South Asia Citizens Web

Two occasional papers from Tamil Peace Research Institute / Tamil Samadhana Aayvagam (TASA)

Deccan Herald
Love in the time of moral policing
The moral police are everywhere. Crawling out of the woodwork into our public spaces. In our legislative assemblies, in our board rooms, in court rooms, on the streets, in colleges, in cinemas and cyber cafes, gardens and pubs, even in police stations. Alas, and perhaps in our heads too. The rabid Sri Ram Sena or the Shiv Sena or the Bajrang Dal foot soldiers who demonstrate their love for ‘Indian culture’ by molesting girls wearing jeans (…)

sacw.net
(Bangalore: 11 Feb. 2009) How should we in the women’s movement understand and respond to the cluster of assaults by the Rama Sene, Bajrang Dal and other fundamentalists; the targeting of minorities and their places of worship; the harassment and molestation of women of all classes in the name of nation, culture and religion; the fear and anger spreading through villages and towns in southern-coastal Karnataka?
As Sandhya Gokhale of the Forum Against Oppression of Women, (…)

The Guardian, 11 February 2009
Behind the violence in Gujarat, Gaza and Iraq is the banality of democracy
The moral deviancy of our elite no longer shocks. What is dispiriting is its tacit endorsement by electoral majorities
In his memoir, Secrets, Daniel Ellsberg describes how he decided to risk years in prison by leaking the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret record of American decision-making on Vietnam, to the New York Times. Hoping that his wife, Patricia, would help him make up his (…)

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
– Palais des Nations
– CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland