South Asia Citizens Web

Coalition Against Genocide (CAG - http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/), a broad alliance dedicated to justice and accountability for the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, today welcomed the introduction of a bipartisan resolution in the US House of Representatives. The resolution praises India’s "rich religious diversity and commitment to tolerance and equality," while raising concerns over the erosion of religious freedom. The resolution also highlights the role of Mr. Narendra Modi in the orchestrated violence and the continuing denial of justice to the victims of the 2002 pogroms.

“India today,” the historian Ramachandra Guha writes, “is an environmental basket-case; marked by polluted skies, dead rivers, falling water-tables, ever-increasing amounts of untreated wastes, disappearing forests.”22 Meanwhile, as Sen and Drèze write, the largely corporate-owned media, deeply indifferent to poverty and inequality, and reflexively intolerant of any remedial action by the government, produce “an unreal picture of the lives of Indians in general” by celebrating the fame and wealth of billionaires and cricket and Bollywood stars.

The way the likes of Asaram Bapu and other ‘godmen’ have allegedly taken sexual advantage of the iniquitous power dynamic they had with their ‘disciples’ makes any consent in their acts questionable. Especially in the case of Asaram Bapu, the image of this man with ‘fans’ and disciples half his age or even less has evoked widespread revulsion from disciples and non-disciples alike. What Asaram preaches cannot be separated from what Asaram does. Can we extend these criteria to others? Which other people get away by taking advantage of iniquitous power dynamics?

As the political drama over the now infamous Amit Shah tapes unfolds, it is difficult to decide which is more dismaying: the offence or its impassioned defence.

Among the many bizarre White House conversations between President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger that Gary Bass cites in his devastating account of America’s role in the creation of Bangladesh, a particularly wrenching one took place in April 1971, a little over two weeks into an onslaught by the Pakistani military upon its own citizens.