MARITAL RAPE CANNOT HIDE BEHIND HINDU TRADITION: LEARN FROM NEPAL

Minister of state for home, Haribhai P Chaudhary, says in a written answer in the Rajya Sabha: “It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors e.g. level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc.”

What is he saying?  That we are a country of Hindus, we follow Hindu traditions, even in marriage, under Hindu tradition, marriage solemnizes a relationship between a man and a woman, it bestows conjugal rights, these rights are consensual, so, sex between husband and wife is deemed consensual, even if it is not (!!), therefore, there is nothing like marital rape as per Hindu tradition, therefore, how can marital rape be a crime when it does not exist?

No point blaming Chaudhary.  Most Indian males are trapped in a male chauvinist mindset. In any case, in this instance, he was talking on behalf of all the MPs who were members of the committee on home affairs looking into the marital rape question.

The government’s reply to the question takes me back to the dark days of Great Britain, all the way back to the early 18th century when in 1736 Chief Justice Hale, just like our Chaudhary, quoted Anglo-Saxon traditions of his time to say that the husband cannot be guilty of marital rape on the grounds that marriage itself counts as consent for as long as the couple are together.

To quote him in his own words: "But the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract."

It took that “progressive” nation exactly 155 years to abolish the marital rape exemption. Going by that time scale, the petty colonial stooges that we are, it may take us ages to do that.

But let me quote a striking example from our neighbour, Nepal.

Our politicians gloat over playing Big Brother to the neighbour. They better learn how Nepal dealt with the issue of marital rape.

Society in Nepal is controlled by their civil code, called the Muluki Ain. It was first commissioned in 1854 and was rooted in traditional Hindu Law and codified social practices of several centuries. Marital rape had an exemption in this code, just like in India. But in 2006, it was amended and marital rape was criminalized.

The Supreme Court of Nepal while ruling a petition to abolish the marital rape exemption went about abolishing it. In its 12-page ruling, the apex court summed up what the government’s plea against the abolition was:

“Whereas, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs stated, in its written reply, that the said provision of the current law has been enacted because it is not in conformity with the Hindu religion, traditions and values that a husband rapes his own wife exercising threats, fear, pressures and duress, unlike what has been contended by the writ-petitioner….

“Whereas, the Cabinet Secretariat has, in its written reply, contended that No. 1 of the Chapter on Rape, the Country Code, has criminalized the act of having sexual intercourse with force with any women and has afforded protection to women by punishing any third person who commits the offence of rape as defined or deemed by law with any woman other than his wife. Since it is against the Hindu religion, traditions and values that a husband rapes his wife by exercising threat, fear, pressure and force, unlike what has been contended by the petitioner, the current law contains that provision.”

It also quoted the Deputy Attorney General representing the government as giving reasons against abolition: “….It is not in conformity with Hindu religion and traditions to say that consent is required to have sexual relations with one's own wife. While changing a legal provision prevailing since time immemorial, the repercussions it causes on the society and its execution have to be taken into consideration. (italics mine). The legislature enacts and reviews laws as per the need of the time and societal opinions. But a court does not make law in the same manner as legislature does. Unlike what has been claimed by the petitioner, No. 1 of the Chapter on Rape does not contain gender discriminatory provision, rather it merely defines the offences of rape. Thus, as the said provision is not inconsistent with the Constitution, the writ petition is liable to be quashed.”

Ruling in favour of abolition, the Supreme Court argued:

1.Rape violates all rights of a woman, which are related to living with dignity.

2. Forcible sexual intercourse by exercising force is inhuman, uncivilized and animal-like act.

3. As long as women remain as human being, they are also entitled to all rights that a human being is entitled for being a human.

4. There is no distinction in exercise of these rights before and after the marriage of women.

5 To say that the husband can rape his wife after the marriage is to deny independent existence, right to live with self-respect

and right to self-determination.

7. the aim of the law is to punish all culprits instead of traditional practice of discrimination. Religious beliefs and traditions did not restrict polygamy, but now the law has made it punishable.

8. It will yield discriminatory result, if we interpret that an act committed to any other woman is an offence and is not an offence, if the same

act is committed to one's own wife. There is no justification in differentiating between the women who are wives and other women.

The court finally ruled:

“No law can be interpreted against provisions of the Constitution and treaties and international instruments to which Nepal is a party. Therefore, to exempt an offence of rape committed to one's wife by the husband is against recognized principles of justice. An offence is deemed to be committed because it is committed and not because there is difference in the status or position of the person committing that offence. There

may be difference in the degree of punishment but there would be no immunity from punishment. The law itself has regarded consent as a basis of marital relationship and marriage cannot be solemnized in absence of the consent. In similar ways, mutual consent is compulsorily required to have sexual intercourse between husband and wife after the marriage. Sexual intercourse with use of force and without consent is regarded

as the offence of rape.”

“The learned government advocate appearing on behalf of the respondents pleaded that it is not in conformity with Hindu religion and tradition to say that consent is required to have sexual intercourse with one's own wife. Hindu religion and its literature stress on purity, cleanliness and behavior of good faith in conjugal life, it can not be said that Hindu religion and traditions exempts the heinous act of rape to wife. Sexual

intercourse in conjugal life is a normal course of behavior, which must be based on consent. No religion may ever take it as lawful because the aim of a good religion is not to hate or cause loss to any one. Thus, the pleading of the learned government attorney appearing on behalf of the respondent can not be accepted."

SUICIDE, THEY SAID; RATHORE CAN’T CONFIRM OR DENY

Let us get one thing right. Gajendra Singh Rathore did not commit suicide. There is no evidence as yet pointing to this, even though his accidental death came about in public glare and in front of television cameras.

And yet the entire public, media and political discourse for the last 24 hours has steered towards the suicide option.

Who did this, who benefited, these questions are no longer pertinent. The fact is that the three parties, the BJP, the Congress and the AAP, whom Rathore unsuccessfully courted in a bid to become a politician, find themselves in a blame game over his death within and without Parliament, the streets of Delhi, in television studios and the social media.  An opportunity exploited, an agenda set.  Period.

We don’t know if Rathore wanted to die. We don’t know if he meant to commit suicide by leaving a note which did not talk about taking his own life. We don’t know if he was trying to catch every one’s attention, of his own volition or otherwise. We don’t know if his foot lost its grip at an unfortunate moment. We will never know.

Yet, we all ‘know’ his is a case of suicide. Strange. The case swiftly reached a closure once this conclusion was manufactured and viralled minutes after Rathore’s last breath and long, long before his body was reduced to ashes.

The post-mortem report is not yet out at the time of writing. It is expected sometime tonight. What will it say? Suicide? No idea. But then who is bothered about a post-mortem report? Time and politics don’t wait for anybody.

It is despicable to even obliquely refer to how the political blame game unfolded in the nation’s capital in the last 24 hours. It is barbaric and the fruit of either evil or empty minds.

By this afternoon, the manufacturers of consent had done everything possible short of declaring Rathore a martyr to turn the blame game into a point-scoring game. Elections are not around, even a by-poll is not on the horizon, so why such hara-kiri?

It is not that Rathore comes from a poor family. It is not that his family has been devastated by extensive damage to their crops by unseasonal rain. Yet the suicide tag will ensure that compensation in the form of money – of vice-versa – will flow in the family’s coffers in the coming days. Who knows if there’d be a statue of Rathore in his native village before the year is out?

Come think of it, the suicide tag is convenient for everyone else too!

Take the Congress. Vanquished, driven out of Delhi, it was a stick to beat the AAP with, an opportunity to regain political currency.

Take the BJP. Vanquished, despite Modi’s charm, in Delhi, it was an opportunity to show AAP as a selfish party without scruples.

Take the AAP.  The usurper of Delhi is yet come up with a strategy to exploit the suicide which isn’t laughable though it came handy for the party to once again bemoan the lack of control over the Delhi Police.

Take the good Samaritans, the NGOs, even the media. For them, the equation was quite simple. Farmer + suicide. Put two and two together, it’s focus time on the growing number of farmers’ suicides across the country, specially after massive crop damages due to unseasonal rains. Notwithstanding the fact that farmers were dying in their hundreds long before Rathore even got up the tree.

How many different agendas has this suicide tag set and served! RIP, Rathore.

MUSINGS ON RELIGION AND REFORM

Some time last year, I along with my family attended the wedding of the sister of our electrician, Abid. It was real fun. A brightly lit venue, hundreds of guests milling about, lots to eat, joy rides for the children, people shaking a leg to the latest music, the elders sitting peacefully on decked-up, cushioned furniture . The marriage itself was a simple ceremony and keeping with tradition, away from all the sights and sounds in a secluded room. Eventually the couple emerged and we all had food, gave away our gifts, and went our ways.

It was much later that it struck me: I hadn’t seen many women in hijabs or even burqas, certainly not the young and even the middle-aged, only the really old women of the family sticking to the black cloth. There wasn’t much of religion visible there either: no prayer beads, no incantations, in fact the Qazi who conducted the marriage was himself at ease, happily gorging on the sweet-meats, sharing a joke or two with those around him. The dresses the people wore were of the latest fashion and cut, kids and adults alike taking selfies and otherwise shooting anything moving with their cell phone cameras.

Abid laughed when I told him about my recollection of that night. They were religious, he said, but not to a point of boredom – his phrase. They learn the religious rituals at home, but they don’t go to any madarasa. It’s a personal thing, this religion business, he told me, and that’s at least how his own family explains its transition from orthodoxy to a live-life-full-and-well attitude.

But isn’t his religion at the centre of an international conflict of political interests? Yes, he says, but he really doesn’t know if the problem is with the religion, its interpretation, the interpreters or the followers. He is sure of one thing, though. People of his own generation – the current one – are beginning to talk about this whole issue, of how the world looks at them, interprets their actions, and they’re not happy with how things are.

Abid is not alone in voicing unhappiness. There is a quiet but expanding tumult of annoyance among the Muslims the world over about how the world has been seeing them since 2001: Brushing all Muslims as violent and Islam as a religion of violence.  At no point of time in the past has there been such a resonance for the call of reformation. The call is already at shrill at the academic and intellectual levels. For every subtle message for reform of a Justice Amir Ameer Ali there is a strident call for denouncing the impracticalities of their religion by a Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The debate across world media portals between two up-coming, modern Muslim intellectuals – Qasim Rashid and Irshad Manji  -- on whether the reform should be conservative or aggressive is catching undivided attention. Akeel Bilgrami, the Indian-origin, reformist-philosopher at Columbia has no less a following than philosopher Charles Taylor, his Christian contemporary from Canada, when it comes to changing the impression about Islam.

Christianity and Judaism have had their share of the eye-for-an-eye violence with the backing of religious doctrine. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the warrior Popes, the Christian justification of slavery, global colonialism in the name of propagating Christianity; the Cross was the ultimate symbol of Christian violence right up to modern times like in the USA during the KKK years. Just as the “Purity of Arms’ code of the Israeli forces are in contrast to Israeli attacks without bothering about collateral damage. Radical Zionists have in the past relied on religious doctrines to justify violence against Arabs in Palestine, just as Jewish militia before the birth of Israel has a troubled history of justifying their violent actions by using verses from the Bible.

What churning may be is beginning to happen in the Muslim world came out centuries ago for the Christians and Jews whose religions survived the periods of Reformation and Enlightenment to emerge as a cultural condition for new-age secularism  defined both as an absence of religion as well as non-belief in religion. Suffice to say the spread of Reformation and Enlightenment in northern Europe coincided with the advent of the Industrial Revolution whereas in southern Europe, during the same period, its absence coincided with the orthodoxy in Italy, for instance, following up the trial of Galileo Galilei for heresy with rejecting the telephone for being against natural law. Modern times saw both religions witnessing pacificist movements within and without the sanction of religion – like Martin Luther King Jr’s non-violence, Baptist politics or the establishment of churches with non-violence and conscientious objection as foundations of their beliefs.

American philosopher Charles Taylor in his book, A Secular Age, de-constructs the Christian world’s coming to grips with the concept of secularism. It was best summed up as recently as on February 5 by US President Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast: “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the crusades and the inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. And in our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ….And in today's world when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to combat such intolerance….”

Obama’s statement is certainly not a recognition of the premise that these religions no longer have practitioners of violence. Of course there are. But they are the fringe. Much in contrast to the Muslim world in which the reformists, however loud they may be, continue to constitute the fringe. Is that also the case with Hinduism?

The lament is that I don’t see even that fringe in India. Hinduism – still unclear whether a religion or a way of life – has had its regular trysts with reform, each rebellion against the Brahmanical patriarchy and social order resulting in the birth of a social movement or another religion, until the 19^th century since when each of the so-called reform movements only reinforced in increasing degrees of harshness the concept of Hindu nationalism.  

Long after Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj movements in modern history conformed to social reform, but preserved the centrality of the Vedas to the concept of social order. Their names exposed their rigorous doctrines even though they stood against oppressive traditions like subjugation of women, untouchability and temporal culture. Between these two movements and the next one nurtured by Bal Gangadhara Tilak lies the period in which the word ‘Hindutva’ was coined.

The credit goes to Bengali scholar Chandra Nath Basu who in 1892 published “Hindutva” A review of this book appeared in the Calcutta Review in July, 1894 and reads: “Babu Chandra Nath’s is the first work which treats of the Hindu articles of faith. It aims at being an exposition of the deepest and abstrusest doctrines of Hinduism, not in a spirit of apology, not in a spirit of bombast, but in a calm and dispassionate spirit. The work is a difficult one. The Hindus are notorious for the diversity of their transcendental doctrines, every individual school having a complete set of doctrines of its own. Babu Chandra Nath has selected the noblest doctrines of Hinduism, but he has not followed any one of the ancient schools. Yet he does not aim at establishing a school of doctrine himself. His sole object is to compare, so far as lies in his power, the leading doctrines of Hindu faith with those of other of other religions.”

Tilak, whose stature in the Congress party is as important as Gandhi’s, while espousing the cause of independence re-introduced devotionalism – through mass celebration of the Ganesh festival – and adulation – through resurrection of the memory of Shivaji. In no time both became tools of Hindu aggression. The coinciding of the festival with Muharram and the portrayal of Shivaji only as the victor against Muslim rulers had obvious implications. The history of Hindu ‘resurgence’ movements since then and till the present day is a lesson in the use of religious aggression and even violence to establish a nationalist polity, a euphemism for rule by the majority of the majority for the majority.

Yet, the promoters of bullish Hinduism in India today say theirs is a religion of peace. For centuries we have lived with such a pretence.    

What if justice needs an exception to law?

Story link: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/gujarat-hc-rejects-abortion-plea-of-28-weeks-pregnant-rape-survivor/540171-3-238.html

Judgment link: http://indiankanoon.org/doc/156331215/

Read the two links above.

A woman is raped repeatedly, gets pregnant, wants to get rid of the unborn child, moves the court, the court says, no, she will have to bear the child, howsoever traumatic the experience of such  child-bearing is.

The woman has the right to abortion as the constitution protects her right to liberty and privacy. But then, she has to contend with the right to her safety and the right to life of the unborn child as well.  

That the woman does not want the child which she thinks is the fruit of rape is of no consideration under law when she fails to contend with either of these rights. That’s the law.

Had the woman moved the court before the foetus completed 20 weeks of existence, the law would have agreed with her and upheld her right to abort.

Once the limit of 20 weeks, as stipulated in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, is achieved the foetus in the eyes of the law has achieved a status of “viability”, to borrow the word from American jurisprudence.

By the time the woman moved the court and the case eventually reached the ruling stage, she was 28 weeks pregnant. So, as per the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, she could no longer abort. Under this law, abortion is legal till up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

After this limit, it is presumed, backed by medical research, that a pregnant woman’s life can be in danger if abortion is resorted to. It is also presumed, backed more by belief, that the foetus becomes a living being only at the end of the 24^th week. That means, the foetus has the right to life after the 20^th-24^th week of existence in the mother’s womb.

While there are several scientific findings about the dangers of abortion in late pregnancy, there is merely personal or religious belief to attest to whether a foetus has a right to life and if so, whether from inception or at a later stage.

To digress a bit, American philosopher and expert in constitutional law, Ronald Dworkin, famously analysed the question of the right to life of  a foetus in terms of its “interests”.

According to Dworkin a fetus has no interest till the completion of 24 weeks of pregnancy. Dworkin says the foetus has an interest from the beginning of the third trimester. His logic is that a foetus cannot feel pain in the early stages of pregnancy as its brain is insufficiently developed before then. He bases his logic on the premise of scientists the brain of a foetus is developed to feel pain from the 24^th-26^th  week. So Dworkin argues that whether or not an abortion is against the interest of the foetus depends on whether or nor the foetus it has interests.

The direct interpretation is that as the foetus does not have a developed brain before this period, it does not have an interest before that period and therefore an abortion of that foetus before that period is not against the interests of such a foetus. Conversely, the foetus develops an interest after the 24^th-26^th week because its brain develops to a sufficient extent and therefore it has a right to life.

By extension, it is medically acknowledged that after this period, an abortion can endanger the mother’s life.

More or less, these twin grounds are accepted in those countries where abortion is legal before the end of the 24^th week of pregnancy. In India, too, there is a proposal to extend the 20-week limit to 24 weeks.

In the case of this woman, Justice JB Pardiwala of the Gujarat high court, though not really convinced of the rape which he did not allow to hinder his ruling, said he could not change the law.

In his ruling, the judge referred to the entire gamut of legal discourse and interpretative analysis on abortion and rights of both the mother and the foetus but his ruling limited itself to one, single point of law: The expiry of the 20-week limit for legalized abortion.

I quote from the judgment:

“I am conscious of the fact that to carry a child in her womb by a woman as a result of conception through an act of rape is not only extremely traumatic for her but humiliating, frightening and psychologically devastating and as a human being, more particularly in the Indian society she becomes an object of scorn and ostracisation. (emphasis mine) ….I may only say having regard to the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case that the applicant will have to bravely go ahead with the pregnancy and when time comes, she should deliver the child. I am conscious of the fact that it is easy for a judge to say so in his judgment because it is ultimately the applicant who will have to face the hard days ahead, (emphasis mine) but as observed above, howsoever harsh one may find the law, yet it remains the law and one has to respect it. (emphasis mine) She must understand that termination at this stage will put her own life in peril.”

Having gone through the judgment, it can be said it is the product of a progressive mind who is conscious of the impact of the limitation of this law on the woman.

But try telling this to that woman.

It is she who was raped (the investigation to conclusively prove rape is still going on at the time of writing).

It is she who became pregnant. It is she who did not want that child.

It is her husband who told her he would throw her out of their house if she bears that child.

It is she who hears the neighbours’ taunts, her in-laws’ grunts.

It is she who is now told to grin and bear the trauma of her rape.

It is she who is now forced to give birth to the child.

It is she who after child-birth will be squeezed between the natural pangs of a mother and the tearing hurt of a rape victim.

The rapist did not leave her with a choice.

Her family and friends never gave her a choice.

The law of the law did not have a choice.

What is she more a victim of – the crime or the justice?

A law which cannot accommodate the angst of a victim is not universal in nature. At the same time, no law can ever bring every human circumstance under its scope. It is when law faces the exceptions that the custodian of the law is put to the ultimate test: How to be imparting justice and importantly, ensuring that the justice is just.

Post-Script: The woman’s husband says he will move the court immediately after the child is born. The child will now inherit its mother’s trauma and humiliation.  

Happy Easter, Justice Kurian Joseph

It is only coincidental that Justice Kurian Joseph is a Christian.

His religious affiliation has nothing to do with him being a judge.

His letter to the Prime Minister expressing his inability to attend the judges conference on Friday – which happened to be the Good Friday – and the dinner to the visiting judges on Saturday has nothing to do with the duties he discharges as a judge.

His submission in his letter – “I regret my inability to attend the event as the conference coincides with the Good Friday ceremonies” –  reflects his personal position vis-à-vis the issue at hand and is protected by the right to free speech and right to religion provisions of the Constitution.

In any case he has denied any controversy in the matter. To quote the Indian Express, Justice Joseph said: “I am deeply hurt. It is not about, and should never be about, individuals, judges or otherwise. It was not about me or the other judges. When I wrote that letter to the CJI, I raised concerns only in the interest of the secular nature of this country and its social fabric, which we all are obligated to maintain as our constitutional duties.”

Yet, there is an issue.

As a journalist, I can critically analyse a judgment of the court but without attributing motives to the judge(s) passing that judgment. In the present case, however, the issue relates to something that happened outside the hallow chambers of the court, relates to a judge’s personal submission. I am not a student of law but common sense tells me that as a journalist the judge’s letter along with the judge’s personal beliefs are open to analysis.

However, that is not my motive. For, it is a personal statement and as long as it does not fall foul of the Constitutional provisions it remains what it is: a personal statement.  I wouldn’t allow anyone to question my personal views so why should I extend the same courtesy to another person?

As I said, there is an issue.  For me, it is of  much larger significance than the holding of an event on a public holiday.

It has to do with us, as citizens of this country, and our value system.

As we force the government to let go of its hold over our institutions, to unshackle our institutions and developmental processes from the system of the “raj”, we should take a pause and ask ourselves: Should we force our way all the way so that we determine our developmental path with as much freedom as we do with our personal political, social and religious beliefs?

If yes, then we should demand of the government that while de-licensing the critical routes for growth the government also unshackle its hold over the principle of secularism.

The good judge Joseph writes to the Prime Minister: “…being the guardian of Indian secularism, I request your honour to kindly have in mind these concerns while scheduling events and benevolently show equal importance and respect to the sacred days of all religions which are also declared as national holidays.”

He goes on to pass on his advice: "Irrespective of the religion, Diwali, Holi, Dussehra, Eid, Bakrid, Christmas, Easter, etc, are great days of festival celebrations in the neighbourhood….Your good self would kindly appreciate that no important programmes are held during sacred and auspicious days of Diwali, Dussehra, Holi, Eid, Bakrid, etc, though we have holidays during that period as well." 

What flows from this quotation is that evidence of Indian secularism lies in the fact that major events of all religions are declared holidays in the country.

But evidence of Indian secularism can also be derived from the fact that no religious event is declared a holiday in this country.

Both conditions are secular in nature, without getting too argumentative, isn’t it?

If there were to be 15-20 less holidays per year, we would be that much more productive, for instance disposing off pending backlogs in government departments and, of course, the courts?

Let me address a second issue arising out of the quotation above. Justice Joseph has left the phrase “no important programmes” clouded in ambiguity. I do not recall the Indian army taking leave during any of these religious holidays during the Kargil war. In fact this Good Friday, the army jawans in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh spent the entire day trying to track NSCN insurgents who had killed three jawans the previous day.

Nor do I recall any surgeon refusing to do a surgery on a religious holiday, or a pilot refusing to fly on such-and-such day. The loading and unloading of ships, tankers, rakes and trucks does not stop for any day. In private enterprises, holidays are opportunities for the top bosses to meet informally to discuss business strategies.

My daughter gets additional homework from school to be done during these holidays. She hums and haws a bit, but does not refuse to finish off her homework during her religious holidays.

As a country we talk of competing with China. In reality, we are close to some despondent nations insofar as our work attitude is concerned. We are lazy. We patronize the ”jugad”. We need an excuse to sit at home. We love to talk a lot. Our logic strains to lead us into a comfort zone, not out of it. These are not qualities of a nation on the move. We are not improving the quality of secularism by not intending to work on a religious holiday. We do not have a professional attitude to growth so we do not understand what holidaying, as in a necessary break from work, is.

How many days do we Indians enjoy our official/religious/secular/whatever holidays? Close to around 50? Add to that the holidays our organizations allow us as well as the Saturdays and Sundays and compensatory offs and so on. The figure creeps up to over a 100 days in a year. For nearly a third of the year we are off work as it is. And we have justifications for each of  these days: Oh, this is my casual leave, this is my sick leave, this is my compensatory off, this is my religious holiday……

It is not that the government has been blind to this reasoning. In fact the last two central pay commissions suggested that all central government holidays on religious festivals be abolished. Instead, they recommended increasing the number of restricted holidays, depending on one’s religious persuasion, to many as eight. The government never accepted or intended to accept these recommendations.

Why? Because, politics in India is all about ensuring that the veneer of secularism is never torn to expose the real us. It is not that we tolerate one another and so we can be called secular. It is that we have to be secular so we have to tolerate one another. That is the deepest truth we carry with us. What’s worse, we never think of it as a burden on our conscience.

Take for example, the case of the United States. The federal government has a list of 10 public holidays – New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day. Good Friday is not a federal holiday, though it is a state holiday in some states.

In one of the most celebrated cases on secularism in the USA, an Indiana state employee sued the state’s Governor in 1993 for giving employees a holiday on Good Friday. I quote from a website the questions the suit raised: “Can the government take a religious holiday and make an official state holiday out of it? Is it an establishment of religion when a religious holy day becomes an official state holiday? Good Friday is a Christian Holy Day which many Christians would surely like to have off, but does that mean that governments should grant it official recognition over and above the holy days of other religions?”

(http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/holydays/bldec_BridenbaughOBannon.htm)

A US circuit court of appeals ruled in 1999 in the Governor’s favour, but pointed out that a paid off day can be given on a religious holiday as long as the state can provide a “valid secular purpose that coincides with the obvious, religious purpose of the holiday”.

In what came to be known as the Bridenbaugh v. O'Bannon case, the court observed the state did have secular purposes: “Indiana has officially stated that it continues to recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday in order to provide a spring holiday to state employees during a time period in which there would be over four months without a holiday. Indiana also presented evidence that it believes that it serves its interests as an employer to give generous holidays - including the Good Friday holiday - because holidays bolster employees' efficiency and morale. Additionally, Indiana submitted evidence that Good Friday is a good Friday for a long weekend, not only because it falls during a vacation-vacant period, but also because over thirty percent of the schools in Indiana are closed on Good Friday, and because forty-four percent of employers in a nine-state region, including Indiana, allow their employees to take Good Friday as a holiday.”

In India, we circumvented such public debates, even litigations, on the issue of religious holidays by simply declaring all major religious days as public holidays. That’s our brand of secularism. 

Tirap: Is it a which, what, who or where? Or is it simply remote?

My fellow journalist Shiv Aroor posted on FaceBook today:

“You probably didn't hear about this today. Too remote for anyone to care either. 3 Army jawans ambushed, killed by NSCN terrorists in (Tirap district of) Arunachal Pradesh today:
Havildar Sanjiv Kumar
Havildar Parmal Singh Gujar
Havildar Charan Singh”

PS: Parenthesis mine.

Dear Aroor:

Eating Momos in Delhi doesn’t make one a lover of the north-east. Just as consciously refraining from using certain pejorative terms to describe people from the north-east doesn’t make one secular or bring one closer to them. Terming some of these people as terrorists displays the inherent elitism in us, belonging to the Indian “mainland”.

No wonder the north-east is “too remote for anyone to care either”.

Tirap is not too remote. It is around 100 kms from Dibrugarh. On the map it looks dauntingly distant, though. Tirap is a lovely place. Greenery all over, the woods so thick with underbrush and foliage hiding the sky, little streams meandering all over. Smalls hills undulate for miles, the cleavages so thick with vegetation the valleys beneath remain hidden.

Not an easy job to be there when all woods and forests look the same, the villages are not dissimilar, and it is difficult to distinguish between a Nocte or a Wancho. It is this remarkably indistinguishable nature of the habitation and the inhabitants that is both the boon and bane of the people of Tirap and nearby areas, whether neighbouring Assam, Nagaland or Myanmar.

It is an old Naga political thought that the tribes the people of Tirap belong to are essentially Naga in origin and therefore Tirap and its adjoining areas in India and Myanmar should rightfully belong to a Greater Nagaland called Nagalim.

They have been at it, using non-violent and of-late violent methods, for nearly a century now. We have the British to thank for identifying scores of tribes in this region by the umbrella term “Naga”. The British were not original. They merely borrowed the name from the Buranjis – documented chronicles – left by the Ahoms, who came from northern Myanmar and entered Assam via Tirap where they had to clash with the local tribals – the “Nagas” – for a very long time.

As the Ahom rule weakened and the British replaced them as new rulers, the “Nagas” faced a new threat. They were wary of the white-skinned people who were impatient to subjugate the tribals and brooked no indiscipline from them. This led to unrest and skirmishes became routine.

Things took a turn for the worse in 1857. On February 1 that year a British party reached a Wancho village of Ninu in Tirap. Their objective was to survey the region. But their high-handed attitude turned the exercise into a bloody confrontation. The British soldiers were contemptuous of the tribals. They made no attempt to talk to the village elders or understand local customs. It so happened that the village chief had just died and was being mourned. A haughty British soldier came close to the body of the dead chief and apparently hit the body.

The Wanchos went livid. On the morrow, they fell upon the survey party and killed 80 British surveyors and soldiers. A few managed to escape. The British thought nothing of the soldier’s indiscretion which led to the killings and instead plotted on retaliation. They came back weeks later and burnt Ninu and two other villages, killing Wanchos at will. When they returned a year later to find Ninu rebuilt, they burnt it down again. This was the turning point. The Wanchos would never be allowed into the plains till India became independent and they never forgot their isolation.

In mainland India, just around the time of the British retaliation in “remote” Ninu, Mangal Pandey had been hung to death in Barrackpore. This was followed by Indian sepoys in the British army turning mutinous in Meerut. The din in Meerut reached Delhi, 40 kms away, faster than the din in Tirap’s Ninu, around 2300 km away.   

The British could never completely subjugate the “Nagas” of Tirap, but the lack of development in the region began to tell on the tribals and the end of the British rule saw attempts by the by-then-educated Naga leadership to claim a separate nation for themselves. That happened in 1951, barely four years after India gained independence.

Seven years later, the Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Ordinance 1958 was promulgated by then President Rajendra Prasad on 22 May 1958. It was replaced by Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) special Powers Act, 1958 on 11 September 1958. I think the Act is in still in force over there. All these years. Should check with the government of India how much progress has the Tirap region made thanks to this Act. No need, of course, to ask the government of India if the enforcement of the Act has solved the problem forever and whether peace reins in the region. It’s perhaps okay to ask if the Act has permanently replaced a socio-political approach to the problem (an approach which was perhaps never considered as a tool for reconciliation).

The NSCN stopped eschewing violence a long time ago. Just like the Maoists in India’s Red Corridor. They are as much a burden on the state as they are on the very people whose support they thrive on. It’s a violence-begets-violence concept that reins supreme over there now. And it is so ingrained in the pulse of the region, its people and its rulers over decades that the original reasons for the confrontation are blurred by the constant worry that things may have reached a point of no return. “Resolution” is a “remote” concept. “Containment” connects.

I am not here to either vindicate or denigrate the cause of the “Naga” movement or that of the State. I am only worried we are so “remote” from Tirap and its region. Unitarism over pluralism never works. Even remotely.

Post Script: Kamlesh Joshi, the Deputy Commissioner of Tirap, is continuing to find out which of the NSCN factions killed the three army jawans. Joshi is considered in Delhi’s power circles as an able administrative officer. True to his image, he took a positive step to reduce the “remoteness” between Tirap and Delhi by launching an official website, tirap.nic.in. Understandably, the news of the violence did not figure on the website. Joshi, in his message on the website, says: “It is a matter of great pleasure for me to be able to communicate to you through the medium of this online portal for District Tirap. This website is a genuine attempt on the part of the District Administration to connect with the people of Tirap, and at the same time, disseminate information about the District outside.” Perhaps Joshi failed to notice that the five heads under the “Latest News” link on the website have not been updated for years. 

Amaravati: Once the capital of an empire, now the capital of a truncated state

Amaravati, a temple town on the banks of the river Krishna, is to be the new capital city of a truncated Andhra Pradesh.

The town was a capital once before in the long, long past.

Over 2300 years ago, Brahmin vassals of the Andhra-Telangana region of the then declining Mauryan empire were waiting for the end of Emperor Asoka to declare their independence. Soon after Asoka died, these vassals founded what later came to be known as the Satavahana Empire. Amaravati was their capital.

They ruled for around 450 years, usurped what are now the central provinces, parts of Maharashtra-Gujarat and Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh in scores of battles, thus becoming the first and perhaps only South Indian dynasty to ever rule over such a vast region of north and western India.

The Satavahanas are credited with introducing the Saka Calendar with the beginning of what is called the Saka Era in 78 AD to mark their victory over the Sakas, known to belong to east Iranian tribes. The first day of the Saka Calendar is celebrated as near year in Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka as Ugadi and in Maharashtra and Goa as Gudi Padwa.

(In Gujarat and neighbouring parts, the day after Diwali is celebrated as the first day of the Vikram Samvat calendar, established by the emperor of Ujjain in the year known as 56 BC by the Gre­gorian calendar. It is different from the Saka calendar, which has the new year falling in March.)

By the way, an interesting digression here: Do you know that the Modi government with effect from 2015 has put a stop to government publications using the Saka calendar dates and months along with the Gregorian calendar? Has anyone noticed it? Nevertheless it is a welcome step, considering nobody really knows anything about this calendar business. Suffice to know that the Saka calendar was officially adopted by the Indian government as its national calendar n 1957.

Amarvati became both the cultural and religious centre of the Krishna-Godavari region of the southern state during the Satavahana rule. It was also a prominent Buddhist centre. The Satavahanas were, apart from being Brahmins, supporters of Hinduism and this gives rise to speculation that they must have had a hand in the desecration or even destruction of Buddhist structures in the region.

If you take mythology into account, it is claimed that Amaravati finds mention in some of these ancient texts for being one of the five places in the Krishna-Godavari region where Siva temples sprung up following a fight between the so-called angels and demons. These five towns are collectively known as Pancha Khetras or Pancha Aramas. (Different from the 12 places where too there are Siva temples, collectively known as the Jyotirlingas.)

Today, Amaravati, is small temple town. The population is in the mere thousands. In Andhra Pradesh it is known for its high literacy rate. Not much happens there, not that much has happened ever there. There are guides who would tell tourists about the town's ancient, grand past with nothing to show as evidence but some boulders and damaged columns.

These guides will now have much to tell future tourists. 

It’s future is now to be re-written, as a capital town once again, its shape and structure decided by master planners of Singapore who may not have any idea how the Satavahanas planned this capital the first time round.