South Asia Citizens Web

With her long experience as a crusader on gender issues and domestic violence, rights activist Bandana Rana spoke to New Spotlight on various issues.

Guests: Prof S D Muni (Foreign Affairs Expert) ; D P Tripathi (NCP Leader) ; Dr. Jayant Prasad (Former Indian Ambassador of Nepal)
Anchor: Bharat Bhushan

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?