2015 december | the companion

2015 December | The Companion2

2015 December | The Companion 3

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in this issue.December 2015 / Vol 22 : Issue 7 The Companion

04editorialBJP could not milk its Political cow in Bihar- kashiF mansoor

08maulana azad was deeply concerned about higher education in india- Yumna Baqi

10little daYdreamer- riFa tariQue

11remembering maulana azad to rediscover visions for a healthier democracy- Farhan sumbul

14of the modest eyse- Yousuf Bin muhammad

15Bihar: muslims need to be cautiously jubilatn- dr. Javed Jamil

05ITS HIGH TIME WE TRULY CELEBRATE AZAD AND HIS IDEALS- samiha siddiQua

24Protest against sisi visit to india- campus Journo

25a journey to a rainy land- mohammad osama

28a civil society delegation visited sunped village where two kids Burnt aliVe- campus Journo

30the conscience of the nation- meenaz Bhanu

32law against law- azharuddin Pilakodan

33an exclusive Gender studies university in india to be a reality soon- nihal kidiyoor

Protest against uGc decision to do away non net fellowship

17returning honours is an attempt to save democracy- ram Puniyani

19stone pelting- Bilal Parray

20convention on“repeal aFsPa” : 15 years of hunger strike- campus Journo

22repeal aFsPa convention- campus Journo


| EDITORIAL |

The grand victory of Grand Alliance, consisting of JD(U), RJD and Congress against the National Demo-cratic Alliance, consisting of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Ramvilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Sa-mata Party and the Jitanram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha, has written a unique chapter in the political history of India. The victory is indeed a vic-tory of democracy and its values as against kakistoc-racy, totalitarianism and its contemptuous repercus-sions.

Bihar election result, with certitude, carries a bold message that the communal-fascist agenda of RSS-led BJP to polarise the people in the name of its self-stylised political cow has met an ignominious debacle and is doomed. The people of Bihar are not easily docile to be swayed away by Amit Shah’s hate-galvanising speeches. Nor do they lack acute un-derstanding of development and its prudent macro implications. Modi’s one year plus regime has unrav-elled all the enigma behind his Sabka vikas sabke sath trumpets. Biharis have also underscored the elitist intentions of eating up ‘reservation’ when Mo-han Bhagwat spoke of reconsidering it. To all these political baboos, Biharis have shown their might against Baharis (outsiders).

The striking defeat of BJP in the election has caused discomfort among the senior party leaders like L.K Advani, Raj Nath Singh and Ram Madhav about the manner in which the campaign was done. They have started questioning the Modi-Amit duo. To add to dismay after their crumbling loss in Delhi elec-tion against Arvind Kejriwal, the mahaghatbandhan has crippled the Modi factor and given a bold blow to his conceited hubris once again.

The pseudo ultra-nationalists have also hurled criticism on the grand Alliance for playing the caste politics and strengthening the same. But those peo-ple should not be blind-folded to the Modi’s arith-metic game by knotting ties with LJP and Manjhi. Moreover Modi himself breaking long silence on all such communal incidents, made divisive statements

during his rallies in Bihar. More such statements were made by Amit Shah too. This all indicate that first, BJP is all immoral, communal, elite-focussed and anti-constitutional party, and secondly the fringe elements within the party like Sadhvi Prachi and Yogi Adityanath and central leaders are more or less on the same footing.

The previous two consecutive electoral regimes of Nitish Kumar have improved Bihar’s socio-economic state and empowerment of backward castes and Dalits. This can be largely gauged from the excessive rise in growth rate of Bihar, sharp increase in literacy rate and political participation of marginalised sec-tions especially women in Panchayat raj. Between 2001 and 2011, the literacy rate increased by 16.8 percentage points and female literacy by 20 percent-age points. There has been a dramatic decline in the infant mortality rate, which now equals the national average. According to Central Statistical Organisa-tion (CSO), Bihar has been the fastest growing state in terms of gross state domestic product (GSDP) and per capita income over the period 2012-13. These factors have contributed to building up of a healthier political atmosphere for Nitish Kumar. The recent election has also highlighted people’s perceptions about ‘models’ of development. By voting Nitish to power for third time, the people of Bihar have not only rejected the BJP politics of hatred and divisive-ness, they have also openly shown their allegiance to Nitish’s model of development as opposed to Gujrat model of development spearheaded by Modi. The former is a democratic model of development with social justice, while the latter is a neoliberal one fa-vouring the elite and the corporate with rolling back of public expenditure in social sectors.

It is hoped that in the next five years Bihar will flourish more with continuous leaps in all sectors. Ni-tish and laloo have to play a much daunting role for its growth. Bihar still has a long way to go. They both have to prove their political commitment to a striding state and see for an optimal use of public funds with due emphasis on equity considerations.

- KASHIF MANSOOR

BJP could not milk its Political cow in Bihar


| cOvER STORy |

- SAMIHA SIDDIqUA

Its hIgh tIme we trulycelebrate azad and hIs Ideals

“A truly liberal and humanitarian education may trans-form the outlook of the people and set it on the path of progress and prosperity, while an ill-conceived or unscien-tific system might destroy all the hopes which have been cherished by generations of pioneers in the cause of na-tional struggle.”

(Abul Kalam Azad , Press Conference, February 18, 1947.)

Its fascinating how history remains mum about some of the most crucial moments of a country. On that fateful day of Independence in 1947, Abul Kalam Azad took over the reins of the Ministry of Education.


Given the conditions prevailing then, this was a moment more potent than any other. The country had just emerged from the bondage of slav-ery, and was now in the midst of some very uncertain times. People were as dispersed and disunited as ever. The illiteracy rates were abominable, and the public unruly. The country was in dire need of a man with a broad vi-sion, a sound character, one that was humane, unbiased, transparent, and democratic in a true sense, one who would dispense his responsibility of educating the masses ably with great commitment and perseverance. Azad easily fits the bill.

It was the incomprehensible pro-fundity of his intelligence, wisdom and erudition, that he was held in such high regard by his fellows, including Nehru and Gandhi. Both had known him closely since the time he set foot into public life and were aware of his concerns and services he had extend-ed for their betterment. He was simply the right man for the herculean task.

form of not just human behavior, but of minds and hearts; inculcating the right values and ideals of truth, justice and tolerance, instilling in them a sense of understanding, co-operation and to-getherness, to ultimately serve for the welfare of the society and in turn, the whole nation. This for him was the sole basis for any kind of education, with-out which it had no meaning whatso-ever.

He saw education as a tool to pro-mote unity, democracy and communal harmony. He abhorred communalism and sought to eradicate feelings of ha-tred and dissension through general education, which was quite resonant in his speeches. At the convocation address at AMU in 1949, he said, “…the educational set-up for a secular and democratic state must be secu-lar…It should have its own intellectual flavor and its own national character. It should have as its aim the ideal of human progress and prosperity…a scheme of common education for all without distinction in favor of any com-

shunned divisive notions and ideas, as well as opposed sectarian and sep-aratist nationalism. He endeavored to liberate his people from the manacles of caste and creed, irrationality and su-perstition.

He is known to have said, “In the advancement of nations there is no greater hindrance than narrow-mind-edness. It is our duty to keep ourselves free from this disease in the new era of Independence.” His writings and thoughts echoed his belief that for a nation to prosper, it had to be united ‘politically, economically and socially.’

Another important aspect of edu-cation that he came up with was that of ‘social’ education. In other terms it was the education of the adult popula-tion. He was aware of the positive out-come of such an endeavor, if it were to be promoted seriously. He wanted the public to be acquainted with the meaning of democracy, secularism, their rights and duties as citizens, about public health, the prevailing

He saw education as a tool to promote unity, democracy and communal harmony. He abhorred communalism and

sought to eradicate feelings of hatred and dissension through general education, which was quite resonant in

his speeches.

The path he was to tread upon was not a flowery one. It is always so for a person with a gnawing conscience, the feeling of accountability for the needs of every single man in the newly formed state. In his own words, it was a noble responsibility he was endowed with.

Azad’s philosophy of knowledge and education was as unique as him-self. Education to him was not some learning and muttering of words and letters to achieve a material goal. He saw in it a far-reaching purpose- re-

munity or group.”

These words are as applicable today as they were in 1949. He was aware of the horrendous impact a ‘communal’ and ‘colored’ education would have had on students. Being a part of a diverse and pluralistic soci-ety, Azad knew there had to be a way to imbue its people with tolerance, ac-ceptability and civility, without which the security of the country would reach a crisis. He stressed on use of books and material that taught values of uni-ty and brotherhood, and very openly

social conditions, and about freedom and the obligations that came with it, to evolve them into a society free from the encumbrances of years of coloni-zation. In his words, it would help in the “production of an educated mind in the masses in the absence of literary education”. He knew educated indi-viduals were not created through read-ing and writing alone but through en-lightenment of minds. That, however, is not surprising. History is witness to some of the most eminent ideologues who arose from amongst self-taught philosophers and thinkers, he himself


being a class apart among his contem-poraries despite the fact that he was never exposed to any kind of formal education.

In spite of his dislike for the tradi-tional form of education that he had received, Azad did not in any man-ner advocate against religious edu-cation. He believed in an integrated approach, where religion and science would complement with each other. In his presidential address of the 14th session of CABE 1948, he said, ” the solution lies not in rejecting religious instruction in elementary stages, but in imparting sound and healthy reli-gious education under our direct su-pervision so that misguided credence may not affect the children in their plastic stage.” He would often publicly accept that his thoughts found origin and evolved from the religion he was an ardent follower of, and made no se-cret of his equal pride in being a Mus-lim and an Indian at the same time.

For Azad, man was not just a social animal, but a being perfect in creation. He further explained in his address, “If we think of man as only a progressive animal, there is nothing to prevent his using science to further interests based on the passions he shares in common with animals. If, however, we think of him as an emanation of God, he can use science only for the fur-therance of God’s purpose that is the achievement of peace on earth and goodwill to all men.”

Besides his incisive thoughts on primary education and its importance, Azad was equally concerned with teachers and their method of instruc-tion. He urged them to “develop a spirit of real service and dedication in the cause of the nation.” This is per-haps where most of our educationists and teachers falter. There rarely comes a teacher who wholeheartedly takes up the job of transfusing knowledge to nurture and mold young minds. Azad was aware of how most saw no other objective in it other than fiscal gains in service to the government. The stand-ard of a student is directly proportion-al to the quality of instruction given, and instruction is not whole unless it

is purged of all hypocrisy.

There are many other takeaways from his thought on education- that ed-ucation is a birth right of every citizen and no state can claim to have done its job until every citizen receives what is due to him, that children should be taught in their mother tongues to allow them to think ‘naturally’ and not ‘arti-ficially’ via a totally foreign language, that women must be educated so they are on par with men in the society, that education should be rational and ‘add’ to one’s intellect, that if the problem of education was solved, many others would cease to exist.

Abul Kalam Azad laid the founda-tion of education in India with clear objectives in mind. He wished to see a country with “men and women of vision, courage and honesty of pur-pose,” to steer the country towards further development through improve-ment in education, science and cul-ture. His achievements in his tenure of eleven years as the Education Min-ister are uncountable. He is credited for the National System of education, the foundation of National Policy of Education (1986) and for the reor-ganization of the All India Council for Technical Education. He established a number of institutions with educa-tional and cultural significance. Some out of all the worthy mentions would be- the University Grants Commission, Council for Scientific and Industrial re-search, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the Hindi Shiksha Samiti, and Sahitya Academy. In 1958, the year he breathed his last, the Central budget for education was more than 30 crores, which was raised from just a mere 2 crore during his tenure.

There is something more fascinat-ing about history. When told truth-fully, it doesn’t part without revealing to us how much we measure up. More than 60 years later, we still house a large percentage of illiteracy. We have some of the most abysmal government schools and educational institutes where the infrastructure stagnates just as the low quality of education impart-ed. Government employees are attract-ed only by the lure of lucre. Absentee-

ism is abundant not just in students in government run institutes but equally in teachers, who are also deprived of any sense of accountability. There are frequent claims and rhetoric about our educationists formulating new poli-cies to transmit ‘quality’ education to all and attempts to end illiteracy, but what is overlooked is that such claims are too pedantic and the impact is barely visible. There is still a tremen-dous need of improvement at all levels of education.

When Abul Kalam Azad first took over as the Minister of Education, there was something about his convic-tion. He dreamt of a country imbued with ideals of unity, brotherhood and non violence. What we see today in our society, is the direct consequence of our sanctimonious commitment to the cause of education. It is the utter failure of our educational system that even in this day and age of ‘freedom’, we still see corrupt, biased and com-munal minds flourishing in our society, and kakistocracy itself being backed and supported by a major portion of the public including the top brass in the country and the very proof of it lies in the deliberate silence of our history books on our First Education Minister’s untiring efforts.

Its high time we ‘truly’ celebrate Azad and his ideals.

Samiha Siddiqua is a postgradu-ate student from Hyderabad. Her writ-ings cover a wide range of topics in-cluding education and book reviews but she mostly harps on stories with definite overtones of jiggery-pokery. If she is not keying in words, she is probably engrossed in a book, with an unhealthy habit of reading many at a time!’ The column “caught in knots” in print edition is owed to her.


| EDUcATION |

- yUMNA BAqI

“Education imparted by heart can bring revolution in the society.” This line was explicitly stated by one of the most prominent faces of Independ-ence movement, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

He was born in Mecca in 1888 and came to India in 1890. A year after he

Maulana azad was deeply concerned

about higher education in india

came to India, his mother died. His fa-ther was conventional type of person who gave no importance to western education. Initially, his father prov ed him some schooling but later ap-pointed different eminent teachers for different subjects. Besides traditional education, he learnt world history,

politics, English through self-study. After completing his course, he came across the writings of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, which greatly inspired him. Abul Kalam composed poetry in Urdu language, as well as treatises on reli-gion and philosophy.

In 1923, at an age of 35, he be-


Such education is the birth right of every citi-zen. A state cannot claim to have discharged its duty till it has provided for every single individ-ual means to the acquisition of knowledge and

self-betterment.”

came the youngest person to serve as the president of Indian National Congress. He served as independent India’s first education minister. He became a significant national leader, and served on the Congress working committee & offices of general secre-tary & president many times. His birth date i.e. 11 November is observed as the ‘National Education Day’ in India. During his 11 years as Minister of Edu-cation, he performed a number of im-portant services for Indian education.

He emphasised on four major pro-grammes –

- Removal of illiteracy throughout the nation by promoting elementary education, including education for women.

- Equalizing educational opportuni-ties in Indian society.

- Three languages formulae, Hindi being the medium of instruction in-cluding state languages, and English as a second language.

- Comprehensible primary educa-tion throughout the nation.

He also setup the advanced re-search centres in science & technol-ogy, and also strengthened All India Council for Technical Education. He bridged the gap between the old and the new. Azad warmly gave space to modern western knowledge even as he strongly opposed the western rule over his country.

Azad especially emphasised ‘so-cial education’ , which meant under-standing of social conditions of the country, health education, economic improvement through arts, craftwork, music, drama, literature, poetry, and instructions in universal ethics, includ-ing tolerance and mutual appreciation.

In 1912, he established an Urdu weekly newspaper called “Al-Hilal”. This publication marked a turning point in the history of Urdu journalism. It was popular within a short period of time, ventilating revolutionaries’ views. His publications aimed at en-couraging young Muslims into fighting for Independence and Hindu-Muslim unity.

After the confiscation of Al-Hilal in

state cannot claim to have discharged its duty till it has provided for every sin-gle individual means to the acquisition of knowledge and self-betterment.”

His dream was to make India self-sufficient in higher technical educa-tion to meet all the needs and looked forward to a day when people from abroad will come for higher scientific and technical education.

1915, he started a new press by the name of Al-Balagh and brought out a journal under the same name. Ghubar-e-Khatir is also one of the most im-portant works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. It deals with his social and spir-itual life.

Maulana Azad viewed, “every indi-vidual has a right to an education that will enable him to develop his faculties and live a full human life. Such educa-tion is the birth right of every citizen. A


little daydreaMer

Rifa Tarique 3rd prof B.U.M.S,

Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College, AMU.

| POEM |

- RIFA TARIqUE

It was almost two,

why the gates were still closed?

Two little eyes were waiting from a distance,

whose hands were busy polishing a shoe.

Having only schoolbags on their shoulders,

excited kids swarmed out in tidy attires.

Ringing bell brought a smile on that distant dark face,

as whole arena echoed with chatters and careless laughters.

Those little hands came to halt,

as he dreamily eyed the shiny badges, the colourful swings,

the wall paintings, the playing kids, were all so fascinating.

He was in complete awe under his dark vault.

“Hurry Up! chotu!” came a stern loud voice from behind

but that little daydreamer was lost in his own music.

Honks, beeps, chatter and see off voices,

were more soothing to him than the radio’s kind.

His hands, coated in soot, waved in the air,

as the children peeped out from giant school bus passing across him.

“YOU LAZY BRAT!!!” the little heart jumped as the pain chilled down his spine,

now the music was taken by his sobbing and hands hastily moving like never before.



| EDUcATION |

- FARHAN SUMBUL

Imagine a Sherwani clad maulana addressing the inaugural session of IIT Kharagpur and emphasising on these words, “Institute must provide instruc-tion of the highest standard, under the supervision of recognised authorities in their respective fields and that only men of the highest quality should be in charge of the different departments”. The great Islamic and contemporary scholar of modern India remembered and glorified as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the first Education Minister of independent India. To his credit goes the foundations of Indian Insti-

tute of Technology, University Grants Commission(UGC), All India Council of Technical Education(AICTE), Sahitya Academy and Centre for Science and Industrial Research (CSIR). Gandhi de-scribed Maulana Azad as the Emperor of learning. A person of calibre of Pla-to, Aristotle and Pythagoras.

Maulana Azad has various un-wavering identities attached to his personality. A distinguished freedom fighter, an able politician with deeper faith on India’s plurality and its secu-lar ethos, an Islamic scholar detached from the conformity of thoughts and

ideas on religion, avid admirer of art and culture and a renowned educa-tionist. Remembering Maulana Azad becomes important for us when we want to understand how education was perceived by him and what were his great ideas behind shaping the ed-ucation system of independent India. He also becomes important for us to re-discover his ideas and visions for a healthier democracy to flourish in In-dia. He was deeply convinced that true secular credentials of Indian society and the State fully discharging its re-sponsibilities for the welfare of its peo-

RemembeRing maulana azad to RediscoveR visions foR a healthieR democRacy


ple would only help India break herself away from the shackles of poverty and deprivation after the 200 long years of colonial rule.

He was the foremost advocate for the free basic education to India’s citizens. While addressing one of the meets during his early days af-ter observing the post of Education Minister of India he had exhorted the policy makers to never forget that it was the birth right of every Individual to receive at least the basic education without which he could not fully dis-charge his duties as a citizen. Reading his speeches on education it becomes clear that he was very much pained at the then prevailing situation of India’s education system and he wanted to see fast rising India on the status of literacy of its citizens and the expan-sion of higher education to the greater heights. He also took special interest in primary education and adult educa-tion. Despite the huge financial crisis India was facing, he had allocated con-siderable budget to education sector. His target was to raise the expenditure on education till 10%. For promoting the adult education he also wanted the government to ask the government

event to mark while taking the inspi-rations from the ideas and thoughts of Maulana. Probably this is the day which distinguishes the Maulana’s un-disputed identity of educationist while being mostly admired as the longest serving Congress President. This is the day which invokes us to relook at what India has achieved in terms of educa-tion keeping the visions of Maulana alive.

Reading the life of Azad also high-lights that he was the strongest advo-cate of free basic education to all its citizens. He also convinced the Con-stituent Assembly that it should be the responsibility of the State to provide free and compulsory education to all its citizens. Finally we have seen that his vision gets enacted as a law in 2009 as something we popularly call as RTE. Right to Education Act was en-acted by the Parliament in 2009 and it became effective on 1st April 2010 which guarantees the access of basic education to all children aged 6-14 as their fundamental right.

Despite 5 years have passed since the law was made effective, we still see that little has changed on ground

employees to volunteer themselves in training the adults in basic education. Reading his speeches we find that he was very much aware of the ground re-alities of India and explained minute of the details to the policy makers in order to make them understand better the problems and challenges. Maula-na also believed that the medium of instruction in schools should be in the mother tongue. His immediate targets under the ministry of education were four which he has frequently men-tioned in his speeches.

The provision of basic education on a universal free and compulsory basis for all the school going children

The provision of adult education in order to wipe out the colossal illiteracy of the masses.

The improvement and expansion of technical education in order to solve the manpower for industrial and tech-nical development.

The reorganisation and improve-ment of university education from a national point of view.

India celebrates the birthday of Maulana Azad on 11th Nov as the Edu-cation Day. For me this is an important


in terms of providing basic education to the children aged 6-14. Neither the government nor the private sector has showed any interest on implementing its all provisions, especially the provi-sion of 25% reservation for the chil-dren of deprived section to the Private neighbourhood schools is largely ne-glected. Several reports suggest that the teachers at government schools are not competent enough to make the education and learning process inter-esting for the children. They lack basic teaching skills and the state shows no interest in training them. Teacher training program at the national level was one of the important agenda of Maulana Azad and he wanted that government should specially focus on training the teachers as they are the ambassadors of education to the grassroots of the country.

Disheartening is the fact that gov-ernment seems more interested in advertising the numbers of the toilets constructed in the government schools and then there is no other visible pro-gramme from the government in order to improve primary education in the country. Fact of the matter is that stu-dents of the government schools nev-er find the competitive environment and joyful learning as it’s provided to the children of private schools. The disparity is created to the children of different social classes from the edu-cation at primary level itself. This is my personal experience that children of government schools remain under continuous psychological impression that they are the less privileged in ed-ucation and that they can’t make the progress in their academics as the chil-dren from private schools can. Maula-na Azad never wanted this to happen.

Many of us would not be aware that Maulana Azad had a tryst with Madra-

sa Education as well. During his house arrest days at Ranchi in 1916 his po-litical, educational and journalistic activities had faced a sudden halt. He offered Friday sermons at a local mosque in Ranchi which invited peo-ple from far places to listen to him. He founded Madrasa e Islamia in 1917 at Ranchi, the land and money donated by both Hindus and Muslims. He said that Madrasa e Islamia was founded to represent the reformed madrasa curriculum, with a combination of the best of English and Arabic education.

Maulana Azad had special atten-tion on higher education and he want-ed to take note of the learning and best practices of other countries. In several of his speeches we find that he gave references to Japan, Egypt, Tur-key, Iran and other European Countries that how they were utilising the radio and visuals to enhance the learning. He always wanted that concentrated focus should be given on research in education to make it more creative. For this purpose he had also set up Cen-tral Institute of Education.

Its irony that, the UGC which was founded under the guidance of Maul-ana Azad with the aim to the devel-opment of university education in In-dia, has recently given an ambiguous notice for the discontinuation of the fellowships to the non NET research scholars. Students are up in arms against this decision of the UGC and #OccupyUGC movement has gained momentum across the major cities of India. The Wire published an article which says that WTO-GATS negotia-tions in 2005 have made education as a service and the offer had been made by the government opening the higher education sector to the international education trade. Final rounds of this discussion will be held at Doha in mid

Farhan Sumbul is a software engi-neer based in Hyderabad.

Reading the life of Azad also highlights that he was the strongest advocate of free basic education to all its citi-zens. He also convinced the Constituent Assembly that

it should be the responsibility of the State to provide free and compulsory education to all its citizens.

of December 2015 which would make these offers as the commitments. The article further mentions that by this commitment, India will transform stu-dents into consumers required to pay service charges to receive virtually any form of higher education, ranging from correspondence course to instruction offered by universities and institutions established by foreign and private players. We have seen that no gov-ernment is sincere in increasing their spending on education sector. On the other hand the already allotted funds are curtailed citing various silly rea-sons.\

It’s very important for us to look back at what visions Maulana Azad had garnered for the education system at India and how badly our successive governments have messed it up with. We hope that #OccupyUGC movement goes further to the entire country and wish that it succeeds pressurizing the government and policy making bod-ies to rethink their sinister pro market agendas of commercialising the edu-cation sector. At the same time Maul-ana Azad would continue inspiring us for the creative education he wanted for every citizen of India.

References:

- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and the National Education System – S Ir-fan Habib

- http://thewire.in/2015/10/28/the-occupy-ugc-agitation-is-about-saving-indian-education-14207/


of the Modest eyes

The poem was penned from the inspiration drawn

from Holy Quran dealing with modesty.

| POEM |

Neither gilt in shining gold

Nor like pearl bright and bold

They didn’t seem in sapphire tint

Nor were they bright emerald green

Plain in bright black did they glint

Plainly with kohl ornament.

They didn’t make a great appeal

then to myself I imagine

Why they made me feel so keen.

Nay, not a great appeal

rather their innocence made one feel

This world of innocence is not unfilled.

In the strange virtuous way

They modestly stole the glance away

Was what had filled my heart with glee.

Still embed in me are they,

And often revive the piety

Which oft in me dies away.

- yOUSUF BIN MUHAMMAD



| OPEN SPAcE |

- DR. JAvED JAMIL

bihar: MusliMs need to be cautiously jubilant

With the kind of communal frenzy developing in the country since Modi’s BJP came to power reaching its zenith in the last two months, Bihar election results will surely be celebrated by the secular forces of the country. Muslims will heave a sigh of relief, as they had started fearing about the very survival in the country. What they have seen in the latest elections must surely reassure them that secularism is not only alive in the country but also that the majority of Hindus

of the country reject hatred. They have the reasons to believe that notwith-standing the recurrent threats to them, their future in the long term is safe and secure.

However, they need not celebrate Bihar victory of secular forces for too long. They must make it clear to the


secular parties of the country sooner than later and in more categorical words and tone than they have done till now that Muslims do not just need security; they need much more. Se-curity is their natural right as human beings and Indian citizens. But they have other rights which they are being denied. They are being denied rights on the ground of their religion. They need adequate representation not only in political institutions but also in economic and social institutions. They need an environment and support from political parties and institutions, which enables them to empower them-selves in all fields. There is no need to go overboard to support the secular parties unless they agree to listen to their demands.

Additionally, they have to learn their role not just as a legal minority but also as ideologically second larg-est majority and socially as the part of the deprived majority. I have been campaigning incessantly for several

Dr. Javed Jamil is a medical doctor by profession & a renowned thinker, writer, poet & social activist. He is cur-rently based in Delhi.

years without any visible impact on Muslim organisations and leaders that Muslims need to raise the socioeco-nomic issues in a more effective way. While they must keep up pressure on specific issues related to the commu-nity, they must try to influence the di-rection of the socioeconomic policies of the nation. Countering communal-ism through a counter attack is im-portant but they must also know that bringing social and economic agenda to the fore is even a more effective method to counter communalism.

This is in fact what I have been try-ing to impress upon the leaders of sec-ular parties including Congress. Com-munalism is a cover up for the forces of economics to silently advance the agenda of the corporate world. This had happened when Ayodhya Move-ment was launched. While the media and the polity were busy in fighting out the communal issue, privatisation was silently pushed. The second round of privatisation began under Modi, and again the political parties including

Congress and the leftists are busy countering it. Rahul Gandhi did well by raising economic issues. But with Bihar election results, this needs to be the pivot of the future campaign. There is a need to arrest Economic Dispar-ity, General, Urban-Rural, Community-Community, which is the major reason of the backwardness of the country in general and Muslims in particular.

In a system which has become to-tally privatised, Muslims cannot em-power themselves without being a part of the economic system. This is what they need to focus now.

Let us celenrate the victory of sec-ularism for a few days. But then we have to sit and plan afresh. Secularism alone cannot deliver.


| DELIBERATION |

- RAM PUNIyANI

Last few weeks have seen a flood of ‘returning’ honors by writers, sci-entists and artists. These awardees in way have stood up to make them-selves to be counted. There are also various statements from academics, historians, artists and scientists show-ing their concern about the growing intolerance and erosion of our plural values. Those who returned the honors are amongst the outstanding contribu-tors to literature, arts, film making and science. They in a way have been pour-ing their heart out at what is going on at social level. The growing intolerance has taken the lives of Dabholkar, Pan-sare and Kalburgi. There are incidents like where the lynching of one Muslim on the issue of beef eating which has

RetuRning honouRs is an attempt to save democRacy

shaken the conscience of the society. In the face of this strong statement from diverse sections of society those related to the ruling party, BJP; its par-ent organization RSS and many of its affiliates have been strongly criticizing these people on flimsy grounds.

At the same time the President of India disturbed by the happenings in the society; time and again has been reminding the nation about our core civilizational values of pluralism. The vice President has told that it is the duty of the state to protect the ‘right to life’ of citizens. The international rat-ing agencies like Moody have pointed out that unless Modi reins in his col-leagues, India stands to lose her cred-ibility. Disturbed by the current grow-

ing atmosphere of intolerance the eminent citizens are feeling uncom-fortable. So we have the earlier state-ment of Julio Rebeiro that he is feeling disturbed as a Christian in India. Now Naseerudding Shah said that he is be-ing made to realize his Muslim identity for the first time. The poet, film maker Gulzar stated that the times have come where people ask your religion before they ask your name. Many prominent entrepreneurs like Narayan Murthi and Kiran Majumdar Shaw have shown their concern over growing intoler-ance. In the same boat of those calling for preserving values of pluralism are people like Raghuram Rajan, the RBI Governor.

The ruling dispensation, the BJP


leaders have come out scathingly on these creative people-scientists and labeled the whole process as ‘manu-factured rebellion’ as put by Arun Jait-ley. It has been alleged that those re-turning awards are the leftists or those who were recipients of privileges from the state when Congress was the rul-ing party and now with BJP coming to power from last one year, they are baf-fled and so the protests. It has been alleged that these people are trying to derail the ‘development story’ being written by the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi. Jaitley even goes to say that Narendra Modi is the victim of intolerance by these people returning their awards. Some like Rajnath Singh have pointed out that it is a mere ‘law and order’ problem for which state governments are responsible while these people are targeting Modi gov-ernment.

As such what has happened is nei-ther a law and order problem nor the one related to loss of patronage as it is related to the much broader phenom-enon related to intense communaliza-tion of society. This time the degree of communalization has crossed the civil limits. The jibe that these people did not return their awards at the time of emergency, anti Sikh violence, migra-tion of Kashmiri Pundits and at the time of Mumbai blasts of 1993 is a very superficial way of dealing with the social response to the phenomenon of growing intolerance and its degree. As the awards which have been returned and the statements put out by differ-ent groups do give the reasons for the same and these reasons pertains to the cumulative process and not this or that event. All these incidents men-tioned by Jaitley and company have been a tragic part of recent Indian his-tory. Many a writers did protest against most of these incidents, many of them had not even been awarded at that time.

The present times cannot be com-pared with the tragic incidents of the past for various reasons. Take the case of emergency for example. It was a dark chapter of Indian history, still it was the authoritarianism imposed mostly from the top. What is most dis-

turbing in the current times is the vast network of organizations related to the ruling party whose followers either they themselves create hatred in the society or they mobilize the social sec-tors through hate speech; the result of which is violence. Currently there is a twin attack on the values of tolerance and liberal space. From the top the rul-ing dispensation has people like Yogi Adiyanath- Sakshi Maharaj, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti who keep spreading sectarian message while basking in the glory of power and at the societal level divisive statements prevail.

At yet another level is the institu-tional control by communal ideology. Our major institutions and educational places are being mauled by divisive ideology. Our frontline areas of science and technology are being tampered day in and day out. The promotion of blind faith is the byproduct of this very policy. Blind faith and the large sec-tion of religious entrepreneurs (Babas, Modern Gurus) have a major say and have a major influence on the present political powers. As such the ideol-ogy spread by RSS, the one of Hindu nationalism, is dominating on social and political field. And lastly at the level of social thinking the ‘Hate other’ ideology has been promoted through various conduits using the issues like Ghar Wapasi, love jihad and beef. It is this which is creating the intense so-cial insecurity amongst the religious minorities. It is this which is leading to incidents like Dadri. Such incidents are being projected as law and order problem to deliberately overlook the erosion in democratic space.

Essentially the insane communal violence has its roots in the prejudice

leading to hate for the religious mi-norities. And that’s what flows from the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or any other sectarian nationalism, in the name of any religion or race. In cur-rent times the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism which is, the major factor here, is RSS. Not to say that Muslim sectarianism has its own divisive and supplementary influence. Through different conveyer belts this ideology assumes the ‘Hate other’ sentiment and that’s where cow slaughter, beef eating become the ground to kill the people. The practitioners of sectarian nationalism vow that ‘we will kill and get killed’ while defending our Holy mother the cow.

This is just one case in point. The major factor leading to present atmos-phere lies in the qualitative transfor-mation of ‘hate for others’. The ste-reotyping of minorities which began with Hindu nationalism has assumed horrendous proportions where the likes of Gulzar have to say what he said. So while the Jaitleys will keep undermining the steps taken by these people and while the Rajnath Singhs’ will keep dubbing it as a law and order problem, the dissatisfaction amongst those standing for democracy is grow-ing, liberal space and tolerance is shrinking. We will have to keep think-ing of more ways to draw the attention of larger sections of society towards the threat looming large on our demo-cratic society, the threat of sectarian propaganda and politics leading to sti-fling of democratic space. And these are not the ordinary times, the divisive process have assumed menacing pro-portions and cannot be hidden by the illusory growth story!

As such what has happened is neither a law and order problem nor the one related to loss

of patronage as it is related to the much broad-er phenomenon related to intense communali-zation of society. This time the degree of com-

munalization has crossed the civil limits.


stone pelting

| POEM |

- BILAL PARRAy

Put not in my palms, I may pelt.

the stones.

I feel pushed to record the resistance

of broken bones.

Of men of massacred towns and molested women.

About whom you never heard

Or read. But only in pieces.

maligned by media,

Meant to misled.

Come and count,

The orphan and martyred tapes

Named after slain.

Drink water in their commemoration.

Placed at corner of busy streets.

Of Kashmir, the conflict zone.

Where did lost the mourning moon,

and the burning sun?

in the lap of Himalayas?

Just over the pile of bullet torn corpses?

Of men of every age.

As eclipse of blood is prolonging. And Killing people,

civilian in their belonging.

Gruesome is becoming crime, and each story of it.

You pen pusher, paint not

Portraits of graveyard and tombstones.

In wounded words.

Of Kashmir, the home of

Painful memories. Of children

Termed as born in conflict.

And thus, the inborn stone Pelter.



| cAMPUS vOIcE |

- cAMPUS JOURNO

A convention on Repeal AFSPA is scheduled on 1st November (2 to 5 PM) at Indian Social Institute, Lodi Road. Activists from North East region as well as voices from all other regions are coming together to bring the issue in frontline of political priorities.

We invite you to learn and to enrich the session with your experiences, opinion and ideas in this convention. Please join the convention and sup-port the suppressed voices to come on front.

Convention on“Repeal aFSpa” :

15 yeaRS oF hungeR StRike

You may consider forwarding this invitation to your other friends and groups who wish to join the convention and who favor human rights.

During 2 to 5 sessions, you will listen to many untold experiences, update about cases pend-ing before judiciary, have an understanding about present scenario etc and we all together may form a joint strategy to take this demand forward. Few reading brochures and literature will also be avail-able at registration desk. A signature sheet will also


be there upon which attendees may opt their signature to include their name in memorandum that will be sent to the Prime Minister, Home Min-ister and President. Hi-tea will follow the programme.

Facebook event link of this conven-tion is: https://www.facebook.com/events/966874203350989/

Details of the convention are pro-vided here:

CONVENTION ON REPEAL AFSPA

In the series of solidarity Nation-wide Protest to Repeal AFSPA to mark 15 Years of Hunger Strike of Irom Sharmila

Venue: Indian Social Institute, Lodi Road, New Delhi

Date & Time: 1st Nov 2015, 2 to 5 PM

Speakers:

Neingulo Krome (Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights)

Babloo Loitongbam (Human Rights Activist from Manipur)

Prof. Nandini Sundar (Activist, Writer & Professor at Delhi School of Economics)

Ashok Agrwaal (Lawyer, Author- In search of Vanished Blood)

Tapan Bose (Activist, Fimmmaker & Head of South Asia Forum for Human Rights)

Ramratan Chatterjee (Social Activ-ist, Columnist & Author- In the Valley of Kashmir Under White Terror)

Alif Shakoor (General Secretary, SIO)

Swami Agnivesh (Activist, Spiritual leader)

Irom Sharmila, a Repeal AFSPA cru-sader in Imphal, Manipur is completing

15 years of her hunger protest and will enter 16th year of her hunger strike on 2nd November. She is continuously raising her demand through peaceful way of her fast, but state has ignored her demand and even did its best to suppress her voice. She is under arrest under section 309 of IPC with charges of attempt to suicide that is completely against her objective. Irom Sharmila was just 28 years old when she had started her fast with her hope in de-mocracy. Now she is 43 years old, all her life behind the bars, just for her crime to sit peacefully and demand to Repeal AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Forces Powers Act), a special act that empowers armed forces to operate with extreme impunity. This act has re-sulted in violation of thousands of seri-ous human rights including fake kill-ings and rapes in states of north east region (through AFSPA 1958) of India and in J&K (through AFSPA, 1990). De-spite all the demands from national and international human rights organi-zations and even from political parties and state leaderships, this act has not been repealed yet.

On completion of 15 years of her hunger protest, we are observing a nationwide joint protest where people and organizations in various states are registering their voice to support cause of Irom Sharmila. In this series of soli-darity, we are organizing a Convention on Repeal AFSPA at New Delhi on 1st November to raise voice, to analyse and update about cases pending be-fore judiciary and government and to take future course of action.

Organisers

Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign (SSSC), Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), Bonded Labour Liberation Front, Just Peace Founda-tion (JPF), Human Rights Alerts, Asia Forum

For any query, you may contact to Kashif Faraz (8802879246 ), Ravi Nitesh (9958907799) Vishrut (9818346578), Shihad (9560302979), Asif Abdullah (7298144141),


| cAMPUS vOIcE |

- cAMPUS JOURNO

A convention on Repeal AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) was organized on 1st November in New Delhi with the objective to bring the demand of Repeal AFSPA in political priorities. This convention was organ-ized on the eve of 2nd Nov where Irom Sharmila, better known as Iron lady of Manipur is completing 15 years of her hunger strike with the demand to Re-peal AFSPA.

Repeal aFSpa convention

Convention was attended by vari-ous eminent speakers such as Nein-gulo Krom (Secretary General of Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights), Babloo Loitongbam (Human Rights Ac-tivist from Manipur), Swami Agnivesh , Prof Nandini Sundar, Prof Deepti Priya Mehrotra , Ashok Agrwaal, Henri from Forum Asia and others. Youths and other activists also attended the con-vention in large numbers and extend-

ed their support towards the cause.

This convention was organized by Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign (SSSC), Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), Bonded Labour Liberation Front, Just Peace Founda-tion (JPF), Forum Asia and Human Rights Alert. Those who participated also signed sheets to endorse the de-mand of Repeal AFSPA from all regions (North east and J&K) and release of Irom Sharmila.

Irom Sharmila, a woman from Ma-nipur is completing 15 years of her hunger protest on 2nd Nov. She is ob-serving fast as a form of protest since the year 2000 (when she was about 28 years old), and she had started it just after Malom massacre where Assam ri-fles had fired upon local civilians who were waiting at a bus stand in Malom, Imphal (Manipur) and all were killed. Irom decided to register her protest be-cause incidents of torture and killings were common in Manipur and in the veil of the powers under AFSPA, noth-ing could be done against culprit secu-rity personals. Irom sharmila started her fast and did not leave it since then. She has only demand, Repeal AFSPA, as it is AFSPA that is main culprit , be-cause it provides extra ordinary powers to security personnel to operate in Ma-nipur and other such areas and these powers have been misused widely.

AFSPA has provisions of shoot to kill merely on probability, but it does not stop here, instead it goes beyond and says that no case can be lodged against any security personnel without pre sanction from central government. Sadly, in all such years, no approval was given by central government and despite hundreds of reported cases of fake killings, torture and rapes, noth-ing could be done to punish culprits.

As, Irom Sharmila did not leave her fast, Manipur police registered a case


against her under section 309 of ‘at-tempt to suicide’ and put her in jail. During her release from jail for a day in 2006, Irom Sharmila came to Delhi, paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Ra-jghat and later joined a fast at Jantar Mantar. Delhi Police also registered another case under same section of attempt to suicide here in Delhi and matter went to court. Presently, Irom Sharmila is under arrest by Manipur police and living her life in security ward of JLN hospital of Manipur. The case in Delhi also, is still going on and Irom Sharmila appears before Delhi court on court notices and when Ma-nipur government becomes ready to produce her at Delhi.

Despite her fast for last 15 years and government’s ignorance, even suppression through lodging her be-hind bars, did not break her faith in democracy or non violence. She al-ways smiles, and tells , ‘I have faith in democracy. Government will listen one day’

Sadly, government is not listening, and even one of her demand to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not been accepted yet. She thinks Prime Minister does not want to meet her as probably government has no reply for all her demands and questions about suppression of people through AFSPA.

This act, AFSPA as one of the most draconian ones that is not only dan-gerous to people, but even damage the reputation of security forces and of world’s largest democracy that is advo-cating for UNSC seat.

Govt’s own committees have rec-ommended to repeal this act. Even many fake killings, rapes and cases of disappearances were not only report-ed but even proved, but till now govt has not repealed this act. Many na-tional and international human rights organizations also raising their voice to demand to repeal this act. State leadership of BJP in Manipur and PDP in J&K had favored to repeal of this act, but now they are silent.

Neingulo Krome , Secretary Gen-eral of NPMHR said “AFSPA is a viola-tion of Human Rights and if India is truly a democratic country then this Act

should be removed immediately.

At the end, it was announced that demand to repeal AFSPA is a collec-tive struggle and demand that is very much required to protect human rights as well as democratic values. It was announced that this full week is being observed in solidarity with 15 years of struggle of Irom Sharmila nationwide

and at many places protests are hap-pening. It was also told that in com-ing months, this movement will bring more voices together and will start a big movement to demand Repeal AF-SPA.

Below are some of the photos of the event.


| OPEN SPAcE |

- cAMPUS JOURNO

A protest demonstration was held here today against the visit of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Around two hundred people from different parts of the city gathered at Jantar Mantar near the Parliament House to protest against General el-Sisi who overthrew his country’s first democrat-ically elected government of president Mohammad Morsi through a military coup in 2013.

General el-Sisi is in Delhi to attend India-Africa Forum Summit.

The protestors were holding plac-ards with various slogans like ‘Failed Egypt Economy No Help to India,’ ‘Go Back Sisi, Not Welcome at India’. The protest demonstration was jointly or-ganized by All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Association for Protection of Civil Rights and Students Islamic Organisa-

Protest against sisi visit to india

tion of India.

“Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is guilty of oc-cupying power after ousting a demo-cratically elected legitimate govern-ment in an illegal and immoral way and is responsible for brutally killing and arresting thousands of people. It is, therefore, extremely sad that India a bastion of democracy has invited an anti-democracy and fascist dictator like Sisi. This move of the government goes against the nature and will of the democracy-loving masses, and is therefore condemnable and reprehen-sible,” said the organizers in a press statement.

The press statement further states, “Even after two years in office the dic-tatorial regime of Sisi continues to wreak havoc upon the people of Egypt with thousands killed and tens of thou-sands illegally detained and punished

without a fair trial. The Egyptian econ-omy is in shambles and inflation and unemployment has reached unman-ageable levels. Amidst all this doom and gloom General Sisi continues to claim that he is a legitimate ruler of Egypt and is contesting for President in an elections which all international agencies have called a mockery of de-mocracy”.

In view of the ongoing India-Afri-ca summit, the Delhi Police blocked some groups of protestors from going towards Jantar Mantar.

A group of 50 people in Jamia Na-gar area was not allowed to proceed towards the Jantar Mantar. Armed police force was deployed forcing the protestors to gather at the local police station where they shouted slogans against el-Sisi and Delhi police.


| OPEN SPAcE |

- MOHAMMAD OSAMA

It was only a couple of minutes for train to leave when they entered the compartment in haste. The father, the daughter and the son, a trinity in mood to spend holiday somewhere, very rare and beautiful. Though it was a long journey to reach the destination yet it was clear that they were at the peak of excitement, especially the kids. Father had to act a little.

The cute little lady knew her place and adjusted herself in shade of her father. The boy, like a pixie jumped to the window and pressed his nose on it. Father, adjusting the luggage set-

a journey to a rainy land

tled himself at the corner of berth.

The old man on the next berth was alone and bored. He watched this lit-tle crew’s each and every activity with immense care through his old, round glasses, fixed at nose. When the train caught the speed in a few seconds and they all settled down, he cleared his throat several times before he looked outside the window and said, “It’s too hot today, isn’t it?”

No one noticed him. He continued, “They say, it is going to be 52 this time. It will be fire. They say count of trees

has already decreased. Rest will also get burnt. This is the end.” Now the fa-ther felt insisted to answer as the old man was continuously looking at him for a response. He then made a sigh and said, “Well, they say it is going to be little showery on mountains this time, in fact, may be more than the last year. You see it is June by the way. It al-ways rains in June.” The kids got their ears straitened and mouth opened as they listened about rain. The old man smiled.

He said, “June! Huh! You know it was a time when it rain for four months


a year, continuously! Umm….don’t get surprised it is written in the books, you can read by yourself or you just can see it on net, you can also find a lot of vide-os. Don’t you watch old movies, those from the beginning of the century?”

The children were amazed with the description, the girl- with eyes widen, could not resist and said, “I can’t be-lieve this sir! How come it rain for four months?” The man’s eyes got a shining, “Yes, my lady! It is true. They named it as a season then.” The boy was in rather attacking mood, “then how they lived? They must have all died!” he exclaimed. It was now fa-ther’s turn to interrupt. He said in cool way, “Dears! When an old person is telling you something, you shouldn’t argue with him. He might be more experienced than us, so he might be true, right? Now be comfortable at your seats and if you want to eat anything you can have it.”

The old man was jolly with the com-pliment. He chuckled, “Sweet kids! Let them ask what they want to. It is quiet important for their development. Where are you heading to, friends? Grand pa home?” The girl replied, “Nope! We are on a trip to see the rain. Our teacher told us to visit it, once at least. My friends say it is very ‘funny’. They visited last year.”

The man was deeply impressed. He appreciated the father, “Very good to listen. You seem to care for your chil-

dren very much.”

The man accepted the compli-ment with pride, “you see how difficult it is to educate kids now a days. You are supposed to give them practical knowledge as well. So this time we de-cided to observe and experience the rain. As they confirmed in news chan-nel the acid is gone now. It is not harm-ful to get wet after the fifth fall.”

“Why didn’t you take your wife with you?” the old man noticed it only now.

“Oh! She in working in POWER, you know we are in crisis. They don’t get vacations there.” Man got a shade on the face. They all felt a silence for a moment. Then the boy jumped on his lap and cried, “Papa! Tell us about rain please.”

“Why, haven’t I told you about that at home?”

“No! Tell us again! Please!”

The father couldn’t resist, “O.k. as I told you, clouds go to the ocean and ask them for some water. But the ocean wants some price. Then the clouds tell them to take what they want. The ocean takes clouds’ white color and gives them some water. Then clouds, black and heavy bring it to hills and shower it by drops- drops similar to the water park – you remember? But this one is natural. And this is called rain. You can bath in it. It is pretty cool when it rains.” He got exhausted over the story. The kids got busy with their ice boxes.

Now the old man added his own version, “This is all about gods. They have got angry over the sins of folks. You know there was a time when they were used to send a lot of winds to pick up the water and spread it over the dead land. But ah! Now nobody cares of the dying earth.” The siblings looked at each other from corners of eyes with confusion.

The old man continued, “You know, it was the time of beauty and romance – the beginning of 21st cen-tury! Almost a hundred years! I tell you, my brother’s grand-daughter is pursu-ing doctorate in literature. She is work-ing on description of rain, found in lit-erature, she is filtering and analyzing and then setting up thesis. Last time I met her, she told me a lot about it. She says, they were to use metaphor of rain for describing most deep feel-ings of human being – love and de-spair, prosperity and loneliness!”. He got lost for the moment and kids got annoyed, they had finished the ice-creams. The father was confused how to react.

The boy controlled the situation, “Papa, tell us about clouds.”

“Well, they are giant, black, some-times scary, sometimes beautiful.”

Boy listened open mouthed and then lost in imagination returned to his place on window. In a few minutes he exclaimed with joy, “Papa! Looky! Clouds!”

The children were amazed with the description, the girl- with eyes widen, could not resist and said, “I can’t believe this sir! How come it rain for four months?” The man’s eyes got a shining, “Yes, my lady! It is true. They named it as a season then.” The boy was in rather attacking mood, “then how they lived? They must have all died!” he exclaimed. It was now father’s turn to interrupt. He said in cool way, “Dears! When an old person is telling you something, you shouldn’t argue with him. He might be more experienced than us, so he might be true, right? Now be comfortable at your seats and if you want to eat anything you can have it.”


The girl, the father and the old man all jumped to the window, then father said with a sigh, “that’s mountain, my son!”

“But you said they are giant and black, are not they?”

The old man smiled, “But they are full of water, little dude!”

Boy returned to window without a word, after a few moments he shouted again, “Father! There is a lot of water over there. Is that cloud?”

Train was running over the bridge, father said without moving, “That’s river my son!”

Annoyed with all this, the father tried to ease the atmosphere, “Then, sir, you didn’t tell about you, where are you travelling?”

“Oh! Me! Just a halt before you. Up to the bottom of M. hills, before jun-gles. My late soul mate had a wish to visit the temple over there. I thought to

visit it for her. She worked in econom-ics.”

“Oh! I am sorry sir!” the father mur-mured. Kids looked at old man for a moment and then opened the ice box, this time for some kind of colored liq-uid. The girl offered it to the old man.

He didn’t reject the offer and gulped a full cup in single breath with a ‘thanks’ at end. Then he continued “well!” he was little relaxed now, “well! How do you think you are going to en-joy the precious moments? Is there any plan?”

“Indeed! Sir! Father was now quite familiar with the old man, “there is a plan. For complete three days.” He was happy with the imagination.

“We have a plan for complete three days. We have a resort already booked at good heights on hills. In first rain we are only going to watch it from balco-ny or in windows if it storms. You see kids need some training. It is their first

time. Second day we are definitely go-ing to run into it.” He looked at kids with mischievous eyes and the kids shouted with joy “yeeee”.

“And we have boats already pre-pared, we are going to sail in them.” the boy was over excited. He pulled out some paper boats from his little bag.

“We learned to make these in class and on internet.” The girl explained.

The father continued, “ for third day we have only one plan, either it rains or not, we are going to take a solar van- you might have seen, the one covered with crystal- and ride to all rain special restaurants. It seems they really have some special cuisines of old times.” He was really lost with all of them in imagination, “Thanks to these magnet trains, it is just one more hour.”

As the train ran to complete its thousand mile journey, they all dreamed and dreamed of a few rains left for the earth.


| OPEN SPAcE |

- cAMPUS JOURNO

A civil society delegation that in-cluded activists and senior gandhi-ans visited Sunped village of Haryana on 22nd October. This delegation in-cludes Swami Agnivesh (Vishwa Arya Samaj), Prof H P Gangnegi (Harijan Sevak Sangh), Ram Mohan Rai (Hali Panipati Trust), Phoolchand Sharma (Harijan Sevak Sangh), Veena Behen (Mahila Chetna Kendra), Urmila Behen (Sarvoday Ashram), Shehzad Poonaw-al (Social Activist), Kashif Ahmed Faraz (APCR), Kiran Shaheen (Social Activist) and Ravi Nitesh (Social Activist).

a civil Society delegation viSited Sunped village wheRe two kidS buRnt alive

This delegation met with family of victims and people of village, con-veyed its sympathy to family and ap-pealed to people to maintain harmony.

Delegation’s statement upon this visit is here:

“We, the people who believe in peace, harmony and non violence , condemn the incident of Sunped, Ballabhgarh where a dalit family got attacked and it resulted in loss of two innocent lives of their children Vaibhav and Divya and injuries to family.

We see that it is not the first case where we have witnessed the cast based discrimination and hatred along with division among hearts of people. But we also see that in recent pattern of rising insecurity among society and rising threats to religious minorities, dalits and tribals, no one is feeing safe. This feeling of insecurity is also very effective in people who talk about rationality, logics and who try to make people aware about threats of commu-nalism and conservatism.

We also see that talking about


these issues has been blamed as ap-peasement and politicizing the issue, but who can deny the fact that two little children have been burnt alive in this home. What was the fault of these children, just their birth that had happened in dalit family?

This incident is a blot upon face of our so called society where we talk about being civilized, modernized. It is a blot upon government that is creating propaganda of development and linking villages to internet with-out fulfilling its own responsibility on ground. As per constitution of India, promoting social harmony is among duties of government, but unfortu-nately in recent times, supporters of government are publicly involved in creating outrage and damaging social , secular, intellectual fabric of coun-try. This uncontrolled behavior of their supporters and silence of government over all these only gives a message that it is incapable of providing safety to common people and it is only sup-porting ideology of social disintegra-tion for its political gains.

We strongly condemn the role of state and central governments over this incident. Chief Minister of Harya-na Govt Mr. Khattar is busy in advis-ing and deciding who should stay in India and who should go, he is busy in giving such derogatory statements in media interviews, but he has no time to look upon safety of their own people. On the other hand, an ex-tremely irresponsible and derogatory statement came from none other than the central government’s minister Mr. V K Singh who did not feel ashamed while comparing this incident with examples of stone pelting upon dogs. We condemn his statement and we call the people of India to respond ap-propriately to his statement through peaceful manners.

We, who have visited here in sym-pathy of the family, also appeal to all Indian families to take care of your co-citizens . We appeal everyone to not get affected by the communal and vio-lent propaganda of the right wing. We appeal to people to promote harmony in society at their own level.

As per constitution of India, promoting social harmony is among duties of government, but

unfortunately in recent times, supporters of government are publicly involved in creating

outrage and damaging social , secular, intellec-tual fabric of country.

We also say sorry to all of you, for the fact that despite being in 21st cen-tury, when we are reaching at moon and mars and feel developed society, we still have inequality, caste discrimi-nation, intolerance and violence; and with all these factors, all our develop-ment in outer world become null , as we are too undeveloped from inside. Bringing such a development was a collective responsibility of our and pre-vious generations, but we hope that we need to strive for it.

We again demand form the gov-ernment to take immediate attention towards social issues where people are losing their lives due to intolerance

of other groups/classes. If it does not stop, nothing could be more appro-priate to define what we call a failed state. “

Issued by civil society delegation members Swami Agnivesh (Vishwa Arya Samaj), Prof H P Gangnegi (Hari-jan Sevak Sangh), Ram Mohan Rai (Hali Panipati Trust), Phoolchand Sharma (Harijan Sevak Sangh), Veena Behen (Mahila Chetna Kendra), Urmila Behen (Sarvoday Ashram), Shehzad Poonaw-al (Social Activist), Kashif Ahmed Faraz (APCR), Kiran Shaheen (Social Activist) and Ravi Nitesh (Social Activist)


The ConsCienCe of The naTion

| POLITIcS |

- MEENAZ BHANU

With the NDA govt gaining power in 2014 general elections people of the nation are worried how the state will treat its citizens given the history of inciting communal violence. Although there were riots across the country for many years long, there is an increase in communal violence with the advent of fascist BJP government. According to data by home ministry there has been 24% rise in the incidents of com-munal violence in the first 5 months of 2015, also the number of deaths due to those incidents has shot up by 65%. There are various aspects of minorities, which have been targeted as great barriers for the development of our country when the development and religious cultures are two different fields. For example Madrasa, Uniform civil code, Ghar-wapasi, Love-jihad,

etc. In addition, various attempts have been made fearlessly to wipe away mi-norities such as lynching of Akhlaq in Dadri, petrol bomb attack on truckers at Kashmir on the rumours on beef and killing of dalits in Haryana. It is a “civil- war situation” in the country. Ban on sale and consumption of beef in a cou-ple of BJP ruled states is seen as du-bious step, which is planned to target rights of people’s choice. The attackers have shaken not just the country but also the conscience of the country. Ir-respective of this, some of the minis-ters have made venomous statements, which have only sparkled controversy. Ideological affiliates of “Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh” like bajrang dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad have become bolder and ferocious. The cen-tral government is supporting such vio-

lence by stating in silence.

The question is what solution we can find to get rid of all types of vio-lence from our country. Recently more than 40 writers have returned their awards as a protest, claiming intoler-ant approach of the government as the reason for returning the awards. One writer returning the award said that organisation’s silence on the killing of M.M Kalburgi, a renowned kannada writer, for his rationalist views denotes curbing of ‘freedom of speech”. Few writers returned the award claiming that “we clearly see a threat to our democracy, secularism and freedom” and many more writers claimed that they want to return the award because of “country’s intolerant situation”. It is the strongest protest by the writers who have the power to change the na-


Meenaz Bhanu, Goa.

tion through their writings, returning such an honour. However, in addition, they need to continue through their faculty to bring awareness amongst the masses.

Apart from writer how can a com-mon citizen fight against such evil? We do not elect our leader just for provid-ing them luxury and fame. Our democ-racy gives us the right to choose and elect such a leader who can rule ac-cording to Indian constitution and thus he can lead India towards prosperity. Whenever we realise some injustice or crime we need to question the authori-ties by all the legal means available. Whoever has the ability of expressing should raise the issues against vio-lence through their writings or through their speeches. We can fight against foul authorities through newspapers, and social networks such as facebook, twitter, whatsApp, blogs and many more. If we do not have the ability to express our own views then at least we can support those engaged in it. We could also join the NGO’s and social activists who raise voice against the violence. At the society level, interfaith dialogues and meeting with a positive frame of mind must be encouraged.

Our country is rich in cultural diver-sity. Every religion is based on moral

and ethical codes. Now it is the time to prove our “unity in diversity”. We need unity regardless of religion, status, colour, and profession, against such intolerant bent of mind. Unless each citizen starts thinking and contributing towards community living India cannot maintain its harmony and peace. Let

us use the conscience given by God to identify evil and act against evils with mutual co-operation and within the framework of the Indian constitution.

The question is what solution we can find to get rid of all types of violence from our country.

Recently more than 40 writers have returned their awards as a protest, claiming intolerant

approach of the government as the reason for returning the awards. One writer returning the award said that organisation’s silence on the killing of M.M Kalburgi, a renowned kannada

writer, for his rationalist views denotes curbing of ‘freedom of speech”. Few writers returned

the award claiming that “we clearly see a threat to our democracy, secularism and freedom”

and many more writers claimed that they want to return the award because of “country’s intol-

erant situation”.


Law against Law| JUSTIcE |

- AZHARUDDIN PILAKODAN

Fifteen years ago India woke into a new dawn of struggle in the north-eastern state of India. The struggle was against a draconian law – Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

AFSPA was a draconian Act passed by the Parliament of India in 1958. It was applied to the seven sister states in India. The Act empowers armed forces to use lethal forces against any person who is acting in contravention of any law and order, destroy shelters or training camps from which armed attacks are likely to made, arrest any person without warrant on suspense.

The law gives guaranty that no prosecution, suit or other legal pro-ceedings shall be instituted against the personnel.

AFSPA violates the fundamental and constitutional rights of right to life, liberty, freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly, free movement, and so on. The devastated the lives in the northeastern states of India.

On November 2nd 2000 Irom Chanu Sharmila – The Iron Lady of Modern India started indefinite hunger strike to repeal the Act.

She was 28 when she started the crusade and now she is 43. Sadly her most glorious years of womanhood had perished, but could not change the fate of governance.

After a decade and half, govern-ments have changed, consultations were done, yet the establishments

failed to come out with a logical con-clusion. But she was arrested and charged with an ‘attempt to commit suicide’. 2015 also becomes a painful year in her struggle.

The door to the freedom and hu-man rights are locked by the establish-ments. May be we can break but will be branded as “anti-national”. Let’s ride on the virtue of patience. Because we are living in India where cows are not killed but in the name of cows humans are killed.. !!!

Azharuddin Pilakodan, completed his graduation in journalism from Uni-versity of Mysore in 2014. Presently he is working in a news portal as corre-spondent.


The University of Hyderabad has witnessed on 21st October a mas-sive student protest organised by Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) against the UGC’s decision to do away the non-NET fellowship. The fellowship is provided to the students undertak-ing M.Phil and PhD in central universi-ties for their research work. M.Phil stu-dents get a monthly fellowship of Rs 5000 for 18 months and PhD scholars are entitled to Rs 8000 per month. The UGC chairman Ved Prakash confirmed the move saying that the decision was taken in the last meeting of the com-mission and will commence from next academic year.

The students participating in the agitation raised slogans against the UGC and also burnt an effigy to ex-press their serious discontent.

Kerala government is getting ready to set up a first-of-its-kind university in the country exclusively for research-oriented studies related to gender. The gender varsity will be located in Kozhikode district, Kerala in the cam-pus of Gender Park, an autonomous institution under the Kerala state’s So-cial Justice Department.

Top officials say that the proposed varsity is conceptualised on the mod-el of similar institutions abroad and many global agencies have already expressed interest to partner with it. The South Asian Research Centre at the Gender Park will be developed into a full-fledge varsity by next year 2016, and it will be the first such university in the country.

Gender studies is gaining popular-ity in the country especially in Kerala at a high time. Kerala being far more progressive in Literacy rate has now

Protest against UGC’ decision to do away non-NET fellowship

an exclusive Gender studies university in india to be a reality soon

| cAMPUS vOIcE |

Nihal Kidiyoor, has graduated in Engineering from MIT, Manipal. he is currently pursuing Management Stud-ies from SDMIMD, Mysore.

bagged a new feat in setting-up ex-clusive gender studies university in Gender Park. This will serve in bring-ing changes in gender-related matters through effective policy interventions. The other plan also includes setting up South Asian Research Centre at the Gender Park as an extension of Gender University.

The gender university will have an International outreach by collaborating with many global pioneers in gender studies including the London School of Economics and many more. They are also planning exchange programmes with the support of top gender insti-tutes across the world. The curriculum framework and the syllabus of the pro-posed university will not conventional academic pattern rather would meet up the contemporary course of stud-ies. The Social Justice Department of Kerala is aiming to introduce a com-

pletely internationally-oriented cam-pus towards academic practice at the new university with the goal of gender equality and empowerment.

- NIHAL KIDIyOOR

2015 december | the companion

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