My Right To Live Without Fear
“Give me back my right to live without fear,” Bilkis Bano had said after the 11 people convicted of gang-raping her had been granted remission by the Gujarat government, earlier this month.
Writing about how those men were feted with garlands and reportedly called “Brahmins with good sanskar” upon their release, former Union Minister P Chidambaram argues, in The Indian Express, that the moral of the story is clear:
“Not all Indians are equal before the law or entitled to the equal protection of the laws. Not all Indians can live their lives without fear. In fact, more and more Indians are living in fear.”
He then goes on to enlist examples of journalists, bankers, officers, etc – all of whom, he says, need to be reassured by someone of authority that they can live without fear.
What Can One Say to a Three-year-Old Who Died?
“Did you cling to your mother too, when the men came for you, I wonder? And flinch away from the thought,” writes Shalini Langer in a letter addressed to Bilkis Bano’s three-year-old girl, who was among those who were killed, on that night of horrific gang-rapes and murders in 2002.
The letter (published in The Indian Express), in which Langer shares that she imagines the girl in her own daughter’s image, she writes about how the girl’s mother had refused to be cloaked behind “honour”. But most importantly, she wonders what would even be the right thing to say to the three-year-old whose life, and the endless possibilities that had yawned open for her at that age, were snatched brutally away from her.
“That, they might tell you the world has come a long way from 2002, point to you the bullet train, for example, passing by your home. Give you data to show more girls now survive birth, finish school, enter college, find jobs, and get married with their choice, even if they are blind to the hard struggle each one of that step is…But is that any comfort for a three-year-old, to know what could have been? I am not sure.”
Shadow Over Soren: On Uncertainty Over Jharkhand CM Continuation
“The BJP is waiting in the wings to upend the Jharkhand government, and has tasted blood,” says an editorial piece published in The Hindu, as it probes the uncertainty that surrounds Hemant Soren’s continuation as Jharkhand's chief minister.
Further, it argues that amid the disqualification proceedings and in the face of a potential investigation for corruption, Soren will, anyway, have diminished authority. Thus, the “honourable thing for him to do in this instance of disqualification would be to resign as the Chief Minister.”
“Technically speaking, Mr Soren could remain in the post for up to six months without being an MLA. He could also get elected in the meantime. But that technicality apart, it is a huge loss of face for him and the parties that form the ruling coalition in Jharkhand, i.e., the JMM, the Congress, and the RJD."
Ghulam Nabi Azad: The Inside Man and the Exit Door
Was it worth for Congress to deny Gulam Nabi Azad – the party’s “latest high profile refugee” another Rajya Sabha term? This is essentially the question that Santwana Bhattacharya poses in a piece for The New Indian Express. The author argues that history has been repeating itself for the Congress and talks abut the utility of Azad.
“Watching this picture of dissolution, one is struck by a kind of absence – of a mind that can apprehend the drift of play, of an eye that can spot movement in advance, and a hand that could control proceedings. Someone adept at political management, someone who can handle the friction and flux created by egos and resolve conflicts – smoothly, from the inside, fixing the loose nuts and bolts with a little conversation here, a little persuasion there.”
Enough of Religious Hatred
“The problem is that in the ‘new India’, there is not a single political leader who has the moral authority to control Islamist fanatics,” writes Tavleen Singh in her column for The Indian Express.
Thereby, she goes on to point out, the same is because Hindutva fanatics have been over-indulged and an atmosphere of hatred, founded on grievances from medieval times, has been permitted. She also argues that while Indian muslims had in the two decades since 9/11 felt safe in India, the recent hostility towards them now compels them to take (what she feels are) “extreme positions” like “the demand for girls to wear ‘hijab’ in schools and colleges,”
“In recent weeks, after bulldozers came to be the weapon that the Indian state has started using to crush dissent, Muslims would be right to feel more insecure than they ever have before. It is no secret that the bulldozers seem to find mostly Muslim houses to demolish whenever there has been violence or rioting. It does not help that every time there is violence, senior ministers and BJP spokesmen openly declare that Muslim jihadists are traitors who want to destroy India.”
Hic, Hic, Hiccups! Why Liquor Reforms in India Are So Complicated
Pranay Kotasthane analyses Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy in a piece for Times of India, contextualising it in the national context.
“The Delhi government could have done better,” he writes, even as he goes on to point out that like previous attempts at liberalisation in other sectors, this policy also suffered political pushbacks.
“Any policy that liberalises its sale becomes an easy target for conservative moralisers. By pausing the policy implementation midway, the Delhi government further played into the hands of these opponents.”
Future Imperfect: Gloom and Doom Over Loom
In what some may consider a scandalous suggestion, Chidanand Rajghatta writes (for Times of India) that Khadi products need “videshi expertise” in order to garner global heft. He also suggests that beyond mouthing platitudes, the Prime Minister should actually go ahead and become the poster boy for these fabrics. Taking cue from the explosive business of “ripped jeans”, Rajghatta writes, “Monetizing the defect is where marketing savvy comes in.”
“Socialists may scoff at these running dogs of imperialism. There is also no accounting for mankind’s sense of fashion (or idiocy). But the story is illustrative of how corporations and marketing machines can create demand for even defective goods, sometimes achieved with deliberation. With a fine story and good marketing, there is no reason why khadi and handloom cannot be a bonanza in the billions for India.”
The Sadness of the University Today
In an article for The New Indian Express, Shiv Visvanathan laments the tumble of Indian universities into the “deadwood of technocratic thought.” He argues that the university is a theatre for ideas, a domain of play, and a common ground for dissenting academics, and yet it is being turned into an “interlude from employment, as a cadre for politics, as a bureaucracy for certification.”
“It is not just the sense of the university as a pilgrimage and exploration of ideas that we have lost. We also lack a sense of the university as a way of life. When a JNU Vice-Chancellor apologises for the university being anti-national, she is seeing the university as a cadre of ideologues, not ideas. Ideology is procrustean and frozen; ideas are an effervescence of possibilities. More, the everyday joy of learning and being is lost in these official narratives.“
Your Daughter’s Rapists Have Been Set Free and Garlanded
Pooja Bedi, in a piece for Times of India, writes about the “heart-breaking and harsh reality of Bilkis Bano,” and argues that if there’s a time for a Prime Minister to unite or divide the nation, it is now.
Further, she talks about how both Nirbhaya and Bilkis, one Muslim and one Hindu, are daughters of India and “representative of your daughters and grand-daughters in the future, and of an India, you have created either by your inaction or actions.”
“What are the guarantees that the law, society, religious divisions, and mentality will favour the women of your own home in the future? Every woman who stands up for Bilkis, stands up for herself. Every man who stands up for Bilkis, stands up for the women in his family. To stand up for Bilkis is to stand up for an India we wish to be a part of, and wish to be proud of.”
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