If you think the megalomania that dominates political scene in Bihar, has lost its steam after Lalu Prasad Yadav lost his throne to Nitish Kumar, you couldn’t be more mistaken. In a recent bid to upstage his opponent and redeem his reputation as the unchallenged demagogue, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader organised a massive rally in Patna, which, for its high drama and glamour quotient turned out to be a better crowd puller than a couple of recent big budget movies.
The rally was touted to be the ‘biggest-ever’ Chetawani (warning) Rally in the history of Bihar. Lalu’s supporters pulled out all stops to demonstrate their talent in putting together a great show. They painted the town red with erecting stages, putting up banners, and publicising the dance programmes. The showstopper was the performance of these professional dancers from Mumbai flown especially to regale his supporters. Lalu had even announced a reward scheme for his workers to encourage them to get a multitude of people for the rally. Special trains were hired to carry supporters from all over the state.
The shindig was purportedly the brainchild of Sadhu Yadav, the Railway Minister’s brother- in- law and ManFriday. He justified this extravagance and wanton indulgence by highlighting the cause of the poor, who he said, are deprived of entertainment.
The Chetawani Rally was supposed to set the stage for unleashing a relentless drive to overthrow Nitish Kumar’s government. But the chief minister is not the kind to chicken out of the challenge. He hit back at Lalu by booking a case against them all for using loudspeakers and making a blatant mockery of the 10 pm curfew.
The battle is only going to become more intense. If Lalu can bank on his unique ability for playing to the gallery, Nitish Kumar has the law and the lawmakers on his side. The real show has just begun.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Born to be free?????????
International apparel major GAP withdrew garments sourced from India from its 3,000 stores following reports of use of child labour by one of the company's vendors in the capital's Shahpur Jat area. The report said that children as young as 10 years old were working for a GAP sub-contractor and complained of working long hours, going unpaid and being subjected to threats and beatings.
This move sparked off a chain of debates on the ethical and legal implications of employing child labour, which is rampant in our country. Fifty per cent of agricultural labour in India are children. The exports of our country which is the biggest producer of of all consumer goods is irreversibly dependent on the children labourers who were 134 million at last count. Behind every brick that is used in construction, every cup of tea in restaurants,
Using children to work in homes in the city is an unbridled practice in our country. These children are usually uprooted from villages, brought to the city by their own families and sold ruthlessly in households or factories for a pittance of a few thousand rupees.
There is a constant conundrum about reconciling the welfare and education of children with guaranteeing them and their families who are dependent on them, basic means of survival.
As long as there is poverty, child labour will continue to haunt our society. It’s easy for people to sit in their ivory towers and pontificate that child labour should be banned. But these are the people who are oblivious to the grim reality in the third world countries where the children will otherwise lapse into begging, drugs and crime, all of which happen in smooth synchronization.
Lets, for a change, not sit on the defensive and preach against child labour without considering the social construct of our society of which, underprivileged section forms the predominant fraction.
Pulling them off work without a comprehensive rehabilitation plan is like hitting at stomachs of children we want to liberate and throwing them into a vicious, unrelenting and endless life of misery and destitution. But formulating an alternative rehabilitation program, given the convoluted ways of the panjandrum in our country, isn’t exactly a cakewalk. Our government passes these child labour laws with grandiloquence which look flawless on paper, but in practice, are just reduced to pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and political hooey. We don’t have adequate machinery to implement them and extricate the kids from the shackles of slavery.
The government should rather regulate the hours of work, monitor the working conditions, ensure that they are paid fairly, make regular health check ups mandatory and prosecute the defaulters summarily. There should be mobile schools for kids after working hours so they don’t lose out on education. And those concerned with carrying out all of these should rise above their petty agendas and perfunctory supervision and ensure that rights of the working children are not being messed with.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Freedom Of Expression
The essence of democracy is the various kinds of freedoms it gives to its citizens. And most important of all is the freedom of expression. Article 19(a) gives all the citizens this freedom and to make sure that this freedom is not usurped, the constitution has included it in the fundamental rights of the citizens.
The evolution of a society depends on the generation and adoption of good ideas, which in turn depends on the freedom to express ideas. Thus there should not be any limits placed on the freedom of expression. But that’s a very idealistic thought. In reality ‘absolute freedom of expression’ is an oxymoron. The limit to freedom of expression is an issue, which is constitutional, social and moral. But the freedom of expression itself is an elusive term, ambiguous in its inherent meaning. Its open to individual interpretation, contingent on nature of one’s sensibility and tolerance.
Considering the demographic profile of our society, which can be best, described as a mosaic made up of myriad cultures, each with a sacrosanct set of religious believes, fixing a cap on expression is a daunting task. The most widely accepted solution for reconciling the right of free expression and the public interest is that this freedom of expressing one's own thoughts should, in any way, not offend another person's feelings/sentiments. But with the tolerance becoming fragile by the day, dealing with religious or racial content is suicidal, to say the least. In the last few decades we have seen intolerance growing, especially related with race and religion. Any work having even the remotest religious connotation ruffles conservative feathers. The artist is condemned, the work is banned, effigies are burnt, and even fatwas are issued.
If we consider these two cases where freedom of expression triggered off strong reactions from the public, there is a marked contradiction in the motive and the presentation.
Deepa Mehta’s fire when released sparked massive criticism from the Hindu fundamentalists on the ground that the Indian culture was misrepresented. Fire dealt with one of India’s many gender- related taboos. It wasn’t only the explicit display of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that's certainly the most obvious reason. It was an aesthetically shot and sensitively directed compelling critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.
James Watson’s incendiary remark that “there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but people who have to deal with black employees don’t find this true,” borders on being needlessly offensive. This topic could have been best spoken of clinically without bandying about anecdotes about black employees.
The onus of drawing a line as well as ensuring that the statement/work is innocuous should be unconditionally incumbent on the individual. That would work towards inculcating a sense of responsibility towards maintaining that something isn’t flagrantly offensive or distasteful. But we as a society should work equally hard to work on our tolerance and maturity for sensitive topics and not manufacture controversies out of non-issues.
The evolution of a society depends on the generation and adoption of good ideas, which in turn depends on the freedom to express ideas. Thus there should not be any limits placed on the freedom of expression. But that’s a very idealistic thought. In reality ‘absolute freedom of expression’ is an oxymoron. The limit to freedom of expression is an issue, which is constitutional, social and moral. But the freedom of expression itself is an elusive term, ambiguous in its inherent meaning. Its open to individual interpretation, contingent on nature of one’s sensibility and tolerance.
Considering the demographic profile of our society, which can be best, described as a mosaic made up of myriad cultures, each with a sacrosanct set of religious believes, fixing a cap on expression is a daunting task. The most widely accepted solution for reconciling the right of free expression and the public interest is that this freedom of expressing one's own thoughts should, in any way, not offend another person's feelings/sentiments. But with the tolerance becoming fragile by the day, dealing with religious or racial content is suicidal, to say the least. In the last few decades we have seen intolerance growing, especially related with race and religion. Any work having even the remotest religious connotation ruffles conservative feathers. The artist is condemned, the work is banned, effigies are burnt, and even fatwas are issued.
If we consider these two cases where freedom of expression triggered off strong reactions from the public, there is a marked contradiction in the motive and the presentation.
Deepa Mehta’s fire when released sparked massive criticism from the Hindu fundamentalists on the ground that the Indian culture was misrepresented. Fire dealt with one of India’s many gender- related taboos. It wasn’t only the explicit display of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that's certainly the most obvious reason. It was an aesthetically shot and sensitively directed compelling critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.
James Watson’s incendiary remark that “there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but people who have to deal with black employees don’t find this true,” borders on being needlessly offensive. This topic could have been best spoken of clinically without bandying about anecdotes about black employees.
The onus of drawing a line as well as ensuring that the statement/work is innocuous should be unconditionally incumbent on the individual. That would work towards inculcating a sense of responsibility towards maintaining that something isn’t flagrantly offensive or distasteful. But we as a society should work equally hard to work on our tolerance and maturity for sensitive topics and not manufacture controversies out of non-issues.
Questionable timing
Tehelka has hit the headlines again, this time more strongly with its new sting on Gujarat pogrom. The sting is perceived with suspicion because of its timing, the intention, and authenticity especially after the fake sting of a channel, and the coming Assembly Election in Gujarat.
The sting exposes how the politicians in Gujrat manipulated the misguided masses into launching a planned annihilation against the Muslims, made the lawyers an accessory to the crime, communalized the bureaucracy, and tempt even the judiciary into complicity.
It's an account of how the politicians polarised the society to remain in power, only it was too late in the coming. Why did they wait for over five years after the Gujrat genocide to release the tapes? It has come when people have already moved on and it reeks of political motivation. This sting doesn't show any promise of bringing the perpetrators to book. There is not much in this sting to make a case against Mr. Modi to influence public opinion inside Gujarat where the fanaticism for Hindutva is all-encompassing and its hold is ostensibly unconditional. The Parivar will not find it difficult to twist the Tehelka revelations to its advantage. If the hold that the politicians in Gujrat have the over the public which is inextricably doped out on generous doses of Hindutva, is anything to go by, the spate of incriminations by Tehelka might just turn into a trump card for the Parivar.The tapes are very irresponsible in their absolute disregard for the effect on the disenchanted minds of the minority community. The extent of potent radicalization that it will trigger off is unfathomable.
If this was about fair play, Mr. Tejpal would have done the responsible thing of presenting all the supporting evidence to the Nanavati Commission first. By releasing the tapes publicly, his motive has come under speculation.
The sting exposes how the politicians in Gujrat manipulated the misguided masses into launching a planned annihilation against the Muslims, made the lawyers an accessory to the crime, communalized the bureaucracy, and tempt even the judiciary into complicity.
It's an account of how the politicians polarised the society to remain in power, only it was too late in the coming. Why did they wait for over five years after the Gujrat genocide to release the tapes? It has come when people have already moved on and it reeks of political motivation. This sting doesn't show any promise of bringing the perpetrators to book. There is not much in this sting to make a case against Mr. Modi to influence public opinion inside Gujarat where the fanaticism for Hindutva is all-encompassing and its hold is ostensibly unconditional. The Parivar will not find it difficult to twist the Tehelka revelations to its advantage. If the hold that the politicians in Gujrat have the over the public which is inextricably doped out on generous doses of Hindutva, is anything to go by, the spate of incriminations by Tehelka might just turn into a trump card for the Parivar.The tapes are very irresponsible in their absolute disregard for the effect on the disenchanted minds of the minority community. The extent of potent radicalization that it will trigger off is unfathomable.
If this was about fair play, Mr. Tejpal would have done the responsible thing of presenting all the supporting evidence to the Nanavati Commission first. By releasing the tapes publicly, his motive has come under speculation.
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