The end of impunity - By Teesta Setalvad - The Indian Express

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-end-of-impunity/585869/0

02mar10

The end of impunity

teestasetalvad

The struggle of man (or woman) against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera

It was not simply the number of lives lost, though the number — perhaps 2,500 — is not insignificant. It was the cold-blooded manner in which they were taken. It was not simply that 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts burned while Neros watched, fiddled and smirked but the sinister similarity in the way they were set alight. Militias were armed with deadly training, weapons, technology and equipment; with a lethal brew of deadly intent, inspired by constructed tales of hate, using the February 28, 2002 edition of a leading Gujarati daily that urged revenge; all combined with a deadly white chemical powder that seared to burn and destroy already killed bodies. And, of course, truckloads of gas cylinders, in short supply for cooking, were used instead to blast mosques and homes. Mobile phones and motorcycles made communications easy and movement swift.


Part of the plan was to humiliate, destroy and then kill. Another was to economically cripple. But at heart the desire was to construct a reality whereby a whole ten per cent of the population lives (and a few even prosper) as carefully whipped into shape, second-class citizens. Most incidents that racked the state, except the famed Best Bakery incident, took place in the glare of the day, not the stealth of the night. Critical to the plan to mutilate and humiliate was to subject women and girls to the worst kind of sexual violence. Tehelka’s “Operation Kalank” records victorious testimonies of rapists and murderers who claim to have received personal approbations from the man at the helm. Over 1,200 highway hotels were destroyed, more than 23,000 homes gutted, 350 large businesses seriously damaged (and are still unable to recover) and 12,000 street businesses demolished.


Genocide is about economic crippling as much as death and humiliation. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal — Crimes Against Humanity 2002 called the happenings in Gujarat a genocide, because of the systematic singling out of a group through widely distributed hate writing and demonisation, the economic destruction, the sexual violence and also because over 270 masjids and dargahs were razed to the ground. The bandh calls on February 28 and March 1 by rabid outfits and supported by the party in power enabled mobs free access to the streets while successfully warding off the ordinary citizen.


Eight years on, it is this level and extent of complicity that is under high-level scrutiny. The involvement of high functionaries of the state in Gujarat did not begin, and has not stopped, with the violence. It has extended to destruction of evidence that continues until today, the faulty registration of criminal complaints, the deliberate exclusion of powerful accused and, worst of all, the utter and complete subversion of the criminal justice system by appointment of public prosecutors who were not wedded to fair play, justice and the Constitution — but were and are lapdogs of the ruling party and its raid affiliates. The proceedings in the Best Bakery case in the Supreme Court and the judgment of April 12, 2004 strips our legal system, especially lawyers, of the dignity of their office.


The hasty granting of bail to those involved in the post-Godhra carnage remains a scandal. While over seven dozen of those accused of the Godhra train arson have been in jail, without bail for eight years — and today face trial within the precincts of the Sabarmati jail — powerful men, patronised by the state’s political hierarchy who are accused of multiple rapes and murders roam free in “vibrant Gujarat” even as the trials have resumed. The few that are in jail — ten of the 64 accused in the Gulberg society carnage, eight of the 64 accused in Naroda Patia massacre, two of the 89 in the Naroda Gaam killing, eight of the 73 in the Sardroura massacres (all the 84 accused of the massacre at Deepda Darwaza roam free on bail) are those with no political godfathers. A vast majority have lived in freedom even after committing unspeakable crimes. All this and more is being investigated under the orders of our apex court on a petition filed by Zakia Ahsan Jafri and the Citizens for Justice and Peace. For the first time in our history criminal conspiracy and mass murder are the charges, the chief minister and 61 others the accused. Will the wealth of evidence be matched by the rigour of investigation? Will the will to prosecute surmount political considerations? Will the Indian system throw a spotlight on what surely must be its darkest hour? As we stood, remembered and prayed in painful memorial, with lit candles at the Gulbarg Society this Sunday we did so in both faith and hope.


The writer is the secretary of |Citizens for Justice and Peace

 

Importance of being an upper caste in Bengal House - By Vandita Mishra - The Indian Express

The real face of Indian democracy and secularism is gradually being denuded. The time has come for a paradigm change. Hopefully through realisation; if not by revolution.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/importance-of-being-an-upper-caste-in-bengal-house/585881/0

Importance of being an upper caste in Bengal House

Vandita MishraTags : nation, west bengal, government, Ajay MakenPosted: Tuesday , Mar 02, 2010 at 2254 hrsNew Delhi:
West Bengal’s Left Front government is the lone state government to have made a representation to the Centre asking for a caste-based census. This was what Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Maken told the House in his written response to an un-starred question in the Lok Sabha recently. The possibilities are tantalising: Could the plea for enumerating castes in West Bengal be a step towards the Left parties finally making peace with what they have all along disdained as ‘casteism’ — even as they have forged alliances with caste-based political parties like the SP earlier and most recently entering into an unnamed pact with Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls?

Its enthusiasm to count castes in its shaky bastion may or may not presage a larger rethink by India’s Left on one of Indian politics’ most enduring questions. But it does shine the light on a little known aspect of Left rule in the state: West Bengal is the only state where the percentage of upper caste MLAs has increased over the 20-year period between 1972 and 1996, from 38 per cent to 50 per cent. The trend was reversed in 2001, when the percentage of upper caste MLAs fell just below 38 per cent, but upper caste ministers were still more than 51 per cent in the state government.

In fact, representation of intermediary castes in the West Bengal Assembly peaked in 1977 and has been weak and fluctuating ever since — incidentally, 1977 was the year when the Left Front began its uninterrupted rule in the state.

The resilience of upper caste domination in West Bengal is uncommon. It stands in particular contrast to the “silent revolution” that swept through some states in India since the late 1970s, characterised by the rise of the OBC and diminishing sway of the upper castes in positions of

political power.

In a recent book, Rise of the Plebeians? The changing face of Indian legislative assemblies, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot and Sanjay Kumar, (Routledge: 2009), Jaffrelot describes the trajectory in the Hindi belt. In 1952, upper caste MPs represented 64 per cent of the total MPs from this belt. They remained in the majority till 1977, when the spectacular rout of the Congress became the occasion for the first significant dip in the percentage of upper caste representatives to Parliament, from almost 54 per cent to about 48 per cent. They remained above 40 per cent till 1989, when the Congress was defeated for the second time at the Centre.

In successive elections in the 1990s, the percentage of upper caste MPs continued to decrease, touching 33 per cent in 2004. The share of OBC MPs, on the other hand, grew across parties. This process — of the transfer of power from upper caste to OBC politicians — was even more pronounced at the state level, points out Jaffrelot. In assemblies of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, the proportion of upper caste MLAs has declined from about 40-55 per cent in the 1950s to about 25-35 per cent in the 2000s while the share of the OBCs grew from 10-20 per cent to about 20-40 per cent.

But not in West Bengal. In her profile of West Bengal MLAs over the last 50 years in the same book, Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal writes that its most striking feature is the consistent over-representation of the upper castes. “Even though the importance of upper castes in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly fluctuates between 37.5 per cent (in 1972) and 50 per cent (in 1957) of all MLAs, it remains consistently out of proportion with their demographic importance.”

While intermediary castes formed an estimated 35 per cent of the total population in West Bengal in 1991, they have remained a weak presence in the state Assembly, fluctuating between 4.6 per cent in 1952 and 6.1 per cent in 2001, peaking at 9.5 per cent in 1977, the year the Left Front came to power in the state.

According to the study, while upper castes formed 10 per cent of the West Bengal population in 1991, their representation in the Assembly has ranged from 45.9 per cent in 1977 to 49 per cent in 1996, coming down to 37.8 per cent in 2001. The dominance of upper caste bhadralok is even more pronounced in Left Front Cabinets since 1977, peaking at 81.8 per cent in 1982.