Gangrape accused in "critical" condition, and why we should be critical of the same

It has been five months to the day, since the 23 year old physiotherapy student was gangraped on a moving bus in Delhi. She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital, from the brutalities inflicted on her.

India then launched into a nation-wide process of introspection, with vociferous protests and even a change in laws related to rape. Also in this period, Ram Singh, the main accused of the six, was found hanging in his jail cell on the morning of 11 March. The case has been abated qua Ram Singh, and the State maintains that he committed suicide, while his lawyer alleges murder. The report on the same is yet to be submitted in the court. Today, the trial finished the examination of prosecution witness 74.

A second accused, is Vinay Sharma. A resident of Tihar Jail 7, he has been hospitalized since 3 May and has thus not been attending any of his hearings since. Now his lawyer AP Singh says that Vinay has been slowly administered "sweet posion" at the jail hospital where he had been admitted for a fever and chest pain and that his condition is "critical."

The case of Vinay requires concern- this is not the first time he has had a serious health issue since the trial began. The young man has had a particularly eventful five months. In March, the former gym instructor announced that he plans on writing entrance exams for the Indian airforce. His lawyer went to the extent of filing an application for him to be supplied with fruits and milk, which the presiding judge agreed to. A day before he was to write his exam, he was found to have a broken hand. He alleged that he had been tortured. The jail authorities said that he got into a fight with other inmates.

This time, Vinay's condition is even more serious. His lawyer reports that on the night of 2 May he was beaten on his chest. "Vinay told me that while beating him, the jail authorities said that they would beat him on his face, but the marks would show, and so decided to beat him on his chest," says Singh. He had been suffering a fever for a few days before that, and this coupled with the chest pain, had him admitted to the hospital within Tihar Jail. Instead of getting better, things got worse. The boy began vomiting blood. His lawyer says that Vinay has been receiving a "sweet poison" in his medicines consistently, since being admitted in the jail hospital. He has been transferred to three hospitals in two weeks and has been vomiting blood at all these places. Singh says that at Tihar and at the second hospital (Deen Dayal Upadhyay, a government hospital), the doctors seem to have made light of Vinay's sickness, calling it just a fever. A bail application for Vinay on the grounds of his ill health has been rejected by the court in Saket where his case is being heard. 

Police wait outside Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, on the day of Ram Singh's "suicide" 

The medical officer at the Tihar jail has submitted a status report today on Vinay. It lists some of the efforts of and opinions made by doctors at Tihar and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. Tihar referred him to a government hospital citing "fever, sore throat and oral ulcers." The government hospital has provided a "provisional diagnosis of Pyrexia of Unknown Origin with Bicytopenia" and referred him to a third facility (Lok Nayak Hospital, also a government one). In the two days since he has been admitted at what is considered a specialist facility, there has been no accurate diagnosis of Vinay's condition besides that it is "critical." The report is expected tomorrow.

Allegations of torture of the accused within the jail have been made since the beginning of this trial. Akshay Thakur, another accused, has also just last week claimed to have been tortured. His lawyer says that the jail authorities report that he has been bothering other inmates instead.

Of the six accused of her rape, one is a juvenile, which means he will compulsorily receive a very light sentence, and his proceedings are ongoing at the Juvenile Justice Board.

After the suicide of Ram Singh, the sessions court hearing this case ruled for increased security to be given, and for the accused to be treated well so that they do not commit desperate acts that could lead to mishaps. But something is definitely amiss when the accused persons are found dead, with a broken hand, alleging torture, or alleging torture to the extent that leaves them hospitalized for two weeks with no convincing diagnosis. Is it not in the interest of their justice and ours, for them to be kept alive? Or is it normal for undertrials to fall away during due process? If it is, then does it not require critical concern?

V-Day as D-day, the Fight to Love, and Related Oxymorons

Valentine’s Day, for all practical purposes, is a commercial creation. The day itself does not bear any deep significance to those who may celebrate it, though the love they celebrate might bear some value. Politically and socially, it is a fluffy construct, and should not require too much inspection. But V-Day is D-day now, as far as women’s rights movements are concerned. The day has grown to be important because it appears that there is now a fight on, for the ability to love and express it.  

In January 2009, men from Sri Ram Sena, a Hindu right wing group, barged into a pub in Mangalore, dragged women out and assaulted them. They felt the need to act as vigilantes because women drinking in a pub was unacceptable to them. They then threatened to strike again, on Valentine’s Day. Pramod Muthalik, their leader said, “Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric stub and a ‘mangal sutra’ on February 14. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage,” If there was resistance to this by the couple, the girl would be made to tie a rakhi on the boy.

In the “WTF History of Indian feminism,” this incident has a chapter. When a social class is faced with such ridiculous opposition, the only way to respond to it adequately is with irreverence. This explains the ingenuity of Slut Walk. In this case, a fitting reply was provided by the ‘Pink Chaddi Campaign.’ A bunch of women got together, and decided to send these saffron-chaddi men, some pink underwear. The aim was to flood the Hubli office of this group with mountains of panties, by Valentine’s Day 2009. And this has made a permanent X-mark on 14 February, on the activist calendar.

The ‘Consortium of Loose and Pub Going Women’ was started, and with a hark back to Gandhi’s ‘Jail Bharo’ campaign (which was invoked even recently during the Anna Hazare agitation), women pledged that they were going to go to a pub, and have a drink. Their slogan was, ‘Pub Bharo.’ Muthalik replied to the women by saying he would send “1000 sarees as return gifts” for the chaddis he receives. By Valentine’s Day, he and about 140 of his goons were taken into preventive custody by the police. Hundreds of chaddis awaited him in his office.

Loving is a hard thing in India. People get killed for loving of their choice. And so we have honour killings, where communities kill their own for eloping or marrying out of their caste. Or fathers kill themselves when their daughters transgress caste lines by loving, and this inflames entire communities, as in Dharmapuri recently. Or for the more ludicrous, police in Bangalore have been intimidating young couples by video taping them while they spend time with each other at public places. 

I want to take the liberty to say that the 16 December gangrape in Delhi, and the subsequent death of the victim, can be seen from some distance, as a wave in Indian feminism. We can see a line from 14 February 2009 to 16 December 2012 to 14 February 2013. Since the rape, there have been massive protests in Delhi, which made history when they reached Raisina Hill, in a country where police permission is required for protests and protests are only permitted in designated areas. Protestors were subjected to water cannons and tear gas. The protests were spontaneous, lacking in leadership, and were united by pure outrage. Important dates that came between 16 December and 14 February, have all seen protest as a response to celebration, including Christmas, New Year and Republic Day. People are still at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, everyday. Some have been fasting, some have set up camp. 

Since then, fast track courts have been set up around India, to deal with long pending rape cases. Life imprisonments and death sentences are being doled out, perhaps in response to the vociferous and dangerous public outcry for the same. The winter session of the Parliament closed with no closure on the Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2012, which sought to deal with many issues of violence on women. The path breaking report by the Justice Verma Committee was released on time to widespread appreciation. But the government came out with an ordinance that instead of heeding the prudent Verma recommendations and placating people, has made them more angry due to its haste, ill thought out recommendations and secrecy. At the impending budget session of Parliament which starts on 21 February, activists are pledging that they will keep a watch on how the government allocates funds, and if any will be spared for safety of women.

It is in this ironic period, that Valentine’s Day falls. It has been four years since Pink Chaddi and 14 February, is hardly a fluffy day anymore. It is a day of strategic importance to the women’s movement. It is a day for deep social introspection, the kind of stuff to be philosophized about in academia. For the young people who do celebrate Valentine’s Day, albeit an urban young India, it is now a significant day to reclaim their choice to love and express it and their freedom to live fearlessly. By extension, it is a day to resist moral policing of this expression and sexual violence. This “western concept,” which angers Indian conservatives so much, has been made quite personal to Indians, something the conservatives did not foresee.

Globally as well, this day, this year, is significant because today is when one billion people are expected to “strike, rise and dance” as part of the One Billion Rising campaign. The campaign was started by the very famous Eve Ensler, author of Vagina Monologues- a hit play where each of the monologues deals with different aspects of the feminine experience. The campaign is premised on the realisation that one in three women will be raped or beaten in the world, in her lifetime. This makes one billion women. The movement is asking women and men who support them, to rise, on this "V-Day" and take to the streets and dance. 

The global support for this cause comes at the right time for India, and there are about five different events happening in Delhi alone. The biggest is happening at Parliament Street from 5pm today, where the entire street is going to be occupied with singing, dancing, posters, photo exhibitions, street plays, art installations and other innovative interventions. Other events are happening in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Make it to a rising in your neighbourhood, or organise one yourself, for the freedom to love and be fearless.

Gangrape in Delhi- From the Protests at Jantar Mantar

What Would Gandhi Do?

Today at a supermarket, I saw that the entire freezer section was covered in newspaper. A sign on it said, “Due to Gandhi Jayanthi, non-veg not for sales.”

 A “foreign hand” wanted to know if this was normal for India.   

It is. India saw a “beef-eating festival” earlier this year to counter this anti-meat-eating movement (fielded by the right wing, supposedly for religious reasons and/or animal rights and/or “good nationalism,” but accused of doing it to push around an anti-non-Hindu feeling. Many negatives will not make a positive in this country.)

(The beef-eating festival is for real, and truly I imagine, a day will come when Falafel will be banned in schools.)

I had not noticed the meat-moratorium earlier, but it is possibly because I never went grocery shopping on Gandhi Jayanthi (ie: today, Gandhi’s 143rd birthday). Gandhi ate no evil and drank no evil and as such, his home-state of Gujarat is now a “dry-state” and his newest “avatar,” Anna Hazare, apparently follows this approach in his hometown of Ralegan Siddhi, which Ramchandra Guha writes about, “he found the approach of Anna Hazare“deeply brahmanical”. Liquor, tobacco, even cable TV were forbidden. Dalitfamilies were compelled to adopt a vegetarian diet. Those who violated theserules — or orders — were tied to a post and flogged.”

What would Gandhi do?

Gandhi is widely quoted to have said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” 

I am widely quoted to have said, “You can’t/ shouldn’t care about environment and stuff if you don't first care about humans.” (This is open to misinterpretation.)

And as Gandhians, we treat his words in a static way, even while our sentiments are ironically pasted on a backdrop of newspapers. Keep with the times, G. Stay ahead of it even. 

G-aping Instead of Acting: Photos from the 'Silence is Violence' Protest Against Sexual Abuse, Bangalore

A young girl is beaten by a mob in Guwhati, India. Don't think “dark alley, no people, underdeveloped area, skimpy clothes.” Think “public place, city, media coverage, the works.” Women in India are subject to a number of ingenious abuses- from dragging them naked through streets, to kicking them to death for having a girl child, to locking up their vagina with an actual lock and key, to female foeticide, to dowry related deaths, to caste related murders.

The recent incident in Guwhati brought people together in protest across the country. Local residents put up pictures of the molesters on hoardings. The “Silence is Violence” protest in Bangalore aimed to turn an idea famously associated with Gandhi, of “seeing, hearing and speaking no evil,” represented by three monkeys in a row, towards a post-Gandhian way of looking at it- if you are silent to a crime, then you are an accomplice.



(For best results: Click on the slide show above. It will take you to the album in which you can view the photos full screen.)

Where does the problem lie? With men? Or is it patriarchy in general, which need not be a gendered activity? Could the women then be faulted for perpetuating the system? Or is it the society at large that makes the system seem imperative? Is it the lax process of law? Or the media that can be insensitive to issues of sexual violence? Or bystanders, who witness violence and do not speak up?

I joked with some of those gathered at the “Silence is Violence” protest, that maybe “We should also take off our clothes.” The drum beats were catchy and people were tapping their feet. One lady asked another, “Do you want to dance?” The other lady replied, “We will be back protesting a lot more if we dance and anger the other protest-groups.” The irony runs deep.

Flipkart and Arundhati Roy, Gandhi and Tendulkar

Darling e-commerce website Flipkart.com has been in a spot of discomfort lately with a Forbes article cover-story that has just come out about its apparent/ impending fall. The story itself is not yet online but an exchange between Sachin Bansal of Flipkart and Indrajit Gupta of Forbes India is. 

First thing's first: I'm a fan of Flipkart's service and wish that such a tragedy does not occur.

Second things second is a bunch of observations I made while adding to my wishlist on the website.

Observation #1- Arundhati Roy is right up there with the big guns. Two of her books, are on page two of the "History and Politics" classification.. along with nice gentlemen such as Marx, Paine, Mill and Orwell. Fancy. Based on popularity or classicality or what?



Observation #2- Hind Swaraj is selling for as much as Rs230. Well, you can also pick up a brand new copy for Rs10. My ten rupees copy says, "Price of this book is subsidised by the Navajivan Trust." This is true for a lot of political literature in India- head out of Flipkart for the same, and pick up cheap paperbacks with nondescript covers, printed on much recycled paper.

Observation #3- Sachin Tendulkar is "is the only cricketer to accomplish the feat of scoring a hundred centuries in international cricket which includes 49 ODI and 51 Test centuries." He is also "the first active sportsperson and cricketer to have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha." Now, Flipkart is happy to announce that he is also a genre of books.




He is modestly under "See more" and towards the end of the list. But he still is above tags of vital importance such as "Travel" and err.. "Sports and Games!"

To introduce some scale: "Academic and Professional" is one of the largest categories on Flipkart, with 706365 titles. "Literature and Fiction" is next, with 586608 titles (I've left out the largest "category" on Flipkart which is called "Print on Demand" and has 731713  results.. I'm starting to think that Flipkart has mixed up their "tags" for their "categories" that are ideally "genres"). The "Sachin Tendulkar" category however, has only 15/ 17 titles (there is some discrepancy on the website, as indicated in the pictures). The next smallest category has 77 titles, and is called "Skill Building & Learning Books." I can flog this further, but I'm stopping now. Funny huh.

"The country" is currently trying to pick the "Greatest Indian after Gandhi." Tendulkar is on the short list. Looks like we all know who Flipkart has voted for!

Reflections on Urban Protests, Public Engagement, Mainstream Media and Social Media

The lifeline of small, urban protests today, is the Press. From my observation, this seems to be a trend. I found this to be true of the Anonymous protest  in Bangalore (and  in other parts of the country like Kolatta, from my readings) as well. Please note that by virtue of this post being about urban protests, I am talking about the communication technology enabled Public and Protestor. Much of this post takes from the fresh experience at the Anonymous protest in Bangalore yesterday but it has evolved out of engagement with several other such events over a long time. It might make sense to read my previous post, before this one.

I’ll proceed by first setting a context.

The Aim of a protest is many fold and usually all of these reasons below, no matter what method is employed-

1. Awareness to the general public of the cause
2. Awareness that there is work being done on the cause
3. Mobilising the public
4. Effecting change at the policy level

Largely, it is Public Outreach work and Policy Work (Advocacy and Lobbying). Another way of looking at it is that there is work that happens at the Grassroots and other work that needs to happen with those in the Ivory Towers. Most organizations, formal or informal, work on the first three Aims, with a Grassroots engagement. Very few work at the Policy level. They are usually less well known, quieter in their methods, and involve more information than that which floats at the Grassroots.

“Let’s Bring the Change” rhetoric works in a few different ways. Sometimes it concentrates solely on the first three Aims, if it is an issue solvable by the common man. For example, “Let’s stop littering our surroundings.” Other issues cannot be solved by the common man, and so Mobilization becomes important only to show policy makers that there is now a democratic mandate for the change in request, such as, “Let’s remove fuel subsidies for businesses.” In this case, the first three Aims are optional to fulfill and if they are fulfilled, its only to reach the fourth. Other issues need a partnership of common people and policy makers, in which case the protest should ideally try to fulfill all four Aims. For example, “Let’s end caste discrimination at the work place” is an exhortation to employers, employees and the government to put in effective laws.

Now with regards to the first three Aims specifically, and the fourth one by trickle down, here are the Methods that concerned individuals use to realize their Aims.

1. Connecting to the “man on the street” (which includes ALL types of people. At least a protestor would hope so. Ideally, the protestor should try connecting with the man he may not normally be able to interact with), by protesting in public
2. Connecting to the man in the virtual armchair, by using social media
3. Using mainstream media to be the one stone that gets both birds above (The man in the arm chair can also be the man on the street, but the assumption is that it need not happen the other way around, and thus it necessitates a public demonstration)

The problem with Method ‘a’ listed above is that, the man on the urban street usually only stares. Ive been involved as spectator, skeptic and participant at a number of social justice events and I have almost never seen people walking up to social workers, and asking for information. Social workers on the other hand will try and go to the people, by shouting slogans, holding placards with thought provoking statements or handing out flyers. Yet people are in a hurry and seem to feel comforted by the rationalisation that “There are some good people in the world. Their energy can offset my apathy” and leave. I can only once remember a passerby, who stopped to see what was up. Correspondingly, people who attend social justice events, are nearly always members of the organizing group, members of related invited organizations, and other regular faces involved in the cause in question. I cannot remember meeting a brother, sister, mother, friend or cousin, who wanted to “learn more” or “find out how they can support the cause.” Maybe it is not that we are apathetic, but that we are acurious.

The protest of yesterday, employed Method ‘b’ first, Method ‘a’ next and Method ‘c’ last (as do most protests that work with Web 2.0). At MG Park, protestors were looking around shiftily and someone suggested shouting slogans. It didn’t look like anyone was going to take the initiative, neither did it seem like anyone could think up a smart slogan. Besides, there is the futility of shouting at traffic to consider. And in the case of this protest, the masks were effectively muffling speech (not to mention vision and breathing as well). At FP though, there was slogan chanting. But the protest area in FP is flanked by wide borders of parking space, a line of trees and a footpath. Once you cut through all the thicket, you arrive at a high speed road, with the nearest traffic signal being about one kilometer away and so vehicles are whizzing past (which does not actually happen in other parts of the city where roads are bad, vehicles are too many, signals are frequent and traffic crawls). No man on the street heard the slogans or read the thought provoking placards. No unaware person was made aware, no uninitiated person was mobilized. It was a protest/ awareness drive that was self contained among those who are already aware. The hope of a TV channel or newspaper reporting it was really the only way any kind of un-aware person could become slightly aware. And perhaps this was the goal.

What happened during the public demonstration was really, only an exercise in pandering to the media. Protestors did not actually reach out to the man on street at all. Protestors came, they were photographed, they left/ got lost. Methods ‘b’ and ‘a’ were really an elaborate lay-up for the execution of Method ‘c.’ One consolation perhaps is that the masks prevented gloating. Had there not been masks, all the weary twenty would have wanted in on the frame.

Awareness of the cause, the work being done and mobilisation, was all communicated by the Method of the internet. The public protest was not to connect to the public directly, but was a show of strength so that the mainstream media, the intermediary (to use relevant jargon), the amplifier, would do the hard task of letting the non-web savy person know of the cause, the work being done on it and mobilise. To put it easily, all the first three Aims of a protest that I had listed above (and the fourth one as well, by extension), are being taken care of by the third Method of protest.

To further put this trend of small, urban protests in perspective, is that fact that internet penetration in India is currently onlyat 10.2%.

Does this b->a->c practise harm anything? Information is still getting out there, fulfilling all the three Grassroots Aims. People on the street also probably read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. So even if no one bothered to hand them a flyer, or they have not been part of the process online, they are still initiated into the awareness process. What initially targeted only 10.2% resulted in the rest of the connected populace being put in the loop. When more people are aware, the trickle starts flowing down and the fourth Aim of effecting public policy gets underway. This is even without the help of those who work with the Ivory Tower residents. All in all, it seems like a very effective way to get redressal to a cause. Especially when the man on street is also acurious.

And thus online or offline, high turn out or small turn out, if mainstream media covers it, a protestors work can be said to be “done” and a cause nearly accomplished. Shout slogans for the mic, raise placards for the camera, go home and wait for the evening bulletin. Do whatever you have to before the media arrives, to ensure that they do arrive. Breathe easy once they do. At least at the end of this, you Protestor, will have a link to post on your website. The next time you make a presentation to seek donations, you can use the line, “Several national dailies wrote about our struggle in xxxx to do xxxx. It was well covered by both television and print media.”

It thus seems that the quantum of protest does not matter in this form of urban protest. One does not need to protest long durations of time. One does not need to make a “large human chain.” One does not need to baptize five hundred new people into the fold. One only needs to get ten people together and the photographer will fill the frame with ten people (better if it is an aerial shot) and the reader of the newspaper will imagine that there were at least another hundred people packed behind those ten.

It is this argument that I would also like to claim as my response to the Reuters report that came out yesterday on the Reuters blog. The article seemed to poke fun at the grandiosness of the Anonymous movement and display it as lame, with the blog’s inverted commas, embedded links and second comments. While I am not an Anon nor do I wish to be one, I would like to prop up the argument that the protest was not about connecting with the people on MG Road, or about showing up in large numbers (which the article is taking for granted as markers of a real protest). The protest was an attention seeking stunt. This is Anonymous’ selling point. And this is exactly what they achieved. So the Reuters talk-down of the protest is really, so irrelevant to Anonymous. Those who did not attend or did not support the movement at all, may enjoy what they consider a barb to Anonymous but to them, it will bounce off with no mark (Also because there is no known horse to flag).

--------------------------

Is there a way protests around the world should change in their approach? Consider all the parties involved- the protestor, the public, the media, the state. Do share your views in the comment section on this post.