Modi told to learn from Vajpayee's handling of Kashmir crisis, offer talks with Pak

Vajpayee in Srinagar in 2003

Prominent human rights activists, academics and advocates are among 100-odd signatories to a statement telling Prime Minister Narendra Modi to see how his BJP predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee showed extraordinary “statesmanship” in 2003 when he went to Srinagar during a “particularly dark time” holding out a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan for a dialogue on Kashmir “within the paradigm of humanity.”
The signatories of the statement include well-known Supreme Court lawyers Vrinda Grover and Indira Jaising, top Gandhian academic Dr Sandeep Pandey, human rights activist Henri Tiphagne, prominent right to information activist and former Sonai Gandhi aide Aruna Roy, social activists Shabman Hashmi and Madhuresh, and professor emeritum, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Zoya Hasan.
The statement comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken direct charge handling the Kasmir crisis, in which more than 30 people have died following clashes with security forces in the wake of protests against the July 8 encounter of Burhan Wani, a young militant of the Hizbul Mujahedin. On a five-day Africa tour, Modi has been under sharp criticism for “beating drums” abroad like a Nero when Kashmir burnt.
Seeking “immediate steps” towards demilitarisation of the Kashmir valley and “an inclusive political initiative”, the statement wants the Government of India to urgently review the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), by taking steps to repeal it, saying, the the Government of India should follow the latest Supreme Court ruling calling for cautious use of AFSPA.
Pointing out that “the entire constellation of special security laws that reward atrocities on civilians and encourage impunity” should also be reviewed, the statement says, “nothing has been learnt” from the 2010 crisis, when there was a “familiar pattern” – a killing, a funeral where rage is vented through slogans and stones, and volleys of lethal gunfire in response – leading to the death of 110 persons in four months.
Especially referring to Wani, the statement says, his “life in militancy” indicates that he was “a 16-year old, embittered and radicalised during the 2010 turmoil by the casual humiliations heaped on ordinary Kashmiris by the mass deployments of security personnel.” Wani, the statement adds, “witnessed repeated violent incursions into his home and the harassment of near relations in what are called crackdowns.”
Noting that the “death of his brother in a police encounter, when he had nothing to do with the militancy, is believed to have further hardened his resolve”, the statement says, “Wani’s life story should be cautionary warning that the heavy-handed, militaristic Indian approach to Kashmir, has only led to a quarter century of siege and growing alienation.”
Objecting to the “excessive and indiscriminate lethal force continues to be used” even now, the statement says, “This is in brazen contempt of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which do not allow for departure even in exceptional circumstances such as internal political instability or public emergency.”
The statement warns, “The upsurge of civil unrest comes after a long sequence of intelligence reports that flagged rising discontent at the new political arrangements in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP’s arrival in the portals of power and its determined pursuit of a majoritarian agenda, have much to do with this.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Search This Blog