Important Dates

• Submission of Abstract: 10^th April 2019
• Intimation of Acceptance of abstract: 12^th April
• Submission of Full Paper: 22^nd April 2019
• Intimation of Acceptance of final paper: 24^th April 2019
• Date of Seminar: April 30—May 01, 2019

Concept Note

This seminar may be seen as an attempt towards developing an organic understanding of the theory of justice for the developing world and beyond. It’s an attempt to develop a framework of justice which is best suited for the Indian needs while engaging with the contemporary practices of justice in India. Another running theme of the seminar is to go beyond the academic categories and concepts which make little sense to the lived-experiences of Indian masses. The seminar will try to analyze the dilemmas of justice both in practice and theory. Given the rich philosophical traditions of India, its cross-cutting diversity and issues specifically related to India, like Caste, the seminar will interrogate the question of justice from varied lenses specifically suited to Indian needs. We will try to evaluate the social justice framework in India from the standpoint of universalist western paradigms. An attempt will also be made to go beyond Eurocentric theories of justice while developing an Indigenous organic framework of justice.

Therefore,  we are trying to move beyond the traditional conceptualization of justice in terms of desert, virtue, distribution, fairness and bring into the fold of justice the emerging concepts like Capabilitarianism, Svaraj and Recognition in global south with special reference to India. With revisiting of Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar and emergence of Amartya Sen, Neera Chandhoke, Rajeev Bhargava, Gurpreet Mahajan, Aakash Singh Rathore on the Indian academic scene, there is a quest for developing an Indian theory of Justice. The assertion of Ambedkarite forces, marginalization of minorities and adivasis and emergence of a mammoth Indian Urban Middle Class has changed the dynamics of academic discourse in India in a big way. After more than seventy years of Indian Independence and its interaction with the fast-changing global world, the academic categories to capture Indian reality are falling short. This conference attempts to meaningfully engage with the ground reality of the Indian masses vis-a-vis the academic theorization while contesting the western gaze on Global South.

Principal Theme

Towards a Just India: Challenges and Prospects

Suggested Sub-Themes

Section I: Theoretical Debates and Underpinnings on Justice

• Classical Paradigms of Justice
• Contemporary Paradigms: Liberal, Neo-Liberal and Communitarian Perspectives on Justice
• Towards Integrating Classical and Contemporary Paradigms of Justice
• Non-Western Perspectives on Justice
• The Universalist and Relativist Conceptions of Justice
• Global Justice: Implications for Developing World
• Universalization and Institutionalization of Welfare State: Normative and Empirical Dimensions
• Democracy and Justice: Representation. Recognition, Participation, Inclusion and Redistribution
• Capability Paradigm of Justice and Global South
• Post-Modern and Post-Colonial Theorization of Justice 

Section II: Issues and Debates in India

• The Constitutionalization of Justice in India
• Human Rights and Justice in Indian Context
• Legal Initiatives and Social Rights Jurisprudence
• Redistribution, Recognition and Representation Debates in India
• Multicultural Framework and Justice in India
• Affirmative Action Programs: Policies, Performance, Implementation and Outcomes
• The Democratic Practice, Complex Diversity and Justice in India
• Intersectionality of Caste, Class, and Gender
• Rawlsian Justice: Exploring the Possibilities of Engagement in India
• Contextualizing Communitarian Approaches to Justice with reference to India
• Amartya Sen’s Idea of Justice: Deconstructing Contemporary India
• Neo-Liberal Tilt of Indian State and Its implications for Marginalized Sections
• Globalization and Its Impact on Marginalized Sections
• Justice in Digital India: Implications of WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook
• The Question of Growth with Equity
• The Issue of Migration, Displacement, and Development: State Corporatism and Social Movements
• Land Acquisition and the Question of Justice
• Communal Violence and Justice
• State of Gender Justice
• Public Interest Litigation and Legal Aid
• Ancient Hindu Traditions, Hindutva and Justice
• Buddhist Ethics and Justice
• Islamic Perspectives on Justice
• Gandhi’s Conception of Justice
• Ambedkarite Vision of Justice
• State of Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development

Important Note

• The participants will not be allowed to present the paper without the prior submission of the complete paper by 22nd April 2019.
• Selected articles will be published in the form of a book from a reputed publisher.
• Proper time will be given to revise the papers for publication in the backdrop of the critical inputs in the seminar.
• Board and lodging will be provided to the outstation participants.
• TA may be reimbursed as per needs of the participants and availability of funds.

Guidelines for Abstract Submission

The abstract should not be more than 400 words in MS word only (PDF files will not be accepted) along with the title of the proposed paper, Presenting Author, Second/Third Author (if any), email address, contact no., affiliating institution. Abstracts should be sent to [email protected]

About the University

The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is a premier Central University included as an institution of ‘National Importance’ in the VII Schedule of the Constitution of India with several faculties and maintained institutions. The Aligarh Muslim University was Accredited by NAAC in ‘A’ grade. AMU draws students from all over the country as well as foreign countries. Imbibing the objective tenor of the west and preserving the oriental tradition, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the great visionary, established the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College on May 24, 1875 with a resolve to initiate western education amongst Muslims and liberate their mind from out-moded patterns of thought and behaviour. The vision became a reality in 1920 when this College matured to the status of the Aligarh Muslim University. Since then it has ever been expanding, diversifying and relentlessly working towards keeping its promise to the commitment of its founder. The residential character of this University, where most of the staff and students reside on the campus itself, contributes greatly to the country’s multi-religious, multi-social and multi-lingual character. There are thirteen faculties and more than a hundred Departments of Studies with a teaching strength of around 2,000 faculty members disseminating knowledge to more than thirty thousand students.

About the Department

 The Department of History and Politics of the Aligarh Muslim University was established in 1922. The present Department of Political Science became a separate and independent Department in 1948. Presently the Department has 26 faculty members. Apart from offering B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science the department also offers M.A., M.Phil and Ph.D. programs in Political Science, Public Administration and Human Rights. Since 1967 the Department has been publishing a research journal, Indian Journal of Politics, [ISSN: 0303 – 9957] which has been indexed in the Current Contents and abstracted in the International Political Science Abstracts (Paris).

About Aligarh

Aligarh is located on the main Delhi-Kolkata rail route at a distance of 135 km south-east of Delhi (Approximately two hours journey from Delhi). Aligarh is only 82 km from Agra and 60 km from Mathura (by road), two very famous places of historical interest and tourist attraction. The campus is two kms away from Aligarh Railway Station.

Registration Fee

Faculty: Rs. 2000/-

Research Scholars/Students:Rs. 1000/-

Registration will be on-spot prior to the Inaugural Session.

The Committee

Patron                 

Prof. Tariq Mansoor (Vice-Chancellor, AMU)

Coordinator

Prof. Nigar Zuberi (Chairperson, D/o Political Science)

Convenor           

Dr. Khurram (+91 92197 33327)

Co-Convenors  

• Dr. Mohammad Aslam (+91 99990 58968)
• Mr. Akbar (+91 90138 98178)

Advisory Committee

• Prof. A. R. Vijapur
• Prof. Arif Hameed
• Prof. M. Asmer Beg
• Prof. Md. Nafees Ansari
• Prof.Arshi Khan
• Prof. Iftekhar Ahemmed

Organizational Committee

• Prof. Aftab Alam
• Prof. Farhana Kausar
• Dr. Iqbalur Rehman
• Dr. M. Mohibul Haque
• Dr. M. Naseem Khan
• Dr. Md. Aftab Alam

Email: [email protected]

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The recent diabolical attack on the people of the Muslim community in New Zealand, who were there for offering Jumah Salah (Friday Prayers) in Christchurch, very clearly explains the popular apprehensions in the West about the non-western immigrant and non-western civilization as a threat to them.

But these types of unfoldings of events were earlier predicted by some world public intellectuals giving them a color of a fault line between the Christian West and the Islam. Popularized through some events and empirical turn, Samuel P. Huntington was a great one among them.

Huntington was among the most plentiful and influential political scientists of his generation. His legacy has become inextricably linked to a Foreign Affairs article published three decades ago. In his article The Clash of Civilizations (1993), Huntington put forward the idea about what the post-cold-war world might look like and the debate has not been abandoned since then.

Huntington believed that the center of the world was shifting and the conflict would be defined by culture rather than ideology or economic premises. Nation-state, argued Huntington, would remain as the main actor but the conflict would occur between the nation and group of different cultures, and “fault lines between the civilizations will be the battle line of future”.

The current attack on Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch is one of the most important testimonies of being true of Huntington prophecy. The choosing of particular place and community by the killer uncovered the nature of hatred and clash simmering in the mind of like-minded people. This denotes the sense of Islamophobia and cultural threat to their western community by Islam and also the fear of domination by Muslim immigrants.

Is so-called Islamization of the west a threat to the natives’ culture and religion? While in Newzeland just one percent is the total population of Muslims, is it another phase of the debate? Growth in migration since globalization booming during 90s, As a result westerners increasingly fear “ that they are now being invaded not by armies and tanks but by migrants who speak other languages, worship other gods, belong to other cultures, and, they fear, will take their jobs, occupy their land, live off the welfare system, and threaten their way of life”.

Huntington was wrestling through the challenges of what “culture” was to look like in a globalizing world. The challenges that Huntington was facing as he looked at the conflict that would occur in various instances between “us” and “them” was primarily about understanding better what “us” meant in the new world and clash thesis was a part of how he sought to work out to understand those relationships.

Why is it a touchstone for nearly all contemporary debates about the capacity of different groups to live together in relative amity, not enmity? Because it exposes the hope and fear of globalization and its perfect imagination of post-cold war world scenario of conflict. After the defeat of the USSR, it was also the trend that enabled the religion to resume its long-abandoned place in global politics.

Exiled to marginalization after 1648, the sudden demise of the cold war and the USSR and its secular ideology, opened the way for new focus on “culture”. Reciprocal response by the US after 9/11 was real proof of the clash of civilizations between the “Christian West” and the “Islamic world”.

Huntington viewed in 1993 Islam as the great threat because “they hate us”, in 2004 he saw Hispanic immigration as the great danger because they aren’t us. It was not about hate, it was about us. If civilizations were the main fault line of the international politics “we” would be just “us” at peace with ourselves in our own place and everyone else in theirs.

The author is a research scholar at the Department of Political Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.

The post Revisiting Huntington’s Legacy in the Post-Christchurch times appeared first on Awaam India.

The recent massacre of 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand is the latest confirmation that white supremacy is a danger to democratic societies across the globe.

Despite President Donald Trump’s suggestion that white nationalist terrorism is not a major problem, recent data from the United Nations, University of Chicago and other sources show the opposite.

As more people embrace a xenophobic and anti-immigrant worldview, it is fueling hostility and violence toward those deemed “outsiders” – whether because of their religion, skin color or national origin.

Transnational violence

Most of the Western world – from Switzerland and Germany to the United States, Scandinavia and New Zealand – has witnessed a potent nationalist strain infecting society in recent years.

Driven by fear over the loss of white primacy, white nationalists believe that white identity should be the organizing principle of Western society.

“Every people in the world can have their own country except white people,” the American Freedom Party’s William Daniel Johnson told the Chicago Sun Times after the New Zealand attack. “We should have white ethno-states.”

In researching our upcoming book on extremism – our joint area of academic expertise – we found that hate crimes have risen alongside the global spread of white nationalism. Racist attacks on refugees, immigrants, Muslims and Jews are increasing worldwide at an alarming rate.

Scholars studying the internationalization of hate crimes call this dangerous phenomenon “violent transnationalism.”

In Europe, white violence appears to have been triggered by the sudden increase, in 2015, of refugees fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ultra-nationalists across the continent – including politicians at the highest rungs of power – used the influx as evidence of the imminent “cultural genocide” of white people.

White nationalism is a US export

This disturbing international trend, in its modern incarnation, was born in the United States.

Since the 1970s, a small, vocal cadre of American white supremacists have sought to export their ideology of hate. Avowed racists like Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke, Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler and extremist author William Pierce believe the white race is under attack worldwide by a cultural invasion of immigrants and people of color.

The United States is diversifying, but it remains 77 percent white. White supremacists, however, have long contended that the country’s demographic changes will lead to an extermination of the white race and culture.

The “alt-right” – an umbrella term describing modern online white supremacist movement – uses the same language. And it has expanded this 20th-century xenophobic worldview to portray refugees, Muslims and progressives as a threat, too.

Alt-right leaders like Richard Spencer, extremist Jared Taylor and the Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin also use social media to share their ideology and recruit members across borders.

They have found a global audience of white supremacists who, in turn, have also used the internet to share their ideas, encourage violence and broadcast their hate crimes worldwide.

“The hatred that led to violence in Pittsburgh and Charlottesville is finding new adherents around the world,” Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil liberties watchdog, told USA Today after the New Zealand attack.

“Indeed, it appears that this attack was not just focused on New Zealand; it was intended to have a global impact.”

Rising racist violence

We know the alleged New Zealand mosque shooter’s hatred of Muslims was inspired by American white nationalism – he said so on Twitter.

His online “manifesto” includes references to cultural conflicts that the author believed would eventually lead the United States to separate along ethnic, political and racial lines.

The alleged attacker also wrote that he supports President Donald Trump “as a symbol of renewed white identity.”

Trump and other right-wing politicians like French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders have blamed the very real problems of modern life – growing economic instability, rising inequality and industrial decay – on immigrants and people of color.

That narrative has added further hostility into the existing undercurrent of intolerance in increasingly multicultural societies like the United States.

Hate crimes against Muslims, immigrants and people of color have been on the rise in the U.S. since 2014.

In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented 892 hate crimes. The next year, it counted 917 hate crimes. In 2017 – the year Trump took office stoking nationalist sentiment with promises to build walls, deport Mexicans and ban Muslims – the U.S. saw 954 white supremacist attacks.

One of them was a violent clash between counterprotesters and white nationalists over the removal of a confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. The 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, which killed one person and injured dozens, amplified the ideas of modern white nationalists nationally and worldwide.

Last year, white nationalists killed at least 50 people in the United States. Their victims included 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, two elderly black shoppers in a Kroger parking lot in Kentucky and two women practicing yoga in Florida.

The years 2015, 2016 and 2018 were the United States’ deadliest years for extremist violence since 1970, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

All perpetrators of deadly extremist violence in the U.S. in 2018 had links to white nationalist groups. That made 2018 “a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders,” the Anti-Defamation League says.

Nationalist terror is a danger to the domestic security of the United States and, evidence shows, a global terror threat that endangers the very nature of global democratic society.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton and Paul J. Becker, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Photo Description: A protester holds a sign reading “White supremacy is terrorism” at a march in New York City, August 13, 2017. (Reuters / Joe Penney)

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Two years ago the University of Cape Town (UCT) “disinvited” Flemming Rose from giving its annual T.B. Davie Academic Freedom Lecture. Rose is the cultural editor of the Danish publication, Jyllands-Posten that depicted the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons.

The term disinvited was coined by the American-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It refers to speakers who have been disinvited after being invited to speak at universities. Between 2000 and 2017, the foundation had found 192 incidents in which students or members of university staff had pushed for speakers to be disinvited.

In rescinding the invitation, UCT’s former vice-chancellor, Dr Max Price, invoked the language of “safe spaces” and asserted that bringing Rose to campus:

might retard rather than advance academic freedom on campus.

Last year the Stellenbosch University found itself in a similar situation when a group of Israeli scholars withdrew from a planned conference. They cited feelings of inhospitality and exclusion. In this instance, after meeting with the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the university’s vice-chancellor, stated that:

As a research-intensive university of global significance, we continue to welcome academics from all over the world at Stellenbosch University -– including scholars from Israel -– and co-create excellent research with significant social and academic impact.

This conundrum is being faced by universities across the world. In 2017 a survey of 115 UK universities showed that 54% actively censored speech, 40% stifled speech through excessive regulation. Only 6% were deemed truly free, open places.

In Australia, the Institute of Public Affair’s Free Speech on Campus Audit 2017 showed that the majority of Australian universities limit the diversity of ideas on campus. For example, 34 out of the country’s 42 universities (81%) have policies and actions that are hostile to free speech on campus and seven (17%) have policies and actions that threaten free speech on campus. Only eight of Australia’s 42 universities (19%) have an explicit policy that protects intellectual freedom.

In principle, academic freedom infers that both staff and students at universities have the right to participate in intellectual engagement and debate, without fear of censorship. This right extends into speech, writing (textual or digital), without fear of reprisal.

In this sense, academic freedom is akin to the preservation of intellectual autonomy. Yet, as the two South African examples show, speakers being disinvited is not uncommon in South African universities.

We argue strongly against the practice in our latest book on free speech at universities. We do so on the grounds that disinvitation compromises the very idea of human engagement and deliberation. This is because the act of disinviting an individual, for whatever reason, is in itself an abandonment of freedom and speech.

It not only stifles any opportunity for engagement with difference or controversy, but it implies that academic freedom is the preserve of those who are in agreement. If we are all in agreement, then where is the debate, and new ways of thinking?

Academic freedom is necessary for democracy

Firstly, regulating hurtful speech without re-signifying it, that is creating opportunities where harmful speech is challenged and re-directed, can aggravate the volatility between groups that favour controversy – and those who oppose it.

If controversial speakers are denied opportunities to speak at universities, it can be claimed that their right to freedom of speech has been hampered. Universities need to guard against what the Times Higher Education refers to as becoming “hotbeds of left wing bias”, or “political monocultures”.

Universities can’t be considered “safe places” where controversial ideas of people are considered at odds with liberal and or radical voices and deserve to be stunted.

Secondly, when controversy is opened up, people have an opportunity to scrutinise the controversial statements and find ways to rebut dissenting and provocative claims. Regulating speech doesn’t imply that speakers of harmful speech merely abandon their views. It simply means that their views are left unchallenged, and undisrupted. We argue that this deepens the already inhumane and undignified actions of some people even further.

Contestation is important for democracy

Universities shouldn’t cultivate intolerance towards dissent. Rather they ought to instil in students and lecturers capacities to appreciate divergent views. Universities need to create the conditions and safe spaces for people to cross-over into the unfamiliar and the controversial. The implications at play here are not only in relation to the academic well-being of a university, they also affect our understanding of a democratic society.

The real question is: what kinds of students, and hence society, do universities want to produce? Students need to learn that the relationship between knowledge and power can be emancipatory. Intolerance and exclusion, for example, can only be allayed if people have access to knowledge.

Academic freedom, therefore, is not only about unconstrained speech. It is also about questioning peoples’ worldviews, so that they can consider other ways of thinking, and bring into contestation what’s familiar, known and readily accepted.

Nuraan Davids, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education, Stellenbosch University and Yusef Waghid, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Education, Stellenbosch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header Image credits: iStock

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Government Of India Treating Human Rights Organisations Like Criminal Enterprises

By Amnesty International India
Bengaluru/Delhi: 26 October 2018 11:07 am

Amnesty India’s bank accounts have been frozen by the Enforcement Directorate, effectively stopping our work. Amnesty India is thus the latest target of the government’s assault on civil society in the country. The accounts of Greenpeace India were frozen earlier this month.

“Government authorities are increasingly treating human rights organisations like criminal enterprises”, said Aakar Patel. “As an organisation committed to the rule of law, our operations in India have always conformed with our national regulations. The principles of transparency and accountability are at the heart of our work.”

Around 1:30 pm on 25 October, a group of officers from the Enforcement Directorate entered our premises and locked the gates behind them. They ordered the Amnesty India staff to remain in office, shut their laptops, and not use their mobile phones.

The focus of the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning was the relationship between two entities: Amnesty International India Pvt Ltd and Amnesty International India Foundation.

Most of the documents asked for during the search were available in the public domain or were already filed with the relevant authorities. Details of our current structure, which was the focus of much of the questioning, have been available on our website since 2014.

However, ahead of the raids, the Indian authorities leaked a cache of their internal documents marked “secret” that appear to cast Amnesty India’s operations as a dark web of intrigue.

“Our work in India, as elsewhere, is to uphold and fight for universal human rights. These are the same values that are enshrined in the Indian Constitution and flow from a long and rich Indian tradition of pluralism, tolerance and dissent,” said Aakar Patel.

“We could not agree more with the Prime Minister when he says that periods of repression, like during the Emergency, have left a stain on India’s history. Sadly, those dark days are now casting a shadow over India again. Instead of protecting human rights, as it vowed to do, the government is now targeting the people who fight for them”, said Aakar Patel.

Over 40 lakh Indians have supported Amnesty India’s work over the last six years and around one lakh Indians have made a financial contribution.

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The truth is that it’s far easier to make a bomb than to educate 400 million people. (Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination)

Arundhati Roy, famous as the Booker Prize-winning author for The God of Small Things, with her out of the box works has given India the true picture of what we call dissent. Roy’s recent fiction book The Ministry of Utmost Happiness has brought the everlasting critiques of socialization culture within our society.

Roy’s essay The End of Imagination is the most critically analysed, scanned, and scrutinized tale of the events held in May 1998 at Pokhran. It, in detail, criticises narrative of the test of a nuclear weapon conducted at Pokhran. She highlights the basic fundamental needs and wants of the people in her essay, which the government had ignored in light of gaining a political edge and power to call itself the powerful and developing country. She has put it staunchly where the government has blatantly ignored the education, nutrition, shelter, poverty of 400 million people:

If only, if the only nuclear war was just another kind of war. If only it was about the usual things – nations and territories, gods and histories. If only those of us who dread it are worthless moral cowards who are not prepared to die in defence of our beliefs. If only nuclear war was the kind of war in which countries battle countries and men battle men. But it isn’t.

If there is a nuclear war, our foes will not be China or America or even each other. Our foe will be the earth herself. Our cities and forests, our fields and villages will burn for days. Rivers will turn to poison. The air will become fire. The wind will spread the flames. When everything there is to burn has burned and the fires die, smoke will rise and shut out the sun. The earth will be enveloped in darkness. There will be no day – only interminable night.

What shall we do then, those of us who are still alive? Burned and blind and bald and ill, carrying the cancerous carcasses of our children in our arms, where shall we go? What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we breathe?

The Head of the Health, Environment and Safety Group of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Bombay has a plan. He declared that India could survive a nuclear war. His advice is that in the event of nuclear war we take the same safety measures like the ones that scientists have recommended in the event of accidents at nuclear plants. Take iodine pills, he suggests.

And other steps such as remaining indoors, consuming only stored water and food and avoiding milk. Infants should be given powdered milk. ‘People in the danger zone should immediately go to the ground floor and if possible to the basement.’

What do you do with these levels of lunacy? What do you do if you’re trapped in an asylum and the doctors are all dangerously deranged?

Questioning the Governments

Roy’s essay completely unmasks the government’s obsession with the power, may it be any country in the world. There exists no country in the world, where people want war and massacre with their life. They only want peace and harmony with the development and progress of the society, but not at the cost of innocent deaths and massacring of innocent women and children. Roy puts it:

In any case who’s the ‘you’ and who’s the ‘enemy’? Both are only governments. Governments change. They wear masks within masks. They molt and re-invent themselves all the time. The one we have at the moment, for instance, does not even have enough seats to last a full term in office, but demands that we trust it to do pirouettes and party tricks with nuclear bombs even as it scrabbles around for a foothold to maintain a simple majority in Parliament.

Roy is arguing with very far-sighted consequences that the nations of the world will suffer when weapon creations will be justified to save the boundaries and territories of the nation, and then there will be a market which will sell ammunition, powerful chemical weapons to justify the policy of international relations and foreign policy.

The irony will be the ignorance of the interest of the common citizens. And then the planet earth will bristle with beautiful missiles. There will be a new world order. The dictatorship, their hypocritical policies to establish the fact, saving the nation with war but only for peace.

America’s Contribution

Roy gives the credit for creation of this horrific fear and traumatized policy of waging war to build its economy to the United States of America. She quotes in her essay:

But let us pause to give credit where it’s due. Who must we thank for all this? The men who made it happen. The Masters of the Universe. Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America! Come on up here folks, stand up and take a bow. Thank you for doing this to the world. Thank you for making a difference. Thank you for showing us the way. Thank you for altering the very meaning of life.

From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living. All I can say to every man, woman and sentient child in India, and over there, just a little way away in Pakistan, is: take it personally. Whoever you are –Hindu, Muslim, urban, agrarian – it doesn’t matter. The only good thing about nuclear war is that it is the single most egalitarian idea that man has ever had.

On the day of reckoning, you will not be asked to present your credentials. The devastation will be indiscriminate. The bomb isn’t in your backyard. It’s in your body. And mine. Nobody, no nation, no government, no man, no god has the right to put it there. We’re radioactive already, and the war hasn’t even begun. So stand up and say something. Never mind if it’s been said before. Speak up on your own behalf. Take it very personally.

India’s Neophilia

When the nuclear test at Pokhran was successful, the news channels and the newspapers said it loud and clear the phenomenal job was done in the history of India to add one strongest pillar to safeguarding its defence system was the nuclear bomb. Even some went repeatedly calling this as” They are nationalism tests, not just nuclear “. Roy quotes this situation in her essay as:

This has been hammered home, over and over again. The bomb is India. India is the bomb. Not just India, Hindu India. Therefore, be warned, any criticism of it is not just anti-national but anti-Hindu. (Of course in Pakistan the bomb is Islamic. Other than that, politically, the same physics applies.) This is one of the unexpected perks of having a nuclear bomb. Not only can the government use it to threaten the Enemy, they can use it to declare war on their own people. Us.

When I told my friends that I was writing this piece, they cautioned me. ‘Go ahead,’ they said, ‘but first make sure you’re not vulnerable. Make sure your papers are in order. Make sure your taxes are paid.’ My papers are in order. My taxes are paid. But how can one not be vulnerable in a climate like this? Everyone is vulnerable. Accidents happen. There’s safety only in acquiescence. As I write, I am filled with foreboding. In this country, I have truly known what it means for a writer to feel loved (and, to some degree, hated too). Last year I was one of the items being paraded in the media’s end-of the- year National Pride Parade. Among the others, much to my mortification, were a bomb-maker and an international beauty queen. Each time a beaming person stopped me on the street and said ‘You have made India proud’ (referring to the prize I won, not the book I wrote), I felt a little uneasy. It frightened me then and it terrifies me now, because I know how easily that swell, that tide of emotion, can turn against me. Perhaps the time for that has come. I’m going to step out from under the fairy lights and say what’s on my mind.

It’s this;

If protesting against having a nuclear bomb implanted in my brain is anti-Hindu and anti-national, then I secede. I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic. I am a citizen of the earth. I own no territory. I have no flag. I’m female but have nothing against eunuchs. My policies are simple. I’m willing to sign any nuclear non-proliferation treaty or nuclear test ban treaty that’s going. Immigrants are welcome. You can help me design our flag. My world has died. And I write to mourn its passing.

India’s nuclear tests, the manner in which they were conducted, the euphoria with which they have been greeted (by us) is indefensible. To me, it signifies dreadful things. The end of imagination.

Politics and Political Gains

Roy opens up in her essay saying the major steps taken in the functioning of government in India was the need for politics and its later form- the political gain. She in her essay critically analyses the immediate need of the political class which triggered two major political steps of devastation in the country i.e the nuclear bomb and demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.

The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made. If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man’s challenge to God. It’s worded quite simply: We have the power to destroy everything that You have created. If you’re not religious, then look at it this way. This world of ours is four billion, six hundred million years old. It could end in an afternoon.

 She explains the whole theory of the use of power and politics. Is this why it becomes an important essay?

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India is losing the great tradition of ‘spirit of inquiry and dissent’ which we cherished in the past as the progressive history of cultural tolerance and harmony. In today’s India, the political parties in power and opposition are eyeing human individuals as potential voters and trying to woo them by spreading untruths and rumors. Indian society by and large needs introspection and learn from an icon of 20th century who shown us the path of wisdom, non-violence and peace. Gandhi cherished the heterodoxy and learned from the great tradition of dissent.

“In yet another instance of alleged cow vigilantism, a 28-year-old Muslim man was beaten to death in Rajasthan’s (one of the states of India) Alwar district”, reported a national daily, The Hindu in July, 2018. India is now not only the land of Gandhi but it is also the place of mob killers and cow vigilantes.

The regime in power is fueling these mobs by justifying untruth and spreading prejudices and stereotype about minorities. The culture of harmony, tolerance and peace which India has been preaching to the world is succumbing to the contrarian conceptions such as lynching, intolerance and rumor mongering. The traditions of critical inquiry, doubt and argumentation is degrading from the map of India’s cultural history.

India celebrated birth anniversary of her father of nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 2^nd October this year. Gandhi, a revered leader, led the mass struggle for Independence from the British Raj and dominated the political life of the nation for more than three decades in 1920s to late 1950s and also inspired the generations of leaders all over the world including Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

A graduate of law from London and vaishya by caste from Kathiawad (now in the Indian state of Gujarat) had the massive influence of religious ideals of love, peace and harmony available in the ancient Vedas to the Bible, the Quran and other mystic tradition. Gandhi didn’t believe in the rigidity of cultures and traditions and always preached the confluence of ideas as well as generating fresh and new progressive cultures of non-violence and peace.

Gandhi was shot dead by one of the Hindu radicals in 1948. His name was Nathuram Godse. The organization which celebrated the death of Gandhi and distributed sweets openly in the Indian streets,  the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), a cultural organization established in 1925 was banned immediately on the recommendations of the then Home Minister, Sardar Patel, also a Gujarati like Gandhi and is being revered now by the same outfit. Godse, a member of Hindu Mahasabha and many other organisation shared the idea of militant Hinduism (Hindutva), which Vinayak Damodar Savarkar espoused in the beginning of 1920s.

In 2014, Narendra Modi, the leader of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) rose to become a national leader by winning majority of the seats in general election and becoming a prime minister. His involvement in the genocidal riots in Gujarat against religious minorities (Muslims) led United States and other European states to ban Modi’s visit in their respective countries.

Paradoxes of Indian Politics

The irony of our times is that, those who muzzle the dissent are celebrating the birth anniversary of one of the greatest dissenters of all time. Modi’s arrival on national scene has given free hand to the mobs and foot soldiers of his party and affiliate organisation to target violently minorities, Dalits (outcaste/untouchables) and tribals everywhere. From beef ban to the temple politics, it is the rule of mob which has been given shelter by the so called liberally graduated leaders within BJP to polarise votes as a compulsion to win election in one of the diverse country. Once cherished ideals of unity and diversity and the history of composite culture has eroded and society has become more fascistic and authoritarian.

Gandhi’s solutions

To fight (non-violently) is to dissent. To agree is to conform to the existing ideologies, norms, cultures and traditions. Agreeing on nonsensical or irrational things leads towards insanity. The entire history of freedom struggle in the Indian subcontinent is the history of dissent. The non-cooperation was not only dissent in terms of thought but it was call for truth and dissent-in-action.

Gandhi to whom we know as preacher of non-violence (ahimsa) and call for truth (satyagraha) was one of the greatest subversive actor in the world. His shaming of British Raj by wearing loin cloth in the peak of British winter during Round Table Conference (1931) is epitome of subversive action. After the meeting with British Emperor a reporter asked Gandhi if he didn’t feel ashamed to stand in front of the Emperor in his simple dress. ‘Why should I feel ashamed? The Emperor was wearing enough clothes for both of us.’ said Gandhi.

Gandhi’s training since childhood as a religious and ascetic person didn’t halt his critical outlook and curiosity to know different cultures and traditions. One of the basic principles of any dissenting opinion is openness of thought process. One should not restrict oneself in knowing things which is not subscribed by the co-religious or fellow community member.

Restricting any kind of flow of information/knowledge/thought also restricts the persons becoming of an autonomous being. This makes Gandhi an anarchist because customary rules, norms and state-made-laws prohibits him to transcend his boundaries of thinking and his action. He would rather utilize the availability of maximum freedom to cross the boundaries to do creative things for social change. The subversiveness leads towards progressiveness.

In one of the response to a reader in Hind Swaraj (1909), Gandhi says, “I do not expect my views to be accepted all of a sudden”. By this what he meant was, every viewpoint need to go through critical questioning. In Gandhian understanding of swaraj (self-rule) is inherent the conception of individual freedom and free thinking.

Remember Gandhi breaking one of the draconian Salt Laws to realize purna swaraj (complete rule) in March of 1930. With him marched satyagrahis, old and young, men and women hand in hand together.  Gandhi’s bold defiance of the salt law encouraged other Indians to break the law as well. Was Gandhi not disobeying the existing system of laws which were punitive and draconian? Certainly he did. But it was also dissent-in-action which propelled him to transgress the inhumane conditions, where human beings were deprived of their basic needs such as salt.

Should I also not ask critical questions if deprived of my basic needs? Not doing that will amount to erasure of our history of protests, dissents and oppositions. But as reality faced by the civil society members and activists in contemporary times indicate that ‘asking tough and difficult question’ may put me behind bars and I can be branded as anti-party, anti-government, anti-national, anti-state (though all are different things) or clubbing together under an umbrella term called ‘urban naxals’.

By 1909 in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi evaluating the Mazzini-Garibaldi question in regards to Italy’s freedom, is of the view that the Mazzini’s dream of every man in Italy ruling himself has not been materialized even though Italy is independent fore than five decades. For Gandhi who stressed more on means than end is critical of Garibaldi taking up arms and encouraging all Italians to join him in pushing Austria out of their territory.

The gain out of arms struggle (means) is nominal and hence the replacement of Austrian rule is nothing but the tyranny of government (end). Gandhi had argument with Aruna Asaf Ali over means and end question during ‘Quit India’ movement, 1942. Aruna Asaf Ali was in support of milder violence. She justified hiding of revolutionaries to escape arrest. Gandhi on the other hand was firm in his belief that the end of these activities wouldn’t last long, we may achieve our goals. After 110 years of Hind Swaraj and his reflection on Mazzini-Garibaldi debate, India is congruently similar if we reflect the contemporary times within Gandhian credo. Gandhi’s vision of true freedom has not been materialized though India is independent state for more than seven decades.

Way forward

We didn’t have many more anarchist and supporters of dissent in post-independent India, what Gandhi would have supported these ideals, if alive for 125 years (his wish to live long, was stopped with Godse’s bullets.). For him brutal industrialization and marketization is similar to violent action which uproots the flora and fauna and dehumanizes the working class, which needs to be condemned (dissent-in-words).

Without balancing with nature and environment, development do not have any meaning. For Gandhi means is more important than end. The running after GDP in terms of becoming trillion dollar economy and widening gap between rich and poor is nothing but a colonial mindset of loot, control and exploitation.

It would not have been possible for Gandhi to preach passive resistance by breaking the shackles of castiest control and practice of untouchability. The three aims of his life were to get rid of alien rule, abolition of untouchability and discarding the discord between Hindu-Muslim.

The latter two were possibly an annoyance to the majority who have been practicing the differential treatment of the fellow members to maintain hierarchy in the society. Gandhi by making his mission to get rid of these ‘things’ redefined the existing understanding of ethics and public morality. For him constitutional framework of equality and freedom is the last resort to create egalitarian society.

A call for truth (satyagraha), non-violence (ahimsa), self-rule (swaraj), good governance (ramrajya), progress of all (sarvodaya) and his own experiment with truth cannot have been possible until and unless he wouldn’t have asked difficult questions. Gandhi was not for conformity. He stood for dissent and disagreement for constructive purposes. Unfortunately, the fate of those mirrors of our society who are imitating Gandhi’s ideals are dubbed as urban naxals. For me they are the true Gandhians, in spirit and action. On his birth anniversary we all should stand with Gandhi.

The article was originally published at CounterCurrents.Org

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Citizens of India’s north-eastern states have been protesting vigorously against a proposed new citizenship regime that they claim will “destroy their culture” in the region. The protests have been diverse and dramatic – petitions, hunger strikes, effigy-burning, a rebel militant group threatening to end talks with the Indian state.

The source of their anger is the Citizenship Amendment Bill, first tabled in the lower house of the Indian Parliament in 2016. It is set to change the Citizenship Act of 1955, which has formed the basis of India’s citizenship regime since it gained independence from the British Empire in 1947. The amendment seeks to allow select “persecuted minorities” (Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhist and Jains) from the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan citizenship status in India after six years of residency. Other groups must wait 11 years to become naturalised citizens.

In the north-eastern states, the fear is that this amendment would legitimise migration of Hindus from neighbouring Bangladesh in particular, potentially affecting the demographic make-up of the region.

When the bill’s parliamentary committee began touring the north-east in May, protests grew steadily larger, stronger and more widespread. As almost 99% of their boundaries are international borders, the citizens of these states have been quick to point out that they would be the first “victims” of the new amendment if it makes it easier for minority immigrants to travel across the border, settle in and become full citizens. The complaints are loudest in the state of Assam, which has waged a four decade struggle against the Indian state to prevent what some there call “unchecked infiltration” from neighbouring Bangladesh.

The committee’s decision to visit the north-east – and the media coverage of the protests – have framed this as a north-eastern issue, not a national concern. But in fact, the Citizenship Amendment Bill will change the character of citizenship not just for this region, but for India as a whole.

Birthright and blood

When India achieved independence, its citizenship regime was established on the basis of jus soli (birth within a territory), meaning that people were members of the political community regardless of their religion or ethnicity. While mistrust of Muslims has persisted into present-day India, particularly in recent years with growing Hindu right-wing populism, the law has so far upheld the secular, non-religious character of the Indian state. The Citizenship Amendment Bill would fundamentally alter this basic tenet, shifting the basis of citizenship towards jus sanguinis (by right of blood).

But, as historians such as Joya Chatterji and Ornit Shani have documented, there have been frequent challenges to the principle of citizenship by birth – especially in the period immediately after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

In contrast to Muslims, Hindus were from the start considered “natural citizens” of India. Muslim citizens of pre-independence India were ostensibly given a choice between the two countries, but in practice they were subjected to arbitrary processes to “prove” their loyalty to the Indian state. Similar demands were not made of Hindu citizens crossing the border from the newly-formed Pakistan back into India.

Regardless of which states or regions would be most affected by a sizeable influx of migrants, the bill changes the character of Indian citizenship and the basis on which it is granted, moving from secular to overtly favouring specific groups – particularly Hindus. It opens the door for the creation of second-class citizenship for non-Hindus and most of all Muslims – not just in the extra-legal practices of discrimination and violence that exist today, but in the law.

Slipping away

Given that India repeatedly fails its own minorities, perhaps it’s not surprising that it is only prepared to offer refuge and asylum on the basis of ethnicity, not humanitarian need. It’s no coincidence that this amendment was introduced by the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, which has an abysmal track record in protecting India’s minorities, whether they are Muslims, Christians or Dalits. Nor has it shown any inclination to help rehabilitate South Asia’s largest persecuted minority, the Rohingya.

Furthermore, the bill also leaves out Muslim minorities in Pakistan, such as Shias and Ahmadis. There is also speculation about whether the bill is a means to appease India’s Hindu diaspora abroad – an important funding base for the ruling party.

Even the relatively hardline BJP is not immune to public resistance. The protests in the north-east prompted India’s government to backtrack and table discussions to address what it euphemistically referred to as “people’s concerns”. But by framing the amendment as a regional issue, the government has managed to confine public opposition to the people of the north-east. Because the region is already marginalised in Indian politics, the rest of the country is often apathetic about its concerns, which rarely become pan-Indian ones.

Still, that the citizens of the north-east are protesting so vehemently – whatever their precise grievances – is currently the only sign of dissent. Unless it feels the heat of visible and vocal public outrage, the Indian state is likely to continue its slide towards becoming a very different, less inclusive, and increasingly more unjust country.

Saba Sharma, PhD Candidate in Geography, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) died on May 27, 1964. A major event such as this inevitably gives rise to “where were you?” questions. Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? Where were you when Indira Gandhi was killed? Where were you when the World Trade Center was brought down? The shock of the event magnifies the immediate around you and imprints it in your mind.

I still can vividly recall the day Nehru died and the moment I learnt about it. He had a stroke that morning at 6.25 am. He lost consciousness almost immediately. He died without regaining consciousness, and according to a member of his household, his death was due to “an internal hemorrhage, a paralytic stroke, and a heart attack.”

He had returned the previous day from Mussourie, “hale and hearty” but Nehru was clearly ailing. Parliament, then in session, and the nation were told about his death at 2.05 pm.

I still remember that moment vividly. Like I still do the moments when I read in the Deccan Chronicle about Kennedy being killed in Dallas, and when I learnt about Indira Gandhi being shot dead from Jaipal Reddy.

I was in Poona studying German at the Goethe Institute, and after class was cycling into town to meet a friend. As I passed a government building I saw a flag flying at half-mast. I asked and when told a great fear descended over me.

Like many other young Indians, I too was unwilling to contemplate India without Nehru, despite having read many speculations about who next? The most widely read book on the subject was by the American journalist Welles Hangen “After Nehru Who?”

Hangen speculated on a list of personalities and wrote:

Many people in India who concede that Nehru can now be replaced have told me that only he could have held the country together in the early days after the partition of British India.

Clearly to many, Nehru had outlived his purpose, particularly after the disastrous India-China War of 1962. Not knowing what was in store next sent me scurrying down back to my hostel, where a radio set was reporting the mourning as only AIR and Melville de Mello could.

We began discussing the succession, even though Gulzarilal Nanda was appointed the interim PM, few took him seriously as a successor. By late in the night, our fears took over. One refrain was that the military would take over. Another was that either the Communists or the CIA would set off a coup. None of this happened. Nehru had built a modern and democratic India to last.

India was fortunate to have his leadership in the formative years of the Republic. We took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. Recall Robert Frost who wrote:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We could have done better but we could have done worse like many other countries in our situation did. The India conceptualized by Nehru and the founding fathers still endures.

Nehru was a man with a towering intellect and a long vision. No one who has read Discovery of India will think otherwise. He tried to forge a new all-inclusive nationality for us.

I have often tried to explain this notion in simple terms. This is to make the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai or the Taj Mahal in Agra or the Golden Temple in Amritsar equally our heritage. Every invasion or migratory wave, every musical instrument and kind of music, and every literary form and style that flourished in India was equally ours. The raga and ghazal were ours just as Bhimsen Joshi and Bismillah Khan were our very own.

Nehru made mistakes. When big people make mistakes they are often monumental. He misunderstood the nature of the dispute with China. He tied the economy in the ropes of central planning which only helped spawn very many millionaire tycoons.

But he had a bigger vision. He contemplated the new India to be guided by reason and infused with the scientific temper. Instead we are now increasingly a people driven by dogma and blind faith. Religion and blind faith are our biggest fault lines and the cause of much social friction and breakdown of orderly public behavior and order.

In recent years, the assault on Nehru’s memory has become vicious. It is led by small men, men who don’t know history and who confuse Taxila with Patna, Indus with Ganges, and Alexander with Selucus; who don’t know science and think the Ganesh was real and not a symbol and who can’t tell between a transplant and plastic surgery; and who cannot distinguish between history and mythology, science and superstition, and fact and fiction. They are now trying to define our identity in narrow and divisive terms, and hence excluding the majority.

Our unique diversity and common perception about ourselves bound by a modern and egalitarian Constitution is now being challenged. India has weathered worse. We are, after all, the people of India, that is Bharat. And we still live in the house that Nehru built.

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