South Asia Citizens Web

From Partition to Muzaffarnagar, the history of riots has been a celebration of rape. Muzaffarnagar sounds like it’s a part of the UP badlands, while pundits hair-split words like responsibility and secularism.

The New York Times
by Sonia Faleiro
Published: December 22, 2013
Vadodara, INDIA — The mother, an animal herder in the western Indian state of Gujarat, watched in horror as her 3-year-old daughter was snatched from her. The kidnapper, an upper-caste woman from a nearby village who was unable to conceive, had been encouraged by her in-laws to help herself to a low-caste child. The mother pleaded with the village council and police for her daughter’s return. But both were dismissive. So (…)

It speaks poorly of India’s public discourse that the slightest perception or allegation of “hurt” to “national prestige” instantly produces a disproportionate, indeed hysterical, reaction. Take the arrest of India’s deputy consul-general Devyani Khobragade on charges of visa fraud and non-payment of statutory wages to her domestic help Sangeeta Richard. no word of sympathy was uttered for Richard, her labour rights, and their place in “nationhood”. Labour rights don’t figure in the imaginary of the upper-middle-class elite that dominates our coarsening public discourse, where domestic maids are seen as “greedy” exploiters—not their masters. In India, domestic workers are rapaciously exploited for a pittance, and have no rights. Why should they have any rights overseas?

Today, there are only 3 countries where polio still remains endemic: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Unfortunately, the reason in all three is the same; the moronic wing of the international Jihadist movement has somehow picked up bits and pieces of chatter about risks from oral polio vaccine, combined it with pre-existing paranoia about modern international institutions, and created a robust anti-vaccine meme that is able to draw upon the ruthless killing power of Jihadi militias to effectively stop polio eradication campaigns in their area of influence.

To paraphrase Voltaire: “If Taslima Nasreen did not exist, the Jamaat would have had to invent her.” The focus by the international media and national and international human rights and feminist activists on her plight – the threat to her life and the warrant for arrest for a statement which she denied having made – was very necessary and needs to continue despite her recent surrender to the court and release on bail.