Category: Enough said

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Enough said

The spirit truly lies within

Does it make sense for us to wait for the Government to help us? These trailblazers solved other’s problems on their own.
by Humra Quraishi

The rains continue to wreak havoc in various parts of the country, bringing ruin to crops in some places and drought in others. Hunger and dearth of necessities have become the mainstay in several sections of society…but what are the options for survival?

More to the point, can the present Government do anything about it? How long do we wait before the Government steps in to help?

As always, the solution has to come from us, from within.

aHearteningly, there are hundreds of ‘doers’ present among us, people who have opted to move out of well-paying jobs and a cushy life to reach out to those in distress. In this context, I can think of none better than the husband-wife duo of Bunkar Roy and his spouse Aruna, who gave up their jobs (Aruna quit the IAS) to settle down in Tilonia, a nondescript village of Rajasthan. There, they started by digging up wells to help the villagers, and today, the village is one of the few locales in the country that can boast of being self-reliant in every sense of the term.

The duo has trained the village’s men and women to become engineers, doctors, technicians, craftsmen, teachers and healers.

More recently, I was browsing the details of Dr Dharamvir Gandhi, one of the AAP candidates who win in the recent elections from Punjab. To quote Professor Chaman Lal, who has known Dr Gandhi for years, “As a medical   doctor, he was so popular in the surrounding villages that when he was transferred, people from those villages went to the Punjab Secretariat in Chandigarh, and returned only after getting his transfer cancelled.”

Dr Gandhi (in pic on right) joined Rajindra Medical College Patiala for his post graduate studies and later became Assistant Professor in the Cardiology department. In year 2001, he set up his ownDr Dharamvir Gandhi clinic, where only nominal fees were charged from poor patients. He says he was inspired by Andhra Pradesh and some other States, where such Peoples’ Clinics were established by Leftist doctors to provide health services to peasants and workers.

Meanwhile, as the news of the passing away of former Chief Justice of J&K, Justice Mufti Bahauddin Faruqi came, I was reminded of several meetings I had with him. This was in 1990, when I was reporting from the Valley, and each time I met him, I was impressed by his honesty, his forthright stand on issues, his courage in speaking against injustice.

He said to me once, “The Government is treating each person as a suspect. Even India Today says the total number of militants must be about 600, though I say there are no more than 100. Yet, to locate them, a whole city’s population is being hounded. Searches are done in the most brutal manner, even before dawn the whole area is cordoned off and loudspeakers keep blaring, asking everyone to come out of their homes. The search goes on for the whole day, while families sit outside without food and water, and even women in labour are not allowed to move out!”

He said he was tired of expecting help and relief from the Government, after numerous attempts. And yet, he never shied away from revealing horrifying realities in the region, even if those truths were unpalatable to most others.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy heroinas.blogspot.com, www.schumachercollege.org.uk, www.sahilonline.org, kashmirvoice.org)

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Does anybody remember the Sachar Committee Report?

Has anything changed for the country’s largest minority group? Meanwhile, the word ‘rape’ has achieved disturbing dimensions among the country’s politicians.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Maharashtra is currently rocked by the news of reservations for Muslims and Marathas. The issue brought to my mind another incident, specifically a report, that created more than its fair share of ripples seven years ago – the Sachar Committee Report.

Headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar and his team, the Report focussed on the current situation of the largest minority community in the country – the Mussalmaans of Hindustan. I still recall the words of the well-known economist and one of the prominent members of this fact-finding team, Dr Abu Saleh Sharief, who had said that in many urban and rural locales, the Muslims are in a more disadvantaged and discriminated position that even the SC and ST communities.

The Report had highlighted the dismal living conditions of Indian Muslims, their issues of housing, drinking water and electricity connections, primary and higher education, Government and private jobs, small industrial ventures, farming and agriculture status, etc.

The question is: what did the Government of the time do? Did it take note of these findings, did it act upon them? More to the point, has anything changed?

Meanwhile, the word ‘rape’ is being bandied about those in power in the most shameless ways possible. Whether it is Goa’s Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar (in pic on right)Manohar Parrikar dismissing the enormity of rape as against setting up one’s own enterprise, or a key member of the Mamata Banerjee Government, who seems to prefer rape as a weapon of choice against those who cross him, the word ‘rape’ is being used by these men as if it is an everyday affair!

And these men get away with spewing as much venom as they can, as long as they tender a nicely-worded apology. Since there is no real punishment, what is to stop these men, and several more, from using the word ‘rape’ in the crudest of ways imaginable?

And for those who are not in the know, the Kashmir Valley has been rocked with a new form of violence – from street dogs.

It turns out that dog bite cases now account for 1 per cent of all trauma cases in the Valley’s only tertiary hospital. As per a study conducted by the Department of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery, Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, “People fom rural areas were attacked more by the dogs than urban people as 65.5 per cent of patients were from the rural background.

“Also, the face was the most commonly affected part of the body, especially among children. In older age groups, limbs were the mostly attacked part. Most of these dog bite cases have been unprovoked. As many as 96.1 per cent of the patients had between one and five injuries all over their body.”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 

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Still waiting for ‘achche din’

It is now 39 years since the 1975 Emergency, but how different is life today than in those strife-ridden times?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

39 whole years have passed by since India declared an Emergency. But till date, June 25-26 stand out as the darkest day in our country’s democracy, in our recent history.

Just like every year, several groups such as the PUCL, CFD, Janhastakshep, the AMIYA and BG Rao Foundation, are observing the Anti Emergency Day in the country. They do this to “remember those dark days when internal Emergency was imposed in the country on the midnight of 25th/25th June 1975, which continued for 19 months. Fundamental rights were suspended, the Press was gagged, voices of dissent were throttled and more than one lakh opposition leaders and critics were detained without trial.”

Today, several activists comment that though the present day situation is not Emergency-like, the ground realities in the country are Sanctions on the Pressstill horrifying, with signs of dictatorship very much alive. Midnight knocks on the door and encounter killings are still a big reality. Innocents are thrown into jail. Non-violent protests are crushed. People’s anger over Government apathy is throttled. Watchdog groups and NGOs are slowly coming under State scrutiny. There seems to be a definite trend to crush critics and their criticism, to silence any rebellious voice.

With these human rights violations are other confusing matters. Currently, Delhi University cannot decide on whether there should be a three or four year course. How can it, when there seems to be little coordinator between the HRD Ministry and the UGC?

This confusion also seems to stretch into foreign policy decisions. Though Right Wing politicians have always been against Bangladeshi refugees in the country, Sushma Swaraj is now taking her first trip to Bangladesh, as Minister for External Affairs. We’re waiting to see what she will have to say in Dhaka vis-à-vis Bangla refugees.

But before this trip, shouldn’t she have flown East, towards Iraq, and seen what is really happening there? After all, hundreds of Indians are stranded in and around Iraq and they need immediate help. Are press briefings on this state of affairs enough? Will they substitute for firm ministerial-level intervention?

Perhaps the only area where there is absolutely no confusion is the area of price rise. Apart from the prices of everyday food items zooming upwards almost daily, there is now a price rise expected in gas, oil and electricity. In the coming months, it is going to difficult to sleep and commute.

Happy days or the supposed ‘achche din’ seem like a distant dream at this point. Frankly, how can we expect achche din when high costs of living come in the way of everyday survival?

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy theviewspaper.net, www.mtholyoke.edu)

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Time to pack a Punch?

Is it time to go back to the Avadh Punch days, when natives used ‘safe’ ways to lampoon British rulers?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Today, June 21, is World Humanist Day, and I am tempted to deliberate on the recent trend of arresting young students and others for their comments or posts on prominent personalities in India.

Lawyer and activist ND Pancholi says that according to the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), World Humanist Day is a day of spreading awareness of Humanism as a philosophical life stance and means to effect change in the world. It is also seen as a time for Humanists to gather socially and promote the positive values of Humanism.”

So back to where I started this column from – should our young college students be arrested for their posts or comments or other writings?

A simple way out could be to rebuke or counsel these youngsters if they post or write something crude or obscene about somebody. But arresting them? Isn’t that taking things a bit too far?

Even as I write this column, I am reminded of Professor Mushirul Hasan’s volume, The Avadh Punch: Wit and Humour In Colonial Avadh PunchIndia, where he writes of the days of the Raj and how we hapless Indians could criticise the British only through the most discreet ways – mostly through cartoons and verse. The idea was to lampoon the British through safe ways.

The idea of the Avadh Punch caught on fairly quickly – in a short span, over 70 such Punches were established in several cities of the country.

It might seem a bit far-fetched to believe that in this day and age, our youngsters might have to resort to following the Avadh Punch days. There could be a Kerala Punch, a Bangalore Punch, a Maharashtra Punch and certainly a Delhi Punch!

That is not to say that angry or upset citizens must use third class language or obscenity in illustrations to voice their disgust or anger. Free speech does not entail vulgarity. Anger should always be vented in a civilized manner. And if anybody is angry enough to resort to obscenity or inflammatory language, he or she should be counseled and talked to. A healthy discussion would contain the anger and maybe even help to dissipate it.

Needless to say, arresting such persons only helps to compound their anger and disgust. Arrests are to be reserved as the last resort of punishment, not the first. In many cases, arresting before doing anything else to prevent the crime from recurring will only ensure that the crime occurs again, and in a more severe format.

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kasmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.tribuneindia.com, wodumedia.com)

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Another ‘victim’, another time

This is the story of Jyotirmaya Sharma, a professor attacked by Right Wing goons in 1993 because he ‘looked Muslim’.
by Humra Quraishi

Mohsin ShaikhAs the details of the daylight murder of the Pune-based techie Mohsin Shaikh (in pic on left) by a Right Wing brigade came in, I was reminded of another such incident that had taken place in Mumbai earlier – only it ended with the victim surviving death.

The victim, professor Jyotirmaya Sharma (in pic above), had been brutally attacked, allegedly by a group of Shiv Sainiks, simply because he ‘looked like a Muslim’!

Jyotirmaya had told me about the incident on a previous occasion, but after Mohsin’s killing in Pune, I got in touch with him again to know all the details. He is a well-known academic and author, the Professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad and has authored three books on Hindutva, the RSS and the making of a Hindu rashtra.

This is what Jyotirmaya had to say: “I had returned from London and had joined the New Delhi-based CSDS as a Research Fellow. Though the rest of my bags and suitcases had arrived, those containing my books were stuck at the shipping company’s office in Mumbai. So I had to travel from Delhi to Mumbai to get them back.

“I landed in Mumbai and hired a taxi to reach the shipping company’s office. It was on January 10, 1993, and riots were erupting in Mumbai. Soon, my taxi was stopped by a bunch of Shiv Sainiks. While the taxi driver fled, these goons caught hold of me – because of my beard, they thought I was a Muslim. I kept telling them my name and showing them my passport, but they kept beating me, saying my passport was fake and so was my name.

“They were so certain I was a Muslim…when I told them I could recite the Gayatri Mantra, they said even Muslims had learnt the Mantra. Finally, one of them told me to recite the Gita. I did and they let me off. By then, I was badly thrashed and my shoulder was dislocated.”

He never complained to the cops, even as the city burned and a Canadian Sikh was killed on the street because somebody thought he was a Muslim. But Jyotirmaya continues to keep his beard to this day. “One can’t give in,” he says. One has to keep on resisting. You cannot be bullied by these Right Wing fanatics. Today they say, ‘Don’t look like a Muslim’. Tomorrow they will say, ‘Wear only saffron robes’. Where will this end?” he asks.

I have been to Mumbai just once, in the winter of 2006. While commuting in the city, I saw several young women, many of them college students, moving about in hijabs or burqas. I asked some of them if it was okay for them to ‘stand out’ as Muslims. One girl, Hasina Khan, said, “I am without a veil, but my college going sister insists on wearing a hijab. She says wearing a hijab makes her feel protected…”

I also learnt that more middle class Muslim women in Mumbai wear veils and burqas. As Rehana Mubeen Khan and Safia Khatoon Abdul Khaliq told me, they cover their heads because they feel it’s the way a dignified woman ought to look. “What’s wrong in us showing our identity? We keep to ourselves, to our own community people. It’s safer that way,” they said.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy timesofap.com, www.cbc.ca)

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When protectors turn rapists

Where are we supposed to go for help, if cops themselves are involved in rapes, or in covering up crimes?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Rapes and gang rapes. Sexual maniacs on the prowl. Perversion from all quarters.

This has been the story of our country for a good while now.

But what shocks one is this truth: in the Badaun gang rape and murder of two minor girls, cops were involved. There are increasing cases of protectors turning rapists, or helping to shield the accused. To top it all, ugly politics enters into an ugly situation.

And to all those who are currently claiming that women outside UP are safer, let me say this: stop deluding yourself. Even when we were recovering from the Badaun news, came the news of a young female bus conductor in Mumbai who was beaten up and her clothesBadaun rapes torn by an irate commuter. There have been a few other rapes in other parts of the country too.

While we try to grapple with these facts, with the almost illogical desire of rapists to hurt, to wrest power over a woman by any means possible, it is becoming clear once again, that it is not about being a young woman or old, or being scantily dressed or covered from head to toe. It is not about her perceived ‘boldness’ or demureness, about her social standing or her education. Perverts and rapists don’t see all these factors.

I suppose some strict rule of law will be brought into place only when the powers that be are directly impacted in some way. Let any of our women ministers or top women cops walk alone, unescorted on the country’s streets, especially after dark, and let’s see how many make their way back home unmolested and left in one piece. And with riots breaking out sporadically in the country, the security of women and children is further jeopardised, because these two groups are targeted first.

And why won’t this perversion go unchecked, and indeed, permitted to rise? Our cops are busy shielding most of the accused, especially if they are influential persons. If not cops, some accused are shielded by politicians, who may even reward them in the future with positions of power.

And yet, our ideas of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ continue to be confined by our notions of how many skyscrapers our cities build or how many highways. Is there any sense in talking about development when our police force is so desensitised to the needs of the people it is meant to serve? Can we speak of progress when children are subjected to sexual assaults, and there’s no avenue of help for them? What gives us the right to look optimistically at our future when we pretend we can’t see beggars on the street, or hear the cries of a woman beaten on the road?

When are we going to stand up and demand that our cops protect the innocent?

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy centreright.in, www.deccanchronicle.com)

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