just said they (Beatles) are having more influence on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way.”

For the British clergymen John was simply telling the truth: witness the number of people who attended the Beatles’ concerts and bought their records, compared with the Church attendance figures.

It reminded me the popular Karl Marx’s religion-opium quote, often used to denounce religion and religiously repeated to argue that he was vehemently anti-religious. What he really meant is the fact that religion gives the masses a means to forget their woes like opium: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,” Marx had said in the same breathe.

Similarly, anyone who goes through Lennon’s comments can figure out that he was simply trying to drive home the point that the youth of England in the 1960’s were more interested in music and that religion was less appealing to them.

Some claim Lennon was seeking popularity. It is simple nonsense, because Lennon and Beatles were already popular. They didn’t need a cheap trick to draw attention.

Ever since I started listening to Lennon, and got to know more about his political life and deep dedication for world’s peace (Imagine still gives me ………..) Lennon has assumed a cult status in my mind. His marvelous vocals apart, what is so exciting about him is the fact that he was one of the greatest humanists who strived for peace in the 20th century.

I read those last lines of the biography with awe and a heavy heart, with tears welling up my eyes. I was eager to know how Coleman would finish it, which made me edgy: “As a twentieth century philosopher, he set an example of imagination and humanitarianism. Though he would hate to be deified, a light went out on 8 December 1980. but his music and his spirit shine on.”

True. John Lennon’s spirit still lingers on. Through his music and extraordinary life. Lennon, we all miss you!

Protect healthy dissent

2010-11-01T14:35:00.008+05:30

The last thing we need is a police state

Indian government’s initial knee-jerk reaction to Arundhati Roy’s bold statement on Kashmir gives the impression that the world’s largest democracy is inching towards a police state. The political decision not to go ahead with colonial `sedition’ charges against Roy seems to stem from realization that it will only bring international limelight on Kashmir, which the authorities don’t want.

Also, slapping such charges on a person of international repute is sure to bring a lot of disrepute to India. Is India stupid enough to arrest her for speaking out her mind? India doesn’t want to be seen as an Iran or Myanmar, known autocratic nations notorious for stifling independent voices.

While Indian media joined the righties, baying for Roy's blood, a newspaper from England needed to tell us it was under the same colonial and outdated law of sedition that the British government put none other than Gandhiji behind the bars for six years. As this Guardian editorial rightly points out, the attempts go against India’s tradition of “open debate and healthy dissent”. This is what makes India different, a beautiful place to live, in spite of all the shortcomings.

Efforts to muffle dissenting voices don’t bode well for the country. It’s easy to brand anyone anti-national when they speak in a different tone, against what the authorities want us to believe and utter. What right do we have then to talk about jailed Lui Xiaobo, the Chinese campaigner for democracy? What is the difference between India and an autocratic Iran, which has been putting those dissenting bloggers behind bars since 2004?

“Rather than chase after a novelist for speaking at a seminar, the Delhi government would be better off investigating the 100-plus people who are believed to have died in violence in Kashmir since June,” says the editorial.

For the rightwing BJP, Roy’s comments were whiff of solace, for it gave them perfect fodder to deflect attention from RSS’ association with terrorism and the indictment of its leader Indresh Kumar. The controversy over Roy came at a time when it is increasingly becoming clear that the patriotic saffron party is the wholesale trader of bomb-making and the killing of innocents.

Predictably, the whole issue sparked a media vaudeville, because it involves the 'anti-national' Arundhati Roy. The OB vans of prominent TV channels were ready at Roy’s residence even before BJP’s women cadres reached there to protest against her Sunday. Roy’s doubt is genuine: “What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle?”

Even the government decided not to proceed against Roy on sedition charges. But the right-wing BJP and the media don’t want to spare her. Before chasing Roy, the government should now order an enquiry on the likely collusion between the mob who assembled before Roy's house and these TV channels.

Annai's unkindest cut

2010-10-19T23:48:00.015+05:30

The reel-life Enthiran has got emotions. But a real life Rajini seems to be callous to his own fans

“He is like a God to me,” said Rajanikanth about Siva Sena chief Bal Thackarey. The Tamil superstar met Thackerey at his Bombay house while his blockbuster Yenthiran is making global ripples. He seemed to be head over heels over a man, who has gained notoriety for humiliating and kicking out South Indians (Madraassis as derogatorily called, and Tamils included) upon whom his entire fortune of superhuman stardom has been built.

What must have gone into his head while praising a man, whom civilization hasn’t touched a wee bit and whose only contributions to this world are shedding of innocent people's blood and miseries to many more? There’s little chance that his ardent fans will make a fuss if they come to know that their ‘God’ has equated a chauvinistic Thackerey to the real God. For one, public memory, as they say, is pathetically short. And even if they would be able to recollect the sons-of-soil militancy unleashed by Thackerey, such is their unflinching love for him that they would brush it aside.

When the film star equates this Hindutva-spouting demagogue, he has insulted tens of thousands of his own Tamil fans some of whom must have borne the brunt of Shiva Sena’s ugly war against the `outsiders’.

I used to respect Rajini, for his simplicity and down to earth nature, unlike those superheroes who live a life cut off from the real world. Even as the Enthiran was getting readied for release, Rajini appeared for his daughter’s wedding in full public glare without concealing the signs of ageing in stark contrast to the young and sturdy Enthiran. But now it appears to me that he's no different from Amitabh Bachchan; both sport a façade that smacks of hypocrisy.

Lessons from Chile

2010-10-16T11:50:00.006+05:30

Thumbs up to the spirit that saved Chile miners

It is indeed a triumph of humanity. The rescue of Chilean miners also show that nothing is insurmountable if we work together, bound by a single thread of humanity and love, untainted by all those dirty xenophobic, boundaries-bound parochialism. Nothing stopped Chile to seek to the help of NASA and the President reached out to the world in its hour of crisis.

This triumph of humanity shows the simple truth that human beings needn’t necessarily die on this tiny earth for want of material or technology. The world has got everything. What is needed is a benign mind and a heart of gold. Making the world a better place to live for everyone isn't a big thing.

There are too many lessons for India to learn from the whole episode. How the Chile’s government and its entire people stood in unison sans any blame game; the determination, unflinching grit and unity. There was no blame game or shifting of responsibility.

When it comes to the behavior of the media at the disaster site in Chile, the Indian media has something to learn from it. No scribe was seen thrusting his microphone and asked the idiotic now-how-do-you-feel question to the miners who emerged from the mine through the specially made capsule. I dread to imagine the Indian media’s reaction if it happened here. Our English television actors would go berserk, acting it out day and night. The reportages would be plain operas, dipped in self-indulgence and shameless treacle. Because it has got all the ingredients of a Bollywood masala; suspense, fantasy, romance and adventure.

And the crisis management would have been given to some Kalmadi and news stories will follow on how the whole thing was messed up. And a hundred enquiries will follow to find out how money meant for the crisis management was swindled away.

Move on, India

2010-09-29T16:51:00.012+05:30

An aspiring super power’s medieval instincts

When Europe and other western countries are mulling over issues like legalizing gay marriages and space tourism, a section in this part of the world is fighting over a ruined medieval mosque belongs to a mythical figure.

Whatever be the court verdict, which will decide the fate of the 60-year-old dispute, the rightwing Hindutva forces, the sole beneficiary of the whole fiasco, has reconciled to the fact that Ayodhya-Babi issues is a dead horse, though some of its leaders might be indulging in self-delusional hallucinations about bringing it back into life. And on the other side, a bunch of funny mullas will equally be a distraught lot, because they have been out there to rebuild this medieval mosque as if its reconstruction will be the elixir for all the ills.

L K Advani, the yesteryear hero whose braying call for the destruction of the mosque has helped BJP seize power, has been sidelined this time around. For the critically ill Sangh family, who is trying to reinvent itself from its moribund present, the issue doesn’t provide a respite, let alone a placebo.

On its part, the UPA government is ultra-sensitive. Or at least that seems to be the impression it wants to send across. The frequency with which the government issued ads in the week past in newspapers and channels requesting people to keep calm in view of the court verdict looks gross. Well, it is essential for a responsible government to ask its people to keep cool in such a sensitive issue.

But the present-day Congress-led government’s alacrity seems to stem from an urgency to atone for the sins of a previous Congress government led by Narasimha Rao who allowed the mosque to be pulled down by a marauding crowd 20 years ago. But will these attempts lay the ghosts unleashed by the Rao regime to rest? Had the Rao government kept the one hundredth of the vigil and circumspection being exhibited by the present government, which is almost apocalyptic over the court verdict, the mosque wouldn’t have been destroyed.

I don’t shed a tear for the destruction of an old building, which hadn’t been used for half century as a place of worship. The loss, I feel, is in terms of its pure archeological value and hundreds of innocent lives. And of course, it paved the way for the fascists to usurp to power.

It’s time to move on. Well, this is a wishful thinking. Let a university or a cultural place be built at the disputed site where everyone can come. I wish the government has the spine for that. All these lofty talks about an aspiring superpower should be matched by real actions and thoughts. For that the country need to shed its past and adopt peace, modernity and prosperity, plus a judicious mix of amnesia.

HEY PURDAPHILES!

2010-09-04T13:29:00.014+05:30

Who wants Raihana in Purdah? Arrest this extremism

Raihana R Khazi has taken on the extremist elements in Kerala society. This 23 year-old-woman from Kasargod has been getting threats from some Islamic extremists for not wearing Purdah. Raihana is an aeronautical engineering graduate and chooses to wear what she likes: jeans. But it irked some jobless fanatics. who want her in Purdah. When death threats started pouring in, she sought Kerala High Court’s help, which directed the state to give protection to her life.

The other day, she held a press conference in Calicut to say that none can dictate what she should wear, which is a personal choice. To become a Muslim, one doesn’t follow a particular dress code, Raihana feels. There are reports the opposition to her dress code came from within her family itself and that there is no need to make a fuss about. But being such a hotly debated subject, the issue needs some discussion.

Islam only asks its followers to dress modestly and doesn’t impose any dress code. There's no homogeneous dress code either for men nor for women, transcending boundaries. Purdah is not an Islamic dress. Common sense tells us that it is rather a dress meant for desert conditions. Its purpose is to guard one from the windy sandstorms and adverse climate conditions of deserts. Look at the traditional dress Arab men wear even today: the long rob is almost like a Purdah, except for the veil,

There are women who vouch for Purdah, saying it gives them a sense of protection. Fair enough. But that's doesn't mean obscurantists can go around imposing their sense of dress code. There are many other pressing, real instances of injustices and issues for these souls to feel moral outrage about.

Now I remember seeing an old black and white family photo of a friend’s grandpa in Calicut. There was nothing to suggest the `Muslimness’ in the attire of those women in the photo, except that his grandma’s head was covered with the tail end of the sari. That’s all. Purdah became prevalent in Kerala post-Babari demolition. A sense of Muslim insecurity coupled with the inculcation of fear by the Mullahs ensured that this desert dress has almost come to symbolize Muslim women. Was this black rob, covering head to toe, a sane way of establishing their identity?

Today, Purdah has become such a fashionable attire and it is big business. It's a classic case of mindless imitation in the name of religion. Lucky that camel is not a common animal in India!

Underdogs of two superpowers

2010-08-08T13:39:00.032+05:30

New-age slavery that goes unnoticed in India and China

Two interesting articles about two emerging ‘super-powers’ are worth mentioning. One is an investigative report by Observer on how poor workers are exploited in Indian sweat shops meant for some of the well-known British companies. The other is a hard-hitting and wonderful article by award-winning British journalist Johan Hari on China’s factories where human beings work like machines for trans-national corporations.

Both the articles talk about new-age slavery camouflaged as development and prosperity, how workers are exploited, overworked and underpaid in sweat shops in India and China.

Poor workers, who migrate from states like Bihar with families, are employed at the Indian factories for some of the leading British brands like Marks & Spencer, Gap and Next. They are paid half the legal overtime in gross violation of labour laws. When they protest they are threatened or asked to leave, a practice defined under international law as forced labour and outlawed around the world. Here, the perennial Indian menace of middle men are playing the dirty game, with the workers being paid 25 paisa an hour.

The situation in China is really awful. Workers at the sweat shops for companies that make computers and swanky electronic gadgets meant for making life enjoyable for the `first world’ too are paid paltry wages (an instance is 20p an hour).

Hari tells the story of 27-year old Yan Li, a worker at a gigantic factory, which manufactures i-Pads and Playstations. His family said his shifts used to last for 24 hours and sometimes stretched to 35! One night, after a marathon shift, Li dropped dead. According to his family, he never had any health problems; they showed up only after he started working. The same night, another worker committed suicide, the tenth this year.

Death from overwork has become so common in China there is a word for it: guolaosi. Estimates show that 600,000 workers die every year in China, overworking for making goods for the 'other' world.

And the workers are employed in deplorable conditions; there are 10 workers in each room, and each dorm houses 5,000, with no showers; they are given a sponge to clean themselves with. A typical shift begins at 7.45am and ends at 10.55pm.

The conditions are so harsh it can very well be compared to Hitler's camps. Hari writes: “Workers must report to their stations 15 minutes ahead of schedule for a military-style drill: "Everybody, attention! Face left! Face right!" Once they begin, they are strictly forbidden from talking, listening to music, or going to the lavatory. Anybody who breaks this rule is screamed at and made to clean the lavatories as punishment. Then it's back to the dorm.”

You are not even allowed to answer the call of nature? This reminds me of the chilling account in the brilliant book, No Logo, by Naomi Klein. She describes how women workers in Mexican export plants are required to prove that they are menstruating through such humiliating practices as monthly sanitary pad-checks (page 222). Employees are kept on 28-day contracts, the length of the average menstrual cycle - making it easy, as soon as the pregnancy comes to light, for the worker to be dismissed. Women's reproductive rights are curbed lest it'd affect the productivity.

In one of the special economic zones in the Philippines, seamstresses sewing garments for Gap, Guess and Old Navy say they sometimes have to urinate in plastic bags under their machines. There are even rules against talking and even smiling. (page 211)

In his report, Hari also describes the poignant story of 17-year-old Liu Pan operating a machine that made cardboard for big-name Western corporations. When he tried to clear its jammed machinery, he got pulled into it. His sister said: "When we got his body, his whole head was crushed. We couldn't even see his eyes."

The Chinese dictatorship allows only rich people to form organizations. If you are worker and try to form a union, you run the risk of being jailed for 12 years. But things are changing with labourers across China forming unions. Across 126,000 Chinese factories, workers have formed unions, demanding higher wages, a humane work environment, and the right to organise freely. Are Indian comrades listening?

Photo: Factory workers in China assembling fiber optic systems.

Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia Commons

Bravo Assange

2010-07-28T13:20:00.020+05:30

Wikileaks heralds a new era in journalism

It is being hailed as ‘data journalism’, may be because of the enormous volume of secret files unearthed by Wikileaks, the whistle-blower website started by a maverick messiah of the wronged from Australia named Julian Assange (in picture). Little lights of hope when we thought we are heading for a cul-de-sac.

The 92,000 military documents detail the criminal misadventures of an occupation army led by the US, shamelessly called coalition forces. A coalition of murderers fit to be tried in an international court of law.

“Journalism should be more like science,” Assange told The Guardian. “As far as possible, facts should be verifiable.” This ex-hacker says what he is practicing is “scientific journalism,” comparing it to biology researchers publishing their data sets along with their papers.

What was striking about the whole thing is that Wikileaks’ exciting co-operation with three media houses, viz. London-based Guardian, New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel. While Wikileaks unearthed large volumes of raw data, the job of sifting through the entire documents and bringing out the relevant and explosive materials was left to these newspapers and the magazine. They set a common deadline for publishing the stories.

The symbiosis between Wikileaks and these mainstream media houses is praiseworthy and heralds a new era in investigative journalism. A true novel experiment in journalism that needs nourishment and support, for, what this collaboration aims to target is corrupt regimes, war-mongering maniacs and the like.

Is this thinkable in India?

“I would love to start an operation from India as well!” Assange told Nupur Basu from UC Berkeley when she met him during a seminar on investigative journalism. He seemed to be excited when Basu told him about sting operations in India.

But will a similar kind of operation possible in India? Imagine Wikileaks unearths such an explosive materials and try to a similar kind of operation: distributing them among the top media houses in India. `A' will be wary of whether `B' will come out with the exclusive story first. So in its haste to break the story before the competitor does, chances are that A or B or C will go for the jugular by coming out with the story without waiting for the others.

India is a country where even naming a competitor in a newspaper’s pages is considered sacrilegious, let alone co-operating. What could be the reasons? Petty ego, parochialism, fears of giving undue advantage to the competitor, wrong notions of public interest journalism...

In India's crazy dog-eat-dog media world, when we can see our media houses shedding inhibitions and working together for the common good of the society, untethered by those obnoxious notions of competition, petty ego, etc? Hundred year? May be.

Let’s forget about collaboration or co-operation. Remember the criminal silence of the Indian mainstream media when Tehelka was mowed down ruthlessly by the India's right-wing BJP government after it exposed the stinking corruption in the corridors of Indian military.

It was one of the rare and sad instances in the history of media freedom when the Kafkaesque weight of the government was used to unleash a witchhunt on Tehelka; raiding its offices, falsely implicating its journalists and annihilating the brave venture. It’s another matter that Tejpal bounced back like a phoenix in a new format and added power. But the Indian media didn’t extend its support when it was needed most, during the moments of crisis faced by one of its peers.

For our white masters, with love

2010-06-12T12:16:00.015+05:30

History will never forgive successive governments for treating its people as flies

Manmohan Singh and his team can rejoice at a Bhopal local court’s verdict on world’s worst industrial massacre. He and his team (and his predecessors, too) can take heart from the fact that nothing has ever been done to antagonize their white masters lest India’s image as an investor-friendly country where trans-national corporations can come and set up factories, pollute or even annihilate an entire people gets blunted.

Warren Anderson, the then chief of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), who’s enjoying his quite retired life in the US, must be laughing over India’s self-serving politicians and ludicrous and flawed Indian judicial system that let a corporate criminal like him escape.

Who are the culprits here? A CBI which failed to convince the courts, including the Supreme Court, about the gravity of criminal charges against the UCC and its officers? Or a Supreme Court which diluted the charges against the company executives from murder to accident by negligence. Or the Indian system that let a Warren Anderson to escape, despite he being arrested on a non-bailable warrant?

In fact, at various levels, every institution, from courts to police to politicians, has been responsible for their commission and omission, making a mockery of thousands of dead and those who continue to bear the agonies of this massacre.

It’s really appalling to see the media and the collective society go on calling it a tragedy or disaster, when facts are very clear for us to see that the UCC allowed the deadly gas to leak.

Consider these facts:

As early as in 1973, Anderson himself had noted that the technology to be used in Bhopal factory was "unproven". That makes him Accused Number One.

Documents reveal UCC went ahead with the unproven and dangerous technology for storing the methyl-isocyanate (MIC), which is 500 times deadlier than hydrogen cyanide, and can be lethal unless refrigerated to zero degree. Refrigeration was never used in its plant in Bhopal where temperature often went upto 40 degree C. The company saved $37.68 a day by way of this.

Muñoz, the first MD of Union Carbide India Ltd, said he had opposed the company plan to install three giant MIC tanks in Bhopal, for, only token storage was necessary, in small containers, based on economic and safety considerations. But he was overruled.

UCC’s own engineers warned against storing MIC except under dire necessity, that too in the tiniest quantities. In Bhopal it was kept in a huge tank, the size of a steam locomotive.

After a factory worker, Ashraf Khan, died due to a phosgene spill on 24 December 1981, a UCC team from the US found 61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC unit.

But instead of upgrading the safety standards, which were religiously followed in its Virginia plant, the company resorted to lunatic and criminal cost-cutting measures like reducing the staff and training days. To cite just one example, in the MIC control room a single operator had to monitor seventy-odd panels, indicators and controllers, all old and faulty, which often failed. The company thereby saved $40/day.

The operators had to manage the huge, dangerous plant using manuals written in a language they never understood: English.

What else these convey other than the plain truth that the company didn't care a damn to the lives of the shantytown of Bhopal?

It appears everything has been an ‘adjustment’. Two hours after the June 6 judgment was pronounced, the accused got bail! Victims are disappointed that the accused didn’t spend even one night in jail.

Now, dirty skeletons have started tumbling out showing how shamelessly the then ruling Congress party, both in New Delhi and in Madhya Pradesh, helped Warren Anderson escape prosecution in India soon after his company killed thousands. Kafkaesque Congress party and India's self-serving bureaucracy ensured that their sugar daddy is not prosecuted in India for his crime of mass murder.

The then investigating officer of CBI (India's answer to America's FBI) is telling how he was instructed by the external affairs ministry not to proceed against Anderson. A state aircraft was arranged at the behest of the then state chief minister Arjun Singh for the safe escape of Anderson. Reports also say the then district collector and superintend of police ensured the safety of their master (again in a state car with all the state security fit for a VIP) to the airport and even gave a salute to their white master before he got into the airplane! In New Delhi he met with the then President Gyani Z Singh before flying to his home country.

Declassified CIA records show Anderson was released on the orders of Rajiv Gandhi, fearing the whole incident would mar the party's prospects in the forthcoming elections and the apprehension that it would scare away .foreign investors.

Like in many other man-made killings such as the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 or the anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002, justice will remain elusive to 22,000 people killed (as per a 2004 Amnesty International report) from the poisoning, and those hundreds who are still born with grotesque birth defects such as missing palates and fingers growing out of shoulders. For, the Indian ruling class is suffering from an acute and incurable disease inherited from India’s colonial legacy. It’s called slavery. Slavery to the white masters.

Photo: This mother ran with her kid from the deadly gas, but died on the road

Instant orgasm and pangs of a sick society

2010-04-02T13:33:00.026+05:30

Some stray thoughts after a visit to Goa

A 20-days stay in Goa gave me enough ammunition to tear apart the immaculate veneer of The Great Kerala Myth, assiduously fed into the general psyche of this tiny state, as a progressive place with European standards. My journalist friend Shanuj who's leading a quiet life of solitude and anonymity in Taliegao is at his eloquent best when he tells why he decided to settle down in Goa. Though visits by gatecrashers like me disturb the comfort cocoon of his cozy life, he tells me he loves such breaks.

Geographically Goa is an almost ditto of Kerala with paddy fields, jackfruit trees and mango trees dotting the tiny state. Small, beautiful tile-roofed houses still dot the interiors of Goa, in perfect harmony with the tropical weather conditions. This is in sharp contrast to Kerala, endowed with the same geography and weather, where unfortunately it is a shame to own a tiled-roof house today. The money flow from the middle east countries, while contributing in great measure in Kerala's development, has proved to be a bane in Kerala, making it a place of concrete junkyard. Nowhere else in the world perhaps one finds houses built in utter disregard for the climate and geographic conditions.

Laid-back, easy and almost non-interfering, traits attributable in some extent to years of Portuguese rule, give Goa an aura of distinctiveness. The best part in Goa is that everyone is at peace and ease with himself or herself. I still recall vividly how a ring in my mobile phone helped start a conversation with an old lady who was sitting next to me in a bus from Taleigao to Panaji city. Listening to the western classical number ringtone, she asked me instantly: "Oh you love music.!?" When I said yes, she told me about a musical programme to be held at a Church that evening. She made it a point that I shouldn't miss because the show was free. She was so friendly. I thought it for a while later; in Kerala, women folks hardly sit next to you in bus, let alone strikes a conversation!

Small van-like buses move as if they are part of a caravan accompanying a VIP's dead body! Sometimes, you'll find them frustratingly slow; always ready to apply brakes the moment they spot men and women standing sideways. A far cry from the maddening murderous machines in Kerala where, almost every other day human beings are mowed down under their heavy wheels. In fact, there's an air of compassion about the way the bus staff treat the prisoners of education unlike in Kerala where they are pushed back and forth by unruly private bus conductors.

There aren't separate seats for women unlike in Kerala whose society thinks its pseudo morality will shred into pieces if two sexes sit together. It's an apartheid no one talks about. So in Kerala you’ll find the weird situation where even when seats are vacant meant for the ‘other’ the opposite sex wouldn’t have the temerity to sit. Here's one lab experiment for Kerala: Take the pervert in your neighborhood and get him sit along with a woman passenger for a few days, and will he still suffer from an orgasm?

This separation creates an `other’ feeling in both the sexes. So men tend to look at every female as a sexual object, a Temptress Eve, a potent seduction machine in cahoots with Satan. This separation permeates to almost all spheres of Kerala society and explains the lack of healthy man-woman relationships in a state where infants to 70-year olds are raped.

This gender-egalitarian seat arrangement of Goa reminded me of a tragic incident that happened a few years back in Kozhikode. There was this working couple of whom the husband was blind. Every day, the wife would take the blind husband to the office. She’d take him to the bus stand, help him get into the bus so that he reached the office safely.

One morning, after helping him get into the bus through a private bus’s back door, she hurriedly rushed to the front door meant for women passengers. No longer could she touch her feet into the bus footboard, the door checker gave the signal to the driver to proceed and she was crushed under the wheels. After reading about this tragic incident in the newspaper, I was numb for a moment, trying to imagine the state of that desolate, heart-broken man. His wife was his eyes. Literally. And he lost them all because some weird and illogical system in place.

The tragedy wouldn’t have occurred if she had got into the bus through the `men-only’ back door along with her hubby. But sadly, the Kerala society has so bloody made up its mind that a woman IS NOT SUPPOSED to get into a private bus through the back door. It's a cardinal sin. A sacrilegious act.

Now, will someone please stand up and say: It is the constipated, sick and hypocritical Kerala society which is responsible for the death of this lady, orphaning a hapless man. How many tragic deaths like this have to happen for these simple thoughts of common sense to sink into Kerala's consciousness?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Salutes to the iron lady and her fight

2009-11-08T13:21:00.005+05:30

Irom Sharmila represents certain values that are humane. Protect her

She hasn't tasted a drop of water for the last one decade, let alone food. But a ruthless state has been forcefeeding her through her nose, ridiculing her very fight for dignity for her people.

Irom Sharmila's valiant fight against the Indian state has reached ten years this month. Since November 2000, poet-activist Sharmila has been on a fast-unto-death, demanding the repeal of of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA) which gives the army the licence to kill or arrest anyone on 'suspicious grounds' without warrant and escape legal action.

She has inured to the mysteries and is ready to die for her cause. But the state responds to her protest in the most ludicrous way possible: arrests her on charge of attempting to suicide every year and releases and re-arrests, for attempt of suicide entails only one year imprisonment.

Her unfailing determination to fight for justice for her people lies at the heart of a wider debate over the repeal of this draconian law in Manipur. Introduced in 1958, the AFSPA grants the Indian army special powers throughout North-East India to arrest anyone and enter their property without warrant; shoot and kill anyone on mere ‘suspicion’.

Under the cover of the Act, the army in Manipur does armed forces anywhere in the world are best known for: killing, torturing and raping people under the cover of nationhood.

Two government-appointed commissions - Veerappa Moily Administrative Reforms Committee and Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission - have demanded the repeal of the draconian law that had led to gross violations of human rights. The Reddy Commission had noted that "the Act has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument of discrimination and high-handedness." The UN Committee on Racial Discrimination also urged India to repeal the law.

In fact the failure to provide justice to the victims of human rights violations by the armed forces further fuels insurgency, the alibi for deployment of AFSPA. According to a Human Rights Watch report, armed groups have carried out torture, killings, indiscriminately used bombs and land mines, engaged in forced recruitment, and conducted widespread extortion.

The 37-year old poet's resilience and Gandhian way of non-violent fight is unparallel in our living memory. But the Indian state is adamant, refusing to pay heed to calls from various corners for repealing this anti-human law. Sky won't tumble or sea engulf the whole planet if this draconian Act is repealed for a week or month or so and see it can be revoked once and for all.

It appears even though Sharmila pays with her life, Manmohan Singh and Madam Sonia Gandhi won't wake from their deep slumber. Dear Manmohanji, we respect your scholarly pedigree and foreign degrees; your economic sense is good, but it'd have been little more better if you have a basic sense for human beings too.

Photo: Manipurfreedom.org

Fatwas or cattle fodder?

2009-11-05T23:53:00.004+05:30

Fossilized, regressive Islamists and right-wing fanatics are at each other's throat on Vande Mataram

You know something? Jamait-e-Ulema Hind is a bunch of highly educated, progressive scholars who after several years of hair-splitting, back-breaking analysis found the most pressing problem Indian Muslims face: Vande Mataram!

Come on all ye those regressive mullahs; we are tired of your ridiculous fatwas. Let me ask this simple question: Is your faith so shaky singing an anthem will ruin your faith? There are several burning issues you can address before wasting time on trivial issues. Are you telling us that Indian Muslim wakes up every morning and worry about the horror of singing Vande Mataram? He's rather worried about other simple things in life like food, job, education, etc.

Nobody is forcing you; if you don't wanna sing it, you don't need to.

Are these mullahs aware that there once lived one Sayed Alavi Thangal, alias Mamburam Thangal, a few centuries back in the Malabar region of Kerala whose anti-British fatwas infuriated the British authorities to the point of deporting him back to his home country Yemen? In fact, much before Gandhiji's swaraj boycott call, the Thangal's lengthy fatwa had called for the boycott of British goods.

But today these good-for-nothing, gutless fatwas have come to mean ridiculous edicts from equally ridiculous mean guys.

On a different level, it appears to me, these mullahs are hand-in-glove with the Sangh Parivar. They emit such fatwas whenever the Sangh Parivar fellas are in real danger; sagging prospects with a serious dearth of issues.

Both the mullahs and the saffron brigade need some urgent therapy so that this country is saved.

Now, these right wing fanatics can go on beating Muslims with this Vande Mataram stick for some time and remain in the limelight. Now, they can profess for a while to Muslims about the virtues of being a patriot. The proverbial chastity speech of a whore.

Instead of pondering over Vande Mataram's Islamic traits, the mullahs should instead be talking about real un-Islamic practices like Haj subsidy. If you are baffled by this sudden disconnect between Vande Mataram and Haj, let me get an answer whether you have been told to perform Haj on state money. Never. I heard only wealthy people are supposed to perform Haj. It is not meant to be a state-sponsored jaunt.

Jukebox as means of torture!

2009-10-26T10:50:00.004+05:30

Demented souls rape a great gift possessed by human beings

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war...........

No doubt some folks enjoy doing battle
Like presidents, Prime ministers and kings
So let's all build them shelves
So they can fight among themselves
And leave the people be who love to sing

(Simple Song of Freedom - Bobby Darin)

Let me restrain myself from indulging in a diabolic diatribe. But I'm sure a normal human being would call this outrageous and in bad taste. As if all the torture methods in the world were worn out, high-decibel songs were blasted since 2002 at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, for hours and even days, on end, as a method of punishment.

Now a coalition of musicians and bands, which include my favorite alternative US rock band R.E.M. has asked the US government to release the names of all the songs that were used to torture the detainees. The coalition, including Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, protest band Rage Against Machine, has joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo.

"At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture," said Thomas Blanton of National Security Archive in Washington, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking classified records that detail the use of music for torture.

According to a Washington Post report, in one case, music was played to "stress" Mohamedou Ould Slahi, from Mauritania, who has been at Guantanamo for more than seven years, "because he believed music is forbidden."

Jayne Huckerby, research director at New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, says loud music was played at CIA-run clandestine prisons in the past. Music was not used as a "benign security tool," but as a way "to humiliate, terrify, punish, disorient and deprive detainees of sleep, in violation of international law."

The songs included that of Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC, Britney Spears, The Bee Gees, etc. It is really ironic and a travesty that the songs of Rage Against The Machine, known for its strong, revolutionary political views and opposition to the US policies, were used to torture people!

To use music as a means of torture is an affront not just to the musicians themselves but to their millions of fans across the globe. Their annoyance is perfectly justified, for when they sing songs they are never meant to be used as means to torture human beings; even in their hyperbolic fantasies, they wouldn't figure out that demented souls will use their songs along with electric shocks and sleep deprivation!

When they sing they do it from their hearts; the lyrics, music, the rendition itself is done with a sense of spiritualism, with the blissful and sublime feeling that they will be listened to and enjoyed by people all over the world, cutting across all man-made (or God-made if you may) boundaries.

Love, not war

Through their lyrics, singers raise their voice against injustices and wars. We have the great John Lennon whose ultimate awe-inspiring peace anthem Imagine continues to fuel all those anti-war activities and activists all over the world.

And there are many many more. We had George Harrison whose 1971 charity show along with Indian sitar sensation Pandit Ravi Shankar to raise funds for Bangladesh cyclone victims set a noble precedent of charity shows. Such shows are occasions where their words mesh with real action for noble causes.

Western music isn't just meaningless, drug-induced lyrics being played to the accompaniment of thunderous, deafening instruments. There's always a human face to it. And songs as a means of torture is an emphatic no-no.

Photo: Giacomo Ritucci /Wikimedia Commons

V-sign is in the air!

2009-10-16T23:18:00.001+05:30

Thumbs up to Twitter and all those people who thwarted Trafigura's dirty games

It was a V-Day not just for media freedom, but micro-blogging sensation Twitter as well. When British oil trading company Trafigura tried to gag London-based Guardian newspaper from publishing Parliamentary proceedings in relation to its dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast capital Abidjan, Twitter helped the flow of the very information it tried to block.

Trafigura obtained an unprecedented secret order that sought to prevent media from reporting anything related to its dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste in 11 habitat areas in Abidjan under cover of darkness on August 19, 2006, sickening tens of thousands of people and killing 15.

A classic case of third world countries being used by companies as waste dumping yards, it was one of the worst pollution incidents the world has ever seen after the gas leak in Union Carbide factory in Bhopal in 1984.

In the British Parliament Labour MP Paul Farrelly sought to know the kind of measures taken to protect press freedom following the injunction obtained by Trafigura's law firm Carter Ruck. However, the Guardian was prevented from identifying the "MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found",

But it appeared Trafigura and Ruck underestimated the power of Twitter, or Internet for that matter. Minutes after the Guardian published the story about the gag order, Twitterati made public details about Farrelly's question. Two more blogs and magazine Private Eye published the full text.

In fact, the response in twitter was overwhelming, with the three most popular search items on the site being "outrageous gagging order trafigura dumping scandal", "ruck" and "guardian".

Interestingly, the gag attempt was ludicrous, because, as pointed out by Observer media editor James Robinson, Farrelly's question was freely available on British Parliament's website and was printed on the House of Commons order paper! Then it becomes very much clear that Trafigura was throwing its weight around, flexing its arrogance and intolerance towards papers like the Guardian which attempted to unravel its criminal act of dumping poisonous waste on a poor people in a poor country.

Here, the traditional media has been helped by activists through the new-age means of blogging. In fact we could see the thin line between traditional and modern means of media is getting blurred here, for a common cause. And it indeed is a good sign especially at a time when corporate media eagerly absolves the crimes of corporates all over the world.

As rightly pointed out by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, this was a "combination of old media – the Guardian – and new – Twitter – turned attempted obscurity into mass notoriety."

It was not just Guardian which was threatened by Trafigura. It threatened anyone who refused to buy its version. BBC Newsnight and journalists in the Netherlands and Norway were threatened with legal consequences because they refused to buy its version.

Lesson for Indian media?

Another positive aspect of the Trafigura episode is the exemplary co-operation and coordination exhibited by various media outlets for a common cause. The Guardian got hold of internal emails between the executives of Trafigura which clearly showed that the oil company was well aware about the consequences of dumping toxi oil waste in Abidjan. The emails showed that the oil firm dumped the toxic waste in the poor African country in utter disregard for the health of the people there.

Guardian journalists gathered the emails from various countries. The emails were shared between a group of journalists from Norway, the Netherlands and Estonia, and Meirion Jones from BBC2's Newsnight.

As pointed out by the Guardian, getting investigative journalists to co-operate "is notoriously as difficult as herding cats." But it was agreed among the Guardian and journalists in BBC and those in the Netherlands and Norway that the right time to publish and make use of the sensational emails was when the UN published a report on the Abidjan toxic disaster. Though Trafigura tried to derail the timetable with a PR exercise - announcement of compensation to the toxic waste victims numbering 31,000 - the Guardian immediately put the story online, followed by Newsnight.

In the world of journalism marked by crass competition and petty (unprofessional) jealousy between journalists and media outlets of various hues, this indeed is worthy of emulation and there appear to be some lessons for the Indian media as well. Indian journalism seriously lack a sense of broadmindedness and professionalism in its real sense.

Indian media has this intrinsic problem of playing down investigative reports/exclusives by their peers, whatever be the gravity of issue or the explosive nature of the story so brought out, purely because of a skewed view about journalism and its cardinal purpose. What dominates its collective conscience is a sense of parochialism. And it is this insular view that prevents it from coming together and do something for the common cause of the humanity.

Lest we forget

2009-09-21T06:46:00.000+05:30

Those guilty of Sabra and Shatila may never be punished. But history shouldn't be repeated

September 16 passed without any furore. There was no remembrance. No candle light vigilance. Nothing. It was on this date 25 years ago, September 16, 1982, that Sabra and Shatila happened.

The two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon witnessed one of the most horrific slaughters mankind has ever witnessed. Horrific not because of the number of people killed (Total death count is still unclear with figures running between 800 to 2,000) but because of the way men, women and infants were slaughtered by rightwing Israel-assisted Lebanese Phalangist militiamen.

Gruesome accounts by eyewitnesses and journalists testify to the macabre scene at the two camps which witnessed a staged slaughter: bodies were charred, decapitated and indecently violated.

People done to death with the electric wires still tied around their bodies; corpses with eyes gouged out; women raped repeatedly; infants dynamited alive, families shot...The eyewitness account of one survivar would be suffice to sum up the horrendous crimes committed at the scene. "I was carrying my one year-old baby sister and she was yelling "Mama! Mama!" then suddenly nothing. I looked at her and her brain had fallen out of her head and down my arm. I looked at the man who shot us. I’ll never forget his face. Then I felt two bullets pierce my shoulder and finger. I fell. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I pretended to be dead."

"There were women lying in houses with their skirts torn torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall," Robert Fisk, who had been one of the first on the scene, said.

The slaughter lasted 43 hours, from 6 pm on September 16 to 18.

Dr Ang Swee Chai, an eye witness who worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead, later wrote in her book, From Beirut To Jerusalem: "The slaughter of unarmed children, women, the aged and the infirm was shocking. For me, I was doubly outraged that I had to discover the truth about a brave and generous people only through their deaths. Until then, I never knew Palestinian refugees existed. As a fundamentalist Christian, I had been a supporter of Israel, hated Arabs and saw the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as terrorists to be loathed and feared."

Years later, Robert Fisk said: "Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila."

Twenty seven years on, the guilty remain unpunished. Nobody gives a damn because the western media isn't talking about it. Nobody gives a damn because the western media has to do the Israel's bidding. So the world accepts that Phalangist militiamen were on a benign mission to save the world from "2000 terrorists" holed up in Sabra and Shatila. Damn Palestine people, their very fight for survival and their efforts to win back a scrap of their self-respect.

India adds insult to Endosulfan injury

2009-08-11T00:16:00.001+05:30

New Delhi's shamelss act at Stockholm Convention angers enraged victims who seek court help

The Anti-Endosulfan Committee in Kerala's Kasargod district is all set to take on the Indian government over its stand at the Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Convention, which seek to regulate the use of hazardous chemicals and pesticides.

The committee is planning national-level agitations in addition to moving the Supreme Court in protest against what they call is an 'affront' to hundreds of victims who continue to bear the brunt of 20 years of aerial spraying of endosulfan on cashew nut plantations in Kasargod.

The spraying caused unusually high incidence of central nervous system disorders like cerebral palsy, congenital neurological disorders, cancers, body deformations, reproductive disorders and miscarriages in seven villages in Kasargod district.

Years of protests and sufferings of the people in Kasargod hogged international attention about this deadly pesticide and prompted the state government to ban endosulfan in Kerala in 2002. But it is another matter that even after the ban, it continues to be smuggled from neighbouring state Tamil Nadu to be used in Palakkad and Idukki districts.

Now the Anti-Endosulfan Committee has been taken aback by India's efforts to prevent inclusion of endosulfan to the Rotterdam Convention despite the gripping example of Kasargod.

"Even an MNC like Bayer has stopped producing endosulfan; but the Indian government continues to manufacture this, in utter disregard for the victims of this pesticide. Worse, the government tried to block the international conventions in Rome that sought to ban endosulfan. It was also highly unbecoming of the Indian delegate, Dr Pandey, at the Rotterdam Convention to declare that no one has suffered from endosulfan in India," said B C Kumaran, a committee member.

It should be noted here that Bayer's decision follows an innovative action in 16 countries, led by a coalition of partners including Pesticide Action Network and Fairtrade Alliance Kerala.

"Our effort will be to senstise New Delhi into seeing the ground realities. We are planning agitations at the national level seeking more compensations and humanly treatment of the victims," said M A Rahman, an anti-endosulfan activist who has taken a film on the adverse effects of this pesticide.

India's stand

In March this year, India tried to block progress at the Stockholm Convention’s POPS Review Committee with a very shameful exhibition that caused the Chair of the POPS Review Committee to threaten to report the delegate to the Indian government. However a vote was taken and India’s efforts were in vain.

According to Dr Meriel Watts, co-ordinator, Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand, voting is permitted at the Committee stages but not at the ‘Conference of the Parties’ stage where consensus must be achieved. So endosulfan is still going through the Stockholm Convention assessment process, now at stage two, with the next meeting of the POPS Review Committee scheduled for October this year in Geneva.

The international community is continuing to work with the Conventions using good science and trying to persuade India to see reason to halt the production of this pesticide in the larger interest of humanity, the environment and other nations who get affected by India’s use, and the integrity of international conventions.

"We can only hope that by then the Indian government will have come to realise the enormous embarrassment to it, that is being caused by its delegate, and by its conflict of Interest: the Indian government owns Hindustan Insecticides Ltd (HIL), one of the manufacturers of endosulfan. This type of conflict of interest is unheard of in international conventions, and India's behaviour is threatening to wreck both the conventions," said Watts.

In 2008 too, India blocked the Rotterdam Convention ‘Conference of the Parties’, but endosulfan has been nominated again by nine West African countries, victims of this poisonous pesticide. India is again trying to block this at the committee stages, but I think other delegates are not prepared to let India wreck it again.

Deadly pesticide

Endosulfan belongs to the group of highly toxic chemicals called persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and has already been banned in 55 countries including in Sri Lanka. Various agencies have documented its deadly effects. In 2008 November, 43 students of a state-run school in Jharkhand were hospitalised after drinking milk that had Endosulfan residues. Five of them died.

Boys exposed to the pesticide endosulfan showed delayed sexual maturity, according to a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP).
India is by far the largest manufacturer of endosulfan, with the state-owned HIL and two private companies producting the pesticide. China manufactures small amounts, and Israel also manufacturers an unknown amount. In fact an Israeli company, Makhteshim Agan, has just started manufacturing pesticides in Andra Pradesh; it is not yet known whether they produce endosulfan or not.

Aren't there any other alternatives for endosulfan or is the love for this pesticide driven by profits? There are plenty of effective alternatives, it is simply that the companies are making very nice profits and they care more about that than anything else.

http://www.earthwitness.net/2009/08/india-adds-insult-to-endosulfan-injury.html

Ayyo rama racism

2009-06-27T10:46:00.002+05:30

Before terming the attacks on Indians in Australia as 'racist', the Indian media should look at its own backyard

It is really funny to see Indian media calling the recent attacks on Indians in Australia as `racist'.

No doubt, such attacks are highly deplorable and should be contained, whatever justifications (such as recession) are raised as their provocation. The attacks may or may not have racial overtones.

But it is simple double standard when the media cry about racism while it has never cared a damn about the untouchability prevailing in a society and the discriminaton and cruelties meted out to a large section of people just because they are born into a particular section of the society: the so-called 'untouchables' or Dalits numbering around 165 million.

There's something terribly amiss in terming the Australian attacks 'racists' when we have wonderful people like Giriraj Kishore who says the life of a cow is more precious than that of a human being! The mainstream media, just like the collective society, have accustomed to accept the strange and inhuman caste heirarcy and oppression of a large section of people as a social order; conveniently accepting a system in which Dalit-bashing is ingrained inextricably; in which you can kill any 'untouchables' and get away with it; in which 'untouchable' women are paraded naked and raped for defying the 'social order'.

Madhany-haters and human lovers!

2009-03-24T14:35:00.001+05:30

The pro-Sangh apostles of democracy can’t tolerate a moderate Madhany

There is a hue and cry over Abdul Nasar Madhany’s entry into the mainstream politics in Kerala. Both the Sangh Parivar and the Congress-led opposition parties are peeved at Madhany’s bonhomie with the CPM-led Left front in the state.

Hardcore Hindutva extremists and ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’ Congress are clamouring about Madhany’s terror links. For the Congress party it is simply a case of sour grapes, for it had no problems when PDP extended its support to the party in previous elections. The dynasty party didn’t find any ‘extremism’ in the PDP then. Now with the PDP deciding to support the Left, Congress simply can’t stomach it.

The past...

Of course, Madhany was not a saint. His avatar as an alternative to rightwing nationalist Hindutva forces in the 1990's had posed a great threat to Kerala's secular fabric in as much as the Sangh Parivar had done to the state.

He in fact is the product of Muslim insecurity in Kerala post-Babari, by trying to emerge as the savior of Muslims by exploiting this feeling. The decadence of Muslim League, the party of elite Biriyani-gobblers, coupled with the emergence and strengthening of rightwing Hindutva extremists, provided a fertile ground for Madhany. ISS, the outfit he floated and got banned later along with the RSS post-Babari, was his answer to the RSS. To be precise a 'Muslim RSS'!

His fiery speeches antagonised not only the Sangh Parivar but also the Muslim League, for whom Madhany posed a formidable threat, for, here was a man for the first time attacking the League’s shenanigan and elitist ways. In his speeches, he showed the temerity to attack League's supreme God Shihab Thangal.

In one of his speeches Madhany had said: “It is halaal (good practice) to visit chronically ill patients. I just visited one such patient: the Muslim League!”

All those fiery speeches and his appearances (he used to be accompanied by body guards) earned him notoriety. After ISS was banned along with RSS post-Babari he floated PDP.

Soon came his arrest. The timing of his arrest is still intriguing. Madhany along with ex-Naxal leaders K. Ajitha and K. Kunhikannan, decided to initiate a state-wide agitation on the Kozhikode ice-cream sex scandal case in which Muslim League leader Kunhalikutty was an accused. On the very third day (31st March, 1998) Madhany was picked up by Kozhikode Kasaba police on a charge of making provocative speech that took place five years ago. None asked why Madhany was not arrested during those five years after the arrest warrant was issued in the case of making the provocative speech.

Soon after arresting Madhany on charges of making provocative speech, he was transferred to the Tamil Nadu police in connection with the Coimbatore bomb blast case.

The Tamil Nadu police wanted to grill Madhany as they found that Basha, the key accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case, had a one-and-half minute’s conversation with someone in the office of Muslim Review, a magazine ran by Madhany at that time. In the very next issue of Muslim Review an interview with Basha was published. In fact, the phone call was made from the magazine’s Kochi office to Basha for arranging the interview.

The rest is history. After almost nine years of illegal detention he was freed because the prosecution couldn’t find a shred of evidence linking him to the Coimbatore blast case.

And the present...

Those who are now whining about Madhany’s terror links want him to be behind the bars till eternity, no matter whether he has terror links or not. In their minds he still is the face of terror, no matter his attempts to shake that image off.

He has admitted many a time to his erroneous ways in his ISS-PDP avatars pre-jail days and has challenged the accusers to prove his terror links. The fact that he has an unsavoury past doesn’t mean he has no rights to lead a political life. If Madhany still has terror links/suspicious links no doubt the law of the land should take its course.

All these Madhany-haters have no problems with the Sangh Parivar’s killer machines and its hate politics. Madhany hasn’t caused the death of people, unlike those Modis and Thackareys, indicted for mass murders. When all those hate-mongers remain scot-free, it is unjust and unethical to single out and attack Madhany.

In his hey days with ISS and PDP, he was no greater threat than rightwing Hindutva leaders. But while the Sangh Parivar hate-mongers gained acceptance in the state's mainstream political parlance, Madhany assumed the aura of a hardcore militant.

The tendency to bay for Madhany's blood and keep a prejudiced view on him has to do with the general anti-Muslim feelings in our society and the Sangh-parroted all-Muslim-are-terrorists hogwash that runs deep in our psyche.

The crotchety has-been is at it again

2009-03-18T18:14:00.001+05:30

A desperate Varun Gandhi seems to have burned his fingers

When all those me-too-is-a-Gandhi histrionics failed miserably, poor Varun Gandhi seemed to have been advised by none other than his mother Maneka, the messiah of animal rights (remember: her clinic is not for treating human beings!), to deliver a sermon that will fetch him all "Hindu votes" in the communally sensitive Pilibhit, in north west Uttar Pradesh.

But the sermon didn’t blow the socks off the Hindutva camp. On the other it has posed a tough competition for all those Togadis and Modis. This poor fellow’s anti-Muslim hate speech shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact they shouldn’t seem dim-witted either.

His dad, Sanjay Gandhi, ruled like a dictator minus any official power during the infamous Emergency. Now, is his son readying himself to enjoy the fruits of power because he believes having been born in the Gandhi dynasty gives him the hallowed duty of ruling the country?

But the poor chap was robbed off that chance at the age of three when he and his mother Maneka were mercilessly thrown out of her house by Indira Gandhi just after the death of Sanjay Gandhi in 1980. The mother queen got furious when Maneka claimed ownership of all moveable properties worth Rs 4.73 lakh.

Maneka didn't have the mettle or material to mount a palace coup against the Empress Indira Gandhi. Since Gandhi wasn’t a patented name, the Empress couldn’t file a suit claiming its ownership either. So an estranged Maneka found solace in the more creative field of animal rights. And the Gandhi tag was so tempting for the BJP the Saffron party embraced the Madame wholeheartedly.

Now, mostly from a realisation that there ain’t a sliver of hope that might redeem her moribund past, Maneka wanted her son to test his luck. But didn’t anybody tell Varun that he should have inherited all those ‘Gandhi’ traits to hoodwink the Indian asses (sorry masses)?

The Amul Baby was in fool’s paradise to think that some Hindutva-spouting will win him votes. He was desperate and has burned his fingers big time.

Photo: Nitant8899/Wikimedia Commons

The inimitable Fab Four

2009-03-14T16:38:00.000+05:30

Who can beat Beatles? The four lads from Liverpool is now a subject of study

Liverpool Hope University in the UK has launched a Master of Arts degree in The Beatles. And there is no other apt place than Liverpool for a course like this as this is where all the band members were born and raised.

A senior lecturer at the university has said that though there are over 8,000 books about the Beatles there have never been serious academic studies on the band.

Perhaps this is the first time that a band has become the material for academic studies. And coming after forty years since the band’s break-up, this shows the relevance of the band at a time the music world is flooded with various genres.

This, no doubt, is a tribute to one of the greatest bands on earth as it has redrawn the many dynamics of the music, with its unique style and the kind of music. The Beatles music still flows, transcending generations and genres.

It is simply difficult to attribute the band's success to a particular member. The Police means Stings; The Rolling Stones means Mick Jagger. But in the case of Beatles, all the four were unique in their own right. It wasn’t just John Lennon and Paul McCartney alone. There’s Ringo Star (Remember his wonderfuly-rendered ‘Don’t pass me by’) and of course the inimitable George Harrison whose Indian connection and association with sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar produced genre-defying numbers like ‘within you without you’.

It is impossible to confine the Beatles’ music into a particular genre like pop or rock. We have a number of songs that just cannot be bracketed into any particular style. Remember ‘Come together’, ‘Cry baby cry’ or ‘Revolution.’ The band wasn’t averse to experimenting.

So the ruling is: Bealtes still rocks!

A hyped film and loony ambassadors

2009-03-05T12:34:00.001+05:30

Was Slumdog hyped beyond its worth?

It may be a belated review of a film which gained jingoistic reviews. I watched Slumdog Millionaire the other day and I felt it was hyped much beyond its worth. In the first place, the story seemed to me illogical; a guy getting all his answers right in the Indian version of Who Wants to be Millionaire purely from his life’s experiences. So much for a rag-to-riches fairytale.

The first half of the film was pretty okay with the travails and hardships of the lead character Jamal. The background music in most of the places put me off and they seemed out of the place, qualifying it to be tagged as just another Bollywood flick. I'm not juxtaposing the movies’ immense popularity to its winning eight Oscars, for Oscar is not the ultimate word in the film world.

After watching this I was reminded of City of Gods. The Brazilian movie also uses real life characters from a Brazil slum. But the comparison, I feel, just ends there. Slumdog doesn’t reach anywhere near this Brazilian movie, be it in craft or treatment.

I also found some similarities between a grown-up Salim, Jamal’s brother, and Rocket, the main character in City of Gods: from the way he holds the gun to his gait. But I am not sure whether this is pure coincidence or not.

One positive thing about the film as said by my dear friend Abis is that at least “some slum kids got to act in a movie, got admitted in school, had the chance to see "good things", felt important....” And it’s heartening that all the proceeds from the film will go for the benefits of the slum kids. I wish this movie will act as a catalyst for initiating a movement that will lead to eradication of the squalid underbelly of a “growing superpower”.

Where’s the poverty?

What baffled me most is why the ambassadors of India-shining campaign went ballistic with the selling-India-abroad whine. Because the film has only a very few passing shots of the slums, inevitable for the movie’s main story about a slum kid.

There's nothing in the film that suggests that it glorifies poverty in India. Now I think all those Bachchans and the like went to town with their pseudo-nationalism even before watching the film. They seemed to have jumped the gun just on hearing that word slum.

Talking about Bachchan he is hypocrisy personified. There is little reason to think that the yester-year superstar was so much concerned about India’s name abroad or the poor people here. He is the one who unabashedly acted as the brand ambassador of Eveready, a product once loathed and boycotted by many because it came from a company responsible for one of world’s greatest ever industrial disasters: Bhopal tragedy. Did he ever give a damn for the victims for whom justice is still a mirage?

These pseudo patriots were peeved because this film 'discredited' India's name in the international arena. This is patriotism minus responsibility and politics! These guys never had a problem when India's name was tarnished internationally when a state-sponsored genocide killed thousands many rendered refugees in Gujarat.

Stop going ga ga after him

2009-01-21T16:08:00.000+05:30

There is nothing historical about Obama except his complexion

The world seemed to have gone overboard over Barack Obama. But is the man really worth celebrating? Does he have the much-needed progressive values and political courage to extricate the world’s superpower from the current mess?

So far, he hasn’t shown any signs which suggested a tectonic shift in US foreign policy. On the other hand what he has been churning out are platitudes and rhetorics. He was simply playing to the gallery, without making any radical statements that would alter the status quo and lead to a major shift in the US policy abroad.

He has never condemned the US invasion of Iraq. In fact during the campaign he didn’t term the war immoral and illegal or a crime against humanity that qualifies it to be tried in an international court of justice.

If he really wished for a ‘change’, a key word during his election campaign, he would have been condemning the US misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His close association with the likes of Colin Powell, Robert Gates, Janet Napolitano and former NATO commander General James Jones, all warmongers during the Bush era, speaks about the kind of orientation he would take as a President. James Jones had backed John McCain as his national security adviser.

And when Israel’s war machine went on killing a few hundred infants and other hapless people in Gaza he kept mum.

Anyone with a basic understanding of American politics will tell you that as a shrewd politician with his eyes set on the White House, Obama has to support the gory acts of Israel and refrain from making any other “politically incorrect” statements that would poke any hole in the jingoistic status quo.

This jingoism means that it is always the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas who are to blame for all hostilities and their consequences with Israel. And the real victims, the Palestine people whose expulsion from their homeland over the 60 years remains as one of the greatest injustices in modern history, are the troublemakers.

This jingoism further means that it is in the best interest of America’s security and safety that the country went on ‘war’ against Afghanistan and Iraq.

As a shrewd candidate Obama has to respond to this jingoism.

Obama marketed himself as a purveyor of change. And there was his black colour to boot. And by change, does he mean a change in the complexion of the president?

And it is really funny to watch the world and the media going ga ga after his black complexion. There have been Black people like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rize who sat over so many cruelties perpetrated by the Uncle Sam.

So having a black at the helm doesn’t mean a change just because he or she represents the clan long oppressed by the whites.

The point is there is nothing ‘historic’ in Obama’s presidency. He simply is just another candidate who played his cards well.

As rightly pointed out by Noam Chomsky, the election of an indigenous person (Evo Morales) in Bolivia and a progressive person (Jean-Bertrand Aristide) in Haiti were more historic than the election of Obama.

And keep in mind that as a US Senate candidate in 2004 he threatened missile strikes against Iran. And he's been threatening Iran ever since. So what differentiates him from other hawkish elements during the Bush era?

US journalist William Blum tells us that Obama is likely to remain a centrist; he’ll probably continue to play it safe.

At this moment I am reminded of Ralph Nadar, who has been campaigning for presidency. He puts forward an alternative to everything the successive US governments have been doing over the years: exporting uncertainties, wars and conflicts world over in its unending thirst for oil. If he wins the US presidency, it surely is historic. Not Obama’s.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Dangerous trends

2008-12-11T17:12:00.000+05:30

Post-Mumbai terror attacks, there has been a growing feeling of disenchantment towards the political class in the country. This is partly because of the insensitive way in which some politicians dealt with the terror attacks and the failure of the political class to stem the spectre called terror that keeps bearing down on the country at frequent intervals. And there is a tendency to glorify the country’s army, after NSG forces flushed out the terrorists.

Though the frustration towards the political class is understandable, the tendency to look down on politics is inimical to the very concept of democracy. It is born out of a kind of patriotism that is both apolitical and irresponsible. Those who are hero-worshipping the NSG commandos as though they are Bollywood heroes just don’t give a damn to the damning reports that the proof vests provided to three top anti-terrorist officers, all of whom were murdered, had been of substandard quality -- from a batch that had earlier been rejected.

One can see a clear case of bureaucratic bungling in the purchase of these jackets, as the murky world of defence material procurement is mired in the dirty world of corruption and big money. And what about Navy’s failure in heeding to the intelligence inputs regarding the attacks?

But who is concerned about facts? Fuelled by those jingoistic and bombastic TV channels, India’s elite class is clamouring for war. Is war a reality show where they can indulge in the SMS game?

The veneration of the army and loathing of the political class have reached a feverish pitch. Such trends will groom apolitical tendencies in our society. We can see what is happening in countries like Pakistan and Myanmar where the army gained the upper hand and democracy was trampled upon.

Indian democracy may be ailing and needs immediate treatment. But despite all the shortcomings and problems, it still delivers, though slowly. And it is one of the important aspects that keeps the country united.

Democracy is not the best. But there is no better system other than democracy. And history tells us that no army-ruled state has ever succeeded.

That we have inept politicians and a system that works in the most inefficient way possible is not a justification for denouncing democracy and extolling the army, which in turn can result in nothing but autocracy. Let me quote ex-babu Babu Paul IAS, who has served for four decades: “An IAS or IPS officer can never match the experience of a seasoned politician, who has passed through tumultuous experiences in life...One swallow doesn’t make a spring.”

We should learn from history and what’s happening around us. India has gone through the travails of Indira Gandhi’s tyrannical dictatorship codenamed as Emergency. Those who have lived through those hellish days know how it is to be living in a democracy.

You can clamour for autocracy while being in a democratic set up, not vice versa.

Tale of a declining dynasty

2008-11-26T10:14:00.000+05:30

The leading scion of India's leading dynasty should realise that cheap antics won't work

Rahul Gandhi recently said the 1984 anti-Sikh riots were "absolutely wrong" and that the perpetrators "should be brought to justice".

This statement seems to be part of his last-ditch attempt to regain his party's dithering ground in view of the disgraceful drubbing at the eight state elections in a row coupled with the declining prospects of the party.

Even the politically naïve know that Rahul was not serious. If he was, the party wouldn't have fielded former police officer Amod Kanth to contest the Delhi assembly election. Kanth was accused of openly helping rioters during the anti-Sikh riots. The Nanavati Commission had even indicted him.

So Rahul’s empty rhetoric simply won’t work, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims' welfare society has now announced support to BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal in the elections!

The Congress has always protected leaders like Jagdish Tytler and H K L Bhagat, accused in goading violent mobs into killing innocent and hapless Sikhs after Indira Gandhi was murdered. It is precisely these shenanigan ways that have worked to the detriment of the party and helped communal forces attain mainstream acceptability.

But what else one should expect from a dynasty-infested party? Even when there are lots of young leaders with a passion for change, the reins of the party continues to rest with the dynasty.

"I would not have been here, if I was not from a political family," said Rahul. So he himself admitted that it was not merit but being born in the Congress dynasty which qualifies one to be at the top of this party. But like his Sikh remark, this one too sounds hollow.

If the party wishes to regain its inimitable position of playing decisive role in the country's national discourse without being thrown into the political dustbin of India's history, the effete idea of dynasty should end and true democracy should prevail. When will the party realise that a coterie of sycophantic yes-men and praise-singers can't win the hearts of the people?

Rahul has other options. The Harvard- educated man, having run internet companies, seems to possess an acumen for business than in politics. In 2006, he bought two shops in a new mall in Delhi, They house clothing companies Les Femme, Koutons and Nike Sports.

So the young chap will be doing a good service to the Indian politics if he concentrates more on business thereby infusing that much-needed fresh air of democracy into the Congress party, instead of making puerile statements on and off. Wishful thinking, auh?

When truth is told

2008-10-22T14:21:00.000+05:30

Adiga was just telling the truth. Please do not crib!

Aravind Adiga has not been received with the kind of euphoria and exaltation such an instant celebrity would normally attract, because he portrayed India in a "bad light" in White Tiger, for which he won the Booker prize in 2008.

He is not hailed as national pride, but as one who has maligned India's name abroad. Leading the bandwagon has been the NRIs, the largely right wing, flag-waving, ultra-jingoistic crowd who are the unassuming brand ambassadors of 'India shining' campaign and who think they are the only true patriots. Popular web portals like Rediff, known for adding a pinch of jingoism to every possible news item, were replete with anti-Adiga remarks.

I am yet to read the book; but I can’t buy this-man-is-selling-India-abroad theory.

One would wonder how a middle-class, Oxford-educated chap could create the novel’s central character: the downtrodden, uneducated son of a rickshaw puller. We now know it wasn’t an “arm chair novel writing”, for he has had his share of legwork before settling down to write this novel.

In the first place it is amiss to say that Adiga's portrayal of the country is in bad taste, because he was only telling the truth: an India racked by poverty, diseases and corruption. And there’s no better way than fiction to tell the world about and thereby bring social change as rightly pointed out by Adiga himself in an interview by referring to what writers likes Charles Dickens did in the 19th century.

Articles on poverty shouldn't surprise anyone; but that's not the case with fiction, said journalist Jason Overdorf (himself a friend of Adiga) in Outlook. Fictions can have lasting impact unlike a normal report. (Now I remember about a recent Guardian report on the plight of people in Haiti who eat mud cakes because they don't have money to buy foods. This report doesn’t seem to have made any impact; what if the same issue is a subject of a novel? Of course more people will read it and the issue will get wider audience. I didn't mean to say things like this shouldn't be reported. I am just putting across the idea that how powerful fiction can be ).

Writers should strive for social change and it obviously involves telling the truth, which may turn out to be unpalatable to many. If Adiga had written about India's shiny happy people, a minority, glossing over the much larger picture of what is actually taking place in this country, the same 'patriotic' crowd now sneer ing at him would have been going ga ga after him.

Patriotism is not something that should be limited to cricket stadiums or on reading those flashy headlines about that false veneer of economic growth. Your love for the country remains hollow as long as you neglect the dark underbelly of 400 million people, the deprived, the marginalised and the neglected.

Show some maturity, please

2008-09-25T13:01:00.000+05:30

The ministers in Karnataka’s BJP government speak like Sangh Parivar leaders

The sordid drama enacted to effect the arrest of Bajrang Dal leader Mahendra Kumar is nothing but the result of a last-ditch effort by the Yeddyurappa ministry to save itself from the central government’s ire.

The arrest seemed to be part of a script hammered out inside the portals of the BJP government when it was called on the carpet by the centre over its terrible failure to crack down on fanatics who went on a church-attacking spree at various parts of the state.

Law and order came for a toss in Dakshina Karnataka where Bajrang Dal activists (as admitted openly by none other than its leader Mahendra Kumar) with the tacit support of the state machinery attacked religious places.

From the very beginning of the violence, chief minister Yeddyurappa was talking more like a Sangh Parivar leader rather than an elected representative of the people. He countered the charges against Bajrang Dal with the conversion theory, as if all the attacks were mounted on mass conversion ceremonies. In the first place, he ought to have shown the basic responsibility in his capacity as the chief minister: to nab the culprits and arrest the situation from spiraling out of control.

His cabinet colleagues weren’t better. Their utterances were at best puerile, at worst ridiculous. While home minister V S Acharya was seen defending Bajrang Dal, energy minister K S Eswarappa went to the extent of attributing the attacks on churches to the poojas and homas done by JD (S)! He even advised the JD (S) leaders to do poojas for the welfare of the state, rather than for instigating violence.

Pathetic indeed. Anyone with a modicum of rudimentary common sense and rational thinking wouldn’t dare to utter this type of hogwash. Oh come all ye ministers, you’ve got at least to show to the world that you are ministers and no more Sangh Parivar leaders .

Why should Thangals be spared?

2008-05-26T12:45:00.000+05:30

If the yardsticks of pouncing on the fraud seers in Kerala are used in the case of Panakkad Thangals, they should also come under the scanner

So it needed one Aryadan Shoukath to say it, at last. Amid the ongoing controversies over the godmen, the politician-cum-film maker has said something one would dread to utter in Kerala.

He challenged the state government to raid Panakkad Thangal's abode, the headquarters of the state unit of Indian Union of Muslim League, the leading constituent in Congress-led UDF in Kerala.

Though Shoukath is as crooked a politician as his father-politician Aryadan Mohammed and his utterance against the Thangals has to do with the ongoing war of words between his father and Muslim League, he has said something that is long overdue in Kerala's socio-political spectrum.

No government, be it UDF or the present LDF government, will dare to touch the Panakkad Thangals, who have been enjoying a smooth ride on the ignorance of Malabar Muslims and a false interpretation of Islam.

What makes Thangals different from other godmen in Kerala?

The arrest of Santhosh, indicted by Interpol for embezzlement and by the state police over a charade of charges including rape, has triggered titillating and shocking media reports about numerous fraud godmen and godwomen from various parts of the state. Papers and channels these days are flooded with the opulent lifestyles and sexual escapades of the fraud seers.

It is in this context that Aryadan Shoukath has challenged the government to raid the Thangal’s home.

If the police can conduct raids at Santhosh Madhavan's den and other godmen in Kerala, the self-proclaimed religious head and chief of Muslim League Panakkad Shihab Thangal and Company shouldn't also be spared.

Because, the Panakkad Thangals also perform stuff like healing like these seers do, thanks to the Thangal tag, a tag arduously and meticulously used for so long not only for advancing the Thangals’ supremacy over the Malabar region but also for making Malabar an impregnable bastion for the Muslim League.

The main service done at Panakkad is healing. And mind you, the service ain't free.

During a press meet by the Muslim League at Panakkad house in Malappuram, I saw Hyderali Thangal (Shihab Thangal's younger brother) 'counseling' an old lady with the help of Quran and then pocketing the fee. All along the course, the poor lady was standing as if she was in front of the God. At Panakkad, you can witness the long queue of people waiting to get `healed' or `counseled' by the Thangals.

Thangals claim themselves to be the true descendents of the Prophet and they consider themselves to be a leg up over the others. The fact is Islam doesn't accord any such kinds of sanctity, not even the loathsome practice of priesthood. (As said earlier, these Thangals are riding on a misinterpretation of Islam’s true teachings.)

Interestingly, in Kerala's mainstream parlance, the Thangals are considered sacrosanct. Now I am reminded of this small incident happened in 2005 during my previous stint with The New Indian Express. The state government came out with a booklet containing the major tourist spots in Kerala. The Panakkad house was mentioned as a leading healing center in Malabar. Enough of government stamp.

The then Malappuram reporter of Express Jabir Musthari, (incidentally he happens to be a Thangal, but doesn't belong to the tribe out to cash in on the supposed Thangal lineage) filed a story taking a dig at the government's alacrity to sanctify the Thangals’ quack biz. But the story was dumped with a changed intro.

Even the newspapers are afraid of touching the Thangals.

All said, the Panakkad Thangals aren't all about quackery and taking advantage of the ignorant people. The ancestors of Panakkad had an illustrious past of contributing to the 1921 anti-British war by the Malabar Muslims. But now, the present-day Thangals have become an embodiment of an elite class in the Muslim community and the new-age 'healers'.

Apart from the healing stuff, these Thangals have also mastered the art of cutting the ribbons. Yea, it’s about inaugurating jewellery shops and similar private ventures. Malabar Muslim entrepreneurs are under the ludicrous impression that Thangal-inaugurated ventures will flourish like anything.

Shihab Thangal’s name can be nominated to Guinness book for having inaugurated the largest number of jewellery shops in the world! (courtesy: K. Rajeswari, Madhyamam weekly).

(This post has inspired Vasthavam Malayalam daily to come out with an editorial: http://vasthavamdaily.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-post_29.html)

Honey, this is our new national festival!

2008-05-22T12:19:00.001+05:30

A hartal-infested Kerala has started loving a practice considered a menace elsewhere

It’s been four months in Bangalore in my new incarnation as content editor.

When I heard about BJP’s plan to hold a dawn-to dusk hartal on May 2 to protest against inflation, I thought it would be holiday just like it often happens in Kerala, where people celebrate it with gaiety and political fervor! But my colleagues told me that the hartal call wouldn’t have any impact on daily life in Karnataka and that everything will go on as usual.

So my hopes of resting at home for a day vanished into thin air.

And on the hartal day, there was nothing unusual unlike in Kerala where any hartal call would bring about a curfew-like situation, and I forgot about the hartal thing.

It was only when my journalist friend from Kochi asked me about the hartal in Karnataka on that evening that I realized that it was a hartal day. When I told him that it didn’t have any impact here, he dwelt at length on the day’s highlights in Kerala: buses almost kept off the roads; thin attendance in government offices, etc…

I am coming from a state where hartal has become a national festival. So I was bit surprised over the lack of any reaction to the hartal call, and that too by Sang Parivar which has considerable foothold in Karnataka.

At present the situation in Kerala is that any Tom, Dick and Harry can pronounce a hartal. People are so happy accepting it because it is a paid holiday.

There was this particular case happened not so long ago in Kerala. When some devils in this God’s own country spread a rumour that some petty organization has called for a hartal the next day, it was almost like a hartal the next day; vehicles kept off from the roads and people refused to go out.

On this BJP hartal day there was one news item in a Malayalam TV channel about how people of Kerala have started celebrating the hartal. According to the report, Keralites consider hartal as a best occasion to unwind; special dishes are made and all family members sit together and dine. The report had testimonials of shopkeepers who described about the rush of people and increased sale of stuff like chicken on the day before the hartal day. There are also a couple of testimonials by a few chaps who said they used hartals as merry-making occasions with the family.

A hartal roundup has become a staple new item for the newspapers and TV channels in Kerala because it is happening at frequent intervals. And invariably it has become a mundane and bland exercise.

This hartal saga is just another ironic but interesting story from Kerala, touted as the highly literate state with living standards on par with Western level.

The real estate dealer

2008-05-13T11:00:00.000+05:30

By pushing through its real estate agenda, Times of India has put its commercial interests ahead of journalistic values

“The Good Doctor”. That was the head of Times of India editorial dated 1-5-08, taking a dig at PM Manmohan Singh for having called on companies to “discourage conspicuous consumption and pay only moderate salaries to executives”.

The editorial, in Times of India’s inimitable fashion, takes on the PM’s attack on the corporate world by drawing attention to the opulent and extravagant ways in which he (Manmohan) and country’s president live in sprawling Race Course Road and Rashtrapati Bhavan respectively.

The paper says: “Few nations in the world can match Rashtrapathi Bhavan in terms of the vastness and magnificence of the housing accorded, rather conspicuously to its heads of state.”

It also draws the irony of criticizing the corporate world at a time the government has effected a pay hike to the country’s babus.

Quite a reasonable argument indeed as regards the opulent and royal ways in which the PM and president live; for, it is unbecoming of a country of thousands who go to bed empty stomach to waste money just to sustain the vestiges of British Raj which we are happy scorning day and night.

But Times of India’s real intention is revealed only at the end of the editorial as it exhorts Manmohan Singh to focus on the “conspicuous consumption” in central Delhi where the “best real estate” has been occupied by “sprawling ministerial bungalows” and other “government properties”.

The editorial says that Delhi has no dearth of space, but is still among the top 10 cities in terms of “expensive commercial property.”

And finally the paper doesn’t hide its real intentions as it says: “Imagine the impact of revenues if most of the properties owned by the government in Delhi and state capitals could be sold at their true commercial value.”

There you are! It’s all about real estate, honey. Real estate. That is the one word repeated in several areas in this edit piece.

See how the paper has made it so clear and loud. Straight talk. Isn’t it? The Times of India has no qualms in pushing through its real estate agenda through its editorial columns.

But, there shouldn’t be any room for surprise, given Times of India’’ interests in real estate business, with its parent company Bennet & Coleman running its own real estate firm.

Look at the way the paper has cornered in to a subject of its commercial interest by picking up an issue that has no direct link to it and blatantly putting ahead its profit motive above journalistic values.

So Times of India wants the “prime real estate” locations in Delhi to be sold out at the earliest. Are the powers that be in the country’s capital listening?

Coming together on Pangea Day

2008-05-13T10:57:00.001+05:30

BANGALORE: They call it Pangea, the name referred to a wonderful idea of what has been called people-to-people diplomacy aimed at working towards a world sans strife, borders and conflicts.

The word Pangea means a single continent. Once upon a time earth was stuck together as a single continent. But modern world divided it with mistrust, conflicts and violence. Noted documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim conceptualized the idea, Pangea Day, to bring the world together through films. On May 10, a section of techies in Bangalore witnessed to a clutch of powerful short films and live music as part of Pangea Day, which envisages the congregation of people at different parts of the world simultaneously.

People gathered at different locations such as Cairo, Rwanda, London, Los Angeles and Mumbai, watched the films simultaneously. In Bangalore, the Pangea the film screening became a reality thanks to IT firm ThoughtWorks. Techies gathered at its office at Diamond District way ahead of the scheduled screening at 11 p.m. The casual performance by a local band added spice to the event.

A total of 24 short films were shown, selected from 2500 entries from over 100 countries in an international competition. The show started with a short film, Pale Blue Dot in which American astronomer, late Carl Sagan spoke about a photograph of the earth from a distance of four billion miles.

"The portrait of our home as a tiny, fragile speck of blue adrift in an unimaginably vast sea of space." When he reminded us that earth is a "mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam", it served a stark reminder of all those absurdities humans indulge in these days: wars, conflicts and boundaries.

Some of them were as short as a TV commercial -- powerful enough to stir one's soul and rekindle a sense of awe, hope and oneness. No film went without receiving prolonged applause from the crowd, awed with the powerful messages contained in them.

They clapped their hands in conjunction with the applause of crowds sitting in Rwanda and Cairo on seeing these films, which tell true stories human lives, their tribulations, angst and hope. One woman techie could not help wowing at the sight of a little African boy, who lost his arms and legs in conflict, writing on his notebook.

There were more such similar 'wows' and expressions of awe and disbelief on seeing such stark reminders of life, perhaps a virtual realization for the techies to know that there is life beyond the comforts of home-delivered pizzas and perks.

Despite all odds, few souls from Sierra Leone refugee camp came up with a band and sang their misfortunes away. The band, Refugee All Stars, must be a source of inspiration for anyone, felt down by the little hiccups in life.

The event gave the techies an opportunity to realize that there are people on the other side of the earth, victims of endless chains of conflicts, poverty and war.

Hypernova, an Iranian band was a revelation. The band sang about one love and one world, while telling us that though they don't have answers to all the problems of the world.

It was not just films: there were thought-provoking ideas and revelations about the complexities of human lives, the meaninglessness of boundaries, etc. by psychologists and other experts.

"It is a indeed a good attempt as we come to realize through these films about people who are born to drink the bitter pills of life. Pangea is a good idea as it tries to bring together people through these wonderful films," said Sivakumar, working with a semiconductor firm.

The exotic idea of Pangea brings with it lot of novel concepts which includes promoting people of different nationalities to sing other countries' national anthems so as to imbibe a sense of respect to others' cultures and feelings. So you have Kenyans singing Jana Gana Mana with the same fervor and enthusiasm as that of Indians.

First published in http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Coming-together-on-Pangea-Day/12508105918/0/

Jackie Chan, latest media victim?

2008-05-05T19:29:00.003+05:30

Media reports that he brought his own mineral water and refused to eat Indian food on a flying visit to Chennai had the kung fu star fulminating

There's this story taught in journalism classes, which goes something like this:

On landing in an US airport, the Pope was surrounded by reporters and he was asked this question: “What is your opinion about night clubs here?”

The Pope paused for a while, as he was well aware that these street-smart scribes are adept at the art of making news out of thin air. He knew whatever he’d say could be twisted and polished as a news item. So he threw back a question in the most innocuous way possible: “Oh are there are night clubs here?”

Next day newspaper reports on Pope’s visit were something like this: “On landing the airport, the first thing the Pope asked was whether there are any night clubs…”

I am reminded of this story - often repeated to talk about journalists’ quest for sensationalism - on reading a posting by action hero Jackie Chan on his website dated April 27.

His lengthy posting was meant to clear up a controversy caused by media reports that he refused to eat Indian food and that he declined to talk to anyone and dismissed Indian stars during his recent visit to Chennai for an audio release of Kamal Haasan-starrer Tamil movie Dasavatharam.

“One article accused me of ridiculous things like refusing to drink India’s bottled water – they said I brought my own imported mineral water - and of traveling with my own personal chefs because I refuse to eat Indian food,” he wrote.

Terming all the reports “complete nonsense”, he said that he had nothing but respect for Indian culture and Indian cinema. “And saying that I won’t eat Indian food! Nothing could be further from the truth; I adore Indian food, and in fact had two excellent meals on this trip and was so full I could barely leave my seat!,” he said in the website.

The actor has challenged the reporters to prove that he actually brought his own water and asked them to check up with the housekeepers at the hotel whether he did such a thing.

“What brand did I bring? You say I refused to eat Indian food. Do your research and talk to the three butlers the hotel assigned to my room and ask them what I ate! You say I holed up in my air-conditioned hotel room, ignoring my hosts. Why would I travel all the way to India and refuse to leave my hotel room?”

He said that he had put up with a lot of ridiculous things written about him as he had been in the public eye for many years and that he seldom attacked anyone. But, it seems that he couldn’t hold it anymore. He said that few “irresponsible reporters” had spoiled the memory of his trip to India. “I am so afraid that when my gracious and wonderful hosts read the lies, they may get the complete wrong impression of me and my feelings about them and about the event. Therefore, I am posting this message on my website immediately to set the record straight.”

So this is not the end of it all. He also narrates one more instance of how journalists’ innate penchant for sensationalism can be damaging.

When some reporters asked him about his participation in the Olympic torch run, he jokingly answered that “no one had better try to come near me while I’m carrying the torch.” “I said it as a joke, and believe me, I made it quite clear that I was fooling around,” he wrote on his website.

But his comments were more than enough fodder for the media as the next day, news reports poured in with headlines like “Jackie Chan Threatens Olympic Protestors” and “Kung Fu Star Will Chop Down Protestors.”

This is a classic case of how media’s senseless actions can vitiate things; in this case adding fuel to the Tibetan cauldron, (His participation in the torch run had grabbed media headlines worldwide on account of his pro-Chinese stand.)

I don’t think even the most cynical would completely disbelieve in Jackie Chan’s version, at least his argument with regard to the Olympic torch run.
This is just another case of media indulging in the obnoxious practice of sensationalism.

Should there be an authority to rein in such practices that run contrary to journalist ethics?

(Appeared in Hoot)

Social media scares Indian corporates

2008-04-29T10:56:00.000+05:30

Indian firms yet to realize true potential of corporate blogging

BANGALORE: Blogging needs no introduction. From bedroom bloggers who write on personal topics to those blogs on specific subjects like technology, you have them all on the cyberspace.
Corporate blogging, however, is in a nascent stage in India.
Companies worldwide see blogging as a cost-effective medium to talk about its products and services or share insights among all shareholders.
Indian companies like Infosys, TCS, Rediff, Milagrow, HCL, Cleartrip, Gridstone, FrotoLay and Naukri and Indian arms of MNCs like Microsoft, IBM, Hindustan Lever are into corporate blogging. Opening a new window
Companies like Tata and Infosys have realized the potential of blogging in many ways.
Tata's blog, Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), got off to a good start; members of its Instructional Design group were first off the mark in posting their thoughts and engaging others within the broader worldwide ID and eLearning community.
"We have received some very positive feedback for our photo albums capturing life@TIS, from people considering TIS as a potential employer. I think this is because from the outside an organization often appears impregnable and this is one of the boundaries that we have been successful in lowering," says Ankush Gupta, manager, corporate marketing group and blog evangelist.
Infosys was among the first in the Indian IT industry to start a theme-based corporate blog, Think Flat, launched in 2006 to promote its 'Win in the Flat World' campaign.
Today, it maintains more than ten corporate blogs, attracting a community of global readers interested in understanding and discussing various facets of business, technology and global sourcing.
"At Infosys, blogs are an important part of our thought leadership strategy. Blogs provide our subject experts with a suitable medium for sharing ideas and receiving feedback from target audiences. We have evolved a blogging policy that specifies the protocols and standards for communicating to an external audience," states Srinivas Uppaluri, vice president and global head of Marketing, Infosys.
He feels that companies can use blogs effectively as a marketing platform to share new ideas and create thought leadership.
Blogs, like other social media, offer feeds – a feature that allows readers to subscribe to and receive blog updates without having to visit the blog periodically.
"This shrinks the 'time-to-market' of information delivery," adds Uppaluri.
Is there a fear factor?
A close look at the number of complaints in social media like mouthshut.com and complaints.com on various customer service deficiencies points to the necessity for companies to have their own mechanism -- blogging -- to take care of customer grievances.
Normally companies don't visit these sites and respond to the complainants, reveals K. Srinivasan, a Chennai-based PR consultant and president of Prime Point Foundation.
"New generation companies are extremely good as long as everything goes smooth. If you have any difficulty, they'd just blink. They are bad in handling customer grievances. Social media will put them straight," adds Srinivasan, an ardent advocate of social media.
Experts are unanimous in their view that Indian companies are hesitant to tap the possibilities thrown up social media.
Is it because the Indian corporates are reluctant to shake off their stuffy corporate image that they are shying away from taking to corporate blogging?
Mumbai-based Tushar Panchal, vice president of Rediffusion/DYR, feels that not many corporate houses understand the true value the social media platforms offer them.
"Traditionally Indians are not very effective communicators. And corporates are even worst. It is indeed very effective tool to reach out to your stakeholders in one of the most cost effective and personalized manner. There is a space for every subject and for everyone – use it wisely and effectively and you never know, you might even don't need to invest anything in traditional advertising," says Panchal.
He feels that it is high time that Indian companies had Chief Bloggers or Chief Knowledge Officers.
Another aspect, feel experts, that pulls corporates away from taking to blogging is their unwillingness to tolerate any adverse outcomes they fear would be generated as a result of blogging.
Says Nidhi Dewan, manager, corporate communication, Webchutney: "More corporates often back off from the prospect of dealing with negative feedback and comments on a blog. They obsessively worry about user comments or criticism sullying a company's equity. Consequently, they shy away from incorporating the practice."
Using a blog to patronize one's consumers with bigger words and promises isn't the way to go. Instead, a corporate blog should single-mindedly focus on being honest and being always receptive to feedback, both positive and negative.
Negative feedback is a reality and one that any corporate should be ready to confront without going on the defensive.
"If you have made a mistake, be the first one to admit it on your blog. If you cracked that long due product update, post it in straight away on the blog. That's what it is for, to talk to the people who matter honestly and frankly," says Dewan.
Prime Point's Srinivasan agrees with her, adding that the Indian companies fear that employees and the customers may post negative comments about them.
According to New Delhi-based social media expert Palin Ningthoujam, many people are reluctant to the idea of talking business openly as they fear that they will share trade secrets in the process.
Corporates also feel that they might lose control of their key messages and might not be able to control negative feedback.
However, he is sanguine about the future of corporate blogging in India.
"As business blogging gets popular in India I am sure more Indian corporates will also come forward to benefit from blogging like many abroad have," says Ningthoujam.
Meanwhile Dewan feels the biggest roadblock to corporate blogging in India is a serious lack of understanding about what corporate blogging involves and the goals and objectives of the practice.
"Lack of time is often a CEO's biggest grouse when it comes to blogging actively. A blog is only useful if it is updated regularly and has something useful or interesting to say," she adds.
PR redefined?
Some believe that effective use of corporate blogging may redefine the way PR agencies function today.
Rediffusion's Panchal believes the PR model is set to change and it can happen much sooner than expected.
"So, if you are a PR agency which is relying heavily on media relations model and doing an effective job of post office, you are soon going to be out of business and I advice you to do it now voluntarily, before you are forced to do it," says Panchal.
But at the same time, experts warn that complete reliance on blogs for dissemination of company announcements will be disastrous.
Ningthoujam feels corporate blogging will become one of the most important methods to initiate a discussion with the target audience. This and other forms of social media outreach will play a significant role in the future and PR agencies can help their clients strategize and implement such outreaches.
"I think ours is a PR agency-driven culture and will continue to remain so for sometime to come. Companies are not sure how this direct line of communication effectively operates and hence they choose to take the PR agency route but corporate blogs are pretty much a permanent fixture of the internet startup ecosystem and that's a great sign of things to come," sums up Dewan.

(Written for ciol.com: http://www.ciol.com/News/Features/News-Reports/Social-media-scares-Indian-corporates/28408105582/0/)

Nostalgic, but…

2008-03-15T16:49:00.000+05:30

The very mention of names like Boney-M and ABBA evoke a tinge of nostalgia. Both the bands dominated the disco pop arena of the 70’s, enthralling music lovers from across the globe with their foot-tapping melodious numbers.

And for a person like me who has grown up listening to Boney-M from childhood days onwards, the very thought of a Boney-M show was a virtual trip down memory lane. The show was held in Bangalore Palace Ground on March 8, '08.

To my surprise, there was only one member from the original Boney-M, Marica Barret. She managed to bring two young ladies, each from Indonesia and Germany; but never a match for the original ravishing Maizie Williams and Liz Mitchell, whose wonderful voices continue to enchant music lovers.

And in place of Bobby Farrel, Marcia brought an Italian guy, whose acrobatics and clowning acts didn’t give any value to the performance, and never a match for the original Bobby, whose spectacular dance performances on stage gave extra charm to Boney-M shows.

But still, for the thousands of Boney-M fans who gathered at the Palace ground, the mere presence of Marcia Barret was more than enough. She was at her best, oozing oomph and energy in her filly skirt, making the fans jump to those nostalgic oldies.

Frenzied fans danced and waved hands to the accompaniment of such hits like By the Rivers of Babylon, Rasputin, Sunny, No Woman No Cry, etc. Everyone, cutting across age and gender, danced and enjoyed.

It was really heartening to see a lanky teenaged girl and her mother next to me dancing all along the show. And when the frenzy reached that feverish pitch, both of them got on top of the chairs, dancing and waving hands till the end of the show. The mother-daughter duo’s spirit simply amazed me and I realized how the Boney-M spirit still lingers on, transcending generations.

On seeing such an overwhelming reaction from the crowd, Marica said touchingly: “I am happy that you still enjoy these songs even after 30 years. I really feel honoured.”
Of course, she must be. But I felt sad because Boney-M has broken up.

Post-show, I googled and found that each Boney-M member is active with own versions of the band.

Here’s the perennial problem of breaking away. It happens with many of the popular bands. Beatles is a good example. It is indeed a sad affair. Bands reach the zenith of popularity and then the inevitable happens, breaking away for some reason or other. In the case of Boney-M, there are even court cases over the copyrights.

When the band tried to reunite in the late 80's, Frank Farian, the original producer of the band, objected to it and refused them to use the original Boney-M name.

After the show, I wished how wonderful it would have been to see all the members singing together, re-enacting the good old 70’s.

Quell any parochial moves

2008-03-15T16:03:00.000+05:30

It is in everyone’s interest to quell any moves powered by parochial and chauvinistic elements to disturb the placid social waters of Karnataka

BANGALORE: The unsavory happenings occurred at Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd in Bangalore after one of its employees working for its outsourcing customer wrote an anti-Kannada poem and the subsequent brouhaha created over this issue throw up some disturbing questions.
No doubt the alleged attempt by this fellow to cast aspersions on Kannada should be condemned in unequivocal terms as it amounted to hurting the sentiments of people of this state.

That this came from an educated person, and not from a popularity-crazy rabble-rouser, is amazing and at the same time regrettable. Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) has already taken up the issue and has sent warning signals to anyone out there to "take disparage on Kannada."

Talking to CyberMedia News, Swaminathan Krishnan, senior vice president (Global Business Operations) and chief marketing officer, said that the accused person named 'Lee' was not directly employed by the company, but was working for one of their outsourcing customers.

"We have spoken to our customers and we have taken action accordingly," he said. "We have also set of code of conduct and policies. Still individuals don't take the responsibility and create problems. We won't be aware till it comes to us. We regret it and we do stand by our nation and people," he said.

However, the KRV activists say that this derogatory poem was being distributed for the last three months. So the question is no one has taken a notice of it. Do companies have a foolproof policy to check such kinds of nefarious acts by a few? Mostly techies are young, just out of college, and they often tend to tease others unmindful of the repercussions.

Though companies have lot of trainings and team building workshops etc, there are no mechanisms in place to teach them to respect others' sentiment and imbibe a world view without any parochial vibes.

At the same time one of the issues is the widespread allegation that locals are being denied job opportunities. As rightly pointed out by one of the readers responding to our report on this issue, the locals here have embraced people from other states with open arms, but are denied opportunities.

Recently, a popular blog published the resignation letter of a senior journalist with an English daily in Bangalore. In that blog there are quite a number of postings against 'mallus' (a derogatory term used to refer to Keralites) being favoured in an undue manner at the Bangalore office of the paper.

It may be recalled that KRV had held a demonstration in front of Infosys some time back demanding reservations for the locals. It is a fact that the number of employees hailing from other states is increasing day by day. But at the same time, there is this issue of talent crunch that is often heard in the job market, mostly in the IT sector. Everyone would agree that it is just impossible to run the show using the manpower available locally. So the need for people from `outside', and this tricky issue of talent crunch Vs denial of job opportunities to the locals.

In this particular issue, there haven't been any disturbances or son-of-soil war cries. But an issue like this has the potential to create an obnoxious 'us-and-them' scenario, which will be detrimental to the image of Bangalore in particular and the Indian IT industry at large.Karnataka in general and particularly Bangalore, known as India's IT capital and part of the flat world, has always attracted people from different parts of the globe. And IT has just boosted this influx, which is still continuing.

Bangalore, home to an eclectic blend of different races, languages and origins from across the country, can afford to remain as diverse and vibrant as the rest of the country. But it cannot afford to have divisive forces of any hues out to disturb the spirit called Bangalore.

This diversity is what makes Bangalore special. You have construction workers from Tamil Nadu, carpenters from Rajastan, cleaning workers from Bihar and techies from various parts of the country. So it is in everyone's interest to quell any moves powered by parochial and chauvinistic elements to disturb the placid social waters of this state.

(Originally published in ciol.com. http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Calm-the-brewing-storm/4308104174/0/)

Chequered dreams of God's own e-state

2008-02-02T16:43:00.002+05:30

Kerala’s tryst with controversies continues

Kerala’s belated attempts to prominently position itself in the global IT map have been generously sprinkled with troubles and hiccups.

Controversies and scams have become staple diet of the state. And it makes no surprise to see new contracts and controversies and shady deals come together in the same package.

The ambitious Smart City project, inked recently by the state government with the Dubai Internet City (DIC), too had its share of controversies. The project has a chequered history of more than three years. When the previous Oommen Chandy-led UDF government originally envisaged the project, there were allegations that the main aim of the deal was to help real estate mafia.

There was strong opposition by the then Left-led opposition against the agreement, which envisaged selling 236 acres of land for a mere Rs 26 crores and to give DIC full ownership over the land.

It was also agreed to transfer the 62-acres of government-owned Infopark in Kochi to the DIC. The agreement didn’t allow any more IT ventures sponsored by the state government in Kochi, where the Smart City project was to come up.

All these were staunchly opposed by the then opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, who now as the chief minister clinched the deal last year, making the DIC agree to 246 acres of land at a cost of Rs.1.06 billion (Rs.106 crores) on lease for 99 years.
Then came the Merchinston scandal, involving the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which bought 81.50 acres of land in Thiruvananthapuram for an ambitious Indian Institute of Space Technology (IIST). It raged into a major controversy after the state government issued a notice to ISRO for “unauthorized purchase of ecologically fragile land”. The controversy is still raging on.

And the latest land scam, involving the state’s IT dreams is a proposed cyber city at Kalamassery in Ernakulam district. Mumbai-based real estate company Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) purchased 70 acres of land from public sector Hindustan Machines Tools (HMT) at Kalamassery for building a Rs 4000-crore cyber city on a price much below the market rate.

Controversy arose after none other than the chief minister kept away from the foundation stone laying ceremony of the cyber city on January 19 after media reported anomalies on allocation of land to HDIL. When asked, Achuthanandan went on record saying that neither he nor the state IT department had any idea of the project. Incidentally, the chief minister holds the IT portfolio.

The issue has put the state industries minister Elamaram Karim and revenue minister K P Rajendran in the dock, as they were the ones who gave the nod when revenue officials raised objections to the land deal. Karim, who earlier maintained that the government had held discussions with the unions and management and that the deal was ‘impeccable’ in its entirety, had to backtrack it later, expressing readiness for a ‘review’ of the land transaction process.

He said that if the HDIL had been favored in any way that will be revoked. This is
following the intervention of the Kerala High Court, which admitted a public interest litigation seeking CBI probe into the deal.

Those opposing the deal say that it was to favor the HDIL, as the realtor was allowed to do something other than ‘industrial’ and that it had no history of building IT parks anywhere in the country.

That there was something fishy about the whole affair can be gauged from the allegation that the ad for the sale of the 70 acres of land was given to two national English dailies having scant circulation in Kerala. The ad was not given in any local dailies.

It is argued that HMT had no authority to sell the land, as it was part of 878 acres of land allotted to the public sector unit free of cost for starting industrial ventures. The issue, as it stands now, is being examined by a committee of secretaries headed by the chief secretary.

(Written for www.ciol.com)

AN ATROCIOUS TECHNICAL BUNGLING

2008-01-24T19:00:00.000+05:30

An atrocious and criminal technical bungling by Airtel and Bangalore cyber police had put a Bangalore-based techie in Yerwada jail for 50 days last year, for no fault of his. Now he’s set to fight back as he’s demanded Rs 20 crore in damages and slapped a legal notice on Airtel, principal secretary (Home) Maharashtra government and assistant commissioner of police (financial & cyber crime unit), Pune police.
Lakshmana Kailash K was wrongly indicted by the cyber cell last year in an internet crime, posting derogatory pictures of Chattrapati Shivaji on Orkut- and was arrested based on the internet protocol address provided by his internet service provider, Bharti Airtel. But Airtel gave a wrong IP address. . But by the time the police realized that they have booked the wrong man, it was all over. According to a ToI report he’d already spent 50 harrowing days at the Yerwada Jail with hardened criminals, had tasted lathi beatings and was made to use one bowl to both eat and for the toilet.
Ofcourse, those guilty should be punished. Be it Airtel or the cyber police personnel who didn’t mind checking his PC before venturing into arresting him.

Wanna go into the nitty gritty of the matter? Just click:
http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_07/edit_nov_10.htm

Banana Republic

2008-01-24T15:15:00.004+05:30

Binayak represents humanity. Please rescue him

Is India a Banana Republic? The way in which human rights activists are treated like hardcore criminals gives such an impression.

Take the case of Dr Binayak Sen, who has been detained by the Chattisgarh government for the last several months on charge of `assisting Maoists’.

Dr Sen was arrested on May 14 2007 under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2006 that gives the state sweeping powers to act against anyone it thinks should be put behind the bars. But the truth is that Sen brought to light the gross human rights violations in Bastar and Dantewada districts of the state and opposed the government’s support to Salwa Judum, a private army set up ostensibly to counter Naxals.

Binayak Sen is a doctor and was the General Secretary of the state People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). A paediatrician and public health/social activist, he has done commendable service to the cause of healthcare in Chhattisgarh including the setting up the Shaheed Hospital for Mine Workers in Dalli Rajahara and the establishment of the Mitaneen programme, a pioneering model putting the Village Health Worker at the forefront of rural healthcare. (Asian Tribune). He chose to work among the downtrodden instead of using his profession to make money.

A committed people's rights activist he has been struggling to protect the rights and liberties of tribal people in Chattisgarh and has been on the forefront to work on the health, social and human rights fronts for the last 25 years.

The fervent appeals by the likes of Magsaysay Award winner Dr Sandeep Pandey to release Sen fell on deaf ears. The overall condemnation and outrage over the illegal detention of Sen doesn’t seem to have any effect on the state government. Worse, Supreme Court even rejected him bail.

Pls show solidarity to this human rights activist by signing the online petition: http://petitions.aidindia.org/Binayak_Dec_2007/supporters.php

Redemption Songs

2008-01-24T11:28:00.009+05:30

They were pushed to the wall by a callous government. But the tribals in Kerala's Wayanad district are all set to fight back

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds.
-Redemption Songs - Bob Marley, 1980

It is history now. February 19, 2003: the day when a ruthless State with all its brutal force suppressed the genuine cause of the weak and the marginalised. It was on this day that the forces of the State mercilessly went on a rampage on the tribals at Muthanga in Kerala's Wayanad district, leading to the death (officially) of one Adivasi and a policeman. It hasbeen a year since then and lots have changed except the misery and hardships of the tribals in this district. The tribals' rightful clamour for land still remains unfulfilled even as the State government goes on with its empty promises.

The unexpected turn of events that led to the Muthanga tragedy was the culmination of the State's inaction on the Adivasis' just demands for a homeland. When the State government failed to keep its promise on the distribution of land to the landless Adivasis, hundreds of them 'encroached' upon the Muthanga wild life sanctuary on last January 5.

Days later, policemen fired indiscriminately at the tribal group that included women and children. One tribal was killed in the police firing, while many others were wounded. A policeman who was held hostage by the tribals was also killed in the fight.

The mainstream media, and the State government tried to demonise the tribals by alleging that they were connected with militant groups like the LTTE. There were even attempts to connect the tribals' agitation to Naxal groups. But all these allegations have proved to be groundless as none of these sabre-rattlers or media analysts couldn't establish any terrorist connection. The Chief Minister A K Antony had defended the police action by saying that what had happened in Muthanga was an "armed rebellion".

The gory incidents in Muthanga attracted international condemnation. The world at large came to know about the kind of hardships the tribals had been undergoing for their very survival. The National Human Rights Commission dismissed the reports of both the police and the State government on the incident, and suggested an enquiry by an independent agency like the CBI. Even though the government ordered a CBI enquiry, justice continues to elude the tribals. Worse, the CBI officials have pinned the blame on the Adivasis. Some of the tribals were reportedly even beaten up by the CBI officials during interrogation.

The wounds, both physical and psychological, caused by last year's bloody events remain unhealed. Lots of tribals who were wounded in the police action are struggling to get back to normal life. They are the living martyrs of State brutality. Like Velayudhan. After being injured in the police firing, he lives the life of a recluse, cocooned in the darkness of his hut.

Then there is Tankamani (22) of Erankolli colony, who escaped narrowly from the police bullets. On that dreadful night, she tried to flee from the police. Before dawn, the police caught her and began ruthlessly bashing her up. When she fell unconscious, the policemen went on to kick her. Soon she was hospitalised and imprisoned. She is now completely devastated and unable to perform any work.

The State government has been driving home the point that only one tribal was killed in the firing. In fact, video footages taken by a Malayalam channel questions this version by the State. It highlights the case of Njenan (43) who had participated in the Muthanga struggle. Along with several Adivasis, he was also taken to jail and tortured. After coming out of jail, he used to omit blood frequently and was unable to do any work.

One day, he fell down dead in the paddy field, with blood oozing out of his nose and mouth, recalls his wife. Was this a normal death? "No. He died because of severe torture by the police," says Njenan's sister Onathi. "It was after the imprisonment that he started bleeding from his head. He told me about the kind of torture methods used by the police. They used to thrash his head with lathis and then kick him in his head." But Njenan's death wasn't reported by the media, nor was this issue taken up by any organisation. Isn't his death directly related to the atrocities committed by the police in Muthanga? How can Njenan's death be placed outside the realm of February 19?

The story of Gopalan (32), another Adivasi, is different from that of Njenan, but here again, police torture played a large part. So much so that Gopalan came back to his dear and near ones as a deranged person, and then committed suicide last September. His parents and wife say that ever since his return from Kannur Central Prison, he used to behave strangely.

They say that at nights, he used to perch atop trees after screaming that he was being chased by the police. After examining him, a native physician diagnosed that he had sustained a serious injury in his brain. Though Gopalan had started taking herbal medicines, one night he ran out of home shouting that somebody was chasing him to beat him up. Later, he was found dead. Both his parents assert that he had never shown any kind of mental disturbance before the police torture. Gopalan is survived by his wife and two kids, who are now in the throes of poverty and despair.

The police atrocities in Muthanga should also be viewed in the context of the above-mentioned two cases. Njenan and Gopalan would have been alive today if the State had dealt with the Adivasis' grievances in a civilised manner. And for sure, there are several more Gopalans and Njenans.

Cut to Balan (35) and his 60-year-old mother Poli who were part of the agitating group of Adivasis in Muthanga. They recall that police started to fire without issuing any warning. Both of them were at that time in the temporary shed put up by the tribals. After grabbing them from the shed, the police beat them up, breaking the hand of the old woman. Balan is now a wreck, and unable to carry out normal chores.

Malu is another innocent victim of police brutality although she was not part of the protest group. When things were hotting up in Muthanga, she was taking rest as she had given birth only a few days back. Since some tribals from her colony had taken part in the agitation, the police searched her colony as well. Fearing police torture, all the tribals in the colony, including Malu, escaped to the forest. They had to hide inside the forest for several days without any means for food or water.

That's when Malu suffered the biggest tragedy of her life. Her seven-day-old infant died as it could not cope with the hostile conditions in the forest. It couldn't have got more worse for Malu as she was childless for several years after marriage.

Surendran, a teacher, was also picked up by the police after the Muthanga incident. Constantly, for as many as 12 hours, he was subjected to severe torture by the policemen. His crime: teaching the Adivasi children. The police arrested him on the flimsy ground that his phone number was found in the diary of a tribal leader. Due to the incessant torture, Surendran has now lost his hearing capacity, and he complains of acute pain in his hips.

He is still haunted by the abuse hurled at him by the policemen. He says the policemen were blatantly racist. Surendran is planning legal action against the errant policemen.

Veliyan (22) is another Adivasi who bore the brunt of the State's boot. The police bullet hit his leg, and a bleeding Veliyan limped deep into the forest. After four days, he was found lying in coma and was taken to the hospital. His legs still give him acute pain and sleepless nights.

These are the 'ghosts' of a State's way of dealing with dissent. To make matters worse and more inhuman, the Antony government, far from tendering an apology over the brutal acts of the policemen, has not even bothered to carry out relief measures. Scores of Adivasi men, women and children have been traumatised by the events, but the government machinery has been looking the other way. All that the government is vehemently concerned about is in haunting those people, including journalists, who cried foul at the brutal State action.

Muthanga has become a symbol of how a cruel State can terrorise the poor and the hapless. And it is both intriguing and appalling that such a gross case of human rights violations, has been taken lightly by a society that prides itself on its literacy, cultural refinement and social responsibility.

But the Adivasi may no longer be looking to this society for redemption; with the recent announcement of a new political party-Rashtriya Mahasabha--for Kerala's Adivasis, the Adivasi has made his intention clear to fight his own battle by taking on the mainstream society.

(Written for MEANTIME magazine in 2004 and republished in http://www.countercurrents.org/)

NO JUSTICE FOR MUTHANGA VICTIMS: They Fall Down And Die

2008-01-24T11:17:00.000+05:30

03 March, 2003

A year has passed since the tragic turn of events in Muthanga when a brutal State clamped down on the rightful protest of Adivasis (tribals) for the right to land. The larger Kerala society has viewed the Adivasis’ struggle with indifference and at times with hostility. But with the announcement of a new political party for the marginalised tribals, the Adivasi is sending a clear message that he is going to fight his battles by joining the mainstream society and taking it on.

It is history now. February 19, 2003: the day when a ruthless State with all its brutal force suppressed the genuine cause of the weak and the marginalised. It was on this day that the forces of the State mercilessly went on a rampage on the tribals at Muthanga in Kerala’s Wayanad district, leading to the death (officially) of one Adivasi and a policeman.

It has been a year since then and lots have changed except the misery and hardships of the tribals in this district. The tribals’ rightful clamour for land still remains unfulfilled even as the State government goes on with its empty promises.

The unexpected turn of events that led to the Muthanga tragedy was the culmination of the State’s inaction on the Adivasis’ just demands for a homeland. When the State government failed to keep its promise on the distribution of land to the landless Adivasis, hundreds of them ‘encroached’ upon the Muthanga wild life sanctuary on last January 5.

Days later, policemen fired indiscriminately at the tribal group that included women and children. One tribal was killed in the police firing, while many others were wounded. A policeman who was held hostage by the tribals was also killed in the fight.

The mainstream media, and the State government tried to demonise the tribals by alleging that they were connected with militant groups like the LTTE. There were even attempts to connect the tribals’ agitation to Naxal groups. But all these allegations have proved to be groundless as none of these sabre-rattlers or media analysts couldn’t establish any terrorist connection. The Chief Minister A K Antony had defended the police action by saying that what had happened in Muthanga was an “armed rebellion”.

The gory incidents in Muthanga attracted international condemnation. The world at large came to know about the kind of hardships the tribals had been undergoing for their very survival. The National Human Rights Commission dismissed the reports of both the police and the State government on the incident, and suggested an enquiry by an independent agency like the CBI. Even though the government ordered a CBI enquiry, justice continues to elude the tribals. Worse, the CBI officials have pinned the blame on the Adivasis. Some of the tribals were reportedly even beaten up by the CBI officials during interrogation.

The wounds, both physical and psychological, caused by last year’s bloody events remain unhealed. Lots of tribals who were wounded in the police action are struggling to get back to normal life. They are the living martyrs of State brutality. Like Velayudhan. After being injured in the police firing, he lives the life of a recluse, cocooned in the darkness of his hut.

Then there is Tankamani (22) of Erankolli colony, who escaped narrowly from the police bullets. On that dreadful night, she tried to flee from the police. Before dawn, the police caught her and began ruthlessly bashing her up. When she fell unconscious, the policemen went on to kick her.

Soon she was hospitalised and imprisoned. She is now completely devastated and unable to perform any work.

The State government has been driving home the point that only one tribal was killed in the firing. In fact, video footages taken by a Malayalam channel questions this version by the State. It highlights the case of Njenan (43) who had participated in the Muthanga struggle. Along with several Adivasis, he was also taken to jail and tortured. After coming out of jail, he used to omit blood frequently and was unable to do any work.

One day, he fell down dead in the paddy field, with blood oozing out of his nose and mouth, recalls his wife. Was this a normal death? “No. He died because of severe torture by the police,” says Njenan’s sister Onathi. “It was after the imprisonment that he started bleeding from his head. He told me about the kind of torture methods used by the police. They used to thrash his head with lathis and then kick him in his head.”

But Njenan’s death wasn’t reported by the media, nor was this issue taken up by any organisation. Isn’t his death directly related to the atrocities committed by the police in Muthanga? How can Njenan’s death be placed outside the realm of February 19?

The story of Gopalan (32), another Adivasi, is different from that of Njenan, but here again, police torture played a large part. So much so that Gopalan came back to his dear and near ones as a deranged person, and then committed suicide last September. His parents and wife say that ever since his return from Kannur Central Prison, he used to behave strangely.

They say that at nights, he used to perch atop trees after screaming that he was being chased by the police. After examining him, a native physician diagnosed that he had sustained a serious injury in his brain. Though Gopalan had started taking herbal medicines, one night he ran out of home shouting that somebody was chasing him to beat him up. Later, he was found dead. Both his parents assert that he had never shown any kind of mental disturbance before the police torture. Gopalan is survived by his wife and two kids, who are now in the throes of poverty and despair.

The police atrocities in Muthanga should also be viewed in the context of the above-mentioned two cases. Njenan and Gopalan would have been alive today if the State had dealt with the Adivasis’ grievances in a civilised manner. And for sure, there are several more Gopalans and Njenans.

Cut to Balan (35) and his 60-year-old mother Poli who were part of the agitating group of Adivasis in Muthanga. They recall that police started to fire without issuing any warning. Both of them were at that time in the temporary shed put up by the tribals. After grabbing them from the shed, the police beat them up, breaking the hand of the old woman. Balan is now a wreck, and unable to carry out normal chores.

Malu is another innocent victim of police brutality although she was not part of the protest group. When things were hotting up in Muthanga, she was taking rest as she had given birth only a few days back. Since some tribals from her colony had taken part in the agitation, the police searched her colony as well. Fearing police torture, all the tribals in the colony, including Malu, escaped to the forest.

They had to hide inside the forest for several days without any means for food or water. That’s when Malu suffered the biggest tragedy of her life. Her seven-day-old infant died as it could not cope with the hostile conditions in the forest. It couldn’t have got more worse for Malu as she was childless for several years after marriage.

Surendran, a teacher, was also picked up by the police after the Muthanga incident. Constantly, for as many as 12 hours, he was subjected to severe torture by the policemen. His crime: teaching the Adivasi children. The police arrested him on the flimsy ground that his phone number was found in the diary of a tribal leader. Due to the incessant torture, Surendran has now lost his hearing capacity, and he complains of acute pain in his hips.

He is still haunted by the abuse hurled at him by the policemen. He says the policemen were blatantly racist. Surendran is planning legal action against the errant policemen.

Veliyan (22) is another Adivasi who bore the brunt of the State’s boot. The police bullet hit his leg, and a bleeding Veliyan limped deep into the forest. After four days, he was found lying in coma and was taken to the hospital. His legs still give him acute pain and sleepless nights.

These are the ‘ghosts’ of a State’s way of dealing with dissent. To make matters worse and more inhuman, the Antony government, far from tendering an apology over the brutal acts of the policemen, has not even bothered to carry out relief measures. Scores of Adivasi men, women and children have been traumatised by the events, but the government machinery has been looking the other way. All that the government is vehemently concerned about is in haunting those people, including journalists, who cried foul at the brutal State action.

Muthanga has become a symbol of how a cruel State can terrorise the poor and the hapless. And it is both intriguing and appalling that such a gross case of human rights violations, has been taken lightly by a society that prides itself on its literacy, cultural refinement and social responsibility.

But the Adivasi may no longer be looking to this society for redemption; with the recent announcement of a new political party—Rashtriya Mahasabha--for Kerala’s Adivasis, the Adivasi has made his intention clear to fight his own battle by taking on the mainstream society.

(First appeared in Kozhikode-based MEANTIME magazine in 2003)

'Dont accept RTI applications'

2007-11-17T10:20:00.001+05:30

The repeated filing of applications under the Right To Information (RTI) Act on various issues by a retired Army official from Palakkad have irritated the State Information Commission (SIC) to the extent of it issuing an order to the Palakkad Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) not to accept RTI petitions from anyone from the district and ordered to send them directly to the public authority concerned or the commission.

That the order is particularly targeted at Major (Rtd) P.M.Ravindran is evident from the fact that it mentions his name as “one example in point”.

He has filed scores of RTI applications, mostly on the performance of the SIC, the latest being the one seeking information on the expenses incurred for an SIC sitting held in Palakkad.

As per Section 6 (3) of the RTI Act public information officers in district headquarters concerned have to receive applications under the RTI Act and forward them to the respective public authority.

The State Government has entrusted the RDOs to receive RTI pleas and transfer them to the departments concerned.Legal experts say that the SIC order is against the RTI Act. “Under the RTI Act, the SIC is not authorised to issue orders like this. This can be challenged in the High Court.

But at the same time, there should be provisions to deal with what is called ‘vexatious litigants’. When the Central Information Commission convened a meeting of all the SICs last month, it was proposed to bring an amendment to deal with those who overuse the RTI Act.

But in this case, the argument that the person is a vexatious litigant cannot be raised as an alibi to justify this unlawful order,” said advocate D.B.Binu. He said that the SIC can only implement the Act and cannot meddle with its provisions.

“Even courts cannot act against the provisions of a piece of legislation. This order should be opposed as it will have an impact on the positive use of RTI Act,” said advocate M.R.Hariraj.

When contacted, State Chief Information Commissioner Palat Mohandas was more scathing in his remarks against Ravindran.

“He has become a nuisance. He doesn’t know anything about the RTI Act
though he acts as an apostle of it. Who is he to dictate terms to us?”, said Mohandas. Asked about the order, he said that he can comment on it only after checking it.

(Reported for The New Indian Express Kochi edition)

Madhany: Victim Of State Terror

2007-04-20T20:48:00.000+05:30

The case of Abdul Nasar Madhany’s imprisonment for the last nine long years simply belies India’s much-trumpeted democratic values and judicial system. He has been lodged in the Coimbatore jail as a trial prisoner as one of the accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case without parole or bail. But the issue goes unreported in the mainstream media and such a serious instance of human rights violation unheard of in the post-independent India continues to remain as a bloat on Indian’s democratic credentials.

Madhany, hailing from a village in the Kollam district in Kerala, was basically an Islamic cleric (the word Madhany denotes to a religious degree). It was in 1993 that he founded People’s Democratic Party (PDP), an outfit consisting of backward communities like Muslims and Dalits. For the first time in the history of India, here was a man advocating “power to the untouchable”.

Post-Babari demolition, Madhany’s political party gained momentum in the context of reasons like the political degradation of parties representing Muslims, like Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the rise of Hindutva forces and the sidelining of the marginalised sections including Muslims and Dalits. His fiery and articulate speeches on several burning issues annoyed the mainstream political parties, especially IUML, a party claiming to espouse the cause of Muslims.

He intervened on issues like the persecution of Muslims in places like Palakkad post-Babari demolition. One of his targets was the then north DGP Raman Srivastava - whose open call to his subordinates “I want the dead bodies of Muslim bastards” ended up in the killing of an innocent 11-year-old girl in Palakkad at the height of the post-Babari demolition riots. The many issues that he took up were enough fodder for the extremist Hindutva forces to target him. He lost one of his legs in a bomb attack by the RSS. And the culprits of this crime are still at large.

The wide-held impression that has been circulated in the mainstream parlance is that Madhany is an accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case that killed 59 persons in 1997. But consider the following. Even after nine long years of interrogation and grilling of 2760 witnesses, numerous cross examinations and filing of chargesheet running into 2760 pages (weighing up 47 kilogram), neither the Tamil Nadu police nor the prosecution has been able to prove his connection to the Coimbatore bomb blast case. The prosecution has not so far been able to produce even a single witness or a trace of evidence against Madhany.

Looking back, one can find that Madhany’s arrest was connected somehow to the now-infamous Kozhikode ice-cream parlour sex racket case involving powerful IUML leader and former Kerala Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty.

It goes like this: Madhany, in association with ex-Naxalite leaders K. Ajitha and K. Kunhikannan decided to initiate a state-wide agitation against the ice-cream case. On the very third day (31st March, 1998) Madhany is picked up by Kozhikode Kasaba police on a charge of making provocative speech that took place five years back. None asked why Madhany was not arrested during those five years after the arrest warrant was issued in the case of making the provocative speech.

Soon after arresting Madhany on charges of making provocative speech, he was transferred to the Tamil Nadu police in connection with the Coimbatore bomb blast case. It will be interesting to enquire into on what grounds Madhany was linked to the bomb blast case. The Tamil Nadu police wanted to grill Madhany as they found that Basha, the key accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case, had a one-and-half minute’s conversation with someone in the office of Muslim Review, a magazine ran by Madhany at that time. The most intriguing factor is that in the very next issue of Muslim Review an interview with Basha was published. In fact, the phone call was made from the magazine’s office to Basha for arranging the interview. There was no trace of evidence to suggest that it was Madhany and Basha who had talked each other over the phone.

Today, even after nine years of uninterrupted imprisonment, one will find it intriguing that this handicapped man’s life and future hangs on that one-and-half minutes phone call. The alacrity of the politician-official nexus to trap Madhany was evident from the fact that the then Kasaba police Circle Inspector had given a fake testimony in the court. In the testimony the CI managed to obtain a statement purported to be made by Madhany saying he had connections to the Coimbatore bomb blast case. But in the court the testimony was summarily rejected as the signature of Madhany was found fake. (And today, that police officer occupies a top position in the police hierarchy.)

After some preliminary questioning, TN police included Madhany as the 45th accused in the Coimbatore bomb blast case. And even then the main charge was conspiracy in the bomb blast case. Though many ‘evidences’ were raised, the prominent among them was that one-and-half minute phone call.

And consequently, Madhany underwent imprisonment in Salem and Coimbatore prisons for the first four years. But no chargesheet was filed initially; and there was only the FIR. When efforts were made to approach the Supreme Court for bail, the bogey of Maintenance of Internal Securities Act (MISA) was imposed as an additional charge, making the task of seeking bail/parole tough.

Today, nine years of imprisonment has made Madhany a prisoner of so many ailments like cervical Spondylosis, back pain, ulcer, and fierce diabetic. When he was arrested his weight was 104 kg. Now his weight has been reduced to below 50 kg. And adding to all these woes is the untold hardships owing to his broken artificial leg, with which he has to perform all his daily chords.

Rules continue to be manipulated in the case of Madhany. First of all, bail or parole has been a no-no for him all these years. And looks like the jail manual has been “amended” exclusively for him! Severe restrictions are in place for his relatives/friends to visit him in jail, unheard of even in the case of hardcore criminals charged with serious offences.

Whenever bail applications were filed in the court citing his weak health and other humanitarian grounds, the prosecution opposed it one several grounds. The prominent among them were: If bail is given to him there are chances that he would leave the country; he would influence the witnesses; the possibility of he again committing these kinds of `crimes’ cannot be ruled out; the law and order situation will be in danger if he is set free, etc. Back in Kerala, he is a hot favorite of both the Right and Left wings in their election campaigns. But no serious efforts were ever taken for his release. When bail was sought for attending the funeral of Madhany's grand mother a few years ago, the TN government refused to grant it on the basis of a report given by the then Kerala Chief Minister, saying that if he is released that will create law and order problem in the state.

“These points have no legality given that Madhany can’t even walk without the help of crutches or outside help. He doesn’t have a passport to go abroad. The argument that he would influence the witnesses has no basis, given that all the witnesses in the case have already been grilled,” says Adv. Ramkumar, Madhany’s counsel.

“Above all, prosecution continues to give lots of counter affidavits in the trial court against Madhany with the aim of obstructing the trial. The court never took care of the above-mentioned arguments in favour of Madhany, despite their veracity and validity, put forward by the Madhany’s counsels at different occasions during the trail,” he says.

It may be noted here that Sankaracharya, who is facing a similar kind of charges, was given bail by the Supreme Court even before the trial. But Madhany continues to be denied bail or parole, the prerogative of any Indian citizen.

The court took into account only the version of the police and prosecution. In 2000 April, Judge Thanikachalam denied Madhany bail on the pretext that he is part of ‘bomb culture’, saying his leg was lost in bomb attack. He was also branded as a social evil because of the fact that there are so many cases against him in Kerala!

Madhany’s counsels are hopeful that the final verdict on him may be pronounced within two or three months. In case he is found guilty, he may be punished for a few years in jail. Then what about the jail term he has already undergone? Can the courts give him back the nine years of jail term he underwent? And what if he is found innocent?

Who’s really behind prolonging the incarceration of Madhany? Is it a nexus between the rightwing Hindutva forces and the officials? Or is it just a case of an effort to silence him gone awry? Whatever may be the reasons, this gross injustice being meted out to this individual is an affront to the values of justice and freedom that we espouse day and night. Long live democracy!

(Written for http://www.countercurrents.org/firos280407.htm)

"I want Muslim dead bodies"

2005-02-22T10:55:00.003+05:30

"I want the dead bodies of Muslim bastards!" The command over the walkie-talkie was clear and loud. It came from a high level police officer. His subordinate heeded to his call and presented him with a "Muslim dead body". It was the body of an 11-year-old girl riddled with bullets. This happened in 1991 and the police officer who had clamoured for Muslim dead bodies is none other Raman Srivastava, newly appointed chief of Kerala police.

It’s been more than 14 years since an innocent girl was shot dead at the behest of a ruthless police officer. Instead of punishing the guilty, the government has been trying to protect him. Moreover, with the recent appointment of the officer, Raman Srivastava, as the Kerala police chief, all hopes of justice for Sirajunissa’s bereaved family have been dashed.

It was 1991. The Sangh Parivar had just started to show its fangs and claws, the time when it was trying its best to extract the maximum out of the Ram Mandir issue. The then chief of BJP, Murli Manohar Joshi, was on his Ekta Yatra from Kanyakumari to Srinagar. Joshi’s Yatra traversed through the interiors of India igniting communal passions and thereby strengthening the footholds of Sangh Parivar.

On December 13 an Upayatra which was to join Joshi’s Ekata Yatra was attacked in Mepparambu, two kilometers away from Palakkad in Kerala. The Yatra was led by the state president of BJP’s youth wing. As the Sangh Parivar wished, tension erupted in some parts of the district causing ripples in the hitherto peaceful waters of Palakkad’s communal life. A tense situation prevailed the next day as Muslims and the BJP activists mobilised themselves at various places, and the police had to resort to lathi-charge and firing to disperse the crowds.

The next day, December 15, witnessed widespread arson and rioting by some sections from both the communities in Mepparambu and adjoining areas. It was on this day that a ruthless state took the life of an 11-year-old innocent girl called Sirajunisa.

The police reached the spot by 12 noon only to terrorise the innocent people in the locality. Instead of arresting the criminals they just shot indiscriminately which left three innocent youths injured. By noon the then DIG, Raman Srivastava, took control of the control room. From here onwards Srivastava was the man who directed all operations from there.

By noon Shornur ASP Sandhya was passing through Puthuppally junction and found some stones placed on the road to block traffic. Till then no violence had been reported from this area. The ASP asked an old man in a nearby shop to remove the stones from the road. When he refused to obey, she took him into custody. This infuriated the locals who blocked her jeep. On hearing the news of Sandhya being blocked on her way, Deputy SP Chandran rushed to the spot by 3 PM. At this time Sirajunnisa and her sister were playing in front of their home which was some 600 yards away from the spot of police picket. Their neighbour, Mohammed, was watching the girls playing over the compound wall. According to Kolakkadan Moosa Haji, who witnessed the whole incident including the conversations between the police through the wireless and the subsequent firing of the girl, but for the police picket the street was empty and there wasn’t any violent mob.

To a query by Raman Srivastava, Sandhya replied through wireless that there was no need of firing since the atmosphere was peaceful and all the people in the locality are inside their homes. To this the DIG shouted back through the wireless furiously ordering her to fire at the "Muslim bastards" there. She replied that there was no one around in the vicinity except two small girls playing and a man watching. "Shoot them down if no one else is around. Let them die like dogs," was Srivastava’s order. When she started to say something Srivastava asked her to pass the wireless receiver to Deputy SP Chandran.

To Srivastava’s query on whether there were any girls playing there, Chandran replied in the positive. Then he said: "I want the dead bodies of some Muslim bastards" and ordered him to shoot them down at once. The order was promptly heeded as two constables executed the order by firing at Sirajunisa. (In the meanwhile, her younger sister had got inside the house). The bullet hit just below Sirajunisa’s nose and pierced through the back of her head. She died on the spot. Soon after the firing, the DSP called back the DIG and informed him that he had executed the order. The DIG ordered him to remove the body immediately from the scene.

What followed were ghastly incidents of police insensitivity and barbarity. When Ali, Sirajunisa’s neighbour, heard the sound of firing he rushed out of his home and found the little girl lying in a pool of blood. When he desperately asked the policemen to take Sirajunisa to hospital; he was beaten brutally. Both Ali and Mohammed testify unanimously that the police beat up Sirajunisa’s mother who frantically tried to cling to her daughter’s body. Even in that moment the police dragged that shell-shocked mother and her daughter Athikka to the police jeep.

When Sulaiman, Sirajunisa’s uncle, tried to take the girl’s body in his hands the police hit him with lathis. When he couldn’t hold her anymore due to police beating Sirajunisa’s elder sister came to his help. She too was beaten up with lathis. ‘How could the police be so cruel like this," asks Sulaiman in choked voice.

But braving the police torture Ali took the girl’s body and ran towards the police jeep. The police held him by his neck hitting on his back and kicking him. Instead of trying to save the life of the girl the police was terrorising all of them. Finally he managed to get the body of Sirajunisa into the police jeep. On the way he made the jeep stop to give some water to the girl and he brought a mug of water from a shop. After pouring some drops into the girl’s mouth he returned to the shop to give back the mug, and ran away from the scene to save his life. Such was the brutality of police torture even inside the jeep. But, neither the police nor the single-man enquiry commission headed by Yohannan took these chilling accounts as testimonies.

Even after killing Sirajunisa, the police was in no mood to spare this small girl. They trumped up a bunch of false and ridiculous charges against her in order to justify their bloody act of killing. So the victim was turned into a villain, and the perpetrators good Samaritans. According to the FIR, Sirajunisa was “leading a violent mob of more than 300 people to the nearby Brahmins-dominated village to indulge in violence and arson” (!) and the police had no way but to fire at this girl who was leading the rioters!

"Even after seven years since the shooting, in the eye of the police this 11-year-old girl was the No.1 criminal who led hundreds of rioters to attack Hindus! They didn’t care to withdraw the FIR filed against her in the Palakkad South police station even while the case was pending in Supreme Court," says Mohammed who witnessed the girl being shot dead. He says even though he’d given his testimony to the police they didn’t care to include it in the FIR. The Yohannan Commission didn’t even take his testimony.

According to the FIR, the bullet fired from the police rifle first hit an electric post in front of Sirajunisa’s house, then a shred of bullet hit the girl’s head. Later this turned out to be a blatant lie as it has been proved that there wasn’t any electric post at all on the day of firing in front of the girl’s house. As per the records of the State Electricity Board the post was put up two months after the tragic incident. But the authorities concerned had managed to manipulate the date etched on the post. Even after this fact has been proved beyond doubt the government accepted the Yohannan Commission report in toto. Also, forensic experts and ballistic experts had found that the bullet taken out of Sirajunisa’s head was fired from the police rifle.

While whitewashing the police firing the Yohannan Commission parroted the police version, putting the blame on the girl. According to the report, the police was firing on the Muslim miscreants who continued to burn Hindu houses and shops despite the imposition of prohibitory orders, and the bullet hit inadvertently the head of the girl.

Kolakkadan Moosa, who was near the police picketing when the firing took place, says there wasn’t any violence in Puthuppally area on December 15 and that the police action was totally uncalled for as there was no rioting or violence calling for any kind of firing let alone lathi charge. There weren’t any crowd or even a small group of people in that area. Not only Sirajunisa and Mohammed were unarmed but they weren’t even part of any mob. The firing was sudden and without warning of any kind. There weren’t any lathi-charge or administering of tear gas shells. Nor the girl and her neighbour were directed to go away before the firing.

An independent enquiry commission headed by social activists like Mundoor Ravunni, held that it couldn’t establish any reason for police firing and the killing of an innocent girl. One side of Puthuppally street was inhabited by Muslims and the other by Brahmins. The commission report reveals that both the communities were living in complete harmony and that there had never been any strain of communal violence between them. It quoted a Hindu who wondered why police firing was needed at all since nothing untoward had happened in that street on December 15, 1991. If anything there was burning of a motor cycle in the nearby junction and a lone incident of stone throwing against the police. But these stray incidents can never be cited as a justification for the police firing and the selective harassment of Muslims.

None other than the then Irrigation Minister and some other people’s representatives were witness to Srivastava’s outbursts and open clamouring for Muslim dead bodies through the wireless. When the firing took place the minister T M Jacob and some MLAs were holding a meeting at the Palakkad District Collector’s chamber. After knowing about the prevailing ‘tension’ in Puthuppally area the Minister told the wireless operator to switch on the wireless. And what they heard was something that can never be expected from a responsible police officer. Srivastava’s demand for "Muslim dead bodies" shocked the minister and the MLAs.

Taking these as evidence Koolkadan Moosa Haji managed to file suit against Srivastava. The case reached the Supreme Court. In 1998 the apex court asked the state government to entrust the enquiry to a high-level police officer not below the rank of IG. It directed the state government to investigate the role played by eight policemen including Raman Srivastava in the killing of Sirajunisa. The SC directive put the state government in a quandary. So in a face saving measure it removed Sirajunisa from the list of accused. Still, so many questions are begging to be answered. Who killed this 11-year-old girl, and what for? Why no case was field against the police officers for murder?

Even if she was a rioter as the police claimed, they can’t kill her purposely, because that amounts to culpable homicide under Sec. 304 of Indian Penal Code. But till now even a case of accidental killing hasn’t been filed against the police under Sec. 304 (A) of the IPC.

Successive governments have continued the policy of protecting Srivastava. Worse, after the firing, he was elevated to the post of IG. The Communist Party-led LDF government came to power by using Sirajunisa’s murder as a trump card against the UDF regime. But when they came to power with huge margin they too adopted a lackadaisical approach, and though an enquiry was initiated it didn’t bear any fruit. Successive governments have always tried to scuttle the investigation at all levels and justice remains a mirage.

The authorities concerned took all efforts to bury the case. The illiterate and gullible relatives of the girl were made to sign on a slew of papers. The police easily led Sirajunisa’s uncle, Sulaiman and her brother into signing a statement to the effect that they didn’t have any complaint in Sirajunisa’s death, telling them that then only they would get the group insurance money. "We did so not for that blood money. Rather we wanted to prove the innocence of our little girl before the world," explains Sulaiman. But now he knows that the whole machinery was hell-bent on protecting the wrongdoers.

From 1991 onwards Sirajunisa figured prominently in all the election propaganda of both the LDF and UDF. Every big and small leader of all political parties made a beeline for Sirajunisa’s house. All of them were after good photo ops and political mileage. Only justice didn’t knock at her house.

Sirajunisa’s death virtually destroyed her family forever. Her heartbroken mother died after two years of the tragic incident; father re-married and moved away. Her elder sister, a heart patient, continues to live within the dark interiors of her relatives’ homes. Sulaiman, her uncle, still leads a tormented life reminiscing the memories of his dear nephew.

And Raman Srivastava is back as the DGP of Kerala. Moosa Haji says Srivastava has been elevated to the top post after messing up with the seniority of two other police officers. It seems justice will never be delivered to Sirajunissa’s family.

(Written for MEANTIME magazine and re-published here:
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2005/16-31Mar05-Print-Edition/163103200558.htm

Wanted: strong-kneed scribes

2004-12-02T09:16:00.001+05:30

Following the worst-ever attack on scribes in Kerala's history, journalists agreed to a judicial enquiry, and even attended a press meet by the man who catalyzed the attacks on them.

Ever heard of the anti-goonda squad of the police being employed to beat up the journalists? Yes it happened in Kerala recently. Never before did Kerala witness such a massive assault against media persons. Consecutively for three days, journalists from both the print and visual media came under attack by a section of the cadres of the ruling party and the police. They were chased and bashed up like criminals in different parts of the State. Attacks against journalists are not a new phenomenon, but the kind of concerted violence against such a large number of journalists is something unheard of in this State, known for its high regard for journalists.

What was the crime committed by these journalists? Did they do anything sacrilegious? No, not at all; all they did was their usual job of reporting. They carried the version of one of the four victims of the infamous Kozhikode ice-cream parlour case. It all began when a 24-year-old woman, Rejina, alleged that the Industries Minister and Muslim League leader P K Kunhalikutty had sexually exploited her at three different locations while she was 16-years-old. The eight-year-old story re-emerged on October 28 when she appeared before some TV channels and stated that she was cajoled to change her testimony by the Minister and his cohorts. She said she used to be paid regularly for not naming the Minister in the courts. Rejina said she was compelled to make the revelation now because the money had stopped flowing from the Minister's side. It may be recalled that the case was hushed up by the high and mighty including the concerned Minister when it came up for hearing seven years ago.

Given the sensitivity of the case involving a Minister of the ruling Congress-led government, the revelation rocked the whole State. With egg on its face, the Muslim League tried some damage control exercises, which turned out to be counter-productive. Unable to counter the allegations in any convincing manner, the party took on a belligerent posture and accused the media of defaming the party. The party workers were fuming against both the print and the visual media for its wide coverage of developments following the damning disclosure against Kunhalikutty. However, it should be noted that unlike in the past, no newspaper or channel tried to blow the scandal out of proportion or sensationalise the issue by concocting new plots and sub-plots.

The first attack was mounted against Indiavision, a private TV channel, which first telecast the disclosure by Rejina. After taking out a march, Muslim League workers hurled stones at the channel's office in Kozhikode. Then around 50 party men unleashed an attack on the journalists who had thronged there to report the attack on the office. They assaulted the Kozhikode bureau chief of The New Indian Express, and attacked the cameraman of Desabhimani, the Communist party's mouthpiece, and destroyed his camera while he was trying to capture the scene. Many other journalists were also beaten while trying to save their mates.

Shockingly, the police, who were there on a tip-off of possible attacks on media persons and offices, stood like mute spectators to all these atrocities even as the perpetrators were taken away in cars by the top leaders of the Muslim League. The media people heard the League leaders calling by name the attackers, lending credence to the charge that the Muslim League was behind the attack. The same day the League supporters hurled stones at Indiavision's Kochi office, and destroyed the glass panes of the car of its executive editor.

The next day as many as 20 journalists were injured in the worst attacks on media personnel in the history of Kerala, as the supporters of Kunhalikutty unleashed a vicious assault on camerapersons and reporters at the Karipur international airport in Malappuram district. The journalists present at the airport were surrounded by over 1,000 Muslim League workers who had come to accord a "warm reception" to the tainted Minister who was returning from Jeddah after performing Umrah. They went on an assault spree against the scribes while baying for the blood of the journalists of those newspapers and channels which gave prominence to the sex-scandal news.

The most heinous attack was mounted against Deepa, a young female reporter of a TV channel, who was instrumental in getting Rejina to confess publicly. The attackers seemed to be unmindful of the fact that their prey was just a 24-year-old woman. Initially, the miscreants stoned her repeatedly. After that, she was surrounded by a group of over 50 angry League supporters who kicked and beat her continually while showering abusive words all the way. They also attacked the vehicle of Indiavision. Those reporters who had hidden inside the vehicle were also beaten up. Nearly seven journalists sustained injuries.

Caught between a wild mob and indifferent policemen, several journalists/lensmen sustained injuries right before the eyes of the top leaders of the Muslim League. When some journalists desperately approached and sought the help of the police, they were bluntly told that they were not given any instruction to protect them. The police, who watched the assaults on the scribes silently, had no problem in letting thousands of League workers get on top of the airport terminal and hoist their party's flag flouting all norms.

The next day, it was the police's turn to join the Leaguers in attacking the scribes. The media persons, wearing a black tag and waving black flags as a mark of protest against the beating up of scribes at the Karipur airport, thronged a hotel in Kochi, where Kunhalikutty was to discuss the legal aspects of his sex scandal case. They demanded an apology from the Minister, but they were repeatedly lathi-charged by the police, while the League goondas again beat them up. The government used the service of its anti-goon squad to thrash the scribes. The journalists were pushed, beaten and abused by the squad. Around 20 media persons were injured in the incidents. Some news photographers even captured the scene of policemen in mufti beating up the journalists. The same day in Trivandrum, journalists were manhandled by the League workers even as the police looked on. A few days later, the Kozhikode reporter of Free Press Journal, a Malayalam magazine published from New Delhi, was beaten up by the League workers; they were furious over his participation in a protest march against the attack on media.

It is a well-known fact that Kunhalikutty and his party wield considerable clout in the UDF Ministry, and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy knows well that it will be suicidal to provoke the Industries Minister and his party at this juncture. Thus, he has been overly protective of the tainted Minister and has spurned all demands for the Minister's resignation. From day one since the latest controversy erupted, Chandy has been trying to defend Kunhalikutty by whatever means available, despite several incriminating pieces of evidence against the accused Minister, including a report by the Prosecution Director General which clearly stated that the Minister had sex with the minor girl on four occasions.

The whole State was stunned by the vicious attacks against the scribes. Protest marches were held across Kerala and in the Indian capital expressing solidarity with the journalists. The Chief Minister, who had been sitting on the issue, was forced to hold a meeting with the representatives of the journalists' union. In the meeting, the journalists conceded to the CM's offer for a judicial enquiry into the assaults against the scribes.

That was where the journalist community went wrong. On the face of it, a judicial enquiry seems the most foolproof of arrangements. But it is all too well-known that judicial enquiries have always been a farce and a total waste of public money. It is not that journalists are unaware of the futility of judicial enquiries in a country where scores of such enquiry reports are gathering dust.

A close analysis into the way the journalists were targeted reveals that the government was hand-in-glove with the assaulters and that it had even given the nod for hounding the journalists. Preliminary probes have revealed that there was obvious dereliction of duty by the police and that they extended their tacit support to the League assailants. There were also reports that instructions were given to the police to act in this manner.

So when the government has been seen to be a party to the atrocities, why did the journalists yield to the offer of a mere judicial enquiry? By doing so, the scribes virtually cemented the government's impression that the media can indeed be silenced through muscle power. In the process, the journalists have been shown up as a weak-kneed and pliant lot who will easily dance to the tunes of the establishment. The government must be now convinced that the journalists belong to a class that can easily be placated by sweet words or else by violent lathis. Now expect more such brutal suppression of the media, for our dear journalists have played into the government's hands.

This abject submission to the establishment is a grave mistake on the part of the journalists, because with this, the journalist fraternity has let the establishment go scot-free after it easily trampled on the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19 1 (a) of the Indian Constitution. By agreeing to a judicial enquiry, Kerala's journalists have shot themselves in the foot. Their obeisance amounts to an affront to the journalistic profession itself. Another calamity is that a communal party like the Muslim League, which has the backing of only a section of people from just one district in Kerala, may now start thinking that they can easily dictate the terms in the entire State.

Why did the journalists resort to hackneyed and fruitless modes of protest such as marches and dharnas? Here they should have taken some extreme steps like announcing a complete blackout of government programmes. Such a boycott would have made the government sit and take notice of the power of the media, and this would have acted as a deterrent from repeating such pernicious acts in future.

The spineless act of submission was followed by yet another faux pas by the journalists when they gleefully attended the press meet called by Kunhalikutty. They didn't have any qualms in listening to a man responsible for all the atrocious acts against them. The men from the so-called Fourth Estate appeared as if they had no problems with the Minister, and it seemed that each question regarding the sex-scandal was carefully screened so as not to peeve the respected Minister. It's not that the Minister should have been derided or mocked at. His press meet should just have been plain boycotted.

So who were the journalists afraid of? Did they fear that by antagonising the government, the free flow of government ads would stop, thereby provoking their pay-masters? Did they fear that such a boycott would hinder the free flow of perks and other freebies from the government? Their submission to the government establishes beyond doubt the slave mentality of these journalists who are indifferent to the huge responsibilities resting upon their shoulders.

The whole episode is a sorry commentary on the current crop of journalists in the country in general and Kerala in particular. This also proves that the journalist fraternity in this country is a loose outfit that lacks coherent leadership. What we need are some stalwart journalists who are above petty career-oriented goals.

You can call it a cliche, but it is a fact that the media is the last resort in a country where the other pillars of democracy frequently fail to deliver. A thriving democracy obviously warrants a vibrant media that always rebels with the ills and evils of society, and one that calls a spade a spade. In a democracy, the media is supposed to act as a corrective mechanism that leads the establishments into the right path. But when that entity itself kneels before the authorities, it is time to despair. The last thing journalism in this country needs are slaves.

(Written for MEANTIME magazine and republished in The Hoot: http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=1374&bg=1)

The Racial Media

2004-11-18T14:30:00.004+05:30

By ignoring Africa, is our media showing that it is racist?

In this era of 'new-age media' and sophisticated news-gathering methods, onewould expect catastrophes occurring at various parts of the globe to getdeserving prominence in the media. But what has been happening is just the opposite.

There is selective omission when it comes to reporting certainissues and events that take place in some parts of the world. This is especially true about the conflicts occurring in central Africa. An objective analysis would reveal that the level of murder and sufferings in Africa makes all other world problems fade in comparison, including the gory tales emanating from Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan. Mass murders in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Somalia happen with such regularity, but the media tends to play them down. This blatant trivialisation or virtual blackout of the bloody happenings in this part of the world is indeed intriguing. Why is it that these conflicts receive so little or no attention of the world at large?

A search for an answer brings out some unpleasant truths; truths that wouldquestion the very moral bearing and the so-called progressive outlook of the mainstream media. The majority of the Western media portray these conflictsin a simplistic vein.

For them, it is "tribalism" that foments troubles in what they call the "Dark Continent"; here the same old colonial yardstick is used. So, in this fight among "various tribals", hundreds may get killed on a daily basis, which then need not be displayed on the front pages or in the main news. That is why when "rebels in Congo kill 100 civilians", all we have would be just a one-paragraph report by the Associated Press.

In the course of this cursory reporting, there would be a cache of clichés like "rebels", "civilians", "internal strife", and "civil war". See how the media has been trivialising these cold-blooded killings by using some sugarcoated words like these. What is 'civil' in a war?

The point is, for the Western media, the life of a Black African is hardlyimportant. For them, the Africans might as well be savages constantly at thethroat of each other; what happens to these savages will in no way changethe destiny of the world and its rulers. The poor Africans are also not a ready consumer of multinational goods. They are merely--as occasional TV footages show us-half-naked, bony men and women jostling with each other each time food packets are air-dropped.

The under-reporting of the African crises is a prime example of callousnesson the part of the Western news agencies and newspapers. These agencies have not thought it fit to have enough reporters stationed in the Africancontinent to cover the crises.

So, we don't get any comprehensive analysisof the turmoil there, not even the ones seeping with Western prejudices asin the case of Iraq. In short, in the sidelining of the African Story, whatwe have is another instance of Western racism.

Bosnia and the events there — be it mass rape or anything else — get immense coverage because, after all, it is in Europe. But the world gets to know only a smattering of the horrendous happenings in Congo-a country the size of Western Europe. In one rare instance of reportage, the US left-wingweekly,

The Nation, recently carried a comprehensive story on Congo byjournalist Jan Goodwin who reveals that the country witnesses whole-scalerape-from three year olds to those of over 70 years. Goodwin describes howMaria, a 70-year-old woman, was gang raped before her three daughters andfive sons were murdered. The report also quotes a human rights worker whonarrates the tale of a 30-year-old woman whose ears and lips were cut offand eyes gouged out after she was raped so that she would not be able toidentify her attackers. Doctors testify that 30 percent of the rape victimshad their private parts pierced usually with spears and gun barrels.

Whilebestiality reigns in Congo's rural areas, the report adds, diamond dealers and businessmen from Tel Aviv and New York are feted and fawned upon by Congo's armed group representatives in luxury hotels. Goodwin reminds us how these businessmen and armed groups foment chaos in this Central African country for their private gains.

The armed groups have been plundering Congo of numerous natural resources on behalf of their masters sitting in the citadels of democracy. Those richminerals that are being siphoned off go directly to Western markets andoutside to whet consumer appetites. Diamond, gold, cobalt, copper and coltan are the primary minerals being taken out of Congo; the jewelry you justbought may have in it raw materials that came from Congo (or perhaps SierraLeone or Angola, two other African countries whose wars provide the Westwith cheap minerals). And the main component of your cell phone or laptop isthe "pinhead capacitor", which is made from coltan, a mineral found inCongo. The business and vested interest is in keeping the conflict raging,as then the minerals can be shipped off dirt cheap.

Here's the cruelty of it all: while Congolese blood flows, the outsideconsumer revels in luxury goods without even knowing that it is all taintedwith blood. And the consumer in Mumbai or Texas can't be blamed because his newspapers or television have never told him that what he is using has gory origins. He will never know about the kind of politics being played out inthe African badlands; the kind of stakes involved there; and about themultinational powers that whip up trouble there.

One of the oft-offered journalistic justifications for the poor coverage ofthe African crises is that it is far too remote, and does not at all influence world events. So the media would, without any compunction, play down a massacre where about 200 people got killed in Angola or Congo. On theother hand, if some 10 or 20 people are killed in a bus accident, say in NewYork, it would be front-page material, and even editorials would follow.Such is the relative worth of life of an American and an African.

Another justification for playing down such events is that the readers wouldbe less interested to know the happenings occurring miles away. This is justabsurd. Here media acts under the skewed theory which explains the relationbetween distance and news value. What is being taught in journalism schoolsabout the relation between distance and news value is illogical and shouldbe reviewed as it contravenes the cardinal purpose for which the mediastands for.

The African Story is indeed a glaring instance of the lack of social commitment of the Western media. The problem is also one of presupposing the interests of the readers and the powers-that-be in the media establishment deciding what is important for the reader and what is not. So, while the death of an American soldier in Iraq is 'news', the deaths of hundreds in any part of Africa seem to have no news value at all.

The Indian media too is guilty of aping its Western counterparts when it comes to news selection. Here is an instance among hundred others: "Ugandan rebels kill 120", read a headline in The Hindu (February 23, 2004) of a one-column AP report.

And it did not appear in the front page but among news briefs in the international section. But at least The Hindu carried it,while the same cannot be said of other national newspapers nor of theregional ones. Exactly two weeks after the Ugandan incident, the same paper(of course all other papers as well) cried out in banner headlines, on thefront page, the blasts at Madrid which claimed 180 lives. So why is it thata blast in Spain becomes the lead news, while a similar disaster in Ugandais non-news? What is the criterion used here? Are the people in Uganda nothuman beings or are their lives not worth enough to be reported? Doesn't itpoint to the obnoxious fact that our media is racial? These are questionsbegging to be answered. There's something seriously wrong here, and is a reflection of the power imbalance in world
affairs.

The media's marginalisation of the African crises reinforces the skewedassumption that these events have little to do with world politics in general. Whatever is taking place in this continent, it is assumed the average reader is not disturbed. Here, the very edifice of the term 'news' comes under the spotlight. What is news? Can a particular incident be considered news purely on the basis of the 'interest' of the 'customers' (readers)? And by the same yardstick, some other event may not be news at all, like the starvation deaths in Somalia.

By the selective omission of certain events especially in Africa, the mediahas created an unsavoury precedent. While acting out the role of amarket-oriented establishment giving out what pleases and attracts the reader, the news media is failing in its cardinal duty of telling the truth to the world. The media is abdicating its social responsibility by overly depending on glamour. What is needed is a change of conscience. Will the Western media as also the Indian kind, which boast of progressive leanings, take a hard look at this issue and re-think their policy? Will there be a change in their outlook on Africa?

(Written for MEANTIME magazine in 2004 and re-published in The Hoot)

Journalism of exclusion and derision

2004-02-05T10:13:00.002+05:30

They were stimulated by sugar cane juice instead of Coca-Cola, and by computers running the free Linux software instead of the corporate Microsoft Windows. A platform for thousands of like-minded people opposed to imperialism and globalisation, the World Social Forum held in Mumbai, despite its many shortcomings, was an inspiring and extraordinary event that many will not forget in a hurry.

It is true that in these dark times of war and destruction, a gathering like this may not be able to offer a panacea for all the ills faced by the world today, but the fact that there are people out there to put up at least a symbolic fight against the evils of neo-liberalism and capitalism, evokes some rays of hope.

It will be interesting to take a look at the way our print media covered the Forum. Even as the WSF meet unfolded, some Indian English newspapers covered the meet as if the whole event was an annual carnival of nomads! Such was the way they trivialised this significant event. In fact, the importance or lack of it given to the WSF reveals the individual newspapers’ stance on the issues raised at the Forum.

The coverage of WSF by The New Indian Express was rather minimal and cynical. On the other hand, true to its Left leanings, The Hindu gave extended coverage to the WSF proceedings without relying on news agencies. The Hindu gave a front-page summary report on the opening day (January 16) of the WSF.

The war against Iraq figured prominently at the meet and the report by The Hindu detailed the opinions and feelings of the various delegates, including that of writer-activist Arundhati Roy. But The New Indian Express relegated the same to its inside page with just one three-column report by the UNI; the report ended with a quote from British MP Jeremy Corbyn.

On the same day, The Hindu also carried a second report titled, "Where a thousand flowers bloom", which was an apt narration of the mood of the delegates from different countries. "If the idea of democracy were to let a hundred flowers bloom, then the World Social Forum 2004 would surely be a bouquet of the most fragrant blossoms," the report started with this colourful sentence. "As South Koreans opposing the war in Iraq mingle with Pakistani Sindhis singing ‘Dum-a-dum mast kalandar’, as the drums from Tamil Nadu mingle with the cymbals of Tibet, they all seem to say, ‘another world is possible."

The following day, The New Indian Express carried an interview with Lisa Jordan of the Ford Foundation regarding its funding of the WSF. The Express would want us to believe that it reproduced this interview "in view of the controversies regarding the role of the Ford Foundation in the WSF", but it may well be a case of the paper trying to malign the Forum.

During the course of the interview, Lisa says that the Indian Organizing Committee of the WSF refused to receive funds from Ford, as the contributions made by the Ford Foundation had "helped prevent India from undergoing communist revolution". The paper happily put out this point in the headline as if communism was some huge catastrophe that would befall India.

For The New Indian Express, the whole WSF event was a "bubble". On January 19, it carried an editorial titled, "That WSF bubble", which took a cynical view of the six-day meet. While calling the WSF gathering as a "road show", the editorial went on to slight—tongue-in-cheek--the delegates and activists as "cultural conscience keepers", "anti-globalization polemists" and "anything-goes anarchists". According to the editorial, the Mumbai meet was a place where these "agitationists" set up "temporary base".

But after the snub, the editorial conceded that the WSF delegates "represent real, urgent problems with the international order". While agreeing that the WTO hasn’t been able to deliver the benefits of fair trade to Third World farmers, the editorial cited the problems faced by Third World countries due to globalization.

So what was the editorial ultimately trying to convey? We got the answer in the last para. It said that global financial institutions and superpowers cannot be wished away by "painting suburban trains" (another damning reference to the WSF), but the leading lights of the WSF "must engage with those much-despised financiers and corporates". Grand idea indeed, but if only it were that easy—as if the IMF-World Bank executives and a certain George Bush have no clue about the WSF’s valid opposition to their policies.

Meanwhile, the ‘hot story’ of the rape of a woman delegate by a South African Judge kicked up a huge ruckus with some sections of the media going gaga over it as if it was what they were looking forward to in order to trash the WSF agenda. The whole attention was diverted from the conference per se and almost all newspapers took special interest in giving out ‘exclusives’ on the rape saga.

The New Indian Express, which never cared to carry a single report on the WSF proceedings on its front page, flamboyantly displayed the rape story plus the pix of the accused on the top left of the front page. And rather than relying on news agencies for covering the WSF, this time the paper managed to get its own reporter for covering the rape issue.

"WSF reels as SA judge is held for raping delegate", The Times of India cried out on its January 20 report. The headline gave the impression that the entire WSF conference came to a standstill because of this rape issue. Predictably, the report failed to mention how the rape incident affected the smooth conduct of the meet. Instead, the paper dwelt on the ‘rape’ details. Here it has to be mentioned that The Hindu displayed journalistic decorum and restraint on the issue. The rape story was given its ‘due importance’ by placing it on the inner pages.

Again, while papers like The Times of India and The Hindu gave prominent coverage to the closing ceremony, The New Indian Express did not carry a single report on the event--not even a photograph. On the other hand, it gave four follow-up reports on the rape case on its "national" page; this included a five-column report including a photograph of South African delegates visiting the accused. While omitting the WSF closing ceremony, on the same day Express gave the picture of delegates at the World Economy Forum in Davos.

The rape episode once again showed our media’s tendency to go after the spicy aspects of a particular event while discarding the vital ones. They helped create a mystery over the rape allegation, and there was one report saying that there was widespread criticism on the handling of the case. The report quoted some delegates criticising the WSF organizers for not owning up responsibility for the rape.

Quoting a delegate, the report alleged that the "organizers were resorting to the same sort of the conspiracy of silence that they were attacking". In all this, one suspects a conspiracy to malign the WSF meet. The kind of enthusiasm shown by some of the papers in demonising this anti-globalization meet was intriguing.

There were also positive stories about the WSF. The Times of India carried an IANS report on the use of Linux software at around 120 terminals at the media centre and in about 400 computers around the WSF complex.

"When you are talking about a different world, free from globalization, how can you overlook the major technology entrapments? Microsoft started as a liberating force that made everything in software open for people, but later turned the other way," the report quoted Jitendra Shah of the Free Software Foundation of India as saying. Further, The Hindu carried an interview with Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney-General and human rights activist. He talked about how the US public was being fed lies by the mainstream media. "You still read about mass graves in Iraq; but people still don’t know about the 1.5 million deaths after the first Gulf war and the economic sanctions that followed," said Clark who is an outspoken critic of Bush.

Journalism of Exclusion

The main theme that figured during the WSF meet was the US invasion of Iraq. This being the prominent item in the speeches of the delegates on the first day of the meet, a whole lot of media outfits including some international news agencies gave this as the lead.

The AFP (Agence France Presse) of France gave this as the headline: "Activists at WSF declare war on Bush". The report captured the emotions of the delegates for whom Bush was the chief villain. But all the reports by the Associate Press (AP) of the US deliberately omitted the anti-Bush factor.

All of its reports were sugar-coated with reductive phrases such as the "anti-corporate forum". Known for its unfailing obeisance to the US establishment and its policies, AP’s selective reporting and omission wasn’t really surprising. And here is something for you to munch on: Had the WSF organisers included "terrorism" on their agenda and opposed it, what would have been the AP’s coverage?

(Written for MEANTIME magazine and republished in The Hoot)

Devils in God’s own country

2004-01-15T10:15:00.001+05:30

Call it monkey business or cat and mouse games. For the last several months, Kerala’s prime TV time and front-page newspaper columns have been occupied by the mumbo-jumbo politics being played by some leaders in the Congress party. The main actors in the political (?) show are: senior Congress leader K Karunakaran, his son Muraleedharan and Chief Minister A K Antony.

The papers and channels in the State want us to believe that what has been going on in Kerala is a tug of war between the father-son duo and Antony. The political yarn unravels like this: Karunakaran raises the bnner of "revolt" (one of the many clichés being used by our newspapers to mention such political fights) and demands the removal of the Chief Minister. Karunakaran’s main complaint is that his ‘I’ faction (‘I’ stands for Indira Gandhi to whom Karunakaran re-affirms his loyalty day and night) is being sidelined and that his MLAs weren’t given enough representation in the Antony-led UDF Ministry. Each utterance of Karunakaran is hair-split in the media by analysts, ‘special correspondents’ and the like.

The media fondly christens Karunakaran as "leader". Wherever possible, this pronoun is used unreservedly as if this is the most suitable way of referring to Karunakaran. In their haste to paint Karunakaran as an immaculate leader, these writers and columnists are committing the serious sin of whitewashing the past atrocities of this man. Infamous for serious human rights violations during the Emergency period, Karunakaran is someone who climbed the political ladder by manipulation and intrigue, and it helped that public memory is always woefully short.

The father-son duo of Karunakaran and Muraleedharan have faced several charges of corruption and nepotism. But nowhere in these recent reports, these facts have found any kind of mention. Instead, the newspapers and channels outdo each other to accord an aura of acceptance and respect to their brand of politics. The media outfits go overboard in covering anything the father and son would have to say, which is a sad reflection of how Malayali politics and journalism have degenerated to the crass level of personality worship, and that too of the dirty kind.

It is not that these journalists are unaware of the frivolousness of all these father-son stage shows. Even the politically naïve knows that the likes of Karunakaran are fighting not for any great ideology or cause, but purely for their own gains.

But the way the media projects their stories, it is as if they are the most important stories to be told, as if these are the stories the readers are dying to hear about. But then, it is the same media that dictates and fuels reader interest. The importance of stories is not decided by the stories themselves but by the interests of the powers-that-be in the editorial rooms.

Every other day, the papers and channels would come out with main news on the Karunakaran-Antony spat. ‘Special correspondents’ cover the latest in the saga and ‘exclusive’ analyses on the likely fallout of the fight has become a daily and nauseating dish.

One day it would be about the "unhappiness" of the "veteran leader" over Antony’s rule, and on another, it would be about a date that the "leader" has set for a formal split and a new party. This goes on… Such statements and more statements by the main actors would be followed by assumptions and deductions by reporters about the likely ending of the ruckus. Here, the eagerness of these journalists in playing to Karunakaran’s ego is astounding.

In this mad race to capture whatever Karunakaran and Murali has to say, and what stance the Congress "High Command" would take on the issue, matters of national and international importance are often discarded.
The high point of the drama came when Karunkaran--as the papers said in ‘banner’ headlines--announced the formation of a new party. But Muraleedharan stayed away, expressing unflinching loyalty to Sonia Gandhi. So we thought the whole drama had come to some sort of an end. But that was wishful thinking. The same media on the following days, acted as if no such new party was formed by Karunakaran. The last, surely, has not been heard about the issue.

Here it would be amiss not to talk about the Congress "High Command"--the creator, sustainer and destroyer of the whole Congress party.

But alas, going by the happenings in the Karunakaran-Antony tiff, it becomes clear that the "High Command" is such a weak-kneed set-up that stands baffled and powerless before the pranks of three egoistic leaders. The Malayalam media covers this "High Command" (read Sonia Gandhi) with special reports from New Delhi describing the High Command "monitoring" the "developments" in Kerala. In some cases, readers and viewers are ‘informed’ that the High Command shudders before Karunakaran and his son. One paper went to the extent of calling Karunakaran the "I Command" (referring to the "leader’s" group).

What has been going on in the State of Kerala is a classic case of how petty politics can eat into the main issues. Reams of papers and prime-time TV have been wasted over the ego and greed of some politicians. By doing so, the media is setting a bad precedent; a precedent whereby ego-driven personality politics is given undue importance while major issues are pushed aside. It is time for a break.

Written for MEANTIME magazine and re-published in The Hoot) February 2004