Indianese

The death penalty is one issue most nations would avoid discussing in the public sphere, India is one of them, the issue of death penalty arises in the public consciousness when there is execution imminent. With over 40 people executed between 1975 and 1995, a total of 55 people have been executed since Independence. The Supreme Court has said that the death sentence should be avoided unless in the “rarest of rare cases” such as:

- murder

- instigating a child’s suicide

- treason

- acts of terrorism

- second conviction for drug trafficking

While these might seem like a reasonable explanation of the “rarest of rare’ definition, the fact is that sentencing guidelines for the above mentioned ‘rare’ cases are not legally clear. While that is one issue, Amnesty International has called India’s process for awarding the death penalty a “Lethal Lottery”, a very lethal lottery indeed if you knew that pre-1973, Judges were asked to state reasons for not imposing the death penalty in ‘murder’ cases as opposed to stating reasons ‘for’ awarding the death penalty now, although the State High Court should approve the lower courts use of the death penalty, but the real reason Amnesty calls it a lethal lottery is because of India’s egalitarian view when dealing with these rare cases and thus the refusal to look into caste, socio-economic status, community and religion which play a big part or are at least relevant to the evaluation of the case. A similar example would be the almost same system in USA where the death penalty has been dis-proportionately used against African Americans.

Justice Bhagwati has had to say this in 1982:

“Our convictions are based largely on oral evidence of witnesses. Often, witnesses perjure themselves as they are motivated by caste, communal and factional considerations. Sometimes they are even got up by the police to prove what the police believes to be a true case. Sometimes there is also mistaken eyewitness identification and this evidence is almost always difficult to shake in cross-examination. Then there is also the possibility of a frame up of innocent men by their enemies. There are also cases where an overzealous prosecutor may fail to disclose evidence of innocence known to him but not known to the defence. The possibility of error in judgment cannot therefore be ruled out on any theoretical considerations. It is indeed a very live possibility …”

The death penalty, a lottery where criminals committing similar crimes are awarded different sentences, Dhanonjay Chatterjee was sentenced to death and killed for raping and murdering a 13 year old, while Rahul/ Raosaheb was given life imprisonment for a similar crime against a four-and-a-half year old. Neither of them had previous criminal profiles, but Dhanonjay was deemed a menace to the society and Rahul was not.

Download and read the complete death-penalty.

The BJP has been vindicated or so say most people who have been following the politics of Karnataka. The BJP has been denied its fair say in the running of one of the most important states in India when the JD (Secular) denied the BJP to form a government, as per the deal. The most important question here is did people vote for the BJP just because they felt that the BJP has been short-changed or is it because they felt the BJP could do a better job in running the state, better than JD or Congress(I). Whatever the reasons, this is clear vote either for the BJP or against the Congress(I) or most importantly against the JD (Secular).

Even a casual and simplistic view of the results of 2004 and 2008 show that people voted against JD(Secular), rather than just voting for the BJP or the Congress. The BJP is also short of a few seats to form a majority which they did get from the few independents, who apparently all became part of the government amidst allegations of horse trading.

Another interesting observation is the recent trend of Congress losing its states and BJP gaining more and more. The BJP now controls more states than the Congress but the real challenge for the BJP is the upcoming elections in the states in which it has the governmennt.

Read what Rajdeep Sardesai and MJ Akbar have to say and look at why Pankaj Vohra feels that this is a wake-up call for Congress.

PS: The BJP won the Bengalooru/Bangalore area with a huge majority, does this mean the BJP still speaks for the urban, educated and middle class.

Coming soon to a polling booth near you: By-Elections in Andhra Pradesh.

I sometimes wonder about the differences between USA and India when it comes to security paranoia. I would understand the ‘show me your ID‘ paranoia when it comes to flying, not just in America but in the rest of the world. I see that asking for proof of identification and checking luggage for a few specific threatening items is something which is required when you know that the hijackers of 9/11 took control over the planes using just box cutters.

I would give the same benefit of doubt when it comes to flying in India, in fact I would expect the same kind of security. What I would never understand is police in India asking for ID proof to buy a cycle. As odd as it may sound, things have taken a turn for worse when police in UP have started to show and give a copy of ID proof to buy a cycle, an ordinary bicycle.

Well, this happened because the terrorists responsible for the recent Jaipur blasts used bicycles as their mode of delivery for their bombs. I wonder to what extent the police would have gone had they used the sacred cow or maybe a camel. Read the news report on NDTV and Calcutta Telegraph. It’s about time the police stop the leak in the bucket rather than trying to fill it, which would be a never-ending task.

Have the police at least looked at the root cause of why people who do this, do it in the first place. Another knee-jerk reaction is trying to round up all Bangladeshis and put them in camps, assuming it is the illegal Bangladeshis who did this and assuming all the people who they will round up are Bangladeshis and not just poor Muslims.

Kudos to the Indian police. Guys, I know it is a tough and a thankless job but realize that this is a never ending path towards more violence.

There is something about almost all BharatBala films which raise the hair on my arms and patriotism in my heart. Then good sense prevails and I do not get carried over by the patriotic feeling which lends one to do unpatriotic things.

Albert Einstein had some interesting things to say about patriotism:

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them! - Albert Einstein

What Mark Twain had to say is also important:

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice — and always has been.

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

But then somebody said “Dissent is patriotic” which makes more sense to me.

A recent study shows that about 10% of all urban marriages are so called ‘love-marriages’ and another 19% of them are ‘love-cum-arranged’ marriages, meaning the couple take the permission of their respective sets of parents before marrying. I read this article in NewsWeek which talks about the changing nature of marriage in urban India. It first talks about the recent elopement of Srija, South Indian actor Chiranjeevi’s daughter. She had a very public marriage with her boyfriend and ran away to Delhi to approach the court for protection against her father’s fanatical fans. She feared for her and her husband’s life at the hands of her fathers fans who always had a  mean streak of violence whenever they hear negative about their Megastar. Case in point: the attack on fellow actor Rajasekhar because he had the ‘temerity’ to question the Megastar.

While commentators might say that she was too young to fall in love(she was 15 when she first met him), there is no law which states that the marriage could be stopped or anybody has the right to object if she wants to get married at the age of eighteen. On the other hand, imprisoning her against her will after the age of eighteen is against the law, which Chiranjeevi allegedly did, although no such charges were filed.

Another case in point which proves the changing mentality of youngsters and utter contempt for law by some elders is the Rizwanur Murder case. Rizwanur Rahman secretly married his girlfriend, Priyanka, and later moved her to his house, police officials as high as those in the State Police Headquarters threatened Rizwanur of dire consequences if he didn’t separate from Priyanka, they forced him to send her to her parents house for seven days and the police agreed that she would be sent back, even getting a signed statement from Priyanka’s uncle. There are many problems here, first the police had no right to involve themselves here, there was no legal complaint from either party, if anything they should have tried to protect the couple from the girl’s parents, just like the Supreme Court said in a different case. All this ended in Rizwanur’s suicide (alleged to be a murder though) and the further loss of confidence in the police system. You should read more about the case in the Times of India page.

While the behavior of the police and the parents of the girl are detestable, there is no doubt that mindsets of youngsters have changed and also that parents find it hard to cope with this change in attitude towards love and marriage. Irrespective of all the talk of love and love-marriages, the majority of all marriages are arranged by parents and that hasn’t been a bad proposition since its supporters argue that only a small percentage of arranged marriages end up in divorce, what they do not tend to question is the number of people who are really happy (a hard to measure thing) and tend to overlook factors such as family pressure, which prevent the couple from getting a divorce.

The mauling law gets in these cases is quite something else, one should question why should anybody go to the courts to get protection against their parents when going to the police should suffice, why should the police interfere in family matters when there are more important things they should be doing ( I mean, is Kolkata that safe that the police finds enough time to help Priyanka’s father).

Youngsters should realize that it is within their right to marry whomever they want and demand (not just ‘ask’) that the police help and protect you in exercising your right should they be threatened. Keep in mind - it’s your goddamn right.

This is Taslima being attacked by MIM in Hyderabad

Ideas should be protected and preserved irrespective of what popular public opinion of the day is. The issue everyone should know about more is the issue of Taslima Nasreen. She writes about various things, the inflammatory part of her work being her criticism of the lack of rights of women in Islam. I admit I never read any of her work but from I what I hear, she writes some incendiary words which depict Islam in such a way that would would enrage muslims around the world.

We (I mean Indians) have tried to attack her and almost succeeded. The people who have attacked her are not lay, ignorant and uneducated people. The very people who have attacked her are members of legislative assemblies, people like Owaisi who said:

“We are not bothered about our MLA status. We are Muslims first. And it’s our responsibility to test those who have said anything against Islam in whichever way possible.“

While it can be distracting for us to criticize Owaisi for saying that his religion is more important than the people he represents(mostly poor and uneducated Muslims), what is more important here is the lack of protection of unpopular ideas among people today, just like the Nazi’s burning books just because the majority of people do not agree with what these books have to say (we’re not so sure of the majority believed so).

The last time I heard, India follows a legal system based on English law and that is one idea I am very proud of, we do not follow Sharia law or a law based on the Bhagawat Gita and the right to free speech is enshrined in the Indian constitution and therefore should be protected at all costs irrespective of what short term opinion tells us to do.

The Indian government should not involve itself in censorship of movies, books and other forms of human expression and should not ban books based on public demand. The only restrictions should be when peoples other rights have been violated, eg. naked pictures of children. If Hindus do not like the way their God is depicted in movies, they should avoid watching those movies, it neither interferes in the way they practice their religion and doesn’t harm their other constitutional rights, the same is the case with Muslims and their religion. People should always believe in the state first rather than in their religion, which according to me is the root cause of all problems in the world.

Taslima is not popular with a lot of Muslims, however is that a valid reason for people to try to hurt her or the Indian Foreign Minister to exert “great mental pressure” on her to leave this country when she was trying to find a safe haven in our democratic country. India’s greatness depends on protecting the basic human rights of people like America has done for ages till recently and not on pandering to religious votes or crumbling under Bangladeshi pressure. India did extend her visa for a long time but what is the use of giving her a right to live in this country if she is under house arrest all the time. She was given a visa on condition that she “respect the sentiment of Indian citizens in writing and speech“. So who defines what respecting the sentiments actually means, I would not like it if anybody disrespects my mother tongue, let’s just say, would that mean I could sue anybody who calls me a Madrasi. I know she is the kind of a person who would want public attention to sell more of her books but that is not relevant to what I am trying to say here.

I know I have covered a lot of things in just one post, but what i want to say in the end is just this - whether you like it or not, nobody has the right to ban freedom of speech or expression. If you do not like it mind your own business. I am sure that a lot of you would want to respond with what their gut says in the instance we hear something against our religion or something very close to you, but let it pass and think over it. All you have to use is common sense.

Listen to what Vir Sanghvi has to say in Hindustan Times and comments are appreciated.