The Lessons of Bhopal

Herald, 11 Dec 2009

Our ruling elites consider the lives and livelihoods of the poor expendable in the pursuit of development, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

Eight days ago, India marked a sombre remembrance – the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. On the night of 2/3 December 1984, a leakage of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal resulted in the immediate death of over 3000 people, and lasting injury, often resulting in disability, to thousands of others. It was, and remains till date, the worst chemical industry disaster in the world, with only Chernobyl ranking above it in the list of all industrial disasters.
The least one could have expected after the tragedy was a firm response from the government – first, to provide all possible succour and relief to the victims and, second, to ensure that those guilty of this act of negligence were brought to book. On both these counts, we have abjectly failed.
The leakage of a poisonous chemical used in the manufacture of pesticides decimated the population living in the slums around the Union Carbide plant, and the gas also affected some middle-class localities in Bhopal, though nowhere to the same extent as the slums. And in the socio-economic background of the victims lies the reason for the continued indifference of the powers that be, as well as the middle classes in general, to the tragedy of Bhopal.
The sorry saga of denial of relief, and the sellout to the multinational corporation whose negligence led to the disaster are too well documented to bear repeating here, except for the lowlights. When Warren Anderson, then the chairman of Union Carbide, visited Bhopal four days after the disaster, he was escorted out of Bhopal under tight security the same day. No meaningful action was ever forthcoming against him or the corporation he headed – the government’s stock response to why he was allowed to go free was that taking action him would ‘spoil the investment climate’ in India – meaning that the lives and health of thousands of poor people could be, and would be, sacrificed at the altar of foreign investment.
Worse was to come. After lengthy delays, during which the victims were first pursued by ambulance-chasing lawyers from the West, the government took upon itself the sole right to pursue the civil liability claims of the victims. Union Carbide was then let off with a paltry compensation of US $470 million – scaled down from the initial demand of US $3 billion, under unknown compulsions, probably to make the investment climate in India even ‘friendlier’. This has translated in most cases to about Rs25,000 for a lifetime of suffering due to permanent damage to vital organs and the immune system; and the price of an Indian life was put at about Rs1 lakh. Victims have been denied access to vital medical data about their condition and no treatment protocol to treat them has ever been devised.
Today, Union Carbide has been acquired by Dow Corporation, and the government is bending over backwards to help it escape owning up to any responsibility for the disaster, including cleaning up the site of the plant in Bhopal of the many toxic chemicals that continue to contaminate the site and have polluted the water. Finance Minister P Chidambaram saw fit to jeer at the victims and make dark hints that the disaster was due to factors other than Union Carbide’s negligence.
Over the years, Bhopal has receded to the back of public consciousness in India, only to be resurrected when the calendar turns up a convenient anniversary. Thus, now that we have ‘celebrated’ the 25th anniversary of this event, we will now feel justified in forgetting all about it for the next 25 years.
If not for the brave efforts of activists like Satinath Sarangi, who have been working in Bhopal for the past quarter century, Bhopal would have disappeared almost entirely from public memory. But the struggle on the ground has continued, with the Sambhavana Clinic making all possible efforts to provide medical assistance to the victims and victims’ organizations like the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan working to secure the victims their rights as also provide employment generation avenues. Hundreds of activists and ordinary citizens have worked with the victims, to allay their suffering and help them secure their rights. These were all tasks that should have been done by the government. Occasionally, vociferous protests and hunger strikes are organized by the victims, and Bhopal comes into public consciousness again, but before things get out of hand the government defuses the situation by handing out meaningless assurances that it has no intention of honouring.
The primary lesson of Bhopal is that for our ruling classes, the lives of the poor have negligible value. Development, or the version of it that the ruling elites favour, has to be pushed at any cost, and the lives and livelihoods of India’s poorest are expendable commodities in fulfilling this vision. Bhopal is not the only such lesson we have had in sixty-odd years of independence, but it was certainly one of the starkest, due to the sheer magnitude of the disaster and the suffering it caused. But right now, with ‘Operation Green Hunt’ set to be launched, a lesson on a similar scale is due to be delivered to us – not by a multinational company, in collusion with the government, but by the government on its very own. In its quest to please the mining companies and make India the global Eden for investment, our ruling classes are pulling out all the stops to ensure that the mining companies can acquire the land they want in some of India’s most backward regions, unhindered and without any questions asked.
For years now, India’s tribal populations in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and other states have been pushed to the wall. Left with nobody but the Naxalites to speak for them, they are caught between the security forces and their would-be saviours. They have been herded into the Salwa Judum, leaving their ancestral villages and land vacant and ripe for takeover. Now the plan is to finish all protest once and for all, so that ‘development’ can march ever onwards and the industrial barons may grow richer. A few thousand dead and many thousands more disabled in Bhopal was not too high a price to pay for this dream – and neither, if our ruling elites have their way, will be the lives and livelihoods of a few hundred thousand tribals.
If we can but learn this lesson from Bhopal, maybe the lives lost will not have been in vain. But there is little hope of that – both those who write and read such articles are complicit to some extent in this travesty called development. It is only when the victims understand, and act upon, these lessons that there will finally be some hope of putting an end to the charade we honour with the name of development.

IFFI 2009

Herald 2day, 25 Nov 2009
Goan cinema comes of age
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
With only a small audience, the number of Konkani films produced over the years can comfortably be counted on the fingers of both hands. The first Konkani film was Mogacho Anvddo (1950), followed by Amchem Noxib (1963) and Nirmon (1966), both produced by Frank Fernand. Though Nirmon went on to win a national award, both it and Amchem Noxib were noted more for their musical score by Frank Fernand than for any cinematic excellence. Recent films, including Aleesha (2006) and Sawariya.com (2008), both produced by Rajendra Talak, have similarly had little appeal beyond the core audience in Goa and the Goan diaspora. In this situation, Konkani cinema has remained by and large a backwater.
All this is set to change with Laxmikant Shetgaonkar’s Poltodcho Monis (The Man Beyond the Bridge), which was screened in the Indian Panorama section at IFFI on 24 June. The film has already evoked considerable attention, having won the FIPRESCI award at the Toronto International Film Festival this year.
Poltodcho Monis is the story of Vinayak, a forest guard who has spent 15 years working in a remote forest area. A widower, his existence is a lonely one, and he is, as the title indicates, a man living at the margins of civilization. Into his lonely life comes an insane woman whom he encounters one night scrabbling around outside his hut. His repeated efforts to drive her away are to no avail, and he finally succumbs to pity and begins to give her food. Over time, he begins to take more effort over her, forcing her to bathe and even giving her his dead wife’s clothes to wear. Gradually, their relationship grows, and Vinayak’s feelings for her become stronger, until the relationship also acquires a sexual dimension.
Vinayak begins to cherish his relationship with the woman, who now shares his house with him. He is beset by doubt as to whether he is doing something wrong, but realizes that it is only the human being in him responding to the plight of the woman and seeking companionship and love. But this is not the perspective in which the rest of the nearby village sees this relationship, which condemns him for taking advantage of an insane and helpless woman. Vinayak faces a social boycott from the village, compounded by the opposition evoked by his efforts to bring villagers involved in felling trees to book. Vinayak is advised to let the woman go, and even his requests for them to be married are dismissed, as society is not willing to accept a relationship with an insane woman.
When she gives birth to a child, the prejudices of the villagers come to the fore, and she and the child are driven out of Vinayak’s house. He searches for her frantically all over, neglecting his work and becoming more and more uncommunicative. When he finally finds her and their child, he takes her back home, and in a symbolic act demolishes the bridge which is the only link between them and civilization.
Poltodcho Monis is a simple tale, told without any frills. The triumph of the film is in the human drama, which is told in an understated fashion, with minimal dialogue. Shetgaonkar effectively explores the themes of loneliness, insanity and the social stigma attached to this condition. The performances are good, with Chitranjan Giri in the role of Vinayak being outstanding. Technically too, the film excels, with effective editing and photography. It focuses on a Goa that is rarely seen – the forest areas of the hinterland.
The film is an absolute must-see, not only for lovers of Konkani but for all lovers of cinema.
Given that his earlier films received a positive response, with his short film Eka Sagar Kinari (A Seaside Story) having won the Golden Conch at the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2004, it is surprising that Shetgaonkar did not receive support from the powers-that-be for Poltodcho Monis and that he had to surmount numerous difficulties to make the film at all. With this film we can welcome a fresh talent, deeply rooted in the Goan reality, who has the ability to take Goan cinema to greater heights.
Poltodcho Monis has received only one screening at IFFI. It is hoped that the film is released in Goa, so that Goans in general get an opportunity to view this excellent human document.
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Herald 2day, 26 Nov 2009
A quest to bridge our separations
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
Nandita Das’s Firaaq (Separation) was originally meant to premiere at IFFI 2008, but due to delays with the censors, the film could not qualify for participation, and was only released in March 2009. Apart from receiving a general release, it travelled to over 40 film festivals all over the world. Speaking before the screening of the film at IFFI 2009 on 25 November, director Nandita Das said that with this screening the film had in a sense completed its journey.
Better known for her power-packed performances in films like Bawandar, Fire and 1947 Earth, Nandita said that she more or less strayed into script-writing and direction. Actually, she was working on another script but ended up directing Firaaq. Gujarat was a story waiting to be told, and the story found Nandita rather than vice-versa.
And that’s a stroke of luck for us. The horrors of the Gujarat 2002 communal violence are a difficult subject to tackle, and the only other notable effort in this direction has been Parzania, directed by Rajat Dholakia. While Parzania had graphic scenes of violence, Firaaq is a quiet tale, which chronicles the events over a period of 24 hours in the lives of people on different sides of the communal divide, with their lives ripped apart by the violence in one way or another.
The only scene in the film which directly focuses on the violence is the opening sequence in which piles of corpses are being buried in a common grave. Moving on a month forward in time from this totally unnecessary scene – which does not fit in with the mood of the rest of the film, and should have been dropped – we follow the lives of several ordinary people affected by the riots, some as victims, some as perpetrators, and some as silent if horrified observers.
The film has an ensemble cast, which includes a bigoted Hindu (Paresh Raval) and his abused wife (Deepti Naval); a rich mixed-religion couple (Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra); an elderly Muslim musician (Naseeruddin Shah) and his faithful attendant (Raghuvir Yadav); Muneera (Shahana Goswami), who has had her home burnt during the riots and suspects her Hindu friend (Amruta Subhash) of having a hand in the deed; and Mohsin, a Muslim boy who has been orphaned during the violence. There are also Muneera’s husband and his friends, who are seeking an outlet for their rage, and whose quest for revenge only ends in his tragic death. These stories briefly interconnect and overlap, drawing you into their lives and inner conflicts. Without any overt scenes of violence, Firaaq convincingly draws the picture of a society torn apart by the horror of communal violence and hatred.
The performances by the lead actors are good, but the stand-out performance is that by Deepti Naval, who is torn by guilt over having failed to save people who came to her for succour during the riots, and whose husband has been an active participant in the looting. She befriends Mohsin, hoping for expiation of her guilt, but he runs away when Paresh Raval beats her for having questioned his friend over his participation in gang rapes during the riots. In a final act of defiance, she defies convention and walks out of her house.
Firaaq is by no means an easy film to watch, but it must be seen to understand what the horrors of communalism do to each of us, including those who only observe. As Nandita Das told the audience at IFFI, the two meanings of Firaaq (separation and quest) are both appropriate, as what her film is in a sense a quest to find a way to bridge the separations between human that have engulfed our society.

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Herald 2day, 28 Nov 2009
The futility of war
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
One of the most fascinating special sections at IFFI 2009 is the special section on ‘War and Peace’ consisting of six films: No Man’s Land (Danis Tanovic), Capitaine Conan (Bertrand Tavernier), Haqeeqat (Chetan Anand), Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Gobhadi), Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg) and The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin). While Schindler’s List and Great Dictator, and of course Haqeeqat, will have been seen by many in India, the other three films come as a particular treat for audiences at IFFI.
Most of these films showcase the futility of war and the way it dehumanizes combatants and civilians alike. The Great Dictator focuses on the megalomaniac dictator (based on Hitler, and played by Charlie Chaplin) who wants to rule the world, while Schindler’s List deals with the plight of Jews during the Holocaust and the efforts by German Oskar Schindler to save at least some of them by turning his factory into a refuge for Jews.
Capitaine Conan is set in the First World War and its aftermath. While often seen as anti-war film, it defies such easy categorization. Turtles Can Fly deals with the American invasion of Iraq as seen from the Kurdish side, and while having a moving story line, has attracted much criticism for going soft on the American invasion of Iraq – understandable when one is telling the story from the Kurdish point of view. Haqeeqat, unfortunately, does not fit very well into this section. Produced immediately after the 1962 war, it takes a strongly nationalist and even jingoistic line.
But the standout film of this section is clearly No Man’s Land, familiar to us in India as the film which beat Lagaan to Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2001. Set within the span of a few hours in a trench in no man’s land during the Serb-Bosnian conflict, it focuses on two soldiers from either camp, Chiki and Nino, trapped together in the trench, unsure whether to cooperate with each other or treat each other as enemies. They cooperate reluctantly, and even find some common ground, but war has riven an unbridgeable chasm between them. Complicating the situation is another wounded soldier, Cera, who has had a land mine placed under him as a booby trap and cannot move lest he set it off.
The film highlights the horror of the situation not by drawing a stark picture but by taking the line of black comedy. The ridiculous aspects of the situation and the laughter that it evokes from the viewer only serve to hammer home the point of how war dehumanizes and brutalizes us all. The film spares neither the combatants nor the UN peacekeepers, and also casts a scathing eye on the media, for whom war is only one more commodity and which measures human misery in TRPs.

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Herald 2day, 30 Nov 2009
Gabhricha Paus – A farmer’s anguish
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
The lot of the farmer has always been a hard one, with tremendous toil having to be put in for very poor return. Dependent on the vagaries of the weather, agriculture has historically been a neglected sector, with unremunerative prices and high cost of inputs, and little government support, as we have seen in Goa too. The situation has been exacerbated in recent years by the forces of economic globalization, which have led to increased farmer indebtedness. Farmer suicides have become commonplace, with areas like Andhra Pradesh and Vidarbha in Maharashtra particularly badly affected. But this problem does not come into public consciousness much, as our urban celebrity-obsessed media is just not bothered about such issues.
‘Gabhricha Paus’ (The Damned Rain), a searing film by debutant director Satish Manwar which is being screened in the competition section of IFFI 2009, takes an unflinching look at the whole issue. Revolving around the issues of rain, debt and death, the film begins with the suicide of a poor farmer. The family of Kisna (Girish Kulkarni), another farmer, is worried that Kisna will take the same way out, and mounts a close watch over him. Kisna’s wife Alka (Sonali Kulkarni) wife deputes his aged mother and six-year-old son Dinu (Aman Attar) to be with him all the time. Kisna struggles hard to manage, but the rain plays truant again, finally turning over-generous and ruining the crop. Kisna tries to rebuild his life, but events move onwards to their inevitable conclusion, the fate of thousands of farmers all over India.
Speaking to Herald 2day, director Satish Manwar, who himself hails from Yavatmal district in Maharashtra says, “This issue has always been on his mind, and I wanted to express my pain and anger. We had a lot of difficulty with finance and it took me four years to make the film, but it was well worth it. The film has been to more than 20 film festivals all over the world.”
But what has been the response of mainstream audiences? “Frankly, a little disappointing,” shrugs Manwar, “it ran fairly well in Mumbai and Pune, but elsewhere it didn’t attract many viewers, not even in Vidarbha. But I am glad that I succeeded in making a point, and the film has attracted tremendous critical acclaim, bringing the issue of farmer suicides to the forefront.”
What about Manwar’s next project? “I am working on a script on the subject of conversions to Christianity in tribal areas. Yes, that is a sensitive, controversial topic, but I am not exploiting the subject for its controversial nature. The point I want to make is that we are now past the days of nature worship, and people have started following one established religion or another. But religion is merely a distraction from pressing socio-economic and lifestyle issues, and my film will be in a sense an anti-religion film.”
‘Gabhricha Paus’ is a good film, on an important social issue. The direction is understated, and the performances are good, with Girish Kulkarni as Kisna being outstanding. Sonali Kulkarni puts in a brave effort, but she is miscast and does not make for an entirely convincing Alka. The cinematography is one of the strongest points of the film, and the images remain in your mind. The film is in the competition section of IFFI 2009, which is a little surprising, because it is not quite up to that standard. But IFFI moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform, and ‘Gabhricha Paus’ is certainly a more deserving candidate for honours than the other Indian film in competition – the undistinguished ‘Angshumaner Chhobi’. Here’s wishing Satish Manwar luck in the competition and in his future projects.

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Herald 2day, 1 Dec 2009
As British as chicken tikka!
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
Currently in Goa to attend the retrospective of her films being shown at IFFI 2009, Gurinder Chadha is one of the most respected directors in British cinema. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, the family moved to the UK when she was just two years old. Naturally enough, she has a very British sensibility – with a distinct Indian flavour! This works well in the multicultural mosaic of British society – after all, it’s not for nothing that chicken tikka is called Britain’s national dish. Gurinder Chadha, though herself a Punjabi like chicken tikka, may soon be abandoning this dish in favour of Goan prawn curry, which she claims to have fallen in love with, and even learnt how to cook!
The Gurinder Chadha retrospective at IFFI showcases all her important films, led, of course, by ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ (2002), which is the highest grossing British-financed, British-distributed film ever at the UK box office, a remarkable achievement considering that the protagonist of the film is a British-Indian girl Jess (short for Jaswinder), who pursues her dream of becoming a soccer sensation. Parminder Nagra excels in the role of a young woman who defies the conventions of her family and pursues her talent to its logical end along with her friend Jules, played by Keira Knightley, whose first major success this was. Knightley, of course, went on to become one of the most popular actresses in cinema today, starring in box office smashes like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean series’.
‘Bhaji on the Beach’ (1992) was the film which first brought Gurinder Chadha into the spotlight. Written by Meera Syal, the film is about a day trip to Blackpool by a group of women from the Asian Women’s Centre. A harmless outing, a bit of fun – but as events unfold, a variety of problems become apparent, including domestic violence and a teenage unwed pregnancy. The characters have to confront their prejudices and work out solutions, and by the end of the day a good deal more has been illuminated than a seaside romp.
While ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ and ‘Bhaji on the Beach’ deal with British-Indian themes, Chadha’s ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) is a breezy teen comedy, with just one British-Indian character in a supporting role. Based on the best-selling series of books by Louise Rennison, the film takes a light-hearted look at the life of the eccentric and irresistible teenager Georgia Nicholson (Georgia Groome) and her two major goals – to get a gorgeous sex-god as her boyfriend and to throw the greatest 15th birthday party ever.
‘What’s Cooking?’ (2001) is set in multicultural Los Angeles and tracks four households – the Nguyens, the Avilas, the Williams and the Seeligs. As they each celebrate Thanksgiving, matters within each household come to a head, forcing them to confront the issues which they have been trying to sweep under the carpet. The experimental ‘Paris Je T’Aime’ (2006) – set, obviously, in Paris – is composed of 20 five-minute narratives which the audience must weave together.
Finally, there are the two Aishwarya Rai starrers, ‘Mistress of Spices’ (2005) and ‘Bride and Prejudice’. The former, based on Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s eponymous novel, is only scripted by Gurinder Chadha. In ‘Bride and Prejudice’, Jane Austen is subjected to the Bollywood treatment – and ends a wreck! Aishwarya Rai, despite her ethereal beauty, is a wooden actress and has proved to be the kiss of death to many talented film-makers, and she makes a mess of both these movies as well. The fusion of East and West doesn’t come off in either, and what you get is a patchy pastiche, pandering a little too obviously to commercial considerations and trying too desperately to leverage Aishwarya Rai’s box office status. Better avoided by the wise.
Let’s hope that Gurinder Chadha’s newfound love for Goa extends to making a film on Goa or with a British-Goan theme. It will be one more feather in her rich multicultural cap, and it will be interesting to see how she converts Goan prawn curry, vindaloo and khatkhatem into British dishes.
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Miracle Workers of Malegaon
By Vidyadhar Gadgil
Malegaon is associated in the public mind with the weaving industry, communal violence and bomb blasts rather than with the film industry. But that is changing, with the products of Malegaon’s fledgling film industry like ‘Malegaon ka Superman’ and ‘Gabbarbhai MBBS’ being screened at IFFI 2009 to rapturous applause. Also screened and highly appreciated was the documentary ‘Superman of Malegaon’ – on the evolution of the Malegaon film industry – by debutante director Faiza Ahmed Khan, which had earlier been a big draw at the Osians-Cinefan Film Festival 2009, and bagged the Audience Prize at the Prague Film Festival.
Bollywood is a passion in Malegaon, serving as an escape from the harsh reality of poverty and the recurrent communal tension. Rising above all this, and making spoof of Bollywood films are ordinary people from Malegaon, led by the young Shaikh Nasir, whose family runs a readymade garments business. And Faiza’s film tells us how this ragtag bunch has performed a miracle of sorts.
Faiza explains how she came to make the film. “I had always heard of Malegaon in the context of bomb blasts or communal violence. When I heard about the hour-long feature films being made in Malegaon, with very limited resources, I decided to visit Malegaon and see things for myself. Once I met the people behind these films, I was overwhelmed by their passion and I just had to make a film on them. They specialize in spoofs of Bollywood films, but when they told me they were planning a spoof of a Hollywood product like ‘Superman’, this was a story I just had to tell. I was fortunate that the ideal theme for my first film, one I fell in love with, came my way in this fashion.”
Faiza has taken on a tricky film-within-a-film format and executed it with panache. Thus her film follows the crew as they shoot ‘Malegaon ka Superman’. It is fascinating to see how they use the most basic, everyday equipment and props to execute their stunts. And the whole package works! As Nasir Shaikh explains, they give a comic twist to the original scene, and certain neat touches – Superman not being able to perform his rescues on certain days because he suffers from asthma – add a liberal dose of satire. And ‘Supermen of Malegaon’ too succeeds in gripping and entertaining as it tracks all this. Faiza agrees, “We had people who would run away at the thought of viewing a documentary enjoying my film tremendously.”
Faiza reminisces, “What prompted me to make this film was the courage of these people. Prima facie, they have nothing going for them. Poverty, industrial sickness, communal tension – you name the problem, and Malegaon has it. But instead of letting adversity triumph over their spirit, they have risen about it all, and succeeded in making films that have drawn international attention. And then I also wanted to help bring the story of the Muslims of Malegaon to wider attention. In this communally divided town, there is lack of knowledge and hence mistrust. This is a humble attempt to bridge that gap.”
One comment made by Faiza sticks in one’s mind: “It is difficult to understand the magnitude of what these humble folk have accomplished.” And this brings to mind another fascinating film that was shown at IFFI 2009, and became a popular favourite: ‘Harischandrachi Factory’. In this film on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke and how he dared to chase his dream despite all the odds and laid the foundations of India’s film industry (the biggest in the world today), there are echoes of what the Malegaon supermen of Faiza’s film are doing today. Told in an engaging, light-hearted style, ‘Harischandrachi Factory’ shows the visionary Phalke and family risking their all to achieve what everybody says is impossible – make films in India. ‘Supermen of Malegaon’ shows the Phalkes of today doing something similar, facing somewhat different but no less daunting problems.

Going Soft On Terrorism

Herald, 30 Nov 2009

That the Chief Minister isn’t taking firm action against the Sanatan Sanstha is an ominous sign, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

It is now a month and a half since the bomb blast in Margao on Diwali eve, which killed two Sanatan Sanstha activists who were allegedly carrying a bomb in their scooter. One would have expected that after this incident at least there would have been appropriate action against the Sanstha, which has long been linked to hate speech, communal propaganda and terrorist violence. But that has hardly happened.
Immediately after the incident, there was a knee-jerk reaction of sorts, with Home Minister Ravi Naik making statements about “strong action” needing to be taken against the Sanstha. But his target was clearly his bete noire Transport Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, who has close links with the Sanstha, rather than the organisation itself.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up and the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) came in to assist in the investigations. The investigations have been making slow but steady headway, and a number of activists of the Sanstha have been arrested for being involved in the bomb plot. Recent reports in Herald reveal that the police have unearthed a well-planned conspiracy, where trial runs of the bombs were carried out at the Talaulim-Ponda hillock and SIM cards had been obtained on the basis of bogus election photo identity cards (EPIC). It is to be hoped that these investigations will be carried to their logical conclusion and all those involved in the bomb plot will be brought to book.
So far, so good – but what of the Sanstha itself?
After the bomb incidents, the Sanstha launched a disinformation campaign, in an attempt to wash its hands off the whole incident. The line was initially that its activists had been framed and that the activists who died in the bomb blast were actually the victims of a bomb planted in their scooter by others.
Since such an obvious cover-up carries little conviction, the Sanstha simultaneously took the line that these activists were ‘misguided’ persons who had taken the wrong path. The same argument had been made by the Sanstha when some of its activists were arrested for violence against Christians in Ratnagiri and after the Gadkari Rangayatan bomb blasts in Thane.
As noted rationalist Dr Narendra Dabholkar asked in a public meeting in Panjim, how is it that the Sanstha’s activists so often take the same kind of ‘wrong path’ – and more pertinently, how is it that this unconvincing argument is accepted at face value and the Sanstha gets away without any action being taken against it as an institution? It also defies belief that a few rogue activists of the Sanatan Sanstha, a tight-knit, secretive organisation, independently carried out the blasts without the knowledge or involvement of any of the senior persons in the organisation.
It is not as if there were not enough indications, even before the incidents in Thane and Goa, that the Sanstha’s propaganda was of the type that justified violence in the ‘defence of religion’. Much has been written about the nature of the literature that the Sanstha produces and distributes, the kind of hate speech and communal propaganda that takes place in its Dharma Jagruti Sabhas, and the ‘defence training’ that it provides to selected cadre.
And then we had the logical culmination of all this in the blasts in Thane and Goa. Despite all this, the state governments, both in Maharashtra and Goa, continue to take a soft stance towards the Sanstha. The Maharashtra government has long been delaying banning the Sanstha, and a recommendation last year by then ATS chief Hemant Karkare to ban the organisation was rejected.
In Goa, there have been repeated demands to ban the Sanstha, the most recent one coming from the Congress Legislature Party (CLP). Yet nothing has been done. Masterly inaction is the USP of Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and his government in Goa. A ban may not necessarily be the best way to tackle the problem, but the soft attitude displayed by the government defies understanding.
The BJP has, of course, been trying to soft-pedal the issue, given that it is a direct electoral beneficiary of the kind of propaganda carried out by the Sanatan Sanstha and its offshoots like the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti.
Manohar Parrikar made distinctly double-faced statements immediately after the bomb blasts, demanding foolproof evidence of the involvement of the Sanstha in the Margao bomb blasts – this coming from a man who, without any evidence whatsoever, blamed SIMI for the temple desecrations in Goa. Other BJP politicians, like BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Parsekar, have been making similar statements and trying to defuse the whole issue.
And then we have the Congress. While the CLP has demanded a ban, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat still takes a soft stance, despite the fact that had the plot succeeded, it would have set off a huge communal conflagration in his constituency of Margao, given that the intention of the Sanstha’s activists was clearly to direct suspicion towards the Muslim community.
Does Digambar Kamat have sympathies for the Sanatan Sanstha? His actions (and lack of them) seem to suggest that. He had had no qualms about tacitly supporting the rabidly communal and provocative exhibition of photographs of Kashmir by Francois Gautier, organised by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. The Sanstha and its offshoots have only had to say “boo” for him to get terrified and bow to their unreasonable demands, whether it is to order an M F Husain film to be withdrawn from IFFI 2008 or to curtail the exhibition of Ganesha paintings by Subodh Kerkar from 11 days to 2 days!
Apart from the indecisiveness and saffron-friendliness of our Chief Minister, the Congress has always taken a soft stance towards Hindutva, under the misguided impression that stern action may alienate the Hindu community. While firm action may sometimes lead to temporary electoral damage, in the long term it can only strengthen the secular base of Indian politics, on which the Congress depends to survive. Allowing politics to become communalised is bound to hurt the party very badly in the long run.
The situation in the Congress is complicated by the fact that it has always been a hold-all party, and has always accommodated communal elements within its fold. This was seen in the 2007 elections, when it admitted hardcore RSS activist Mohan Amshekar into its fold. Digambar Kamat himself has an RSS background, and joined the Congress after defecting from the BJP, having been the Deputy Chief Minister in the Manohar Parrikar government. Is that why he is going soft on the communal forces? If not, what is the explanation?
Going soft on religious extremism is not a problem limited to Goa. In Maharashtra too, the Congress has shown little inclination to come down hard on Abhinav Bharat, the Bajrang Dal, the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, all of which have been implicated in setting off bombs in the state. Of all holy cows, religion is the holiest.
But if Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and his cabinet colleagues do not realise the danger in not taking action against the Sanatan Sanstha, someone in the Congress High Command should understand that their state governments are sending out the wrong signals; and strengthening the ground for communal forces that have terrorists in their ranks.

Religion, Culture and Patriotism

Herald, 16 November 2009

Respect for our pluralist traditions means that we not impose religious views or patriotic symbols upon others, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

The song ‘Vande Mataram’ (‘Bow to Mother’) has tremendous historical and emotional significance in India on account of its association with the Indian freedom struggle. It was used very successfully for political mobilisation against the British, and gradually came to acquire the status of the national song. According to historian R C Majumdar, “During the long and arduous struggle for freedom from 1905 to 1947 ‘Bande Mataram’ was the rallying cry of the patriotic sons of India, and thousands of them succumbed to the lathi blow of the British police or mounted the scaffold with ‘Bande Mataram’ on their lips.”
Yet, the song has had a troubled history in India, with objections having been raised over the years by Muslims, and occasionally by other minorities, to singing this song. The objections to the song from Muslims and others were mainly over the last two stanzas that had clear references to Goddess Durga. These objections were deemed valid and the stanzas removed, with the official version containing only the first two stanzas. Despite this, every once in a while there has been an objection to the song over the words ‘Vande Mataram’, on the grounds that Muslims bow to none but the Almighty.
Vande Mataram was reputedly composed in 1876, but first appeared in print in 1882 in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath. It was essentially a nationalist hymn and was written partly as a response to the British making it mandatory to sing ‘God Save the Queen’. But it also had strong anti-Muslim associations. Nirad C Chaudhari described the atmosphere of the times: “The historical romances of Bankim Chatterjee … glorified Hindu rebellion against Muslim rule and showed the Muslims in a correspondingly poor light.”
Rabindranath Tagore, who sang the song at the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress, described it as “the magic words which will open the door of his iron safe”. But admirer of the song though he was, Tagore had strong reservations, as he did not consider the song to be one which could unite all the communities of India: “The novel Anandamath is a work of literature, and so the song is appropriate in it. But Parliament is a place of union for all religious groups, and there the song cannot be appropriate.”
It was for this reason that Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was given the status of India’s national anthem. But given that ‘Vande Mataram’ had a vital role to play in the freedom struggle, it was given the status of ‘national song’, and ‘equal status’ with the national anthem. This compromise by and large satisfied everybody, though demands for the singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ to be made compulsory were repeatedly raised by Hindu right-wing organisations, to be opposed as vehemently by Muslim right-wing organisations.
This status quo with the song has essentially lasted since Independence. It has been accorded ‘equal’ status with Jana Gana Mana, but there are hardly any occasions when the average Indian would be required to sing it. This was the compromise favoured by Mahatma Gandhi: respect but no imposition or compulsion. The Sangh Parivar, though, has been vociferous in its demands that Vande Mataram be made obligatory, as seen in its slogan, “Desh mein rehna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga”. This has had its effect, as seen in 1999 when the Uttar Pradesh government tried to make the singing of the song obligatory. Later, in 2006, Arjun Singh, HRD minister in the UPA government, fished in troubled waters when he recommended that that the song be obligatorily sung in all schools on its centenary.
It is in this context that we need to understand the resolution passed by the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind asking Muslims not to sing ‘Vande Mataram’. As happens every few years, this has resurrected the controversy once again and battle lines have been drawn, on communal lines. But what is the problem, if there is no proposal for making it compulsory to sing the song? What is the Jamiat hoping to achieve by raking up this dead issue at this time?
The controversy has split the Muslim community itself down the middle. While the Jamiat justifies its stance, people like Maulana Arshad Madani, head of a rival Jamiat faction, claim that this resolution is a conspiracy to create communal tension. Asghar Ali Engineer, a well-known secular activist, says that there is no reason to object to it: “Vande Mataram means ‘I pay my respects to the motherland’. Even if you translate it as ‘I bow to my motherland’, what objection can there be to doing so?’’
Engineer focuses on the attempts to make the song compulsory when he says, “Under compulsion, I won’t sing it to prove my patriotism … and if ordered not to by any fatwa, I will sing it to assert my freedom of choice.’’ In fact, this question of choice is at the crux of the matter. In 1985, hearing an appeal filed by a parent of children expelled from a Kerala school for refusing to sing ‘Jana Gana Mana’, the Supreme Court directed that the children be re-admitted in the school, stating “Our tradition teaches tolerance, our philosophy teaches tolerance, our Constitution practices tolerance, let us not dilute it.” Jyoti Punwani mentions in a recent article that Justice Shrikrishna pointed out during the hearings of the Shrikrishna Commission that laying down conditions of residence on any citizen, let alone a community, by another group was not just communal but also fascist.
All the cases relating to this ‘obligation’ to sing Vande Mataram (and even the above-mentioned ‘Jana Gana Mana’ case) relate to children in schools. While adults can easily avoid singing ‘Vande Mataram’, children, in the coercive atmosphere of our schools, have little such choice if the authorities so dictate. The Sangh Parivar has always given importance to capturing young minds, and hence the attempts by BJP governments to enforce the singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ in schools.
Nor are they the only offenders in the matter of such imposition. In Goa, in schools coming under the Diocesean Board of Education, particularly in rural areas, children are sometimes required to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Schools arrange functions at which a mass is said by a priest, and all children, irrespective of religion, are required to attend. While some may argue that this is not made ‘compulsory’, no consent of the guardians is ever sought. This, like making it obligatory to sing ‘Vande Mataram’, violates Article 28 (1) and (3) of the Constitution: ‘(1) No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds’ and ‘(3) No person attending any educational institution recognised by the State or receiving aid out of State funds shall be required to take part in any religious instruction…’
In a multi-religious, pluralistic society like India, we need to be particularly sensitive to this kind of imposition of religious beliefs or patriotic symbols, especially so in schools, where children are in no position to resist. Respect for pluralism means respect for people’s cultural sensitivities – one should not mock this concept by imposing particular religious practices or symbols, or by defining patriotism in narrow cultural terms.

Ishq Vishq Pyaar Vyaar – Or Holy War?

Herald, 30 October 2009

When it comes to love and sex, communal politics acquires a particularly vicious and misogynistic edge, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

Love conquers all – or so Bollywood would have us believe. Bollywood is adept at resolving complex social issues through simplistic solutions, deploying the alleged power of love to break social barriers. Class contradictions are resolved in one stroke in film after film when the poor boy marries the rich girl, or vice-versa. Not satisfied with solving the problem of class conflict through these means, Bollywood scriptwriters have been busy tackling issues like regionalism and, occasionally, caste, with the tried and trusted deus ex machina of love. The romantic couple may not always live happily ever after, but love itself does triumph, with its chastened opponents realising the folly of their ways as they sombrely contemplate the corpses of the lovers in the closing scene.
But even Bollywood is chary of storming certain bastions with the battering ram of love, and there are hardly any films which portray cross-religion love. Probably the only mainstream film of recent times which did this was Mani Ratnam’s ‘Bombay’, though even here one wonders whether the film-maker would have dared to do a gender switch, with a Muslim hero and a Hindu heroine. Of course, Bollywood does recognise that there is a problem here, but the means to bridge the religious divide are scenes with Amar, Akbar and Anthony lying side by side donating blood, with images of a temple, mosque and church floating in the background. Rather tamely, if wisely, Amar, Akbar and Anthony all romance and marry heroines from their own religions, leaving this final Laxman Rekha intact.
By recognising this boundary for love, Bollywood is only reflecting the prejudices of the society that consumes its products. A cursory glance at the newspapers will show case after case where there is strong opposition, often escalating into violence, to marriage across religious barriers. Honour killings of women who have violated this norm are reported all too frequently. During the Gujarat communal violence of 2002, cross-community couples were especial targets. Recently, from Kashmir there were reports about protests over cross-community marriages. With all Kashmir’s problems between its religious communities, Sikh community leader Jagmohan Singh Raina zeroes in on this issue as the one that has “adversely affected the long-cherished brotherhood between the Valley’s communities,” a sentiment echoed by his counterparts on the other side of the religious divide.
What are the factors behind this kind of antediluvian prejudice? One common explanation is the feudal nature of Indian society, which puts notions of family and community purity above all else, and punishes transgressors viciously. But this is at best a partial explanation. What about Rizwanur Rehman and Priyanka Todi, a couple that lived in the midst of a capitalist society in Kolkata, in a state run by a party that flaunts its secular credentials? If Rizwanur Rehman had been a poor Hindu computer engineer, his super-rich prospective father-in-law may not have been particularly thrilled, but it is unlikely that Rizwanur would have ended up dead.
The prejudice on this issue is essentially rooted in the fact that women are treated in Indian society as chattels – of their parents and families first, then of their husbands, and ultimately of the community. When a woman marries outside her religious community, she is viewed as property that has been expropriated by a competing group, and the inevitable backlash follows. When a man marries outside his community, this may not meet with approval, but there is tacit support because he is at one level seen as a conquering hero, who has dared to grab property belonging to rivals. It is the woman who is killed by members of her own community; the man may have to face the wrath of the woman’s community, but his own will protect him.
Communal battles have long been fought over the bodies of women, as we see in episode after episode of communal violence. The communal violence of Partition, when thousands of women on both sides of the border were abducted and subjected to sexual violence, was a stark reminder of the status of women as property, chillingly documented in the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto.
The latest case of this kind of thinking is probably the most ludicrous, but also particularly worrisome, because it combines deep-rooted intolerance with politically organised communalism, resulting in a potent mix in which even the weirdest claims acquire a reality of their own. In February 2009, a Malayalam daily, Kerala Kaumudi, carried a report claiming the existence of a jihadi organisation which uses young Muslim men to get Hindu girls to fall in love with them and convince them to convert to Islam. The report did not excite much interest, except among fundamentalist organisations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal, which launched a shrill campaign against the ‘love jihad’ (alternatively described as ‘Romeo Jihad’). The campaign was particularly vociferous in Kerala and Karnataka.
One could be forgiven for dismissing the whole brouhaha as an interesting example of the sociopathology of the sexual insecurities of Indian males, and its linkages with the sexual politics of religious fundamentalism – a theme that has been explored in Anand Patwardhan’s film ‘In the Name of God’. But in September 2009, the situation acquired a surreal aspect, when the Indian judicial system got involved. On 30 November, the Kerala High Court directed the Kerala Police and Union Home Ministry to probe the alleged ‘love jihad’. This was in response to the claims by the families of a Hindu and a Christian woman, who married their Muslim classmates in a Pathanamthitta college and converted to Islam. On 22 October the Kerala DGP submitted a report to the court which stated that there was no evidence for any organisation called ‘love jihad’ functioning in Kerala so far. But the High Court termed the report as “contradictory” and has now asked for submissions from each of the state’s 14 district police superintendents on the matter!
In this theatre of the absurd, the latest players are the judges of the Karnataka High Court. On 21 October, during hearing of a habeas corpus petition by C Selvaraj – who claimed that his daughter Siljaraj had eloped with a Muslim youth to Kerala – the judges ordered that the CID conduct a probe into ‘love jihad’. Siljaraj, who was produced before the court by police, told the judges that she had married Aksar of Kannur in Kerala of her own free will, and was undergoing religious training after getting converted to Islam.
But the free will of an adult woman appears to be of less importance, the Constitution of India notwithstanding, than bogeys about holy wars being waged using the weapon of love. The judges directed her to stay with her parents till the police complete the investigations. Magnanimously, the court also said that since she was an adult, if it was found to be a ‘bonafide’ love marriage, she could go back to Aksar. One wonders if the police will now be devising and conducting tests for the genuineness of love.
The whole ‘love jihad’ episode shows once again how the first victims of communalism are women. It also demonstrates the extent to which communal mindsets have infiltrated the system, with alleged fundamentalist conspiracies, however bizarre, being given more value than the Constitutional rights of an adult woman. This is clearly a divide which even an accomplished matchmaker like Bollywood is going to find tough to bridge.

‘Common-Sense’ Prejudice

Herald, 16 Oct 2009

Prejudice and discrimination against the Muslim community has alarmingly become part of ‘common sense’, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

THE BIGGER PICTURE

At a national meet in Delhi, in early October, on the theme ‘What it Means to be a Muslim in India Today’, participants from across the country shared their experiences. There were individuals who had faced the worst kind of police brutalities, like the journalist Iftikhar Gilani, who told the audience about being locked up and tortured for over 8 months on a charge totally without substance. He was subsequently released only after a concerted campaign by the media and after the Directorate General of Military Intelligence testified that the ‘secret’ document Gilani was accused of possessing was in fact freely available on the internet.
The family of Ishrat Jahan, killed by the police in Gujarat as an alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist – it has been subsequently revealed by a magisterial enquiry report that the charge was fabricated and Ishrat and three others were murdered in cold blood by the police – narrated their harrowing experiences. Muslims from other states, ruled by both Congress and BJP governments, spoke about how they had been arrested, tortured, and locked up for years, often without any chargesheet being filed. As the preliminary report of the meet revealed, “The pervasive sense of insecurity … derives from the prejudice, illegality and impunity with which police forces across the country deal with the challenges of terror. This is a regular pattern that occurs after every terror attack, and sometimes even when there have been no actual terror episodes but the state authorities claim that there was a conspiracy which they detected and prevented. Testimonies from many states in the country outline this chilling pattern of Muslims, mostly male youth, usually with no criminal records, being illegally picked up by men in plain clothes, and taken blind-folded in unmarked vehicles to illegal locations like farm houses which are not police stations.”
Horrifying as these tales were, equally disturbing were the tales of continuous, ongoing prejudice that Muslims in India have to face at every turn. There was an almost universal sentiment of fear and despair, with many speakers saying that Muslims have in effect been reduced to second-class citizens. It is not only the police and judiciary that are communalised and biased against Muslims – the problem has seeped into all institutions of governance, political parties and the media. Worse, the negative perception about Muslims has crept into the public psyche, and it has become ‘common sense’ to see Muslims as violent, fanatical and anti-national.
Recently, a schoolteacher friend of mine narrated something that happened in her class. A 10-year-old girl came to her crying and complained that a boy, Momin, had pulled her hair. The teacher consoled her, and then the girl said, “These Pakistanis are all like that.” Horrified, the teacher asked her where she had got the idea that Momin, whom she had known well for the past 5 years, was a Pakistani. The girl admitted that he was not, and also agreed that Momin was a good friend of hers, not given to violent behaviour.
This little tale serves to show how deeply prejudice has become entrenched in our minds. Where does a 10-year-old pick up such information, quite contrary to her own experiences? How does she label a boy whom she has known throughout her schooldays as a ‘Pakistani’? Where does the image of Muslims as ‘violent’ come from? The simple answer is that these perceptions are all around us, part of the very air we breathe, and communal forces are systematically engaged in adding fuel to this fire. It is now commonplace – and common sense – to say “All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims,” despite all the evidence to the contrary, including the recent cases of involvement of Hindutva elements in terrorist conspiracies.
As the Sachar Committee Report revealed, the all-pervading prejudice against Muslims has pushed an already deprived community further behind in the struggle for socio-economic advancement. The Report states that Indian Muslims “carry the double burden of being labelled as ‘anti-national’ and as being ‘appeased’ at the same time. While Muslims need to prove on a daily basis that they are not ‘anti-national’ and ‘terrorists’ it is not recognised that the alleged ‘appeasement’ has not resulted in the desired level of socio-economic development”. It is difficult for Muslims to get houses on rent, and many housing societies refuse to let existing owners sell their houses to Muslims. Admissions to schools and institutions of higher education are a problem. A study by Sukhadeo Thorat and Paul Attewell also revealed a clear pattern of discrimination against Muslims (and lower-caste applicants) when it came to hiring people for jobs in the private sector.
After the defeat of the BJP in the general elections earlier this year, many people made the mistake of thinking that communal forces had been defeated. Granted, they did receive a setback in the elections, but it is often forgotten that the BJP is only the tip of the Hindutva iceberg. While the BJP operates publicly in the electoral sphere, there is a whole plethora of organisations of the Sangh Parivar that is quietly engaged in spreading communal propaganda. The Ekal Vidyalayas, the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishads, Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and a variety of Samitis and Sansthas continue to operate in the cultural sphere, spreading their message of hate and prejudice and influencing young minds. With the success of this strategy, it has become relatively irrelevant which political formation comes to power, because of the overall saffronisation of society and government, to a greater or lesser extent. That is why, despite their being a so-called secular government in power in some states, there is no real improvement in the situation. We have seen how the Maharashtra government has steadfastly avoided taking any action whatsoever on the Shrikrishna Commission Report. In Goa, the coalition government led by the Congress rushes to obey the lightest whim of groups like the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. Despite Mayawati’s BSP having come to power in Uttar Pradesh, there is very little improvement in the situation.
The problem goes beyond the victimhood of a particular community, and poses a grave challenge to our Constitutional order, which guarantees equality to all citizens, irrespective of caste, creed, community or gender. If the Constitutional order is perceived to have failed, citizens are compelled to seek other solutions, something that does not bode well for the future.
One already sees such a pattern beginning to emerge within the Muslim community. Pushed to the wall through discrimination and forced into ghettoisation, Muslims are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the system and with secular political formations. This leads them to flock to Muslim organisations and parties organised around the politics of identity. In a process that feeds on itself, this gives further fodder to the propaganda of Hindutva communal forces, and so on and so forth in a seemingly endless cycle. It is vital that this cycle be broken, and the only way to do that is to ensure that all citizens of this country get equal treatment.

Migration Redux

Herald, 2 Oct 2009
VIDYADHAR GADGIL deplores the xenophobic turn that the debate on migrants has taken in Goa during the past few years
THE BIGGER PICTURE
With the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance having proposed a permit system to control migration into major cities in Maharashtra, the issue of migration, always one of the most contentious issues in public discourse, has once again occupied centre stage. On one side is the hoary ‘sons of the soil’ argument and on the other is the equally venerable one about the Constitution protecting the right of citizens to move freely within the borders of the country. If the issue is hot in Maharashtra, it has been even more controversial in Goa for many years now, and occupies large sections of the opinions columns and the letters to the editor sections of Goan newspapers. Amidst the emotionalism surrounding the issue, is it possible to devise a rational approach?
In a statement a few months ago, Dhirendra Singh, the former Union Home Secretary and member of the Commission on State-Centre Relations, New Delhi, claimed that while “there has been migration from the places like Bihar or other eastern non-developed states towards Delhi, Mumbai, Punjab and Goa,” this was not unmanageable, and that migration, “which occurs due to lack of development in certain parts of the country, can be tackled constitutionally and administratively.”
While unexceptionable in itself, the statement added fuel to the ongoing debate about the “migrant influx” into Goa . Various figures are bandied about regarding the level of in-migration into Goa, with estimates of the “outsider” population varying between 20 and 50 per cent of the total, depending on who is making the estimate. Similarly, there are wildly varying estimates about the size of the Goan diaspora. Probably the most reliable figure we have on this is from the National Family Health Survey, which puts the proportion of migrants from other states in Goa at a fifth of the population in 2001. Assuming an increase of about 5 per cent, this would bring the proportion of migrants to one-fourth of the total population, a large figure by any standards.
Migration is as old as the history of human beings on this planet. It is now widely accepted that humanity originated in Africa and spread from there across the world. Genetic research has now made it possible to trace the patterns of migration fairly accurately, and for more recent migrations, history is a guide. In a recent series of articles in Herald, Valmiki Faleiro has documented the successive waves of migration into Goa, and shown how various groups intermingled to create the Goan population that we have today.
Coming to more recent history, the problem in Goa during the first half of the twentieth century was one of out-migration rather than in-migration. With the lack of development and economic opportunities under the Salazar regime, Goans were forced to look elsewhere for means of livelihood. Emigrants from the Hindu community moved to British India, while Catholics sought better opportunities both there as well as around the world, particularly in Portuguese and British colonies in Africa.
Post-Liberation, the out-migration has continued, with the West becoming an increasingly attractive destination in the eyes of the middle classes, both Hindu and Catholic. On the reverse side, there has been a steady influx of people from other parts of India into Goa for economic opportunities – the same lure that has driven Goans to out-migrate. Middle-class individuals arrived in pursuit of jobs, both in the government and the private sector, or business opportunities. There was also a steady supply of seasonal labour from the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.
It is in the past ten years or so that in-migration has increased substantially. The labour from Maharashtra and Karnataka (the so-called ghantis) has continued to come in, but the supply has largely been seasonal, with the workers returning to their homes in the off-season. With the real estate boom and industrialisation, the requirements for labour have increased, and this has been made up by a steady supply from the North and East Indian states, mainly Bihar and Orissa. While only a small proportion of these labourers settle in Goa on a permanent basis, given Goa’s small size, it makes an appreciable difference, particularly in urban areas.
Also, Goa has now become a desirable destination for the upper classes from the metropolises. Many have brought second homes which are used as vacation getaways. Having a house in Goa is a status symbol of sorts, with every two-bit celebrity in Bollywood flaunting her ‘dream home’ in Goa or broadcasting his desire to acquire one.
Combined with ill-conceived development policies, this has placed tremendous pressure on Goa’s resources, particularly land. There has been a growing clamour demanding special status for Goa, mainly in order to protect its land. The two issues that most commonly crop up in public discourse nowadays are ‘Goan identity’, and, in the same breath, ‘migrant influx’.
Unfortunately, few participants in the debate approach the issue from a rational, humanitarian perspective. Migrant bashing is the flavour of the day, and has become perfectly acceptable in mainstream Goan society. The newspapers are full of anti-migrant tirades, with migrants being held primarily responsible for most of the woes of Goa today. Ironically, those cheering on the anti-migrant brigades most lustily are often non-resident Goans working and/or settled abroad, who are not even, in many cases, Indian citizens.
Working-class migrants are easy targets, and are blamed for being dirty and having poor hygiene standards – a factor which is often outside their control, with employers not providing the required facilities to workers. They are blamed for spitting, urinating and defecating in public, and, in some undefined way (probably by their mere existence), degrading Goan culture. In the search for scapegoats to blame for the myriad problems that Goa faces today, the migrants are the most convenient target. The situation has become so bad that, a year ago, the Archbishop of Goa felt constrained to issue a statement pointing out the obvious: that migrants are as much human beings as anybody else.
Much has been written about the migrant issue, and the purpose here is not to reiterate the various debates but to stress the fact that a debate conducted in such a shrill, xenophobic manner does nothing to tackle the root causes that have created multiple pressures on the Goan environment, resources, and, of course, the repeatedly invoked ‘Goan identity’. A discourse at such a level only gives further fuel to right-wing identity politics. It could be argued that one of the factors contributing to the rise of the BJP and Hindutva in Goan politics is related to the fertile soil created for such tendencies by this mindset. It is hardly a matter of great surprise that a politician like Matanhy Saldanha, who has allowed his genuine concern for protecting Goa and its identity to take on a xenophobic hue, often expressed in anti-migrant tirades, finds the BJP to be the political force that he would most rather ally with. The migrant discourse and Hindutva ideology have also had a satisfactory marriage in the way migrants are equated with Muslims whenever Muslims raise demands like the right to a kabrastan or the right to build masjids and prayer houses.
It is time to break the shackles of this narrow view of the issue. Instead of externalising the problems Goa faces on to convenient scapegoats, it is time to fashion solutions – solutions that ensure justice to all while bringing in a pro-people form of development that takes into account local needs rather than the interests of big business.

Come Dine at My Home

Herald 2day, 30 Sep 2009

By Vidyadhar Gadgil

When one thinks of eating out in Goa with family or friends, one rarely thinks beyond the cities and the tourist belt. But that is gradually changing, with new restaurants in the quieter villages in the interior, off the tourist beat. One of the prime examples of this trend is ‘Andron’, in the serene village of Nachinola, tucked between the villages of Aldona and Moira. Set up by Antonio Nazareth (popularly known as Tony), a marine engineer, Andron gives you the increasingly rare experience of a quiet retreat, away from the cacophony of the tourist belt, where you can relax and enjoy a meal in an ambience that reminds you of home.

What prompted a marine engineer to set up a restaurant? Tony reminisces, “After twenty years at sea, away from the family for long stretches, I was fed up. The children were growing up and I was missing their best years. I planned this for a long time, and then finally took the plunge in 2004, quitting my job as a marine engineer, and setting up ‘Andron’ in my home village of Nachinola.”

Wasn’t it tough setting up a restaurant without any experience in the line? “It was not easy,” confesses Tony, with his typical understatement. “But my mind was made up. I had this dream to set up a restaurant where people could get authentic Goan food in a homely village ambience, catering mainly to families rather than the tourist trade. After coming back to Nachinola, I did short-term courses in bartending and waiting at the Institute of Hotel Management. The years between 2005 and 2008 were tough, but now things are going well. Word of mouth publicity has done the trick,” Tony beams.

That much is obvious, as the restaurant is filling up, and Tony, the sole person serving tables, is having to rush hither and thither. We quickly place our orders, following Tony’s recommendations – pork chops, beefsteak, roast pigling, chicken cafreal, bangda reichado, vindaloo, aad-maas and sundries (before you make moral notes about gluttony, note that we’re a party of six people) – and Tony bustles off to serve the other tables. Meanwhile, the menu card is a delight to read and displays the care and thought that has gone into every aspect of this unique restaurant. There is a one-page introduction titled ‘Come Dine at My Home’ which informs you that ‘the word “andron” has its origin in Greek, meaning an ancient Greek house – an apartment for men, especially for banqueting and dining’.

The food arrives, and there is no time to think of anything else as you savour the delicious flavours. The meat is tender and perfectly cooked – the beefsteak and pork chops, in particular, are a perfect delight. When Tony finds some time to come and chat, we ask him about the name of the restaurant. “Actually,” he grins, I thought of the name as a combination of my children’s names: Ana, Andre and Aaron. Then, when I was setting things up, I discovered this meaning in Greek.” Clearly, serendipity is at work, as it is in the two-storey building that houses the restaurant . “I planned this as a house for the family, but when I decided to set up Andron, we stayed on in our old house and decided to use this as a restaurant. If I had thought of it earlier, I would have designed this differently.” You’re glad he didn’t – some things are just meant to be, and clearly fate has conspired in a series of lucky accidents to produce Andron.

It’s time to leave, but we go to meet Peter Miranda, the chef from Nachinola who served up the culinary treat that we just enjoyed. Peter has been working here for the past 2-3 years. “The masala recipes are from my mother,” Tony tells us, “but it’s Peter who puts it all together.

The bill is the final surprise in a pleasant evening. The prices at Andron’s are about half of what you would pay for comparable food in Panjim, and most of the dishes are priced in the Rs 80-100 range. Six of us have stuffed ourselves silly, and had a few drinks too, and the bill is barely over Rs1000. How does Tony do it? But this is a question you decide not to ask – there is a limit to looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Andron also hosts family celebrations and parties for large groups. Contact Tony on 9421194482 for details. And even if you don’t live in the vicinity of Nachinola as we do, remember that it’s well worth making a longish trip to sample Tony’s generous hospitality.

The Partition in Literature and Film

Herald Mirror, 20 September 2009*

By Vidyadhar Gadgil

Partition was a cataclysmic event that scarred a generation and defined politics and nationhood — for the worse, many would argue — in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The greatest mass migration in recorded history, with populations being exchanged across the border in Punjab, and to a lesser extent in Bengal, Partition is estimated to have left close to a million dead in its wake.
The events of Partition have inspired a creative outpouring by writers and film-makers. Films still continue to be made on the subject, and attract wide audiences. While a comprehensive listing is impossible in the limited space available, some artistic creations stand out.
Of the many writers who wrote about Partition, the greatest is undoubtedly Saadat Hasan Manto. ‘Toba Tek Singh’, a little tale of exchange of populations on religious lines between the lunatic asylums on both sides of the border has created an enduring metaphor for the insanity of Partition. His other stories on Partition, like ‘Thanda Gosht’ (Dead Meat) and ‘Khol Do’ (Open Up), take an unflinching look at the brutality of Partition and the madness that reigned in the name of religion during those traumatic times.
Many other Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi writers have written memborable stories and novels about Partition, including Krishna Baldev Vaid, Amrita Pritam, Bhisham Sahni, and Intizar Husain, whose novel Basti is a haunting look at Partition through the lens of memory, in the context of the 1971 Indo-Pak war. In English, we have Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man and Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan which was reissued in 2006 in a collector’s edition with 66 photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, the Time-Life photojournalist whose searing, gut-wrenching images of Partition are the starkest reminder that we have of the horrors of Partition. The stand-out novel on Partition in the East is Sunil Gangopadhyaya’s Purbo-Paschim (East-West), an epic saga of a family’s migration from East Pakistan to West Bengal that stretches into the 1980s
Many stories and books have have also been made into films including Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man, filmed by Deepa Mehta as 1947: Earth with Aamir Khan and Nandita Das, and Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar (The Skeleton). Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas (Darkness) became widely known after it was filmed by Govind Nihalani and telecast as a serial on Doordarshan. Relatively unnoticed, Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters), was an ironic look at Partition and its aftermath. But the best film on Partition is still the 1973 classic Garam Hawa (Scorching Winds), directed by M S Sathyu and starring Balraj Sahni. In Bengali, Partition was a theme that ran through the films of Ritwik Ghatak, and films like Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-Capped Star) and Komal Gandhar (E Flat) deal with the dislocation and trauma of Partition refugees. On a less positive note, there was the super-hit Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) which panders to the same jingoism and religious emotionalism that led to Partition.
Despite all these efforts by artists, Partition is sadly being forgotten — except when it is used to score political points. The neglect and indifference is clear from the fact that there exists no official memorial in India to the victims of Partition, leaving a gap that has been filled by literature and film.

*As a box item accompanying a larger article ‘The Trauma of Partition’ by Sajla Chawla, see http://musingsfromthehilltop.blogspot.com/

A Culture of Impunity

Herald, 18 September 2009

The Ishrat Jahan case highlights the disrespect for human rights that is now routine among our security forces, says VIDYADHAR GADGIL

If one thought, after the Tehelka revelations and the infamous Sohrabuddin case, that the human rights situation in Gujarat had already plumbed the depths of ignominy, the recent revelations in the Ishrat Jahan case have set a new standard of shame. The enquiry report by Magistrate S P Tamang has uncovered a sordid tale of a truly unconscionable crime – one committed not by those customarily termed criminals, but by the police force itself, including 21 members of its higher echelons.
Ishrat Jahan was a 19-year-old student of Khalsa College in Mumbai, who was gunned down in an ‘encounter’ with security forces on 15 June 2004, along with Javed Shaikh, and two alleged Pakistanis, Jisan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana. The police claimed that they were Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) activists who were planning to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Doubts were cast from the very start by human rights groups on the police version. Film-maker Shubhradeep Chakravorty, whose film ‘Encounter on Saffron Agenda’ examined four encounter cases – the Sameer Khan Pathan case, the Sadiq Jamal Mehtar case, the Ishrat Jahan case, and the Soharabuddin-Kausarbi case, all of whom were alleged to have been on missions to kill Narendra Modi – painstakingly documented the glaring gaps in the police versions in all these cases of encounters by the police team by DIG D G Vanzara.
With the magisterial enquiry report (mandatory in all encounter cases) by Magistrate S P Tamang, the stand of those who have questioned the police version of the Ishrat Jahan killing has been vindicated. According to the report, Ishrat was picked up from Mumbai and brought to Gujarat. She was then killed, along with the other alleged ‘terrorists’, in a fake encounter staged to impress Chief Minister Narendra Modi and secure promotions and cash awards. Pointing out various contradictions in the police version, the report dismisses the claim that the alleged terrorists had fired upon the police. The police forged and planted fake Pakistani identity cards on Jisan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana. The report concludes that “All the policemen involved had hatched a conspiracy and illegally detained Ishrat Jahan Raza because she was a Muslim from Mumbai, saying she was LeT fidayeen terrorist. She was detained illegally with others on June 12 sometime between 12.30 afternoon and 9 pm, were taken to some place different from the spot of crime on 14 June 2004, and Ishrat was killed between 11 pm and midnight in cold blood, very cruelly, shot at very short range.”
The report has become the subject of much controversy, with the Gujarat government vociferously denying the claims made in the report. The Centre has been left red-faced due to an affidavit filed earlier by the central Home Ministry, which corroborated the Gujarat police version without making any effort to verify the authenticity of the intelligence inputs connecting Ishrat and the three other victims with the LeT. This affidavit also stated that “No proposal for CBI investigation is under consideration of the Centre nor does it consider the present case fit for CBI probe.” Now the Gujarat High Court, on a petition filed by the Gujarat government, has stayed the report and directed the Registrar General to initiate disciplinary action against the magistrate for not obtaining the permission of the court before forwarding the report to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.
The case will drag on, as such matters usually do, probably reaching the Supreme Court. The case has also become the subject of the usual political football between the Congress and the BJP. But, coming after the revelations in the Sohrabuddin-Kauserbi case and the doubts raised over the role of the police in similar cases in Gujarat, the Ishrat Jahan case highlights the culture of impunity that exists in the police force. What does one say about a police force that can pick up an innocent 19-year-old girl, stitch her and her fiancee up as terrorists, and then kill them in cold blood, all for rewards and promotions? How does one describe the cold-blooded killing of Sohrabuddin, a petty criminal, and his wife Kauserbi, whose only fault was that she happened to be married to Sohrabbudin? These two cases are only the most well known among 28 cases of alleged fake encounters that have been covered up. There are no adequate epithets for such behaviour and culture among the men in uniform – one can only wonder in speechless horror what this means for the rule of law and order and our future as a democratic nation.
It is no secret that the Gujarat government and the police force are thoroughly communalised, and have scant regard for human rights, particularly those of minorities. But this is not an isolated problem – security forces across the country have similar disrespect for human rights; it is only the targets of their abuses that vary. There is a willingness to use extreme measures and manufacture evidence to justify their activities. And governments in India, including the central government, irrespective of the parties ruling at any given time, usually not only turn a blind eye to such human rights abuses but even condone and encourage such behaviour.
For the past twenty years or so, human rights abuses by security forces in Kashmir have become so commonplace that they fail to excite particular attention or comment, unless there is a major protest across the valley, as in the Shopian case. The North-East is another long-standing trouble spot, and the list of human rights abuses, particularly by the notorious Assam Rifles, have led to huge protests. Human rights activist Sharmila Irom has been on hunger strike for years now, and some time ago, elderly women staged a nude protest that drew international attention. Nagaland is relatively peaceful at present, as is Mizoram, but Assam is another state that is facing problems of insurgency, something that is often used by the State to justify the most egregious human rights abuses.
There is a similar problem across Central India, covering the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand, which are facing Maoist groups which have considerable sympathy among the tribal populations of these areas. The State has reacted with extreme violence perpetrated by the security forces, with the Chhattisgarh government having even sponsored an armed militia – the Salwa Judum – to counter the threat. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as the biggest single internal security threat facing the country, which may or may not be true, but such perceptions are used to justify and whatever is done by the security forces. After all, the thinking goes, they are “our” boys, who are fighting “our” battles, and they deserve a blank chit to tackle the problem in whatever way they see fit, irrespective of trivialities like human rights, due procedure and the law.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding the Ishrat Jahan case, social activist Shabnam Hashmi raised some very pertinent questions. Questioning the logic that justifies cover-ups of such incidents on the grounds that bringing them to light and punishing the guilty will adversely affect the morale of the security forces, she asks, “…What happens to the morale of the officers when they torture innocent young people, when they kill them, when they illegally detain them, beat them. What happens to their morale then? Do they just go home and sleep?”
This is something we would all do well to ponder. These are the men charged with maintaining law and order. What is our future as a democratic nation if this is how they act, and if we condone such actions?