>So just as one would not allow nudists to have sex openly in the
neighborhood park, becos it hurts the sentiments of the >'majority' it can be
argued about banning cow or pig eating too.
I don't think you can quite equate that to
ban on beef eating in India. That is stretching.
In a democratic country we have many rules
based on majority votes which are not based on religious beliefs. A ban on
pronography will be voted by the majority irrespective of rligion. Same is the
case of death penality. These are soicail rules voted by the majority cotizens
and nt based on religious beleifs.
But to set a rule against beef eating
for everybody only because it goes against the Hindu belief, is
something quite out of the basic democratic rules.
Democracy means majority rules with
protection of the moniority rights. This means that the monirity should have the
right to eat beef at least i private. In the cities, the Hindus allow that.
Only in rural areas , the Hindus have the problem. If the Hindus want to
ban it, why not ban it even in the cities, and say that India is a Hindu
state?
We simply cannot bend the rules wherever
we like it. Can we?
Rajenda
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 11:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] I/J from
Tehelka
Rajen-da,
I too was thinking about the secular issue of banning cow killing in
India.
I came up with an analogy: There are nudists in USA and elsewhere who
would like to have sex in public - a very natural act --all animals do it --so
why not --it is a free, democratic country. Ofocurse it would be
consensual.
Bu I don't think it will be allowed by law - even in the 'best' democracy
like USA.
Why?
Because the majority doesn't like it. Now thats democracy!!
However, Islamic state goes against right to prarctice faith -- there is
no right needed - to eat pork or beef.
If one is really are hard up -----one can eat so many other things
-- a dog if one wishes or cat (as in China) or a horse or camel. Noone
objects to that.
So just as one would not allow nudists to have sex openly in the
neighborhood park, becos it hurts the sentiments of the 'majority' it can be
argued about banning cow or pig eating too.
Umesh
Rajen Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Umesh:
I did not quite get what you
tried to mean. I also may not be quite clear in my views.
What I was trying to say was: Beef
eating may be a taboo to the Hindus in India but not to the non Hindus
in India as well as to many Hindus outside India. (In other words, we
may effectively say that only Indian cow is sacred, but not the British or
the American cow.)
Anyhow, when the Hindus try to impose
the prohibition on beef eating in India on its entire citizens,
it basically goes against minorities right in a democratic
country. In democracy, everybody must have the basic freedom. If
the entire community is prohibited to eat beef only because the Indian
Hindus do not eat beef, democracy cannot function. This is one of the
problems in India why we have a dysfunctional democracy in India. We simply
cannot have a set of administrative rules which are not supported by
the majority. In countries like India, we will always have this problem
because we donot have a set of citizens who are all equal. (Even in
ancient Greece and Rome, democracy worked only among its citizens which
effectively excluded the slaves). In a country like India, we always
have a conflict with democracy, because even according to the Gita, man are
not born equal. If we believe in a se! cular democracy, the majority must
not try to impose their beliefs or taboos on the minorities. If we want India to be a secular democracy, we
cannot have any prohibition against beef eating because that is based on
religious belief of one community. On the other hand, if we decide to make
India a Hindu state, we can have all type of Hindu prohibition imposed on
its citizens. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, one cannot eat pork, because
that is a Muslim country.
I was just trying to show the problem
that we are having in India. We want to say to the world that we are a
democratic country but in effect we donot want to practise it. This not
because our government is weak or corrupt but that the comminity, the
people, have a problem what it wants to do. That is the main question.
In the words of Animal Farm, we want
to say that we are all equal, but that some of us are more equal. Once we
undertsantd this point, many aspects of Indian democrcay will be
clear.
We must understand one thing. That is
the Britsh have in fact did a jump start of democracy in India. Left to
Indians without the British rule, I seriously doubt whether we would have
anby denocratic rule as we have today. I think we Indians will benefit if we
understand this basic point by our heart.
Rajenda
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 3:20
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] I/J from
Tehelka
Rajen-da,
I think by reading your piece - it all boils down the fact that if
cow killing is effectively stopped -across India - I think there is
already a law to that effect (??) (which is highly unlikely seing our
corrupt govt and ineffective judiciary) then this excuse would
be over.
In this case, Hindus were punished by other Hindus (like in last
years' Haryana case)-so I had put a caste -class angel -C-da didn't seem
to buy it.
Umesh
Rajen Barua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
This type of communal violence by Hindus against
Muslims is not uncommon in India. Cow is a sacred thing for the Hindus
which have been made more sacred by Gandhi and now by Hindutwa. Now that
the Hindus have the upper hand after 1000 years in India, Hindutwa
is ready to strike and take the law into their own hands where they
cannot do it through the govt. Except for the cities, cow slaughter is a
unofficial social crime in India. Where people find that the govt does
not do it their way, people form such orgs like Hindu Yuva Sena,
and take law into their hands and do it on behalf of the government.
People can be incited at the slighted provocation or rumor. This
is called Jungle Rule.
The incident shows that at present Jungle Rule is
prevalent in most parts of India specially in case of such communal
violence. I am however not clear about the meaning of
the Head line of the report: "Shame". Shame for what? What the
article try to mean by 'Their Shame' and 'Our Shame'. Who are 'We' and
'They'? Shame at not having a Rule of Law in such cases of communal
violence in India or Shame at Hindus Yuva Sena doing the
thing? Untill and unless the Hindus give a
free certificate that cow slaughter is OK in India, I think this type of
violence will continue. And I don't think Hindus will give a blanket
certificate specially in rural areas. In cities, it is a different
matter.
Assam may not have this type of communal Jungle
Rule at present although we are not so sure. But we have other type of
Jungle Rule for sure. . The incident shows what may be outcome of this
type os Yuva Sena and taking laws into their own hands. With
formation of our new Lachit Sena we are also going into more of
this type of Jungle Rule in more areas. That is why I
objected vehemently against formation of this type of Lachit Sena by
AASU although I did not see much support from the Netters.
My morale for such news is that Indians should be
ASHAMED of such Jungle Rules whether these are for communal violence or
for any other type of Dadagiri or terrorism. All should be dealt with
proper force. This type of IJ is good and should be encouraged to keep
the communities feet on the fire, and this type of SENAs should be
outlawed so that we can insist on Rule of Law through the democratic
process. For democracy s to function, all men should be treated equal as
a first condition.
Rajen Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 8:10
AM
Subject: [Assam] I/J from
Tehelka
Barbaric
India
THEIR
SHAME, OUR SHAME
Rightwing activists strip two people for buying
cattle
By Chinmayee Manjunath
Udupi,
Karnataka
For What? Hajabba
(left) and Hassanabba at the hands of the mob ( In the Tehelka
Website, two people on the ground, naked- cm)
As more people gathered, the
father and son were stripped in front of the villagers, who remained
spectators. The tormentors then called a photographer to record the
show
When 70-year-old Hajabba bought a calf on March 13, little
did he know he would have to pay a big cost for it. That he would be
beaten up and paraded naked. That his 29-year-old son, Hassanabba,
would suffer the same fate. Or that his 68-year-old friend
Kanthapujari and his son Satish would be jailed for a crime they had
nothing to do with. The four, belonging to Moodubettu village in Udupi
district, are the latest victims of the communal tension that is
eating into this picturesque region of Karnataka.
On the
morning of March 13, Hajabba visited Kanthapujari at his home; the two
regularly dealt in livestock. On his way back, he met another
villager, Bhogushetty, who negotiated the sale of a ! ! calf. Paying
him an advance of Rs 50, Hajabba agreed to take the calf in the
evening. At 7pm, when Hajabba was on his way in his Maruti van to
collect the calf, Bhogushetty stopped him near Kanthapujari's home and
handed over the cattle. Moments later, a crowd of around 10 people
surrounded the vehicle and dragged Hajabba out. "They just started
beating me," recalls Hajabba, sitting on a bed at the hospital where
he spent two weeks after the attack. The assaulters were members of
the Hindu Yuva Sena (hys), a rightwing organisation with presence in
the region. Meanwhile, Hassanabba, worried why his father had not
returned, set out looking for him. "When I reached the spot, there
were about 30 men and they began to thrash me as well," he says,
flanked by his father at the hospital.
They were then bundled
into autos and driven to the helipad at Adi Udupi, about 2 km away. As
more people gathered, the father and son were stripped and paraded in
front of the villagers, who rema! ! ined mute spectators. "Nobody came
to help us. Everyone just stood and watched," recounts a traumatised
Hajabba.
The hys then called in a photographer. "They
made us pose, saying nobody should ever buy calves after this," says
Hassanabba, who lost consciousness soon after. By then, police reached
the helipad from Malpe, a neighbouring town. They retrieved Hajabba's
clothes and took him to the police station. Hassanabba, however, was
missing. "I kept telling them to look for him but they ignored me,"
says Hajabba. He was questioned till midnight. But there was still no
sign of Hassanabba. "I don't know where I was all night but when I got
up at six in the morning, I was lying near the helipad, dressed," says
the father, recalling the events of that harrowing
night.
The next morning, when Hajabba registered a
complaint, Kanthapujari and Satish were taken to the police station.
"They kept asking us where we were the last night and we told them we
were at h! ome,"! says Kanthapujari. A heart patient, he was admitted
to a government hospital in Udupi on March 16 under police
surveillance and was discharged only last
week.
"Unfortunately, we got the news about the attack
late and by the time my men reached the spot of attack, the son was
missing. We suspect that Kanthapujari was the middleman and Satish has
close links with the Bajrang Dal," says S. Murugan, the Udupi
superintendent of police.
By late evening on March 14,
the two were charged with being abettors of the crime and jailed.
Suresh, Kanthapujari's second son, says his father may have been
implicated because he is known to do business with Hajabba. But
Satish, he claims, has nothing to do with the hys. Bhogushetty's name
has not been mentioned in the complaints filed with the police.
Satish, who was in hiding for some days, was arrested and released
last week along with his father.
The prime
accused, Yeshpal Suvarna and Prakash Bhandari, both leaders of the
hys, have been missing since March 14. Several members of the hys have
also gone underground and attempts to contact Vasudev Bhat, a
prominent leader of the outfit in the region, were
fruitless.
Murugan admits tension has been on the rise and it
is not the first time trade of cattle has sparked off violence. Other
incidents occurred in Mangalore, Karkala and Manipal, a region that
has had a dominant presence of Muslims and
Christians.
Weeks before the Adi Udupi incident, Vanitha,
a factory worker in her early 20s, went missing under mysterious
circumstances in Hejamadi village. She had asked her neighbour,
Ismail, to help her find a better job. Activists of the hys attacked
both for speaking to each other. When they filed a complaint, Vanitha
was threatened by the hys, and was asked to withdraw her complaint.
When she refused,! ! Vanitha was assaulted. No one knows about her
whereabouts. Till now no investigation has taken place while Ismail is
in hiding and Vanitha's brother, an eye-witness, is also
missing.
Locals cite several such incidents. On March 19, a
ceremony was held at a dargah in Udupi. It was attended by thousands.
A local Kannada daily printed a photograph of two people carrying a
green flag with the caption, "The Pakistani flag in Udupi." Protests
began soon, and though the paper was forced by the police to print an
erratum the next day, the town remained tense. Days later, on March
26, bjp mla Raghupathy Bhat led a procession in Udupi. Witnesses say
Bhat withdrew from the scene as members of the Sangh Parivar began to
stone Muslim-owned shops en route. Bhat was not available for
comments.
Locals live in constant fear and refuse to even
speak about the hys or the Bajrang Dal. The region, where different
communities have co-existed peacefully for decades, has become
fraught! ! with communal tension. "We always lived together. Why these
people cause trouble, I never understand," says
Kanthapujari.
May 07 , 2005
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