criminal justice aftermath of caste and communal conflicts | G Mohan Gopal

Frontline

CRIMINAL JUSTICE - Caste and carnage

http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/caste-and-carnage/article5338781.ece?homepage=true

The series of five cases of mass murder from Bihar must wake India up to the need to strengthen its capacity to deal with the criminal justice aftermath of caste and communal conflicts. By G. MOHAN GOPAL

DOES the caste of the victim or the accused play a role in

Battle for Justice and Democracy: Laxmanpur-Bathe | Kavita Krishnan

Battle for Justice and Democracy: Laxmanpur-Bathe
in EPW, Vol - XLVIII No. 45-46, November 16, 2013

by Kavita Krishnan

The acquittal of the 26 people found guilty for the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre of 1997 by the Patna High Court is a grave miscarriage of justice. This article traces the events of that time and the manner in which the ruling of the sessions court, finding these accused guilty,

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

The Times of India

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


The two most widely reported news stories on Friday the 13th, 2013, have a lesson in store for the country. The men who raped and brutalised a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi last year have been awarded the death sentence. The man who oversaw one of

Javed Iqbal: The unending struggle of Bastar adivasis

Years after the Muria and the Koya were displaced from Dantewada by the atrocities of the Salwa Judum and the Maoists, their houses would be destroyed repeatedly by the Forest Department who calls them 'encroachers'. The IDPs would also fight with the local koya tribes over resources. Yet the Forest Department simply blames the adivasis for forest loss in Khammam, without even asking how much land all the Koyas and the Murias lost in the last 100 years in Khammam - massive land alienation studied by the late civil servant Girglani. The latest settlement that was destroyed as an 'encroachment', was only two kilometres away from Badrachalam town centre, which is actually adivasi land.

Around 43 families from the villages of Millampalli, Simalpenta, Raygudem, Darba and Singaram in Dantewada district, lost their makeshift homes for the second time in three months in the Mothe Reserve Forest of Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh on March 26, when the forest department, mandated to protect the forests, evicted them using force. A large number of families are internally displaced persons who’ve escaped the Salwa Judum-Maoist conflict of Dantewada and have lived in Khammam as informal labour.

Most originated from Millampalli, that was burnt down by the Salwa Judum in 2006 and Maoists have killed at least three people — Sodi Dola, Komaram Muthaiya and Madkam Jogaiya in the past 10 years. Another resident of Millampalli, Dusaru Sodi, used to be a member of the Maoist Sangam but would eventually become a special police officer who witnesses from Tadmentla and Morpalli alleged was present during the burnings of the villages or Tadmetla, Morpalli and Timmapuram in March 2011 by security forces. His name again reappeared in testimonies by rape victims, submitted to the National Commission of Women and the Supreme Court by anthropologist Nandini Sundar.


Madvi Samaiya and Madvi Muthaiya from the village of Raygudem were also killed by the Maoists. In Simalpenta, the Sarpanch’s brother Kurra Anda was killed by the Maoists in 2006.In Singaram, an alleged encounter that took place on January 9, 2009, where 19 adivasis were killed by security forces as alleged Maoists.

In Khammam, most of the IDPs/migrants have worked as informal labour during the mircchi cutting season, earning around Rs100/day and live off their savings in the summer season when there is no work, and little access to water to a majority of the settlements. The Muria from Chhattisgarh, or the Gotti Koya as they are known in Andhra along with Koyas from Chhattisgarh, have been in a struggle to appropriate the reserve forest land of Khammam for podu cultivation, often leading the forest department to evict them, aware that the entire forest cover is turning into a ‘honeycomb,’ as described by the DFO Shafiullah, who pointed out to satellite imagery of a pockmarked forest in Khammam, back in 2010...

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_the-unending-struggle-of-bastar-adivasis_1684183

With Photos:
http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/the-unending-struggle-to-exist-for-bastars-adivasis/

Nandini Sundar: The Politics of Prizes and Silencing of Adivasi Voice

Last weekend, I attended a wonderful rally by the Adivasi Mahasabha in Raipur – some 10-15 busloads of people came from Dantewada and Bastar alone, while large numbers came from other parts of Chhattisgarh and even other states like Maharashtra, Orissa and West Bengal. The procession was flagged off by Dhurwa dancers while the rear end was brought up by Marias with their large dhols and bison horns. In between were thousands of militant marchers shouting slogans against militarization, demanding peace talks, the release of their arrested leaders, the implementation of the Supreme Court judgement on Salwa Judum, and all their constitutional rights with respect to land, forest and water.  These were men and women who had lost everything to arson and loot by Salwa Judum, who had been interned in camps but managed to return home and pick up their ploughs again, who face the daily threat of arrests, beatings and encounters by the security forces, who have to negotiate with the Maoists everytime they wanted to access panchayat funds, who live a life on the razor edge of survival.  And yet here they were, laughing, cheering and vowing to fight till the last breath, fight for their constitutional rights and in a constitutional way.

This remarkable struggle has been waged, not just over one weekend, but over years.  Indeed, the Salwa Judum leaders themselves credit the CPI with the destruction of their movement – both through mass actions and through legal means.

The first reliable account of what Salwa Judum was doing came from a CPI fact-finding in November 2005. It was at an Adivasi Mahasabha rally held in Cherla in June 2007 that villagers broke the silence which had engulfed them since Salwa Judum began and gave written accounts of what had happened to them – accounts which later formed the basis of a writ petition before the Supreme Court by Manish Kunjam, Kartam Joga and Dudhi Joga.  Kartam Joga has since been jailed for his efforts, along with several other CPI leaders all of whom have anywhere between 5- 7 heinous cases against them.  In the Tadmetla case of April 2010 when 76 CRPF men were killed, for example, there is a fungible and expansive list of accused where anyone inconvenient can be grandfathered in, regardless of how far they were from the actual site or their political persuasion.

Subsequent rallies organized by the CPI have each been historic – one in Jagdalpur in November 2007 which was attended by over a lakh of people, broke the fear of returning home and led to the slow and gradual emptying out of camps.  Much public attention has been focused on a few villages where NGOs have worked to resettle IDPs, and important and brave though that was, the much larger scale and quiet impact of the CPI work  - as well as the Maoists own efforts at restoration – has gone unremarked. The CPI has also been fighting against Tata and Essar’s plans to displace people for their steel plants. Despite the fact that the CPI cannot compete with the money power of the Congress and BJP and win elections, Manish Kunjam is easily the most popular adivasi leader in the undivided district of Bastar.  The CPI is also the only party in a field which includes the Maoists, which is led and peopled entirely by adivasis in the area. This is of no mean significance. Indeed, speaking at the adivasi mahasabha meeting on the 16th, PA Sangma recalled how on a visit to Jagdalpur, he was introduced by the Congress leaders to their local functionaries. In a tribal dominated district, with all seats reserved (Jagdalpur has since been dereserved), not one of them was an adivasi!

So when I read a Tehelka article which describes Soni Sori and Lingaram Kodopi as “the last men left standing in Dantewada district” after Binayak and Himanshu were arrested or evicted, or Shoma Chaudhury’s quote from some unnamed (and obviously ignorant) CRPF commander that “earlier the tribals didn’t have a voice, but these two people changed that”, I had to rub my eyes in disbelief. It is evident to everyone on the ground and outside that Soni and Linga are being framed, but in Chhattisgarh, whether you are a hero or a zero, you have equal chances of being arrested.  Some would argue that it is perhaps not surprising that a party like the CPI which has consistently fought against Essar and Tata – which coincidentally are funding a major Tehelka event- is off its radar. But the Tehelka article displays a deeper malaise.

For far too long, the dominant activist mode of engaging with Dantewada has been in the language of ‘sole spokesmanship’ or “saviourism” by “human rights defenders”, who are usually non-adivasis. This is not to belittle their important work in bringing attention to the issue or the very real sacrifices that Binayak  Sen and Himanshu Kumar have undergone in being arrested or having their house demolished – but simply to remind readers that were it not for the bravery of the adivasis who tell their stories to fact-finding teams, the media or lawyers and adivasis who guide outsiders to their burnt villages – none of these stories would ever have come out.  I have had students in Delhi university refuse to even fill out anonymous  teacher evaluation forms for fear that they would be found out and victimized.  It is clear that if anyone deserves a prize for defending human rights, it is the very people whose human rights are being violated, but who have refused to take it lying down.

When it comes to the CPI, there are of course, political reasons why their sterling contribution to the ongoing struggle in Chhattisgarh is not recognized... Read more:
http://kafila.org/2011/10/21/the-politics-of-prizes-and-silencing-of-adivasi-voice-nandini-sundar/

See also: Take a Different Route: http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/04/abduction-of-chhatisgarh-ias-officer-by.html


and ‘The Government Will Kill Me’ : Will there be justice for Soni Sori, the schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh? http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/04/government-will-kill-me-will-there-be.html

Kandhamal: The Law Must Change its Course (download PDF)

This book critically examines the patterns of impunity as they unfold in Kandhamal. There is today a vibrant debate seeking legal reform to ensure accountability for mass crimes by extending culpability to those who sponsor and profit from the carnage. Rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace, this book seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter patterns of continuing injustice and rampant impunity.

PREFACE: It takes approximately five to six hours travel by road to reach Kandhamal from Bhubneshwar, the capital of Orissa. A remote and barely known district of Orissa, it received national and international attention on account of the anti Christian violence of 2007 and again in August 2008. On my first visit to Kandhamal, what struck me was the abject poverty of the majority of its population. The Dalit Christians Panas and the Kandha tribals both counted amongst the poorest and most marginalized citizens. It is a shame that after 60 years of Independence, it is not development, growth and prosperity that have made an impact upon their lives, but hatred and communal prejudice.

In April 2009, I visited the Phulbani fast track courts set up to adjudicate cases related to the Kandhamal anti Christian violence. A senior member of the Phulbani Bar admonished me for doing so, stating that it was ‘outsiders’ like me who were causing trouble. He also suggested I visit the interior Blocks to see for myself that normalcy had returned to Kandhamal. I did as he advised and traveled to a few blocks. I found that almost a year later the Christian community continued to seek refuge in derelict relief camps or lived as outcasts on the fringe of villages. As they tried to cope with loss, they also faced an uncertain future due to a socio-economic boycott against them; and remained fearful of impending attacks. Has the Indian polity come to regard second class citizenship for religious minorities as the normal state of affairs? Has the guarantee of equal citizenship for all regardless of religion, caste, sex etc. inscribed in the Indian Constitution been abandoned in Kandhamal? The photographs appearing in this book were taken during this trip. They bear silent testimony to the real meaning of the ‘normalcy’ and ‘peace’ that supposedly prevails in Kandhamal.

The tragedy of Kandhamal is that the attack on the Christian community did not surprise anyone and further more, that the subsequent failure of the legal system to accord justice to the victim-survivors was predictable. Despite warning signals that concerted communal mobilization was underway for
almost two decades in Orissa, no preventive measures were taken to secure life and property. Perhaps governance was guided by lessons learnt from India’s contemporary history - one of which appears to be that communal killings are expected to pay rich electoral dividends. The failure of the criminal justice system to punish those who planned the killing and destruction in Kandhamal has left a deep sense of injustice and discrimination. The state’s failure to provide adequate reparation to the victim-survivors and their cruel abandonment has deepened this alienation.

The Nellie massacre of 1983; the anti Sikh pogroms of 1984; the Bhagalpur riots of 1989; the anti Muslim violence in Mumbai in 1992; the genocidal attack on the Muslims of Gujarat in 2002; and now the Kandhamal attack on Christians, indicates that mass crimes committed with overt or covert State sanction, pose a grave challenge to the secular, pluralist idea of India.

This book critically examines the pattern of impunity as it continues to unfold in Kandhamal. Civil society in India urgently requires to debate legal reforms on accountability for mass crimes. The claim to ‘civilisation’ by any society is dependent above all, on the degree to which it ensures the dignity of its citizens, and their equality in the eyes of the law. That is why it is essential to extend culpability to those who sponsor and profit from such acts. This publication seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter this pattern of continuing injustice and rampant impunity. It is rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace.

Vrinda Grover
Download the book:
http://www.ngo-marg.org/publications/books-articles-reports-and-other-publications

http://www.ngo-marg.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Kandhamal-Book-Final.pdf

Also see: http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2011/12/barefoot-remembering-kandhamal.html

Gujarat and Modi: Is Gandhi’s state failing him?

An independent investigating team has said it cannot find evidence to support a complaint that Gujarat’s chief minister was complicit in the riots there 10 years ago. Some believe this legitimises Narendra Modi, and makes him a viable candidate for prime minister. The reasoning is that it will make the BJP’s allies less wary of damage to them if they support his candidature. Most of the BJP’s allies, excluding the Shiv Sena and and the Sikhs-only Akali Dal, are secular in the way that we use the word in India. That is to say, they are inclusive and solicit votes from Muslims. Perhaps this judgment will make them feel less insecure about selling Modi to their constituency.

Others don’t think the judgement changes Modi’s image that much among people who believe he could have prevented much of the violence in his state. Both sides have a case but actually the evidence is not on display yet. We must wait for the Special Investigation Team to make public the material it has gathered, which led it to conclude that Modi could not be charged. A magistrate in Gujarat has asked that this be handed over to the petitioner who filed the complaint. This petitioner is Zakia Jafri, wife of the politician Ehsan Jafri. He was killed by a huge Hindu mob in his house in Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society neighbourhood on 28 February, 2002, the day after the Godhra massacre.

The Jafri family spent hours on the telephone pleading for help as the mob gathered, but the government could not be moved to coming to their aid. Ehsan Jafri was a former member of Parliament and was able to reach the city’s police commissioner and the state’s ministers on the telephone. They promised help but it did not arrive. Zakia Jafri’s complaint says that a curfew was deliberately not imposed in Ahmedabad despite warnings of violence. It will be interesting to see what the investigation report says about this.

Another aspect of the complaint, which is long and sweeping, deals with the conflict between serving senior police officers and the government. Some of it makes for disturbing reading. Many brave Hindu police officers took initiative to prevent violence by ensuring law and order, often asking their troops to open fire on Hindu mobs. Some of them have been transferred to distant posts or are being prosecuted. One is Satish Verma, an IPS officer who was shifted to a training position after he ordered the arrest of BJP MLA Shankarlal Chaudhry for his role in the murder of two Muslim boys.

Another IPS officer, Rahul Sharma, took the initiative to order Gujarat’s mobile phone firms to give him the records of ministers’ movements. These phone records indicate the movements of BJP leaders and locates them in neigbhourhoods during episodes of violence. Sharma is now being prosecuted by the Gujarat government for doing his job. It isn’t easy to dismiss these instances as the fantasies of Modi-haters, and it will be revealing to know if the SIT has looked at this aspect.

Meanwhile, two cases in the last six months have ended with convictions for Hindus. In the latest instance 23 men have been found guilty and sentenced, 18 of them to life and five for seven years. The Hindu newspaper noted that most of these men were from the peasant Patel community. In November 31 men were convicted for the murder of 33 Muslims by a mob. All 31 were Patels. It is this community that has kept the BJP in power, and four out of Gujarat’s nine cabinet ministers are Patels. Gujarat remains a divided society. Zakia Jafri’s complaint makes some incidental points which show how vicious the division is between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat. The state’s assembly did not condole the death of Jafri, who as a former MP should have been given this honour. Such pettiness does not behoove the state which produced leaders like Gandhi, Jinnah and Patel. Given the extremely shoddy gathering of evidence and prosecution, it is no longer possible that Gujarat will give justice to the Muslims it treated in such inhuman fashion. But the state and its people must make some pubic admission of their failures, if not their crimes. A close study and publication of the evidence of the SIT against Modi by Gujarati media will be a good opportunity to do this, and perhaps set the past to rest.

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/gujarat-and-modi-is-gandhis-state-failing-him-276315.html

Also see:  Why Modi may never be able to leverage SIT ‘clean chit’
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/why-modi-may-never-be-able-to-leverage-sit-clean-chit-271862.html The legal runaround over the 2002 Gujarat riots continues, with no immediate end in sight. On Tuesday, barely minutes after a court in Ahmedabad made public the Special Investigation Team’s finding that it found no prosecutable evidence against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the Gulberg Society killings, the petitioner, Zakia Jafri, said she would “fight it out”. Social activist Teesta Setalvad, who has been taking up the riots cases, too pledged to “fight to the finish”. The search for justice for the riot victims is thus at risk of going into an infinite loop. For one thing, the Gulberg Society killings case has already been to the Supreme Court and back. The SIT had been appointed by the Supreme Court in 2009 to investigate Zakia Jafri’s complaint; in September 2011, when the SIT submitted its interim report, the Supreme Court had left it to the local court to decide whether Modi and the other accused should be prosecuted, but ruled that the case cannot be closed without hearing Zakia Jafri. The final word on the SIT recommendation for closure of the case against Modi must await another round of hearings, beginning 10 May. There is much riding on this case. The petition by Zakia Jafri and Setalvad relates not just to the killing of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and others in the Gulberg Society massacre. In a larger sense, it targets Modi and the other accused for the violence in nine districts of Gujarat in the days following the Godhra train carnage of 27 February 2002. If Modi were ever convicted in this case, he will be seen as the chief patron of the riots...

And also: SC slap on Modi police for false mass graves case
The Supreme Court’s order of April 13, Friday, to the Gujarat police to stop the malicious prosecution launched against me and others over the unearthing of mass graves will have a huge impact on the fight for justice for the victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence. Despite all the cynicism of the last ten years over delays and setbacks in the many cases of the 2002 killings, it is only the judicial struggle that has put the brakes on the Gujarat government in not just its witch-hunt against the victims but its calculated attempt to subvert justice and ensure that the perpetrators are not punished. The present case, in which several Muslim natives of a Gujarat village and I have been accused of illegally exhuming mass graves of some of the Muslims killed in the 2002 violence, is a classic case of trying to intimidate the victims by turning them into the accused instead of securing them justice, as the Supreme Court judges observed...
http://www.newzfirst.com/web/guest/full-story/-/asset_publisher/Qd8l/content/sc-slap-on-modi-police-for-false-mass-graves-case-will-have-huge-impact?redirect=%2Fweb%2Fguest%2Fhome

China land rights lawyer Ni Yulan and husband jailed

Ms Ni was sentenced to two years and eight months, while her husband was handed a two-year term. The couple are known for providing legal help to people whose homes have been seized by the government. They were jailed on charges of "picking quarrels, provoking trouble and wilfully destroying private and public property", a court spokesman said. The couple were detained last April as authorities rounded up scores of activists amid online calls for protests similar to those taking place at the time in the Arab world.



Their trial took place in December 2011, with the hearing closed to the press and foreign diplomats. Their supporters said charges were meant to silence them and the trial was a sign of China's growing intolerance of dissent. Their daughter, Dong Xuan, told reporters then that the trial had been "a very abnormal legal process". "This is completely unfair, I urge the government to release my parents," she told AFP news agency after the sentencing on Tuesday. "Both my parents looked very thin. I was unable to see my mother's face, she didn't turn around. She was in a wheelchair and looked very weak. My father saw me and asked me how I was. He told me that he was OK."


Fighting 'land grabs': Ms Ni's fight against land grabs began in 2002 after her home in central Beijing was requisitioned and later demolished. She has been banned from working as a lawyer but she and her husband have continued to advise others whose land has been seized. She was sentenced to a year in jail in 2002 for "obstructing official business" and to two years' imprisonment in 2008 for "harming public property". Fifty-one-year-old Ms Ni uses a wheelchair - a consequence, she and her supporters say, of mistreatment by police. Amnesty International said her kneecaps and feet were broken during her detention in 2002. She has also described the ill treatment by authorities in media interviews, saying that she was pinned down and kicked until she was not able to walk. The European Union issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about Ms Ni's sentence and calling for her immediate release given her poor health. The sentencing took place with heavy security around the courthouse, reports said.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17661224

‘The Government Will Kill Me’ : Will there be justice for Soni Sori, the schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh?

Soni Sori, 35, is an innocent tribal schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, arrested on charges of aiding the Maoists. She alleges she was sexually assaulted and administered electric shocks in police custody. A PIL filed on her behalf is yet to be heard by the Supreme Court. Below is an excerpt from her last letter dated 7 March.
“Three months have passed and I am not being given any medicines. Even after obtaining a Supreme Court order, my treatment has been left incomplete. I have problems walking. At times, my body swells up while walking and, at other times, my feet just go numb. Why this injustice? Why have I been condemned to this life of torment and punishment? I was taken to Kolkata for treatment after the Supreme Court directive to the Chhattisgarh Government. The doctor advised me to take my medicines regularly. But I am not being given these medicines and the pain is just unbearable. I have complained about this. I told the jailor madam many times. I even told the doctor madam from the jail that I need to be treated. She said, “You have come here through the administration.” She put in writing that I am a Naxalite and, thus, I was put through mental harassment. Then, I kept quiet for a few days. My pains go on increasing.


One of these days, the Chhattisgarh government will surely kill me. Subjecting Adivasis to atrocities and then awarding us with death penalty is the biggest success of this government. The sonography was supposed to be done as per the doctor’s recommendations. These people did not allow it to be conducted. The government is simply waiting for me to die. I am telling you all the Chhattisgarh government will kill me. I am not safe here. In future, if something happens to me, the Chhattisgarh government will be responsible for it. Please do something. My health is not good. I don’t know if it is because of the electric shocks or something else, but my body has become weak. I want to remain alive to be able to fight this battle. I pray to all of you, please help me stay alive.”
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne070412Government.asp


The Dantewada SP whom Soni Sori accuses of brutal torture was awarded a Gallantry medal on Republic Day: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ws030412spLanding.asp

How Delhi's policemen view rape: Tehelka investigation

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

1971: The rape survivors of Bangladesh

The Birangana (war heroines) and the birth of Bangladesh - by Laxmi Murthy

The year 1971 was a landmark in Southasian history for many reasons. It included the birth of Bangladesh but also the war fought by Pakistan and India. It was perhaps the only such conflict involving the three most populous Southasian countries, clashing for the first time since the end of colonial rule. High-level politics and the tumultuous times spawned a number of books on war, international relations and human rights. However, an uncanny silence has remained about one aspect of the war – the sexual crimes committed by the Pakistan Army and its collaborators, the Razakar militia, against Bangladeshi women. It is only now, 40 years on, that some of that silence is being broken.

Bina D’Costa’s new Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia takes on the mammoth task of placing violence against women during the war in a larger political context. While what D’Costa calls the ‘original cartographic trauma’ of the Subcontinent has been well researched, gendered nation-building narratives have been given little consideration. Yet D’Costa proposes that any theorisation of nation-building in post-Partition India and Pakistan, or post-Liberation Bangladesh, is incomplete without a gendered analysis. Recognising that women have largely been silenced by state historiography, feminist scholars and activists in Southasia – Veena Das, Kamla Bhasin, Ritu Menon, Urvashi Butalia – have attempted to explore this sordid aspect of war.

That rape has been used as a weapon of war has been well documented. One of the more famous examples is American feminist Susan Brownmiller’s investigation of rapes committed during the two World Wars, in Vietnam and then in Bangladesh, which emerged as the 1975 classic Against Our Will: Men, women and rape. The idea of defiling the enemy population by raping its women and impregnating them, often while their helpless and ‘feminised’ menfolk watch, is based on notions of honour, purity and emasculating the opposition. These notions of defilement also led to the sacrificial killing, sometimes by their own families, of women who had either been raped or even simply exposed to the potential of sexual violence.

These ‘honour’ killings were widespread during the Partition riots of 1947, a phenomenon documented by Bhasin and Menon. Expanding on this theme, Butalia has talked about how women also colluded in maintaining family ‘purity’ by forcing those who had been raped to commit ‘suicide’. The post-Independence ‘recovery’ programme, whereby abducted women and children were sent back to their families, was fraught with problems, precisely because of prevalent notions of desecration and impurity, which hindered acceptance by families and communities. We see a similar drama played out with the birangana, or rape survivors, and war babies of 1971... 

Psychiatrist Ruth Seifert defined rape not as an aggressive manifestation of sexuality but as a sexual manifestation of aggression. Her study of sexual violence during World War II exposed a hitherto little-known side of that period. Seifer writes: 

Soldiers of Nazi Germany also committed rape on a massive scale. It is furthermore known that the Wehrmacht ran brothels where women were forcibly made to work. In the Eastern territories the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women – and other women as well – with the words ‘Whore for Hitler’s troops’ and to use them accordingly.

Helke Sander and Barbara Johr, in their research on the mass rapes of German women by Red Army troops at the end of World War II, allege that between April and September 1945, nearly 110,000 of Berlin’s 1.4 million female residents were raped, and about 1000 infants were born as a result. While many have criticised Sander and Johr’s methods, it is undeniable that rape was part and parcel of the strategy of the victorious army to subdue the once-ascendant community. The silence around this aspect of the war also follows a pattern of denial evident in wars throughout history.

Sexual violence and rape during conflict have only recently been recognised as war crimes in international law. Women’s experiences of sexual violence and rape in Rwanda, Bosnia and Congo were classified as war crimes and as crimes against humanity. Feminist scholars such as Kelly Askin re-reading the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following the genocide of Jews during World War II have highlighted the failure of the international community to prosecute gender-specific crimes.

Read more: http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/5036-the-birangana-and-the-birth-of-bangladesh.html

Rohini Hensman: Democratic Rights at Home and Abroad: The Case of India

"It is cause for grave concern that non-violent activism in support of fundamental rights is currently under so much attack by the state.. If the Indian government wishes to take its place in the international community as a supporter of democracy, it cannot afford to contradict the principles it upholds abroad by its actions at home"

"...all‘civil society’ really means is capitalist society, with its multiple divisions and contradictions between capitalists and workers, majority and minorities...as well as competition within each category. Its ‘other’ is political society or the state, which is supposed to rise above the struggle of ‘each against all’ and manage it... In a democracy it is also supposed to protect the interests of weaker and more vulnerable sections of the population.. There are a few instances where this actually happens. But in general, the reality is much more complicated. Often, individuals carry their greed and prejudices with them from civil society into the state..."

An unintended by-product of the Anna Hazare movement was some welcome publicity for Irom Sharmila’s eleven-year fast for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Like several other draconian laws, AFSPA allows state security forces the power to act against civilians, upto and including killing them, with virtual impunity. It was after witnessing such a massacre of civilians in Manipur, and realising there would be no redress because of AFSPA, that Sharmila embarked upon her marathon fast, during which the authorities, who keep her locked up, have kept her alive by nasogastric feeding. She fasts alone, but has many supporters in the Northeast and throughout India.

AFSPA has unsuccessfully been challenged in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the right to life, but it also violates the right to equal protection of the law (which is denied to the victims of crimes by the security forces) and the right to equality before the law (since perpetrators in the security forces are effectively placed above the law). The result has been to turn forces vested with the power to protect civilians into predators who rape, torture and kill civilians with impunity.

That the Armed Forces chiefs cling tenaciously to this ‘privilege’ is evident from their obdurate opposition to the repeal or amendment of this law, even when it is proposed by other state actors. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and many state-level laws suffer from the same weaknesses, allowing the police and other security forces to frame, arrest, incarcerate and torture innocent people (including democratic rights activists) with complete impunity. It should be abundantly clear that putting state personnel above the law, as these laws do, is a sure way of encouraging them to engage in unlawful activities and undermining the rule of law.

A country in which the police and state security forces routinely violate the fundamental rights of the civilian population cannot be called a democracy. This does not happen in all parts of India, but in some areas it is the rule rather than the exception. That these tend to be areas where there is anti-state militancy is no excuse: far from solving the problem of militancy, indiscriminate attacks on unarmed civilians generally make it worse. Therefore even in such areas, as Sharmila and her supporters correctly contend, it should not be lawful for security forces to rape and kill unarmed civilians, and if they engage in such behaviour, they should be punished just like anyone else. But is anybody in the state listening?

The Pathribal case, in which five civilians were killed by army personnel in a fake encounter, may answer this question. The army, as usual, claims that its personnel cannot be prosecuted without sanction from the central government, which the Ministry of Defence has always refused to give even in the few cases where the Ministry of Home Affairs has given the go-ahead. But on 4 February 2012, a Supreme Court bench of Justices B.S.Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar told the army that rape and murder committed by its personnel should be considered normal crimes, and there should be ‘no question of sanction’ from the government before prosecution of offenders in such cases, since AFSPA gives only very limited protection for action ‘in discharge of duty.’ The Court’s observations are eminently logical, and echo the argument implicit in Sharmila’s protest. What would it say about India if army personnel could claim, ‘We raped these women in discharge of our duty’ or ‘We rounded up and killed these innocent civilians in discharge of our duty,’ and the judiciary accepted their claims? Wouldn’t this be an admission that India is not, in fact, a democracy where the rule of law prevails? Yet as of now, it is not clear that the Supreme Court’s order will reflect its observations, nor have excessive powers and impunity clauses in other laws been challenged by the courts. The Centre continues to insist that sanction from it is required before armed forces personnel can be prosecuted. Irom Sharmila’s struggle for democracy and the rule of law is not yet over.
Read more: http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/democratic-rights-at-home-and-abroad-the-case-of-india/

The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: Inquiry Commission Report (1969)

NB: There are still people who admire Godse for shooting a defenceless, unarmed old man at point blank range in a prayer meeting.. But after all, modern society is awash with extremist belief of all kinds, including support for suicide bombers and Maoist revolutionaries. In the guise of communal ideology & prejudices, extremism has taken  centre-stage. People in high office believe in collective guilt (denouncing entire communities for the sins of a few), controlled mobs, revenge killing and vigilantism. 

The influence of communal hatred extends beyond communal organisations - in 1969 (Gandhi's birth centenary) a Hindi literateur with extreme-left leanings, wrote 'Gandhi benakaab', a pamphlet in which he hailed Godse as a 'true son of India'. It should not surprise us that extremists from left to right coalesce in their hatred for Gandhi (see my article, The Other side of Maoism). Those interested in the continued currency - despite all their deceitful denials - of the Sangh Parivar's hatred of Gandhi may see the web-page: "HinduUnity' below, where Nathuram Godse is referred to as 'our beloved'; along with VD Savarkar's slogan "Hinduize politics and militarize Hindus!" 
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://hinduunity.org/

Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur's account of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi -published by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1970- is an important document that has been all but forgotten in contemporary India. Read below a short background. ( 'Volume' citations are from Gandhi's Collected Works.)
http://archive.org/details/JeevanlalKapoorCommissionReport

Gandhi had arrived in Delhi from Calcutta in September 1947. He planned to walk to Pakistan, leading Hindu and Sikh refugees back to the homes whence they had fled, and return with Indian Muslims who had left their homes out of fear. He postponed this plan upon realizing the extent of communal violence and hatred in Delhi and its environs. Between January 13 and 18 he undertook a fast – his last, as it turned out – to obtain the return of a shrine to its proper owners. Here's what he said about it on December 22 1947:

“Some eight or ten miles from here, at Mehrauli, there is a shrine of Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Chisti. Esteemed as second only to the shrine at Ajmer, it is visited every year not only by Muslims but by thousands of non-Muslims too. Last September this shrine was subjected to the wrath of Hindu mobs. The Muslims living in the vicinity of the shrine for the last 800 years had to leave their  homes. I mention this sad episode to tell you that, though Muslims love the shrine, today no Muslim can be found anywhere near it. It is the duty of the Hindus, Sikhs, the officials and the Government to open the shrine again and wash off this stain on us. The same applies to other shrines and religious places of Muslims in and around Delhi. The time has come when both India and Pakistan must unequivocally declare to the majorities in each country that they will not tolerate desecration of religious places, be they small or big. They should also undertake to repair the places damaged during riots.” (Collected Works vol 98, p 98-99).

The Delhi fast was immensely successful and an agreement emerged for the maintenance of communal harmony. (The story is told elsewhere: see Another time, another mosque). But on January 20, a bomb exploded 75 feet away from the dais at Gandhi’s prayer meeting at Birla House, New Delhi. One Madanlal Pahwa was arrested. Six other men escaped in a taxi. This was the fifth attempt on his life since 1934, and all of them were made by extreme Hindu nationalists.  Gandhi was unruffled. Upon being asked to agree to additional policemen for his meetings, he refused, saying that his life was in the hands of God, that if he had to die, no precautions could save him. He would not agree to restricted entry to his prayer meetings or to anybody coming between his audience and himself. At the next day’s meeting Gandhi said that “the man who exploded the bomb obviously thinks that he has been sent by God to destroy me… He had taken it for granted that I am an enemy of Hinduism. When he says he was doing the bidding of God he is only making God an accomplice in a wicked deed. But it cannot be so… those who are behind him or whose tool he is, should know that this sort of thing will not save Hinduism. If Hinduism has to be saved it will be saved through such work as I am doing. I have been imbibing Hindu dharma right from my childhood” (CW vol 98: 279-81). On January 30, soon after he arrived at his prayer meeting, Nathuram Godse, editor of a Poona-based Marathi journal called Hindu Rashtra, fired three bullets at him at point-blank range and killed him.

On February 4, the Government of India declared the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh unlawful, noting that its members had “indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity and murder.. carried on under a cloak of secrecy.” It accused the Sangh of “exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods.” The communique – that must have been vetted by Home Minister Sardar Patel - went on: “the cult of violence sponsored & inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The and most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself”. (D.R. Goyal 1979; Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, p.202)

The trial of eight conspirators including V.D. Savarkar took place through 1948. Godse made a speech stating his belief in in Savarkar’s ideal of Hindu nationalism, and his conviction that Gandhi was “a political and ethical imposter…a traitor to his faith and his country, a curse to India, a force for evil.., and the greatest enemy not only of Hindus, but of the whole nation.” Parts of the speech suggest that Godse saw himself as an agency of Lord Krishna. Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death in February 1949 and hanged in November. They went to the gallows shouting Akhand Bharat amar rahe, (Long Live United India) not realizing that a united India was also Gandhi’s dearest ideal. Unlike them, however, he did not believe that united India could be a Hindu Rashtra - an Indian version of Hitlers Reich. Five conspirators were sentenced to life imprisonment, which in India those days meant fourteen years. Savarkar was acquitted for lack of evidence.

However, doubts remained about the extent of the conspiracy; the behaviour of the Bombay and Delhi police between January 20 and 30; and the evidence of V.D. Savarkar’s involvement. In 1965, the Government of India set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, headed by Justice Jivanlal Kapur of the Supreme Court. It examined evidence not produced during the trial, including the testimony of Savarkar's bodyguard Appa Ramachandra Kasar, and his secretary Gajanan Vishnu Damle. Had they testified in 1948, Savarkar would have been convicted. The evidence confirmed Godse and Apte's visits to Savarkar on January 14 and 17, 1948. Kasar told the Commission that they visited Savarkar again on or about January 23, upon their return from Delhi after the bomb incident. Damle stated that Godse and Apte saw Savarkar “in the middle of January and sat with him in his garden.” Justice Kapur's findings were clear. He noted the deadly negligence of the police. And he concluded that the facts taken together undermined “any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”

Gandhi died standing up, with God’s name on his lips, just as he had wanted to. He had always said that he was prepared to die for his beliefs. His death could have been prevented. Who can say what would have happened if he had been allowed to perform his padyatra to Pakistan? But it was not to be. “In the eyes of too many officials, he was an old man who had outlived his usefulness: he had become expendable. By negligence, by indifference, by deliberate desire on the part of many faceless people, the assassination had been accomplished. It was a new kind of murder – the permissive assassination, and there may be many more in the future” (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi; 647). In February 2003, the Indian Union’s highest officials unveiled a portrait of V.D. Savarkar in the Central Hall of Parliament. Knowingly or otherwise our leaders and representatives have hailed and honoured the man who was a prime accused in the Gandhi murder case. They continue to do so till this day. When we realise that independent India's criminal justice system was inaugurated by a denial of justice to Gandhi, we need not be surprised at its steady deterioration ever since.

Available in the link below are Parts 1 & 2 of the Report [of the 6 volume document] of the Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi by Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur [Supreme Court of India]. The commission was established in 1965 & submitted its report on 30 Sept 1969.

http://archive.org/details/JeevanlalKapoorCommissionReport

Also see: 
The Other Side of Maoism

V.D. Savarkar and Gandhi’s murder

Madhu Limaye's (senior socialist leader) observations on the RSS (1979)

RSS Declared Unlawful: GOI communique of February 4, 1948

Text of Government communique dated February 4, 1948 - In their resolution of February 4, 1948, the Government of India declared their determination to root out the forces of hatred and violence that are at work in our country and imperil the freedom of the Nation and darken her fair name. in pursuance of this policy the Government of India have decided to declare unlawful the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the Chief Commissioner’s provinces. Similar action is also being taken in the Governor’s provinces.

As democratic governments the Government of India and the provincial governments have always been anxious to allow reasonable scope for genuine political, social and economic activities to all parties and organisations including those whose policies and purposes differ from, or even run counter to their own, subject to the consideration that such activities should not transgress certain commonly recognised limits of propriety and law. The professed aims and objects of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are to promte the physical, intellectual and moral well-being of the Hindus and also to foster feelings of brotherhood, love and service amongst them. Government themselves are most anxious to improve the general material and intellectual well-being of all sections of the people and have got schemes on hand which are designed to carry out these objects, particularly the provision of physical training and education in military matters to the youth of the country. Government have, however, noticed with regret that in practice members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have not adhered to their professed ideals.

Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried out by members of the Sangh. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity, and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunitions. They have been found circulating leaflets exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and and suborn the police and military. These activities have been carried out under the cloak of secrecy, and the government have considered from time to time how far these activities rendered it incumbent upon them to deal with the Sangh in its corporate capacity. The last occasion when the government defined this attitude was when the Premiers and Home Ministers of provinces met in Delhi towards the end of November.  It was then unanimously agreed that the stage when the Sangh should be dealt with as an association had not yet arrived and that individuals should contiinue to be dealt with sternly as hitherto. The objectionable and harmful activities of the Sangh have, however, continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself.

In these circumstances it is the bounden duty of the government to take effective measures to curb this re-appearance of violence in a virulent form and as a first step to this end, they have decided to declare the Sangh as an unlawful association. Government have no doubt that in taking this measure they have the support of all law-abiding citizens, of all those who have the welfare of the country at heart. (Source: Des Raj Goyal: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Delhi, 1979; 201-202)

AICC Resolution on Private Armies; dtd November 16, 1947 - “The All India Congress Committee has noted with regret that there is a growing desire on the part of some organizations to build up private armies. Any such development is dangerous for the safety of the State and for the growth of corporate life in the nation. The State alone should have its defence forces or police or home guards. The activities of the Muslim National Guards, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Akali Volunteers and such other organizations represent an endeavour to bring into being private armies, (and) must be regarded as a menace to the hard-won freedom of the country.. (Source: Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, online; vol 97, p 480).

The Savarkarist syntax - by Anil Nauriya:

UNDERLYING THE glorification of Savarkarism by the BJP-RSS-Shiv Sena are changes in the nature and objectives of the major political parties, the cynicism induced by the growing nexus between crime and politics, and the collapse of a compact that had facilitated post-independence politics. The first principle of Savarkarism defines the nation on the basis of religious community. This is reflected in Savarkar's declaration on August 15, 1943: "I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah's two-nation theory. We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations" (Indian Annual Register1943 vol2 p 10). The second Savarkarist principle condones killing to make religious community-related points. The German versusJew analogy is made in Savarkar's writings when speaking of his notion of the Hindu nation and those outside it.The killer aspect of Savarkarism is noted by Sardar Patel. In his February 27, 1948 letter to Nehru, Patel held the fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar responsible for assassinating Gandhi. The same trigger-happiness was evident in the Gujarat carnage (2002) and its aftermath. Whether a murder may be treated as a crime seems to depend, for Savarkarism, upon the self-perceived religious community interests of the killer.http://hindu.com/2004/09/18/stories/2004091803791000.htm

A Hard Rain Falling (on private armies and political violence in India) (EPW, July 2012)

THE DELHI DECLARATION OF JANUARY 18, 1948
On January 18, Gandhi ended his final fast. Over a hundred representatives of various groups and organizations including the Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Jamiat-ul-Ulema who had assembled at Rajendra Prasad’s residence, called on Gandhiji at 11.30 a.m. Those present included Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, INA General Shah Nawaz Khan, Hifzur Rahman and Zaheed Hussain, Pakistan’s High Commissioner. Dr. Rajendra Prasad reported that even those who had some doubts on the previous night were confident that they could ask Gandhiji with a full sense of responsibility to break the fast. . As President of the Congress, Rajendra Prasad said that he had signed the document in view of the guarantee which they had all jointly and severally given. Khurshid, the Chief Commissioner and Randhawa, Deputy Commissioner of Delhi, had signed the document on behalf of the administration. It had been decided to set up a number of committees to implement the pledge. Rajendra Prasad hoped that Gandhiji would now terminate his fast. Deshbandhu Gupta described scenes of fraternization between Hindus and Muslims which he had witnessed when a procession of Muslims was taken out that morning in Subzimandi and was received with ovation and offered fruit and refreshments by the Hindu inhabitants. A seven-point declaration in Hindi was read out solemnly affirming the people’s desire for communal harmony and civic peace. This read as follows:

SEVEN-POINT DELHI DECLARATION OF JANUARY 18, 1948

Extracts taken from two CPI pamphlets issued in September/October 1947: ‘Bleeding Punjab Warns’ by PC Joshi and Dhanwantri : “What happened in the Punjab cannot be called a riot. It was a regular war of extermination of the minorities, of the Sikhs and Hindus in Western Punjab and of Muslims in East Punjab. It cannot be compared to Calcutta or Noakhali, Bihar, or even to Rawalpindi for in all these cases it was mobs of one community that took leading part in killing, looting and burning the minority in the area, their communal passions being roused to a pitch of frenzy and savagery.. In the Punjab, however, in the recent biggest killing ever seen, it was the trained bands equipped with firearms and modern weapons that were the main killers, looters and rapers. These were the storm troops of various communal parties such as National Guards of the Muslim League in the Western Punjab, and the Shahidi Dal of the Akalis and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of the Mahasabha in the Eastern Punjab. They were actively aided and often actually led by the police and the military in committing the worst atrocities.. in violence and in brutality, in the numbers killed (which Syt Shri Prakasha, India’s Ambassador to Pakistan places at 1 ½ lakhs) in the use of plenty of modern deadly weapons, in the devastation spread over 14 districts of the Punjab and in the way in which the police, the military and the entire administration was geared not to stop the riots but to spread it – the Punjab tragedy is without parallel.. p 5-6 of a printed CPI report ‘Bleeding Punjab Warns’ by PC Joshi and Dhanwantri - September 1947. (Comrade Dhanwantri was a comrade of Bhagat Singh; President of the Lahore Distt Congress Committee and communist leader of Punjab)

Gandhi visits the poor people of England in 1931 - Gandhi Video

Book Review - David Kennedy’s Of War and Law

David Kennedy, Of War and Law (2006)
In an age when global conflicts have evolved into low intensity asymmetric affairs and taken center stage, modern conceptions of both law and war are of paramount importance to our ability to make informed decisions regarding our role in these conflicts. David Kennedy’s assertions in Of War and Law are a clear description of what occurs at the modern nexus of law and war. However, in the midst of a culture awash in images of casualties piped directly into modern living rooms (something he calls the “CNN effect”) Kennedy takes on the task of providing the realignment that seems all the more vital for the reeducation of both professionals and the wider public audience alike.

Of War and Law, starts out assaulting the traditional definition of war with the various phenomena upon which the label has been bestowed. Traditional wars of combat are contrasted with metaphorical wars, the cold war, international interventions, the 9/11 attacks, and even the notion that security is more a state of mind then a set of factual circumstances. While law is often seen as a means to avoid and constrain war, Of War and Law extirpates this notion from our minds refocusing our conception of both modern war and law. In the epilogue to Of War and Law David Kennedy states, “The hand of force animates the world of law.” It is this ultimate underpinning of law that reminds us of the intimate connection the law has with the use of force and its ultimate expression through the violence and chaos that fills our popular notion of war. It is with these thoughts that Kennedy prepares our conception of war before forging ahead to explore the relationship between war and law.


A Legal Context For War? Before launching into any detailed retelling of the historical relationship between law and war Kennedy clarifies the concept of war as a legal institution, providing us with a starting point by going back almost 200 years and paraphrasing Clausewitz, “war is still the continuation of politics by other means.” The reader is made aware of how an elite class of international professionals drawn from the ranks of military personnel and humanitarians with their respective skill sets and imperatives, participate in the discourse upon which the political and legal context for war is constructed. It becomes clear that this modern context has arisen through technological improvements in communication and the adoption of a common language based on law between and among the professionals. A seriously disconcerting assertion arising out of Kennedy’s context for war, at least for the general public, is that knowledge of the politics of these professions is required to understand the politics of war and peace...


Download the review: http://www.germanlawjournal.com/pdfs/Vol08No05/PDF_Vol_08_555-562_No_05_Developments_Wall.pdf