Memoirs of fifties Akividu or Akiveedu (ఆకివీడు), and neighbouring villages. Educational, geographical, historical, literary, philosophical, religious and social postings included. Copyright Raju (PD). (bondadaa@gmail.com)
Monday, December 20, 2021
Friday, November 12, 2021
Shillong’s Dalit Sikhs were vital to its growth – but are being written out of its story
North East Politics
The Meghalaya government has taken possession of Punjabi Line, home to the community since the 19th century.
Ipsita Chakravarty
Makepeace Sitlhou,
Punjabi Line is a densely packed strip of land on the edge of Bara Bazaar, the commercial hub of Shillong. On October 30, the Meghalaya government took possession of this land and handed it over to the urban affairs department.
Several ideas have been floated about what to do with the 2.5 acres – maybe build a flyover or a parking complex, the deputy chief minister mentioned “beautification”. The verdict was that the strip of prime real estate could not be occupied by squalid homes. Especially if many of those homes belonged to “illegal settlers”, as a government-appointed committee claimed.
The takeover had been enabled by a tripartite agreement signed last month by the Meghalaya government, the Shillong Municipal Board and the Syiem of Mylliem, the head of the tribal body that controls land ownership in Shillong.
The actual residents of Punjabi Line, often referred to as Sweepers’ Colony, were not consulted. Most are Dalit Sikhs, or Mazhabis, a community that has traditionally worked as sweepers in Shillong. The government has extended the offer of talks to them only now, after having taken over Punjabi Line. As they face forced relocation, the local Harijan Panchayat Committee has vowed to fight back.
It will not be easy. Many stories of marginalisation intersect in those 2.5 acres. Maligned as “outsiders”, they have been the target of hostilities from communities considered indigenous to Meghalaya. As Dalits, they have faced exclusion within Shillong’s Sikh community. They may have been intrinsic to Shillong’s growth as a city, but now the Mazhabis of Punjabi Line could be displaced by new patterns of urbanisation in the same city.
Colonial city
The residents of Punjabi Line claim the land was gifted to them by the Syiem of Mylliem in the mid-19th century, around the time the village of Yeodo became Shillong, a colonial town central to British interests in the region.
In 1874, the province of Assam was carved out of Bengal. Shillong became the political and administrative headquarters of the new province. Over the next few decades, it would also be fashioned into one of the many “hill stations” that served as summer retreats for Europeans in India. The burgeoning township needed, among other things, adequate sanitation and a waste management system if it was to keep the title of “Scotland of the East”.
While the British got Bengalis to man the administration, Mazhabis were brought in from Punjab to clean the city, sweeping the main thoroughfares, ferrying out the night soil. By the late 1910s, they were on the rolls of the newly formed municipal corporation, writes historian Himadri Banerjee. They were settled around the Bara Bazaar area, then a sparsely populated part of town. Over the years, wives and families joined the original group of workers settled in Shillong. As their numbers swelled, some were accommodated in Gora Line.
Their Dalit identity meant they were ghettoised in these localities, even if they spread into jobs outside the municipality. “In spite of the rapid expansion of Shillong, they were strictly advised to reside within their restricted areas,” writes Banerjee. So Dalit Sikh settlements remained two small pockets of the city, surrounded by other ethnicities. Poverty and population pressures meant these were congested, poorly heated, poorly sanitised places.
Shillong. Picture credit: Windrider24584 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8474130
In the shadows
The squalor of these localities, the grim work that their residents had to do, struck a discordant note in the idyllic urban spaces they were supposed to preserve. Banerjee notes how colonial officials stuck behind processions carrying night soil out of the city complained about being exposed to the “uncivilised” demeanour of the municipal workers.
The city’s higher caste Sikhs also echoed these ideas, abusing Mazhabis for their “dirty and unclean style of living”, excluding them from sacred spaces and community groups, continuing practices of untouchability.
These prejudices, of Mazhabis sullying the city with their living habits and their anti-social behaviour, have also surfaced in more recent articles written in local papers. Take this piece from 2018, where the author complains of the “filth” of Them Mawlong, the Khasi name for Punjabi Line. While he acknowledges the practices of untouchability and rebukes the Syiem for not spending money on improving local infrastructure, the author also complains about the “brigands” of Them Mawlong who allegedly lurk in the shadows to harass passers-by, especially women. If chased, they will disappear into homes “built like rodent holes”, the author claims. He also laments that the Mazhabis have erased the Khasi name, Them Mawlong, and christened the area “Punjabi Colony”.
The article was published shortly after Khasi groups – triggered by social media rumours – closed in on Punjabi Line and clashed with security forces as they tried to break into the Sikh colony. Members of Khasi civil society groups claimed the clashes could not have been communal – why else would Sikhs in other parts of the city be spared?
These claims do not acknowledge the way faultlines of caste and community have converged in the marginalisation of Mazhabis in Shillong.
Read full article: scrollin
Saturday, November 06, 2021
The (final) Political Fix: Why you cannot understand Indian politics without examining the media
Plus, an announcement.
Rohan Venkataramakrishnan
Nov 1
The Big Story: Pressing charges
This is the final edition of the Political Fix.
Don’t worry, you will still be able to get your weekly dose of analysis on Indian politics and policy and more from next week. We’re just making some changes, which we’ve announced at the bottom of this newsletter.
For today’s edition, we decided to turn the lens inward on the media industry, given that understanding Indian politics also requires understanding Indian journalism. The Indian media world has undergone tremendous changes over the last decade, and many of the trends that have taken root directly impact the way the country’s politics, and indeed, democracy functions:
The right-wing lurch continues
Starting in 2013, a big churn began in Indian newsrooms, as proprietors replaced top editorial leadership with names more acceptable to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Faced with the first majority government in four decades, and one that cares deeply about headline management, the news media by and large fell in line.
The most telling of moves came when a news channel was founded by a Member of Parliament who is now a BJP minister, and whose head, Arnab Goswami, does not even make a pretence of being anything but an attack dog for the government. And the coverage has been so partisan that, across the media industry particularly in North India, the tone of reporting on Muslims is now drawing justified comparisons to the infamous hate speech propagated by Radio Rwanda.
But that doesn’t mean we are getting insight
The paradox here is that, despite a widespread lurch to the right across the mainstream media, actual insight into the workings of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or even the broader Hindutva ecosystem, is limited. At the political level, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah prefer to keep their cards close and spring surprises, which is why the BJP was able to replace practically the entire government in Gujarat earlier this year, with no hint in the national press that this was coming.
That is not to say there aren’t journalists in the mainstream who have insight into politics. Some are able to point to the complex machinations at play or the underlying trends. But because Indian political journalism almost entirely depends on access, they have little choice but to toe the official line if they want to get interviews – or more importantly be in a position for their organisations to bring a big political name to conclaves and summits, which are major money-makers for media companies. This isn’t limited to Delhi. The trends repeat themselves in smaller fashion in state capitals across the country.
Exceptions exist – but they face danger
Those who are willing to question the consensus are at risk of severe retribution from the authorities. For example, an editor at a Gujarati news portal who hinted at the rumblings within the state government in 2020 was charged with sedition and had to spend two weeks in jail. Dainik Bhaskar, the Hindi newspaper group that surprisingly set out to hold the government accountable during India’s devastating Covid-19 second wave, faced income tax raids soon after.
And we don’t need to recount the FIRs, arrests, raids, mob aggression and more targeted at news organisations and journalists for simply reporting facts. After all, in the middle of the first wave, ministers took time aside to sit in meetings in which they discussed how to ‘neutralise’ independent media…
The reader revenue era is here
Indian readers never really paid for news in print. Thanks in part to the aggressive and often ethically questionable practices of the industry leading Times Group, Indian print journalism over time came to rely almost entirely on advertising for revenue. The actual price of a newspaper barely covered the cost of the ink and distribution, never mind the journalism printed on it. Such a tremendous reliance on advertising, much of it from governments, meant that news organisations were also susceptible to arm-twisting.
As Indian news consumers moved online, organisations were reluctant to ask them to pay – knowing the audience was not accustomed to it, and could easily jump ship. But over the past few years, paywalls have begun popping up across mainstream news websites and subscription-only products have started to build audiences. That doesn’t mean the model has been cracked or the switch to reader revenue has taken root. But it does raise the question: What might it mean for an industry to move away from the corporate and government advertising that has sustained revenues for so long?
More on this below.
Read full article: scrollin
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Gautam Navlakha’s health has worsened in jail, not being allowed phone calls, says his partner
In a statement, Sahba Husain said that the Bhima Koregaon accused has been shifted to a high-security barrack in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail.
Scroll Staff
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The health condition of activist Gautam Navlakha deteriorated after he was shifted to the high-security barrack called the “Anda circle” in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, his partner Sahba Husain said on Sunday.
In a statement, Husain also said that the Bhima Koregaon case accused was not being allowed to make phone calls to his family members and lawyers.
“In the Anda circle, he is deprived of daily walks in the jail’s non-concreted greener areas and fresh air and his health has deteriorated further, making specialised medical care an absolute necessity, if he is to live to fight this unjust and false case hoisted on him,” Husain said.
The Bhima Koregaon case pertains to caste violence in a village near Pune in 2018. Navlakha was among the people arrested for allegedly plotting the violence. One person was killed and several others were injured in the incident.
In September, the activist had moved the Bombay High Court seeking to be placed under house arrest. He had cited difficulty in staying in Taloja Jail due to his old age and the need to medically examine a lump on his chest.
On Sunday, Husain, a women’s right activist, said that Navlakha has faced his “unjustified incarceration with courage and spirit”.
“How much longer is he going to be persecuted for his views, and to what extent will the authorities go to break his spirit?” she asked.
Husain said that in a letter, Navlakha where had said that confinement in the “Anda circle” denied him of fresh air as there were no trees or plants in the open space of the barracks.
“We spend 16 hours out of 24 cooped inside our cell and the eight hours we are let out we are confined to a corridor for our daily walk on the cemented floor surrounded by high walls all around,” Navlakha said in the letter, according to Husain.
Husain added in the statement: “These are prisoners of conscience, who have had to face indignities and humiliation for the smallest needs, and wage court battles for basic dignities in prison,”
She was referring to an incident in November when Navlakha’s spectacles had gone missing. Husain sent him a new pair of glasses but the jail authorities refused to accept the parcel when it got delivered.
Husain’s statement on Sunday also referred to the death of tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, co-accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, who died while awaiting bail on the health grounds.
“Stan, severely debilitated by Parkinson’s Disease, had to fight for such basic needs as a straw to drink, help to move to the toilet, and medical attention,” the statement said. “His simple desire was that in his declining state of health he should be allowed to die at home in Ranchi.”
Also read:
How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison
In her statement, Husain also said that Navlakha’s telephone calls to her and his lawyers have been discontinued by the prison authorities “on the pretext that inmates can now be met in jail physically”.
She said that the activist’s defence as well as health condition will be severely compromised without the phone call.
Husain said she is over 70 years old and lives in Delhi and it is difficult for her to travel frequently to Mumbai to meet Navlakha in jail for the allotted time of ten minutes.
“Gautam’s only contact with me is through the two phone calls he was allowed every week to me that enabled me to send him articles of need, including medicines, books and so on,” she said. “With the discontinuance of phone calls, all this will now depend on letters that take a minimum of two weeks to reach me.”
She said that regular access to lawyers through phone calls is an essential facility for undertrial prisoners. “To deprive an undertrial prisoner of this effective and efficient mode of securing legal advice and help, or access to family, is the height of unfairness,” Husain added.
Source: scrollin
The Political Fix: Is the sycophantic Modi propaganda push a sign of weakness or strength? Or is it both?
Rohan Venkataramakrishnan
Oct 11
The Big Story: Supreme or subprime?The meme below might take a bit of explaining, but it is worth looking at just why it is so funny. The post says the picture shows Venkaiah Naidu, India’s vice-president – a position that comes ahead of the prime minister in terms of ceremonial precedence – and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister. Except the photo itself depicts Prime Minister Narendra Modi standing next to a wax figure of Narendra Modi.  To understand this you need to have a look at two other photos from the
past few weeks. First a signboard announcing Venkaiah Nadu’s visit to
Assam:  And next, a newspaper advertisement announcing Piyush Goyal’s presence at the Dubai Expo:  Memes like these are lampooning the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s decision to stick Prime Minister Modi’s picture absolutely everywhere, no matter the relevance. This isn’t new. After all, just earlier this year Modi joined an illustrious list of former world leaders like the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin and North Korea’s Kim II Sung, in having a massive sports stadium be named after himself – which we wrote about in March. But the recent push of Modi propaganda has still been noteworthy. As we discussed a few weeks ago, the BJP was unabashed in its hero-worship around Modi’s birthday, doing the sort of things that supporters of this government would have described as sycophantic if they were directed at a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family – including pressuring vaccination centres in Bihar to give doses ‘offline’ and then upload the data on September 17 so that India could set a record on Modi’s birthday. That ball has continued rolling, with BJP leaders out in force over the last week to celebrate Modi completing 20 years in elected office, with reputed newspapers having to publish things like this in the guise of an ‘Op-Ed’:
There are two ways to interpret this sudden flurry of Modi propaganda, and it’s worth examining both: Position of weakness?There is no doubt that 2021 has been Modi’s worst year in the prime ministerial office, so far. The sheer scale of the second wave of Covid-19 that hit India in April and May was made worse by the fact that he had already declared victory over the virus, and had decided to focus his attention on attempting to win an election in West Bengal rather than on managing the healthcare crisis that engulfed much of the nation. As if to underline this, the BJP also posted an embarrassing loss in that election. Opinion polling, which is always a mixed bag in terms of reliability in India, seemed to suggest a big drop in Modi’s popularity, with the India Today Mood of the Nation survey saying his favourability had dropped from 66% to 24% over the past year. Coupled with the economic fallout of the Covid crisis and the impact of 10 months of farmers protests, Modi’s image has certainly suffered. As we wrote a few weeks ago, this churn is playing out in anti-incumbency at the state level, with the BJP choosing to ditch chief ministers and local leaders in the hopes that the anger is contained there and does not spill over to taint the top leadership. One way of reading the propaganda push, then, is to see it as an attempt to use soft events – Modi’s visit to the US, his birthday, the 20-years of public office mark – as opportunities to rehabilitate the prime minister’s image, this time with an even more sycophantic tone to paper over the year’s difficulties. The BJP needs people to trust Modi, rather than the party. As political scientist Neelanjan Sircar has put it, Modi represents a ‘politics of vishwas’, built on the idea that anything good coming out of the government is a result of the prime minister’s personal intervention. This explains the need to stick Modi’s image on just about anything that the government is doing and for the prime minister to reap the PR benefits of things like Indian success at the Olympics – as this picture from a felicitation ceremony makes clear:  In this reading, the Modi propaganda push is a desperate attempt to restore the prime minister’s image in the hopes that the damage of the year behind us can be contained, with the shrill hero-worship reflecting that desperation. Position of strength?UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the start of the year offered a template for political leaders who had terribly mismanaged their nation’s efforts to contain Covid-19 and prevent deaths. Despite the catastrophic bumbling from Johnson’s government, a favourable electoral calendar – not afforded to his friend, former US President Donald Trump – meant that he could stick around long enough to reap the benefits of vaccines flooding the country and the economy opening up. All he had to do was hold on until the tide turned. A different way to read the current Modi propaganda push is this: Public memory is short. The government has sought to shield Modi from being too tarnished by the terrible developments of the last few months, but now that numbers are low, the vaccination campaign is powering ahead and the economy is recovering, it’s the perfect time to bring Modi back into the limelight and put the dip in popularity behind them. Indeed, the big PR push might be a reflection of confidence, suggesting that the government has concluded that the second wave woes will recede in memories and not affect Modi quite as much as some expected. Those unfamiliar with the Indian mainstream media’s approach to Modi interviews over the past year may be surprised at the questions – if you can call them that – put to the prime minister in the one interview he granted recently, to Open magazine. Here are some of those queries that, after a point just became comments:
Sadly, this kid-gloves treatment is par for the course for Modi interviews and indeed, explains why the prime minister has never actually taken the risk of facing a press conference. Still, even by this low bar it was utterly shocking that in a year in which hundreds of thousands died according to official numbers following a collapse of healthcare system and a disaster that some compared to the Partition, the only query on the subject was an anodyne question about “the lessons about the state and preparedness of the healthcare system during the Covid-19 fight that you plan to now change and transform.” Again, this could be seen as shying away from the reality – or based on a belief that public memory is short enough that Modi can look past the worst point of his tenure, without worrying about seeming callous or cowardly. So, which one of the two is it? Is the current propaganda push a sign of weakness or strength? The answer is most probably somewhere in between, with the BJP recognising the need to reinvest heavily in the politics of vishwas, while also seeing signs that the tide has turned and this may be the right moment to help the public forget the horrors of the past year – assuming no big Covid surprises come up again in the near future.
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2002 Gujarat riots: SC to examine SIT report that gave clean chit to PM Modi, 63 others
2002 GUJARAT RIOTS
The court said it wants to see the justification given by the SIT in its closure report and the reasoning of the magistrate court that accepted it.
Scroll Staff
The court was hearing a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the SIT’s clean chit. | Sam Panthaky/AFP
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would like to examine the closure report of a Special Investigation Team exonerating 64 people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots, PTI reported.
A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar said it wants to see the justification given by the SIT in its closure report, as also the reasoning of a magistrate court that accepted it.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the SIT’s clean chit. At least 69 people, including Ehsan Jafri, were killed when a mob went on a rampage in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg society on February 28, 2002, pelting stones and setting fire to homes.
Modi was then the Gujarat chief minister.
Zakia Jafri’s lawyer Kapil Sibal told the court on Tuesday that he was not presently seeking the conviction of those named in his client’s complaint. He said that Jafri’s contention was that there a larger conspiracy involving bureaucratic inaction, police complicity and hate speech that led to the violence.
“This Republic is too great to look the other way,” Sibal told the court, according to The Hindu.
The lawyer added that Jafri’s allegations were supported by official intelligence about hate speeches, spreading of false information, police wireless messages and statements of senior police officials.
“People were massacred due to police inaction,” Sibal said. “I am giving you official evidence. Who will be answerable for this? The future generations?”
The SIT had submitted its closure report on February 8, 2012, and said that there was no prosecutable evidence against Modi and 63 others named in the complaint.
Jafri had filed a protest petition against the report before a magistrate court, but the magistrate rejected it.
In October 2017, the Gujarat High Court upheld the magistrate’s decision.
Source: scrollin
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