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It's like being stuck in a bad Hindi film. The rhetoric, the invective, the insults, the platitudes are all sickeningly familiar. Even the characters are the same, sorry lot.
Frankly, blaming the Senas (Shiv or Maharashtra Navnirman) for the current mess in Maharashtra would be a cop-out. One does not expect any different or better from them, nor are they going to suddenly turn into champions of freespeech. The BJP-RSS, with Bihar elections in mind, may have dissociated themselves from the Shiv Sena on the issue of "Mumbai for Mumbaikars" now (after being complicit in Shiv Sena's vocal hate speech for years), but the bone of contention this time around is not just about outsiders.
It is pure and simple about freedom of expression.
Not that the Congress-NCP has a great track-record when it comes to freespeech: be it in the matter of Mee Nathruam Bolte, James Laine or Taslima Nasreen. But because this lot pretends to be secular and liberal and claims to uphold the 'idea of India' and is generally busy acting holier-than-thou, it needs to be said that the Congress - with its ally NCP - shares the bulk of responsibility for the mess the city of Mumbai finds itself in.
The Congress did not just create Bhindrawale in Punjab. Before that, in Maharashtra, it first allowed Uncle Thackeray to thrive, creating a cult borne out of narrow-mindedness, parochialism, petty grievances, paranoia and fear-psychosis and then happily stood on the sidelines while the Nephew reprised the act decades later, creating a similar diversion with sheer mob-power, hooliganism, gundaagardi and street-level thuggery, secure that it would reap the electoral dividends of a fractured polity.
In between, of course were minor details such as not acting when it should and could have simply stepped in to squash strong-arm tactics. Instead of firmly ensuring that the law of the land was implemented, it has been cynically playing electoral politics. In the long laundry list of the grand old party's sins of omission and commission would glaringly rank its total inaction on the Justice Srikrishna report. By not even attempting to bring the known culprits to book, it added to the disillusionment and cynicism and oversaw a total collapse of law and order. Which accounts for the fear that grips the theatre owners and the like when it comes to a "law and order" issue. Because they know the criminals get away with impunity,
And, of course, the fact that the Cong-NCP has been busy co-opting the Sena agenda, and its discarded lumpen over the years, is no comfort.
Yes, Shah Rukh Khan deserves total support in his right to express himself -- even if one disagrees with him on the specifics of what a great neighbour Pakistan is -- but it is ironical -- it would be comical if it weren't so sickening -- to see it come from the likes of Sanjay Nirupam, a sainik once, a Congress lackey now. Does anyone remember the leader - at least great defender - of the pack that went mooning in front of Dilip Kumar's house when he accepted the Nishan-e-Pakistan?
It is of course wrong to single out Nirupam. After all everyone deserves a chance to turn over a new leaf. But the real trouble is that the rebel sainiks who now infest the Maharashtra Congress - and the NCP - as its guardian angels - the Narayan Ranes and the Chhagan Bhujbals - and the "big city-small incidents" RR Patils and "cabbies must know Marathi" Ashok Chavans do not inspire any confidence in implementing the law of the land. And they had remained pretty much silent till Rahul Gandhi jumped into the fray and thus invited jibes -- and threats -- from the Thackeray father and son.
And of course we have the complicity of the biggest Mumbai icon and the silence that his clout engenders. Come to think of it, I am not sure what is worse -- that the Congress-NCP is so hypocritical when it says it supports SRK/freespeech or the silence of the lot taking their cues from one who is busy arranging private screenings for the likes of Narendra Modi (only for tax exemption, we are told) and in the middle of all this finds it necessary to let his fans know:
Uddhav Thakeray calls. he has just come out of the theatre after ‘Rann’ and is not able to find appropriate words to describe his appreciation for the film and the performance. Minutes later Bala Saheb calls. ‘I want to see this film. Come and show it to me !’ ‘You have not been to see me for a long time !’
I assure him I shall arrange a projection in his house. I ask after his health. He is fine he says.
He cannot travel out due to his frail condition, but the fire in him still burns. He is resolute and firm as ever and in that resoluteness you discover an endearing, that sudden soft moment, which has always made his presence so strong and affectionate. His sense of humor is in tact as he punches in some wise ones !!
Little wonder that SRK would not find many supporters from the film industry and feels pressured enough to confess: "But sometimes I get scared. It is not nice for a Hindi film hero who is thought of as an icon to say this but the stakes are very high”. He was of course talking about the commercial stakes of the film-makers and investors. At stake also is something that is even more important -- is Mumbai going to be once again a civilised society where the writ of the law of the land runs or will it always stay in the grips of any hoodlum who can issue an ultimatum and bully his way through on the threat of wreaking violence?
(Mrs Bachchan, on her part, when asked, said that she too pretty much had to fight a lonely battle when Nephew Thackeray had gone after her for pointedly speaking in Hindi at a function)
The difference this time though is that the Sena guns have come to be trained on the man the Thackerays call "the Congress prince". If nothing else, sycophancy might make the state's moribund administration act.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Feb 04, 2010 AT 23:48 IST
Predictably, the New Yorker has some good pieces on Salinger:
Lillian Ross shares four photographs from her private collection and writes on on her long friendship with him:
Emerson was a touchstone, and Salinger often quoted him in letters. For instance, “A man must have aunts and cousins, must buy carrots and turnips, must have barn and woodshed, must go to market and to the blacksmith’s shop, must saunter and sleep and be inferior and silly.” Writers, he thought, had trouble abiding by that, and he referred to Flaubert and Kafka as “two other born non-buyers of carrots and turnips.”
Over the years, Salinger told me about working “long and crazy hours” at his writing and trying to stay away from everything that was written about him. He didn’t care about reviews, he said, but “the side effects” bothered him. “There are no writers anymore,” he said once. “Only book-selling louts and big mouths.”
Adam Gopnik on how JD Salinger was a writer and not just a myth:
In American writing, there are three perfect books, which seem to speak to every reader and condition: “Huckleberry Finn,” “The Great Gatsby,” and “The Catcher in the Rye.” Of the three, only “Catcher” defines an entire region of human experience: it is—in French and Dutch as much as in English—the handbook of the adolescent heart. But the Glass family saga that followed is the larger accomplishment. Salinger’s retreat into that family had its unreality—no family of Jewish intellectual children actually spoke quite like this, or revered one of the members quite so uncritically—but its central concern is universal. The golden thread that runs through it is the question of Seymour’s suicide, so shockingly rendered in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” How, amid so much joyful experience, could life become so intolerable to the one figure who seems to be its master?
Critics fretted about the growing self-enclosure of Salinger’s work, about a faith in his characters’ importance that sometimes seemed to make a religion of them. But the isolation of his later decades should not be allowed to obscure his essential gift for joy. The message of his writing was always the same: that, amid the malice and falseness of social life, redemption rises from clear speech and childlike enchantment, from all the forms of unself-conscious innocence that still surround us (with the hovering unease that one might mistake emptiness for innocence, as Seymour seems to have done with his Muriel). It resides in the particular things that he delighted to record....
John Seabrook describes a meeting and much more
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Feb 03, 2010 AT 02:05 IST
Sydney Morning Herald report on this week's magazine cover story:
IT IS a magazine cover that will make the hearts of Australian university bosses and diplomats sink.
"Why the Aussies hate us" screams the cover of this week's influential Indian news magazine Outlook.
...
The editor-in-chief of Outlook, Vinod Mehta, defended the coverage and denied allegations that the Indian media were overreacting. He told the Herald: "We sent two correspondents to Australia and they found that an overwhelming number of these incidents were racial and they found that Indians in Australia live in fear. There is tremendous outrage in this country. I don't think the Australians realise that."
Mr Mehta said one reason for the anger was the "smug and superior attitude of the Australian government for denying there was racism and then telling the Indians not to hype this up".
Mr Mehta said he published the story with great regret.
"I like Australia a great deal but you have to see there is a problem, and by denying it you won't get anywhere."
Read the full story at SMH
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Feb 02, 2010 AT 23:35 IST
After his experience with My Foolish Heart, JD Salinger seems to have decided resolutely to refuse to let his stories be adapted into films ("Those movies, they kill you, they really do"), and in this letter written in 1957 in response to an enquiry from a Mr. Herbert, Salinger explains why he would never sell the stage and screen rights to the Catcher in the Rye in this letter that is up for auction here:
R. D. 2
Windsor, Vt.
July 19, 1957
Dear Mr. Herbert,
I'll try to tell you what my attitude is to the stage and screen rights of The Catcher in the Rye. I've sung this tune quite a few times, so if my heart doesn't seem to be in it, try to be tolerant....Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold. Since there's an ever-looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy. It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction. I keep saying this and nobody seems to agree, but The Catcher in the Rye is a very novelistic novel. There are readymade "scenes" - only a fool would deny that - but, for me, the weight of the book is in the narrator's voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles, his philosophy or way of looking at cowhide suitcases and empty toothpaste cartons - in a word, his thoughts. He can't legitimately be separated from his own first-person technique. True, if the separation is forcibly made, there is enough material left over for something called an Exciting (or maybe just Interesting) Evening in the Theater. But I find that idea if not odious, at least odious enough to keep me from selling the rights. There are many of his thoughts, of course, that could be labored into dialogue - or into some sort of stream-of-consciousness loud-speaker device - but labored is exactly the right word. What he thinks and does so naturally in his solitude in the novel, on the stage could at best only be pseudo-simulated, if there is such a word (and I hope not). Not to mention, God help us all, the immeasurably risky business of using actors. Have you ever seen a child actress sitting crosslegged on a bed and looking right? I'm sure not. And Holden Caulfield himself, in my undoubtedly super-biassed opinion, is essentially unactable. A Sensitive, Intelligent, Talented Young Actor in a Reversible Coat wouldn't nearly be enough. It would take someone with X to bring it off, and no very young man even if he has X quite knows what to do with it. And, I might add, I don't think any director can tell him.
I'll stop there. I'm afraid I can only tell you, to end with, that I feel very firm about all this, if you haven't already guessed.
Thank you, though, for your friendly and highly readable letter. My mail from producers has mostly been hell.
Sincerely,
(Signed, 'J. D. Salinger')
(via: Letters of Note)
In another letter, to an 'angst-ridden' first-year college student who asked for writing advice, he says:
Dear Mr. Stevens,
I must tell you first, offputtingly or no, that I am at best a one-shot letter writer, these days. Along with that, I really never have anything to say when I'm done writing fiction at the end of a day. One thought, and one only, hits me about your letter. Entirely 'materialistic,' I'm afraid. You need a new typewriter ribbon. Get one or don't get one, but unless you make an effort to deal with things as unabstractly as that, you're stewing quite unnecessarily. You've decided that Things are what matter to people. Of course. Not only with 'people' but with you, too. Everything in your letter is a thing, concrete or abstract. Avidya and vidya are things. For me, before anything else, you're a young man who needs a new typewriter ribbon. See that fact, and don't attach more significance to it than it deserves, and then get on with the rest of the day. Good wishes to you. JDS."
(via Letters of Note)
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 29, 2010 AT 02:18 IST
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's." -- Franny and Zooey
Jerome David Salinger, the celebrated author of Catcher in the Rye, and the creator of the Glass family, who had been living as a virtual recluse at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire since 1953 died Wednesday, January 27.
Mr. Salinger’s literary representative, Phyllis Westberg of Harold Ober Associates, announced the death, saying it was of natural causes. She said he passed away peacefully at his home in New Hampshire on Wednesday
“Despite having broken his hip in May his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year. He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death.
“In keeping with his lifelong, uncompromising desire to protect and defend his privacy, there will be no service, and the family asks that people’s respect for him, his work and his privacy be extended to them, individually and collectively, during this time.
“Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it. His body is gone but the family hopes that he is still with those he loves, whether they are religious or historical figures, personal friends or fictional characters.”
Check out the New York Post photo that inspired Photo that inspired Don DeLillo's Mao II
From the Outlook archives:
Elsewhere:
Read, the obits at
Uncollected Stories
Out of the 22, as many as 15 are now legitimately in public domain:
And two at Esquire
While CITR is universally hailed a classic, and with reason, I dare say Franny & Zooey and the rest of the Glasses are easily among the most under-rated literary characters.
JDS, RIP: "Please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses: (((( ))))"
Post Script: Some of the tweets, for the record, as they have some useful links:
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 28, 2010 AT 23:44 IST
American historian, playwright and social activist Howard Zinn, who memorably said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism", died January 27.
He was 87 (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010). Best known for his revisionist view of American history in his seminal book, A People's History, told from the perspective of America's women, Native Americans and workers, he remained active in the field of civil rights, civil liberties and anti-war movements till his death. One of the first to oppose the American involvement in Vietnam, he also actively opposed the invasion of Iraq and, among other things, once spoke to Outlook on the advisability of sending troops to Iraq.
Click here for articles by and interviews with him from our archives.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 28, 2010 AT 12:14 IST
We were brought up to stand up to attention whenever Jana Mana Gana played -- and it even played in newsreels before the movies in cinema halls. While that still manages to give goose flesh every now and then, I have memories of whole groups of school-kids bursting into hysterical giggles of inexplicable and uncontrollable mirth en masse whenever we reached "ham bulbuleN haiN iskii" while lustily singing Saare Jahaan Se Achhaa (there were also those who strongly resented being called bulbuls). And I am sure I was certainly not the only one who often had to make up verses while singing Vande Mataram. But one of the true patriotic songs to beat all patriotic songs that provided sheer joie de vivre (and in some cases, introduced heathens like yours truly to the pleasures of classical music) was Mile Sur Meraa Tumhaaraa. A song that, for the generations brought up on Door -- and Krishi -- Darshan, or at least those growing up in the 1980s, was easily the most joyous, shared national experience -- a true celebratory anthem that did at least as much for national integration as Manmohan Desai, the Indian cricket team, or all of Films Division documentaries combined together. Like all great music is supposed to, it actually elevated and uplifted the lowliest of us and made us, or so I would like to believe, better human beings, incapable of any devilry, at least for some time.
The news, therefore, about a new version (a promo is here) somehow brings back memories of what happened to a remaking of Sholay -- and, of course, as in Ram Gopal Varma kii Aag, ominously, Mr Bachchan is very much there too. Here's to hoping that the new version does not do to the old one what, say, Paul Simon sometimes manages to do to his very own songs. I am filled with dread and am so not looking forward to check out the new version...
Postscript: OK, here it is, just as I feared:
And part II:
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 26, 2010 AT 02:23 IST
Rudrangshu Mukherjee in the Telegraph goes beyond just Jyoti Basu and examines why, particularly in the late 1920s and the 1930s "sons of affluent families, many of them Westernized, who went to Great Britain, either for higher studies or to the Inns of Court to qualify as barristers-at-law, and then converted to communism":
The conversion brought with it a price tag and this was unquestioning loyalty to the cause of communism (read the Soviet Union) and blind obedience to the party line as laid down by RPD, who ran the Indian communist party sitting in London. The implication of this needs to be spelt out bluntly and without any qualifications. It meant that these men — some of the best and the brightest of their generation — surrendered their minds to the party. They allowed the party to do their thinking for them. If they had doubts they suppressed them. They refused to accept the many brutalities and horrors that communist regimes across the globe unleashed on the poor. Even in the 1930s, they refused to accept that the Moscow Trials were a sham. They embraced communism, like many others across the world, as a new and secular religion with the party as god.
...what none of them ever spoke about is what it meant for them mentally and psychologically to have surrendered their minds to the party and then suffer an intellectual imprisonment. Jyoti Basu suffered this imprisonment, bursting out only when his party stopped him from becoming the prime minister of India.
Read the full piece: Minds In Thrall
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 20, 2010 AT 15:16 IST
'A sahib in a dhoti', a 'bhadralok', 'a pragmatic patriarch','Communist by training and patrician in temperament, Marxist by conviction and a liberal democrat in practice, mass leader and recluse...' Just what or who was Jyoti basu? As Ashok Mitra put it in the Telegraph:
After Subhas Chandra Bose, Jyoti Basu was the next idol the Bengali masses created and clung to. The chemistry at work was almost inexplicable, for Jyoti Basu was by nature a shy and reserved individual. That apart, despite his fame as a spellbinding speaker, he abhorred histrionics; his voice never deviated from the normal pitch, the electric current nonetheless hurtled across in waves and a bond got instantly established between the person on the podium and the assembled dishevelled rows of humanity. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Left Front owe an immense deal to this inexplicable phenomenon.
While most obituary writers recognised Jyoti Basu's biggest contribution to be the land reforms and agrarian rights for sharecroppers that he helped usher in via Operation Barga in the early years of his tenure, there were also many controversies that dogged India's longest serving chief minister. Swapan Dasgupta, after characteristically saying, "If you seek his monument, look around," elaborated:
Initially, the party went in for radical land reforms and decentralisation of power to consolidate its hold in the countryside. But after five years, this strategy had run its course—though the political dividends keep flowing to this day. When it came to the revival of manufacturing and the creation of a new services sector, the Chief Minister found himself outvoted inside the party. His government adopted measures such as the abolition of English teaching till class 5 and the politicisation of institutions which set West Bengal behind by decades. Trade union militancy and crippling power cuts led to the decimation of small and medium industry. To the investing classes, Bengal became a big no-no. Its efficiency was limited to the organisation of bandhs.
...He inherited a crumbling edifice and bequeathed a similar structure to his predecessor. He merely prevented the roof from caving in.
Also See: Kanchan Gupta: Destroyer of West Bengal. The Telegraph, Calcutta has a fuller list of the many controversies that dogged his tenure.
He had a reputation among reporters, as Monobina Gupta recalls, for his "exasperatingly short, brusque replies, sometimes even with outright sarcasm or rudeness". Which is why, it was wonderful to also be reminded about about the warm, human side of the man many people accused of being aloof: Barun Ghosh on How Basu saved my job in Telegraph.
Some other articles of note:
Saubhik Chakrabarti in the Indian Express appraises Basu's failures and puts his tenure in perspective:
Basu’s many obit writers, irrespective of their politics, refer to him as a tall and visionary leader who often seemed bigger than the party. CPM’s Vajpayee, as it were.
Here’s the third surprise: Basu was actually CPM’s Advani. He had personality by the spades. But like Advani, Basu couldn’t rise above the party. He didn’t even try. He was very much a part of the party’s political think tank that downgraded real welfare provisioning. He never seemed to recognise the limitations of the CPM-is-Bengal/Bengal-is-CPM mantra. Indeed, he was its showpiece.
Jyoti Basu could have reworked the Bengal CPM model. He had the political heft to do it. The final surprise: he never saw the need.
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray in the Telegraph:
Given Indian class consciousness, villagers and the party’s rank and file were awed by his aloof manner and unseeing, hooded gaze. He seemed born to rule. Westerners, especially the British, loved his unsmiling visage and clipped, monosyllabic replies. Society women swooned over his gallantry. One who wanted her whiskey small at a cocktail party was very taken when Basu intervened, “Don’t worry, they serve it in homeopathic doses in this house!” Such repartee was not expected from an austere Marxist whose government was identified with radical social and economic measures
...He was too sophisticated to discuss land concessions, contracts, loans and licences at social occasions; but they soldered the bond that gave rise to the “Communist Party of India (Marwari)” joke about the CPI(M).
...He sanctioned or turned a blind eye to criminally harsh repression and the use of agents provocateurs. He chose to condone police brutality, often making light of the atrocities reported in the newspaper I edited. “Editor-sahib sees torture everywhere!” he once joked. When I defended my reporter’s eye-witness account he replied that he had asked the police commissioner, who had denied the story. Naturally, the police commissioner would deny a report that indicted his men. Similarly, Basu did little or nothing to prevent the CPI(M) and its allies from sponsoring illegal immigration from Bangladesh. He railed against the Anandabazar group at our last meeting, saying they invented stories about him.
Aditya Nigam in Kafila:
Basu was neither Bonaparte nor Caesar. He was certainly not a ‘heroic’ personality, and not by any means a demagogue. His political appeal came from his ‘ordinariness’. His political speeches in rallies at the Brigade Parade ground, were delivered in simple conversational style, almost sounding like one-to-one conversations. No fire-spouting rhetoric; no big words whose meaning only the converted can understand.
...Many have labelled this style ‘pragmatic’ – a euphemism for the somewhat more uncharitable term ‘opportunist’. That is to say, uncluttered by ‘ideology’. This diagnosis is, interestingly, shared by many. In the eyes of liberals, ‘ideology’ refers to doctrinairism and is essentially negative, whereas to many Marxists, it refers to purity. But for both, Basu’s style of doing politics shuns ideology. In our reckoning, both these readings are completely off the mark. Basu’s politics was certainly uncluttered by ideology but in another sense: there was nothing pre-determined about his responses. It was as if one was ‘thrown’ into a political context where all had to fall back upon was one’s political instincts.
Gopal Krishna Gandhi in the Telegraph:
It was in London, where I was working as director of The Nehru Centre, that I had got to know Jyotibabu. The year was 1993. The Nehru Centre had organized a commemoration of the 200th year of Cornwallis’s Permanent Settlement. Jyotibabu was the chief speaker. His head buried in the text, he read in an unfluctuating timbre and tone from a prepared script. And as he progressed from page to page of the closely typed document I could see many in the audience ‘switching off’. Jyotibabu, too, seemed to realize this for he suddenly stopped midway and, looking up through his spectacles, said, “You can see I am reading this out. It has been written for me by an expert who knows all these things. I do not know all this myself. I am also learning as I read this. You see, for most of my life I have been among the people, with little time to read or study….” The audience burst into applause in appreciation of the candour of this man who had shaped history, while most of the listeners had only read history and some had written on aspects of it.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express:
Sometimes the true measure of a man is precisely the sense of regret over all that he could have achieved. Many analogies will be used to describe Jyoti Basu. But with the benefit of hindsight he reminds one more of tragic Rajput princes more than anyone else. These are people who built incredible political citadels, often at great personal sacrifice. They were even able to make them impregnable, and often worked with a sense that they were making history. The whirl of events, in the world at large, did not defeat them. But it did render them progressively more on the wrong side of history.
Basu built a magnificent political citadel against two enemies: the Congress centralism of Delhi and the horrendous exploitation of share croppers in Bengal. But while this was enough to keep his party secure in power, it was not enough to prepare his people for the whirlwind changes that India and the world have experienced. But it is a measure of his personal greatness that his contributions to Indian democracy will long survive debates over his ideological fidelity to communism. Some will regret that he was not more Maoist, more ruthless; others will regret that he was not Deng, more thoroughly pragmatist about development. But Indian democracy will be grateful that he remained Jyoti Basu: someone who knew how to consolidate real power, but who did not let it go to his head.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 18, 2010 AT 18:20 IST
First via Rahul Asthana on Sasialit,
followed, by another gem of a find by Anu Kumar, on the same list:
- The Khaki Kook Book: A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes Mostly from Hindustan by Mary Kennedy Core
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 15, 2010 AT 22:11 IST
Via the greatbong:
http://tinyurl.com/yzwwql4 Evidently Mid-Day thinks that Bipasa 'Basu' is the ailing communist patriarch.
Just tiny mishtook: but after all, yet another Basu in red...
Get Well Soon, Comrade!
Screeshot taken at 8:54 PM, Jan 12
Post Script:
Alas, Ms Bipasha Basu's photo has been removed from the website, though the story remains in Entertainment/Bollywood section and the URL tells its own tale:
http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/2010/jan/120110-shah-rukh-wishes-bipasha.htm
As do the related tags.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 12, 2010 AT 21:00 IST
In an important judgment on free speech, R.V.Bhasin v. State of Maharashtra, that is bound to be hotly discussed and debated, and possibly appealed, the Bombay High Court in its special jurisdiction under Cr.PC. sections 95 and 96, has upheld the Maharashtra government's ban on the circulation of the book ISLAM – A Concept of Political World Invasion by Muslims written by one R.V.Basin, Advocate Supreme Court of India. While the full judgement is 150-pages long, and I am yet to absorb its various ramifications, the concluding portion is worth reproducing:
88. It is true that whether the objectionable matter is meant for limited circulation, whether it is to cater to an ignorant, illiterate inflammable mob or educated people would be a relevant consideration and the effect of the words must be judged from the standards of reasonable strong minded firm and courageous men and not those who scent danger in every hostile point of view. It is therefore, necessary to consider who will read the book.
89. The translation of the book is available. The possibility of its falling in the hands of an inflammable mob cannot be ruled out. The way this sensitive topic is handled by the author, it is likely to arouse the emotions or sensibilities of even strong minded people. We have held that criticism of Islam is permissible like criticism of any other religion and the book cannot be banned on that ground. But we have also held that the criticism of Islam is not academic. The author has gone on to pass insulting comments on Islam, Muslim community with particular reference to Indian Muslims. It is an aggravated form of criticism made with a malicious and deliberate intention to outrage the religious feelings of Muslims. The contents are so interwoven that it is not possible to excise certain portions and permit circulation of the book. We may also mention that at one point of time, when this was discussed, the author declined to excise the book.
90. In view of the above, in our considered opinion the State Government is justified in imposing a ban on the circulation of the book. The application is therefore dismissed.
Also worth reproducing in full are the legal principles based on various case-laws that the judgment lays out, and then examines the current case on, before coming to the above conclusion:
33. Before we deal with the rival contentions, it is necessary to deduce the legal principles from the above judgments. Following are the said principles.
“a) The Notification must state the grounds of the Government’s opinion. (Harnam, Narayan Das, Lalai Singh Yadav) AJN
b) A formal authoritative setting forth of the grounds is statutorily mandatory. Appendix cannot make up for grounds of opinion. (Lalai Singh Yadav)
c) Mere repetition of an opinion or reproduction of the Section will not answer the requirement of a valid notification. (Narayan Das)
d) Grounds must not be stated at learned length. In certain cases a laconic statement may be enough while in others more detailed reasons may be required. Grounds may be brief but cannot be blank. (Lalai Singh Yadav)
e) Grounds of opinion must mean conclusion of facts on which the opinion is based. Grounds must necessarily be the import or the effect or the tendency of the matters contained in the offending publication either as a whole or in portions of it, as illustrated by passages which Government may choose, (Narayan Das’s case where the Supreme Court referred to the Calcutta High Court’s judgment in Arun Ranjan Ghose with approval).
f) The High Court must set aside an order of forfeiture if there are no grounds of opinion because if there are no grounds of opinion, it cannot be satisfied that the grounds given by the Government justified the order. If in such case, the High Court upholds the order, it would mean that the High Court itself made the order which the High Court cannot do. (Harnam)
g) The High Court must set aside the order of forfeiture if it is not satisfied that the grounds on which the Government formed it’s opinion justify that opinion. (Harnam)
h) The validity of the order of forfeiture would depend on the merits of the grounds. It is not the duty of the High Court to find out for itself whether the book contained any such matter whatsoever. The High Court cannot make a roving enquiry beyond the grounds set forth in the order. (Harnam)
i) The State cannot extract stray sentences of portions of the book and come to a finding that the said book as a whole ought to be forfeited. (Baragur)
j) The matter charged as being within the mischief of the relevant sections of the IPC must be read as a whole. One cannot rely on stray, isolated passages for proving the charge nor indeed can one take a sentence here and a sentence there and connect them by a meticulous process of inferential reasoning. (Gopal Godse, Special Bench, Bombay High Court.)
k) Section 295-A of the IPC does not penalize any and every act of insult to or attempt to insult the religion or religious beliefs of a class of citizens. There must be a malicious or deliberate intention to outrage the religious feelings of a class of citizens. (Ramji Modi, Balwant Singh, Manzar Khan, Bhagwati Charan Sharma Nagpur High Court, Gopal Godse Special Bench, Bombay High Court.)
l) Intention of the author has to be gathered from the language, contents and import of the offending material. (Baragur, Gopal Godse Special Bench, Bombay High Court).
m) If the purpose of writing the book was a historical research based on a number of reference books and other material, it would be difficult for the State to contend that simple narration of history would promote violence, enmity or hatred. (Varsha Publications, Special Bench, Bombay High Court.)
n) If the allegations made in the offending article is based on folklore, tradition or history something in extenuation could perhaps be said for the author. (Baragur)
o) If the writing is calculated to promote feelings of enmity or hatred, it is no defence to a charge under Section 153-A of the IPC that the writing contains a truthful account of past events or is otherwise supported by good authority. Adherence to the strict path of history is not by itself a complete defence to a charge under Section 153-A.(Gopal Godse, Special Bench, Bombay High Court).
p) Section 95(1) of the Code requires that the ingredients of the offences should appear to the Government to be present. Section 95 does not require that it should be proved to the satisfaction of the Government that all requirements of punishing sections including mens rea were fully established. (Baragur, Nandkishore, Special Bench of Patna High Court).
q) The onus to dislodge the prima facie opinion of the Government that the offending publication comes within the relevant offence including its requirement of intent is on the applicant and such intention has to be gathered from the language, contents and import thereof. (Nandkishore, Special Bench of Patna High Court, approved in Baragur.)
r) It is not necessary to prove that as a result of the objectionable matter enmity or hatred was in fact caused between the different classes. It is enough to show that the language of the writing is of a nature calculated to promote feelings of enmity or hatred. (Gopal Godse, Special Bench, Bombay High Court.).
s) For judging what are the natural or probable consequences of the writing, it is permissible to take into consideration the class of readers for whom the book is primarily meant as also the state of feelings between the different classes or communities at the relevant time. (Gopal Godse, Special Bench, Bombay High Court.)
t) Whether the objectionable matter is meant for limited circulation, whether it is to cater to ignorant, illiterate inflammable mob or educated people would be a relevant consideration. (Bhagwati Charan Sharma – Nagpur High Court).
u) The effect of the words must be judged from the standards of reasonable strongminded, firm and courageous men and not those of weak and vacillating minds, nor of those who scent danger in every hostile point of view. (Ramesh v. Union of India, AIR 88 SC 775, Manzar Khan, Bhagwati Charan Sharma – Nagpur High Court.)”
Read the full text of the judgment
Given our constitutional provisions, where restrictions on speech under Article 19(2) are permitted -- though certainly not mandated -- it is not surprising that the government notification and the court took recourse to the "public order" caveat and the court's judgment seems to be largely based on two crucial points highlighted above:
1. The translation of the book is available. The possibility of its falling in the hands of an inflammable mob cannot be ruled out &
2. It is an aggravated form of criticism made with a malicious and deliberate intention to outrage the religious feelings of Muslims.
But the court's judgement leaves me confused: If the book were not translated, would it then be considered as not likely to incite an "inflammable mob"? And, of course, there is the minor matter of mobs, inflammable or otherwise, not being given to collective readings or spontaneous combustion. Surely the law should be directed towards those who mobilise and incite such mobs? Besides, if the danger of the potential mobs being inflammable was so real, we should not even be discussing the question of whether or not the intent was malicious or otherwise. My difference with the judgment is not in its characterisation of the intent of the author, but in the reasoning it provides for its conclusions.
In any case, it would be interesting to follow this case should it go to appeal. Also, despite the conditional right to freedom of expression in our constitutional scheme, and the upholding of the ban of this book, from (2) above it seems to me, as I have always argued, that there is much hope for the likes of Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin, if they or their publishers were actually to attempt to fight their cases judicially.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Jan 09, 2010 AT 21:11 IST
The rather bizarre news of a wedding reception in Ghalib's haveli yesterday shouldn't really be surprising. After all we are a nation that doesn't even seem to care despite the fact that earlier this year there had been reports of 35 "national monuments" having gone missing.
As a building, Ghalib's haveli has hardly anything remarkable about it, and it was just many of the rented houses Ghalib happened to live in. Despite the report, it does not really have any of the personal possessions of the great poet and had been done-up after much neglect earlier, at best as a tourist destination so that one gets to visit the physical space the maestro once inhabited. Which is, of course, not to say that it is perfectly okay for people to hold wedding receptions in it. What was remarkable about the story was how blasé everyone sounded. As a friend put it in a mail:
Sad. But the usual blaming of the govt. is foolish. After all, it was the groom's family that thought it was a splendid idea. Their guests were not upset. And sure no neighbor thought it was wrong. Parts of the structure are still held by some individuals who can't give a damn for Ghalib. The whole building should have been acquired, if the Ghalibwalas were serious. Delhi folks are not museum-goers, nor do they care for heritage buildings. So are the gentle folks of Lucknow too.
Talking of heritage and buildings, there is some good news about Ghalib's mazaar (do scroll down to see the mysterious sightings of his cat, dog and goat too!). Ghalib wouldn't possibly give a damn about either of the above two bits of news either and would certainly be happier if his poetry was read, recited and remained a living tradition. Talking of which, when the recent Liberhan commission was being discussed in Parliament, Congress's Abhishek Manu Sanghvi recited "gazab kiyaa tere vaade pe aetbaar kiyaa..." and attributed this Daag Dehlavi sh'r to Ghalib. No one contradicted him. He followed it up with a Mir couplet - or so he said:
nahii shikvaa mujhe kuchh bewaafaaii kaa hargiz
gilaa tab ho agar tuune kissii se kabhii nibhaaii ho
And many MPs -- I heard three myself in the course of one Rajya Sabha session -- cutting across party lines, recited:
tuu idhar udhar kii naa baat kar
yah bataa ki Kafilaa kyon luTaa
mujhe rahjano se garaz nahin
terii rahbarii kaa sawaal hai
It got to be so repetitive that one MP (Congress's Rajeev Shukla) who arrived late, and perhaps did not know how often the sh'r had already been quoted, was badly jeered when he launched right into it. But he wouldn't relent and carried on nonchalantly, "chaar baar bolaa gayaa tou ab paaNchvii baar bhii sun lo... "
I had meant to go over the proceedings to see which shaayars were popular with our MPs but somehow never got round to doing it. I do, however, recall at least one Ghalib sh'r was quoted by Najma Heptullah: aah ko chaahiye...And I think they did do "hamko un se wafaa kii hai umiid..." as well.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 24, 2009 AT 00:09 IST
Smriti Singh reports in the TOI:
Is AB blood group a result of mixing blood group A with group B? At least some Delhi Police sleuths think so. But for this lack of knowledge of elementary biology, these cops would have got away with their devious plan of planting evidence to "solve" a murder case and framing an innocent man.
In a desperate attempt to crack a double murder with no eyewitnesses, these policemen planted blood group AB on the weapon of offence thinking it would explain the killing of a man and his wife who had blood groups A and B, respectively.
More here
via: Ramesh Srivats
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 23, 2009 AT 23:07 IST
Rajeev P.I. in the Indian Express
Arguments may go on if a coercive vote is the way to a real democracy. But this move also has some special implications for Gujarat. Especially alongwith the samras (Gujarati for “consensus”) idea being systemically ramroded into the lower, panchayat, level. This one is a state-sponsored, cash incentives-tagged, push in exactly the opposite way. The idea is to avert “unnecessary” holding of all elections, the unneeded poll-spend, the even more unnecessary political differences — all with an often enforced local “consensus”, for a “harmonious” village life.
...the paradox of the must-vote Bill and the samras may remain a conundrum. But if the stick is used for one, it is the carrot for the other...
...There have been many reports of armtwisting and even threats to get all development work stalled, when a villager or two had wanted to contest.
More here
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 23, 2009 AT 02:45 IST
Never mind that the first decade of this millennium would only end on December 31, 2010 -- yes, before you shoot off that mail, please consider that there was no year zero in the Anno Domini era -- everyone is happily making their list of the decade gone by. The Pew Research Center has gone ahead and done their own survey:
Clear majorities see cell phones, the internet and e-mail as changes for the better, and most also view specific changes such as handheld internet devices and online shopping as beneficial trends. There is greater division of opinion, however, over whether social networking sites or internet blogs have been changes for the better or changes for the worse.
Most see increasing racial and ethnic diversity as a change for the better, as well as increased surveillance and security measures and the broader range of news and entertainment options.
But the public is divided over whether wider acceptance of gays and lesbians, cable news talk and opinion shows, and the growing number of people with money in the stock market are good or bad trends. Reality TV shows are, by a wide margin, the least popular trend tested in the poll; 63% say these shows have been a change for the worse. Tattoos are also unpopular with many – 40% say more people getting tattoos is a change for the worse, though 45% say it makes no difference and 7% see it as a change for the better.
A ‘Downhill’ Decade
The breadth and depth of discontent with the current decade is reflected in the words people use to describe it. The single most common word or phrase used to characterize the past 10 years is downhill, and other bleak terms such as poor, decline, chaotic, disaster, scary, and depressing are common. Other, more neutral, words like change, fair and interesting also come up, and while the word good is near the top of the list, there are few other positive words mentioned with any frequency.
Read more here
What do you think? Do you reckon the pessimism is largely because of the recession of last year? How would you describe the year gone by? And the decade?
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 23, 2009 AT 02:35 IST
Seema Mustafa in the New Indian Express:
In a little noticed case, the Supreme Court has again intervened in support of maintenance for a divorced Muslim woman. Instead of Shahbano, this time it is Shabano Bano who approached the courts for maintenance, appealing against a lower courts decision that a divorced Muslim woman was entitled to maintenance only during the iddat period to ensure she is not pregnant. The apex court has ruled that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to receive maintenance from her husband as long as she does not remarry, in what is yet another path breaking decision.
...The Supreme Court must be commended for its verdict, despite the restrictive legislation passed by the Congress government two decades ago. It gives a ray of hope again to the women deserted by their husbands who were till now exploiting the personal law to first marry four times if they so wanted, and do so without bothering to pay alimony.
Read more here
Also See: Flavia Agnes in the Indian Express:
Rather ironically, Shabana was married in 2001, after the Daniel Latifi ruling. She had filed for maintenance in March 2004. But sadly, both the family court of Gwalior and the high court did not apply the principles laid down in Daniel Latifi to her case. This resulted in grave economic hardship, and delay in accessing her basic right of maintenance. If ignorance of law is no defence for an ordinary citizen against commitment of a crime, ignorance of accurate legal provisions protecting the rights of the vulnerable and marginalised cannot be a defence for lawyers, judges and conciliators who are duty bound to protect their rights.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 22, 2009 AT 04:39 IST
L'affaire Dinakaran is getting murkier by the day. After 76 Rajya Sabha members signed the impeachment petition which was admitted by Vice President Hamid Ansari, some Congress Dalit MPs criticised the move, arguing that Justice Dinakaran was being persecuted for being a Dalit. Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Mayawati, has predictably joined forces. Meanwhile, there had been news that Justice Dinakaran the chief justice of Karnataka high court will not henceforth exercise any judicial functions till it is notified otherwise.
D V Shylendrakumar, a judge in the High Court of Karnataka, writes in the New Indian Express, that on learning that Justice Dinakaran was however still exercising his powers as the Chief Justice on the administrative side, he "was of the sincere opinion that all judges of the high court, should sit together, discuss the matter and take a collective decision to prevail upon the chief justice to refrain from discharging any administrative duties also".
He, therefore, wrote to R B Budihal, registrar general of the High Court of Karnataka in Bangalore, "to circulate a letter amongst his colleagues apprising them of the meeting of the judges to take place at 11:00 AM on Saturday, December 19, to take a decision".
I learnt in the evening from the registrar general that the chief justice before whom the matter was placed for orders has declined permission for the meeting. Now, this development is the cause for my present communication. This kind of response from the chief justice, to a proposal to hold a meeting of all judges of the high court to discuss an issue involving the conduct of the chief justice himself and is definitely not a matter over which the chief justice himself should take a decision, has only confirmed my worst fears that the chief justice may even now continue to abuse and misuse his powers (including the power to recommend the names of persons to be appointed as judges of the high court after eliciting the views of his colleagues in the collegium) even when he is no more discharging his duties as chief justice of the high court.
In fact grace and propriety requires that a file containing a proposal of this nature, should have been directed to be placed before any other judge of the high court for orders, if at all an order is needed. Well grace, propriety and good conduct are definitely not the strong points of our chief justice. I will work out a way but the point here is that the people of the state and the country should be aware of such developments and also react to the same.
No one can and should sit as a judge in his own cause — even the chief justice of a high court.
Meanwhile, Vinay Sitapati argues in the Indian Express that Justice Dinakaran has been denied the procedural right to be heard, and this denial is the result of the higher judiciary's own choice to be insulated from scrutiny. That insulation, he argues, cuts both ways:
Precisely because judges don’t open up to questioning, they deny themselves the power to brush off the mud slung at them. When you refuse to enact clear-cut procedures to try judges, you have no armour from the rumours, innuendos and allegations in the court of public opinion. When you are not answerable to anyone, you find yourself unable to answer back.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 22, 2009 AT 04:10 IST
...is that it criminalises non-voting, argues Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express:
Whatever one’s views on the duty and right to vote, there is something deeply problematic about punishing non-voting. On merely practical grounds it is likely to give the state immense powers of harassment. It is a deeply democratic value to worry about state intrusion in our lives. One is not reassured by the fact that Gujarat government officials have been quoted as saying that one of the penalties under discussion is denying BPL cards to those who do not vote. Not having prescribed punishment as part of the legislation but making that part of the rules is itself an odd interpretation of democracy. It is not an accident that most of the countries that have compulsory voting have to desist from enforcing penalties. It will also be interesting to see how lists for local government elections are created and used. One unintended consequence of this drive may be to reduce the incentives to have your name included in a voting list.
More here
Also See: A 'Disciplined' Democracy?
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 22, 2009 AT 03:15 IST
In addition to our cover story For Sale Journalism the following articles may be of interest
A two-part article by Archna Shukla in the Indian Express
In addition to all this, of course, is the pre-cursor, the murky matter of private treaties:
Business Standard:
Sucheta Dalal:
Pratap Bhanu Mehta:
The following have been blogged about before, but would be useful for a one-stop place for links:
Paul Beckett:
P. Sainath:
Mrinal Pande:
All links to useful articles on the subject welcome.
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POSTED BY Sundeep ON Dec 16, 2009 AT 23:57 IST
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