Shivam Vij, ’eminent’ liberal thinker, has been accused of inventing a quote out of thin air for his report on Shekhar Gupta’s The Print titled ‘Why Kashmiri Pandits may never return to the Valley’. Shivam Vij used a conversation he claims to have had with author Arvind Gigoo in order to peddle his agenda. Vij is a contributing editor at The Print.
Now, the Kashmiri Pandit’s son, Siddhartha Gigoo, has come out on Twitter and accused Shivam Vij of lying, saying that his father never gave any such quote.
This is to state & clarify that this article cites my father, Arvind Gigoo’s quote. The truth is my father NEVER gave this quote. The reporter, Shivam Vij, has lied. Hello @ShekharGupta@ThePrintIndia , please remove my father’s quote from the article and apologize. https://t.co/XtI7hYO33J
Siddhartha said that Shivam Vij has lied in his report, and asked Shekhar Gupta to remove his father’s false quote from the article, and apologise.
Shivam Vij wrote in his report, “Arvind Gigoo is a retired English lecturer from Kashmir, now living in a flat in Jammu with his wife. He moved to Jammu after the exodus in 1991. I asked him why he never thought of returning and living in his home in Srinagar. He explained that his friends were now all in Jammu. It’s the same reason why he doesn’t live with his son in Delhi, the writer Siddhartha Gigoo. When Arvind Gigoo went back to Srinagar after many years, he felt like an outsider, because he didn’t know anyone anymore.”
He continued, “People migrate and die, and so on. The young look at a Pandit speaking in Kashmiri like an oddity from a mythical past. But the most important reason he couldn’t imagine going back to living in Srinagar was comfort. The old house, the old way of living, the old kind of toilets, the dirty old lanes. He was comfortable living in a more modern house in Jammu. He eventually sold the Srinagar house — something many Pandits did.” He then proceeded to add, “So, when we speak of the “return” of Pandits, it is not a physical relocation we need to think of. Pandits cannot return to a Kashmir that is pre-1989, because it does not exist anymore.”
The report comes across as a sermon by a preacher at some pulpit. The purpose of the entire article appears to be issuing severe moral condemnations of Sandeep Chakravorty, India’s Consul General in New York, who was involved in controversy recently, and other related individuals. Another person who was the object of Shivam Vij’s moral sermons was Pooja Shali of India Today.
Shivam Vij wrote, “Yet, the word “camps” will be repeated ad nauseam because how else do you claim continuing victimhood? Take for instance this report by Pooja Shali in India Today, which says, “Kashmiri Pandits living in the Jagti refugee camp appreciated PM Modi-led government’s decision to revoke the state’s special status.” The deliberate yet subtle falsehood here is to describe Jagti as a camp and not a ‘township’. You can see here a photo of the entrance to the Jagti apartments. For anyone who doesn’t understand what a camp is, here is a photo of how the Pandits once lived in camps.”
Now, Pooja Shali, too, has come out on Twitter and slammed Shivam Vij for twisting her report to peddle his agenda.
Yes, tent camps have given way to dilapidated apartments. And that makes anti-minority rhetoric alright?
Instead of empathising that KPs are still not rehabilitated by govts in Kashmir, we have scaremongering – that they will take over Kashmir!
And not even initiate a beginning?
It is kindness of people in Jammu that they didn’t get absorbed in names like camps or township. Or, allege demographic terrorism. Where else would Kashmiri Hindu refugees settle if Jammu residents behaved as vile like Shivam Vij?
Thus, it appears Shivam Vij’s moral sermon report is based on lies and twisting of facts reported by others. It is not surprising given his past track record. He had earlier written a post on Facebook coaching liberals to engage in casteist politics to combat Hindutva. Shivam Vij’s earlier reports for The Print haven’t been paragons of accuracy as well. One day, he used to report that Narendra Modi losing the 2019 elections was a real possibility and after a few days, he declared that the Modi Wave in Uttar Pradesh was as strong as it was in 2014 and 2017. He had also declared Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav a ‘winner’ even before the elections had begun.
What happens when you have a path-breaking decision like the Electoral Bonds by an elected government which is initially met with skepticism from autonomous agencies, when cash as campaign finance is sought to be replaced by funds through the banking route, when its implementation needs initial tweaks not envisaged during conception, when bureaucrats, grappling with interpretation of this measure, make good faith errors?
As a multi-part report in HuffPost India and other outlets would tell you, we have a “scam” whose execution is replete with “illegalities”.
The basics
All political parties need money for campaigning. The big money comes typically from corporate or individual businesses.
Ideally, businesses should donate funds through the banking route (i.e., cheque or bank transfer). However, donors to specific political parties routinely run the risk of being targeted by rival political parties who didn’t get donations from those donors.
What businesses then end up preferring in order to maintain their anonymity is hard cash. The pitfalls of cash, largely unaccounted, need not be explained. Cash is, after all, a bearer note, an instrument of value owned by one who holds it thereby making it difficult to identify the original owner or even changes in ownership from time to time.
No one then really knows which party received what amount of cash, even if the identity of the donors is required to be kept confidential.
A solution – a balance
For the Modi government, this balance came in the form of electoral bonds (EBs). Donors can purchase EBs which will not reflect the identity of the donors. Those EBs can be handed over to political parties of the donor’s choice which can be encashed by those parties in their bank accounts.
Now, while the identity of the owner of these notes remains confidential from political parties and from the public at large, two distinct elements make them significantly different from cash:
Regulated traceability– Section 7(4) of the Electoral Bond Notification permits disclosure of the path of the bonds when demanded by a competent court or upon registration of a criminal case by a law enforcement agency thereby providing a safeguard mechanism in case of illegality or criminality.
Banking route– The funds underlying EBs (except amounts below Rs. 2,000 which can be contributed in cash) travel entirely through the banking route. Section 11 of the Notification enlists the limited banking routes through which payment for the EBs can be done. Moreover, under Section 4 of the Notification, the RBI’s rather stringent KYC norms apply to the buyers of EBs.
I, therefore, prefer to call EBs semi-bearer notes. Cash neither has traceability nor is there a banking route underlying these currency notes once printed.
Additionally, businesses would actually be required to make accounting entries in their books reflecting the purchase of electoral bonds and political parties would need to report on their statements how many donations they received through EBs. Pursuant to Section 80GGB of the Income Tax Act, donors would be able to get tax deductions.
The senseless attempt at sensation by Huffington Post
There are several bizarre surmises in the HuffPost series, some of which are as follows:
The report made much of the fact that BJP received 95% of the funding through EBs in the first subscription thereby concluding that this Scheme was brought in just to benefit one party. Is HuffPostsaying that Congress and other political parties went about their campaigning with just 5% of the remaining funding through EBs? Is it HuffPost’s case that BJP’s rivals didn’t use unaccounted cash at all in their campaigning?
The very fact that 95% of the EBs went to BJP shows that, firstly, we actually know under the EB system how much parties received; secondly, the funds went through the banking route (hence, fully tax paid funds) and, thirdly, those EBs have regulated traceability as explained earlier.
The report also decries the fact that RBI and Election Commission weren’t on board with this decision. While the EC continues to oppose the electoral bond scheme in the ongoing Supreme Court case (which actually refutes arguments of BJP’s rivals that EC is a puppet of the Modi government), RBI later did offer suggestions to strengthen the purpose of the EB Scheme some of which were implemented by the government. In fact, the Modi government implemented more of RBI’s suggestions in the Electoral Bond scheme than those put forth by its own party BJP as elaborated by the author here.
The fact that Modi government didn’t align completely with the RBI or at all with the EC is portrayed as a virtual crime in the HuffPost series, again to sensationalize. This is neither the first time nor the first government which has taken a path different from the one preferred by these agencies.
It also made much of the fact that the PMO asked the Finance Ministry to permit the issuance of bonds outside of the windows originally mentioned in the Notification in order to fund state assembly elections in 2018. HuffPostloosely throws around words such as “illegality”. Why, one wonders, is this problematic? Campaign funding during state/local elections suffers from the same problem of unaccounted illegal cash floating around and dubious funding. Is it the case that regulations are not amenable to change as one starts implementing them and notices aspects which need tweaking?
Indeed, as desirable as it is that such measures be elaborately thought through before implementation, big-impact measures introduced by the Modi government such as demonetization and GST have witnessed constant changes in implementation to suit the needs as felt from time to time. Inconvenient, it may be. How does that make it “illegal” as HuffPostrepeatedly claims? Another classic case of sensation over sense.
Also, the HuffPostseries is riddled with a major contradiction. The byline to each part of this expose claims it is an investigation into “how the Modi government brought untraceable funds” into Indian politics. Part four, on the other hand, bears the headline “Electoral Bonds Are Traceable” and goes on to lament the traceability of the bonds.
So, are they untraceable or traceable? And, what exactly is wrong with the EB system? Traceability of EBs or their untraceability? Or, is it simply a case of heads I win, tail you lose? This tweet by the author documents this contradiction.
Byline of each part of @HuffPostIndia “expose” claims it’s an investigation into “how Modi government brought untraceable funds” into politics. Headline of Part 4, OTOH, is “Electoral Bonds Are Traceable”.
The lament behind the traceability of EBs is that the government of the day could gain access to the confidential information from these agencies which are “caged parrots”. While this is a possibility, there are courts to seek redress to this breach of privacy even if the efficacy of this action may have its own limitations. Regardless, does that mean we go back to the cash-based system where funding goes completely under the radar?
Part five of the HuffPostseries completely obsesses over the fact that a political party was permitted to encash expired bonds. Reading the story is when you realize that a mountain is made out of something that isn’t even a molehill. Under the Electoral Bond Scheme, EBs had a validity period of 15 days. One political party went to the SBI to encash bonds assuming that the validity period was 15 business days (as opposed to 15 calendar days). As a one-time exception, the Finance Ministry, upon being asked by SBI to offer clarity, permitted encashing of bonds. The SBI was categorically told to inform everyone concerned that, for the future, the words “15 days” in the Notification would mean 15 calendar days. How was that an “illegal” act? In fact, bonds which had expired beyond the 15 business days were not allowed to be encashed. If rules had been tweaked for those bonds, an allegation of illegality could be sustained.
Part six is entirely focused on the fact that no business made a formal representation to the Central Government to keep their identity confidential when they choose to donate to a political party. This is, again, bizarre due to the fact that such representations aren’t made formally in writing, that too, to a government official. The vengeance and abuse of power exercised by political parties when in power is an open secret.
And, this happens in democracies with a strong rule of law like the U.S. too. Citing illustrations in the U.S. of how both Republican and Democrat parties have abused their power to intimidate those who donated to the other, Bradley A. Smith, former U.S. Federal Election Commission chairman writes in a piece titled In Defense of Political Anonymitythat “disclosure has resulted in government-enabled invasions of privacy—and sometimes outright harassment—and it has added to a political climate in which candidates are judged by their funders rather than their ideas.”
TheHuffPostseries is riddled with many more errors which evidences a rush to arrive at predetermined conclusions. For example, Part one mentions that foreign companies could now route money to Indian political parties. The Scheme is only for Indian individuals and companies as elaborated in this tweet. Indeed, if foreign money does get funnelled in some way, the regulated traceability of EBs can unveil the path. Another example is that the series misrepresents rather simple words of a bureaucrat as noted here. An incorrect provision of the Scheme is referenced without basic fact-checking.
All of this goes to show that the HuffPost series, far from being a real investigative story like stories on the Bofors or 2G scams were, is but a lazy attempt at inventing sensation from a set of documents obtained through RTI applications. The applicable word for such stories is – “clickbait”.
Days after casting apprehensions over an alliance with the Shiv Sena, Congress’ Sanjay Nirupam, was not only seen dancing to Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s tunes but was seen going a step beyond to outfox the new Maharashtra Chief Minister’s decision on halting the car shed construction for the Mumbai Metro in Aarey Milk Colony.
In an interview with ANI, Maharashtra Congress leader was heard saying that though he welcomes the Maharashtra government’s decision to halt the car shed construction but was of the opinion that only temporarily halting the project would not help, instead he was in the favour of completely scrapping the project.
I welcome Maha Govt’s decision to stop work of Metro Carshed in #Aarey
But only stopping will not help, the proposed car shed should be scrapped.
Protest against #metro carshed was not politically motivated but every Mumbaikar’s demand to #SaveAareyForest
He says that the decision to scrap the project is of one and every person in Mumbai. Congress’ foul-mouthed minister said that this movement against the overnight cutting of trees in Aarey was not politically motivated or devised by any particular political party but is unanimously endorsed by the people of Mumbai.
He said that along with all the Mumbaikar’s he to demands that the project of the car shed construction for the Mumbai Metro in Aarey Milk Colony must be completely scrapped.
Interestingly, despite SC’s stay on tree cutting in Aarey and Metro Corporation’s confirmation that they have cut all the trees that needed to be cut and they do not need to cut any more trees in the area, in his first-ever policy decision as the new CM of Maharashtra, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had announced on November 29 that not a single leaf will be cut any more and halted metro car shed construction for the same reason until further notice.
At first, the new CM proposes to halt the construction, then Congress senior leader proposes to completely scrap the project. But surprisingly, in both cases, they have not offered an alternative space for the metro car shed. People here are left to wonder, whether the metro coaches will also be split between Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress as well for parking and maintanence.
On the night of 4th October, the Mumbai Metro Corporation had started the process of cutting 2,185 trees in Aarey colony after the Bombay High Court dismissed all petitions against the same earlier in that day. As per an order issued by the Tree Authority on 13th September, approval for cutting 2,185 trees and transplanting 461 trees was granted to clear the allotted land for the depot of metro trains.
Police had to impose section 144 of the IPC for smooth implementation of the order as protestors had arrived at Aarey Colony to prevent trees from being cut. Out of 2,185 trees marked for felling, 2,141 trees were cut before the stay by SC, while the Metro Corporation had said that they have cut all the trees that needed to be cut and they do not need to cut any more trees in the area.
The former Congress party president has added yet another gem in his series of hilarious gaffes. This time around, while addressing an election rally in Jharkhand, the Gandhi scion conjured up a new mathematical numeral-‘Dhai Hazaar Panch Sau’.
Talking at the rally, Gandhi said, “Sarkar kisano ka dhaan dhai hazaar panch sau me kharidti hai (The government buys farmers’ produce at Rs 2500 500).” The Wayanad MP was listing the down the MSP price apparently offered to the farmers by the Congress government in the nearby Chhatisgarh state when he coined a never before heard number. Before long, the short clip of Rahul’s gaffe started doing the rounds on the Internet.
“There is only one state which offers the right price to the farmers. It is Chhatisgarh. Before the elections, we had promised that we will raise the MSP to 2500 per quintal. After coming to power we did it. The farmers in Chhatisgarh get Rs 2500 per quintal for their produce. The government provides 2500 500 per quintal to the farmers,” Gandhi said.
It is interesting to note that initially he had said the correct figure, two thousand five hundred, but being himself, he invented the new number just a moment later.
This is not the first time that the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has regaled his audience and listeners with his unintended humour. Last year, Rahul Gandhi invented another numeral-“pichatees” while slamming the BJP government for the rising unemployment figures.
Tweet your fav #PappuKiMaths moment with this hashtag.
The list of gaffes committed by Rahul Gandhi is endless. During the campaigning for Karnataka polls in 2018, Gandhi stuttered repeatedly while pronouncing the word ‘Visvesvaraya’.
One of the famous goof-ups happened in January 2013 while Rahul was addressing the AICC plenary, shortly after becoming the vice president of the party. Speaking at the plenary, Rahul mixed up day with night saying, “This morning I got up at night, 4 o’clock in the morning I got out into the balcony I thought- you have a big responsibility in front of you and these people are standing behind you, people are standing on your side.”
The list of Rahul Gandhi’s problems with numbers is endless. During the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaigns, the then Congress president had given different numbers about their promised NYAY scheme at different rallies. Although the proposal had promised ₹72,000 per year, Rahul Gandhi had promised ₹72,000 per month in one place, while had promised a whopping ₹72,000 crore per year in another place.
Usman Khan, the London Bridge Terrorist, was considered a ‘poster boy for deradicalization’ following his release from prison after being convicted on charges of terrorism, it has now been revealed. Learning Together, a Cambridge University programme, worked with Usman Khan in prison and after his release and he was advertised as a success story.
Khan also wrote a ‘Thank You’ note to the organizers after they provided him with a computer that he could use without violating his bail conditions. The programme also shared his note of gratitude alongside a poem that he wrote. The poem goes, “I write so my words become a soothing light, I write so I can enter the coldest of hearts, I write so I can speak to those locked off from the world engulfed in the blinding absence of sight. I write so I can express what I feel is right.”
Although the face of the person is not visible in the image, it is understood to be Khan. In the note of gratitude, Khan wrote, “I typed these reflections on the chromebook I received and I am truly grateful to be able to express myself through it.” “I cannot send enough thanks to the entire Learning Together team and all those who continue to support this wonderful community.”
Usman Khan was banned from entering London but he received special permission to attend the event organized by Learning Together. In a handwritten letter following his 2012 conviction, Usman Khan claimed that he no longer endorsed extremist positions. The letter states, “I would be grateful if you could arrange some kind of course that I can do where I can properly learn Islam and its teachings, and I can prove I don’t carry the extreme views which I might have carried before.”
Source: Mirror UK
And it continues: “I would like to do such a course so I can prove to the authorities, my family and soicity (sic) in general that I don’t carry the views I had before my arrest and also I can prove that at the time I was immature, and now I am much more mature and want to live my life as a good Muslim and also a good citizen of Britain.”
It is also revealed that Jack Merritt, one of the two victims of Khan, worked with him while he was in prison. His family, however, has slammed the Tory government’s plans to review Britain’s judicial sentencing system in the aftermath of the attack. “We know Jack would not want this terrible, isolated incident to be used as a pretext by the government for introducing even more draconian sentences on prisoners, or for detaining people in prison for longer than necessary,” they wrote.
It appears that Usman Khan succeeded in convincing those around him that he had indeed been reformed. However, it’s now being suspected that he had planned the attack for a great many years. He was eventually shot dead after he had murdered two and injured several others. It is now known that Usman Khan had previously boasted about his UK benefits while plotting a “Mumbai-style attack”. Khan and the plotters had plans to raise funds to build a terrorist training camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The group also had also planned to carry out a “Mumbai-style attack” on high-profile figures, according to court documents.
However, people who knew him in his younger days don’t appear surprised by the turn of events. Rhys Miller, a former classmate, wrote on Facebook: ‘Look who it is – the guy who walked around school with a picture of Osama bin Laden on the front of his planner and used to sit in the corner of the cafe with 20 of his mates watching videos of the planes going into the Twin Towers.’ He asserted that Khan’s extremism was ‘brushed under the carpet’ and ‘blatant red flags’ were ‘ignored’.
Bindu Ammini, who was attacked with chilli spray while waiting near the Ernakulam police commissioner’s office on November 26 seeking police protection to enter the Sabarimala shrine has now moved to the Supreme Court seeking safe passage of all women regardless of age, religion.
She claims that there is no stay of the 2018 SC verdict and the Kerala police are bound to give protection to women (between the age of 10 and 50) who wanted to climb the Sabarimala shrine.
It was reported that Bindu Ammini had earlier decided on moving a contempt of court petition in the SC alleging that the Kerala government was not cooperating with women seeking to enter the sanctum sanctorum of Sabarimala, but has instead moved a writ petition now in the apex court.
This writ petition is in the form of public interest litigation (PIL) in which she has sighted the 2018 SC’s Sabarimala judgement and went on to say that this judgement has not been stayed by the top court. She also argued that SC had not referred the issue to a larger bench in its November 14 order.
Last week, Bindu Ammini, while speaking to the media at the Press Club in Kottayam, said that the police or members of the Sangh Parivar, preventing women from the trek amounts to contempt of court.
She slammed the Kerala government for not giving police protection and dodging their responsibilities under the pretext that there was a lack of clarity in the Supreme Court’s latest judgment.
The apex court on November 14 referred the Sabarimala issue to a larger seven-member bench but did not impose a stay on its September 2018 verdict.
“There is no lack of clarity in the recent ruling. Those who have lack of clarity should seek clarity. Instead, the government is trying to escape from their responsibility. All political parties are trying to make political mileage out of the Sabarimala issue, eyeing on their respective vote banks. The Left has fallen for the trap prepared by the Sangh Parivar. And the Sangh Parivar is trying to create riots using people who have no sense of history,” she had said.
Bindu and another woman named Kanakadurga were sneaked into the Sabarimala shrine last year by the communist government to forcibly break the traditions of the temple. Both of them were reportedly CPM workers and they were accompanied by policemen dressed in plain clothes inside the shrine.
The devotees at Sabarimala had later alleged that the women were sneaked in via the VIP entrance early in the morning on January 2 last year.
The HC appointed monitoring committee had slammed the Kerala police and Patthanamittha administration for taking unauthorised steps to facilitate the entry of the two CPIM activists Bindu and Kanakadurga causing huge embarrassment for the Pinarayi Vijayan led Kerala government.
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government had faced severe protests and outrage by Hindus for its use of force to blatantly disregard the traditions and sentiments of a community and go out of its way to escort activists and atheists inside the temple.
The Kerala government’s excesses were slammed by the High Court. The Sabarimala excesses had also made the CPM face a massive electoral rout in the 2019 general elections.
This year, the Kerala government has been on a cautionary mode. They have made it clear that the SC’s decision to take on the review petitions for the September 2018 order and its statements on the regard have de facto stayed the earlier order and they will not provide state protection to women within the restricted age-group who are seeking entry into the shrine.
The efforts of non-Hindus, activists and atheists to forcibly enter a Hindu religious shrine under the garb of democratic rights and disregarding the faith and traditions of the devotees have been criticised widely by Hindus around the world.
It is notable here that the Sabarimala temple is the seat of Lord Ayyappa who is worshipped there in his ‘Naishtika Brahmachari’ form. Hence, only the devotees who had observed a rigorous 41-day penance and are carrying the ‘Irumudi’ are traditionally allowed into the shrine. Women of menstruating age are barred.
Soon after the newly selected chief minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray declared that all the cases on the Aarey metro car shed protestors will be withdrawn, an NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad had exhorted the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government to drop the charges slapped against Sudhir Dhawale, a prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Dhawale, a known Naxal sympathiser, was among ten activists arrested in 2018 as part of the inquiry into the caste violence at Bhima Koregaon on January 1 of the same year. They were accused of masterminding the violence and of having links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
It is noteworthy to mention that the accused Sudhir Dhawale, whom the NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad wants to be exculpated by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, wrote a book likening the CM’s father Balasaheb Thackeray to German chancellor Adolf Hitler and called him a “fascist slave of capitalists”. In the book, Dhawale claimed that Balasaheb Thackeray held a dim view of democracy and espoused fascist ideology, like the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
“Balasaheb’s admiration for Adolf Hitler was not hidden. Therefore, when the former PM Indira Gandhi called upon the Emergency in the country, Balasaheb had openly extended his support to her. This tiger was afraid of being incarcerated during that time. Just like Hitler’s rule was characterised by his sudden caprices, similarly, Balasaheb’s capricious behaviour was no less. Scores of innocent people died because of Balasaheb Thackeray’s whims and fancies. On one hand, his Shiv Seniks dig up cricket pitches to oppose matches between India and Pakistan, on the other hand, he invited Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad to his house,” Dhawale said in the book.
Furthermore, describing Balasaheb Thackeray as “Brahminical Fascist Don”, Dhawale alleged in the book that in order to once again establish the supremacy of Hindutva, Balasaheb presided over the killings of innocent Dalits across various parts of Maharashtra. “In 1974 Worli riots, across Marathwada, Dalit women were raped, mass killings ordered, their houses were ransacked. Only after these incidents, Shiv Sena’s hegemony was established in the region,” Dhawale wrote.
The request from the NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad comes at a time when the Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, the son of late Balasaheb Thackeray has been appointed as the Maharashtra Chief Minister with the support of Nationalist Congress Party and the Indian National Congress and has received widespread criticism for allying with the very parties who stand against Hindus and had demonised not only Shiv Sena but also Bal Thackeray in the past.
Maulana Syed Ashhad Rashidi, the president of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has filed a review petition against the Ayodhya Verdict that had awarded the ownership of the Ram Janmabhoomi to the Hindu side.
In its petition, the Muslim organization has accused the Supreme Court of condoning the ‘illegalities’ committed by the Hindu side. They have also accused the Supreme Court of issuing a ‘mandamus to destroy the Babri and build a Temple in its place’.
The 217 page review petition has been filed by Advocate Ejaz Maqbool.
“..The present Review Petition in this Hon’ble Court under Article 137 of the Constitution of India seeking review of the judgment and order dated November 9, 2019…”
The petition states, “That this Hon’ble Court by the impugned judgment and order has virtually granted a mandamus to destroy the Babri Masjid and to construct a temple of Lord Ram in the said place. The Hon’ble Court by virtue of the impugned order has though acknowledged few of the several illegalities committed by the Hindu Parties, particularly in 1934 (damaging the domes of the Babri Masjid), 1949 (desecrating the Babri Masjid) and 1992 (demolition of the Babri Masjid), but this Hon’ble Court has proceeded to condone the said illegal acts and has awarded the disputed site to the very party which based its claims on nothing but a series of illegal acts.”
The petition adds, “Further, this Hon’ble Court has in an attempt to balance the reliefs between the parties, while condoning illegalities of the Hindu parties, has allotted alternate land admeasuring 5 acres to the Muslim parties, which was neither pleaded nor prayed for by the Muslim parties.”
The petitioners alleged that the Court committed an “error apparent on record by passing the impugned judgment and order directing for a temple to be built at the disputed land, which virtually amounts to a mandamus to destroy, because had the Babri Masjid not been illegally demolished on December 6, 1992, the execution of the present order would have required the destruction of an existing mosque to make space for a proposed temple.” It was also claimed that the Supreme Court in its Ayodhya Verdict “failed to appreciate that there can be no lasting peace without justice and accountability.”
It was also claimed by the petitioners that the Ayodhya Verdict “erred in disregarding the basic principle that no person can derive benefit out of an illegality while granting title to the Hindu parties.” According to them, the Supreme Court also committed a mistake “by not appreciating that the structure in question had always been a mosque and had been in exclusive possession of the Muslims.” The petition also states that the Court equated “wanton acts of destruction and trespass committed by the Hindu parties to acts of assertion of claim over the disputed site.”
The review petition also demands that the Supreme Court issue a stay on its Ayodhya Verdict and directs the Central Government that no steps should be taken to fulfil its obligations under the verdict.
It is notable here that the Sunni Central Waqf Board, one of the litigant parties in the long-running case, had earlier made it clear that they will not file a review petition in the apex court.
The brutal rape and murder in Telangana has shaken the very conscience of the nation. With widespread outrage not limited to social media, the case has occupied the media’s primary focus and rightly so. While primarily and exclusively, rape is about men exerting their depraved power over women, it is the Left which often peels layers and concerns itself with semantics. They did so in the Telangana case as well, and this article is to present the other side of the story. It is to understand why the identity of the rapist is also of consequence by extrapolating the Left’s theories.
The main accused in the case is one Mohammad Pasha. Pasha was the mastermind of the heinous crime and the one who was responsible for killing her. It was Pasha who smothered her while raping her and it is he who strangled her by putting his hands on her nose and mouth. By all accounts, whether it is the remand report or even Left websites like The Quint who are trying to interview his mother to paint him as a victim of poverty, the foremost accused is Pasha. The other three accused, equally brutal, are Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chennakeshavulu.
With Mohammad Pasha alias Mohammad Ali alias Arif being the mastermind of this heinous crime, it was obvious for his name to be splashed everywhere. His identity as a Muslim, fuelled his name being highlighted further.
The Left immediately sprung up to action and condemned the crime being given a “communal colour”. In fact, The Quint, that is now trying to whitewash the Mohammad by interviewing his poor mother, did a fact-check that essentially slammed “BJP supporters” for communalising the incident. India Today even tweeted that ‘Rapists have no religion’ while using a Hijabi woman as their model.
India Today tweet
When a heinous crime such as this happened, should the perpetrator be the prime focus or the victim? This is the first, foremost and the eternal question that plagues reportage and conversation around such issues. However, even if the victim is the focus, the invariable glare comes on to the monsters who would so brutally snuff the life out of an innocent.
The contention here, however, was not the fact that the perpetrators were being spoken about. The content of the Left was that the ‘right’ was communalising the crime by focussing on Mohammad instead of all 4 perpetrators (the others were not Muslims).
At this juncture, one must ask the broader question independent of the Telangana case but not excluding it – is there a rationale of mentioning the identity of the perpetrator when he is a Muslim and the victim is a Hindu?
To answer that question we must understand why media and the Left highlight the identity of Dalit victims even in crimes which are not motivated by caste considerations and then understand whether that rationale holds true for crimes where the perpetrator or the main conspirator of a crime is a Muslim and the victim is a Hindu.
Why the identity of a Dalit victim is mentioned after a crime and the concept of ‘Intersectionality’
It is often noticed that the caste identity of a Dalit victim is mentioned by the media and the Left while reporting crimes. The non-Left has theorised that this is perhaps to drive a wedge in the society and further the narrative that in Hindu majority India, Dalits and lower-castes are brutalised on a regular basis and therefore, further the ‘Muslim-Dalit unity’ trope that would then help ‘secular fronts’ electorally. Essentially, the non-Left has religated this practice of mentioning the caste identity of Dalit victims to the ‘break-India project’ and the project to demonise Hindus.
While that may be the agenda for several media houses and Left intelligentsia, the rationale behind highlighting the caste identity of Dalit victims has a separate origin altogether. The theory essentially believes that the victim would have been at a lower risk had her identity not been that of a Dalit and hence, mentioning the caste identity is essential as even if the crime is not motivated by caste animosity, the victim was at a higher risk by virtue of her caste. To reach this conclusion, the sociological theory of ‘Intersectionality’ must be understood threadbare.
‘Intersection’ is essentially the point where two entities meet. This concept is then extrapolated to society in general. When talking about the sociological concept of Intersectionality, one must understand what society and people are defined as. The society is defined by the people, the social constructs, way of living and belief system. When it comes to the people who make up that society, one needs to understand what a person’s identity is. Identity itself is essential ‘who a person is and what he identifies himself as’. An individual is made up of his beliefs and qualities and those which are unique to him, identify him as a person which, in turn, shapes his perceptions and value systems. A person, through his own perceptions and value systems, identifies himself and what his relationship is with the society on the whole. The perception and value system of the individual is shaped by the messages he receives from the society, his school, parents, neighbourhood, religious institutions, so on and so forth.
Intersectionality is thus a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of one’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, etc.) might combine to create unique modes of discrimination. So for example, a Jewish woman might be discriminated against not exclusively for her Jewish identity or gender identity but because both these identities intersect and create a unique form of discrimination in a place where Christian women are not discriminated against. Or, where a black woman is more discriminated against than a black man. For instance, a White woman is less privileged than a White Man but more privileged than a Black Man.
Applying this theory, the caste and gender identities of a Dalit woman are mentioned in the media when a crime is committed, since the victim was at a higher risk of being discriminated against not just because of the historical suppression of Dalits on the whole but also because of her gender identity even if the crime is not motivated specifically by caste animosity.
While the media does overdo it and their motivations might be suspect, there is merit to the argument that a Dalit woman living in a disadvantaged area is more at risk than an upper-caste woman in the same area or in a more affluent area and thus, it is not incorrect to mention the caste and gender identity of the victim who might have been at a higher risk due to the intersectionality of her identities.
Intersectionality should apply not only to the victim but also the perpetrator
Intersectionality as a concept is mostly applied to the victim where intersecting identities of the victim puts her at a greater risk of discrimination. However, the concept of Intersectionality must also apply to the perpetrator on how his intersecting identities make him more prone to committing a crime against the victim, whose intersecting identities puts her at greater risk with respect to the perpetrator in question.
While the identity of the victim is important and nothing can diminish that, the identity of the perpetrator how the identities of the victim and the perpetrator intersect at a societal level is equally important to understand the risk the victim faces historically.
It is pertinent to understand here that in a country as diverse as India, it is not only the identity of the victim that determines the factor of risk but also the identity of the perpetrator. It is important to understand how the two communities view each other through social constructs that determine the factor of risk the victim faces from the perpetrators of a particular identity.
For example, the media in India and the Left mentions the Dalit identity to drive home the point that Dalits are oppressed by upper-caste Hindus. Here, it is not only the identity of the Dalit victim that is in play but also the identity of the perpetrator. That the Left mentions the identity even of the perpetrator does not take away the gender identity or the caste identity of the victim. However, the victim was not at higher risk only because of her identity as a Dalit woman but also because of the intersectional identity of the perpetrator – Upper-caste Hindu male.
Why the same theory must be applied when the perpetrator is a Muslim and the victim is a Hindu
While the Left highlights the intersecting identities of a Dalit woman when a crime is committed, when the identity of a Muslim criminal is mentioned especially in sexual crimes against Hindu women, the allegation that is often hurled is that the non-Left is trying to ‘communalise’ a crime. However, if the same theory is applied to such crimes, would it not justify highlighting the religious identity of the criminal when the perpetrator is a Muslim and the victim is a Hindu?
The sociological concept of Intersectionality itself admits that tenets of the concept are fluid and change depending upon time and place. For example, we do not talk about race or gender contracts the way we used to 100 years ago.
When we talk about religious identities, one must also acknowledge in no uncertain terms that Hindus and Muslims have been co-existing in India but the historicity of that relationship is strained and blood-soaked at the very least.
Hindus have seen over 800 years of Islamic rule where they were beaten, raped, killed and converted. Where their temples were trampled upon and their identity as Hindus was under siege. Post the Islamic rule, in Independent India, the atrocities committed by Islamists have not stopped, whether the Left likes to believe it or not. If we take Kashmir, for example, India’s only Muslim dominated state, the picture becomes evident. The Hindu minority of the state were beaten, raped, murdered and cleansed from the state. The slogans that emanated from the mosques of Kashmir in the 90s said that Hindu men should leave the valley but leave their women behind for the Islamists. The chants also asked the Hindus to either convert to Islam or leave the valley.
With these examples alone it is acceptable to conclude that Hindus have been historically at a disadvantaged position with respect to Muslims in India and have often been victimised, brutally, by Muslims.
Other than collective crimes by the Muslim community like that of the Islamic invasion and the plight of Hindus in Kashmir, several crimes at the individual level too have proved that Muslims are more likely to victimise Hindus and this barring the acts of rioting that the Muslim community has initiated.
A large section of Muslims believe that Hindus are Kafirs and idol-worshippers who deserve sub-human treatment, even death. The mentality is evident in several cases like that of Kamlesh Tiwari, where he was brutally murdered for allegedly insulting the Prophet of Islam. Without getting into a long-winded section explaining an established truth, a list of 50 crimes that were committed by Muslims against Hindus in a short span of time can be read to get the drift.
With the established truth that Muslims are more likely to target Hindus, in crimes where Muslims are the perpetrators, mentioning the religious identity of the Muslim is pertinent considering it is the intersectionality of the Hindu and Muslim identities of the victim and perpetrator that puts the Hindus at higher risk of being victimised.
Why mentioning Muslim identity is even more pertinent when the victim is a Hindu woman
Intersectionality is a sociological concept says that intersecting identifies give rise to unique models of oppression. We have already established the Hindu identity itself puts a victim at a higher risk when the perpetrator is a Muslim. With intersecting identities of gender and religion, the Hindu woman is placed at a higher risk than Hindu men, for example, or Muslim women when the perpetrator is a Muslim.
Historically, Hindu women have been oppressed brutally by Muslims. One recalls the rampant rapes during the Islamic rule, and even in Kashmir where women were brutally raped by Islamists. It is a technique that many Islamists adapt to convert Kafir women to Islam. In recent times too, we have seen several cases where the Muslim perpetrator victimised the Hindu woman. There have been rampant cases of Love-Jihad where Muslim men trap Hindu women with the excuse of a relationship and then, convert, rape and/or murder.
It is thus established that the intersecting identities of gender (women) and religion (Hindu) do put women at a higher risk. In individual cases, one can never judge the risk factor. Even when Dalit women are victimised and their identities mentioned as such, it is entirely possible that in a particular case, the intersecting identities of gender and caste played no role in her victimisation. However, the identity is mentioned due to Intersectionality, as a matter of principle keeping in mind the history of abuse and oppression faced by Dalit women.
In the case of Hindu women too, nobody says that in every case, the Hindu woman’s religion and gender identity is necessarily a contributing factor for the Muslim perpetrator, but as a principle, considering the historicity of atrocities by Muslims on Hindu women, the identity of the perpetrator must be mentioned.
In the Telangana case, for example, the head of the gang that committed the heinous crime was Mohammad Pasha, a Muslim. The victim was a Hindu woman. Now, we do not know the religiosity of Pasha himself, however, as a principle, one is to ask if the women would have been at less risk if she was a Hijabi woman instead and was the victim at a higher risk because of her intersectional identity of being a Hindu woman in front of a Muslim perpetrator.
While there is no correct answer considering we do not know the level of indoctrination or religiosity of Pasha, the identity of the Muslim perpetrator is to be mentioned, just as the caste and gender identity of the Dalit woman victim is mentioned regardless of motivating factors of the crime.
What happens when the victim is a Dalit woman and a perpetrator is a Muslim man?
We have already established that the Muslim identity of the perpetrator is an essential component and should be mentioned when the victim if a Hindu woman. However, what happens when the victim is a Dalit woman and the perpetrator is a Muslim man?
The media is often extremely dishonest when it comes to such crimes. As explained in detail, intersectionality is when the intersecting identities of an individual put her at a higher risk. As also discussed above, when the perpetrator is of Muslim identity, the intersecting identities of both the perp and the victim play a role in determining the risk factor that the victim faces.
When a Muslim man victimises a Dalit woman, one must ask the very important question of which intersecting identity of that woman put her in harm’s way. Was it her identity as a Dalit woman or as a Hindu woman? When the perpetrator is a Muslim, one has to assume that for him, the differentiation between a Brahmin woman and a Dalit woman does not exist. For him, the two intersecting identities that put the victim at a higher risk is that of gender (woman) and that of her religion (Hindu) and not of her caste (Dalit). For a Muslim, per his religion, all Hindu women are Kafirs and thus, the Muslim will not differentiate between different castes.
In such a scenario, one has to ask why the media and the Left continue to highlight the Dalit woman identity of the victim instead of the intersecting identities of a Muslim man victimising a Hindu woman? While the concept in itself holds merit, it is this chicanery of the media that raises several doubts on their intent.
Conclusion
This theory of Intersectionality, while a sociological concept is rooted in Marxism. While the roots and their explanation is a subject for another day, it suffices to say that the concept itself is rooted in communism and its allied offshoots such as feminism. One has to wonder why then does the Left often raise hell when the Muslim identity of the perpetrator is mentioned? Is it because if their denial to accept empirical evidence that Muslims are often the oppressing force or their blatant agenda that Hindu lives aren’t as precious as Muslim lives? Their misplaced notions that Dalits are not Hindus and are in fact closer to Muslims in their political fantasy? Either way, while we reject Communism, their theory of Intersectionality, to have merit, must be applied to all categories of crimes, which also means that the Muslim identity of the perpetrator must be explicitly mentioned when the victim is a Hindu woman.
Identity is the principal focus of the theory of intersectionality. It mandates that every individual be viewed through the prism of his collective identity, This theory is extremely mainstream in the Left and acquired the status of a hallowed doctrine in academia. Concepts such as ‘Savarna privilege’ and ‘White Male Privilege’ have their origins in this theory. Therefore, leftists cannot discard this theory simply because the current situation does not suit their agenda. It must be applied in all situations uniformly. Leftists cannot argue that every individual and situation must be viewed through the prism of the identities of the individuals involved and then claim that the Muslim identity of the rapist does not matter when the victim is a Hindu woman.
While the entire nation is shocked over the barbaric rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinary doctor in Hyderabad and demanding capital punishment for the accused, left-wing media seems to have taken it upon itself to whitewash the crimes of the accused rapists by creating a wave of sympathy on the pretext that they belonged to deprived sections of the society.
The Quint, which has a history of whitewashing crimes of Islamic terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and being terror sympathisers, has now resorted to similar propaganda in the horrific Hyderabad rape and murder case.
The Quint has interviewed the family members of the four accused, including the main accused Mohammad, alias Areef, a 25-year-old lorry driver of Narayanpet district.
In what appears to be the attempt to deviate from the issue, which is the brutality of the act itself, the left-wing rag Quint has tried to absolve the crimes of the accused Mohammad by creating a wave of sympathy by highlighting the deprivations and poverty of his family. In doing so, the Quint has tried to humanise the whole incident in favour of the accused Mohammad so that he gets a reprieve for committing the barbaric crime.
In its first report, the Quint has talked to the mother of the accused, who has claimed that Mohammad returned home after committing the crime, who told her that he had killed a woman in an accident. The mother said, she asked him if he wanted to eat, but the accused refused, she added.
“She could sense that Mohammad was engrossed in thought. After some time, he broke his silence and told his parents about the crime. Hearing about it, Molanbi felt petrified for her son,” writes Quint in its report while depicting the soft side of the accused.
“We did not ask him questions. He looked scared and distressed (emphasis added) and all he wanted to do was to go to sleep. So, we all did,” said the mother according to the Quint report.
The report further states that Mohammad’s father, Hussain, told him repeatedly that he should have been more careful. The Quint then talks about how the rapist was the sole earning member of a poor family where neither of the parents could work.
According to Quint, Molanbi, the mother of the accused and her husband Hussain are dependent on Mohammad, who had dropped out of school in Class 10 to earn money. Hussain had reportedly worked as a driver but cannot work anymore as he fell off the lorry and hurt his back.
The mother of the accused has also claimed that she cannot move around much after her operation. She claimed that she still suffers from the pain and she has no means to earn money. While the poverty of the family is indeed unfortunate, it does not take away the fact that their son raped and killed a woman and then set the body on fire.
The Quint report adds more melodrama to the interview by reporting on how the accused had helped her mother when she had to undergo an operation. Quoting his mother, the report states, “I needed an operation a year ago, where my uterus needed to be urgently removed. He worked hard to make the money for my treatment”. Again, unfortunate, but does not absolve him of his crimes.
Mohammad is one of the four accused in connection with the brutal rape and murder of the 27-year-old veterinarian Dr Preeti Reddy (name changed). The accused had burnt the body after raping her in the outskirts of the city on Wednesday night.
In its second report, the Quint has also talked to parents of three other accused – Jollu Shiva, Jollu Naveen and Chinakunta Chennakashavulu.
Jollu Shiva, a cleaner who was the one who was asked the victim to allow him to take her two-wheeler for repairing the puncture. According to the police, Jollu also raped the deceased victim inside the compound. He then went and bought the petrol from a petrol bunk and also set her dead body on fire at Shadnagar road.
According to the Quint, Jollu Rajappa, the father of Shiva’s father, said he felt humiliated as the policemen went on taunting him. The father claimed that he was asked by the police on why they let their child go down the wrong path. “They kept asking us why we let our child go astray. I did not say anything. Just looked down and listened. What can I say? Is this why we wanted a son?” said the father.
“Rajappa, with his arms folded and his back straight, seemed like a man whose pride was hurt. The family says it has faced humiliation ever since the news came out, (emphasis added)” reads the Quint report.
Shiva’s sister who returned home after the arrest reportedly said to The Quint, “Kill him. What else should they do? After what he has done, what else does he deserve? Kill him.”
Jollu Naveen, another accused is the son of Rajappa’s sister – Laxmi. Naveen’s father passed away 12 years ago after battling cancer. His mother, Laxmi, takes care of the family.
The report states that Naveen ‘behaved strangely’ after he committed the crime. The accused’s mother Laxmi said, “He didn’t show any signs of remorse, guilt or anything. He was absolutely alright. He didn’t say anything to me about what transpired the previous night. He ate, did things as he normally does, and went off to sleep.” The Quint couldn’t give any further spins and humanise him as accused’s mother had already mentioned how he does not feel any remorse.
When asked about the nature of the crime, the mother did not defend her son. The mother said she was angry with her son, “How dare he do something like this? How dare he even think of something like this?” asked the mother. She said she was in disbelief that her son could be this person. “He should be punished,” the mother of Naveen said.
The fourth accused Chinakunta Chennakeshavulu, unlike other accused, is a married man. He not only dragged the doctor inside the compound but also raped her, dumped the body into the lorry and was present when the body was burnt. But Chennakeshavulu has ‘kidney problems’, which did not come in way of raping a woman, because of which he does not work.
In a bid to generate sympathy wave for his family, The Quint says how his mother also wishes he is ‘strictly punished’. Jayamma said, “There is no one who can understand the pain of a child being taken away from her mother. I am in pain and I do not understand why and how he could do this, however, he must be strictly punished,” the Quint described his mother as ‘looking distraught’ and had her eyes well up with tears.
This is not the first time that Quint has been on a project of humanising rabid criminals and terrorists. In 2017, the Quint had taken their ‘humanising project’ to the next level after they had observed the “death anniversary” of terrorist Osama Bin Laden. The left-wing fake news propaganda website had written about the ‘human aspects’ of Osama by revealing that how good or bad a father and a husband he was.
Following the crackdown on dreaded Urban Naxals, the Quint – one of the members of the ‘liberal-secular’ industry had suffered a meltdown in the left-liberal camp and had to come to the rescue of these terrorist sympathisers.
The Quint in one of its reports stood behind Vernon Gonzalves and had attempted to eulogise the raided Urban Naxals. The Quint had resorted to concerted attempt to whitewash the crimes that those arrested had committed in the past. The left-wing media had created an impression that Gonzalves was let out of jail in 2013 because he was found innocent and quotes him intensively to paint a picture of how he was falsely accused.
The Case:
On Wednesday night, a 27-year-old veterinarian Dr Preeti Reddy (name changed) was brutally raped and murdered and her body was set ablaze on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Four people have been reportedly arrested in connection with the case.
According to the reports, the four accused had pre-planned the crime after they had noticed that the victim had parked her two-wheeler at the Tondupally toll plaza. The accused assumed that the lady would come to pick it up later in the evening. The accused then deflated the tyre.
As Preeti Reddy (name changed) was returning home from work a little after 8 pm to pick her vehicle, she noticed a flat tyre. She immediately called her sister, who suggested that she leave her two-wheeler at the toll plaza and take a cab home. Before she could, two men approached her, who offered to take her vehicle for repair.
The woman was allegedly ambushed and dragged into the bushes by the accused barely 50 metres from Tondupally toll plaza behind a line of trucks that was parked near the road. Her charred body was found under an underpass on Thursday morning.
According to police, the accused took her body to an under-construction bridge a few kilometres away and set it on fire. The police stated that the victim’s innerwear and some other objects including an alcohol bottle found around 100 metres from the spot led them to believe she was sexually assaulted before being killed.
The Telangana police have also confirmed that Preeti Reddy was kidnapped and gang-raped. The incident has sparked massive outrage among the public over the never-ending cases of sexual violence against women.
