SECULARISM, DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

INSAF Bulletin 260 December 2023
Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).

EDITORIAL: CAN GENOCIDAL IMPULSES TURN INTO “HUMANITARIAN” PAUSES? THE MORAL FOG UNDERLYING THE STANCE OF ISRAEL AND SUPPORTING WORLD LEADERS ON GAZA

Vinod Mubayi

At the time of writing this editorial (Nov 28) a temporary 4-day pause now extended by 2 days has taken hold in the Israeli assault on the population of Gaza while exchanges of hostages in Hamas’s custody with some Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons take place. Meanwhile, data on the number of Palestinian civilians Israel has killed shows that the toll is approaching genocidal proportions. The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimates the toll to stand at 20,031 killed in Gaza, including 8,176 children. The Gaza Ministry of Health has stopped updating its own toll due to the breakdown of the communications and healthcare systems in Gaza, but the latest official toll from the Government Media Office in Gaza as of November 23 was 14,854 killed including 6,150 children, and more than 36,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip. This toll, however, did not take into account the (unknown) number of bodies buried beneath the rubble of buildings. There is also the continued killing in the last month of more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank by fanatic Jewish settlers in league with Israeli army personnel along with the seizure of Palestinian property: olive tree plantations, lands and farms.

WHY IS REFUGEE-FRIENDLY PAKISTAN EVICTING AFGHANS NOW?

Abdullah Zahid

In an internationally unprecedented move, Pakistan has imposed a steep $830 ‘exit permit fee’ per person on each refugee who fled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan since 2021 and is in Pakistan awaiting resettlement to another country.

INDIA’S LAWLESS FINANCIAL CAPITALISM FOSTERS A CULTURE OF SCAMS

Ashoka Mody

Highlights

Scams have become a pervasive aspect of business in India, leading to significant economic and societal repercussions.

PAPPU AND PANAUTI: ARE PERCEPTIONS OF RAHUL GANDHI AND NARENDRA MODI CHANGING?

Sidharth Bhatia

Rahul Gandhi’s term panauti (jinx), seems to have stung the BJP and Narendra Modi enough for the party to rush to the Election Commission (EC) to complain about it. Gandhi had initially not mentioned Modi by name, only implying that the presence of a panauti in Ahmedabad had caused India to lose the World Cup final against Australia, but later went full frontal.

POLARIZED ON PALESTINE: HINDUTVA-ZIONISM AGAINST THIRD WORLD SOLIDARITY IN MODI’S INDIA

Dipsita Dhar

While Modi departs from India’s past anti-colonial solidarities to ally with Israel — which has asked for 100,000 workers to replace Palestinians — India’s working-class and student movements reaffirm their support for Palestine

THE BROKEN COMPACT: MODI’S INDIA REPLACES CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES WITH THOSE OF THE RSS

Hartosh Singh Bal

This is an edited excerpt from a keynote address delivered at Stanford University, on 10 October, while accepting the 2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award on behalf of The Caravan.

EDITORIAL: RSS, HINDUTVA AND ITS LEADERS CONSISTENTLY ON THE SIDE OF THE OPPRESSOR, AND MODI’S MORAL COWARDICE IN ABSTAINING IN UN VOTE ON CEASEFIRE, AS ISRAEL THREATENS A NEW NAKBA

Vinod Mubayi

As the horrific, genocidal slaughter of the civilian population continues in Gaza, with almost 10,000 killed including thousands of small children at the time of writing, public demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of people have taken place in all major cities in the world in favor of a ceasefire and a stop to the wanton killing by aerial bombardment along with the total siege of Gaza imposed by Israel. These rallies have occurred in Washington, DC, New York and London in the heart of the US and UK, countries that are the main backers of the Israeli government and in the case of the US its major arms supplier and financial patron for many decades. In the UN General Assembly, a large majority, 120 countries, that included even members of NATO such as France and Belgium, voted in favor of a ceasefire. Only 14 countries, including the US and Israel and a few Pacific Island countries, voted no.

AMIDST THE MADNESS…

Beena Sarwar

We hold on to our core beliefs and values, refusing to descend to the level of those who seem to have lost their humanity.

PALESTINIANS FACE GENOCIDE. NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR ACADEMIC NEUTRALITY

Marcy Newman

I don’t hesitate to use the word genocide because I know that when Raphäel Lemkin defined the term in 1944, and when the United Nations adopted it four years later, they intended the crime to apply to any group of people who are being targeted because they comprise the same national, ethnic, racial or religious group. (Similarly, in the context of international law, the crime of apartheid is applicable beyond South Africa, where it originated, which is why it applies to Israel as well.)

CERAS STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE! OCCUPATION MUST END NOW!

At this time CERAS (Centre sur l’asie du sud/South Asia Centre) stands in solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people.

DO PALESTINIANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST? THE UNEQUIVOCAL ANSWER IS YES

Tariq Ali

As I write this, Gaza is still being bombed, its citizens massacred by a state that has dehumanised itself as well as its powerful supporters (Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the more recent apologists, and New Delhi is the only significant global city where there has been no demonstration against Israeli war crimes) over the years, each decade worse than the one before. There is no moral, political, or military equivalence as far as the two sides are concerned.

STOP THE DEPORTATIONS: SOLIDARITY STATEMENT WITH AFGHANS IN PAKISTAN

Afghan Reparations Collective (ARC)

What’s Been Happening? Millions at Risk.

The government of Pakistan announced a deadline for all “undocumented Afghans” – essentially Afghans seeking refuge but denied this status by the government – to leave the country by November 1, 2023. The demands were qualified through unproven accusations of Afghans being involved in “terrorism.”

LONG READ: THE GUPTA PAPERS: HOW THE MODI GOVERNMENT IS COVERING UP TWO DECADES OF DEFENCE CORRUPTION TO SAVE THE RAFALE DEAL

Nileena MS

{ONE}

ON A CLOUDLESS DAY in March 2012, an Audi sped along the highway connecting Milan and Lugano. Its two occupants, the 68-year-old Italian-American businessman Guido Ralph Haschke and his friend and business partner Carlo Gerosa, were scared. The Italian police had been zeroing in on them in its investigation of bribery allegations in the Indian government’s 2010 purchase of 12 helicopters—worth Rs 3,727 crore—from AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of the state-controlled defence company Finmeccanica, now called Leonardo.

EDITORIAL: GANDHI ABROAD, GODSE AT HOME

Vinod Mubayi

The phrase Gandhi abroad, Godse at home, often used by progressives to describe the two-faced actions of the Modi regime, also reflects a pithy summary of its basic character. Said differently, lying is the essence of the Modi BJP’s approach to governance. [For those too young to remember, Godse, a Hindu fanatic and RSS member, assassinated the Mahatma on Jan 30, 1948. While Gandhi’s moral presence within India and the world is too large for the BJP or its top leaders like Modi, a long-term RSS preacher himself, to disown Gandhi publicly, what they say in private is very different and many in the BJP’s second-tier leadership, like Member of Parliament Pragya Thakur, do not hesitate to praise Godse and the motives for his action publicly]. Thus, Modi while addressing the US Congress in Washington, DC talked eloquently of India as the mother of democracy, but he has no hesitation in resorting to the most blatant anti-democratic actions at home as witnessed by the ongoing repression of the NewsClick journalists in India.

NYT’S REPORT HAS BEEN WEAPONISED AGAINST INDIAN JOURNALISTS

Kavita Krishnan

NewsClick’s founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purakayastha was arrested on Tuesday.

In August 2023, The New York Times published a story “A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul”. The story investigated whether Chinese funding was being funnelled to advocacy and media organisations across the world to defend the internal authoritarianism of the Chinese state. One of the countries included was India, with a fleeting reference to an Indian digital news organisation NewsClick, which the report said “sprinkled its coverage with Chinese government talking points”.

IN MODI’S INDIA, THE PRESS IS MORE IMPERILLED THAN EVER

N Ram

The Indian constitution guarantees “freedom of speech and expression” for its citizens. This is a fundamental right. But based on the assault against the free press in India in recent times, you wouldn’t know it.

MONTREAL-BASED INDIAN DIASPORA GROUPS CALL OUT MODI GOVERNMENT’S ATTEMPT TO SOW SEEDS OF HATE AND FEAR AMONGST THEM

CERAS (Centre sur l’asie du sud/South Asia Centre)

As a direct challenge to India telling its citizens travelling to or living in Canada to “exercise utmost caution”, Montreal-based Indian diaspora groups held a speak-out to put the lie to this politics of hate and fear.

WE MUST OPPOSE INDIAN HINDU NATIONALIST FORCES IN CANADA

M. V. Ramana and Harsha Walia

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has revealed there is “credible evidence” of India’s involvement in the killing of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. This is part of a dangerous trend of Indian interference in Canada, particularly escalating under India’s current ruling party that is supported by Hindu supremacist groups (also known as Hindutva).

SOLIDARITY VIGIL FOR PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS, MASIHI, IN MONTREAL

Montreal, 8 September 2023 – Close to 200 people gathered in Montreal, Canada on the afternoon of 2nd September 2023 to demonstrate their solidarity with the Pakistani Masihi community (Pakistani Christians) who were brutally attacked on 16th August in Jaranwala, Pakistan. Those gathered expressed outrage at this attack, the latest in a long history of attacks on Masihi and other minorities over the years and they held the Pakistani state responsible for not ensuring the safety and security of its citizens.

ECOFASCISM IS A RISING THREAT. WE SHOULD TAKE MODI’S ASCENDANCE AS A WARNING

Azeezah Kanji

As the walls of global climate apartheid solidify, the barriers to climate refugees intensify, and “ecofascist” mass killings multiply, the enduring acceptability of fascist politics is disturbingly apparent in the amazing reincarnation of India’s far right Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) regime on the world stage.

BUILDING COMMUNITIES BASED ON EMPATHY

Irfan Engineer

Representatives of over a dozen Muslim groups met on 6th September 2023 and decided to defer the Eid-e-Milad procession, which has traditionally taken out on Prophet Mohammed’s birth anniversary, by a day this year and take out the same on 29th September instead of 28th September, in order to avoid inconvenience and trouble to the public with Ganesh Chaturthi and immersion processions, which is also on 28th September.

EDITORIAL: MODI REGIME OFFICIAL LOFTS TRIAL BALLOON AIMED AT TRASHING THE CONSTITUTION

Vinod Mubayi

Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Council of Economic Advisers, appear to have lofted a trial balloon to “embrace a new Constitution.” In an article in the Mint of August 15, Debroy stated bluntly “We the People have to give ourselves a new Constitution.” As part of this effort, he asserted “We should go back to the drawing board” and more ominously asked “what these words in the Preamble mean: socialist, secular, democratic, justice, liberty and equality.” One can understand that a devotee of markets like Debroy may want to remove the word “socialism” from the Constitution; one can also comprehend that the word “secular” is anathema to a Modi regime official; but is the regime also proposing to jettison democracy, liberty, justice and equality? Is that a kind of Freudian slip on Debroy’s part or does it, intentionally or not, reflect something more sinister?

MANIPUR’S SILENT SUFFERING AND THE BROKEN PROMISES OF ‘PEACE’

Kishalay Bhattacharjee

First came the scream of the dying

in a bad dream, then the radio report,

and a newspaper: six shot dead, twenty-five

houses razed, sixteen beheaded with hands tied

behind their backs inside a church.

As the day crumbled, and the victors

and their victims grew in number,

I hardened inside my thickening hide,

until I lost my tenuous humanity.

— Robin S. Ngangom from My Invented Land.

FASCISM AND BIG BUSINESS

Prabhat Patnaik

Fascistic elements exist in every modern society, but usually as fringe, marginal or minor elements. They move centre-stage only when they get the support of monopoly capital which provides them with ample money and media coverage; and this happens when there is a capitalist crisis that substantially increases unemployment and puts a question mark on the hegemony enjoyed by monopoly capital until then.

BALOCHISTAN’S DEADLY CONFLUENCE OF SEPARATIST INSURGENCY AND ISLAMIST MILITANCY

Salman Rafi Sheikh

On 12 July, in the Zhob and Sui districts of Balochistan, the Pakistan Army lost 12 soldiers in two attacks claimed by Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan – said to be an outgrowth of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban.

ON ‘THE KASHMIR FILES: UNREPORTED’, ‘GADAR 2’ AND ‘OMG 2’: THE ANATOMY OF HATE NARRATIVES AND A REASON FOR HOPE

Anuj Kumar

Art binds people to each other but sometimes when prejudice starts informing the craft, cinema becomes a tool to shape hostile propaganda against a community. Some are blunt, others are sharp. In the last couple of weeks, we watched two varieties in the form of The Kashmir Files: Unreported and the much-anticipated sequel to Sunny Deol’s Gadar.

MOULDING THE PAST: WRITING HISTORY FOR CHILDREN IN THE TIMES OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

Parni Ray

On a hot Monday morning in April, a dozen of us were sitting in a classroom at Kolkata’s Institute of Development Studies, watching the pata artist and illustrator Siraj Chitrakar sketch on a blackboard. We were there to attend a workshop for the second instalment of the Itihase Hatekhari—First History Lessons—book series. Chitrakar was sharing an idea for a page layout. First published in 2022, the series consists of short, illustrated and easy-to-read history books for middle-school students.

EXTREME MISOGYNY

Mahir Ali

THE latest chapter in the Taliban’s crusade against women was unveiled this week, when at least 60 potential scholars expecting to be accommodated at a university in Dubai were turned away from Kabul airport. It followed a series of similar gestures that have stretched from stripping the right of girls to secondary or higher education, to bans on women working for aid agencies and a ban on hair and beauty parlours.

EDITORIAL: HYPOCRISY, DECEIT, AND DIVISIVENESS: HALLMARKS OF THE REGIME RULING INDIA TODAY. WHERE IS THE NATION HEADED?

Vinod Mubayi

It is a measure of the insanity of our time that Narendra D. Modi is hailed as a vishwaguru (world-guru) and embraced unconditionally and unabashedly by the leaders of the United States and France at a time when the state of Manipur is on the verge of civil war, minorities, in particular Muslims but to an increasing extent Christians as well, are randomly assaulted and butchered by uniformed policemen, no less, spouting Hindutva slogans exalting Modi and his henchman Yogi, all while Modi maintains a strategic silence on the crimes perpetrated by his enthusiastic followers and supporters.

HAS POLICE INACTION AND ADMINISTRATIVE FAILURE FUELLED THE COMMUNAL CLASHES IN HARYANA’S NUH?

Ismat Ara

As the sun dawns over Haryana’s Nuh on August 1, the lanes seem deserted. An eerie silence has befallen the district’s once-bustling villages. The markets are shut, and the quiet is only punctured by the presence of the police personnel, who are swarmed everywhere in thousands.

REMEMBERING RANA PLAZA: POLITICS ON SOUTH ASIA’S FACTORY FLOOR

The Jamhoor Collective and Guest Editor Mihika Chatterjee

On April 24th 2013, the eight-storeyed Rana Plaza building housing multiple garment factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed to the ground. Over 1,000 workers, the majority of them women between the ages of 18 to 25, were trapped, burned, or crushed as the building turned to rubble. Thousands more, both factory workers and rescue personnel, experienced damaging injuries and trauma that devastated their lives irreversibly.

PAKISTAN’S IMF BAILOUT IS NOT WITHOUT POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

Salman Rafi Sheikh

The deal enhances the IMF’s economic and also political footprint, but leaves civil-military relations untouched and widens the gap between the elites and the masses.

BAJRANG DAL: THE AGGRESSIVE ARM OF HINDUTVA

Nistula Hebbar

The recent violence in Haryana’s Nuh, following the Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra, sometimes referred to as Shobha Yatra, in which six people were killed and 70 others injured, has shifted the spotlight, once again, on the Bajrang Dal, an offshoot of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

IMRAN KHAN SENTENCED TO PRISON, LIKELY DASHING HOPES OF POLITICAL COMEBACK

Salman Masood and Christina Goldbaum

The former prime minister of Pakistan was taken into custody, sentenced to three years after a court found him guilty of illegally selling state gifts and concealing the assets.

LONG READ: FIRE AND BLOOD: HOW THE BJP IS ENABLING ETHNIC CLEANSING IN MANIPUR

Greeshma Kuthar

{ONE}

“I DIDN’T shut up. I asked them how they can behave like this with another woman,” an 18-year-old Kuki woman told me, recalling her abduction and assault, in which Meira Paibis had played a major part. The Meira Paibis—the name translates to “torch-bearing women”—are a Meitei civil-society movement that rose to prominence through their protests against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which grants the military sweeping powers. In the ethnic violence that has engulfed Manipur over the past three months, pitting the majority Meitei community against members of Kuki tribes, who constitute a quarter of the population, the Meira Paibis have helped Meitei mobs target Kukis throughout the Imphal Valley and its surrounding foothills.

EDITORIAL: MANIPUR CONTINUES TO BURN WHILE MODI AND BIDEN EMBRACED IN THE US

Vinod Mubayi

The sensitive border state of Manipur in India’s North-East region that borders Myanmar (formerly Burma) has been engulphed in violence since May 4, 2023 that has killed hundreds, injured thousands and shows little signs of abating. In the almost two months since the violence began, Prime Minister Modi has not deigned to visit Manipur and neither has he said a word in public about the situation or the plight of the people in this state that is ruled by his party, the BJP.

RESURGENT MILITARY AUTHORITARIANISM IN PAKISTAN

Jamhoor Editorial

We at Jamhoor strongly condemn the violent and authoritarian crackdowns by Pakistan’s government and military establishment in response to the events that unfolded on May 9th 2023. These actions — including the use of extreme surveillance technologies, internet blackouts, enforced disappearances of dissenting journalists and activists, and prosecution of civilians in military courts — will further entrench the militarization of society and ultimately threaten democratic and progressive forces across the country.

TARGETING OF KUKIS THE MAIN REASON BEHIND MANIPUR VIOLENCE

Angshuman Choudhury

Highlights

The N. Biren Singh government dismissed serious Kuki grievances for years, allowing their discontent to reach boiling point.

HOW ANTI-CASTE ACTIVISM IN THE UNITED STATES HAS GROWN OVER FOUR DECADES

Aathira Konikkara

On 11 May 2023, the California State Senate passed SB 403, a bill introduced by Senator Aisha Wahab. It aims to add caste as a protected category to the state’s existing laws that prohibit exclusionary practices in housing, employment, and education.

MODI VISIT TO US: GLORIFYING SUBALTERN STATUS

Editorial in “People’s Democracy”

THE outcome of the Modi visit to the United States has made one thing clear – India has become more cemented to the United States in a strategic and military relationship.

TO DEAL WITH IMRAN KHAN, PAKISTAN DESCENDS INTO AUTOCRACY

Salman Rafi Sheikh

On 19 June, a district and sessions court in Islamabad sent the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader and former state interior minister Shehryar Afridi to Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand in a case related to the 9 May riots.

DAWN TO DUSK ON THE CORNER WHERE BANGLADESHI BROOKLYN GATHERS

Jonah Markowitz, Karen Zraick and Samira Asma-Sadeque

The photographer Jonah Markowitz spent more than two years immersed in the Bangladeshi community of Kensington, Brooklyn for this project, and was joined in the reporting and writing process by Karen Zraick and Samira Asma-Sadeque.

INDIA’S CODING PRODIGIES VERSUS HIGH DROP-OUT RATES

Nidhi C and Soham Bhattacharya

Social media platforms are filled with advertisements that promise to “Teach Your Child Programming Today!” Watch them, and you would find ten or twelve year old marvels building complex algorithms that solve everyday problems.

EDITORIAL: STUNG BY THE HUMILIATING LOSS IN KARNATAKA, MODI’S AUTOCRATIC RULE FINDS OTHER TARGETS

Vinod Mubayi

Despite the hundreds of crores spent in showering rose petals on Modi during his roadshows in Bengaluru, Karnataka voters were determined to make South India a BJP-mukt region by bringing Congress back to power with an insurmountable majority. As a result, BJP’s well-honed defection tactics used to topple elected governments that have succeeded in other states like Madhya Pradesh and Goa, and were recently employed to split the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, appeared to have been rendered futile by the scale of the Congress victory.

OBITUARY: RANA BOSE 1950-2023

Dolores Chew

INSAF mourns the passing of Rana who died on 10th May in Montreal. His death, a great loss for family, friends and comrades, is also a loss for the politics of justice and democracy.

AGGRESSORS CLAIM HURT SENTIMENTS WHILE VICTIMS FACE TRIAL

Subhash Gatade

History is a thin excuse for unrelenting majoritarianism in India and its neighbourhood.

THE END OF THE AFFAIR: HOW IMRAN KHAN WENT FROM THE PAKISTAN ARMY’S SAVIOUR TO ITS NEMESIS

Mohammed Hanif

For many years, Pakistan’s military establishment believed that in Imran Khan they had found a saviour for the country. But, writes author and journalist Mohammed Hanif, after only a year out of power he is threatening to become their nemesis – and the military is using all its might to save itself from Khan’s wrath.

BANGLADESH: CRISIS OF IDENTITY, CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

Nafis H

In the latest iteration of the Bengali vs Muslim identity debate, a Supreme Court lawyer served a legal notice on April 9, 2023 to Bangladeshi authorities to prohibit the Mongol Shobhajatra – the iconic procession for Bengali New Year (Noboborsho) – from taking place as part of the celebrations on April 14.

THE DANGERS OF FACIAL-RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY IN INDIAN POLICING

Nikhil Dharmaraj

CCTV cameras and facial recognition systems are surveillance tools that carry on the legacy of analogue technologies in stereotyping and targeting specific communities.

LONG READ: VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR: FOUNTAINHEAD OF FUNDAMENTALISM IN INDIA

B. Jeyamohan

Popular discussions about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar tend to either be hagiographic or vilify, depending on the speaker’s political, religious, or caste affiliations. In contemporary political discourse, every argument is reduced to a one-line snippet, a monolithic stance, a catchy sound bite stripped of all nuance.

SCEPTRE IN PARLIAMENT SYMBOLISES ROD OF FASCISM

MB Rajesh

Beginning with the dominance of PM Narendra Modi as he overrode the President in the new Parliament building inauguration, Kerala Minister Rajesh went on to associate the many changes brought on by the BJP as symbols of fascism.

We wish our readers Revolutionary May Day Greetings!

EDITORIAL: GLOBAL WARMING FROM FOSSIL FUELS IS A VIRULENT SYMPTOM OF THE UNDERLYING DISEASE: GLOBAL CAPITALISM

Vinod Mubayi

For the last three decades, there has been an increasing recognition of the extremely damaging and deleterious effect on the earth’s climate and environment of the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), such as carbon dioxide, from anthropogenic activity that poses a severe threat to the long-term survival of the human species. While discussions of this phenomenon used to be carried out a few decades earlier mostly in scientific journals, the words global warming are now ubiquitous in the popular media and the word “green” is now attached to all kinds of technology or activity as an attribute of environmental virtue.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT HSF EVENT IN VANCOUVER ON APRIL 1, 2023

Vinod Mubayi

Dear Brother Zahid, distinguished guests, old comrades and friends:

I feel very honored and privileged to be invited to attend and address this gathering this evening. Insaf Bulletin, that now has a record of 21 years of uninterrupted monthly publication was started in April 2002 by our much loved departed comrade Prof Daya Varma in April 2002. I joined him as co-editor two months later. After Daya’s passing in 2015, Raza Mir joined me as co-editor and along with Feroz Mehdi our circulation manager in Montreal have been integral to keeping the Bulletin going.

OBITUARY: VIVAN SUNDARAM (1943-2023)

Peter White

Vivan Sundaram, an artist whose leadership was instrumental for the deep commitment of recent generations of Indian artists to a secular and pluralist state, passed away at age seventy-nine on March 29 in New Delhi. As his fellow artist Nalini Malani said in tribute, Sundaram was “an artist who truly lived the ideology he believed in.”

STATEMENT BY HISTORIANS AND CONCERNED SCHOLARS ON RECENT CHANGES MADE BY NCERT IN TEXTBOOKS

Aditya Nigam

Received via Maya John, the following statement was issued by over 250 historians and concerned scholars, protesting against the blatantly ideologically driven agenda of the present government in deleting chapters and sections of the school textbooks.

‘RATIONALIZATION’ OF TEXT BOOKS OR COMMUNALIZATION OF POLITY?

Ram Puniyani

Text books of schools are also a site of contestation between differing versions of nationalism. The two inheritors of colonial India, India and Pakistan show this in a parallel and opposite ways. In Pakistan since the country came up in the name of Islam, it taught a history in schools which began with Mohammad bin Kasim ruling in Sind in eight century. The Hindu kings and Hindus are shown in a poor light to the extent that an average child in Pakistan school will refer to a Hindu in a very derogatory way.

PAKISTAN: THE EROSION OF UNIONS

Zeenat Hisam

Unions perform multiple economically valuable functions… — Richard B. Freeman

IN times of erosion of trust in our institutions — parliament, the judiciary, army and the state — it is challenging to talk about labour unions struggling on the fringes for decades and held in low esteem by our elite and in mass opinion.

LONG READ 1: THE BIG CON: MODI’S INDIA AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

Pankaj Mishra

Early in January, Gautam Adani, an Indian businessman and associate of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was the world’s third richest man. By the end of the month he had lost much of his fortune, after being accused by the US-based research investment firm Hindenburg Research of pulling the ‘largest con in corporate history’.

LONG READ 2: THE GENERALS AND THEIR CAPTAIN: WHAT IMRAN KHAN’S ASCENT DID TO PAKISTAN

Khurram Husain

By all standards, it was a tumultuous day in Pakistan’s parliament. Less than a month earlier, in July 2018, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, led by cricket-captain-turned-politician Imran Khan, had won a majority in the National Assembly elections. On 17 August, Khan rose to make his inaugural speech before the house as its newly elected prime minister.

EDITORIAL: COUNTERING HINDUTVA IN NORTH AMERICA BY OUTLAWING CASTE DISCRIMINATION

Vinod Mubayi

The passage of a law banning caste discrimination by the Seattle City Council a month ago on Feb 24 by a 6-1 margin was spearheaded by the India-born socialist member of the Council Kshama Sawant. It was followed less than 2 weeks later by a Toronto, Canada, district school board (TDSB) motion that passed by a 16-5 margin to make caste a protected category like race, gender and sexuality. The TDSB motion was sponsored, inter alia, by Dalit feminist school board trustee Yalini Rajakulasingam.

‘THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS’ AND THE DISINGENUITY OF HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION’S ATTEMPT TO CO-OPT ADIVASIS

Raju Rajagopal

In a recent tweet, Suhag Shukla of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) claimed that the portrayal of Bomman and Ellie in the documentary “The Elephant Whisperers” underscores Hinduism’s “inarguable indigeneity.”

BHENDI BAZAAR: BEYOND UNDERWORLD DONS, A PARADISE FOR ARTISTS

Neha Dabhade

“Bhendi Bazaar should not be known by Dawood Ibrahim but by Dawood Dalvi, a professor who taught humanities in London, not Chota Shakil but Shakil Badayuni, famous poet and song writer”, was the key take away from the cultural walk of Bhendi Bazaar named as Manto walk.

THE UKRAINE CONFLICT AND THE PEACE QUESTION

Ranabir Samaddar

1.What do we mean by constituent peace in the context of the Ukraine War? What will peace constitute so that it becomes a constituent power? This is important if any suggestion to launch a peace initiative has to go forward.

WEAPONISING THE DEFAMATION LAW: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE RAHUL GANDHI VERDICT

Sanjay Hegde

According to an apocryphal story from the erstwhile Soviet Union, a peasant stood in the market square and shouted that the minister for agriculture was a fool. He was sentenced to 10 years and one month of imprisonment. The one month was for defaming the minister and the 10 years were for revealing a state secret. The lesser penalty was for the actual act, the greater penalty was for the impact.

PAKISTAN ECONOMY UNRAVELS AS IMF IMPOSES EVER HARSHER CONDITIONS

Sampath Perera

Even as Pakistan’s government implements brutal International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity measures, the US-dominated international lender is pushing for even more sweeping “reforms” before allowing Islamabad access to a previously agreed tranche of $1.1 billion from a 2019 loan.

HISTORY: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PROGRESSIVE WRITERS’ MOVEMENT

Misha Zafar

One of the most significant literary movements to emerge from India — the All-India Progressive Writers’ Movement (AIPWM) — had its roots in the political revolution that formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1917 and its consolidation.

LONG READ: MODI’S MESSENGER: S JAISHANKAR AS THE VOICE OF INDIA’S HINDU NATIONALIST FOREIGN POLICY

Eram Agha

WHEN THE FOREIGN SECRETARY, Sujatha Singh, got a call from the external-affairs minister’s office in January 2015, she knew something was up. Sushma Swaraj wanted to set up a meeting for 2 pm on 28 January but would not say what the meeting was about.

EDITORIAL: THE OBSCENE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF KASHMIR NOW MORPHING INTO A SETTLER COLONIAL STATE

Vinod Mubayi

One has read and heard about it, seen videos and pictures of it, and listened to people describing it. But nothing quite prepares one for the deeply jarring experience of seeing it up close in person. Especially to an older viewer who has been absent for over half a century from the area where a good part of his early years was spent. All military occupations are brutal assertions of political authority. Each checkpoint whether in the city or countryside is a symbol of raw power; the occupier humiliating the occupied. The rolls of barbed wire, the masked soldiers cradling their Uzis, stopping vehicles and ordering their occupants to dismount reminded the viewer driving the 40-50 km from Srinagar to Sopore of nothing so much as a drive across the West Bank fifteen years ago from the Jordanian border to Ramallah and Jerusalem. Despite differences in history and context, what India is doing in Kashmir is little different from what Israel does in Palestine.

RSS IN CANADA: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is an India-based organization that sits at the core of a large network of groups seeking to remake India into a country run by and for Hindus first at the expense of the country’s dizzying slew of minority groups. It has domestic and international organs that seize political power, perpetuate its supremacist ideologies, and actively participate in communal violence. This outlook is commonly known as “Hindutva.”

BUDGET SQUEEZES THE POOR TO GIVE THE 1%

Mritiunjoy Mohanty and Sushil Khanna

Budgets in India are a time when governments lay out their report on the state of the economy and pronounce policy platitudes in terms of the greater good they think will justify the taxes they impose on its citizens. But beneath the platitudes of the policy slogans and couplets Finance Ministers regale parliament with, lie the contours of a struggle where different classes and groups struggle to extract their pound of flesh.

PARESH CHATTOPADHYAY (1927–2023): SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE

Bernard D’Mello

The eminent Marxian socialist scholar and critic of Lenin’s Marxism, Paresh Chattopadhyay (PC) passed away on January 14, 2023, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was emeritus professor of political economy in the department of sociology at the University of Quebec, Montreal. With a mastery of Marx in the original and an admirable presentation of Marx’s thought, PC made his readers think and reflect over what he wrote.

HIRE AND FIRE AT WILL: WHAT DO GLOBAL TECH LAY-OFFS MEAN FOR INDIA?

T.K. Rajalakshmi

Will 2017’s nightmare year for India’s IT industry return in 2023?

It was a New Year gift that the employees of Big Tech did not see coming. By the end of January, the CEOs of many technology companies had announced massive workforce cuts in the US and they have triggered a crisis that industry insiders say is likely to continue until the end of 2023.

AN ‘UNREAL CITY’ WITH REAL PROBLEMS: DHAKA’S DREADFUL URBAN PLANNING

Anika Saba and Shamiul Hossain

At a time when Dhaka city is slowly being stripped bare of its precious greenery, as mindless landfilling goes unabated with a huge number of trees already felled for building homes, the government entities who are supposed to fight for saving breathing spaces have been caught napping, failing to allay worries of environmentalists. Besides, newspaper reports on ‘modernising’ a historical park – Suhrawardy Udyan – by uprooting hundreds of old trees have only fuelled speculation that the authorities hardly care for the city environment.

ISLAMABAD: AURAT AZADI JALSA DEMANDS ECONOMIC, LAND REFORMS

Ikram Junaidi

A large number of activists, including members of trade unions, gathered at F-9 Park on Sunday to take part in ‘Aurat Azadi Jalsa’ organised by the Women Democratic Front (WDF) and Aurat Azadi March to commemorate the 113th International Working Women Day.

WHAT INDIAN MEDIA DIDN’T TELL US ABOUT FAIZ FESTIVAL IN LAHORE

Shiv Inder Singh

The Indian media widely publicised the Faiz Festival 2023 held in Lahore, Pakistan, between 17 and February 19, after the famous Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar, who attended the event, said in response to a question that the accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack are roaming freely in Pakistan. India’s media published this remark with sensational headlines such as ‘Javed Akhtar Tells Pakistan Off Clearly’, and ‘Javed Akhtar Entered Pakistan and Thrashed it’. However, the headlines and stories never mentioned that Akhtar’s audience, primarily Pakistanis, also clapped at this remark.

EDITORIAL: CULT OF PERSONALITY BOOMS AS THE COUNTRY SINKS INTO A MORASS OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND REPRESSION

Vinod Mubayi

His picture is literally everywhere. On bus stops, railroad stations, airports, even on the back of airplane seats, not to mention vaccine cards, ration cards, and God knows what else. Big Brother is not only watching you; he is also your only succor. Few leaders in recent memory and certainly not in India have had as supersized an ego as to have a 100,000-seat sports stadium named after them while alive and in office. So, the Modi cult of personality on the lines of 20th century authoritarian leaders like Hitler or Stalin is not just blooming; it is booming.

WHITEWASHING CASTE: HOW INDIAN IMMIGRANTS USED RELIGION AND CASTE TO NATURALISE AS WHITE IN THE US

Hardeep Dhillon

ON 6 SEPTEMBER 1915, 22-year-old Kala Bagai arrived at Angel Island aboard the SS Korea with her husband and three sons. Kala carried a material archive of her life in her luggage: gold ornaments, a portrait of herself, a sky-blue silk sari reserved for special occasions. Kala had carefully chosen the valuables, knowing her husband, Vaishno Das Bagai, intended to establish a home in the United States.

SRI LANKA IS CALM AGAIN. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THINGS ARE ANY BETTER

Mujib Mashal and Skandha Gunasekara

On the surface, calm has returned to Sri Lanka since the South Asian nation plunged into political chaos and virtual bankruptcy last summer. Gone are the fuel lines that snaked for blocks; a seaside expanse that had been the site of a monthslong protest encampment was resplendent over the holidays with Christmas lights and carnival rides.

AURAT, AZADI: FEMINISM AND ITS FUTURE IN PAKISTAN

An interview with Ismat Shahjahan on the dynamics and contestations in Pakistan’s growing feminist movement.

CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT ON 2002 GUJARAT RIOTS: ‘THE GHOSTS HAVE NEVER LEFT ME’

Anupama Katakam

Jaffrelot was one of those the BBC interviewed for the documentary “India: The Modi Question”.

HOW GAUTAM ADANI MADE (AND COULD LOSE) A $147 BILLION FORTUNE

Stacy Meichtry

AHMEDABAD, India—Gautam Adani is ubiquitous in this country.

His name is plastered on roadside billboards and on the airports and shipping docks he operates. His power plants light Mumbai office towers and irrigate rural fields, fueled by coal he imports from mines as far away as Australia. He recently expanded into defense and media.

DOES PATHAAN’S PHENOMENAL SUCCESS MARK THE START OF A PUSHBACK AGAINST HATE?

Shuma Raha

The verdict was out on the very day of its release. Pathaan, the Shah Rukh Khan starrer, was set to be a blockbuster. And so it is – in the first week after it hit the theatres, the film has grossed over Rs 600 crore worldwide, and over Rs 300 crore in the domestic market.

EDITORIAL: SOUTH ASIA ON THE BRINK: MALIGN CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO-NATION THEORY

Vinod Mubayi

O, what a fall was there my countrymen,

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down

Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us

This Shakesperean lament over the fate of a country is a fitting coda to the situation South Asia finds itself in at this juncture: 75 years after the Partition of British ruled India into two states on the basis of religious identity defined by the so-called two-nation theory.

BULLDOZERS, DISCRIMINATORY LAWS AND DEMONIZATION OF MINORITIES: COMMUNAL VIOLENCE 2022

Irfan Engineer and Neha Dabhade

The Hindu right wing weaponized Hindu festivals to foment communal rights in 2022, according to the monitoring of Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) based on the reports that appeared in three English newspapers of The Hindu, Indian Express and Times of India. In the year 2022, these newspapers reported 40 incidents of communal riots in India.

FORCIBLE CONVERSIONS IN NARAYANPUR AND CHHATTISGARH

Irfan Engineer

PART 1

The Hindu nationalists have quite successfully propagated that Christians are converting Hindus with either inducements, fraud or through coercion on such a large scale that there would be a demographic imbalance sooner rather than later.

GREEN HERRING: WHY INDIA’S POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IS BRAGGING ABOUT WINNING A WAR WITH PAKISTAN

Sushant Singh

In October 2022, Narendra Modi donned battle fatigues and boasted of military preparedness while spending a few hours with soldiers in Kargil, where India and Pakistan last fought a limited war in 1999. COURTESY PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU

HINDU SOCIETY IS AT WAR, NATURAL FOR PEOPLE TO BE AGGRESSIVE: RSS CHIEF MOHAN BHAGWAT

The Wire Analysis

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, in words that rationalise and almost justify the sharp rise in communal temperature as well as mob impunity over the past few years, told the Organiser in an interview; “Hindu society has been at war for over 1000 years – this fight has been going on against foreign aggressions, foreign influence and foreign conspiracies. Sangh has offered its support to this cause, there are many who have spoken about it. And it is because of all these that the Hindu society has awakened. It is but natural for people those at war to be aggressive.”

UNPACKING DIGITAL BANGLADESH

Zara Rahman

On 12 December 2021, Bangladeshi media highlighted the country’s digital policy achievements to commemorate 13 years to the day since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina first called for a ‘Digital Bangladesh’.

BOOK REVIEW: ‘UNVEILING JAZBAA’ CAPTURES THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF PAKISTAN WOMEN’S CRICKET

Abhinav Chakraborty

Unveiling Jazbaa: A History of Pakistan Women’s Cricket

By Aayush Puthran

Westland Sport

Pages: 288

Price: Rs.599

A great book about sport, they say, is never just about sport.

THE ANATOMY OF URDU: HOW THE LANGUAGE OF STATE-MAKING IN PAKISTAN CONTRIBUTES TO THE ERASURE OF REGIONAL LANGUAGES

Hurmat Ali Shah

A language doesn’t belong to its people. But perhaps people belong to a language. I belong to Urdu as much as I belong to Pashto or English. Language carries cultural-historical memory and, by extension, collective human wisdom. It makes us human.

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