Gujarat Riots 2002 Archives - Lokmarg

Five Things That Happened Last Week (And What to Make of Them)

By Sanjoy Narayan 22nd January 2023

Jacinda Ardern and the fine art of exiting office

The MP, former minister and Congress Party leader, Jairam Ramesh, who will turn 70 next year, posted an interesting tweet on his timeline the other day. News had broken about New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, 42, who had announced that she was stepping down from her post as the country’s leader on account of what can be described as burnout. Announcing her decision, Ardern had said: “I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have, but also one of the more challenging. You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.”

Ramesh’s tweet lauded that decision and said: “Legendary cricket commentator, Vijay Merchant once said about retiring at the peak of his career: Go when people ask why is he going instead of why isn’t he going. Kiwi PM, Jacinda Ardern has just said she is quitting following Merchant’s maxim. Indian politics needs more like her.” Great point, that, about Indian politics. The thing, however, is that in his own party, the recently elected president, Mallikarjun Kharge is 80; and although she has stepped down from the president’s position, Sonia Gandhi who continues to be the real supremo of the party is 76 and keeps indifferent health. What’s more, her son, Rahul, who enjoys the privilege of being a sort of on-and-off leader of the party is 52 and is considered to be young and still evolving.

But then that is the story of Indian politics. India is a young country but its politicians are old, many of them dodderingly so. In 2022, the median age of an Indian was 28.7 years, compared to 38.4 for China and 48.6 for Japan. Yet, even though 65% of Indians are below the age of 35, the average age of its MPs has been over 50 for decades. And, typically, the so-called “young” nation’s leaders have been pretty old. Take, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Next September, he will turn 73. And, although the average age of his council of ministers has dropped from 61 to 58, most of his key ministerial colleagues are 60-plus. Contrast that with the fact that government officers in India have to retire at 58 or 60; Supreme Court judges at 65; and high court judges at 62.

Let’s go back to New Zealand. Ardern, who has indicated that burnout is the main reason she is hanging up her boots has, since she assumed office in 2017, handled several big challenges (albeit in a small country with a population of around 5 million) including a terror attack, the global pandemic, a volcanic explosion and so on. She also had a daughter during her term and created ripples when she brought her to the United Nations during an official visit. Yet, at 42, she has decided that it is time to call it quits.

Calling it quits is, however, not in the DNA of most Indian political leaders and even bureaucrats. Most of them are unable to reconcile to a life without the trappings of power. That is why we see fair numbers of bureaucrats jockeying into politics when their official bureaucratic tenures reach the end. Many, with the right sycophantic credentials, end up as governors of states or head commissions or secure similar sinecures where the perks and status that they enjoyed during their earlier careers can still be somewhat intact.

So Ramesh (the tweeting politician mentioned before) is quite right actually. Indian politics needs more people like Ardern who don’t cling on to power after their fizz has turned flat. But then the onus for doing so is with people like him and his ilk.

New BBC docu on Modi raises hackles

A new two-part BBC documentary, titled ‘India: The Modi Question’, has, among other things, shows that a hitherto secret British government investigation into the 2002 Gujarat riots, which left over 1,000 people dead, found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was then the chief minister of Gujarat was “directly responsible” for the communal violence that had ravaged the state. The investigation, according to the BBC documentary, also found that the extent of the violence was much greater than what was reported and that the motive behind the riots was to purge Muslims.

While in the years after the riots rocked Gujarat, Indian courts have dismissed allegations against Modi and his then government in Gujarat, the shadow of the Gujarat riots and widespread violence against Muslims during that period has been haunting him and his former colleagues, notably the Union home minister Amit Shah who was also Gujarat’s home minister in 2002.

The BBC documentary was briefly streamed on YouTube but later yanked from the platform. Now it can be watched only on the BBC iPlayer that works within the UK and not outside that demarcated geography. Predictably, the documentary has been divisive. The official reaction of the Indian government has been to label it as propaganda that smacks of “a colonial mindset” and an anti-India stance by the British prime minister Rishi Sunak in order to prove his British loyalty. Liberal and left-leaning circles, however, have lauded the BBC for its investigative efforts to get to the truth behind the riots and the involvement of Modi and his government in Gujarat then. Meanwhile, in case you are wondering, much of India’s mainstream media have sided with the government’s view on the documentary.

Perhaps older politicians are better for India

Lakya Suryanarayana Tejasvi Surya, 32, is an Indian politician, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation, and a BJP MP in Parliament. He is also famously the man who opened the emergency exit door of an airplane while on board. Luckily, it did not lead to a disaster. Surya is believed to have said that his hand accidentally touched the handle of the emergency door and it opened.

To anyone who has flown on an aircraft, the emergency exit door usually is not touch sensitive. Also, opening it when a plane is not in an emergency situation is unlawful. Surya’s party colleague and aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, however, made light of what could have been a disastrous thing by saying: “It’s important to look at the facts. The door was opened by him by mistake when the flight was on the ground and after all checks, the flight was allowed to take off. He also apologised for the mistake.”

As far as we know, Surya has not been censured or has had to pay for his “mistake”. Life goes on as normal for him as it usually does for most privileged members of India’s power elite when they break the law. But, (and see the segment on Jacinda Ardern above) perhaps India needs older, greying and wiser politicians rather than whippersnappers whose hands can wander when they are sitting in an aircraft.

Women wrestlers accuse coaches of sexual harassment

Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, 66, is a six-time MP and head of the Wrestling Federation of India. He has also been recently accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers for many years. Women and men wrestlers who have been staging protests have alleged that Singh as well as coaches at the national camp for wrestling in Lucknow have been exploiting women wrestlers systematically.

Singh and others have, for the moment, denied the allegations but as investigations get going the truth will, hopefully, emerge. For a long time women in Indian sports have been discriminated against and this is not the first time that allegations of exploitation have been made. However, it is the first major concerted protest against people in power in India’s sports arena. One hopes that others will be inspired by such protests to open up about similar instances in other sports.

Google, ChatGPT and the imminent battle over AI-powered bots

I asked ChatGPT, a chat bot developed by OpenAI, an American artificial intelligence lab, which has become a big craze around the world: “What is Google Deep Learning?” In seconds, the bot replied: “Google Deep Learning refers to the various deep learning technologies and services developed by Google, such as TensorFlow and the Google Brain team. These technologies and services are used for a wide range of applications, including image and speech recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics. Google has also developed various deep learning models and algorithms, such as the Google Neural Machine Translation system and the Google DeepMind AlphaGo program, which have achieved significant breakthroughs in their respective fields.”

The reason why I asked ChatGPT that question was because of the imminent competition that it might face. Even as ChatGPT becomes a rage (it can answer any question as long as it pertains to pre-2021; it can write essays; create lyrics for songs; and almost everything that a human can do), Google, which has a subsidiary called DeepMind, is believed to be working on a ChatGPT killer that it claims to be better, faster and safer than ChatGPT. Must ask ChatGPT what it thinks of that!

Stan Swamy Dies In Jail, Rapists Are Released! Welcome To New India

By LokMarg 30th August 2022

Kavita Srivastava, national secretary of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, says remission granted to Bilkis Bano’s rapists was premeditated

It is outrageous, both in law and morally. Procedurally, the question of remission should have gone to the Maharashtra State, where the trial happened. The Supreme Court in 2016 had established it in the union of India vs V. Sriharan, which the Gujarat High Court had relied upon, when one of the convicted, Lala Vakil, in the ‘Bilkis Bano gang rape and murder of her family case’, had moved court for premature release.

The SC, in its May order too, had not pronounced the remission — it had only asked the Gujarat government to consider it. The constitution of the committee, with the non-official members being BJP leaders, including elected representatives, further establishes that at every step, the stage was set for the release of the convicted. Also, the permission of the presiding judge, who convicted the accused, was not sought. That should ideally have been the Mumbai trial court which sentenced the 11 accused in 2013.

Since the CBI had investigated the case, it is also clear in law that the Gujarat government should have consulted the central government in Delhi, since its opinion would be mandatory in the remission. Did the Gujarat government seek its opinion? It is time the Union Ministry of Home Affairs clarified this position.

Being a crime against humanity, there was no way that remission should have been granted. The revised guidelines of remission as listed in 2014 are clear on this, but the Gujarat government, again making it easy for the convicts, decided to use the 1992 guidelines.

This aspect is what is chilling; that the survivor of rape and a witness of the murder of 14 people of her family, including three children, including her own 3-year-old daughter, is expected to live everyday with the killers and rapists (confirmed by court) living close by. Did the committee not see this aspect while upholding the remission?

ALSO READ: ‘Bilkis Lives In Fear, Her Rapists Being Lionized’

It is not that the women’s movement does not believe in the remission of those convicted against acts of violence against women. But this is unprecedented as there is no such example for remission for such a heinous crime. If the convicted were medically not well, or facing debilitating illnesses, or, simply could not take care of themselves, as was the case of Father Stan Swamy, there was still a cause for consideration. Father Stan was 83 and an under trial; he was not granted bail and denied even a sipper.

Or consider the case of 93-year-old Dr Habib, arrested on charges of terrorism, who could not even clean himself. The jail manual is clear that if the physical strength of the prisoner is reduced to half of what it was at the time of committing the crime, his case should be considered.

This has raised a new question for the women’s movement; that first we have to struggle for justice at every step, from the lodging of the FIR, fair investigation, filing of a proper charge sheet, and ensuring that good lawyers are available to fight it out in the trial court. The protracted trial itself becomes difficult when the woman has to speak her testimony in front of her own rapists. In the current circumstances, it is a signal that if at all the judgement does come in favour of the woman, it can be done away with a stroke by the executive if it wants to reverse it through remission.

The remission policy was a humanitarian dimension in our Constitution and criminal law, but to convert it for the sake of one party wanting to show that it has met the aspirations of the people by granting remission to Brahmins, as they are ‘sanskaris’, as stated by the MLA of the remission committee, shows that this dimension too can be abused. It adds to a terribly frightening scenario for Muslim women in particular, who are vulnerable to sexual violence in the present majoritarian and xenophobic times, even while the issue of hijab is still unsettled. Indeed, this is a big blow for Muslim women in India.

This example is clear — that in the contemporary, majoritarian times of the re-establishment of the chaturvarna system, through Brahminism, which is integral to the ideology of Hindutva, Muslims, Dalits, adivasis, and all women, will be affected. The Manu law will be re-established. All women will consequently face attacks and women’s rights will be violated encompassing all women across the spectrum.

Savarkar clearly said that the ‘othering’ of the women of the ‘enemy’ – read, the minorities, Muslims, Christians, communists, etc, – is acceptable and part of the struggle to make Bharat a Hindu Rashtra. Well, we are almost there. Indeed, historically, the contestation between communities always happens over women’s bodies! Surely, this is another kind of organised violence.

Bilkis Lives in Fear, Her Rapists Are Being Lionized

By LokMarg 24th August 2022

Pyoli Swatija, a Supreme Court advocate and rights activist, points out how the remission granted to rape convicts in the Bilkis Bano case overlooked legal norms

Being a feminist advocate I do not subscribe to capital punishment for any crime. Reformation as the ultimate aim of legal punishment. But we have to consider the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case: What was the crime, the circumstances surrounding it and how did the law & order machinery and the criminal justice system deal with it?

Also, from the criminological point of view: does the conduct of the convicts show that they have been reformed? This was not just a case of 12 persons (one of whom has subsequently died) murdering seven people (including two children) and raping five women including a pregnant Bilkis Bano. Bilkis should not be seen as just another woman. She is a Muslim. Whatever happened to her and her relatives during the Gujarat pogrom was due to their religious identity and as per law, identity-based rape and murder is considered graver than rape and murder simpliciter.

About the state of law & order at the time of the crime, recall the Supreme Court’s statement: “When Rome was burning, Nero was busy playing his lyre.” Under those circumstances, the apex court had transferred the cases of Bilkis Bano and Zahira Sheikh from Gujarat to Maharashtra and ordered CBI investigation.

Were the legal parameters for granting remission of sentence met in this case? A bare reading of CrPC and that which has been interpreted by a five-judge SC bench in the Union of India Vs V Sriharan case (2014), in a case of remission, the concerned government will be the government in whose state the trial was conducted and the verdict was given, regardless of the place of occurrence of the crime.

It is a settled law that no writ petition under Article 32 is maintainable against the order of a high court in SC. Writ is maintainable only against the state and courts are not covered under the definition of “state” under Article 12. When the remission case came to Gujarat HC, it clearly held that the Gujarat government did not have the power to consider remission since the trial was held in Maharashtra.

Instead of appealing against this order, the convict approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 and the SC reversed the high court judgement in a writ petition. In my opinion, this 14th May 2002 order of the Supreme Court is per incuriam (not paying attention to relevant statutory provision).

We need to take into account two rulings in remission cases. Article 14 mandates that discretion cannot be exercised arbitrarily. In Laxman Naskar Vs Union of India, SC said that a petition for remission will be considered by the state government only after considering the following five parameters: a) What is the impact of the offense on the society at large; b) Probability of crime being repeated; c) Potential of the convict to commit a crime; d) Fruitful purpose of keeping convict in detention; and e) Socio-economic condition of the convict.

Victim Bilkis Bano has said that she has been repeatedly threatened by the offenders, whenever they have come out on parole. Now they are out and being felicitated. I do not know the socio-economic condition of convicts but the rest four points regarding state discretion clearly demonstrate that they are a threat to society and have a probability to repeat the crime. Where is the reformation after all these years? They have walked free like triumphant victors while Bilkis has lived a nomad’s life.

Second, Under CRPC 432(2), the opinion of the trial court judge has to be solicited for remission. Justice Chandrachud and Justice Aniruddh Bose in Ramchandra Vs State of Chhattisgarh have stated that the state’s decision cannot differ from the trial court judge’s recommendation, except when the judge has not given a reasoned opinion and considering the five parameters of the Laxman Naskar case, there was no option for the state government but to differ from the trial court judge.

We came to know from media reports that the trial court judge clearly said that convicts should not be remitted. How the state dealt with his opinion, we do not know. Then again, CrPC 435 says that remission in any crime that has been investigated by CBI should not be granted without the central government’s consultation. Did they consult the central government? Central government should tell what it opined on the point of remission so that we will know if what the PM spoke of about respecting women on August 15 was followed in practice or not.

This is my opinion as per law. As far as morality is concerned, we are nowadays witnessing the felicitation of convicts by society. We can easily see here the legal system is not different from the societal structure. You cannot expect institutions to remain insulated from society when fascism has gripped the minds of the majority our people. As is the society, so is the justice system. Hope remains only in resistance, in speaking truth to power, in standing in solidarity with the brave-heart Bilkis Bano.

Pyoli Swatija is also affiliated with Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, an NGO

As told to Abhishek Srivastava